Psalm 22 — Exodus 14

0:02 Can you turn in your bibles please to Psalm 22. I'd like to do something that I rarely do and I'm gonna read through the Psalm. We we need to get a sort of a flavor for the flow of of this of this particular psalm. Because David vacillates back and forth in this psalm between lamenting and recalling. And it'll help us to understand what's going through his mind.

0:34 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning. Oh my God, I cry by day but you do not answer and by night but I have no rest. Yet you are holy, oh you who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel. In you our fathers trusted, they trusted and you delivered them.

1:00 To you they cried out and were delivered, in you they trusted and were not disappointed. But I'm a worm and not a man, a reproach of men and despised by the people. All who see me sneer at me, they separate with the lip, they wag the head saying, commit yourself to the Lord, let him deliver him, let him rescue him because he delights in him. Yet you are he who brought me forth from the womb. You made me trust when upon my mother's breasts.

1:34 Upon you I was cast from birth. You have been my God from my mother's womb. Be not far from me for trouble is near for there is none to help. Many bulls have surrounded me strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me. They open wide their mouth at me as a ravening and a roaring lion.

1:55 I'm poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, it is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, my tongue cleaves to my jaws and you lay me in the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me a band of evil doers has encompassed me.

2:14 They pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones, they look, they stare at me, they divide my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots. But you, oh Lord be not far off. Oh, you my help hasten to my assistance. Deliver my soul from the sword.

2:35 My only life from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's mouth. From the horns of the wild oxen, you answer me. I will tell of your name to my brethren in the midst of the assembly, I will praise you. You who fear the Lord praise him, all you descendants of Jacob glorify him and stand in awe of him, all you descendants of Israel.

3:00 For he has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, nor has he hidden his face from him. But when he cried to him for help, he heard. From you comes my praise in the great assembly. I shall pay my vows before those who fear him. The afflicted will eat and be satisfied, those who seek him will praise the Lord.

3:25 Let your heart live forever. All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord and all the families of the nations will worship before you. For the kingdom is the Lord's and he rules over the nations. All the prosperous of the earth will eat and worship. All those who go down to the dust will bow before him even he who cannot keep his soul alive.

3:49 Posterity will serve him, it will be told of the Lord to the coming generation. They will come and will declare his righteousness to a people who will be born that he has performed it. I skipped the very beginning of the Psalm. I shouldn't have but but I did. For the choir director, Psalms were meant to be sung.

4:50 If you open your hymnal, under beneath the title of most hymns, there's some strange phrase and you wonder, okay, what does that have to do? Well, that's the name of the tune. Most of our hymns have tunes. And a lot of the hymns are interchangeable. You can sing them to various tunes.

5:10 This was probably the tune to which this song was sung. Okay? And when you read through this Psalm, David goes back and forth. The first two verses, he's lamenting his circumstances. Then in three to five, he's confidently recalling what God has done in the past.

5:33 Six to eight, he goes back to lamenting. Nine to 10, he goes back to recalling. 11 to 18, he goes back to lamenting. It's like he's being pulled in two directions and he's struggling. He feels that the Lord has abandoned him.

5:55 He's been rejected. But then all of a sudden the Lord brings to mind, hey, wait a minute, David. Remember this, I haven't rejected you. I haven't abandoned you. I haven't forsaken you.

6:11 Then the flesh tugs him back and he goes to lamenting again and then the Lord brings him back to reality. I haven't forsaken you David, I haven't rejected you. And then he gets tugged back again and then the Lord pulls him again. And finally, you get to verse 19 to 21, he prays for deliverance and the Lord given what he says in the rest of the Psalm delivered him. So he begins, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

6:48 Now, there are portions of this Psalm that are messianic. I wouldn't call the whole Psalm messianic, but there are portions of it that are Messianic. This phrase right there, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Was a phrase that the Lord Jesus uttered on the cross. And there are some things a little bit farther down in the Psalm that indicate the messianic features of it.

7:16 In fact, some of those features, I would say don't even apply to David. There's nothing in David's life that would perfectly fit this Psalm. I would even go so far as to say, David uses some poetic license, maybe even poetic hyperbole to express his situation, but he's really prophetically looking forward to the situation of Christ. So when he utters these statements, there were a couple of times when David felt forsaken, when he felt surrounded by his enemies. For example, when he was fleeing from the presence of Saul, which happened quite often in the very beginning, he was constantly on the run.

8:18 Or when he was fleeing from the presence of Absalom, David felt forsaken. Now, was he really forsaken? I would suggest that no, he probably wasn't really forsaken. In fact, the Psalms and we'll look at a number of the Psalms indicate otherwise. He felt forsaken but that wasn't the reality.

8:48 And we feel the same way sometimes we pray and it doesn't seem as though our prayers get past the ceiling. We feel where is the Lord? Why isn't he answering me? Why are all of these things happening? Where is God in all of this?

9:09 But the fact of the matter is he hasn't forsaken us. We tend to lose sight of that. David loses sight of that and the Lord has to bring him back. Take a look at Psalm 89. And we're gonna be flipping back and forth to different Psalms here.

10:13 My faithfulness and my loving kindness will be with him. That's a promise. My name and in my name his horn will be exalted. Jump down to verse 28, my loving kindness I will keep for him forever. Jump down to verse 33, I will not break off my loving kindness nor deal falsely in my faithfulness.

10:45 My covenant I will not violate nor will I alter the utterance of my lips. Once I have sworn by my holiness, I will not lie to David. His descendant shall endure forever and his throne as the sun before me. And yet David felt forsaken and he even cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Look at everything that's going on around me, where are you?

11:16 The Lord was right there, the Lord hadn't left. May have felt that way, but feelings are very deceitful. Feelings are very fleeting. David feels forsaken. Christ actually was forsaken.

11:36 On the cross when he was being crucified and he cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He really was forsaken. David only felt that way thinking that it's the reality. He says, Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning. My God, I cry by day but you don't answer.

12:02 By night but I have no rest, where are you? He feels like the Lord has turned his back and has gone away. Psalm 42 verse three, this is a Psalm of the sons of Korah. My tears have been my food day and night while they say to me all day long, where is your God? Verse five, Why are you in despair, O my soul?

12:36 Why have you become disturbed within me? Verse six, Oh my God, my soul is in despair within me all your breakers and I'm skipping ahead a little bit. All your breakers, your waves have rolled over me. Verse nine, I will say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?

13:01 As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries revile me while they say to me all day long, where is your God? Why are you in despair, oh my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? And then there's this little note, hope in God for I shall yet praise him the help of my countenance and my God. And that's one of the things that the Lord constantly brings David back to.

13:30 David, I know how you're feeling, but it's not the reality, I haven't left. I haven't forsaken you, I haven't abandoned you, I know your circumstances make it feel that way, but I'm still here, I haven't changed. I made a promise to you and I keep my promises. And so the Lord brings him in verse three, Yet you are Holy, O you who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel and you our fathers trusted. They trusted and you delivered them.

14:41 I mean, that's an enormous jump. Just because I'm not delivered in my time doesn't mean that I'm forsaken by God. The Lord delivers us in his time. Sometimes the bad things that are going on in our lives are there to teach us something. And the Lord's not gonna pull us out of the lesson.

15:05 He lets us go through it. Hasn't left us, He's going through it with us. And then He takes us out once we've learned the lesson. And so David is reminded, okay, look at, I'm reminded of our fathers, I'm reminded of what you did for them in the wilderness. Okay, maybe you haven't forsaken me.

15:33 Verse five, To you they cried out and were delivered. In you they trusted and were not disappointed. When I read that, I think of the Exodus 14 passage, you got the sons of Israel, they're standing on the shore of the Red Sea. The Egyptian army is behind them, the Red Sea is in front of them and Lord, what are we gonna do? And I love the Lord's response.

16:04 Moses said to the people, this is in Exodus fourteen thirteen, do not fear, stand by and see the salvation of the Lord which he will accomplish for you today. Verse 14 says, the Lord will fight for you while you keep silent. And the Lord says to Moses, why are you crying out to me? Tell the sons of Israel to go forward. And they're looking forward and like, okay, there's this really big body of water here and we've never been able to walk on water.

16:37 And so the Lord parts the sea for them. They had to learn a lesson before they could move forward. And the lesson was basically, be still, be quiet, and know that I'm God. I'll take care of you. And David is reminded of that.

16:55 They cried out and you delivered them. They trusted. They weren't disappointed. But then he gets sucked back again. But I'm a worm.

17:07 I'm not a man. I'm a reproach of men. I'm despised by the people and that's probably why he felt like a worm. People were reproaching him. People were despising him.

17:21 We're not told why. We don't even know exactly where this fits into David's life. Why were people despising David? Why were people reproaching him? Why were they sneering at him?

17:42 Why were they wagging the head? And the statement made in in verse eight, commit yourself to the Lord. That's not advice. They're not telling David commit yourself to the Lord, he'll deliver you. They're mocking him.

18:03 David was known as a man after God's own heart. David was known as a godly man granted he had a few screw ups in his life, but he was still known as a godly man, a man after God's own heart. God never changed that statement. And now all of a sudden these bad things are happening and people get this idea, if you're a godly person then everything's gonna be great in your life. No, it's not.

18:37 God still needs to teach godly people lessons. And sometimes those lessons are not pleasant. And so David's going through some afflictions. David's got enemies surrounding him. People are speaking evil of him.

18:54 People are being malicious towards him. And now they're mocking him. They're saying commit yourself to the Lord. You're supposed to be this man of God, commit yourself to the Lord, he'll take care of it. He'll rescue you, he'll deliver you, you man of God.

19:16 I mean, it's almost as though, take a look at what they said to Christ, they they said essentially the same thing. If you're the Son of God, God will deliver you, come down from the cross, we'll believe in you then. And they're mocking him. And so David feels like a worm, not a man. And then he's brought back to reality.

20:12 And in fact, he makes four statements in verses nine and ten. One, you brought me forth from the womb. He's reminded of that. Two, you made me trust when upon my mother's breasts, even from the very earliest recollections. I trusted in you and you've always taken care of me.

20:42 And then he says the third statement, upon you I was cast from birth, you've been my God from my mother's womb. I can't be a worm. I know those four statements to be true and we as well need go back and look at what the Lord has done not only in our lives, but in the lives of other believers. What is the reality? What am I feeling?

21:19 My feelings are deceptive. I know this to be true. And so he comes out with these four statements that he knows to be true. The Lord is reminding him and yet beginning in verse 11, the flesh yanks him back. He gets pulled back from those confident recollections and he gets pulled down.

21:49 Be not far from me for trouble is near, there is none to help. And that may have been true from a human perspective. David may at this point in time may not have had any friends to come to his aid. Unlikely, but that's the way he felt. There there's no one to help me.

22:12 I'm alone in this. Lord, where are you? And then he goes into this description of what's going on. Many bulls have surrounded me. Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.

22:31 And he talks about these bulls surrounding him, encircling him. Verse 16, the dogs have surrounded me, evildoers have encompassed me. He's hedged in, there's nowhere to go. He can't flee anywhere. And I like the way he uses the strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.

22:57 Have you ever been encircled by bulls? I haven't been encircled by bulls plural, but I was in a field once with a bull. That wasn't pleasant. I mean, I barely made it over the fence. And here he's encircled by the bulls.

23:16 There's an interesting little passage in Amos four:one, where Amos talks about the cows of Bashan. And he says of the cows of Bashan, they oppress the poor and crush the needy. And I'm thinking to myself, okay, if that's what the cows do, can you imagine what the bulls are doing? If the cows are being oppressive and crushing, the bulls are even worse. And David says he's encircled by them, he's surrounded by them.

23:57 And then he says, they open wide their mouth at me as a ravening and a roaring lion. And this idea of opening wide their mouth in Psalm 35, he uses the same phrase and he talks about they slandered me without ceasing. They're opening wide their mouth slandering David. Everything they say about him is malicious, most likely a total lie. Their goal is to destroy his reputation.

24:37 He calls them a ravening and roaring lion. In Psalm seven, he says, they pursue my soul like a lion. And then he describes his physical condition as a result of all that. I'm poured out like water. There's a sense of utter exhaustion.

24:59 Exhausted dealing with this. Everything in his life is going bad and he's exhausted. He's tired of dealing with it, He's weak. In second Samuel 14 that phrase poured out like water is used as a description of death. I feel like I'm about to die.

25:25 I've never been to that place, but I can imagine what it would feel like. I'm about to die. Every... I'm surrounded. Everything is going wrong.

25:39 It feels like you've abandoned me. Where are you? You're not answering me. I don't know where to turn. I feel like I'm gonna die.

26:09 I think of Belshazzar. In Daniel chapter five, when he sees the writing on the walls, all of a sudden his hips go out of joint and his knees begin to knocking. He's ready to pass out. That's the way David feels. I'm ready to pass out here.

26:28 My strength is dried up like a potsherd. Another picture of his exhaustion. My tongue cleaves to my jaws. And then he says at the end of verse 15, you lay me in the dust of death. Your abandonment feels like you're just letting me die without you.

26:56 And then he goes on, dogs have surrounded me. A band of evil doers has encompassed me. And that idea of dogs and the evil doers, obviously, he's not talking about literal dogs. There's this parallel thought here. The dogs are the band of evil doers.

27:17 There are people who are speaking those malicious and slanderous words. The roaring lions, the bulls of Bashan. He feels he's totally surrounded, no place to go. They pierced my hands and my feet. Now, that's an interesting statement.

27:41 Like I said, there's some of these things there's nothing in David's life to indicate this. So he may be thinking, it feels like they pierced my hands and my feet, but when we look at it prophetically and messianically, that's exactly what happened with Christ. And in fact, a lot of these things, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? All my bones are out of joint. What a better picture of hanging from a cross.

28:13 They pierced my hands and my feet. Isaiah says it, Zechariah says it, David says it. I can count all my bones, they look, they stare at me. You almost get the impression that this guy has gone without food for a long time. He's completely cut off from the outside.

28:39 He can't even get food. I mean, emaciated. He's dying of thirst. They divide my garments among them for my clothing they cast lots. Again, I don't know where in David's life I would put that but it definitely points to what happened with Christ on the cross.

29:04 In fact, the gospel writers quote that. And then David gets to this place where I can't deal with this anymore. All of this lamenting, you pulling me back from the brink and helping me to recall, and I getting sucked back in, finally he cries out to the Lord. Verse nineteen and twenty and twenty one, But you, O Lord be not far off, O you my help hasten to my assistance. David has gotten to the point where he's realizing, the Lord hasn't forsaken me.

30:10 No one is gonna help me down here. The Lord's my help. The Lord's my assistance. And in fact, when you look through this Psalm, the lamentations are answered almost point by point by his recollections and by his prayer. You're my help.

30:33 No one's helping me down here, but you're my help. You're my assistance. Deliver my soul from the sword. My only life from the power of the dog. Remember the dogs that were surrounding him?

30:50 Deliver my life from them. Save me from the lion's mouth. The ravening and roaring lion, save me from them. From the horns of the wild oxen, you answer me. The bulls of Bashan may encircle me and encompass me, but they're no match for the wild oxen from whose horns the Lord will answer him.

31:20 And David is coming to that realization. And given what he says in verse 22, it appears as though the Lord did answer him. There was this period of dryness, this period of silence when the Lord appeared to be ignoring him. He wasn't ignoring him. When it appeared as though the Lord had forsaken him, but he wasn't.

31:54 David wasn't abandoned. He may have felt that way, but now the Lord steps in, the Lord delivers him and David spends the rest of the Psalm praising the Lord. I will tell of your name to my brethren. In the midst of the assembly, I will praise you. David is gonna go up to the tabernacle.

32:25 Temple wasn't built yet, but David is gonna go up to the tabernacle and in the midst of the assembly, he is going to praise the Lord and everyone is gonna hear it. He's gonna tell what he went through, he's gonna tell how the Lord delivered him and he's gonna praise the Lord. You who fear the Lord, praise him. All you descendants of Jacob, glorify him. All you descendants of Israel, stand in awe of him, parallel thoughts.

33:04 Praise Him, glorify Him, stand in awe of Him. And it goes back to what he said earlier, they trusted in you and they were not disappointed. He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted nor has he hidden his face from him when he cried to him for help he heard. David is realizing that God didn't leave. God didn't forsake him.

33:39 God didn't abandon him. God doesn't do that. God doesn't despise or abhor the afflicted. He doesn't hide his face from them. When they cry to help, he hears.

33:57 And then he says in verse 25, from you comes my praise in the great assembly. David has gotten to the realization, everything he has, even the praise he renders to the Lord comes from the Lord. I shall pay my vows before those who fear him. Probably sometime during this this period, David made a vow. Most likely a secret vow.

35:00 Probably goes back to what he says earlier, I can count all my bones, they stare at me. I haven't had a meal in weeks. Now I'm gonna eat and I'm gonna be satisfied. Those who seek him will praise him. Let your heart live forever.

35:18 That's a new sentence. I think he's talking about himself and he's talking about the those others who are afflicted. Remember what the Lord has done. Let your heart live forever. Keep on trusting in him.

35:38 Never give up hope. And it's not just going to be a Davidic thing, it's not just gonna be an Israel thing. All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord. All the families of the nations will worship before you. When it's told what God has done to the world, the world is gonna believe.

36:21 You look at the prophets, especially Isaiah. Let me just give you one passage. Isaiah 4five 22, turn to me and be saved all the ends of the earth for I am God and there is no other. Eventually, the world will come to a saving knowledge of the one true God. Christ will set up his kingdom.

36:52 And then he says, for the kingdom is the Lord's and he rules over the nations. And that that's a reminder of basically Revelation 11. The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. And David's looking beyond not just his own situation or what's going on in Israel, he's looking on a global scale here. All the prosperous of the earth will eat and worship.

37:22 Yeah. There's two groups of people in verse 29. Those who have everything and those who have nothing. And they will all come together and worship before the Lord. Those who are prosperous and those who go down to the dust, even he who cannot keep his soul alive.

37:48 Everyone regardless of class will worship before the Lord. Posterity will serve him. It will be told of the Lord to the coming generation. David's not gonna keep what he's gone through quiet. He's gonna tell it to the next generation and the next.

38:12 I mean, we've had this book for three thousand years now. They will come and declare his righteousness to a people who will be born that he has performed it. When the Lord delivers us, when the Lord takes care of us, it's foolish to keep that to ourselves. People need to hear that because others may go through the same thing we've gone through and they need to hear what the Lord has done. I'd like to give you a couple of applications from this.

38:54 The first thing, we need to remember his promise to his children. I will never desert you nor will I ever forsake you. We might feel forsaken. We might feel abandoned. We might feel deserted.

39:16 But we need to come back to the truth and the reality of scripture. He has promised never to do those things. Don't get sucked in by feelings. Feelings are deceptive. Feelings are fleeting.

39:34 What does the word of God say? Second thing, there are times that the Lord is gonna chastise us, discipline us. Don't confuse the Lord's chastisement with being forsaken. He doesn't forsake. He chastises, he disciplines.

39:56 When a parent disciplines a child, he doesn't cast the child away. He still loves the child and he wants the best for the child. Same thing with the Lord. He'll discipline but he won't forsake. Third thing, it's okay to ask why.

40:17 And we we get this strange notion, oh, you should never ask God why. Why not? David did. It's okay to ask why. But never give up trusting and hoping.

40:34 We sometimes ask why and then when we don't get an answer, we just say, forget this business. That's stupid. It's Okay to ask why. But wait for an answer. Don't give up trusting, don't give up hoping.

40:52 Remember that the Lord is always near, he hears, he saves, he delivers, he keeps, but it's in his time, not ours. And then like David, recall with confidence the Lord's dealings in your life, in the lives of other believers, in the lives of people from scripture. These guys are real guys. They're not make believe stories here. This is a true account.

41:25 And then, don't believe everything everybody else says. You know, David was getting sucked in by some of the things being said by others and he, I'm a worm because of what they're saying and no, you weren't a worm, David. You were a man that was brought forth from the womb by the Lord. We need the same thing. Let's pray.

42:22 You will never leave us, you will never forsake us. And I thank you Father that as David came to that realization, we can come to it as well. Help us to continue to trust and to hope even in the midst of difficult circumstances. And we pray in Jesus name.