I was thinking about the first
time I ever came here was in 1989 when you were first pastor. At the time, I'd been pretty
ill and I'd worked for the University of Kentucky and I left there
and I was trying to decide or trying to get some direction
as to whether or not I should go back to work. I knew I shouldn't, but I didn't
know how we would get by. I think at the time the church
just didn't see how it could support me. And I remember sitting
in your backyard and looking out at those beautiful hills
or mountains of Virginia. And Scripture came to me, I will
lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help. My
help cometh from the Lord. And my mind was made up. I remember
that, and I love this congregation. I love your pastor. I've loved
you a long time, and I appreciate your friendship. But I just thought
about that. I was sitting out there in the
backyard looking at those hills. Would you turn with me to Psalm
22? I told my pastor, Brother Mahan,
yesterday, I'm going to use an outline I got from you. My best outlines are other people's
and I trust I've made it my own. Psalm 22. Verse one. David. The man after God's own
heart. I want to have the heart of David,
don't you? I want to be a man after God's own heart. God said regarding this man,
his heart beats with mine. What a commendation. This is
David speaking. And David says in verse 1 of
Psalm 22, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me. Why art thou so far from helping
me and from the words of my roaring?" Did David know these words would
be the words of the Son of David from the cross? Did he know? I would have formally said, no,
he had no idea these were only his words, but now I'm not so
sure about that. Turn with me for a moment to
Acts chapter 2. Beginning in verse 25, when Peter
is preaching on the day of Pentecost, he says, for David speaketh,
concerning him. I foresaw the Lord. Acts chapter 2 verse 25. I foresaw
the Lord always before my face. For he is on my right hand, that
I should not be moved. Therefore did my heart rejoice,
and my tongue was glad. Moreover, also my flesh shall
rest in hope, because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither
wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." You know,
when the Lord died, He did not enter into the process of decay,
like everybody else does. And there's one reason. Because
He completely satisfied God's justice in His death. God said,
I'm satisfied. And he did not see decay. Now let's go on reading. Thou
hast made known to me the ways of life. Thou shalt make me full
of joy with thy countenance. Now, men and brethren, let me
freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both
dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day, therefore
being a prophet. And knowing that God had sworn
with an oath to him that at the fruit of his loins, according
to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne,
he seeing this before, did you hear that? He seeing this before. He knew exactly what he was saying
when he said this. He seeing this before spake of
the resurrection of Christ. that his soul was not left in
hell, neither his flesh did see corruption." So perhaps David
did understand what he was saying, but it's just as true. David
felt forsaken by God. He felt as though God had cast
him off. Have you ever felt that? I have. Because of my sin. I've never
thought the Lord was unfaithful to me or anything like that,
but I thought, the only way I've ever felt like this, I can remember
feeling that I've been cast off. I've been reprobated. The Lord
has forsaken me and left me to myself because of my sin. My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me? But these were the words of the
Lord Jesus Christ at His darkest hour. My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping
me? You're not helping me. I've entitled this message, Why? Was he forsaken? For 33 years, Jesus of Nazareth
lived a perfect life. He never sinned. He didn't know what it was like
to feel the guilt and the shame of sin. He lived in perfect conformity
to God, his Father's holy law. He never sinned. I love to think
of him praying to his Father. Can you imagine praying to God
without sin? What sweet communion and fellowship
he enjoyed. He would pray all night in perfect
communion with his Heavenly Father. His father said of Him, This
is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. He said of Himself,
I do always those things that please the Father. And He could
say to His enemies, Which of you can convince me of sin? Do you reckon you could say anything
like that? I think we would be more accurate
in saying which of you can convince me of anything but sin. But oh,
the perfection of the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. His friend Judas betrayed Him
for eighteen dollars. And he was arrested. And his
father did not help him. As he's brought before the high
priest and he's falsely accused, mocked, mistreated and abused. His father did not help him. He gave him no aid. Peter denies
he knows him and all the disciples forsaken. And his father did
not help him. He's brought before Pilate, then
Herod, and back to Pilate, mocked, beaten, scorned, and his father
did not help him. He's condemned to be crucified,
and his father did not help him. He cried, why are you so far
from helping me? and the words of my roaring,
would you turn with me to Matthew chapter 27. Verse 26. Then released he Barabbas unto
them, and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be
crucified. Then the soldiers of the governor
took Jesus into the common hall and gathered unto Him the whole
band of soldiers, and they stripped Him, and put on Him a scarlet
robe. And when they had plaited a crown
of thorns, they put it upon His head, and a reed in His hand,
and they bowed the knee before Him, and mocked Him, saying,
Hail, King of the Jews! And they spit upon Him, And they
took the reed and smote him on the head. And after they had
mocked him, they took the robe off from him and put his own
raiment on him and led him away to crucify him. And as they came
out, evidently he fell beneath the load of the cross. And they
found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name, him they compelled to
bear his cross. And when they were coming to
a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull,
they gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall. And when he
tasted thereof, he would not drink, and they crucified him
and parted his garments. casting lots, that it might be
fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet. They parted my garments
among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots, and setting
down, they watched him there. and set up over His head His
accusation written, This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. And there
were two thieves crucified with Him, one on the right hand and
another on the left. And they that passed by reviled
Him, wagging their heads and saying, Thou that destroyest
the temple and buildest it in three days, save Thyself. If
Thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross. Likewise
also the chief priests mocking Him with the scribes and elders
said, He saved others. Himself, He cannot save, wherever
truer words said. If He be the King of Israel,
let Him come down now from the cross, and we'll believe Him.
He trusted in God, let Him deliver Him now, if you'll have Him,
for He said, I am the Son of God. The thieves also which were
crucified with Him cast the same in His teeth. Now, from the sixth
hour There was darkness over all the land until the ninth
hour. The lights were turned off. The sun refused to shine as it
beheld its maker nailed to a cross. And I believe the reason There
was no light, is to let us know that me and you really don't
have much understanding as to what was going on at this time. This was a transaction between
the Father and the Son. In this darkness, can you imagine
how frightening that must have been when all of a sudden, I
mean, it was thick darkness, the sun not shining. I imagine
everybody was thinking, what is going on? Could He be who
He said He was? What is going on? You could hear
the groans of pain from the thieves along with the Lord Jesus Christ
nailed to the cross. And from that darkness, we hear
this cry, In verse 46, and about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out
with a loud voice, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, that is to
say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Now this was both the Savior's
darkest time. And it was the height of His
obedience. My God, my God, why has Thou
forsaken me? Now, I have three points to this
message. First, the reality of the Savior being forsaken. And second, the reason for the
Savior being forsaken. And third, the results. The result of the Savior being
forsaken. Now, first, the reality of the
Savior being forsaken. You know, when David tried this
in Psalm 22, he felt as though he had been forsaken. He felt
it. But had he been? You see, David said, I've been
young and now I'm old, and I've never seen the righteous forsaken.
God never forsakes the righteous. David was not forsaken even though
he felt as though he were. But the Savior really was forsaken. The physical suffering, Imagine the physical suffering
of being nailed to a cross. I've heard so many descriptions
of it. I don't know. But I know that
his soul suffering was infinitely greater than his physical suffering. Forsaken, left alone. Matthew
26, 56 says, Then all the disciples forsook him. Every one of them. Every one of them. All the disciples
forsook him and fled. He was left alone. Forsaken by
God. Deserted. Abandoned. He went through all of this without
the presence of the Father. that he'd enjoyed from eternity. He did all of this without the
presence of the Father. At this time, he was suffering
what a damned soul would suffer. Now, that's a hard thing to think
about, isn't it? But he was suffering what a damned
soul would suffer, only much more acutely because of who he
is. You see, when it comes right
down to it, I wish it wasn't like this. I hate my sin, but
sin doesn't bother us that much. Not the way it ought to, but
oh, when his holy soul was made to be sin, how he suffered. He suffered the full equivalent
of an eternal hell. At this time, he couldn't call
God Father. Damned souls. He was made a curse
for us. Damned souls do not call God
Father. But he said, my God, my God, Why hast thou forsaken me?" He lost all light, all communion,
cut off and shown no mercy, nothing but the awful frown of his father's
righteous indignation against sin. While he was hanging on the cross
in that physical pain, in greater emotional and spiritual pain,
forsaken by God, I thought of this. I don't understand this,
nor does anybody else. But the Father didn't look at
him and say, Son, I know these sins really aren't yours, but
I'm charging them to you. When I was a boy, several times,
a couple of times, I got whipped for things I didn't do. And I
can remember how indignant my little soul was that I was being
punished for something that I didn't do. The Lord took full responsibility. He knew he wasn't being punished
for something that he didn't do. These became his sins. Can anybody understand that?
He didn't have His people saying, we know you're doing this for
us and we love you for it. No, He was forsaken by all. He really was forsaken. Now here's the second point.
Why? Was he forsaken? He really was forsaken. You and
I don't know anything about that. Being truly isolated. Left alone. Actually forsaken. Abandoned
by God. Left to himself. Bearing the
full weight of God's wrath against sin. He really was forsaken.
Now why was he forsaken? I can answer that real easily,
because I deserve to be forsaken, just like this. He's taking what I deserve. As the sinner's substitute, He
bore the sin and the sins that I deserve to be forsaken for.
I think of that Scripture in 1 Peter 2, 24, "...who His own
self bare our sins in His own body." Not just on Him, but in
Him. He was made sin. Now, I can't
tell you what all that means. All I can do is quote the Scriptures.
He bore our sins in His own body. on the tree. Now, one of the
things that I love to think about is if he bore my sins in his
own body, that means I ain't married him. They're gone. He did what he did as a representative
man. He so identified with his people. I love that scripture, Thou shalt
call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. That's what I need saved from,
is from my sins. And he so identified with his people that their sin
became his sin. Let me show you this in Scripture.
Turn to Psalm 40. Verse 7, Then said I, Lo, I come,
and the volume of the book, it is written of me. I delight to
do thy will, O my God. Yea, thy law is within my heart.
Who is speaking there? Well, that is quoted in Hebrews
chapter 10 as the very words of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
this psalm is Christ speaking at the very beginning when He
said, I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined unto
me and heard my cry. Who is the only one who ever
waited patiently for the Lord? Have you ever waited patiently
for the Lord? No, not once. Not once. But he did. He waited
patiently for the Lord. These are the words of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now, look what he says in verse
12. For innumerable evils have compassed
me about. Todd's iniquities that were charged
to me have taken hold upon me. He said, mine iniquities, mine iniquities have taken hold upon me so that
I'm not able to look up. They are more than the hairs
of my head. Therefore, my heart faileth me. Those are the words of the Lord
Jesus Christ, and that is how truly my sin became His. You see, for His righteousness
to become mine, my sin had to become His. For God to have heard him or
helped him would have been contrary to divine justice. God's just. He said, I will by
no means clear the guilty. That one hanging on the cross
was guilty. And God said, I will by no means
clear the guilty. That's the reason he was forsaken. He was forsaken because this
was God's eternal purpose. I love that scripture in Revelation
13.8. He's called the Lamb slain. Not the Lamb who would be slain,
but the Lamb having already been slain from the very foundation
of the world. Before there was ever a sinner,
there was a Savior. And He is the Lamb slain from
eternity. You see, this was God's purpose.
I love Peter's message on Pentecost. You know where he began? He said,
Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God, you have taken Him with wicked hands of crucified and
slain. The church in Acts chapter 4
said, For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom Herod
and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were
gathered together to do for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy
counsel determined before to be done." You see, that's where
we've got to begin. This is God's purpose. This is
the purpose of the living God. He was forsaken that the scriptures
might be fulfilled. How many times do you read that?
It's almost like when, and you know they didn't, but when you
read about all the things that happened to him, it's almost
like, let's see, what do we do next? Read it, okay, here we do it.
You know, because everything that happened was exactly what
the Lord said would happen. You read Psalm 22, it's called
the Psalm of the Cross. That's where they, he said, they
pierced my hands and feet. They parted my garments and cast
lots from my vesture. All of this was foretold in the
Scriptures. He was forsaken that the Scriptures
might be fulfilled. Why was he forsaken? That he
might glorify his Father. When he prayed the true Lord's
Prayer, right before Judas came and betrayed him, and he knew
it was going to happen, That's a mystery, mysterious
thing. I mean, Judas was his friend.
And yet, he knew that he was the child of perdition and would
betray him. When he said, one of you will
betray me, all of the disciples said, Lord, is it I? But you
know, Judas said something else. He said, Master, is it I? Teacher,
is it I? He never really saw the Lord
as his Lord. He came and betrayed him. But
the Lord said, right before His betrayal, Father, the hour is
come. Glorify thy Son, that thy Son
also might glorify thee. When Jesus Christ was forsaken
by God, how He glorified the justice of God. He would rather
be put to death than his father's law be dishonored and not kept. How he glorified the father's
hatred of sin and his holy nature and his righteous nature, where
even when God saw sin on his son, How He glorified the mercy
and the grace of God, that God so loved the world that He gave
His Son. How He glorified the wisdom of
God. How He made a way to be just,
and yet justify somebody like me to where I actually stand
before God without sin. How He glorified the power of
God. Sin is actually put away. It
is no more. It's gone through the work of
Christ on the cross. Oh, the beauty, the glory of
God that's revealed in this one being forsaken by God. Why was
He forsaken? Because of His love to His people. Now, to me, this is the hardest
thing in all the scriptures for me to get hold of, that He really
does love me. I stand amazed in the presence
of Jesus the Nazarene and wonder how He can love me, a sinner,
condemned, unclean. He took my sins and my sorrows. He made them His very own. He bore the burden to Calvary
and suffered and died alone. Now, I stand amazed. You know, I love my family. I've
got a wife and a daughter. If my daughter was condemned
for some kind of crime and I can take her place, I'd do it. I
would in a heartbeat. I'd do it. I'd take her punishment.
But would there be injustice in that? No. It was her that
did it. I can't do that. I wouldn't be
allowed. If I could take any illness my wife had into my own
body, I'd do it gladly. I'd do it. But I can't. But the
Lord can. He can. I think it's amazing. What about there in Matthew 8? He's quoting Isaiah
53 and says, "...who Himself bore our sicknesses and bare
our infirmities." And that lets you know something about what
was going on on the cross. You can't just have sickness
imputed to you, can you? It don't work that way. No, you
bear it, you become sick. That's what happened to Him on
the cross. He did that out of love for me. He loved me and
He took what He loved me so much, He took it for me. Now, why? The reason is not found
in His people. Only in His great heart of love. Having loved his own, which were
in the world, he loved them to the end. The love of God in Christ Jesus. Why me? I'm sure thankful that
I don't have to find a reason in myself for his reason for
doing it. I love what a lady said to Charles Spurgeon. She
said, God would have had to love me before I was born, because
if he waited afterwards, he couldn't have loved me. I sure can see
that, can't you? Why was he forsaken? Because
I deserve to be. And he took my place because
it was God's eternal purpose. because he glorified God, because
he loved me, because the Scriptures must be fulfilled. That's why
he was forsaken. And the last point is the results
of him being forsaken. When he closed his eyes and died
on the cross, he was dead for three days. What happened during
that time? I have no idea. I don't even
have a clue what happened during that time. But I know what happened
when He opened His eyes. Justification. He was delivered
for our offenses. He was raised again for our justification. God said, I can ask no more. And I can require no less." That's what he accomplished. The complete salvation of all
of his people, everybody he died for, will never be forsaken. He says, I will never leave thee,
nor forsake thee. I love that him, the soul that
on Jesus hath leaned for repose, I will not, I will not desert
to his foes. That soul, though all hell should
endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, no never forsake." What are the results of him being
forsaken, or what is the result of him being forsaken? Well,
listen to this scripture. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 14 says,
by one offering, he hath perfected forever them that are
sanctified. I'll tell you what the result
of him being forsaken is, the perfection, the complete salvation
of everybody he died for. What is the result of him being
forsaken? 2 Corinthians 5, 21, you're familiar
with the verse you've heard it hundreds of times. For he hath
made him. You know that to be, if you look
at it in the King James Version, is in the italics. That's one
of the reasons I love the King James Version. The translators
put the to be there supposedly in order to make it more understandable,
but I think they could have let that out. For he had made him
sin for us, who knew no sin. Understand this, when he was
made sin, that doesn't mean he started sinning. Forbid the thought. He's the holy, spotless Lamb
of God made sin. But I wouldn't dare say this
if it didn't say it in the book, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. Every believer is nothing less
than the very righteousness of God. Isn't that glorious? Mysterious? And we wouldn't say
anything like that if the book didn't say it. But there it is. Now, believer, don't look for
a thing from yourself. Look only to Him. Unbeliever, don't look a thing
from yourself. Look only to Him. That's God's
command to you. That's God's command. Everybody
in this room, God commands all men everywhere. That means you. God commands all men everywhere
to repent. Believer, deny yourself. Can't you see that self should
deny yourself and take up your cross, this confession of him
being forsaken and what all it means and follow the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, let me read you one last
scripture. Lamentations, chapter one, verse 12. These are the
words of the Lord Jesus. And he says in Lamentations 1.12,
Is it nothing to you? Is it nothing to you? All ye
that pass by, behold, and see whether there be any sorrow like
my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted
me in the day of his fierce anger." Now, is it nothing to you? Or is it everything to you? Amen. Pastor.