A Psalm for Sunday, Psalm 22, verses 22 to 31, part two, 29 to 31, a seed shall serve him

 

Psalm 22:29  All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his own soul.

 

The fat is a reference to those who have plenty because all through history until recently having proof of your having plenty to eat showed your wealth and status.

 

Psalm 92:14  They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing;

 

Those that go down to the dust are the poor and the ‘wretched of the earth’ to use the name of Fanon’s book on revolution from the early 1960s.

 

Psalm 113:7  He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill;

 

Both poor and rich shall bow to God and neither of them can keep themselves alive.

 

Isaiah 45:23  I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.

 

Romans 14:11  For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.

 

They cannot escape death on their own.

 

Ecclesiastes 8:8  There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it.

 

30  A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation. 31  They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this.

 

I think this is a clear prophetic reference to those who will be born again in Christ. He generates their new birth and they come from Him spiritually.

 

John 1:12  But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: 13  Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

 

John 3:3  Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

 

1Peter 1:23  Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

 

This also speaks of the work of evangelism that Christians do when they declare, as an evangelist, Christ as the Saviour of the world and the creator of all things by which they are also sustained.

 

Here, Timothy is told by Paul to do the work of an evangelist.

 

2Timothy 4:5  But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.

 

Here the Word is said to have made all things.

 

John 1:1 ¶  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2  The same was in the beginning with God. 3  All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

 

Here the Word was made flesh, given skin and bones.

 

John 1:14  And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

 

Here Christ sustains and holds all things together and keeps them in play.

 

Colossians 1:17  And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

 

For the modern Christian in a country where they are tolerated somewhat or a country where their existence is not tolerated at all this is an affirmation of their faith in Christ and a recognition of the horror they are facing. I think we can see here the Christian in places in the communist and the Muslim world whose fate on earth hangs on a thread pleading for deliverance but acknowledging the Lordship of Christ and His enduring work through all the generations. I can envision one of these persecuted ones praying this Psalm as a prayer for help, for justice, and as a revelation of Christ in whom they have all their confidence.