"When the sixth hour came, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour. At the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" which is translated, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" When some of the bystanders heard it, they began saying, "Behold, He is calling for Elijah." Someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave Him a drink, saying, "Let us see whether Elijah will come to take Him down." And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last. And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. When the centurion, who was standing right in front of Him, saw the way He breathed His last, he said, "Truly this man was the Son of God!"
There were also some women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the Less and Joses, and Salome. When He was in Galilee, they used to follow Him and minister to Him; and there were many other women who came up with Him to Jerusalem."
Good Morning my beloved,
We
welcome you to worship in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are so
grateful that you could be here with us today. I hope you are looking forward to the return of our study of the Gospel of Mark, we still have the final verses to go before moving on to chapter 16, the last chapter in the book of Mark. I pray that it has blessed all of you and impacted your walk with our Lord as much as it has mine.
Even though Scripture clearly condemns all sin, more and more churches have become willing to affirm, even celebrate sinful behavior, rather than confront the moral evils of society with biblical Truth. Pastors, of all people, had ought to know that you don't get to invent your own version of Jesus. God cannot and will not bless any relationship that He condemns! 2 Samuel 12:9, "Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in His sight?" Jeremiah 2:19, "Your own wickedness will correct you, and your apostasies will reprove you; Know therefore and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God, and the dread of Me is not in you,” declares the Lord God of hosts." Nobody
seems to care anymore whether that which is preached is true or false, bad doctrine is tolerable, so long
as it tickles the ears, making them feel better about their sin. Many of modern evangelism’s most influential preachers are neglecting to teach sound doctrine, drawing their theology from secular books to affirm damning identities, in order to draw a bigger crowd and diluted, reprobate minds are eager to receive it. In fact, everything has become popular in the church today except God-centered biblical preaching, the only thing relevant. It's deeply disheartening that many professing Christians do not even know what the Gospel truth is as Jesus proclaimed it.
Scripture is very clear, whatever is not of God is sin, going beyond the clear bounds that God has set! Jesus loved the tax collector, adulterer, and the prostitute enough to tell them the Truth, calling them to repent and walk away from sinful behavior. His love for sinners was never the acceptance of their sinful lifestyle. You
don't have to be very sagacious to understand that the tolerance of sin
has had a devastating impact on many churches. I believe where God is
no longer relevant, there is a clear lack of understanding of the
biblical definition of sin and His attitude toward it, from a God-centered perspective. Repentance must be preached, turning away from sin must be taught before it can generate the forgiveness of sin and lives can be changed. It is a very serious offense to pervert the Gospel. Paul wrote in Galatians 1:9, "As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!" I’m very passionate about God's Truth, as revealed in Scripture and to speak the Truth in love. I do not believe that there's anything more unloving, than deceiving people about their true spiritual condition. We who preach and teach are held responsible to proclaim the Truth to bring deceived souls to the knowledge of the Truth, the only Truth of God can save and sanctify. That's why the Truth is always under attack, with the greatest assaults on the Scripture coming from within the church, those who name the name of Christ.
Let us pray
Heavenly Father,
Father, we thank You for Your Word, that has armed us in every way with Your Truth, for equipping us for this battle, so that we can engage the enemy with confidence, knowing that we have nothing to fear. Father, I pray that You would raise faithful men, who love the Truth, fully equipped to guard and protect Your children from false teachers intent on teaching perverse doctrine to draw them away from Christ. May we not be afraid to bring all things to the test of Scripture. Lord, I pray that You would use this message mightily, powerfully, savingly in someone’s life who has not confessed Christ as Lord and Savior, or someone who has confessed Christ, but whose life is unchanged, even today, for Your glory, wherever it may be received.
In Christ’s precious name we ask and pray.
Amen
Today's Message: Where Are You God, Why Don’t You Do Something?
There is such hostility toward Christianity in our world today, a hatred for sound doctrine and an increasing love for a false, perverted gospel, because the spirit of the antichrist is everywhere in the world, which is evidence that these are indeed the last days, the end of the church age, which is marked by the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Matthew 24, Jesus Himself made it clear that the church would be plagued with difficulty, warning of false Christians, false prophets, and false Christs who would come, leading many people astray and be quite successful at it. There are certainly a lot of pastors who are not only weak doctrinally, but they can’t seem understand what the rest of us who take an uncompromising stand on the Truth, that have strong convictions and confidence in the absolute authority of Scripture, get so excited about.
There are many in the church today, who claim to belong to Christ, while committing immoral sins of a gross kind, sins that are an abomination to God. What is even more disturbing to me is the sins that pastors are committing while continuing to lead the church. Sin that threatens to destroy the integrity of the church. Where do people get such an idea, that sin is to be tolerated in the church, the idea that God has lowered His holy standard on sin? I believe from corrupt pastors who has stained the pulpit with the tolerance of his own sin. Church leaders who are comfortable about their own sin, tend to become more sympathetic to the sins of others, after all, who can better understand sinners, than one who has himself sinned greatly, right? I believe this the attitude that has contributed to the disastrous, damning conduct we now see in the church. Christianity, for the most part, is losing the battle for moral purity, because we have drastically lowered God's standards beginning with the leadership in the church. It doesn't matter how good your theology is, how much Scripture you've memorized if you fail to apply it, living an impure life. Pastors are given higher responsibility to feed and lead the flock, encouraging them to live godly lives, I don't want to belabor the point because we've talked about many, many times, but the damage ungodly leaders have done to the church has been catastrophic.
Open your Bibles with me, if you would, to the
fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Mark, verses 33-41. I hope that you to follow along with me as I read to set the text in our minds, and listen for the voice of our Lord with open ears and a hearing heart. Mark 15:33-41.
"When the sixth hour came, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour. At the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" which is translated, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" When some of the bystanders heard it, they began saying, "Behold, He is calling for Elijah." Someone
ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave Him a
drink, saying, "Let us see whether Elijah will come to take Him down." And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last. And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. When
the centurion, who was standing right in front of Him, saw the way He
breathed His last, he said, "Truly this man was the Son of God!"
There were also some women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the Less and Joses, and Salome. When He was in Galilee, they used to follow Him and minister to Him; and there were many other women who came up with Him to Jerusalem."
Jesus is hanging on the cross, resembling a mangled piece of meat, marred far beyond human semblance, unparalleled punishment for crimes He didn't commit, so that He might be a sacrifice for our sin and as I mentioned before, He not only suffered great physical pain, but tremendous emotional and psychological pain. Some of you might be thinking, "Where is God in all of this while Jesus is suffering?" As we focus on the cross, I want you to understand that God is not going to excuse evil. He's not going to close one eye with regards to sin. Sin must be dealt with. I pray today this will challenge you to think about the tremendous implications of the wickedness of sin, causing you differently about your sin, and encourage you to repent and turn away from it, changing your life as we think about all that Jesus endured as He died in our place so that we would not have to experience it ourselves. If we believe that Christ is going to return at any moment, shouldn't we be motivated to clean up our lives? The more you and I become conformed to Jesus Christ, the more we're going to hate our sin and love righteousness. Unfortunately, I believe that most Christians attitude towards sin isn't hate, it's love. I’ll tell you something, you can really tell a lot about where a Christian is spiritually by their attitude towards their own sin.
Let's look at verse 33, "When the sixth hour came, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour." Jesus hung on the cross from 9am to 3pm. From 9am to 12pm noon, everyone
could see what He was going through, as man threw everything at Him that he could. But from 12pm to 3pm, it is a different story, it's as if
God has closed the curtains and we cannot see what Jesus will must
go through, as God would deal directly with His Son, suffering for the sins of the world. It was more painful than our finite minds could ever imagine. Keep in mind that these three hours of darkness, were in the middle of the day, it was 12 noon, when the sun was blazing in the sky at its zenith, meaning it was at its highest point. By the way, this is a natural eclipse as some skeptics have suggested, this is a supernatural event of God coming on the scene. It's not the first time God interfered with the sun; it was actually quite common in the Old Testament. For example in
Genesis 15, a
great darkness fell upon Abram. And in Joshua 10, He caused the earth to stop revolving, making the sun appear to stand still. In
Isaiah 38, He moved the sun ten degrees backward on the sundial, a miracle that was obvious to all. In
Exodus 10, in a showdown between God and an Egyptian Pharaoh, as a
consequence of disobedience and idolatry, He blackened the sun as a part of the horrible ten plagues that fell upon Egypt,
to pave the Hebrews way to freedom.
Why is this darkness significant? Because when Christ was born, there was a great light in the sky. In John 8:12, Jesus said "I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life."And, in John 12, He said "For a little while longer the Light is among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes. While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light." God is often spoken of as Light,
but He also associated with darkness. Joel 2:10 says, "
Before them the earth trembles; The heavens quake; The sun and the moon grow dark, and the stars lose their brightness." This darkness then, is an expression of God's presence in divine judgment on the wicked for their iniquity. Amos 5:18, "Woe, you who are longing for the day of Yahweh, for what purpose will the day of Yahweh be to you? It will be darkness and not light" That is why Jesus refers to Hell in the book of Matthew three times, as "outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." In other words, darkness is not the absence of God, it is God's presence in full judgment! That's what makes the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ unique, we could say that Hell came to Israel in those three hours.
Verse 34, "At the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" which is translated, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" Notice the first thing Jesus said after the darkness has ended and the full cup of wrath has been consumed, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" He broke His silence and cried out, not about the immeasurable agony that He is suffering, about the horrendous pain of scourging, the severe dehydration, or even about the mocking and ridicule from wicked men, but about the real pain He was suffering, the real agony that He anticipated in the Garden that caused Him to sweat drops of blood, the reality of the loss of intimacy of communion and fellowship with His Father, not the nature of the Father, which He had eternally known. This is pain unlike anything He has ever experienced before. By the way, this is the only time He ever referred to God in any other way than "Father," in all of the New Testament. How are we to understand this apparent separation? I believe that He’s saying, "I know You were here in the sin-bearing judgment, but where are You now in the comfort?" Listen, allow me to point out that this is a devastating reminder that God will never be there to comfort divine wrath!
Verse 35, "When some of the bystanders heard it, they began saying, "Behold, He is calling for Elijah." Notice, as soon as the darkness begins to disappear, the mockery and
ridicule continues, they pick right back up where they left off with their scorn
, it's shocking that they are unfazed
as if nothing has happened. Some have suggested it was a misunderstanding due to His weakened physical condition. They spoke the language, they knew exactly what He was saying, they were sarcastically mocking His claim to be the Messiah.
Malachi 4:5, "Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and awesome day of Yahweh." It’s interesting that these people are so focused on Elijah showing up when
God is right there in their midst. Their were blinded by their misguided preconceived notions.
I believe that's a profound lesson for us, a clear indication that they were intellectually convinced they didn't need to change their lives to receive forgiveness and salvation; they're comfortable in their sin, thinking they already had it. I believe that self-deception is the most dangerous spiritual position that a person can be in, unwilling to make the sacrifice of walking away from sin, their life never changes. All you need to do to go to Hell is do nothing. I beg you, don’t be deceived by your religious feelings, satisfied with your church activity and your knowledge of Scripture, unless you’ve made that personal commitment to abandon your sin, you're drifting into Hell, slipping past the possibility of salvation. Many people are in Hell, experiencing the worst punishment you could ever imagine because they have come to Christ, but never truly received His salvation, it's difficult thing to hear, but it’s true.
Romans 2:3-6, "
But do you presume this, O man—who passes judgment on those who practice such things and does the same—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will repay to each according to his works." Be careful how you decide to treat the gospel of Jesus Christ, lest you forsake eternal blessing, bringing eternal damning judgment upon yourselves. Hell is not a religious superstition, its very real. But you don't have to go there, only a fool will reject salvation.
Then in verse 36, "Someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave Him a drink, saying, "Let us see whether Elijah will come to take Him down." John tells us knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the Scripture, He said, "I am thirsty." A jar full of sour wine was standing there; so they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop and brought it up to His mouth. If you will remember, they had offered Him a drink earlier, but He refused, this time He asks and only one of them did. The rest of them continued mocking Him, even at the last hour.
Verse 37, "And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last." Mark doesn't record what He says but John again fills in more details "Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said,
"It is finished!" And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit." In the Greek, it means to bring to an end, it has been paid in full.
Jesus was in control even in His death, it was He decided when the time had come to
breathe His last breath, not man, He willingly laid down His life.
Luke 23 tells us that His final statement
, was "Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit."
If He was dying of asphyxiation as some suggest, how did He have the strength to cry out,
Verse 38, "And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom." By the way, this is the veil of the temple that separated the holy place from the Holy of Holies, in a split second, it was all over, no more Holy of Holies, no more sacrifices, no more priesthood. And according to Josephus, horses pulling against each other couldn’t tear that thirty feet wide and thirty feet high, four inches thick, curtain. It required an astonishing three hundred men to lift it. Matthew adds after the veil was torn in two, "the earth shook and the rocks were split. The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many." This is a glorious preview of what is to come, the resurrection. Notice, they didn’t come out until Christ was raised, because He was to be the firstfruits and all others follow Him. They appeared to many people around in the city of Jerusalem!
Beloved, Christ may have looked like a victim, hanging on the cross for 6 hours, but make no mistake, the timing of these occurrences coinciding perfectly with the death of Jesus precisely at 3 O'clock when there would have been hundreds of thousands of people celebrating the Passover, the priests up to their ears in the blood of slaughtered lambs, clearly points to the sovereign hand of God at work proving that Jesus was no ordinary man, this was God’s exclamation point stating He is the Son of God!
Verse 39, "When the centurion, who was standing right in front of Him, saw the way He breathed His last, he said, "Truly this man was the Son of God!" This is a staggering confession of a pagan man, a Gentile soldier who no doubt participated in the execution of Jesus, moved by what he had just witnessed. Luke adds "when he saw this, he began praising God, saying, "Certainly this man was innocent." I believe this centurion was first to convert to Christ after His crucifixion, saved a divine act by the grace of God. "And all the crowds who came together for this spectacle, when they observed what had happened, began to return, beating their breasts." Suddenly, mocking Jesus as the Messiah isn't so much fun, now they're frightened, sadly, Scripture doesn't say anything about them praising God or confessing Him as the Son of God, so we can't be dogmatic whether or not they converted. I believe some of them were saved. Jesus explained in the parable of soils we can expect different responses from different people because of the condition of the heart, not everyone will respond in saving faith. Nevertheless, we are called to continue to sow the seed and trust the increase to God.
That brings us to verses 40-41, "There were also some women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the Less and Joses, and Salome. When He was in Galilee, they used to follow Him and minister to Him; and there were many other women who came up with Him to Jerusalem." Some have asked, "This is an interesting statement, why is this even here?" I'll tell you why, I believe because their their exceptional bravery and dedication to Jesus are worth mentioning, these faithful women had followed and ministered to Him since His Galilean ministry, now , in their love and loyalty, they are there, watching Him die. For all the great things we can say today about the boldness of the apostles after His resurrection, they abandoned Jesus in His death, in fear for their own lives, afraid to be identified with the crucified Christ, except for John, who we know was there and says that these women were standing by the cross of Jesus, when "He said to His mother, "Woman, behold, your son!" Then He said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother!" From that hour the disciple took her into his own household." Now that He's died, they're looking on from a distance in a blank stare, numb, lost and confused, like a deer in the headlights. I imagine they were thinking, "Where are You God, why don’t you do something, don’t just let Him die on the cross like some common criminal." Though they were off in the distance, they were close enough to be recognized, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the Less and Joses, and Salome, the mother of James and John.
The verb "diakonéō," means to serve, caring for the needs of
others in a practical manner. So, ministering to Him in loving service, they were likely
preparing and serving the food, possibly washing and mending clothes to care for Him. Until feminism came along, this was not considered to be demeaning task, or a sign of weakness, but one of great value. They’re not called to be preachers, but don't misunderstand or underestimate importance of the role of faithful women in the home or the church. I believe this is a beautiful picture of the nurturing role women play in the provision of God. As I have said numerous times before, I am deeply indebted to the nurturing godly women in my life, if it were not for their faithfulness, I likely wouldn't be here today. God highly honors women, and I pray that you are as well.
I pray that we will all let the death of Jesus challenge us to live and love differently, and devotion to Christ will cause us to magnify Him, and show
our gratitude for all He's done. He is worthy of our selfless sacrifice,
our suffering and all of our praise! There’s only one Gospel, only One Savior, One sacrifice, and One way of salvation. If you claim to already know Jesus, it's time to start living like it!
If you don’t know the risen Lord Jesus Christ, this is a
good time to repent of your sin and ask Him to forgive you and be
your personal Lord and Savior today, while the Holy Spirit is powerfully working in your heart.
Put your life in the hands of
Jesus Christ, I assure you it's the safest place you can possibly be.
May it be so..
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
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