Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. Now I want you to think so far, in this scene of greatest hate, what are the three things that Jesus says before no? Father, they don't know what they're doing.
It's the people who were screaming crucify. Today you'll be with me in paradise. To a stranger who deserves to be crucified. And to his mother, be holy. Dear son, I want to take care of you. These are words of love. In a scene of greatest hate. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt.
Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. When Jesus saw his mother and her disciple, he said, woman, behold your son. Woman.
I've talked to you about this before. The word's gunay. It's a sign of somewhat respect. It doesn't mean woman in a way we'd use it, but it means woman. He doesn't call her Mary. He never calls her Mary after he begins his ministry.
Not ever. In fact, remember we did the wedding feast at Cana Miracle and what he call her there. First miracle we did. Woman. He didn't call her Mary.
It's an interesting thought. During the gospels, when he was doing his ministry, he was in a house teaching and someone come in and said, Mary, your mother and your brothers and sisters are all outside. And Jesus said, these are my brothers and sisters.
This is my family. He didn't even give notoriety to that. Not at all. He didn't say that. Now, you see, my ministry is worldwide or my ministry begins here in Israel. And so you see that. Now, I want you to think about that because in Acts 1, you get one more reference to Mary. Just one. She's in the upper room right after the death and resurrection of Christ with the other disciples and some other people.
That's the only time. Mary is never mentioned once in the Epistles. Her name never comes up. Even at this crucifixion that happened, both the other accounts and Matthew and Mark, they don't even mention Mary's there. They don't even mention that she's there.
Luke does, but it's interesting from Luke's point of view. In Luke 2, Luke said that when the angel first came to Mary, he told Mary that on the basis of his life, there's going to be a time when a sword is going to pierce your soul. Standing in front of the cross is her time. She's going through that right now. She's never mentioned, by the way, in the Book of Revelation.
Why is that important? What do you see in the Book of Revelation? Heaven. OK, so you get this long glimpse from John about what heaven's like. Mary's never mentioned.
Not once. How could you be the queen of heaven and never get your name up there? She's not. You see, that's an important thing, I think, to understand from all of this perspective. Luke chapter one, Mary talks and Mary says in her prayer, God, my savior.
I'll explain why that's important. I need to be saved like everybody else. God is my savior. She calls herself the bond slave of God, just like Paul does. Now, over a long period of time in Christian tradition, especially in Catholicism, all that began to change over time. She's called the co-redemptorist.
In other words, who paid for sins? Jesus and Mary. She's the co-redemptorist. She can also receive prayer, and if you come from a Catholic background, you know that as well. You need to pray Mary. In fact, you need to say, so many hell Marys.
You see, she needs to hear that. She's virgin born. That's the Immaculate Conception. She was immaculately conceived.
She has no human father. I'll end up talking to Catholics. I can remember this over the years. I'd ask a lot of men in men's Bible studies, do you know what the Immaculate Conception is? Almost every guy who's an ex-Catholic would tell me the same thing. It means that Jesus was immaculately conceived. Well, everybody knows that and believes that.
That's not what it is. It means that Mary was immaculately conceived. She has no human father at all. In fact, she never died. The assumption is she was assumed into heaven. None of those things have one speck of biblical support.
None. In fact, they evolved over centuries of time. But I'll say this about Mary. She's a devoted woman and a follower of her son. She's an amazing woman when you see it from that point of view.
Could you imagine what it would be like to watch what's happening to him? Let me ask you this. Now, she had several kids and I don't want to get you too excited about that, but she did.
But let me ask you this. How do you think the other kids compared to Jesus in loving their mother? Who would compare to him in how you love your mother?
He's perfect. She probably experienced love from him like you'd never experience him anybody because he's the son of God. So she feels very much loved by Jesus Christ.
There's absolutely no doubt about that. And Jesus says, because none of his family are believers at this time, he said, Behold, John, he'll take care of you. And John did. I only believe until James converted. Once James converted after the resurrection, became the lead elder at the Jerusalem church, I'm sure he took his own mom in.
But up until then, no. Now, I want you to think so far. In a scene of greatest hate, what are the three things that Jesus says before noon? Father, they don't know what they're doing. These are the people who were screaming, crucify him. Today you'll be with me in paradise. To a stranger who deserves to be crucified and to his mother, behold, your son, I want to take care of you. These are words of love.
In a scene of greatest hate. And then everything changes at noon. John says after this, just after this, after those first three hours, this. Now the words change completely. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why does he say that? Hold your place and go with me back to Psalm 22. Psalm 22. Psalm 22, the first verse.
What's it say? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus didn't make that up. That's a thousand years old.
That's the exact phrase. He said it, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani. But David wrote it way back a thousand years earlier and said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? What's interesting in the Hebrew is that the verb tense is not point action.
What I mean by that is he didn't say that once. In Psalm 22, he said it over and over again, present tense. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
It's my opinion that for the next three hours, Jesus is screaming this out the whole time. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The wrath of God against the sin of the world is being poured out on him.
The anguish is beyond belief. Remember in the Garden of Gethsemane, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. I can't even imagine what it would be to bear the sins of the world with a holy God. I mean, the scriptures say if you're guilty of one part of the law, one sin, you're guilty of it all. How do you pay for the sins of the world?
What would that have been like from Jesus' point of view? Then if you look over to verse 14 of Psalm 22, I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It's melted within me.
My strength is dried up like a potsherd. My tongue cleaves to my jaws. You lay me in the dust of death, for dogs have surrounded me. A band of evildoers has encompassed me. They pierce my hands and my feet. I count all my bones. They look, they stare at me.
They divide my garments among them and for my clothing, they cast lots. That's why all that happened. God said it would a thousand years earlier. He's in complete control of this situation. Back to John. Question, I don't know if you've ever thought about this. How do you think the Father saw this? We know what the Son went through. How do you know what the Father did? What would he have seen? How do you think he felt?
I mean, this is the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. How would have the Father felt? We don't know because it doesn't say.
Max Lucado, back in the 1980s, he wrote some words on this called, in his book, Six Hours One Friday. And he says, here's what I think the Father may have said. It's the hour of death, the moment of sacrifice. It's your moment. This has been rehearsed a million times on false altars with false lambs.
But the moment of truth has come. Soldiers, you think you lead them? Ropes, you think you bind them? Men, you think you sentence him? He heeds not your commands.
He winces not at your lashes. It's my voice he obeys. It is my condemnation that he dreads. It is for your souls that he saves. Oh, my son, look up into the heavens and see my face before I turn it. Hear my voice before I silence it. Would that I could save you and them, but they don't see and they don't hear.
The living must die so the dying can live. The time, he says, has come to kill the lamb. Here is the cup, my son, the cup of sorrows, the cup of sin.
Be true to your task. Let your ring be heard throughout the heavens. Lift him, soldiers, lift him high to his throne of mercy. Lift him up to the perch of death. Lift him above the people that curse his name. Now plunge the tree into the earth.
Plunge it deep into the heart of humanity, deep into the strata of time past, deep into the seeds of time future. Is there no angel to save my Isaac? Is there no hand to redeem my Redeemer? Here is the cup, my son.
You must drink it alone. Interesting insight. But it makes one thing he said. God gave us a picture of how he must have felt. I don't know if you thought about that. But remember, Sarah and Abraham prayed for a son for a long time.
It took 25 years to get one. Then Isaac comes along. His dad just loves him to death. And then as a teenager, God says you have to sacrifice Isaac to me. Remember what Abraham did? He went with Isaac and Isaac went with him.
They put all the wood up there. Isaac, he has to get his, Isaac has to climb up to become a living sacrifice. And whenever I've taught that, I've had several people in the church that really hadn't thought about him. I said, how could anyone do that? How could you take your own son and put him up and sacrifice him? Because it was a picture.
You see, because it was a picture. See, how do you think Abraham felt? I imagine he felt terrible. How do you think God felt when he did this? You see, that sort of tells you the heart of God. It's an amazing scene. Who experienced more wrath, you think, or more pain?
Who had the most pain? Jesus on the cross or the Father pouring out judgment on him? It's an amazing scene when you think about it. Now back to John 19 and verse 28. He said, after this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the scripture, said, I'm thirsty. Now it's all over.
Everything has been accomplished. There's nothing more to happen here. And then Jesus says, I'm thirsty. Now I don't know about you, but wouldn't you want to be thirsty about noon? Or one? Or two?
But it's over. Now Jesus says he's thirsty. Is it because he's really thirsty?
Not necessarily. It says so the scripture could be fulfilled. You see, that's why he said, I am thirsty. So that the scripture itself could be fulfilled. Again, Psalm 69.
Listen as I read. They also gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink. A thousand years earlier. The Romans first offered him gall.
It's a horrible thing. It makes you more thirsty, but it could keep you alive longer. And the Romans would like to give you something to keep you alive longer so the pain could be worse. But the point of it was, Jesus refused the gall. Then they said they offered him, in that sense, sour wine.
It's the real cheap kind of wine, and it's pretty much like vinegar. The soldiers had some there. They offered it to him.
They got in the rest of it, how it worked. It says in verse 29, a jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge of sour wine upon the branch of hyssop, and they brought it to his mouth.
And so he drank a wee little bit. And then it says, therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, English, it is finished, what he said, to talistai, much louder. Mark's term is, he roared it.
He roared it, to talistai. It is finished. It is accomplished. It is over.
That's what he creams on. It is over, it is finished. I want you to understand this. So what do you mean, what's finished? See, what's finished here? The sacrifice on the cross is finished, right? But he said it was finished.
I hope you thought about this. He's still alive. He didn't say it will be finished.
He said it is finished. That's the spiritual death that he died on the cross. That's when he paid for all the sins. You see, the beatings and the whippings and the mockery and the crucifixion, did it kill him physically?
No. How did he die physically? He gave up his spirit. Remember in John 10, he said, no man can take my life.
I'll lay it down and I'll raise it up, but no one takes my life. He's the son of God. He's finished. So the whole idea of it is, it's quite an interesting thing for him to say.
He said it's finished. He bowed his head and he gave up his spirit. It's an interesting thought, but we often think, he couldn't have done it until he's physically dead.
Now he does die physically, but that part's on his own choosing. But spiritually, he had to experience the wrath of God. One last verse is Mark 15 then. Mark 15 and verse 37. Mark 15, 37. Mark says it this way. And Jesus uttered with a loud cry and breathed his last.
He didn't even say what the word was, but it was tetalesti. And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. Understand, from 12 o'clock to 3 o'clock, it's pitch black.
That's why I like that video. All you saw was the darkness. Like, why is it so dark? Because that's the way it was. It's just dark.
That'd be sobering. When he says it is finished, there's an earthquake. So the whole ground is shaking.
And the video again eluded that feeling of the shaking. Then he says in the temple, between the holy place and the holy of holies, the Jews had a curtain. That curtain that separated the holy of holies and the holy place was four inches thick.
In fact, it was said by Josephus that if you had teams of chariots, you could never pull the curtain apart. The minute he said it's finished, it tears from the top to the bottom and just opens up, which means access to the presence of God is open now to everyone. Not the high priest once a year.
It's open to all of us. So you have an earthquake. You have the temple done. You have pitch blackness for three hours, which couldn't have been an eclipse.
They don't last anywhere near that long. And so how do you respond to that? Well, it says here, when the centurion, who was standing right in front of him, saw the way he breathed his last, he said, truly, this man's the son of God. He had seen hundreds of people crucified. Not unusual. Nothing like this.
He'd never experienced anything like this. There were others who watched him a distance, but they experienced it. So when you get to Acts, chapter 2, when Peter preaches his first sermon, it says 3,000 souls put their faith in Christ.
Why? They'd been there. I saw that. They hadn't seen the resurrected Christ, but they saw the dying Christ, and they said, I believe that.
I put my faith in that. Here is the miracle of how does a holy God have an eternal relationship with sinful people? And it's the cross. This is the clearest picture I can ever see of what grace is. See, for you and I, we say, well, grace is God's unmerited favor. It's a free gift to us. And if you would take the free gift of God's salvation, you'll have eternal life. It seems free.
That's kind of nice. No strings attached. Was it free to him?
No. It was unbelievably costly. Why would a holy God do that for people like us? For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son to die for you. I mean, if all the rest of us were God-like and you were you, he'd still come and die for you. That's the love of God for each and every one of us.
That's the miracle of the cross. Three hours of almost total silence. His only words in those three hours were words of love to other people. And then three hours of darkness.
Screaming, Eloi, Eloi, lama, sabachthani. What a day. Don't romanticize it. What a day. My prayer for all of you or for anyone who hears this is that you would respond to him just like the centurion did. This is the son of God. And he died for me that I can have an eternal relationship with God.
There's never been a day that good. I just beg you to appropriate it in your own life. Let's pray. Father, we hear so much about the cross, especially this time of year and next week, the resurrection, that we almost take it for granted.
We're almost too familiar with the story. I just pray that when we see it today from that point of view, the agonizing aspect of the cross, the enormous sacrifice that was made, all motivated by God's love for each and every one of us. The apostle Paul says, while we were still at enmity with God, God loved us. And that love is demonstrated on the cross. We who are already believers, Father, we should never take this for granted. We should always realize with a very sober heart how Jesus Christ demonstrated his love for us and what that means to us. Our sins are forgiven.
They have been removed from us. He has taken them to see, as the scripture says, and thrown them overboard and buried them. He says, I will remember them no more, not because he has amnesia, but because of Jesus Christ. Father, thank you for the cross of Christ and thank you for reminding us of what it was like. I pray this for our good and for your glory.
In Jesus' name, amen. And you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.
That's fbcnola.org. At our website you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word. .
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