Lord Jesus: "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen."

LECTURE ON PSALM XXII. 1-13.

VERSE 1. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?

THE first of these words found utterance in the most agonized shriek that ever burst from human lips. They are the "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani," with which the Son of God bowed his head and gave up the ghost. It was at the close of the three hours of supernatural darkness that he uttered them. During those three hours the darkness upon his soul was denser than even that which overspread the earth. He was then, by the grace of God, tasting death for every man, and felt its bitterness as it had never been felt before. He was enduring the wrath of God as the Surety and substitute of guilty man. The Lord had laid upon him the iniquities of us all. The cup of a world's transgressions was being pressed to his lips, and he was drinking it off to its dregs. The bitterest ingredient however in his cup of trembling, was the loss of his Father's sensible presence. Because of this, amazement seems to have seized upon his spirit. His Father seems to have forsaken him—seems to have given him up to contend alone with the powers of evil; and yet he can with difficulty bring himself to believe that his Father has done so in reality. That he hopes against hope, and

still believes even in his despair, is indicated in the emphatic why with which he addresses his Father— "why hast thou forsaken me?-why art thou so far from helping me?-why art thou so far from the words of my roaring?" We see a still confiding faith shining through this reiterated why, and shining still more clearly through the reiterated "my God, my God." If not to his feelings, yet to his faith, the Father Almighty is still his God. He will not judge the Lord by feeble sense, but still trust him for his grace. What a lesson may the believer learn from Christ in this verse-still trusting in God under the darkest hidings of his countenance, and the loss of every sensible evidence of his favour. His example teaches us that we must indeed "walk by faith, and not by sight." 2 Cor. v. 7. There may be mystery in many of the Divine dealings with us; but to the believer it is all a mystery of love, for he knows that God is thereby working out for him a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. It was so with Christ; it will be so with all who trust in God as he trusted.

VERSE 2. O my God, I cry in the day-time, but thou hearest not; and in the night-season, and am not silent.

It is not improbable that our Lord here refers to the many prayers which he had offered up long before, to be sustained in the hour of his final conflict with the powers of darkness. He offered up "prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears." He prayed till his sweat became, as it were, great drops of blood. He also continued all night in prayer to God. There was no one duty of the believer that he practised more incessantly than he practised prayer. It was his vital breath. He knew, too, that God is

more ready to hear than we are to pray. And yet he here complains that his prayers seem to have been offered in vain. The fact amazes him. The evil day has come upon him, and the strength for which he had so long and earnestly prayed to sustain him in that day, is for some reason withheld. How painfully this sometimes accords with the experience of believers in Jesus. For years, it may be, they have been praying for grace to sustain them under the trials of some day in the future. The day of trial comes, but not the sustaining strength-at least, to the degree expected. Immediately the thought arises in the mind, that God cannot be so ready to hear prayer as he is represented to be, and the distressed believer is tempted to give over praying. The example of the Saviour should rebuke such despondency. He did not cease to cry unto God because his prayers were not answered at the time he had hoped they would have been. He still prayed without ceasing, leaving it to his Father to determine the times and the seasons when his petitions should be granted.

VERSE 3. But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.

However intense his sufferings may be, the Saviour knows that there can be no taint of wrong in them, because He who leaves him to endure them, is holy, and incapable of the least injustice. Though clouds and darkness are round about him, "righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne." Psalm xcvii. 2. However little he may be able to explain the Divine dealings with him, the believer can never conceive of them, except as being dictated by infinite love and infinite wisdom. Hence the

sentiment of his heart, even when crushed as the Saviour's was, is evermore the same, "But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.” "It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good." 1 Sam. iii. 18. "Not my will, O Father, but thine be done." Faith, however much it may suffer, would not, for a universe of worlds, have anything otherwise than just as God hath ordered it. The believing soul shudders at the thought of taking its destiny into its own hands.

VERSES 4, 5. 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. Messiah here contrasts his condition with that of those who had called upon God in other days. To them he had always proved himself a refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. They had never trusted without being delivered. No small part of the history of the Divine dealings with the patriarchs and Israel of old, was a history of deliverances wrought out for them in answer to the prayer of faith. "We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what thou didst in their days, in the times of old." Psalm xliv. 1. This story of the fathers was, that God had never failed them when they called upon him. And yet the Sufferer upon the cross seems to have called upon God for help in vain. His prayers for deliverance from his enemies appear to have been unanswered. Though faith tells him that God cannot forsake any who trust. in him, nevertheless, to sight and sense, to appearance and feeling, God has forsaken him! How often is the believer called to endure this conflict between faith and feeling! The history of God's dealings

with others, and also his own past personal experience, forbid the thought that our God is not a prayer-hearing God. It is a thought that pierces the heart like a sword, and yet a thought of which the believer cannot always divest himself. He struggles against it, prays against it; but, at times, the conflict is so severe that he can only exclaim in tears, 'Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." "Save, Lord, I perish!"

VERSE 6. But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.

were a man.

Messiah here speaks of himself as he appeared to others, and to the eye of sense. He calls himself a worm, because of the even loathing contempt with which he was treated. He was in a condition where every one, even the lowest, could and did trample him under foot. He was no longer treated as if he His enemies had denied him all the rights and privileges attaching to him as a human being. He was a reproach of men, and despised of the people. Deceiver, wine-bibber, madman, blasphemer, devil-were the names with which he was branded. It is the lot of most men, in their fall, still to retain some friends. It was otherwise with Jesus of Nazareth. He was forsaken of all men-high and low, rich and poor, bond and free. He was sold by one of his own disciples for thirty pieces of silver, the then price of a slave, (Exod. xxi. 32,) and the release of a robber and murderer demanded as a boon preferable to his release. Matt. xxvii. 21. He was insulted with a mock trial, condemned to death by a judge, acknowledging his innocence in the same breath, scourged, buffeted, spit upon, and nailed to a cross, to die between two thieves. Under such treatment,