Today's Reading: Psalm 22:11-21
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Yesterday (and today) I chose to post a lot of what Spurgeon had to say about Psalm 22 because clearly he is very insightful and I didn't have much to add…nor time enough to reflect on every bit of it.
Today I pick up at verse 11 and continue through verse 21. There seems to be some natural division in the Psalm…
From the Treasury of David-
Division.—From the commencement to the twenty-first verse is a most pitiful cry for help, and from verse 21 to 31 is a most precious foretaste of deliverance. The first division may be sub-divided at the tenth verse, from verse 1 to 10 being an appeal based upon covenant relationship; and from verse 10 to 21 being an equally earnest plea derived from the imminence of his peril.
Lord let me hear your voice in this psalm today. Please reveal more of yourself and let me know your heart. Lord thank you for the application in this psalm to all who suffer. Please let me see how it is I can receive everything you offered on that cross. In Jesus name I pray, amen.
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Appeal for help, comfort-
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Psalm 22:11 (ESV) 11 Be not far from me,
Treasury of David-
11. “Be not far from me.” This is the petition for which he has been using such varied and powerful pleas. His great woe was that God had forsaken him, his great prayer is that he would be near him. A lively sense of the divine presence is a mighty stay to the heart in times of distress. “For trouble is near; for there is none to help.” There are two “fors,” as though faith gave a double knock at mercy’s gate; that is a powerful prayer which is full of holy reasons and thoughtful arguments. The nearness of trouble is a weighty motive for divine help; this moves our heavenly Father’s heart, and brings down his helping hand. It is his glory to be our very present help in trouble. Our Substitute had trouble in his inmost heart, for he said, “the waters have come in, even unto my soul;” well might he cry, “be not far from me.” The absence of all other helpers is another telling plea. In our Lord’s case none either could or would help him, it was needful that he should tread the winepress alone; yet was it a sore aggravation to find that all his disciples had forsaken him, and lover and friend were put far from him. There is an awfulness about absolute friendlessness which is crushing to the human mind, for man was not made to be alone, and is like a dismembered limb when he has to endure heart-loneliness. 12. “Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Basham have beset me round.” The mighty ones in the crowd are here marked by the tearful eye of their victim. The priests, elders, scribes, Pharisees, rulers, and captains bellowed round the cross like wild cattle, fed in the fat and solitary pastures of Bashan, full of strength and fury; they stamped and foamed around the innocent One, and longed to gore him to death with their cruelties. Conceive of the Lord Jesus as a helpless, unarmed, naked man, cast into the midst of a herd of infuriated wild bulls. They were brutal as bulls, many, and strong, and the Rejected One was all alone, and bound naked to the tree. His position throws great force into the earnest entreaty, “Be not far from me.” 13. “They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.” Like hungry cannibals they opened their blasphemous mouths as it they were about to swallow the man whom they abhorred. They could not vomit forth their anger fast enough through the ordinary aperture of their mouths, and therefore set the doors of their lips wide open like those who gape. Like roaring lions they howled out their fury, and longed to tear the Saviour in pieces, as wild beasts raven over their prey. Our Lord’s faith must have passed through a most severe conflict while he found himself abandoned to the tender mercies of the wicked, but he came off victorious by prayer; the very dangers to which he was exposed being used to add prevalence to his entreaties. 14. Turning from his enemies, our Lord describes his own personal condition in language which should bring the tears into every loving eye. “I am poured out like water.” He was utterly spent, like water poured upon the earth; his heart failed him, and had no more firmness in it than running water, and his whole being was made a sacrifice, like a libation poured out before the Lord. He had long been a fountain of tears; in Gethsemane his heart welled over in sweat, and on the cross he gushed forth with blood; he poured out his strength and spirit, so that he was reduced to the most feeble and exhausted state. “All my bones are out of joint,” as if distended upon a rack. Is it not most probable that the fastening of the hands and feet, and the jar occasioned by fixing the cross in the earth, may have dislocated the bones of the Crucified One? If this is not intended, we must refer the expression to that extreme weakness which would occasion relaxation of the muscles and a general sense of parting asunder thoroughout the whole system. “My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.” Excessive debility and intense pain made his inmost life to feel like wax melted in the heat. The Greek liturgy uses the expression, “thine unknown sufferings,” and well it may. The fire of Almighty wrath would have consumed our souls for ever in hell; It was no light work to bear as a substitute the heat of an anger so justly terrible. Dr. Gill wisely observes, “if the heart of Christ, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, melted at it, what heart can endure or hands be strong, when God deals with them in his wrath?”
Lord thank you for the endurance you found on this cross as you held on to experience the full wrath of the father as he poured out justice upon you. The justice that killed 3,000 Israelites after worshiping the golden calf. The justice that killed 70,000 Israelites when King David took an unrighteous census. The justice that flooded the entire world and only left Noah's family. The justice that killed the firstborn of all of Egypt. Please let me know this broken heart Lord that I might never take lightly my sin or the adornment of your holy tabernacle (my own heart).
Treasury of David-
16. We are to understand every item of this sad description as being urged by the Lord Jesus as a plea for divine help; and this will give us a high idea of his perseverance in prayer. “For dogs have compassed me.” Here he marks the more ignoble crowd, who, while less strong than their brutal leaders, were not less ferocious, for there they were howling and barking like unclean and hungry dogs. Hunters frequently surround their game with a circle, and gradually encompass them within an ever-narrowing ring of dogs and men. Such a picture is before us. In the centre stands, not a panting stag, but a bleeding, fainting man, and around him are the enraged and unpitying wretches who have hounded him to his doom. Here we have the “hind of the morning” of whom the psalm so plaintively sings, hunted by bloodhounds, all thirsting to devour him. The assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: thus the Jewish people were unchurched, and that which called itself an assembly of the righteous is justly for its sins marked upon the forehead as an assembly of the wicked. This is not the only occasion when professed churches of God have become synagogues of Satan, and have persecuted the Holy One and the Just. They pierced my hands and my feet. This can by no means refer to David, or to any one but Jesus of Nazareth, the once crucified but now exalted Son of God. Pause, dear reader, and view the wounds of thy Redeemer.
Father, thank you for saving me from this pain. Thank you for sparing me, your completely unworthy and rebellious child. Forgive me the shame I caused your Son. I see not just the shame of His taunting creation with no defense offered by you Father, but I also see the shame he bore in that he must have felt the guilt of every sin ever committed of His elect while he hung there. He must have felt the shame of every coarse word, every hateful shout, every blow, every abuse, every slaughter, every idolatrous, greedy, twisted, evil act committed by His church. My savior must have felt not only abandoned and scorned, but he must have felt guilty- knowing yet that he was not. Perhaps Father, my savior thus knows my plight when the enemy hurls accusations at me that are contrary to your truth. Perhaps my Savior had to hold onto His knowledge of your reality, your promises, despite the emotions that flooded his human frame suggesting that he was vile and worthless and even despite your absence in this moment. Thank you Father that Jesus endured this absence so that I would never need to. Thank you Lord that the reality of your absence, the complete abandonment that Jesus endured is not for me! You promise to be with me and you promise that you will never leave me or forsake me! O forgive me that it was my sin that kept you from extending this promise to your own Son!
Treasury of David-
17. So emaciated was Jesus by his fastings and sufferings that he says, “I may tell all my bones.” He could count and re-count them. The posture of the body on the cross, Bishop Horne thinks, would so distend the flesh and skin as to make the bones visible, so that they might be numbered. The zeal of his Father’s house had eaten him up; like a good soldier he had endured hardness. Oh that we cared less for the body’s enjoyment and ease and more for our Father’s business! It were better to count the bones of an emaciated body than to bring leanness into our souls. 18. “They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.” The garments of the executed were the perquisites of the executioners in most cases, but it was not often that they cast lots at the division of the spoil; this incident shows how clearly David in vision saw the day of Christ, and how surely the Man of Nazareth is he of whom the prophets spake: “these things, therefore, the soldiers did.” He who gave his blood to cleanse us gave his garments to clothe us. As Ness says, “this precious Lamb of God gave up his golden fleece for us.” How every incident of Jesus’ griefs is here stored up in the treasury of inspiration, and embalmed in the amber of sacred song; we must learn hence to be very mindful of all that concerns our Beloved, and to think much of everything which has a connection with him. It may be noted that the habit of gambling is of all others the most hardening, for men could practise it even at the cross-foot while besprinkled with the blood of the Crucified. No Christian will endure the rattle of the dice when he thinks of this.
Let me consider your plight on the cross when I feel attacked and cornered Lord. Let me consider your suffering when I feel that I am put low. Let me rejoice in you and may I connect with your Spirit in the moments of reflection and adoration. Lord teach me to be so concerned with your kingdom and your righteousness that my own body is of little importance, save that I keep it pure as your vessel and tabernacle.
Treasury of David-
19. “But be not thou far from me, O Lord.” Invincible faith returns to the charge, and uses the same means, viz., importunate prayer. He repeats the petition so piteously offered before. He wants nothing but his God, even in his lowest state. He does not ask for the most comfortable or nearest presence of God, he will be content if he is not far from him; humble requests speed at the throne. “O my strength, haste thee to help me.” Hard cases need timely aid: when necessity justifies it we may be urgent with God as to time and cry, “make haste;” but we must not do this out of wilfulness. Mark how in the last degree of personal weakness he calls the Lord “my strength;” after this fashion the believer can sing, “when I am weak, then am I strong.” 20. “Deliver my soul from the sword.” By the sword is probably meant entire destruction, which as a man he dreaded; or perhaps he sought deliverance from the enemies around him, who were like a sharp and deadly sword to him. The Lord had said, “Awake, O sword,” and now from the terror of that sword the Shepherd would fain be delivered, as soon as justice should see fit. “My darling from the power of the dog.” Meaning his soul, his life, which is most dear to every man. The original is, “my only one,” and therefore is our soul dear, because it is our only soul. Would that all men made their souls their darlings, but many treat them as if they were not worth so much as the mire of the streets. The dog may mean Satan that infernal Cerberus, that cursed and cursing cur; or else the whole company of Christ’s foes, who though many in number were as unanimous as if there were but one, and with one consent sought to rend him in pieces. If Jesus cried for help against the dog of hell, much more may we. Cave canem, beware of the dog, for his power is great, and only God can deliver us from him. When he fawns upon us, we must not put ourselves in his power; and when he howls at us, we may remember that God holds him with a chain.
Let me learn from my Savior here Father. Let me make petition to you with honesty when I feel that you are far off. Do doubt in my case it will usually be my own doing, but thank you for this picture of Jesus pleading that you would just be somewhere in sight that He may look upon you. How sorrowful to imagine my Savior on that cross without a view of His Father, suffering abandonment for my sake. You Father, do not even look upon your Son. For the wrath he receives is yours, not ours. He suffers at your own hand a suffering of which He earned none.
Thank you Lord that our enemy, Satan, does not have a freedom that you cannot control or that you are unaware of. Thank you that you are sovereign and we need not fear any but you.
Treasury of David-
21. “Save me from the lion’s mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.” Having experienced deliverance in the past from great enemies, who were strong as the unicorns, the Redeemer utters his last cry for rescue from death, which is fierce and mighty as the lion. This prayer was heard, and the gloom of the cross departed. Thus faith, though sorely beaten, and even cast beneath the feet of her enemy, ultimately wins the victory. Is was so in our Head, it shall be so in all the members. We have overcome the unicorn, we shall conquer the lion, and from both lion and unicorn we shall take the crown.
Thank you Lord for the glorious picture that comes next as a smile comes to our Redeemer's face and energy floods His countenance as He reflects on what has been accomplished on this cross and He receives testimony that He has completed the task!
Treasury of David-
The transition is very marked; from a horrible tempest all is changed into calm. The darkness of Calvary at length passed away from the face of nature, and from the soul of the Redeemer, and beholding the light of his triumph and its future results the Saviour smiled. We have followed him through the gloom, let us attend him in the returning light. It will be well still to regard the words as a part of our Lord’s soliloquy upon the cross, uttered in his mind during the last few moments before his death.
Tomorrow will be the conclusion- How glorious is the ending!
Application and prayer:
Lord thank you for your cross. Thank you for sparing me and for giving me this amazing picture of what was endured and how my Savior prayed and how He felt. Spare me Lord any misunderstanding I take from this text in my ignorance but I am melted by the beautiful, sorrowful, glorious picture of this psalm. Please burn the memory of this psalm into my heart that I may always reflect upon my Savior's love, upon your love Father. Surely there is none like you! Teach me to endure the trials and the challenges that you allow in my life and let me never question your justice or your love as I suffer whatever fate you may please Lord. Let me always hold to your goodness and your holiness Lord. Let me curse my own failing heart before I question you Lord. Thank you that I see Jesus was poured out like I trust I will never endure but this allows me to have a companion in whatever suffering would come my way and I know that I have a friend in Jesus. Please in that day Lord, grant me faith like my Savior. I ask this in Jesus name, amen.
Soli Deo Gloria!
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Thanks for commenting- I will probably post it if you dont seem to be a crazy person!