Beeson podcast, Episode 423
Dr. Allen Ross
December 18, 2018

Announcer:          Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Now your host, Timothy George.

Timothy George:     Welcome to today's Beeson podcast. One of the great blessings of working at Beeson is to have so many outstanding colleagues, great teachers, and scholars of the Word of God. One of those is Dr. Allen Ross.

Robert Smith Jr:    Yes, sir.

Timothy George:     He's been at Beeson since 2002. He teaches Old Testament and Hebrew, the author of many numerous books, used as textbooks in seminaries and colleges all around the world. He also is a fantastic Bible teacher in local churches and speaking all over the world. He is a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary where he also taught at one time. He's taught at Trinity Episcopal School for the Ministry. He has a PhD from the University of Cambridge. So, we're dealing here with a outstanding scholar, but who deeply loves Jesus Christ, loves his church, and he's speaking to us today from Psalm 22, the problem of unanswered prayer. Dr. Smith, can you introduce this to us a little bit?

Robert Smith Jr:    Dr. Allen Ross is a preacher-teacher par excellence. This is a real concern, he says, for Christians through all ages, the fact that Christians who are righteous Christians can pray a righteous prayer, and God does not seem to answer. Again, he, as an exegetical weaver, takes and weaves explanation, illustration, application, all throughout his presentation. Application is not reserved just for the end. He does not enter the texting, George, he uses the word seems three times in the first 40 seconds, seems.

Robert Smith Jr:    There's a strong sense of identity in his preaching. We are called to identify with David, so we see ourselves in the mirror of David. Bifocality, he's looking at the psalm through the lens of David and the believers. Second of all, he's looking at it in terms of what it meant as relates to the fulfillment of Christ. It's Trinitarian, the Holy Spirit is going ahead to reveal to us what the suffering of the Savior will look like, Psalm 22.

Robert Smith Jr:    Now I appreciate his structure, very, very moving of the introduction, the first 10 verses. It's a lament psalm, the need, the urgency of the request, the prayer is short. Finally, there is praise. And he makes a statement because he uses this idea that once David gets to a certain point, there is no longer any more time for prayer. It's praise. And as he says, we wait too long to praise. There's mystery. He says, "You have answered me," perfect tense in Hebrew. From that point on, as I said, it's time to praise God, not just thank God for what he's done, but for who he really is.

Robert Smith Jr:    Then finally, and it's very powerful, make sure that you pay attention to his conclusion in that he will say in the conclusion, we never know how God is going to answer prayer. Therefore, God may choose to answer prayer in a better way and at a better time. Therefore, since we don't know what God is doing with our prayers, keep on praying. So he uses the eschaton with his illustration to encourage us to pray in the present time knowing that God is fulfilling his purpose in our lives, even as we pray.

Timothy George:     Now this is a theme every Christian is concerned about, the problem of unanswered prayer. And it's from one of the great texts of the Bible, Psalm 22. Our colleague, Dr. Allen Ross, speaking in Hodges Chapel. Let's listen.

Allen Ross:         There are times when God seems to be silent, God seems not to be interested, God seems to be deaf, although we know none of this is true. Now I'm not talking here so much about the problem of unanswered prayer due to asking amiss or due to unconfessed sin in our lives or the lack of faith. I talking about righteous people praying righteous prayers and God seems not to answer, or he answers differently and we don't understand.

Allen Ross:         A couple of years ago, we had a fine young woman student who desperately needed an organ transplant, and the whole community prayed earnestly for her, again and again, praying for her. And after a while, the good news came that they had found a donor, and we rejoiced. She received the surgery and everything looked fine. And then she died. It leaves us asking a lot of questions, questions we don't have answers for. But every time when we walk by faith, we discover that the Lord doesn't work by our time table or by our preferences. Yet, it still remains a problem for us because we believe and have been taught that God answers prayer. Yet there are times when he seems not to.

Allen Ross:         Psalm 22 gives us probably the preeminent meditation on this problem, and we know it's a prayer of a righteous man, David, praying for deliverance from wicked enemies who are trying to destroy him, and trusting wholeheartedly, but God is not answering nor is he near, according to David. If you think perhaps, well, maybe David had some problems and we don't know about them and that's why the prayer wasn't answered, this psalm is also typological of Jesus Christ, and certainly Christ is a righteous man praying a righteous prayer, and it seemed not to be answered. We'll come to that in a moment.

Allen Ross:         By typology, I mean with some of these psalms, the Holy Spirit so inspired David that the words that he wrote may have been excessive for his situation, may not have been as close to his experience, maybe figurative, possibly hyperbolic, but they become historically true in Jesus Christ. So when we read a psalm like this, we have to read the passage on two levels, what it meant for David and the experience of an individual believer. We also have to look at the fulfillment in Christ.

Allen Ross:         The psalm itself is a typical lament psalm. It's easy to trace the pattern. Lament psalms have an introductory cry, just a verse or two, that will tell you what the problem is and that the person is crying out to the Lord. The only difference is that in this psalm, the introductory cry goes on for 10 verses. It's much more intense. That then will be followed by the lament proper, the need, the urgency of the request.

Allen Ross:         Then finally there will be the prayer. It'll be short. God has been thought about, prayed to, complained to, whatever, and now the petition to deliver him from death. Once the prayer has been finished, then the psalmist will give a praise. Usually it's a praise that is meant to be in anticipation of the deliverance, that is a rehearsal. "Lord, when you answer this prayer, then this is what I'm going to say in the sanctuary." But in this case, it looks very much like David's prayer was answered, and he breaks off his prayer and actually gives the praise. And we'll look at that in a few moments.

Allen Ross:         Let me walk you through the passage briefly so that you can get an idea both of the suffering of David and the problem of unanswered prayer, but also a little bit more of a picture of what the Holy Spirit wanted to reveal about the suffering of the Savior.

Allen Ross:         The introductory section goes in two cycles. It's interesting to see the pattern here. It's very instructive for us in building our faith. The introductory section will have a complaint, but then there will be a section of confidence, and then there'll be another section of complaint, and then another section of confidence. What it's going to show us is that people who have faith in the Lord build their confidence even when everything seems not to be working. They don't simply wait around and hoping against hope. They build their faith. They recall what God has done in the past. They strengthen their confidence as they continue to wait on the Lord.

Allen Ross:         He cries out to begin with. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" I don't know that anybody could say anything about that line that would improve its understanding in any way, except that his emphasis on God is my God. Repeating it, my God, shows the depth of his faith and the depth of this pathos. If he is my God, he shouldn't be forsaking me, but he is. That's what David is feeling. This is a lament. He's not asking a literal question. He's just pulling out, this shouldn't be happening to me if he's my God.

Allen Ross:         When we think about David, it's certainly the problem that God is not answering his prayer to deliver him from the enemies. And that same meaning would apply to Christ when he pours out this lament on the cross, but there's a world of difference, and this is the way typology works. For David, why have you forsaken me is the problem of unanswered prayer. For Christ, that word is fraught with significance, because on the cross he took our place. He was abandoned in our place, and because he was, it means that you and I who have put our lives in his care, will never be forsaken by God. It's the depth of the cries from the cross that you begin too see as you realize what these words meant both for David first and then for Christ.

Allen Ross:         But David is not getting an answer to prayer and he will elaborate on this. "Why are you so far from helping me?" You going to see in this psalm the theme of you're too far away, trouble is too near. That should be the other way around, but why are you so far from helping me? "Why are you so far from the words of my groaning. Oh, my God, I cry in the daytime and you are not near. In the night season, and am not silent." Day and night he's crying, praying to God. He hasn't told us yet what he's praying about, but we will learn quickly that he's praying to be delivered from people who are putting him to death.

Allen Ross:         David in this particular psalm is not sick. He is not in danger on the battlefield. It's not that situation at all. There are a group of people who are methodically trying to execute him. We have no knowledge of when this occurred in David's life, but then David lived a long time, had lots of enemies, and was in a lot of difficult situations. One of them was particularly life-threatening. It's the subject of this psalm. But having poured out that complaint first, God seems not to be listening to him.

Allen Ross:         He won't stop there because he wants to build his confidence up again by remembering that God has a history of answering prayer. He says it this way, "But you are holy, you who sit enthroned in the praises of Israel." How does the holiness of God help confidence when God doesn't seem to be answering prayer? Well, if you understand holiness, it means that the Lord is unique, he's distinct, he's different. The pagan gods have ears, but they don't hear. They have mouths, but they don't speak. God's not like that. He hears, he speaks. He's alive. Friends might hear his complaint, but they can't deliver him because they're impotent. But God's not like that. He's powerful. So everything about God sets him apart, and so he simply announces, "But you're holy, you're the only one that can deliver, the only one I can pray to."

Allen Ross:         In the process, he says you're enthroned in the praises of Israel. Well, God we know is enthroned in the sanctuary in the temple. That was the point, but he doesn't want to just say that. The temple is filled with people who are giving praise to God for answers to prayer, so much so that it's almost like God is sitting enthroned on all these praises. He's used to praises for answer to prayer. That doesn't harmonize with what he's got right now. So he goes further.

Allen Ross:         "Our fathers trusted in you. They trusted, and you delivered them. They cried to you and were delivered. They trusted in you and were not put to shame." It's a funny way to say that. Usually you would say, "They trusted and you gloriously delivered." But, no, he's making a transition back to himself now. "They were not put to shame as I am, and so you've got a history of answering prayer." And in the time when God isn't answering prayers, the righteous will recall and rehearse and remember all the ways that God has answered prayer down through the ages. He's the only one to pray to.

Allen Ross:         The second cycle then begins with the mockery of his faith. He says, "But I am a worm, and no man, a reproach of men and despised by people. All those who see me ridicule me. They shoot out the lip and they shake the head saying, trust in the Lord, let him rescue him, let him deliver him if he delights in him." The taunting that went on to David's faith as it did indeed the taunting of Christ on the cross. In fact, this is one of the most remarkable cases of spiritual blindness you find in all of the Bible. The Jewish leaders at the crucifixion, they knew that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah. They also knew that Psalm 22 was a messianic psalm, so let's just take some lines out of a messianic psalm to taunt Jesus on the cross with these very words, not realizing at the moment that they were fulfilling the Scripture in their ridicule and mockery of Christ. That's not ignorance, that's spiritual blindness.

Allen Ross:         But what David will do then is in spite of their taunting, he will rehearse his own spiritual pilgrimage. "You are he who took me out of the womb. You made me to trust while on my mother's breasts. I was cast upon you from birth, from my mother's womb. You have been my God, so do not be far from me, for trouble is near. There is none to help. All my life I've been brought up to trust the Lord. All my life I've been trained in the faith. All my life, you're my God."

Allen Ross:         In fact, he begins and ends this section the same way. "My God, my God." He's not going to abandon his faith now just because God isn't answering the prayer as he is praying it. He will remain steadfast to a lifelong faith and to be part of a congregation that has a history of answers to prayer, in spite of his own suffering, disappointment, and the mockery that comes from the world. This is his introduction, and we can learn very clearly how to build confidence just by watching what David is doing, because that's what the righteous will do.

Allen Ross:         Next we come to his lament, and here too he will go in two cycles. Now in a lament psalm, you can always get a brief outline because it will go in sections of they and I and you. First, the they, this is what they are doing to me. This is the I section, I'm suffering. And the you section, Lord, you're not doing a thing to help. Now the other two he can deal with, this one's the problem.

Allen Ross:         But he's going to use a lot of animal imagery here, and so he starts off in verse 12, "Many bulls have surrounded me. Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me." I hope you understand, there are no bulls there. These are the people. By referring to them as bulls, he will be describing them as insensitive, cruel, unreasonable, powerful, he's overwhelmed, and they have circled around him because they're triumphant. they have cornered him, he has no way of escaping. So the bulls describe the power of the enemies. Then he moves to lions. "They gape on me with their mouths, like a roaring and raging lion." Lions don't roar until they have captured their pray. So the enemies in their strength surrounding him, now the lion's ready to finish him off, 'cause they've cornered him, so he is describing the enemies with these ferocious animals.

Allen Ross:         That's the they section. Now he turns to the I section. "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, it is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd and my tongue clings to my jaws." So he's in real trouble. He has no more strength, he's drained, physically and emotionally. But most important in this description of his own suffering is that his heart, that is his will to live, he says is like wax. It's melting, meaning he's giving up. He is not fighting back anymore. The will to resist is gone, just like as easily as wax would melt under the pressure and the heat.

Allen Ross:         Then the third part of his lament is to God. "You are laying me in the dust of death." He doesn't describe it as the grave. He describes it as the dust of death, a place that is dry and dusty, and since he is now drying up and withering away, God is preparing him for the grave. Makes perfectly good sense, but it's, "Lord, you must be on their side if you're not delivering me." It's not unbelief, because if it were unbelief he wouldn't be saying this to God. It's a complaint to God. "Lord, if you want me to die, it's you who will do it, not these people. If you don't deliver me, then I will be in the grave. I will be dead. And it looks more and more like that's what you're doing." That's about what he's saying.

Allen Ross:         So that's round one. Now round two starts. We've done the bulls, we've done the lions, now the dogs. Sorry if you have dogs. This is not your favorite verse, I'm sure. Dogs, or shall I say jackals? "Dogs have surrounded me," and then to make sure you know who he's talking about, "a company of evil doers has encircled me. They pierced my hands and my feet." This is the description of these jackals. Now, jackals are kind of like vultures today. They don't come around until the carcass isn't moving anymore. They wait, and then I think what he's thinking of is he's got no energy. It's more of a description of himself than his enemies. He's got no energy. He can't fight back. He's not moving, and dogs might be coming around, and he's afraid they're going to start nipping at his extremities, puncturing hands and feet and would.

Allen Ross:         But of course the language is much more powerful than that for the crucifixion. We're dealing here with a prophecy David wouldn't have understood. They didn't do crucifixion in the Old Testament. Hanging on a tree in the Old Testament was impaling, not crucifixion. Crucifixion was an Etruscan invention, and so what he's describing here is the intense pain and suffering on a cross, the dryness, the thirst, the piercing of the hands and the feet, language that is very elaborate for David, but the Holy Spirit is writing the history of Christ ahead of time. It'll be the crucifixion.

Allen Ross:         So after describing the dogs, then he comes back to himself. "I can count all my bones," meaning that he is emaciated, that he is now without strength and with a loss of weight. He's skin and bones. "They look at me and they stare, and they divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing." That's the last indignity that you can show to a person. In Israel, the cloak is what you do not take until the person is dead. It's like the shirt off the back. It's like people in the waiting room for the surgery are arguing over the will.

Allen Ross:         You're dealing here with indignity. Yet, before he's even dead, they're dividing up his last possessions, which of course was literally true at the cross. So we're dealing here with the prophecies several times over, looking ahead to the cross very detailed. But in David's experience, great suffering, great indignity, great pain, great hostility from his enemies. Silence from God. So he is lamenting.

Allen Ross:         Now he turns to the actual prayer request. He says in verse 19, "But you, O Lord, do not be far from me. Oh my strength, hasten to help me." These are words of confidence that come in here. Instead of referring to them just as the Lord, "You're my strength," the confidence is still there in the Lord. So he says, "Deliver me from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's mouth." He's going back through the animals again in reverse. It was the bulls, then the lions, then the dogs. Now he goes the dogs, and lions, and go back to the bulls, but he never gets there. He says, "Save me from the lion's mouth and from the horns of the wild oxen."

Allen Ross:         But something strange happens in the text here. Most English Bibles ignore it. Unfortunately, I can't because I look at the Hebrew text. The verb "answer me" at the very end of verse 21 is not an imperative. It's not really a prayer. It is a perfect tense. "You have answered me." What we're dealing with here is something that Westermann in his writings on the Psalms refers to as the oracle of salvation. Sometime in the middle of the prayer, sometimes while the person is praying, something happens to let him know that God is beginning to deliver him. It could be the enemies retreat. It could mean he gains his strength. It could mean that there's help on the way. It could be anything. We're not ever told exactly what it is except a few examples. But it is a sign, it is evident that God is not through with him. So he breaks off the prayer.

Allen Ross:         The way I would translate this is to say, "Save me from the lion's mouth and from the horns of the wild oxen," I'd write a dash, "You have answered me." The reason that is so compelling is because from that point on in the entire psalm, there is not a word of complaint, there's not a word of suffering, there's not a description of his dilemma. It is nothing but praise from here through the end of the psalm. So something happened that gave David this burst of confidence, and when that happened, there was no reason to pray anymore. Now it's time to praise.

Allen Ross:         When the Lord begins to move, whether it be enemies receding or the fever breaking or deliverance from help on the way, whatever it is. For Jonah you might remember, it was being swallowed by the fish, because that's where he praises the Lord, not when he's back out on firm land. He figures God must not be through with me. Not out of it yet, but still this is the time to praise.

Allen Ross:         We wait too long to praise, and when we wait too long, we forget to praise unfortunately. So then David will praise, and this is what he will say. "I will declare your name to my brethren. In the midst of the assembly, I will praise you. All you who fear the Lord, praise him. All you descendants of Jacob, glorify him. Fear him, all you offspring of Israel."

Allen Ross:         Then the lesson, there's always a lesson in the praise. "He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted," meaning me. "And he has not hidden his face from him. But when he cried to him, he heard." God heard my prayer. God answered my prayer, which tells me he does not despise or reject or abandon the prayers of the righteous. He heard, and therefore, he will declare this to the congregation and tell them the lesson by his experience. "My praise shall be of you in the great assembly. I shall pay my vows before those who fear him. The poor shall eat and be satisfied." So they're going to come and they're going to eat the fellowship meal that he brings because they're praising God for what he has done.

Allen Ross:         But then he gives the instruction. Praise always does that. "Let your heart live forever." Now you have to go back into the psalm to see his heart, to understand that instruction. He said, "My heart was melting like wax. I had almost given up the fight. I'd almost stopped praying. I almost quit." But he says, "Here I am in the congregation, I'm telling you, he didn't despise my prayer. He answered the prayer, and so for those of you out there who are still praying, let your heart live forever. Don't give up. Don't quit praying. Keep on praying because you don't know how or when the Lord is going to deal with that."

Allen Ross:         We quit. We might say a prayer and if nothing happens, we go on and pray for something else. I had an interesting experience years ago. We were going to seminary banquet in Dallas, had it every year. We usually had a speaker, but this year we did not have a speaker. We had a film, something we made. We had a student come to the seminary who had been a pilot and had been shot down in Vietnam. He had spent many years in what came to be known as the Hanoi Hilton.

Allen Ross:         There was a lady from East Texas, we just happened to sit at the same table, and when he disappeared, became an MIA before they knew what happened to them, she had drawn his name out of a hat to pray that God would deliver him and that God would use him in some way to bring glory to his name. And she prayed, boy, did she pray every day. She did not know that after five years, he was released. She did not know that he came back to Dallas and entered seminary. She did not know he had graduated from the seminary and now was a chaplain in the Air Force. She did not know that he was here this evening. She sat there and watched on screen all the answers to her prayers. I didn't talk to her afterwards, couldn't find her. She made a beeline down to where he was.

Allen Ross:         I sometimes think heaven's going to be like that. You have no idea what God is going to do with your prayers, but you got to pray. Let your heart live forever.

Allen Ross:         So here David prays earnestly, how long we don't know. Somehow God doesn't let him die this time, and he delivers him, rescues him, and here he is praising God in the sanctuary.

Allen Ross:         Now with Christ we have an added dimension. In the garden, he prayed, "Let this cup pass from me." He prayed to be delivered from death, and Hebrews 5 says he was heard for his reverence. The prayer was answered. But he died. So that raises the question, how is the prayer answered?

Allen Ross:         Most Christian commentators come to the conclusion correctly so that between verse 21 and 22 of this psalm, the resurrection occurred. It's not just a convenient solution to the problem, not at all. It's very biblical, because verse 22 is quoted in Hebrews 2, and it is Christ in heaven giving the praise to the Father for the answer to the prayer that he be delivered from death. But that means that Christ's prayer was answered in a different way and in a different time than he prayed. A different time because he prayed in the garden and yet he was delivered from death at the resurrection. A different way because he wasn't rescued from the enemies who came to capture him, but from the world entirely.

Allen Ross:         We would have to agree that if it was a different way and a different time, it was a better way, a better time. A better way because he did not find himself rescued from his enemies to continue in this mortal flesh, like living in the world, but also better for us because his victory over the grave and the salvation that his death brought to us. A better time, a better way.

Allen Ross:         If that's true of the Son of God, then it is also going to be true of us as well. We know that very clearly because there are times God will answer the prayers in a different way. Why? Because Romans 8 tells us we do not know how to pray. It stands to reason if we don't know how to pray, then there will be times he will answer in a different way. Ephesians tells us that God is able to do more abundantly than we even ask or think. It'll be a better way.

Allen Ross:         So the word from David still applies, let your heart live forever. Keep on praying. Don't ever give up. But understand from the experience of Christ that he may answer your prayer at a better time, in a better way, and if not in this life, in the life to come.

Announcer:          You've been listening to the Beeson podcast with host Timothy George. You can subscribe to the Beeson podcast at our website, BeesonDivinity.com. Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational evangelical divinity school, training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. We pray that this podcast will aid and encourage your work, and we hope you will listen to each upcoming edition of the Beeson podcast.