Turn back in your Bibles to Matthew
27. We'll begin our reading at where
we left off, and that is in verse 45. Now from the sixth hour there
was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about
the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli,
lama sabachthani, that is to say, My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me? Some of them that stood there,
when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias. And straightway one of them ran,
and took a sponge and filled it with vinegar and put it on
a reed and gave him to drink. And the rest said, Let be, let
us see whether Elias will come to save him. Jesus, when he had
cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. It came to my mind this week
an old sermon that I read or heard sometime back in the fifties
or sixties. And it was entitled, Payday Someday. It was preached by an old preacher
who was a great orator. And it was said that he preached
this sermon something like a thousand times. God invited everywhere
to preach it. He's a great storyteller. very
emotional man. And so I went back and I sought
to find that message, and I did. And I read it again, and it struck
me more than ever that there was no gospel in it. No gospel. Great storytelling,
great oratory ability, very entertaining, and at times almost fearful. that there will be a payday someday,
but no gospel. And this is not what the gospel
is about. The gospel is the good news to
God's people that payday was that day. That day in our text. That's when payday was for the
Lord's people. And if you look here, The Jewish
day, as we find it described here, it began at about 6 a.m.,
I think. And so this cry of our Lord would
have come something like about 3 p.m. And amazingly, that was
the time of the daily sacrifice, which was a type of Christ. And
that was the time that the Passover lamb was killed. which was a
type of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it came after a period of
darkness, three hours of darkness that began at noon. And if you go back in the Bible,
you'll find out that darkness is often representative of judgment. Let me read you these words in
Isaiah 13. Behold, the day of the Lord cometh,
cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate,
and He shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars
of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their
light, The sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon
shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the
world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity. And
I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will
lay low the haughtiness of the terrible." He says, I'll bring
darkness. As a matter of fact, when our
Lord describes eternal punishment, He says they'll be cast into
outer darkness where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth. But this judgment, the judgment
that is taking place at this time here on this cross, is the
judgment of God in His holiness and His justice and his wrath,
which is now upon his Son, of whom he says he knew no sin. He knew no sin. Why is God, who is just in every
way, bringing to bear on this one who knew no sin, judgment
for sin? because the one who now bears
this judgment had been made the surety for all of God's elect,
for all of God's people in the everlasting covenant before the
world began. He took responsibility, the responsibility
of one who is called a surety in Scripture. And so the Apostle
says in Hebrews 7, by so much was Jesus made a surety of a
better testament or a better covenant. The Lord Jesus Christ
was made in this everlasting covenant to be the surety for
his people. Hold your place right here and
turn back in your Bibles to Proverbs chapter 6. Proverbs 6. And listen to the wise Solomon
who by the Spirit of God here speaks to his son great advice. He says in verse 1, My son, if
thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand
or shaken hands with a stranger in the matter of being their
surety, thou art snared with the words of thy mouth." In other
words, if you become surety for someone, you have entered into
a bargain that you cannot get out of. In other words, if they
do not pay the debt, then you'll have to pay the debt. The only
thing is this, when the Lord Jesus Christ was made surety
for His people, He knew that they never could pay the debt. And so, He took on Himself at
that moment their debt. Listen to what it says, Do this
now, My Son, and deliver thyself. Now, why is He saying that? Because
once one has become surety, for someone in a matter. All the
responsibility then belongs to them, and they must now, to be
released from that suretyship, deliver themselves. They have
to pay themselves. Do this now, my son, and deliver
thyself. When thou art come into the hand
of thy friend, go, humble thyself. What did our Lord do? He humbled
himself. And he became obedient unto death,
even the death of this cross. Humble thyself, and what? Make
sure thy friend." That's what the Lord Jesus is doing here.
He's making sure his friend. He's laying down his life for
his friend. Give not sleep to thine eyes,
nor slumber to thine eyelids, Again, deliver thyself as a roe
from the hand of the hunter and as a bird from the hand of the
fowler. You have to deliver yourself.
Why? Because you've made yourself
surety. And then over in Proverbs 11
and verse 15, he says it like this, he that is surety for a
stranger shall smart for him. What does that mean? He'll hurt
for it. He's going to have to pay for it. And that is exactly
what is taking place here in this hour in our text. The time
has come to pay. Job said, Lay down now, put me
in a surety with thee. Who is he that will shake hands
with me? God can't deal with me. He can't
deal with you. And so the only way that God
could deal with us and we be saved by His grace and blessed
by His grace if He deal with us in this surety, the Lord Jesus
Christ. We find Him represented in Judah. Whenever Joseph was calling for
Jacob to send down that last young, well-beloved son of his
that he was fearful of losing like he thought he had Joseph.
Judah, his brother, says, I will be surety for him. What was he
doing? He was guaranteeing Benjamin's
safety. He said, I will be surety for
him. Of my hand shalt thou require
him. If I bring him not unto thee,
and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame forever."
And so those that the Lord Jesus Christ is the surety for, if
He does not bring them, and suffering as the just for the unjust, if
He does not bring them to God, He must bear the blame forever. Why? Because He's responsible. Again, in Genesis 44, for thy
servant became surety for the lad unto my father. That's what
Judah now is telling Joseph. Joseph would have Benjamin to
stay there with him. No, he said, I became surety
for this lad, saying, if I bring him not unto thee, then I shall
bear the blame to my father forever. What Judah did as Benjamin's
surety. The Lord Jesus Christ became
in that everlasting covenant for all His people. And so now
the time and the hour has come to pay, and it is God who has
brought about this darkness. And He has done so to shut out
every single person but the Father and the Son. Why is that? Because
this only has to do with the Father and the Son. This only
has to do with the just and thrice holy God and that One who was
made surety for His people. This has to do with God and the
surety. If you remember, just like Abraham
and Isaac went up on Mount Moriah, they left everybody behind. And
they went up on that mountain, just Abraham and his son, because
that's the only two people who were involved. And so now at
this occasion, darkness covers the land for a period of about
three hours. And I'm sure it was an unbelievable
darkness so that no man could know anything about what was
going on, but God knew what was going on. And the Lord Jesus
Christ cries out, My God, My God. That's amazing to me because
that is none other than God calling out to God. And it ought to really
interest us because it is God in human flesh calling out to
God. What is God doing in human flesh? Why did that Word that was with
God and was God, why did He become flesh? Because that's the only
way that He can fulfill this charityship. Because it's going
to require him to smart for it. It's going to require him to
die for it. He says, my God, my God, he's
not calling out to Pilate here. He'd already told Pilate, the
only thing you can do is what God lets you do. And he's not
calling out to these soldiers who have no part except to do
exactly whatever their wild and depraved minds desire to do,
and even in that they fulfill the determinant counsel and foreknowledge
of God. He's not calling out to the crowd. He's calling out to God as a
man, as the God-man. He's calling out as a representative
man for man. He's calling out as a substitute. And he calls out as a man so
as to be able to die, but as a perfect man so as to be worthy
in that death, and as the God-man so as to satisfy God. I wish our generation could find
out something about this truth, that only God can satisfy God. And he's calling out, even at
this hour, still in faith, believing God, still in love, and still
in submission to God. What has gone on for these three
hours? Three hours of darkness. Three
hours in which a just God has dealt with this surety in the
way that He must be dealt with if we are to be saved by Him.
He is the One who was made sin for us. He's the one that the
Scripture says was made a curse. He is here being wounded for
our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. He's being dealt with in judgment,
the judgment of death at the hand of God because the iniquity
of His people has been laid on Him. He's paying the debt. There are a lot of people who
do not like for the atoning death of Christ to be spoken of in
that kind of term. But we just sang an old hymn
written a long time ago, and what was the title of it? Jesus
Paid It All, All the Debt I Owe. But when you come to this book,
you will find expressions and words and terms that speak just
exactly that way. To redeem means to buy back by
the paying of a price. To pay a ransom means virtually
the same thing. You are bought with a price. And that's what's taking place
in this darkness. One of the most wonderful verses
in all of Scripture, if the Lord is pleased to bless our hearts
to it is Psalm 40 and verse 12. Because someone here is talking
in terms like this, for innumerable evils have compassed me about. Mine iniquities have taken hold
upon me so that I am not able to look up. They are more than
the hairs of my head, therefore my heart faileth me. Is that David? Some man wrote
that, but he wrote it by inspiration of Scripture, of the Spirit of
God, because these words are the words of Christ. They're
the words of the Messiah. And the glorious thing is, when
he speaks of this, he's speaking in terms of that cross death,
and the wonderful thing is he calls these iniquities Mine iniquities. Why? Because when the surety
takes the responsibility as Christ took the responsibility for our
sins, our sins were actually laid on Him and they became His. Mine iniquities. Isaiah again, I mentioned it,
but he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. the chastisement of our peace
was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed." Not we might
be if something goes well with us, or not we might be even if
we believe, not we might be if something, we respond in some
way positively toward an invitation or something like that. By His
stripes we were healed. And he is here because the decree
of imputation. What was that? God was in Christ
reconciling, not imputing to them their trespasses. Now, when do you reckon that
took place? How could he ever bless us? How could he ever favor
us? How could he ever purpose to
give us anything? except he had before that, or
at least at the same time, determined not to impute our trespasses
to us. But being the just God he is,
somebody's got to pay for sin. And if he determined at that
time not to impute our trespasses to us, not to lay them to our
charge and to hold us to account for them, he had to do it to
somebody. that could, and that was the
surety, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he's executing the justice
of God against that. He's saying just what he says
at every turn in the Bible, the wages of sin is death. The soul that sinneth shall surely
die. He will by no means clear the
guilty. And so he's been in this dark
And about three o'clock in the evening, out of that darkness,
the Lord Jesus Christ, as I hope we can always remember, even
at that hour in the full control of His faculty and having all
of His senses, it says that He cries out with a loud voice. Does He have to cry loud for
the Father to hear Him? Does He even have to speak so
the Father will know? know." I fully believe that his
cry is so that you and I might know. So that all the Lord's
people that should ever follow after him until he comes again,
they might know, they might hear, that they might understand something. And that's here in this 46th
verse. He said, My God, why hast thou
forsaken me? If I were to give a definition
for hell, I remember hearing a woman one time bragging on
a preacher, and she was saying that he preached hell so hot
you could feel the flames, you could feel the heat. How ridiculous. If I were to give a definition
for hell in just a few words, it would be this. Forsaken of
God forever. Forsaken of God. And the wonder here is this.
God was forsaken God here. Why? Because He's been made sin. Because He has to deal with him
in justice, in flexible justice, because He's the surety. because
the Lord hath laid on him our iniquity, and he hath to deal
with him as he would any sinner who sins against his holiness
and law. An old preacher said one time,
the beginning of sin is to forsake God. That's what Adam and Eve
did, wasn't it? He said the beginning of sin
is to forsake God, the end of sin is to be forsaken of God. But when he cries out with this
loud voice at this time, he is assuring us that the debt is
paid. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? You see, his cry at that hour
is not as God, but as man. because he says, my God. And as I said, it was not in
ignorance or bewilderment, but it was to actually show that
he did bear the sins of his people. Paul said he died according to
the Scriptures. And that means that all those
Old Testament types and all of those Old Testament Scriptures
assure us that Christ our Passover is sacrifice for us, that Christ
as the Lamb of God has been slain and taken away the sin of the
world, that He bore in His body our own sins on that tree, that
He was actually made sin for us, that He was made a curse
for us, that He gave His life a ransom for many, that He was
delivered for our offenses, that He reconciled and redeemed us
to God by His blood, that His blood purges our conscience and
cleanseth us from all sin. If that had not taken place,
God would never have forsaken His Son. There never would have
been that cross. There never would have been judgment.
There never would have been that three hours of darkness. There
never would have been his cry at the end of it. The death of
Christ was not only a voluntary death, but a vicarious death. And all that means is that he
died in the place of his people. If he died on that cross, that
death, he died in the place of his people. If his death is a
ransom, then they are released. If his death is a redemption,
then they are redeemed. If he dies for their sin, then
they are made without sin and made the very righteousness of
God in him. When a surety fully pays the
debt, For his indebted and poor friend, he is the end of the
law to that redeemed debtor. The law cannot ever, ever again
have any claim for that one that Christ pays their sin debt. And
that's why Paul writes there in Romans 10 that he is the end
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. It's paid. It's done. And it's finished. And he was
forsaken of God in his human nature and in all his legal connections
with those for whom he was surety forsaken. You see, no man ever
escapes God's essential presence. Not ever going to do that. You'll
never escape the presence of His rule and reign. You'll never
escape the presence of His power and justice. He's the omnipresent
God. But all whose sins were not put
away, by the sacrifice of Christ. They will be outcast from the
favor, from the gracious workings of God, from the blessings of
God, from the presence of God forever. Christ said, Then will
I profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me, ye
that work iniquity. Then shall he say unto them on
the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels." In other words, what
happens to everyone outside of Jesus Christ has already been
pictured and shown in Cain. You remember Cain? Cain was cast
out And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than
I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out
this day from the face of the earth, and from thy face shall
I be hid, and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth."
Now let me ask you this, why was Cain forsaken? Why was he
cast out? Well, I'll tell you this. It
wasn't simply because he raised up his hand and killed his brother.
David showed himself to be a murderer, but the Lord saved him. His crime
was that he sought to justify himself before God based on his
own righteousness and his own works, by his own doing, and
not the sacrifice of blood which typified this very death. That's why he brought the fruit
of his own hands and was not accepted, whereas Abel brought
the lamb that God appointed and provided And he was accepted. And the scripture says that we
are not to be as Cain who was of that wicked one and slew his
brother. And why did he slay him? Why did Cain slay Abel? Because
his own works were evil and his brother's righteous. It wasn't
a spat over the family farm, but it was the anger of that
natural, self-righteous, works-oriented person toward that person who
believes God, who'd be saved by grace, who rejoices in the
sacrifice and cross-death of the Lord Jesus Christ. He killed
him because his own works. You say, well, he did the best
he could. That's not good enough for God.
I remember a man saying, well, if he had just given what he
gave in a right spirit, God would have accepted. Oh, no. All the
works a man does are unrighteous and evil. And the only righteousness
there is, is in the Christ that Abel looked to that was represented
in that sacrifice that was offered. Payday someday? Not for the Lord's
people. Payday was this day. this day. And if Christ paid
my sin debt, I don't owe it. And I don't look to be paid,
to be rewarded, to be blessed in any way except on the basis
of His person and His work. I listened or looked at that
sermon and I thought, when men don't really understand what
took place on that cross, and they believe that salvation is
ultimately and finally in the hands or the will or the decision
of a sinner. It doesn't matter what they use
to get that sinner to make that decision, even if they try to
scare them into it. God is going to get you. It's
going to be payday someday, not for the Lord's people. This cross
death is God getting his son, dealing with him justly, putting
him to death. making him an offering for sin,
and therefore payday was that day. So we sing a rite if we
sing as believers on the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus paid it all,
all the debt I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. He
made an end of it. He paid it in full. And it isn't
until we come by the Spirit of God to be brought to believe
that, to see that work as a finished, accomplished redemption and salvation,
that our souls can ever rest. Because we'd always be worrying
about payday someday. Our Father, we thank you this
day that our surety and substitute, the one you appointed and provided,
the one who voluntarily and willingly and ably came in his person and
work, made satisfaction before your law and your justice in
the matter of our sin, paid that debt. Lord, we thank you for
him. We thank you for that righteousness
that he established, for your grace in him, for every blessing. We have no other hope. We pray
that you make known to us the truth of the good news of your
gospel in a crucified Christ. Bless, Lord, all who would be
brought by your Spirit to hear and to believe on him. We thank
you and we pray in his name. Amen.