Turn back to Matthew 27. Here we begin to see now the sacrifice. Passover lamb
is going to be crucified. sacrifice for us. We're going
to see this week and next week, Lord willing, next Sunday, our
salvation, our salvation. Now, if I were to ask you, and
I know you'd give the right answer, if you were to ask anybody else
to appoint in human history, the most depraved act of man. Where would you think they would
point? Some would point to the Holocaust. They would point to different
points in history where the depravity of man is most seen. And you and I know that the greatest act of human
depravity is when men cleared their throat and spit in the
face of God. They just cleared their throat,
spit in his face, and knelt into a tree. That to me is probably the greatest
proof and act of the human race. I know that the world believes
that men are, men and women are basically good, but that's not
what God says. And God sees the heart. God sees
the heart. God said, there's none good,
no not one. He says he looked down from heaven
to see if there was any good. If there was any that sought
him, looked for him, sought after him, he said there was none.
The imagination, he said, of men's heart is evil, and that
continually. There's never a break. Never
a break. Now what we're going to see here
As I said, it's our salvation. But we're also going to see human
depravity. You know, we believe in total
depravity. We believe the scripture teaches that man is totally depraved. He's totally dead, spiritually
dead. There's no spiritual life in
him whatsoever. The life of God's not in him.
He's in darkness, and we will see that here. In verse 26, If
you remember from last week, Pilate said, who do you want,
Jesus or Barabbas? They said, give us Barabbas.
Then he released unto them Barabbas, and when he had scourged Jesus,
he whipped him, and he delivered him to be crucified. There's
one thing we need to keep in mind here. The Lord Jesus Christ
was scourged under Roman law. Under the Jewish law, when anyone
was scourged, it was 39 stripes save one. It was 40 stripes,
but they would save one just in case they miscounted and they
didn't want to break the law. So it was 39 stripes save one.
Roman law was whenever they just got tired, basically. It's when they wanted to stop.
That was Roman law. They whipped him till they wore
themselves out. They took a whip, and they had
pieces of like bone and glass and stuff tied to the end of
it, and they whipped him. They lacerated his back. They
just ripped the flesh off his back. Sometimes I was reading
this, and sometimes I think we almost forget the reality of
this. I was watching a show here some
time ago, and it was showing Jerusalem over there. And in
my mind, when I was watching this, I was thinking, the Lord
walked those streets one day. That's not the holy city. That's
not holy ground. I'm telling you the truth. That's
the place where they hated Him the most and they killed Him.
The holy city, the new Jerusalem, is the church. It's the church
from all the ages. We are the new Jerusalem. The true Israel of God is everyone
that believes the gospel from the first one to the last one.
We are the true Israel. But I thought about this when
I was watching that program. I thought of the Lord walking
those streets. God of heaven and earth walked
those streets and preached the gospel to them. Let's not let the reality of
this sometimes slip away from us. Our Lord's back was lacerated,
I mean from His neck down to His
waist, they just wide open. But in doing that, they fulfilled
the Scriptures. Listen to this Scripture over
here in Isaiah 53, I have it marked. But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. And with His stripes,
with those stripes on His back, every lash was for me. Every lash was for my sins. And with His stripes, we are
healed. We are healed and cured. You
know, when you're healed, We are healed. Well, here in verse 27, we're
going to see what human nature is really
like. Then the soldiers of the governor
took Jesus into the common hall, or the governor's house, and
gathered unto Him the whole band of soldiers, the whole band,
all the soldiers in the area, were called on to come to this,
listen now, this feast. That's what it was to them. It
was a feast. You know Solomon said, mischief
to the wicked is as sport. This was sport to them. And they call all the soldiers
into the area to this feast. It's like a pack of dogs coming
to take part in the killing of its prey. You've seen that. You've
seen it on the nature programs, how a wolf or a pack of dogs
will attack an animal and they just tear into it. They just
eat it while it's alive. While it's alive. Our Lord said
this in Psalm 22, 16, for dogs have compassed me. The assembly
of the wicked have enclosed me, they've encircled, they've pierced
my hands and my feet. They've surrounded me and are
closing in on me. They've pierced my hands and
my feet. Christ is surrounded by His enemies. You know, mob
mentality is nothing more than human nature on display. That's what mob mentality is.
It's just human nature on display. Men hate God without any influence
from Satan. You know that if Satan ceased
to exist, we would still kill God. We'd still hate him. We don't need a devil to be what
we are. We are what we are by nature.
Satan tempts and he tries, but I'm telling you, human race is
evil by nature. It is. If Jesus Christ came into
this world right now, you know how he'd be treated? Just like
he was treated there. They'd hang him again. They would
hang him again. All you gotta do is just take
this Bible and preach the Christ of this Bible, the sovereign
Christ of this Bible, and you watch people get mad. I've had,
the only people, I've never had a drunk get mad at me. I've never
had a drunk get mad at me for telling him the gospel. I haven't.
I've never had one. But I have had religious people
get so mad they want to take my head off. We're telling them
the truth about Jesus Christ. We're sending Him forth as He's
revealed in the Scriptures. Here in verse 28, the mockery
begins. And they stripped Him. They stripped him down naked and they put on him a scarlet
robe. Boy, the content and the hatred,
the animosity, the enmity of the natural mind, the Lord is
allowing us to see it. He's letting us see it right
here. They tried to strip Him of all honor. I want you to know
that our Lord felt the shame of nakedness. He felt that. You know, Adam
and Eve, when God first created them, they were naked and it
didn't shame them until they fell into sin. And after that,
they were ashamed of it. And our Lord knows something
about that shame. He felt the shame of it. And
they tried to strip him of his dignity. The Scripture says he
despised the shame over there in Hebrews chapter 12. And they
did their best to humiliate him. And they stripped him, then they
put on him a scarlet robe. You know what they're doing here?
They're mocking him. They're making mockery of him. They're mocking
him as a king. They mock him as a king. When
they put that robe on him, they're saying to him, Oh, you are a
king. You're supposed to wear a scarlet robe. Let's make him
look like a king. And here he stands, quiet. He's quiet. And they make this
robe, they get this scarlet robe, they put it on, put it on that
lacerated back. You know how painful that had
to be? His back is laid wide open. And then that wasn't enough.
It wasn't enough just to put a robe on him. Here's what they
do. They're going to make a crown. A king has to have a crown, doesn't
he? There can't be a king without a crown. So they plant a crown
of thorns and they put it on his head. And then a king has
to have a reed. He has to have a scepter. A king,
you know, you can't be a king if you don't look like one. They're
going to make him, in mockery, look like a king, not realizing
he is the king. Here stands the King of kings
and Lord of lords. Here stands the God of heaven
and earth, letting his creation do this to him. A king's got to have a crown,
so they make one of thorns. They don't realize it, but they're
symbolizing the curse. God cursed the ground. He said
He'll bring forth thorns and briars and thistles. They're
making this crown out of thorns, which is a symbol of the curse. Our head, and they put it on
His head, our head is bearing the curse. Our curse. The curse that's against us,
the curse that's against a multitude of sinners, no man can number.
He's bearing the curse. He took what belonged to us and
put it right on his head. They put it on his head. And
then they took a scepter. They took a reed and pretended
like it's a scepter and they put it in his hand. Oh, now he
looks like a king. This is the one who says he's
a king. And they're making all this fun of him. Listen, I know Pilate commanded
him to be crucified, but man's showing his free will right here.
And this is exactly what he'd do. Same thing Adam did. It hasn't changed. It hasn't
changed. We want to be God by nature.
We naturally want to be God. Why do most people want to get
in business? Why do they really? If you want to get to the root
of it, so you don't have to work for somebody else. You don't
have to be under somebody else's thumb. I mean, that's the reason
why people want to win the lottery. What's the first thing you want
to do? Quit their job. The first thing you want to do
is quit their job. They don't have to be under someone else's
thumb, someone else's authority, someone else telling them what
to do. Men, by nature, hate authority. They hate authority. Don't tell
me what to do. And then, you know, a king has
subjects, so what they do, they bow the knee. They give him a
crown. They give him a purple robe.
They put a reed in his hand and make it like it's a scepter.
Then they bow the knee to him. Boy, do they not know what they're
doing. Every knee's going to bow to him. They're doing it
out of mockery right now. But I tell you what, when it's
over with, it ain't going to be out of mockery. It's going to be either
willfully or forced. But it's going to be bowed. And
he's going to bow. Here we have mock submission.
Do you know what? It's still that way today. It's
still that way today. People make like they are submitted
to Him, when in fact they're not. Because all you got to do
is tell the truth and they're mad about it. If we submit to God's will, if
we're really submitted to the King of glory, we are submitted
to His will, then we're not upset and mad at Him when things go
wrong. Because it's His will. It's His will. Thy will be done
on earth, in my house, as it is in heaven. And then notice how their hatred
just grows with each insult. They make this mockery and then
they say, hail king of the Jews, king of an enslaved people. That's
what they're saying. See, these Romans are, they hate
the Jews and the Jews hate them. You know, they hated each other.
They were, they were just enemies until it came to putting Christ
to death. But they mock him as king of
the Jews. And what they're saying is you're
king of an enslaved people. And then they spit on Him. Took the reed and smote Him on
the head. They spit on Him. This is the face that the angels
adore. Let all the angels of God worship
Him. This is the face that the Father
loves. This is the face where the glory
of God is seen in no place else. Over there in 2 Corinthians 4,
6. And this is the face, though,
that man hated. They hated him. But I tell you this, this is
the last face everyone's going to see. This is the last face
everybody's going to see. And it says there, they spit
in his face. What's the worst way you can
show contempt to somebody? It's to spit on them. Spit on
them. The human race, represented right
here, spit in the face of God. And then they took the reed and
they smote him on the head. In other words, they drove that
crown of thorns down on his head. They said it. And you know why they did that?
To show their power over him. You say you're a king? You are
a king? And they took that reed and they
drove that crown down on his head. To demonstrate their power
over him, that he has no power, is what they're saying. You have
no power. You have no power at all. They took it out of his
hand and hit him with it. And all this mockery, all this
mockery was allowed. First of all, to show the total
ruin of man. This is what we think of God.
This is the heir. Come, let us kill him. And it's
also what you and I deserve. Because he's taken exactly what
we deserve. And as they had mocked him, after they got their belly
full at this feast, they took the robe off from him and put
his own raiment on him, to lead him away to crucify him. Lead him away. Didn't drive him.
He was never forced at any time. He just willingly walked down
that road. Walked to that place to be crucified. And when they came out, they
found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. They compelled him to
bear his cross. He was so beaten. They compelled
this man to help him bear the cross. But here is an example. Here is something we don't want
to just pass over. In Matthew 16, 24, our Lord said
this, Then said Jesus unto His disciples, If any man will come
after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow
Me. Every believer has a cross to
bear. Whatever He calls us to go through,
whatever it is, for Christ's sake, we bear it willingly. We suffer. We suffer in this
life willingly for Christ's sake. Paul speaks of his sufferings
fulfilling up the sufferings of Christ. We too must suffer. If He suffers, we suffer. The
servant is not above his master. As it says in Hebrews 13, 13,
"...let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing
his reproach." There is a reproach that comes
with following Christ. The true gospel, I'm telling
you the truth, the true gospel is not popular. You know, Paul speaks of the
offense of the gospel, that it's offensive. A gospel that doesn't
offend anybody is not the gospel of God. It's not his gospel. You know, the gospel offends
our thoughts of ourself, our thoughts of God. It offends the
way we think God saves. It offends the way we think of
ourselves. We're not that bad. Someone said this, all who shall
reign with Christ hereafter will suffer for Christ's sake here. But there's something else we
also see here. Remember the story of Abraham and Isaac, Isaac carrying
the wood? He said, Father, here's the fire
and the wood, where's the lamb? He said God will provide himself
a land, but here's a good picture of Isaac carrying the wood as
he's carrying that cross up to Calvary. And when they were coming
to a place called Golgotha, that is to say a place of a skull,
it must have looked like a skull. No doubt many had been put to
death there. Many had been put to death there.
But this is one time, this is one time when death is going
to receive its death blow. A stake is going to be driven
into the head of death when our Lord is crucified on top of that
hill. And when they had gotten him
up to Golgotha, And they had nailed him to that cross, they
drove a spike into his hands and his feet. There's no way
I can even attempt to explain the pain and the suffering, the
physical pain that went along with it. Not to even scratch
the surface of the soul suffering that he suffered in our place. After they did that, they dropped
that cross in the ground with him hanging on it. And they gave
him vinegar to drink mingled with gall. When he tasted thereof,
he would not drink. It was customary to have a cup of
spiced wine for those to drink when they were put to death.
You know, Solomon said this in Proverbs 31, give strong drink
to him that's ready to perish. And they would do that. But you
notice here that with this cup that was given to Christ, it
was mingled with vinegar and gall. It was made to taste bitter. It was made to be bitter, to
be sour. And this shows something here.
This shows us a few things. First of all, the bitterness
of sin. Sin is a bitter thing. And it
was very bitter to our Lord. When He bore our sins and His
body on the tree, it was a very bitter thing. And then it signified the wrath
of God. That cup which His Father put into His hand to drink was
a very bitter cup to drink. It was a very bitter cup. And it says He tasted it. He
tasted it. Listen, our Lord tasted the full
bitterness of the cup of God's wrath. He tasted the full bitterness
of it. Not one ounce of mercy, listen
now, not one ounce of mercy was showed to Jesus Christ on Calvary
Street. Not by the people and not by
God. He suffered the full blow of
God's wrath. Someone said this, He drank damnation
dry. He drank damnation dry. Adam tasted the bitterness of
disobedience when he took of that fruit, and now Christ must
taste the results of it in order for Him to save us, which is
the wrath of God. But it says here, he tasted it.
He tasted it, but he would not drink it. He would not, why? Did he not drink it because it
was bitter? That's not why he didn't drink
it. He did not drink it because he would not take anything that
lessened the pain. He would not drink anything.
that lessened the pain of suffering for our sins. He felt the full
measure of pain, suffering for our sins. He took the full measure
of God's wrath. And that is exactly why we have
a high priest that can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He spared himself of nothing.
Nothing. In verse 35, and they crucified
him. They crucified him. I think it was Rex Humbard said
one time, I believe it was him, he said one time, if I were there,
I would have stopped him. No, you'd have been right there
with those soldiers, spitting in his face. I thank God nobody stopped it.
Nobody could stop it. We will see later on, maybe next
week, they said, He saved others, He can't save Himself. Look in verse 42. He saved others,
Himself He cannot save. That's exactly right. In order for Him to save me,
He cannot save Himself. He can't do it. The cup cannot
pass from him. He's got to die. He's got to
taste death, my death, the death that I would have tasted. And that's not just dying and
going to be put in the grave. That's dealing with God Almighty
and the wrath of God. I thank God he was, I'm glad
he's crucified. I don't mean that in a bad way,
but I'm glad because by his crucifixion, by his death, many have been
made righteous. Many have been made righteous,
saved, saved. That's why he said when he was
carrying that cross, there was some women there weeping. He
said, he stopped and said, don't weep for me. Don't you cry for
me. Don't you feel sorry. Listen,
don't you feel sorry for me. I'm doing this willingly. I want
to do this. I love the ones I'm doing it
for. Don't weep for me. Weep for yourselves, he said,
and for your children. I'm not the one you need to be
crying for. I'm going to rise again. This is just for a moment. It's for a moment. They crucified him, they parted
his garments. And let me tell you something,
when they nailed him to that cross, he didn't look like that picture
they got, that picture they've drawn of, it's not him. You wouldn't
hang that picture on your wall if you had a real picture of
what he looked like hanging on that cross. You wouldn't hang
it on your wall. It was a gory, bloody mess. And over at Isaiah it says, his
visage, his appearance was so marred more than any man. He was unrecognizable. He was
beaten so bad, he was unrecognizable. You wouldn't hang there. And
listen, he wasn't hanging there with a loincloth on. He's hanging
there naked. That's how he's hanging there.
They stripped him naked. Why would they do that? Because
God's law lays everyone bare sooner or later. We have got
to be laid bare before God's law. All covering is taken away. It's all taken away. Our stripping
happened at Calvary. And then they fulfilled the scriptures.
They didn't realize that. They're standing there casting
a lot of gambling. You know, casting dice. I said,
who's going to get this? This garment. They cast lots
for my garments. They didn't realize in doing
that they're fulfilling the scriptures. All right, what's the message
here? And I'll close. First of all, we see human depravity. Man was given the opportunity
to bow and worship the God of heaven and earth, and instead
he mocked Him, spit on Him, then crucified Him. And secondly,
we see the substitute dying in the stead of the sinner. Wounded for me, dying for me. We see what we would have suffered. Christ, He was wounded for us,
shamed for us, mocked for us, despised for us, condemned for
us, stripped for us, humiliated for us, crucified for us, and
died for us. And now we are free. Whom the
Son sets free, He's free indeed. Well, Lord willing, we'll pick
up here next week. And we will see our substitute,
our salvation, hanging on Calvary's tree. And we'll get a glimpse,
listen, just a glimpse of God dealing with him. God dealing
with him. Men dealt with him. Now God's
going to deal with him.