Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church,
located at 905 Yadkin Street in Kingsport, Tennessee, would
like to invite you to listen to a message of sovereign grace
by their pastor, Gabe Stoniker. And now, Pastor Gabe Stoniker. If you would like to be turning
with me in your Bible to Psalm 22, Psalm chapter 22, I have a very serious message
for us this morning. I have a very vital, critical
message. To put it frankly, this is the
issue of eternal life and eternal death. Death. What a person believes
on this determines that. What God reveals to a sinner
concerning this issue determines eternal life or eternal death
for that sinner. So this is a very critical subject,
a very critical issue. And what we have here in Psalm
22, the first three verses of this chapter is something that
our eyes are honestly not worthy to even look on. It's amazing
to me that our Lord recorded this holy moment in his word. This is a moment between God,
a moment between God, the father and God, the son. This is a moment
between the throne and the cross. It involves no one else. Only
the triune God. And I cannot imagine that anyone
who knows anything about history, anyone who's old enough to understand
anything about history would not know about the cross. Most everyone has heard of and
been told some facts concerning the cross. The cross is the issue. The cross is the message of the
gospel. When we learn the truth of God's
Word and the message of the gospel, we learn the cross. That's what
we hear is the cross. It's the centerpiece of salvation.
It's the centerpiece of all eternity. The preaching of the cross is
the power of God unto salvation. The preaching of the message
of the cross. But here's the critical issue.
The preaching of the cross is not just preaching that it happened. The preaching of the cross is
not only preaching that the cross took place. Preaching the cross
is preaching what happened on the cross, not just that it happened,
but what exactly happened on the cross. What happened on the
cross is the message of the gospel. That is the message. There is
only one gospel message. The apostle Paul told the Galatians,
there is not another. There is only one. Anything other
than exactly what happened on the cross is not the gospel. People bring up religious matters
and they talk about religious things thinking that they are
talking about the gospel. The gospel is a singular thing. And anything other than this
critical issue of exactly what happened on the cross is not
the gospel. Now, our Lord asked his father
a question. From the cross, he asked his
father a question in this defining moment of our eternal lives. He asked God, his father, a question,
and then he answered the question. He knew the answer. He asked,
and then he answered. And what he tells us right here
will forever be the critical issue of the gospel. Now, Psalm
22, verse 1, this is our Lord Jesus Christ speaking from the
cross. He said, my God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping
me? And from the words of my roaring,
O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not, and in
the night season, and am not silent. Now that was his question. That was his question to God,
his father. Why has thou forsaken me? Why has thou forsaken me? That is the subject and the title
of this message. Why was Christ forsaken? That's the issue. That's the
issue. Everybody knows that he was.
Everybody knows about the cross. Here's the question. Here's the
defining question. Why was he forsaken? Why? Why? Preaching and understanding
and believing. Why? That's preaching the gospel. That's understanding the gospel.
That is believing the gospel. Why? Why was he forsaken? Why did God forsake Christ? Well, our Lord immediately gives
us the answer in verse three. He said, thou art holy. That's why he said, but thou
art holy. Now, if we miss this, we will
miss salvation. If we miss this, we will leave
this earth missing salvation. We will miss the gospel. We will miss Christ. We will be religious all through
this life, and if we miss this critical issue of why was Christ
forsaken, we will leave this earth missing Christ. On the cross, the Lord asked
that great question, why hast thou forsaken me? On the cross,
he answered the question by saying, thou art holy. Thou art holy. If we want to
know the truth of the gospel, I mean the truth, we're going
to have to understand something about what it means that God
is holy. If we want to understand the
truth of the gospel, we're going to have to find out what holy
means. Holy. Our Savior said, the reason
you're doing this, the reason you're forsaking me is because
you're holy. You're holy. Now, what does that
mean? We're going to turn to quite a few scriptures here.
If you want to look with me at Psalm 145, Psalm 145 verse 17
says, the Lord is righteous in all his ways and holy in all
his works. Holy means He must do right in
all of His works. In all of His ways, He must do
what's right. He has to do what's right. He has to. Holy means clean. It means pure. It means just. Who is going to stand in that
holy hill? Only he that has clean hands
and a pure heart who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity
nor sworn deceitfully. Only he who's done right. Clean
hands, pure heart, not lifted up his soul unto vanity. If God
is holy, it means he can only do what's right. That's what
it means. Now, what is right? What determines
whether something is right or wrong? What determines that? How do we know whether something
is right or wrong? Well, over in Romans chapter
7, verse 12 says, wherefore the law is holy. The law is holy and the commandment
holy. and just and good. The law that God gave in his
word is holy. The law is holy. God is holy
and the law is holy. Did you know that God is the
law? God is the law. God must do the law. God can only do the law because
he is the law. He is the law. When God gave
Moses the law, he wrote out all of these demands. What he was
saying is, this is who I am. This is what I am. This perfection
I demand is what I am. How good and how right does a
person have to be to stand in the presence of God? The answer
is as good as God. He has to be as good as God.
No sin can dwell in his presence. No sin, no error can stand there. He has to be as good as God.
Not just as good as he can be on this earth. He has to be as
good as God. How good and right is God? Well, we open his law. And it
tells us how good and how right he is. He said, I did not come
to put away the law. I came to fulfill it. Our Lord
in his life just living. He fulfilled the law because
he is the law. 1st Corinthians chapter 15 verse
1 says moreover brethren I declare unto you the gospel I declare
the gospel which I preached unto you which also you have received
and wherein you stand by which also you are saved if you keep
in memory what I preached unto you unless you have believed
in vain and For I delivered unto you first of all that which I
also received, how Christ died for our sins according to the
scriptures. He died according to the scriptures. That's important to know. He
died according to the scriptures. Now, do you know what he's telling
us right there? Why? He's telling us why. Why did
Christ die? Why was Christ forsaken? The
end of verse 3 says, He died for our sins according to the
scriptures and that He was buried and that He rose again the third
day according to the scriptures. He died according to the scriptures. What scriptures? he speaking
of right here? Which scriptures is he talking
about? The only scriptures they had
at that time? The law. The Old Testament law and the
prophets. And he's saying this is the gospel. Christ died for our sins according
to his holy law. God the Father forsook Christ
according to his holy law. It was by the law, in agreement
with the law. Our Lord asked the question as
he hung there, suffering the punishment and the wrath. He said, why hast thou forsaken
me? Suffering the wrath of God his
Father, his own Father. And he said, why hast thou forsaken
me? And then he immediately acknowledged
the answer. He said, it's because you must
do right. You must do right. You're holy. You must judge according
to what you have written in your law. Now, what did the holy God
write in his law? This is critical. What did the
holy God write in his law? Well, in Exodus 23, back in Exodus
chapter 20, he gave the 10 commandments and he was giving commandment
after commandment, all of these laws. And in Exodus 23, verse
7, he said, keep thee far from a false matter and the innocent
and righteous slay thou not. Do not kill an innocent man. That's what he put in his law.
Do not kill an innocent man. He said, I will not have it.
This is my law. This is my commandment. That's
wickedness in my eyes. Do not kill an innocent man. And he went on to say, for I
will not justify the wicked. I won't do it. That's wickedness. If you shed innocent blood, that's
wickedness in my eyes. That's sin against me. In Deuteronomy 27 verse 25, it
says, cursed be he that taketh reward to slay an innocent person. And all the people shall say,
Amen. The holy God said in his holy
law, whoever kills an innocent person is cursed. Cannot do it. We could look at scripture after
scripture after scripture, but let me just give you one more.
This is Proverbs chapter six. Our God said in Proverbs 6, verse
16, these six things doth the Lord hate. Yea, seven are an
abomination unto him, a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands
that shed innocent blood. God said he hates it. He said,
I will not have it, I hate it. Now, if that's the case, then
let me ask us this question. Why was Christ forsaken? If that is the case, why was
Christ forsaken and slain? Why was Christ killed? Here's the answer. It's because He was made to be
guilty. He was guilty. He was guilty. When we hear the truth told that
He paid our debt, He paid our debt, it's called redemption.
Paying the price in full. When we hear that, the flesh
wrongly gets the idea in our mind. This is how we view that
this perfect man paid our debt for us. This is how we view it. We see ourselves as sinners,
which we are, who got ourselves into a debt we could not pay.
Couldn't pay it. Bankrupt, we call it. Just could
not pay it. No money to give. So the great
banker, who is God in our simple minds, he demanded that debt. He said, time is up. No more
time. You have to pay or suffer the punishment. So Christ, being
the rich inheritor of all things and so kind, all of his abundance
in his heart and compassion, he asked the question to the
great banker, how much do they owe? How much do they owe? And the price was set and he
said, I'll pay it. And he paid off their debt in
full. And the great banker was happy. And now he says to us, debtors,
you're free to go. That's how we naturally view
the redemption of Christ for sinners. Now, if that's the case,
then let's ask this question. Why was Christ made to suffer
punishment? and wrath, and why was he killed? Why was he killed? Paying off
someone else's debt is an honorable thing. That is an honorable thing. That is in perfect agreement
with God's law. He said, give in the law. He said, help your neighbor.
He said, love your neighbor. Why would he suffer vengeance
when honor is due? Why? Why would God kill an innocent
man? And if God killed an innocent
man and in the process, Christ, the innocent man made us innocent.
What's to stop God from killing us? God kills innocent man. If
we're made to be innocent, where is our comfort and our peace
and our rest? God kills innocent men. To believe that is to believe
that God is not holy. That's what it is. It's to believe he is unjust,
unjust. He killed an innocent man. That's
unjust. That is unjust. But here's the
truth of the matter. God is holy. He is holy. Over in Acts chapter
8, verse 32 says, the place of the scripture which this Ethiopian
eunuch read was this. He was reading Isaiah 53. He
was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb done before his
shearer, so opened he not his mouth. That's prophesying of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And then it says in verse 33,
in his humiliation, His judgment was taken away.
And who shall declare his generation for his life is taken from the
earth? Who stands in humiliation? It
said in his humiliation. Who stands in humiliation? It's not the one who has money
in his hand ready to pay. He's not standing in humiliation.
It's the one who has nothing. The one who has been stripped
of everything and stands there in complete and total debt. The one who is guilty. That's
who stands in humiliation. In Galatians chapter 3 verse
13 says, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law
Being made a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is
everyone that hangeth on a tree. Made a curse for us. Now why was Christ forsaken?
Why was he forsaken? It's because God made him to
be guilty. He made him to be guilty. Never
did our Lord ever commit one sin. He was spotless. The spotless Lamb of God. He was our spotless substitute. That's the only substitute we
could have who could accomplish this. He had to be spotless.
Pure and perfect. And that's the gospel in a word. Substitution. Total sin, total
righteousness, substitution. A complete changing of places. He never committed sin, not one
time. But for our sake, from the crown
of His head to the sole of His foot, He became what brought
the curse on His people. He made himself to be their curse. He took their curse off of them. And it's called sin. And he made
himself to be that. He made himself to be what his
people were. He did not just take the responsibility. He became. He became. The actual wounds and bruises
and putrefying sores of sin. It's the only way God could forsake
him. Because God is holy. He was the
only way. God the Father looked at His
own Son. He looked at His own Son in the
moment that Christ made Himself to, as Hebrews 7 says, become
us. The moment Christ made Himself
to become us. Substitution is not a theory.
It's a transaction. It's a real transaction. And
God looked at Christ the moment He made Himself to become us,
and according to holiness, God the Father said, you must be
forsaken. You must be forsaken. And then God, according to holiness
and according to justice, poured out His wrath on His own Son. And He killed the guilty man. He said, I will by no means clear
the guilty. That's the gospel. That's the
gospel. That's the solid rock of our
hope. God then turned and looked at
us. All those that he chose to give
to his son, all those that he chose to redeem through this
transaction, he then looked at us In all of the righteousness
that Christ traded with us, all of the sinlessness, all of the
perfection. And when Christ made himself
to be what we were from the crown of our head to the sole of our
foot, Christ made us to be what he was from the crown of his
head to the sole of his foot. And at that very moment, God,
the father looked at us and according to holiness. He said, you must
go free. I have to let you go. I'm holy. I'm just. I'm right. He will by no means condemn the
innocent. By no means. I cannot punish
you, he said. I cannot kill you. I'm holy. I am holy. It would go against my holiness. It would go against everything
that makes me just and right. Therefore, because of the beauty
of holiness, holiness is a beautiful thing. Because of the beautiful
holiness, there is therefore now no condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus. No condemnation at all. Romans 8 verse 33 says, Who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It's
Christ that died. Christ died. Christ took the
place of his people, suffered their punishment, gave them his
righteousness. And according to holiness, God
is satisfied. He slayed the guilty and freed
the innocent. And that is the gospel. That's
the gospel. What we see and believe about
what took place on the cross is the issue. That gives all
the glory to Christ the Lamb. And that's what His people cry,
all glory be unto you. Until next week, may the Lord
bless His word to our hearts. You have been listening to a
message by Gabe Stoniker, pastor of Kingsport Sovereign Grace
Church in Kingsport, Tennessee. If you would like a copy of this
message or to hear other messages of Sovereign Grace, log on to
our website at ksgctn.org. If you would like to come and
worship with us, our service times are Sunday morning Bible
study at 10 o'clock a.m., worship at 10.45 a.m., and 6 o'clock
p.m., Wednesday evening at 7.30 p.m. Please tune in next week
for another message of God's free and sovereign grace.