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I count it a great honor and privilege to be able to come for a few nights. It's forty two years since I first came to Main Street to preach. I would like to speak about the Lord Jesus during our time here from some of these beautiful Psalms. And so tonight we will commence our meditation by reading Psalm twenty two. The title of this Psalm, as all these titles, are part of the inspired word of God, though oftentimes we leave them out.
So we'll read the inspired title, which is a part of the Psalm. To the chief musician upon Ajalath Shahar, or set to Ajalath Shahar. The margin of your Bible will tell you that that Hebrew expression simply means the hind of the dawn or the hind of the morning. It's the only psalm that has this title, the hind of the dawn. It is a unique psalm, as we shall see, and unique in its title as well. It's a psalm of David. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Why art those- 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 am not silent, but thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest, or art enthroned upon the praises of Israel. 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. But I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn.
They shut 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. For thou art he that took me out of the womb. Thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breast. I was cast upon thee from the womb. Thou art my God from my mother's belly. Be not far from me, for trouble is near, for there is none to help. Many bulls have compassed me, strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths, a ravening and a roaring lion.
I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, it has melted in the midst of my bowels. 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. I may tell all my bones. They look and stare upon me. And by the way, that's not his bones, but as the man that pierced him. They pierced his hands.
They look and stare upon him. They part my garments among them and cast locks upon my vesture. But be not thou far from me, O Lord, o my strength haste thee to help me. Deliver my soul from the sword, my darling, or thine only one 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 will I praise thee. Ye that fear the Lord, praise him. All ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel.
For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, neither hath he had his face from him, but when he cried unto him, he heard. My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation. I will pay my vows before them that fear him. The meek shall eat and be satisfied. They shall praise the Lord that seeketh. Your heart shall live forever. All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee. For the kingdom is the Lord's, and he is the governor among the nations. All they that be fat upon the earth shall eat and worship.
All they that go down to the dust shall bow before him, and none can keep alive his own soul. A seed shall serve him, it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation. They shall come and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this. And that last little phrase in the Hebrew is, that he hath finished it. Now let us turn to a few readings, keeping in mind the title of the Psalm. Like to read in Genesis forty nine, the hind of the morning. We'll read a few scriptures about this beautiful creature and how it's used to illustrate Christ.
Genesis forty nine, and I'm reading here the prophetic words of Jacob concerning each of these sons and their history as tribes. Verse twenty one, one verse here will suffice. Naphtali, Genesis forty nine and twenty one. Naphtali is a hind let loose, he giveth goodly words. Now the next one I'd like to read is in second Samuel twenty two. Second Book of Samuel, chapter twenty two.
It's a beautiful psalm of David also, this reading. Verse thirty one: As uh for God, his way is perfect. The word of the Lord is tried. He is a buckler to them that trust in him. For who is God save the Lord, and who is a rock save our God? God is my strength and power, and he maketh my way perfect. Verse thirty four: He maketh my feet like hinds' feet and setteth me upon my high places. Now the next reading is in the book of Job.
These are all the biblical des- descriptions of this title of the Psalm. The words of the Lord to Job in chapter thirty nine, showing him how little he knew and turning him to many realms. When we come to chapter thirty nine, we read question here. Knowest thou the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth? Or canst thou mark when the hinds do calve? Canst thou number the months that they fulfill? Or knowest thou the time when they bring forth?
They bow themselves, they bring forth their young ones, they cast out their sorrows. Their young ones are in good liking. They grow up with corn, and the revised reading is they grow up in the open field. They go forth and return not unto them, or return not again. They never go back to the place of their birth. Now, the last reading is in Jeremiah, prophecy of Jeremiah, suffice for our reading, chapter fourteen. This is one of the greatest descriptions in biblical literature or anywhere else describing famine conditions, prophetic portion.
Jeremiah fourteen and verse one. The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah concerning the dearth. Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish. They are black unto the ground, and a cry of Jerusalem has gone up. And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters. They came to the pits and found no water. They returned with their vessels empty. They were ashamed and confounded and covered their heads. Because the ground is chaff, for there was no rain in the earth, the plowmen were ashamed, they covered their heads. Yea, the hind also calved in the field and forsook it because there was no grass.
Now look down, please, at verse eight. O the hope of Israel, the savior, the rock in the time of trouble, why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the land and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night? Why shouldest thou be as a man astonied, as a mighty man that cannot save? Yet thou, O Lord, are in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name. Leave us not. Very interesting portion of God's word. Now, I know the Lord will bless to us the reading of his word. I've been impressing upon some brethren recently, especially younger men, that it's most important, the reading of the Holy Scriptures.
It's indeed more important than anything that we could say about them. When the Lord Jesus was here, when he stood up at Nazareth, standing up where he was brought up, he opened the book and he began to read. And before he gave any exposition at all, the eyes of all them that were in the place were fastened upon him, and they marveled at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth. And so the apostle, when he wrote to Timothy, said, give attendance to reading. Sometimes the Bible is read irreverently, and we hear such expressions as drop your eye for the sake of time, and so on, as if what was going to be said was more important than the Bible itself.
I believe with all my heart the public reading of the scriptures is the most important part of the ministry of God's precious word. Now, for a few nights, we're going to look at some of these beautiful Psalms. I think there's not a part of the Bible more dear to the people of God than this lovely song book of Israel, because really the book of Psalms is Israel's hymn book. In the very center of the Old Testament, we have what is called the poems of the Bible. Most of you know that the first seventeen books of the Old Testament is historical, seventeen histories, and then the last seventeen books in the Old Testament are prophecies.
But right in the center, sandwiched between the histories and the prophecies, are five great poetic books, the Hebrew poetry of our Bible. The book of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. And when I think of those five books, I've written just five words over these five books so that I would always remember them. And the first one we have is suffering, the suffering of saints, the book of Job. What an interesting book it is. Why do believers have to suffer? And so it's the great book of suffering. It steps over all dispensations, and it shows us a man suffering, and although he never knew why he suffered, God had reasons for the suffering, and all things work together according to the purpose of God.
But we pass from the book of Job to the Psalms that we're going to look at, and here it's not suffering, but it's singing. And these are the beautiful songs of the Bible, seventy two of them by David. Sometimes we speak of the Psalms of David, but actually he only wrote less than half of these Psalms, although some believe, and I've been trying to believe it too, that the orphan psalms, that are psalms without a title and without a name given, that the orphan psalms were likely written by David as well. But here we have the book of singing, and we're going to look at some of those beautiful songs during these four nights.
It's my privilege to be here. When we come to the book of Proverbs, we have service. The book of Proverbs has nothing to do with getting to heaven, but it's how to go. And we have all these different precepts that can apply to every avenue of our life, how to serve the Lord in business and the home, and even some of them can be applied to assembly life. It's the great book of practical living in a godless world. Then when we come to Ecclesiastes, a strange book, we don't often hear much ministry from it. Indeed, I cannot recall anyone spending a week opening up the book of Ecclesiastes.
And when I read the book of Ecclesiastes, I think of the sun, because the great title of that book is Under the Sun. And when we think of the sun shining on an earth, we think of vanity. All is vanity, emptiness under the sun. When we come to the Song of Solomon, over that book I've written the word the shadow. I sat down under his shadow with great delight. Under the sun, all is emptiness, but under the shadow of the apple tree, we sit down with delight, and his fruit is sweet to our taste. May we be sitting under the shadow of the apple tree during these few nights.
Now, when we come to these Psalms that I want to speak about, of course, the first three, they're delightful, Psalm twenty two, twenty three, and twenty four, they form a trilogy, and all of us have heard that all the days of our life. In this Psalm we're going to look at now, we have the sufferings of the Lord Jesus in a wonderful way. It's one of the greatest psalms of the cross in all the Bible, and I hope to speak for a few minutes about that psalm. And then tomorrow night, we're going to turn to the Shepherd's Psalm, the psalm that the Queen chose at her coronation to be sung, the Psalm of the Martyrs, and the Psalm of the Nightingale.
Luther said the nightingale sings more sweetly in the darkest hour. And this lovely Psalm twenty three, it's inexhaustible, it's a barn of meal that will never fail. Tomorrow night we're going to look at the shepherd, and we're going to look at the crook. And then the twenty fourth Psalm, oh, what a Psalm that is. Some have denied it its messianic place, but it's twice quoted in the New Testament, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. We're going to look at the sovereign himself and at that coming day when he reigns supreme, the one that suffered at Calvary. And then on Lord's Day afternoon, we turn to one of the most beautiful of all the millennial psalms, Psalm seventy two.
And you'll notice the title a bit when we come to it. It's David writing to his son, a king. It's a king writing to the king's son, and behind the king, David, and the king's son, Solomon, there's the king of kings. For Solomon had dominion, but not to the ends of the earth, and that psalm goes from King David to King Solomon, and then it goes to the greater than David and the greater than Solomon, the King of Kings, and his reign for a thousand years. We're going to look at that beautiful Psalm prophetically of the Son of God when he reigns supreme.
Now, not to be tedious at all, I want to say that Psalm twenty two is the Psalm of the Cross, the greatest prophetic Psalm of the Cross in all the Bible, in all the Word of God. The atoning death of our Lord Jesus Christ. And you know that theme is one of the greatest themes in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. When I read the Pentateuch and the beginning of our Bible, the first seventeen books, the histories, I see Calvary foreshadowed, the foreshadowings of the cross and all the beautiful types.
And in the Genesis, and this is the Genesis book, eh, of the Psalms. It's like the Pentateuch, five parts to it, but this is the Genesis part. And Genesis twenty two is the great foreshadowing of the cross, and here in Psalm twenty two, we have the great foretelling of the cross. And right in this lovely section, the poetic section, we have the feelings, greater than even in the Gospels, feelings of the Lord Jesus, the Spirit of God telling us how the Lord felt.
It's the Lord Jesus describing his own sufferings. There's nothing like that anywhere else in the Bible, only here in this lovely Psalm twenty two. And so here we have the feelings of the Lord Jesus. What a lovely theme it is right through the Bible, the atoning death of Christ. But I want to say a few things about this Psalm, and I don't want to be too difficult, but simple so that we can all learn something. And I'm going to dwell on the last theme more than the earlier ones. The five things we're going to say about Psalm twenty two is this. First of all, its distinctiveness. Now, I pointed out here that the whole of this Psalm has reference not to any experience in David's life at all.
Most of these messianic Psalms, little parts of them, a verse or two, or a section refers to Christ. We need care to rightly divide the word of God, not apply things to the Lord that we have no sanction for. But in this Psalm, every word of it speaks of the Lord Jesus. There's no historical background at all. This makes it a distinct psalm, that every part of this psalm speaks of the sufferings and the glories of our Lord Jesus Christ. And in that way, it's distinct from all other psalms. It's the Lord describing himself, a thousand years before Calvary, his own feelings when he would hang on that shameful tree.
And in this Psalm, we have details that are nowhere else concerning the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. So over it, I have read a Psalm of distinction. Then the Psalm, in its division, has often been pointed out, there's two parts to it. Verses one to twenty one, we have the sufferings of Christ. It begins with the greatest suffering. It's not arranged chronologically at all. It's arranged according to the solemnity of the suffering, and it begins with the suffering from the hand of God, and then it goes on to delineate other sufferings that he bore from men and from satanic power.
And so we have here in the first twenty one verses, the sufferings of Christ. And then the change comes, and in the last few verses, down to the last verse, we have the glories after these. And it's an ascending glory until we see the one who stated, I am a worm and no man, becomes the governor among the nations, the leader of song, the king of kings and lord of lords. So the division of the Psalm is simple. It's the sufferings and glories of Christ. But then when we read again, there's a design in the Psalm, not only distinct and details and division, but there's a design.
When I read the opening part, we have the redemptive work of the priest, Christ the redeemer, as the one who was the priest offering a sacrifice, and we have the redemptive work of the priest. And then right in the middle, we have the resurrection words of the prophet, and we have those lovely words that are found in John chapter twenty: go to my brethren, and when he arises from the dead, he speaks of my brethren. Oh, what a lovely word that is. And so here we have the prophetic word of the prophet, and then right at the end we have the, the worthiness, the royal worth of the sovereign or the potentate.
So we have the priest, the prophet, and the king right in this beautiful psalm. Now, having said that as an introduction, I want to speak about the designation. Very, very seldom have I heard anyone speak of the designation of the psalm in full, and you, you can see here that it has a wonderful title, a divinely inspired title. When David wrote the psalm, as he wrote all these psalms, he sent them to the musicians, to the singers, that they might put a tune to the psalm. It has been said by the rabbis that out of the three leaders of song appointed by David when he brought the ark from Zion, Heman and Judeathan and Asaph, that Heman was the one that wrote the music to the Psalms of Calvary.
The Psalms concerning the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, the cries of the Savior, those sobering Psalms about the sufferings of the Lord were not sent to Asaph. His songs are more, eh, majestic and ex- the experience of believers and so on. And Judeathen is the praise, the loud praises of singing. But these solemn, reverent psalms about Christ, messianic psalms. The tunes were by Haman, who had fourteen sons and three daughters, and they were under their father's hand, the Bible says, for the singing.
And so they put tunes to these lovely psalms that David wrote. You know, that reminds me that when we gather together in the Lord's day, when we give out a hymn about Calvary, it should be sung to a suitable tune. Not a fast tune at all, but something sad and solemn as we sing of the cross and the precious blood. The tune should fit the hymn that we sing, and so the presenter, like Haman, he should study the content of the song before he puts a tune to it. And so Haman received this hymn, the chief musician at that time.
I know that Christ is the chief of all musicians, the leader of the coming praise, but under the hand of God, there's a man received this lovely sound, and when he opened it, he, the first thing he would do would be to read the title, because the title would give him an insight into the character of the music they would put to it. Ejala Shahar, the hind of the morning. What a lovely expression that is, the hind of the dawn. Now, having seen the designation of a psalm, we look into the psalm and we find that the inspired word of God tells us much about this hind.
In fact, there's more said about a hind in the Bible than any other of the deer family. And by the way, in the early chapters of the Bible, all the animals that are used, like the ox, and all the birds that are used, like the dove and the pigeon, they point to Christ, but we never get the type of Christ in a hive or a roe or a gazelle in the early books of our Bible. But when we come to the poetic books, Christ is presented to us as a young heart. He's presented to us as a hind of a morning.
He's presented to us as a roe and as a gazelle skipping over the mountains, coming again. And so in the po- poetic books, we have the Lord Jesus spoken of from the deer family, these lovely animals. In order to appreciate Christ, we must study natural history and understand something about the hind. And so David, when he wrote this Psalm, the Cross, he called it the hind of the dawn. Now, the reason I read these other scriptures is to see that the Spirit of God directs our attention to features of a hind that are presented in Psalm twenty two.
Something perhaps a little different for you to think about, but I want you to think about what I read, first of all, in the book of Job, chapter thirty nine. Remember that Job has been told by God of creation, of birds, of animals, and God is doing this to show him how little he really understands. He's bringing Job down until at last he will lay his hand upon his mouth, and he will have nothing to answer God. And so God turned him to different birds, and here he turns him to the hind, and he says, I want you to consider the hind.
The first thing question he asks him is, canst thou understand the time when the hinds do calf, when they bring forth their young? Do you know anything about the birth, a hind giving birth? And here we have the mystery of birth. You know, those who follow animals, they can tell when a a calf is about to be born, or when any animal is about to be born, but when it comes to a hind with calf, those who follow and understand will tell us that they can't tell when a hind is currying or calf, and they don't know the time when that calf will be born, the number of their months.
It's a secret of God. It's a mystery of God. In fact, in Psalm twenty nine we read, at the voice of the Lord, the hinds do calf. And the Lord is the only one. He's telling Job here, there's only one person knows when a hind is going to bear a calf. Those who follow the hind cannot tell. It's by the voice of the Lord that the hinds do calf. And so it reminds us of the mystery of the virgin birth. And right in this Psalm we have the mystery of the virgin birth coming into humanity of the Lord Jesus.
And four times he speaks in this Psalm, the Lord Jesus himself, he speaks of his birth. Thou art he that took me out of the womb. The appointed time of the birth of the Savior was announced by the voice of the Lord to Joseph and to Mary, the time appointed by God himself. And no one knows the mystery of the virgin birth, how he came into humanity. And so the one that died on the cross, when he was hanging on the cross, he speaks of the mystery of his coming into humanity.
Thou art my God, I'm cast upon thee from the womb, thou art my God from my mother's belly. And on this lovely Psalm, I haven't time to look at it tonight, but there are 4 perfect types from the tabernacle in this lovely Psalm as well. And our minds are taken back. Our fathers trusted in thee, they trusted and were delivered. Has nothing to do with Daniel and Joseph at all. It has to do with the fathers in Egypt who cried unto the Lord and were delivered. And he was enthroned upon the praises of Israel. Where did that take place? It took place on the banks of the Red Sea, when at the beginning of their deliverance, he was enthroned upon their praises as they entered into the wilderness.
And so in the wilderness he gave them the tabernacle, and the, the lowest form of sacrifice in the tabernacle was the worm. Those ram skins were dyed red, and those chinchillas, they were bruised, and the dye was taken from those worms. And the Savior said, they were given the tabernacle, our fathers, they were enthroned, he was enthroned upon their praises on the banks of the sea, but I am a worm. I'm the lowest form of sacrifice that was in the desert. And then again, we have another beautiful tank, just in passing, I think, of the virgin birth.
I am cast upon me from the womb. Thou mother's belly, be not far from me, for trouble is near. What is happening here? Here we have the veil. The veil in the temple, that is to say his flesh, was hung upon golden hooks. And you know, whenever that veil was rent, didn't fall to the ground. It still, still was hanging on those golden books when it was rent and twined from the top to the bottom. And so the Savior on the cross, when he suffered under the hand of God, when he cried that cry, my God, quite as stout as Satan, he still hung upon the golden books on Calvary's cruel tree, like the veil that was rent and clean.
I'm dried up like a potsherd, as a bird in the earthen vessel. A bird was taken from the heavens to be slain as a sacrifice in Leviticus fourteen. It was slain in an earthen vessel, dried up like a potsherd. Now just bring me into the dust of death, the ashes, the word is ashes of death. It's a picture of the red heifer, Numbers nineteen. And so here we have the mystery of his birth in the hind. No one knows when the hinds calf. No one can tell the number of their months. No one can tell when their birth takes place.
And the hind goes away to a lonely place to bear her young, a secret place. Tells me of Bethlehem. Far from Nazareth, eighty two miles she has traveled. The whole of the Roman Empire is set in movement to bring Mary to Bethlehem. It was there he was born. You know what we read? As soon as a hind gives calf, then the wild beast of the field is after that hind. It's one of the miracles, the survival of hinds is one of the mysteries of nature, because all the animals are after that hind.
You know, you can't read this chapter without seeing the dogs, the unicorns, the lion, all these wild, ravenous beasts that are in Psalm twenty two surrounding the hanged. But God preserved his son from the slaughter of Herod at his birth and all through his life until the appointed hour would come. And so here we have a wonderful passage. They grow up in good liking. You know, I never read that, but I think he grew up before him as a tender plant and as a root of a dry ground. Those lovely hinds and their development, the marvel of their preservation and the marvel of their development, and they return not again.
You know, when a hind is born in a certain silent, lonely place, that hind never goes back to the place of its birth. I used to wonder that the Lord Jesus never went back to Bethlehem, never preached in Bethlehem. The greatest miracle at the opening of the Bible is the coming into humanity, the testament, his entrance at Bethlehem, the virgin birth. But he didn't go back to heaven from Bethlehem. He didn't, all of us like to return to our roots. He didn't go back to Bethlehem. He led them out to Bethany.
Luke's gospel is the gospel of villages. Begins with the village of Bethlehem, the miracle of his virgin birth, and it ends with his exit from the world, from Bethany, with his hands uplifted, going back into the presence of God. He was born at a village, but he didn't go back to the village. And the hind returns not again to the place of birth. Never went back to the place of his birth. And so we have the marvel of his development. But the next thing I want to speak about is the path of his feet. The hind's feet.
Three times in our Bible we read of the feet of the hind, and I read in two Samuel twenty two, thou hast made my feet like hind's feet, and thou hast set me on high. Not only his pathway here, the path of his feet from Bethlehem to Nazareth to Capernaum to Jerusalem to Bethany, all the way, the path of his feet, hind's feet. He never slipped. A hind never slips on the mountain path. No slip. Christ was absolutely perfect on his pathway, and now his feet rest on the pavement of blue.
He's gone to heaven. That was set me in high. He who walked the desert sands has walked into the glory with wounded feet. This is the first reference to the feet of Christ in all the Bible. They pierce my hands and my feet. The first mention of his feet, the first mention of the Savior's feet is in Psalm twenty two. Pierced feet that stand in heaven today beyond the judgment that he bore upon the cross. And so we have the mystery of his birth in this Psalm, like the hind, the marvel of his pathway, and the distinctiveness of his walk.
And I want to speak of his sorrows. You know, I read one of the most magnificent passages, I don't know whether you realize this, but in all the realm of biblical literature, and in all the realm of literature everywhere, there's no passage describes a famine like Jeremiah chapter 14. And the reason I read it was this, to point out not only about various things in the famine, but about the hind, but that the Lord Jesus, in Luke twenty four, when he sat, when he was moving with those two on the road to Emmaus. This is the chapter that they quoted along the road.
Art thou only a stranger? When we read, read, uh, Jeremiah chapter fourteen, you'll find there's five references to Luke twenty four in it, in that lovely passage. And the last one is, leave us not. Reminds me of them standing at the Emmaus village, and he, they, he's moving onward, and they said, leave us not, abide with us toward evening. Why should they, thou be as a stranger? Art thou only a stranger and hast not known things that took place in these times? Why should thou be as a wayfaring man and as a stranger? Leave us not, abide with us.
And we read that he began to expound unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. And one of the things I learned about expounding the scripture is this, we begin where we find people reading. You know, in Acts chapter eight, when Philip heard he was reading Isaiah chapter fifty three, he began at the same scripture, beginning at the same scripture. Whenever an unsaved one waits behind and says to me, I'd like to be saved, first thing I ask is this, were you reading any place?
I was reading John chapter three and verse sixteen. I wouldn't go to Romans ten or any other passage. I begin at the same scripture the Spirit of God has put into that sinner's heart to lead him to Christ, beginning at the same scripture. And this is one of the homiletics of the Bible, one of the ways we learn the Bible. We begin with people where we find them, what they're reading. And so the two on the road to Emmaus, they quoted Jeremiah chapter fourteen and they applied it to Christ. And in that lovely passage, that famine passage, and they were in famine conditions themselves.
They thought they had lost everything. Their hearts were despondent. The wells were empty. They sent their nobles to the well, the children sent to the well by the nobles, and they came without water, and the plowman covers his head because the land is chapped, the dearth that is in the land. And then we read of the wild asses snorting up the wind. Then we come to the hind, the hind in the field, there's sake of her calf, for there is no grass. A hind is a most defenseless creature, but a hind has never been known to forsake her calf only under one condition.
A hind will use her hoofs against wolves and will give her life to protect her calf. But here we have a state of misery, something that is beyond our understanding in nature. A hind looks at a calf that's dying and cannot help that calf. And that hind of the morning turns away from her calf, where there was no grass, no grass. She abandons her calf. When Hagar set her child down under a shrub, she said, let me not see the death of my child.
Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked away. As he looked down into the face of Isaac, he couldn't bear it any longer, and he lifted up his eyes and looked away. Hagar looked away from a Ishmael. Abraham looked away from an Isaac. The calf is abandoned. There's no grass, and that hind turns away, cannot bear to see the death of her calf. You know, that's one of the secrets of this psalm.
Ejele shachah, the hind forsaketh her calf. There's no grass. You know how it begins? My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? We know he is forsaken because sin was laid upon him as the sin offering song. But let us go a little farther. I love the words of Centra Thompson. When Japan, did thy God he ne'er forsake thee? Turn his face from thy deep knee, and that face once marred and smitten, all God's glory now you read.
Just as Abraham looked away, but when he looked away, he saw an answer. When Ishmael looked away, when Hagar looked away, she saw an answer. This hind turned away, there was no answer. She had to abandon her calf. And Calvary's cross, there was no way out. My God, my God, why didst thou forsake me? On the cross. Let me say reverently, he didn't say, my Father, why didst thou forsake me?
Interesting, when he was lifted up on the cross, he kept on saying, Father, forgive them. And Luke, who gives us that, tells us his last cry on the cross was, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Psalm thirty one says, David said, I commit my spirit. That's what you and I would do tonight if we were dying. We'd say, Father, we commit our souls to thee. There's not one of us could say, into thy hands I commend my spirit. We couldn't commend our spirit, but his spirit was unblemished.
He changed the verb. He was Alpha and Omega. He had a right to do it. He changed from commit to commend. He said, I commend my spirit, Father. But when the dark, the sun is darkened, and only one writer tells me. I used to be amazed at that. People speak about clouds around his head. There was no cloud around his head. But the sun was darkened, and there's only one writer tells me, neither Matthew, Mark, or John, but Luke the physician. He tells me the sun was darkened. The sun was veiled in darkness. There's no eclipse.
The blinds are pulled down upon a world. Something was taking place. Let me say reverently, a father never forsook his son. Never. God forsook his son. Always let us use the scriptures alike. This is a mystery. No one can understand it, but I believe it with all my heart. There never was a moment when Isaac was dearer to Abraham. There never was an hour when the father found greater pleasure in his son, but he was abandoned by God, and he cried out that word that none will ever understand.
Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani. That's how this psalm begins. It begins with Ajalas Shafir behind her super calf. My God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my ruling? I cry in the daytime, and thou hearest not, and the night seasons am not silent, but thou art holy. A holy God dealing with his holy Son. I was in Australia some time ago.
When I come out of the tent, an old woman there, well on her knees, came in, her husband was totally blind. He came back into the tent, and she said, the reason we have come in, you've spoken so kindly of my grandfather. I wanted to come in and speak to you. I said, who was your grandfather? She said, my grandfather was Philip Bliss. I'm the last surviving member of the Bliss family. And I knew all Bliss's hymns, and we sang, Sing them over again to me, wonderful words of life.
And we sing, I will sing of my redeemer, and almost persuaded now to believe. I am so glad that our Father in heaven tells of his love and the good he has given. Then I said, we'll sing the sweetest of all your grandfather's songs. It was a lovely night, and we sang, Man of Sorrows, what a name. We came to that verse, always touches me even to this day. Bearing shame and scoffing rude, in my place condemned he stood.
Sealed my pardon with his blood. Hallelujah, what a savior. Dear brethren, we'll never know what it was for a hind to forsake it. It's only a faint picture of Calvary, when God turned away from his holy son that we might be near to him forever. Naphtali is a hind let loose. He give it goodly words. You know that word let loose is a strange word, a hind let loose. It speaks of a capture.
It speaks of bonds. Let loose. The marvelous thing is that Peter used it. Thou hast loosed the pains of death. It was not possible a beholden fire. Up from the grave he arose, a hind let loose, standing silhouetted against the rising sun upon a mountainside as a hind let loose, standing beside an open tomb on a sunny morning.
The day died, the sun was darkened. The morning rose, the sun was risen. And he stood beyond death forever. He conquered it. He came out. Every sect and cult, false cult and false sect in Vancouver and throughout this West Coast deny that he's loosed from the pains of death. If Christ has not risen, we're wasting our time. I will declare thy name unto my brethren. You know, when we think of our fathers, you think of Israel.
When you think of my brethren, we think of today. You know, we often hear it said the church is not mentioned in the Old Testament. Well, I am inclined to think that this the only way I can understand this. I will declare thy name unto my brethren. Go to my brethren and say, oh, what a lovely word, I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. In the past was the fathers, in resurrection, my brethren.
Oh, may the Lord fill our hearts with gladness as we think of this. Tomorrow night, then we'll turn to the twenty third Psalm. Hope you'll be able to come. Every meeting will be punctual, and those who open, I've given the word if you're going to open short prayers, and then meeting over at nine o'clock. Shall we pray?