Turn to Matthew chapter 27. We have been going through the
book of Matthew for over a year. Well over a year. And we are
coming now to the end of it. But we're coming now to see,
and we've been looking and studying Jesus Christ. as we have gone
through Matthew. Our Lord said, take my yoke upon
you and learn of me. Jesus Christ is both the teacher
and the lesson. When we open the scriptures,
the word of God, we open it to learn of a person. We study a
person. Jesus Christ, who is God, manifest
in the flesh. This man is the living God. And this man, whom we will look
at hanging on that cross, now, this is hard to comprehend. But this man nailed to the cross
is the God of creation. This is the God who said, let
there be light. This is the God who made us.
This is the very God who gives us every breath we take. Take
in a breath. That's His air that you just
took in. He said to His disciples, without Me, you can do nothing. The Word of God says over in
Colossians, all things were made by Him and for Him. Whether you believe the gospel
or not, whether I believe the gospel or not, we were made by
Jesus Christ and for Jesus Christ. And He will get the glory when
all is said and done. Because the Word of God says
every knee is going to bow and every tongue is going to confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
Some are going to bow willingly, and some are not going to be
willing, but they're going to do it anyway. They're going to bow
anyway. We have now come to the place
where our Lord, our Lord is crucified. Our God, our Savior, our Redeemer
is crucified. It's a horrible death. And it's
a horrible death because it is the death that I deserve. Or he wouldn't have died such
a death. It wouldn't have died such a death. It is a horrible death. It's
one reserved for the worst of criminals. He's crucified. He's crucified. And it takes
place on a hill called Golgotha, which means the place of a skull. It looked like a skull. And this is the place chosen,
listen, they didn't just randomly say, let's take him out there
and kill him. This is the place chosen by God Almighty for the
Lamb of God to be slaughtered. This is God's Lamb. John the
Baptist said, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the
sin of the world. We sang that song earlier. Did
you hear what Jesus said to me? They're all taken away. All my
sins are gone. They're all taken away. And we
are about to look at how the sins of all whom God saves are
taken away. This is how they're taken away.
This is how my sins are gone. This is how God dealt with my
sins and put them away. Now what we see here is the Passover
lamb, and I've got to read just a portion here in Exodus chapter
12. In Exodus chapter 12, this is where the Passover was instituted. In Exodus chapter 12, if you'll
remember, Israel is in bondage. They are enslaved to Egypt. God
has told Pharaoh to let them go. He has sent all these plagues.
Pharaoh doesn't want to let them go, so God says, I'm going to
pass through the land and I'm going to kill all the firstborn.
Every firstborn from the cattle to men, all the firstborn in
the land is going to die. But God provides a lamb for the
firstborn of Israel. And that lamb is put to death
and the blood is put over the door post and the side post.
And God says, when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. Why? Because your substitute has already
died in your place. That's why. Now listen, I'm just
going to read a portion of it. He says in Exodus 12, this is
the institution of the Passover, this is a type, a picture of
Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. He says in verse 5, he tells
them to choose a lamb. He says, your lamb shall be without
blemish. Why? Because it represents the purity,
the holiness, the righteousness of Jesus Christ. A male of the
first year has got to be young. Our Lord died, was put to death
when he was 33 years old. He didn't die of old age or weakness.
It's in its full strength. You shall take it out from the
sheep or the goats. He shall be taken from among
his brethren. You shall keep it up until the fourteenth day
of the month. It's going to be observed to make sure it has
no blemish. And the whole assembly of the
congregation of Israel, which represents the church, shall
kill it in the evening. Christ came and Scripture says,
in these last days, in the evening. And they shall take of the blood
and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post
of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the
flesh in that night, roast with fire." This is what we're going
to see on hanging on Calvary's cross. Christ roast under the
fire of God's wrath. This is what's going on. And
you're going to eat it with unleavened bread. Leavened represents sin
in the Scriptures. Unleavened is without sin. and
bitter herbs, that represents repentance. They shall eat it.
Eat it, not of it raw, don't you eat it raw, nor sodden with
water, but roast it with fire. This represents Christ crucified.
His head with His legs, and with the pertinence thereof, the whole
thing. Let nothing of it remain till the morning. That which
remains of it until the morning, you shall burn it with fire.
And thus shall you eat it, with your loins girded, your shoes
on your feet. We're just pilgrims here, we're
not staying. and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat
it in haste." Listen, it's the Lord's Passover. Now, Christ
is being crucified right now, and we've got to look at it at
the Passover. The Passover is going on. This
is God's Passover. This is God's Lamb that He has
provided for His people. All right, now let's look at
it in the light of that. In verse 35, "...and they crucified
Him." and they parted his garments, casting lots." Now why did they
do that? Was they going to sell his garments? It's a good thing his garments
were not here because they'd make a lot of money on them.
They sell all these religious trinkets to make money. Someone
said, if they ever found the cross that he was hung on, the
best thing you could do would be burn it because men would
worship it. We worship Jesus Christ. We don't
worship trinkets and we don't do that. We worship a person.
But here it says here, "...they cast lots, that it might be fulfilled
which was spoken by the prophet." They are fulfilling the Scriptures
and they don't even know it. They don't even know it. And
that's over in Psalm 22 verse 18. It was written hundreds and
hundreds of years before this happened. They parted my garments
among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots." What's going
on here is two things. Men are doing what they wanted
to do to the Son of God, and yet they're doing exactly what
God purposed to be done. Listen to Acts 2.23. Him, that
is Christ, being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God. First of all, God delivered him
up. This is God's Passover lamb. You have taken and by wicked
hands have crucified and slain. You have done what you wanted
to do, but you're doing what God purposed to be done. Exactly,
you're doing what he purposed to be done. Now he says in verse
36, "...and sitting down they watched him there." We're going
to come back to that at the end of this message. As they watched him there, Pilate
set this up over his head. Pilate had this written. You
can read that over in John 19, 19. Pilate had this written and
set up over his head, this accusation. This is Jesus, the King of the
Jews. He did that out of spite, but
he did that because God moved him to do it. He was under divine
orders and didn't even know it. He didn't even know it. This
coward, Pilate was a coward. He was a politician. Whichever
way the wind was blowing, that's what he did. You see, he wanted
to release Christ and they said, crucify him, crucify him. And
so he finally gave in to them. He said, why? What has this man
done? He said, he's done no evil. I find no fault in him. He said, I find no fault in him.
But he ordered him to be crucified anyway. Because he was such a
politician, and he was afraid of the crowd. But here, all of
a sudden, he gets a backbone. And the man gets a backbone for
five minutes. And he has him to write. He said, write this
on that. Put this over the cross. And
over in John 19, 20, they write it in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. They write it in three languages.
Don't let anyone mistake. This one hanging on the cross
is the King of Israel. This is the King of Kings, and
this is the Lord of Lords hanging there. And Pilate had that, God
moved him to write that over that cross. This is the King
of the Jews. Now, here's a question. Who are the Jews? Who are the
Jews? Now, 99% of people are gonna
point over in the Middle East and say, they are, well, they're
the Jews. In Romans 2, verses 28 and 29, I'm going to read
this to you. Paul is writing to the Romans, the Roman church,
not the Romans, but the Roman church. Paul says this, He is
not a Jew, which is one outwardly, That is, he's born from Jewish
ancestry. He is not a Jew, which is one
outwardly, neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh.
All the Jews were circumcised, all the males were. It was a
sign of the covenant. It was made with Abraham. It
was just an earthly covenant. Neither is that circumcision,
which is outwardly. Listen, now here it is. He is
a Jew, which is one inwardly. and circumcision is that of the
heart and the spirit, not in the letter, not in the letter,
it's the heart, whose praise is not of men, but of God. Now listen to Philippians 3,
verse 3. Paul writes this, I want you to know this, every redeemed
sinner, every believer, every believer is an Israelite. A spiritual Israelite. You're
looking at a Jew. You're looking at a true spiritual
Israelite. Philippians 3, 3. For we are
the circumcision. Who are the circumcision? Israel.
That's Israel. We are Israel, which worship
God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and we have
no confidence in the flesh. What is it they said to our Lord?
We be Abraham's seed. They thought, man, we've got
it made. We're automatically in because
we're Abraham's seed. He said, no, Abraham's seed,
true seed, are the promised seed. And that's everyone who believes
the gospel. Everyone. You, who believe the gospel,
are the true Israel of God. Some are up the Jews over in
the Middle East and of the Gentiles. But we make up the true Israel
of God. That's the true Israel. All right, now. He says here,
they put this accusation over his head. This is Jesus, the
king of the Jews. I have told you this, and I've
told you this, and I'm gonna tell you this, and I'm gonna
tell you this. We are under the theocracy, the rule and reign
of a king right now. He's seated at God's right hand.
Jesus Christ is our king. Yes, we have a president, and
I'm going to vote when it comes time to vote. But I'm telling
you right now, my King and my Lord is Jesus Christ. He's it. And He's ruling over heaven and
earth. It says now in verse 38, Then
were there two thieves crucified with Him, one on the right hand
and another on the left. And our Lord is in the middle.
Who was supposed to be in the middle? Barabbas. Remember, we looked at Barabbas.
Pilate said, who do you want me to release to you? Barabbas,
who was in there for murder. He was in there for murder. He
was in there for thievery. He's in there for sedition. And
whenever you get time, Mark 15, 7 says that he was one of these
three that was doing all this. And he was released and Christ
was put in his place. But here's also what's going
on in Isaiah 53, 12. God says this, Therefore will
I divide him, that is Christ, a portion with the great, and
he shall divide the spoiled with the strong, because he hath poured
out his soul unto death, And they don't even realize it again.
And he was numbered with the transgressors. As far as they
were concerned, there are three malefactors hanging on that cross. But they're fulfilling this.
He's numbered with the transgressors. What am I? What am I before God? I'm a transgressor. What's a
transgressor? A lawbreaker. I have broken God's law. The
scripture says to offend in one point of the law is to break
the whole law of God. I'm guilty of the whole law of
God. You can say, well, I've not done
this. I've not committed adultery.
Thou shalt not commit adultery. I shall not commit adultery.
Every person in this room has committed adultery in their heart.
Christ said to look on a woman or to look on a man and to lust
after him is to be guilty of adultery before God Almighty.
I've never shot anyone. I've never murdered anyone. Our
Lord said this. Here's the extent of the law.
See, the law is spiritual. It reaches to the inner man.
I've never shot anyone. Our Lord said this, to hate your
brother without a cause is murder. That's murder. He was numbered with the transgression.
I think God he was because this one he's released. But let me
give you a note about these two thieves. First of all, they were
both thieves. They were no good. Both were
getting what they deserved. That's what that one said later
on. Remember, he says, we're getting what we deserve. But
this man's done nothing amiss. But we also see here God's sovereignty
and salvation. Because the one thief said, Lord,
remember me when you come into your kingdom. And that other thief, he just
railed on him. Hanging right there beside him,
he railed on him. The one asked to be remembered,
and he bowed to the kingship of Christ. What made the difference
between those two thieves? The grace of God. The grace of
God. Grace is always given in a sovereign
manner. No one deserves it. And now we're
going to see here in verse 39, and they that pass by, it says,
reviled him, wagging their heads. They're just saying, They just wagged their head like
he was nothing. Like he was a nobody. And this is the Passover. Thousands
are there doing this. But you know what they're doing?
Now listen. Listen to the Scriptures. In
Lamentations 1.12. None of this is my opinion. It's the Word of God. Our Lord
says in Lamentations 1.12, Is it nothing to you, all ye that
pass by, See, they're passing by, wagging their head. Is it
nothing to you, all you that pass by, behold and see, if there
be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done to me, listen,
wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me. This is something that's going
on between God the Father and His Son. You know, God said in
the Old Testament, Awake, O sword against My fellow. talking about
his son, "...wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day
of his fierce anger." What's going on at the cross
is God Almighty taking out His wrath, His justice on His Son
in my place. In my place. But notice here how the mockery
continues. They passed by wagging their
head and saying, thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in
three days. Remember, he said to the Jews,
destroy this temple. He was talking about his body.
He wasn't talking about that building over there with rocks and built
with stone. He's talking about his body. His body was a temple
in which he dwelt. He said, destroy it, kill me,
and in three days I'm going to rise again. That's what he was
talking about. But when you don't have spiritual
understanding, you don't get it. They missed it. They missed
it. He said, build it in three days,
save thyself if I'll be the Son of God and come down from the
cross. Entertain us, show us a sign. How many times they ask
the Lord to show a sign? Prove you're God. I assure you
one thing, God Almighty will never prove to anybody he's God.
He's God, he's God, without proving it. Show us a sign and we'll believe.
No you won't. Abraham said to that rich man,
lifting up his eyes in hell, he said, though one rose from
the dead, they won't believe. If that whole graveyard over
there rose from the dead and came into this room, that would
not create faith in the heart. That's the work of God. Faith,
it says, is the gift of God. It's the work of God. It's God
giving life. It's the evidence of life. But
it's also, listen, it's also the voice of Satan. They said,
if thou be the Son of God. Isn't that what he said over
in Matthew 4.3 when our Lord was in the wilderness for 40
days and 40 nights and he hadn't eaten? And then Satan came and
it says, and when the tempter came to him, he said, if thou
be the Son of God, put a big question mark over him. If thou be the Son of God, command
that these stones be made bread. If you're God, prove it. That's
what we want, prove it. And likewise, the chief priests
and the elders, the religious leaders of the town, the religious,
the most outstanding people, so they thought, in town, they
were saying the same thing. And here's what they said. He
saved others. Himself, He cannot save. If He be the King of Israel,
If that's true, it's written up over his head, now if it's
true, let him now come down from the cross and we will believe
him. No, you won't. They saw him raise the dead. He raised the dead, Lazarus.
They were standing there and they saw that. They didn't believe.
They saw him tell a lame man, get up and walk, and the man
stood straight up and walked. They didn't believe. He gave
a blind man sight that was blind and he opened his eyes and he
could see and they didn't believe. Faith never comes by seeing a
miracle. It comes by the work of God's Spirit in your heart,
giving you life. But something else here, they
didn't recognize, they said, he saved others. You saved others,
we watched you do it. Now save yourselves. Save yourself. I want to ask you a question.
Could Jesus Christ save Himself and save others? Could Jesus
Christ save Himself? Could He come down off that cross
and save a wretch like me? Could He do that? If you understand what's going
on at that cross, you know the answer is no. God has a law. God is just. God is a just God. Justice has to be satisfied.
And the only way He can satisfy God's justice on my behalf and
let me go is for Him to die for my sins. And that's exactly what
He did. God does not just forgive men
and women because they ask Him to. God forgives them because
their sins have been put away and dealt with. And now He can
forgive me of the sins I asked for forgiveness for because there
is the blood that answers for them. There's the blood. There's
the suffering. Justice is satisfied. Then they
said this, He trusted in God, let Him deliver him now, if He
will have him. For He said, I'm the Son of God.
It means He's equal with God. It means He's God. He's God.
That's God hanging on the cross. God in human flesh hanging on
the cross. He trusted in God. No one has
ever trusted God like the man Jesus Christ. He was a very real
man, he was human, he had a human nature, and yet he's very God,
very God. And as a man, he trusted God. As a man, he showed perfect faith. And you know that that perfect
faith, that perfect trust, that perfect obedience, is my righteousness. And it's your righteousness.
I'm not saving my righteousness. I'm saved by His righteousness.
I can't do anything perfectly. He did. Listen to Galatians 2.16,
Knowing that a man is not justified, cleared of all charges, by the
works of the law, by his keeping the law, because he can't keep
the law. Not perfectly. You know, you and I, you may
drive down the highway, you know when they changed the speed limit
to 55 back, when was that, when Jimmy Carter was president? Is
that when they changed it to 55? And then that song came out,
I Can't Drive 55. You know why? Because you can't drive 55, it
makes you mad. Going down interstate, driving
55 feels like you're crawling. You didn't drive 55, you pushed
it to 65, 70, if you saw a cop, you hit the brakes. That's right. I don't care if
you believe God or not, you hit the brakes. You're breaking the
law. You didn't love that law. There's
only one reason you obeyed the law. You didn't want to pay the
ticket. David said this, and he's speaking in the Spirit of
Christ. Oh, how I love thy law. I love your word. I love your
commandments. You know what he says? They're
right. They're right. No matter how wrong I am, they're
right. And I love them. I love them. No one, apart from
a work of God's Spirit in the heart, loves the law. They hate
it. That's why the Pharisees were
so mad. You know why the Pharisees didn't like the Gentiles? It's
because they were out doing what they wanted to do. They were
out carousing, doing what they wanted to do, and that's why
those self-righteous Pharisees hated those Gentiles. Listen,
you remember the story of the prodigal son? How he asked his
father for his inheritance? And his father gave him his inheritance. What did he do? He went out and
squandered it. He went out and lived like a
heathen. He blew it. And then he was sitting
one day at a hog pen eating the husk that the hogs eat. He was
so broke. But the other son stayed home.
He was obedient to his father. He did what his father asked
him to do and all this. And then one day the prodigal
son comes home. He's sitting there at the pigpen
and he's thinking, he said, you know what? The servants of my
father live better than I do. They live better than these hogs
do. He said, I'm going to go back to my father and I'm going
to say, Father, I've sinned. And you know what happened? The
father saw him coming and the father ran and kissed him, met
him and kissed him. And he said, get the fatted calf. He told him, he said, get the
best calf, get the fatted calf, kill it, and sacrifice it. We're gonna have a party. My
son, my prodigal son, which was lost, has now come home. And
that son that stayed home, he got mad. He got mad. He said, you've never done that
for me. You've never done that for me. You've never offered
a fatted calf. You never threw a party for me.
And he was angry. That's what those self-righteous
Jews feel about us Gentiles. We're out there partying and
carrying on and we come home and the Father receives us and
loves us and they're like, man, we've been obeying the law, we've
been strict, we've not been doing this thing. And they're mad.
That's self-righteousness. That's self-righteousness. That's
not God's righteousness. That son should have been happy
his brother came home. His brother. He was man. We are saved by the righteousness
of Jesus Christ through the grace of God. By God's grace. Listen. Galatians 2.16. Knowing that a man is not justified
by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ.
Now, by faith in Christ? Yes. But here's what it's saying. He's justified, he means he's
cleared of all charges by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ
in his place. Jesus Christ obeyed the law every
jot and tittle. He obeyed God's command. He loved
doing it. He loved doing it. And that is
my righteousness. That is imputed to me. And that
is imparted to me in the new birth. And I love God's law.
I love God's law. I love God's Word. Sometimes
when He speaks of law, He speaks about His whole Word. I love
His Word. Out of His Word I get light.
Wherewith shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed to the
Word of God. That's how. It says in Romans 3.22, Even
the righteousness of Christ, which is by the faith of Christ,
faith in Christ, yes, it's imputed by faith in Christ. But he's
saying here, which is by the faithfulness of Christ in my
stead. And then the thieves also, which
were crucified with him, cast the same in their teeth, right
in the face of death. Both of them cast the same in
their teeth, and all of a sudden this one thief, The bothy thieves,
it says, they cast the same in their teeth. And then this one
thief, this one thief, light comes in. By the grace
of God, light comes in. Here's a thief that's hanging
there suffering with the same crucifixion that Christ is being
crucified with, and he's railing on Christ just like the crowd
is, and this one thief goes, this is the King. This is the
Savior. This is my God. And he said,
Lord, when you come into your kingdom, remember me. And the
Lord said, this day you'll be with me in paradise. This day. What made the difference? The
grace of God. Now I'm going to close. I'm going
to close with this question. Sitting down, they watched him
there. What do you see? What do you see? Is it nothing
to you as this story is told, as this message is preached?
Is it nothing to you? Is it meaningless? Is this old,
old foggy stuff? What do you see? Sitting down,
they watched him there. And this is what we've been doing
for the last 30 minutes. We've been watching him on Calvary
Street. Do you see a malefactor? A criminal? A blasphemer? That's what they
call him, a blasphemer. A radical? Huh? A radical? You know, a radical is someone
who can't find the middle. You know a blind man can't find the
middle. He's so blind he don't know where it's at. We see that,
we see it now. People so blind they don't have
common sense anymore. There's no common sense. They
can't find the middle. It's because they're blind. It's
blind. What do you see? A poor carpenter's
son? They said, we know you, you're
the carpenter's son. He's God's son. Joseph had nothing
to do with his birth. The human nature of Jesus Christ
was created by the Holy Spirit. The seed of Adam, the corruption
of Adam never entered into his birth. You see a beaten and defeated
reformer? You see a crucified man? You
know, his image, as I said last week, his image was marred, it
says over in Isaiah. His visage was marred more than
any man. He was unrecognizable, they beat
him so bad. As I told you, you wouldn't hang a picture, you
wouldn't hang a real picture of him in your room, in your
house. Mutilated. Unrecognizable. Or do you see God in the flesh
redeeming you from your sins? I see my Redeemer, my Lord and
my God, hanging there in my place. I see God suffering the vengeance
of His own justice for me. He's the only one who can satisfy.
He demands perfection. He said it must be perfect to
be accepted. He's the only one who can give perfection. I see a victorious Lord. I see
victory. I don't see defeat. They sat
down and they looked at Him and they wagged their heads. It's
like, you crazy. Who do you think you are? But
you and I, what do we see? We see victory. We see victory. You know where they stuck that
cross? Right in the top of that skull. That mountain looked like a skull.
That's the reason they called it the Place of the Skull. It
looked like a skull. Here's just a symbol. They took the cross on which
he was hanging and they stuck it right down the top of that
skull, defeating the power of darkness, the power of man, and
the power of Satan. They didn't realize that was
a stake being driven right into the head of evil. Here's what I see. The head of Satan being bruised.
You remember all the way back to Genesis. Go all the way back
at the fall, the fall in the garden. God said to Satan, you
will bruise his heel. That's his human nature. That's
the human nature of Christ. You'll bruise his heel. He will
bruise your head. He's going to crush your head,
your power. He's going to do it. He's going to put a final
end to everything that is sin and evil. He's putting an end
to it. We see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Don't look for God's glory. You can see some of it in creation,
but if you really want to see God's glory, look into the face
of that man Jesus Christ. What do I see at Calvary's tree? As I watch Him there, I see the
justice of God satisfied. satisfied. And the evidence of
that is he rose from the dead. Christ crucified is my salvation. That man hanging on that tree
is my God, my Lord, and my salvation. Now when you see all that happen
to him, don't tell me that God did all of that and then the
rest of it's left up to you. The rest of it's in the hand
of God. It always has been, always will
be. Would you put your son, just
as an earthly thought, would you put your son through that?
Would you do that to your son? Then let a bunch of God-hating
rebels make the final decision? I don't think so. I don't think
so. Our God is sovereign. He's never
turned over any of it to anybody. It's His. That's my salvation. That's my God. Okay.