Well, Congregation, let me invite us to open our Bible to Mark chapter 15. Now, I can't tell how loud this is. Can you hear in the back? We've had some audio difficulties. We're okay? All right, great. Thank you for your patience and working through that. Helps save the voice a little bit, too. To Mark chapter 15. Now, if you haven't been with us lately, we have been preaching through the book of Mark. And if you ask any of the members, they'll tell you it's been going on for a while now. Not that that's a bad thing. We've been going very slowly and patiently through the Book of Mark. It is a beautiful, weighty book. And I mentioned to the congregation the last couple of weeks that we come this morning to what I call the almost unpreachable text. I said that last Sunday and I meant it and asked for your prayers. Not only is it very difficult to understand what's going on here in our limited human capacity, it is equally difficult to try then to preach that. I'm not trying to make excuses, I'm simply saying this is the reality of things we cannot fully comprehend. But our God is good and so we trust him. So we come to Mark chapter 15 and the two verses 33 and 34, Mark 15, 33 and 34. At the sixth hour, darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, which means, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Thus, this morning, beloved, God's word and what it is Jesus Christ spoke at the cross. Let's come now and ask the help of our God by his spirit's mercy. Let's seek that help in prayer. Our Father in heaven, we delight in your word. And though this morning we take only two verses, there is far more here than a lifetime could be spent trying to understand. And so we ask in terms of our creatureliness that you would, by the Holy Spirit's powerful work, enable us in mind and heart to understand. You are the one who preaches, for he knows his weakness. But we know both for the preacher and the hearer that you, O Lord our God, you are able. And so we have confidence as we approach you and ask for help. Because we ask in Jesus' name, amen. So dear congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, we return this morning to rejoin Mark as he brings to our attention by the Holy Spirit the memories of Peter. What it was Peter recollected and gathered up as it were and gives then to Mark by the Holy Spirit's work comes to us and our hands need then to be open, likewise our hearts. Because these are deep things this morning. These are the deep things of that blackest, darkest high noon ever in the history of the world. You cannot be saved without this blackest darkness. Jesus had to descend here so that when you die, you will ascend to the bright glory of heaven. Now what I just said is something you must believe. The myriad of the world religions will tell you what I just said is a lie. Even some claiming, if I use air quotes, to be Christians, would say what I just said is too much, too hard, too unbelievable. Because what we just said, beloved, is that Jesus had to descend here, where he does at the cross, so that when we die, we will be able to ascend to the brightness of the glories of heaven. Peter heard, Peter saw, and Peter was struck by these hours. The same event, interestingly, is recorded by Matthew with almost, almost the exact same wording so that we have it in stereo or antiphonally. These glorious realities, if I can put it this way, including this blast from hell's deep. Let this blast from hell's deep cause you to tremble with terror if you to this day have rejected the Lord Jesus Christ. Tremble with terror at this blast. Or let this blast comfort you beyond measure If you know that you are in Jesus Christ to this day, in this day you believe on him with your heart and soul and mind and strength and everything that is about you, let this text comfort you incredibly. But in either case, do not ignore these words. We can't afford to. So we glean, here's the theme, and this is a handout in your bulletin if you care to follow along that way. We glean what we are able from the impenetrable depths of his desertion on the cross. That's a mouthful. We glean what we are able from the impenetrable depths of his desertion on the cross. And so, beloved, first of all, at Bethlehem, God tasked a star. At Golgotha, darkness. Now let me enter into this consideration of ours for a moment like a piece of evidence into the courtroom proceedings. Let me enter in as evidence Psalm 19. What does it mean? What do you think of when you, in your mind right now, you're going through the beginning of Psalm 19, if you know it well, and you're saying to yourself, the heavens declare the glory of God. What does that mean? Well, when we think of Bethlehem, that glory of God in the heavens was what brought the wise men to worship baby Jesus. Yes, amen, true. But here at verse 33, I want us to notice something as well, that God tasked, directed, used darkness. Local, not worldwide, local darkness which lasted three hours. Why not worldwide? Well, had it been worldwide, many could have claimed, they would have tried to have said, it was some kind of celestial eclipse. Had it been worldwide, at least half of the globe would have been thrown into darkness and they could have said, well, it was something more natural. But it was localized. The whole holy land, the entire land of Jerusalem and its environs was the canvas on which God painted blackness. Why? Because in every place in the scripture that's meaningful to our understanding of this text, blackness refers to judgment. Remember that darkness was one of the curses the Lord used over Egypt, though it was light and Goshen, everywhere else in Egypt was darkness to point to his impending judgment. By the way, in three places in the book of Matthew, darkness is referenced, outer darkness is referenced to refer to judgment, hell, the crushing torments of God's righteous judgment. So here what we're meant to understand, beloved, at the sixth hour, at high noon, at the brightest time of the day, God ordained, directed, and controlled darkness so that it would descend on the land while Jesus Christ descended into hell on the cross. He is being crushed, tormented, gnashing, devastated for us for three full hours The crushing of God's righteous wrath consumed Jesus Christ. My question to us this morning, and it's a very important one in a text like this, is how do we receive revelation? What do we say about this deep, dark text? How do you handle this darkness? You see, as we read and as we study and as we listen to a sermon being preached, we are called then to immerse ourselves in this text this morning as if we also were in that darkness. What would we say if right now the bright light shining into our windows was immediately caused to be shut off as a switch? What would we think? How would we respond? Would it grip us? Would we be caused in a certain way to be unable to see because of the blackness of the darkness that immediately enveloped the room, the area? Some of you, like me, have gone on a cave tour before. And whatever cave you go into, there's a common theme that the park rangers like to, a trick they like to play on those who go on the cave tour. You get down into the deep cavern. It's a large expanse, like in Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, and they say, now, hold on, we're gonna turn off the lights. And they turn off the lights in those dark caves, and it is entirely black. You can't see your hand in front of your face. Now, why am I bringing this up? Why am I wanting to think, are we also imagining ourselves engulfed in that sort of a darkness? Why is this a legitimate line of questioning? Because, beloved, as we read the text and understand what is going on here, for three solid hours, from noon until three, the sun was extinguished from Jerusalem and Palestine, and the religious leaders were untroubled by it. Most of the regular people ignored it. But especially the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the rulers and the elders, the teachers of the people, they played it off as if nothing. Can you imagine doing that? Can you imagine having that experience? And are we thinking about it now in terms of what Christ endured? And ignoring a sign which was impossible to ignore. How vile. Let's use a different word. How satanic. To say, oh, there's nothing to see here. Nothing unusual going on. You ask, well, pastor, how can you make that assertion that they were ignoring it and playing it off as if nothing happened? Because after the fact, after the matter, what did they do differently about the Lord Jesus Christ? And the answer is until Peter's preaching and acts, they did nothing differently. They continue to scorn him, continue to heap abuse on him. Do we say something differently? Can we say, yes God, I see the judgment upon Jesus for my sins, I believe. Do we have those eyes with which to see? Well then secondly, the psalm is only fulfilled by this man at this moment. Three hours. How long is that? I did just a little bit of study, and I'm not a football watcher, but I'm told that three hours is about the length of an average football game, give or take. How fast does that go if you're there at the game watching? If you know me, you've known I've been with the dentists lately doing an undesirable dance with dentistry. If you're in the dentist's chair for three hours, how long is that? Yikes. Can we begin to comprehend how long was three hours for Jesus Christ? Verse 34 tells us that at the ninth hour, that's three in the afternoon, he cries out. Now, the NIV even softens that language too much, cries out. He roars, he screams. Can it be otherwise? For what he has been enduring and what that enduring torment causes him as way of a response to cry out. And so yes, he cries out Psalm 22. His yell, speaking of the forsakenness, which he only could experience in the full and right fulfillment of Psalm 22 in the first verse. But there's something else. We're gonna catalog this more carefully in our third point, but what he is living out, not only Psalm 22, but what Jesus Christ is living out, if you know, of course, where I'm going, is Isaiah 53. He is being deserted. The cross is Christ's desertion, deserted by his father. Yet in the honest display of his full humanity, he cries out, hollers, yells, whatever word, whatever you want to use there as a synonym. With all energy of heart and force, he cries out, listen, to express the truth that he doesn't know why his father has deserted him. Does he know? He knows. But he doesn't know. Otherwise, we don't know what to do with the text. He expresses the truth, Psalm 22. He expresses the reality of Isaiah 53. And so by faith, his cry here is, my God. Have you caught that before? My God. You see, beloved, he has been deserted, yet he clings to the one who has deserted him. He clings to the one who had to turn his back on him at the cross. From the blackest darkness comes the cry of desertion from the one who still claims God as his perfectly loving heavenly father. When you pray, taught Jesus, pray our Father. What does he cry out? My God. Now Christians, we cannot reject what may here seem to us to be contradictory. We cannot reject what seems to us to be in conflict or in confusion. If we're tied in knots about what is actually happening here, we must by faith say that still we accept it. He is abandoned, forsaken, deserted by his father since he became sin for us, we'll come back to that. Deserted yet by faith he still clings to him. Do we have any way of connecting to that? I think we do, at least in a small way. Because then as I look at you, I know there are some of you about whom what I'm about to say is already true, has already happened. Some of you are younger and maybe it hasn't yet happened, but one day almost surely it will because we're Christians. We are going to come to the time, the place, the event, the situation where we're going to feel like God has turned his back on us. If it hasn't yet happened, it will. What then will we do? What's the major premise which leads to the minor premise? What's the glorious truth which leads to lesser glorious truths? It is that Jesus Christ at that moment when he knew that he was being forsaken by his father still clung to him. My God, and you and I, dear Christians, must do the same because of what Christ endured. Must do the same. Even if doing so seems contradictory and confusing, conflicted, if you haven't yet been to the funeral of a loved one and felt something of this, you will. If you've had your spouse for 40, 50, 60 years and you don't yet really know what this feels like, you will. What then will you do? You see, beloved, we say, and we're going to get to the major issue of our sins in a moment, but we say, also by way of application, that because of what Jesus Christ endured on the cross, and he did so endure it, our confidence about God never abandoning us is sure, isn't it? It is certain, isn't it? We must believe that. Well, thirdly, to boldly go where no one else could ever possibly go. Are you watching? Can you see through the darkness? Only by faith. And that is all the more weighty and meaningful for the church in this day and age than it has been in the past. when again the assaults against biblical Christianity are all over the place from variety of sources coming at us constantly. Is it true, says the world, that only a man and a woman can marry in the Lord? Or, as the world wants us to say, no, two men can marry, two women can marry. Is that true? Is it true, beloved, that there is only one Savior in whom we can have all of our hope and our trust? Or is it true, as the world wants us to believe, that every path leads to God? Is it true that Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary? Or as the world says, well, that's ridiculous. What is true? How do we see it? by faith alone. Do you notice what it is that we're wrestling with in this text and why I've been saying to us as congregation over and over in the last several weeks that these things are beyond our full capacity to understand. Notice what it is that we're dealing with. We're dealing with the second person of the Trinity crying out that he has been forsaken by the first person of the Trinity. We are wrestling with a reality that we cannot fully grasp and the world would want us to laugh and say, well, that's absurd. But without this, we cannot be saved. And as we get more into the detail of it now, we have to understand what it was Jesus Christ at this moment is actually enduring. Are you watching? Can you see through the darkness? Only by faith. So that we can read here from Isaiah 53, for example, he was stricken by God. smitten by him and afflicted. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment which brought us peace, now listen, was upon him. In other words, He is bearing it up. He is holding that wrath, that righteous propitiatory wrath which is falling on Him in full measure, the full cup of the wrath of Almighty God, righteously falling on Jesus Christ. Because He who knew no sin became sin for us on the cross. And God unleashed on that sin his full cup of wrath. He was sinless so that all our sins could be plastered onto him. And because he became sin, again, as Isaiah says, that the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. Therefore, the transgressions of my people, for the transgressions of my people, he was stricken. It was the Lord's will, Isaiah goes on. Do you know this text? It was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer. Jesus Christ suffered in soul a torment infinitely worse than any physical torture could ever be. I say again, to our minds, not only impenetrable but nearly incomprehensible. No other person could ever possibly go here where he is. Only Jesus Christ, the flawless Son of God, could descend here. And as he was upheld by the divine nature, by the Holy Spirit as well, he endures the full measure of the righteous wrath, beloved, that you and I owe to God. Because we are sinners. and enduring, wrung out of him the cry of dereliction and desertion. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me so that we would be saved from all our heinous and horrid sins? Beloved, there are two questions I need you to answer this morning. The first is this. Do we rightly value the horror of our sins? Do we rightly understand countenance, give right value and weight, and the impact of our horrid sins? Or do we say, well, I just, I cursed, I lusted, I was greedy, no big deal, Jesus covers it all. Beloved, don't think that way. Don't behave that way. Do you see that the Lord painted the sky black because of what his son was enduring on the cross because of our sins, the sins of his people? Believe. Believe that sin is horrid, horrific, gross, vile, terror bringing, not just sin, but my sins, your sins. Do you believe that? Do you believe that? Only when you are ready to say yes, can I ask you the second question, which is this. Do you believe that at this cross and in this cry, Jesus accomplished everything needed for us? to cover all of those horrid, heinous, terror-bringing sins. That the Savior cried out on the cross that cry of dereliction and desertion so that his people would never be deserted, so that you would never have to cry out, God, why have you forsaken me? And it means exactly that, that he did forsake you. You never have to cry that. He descended into hell while on the cross. and the unimaginable torment of soul for the sinless perfect Jesus to descend there was so that you and I would never have to descend to hell at death. Do you believe that? Do you believe that? I can't let you go this morning until in your mind and your heart you're giving an answer to those two questions. Because if you were to die this evening, and you didn't believe those two things, your cry would echo Jesus' cry, except there would be no answer. And you would only sink deeper into the torments of hell to never, ever, ever escape. Do you believe? And beloved, when we say we do, we realize that in this darkest hour comes light for the Christian and life everlasting. Amen. Oh Lord, now we come to you this morning You, the God who has given us your word, a word which is never changed, never different, never anything but true, as it is also true this morning, that you have authored a glorious salvation, and we delight in it. And so, Lord, now help us and strengthen us in faith, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Let's respond with 381, our Blue Psalter Hymnal, Man of Sorrows, what a name. We'll stand to sing 381. Then we'll remain standing for the doxology and the benediction noted for us there in the bulletin. But let's stand at 381.