7. JESUS BEFORE JESUS – THE PSALMS

As we end this series, here’s the last time you’ll be reading this announcement😊: All discussions in this series will be based on scripture. We established that the Bible is historically and archaeologically proven to be true through the materials provided in the Intro here. You can check out the rest of the series here.😉

David was a shepherd boy turn king. He was a man popular for many things. 

Among the many writers of the Psalms, David’s psalms had a touch of rawness. He cried, was frustrated, was elated, was angry…a range of genuine human emotions. In the midst of these, David wrote Psalm 22. When you read the Psalm, you immediately realize that some of the words David used became the words of the Lord Jesus on the cross. It is easy to assume that Jesus was merely repeating David’s words of agony, but the other portions of the Psalm defeat that thinking. The detailed facts of the kind of suffering in the Psalm were not events that happened to David himself. Some of the circumstances surrounding the sufferings and death in that chapter could not possibly have been in reference to David. I tried to find out what David was going through when he wrote Psalm 22…what was the context? The old Bible scholars did not figure it out! But it does not take much to realize that David was prophesying about the sufferings of this rejected Messiah even though he did not preface the psalm with these words. And that’s our meat for today…the manifestation of this prophecy about a hundred (100) years later. [Scriptures in blue are David’s words in Psalm 22, those in black are the fulfillment of the prophecy].

¹My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?

Matthew 27:46 –  And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

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

Isaiah 53:3 says of the Messiah: He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

⁷ All those who see Me ridicule Me;
They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
⁸ “He trusted in the Lord, let Him rescue Him;
Let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him!”

Matthew 27:41-43: Likewise, the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, He saved others; himself he cannot save. If He be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God.

¹² Many bulls have surrounded Me;
Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled Me.

Bulls are known for strength, but the bulls of Bashan were known particularly for their overwhelming strength, because Bashan was very fruitful city whose cattle were well fed and fattened [Deut. 32:14]. These bulls referred to the Chief Priests Caiaphas and Annas, Pontius Pilate, the Scribes and Pharisees who surrounded the circumstances and actual death of Jesus.

¹⁵ My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
my tongue sticks to the roof of my
mouth; you lay me in the dust of death.

One of the symptoms of what’s called the Dry Mouth Syndrome is the tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth out of thirst. In Psalm 69:21b, David writes again: “For my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” This is exactly what happened in John 19:28-29:

Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips.

¹⁶ Dogs have surrounded me; a band of
evil men has encircled me, they have
pierced my hands and my feet.

Here’s what Jesus said to Thomas [John 20:27-28, NASB]: “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.” Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”

In Luke 24:38, Jesus said: “Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself!”

¹⁸ They divide my garments among them;
and cast lots for my clothing.

Matthew 27:35-36: When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots. And sitting down, they kept watch over him there.

²⁷ All the ends of the earth will remember
and turn to the Lord,
and all the nations will bow down before Him,
for dominion belongs to the Lord
and He rules over the nations.
all who go down to the dust will kneel before Him.

Revelation 15:4b says of Jesus– All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed. And then David wraps up his prophesy beautifully with:

³⁰ Posterity will serve him; future
generations will be told about the Lord.
³¹ They will proclaim his righteousness to
a people yet unborn- for he has done it.

In Chapter 34, David adds: “…He protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken.” Over 600years later, John records in 19:31-37:

Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jewish leaders did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other. But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs! Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water… ³⁶These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken,” and, “They will look on the one they have pierced” [Zech. 12:10].

Above everything, here’s what blows my mind:

This was written by a man who lived 600-700 years before crucifixion itself was even invented!

It only makes sense that if God intended to share His Lordship with someone who walked the earth in human flesh, He’d ensure that He put in enough pointers to affirm any such claim. No other faith has such consistency from so many different unrelated men over the different decades and centuries and in such accuracy as this; not even the second largest religion which emanated from a single man who received the entirety of scripture from one angel. My honest hope is that this series has done something for your confidence in the faith you hold, and if you didn’t belong to the body of Jesus-lovers, that it has stirred up a certain desire in you. Follow up here. You can reach me via email here as well so we can keep in touch and in prayer for you! To every reader who’s followed from the beginning,

I love you! God bless you!

Rad! ⭐