Book of Psalms - Psa. 22, vv. 1-8

Psalm 22, guys. Psalm 22. This is going to be a bit of a gauntlet, actually.

We are not going to go all the way through the psalm today.

In fact, I'm not sure we'll get through the psalm next week either. There's 31 verses here, and we don't typically go through them too quickly.

It's not an easy psalm to read. This is a tough one.

And as we go through it, I want us to just have a heart of thankfulness of what our

Lord endured. If you'll recall from Psalm 20, that was a prayer for a king going into battle.

Psalm 21 is a song of victory in the battle with a resolve to never be moved by the enemy.

And then we get to Psalm 22, and this is the event in which our Lord pays the price for the life

He didn't live. This is the final sacrifice, the vanquishing of our sin, the moment in which the hero makes the ultimate sacrifice.

And I have been of the opinion for many years that the real, like, the biggest sacrifice

He made was the life that He lived. But as I read through this psalm,

I'm not so sure. It's a pretty graphic depiction of the psychological turmoil that He endured while hanging on the cross.

I mean, imagine becoming absolutely everything that you've fought against.

That's what happened to Jesus. I was recently watching a movie. I won't give too much away because I won't even tell you what movie it is, in case some of y 'all haven't seen it.

I don't want to spoil the movies for you. I do like to quote movies and things, but I'll say this.

I was watching a movie in which the hero found out that the race of evil beings he was fighting against actually ended up being his own family line, and that to win his war, he would have to become the very thing that he'd been fighting.

And every time I watch a movie, I know that the ultimate story that most stories are derived from, the ultimate story, is the story of Christ.

Like, it is the perfect human condition story of transformation, of love, of sacrifice.

And there's no greater story than the one that Jesus plays out for us.

That's why they call it history, because it's his story, right? But when

I was watching this movie, it just struck me that, wow, the concept of becoming the thing that you fought in order to defeat the thing, that is pretty tough.

2 Corinthians 5, verse 21 says, For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

So Jesus came to defeat sin, and yet the Father made him to become the sin for us.

Like, he made him to be sin for us, and yet he knew no sin.

So, like, here's the one who perfectly fought against it, and then basically was transformed into it, in a sense.

In a very limited sense, I have to say. Like, Jesus is still perfect and holy and righteous.

But, in this act of history, he will become everything that he came to destroy.

Which is why Jesus is physically destroyed in the process. It's why his body is just decimated.

You know, Jesus loved life. He absolutely loved life, probably more than anyone else who's ever lived.

From the moment he inhaled his first breath on earth, to the exhaling of his last, life was his every moment's focus.

Like, you know how we talk about enjoying life? Like, I want to make sure that I'm present and enjoying life.

This is the I Am. He is eternally present. And so, every moment of every day, he enjoyed life.

He was purposeful in life. He was intentional in everything he did. Typically, when we talk about enjoying life, we talk about getting less intentional.

We talk about, you know, putting all of our work aside, and just being carefree for a while.

Jesus wasn't like that. He enjoyed the work so much that, like, his work was worship.

And that's what our work should be, too. But, he wasn't, life was not just his every moment's focus.

But it was not just the idea of life, it was life more abundant. And he lived it more abundantly than any of us ever have, perhaps any of us ever will.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the

Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. God in him was life, and the life was the light of men.

That's the beginning of John. Later in John, we read in chapter 14,

What we see is that Jesus isn't only a lover of life.

He is life, and the very life force of man. For him to experience death isn't only a loss of life like it is with the rest of us.

It is the loss of all life. Because life is within him.

Just the very concept of life, the very light of man, resides within the person of Jesus.

And so, for him to lose his life is the most devastating loss of life imaginable.

And had he not raised from the dead, all life would have ceased forever. He would have had to.

These are his words on the cross in the beginning of Psalm 22. My God, my

God, why hast thou forsaken me? Now, before we get into the text,

I want to share something with you. If you'll turn to Psalm 22, if you've not done so already.

Somebody read the very beginning of the chapter for me, please. To the chief musician upon Ajeleth Shahar, a

Psalm of David. Okay, to the chief musician upon Ajeleth Shahar, a

Psalm of David. Whenever we've been going through the Psalms, we see this to the chief musician quite a bit.

The most important Psalms go to the number one singer, so to speak.

It's interesting, though, once in a while we get a glimpse into what could possibly be different musical instruments that are played during the

Psalms. And we read as much as we can about those, and granted, some of it is conjecture.

Some of it is based on some historical accounts of what they think these musical instruments are.

And so when I first read Ajeleth Shahar, I go, okay, we got a new musical instrument.

We've not seen this one before. But as it turns out, when you look at what it means, it means the morning hind or the dawn hind.

Does anybody remember hind from one of our previous studies? Right, like the hind's feet?

Who remembers what the hind is? Yeah, yeah, so it's a deer, and as it runs, its front feet hit the ground, and its back feet hit perfectly where its front feet lift from.

So it was a really beautiful picture of us in our following of Jesus, right?

We are, as the hind's feet, we're supposed to walk exactly where he walks. And so as we read this, we go, well, that's interesting.

This is reminding us of the hind, the hind's feet. But also, what a lot of scholars believe is that the

Ajeleth Shahar or the morning or dawn hind, the dawn doe, some might would say, is actually the name of a popular band, so to speak.

This, of course, is just conjecture. We don't know this for certain, but quite a few of them believe that there is a high likelihood that the worshipful band, perhaps of the temple or whatever, had a name, right?

The praise team, so to speak. And that they would have sung a lot of psalms that would have been very popular.

That is pure conjecture. We do not know that, all right? I just think it's interesting because one thing we do know is that the psalm is a very well -known psalm.

Perhaps the most well -known psalm. So whether this is by a popular quote -unquote band or not, what we do know is that it is a very popular song.

And that's important. You'll remember Ben talking about the crucifixion, was it last week?

I guess it was, or the week before? Two weeks ago. You'll remember that he mentioned that this was a psalm that all the religious leaders would have known.

It would be kind of like me walking into a room of total strangers, right?

And if I said something like, I don't know, like,

Whoa, we're halfway there. Whoa. What would everybody else say?

Living on a prayer. Like everyone else would remember, they would know what comes next, right?

This is a very, very popular song. Pop's like, I don't know, that's beyond my time. Wouldn't be before his time, it'd be beyond his time.

But like a lot of people, whether you know them or not, if you started singing that song, there's a good chance they're going to know the rest of the words.

So as Jesus hung on the cross and began this psalm, even if he didn't say the entire psalm, it would be a similar effect.

Like if he just started saying these words, all the religious leaders would be like, Well, he's singing a song.

You know, like that's, it's a pretty incredible picture. And it's not just a popular song.

These are the words of Christ. Even though this was written long before Christ walked the earth, and it was written by the hand of David, it was a prophetic psalm of Christ on the cross.

And so when he starts off, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

He is invoking a very well -known psalm that all the religious leaders would have known.

My question, and we won't dive too deep into this. I'm going to refer you to some really great outside sources if you want to do a deep dive on this part of the study.

But my question for you this morning is, was Christ forsaken? Or did it just feel like it?

Okay, that's a great way to, I like how you added that, Pop. Was Christ forsaken?

Or did it just feel like it? I would say yes.

All right, we got one answer. I would say yes, because the Father can't be in the presence of sin, and he was made sin for us, okay?

Any other answers? All right, so there's essentially two schools of thought.

Some believe that Christ was not forsaken. I mean, how could he be? He is

God and was raised from the dead. So to say he was forsaken kind of fractures the deity of Christ and makes a resurrection impossible.

Yet, we know from Scripture that it was the triune power of the Father, the

Son, and the Holy Ghost, working in their perfect union to accomplish the resurrection.

So no, Jesus couldn't have been forsaken. Read the rest of the Psalm. He's vindicated in the end.

That's what many say. But wait, Jesus Christ himself speaks of his forsaking right there on the cross.

Like, you can't escape that. He asks his God why he was forsaken.

Is he mistaken? Is he accusing the Father of something that isn't happening?

No. If Jesus says he was forsaken, then he must have been.

So how is it possible? How could he be both forsaken and not?

I think a simple clue can be found in the address to the

Father. Up until this point, he has addressed his heavenly

Father mostly as just that, Father. In fact, he calls

God Father approximately 154 times. But here, he calls him

God. More specifically, Eloi, or El, which is the almighty, all -powerful one.

Jesus, in this sense, is speaking as a man. Now, here's where I'm going to refer you to an incredible study that I just finished reading by a very well -written author named

Benjamin Mitchell. He wrote an amazing seven -page paper on this concept.

I believe it perfectly lays out the logical possibility for Jesus to have been both fully or completely forsaken, as he says he was there on the cross, for at least a time, and yet simultaneously never forsaken at all.

Because the man, Jesus, hangs there in obvious forsakenness.

We can't get around it. It is so blatantly obvious Jesus is forsaken on the cross.

One, because he says he is. Two, because there's the physical evidence right in front of us that this man is forsaken.

And yet, the God, Jesus, retains his unity with the

Father and keeps himself there on the cross, knowing this is the only way to reunite the

Father with his beloved children. Make no mistake, Jesus is experiencing forsakenness.

But his spirit continues in complete obedience to the Father, who is forsaking him.

I can't even wrap my brain around that, even though there are some really great passages that Ben shares in his study that will show the logic, that it will show that I believe this has to be the answer for not falling too far into one way or the other.

There's often, when it comes to theology, there's often a middle ground that most perfectly adheres to the biblical evidence.

We can often get too far into one side or the other and create false doctrines by saying, well, it's this way.

He's completely forsaken, right? And so the spirit part of the

Son is completely broken off from the Father. And then we have other problems that arise with other scriptures if we do that.

But also you can take it too far the other way and say, well, he couldn't possibly have been forsaken. But then you make

Jesus a liar on the cross. So there has to be a way to reconcile all the scripture, and there is.

And yet even when you go through and reconcile the scripture with proper logic, it is nearly impossible to wrap your mind around the fact that he accomplished this.

Because he is experiencing the worst of the worst.

He is experiencing absolute hopelessness. And yet in that hopelessness, he is still perfectly obedient to the

Father, who in a sense is providing the hopelessness.

I can't imagine it. So his flesh is sentenced by his spirit, and Jesus experiences what might be best described as a fracture of body and soul that none of us can truly fully comprehend.

Remember, he has kept his flesh pure for 33 years.

Absolutely pure. He doesn't deserve this death. He hasn't earned this death.

But he chooses it nonetheless because we need him to. And there is no other that can perform it.

He looked around. No one else can do it. He's the only one. He is suffering the fate of a man in sin.

He is experiencing the very antithesis of himself. The event goes against everything that Jesus is.

He is holy, yet he hangs there covered in the filth of man. He is perfect, but he is pierced and whipped and torn and mutilated.

He is just, but unjustly sentenced. He is innocent, but punished as guilty.

He is humble, but they accuse him of pride. He is life itself, and yet he dies.

It is absolutely everything that is antithetical to Jesus Christ himself.

That is what he's becoming. That's what he's being made to be. That's what he's enduring.

So Jesus, the man, cries out to his God, Eloi Eloi. Which means

God of strength. And in doing so, he recognizes two things.

God is his source of strength, but is simultaneously the strength of his punishment.

It's so paradoxical. Like, the very power of God, which is

Jesus' strength, is turned against Jesus in this punishment that he receives for something he never did.

It is the Father who is bruising the Son. It is the God of power's wrath that is displayed upon the tree.

His Daddy. His God. Ripping into him with seemingly unbridled punishment.

And yet, he is trusting the Father in his doing. He doesn't just address him as God, like any other man would do in his moments of accusatory desperation.

Because Jesus doesn't accuse the Father. No, he clings to him. He's like, my God, my

God. He knows he's never sinned. And even now, in this moment of desperation, he dares not sin.

So why the abandonment? Why does God choose to hide his face from him?

It's because he must experience all that man in sin, who dies in sin, will experience.

He has to pay the full price. It's not just a physical death. Death and destruction hold no candle to the punishment of despair.

And that is what Jesus is going to endure. Absolute, utter despair.

Because without God, that's all that's left. It's just despair. There's no hope.

Spurgeon literally breaks down the entire phrase, why hast thou forsaken me?

And I tried to do the same in my own words. Just can't do it justice, so we're going to listen to Spurgeon here for a sec, alright?

He starts with why. That is the great cause of such a strange fact as for God to leave his own son at such a time and in such a plight.

There was no cause in him. Why then was he deserted? Hast, it is done.

And the Savior is feeling its dread effect as he asks the question. It is surely true.

But how mysterious. It was no threatening of forsaking which made the great surety cry aloud.

He endured that forsaking in very deed. Thou. I can understand why traitorous

Judas and timid Peter should be gone, but thou, my God, my faithful friend, how canst thou leave me?

This is worst of all. Yea, worse than all put together. Hell itself has for its fiercest flame the separation of the soul from God.

Why art thou so far from helping me? Oh, something, that's funny.

Why hast thou, and I have my notes got out of order there.

Let me change them around here. So we just finished thou. Next word, forsaken. If thou hadst chastened,

I might bear it. For thy face would shine, but to forsake me utterly?

Ah, why is this? And then the word me. Thine innocent, obedient, suffering son.

Why leavest thou to perish? So you have here a really, really good picture of what's going on in the mind of Christ.

It's not anger towards the Lord. There's desperation in his thoughts.

Almost a curiosity, because he knows he has done no wrong. And he knows he has to endure this cross, but wow, now he's enduring it in a sense very much alone.

That is the worst blow of all for Jesus, because from the womb he has been in perfect unity with the

Father. If you want to know what torture looks like, there is no better picture of torture than this.

When militaries capture enemy soldiers, and they go through a time of quote -unquote torture, which in today's society, we try to make that not a part of life, not a part of war.

We try to say, well, that's wrong to do. But it's war, right? It's absolute war.

There are no rules in war. We try to say, oh, the rules of war and stuff. But in war, there is one goal, to eliminate the enemy.

And you will do anything to make sure that enemy is gone. Because if you don't, the enemy might not be gone, and you risk the lives of your loved ones.

You risk the lives of the people who are on your side, the people who are fighting for you.

And while Jesus is doing absolutely everything to eliminate sin, the other side is doing absolutely everything to eliminate him.

And the psychological toll that torture takes is often studied as the worst part of torture.

Sometimes they don't even have to use painful tactics. They can use isolation.

Aloneness is one of the greatest forms of torture. Because in isolation, we were not made to be isolated.

What did God say? It is not good that man should be alone. We were not made for isolation.

It is exactly opposite of what we were made for. Yet here hangs

Jesus, alone, alone on the cross. So, he clings to the

God he has known his entire life, trying to hold on to him as he turns away.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me?

And from the words of my roaring, the word for roaring here, well,

I want to back up even before the word for roaring. Why art thou so far from helping me?

How far are we talking here? What do you guys think? A mighty gulf, says

Pop. The perfect Holy Father will eternally separate from sin.

It is as far as the East is from the West. That's what he will do to our sin when he removes it from us.

And so, it is such a deep, dark aloneness that Jesus is enduring.

It's as if he is as far from the Father as is the East is from the

West, as if they never meet. Now, the idea that Jesus endures this eternally because he is an eternal being, an argument could be made for that.

But we know that he is reconciled to the Father, that he ascends to the

Father, and that he sits at his right hand. So, I think at least from the human perspective, we can't say that this is an eternal damnation.

Some people say that he endured hell eternally for us.

Maybe there's a debate there, because we know that hell is an eternal separation from the

Father. However, Jesus is not eternally separated from the

Father, or else he wouldn't be at his right hand. And, as the spiritual son of the

Father, there's still the triune God. So, we can't break up the deity of Jesus.

We can't break up the triune nature of God. It just doesn't work. Everything would cease to exist.

But there is a sense of great separation,

I will say here. A great separation that is so great, we can't imagine it.

We can't even do the time idea correctly, right? Because even that is a created thing. God created time.

He created the concept of eternal, and if the Father's outside of that, then it doesn't even really apply to him like it does to us, right?

And so, one thing that we can kind of grasp, though, is that if sin is so far removed from the

Father, that we, not time -wise, but distance -wise, there is no end to the separation, then we can at least assume that Jesus endured an unfathomable distance from the

Father, in which he was in perfect union with his whole life. An unfathomable distance that he has never once experienced until he's hanging on the cross, and in his darkest hour, in his greatest time of need, that's when he feels alone.

How many of us have endured something bad in our lives? Something sad, something tumultuous, something chaotic, something...

Well, yeah, you could say that. At least something that felt bad. All the things that we say are bad, they don't happen to us, they happen for us, and we know that all things work together for the good of those who love the

Lord, but in those moments, they are certainly bad, right?

In fact, everything that happens as a result of sin is bad.

It's just God's able to turn it and use it for good, right? Like Joseph said to his brothers, what you meant for evil,

God has meant for good. So we have something that's truly terrible, something that's the worst of the worst that's happening to our

Savior, and he is that far away from the

God who has helped him every moment of his life. So why art thou so far from helping me, he says, and from the words of my roaring.

That's an interesting word, isn't it? The words of my roaring. I looked into that word a little bit, and it's much like an animal that is in absolute pain, an animal dying.

You may have heard animals fighting and one of them loses, and you hear the desperation in one animal's voice as the life is being sucked out of him, basically.

That is the point at which Jesus is here. It's weird that he uses this kind of language.

I can remember, and I try not to get too graphic here, but I can remember watching my wife go through an incredible amount of pain while giving childbirth, and there was crying.

There was thoughts or doubts that she could do it, that she could endure it, but there came a point when it just got so much worse that the pain literally took over, in a sense, and it was as if she couldn't really even think anymore.

All she could do was endure the pain. Jesus is at that point.

There's not really much thinking involved, and so what's incredible about this is that when you reach that point in pain, and we can simulate this at different levels of pain.

Some people who have not experienced much physical pain in their life, when they get a certain amount of physical pain, you might see them display words or thoughts or actions that you would never see them display for the world around them.

Some people, in a moment of panic, might let a cuss word out, and you'd be like, wow, I didn't even know you knew the cuss words.

You know what I mean? In these moments where you're in this visceral event of just pure physical pain, what's on the inside comes out, you know?

And Jesus is experiencing this pure visceral pain, and the only thing that comes out is good.

That's all that comes out of him. There's no accusatory tone, even, for God to have made him go through this.

Like, only pure goodness comes out of him in the moments when he can hardly even think because the pain is so great.

There's a questioning, like, how is this even possible, the way that I'm enduring this without the

Father? Like, why does this have to happen this way? But it's not a questioning of God's motives, you know?

It's just a questioning of the situation as a whole, almost.

Like, there is zero questioning of his Father. Like, he doesn't question that he still trusts the

Father completely. Oh my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not.

And in the night season, and am not silent. What's he say again?

Oh my God. So even after that point of visceral pain, he still clings to the

Father as his God. He owns that. I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not.

And in the night season, and am not silent. There is a constant crying.

There's a pleading here. He's actually pleading with the Father, like you would expect someone who's being tortured to please stop.

Please let this stop. Please let it be over. Verse three, but thou art holy.

Wow. Like, please stop this. You're not listening.

You're not hearing me. Let it be over. Nevertheless, you're holy. Like, you're just.

You're pure. He doesn't ascribe anything evil to the

Father who is bruising him. I get this picture in my mind.

Jesus is hanging on the cross. He has lived an absolute perfect life. 33 years, not one mistake.

He's completed that battle. He has prepared the sacrifice, and it is ready to be made. And as he hangs on the cross, all of sin, yours, mine, everyone who will belong to him, all that sin is hiding behind the

Son, taunting the Son and taunting the Father, like, ha, you can't get us here.

We're right behind your most beloved. Here's where we're safe.

And there's Jesus hanging on the cross, looking at the Father and saying, it's right there, come and get it.

Go through me to get to it. I'm not standing between you and eliminating the sin.

And yet, as the Father goes right through the Son to obliterate the sin with all of his wrath, there is still this very mannish moment in the

Son, like, oh, my soul. Please let this stop. Let it be over.

And yet, that's why he's saying, thou art holy, because the spiritual

Son, the God Jesus, knows this has to happen. He knows it has to be completed.

He knows why the Father is doing it. It is a holy, righteous act. Thou art holy, and thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.

And still, like, we're seeing a battle waging war within Jesus, even.

Like, the physical, mannish side of Jesus questioning, and yet the spiritual

God side of Jesus enduring it and making sure that the physical side is still in subjection.

Our fathers trusted in thee. They trusted, and thou didst deliver them.

What's he doing here? Please let it stop. Let it be over.

Our fathers prayed to you. They trusted you, and you delivered them. If you would deliver them who had sin, why wouldn't you deliver me?

Right, like, let it be over. He had our sin on him.

Very different. None of it was his sin. And so, all of it was ours.

That's why he was completely, perfectly ready to be sacrificed.

The unblemished lamb, yep. But one of the most beautiful things here, remember what he prayed in the

Garden of Gethsemane. I pray that they would be one, even as you and I are one, right?

I and them, and them and me. He wanted to be one with his creation.

Jesus had an immaculate conception. He was born of a virgin

Mary. And yet here, as a man, speaking as a man, he refers to the fathers as our fathers.

Our fathers trusted in thee. He wants so much to be one with his creation.

He puts himself in the form of a man and takes on that familial genealogy for himself and says, our fathers trusted in thee.

They trusted and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee and were delivered.

They trusted in thee and were not confounded. They trusted, they trusted, they trusted.

And you delivered, you delivered, you delivered. But I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised of the people.

This feeling of loneliness has brought Jesus to the lowest point of all possibility.

He is referring himself or referring to himself as a worm, much lower than man.

A worm, the creator of the universe, the one who is above all.

He endures an absolute contradiction of himself.

Paul called it the contradiction of sinners, which we'll see here as they begin to taunt him.

He endures all of that, becoming everything he is not, so that we can be everything we were not.

I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised of the people, the very people he came to save.

All they that see me laugh me to scorn. They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying he trusted on the

Lord that he would deliver him. Let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.

These are the same people that just a few days earlier were waving palm leaves and welcoming him as their king.

The most popular man on earth. The one that we all want to come and save us.

You're here to save us. Save us, Lord. And that's exactly what he did. He came to save, but not the way they wanted to be saved.

So you know what? We're done with you. We wanted a king who would eliminate the

Roman government. We wanted a king who would eliminate our physical oppression. You're not that.

You never were that. So we have no more use for you. And all they that see me laugh me to scorn.

They shoot out the lip, they shake the head. It's almost like a, wow. There's such disregard for this man who is experiencing the worst kind of death that they even know of.

Like man doesn't understand how... Man doesn't even comprehend a worse death than the death of the cross.

This is the worst. And yet they just kind of laugh and shake their head. It's utter disregard.

And then they attack in the vilest ways. He trusted on the

Lord that he would deliver him. Let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.

So when a man is being tortured to death, let's say in war, in war, the prisoner may only have death to look forward to.

In many cases over the course of history, that's been exactly true. That's all the soldier can look forward to is dying and being able to have it all be over.

So that's what torture is about. Torture is about, we'll make it over sooner if you'll just give us what we want.

If you will just succumb to the temptation of giving up your position, a man can make it stop under his own power.

Just give us what we want. And so that is the approach that Satan and his minions are taking.

One of the most powerful things I've heard about this crucifixion was what Ben was preaching a couple of weeks ago, how even the other people hanging on the cross stop what they're doing, which is dying themselves, and take the time and the effort and the breath to ridicule

Jesus. That is right out of a horror flick. You know, like that is right out of, there has to have been such a high level of demonic activity that even the other guys who are suffering the same fate stop to ridicule

Jesus? That's wild. And yet Jesus saves one of them. And so this is

Satan at this point trying to get Jesus, who is begging for this to stop, to make it stop.

You can make this stop. Right here, all you've got to do is give up the faith.

Like that's what's happening when they say, he trusted on the Lord. Like they are attacking the one thing that a dying man can hold on to, which is his faith in his

God. There's nothing else to hold on to. You don't get to hold on to a hope that you're going to see your wife and kids someday.

You don't get, of course, Jesus didn't have wife and children, but you know what I mean? You don't get to hold on to the hope that you're going to eat a nice meal.

You don't get to hold on to the hope that you're going to bask in the sun or play on the beach or, you know, this will someday be over and I'll have another moment of pleasure.

The only thing you get to hold on to in your dying days is that there is something after death and that that something is your

God and he'll be pleased with you. He'll say, well done, my good and faithful servant. That's all that Jesus has left hanging on the cross.

And even that, he won't give up. He clings to him harder, my

God, my God. And Satan's like, seriously?

He trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him. Saying the very things that Jesus is asking

God, why aren't you delivering me? Let him deliver him.

Seeing he delighted in him. And Jesus is basically crying that out to God.

Look what they're saying. These are all the best ways, by the way, to petition the Father.

Remember the promises, right? You made promises to our fathers.

When they trusted you, you delivered them. Here's what

I'm enduring. There's the enemy. Like Esther in Haman, right? Esther says there's the enemy and lets the king attack.

Jesus is doing all this. Look what they're saying. Deliver me.

What is happening? And yet, in those moments, there's zero accusatory tone.

There's zero anger. It's just obedience. And he says, but thou art he that took me out of the womb.

Thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts. I was cast upon thee from the womb.

Thou art my God from my mother's belly. Still calling him my

God. He's not going to let go. He hasn't let go from the moment he was born.

And he has trained himself to the point of when the worst comes, he will still hold on.

Like what we hope our soldiers will do in battle. Like if they're captured and they're tortured, we hope they won't give up the secrets.

We hope that they will hold on to the belief that America has some good left in her and that she's worth saving.

And so they will die holding on to that belief. Jesus here is dying holding on to the belief that what the

Father is doing to him is good. That it is holy. That it is just.

That it is pure. That it is righteous. That it must be done. And as much as he doesn't want it to be done, as much as he wants it to be over, and as much as he's asking

God like, when are we done here? He endures it saying, my God. He won't let go of the faith.

And he says, be not far from me, for trouble is near, for there is none to help.

So he's asking the Father, be near me. Because I don't feel you. You're too far away.

We're about out of time today. It's a heavy one. It's really heavy.

It's really tough to read. And yet there's something inspiring about it. Like, if you want to see a real man, look at Jesus.

There is no one more manly than him. And yet part of what makes him the manliest of men has less to do with the man

Jesus and more to do with the God Jesus. And so we as men, if we want to be manlier, we have to recognize that dynamic.

That Jesus is the manliest of men because he is connected with God. And we are at our manliest state, the way we would define manly, you know?

When we are connected with Jehovah. When we connect to the

Father, we are at our best. And we can endure the worst.

Because if Jesus can do that, and it is he that lives within us, it is that very power, dynamous power, that Jesus hangs on the cross in perfect obedience to the

Lord, we can endure a much less punishment. We can endure a much less trial.

And really there's no punishment left for us. There's directing, there's chastisement, but Jesus took all the punishment.

And so whatever we endure, let us remember how he endured on the cross.

When we come back next week, we will finish this, hopefully. I don't know that we'll be able to get through another 20 verses.

If we can't, we'll go through another third of it. Maybe it's good that we split this one into thirds, right?

But it's not easy to read, but it's also pretty incredible. So anybody have thoughts before we close in prayer?

Yes, ma 'am. I was just thinking about the first time, the doubt that Jesus took me out of the womb.

Jesus never had, you know, where Holy Spirit flipped the switch.

He had a fellowship with God. As a man, he sent me out.

How it's always been for him. Every moment of his life. When he is calling on the

Lord, like the opposite of regeneration occurred. Ooh, that's a good way to put that.

To be regenerated. He was perfect. And for the first time, that fellowship and communion with the

Father, he's experiencing blossom. Not a blossom that comes from having not been regenerated.

Right. Yeah. Wow, that's a really interesting thought there,

Ashton. I'm going to repeat it as best I can because I want everyone online to hear too.

So Jesus never had a moment of regeneration like we do, right? Like where all of a sudden we're notified that, oh, you belong to God.

And now you are going to be in relationship with him in a sense where you're aware of that relationship.

He's always been aware of it. He's known that you were one of his from before the foundation of the world. So like he's been pursuing you, but there comes a moment in our lives, in our time where we go, wow, like I have a relationship with God.

I can be in union with the Father. Jesus never experienced that. Like from the womb, he had that.

From every moment, he had perfect union with the

Father. And as he hangs on the cross, he experiences almost an opposite of that. Like, I like what you called it, like a degeneration in a sense, right?

Not that he experiences it because he sinned, but because he had our sins placed on him, he felt what it's like to be without God.

And that's the very feeling that we are praising God for every day of our lives, hopefully after being saved, that we no longer have to feel that because it's such hopelessness.

We didn't even realize how hopeless we were. And in that moment, when he makes us aware of that hopelessness, it's like, oh my goodness,

I'm so glad that he has fixed it. Jesus is experiencing it in reverse.

And that is terrible. I can't even imagine. Great thought there,

Ash. Any other thoughts? Did I get it all?

Good man, that was a great thought. I'll be thinking about that for a while.

Okay, well, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you. What an incredible sacrifice you made for us.

You were made the very thing that you came to destroy, and that is why you were physically destroyed in the process.

It's just incredible. Lord, we ask that you help us to dwell on that. We see in the gospels, we see

Paul say that the gospel is the very power of God unto salvation. So help us dwell on the gospel on a daily basis.

Because if that is the power, then understanding it, ruminating on it, and thinking about the fact that you endured this contradiction of sinners against yourself, that is the source of our power.

It's you. You are the source of power. Father, help us to endure the trials and tribulations in life joyfully, understanding that it gives us a better knowledge of our

Lord and Savior. Help us to endure those things joyfully, understanding that those aren't punishments, because you took the punishment.

You endured punishment. We don't have to. We endure correction and chastisement because you love us, and there's a difference there.

Thank you for that. Lord, we ask that you help us to go about the week thinking of you often, and it's in your name we ask these things.

Amen. All right. Hey guys, welcome!