Ray Stedman sermon

The Pressure Of Problems Series: Obtaining God's Help Author: Ray C. Stedman Read the Scripture: Psalm 77:1-10 Through the centuries the Psalms have been read and loved by Christian people largely because they reflect the experience of men and women in the life of faith. In times of struggle and persecution, in times of deep personal distress, in times of great overflowing joy, there is nothing like the Psalms to match the experience of the heart. That is why this book has been the most loved of all books of the Old Testament. I have chosen Psalm 77 for our study because I have found so many people today facing exactly the same problem that this psalm faces. We are all religious people here, at least that is what the world would call us. There is, of course, a sense in which everyone in the world is religious, even though they may reject that term for themselves. But we particularly believe in the unseen dimension of life. We believe that life can never be adequately explained by what one can see or taste or touch or hear or smell; that there are realities beyond these and those realities are more important than the things of sight and taste and touch. We are, in that sense, religious people. We believe God touches life at every phase and every facet of our experience. As such we are hearing continual testimonies being given of prayers that are answered and victories that are won in the life of faith. But I suppose that even the youngest Christian here has had at least one experience of turning to God in some moment of desperate need, of praying and asking God to help, and finding nothing happening; an experience of finding all the doors apparently shut, of no response even to the most urgent and ardent plea from our hearts. When we do not get the help we crave and need so desperately, our hearts ask, Why? Doubts flood our minds and we wonder what is wrong, either with God or with us. There may be some that are going through this experience even today. You have been crying to God for help, but no help is given. That is the problem that is faced in the 77th Psalm. This Psalm was written in order to help people who have that kind of a problem. The psalm relates the story of a man who experienced the seeming unresponsiveness of God to his prayers, and it drove him almost to the point of despair. Then he saw what was wrong, changed and corrected his thinking. and thus came at last to the place of trust, of peace, and of strength again. From despair to peace: that is the story of the 77th Psalm. I suggest that this Psalm, with its emphasis on experience, can help us even when New Testament teaching cannot help. Many of us have had the experience of being so tired, so emotionally battered, that we cannot respond to teaching. Someone tries to help us by pointing out some truth and we know that what he is saying is true but it does not seem to grip us, it does not do anything for us. There are circumstances when even the language of the New Testament, rich and glorious as it is, seems to be flat and hard, and we realize that though the truth is there, somehow we cannot grasp it. At times like that, battered and beaten by the storms of life, many turn to the Psalms and read the experiences of men and women of God who have gone through exactly the same struggles and the same pressures. Somehow this speaks to their need, gets hold of their hearts, helps them to know that at least they are not alone in this struggle, that others have had it before them. As the New Testament puts it, "There has no temptation taken us but such as is common to man," 1 Corinthians 10:13). Even that point alone helps, and that is why the Psalms have been such a tremendous book in times of really serious emotional problem and distress. Thus this psalm rings a bell with many. Have you ever felt like this? I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, that he may hear me. In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord; in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying; my soul refuses to be comforted. I think of God, and I moan; I meditate, and my spirit faints. Thou dost hold my eyelids closing; I am so troubled that I cannot speak. (Psalms 77:1-4 RSV) There is a note of desperation about that. Here is a man who is faced with a deep and serious problem. We are never told in this psalm what the trouble is, specifically, but the effect of it is very clear. Perhaps it is some deep disappointment, as many of us experience from time to time; something he had set his heart on, but in the course of events it all fell through and, absolutely crushed with disappointment, he comes to God in his distress. Perhaps it is a sorrow that has come into his life; the death of a loved one, the parting of a friend, something that has utterly crushed his heart with sorrow. Perhaps it is only a fearful possibility he seems looming on the horizon of his life and it looks unavoidable. Or perhaps it is some defiling experience that he has gone through, something that he stumbled into without realizing what he was doing, and he found himself caught up in things that made him utterly ashamed of himself afterwards. All these experiences can produce this kind of reaction. The psalmist only refers to it as "the day of my trouble." But notice how it strikes him. He cries to God again and again. Here is a man who is pouring out his heart in prayer, pleading with God, crying out for help, stretching out his hand in entreaty to God. Those of you who have had an experience like this know how it is. There is an involuntary sense of pleading with God, praying, crying out to him, asking him to help. He seeks to comfort his soul, like many of us have done. He says to himself, "I mustn't get carried away like this. Look how distressed, how upset I am. I'll only make things worse this way. I mustn't do this. I'll just forget this for awhile, get busy with something else, and let it go." But, as he says, his soul refuses to be comforted. The problem, whatever it is, haunts him. He cannot take his mind off it. Every time he tries to do something else he is derailed by his mind returning again to this noxious problem that irks him, eats at him, haunts him, and tortures him, and never will let him go. Then the problem gets even worse. He thinks of God, and the thought of it does not help a bit; it only makes him moan; it increases his anguish, and he cries out all the more. He tries to think about God, but his spirit faints within him and he feels himself growing weak, almost despairing. He tries to sleep, but his eyelids refuse to close. All night long he tosses and turns in restless anguish and sleeplessness. Finally, he is rendered absolutely speechless. He cannot even describe his problem to someone else. What a marvelously honest description we have here of a man in trouble! This is the wonderful thing about the Word of God. It never glosses over human problems; never treats them as writers of human literature often do. The Scriptures plunge right into the depths, right into the heart of the circumstances. Here is the psalmist, holding nothing back, describing exactly how he feels. And some of you are saying, "That is my experience, exactly. That's just what I have been going through." To understand this we must take note of certain factors in this man's experience. It is evident, first of all, that he is obviously a believer in God. He has brought his trouble to the Lord. He realizes there is help in God and that is where he has come. He is a godly person. This is true of all the psalms; they represent the struggles and problems of godly people. Perhaps that will surprise many. Many of us in our innocence, especially at the beginning of the Christian life. think that once we become a believer everything will take care of itself, there will be no more problems. But the whole book of Psalms is testimony to the contrary. There are many problems in the life of faith. There are many distressing, puzzling, perplexing experiences that a believer can go through. You find that, even in the New Testament, in our Lord's experience in the Garden in Gethsemane. There he is puzzled, perplexed, troubled by what is happening to him. crying out to the Father and saying, "I don't know what it is that is happening; if it be possible, let it pass from me; nevertheless, not my will but thine be done," (Luke 22:42 KJV). You see it in the apostles as they are constantly under pressure. Paul speaks of being so crushed, so pressed upon with problems that he despaired even of life. It is not wrong to be faced with these kinds of problems. It is superficial to think that the life of faith cannot have circumstances like this. Here is a godly man, yet he is confronted with this terrible circumstance that makes him cry out like this to God. Further, it is evident that he is not a mere beginner in the faith. He is not an immature believer. He seems to be quite well acquainted with the Scriptures. He knows the history of God's people, and has obviously been instructed in certain techniques to employ when he is seeking help from God. He mentions two of them here: prayer and meditation. He knows that it is important to bring his problem to God. He knows the way to approach him, the techniques to use, and he is sincerely attempting to do these very things. Yet, as a second factor for our consideration, it is evident that he is confronted here with two problems, not just one. There is, first of all, the distressing circumstances that have brought him to God, reflected in Verses 1-2; but, in Verses 3-4, there is a second kind of problem that grows out of the first: there is the apparent failure of God to respond to his plea for help. Of the two problems, this is the greater one. That is why he says in Verse 3, "I think of God, and I moan..." It only makes him feel worse. Why does not God do something? This is the cry that comes welling up out of the depths of his anguish. "I think of God and it makes me ask, Why doesn't he help me? I moan, I meditate, and my spirit just melts away." It is bad enough to endure the circumstances that he has to go through, but what really troubles this man is that he is facing the possible collapse of his faith. He sees the possibility of not only losing this battle. but losing all battles. What is really troubling him is the gnawing feeling down underneath that if prayer does not work, then God is not real. And if God is not real, then faith is a delusion, life is a nightmare of hopelessness, and man is but a helpless victim of forces too great for him to control. That is his major problem. That is what is really bothering him. If we are honest, this is often what distresses us. It is not so much the fact that we must go through difficult times, pressing circumstances. But what gets to us in moments like this is that when we pray and ask God for help, nothing seems to happen. The skies are brass; there is no response. We have to struggle with the specters of the mind that tell us that perhaps we have been kidding ourselves all along, that faith is all a delusion and God is not real. Distress opens the door to temptation. Every time we enter a period of struggle, of pressure, of unhappy circumstances, we are exposed to severe and pressing temptation to doubt, to disbelieve. It all seems to come at us so logically. That is the experience this man had. Like a drowning man he grasps at every straw that comes by. He has tried prayer and it does not seem to work. God is unresponsive and nothing within lifts the burden of his heart. He decides now to try something else, something that very likely has been suggested to him by some well-meaning counselor. He decides to meditate, to think about God. to think through on his problem. All right, he says. I'll do this, I consider the days of old, I remember the years long ago. I commune with my heart in the night; I meditate and search my spirit: (Psalms 77:5-6 RSV) The Authorized Version has, perhaps a little more accurately, the phrase, "my spirit searches." I'm looking for answers, he says. I go back over the past, I commune with my heart, I meditate, I remember the years long ago. He remembers past blessings, he recalls God's favor. Verse 6 is translated in the RSV, "I commune with my heart in the night. "This is quite possible as a translation, but the Hebrew literally says, "I remember my song in the night," i.e., I remember times when I have been troubled before in the night (when all these problems come upon us) and I remember how God has given a song in my heart. Though the circumstances were distressing, I have been kept strong by an inner song. What is the result of this kind of approach? Questions fling themselves at him. Doubts assail from every direction. All of them are asking in one way or another, why doesn't God respond? In fact, instead of being helped by his search, he is only made worse, because he faces seemingly unanswerable questions. Will the Lord spurn for ever, and never again be favorable? Has his steadfast love for ever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion? (Psalms 77:7-9 RSV) Are you familiar with this kind of thing: Do you know these searching, probing questions? They all seem so logical. If God has blessed in the past, then why doesn't he bless now? Why do I seem so abandoned? These are the questions that press upon him. Finally, the terrible conclusion comes. It seems to be irresistible in the light of what he is experiencing, in the light of the facts as he sees them. Slowly, almost painfully, the psalmist states his conclusion, trying desperately to be honest. And I say, "It is my grief that the right hand of the Most High has changed." (Psalms 77:10 RSV) Here is a man who is really trying to be honest. He says, "I have analyzed my situation: I tried prayer all night long. In the past I have been given help, but no help has come now. God has made my heart to sing in the past, but it is empty, barren, and cheerless, now. Why is this? I have thought about it: I searched my own life, my own heart, and these questions have come at me and I cannot answer them. My conclusion must be: I have misjudged God. I have thought that God was changeless, that he would always respond every time I came to him but he has not. Therefore, I am driven to the irresistible conclusion that God has changed, that he is like a man, and you cannot count on him. He is capricious. God has changed. This is what is really troubling me." This man is facing the possibility of losing his faith. He sees the terrible tragedy of it. All this he has once rested on, which has been such a comfort to him, which has strengthened him and given him character and power among men. seems to be nothing but a crumbling foundation that is disappearing fast. Soon he must lose all that he has held onto in the past. That is his "day of trouble" and his present distress. Is that not the hidden problem with many of us? I have lost track of the times people have called me up and said, "I just don't know what to do. I've tried prayer, I've tried reading my Bible, I've tried to think through. but nothing seems to help. I don't know what to do. What's happening to me?" But that is exactly why this psalm was written. This man found what was wrong. He found it very quickly, and he began to change. He worked his way through on a different approach, and it soon brought him out to a place of peace and trust. We shall leave the secret of deliverance for our next study. First, apparent unresponsiveness from God is not unusual. All of God's saints have experienced this from time to time. This is part of the standard program God has for disciplining and training his own. "There has no temptation taken you that is not common to man: but is God is faithful," (1 Corinthians 10:13a KJV). The faithfulness of God is deliberately put into contrast with the statement, "no temptation has taken you but such as is common to man," because every one of us tends to suffer from the feeling that what is happening to us is unique. But many have if they are seeking to live the life of faith. That is one of the great things we can learn from this psalm right at the beginning. The reason why this is true is declared by the prophet Isaiah. (It is found in many places in Scripture, but most clearly there.) Isaiah reveals that God says. "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither my ways, your ways," (Isaiah 55:8). That is, my reason is above yours. You understand so little of life compared to what I see in it. "My thoughts are not your thoughts," therefore you can expect there will come times when you will not understand but will be perplexed. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, as the heavens are above the earth, so much greater is his vision of what reality is. If we are limited then to but the tiny section of life that we can grasp with our puny understanding, it is only to be expected that there will come times when we will be perplexed, when we do not understand what God is doing. So, do not be troubled by these times of perplexity. They are not sinful in themselves. They are normal experiences coming to all in the life of faith. Second, the power to resist doubt does not lie in certain techniques, e.g., prayer or meditation. That is clear from what we have already seen in the psalm. How this unmasks the glib and superficial advice we Christians often give to one another in times of difficulty or hardship! Have you ever had someone say to you, when your heart was torn with some pressing circumstances, "Well, pray about it"? There is nothing wrong with saying that, but it is so futile. It is not that it is wrong; it is simply useless advice. Prayer (as we will see further on in the psalm) is not the first thing to do when you are in trouble. That may surprise many. Many feel that the first thing to do in trouble is to pray. But we will learn from this psalmist that this is not the case; there is something else first. That was the problem with this man. He thought that prayer would automatically solve his problems and that the technique of prayer is provided to solve problems. But that is not the purpose of prayer. Prayer, as a technique, and meditation, as a technique, is not the answer to the doubts that come flooding into the heart when you are under the gun, under pressure from God. That is what this man was to learn. And that is what we need to learn. There are so many who are ready with a quick answer: "Think it through," they say, or, "Go home and pray about it." And many a Christian has gone home, plunged deeper into distress because of that advice. They have already tried prayer and, like this man, there was no response; they did not know what to do next. That brings us to the third point that this psalm teaches us, even this early in our study: We must and can learn to deal with this kind of temptation. This psalmist has given us his experience (which answers to the experience of many of us) in order to teach us how he found the answer, how he found the way to deal with temptation of this sort. For it can be dealt with. God has provided an answer, and the psalmist went on to find it. And we too must learn how to find these answers. We must not be content with having these kinds of experiences and somehow muddling through them, then going on to repeat them a few months later, as though these were experiences in the midst of which we could not help ourselves. No. Each one is designed to teach us something, and we must learn how to handle these experiences and these problems, even these distressing kind that seem to pull the ground right out from under our faith and make it almost impossible for us logically to believe any longer in the existence and faithfulness of God. That is what this man did. Let me stress again this fact: It is not sinful to be confronted with this kind of a circumstance. It is not unusual to have to go through a time of apparent unresponsiveness on the part of God. This is part of God's disciplining program, of which we will see more later. But we need not be overthrown by these experiences. They seem unanswerable, and that is the way it appeared to this man, but God has provided a way. This whole psalm is nothing more than a wonderful commentary, told through the experience of one man, on that verse I have already quoted to you from the New Testament. "There has no temptation taken you but such is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape [not to escape from the pressure, but to escape from the defeat caused by the pressure], that you may be able to bear it," (1 Corinthians 10:13 KJV). May God grant that we will search and seek to understand that his Word has been provided for these very purposes, to learn these answers. Prayer: Our Father, we are so grateful that the things we talk about here on Sunday morning out of your Word are not remote from our experiences; that you are the God who is interested in life. And not simply life on Sunday only, but life on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and all through the week. Teach us that these great truths which we learn here are to be worked out and tested in the proving ground of Monday through Saturday. We pray, Lord, that we may be attentive, therefore, and listen carefully, and realize that here are the vital answers that we need. Grant to us searching minds and searching hearts and believing spirits. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.

Ray Stedman devotional

Genesis 12-25: Abraham -- The Man of Faith Introduction to the Daily Devotions for June From the Writings of Ray Stedman of His Presence From your friends at www.RayStedman.org There is a simple secret that ties together the Old and New Testaments and makes the study of the Old Testament a never-ending delight. The Old Testament is designed to be a picture book, illustrating with fascinating stories the spiritual truths presented in the New Testament. This is especially true of the books of Moses (Genesis through Deuteronomy) and the book of Joshua, for in the life histories of men like Abraham, Jacob, and Moses, we also have a symbolic representation of the progress of spiritual growth. One of the most convincing proofs of the inspiration of the Bible is the facility with which the Spirit of God took simple history—facts as they were lived out day by day—and recorded them in such a way as to weave together a totally accurate pattern of the development of spiritual life. In other words, what took place physically in the Old Testament is a picture for believers today of what takes place spiritually in their own growth in grace. It is not imagination to view the Old Testament in this manner; ample proof is found in the New Testament itself to indicate that this is how God planned the structure of His book. Paul refers to many incidents in the history of Israel and concludes the account with these words: "These things happened to them as examples [literally, types] and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come" (1 Corinthians 10:11). There is need, of course, to be on guard against wild and fanciful interpretations. We must move with care so as not to overstep the laws of interpretation. But it would be a pity to miss the Old Testament illustrations of the great truths of the Christian faith reflected in the book of Romans and elsewhere. Perhaps the clearest and most helpful of all these Old Testament portraits is the record of Abraham's life, beginning in distant Ur of the Chaldees and ending at last in the cave of Machpelah near Hebron in Canaan. Abraham is clearly the pattern for the man of faith. Again and again in the New Testament, he is held up in our view as the example of how God works in the life of a man to fulfill His promises of grace. He is obviously chief of all the heroes of faith recorded in Hebrews 11, and in addition to the Christian faith, two of the great religions of the earth hold him in high esteem. Therefore, we may well begin the study of this man's life with a sense of excitement. We will find ourselves reflected in Abraham. In tracing his life's story, we shall discover the very secrets by which the Spirit of God intends to transform us from faltering pilgrims to men and women of stalwart faith, worthy to stand beside the heroes of Hebrews 11. Related Message: The introduction for this month was inspired by one of Ray's messages. Please read "The Beginning of Faith" or listen to Ray for more on this portion of scripture. Daily Devotion Introduction << Previous Month Next Month >> Subscribe/Unsubscribe to the Daily Devotion by Email ©2007 by Elaine Stedman -- From the book The Power of His Presence: a year of devotions from the writings of Ray Stedman; compiled by Mark Mitchell. Devotion pages, excerpts, or quotes may be used is long as the copyright notice includes the book title, author and a hyperlink to www.RayStedman.org.

In Touch devotional

June 2, 2012 God's Provisions for Your Success Read | Joshua 1:1-9 Whenever our goals align with the Lord's, we can count on His help in achieving them. This truth is vividly confirmed in the story of Joshua. Since God gave him the huge responsibility of leading the Israelites into the Promised Land, He also provided everything Joshua would need for success. He will do the same for us every time we believe Him and step up to fulfill the goals He's set for us. His Promises: God assured Joshua that He would give him the land and that no one would be able to stand against him. In the same way, the Lord will enable you to achieve whatever He's called you to do, and neither man nor the Devil will be able to thwart His purposes when you stand firm in faith. His Power: Be strong and courageous, because you will encounter obstacles that challenge your obedience. Such boldness isn't something we muster within ourselves. It's developed through reliance upon the Lord. Courage comes when our faith isstronger than our fear. His Word: Joshua's success depended upon his obedience to God's Word. The same is true for us. If the Scriptures aren't shaping our thoughts, words, and actions, we will just naturally go our own way and miss the path God has planned for us. Everything you need to succeed in life is provided for you by God. But these provisions are available only when you choose to follow His plans. If you ignore the Lord and set your own goals without guidance from the Scriptures, you may get what you want, but it won't be genuine success.

What is lent? reflections.cyberpastor.net

This entry is part 8 of 9 in the series Holidays
[I originally wrote this article in February 2007. I have now moved it into the holiday series so that it will be linked to all the other holiday articles.]

Lent is a time of soul-searching and repentance in preparation for the celebration of Christ’s death and resurrection on Good Friday and Easter. In the Western Church, Lent consists of the 40 days before Easter, not counting Sundays. The first day of Lent is Ash Wednesday. The day before Lent begins has become a day of feasting and revelry before the solemn fasting of Lent. Mardi Gras is French for Fat Tuesday, because it was the last day for feasting before the Lenten fast. Some people call the festival Carnival, which is Latin for farewell to meat. [Update: Another theory of the origin of Carnival is given by the Oxford English Dictionary, where the word is derived from Latin carnem levare (removal of the meat) or carnem laxare (leaving the meat) (cited in the Wikipedia article on Ash Wednesday).] Obviously the sensuality and excess of Mardi Gras has no place in the life of a Christian, and Mardi Gras is in no sense a Christian holiday.

The English word lent derives from the Germanic root for Spring (specifically Old English lencten; also the Anglo-Saxon name for March – lenct – as the main part of Lent, before Easter, usually occurred in March). Formerly Lent was referred to by the term quadragesima (or the “fortieth day” before Easter). This nomenclature is preserved in Romance, Slavic and Celtic languages (for example, Spanish cuaresma, Portuguese quaresma, French carême, Italian quaresima) (from Wikipedia)

The history of Lent

The earliest reference to a period of fasting and prayer before Easter is in the writings of the 2nd c. church father Irenaus of Lyons (c.130-c.200), who wrote of a period lasting only two or three days. Apparently at that time there was a variety of practices, with some fasting for one day while others fasted for two. But the interesting thing is that it seems that there was a widespread practice of fasting before Easter. He also argues that the practice already has a long history, so it is possible that it goes back to the 1st century.

A few years later, Tertullian also makes reference to a period of fasting before Easter.

The first mention of the ancient term for Lent, tessarakoste, occurs in the fifth canon of the Council of Nicea (325 AD). A few years earlier in 311, Athanasius wrote to his flock that they should practice a period of 40 days of fasting prior to the stricter fast of the Holy Week (the week before Easter). In 339 he wrote another letter urging the people of Alexandria to observe 40 days of fasting as a custom that was universally practiced “to the end that while all the world is fasting, we who are in Egypt should not become a laughing-stock as the only people who do not fast but take our pleasure in those days.”

Thus there is clear evidence that a period of fasting before Easter was practiced at least during the 2nd century, and that by the 4th century there was a wide-spread practice of a 40 day fast. The reason for 40 days is probably to be found in the biblical significance of that number in the lives of Noah, Moses, Jonah, and Christ.

Is Lent Biblical?

When someone asks “Is Lent biblical?,” the answer depends on what you mean by “biblical.” If you mean “Does the Bible specifically require Christians to practice Lent?,” then the answer is “no.” Of course in that sense of the term, customs such as church choirs or Sunday school would also be “not biblical.” But if you mean “Is the practice of Lent founded on biblical principles,” then the answer is certainly “yes.” The three main practices of Lent from ancient times have been (1) reflection on the significance of Christ’s death along with prayers of repentance and confession, (2) fasting as a means to focus more wholly on God, and (3) giving to assist the poor. All of these are very biblical practices. We are not required to do them specifically during the 40 days prior to Easter, but we can benefit adopting some of the customs of earlier generations of Christians all the way back to the 2nd century.

At this point I should also make it clear that Lenten practices, like any spiritual disciplines, do not make us acceptable to God. We are acceptable to God only through coming to Him by faith on the basis of Christ’s death on the cross for our sins (Eph. 2:8-9). Spiritual disciplines are means through which God works in our lives helping us to grow to spiritual maturity, which is being conformed to the character of Christ (Eph. 4:13; Rom. 8:29). Thus, these practices are for our benefit, and not a way to “earn” anything from God. Sometimes Christians in earlier generations lost sight of this fact.

How to practice Lent

We should view the season of Lent as an opportunity to reflect on the significance of Christ’s death, examine our hearts, and confess our sins. It can be a time of spiritual cleansing and renewal. It is not a “law” that we must follow, and there is a great variety of practices that we can try out. Based on the historic practice of Lent, try doing something in each of these three categories:

Fasting
Give up something for God. Fasting is not a means to “earn” something from God, but rather a way to learn to curb your appetites and focus more completely on God. There are many varieties of fasting, and I do not have the space to discuss this important topic here. For further information see my FAQ on Christian Fasting.

Prayer and Meditation
Read over the Gospel accounts of Christ’s arrest, trial, and crucifixion. Reflect on His suffering, and the tremendous love that it represents. Reflect on your own sin and what it cost Him. Take out some time for prayers of confession and repentance. Do some spiritual “house cleaning.”

Giving to the poor
Use the money that you save by not eating to help the poor. Consider doing some volunteer work. How can you show the love of Christ to others?

For further reading (most of the information in this article is taken from these sources):

A summary of Lenten practices
Why many churches don’t observe Lent
Christian History newsletter on The Beginning of Lent
The Catholic Encyclopedia gives a thorough overview of the history of Lent
A brief introduction to Lent from a Reformed perspective
The Season of Lent by Dennis Bratcher
Devotions for Lent

IT IS FINISHED John 19.30 Good Friday April 22, 2011 elmspringschurch.org

IT IS FINISHED John 19.30 Good Friday April 22, 2011
April 24, 2011 at 6:49 pm by Carl
Filed under Sunday Sermons
Imagine the scene with me: It is the middle of the day, yet it is darkest night. It is the brightest day on the Jewish calendar, and it is the blackest point in human history. It is the day when Mary’s son who healed many is gasping, bleeding, dying on the cross. “This was not the way it was supposed to be!” she cried. His followers were gone; His closest companions, the ones who swore to be with Him to the end just yesterday have today denied Him and deserted Him. He is left to do this work alone. And the final word from the cross? A plea for His Father’s angels to rescue Him? One simple word from that mouth had healed the sick, calmed the storms, raised the dead would be all it would take. And can He not speak the word to remove Himself from this suffering? He raises His head, that sacred head now wounded; He parts the lips caked with blood and vomit, moistened only with gall because He has no more of the spit that opened blinded eyes; He pulls upon the nails in His wrist to fill His lungs with enough air to mouth one last proclamation. And what does He say? “It is finished.”
It is finished. It is finished. The work for which He came to earth has been completed. The sole purpose of His humbling Himself into human form has ended. For it was not in His life that we find His task completed, but in His death. It was not in His life that we receive eternal life, but in His death are we offered the keys to heaven. It was not in His life that God’s holy justice was met; it was in His death that the ransom was met. He lived to die. He taught so that He might reveal God; He died that we might see God. He healed so that we might recognize the Kingdom of Heaven; He died to grant us entrance. He drank of death that we may never thirst again. The work that was begun before the creation of the world Jesus has now slammed the book on!
Jesus said, “It is finished.” These were words of resignation, but of satisfaction; words of a cosmic artist putting the final brushstroke on a universal masterpiece. Not surrender; not defeat. The culmination of his birth, life, teaching, and suffering now gloriously culminated in this one incredible final moment: the moment when everything is done. “It.. is… finished.” The stamp of the Master Crafstman on his greatest work.
Jesus said, “It is finished.” He finished what we could never begin. He provided the pure and holy sacrifice and was the pure and holy sacrifice. To the Jew, He sprinkled his own blood on the mercy seat as atonement for our sins. To the lawyer, He proclaimed the verdict “Guilty!” and then met the death sentence for us. To the businessperson, He has paid the price we could not pay and purchased us with His own blood. To the teacher, He taught the holiness of God coupled with the love of God in His sacrificial example. To the soldier, He has freed the prisoners of war. To those at odds, He has provided a reconciliation through the One Mediator between God and man: His own Son!
Jesus said “It is finished.” What was finished? He finished the strivings of man trying to reconcile ourselves to God by demonstrating God reconciling Himself to us! He finished the oppression of humans by sin and separation by flinging open the gates of hell! He wrote the last word of the Law, and satisfied it completely! He finished the curse of the Law by satisfying it for us. And most importantly, He finished the battle of sin and death and gave us the freedom to act in righteousness, not in sin! He kicked the Devil in the pants! He beat him at his own game! The Devil thought he could shut this Jesus up by killing Him; but it was only killing Him that He gave Him His loudest voice!
What does this mean for us? It means that when we are tempted by any temptation, we can say, “It is finished! I don’t have to take it any more, Devil, because I am bought with the blood of Jesus!” When someone who always gets under your skin starts working your last nerve, instead of blowing up, we can say “It is finished! Christ has restored my relationship to Him, and has brought peace to the world; he has commanded me to even love my enemies, and I should take His lead!” When we are feeling trapped or tangled by sin, and Satan is on our backs taunting us, saying “where is your God now?” we can say “It is finished! Christ has freed me to joyful obedience, and forgiven me of that sin, so get thee behind me, Devil! It is finished! It is finished! It is finished!”
I’ll tell you the truth: ever since that time, the Devil and his demons have been running around putting out the fires started by that phrase. He’ll try to tell you that you need Christ’s death, PLUS this and this and this. Don’t believe it. It is finished. He’ll try to tell you that Jesus’ death was metaphorical and therefore not real. Don’t buy it. It is finished. He’ll try to convince you that His teaching was the real work, and His death was just an accident. Don’t bite. It is finished. He’ll promise you riches, he’ll tempt you with power. He may even tell you that you can be like God; he’s done it before. But he has lost, with those three simple words: “It is finished!”

I THIRST SERMON BY CHARLES SPURGEON biblebb.com John 19.28

The Shortest of the Seven Cries

April 14th, 1878
by
C. H. SPURGEON
(1834-1892)

"After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst."—John 19:28.
It was most fitting that every word of our Lord upon the cross should be gathered up and preserved. As not a bone of him shall be broken, so not a word shall be lost. The Holy Spirit took special care that each of the sacred utterances should be fittingly recorded. There were, as you know, seven of those last words, and seven is the number of perfection and fulness; the number which blends the three of the infinite God with the four of complete creation. Our Lord in his death-cries, as in all else, was perfection itself. There is a fulness of meaning in each utterance which no man shall be able fully to bring forth, and when combined they make up a vast deep of thought, which no human line can fathom. Here, as everywhere else, we are constrained to say of our Lord, "Never man spake like this man." Amid all the anguish of his spirit his last words prove him to have remained fully self-possessed, true to his forgiving nature, true to his kingly office, true to his filial relationship, true to his God, true to his love of the written word, true to his glorious work, and true to his faith in his Father.

As these seven sayings were so faithfully recorded, we do not wonder that they have frequently been the subject of devout meditation. Fathers and confessors, preachers and divines have delighted to dwell upon every syllable of these matchless cries. These solemn sentences have shone like the seven golden candlesticks or the seven stars of the Apocalypse, and have lighted multitudes of men to him who spake them. Thoughtful men have drawn a wealth of meaning from them, and in so doing have arranged them into different groups, and placed them under several heads. I cannot give you more than a mere taste of this rich subject, but I have been most struck with two ways of regarding our Lord's last words. First, they teach and confirm many of the doctrines of our holy faith. "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" is the first. Here is the forgiveness of sin—free forgiveness in answer to the Saviour's plea. "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." Here is the safety of the believer in the hour of his departure, and his instant admission into the presence of his Lord. It is a blow at the fable of purgatory which strikes it to the heart. "Women, behold thy son!" This very plainly sets forth the true and proper humanity of Christ, who to the end recognised his human relationship to Mary, of whom he was born. Yet his language teaches us not to worship her, for he calls her "woman," but to honor him in whom his direst agony thought of her needs and griefs, as he also thinks of all his people, for these are his mother and sister and brother. "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" is the fourth cry, and it illustrates the penalty endured by our Substitute when he bore our sins, and so was forsaken of his God. The sharpness of that sentence no exposition can fully disclose to us: it is keen as the very edge and point of the sword which pierced his heart. "I thirst" is the fifth cry, and its utterance teaches us the truth of Scripture, for all things were accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, and therefore our Lord said, "I thirst." Holy Scripture remains the basis of our faith, established by every word and act of our Redeemer. The last word but one, "It is finished." There is the complete justification of the believer, since the work by which he is accepted is fully accomplished. The last of his last words is also taken from the Scriptures, and shows where his mind was feeding. He cried, ere he bowed the head which he had held erect amid all his conflict, as one who never yielded, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." In that cry there is reconciliation to God. He who stood in our stead has finished all his work, and now his spirit comes back to the Father, and he brings us with him. Every word, therefore, you see teaches us some grand fundamental doctrine of our blessed faith. "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."

A second mode of treating these seven cries is to view them as setting forth the person and offices of our Lord who uttered them. "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do"—here we see the Mediator interceding: Jesus standing before the Father pleading for the guilty. "Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise"—this is the Lord Jesus in kingly power, opening with the key of David a door which none can shut, admitting into the gates of heaven the poor soul who had confessed him on the tree. Hail, everlasting King in heaven, thou dost admit to thy paradise whomsoever thou wilt! Nor dost thou set a time for waiting, but instantly thou dost set wide the gate of pearl; thou hast all power in heaven as well as upon earth. Then came, "Women, behold thy son!" wherein we see the Son of man in the gentleness of a son caring for his bereaved mother. In the former cry, as he opened Paradise, you saw the Son of God; now you see him who was verily and truly born of a women, made under the law; and under the law you see him still, for he honours his mother and cares for her in the last article of death. Then comes the "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Here we behold his human soul in anguish, his inmost heart overwhelmed by the withdrawing of Jehovah's face, and made to cry out as if in perplexity and amazement. "I thirst," is his human body tormented by grievous pain. Here you see how the mortal flesh had to share in the agony of the inward spirit. "It is finished" is the last word but one, and there you see the perfected Saviour, the Captain of our salvation, who has completed the undertaking upon which he had entered, finished transgression, made an end of sin, and brought in ever lasting righteousness. The last expiring word in which he commended his spirit to his Father, is the note of acceptance for himself and for us all. As he commends his spirit into the Father's hand, so does he bring all believers nigh to God, and henceforth we are in the hand of the Father, who is greater than all, and none shall pluck us thence. Is not this a fertile field of thought? May the Holy Spirit often lead us to glean therein.

There are many other ways in which these words might be read, and they would be found to be all full of instruction. Like the steps of a ladder or the links of a golden chain, there is a mutual dependence and interlinking of each of the cries, so that one leads to another and that to a third. Separately or in connection our Master's words overflow with instruction to thoughtful minds: but of all save one I must say, "Of which we cannot now speak particularly."

Our text is the shortest of all the words of Calvary; it stands as two words in our language—"I thirst," but in the Greek it is only one. I cannot say that it is short and sweet, for, alas, it was bitterness itself to our Lord Jesus; and yet out of its bitterness I trust there will come great sweetness to us. Though bitter to him in the speaking it will be sweet to us in the hearing,—so sweet that all the bitterness of our trials shall be forgotten as we remember the vinegar and gall of which he drank.

We shall by the assistance of the Holy Spirit try to regard these words of our Saviour in a five-fold light. First, we shall look upon them as THE ENSIGN OF HIS TRUE HUMANITY. Jesus said, "I thirst," and this is the complaint of a man. Our Lord is the Maker of the ocean and the waters that are above the firmament: it is his hand that stays or opens the bottles of heaven, and sendeth rain upon the evil and upon the good. "The sea is his, and he made it," and all fountains and springs are of his digging. He poureth out the streams that run among the hills, the torrents which rush adown the mountains, and the flowing rivers which enrich the plains. One would have said, If he were thirsty he would not tell us, for all the clouds and rains would be glad to refresh his brow, and the brooks and streams would joyously flow at his feet. And yet, though he was Lord of all he had so fully taken upon himself the form of a servant and was so perfectly made in the likeness of sinful flesh, that he cried with fainting voice, "I thirst." How truly man he is; he is, indeed, "bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh," for he bears our infirmities. I invite you to meditate upon the true humanity of our Lord very reverently, and very lovingly. Jesus was proved to be really man, because he suffered the pains which belong to manhood. Angels cannot suffer thirst. A phantom, as some have called him, could not suffer in his fashion: but Jesus really suffered, not only the more refined pains of delicate and sensitive minds, but the rougher and commoner pangs of flesh and blood. Thirst is a common-place misery, such as may happen to peasants or beggars; it is a real pain, and not a thing of a fancy or a nightmare of dreamland. Thirst is no royal grief, but an evil of universal manhood; Jesus is brother to the poorest and most humble of our race. Our Lord, however, endured thirst to an extreme degree, for it was the thirst of death which was upon him, and more, it was the thirst of one whose death was not a common one, for "he tasted death for every man." That thirst was caused, perhaps, in part by the loss of blood, and by the fever created by the irritation caused by his four grievous wounds. The nails were fastened in the most sensitive parts of the body, and the wounds were widened as the weight of his body dragged the nails through his blessed flesh, and tore his tender nerves. The extreme tension produced a burning feverishness. It was pain that dried his mouth and made it like an oven, till he declared, in the language of the twenty-second psalm, "My tongue cleaveth to my jaws." It was a thirst such as none of us have ever known, for not yet has the death dew condensed upon our brows. We shall perhaps know it in our measure in our dying hour, but not yet, nor ever so terribly as he did. Our Lord felt that grievous drought of dissolution by which all moisture seems dried up, and the flesh returns to the dust of death: this those know who have commenced to tread the valley of the shadow of death. Jesus, being a man, escaped none of the ills which are allotted to man in death. He is indeed "Immanuel, God with us" everywhere.

Believing this, let us tenderly feel how very near akin to us our Lord Jesus has become. You have been ill, and you have been parched with fever as he was, and then you too have gasped out "I thirst." Your path runs hard by that of your Master. He said, "I thirst," in order that one might bring him drink, even as you have wished to have a cooling draught handed to you when you could not help yourself. Can you help feeling how very near Jesus is to us when his lips must be moistened with a sponge, and he must be so dependent upon others as to ask drink from their hand? Next time your fevered lips murmur "I am very thirsty," you may say to yourself, "Those are sacred words, for my Lord spake in that fashion." The words, "I thirst," are a common voice in death chambers. We can never forget the painful scenes of which we have been witness, when we have watched the dissolving of the human frame. Some of those whom we loved very dearly we have seen quite unable to help themselves; the death sweat has been upon them, and this has been one of the marks of their approaching dissolution, that they have been parched with thirst, and could only mutter between their half-closed lips, "Give me to drink." Ah, beloved, our Lord was so truly man that all our griefs remind us of him: the next time we are thirsty we may gaze upon him; and whenever we see a friend faint and thirsting while dying we may behold our Lord dimly, but truly, mirrored in his members. How near akin the thirsty Saviour is to us; let us love him more and more.

How great the love which led him to such a condescension as this! Do not let us forget the infinite distance between the Lord of glory on his throne and the Crucified dried up with thirst. A river of the water of life, pure as crystal, proceedeth to-day out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, and yet once he condescended to say, "I thirst," before his angelic guards, they would surely have emulated the courage of the men of David when they cut their way to the well of Bethlehem that was within the gate, and drew water in jeopardy of their lives. Who among us would not willingly pour out his soul unto death if he might but give refreshment to the Lord? And yet he placed himself for our sakes into a position of shame and suffering where none would wait upon him, but when he cried, "I thirst," they gave him vinegar to drink. Glorious stoop of our exalted Head! O Lord Jesus, we love thee and we worship thee! We would fain lift thy name on high in grateful remembrance of the depths to which thou didst descend!

While thus we admire his condescension let our thoughts also turn with delight to his sure sympathy: for if Jesus said, "I thirst," then he knows all our frailties and woes. The next time we are in pain or are suffering depression of spirit we will remember that our Lord understands it all, for he has had practical, personal experience of it. Neither in torture of body nor in sadness of heart are we deserted by our Lord; his line is parallel with ours. The arrow which has lately pierced thee, my brother, was first stained with his blood. The cup of which thou art made to drink, though it be very bitter, bears the mark of his lips about its brim. He hath traversed the mournful way before thee, and every footprint thou leavest in the sodden soil is stamped side by side with his footmarks. Let the sympathy of Christ, then, be fully believed in and deeply appreciated, since he said, "I thirst."

Henceforth, also, let us cultivate the spirit of resignation, for we may well rejoice to carry a cross which his shoulders have borne before us. Beloved, if our Master said, "I thirst," do we expect every day to drink of streams from Lebanon? He was innocent, and yet he thirsted; shall we marvel if guilty ones are now and then chastened? If he was so poor that his garments were stripped from him, and he was hung up upon the tree, penniless and friendless, hungering and thirsting, will you henceforth groan and murmur because you bear the yoke of poverty and want? There is bread upon your table to-day, and there will be at least a cup of cold water to refresh you. You are not, therefore, so poor as he. Complain not, then. Shall the servant be above his Master, or the disciple above his Lord? Let patience have her perfect work. You do suffer. Perhaps, dear sister, you carry about with you a gnawing disease which eats at your heart, but Jesus took our sicknesses, and his cup was more bitter than yours. In your chamber let the gasp of your Lord as he said, "I thirst," go through your ears, and as you hear it let it touch your heart and cause you to gird up yourself and say, "Doth he say, 'I thirst'? Then I will thirst with him and not complain, I will suffer with him and not murmur." The Redeemer's cry of "I thirst" is a solemn lesson of patience to his afflicted.

Once again, as we think of this "I thirst," which proves our Lord's humanity, let us resolve to shun no denials, but rather court them that we may be conformed to his image. May we not be half ashamed of our pleasures when he says, "I thirst"? May we not despise our loaded table while he is neglected? Shall it ever be a hardship to be denied the satisfying draught when he said, "I thirst." Shall carnal appetites be indulged and bodies pampered when Jesus cried :I thirst"? What if the bread be dry, what if the medicine be nauseous; yet for his thirst there was no relief but gall and vinegar, and dare we complain? For his sake we may rejoice in self-denials, and accept Christ and a crust as all we desire between here and heaven. A Christian living to indulge the base appetites of a brute beast, to eat and to drink almost to gluttony and drunkenness, is utterly unworthy of the name. The conquest of the appetites, the entire subjugation of the flesh, must be achieved, for before our great Exemplar said, "It is finished," wherein methinks he reached the greatest height of all, he stood as only upon the next lower step to that elevation, and said, "I thirst." The power to suffer for another, the capacity to be self-denying even to an extreme to accomplish some great work for God—this is a thing to be sought after, and must be gained before our work is done, and in this Jesus is before us our example and our strength.

Thus have I tried to spy out a measure of teaching, by using that one glass for the soul's eye, through which we look upon "I thirst" as the ensign of his true humanity.

II. Secondly, we shall regard these words, "I thirst," as THE TOKEN OF HIS SUFFERING SUBSTITUTION. The great Surety says, "I thirst," because he is placed in the sinner's stead, and he must therefore undergo the penalty of sin for the ungodly. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" points to the anguish of his soul; "I thirst" expresses in part the torture of his body; and they were both needful, because it is written of the God of justice that he is "able to destroy both soul and body in hell," and the pangs that are due to law are of both kinds, touching both heart and flesh. See, brethren, where sin begins, and mark that there it ends. It began with the mouth of appetite, when it was sinfully gratified, and it ends when a kindred appetite is graciously denied. Our first parents plucked forbidden fruit, and by eating slew the race. Appetite was the door of sin, and therefore in that point our Lord was put to pain. With "I thirst" the evil is destroyed and receives its expiation. I saw the other day the emblem of a serpent with its tail in its mouth, and if I carry it a little beyond the artist's intention the symbol may set forth appetite swallowing up itself. A carnal appetite of the body, the satisfaction of the desire for food, first brought us down under the first Adam, and now the pang of thirst, the denial of what the body craved for, restores us to our place.

Nor is this all. We know from experience that the present effect of sin in every man who indulges in it is thirst of soul. The mind of man is like the daughters of the horseleech, which cry for ever, "Give, give." Metaphorically understood, thirst is dissatisfaction, the craving of the mind for something which it has not, but which it pines for. Our Lord says, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink," that thirst being the result of sin in every ungodly man at this moment. Now Christ standing in the stead of the ungodly suffers thirst as a type of his enduring the result of sin. More solemn still is the reflection that according to our Lord's own teaching, thirst will also be the eternal result of sin, for he says concerning the rich glutton, "In hell he lift up his eyes, being in torment," and his prayer, which was denied him, was, "Father Abraham, send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame." Now recollect, if Jesus had not thirsted, every one of us would have thirsted for ever afar off from God, with an impassable gulf between us and heaven. Our sinful tongues, blistered by the fever of passion, must have burned for ever had not his tongue been tormented with thirst in our stead. I suppose that the "I thirst" was uttered softly, so that perhaps only one and another who stood near the cross heard it at all; in contrast with the louder cry of "Lama sabachthani" and the triumphant shout of "It is finished": but that soft, expiring sigh, "I thirst," has ended for us the thirst which else, insatiably fierce, had preyed upon us throughout eternity. Oh, wondrous substitution of the just for the unjust, of God for man, of the perfect Christ for us guilty, hell-deserving rebels. Let us magnify and bless our Redeemer's name.

It seems to me very wonderful that this "I thirst" should be, as it were, the clearance of it all. He had no sooner said "I thirst," and sipped the vinegar, than he shouted, "It is finished"; and all was over: the battle was fought and the victory won for ever, and our great Deliverer's thirst was the sign of his having smitten the last foe. The flood of his grief has passed the high-water mark, and began to be assuaged. The "I thirst" was the bearing of the last pang; what if I say it was the expression of the fact that his pangs had at last begun to cease, and their fury had spent itself, and left him able to note his lessor pains? The excitement of a great struggle makes men forget thirst and faintness; it is only when all is over that they come back to themselves and note the spending of their strength. The great agony of being forsaken by God was over, and he felt faint when the strain was withdrawn. I like to think of our Lord's saying, "It is finished," directly after he had exclaimed, "I thirst"; for these two voices come so naturally together. Our glorious Samson had been fighting our foes; heaps upon heaps he had slain his thousands, and now like Samson he was sore athirst. He sipped of the vinegar, and he was refreshed, and no sooner has he thrown off the thirst than he shouted like a conqueror, "It is finished," and quitted the field, covered with renown. Let us exult as we see our Substitute going through with his work even to the bitter end, and then with a "Consummatum est" returning to his Father, God. O souls, burdened with sin, rest ye here, and resting live.

III. We will now take the text in a third way, and may the Spirit of God instruct us once again. The utterance of "I thirst" brought out A TYPE OF MAN'S TREATMENT OF HIS LORD. It was a confirmation of the Scripture testimony with regard to man's natural enmity to God. According to modern thought man is a very fine and noble creature, struggling to become better. He is greatly to be commended and admired, for his sin is said to be seeking after God, and his superstition is a struggling after light. Great and worshipful being that he is, truth is to be altered for him, the gospel is to be modulated to suit the tone of his various generations, and all the arrangements of the universe are to be rendered subservient to his interests. Justice must fly the field lest it be severe to so deserving a being; as for punishment, it must not be whispered to his ears polite. In fact, the tendency is to exalt man above God and give him the highest place. But such is not the truthful estimate of man according to the Scriptures: there man is a fallen creature, with a carnal mind which cannot be reconciled to God; a worse than brutish creature, rendering evil for good, and treating his God with vile ingratitude. Alas, man is the slave and the dupe of Satan, and a black-hearted traitor to his God. Did not the prophecies say that man would give to his incarnate God gall to eat and vinegar to drink? It is done. He came to save, and man denied him hospitality: at the first there was no room for him at the inn, and at the last there was not one cool cup of water for him to drink; but when he thirsted they gave him vinegar to drink. This is man's treatment of his Saviour. Universal manhood, left to itself, rejects, crucifies, and mocks the Christ of God. This was the act too of man at his best, when he is moved to pity; for it seems clear that he who lifted up the wet sponge to the Redeemer's lips, did it in compassion. I think that Roman soldier meant well, at least well for a rough warrior with his little light and knowledge. He ran and filled a sponge with vinegar: it was the best way he knew of putting a few drops of moisture to the lips of one who was suffering so much; but though he felt a degree of pity, it was such as one might show to a dog; he felt no reverence, but mocked as he relieved. We read, "The soldiers also mocked him, offering him vinegar." When our Lord cried, "Eloi, Eloi," and afterwards said, "I thirst," the persons around the cross said, "Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him," mocking him; and, according to Mark, he who gave the vinegar uttered much the same words. He pitied the sufferer, but he thought so little of him that he joined in the voice of scorn. Even when man compassionates the sufferings of Christ, and man would have ceased to be human if he did not, still he scorns him; the very cup which man gives to Jesus is at once scorn and pity, for "the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel." See how man at his best mingles admiration of the Saviour's person with scorn of his claims; writing books to hold him up as an example and at the same moment rejecting his deity; admitting that he was a wonderful man, but denying his most sacred mission; extolling his ethical teaching and then trampling on his blood: thus giving him drink, but that drink vinegar. O my hearers, beware of praising Jesus and denying his atoning sacrifice. Beware of rendering him homage and dishonouring his name at the same time.

Alas, my brethren, I cannot say much on the score of man's cruelty to our Lord without touching myself and you. Have we not often given him vinegar to drink? Did we not do so years ago before we knew him? We used to melt when we heard about his sufferings, but we did not turn from our sins. We gave him our tears and then grieved him with our sins. We thought sometimes that we loved him as we heard the story of his death, but we did not change our lives for his sake, nor put our trust in him, and so we gave him vinegar to drink. Nor does the grief end here, for have not the best works we have ever done, and the best feelings we ever felt, and the best prayers we have ever offered, been tart and sour with sin? Can they be compared to generous wine? are they not more like sharp vinegar? I wonder he has ever received them, as one marvels why he received this vinegar; and yet he has received them, and smiled upon us for presenting them. He knew once how to turn water into wine, and in matchless love he has often turned our sour drink-offerings into something sweet to himself, though in themselves, methinks, they have been the juice of sour grapes, sharp enough to set his teeth on edge. We may therefore come before him, with all the rest of our race, when God subdues them to repentance by his love, and look on him whom we have pierced, and mourn for him as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. We may well remember our faults this day,

"We, whose proneness to forget
Thy dear love, on Olivet
Bathed thy brow with bloody sweat;
"We whose sins, with awful power,
Like a cloud did o'er thee lower,
In that God-excluding hour;

"We, who still, in thought and dead,
Often hold the bitter reed
To thee, in thy time of need."


I have touched that point very lightly because I want a little more time to dwell upon a fourth view of this scene. May the Holy Ghost help us to hear a fourth tuning of the dolorous music, "I thirst."

IV. I think, beloved friends, that the cry of "I thirst" was THE MYSTICAL EXPRESSION OF THE DESIRE OF HIS HEART—"I thirst." I cannot think that natural thirst was all he felt. He thirsted for water doubtless, but his soul was thirsty in a higher sense; indeed, he seems only to have spoken that the Scriptures might be fulfilled as to the offering him vinegar. Always was he in harmony with himself, and his own body was always expressive of his soul's cravings as well as of its own longings. "I thirst" meant that his heart was thirsting to save men. This thirst had been on him from the earliest of his earthly days. "Wist ye not," said he, while yet a boy, "that I must be about my Father's business?" Did he not tell his disciples, "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished?" He thirsted to pluck us from between the jaws of hell, to pay our redemption price, and set us free from the eternal condemnation which hung over us; and when on the cross the work was almost done his thirst was not assuaged, and could not be till he could say, "It is finished." It is almost done, thou Christ of God; thou hast almost saved thy people; there remaineth but one thing more, that thou shouldst actually die, and hence thy strong desire to come to the end and complete thy labour. Thou wast still straightened till the last pang was felt and the last word spoken to complete to full redemption, and hence thy cry, "I thirst."

Beloved, there is now upon our Master, and there always has been, a thirst after the love of his people. Do you not remember how that thirst of his was strong in the old days of the prophet? Call to mind his complaint in the fifth chapter of Isaiah, "Now will I sing to my well beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: and he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein." What was he looking for from his vineyard and its winepress? What but for the juice of the vine that he might be refreshed? "And he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes,"—vinegar, and not wine; sourness, and not sweetness. So he was thirsting then. According to the sacred canticle of love, in the fifth chapter of the Song of Songs, we learn that when he drank in those olden times it was in the garden of his church that he was refreshed. What doth he say? "I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk; eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved." In the same song he speaks of his church, and says, "The roof of thy mouth is as the best wine for my beloved, that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak." And yet again in the eighth chapter the bride saith, "I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate." Yes, he loves to be with his people; they are the garden where he walks for refreshment, and their love, their graces, are the milk and wine which he delights to drink. Christ was always thirsty to save men, and to be loved of men; and we see a type of his life-long desire when, being weary, he sat thus on the well and said to the woman of Samaria, "Give me to drink." There was a deeper meaning in his words than she dreamed of, as a verse further down fully proves, when he said to his disciples, "I have meat to eat that ye know not of." He derived spiritual refreshment from the winning of that women's heart to himself.

And now, brethren, our blessed Lord has at this time a thirst for communion with each one of you who are his people, not because you can do him good, but because he can do you good. He thirsts to bless you and to receive your grateful love in return; he thirsts to see you looking with believing eye to his fulness, and holding out your emptiness that he may supply it. He saith, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." What knocks he for? It is that he may eat and drink with you, for he promises that if we open to him he will enter in and sup with us and we with him. He is thirsty still, you see, for our poor love, and surely we cannot deny it to him. Come let us pour out full flagons, until his joy is fulfilled in us. And what makes him love us so? Ah, that I cannot tell, except his own great love. He must love, it is his nature. He must love his chosen whom he has once begun to love, for he is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. His great love makes him thirst to have us much nearer than we are; he will never be satisfied till all his redeemed are beyond gunshot of thee enemy. I will give you one of his thirsty prayers—"Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory." He wants you brother, he wants you, dear sister, he longs to have you wholly to himself. Come to him in prayer, come to him in fellowship, come to him by perfect consecration, come to him by surrendering your whole being to the sweet mysterious influences of his Spirit. Sit at his feet with Mary, lean on his breast with John; yea, come with the spouse in the song and say, "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for his love is better than wine." He calls for that: will you not give it to him? Are you so frozen at heart that not a cup of cold water can be melted for Jesus? Are you lukewarm? O brother, if he says, "I thirst" and you bring him a lukewarm heart, that is worse than vinegar, for he has said, "I will spue thee out of my mouth." He can receive vinegar, but not lukewarm love. Come, bring him your warm heart, and let him drink from that purified chalice as much as he wills. Let all your love be his. I know he loves to receive from you, because he delights even in a cup of cold water that you give to one of his disciples; how much more will he delight in the giving of your whole self to him? Therefore while he thirsts give him to drink this day.

V. Lastly, the cry of "I thirst" is to us THE PATTERN OF OUR DEATH WITH HIM. Know ye not, beloved,—for I speak to those who know the Lord,—that ye are crucified together with Christ? Well, then, what means this cry, "I thirst," but this, that we should thirst too? We do not thirst after the old manner wherein we were bitterly afflicted, for he hath said, "He that drinketh of this water shall never thirst:" but now we covet a new thirst. A refined and heavenly appetite, a craving for our Lord. O thou blessed Master, if we are indeed nailed up to the tree with thee, give us a thirst after thee with a thirst which only the cup of "the new covenant in thy blood" can ever satisfy. Certain philosophers have said that they love the pursuit of truth even better than the knowledge of truth. I differ from them greatly, but I will say this, that next to the actual enjoyment of my Lord's presence I love to hunger and to thirst after him. Rutherford used words somewhat to this effect, "I thirst for my Lord and this is joy; a joy which no man taketh from me. Even if I may not come at him, yet shall I be full of consolation, for it is heaven to thirst after him, and surely he will never deny a poor soul liberty to admire him, and adore him, and thirst after him." As for myself, I would grow more and more insatiable after my divine Lord, and when I have much of him I would still cry for more; and then for more, and still for more. My heart shall not be content till he is all in all to me, and I am altogether lost in him. O to be enlarged in soul so as to take deeper draughts of his sweet love, for our heart cannot have enough. One would wish to be as a spouse, who, when she had already been feasting in the banqueting-house, and had found his fruit sweet to her taste, so that she was overjoyed, yet cried out, "Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love." She craved full flagons of love though she was already overpowered by it. This is a kind of sweet whereof if a man hath much he must have more, and when he hath more he is under a still greater necessity to receive more, and so on, his appetite for ever growing by that which it feeds upon, till he is filled with all the fulness of God. "I thirst,"—ay, this is my soul's word with her Lord. Borrowed from his lips it well suiteth my mouth.
"I thirst, but not as once I did,
The vain delights of earth to share;
Thy wounds, Emmanuel, all forbid
That I should seek my pleasures there.
Dear fountain of delight unknown!
No longer sink below the brim;
But overflow, and pour me down
A living and life-giving stream."


Jesus thirsted, then let us thirst in this dry and thirsty land where no water is. Even as the hart panteth after the water brooks, our souls would thirst after thee, O God.

Beloved, let us thirst for the souls of our fellow-men. I have already told you that such was our Lord's mystical desire; let it be ours also. Brother, thirst to have your children save. Brother, thirst I pray you to have your workpeople saved. Sister, thirst for the salvation of your class, thirst for the redemption of your family, thirst for the conversion of your husband. We ought all to have a longing for conversions. It is so with each one of you? If not, bestir yourselves at once. Fix your hearts upon some unsaved one, and thirst until he is saved. It is the way whereby many shall be brought to Christ, when this blessed soul-thirst of true Christian charity shall be upon those who are themselves saved. Remember how Paul said, "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." He would have sacrificed himself to save his countrymen, so heartily did he desire their eternal welfare. Let this mind be in you also.

As for yourselves, thirst after perfection. Hunger and thirst after righteousness, for you shall be filled. Hate sin, and heartily loathe it; but thirst to be holy as God is holy, thirst to be like Christ, thirst to bring glory to his sacred name by complete conformity to his will.

May the Holy Ghost work in you the complete pattern of Christ crucified, and to him shall be praise for ever and ever. Amen.
Provided by:

Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
Box 314
Columbus, New Jersey, USA, 08022
Websites: www.biblebb.com and www.gospelgems.com
Email: tony@biblebb.com
Online since 1986

I THIRST SERMON BY JOHN PIPER DESIRING GOD JOHN 19:27-28

"I Thirst"
Good Friday
April 5, 1985 | by Steve Roy | Scripture: John 19: 28–29 | Topic: The Death of Christ

After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfil the scripture), "I thirst." A bowl full of vinegar stood there; so they put a sponge full of the vinegar on hyssop and held it to his mouth.
Jesus Is in Total Control During the Passion

In John 10:18 Jesus said, "No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again." Those very significant words of Jesus mean that everything that happened to him on that first Good Friday—all of the physical pain of the whippings, the beatings, the crown of thorns thrust into his head, the nails driven into his hands and his feet; all of the emotional pain of being mocked and spat upon; all of the spiritual pain that Jesus endured when his Father turned his face away from him as he took upon himself the sins of the world—all of it was voluntarily accepted and voluntarily endured by Jesus Christ for the glory of his heavenly Father and for the eternal well-being of his people. Nothing that happened to Jesus that day caught him by surprise. None of it was unforeseen. All of it was anticipated and taken into account by Jesus when he made that fateful prayer in Gethsemane, "Not my will but yours be done" (Luke 22:42).

The picture we see of Jesus in the gospel accounts of his passion is not one of a person who valiantly yet somewhat bewilderedly is confronting unforeseen circumstances that are beyond his control. No, the picture is one of complete control. Jesus is in total command of every aspect of the situation. That is true throughout the entirety of Jesus' passion—during his arrest, his appearance for "questioning" before the Jewish authorities and before Pilate, during the brutal treatment he received from the soldiers, while he hung on the cross in agony. Jesus Christ was not a helpless victim; no, he was the almighty, sovereign Son of God voluntarily submitting himself to humiliation and suffering, laying down his life of his own accord. That's the picture of Jesus we see in the gopels, and that's the picture of Jesus we see in these words from John 19 that Pastor Younge just read for us, constituting Jesus fifth word from the cross.

A Cry to Fulfill Scripture

"After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfil the scripture), 'I thirst.'" The picture again is one of Jesus in complete command, consciously fulfilling the program, the agenda that the Father had set out for him. John's reference to the fact that Jesus knew that all was now completed recalls his prayer in John 17:4, "I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do." The work has been completed, his suffering was coming to an end, and so to fulfill Scripture Jesus said, "I thirst." The whole scene is one of total devotion and commitment to the Father's program for his life and total command of the situation.

A Cry of Agony

But there is another picture as well—one of very intense physical suffering and agony. It is approaching the ninth hour (3:00 PM). Jesus has been hanging on the cross for six hours (cf. Mark 15:25, 34). The combination of Jesus' loss of blood, his exhaustion, his nervous tension, and his exposure to the weather has generated a raging thirst. Jesus' cry, "I thirst," was not a polite and quiet request for a glass of water. No, it was a cry of agony. Jesus' thirst while hanging on the cross in our place showed the reality and intensity of his physical suffering. His thirst consummated his physical suffering and thus enabled Jesus to know that all was now completed. And so, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, he cried out, "I thirst," asking for and then receiving a drink of wine vinegar from a sponge held up to his mouth on a stalk of hyssop.

A Different Picture in Matthew and Mark

Now this is clearly different from what is recorded in Matthew 27:34 and Mark 15:23, where at the beginning of his crucifixion Jesus was offered a drink of wine mixed with myrrh, a drug offered to help dull the pain. At that point Jesus refused the drink, desiring to face his hour of suffering and death with a clear head. Now approaching the moment of his death Jesus accepts this drink of wine vinegar to meet his own physical needs, to moisten his mouth so that he might offer clearly and loudly his next words, the triumphant "It is finished" (John 19:30), and as our text indicates so that the Scripture might be fulfilled.

Jesus' Commitment to Scripture

The particular text that Jesus had in mind is not mentioned. Some have thought that it refers to the prophetic picture of thirst during the death of the Messiah given in Psalm 22:15, "My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth." Perhaps more likely is that Jesus had in mind Psalm 69:21, "They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst." Whichever text Jesus had in mind, the picture is one of Jesus, even in the midst of the most intense physical agony, very much aware of the word of his Father in Scripture and very much committed to order all of his life, even these last few moments, by it. This scene speaks volumes about Jesus' commitment to Scripture and should speak very loudly and very clearly to us about our need to order all of our lives by Scripture, especially in the moments of our deepest suffering.

Spiritual Thirst

But in spite of the reality and intensity and significance of Jesus' physical thirst, I am convinced that something deeper is being expressed by this fifth word. Underlying his physical thirst is another kind of thirst that Jesus experienced in a deeper, more profound way on the cross—spiritual thirst. The evidence that leads me to this conviction comes from the use of the verb "thirst." The verb "thirst" or "be thirsty" is found five times in the gospel of John in addition to our text here in John 19. All five are in contexts referring to spiritual thirst.

Three of these usages occur in John 4:13–15 in the course of Jesus' discussion with the woman at the well. Jesus offers himself to her as the one who can give her living water to drink. And he says that "who ever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (v. 14). In John 6:35 Jesus says, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." And in John 7:37–38 Jesus declared, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from him." And John helps us understand what Jesus meant by adding in the next verse, "By this he (Jesus) meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive."

Putting all this evidence together, we can see that this thirst that Jesus was speaking about is a spiritual craving for God, a longing that operates deep within the heart of every human being created in the image of God, a thirst that Jesus and Jesus alone can satisfy for all eternity. According to John's gospel this universal spiritual thirst can be quenched and satisfied only by the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus promised to give to all who will believe in him, and who will give to the believer eternal life. And it is this kind of thirst, this spiritual thirst, that Jesus experienced on the cross.

Separation from the Father

We must be very clear as to what was really going on upon that cross. The man who hung there was no ordinary Galilean rabbi. No, he was the eternal Son of God. Jesus of Nazareth was the Word of God who became flesh. He had existed from all eternity in the closest, most intimate fellowship imaginable with the Father. Even when he voluntarily left heaven's glory and emptied himself of all divine dignity and authority to become a man, he still maintained throughout his life sweet communion and deep intimacy with his heavenly Father. Until, that is, he hung on the cross.

There, as he took upon himself the sins of all his people, Jesus Christ experienced, for the first time in all eternity, the horror of separation from God. The Father turned his back on the Son while he hung there on the cross, in our place, inflicting upon him the full fury of his wrath for our sins. We hear of the horrifying reality of this separation from Jesus' own lips, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34). Jesus had known the joy of intimate fellowship with his Father, and now during this time of separation, Jesus wanted it back; he longed for it; he thirsted after God. On the cross Jesus was the supreme fulfillment of Psalm 63:1, "O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water."

This, then, at the deepest level, is the thirst Jesus experienced on the cross. He was physically thirsty to be sure. His physical thirst consummated his physical suffering. But his physical thirst was only the tip of the iceberg. Jesus' deepest, most profound thirst was spiritual, thirsting after his Father, from who he was separated as he hung on the cross paying the penalty for our sins. And so in conclusion let me stress the significance of this spiritual thirst of Jesus for our lives.

The Truth of Substitution

The truth is a simple one, but one that is very, very profound. It is the truth of substitution. The substitutionary nature of Jesus' death on the cross is expressed very clearly by this fifth word, "I thirst." Some of the most precious of all the promises Jesus gives us are those we have referred to from the earlier chapters of John about how Jesus promises to satisfy us and quench our thirst forever. Here in John 19 we see the source of those promises. It is Jesus own thirst on the cross. The glorious truth of the fifth word on the cross is that we don't need to be thirsty; our thirst for God can be quenched because Jesus was thirsty for us.

John gives us another clear example of this substitutionary character of the death of Jesus in his gospel. In John 12:27, following the triumphal entry Jesus said, "Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father save me from this hour?' No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!" That word "troubled" is a very strong one denoting the turmoil, the distress, the agony of soul Jesus experienced as he contemplated his death. And that word calls to mind other words of Jesus, this time to his disciples, which he utters two chapters later in John 14:1, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me." The point is clear, is it not? Our hearts cannot be troubled, precisely because Jesus' heart was troubled for us. So in the same way, our thirst can be quenched, we don't need be thirsty forever, precisely because Jesus was thirsty for us. That's the message of the fifth word for us today. That's the reason for great faith among us as we embrace this thirsty Jesus, and for great joy as we receive from him living water to quench our thirst for all eternity.

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The First Cry from the Cross by Charles Spurgeon

The First Cry from the Cross
October 24th, 1869
by
C. H. SPURGEON
(1834-1892)



"Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."—Luke 23:34.

Our Lord was at that moment enduring the first pains of crucifixion; the executioners had just then driven the nails through his hands and feet. He must have been, moreover, greatly depressed, and brought into a condition of extreme weakness by the agony of the night in Gethsemane, and by the scourgings and cruel mockings which he had endured all through the morning, from Caiaphas, Pilate, Herod, and the Praetorian guards. Yet neither the weakness of the past, nor the pain of the present, could prevent him from continuing in prayer. The Lamb of God was silent to men, but he was not silent to God. Dumb as sheep before her shearers, he had not a word to say in his own defense to man, but he continues in his heart crying unto his Father, and no pain and no weakness can silence his holy supplications. Beloved, what an example our Lord herein presents to us! Let us continue in prayer so long as our heart beats; let no excess of suffering drive us away from the throne of grace, but rather let it drive us closer to it.


"Long as they live should Christians pray,
For only while they pray they live."

To cease from prayer is to renounce the consolations which our case requires. Under all distractions of spirit, and overwhelmings of heart, great God, help us still to pray, and never from the mercy-seat may our footsteps be driven by despair. Our blessed Redeemer persevered in prayer even when the cruel iron rent his tender nerves, and blow after blow of the hammer jarred his whole frame with anguish; and this perseverance may be accounted for by the fact that he was so in the habit of prayer that he could not cease from it; he had acquired a mighty velocity of intercession which forbade him to pause. Those long nights upon the cold mountain side, those many days which had been spent in solitude, those perpetual ejaculations which he was wont to dart up to heaven, all these had formed in him a habit so powerful, that the severest torments could not stay its force. Yet it was more than habit. Our Lord was baptised in the spirit of prayer; he lived in it, it lived in him, it had come to be an element of his nature. He was like that precious spice, which, being bruised, doth not cease to give forth its perfume, but rather yieldeth it all the more abundantly because of the blows of the pestle, its fragrance being no outward and superficial quality, but an inward virtue essential to its nature, which the pounding in the mortar did not fetch from it, causing it to reveal its secret soul of sweetness. So Jesus prays, even as a bundle of myrrh gives forth its smell, or as birds sing because they cannot do otherwise. Prayer enwrapped his very soul as with a garment, and his heart went forth in such array. I repeat it, let this be our example—never, under any circumstances, however severe the trial, or depressing the difficulty, let us cease from prayer.

Observe, further, that our Lord, in the prayer before us, remains in the vigour of faith as to his Sonship. The extreme trial to which he now submitted himself could not prevent his holding fast his Sonship. His prayer begins, "Father." It was not without meaning that he taught us when we pray to say, "Our Father," for our prevalence in prayer will much depend upon our confidence in our relationship to God. Under great losses and crosses, one is adapt to think that God is not dealing with us as a father with a child, but rather as a severe judge with a condemned criminal; but the cry of Christ, when he is brought to an extremity which we shall never reach, betrays no faltering in the spirit of sonship. In Gethsemane, when the bloody sweat fell fast upon the ground, his bitterest cry commenced with, "My Father," asking that if it were possible the cup of gall might pass from him; he pleaded with the Lord as his Father, even as he over and over again had called him on that dark and doleful night. Here, again, in this, the first of his seven expiring cries, it is "Father." O that the Spirit that makes us cry, "Abba, Father," may never cease his operations! May we never be brought into spiritual bondage by the suggestion, "If thou be the Son of God;" or if the tempter should so assail us, may we triumph as Jesus did in the hungry wilderness. May the Spirit which crieth, "Abba, Father," repel each unbelieving fear. When we are chastened, as we must be (for what son is there whom his father chasteneth not?) may we be in loving subjection to the Father of our spirits, and live; but never may we become captives to the spirit of bondage, so as to doubt the love of our gracious Father, or our share in his adoption.

More remarkable, however, is the fact that our Lord's prayer to his Father was not for himself. He continued on the cross to pray for himself, it is true, and his lamentable cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" shows the personality of his prayer; but the first of the seven great cries on the cross has scarcely even an indirect reference to himself. It is, "Father, forgive them." The petition is altogether for others, and though there is an allusion to the cruelties which they were exercising upon himself, yet it is remote; and you will observe, he does not say, "I forgive them"—that is taken for granted—he seems to lose sight of the fact that they were doing any wrong to himself, it is the wrong which they were doing to the Father that is on his mind, the insult which they are paying to the Father, in the person of the Son; he thinks not of himself at all. The cry, "Father, forgive them," is altogether unselfish. He himself is, in the prayer, as though he were not; so complete is his self-annihilation, that he loses sight of himself and his woes. My brethren, if there had ever been a time in the life of the Son of man when he might have rigidly confined his prayer to himself, without any one cavilling thereat, surely it was when he was beginning his death throes. We could not marvel, if any man here were fastened to the stake, or fixed to a cross, if his first, and even his last and all his prayers, were for support under so arduous a trial. But see, the Lord Jesus began his prayer by pleading for others. See ye not what a great heart is here revealed! What a soul of compassion was in the Crucified! How Godlike, how divine! Was there ever such a one before him, who, even in the very pangs of death, offers as his first prayer an intercession for others? Let this unselfish spirit be in you also, my brethren. Look not every man upon his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Love your neighbours as yourselves, and as Christ has set before you this paragon of unselfishness, seek to follow him, treading in his steps.

There is, however, a crowning jewel in this diadem of glorious love. The Son of Righteousness sets upon Calvary in a wondrous splendour; but amongst the bright colours which glorify his departure, there is this one—the prayer was not alone for others, but it was for his cruellest enemies. His enemies, did I say, there is more than that to be considered. It was not a prayer for enemies who had done him an ill deed years before, but for those who were there and then murdering him. Not in cold blood did the Saviour pray, after he had forgotten the injury, and could the more easily forgive it, but while the first red drops of blood were spurting on the hands which drove the nails; while yet the hammer was bestained with crimson gore, his blessed mouth poured out the fresh warm prayer, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." I say, not that that prayer was confined to his immediate executioners. I believe that it was a far-reaching prayer, which included Scribes and Pharisees, Pilate and Herod, Jews and Gentiles—yea, the whole human race in a certain sense, since we were all concerned in that murder; but certainly the immediate persons, upon whom that prayer was poured like precious nard, were those who there and then were committing the brutal act of fastening him to the accursed tree. How sublime is this prayer if viewed in such a light! It stands alone upon a mount of solitary glory. No other had been prayed like it before. It is true, Abraham, and Moses, and the prophets had prayed for the wicked; but not for wicked men who had pierced their hands and feet. It is true, that Christians have since that day offered the same prayer, even as Stephen cried, "Lay not this sin to their charge;" and many a martyr has made his last words at the stake words of pitying intercession for his persecutors; but you know where they learnt this, let me ask you where did he learn it? Was not Jesus the divine original? He learnt it nowhere; it leaped up from his own Godlike nature. A compassion peculiar to himself dictated this originality of prayer; the inward royalty of his love suggested to him so memorable an intercession, which may serve us for a pattern, but of which no pattern had existed before. I feel as though I could better kneel before my Lord's cross at this moment than stand in this pulpit to talk to you. I want to adore him; I worship him in heart for that prayer; if I knew nothing else of him but this one prayer, I must adore him, for that one matchless plea for mercy convinces me most overwhelmingly of the deity of him who offered it, and fills my heart with reverent affection.

Thus I have introduced to you our Lord's first vocal prayer upon the cross. I shall now, if we are helped by God's Holy Spirit, make some use of it. First, we shall view it as illustrative of our Saviour's intercession; secondly, we shall regard the text as instructive to the church's work; thirdly, we shall consider it as suggestive to the unconverted.

I. First, my dear brethren, let us look at this very wonderful text as ILLUSTRATIVE OF OUR LORD'S INTERCESSION.

He prayed for his enemies then, he is praying for his enemies now; the past on the cross was an earnest of the present on the throne. He is in a higher place, and in a nobler condition, but his occupation is the same; he continues still before the eternal throne to present pleas on the behalf of guilty men, crying, "Father, O forgive them." All his intercession is in a measure like the intercession on Calvary, and Calvary's cries may help us to guess the character of the whole of his intercession above.

The first point in which we may see the character of his intercession is this—it is most gracious. Those for whom our Lord prayed, according to the text, did not deserve his prayer. They had done nothing which could call forth from him a benediction as a reward for their endeavours in his service; on the contrary, they were most undeserving persons, who had conspired to put him to death. They had crucified him, crucified him wantonly and malignantly; they were even taking away his innocent life. His clients were persons who, so far from being meritorious, were utterly undeserving of a single good wish from the Saviour's heart. They certainly never asked him to pray for them—it was the last thought in their minds to say, "Intercede for us, thou dying King! Offer petitions on our behalf, thou Son of God!" I will venture to believe the prayer itself, when they heard it, was either disregarded, and passed over with contemptuous indifference, or perhaps it was caught as a theme for jest. I admit that it seems to be too severe upon humanity to suppose it possible that such a prayer could have been the theme for laughter, and yet there were other things enacted around the cross which were quite as brutal, and I can imagine that this also might have happened. Yet our Saviour prayed for persons who did not deserve the prayer, but, on the contrary, merited a curse—persons who did not ask for the prayer, and even scoffed at it when they heard it. Even so in heaven there stands the great High Priest, who pleads for guilty men—for guilty men, my hearers. There are none on earth that deserve his intercession. He pleads for none on the supposition that they do deserve it. He stands there to plead as the just One on the behalf of the unjust. Not if any man be righteous, but "if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father." Remember, too, that our great Intercessor pleads for such as never asked him to plead for them. His elect, while yet dead in trespasses and sins, are the objects of his compassionate intercessions, and while they even scoff at his gospel, his heart of love is entreating the favour of heaven on their behalf. See, then, beloved, if such be the truth, how sure you are to spend with God who earnestly ask the Lord Jesus Christ to plead for you. Some of you, with many tears and much earnestness, have been beseeching the Saviour to be your advocate? Will he refuse you? Stands it to reason that he can? He pleads for those that reject his pleadings, much more for you who prize them beyond gold. Remember, my dear hearer, if there be nothing good in you, and if there be everything conceivable that is malignant and bad, yet none of these things can be any barrier to prevent Christ's exercising the office of Intercessor for you. Even for you he will plead. Come, put your case into his hands; for you he will find pleas which you cannot discover for yourselves, and he will put the case to God for you as for his murderers, "Father, forgive them."

A second quality of his intercession is this—its careful spirit. You notice in the prayer, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Our Saviour did, as it were, look his enemies through and through to find something in them that he could urge in their favour; but he could not see nothing until his wisely affectionate eye lit upon their ignorance: "they know not what they do." How carefully he surveyed the circumstances, and the characters of those for whom he importuned! Just so it is with him in heaven. Christ is no careless advocate for his people. He knows your precise condition at this moment, and the exact state of your heart with regard to the temptation through which you are passing; more than that, he foresees the temptation which is awaiting you, and in his intercession he takes note of the future event which his prescient eye beholds. "Satan hath desired to have thee, that he may sift thee as wheat; but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not." Oh, the condescending tenderness of our great High Priest! He knows us better than we know ourselves. He understands every secret grief and groaning. You need not trouble yourself about the wording of your prayer, he will put the wording right. And even the understanding as to the exact petition, if you should fail in it, he cannot, for as he knoweth what is the mind of God, so he knoweth what is your mind also. He can spy out some reason for mercy in you which you cannot detect in yourselves, and when it is so dark and cloudy with your soul that you cannot discern a foothold for a plea that you may urge with heaven, the Lord Jesus has the pleas ready framed, and petitions ready drawn up, and he can present them acceptable before the mercy-seat. His intercession, then, you will observe is very gracious, and in the next place it is very thoughtful.

We must next note its earnestness. No one doubts who reads these words, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," that they were heaven-piercing in their fervour. Brethren, you are certain, even without a thought, that Christ was terribly in earnest in that prayer. But there is an argument to prove that. Earnest people are usually witty, and quick of understanding, to discover anything which may serve their turn. If you are pleading for life, and an argument for your being spared be asked of you, I will warrant you that you will think of one when no one else might. Now, Jesus was so in earnest for the salvation of his enemies, that he struck upon an argument for mercy which a less anxious spirit would not have thought of: "They know not what they do." Why, sirs, that was in strictest justice but a scant reason for mercy; and indeed, ignorance, if it be wilful, does not extenuate sin, and yet the ignorance of many who surrounded the cross was a wilful ignorance. They might have known that he was the Lord of glory. Was not Moses plain enough? Had not Esaias been very bold in his speech? Were not the signs and tokens such that one might as well doubt which is the sun in the firmament as the claims of Jesus to be the Messias? Yet, for all that, the Saviour, with marvelous earnestness and consequent dexterity, turns what might not have been a plea into a plea, and puts it thus: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Oh, how mighty are his pleas in heaven, then, in their earnestness! Do not suppose that he is less quick of understanding there, or less intense in the vehemence of his entreaties. No, my brethren, the heart of Christ still labours with the eternal God. He is no slumbering intercessor, but, for Zion's sake, he doth not hold his peace, and for Jerusalem's sake, he doth not cease, nor will he, till her righteousness go forth as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp that burneth.

It is interesting to note, in the fourth place, that the prayer here offered helps us to judge of his intercession in heaven as to its continuance, perseverance, and perpetuity. As I remarked before, if our Saviour might have paused from intercessory prayer, it was surely when they fastened him to the tree; when they were guilty of direct acts of deadly violence to his divine person, he might then have ceased to present petitions on their behalf. But sin cannot tie the tongue of our interceding Friend! Oh, what comfort is here! You have sinned, believer, you have grieved his Spirit, but you have not stopped that potent tongue which pleads for you. You have been unfruitful, perhaps, my brother, and like the barren tree, you deserve to be cut down; but your want of fruitfulness has not withdrawn the Intercessor from his place. He interposes at this moment, crying, "Spare it yet another year." Sinner, you have provoked God by long rejecting his mercy and going from bad to worse, but neither blasphemy nor unrighteousness, nor infidelity, shall stay the Christ of God from urging the suit of the very chief of sinners. He lives, and while he lives he pleads; and while there is a sinner upon earth to be saved, there shall be an intercessor in heaven to plead for him. These are but fragments of thought, but they will help you, I hope, to realise the intercession of your great High Priest.

Think yet again, this prayer of our Lord on earth is like his prayer in heaven, because of its wisdom. He seeks the best thing, and that which his clients most need, "Father, forgive them." That was the great point in hand; they wanted most of all there and then forgiveness from God. He does not say, "Father, enlighten them, for they know not what they do," for mere enlightenment would but have created torture of conscience and hastened on their hell; but he crieth, "Father, forgive;" and while he used his voice, the precious drops of blood which were then distilling from the nail wounds were pleading too, and God heard, and doubtless did forgive. The first mercy which is needful to guilty sinners is forgiven sin. Christ wisely prays for the boon most wanted. It is so in heaven; he pleads wisely and prudently. Let him alone, he knows what to ask for at the divine hand. Go you to the mercy-seat, and pour out your desires as best you can, but when you have done so always put it thus, "O my Lord Jesus, answer no desire of mine if it be not according to thy judgment; and if in aught that I have asked I have failed to seek for what I want, amend my pleading, for thou art infinitely wiser than I." Oh, is it sweet to have a friend at court to perfect our petitions for us before they come unto the great King. I believed that there is never presented to God anything but a perfect prayer now; I mean, that before the great Father of us all, no prayer of his people ever comes up imperfect; there is nothing left out, and there is nothing to be erased; and this, not because their prayers were originally perfect in themselves, but because the Mediator makes them perfect through his infinite wisdom, and they come up before the mercy-seat moulded according to the mind of God himself, and he is sure to grant such prayers.

Once more, this memorable prayer of our crucified Lord was like to his universal intercession in the matter of its prevalence. Those for whom he prayed were many of them forgiven. Do you remember that he said to his disciples when he bade them preach, "beginning at Jerusalem," and on that day when Peter stood up with the eleven, and charged the people with wicked hands they had crucified and slain the Saviour, three thousand of these persons who were thus justly accused of his crucifixion became believers in him, and were baptised in his name. That was an answer to Jesus' prayer. The priest were at the bottom of the Lord's murder, they were the most guilty; but it is said, "a great company also of the priests believed." Here was another answer to the prayer. Since all men had their share representatively, Gentiles as well as Jews, in the death of Jesus, the gospel was soon preached to the Jews, and within a short time it was preached to the Gentiles also. Was not this prayer, "Father, forgive them," like a stone cast into a lake, forming at first a narrow circle, and then a wider ring, and soon a larger sphere, until the whole lake is covered with circling waves? Such a prayer as this, cast into the whole world, first created a little ring of Jewish converts and of priest, and then a wider circle of such as were beneath the Roman sway; and to-day its circumference is wide as the globe itself, so that tens of thousands are saved through the prevalence of this one intercession "Father, forgive them." It is certainly so with him in heaven, he never pleads in vain. With bleeding hands, he yet won the day; with feet fastened to the wood, he was yet victorious; forsaken of God and despised of the people, he was yet triumphant in his pleas; how much more so now the tiara is about his brow, his hand grasp the universal sceptre, and his feet are shod with silver sandals, and he is crowned King of kings, and Lord of lords! If tears and cries out of weakness were omnipotent, even more mighty if possible must be that sacred authority which as the risen Priest he claims when he stands before the Father's throne to mention the covenant which the Father made with him. O ye trembling believers, trust him with your concerns! Come hither, ye guilty, and ask him to plead for you. O you that cannot pray, come, ask him to intercede for you. Broken hearts and weary heads, and disconsolate bosoms, come ye to him who into the golden censer will put his merits, and then place your prayers with them, so that they shall come up as the smoke of perfume, even as a fragrant cloud into the nostrils of the Lord God of hosts, who will smell a sweet savour, and accept you and your prayers in the Beloved. We have now opened up more than enough sea-room for your meditations at home this afternoon, and, therefore we leave this first point. We have an illustration in the prayer of Christ on the cross of what his prayers always are in heaven.

II. Secondly, the text is INSTRUCTIVE OF THE CHURCH'S WORK.

As Christ was, so his church is to be in this world. Christ came into this world not to be ministered unto, but to minister, not to be honoured, but to save others. His church, when she understands her work, will perceive that she is not here to gather to herself wealth or honour, or to seek any temporal aggrandisement and position; she is here unselfishly to live, and if need be, unselfishly to die for the deliverance of the lost sheep, the salvation of lost men. Brethren, Christ's prayer on the cross I told you was altogether an unselfish one. He does not remember himself in it. Such ought to be the church's life-prayer, the church's active interposition on the behalf of sinners. She ought to live never for her ministers or for herself, but ever for the lost sons of men. Imagine you that churches are formed to maintain ministers? Do you conceive that the church exists in this land merely that so much salary may be given to bishops, and deans, and prebends, and curates, and I know not what? My brethren, it were well if the whole thing were abolished if that were its only aim. The aim of the church is not to provide out-door relief for the younger sons of nobility; when they have not brains enough to win anyhow else their livelihood, they are stuck into family livings. Churches are not made that men of ready speech may stand up on Sundays and talk, and so win daily bread from their admirers. Nay, there is another end and aim from this. These places are not built that you may sit here comfortably, and hear something that shall make you pass away your Sundays with pleasure. A church in London which does not exist to do good in the slums, and dens, and kennels of the city, is a church that has no reason to justify its longer existing. A church that does not exist to reclaim heathenism, to fight with evil, to destroy error, to put down falsehood, a church that does not exist to take the side of the poor, to denounce injustice and to hold up righteousness, is a church that has no right to be. Not for thyself, O church, dost thou exist, any more than Christ existed for himself. His glory was that he laid aside his glory, and the glory of the church is when she lays aside her respectability and her dignity, and counts it to be her glory to gather together the outcast, and her highest honour to seek amid the foulest mire the priceless jewels for which Jesus shed his blood. To rescue souls from hell and lead to God, to hope, to heaven, this is her heavenly occupation. O that the church would always feel this! Let her have her bishops and her preachers, and let them be supported, and let everything be done for Christ's sake decently and in order, but let the end be looked to, namely, the conversion of the wandering, the teaching of the ignorant, the help of the poor, the maintenance of the right, the putting down of the wrong, and the upholding at all hazards of the crown and kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now the prayer of Christ had a great spirituality of aim. You notice that nothing is sought for these people but that which concerns their souls, "Father, forgive them." And I believe the church will do well when she recollects that she wrestles not with flesh and blood, nor with principalities and powers, but with spiritual wickedness, and that what she has to dispense is not the law and order by which magistrates may be upheld, or tyrannies pulled down, but the spiritual government by which hearts are conquered to Christ, and judgments are brought into subjection to his truth. I believe that the more the church of God strains after, before God, the forgiveness of sinners, and the more she seeks in her life prayer to teach sinners what sin is, and what the blood of Christ is, and what the hell that must follow if sin be not washed out, and what the heaven is which will be ensured to all those who are cleansed from sin, the more she keeps to this the better. Press forward as one man, my brethren, to secure the root of the matter in the forgiveness of sinners. As to all the evils that afflict humanity, by all means take your share in battling with them; let temperance be maintained, let education be supported; let reforms, political and ecclesiastical, be pushed forward as far as you have the time and the effort to spare, but the first business of every Christian man and women is with the hearts and consciences of men as they stand before the everlasting God. O let nothing turn you aside from your divine errand of mercy to undying souls. This is your one business. Tell to sinners that sin will damn them, that Christ alone can take away sin, and make this the one passion of your souls, "Father, forgive them, forgive them! Let them know how to be forgiven. Let them be actually forgiven, and let me never rest except as I am the means of bringing sinners to be forgiven, even the guiltiest of them."

Our Saviour's prayer teaches the church that while her spirit should be unselfish, and her aim should be spiritual, the range of her mission is to be unlimited. Christ prayed for the wicked, what if I say the most wicked of the wicked, that ribald crew that had surrounded his cross! He prayed for the ignorant. Doth he not say, "They know not what they do"? He prayed for his persecutors; the very persons who were most at enmity with him, lay nearest to his heart. Church of God, your mission is not to the respectable few who will gather about your ministers to listen respectfully to their words; your mission is not to the ‚lite and the eclectic, the intelligent who will criticise your words and pass judgment upon every syllable of your teaching; your mission is not to those who treat you kindly, generously, affectionately, not to these I mean alone, though certainly to these as among the rest; but your great errand is to the harlot, to the thief, to the swearer and the drunkard, to the most depraved and debauched. If no one else cares for these, the church always must, and if there be any who are first in her prayers it should be these who alas! are generally last in our thoughts. The ignorant we ought diligently to consider. It is not enough for the preacher that he preaches so that those instructed from their youth up can understand him; he must think of those to whom the commonest phrases of theological truth are as meaningless as the jargon of an unknown tongue; he must preach so as to reach the meanest comprehension; and if the ignorant may come not to hear him, he must use such means as best he may to induce them, nay, compel them to hear the good news. The gospel is meant also for those who persecute religion; it aims its arrows of love against the hearts of his foes. If there be any whom we should first seek to bring to Jesus, it should be just these who are the farthest off and the most opposed to the gospel of Christ. "Father, forgive them; if thou dost pardon none besides, yet be pleased to forgive them."

So, too, the church should be earnest as Christ was; and if she be so, she will be quick to notice any ground of hope in those she deals with, quick to observe any plea that she may use with God for their salvation.

She must be hopeful too, and surely no church ever had a more hopeful sphere than the church of this present age. If ignorance be a plea with God, look on the heathen at this day—millions of them never heard Messiah's name. Forgive them, great God, indeed they know not what they do. If ignorance be some ground for hope, there is hope enough in this great city of London, for have we not around us hundreds of thousands to whom the simplest truths of the gospel would be the greatest novelties? Brethren, it is sad to think that this country should still lie under such a pall of ignorance, but the sting of so dread a fact is blunted with hope when we read the Saviour's prayer aright—it helps us to hope while we cry, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do."

It is the church's business to seek after the most fallen and the most ignorant, and to seek them perseveringly. She should never stay her hand from doing good. If the Lord be coming to-morrow, it is no reason why you Christian people should not subside into mere talkers and readers, meeting together for mutual comfort, and forgetting the myriads of perishing souls. If it be true that this world is going to pieces in a fortnight, and that Louis Napoleon is the Apocalyptic beast, or if it be not true, I care not a fig, it makes no difference to my duty, and does not change my service. Let my Lord come when he will, while I labour for him I am ready for his appearing. The business of the church is still to watch for the salvation of souls. If she stood gazing, as modern prophets would have her; if she gave up her mission to indulge in speculative interpretations, she might well be afraid of her Lord's coming; but if she goes about her work, and with incessant toil searches out her Lord's precious jewels, she shall not be ashamed when her Bridegroom cometh.

My time has been much too short for so vast a subject as I have undertaken, but I wish I could speak words that were as loud as thunder, with a sense and earnestness as mighty as the lightening. I would fain excite every Christian here, and kindle in him a right idea of what his work is as a part of Christ's church. My brethren, you must not live to yourselves; the accumulation of money, the bringing up of your children, the building of houses, the earning of your daily bread, all this you may do; but there must be a greater object than this if you are to be Christlike, as you should be, since you are bought with Jesus' blood. Begin to live for others, make it apparent unto all men that you are not yourselves the end-all and be-all of your own existence, but that you are spending and being spent, that through the good you do to men God may be glorified, and Christ may see in you his own image and be satisfied.

III. Time fails me, but the last point was to be a word SUGGESTIVE TO THE UNCONVERTED.

Listen attentively to these sentences. I will make them as terse and condensed as possible. Some of you here are not saved. Now, some of you have been very ignorant, and when you sinned you did not know what you did. You knew you were sinners, you knew that, but you did not know the far-reaching guilt of sin. You have not been attending the house of prayer long, you have not read your Bible, you have not Christian parents. Now you are beginning to be anxious about your souls. Remember your ignorance does not excuse you, or else Christ would not say, "Forgive them;" they must be forgiven, even those that know not what they do, hence they are individually guilty; but still that ignorance of yours gives you just a little gleam of hope. The times of your ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. Bring forth, therefore, fruits meet for repentance. The God whom you have ignorantly forgotten is willing to pardon and ready to forgive. The gospel is just this, trust Jesus Christ who died for the guilty, and you shall be saved. O may God help you to do so this very morning, and you will become new men and new women, a change will take place in you equal to a new birth; you will be new creatures in Christ Jesus.

But ah! My friends, there are some here for whom even Christ himself could not pray this prayer, in the widest sense at any rate, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do," for you have known what you did, and every sermon you hear, and especially every impression that is made upon your understanding and conscience by the gospel, adds to your responsibility, and takes away from you the excuse of not knowing what you do. Ah! Sirs, you know that there is the world and Christ, and that you cannot have both. You know that there is sin and God, and that you cannot serve both. You know that there are the pleasure of evil and the pleasures of heaven, and that you cannot have both. Oh! In the light which God has given you, may his Spirit also come and help you to choose that which true wisdom would make you choose. Decide to-day for God, for Christ, for heaven. The Lord decide you for his name's sake. Amen.

Provided by:

Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
Box 314
Columbus, New Jersey, USA, 08022
Websites: www.biblebb.com and www.gospelgems.com
Email: tony@biblebb.com
Online since 1986