Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, over the past few weeks, we have focused on Christ's sufferings in relation especially to His disciples beginning on the night before His death. We've reflected on His being betrayed by Judas, abandoned by the 11 other disciples, and denied by Peter. And all of that happened, we've been looking at it over three weeks or so, but all of that happened within the space of only a few hours. Alongside of the Lord's being falsely accused, spit on, beaten, scourged, mocked, and finally condemned to death. And then at the third hour, which was nine o'clock in the morning, he was crucified. Nails, big spikes were hammered through his hands and through his feet into that wooden cross that was laying down. And then it was lifted up and it was dropped with a jolt into the hole that was dug for it. And there Christ hung between two thieves, numbered with the transgressors while people passed by and they blasphemed him and they mocked him and they insulted him. It is difficult, it's really even impossible for us to grasp, to comprehend all that Jesus suffered. But there was one thing he still had. One thing He could find comfort in, His Father's presence with Him. His disciples had left Him alone, just as He had foretold, but God the Father, His Father, was still with them, at least for a time. But eventually, even that comfort, that last comfort, was taken away. Jesus was forsaken. by His Father. That's what we learn from our text. Mark 15 verse 34. Jesus had been hanging on the cross in pain and in shame for six hours. And during the last three hours from 12 o'clock till 3 o'clock in the afternoon, there had been this strange, this ominous darkness over the whole land. And at the end of that time, Mark tells us this in verse 34. And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, Lamas of Bactani, which is being interpreted, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Jesus was left completely alone. He was even forsaken by his father. That more than anything else was the worst of all his suffering. It was the climax of his suffering. This is where the betrayal and the abandonment and the denial has been leading to, has been building up, and in a sense, where all of that just falls away. Because nothing can compare to what Jesus experiences here. when he is forsaken by his father. That is what we hope to reflect on together this morning. And as we do so, let us be mindful, let us be mindful that there is something about this that is beyond our full understanding. So we need to be careful, very careful, both in our speaking about it and also our understanding of it. That shouldn't discourage us from reflecting on it, but it should cause us to do so humbly and prayerfully, seeking the help of God. And so in that light, let's look at our text in its context, under the theme, Jesus Forsaken by His Father. And we'll look at it from three angles. First of all, we'll see how it's so infinitely dreadful. And secondly, how it's so terrifyingly revealing. And thirdly, it's so profoundly comforting. So the first thing to notice then about Jesus forsaken by his father is that it was so infinitely dreadful. And the cry of Jesus, the cry that was quoting Psalm 22 verse 1, makes this very clear. The text again says that at the ninth hour he cried with a loud voice, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And that word for cry in the Greek by itself already means to shout, or to cry loudly, and it highlights for us especially the intensity and the anguish in his cry. And that's emphasized even more by the note that he cried with a loud voice. It underscores his anguish even more. Think about that. Think about what it means for Jesus to utter such a cry. for Jesus, for the Almighty, for the infinitely powerful Son of God. That's what Mark is emphasizing over and over again in his gospel, that Jesus is the Son of God. What it was for him after hanging on the cross for six hours to utter such a mighty cry of anguish in reference to his being forsaken by his God, by his Father. What does that tell us? It tells us that his being forsaken by his father was so infinitely dreadful. Why? Because it meant, for one thing, that God had removed his favor from him. He was still God's son, even in a sense, he was still his beloved son. But as a divinely and appointed mediator, Christ Jesus lost the favor of God. His father removed it from him. That's part of what being forsaken by God means. When you're forsaken by God, that means God has taken away his favor from you. He's rejected you. He's, as it were, turned his smiling face away from you. He ignores your needs. He shows no concern for you. He doesn't help you. He doesn't care for you. He does not show you his grace and his mercy. He does not show you his kindness. It's as if in one sense, when you're forsaken by God, it's as if you don't even exist in his eyes. That's what Christ, part of what Christ being forsaken by his father meant. It meant God had rejected him. turned his smiling face away from him, ignored his needs, showed no concern for his son in the midst of his agonizing suffering. He didn't help him. He didn't care for him. He did not show him his grace and his mercy. He did not show him his kindness. It's as if, in one sense, Jesus didn't even exist in the eyes of God, at least not as someone whom God would care for. That becomes clear when you look back at Psalm 22, which Jesus was quoting. He only quoted the first part of verse one, but the second part of that verse helps us understand what it means to be forsaken. Just listen to that verse, Psalm 22, verse one. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me? And from the words of my roaring, Verse two goes on, oh my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not. And in the night season, and I'm not silent. You see, Christ being forsaken by his father meant God, his father was not helping him. He wasn't even hearing him. How dreadful. You think of it this way. Imagine children, you became very sick. And imagine you had to go to the hospital, you were that sick and you had to be there for many days. And your parents who've always loved you, who've always cared for you. Imagine they never come to see how you're doing. Imagine they never come and visit. They never even call. They show no concern, no interest in you. You try calling them on the phone, but they never pick it up. Just try to imagine that. How dreadful that would be. It's just a little bit like what happened to Jesus as He hung in agony on the cross. He was forsaken by His Father. His Father who always loved Him, who always cared for Him. He, as it were, never came to see how Jesus was doing. He never visited. He never even called. He showed no concern during those three hours of darkness, no interest in his son. Even when Jesus called out to him, his father didn't answer. He didn't hear. He didn't help. How dreadful that was for Jesus. From all of eternity, he had enjoyed his father's presence. He had been his father's delight. He had enjoyed his father's love. He had shared in his father's glory from before the foundation of the world. Even during his life on earth, he had enjoyed his father's presence. His father had never left him alone. He had even spoken these words from heaven concerning him. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. In John 8, verse 29, Jesus said to the Jews, he that sent me is with me. The father has not left me alone, for I do always those things that please him. And yet here he speaks of his father leaving him. while he's hanging on the cross, while he's doing the very thing that his father had sent him to do. His father, his God, turned away. He did not help him. He did not listen to him. He forsook his own son. How dreadful, how dreadful. Even cold-blooded Cain, you know, he dreaded this. When God announced His punishment of Cain, we read the story of Cain, how he murdered Abel, just last week. And when God announced His punishment of Cain for murdering Abel, Cain said, Even unconverted Cain dreaded being forsaken by God. But when we've been saved, we dread it even more, don't we? When we have been saved, then to use, to quote from A.W. Pink, for the Lord to hide His face from us even for a moment is unbearable. It's unbearable. And then Pink goes on to say this, if this is true of renewed sinners, how infinitely more so of the beloved Son of the Father. But that's only part of what it meant for Christ to be forsaken by His Father. It meant not only God hiding His face, His removal of His favor, of His kindness and His care towards His Son, it meant even worse. It meant the pouring out of His wrath, of His fury, of His judgment on Him. How do we know that? Well, when the Bible speaks in other places of God forsaking people, it speaks of it as an act of His judgment, an act of His wrath. In Psalm 27, verse 10, the psalmist prays, Thou hast been my help, leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation." You see, the psalmist, he sees God's forsaking him as an act of his anger, an act of his wrath. In Jeremiah 12 verse 7, God says these words concerning his people. I have forsaken my house. I have left my heritage. I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies. Why does he do that? He tells us in verse eight, my heritage is to me as a lion in the forest, it cries out against me. Therefore, I have hated it. And so being forsaken by God is clearly an act of God's judgment. And Jesus confirmed that. He confirmed that when he said in Matthew 25 that when he comes again in judgment, he will say to the wicked, depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. They will be banished from his presence, from the gracious presence of God forever. That's God's eternal judgment on the wicked. Being forsaken by God means God pouring out His fury, His wrath, His judgment, and that's what was happening to Jesus. How dreadful. His Father forsook Him. He didn't just remove His favor from Him, but He poured out His fury, His wrath, His judgment on Him. Those mysterious three hours of darkness, that Christ endured just before He uttered this cry confirms that. That was a miraculous darkness, it was a supernatural act, an act of God. And it was a picture, it was a symbol of the judgment and the wrath of God that He was pouring out on His Son. Often in the Bible, darkness is a picture of that judgment and wrath. Think of the ninth plague in Egypt. Children, maybe you remember that ninth plague. Because Pharaoh refused to let God's people go, the Lord sent three days of thick darkness on the land. And the prophets, think of how the prophets often describe the day of the Lord. A day of judgment is described often in the prophets as a day of darkness. And think of how Jesus himself describes hell. the place where God sends the people whom he rejects, the place of his eternal, infinite wrath, the place where they will be forsaken by him. In that sense, forever, he describes it as a place of outer darkness. To put it very plainly, when Christ was forsaken by his Father, That meant hell for him. That's what his father made him to suffer. That's what his father made him to experience. He poured out on him, on his own son, his eternal, his infinite wrath, his holy anger, his judgment, communication. Hell is real. And it's dreadful, indescribably dreadful. There are no words to describe how dreadful this was. It was infinitely dreadful. Just look again at our text, and listen, really listen to what it's saying. At the ninth hour, Jesus, the Son of God, cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Do you want to know what hell is like? Listen to this cry. Listen to this piercing cry of anguish. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And think about who it comes from. It comes from none other than the Son of God, the eternal, the almighty, the infinitely powerful Son of God. That was His response. What then must be the response of the people who end up in hell? Because of their unrepentance and unbelief, stubborn unbelief. Christ was forsaken by His Father, how infinitely dreadful. His Father removed His favor from Him, and instead He poured out His fury on Him. You say, why? Why would God do this? Why would He forsake His own beloved Son? Hadn't His Son always done what had pleased Him? Why would He make Him to suffer something so infinitely dreadful? The answer to that is sin. It's sin. And that makes Jesus forsaken by His Father not only so infinitely dreadful, but also so terrifyingly revealing. That's our second point. You see, Christ being forsaken by His Father on the cross was God's judgment on sin. Christ was on the cross as the mediator. He was bearing the full weight of the sins of all who need Him and seek Him. Isaiah 53 makes that clear, and Mark references Isaiah 53 when he mentions how Jesus was crucified between two thieves. He was numbered, it was that the scripture might be fulfilled. He was numbered with the transgressors. That comes from Isaiah 53, and that was written 700 years before the death of Christ. And it describes him. as the Lord's servant whom we did esteem, stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded, why, for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. In 1 Peter 2 verse 24, Peter writes to believers these words about Christ on the cross, that He bear our sins in His own body on the tree. That is the reason He was forsaken by His Father. It was because of sin, not His own sin, He had no sin, but the sins of others, the sins of many. He was bearing the sins of His people, of all who by grace trust in Him. Now, on the one hand, that's a great comfort, and we're going to see that in our last point, but for now, let's just focus on how terrifyingly revealing that is, because it reveals, for one thing, how thoroughly evil sin is. Sin was the reason why Christ was forsaken by his Father on the cross. That means your sin, my sin, is no small thing. It's an incredibly serious thing. It's an indescribably evil thing in the eyes of God. We can tend to forget that. We can tend to minimize sin. We can tend to downplay sin. We tend to make excuses for sin, at least our own sins. We might hold other people's sins, whether they're real sins or not, we might hold them over their heads. When it comes to our own sin, what do we do? We tend to justify it as if it's not that big of a deal. We tend to see our sins the way we see things when we look through binoculars backwards. Maybe children, you've done that. Have you ever taken binoculars and looked through them backwards? What happens? Well, everything looks far away and smaller than they actually are. And that's how we tend to view our sins. They're small, they're far away, they're no big deal, nothing to be that concerned about. My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? Put the binoculars down. Listen. Sin is why Jesus was forsaken by his father. It's why God removed his favor from his very own beloved son and instead poured out his wrath on him. There are many other things that show us the evil of sin in the Bible. We can think of the people in Noah's day killed by the flood. We can think of Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed by fire and brimstone. We can think of Egypt and Pharaoh and his army drowned in the Red Sea. We can think of Israel and Judah taken captive by their enemies. All these things show us the evil of sin, but there is nothing that more clearly shows us the evil of sin than this. than Jesus, the Son of God, on the cross, forsaken by His Father. Do you see how evil sin is? That's terrifying. At least it should be, because there is not one of us here who is free from sin by nature. The Bible makes it very clear, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that does good, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That's true of every single one of us from the littlest child here and the littlest one in the nursery. It's true even of the baby that was born yesterday afternoon. It's true of all of us, there's no exceptions. Just spend a few moments thinking about what God requires of us. What does He require? Jesus told us. He requires that we love Him with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our strength, and with all of our mind. And He requires that we love our neighbor as ourselves. Now just think about your life. How have you done with that? How have you done with that this past week? Think about the words you spoke. Think about the way you treated others, your kids, your wife, your husband, your parents, your brothers, your sisters. Think about the thoughts you had. Think about what controls you, what controls your actions, your decisions, your responses. Is it always the Lord and his word? Or is it other things like your own desires, your reputation, your pride? Have you perfectly satisfied God's requirements? You haven't. I haven't. None of us have. We are all unclean. We've all gone astray. We are all defiled with sin by nature. Do you realize what that means? It means that unless your sin is somehow taken away, unless your sin is somehow washed away, you, like Jesus on the cross, will one day utterly forsaken by God. If you die in your sins, God will remove all of his favor, all of his kindness, all of his mercies, all of his blessings from you. And he will instead pour out his wrath, his judgment on you. He won't just do that for an hour, or for three hours, or even for a day, or a week, or a year. He will do that forever. That's what Jesus suffered, you see, when He was forsaken by His Father. Even though He was not forsaken forever, literally, He was only forsaken for three hours, it was equivalent to suffering in hell forever. It shows us the evil of sin. How terrifying that should be to those whose sins who are here and whose sins are not taken away. But does God have to be so extreme? Yes, He does. You see, Jesus, forsaken by His Father, shows us not only how thoroughly evil sin is, it also shows us how infinitely, how unchangeably holy and just God is. The Bible clearly teaches us that God is holy. He is perfectly good. He is free from all sin, free from all evil, separate. And not only that, he is in fact opposed to all evil. He hates sin, and he must punish sin because he is just. We see this in many places of the Bible, but just think for one example of Isaiah 6. Isaiah 6 is a chapter that tells us about how God called Isaiah to be a prophet, but it begins It begins with him seeing a vision of the Lord on his throne, high and lifted up. And Isaiah sees and hears angels, seraphim, around the throne crying to each other, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. How does Isaiah respond? He responds this way, woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips. Isaiah understood that God's holiness and justice, you see, meant he was done for. God can't look upon sin, and he can't overlook sin either. He can't simply ignore it. He can't just push it away. No, He's just. And that means sin must be punished. And it must be punished with everlasting punishment of body and soul because it is committed, sin is committed against an infinite God who is infinite in majesty. God, and this is how holy, this is how just God is. Even when it's his own son bearing sin, not his own sin again, but the sin of others, it has to be punished. Not even his own beloved son could escape the judgment of God. Listen again to that anguished cry of Jesus. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? God spared not his own son. That's how holy, that's how just God is. That means a love to ourselves, apart from Jesus Christ. We're done for. You're done for. I'm done for. He cannot overlook your sin or my sin. It must be and will be punished. God's justice must be satisfied. And the only way he can punish it justly, apart from Jesus Christ, is with everlasting punishment of body and soul in hell. Do you see how terrifyingly revealing Jesus, forsaken by the Father, is? But is there no hope then? Is there no comfort then? Yes, there is. Jesus, forsaken by His Father, is so infinitely dreadful and so terrifyingly revealing, but it's also so profoundly comforting. Why? Because of sins that Christ was bearing on the cross. The sins for which he was forsaken by his father were not his own sins, because he had no sin. The sins he was bearing was the sins of others, the sins of his people, the sins of people like his 11 disciples, the sins of people like Peter who denied him. The sins of all who repent and believe. When Jesus was forsaken by His Father, He was forsaken as the substitute. The substitute for sinners. Children, you know what a substitute is. I'm sure you have sometimes substitute teachers. They come in the place of the teacher you regularly have. They represent your teacher. That's what Jesus did for sinners. He took their place. He took the place of a sinful people, a people so many that the book of Revelation says they cannot even be counted. That's what makes it so profoundly comforting. You see, because he was forsaken by God, we may be forgiven by God. Because he paid the price. Jesus is our Redeemer. He paid the ransom. He paid the debt we owe fully and completely. And He's perfectly righteous. Even when He was forsaken by God, He did not sin against God. He did not reject God. You notice that, don't you, in His cry? My God, He says. My God, He holds on. He holds on because He's holding on also in our place. He trusted in him, yet at the same time, he was forsaken by him because he was forsaken because of the sins of his people. We sang it, didn't we? Mine, mine, mine, mine was the transgression, but his, the deadly pain. Listen to how Spurgeon puts it. In a sermon on Isaiah 53, I'm updating it a little bit, but this is what he says. Christ suffered all the horror of hell. In one pelting shower of iron wrath it fell upon him. until the black cloud had emptied itself completely. There was our debt, huge and immense. He paid absolutely everything his people owed. And now there is not even a cent due to the justice of God in the way of punishment from any believer. And though we owe God gratitude, he says, though we owe much to his love, we owe nothing to his justice. For Christ, in that hour, took all our sins, past, present, and to come, and was punished for them all, there and then, that we might never be punished, because he suffered in our stead. What a profound comfort that is to have all our sins forgiven. All of them. And there's not one of them that we need to work for forgiveness for. Because Christ paid it all. but a comfort to be forgiven by God. That's the comfort you can have when you have no hope in yourself and your hope is in Christ alone because he was forsaken by his Father. We may be forgiven by God fully and completely. That's the comfort repentant believers may have here this morning. And that's the comfort that Christ offers everyone here this morning. Will you receive it? Will you receive it? Not only that, because Jesus was forsaken by his father, not only may we be forgiven by God, but we may also have fellowship with God. You see, when we have been forgiven, That means we are reconciled to God. That means we have peace with Him. By nature, we are God's enemies. And there's a separation that we cannot get to God. He will not let us in. But in Christ, through faith in Him, God makes us His friends. He accepts us. He abides with us and in us. He has fellowship with us. And not just for a little bit, but forever. And he promises never to forsake us. That's what the rending of the veil is all about. That's the Lord's answer, you know, to the why. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. You see, that veil, that curtain in the temple, it was a symbol of our separation from God or our inability to have fellowship with God anymore because of our sins. But when Christ was forsaken and he died and the temple or the curtain was rent, that was a symbol that the way is open. The way is open. We have access to God. We may have fellowship with God. What a comfort that is. To live apart from God is death. Without God, you have no hope. But in Christ, when you're in Christ, we who once were far off are brought near to God, that we might glorify Him and enjoy Him forever. And that we might have a friend, someone to help us, to guide us through life, to lead us through the challenges and through the trials and through the times when we cannot see our ways. And it's all because He, as our substitute, as our Redeemer, was forsaken by His Father. What a Savior Christ is. That He was willing to suffer. That He was willing to be betrayed by Judas. Abandoned by His disciples. Denied by Peter. and then forsaken by his Father, that he might redeem sinners like you and like me. What a Savior. How immeasurable is his love. How is that calling us to respond? It's calling us, isn't it, to seek It's calling us to trust in Him. It's calling us to come to Him in faith and repentance. And He will not turn anyone who does that away, because that's His promise. Will we do that? Let us trust Him. Let us hate sin and flee from sin, knowing what it did. And let us love and follow Jesus. and serve him until the day he returns and we hear him say, come ye blessed of my father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Amen. Let us pray. in heaven. We have tried, we have tried to understand something of what it meant for Jesus to have been on that cross and to have been forsaken by you. And we confess, oh Lord, we have not even We've barely seen the edges of it, but it is enough. It is enough to humble us, and it is enough by the power of your spirit to work faith in Jesus. Work it, we pray. Work it and work in us more and more a hatred of sin and a love, an all-out love for you. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.