INTRO: Our text this Good Friday morning is, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachtani." It means, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" It comes from Matthew 27:46. I am redoing a message that I did in 1998. I called it, "Forsaken!" Today is the day we commemorate the death of Christ. It is a most significant day. On Palm Sunday I mentioned that He died when the Passover lambs died. The Passover lambs were the shadow, but here was Christ, the One that was represented by that shadow.
Matthew 27:45, the verse before our text says that from the sixth hour to the ninth hour darkness reigned. In Luke 22:53 Jesus said, "...this is your hour and the power of darkness." Never had the powers of darkness reigned more supremely. Christ came to His own, but His own did not receive Him. No, they rejected Him. But not only that, they condemned Him to die the most cruel death ever invented. And when the darkness fell thick upon the land it symbolized God turning His back on His only Son, a suffering Son. There has not been a darker hour in human history than this one. It was an hour that belonged to man and the devil. |
