1.     Last words are interesting. On the day that Karl Marx died (March 14, 1883), his housekeeper came to him and said, “Tell me your last words, and I will write them down.”

2.     Marx replied, “Go on, get out!  Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough!”

3.     Contrast this with the great preacher John Wesley, whose last words were, “The best of all is, God is with us.”

4.     Or DL Moody, who said, “Earth recedes; Heaven opens before me. No, this is not a dream.  God is calling me and I must go.”

5.     This is very interesting.  But far more interesting and far more wonderful are the last words of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.

6.     Do you recall in John 7, when the Pharisees said to the temple officers, “Why have ye not brought him (referring to Jesus)?”  The officers answered, “Never man spake like this man” (John 7:46).

7.     Our Lord said in John 6:63, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”

8.     This being the time of the year when we commemorate our Lord’s death and resurrection, I would like to look tonight at our Lord’s seven last sayings from the cross.

I. FATHER, FORGIVE THEM…(LUKE 23:34).

1.     Our Lord’s first word from the cross was “Father.” 

2.     Our Lord’s first word from the cross was a prayer. 

3.     Regarding this prayer from the cross, Lehman Strauss wrote, “For Christians, Christ gives a perfect example on the cross of a precious ministry that can be performed in behalf of others when there is nothing else that one can do.  If one is incapacitated, and his hands and feet can do nothing to serve others, that one can pray.  God has allowed many a saint of His to linger on a bed of illness for the specific purpose of engaging in a ministry of prayer, and I do not doubt that much has been accomplished through such intercession.  Child of God, let not one of us ever regard himself as being beyond usefulness.  If we cannot attend meetings, give out tracts, teach a Sunday school class, preach, or write a book, we can all pray as long as we are conscious” (Listen!  Our Dying Saviour Speaks). 

4.     This first word from the cross was a fulfillment of Isaiah 53:12, where it says our Lord “made intercession for the transgressors.”

5.     “Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).  Peter said to the Jews in Acts 3:17, “And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers.”

6.     This ignorance and spiritual blindness appears to be getting worse and worse.  Second Corinthians 4:3 and 4 says, “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”

7.     We are surrounded by lost sinners, blinded by the god of this world.  Our job is to give them the Gospel (cf. Acts 26:18).

II. VERILY I SAY UNTO THEE, TODAY SHALT THOU BE WITH ME IN PARADISE (LUKE 23:43).

1.     I mentioned that our Lord’s first word from the cross was a fulfillment of Isaiah 53:12.  So was the second – “and He was numbered with the transgressors.”

2.     One of my favorite hymns was written by William Cowper: “There is a Fountain Filled with Blood.”

3.     “The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day;
And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.
Washed all my sins away, washed all my sins away;
And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.”

4.     These precious words from our dying Saviour refute the delusions of SDA and the JW’s and other cults.  This promise from our Lord refutes the errors of Rome.  There is no soul-sleep.  There is no purgatory.

5.     “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (II Cor. 5:8).

6.     While we rejoice in the conversion of the repentant thief, we must also warn careless and indifferent sinners about the impenitent thief.

III. WOMAN, BEHOLD THY SON… (JOHN 19:26, 27)

1.     In our Lord’s third message from the cross, He spoke to His mother and to John, the apostle who wrote the Gospel of John, the epistles of John, and the book of Revelation.

2.     As our Lord hung on the cross – in pain and agony – His concern was not for Himself, but for others.  What a lesson for us!

3.     His first prayer from the cross was for others.

4.     His second word from the cross was a promise to the repentant thief that he would be with Christ in paradise – that day.

5.     And now, His third word was for His mother Mary.  RC’s have twisted these words to defend their idolatrous worship of Mary.  But this is not Scriptural.

6.     The fifth commandment is, “Honour thy father and thy mother” (Exodus 20:12).  Our Lord did not have an earthly father, and most Bible teachers believe His stepfather Joseph died at an early age. 

7.     So our Lord was looking out for His mother.  He does not pray to her.  He does not worship her.  Nor does He tell John to worship Mary.  He simply says, “Behold thy mother!”

8.     And then we are told, “And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home” (John 19:27). In other words, He did what our Lord wanted him to do.  He took care of Mary (probably because she was a widow).  After Luke 2 (when our Lord was 12-years old), we never see Joseph again.  He is not mentioned at the wedding at Cana in John 2.

9.     Have you ever wondered why our Lord addressed His mother as “Woman,” rather than “Mother”?  I believe it is because our omniscient Lord knew that later on, idolatrous and Biblically-illiterate Romanists would worship Mary as “the Queen of Heaven” and “the Mother of God.”

10. In fact, if you study this, you will notice that in the four Gospel accounts our Lord never did address Mary as “Mother.”

11. First Timothy 2:5 says, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

12. Well, then why did our Lord say to John, “Behold thy mother”?

13. I think it was to comfort Mary – letting her know that John would take care of her as if she were his own mother.

IV. MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME? (MATT. 27:46)

1.     This fourth word from the cross is a fulfillment of Psalm 22:1.

2.     It is different in many ways from our Lord’s other sayings.  First of all, it is recorded in two Gospels – Matthew and Mark.

3.     The first, second, and seventh sayings are recorded only by Luke.  The third, fifth, and sixth are recorded only by John.  

4.     Also, this is the only word from the cross that is recorded in the original language (either Hebrew or Aramaic).  This is why some of them that stood by the cross said, “This man calleth for Elias (Elijah)” (Matt. 27:47; cf. 27:49).

5.     There is a profound mystery surrounding this cry from the cross. It is a cry of despair and desolation.  We do not have the time to expound it tonight. 

6.     Habakkuk 1:3 says, “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity.”  In other words, God is holy and cannot look upon sin.

7.     The Bible teaches the substitutionary death of Christ.  “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin” (II Cor. 5:21).

8.     “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree” (Gal. 3:13).

9.     The holy, sinless Son of God bore all our sins – all the filthy sins of this sin-loving world. He bore the full penalty for sin. That meant (temporary) separation from God. 

10. Notice our Lord did not address God as “Father” (Matt. 27:46).  Because He was identified with sin, and because He took the place of condemned sinners, He was banished from God’s presence.

11. He uttered that horrible cry so that we might not have to utter it.

V. I THIRST (JOHN 19:28)

1.     The fifth word from the cross was also a fulfillment of prophecy.  Psalm 69:21 says, “They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink” (cf. John 19:28, 29).

2.     These words remind us of Christ’s humanity.   The Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God.  He became a man, and yet was still God.  He is both God and man, in two distinct natures.

3.     These words also remind us that Christ suffered on the cross so that we will not have to suffer in hell.  

4.     Remember our Lord said the rich man in hell was tormented in the fires of hell.  He begged Abraham to send Lazarus, “that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame” (Luke 16:24).

5.     The same Saviour who said to the woman at the well, “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:13, 14) was now crying from the cross, “I thirst” (John 19:28).

VI. IT IS FINISHED (JOHN 19:30)

1.     Thank God, our Lord did not say He was finished.  He said, “It is finished” (John 19:30).

2.     The finished work on the cross is a precious doctrine.  Sinners at the cross reviled our Lord.  They mocked Him and wagged their heads, and said, “If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Matt. 27:40).

3.     I am glad He did not come down from the cross.

4.     Hebrews 10:11, 12 says, “And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.”

5.     Hebrews 10:14 says, “For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.”

6.     Since Jesus said, “It is finished,” there can be no mass. 

7.     Since Jesus said, “It is finished,” there can be no purgatory.

VII. FATHER, INTO THY HANDS I COMMEND MY SPIRIT (LUKE 23:46)

1.     We are reminded again that no man took our Lord’s life from Him.  He said in John 10:17, 18, “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.  No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.”

2.     “And having said thus, he gave up the ghost” (Luke 23:46b).  “Gave up the ghost,” means our Lord released His spirit voluntarily.  “He was not gasping for breath in an attempt to prolong life” (L. Strauss).

3.     Our Lord died willingly.  And our Lord died victoriously. 

4.     Our Lord died for you and for me.