As great as our God is, He cannot reach across the great chasm all the way to sinful man. Neither can man — though He rises to the greatest possible height — reach God. At this one basic point all religions of the world are helpless and without one ounce of spiritual hope. This is the dividing line that leaves Christianity at the pinnacle. It was a perfect man swallowed up with his sorrows that bellowed out, “Neither is there any DAYSMAN between us, that might lay his hand upon us both” (Job 9:33). But, that was before “Emmanuel” was born of a woman and died on a cross.

The depravity of the human family is hardly a subject of choice for our sociological world. The great accomplishments in positive thinking and artistic living have left the inner man refusing to see his moral bankruptcy. We have learned in our foolishness to speak a language of such guiltlessness that sin is nothing but a disease or negative thinking. To speak of sin or immorality is considered uneducated. To need a spiritual crutch is a sign of terrible weakness.

This kind of high class living works well when in perfect health and awash in pleasure and money, but it disappears as life enters a crisis stage. Sadly, the multitudes are so entrenched in their godless thinking that His redemptive powers cannot be considered. The answers they seek are the same empty platitudes as the problems. What a hopeless way to reach one’s closing stage of life.

The saintly life may be considered outdated, but it is certainly not outclassed. The word independent is not even in the Authorized Bible, not one time. God created us to need Him, to need our family, and to need one another; but above all is the fact that we need Him. But, God is out of reach. Our sins have placed a great gulf between His holiness and the created family. Even when we reach for Him, He is of a divine class far superior to our fallen state.

That’s where the God of The Holy Bible had a plan even before the fateful moment in a garden paradise. Man was His chosen creation, just a little lower than His Angels. The Father’s family was divinely created and of a class that no angel, seraphim, or cherubim could redeem. It had to be redemption in the Divine class and there was only one Son of God. This Divine Son had a perfect right to the Father’s presence, so He, indeed, could hold the Father’s hand.

An unspoiled virgin was chosen, in whom the Divine could indwell without the stain of human blood. That Son was eternal and human at the same moment. In His Son of Man’s body He could hold the hand of the human race without turning loose of the hand of God. Even as He hung on the cross, His reach was complete. When He declared, “It Is Finished,” He was grasping the hands of fallen man and lifting those hands to touch God. It was a mighty moment when the DAYSMAN of Job’s plea provided the perfect fellowship of full redemption.

Prayer was wonderful in the First Testament, but it is dynamic in the New Covenant. Men, like Daniel or Elijah, wrought great victories for their God. There were also many that suffered and never knew the triumph of their faith. “And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect” (Hebrews 11:36-40).

The unparalleled victory of the Cross and the Resurrection is presently enthroned at the Father’s right hand. He is our perfect victory and our High Priest and advocate. When Stephen was being stoned, He stood up as his DAYSMAN and He never gets tired of interceding for His saints. The Bible states, “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). This touch He feels is as real as holding our hands while He reaches to His Father’s Hand beside Him on the Throne.

There is no truth in Scripture that triumphs this revelation. He is our DAYSMAN. There is no gulf of sin or human dilemma that is too wide for that hand to reach across. When sin is confessed, forsaken, and cleansed by His blood; the “Mighty Redeemer” draws that soul into the fellowship and family of God. Prayer becomes powerful, worship is a fellowship of joy, and the Holy Bible becomes Divine words that sanctify and cleanse. We do not need to reach into the realm of the Heavenly City because His Hand reaches all the way for us. Actually, He has, “….raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6).

The saints of God, who have their names written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, should be the most excited people in the world. For almost 2000 years, the church has served the King of the Jews and has been grafted contrary to nature into the True Vine. We are spiritually His chosen people, fulfilling His will by proclaiming the good news of salvation. Our future is star studded. We are going to be His eternal Bride and dwell in the foursquare city of New Jerusalem. Even though we are called a wild olive tree by Apostle Paul, we are not called less than precious by the Lord Jesus Himself.

His Gospel message of redemption has been preserved alive by His church and tens of millions have been redeemed from sin. The Scripture states, “For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? For if the first fruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches” (Romans 11:15-16). For two millenniums, the only message of reconciliation has been declared by His called and chosen saints. Now, in the end of this age, we are about to behold the return of the Jews to the Messiah they rejected and shared in crucifying. These are the very people that God used to preserve the seed of woman until a virgin named Mary could hear God’s voice, be overshadowed by the Holy Ghost, and bear the Son of Man to be “Emmanuel, God with us.” Such a moment could not have occurred without the chosen people of Israel.

Jesus announced to a sinful Samaritan woman, “Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22). The Jews were not better than the Gentiles because any Gentile could be redeemed by simply accepting the true God as taught by His people. In fact, two Gentile women were converted, became part of the lineage of the Messiah, and helped preserve the seed of woman. God is no respecter of persons. The Jews were not chosen because they were superior. The only superiority anyone possesses is the result of their being chosen, not the basis of His choices. God alone chose men and women who were pure of heart and willing to follow Him. The result was His chosen people. That was true in the First Testament and it is certainly true in the New Testament.

The hour has come for the Jews to be reconciled. Ezekiel spoke of this day for Israel and said, “After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations…” (Ezekiel 38:8). Zechariah spoke of the same day, “Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem” (Zechariah 12:2). It is impossible to separate what has already happened to Israel from the rest of the story. How quickly the final moments of their spiritual redemption might occur cannot be set, but occur it will.

When the Rapture of the saints has transpired, the time of Jacob’s trouble must begin. It will be brutal beyond measure, but the darkness of the hour will only serve to create the spirit of grace in the hearts of those that escape. God Himself will act in that hour. “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn” (Zechariah 12:10). As the suffering Jews mourn for their Messiah, He will return to the place of His ascension. It appears that they will see Him on the Mount of Olives or as He enters the Golden Gate of the Temple Mount. What a statement! “And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends” (Zechariah 13:6). My imagination fails me to fully describe the glory of this moment.

After thousands of years of praying for the Messiah — only to reject Him when He appeared — they will look upon Him, see the wounds inflicted at the cross, and will say to Him, “the Lord is my God” (Zechariah 13:9). The church that has sacrificed much — sent some of its best to die as missionaries on foreign soils, served the King unto death, which was often premature, and fought to win the prize — should be shouting with joy that His own brethren are soon to be saved. Their literal city, Jerusalem, will escape its present bondage to become the capitol of the whole earth and the palace of the King of Kings. Hope is in the air!

Seven is God’s number for completion — the whole of any Biblical truth. Seven days was His initial design in all of creation. From that moment in the Garden of Eden, God has always required a seventh day of rest. When the Ark finally came to rest and Noah opened the door to step out into a new beginning, it was the first day after the Sabbath. When Moses walked down onto a highway in the midst of the Red Sea, it was another new beginning — the day following the Sabbath. Jesus Christ was first seen after His death at the sunrise of our new beginning. This is why we worship on the Lord’s Day. “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet” (Revelation 1:10).

It is arresting to study the seven great pronouncements of Jesus Christ on the Cross. These were not happenchance words, but the perfect mastery of all redemption. There isn’t any part of the Gospel or the hope of His sacrifice that is missing from His dying words.

As a mob of haters encircled His cross of death hurling angry words, He was overwhelmed with the guilt of all their sins. They railed on Him, mocking His claim of rebuilding the temple when He could not even save His own body. They cried, “If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him” (Matthew 27:42b). The air was thick with malice and with the sounds of railing and it rang with demonic laughter. He suddenly proclaimed, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34b). It was the prayer of the Gospel, all inclusive of every soul. He did not pray for these — a narrow term. He prayed for them — an inclusive word.

Calvary was a universal event and the Son of God was sure to show that all regions of creation were in His scope. A thief hanging on His right side at first railed on Him, but then fell under conviction. He could watch the Divine scene in his unbelief no longer, but cried, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom” (Luke 23:42b). The Son of God was ready to save the thief, but also ready to reach back to the first covenant and marry the two Testaments together. He spoke with absolute authority, “Verily, I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43b). The Son of God was not just defeating the devil on earth. He was defeating Him all the way back to the first Adam and right down into Abraham’s bosom, where the righteous dead were waiting for a highway to the sky.

The human family was on His heart and He revealed a love of His earthly pilgrimage. He exemplified our responsibility for one another by taking care of the mother of His sinless birth. Did He cast His eyes at her while she was weeping behind the throng of angry priests? That is unknown. But, He said, “Woman, behold thy Son!” (John 19:26b. Then, so that all present knew that He spoke of John, He declared, “Behold thy mother!”(John 19:27b).

After hours of extreme suffering, a beating of many lashes by strong and cruel soldiers, and the inner horror of a world of sin, His body was like a dried shell. So unwilling to complain, His flesh ushered the simple words, “I thirst” (John 19:28). What an understatement to escape His lips. His body was a sacrifice and the total destruction of His flesh was necessary to complete the penalty of sin. There could be no life left in Him; yet, no man was able to take life from Him. He is hanging on the cross but stripped of all except the Divine that existed somehow between the flesh and the sacred.

In that moment, the Father turned His head, the sun went out, and the universe began a slow and escalating tremor. For three hours, the world was in the balance. Then, the railing ceased, the dark blasphemies were finished, and God on the tree tasted a world of shame. When the darkness began to subside, the Son of God explained the mystery. “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34b). In those simple words He described the entire three hours of hell.

Then, He said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). The only possibility of those words, “It is finished,” being perfectly fulfilled is the truth of the first five utterances from His lips. From that moment, there would never be another drop of blood needed in all eternity for sin. In a few hours He did what rivers of blood had failed to accomplish for centuries. When His death was finished on Calvary’s Hill, the Temple hill was out of business. He declared, “Father into thy hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46), and quickly slipped down to Abraham’s bosom to announce His triumph. The greatest death in human history would become the greatest victory in three days and three nights. He would be back an d the world would never be the same. The sun has risen in the garden of His entombment.