The hind of the dawn - Psalm 22

Lord Jesus, when he walked along the Emmaus road, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. And I have reason to believe that this was one of the Psalms that he would quote in the upper room when he turned them to the law of Moses and the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me, he said. All things fulfilled that were written concerning him.

There are a number of Psalms that particularly present the Lord. I was asked recently a question, how many Messianic Psalms are there? Some have differed. A true Messianic Psalm is said to be one that is quoted in the New Testament with reference to the Lord.

But there is a sense in which the whole 150 Psalms are Messianic. Because in some of them, in all of them, we could find the Lord Jesus. But a true Messianic Psalm is one that has New Testament collaboration.

And this Psalm that we're going to look at for a few minutes is quoted seven times in the New Testament. One of the delightful things about a psalm like this, it gives us infallible proof of the divine accuracy and absolute purity of the holy scriptures. There's no one could read a psalm like this and see in it events 1,050 years ahead, foretold with absolute accuracy, and deny divine inspiration.

And so it strengthens the fundamental principle that all scripture is God-breathed. And when David wrote this lovely psalm, he did not know its content and its full meaning, neither do we. We're like paddling on an ocean.

When I have exhausted what I'm going to say in these few minutes, we will have paddled upon an ocean of thought and a drop of language that is in this beautiful psalm. It's the psalm of the sin-bearing Savior at Calvary. I'm going to say a few things about this Messianic Psalm.

There are many things I could say about it, but I want to be brief and to speak what particularly is upon my heart. First of all, this psalm has a distinctiveness that marks it as unique. Many of these Messianic Psalms, there are only a verse or a few verses in them that really refer to the Lord Jesus.

When we're reading a Messianic Psalm, we have to be careful that we don't apply what really belongs to the writer or to the remnant in a day to come to Christ. And so it takes the Spirit of God to guide us in our understanding of these Messianic Psalms. But this psalm, Psalm 22, is a psalm that primarily points in every word of it to the Lord Jesus.

It has its fulfillment in him, and that marks it out as absolutely distinct from many of the other psalms. Every part of this psalm brings Christ to our attention. The other wonderful, unique thing about it is this.

This is the only portion in the Bible where we have the Lord Jesus describing his own sufferings. There are many portions where we read of others describing his sufferings. In the Gospels, we have the facts of his sufferings, and in the Pentateuch, we have foreshadowings of his sufferings.

But in this psalm, it is really the Lord Jesus describing his feelings and his sufferings as he hung upon the cross. Christ describing crucifixion and the sorrows that he endured for our redemption. Mr. Darby tells us that this psalm expresses in the most unique manner the innermost feelings of our Redeemer as he hung upon the cross.

And therefore, we are on holy ground as we read a psalm like this. What a delightful psalm it is, Psalm 22, its distinctiveness. The next thing I might speak about, which you likely all know, is the divisions of the psalm.

It's usually being divided as verse 1 to 21, as the sufferings of Christ, and the remainder, the glories after these. That's the common division. I have divided it a little different.

I see three divisions in this psalm. It begins with crucifixion, and there we're standing in the presence of the priest of the altar, dying for our redemption. Christ offering a sacrifice, the crucifixion.

And then it passes to the conquest, and now it's not the work of the priest, but it's the words of the prophet. I will declare thy name unto my brethren. The conquest of the risen Christ is here, and then the psalm ends with the crowning of the king.

He is the governor among the nations, and the kingdom is the Lord's. And the whole world will bow at his feet, so we have the sovereign, the priest, the prophet, and the sovereign. The work of crucifixion, the work of the priest, and then the words of the prophet in resurrection, fulfilled when he spoke to Mary.

I will declare thy name unto my brethren. And then the crowning of the sovereign in a day to come, taking us to the millennial reign of our glorious Lord. Delightful division of the psalm.

It is distinct. It is divided. But now I want to speak about the details of the psalm for a moment.

There are over 30 things in this psalm that have been fulfilled in the person of Christ already. And there are many things to yet be fulfilled when he comes. And there are other things that are being fulfilled at this moment in this delightful psalm.

The details are amazing. It was written 500 years before the Persians invented the mode of death known as crucifixion, which is the most terrible of all deaths that a human being can die. It was so terrible that the Roman Caesars never allowed a man to be crucified in Italy.

And no Roman ever died upon a cross. It was reserved for slaves and the vilest of criminals. And here, a thousand and fifty years before Golgotha and Calvary, they pierced my hands and my feet.

It was fulfilled to its every detail, this delightful psalm. Even to the casting of lots upon my vesture. It doesn't only mean that they cast lots whose that seamless vesture would be.

But if the lots, if the dice, or whatever means of gambling they had, had been cast in the ground beside the vesture, fabric of scripture would have fallen down. But the dice was upon the vesture, Calvary. I can tell all my bones.

There was not a bone broken in the blessed body of the Lord. There are 28 bones in a human hand. Most of you know that.

More bones in the hand from the wrist to the fingertips than any part of our anatomy. 28 bones in a human hand. 27 in a human foot.

Any surgeon will tell you it's impossible to drive a spike, an iron spike, through the palm of a man's hand. And by the way, I believe it was through the palms of his hands. I'm saying that because there's a teaching abroad that he was crucified by the wrists.

And some of the versions that we have today would imply that he was crucified through the wrists. But I believe it was the palms of his hands were nailed to the cross. But not even a tiny bone was shattered.

Think of it. 56 bones in the hands. Not one was shattered or broken.

And 54 in the human feet. Not one broken. But then the soldier came to break the legs.

Will the God who has preserved the tiny bones preserve the largest bone in the body? Because the largest bone in the human body is the thigh bone. And that was the bone that was broken, causing shock and instant death to the malefactors. But the soldier dropped his mallet.

God caused him to drop the hammer and to take the spear that was thrust into the bosom of the Savior at Calvary. For they shall look upon me, marvelous that in Zechariah, hundreds of years before he was born, the pronoun is, they shall look upon me whom they pierced. One of the incidental proofs of the absolute deity of our blessed Lord.

God was speaking before he came into manhood at all, as the one that would be pierced for Israel's salvation. And as a mute testimony to the fact that he laid down his life for the little flock, Calvary. So there are details here.

And design is here. And character and distinctiveness. But I'm going to speak just for these few minutes.

Now there's only 30 minutes left. The time seems to go very, very quickly on an occasion like this. I'm going to speak about the designation of this Psalm.

I don't know whether you've ever heard anyone speak for a half an hour in the designation of this Psalm. I love to speak on these titles of these beautiful Psalms, mascal titles and so on. But here we have a title that is unique to one Psalm in our Bible, Ejileth Shachar, the Hind of the Dawn.

It's to the chief musician upon Ejileth Shachar. There's a great difference of opinion. Some think it's a musical instrument, and others think it's the rising sun shining through the clouds like the horns of a deer.

But a hind has no horns. A hind is a female animal here in this sin offering. Psalm, we have the hind.

It's interesting to notice that in the Levitical books, the types that are used of the death of Christ and of his sufferings, the lamb, and the ox, and the dove, and the sheep, and the goat. But when we come to the poetic books, it's the heart, and the hind, and the roe, and the gazelle. In keeping with the poetic character of these five books that form the great central theme of the Old Testament, because the Old Testament is structured, the first 17 books of our Bible are historical books, and the last 17 books in the Old Testament are prophetic books.

And in the center, we have five beautiful poems, the poetic part of our Old Testament. And it's one of the most beautiful parts of the Bible. The Hebrew poetry that make up Job, the book of suffering.

Psalms, the book of singing. Proverbs, the book of sonship. Ecclesiastes, the great theme is under the sun.

All is vanity. But in the song, it's above the sun, one that is altogether lovely. What a beautiful poetic section that is in our Bible.

Now, Ageleth Shatter was given to the chief musician. Heman was the chief musician that received this song first, and he was to put a tune to it. And in order to sing and to put a suitable music to this song, he was to consider the key to the psalm, which was a hind rising up out of the darkness in the rising sun, silhouetted against the horizon, the hind of the dawn.

What an amazing thing. One of the things I would say about this is that whatever else it means, it shows us that the music would be tender in its character. I'm glad you sang that hymn tonight, because it's one of my favorites.

Whenever I meet Sir Edward Denny in heaven, I'm going to shake hands with him and thank him for some of the beautiful hymns that he has written. And that's one of them that I love. The Father in his willing love could spare thee from aside.

Our brother could have given out no more suitable hymn than that tonight, in keeping with the character of this ministry that I hope to give. But the tune to the hymn adds character to the words. And so the presenter in any gathering should have tunes that are suitable to the solemnity and sweetness and seriousness of the hymns we sing, especially about the Lord himself and Calvary.

So here we have the musician considering the hind of the dawn. Now I have long believed, because most of you know that in the symbolic interpretation of Psalm 22, we are in the realm of animal life. The enemies of Christ are viewed as bulls, dogs, wild oxen, and the lion.

And then we have two figures of the Lord himself, the hind of the dawn, and the worm trodden underfoot. Two little creatures. The difference in the two creatures that represent the Lord Jesus is this, that the hind is a subject of desire to the eye.

Gentle creature, shows the desirableness, loveliness of his person. But the worm is the object of disdain. The object and subject of disdain, an object to be despised, while the hind is an object to be desired.

But the reason they are placed here is not for that reason, but both these creatures are two of the most devoted of all the creatures that God has created. It's the affection of the hind that's in view. In Proverbs 5, we read, let thy wife be unto you as a loving hind.

The hind is marked by deepest affection, deepest affection. On the worm, in this passage, the worm that is here is a worm that is marked by deepest affection. Perhaps you've never heard that before, but I have researched this particular worm that is here, sometimes called the tola worm or the rat dye worm.

In Mexico, they crush the worms and bring the dye from them. But this worm is not crushed for its dye. But this particular worm attaches itself to a tree, like a limpet, and hatches its eggs upon that tree.

And then, when those eggs are hatched, that particular worm exudes from its body a dye that protects those newborn worms as they crawl down the tree, the place of their birth. But the mother dies on the tree. The mother gives her life on the tree, clinging like a limpet to the tree in devotion.

And that dye covers those tiny worms as they move out from the hatching place into a world. And that worm is marked by deepest devotion for our young, dying on the tree. The ram skins dyed red were dyed with the dye that came from those worms that were found clinging like limpets to the stakes or stumps along the desert.

And it always speaks of devotion. The white skin of the ram dyed red with the blood of a worm. So here we have two creatures marked by affection.

I'm going to speak of one, the hind of the dawn. In this psalm, it's a key to the understanding of the psalm. And in the study of this creature, this docile, agile, delicate, affectionate creature, a hind, marked by deepest devotion.

One of the things that mark the hind is the character of its eyes. The eyes of a hind are most touching. But there are great fundamentals.

Recently, I was ministering about some of the birds and animals of the Bible in a place, and I was preaching the great fundamentals of our Christian faith are found in these different animals and birds of the Bible. And for instance, in Leviticus 14, the two sparrows. There are seven fundamental teachings of Christianity wrapped up in two sparrows.

All the great truths. Men today, they point to that which is great and wondrous to display their ingenuity. But God points me to two little sparrows to teach me the worth and loveliness of Christ.

He points me to a little cake baked in an oven to tell me of his sufferings at Nazareth and his spotless life down here. He points me to manna on the ground, telling of his open ministry and manna in a pot to tell me of his hidden ministry. The little things of the Bible speak the loveliness of Christ.

And so this hind, there are a number of things that I'm going to say about the hind that bring before us the great foundations of our faith. And these need to be preached today. There is an attack being made in the world and in the religious world as well, particular upon the great truths of Christianity and the assembly of God is the pillar and bulwark of truth.

And we need to emphasize these great truths today. Sometimes we take it for granted that all the Lord's people are familiar with them, but we need ministry along these lines. I've been encouraging our brethren in Canada to have ministry outlining the preexistent glory and the virgin birth.

And as Luke puts it in his gospel in five heads, the virtuous life, the vicarious death, the visible ascension, and the victorious resurrection, and the verity of his coming again, for he's coming is very near. These are the great bastions of truth that need to be established and proclaimed wherever we go. And if it's not preached in the assembly, it's hardly likely it'll be preached in other parts.

Some of the truth may be preached, but we can preach all the truth. And we have plenty to preach about. We don't need entertainment.

The Bible is sufficient. And when the word is ministered aright, the saints will assemble and they will appreciate the ministry of each person. And so I'd like to mention the hind.

Now, I must get started for there's only 20 minutes left and I haven't got here yet. Now, the first thing I'm going to say about the hind is this, and these are all from the Bible. It's not the descriptions of the hind from books on natural history, though very valuable to read, but from the Bible itself.

And the first thing about the hind is the mystery associated with birth in the hind. It's a mystery. And in this psalm we have the mystery.

Thou didst take me out of the womb. A marvelous statement, that. The Lord Jesus, at his birth, Mary had no midwife to attend her.

Even in the darkest day in Egypt, Pharaoh was a cruel king, but he allowed them to have a shepherd and a puerh at the giving of birth. But when the Lord was born, Mary was alone. She had a midwife.

It's been often said that his conception was divine and his birth was natural. I'm not sure. I don't like that statement too much.

This tells me that there was a mystery associated with his coming. Thou art he that took me out of the womb. His birth was under the superintendence of God.

And that's a mystery. Because the virgin birth is a mystery. It's inscrutable.

Because Mary was a virgin in the fullest physical sense after his birth as well as before. She bore children later by ordinary means, but she was a virgin both before and after the birth of our blessed Lord. The virgin birth.

Now how do we associate that with the hind? Whenever God wanted to show Job how little he knew, in the thirty-ninth chapter of that beautiful part of the book of Job, he said, Canst thou tell the time that the hinds do calve? Canst thou tell the number of their months? Those who follow the hind, men I've spoken to that understand a great deal about the hind, the deer. They tell me that this particular hind, you cannot tell when it's carrying, it's young. There's no evidence that it's going to give birth.

And no one can tell when the hind will calve. Psalm 29 says, The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve. A marvelous statement.

Whenever these hinds carry their young, you can't tell when they're going to bear their young. There's a mystery shrouding the birth, the giving of birth by a hind. It's associated with mystery.

The mystery of the virgin birth of our beloved Lord is a mystery. I'm sure you've often heard that whenever a child was to be born into a Hebrew family, the father sang. Or when a child was born, when a son was born, the father of a Hebrew, whom he always made up a doxology of praise to God.

Zechariah, for instance, sang unto the Lord because of the birth of John the Baptist. But it's an amazing thing. Look at the poetic part of the New Testament.

He's the great man of the poems of the New Testament. And the opening part of the gospel is full of those lovely poems that Luke wrote. It's amazing that Joseph never sang of the birth of the Savior or of the conception of the Savior.

It was always the father that did sing. Joseph didn't sing. But Mary sang, My spirit doth rejoice in God my Savior, my soul doth magnify the Lord.

Why? Because he had no earthly father. He had a mother when he came into humanity. I was walking through a cathedral once many years ago and I found these words and I wrote them down.

I became what I never was before. I am what I have ever been. I continue to be what I was and what I became, God and man in one person.

The very basis of what we believe as Christians is the hypostatic union. Simply means the union of two natures in one glorious person. I was in the island of Bermuda having some meetings and in one of the assembly I go to there, they're very, very highly educated people.

Most of them have been at Cambridge University in Oxford. There were three doctors there and there was a knight of the realm in the assembly there and lawyers. But there was a headmaster there, a brilliant man, and I was in his home and I said, that's a large Webster dictionary you have there, the comprehensive one.

He showed me his library and I said, what's the most important word in it? He looked at me, baffled. Well, I said, the most important word for us is the word hypostatic. He said, I never heard of that word.

Well, I said, let us look it up. And the Webster comprehensive dictionary says that hypostatic union is the union of two natures, divine and human, found in one person, Jesus Christ. Father has a hypostatic union, neither has the spirit.

God is spirit. No angel has hypostatic union and we certainly will be like Christ, but we'll never be possessed of divine and human natures. There's only one person, I say it reverently, in all the universe, and that's the man that bears the marks of Calvary.

He alone possesses in himself that which is divine and eternal and perfect humanity in one person. You can't divide the natures in Christ. That's one of the errors into which Christendom was plunged.

As man, he did this. As God, he did that. He was always God and man in one.

Can't divide the natures in his glorious person. There's also the teaching as if he inhabited a body, but the Bible makes it clear that he was spirit, soul, and body, and true humanity, and yet never ceasing to be what he was before, though veiling his glory when he came into humanity. Wonderful, the mystery of incarnation.

Incarnation is becoming flesh. Don't mix that up with a virgin birth. The virgin birth is the means by which he became incarnate.

Great is the mystery of godliness. He who was manifest in flesh, he became flesh by an act of his own will and dwelt among us. Glorious truth, the mystery.

Now, the next thing here about the hind that I'd like you to think about is the manner of the growth of those little hinds when they're calved. You see, again God said to Job, they grow up in good liking and are in the open fields. Everything in the field, everything in the surroundings of the hind when born is against any advancement, against the progress of life.

Those hinds are preyed on by the beasts of the forest and by men. One of the mysteries of genetics is that they haven't died out. God has preserved them, and he has preserved them from every onslaught to destroy them.

When the Lord was born, there was an onslaught to destroy him. All the children from two years old and under were slain, but he preserved. He was preserved, and he grew up.

The word here, growing up in good liking, I link it with Isaiah 53. He grew up before them as a tender plant, because the hind is tender. The tender plant reminds us of the tenderness of Christ as he grew up.

He was possessed of omnipotence, but yet he increased in wisdom and in stature, and yet he knew everything. What does it mean? It means that in every stage of development, his behavior was becoming to that stage of growth, and yet he was possessed at the same time with all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. He grew up on the open field at Nazareth and brought pleasure to the heart of God.

The hind of the dawn, mystery of birth, manner of growth. But listen, majesty of daring. Make my feet like hind's feet.

Three times, 2 Samuel 22, Psalm 18, Habakkuk 3, 19. The desire of godly man to have the steps of a hind. There's only one man that was ever here that had the steps of the hind, the footsteps of the shepherd.

The steps of Christ never took a step that was out of place, never walked anywhere that he had to come back. He was always at the right place. Psalm 1. Many brethren would tell you that Psalm 2 is the beginning of messianic salmon character, but a rabbi pointed out to me years ago that the verb walk, stand, and sit is a verb that covers a man's whole life.

Blessed is the man that walketh not at any time in the counsel of the ungodly. Some men have walked part of the time, Joseph, Daniel, and so on, but there was only one man whose steps were always majestic, from the manger to Calvary. Think of it, make my feet like the feet of a hind, swift, sure-footed, steadfast, moving in dignity along the path of life.

Now, Jeremiah chapter 14, to me, is one of the most interesting chapters in the prophecy of Jeremiah, because those who read English literature will tell you that it's the greatest poem, the first six verses of that chapter, the greatest poetic language describing a famine that is to be found anywhere in the English language. That marks Jeremiah's prophecy, 14, 1 to 6, as a tremendous thing. And then the next three verses describe the prayer of Jeremiah in those famine conditions, but the prayer of Jeremiah in the famine conditions were echoed, the very words were echoed by the two as they walked along the road to Emmaus.

It was one of the principles of biblical interpretation in the realm of hermeneutics, and that is that whenever we find a person considering a scripture, that is where we begin to interpret to such an one. If Philip found the eunuch reading Isaiah 53, he began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus. Whenever the Lord came along the Emmaus road, he found two men quoting from Jeremiah 14.

You see, in that chapter we read these wonderful words of Jeremiah, in light of the fact that hope seemed to be dashed, he said, O thou who art the hope of Israel, and the Savior, why art thou like unto a wayfaring man that turns aside for a night? Later on they said, Abide with us. Exactly what Jeremiah said, Leave us not. They looked upon him as a wayfaring man when he came up the road behind them, and he heard them speaking, and he said, What things? And they stopped on the road.

The revised reading makes it clear that Cleophas stopped and looked at him, and he said, Art thou only a stranger? That's a quotation from Jeremiah 14. Jeremiah said, Thou art the hope of Israel, art thou only a stranger unto us, and a wayfaring man that turns aside for a night? And so they quote Jeremiah 14 to the blessed Lord on the road. We hoped that he would have delivered Israel, but he's not the Savior.

We have been disappointed. Later on they said, Abide with us. And then we read these words.

He began to expound on all the scriptures, the things concerning himself. Did he begin at Jeremiah 14? I believe he did. Jeremiah 14 describes famine conditions, tells us of the nobles that send their little ones and they return without water, tells of the plowman covering his head because the ground is barren and chapped and he's embarrassed, tells of the wild asses that snuff up the air like jackals, and then in the midst of it we read of the hind.

And here's where we read, the hind of the field forsaketh her calf for there is no grass. No grass. A hind never forsakes her calf under ordinary conditions.

A hind has been known to kick wolves and even to protect her calf against lions that have come to take away the young. But here's a hind doing something that a hind generally never does. Looks at a calf and in despair the hind turns away from her calf for there is no grass.

In Genesis 21 I see a woman and she turns away her face from Ishmael and she said, let me not see the death of my son. In Genesis 22 in the psalm that in the hymn we were singing is based upon it, we have a father and he turned away his face from his son. He couldn't bear to see the distress of Isaac on the altar.

He lifted up his eyes and looked away from the sight. Psalm 22 to the chief musician upon age aleth shahar. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me? We know it was our sins laid upon him thou art holy.

We teach it that God turned away because he was dealing with him on account of our sin. There's something more here. Sintra Thompson had in that lovely hymn when she wrote, did thy God in there forsake thee? Turn his face from thy deep need.

In that face once mardon smitten all God's glory. Now we read, the misery of the dying hind turned away. The hind forsake of her calf.

There's no grass. The darkest hour on Calvary was the hour that God turned away his face from that holy one, bearing our sin upon the tree. One minute, Genesis 49, the Psalm here at verse 21 changes its tone.

And I think of the words of Jacob when he said, Naphtali is a hind let loose. He giveth goodly words. Here we have the magnificence of his resurrection.

Up from the grave he arose and he gave goodly words. Peter used the same words that Jacob used. Naphtali is a hind let loose.

He hath loosed the pangs of death. It was not possible that he would be pulled into it. He rose and he said to Mary, I ascend to my father and your father.

This Psalm is the Psalm of the two Marys. The first Mary, his mother, was the first eye to see him when he entered into humanity. Thou didst take me out of the womb.

Thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breast. Thou art my God from my mother's belly. Mary.

But the second part of the Psalm, in the part that refers to the glories after these, commences with Mary again, the first human eyes to see him risen from the dead. Mary Magdalene at the garden too. What a lovely Psalm it is.

Now I could speak till midnight on this Psalm, but you would never ask me back and I'd like to come. I used to preach with Mr. Campbell and he would say, Harald, don't tell them all you know the first night. So I hope someday again to come and give you a little more of these Messianic Psalms.

Shall we pray?