These words are quoted by the writer of this epistle from the twenty-second Psalm and are cited here as a prophecy which finds it fulfillment in Jesus Christ. We have, therefore, New Testament authority for believing this to be a Messianic Psalm. That anyone should ever have questioned it is only a proof that "the natural man receiveth not the thing of the Spirit of God." The Psalm presents such a perfect portrait of the Crucified that only they who have never seen Him can fail to recognize the likeness.

Its address "To the Chief Musician" is mot fitting; for since " the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy "when the foundations of the earth were laid, Jesus has ever been the inspiration of the sublimest music, the theme of the sweetest of human and angelic songs.

The Psalmist sings in the title to the psalm of the "Hind of the Morning." Jesus is represented as a young hart surrounded by many foes. In the Song of Solomon also He is described as a "roe or a young hart" "leaping upon the mountains and skipping upon the hills"; but "until the day break and the shadows flee away, "Shulamith prays him to be like a roe or a young hart upon "the mountain of Bether," i.e., division, mountains that separate. And in the Psalm, "The Hind of the Morning" is hunted "upon the mountains of Bether", on rugged Golgotha He appears "forsaken" of His God, beset by "strong bulls of Bashan," by "ravening and a roaring lion," by "dogs and unicorns." "They fall upon Him in their fury and bring him into the dust of death." But in fulfillment of the desire of the concluding prayer of the Song of Songs, "Make haste, my beloved, and be Thou like to a roe or to a Young hart upon the mountains of spices." He comes again, when, on His resurrection morning, the day breaks for the world, and "The Hind of the Morning," "The Light of the World" exclaims, "I will declare Thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto Thee."

The Psalm begins as a solo, set in a minor key: "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? Why art Thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?" But as the twenty-second verse the plaintive minor strain is dropped, and the psalm concludes in a magnificent burst of choral symphony: "My praise shall be of Thee in the great congregation…all the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: And all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Thee. For the kingdom is the Lord's and he is the Governor among the nations. All they that be fat upon the earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before Him: and none shall keep alive his own soul. A seed shall serve him: it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation. They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this."

I shall try to show you how the Man of Sorrows converted discord into harmony, and changed the voice of weeping into a new song which is sung before the throne of God, and which none but the redeemed can learn. I shall ask you to think of The Divine Master, of the Theme of His Music, and of The Auditory of His Great Masterpiece.