To reiterate what I said on Thursday
night, thank you for your welcome. It's a joy for us as a family
to be here and to worship with those with whom our hearts are
knit as one in Jesus Christ. Before we come to the Word of
God, let us just come to the Lord in prayer briefly again.
Lord God, gracious Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for Thy mercy. We thank Thee for Thy grace.
We thank Thee for Thy Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who loved
the Church and gave Himself for her. Our Lord, as we come before
Thee now, we pray that Thou wouldst still our hearts before Thee.
We pray that Thou wouldst comfort Thy people and that thou was
by thy spirit lead us unto the feet of Jesus Christ. Open our
eyes to see, open our hearts to receive the word of God. Give
us ears to hear, give us faith to believe. We pray in Jesus
name, amen. Turn in your Bibles please to
Matthew's Gospel again and chapter 27. Matthew 27. Matthew 27. Reading from verse
1. When the morning was come, All
the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against
Jesus to put him to death. When they had bound him, they
led him away and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor.
Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was
condemned, repented himself. and brought again the 30 pieces
of silver to the chief priests and elders saying, I have sinned
in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, what is
that to us? See thou to that. And he cast
down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went
and hanged himself. And the chief priest took the
silver pieces and said, it is not lawful for to put them into
the treasury. because it is the price of blood.
And they took counsel and brought with them the potter's field
to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called
the field of blood unto this day. Then was fulfilled that
which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took
the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued,
whom they of the children of Israel did value, and gave them
for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me. And Jesus
stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, saying,
Aren't thou the king of the Jews? And Jesus said unto him, Thou
sayest. And when he was accused of the
chief priests and elders, he answered nothing. Then said Pilate
unto him, Here is thou not how many things they witness against
thee? And he answered him to never a word, insomuch that the
governor marveled greatly. Now at that feast, the governor
was wont to release unto the people a prisoner whom they would. and they had then a noble prisoner
called Barabbas, a notable prisoner called Barabbas. Therefore when
they were gathered together Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye
that I release unto you, Barabbas or Jesus which is called Christ?
For he knew that for envy they had delivered him. When he was
set down on the judgment seat his wife sent unto him saying,
Have thou nothing to do with that just man? For I have suffered
many things this day in a dream because of him.' But the chief
priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should
ask Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor answered and said
unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you?
They said, Barabbas. Pilate saith unto them, What
shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say
unto him, let him be crucified. And the governor said, why? What evil have he done? But they
cried out the more saying, let him be crucified. When Pilate
saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was
made, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude,
saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person. See
ye to it. Thus answered all the people
and said, His blood is on us and on our children. Then released
Heber Abbas unto them. And when he had scourged Jesus,
he delivered him to be crucified. Then the soldiers of the governor
took Jesus into the common hall and gathered unto him the whole
band of soldiers and 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 gave 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,
and they compelled him to bear the cross. And when they were
come unto a 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, cast in 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 pass by reviled
him, wagging their heads, and saying, Thou that destroyest
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 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 6th hour,
there was darkness over all the land until the 9th hour. And about the 9th hour, Jesus
cried with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli, lamasa bakthanai. That is to say, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? Some of them that stood there,
when they heard that, said, this 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. And behold, the veil of the temple
was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, and the earth
did quake, and the rocks rent, and the graves were opened, and
many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of
the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city,
and appeared unto many. Now when the centurion and they
that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake and
those things that were done, they feared greatly saying, truly,
this was the Son of God. For your attention in particular,
the verses 36 and 37. And sitting down, they watched him there. And set
up over his head his accusation written, this is Jesus, the king
of the Jews. And sitting down, they watched
him there. Oh that God, would cause us,
would give us grace to sit down and watch Him. That God would come unto us this
morning where you are, where I am, and cause us to sit down
and watch Him. To behold the One of whom we
read in this chapter. The one of whom the accusation
read, this is Jesus. That we should stop our running
around. That we should stop with our
busyness. Ever walking, ever striving,
ever doing. Ever seeking to approve ourselves
unto others. and approve ourselves unto God,
always working, always striving to produce a righteousness of
our own, which in the sight of God is but filthy rags. That God should bring us to an
end of ourselves, an end of our works, an end of our own righteousness. That he should show us that we
are nothing and bring us to nothing and cause us to sit down and
watch him. Watch him. And sitting down, they watched
him there. And set up over his head, his
accusation written, This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. This is Jesus, the King of the
Jews. The king of the Jews. Consider who this is. Nailed
to this cross. Crucified in Barabbas' place
as a common criminal. He is a king. the King of the
Jews, the King of His people, the King of Kings, the Lord of
Lords. The King of Kings was taken by
wretched sinners like you and I, stripped, mocked, beaten,
bruised, spat upon, nailed to a cross and lifted up to die. What humiliation, what hatred
he endured, how he suffered, the King of the Jews. Matthew's Gospel as with the
other Gospels, presents Christ in a certain light. The Lord
has given us four distinct Gospels, all pointing to Christ, all revealing
Christ, but all as it were like a prism, different sides of the
glass, looking in at the same light, but from a different angle. We speak of Christ as being our
prophet, our priest, and our king. And of course, not just
the son of man, but the son of God. Mark's gospel, in the way he
presents Christ unto us, presents him very much as the prophet,
Mark's gospel is sometimes referred as presenting Christ as a servant,
but he is essentially the servant as a prophet is a servant. He comes as a messenger of God
with God's message, the gospel, as the prophet. We can see this
in the opening words of Mark's gospel, where we read, the beginning
of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God, as it is written
in the prophets, behold, I send my messenger before thy face,
which shall prepare thy way before thee, the voice of one crying
in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his
paths straight. John the Baptist was sent before
Christ to prepare the way for the prophet, Jesus Christ, the
preacher of the gospel, the subject of the gospel, the
Son of God. Luke, in his gospel, presents
Christ to us. The same Lord, the same Saviour,
the same Gospel. But he comes at it in presenting
unto us Christ in his priestly office. In Luke, Christ is the
Saviour. who brings salvation, but he's
the savior who brings salvation because he's God's priest that
comes and offers a sacrifice, offers himself as the sacrifice
for sinners upon the tree. Luke's Gospel in Chapter 1, again
we see this in the way he opens the Gospel. Chapter 1, verse
5, he says, There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea,
a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abiah, and his
wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous
before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of
the Lord, blameless. And they had no child because
that Elizabeth was barren. And they both were now stricken
in years. And the Lord comes unto Zacharias,
this priest, and says, Elizabeth will bear a child, John the Baptist. And then later the Lord comes
unto Mary and says, you will bear a child. The Son of God,
His name shall be called Jesus. And Mary comes unto Zacharias
and Elizabeth, and the child in Elizabeth's womb jumps. because
the saviour is in his presence. Then we read of how Mary speaks
praise concerning that child within her womb. And then we
read on in Luke chapter 2 of how the wise men come seeking he who is born We read on of how the angels in chapter 2 declare
that in Bethlehem is born a saviour. And then later in chapter 2,
that child born, Jesus, is taken up to the temple. and how Simeon receives him and
takes him in his arms and praises God and says, now I have seen
my salvation. Luke presents Christ as a priest. In John, very different from
the other Gospels of course, John presents Christ as divine,
the Son of God. In the beginning was the Word
and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He's the Son
of God. So different is John's Gospel
from all the others. So divinely is Christ presented
as the light that shone in the darkness. And Matthew's Gospel
in which we are reading presents Christ as the King, the Messiah. This is why Matthew opens with
a genealogy in which he runs through, from the beginning,
the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David,
the son of Abraham. He shows his lineage right back
to Abraham, but through the royal lineage of David. He's the king
long promised. Mark has no genealogy. because
Mark presents Christ as a prophet, who comes from nowhere, but he
comes with a message. But Matthew would have us see
Christ as the King. The King. And throughout Matthew,
you will read, if you read attentively, you will see how Matthew singles
out aspects of Christ's work, his speeches, doings, which are
connected with his royal lineage. And here, at the cross, we see how the soldiers took the King
of Kings. And they said, Hail King of the
Jews. They dressed him as a king with
cruel mockery. They knew what men said of him,
that Jesus was the king of the Jews, but they derided him. They mocked him, they sneered
and laughed at him. 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 their head. And after that, they had
mocked him. They took the robe, from him
and put his own garments on him and led him away to crucify him. The King of Kings. Oh, if they really knew who he
was. Oh, if we really knew who he
was. Because what they did to him
then You and I have done to him now. We've heard of Jesus. We've read of him. We know of
him. But our hearts have derided and
mocked him. We know he's the king. But we,
as it were, have spat upon him. We've dressed him up. We've laughed
at him. Our unbelief, our apathy has
arrayed him cruelly as a figure of ridicule. Our hearts have laughed at him. We've trodden him underfoot.
There is nothing done to Christ in this chapter that each one
of us has not done unto him in our own hearts. We are guilty
of crying out, give us Barabbas and crucify
Christ. Away with this man, we will not
have him to reign over us. And yet, these soldiers, and
Pilate really not knowing what they wrote and what they did,
Pilate had an accusation written over Jesus' head in three languages,
which read, this is Jesus, the King of the Jews. This is Jesus. the King of the
Jews. And as we sit down and watch
him there, I want us to see, I want you to see, that here,
upon the cross, this is Jesus, the King of the Jews. in a way
that he is not presented unto us anywhere else. The true character
of Jesus, who he really is, and what he really did to save his
people from their sins, is seen specifically here upon the cross. This is Jesus. Others, many will say of their
idols, their religious idols, this is Jesus. There are many
who come unto us preaching another Jesus, another gospel, another
Christ. And they will say of their Jesus,
this is Jesus. They will say their Jesus loves
all men. And he stands pleading with all
men to come unto him and receive salvation. Just accept him into
your heart and you will be saved. And they say, this is Jesus. But it's an idol. Powerless to
save because he stands there waiting upon us with our own
will. to choose to receive the King
as though we could choose what the King of Kings should do with
us. What blasphemy. He will either save us or we
will be lost. It is Jesus who will either accept
us. God will accept us in the beloved
or we are lost. We are reading here of a sovereign
king who does what he chooses. We have no choice in the matter. There is none that willeth. There
is none that seeketh. Left to our decision, we will
never come. We will never sit down before
Christ at the cross and watch him there by nature. We will
seek our own way under heaven. And we will happily bow down
before a Jesus that does our bidding. But we will never come
to this Jesus. That idol of which many speak,
of which you and I have probably at one time or other followed,
if we've been delivered from it, that idol is not the Jesus
we read of here. This is Jesus. Here, the King
of Kings, the Majesty of God's Son, who lived and dwelt with
God the Father in heaven's glory, who humbled himself, who took
upon himself humanity, human flesh, a human soul. He was born
of Mary, of the Spirit of God, a real man, and yet truly God. He came into this world made
a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death. He
came from the highest height to the lowest depth to be rejected
of all men. He came unto his own the Jews
and the Jews received him not. They cast him out. They questioned
him. They found fault with him. They
stoned him if they could. They tried to put him to death.
They hounded him throughout Jerusalem. And in the end, when he said,
now is the hour, they took him and they crucified him. They
were powerless over him until he said, I have come to lay down
my life for the sheep. This is the hour, take me. This king, this sovereign king,
came for this reason, to lay down his life for sinners like
you and I. And his glory His Majesty, the
true Jesus is seen here at this hour in his humiliation. When he was rejected by us all,
hated of all, cast out by all, nailed to the cross to die. His glory as the Lord of Lords
and the King of Kings is not seen in him being sat, as it
were, in a palace, in majesty and riches. His glory is seen
in his humiliation, in his death, because of the love he displayed
his own. Because he manifested the righteousness
of God through his love in giving himself for his own. This is Jesus. Of course we read of Jesus throughout
the Gospels in all his doings and all his sayings, we can read
his speech, we can read of his miracles, we can read of the
blind men he touched and they saw, the deaf whom he made to
hear, the lame whom he made to walk, even the dead he brought
to life, Lazarus come forth. And a dead man that lay in the
grave for four days came forth alive. We read of his miraculous
works. We read his miraculous speech. There were many who heard him
and said, never man spake like this man. who came speaking unto us in
power with authority. Never man spake like this man. And yet all of that is nothing
compared to what we see of Christ here upon the cross. This is Jesus. This is Jesus. Who sees? Who sees the power
of God in a man slain upon a tree? Who sees the glory of God in
the crucifixion of Christ? Who by nature sees the triumph
of God in the rejection of his son. Those whom the Lord comes unto
in grace and touches their blind eyes and makes them see. If you and I, blind as we are
by nature, sat in the darkness are brought by God to have our
eyes touched and opened by his gospel, then we will see that
which is hid from others. These things are hid from the
wise and the prudent, the wise and the prudent in religion.
Those who can pick up this Bible and tell you it, what it means
inside and out. Those who can argue doctrine
with you. Calvinistic doctrine with you
and show you what it all means and you can't answer them. Because
they seem to have a better grasp of the scriptures than you do.
And yet they don't see Christ. The Jews, the Pharisees, the
scribes, they knew the scriptures. Their lives were spent reading
the scriptures. And yet when Christ came unto
them, the King of kings stood before them. They saw one whom
they hated, rejected. One who they felt was come to
destroy the law and the prophets. And they cast him out. Yet the
one they cast out gave them the Law and the Prophets. He fulfilled
the Law and the Prophets. He was the very Messiah, the
very King whom they should have been waiting for, looking for
and received that is coming. Yet they cast him out. And you
and I would do the same. We have done the same. We can
be brought up in religion. We can have gone to this place
and that and read this and that. And when we see Jesus, we say,
not that. When we hear the true Jesus,
the true gospel concerning him, we say, oh no, not that. I can't
believe him. And we go off after our idols. So
he's hid from us. But when God in grace brings
us by his gospel and breaks us and slays us and brings us to
an end of ourselves and causes us to fall down before him crying
for mercy and to sit down here and watch him. having come to
an end of our own selves, our own resources, our own wisdom,
our own righteousness. We got nothing left. We can do
nothing to save ourselves. We know we're lost. We know we're
condemned. Then the spirit of God will bring
us here and sit us down and say unto us, this is Jesus. Faith cease. Faith sees. We read following that, the account
of those that didn't see. They passed by. They reviled
him. They wagged their heads. They
said, thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in three
days, save thyself. If thou be the son of God, come
down from the cross. They sneered at him. They rejected
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. Like you did. Like I did. And then we read. Now from the sixth hour there
was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. Now from
the 6th hour there was darkness over all the land until the 9th
hour. And about the 9th hour Jesus
cried with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabach vanai. That is to say, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? Darkness. over all the land from
the sixth hour until the ninth hour. This is Jesus in the darkness. What is really seen and known
of Christ is what is seen in the dark in these hours upon
the cross. All these people who were there
at the time had seen Jesus in the flesh. We haven't. Born in our generation We've
come 2,000 years too late to see him in the flesh, but we
are at no disadvantage because those who saw him in the flesh
saw nothing except God opened their eyes and gave them faith. It's what their faith could see
in the darkness of Jesus that would save them. The people there
had seen him, they'd heard him, they'd heard his speech, they'd
heard the gospel, they'd seen his miracles. And many were offended
at him. Many that saw his miracles and
followed him when he spake to them and spake of his grace and
electing grace, sovereign grace. They said, this is a hard say
and who can receive it? And they were offended at him
and left him. You'd no more believe Christ
if you saw him in the flesh today or saw him heal the blind or
heal the deaf or made a dead man live. You'd no more believe
him today if you saw that than they did in their day. What we need to say is what happened
in the darkness. When the natural eye can see
nothing. When the hours were darkened
they all sat and they saw nothing. And yet the glory of God shone
in the darkness. When the natural sight is brought
to nothing, faith sees, faith beholds the Son of God in the darkness. They saw in
the light naturally, but faith sees in the darkness. Has God brought you there to
sit here At the cross, has He given you the faith to see that
what happened in the cross, in the darkness, as Christ hung,
bearing the sins of His people, made sin in their place, suffering
the wrath of God in their place, If God has given you faith to
see that, then you will see Jesus, the King of the Jews. You will
see the Saviour. You will see your salvation. If He brings you to sit down
and open the eyes of faith in the darkness, and watch Him in
the darkness, suffering by faith, manifesting
the righteousness of God, displaying redemption's glory. If you can see the light shining
in the darkness, then you will see Jesus Christ, the King of
the Jews. You will see your Saviour, taking
away your sins and washing you clean. Earlier in Matthew's Gospel in
chapter 4 verse 16 we read a quote where we read, the people which
sat in darkness saw great light and to them which sat in the
region and shadow of death light is sprung up. people which sat
in darkness saw great light and to them which sat in the region
and shadow of death light is sprung up. Now of course that
is a prophecy which has its fulfillment in the coming of Christ to his
people. But it has a deeper fulfillment
here at the cross as his people sat in darkness and by faith
in Christ. saw great light. They sat in
the region and the shadow of death and light sprung up. They saw redemption's glory. Because this king that hung upon
the cross, this man that was crucified to the tree was the
son of God. people derided and mocked and
said he trusted in God let him deliver him now if he will have
him for he said I am the son of God well he is the son of
God and he did and does trust in God and because he's the son
of God and because he trusted in God what he did upon the cross
brought salvation to everyone for whom he suffered. It perfected
it. It accomplished it powerfully. He did all that he came to do. And he did it in the darkness. John's Gospel. Chapter 1. In the beginning was the Word
and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was
in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him and
without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was
life and the life was the light of men and the light shineth
in darkness. And the darkness comprehended
it not. Here at the cross in the darkness,
as Christ hung in his people's place, bearing their sin, their
iniquity, their hatred of him, he shone. He shone with love for God. He shone with love for his neighbor. He shone with love for his people. He hung there suffering the death
that they should suffer, suffering the penalty of the law that they
deserve to be judged under. He hung suffering what they deserve
to suffer and he hung there suffering because he loved them. and because
he would save them. And in so doing, he manifested
the righteousness of God. Here in the dark, Christ, the
light of God, shone. Can you see Jesus shining in the darkness? Can you see his face shining
in the darkness? Can you see him looking unto
you from the cross, saying, Father, forgive them. They know not what
they do. If you're given faith to believe
on him, you will know that like Noah, whom we spake the other
day, you will know that you nailed him to that tree. That your sins are the reason
he hung there. That it was your belief that
caused him to suffer, your unbelief that caused him to suffer. It
was your hatred that cried out crucify him, crucify him. And yet how he shone. We hated
him and yet he loved us. We put him to death and yet he
loved his own with a perfect love that knew no beginning and
knows no end. We see in the darkness here the
faith of Jesus Christ. He trusted in God, they said,
yes, but never so much as when he hung here in the darkness,
rejected by all men and cast out by his father because of
what he bore and what he was made to be. He hung there as
the sinner, nailed to the tree by the sinner, We put him there
with the sinner. He was innocent. He was perfect. He was righteous. And yet he
suffered. Oh, his faith. He knew that though
he would be cast out, he knew that though he would drink the
cup of God's wrath to the dregs, that though he would be rejected
by all, he knew that though he drank a cup, that it was impossible
to drink. that though he must endure hell
for his people, that though he must endure the fires of God's
wrath for his people, that though he must go into the darkness
of the abyss, he knew that in the end, everyone for whom he
suffered would be saved, would be delivered, would be made righteous, would rise again. as his bride
with him. He loved his bride, the church. He took all her blemishes, all
her sin, all her unfaithfulness, all her unwretchedness, and he
covered them with his cloak. He wrapped his cloak as it were
around her nakedness. He covered her shame. He washed
her in his blood. He made her a perfect bride to
dwell with himself forevermore. In the darkness, his faith shone. We cannot comprehend what he
suffered. We can speak of it, we can read
of it, we can hear of it, we can have a glimpse. The Spirit
of God will show us something of Him from time to time as He
brings us to sit down and to watch Him there. But we'll never
exhaust the depths of what He went through. We'll never truly
understand how far He had to fall, how deep He had to go. God has given us passages in
the scripture to give us glimpses of this. He gives us trials of
our own, that we should know what it is to suffer for the
sake of Christ. Sometimes we may be brought low,
we may be brought to the end of ourselves, and it gives us
a glimpse of what Christ suffered. But it's just a drop in the ocean
compared to what he suffered. Just a drop in the ocean. We
read of Job of old. Oh, what Job was taught of suffering. He lost all his children, slain. He lost his home, his livelihood,
his cattle, everything he had taken away. He lost his health. And as he sat with nothing at
the point of death, his friend so-called accused him and said,
you must have done some great sin, Job. It's your fault that this has
come upon you, Job. When he needed comfort, they
cast accusation in his face. When he needed someone to comfort
him, someone to say something kind to him, they just accused
him. He had nothing. And yet he said of his God, though
he slay me, yet will I trust him. God can take everything away
from me, even my own life, yet He's given me that faith that
I will trust Him. He has the words of eternal life,
to whom else shall I go? Though He slay me, yet will I
trust Him. And in so saying, we see something
of the trust of the Son of God. in his father, something of the
faith of Jesus Christ, who as he hung upon the tree could say
truly, though he slay me, and I am slain, and I am dying, yet
I will trust him. With this he manifested the righteousness
of God. As we read of in Romans, but
now the righteousness of God is manifested. Even the righteousness
of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ. This is Jesus. This is his love for sinners.
This is where He went to save us from our sins. Oh, can you truly hear of this
One that gave all, that suffered all, for sinners like you and
I, and just walk on by? Is your heart so hard that it
doesn't even move you, you do not care. By nature, yes. Our hearts are that hard, that
as he hung there, we could trample him underfoot. We could turn
our back upon him, we could spit upon him. But thank God, that God has brought
a people to the feet of Jesus Christ. who have been brought
to sit and to watch Him there. Because everyone for whom He
suffered, everyone whom the Father chose from the foundation of
the world, every sinner that God chose to save through the
blood of Jesus Christ was laid upon Him, they were in Him. Their sins were laid on Him,
and He took away all their sins of every one. Not one sin was
missed, not one person was forgotten about. Everyone for whom He suffered,
He saved. Which is why at the beginning
of Matthew's Gospel it is written, Thou shalt call His name Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sins. And this is
what He did in the darkness upon the cross. This is what He did. He hung there. because of the
sins of his people. Were they your sins? Were they your sins? Your sins
nailed him to the cross. We're all guilty, we're all implicit
in this crime. But did he take that nailing
of him to the cross? Did he take your unbelief away? Did he bear them? Have you seen
Him not just as the Saviour of sinners, but as your Saviour? Have you seen Him? Oh, that God
would use the Gospel in power to open our hearts, to see Him
there as our Saviour, to see Jesus, the King of the Jews,
for this is Jesus, the King of the Jews. And sitting down, they
watched him there.