Full Service Sermon Video Sermon Audio The service video is unavailable at this time. The sermon video is unavailable at this time. The sermon audio is unavailable at this time. Downloads & Resources The Cry of Salvation Dr. Jon Morrissette - 11/21/2010 When are you most apt to feel forsaken by God? On Facebook, we posted the question, "When are you most apt to feel forsaken by God?" Several people posted responses. • When I am burdened with something I cannot shake. • After a traumatic experience. After tragedy strikes, or when you just seem to hit rock bottom. • After the death of someone near, especially if it's unexpected. • When God doesn't answer a sincere prayer during a moment of extreme need the way we want. • The loss of a child was hard to understand. How about you? How would you answer? When are you most apt to feel forsaken by God? I looked on the internet for stories from real people who feel forsaken by God. One young lady wrote, "When I was twenty-two, my mom died, and I was heartbroken until I met my fiancé. He warmed my soul and loved me unconditionally. He was a good Christian man who helped me make it through hard days. But then he died at age twenty-seven. We only had four years together. We went to church, prayed, and lived our lives for Jesus. This is killing me. Every day gets harder. It is MORE THAN I CAN BEAR. Why does God hate me? What have I done?" A young man wrote, "I feel like I've sinned too many times and God has given up on me. I need help. I feel so lost. I tried talking to God, but it feels like my words are going nowhere. I need help." Spencer writes, "For years I have done everything God has asked me to do. But I have yet to see any reward for this obedience, just punishment. I was told get a license in real estate. I did it, but yet as an agent, I am a failure. I was told to go back to school. I did it, but yet, I incurred seven times more debt than before and I have not landed any job. I go to church and tithe whenever I go, no matter if I have it or not. And now after all my obedience, my home has taken back by the bank and I may have to place my dog in a shelter because I have nowhere else to go. In my life I have worked hard and obeyed God, but I am crying for help and it is like he does not hear me. Why do I feel like this?" A wife writes, "I have been in a relationship for almost six years now and just found out my spouse was cheating on me. I'm an honest, faithful, loyal woman. And I find it hard to believe a just God would allow such a thing to happen to a women like me. WHY ME? I feel like in a matter of minutes, my whole life has been changed. My heart is completely BROKEN. I'm bleeding inside and feel like I am dying. There's no other way to put it. How do I continue on, day by day, with this hole in my chest. I truly believe God has looked upon me and decided I, the sweet, loving, and faithful woman that I am, is worthy of nothing." Mother Theresa's private quotes reflect a sense of abandonment. It's not just ordinary people who wonder if God has forsaken them. Years ago, Time Magazine published some of Mother Teresa's private letters. I guess they are not so private anymore. She begged that they be destroyed before her death. Here is a woman who at a young age, saw visions and heard the call of God to serve the poorest poor in Calcutta. Yet at the end of her life, she felt abandoned and forsaken by God. • "In my soul, I can't tell you how dark it is, how painful, how terrible. I feel like refusing God." • "I want God with all the power of my soul, and yet between us there is terrible separation. Heaven from every side is closed." • "I feel just that terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing." • "If there be God, please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul." • "How painful is this unknown pain. I have no faith." • "I am told God lives in me, and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul." The same article explains how Mother Teresa felt abandoned by Christ, and how she once referred to Jesus as, "the absent one" and to her own smile as, "a mask." In the 1960's, after receiving an important prize, she wrote, "This means nothing to me, because I don't have him." Jesus Christ experienced emotions of feeling forsaken by God. Feeling forsaken, feeling abandoned, feeling alone.... these are powerful emotions. You may be surprised to learn that it isn't just ordinary people, and it isn't just saints like Mother Teresa who experience these emotions. Jesus Christ himself experienced these very same emotions. Hebrews 2:17 tells us that Jesus was made like his brothers in every way. Hebrews 2:18 (NIV) says of Jesus, "Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted." Hebrews 4:15 (NIV) says, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are-- yet was without sin." As painful as life becomes, it's a mistake to conclude that God doesn't understand, or that God hasn't experienced what we are experiencing, or that because we are suffering, God's favor isn't upon us. Consider Mark's testimony about Jesus' agony. Mark 15:15-20 (NIV) tells us, "...He (Pilate) had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified. The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. And they began to call out to him, 'Hail, king of the Jews!' Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him." Mark 15:24-32 (NIV) says, "... Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get. It was the third hour when they crucified him. The written notice of the charge against him read: THE KING OF THE JEWS. They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, 'So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!' In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. 'He saved others,' they said, 'but he can't save himself! Let this Christ, this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.' Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him." Then Mark tells us this startling detail in Mark 15:33-34 (NIV). "At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?'-- which means, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' " Mark 15:37 (NIV) says, "With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last." Did God abandon Jesus in his time of suffering? What are we to make of Jesus' cry for salvation? Has God also abandoned his one and only Son? Has Jesus himself now reached the end of his faith, like so many of us? What many people don't understand is that Jesus' final words are a declaration of his faith in God. Jesus isn't questioning God's sovereignty over his circumstances. He is declaring it! The last words Jesus spoke were the first words of Psalm 22. God wasn't deaf. God wasn't distant. God hadn't abandoned Jesus, forsaken Jesus, or deserted Jesus. Quite the contrary! Hebrews 5:7-9 (NIV) says, "During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him." Did you hear that? Jesus was "heard" because of his reverent submission! In Hebrews 13:5 (NIV) God says to us, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." In Romans 8:28 (NIV) Paul writes, "In all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Psalm 22 Listen to the words of this messianic psalm, which was written hundreds of years before Jesus' birth and death on the cross. Jesus was quoting the scriptures and was expressing his hope in his God, even as he was dying on the cross. Can we take a lesson from our Lord and Savior? "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,by night, but I find no rest. Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the one Israel praises. In you our ancestors put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them. To you they cried out and were saved; in you they trusted and were not put to shame. But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by everyone, despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads. 'He trusts in the LORD,' they say, 'let the LORD rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him.' Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you, even at my mother's breast. From birth I was cast on you; from my mother's womb you have been my God. Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help. Many bulls surround me; strong bulls of Bashan encircle me. Roaring lions that tear their prey open their mouths wide against me. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted within me. My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death. Dogs surround me, a pack of villains encircles me; they pierce my hands and my feet. All my bones are on display; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment. But you, LORD, do not be far from me. You are my strength; come quickly to help me. Deliver me from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs. Rescue me from the mouth of the lions; save me from the horns of the wild oxen. I will declare your name to my people; in the assembly I will praise you. You who fear the LORD, praise him! All you descendants of Jacob, honor him! Revere him, all you descendants of Israel! For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help. From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; before those who fear you I will fulfill my vows. The poor will eat and be satisfied; those who seek the LORD will praise him-- may your hearts live forever! All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him, for dominion belongs to the LORD and he rules over the nations. All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before him-- those who cannot keep themselves alive. Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!"