You're listening to the teaching ministry of Harvest Fellowship Church in Boyertown, Pennsylvania. You can find out more about us on the web at www.harvestfellowshipchurch.org. We pray that through our teaching we may present everyone mature in Christ. You are the one who has declared that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. We see this truth revealed in Christ as he hung there dying on the cross, and yet we see that he was sustained by your word alone. This afternoon, Lord, we stand before you as those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. And we look to you for the sustenance that you graciously provide. Through every line of Scripture. Lord, strengthen us. For the battles that we face through the victory of Christ, we pray in his name. Amen. My friends, in the gospel of John chapter 17, when Jesus set his heart to pray on that night that he was betrayed, he said, Father, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son that your son may glorify you. But which one of us would ever truly expect that the revelation of God's glory would come through the cross? Who would expect that the glorious revelation of who God truly is and all of his wonderful attributes would be revealed through the suffering of his son? But then let me ask you. Where can you possibly find a more vivid display of God's love? Where can you find a more vibrant show of his mercy? Where can you see a more clear demonstration of his perfect justice than we find at the cross? God was the one who was offended by sin. It was God who was violated by sin. God was the one who was dishonored and blasphemed by sinners. And God is the one who determined how the debt of sin must be paid. In the law, he revealed the truth that the debt of sin must be paid by a substitutionary sacrifice. And so, the Lord Jesus went to the cross to give himself as the sacrifice that all previous sacrifices pointed to. No doubt you are familiar with Romans 3 in verse 23, where the apostle Paul wrote and said, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And we can all say, yes, amen to that. And we are thankful that he didn't end there, that he continued on and he said, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. And Paul continued, this Jesus whom God put forth or put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith. This was to show. This was to demonstrate, this was to reveal God's righteousness. The propitiation that was made by Christ was to reveal God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. It was to show, to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. And so, we see that at the cross, when Christ made perpetuation for our sins, when he removed the wrath of God from us and took it upon himself, it was a display, a show of God's righteousness. It was a display of his justice. And so, it is on the cross we see the perfect righteousness of God displayed. God cannot simply overlook sin. He can't sweep sin under the carpet. In the justice of God, where there is sin, there must be death. The wages of sin are death. We learned that in the sacrificial system where the lamb was slain. But here, the righteousness of God is put on display in the substitutionary sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ. In the cross, God's justice is perfectly satisfied. God's mercy is wonderfully displayed and His love is gloriously demonstrated at a depth that no one had ever seen before. in fulfillment of David's words that are written for us in Psalm 22, when the skies turned dark. On that dreadful day, as the wrath of God fell upon Jesus Christ, he pressed up against the nails that held his feet to the cross. He pulled up against the nails that were in his hands and he cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The similarity between the gospel account and the prophetic Psalm, Psalm 22 that David wrote, the similarity is uncanny. Both of these portions of Scripture describe the mockery of the crowd. Both of them describe the horrific pain that Jesus experienced there on the cross. The difference is this, that the gospels describe They describe the suffering of Christ from the viewpoint of an observer, an outside observer, but Psalm 22 describes this same pain, this same abandonment from the experience of the very one who is suffering on the cross. In his writings, David takes us deeper and deeper into the mind of Christ as he endured the fury of God's wrath, and he did that by clinging to God's life-giving and unchanging word. James Montgomery Boyce writes, and he said, in some way, the most striking section of Psalm 22 begins in verse 11, where David portrays with clarity the painful torture of crucifixion. And remember from last night, crucifixion was not practiced for another 500 years, but David being inspired by the Holy Spirit, showed us, told us, gave us a clear description of crucifixion to show us what the Son of God would endure for our sins. In verse 11, David writes and he says, "'Oh, be not far from me, for trouble is near and there is none to help. As we saw in verse 11, the cry of the Lord is a sad lament, the sad lament of one who has been separated from God. He alone is abandoned. He's alone, he's suffering, and he cries out for help, but there is no help to be found for the Lord Jesus on that day. on the night that he was betrayed. No sooner was the Lord arrested where Peter cut off someone's ear. No sooner did all of this happen, but all of the disciples fled. They ran out of the garden like men who were running for their lives because they were running for their lives. The prophet Zechariah foretold even this when he wrote, strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. I will turn my hand against the little ones, Zechariah 13 and verse 7. In the face of imposing forces, Jesus Christ suffered alone. His disciples abandoned him. They were powerless to help him. And as he bore our sin, the father who had been by his side for all of eternity, this Jesus who was face-to-face with the father for all of eternity, has now experienced something he's never experienced before. When he cried out, my God, my God, why? Why have you forsaken me? The depth of pain that he felt in his physical body was nothing compared to the abandonment, to the wrath of God that was visited upon him for our sin, for my sin, for your sin. Over the years, I have spoken with many lonely people who have sat in the office with me. I've spoken with widows and widowers who had lost their first love their dearest friend, and they wept and they cried. I've gone through multiple tissues in 30 years. I've spent time with individuals who considered themselves outcasts, who had no friends, people who felt like they themselves were rejected by men, but none of them, no one that I have ever spoken with, have ever experienced the loss. the significant loss, the level of abandonment that Jesus Christ experienced there on the cross. All of us, sinners and saints alike, receive the blessing of God's common grace. You remember the scripture that says, the rain falls on the just and the unjust. There's sunny days, there's dark days. All of us experience the common grace of God. We wake up in the morning and he is there to greet us. But that was not the case with Christ. on the cross as he bore our sin, there was no grace, but only wrath. Only wrath. In Psalm 46, verse 1, the sons of Korah write this. They said, God is our refuge and strength. He's a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear. Though the earth give way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, We will not fear. So, what was it that gripped the heart of Christ when God was not there to be his refuge and his strength? For those of us who believe, God is indeed a very present help. It says here that he is more close, he is nearer in times of trouble than at any other time. Isaiah records the comforting words that God had spoken to the people of Israel when he said this, Isaiah 41 and verse 10, "'Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.'" Where was the righteous right hand when Christ was suffering? We take great comfort in the nearness of the Lord. I know I do. But for Jesus on the cross, there was no answer to his cries. The heavens were brass. There was no refuge. There was no help. There was no strength for his body when his body was failing. As we move into verse 12 of Psalm 22, David uses very poetic language to describe Jesus' experience on the cross. It's described like a helpless animal who is surrounded by strong and fierce and predatory beasts. In verse 12, there are bulls. In verse 13, lions. In verse 16, rabid dogs. In verse 21, there are wild oxen. I love Sinclair Ferguson's preaching in one sermon that I listened to, he likened Jesus to a chihuahua. Yes, a chihuahua that was thrown into the midst of a pack of angry wolves. David writes, many bulls encompass me. Strong bulls of Bishan, they surround me. They opened wide their mouths at me like ravening and roaring lions." Now, Bishan was a very fertile grazing land that was east of Galilee where the strong bulls would grow, where food was plenteous, and the bulls were all around growing stronger and stronger. And like bulls and lions who circle their prey, looking for an opportunity to pounce upon them, so the enemies of Christ, they opened their mouths wide, like these beasts of the field that were ready to consume him, ready to pounce on him at any time. Why, even the robbers who were crucified, one on the left and one on the right, those who were condemned to die alongside of him, they even joined in the mockery, casting their own insults on the Lord, even though they themselves were crucified next to him. In Matthew 27 and verse 44, and the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way. In the same way as what? In the same way as the ravenous animals that were around him, the Gentiles, the Jews, the high priests who were mocking him, they joined in the mockery. What does this tell us about our world? How far, how depraved, how crazed is the sinful heart of man? that the King of all kings, the Lord of all lords is there on the cross, and we act like a pack of wild beasts to devour him. In verse 14, when the psalmist begins to describe the physical pains of crucifixion, he uses the first person singular. to show us the I, the me, the my. He's showing us that the painful description is coming from the very one who was doing the suffering. It is my suffering. I am the one who's suffering. It is me. These are not the words of an innocent bystander. These are not the words of someone who is simply observing. They are the words, they are the thoughts of the suffering Savior as he bears the wrath of God that should have been laid on you and me. In verse 14, he said, I am poured out like water. All of my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted within my breast. The trauma of crucifixion, when the cross is dropped into a hole in the ground, or the constant weight of the body suspended from the nails on the wrists, Jesus says all of his bones are out of joint. The jolt causes his shoulders to be out of joint, his elbows to be out of joint. All of my bones are out of joint. Now, I only know that pain from an observer's point of view. Yeah, I had a thumb that was out of joint a couple of times, but Sharon was in an accident on a farm where her shoulder came out of joint. And I had to rush her from one place to another till she finally got the care. And we're sitting in the emergency room, her shoulder is out of joint. She said, look at me, is something wrong? There's no shoulder there. It's behind you. And she's crying out, give me drugs, give me drugs. Honey, please quiet down. Oh, she was in tremendous pain. But here, all of my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, melting away, melting away. My heart is melting away. when there is horrific trauma to the body, when there is tremendous stress on the soul. The body seeks to lubricate the heart by building up fluid within the pericardial sac, and this makes it even harder to breathe than when you're suspended from a cross. It just doubles the difficulty. of trying to breathe. If you've ever had a friend that had congestive heart failure, the pericardial sack is built up with fluid, and that's why when they pierced his side, blood and water came out. The body's natural tendency to lubricate the heart made it even harder for Christ to breathe. Let's review what he's gone through. on a night when he's had no sleep, on a night when he endured six trials between his arrest and his sentencing. He was blindfolded and he was beaten by the soldiers. He received 39 lashes from a Roman scourge. He was forced to carry the cross until he collapsed. A crown of thorns was battered down upon his head. And now, he's nailed to the cross and every breath that he must take to remain alive involved a desperate struggle of pressing against the nails in your feet, of pulling up against the nails that are in your wrist, the horror that he was enduring. That was just physical and there was no one. He was abandoned by God the Father. Blood and sweat and tears ran down his pain-filled face. All of his strength was poured out and he was completely depleted in a state of physical and emotional exhaustion. In verse 15, David writes, my soul is dried up like a potsherd and my tongue sticks to my jaws. You lay me in the dust of death, the dust of death. I'll hear the psalmist likens himself to a broken piece of earthenware. I don't know a whole lot about earth and where, but I understand that a pot must be baked in an oven. The clay pot must be baked in an oven until every single drop of moisture is driven away from that pot. And so, it is that the trauma to the body of Jesus Christ, the battle to keep breathing, removes every piece of fluid, every ounce of fluid from his body as he's hanging on the cross so that his tongue is literally dried up and it is sticking to the roof of his mouth. Those who were crucified, of course, you know this, they eventually died of asphyxiation when they no longer had the strength to pull themselves up on the nails in the wrists or to push themselves up in the nail that is against his feet. When the pain and exhaustion are overwhelming, the one who hangs on the cross can no longer take a breath and he dies. Do you remember at the end of the Gospel of John, chapter 19, when he's talking about Christ on the cross, how Jesus cried out, one of the seven sayings that he cried out, I thirst, I thirst. Certainly, there is a physical thirst. His body was dried out and there is a physical thirst, but I believe that there is more to it. This is not merely the description of his physical condition, but a cry of one who is enduring the burning wrath of Almighty God. How do I know that? Well, look back with me at Luke chapter 16. Remember the rich man and Lazarus, how the rich man begged the Lord to have Lazarus go and dip his finger in some water and put it upon his tongue. He said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water to cool my tongue for I am in anguish in this flame. What was that flame? That was the burning flame of God's wrath being poured out on a Christ-rejecting man. So, it stands to reason that as Jesus endures the wrath of God, the burning wrath of God, that he would cry out, I thirst. Spurgeon in his commentary on this text says, the fire of almighty wrath would have consumed our souls forever in hell. It was no light work for Christ to bear as a substitute the heat of an anger so justly terrible. The heat of an anger that is so justly terrible. Think about it. The wrath of God that Jesus bore was the wrath that was for the multitudes in the book of Revelation who will stand around the throne and worship the Lamb, every one of them, thousands upon thousands upon thousands. Those millions of believers throughout all of history, Jesus is dying, bearing their wrath. I don't know. The percentage of what I added to that, but I can tell you it was significant. So, what is the measure of wrath that he's enduring? It is justly terrible. Nevertheless, it is just because we deserved it, but he took it. This is evidence of God's justice for sinners. In verse 16, David continues, he says, "'For dogs encompass me. A company of evildoers encircles me. They have pierced my hands and feet. I can count all of my bones. They stare and gloat over me.'" Now, folks, dogs in this culture weren't the household pets. that we find even here with us this morning, little household pets. This is not the dogs that he's talking about. In this culture, dogs were scavengers, scavengers who ran in packs seeking to stalk something that they might devour, living by the garbage cans to pick up whatever they could. These are ravenous dogs that are around him. The dogs are encompassing me. A company of evildoers are encircling me. And like the piercing blow of canine teeth, the Roman soldiers had pierced the flesh of the Lord with spikes that held his hands and his feet to the cross. Counting every bone, he said, I can count all of my bones. They stare and they gloat at me. Well, this is just another way. that many of us old people will say, oh, my aching bones. This is not a literal, hey, look, one, two, three, four, five, that's not it. It's that every bone in my body is hurting so much that I can count every single one of them. There's not one bone in my skeleton that is not killing me, hurting me, devastating pain going through every single bone of my body. That's what he's saying here. They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots." Did you know that in this culture, clothing was counted as wealth? Clothing is counted as wealth. If you had one or two changes of clothing, then you were considered to be well off. It's not one or two cars in your driveway, it is one or two changes of clothes in your house. If you had two changes of clothes, oh my, you were really wealthy. And so, it is that these soldiers who were in charge of the crucifixion saw every opportunity to take, to steal, to gamble for whatever they could take off of the person who's hanging naked on the cross. There's no clothing on him. But now the clothing that he would no longer need because he would be dead in just a short while, they're gambling for his clothing. John 19 verse 24, so they said to one another, let's not tear it. They took different pieces, but then there is this tunic, this seamless tunic that he had. Let's not tear it apart. Let's gamble. Let's see who can get it. And this was to fulfill the scripture that says, they divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. And so, the soldiers did these things. Well, as we arrive at verse 19, once again, we hear the cry of the Lord as he cries out to his father yet again. He says, but you, but you, O Lord, do not be far off. O you, my help, come quickly to my aid, calling for help, calling for help. The cry of the psalmist at the apex of his suffering is a cry to the covenant God. He's calling out to Jehovah. Notice in your Bible that the word that is used here for Lord is all capitals, and that tells us that this is the covenant name of God. This is Jehovah God. He's crying out to the covenant God to come quickly, to draw near to him, to provide the help that is an essential part of his covenant. when he was experiencing abandonment. He remembered that God is the covenant God of his fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He doesn't change. He does not change. God cannot change. So Jesus clings to the revealed character of God and the revealed word of God, again, as he's hanging there on the cross. He's not making these things up, he's leaning his hope, his faith, his cries are all coming from the revealed character of God that is revealed in the word of God. He cries out in verse 20, deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog. Save me from the mouth of the lion. You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen. My friends, the cry of the Lord throughout this entire psalm is a cry for deliverance, a cry for God to come to the aid, to rescue him, to rescue him from the very wrath of God that is being poured out upon him, to rescue him from the wild beasts and enemies who had surrounded him. And in verse 21, there is a wonderful change. In verse 21, there's a glorious change, a change that we will dig into very deeply on Sunday morning. But for now, let me read it to you just as a teaser. Here's the words. You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen. This is saying that he's experiencing something different. The darkness is beginning to fade. The light is beginning to show. He said this, he says, you have rescued me. The wrath... is completed. There's a change that's happening here in verse 21. You've rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen. This is a cry of joy. This is a cry of relief. This is a cry of deliverance. Remember the words of Isaiah. In chapter 53, after it describes his substitutionary atonement, he says, out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied. God the Father will see the sacrifice of his son, and he will be satisfied. By his knowledge, by the knowledge of Christ, shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. On the cross, he bore our iniquities. He carried our sorrows. There was a point in time where the justice of God was satisfied. The judgment for our sin has been paid in full. And now, he says, he says, now. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied. Today we come together and we stand in the darkness of the cross. Today we listen to the cries of the Lamb. as he cries out to the Father. Today we watch in amazement the drama of redemption as it is played out before our very eyes, witnessing the full extent of God's immeasurable love for his elect as Christ bears our sins, carries our infirmities. I would submit to you that this is the most wonderful display of God's glory that is ever known to man. We look forward to the day when we will see him face to face, when we will share in his glory, when we will see him in his resurrected glory. But my friends, there is no greater glory than that which is expressed at the cross of Calvary. Father, we thank you. that you did not leave us to bear the darkness and pain and fire of your holy wrath. Although we deserve it rightly, although it should have been placed upon us, you, in love and mercy, laid it upon your only Son." The word, thank you, is not enough. The word I love you is insufficient. It will require all of eternity falling before your face around the throne of grace, and then we will hardly begin to scratch the surface of the adoration that is due you for all you have done for us. We give you thanks in Christ's name, amen.