God bless you today! Welcome to another segment with Jesus Christ for Muslims. Today we are going to be answering some questions that a lot of the people that watch our videos have sent us by email or any other means for communication and I hope that during this time that we talk to you about these important questions that the Holy Spirit somehow will just come into your life and into your soul and spirit and just give you witness of what the answers to these questions are.
I want to say that I am no perfect person, I don’t know all the answers to all the questions but I do know that I trust completely in what The Holy Spirit wants us to communicate with his people and I am relying that as I answer these questions to the best of my abilities that I not only do it with my mind but that my heart also takes part in answering these questions. The word of God says in Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is alive and powerful it is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword cutting between the soul and the spirit between joints and marrow it exposes our innermost thoughts and desires”. like in Hebrews 4:12 and I truly believe that when we ask the Lord to give us understanding that he gives that to us when we have questions.
So the first question that we want to address today is:
If Jesus knew that He was going to be forsaken, if He knew that the purpose of His life was to be sacrificed for His people, if He knew that God had decided for Him then why did Jesus say on the cross? “My God, my God why have you forsaken me”, Does that mean He didn’t know anything about what was going to happen, Does this mean He was surprisingly crucified and then He was complaining to God, Does this mean that He was not the son of God or his messenger and these are very good questions.
The declaration that Jesus did on the cross is found in the scriptures in Matthew 27:46 “As He was hanging on the cross, He was receiving your faults, my faults, He was receiving the punishment for your sins and my sins” and this is Jesus Christ, someone who Had never committed a sin, someone who always did what the Lord had directed Him to do. He was obedient The Bible says and even obedient to death. So, when our sins and your sins were upon Jesus Christ and He was suddenly being filled by all of our sins because He had to take those sins upon His body because He was dying for those sins because The Bible says that the wages of sin is death. So Jesus knew He had to die but He had always been with God, He had always been with His Father, He had always felt His presence around Him and suddenly when all of these sins were upon Him, He sensed, His spirit sensed that God wasn’t around and we have to understand that Jesus was God and man.
The word of God says in Isaiah 7:14 “For the Lord himself will give you a sign. look a virgin will conceive a child and she will give birth to a Son and His name will be called Immanuel which means the God is with us”. And at that moment Jesus suddenly felt and knew that God wasn’t around Him because God cannot be where there is sin. That’s why there was a separation from God and man because when man sinned there was a big division between them both, a big barrier because God cannot be where there is sin. God is Holy and sin cannot abide close to God so when God saw his one and only begotten son full of your sins and of my sins. I can only imagine that God had to turn his face around and Jesus felt that, Jesus felt that God was no longer looking at Him because He couldn’t bear to see his perfect, Holy one and only son full of your sins and my sins.
So, it wasn’t that Jesus was surprised when He was on the cross and He was dying but rather He felt this disconnection from the Lord. You know that the other day I was walking around the streets talking to this man all of a sudden I was telling him about Jesus and the love of God that he has and which everyone one of us. And he says what love of God, I don’t feel any love of God, I don’t think God loves me, I think God has abandoned me. So the true essence of what he was saying was that he didn’t feel God around him because he was a man full of sin. And if you don’t declare your sins and confess your sins to the Lord then how can you receive His forgiveness, how can He abide with you, how can He be Immanuel “God with us”, God cannot be where there is sin that is why God sent his one and only son to die on that cross to bury your sins and my sins.
So, that then you and I can be covered by the sanctification or the holiness that Jesus provides to us so that then we can have communion, then we can have fellowship with God and live with God and feel Him around us all the time. And just like Jesus, when He took that sin upon Himself on that cross and He felt that God wasn’t with Him anymore.
After we have received Jesus, suddenly we walk around this world, we walk around this life and we commit a sin because we are human, we are not perfect, we do something that we shouldn’t do or we say something that we shouldn’t say and suddenly the Holy Spirit gives you a kind of hit in your chest and your soul and you feel like you have committed a sin and immediately your body, your soul, your mind says “Lord forgive me because suddenly I felt like you were not with me because God cannot be with you when you are full of sin, you need to be washed by the blood of Jesus, you need to be cleansed, you need to be made holy because to see the Lord you have to be Holy and to be Holy you and I cannot be Holy by ourselves we need Jesus in our lives, we need him to make us Holy so that then we can be and abide with God.
There was another scripture I wanted to say, that I wanted to read this morning or this moment when we are talking here. The interesting thing about Jesus and the relationship He had with God. The Bible says in John 3:13 “no one has ever gone to Heaven and returned but the Son of man has come down from Heaven” you know what this wants to tell us is that you and I really don’t know what Heaven is all about. We have an idea because we have read the word of God, He has given us some revelations and there are certain things that we believe are going to be in Heaven by those things that we have felt but Jesus, Jesus was someone who was already in Heaven, He was already in God presence and when He came to earth He knew that this world knew nothing about what it was to be in the presence of God. So at that time on the cross when He cried out to the Lord “why have You forsaken me” that’s when He also said it because He knew that suddenly He felt completely disconnected from Heaven even from the place where He came from because He felt that He was covered with sin and He wanted God to be with Him at all times.
So, no it wasn’t any surprise for Jesus that He died on the cross, it was no surprise for Him anything that was going on, He always knew what was going on, He always knew what He had to do that’s why He was in constant communication with Jesus Christ. And I ask you today what do you want for your future, what do you want for your life, do you want to live your life just a day at a time, whatever happens, happens or do you want to live your life with a purpose, with an objective, with something that says, you know what I want to live this life in a way that I can reflect the love of God, the love of God in my life and share it with others because when you receive something from the Lord so beautiful, so precious, so valuable the best thing you can do then is share it with others.
So, I encourage you today if you haven’t accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior ask Him, ask Him to come into your heart and confess all your sins to Him, believing what He has done on that cross when He cried out to the Lord God his Father and believe that He took your punishment and now because He died and resurrected on the third day. He has the authority and the power to forgive all of our sins and to make us holy before the Lord.
I like to pray with you for a few minutes and we will close this segment,
“Dear Lord we thank you for this time, we thank you for the understanding you have given us that you have never forsaken us, you have always been with us Lord but You cannot be where there is sin and that’s why when Jesus was on the cross and He carried our sins upon Himself because He bore our judgment, He bore our sacrifice, He bore even our death that we deserve for that sin. You had to turn back and not see all of that sin upon Him. You just couldn’t resist it but Father you then turned back and saw Him and You gave Him the strength to continue on this thing that He was doing on that cross which is to die for all humanity so that we could have a relationship with You. And I ask You, Lord, that everyone who is hearing this message today may open their heart and understand Lord the love that You have for them so that they too might cry out to you and you may come to them and rescue them from their sins, cleanse them completely make them righteous, make them holy before your throne Lord so that then they can be called your children and that then we can live eternally with you we ask you all this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I pray that you did that prayer with me and that you do your best you can to serve the Lord with all your heart. If you have any other questions you want us to address please contact our Jesus Christ for Muslims by correspondence, by email and we will make sure to address many of those as we can. Thank you for your time.
Pastor Samuel R Garza