The Safest Deposit Box

2008 has been a year in which this generation have experienced firsthand. At least what it means to have financial insecurity we been brought up on this concept of financial security, security, security, security, or what is branded about and then in 2008 we saw solid rock institutions hundred and 60 year old financial institutions was $60 billion in assets or so went up in the smoke overnight banks that we thought were safe. Many of them went under and some people lost their uninsured deposits. In fact, someone said that there is no such thing as financial security. I was reading. Not long ago the AP, the Associated Press had a story of a Chinese who was so afraid of what's going on with the banking and all the new users coming around the world at that time, so he took his cash and literally buried it in his backyard, only to go back a few weeks ago find it all rotted and is worthless in the midst of all of this when people are asking where shall I put my most prized possessions was a secure place in which I can deposit my security is where is a truly safe and secure place today.

You gonna find out where is safest security deposit box in the universe before I get they got understand that whether you really know it or not and whether you would even agree or not and whether you acknowledge it or not, your most treasured possession. Is your soul not the few dollars of got put in your hands and where you deposit that most prized possession will make all the difference in the world would mean all the difference between living in peaceful living in internal war.

Whether you live securely or insecure.

Whether you live confidently or not and whether you going to live joyfully or not, whether you gonna live a serene life or a tortured life in our Lord Jesus Christ knew where that safest deposit place was and when the time came to deposit his soul. He deposited it in the hands of his father and I were David prayed that Psalm Psalm 23 is a beloved son we all love it. Many of us, memorizes us children. The Lord is my shepherd.

Therefore, I shall not want. He understood that his total security is in the hand of the Lord physically.

He was confident that the Lord will meet all of his needs.

Emotionally, he trusted the Lord to give him peace as spiritually he rested in God's power of restitution morally here and you that God is the one who's going to guide him as a guidance is needed in a time of crisis. God is going to give him hope eternally. He was assured of a place in heaven. In fact, I want to give you a use of interpretation. If you want an interpretation of Psalm 23. As a unit for if you don't have something it's either because you don't need it, or you shouldn't have, as of the Psalm is the same in the sick statement from the cross is a prayer. The children have prayed really for hundreds of years and has its origin in the Bible. Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep if I should die before I wake I pray the Lord my salt intake. In fact, this prayer is profound in its simplicity because it indicates our willingness to deposit the most precious thing the most prized possession in the safest deposit place of all in this sick statement from the cross is an example of the Lord's confidence in the hands of his father.

In fact, it is a prayer that most Jewish children have prayed, growing up from infancy Lord, into your hands I commit actually literally the word means into your hand.

I deposit my Solomon explained that you in a minute. In fact, I was delighted to learn that this sick statement from the cross is used was used by a lot of people for the last 2000 years. Many of the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ before they close their eyes and death and went to be in the presence of the Lord.

They prayed this prayer, Christopher Columbus before he died he prayed this prayer Lord, into your hands I commit my spirit. Martin Luther, the great reformer before he died to be in the presence of the Lord. He prayed this prayer into your hands I commit my spirit.

Sir Thomas Moore who was beheaded by King Henry VIII. His last words were, into thy hands I commit my spirit. Countless believers throughout generations have prayed this prayer before they found themselves to be phased to face with the Lord Jesus and so please turn with me if you haven't already. Luke 23, beginning in verse 44, and while you're at it, that W Bibles that go ahead and turn to Psalm 31 in order to understand what that statement means in the power and the impact of that statement. You have to place yourself at that time at the foot of the cross and if you examine this statement very closely.

If you look at that particular moment that led our Lord to cry with a loud voice and make the sick statement from the cross. If you look carefully at that cry. You will soon conclude that it was not a cry of defeat, but it was a cry of victory that this was not a cry of being conquered by death but conquering death that is not a cry of a victim of circumstances, but someone who's in control of the circumstances.

Luke tells us the second last word from the cross was cried out in a loud voice is of vital importance that you understand this.

This is really significant. There is a very good reason why this was a loud voice for those who have stood in front of the cross. Many of them yelled with a loud voice they jeered him they reviled him. They taunted him the first step in mockery of him was also cried out in a loud voice, saying he saved others, but he can't save himself for them. Jesus cried out with a loud voice father, into your hands I commit my spirit. It was loud enough so that the angels in heaven would hear it. It was loud enough so that the demons below may heated. It was loud enough so that the crowd may take note of it.

In fact, those who started the torture of the crucifixion. They tell us that normally a crucified person takes about 48 hours. Think about this 48 hours hanging on the cross before they die 48 hours and then when they die they die in a winter not with a loud voice they die in the winter, but the uniqueness of our Lord's death is that he died only in six hours, not 48 and then when he died he dismissed his spirit as a commander dismisses a servant was standing before him out of his presence. He was in control of it until the last second.

Not only that, he died in six hours, not 48 but he died not with a whimper, but was a loud cry but a loud voice, some medical scientist interpreted this cry in a loud voice, as a result of a heart ruptured or breaking, but we know biblically that Christ died with a cry of a conquering hero. He cried the cry of a victor in the battle.

He cried the cry of the over, he cried the cry of triumph. So much so that this pagan Roman centurion who have witnessed and saw hundreds of these crucifixions he saw hundreds of people hanging in the cross for 48 hours he saw hundreds of them die with a whimper. But then he saw the Lord Jesus Christ with a cry of victory and a search. This is a righteous man. That's all he could do it. I guess, but it's not bad. He did not know that he was God the son. He said he was a righteous man now want you to look at the cry itself is yellow Jesus died with a cry of victory on his lips.

There was a criminal on his side who died with a curse on his lips.

But when our Lord Jesus Christ God he died with a prayer from Psalm 31 on his lips. Now the content of that song because that is the Psalm that our Lord was courting in the sick statement from the cross in you Lord, I have taken refuge.

Let me never be put to shame. Deliver me in your righteousness turn your ear toward me. Come quickly to my rescue being my rock of refuge of strong fortress to save me since you are my rock and my fortress and guide me free me from the traps that are set before me, for you are my refuge. Look at verse five and on the line within your Bible until you make a hole in the paper in your hand. I commit my spirit. Remember me oh Lord, the God of truth not beloved you must never forget that every one of those seven statements from the cross, either a fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy or is a foreshadowing of the cross in the New Testament. I want to show you now very clearly in each one of them.

When Jesus said, father forgive them for they know not what they're doing. It was a fulfillment of Isaiah 5312. He made intercession for his transgressors and then he looked over and there was a penitent criminal dying on the cross next to him and he gave them the assurance of his salvation. He said today you shall be with me in paradise. This was a fulfillment of Matthew 121 and you shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sin and when he looked at his mother and said woman behold your son. It was a fulfillment of the prophecy made by Simeon to Mary in Luke 234. Then when he cried out in the darkness of midnight that overcame the brightness of noontime, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me it was a direct fulfillment of Psalm 22 verse one when he cried. I first it was a direct fulfillment of Psalm 6921 in my first they gave me vinegar to drink. You see in God's supernatural sovereign foreknowledge. He made sure that every detail of the cross is spelled out to us before he took place.

You said, why is that why all these details are given ahead of time simply because that we be sure because God knew there gonna be some smart Alec on the 21st century filling that universities in teaching and dead cemeteries arming seminaries. That's what it's the same thing.

Can you that the Ghana people are gonna come inside the crucifixion is just a misfortune of fate not is not known. A million know he wanted us to be absolutely sure that that crucifixion is not of misfortune effect. It is not a waste of a life. It is not a surrender to martyrdom. It is not the unfortunate into a good life know in a million nose. Jesus was the only one born of a woman for the sole purpose of dying for you and for me in so many cried in a loud voice father, into your hands I deposit my spirit. It is a scriptural prayer that every faithful Jew prayed at the end of the day parents.

I wanted to just literally 30 seconds to tell you something about a most importance what you teach your children to pray in their infancy and in their childhood will remain with them into their adulthood watching you and how you pray and how you communicate and intimacy with the father will affect them far more than any words you can speak and you notice I keep saying deposit deposit.

I know some of your translations is commit another translation said commend, but there's a reason why use the word deposit because the word literally means and is used when you go and leave something somewhere and walk away from it knowing absolutely full will confident, assured, trusting that when you come back it will be there intact. That's what the word means when Jesus cried this cry and said, into your hands I commit I deposit my spirit where were his hands that will fasten to the drug world of the cross is not free. It was the hands of wicked men hands of evil men nailed him to the cross. How you on the cross and in Matthew 1722 Jesus warned his disciples. He said to them, he said the Son of Man will fall into the hands of sinners and in Matthew 2645 Jesus said to them, he said he is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Those hands and flogged the son of God does hands that hammer the nail through his flesh into the world does hands and crowned him with thorns, and for 12 hours, literally, has been in the hands of men and the worms that the hands of man could do, have done, but now, now, is now to be deposited into the hands of the father, the greatest hands of all, what does it mean what does it mean to be deposited in the hands of the father. Listen carefully, it means that he's about to going to paradise where all of the Old Testament saints and believers were there waiting. They look by faith and waited.

Abraham milk 2000 years ahead of time and by faith he saw. The city is not built with him. That is why Jesus said, before Abraham was, I am Abraham saw my day and rejoiced in all of the descendents of a faithful descendents. Those who were faithful Jews who have looked forward to the cross. Whoever looked forward to the Messiah coming in dying on the cross. There were all in the paradise waiting for Jesus to die on the cross and shut his blood and then they took all the saints into heaven with him.

And there he declared his Lordship being in the hands of the his father means that on the third day he rose again from the grave with a glorified body to be in the hands of the father meant that for 40 days. Gonna walk with them is going to talk with them his gun instructor is going to commission them is going to send them out being in the hands of the father meant that in that 40th day they going to be seeing human amount of olive rising up into heaven and see the angel saying to them that same Jesus is going to come back because that's what it means to be in the hand of the father that he will come again to judge every human being that is ever live because never, never again he will be in our hands but we will be in his hands and ask your question, please answer it honestly to yourself.

You don't have to answer to anybody else, is to yourself and the question is this, do you deposit your all in the hands of the father or will you deposit some in his hands and the rest is in your hands. You have to answer that question is between you and God. Do you wake up in the morning and say Lord I deposit my business into your hands or they say I deposit the problem that I'm facing into your hands, but I'll do the rest do you say father I deposit my family into your hands, or is it only when there's a crisis in the family do you say father I deposit my life into your hand or is it only when you need healing. Do you get up in the morning and say father I deposit my future into your hands.

Do you get up and daily say to him, Lord, give me your plan so that I may obey it, or do you do like how most Christians do, and say, God, here's my plan. Here is my strategy blessed. No wonder were not seeing revival and unless and until we learn to surrender and know what it means to say father I deposit everything in your hands, not just when I need you not when I'm desperate. Not when it everything in your honey's a woman once went to see her pastor and his been a pastor for 25 years and she said to Mike terrified. I live in fear all the time on live in terror all the time. Is it what for what off, he said, I'm afraid she said I'm afraid that I'm going to fall live in fear of falling over scriptural speaking of not physically enough pastor wisely said looked at her and he said you know, go ahead and fall. She said what do you really mean this is if you go ahead and fall patient because when the Bible said that the everlasting arms are underneath. And when you fall, you're not going to fall through his hands but into his hands.

Beloved, listen to me. When Jesus said those whom the father has given me. I will lose non-meaning that you will never fall through the hands of God uniformly to his hands. The little people living in fear and we know that the site different default on you see when you're confident when you deposit your all in his hand. You gonna live in confidence and I can live in fear because he's going to give you the strength to overcome temptation when you deposit your all he takes it he blesses God is not only working behind the scenes.

He also has the power to move the scenes, which is behind can I get a witness father, into your hands I deposit my spirit there may be someone here today is looking, inquiring, searching and never came to the point of saying father into your hand, I surrender out-of-print attention. You forgive me what you can do that today.

Thanks for listening to this message from Dr. Michael. You sat recently featured on leading the way. If you'd like to know more about us, please visit LTW.org that's LTW.Ward