Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Nybert. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Manowar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 10.30 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
9.45 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m. Nursery is provided for all services.
For more information, visit our website at toddsroadgracechurch.com. Now here's our pastor, Todd Nybert. In Matthew chapter 27, beginning
in verse 45, we read, now from the sixth hour, noon, there was
darkness over all the land into the ninth hour, 3 p.m. Three hours of thick darkness. And about the ninth hour, Jesus
cried with a loud voice, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, my God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? I've entitled this message, The
cry from the darkness. The six hour is noon. The sun was at its zenith. Christ Jesus had already been
on that cross for three hours, bearing the physical, the emotional,
and the spiritual pain that he had to endure on Calvary's tree. I wish I could speak of this
the way I ought to speak of it. He had a nervous system like
you and I, and we can't imagine the pain he was feeling nailed
to a cross. And what about the emotional
pain? While he was nailed to the cross,
his friends had forsaken him. He was all alone. The people
that were there despised him and made fun of him and mocked
him. It was like a sporting event
to them. They were glad to see what was
taking place. But the spiritual pain, being forsaken by his father. being abandoned by his father,
being all alone. Now, all kinds of things had
been being said between 9 and 12, people making fun of him,
and all of a sudden, darkness covered the earth. And you can
be sure that everybody there was freaked out. They could not
account for what was taking place. Luke's account says the sun was
darkened and there's only one who can darken the sun, that's
God himself. The sun was darkened. It became pitch black. Darkness
is a symbol of God's judgment. the wicked are said to be cast
into outer darkness. And in this darkness that you
and I cannot see through, unseen things were happening to him.
There was a transaction going on between him and his father. This was God's judgment against
sin. And during those three hours
of darkness, we don't read of anything being said. I think
the people who were mocking him making fun of him, are scared
to death right now. What's going on here? The people
who crucified him were scared to death. What is taking place?
Why is this? Why this darkness? And three hours, at the end of
those three hours, somewhere around 3 p.m., the Lord Jesus
from the cross cried out, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me?" Now this is the middle saying of the seven sayings
of the Savior from the cross, and these sayings are so important. His first saying while he was
nailed to the cross was, Father, forgive them. They know not what
they do. Now understand when he prayed
that prayer, he was praying as the great intercessor. Father,
forgive them. And you can be sure of this,
everybody that he prayed for was forgiven. This wasn't some
kind of generic general prayer. This was a prayer for a specific
people. He said in John 17, nine, I pray not for the world, but
for them, which you've given me for they are dying. And everybody
he prayed for was forgiven. Now, the second saying was after
the thief said, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
That thief understood that he wasn't going to stay dead on
that cross. He was going to come back as a mighty reigning king. God had revealed to that thief
who Christ was. And here are the Lord's answer
when he speaks as a king today. Thou shalt be with me in paradise. That's what he said to that poor
thief. This is Christ as the King. And the third statement was,
Woman, behold thy son. And then he looked at John and
said, Behold thy mother. And from that day, Mary was taken
into John's house. But this is Christ the man. Now,
God doesn't have a mother. People pray, Mother Mary of God.
God doesn't, Mother Mary, Mary mother of God have mercy on us
poor sinners. God doesn't have a mother. God's
the eternal spirit, but Christ has a mother because Christ became
flesh and Christ became man. God was manifest in the flesh,
Christ the man. The only way we could be saved
is for him to be man. The fourth statement was, my
God, my God, why have you forsaken me? We will come back to that
in a minute. But the fifth statement was, I thirst. That speaks of
the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. No one suffered like
him. Now there are men, no doubt,
who have had just as much physical sufferings. There's other men
who were crucified that maybe experienced more suffering than
he did. But he was suffering from being
forsaken by his God. That's all the sufferings of
the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, when men are Forsaken
by God, they hate God, but not him. He loved the God who forsook
him. Oh, the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the sixth
statement, Christ the Redeemer. It is finished. Everybody that Christ died for
was saved. by what he did. When he said,
it is finished, he didn't merely mean my sufferings are over.
He said, I finished the work thou gavest me to do. The work
of saving his people from their sins was finished. Salvation accomplished. And the
seventh statement was, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Christ the believer, he never
quit trusting his father, even when he was forsaken by God.
Somebody had to trust God perfectly. He did. Thank the Lord he did. Now, this middle statement, my
God, my God, why have you forsaken me, is the ground of all the
other statements. When He said, Father, forgive
them, there's one singular reason why the Father would forgive
them. Because He was forsaken. Their sins became His sins. He
became guilty of them. And God the Father forsook Him. And the one singular reason why
God can forgive sin is because He was forsaken. He can speak
to the thief. Today, thou shalt be with me
in paradise. because he was forsaken. That's
the only reason. He became man for this reason,
so he would be forsaken. He's the lamb slain from the
foundation of the world and he came for this very reason, to
be forsaken by God. He can say It's finished for
this one reason, because he was forsaken. When he said, I thirst,
the reason he thirsted was because he was forsaken. When he said, father into thy
hands, I commend my spirit. It's because he was forsaken
and now that time is over and he's trusting his father completely. Now, I think it's very interesting.
Interesting is not the right word. As far as that goes, words
fail to convey what needs to be said about this glorious subject.
But at this time, he did not say, my father, my father, why
have you forsaken me? He said, my God, my God, why
have you forsaken me? The reason he didn't address
him as father was because at this time he was damned, and
damned souls do not call God father. He experienced all the
horrors of whatever damnation is. He bore the full equivalent
of hell. He really was forsaken by his
father, forsaken This is not a type or a shadow. This is reality. Abandoned. Forsaken. This is what happens to damned
souls. A damnation more horrible than
any other man could ever experience for these two reasons. Number
one, when a man is damned, he hates God. Christ loved God even
when He was damned. He loved His Father. He could
not bear being forsaken by His Father. And the reason hell is
eternal is because no man ever experiences the fullness of damnation
because their death can never satisfy God. But he experienced
the fullness of it. That's why he was raised from
the dead. He experienced the fullness of it and completely
satisfied God. Now, this is a damnation that
is unspeakably horrific, what he was experiencing on Calvary's
tree. And I feel foolish even talking
about it because I'm talking about what I don't know. what
he experienced in that darkness. He experienced real wrath against
real sin, the felt reality of the wrath of a holy God against
sin. He had been drinking the contents
of that cup. Do you remember when he said,
the cup which my father had given me to drink, shall I not drink
it? He is now drinking, and the contents of that cup is the sins
of His people. He was drinking that cup so that
He could bear our sins in His own body on the tree. the sins of his people and the
damnation they deserved. He was experiencing the full
sense of the abandonment that sin deserves. He who knew no
sin was made to know sin intimately because he was made sin. That is why he was forsaken. He was made sin. Second Corinthians
5.21 says, for he had made him to be sin. For us, who knew no
sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. He really bore the sins of his
people in his own body on the tree, and God really abandoned
him. He got what I deserve. Now that doesn't mean God stopped
loving him at that time. We read in John chapter 10 verse
17 where he said, therefore does my father love me? Because I
lay down my life. Never did the father love him
more than when he was forsaken by his father. This was the ultimate
act of obedience. Forsaken by God. Now what... There's a scripture in John 1
The Word was with God, speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. There was an eternal withness. between the Father and the Son. There was an unbroken withness
between the Father and the Son. And on Calvary's tree, when he
cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That withness
was broken, and he was now actually abandoned by his Father. He who was eternally with the
Father is now abandoned by the Father, forsaken. And this tells
me what my sin and your sin looks like to God. When He saw it on
His only begotten and well-beloved Son, He forsook Him. God hates sin, and God forsook
His Son when He saw sin on His Son. The Lord had absolutely
no sense of His Father's favor, nothing but the awful frown of
His Father against sin, and He cried this from the darkness
My God, my God. He couldn't call him Father at
this time. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? Now, he wasn't asking this because
he didn't know. If you go on reading in Psalm
22 where David first said this, my God, my God, why have you
forsaken me? He said, but thou art holy. That's why. God is
holy. Now, I'm glad that there was
darkness at this time. That's a reminder to me that
I can't really enter into what was going on. There was darkness. This was a transaction between
the Father and the Son. You see, the death of Christ
was not so much for you, but for God. For God do something
for me or you. He first had to do something
for himself. And that's what is taking place. on the cross
in the darkness. God was doing something for himself
in order that he might do something for me or you. Oh, the glory
of God in this, but it was done in the darkness. It was Martin
Luther who said, God forsaking God, no one can understand that. And I can't understand it, but
I believe it. I believe it. Like I said, dealing
with this subject is hard to deal with because I know I'm
speaking of things that are just too wonderful for me or any human
being, but declared they must be. This is the teaching of the
scripture. Now, as I've already said, this
is what God really thinks of sin. And this is what I really
deserve. to be forsaken of God, to be
abandoned of God because of my sin. Do you know you don't even
know anything about sin until God saves you? And when He saves
you, then you see the evil of sin and the enormity of sin and
the guilt of sin. Before you're saved, You might
make mistakes and do wrong things, but you don't see the exceeding
sinfulness of sin. But when God gives you a new
heart, you see the exceeding sinfulness of sin. And what the
cross tells us, with Christ being forsaken by God, is what God
really thinks of sin, what it looks like, and what I actually
deserve. Now, while it's in the darkness,
there's some things we see. What God thinks of sin. And we
also see that this was done that the scriptures might be fulfilled. You read Psalm 22. It's often
called the psalm of the cross. That's where he says, they pierce
my hands and my feet. They cast lots for my vesture. It's all Christ speaking from
the cross. And it begins with this statement, my God, my God,
why have you forsaken me? That the scriptures might be
fulfilled. And when he made this cry, My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He didn't have the sense
that, well, my father knows these sins really aren't mine. They
belong to somebody else. I'm just taking their place. No, those sins actually became
his sins. He felt the shame of them. He
felt the guilt of them. He felt the abandonment of them.
He had no sense of the blessed presence of the Holy Spirit when
he said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He didn't
have his people gathered around him saying, oh, we love you for
doing this because we know you're doing it for us. He was alone,
abandoned by God, abandoned by men. He couldn't say to himself,
these sins really aren't mine. They belong to my people. I really
don't have to feel the guilt of them. No, they became his
sins. He said, mine iniquities are
gone over my head as a heavy burden. They're too heavy for
me. He bore the shame and the guilt
and the sorrow of that sin. And that's why God the Father
forsook him. You know, if he was not guilty,
it would have been unjust for God to forsake him. God's, David
said, I've never seen the righteous forsaken or his seed begging
for bread, but on Calvary's tree, he wasn't the righteous. He was
bearing the sins of his people as the sin bearer and suffering
the wrath of God Almighty. This was God's justice being
set forth. Now in the opening chapter of
the New Testament, we have these words, Matthew 121, thou shalt
call his name Jesus, for he shall save. his people from their sins. This is how he did it. My sins became his sins. He was forsaken by his Father
in my room instead, and he put away my sin. He made it to where
I do not have sin anymore. And that's how he saved his people
from their sins. He actually said in Psalm 40,
my iniquities have taken hold upon me so that I'm not able
to look up. That's Christ speaking from the
cross. Read Psalm 40 and you'll see that it's quoted in Hebrews
chapter 10 as the very words of Christ. That's how he saved
his people from their sins. He took those sins, became guilty
of those sins, suffered the wrath of God for those sins, and put
those sins away to where they are no more. And just as truly
as my sin became his personal sin, his righteousness becomes
my personal righteousness so that I stand before God without
guilt. Now, when we see the Lord hanging
on the tree, I see that this is the eternal purpose of God
being fulfilled. I love those scriptures in Acts,
chapter 2, where Peter, speaking of his death on the calvary's
tree, he said, him being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God. That's why he was delivered.
He was God's purpose, his determinate counsel. you have taken, and
with wicked hands have crucified and slain. That doesn't relieve
you of your guilt, but he did it according to God's purpose.
I love what was said by the early church. In Acts chapter 4, verse
27, they were praying. They said, both Herod and Pontius
Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered
together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined
before to be done. When Christ was forsaken by God,
it was God's will being done. He's the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world, and here he comes in time. Now, think about this. My God,
my God, why have you forsaken me? The most God-like thing God
ever did is when he forsook his son. The most God-like thing God ever
did is the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. How every attribute
of God is magnified in the cross of Christ. Oh, let me remind
you, the cross is God's purpose. It was for God's glory. What
would we ever know of the true justice of God without seeing
that even when sin was found on His Son, He killed Christ
was willing to die and be forsaken by God rather than God's holy
law be dishonored. How we see the justice of God
magnified. How we see the power of God magnified. On the cross, God found a way
to put away sin and make it non-existent. He found a way to be just and
yet justify the ungodly through the putting away of their sins
on the cross of Calvary. His power is such that my sin
now is no more. He put it away. You think of
the mercy of God, that God would give his son out of mercy for
sinners. You think of the grace of God.
You think of the love of God. You think of the immutability
of God. Every attribute God has been
pleased to make known regarding himself is seen in the cross
of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a glorious thing. The cross is the most God-like
thing God ever did. Now remember, the cross of the
Lord Jesus Christ, it's not a response to man's sin and God trying to
fix the mess. Man's sin in the fall was for
this one purpose, the glory of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now the cross manifests God's love for his wife or Christ's
love for his bride. Listen to this in Ephesians chapter
five, verse 25. Husbands, love your wives. even
as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that
he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water
by the word, that he might present it to himself, a glorious church,
not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should
be holy and without blame before him. Now this is what happened
on the cross. Christ took the debt of his bride and made him
his and put him away. Now, because he was forsaken,
he said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken? Because he
was forsaken, none of his people will ever be forsaken. He was
forsaken in their place, and none of his people will ever
be forsaken. He said, I'll never leave thee,
nor forsake thee. But what if I fill in the blank?
You'll still not be forsaken if you're one of his people.
I don't care what it is, if you're one of His people, you will never
be forsaken because He has promised, I'll never leave thee nor forsake
thee. But what if I commit this great sin? He still says, I'll
never leave thee nor forsake thee. You can't send away His
grace if you're one of His. He'll never leave you or forsake
you. Now there was a missionary who
had been trying to bring the gospel to a people who had a
very limited language, and he was trying to figure out whether
or not what he was saying was coming across to him. So he asked
a lady, what do you understand about what I've said? And here
was her reply. Me die or he die? He died. Mino died. If you understand that, you've
understood the mystery of the gospel. He was forsaken, and
because he was forsaken, everybody he represented will never be
forsaken, and they must be saved. Now, somebody may be thinking,
well, how can I know if he did what he did for me? My dear friend,
if you're a sinner, He did this for you. This is a faithful saying
and worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners of whom I am the chief. If you're a sinner,
He did this for you. To request a copy of the sermon
you have just heard, send your request to messages at todsroadgracechurch.com. Or you may write or call the
church at the information provided on the screen.