Now, quite recently I was listening to a lecture given by a certain individual, and in the process of the lecture he asked a question. He said, what would you have done in Nazi Germany just prior to World War II, just about the time that the Nazis were putting in place their final solution for the eradication of the Jews? And he made the point that the vast, vast majority either said nothing or actively helped the Nazis. I mean, we all like to think that we would be the Oskar Schindler. We all like to think that we would be the Corrie Tenbow, that we would be the person who would have the Jews in our attic, and we would be helping them to escape, and perhaps we would. But the point that this gentleman made was that the numbers go against that, that the majority didn't stand, that the majority said nothing. The majority said nothing or actively participated. In fact, he went on to say quite a startling thing. He said, if you think you'd have made a stand, that's probably evidence that you wouldn't, because you would see yourself as better than the rest. I want to speak to you this evening a very simple gospel message, not a deep theological message in any way, but a simple gospel message on the subject of the greatest question. Before I give you the question, I'm going to give you the answer. Questions are better when you get the answer, aren't they? I'm going to give you the answer first. And the answer to the greatest question is just simply the word love, God's love for sinners. One of the most wonderful things about my job, and there are a lot of very wonderful things about being a minister. It is a great job. It's not without its challenges, and our brother will testify to that, but it's a wonderful, tremendous job to be called of God to share the gospel. And one of the most wonderful things about being a minister is that I get the opportunity to tell you that God loves sinners, like you and me. I mean, He really really love sinners. I'm not talking now about the cheap sort of love that the world talks about, and the world has a habit of speaking about the love of God in cheap terms. You hear people around saying, you know, God loves me, God loves you, God loves everybody. That's so cheap. That's so cheesy. It's so crass. It's awful. And what they really mean, of course, is that we can all do what we want. God will just say, well, hey, that's okay, because I love you. What they mean is that, you know, we can go around, we can drink alcohol till we get drunk, we can live together unmarried, we can tell lies, we can cheat, we can rob, we can steal, we can be lazy, we can defraud our boss, we can break the Sabbath, and the Lord will say, well, you know, that's okay, because I love you. How crass. How cheap. I don't mean that kind of love, because that kind of love is utterly worthless. you know it, and I know it, and the people who say it know it at heart. I'm talking about the real type of love, love that is worth something. And sinner to sinner, let me say this to you, that God hates your sin, but God loves you. God loathes my sin and your sin, but He is a heart for your soul, he wants you to experience his love and his forgiveness and his salvation. He wants to lift you out of your sin and lift you in and defeat your sin and lift you into his love and into his life and share his glory with you forever and ever and ever and ever. The mighty love of God to sinners. The real love of God to sinners. You know, people quote that hymn. It's a wonderful hymn, and I was considering singing it this evening. We chose against it. Maybe we should have. The love of God. People quote the third verse of that, peace, the love of God. They say it's such a tremendous verse. Could we, we think, the ocean filled, or were the sky with parchment made, were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade." It's a wonderful, wonderful verse, but the first verse is just equally as good. The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell. It goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest dell. The guilty pair bowed down with care. God gave his Son to win. his erring child he reconciled and pardoned from his sin." The love of God. Let's not have any of this cheap love nonsense. Let's talk about real love, love that is worth something. As I say, the greatest part of being a minister is that I can come and say to you, don't be slow about coming to Jesus Christ this evening. Don't be slow about coming in confession of your sin and trusting on His cross, because He will receive you. Christ receives sinful men. Don't be fearful. Run to Christ. because we come to a God of true, true love to sinners. The love of God to sinners is the answer to the greatest question, and the question is found in verse 34. Now, we could preach a series of messages on this, and we could go into the Old Testament, and we go into deep theology, would be much deeper than I would be able to deliver to you. I want to just simply preach this verse in a straightforward way, because this verse has the greatest question that has ever been asked. Verse 34, At the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, which is being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? It's the greatest question that has ever been asked. It's the ninth hour. It's 3 p.m. in the afternoon. The Lord Jesus Christ has been upward on the cross for six hours. Six hours. The last three hours have been hours of darkness and horror that you cannot ever imagine. I believe that the darkness was like the darkness of the plagues in Egypt, when every man stayed in his place and none moved. Such was the power of the darkness, three hours of darkness and three hours of deafening silence, not a word. The Savior is silent. The soldiers are silent. The Scriptures are silent about what went on in those hours. And I'm glad the Scriptures are silent because the English language does not have words to describe it. And even if it did, we couldn't stand it. And the Savior is silent, suffering, suffering in silence. The lamb before her shearers dumb. And then the Savior speaks in verse 34, and he asks this greatest of all questions. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? What a question. And there are some great questions, some very thought-provoking questions that have been asked right across this world. You could think about the question, what is consciousness? If you have an answer to that question, well, there'll be people from Silicon Valley scientists, and they'll be queuing up just to put money in your pocket. If you can answer the question, what is consciousness? Is there life beyond planet earth? Another great question. What is energy? Very, very deep question. Why do we dream? There's another deep question for you. But at 3 p.m., in the pit of agony, the Lord Jesus Christ spoke. And remember, folks, he's in excruciating pain. It's agony to breathe, let alone speak. Remember what crucifixion does to the body. It puts such tremendous pressure on the diaphragm that it's a torture to breathe. And every word comes with searing pain, and therefore every word is carefully chosen, and every word is worse, worse so much. And he asked this question, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why would God forsake the Son, the only begotten from all eternity? Why would the Father forsake the Son? Well, we know the answer, don't we? We've been taught the answer from Sunday school. The Father forsook the Son to save my soul, to save sinners. We can rabbit it off. We can churn it out, can't we? The only way for us to be saved, the only way for us to escape hell is if judgment falls on another person. Christ is the only person. He's the God-man. He is no sin. He's the only person who could fulfill that role, and the only way that he could save us if he came and lived a life that we could not live, lived a perfect life, and died the death we deserve to die. We know all that. We know it. We can rabbit it off. So easily it rolls off the tongue. There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin. He only could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in. We can sing the hymns. We can answer the question on a simple level. And of course, we need to have a simple answer because we need to explain to children and to those who are virtually unchurched the gospel. We need to be able to put it in very simple, basic terms so that they can come and accept it on a simple, basic level. But the question is this, have we really answered the question? Have we? Why would God forsake Christ for me? Why would the Father forsake Christ for you? What on earth would induce the Father to do that? Why would he think that that was a worthwhile proposition? Now, we have a saying, don't we, in our society? We say, no pain, no gain. And the implication is that you're doing something that is difficult, it's causing you pain and hardship, but there's a gain which will offset the pain, the hardship. Well, the question comes, Is there enough gain for that pain? For God to save me, is that gain enough for him to forsake his only begotten Son? Let's be real about it. When we look at ourselves, Christ cried with a loud voice, not with some weak, wimpish wheeze of a voice, but he cried with a loud voice, because this is a powerful question. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why? demands a response. We're not to just lift the carpet and sort of brush underneath it. No! Why would God think me worth forsaking his Son for? Christ in all his perfection, in all his sinlessness, Christ the Son of his bosom, And remember, folks, that the death of Jesus Christ was no accident. My brother, in his prayer, prayed about the evening sacrifice. And see if you're died at the time of the evening sacrifice. See if you're died at the Passover. Yeah, how meticulous was this planned? How meticulous was the forsaking of the Son planned? From eternity past, the Father had all the time to think about it. Do you ever make a plan? Do you ever make a plan and at the beginning it sounds pretty good and you congratulate yourself because you've made such a good plan? And then as time progresses, you suddenly realize, well, you know, it's not as good a plan as what I thought it was initially. And by the end of the game, you've changed it because you realize it wasn't good at all. This plan to forsake the sun was laid out in eternity past. He was a lamb slain from the foundation of the world. But as time passed, it did not become any the less appealing to the Father. It did not become any the less worthy to the Father. As time went by, he became more and more visibly involved in it. Calvary was just as worthy in the eyes of the Father when it happened as when it was planned. That prompts me to say, why? Why? Why? When I think about the great agony of Calvary, the hell of every single believer, right back to Adam placed upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Adam's bite, Noah's drunkenness, Abraham's lie, Jacob's deception, Moses' murder, Aaron's making of the golden calf, Eli's refusal to chastise his children, David's adultery, Solomon's polygamy, Peter's denial, Paul's persecution, all upon Jesus Christ. my pride, my wrong, my wickedness, all on Christ. Why on earth would the Father come to the conclusion that this was a worthy trade? When you start to think about it, the Sunday school answer really doesn't cut it, does it? It's there for a purpose, and we need it to share the gospel. But does it really answer the question? And remember that the Lord Jesus Christ was treated differently than other people who were martyred. And I'm not saying Christ was martyred, but Christ was treated differently than martyrs. Think about the Christian martyrs, Latimer and Ridley, those two Protestant clergymen who died at the hands of Bloody Mary, and they were burnt at the stake. The tremendous courage that they displayed there. Mr. Ridley was slow to die. It seems that the flames didn't catch in the way that they would normally have. And it was a prolonged and very painful process. And Mr. Ridley cried out, Father, have mercy. I cannot burn. Let the fire come to me. What a prayer. Let the fire come to me. The natural Human reaction would be, Lord, send the east wind and blow the fire out. Mr. Latimer said, be of good comfort, Mr. Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England that I trust shall never be put out. Such amazing grace was given to the martyrs in their agony. But the Lord Jesus looked to the Father, and the Father turned away. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why would the Father do that? What an inducement! Have you ever been forsaken? Have you ever been shunned? Have you ever had someone who you care about turn their back on you? Someone be dry with you, someone be frosty with you. It's certainly not nice, certainly not easy, especially if it's someone who you've loved or liked before. The father turned his face away. And you parents, you parents know that children can be irksome. I was irksome to my parents at least anyway. Very irksome. They can be sometimes, let's be honest. But would you turn away from them in pain? yet the Son was shunned by the Father. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And yes, Christ knew the plan. Of course Christ knew the plan. He knew the covenant plan. He was in absolute agreement with the Father about the plan of salvation. He was absolutely in agreement that He would do it, that He would carry it through, that His face would be as a flint toward Jerusalem. But in the pain and the loneliness of Calvary, he asked that question, why? Why? The greatest question. For all eternity, the power of them, the three of them, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, had been in eternal harmony, eternal fellowship. Before there was any living creature, before there was one breath, there was the unity of God. And now it's different. For your sake and for my sake, Maybe you'll turn over please to Matthew's Gospel chapter 27. We could maybe look at a few, just a few verses that would underline the unity and underline the closeness. Matthew's Gospel 27 verse 54, No man has seen the Father, that's at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." What a statement that is. In the bosom of the Father. Can you understand it? You know the little boy and the father, and the little boy comes running to the father and embraces the father. And I'm not, for one moment, am I not saying that God the Son was dependent upon the Father the way an earthly infant is dependent on his earthly father? I'm not saying that. I'm just simply underlining the warmth of the relationship in the bosom of the Father. Turn over, please, to John chapter 3, John 3 and 35. A development, a further development of the theme. John 3.35, the Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into his hand. Is that not what happens in a normal father-son relationship? Just thinking about it purely in earthly terms. The Father delights to give the Son what the Son needs. I was out working in the garden and had, of course, the usual pair of working gloves, canvas gloves with the rubber in the back, and of course I had a little helper. And great delight was brought into it when the little helper got a little matching pair of rubber working gloves, only about half the size of mine. Fathers delight to give their sons what they need, don't they? I'm not, once again, I'm not making any kind of theological statement. I'm not saying that God the Son was dependent upon God the Father in that way. I'm simply underlining the relationship John 5 and 17, just a few pages over, Jesus answered them, "'My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.'" 5 and 17, a quintessential picture, the Father and Son working together, and is that not the joy of fatherhood? Everybody knows. I say most people know situations where there are fathers who are, to put it in in common terms, control freaks. And they're so afraid of their son making a mistake and making a catastrophe that they don't let their son do anything. They don't let their son work along with them. And that son grows up without the benefit of being able to work along with the father and learn from the father. And we know that's wrong, simply wrong. It's the joy of fatherhood to bring your Son along, isn't it? Once again, we're not saying anything theological. We're simply highlighting the relationship, the depth. Yeah? John 5 and 20, a few verses down, and, For the Father loveth us, and showeth him all things that he himself doeth. Oh, the relationship for all eternity between Father and Son, the Only Begotten, the Beloved, together in harmony. to the point where Christ could say, I and the Father are one. And yes, that means a whole lot of things, but it most certainly means relationship and close relationship. No man, no man knew Christ like the Father, and none knew the Father like Him. And so why, why, why on earth would the Father think that I'm worth Calvary? My God, my God, why has Thou forsaken me? that double call of intensity. For Christ was forsaken so that you and I, if you're saved, will never, ever be parted from the Lord. Never, ever be parted. What a blessing. Never a time when the Lord will turn his face from us, but He did it on His Son so that it could be so for us. Paul could say, so shall we ever be with the Lord. Oh, the blessings of Calvary that we will never ever be forsaken if we're saved. Still doesn't answer the question, does it? Let's turn back to Matthew chapter 15 and just take a look at some of these absolutely contemptuous people around the cross. Matthew chapter 15. And in response, verse 35, to this question, some of them which stood by when they heard it said, Behold, he calleth Elias. And one ran and filled a sponge full of vinegar and put it on a reed and gave him the drink, saying, Let alone let us see whether Elias will come to take him down. What utter contemptible specimens of human humanity. Listen to them patronizing the Savior. Oh, he's calling for Elijah. Let's wait and see if Elijah comes. you want to throttle them, wouldn't it? Remember what I said at the beginning? What would we have done in Nazi Germany? What would we have done here? Would the numbers suggest that I would be one of the ones standing there saying, let's see if Elijah comes? What awful specimens of humanity. Why on earth would the Father sacrifice the sons for sinners such as we? Don't say we wouldn't do this because we would. There's a little detail I'm going to draw to a close because my time is gone. There's a little detail that could easily be missed. Just look at verse 36. One ran and filled a sponge full of vinegar and put it in a reed and gave it to him to drink, saying, let alone let us see whether Elias will come to take him down. I don't really have time to get into the why someone would do this, but it's interesting that the Holy Spirit gives us these details. Somebody took a reed and attached a sponge to the end, and they touched the Savior's lips with the vinegar, the cheap wine, because that's what it was. In a way, perhaps that in a hospital, someone who is in the final stages of their life and they've lost their swallow, the nurse will come with the wet sponge and just put it around the lips to give a little bit. give a little bit of ease. Now, of course, it's not a synthetic sponge. Synthetic sponges only came in in the 1900s. This is a sea sponge. This is a natural sponge. Did you know that a sponge is not a plant? A sponge is an animal. You'd hardly believe it, but it is. A sponge is the most basic kind of animal On planet earth, a sponge is the lowest form of animal life on planet earth. And here at Calvary, the lowest form of animal life is pressed against the lips of the highest form of life, because the Lord Jesus Christ is the highest form of life. And in that moment when the sponge touches its lips, it gives him a momentary release, a relief rather, a momentary pleasure. That cheap wine called vinegar touches the lips and gives pleasure. What a picture of the gospel. What a picture of salvation. You know, folks, there's a greater difference between you and me, sinners and a holy God, than there is between a sponge and a human being. is a greater difference between you and I as sinners and a holy God than there is between a sponge and a human being. Such is the depravity of our sin. Yeah? The lowest form of life. Sponge isn't responsible for what it does, but a sinner is. We have a soul, and we have a mind, and we have a will, and yet we rebel, and we shake our puny fist in the face of God. It's not a wonderful picture of salvation that the lowest form of life touched the highest form of life at Calvary and brought momentary pleasure. That's what happens at Calvary, and salvation doesn't. The sinner touches the Lord. They're connected by grace, and for some reason it brings him pleasure. It pleased the Lord to bruise him, pleased the Lord to bruise Christ. Why? Why would it please the Lord to bruise him for the lowest form of life on earth, sinners? Why? The only answer is the love of God. God loves sinners. One of the most wonderful parts of my job is I get to come here and tell you that God loves, I mean, really loves sinners. And he's willing to take your soul into eternal union with himself. He's willing to cleanse you in Christ's precious blood and share his glory with you forever. And for some reason, it gives him pleasure. Why? What do you say to that? I'll tell you what you say. You say, I'm coming, Lord. I'm coming now. I'm done with all the silly excuses and the nonsense that I've put up as an excuse for not coming to Christ. I'm coming now. Lord, I give you my heart, I give you my life, I give you my all. Cleanse me in your precious blood. I'm trusting in what Christ has done on Calvary. Save my soul. That's what you say to that. That's the correct reaction to that. I'm going to hand back to our brother now.