of His love. Miriam's bed will live of Him,
Miriam's sorrow in His hands. Victorious Lord, victorious Lord, I like that hymn. I like scriptural
hymn. As you know, that was taken from
Isaiah 53. I've been putting this off for
a while, due to deal with it last Wednesday night, as you
probably remember me saying. But I didn't feel ready, or whatever, for lack
of a better word, ready. But then as I sat to prepare
it for tonight, I thought, I still don't feel ready for this. Paul must have been thinking,
had scriptures like this in mind when he said, who is sufficient
for these things? But we'll go through it and hope
that the Holy Spirit Now, I've heard men go into great detail and give very graphic descriptions
of the crucifixion of Christ on the cross, and I've made the same mistake. And I think it is a mistake for
several reasons, the first of which, I believe, is that it
tends to, when we go into great detail to describe his suffering,
it tends to evoke our sympathy for him. You know what I'm saying? And
do you remember when he was carrying that cross? And the women were
weeping. Do you remember what he said
to them? He said, Weep not for me. You see, he was doing that voluntarily
and on purpose, and did not need, nor does need now, our sympathy. If it causes emotion to well
up in us, it should be because of our sins that did it to us. Another reason is that I think
it's a mistake to go into great and graphic detail. It's impossible
to accurately describe the sufferings of our Lord accurately depict
the scene on Calvary. It's impossible. We've never
seen such a thing in our day, nor will we ever. It is impossible. Like these pictures that people
have of a crucified Jesus hanging on their wall, it's not accurate.
They're not even close. Joe, they wouldn't hang a picture.
on their wall of how he looked, because Isaiah 52 says his visage
was marred more than any man. He was unrecognizable as a man. Well, another reason is this,
and this may be the principal reason, because his physical
sufferings were not his chief sufferings when he was crucified. Stay with me, I'm not going to
take too long tonight. We're not just wrestling with
tired bodies, flesh and blood. But his physical sufferings were
not his chief sufferings, so we shouldn't dwell on them, and
we shouldn't attempt to make too much of his physical sufferings.
As a matter of fact, I've heard very few modern-day preachers
say anything about his real suffering. You see, his principal suffering,
or his real suffering, his chief suffering, was his soul suffering,
his soul agony, going through hell. And Rick, that started
back when he was in the garden, when he started sweating blood
is when he was being, as the scripture said, made sin, made
the object of God's wrath and hatred, when our sins were being
heat laid on him. That's why he sweat blood. And that is his, you see, and
I don't want to shock you here, but this is something, There
have been many people to suffer physically as much as our Lord did on that
cross. I don't want to shock you, but
that's so. People, the martyrs that came after him. Our Lord
said, He said, what I'm going through, others are going to
go through too. He said that, and they did. The
martyrs did, and others, all the apostles did. Peter was crucified
upside down, they say, I don't know, but he was crucified. So,
Joe, that's not his chief suffering. His chief suffering and the reason
for the cross, the reason he was crucified was that his soul
might be made an offering for sin. Now, you remember when they
said back in chapter 32, they said, we have a law and our law
says he's to die. They said, our law says he is
to die. Look back in chapter, I said
thirty-two, I meant chapter eighteen, verses thirty-one and thirty-two. The Jews said it's not lawful
for us to put any man to death. That is on the Passover. They were supposed to stone him.
That's what the law said. The man in Leviticus 14, if a
man is guilty of blasphemy, and that's what they accused him
of. The law said stoning to death. Well, that would have been an
instantaneous death. That would have been immediate.
He wouldn't have suffered long at all. He would have died immediately. Verse 32 says that the reason
they didn't do that was that the saying of Jesus might be
fulfilled, which he spake, signifying what death he should die. He
said he was going to be lifted up like Moses lifted up the serpent
and the wilderness. He was going to be crucified.
And Steve, it took six hours for him to die. Why? Because he had to go through
hell. The equivalent of hell. Now, hell is separation from God. That's
what hell is. That's the best I can do with
hell. It's separation from God. God who is mercy, God who is
love, God who is grace, God who is light, God who is goodness,
righteousness, holiness. It's everything that he is not.
It's separation from it, where there is no goodness, no mercy.
That's what hell is, where God is not. Separation from God. And that's what Christ went through.
Now, people that go to hell are going to spend an eternity there. Christ spent the equivalent of
eternity, but it took six hours. Do you see what I'm trying to
say, Sherry? He couldn't be killed immediately. John, do you see why? And that
the scriptures might be fulfilled in every aspect of the crucifixion. Now, I have to give some description. in order for us to understand
what he went through to some degree, and the scriptures does
give a description. Let's look at verse 1. Then Pilate therefore took Jesus
and scourged him. Pilate didn't do it, he had it
done. But he had him whipped, or lashed. The Romans were experts at this.
They were experts in the art, if you want to call it, of torture,
torturing their enemy. And tradition has it that they would
whip men or women Forty strikes save one. That means thirty-nine. The law said thirty-nine strikes. Forty save
one. Most didn't survive the whipping
itself. Most criminals did not survive
the whipping. It wasn't with a mere ordinary
whip. It was with an instrument of cruel His back was a bloody man. Scripture says he was wounded
for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. Chastisement or whipping of our
peace was laid on him. The whip was laid on his back. The rod was laid on his back,
and by his stripes, we are healed. That's what we just sung. By His stride. He took our weapon. He took our weapon. I know you've heard this story
before, but back years ago in eastern Kentucky there was a
one-room schoolhouse. And it was full of boys and girls of all ages. Back
in the days of one-room schoolhouses, you know, they had older kids,
16, 17, 18 years old, in the sixth grade. And they had young
ones, six-year-olds, in the same room together. And there was this one-room schoolhouse
in a poor part of Appalachian, Kentucky, and it was full of
incorrigible kids, kids nobody else could handle. And they sent
a new schoolteacher down to this one-room school. And he was a
little fellow with horn-rimmed glasses and a little skinny fellow,
and he thought to himself, if I'm going to have any law and
order here at all, I'm going to have to do something right
away. And so the first day at school,
he said, If we're going to have a little
order here, we're going to have to make some laws. We're going
to have to make some rules in order to have a school here without
any things disrupting. So he says, I'm going to let
you all make the rules. I'm going to let you make the
rules. And we're all going to abide
by them. So he said, let me hear some
of the rules that you want to enforce here. And one little
kid raised his hand and said, no cussing. So the teacher said,
OK, no cussing. Wrote that down. He didn't hear
any more. Another kid said, no fighting. Well, he said, okay, no fighting.
Wrote that down. Little skinny kid back in the
back named Jimmy said, no stealing. So the school teacher said, okay,
no stealing. And they came up with several
rules. And then the teacher wisely said, now, if you're going to
make the law work, you've got to have punishment. Anybody who
breaks the law is going to have to suffer punishment for it.
So he said, what's going to be the punishment for cussing and
fighting and stealing and so forth? What's the punishment?
And another little boy raised his hand and said, it's ten,
ten stripes across the back with a rock. The teacher said, mighty
severe, isn't it? Ten stripes across the back with
a rod? Yeah, bareback, too. Are you
sure? Everybody agreed to it. Okay.
Ten stripes across the bareback, the steeler. A little while later,
there was a big boy named Tom, Big Tom, the biggest fellow in
the class. His lunch was missing. somebody
had stolen his lunch. And so the teacher got all the
flasks in front of him and said, Now somebody has broken the law. Somebody has broken the rule.
Somebody has stolen. Tom's lunch is missing. Now who
did it? Who did it? And finally there's a little,
that little skinny boy named Jimmy back in the back. He broke
down crying and said, Teacher, I did it. And so the teacher said, Come
on up here, Jimmy. And Jimmy came up to the front,
and little skinny fella, and he was wearing a big overcoat,
had a pair of bibbed overalls underneath him. And the teacher
said, take off your coat, Jimmy. You know the law. We made the
law. Ten stripes across the back of
the rod. Take off your coat, Jimmy. He
said, teacher, don't make me take off my coat. He said, you
know the law, Jimmy. You broke the law. You've got
to bear the punishment. Take off your coat. He took off
his coat. He was nothing but skin and bone.
He didn't have a shirt on. And so the teacher is about to
kill him. The teacher got that rod, and he raised that rod to
strike that boy's bare back. And Big Tom called her out. Wait, teacher! Wait. Don't hit him. Don't hit him. Can we make a new rule? Can I
take his place? The teacher said, It's all right
with everybody and it's all right with us. So Big Tom took off
his coat and the muscles just to rip them. And he laid across
that desk and the teacher started whipping him seven times, eight
times, nine times, and on the tenth time the rod broke on his
back. And little Jimmy ran up and grabbed
Big Tom around the neck, crying, and said, Thank you, Tom, for
taking my whipping. And that's what our Lord did.
He took our weapon. By his stripes we are healed. The law says, die. Christ died
by his stripes. Verse 2 says, And the soldiers
plaited a crown of thorns. They plaited a crown of thorns,
and they put it on his head. They went over and got a... I thought about this, Nancy.
I bet they went over and found a rose bush. It was a rose of
Sharon. You know how roses are. You can't
prune them at all without being pricked by them. And they got
those with leather gloves on or whatever and make that makeshift
crown and jammed it down his head. And they put on him a purple
robe, it said. They got an old tablecloth or
something made out of purple, a deep dark crimson or scarlet,
and took that robe and wrapped it around him. And they began
to mock him, and they said, Hail, in a derogatory and mocking,
jeering way, Hail, King of the Jews. And they smote him with
their hands, and that doesn't mean they just slapped him, that
means they pummeled him with the fist. They beat him in the
face. And verse 4 says that Pilate,
therefore, after they did this, he witnessed it. Pilate, therefore,
went forth again. He left this scene of punishment
and went outside to the people. This was done in the hall of
the soldiers there. And Pilate went outside to where
the people were and saith unto them, Behold, I am going to bring
him out to you now. I bring him forth to you. I've
given him back to you, and I've done enough. And I'm bringing
him to you that you may know that I find no fault in him."
It's interesting that he said this three times. Sherry, he
said it three times. I find no fault in him. And I
didn't write them down, but you know it was said of him seven
times. Different people said of him
seven times that they found no fault in him. Pilate's wife said
it. Herod said it. Pilate said it. The centurion
at the cross said it. And on and on. Well, verse 5
then says, Then came Jesus forth. They brought him forth wearing
the crown of thorns. and the purple robe, and Pilate
saith unto them, Behold the man." Now, why did all this happen? Why did all this happen like
it happened? He was scourged, whipped thirty-nine times. He was crowned with that thorny
crown. He was robed with that robe. He was mocked. He was delivered.
Why did all this happen like it happened? There's a reason. As we saw last Sunday before,
everything that took place was to fulfill the Scripture. every
step, every action. Why did it all happen like it
happened? Let me give you four reasons,
if you've taken note. Let me give you four reasons
for what happened here, four things, all right, for us to
see here, which won't take long. Like I said, I'm not trying to
evoke emotions here at all. Four reasons for what happened
here, why this happened as it did. Number one, why did all
this happen as it happened? Number one, because of who it
was that was being tried here. Because of who it was that was
being tried here. This was God manifest in the
flesh. This was God Almighty being tried
by men. And since man hates God, this happened to show us, this
is showing us who it was hanging there. This wasn't sweet Jesus. You know, the Catholics, so-called,
loved to carry around that cross with that figure on it. One of their favorite slogans
is, gentle Jesus, meek and mild. That's the way they like him.
Well, they didn't kill gentle Jesus, meek and mild. That's
not why he was being killed here. They liked gentle Jesus, meek
and mild. But they didn't like him saying
he was God. That high priest When Christ,
in one of the other Gospels, when Christ said, He said, What if you see the Son
of Man lifted up in all His glory, and the angels all around Him?
And God ripped His clothes off. Gnashed His teeth out of Him.
Kill Him. You're just a man. Uh-uh. It's God back there. And they
knew what He was saying. You see, the carnal mind, Romans
8, verse 7, says the carnal mind is enmity against God. The Scriptures
say, in Romans 8, 7, the natural man, let me paraphrase that verse,
the natural man hates God. The natural man hates God. The natural man won't kill Jesus,
but the natural man will kill God. Why did this happen like it did?
Because this was God here, and man got their hands on God. And
man is showing now what they think of God. Right, John? See what I'm saying? Man's hatred
of God. Never before or since has man
been able to get his hands on God. That's what we were talking
about, wasn't it, Rick? Another gospel said that the
Son of God was delivered into the hands of man. So what's man
going to do with God? Here's God. And they knew it. One of those chief priests said,
no man can do what you did, except God be with him. They recognized
that he's more than just a man. Christ kept saying it. The words
I have spoken, they bear witness to me. The works, if you don't
believe the Word, believe the works. And so on and on. The Scriptures
wrote of me. Moses wrote of me. Abraham rejoiced
to see my death. They are they which tell. Everything
bore witness to who this was. Immanuel, God with us. The Jews of old said in Isaiah,
this is our God. We've waited on Him. God will
come. Well, God did come. What did He do with Him? Why? Man hates God. And we tell
people that, don't we? We go out in this world and tell
people that. But they don't believe that. And they don't believe
they do. Do they? Well, John, this proves it, doesn't
it? God that was manifest in the flesh. And what did man do?
Killed him. That's why this happened like
it did. And let me say this, when we
declare Christ as he is, when we declare God as he is, when
we go out in the world and declare to men that we work with, women
that we work with, who God is, when we declare him as he is,
I mean holy, just, righteous, Men do the same thing in their
minds what these men did with their hands. Kill him. They say,
away with him. Away with that. Don't they? Sure they did. Why? The man hates
God. They hate God, and if they could
get their hands on that same God now, they'd kill him again.
They'd crucify him afresh, wouldn't they? But they can't now. The
tables are turned. You see, that's what convicted
the people at Pentecost. And one of the brethren quoted
in his prayer tonight, sin, righteousness, and judgment because of Christ.
When the Holy Spirit comes, he convicts people of sin, righteousness,
and judgment because of Christ. What about Christ? Is he gentle
Jesus, meek and mild? No, he's sitting on the throne.
And now everybody's in his hands, being judged by him. And the
question being asked now, or should be, what's he going to
do with us? You see, that's the reason we
decide to test and abhor all this talk about accepting Jesus. Am I splitting hairs? No, the very root of who God is and
what the gospel is, is right here. If a man or a woman is
saved, this is the point they'll come to. Like they did at Pentecost,
they'll come to this point that it's not up to us to accept him. He's not on trial. We are. And the question that the people
at Pentecost ask is, what's he going to do with us? We've killed
him, and now we're in the sovereign Lord's hands to dispose of as
he pleases. What are we going to do? What are we going to do? Well, look, here's the second
thing. Why did all this happen like
it happened? Because this was God hanging there. Number two,
this is Satan's hour. Satan's hour. Listen to this. Over in Luke 22, our Lord said
this. He said, this is your hour, speaking
to the man, the priest, and all around him. He said, this is
your hour and, and the power of darkness. This is your hour
and the power of darkness. Now listen closely. Listen. I don't know if you've
ever noticed this. I didn't. In Genesis 3.15, it says God
said he would put in the dead. God said he would put enmity,
talking to the serpent. He said, I'll put enmity between
thee and the woman, and between thy seed, talking
to the serpent and her seed. Satan has a seed. just like the
woman and seed. And God said in the beginning,
He said, I'm going to put enmity between thy seed, the serpent's
seed, in other words, Satan's children. Satan, the father, and his children. I'm going to put enmity between
thee and the woman's seed. Now listen to this verse. Now
that's in Genesis. Listen to this verse over in Revelation
12. talks about, and that Revelation
12 speaks of the virgin birth of Christ, and it says the dragon,
which represents Satan. This is Revelation 12, verse
4. The dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered
with a child, to devour her child as soon as it was born. Now Christ said, this is your
hour and the power of darkness. So this is Satan's hour. Satan's
hour. You remember when Christ was
born, Satan sought to kill him, didn't he? How'd he do that? He was behind that. He had Herod
kill every newborn child in Bethlehem. But his hour wasn't yet gone,
wasn't his hour. And all through, all through
Christ's life, he sought to kill him, didn't he? Remember when
he took him, right at first, when Christ was 30 years old,
took him up on that cliff and said, jump. Remember that? Jump, cast yourself down there. Scripture says he'll bear you
up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. his hour when you come. It wasn't
his time, but now it is. And he's delivered into the hands
of Satan and his seed. Didn't Christ say, You're of
your father the devil? Huh? Satan and his seed. And Satan poured out his fury
upon the Christ. But he did exactly what God determined
for him to do. Huh? And he thought he did him
in, didn't he? You know, Satan didn't know the
gospel. Rick, Satan did not know the gospel. I'm convinced of
it. He'd have done everything he could to stop them from killing
Christ. Huh? Wouldn't he? Wouldn't he?
I used to think that Satan knew a lot, but he didn't know the
gospel. Think about it, Nancy. He's killing
God's lamb. He's doing the work for God.
When he has this man crucified on the cross, has his children
kill the heir, he just crushed his own head. Huh? When he had Christ put on that
cross, if he'd have known what he was doing, he'd have never
done that. Uh-uh. Because he crushed his own head. Crushed his own head. Why did all this happen? Because
God was on this cross. Number two, Satan's hour had
come. Number three, and this is so good, listen to it, because
Christ is making an atonement for sin. Now listen, Christ is
making an atonement for sin. We talked about that. Christ
by his life magnified the law and made it honorable. Christ
by his life. You know, we'd have never known,
Jeanette, we'd have never known truly the holiness of God's law
had not Christ come and lived. We wouldn't have known it. Christ
said, I sinned. You've heard it said. He said,
let me magnify that. Remember? Because the Jews thought,
we've kept it all. And Christ said, yeah, no, wait
a minute. If you even think of doing it,
you're guilty. They wouldn't have known that
judgment. He magnified the law and made it honorable by his
life. And you know, by his death, by
Christ's death, he magnified the transgression of the law. Vicki, by his death he magnified
sin and showed us the exceeding sinfulness of sin. You follow
me? By his life he magnified the
law and showed us the exceeding holiness of the law and its requirements.
By his death on the cross, the way he died, he magnified sin
and showed us the exceeding sinfulness of sin, what sin is and what
it took to put it away. Listen to this. Listen very carefully.
He's making atonement for sin. Sin is lawlessness. Now, Pilate
is the governor. He's the chief of police, if
you will. He's the head dude. He's attorney
general. He's the Janet Reno of his day. That's a bad example, isn't it? You can't give one now because
nobody has any lawfulness. He's the law. He's judge, jury,
and executioner. And Romans prided themselves
in the civil law. They were a civilized society.
They were. And they prided themselves in
giving every man a fair trial. But sin is lawlessness without
law. So what does Pilate do? Forget
the law. Beat him. He's being made, he's been making
atonement for sin. Sin is lawlessness. Pilate beat
an innocent man. Lawlessness went on here. Without
charge. Without a trial, a fair trial.
Beat him. Eventually killed him. An innocent
man. Sin is transgression of the law.
Pilate set aside all laws. Sin is iniquity. That means injustice. Injustice. A great injustice
was done here. The greatest of injustices was
done here. They smoked. Everything that
was done to him, he didn't deserve any of it. Every charge that
was laid against him, he didn't deserve any of it. If they manufactured lies against
us, you know, one of them would just about fit. You know what I'm saying? If
they brought in, even if they brought in false witnesses against us.
Here we are on trial, John, and a fellow comes in and says, he
lies. That's true. Huh? Whatever the law, whoever
would say anything about it, we'd have to say, well, there's
a degree of truth to all of it. None of it was true about Christ.
No charge. He could have stood up and said,
Who shall lay anything to my charge? He did, John, didn't
he? But yet all charges were laid on him. A great injustice
was done to him. Sin is iniquity. He's being made
sin. greatest of injustices. Sin is
rebellion against God. Like I said, God was hanging
there and Jew and Gentiles and the rulers and Herod and Pontius
Pilate and all of them, the Scripture said in Psalm 2, have gathered
together against the Lord and against his Holy One. All men,
it doesn't matter religious or irreligious, hate God. Here's
another thing. Sin is coming short of the glory
of God. Christ is making atonement for
sin here. Sin is coming short of the glory
of God. They not only failed to glorify
God there. That's God there. They not only
failed to glorify him, but Joe, they rejected him. They put him to shame. They not
only failed, not only did men come short of glorifying him,
they did the exact opposite. They put him to shame. The scripture
says glorify him. What does man do here? Here's
God. They put him to shame. He's being
made sin. He's making an atonement for
sin. Sin is defilement, uncleanness,
all manner of uncleanness. That's sin. You know about the
worst thing you can do to somebody. And even this wicked, sports-crazed world gets all
up in arms when something like this happens. When another man
stands in front of another man and clears his throat, It spits
in his face. It's like I'm going to pull up
all the filth in my body and show you what I think of you.
Right, Steve? Even this world gets all up in
arms when they see a man do that. And man declares he is the throat
that's an open sepulcher, the scripture says, and spits in
God's face. Sin is defilement, uncleanliness. He's making an apology. He was mocked. They smote him
with their hands. He was mocked. Well, why did all this happen?
Now, here's the last thing, okay? And I close with this. Why did
all this happen? As I said, God was hanging there.
Number two, Satan's hour had come. Another thing, Christ is
magnifying sin and he's making an atonement for it. And lastly, he's a substitute for sinners. You see, everything that was
due to you and me was done to Him. Why did all this happen like
it did? Because everything that was due to me was done to Him. He's my substitute. That's why
it happened like it did. Let me go back through those
things. He took my weapon with His stripes. Now, when I
was a boy, If you see pictures of me, I
look pretty cute, just about like any other little boy looks
cute at some point. But I was mean as a snake. And my dad, every now and then,
would get his belt, take his belt off. They'd come get him
now, Jimmy. They'd come, social workers come
get him, but he'd take his belt off. I'm talking a leather belt. Y'all want to hear this? Just
bother anybody, he would take his leather belt off and I would
lie across the bed and I'd pull my pants down and my naked bottom
was exposed, cute little palm. And he'd take that belt and he
would thrash me. He claims he didn't do it. You
know, it's amazing how parents, don't they Rick? It's amazing
how they forget. I'll never forget it. But he
took that belt. It made a lasting impression
upon me. He took that belt. Did you get
it, Ronnie? Sure you did, because he loved you. He thrashed me. Not one little
flick, you know. I mean, he thrashed me with And I'm an older man now, and
you might think I look cute. But I know myself. And you know yourself. What do
you need? What do you deserve? What should
God ought to do? Take the belt of His justice
off and the rations, shouldn't they? He did that to Christ instead. That's the reason Christ was
whipped 39 times, almost to death. He was crowned with thorns. You're
going to like this. He was crowned with thorns because
the Scripture says, when Adam fell, and when Adam fell, rebelled
against God, oh, what ingratitude, what an ungrateful man Adam was and what an ungrateful
wretch I am to sin against God, love, providence and so forth. But when Adam failed, here's
what God pronounced upon him. He said, he said, the ground
is going to be cursed for your sake. The ground is going to be cursed
for your sake. And thorns and thistles will it render unto you. thorns
and thistles shall be on the day." See what he's getting at? The curse. So that which represented
the curse, thorns. Thorns. All our lives we go through
being pricked by this world, being hurt, pierced, troubled,
sorrow, pierced through with troubles and sorrow. I mean literally
pierced and pricked. The thorns of this world. Well
it says that Christ was made a curse for us. God took those
thorns and crowned them. He'd been made a curse for us
right there. He was covered with a robe. Covered
with a robe. You know, my sins, the psalmist
says, my sins have gone over me. They cover me. That's what
Psalm 38 says. They cover me. I'm just covered
with guilt and shame. So what happened to Christ? He
bore that guilt and that shame. Our sins were laid on Him. He
was mocked and ridiculed. He was mocked and ridiculed and
beaten, beaten by men. Beaten in the face, an innocent
man. There was a group of boys years ago
out for a joy ride in a car. There was a fellow, poor boy,
kind of underprivileged and a little bit slow in the mind, walking
along. And they jumped out of that car
and started pummeling that boy. And I was in that group. God ought to hit me between the
eyes. But he did it to Christ instead. Scripture says, when you, you
were just like the children of disobedience, among whom we all
had our, maybe somebody else in here was in a bunch like that,
among whom we all had our conversation in times past, children of wrath
by nature, even as others. You know the next verse? Got hit in the face. For me. I should have been hit in the
face. payment. They mocked him. You ladies may not have ever
been in on a literal something like that, but did you ever sit
back and make fun of some girl, some fat girl? Did you ever get
with some of your prissy friends? Surely there's somebody in here
that thought you were better than that girl, and you all got
together and kind of poked fun at her and ridiculed her. That's what ought to have happened
to us. shouldn't. It happened to Christ
instead. See, he's a substitute for sinner. He's a substitute for sinner.
Everything that was due to us, he took. It was done to him. And therefore there's no It's
not going to happen. You know, there have been times
in my past where I thought, I'm going to live, I'm going to pay. Haven't you? But what I've done,
your past haunts you, your guilt rises up and you say, surely,
I'm not going to get by with that. Surely, I'm going to get
it for that. No, He got it for that. That's the gospel of the Word,
isn't it? Substitution. He was scourged
and we go free. He was crowned that we might
be crowned with blessing and awe, the Scripture says, and
glory. He received a robe of contempt, we receive a robe of
righteousness. He was rejected as king that
we might be made kings and priests. He was mocked and ridiculed that
we might be set. Well done. Substitution. Why did all this
happen? It's an awful thing, but I'm
glad it did. If it hadn't happened to Christ,
it hadn't happened to us. All right, let's stand. what we ought to feel, what we
do feel. We thank them. All we can say
is we just like one who's been given an unspeakable gift. All
we can say is thank you. Thank you for taking our group
forward. We give you all the honor and
glory of all things.