Turn again there to that 23rd
chapter of the book of Luke, and I'll read two or three more
verses there. And as they led him away, verse
26, the Lord Jesus there is given
up by Pilate to the Jews that, as I read to you, they may do
their will. And he's led here by a band of
soldiers on a public road, a public street, bearing his And whoever's in charge, Pilate,
whoever had jurisdiction at that particular time, Pilate I assume,
feared that he might die before he got to the cross because he'd
already been scourged. Crown of thorns upon his head,
loss of blood, scourged him, his back was laid open. Weak,
weak. The humanity in our Lord Jesus
Christ was weak, low ebb. Pilate thought, well, he might
die. He might die before we get him up here. And I'm sure the
chief priests and the scribes and these stiff-necked Jews believed
that too, so they urged him to call someone out of the crowd
to help him bear his cross so he don't die on the way up. And
they led him away. And they laid hold upon one Simon,
a Cyrenian, coming out of the country. And on him they laid
the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus." Well, I don't know whether that
ever had any effect on this Simon the Cyrenian or not. I don't
know whether he was one of those. that was convicted and converted. I don't know whether that incident
here convicted him as to who the Lord
Jesus was. I don't know. But anyhow, it seems to me like, from the
way the verse reads, that on him they laid the cross, and
he was a little bit reluctant Get in the mix here. Verse 27, it says, And
there followed him a great company of people. Now he was bearing his cross,
had been scourged, and you could see on his head the trace of
the crown of thorns. The Bible says that his visage,
his visage, his external look, His face was more marred than
that of any man. Did he look like a man? The man Christ Jesus. The man
Christ Jesus didn't look like a man because of the suffering
at the hands of his own people and these Roman legionaries he
suffered. Couldn't even tell he was a man.
looked at his face like maybe he was a brute beast of some
sort. Well, now he's being led away
to be put to death. He's already suffered, but he's
going to suffer more. He's got to suffer the death
of the cross. He's got to suffer the death
of death. He's got to suffer that death. of being cut off from God his
Father. Never experienced anything like
that in the annals of eternity. Oh, he came from his father's
bosom. Now he's going to be cut off, going to suffer the death
of deaths. Well, I'm sure, I'm sure that
there were some in this crowd that was very glad. that he was
the victim and that he was in and under their power and jurisdiction. Most of them believed that, almost
to the person. They were glad that this man,
that they'd finally got him, finally they're going to do him
in, do away with him, and they were glad. Most of them there
was in a bad mood. I call it a savage, beastly mood,
especially these chief priests and scribes and stiff-necked
Jews. These unfeeling Roman soldiers,
they had no remorse. They didn't care. Life had no
meaning to these Romans, no meaning whatsoever. It was a sport to
them. It was a damn sport, like going
to a carnival or to a circus. It didn't mean a thing to them. But listen, all of them that
was present in this crowd was not in a bad mood. Not everybody to the man was
in a bad mood. They were sung, and I say this
to the honor of the sects, it is said they were women. It was said by the Lord Himself
that there were some women in that crowd that wasn't in a savage
mood. They wasn't shouting. Over there
I read to you, verse 21, Pilate, therefore willing to release
Jesus, spake again to them, this crowd. What did they say? They cried. I don't mean they
lamented. I don't mean that they moaned
and mourned. I don't mean that they were wailing. But they cried viciously out
loud. They cried to Pilate. That's it. Crucify! Crucify! Kill him! Kill him! Even when the man said, What
evil has he done? He hasn't done any evil. We don't
care. Kill him. Give him to us. We'll
kill him. All them that was present, what,
right then, was not in a vicious mood. There were some here And
they were women, and they protested this scene. They protested. I watched on the television here
not too long ago, they had what they call a million-man march
in Washington, D.C. They said it was a protest. We're
protesting. And they was there all day. And they had their say. And the newspapers, for the most
part, television, they all applauded, said, what a great thing happened
there in Washington. They protested the treatment
that the black race had received from the white race, and we ought
to all get together and all that, And they protested against some
of the men that came there because they didn't raise their children,
they didn't live with their wives, and they said, that's wrong,
Your Honor. It's going to be a great change. But has there
been a great change? Huh? Has there been a great change? There ain't been no great change.
They were protesting, but there's no change. I remember when Ronald Reagan
was the president. And they had this awful thing
about drugs. Drugs. Consumed the young people. Young people's on drugs. Got
to stop it. And so they protested. And they
had his wife. She was the chairman of this
organization to do away with drugs. And she said, just say
no. Just say no. Did it change anything? Did it change anything? It didn't
change a thing. It didn't change a thing. Just the other day, they had
a... Well, I read something about it in the paper this morning. They had a great big march up
in Washington, and people from West Virginia was there, from
Fairmont. Told about how they rode the bus. Four hours to get
up there. They were protesting the abuse that children are subjected to
in this land of milk and honey in which we live. And they're
going to do something about it. Well, we'll see. We'll see if
there's any change. It's a protest, a protest. Now,
these women here, That's what they were doing.
They were protesting. And they manifested their protest
by their cries and their laments. They were not silent in their
sorrows. They wept long and loud as if they were attending a funeral
of some dear friend. lamenting, wailing, wailing. You know, the voice of a woman
weeping has great power with most people. If a woman in a
crowd begins to cry, and she begins to cry loud, she's going
to get everybody's attention, and somebody's going to run to
her relief. The voice of a woman weeping
has great power with most people. But it did not move the hearts
of these Roman legionaries. It didn't affect them. The wail
of the woman in these situations, I don't know how many women there
were, but there was a bunch of them. They followed Him, and
they cried aloud and long, and they wailed and they lamented.
But to these Roman legionaries and to these chief priests and
scribes and stiff-necked Jews, to them, their cries and wailings
and laments was no more than the moaning of the wind. It didn't mean a thing to them. But I'll tell you this, it did
move the heart of one in that crowd. And this one whose heart was
moved by their crying and wailing, he had the tenderest heart of
all them that was there. One whose ear is sensitive to
every sound of sorrow and of grief. Though he had answered
noth, Herod, he answered Herod nothing. His reply to Pilate
was, Thou say'st it, and that's all he had to say. Only a few words to Pilate, nothing Now, amid all of his sufferings,
excruciating pain, all the scourging and mockeries, I've told you,
he had been as dumb as a sheep before shears, and he opened
not his mouth. He broke the silence, no longer
silent. Why? He heard the cries and the wails and laments of
the women in unison, crying and weeping. And he said unto them,
after he had broke the silence now, he said unto them, They
followed him a great company of people and of women, which
also bewailed and lamented him. Jesus, breaking the silence,
turning unto them, said this." Remember, he had nothing to say
to Herod, three words to Pilate. But he turns to these women,
and he said, of Jerusalem, weep not for me." He said, don't waste
your tears on me. Don't shed a tear for me. Weep not for me, but weep for
yourselves. You notice this? It's weep not,
and then the next line, it's weep. Weep not for me, but weep
for yourselves and your children. I think it's noteworthy here
to notice that these words spoken by God's Lamb, the Lord Jesus,
was the last connected discourse of the Lord Jesus Christ while
he was here on this earth. Now, I know that he had a few
words, a few utterances to John and to his mother Mary, and he
had a few words to the dying thief, but this really is his
farewell sermon that he had to these wailing, lamenting women. Oh, listen, weep not for me,
he said. He doesn't ask for tears of sympathy. He would not have a tear wasted
on him. Weep not for me, but weep for
yourselves and weep for your children. Now, I wouldn't want
you to think that our Lord said this by way of rebuke. He did not reprove or rebuke. or censor these women for weeping
for him. That's not what he had in mind
here when he said, Weep not for yourselves. Or weep not for me,
but weep for yourselves. He wasn't censoring them. He
wasn't criticizing them. He wasn't rebuking them. They
took up his cause. And the cries of crucify, crucify
him. seemingly almost drowned out
their pleas and their cries. And these cries came from the
tenderness of their hearts. And I believe that our Lord Jesus
Christ accepted this empathy and sympathy and this tenderness
of these women. Their sorrow, I believe, was
legitimate. There was great reason for their
weeping. They saw Him suffering. They saw Him crucified, beaten,
bleeding, almost so weak that He couldn't bear His cross, struggling,
struggling. They saw Him suffering. They
saw him friendless. He didn't have a friend. He didn't
have a friend in that crowd. Here the friend of sinners didn't
have a friend. He didn't have one to identify
with him. Not one to come to his plea. He was hounded and hunted like
a beast, like an animal, like a wounded deer. Man hunts him
and hunts him and hunts him and hunts him and finally gets in
the last shot and kills him off. Hunted and hounded like an animal. And all alone, by himself, by
himself. Had you and I been there, we'd have wept too with these
noble women, wouldn't we? I hate to feel this evening that
I'm past feeling that I have no tenderness and emotion in
my heart and soul, that suffering and loneliness and helplessness
would not cause me to weep. If we'd have been there, we'd
have wept with these women. He who had suffered must suffer. He who was meek and lowly in
mind, he like a lamb in the midst of howling wolves. He was like
a dog, like that little dog out there on the porch that sets
up there. He was like a little dog. with
ten thousand hawks hovering over him. There was none to pity him, none
to pity him, none to help him. These women, I think, did well
to weep. Ah, but he said, this man of
sorrows, acquainted with greed, So innocent, so pure, is it a
man? Pilate and Herod said, what he
done amiss, what evil has he done? I find no fault in him. This weeping of these women certainly
showed their tenderness of heart. But let us not make the weeping
of these women a fountain of sorrow. Need not weep over the crucifixion,
but weep over your sins and transgression that nailed him to the tree."
That's what he's saying. Weep for yourselves and your
transgressions and your children's transgressions. Weep for them.
Your transgression has put me where I'm at. Don't waste your
tears on me. I wrote in my Bible some time
ago in verse 27 there. It says, And there followed him
a great company of people and women, which also bewailed and
lamented him. And I wrote down there, Don't
weep for the cure. This is the cure. He must die
to pay for our sins. What's due us against our sins? He must die. Don't weep for the
cure. Oh, to weep over a dying Savior
is to lament the remedy. To weep over the dying Savior
is to wet the surgeon's knife with tears. Don't do that. To weep over the Lord Jesus Christ
as He goes to the cross is to weep over that which is subject
to the highest glory that heaven and earth will ever know. Ah, he must die. He must suffer
and he must die. He must pay what his people owe.
He must pay what God direct owes. He must pay all that we owe. Let's mourn over our sins. Let's
weep over our sins. Oh, listen, weep not for yourselves. Weep and cry and wail over your
own. But listen to me now. These tears, I think, of emotion, because of the external suffering
of the Lord Jesus. He suffered externally, physically. He suffered as a man. About all that a man—listen to
me—his humanity could have never sustained the load of the punishment
that was transferred from us to him, apart from the Godhead
upholding him. as the wrath of God fell on them. The man, Christ Jesus. The Bible said he was made sin. It says in that verse, made to
be sin. The to be is added by the translators,
I think. I think the best way to say it,
he was made sin. How could that be? Holy and pure
and harmless was the Lord Jesus Christ, perfect, spotless, blameless,
without blemish, made sin. Made sin. He was on that tree. He was actually an adulterer. He was an adulterer,
involved in adultery. He was a murderer. He was a thief. He was all of that. You see,
when he hung on that tree and he was make sin, All the sins
of God's elect people, all the sins of David, David's adultery,
that's Sheba, Solomon and all of his concubines, all the fever, all of that, ate
on him. All of my sins. And if you know
him who knows life eternal, all your sins. laid on the earth,
and he suffered a million deaths. He suffered what my sins merited
in hell. He suffered on that tree, on
that tree. That's the remedy. That's the
cure to the sinner. It's to do with the dying. He
must suffer. They suffered our substitute,
our sins, transferred. What about these women? Let me tell you that tears of
mere emotion because of the external suffering, of the Lord Jesus
Christ are quickly wiped away and forgotten. Tears of emotion that comes from
the external suffering. What happens today? I don't know if any of these
women ever became conversion followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I doubt seriously if they were. None of them are mentioned there
in the book of Acts when they met in that room. None of these
whole groups of women that followed him, they weren't mentioned.
I fear that most of these sympathizers and weepers and wailers They
forgot to mark that they had wept today. And that's the way
most people are. The mere fact that they had cried
and lamented the Savior's doom, His doing, His dying, His suffering,
is no sign that they were regenerate followers of God's Lamb. They're like the morning cloud
and the early dew. Doesn't last long, Bob. Dew dries
up, doesn't it, Bob, about ten o'clock, and then you mow your
grass. Ah, they're good emblems of emotion,
like I've been talking about. Many tears are shed under powerful
sermons, and they become just wasted liquid. Weeping don't
change a man's character. It does not cause the putting
away of sin. It does not create real faith. Oh no, it's just surface work. It's just that on the outside. Don't build a monument here for
these women. Although these women manifested the tenderness of
their heart to the Lamb of God, and He acknowledged them. He
acknowledged them. And I'm sure He appreciated their
tears. He suffered alone. Ah? Oh, when the sermon is over, most of the time the tears dry
up. What's said today is forgotten
tomorrow. Lord help us. Come to Him. That's your only
hope, brethren. That's your only hope. He said that every mile may be
stopped and the whole world become guilty. I'm guilty. I'm guilty. I'm guilty. That's all I can say. I'm guilty. The jury comes out. And the judge
says, have you reached a verdict? Your Honor, we have reached a
verdict. Well, would the former of the
jury stand up and read the verdict? We find so-and-so guilty on every
count. We find him guilty on every charge. Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty.
That's what God's going to do one day. We're either going to
admit our guilt here, have our mouths stopped here, or we'll
stop it in eternity at judgment. And the charges. Find him guilty on every charge. What's the sentence, judge? You
know what the sentence is going to be? Send him to hell. Send
him to hell! That's the sentence. Send him
to hell. If you plead guilty, why don't
you plead guilty? Come up here. Won't you just
say, I'm guilty. I'm guilty. I'm guilty. He charged me of being a rebel
and a sinner. I'm guilty. I'm guilty. I'm guilty. I sue for mercy. Show mercy. Show mercy. Show mercy. Show
mercy. Show mercy. God will show mercy to the fellow
that desires mercy. God will show mercy. He has plenty
of mercy. He has plenty of mercy. He'll show mercy if you want
mercy. And if you want justice, He'll
give you justice.