“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46.

THE SUFFERINGS OF THE SAVIOUR, Pt 1.

From the day of His birth, the Lord Jesus was subjected to suffering. He was laid in a manger, amongst animals for there was ‘no room in the inn’. During His ministry He suffered rejection, scorn and unbelief!

However, it was on the cross that His sufferings reached their climax.

This is His ‘middle saying’ on the cross. He is in the middle of His time of pain and agony.

I. HE WAS FORSAKEN OF HIS FATHER.

1. He is here in the very depths of His sufferings. We really cannot understand what He was enduring. His cry was uttered in the midst of darkness, v 45. 6th hour was noon, when the sun should have been brightest. He had been 3 hours on the cross, Mark 15:25. Such was the darkness that even heathen historians in Egypt wrote of it.

2. It was behind this veil of darkness that our great High Priest offered Himself for our sins. You know the sufferings of Christ were pictured for us in the offering brought to the Lord. Hebs 9:1-7.

3. Sinful man most foolishly thinks to be out of God’s presence would be a most happy thing. “And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden,” Genesis 3:8. Sometimes even believers hide from the Lord. “But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD,” Jonah 1:3.

4. Being forsaken of His Father was the result of Him becoming the sin-bearer. “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him,” 2 Cors 5:21. Being made sin, the Father treated Him as SIN! “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity,” Habakkuk 1:13. This what the Saviour suffered for His people.

Because He was forsaken for His people, we can be sure that we will never be forsaken. “He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” Hebrews 13:5.

The rejectors of the gospel will however know what it is to enter this darkness of being utterly forsaken, Matthew 8:12.

Now do you understand a little more clearly what the prophet meant when he said: “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed,” Isaiah 53:5.