Now normally in the spring of the year, people are shaking off the lethargy that winter brings and they're coming out from their houses and cleaning up. People are beginning to make plans for the summer and outdoor activities are once again filling everyone's mind. Flowers are blooming and there is a sense of new life budding from the bleakness of winter. And Fridays in the spring of the year are usually very busy and exciting as people are making plans for the weekend and the laughter of children fills the air. The bright sunshine of the springtime just makes everyone come alive. But this Friday is different. The discussions around Jerusalem on this day do not concern plans for the weekend, but center on an itinerant preacher who was hanging on a cross just outside the city gate. This man once commanded large crowds who listened to him speak about things they had never heard. And oh, the miracles. This man performed miracles. He healed their bodies. He opened their blind eyes. He caused crippled to walk again. Even more than that, the miracles. Nobody ever spoke like this man spoke. Many of them had hoped that this man was the long-awaited military leader who would finally bring an end to the rule of the despised Romans. I mean, he had talked about a kingdom, and so they naturally thought that he was going to defeat the pagans, drive them out of the Promised Land, and restore David's kingdom and his throne again. But whatever hope this man had caused to stir inside people is being dashed to pieces as they watched Him hanging there, so helpless, so weak, so bloody, just one more Jew being punished by the Romans. And they seethed in their teeth at the insult of the sign above His head, a sign put there by Pilate himself, a sign in three languages that read, This is Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews. So the plans this weekend for the Jews of the city of Jerusalem are about what they're going to do with this man once he dies, because he is surely going to die. There is no longer any hope of this man getting off that cross. And with his death, the hope and the aspirations of many people are being thrown into the trash. and maybe out of anger that He had led them to believe that He would rescue them, or maybe out of fear of the Romans, or maybe just as a part of their ongoing bitterness at how God had forsaken them and left them into the hands of barbarians. But whatever the reason, many of the Jews joined in with the Romans that day to hurl insults at this man. The Apostle Levi wrote this, and those passing by were hurling abuse at him, wagging their heads and saying, you who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself. If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross. In the same way, the chief priests also, along with the scribes and elders, were mocking Him, saying, He saved others. He cannot save Himself. He is the King of Israel. Let Him now come down from the cross and we will believe in Him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue Him now. He delights in Him, for He said, I am the Son of God. The Apostle Peter's disciple John Mark wrote this in Mark 15, 29-32, those passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads and saying, Ha! You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross. In the same way, the chief priests also along with the scribes were mocking Him among themselves and saying, He saved others. He cannot save Himself. Let this Christ, the King of Israel now, come down from the cross so that we may see and believe. Those who were crucified with Him were also insulting Him. And of course, Dr. Luke wrote this in Luke 23, 35-37, And the people stood by looking on, and even the rulers were sneering at Him, saying, He saved others, let Him save Himself. If this is the Christ of God, His chosen One, The soldiers also mocked Him, coming up to Him offering sour wine and saying, if you are the King of the Jews, save yourself. It's interesting, they all had the same theology about deliverance, didn't they? That the only good that comes out of the bad thing is to be delivered from it. And this tells us that most of the common Jews, as well as the ruling religious elite, had the very same theology about suffering that the pagan Romans had. They believed that a person who suffered was cursed by God. They believed and thought that if God loved you, He would heal your sick body and cause you to prosper financially and materially. This is why they had such a problem with Jesus healing bad people. He healed sinners who had a notorious reputation in the community of being lewd and sexually immoral. It isn't that Jesus wanted to rub elbows with these people to stick his finger in the eye of the elite. It wasn't doing that at all. These people were chosen for salvation. And so it didn't matter how bad they were. So He healed them to show that He was God and that He had the power to heal. They believed that those who were sick and poor and who were not delivered were not in favor with God. And it was their theology, it was what they believed, that caused them to act this way toward Jesus. So their ridiculing of Jesus while He's on the cross is a response to what they believed. It was their theological foundation that caused their actions. I try to bring this in to just about every sermon that I have. What you do is what you believe. I'm not talking about long term. I'm not talking about periodically. But what you do is an ongoing act of your daily life. That's what you are. That's what you believe. That's who you have become. And so if your life is a lie, if you live a double life, if you have a public persona that everybody knows and likes, and you've got this private life that is filled with sin and compromise, what you really are is the private person. You're not the public person. That's a myth. So don't be deceived about yourself. And so when you realize that you are the very worst that you can possibly be, that you are no stronger than your weakest moment, that you are no more holy than your most unrighteous activity, when you realize that, and you realize that God saved you anyway, it magnifies grace. Because God wasn't fooled, even though you did fool me. You didn't fool God. And so it was their theology, what kind of theology does it take for you to rail out against Jesus? It was their theology that made them rail out against Jesus. What they didn't know was that their response to Jesus was a fulfillment of a 600-year-old prophecy that God gave to Isaiah that said He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men. Now, this is different than just people walking off and leaving you to yourself. They just don't like you. They just don't want to be around you. So they don't do anything. They just walk off. They don't want to be your friend. Jesus was despised and forsaken of men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And like one, look at this, like one from whom men hide their face. He was despised and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried. Yet we ourselves esteemed Him, stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. Now when verse 3 says, And like one from whom men hid their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. This is talking about shame. So at this point, the people who had followed Jesus were ashamed of Jesus as He hung on the cross. The average Jew who saw Jesus hanging there did not think that this was an example of God's love at all. You know, it's amazingly self-righteous of us who have read the book of Galatians and we've read the book of Romans and we've read the book of 1 and 2 Corinthians that we can look back on this before all those books were written and wonder why these people didn't understand all that was going on. I don't know that I would have understood. I would like to think I would, but would I? Would I have recognized this man to be God Almighty in human flesh? Would that have become apparent to me? There's his brothers and sisters right there. There's his mama. I've been with him my whole life. I was raised with him. He was a little boy, just like I was. I grew up with him. Now he says he's God. Would I have been so quick to fall in line with that? I don't know. But I will tell you this, it isn't any easier now than it was then. It wasn't any easier then than it is now. If the Holy Spirit does not unveil your eyes and let you see Jesus for who He is, you're not coming. Hallelujah. And then you think about the miracle of Simeon. He picked up an eight-day-old baby. He hadn't heard a single sermon, didn't see the crucifixion, didn't see the resurrection, never read an epistle, never read a gospel record. He saw an eight-day-old baby, and he said, now I can depart in peace. My eyes have seen your salvation! Hallelujah! And he abandoned the law, never sacrificed another animal, and worshipped Jesus. Wow! That's the Holy Spirit. But the people that saw Him hanging on the cross, the average Jew, they didn't think this was an example of God's love at all. They didn't consider the crucifixion of the only man who never sinned to be a payment for their sins. They never even considered that God's righteousness was being defended as the darling of the Trinity was screaming in agony. They saw a man who had stirred them up like no one had ever done before, now being totally defeated by the Romans. This is a loss. as far as they're concerned. This is not victory. This is the ultimate defeat. They saw a man who spoke about God in heaven and the kingdom, and who would perform miracles and cast out demons and raise the dead, completely defeated by the enemies of God. And their minds screamed out, how could this be a good thing? Why would God kill a good man? Why would God not destroy the Romans for what they were doing to Jesus? How are we supposed to understand what is going on here? All this is is death. All this is is another injustice, another travesty, one more miserable act of humiliation against God's people. How could anything good come from this? And when Isaiah said, yet we ourselves esteemed Him, stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted, the word esteem here means we judged Him. We came to a conclusion. And this meant that the average Jew on that day came to the conclusion that Jesus was not the man many said that He was, but that He was actually the enemy of God. They came to the conclusion that it was none other than God Himself who had struck Jesus down. It was God who smoked Jesus. God had afflicted Jesus. And they turned their faces away from Jesus in embarrassment. And Dr. Luke wrote this in verses 44 and 45a. It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour, because the sun was obscured. So on this particular Friday in the spring of the year, it is now about noon, and the Savior of the world has been agonizing on the cross for about three hours. Ever since nine in the morning, Jesus has been pushing His body weight up the rough side of the cross so He could take the load off of His arms, which were now in perpetual cramps. so he could exhale. The skin of his beaten back was hanging in ribbons away from his body, but the pain from the single spike in his feet was so great that he couldn't stay there, and so he slowly sank back down to hold his body weight by his arms. the spike against the median nerve sending arrows of pain through His ever-weakening arms. Up and down, up and down, sucking in a short breath and then sagging down to exhale, excruciating agony, no end in sight. But at noon on the Friday, something amazing began to happen. The brightness of noonday began to give way to darkness. But this was not the normal darkness of impending rain. This was a darkness like they had never seen before. A darkness far heavier, more intense than any rain cloud. And it began to blot out the sun itself. And the people looked up and noticed it. And they knew that something terrible was happening here. Now, I can't find any biblical reference to lightning or thunder or even rain or even a strong wind that would normally go along with darkness like this. It may have been. But I can't find any reference to any of the things that normally accompany a noonday darkness anywhere in the Bible. And this leads me to believe that there wasn't any, which would make this darkness different, very different from the average rainstorm. Levi wrote this, now from the sixth hour, darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. So it's three hours of darkness at the most intense time of Jesus' death, showing us that this darkness was not only on Golgotha, but the entire region. John Mark says something similar, when the sixth hour came, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour. The Apostle John says nothing about this strange darkness, but what he does say is very informative for us. John 19, 25-27 says, But standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother and His mother's sister Mary, the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, Woman, behold your son. Then He said to the disciple, Behold your mother. From that hour, the disciple took her into his own household. So according to John, there were at least four people, three women and a man, standing by the cross during the time of the great darkness, immediately after all of the verbal insults were given. There was Mary, Jesus' mother. There was Mary's sister, who was also named Mary, the wife of Clopas. There was Mary Magdalene. And then there's the Apostle John. Now what we can get out of this is amazing. These four people were not afraid of the soldiers or the Jewish leaders and had no concern for their own safety or welfare. You've got to remember something. When a man was crucified, it tarnished his entire family. Nobody would hire the family members. It's like when you are convicted of a terrible crime now, many areas of this country yet, they punish the entire family. The family is ostracized. People talk about them. They don't want anything to do with them. And this is what was going on there. When you're crucified, you're a bad person. And so Mary was not afraid. And Mary and Mary, the three Marys and John, were not afraid of being associated. If you remember when Stephen was stoned to death. They stoned this man to death. He's laying there in a pile of rock with his eyeball hanging out of his head and his collarbone shattered and his jawbone broke. His teeth smashed in. His face crushed in by the rocks. Just a bloody pulp. And the Bible says devout men carried Stephen to his funeral. And what that was back then is they identified themselves with Stephen. Well, they had persecuted Stephen for what he believed. And so, when you identify yourself with the guy that just got killed, you're saying, I'm with him. And they carried him right through downtown. They wanted everybody to know, I'm with this guy. And the next verse says, and great persecution came against the church. So it's like they were inviting persecution. So these three, Mary's and John, are there by the cross. Everybody knew they were around Him. They might not have known exactly to what extent they were with this man, but they knew they were with Him. And by them being there, they're saying, we're with Him. And even more importantly, these four people, these three women and one man, were not ashamed of being identified with Jesus. They withdrew only because they were devastated at the suffering and the death of the only one they had loved so dearly. Their grief was deep and their hopes seemed shattered, but their courage was undaunted. And because John, the Gospel writers, beside John, the Gospel writers don't mention the disciples being here at all. Judas has committed suicide, but where's Andrew? Where's James? Where's Simon? Where's Nathanael and Philip and Levi? Where is Peter? They're not by the cross. Three women and John. But even though it seems as though ten of the remaining disciples are not here near the cross, we do see three believing women. And this is very important for us because one of the most telling signs of a godly believing woman is her loyalty. Far more than most men. A genuinely spiritual woman has the capacity for incredible loyalty in the face of ridicule and danger. Now, I don't think these women understood at this point that Jesus was dying for their sins or that He would rise from the dead in three days. In fact, I know they didn't understand it. I think they were devastated, confused, and deeply disillusioned. But the love for Jesus that God had gifted these women with was so great that it compelled them to be near the cross. Now we don't exactly know how many women were there, but the Apostle Levi said there were many. And in Matthew 27 and 55 he says, many women were there looking on from a distance who had followed Jesus from Galilee while ministering to Him. Now buckle your seatbelts. Here we go. Now what is interesting is that the word ministering at the end of verse 55 comes from the Greek word from which we get the English word deacon from. And this word has the basic meaning of serving and is the verb form of the noun from which deacons is derived. That wasn't until the Apostle Paul wrote the greatest letter ever written, the Epistle to the Romans, many years later, that the feminine form of this word was used to describe a specific type of ministry that a woman named Phoebe had. And in Romans 16, verses 1 and 2, this is what we read. I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a servant of the church which is at Sincrea, that you receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints, and that you help her in whatever matter she may have need of you. For she herself has also been a helper of many, and of myself as well. where the word servant and helper here in verse 1 is the very same root word that we find in Matthew 27.55. So we see that none other than the Apostle Paul wrote the inspired text to say that Phoebe was a female deacon or a deaconess in the church that was in Synchrea. Now this is very controversial, especially down here in the South, where many Southern Baptist churches have altered what the Bible teaches about church government. Now before I say this, I'm going to say this. I'm in awe of the Southern Baptist Convention. as I am with the Episcopalian Church and with the Lutheran Church and with the Anglicans and with a bunch of organizations, the Presbyterians. I'm standing in awe of all these organizations. And I've read their history and I've studied their history with my mouth open because I'm in awe of 500 years of their history where they have done mighty exploits for the Lord and they've preached the Gospel in foreign lands and had tremendous testimonies about the triumph of the Gospel. So I'm not throwing rocks at people just to throw rocks at them. But something's happened. Something's happened to these great institutions, these great movements. And they've become dry and they've become dull and they've lost their first love. And they're trying to be more Baptist than they are Christian. They're trying to fit in with their denominational teaching versus the Bible. And it's a shame because it's ruining them. Now, so what I'm going to say is very controversial, especially down here in the South, where many Southern Baptist churches have altered what the Bible teaches about church government. Most Southern Baptist churches incorrectly have what is called congregational rule, where every member of the church votes on church matters. Some of you were raised in that. You know what I'm talking about. This leads to the carnal activity called church politics. where people literally campaign for office. And all you've got to do is get 51%. See, in the bylaws of our church, any major decision, not what color to paint the back wall, but a major decision, the three elders, and if there's five elders, it'll be five elders, whatever it is, the elder board has to be unanimous. Or we can't do it. Now we can be unanimously wrong. And we have been. So we unanimously get up in front of the church and repent and we learn from that. But we have to be unanimous in major decisions. None of this 51% and you win the day. So there's no politics. None. There's no voting. It's not in the Bible. And politics promotes people into positions of authority based on their ability to capture 51% of the vote. Sadly, this unbiblical form of government also causes the many church splits, which according to Lifeway Research, is the single biggest cause of the proliferation of Southern Baptist churches. Now, y'all didn't hear that, so I'm going to say it a different way. The single biggest reason why there are so many Southern Baptist churches on the earth is not because God has led people to plant new missions in recently evangelized areas, but because people got so mad at what happened at the last election that they split the church and started a new one. And let me add fuel to the fire so everybody can just be equally offended at what I'm going to say. Most of the time, now let me just say most of the time. A lot of the time, the people who leave, they're so mad they won't even speak to the other people for years. And my question is, how are they going to heaven? You're going to be in heaven with a brother forever and you can't talk to him on earth? I don't think so. And somebody needs to stand up and say this is sin. There's a brand new church over on Highway 67. They got a beautiful piece of high ground, beautiful oak trees. They're clearing the ground, and everybody's just so thrilled. And I'm out there talking to the guy because I wanted to welcome him. You know, stupid me, I thought God was moving. So I pulled up in there, and they had the bulldozers out there, and I'm out there praising God. I said, y'all started a new church. Amen. Well, I'm a pastor on John Clark Road. Yeah, we heard your broadcast. Praise the Lord. Thank you, Jesus. I said, what caused y'all to build a church here? And they named his name, that pastor down at that church. We're never going back down there. And I'm standing there going, seriously? This is the foundation of your church? Y'all need to quit. I told them. I said, don't build a church. You're wasting your time. The Spirit of God won't bless this. And they were shocked. Shocked that I could say something like that because this is the way we do. Well, it's not the way the Bible says to do. So it takes a flat-footed, four-eyed, podunk preacher on John Clark Road to get up and say what all these learned professors ought to be saying. This is sin. And it comes from an ungodly, unbiblical form of government. The correct form of government is with a plurality of highly trained and godly elders who oversee the teaching and the doctrine of the church and who shepherd the sheep into a holy walk with God. Whereas in most Southern Baptist churches, those who lead are all deacons with only the pastor as an elder. Now, we can dance around this all we want. Well, that's just the way they see the Bible. They're wrong. Look at the fruit of it. So to a Southern Baptist, the thought that a woman can be a deacon is anathema. Because they equate the role of a deacon with what the Bible says belongs to an elder. But the Bible doesn't teach that deacons lead in the church. The Bible says that deacons serve the church. Elder rule in the Bible is crystal clear that women cannot be elders or pastors. But women can certainly serve the people of the church, and so there is no biblical reason to prohibit them from being deacons. Now right about now, they're getting the rocks ready for me. And I'm going to put this on the radio just so everybody will know what we believe and teach in this church. I believe the Bible. So because Southern Baptists have confused the role of elders with deacons, they incorrectly and unbiblically put elected deacons into positions of authority and they prohibit women from serving the church. So what we need to know is that the many women who were ministering to Jesus in Matthew 27 were in effect the first deaconesses of the Christian faith. That is what the Bible says. You can't be a part of our convention, brother. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus. Now, John 19 says that Mary, the mother of Jesus, had a sister who evidently was also named Mary. Evidently, Mary was a popular name back then. And verse 25 says that this Mary, Jesus' aunt, was the wife of a man named Clopas. And this is the only place in the entire Bible that this name is mentioned. So, crazy me, I'm saying why? If it's the only place, what's the point? Because John is letting people know that this Mary was the wife of Cleopas. And interestingly, the King James renders his name as Cleopas. So just who is the husband of Jesus' aunt and why did the Apostle John see the need to name him? Well, there are a few possibilities. One possibility is that after the resurrection, there is a very strange and very long narrative in Luke 24 about the risen Christ meeting two men on the road to Emmaus. And this narrative is found only in Luke and covers 23 verses. There's like 13 parables that are only found in Luke. There are certain miracles that only Luke records. And there's this account of the road to Emmaus only in Luke. That's why I've spent so much time in Luke. That's why I wanted to go through Luke. I wanted to know why did Luke write about it and John and Matthew and Mark did not. Okay. So there's this long narrative in Luke 24. It covers 23 verses. And that's longer than Luke's account of the crucifixion. And I don't think for a second that Luke was saying that the crucifixion wasn't as important as this, but for some reason this was important to Luke. And in Luke 24 verse 18, this is what we read. One of them named Cleopas answered and said to him, Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days? The Cleopas of Luke 24, 18 is the same man as the... is the Cleopas of Luke 24 the same man as the Clopas of John 19, 25? Maybe. And this would mean that Jesus' uncle was one of the men who talked with Jesus on the road to Emmaus. Now, this gives me even more questions. Because how come uncle didn't recognize him? How come Mary Magdalene didn't recognize Jesus in the garden? We're going to get into that. Another possibility is that the word Clopas was incorrectly translated from a name we already know, Alphaeus. You will remember back in Luke 6, we met a name named James, the son of Alphaeus, in verse 15. who was chosen by Jesus personally to be an apostle. And I told you back then that this James was called James the Less by the early church to distinguish him from the other three Jameses of the New Testament, including James the Greater, who was Jesus' half-brother. And I told you that the name Alpheus is considered by many biblical scholars to simply be a bad translation of Clopas or Cleopas. Now that would mean that James, this apostle, was Jesus' cousin, or half-cousin, or however that works. I can tell you how to interpret the Bible, but I can't figure out family lineage. I have to have a spreadsheet. My wife knows. Now at the end of verse 45, Luke is careful to tell us, "...and the veil of the temple was torn in two." And this was a huge woven veil that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple. And the Jewish historian Josephus said that this massive curtain was, quote, predominantly blue and was ornately decorated, unquote. Once a year, the high priest was allowed to pass through the veil on the Day of Atonement to sprinkle blood on the altar for the sins of the people. By the way, the only reference to sprinkling in the Bible is not at baptism. It's you sprinkle blood on the altar. Other than that, there's not even any reference to sprinkling water anywhere. So I don't know where the Episcopal Church gets that. They just make it up. So repent, Episcopalians, and be biblical. Hallelujah. Amen. Oh, am I getting in trouble with this sermon? Oh, well. And even though this ritual was symbolic, it had to be repeated every year. But upon the death of Jesus, who himself was the perfect once-for-all sacrifice, the need for this veil, along with the Levites who served in it and the temple itself, no longer existed. So the spontaneous miracle of this veil being ripped from top to bottom signified that the barrier of sin was forever removed for all those who put their trust in Jesus as both God and Savior. So I've got a question for you premillennial dispensationalists. When they rebuild the temple in Jerusalem are they going to put another veil in there? I don't remember ever asking that question before so I'm going to start asking that question. The tearing in two of this veil was an unmistakable sign from God that the Old Covenant was abolished. Hallelujah. And access into God's holy presence comes through faith in Jesus and not in sacrificing animals or religious rituals or sacraments or temple worship. Hallelujah. Our temple's in heaven. Hallelujah. Amen. Now what is fascinating is that the dramatic tearing of the veil was made while the temple was filled with worshipers. which included not only countless priests but also many thousands of pilgrims who were at that very moment celebrating the Passover sacrifice. And even though the temple itself was not destroyed until some 40 years later in A.D. 70, the entire sacrificial system of Israel and its attendant priesthood ceased to have even symbolic value as soon as the veil was torn in two and the Holy of Holies was exposed. Hallelujah. No more need of a veil. Hallelujah. So because Jesus hung on this cross and screamed in agony and died and paid the price for my sins, and then rose again from the dead and ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the power on high and intercedes for me 24-7, I can walk into the door of the church, I can go immediately into the presence of God without sacrificing an animal, without changing my garments. I can be driving down the road and talk to the owner and the Creator of the universe. I can go in my kitchen. I can pray in the bathtub. I can pray anywhere I go. And God hears me because the sacrifice of Jesus is better than what they had in the temple. Don't go back down the mountain! Hallelujah! It's amazing. You couldn't just walk in here 2,000 years ago and sit down and get in the presence of God. You had to stay out there and kill an animal. And he had to be first-born male lamb without spot or blemish. How many of those? Anybody raise animals? Huh? Anybody? Okay, you raised it. How many first-born male without a spot or blemish have you ever seen? You ain't never seen one. And that's all they can sacrifice. So there's a vat of dye in the backyard. I'm not kidding. There's a vat of white dye in the backyard, because it had to be white. And they're out there dipping them animals in that thing so they can sacrifice them. Because there's a market for that. That's the only one you can sacrifice. Hallelujah. It was all a farce. It's just a play toy. It's like most people take a minute at Christmas time in between their drunken orgy to remember Jesus in the manger. You're spitting in God's face. What a mockery. And three doors down, there was a Mardi Gras float. Boy, am I going to get in trouble today. Three doors down. I should have preached this in Chicago, not in the South. Three doors down, they build a Mardi Gras parade. And I went over there to pray with them one time, because I thought they saved. And they're sitting there talking to me about the Mardi Gras parade. And they're all gathering around the Mardi Gras float that's talking about debauchery and getting drunk. And they're holding hands, going to pray and ask the Lord. I said, you're asking God to bless you while you send that through the streets of our city? Wow. They said, we ain't never coming to your church. All right. At this point, every breath that Jesus takes is precious. His arms are becoming so cramped that He cannot continue to hold Himself up. And yet the single spike in His feet are hurting Him so bad that He cannot push up much longer. His heart is struggling to pump blood and is now under tremendous strain. The result is that Jesus is now entering into congestive heart failure. His fluid is now accumulating around His heart, literally squeezing it until He can no longer get the correct amount of oxygen to His other vital organ. In other words, the God-man is now near death. And the Bible tells us that Jesus was offered wine on two different occasions while He was on the cross, and yet He refused the first offer while taking the second. Now why was that? Mark 15, 23 says they tried to give Him wine mixed with myrrh, but He did not take it. Christian apologist William Lane Craig said, quote, According to an old tradition, respected women of Jerusalem provided a narcotic drink to those condemned to death in order to decrease their sensitivity to the excruciating pain. When Jesus arrived at Golgotha, He was offered wine mixed with myrrh, but He refused it, choosing to endure with full consciousness the suffering appointed for Him, unquote. For this first wine represented an offer to ease the pain in the beginning of His crucifixion, to opt for a small shortcut, albeit not a major one, in view of the excruciating pain of the cross, but a little one nonetheless. But this offer Jesus refused, and in doing so, chose to endure with full consciousness the sufferings appointed for Him. But after being on the cross for six hours, the Bible records that this happened in Mark 15, verse 34. At the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, which is translated, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? The apostle Levi recorded that Jesus said, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. Now this is the first and only time that Jesus has addressed His Father as God. And the impersonal way Jesus uses this generic name God is significant. Right off Jump Street, there are those who point to the differences between John Mark's account and Matthew as being some contradiction, thus supposedly proving the Bible to be false. But the differences are merely linguistic. Eloi is from the Aramaic, while Eli, Eli is Hebrew, and both of them mean God. So which one did Jesus say? Well, he could have said it in both languages, but he probably uttered this in Aramaic, as Jesus never spoke Hebrew. And so Levi, writing his gospel record to the Jews, simply translated the Aramaic into Hebrew. But what is going on here is twofold. Finally, Jesus is answering his critics by quoting from Psalm 22, which every Jewish scholar of the first century knew was a psalm about the Messiah. So by referencing the quote that King David wrote as he was moved along by God the Holy Spirit to pin down this psalm some 1,000 years earlier, Jesus was once again equating Himself with the promised Messiah. But secondly, Jesus was actually agonizing over the fact that God the Father had separated Himself from Him. We must remember that God has now taken all of the sins of all of God's elect and has placed them onto Jesus by the miracle of the imputation. And the result is that for the first time in all of eternity, God the Father has separated Himself from God the Son. Now this amazing moment is so hard to grasp that it is not surprising that Martin Luther is said to have gone into seclusion for a long time trying to understand it. And he came away just as confused as when he began. So the best we can say is that in some way, And by some means that we don't know and cannot fathom, as operating in the hidden secrets of the divine sovereignty and omnipotence, the God-man was separated from the Father for a brief time at Golgotha while He was pouring out His terrifying wrath against our sins on the perfectly sinless Son. About 600 years earlier, the prophet Habakkuk said this about God. Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, and you cannot look on wickedness with favor. So God the Father turned His back when Jesus was on the cross, because He could not look upon sin, especially sin in His own Son. The act of God forsaking Jesus was only matched by the cry that Jesus gave when He realized that God had indeed forsaken Him. Now we need to remember that Jesus was not a hero dying a hero's death. Jesus was not a martyr to a righteous cause or simply an innocent man wrongly accused and condemned. God the Father could have looked favorably on all of those kinds of selfless deaths. Jesus died differently than anyone has ever or will ever die. Jesus died as a substitute, a propitiation. Jesus died as a scapegoat who had the hand of God placed on his head to impart or impute the guilt of God's elect. and all of the wickedness of 10,000 people, all of the dirt of a million rebels, all of the evil of all the sons of Adam was imputed to Jesus, and He legally became a guilty, dirty, wicked, evil sacrifice while personally maintaining perfect sinlessness. But as a guilty scapegoat, the sins that were credited to Jesus had to be judged, and they had to be damned. The New Testament is crystal clear about this. Romans 4.25 says Jesus was delivered up because of our transgressions. 1 Corinthians 15.3 says Jesus died for our sins according to the Scriptures. 2 Corinthians 5.21 says He who knew no sin became sin on our behalf. Galatians 3.13, Jesus became a curse for us. 1 Peter 2.24, He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross. 1 Peter 3.18, Jesus died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust. And 1 John 4.10 says Jesus became the propitiation for our sins. Jesus Christ not only bore man's sins, but actually became sin on man's behalf in order that those who believe in Him might be saved from the penalty of their sin. Jesus came to teach men perfectly about God and to be a perfect example of God's holiness and righteousness. But as He Himself declared, the supreme reason for His coming to earth was not to teach, it was not to be an example, but it was to give His life a ransom for many. Now I realize that this may be too deep for some, but it is very important that I tell you that even though Jesus was absolutely forsaken by the Father, their separation was not one of nature, essence, or substance. Jesus did not in any sense or degree cease to exist as God or as a member of the Trinity the entire time He was on the cross. Jesus did not cease to be God the Son any more than a child who sins severely against his human father ceases to be his child. For a moment, Jesus no longer enjoyed the intimacy of fellowship with his heavenly Father just as a disobedient child ceases when he sins. And Matthew Henry wrote, surely never sorrow was like unto that sorrow which exhorted such a complaint as this from one who being perfectly free from sin could never be a terror to himself, but the heart knows its own bitterness. No wonder that such a complaint as this, the complaint is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? No wonder that such a complaint as this made the earth to quake and rent the rocks. For it is enough to make both the ears of everyone that hears it to tingle and ought to be spoken of with great reverence." Now there are many highly educated people who will go to great lengths to tell you that there is just no physical way that Jesus could have cried out with a loud voice. It doesn't matter who wrote the book. There's a bunch of books out there that say that. They will show that during crucifixion, the diaphragm will simply not allow any sound other than a weak whisper. But the infallible Word of the living God says, at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice. And as we have already seen, the two robbers spoke to Jesus, and He answered one of them. So even though these people are basically correct as far as their understanding of both human anatomy and crucifixion in general are concerned, they err in that they do not trust the inerrancy of Scripture. Joel 3 and 16 says the Lord roars from Zion and utters His voice from Jerusalem. So evidently God performed a miracle on Jesus here and supernaturally empowered His weak voice to cry out loudly. God the Father delivered God the Son into the hands of His enemies and did not appear to deliver Him out of their hands. He let loose the powers of darkness against His own Son and suffered them to do worse with Jesus than with Job, who said, God hands me over to Ruthians and tosses me into the hands of the wicked. I was at ease, but He shattered me, and He has grasped me by the neck and shaken me to pieces. He has also set me up as His target. His arrows surround me. Without mercy, He splits my kidneys open. He pours out my gall on the ground. He breaks through me with breach after breach. He runs at me like a warrior. I have sewed sackcloth over my skin and thrust my horn in the dust. My face is flushed from weeping, and deep darkness is on my eyelids. There will be no angel sent from heaven to deliver Jesus this time. No friend on earth to rise up to defend Him. This agony was different than anything even Jesus had experienced. Back in John 12, when Jesus' soul was first troubled, He had a voice from heaven to comfort Him. When He was in His agony in the garden, there appeared an angel from heaven strengthening Him. But now Jesus has neither the one nor the other. God hid His face from him and for a while withdrew His comforting rod and staff in this valley of death. God forsook Him, not like He forsook Saul, leaving him to endless despair, but as He did with David, causing a present despondency that would yield eternal glory. Notice that Jesus never asked, why am I being crucified? Or, why am I being railed against and spit upon? Jesus never asked, why am I being nailed to this cross? He also never said, why have you forsaken Me to His disciples when they turned their back upon Him? But when the Father stood at a distance, it was more that Jesus could bear. And so Jesus cried out as King David did in Psalm 69, 1-3, Save me, O God, for the waters have threatened my life. I have sunk in deep mire and there is no foothold. I have come into deep waters and a flood overflows me. I am weary with my crying, my throat is parched, my eyes fail while I wait for my God. Now look at the reaction by the crowd at this amazing cry. When some of the bystanders heard it, they began saying, behold, he is calling for Elijah. So right off the bat, these bystanders heard Jesus, which again shows that His words were not given in a weak whisper. But their response is interesting. First of all, Jesus using the Aramaic would not have been confusing to any Jew who lived in the first century. They would have understood clearly that Jesus was saying, My God, and was not calling for the prophet Elijah. Secondly, any Jew worth his salt would have recognized Psalm 22 and would have immediately understood that Jesus was equating himself with the Messiah that David prophesied about. So we are left with only one thing. The idea that Jesus was crying out for Elijah was simply another way they could mock Jesus. Now the Apostle John said this in John 19, 28 and 29. After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished to fulfill the Scripture, said, I am thirsty. A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop and brought it to his mouth. While Matthew 27, 47-49 says, And some of those who were standing there when they heard it began saying, This man is calling for Elijah. Immediately one of them ran, and taking a sponge, he filled it with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave him a drink. But the rest of them said, Let us see whether Elijah will come to save him. Now the one who ran was probably one of the Roman military guards, and by taking a sponge and filling it with sour wine, he hoped to temporarily quench Jesus' thirst. William Lane Craig says, quote, a sour wine vinegar is mentioned in the Old Testament as a refreshing drink, and in Greek and Roman literature as well. It is a common beverage appreciated by laborers and soldiers because it relieved thirst more effectively than water and was very inexpensive. There are no examples of its use as a hostile gesture. The thought then is not of a corrosive vinegar offered as a cruel jest, but of a sour wine of the people. While the words, let us see if Elijah will come, express a doubtful expectation, the offer of the sip of wine was intended to keep Jesus conscious for as long as possible for no other reason than to suffer longer. Now in John 19.29, the apostle says that the reed that was used to give Jesus this sour wine was a hyssop branch. Now why this is significant is that hyssop branches were no longer than 18 inches. So the fact that a short branch like this was used to reach Jesus' lips shows us that the horizontal beam of the cross had to be very low to the ground. Some scholars suggest that Jesus' head would have been no higher than 8 feet. Now why did Jesus ask for this drink? John says that it was to fulfill the Scriptures. Psalm 69, 21 says, they also gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. So the first wine that was mixed with myrrh was designed to dull Jesus' pain and to keep Him from having to endure the cross with full consciousness. And that was the wine He refused. The second, sour wine, was given to keep Jesus conscious for as long as possible and thus have the effect of prolonging His pain. And this is the wine Jesus drank. Now the other condemned criminals all gladly took the first wine to ease their torment as they passed on the second, so as not to prolong their horrific pain. But Jesus was just the opposite. He rejected the wine that would have given Him some measure of comfort while asking for the wine that would allow Him to hurt even more. Truly, we should marvel that our dear Lord took no shortcuts on the way to our redemption. At the cross, Jesus drank the wine of His Father's wrath down to its very dregs. And He did so for us that we might enjoy the wine of His Father's love, join with Him at the marriage supper of the Lamb, and live redeemed forever in the glorious presence of the One who took no shortcuts in saving us. Now it is possible that the man who gave Jesus the drink meant it as an act of mercy. But it was minimal in its effect and served only to prolong the torture before death brought relief. But the rest of those standing near the cross used that gesture of kindness as another opportunity to carry their mockery of the Lord still further, saying, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him. This shows us the depth of sin and how that spiritual blindness has nothing to do with intelligence or common sense. It seems incredible that even the pitch darkness of midday did not alarm the wicked crowd. They were so bent on scorning Jesus that even such a momentous phenomenon as the blocking out of the sun did not deter them. being aware of the many Old Testament associations of unnatural darkness with judgment, it would seem they would at least briefly have considered the possibility that divine judgment was occurring at that very moment. Yet the single thought now on their minds was to make Jesus' death as painful and humiliating as they could. Truly, if God does not open the eyes of the lost, no amount of supernatural events will do so. Here's a principle you need to understand. Spiritual blindness is so pervasive, so deep-seated, so rooted, that left to ourselves, without a sovereign intervention of God the Holy Spirit, you can look at miracles in front of your eyes and it will not bring you to repentance. You can hear the Lord Himself promise you the blessings of eternal life, the blessings and the glories of heaven, a good life on this earth, a prosperous life on this earth, happiness without end, and it will not bring you to conviction and repentance. You can be told that you will be damned forever in hell, and the flames of their torment will ascend forever. And you can be promised that the judgment of God against sin is certain, and no one will escape, and it will not bring a single soul to repentance or salvation. Unless God the Holy Spirit opens your eyes, unless God unveils your ears and gives you a new heart, you will not see, you will not repent, you will not change, you will not be saved. It's salvation is the act of God alone. And if God does not move upon the people, they're doomed. And so the means by which God has promised to open the eyes of His chosen is the foolishness of the message preached. And so we are to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Irregardless of their sins. Irregardless of anything they are. The dirtiest people in town. The sickest people in town. The most despised people in the community. We are to preach the gospel. And if they're chosen, God will open their eyes and they'll repent and be saved. While the others look on in amazement. And they'll not be broken. They'll not be bent. And they will not bow. The two tribes in the southern kingdom of Judah watched as God raised up the nation of Assyria and come down and take the ten tribes captive and haul them off. And they've never been heard from since. Judah saw that happen. And their response was to do the same sins that Israel did. You will not repent unless God empowers you to repent. Repentance is a gift. And so, blessed be you who have that gift. Use it often. Do not restrain yourself from repentance. Yet the single thought on their minds was to make Jesus' death as painful and humiliating as they could. Truly, if God does not open the eyes of the lost, no amount of supernatural events will do so. And finally, Dr. Luke wrote, and Jesus crying with a loud voice said, Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit. Having said this, He breathed. His last. The apostle John said, therefore, when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, it is finished. And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit. John Mark wrote, and Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed His last. Matthew 27 and 50 said, Jesus cried again with a loud voice and yielded up His spirit. Once again, the Gospel writers are unanimous. Jesus cried out with a loud voice. So once again, God must have performed a miracle to give him the air to cry out loud like that. Now both Luke and John gives us the actual words that Jesus cried out loud. Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit. Which was a quote from another one of David's prophecies from Psalm 31 verse 5. But John says that Jesus cried out, it is finished. which means that Jesus actually accomplished everything that God the Father sent Him to do. And the Spirit and the breath that entered into Jesus while He was in the womb of the Virgin Mary at that amazing moment of incarnation left Him and went back to the God who gave it. And Jesus died. Amen. Let's pray.