"FORSAKEN BY THE FATHER SO YOU CAN BE FAVORED"

Matthew 27:45–46 (KJV 1900)

45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. 46 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?

My brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ today I want to talk about the word anguish!!! In this particular text of the Bible this emotion is what Jesus Christ displayed while he hung on Calvary’s Cross! Church Anguish is an intense feeling of emotional or spiritual suffering! Anguish is extreme distress of body, mind and spirit; displaying excruciating pain and physical distress, often depicted as a deep, soul wrenching pain that can arise from several circumstances, which in the case of Jesus Christ includes sin, suffering and being separated from God the Father!!!

     Church if the text is observed carefully, the true Bible student will examine that there are several relevant questions that needs to answered! How can God be separate from God? How can God the trinity be divided? How can the Father be divided from the Son? How can God forsake his own Son, when they are one in essence? Church if truth can be told today, is that, all that Jesus had ever known was the most intimate communion with the Father, and the eternal love of the Father. And now he is exposed to being treated by God the Father as if the Father hated him rather than loved him.  

     Church it is here that God the Father forsakes His Son Jesus Christ and turns his face and His Back on Jesus Christ not because of anything that Jesus Christ does but because Jesus Christ chooses to pay the debt of sin for the entire world!!! Instead of Jesus Christ looking Sanctified! It is here that Jesus Christ looks like sin to His Father! And because God is a Holy God He must separate Himself temporarily from the Saviour! Church the Bible teaches here that from 12 noon to 3pm that there is complete darkness over the whole land and not only over the land but over the soul of Jesus Christ!!

     Church this three hours of darkness represented the eternal darkness of hell, a separation, which every person on earth deserved!! But Jesus Christ experienced hell on earth the wrath of God against all our iniquities, sins, and transgressions so that those who would believe on Him wouldn’t have to go there!!! Church this darkness represented God forsaking His Son symbolizing the darkest day in human history! The day that Jesus Christ the second member of the Triune Godhead was being put to death for the failure of Adam and all the sins of mankind! Church this darkness signified the extraction of the light of God’s presence from the sinner!!! Forsaking Jesus Christ as he hanged on the cross as if He was the sinner, dying for all of our sins! Becoming sin for us! Church Jesus Christ was the Saviour forsaken by the Father becoming sin that we may obtain salvation!

     Church while on the cross Jesus Christ courageously paid the price, settled the debt, and finished the work that was necessary for man’s redemption. Beloved, Matthew 27:46 is a fulfillment of Psalms 22:1 where Jesus Christ literally quotes the psalm of David!! To be exegetically correct our Lord Jesus Christ had no sin of His own, but He took the guilt of our sins upon himself and when God, the Judge, looked down on Him and saw our sins upon the sinless substitute! God withdrew from the Son He Love!!! And for the first time ever Jesus is crushed in His Spirit! And for the first time ever in the Bible Jesus says My God and not My Father!! Church this is devastating!! Because Jesus was always in relationship with His Father but because of us!! God Forsakes His Son so that we can be favored!!!!!

(Favor means God’s Grace, mercy and kindness or goodwill often associated with divine blessings, approval, and preferential treatment and benefits from God which results in eternal life)      

     Beloved God deserts Jesus so that we can be delivered!!! Jesus Christ becomes the sin-offering for the world!!! And was forsaken by the Father!!!  The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:21-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.

1 Peter 3:18-For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.

Romans 3:24–25- 24Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

    Church as I begin to conclude the Bible says again that around about the 3pm the ninth hour! Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was in so much ANGUISH!!!! And Suffering!!! It is here that Jesus could bear the separation no longer and cries out in the Aramaic, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani which means My God, My God, why have you forsakes me! It is here church that that Jesus Christ sensed a separation from the Father he had always known from eternity past and present!!!! For in becoming sin the Father had to turn judicially from Jesus Christ who was Forsaken by the Father that so that you and I could be Faithfully Favored by God!!!