This
is the edited version of my June 21 message titled, “When Feeling Abandoned by
God.” You can find my recorded message
here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eom9xwGOU10
When Feeling Abandoned by
God
I
wrote about little Berea several years ago, and as I reflected on the
Scriptures for my message today about feeling abandoned by God, the memory
resurfaced. Let me tell you what happened.
As
our home Bible study wound to a close, a young mother ran out to her car for a
package she’d forgotten. She left her two-year-old daughter with half a dozen
adults and children in the living room. But when Berea saw Mommy leave, her
face froze with panic. She raced as fast as her little legs could carry her and
stretched in vain for the doorknob. Her screams were laden with terror, as if
she believed Mommy would never to return.
One
of the other women lifted the child into her arms and tried to calm her. But it
was no use. The toddler only wanted Mommy. And mommy was gone.
A
few moments later mommy returned. She lifted Berea into her arms, rubbed her
back and spoke softly into her ear. In moments, Berea quieted down. Mommy had returned.
All was well.
The
next morning as I spent time with the Lord in prayer, my thoughts drifted back
to that pitiable image of Berea screaming for her mother. And this thought
spread through my meditation: What must it be like for those who
rejected Christ all their lives and then find themselves on the other side of eternity’s
door – knowing with horrifying certainty – Father has left and is never coming
back?
I
cannot imagine the unending and inconsolable grief of those who know they will
remain FOREVER on the other side of that door. THAT is what every man and woman
on this planet who has rejected Christ has to look forward to: Total, absolute,
and unending abandonment by God with no hope of change.
That
brings us then to our text for today. The context is Christ’s crucifixion. “And those passing by were hurling
abuse at Him, wagging their heads and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and
rebuild it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come
down from the cross.” In the same way the chief
priests also, along with the scribes and elders, were mocking Him and
saying, “He saved others; He cannot save
Himself. He is the King of Israel; let Him now come down from the cross,
and we will believe in Him. He trusts in God; let God
rescue Him now, if He delights in Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” The robbers who had been crucified
with Him were also insulting Him with the same words. Now
from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until
the ninth hour. About
the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli,
Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You
forsaken Me?”
Dropping now to verse fifty: And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up
His spirit.”
The other gospel writers
record the last two statements Jesus made after His cry of abandonment and before
He yielded up His spirit. They are vital to the point of my message today about
when we feel God has abandoned us.
John tells us Jesus cried out, “It is finished.” (John 19:30). Luke
tells us Jesus also said to the Father, “Into Thy hands I commend My spirit.”
(Luke 23:46)
Some believe Jesus’ last temptation occurred in
the Garden of Gethsemane in which He begged the Father to let the cup pass from
Him. His sweat became like drops of blood as He agonized over what was about to
happen to Him on Golgotha’s hill. But, as you will recall, despite His agony
and fear, He resolutely acquiesced to the Father’s will and said, “Not
my will, but Thine be done.”
I do not believe for a moment that that
moment in the Garden was Satan’s last attempt to pull Jesus off track. The
devil’s last temptation occurred while Jesus hung on that cross.
With the exception of John, all His disciples
had left Him. And then there were the sarcastic, spiteful comments from the mob
at the foot of the cross. “If You are the Son of God, come
down from the cross.” Others mocked, “Hey look-y here. He saved
others; He can’t save Himself. He trusts in God; let
God rescue Him now, if God really cares about Him.’”
THIS
was Jesus’ final temptation. An orchestrated
attack and attempted seduction by the devil for Jesus to despair, to wonder to
Himself, “Why should I go on?”
Have
you ever gone through a Dark Night of the Soul? That’s what some call a period lasting
days, or months – maybe longer – during which they felt God had abandoned them.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta may be the most extensive
case on record. According to her letters read after her death she endured her
dark night for nearly 50 years, from 1948 until 1997, with only brief
interludes of relief.
And
during your own dark night, the devil is always quick to mock you, “If you are really
a child of God, if God REALLY cares about you, then why are these things
happening to you?”
Now
before I continue, let me assure everyone who has been born again through their
baptismal faith in Jesus’ blood atonement for their sins – let me assure you on
the basis of Scripture – not my opinion, but on the basis of Scripture: God
NEVER abandons you.
At
times it might seem like or feel like He has left you, but God, who cannot lie,
has said it over and over, He will never leave any of His born-again children.
One of my favorite passages illustrating this truth is in Isaiah 49:
“But Zion said,
“The Lord has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me.” “Can a woman
forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even
these may forget, but I will not forget you. “Behold, I
have inscribed you on the palms of My hands. (Isaiah 49:14-16a) And
in Hebrews in which the writer quotes Jesus: “I will never desert you,
nor will I ever forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5)
There are scores
of other passages like this one, but I hope you get the point that God never
forsakes His children brought to Himself through the blood of Jesus.
St. Padre Pio
wrote this in 1914 (he was only 27 at the time): “Jesus
is always with you, even when it seems you do not feel him. He is never closer
to you then when you are in spiritual battle . . . . For the sake of love, I
implore you, by all that you hold most sacred, do not wrong him by suspecting,
even slightly, that you have been abandoned by him, not even for a single
instant. This is precisely one of the most satanic temptations and you need to
thrust it far from you as soon as you become aware of it.”
And let me tell
you WHY God will never forsake any of His children. It’s because He abandoned
His own Son when Jesus substituted Himself for you, when Jesus took your sins
and my sins on Himself on Calvary’s tree. Paul tells us Jesus BECAME SIN for us
(2 Corinthians 5:20-21).
When Jesus the Man
– (remember, Jesus from His conception in the virgin womb of Mary, was
fully God and fully Man at the same time) – when Jesus the SINLESS Man became
sin for us, the Father turned away from Him because God cannot look on sin for
even a nanosecond.
Go back for a
moment to my story about Berea. If Jesus had not done what He did, if He had
not BECOME our sin, then when we die and stand before the judgment seat of God,
God would have no choice but to reject us, to turn away from us, to abandon us
to our sins in an eternal lake of fire.
We would be forever on the other side – the wrong side – of that eternal
door.
THAT is why the
cross of Christ was so necessary for our eternal salvation. God will not
abandon you or me at the judgment – because God the Father abandoned Jesus
instead! In OUR PLACE.
OH! Think on that for a while!
But
there is much more to this lesson of when the Father abandoned His Son because
of our sin.
Despite
the devil’s final temptation for Jesus to despair, even in the midst of His own
dark night of the soul – Jesus did what you and I must also do to follow in His
steps: That is, to continue to entrust ourselves to the Father to do what is
right.
Here
is what the apostle Peter tells us about this event on the cross: “For you
have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you,
leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, who committed
no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; and while
being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no
threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges
righteously.(1 Peter 2:21-23)
I hope you caught that last phrase. In His Dark
Night of the Soul, Jesus kept on entrusting Himself to His Father who, Jesus
knew, judges righteously.
Here
is another example, this one from Psalm 44. Here
is the context starting at verse 10. The psalmist says to God: You cause us to turn back from the adversary; And
those who hate us have taken spoil for themselves. You
give us as sheep to be eaten and have scattered us among the
nations. You sell Your people cheaply and
have not profited by their sale. You make us a reproach to our neighbors, a scoffing and a derision to those
around us. You make us a byword among the
nations, a laughingstock among the peoples. . . .
Now to verses 17 and 18. Please
listen closely to what he writes: “All this has come upon us, but we
have not forgotten You, and we have not dealt falsely with Your
covenant. Our heart has not turned back, and our steps have not
deviated from Your way.”
And finally, for the sake of our
point, let’s turn to Job chapter 13. You
know the context of Job’s story. In one fell swoop, Job lost his children, his
wealth, and then his health. One soul-rending tragedy after the other. Even his
beloved wife said to him, “Do
you still hold fast [to] your integrity? Curse God and die” (Job 2:9)
And
to compound his misery, Job’s so-called
friends pontificated that he surely must have been guilty of all manner of
sins, otherwise God would not be letting him suffer as he was.
But
we must respect the man’s spiritual maturity and his confidence in a God who judges
and does righteously. A few chapters later, despite all he was enduring, Job
cries out, “Though He slay me, yet I will trust in Him.” (13:15, AKJV)
What’s
the point? Jesus the man – a human being with the same emotions as you
and I have – Jesus knew the Father had abandoned Him because as our
substitute, He was bearing on Himself all our sins. That is why God NEVER
abandons His children who have been born again into His family – because He
abandoned Jesus in our place.
So,
when you are in your own Dark Night of the Soul – whether for a day, a month,
or longer – and you remain unaware of any unconfessed sins – then keep doing
as Jesus did – who kept entrusting Himself to the Father who judges righteously.
Keep
doing
as the psalmist did, who said, “All
this has come upon us, but we have not forgotten You . . . Our heart has
not turned back, and our steps have not deviated from Your way.”
Keep
doing
as Job did, who proclaimed and affirmed from the midst of his sackcloth and
ashes, “Even if You kill me, I will still TRUST in You.”
Oh
God the Holy Spirit, make it always so in our lives. Amen.
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