the death of our Lord Jesus Christ
is the most important fact in history. It is the most significant
fact revealed in Holy Scripture of our holy faith. All the hopes
of sinners for all eternity hang upon the truth revealed in Holy
Scripture concerning the death of God's dear Son as our substitution. If that which is written in the
Scripture is not true, then there is no hope for any man. If that
which is written in the Scripture concerning the accomplishments
of the Son of God at Calvary is true, then certainly there
is hope for sinners such as we are, and it is most certainly
true. Now, it shouldn't surprise us,
considering the importance of this fact, that it is put beyond
all dispute by God's providence. Not only put beyond dispute by
revelation, but put beyond dispute, beyond the possibility of even
a remote question by any reasonable human being providentially. In the scripture we have before
us this morning, in Mark chapter 15, We see how that the Lord
God arranged for the death of his son to be attested by three
distinct groups of people who witnessed everything that transpired
from his arrest, his trial, his humiliation, his sufferings,
the three hours, darkness, the conversation between the son
and the father, when the father would not speak, but the son
spoke to the father in behalf of his people. All that transpired,
these three groups of people observed, and these three groups
of people testified to, so that they put these things beyond
the slightest possibility of even question. Now there's a
reason for this. The Jews of our Lord's day, and
just after this day, and many scoffers up until this day, even
this hour, would tell us that the Lord Jesus did not really
die after all. After all, he just passed out
from all of the fatigue and the suffering and the anguish, and
everybody thought he was dead. But in this passage before us,
the centurion, not one, but a whole band of Roman centurions said
he died. It was their responsibility to
see to it that he died. They were under command and strict
orders that he die, and they all testified to it. The women
who followed the Lord Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem and who
observed these things from a distance, they all acknowledged and testified
to his death. And the disciples who finally
buried our Savior in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, they
testified that he was dead. Now, these three groups of people
could not possibly have been mistaken, not all three of them.
They could not all have reported the wrong thing, even though
it would cost them greatly to do so. These three groups of
people had nothing to gain, and yet everything to lose if they
had attested that this man, the Lord Jesus Christ, had indeed
died when he had not. And so these three groups of
people stand without any possibility of contradiction. Now, having
said that, I want to talk to you this morning about the burial
of our Savior. As we look at Mark chapter 16,
verses 39 through 46, in this last paragraph, there are four
things deceitfully set before us. First, in verse 39, I want
to call your attention to this amazed centurion. When the centurion,
which stood over against him, saw that he so cried out and
gave up the goat. He said truly this man was the
Son of God. Now this centurion was a Roman
soldier who had been appointed as the head of a band of soldiers. If you compare Matthew's account
with what we've read here you'll see that there was a band of
soldiers who were under the care and supervision of this centurion.
This was the task of this band of soldiers to crucify the Son
of God. and to watch him, watch him carefully,
lest anyone should come and take him down for pity's sake from
that horrid cross until he had died. Or anyone should come to
offer any comfort or assistance to him in his death. So these
men, when they had knelt into the tree, they sat down and they
just watched. That was their business. That
was their job. Matthew tells us that there were
many with him watching the Lord Jesus. These men united in their
hellish mockery of the Son of God. They were united in humiliating
him and tormenting him. When Pilate had delivered Jesus
to the soldiers, these are the men to whom he delivered him.
These men stripped the Lord Jesus naked. They beat him. They spit
on him. They put a crown of thorns on
his head and a purple cloth about him and mocked him with a reed
scepter in his hand and said, Hail King. They put his own clothes
on him, led him through the streets of Jerusalem, nailed him up to
the cursed tree, and they watched him. They watched him. And when
they heard all that had transpired, when they observed the darkening
of the sun, the quaking of the earth, the opening of the graves,
they said unanimously, this man was the son of God. Now this centurion and his company
teach us two things of great importance. First, the centurions
placed as they were by God's providence verified to Pilate
and to all reasonable people the fact of our Lord's death
at Calvary. No question about it. He didn't
just pass out. He didn't just swoon. He didn't
just give us an example. He died as our substitute. He died under the curse of God's
law as a cursed thing hanging on the tree. Look in verse 44.
Pilate marveled when Joseph came to crave the body of the Lord
Jesus. Pilate marveled. How can this
be? If he were already dead, how
could he already have died? It takes longer than that for
a man to die by crucifixion. Even this excruciating death
was intended to be so terribly painful because it was a very
lingering death. Men could hang on the cross for
days at a time. Well, Apollos said, how could
he be dead at such a short time? And he called the centurion and
he asked the centurion whether he had been any while dead. Is
he sure enough dead? And when he knew, you see that? Pilate was satisfied. When he
knew it of the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph. This
man was called before Pilate. Pilate said, now, are you sure
he's dead? Are you sure this man's dead? I can almost hear
the trembling voice of that soldier as he's giving reports. I'm pretty
sure. I'm pretty sure. We heard every word he spoke. The sun was darkened and he cried,
my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? We heard him cry
out, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. We
heard him cry, I thirst, It's all being run with a sponge and
put vinegar on it, gave it to him to drink. We heard him as he spoke to that
other fella hanging on the tree there beside him. Today, thou
will be with me in paradise. And then we heard strangers say,
we heard this man hanging on the tree. He said, Father, into
thy hands I commit my spirit. And he said, Governor Powlett,
I saw something I've never seen before an astonishing thing this
man by his own power breathed out his life he breathed out his life and
when he did just before he breathed out his life he cried it is finished
and the earth shook beneath us and the grave were opened around
us. And then the time came, Jordan,
came and you said for us to go break the legs of the men, make
certain they were dead. And we went around with our mallets
and we crushed the legs of this thief over here and we crushed
the legs of this thief over here. And we came to this man, Jesus
of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. He was dead already. But just to make sure One of
my men took his spear and shoved it right through his heart, and
water and blood came gushing out. Yeah, he's dead. He's dead. When he got done, the scriptures
tell us Pilate knew it. Pilate knew it. And I'm here
to tell you that any man who denies these facts would just
as reasonably deny any fact of his death. These things are established
factually. But there's more here than just
the establishment of facts. This centurion also shows us
a demonstration of the fact that there is a repentance to be repented
of. Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter
7 for a moment. Let me spend a few minutes here. This centurion was convicted.
He was convicted of what he had done. He was covered with the
blood of one whom he himself declares is the Son of God. But his conviction was a legal
conviction. He had sorrow, I have no doubt
for what he did, but his sorrow was only a trembling, fearful,
legal sorrow. It was not spiritual conviction.
It was not saving conviction. It was not saving sorrow. It
was not saving repentance. It was the repentance of the
world. Let me see if I can illustrate it for you. You take a child,
a boy, he gets caught doing something. He knows he's not supposed to
do it. And as a young child, tender-hearted, sensitive conscience,
he gets caught. He may even be sorry he did something
because his conscience just burns him before he ever gets caught.
But as he gets older, gets a little more experienced at silencing
his conscience, doesn't bother him anymore. And the only time
he ever regrets doing anything is when daddy catches him. because
he knows he's going to get blistered. That's the only time he ever
gets, he's ever sorry for anything is when he's got his hand in
the cookie jar and you're standing there with a switch in your hand.
That's the only time he ever gets sorry for anything. His
repentance, yes. He's convicted, yes. He's sorry
he did it, yes. But only because of legal dread,
nothing more, nothing else. That same repentance is what
the whole religious world plays on to get folks to act religious.
The whole religion, preachers everywhere, try their best, somebody
gets in trouble. I recall several years ago, a
lady called me one night, middle of the night. She wanted me to
go see her son. She said, he's in jail. I believe he's ready
for the Lord to deal with him. And I said, let's wait a little
while and see. Oh, what do you mean? We're not aiming them as
chasers. I'm not interested in getting another notch on the
totem pole. I'm not interested in getting
somebody else to make up a face. Oh, look what we're doing now
for Jesus. I'm interested in your soul.
I'm interested in the souls of men and the glory of God. I'm
not interested in getting you religious. Oh, I want you to
come to Christ, to know the Son of God and to live His way. We'll
preach the gospel and wait, preach the gospel and pray, but we're
not going to pump decisions out of folks. Look here in 2 Corinthians
7 and verse 10. Let me show you what I'm talking
about. The apostle writes to these Corinthians,
he said, I meant to make you sorry. And I'm thankful that
your sorrow is a godly sorrow, a sorrow that has been brought
in you by God. He says in verse 10, for godly
sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not to be resented
of. But the sorrow of the world worketh
death. The sorrow of the world just
produces death, eternal death, everlasting death in hell. Brothers, Gary was pointing out
the other night after the service at Passage where he talked about
the Pharisees, the religious folks of the world, they encompass
land and sea to make one prophet like. When they've done so, they've
made him twofold more the child of hell than he was before. That's
just exactly what Paul's talking about. They give him a religious notion,
they give him some religious conviction, some religious fear,
some religious dread, some religious guilt, and they make him twofold
more the child of hell than he was before, because now he thinks
he's got everything sewed up. Now this is what I want you to
see. Legal fear, the fear of death, the fear of judgment,
the fear of damnation and hell is not repentance. It just isn't. It just isn't. I've told you
this many times, it'll bear repetition. In fact, years ago, this has
been a long time ago, first year or two I was here in Danville,
been 18, 19 years ago, all the preachers in town, conservatives
and liberals all got together Went out here to Boyle County
High School, got the high school, rented it to show a movie called
The Burning Hell. And they called me up and wanted
me to join hands with them. I said, no. Why wouldn't you do that? I said, because you can't scare
the hell out of folks. You can't do it. You can't do
it. You can scare them, but hell
didn't. And only God can take it out.
Only God can. Nobody's ever been saved in such
a mess. It just makes a mockery of God,
the gospel in men's souls. It only destroys men's souls
and makes them religious men who are deceived with religion. That's not Holy Spirit conviction.
That's not true God-given repentance. True repentance, true conviction
is much more than a sense of guilt and terror. True conviction
is a sorrow for sin it is it is like David in Psalm 51 taking
sides with God against yourself saying God if you kill me you're
right if you send me to hell that's what I deserve if you
destroy my family I've earned it if you destroy everybody around
me I've caused it Lord you're just when you judge taking sides
with God against yourself more than that it is an acknowledgement
that you deserve yourself to go to hell and much, much more. True repentance arises from the
revelation of Christ in your heart and the accomplishments
of Christ upon Mount Calvary as the sinner subsecutes. Now,
Merle, that's where it is. That's where it is. Let me show
you from the book. Turn to Zachariah chapter 12. Zachariah chapter
12. is the blessed persuasion of
sin forgiven, righteousness accomplished, and judgment finished in a substitute. He said, but preacher, I remember
when I say, man, I was scared to death of going to hell. I
can't remember a time, buddy, when I wasn't scared of going
to hell. I had nightmares about going to hell when I was six,
seven years old. I was mean as hell, knew I deserved to go to
hell. That's just fact. I was aware of it. I was scared
to death of judgment. Some nights I couldn't sleep
because I was scared I might fall off into hell. And it went
on for years and years and years. But that's not repentance. That's
not repentance. That's man's sorrow of the world. Look in Zechariah 12. Here's
true repentance. Verse 10, God says, I will pour
upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
That's my chosen, elected I will pour the spirit of grace and
supplication. Now this is when Lyndon Campbell
began to pray, really to pray, when God poured his spirit on
you. Not until then. Until then we
said our prayers. Until then we said the kind of
prayers we were taught to say and we prayed like folks who
were scared. But now God says I'll pour out the spirit of grace
and supplications upon you and this is what will happen. When
God pours out his spirit they shall look upon me whom they
pierce and they shall mourn not they shall mourn and then look
it doesn't work that way but they shall look and looking they
shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his own mission and shall
be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his
firstborn now this is what it means that means by the estus
as you look to Christ you see your sin and you repent of your
sin He pours out his spirit on you, causes you to look to Christ,
and the more constantly you look to him, the more you see your
sin and lament your sin and are in bitterness because of your
sin while you rejoice in him. All right, let's see again, John
chapter 16. John chapter 16. I'm deliberately spending bulk
of my time this morning on this because this is the most important
thing presently for us to deal with. John chapter 16. This is
what I want you to see. There is no salvation without
this Holy Spirit conviction. Nobody is saved. Nobody ever
has been or ever will be saved in this gospel age apart from
being convinced by God the Holy Spirit of these three things.
Look here, John chapter 16 verse 8. Our Lord Jesus says when he
is come he will reprove Now if you have a marginal reference,
the word means convince. Convince. When the Spirit of
God gets working on a fellow, Ron, he doesn't try to convince
him of anything. He convinces. He'll convince you. I mean convince
you. In your heart, he'll convince
you. Convince you. He will convince
the world, not everybody in the world. If that was so, everybody
would be saved. What he's saying is he'll convince
everybody chosen and redeemed by God's grace in Christ's blood,
he'll convince them throughout the world of sin. Your sin. Your sin. What kind? Of sin, look at this, verse 9,
because they believe not on me. Here is your condemnation. Here's
your condemnation. And when God the Holy Spirit
convinces you, you'll be convinced that you deserve to go to hell
because you do not believe in the Son of God. That's exactly
right. So what have I ever done to cause
God to pour out his wrath on me? You say God's a liar. Unbelief,
unbelief is the worst sin in the world. If you want to categorize
sin, this is worse than homosexuality. This is worse than adultery,
this is worse than murder, this is worse than abortion. Unbelief,
our Lord says, is that sin for which the sodomites will stand
in judgment and say, we're better than you are. Mean for yourself
in Matthew chapter 20. He'll convince the world of sin.
Number two, verse 10, of righteousness. He'll convince you of righteousness
because I go to the Father and you see me no more. You read
that and scratch your head and say, what does that mean? This
is what it means. You'll be made to understand
that when Jesus Christ was made to be saved and God forsook him
and laid him in the tomb and now he arose from the grave and
ascended to the Father, righteousness is established. It's God. It's God. Number three. and of
judgment. Not future judgment. You were
born convinced of that. That's what caused you to be
terrified of dying. You were born convinced of judgment to
come. Your conscience is the finger
of God tormenting your heart every day with guilt and judgment
to come. Oh, but now the conviction of
God's spirit is judgment day. Look at it. Of judgment, because
right now The prince of this world is judged. Back yonder
in Genesis chapter 3, verse 15, when God pronounced the first
gospel message, he said to the woman and to Adam, he said, I
will put enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of
the serpent, and the seed of the woman shall have his heel
bruised, but he shall crush the serpent's head, and then redemption
shall come. What does God, the Holy Spirit,
convince folks of? You're saying, is righteousness, judgment finished
in the substitute? Has God convinced you of it?
That's true repentance. Now sometimes that involves great
emotional upheaval, sometimes it comes gradually, sometimes
it comes on folks little by little, sometimes it comes all at once.
But I'm telling you, Lindsay, nobody is saved until they're
convinced in their hearts of their Savior, that Christ's righteousness
and judgment are finished by his substitutionary work. All
right, now look at this. Here are three of these faithful
women mentioned in verses 40 and 41. There were also women looking
on afar off, among whom was Mary Magdalene, You can read about
her in Luke chapter 7, out of whom the Lord cast seven devils.
Mary, the mother of James the less. I had looked that up, I
had forgotten what that meant. James the less, I thought, what's
that referring to? That's sort of like us saying
James the short fellow. That's not talking about James
the less since he was a lesser man or a lesser disciple, but
he's just little James, little James. Folks called me Big Don,
same thing, only this be Little Don. Mother of James, the last
son of Joseph, or Joseph. And Salome, very common name
in those days. Who also, when he was in Galilee,
followed him and ministered unto him. And many other women which
came up with him unto Jerusalem. Then in verse 47, and Mary Magdalene
and Mary, the mother of Joseph, beheld where he was laid. And I read that, and I have to
ask some questions. Where was Peter, who said, Lord,
I'll go with you to judgment and to death? Where were those
other apostles and disciples who all said the same thing?
The men, all of them except John, and even John had fled and came
back and stood afar off at a distance. All of them had fled. They were
gone. But these faithful women were
faithful to Jesus. They followed the Lord Jesus
from Galilee to Jerusalem, over a hundred miles. When all others
forsook him, they stayed with him. They stayed during all the
horrors of that infamous day. They followed him right up to
the tomb, and they were found there on the morning of the resurrection.
As much could be said here, but let me just Call your attention
to a couple of things. These women are held before us
as examples of faith. God often uses the weak to confound
the mighty. He often does things just the
exact opposite of what we expect him to do. And this is what faith
does. It follows Christ. Just follows him. Just follows
him. And those to whom much has been
forgiven, they love much. Mary Magdalene, prime example,
Luke chapter 7. Why is this so important to you?
Well, you don't know who I am. Oh, you wouldn't have to ask
that question. Why is the cause of Christ so vital to you? Well,
you don't know what he's done for me. You wouldn't have to
ask that question. Why do you get so excited about
forgiveness and redemption and grace? And then these women ministered
to the Son of God. These dear ladies were not like
the religious feminists of our day. I'm not here to get on a
political bandwagon. Feminism, though, is just utter
nonsense. These women were ladies. And
if you women want to know anything about it, pay attention. They
knew their place and they kept it. They weren't allowed to be
teachers and preachers in the kingdom of God. That was strictly
forbidden by our Lord and his apostles. I don't make any apology
for that. Somebody doing a review of a
book on the church some years ago said, boy, in that church
down there, women aren't allowed to be, women aren't treated with
respect. I beg your pardon. I beg your
pardon. You're a blooming liar. That's
just not so. That's just not so. But the Word
of God is treated with greater respect. No, I don't care what
the age calls for. I don't care what the age says.
I don't care what men do. I don't care what the rest of
the religious world does. In this place, we abide by the Word
of God. We won't have any female preachers,
missionary teachers. Won't happen. It's not going
to happen. Not here. Somebody called me up one time and asked
me if I'd send in a Resume for a big church. I said can't you
imagine what would happen first time? I had a meeting with a
board of deaconesses No, I don't think I will you keep your deaconesses
and I'll say where I am But these women were faithful servants
of God They didn't get magical. I won't do anything if I can't
teach I won't do anything I can't preach out if you won't let me
be a deacon doesn't ever be equal to men. I won't be anything.
Well, no you can't But you can serve God if you want to Oh,
blessed is that husband and that bandmaid, where a woman knows
her place as a loving wife and mother and feels it well. Happy
is that congregation where women are like Mary and Martha, women
like Dorcas, women like Elizabeth, who minister to the Lord by ministering
to his people of their substance with a meek and quiet spirit.
Now then look at verse 42. And notice something here about
this secret disciple. Joseph of Arimathea, we don't
know much about him, but when evening was come, because it
was the preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph
of Arimathea, an honorable counselor, which also waited for the kingdom
of God, came and went in boldly to pilot and craze the body of
Jesus. Then he brought some fine linen
as he took him down from the cross and back to his body and
put it in his own tomb. God always raises up men to do
what's needed at the time needed according to his purpose. Always
does. We have a tendency to be a little
fearful for God's calls and God's kingdom and God's purpose, but
he's got plenty of Joseph's around. Probably nobody else could have
done what Joseph did. Nobody else could have gone in
to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus with boldness. But Joseph
did. He was a counselor, a leader
among the Jews. The Lord, you see, has many disciples,
many more than any of us ever imagined. Many more, many more. We must never forget our words,
Lord, to Elijah. I have yet 7,000 who have not
bowed to me to bathe. He's got his hidden one. And
when he needs them, according to his purpose, he'll call them
out. And then Joseph wrapped the Lord's
body in fine linen, laid it in a tomb, wrapped it up in that
linen which represents his holy humanity and represents the fine
linen, clean and quiet, with which you and I shall be arrayed
forever, the righteousness of the saints, his righteousness
given to us. And as he was buried and arose,
he was buried and arose, and one day soon we shall rise in
the resurrection unto everlasting glory. Amen.