Happy Good FridayThe Last Words of Jesus

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Speak your mind. And now, here's today's Truth Talk Live host. On Friday, Truth Talk Live, and when I say a special Truth Talk Live, today we have our own Stu Epperson Jr., who is going to talk to us about the seven last words of Jesus. Welcome, Stu. It's good to be here.

I guess the boss man wanted ratings, so instead of me being host, he made you the host and me the guest. I don't know what's going on, Doc Carson, but happy Good Friday, happy resurrection. It's an honor to be sitting with you, brother.

Yes, and today, Good Friday, we think about our Savior, who goes to this rugged cross and dies for us. But before He will die, He is going to say seven things, and you've written an incredible book, The Last Words of Jesus. And you can get this book.

Go to Amazon. I'm telling you, it is one of the most impactful books I've ever read, and I'm not just saying that because the author is sitting in front of me. As I work through it, there's a richness to this book about understanding what Jesus was enduring as He's going through the cross and how He expressed it. Stu, tell us about these seven last words, and then we'll start breaking them down. And a lot of you are hearing these words.

It's a great day to hear them. And by the way, it's a great day to forgive, even if it's not Good Friday. So thank the Lord that the cross is empty, the tomb is empty, but we celebrate the cross. Paul said, I'll boast only in the cross of Christ, preaching the cross's foolishness to them that are perishing, but those who are in Him, who've been marked by Him, who've been transformed into Him, it is life and life everlasting. So Jesus spoke seven profound things as He died that are recorded in Scripture.

Could have said more, we don't know. But, oh man, it's been over 15 years ago now, maybe, over a decade for sure, that I started with a bunch of messed up guys like me going through the Bible together, and I was on a mission. I was on a quest to discover everything Jesus said from the cross as He died. So I grabbed Erwin Lutzer's book, Christ and the Cross.

It started there. Great book. Oh my. And Dr. Lutzer's so gracious. In fact, I said, Dr. Lutzer, listen, I've written this book.

It's not published yet. I'd love your endorsement, but before I even go any farther, are you okay with me writing another book about this subject? And he said, Young Stu, like he says in his very austere voice and tone, Young Stu, you can't say enough, you can't write enough about the cross of Jesus Christ. Isn't that gracious? You know Dr. Lutzer. He's a DTS guy. He's pastored the Moody Church for decades.

Now he's kind of the pastor emeritus there, and we still hear him on the radio a lot. Still a good friend. So I said, you know, so the fundamental questions, Doc. 101. I'm a basketball player.

I spent more time in the gym than in the classroom, so I'm not the sharpest light in the drawer or sharpest knife in the shelf or however that goes. So I'm like, okay, what did he say as he died? How many things did he say? Yeah, what did he say? How many things did he say? Where are they found in Scripture? Did he say a couple things? You know, you hear these things.

You hear a couple of them enunciated. Even in the Passion of the Christ movie, not all those seven words are portrayed in that film. Even in the other movies about Jesus coming close, you see a lot of these movies closer to the Resurrection, closer to Easter time of year. They don't always give all of them. And so I said, I want to just teach them.

We were getting about a month out from Easter. And I want to teach them, and then the Lord said, just put it on my heart to write a book about it. So that way I could just make it a resource to share with everyone. So my book, Last Words of Jesus, has as many other books as I could find.

I don't want to say all of them, because there's probably more. Ian Hamilton wrote a book called Words from the Cross, which I've just started reading. It's been a blessing. And I'm finding things that I'd already found, and he's quoting people that I quoted, but some good insights, some good research, some good, you know, real good blessing and inspiration. So I tried to make this a book.

You can go to it, and you can get those questions answered. It's small, hardback, and the KISS method. Keep it simple, Stu. It's all right here, and it's got, you know, seven chapters, seven words of life from the tree of death. Everything he said as he died that's recorded in Scripture, the exact Scripture verses found, every Scripture connected to that Scripture. So every prophetic word from, for example, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me, is found in Matthew and found in Mark.

It's only found in those two Gospels, and it's the only word from the cross found in those two Gospels. Well, it's a direct quote from Psalm 22, verse 1. So what's going on with the psalmist? What's going on with Jesus? Why would he say those words? Why would he, the only time in his whole ministry in life that he ever addresses God as someone besides Father? He says, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

So that's just one of the many. So we go through all seven, that was the fourth word, and we try to break it down, put the cookies on the lower shelf, because that's where I need them to break it down, but also to give people some hope. Because in the words of Christ, there's power in dying words, right? Yes, power in dying words. And in each one of these statements, you take and help the reader to apply it to their lives. Because everything Jesus said had meaning. Why don't you walk us through the seven statements, and then we're going to be coming up to a break in just a moment. But let's get letter listeners on this Good Friday.

It's a no-call day, this is a special program. Here are the seven last words of Jesus. Yeah, so you have the first word we'll tackle before the break, which is, we only have found this verse in Luke, and it's just a rich one of course, they're all rich, but it's Christ's word of forgiveness. Where, after all the beatings, the mockings, all the torture, all the abuse that the Son of Man endured to carry that cross all the way down the Via De La Rosa, right after he's hoisted up there on that cross, the first words out of his mouth, and I say this in the book, as blood flowed from his wounds, life flowed from his words.

And he said, Father. So he, interesting, he opens his cross session, he opens this portion of the torture, you know, he'd been through the scourging and the nine tails, and the beatings and the mockings and all that, but he opens this time of the cross in prayer, of all things. I mean, I don't think I want to pray, but you've got a big suffering session, I don't think Job's like, okay, I'm about to lose everything, I'm going to start praying. But he opens it, and he prays in his familiar place, right? He spent 40 days in the wilderness praying, he spent all night with the Father praying, before picking his disciples, many, many times. He prayed in the garden, agonizing, right? He prayed, John 17, the great high priestly prayer, intercessory prayer, and he says, Father. And then he says, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

We'll talk about that one a little bit after this break, I know we're coming up on one, Doc, and you can set it up for what's coming next. Well, I'm overwhelmed when I think about those opening words, Father, forgive them. After all that he had endured, he endured hostility from sinners, and when we come back from the break, we're going to be looking at how there are going to be two thieves on that cross, and both of them are going to be asking for Jesus to save them and save himself.

And it's going to get rich as we come back. Stay with us, call your friends, they want to be listening to today's special episode on the seven last words of Jesus. Truth Talk Live! You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com Well, we want to welcome you back to this special Good Friday edition of Truth Talk Live!

I'm Duane Carson, and it's my joy today to have Stu Epperson Jr. He is the author of the last words of Jesus. And Stu, we were talking about how as he is on this cross, he will say, Father, forgive them. Speak more about the forgiveness that Jesus offered. Well, the only one who can grant forgiveness is his Father. And of course, the way his Father grants forgiveness is through the work of his Son. First Timothy tells us he is the mediator, the only mediator. You don't have to go to some preacher or priest to get to God, go straight through Jesus. He's the way, the truth, and the life.

But it's a beautiful tone he sets right out of the gate. He's telling us why he's there on that cross, why the only perfect man to ever walk the earth is dying this horrible, torturous death to forgive. So it's a word of forgiveness.

It's a rich word, and it's such an important word, because at the end of the day, he's there paying a price. He's there paying the price of my sin, your sin. So when you start talking about forgiveness, think about the people you are having a hard time forgiving right now.

Think about that. And who is he forgiving? These are people that have beat him, they've spit on him, they've mocked him, they're nailing him to the cross, and now he's going to say, Father, forgive them. That's right. I want to say when you're injuring me, Father, destroy them.

That's right. But no, we're seeing the gracious Savior right here. There's that age-old question of who killed Jesus. Ultimately, lay at the feet of the Jews. You've got all kinds of anti-Semitism that's come out of that, sadly.

You could tag it to Herod, Pilate, the Roman soldiers, the mob, all these folks. But at the end of the day, it's unforgiveness. It's that bitterness that you're holding right now toward a family member who you're not going to call this Easter season, this resurrection season. There's a breach there.

I love them, I don't like them, I like them, I don't love them, however you mix it. There's anger, there's resentment, there's deep woundedness that we all carry. Jesus came for the express purpose of bringing forgiveness into that darkest moment.

There are several stories of that in the book, in Last Words of Jesus, from Corrie Ten Boom and others that have experienced that. God set them free by the freedom in forgiveness. So the first thing he prays, Father, forgive them, and then he says this statement, they know not what they do. They have no idea that they're gambling over his clothes, they're having a good old time there. The good old boys, they've got to take their plunder, they've got to figure out who's going to get this nice tunic of the carpenter.

And they're gambling, having a good old time. They have no idea that the clothes they're gambling over belong to the one, the only one who can clothe them with righteousness. They have no idea that the bloody spectacle and the blood they're shedding there is the only blood that can atone for their sins. Not the blood of the animals right over their shoulder going into the temple inside of the gate in Jerusalem for Passover, but the Lamb of God, whose blood takes away the sins of the world. So this is, they know not what they do, a powerful statement of forgiveness, and really sets the tone.

It really reverberates all across, because who are they? Forgive them. Well, maybe those people on the scene, maybe those religious guys that should have known better, that prayed for the Messiah every day of their life.

Lord, send the Messiah, deliver us. And now they're executing him savagely on a Roman pagan cross. You know, forgive them. Maybe it's them, maybe it's these disciples who are bedraggled, befuddled, and absolutely beside themselves, running away, their wheels up, they're gone, just like you and I probably would have been, headed for the hills because there's a cross with their name on it. Maybe it's forgive them, it's the soldiers that are just mocking and carrying on. And then of course we have, on either side of him, two villainous, terrorist thieves that could be... Who deserve to be crucified.

And now they're going to speak to him, and then Jesus will reply to them. This is the second word. Talk to us about that. Well, it's a great word. Wow. And there's a lot going on there. Like, I preached a whole sermon once on the words of the first thief.

These are damning words. So, trivia question I have a lot of fun with. How many people ask this around the Easter table? And you'll see kind of what answer you get.

Just have some fun with it, but lean into it. It's really important. How many people ask for salvation at the scene of the cross? And the typical answer is, well, definitely one, because of the thief on the cross.

Well, maybe that's centurion. Well, he made a remarkable confession that could have been salvific, we don't know. But he did say, this truly is the Son of God in Mark 15, and then the Luke account has him saying something a little bit different. But we know, de facto, that it wasn't one that asked for salvation, but two, that first thief.

These words, think about these words. It says they both reviled Jesus, so there was a time in there, maybe before he said, Father forgive, maybe just after, where they both are reviling him. That's clear from the Scriptures. They both were carrying on, attacking him and making fun of him. They were parroting what the other people were saying, making fun of Christ. But the first thief said, save us and save yourself.

Now, why are those damning words? Because Jesus did not come to save himself. He didn't need saving. He's the Savior. He came to save us. The Son of Man, Luke 19-10, came to seek and save the lost, which is me and you and every other human being. So he's basically effectively saying what Lucifer said in the wilderness and in the garden before trying to get him out of the cross and the temptation.

What Peter said, oh, you can't go to the cross, and he just said, get thee behind me, Satan, right? What all of these religious leaders said, come down that cross. We want a guy to conquer Rome. We want a political ruler. We want things to be times of peace, and we want to reign and all this. And no, Jesus didn't come to set them free politically. He came to transform us and break the chains and set our souls free and fulfill us and give us the peace and the healing and forgive us only he could give.

So the first thief says, save yourself and save us. He really wanted out of his fix. He wanted these nails gone.

He wanted the smells gone. He wanted the awful, awful death. He's literally moments away from eternity, inches away from the only one that can take him to heaven for eternity, and yet he's blaspheming.

And then something in that moment triggers. Could have been the prayer of Christ, forgive, Father forgive them. Could have been just, it was the Holy Spirit of God, we know that, because no man can call Jesus Lord except the Holy Spirit, 1 Corinthians 11.1.

So the second thief, what a beautiful statement. When you analyze that, he just said, he said, Lord. He called him Lord. If you confess your mouth, Jesus is Lord. Yeah, there's something there.

That's something God's working in him, Lord. And he says, remember me, which is the last time those two words were uttered, when Jesus said just the night before, remember me when you take this wine, this bread. So they're significant when you are into something that's life-changing, that's eternal. You want to remember the combination of a lockbox that has ten million dollars in it. Right? Well, that's kind of important.

It's a game changer. Remember me when you come in your kingdom. So he believed he would raise from the dead. He believed he was coming in his kingdom.

He saw a king of the Jews above his head in that rough, rough huge shingle above the cross and the middleman. And Jesus said, today. We'll come back to this answered prayer and the power of that, and we'll finish the other ones. Maybe, I think they're indicating we've got to take a quick break.

Yeah, we're going to head to a break here. Listeners, some of you go to the Truth Network app and download it so you can listen to it on other stations if you're not getting it as we move into the next segment. But you don't want to miss the next segment now as we come back and cover these last words of Jesus on this special Good Friday edition of Truth Talk Live. We'll make a podcast too, hopefully this whole thing.

Yes, we'll have a podcast with this. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Well, we want to welcome you back to this special Good Friday edition of Truth Talk Live. We are discussing with the author, Stu Epperson, the seven last words of Jesus on this Good Friday. And I hope today is becoming very meaningful to you as you are considering what Christ did for you, and as we're working through these seven last statements, Stu is unpacking for us the meaning. Here is the one that's been brutally beaten, nailed to a cross, saying, Father, forgive them.

They don't know what they are doing. He's offering forgiveness, and then a thief will ask him to remember him, and he says, today you're going to be with me in paradise. And now, Stu, as we move to the third statement, you may have a little bit more to say about today being in paradise, but we're moving to the third statement where he is concerned on the cross about his mother. The one who bore him in childbirth is now watching him bear her sins to give her new birth.

That's so well stated. So Mary, did you know? Well, Mary kind of did know. The angel told her all this stuff would happen. And Simeon told her. Yes, but as a young, virgin, early teenager, he probably didn't grasp the gravity of all of this, just like we don't. We're 2,000 years looking back, saying, oh yeah, of course, but we're finishing someone's sentence when they tell us the story of resurrection and the story of the cross. But imagine this stuff happening in real time with all those folks. But Simeon did say that that great, prophetic, godly saint who saw the Lord in the arms of Mary and said, now I can go home to be with God, because I have seen the Lord my Messiah. But he did say, he did prophesy, a sword will pierce your soul.

And this is the very thing happening. No mom wants to bury her own son. No mom wants to watch her son naked and laid out there and brutally treated like this. Imagine the pain that really just wracked her life and her soul and her emotions. But imagine the power of Jesus in that moment, ministering to her. She's there to minister to him. She's there to say, hey, you need some medicine, you need some comfort, you need some love. Hey, get my son down. Hey, help me. You know, summon a little army to try to rescue him, a little insurrection.

No. Rather, he ministered to her, and he gave her, which is, by the way, if you study the Levitical rite of the firstborn, they're there to make sure that they leave their family with protection and coverage. So she was, in a sense, a widow.

Joseph was probably passed by this time. So Jesus is caring for her and loving her by providing her a son in his dying moment and providing that young man, John, a great mentor and a mom. And that's what I call social justice from the cross, just really a paternal move to create a father figure and a leader in the home there in a real compassionate move of Jesus, which shows even as he's dying, he's caring.

He cares for everything, every little bit, doesn't he? Does Jesus care? What we saw right there on the cross, caring for his mom. As we're moving through these statements, I picture now it's getting dark and darkness has descended on the earth and there's going to come a cry from the cross. A fourth statement, my God, my God, and you have a way of saying it, the greatest why question, why have you forsaken me? Unpack that for our listeners. Well, God asking God why is deep.

It's really incomprehensible. There's a doctrine called the incomprehensibility of God. God is infinite. We can't know God.

I mean, you know, I love what John MacArthur said. He said, who wrote the book of Romans? Well, you better pause a second because you're going to say Paul and God used Paul. God used Paul's emotion. He used his penmanship. He used his vocabulary. He used his knowledge of archaeology and all the things, but it was also God.

So the answer is yes. So this is a deep mystery in the Godhead. And this is Christ. And Martin Luther says it this way. He says, God forsaken by God, how can this be?

So he's asking this profound why question. It's the darkest moment in all of history, but in the darkest of that moment, the lights went out. God shut the lights out. The wrath of God shows up. God is on the scene. His wrath is being poured out.

The wrath of God is being poured out of the Son of God to pay for the sins of fallen men who have offended a holy God to bring us to God. So the beauty of that moment, he was forsaken, Jesus was. He was abandoned so we could be united, reunited, reconciled.

Guess what, friend? You're never alone because Jesus Christ was alone for you. So now he is forever with you and you are now a son and daughter of Almighty God. And if you're not, you should call unto him because of the hell he went through to bring you to heaven and call upon him for salvation today. We've got to keep moving.

We've got three more and so little time. And he is. He's on that cross to bring us to God. Now comes a moment where we can understand, we get a glimpse of the agony that he is enduring on the cross. It's one word in Greek, but two words for us, I thirst.

How do we rep our heads around that? Well, it's one of the three in John. So John has the statement of Jesus to his mom in the end of John, and he has the statement, I thirst, which is the shortest thing Jesus said from the cross, but it's also the only thing he said about his physical discomfort. And that's chapter five of my book, Last Words.

The publisher made me take chunks of that out. They said, this is just too gory, too graphic. Passion of Christ is G-rated compared to what really happened to him. But God's Word shows us and reveals to us the physical distress.

Isaiah says that he was unrecognizable. His visage was marred beyond recognition. But we're shown that to illustrate the graphic nature of the spiritual intensity of the pain on Jesus.

He really did suffer. But the cross in no way or shape or form, the fifth statement compared to the fourth statement, the darkness he experienced when he really was mediating for us under the wrath of Almighty God and all of that. But it's important to notice that. We passed around an iron spike at Wednesday in the Word recently for people to feel the steel because this steel is real. So that I thirst reminds us of what he suffered physically to pay for our sin.

And when we think about Jesus and then our high priest, he identifies, he knows our pain because he experienced the pain. And then comes a shout, I believe, more of a victory statement. He says, it is finished.

It is finished. To tell a great word, one word of the Greek, it is done, it's paid for, it's also an accounting term that says the debt is completely wiped out. And he paid the debt, the veil was torn from top to bottom, access was made, and we are free and we are bought with that price. What greater price it paid for our salvation to pay for our ransom.

We have so many people today that still believe that you need to add something to Jesus. Here he is, he is saying it is finished. And friends, today on this Good Friday, know your salvation has been purchased. You put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation and in him alone because it is finished. And now comes these last words. He is suffering, he is dying, and now he dies with a statement coming off of his lips just before he will die. Well, he opens with, Father, forgive. He closes with, Father, into thy hands, I commend my spirit. So he opens in that warm place that he started with and he's laid his life down.

No one took his life. He says he gave up the ghost, he breathed his last, he laid his life down. John 10 clearly tells us the good shepherd lays his life down for a sheep. And he goes right back into the intimate fellowship with the Father he had experienced from eternity. But what has happened between that first word and that final word is he has purchased our salvation.

And it is a direct quote from Psalm 31, which was a Hebrew bedtime prayer that the Hebrew moms and dads pray for their kids. Into thy hands I commit my spirit for a special rest tonight. Well, Jesus rested and he was buried and our sins were buried with him.

And listen, he busted right out of that borrowed tomb, and he is alive. And how about that? Friday's here, but Sundays are coming. Amen.

That's right. So as we think about these seven last words, no doubt we're dealing with the agony and the pain, the suffering of the cross. But folks, we've got to remember that on the third day he did arise. He came back to life. The death led to a burial, and the burial was only a borrowed tomb, Stu.

So because on the third day he rose again. And I think there's a great challenge you want to give all of our listeners as we now work through this weekend. What should they be saying to people this weekend? Say happy resurrection. Take the happy resurrection challenge.

Instead of saying happy Easter, which you can say that all you want, say something that's going to resonate and that's going to create some curiosity and, of course, create the real importance of the season. Happy resurrection. And I'm going to say that to everyone. And I'm grateful for everyone. I'm grateful for you for having me on, Doc. You're a blessing to me. Thank you for being here. Listen, he is risen. That's the great statement of Easter.