I want to talk to you about three
hours of darkness. In Matthew 27, verse 45 reads
this way. Of course, our Lord has been
hanging on the cross for some time. Matthew 27, 45. Now, from the sixth hour until
the ninth hour, there was darkness. over all the land. Today I want
to take you into the holies of holies. The spot on which we
shall stand today calls for the taking off of our shoes, for
it is holy ground. Today we go to the summit of
Mount Calvary, Golgotha, the place of the skull. the most
monumentous and awful spot on the face of the whole earth.
It is the place of the skull, a naked, barren place enriched
only by the blood of criminals, covered perhaps with the bones
of executed rebels, the off-scouring of the human race. Calvary, it
is in a cursed spot. where we shall see naked justice
sitting enthroned. Only today we shall see this
place so full of horror become transformed into the hill from
which cometh our help. On this hill our roses bloom,
our springs of peace and salvation. Verse 4, here at Mount Calvary
is the center of the whole earth. For it is the meeting place of
the redeemed, those separated in body by land and sea. Daily
the redeemed assemble in spirit here at Calvary and greet each
other with the kiss of love. So now we are at the summit of
Mount Calvary. Our Lord is unclothed. He who
clothed the lilies He who clothed the earth, he who clothed Adam
and Eve, he wears nothing but a crown of thorns that grew from
the curse of sin. He will cleanse men from the
very sin that made those thorns grow here at Calvary. They lay him down on the wood
on which he is to bleed. What a dying bed! for the king. See him. There he lies, his arms
stretched upon the beam, his feet laid upon each other and
bound with cords. Isaac once lay on the wood on
Mount Moriah, but the voice that then called out of heaven, saying,
Lay not thy hand upon the lad, will be silent at Calvary. That voice will not be heard. The executor grabs the hammer
and nails. Listen. Listen. Now look. See, the nails have
penetrated through and from both hands and feet gushes forth the
blood that stained the old rugged cross, the blood of the Holy
One. The cross is picked up and elevated
to its height. A crimson stream falls from the
wounds of the crucified Jesus. Now it's twelve o'clock noon.
The Savior has hung bleeding on the tree for nearly three
hours. There have been no changes that
have taken place up to this time. From 9 a.m. until 12 noon, the
usual degree of light was present, time enough for the Lord's enemies
to behold and insult His suffering. There could have been no mistake
about the fact that He was really nailed to the cross because He
was crucified in broad daylight. For three long hours, the Jews
sat down and watched Him. on the cross and they made jest
of His miseries. Thank God for those three hours
of light for the enemies of the faith to not question whether
He was actually nailed to the cross. These three hours of light
gave opportunity for inspection and witness-bearing. I see God's
wisdom here in these three hours of light, but then suddenly,
Out of nowhere, something occurs. The sun, which has just arrived
directly overhead, begins to withdraw its beams as if the
earth were no longer worthy of its light and begins visibly
in a clear sky. The whole earth grows dark. First twilight. Then gloomy light
spreads itself over the whole enlightened part of the earth.
Business stood still. The plow stopped in mid farrow. The ax that was uplifted splitting
wood pauses. At the busiest time of the day,
there was a pause, not only at Calvary, Not only on that hill,
but on every hill and in every valley, the gloom settled down
upon the earth. The animal creation was terrified. The herds in the field crowded
together, billowing as if a storm were about to take place. The
birds of the air flooded fluttered to their roost in alarm at twelve
o'clock midday. What a call! What a call must
that midday, midnight blackness must have been to the careless
sons of men. They did not know that the Son
of God was among them, nor that He was working out human redemption. The greatest hour in all of history
seemed likely to pass right on by unheeded when suddenly night
hastened from her chambers and usurped the day. There was a
halt in the caravan of life. None could move except they groped
their way like blind men and women. Jerusalem became a city
By night, only men and women were not in their beds. Around
the great deathbed of Immanuel, an appropriate quiet was being
secured. Someone probably said God is
suffering or the world is coming to an end. Truly, the God of
nature was expiring. If He was God manifest in the
days of His teaching, He was God manifest on the cross. I
hope you heard that. If you could today, and I could
today, and we should, just get lost in the wonder of this God
on the cross for me. God, come down for me. God, saving me. God, bearing my iniquities. If you could enter into that,
you'd never go to the crack house again. There must be some great teaching
in this darkness. For when we come so near the
cross, which is the center of history, Every event is full
of meaning. What means this midday, midnight
darkness? What does it mean? Here was a
miracle. Here was a departure from all
that is common in nature. This midday, midnight darkness
tells us God was doing something. which He had never done from
the beginning of all time and would never do again. We are not amazed at death. Death
is everywhere. But that the Son of God should
die, this is beyond this preacher. Here was an impossibility. I
want you to think about this. This was an absolute impossibility. a total eclipse of the sun at
the time of the full moon. You didn't hear me, did you?
Here was an absolute impossibility. At the time of the full moon,
there was an eclipse of the sun. The moon, when full, is not in
a position to eclipse the sun. And it was a full moon for the
Passover. It was at the time of the full
moon, and this was the time of the Passover. When we come to
deal with man, the false sin, God, Christ and the atonement,
we're at home with impossibilities. Amen. Oh, the eclipsing of the
sun was nothing compared to this awesome task. The devil said
it was impossible. Men say it is impossible. Boys
and girls say it is impossible. But all things are possible with
God. He is able to save the chief
of sinners. This is the region where marvels
and surprises are the order of the day. within the circle of
eternal love. Did you come expecting a miracle
today? Did you come expecting impossible
things to happen right here today? That's what happens in the presence
of God. Oh, what a wonder that Jesus
loved me. I'm telling you, I am absolutely
overcome Here of late, I've been preaching for 40 plus years. I have never been so overcome
in all my life. I have never been so expectant
as I am today. Something great is about to happen
right here in our presence, a real awakening and revival. You know,
faith is at home with impossibilities. Faith is at home in Wonderland. I don't wonder at the renting
of the veil, nor the earthquakes, nor the rising of the dead when
Jesus arose. When I consider who it is that
bows his head and gives up the ghost, I expect wonders. Why this darkness? Why this darkness? First of all,
it was a veil to stop the mocking. Those of you who do not believe
in the total depravity of man need to take a journey to Calvary.
It is the testimony of all those who knew him. He did no wrong,
he said no wrong, he committed no sin, and yet he hangs on the
cross. And around that cross there are
adult men and women who do not mock the thieves. who are not
saying to the thieves, does it hurt? Are you in pain? Come down
off the cross. They say it to the man on the
middle cross who did no sin, who had no sin. Like maniacs
they sit there. And who were they? They were
the nice religious people, the Pharisees and the Sadducees,
the Baptists and the Catholics and the Methodists and the Presbyterians. Don't talk to me about putting
a cross around my neck. I want one in my heart. Don't talk to me about the magic
of turning grape juice and unleavened bread into literally the body
of Christ. I have Christ in me, the hope
of glory. My praise. This midnight darkness was a
veil to stop the mocking. Christ is hanging on the tree.
I see the dreadful cross. I see the thieves on either side.
I look around and see that motley crew of scribes, priests, Pharisees,
and strangers from different countries who've come there to
make religion. And I see the Roman soldiers.
They turned their eyes on him and gazed with cruel scorn upon
the holy one who's in the center. In truth, it's an awful sight.
They're all united to dishonor the meek and lowly one. I cannot
read the story of the master's death knowing the pain of crucifixion
without deep anguish in my own soul. The pain involved was immeasurable. You will see Wednesday somewhat
of the depicting of the natural pain of crucifixion. But there was more than pain
upon Calvary. There was ridicule. There was
contempt. Don't talk to me about how good
we all are. We're maniacs, bloodthirsty rebels
against a holy God. when He invaded His own creation. We nailed Him to a cross. It
was not the Jews. It was not the Romans. It was
us. Those jests, those mockers sticking
out their tongues like little rebellious children. The Bible
says they wag their tongues at Him. It was too terrible a sight,
the pain of the victim was grievous enough, but think about the wickedness
of the mockers. Who could bear that? Can you
imagine yourself in horrible torment? Let's see, can you imagine
yourself in a horrible car accident? and you're cut and riddled and
bleeding and metal is sticking in your flesh and somebody to
come by and say, does it hurt? If you're who you say you are,
get out of the car. Don't talk to me about the goodness
of mankind. If you're going to talk to me
about anything, talk to me about there is power, power by power
in the blood of Jesus Christ. to take away my craziness and
yours. In the middle of the crime there
came down a darkness which rendered it impossible for them to go
further with their mocking. Can you imagine what they sensed?
Can you imagine what they felt when this darkness, this blackness
out of nowhere at noonday fell upon the whole earth? Jesus must die. There must be
no alleviation from death. There must be for him no deliverance. But this scoffing has to be silenced. Their mouths were closed by the
dense darkness which shut them in. They were literally scared
to death and groped their way to their houses like blind men.
Why this darkness? A concealment for the blessed
person of our divine Savior and Lord. The angels found for him,
their king, a thick covering in which his majesty might be
sheltered in his hour of misery. Several years ago, I read where
the Pope's swimming pool, they built a high wall around it so
no one could see the Pope in his swimming trunks. God Almighty
said, You're not going to look upon my boy naked. You're not
going to mock him anymore. And God did the impossible. He
said, Not let there be light, but let there be darkness. It was too much for wicked eyes
to gaze so rudely on that immaculate person. His enemies stripped
him naked and cast lots for His clothes, His holy manhood, must
have a suitable concealment. It would seem that in the infinite
tenderness of God, He wrapped the land in darkness in the hour
of His Son's supreme shame. What does this darkness tell
us? It tells us that here are matters
too profound for words. Before I got over here, before
I ever got here this morning, I was up in my study typing away
what I was going to say to you today. And I kept saying, it's
not enough. I cannot describe it. I was groping
for words, trying to have vocabulary to tell you about these three
hours of darkness. This is too profound. This is
too deep. This is too awesome. This is
too glorious. This is too wonderful. Here are things that cannot be
fully apprehended by our finite minds. Here is the central mystery
of the faith. I keep groping with this. Oh,
the Gospel! The Gospel! The power of the
Gospel, O God! Help me to declare the Gospel
of Jesus Christ and may men and women be slain by it. May boys
and girls, men and women, enter into it. May they see the glory
of it. May they be lost in the wonder
of His love that God so loved us, He gave His only begotten
Son. I try to explain it. I say to
you, it's substitution. I say to you, it is Christ dying
in our stead. It's Christ dying in our room.
I say to you, it's Christ taking our place. And I try to be explicit,
and yet I feel the idea of substitution does not cover the whole matter.
I keep groping. He drank my damnation dry. He inverted the cup on the tree
of the cross. I try to say it like this. God
exhausted His wrath on His own Son. And I'm groping and I'm
groping trying to tell you what God did in His Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ, two thousand years ago on the tree of the cross.
And when I do it, if the Spirit of God would be pleased and blessed,
there will be shouting in this house. There will be moaning
in this place. There will be turning from sin
in this place. There will be repentance in this
place. Men and women will fall out crying, God, be merciful
to me, the sinner. Oh, that that day would come.
That that day would come. No human conception can completely
grasp the whole of the dread mystery. I've been preaching
the gospel for 42 years, and people said this about me. Old
Clark just plucks on one string. If you've heard him once, you've
heard him. That's because I cannot reach the depth of this. I cannot
go deep enough. And every time I try to preach
something else, I'm brought back right where you hadn't finished,
right here. Drive a stake down, stamp out
here at Calvary. This is where it all is. It was wrought in darkness because
the full, far-reaching meaning and result cannot be beheld in
finite minds. Tell me the death of the Lord
was a grand example of self-sacrifice. I can see that and much more.
Tell me that His death was a wondrous obedience to the will of God.
I can see that and much more. Tell me it was bearing the sin
of a number that no man can number. As the chastisement of our peace,
I can see that and have found that to be my best hope. But
don't tell me that's all there is at the cross. There is much
more in the Redeemer's death. Right now I feel so inadequate.
Right now I just feel so inadequate. I'm groping right now. I'm begging
Holy Spirit of God, put your hand on me, let me tell it the
way it is. God only knows the love of God. God only knows the love of God. It's going to, while the ages
pile themselves, one on top of another, for God to show you
how He's loved you. He loved you before you were
in the crack house. He loved you before you were
begotten of your Father. He loved you before the foundation
of the world. He loved you in eternity. Can
you imagine that? And it was His plan and His scheme
to come to earth to save you. And He's going to create a new
heavens and a new earth for you. God only knows the love of God.
He knows all that was accomplished in that darkness. This we all
know. God was manifest in the flesh,
and in that human flesh put away sin by his own sacrifice. But
without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. Great
is the mystery of godliness. To the inner heart of the mystery,
preaching cannot penetrate. What does this darkness represent?
Now, if you didn't get anything else, get this. Here it is. What does this darkness
represent? It represents the night of the
Savior's soul. It is that time in which the
brightest star disappeared. It is that hour of the king in
loneliness, forsaken. Imagine to yourselves a man free
from sin, holy, with a divine nature who calls the Almighty
his light. He calls God's nearness his paradise. He calls God's love his bliss.
Imagine to yourselves this one who was the perfection of human
nature, this one who carried out to its limits all which God
intended in the creation of man. He, the spotless Lamb of God. As a boy, he never spoke an impatient
or disrespectful word, never manifested an unkind or selfish
feeling, never disobeyed, never failed his duty. As a man, his
mind was never allured away by folly or impeded by idleness
or deranged by lust. The glory of God is seen in the
face of Jesus Christ. Behold the man, his back all
furled with stripes, the brow pierced with thorns, the parched
lips, the bleeding of the nails. See the sinless Savior. Instead
of tears and the sweet sympathy of friends, he hears nothing
but scoffing of the crowd beneath his cross. Instead of hands to
close his dying eyes, there is a spear to pierce his blessed
side. But this was all outward. This
was all outward, and you're going to see that Wednesday. You're
going to see all of the outward, and I'm sure that when it's over,
you're going to sit there dumbfounded, stunned, perhaps weeping. But remember,
it's all outward. We cannot see the grief which
could not be seen. Imagine him, imagine him deprived
of all of the experiences of the gracious presence which refreshed
him. Those communions with his heavenly
Father of whom he explained, whom have I in heaven but thee? At Calvary, listen to me now,
at Calvary there was a soul dying. Who can guess what must be the
pains of a soul dying? A soul dying. A soul has never
died on earth. For hell is the place of dying
souls, where they die everlastingly the second death. But here, for
one time only, A soul was dying. Oh, there was within the ribs
of Christ's body hell itself poured out. Did you hear what
I said? Inside the ribs of the blessed
Son of God, hell itself was poured out. Death is the entail of sin. Had there been no sin, there
would have been no death. Sin separates us from God, who is
the fount of all life. The wages of sin is death. The wages of our sins is death. And some of you are thinking
about the undertaker, but we're not talking about the undertaker.
We're talking about going to hell. the place of God's punishment. Sin excludes from God's presence. Can you imagine when you've been
ten billion years in hell? No preacher will ever say, let's
stand and sing, just as I am without one plea, but that thy
blood was shed for me. O Lamb of God, I come, No more
invitation. No more gospel. No more God.
Because sin separates from God and the wages of sin is death. You're going to die, but that's
not the worst of it if you die without Christ. You're going
to die everlastingly in hell. And there you'll be separate
from God. You know the way you are now. Separated from God. doing your
own thing, craving your lustful thoughts, carrying those lustful
thoughts out, deserting your kids, running to the crack house,
running to the whore house, running to the bar, running to the promenade,
doing exactly what you want to do and never being satisfied. And when you've been in hell
10 billion years, you'll still be craving, you'll still be lusting
and never satisfied. only in torment. Spiritual death is separation
of soul and spirit from God. 2 Thessalonians 1.9 says, Who
shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence
of the Lord? So, you see, I speak not merely of
our Lord's mere bodily pain. But this darkness is expressive
of the real pressure on the Savior's soul. In those three hours of
darkness, he experienced eternally more than the pricking of the
crown of thorns or the scourge or the cross. You see, he died
a pinned death. And all across America and all
across the world, our church meetings. And so we
have the spooky organ music and everybody comes to church to
be entertained. And we become secret churches
and this church and that kind of church and we're nothing but
a bunch of entertaining religionists. Let's talk about the blood. Let's
talk about the gore. Let's talk about the suffering.
of God Almighty who came to earth to save sinners. Some of you
have danced all over churches speaking in tongues, but you've
never been to Calvary. You've never seen the blood.
You've never seen Christ wounded and bleeding, poor sinners pleading,
dying in your stead, paying your eternal hell. You've never seen
it. You talk about your gifts of prophecy and your gifts of
this and your gifts of that. and you brag and you boast and
you throw your chest out, God will damn you for it. God has come down here and saved
sinners all by Himself. And He will not give you the
glory. He will not give you the glory. You're not going to get
it. Oh, you're going to get it. But
it isn't going to be glory. When we all get to heaven, nobody
will throw their chest out like a peacock and say, I did it. It was my church. It was my will.
It was my tongues. It was my baptism. It was my
words. We will all throw our crowns down at the feet of Emmanuel
and say, thou art worthy to receive glory both now and forever. He died a penal death. This awful
darkness was the darkness of desertion. Have you ever been
deserted? Some of you guys here have been
deserted. I'll tell you, you don't walk
around with a smile on your face when you've been deserted. Deserted! And your desertion You may add a little part in
it. Probably did. Because none of us are without
sin. And I'm going to tell you this. God deserted His own Son
who was holy and spotless and without blame. Try to put that
in your head. Try to figure that out. Try to
think about how He must have felt when there was no cause
that is in Him because He was blameless. shut out from God
in His time of sorrow. There was no help, no comfort,
no hope, no peace. All comfort was withdrawn. All
that could distress Him was piled upon Him. Can you imagine that? The Savior's spirit was wounded.
His distress was utter and entire, banished into dreadful and horrifying
visions of hell, surrounded by nothing but images of sin and
death. You've got to remember these
must have been strange to him. He had never experienced these
before. Have you ever been in some awful,
terrible situation where you're in the midst of your own sin
and your surroundings scare you to death because you never experienced
how dangerous this situation really is? Imagine the sinless,
spotless Son of God. Oh, we can back up a little,
go into Gethsemane. You want to see what's happening
in Gethsemane where he dropped in his prayer and fell to the
ground and God Almighty had to send an angel to pick him up. See, Pastor, what was going on
in Gethsemane? God began to impute sin to him. The imputation started. Have you ever seen one of those
meters and it's having numbers turn over like that? God said,
let the imputation begin. And all of Carl's ancestors that
had been chosen before the foundation of the world, the meter started
running and sin started imputing itself that way to the Lord Jesus
Christ. And then the sins of all the
elect. Can you imagine? Why, just think about your own
sin. You can't even count them. You
don't even know the number of them. And they were charged to
Him. Three hours of darkness. He stands at the altar of God
Almighty, and He performs His sacrificial functions. He's both
the priest and the lamb. Behind this veil of darkness,
he was engaged in the conflict of the ages. Don't you know behind
this veil of darkness, there was a war going on. Satan was
trying to take his life. Let me tell you, Satan didn't
kill Jesus. Nobody killed Jesus. Literally, he laid down his life
that he might take it up again. He was made sin for us, the Scripture
says. He was bearing our sins, the
just for the unjust. He was bearing the chastisement
of our peace. He was receiving the wages of
our sin. This is the heart of it. This
is the center of it. This is the soul of it. This
is the marvel of it. This is the mystery of it. He was arraigned in spirit before
the bar of God under the imputation of human guilt and sin. And in
those three hours of darkness, the High Court of Heaven descended. And Judge El Shaddai, presiding,
said, Let the law take its course. And the black snake whip of justice
was called out. And the beating started. With every stripe, with every
stripe, one of the elect was healed because he was bearing
our sins in his own body on the tree. Here is what he said. Can you
hear him there? Eli, Eli, lama sabastena, which
is to say, My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?" He pleased the Father to bruise
him. He hath put him to grief. I can't describe it. I can only weep over it. I say to you today, let his sufferings
be an encouragement for you to trust him. He must love you a
whole bunch. The sufferings of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Was it for crimes that I have
done? He groaned upon the tree. Amazing pity. Grace unknown. I love Beyond the Green. Maybe you're here today. You've
been a Christian for years. But you've been wallowing out
there. Dabbling with sin. You're so
ashamed of yourself today. You know, He'll forgive you. He'll forgive you. Maybe you're
here and you're just, I don't know, just a lazy Christian.
Just a self-sinner. Child of God. You just live for
you. You've become so ashamed of yourself
today. Maybe you're here today and you
put nothing in the offering plate. You're a Christian. You're so
ashamed of yourself. Maybe you came in here today,
you didn't believe a word of what you'd heard since you was
a child. But today, in the mighty power of the Spirit of God, you
were born again. Maybe you're just like me today. I want to confess Him as my King. is my Savior. And maybe you just have an urge
to do something, you don't know why. You just, I don't think
I can go home unless I just, I've got to let it be known.
Maybe you just want to walk the house and end up from here. Say,
well, Pastor, I've never heard anything quite like that. Have
you ever been in God's house when God's Spirit was there so
powerfully you had to do something? Maybe there's somebody here that
you've sinned against in a horrible way. Maybe you
need to fall at their feet and ask for forgiveness. Amen. Maybe you've sinned against
someone. You see, this is where you can
get it all straight, right here at the foot of the cross. You
can go home a lot lighter today. Burdens are lifted and calmed.