WITHOUT DEATH THERE IS NO RESURRECTION PSALM 22 MAIN IDEA Jesus got to heaven through the cross. Times of suffering are meant to draw our attention heavenward. I. EMOTIONAL DYING (VS 1-11) AS CITIZENS OF HEAVEN LIVING IN A WORLD UNDER THE SPELL OF SATAN, WE WILL SUFFER A GREAT DEAL EMOTIONALLY. A. WEARY (1-2) B. CONFUSED (3-5) C. WORN OUT (6-11) II. PHYSICAL DYING (VS 12-21) BELIEVERS HAVE SUFFERED AND WILL CONTINUE TO SUFFER RIGHT UP TO THE TIME OF JESUS SECOND COMING. A. THREATENED (12-16) B. HUMILIATED (17-18) C. DESPERATION (19-21) III. RESURRECTION LIVING (VS 22-31) SINCE JESUS WILL RETURN AS THE CHURCH SUFFERS, TIMES OF SUFFERING ARE MEANT TO REMIND US THAT JESUS IS NOT FAR BEHIND AND HEAVEN IS WHERE WE ARE HEADED. A. HOPE (22-24) B. HEALTH (25-28) C. HEAVEN (29-31)
Without Death There Is No Resurrection Psalm 22 When we start to read this Psalm, we immediately recognize that the very first words of the Psalm are the very words that came out of Jesus mouth at the crucifixion. The rest of the Psalm seems to describe the physical and emotional torment and death He suffered. The last section seems to describe the victory of His resurrection. When I study an Old Testament passage, I usually try and work through it trying not to read the New Testament into the passage. In other words, I try to deal with the passage in the context in which it was written. Up to now in the Psalms, I have dealt with the psalms as they fit into King David s life. However, I racked my brain and could not really fit the events of this psalm into David s life. Some parts could possibly fit but certainly not the whole Psalm. This is clearly a Psalm of Lament. However, this is over-the-top lament. I can t think of any one individual who endured this type of suffering except for Jesus. Further, this psalm has end of time significance. We said that we refer to the study of the end times as eschatology. However, from history, we know the Jews used this psalm. In fact Jesus quoted this psalm from the cross. What I m going to say right now is not spelled out in any commentaries so when I say this, please take it, evaluate it, and chew on it. It doesn t disagree with any commentators but it may be a reach. Israel as a nation has faced this type of incredible persecution and suffering before Jesus came, all throughout history, up until modern times. The Christian Church has suffered throughout history up to modern times. Jesus suffered incredible alienation and suffering as He took our place on the cross and in eternity. Jesus experienced what it would be like for all of us to spend an eternity in hell. What I am saying is that God s people have always suffered throughout history and we will suffer until the end. However, when persecution comes, we should never play the victim. We should never say, Woe is me. Instead, we are to face suffering with hope; hope that Jesus comes one step closer each time and one day He will break through the suffering and rapture His children out of this evil world. Listen to what Jesus said about the end times when He would return: 8 He replied, Don t let anyone mislead you 9 when you hear of wars and insurrections, don t panic. Yes, these things must take place first, but the end won t follow immediately. Nation will go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. 11 There will be great earthquakes, and there will be famines and plagues in many lands, and there will be terrifying things and great miraculous signs from heaven. 12 But before all this occurs, there will be a time of great persecution. You will be dragged into synagogues and prisons, and you will stand trial before kings and governors because you are my followers. 16 Even those closest to you your parents, brothers, relatives, and friends will betray you. They will even kill some of you. 17 And everyone will hate you because you are my followers. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish! 19 By standing firm, you will win your souls. 20 And when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you will know that the time of its destruction has arrived. 21 Then those in Judea must flee to the hills. Those in Jerusalem must get out, and those out in the country should not return to the city. 22 For those will be days of God s vengeance, and the prophetic words of the Scriptures will be fulfilled. 23 How terrible it will be for pregnant women and for nursing mothers in those days. For there will be disaster in the land and great anger against this people. 24 They will be killed by the sword or sent away as captives to all the nations of the world. And Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles until the period of the Gentiles comes to an end. 27 Then everyone will see the Son of Man coming on a cloud with power and great glory. 28 So when all these things begin Page 2
to happen, stand and look up, for your salvation is near! 34 Watch out! Don t let your hearts be dulled by carousing and drunkenness, and by the worries of this life. Don t let that day catch you unaware, 35 like a trap. For that day will come upon everyone living on the earth. 36 Keep alert at all times. And pray that you might be strong enough to escape these coming horrors and stand before the Son of Man Luke 21:8-36 / NLT What I am saying is that we can only live life to the fullest when we embrace a couple of things. If we belong to Christ, we will suffer. Christ told us that one of the signs that He is near to coming to judge the world is that we will be suffering. Therefore, I m saying that the main idea of this psalm is this. JESUS GOT TO HEAVEN THROUGH THE CROSS. TIMES OF SUFFERING ARE MEANT TO DRAW OUR ATTENTION HEAVENWARD. For me, this sounds logical for us. We have become so comfortable in this world; we don t really long for heaven. If you were to talk about heaven and say that you would like to go now; your friends and family would rebuke you. However, if we were being persecuted, heaven may look at lot better and more appealing to us. But for most of us, death is something to deny and keep away from us. For example, two guys were in a bar, and they were both watching the television when the news came on. It showed a guy on a bridge who was about to jump, obviously suicidal. "I'll bet you $10 he'll jump," said the first guy. "Bet you $10 he won't," said the second guy. "You re on!" he says. Then, the guy on the television closed his eyes and threw himself off the bridge. The second guy hands the first guy the money. "I can't take your money," said the first guy. "I cheated you. The same story was on the five o'clock news." "No, no. Take it," said the second guy. "I saw the five o'clock news too. I just didn't think the guy was dumb enough to jump again!" Jesus made His way home back to heaven through the cross. I don t know how it is that we simply gloss over that fact. Every time we baptize someone, we remind each other that the way to life in Christ is through death. There is no resurrection without death. We will enter the same way Jesus did; through death. Jesus suffered a great deal. The Disciples suffered a great deal. There is no reason to believe we will not suffer in this world. In fact, many of our brothers and sisters throughout the world are being tortured, persecuted, and killed each day for their faith in Jesus Christ. Verses 1-11 describe what emotional dying is like. AS CITIZENS OF HEAVEN, LIVING IN A WORLD UNDER THE SPELL OF SATAN, WE WILL SUFFER A GREAT DEAL EMOTIONALLY. Since we have become so attached to this world, it seems as if we need to die emotionally to it and emotionally invest ourselves in heaven. I. EMOTIONAL DYING (VS 1-11) Page 3
Verses 1-2 illustrate that fact that great suffering makes us weary. In going through the passage, I want to inform us ahead of time that I will be describing these events as they apply to Jesus, the Jews as a nation of God s people, and the Church as God s children. It will also apply to suffering as we experience it in our individual lives. So each section will equally apply to all of these. Since Jesus is a great model for Israel, the church, and for us as individuals, I ll approach this section from His perspective. At the point Jesus quotes this psalm, He has been sleep deprived for over 24 hours. Through the night He has been tortured, dragged through 3 trials, and publicly paraded around and humiliated. He has been hanging on the cross for hours and is emotionally exhausted and near physical death. At this point, the Father pours out all His wrath on Jesus; the wrath that all human beings collectively and individually should experience for all of our sins. That would be like Jesus experiencing eternal separation from God for every human being that has ever lived and will ever live. There is such a rift in the Trinity that Jesus cries out to the Father, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Prolonged suffering seems to threaten us emotionally. Here is a principle I want us to remember. There is never a time when we suffer physically; that we don t suffer emotionally and spiritually. There is never a time that we suffer emotionally; that we don t suffer physically and spiritually. There is never a time that we suffer spiritually; that we don t suffer physically and emotionally. We know that when we are suffering; Satan will almost always try to worm his way into our lives. When we go through suffering, especially prolonged suffering, we can feel as if God has abandoned us and that He does not pay attention to our pleas for help. From our introductory study of the psalms, you will notice that verse 2 contains merism. Let me explain. The psalmist says that he cries out by day and finds no rest at night. The words day and night form the merism. Merism means that everything in between is included. Every moment of the person suffering is filled with the frustration of crying out to God and not hearing a response and every moment is without physical, emotional, and spiritual rest. In the psalmist s suffering he finds no salvation, no answer, and no rest. No wonder Jesus was weary. In verses 3-5, we see that we can become confused as well. The sufferer starts to think about God s faithfulness in the past. By the way, we should force ourselves to think about these things. The psalmist starts to remember Who His God is. The God of the psalmist is none other than our God. There is one God. His Name is YAHWEH and He is the Holy One of Israel. Throughout Israel s history of repentance, they trusted in God, they cried out to God; and God saved and delivered them. God has proved to be faithful in the past. So the psalmist is confused because he is crying out and God has not yet rescued him or saved him from his suffering. As the suffering goes on, verses 6-11 describe a time when we can feel worn out. While Jesus hung on the cross and while He was suffering and dying for our sins; people added to His suffering by taunting Him and mocking Him. They even taunted Him with the taunts of this psalm. They challenged Him to save Himself. Even one of the thieves being crucified with Him started to taunt Him. In verses 9-10 we start to think back how God has been with us from birth. He protected us and has brought us safe this far in our life. We have been faithfully following Him and now this incredible suffering comes our way. We may start to think, Did God set us up for this? Did He save us, provide for us, and care for us; only to set us up to torture us? The answers to those questions are, Absolutely not! Yes, we can become worn out; in fact when Jesus was totally worn out He cried out, It is finished. By that He meant He had completed the mission God the Father Page 4
sent Him to accomplish. He won salvation for us. Jesus also said to God the Father, Into Your hands I commend My Spirit. Even though weary, confused, and worn out; Jesus knew He was in the Father s hand. As God s children we need to have some right expectations. We will face suffering. It is part of our individual and collective lives as children of God. Think about this. The author of Hebrews wrote this: Even though Jesus was God's Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered Hebrews 5:8 / NLT Did you catch that? If Jesus had to learn through suffering; what makes us think that we can learn things and grow without suffering? AS CITIZENS OF HEAVEN LIVING IN A WORLD UNDER THE SPELL OF SATAN, WE WILL SUFFER A GREAT DEAL EMOTIONALLY. I ve said this plenty of times before. We live in an anti-jewish anti-christian society and world. I don t think I m overstating this. The so-called educated and elite would like nothing better than to wipe Judeo-Christian theology and philosophy off the face of the earth. Jews and Christians are despised. Here is what I want to emphasize!! We are not to consider ourselves victims. Jesus was not a victim. We are God s children. Suffering is redemptive for us. In suffering, God makes us more like Jesus. We are saved. In the psalms, salvation, deliverance, and victory are all the same words. Jesus has already won the victory. As we suffer; we are actually growing into our victories. Yes it will feel as if we are emotionally dying in this world. Let me rephrase that. We will find ourselves dying emotionally to this world and all it has to offer. Suffering helps us to detach from the things of this world. II. PHYSICAL DYING (VS 12-21) Verses 12-21 illustrate that oftentimes suffering leads to physical death. BELIEVERS HAVE SUFFERED AND WILL CONTINUE TO SUFFER RIGHT UP TO THE TIME OF JESUS SECOND COMING. The ancient Greeks tormented, persecuted, humiliated, and killed Jews mercilessly. The Romans tormented, persecuted, humiliated, and killed early Christians. They threw Christians to the lions and other wild animals for entertainment. They actually doused Christians in oil, hung them up on lampposts, and set them on fire to use as street lamps. We can see today all through the Middle East how Christians are arrested, tortured, and killed while their churches are burned down. Jews and Christians will be threatened throughout history as laid out in verses 12-16. I want us to also remember this. We may think that our government, our educational systems, other religions are the enemy. We have to keep in mind that Satan is the enemy and he works through all these. I m not saying that so that we will pick up guns and kill them as if we are killing Satan. We don t fight like that. Let s remember that the Apostle Paul commented on this when he said: 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ 2 Corinthians 10:5 / TNIV Page 5
We fight with the truth. Jesus said He could have had all the angels empty heaven, come down, wipe out everyone, and take Him off the cross; but He didn t. He finished His mission of redemption through suffering and death. Our enemy the devil is described as bulls, lions, and dogs. Each animal has a particular way of hunting. Bulls charge, lions separate the weak from the herd, and dogs just surround and tear up the flesh. These animals are brutal when they hunt and kill. Satan works like that. When bulls have someone surrounded in a pasture, there really is no way out. The person starts to run, and the bulls charge him. Satan wants to intimidate us with his power. When we are weak and suffering, he will come head on at us. Lions hunt in packs. They get the herd running and look at the elderly or the young who can t quite keep up with the rest. They cut off the weak, isolate them, and kill them because these weak no longer have the protection of the herd. If you seen nature programs, the hyenas are the best example of what is described here. They give off these creepy sounds that seem like laughing as they mercilessly tear up the flesh of the prey. Jesus was being tormented. He was dehydrating. He was suffocating, and slowly bleeding out. Satan stood by; mocking, taunting, threatening, and celebrating. Jesus was humiliated as described in verses 17-18. In verse 18 we are reminded that at the crucifixion, the Roman guards were dividing up the clothes and possessions of Jesus and the other two thieves. They came across the robe of Jesus which seemed to be very valuable. So instead of cutting the robe into pieces, they gambled to see who would get it. The winner took the robe intact. We can see from our culture that when chaos erupts, people start to loot. The Nazis felt justified in taking all the possessions of the Jews. If given the chance, the Middle Eastern countries would kill all the Jews and take all their possessions. In many African nations, militias come into towns, kill the Christians, and take all their possessions. It is going on every day. But again, let me emphasize we are not victims. We are children of God being formed into the nature and person of Christ. We are not martyrs in our modern sense of the word. We are martyrs in the Greek sense of the word. We are living witnesses to the glory, the power, and the love of God. Verses 19-21 describe desperation. It will be natural for us to feel desperate. However, we must never act out of desperation. The psalmist asked God to deliver him from the dogs, lions, and oxen. Poetically, you will notice he reversed the order of the animals. Think about how clever this is. The bulls threatened the herd, the lions got them running and separated out the weak and tore into their flesh, the dogs killed them, tore them apart, and ate them. The psalmist now seems to run the film in reverse; right back to the beginning before the bulls surround him. In his desperate prayer he asks God to reverse the whole ordeal. Many Jews have been persecuted, humiliated, tortured, and killed throughout the history of the world. Jesus was persecuted, humiliated, tortured, and killed. Many Christians throughout history have been persecuted, humiliated, tortured, and killed. Jews and Christians today are being persecuted, humiliated, tortured, and killed every day. This will continue and even increase right up to Jesus Second coming. The point is clear. BELIEVERS HAVE SUFFERED AND WILL CONTINUE TO SUFFER RIGHT UP TO THE TIME OF JESUS SECOND COMING. Without this last section, we would be portrayed as victims and martyrs; but this last section changes everything. We find that without death there is no resurrection. Verses 22-31 describe resurrection living. SINCE JESUS WILL RETURN AS THE CHURCH SUFFERS, TIMES OF SUFFERING Page 6
ARE MEANT TO REMIND US THAT JESUS IS NOT FAR BEHIND AND HEAVEN IS WHERE WE ARE HEADED. I want us to follow the order of events that will lead up to Jesus Second Coming. The persecution of Jews and Christians will increase. Since we know this, every time we suffer we can think to ourselves and speak to one another that this could be the occasion for Jesus to return. We know that God uses our suffering to make us more like Jesus in this world and to prepare us to live in heaven with Him for eternity. Our suffering is always redemptive. It seems to me that suffering is meant to remind us that this world is not our home. Heaven is our home and every time we suffer, we are one step closer to the return of Jesus. III. RESURRECTION LIVING (VS 22-31) Verses 22-24 demonstrate what Christian hope is all about. We are not wishful or fanciful thinkers. Hope for us is living with certainty that Jesus has not forgotten us and He will come at just the right time to rescue us. Since our lives are in God s hands, we do not live in despair. We can gather together and sing the praises of God. When I was in Chaplains training for the army, we had an unusually cruel trainer. He would march us and kind of taunt us. All of a sudden, it started to downpour rain. He herded us all into an outdoor pavilion. He thought he had broken us. All of a sudden, one of the chaplains started singing This is the day that the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Immediately all the other chaplains started singing, clapping, and some of the Charismatics even started dancing. When that song finished, another chaplain would start another song. This kept up until the rain stopped. You could see that the way we handled it actually touched our trainer. I was excited to be caught up in that experience; but that hope and joy could have never come to be without suffering preceding it. We can sing and praise God because we know our final destination and the final outcome. Verses 25-28 describe health. Healthy living comes from valuing what God values and letting go of what the world values. The most valuable thing we have is our right relationship with God. We can walk with Jesus anytime. We can walk with Jesus when the circumstances are pleasant and we can walk with Jesus when the circumstances are difficult. We can define healthy living as walking with Jesus. We will walk with Jesus all the way through this life right into the next life without missing a step. We look forward to the day described in verses 27-28. Jesus will indeed come to judge the living and the dead. People may mock and persecute believers today. People may deny the existence of God. But one day everyone will either willingly bow down before God or they will be forced to bow down. It will not come by any human hand. It will come directly from God. The Apostle Paul describes that event; and please notice how closely it fits these two verses: 8 he (Jesus) humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal s death on a cross. 9 Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father Page 7
Philippians 2:8-11 / NLT Our final destiny; heaven is described in verses 29-31. When Jesus died, He was buried. On the third day He rose from the dead, and later ascended back to heaven. Jesus came to earth took on human flesh to win salvation for us. The way back home to heaven for Jesus was through death and resurrection. We too must die to the things of this world. When we die to our self-centered, self-absorbed, egotistical, and selfish lives; it is then we can come alive to Christ. We are born physically alive but spiritually dead. When we receive Christ we are physically and spiritually alive. However, in order to go home to our eternal homes in heaven, we must die physically. At the Second Coming of Jesus, we will receive resurrection bodies to reunite with our redeemed souls. SINCE JESUS WILL RETURN AS THE CHURCH SUFFERS, TIMES OF SUFFERING ARE MEANT TO REMIND US THAT JESUS IS NOT FAR BEHIND AND HEAVEN IS WHERE WE ARE HEADED. Therefore, every time we suffer, it is an occasion for us to rejoice. First of all, we are becoming more like Jesus. Secondly it reminds us that this world is not our home. Lastly it reminds us that we are getting closer to the Second Coming of Jesus. JESUS GOT TO HEAVEN THROUGH THE CROSS. TIMES OF SUFFERING ARE MEANT TO DRAW OUR ATTENTION HEAVENWARD. Remember, without death there is no resurrection. Page 8