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{Daily Reading: 2 Samuel 13:1–14:33}
{Quick Study: 2 Samuel 18:1–20:26}
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? {Psalms 22:1}
We here behold the Saviour in the depth of his sorrows. No other place shows the griefs of Christ so well as Calvary, and no other moment at Calvary is so full of agony as at the time when his cry rends the air - “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” At this moment physical weakness was united with acute mental torture from the shame and ignominy through which he had to pass; and to make his grief culminate with emphasis, he suffered spiritual agony surpassing all expression, resulting from the departure of his Father’s presence. This was the black midnight of his horror; then it was that he descended the abyss of suffering. No man can enter into the full meaning of these words. Some of us think at times that we could cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” There are times when the brightness of our Father’s smile is eclipsed by clouds and darkness; but let us remember that God never does really forsakes us. It is only a seeming forsaking with us, but in Christ’s case it was a real forsaking. We grieve at a little withdrawal of our Father’s love; but the real turning away of God’s face from his Son, who shall calculate how deep the agony which it caused him?
In our case, our cry is often dictated by unbelief: in his case, it was the utterance of a dreadful fact, for God had really turned away from him for a time. Oh you poor, distressed soul, who once lived in the sunshine of God’s face, but are now in darkness, remember that he has not really forsaken you. God in the clouds is as much our God as when he shines forth in all the lustre of his grace; but since even the thought that he has forsaken us gives us agony, what must the woe of the Saviour have been when he exclaimed, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Taken from Mornings & Evenings with Spurgeon edited by Larry & Marion Pierce compliments of New Leaf Press.
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