Turn with me in your Bibles to
John chapter 19. endeavouring as the Lord would
allow us and the Lord might lead us for us to be witnesses. It's so nice when we're reading
the scriptures to just imagine you actually being there. Picture
the scene in your mind's eye and go with these men on this
remarkable day of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. So let's
begin reading in verse 38. And after this, after the death
of the Lord Jesus Christ, after those scriptures will be all
filled, After this, Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of
Jesus but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that
he might take away the body of Jesus. And Pilate gave him leave. He came, therefore, and took
the body of Jesus. And there came also Nicodemus,
which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture
of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pound weight, 45 kilos. Then took they the body of Jesus
and wound it in linen cloths. with the spices, as the manner
of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where he was
crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulcher,
wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus. Therefore, because of the Jews'
preparation day for the sepulchre, was nigh at hand, was right near
by the cross. Some say as little as a hundred
feet or even less. Joseph of Arimathea had a walled
garden there right beside the cross and so there were many
witnesses to the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ and
there are many witnesses to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the burial of the Lord Jesus Christ and they witnessed where
he was laid. There can be no doubt No doubt
in the minds of the children of God and anyone who is honest
that the Lord Jesus Christ really lived, that the Lord Jesus Christ
was really crucified, that the Lord Jesus Christ was really
buried, and that the Lord Jesus Christ was really resurrected. All of our salvation, all of
the hope of our salvation, rests in the glorious accomplishments
of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a saviour, what he went
through, what a God we have who is absolutely sovereign over
all of these events. When could a man ever be weaker? Marred beyond recognition as
a human being, nailed to a cross, a spear driven into his heart,
big enough for Thomas to put his fist in, him taken down from
the cross and buried in a tomb. And yet,
and yet, our God reigns. Our God reigns victorious over
all of those events. When we are weak, then we are
strong. We have a great God. Let me remind
you again of what 1 Corinthians 15 says, and I want us to have
in mind that as we preach the Gospel and as we look at the
events of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, his life, his death,
his burial, how that Christ died for our sins. Listen to what
Paul's testimony to the Gentiles of Corinth is. Moreover, brethren,
I declare unto you the gospel, 1 Corinthians 15 verse 1, which
I preached unto you, which you have received wherein you stand. This is where all of the saved
children of God stand, by which you are also saved. This is the
message of the salvation of your eternal soul, and any message
that disputes this message is the message of damnation, no
matter how many nice things it says about you and no matter
how many nice things it says about God. By which you are saved,
if you keep in memory. That keep in memory is to hold
down fast, to seize, to lay a hold of. You lay a hold of these things.
What I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain. May
it not happen to us. For I delivered unto you first
of all which I also received, how that Christ died for our
sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried according
to the Scriptures, and that he rose again the third day according
to the Scriptures. Everything that was written about
the death of the Lord Jesus Christ is according to the Scriptures
and he was seen. And we have looked at how the
Lord lived his life. We have looked at how he prayed
in John 17. We have looked at how he agonised
in the garden. We looked at how he reigned over
his enemies that came to arrest him in the garden. We looked
at how he gave himself into their hands, how he suffered all the
cruel blows and all the mockeries. how he bore a faithful witness
unto Pilate, how he bore his cross to Calvary, how he prayed
and cried on the cross of Calvary, all of those psalms that we've
read, all of those cries, all of those prayers to his father
from the cross, how that he died, how that he was pierced, How
that he was buried and how that he rose. Isn't it wonderful that
our gospel is all about the Lord Jesus Christ and what he did?
All about that. Thank God the gospel is not about
what I have to do. I have to receive a message,
hear a message, receive a message, believe a message that speaks
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ plus anything is nothing. Christ without anything is everything. We have a great God and a great
Saviour. Before we sing again, I want
you to be reminded, if I don't get to speak about it again soon,
that the Jews had a place for the Lord Jesus Christ's body
that day. Just over the hill and not far
away from the cross of Calvary was a place called Gehenna. It
was a place that pictured hell. And the Lord Jesus Christ warned
again and again about the fires it had. It was a rubbish tip
that had a fire that never went out. And the bodies of criminals
were thrown there. In a sense, the Jews had planned,
you talk to us about hell, you talk to us about being children
of the devil. We'll show you who really is
the boss around here. The humiliation they wanted for
the Lord Jesus Christ was not just the cross, but the humiliation
of what they thought of his carcass being thrown into the everlasting
burnings. with maggots and wild animals
and birds consuming his body in the midst of that garbage
tip. What a God, what a God and what a savior who rules over
all of these events. Not just for that not to happen,
but for there to be a glorious burial and a glorious resurrection. And all of this reminds us of
the absolute sovereignty of our God and the wonder and wonder
of his extraordinary faithfulness. We have a promise making God
and we have a promise keeping God. And we here today are part
of the fulfilment of that promise. As remarkable as that might be.
We're going to sing number 61. Great High Priest, we view thee
stooping. With our names upon thy breast. Thank you, Norm. I'll be seeing you soon. Turn with me back in your Bibles
to John Chapter 19 and let's follow the journey
of these two remarkable men in the Scriptures. We hardly know
the names of any of the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Jews
had planned the ignominy and the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But here we are, 2000 years later, reading the story of these two
men. And if ever there was a story of the grace of God, relating
powerfully in the hearts of people. Here we have it with these two
men. And may it be so with us that God would operate that power. They came to the cross of the
Lord Jesus Christ and pleaded for his body. and gave him who was destined
for the most ignominious burial. They gave him the burial of a
king and wrapped around his body with these beautiful herbs and
spices, myrrh and aloes about 100 pounds weight. Let's read
these verses again. After this, this is John chapter
19 verse 38. After this, Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple
of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate
that he might take away the body of Jesus. And Pilate gave him
leave. He came therefore and took the
body of Jesus. There came also Nicodemus, which
first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh
and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. Then took they the body
of Jesus, and wound it in linen cloths, with the spices, as the
manner of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where he was
crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulchre,
wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus, therefore,
because of the Jews' preparation day, for the sepulchre was nigh
at hand. I find myself sort of captivated
in my thoughts and I write far too many notes and then I'm trying
to reduce them and I end up leaving a sermon in my notes each week.
I don't know, one day I'll probably end up collecting all the unpreached
sermons that I've written out. One of the things that was extraordinary
for me a number of years ago, 2004 to be exact, I went with
my daughter Kate just for a few days to Bahrain Went there to
visit some missionaries who were struggling at the time and one
of the things they did for us is they took us down to the marketplace. And it's an old, old market,
possibly thousands of years old. But anyway, one of the things
they do there is they sell spices. And I couldn't believe it. This
container had all these different spices, all the ones that are
mentioned in the scriptures, but I thought, I'll just bring
two home, and I brought some frankincense and some myrrh home,
and they'd gone missing. I hadn't seen them until just
a couple of months ago Lisa found them again. And then while I
was preparing these notes about the myrrh and the aloes, I got
out one of these little containers and I thought, what a wonder,
I've had these things lying around here for 20 odd years. I don't
know how long they were lying around in the market in Bahrain.
So I got one of them out and they're there at the back of
the hall on a table so you can go and... Anyway, so I got out
a nail file thing and I rubbed the myrrh. And after all those
years, the myrrh still smells beautiful. And the frankincense is there
as well, and you can do that as well. But the thing that's
been amazing is for the last couple of days I've had this
smell of myrrh all around. It's been on my nose. It's been
everywhere. I come and sit at my desk and I can smell the myrrh. The Lord Jesus Christ is a bundle
of myrrh, and from his lips pour sweet ointment, and if there
was ever a sweet ointment for the children of God, it is in
the glory of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ that
he bore our sins and he bore them in his body on a tree and
he buried them in a grave and he rose again and those sins
are gone forever they're gone forever I spoke earlier about
the hatred of the Jews. One of the things that the Lord
Jesus Christ and his gospel exposes before mankind, for those who
are given eyes to see, is that what really lies at the heart
of all man-made religion. They honour God with their lips,
but their hearts are far from him. And it's good to contemplate
what the basis of the hatred of the Jews was. Their hatred
was visceral, wasn't it? They hated him without a cause. But their hatred bore no rationality
at all. It bore no reality in truth whatsoever. Pilate knew it was envy. And especially after the triumphal
entry into Jerusalem. The religion of men is fine until
it meets the Lord Jesus Christ, and particularly when it meets
the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And then religious
people are exposed for what they are. People will come and take
from the Lord Jesus Christ. They'll take his healing, they'll
take his food, they'll even think how wonderful his words of wisdom
were. But every time in the scriptures
that the Lord Jesus Christ declared the Godhead of God in a body,
in him, he was hated. The congregation that knew him
for all those years in Nazareth They hated God being God, a God
who has mercy on whom he wishes to have mercy, a God who has
mercy on Gentiles. The Jews of Jerusalem saw him
as a Sabbath-breaker, they saw him as a friend of publicans
and sinners, and they accused him of blasphemy. But what was at the heart of
all this? What is at the heart of all enmity against the Lord
Jesus Christ? He was put to death by zealous
religious men because he would not honour their righteousness. He would not honour and acknowledge
the righteousness of their deeds and of their traditions. And
I want us to think about that in light of the amazing rescue
out of that darkness that he wrought this day for Nicodemus. And I trust he will work that
day for us. All of Adam's race live on the
basis of do this and live. You shall be as gods is the poison
that entered our veins in the Garden of Eden. And in the religion,
it speaks the words of the Pharisee in the temple and says, I thank
God that I don't do what other people do. And I don't do what
others do, and I do what they don't do. Look at all the things
that I do. I can bring all of these things
before God, and I can bring before God all the things that I don't
do. That is their religion, and it's the religion of natural
man. It's the religion that courses
through the veins of all of us, in our minds, in our hearts,
and before our eyes. The unreligious person says,
well, I did this myself. I did it my way, is the claim
of the unreligious. And the religious says, I thank
God that I. But at the heart, they're all
exactly the same. For us to have that natural enmity
undone requires a divine sovereign work of God. Nicodemus was told,
you have to be born again Nicodemus. You come to me with all of your
learning, and all of your knowledge, and all of your heritage, and
all of your esteem among men, and it's rubbish, Nicodemus.
It's rubbish. You can't even see the kingdom
of God. You can't even see the kingdom
of God. Most men, listen to what the
book says, look what God says, most men will proclaim everyone
his own goodness. Proverbs 20 verse 6, but a faithful
man who can find. Twice in Proverbs it says, there
is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are
the ways of death. Proverbs 30 says there is a generation,
and it's an enormous generation, that are pure in their own eyes,
yet is not washed from their filthiness. What's the filthiness
they need to be washed from? Isaiah tells us really clearly,
doesn't it? The filthiness we need to be
washed from is our righteousness. Our righteousnesses are filthy
rags. What made the difference between
these two that we read of today and that multitude who to this
day removed from our sight? The answer
is a who, isn't it? This is a picture of the operation
of God sovereignly in the hearts of his people. In Nicodemus it
was a process, a wonderful process, that saw him at the beginning
coming out of darkness into the light of the presence of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And there, as everyone does in
the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, he's exposed for what
he is. Then in John chapter 7 you have
Nicodemus standing up before that Sanhedrin and declaring
the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And here we have
him coming in the daylight to honour the body of the Lord Jesus
Christ in the most glorious way. This is the work of God's grace
in the hearts of people. That's what the water and the
blood that flowed from the side. We have to have our sins taken
away completely by the Lord Jesus Christ. And we need a new nature. It's Christ formed in you. The Lord said to Nicodemus, you
must be born again to enter the kingdom of God. And here's Nicodemus,
willingly and reverently and sacrificially doing this act
of love and reverence and not caring to hurt what that enormous
religious multitude thought of him. This event, is covered with the
fingerprints of Almighty God stamped upon every act and every
word and everything that's happened. The grace of God, the grace of
God is a powerful operation in the hearts of people. Amazing
grace. It's always going to be amazing.
If it's not amazing, it's not grace. And amazing grace that
did what? It saved a wretch like me. They leave that out of the hymn
when they sing it these days. I was reading something of Spurgeon's
the other day and it was really extraordinary. He said, where
do they bury all the bad people? The cemeteries around here are
full of good people. Where do they bury all the bad
people? It's so, isn't it? It's so. And I pray that as we finish
our time today, I want us to be reminded that just as you
can go down and put some of that myrrh on you and you'll be smelling
it for the rest of the day. And it's a delightful smell. But Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus
went home that day smelling of myrrh and aloes. Their walk was
perfumed by that which honoured the death of the Lord Jesus Christ
and his burial. Wouldn't that be wonderful if
we could go from here, with the aroma of Christ crucified, risen,
reigning, powerfully operating in the hearts of his people.
Wouldn't that be a lovely ointment? I need that occasionally. In
fact, I need to smell that as much as I possibly can. As you
walk through this world, as they walk back down to their homes
in Jerusalem, all they could smell was myrrh. Couldn't get
off them. It's a wonderful picture. It's
a wonderful picture. May the Lord continually perfume
our time together. He gathers his church and he
declares to his church, and this is his work of grace that I want
us to contemplate as we look at the events, but I want us
to see behind the events. But in Song of Solomon, he speaks
of his love, he says in verse 10. How fair, how beautiful is
thy love, my sister, my spouse! How much better is thy love than
wine, and the smell of thine ointments than all spices! Thy
lips, O my spouse, drop as honeycomb. Honey and milk are under thy
tongue, and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of
Lebanon. his bride gathered together in
the church. A garden enclosed is my sister,
my spouse, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. Thy plants
are an orchard of pomegranates with pleasant fruits, campfire
and spikenard, spikenard, saffron, calamus and cinnamon. and all
the trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes with all the chief
spices. A fountain of gardens, a well
of living waters and streams from Lebanon. So listen to the
prayer. He says, Awake O North Wind,
come Holy Spirit, come thou South and blow upon my garden that
the spices thereof may flow out. The sweet spices of the glory
of our crucified Saviour just need the breath of God Almighty
to blow on them, and then they'll blow into the hearts of God's
people, just as they did in the hearts of Nicodemus and Joseph
of Arimathea. So I just want to look briefly
at the story, and then after the break I want to come back
and look at the wonder of this amazing spice called myrrh. As I said earlier, we have in
this glorious declaration, we have an amazing picture of the
absolute sovereignty of God, but also we have a glorious picture
of the fruit of what has just happened on the cross of Calvary. These two men, were chosen out
by God from before the foundation of the world and placed into
the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. And on the cross of Calvary he
bore their sins in his own body on the tree. And now the Blessed
Holy Spirit came into their hearts and moved them into this act
of love and devotion and reverence for the Lord Jesus Christ. He
is our God, is the God of salvation, and unto God the Lord belong
all the issues from death, all of what issued from his death. Let's look at these two men briefly
and look at something of the story of them. Joseph of Arimathea
was a rich man according to Matthew chapter 27. He was a rich man
and he went to Pilate and he begged the body of Jesus. He had the ability to go into
the presence of Pilate because he was an honourable counsellor. He's probably a member of the
Sanhedrin. He was, as the scriptures say,
a just man and a good man. And he went in boldly into the
presence of Pilate. The body belonged to Pilate.
But Pilate could, as it was Roman custom, give the body into the
hands of the family or other people who wanted it. Who ruled
Pilate's thoughts that day? I want us to see the picture,
but I want us to see the hand of God. He went in and Mark says
he craved the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. He craved the body. How often in the scriptures those
people, especially those women, came to the Lord Jesus Christ
and they couldn't rest until they touched him. Mary sat at
his feet. That open sinner in Luke chapter
seven, she came and she anointed his feet and wiped his feet with
her tears. She just had to be, what a great
place to be, at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. Joseph's name means, the Lord
shall add. The Lord shall add. When Rachel,
who was barren, the Lord hearkened to her and opened her womb and
she conceived and bear a son and says, the Lord has taken
away my reproach. The birth of this first Joseph
heralds the going out of Jacob from Laban's service. And his
place is called Arimathea, which means a lofty place. And the
promise of the Lord Jesus Christ is, when I be lifted up, he's
on this hill, when I be lifted up, I'll draw all of them to
me. I'll draw them. There won't be any problem. but
he being a disciple of Jesus but secretly for fear of the
Jews. One of the great pictures isn't
it in the story of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus is that
our Saviour has many disciples that are unknown to you and me.
So often we're like Elijah where we think that we're the only
one left and the Lord has to remind us for myself 7,000 that
haven't bowed the knee to bow. Isn't it wonderful? God has raised
up his witnesses in this world and sent his gospel into this
world because he has much people in this world. And we know that
there are much people in this world because he hasn't come
back. We have this amazing picture
of these two men led by the Holy Spirit. When Peter denied Him
and forsook Him and all the others, these two men came and they identified
themselves with the crucified Son of God. He besought the body
of Jesus, and Pilate gave him leave, and he came therefore
and took the body of Jesus. He took it. It was now in his
possession. The body of the Lord Jesus Christ
is no longer in the hands of wicked men for them to do with
him. They'd done all that they could, and now he's in the hands
of these men. And obviously there was a collusion
between the two of them because Nicodemus went to beg the body
using the authority that he had. Nicodemus was an extraordinarily
wealthy man in Jerusalem. And there also came Nicodemus
which at first came to Jesus by night and brought a mixture
of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pound weight. It's interesting
what Nicodemus' name means. Nico means above. You might remember
that God hates the Nicolaitans in Revelation. He twice says
that he hates the Nicolaitans. Well, Nicodemus' name means above
the people, a bit like the Nicolaitans in Revelation. It means above
the people. He was above the people in wealth. He was above the people in learning. He was above the people in all
of these things. And here he is. Taking a place
where all of that means absolutely nothing, and not only that but
all of his actions that day would bring him for the rest of his
life into a place of disrepute with all the religious people
around him. The world of religion would hate
him. And he brought this mixture.
It's a huge mixture. They say it was enough for the
burial of 200 people. was the burial of the King. What
an extraordinary work of God in the hearts of these two men
to do this on that particular day. To go to this extraordinary
place, to this extraordinary person, to put, as it were, this
extraordinary crown of glory on the body of the Lord Jesus
Christ and bury him in a rich man's tomb. Then they took the body of Jesus
and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as is the manner
of the Jews to bury. We'll look at it later on, but
these spices are a picture and the linen is a picture of the
High Priest. We looked at it some weeks ago,
but in Leviticus Chapter 16 the High Priest goes to the Holy
of Holies and he only goes to the Holy of Holies in a linen
garment. It is a great picture of our Lord Jesus Christ going
into the Holy of Holies in heaven, bearing his wounds and bearing
his blood. And the fine linen, the fine
linen is a picture of the righteousnesses of the saints, Revelation 19.8. And to her the church was granted
that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white. For the fine linen is the righteousnesses
of the saints. It doesn't say that it's the
righteousness that's imputed to the saints. It says it is
their righteousness. The righteousness of all of the
saints is the very righteousness of God. What a glorious righteousness. What a sweet fragrance, the burial
of the Lord Jesus Christ. A quantity of vast expense. quantity of great honour and
respect. And prior to the crucifixion
of the Lord Jesus Christ there just seemed to be one woman who
really understood and really believed. You might recall that
in John chapter 12, that Mary brought that bottle, that incredibly
expensive bottle of that incredibly expensive pure nard, and she
broke the bottle and she poured it over the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the whole house smelled of the perfume, and Judas was angry. Judas was angry, and the Lord
said, she's done a good work. If you want to know what a good
work is, you go back and read John chapter 12. That's a good
work. A good work is a good work that
honors the Lord Jesus Christ in his life, in his death, in
his burial, in his resurrection, according to the scriptures.
What a savour! Listen to what 2 Corinthians
2 says of this savour. These are extraordinary words
and words that are both an amazing challenge but an amazing comfort
to the children of God. He says in 2 Corinthians 2 verse
14, Now thanks be unto God, which
always causes us to triumph in Christ, and make us manifest
the savour of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God. That's incredibly important.
We are unto God a sweet saver of Christ. In them that are saved
and in them that perish, to the one we are the saver of death
unto death and the other the saver of life unto life. What an extraordinary place,
what an extraordinary responsibility the Lord has placed upon his
people, what an extraordinary privilege. No wonder Paul goes
on to say, and who is sufficient for these things? God makes them
sufficient, just as he did with Nicodemus and Joseph that day. The great high priest, entered
the Holy of Holies bearing the sweet fragrance of his death
on the cross with his shed blood. We'll see it a bit later on,
but every fragrance used in the temple worship was a fragrance
which spoke of the death and the burial of Lord Jesus Christ.
All of the temple and all of the furnishings of the temple
were all anointed with these amazing smells, these amazing
perfumes. And the high priest was anointed
and his sons as well. That incense spoke of the death
and burial of our Lord Jesus Christ. The way into the Holy
of Holies is opened now. God tore that curtain in that
earthly temple and opened the way for all his people to come
in. The spices and the linen were
wrapped around the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. What an amazing picture of his
union with his people that we are wrapped as one with him. The grave of the Lord Jesus Christ
saw no corruption. They used these amazing spices
to try and quell the odors of a dead body, that
body of the Lord Jesus Christ, sure, no corruption. None whatsoever. It remained in that tomb for
three days, buried as Jonah has been in the belly of the fish
for those three days, buried in the body of the earth for
three days, and no corruption. And when that stone was taken
away, When the angels took that stone
away, what was the smell? There was a hundred pounds of
it in there. The sweet aroma of the Lord Jesus
Christ. No wonder we can say with Paul,
oh death, where is your sting? Oh grave, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin, and
the strength of sin is the law, but thanks be to God, which giveth
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved
brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work
of the Lord. For as much as you know that
your labour is not in vain in the Lord. For want of time we'll finish
there, but I pray the Lord will bless these words to our hearts
and we'll be able to enter into something of the glory of our
Lord Jesus Christ, but especially to stand in awe of the wonder
of his sovereign grace, which moves the hearts of his people
to honor his life, to honor his death, to honor him in his burial. And may the sweet aroma of the
glory of him declaring it's finished. May that be the aroma that Nicodemus May we be that aroma to one another
as we go through our time today and the rest of our fellowship
and on into this world.