A Prayer of Victory

Introduction

While on the cross, Jesus cries the words, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

These words are not just the random cry of a suffering individual who has lost their hope.

Jesus utters these word for a purpose.

He knows that the Jewish spectators of His death will immediately recognize these words from the Psalm of David.

The Psalms were the hymn book of the Jews

Anyone who grew up in the synagogue would have participated in singing this Psalm on multiple occasions.

In uttering these few words, Jesus is accomplishing the exact same effect as if I were to sing “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound” in this audience.

I would not have to sing the entire song for you to understand what song I am pointing to.

The message of the entire Psalm is wrapped up in Jesus’ few words.

To understand what Jesus is communicating by quoting this Psalm, we must take a look at the whole Psalm from which Jesus quoted.

Psalm 22 is a Psalm of David that serves two main purposes.

David experienced great distress throughout His life, and as he pinned this Psalm, he was expressing a reality of true agony in his own day.

However, the experiences of David to not encompass the totality of what we find in this Psalm, that is how we now recognize that the second purpose of what David pinned is prophetic in nature.

There are many prophetic passages in Scripture that had dual fulfillment.

The first fulfillment was seen in the prophet’s own day, but the greater and fuller fulfillment is only recognized in Jesus.

We can see this clearly in prophecies regarding the Day of the LORD where the prophet sees coming judgement on a single nation in his own day, but the fullness of his prophecy will not be recognized until the final judgement on all of creation.

As we examine this Psalm, I would like to consider 3 different phases of prayer that we see in this passage. To examine these, we will be jumping around in the text a bit, because the Psalmest jumps back and forth in his cries between the first 2 phases. The first phase being…

A Cry of Desperation

Beginning the Psalm, we see that God’s servant starts by uttering the same words that Jesus used while on the cross.

Psalm 22:1–2 KJV 1900

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art 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.

It is obvious in these words that David felt as though God was not listening to His cries. He felt as though God had left his side and that he was alone in the agony that he experienced.

We see that David cried out to God both day and night and was not hearing a response from God.

We can understand these cries of desperation as there have been times in our own lives that we experience agony, crying out to God in despair, and we don’t feel that our prayers are being acknowledged by God.

We also must make note of the despair that Jesus was experiencing on the Cross.

He was, in His humanity, likely feeling desperate.

He cried out to God in agony, and He got no reprieve from His pain.

Psalm 22:6–8 KJV 1900

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 shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: Let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.

Psalm 22:12–18 KJV 1900

Many bulls have compassed me: Strong bulls of Bashan 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 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 inclosed me: They pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones: They look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, And cast lots upon my vesture.

Now we cannot know exactly how these passages played out in the life of David.

We have many stories recorded of the sufferings of David in the books of the OT, but we cannot know for sure what part of David’s life is being expressed in this Psalm.

What we can see is how the prophetic aspect of this Psalm was expressed.

By placing this Psalm alongside the story of the crucifixion, it becomes abundantly clear that God was showing His people how Jesus would suffer.

We see that Jesus would be mocked and rejected by His peers

We get a nearly direct quotation of Matthew 27:43 in verse 8.

In our next section of verses, we see this image only grow stronger.

We see that the group of men who crucified Jesus were described as “strong bulls of Bashan”

We can see how they mocked him, and surrounded him like roaring lions teasing their prey.

Next we can see the physical pain that our LORD endured.

While hanging on the cross, Jesus felt “poured out like water”; he had lost all control of His physical movement.

His bones were dislocated.

His heart felt like melted wax pouring out over his insides.

His strength was like that of a dried up piece of pottery; He was brittle and weak.

He was so parched with thirst that His tongue clanged to His mouth trying to soak up whatever moisture it could find.

He recognized that death was near with every fleeting breath.

Next we turn back to the men who were performing these heinous acts to our LORD.

They surrounded Him like wild dogs ready to attack.

They pierced His hands and feet.

He could feel every dislocated bone in His body.

They parted His garments and cast lots for who would take them.

These images of what David was expressed in his 22nd Psalm are so clearly tied to what Jesus experienced on the cross. But what is amazing is the fact that these cries of desperation are intimately intertwined with a striking reminder, and that is...

A Consideration of His Strength

As David was pinning this Psalm, He was being constantly reminded that, though he was not currently feeling the help from the LORD, God was near, and He was David’s only source of strength in these times.

Psalm 22:3–5 KJV 1900

But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest 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.

David recons back to the history of his people, and how God had delivered them through many tough times.

The people of Israel were under great distress in Egypt.

They experienced great pains at the hands of their enemies in the region of Cannon

He remembers how they trusted on the LORD, and in these times of trial, they found deliverance through Him.

Psalm 22:9–11 KJV 1900

But thou art he that took me out of the womb: Thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother’s breasts. I was cast upon thee from the womb: Thou art my God from my mother’s belly. Be not far from me; for trouble is near; For there is none to help.

Next we see how David considers God’s faithfulness in his own life.

From his mother’s womb, David had been kept by God.

He cries for God to not be far from him in his time of trouble.

He recognizes that no one else can save him from this agony.

Psalm 22:19–21 KJV 1900

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 from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion’s mouth: For thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.

Now we see how David applies these consideration of God’s faithfulness to his current situation.

He is appealing to the faithfulness of God to rescue Him in this painful time.

He recognizes now that God is HIS strength.

He beckons unto God to deliver him from death.

And he notices now that God has indeed heard him in his cries of pain.

A Continuation of Worship

Psalm 22:22–31 KJV 1900

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 hid 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 seek him: Your heart shall live for ever. 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 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.

Even in the midst of pain, David remembers the Lord’s faithfulness in his life, this remembrance brings David to a place of worship.

Verse 24 says that God has not despised nor abhorred the wicked; this means that regardless of how David felt at first, he has now come to realize that God is with him.

Jesus hung on the cross uttered the first words of this Psalm.

In those words He was communicating the immense pain that he was experiencing.

He may have even felt as though God wasn’t listening.

But that is not the totality of what Jesus was communicating.

Through these few words, Jesus was recalling this Psalm of David and calling His onlookers to consider who was hanging on the cross before them.

He was the One prophesied to come and suffer.

But His suffering would end in victory.

David cried out for momentary salvation from death, and it seems that the Lord did deliver him.

But He knew that eventually he would have to die.

Jesus was not saved from His momentary affliction, and He did have to taste death that day.

But he, unlike David, was raised from the dead three days later never to die again.

Jesus’ deliverance from death is the true deliverance that brings the writer of the Psalms to a point of worship in light of the victory.

Through Jesus’ victory over death, all the ends of the world will turn to the Lord

This was only fulfilled in Christ.