Psalm 22, 23

Psalm 22, please. Psalm 22, and I'll just read some verses. First of all, verse 1. Psalm 22 and verse number 1. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not, and in the night season, and I'm not silent.

Verse 6 says, I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised of the people. Verse 10 said, I was cast upon thee from the womb. Thou art my God from my mother's belly.

Twelve, many bulls have compassed me, strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths as a ravening and a roaring lion. Verse 15, my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws, and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.

For dogs have compassed me, the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me, they pierced my hands and my feet. Verse 20, deliver my soul from the sword, my darling from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's mouth, for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.

I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the congregation, while I praise thee. Now look at Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

Verse 4, yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.

Verse 6, surely or only goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Now we know that God always blesses the reading of his precious Word. I've often said that when I read my Bible, I like to see how one thing follows upon another, and I think that's a good thing for any of us younger people starting to read your Bible.

It's good to try and keep things in their context and to read a chapter and see what the main thought is, but you'll see how things just fit in one after the other. Having said that, I hope I can make these things fit in. I'll tell you what I have in my mind very briefly.

We have a lovely picture here of the Lord Jesus Christ, or pictures of the Lord Jesus in many ways. And the Lord Jesus in Psalm 22, what we have read from, we find him all alone, and it seemed to be without any real protection, and he's forsaken not only of his disciples, one had denied him, another had betrayed him, and they all forsook him and fled. And the Lord is all alone, and he cries out, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? So he's all alone there on the cross at Calvary.

And he says in verse number six, I am a worm and no man. And you likely know that's the little tola worm, the worm that is crushed to provide the scarlet dye. And think of a worm, it's one of the most despised little things you ever could see.

A little worm of no consequence, and above all, with no protection. Just a little worm. And the Lord, he thinks of himself as being forsaken, and he said, I'm a worm and no man, a reproach of men, and despised of the people.

And then he goes on in verse number 12, and he speaks about the bulls. Now he's speaking about those that persecuted him, especially in the last part of his life, but in his whole life, there were those that were against him. And some, like the bulls of Bashan.

Bashan was a rich pasture land, and when we think of those bulls, we think of cruel, powerful men. And they're all against the Lord. And the bull, I would take it, the thing that characterizes it would be the pressure.

And the Lord felt the pressure, even from the priests, and the scribes, and the Pharisees. They were all against him in his life. And then he speaks about the roaring lion.

And of course, when you think of the roaring lion, you would have to think of Satan. And you think of the those that were against the Lord, the lion tears apart. If there's pressure, and there's tremendous pressure, when we come to the lion, you find that there's a trying to tear this victim apart.

And then he speaks about the dogs. And you can tell, of course, that the dogs would likely speak of the Gentiles. Gentiles are spoken of as dogs in many places in the Word of God.

They're unclean. It's not the little family dog, but it's the dog that roams the streets, feeding on the garbage and everything else. And think of what the Lord suffered at the hands of the Gentiles.

You know, of course, that Jew and Gentile are both guilty of the blood of the Lord Jesus. And there you have them put in the hands of the Gentiles. And the Jews and the Gentiles are making fun of the Lord Jesus.

There he is. And he's able to take all what they would throw at him. He doesn't retaliate.

Commits himself to him that judgeth righteously. Commits himself to the hands of the Father as he's persecuted. Think of the temptation when Satan, as a roaring lion, came upon the Lord Jesus, trying to get him to act apart from the will of the Father.

It's wonderful to study the temptation, and I'm not going to, I don't want to take time to look at that now. I just want to keep this very brief. But Satan assails the Lord Jesus, and he tests him regarding his spirit and his soul and body.

He was tempted on all points like as we are. Yet, of course, in a part he was tested. There was nothing to respond, but yet it said he suffered being tempted.

So Satan would do everything to keep the Lord from going to Calvary. He said, I'll give you the kingdom now. The Lord said, it is written.

Only going according to the Word of God, but all against him. Yet he's dependent on his father. And then you think of the unicorn.

Well, the unicorn, it's likely to call it the water buffalo. And that's an animal that's great strength. Numbers 23 and verse 22 speaks about it.

The Lord bringing him up like the horns of a buffalo. The strength of a buffalo, great strength. And you know, the buffalo or the great horns would pierce.

And the Lord felt, when he was here, that a man, he felt the sin all around him in a greater way than you and I would, because we're sinners. But think of the Lord Jesus coming from the glories of heaven and he knew what was going to take place. There never was a day when he didn't know that he was going to be forsaken.

He was going to be all alone. There's no one would stand by him in that day. But you know, recently when I was reading these things and my mind linked it with Psalm 23.

There's a great difference between the sufferer and the shepherd, isn't there? The Lord Jesus in Psalm 22, it's the psalm of the burnt offering. And we're told about the very sufferings entering into his bones. Someone mentioned, I think already, about the Lord said, I have a cup to drink and I have a baptism to be baptized with and how am I straightened until it be accomplished.

In the cup, the sufferings enters into his very being, the element enters into his very body. In the baptism, he enters into the element. And then it says, thou hast brought me into the dust of death.

What's the dust of death? Well, I think it's the ashes of the burnt offering outside the camp. Now, they're not talking so much about men, but at the hands of God outside the camp. The fierce fire of God's wrath that was due to you and due to me, it's falling on his well-beloved son.

But you know, it speaks of a finished work. The ashes, the sacrifice is over. It's a remembrance of the offering of the sacrifice.

And now the Lord raised triumvally from amongst the dead. But he's left us here to represent him. And if you and I are representing him as we ought to, I'll tell you, we're going to come in for the suffering, too.

I'd have to admit I haven't suffered very much that I know of, not physically at least. None of us know what lies ahead, though. But I know this, the Lord is my shepherd.

And no matter what circumstances I am going to be brought into, he has already been brought into them. And he's going to bring me safely through these circumstances, because he knows exactly what it was to be all alone here in this life. Now, none of us maybe feel that we're all alone.

Maybe times we do. But even if you do, we can tell you this, on the authority of God's Word, we're never alone. And there's one who draws near to us to sympathize with us.

That's the priesthood of Christ. We heard from John's gospel. John doesn't speak of the priesthood of Christ, speaks about the Advocate, maybe closely linked with it, but he speaks of the shepherd.

And I think that's John's way of telling us about the one who's our great high priest. And he draws near to us and provides for us in every way, food and everything else, in and out, and fine pastures and so on. But I thought, you know, here we could feel ourselves utterly humiliated at times.

Never be like the Lord. The Lord humbled himself. Men tried to humble him, but he humbled himself and became obedient, not to death as a master, but he became obedient to the Father to the extent of death, even the cruel death of the cross.

So he knows what it is to have others look upon him and despise him. And he knows what it is for us to have pressure. Maybe there's pressure in your life, can come in different ways.

May not be physical pressure, but you know, we've been reminded we have families, and we have loved ones that are not saved. And there's illnesses that are going around, and some are suffering. And like they're wondering, what's it all about? What lies around the corner? I often wonder, I like to make a trip to the old country once in a while, see my family, see my believers there that I know.

And then sometimes I say to myself, and you know I'm not a morbid person, but I say, I wonder how many more trips I'll have. Even if I went every other year, hope to go later this year, Linda and I, but wonder, you know, we're not going to be here forever. And then you begin to wonder, and how's the end going to come? You ever wonder what's going to happen? Well of course we're waiting for the Lord to come, but it doesn't even matter.

No matter what the pressure is, Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 1, we were pressed beyond due measure. But then he says, who delivered us. Well God's going to deliver us.

You say, does he always deliver us from the pressures that we have in life? Well, if he doesn't, you know, think of Paul in prison. Paul knew he was going to get out of prison. He was either going to have the door opened and they'll send him out, or he was going to go up by death.

He knew he was going to get out. It's all coming to an end. But I'll tell you, while we're in this wilderness pathway, it doesn't matter what difficulty you're coming through, or what I'll have to face in the future, there's one who faced these things, and there's one who can deliver out of the pressure.

Now think of the dogs. Paul speaks of them in Philippians chapter 3, isn't it? And it's amazing, he kind of reverses the usual thing, because it's not the dogs of the Gentiles he's calling, it's those of the circumcision, he's calling them dogs. And what are they trying to do? They're God's people, whose God is their belly, whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.

What are they trying to do? They're trying to hinder our progress. They tried to hinder the Lord in his work, but you know that nothing could hinder him. He set his face as a flint to go to Jerusalem.

Didn't matter what the Romans had in their mind as far as he was concerned, Pilate or any of the others. The Lord is going to finish that work. But you know, Paul in Philippians 3, if you read it, you'll show how he made progress in the things of God.

How did he do it? Well, he said, I want to be like Christ. I want to know him. I'd like to know more about him, wouldn't you? Our brother has expressed that.

We're all, I'm sure there's something wrong, we don't, but you know, he wasn't saying I just want to have a head knowledge of him, or to know things about him. I'd like to know more so I could help others to learn to know him more. But he said, I want to know him experientially.

In other words, I want to attain to the out-resurrection from among the dead. And I look at it this way, that he's speaking about the actual resurrection. It's not the fact that I died with Christ, that's true, and he knew that truth too.

But I think he's saying, I don't want to end my life just by the easy pathway. I don't want to drift through life. Most of us can go with the flow and there's not any opposition, but Paul wasn't like that.

He said, I want to be like Christ. Christ, he went into his resurrection the difficult way. And while none of us will ever suffer as he did yet, Paul was suffering for the formation of the of the church.

It wasn't vicarious or substitutionary sufferings. But he said, here's our enemies of the cross of Christ. They're still in the world today.

And they want us to take the easy pathway. You don't really have to make too many ripples in this life. Well, we don't have to, but if we're going to live for God, they'll come anyhow.

That's the point. We're not trying to make enemies. But if you and I were better testimonies for God, I think we'd have more opposition.

But we're living in a society that just, well, just let about anything go, as long as you don't ruffle the feathers. Just stay in your own little area and do your own thing. But you know, it's different if you go around trying to interest people in the gospel.

But you know, some of us have done it. I know it's very difficult today and it was difficult other days. But we served an apprenticeship for a long time, wearing out shoe leather.

And I tell you, it was a good experience. I'm glad I did it then, because I don't think I could do so much of it now. But anyhow, how's your progress? Are we progressing in the things of God? The Lord knows what it's like.

Paul knew what it was like. And he's going to help Paul to overcome in these things in a practical way. What about the lion's mouth? What about Satan? Well, you know, Satan's a roaring lion.

He goeth about seeking whom he may devour. I don't know how much you know about lions. I don't know a lot.

I have had the privilege of being in Africa a couple of times, three times. A couple of times a brother took me to a big national game reserve just to see the animals. I wasn't shooting them.

I'm not a hunter. I hope I'd be more of a shepherd than a hunter. But anyhow, it's interesting, you know.

But I always thought, why would the lion roar? I thought the lion would stalk its prey really nice and, you know, and then just give a big jump at the end. But he's roaring. He's going about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

Well, I think the thought is he gives a big roar to find out where the prey is and to get them running. And he'll get the weak ones, a zebra or whatever it is. He'll get the ones that are weak.

But see, it's really the female lionesses that do the hunting. And they'll go, you know, but he'll give a big roar. And Satan's roaring today, I'll tell you.

And he wants to stir up God's people. He never was busier as far as I can see, although you read some of the old brethren writers and you, you know, you're amazed at what they saw in their day. They thought things were falling apart.

What would they say today? Satan's busy. And I don't want to give him ground to work in my life. He's dividing God's people.

He has done it. Right in the day in which we lived, in the last few months. And there's men that we trusted and had absolute faith in and have defected from the ranks.

And usually when a prominent person falls, there's others fall with them. And people are saying, if this person can't make it, how can I make it? I tell you, we should be very, very careful today. Don't just take things easy and think it's, oh, everything's all right.

Satan is very busy and we shouldn't give him ground to work in. But you know, when he attacked the Lord and the temptation for one thing, you know how the Lord answered the temptation? It is written. It is written.

It is written. It means it stands written. It's not changing.

God's word isn't going to change. That's been emphasized and I'll reemphasize it. We have the word of God and that's what we need.

But you know, we need to not only get into the word of God, we need to get it into us. That was the advice that an old missionary gave me. I'm not saying I have accomplished this or even tried as I should.

There's so many things to distract. But I'm still trying to get the word of God into me. And when the temptation came, the Lord knew exactly where to read.

He knew the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. And you know, I've often said that he just used one or five books. He just used one.

When David went out to meet the giant, he took five stones, but he just used one. The pat answer for that is, you know, Goliath had four brothers and that's right. But you know what I think? God guided the stone, but he used David's skill.

And I know, I know one thing about the five stones that were all smooth. I don't think they were all the same. I think some were maybe a little bigger than others and that had been a big wind blowing when he maybe used a heavier one.

I don't know. But he used the one that was applicable, the one that was suitable. And the Lord, here he is, he's speaking right in the inheritance.

And he uses a book that's associated with the inheritance, the book of Deuteronomy. That God's people should have known going into the land. And that's the book that he quotes from.

So you see, we should not be specialists in the word of God. You know, there are people and even some groups of people and they're all prophecy. And some are all the Holy Spirit and charismatic and so on.

But you know, it's okay if you have a heart problem, go to a heart specialist. And hopefully it's not his first time he ever did the surgery, you know, get somebody with experience. But when it comes to the word of God, we shouldn't be specialists.

And we can use the one that God gives. Now, the unicorns and the buffaloes, I didn't mean to take so much time. I'm going to stop right now, just a few minutes, piercing, tossing about.

And Paul spoke about being tossed about. And you know, this stormy scenes in God's word. And Paul is going on a journey to Rome.

Passage paid, he didn't expect to go that way, you know, but a great storm arose. But what does he say? Not withstanding the Lord stood by me. So no matter what the storm is, the Lord has already come through the storm.

And now he's ready to draw near to us. And that's why I read Psalm 23. I'm not going to say anything, but in the last verse, only goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.

And for David, I think likely he thought it's to the end of days. Want to end my days in fellowship with God? So would I. But I'd like you to think of the what lies ahead. The Father's house in heaven.

You know, we're all going there. We don't know what's going to happen between now and then. Maybe not very much.

But we know this. We're all going to be brought safely through. Why? The Lord is my shepherd.

And I like to always, when I think of the Lord's coming, I think of the shepherd that's spoken of in Hebrews chapter 13, who brought again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep, according to the everlasting covenant. The great shepherd of the sheep. Hebrews has comparisons and contrasts.

So the writer of the Hebrews, he's speaking about the great shepherd. He must have, I thought, had another shepherd in view. And I think the other shepherd was Moses.

Moses was a good shepherd. He shepherded God's people. Psalm 77 brought him, it says, by the hand of Moses, like a shepherd by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

But Moses could only bring them out of slavery. But he couldn't bring him into the land. But we have a great shepherd of the sheep.

You like shouting hallelujah, don't you? And you know, he not only brought us and brought us out of the slave market of sin, paid that tremendous price for us. So he's not going to let us go. He's going to be with us every step of the way to help us and to encourage us.

And he's going to bring us safely home.