shall bring together please the twenty second song just the first part and the last part of the song. Psalm twenty two. And it's important to notice the title of the song. It's to the chief musician upon Ideleth Shahr, a song of David. Now that is the key to the interpretation of the song. The word I jealous shiner, it means the hind of the dawn. The hind of the dawn. In the Song of Solomon, that is a very, very beautiful type of the Lord Jesus Christ. The hind of the dawn. And the hind of the dawn is brought down into the dust of death. Verse one. my god my god why hast thou forsaken me why are thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring oh my god i cry in the daytime that thou hearest not and in the light see him and i'm not silent but thou art holy oh thou that inhabitest the praises of israel our fathers trusted in me They trusteth, and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee, and were delivered. They trusteth in thee, and were not confounded. But I am a worm, a nomad, a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me love me to scorn, they shoot out the lip. They shake the head, saying, He trusts us on the Lord, that he would deliver him. let him deliver him saying he delighted in him but 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 that is not to help many bulls have compassed me Strong bulls of Baishen have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths, as 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 is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a butchered, and my tongue cleaveth through my jaws, and thou hast brought me into the dust. of death now down to the end of the psalms verse twenty one verse twenty seven all the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the lord all the kindreds of the nation 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 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 a counter 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, that it is finished. You notice the two cries from the cross. My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me at the beginning and then at the end? It is finished. And in between we get all the details about the sacrifice of Christ upon Calvary's cross. I would like to read Psalm twenty four. The Twenty-fourth Psalm. The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein. But he hath founded upon the seas, and established it upon the flunks. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand upon his holy place? He that of clean hands are pure heart, who hath not lifted up a soul unto vanity or sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O God of Jacob. I believe that that is the proper translation of this place. O God of Jacob, Selah. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, even lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, He is the King of Glory, Sheila. And we're going to add his blessing to the reading of these beautiful, beautiful Psalms. This morning we were looking at that precious jewel, Psalm twenty three. And we were pointing out that we believe that it is an outline, a synopsis, an epitome of the life of David himself. He is the one that's speaking. And right from beginning to end, he's telling us of certain episodes in his life. And he commences with the fact that he can say, The Lord is my shepherd. And he can end up by saying, At the end of the Psalm, I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And in between, there are a number of episodes in his life. It is a precious duel between two beautiful Psalms. Now the first one that I've read a part of it is Psalm twenty-two. And then we've read also Psalm twenty-four. And you possibly have noticed the difference between the two. One of them speaks of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, his sacrifice upon the cross, and the other is his glory when he comes back again. Five times we get the term. The king of glory. The king of glory. The king of glory. There's an unoccupied throne today. The throne of universal dominion. And it's called here the hill and the house. The hill is the royal palace in Jerusalem where the king will sit. But then there's the temple where the holy place is. And they're unoccupied at the present time. And I believe. that this beautiful term, and Psalm twenty-four, the King of Glory, is the one that's going to occupy the throne of universal dominion in a twofold way. First of all, the royal palace in Jerusalem, and secondly, he will be the one that will be in charge of the worship of the temple in millennial days. It's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful Psalm. In the one, the cross is the basis. the foundation of all that we find in Psalm twenty four. And when we take the two together, it gives us a lovely, lovely outline of the purposes of God for God's beloved Son. Now just for a minute, I want to look at Psalm twenty two. I believe that we get here three different interpretations. of the work of Christ upon Calvary's cross. And the first one I want to speak about, again very briefly, is the figurative or the symbolic interpretation of the cross. We get the words, I, Jalachar. It means the hind of the dawn. You know, many times in Africa, I would get up in the morning before the sun got up, before five o'clock. And to get a journey done before the sun got strong, I would pick up a stick and start off along the jungle path. And going along that jungle path and making a turn in the path, just nine inches broad in the forest, and taking a turn in the path, I would see the hind of the dawn. The female antelope, it's one of the most beautiful creatures. in creation. And there it is, going along, licking the dew of the leaves in the early dawn. And this is the beautiful picture that we get in Psalm twenty-two concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, the hind of the dawn. If it had been a lion, I wouldn't have any compunction at all of lifting my gun and protecting myself. But I tell you, it would be a hard-hearted creature. would lift a high-power rifle and shoot the hand of the dog. You know, the only means of protection it has, of defense, it has a very keen sense. A very keen sense. It's practically blind. It doesn't see very far. But it has a very, very keen sense, and it's able to sense if there's danger around. And it is a beautiful, beautiful picture. taken from the song of Solomon of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Now in the song we get a number of enemies of the hind of the dawn that bring it down into the dust of death. The first one that we find is the lion. The lion is mentioned twice in the song. The lion. And then the next are the bulls of Bashan. Now, this again is a figurative expression. If we want the explanation offered, we need to turn over to the book of Amos, and we find that the bulls of Bashan that are mentioned here were the ecclesiastical leaders of the nation of Israel. That is, the chief priests, the scribes, the Pharisees, and so on. The bulls of Bashan. They were the second enemy, the lion, and then the bulls of Bashan. And then after that we read about the dogs. Wherever we find the dogs in Holy Scripture, it generally is a picture of the Gentile power, the dogs. And our Blessed Lord was on the hand of the Gentile that Calvary's before he went to the cross. You remember he came before Pilate, a Roman governor, and the man who nailed him to the cross were Roman soldiers, all the Gentiles was there. Not only the Bolshevation, that is the leaders of the nation of Israel at that time, but also we find the Roman power was involved in it. Both Jew and Gentile were involved in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then we find another power And that is the unicorn. We read about the horns of the unicorn. Many, many times I'm looking at this word. I couldn't understand why it was here at all. Because the unicorn is a mythical animal. An animal that didn't have any existence at all. And in the translation in sixteen eleven, when the Bible was translated, the men who read the word that is used here, they didn't understand the meaning of it. and so to put it on the unicorn, the horns of the unicorn. But later on, it was found that the word, it actually means the wild ox, or to put it in a nutshell, the buffalo. One of the most dangerous animals in the bush is a buffalo, especially if it's in a herd. The horns of the unicorn. the wild ducks, the buffalo. I would far rather meet a lion any day on a herd of buffalo. When they're in a herd, they're absolutely invincible as far as creation, as far as the animal creation is concerned. Tremendous animals, tremendous beasts. And I think that what this represents here is the mob that surrounded the cross. You remember those that tried to crucify him, crucify him, crucify him. They were the mob out of control. I don't think there's anything more dangerous in modern life than to see a mob out of control. I have seen that firsthand. In Angola, when the Portuguese government was leaving, the country had to lure their flag in nineteen seventy five i was present and from the lower of the flag and hoisted the hammer and the sickle there was a mob of africans at that time completely out of control and there was some slaughter to place at that time that i'm not going to describe it's a terrible terrible thing to see a mob out of control so i think that the wild ox the buffalo that we find here is representative of that. Now the final enemy of the hind of the dawn was the sword. It was the sword that brought the hind of the dawn down into the dust of death. So here are five enemies and it's metaphorical. It is symbolic and as we look at the different words that are used here, it gives a picture from nature of what happened to our blessed Lord when he was upon the cross. It's the hind of the dawn being brought down into the dust of death. Now, a second thing you'd notice in reading the Psalm is that there are three terms describing our Lord, and that's what you might call a messianic interpretation of the Psalm. The first word that's used in connection with them is, he said, I am a worm. and no man. I am a worm and no man. And the second term that's used is my darling. And that word means my only one. My only one. The only begotten Son of God. My only one. My darling. And he was delivered from the power of the dog. And then the last one is the governor among the nations. These are three great Messianic terms that one would love to go into some detail about them. The first one is the worm. That does not mean an earthworm. The word that's used here, it means a little creature that was very prolific in Palestine at the time of our Lord. It was taken and put in a mortar and pounded. And the essence of that little creature, it was crimson. It was red, bright, bright red. And it was planted in a mortar. And then it was used for dyeing. And especially the beautiful garments of the tabernacle. The crimson garments of the tabernacle. They were dyed with the essence of this little creature. It's not the earthworm that we find here. But it was not... little creature the word is stola or tulaha and it means that creature that was pounded in the mortar and the essence of it died the crimson garments that speaks of glory so here we get a beautiful beautiful picture of our Lord Jesus Christ and the three terms that are used of the Messiah of Christ first of all the worm I am a worm and no man a reproach of men. Oh, it speaks of this humility, of a humanity. But when we get the second one, my darling, the only one, there it is his deity. And then finally, as far as the kingdom is concerned, at the end of the psalm, he is the governor among the nations. So this is the third, this is the second great interpretation of the psalm. Now the third is the literal translation. And from the look at the Psalm, we find a number of things. To me absolutely amazing to see a number of literal things that are mentioned in connection with the crucifixion. And they were all completely fulfilled. One of the first ones is about his garments. They parted my garments among them. and from my vesture they cast lots. And in the Gospels read, these things therefore the soldiers did. You know, it's absolutely amazing. Long before the Lord Jesus died upon Cymru's cross, this tremendous passage in the twenty-second Psalm, it speaks of the stripping of our blessed Lord. The next thing we find here that's mentioned is they pierced my hands and my feet you know again it's amazing that words like this occur many centuries before the Lord died upon the cross they pierced my hands and my feet I want to say this that in one of the recent versions that new English Bible The way they translate this is they hacked off his hands and his feet. You know, when I read that, I was absolutely shocked. It sent the shivers down my spine. I'm no Hebrew scholar, but I believe that the men in sixteen eleven that translated her Bible were perfectly correct in the way that the translated it. They pierced my hands on my feet. These things, therefore, the soldiers did. And then there's the kind of that thirst of our blessed Lord when he was up on the cross, just before he died. We read, he said, I thirst. And the soldiers took a sponge and put sour vinegar upon it, put it on his head, and put it to his mouth. And when he had received the vinegar, we read that he bowed his head, and died. So here we get the thirst, the tremendous weakness and thirst of our Blessed Lord upon the cross. But the last thing that I want to mention in this Psalm is the fact that at the beginning he said, My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? And then at the end, after it has all been accomplished, and the great sacrifice of Christ upon the cross was finished. We read that he just used one word. The word was take till this die and that means it is finished and that is the word that we get here in Psalm twenty two. We read that shall come and declare it unto a people that shall be born and that is you and me. Unto a people that shall be born that it is finished. As we look at this Psalm and all the things that are said in it and how they have been completely fulfilled, we just bow our heads in water as we think of it. So on the one side of the twenty-third Psalm, we get the cross. And my beloved friends here this evening, we must never bypass the cross. Every time we look at the Bible, not only the sacrifice of Christ in prophecy. You find it all through the Old Testament scriptures, looking forward to it, and hear in this tremendous prophetic sound, all of it, and the different details concerning it, they were fulfilled when the Lord was uplifted upon the cross. This is the basis, the foundation of our faith, and may the Lord help us today to never, never bypass the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. As we look at the different terms that are used, it melts our hearts. But there's one thing that we're thankful for. All that is written concerning it has been completely fulfilled when Jesus died upon the cross. And when he gave that cry, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? We know the answer to that question. It was for each one of us here this evening. that he died and all the suffering that he passed through. Thank God it was for atonement for our sin. He took our place and we thank God for the substitutionary work of the Lord Jesus. And I pity the man that's preaching the gospel if he bypasses the cross. Oh, to uplift Christ as the saviour of men who died for our sins according to the Scriptures. We do thank God for the death of the Lord Jesus. And we get the details concerning it in this threefold way. First of all, the figurative, and then the Messianic titles of our heart, and finally the literal predictions of what happened when he died upon Calvary. Now, just for, again, for a few minutes, I want to look at the, look at Psalm twenty, twenty-four. and it's divided in a number of parts verse one it says the earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof the world and they that build her in now what we get here is an account of creation not only creation but the creator and we find here the fullness of the earth and also the people that dwell therein. You know, the earth on which we live is a marvelous place. And God in a sovereignty, when He made mankind for all the different needs of mankind, He placed it on this planet. You know, if you think of things below the ground that is planted there, and things upon the ground, and the wonderful, wonderful creation that God has made, and how it has all developed, anyone that would consider it, the fullness thereof, the earth on which we live, on everything that's needful for man. God in His kindness and love has placed it in this planet. And it's only today that we're beginning to find out the tremendous volume of things that are in the world. We think of coal, we think of oil, we think of gas, and all the rest of it. And God has so marvelously protected this planet, the different layers of the atmosphere. As we look at it, God has not only created the world and the fullness thereof, and given everything that we need for our happiness and for our lifetime here, We just bow our heads in worship. But then we read also of those that dwell therein. The different people that are here. And we find that the one that is the Creator and the creation that He has formed and the people that He has placed upon the earth, we get it here in these first two verses. The earth is the Lord's and fullness thereof. the world, and they that dwell therein. For he have founded it upon the seas, and establishes upon the floods. This goes back to Genesis chapter one and verse two, the creation of man. Then the next thing we find is, who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, and who shall dwell in his holy place? You know, in the Old Testament scriptures, there were certain individuals that had a tremendous authority. In the book of Daniel, we find four great empires and men that headed them. We find, first of all, the Babylonian Empire, ascribed in detail in the book of Daniel. And then after that, we find Medo-Persia. And then we find the Grecian Empire And finally, we get the Empire of Rome. Now, there were heads of these different empires. First of all, there was Nebuchadnezzar. And then there was Darius. And then there was Alexander the Great. And in the Roman Empire, there was Julius Caesar. Each of these different empires had a head. And they had a palace. And they also had a worship. We know that right down through the ages man had drifted away from God and the worship that God had given to them. They forsook it and we know that there was departure and apostasy. But at the same time there are these individuals in the Old Testament that had tremendous power not only politically but socially and every other way. But when we go into the New Testament, we find the same thing. There are certain individuals in the world, and what they wanted was to be the head of universal dominion. And this beautiful sound, it points out that that seat, the seat of dominion, that it is empty. at the present time. But there are certain individuals that have the desire to occupy both the hill and the house. If we went over to Jerusalem and he stands on a certain spot, you'll find that on the one hand there is the hill. That is David's palace. It's an eminence there, and it's very distinct. It was the place from which David reigned when he was king. But alongside of that is another eminence And there there was the temple. And the temple that had been built by Solomon, we know it had been wrecked and destroyed. But it was the place that was the center of worship. It was the shrine that the people went to day, week after week and month after month. And three times a year they appeared at the temple. And the important thing about the temple was the holy place, the hill. on the one hand and the house on the other. On certain individuals in history, they have done their best to try not only to be in control of politics, the control of government, but also the control of worship. So we get here the question, who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in this holy place? And then we get a fourfold qualification for the man that is going to occupy. He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up a soul unto vanity or sworn deceitfully, he shall receive the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek my face, O God of Jacob. So here is a fourfold qualification of the man who is going to occupy the position of the king and also the high priest in the temple. This twofold responsibility and the fourfold qualification we find it here. You know, there are certain individuals that have aspired to this, and I don't make any apology in saying that one of the outstanding men that wanted the Hill and the House, that wanted not only government and the head of government, but also the head of religion, and it is his eminence, the Pope, and anyone that will read the history of the popes, they know that it is a terrible, terrible history. I'm not going to go into it. I feel embarrassed in doing it. But when you think of the Inquisition and the terrible things that happened at that time, and the man responsible for the man who sat in Rome upon a throne, claiming universal dominion, As a matter of fact, he is a triple crime, and he claims a triple power, even in the world today. And right down through the ages, right from the early days of the church, right up until the present time, that is the condition. And I would like to ask you, does he fulfill the conditions we find here? He that with clean hands and a pure heart, anybody that will read this story of the terrible things that happened to God's beloved people over the ages when men were torn apart on a rack and burned at the stake because they believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. And there's a man that has responsibility for that, and that is the man in Rome. He does not fulfill... that position and to have been others exactly the same you take a man like Napoleon he too claimed universal dominion and he fought for it and after he had practically conquered the whole of Europe he was made the head of the Holy Roman Empire and when he came to take possession of it. And I wanted to put a crown upon his head. They asked him who would do it. He said, there's nobody that is capable of putting a crown upon my head. And he crowned himself, lifted up his soul onto vanity. He does not fill the bill. Nor sworn deceitfully. There was a man in the last war, a man called Hitler. And if you think of the things that that man did, as a matter of fact, it was his object that there would be an empire that would last for a thousand years, and he sought for that, and he worked for it. Does he fill the bill that we get here? Lifted up his soul onto vanity and sworn deceitfully. And there was another man in Russia. a man called Stalin, and when Winston Churchill asked him how many people that he was responsible for killing during his regime, he lifted his hand and he counted on his fingers, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, eleven million people. Does he fill the bill? Not all of these men. And it doesn't give me any pleasure to speak about it, but the object that they all had was not only to occupy the hill, but to be responsible as head of the religious organization as well. But I turned with a good deal of relief to another man, the man of Calvary, the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And I would ask her, Does he fulfill the conditions that we find here? Clean hands, a pure heart, who have not lifted up a soul on the vanity or sworn deceitfully. Oh, look at his hands. Oh, he has clean hands. Thank God those hands were pure hands. There were priestly hands. There were pierced hands. Those hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank God he fills the well there. A pure heart. Absolutely sinless in every sense of the word. Not only sinless but impeccable. We thank God for the holy sinless character of God's beloved son. Thank God. He is holy. Without sin of any kind. Absolutely sinless. So he does fulfill the qualification here. A pure heart. Clean hands. A pure heart. Who hath not lifted up a soul under Vanaday. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that for our sin, for our sakes he became poor that we through his poverty might be made rich. Instead of reaching up, he reached down from Godhead glory. down to the death of the cross. Thank God He fulfilled the qualifications here. And who has not sworn deceitfully, God has made an oath. And that oath is, we find it in Hebrews chapter six, the oath that God made concerning the great work of salvation and the eternal security of the believer. Thank God He is truth, personified. So the four different qualifications For the hill and the house is our Lord Jesus Christ. And then, as we look at the end of the passage here, we find when he comes back again, he comes with a retinue. After the battle of Armageddon has been fought, and he comes to Jerusalem, and he finds and bolted in bar, the first place he comes to is the hill. And the cry is... Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and ye everlasting doors. And the king of glory shall come in. And the answer, the question is, who is this king of glory? The Lord mighty in battle. The one who was Victor at the battle of Armageddon. Victor at the cross. And Victor also at the battle of Armageddon. And the gate is swung open. And he goes in. And he occupies. the hill, the royal palace. And then secondly, they come to the place where the temple is, that millennial temple, that temple that he will occupy. And again, the question is asked, lift up your heads, O ye gates, be ye lift up your everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? not here the Lord mighty in battle, but the King of hosts. The King of hosts. He is the King of glory. And again he comes in and he occupies the temple and is supreme in both positions. That is the answer to what is happening in the world today. Thank God Christ is coming and he will be upon the throne. And the throne that's unoccupied today, he will occupy it, and it will reign from sea to sea and from the river to the end of the earth. Who is this king of glory? The Lord mighty in battle. And again, the Lord of hosts, he is the king of glory. By the way, just in closing, this is the only place in the Bible where we find that term, the king of glory, and we find it five different times here. Beloved, we have a wonderful future. And thank God Christ is coming. And when he comes, all that is happening in this poor old world today and all the trouble and trial that has taken place in recent days, it will be at an end when he is upon the throne and he will occupy the hill and he will occupy the holy place in that day. May God bless his word to our hearts for his needs.