First of all, I didn't know you
were reading today and I was back there just chatting with
you. Secondly, I promise I didn't come back there and spy on your
scripture and steal it from you. Alright, Matthew 27. I want to give you a statement that
sums up my message to you this morning. It's a rather lengthy
statement, but I want you to listen to this. The Lord of glory
was humiliated, scourged, mocked by men, crucified, separated
from God, that we might be exalted, embraced,
honored, and justified from all our sins in perfect righteousness
by our gracious God. I want to take a little, each
little section of this passage, I want to take it a little at
a time and read it and then say a few words on it rather than
read the whole thing at first. And as we read these words, I
want you to remember this is what Christ endured for every
one of us that believe on Him. It's what He endured for us. The Lord of glory was humiliated,
scourged, mocked by men, crucified upon a cursed tree, made to bear
the sin and shame of His people, made to bear the wrath of God
that we might be exalted, embraced, honored, and justified from all
our sins. in perfect righteousness by our
gracious God. Isn't that amazing? First, we
see the scourging and the humiliation. Matthew 27, 26. Verse 26, Then
released he Barabbas unto them, and when he had scourged Jesus,
he delivered him to be crucified. Barabbas was a notable criminal
and he was released and the sinless Lord Jesus was taken in His place. That is our gospel. Everybody that Christ died for
were notable sinners. We were convicted criminals and
yet Christ was taken in our place and we were allowed to go free.
And what Pilate was doing here is he was trying to appease the
Jews. He was a typical politician.
And he was trying to appease the Jews by scourging the Lord
Jesus rather than crucifying Him. But the Jews wanted Christ
to die. They didn't want Him merely scourged.
They wanted Him to die. And so the order was given first
for our Lord to be scourged and then crucified. Now what was
scourging? To be scourged is almost as cruel
as the cross. When they scourged somebody,
they took a whip of rawhide, it had all these strands in it,
and in each of those strands was woven pieces of bone, sharp
pieces of bone. And so they took this and they
whipped the back of our substitute with this whip. That was scourging. And when they whipped him, it
created such deep wounds in the flesh that it was considered,
they called it plowing the flesh because it plowed with those
bones. And our Lord, now you imagine
if you just received one of those lashes, how bad that would hurt. When they scourged our Lord,
they did this 39 times. 39 times. They whipped Him with
this bone upon His back and they plowed His back. Do you know
that was the fulfillment of Scripture? Psalm 129.3 says, The plowers
plowed upon my back. They made long their furrows. That was the fulfillment of Scripture.
Isaiah 50 verse 6, I gave my back to the smiters. I gave my
back to the smiters. And my cheeks to them that plucked
off the hair. I hid not my face from shame
and from spitting. Isaiah 53 verse 5 says, He was
wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. And with His stripes
we're healed. With the stripes that plowed
His back. I'm going to say this now before
I forget this. This was as much a fulfillment
of the law of God, the justice of God, as what Christ endured
in being separated from God. Because hell will be, the eternal
punishment of God's justice will be when God takes His hand off
of everybody there and allows them to do what they will to
you. It's called a place of gnashing. Weeping and gnashing of teeth. People can do what they will
to you. You think about it now, you see
it when you are just driving in New Jersey. And people's anger
just at the simplest thing. What if they were allowed to
do whatever came into their heart to you? That's what hell would
be. A place separated where God separates
Himself so that men can do whatever they will. They can't get out
of hell. They are there. but they can do whatever they
will. And that's what men were doing
to our Savior. God took His hand off of a man.
You want to see the will of men? You want to see what's in your
heart and in my heart toward God? This right here. God took His hand off, let men
have their will. And this is what we did. This
is what you would have done. This is what I would have done.
This is our natural will toward God right here. This is hell. This is the justice of God's
wrath when He separates His hand off of men and lets them do what
they will. And that's what they did to our
Savior. That's what He was bearing. And as bad as this scourging
was, that's just a visible outward emblem of the soul stripes that
Christ bore from separation from God. As bad as what you see with
these plowing of His flesh, really and truly that's nothing compared
to what He was bearing within, in His heart, the whipping of
His soul. And then we see the soldiers
and their fun. Verse 27, Then the soldiers of
the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered
unto Him the whole band of soldiers, and they stripped Him. And they
put on him a scarlet robe. And when they had plaited a crown
of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right
hand. And they bowed the knee before him and mocked him, saying,
Hail, King of the Jews! And they spit upon him. And they
took the reed and they smote him on the head. And after that
they had mocked him. They took the robe off from him
and put his own raiment on him and led him away to be crucified. The first word there in verse
27 is the word then. then. Normally, when a person
was convicted of a crime and scourged, then they allowed them
to have some time with their family, especially if they were
to be put to death. They allowed them to have time
with those they loved, and then they took them and put them to
death. They didn't do that with Christ. They took Him, they found
Him guilty in the kangaroo court, and then they scourged Him, and
right then They took him to prepare him to be crucified. There was
no waiting around. And we're talking here about
somewhere between 500 and 1,500 soldiers. We're not talking about
a little band of soldiers. We're talking about a large band
of soldiers. Somewhere between 500 and 1,500
soldiers all in the common hall having a good time, just laughing
and carrying on here. as they mocked God of glory. As they put this garb and mocked Him as being
a king. And this truly was the King of
kings, the Prince of life. They were doing this too. Here
is what they did to Him. Verse 28 says they stripped Him.
They stripped Him. When Adam sinned in the garden,
You remember Adam became ashamed of his nakedness because of sin. The shame of our nakedness came
to be because of our sin. And so when Christ was made to
bear the sin of His people, one of the first things that happened
to Him was He was stripped naked to bear the shame. Can you imagine?
When Adam was made sin, and the Spirit departed from him and
he knew he was sin. Adam was ashamed of his own nakedness. Imagine the shame that Christ
was having to bear. He is bearing the iniquity of
all his people at one time. I don't know if that increased
the shame of his nakedness or not, but it seemed like it would. that He would know it more acutely
anyway because He knows what it is to be holy. And here He
is now ashamed. That's why Hebrews 12 says, in
all this shame that He was made to bear, He despised the shame. But this is so, He was stripped
when He gave Himself to be made sin for us. Verse 28 says, And
they put on Him a scarlet robe. Probably just some soldier around
there had an old red robe, or maybe they found an old red robe
laying around somewhere, and they took this scarlet robe and
they put it on Him. And they began to deride Him
and make fun of Him. But that was a fulfilling Scripture.
Isaiah 63, 2 says, Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel,
and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine fat? Verse
29 says, They plaited a crown of thorns, and put it on his
head, and put a reed in his hand, and they bowed the knee to him,
and mocked him, saying, Hail, king of the Jews. They mocked
his claim. He said he was king of Israel.
And they mocked that claim. This is where they got this from.
They were mocking that claim. And they did it with a crown
made out of thorns. They pressed down on his head. And a reed, a scepter they made
out of some stick, just a bamboo stick. But this was according
to the purpose of God. This was fulfilling Scripture.
You remember when Abraham was going up the mountain with Isaac,
and Isaac said, Father, here's the wood and here's the fire,
where's the lamp? And Abraham said, ìMy son, God
will provide Himself a lamb.î And when God provided that lamb
to take the place of Isaac, where was it? It was caught in a thicket. It was caught in a thorn bush.
Thatís where the lamb was. And here you see that lamb that
was being pictured in Isaacís lamb, Abrahamís lamb. You see
that lamb here now. wearing his crown of thorns that
came out of a thicket. And then Scripture says, Thy
throne, O God, is forever and ever. Speaking of Christ, the
scepter of Thy kingdom is a right scepter, a righteous scepter. And one day, these soldiers and
every other person in this world, they are not going to bow their
knee in mockery. They're going to bow their knees. Scripture
says, at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow and every tongue
shall confess that He is Lord of lords and King of kings. To the glory of God. Every knee
is going to bow. But it won't be in mockery, making
fun of Him like this was. It will be serious then. Verse
30, they spit upon him, they took the reed and they smote
him on the head. Our Lord, we just read, our Lord
said, I gave my face to spit him. He willfully did this. Verse
31, and after that they had mocked him. They took the robe from
off him, put his own raiment on him and led him away to be
crucified. They probably did this so they
wouldn't be found out that they had done all this to him. This
was hypocrisy. They took him in there and they
stripped him and robed him and they did all this to him and
then before they took him back out so the people could see him,
they put his own clothes back on as if they hadn't done all
this to him. And they let him out there and
when our Savior went through all this, would you open your
mouth? Would you defend yourself? Our Savior had every right to
defend Himself. He could have legitimately defended
Himself. He had never done anybody any
wrong. They hated Him without a cause. The Scripture says,
He was oppressed and He was afflicted. You see what oppression He bore?
What affliction He bore? He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
yet He opened not His mouth. He brought His lamb to the slaughter,
and like a sheep before her shivers His dumb, like it has its mouth
closed. So He opened not His mouth. He
did not defend Himself. He did not try to get out of
this whatsoever. And we'll come back to Simon
carrying His cross. We'll come back to that later.
Now let's go to this third thing, the crucifixion. First we see
the fulfillment of Scripture, more fulfillment of Scripture.
We see here in verse 33, When they were come unto a place called
Golgotha, that is to say a place of a skull, they gave him vinegar
to drink, mingled with gall, and when he tasted of it he would
not drink. They would not drink it. This
was vinegar. That was wine that had gone sour. It wasn't good to drink anymore. It turned to vinegar. And they
mixed it with gall. And that's thought to be a mixture
that would prolong life. It was a mixture that was like
a painkiller. It was made to kill the pain.
And they brought this to the Lord and He wouldn't drink it. He wouldn't drink it. He would
not do anything that would prolong his life. He would not do anything
that would ease his suffering while he suffered the wrath of
God for his people. There was a perfect suffering
that God's law demanded and Christ would suffer that perfect suffering
and He would not do anything to ease Himself of it. I get
a little bit of pain. I woke up hurting this morning
and I took something for it. We hurt, we take something to
try to ease the pain, aspirin or something for our headache.
Not our Lord on the cross. He would not ease Himself. Scripture
says, Psalm 69, 21, They gave me also gall for my meat, and
in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. This was all to fulfill
Scripture. Every bit of this. And again
we see Scripture fulfilled. Verse 35 says, And they crucified
him and parted his garments, casting lots, that it might be
fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet. They parted my garments
among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots. That was
Psalm 22, 18. And this is to show us, brethren,
all this fulfillment of Scripture is to show us God was in control
of everything taking place here. And every bit of this, God had
put it all in His Word thousands of years before. Now we know
everything that came to pass concerning Christ came to pass
just like this. History will show you this actually
really truly happened. It verifies God's Word that this
truly happened. And this was foretold by God
in these scriptures before any of it ever happened, that men
would do this to Him. Now, if there was a book that
some philosopher that claimed to be wise in this world, if
there was some book he had written where he was able to say something
beforehand that was going to come to pass and then it came
to pass, men would flock to that and believe it and think, oh,
that's something great. But you know why men won't believe
this word? It's because God doesn't give
you anything to do. God takes it all out of a man's
hand. And what He does show that a
man will do is all these wicked things that fulfill Scripture
if left to his will. And because of that, even though
God showed it all beforehand that it was going to be done
and it came to pass exactly like God said it would, because God
doesn't give men something to do and because He declares men
totally wicked, man won't believe this. Their brother denied it. If they can deny this and deny
God, then they can deny their wicked sinners. That's why they
try to deny it. Make it to be a lie. They did
what Job's friends did to him. Look here in verse 36. Sitting
down, they watched him there. You think of the cruelty of our
hearts. We're getting more and more cruel. We're becoming more
and more like Rome. You know, by the end of Rome's
end, they were having, they were gathering together in giant football
stadiums, basically, to watch men fight to the death. And we're
becoming more and more like them, every day. It's got to be more
violent, it's got to be more severe, the sport's got to be
more extreme to hold our attention. And this was the ultimate right
here. This was one who claimed to be
God and men did all this and they got him hung up on that
tree now and they sat down and said, now let's watch this. This
is going to be good. Let's watch this. That's my heart
and your heart by nature. They thought they were going
to see Christ on that cross trying to get off of it and writhing
in pain and doing all this to where He would finally renounce
God and prove them right. That's what they thought was
going to happen. And they didn't see any of that. They saw Christ
bearing everything God sent Him to bear, perfectly submitting
to all of it. They were disappointed. And then
God used reprobate men all through here. He used reprobate God-hating
rebels to preach the truth of Christ. They didn't mean to do
it. They didn't know they were doing
it. But they preached the truth. Watch this. Matthew 37. They sat up over his head, his
accusation written, this is Jesus the King of the Jews. That's
who he is. That's who He claimed to be and
that's who He is. When it says He's the King of the Jews, it
means He's the King of all God's elect Israel. That's who political
earthly Israel was created by God to typify God's true spiritual
Israel. He's not a Jew which is one outwardly.
He's a Jew which is one inwardly. Circumcision is of the heart,
in spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not of men but
of God. Every believer, we are the true
circumcision. We're the true Jew. who worship
God in spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence
in our flesh. He's the King of the Jews. He's
my King and your King. We're His servants. That's who
He is. And they didn't mean to confess
that truth, but they did. They preached the truth. Look
here at verse 38. Then were there two thieves crucified
with him, one on the right hand, another on the left. And the
men as they passed by, this is what those thieves were hearing.
All this stuff is what those thieves were hearing. And God
saves through the gospel. And He's going to save one of
these thieves. And you tell me God can't get
the gospel to men? He's using these reprobates to
preach the gospel by which he's going to make it effectually
in the heart of that one thief. And he's hearing every bit of
this. And he says there, verse 40, they said, Thou that destroyest
the temple and build it again in three days, save thyself.
Remember Christ said that? You destroy this temple, this
bodily, earthly temple. Talk about His own body. In three
days I'm going to raise it again. I'm going to come forth because
I'm going to conquer death. I'm going to conquer sin. I'm
going to conquer hell and the grave. And I'm going to come
forth in three days and all my people are going to come forth
in me. And they preached that by what they said. They didn't
mean to say it. Look here. They said, if thou
be the Son of God, come down from the cross. That's who He
is. He's the Son of God. You just picture that thief that
had been casting this in his teeth. He still was at this point.
But it's entered in his heart now, this is the Son of God.
The Spirit of God entering into him and teaching him, this is
the Son of God. They said, verse 41, likewise
also the chief priests mocking him with the scribes and the
elders said, he saved others, himself he cannot save. That's
a good simple preaching of substitution. He saved others and if he's going
to save others, himself he cannot save. He's got to die in the
room and place of his people. He's got to die for these others
that he's dying for so they can be saved. That's the gospel of
substitution. That's our gospel. If He be the
King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross and we will
believe Him. No, they wouldn't. No, they wouldn't. We saw Pharaoh
last week. Pharaoh saw the hail come and
the fire come. Just like God said, he saw a
man, he asked a man to pray to God to make it stop. And God
heard Moses and He made it stop. Pharaoh went right back to sinning.
He didn't believe God. They wouldn't have believed God
either if He came down. He came out of the grave three
days later. Men today still don't believe
Him. Look here, verse 43. He trusted in God. That's true. He trusted in God perfectly.
He's the perfect faith of His people. We're not saved by our
faith. Our faith lays hold to Him whose
faith was perfect, who trusted in God perfectly for His people. Let Him deliver him now if He'll
have him, for He said, I'm the Son of God. God is the Son of
God. Christ is the Son of God and
God will have Him. He proved He'll have Him. He
raised Him. He's seated at God's right hand and all His people
are seated in Him because He accomplished eternal redemption. You see these thieves there,
they're crucified with Him and they're casting the same in His
teeth. They're saying the same thing to Him. And the Lord is going to make
that one of His own words that He is saying all these same things.
He is going to make His own words come back into His heart and
teach Him. This is the gospel. You see, God may use a liar.
He may use a liar. He used Balaam's ass. Preachers,
some people say, He is still doing that today. Talking about
preachers. But He is using them to save
His people. He may use a liar. But when He
is using that liar, God is going to make Him speak the truth.
And He is going to use the truth to save His people. Not a lie,
the truth. And then we have the darkness.
Verse 45, Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over
all the land until the ninth hour. You just think about that
darkness. That darkness was everywhere. All over this world. The other
night in Pennington we had a blackout. Traffic lights were out. Street
lights were out. All the lights in homes were
out. It was dark. You imagine it being dark all
over the world. We are not talking about the
sun even shining or I mean the moon even shining. We are talking
about total black. We are going next time in Exodus,
we're going to talk about darkness that can be felt. That's what
this was. Like being in a cave. Why? Why was it darkness? This
is the sun of righteousness right here. This is the light who was
before the light of the sun. This is the light who gives the
light of the sun its light. This is the light who gives the
moon its light. This is the light who lighteth
every man that comes into this world. This is the S-U-N of righteousness
who is the S-O-N of God. And He is bearing justice for
His people and no light was shining. If He is the light and His light
is extinguished because He laid down His life, there is no light
to shine. And for a little while, there
was no light. This is separation from God so
that there is no light. Verse 46, and about the ninth
hour, When this was come to an end, justice was about to be
satisfied, he cried out, and he cried this out for our benefit.
We've been seeing in all these questions God asks sinners, God
doesn't ask a question for a lack of knowledge. He asks it for
the benefit of those who hear. He said, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani,
that is my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Go over to,
where is the Psalm? Is it Psalm 22? Psalm 23? I can't remember. Yes, Psalm 22. Psalm 22, verse
1. My God, my God, why hast Thou
forsaken me? Why art Thou so far from helping
me from the words of my roaring? Oh my God, I cry in the daytime,
but Thou hearst not. And in the night season, in this
total darkness, and I'm not silent. Here's why God wouldn't hear
Him. Thou art holy. O Thou that inhabitest the praises
of Israel, Thou art holy. Our fathers trusted in Thee,
they trusted, and Thou didst deliver them. They cried unto
Thee and were delivered. They trusted in Thee and they
were not confounded. But I, with all the sins of my
people upon me, having been made sin for my people, I am a worm
and no man." You know what he just said? He said, all these
fathers that believed you and that you helped, though they
were sinners, though they were sinners, they were helped of
God. And he is saying by that, here they were helped, but I
am not helped. He is saying, they were better than I am right
now. See, Christ was made the very
lowest because He bore all the sin of His people at one time. And God regarded Him as sin,
as the one who had done the transgressing, And justice was poured out on
him in perfection. Because God's righteous. God's
righteous. Go with me back now to our text,
Matthew 27. Verse 47, Some of them that stood
there, when they heard, they said, This man calls for Elias.
And straightway one of them ran and took a sponge and filled
it with vinegar and put it on a reed and gave him to drink.
That was fulfillment of Scripture. And the rest said, let us see
whether Elias will come and save him. All this was just vain curiosity
to them. This was the worst pain. Crucifixion
is the worst death, the worst pain anybody could bear. This
was the worst form of capital punishment that ever existed,
was crucifixion. They took a man and they took
spikes and they They hammered His hands above His head. They
hammered His hands into a piece of wood. And they hammered His
feet. They made it so He couldn't like
lift Himself up with His feet. And then they took the cross
and they lifted it up and they just dropped it in a hole with
Him hanging on it. So that it ripped, you know,
when He fell on it, when He dropped in that hole. And then he, the
way you died was you basically, your insides began to stretch
apart and come apart and you began to, fluid began to build
up in your lungs and you drowned in your own fluid. But that took
a long time. And these people just sat down
and watched this. Oh, don't give him anything easy as pain, let's
watch, let's see what happens. That's me. And that's you. And the fact is, some of the
people that were doing that, he was dying for. When he said,
Father forgive them, they know not what they do. John 17, he
said, I don't pray for the world. I pray for them that you've given
me out of the world. That's who he was praying for.
Some of them that were there doing that deed, He was dying
for. You and I might say, well, I
never crucified the Lord, so anything I did can't be that
bad. So maybe there is hope for me that He died for me. Everything
we ever did in our unbelief was crucifying Christ. That's what
we did. You sitting here now that don't
believe Him, the only one that can save you, the only one that
can come between you and God and save you, In your heart of
hearts, you murder Him every second of your unbelief. You
would do exactly what they are doing right here. And that is
what you do by your unbelief. Crucify afresh the Son of God. I took three boys yesterday to
let them go snowboarding up in the mountain. You know, when you're 14 years
old, you know everything there is to know and everybody else
is ignorant. And I thought the whole way up there and the whole
way back, it kept crossing my mind. These three souls right
here that don't know God. They're ignorant, too ignorant
to know what they're ignorant of. And if they went up there on
that mountain and hit a tree yesterday and died, they'd be
in hell right now while we speak. because this is what's in their
heart and all our hearts by nature right here, to hate God of glory. Go to Isaiah 52. I want you to
see this. Isaiah 52, verse 14. Many were astonished at Christ. His visage, His outward appearance
was so marred more than any man. And His form more than the sons
of men. That means everybody that was
ever marred, every man that was ever marred in history, Christ
was marred more than those men on the cross. But I'm going to
tell you something, the agony of his soul which he bore in
separation from God, the fierce wrath of God against sin was
far worse than what we can see. It was far worse than what we
can see. What we can see was necessary,
but what we can't see was necessary too, to bear the wrath of God
in his heart. And I tell you all this was necessary
because look at verse 15. So shall He sprinkle many nations. This is how He washes all His
people that are scattered about in all the nations. This is how
He washed us from our sin. This is how He justified us. The soul that sinneth must die. And all those that God is saving,
right here in Christ, we've all sinned and we all must die. And
this right here is how we died before the justice of God. Christ
bore all this for us. So we died. We paid what God's
law demanded when Christ paid it. Christ paid it all. And so
we don't owe anything now because He paid it. That's how He sprinkled
us. That's how He washed us from
our sin. That's how He justified us and made us righteous. Without
the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin. Without
shedding of blood, no sins will be put away. It's by Christ shedding
His blood. Then comes the final cry, verse
50. He had cried this, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? But now comes the final cry, verse 50. Jesus, when He had
cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. It tells
us in another Gospel what He cried. And this is what he said,
it is finished. It is finished. What's finished? The whole work
of fulfilling the law, fulfilling the prophets, redeeming His people
from the curse, making His people righteous in Him. honoring God
and glorifying God to the highest, it's all finished. Right there, right then, it was
finished. He fully redeemed His people
from the curse of the law. He fully delivered us from the
law, from having to try to keep the law, and from the curse that
the law demands, the death and the suffering it demands to the
sinner that breaks it. He delivered us from it. He showed
us right here in verse 51. Behold, the veil of the temple
was rent in two, from the top to the bottom, and the earth
did quake and the rocks did rent. When that veil split, it didn't
split from the bottom to the top. They went under it to go
in it, and that's how they got in that holiest of holies. That's
where the high priest went with the blood of the Lamb, and he
went in there and he sprinkled that blood on the mercy seat,
and that's where God promised to meet with His people above
that broken law with the blood on the mercy seat to cover that
broken law. And God said, I'll meet you right
there. That was all picturing Christ. But if that veil had
split in two from the bottom to the top, we might have said,
well, it probably just split over wear and tear over time. That veil was 18 inches thick. Was that right? It was thick. And it split from top to bottom. showing us when He said it's
finished, that's what He meant. The law is finished. He's the fulfillment of everything
the Old Testament was written. And He fully delivered His people
from death. Verse 52 says, The graves were
opened and many bodies of the saints which slept arose. That
was just a little foretaste right there, just a little picture
right there for you of what Christ accomplished when He said, ìItís
finished.î He delivered all His people from death. He conquered
death and hell and the grave for us. He delivered us all from
death when He said, ìIt is finished.î and He delivered us into glory
with the Father. Verse 53 says, they came out
of the graves after His resurrection and they went into the holy city
and appeared unto Midi. They literally went into Jerusalem. But when we came out of that
grave and we were resurrected in Christ, all His people went
into that holy city, heavenly Jerusalem, into the presence
of God, received of God in glory, and our life is hid with Christ
in God right now at God's right hand. This is what He meant when
He said, it is finished. And that through this gospel,
He's going to bring each of His redeemed to see and say what
that centurion said. Verse 454, Now when the centurion
and they that were with him watching Jesus saw the earthquake and
those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying,
Truly, this was the Son of God. Everybody He did this for is
going to be brought to see. what He accomplished. You're
going to be brought to hear this message in your heart and believe
it. And you're going to cry out,
this is the Son of God. This is all my salvation. That's
what He's going to do for everybody. Now lastly, sinner will you be
like Simon? Go back up there now to verse
32. As they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name,
and Him they compelled to bear His cross. Have you been compelled
to bear Christ's cross? I've been compelled to bear it.
I'm constrained by Christ's love for me. When I see what He did
for me right here on this cross to deliver me and all this that
He accomplished, I'm compelled. to believe on Him and to take
up His cross and to follow Him daily and bear whatever I have
to bear for His sake. I am compelled to bear it. If
we would follow Christ, we have to take up His cross and we have
to do so daily. Go to Luke 14 verse 25 and look
what He said. There went great multitudes with
Him, and He turned and said to them, ìIf any man come to Me
and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren
and sisters, yea, his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.î
God wonít have any competition with our heart. Heís got to have
it all. ìAnd whosoever does not bear
his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.î You have to
bear His cross. You sit down, He says there,
just like a man is going to build a tower. You sit down and you
count the cost. And you say, and this is what
you do when you count the cost. They sit down, men naturally
sit down and count the cost, see if they have everything necessary
to build whatever they are going to build. We sit down and count
the cost and we realize, I don't have a thing. I don't have anything
in me that is going to make me follow Christ or do anything.
I entirely trust Him. But you count the cost because
you know it's going to cost you. It's going to cost you to follow
Him. It's going to cost you. God's going to see to it, it
costs you. It may be father, mother, husband, wife, sister,
brother, something He's going to use to try you and see, are
you willing to bear my cross? Are you willing to suffer for
my sake? Do you really believe me? And every day that you folks
find out that you believe Christ and you bear witness of Christ,
you are going to suffer for the gospel. You are going to suffer
for the sake of the gospel. But those that He has done this
for and those in whom He abides, they are willing to suffer for
Christ. He makes us willing. He compels
us. And in the light of these things, brethren, I urge you
to think about what you professed in baptism. Do you remember what
you professed in baptism? Listen to this, Romans 6. You ought to think about these
things often. Don't forget it. Romans 6, verse 4. We are buried with Him by baptism
into death. that like as Christ was raised
up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also
should walk in newness of life. For if we've been planted together
in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness
of His resurrection, knowing this, our old man is crucified
with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth
we should not serve sin. That's what we should remember.
I am to walk in newness of life. I professed, I died in Christ,
my old man died, and I rose a new man. And I am to live as a new
man. It's what it is to bear His cross.
And then we need to renew this commitment. Go to Romans 12.
Think of this commitment and renew this commitment in your
heart often. I beseech you therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God, by what we've seen Him do here and accomplish
for us, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And
be not conformed to this world, be transformed by the renewing
of your mind, that you may prove what's that good and acceptable
and perfect will of God. Don't try to be like the world. Don't try to conform to the world.
And that's what you do when you're young and you're friends. You
try to conform to them and they're trying to conform to somebody
they look up to. And everybody's trying to conform
to each other. And then men have the audacity
to say, oh, we're so different. We got tattoos. We're different.
Like every other person on the planet. Don't be conformed to the world.
Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Prove what God
says is good and what God says is acceptable and perfect. Do
the will of God. For I say through the grace given
unto me to every man that's among you not to think of himself more
highly than he ought to think. God hates pride. Pride of face,
pride of place, pride of grace. God hates pride. Don't think
more highly of yourself than you are, but think soberly according
as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith. Do everything. Make your body a living sacrifice
unto Him. And now, thirdly, I want us to
come and remember His broken body and His shed blood. I pray
God bless this message. Alright, Kevin and Kevin.