 Right now, we're going to look at Matthew 27, verses 45 through 50. And so let me read to you, beginning at verse 45. I'll read to verse 50. We'll look at our study tonight, and I do appreciate your prayers as I go through this. Like I said, this is something I pulled off my computer. I taught this a few years ago, and yet I really think this is what I wanted to share tonight. So beginning at verse 45, reading to verse 50, Matthew chapter 27. Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour, there was darkness over all the land. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Ali, Ali, Lama sabbaktani. That is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Some of those who stood there, when they heard that, said, This man is calling for Elijah. Immediately one of them ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a reed, gave it to him to drink. The rest said, let him alone. Let us see if Elijah will come to save him. Jesus, when he had cried out again with a loud voice, yielded up his spirit. Now as we begin our study, we need to know that at this point, Jesus Christ has been crucified, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, had contended that Jesus was not guilty, and yet Pontius Pilate allowed Jesus Christ to be crucified. As you begin to look in the Word of God, and you begin to compare Scripture with Scripture, you discover that Jesus was sentenced at 6 a.m. And then you see that he was crucified at 9 a.m. And then from 9 a.m. until noon, several events had transpired. Soldiers gambled for his garments. He endured ridicule of the thieves, as well as those passing by. The chief priests, scribes, and the elders. And in that time he welcomed a thief into paradise. At this point in Matthew's study, it's at least 3 p.m. And Jesus has been on the cross now for several hours. Matthew records that from noon until 3 p.m. he says there was darkness, notice verse 45, over all the land. Luke tells us in Luke 23, 44, and 45, it was now about the sixth hour. And darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun stopped shining. Darkness over all the land, the sun stopped shining. So the question is, why? Why would it be dark? Why was it dark, and why was there darkness over the land? Well, in the Bible we know that darkness very often is used as a symbol. It's used as a symbol for judgment. In the book of Exodus, for example, in chapter 10, 21 and 22, it says the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand toward the sky, so that darkness will spread over Egypt, darkness that can be felt. So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and total darkness covered all Egypt for three days. In the book of Amos, in chapter 5, verse 20, Amos writes, will not the day of the Lord be darkness, not light, pitch dark, without a ray of brightness? And then in Matthew 25, 30, Jesus said, throw that worthless servant outside into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And so darkness very often is used in Scripture as a symbol of judgment. And so what we have here is a picture of divine judgment. The sins of the world are being poured out vicariously on Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The darkness that existed reveals the judgment of God upon the sin of all mankind. Now Jesus took upon himself the judgment that rightfully was ours. He's the perfect sacrifice. He satisfies his father's righteous requirements. He satisfies God's wrath. In John's Gospel, in chapter 1, verse 29, John wrote the next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him. John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. In 2 Corinthians 5, 21, Paul said, Christ never sinned, but God put our sin on him. Then we are made right with God because of what Christ has done for us. The cross is a place of judgment. It's a place of divine judgment. The sins of the world poured out vicariously on Jesus Christ. He who knew no sin became sin for us. That we might become the righteousness of God in him. And so this is a place of divine judgment. And so it says in verse 45, from the sixth hour until the ninth hour, there was darkness over all the land. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli, lamas abhaktani. That is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That is straight out of the Psalms, Psalm 22, verse 1. And the Lord Jesus Christ is in anguish. He's in anguish because of the separation he felt for the first and for the only time in all of eternity. You see, the Bible teaches us something about sin. It actually teaches us many things about sin as well as warning us against it. But the Bible teaches that sin may be pleasurable because sin can be pleasurable for a season. Sin can be pleasurable for a short time. Indeed, it can. If you didn't enjoy sinning, you wouldn't sin. But sin is pleasurable and it is pleasurable for a season. But sin has horrible results. It might be something that a person may want to do. They may be at work. They may find a person at work to be desirable, even become more desirable for them than their own wife or husband. And in their mind, they begin to orchestrate all kinds of things related to having an affair. And in their mind, everything's going to be great. In their mind, they're going to have relationships. In their mind, the relationships will always be stimulating and wonderful. They just build it up. But ultimately, what happens, and we know this to be true, many have experienced this firsthand. And I've ministered to many who've fallen prey to this temptation. It was pleasurable, but only for a season. And ultimately, it came back and destroyed them. The Bible says that sin actually separates a person from God. Somebody wrote, spiritual death is broken communion. Jesus had a taste of such broken communion, the first and last he ever experienced in those desolate hours when darkness lay upon the earth and upon his soul. Jesus was our forerunner in every kind of experience, even to the feeling of God's frown of disapproval on sin, that he might become our high priest, understanding all our infirmities, being tempted in all points, like as we, apart from sin. He felt the way a lost sinner feels without himself having sin. And there he is, crying out, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? That it's a cry that he was crying on our behalf. He's experiencing that, which sinners experience every day, every moment of the life of forsakenness. You see, Jesus became the perfect sacrifice. He paid our price and he purchased us. He redeemed us. The Bible in Galatians 3.13 says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. Isaiah 53.5 says, he was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed. So he suffered. And as he suffered on the cross, he experienced man's separation from God, and taken upon himself the sin of the world, he experienced the isolation that sin produces. And sin does create separation, and it does produce an isolation. The Bible tells us in Isaiah 59.1 and 2, surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God. Your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear. There are times that before you got saved, you might have prayed, and you might have asked God for help. And it seemed like the heavens were brass, and God's ear was not inclined towards you. Well, Isaiah tells us why. It's because sin makes separation. You have to deal with the sin issue that you might have fellowship with God. And Jesus Christ went through that on our behalf. Bible and Habakkuk in chapter 1, verse 13, speaking to God says, your eyes are too pure to approve evil, and you cannot look on wickedness with favor. So Jesus experienced being forsaken by God. It wasn't a separation of nature. It was not a separation of essence. It was not a separation of substance. It was a separation of fellowship. Somebody wrote, he did not cry out when accused, and he did not cry when he was crucified, but he did cry out when he was separated. These words mark the conclusion of the suffering of Jesus for a lost world. Here he drank to the dregs the cup of sorrow, grief, and pain on our behalf. In these hours when the sun refused to shine upon suffering deity, Jesus found fitting expression to his feeling of desolation in the words of the psalmist. As this is taking place in verse 47, some of those who stood there when they heard that said, this man is calling for Elijah. Immediately one of them ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a reed, gave it to him to drink. The rest said, let him alone. Let us see if Elijah will come and save him. Now, this was a reaction of mockery. This wasn't really what you would call religious curiosity. And this was not religious fear. That is made clear by their reaction. They said, let him alone. Let us see if Elijah will come and save him. You know, in the Old Testament once again in Psalm 22, which is referred to as a Messianic Psalm because it's a prophetic picture of Messiah. In Psalm 22, verses 7 and 8, it reads, everyone who sees me mocks me. They sneer and shake their head saying, is this the one who relies on the Lord? Then let the Lord save him. If the Lord loves him so much, let the Lord rescue him. And that's what the Lord Jesus Christ was going through as he sensed the frown of his father on sin and experienced the separation and then endured the mocking of those who were passing by. Again in verse 48, notice, one of them ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him. Now this particular action was one of mercy. Perhaps it was done by a Roman military guard. The sour wine was high in water and low in alcohol content. It was used really to quench thirst and it was more than likely a response what Jesus was saying because John tells us that Jesus in John 19, 28 and 29 had spoken. He writes, later knowing that all was now completed so that the scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, I am thirsty. A jar of wine vinegar was there so they soaked a sponge in it but the sponge on a stalk of the Hissa plant lifted it to Jesus' lips. Now this is one of the few tender and merciful acts that occurred at the cross. Again, it was more than likely done by one of the Roman military guard. With his lips moistened and with his throat cleared, he was able to cry out again. And what did he cry? Well, we know in John 19, verse 30, that it says, when he had received the drink, Jesus said, it is finished. The word finished when it's written out in the original language, Greek. It is finished is the Greek word paid in full. And what Jesus was saying is salvation has been won. The price has been paid and it has been paid completely. Redemption has been secured. The sacrifice has been completed. If you go and you purchase something at a store, there was a time when you would purchase something and as you purchase it, you would be making your payments and then ultimately what would happen is when you made your last payment, you would receive a receipt and the receipt sometimes had stamped on it, paid in full. And that's what Jesus was saying. He was saying that the debt was paid. The sin debt had been completely paid. It was paid there while Jesus was on the cross and he cried that out. He said, it is finished. It is done. And what we need to do, what we as people today need to do in order to be able to take advantage of that debt that has been paid is to simply receive it, to receive the payment to say to the Lord, God, I thank you for the work that you did. It's not works of righteousness that I have done but it's according to your mercy. You saved us. You washed us. You regenerated us. It isn't my good works. It isn't the things that I've tried to do. It isn't the religious behavior that I've experienced. It's not the prayers and it's not the fasting. It's not the giving and it's not the serving. All of those are evidences that have relationship with you but those are simply evidences. Those are things that actually spring out of a relationship with you. I don't do those things to be saved. I do those things because I am saved. Because I can look back at the cross and I can say that when the Lord Jesus Christ died on that cross and he cried that out, it is finished, that it was finished. And my relationship with him has been purchased by his redemption. He paid for me and he did so by his blood. In 1 Peter 1, 18 and 19 it says, you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He also said something else. Luke gives us insight into what occurred because in Luke 23, 46 it says, when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, he said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. And having said this, he breathed his last. I was sharing today in our noon service that the words into thy hands I commit my spirit are actually out of a Psalm. It's taken from Psalm 31, verse five, into your hands I commit my spirit. These words into thy hands I commit my spirit have formed part of the evening prayers for centuries. There were prayers that children would pray as they're laying their head on their pillow at night. They would say to the Lord into thy hand I commit my spirit as their heads were placed on their pillows. And I was sharing this noon service how that, that's a beautiful prayer to teach your child because some of the prayers that parents have taught their children have not been so encouraging. Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Who wants to go to sleep? I wouldn't want to go to sleep. He's going to take my soul. I'm going to stay awake all night. But the idea that the Lord Jesus Christ used these words gives to you some sense of the sentiment of the moment. Father into thy hands I commit my spirit. The cross became his pillow. And he prayed and placed his head on that pillow. And he died. He died with a Psalm on his lips. He gently, he peacefully and he willingly died. Matthew tells us in verse 50 that with a loud voice he had cried out again with a loud voice, he yielded up his spirit. He yielded up his spirit. John 19.30 says, bowing his head, he willingly gave up his spirit. That's a picture of a peaceful death. To yield means to send it away. To yield, he yielded it means he dismissed it. He determined when it occurred and he sent away his spirit at the precise moment. He surrendered his spirit by a conscious act of his own will. That determination was made by him. In John 10 verses 14 through 18, Jesus said this. He said, I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me. Just as a father knows me and I know the father and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my father loves me is that I lay down my life only to take it up again. No one takes it from me but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my father. So there he is. He's on a cross. His body has been broken. He'd been scourged. Scourging was called the living death because many who went under the lash didn't survive it. The individual who had rendered the scourging even as you saw an illustration of it in the video this evening was called a lictor. And he would take what we today would call a cat of nine tails and in this whip that had several strands within the leather would be embedded broken pottery, ceramic, sharpened stones. The individual who would inflict the scourging that Jesus endured was expert at doing that. They had learned how to even use their wrist to snap so that they could take entire portions of that victim's body off with a single swipe. And they very often would flay them alive. Their bodies would be torn open. They looked like hamburger. Eyes would be torn out of the socket. The face would have large rips in it. The neck, the back. Under Jewish law, it was permissible to receive 40 stripes minus one. 40 in Jewish way of looking at numbers represents judgment. 39 represents mercy. And so judgment was always to be tempered by mercy. So when Jesus received these stripes, it's possible that the Romans gave them 39. It's also possible that they went beyond that to make a mockery of the Jewish religious sentiment. Jesus had been mocked. They had placed the crown of thorns on his head. And with the staff, they had pressed it into his brow. His face was already swollen because of the beating that they had given to him. They had blindfolded him and played a game mocking him. They had put a robe on him, clothing him in purple and played the game that the soldiers during his day would do to mock the prisoners and entertain themselves. They had handed him over to be crucified, ultimately. And after all of that had been done, they placed on Jesus the cross. And as he carried this, the cross that he was placed on was rough. It wasn't sanded, it had all kinds of roughness to it so that when he was on that cross, it would dig into his back that had been opened and wounded through the scourging. And as Jesus was there and he had been impaled, they had placed nails between his wrists to hold him up and a single nail went to hold his ankles together and they had twisted him in the shape of an S. And they had placed him on a beam that had a sharpened saddle peg that was placed close to his center of his body so that he could rest a bit on it. But when he rested on it, it would dig into your skin because it was sharpened like a sharpened pencil. In order for him to breathe, he would have to lift himself up so that his lungs could open up. And every time he lifted himself in order to breathe, this sharpened saddle peg would go up and down his back. And that had been going on for hours. And as he's there, his mom and John and Mary, Madeline, watched. And they saw him go through his pain. And at one point, Jesus looks at Mary and he says, woman, behold your son. And he wasn't saying, look at me and pity me. He was saying, look to John because the next thing he says is to John, behold your mother. And what he was doing is he was commending his mother into the care of John because he wasn't about to take his mom and place her into the hands of those who didn't love her as Christians. John did. And as he was there suffering and dying, the other apostles had fled and were in hiding. They watched him as he breathed his last and they listened to him as he said his last words. And then they watched him as he dismissed his spirit and it was over. Can you imagine? But that would have been like all of the trauma and all of the trauma that's going on at that moment. And it's suddenly still your heart would break. My heart would have broken. As far as they were concerned, the promise of the kingdom, the promise of the kingdom had died with Jesus. But that was Friday, Sunday was coming. And that's what we celebrate this upcoming Sunday. Yes, he died, but he's alive. He's alive.