Psalm 22 Says Jesus Won

Hello and welcome back to the Be a Berean Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Coughlin. On a personal note, I have been enjoying the blessings that God has been giving me and my family through the COVID-19 crisis. Although I have some opinions about some things that have gone on, I don't want to do an episode on that. so if you were hoping for that this is not where you're going to get it I think that my best input on it is that there is a lot of sharp disagreement that doesn't need to be quite so sharp at times but I also do understand people having strong convictions about things And so I think that a lot of these things are dealt with well on a personal level.

And I know even in my own life, there are people who I think disagree strongly about how to handle some of these situations. But a personal testimony for me is that I have been active with some protesters in Ohio, and I'm hesitant to say I'm full on in a protest. But I sympathize with them and generally agree with the things some of them are saying. And I use the protests as opportunities to preach the gospel to people.

What I found when I preached the gospel was probably one of the highest percentages of people that agreed with the gospel and seemed to be professing Christians of anywhere I've ever preached when I went to the protests, which was encouraging. And some of the friends I have that are actually very active in the protest and trying to petition our government have proven to be some people who I find to be very decent folks. and the personal testimony is that I've tried to be helpful to the protesters by writing articles that will defend them when people slander them and when I was writing the second article that I wrote to defend them that hasn't been published as of the time of this recording what I found is that there was a picture of the protesters where one of the protesters had what I'll just refer to as a really wicked sign. And there was a sexually, I won't say explicit, it was a sexually implicit sign about the director of health here in Ohio who people are unhappy with.

And I asked in a chat room that I'm a part of, does anyone know the woman holding this sign? And a woman said, I'm the one holding the sign. And I was a little surprised she was in the group because again, this is so many Christian people. All right, I'm going to switch gears for a second because I live in a noisy house because I have children and I hear everything because my microphone picks up all these little noises. and I think that if you listen to this podcast if the sounds of my children are if they bother you because you hate children I don't want to know if the sounds of other noises actually ruin it or make it so you can't hear things let me know but I'm trying to record right now while people are actually awake which is a little different from normal also but so I'm in this chat room and this woman says she made the sign and I gave her the benefit of the doubt and I said, can you tell me what this meant?

And I really wanted to just sharply rebuke her, but I didn't. And she told me what she meant by it And she sort of implied that she didn't understand the double entendre sexual innuendo of it, which I had trouble believing. But I said, well, I'm glad you didn't know this. And I asked her politely, as a friend in the group, as a fellow protester, and as someone who this group, I thought, should appreciate for using the platforms I have access to to defend them and promote their cause a little bit.

And the backlash was insane. I was actually compared to a tyrant because I wanted to suppress her free speech, which I had no desire to suppress anyone's free speech. I was kind of blown away by the immaturity of it all and I said to the woman it sounds like you don't understand free speech because free speech does not mean you may freely speak without consequence it doesn't mean you may speak without receiving rebuke it only means you can say what you want and in theory at least the government can't arrest you for it And so the idea that I wanted to censor this woman kind of bubbled to the surface, and people were a little bit defensive, and I was very disappointed, and I went to bed discouraged.

And then the next day, some people picked up the topic because, as I expected, other people saw this picture with this wicked phrase on it. And they addressed it with their friends who are part of the movement. And other people then when they discovered what this said because nobody really appears to have looked into it When other people realized what it said they were like I was and they wanted to disassociate with this woman And so I just say that because I was very encouraged.

It made me very glad when after 12 hours, a number of people who profess to be Christian, who I thought should have just taken my side on an issue, did end up taking my side. And there was one lady who right away just said, hey, I think Michael's very reasonable. Why don't we just consider what he said? But there's a lot of emotions flying right now. And the idea that you would defend someone that they don't like is abhorrent to them.

Some of the irony of being in the protests, and I've been to three of the protests or four of them, and I've preached the gospel at two of them. and one I just held a babies are murdered here sign and I've tried to get to know people and witness to people and talk to them and one of the things I've noticed that there are people who are at protests for Governor Mike DeWine in Ohio who are not there because they are conservative and they're angry with his liberalism and his overreach of the constitution some of them are just jumping on the we hate DeWine bandwagon because they're actually flaming liberals that want to elect a Democrat. And so I think we need to be very discerning about who and how we partner with people. And I guess what I want to encourage you about is my point here was this, that I enjoyed being in a group that I thought there was some agreement with.

I think some of what the group is arguing for is what I would also argue for. But I was not willing to be a part of a group that was going to also promote wickedness. That's not to say everyone in the group will always be perfect all the time, but I was very hopeful that this person would have at least said, hey, you know, you're right. A sign that implies that the director of health is doing this sex act instead of a sign that just exhorts her in some other way is actually hurting the cause.

And that was my hope, is that any logical non-Christian person would see, hey, there's no reason to use profanity and evil talk. So anyway, I just wanted to share that because I went to bed discouraged, and I woke up, and God encouraged me, and it was really a kind thing of him to do. So the friendly atheist has a couple of things that he wants to say. so in number 24 the friendly atheist says number 24 problems with christianity were more than halfway finished he says unbeknownst to most christians so oh this is gonna be scary the early christian church had two distinct divisions or denominations one was organized by the jewish followers of jesus his disciples and close associates.

The other was headed by Paul and is mostly non-Jewish followers. So this is obviously news to those of us in Christianity because apparently only non-believers know about our church history. The friendly atheist says the Jewish followers of Jesus were led by Jesus's brother James. This group did not view Jesus as being divine, which would be unquestionably contrary to the Jewish faith, but rather a prophet setting the stage for the coming of the new kingdom of Israel to be established on earth.

Jesus said, I and the Father are one in John 10. And when he said that, the Pharisees picked up stones again to stone him, the Jews did. And so yes, it's absolutely true that Jews were offended by what they considered blasphemy when Jesus made himself equal with God. but Jewish followers of Jesus acknowledged that he was God. That's like the huge distinction between being a Jew and being a Christian, is you understand that Jesus is the Messiah that's been promised by the Old Testament scriptures.

So the idea that Jewish Christians liked Jesus but didn't think he was God is historically inaccurate. it's impossible to be reconciled with the biblical accounts, which certainly the friendly atheist doesn't care about, but I do. And it's kind of a silly distraction. He continues, as mentioned earlier, they viewed the empty tomb as evidence that God had resurrected Jesus into heaven.

Well, the Jewish followers that we read about, like Peter and John and the apostles, saw him. Thomas touched him and said, my Lord and my God. They ate fish with him. They watched him ascend into heaven. These guys were Jews. So I don't know where he gets this other than redaction.

So he may argue, I haven't reread this in a while. He may argue that later people went into the Gospels and redacted them to say something else. he says before that they were certainly disillusioned by the crucifixion because it was not an expected outcome of jesus's mission that's true people did not figure that out till afterwards even though jesus told them the son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise luke 24 7 so jesus predicted it and yet they didn't they didn't understand it when it happened after all Jesus had just been defeated by the very forces he intended to overcome so he just thinks they're in confusion it's also likely that Jesus himself did not expect to be put to death of course he predicted it repeatedly his complaint to God for being abandoned as recorded in the gospel of Matthew 27 46 is probably one of the few biblical statements by Jesus that can be assumed true because of its disparity with the main gospel message So Matthew 27 46 the atheist says that a true statement That it really happened Because it actually contradicts the Gospels he's saying. Matthew 27, 46.

One of the best verses in the entire Bible. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli, l'ma sabachthani. That is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The bystanders had no idea what he was saying. But Jesus knew the scriptures. He knew the predictions that had been made about his own life.

And so if you go to Psalm 22, a psalm Jesus would have been familiar with, a psalm that most assuredly was written about Jesus, a psalm that Jesus fulfilled. It says to the choir master, according to the Doe of the Dawn, a psalm of David. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus is directing people to read Psalm 22 so that they might understand what's going on.

He says, why are you so far from saving me from the words of my groaning? He's proclaiming his forsakenness by God. He's not surprised. He's proclaiming it. He says, oh my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer him by night, but I find no rest. He's suffering the consequences of sin because he took the sin of the world on top of him.

He says, yet you are holy and thrown down the praises of Israel and you are fathers trusted. They trusted and you delivered them. To you they cried and were rescued. In you they trusted and were not put to shame. So he reminds the people of the faithfulness of God to deliver his people when they trust him. And he says, but I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people.

All who see me mock me, they make mouths at me, they wag their heads. So here's Jesus. Jesus is being described by David in Psalm 22. This is exactly what's happening to Jesus. He's a worm, scorned by mankind. He's mocked and scoffed at.

They wag their heads. I know that feeling to a limited extent of standing on the street and preaching the gospel. Someone walks by, someone who looks respectable. They may even say they're a Christian. And they put their head down and they just shake it side to side in utter disappointment of what I'm doing. And it's mocking and it hurts. and then the Psalm 22 verse 8 predicts what's happening.

It says, he trusts in the Lord or Yahweh. Let him deliver him. Let him rescue him for he delights in him, which is exactly what the people were saying. If you're the son of God, come on down from there. It says, yet you are he who took me from the womb. You made me trust you at my mother's breasts.

Did David trust the Lord? From the time he was a baby? We have no reason to believe it. But Jesus certainly never was without the Holy Spirit. When he was in the womb, he was taken out by God. When he was delivered and he trusted in God his whole life.

He's the only person that can say, I've been a Christian my whole life. John the Baptist may have been saved in the womb, but it certainly wasn't from the moment of conception. He was conceived in sin. So in 22.10, On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother's womb you have been my God. So Jesus proclaims the faithfulness of God. He says, Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help.

There is no one to help him. He's all alone. He's outside the camp. Many bulls encompass me. Strong bulls of Bashan surround me. They open wide their mouths at me like a ravening and roaring lion.

How frightening. I am poured out like water and my bones are all out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted within my breast. David writes in Psalm 119, my heart, my soul melts away for sorrow. Strengthen me according to your word, he says.

Psalm 119, verse 28. He says, my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws. You lay me in the dust of death. I mean, he's describing his death. For dogs encompass me. This is just wicked.

We're not talking about friendly pets in Ohio in 2020. We're talking about basically street rats, right? Dogs, ugly and dirty creatures. company of evildoers encircles me. They have pierced my hands and feet. Is there any more need you have for me to tell you this psalm is a description of the crucifixion and that Jesus Christ is drawing people's attention to the prophetic words of it?

He's on the cross suffering for people's sins and his concern is for them to understand what's happening so they might be saved. how many of us would care about anyone else if we were suffering even a little bit all he can do is think about others he says i can count all my bones if you just imagine the amount of pain rushing through your body where you can feel your bones They stare and gloat over me. He's up there naked, right? Which, my understanding, naked doesn't mean what we would consider buck naked, but stripped bare.

Probably still covering private parts and things like that, but certainly exposed in a modest way, a way that is not becoming of a prince of peace. So he says, they divide my garments among them. For my clothing they cast lots, which prophesied and comes true. His garment was woven of one piece, and they cast lots for it. He's alive. He looks down, he knows they're going to do this because it's predicted, and then they do.

He says, but you, oh Yahweh, do not be far off. Oh, you, my help, come quickly to my aid. He's asking for help. But help won't come right away. Because Jesus is literally, I don't know if literally is the right word, but Jesus has become sin for us. Our sin is imputed to him and he is treated as if he had committed all of the abominations that we commit even in our hearts.

He says, deliver my soul from the sword. my precious life from the power of the dog. Save me from the mouth of the lion. You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen. So he's just reminding people of God's faithfulness and his power to save. He says, I will tell of your name to my brothers. In the midst of the congregation, I will praise you.

So we've turned here. This is no longer focused on the suffering. It's focused on after deliverance, what's going to happen. He says, you who fear Yahweh, praise him. All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him and stand in awe of him. All you offspring of Israel.

If you read Psalm 22 and your interpretation of this is that this is a reference to the people of the nation of Israel or physical descendants of Jews. I stand in awe of your interpretive skills. And I don't mean that to be rude, but who fears the Lord and praises him but his people? The offspring of Jacob are the true Israel. The Jews, according to the spirit, not according to the flesh, glorify him.

In verse 24, he says, For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the affliction, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard when he cried to him, Yahweh redeems the life of his servants, and none of those who trust in him will be condemned. When the righteous cry for help, Yahweh hears them and redeems them, delivers them from all their affliction. Sorry, that was some of Psalm 34, but I'm seeing crossover here.

He says, for you comes my praise in the great congregation. My vows I will perform before those who fear him. So now he's proclaiming victory. God has not totally put him to shame or hidden his face from him. God, who is too holy to look upon evil, looks upon us because he has imputed Jesus' righteousness to us. And now we can praise him in the great congregation.

We can perform our vows. it says the afflicted shall eat and be satisfied Jesus Christ will rise again he will eat he's going to eat that fish and then he's going to go to heaven he's going to go to the wedding feast of the lamb Jesus says all who hunger come to me and you won't hunger again if you thirst come to me and you won't thirst again believe in me taste and see that the Lord is good blessed are the righteous or blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied it says here the afflicted shall eat and be satisfied Jesus is our representative he's the afflicted one and we must suffer with him all the ends of the earth verse 27 shall remember and turn to Yahweh so now we have the proclamation this is open to the gospel or to the Gentiles. The gospel is open to the Gentiles. They'll turn to Yahweh and all the families of the nations shall worship before you.

People from every tribe, tongue, nation, and language will worship the Lord God through Jesus Christ. All the ends of the earth. Praise him, all nations. Extol him, all peoples. For great is his steadfast love toward us and the faithfulness of Yahweh endures forever. Praise Yahweh.

Psalm 117. Psalm 22, 28 now. for kingship belongs to Yahweh and he rules over the nations so there we go Jesus put to death with a sign that says king of the Jews and the Jews didn't want that sign put up and Pilate said what I've written I've written and the problem with the sign is it should have just said the king nobody knew what they were dealing with and he rules over the nations. He's sovereign.

All the prosperous of the earth, verse 29, eat and worship. Before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even the one who could not keep himself alive. Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Posterity shall serve him. It shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation. Psalm 22 proclaims that Jesus would come suffer this way and then he would his name would live on forever and the friendly atheists He doesn't see that as evidence of a prophetic voice in Psalm 22, because he's blind.

It says, they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it. You have the apostles. You have Jude, James, Luke, John Mark. and they have written down Jesus Christ's righteousness. They have proclaimed it in such a way that people like me, who were yet unborn, had his righteousness proclaimed to them that he has done it.

It is finished. So that's Psalm 22. Jesus Christ believes that's about him. He believes it describes the situation he was in. it's a psalm of lament and a psalm of victory so yeah his complaint to God for being abandoned is recorded in the gospel of Matthew according to the friendly atheist it's not a complaint it's a proclamation of victory over sin and death and evil and it's condemnation on the unrepentant Friendly Atheist continues, With the belief in a resurrection, Jesus' closest followers were refocused to continue to follow his gospel and expect a quick fulfillment.

They waited several decades after the crucifixion. In contrast, Paul viewed Jesus as being both human and divine. Paul envisioned a heavenly kingdom that was open to all peoples, without any obligation to perform good works. He explains Paul somewhat well in a way. His problem is he tries to create two Gospels. He tries to create this Jewish Gospel that believed in a different type of Messiah than the one Paul says was always prophesied, the one Psalm 22 prophesied, which is a Jewish Scripture in that sense that we're talking about it.

The atheist says, for obvious reasons, a conflict developed between Paul and the original apostles, which shows up in the book of Acts and Galatians. He believes that. Like, dude, your whole shtick is that the Bible's wrong about everything. And then, oh, but by the way, this Bible that's been thoroughly redacted to make Paul look good was then also records a truthful conflict between Paul and the Judaizers.

When Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70, the Jewish Christians were decimated This eliminated the opposition to the Gospel of Paul which then became the template for the new religion of Christianity So Paul had all this opposition until AD 70 And then when the Jews were decimated, which means 10% of them were eliminated, which is not enough to ruin a culture. I would guess he means that's more than 10, but he just makes up history. It's like impossible to even explain what's wrong with it other than it's just made up.

It says, in summary, Jesus was a failed prophet. It's almost hard to say that out loud after what I just read to you. He was ultimately well understood by the Jews, and Paul reversed Jewish theology by viewing Jesus as a God-man and viewing his death as a final sacrifice for the propitiation of sins, making unnecessary any further animal sacrifices that were standard rituals in the Jewish temples.

He adequately explains Paul's theology, which is also the same theology as Peter and the apostles and the prophets, that Messiah would come and he would do the final sacrifice. He would be the once for all sacrifice for sins, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, the High Priest that would render the previous bulls and goats sacrifices unnecessary. Sacrifices that weren't even satisfactory to forgive sin in the first place.

So yeah, God destroyed the Jewish religion and he did it in AD 70 for certain but he did it before then when Jesus raised from the dead and ascended into heaven and God said the religiosity of the Jews is problematic the forms that he had them go through in the old covenant were no longer applicable and in fact the book of Hebrews lets us know they never were sufficient to forgive sins in the eyes of a holy God. And so the friendly atheist falls short of any historical reasoning, any fact-based discussion, but he does adequately explain with some good Bible words his death was a final sacrifice for the propitiation of sins, making unnecessary any further sacrifice. There is no further sacrifice.

So in that sense, we thank you. We thank the friendly atheist for adequately explaining some things that Catholics would get wrong And a lot of Christians that don understand even things like penal substitution or atonement get wrong So I hope that that was an edifying episode I thank you for bearing with me as I share some personal things. I found that when I listen to podcasts, my personal enjoyment often comes from feeling like I get to know the person a little that I'm listening to.

So this is my radio show. It's Be a Berean Podcast because I want to be more noble than those in Thessalonica and receive the word of God with joy and search the scriptures to be sure that things people say are true. And so I want to thank you for being a listener. I'd ask you to consider giving me some comments or feedback email me, whatever I try to avoid Twitter and Facebook sometimes so email is pretty good michael at thingsabove.us works and consider going to the Bible Thumping Wingnut network page and donating to what Tim's doing with the Bible Thumping Wingnut, consider going to the Builders Summit in November, builderssummit.org Let me verify that.

BuildersSummit.org. Yeah, BuildersSummit.org. It's a November 13 to 15, 2020. It's going to be a great weekend. Let's see, we got Austin Hetzler, Dustin Seegers, yours truly, Michael Foster, Tim Hurd, and Jeff Klewer is currently listed as the speakers. and so this is a chance to hang out do guy stuff and just fellowship with like-minded believers invite your church um i think there's group discounts if you if you bring enough people and the earlier you register the less you pay and the better accommodations you get i heard so i have registered of course i'm i'm expected to speak so it makes sense that i would be planning to go.

But I do want to promote that. I think it's a great joy to go do those kinds of things, to get away from jobs and wives and kids, not just to get away from them, but to do something that's a little unique and hopefully grow in our love for God and our wives and kids in periods like that. And if you don't have wives and kids, then still go and be discipled by men and have a good time of fellowship.

So don't let money or time be a problem. It's May 7. This conference is more than six months away. It's close to 190 days away. You have time to quit drinking Starbucks or buying Wendy at night or Taco Bell or whatever it is You have time to save the money to make a trip like this And you have time to get the days off work that you need and all that kind of stuff.

And so I ask you to consider coming and visiting us at the Builder Summit. And so until next time, keep an eye on thingsabove.us, my blog site. I'm going to be giving away a copy of the Jeremy Camp movie, I still believe. I'm halfway through watching it. I'm going to review it soon. It's spectacular, though.

If your goal... What did I say? Let me look this up real quick. So when I watch movies, particularly Christian movies, And one of the things that I want to be clear about is, so I understand, oh, where is it? Oh, it's not, I was looking at the wrong thing. Hold on.

I'm thinking I can only imagine. So I reviewed I Can Only Imagine on Things Above Us, and this was the statement I said. I would never ask you to turn off your discernment, and if you decide to watch this movie, which this one was about the guy from Mercy Me, the other one I'm talking about I still believe is Jeremy Camp. I said I would in no way advocate you ignore things about it that are incorrect.

So you can still call out things that you think are theologically inaccurate. it. But let me ask you this. Would your life story, even on your best day, be the picture of a Christian life exhibiting perfect doctrine? And so I like biographies, even of people who aren't exactly like me in doctrine and who, when they make a movie, may make a movie that even says some things that I don't like.

And so my hope would be that you wouldn't write me off because I watched the Jeremy Camp movie and so far liked it, even if it turns out to have some bad doctrine. With that, I'm going to sign off. Thank you for listening to Be a Berean with your host, Michael Coughlin. I am a writer at thingsabove.us, and I also have a personal website, michaelcoughlin.net. you can contact me by emailing me michael at thingsabove.us I hope that you have been encouraged to search the scriptures