The Human Side of the Divine

I think most of us treasure the lost words of a loved ones have spoken just before they died.

This of you who heard me enough. No, that the last words that my mother spoke before she went to glory, have impacted me radically and completely for the past 40+ years, and indeed is gonna impact me for the rest of my life because those last words we did not know they were the last words of the time were I can hear them singing. I can hear them singing. I was just there will nobody singing here who singing no one singing and all she would say is I can hear them singing and then very soon after that, she joined the praises of the saints in heaven. From that time on how to become fascinated about this whole issue of the loss words and the deathbed of people and several years ago I come across a pamphlet that contains so many of the loss words of people believers and nonbelievers alike. I'm not gonna tell you all about them.

But I give you some examples. Unbelievers such as Thomas Hobbes was a self professed atheist is lost words reported to be and taking a fearful leap into the dark. The French agnostic Voltaire allegedly said in his deathbed. I am abandoned by God and man.

I shall go to hell. Contrast that with the words of Neil Moody, the great preacher of yesteryear in his deathbed he said this is glorious earth is receiving.

Heaven is opening God is calling me and Jesus his last seven statements from the cross are some of the most cherished words for believers for 2000 years believers throughout the world have treasured those seven words of our Lord, we examine the very first for ones in the past for messages. The first one was around 9 o'clock in the morning 9 AM right after our Lord was nailed to the cross and then that rugged Cross was lifted up on that hill called Google without an right there in the morning.

The first statement was to forgive his transgressors father forgive them for they know not what they're doing and in the middle of the morning he spoke a word of assurance in a word of promise to a repentant sinner on the cross next to him and he said to him today you shall be with me in paradise. Then, toward noon undistracted by his unimaginable and immeasurable pain.

He made provision for his mother by asking John to take care of her and then the fourth statement came when the brightness of noonday gave way to the darkness of midnight, and he under this cry of ministry preserved for us in the very words of the very language that he spoke Eli a lawyer limo suboptimally, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me, and today were going to come to the fifth statement of the seven awesome statements from the cross and is only reported in the Gospel of John chapter 19 verses 28 and 29 later knowing that all was now completed and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled. Jesus said on Thursday by John of wine vinegar was there so they soaked a sponge and it put the sponge on a stalk of Hesse plant and lifted it to Jesus's lips, a father, there is no way on this side of heaven. Can we completely comprehend that the God who created the oceans and the rivers can cry on the cross and say I thirst.

But father is much as we can, through the power of the Holy Spirit, open our spiritual eyes to comprehend the depth of what it means to thirst for you. We pray this in Jesus name, amen. This cry, the fifth statement from the cross was not a cry for provision for others as he forgave the sinners and as he assured the one next to him and as he made provision for his mother this cry is a cry of personal agony. It was a cry of physical pain. It was a cry of dehydration. It was a cry of deep spiritual need is going to see in a minute. Think about this two days prior to the crucifixion, our Lord Jesus have gone through a tremendous amount of tension and apprehension.

First there is the upper room and all of the tension in the apprehension of the upper room when he told him that one of them who were his companions for over three years was going to deliver him to dial across and then followed by the tension in the apprehension of Gethsemane where the Bible said that our Lord was sweating blood asking the father if there's some other way that this cup will pass away from him. The cup of what the cup of that moment of separation that he was about to experience on the cross when he counted your sins and mine in the judgment of our sin on this holy body but then there was the tension in the apprehension of his arrest in Gethsemane. Then there was a trip from Gethsemane to Caiaphas's house and there he was interrogated three different times.

First by Ananias then by Caiaphas, and then by the full Sanhedrin. Then came the trip across the city of Jerusalem from Caiaphas's house to the fortress of Ansonia and there was interrogated for the fourth time by Pontius Pilate that he was dragged across the city of Jerusalem. Again, to the judgment hall of Herod where he was interrogated yet for the fifth time and finally back to Pontius Pilate work for the sixth time. He was interrogated and marked enduring all the time. That is not a single shred of evidence that our Lord was relieved of his personal needs. No evidence of him ever receiving a sip of water with all the tension and all of that apprehension on all of this dehydration. On the contrary, we know the condemned prisoners were brutally dragged from place to place to place thirsty. Then there was the flogging. Most people die during the flogging, but our Lord was so weakened by the flogging that he could not carry the cross up to the crucifixion, then from the flogging. There was the tension of the loss of blood in the lacerations and then this the six hours which he hung on the cross as those nails were tearing up his flesh in his hand.

His feet. No wonder his soul was anguished with the cry of physical thirst in the Semitic languages Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic. We don't often use the personal pronoun. So when Jesus cried that word.

He didn't say I am thirsty as it is translated in English, which of course makes sense in English, but he just said one word thirsty and everybody understood because that's how they spoke thirsty, and when the soldiers gave him the spines the dip into that cheap vinegar wind of the Italians. It is very difficult to honestly know whether it was an act of kindness or active cruelty. Whenever I reflect on the anguish of the cross and that one word thirsty.

I think of two things. First that his thirst assures us that he will always hear the cries of anyone who would come to him and say Lord save me. Secondly, this anguish of his thirst should vividly be remembered by every single believer, particularly in the times of temptation in the times of anger in the times of frustration in the times when we are tempted to cut corners in the times when we attempted not to be faithful to the Lord in all of those times of temptation. We need to remember those words of that word thirsty. First, it is the anguish of his thirst that assures us that he will never never turn down anyone who comes to him crying.

Lord, save me if you have ever doubted that the Lord has heard your cry of surrender.

Please listen carefully.

If you ever doubted that.

Meditate on his cries from the cross.

Meditate on that and that should assure you that he will never not hear you. I know for all of us. There are times when we go through experiencing the Valley of doubt that sometimes we experience the shadow of distress. We go through times of wondering if Jesus will ever keep his promises.

I understand that but when we go through those times. Remember this. Remember the anguish of the cross. Remember that he will always always keep his promises. And he will never go back on his word promises such as this.

Whoever comes to me in no way will I cast out, that those whom the father has given me.

I would lose none that whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved not come unto me all who are troubled and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. Missing Calvary distilled and that one word thirsty thirsty and when you think of that word, remember the words of the apostle Paul when he said that God who spared not his only son, but delivered him up for us, how will he not freely give us in him all things Lord, who suffered of the anguish of the cross would never turn down anyone who comes to him for salvation.

That is his promise. The word I thirst should be assuring to every one of us that our peace treaty with God was signed by the blood of Jesus Christ himself and nobody can take that away from you, not even you.

Secondly, the word thirsty should always surface in the forefront of our minds in the forefront of our thoughts every time you find yourself being tempted to sin. That word has such power to help you overcome meditate on that word.

None of us are going to go very far in this life. If you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ without being attacked by Satan. You know my motto. If you not being attacked by Satan is something wrong because it means that you walk in the same direction with him will have it experience the enemy's assault and let me tell you something I know little bit about that. His attack is always clever. It's always subtle is always crafty. He will come to you at a moment of loneliness. He will come to you at the moment of fatigue, you will come to at a moment of anger. He will come to you in a moment of disappointment. He will come to the moment of hurt because let me tell you this, he knows your Achilles' heel is better than you do, and he's waiting until you get into that moment of weakness. And remember, the Bible said he is like a hungry lion is prowling around is prowling around is prowling around waiting from afar just a little bit in the moment you stumble he pounces on you know you can tell that I have a lot of experience in that area. Whatever it is that is directly and everybody is different from everybody else. Whether it is the grip of greed whether it is unbridled sensuality, whether it is a deep resentment whether it is unresolved anger.

Whatever it is that seems to pull you in all your life you know it, and the devil knows it and he waits for that moment.

But what you need to do at that moment of temptation.

You need to stop. Stop. Stop and meditate on the reality that nailed Jesus to the cross that caused him to cry thirsty thirsty. At that moment of temptation, whatever it may be recall the moment when your Savior cried out, I thirst. And when you do that you will receive power to overcome.

You will receive power to stop, you will receive power to turn. You will receive power to refuse, you will receive power victory, but the something else here that I don't want you to miss.

When John was talking about the fulfillment of the Scriptures. He was thinking of Psalm 42 Psalm 42 says as a deer pendant after water my soul parents after you all God. My soul first for the living God, that you remember the last message on the preceding cry of the cross. Remember, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me with the totality of humanity.

Sin worrying so heavily upon the settlers body with the judgment of our sin that belongs to us, crushing his holy body's with the agony of separation from the father crushing him and with the anguish of seeing the back of the father for the first time since before eternity with him experiencing the wrath of God upon your sin in my skin. He experienced the first that the psalmist prophesied about I don't you to Mrs. our Lord was experiencing physical thirst. But he also was experiencing a spiritual thirst.

He also experienced the first of renewal of fellowship with his father from that separation. He was thirsting for the presence of the father. He was thirsting for the eternal unity with the father that existed before eternity. He was thirsting for his father. What about you what about you when was the last time you thirsty for God. When was the last time you thirsty for the presence of God in your life. When was the last time that you thirst for intimacy with God. Ask yourself the question I ask yourself what broken cisterns are you pursuing in order to be satisfied. What broken system. Are you pursuing to fulfill you. Is it politics. Is it materialism is it physical satisfaction. What salty water are you drinking from thinking that it will satisfy you, and yet all it does it leaves you spiritually parched and ivory, I got a Middle Eastern II get fascinated by the camels. Camels are really ugly creatures. We really are in our God in his wisdom.

I guess made the mildly sick and the survived the desert but they are very helpful for people in the desert because they can live for three months without water three months.

Contrast that with the beautiful dear that cannot stay away from water for too long and that is why the psalmist compares himself to dear as I wanted to ask yourself the question, spiritually speaking. Are you a camel.

Are you a deer DSA away from the Lord for so long and only takes a crisis to bring you back to him or do you thirst for the living God, day in and day out. Only you can answer that the apostle John who wrote that word who heard it with his own ears at the foot of the cross. He is the one also recorded in John chapter 4. The encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ with the Samaritan woman, a woman who tried to satisfy how life with the water of sensuality. She tried to satisfy her life with the counterfeit water of the world, thinking that that's how she's going to be fulfilled.

And Jesus said to her, anyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again and again. The woman sought satisfaction in religious rituals in dead religion in the indent tradition and going from one man to the next.

And Jesus said to her, the kind of water that I give you will give you through satisfaction. If you keep drinking of that water you will never be satisfied.

Some of you are drinking from the well that is written all over it. Just a little bit more just a little bit more of this just a little bit more of that and just little bit more of the other things that were really satisfy me. That will fulfill me. Others are drinking of the well that says if I change my circumstances. I'll be satisfied.

If I change my scraps if I change my house if I have different environment for five different friends. If I have different church.

I'll be satisfied. It is written all over those wells. Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again and again and again and will never know satisfaction but thirsting off the God longing for the living God is the only thirst that can be truly satisfied. Lovely Matteo.

This is a fuller truth to this fifth statement from the cross and the full biblical truth of that thirst is a Jesus was thirsting for the father, but it also. It's a statement of submission. It's a statement of surrender to the father. The Bible makes it very clear that Jesus is God in human flesh, through whom all things were created, how the work. This is how it worked. When the father said, let there be light, Jesus clicked his fingers and there is the sun and the moon and the stars in their office when God the father said, let us make man in our own image. The eternal son of God brought this creation about when God the father said, let there be separation between the dry earth in the water, the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus Christ administered that separation, for he is the one who made all of the oceans of the world and all of the lakes and all of the rivers and all of the streams and all of the waterfall's and yet the one who made it all can hang on the cross and say I thirst in first-graders chapter 10 fault tells us that in the wilderness.

Israel drank from the spiritual rock that followed them and he says that rock was Jesus. This is the same Jesus who cried them across thirsty beloved friends. Please listen carefully him I'm getting close to the end here and I don't want you to miss what I'm going to tell you we are aware of the fact that there are millions of ways for us to assert ourselves to force our opinion to parade our pride to make sure that we get our way. But when you hear the voice of the Lord of glory, saying to you and to me again and again you can do all of that, but for my sake, submit and do it not Jesus suffered physically, he suffered spiritually and willingly.

He submitted his will to the will of the father can we do no less is a good news. The same John who recorded this word of Jesus. This fifth statement from the cross, thirsty is the same John who recorded in the book of Revelation chapter 7 with that when we gather around the Lamb. We shall hunger no more, nor will we first. This presence is the only thing that will slacken and quench our thirst for we shall we be be forever in the presence of the one who is a water of life. I never want to finish a message without giving an invitation to someone whom I have never come to know the only one who can give you satisfaction the only one who can redeem you, the owner can save your terminally the only one who can give you peace. The Lord Jesus Christ. And if you have never committed your life to him. If you've never came to him and taken the first step you can do that today.

As we pray our father, we will never fully comprehend what it means for the God of glory who created the rivers of the world to say I thirst. But he did it in submission to the father for the one who has never come to you. I pray that today they will cry to you, Lord, save me and believing with all their hearts that you already have saved father for those of us who have known you.

We commonly sing the songs and we praying with other Bible studies and we do all the distant things and yet deep down we don't have satisfaction because subconsciously we are seeking after salty waters of the world. So much so that the world even can tell the difference operate today that one word thirsty should make us thirst only after you, your righteousness, your holiness that father the world may see and believe. We pray this in the precious name the name in which everyone, whether they believe a month one day will submit and bow their knees and say yes he is Lord, for the glory of God the father. Amen. Thanks for listening to this message from Dr. Michael. You sat recently featured on leading the way. If you'd like to know more about us, please visit LTW.org that LTW.Ward