Well, good evening. I'm glad
that you're joining us today to worship our God on this Wednesday
evening service. I know many of you are praying
that God continues to bless Grace Centers of Hope and provide the
food and the dollars that we need to keep Grace Centers open,
and God is doing just that. Wonderful things are happening.
Today I want to continue our study of the seven sayings on
the cross, and I'm going to take the fourth saying, and I'm going
to be reading from Matthew 27 and the 46th verse. And about the ninth hour, Jesus
cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabastena, that
is to say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Here is a photograph of our Lord's
saddest hour. The record of his dying words.
Christ, the helper of man, came to save sinners. He loved sinners. Yet instead of their hearts,
they gave him a cross. Instead of love, a cup of gall. Instead of their hands, a thorny
crown. And beneath his cross, there
was not so much as one voice to lay down the testimony. The
man who hangs on the middle cross is he whom my soul loveth. Forsaken by men, or father or
mother, is a sad and a desolate thing. But when we think that
God had restrained and kept back for this time all of his joys
and comforts and sense of love from Christ, how unsearchable
is the thought. This verse contains the fourth
memorial saying of Christ upon the cross. Words able to rend,
I believe, the hardest heart in the world. It is the voice
of the Son of God in agony. Our Lord is now in the darkest
part of His way. He has trodden the winepress
alone for three hours and is almost finished. His soul is
sore distressed and overwhelmed with grief. I do not believe
that history or even eternity contains a sentence more full
of anguish. We can strain our eyes and gaze
till our sight fails us, yet we shall not perceive the bottomless,
measureless, unfathomable, inconceivable anguish of the Lord Jesus. The anguish of our Savior can
no more be measured and weighed than the sin which needed it
or the love which endured it. We shall only be able to measure
the height of his love by the depth of his grief. I cannot
see all that is here, and what I can see, I'm not able to put
in words for you tonight. We cannot comprehend, so let
us simply adore. The view these words present
is almost too awful to be realized. This was the judgment day of
the savior of the elect. Oh, that his sudden, loud, piercing,
agonizing cry would arrest your attention on this night, thrill
and haunt your heart today. There could be no feeling in
the universe more distressing than that of divine desertion.
This is hell. This desertion came at a time
when all earthly comforts had forsaken him. All outward evils
had broken in together upon him. The best of men stood afar off,
and none but barbaric enemies were around him. Pains and shame
of all sorts were weighed down upon him, and to fill up his
sufferings God gave himself, giving his son stands afar off
too. Christ could now say, All thy
waves and thy billows are gone over me. Every human being is
called upon to weep as we view Calvary, for it was not for him,
not for him was the cross on which he bled a tree of shame,
but for us. God help us to sit down with
bowed heads and streaming eyes at the cross of Golgotha. The
old songwriter said, near the cross, near the cross, a trembling
soul, love and mercy found me. There the bright and morning
star sheds its beams around me. In the cross, in the cross be
my glory ever, till my raptured soul shall find rest beyond the
river. The cross is the throne of grace. It is the fount of the water
of life, of every blessing. Let us hold on to Jesus, sink
or swim. As for me, if I am ever lost,
it shall be at the foot. of the cross. Oh, behind this
brazen wall of substitution, the sinner is safe, and how we
rejoice in that truth. Christ had been silent for nearly
three hours since the commencement of the darkness. He's now finding
himself in the conflict of the ages. He was inward torn with
anguish and overpowered with grief. Who here in this house
tonight can tell what it means to be forsaken by God? And yet, that's exactly what
was taking place. At last his anguished soul burst
forth, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? His murderers
heard, His disciples heard, the demons in hell and out of hell
heard, and yes, the Heavenly Father heard. What was the reason
for this forsaking by God of His own Son? God never acts without
reason. You see, Christ was the sinner's
surety. He stood in our room. Romans
6.23 says, the wages of sin is death. Romans 5.12 said, death
passed upon all men for all have sinned. Yes, physical death and
much more, spiritual death. Penal death. Penal desertions
are such as are afflicted the just reward of our sin. This penal desertion inflicted
on Christ was for the satisfaction of the sins of ours, which deserved
God forsaking us forever in hell. God's forsaking Christ for a
few hours was the equivalent of God forsaking you and I for
eternity. Here we see the awful wages of
sin, spiritual separation. Here is the great gulf that was
fixed. Christ here experiences spiritual
death. Christ must suffer or all humanity
must be damned. He received the wages due his
people. All his other sufferings were
but small to this. They bear upon his body. This
desertion was upon his soul. Our guilt became his guilt. Under
the physical suffering, he opened not his mouth, but this touched
the quick. Christ bore the sinner's sin,
therefore He had to be treated as He were a sinner. Christ had
to feel forsaken of God, because this is the necessary consequence
of sin. He went down into the deep abyss
of our guilt. He descended far down into the
depths of our misery, that He might raise us up to glory. The Father must have seen sin
on Him, the sins of imputation. He was bearing our sins in His
own body on the tree, 1 Peter 2.24. He was bearing the chastisement
of our peace, Isaiah 53. That chastisement which was due
us was death. It was penal death, eternal separation
from God. His sufferings were equivalent
to all which our souls should have suffered there throughout
eternity. I ask you, was He forsaken for
you? You who leave this world lost
shall experience this in final judgment. They shall be punished,
the Bible says in 2 Thessalonians 1-9, with everlasting destruction
from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power. Unto the wicked Christ shall
say, Depart from me, ye cursed. Banishment from God's presence,
eternal exile from God is what awaits the damned. Calvary's
hill may well be called the hill of division. The smiling, approving
look of the great judge cannot fall upon a man who is viewed
as standing in the place of the guilty. Think about it, sinner. If this terrible cry, which was
wrung from the Son of God when He was afflicted and smitten
by God's righteous anger, what shall be your cry in that great
day of judgment when He says to you, Depart from Me? This cry shall be the perpetual
shriek of them that are cast away forever. Thank God Christ
was my representative at Calvary. He shall never forsake me, for
he forsook his Son on my behalf. I shall not suffer for my sin. Jesus has suffered to the full
in my stead. He discharged my debt. He was
forsaken, that there be no longer any separation between me and
God. Why, he said, hast thou forsaken
me? What words of interrogation! Forsaken! Is there a sadder word
in human speech than this? What is the great cause of such
a strange fact that God would forsake His Son in such an hour? Let us ask ourselves, why or
for what was He forsaken? Why was Christ under a suspension
of that joyful and intimate communion with the Most High God, His Father? Matthew 27, 24, He was guiltless
in the criminal courts of Pilate, Pilate's wife could find no fault.
The thief could find no fault. He was guiltless in the spiritual
courts of heaven. 1 Peter 2.21 says, he did no
sin. 2 Corinthians 5.21 says, he knew
no sin. Hebrews 4.15 said, yes, he was
yet without sin. There was no cause in Christ.
Why then? should he be forsaken. This was
not the question of an enlightened soul. He knew and expected no
answer from heaven when he asked the question. Christ inquires
as to the person who forsook him. Notice this, my God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me? This was his burden. This was
his grief. God was absent from him. His own Father was withdrawn
from him. Christ seemed to say, by night
on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth. I sought him, but
I found him not. I will arise now and go about
the city, and in the streets, and in the broad ways, I will
seek him whom my soul loveth. I sought him, but I found him
not. Such was the Savior's experience
that no human intellect can conceive, and no language can express. This desertion of the Father
was more burdensome than ten thousand crosses. The fierce
flame in hell is separation of the soul from God. Oh, what darkness
of desertion! Neither God the Father nor God
the Spirit appeared for His help. His Father had dried up the stream
of peaceful communion and fellowship. with his son. This was no more
a phantom of gloom. It was a real absence, which
the Lord Jesus mourned. It is not, why has Peter forsaken
me? Or why has Judas betrayed me? But, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? His one moan was concerning his
God, his Father. It is not God's way to forsake
His own, and yet He forsook His own Son in the hour of His tribulation. He has promised us, I will never
leave thee, nor forsake thee. Even in death He has promised
to abide near and hear Him, yea, though I walk Through the valley
of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for thou art with
me. The Lord was visible to the Hebrew
children in the fiery furnace, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
God did not forsake them as they walked in that fiery furnace.
Why then did he forsake his own son? And I know that you're answering
that question in your own heart if you are a believer at this
present time. Here was the crowning manifestation
of God's wrath against sin, His holiness and justice. You see,
our sins cost Christ an amazing sense of the wrath of God. It is here that God declares
His determination never to allow sin to be trifled with. As we
look to Calvary, surely we are astonished at the perfect holiness
and the stern justice of the Lawgiver, Romans 3 and verse
25 through 26. He cannot look upon sin, Habakkuk
1.13. God exhibited His holiness and
satisfied His justice by pouring out His wrath on the one who
was made sin for us. Why hast thou forsaken me? Because
thou art holy. Christ drank the cup of the Father's
indignation. Here we see the dreadful anger
of a sin-avenging God. all the divine judgments which
were let loose in the Old Testament, such as the flood, or Sodom and
Gomorrah, or the vials of wrath which shall be poured forth during
the horrors of the great tribulation, nor the weeping and wailing,
nor the gnashing of teeth, of the damned in the lake of fire
can compare with the demonstration of God's inexhaustible, inflexible
justice and His infinite hatred of sin, as did the wrath of God
poured out and flamed out against His own Son on the cross. You see, God's holy character
must judge sin, even though it be found on Christ. Abraham,
when beholding the Lord, said, I'm but dust and ashes. Job said,
wherefore I abhor myself. Isaiah said, woe is me. Have you seen how holy God is?
Well, surely you can see it here. When our sins were laid upon
Him, he forsook his own son and punished him in our stead and
room. Let us abhor the sin which brought
such agony upon our beloved Lord. What an accursed thing sin is,
which crucified the Lord Jesus Christ. One of the great things
that is missing today, and the truth is, you'll never be found
until you're lost. He only finds lost people. You
have to be a sinner and understand your sinnership to see the greatness
of the glory of what happened there at Calvary. I want to invite
you, those of you who see your sinnership, to come to Christ
just as you are, without one plea, believe on Him, and know
assuredly that Jesus Christ, on the tree of the cross, paid
your debt in full. He said, it's finished, it's
accomplished. It's done. Ask this question that Jesus
asked and give the answer, the right answer. God forsook his
own son. God didn't forsake Meshach and
Abednego. God didn't forsake Daniel, but
God forsook his own son. And that reason being that you
and I were sinners and justice must be satisfied. And it can
truthfully be said tonight that he is just, and the justifier
of the ungodly, and that salvation is of the Lord. Praise God.