If you would turn with me to
the Gospel of Matthew chapter 27. Matthew chapter 27. I want to look at two verses in particular
beginning in verse 45. Matthew 27, 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 sabothanai, that is to say, my God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? For three hours, beginning at
noonday, we're told that there was darkness over all the land
until the ninth hour. Now there would be some today,
scientists, unbelieving people, that would endeavor to explain
this away, as they do many things in the scripture, by saying,
oh, it was just a natural solar eclipse. But it wasn't that. This was a supernatural eclipse,
providentially performed by God according to the prophecy of
Amos, the prophet, who said in Amos 8, verse 9, It shall come
to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the
sun to go down at noon. and I'll darken the earth in
the clear of day." This wasn't just any solar eclipse. This
had been prophesied hundreds of years before by God's prophet. And then in verse 46 we hear
the cry of our Lord and notice that it comes out of the darkness. First let me speak a moment to
you that are yet without Christ. I don't know who you are, but
I want for a minute to speak to you that do not yet know the
Lord Jesus Christ. If God is pleased to show you
your sin, your cry will come out of the darkness of your soul. Your cry will be for deliverance
out of your darkness. And you can be assured that if
God Almighty brings you face to face with your horrific sin
and He calls you to cry for mercy, He will not forsake you. You see, He forsook His only
begotten Son that He might not have to turn His back on you.
In this darkness, God shows us several things. First, He shows
us the wicked and hideous crime that was being committed. Our
Lord who spent His life in perfection, Perfection. We can't enter into
that. Everything that we do is tainted
by sin. But try, if you can, to enter
into that just for a moment. Our Lord never thought a bad
thought. Never said an unkind word. Never
once was disobedient to His earthly parents. Not once. Perfect. Perfect. And here he is crucified
as the worst of criminals. He who never committed any kind
of transgression. Any kind. He who knew no sin,
the scripture says. Voluntarily took the place of
his elect people and died in their stead. My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? There's a song I've heard Desta
sing and I've sung it a time or two that says I should have
been crucified. I should have been. I should have suffered and died. I should have. I should have hung on the cross
in disgrace. But Jesus, God's Son, took my
place." Now friends, that substitution, that is the heart of the Gospel. There's no way that any sinner
can ever be saved, redeemed, reconciled to God without Christ
dying on the cross in their stead. Our Savior was literally slaughtered
by the hands of wicked men who hated Him. The Scripture says,
without a cause, there was no cause to hate Him. But it was
by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God according
to Acts 2.23. What that simply means is this.
His death was exactly according to the purpose, will, and decree
of God. God Almighty allowed him to be
slaughtered by the hands of wicked men. The Lord Jesus Christ, my
friends, was THE Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.
And even though it was God's sovereign decree, that in the
fullness of time His beloved Son would endure that which God
had promised before the world was made, this wicked act of
men in no way, shape, or form excuse them." The darkness that
covered the land that day was proof of the atrocious crime
being committed. The darkness and blackness upon
the earth that day, it accurately displays the darkness, the blackness,
and the blindness of natural man's heart. But men love darkness
rather than light, and prove so on many occasions throughout
the Scriptures. The pride of man. It's the first in a list of things
that God hates, according to Proverbs 6.17. A proud look. First thing mentioned, the pride
of man. And it causes all the fallen
of Adam's race to desire to be their own God. I will not have
this Jesus to reign over me. I'm not going to have somebody
tell me how to live. I said recently in a message
that the religious world has no problems with the Lord Jesus
Christ being the Son of God. But when you rightfully declare
Him as God the Son, they'll stone you if they could. Now if you'll
hold your place here and turn with me to John chapter 10. I want to show you that. John
chapter 10 beginning in verse 30. The Lord Jesus Christ on this
particular day said in verse 30, He said, I and my Father
are one. What was He saying, Dana? He
was saying, I'm God. I'm God. I'm not just the Son
of God, I'm God the Son. And what happened? Look at the
very next verse. Then the Jews took up stones
again to stone Him. Now these are His people. the
nation that God had chosen. And Jesus answered them. He said,
Many good works have I showed you from my Father. For which
of those works do you stone me? And the Jews answered him, saying,
For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy. And because of thou being a man,
make us thyself God. The sad fact concerning natural
men and women is that they hate God. The carnal mind is enmity
against God. As one of the old writers put
it, he said, unconverted men would kill God himself if they
could get their hands on Him. And that's exactly what natural
men and women did to God the Son. They crucified Him. They killed Him. Against the
backdrop of these three hours of darkness, we can most definitely
see the darkness of Christless religion. It's rampant in this
world today. Religion without Christ, without
light, without faith, is nothing but darkness. No matter how warm
and how fuzzy false preachers try to make it. And they are
pretty good at making it warm and fuzzy, aren't they? Oh, now
just let Jesus have His way. How are you going to do that?
How are you going to do that? He's God. The darkness of this hour also
relates to the darkness that passed upon our Savior and immersed
His holy being when He was made to be sin for us. How dark. Christ who is the light was made
to be sin for us and darkness flooded His soul. Our finite
minds just can't comprehend what it was to be forsaken of God. The Son of God, God the Son,
was abandoned of the Father who had always been with Him. Always. How remarkable is that? In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with Him." Did you hear
that? The Word was with Him from eternity
past. He had always been with His Father. The Word was with God, and the
Word was God. We often talk about the physical
suffering of our Lord, and what a great suffering that was. Oh
my, I won't take the time to remind you again of all the horrendous
things they did to our Lord physically. Horrible things. But I will say
that when they finished with Him, Isaiah tells us that His
visage was so marred more than any man before or actor. Now
I've seen pictures of men and women in accidents and had facial
injuries and I'm telling you, you had to look really close
to even tell that it was a man or a woman. But there is no man
or woman who was so marred more than Christ was when wicked men
got through with Him physically. That ought to be enough to break
our hearts. He didn't look human. He was
so despicable. And that is what the free will
of man will do if left unrestricted by God. You know, mere words
just won't allow us to elaborate on the soul-suffering he experienced
when he was forsaken of God. I wish I could. I wish that I
could, with words, explain to you, but I just can't. It's too
deep. It's too infinite for me to be able to explain. But our
Lord cried with a loud voice, said, My God, my God, why hast
Thou forsaken me? Now, don't ever think that this
desertion wasn't real. It was real. God really did forsake
him. And even though he was forsaken
of God, his faith never, ever wavered. Twice he said, my God,
my God. No complaint is made concerning
the weakness of His body, the heat of the fever His body endured. No complaint came from our Savior
in reference to the depression of His spirit or the coming approach
of death. He hung on that cross to die. He laid down His life. He went
there voluntarily. as we said by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. He was clear of mind even
to the last. He bore the pain, the loss of
blood. He experienced tremendous thirst. And our finite minds will not
truly allow us to enter into the utter misery that He suffered
in His soul as the perfect sacrifice for sinners. We just can't do
it. We try, but we just can't enter into the fullness of it.
He didn't complain. Now listen, He hung on the cross
and He never said a word of complaint. And he had nails driven in his
hands and in his feet, and a spear had been pierced in his side. And we read no more than his
simple cry of humanity as a man. In our place, he simply said,
one time, I thirst. I'm thirsty. No complaints. And then they gave him vinegar
to drink. all the tortures of His body He endured without uttering
a single grumble or protest." I tell you, when it came to being
forsaken of God, then His great heart burst out into, my God,
my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? His one moan is concerning
God. His cry was not, why has Peter
forsaken me? His cry was not, why has Judas
betrayed me? No sir, the one thing that cut
his heart to the quick was his separation from God. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? Oh, the soul suffering that we
can only attempt to consider was his being forsaken of the
Father. Now in this our Lord truly experienced
hell. This cry came out of the belly
of hell and it marks the lowest depth of the Savior's grief. Psalm 131 says, Out of the depths
have I cried unto thee, O Lord. The child of God today has assurance
and promise that in and through Christ that He will never leave
us nor forsake us. But let me tell you something,
even though we might know that we walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, but we shall fear no evil for God is with
us. Our Lord cries of being forsaken
are spoken as the man, the man Christ Jesus, the man chosen,
made, ordained and anointed by God to bear the sin debt of all
the elect of God throughout all time. That's why God forsook
him. He's forsaken of God in our place,
those that trust in Him. Now you think about that for
a moment. God forsook him because he should have forsook me. Does that mean anything to you?
And it's here in this divine substitution of our blessed Lord
that we truly see how vile a thing sin is. The world today makes
sin to be a little thing. that our sin is against God and
God only. And when God, now you listen
to me, when God found our sin upon His darling Son, He forsook
Him in wrath. Sin is no little thing. He forsook
Him. He turned His back on the One
that He loved more than anything. And this should have been our
forsaking. Do you see that? This should have been our suffering
of soul. This should have been our physical
and spiritual death. But God the Son took our place. Oh, can you see this, poor sinner?
Can you see this? That our Lord God is holy and
He's just. Oh, I tell you, men have lied
to us for too long. They've said God is love. And
God is love. There's no place that's better
seen than in the scriptures and in the death of our Lord. Oh,
how He loved His people. But here's the thing. God is
holy and just. Therefore, He must punish sin. Did you hear me? He must punish
sin. And He's going to. Sin's not
swept under a rug. God's justice would not allow
that. Someone has got to die. Someone's got to pay with death. That's the wages of sin. All
who die in their sin without a substitute will pay the just
wages of sin, which is eternal death, being forever forsaken
of God. That's what hell is. ever forsaken
of God forever. But the elect of God, whom He
chose before the worlds were ever framed, were rejoiced that
the God-man was taken in their stead. And He died in their place,
being made sin for them." That's only the half of it. Now why
do you say that? Because not only was He made
to be sin for us, we're made the righteousness of God in Him.
had more precious words ever been spoken. He took my sin and
gave me His righteousness. He gave me what I must have to
stand before God Almighty. And it was a free gift. I didn't
earn it. I didn't deserve it. I didn't
work for it. It was given. The Lord God Almighty loves His
people with an infinite, indescribable, everlasting love. And they shall
never be forsaken in this world or in the world to come. You
know why? Because God forsook His Son.
And the wrath of God that you and I deserved fell upon Him. And God turned His back on us.
God turned His back on him. Because he was paying my debt. And your debt. Don't sit on him. Now consider with me that our
Lord Jesus who once heard His Father from heaven thunder. This
is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And now He doesn't
hear a word. Doesn't hear a word. My God! Why hast Thou forsaken me?" Why? Because he now stands and dies
in the place of wretched and depraved sinners whose hearts
are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Our Lord
now stands in the place of one whose mind is enmity, unstable,
and thinks only evil continually. Can you see why the perfect and
sinless God, who is man, the God-man, was forsaken of God. Oh, it's important that you understand
why He was forsaken. Because He was hanging on that
cursed tree for His people. Well, you've already said that.
I'm going to say it a few more times. Because I want you to
get it. I want it to pierce your heart.
I want you to leave here today knowing that your only hope of
salvation rests in what God the Son has done for you. Oh, did
He hang there for you? Well, that can only be answered
in the question our Lord Himself asked, what do you think of Christ? Whose son is He? Does the man
Christ Jesus mean anything to you? Seriously. Only you can
answer that question. I don't know your heart. You
don't know mine. Do you see that your sin caused
God to turn His back on the One who came into the world to save
sinners? Are you a sinner? Our blessed
Lord had lived in uninterrupted fellowship with God for eternity,
as we said a moment ago. There had never been a time that
He did not reign in the blessed Trinity with Him. Yet now He
was forsaken of the One who infinitely loved Him. To be forsaken of
Him was The horrible grief that he had never experienced before
is absolutely totally foreign to him. He had always been one
with the Father. And now he's separated. Can you
imagine? Oh, what soul-suffering. And
then endeavor to imagine what it must have been like to find
yourself deserted by Him in the darkness. In the garden, as it
were, the Scripture says, Our Lord sweat great drops of blood. Now on the cross, He's forsaken
of His heavenly Father. Will you look unto Jesus? This
morning, will you look unto Jesus? He's the author and the finisher
of our faith. And the Scripture says, "...who
for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising
the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne
of God." We don't know much concerning the soul suffering of our Lord,
but in this He was made to be sin for us. His soul suffered
the wrath of God for the sins of His people, and I cannot help
but to wonder how much more pain there was in that over the physical
things He saw. I know this much. Isaiah said
this in chapter 53, verse 11. These were his words. He said,
he, speaking of God, shall see of the travail of his soul, meaning
Christ, and shall be satisfied. It was the travail, now that
word means trial, tribulation, trouble, hardship, and struggle
of our Lord's suffering of soul that satisfied the wrath of God
for sin. No more payment for sin is needed. Our Lord said, it's finished.
It's finished. It's done. It's over. The price
has been paid. All the sin of all the elect
throughout all time, past, present, future, paid. And the thing I
just can't get over is that sin of mine was a church. It's urgent that you know. And
he couldn't endure to be without God, and yet he surrendered himself
to be left of God as the representative and substitute for sinners. And
all I can say is, oh, what love. What amazing love. Let me leave
you with just a couple glorious thoughts. Though Christ cried,
my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? It wasn't that he
didn't know why. He knew when Christ hung on the
cross, His people, every single one of them, was on His mind. To those of you who trust in
Him, God forsook Him for you. I think I've learned by grace
to see my Savior's submission and resolve. Our Lord didn't
waver. He doesn't ask that the forsaken
man prematurely. He didn't say, oh Lord, why hast
thou forsaken me? Let this pass quickly. No, he
didn't say that. He didn't ask that this forsaken
man prematurely. He knew that this desertion of
his father was absolutely needful in order that he might save the
guilty. Our Lord dwelt on that why. Why
did God forsake Him? Well, I think we've answered
that, haven't we? He'd have us to see the why and the reason
for His grief. He'd have us mark the gracious
motive for His suffering. May God enable us to always remember
that our Lord suffered and may we never forget the reason for
it. May we make a life study of that
bitter but blessed question, why hast thou forsaken me? And then let's rejoice in the
answer. He came to seek and to save that
which was lost. And He did. And He did. I'll leave you with one last
thing. Christ being the perfect sacrifice for sin was not forsaken
forever. The wrath of God for all the
sin of all the elect was satisfied, and it exhausted itself on our
bleeding surety. As God poured out His wrath on
Christ, and poured it out, and poured it out, He was satisfied. He said, that's enough. That's
enough. All the sin debt for all God's
people has been paid. That's enough. That's enough. The payment for sin was satisfied,
and Christ was restored to perfect fellowship with His Father. And
through Him and Him alone, all His people are also reconciled
to God. That's the best news I ever heard,
friends. No wonder that we call it the
Gospel. Now, let me just read a couple
of verses here in closing. Verse 47, some of them that stood
there when they heard that said, this man called it for Elias.
No, he wasn't calling for our lives. 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. The rest said, let be,
let us see whether our lives will come to save him. And Jesus,
when He had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the
ghosts. And behold, the veil of the temple
was rent in twain from the top to the bottom." That simply was
the Holy of Holies where the high priest stood behind and
offered the sacrifices for the sin of the people. And God just
tore it in half. No need for it anymore. And the
earth did quake and the rocks rent. And look at verse 52, "...and
the graves were opened." and many bodies of the saints which
slept arose and came out of the graves after His resurrection
and went into the holy city and appeared to many. Now when..."
Look at this. "...the centurion and they that
were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake and those
things that were done, they feared greatly saying, Truly, this was the Son of God. Have you seen these things this
morning? Have you heard these things? Do you see that this
is the Son of God whom God gave to save His people from their
sins?