2. Christ’s Abandonment at Calvary Psalm 69:2-4

Text: “My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken Me?  Why art Thou so far from helping Me, and from the words of My roaring?  O My God, I cry in the daytime, but Thou hearest Me not; and in the night season and am not silent.”

Psalm 22:1-2.

Good morning, beleaguered Christian!  As your eyes have been drawn to this Bible message, you are under a most vicious and prolonged attack by the enemies of your soul and mine – the world, the flesh, and that old Serpent, the Devil. 

Like king David in Psalm 69, and reflected by the more profound sufferings of Christ on the Cross – you feel that you are under great siege; deep oppression by anti-Christian forces; terrible oppressions and depressions of your Christian spirit, by events which seem to be completely out of your human control.  Thus, you cry out to the Lord God in your beleaguered plight.  “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”  Yet, there seems to be no answer to your pleas.

Dark are the depths of inner sufferings when, for even a moment, the Living Lord God seems to hide His face from the Spiritually regenerate Christian!

Dictionary Definition: Beleaguer – (verb transitive) to lay siege to; to pester… (The Chambers Dictionary, page 145)

Because Christ on that Cross was bearing all the sins of ‘His people’; suffering to pay the full penalty for sins that our thrice Holy Lord God, Jehovah – Father, Son, and Holy Ghost – demanded – the Persons of God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit had to turn their Holy faces from Him there, for our Holy Lord God cannot gaze upon, or tolerate for a moment, SIN.

“Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity…”        (Habakkuk 1:13)

The very thought of our Lord Jesus, God the Son, while praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, soon having to take our sin upon His Holy self - made Him sweat blood, and cry out that the cup might pass from Him to do so. 

A Holy Lord God cannot abide to even glimpse sin, without punishing it with His Holy wrath. All our sins were placed upon Christ Jesus on the Cross, and He paid the penalty demanded for us, and redeemed us with His sinless Blood.  Glory and praise to His Holy Name!  Hallelujah!  What a Saviour!

The Lord Jesus had to endure all the suffering of ‘His people’ on that Cross – and feeling totally abandoned by the Lord God Whom He loved, was part of that redemptive experience for Him. 

Because Christ was victorious for us – for “Up from the grave, He arose…” – we can be assured that, for those of us that are Spiritually regenerated; washed from our sins by Christ’s shed and sinless Blood – we shall NEVER be abandoned by God, ever!  Glory…

“…Be content with such things as ye have: for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.  So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my Helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.”  (Hebrews 13:5-6)

“…Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”  (Matthew 28:20)

Verse 2. “I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.  Our Lord was no faint-hearted sentimentalist; His were real woes, and though He bore them heroically, yet were they terrible even to Him.  He stemmed the torrent of Almighty wrath that we might forever rest in Jehovah’s love.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 298-299)

How, then, can you and I as mere Christians, cope, while experiencing such feelings of oppression and abandonment?  We can look to God’s Word, get a new glimpse of Calvary, and compare our otherwise petty afflictions with the very real sufferings and abandonment of our Saviour Lord, Jesus Christ on the Cross.

Verse 3. “My throat is dried.  Few, very few of His saints follow their Lord in prayer so far as this.  We are, it is to be feared, more likely to be hoarse with talking frivolities to men than by pleading with God; yet our sinful nature demands more prayer than His perfect humanity might seem to need.  His prayers should shame us into fervour.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 299)

Verse 3. “Mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.  Many have said throughout history, ‘The eyes are the windows of the soul.’  What we see with our human eyes informs our souls and paints pictures for our human minds from which we make sense of our personal realities.

Only our dear blind brethren know what it is like to walk though life without the use of this vital faculty called sight. 

This is what the Psalmist, writing at all times under the inspiration of God the Spirit, is seeking to portray for our puny minds to grasp.  Christ, hanging upon that cruel Cross, suffering the punishment you and I so rightly deserved for our sins, was placed in a condition of infinite blindness; as God the Father was compelled by His own Holiness to turn His face from His sin-bearing Son.

“There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin; He only could unlock the gate of Heaven and let us in.” (Cecil F. Alexander, née Humphreys, 1818-1895. First published in her Hymns for Little Children, 1848, page 31, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines, and based upon the words "Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was Crucified, Dead, and Buried," of the Apostles' Creed.)

Verse 4.  “They that hate Me without a cause are more than the hairs of Mine head.  The world, the flesh, and the Devil all detest the Lord Jesus Christ, and His people.  If we were of this world, then the world would love us, but as it hated our Saviour/Lord, so it hates us – and all without a cause.  Christ only suffered to save ‘His people’, all others will have to suffer for their own sins, in that Christ-rejecter’s Hell. (Matthew 1:21)

“We may not know, we cannot tell, what pains he had to bear, but we believe it was for us he hung and suffered there.”  (Cecil F. Alexander, née Humphreys, 1818-1895)

Verse 4. “Then I restored that which I took not away.  Adam’s sin took away mankind’s purity for all of Adam’s race.  Our own sins committed, proves to us that we are born natural sinners in Adam’s fallen image and likeness.  The Lord Jesus restores Eternal life for ‘His people’ by recreating us ‘new creatures in Christ…’  Hallelujah!  What a Saviour! (Ephesians 2:10)

“O dearly, dearly has he loved! And we must love him too, and trust in his redeeming blood, and try his works to do.”  (Cecil F. Alexander, née Humphreys, 1818-1895)

Thought:  Take heart afresh, beleaguered Christian! We have Christ’s Victory always, and He has promised never to leave us nor forsake us.  “It is Finished!”