I Thirst

Welcome to this edition of PowerPoint with Jack playing a little later in the program will tell you how you get a copy of Dr. Graham's book heaven. First, here's the message I first learned from the cross is the only one that draws the attention to the physical suffering of Jesus. All the other words that Jesus has spoken so far have been words of interest to others and with others. When he spoke, father forgive them for they do not know what they did forgiving his enemies. When Jesus on the cross for gave the repentant thief and said today you will be with me in paradise.

When he looked at his mother and his disciple John and sad woman behold your son John behold your mother and then at that moment spiritual separation on the cross when God cried out my God my God why have you forsaken me, and in that moment Jesus was experiencing not just physical suffering, but the eternal suffering of separation from God as a foreboding darkness encroached upon the cross and the land around and in that darkness. Jesus was dying and he was experiencing for us on the cross. The one minute no sin became sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God. But now this fifth word of Jesus. It is near the middle of the afternoon. Jesus was crucified at 9 AM and now his and afternoon and near the end of Christ experiencing death on the cross he refers to himself and simply says we one word I thirst. He cries out for the first time in physical anguish and pain and suffering incredible is that it the one who was the creator of the heavens and the earth and the waters of the deep one who made the rivers of the oceans, the one who made the universe says I thirst the one who causes the rain to fall from the heavens now says I thirst there some powerful spiritual lessons to be learned from this passage. Let's read it together in John chapter 19 beginning in verse 28. After this, Jesus knowing that all was now fulfilled said to fulfill the Scripture. I thirst a jar full of sour wine stood there so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on the hyssop branch and held it to his mouth when Jesus had received the sour wine he said it is finished and he bowed his head and he gave up his spirit. In these words I thirst. Just one word.

I thirst in the language of the Bible, Jesus was expressing both his humanity, as well as his deity. His suffering as well. As his sovereignty. We see the nature of Jesus here vividly displayed at the cross.

He is totally God and yet totally man.

He is on diminished deity, and yet true humanity. No wonder the apostle Paul, the most brilliant mind. The Christian faith is never ever known writing under the authority of Scripture, said great is the mystery of godliness that God was manifest in the flesh, God showed up in the flesh, it is impossible for the human mind to grasp the idea that God could become a man. That is why an evangelical Christian faith through the years. The first heresy the first major era of the Christian faith was not regarding the deity of Jesus denying the deity that Jesus was God, but the very first heresy in the Christian faith was denial of the humanity of Jesus is his call Gnosticism and a number of the New Testament passages are written to counteract this idea of Gnosticism, which was say well, God cannot take on the human body. Therefore Jesus was God, but he only appeared to be human. He was just a spirit being in a body and that was the first heresy we were pretty strong among Christian believers, certainly among conservative Bible believing Christians on the deity of Jesus and we should we should make we must that Jesus is God. But we must also remember that Jesus is man, the son of God is also the son of man and critical to the Christian faith because the God man, Jesus brings the gap between the holiness of God in the humanity of man and made it possible for sinful man, though he was not sand he became sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God. So Jesus was a real man when he became a man, he did not cease to be God. But as God. He did not cease to be man. He was real man.

He was the perfect God and also the perfect man and we see proof of his humanity throughout the Scriptures when he was a Bay wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger dependent upon his mother when he increased as a young man in wisdom and stature in favor with God and man. That means he was human. As a boy we find him asking questions is a man he became tired and needed rest.

Fatigue. He was hungry. He slept. Jesus was a man. Now remember, Jesus was God's man and he was also a man's man the kind of man that could fast for 40 days and 40 nights in the desert and be tempted by the devil.

The kind of man who just before the cross would take a weapon and drive the religious ponies out the temple.

He was a man and he took his sufferings like a man. Jesus would have been without water approximately 18 hours from the time of the Lord's supper to this moment on the cross when he is dying he is without liquid he is without fluid I think about first in the garden of Gethsemane when he is pouring out his soul before God and the small capillaries of his skin. This is a an actual physical condition. It is rare but can it happen that the small capillaries of the skin first and the sweat glands actually begin to lose blood. He was sweating drops of blood. He was sweating like drops of blood and therefore all the time losing liquid losing bodily fluids. He is arrested is taken in the middle the night to the house of Caiaphas, where he is In a hole in a dungeon. He is brought before a religious trial. Several of the six trials in all, both religious and Roman trial. Six trials at all and so he's in a holy standing on his speed. He's he's up and down he standing before the Sanhedrin.

He standing before Pilate, in the midst of all of this he is being scourged by soldiers.

He's led to Herod's judgment hall and then back to the judgment of Pilate is handed over to the soldiers where he is Moncton a crown of thorns is he a strip down a crown of thorns is placed upon his head. They thought he was a victim they didn't know he was wearing the victor's crown, but he's truly bleeding and truly suffering they take a cat of nine tails, a lick tour, which was a long way in which Ronan glass was laced through the through the laces of this weapon they stripped the skin from his back and so he's bleeding profusely, and ultimately carries the cross falls beneath the weight of the cross from exhaust Simon the serene helps Jesus carry the cross and then he is nailed to the cross and now is lifted between heaven and earth, and he is exposed to the heat of the sun for those hours and and he is bleeding enemies losing fluids and these guy so he said I thirst. There were two times in which Jesus was offered a drink earlier. According to Matthew's gospel. The soldiers offered him a sedative. It was Gaul and mixed a mixed drink kind of drug that they would give to prolonged death. Yet Jesus at that point refused. He refused to be drug.

He wanted not to be delirious in this moment, but to bring his full faculties of their's full deity in his full humanity to bear upon the sins of the world. Jesus kept a clear head rather than that, a foggy drug head and therefore he's dying. But now he is thirsty thirst. So what's the point when we suffer in our humanity, we can know that God cares that Jesus has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows that the pain that we experience is very real pain. So when we pray we are not praying to a distant deity who could never understand what we go through, but rather has accepted suffering and surrendered to that suffering he identifies with us. He empathizes with our pain.

He no you know what you're going through and is supported to know that God understands your listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and his message. I thirst faster. This month we have a special gift for listeners give a gift through book heaven you tell us about this powerful. I wanted to encourage God's people for life today by providing a biblical glimpse from God's word of the light that comes unfortunately there's so much misinformation in our culture about what heaven is like, and that many people don't even find it appealing.

After all, he wants to think about spending eternity city in the heavens somewhere playing a harp on a cloud and hugged me and probably not you either.

But God's word reveals a very different picture of heaven is vibrant is excited is a beautiful vision of a real place where you and I will have a real experience in eternity with Christ forever.

The biblical description of heaven is far from boring. It is thrilling and triumphant.

More than that it has the power to energize you as a believer to live every day filled with hope. That's why I believe my book heaven would be such an encouragement to you in these challenging days, so please be sure to request your copy of heaven. When you give today and I pray that it will fill you with hope and love and life for all that God has in store for you in the future and that it inspires you to live only for Jesus today called today and get Dr. Graham's book heaven is our thank you for your gift.

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Now it's get back today's message I thirst. Jesus said I why did he say I thirst well.

As I said to reflect his sufferings, but also to show something very wonderful and very powerful to the Christian and that is that he is fulfilling the Scripture that this terrible experience excruciating, exhausting experience of the cross is not meaningless pain and suffering, but for a purpose that there is purpose in the passion of Christ. When Jesus spoke these words, I thirst. It is in direct fulfillment to the prophecy of the Messiah who would come.

Jesus given in Psalm 6921 Psalm 6921 they gave me also golfer my need and in my thirst. They gave me vinegar to drink reproaches broken my heart. I'm full of heaven as the psalmist went on to say my throat is dry my eyes fail while I wait for my God.

Everything that Jesus did was, according to divine plan, including the fulfillment of prophecy. Remember, the cross was not a terrible human accident, but plan in the eternal counsels of God. The land was slain before the foundation of the world. The cross is not Plan B for the world. This is been God's for ever plan knowing the sinfulness of man to give himself through his son on the cross and so throughout the pages of Scripture and Old Testament Scriptures. There were predictions prophecies related to the coming of the Messiah who he was, what he would be like what he would do, including such things as what we just read what would happen to him on the cross.

Some people skeptically cynically would say Jesus just arranged all these prophetic fulfillment that he just put himself ready himself in to fulfill the role of the Messiah will be reasonable.

There's no way a dying man on the cross can arrange this right what Roman soldiers were doing as it was predicted, gambling for his tunic and and and beating him and mocking him and placing on the crown of thorns and and and a man who would cry out, I thirst on the cross. These these things and and the giving of sour wine to satisfy your thirst. As predicted in the Old Testament. This you say well it was arranged. Yes, it was arranged before the foundation of the world and Jesus surrendered his will to the will of the father to do the perfect will of God. So when he fulfills this prophecy.

This is just one among over 300 prophecies from the Old Testament that identify Jesus as the Messiah, the son of God, the Savior of the world. Now the odds of that happening accidentally or circumstantially are astronomical, the whole laws of probabilities are coming to play here. There was a scientist by the name of Stoner who several years ago just took the eight most central key prophecies concerning Jesus being the Messiah and ran the numbers on what the probability of one man fulfilling this prophecy are these just ate not the 300 but just a what the probabilities would be to give you an idea of what one chance in that many numbers would be it would be like taking silver dollars and stacking them to the D all across the state of Texas. Taking one of those silver dollars and marking it in some way throwing it in the pile, 2 feet deep all across Texas then mixing it altogether and then blocking folding a man and say go pick the silver dollar that is marked – one to the 19th power. So when Jesus fulfills these prophecies is the declaration on his sovereignty of his deity that while things seem to be out of control. His disciples are running. People are crying.

Soldiers are shouting religious leaders are jeering people are staring when everything seemed to be so out of control. King Jesus is under the authority in the assurance that he is doing exactly what the father sent him to do so. Here's the lesson when you choose to obey God as Jesus obeyed God and fulfill his plan and his purpose for your life when you do what Jesus did in view of his suffering in the garden and pray, not my will but you will be done. Father, when you surrender your life to know and to do the will of God and fulfill his purpose then you are living up to the very thing that God made you and design you to be in today and it's not just a way is the best way to live and that's why we should get up every day and say Lord I live under the authority of your word under the assurance of your will that your will is good and perfect and acceptable to me. And though I may suffer, and though there may be circumstances that lead to across. I know that in surrendering to your ways and your will and to your word in my life. You got all of this, you say that you say God I know you got this we know that all things God is working together for the good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

So when there are experiences in your life when you cry out, I thirst.

I heard I saw, I cry when you are walking in the will of God you can know it is not without meaning.

But it is with real purpose and that's a comfort that's an assurance that confidence that we have in Christ. One final word, that is, this is not only a word about suffering and surrender, but is a word about salvation. When Jesus cried out. I first remember what he just experienced the pain, suffering the darkness, the separation from God the father, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me the bleeding. The torture the alienation the desolation the aloneness and now the unquenchable thirst say sounds like helping me exactly the hell of health and separation from God. In this existential and eternal alienation from God and eternal thirst. No satisfaction.

We are made thirsty and we try to fill our lives with other things that may satisfy hopefully satisfy thirst of our souls yet nothing satisfies except the water of life. Jesus tasted death. According to the writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 2 Jesus tasted death for everyone. He cried out, I thirst so that we could never thirst.

He experienced the wrath of God so that we would not experience the judgment of God, he experienced darkness so that we could know like he bore our sins so that we could be forgiven in the last invitation of the Bible in the book of Revelation is whoever is thirsty, come drink of the water of life freely and because Jesus bore our dad and tasted dance and drink the cup the bitter dregs of our sin, so that he might offer us the cup of salvation. He is able to say that everyone of us today I stand at the door and knock anything one hears my voice and opens the coming nine. The old King James listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham in today's message I thirst in a manner when struggles are facing today. You have hope in the premises awaiting you in heaven. And God calls you to say that hope with others today. That's why we want to encourage and inspire you today by sending you pastor Graham's book had this exciting, that takes you straight to Scripture to help me see all that awaits you in the life to come, and how it impacts your life today and hopefully today encouraged to share that hope with others. So don't wait to request a copy.

Heaven is our special thanks for help proclaim God's word through PowerPoint to request your copy when you call today, when 800-7956 27. That's when he attended 795467, .259789 and don't forget to visit Jack Graham.org where you can shop are restored. Give a gift online or sign a productive Graham's free daily email devotion our website again is Jack Graham.Archie pastor went through PowerPoint. Just two simple words I thirst. Jesus wept, but they say a great deal about who Jesus is and his deep love for people how Jesus identifies with us in our humanity.

Whether it is our thirst or our tears, Jesus cares in John chapter 11 we read about the death of one of Jesus friends by the name of Lazarus and I hope it doesn't surprise you to discover that the death of Lazarus brought tears to the eyes.

Jesus, he wept when he saw the pain and the suffering that the family members and friends of Lazarus were experiencing. He also felt it very deeply. The need to cry and to open up with tears in his love for Lazarus and just like on the cross, Jesus knew the big picture. He knew that death was not the end.

But in his own love because he cares so deeply. He expresses through tears, comfort in the face of death and difficulties. He does this for all of us.

There's an old song that I love does Jesus care and the answer is yes, Jesus cares and hear something wonderful about the care and the comfort that Jesus brings to each of us and that is with the comfort that we are comforted we comfort others. That's right out of the Scripture in first Corinthians that we can comfort one another and because God has graced us in love does that helped us through some tough things in our lives, we can turn around and share his love and his grace with others. So sometimes when the tears flow. That's the biggest message of all. Sometimes when we cry out to God on behalf of others that does the most good, because it directs them to across into the Savior who said I thirst and he wept when people suffer, and that is today.

Remember when you give a gift to PowerPoint will see Dr. Graham heaven is our thanks. Call one 800-7954 627-1800 795467 can also text the word PowerPoint 259789 Joyce again next Dr. Graham brings a message. Why is one word spoke on the cross is so significant.

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