Forsaken By God Matthew 27:45-46 Parkdale Grace Fellowship Good Friday AM, April 3, 2015 Read Matthew 27:11-54 In 1 Kings chapter 3 we read about two women who are arguing over a baby, each claiming that the baby belonged to her. Their case was brought before King Solomon who resolved the problem by commanding that the baby be cut in half with a sword and one half given to each woman. Upon hearing this judgment 1 Kings 3:26 says, Then the woman whose son was living spoke to the king, for she yearned with compassion for her son; and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and by no means kill him! In showing her willingness to suffer personal pain and loss in order to spare the life of the child she demonstrated that the child truly did belong to her. Likewise, in showing His willingness to suffer personal pain and loss in order to spare our lives, Jesus demonstrated that He is our Creator and that we rightfully belong to Him. Matthew 27:45-46, Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land. 46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? To be forsaken by God is the worst possible thing that can happen to any man. Of all the agonies Jesus experienced on that day He was crucified, by far the most excruciating agony was to be forsaken by the Heavenly Father. To be forsaken by God is to experience Hell total separation from God and any of His goodness. Why did God forsake Jesus at that time of great agony? Why, when Jesus was suffering so much, did God forsake Him? Speaking of Jesus death, Isaiah 53:4-6 explains the reason for Christ s suffering: Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. It was because of all our sin and guilt which had been placed upon Jesus that God forsook Him. Jesus was carrying all the sins of the world. Every sinful act ever committed since the sin of Adam and Eve. All the secret sins that no one else even knows about, Jesus took them upon Himself.
2 Every perverted sexual act ever done and every filthy thought ever imagined; the most barbaric tortures and every murder ever committed; every violent action, every act of hatred, every crime; the sin of every Jezebel, of every Hitler, of every terrorist; and the sin of every one of us, was all concentrated in one place at one time the guilt of the entire human race was placed into the body of Jesus. 2 Corinthians 5:21 For God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Sin separates man from God. Isaiah 59:2 Your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you So because sin separates us from God, imagine the effect of all the sins of the entire world being placed upon Jesus at the cross it created a massive gulf of separation between Jesus and God His Father. Sin is what separates you from God. It has always separated man from God. When Jesus took our sins upon Himself, He also took all of the punishment for that sin the most severe punishment of all was to be forsaken by God. To be forsaken is the ultimate, total separation from God. This explains why Jesus was in such agony in the garden of Gethsemane. Matthew 26:36-39 Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, Sit here while I go and pray over there. 37 And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. 38 Then He said to them, My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me. 39 He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will. Luke 22:43-44 Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. 44 And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. It was not so much the pain of the scourging and the crucifixion that Jesus feared; not the mocking hatred of the crowd nor even the rejection of His close friends. More than anything else He dreaded being utterly forsaken by His Father, that is the ultimate penalty of sin. From all of eternity past there had never been a moment of broken fellowship between the Father and His Son they were perfectly one. While the false charges were leveled against Jesus and they spit in His face, beat Him and plucked out His beard He remained silent. They whipped Him and led Him to the cross, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before it s shearers is silent so He opened not his mouth. While spikes were driven through His hands He did not complain. But the one thing that He could not silently endure was when the Father turned His face away and forsook Him. Then, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? What a horrible cry.
3 Jesus experienced being forsaken by God so that we could be saved from ever having to go through that most horrible of all experiences. Because of His sacrifice on our behalf God has promised us that He would never leave us or forsake us. What does it mean to be forsaken by God? What was it that Jesus saved us from? To forsake means to renounce or turn away from entirely. (Webster s) No human being alive on earth today has ever experienced what it is to truly be forsaken by God. But countless millions who have died and gone to their graves rejecting Jesus have begun to experience what it is to be forsaken by God they ve begun to experience everlasting torment in hell. Hell is simply a place of total separation from God and any of His good blessings. Just as darkness is the absence of light, and cold is the absence of heat, so suffering is the absence of God s goodness, which is the result of sin rebellion against God. And the greater the absence of God s goodness the greater the suffering. No living person on earth, so long as they are still alive, yet knows what it is to be completely forsaken by God. While we live we are surrounded with the beauty and goodness of His creation, we all experience His blessings: life, breath, pleasure, happiness, good food, friends, laughter, sunshine, etc. In Acts 17:27-28 Paul, speaking to unbelievers, says that while we live God is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being God gives each of us life and breath, health and strength. The Bible also tells us that every good and perfect gift comes from God. Whether we believe in Him or not we all draw life from God and we enjoy His good gifts of life. When rebuking the blasphemy of King Belshazzar who had mocked God, Daniel said the God who holds your breath in His hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified. (Dan.5:23). Even the most wicked, God-hating murderer has not been totally forsaken by God. As long as he is alive and has breath in his lungs He has not yet been forsaken. But if he dies without faith and repentance he will at that moment of death be utterly forsaken by God forever. We often describe a barren, hostile and harsh place as being a God forsaken land. But really, no one and no place on earth is truly God forsaken only hell is truly God forsaken. There may be times when you have felt like God has forsaken you. It is one of the worst feelings in the world. Times when your need is critical, your suffering is great, but God doesn t seem to answer your prayer or even seem to care. Maybe you have felt forsaken as you have clung to the lifeless body of a loved one who has died in spite of your desperate prayers. Or maybe you have felt forsaken when your spouse told you he/she no longer loves you and then walks out of your life forever.
4 There are times when evil seems to triumph over good and God seems to do nothing about it and you feel that He has forsaken you. But though we may feel forsaken we are never really forsaken. King David, speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, said, I have never seen the righteous forsaken. But here we have Jesus, the Righteous One hanging forsaken on the cross. He didn t just feel forsaken; He was forsaken, because he was taking upon Himself the punishment for all of our sin. It is agonizing to see an orphaned child, frightened and alone, forsaken by his parents. It is heart wrenching to see a wife forsaken by her husband. But there is nothing to compare with the agony of a person forsaken by God. Three times in Matthew s gospel Jesus described Gehenna (also known as Hell or the Lake of Fire) as outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Outer darkness is a place far removed from any manifestation of God. Outer darkness is being shut out completely from God a place totally void of any evidence of God s goodness. Think of the five senses when totally separated from God there is nothing to see but darkness; nothing to hear but horror; nothing to taste or smell but foulness; nothing to feel but pain. And the mind cut off from God is filled with never ending bitterness, terror, regret, hatred, torment, and stress without relief for ever. If in this life a man or woman persists in rejecting God if they persist in telling God to leave them alone, or if they just keep on ignoring God, the day will come when God will grant them their desire and will cast them out of His presence and out of His world into outer darkness where there is absolutely nothing of God at all. Hebrews 9:27 says it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment. The ultimate judgment for those who reject Jesus as their substitute sacrifice for sin is everlasting, total separation from God and from any trace of His goodness. But praise God, because of what Jesus suffered for us on the cross it is not necessary for us to fear ever experiencing being forsaken by God, if we will only trust in Him, repent of our sin, yield our lives to Him, and receive what He did on the cross as our substitute. Then we can become a child of God and never be forsaken. Look at the wonderful reassurance Jesus gives us in John 5:24 Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word [who listens responsively to My message] and believes in Him who sent Me [to believe in God means to trust in, cling to and rely upon Him] has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment [shall never be forsaken], but has passed from death into life. [Bracketed comments added for clarification] I pray that you will believe what Jesus has done for you and not reject Him but receive Him by faith and cling to Him, trusting that He is the only One who can save you from the consequences of your sin. Jesus was forsaken by the Father so that you don t have to be forsaken.
5 Jesus became what we all were (full of sin and separated from God) so that we could become what He is (righteous, accepted and loved by God, and pleasing to Him). Jesus experienced death for each of us, so that we can know abundant life in Him. Will you put your trust in Jesus today? Will you receive from Him this Good Friday His gift of salvation? And will you give Him great thanks and much praise for what He has done for you? Copyright 2015 by Parkdale Grace Fellowship Permission: You are permitted to reproduce and distribute this material in any format, provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.