Saturday, April 20, 2019

Spurgeon on Psalm 22

"Verse 1. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
This was the startling cry of Golgotha: Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani.
Nailed to the tree we behold our great Redeemer in extremities, and what see we?
Having ears to hear let us hear,
and having eyes to see let us see!
 
Verse 2. "O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not." For our prayers to appear to be unheard is no new trial, Jesus felt it before us, and it is observable that he still held fast his believing hold on God, and cried still, "My God."


Verse 3. "But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel." However ill things may look, there is no ill in thee, O God!

Verse 6. "But I am a worm, and no man." This verse is a miracle in language. How could the Lord of glory be brought to such abasement as to be not only lower than the angels, but even lower than men. What a contrast between "I AM" and "I am a worm"!

Verse 7. "All they that see me laugh me to scorn." The iron entered into his soul. Mockery has for its distinctive description "cruel mockings;" those endured by our Lord were of the most
cruel kind.

Verse 11. "Be not far from me."  His great woe was that God had forsaken him, his great prayer is that he would be near him.

Verse 17. So emaciated was Jesus by his fastings and sufferings that he says, "I may tell all my bones." The zeal of his Father's house had eaten him up; like a good soldier he had endured hardness.

Verse 20. "Deliver my soul from the sword." By the sword is probably meant entire destruction, which as a man he dreaded.

Verse 27. In reading this verse one is struck with the Messiah's missionary spirit. It is evidently his grand consolation that Jehovah will be known throughout all places of his dominion. "All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord." Out from the inner circle of the present church the blessing is to spread in growing power until the remotest parts of the earth shall be ashamed of their idols."
Charles Spurgeon