Memory is a funny thing.
Very often we remember what we’d like to forget and forget what we’d like to remember. I can clearly remember specific events in my childhood…
yet I’m unable to remember a single event from an entire year.
—
The 22nd Psalm concludes with these words:
“All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before You” (v. 27).
—
What is it that all the ends of the world shall remember?
If we review the 22nd Psalm, it will become evident. Almost everyone can remember how the 23rd Psalm begins…but how about the 22nd Psalm? The words are familiar: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (v. 1a)
Those words are familiar because our Lord Jesus repeated them as He hung nailed to the cross on Good Friday. They express the ultimate loneliness felt by the Son of God when He was left alone, burdened with our sins. Those aren’t the last memorable words in Psalm 22 either.
—
After describing Himself as a ‘worm’ and a man ‘scorned by mankind’ and ‘despised by the people,’ the Suffering Servant—our Savior Jesus Christ—quotes the mockery of His enemies: “He trusted in the Lord; let Him rescue Him; let Him deliver Him, Since He delights in Him!” (v. 8)
—
Those words are familiar because they were hurled at Jesus by the chief priests, scribes and elders of the people (see Matthew 27:42-43). We might think these words are a coincidence until the Suffering Servant describes Himself like this: “For dogs have surrounded Me; the congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet; I can count all My bones. They look and stare at Me. They divide My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots…” (vv. 16-18).
Again, those words sound familiar.
In fact, it sounds like these words were taken from the New Testament rather than the Old! The 22nd Psalm doesn’t only describe the indignities endured by the Servant of God…it also expresses His unwavering confidence in God to deliver Him. He is so sure that God will deliver Him that He promises beforehand to tell others about it: “I will declare Your name to My brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will praise You….For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; nor has He hidden His face from Him;
but when He cried to Him, He heard” (vv. 22,24).
It’s then that the Sufferer looks to the future and foretells:
“All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before You” (v. 27).
—
What is it that all the ends of the world shall remember?
It’s this—that the Suffering Servant of God cried out
to the Lord and He was delivered.
—
He was delivered? He died!
True! He did die…but was also raised again for our justification
(see Romans 4:25). Jesus did suffer mockery and death…but God
delivered Him by raising Him from the dead (Acts 2:24, 3:15).
It’s the resurrection of Jesus that serves as our receipt, the proof that
our sins have been paid for in full. We stand justified by faith, declared
‘not guilty’ by God Himself in His Word.
—
I am sure you’ve heard this message before.
Good thing…because the Lord wants YOU to share it with others. He wants people from all the ends of the Earth to hear and remember what God has done through the cross and be turned to Him. The Lord wants the entire world to understand that in accepting Jesus’ sacrifice and delivering Him from death…He was delivering all sinners. He was delivering us all.