There's a note saying that the Baba sends her blessings. God willing, Wednesday, ladies, 2.30, Graham Tudor from the Transparent Bible Society is taking me there. Thursday, I'll resume Bible study. I'll be doing, and then next Sunday, God willing, I'll be taking the services. Thank you. Good morning to you all. Thank you for coming along this morning. Good to see you all again. I think it was Wednesday when I was here last, wasn't it? So not long ago for the ladies anyway. But it's good to see you all once again here in Gordon Road. Let's pray together, shall we? Father God, once again we give you our thanks for bringing us together again on this, another Lord's Day, another first day of another week. It rejoices our hearts, our Father, to come together and bring to you our worship and our praise. You are such a good and a gracious God. You've been undoubtedly good to each and every one of us since last that we met in this particular way and we do thank you our Father for our gathering together this morning. We pray that the Lord Jesus Christ might this morning be made much of and spoken well of. We do pray our Father that we might together rejoice in this lovely man of Calvary for whom we owe everything of our daily lives and indeed of the life to come. So be with us and bless us together this morning. Bless those who are not with us, who are perhaps on the live stream. We do pray for them, Our Father, that they too might be much helped and encouraged as we are together on this Lord's Day. We give you our thanks in the name of the Lord Jesus for his sake. Amen. Our first hymn note, please, number 43. Number 43. Sweet is the work, my God, my King, to praise thy name, give thanks and sing, to show thy love by morning light and talk of all thy truth at night. Number 43. Jesus the Lord, my Lord, my King, to you we raise the day. O holy night, O holy night, Oh, when I'm wanting to be found, I Let words of praise to the righteous shine, How deep the counsels of denial. Still shall I share the glorious fight, May Christmas well rekindle my heart, And in surprise all joy asshare, Thy holy wards to cheer my air. shall bless my eyes and ears no more. I in the cross shall wholly say, O Satan, break my peace again. O my desire, for which we yearn, that ev'ry pow'r, sweet and lowly, I'd like to read with you, please, in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 27, please. Matthew's Gospel, and chapter 27. Matthew's Gospel, chapter 27, and we'll begin to read, please, at verse 27. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers. They stripped him and put on him a scarlet robe. And when they had plaited a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand, and they bowed the knee before him and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews. And they spit upon him and took the reed and smote him on the head. And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him and put his own raiment on him and led him away to crucify him. And as they came out they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name, him they compelled to bear his cross. And when they would come unto the place called Golgotha, that is to say a place of a skull, They gave him vinegar to drink, mingled with gall, and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet. They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots. And sitting down, they watched him there. and set up over his head his accusation written, This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Then were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand and another on the left. And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads and saying, Thou that didst destroy the temple and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross. Likewise also the chief priests mocking him with the scribes and elders said, he saved others, himself he cannot save. If he be the king of Israel, let him now come down from the cross and we will believe him. He trusted in God, let him deliver him now if he will have him. For he said, I am the son of God. The thieves also which were crucified with him cast the same in his teeth. Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. That is to say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Some of them that stood there when they heard that said, the man calleth for Elias. And straightway one of them ran and took a sponge and filled it with vinegar and put it on a reed and gave him to drink. The rest said, let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him. Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. So read God's precious word and he will bless that reading to us. Our second hymn please, 536. Beneath the cross of Jesus, I fain would take my stand, the shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land, a home within the wilderness, a rest upon the way from the burning of the noontide heat and the burden of the day. 536. The Lord within the wilderness, the rest upon the way, the burning of the new-time days, and the burning of the ♪ When you try and seek ♪ ♪ O Christ, you place where heaven's high ♪ ♪ And heaven's just beneath ♪ ♪ As to the holy patriarch ♪ ♪ That wonders people's fear ♪ To God the Savior say, And watch with faith to guard the way. Amen. Jesus, my eyes at last can see, the very dying form of one who suffered there for me. And from my sins will not reduce to one which I confess. Now let's pray together, shall we? Our Father God, into your most holy presence we come this morning and we come without trembling because you have bid us to come before you and to engage with you in prayer. And so this morning, our Father, we recognize and we acknowledge the greatness of our God. We recognize and acknowledge the righteousness of our God. But to our God, Father, we recognize the wonderful grace and mercy of our God that invites us to draw near, invites us to bring our praise and our worship to Him and to spread before Him our petitions. And this morning, our Father, we come before you recognizing our own weakness, our own fallibility, our own insignificance in the greater scheme of things. And yet we come, our Father, with boldness. And this morning the desire of our hearts on the first day of another week, at the very beginning of the day, to bring you our praise and our worship. For you are such a great and a wonderful God. You are a God who cares for each one of us, who instructs us in the way we should go, who has His everlasting arms underneath and round about us, giving us confidence, our Father, in this dreadful world in which we live. A world, our Father, that has departed so far from you and from your word. A world, our Father, that has scarce regard for the holy, righteous God of heaven, before whom one day they must stand. And so, our Father, we rejoice to be together and to bring our corporate praise and worship to you. Praise and worship which emanates from a week that we've spent with you in your presence, a week where we have walked, we trust with the Lord Jesus Christ as our friend and our Saviour. Father, God, at the very start of our meeting we would give you our thanks for that lovely man of Calvary. that One who set aside the wonders and glory of heaven and came into this world and moved amongst fallen man, moved amongst the sin of this world, our Father, and yet we rejoice was not touched by that sin. Never was he to sin. Never was he to think a wrong thought, utter a wrong word, complete a wrong action. Father, what a holy righteous life he lived and we rejoiced in it. For it meant that he could go to that cross at Calvary and there offer that perfect once for all sacrifice for sins. And we praise and thank you for that. that on the third, the appointed day, he was raised from the dead, that eventually he entered into heaven itself and there today sits at the right hand of the Father God, the work of salvation completed, to your entire satisfaction. And he is the one, our Father, in whom we place our trust, not only for today, but for the days that lie ahead that are allotted to us in this world, and all the days of eternity, Our Father, stretching down through their unending days of praise and worship, freed from these sinful bodies, freed from the sin that so easily besets us, the sin that presses upon us all around us in this world in which we live. Father, we long for that day and we look forward to that day. Not only that we should be with Him and be free of sin, but Father, what a glorious day it will be when He returns to this earth. and there is vindicated every knee shall bow before him. Father we long for that day and we pray our Father that when it comes we might each and every one of us present here this evening and those on the live stream be in that number that shall be with him to demonstrate the mercy and the grace of God and the glory of heaven itself. So, Father, encourage our hearts together this morning. We pray for the testimony here. Thank you for it, for maintaining it over these many years as a faithful witness to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and to the living of the Christian life. We pray for the elders here who seek to lead it, and we pray, Father, for each member of the fellowship here, that they might, our Father, continue to live in the ways of yourself and your word, and that they might be a living testimony to the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, particularly in the area around this building. We pray, Our Father, for the town here of Hailsham and for the surrounding areas that this morning as many shall meet in praise and worship to you. We do pray, Our Father, that there might be much that shall gladden your heart this morning as you gaze down upon this town of Hailsham. And we pray, Our Father, that there might be work done today to the honor of the name of the Savior in the saving of precious souls in this town here. Indeed, in the area around it of Sussex and even our whole country, Our Father, we do pray for it. We pray for our government. A government, Our Father, who has scarce regard for yourself and your word. A government, Our Father, who seems to be mired in disreputable things day in, day out. We do ask our Father to encourage and to work through those in government and in the Houses of Parliament who do acknowledge yourself as God, who do love the Lord Jesus and seek to promote his Gospel. We do pray for them, our Father, to give them a voice and to encourage them to speak out for you as the laws of this land are sought to be enacted. We pray our Father that the laws of this land that have been enacted that fly in the face of your word might speedily be removed. We pray Father that this country once again might respect that there is a God in heaven who must be taken into account as they seek to govern this land. We pray across our world, our Father, stricken by this dreadful pandemic, and we do ask particularly for your people in foreign lands. Our hearts go out to them, our Father, particularly those who are dear to us in that land of Sri Lanka. We do pray for them, our Father, to keep them safe, to keep them close to yourself and honoring your name, even in the way in which they are constrained at the moment. We pray, our Father, that across this world there might even today be done much to the honour of the name of the Lord Jesus in the saving of precious souls. So, Father, we return to ourselves and pray again, especially for the members of this fellowship who are not able to be with us for one reason or another. Those, our Father, who are struggling with health issues particularly. We do think of them this morning. We ask for them, Our Father, to be very good and kind to them, to draw near to them and to encourage them to keep their eyes fixed heavenwards, to see the Lord Jesus Christ and to Our Father be there ready for when he returns to take us all to be with him for all eternity. Father, encourage us together this morning we pray in this place. Everything said and done might be to the honour of the Lord Jesus Christ's name and he alone. We ask it in his name and for his sake. Amen. 210 please, 210. Here is love vast as the ocean, loving kindness as the flood, when the prince of life, our ransom, shed for us his precious love. Who his love will not remember. 210. ♪ So vast as the ocean ♪ ♪ Loving kindness as the flood ♪ ♪ Where the grace of life, power, and son ♪ ♪ Shed for us His precious blood ♪ ♪ Who is love, who does bring that love ♪ ♪ Who can cease to sing ♪ He can never be forgotten, through the tens' of eternal days. On the mount of crucifixion, bound in sword and beam and wire, through the floodgates of God's mercy, Lord of us and gracious kind, Grace and love, like mighty rivers, pour incessant from above, and let peace and perfect justice, Israel, ♪ It's the love of the mighty rivers ♪ ♪ Holding certain from above ♪ ♪ And its peace and perfect justice ♪ ♪ It's the guilty world in love ♪ A brief word of prayer, shall we? Father, as we turn to your word, we pray for help in the reading of it, in the instruction from it, and we pray, our Father, that we all might be blessed, as once again we hear your voice. May the speaker be lost, Saito, and God's voice be heard to each of us through the power of the Holy Spirit, we pray. For we ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus, and for his sake. Amen. We all know what a logo is, I'm sure. It's just a simple picture or a figure. or a number, which directs our thoughts immediately to the company who owns that logo. We all know about the Nike lightning strike. We know about perhaps the logo for polo menswear, the polo rider on the little badge on the shirts. And if you see a black horse galloping across a screen, if you haven't got the sound on, you know it's Lloyd's Bank, don't you, that's being advertised. Logos. I don't want to think about logos particularly this morning. But I wonder, if you were asked to design a logo for Christianity, what would come to your mind? Well, I know what comes to your mind immediately. It's going to be a cross, isn't it? or it might be a fish. Those are the two logos that have become synonymous with Christianity these days. And in fact, he goes back a long, long time, of course. because the fish was used by the early Christians. They would draw it in the sand when they were talking to somebody with their staff or whatever they had. They would draw this fish in the sand to denote that they were Christians, that they were followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they would do that because of fear of persecution were they to openly suggest that they were Christians, followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. So they would draw it in the sand. The cross, similarly, I'm sure they used that. But, of course, you and I know that down through the centuries since those early Christians, the cross particularly, and to some extent the symbol of the fish, have been elaborated beyond all measure. They've been produced in very expensive metals, perhaps silver or gold. Expensive woods have been used to create crosses that are used in many churches and put into many places. Metal glass has been used to elaborate these particular emblems. They're often extravagantly decorated with precious metals or stone. But we ask ourselves perhaps, is that a true representation of Christianity? Does it actually represent, does it demonstrate the reality of being a Christian? The reality of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary? Does it show us something of the persecution that Christians are under at times, even lives being taken? Does it demonstrate that, these elaborate symbols of crosses and of the fish? Well, no, of course, not at all, does it? It doesn't do that. So I want to think particularly this morning about the cross. And in order to do that, I want you to come with me to Calvary. I want to think a little bit this morning about Calvary and one specific element of Calvary, the cross. We read that passage there in Matthew 27 that gives us a very graphic account of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. But there's one little phrase that I want to take out of it and I want you to take away with you and to think about perhaps in the days that lie ahead when we think about a cross, when we see a cross. And it's found in verse 47. Matthew 27, sorry, verse 27. Sorry, I've even got the wrong verse there. It's Matthew 27 and verse 45. I was right in the first place. Now from the sixth hour, there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And this morning I want to think about that little phrase there. There was darkness. That's the phrase. That could be the heading, if you like, of the little consideration we have together this morning. There was darkness. Darkness in the Scriptures is often associated, or more often than not, associated with judgment and with punishment. One has written this about the cross. He's written, the mood of the most decisive moment in world history is painted black. It's the darkness of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as I say, it's more often than not associated with judgment. Come over with me, don't turn to it, don't need to do that. Amos chapter 8 and verse 9. And this is what Amos writes. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day. Now, I'm not suggesting that this is a prophetic utterance by Amos because I don't believe it is. But it paints that picture, doesn't it, of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, when darkness came at daytime to shadow the work being done there on the cross by the Lord Jesus Christ of taking away your sin and taking away my sin. come over to Joel and chapter 2 and verses 1 and 2. And here we do have a prophetic statement. Joel is writing, blow ye the trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm in my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand. And here's the phrase, a day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains. Here Joel is speaking of that time in a day to come, praise God, you and I will not go through it. The day of the Great Tribulation, when God will judge this earth for the way it dealt with His holy, righteous Son on the cross. at Calvary, the coming Great Tribulation after the Church has gone to Heaven itself. And then just finally to make the point of this darkness always being, it seems, connected with judgment and with punishment. Right at the end of your Bibles, in Jude, in chapter 6, verse 6, Jude writes this, "...and the angels, which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, He hath reserved..." Where? "...He's reserved them, God, in everlasting change, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day." Again, darkness associated with judgment. So Matthew 27 verse 45 is where I want to be with you this morning. A scene, is it, of judgment? A scene of persecution, of punishment? Well yes, of course it is. For there the perfect righteous Son of God was put to death for not crimes that He had committed, but for the sins of the world. So here we have it then, this tremendous situation where God shields the world in darkness, cuts them off from the punishment that He is meeting out, the judgment that the Lord Jesus Christ is taking for the sins of the world. It certainly was a place of judgment, a place of punishment. Many of our hymn writers have taken up that thought and used it to great effect, haven't they? Think of these words. Oh, it was a place of darkness, all right, a place of judgment and punishment. It was as if God would not allow anyone to witness such horrendous punishment. Well might the sun in darkness hide, And shut his glories in, when Christ, The mighty Maker, died. For man, these creatures, sin. Another, dark was the night, But heaven was darker still. O Christ my God, Is this the Father's will? And then when most in Satan's awful power, O Lord thy suffering spirit seemed, then in that dark and fearful hour our souls were by thy blood redeemed. The darkness then of Calvary. Now of course the cross has a wonderful attraction for you and for I, does it not? It's a fabulous place for us, isn't it, as believers, to imagine the Lord Jesus Christ having gone there for our sins, that we might be free from punishment. It has a wonderful attraction for us. But can I suggest to you that we should never ever be in the business of glamorizing the cross. The reality of the cross was that it was a place of darkness. a place of hatred, a place of mockery, a place of disdain and humiliation, a place indescribable loneliness, a place of intense pain, a place of abandonment, a place of judgments. All these things gathered up together give us a picture of the darkness of Calvary. the darkness of the cross. Hatred is recorded for us in John chapter 15 and verse 25. The Lord Jesus said, they hated me without a cause. Mockery, Luke tells us in chapter 18 and verse 32. For he will be delivered unto the Gentiles and shall be mocked and spitefully entreated and spit upon. a place of disdain and humiliation. Luke again in chapter 23, and Herod with his men of war set him at naught and mocked him and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe. Indescribable loneliness. I looked for someone to take pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. Psalm 69, prophetically speaking of the situation that the Lord Jesus Christ went through on the cross and particularly in those hours of darkness. A place of intense pain. Psalm 22 tells us this, I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It's melted in the midst of my bowels, intense pain here for the Lord Jesus Christ. A place of abandonment. Same psalm, verse 1. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? That is beyond, I suggest, human comprehension. God forsaken. of God. How can we ever enter into what it meant for the Lord Jesus Christ to go through those hours of darkness, forsaken of his Father God? Abandonment and finally judgment. He was taken from prison and from judgment, Isaiah 53 verse 8 tells us. I'll say it again and I hope you agree. There was nothing glamorous, nothing glamorous at all about the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ and his death upon it. Darkness, one writer has said, darkness that couldn't be penetrated, darkness that descended for three hours, a darkness unparalleled, darkness that will never ever be repeated. Wasn't this not the most solemn moment in world history? Surely it was, wasn't it? The most horrendous moment in the history of this world in which we live. Another is written, Our Lord's Cross wasn't placed on an ornate and attractive altar between two golden, silver or silver candlesticks. It was placed on a noisy thoroughfare between two thieves. Get the picture. It was a place of darkness, a place of awful judgment and punishment. Some of you will have been, I guess, to Israel, and one of the most moving scenes for me was to stand on a mount top and be directed to look at where it is thought, I make no claim for it being, but the thought was that it was the place where the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, outside of the original walls of Jerusalem. And as you look down into that scene, what did you see? Nothing glorious at all, it was a bus station. And the buses were churning over and the smell of burning diesel was coming up. There's nothing glorious about it at all. Nothing to move you to praise and worship, really. This is the point I'm trying to make, that the cross of the Lord Jesus was a desperate place, was desperately dark. There was darkness, Matthew says, in chapter 27 and verse 45. Another hymn has put it like this, Jehovah lifted up his rod, O Christ, it fell on thee. Thou wast so stricken of thy God. There's not one stroke for me." Go back to Psalm 22 and read through it. And you'll see there it starts off as we've already said, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? It starts off with God forsaking the Lord Jesus Christ. But it then moves on to the treatment at the hands of men. And it tells us that in daylight, the Lord Jesus Christ suffered at the hands of men. But in that darkness, when God shadowed the scene of the cross with darkness, it was then that the Lord Jesus Christ suffered at the hands of the Father God. Yes, He suffered at the hands of men. He suffered at the hands of the Roman soldiers as they nailed Him to that cross. and the mockery he suffered there, but t'was a heavier hand than that of the Roman soldiers that fell upon him in the darkness of Calvary." One of the most profound statements in all of Scripture comes in 2 Corinthians, let me just turn it up and read it to you. 2 Corinthians verse 5 and 21. You know it well, I know. Chapter 5 of 2 Corinthians and verse 21. says this, the Apostle Paul writing, for he hath made him, that's the Lord Jesus Christ, to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Surely one of the most amazing scriptures, one of the most amazing verses, for he hath made him the Lord Jesus Christ. God has made the Lord Jesus Christ to be sin. Why? That we might be made the righteousness and God in him. Was it just? No, it wasn't, Paul says. For he knew no sin. We just need to stop there for a moment and just make sure we understand fully the meaning of that verse. It does not say that the Lord Jesus Christ was made a sinner. It doesn't say that he was made sinful. If that were true, of course, he could never have given his life, the perfect life, the perfect sacrifice for our sins. It would have been impossible. He didn't become sinful. He didn't become as one who was a sinner. Who knew no sin, it tells us. That's the phrase that we need to hang on to. He was holy and therefore He was sinless. Even when He became sin for us, when He took the punishment for our sins, He did not become sinful. He wasn't a sinner. You remember how that when He came into this world and was born into this world, He was born absolutely holy, unlike any one of us, unlike any other person ever born into this world. Luke chapter 1 and verse 36 tells us that he was placed in Mary's womb by the Holy Spirit. And therefore, and I say it very reverently, therefore he could not be born a sinner, could not be sinful. You'll read through the Scriptures and you'll try again and again to find Joseph, Mary's husband, described as the father of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he never appears because Joseph wasn't his father. you will always find that when the wise men come for argument's sake to look at the, to view the Lord Jesus, it tells us there quite plainly that they came in and they saw the young child with his mother, no mention. The Lord Jesus Christ was born holy and he became a holy, righteous person as he moved amongst us, not sinning, with no sin in him. A tremendous fact. And that gives us the thought here in this verse. It nails it down for us, does it not? So the Lord Jesus Christ then, on the cross, in the darkness, carried your punishment, carried my punishment for our sins. On the cross he was treated as we deserve to be treated, as sinners deserve to be treated. The penalty for sin was the wrath and judgment of God, and he bore that punishment for you and for me. He became our substitute by being our sacrifice for sins. What a tremendous thought, isn't it? And He could do that because of who He was, the Holy Righteous Son of God. He took our punishment on that cross. In the darkness of Calvary, your sin and mine was laid to His account, credited to Him. Why? The verse goes on with that wonderful statement, doesn't it? That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. What a tremendous thought, isn't it? It lifts us, doesn't it, beyond human comprehension. It's something that I suggest without the aid of the Holy Spirit's power living within each one of us who are born again believers. It gives us the ability to appreciate that thought that the world outside would never be able to assimilate. The fact that we become righteous because of the imputation of that righteousness that was the Lord Jesus Christ. And at Calvary's cross as he bore your sins and bore mine. Wonder of all wonders, surely. And then we think, perhaps you're thinking, well that's a pretty grim message, Robin. That's fairly heavy going. You know, that's really brought us down and made us to be very sad and perhaps be very aware of our own sins and all the rest of it. But you know, the wonder of it is that as you go through Scripture, you find that God always moves from darkness to light. I want to end there this morning, moving into the light. Genesis 1, verses 1 to 3. Let me just read them to you. You know them well, I know. But Genesis 1, 1 to 3. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void, and here's a thought, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And then it tells us that the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and God said, let there be light. And there was light. You see, right from the very start of creation, God moved from darkness into light. And so it was at Calvary itself. You know that in John 20 in verse 1, as the ladies come to the tomb there, as Mary is there at the tomb, It tells us that when she came, it was dark. John 20 verse 1 tells us, the first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark. It was very dark for her on that morning, not just physically dark outside, but dark in her heart, in her soul, in her life. The one whom she loved and worshipped had been crucified, she'd witnessed it, and been put in a tomb, and he was there, dead as she thought, absolutely finished. But you get to the end, down into that chapter, and you get to verse 18, and she suddenly discovers Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, gloriously revealed to her in all His risen, glorified power. And out of that darkness, what happens to them? The light dawns upon them. That's the glory of it, isn't it? You and I in our sinful state, with sins that are unforgiven, no hope of eternity to be spent with God in heaven itself, only punishment and judgment before us, days of darkness, blackness. God says, come into the light. Come into the light, he says. The Lord Jesus Christ is alive. I want the light to dawn upon you, he says. And we ask ourselves this morning, is that our experience? Has the light from the darkness of Calvary Has it dawned upon us yet? Has it come into our hearts and into our lives? Once again in 2 Corinthians and chapter 4 and verse 6. For God who commanded the light to shine out of the darkness. Here's a thought. The light coming out of the darkness. God, who has commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts. Has he shined in your heart? This is the message of the Gospel from the cross, from the darkness of Calvary itself. Has the light of the Gospel shined in our hearts? What does it do? It gives us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So out of that darkness of Calvary, we should never forget it. And we should never glamorize the cross work of the Lord Jesus Christ, but we rejoice in the light that was created there, as it were, and shines in our hearts as the glory of God in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. We just finish with a little story here. A chap called William Sidney Porter. He was a 20th century American story writer. I've never heard of him, I don't think. But he was heard to say on his deathbed, turn up the lights, I don't want to die in the dark." He was dying, and he was dying because he was, at the age of 47, dying of chronic liver disease, brought on by years of heavy drinking. Turn the lights up, he says. I don't want to die in the dark. Would that be our experience? When our time comes to leave this scene, are we going to die in darkness or are we going to die in the light of the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ? Another little incident I heard recently, maybe you did, I can't remember where it was. It was of a little girl who was dying. A tiny girl dying. How sad is that? She'd been wracked with pain for several years. She lay there dying. This particular minister came alongside her, and the family were all gathered round the bed as she was dying. And just as she closed her eyes and died, her face lit up, and she just said, Wow! The light was dawning in her life as she left this scene. Scene of darkness, isn't it? Very much so. And she entered into the light of the glory of God. So the cross of Calvary is dark. It was very dark, impenetrably we thought. It was a place of suffering, of punishment. The Lord Jesus died in the darkness of Calvary, but on that third appointed day he rose from the dead. He rose there from the dead to save us ever having to suffer the punishment for our sins and our wrong doing. died that we might enter into the unsullied light of heaven, there to dwell for all eternity. Might it be so, for his name's sake. Amen. Closing hymn please 553. 553. Out of my bondage, sorrow and night, Jesus, I come. Jesus, I come. Into thy freedom, gladness and light, Jesus, I come. Out of my sickness, into thy health. Out of my want and into thy wealth. Out of my sin and into thyself, Jesus, I come to thee. 553. The Lord God is God and Christ is the Son of God. and right, Jesus, I come to Thee. Out of my sickness into Thy health, out of my fault and in I say, and it's true, I say, Jesus, I come to Thee. Out of a shameful failure and loss, Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come to Thee. Jesus, I come to Thee. As all the rest have gathered and cried, Jesus, I come to Thee. Jesus, I come, into thy perfect will to abide. Jesus, I come to thee. Out of myself to earn thy love, out of despair Jesus my God to Thee. House of the King and Bread of the True, Jesus my God to Thee. Out of the depths of ruin outflowed, Into the peace of a shattering fold, Ever thy glorious face revealed, Jesus, I come to thee. Father, we rejoice together in our lovely Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we pray that as we go from this place, he might become the dearer to us and that we might walk the closer with him, recognizing afresh this morning, the terrible sufferings that he went through there at Calvary's Cross, that we might be brought into the family of God. We thank you for him. We pray our father as we come now to our communion service, it might be our father that we have a fresh vision of him and our hearts are broken in adoration, praise and worship to you for him and for his work at Calvary. We give you our thanks in the name of the Lord Jesus for his sake. Amen.