Published: June 30, 2024 | Speaker: Mark Freitag | Series: Gospel of Mark - Part 107 | Scripture: Mark 15:33-39
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15 in order to set the context for verses today I'm going to read down from verse
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25 and it was the third hour When They Crucified him and the inscription of the charge against him read the king of the Jews and they crucified two Robbers with him one on his right and one on his left
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and the scripture was fulfilled which says and he was numbered with transgressors and those passing by were hurling abuse at him wagging their heads and saying ha you are going to you who
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are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in 3 days save yourself and come down from the cross in the same way the chief priests also among the scribes
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were mocking him among themselves and saying he saved others he cannot save himself let this Christ the King of Israel now come down from the cross so
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that we may see and believe and those who were crucified with him were casting the same insult at him and when the sixth hour had come Darkness fell over
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the whole land until the 9th hour and at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice eloi eloi Lama saak which is translated my God my God
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why hast Thou forsaken me and when some of the bystanders heard it they began saying behold he is calling for Elijah and someone ran and filled sponge with
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sour wine and put it on a reed and gave it him to drink saying let us see whether Elijah will come down uh come to take him down and Jesus uttered a loud
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cry and breathed his last and the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom and when the Centurion who was standing right in front of him saw the
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way he breathed his last he said truly this man was the son of God and there were also some women looking on from a distance among them Mary Magdalene and
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Mary the mother of James and the Les and Joseph and Joseph and salomi let us
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pray our father again we do ask uh as was prayed that you would give us those those ears to hear those eyes to see these things the spiritual eyes to discern and to
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understand and we ask father that you would use these things to build your church that she may be a glory to you and that we may rejoice in what you have
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done through Jesus Christ Our Lord on the cross we ask these things in Christ's name
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amen I sometimes listen to a channel on the radio called uh Symphony Hall and this week the announcer was introduced producing one of um Beethoven's piano
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sonatas the one I think that is nicknamed pathetic uh Sonata number eight and C Minor Opus 3 if you care and the announcer said now listen
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carefully because it starts in a very ominous tone and then you will notice that the violinist who is playing this particular piece goes very very dark
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with his with his playing and you know me you know I'm no music expert we I sit um here with a number of you who are excellent
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musicians um and I still have trouble finding midy on the piano without a tape measure but I think that describes the
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scene that Mark paints for us here that he pictures for us it starts very ominous in the third hour of the day that's 9:00 a.m. I think to
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us They Crucified him they hung Jesus Christ on a cross nailing him to a cross
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of wood and wood and then it gets very very dark when the sixth hour had come that's
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noon to us dark Ness fell over the whole land until the 9th hour 300 p.m. 3 hours of darkness and our Lord has been on the
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cross therefore for six
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hours Darkness fell over the whole land now there are many theories among the commentators and the authors that there was some kind of an eclipse but it was the Passover so the full moon uh was
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evident so I don't think that's the case some believe there were transient clouds overshadowed Jerusalem and the surrounding
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area translators say that the Hebrew or in the Aramaic here would actually allow it to be over the whole world Darkness lay Darkness without sunlight in the
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middle of the day somehow and we are not told only conjecture but somehow God darkened the Sun's light by his own
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means and made the whole earth to be dark as well as we read in the other gospels the Earth to
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quake and yet we have here something exceeding strange according to one author exceeding strange that God The God Who had said
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this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased he has abandoned him placed him on the
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on the cross in the hands of his enemies why would God deliver Jesus up to such shameful death what happened over these three
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hours of very very
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Darkness there are a lot of things in this passage that are going on the itself the bystanders who are still mocking Jesus with their cruel little joke about
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Elijah the Centurion who we would expect the Roman soldiers to be there but why does Mark Point him out out and the women who were looking
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on from a distance and then the mystery of the that that great event of the torn
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the torn Veil and yet I for today I what came to my mind what hit me most was the fact that here was
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Jesus having hung on the cross for 6
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was able to have the strength the energy left to cry out with a loud voice what did his cries mean and I think again there were two
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cries we read one in verse 34 and another in verse 37 the first of these cries I think is
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twofold a cry of desolation and secondly a cry of separation and his last cry before he
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breathed his last I think is a cry of Victory or to keep the alliteration going if you will a cry of
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experation it seems that the entire concentrated Wrath of Heaven descends Upon Jesus Christ the Judgment takes place during
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this Darkness but it's taking place in the person of Jesus himself darkness in scripture as I looked some places in in Amos and in
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Joel and Isaiah darkness and judgment go together the darkness actually I think signifies
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judgment in the Old Testament the scriptures picture it as as God roaring God as a lion roaring in the Deep
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Darkness descending as he judges sin and here was Jesus he had endured all the
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scourging all of the the mocking the the being dressed in this silly outfit costume as a as a King and mocked by the
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soldiers he he he he was shamed he was spit upon he was beaten with this this Reed crown of thorns on his head all of these things yet he opened not his
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mouth we read of him prophetically in Isaiah but Isaiah but now now at the height of this
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Darkness he cries out he cries out with a loud voice it wasn't a moan it wasn't something that nobody
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heard people picked this up they heard him speaking because they react to it it
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articulate the darkness seems itself to give rise to the agonized Cry of the savior he he cries in this great voice after 3 after 3 hours of prolong
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Agony enduring the Judgment that was meant for sinful people and I asked the question of myself can I really analyze the full
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meaning of the scene human depravity is is evident in these few these few verses it's evident in the crowds it's evident in the soldiers it's evident in
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the the the professional holy men the chief priests and the scribes and the elders they hate God and they hate his Messiah or in the
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words of words of John they love the darkness more than
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light in Gethsemane Jesus agonized a great Agony of Soul he says in Luke drops as of drops of blood of sweat and tears but he agonized with himself he
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was thinking and struggling with obedience to the father's will but in golgatha
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the agony the wrestling I believe was with God himself seeing God turn his face away as
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he hung in this Darkness on the cross a cry of desolation becomes a cry of
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Separation Jesus was the object of the Father's Love in Proverbs 8 we read again of him prophetically I was his daily
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Delight rejoicing always before him in John 15 Jesus says I have kept the father's Commandments and remain in his
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love in his great high high Priestly prayer John 17 he he he it's evident that he enjoyed an unbroken communion with God himself with God his father he
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says of in praying for his disciples he says that they may all be one just as you father and I are one you in me and I
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in you he's the object of the Father's Love and he loves the father there is unbroken communion between them so why
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so why then this mysterious and unexpected cry my God my God why hast Thou forsaken
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me as I say these words are taken from Psalm 22 Psalm 22 but there are many who believe that that they were the words of David things that
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happened to him and Jesus having read that in the Old Testament was reciting Psalm 22 in his entirety on the cross there there's no evidence to me of that
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by the evangelists but I believe that it's the other way around that David speaks prophetically and describes the
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suffering and dying of the Messiah commentator lensy writes for it is not because David wrote this line that the crucified Jesus made it his own
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cry but because Jesus would cry out thus on the cross that David wrote it as a prophet I may be wrong on that but what the the
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the the words the the the words have this great Agony to them my God my God why hast Thou forsaken
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things mean and some sometimes it's easier to explain what they do not mean I don't think that Jesus had come to a place of physical pain of the
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crucifixion of of this not just in his body but also mental stress of the shame and the mockery that he cried
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out I don't think it was just the fact that yes it is a fact he had been abandoned to his enemies and to their power and to
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their cruelty and I don't think that it's just that his human nature could no longer stand alone because his divine nature had somehow left
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him and I don't believe as some believe that Jesus only tasted death virtually which felt like being for Aken my God my God why hast Thou
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forsaken me notice he says my God and not my father and it might be easier for us to understand if he had said my father because then as fathers could
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relate to that there are times when we discipline our children and you you make that discipline and instead of them running away from you they cling to you
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even Tighter and their their question in their mind is why why have you inflicted this pain on me and it's only later in
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their life that they look back and say my father did that for my good but they cling tighter because they have not lost trust in you their just
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little Minds cannot comprehend and I think there and I say this reverently some of this here
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how can Jesus Jesus the embodiment of Jehovah in the flesh the the the Son of God and yet very God the LA gos the The
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Word of Word of Life how can he cry out to my God that he had been abandoned if God does not forsake the
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repentant sinner when they reach the point of death I will never leave you or forsake you says Jesus how could he forsake his sinless
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son when death Drew near this is to me virtually incomprehensible and again I asked that question can we possibly explain and
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analyze what Jesus was feeling at this moment and one of the commentators I appreciated saying well there there is a
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why and then there is the why of purpose the the why I think is the easy part because our sins had made a separation between us and God Isaiah 59:2 your sins
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have made a separation between you and your god he has turned away and he does
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hear but I think also there's the why or the purpose what Jesus really asks is for for what purpose did you forsake me he was actually being forsaken by
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God and God and somehow as best that I can understand it being forsaken being abandoned being turned away from having God hide his
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face from his son his only son in whom he is well pleased was the only way that the full price of redemption could be
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paid it's not the why of impatience Jesus wasn't in Despair and he didn't have a sinful questioning like we do God why did you
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let that happen to me but I think it's the Cry of a lost child who cannot understand the father's
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turning his face away he had only horror and horror and darkness but no comfort for his
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soul and no smile of affection to look upon him the words that he uses my God my God why hast Thou forsaken
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me the Hast translated means it is truly done you you have forsaken me
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and Jesus felt the awful weight the strange and mysterious Turning Away of his
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God and he says Thou there are some and it is possible to translate the words from the Hebrew when he says my God my God my strength my
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strength and there are some Christians I understand over the centuries who have refused to read these words my God my God and they always translate them my strength my strength why have
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you forsaken me and yet he says Thou we read in Romans 8 how the spirit of God intercedes for
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us in our prayers and in that same passage we meet the the the search of Hearts Paul Hearts Paul says and let me read it before I mangle
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it now in the same way the spirit also helps our weaknesses for we do not know what to pray for as we should but the spirit himself intercedes with us with
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groanings too deep for words and he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the spirit is because he intercedes for the Saints according to the will of
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God there are two personages there the spirit the spirit the interceder and God the Father the Searcher of
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Searcher of hearts and I believe when Jesus says Thou my God my God what he is feeling is I am crying
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out but there's no one there to listen and there's no one there responding
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because he is forsaken he's abandoned he's deserted seeing God standing off from him again how to explain this of Jesus with his
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father but I think Jesus had to taste the full Fury of God's wrath upon sin and yet he endured the passage that our brother
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alluded to in his prayer in Hebrews 12 for the joy set before him Jesus endured the cross there was something about that
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enduring that forsaking and
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the joy of our his joy and yet our joy that was to come one commentator Timothy Rogers wrote he
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suffered pains equal to those which we had deserved to suffer in Hell forever and yet again there is
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this incredible this incredible mystery my God my God why have you forsaken me your faithful son the heir
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of all things Jesus did not move away from God but God moved away from him how to wrap our minds around him and
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yet and I think Psalm 22 helps us with this the my God my God Is Not A Cry of Despair it it it is a kind of Cry of
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Despair sorry but not of distrust or One AU auth wrote he cries to God in the agony of grief but not in
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the misery of Doubt though he is forsaken on the cross he knows God in Psalm
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22:3 we 22:3 we read these
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words oh my God I Cry by day but thou dust answer and by night but I have no rest yet or but Thou Art holy and thou
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art enthroned upon the Praises of Israel it's what we read in Amos this morning the Lord Jehovah has sworn by
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Holiness Jesus was deserted but Jesus was not
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22 some people translate the words of the next verses that I have not read yet as thou D deliver them but thou will not deliver me but rather I believe that Jesus
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heart and his meaning was thou D deliver them because thou will not deliver
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me in the words of one of the commentators this is quote the severest reminder of God's inflexible Justice in Romans 5 we read that through
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one man sin entered the world and death through sin and so death spread to all man kind because all sin later in Romans 6 he says the wages of sin is death
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habac tells us God is too pure too holy to look upon iniquity but yet he is just and exacting all the debt and now he is exacting all
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the debt at jesus' hands and in Romans 8 we read he who did not spare his own son
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but delivered him up for us all Jesus endured the cross because of the joy set before him because he knew that God's justice
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was inflexible and he would bear that
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forsaking and then in verse 37 we read and Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last the forsaking had passed when the death sent set
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in Jesus cried out and the mockery we can see has continued they thought he's calling Elijah it was just a cruel joke they
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knew that he had called to God the Jewish belief was that Elijah would come alongside as the precursor as the predecessor the Forerunner to the
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Messiah but would stay with him and attest to attest to him and someone ran and and put the sponge on the Reed and dunked it in that
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sour wine vinegar stuff and held it up to Jesus I don't think for a moment that this was an act of kindness or
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compassion and it's kind of hard to understand whether it was a Roman guards or one of the bystanders who did this and it's a little hard to understand but I think what they're
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actually saying is hold off hold off let us see whether Elijah will come and take him down why quench his
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thirst if the Forerunner his predecessor is going to come and deliver
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him but here I think we have the fullest display ever given of divine love when Jesus admitted this great voice this again articulate
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intelligent loud voice and breathed his last I believe it was a cry of Victory the old restrictive and
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temporary barrier to the free access into the throne and Presence of Jehovah was torn into two someone said because God judged sin
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on the son he now accepts the believing sinner in the sun Jesus accomplished the work the work of bringing the kingdom of
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God to men in both his life and in his death and yet the truth of it is as author NTW write says love always
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suffers suffering was the means to this Victory his victory was not over suffering his victory was through
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suffering and in golgatha he learned that obedience by suffering by being made sin for us even though he himself knew no
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knew no sin and again as the author Linsky writes it was the physical suffering that killed that killed Jesus the scripture assigns no other
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cause yet we conceive of his death as being one of peace and joy and triumphant return to his father after the hard and bitter work of redeeming
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the world let us pray our heavenly father these words cause us to
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tremble as we in effect stand at the foot of the cross happily knowing that Jesus is no more on the cross that he rose
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again but in this scene we see the Divine love the man who laid down his life for his friends and we
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know that of all that you have given him to be his children none of us will be lost or forsaken we thank you and praise
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you for these things in Christ's name amen you please rise for the
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benediction again the words of Peter 1 Peter chapter Peter chapter 2 and he himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross that we might die to sin and live live to righteousness by
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his wounds you were healed amen