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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/bruce-rodgers/utterances-from-the-cross-my-god-my-god/
Let's look in Matthew chapter 27. Matthew 27 tonight. I want to look just briefly at the Veil of darkness for three hours and then the great cry That follows just as the darkness is lifting Matthew 27 and verse 45 now from the sixth hour There was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.
Now that's from Noon until three o 'clock in the afternoon and about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice Saying Eli Eli Lama Sabbath and I That is to say my god my god Why hast thou forsaken me.
Some of them that stood there when they heard that said this man calleth for Elias 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 Elias will come to save him Jesus when he had cried again With a loud voice Yielded up the ghost now. There are other details following this which we won't be looking at Tonight.
I am just really going to concentrate on the Expression in verse 46 my god my god Why has thou forsaken me the darkness in the middle of the day? Was an unnatural darkness it was a darkness that Created I'm sure a certain amount of fear in Those who were there as far as I know there is no natural explanation for it as fitting in a certain sequence of eclipses of the Sun and so on.
Well, there is a very interesting video that someone gave me to watch about the Bethlehem star the star of Bethlehem and the man who Does that has an interesting? Suggestion concerning the darkness at Calvary as well, which I'd have to go back and Watch it again to remember the details but at any rate It was a very strange darkness that came over the land.
One of the questions that we could ask is was this just a local phenomenon or Was this the whole earth and in the gospel of Luke it uses the word earth in Matthew and Mark it uses the word land and I'm going to suggest that it probably was the whole earth and There is some historical confirmation in other records of different places in the world Where there was an unexplainable darkness That came upon the earth.
So why? Why did God do this? Well, I use the expression the veil of darkness and By saying it that way I'm suggesting that God veiled Calvary in darkness So that no one could see the sufferings of his son When he was enduring the wrath of God for sin.
Now again, we are not told specifically in the scriptures That the three hours of darkness were the atonement sufferings and yet it is very often expressed that way and Somehow we have to make a distinction between what men did to Christ on the cross.
Those were the external factors of the trial the crucifixion. Being put on the cross and left there we know that He was wounded for our transgressions. And we understand that that is not referring to the physical wounds inflicted by men.
But God wounding the one who is his perfect servant. And so we can only say that there is a certain suitability in understanding that in the darkness that is when the atonement was done and again, I want to be careful in saying that because We can't really go beyond what the scriptures actually tell us.
And so it seems that When the Lord Jesus uttered this great cry it was just as the darkness was lifting and It has seemed to me that Isaiah 52 at the close of that chapter. Maybe we'll just read that verse Isaiah 52 where it gives a little prissy.
You might say of the 53rd chapter verse 13 says behold my servant shall deal prudently he shall be exalted and Extolled and be very high as. Or according as many were astonished at thee. His visage was so marred more than any man and his form more than the sons of men.
So shall he sprinkle many nations. King shall shut their mouths at him for that which had not been told them shall they see that which they had not heard shall they consider. And again, this is somewhat speculative to say.
But it seems to me that perhaps this expression relates to what the people around the cross would have seen in the face and in the form of the Lord Jesus as He came out of the darkness. And so the expression the reason I'm suggesting that when it uses this word as many were astonished at thee.
Now that English word Literally means to be turned to stone. It is the word to be astonished. But the translators put in a word that that conveys a horror. We would use the word petrifying. Something that to see it just just turns you to stone so that you can't even move.
And what was it that caused them such horror. Well other people have been brutally battered other people have been tortured and So you'd have to ask is this just referring to physical Torment and its consequences that could be done by a man or by men and I'm thinking that possibly It could be referring to what he looked like what it did to his very being physically of Experiencing this wrath of God upon him for our sin and as the Gaze of the people were upon him as the darkness lifts and they see one who has been forsaken by God to judgment so I want to Think with you first of all about what it means to be forsaken and to think about the Lord Jesus in this framework as a man Forsaken by God and there is a connection with every human being With that man forsaken by God because either He will be your escape from judgment From being forsaken abandoned by God to divine judgment or You will experience that judgment.
So Christ on the cross entering into this experience of being forsaken by God Has a connection with every human being so let's think then about What it means? First of all Who is he talking to my God?
My God if you hear these words if someone ever says to you Why did you leave me? Why did you forsake me? Why did you abandon me? It's obvious that there's something that both of you know and this is a question.
It's a it's a searing question that demands an explanation. It demands a justification. Why did you forsake me? Why did you abandon and here is a man at? Calvary crying out to God in an anguish that Probably could not be expressed by anyone else trying to repeat it my God my God.
Why did you forsake me? Let's go back to Psalm 22 and read a couple of the verses there because this is a quotation. And I'm sure everybody knows that so the Lord Jesus is Deliberately expressing the fulfillment of prophecy and yet we can be absolutely sure that he wasn't just Play acting like an actor fulfilling a part.
Psalm 22 in verse 1 the title says to the chief musician upon ijalah shahar a psalm of David that ijalah shahar means the hind of the dawn and That's interpreted by the rabbis as referring to the the first rays of light that would that would open up the sky and Be the signal for the morning sacrifice to begin.
And apparently they would have someone posted who would watch for that first those first spikes of light going up into the horizon to begin the daily sacrificial ritual they Accept it as being messianic and they have called this psalm the dawn of redemption and They somehow recognize it as belonging to the Messiah and a sacrifice My god my god.
Why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring? Oh my god I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest or answer us not and in the night season and I'm not silent but Thou art holy.
Oh thou that inhabit us the praises of Israel. Now I'm not going to go any farther in it just now. And I want to try to go through some of this psalm with you a little later in the meeting. But just for now to think with you about This being forsaken as you read down through the psalm.
It's evident that the that this is not chronological this is the heading of the psalm and it really gives us the dominant theme of the psalm of someone who is abandoned to the enemy who is being hunted who is being surrounded and The imagery is so vivid of like a helpless doe a helpless deer who would be Surrounded by these ferocious beasts and finally as we get to verse 16 down you get Down to verse 20 even more.
So you get the picture of being right in the mouth. There's the last moment before death And he's still crying out to God. And so you have this dominant theme of being Abandoned of being forsaken of not being heard not being answered, but verse 3 does give us a deeper a deeper significance as He says why have you forsaken me?
Then he says but thou art holy thou art holy and Here is an inkling given in the prophecy that this being forsaken Has something to do with God's holiness and the problem of sin. So What does it mean then to be forsaken and more especially?
What does it mean to be forsaken by God? I want to take you to Romans chapter 2 for some Interesting verses that relate to God's character and God's judgment, you know how Romans chapter 1 closes with the Documented wickedness of man and of men who not only do these unspeakably wicked things but take pleasure in other people who do the same and Who knowing the judgment of God?
Still pursue their life of sin and then chapter 2 begins to challenge us To recognize that if we as human beings are able to judge others for their wickedness And we know when people are being wicked when they're doing wrong.
Well, then we have no excuse for not understanding that we are accountable to God's judgment because we do some of the same things and If we can see wrong in others and judge it that very capacity will stand as witness against us if we go to meet God in our sins and Face the God of truth, and so it says.
Therefore verse 1 you are inexcusable. Oh man Whosoever thou art that judgest another for we were in thou judgest another thou condemnest thyself. For thou that judgest doest the same things, but we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth Against them which commit such things and thinkest thou this O man that judgest them which do such things and doest the same that thou shalt escape the judgment of God or Despises thou the riches of his goodness and Forbearance and long-suffering not knowing that the goodness of God leads thee to repentance, but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against a day of wrath and Revelation of the righteous judgment of God who will render to every man according to his deeds.
Speaks to those who do well and then in verse 8 but unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth But obey unrighteousness. Here is what is to be experienced indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil of the Jew first and also of The Gentile you know this.
This pattern that is given here is repeated over and over and over again in human relationships when you get a marriage breakdown. Sometimes it's one Singular sin that happens that destroys the marriage.
But often it's an accumulation of bad behavior That is endured put up with forgiven. Repeated repeated and repeated. Until finally the one partner finally says that's enough there comes a breaking point.
So we have the same capacity that is expressed of God that God Puts up with human sin. He endures He manifests his care his goodness his love his compassion his faithfulness. But ultimately there is a line that is drawn there is a point of no return and When that point is hit and I'm just leaving it out as the point of death of a person who has presumed upon God's mercy his compassion His forgiving grace all his life.
But finally God must deal with him not according to God's kindness But according to that person's sin. That's what it means to be abandoned to be forsaken to judgment. And when I think about hell and the lake of fire I Know we would instinctively think about the terrible pain the physical affliction.
But the worst thing by far is when God withdraws All that he is in his love in his goodness and abandons a person to everlasting judgment. You know that when a person goes to hell They will never be able to experience comfort or peace Or closeness.
They will never be able to feel love. They will never know the experience of care again. God is love and this abandoning or forsaking is The removal the withdrawal of all that God is in his loving faithfulness and care and the abandoning of the person to the judgment That he feels towards sin.
So you get these expressions? Indignation wrath tribulation and anguish. It's really almost too horrifying to think about. And I know that in human relationships This is something I would call it worse than death.
And I don't want to minimize What it is for a wife or husband or a parent to lose a loved one By death, but there is something beyond that When someone forsakes you. And I have sat beside a broken-hearted wife whose husband had left her for somebody else and to just just to see her just trembling in anguish.
And he was not recovered. She had to watch him With this other woman just two or three doors down. There seemed to be no no restraint on the depths of Malice and Hatred in the heart of that husband once he had made that awful choice.
I have also sat beside a husband That I had to tell that while he was away his wife had left him for somebody else. It's one of the most Difficult things to even watch or to try to help in That sense of being rejected.
That sense of being forsaken by another. So when we think about what it means to be forsaken it either Involves sin by the one being forsaken That they are being left or abandoned because of their sin or it involves unfaithfulness on The part of the one doing the forsaking and so that brings us back to Calvary.
And the mystery of the cross. And this is some of the contempt and derision hurled at Christ. He said he was the Christ. He said he was the Son of God. Well, let him deliver him now if he will have him for he said I am the Son of God.
And so to all appearances. It had to be that either Christ was proven to be a false Messiah Under the judgment of God or God had proven to be unfaithful and the only thing that Relieves us of that dilemma is the recognition that we have The understanding that it was our sin that was between them he truly was forsaken by God.
But it was for me. He had to be treated as what belongs to me in being abandoned to judgment so that understanding of Christ as our sin bearer is Essential to be able to accept and acknowledge the reality of both the cry and The meaning of it, you know, I have I guess the only other thing that comes close to Touching on this in human experience is when Someone is going through a very deep depression.
I have had people who have been Extremely seriously depressed. Express it this way that and and there's one Sister who my wife has had quite a bit to do with and has tried to help over the years and This lady experienced some of the worst trauma that could be experienced as a child to be abused by her own father and one of the Tragic consequences of that kind of abuse is that she couldn't even show emotion and And she said I'm going to die Without having lived.
She's when people talk about love. I Hardly know what they're talking about because part of this condition is an inability to feel love. So depression is What corresponds to this feeling of being left totally alone of a despair a deep darkness.
Which there isn't any escape from? But those can be just feelings. They may not correspond to what is real in their actual relationship experience. But the Lord Jesus experienced the awful reality of being abandoned to judgment.
So let's think then about the issue of sin and holiness and the presence of God and let's go back to Psalm 22 and Think about the Lord Jesus. You know, there's certainly a uniqueness to the suffering of the Lord Jesus on the cross and yet at the same time the book of Hebrews emphasizes that he is the Author and finisher of faith and this is a very important theme in the book of Hebrews.
That all that the Lord Jesus has suffered all that he went through as a man Was to not only be the perfect sacrifice for us. But also to fit him to be our high priest and as our high priest. He is the one who has walked the pathway of faith.
Or as Hebrews 12 expresses it. He has run the race course. Now you and I probably don't even know at least in its entirety what our race course is. Sometimes we spend a lot of time wondering well What is the will of God and am I in the will of God and so on?
Well, the race course is basically the course that God has set for your life and we are to run it with endurance, it's a marathon and Hebrews chapter 12. After that wonderful chapter 11 of the heroes of faith.
All those examples of faith he finally draws us to look at the supreme example of faith. Let us Run with endurance the race course set before us looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of faith. So I want to look through Psalm 22 from this double perspective of the Lord Jesus Directly personally in what he experienced and then at each stage How he is also the example for us in coping with the challenges of faith that we face.
And I want to draw attention to four words here, but the word but that is Repeated four times. It's actually in the chapter more than that, but there are four Particularly that actually show a turning point the challenge to faith is presented and his response when he says but is How his faith?
Resolved the challenge and then it leads into the next challenge. So just to look at the first few verses again after he Makes this great cry my God my God. Why hast thou forsaken me? Verse 3 says but thou art holy.
So what is the Lord Jesus doing here? He is vindicating God Even though he is crying out Why have you forsaken me? Yet at the same time his faith Trusts in the reliability of God the true character of God and he vindicates God's lack of answer you are holy and It's because he had taken the place of being the sin-bearer now I Don't want to boggle your mind because mine is still boggled about it.
I'm sure that you've thought about this and wondered and heard explanations as to why he says my God rather than my father and We can understand it to some extent by seeing that he is here expressing The relationship of the man to his God and As the man who has become The sin-bearer and so it is in that relationship of a man under judgment for sin That he is crying out to God my God Why have you forsaken me?
And so we recognize that somehow it would not have been appropriate for him to have said my father Why have you forsaken me as your son in yet no matter how you reason it out. If you can make a distinction between the father and God Then what do you do with the son?
Who is both God and man? So we have to acknowledge that we've we come to a mystery that we can't really fathom. But the one who is God Yet is in manhood Crying out to God and saying my God My God, why have you forsaken me?
It's because he had taken us to himself and us in all our sin and all our guilt before God. He identifies himself with us as the Redeemer of mankind and he is now Representing us before God and he accepts the place that belongs to us my sin-bearer and so This raises the issue that must be dealt with in our relationship to God.
Because God is still holy God can have no fellowship with sin. God cannot be at rest With sin. And so you and I in our relationship to God. We need to deal with the issue of sin whenever it arises in our conscious experience.
Our relationship to God is Going to be affected by this issue of our sinfulness and his holiness and we know that we are justified. Legally, we are cleared legally from the judgment of sin but as to our fellowship with God we need to confess sin and Experience his forgiveness and cleansing or else it's going to affect our enjoyment of God and His enjoyment of us.
And so we are hindered. And I'm really wanting to think about the things that hinder us in our faith relationship with God that are dealt with in this psalm and which he in his experience has gone ahead for us and Resolved and so I Call this the butt of God's holiness.
So he honors God by recognizing that God as the Holy One Must withdraw his presence from the one who is identified with our sin. But then what does he do? He immediately begins to talk about trust. And he says our fathers trusted in thee.
They trusted and thou did deliver them. They cried unto thee and were delivered. They trusted in thee and were not confounded. But I am a worm and no man a reproach of men and despised of the people and I would call this one in verse 6 the butt of his nothingness and.
And again, there's a there's a double sense in which we could look at this expression, but I am a worm and no man. We notice what he is appealing to to God. Our fathers trusted in you. We have a whole history a whole heritage of people who came to God in faith.
Who wrestled with God. Who reached out to God. Who failed God over and over again and yet in God's mercy. He heard them when they cried. Even when they had been failing and disobedient. When they cried out to him, he heard them.
He restored them. He delivered them if There is anyone that should be heard. It should be the one who was always obedient. Who never failed God and yet he's not being heard. And so this is a tremendous challenge to faith to be faithful to God and yet God seems to have no interest in responding to help.
How does he read how does he resolve it. But I am a worm and no man. It's hard to grasp that. It was such a condescension for him to come from the glory of The throne of God as deity to step into manhood.
That in comparison would be becoming a worm but here he is as a man among men and accepting the place as Being unworthy to be heard. What humility. So to me this touches on another very Important issue in our relationship to God and that's the issue of pride.
Versus humility and the issue of suffering reproach because right after that he talks about reproach. I am a worm and no man a reproach of men. So on one hand you can say that he accepts this treatment from God.
Because he has humbled himself to enter death itself to be crushed. But now he's looking at other people and their reaction toward him and he is saying a reproach of men and despised of the people all they that see me laugh me to scorn.
They shoot up the lip they shake the head saying he trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him. Let him deliver him. Seeing he delighted in him. So now he is thinking about What he is in the eyes of other people.
Now we do that a lot don't we. Have you ever been able to analyze how much what you think about yourself depends on what other people think of you? Or what you think other people think of you? We are always gauging our esteem our value By how we see ourselves in the eyes of other people.
By the way, people react to us. By the way, they treat us and reproach. Feeling that people don't like us Is a very powerful controlling thing in many of our lives. It takes a lot of maturity To be able to say well, that's that person's problem not mine.
That's their opinion. It's not what I am before God, but he acknowledges this. This effect upon him of those who hold him in contempt and shower contempt and Sneering at him for his claimed Special relationship to the Lord to God.
So how does he resolve that aspect? Well verse 9 says but Thou art he that took me out of the womb. You see they are mocking his claimed relationship with God. And he says but you are the one who took me out of the womb.
Thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts. I was cast upon thee from the womb. Thou art my God from my mother's belly. Be not far from me for trouble is near for there is none to help.
And then he goes on to emphasize the The strength the ferocity of the enemies who are surrounding him. So what would be called this but in verse 9 I call this the but of conscious relationship with God.
You see growing up being saved as a child and then growing up through teenage years. I Experienced it myself, but I have seen it in many many other young Christians. Where you will have a young Christian who is saved at an early age and Is totally unashamed to talk about the Lord Jesus?
Just Tells everyone about it invites others to children's meetings to Sunday school and speaks to others and whatever. But then there comes a stage Often in the teen years where we just kind of turn into ourselves.
Where we become so conscious of what other people think of us and we begin to hide our association with Christ we begin to protect ourselves from the reproach of belonging to him and other people looking at us and mocking us or distancing themselves from us and seeing that we're different and so on and so.
This is one of the things that destroys the faith of many young Christians. Many young Christians don't make it through especially the teen years into adulthood and overcome this this reproach but he clings To what he has known of God to me.
It's very touching That here he is at the very very end of his life. He's about to die he is nailed to the cross. He's in a condition naturally speaking of helplessness and His faith goes back to the first moments of his human existence.
When he was born. When he was totally helpless as a little baby, and he says you were my God from my mother's belly. You caused me to hope When I was on my mother's breasts. So he goes back to that stage of his life when he was the most Dependent and he expresses you are my God.
And you are still my God. And so he's going to call upon him for his help and so I link that with as far as the issue for us in our Christian experience of the issue of our dependence our conscious dependence upon God.
We have the tendency To begin to live independently of God to just live life as we think and Just sort of call God to be there. To keep us going through and to protect us and there when we really need him.
That doesn't go very well. One of the things that God seems to want to teach us Is to cause us to depend upon him to trust in him. So this is again an important issue of our faith relationship. Do we learn?
Through hard times. Through difficulties through even animosity from others. Do we learn? To trust more deeply in God to depend upon him more fully. You know another thing that I was thinking about at the cross.
When he is there on the cross nailed to the cross and these people are down there mocking his claims. To be the Christ the chosen one of God. To be the son of the Father. If you are in a close relationship to somebody a Relationship that matters to you it really hurts.
When somebody else implies or insinuates that that other person doesn't really care about you. That's one of the most painful. Deadly Stabs into the heart of a person and so he is meeting that challenge and He is saying you are my God.
You are my God even now. When we come to the last one you can see that the expressions become increasingly intense and extreme. He is being brought to the very edge of death itself. I Am poured out like water all my bones are out of joint.
My heart is like wax melted in the midst of my bowels my strength. Dried up like a potsherd my tongue clings to my jaws. And thou hast brought me into the dust of death. Again, you have the impression of of the the enemies just closing in on him and each expression Suggests a hopelessness a hopelessness.
They part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture. These people don't expect him to come down from the cross. They don't expect him to be alive again. They're dividing up his clothes. Think of how callous that is.
Someone is dying and they're digging through his clothes dividing them up. What a callous disregard for his feelings for his sensitivities and You would say well, you might as well give up now. You're not going to be helped.
You're not going to be rescued. But what does he say? But verse 19. But Be not thou far from me. Oh Lord. Oh my strength haste thee to help me Deliver my soul. From the sword my darling. From the power of the dog literally the paw of the dog.
Save me from the lion's mouth. Thou hast heard me from the horns of the Unicorn or some translations give the wild oxen. And I call this the butt of indestructible faith. Here is someone who is just about to be devoured in the imagery that he's giving here.
The dog the dog's paw is on him. And if you know anything about the way dogs go after a Rabbit or a squirrel or something like that when they get them Under their paw they're ready to bite the mouth of the lion.
Right in the lion's mouth. It's the last moment before extinction. And he's still praying. He's still trusting he's still looking to God. So what a testimony of Someone who trusts in God right into death itself.
So that is how he is the author and finisher of faith. He is the one who has expressed faith in its most total complete way as a man with his God. Now there's something very precious here in this last little part and I guess I will probably leave it for tomorrow night or the next night because I I Want you to think about the change in atmosphere?
From this great cry of abandonment at the close of the darkness. And The fact that he gives a triumphant cry. And then he very calmly with a sense of Control and peace Commits his spirit into the father's hands.
What happened in between there? I think the answer is in this psalm but I'll just leave it with you to think about and We'll try to come back to it. Maybe tomorrow night or the next night as we think about his expressions I thirst and then it is finished.
The time is gone. Shall we pray?