54th verse of Matthew 26. Right at the end, it says that
thus it must be. And I, over the weekend, I was
looking at this. It must be. It must be. And so I, yesterday, prepared
a message for you on what must be will be. What must be will
be. Now our Lord's hour is drawing
near when He will lay down His life for the sheep. Earlier in
this chapter, He had instituted the Lord's Supper, had the Passover,
and then the Passover kind of bled over into the Lord's Supper,
and then our Lord went out to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. He told eight of his disciples
to remain there, and then three favored disciples he took with
him deeper into the garden and told them to abide there and
pray, and he would go a little further and pray. It was at the
end of the Lord's Supper that Judas departed from the group. Nobody suspected him of being
the betrayer. Nobody was suspicious of his
motives or what he was up to. Nobody knew that he would betray. He had betrayed the Lord Jesus
Christ for 30 pieces of silver. But our Lord said this to them. to his disciples in verse 45. Then cometh he to his disciples,
and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest. This reminds us that the spirit
is willing, but the flesh is weak. And all of us know something
about that. He says, Behold, the hour is
at hand. He often spoke about this hour. In John chapter 2, he mentioned
this hour. My hour is not yet come. You
might remember at the Feast of Tabernacles in John chapter 7,
they came to take him by force, but they could not take him by
force, and the Spirit of God tells us that the reason they
couldn't take him was because his hour was not yet come. But
as we draw nearer in the Scriptures to the time of His death, finally
the Savior said, My hour has come. My hour has come. It was the hour of our salvation. It was the hour of His redeeming
work. It was the hour, the time when
God would heap upon our Savior all of the sins of all of His
people of all ages, and then the very wrath of God would be
poured into His soul, and He would feel the very fury of the
vengeance of God against our sins. And there, in that hour,
He would redeem us from the curse of the law. He would put away
the sins of His people. So our Lord mentions this hour
that was so important, so vital, not only to Him, but to us. Because
there's no salvation for us poor sinners unless that hour arrived,
unless He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
And then he speaks secondly, having mentioned the hour, he
speaks secondly of the work that must be accomplished. And that
is the work of redemption. In John 17, in his high priestly
prayer, the Lord Jesus in his prayer said, I have finished
the work that thou gavest me to do. It was the work of satisfying
God's justice. It was the work of honoring God.
He had honored God all through His life. He had been obedient
to every law of God, every civil law, parental law to Mary and
his, shall we call Joseph, his stepfather. He had been obedient
to all the laws, to the Jews' laws, to the laws of Moses, and
mainly to the laws of God. And he will go on to say, I finished
the work that thou gavest me to do. He would not leave any work undone. Many times we, well, I, I'll
use myself as an example. Many times I've taken on a work
to do, a project of some sort, and I don't get it finished. But our Lord Jesus, when He undertook
the work of saving us from our sins, He did not leave the work
unfinished. He finished it according to the
will of God. All that He did, all that He
suffered, the very death that He died was honoring to God. Therefore, God raised Him from
the dead and exalted Him to the highest heaven. Our Savior says,
I have finished the work thou gavest me to do. He finished
it with absolute perfection and completion. He finished the work
of establishing righteousness for us, which we can never do
because all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. He finished
the work of atonement, of reconciling us to God. nothing could be or
would be or was necessary to be added to what he did. He finished
the work. Our faith does not finish salvation. Our repentance does not finish
the work of redemption. Our salvation was finished according
to our Lord's own nearly last words. He bowed his head and
said, it is finished. And then he gave up the ghost. And then the Savior, the third
thing that I noticed from this is that our Savior willingly
goes forth. He takes the initiative. Notice
there, and I've already read verse 46, but he says, rise,
let us be going. They don't have to come looking
for Him. He's not hiding from them. All
of this is under His sovereign dominion. And He goes forth to
meet them. In fact, John tells us that when
they came to Him, He said, Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus
of Nazareth. And He said, I am. And the very
power of His being and of His words flattened them to the ground. He was not reluctant. He was
the willing, voluntary sacrifice for the sins of His people. He
takes the initiative. He will not evade the enemy. He will not hide from them. This
was all purposed in old eternity. The people for whom He would
give His life were chosen before the world began. And He is said
to be the Lamb who was slain before the foundation of the
world in the very purpose and will of God. And He must now
fulfill that which was ordained. He goes forth, the mighty Savior. And He has disciples with Him,
and there were two of them who had swords. And I would commend them for
their bravery, because they're going up against a mob that is
mad with anger and malice toward Jesus of Nazareth. They had two
swords. But he told Simon Peter, put
your sword away. Put your sword away. After all,
if he had needed anything, all he had to do was call upon his
father and he would send 10,000 angels. And they would come forth,
that's more than two swords. 10,000 angels. One angel killed,
what, 180,000 there in the Kings? He said, but if I called on the
Father to send 10,000 angels, which he would not have done,
of course, he said, but then how shall the scriptures be fulfilled? For thus, it must be, it must
be, it must be that he be arrested. It must be that he be tried. in the religious court and in
the civil court. It must be that he would be beaten. and crowned with thorns. It must
be that He be crucified. It must be that He suffer all
the punishment that men could heap upon Him. And it must be
that He would be the Lamb of God who must suffer, bleed, and
die for God. It must be. It must be. And you'll notice that Judas
leads the mob. And our Lord Jesus goes forth
to meet them. Judas had told them, the one
that I walk up to and kiss him on the cheek, you hold him fast. This is a man who spent nearly
three years of his life in the shadow of the Son of God. As
a preacher, I remind you, and apparently as a miracle worker. And here He is, as someone said
many years ago, this certainly isn't original with me, here
He is, as someone said, kissing the door to heaven and going
to hell. And there are multitudes of people
right now who have a Bible in their hands and use the name
of Jesus quite often and have no knowledge of who He is. Nancy and I were at supper the other night, and
the server, the lady, she was very nice to us, and she told
me that her husband had died, and she said, you know, now,
and I had a mouthful of food, so I couldn't answer her, but
she said, now, my dad is with mama in heaven, And I bet they're
dancing right now. And after our meal, I told Nancy,
the ignorance of people today is quite astounding because she
is a regular church attender and yet knows nothing about what heaven is like and who heaven
is all about. the Lord Jesus Christ. Judas,
you see, was a very religious man. And if he'd had the full Bible
like we have, he'd gone around carrying a Bible as he preached,
and he did preach. He had some knowledge in his
brain, but he had no love for the Son of God. And it's obvious
he was a covetous man. So he goes forth to indicate
to the mob, the mob that was sent forth by the Sanhedrin,
and he indicates to them who Jesus of Nazareth was. And he reminds me of lots of false preachers who
have the name of Jesus on their lips, but they're far from him. And he reminds me of a bunch
of preachers, multimillionaires, who like Judas are covetous men. and have no knowledge of the
Savior. No wonder our Lord warned in
Matthew chapter seven, and we need to shout this out frequently. And this needs to be taken heed
to by all. He said, beware of false prophets,
which come to you as Judas did in sheep's clothing. That's how
he went forth, in sheep's clothing. That's my master over there.
I come forth in his name. But he really was a wolf in sheep's
clothing. And that's what all false prophets
are. They're wolves in sheep's clothing
who do not preach the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace
to sinners through the person and doing and dying of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And they shall die and meet an angry God for the false gospel that they
have preached and for the Savior whom they do not know. Our Lord warns us and we need
to be warned. Be careful of the voice that
you listen to. you've got a lot at stake. The safety of your soul, to some
degree, is dependent upon the voice that you listen to. That
is, it better be the voice that has the right message of salvation
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Many preachers, quite gifted,
eloquent, knowledgeable, speak that name that is above every
name, but their hearts are far from him." That's Judas. That's
who Judas was. And he was comfortable. He was comfortable in the camp
of the enemy. He went right in among them.
What will you give me? What will you give me? Notice
how he greeted the Savior in verse 49, and forthwith he came
to Jesus and said, hail, master. Meaning, all blessing to you. Good health to you. What a devil. What a hypocrite. Hail, Master, Teacher. And then notice this. The kingdom
of God cannot be advanced. I preached a couple of weeks
ago about thy kingdom come. Conversions, that's what we pray
for. We ask God to save sinners by
His free and sovereign grace. But learn this, Simon Peter pulled
out his sword and I guess he was gonna cut man's head off,
I suppose, but he cut his ear off. Ear must have been mangled,
a bloody mess. But God's kingdom is not advanced
by physical warfare. or by harming those who are enemies
of the gospel. Notice several things right here,
three things. Peter acted rashly in drawing
his sword and cutting off the ear of Malchus, the servant of
the high priest. But this too was ordained. All things are, aren't they? The Lord had ordained this, that
our Savior perform another miracle. Can you imagine what it looked
like when that man's ear was severed, mangled, laying on the
ground, the man's head is bloodied? It's a mess. But it gave our Lord Jesus another
opportunity to manifest His greatness. And here was a man who hated
him, the servant of the high priest. Here's a man who believed
a false gospel of works and established your own self-righteousness by
obedience to the law. And yet our Lord was merciful
and picked up that ear and reattached it to that man's head No stitches,
no surgery, and it was just as healthy as
it was before it was severed. Who could do that but our Lord? And who would do that to somebody
who's your sworn enemy? who followed around in the shadow
of the high priest who was the sworn enemy of our Lord Jesus
Christ. You see, he who made the ear
can certainly reattach it without surgery or stitches. I love this. I love to think about that. He
manifested his glory. And then secondly, oh, how hard
hearted are men like on this occasion,
these men who saw a man's severed ear reattached miraculously,
healed. It's not bleeding anymore. It's
not mangled anymore. Well, how hard hearted are the
hearts of those who saw this, the bleeding, the gore, the ripped
tissue, and then witnessed the Lord Jesus reattaching the ear
and the man looks just fine. How hard-hearted must men be
when they see that miracle with their eyes? Remember in John
chapter 10, the Pharisees said, show us a miracle and we'll believe
you. That's what they said. Show us a miracle, we'll believe
you. No, men won't believe if they see a miracle. You must be the object of a miracle
yourself in your heart. These men saw a miracle and they
didn't believe. And the third thing, and I'll
move on, but the third thing is, There's another miracle here.
And though not mentioned, it's very real. Our Lord kept Peter
safe. Here's a whole mob and he has
pulled out his sword and cut off this man's ear. I would think
that mob would have beat him to death. Right? That's what
I think, Terry. I'd say, boy, he's in for it
now. But God protects His people.
Peter acted rashly. He did. It was a foolish thing
to do because the kingdom of God cannot be advanced with carnal
weapons. And that's what false religionists
do, by the way. They use carnal weapons to be
successful in religion. But here's Simon Peter and our
Lord protected him. Our Lord didn't need to be defended
by Simon Peter. Our Lord was there on purpose to die the death appointed for
him. Our Lord did not avail himself
of the angels of God in heaven? Why not? Why not? Well, because he says in verse
54, but how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled that thus it must
be? I must die. The scriptures in
the Old Testament talk about the death of the Messiah. We
love to read Isaiah chapter 53. Actually, the last three verses
of 52 should go with 53. We love to read that passage
of Scripture. If He doesn't die, we won't live.
But He must die. It was ordained that He die.
The Scriptures had to be fulfilled. Our Lord, He's asking His disciples
a question. Notice verse 54 is a question. But how then shall the Scriptures
be fulfilled that thus it must be? Simon Peter, don't you understand? Thus it must be. I must die. And several times He mentioned
His death and His resurrection, but it didn't click with them,
did it? They couldn't receive that. They
couldn't accept that. Until after His resurrection,
then they believed. I say, what must be, will be. You recall our Savior in Luke
chapter 2, when He went to the temple, He's 12 years old, went
with Joseph and Mary and a bunch of other people from Nazareth.
And he remained in Jerusalem while all the rest of them began
to go back to Capernaum. And when Joseph and Mary had
gone a day's journey, they started looking for this 12-year-old
lad. And they couldn't find him, they
went around asking. It took them three days, three
days to get back. I guess they stopped at every
wayside, checking, you know, where is he? Well, he was in
the temple, asking questions, listening. And they were astonished,
the people in the temple, the priests were astonished at his
wisdom and his knowledge. And finally, They hear there's
a 12-year-old boy over there in the temple sitting with the
elders and the teachers and the rabbis. And they went in and
there he sat. In fact, let me take a couple
of minutes. Look back at Luke chapter 2.
Let me show you something. Luke chapter 2. I didn't get
to preach Sunday, so I got a lot of time tonight to preach, right?
I got extra time tonight. But look at Luke chapter 2. I
won't preach much longer, but I want to show you this. You
know the passage. It starts at verse 42. He's 12
years old. And we get down to verse 47,
Luke 2, 47. And all that heard him were astonished
at his understanding and answers. Well, this is God incarnate. And so when they saw him, they
were amazed. That is, when Joseph and Mary
saw him, they were amazed. And his mother said unto him,
she said, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with
us? Behold thy father, beginning
with a lowercase f, his stepfather, and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, how is
it that ye have sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about
my, capital F, father's business? I must. I must be about my father's
business. And they didn't understand the
saying that he spoke to them. But our Lord came on the father's
business. And he must be about the father's
business. Because the father's business
was the saving of his chosen people. And our Lord is honoring
the law. And here is his son, the God-man,
And this is mysterious, he grows in wisdom and in stature. I can't
comprehend that. Growing in stature, I can understand. Growing in wisdom, that's over
my head. There's an interesting statement,
I won't ask you to turn to this, in Luke 22, verse seven, where
we read the Passover must be killed. The Passover must be killed. It was at the Feast of Unleavened
Bread. And our Lord Jesus is the bread
come down from heaven and He's the Lamb of God who must be,
He must be killed. In Luke 24, our Lord again used
the expression must be. Why must His death happen? Why must? Why must He die? Well, because His death was ordained
of the Father, in fact, the whole Trinity. His death was agreed
to in the covenant of grace. His death and resurrection were
prophesied in the Old Testament Scriptures. Every detail of our
Lord's sufferings and death From the vile betrayal of Judas to
the piercing of his holy side and his death was all prophesied
in the Old Testament. And it was all typified in the
sacrifices and ceremonies of the law. And there was no other
way for God in his holy justice to forgive us sinful worms. and
make us righteous. It must be. It must be. The people said in John chapter
12, speaking to the Savior, the Son of Man must be lifted up. He must be. Who's at preacher from, I think
he was from Cleveland, Ohio, years ago said, I'll tell you,
if I'd been at Mount Calvary, I would have stopped the crucifixion
of Jesus. Only a fool says something like
that. You need to go back to working at your girdle factory.
He owned a girdle factory. He sure wasn't a preacher of
the gospel. The Son of Man had to be lifted
up. And our Lord said, and you get
a concordance, you can go through and look a bunch of these up.
He said in John 3, ye must be, what? Born again. You must be. And Acts 4.12 says, neither is
there salvation in any other, for there's none other name under
heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. Salvation's
only found in Christ. And concerning false prophets,
Paul wrote in Titus 1.11 of those false prophets, whose mouths
must be stopped. How? By physical force? No, by
answering them with the true gospel. Pure preaching. You say, well, what about all
the false heresies that are abundant these days? Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians
11, 19, for there must be heresies among you that they which are
approved of God may be manifested among you. And in Revelation
chapter 4 verse 1, John saw heaven open and he heard a voice say,
come up hither and see things that must be. They must be hereafter. And I'm telling you, John wrote
that, he wrote that at the end of the first century. So he's
talking about everything that has happened during this age
of grace. They're happening just exactly
as God has ordained them. To you, to me, throughout the
world. For thus it must be. And I'll
tell you, what must be, Will be. It will be. Let's sing a closing song. Let's get our psalm books and
turn to 118, when I survey the wondrous cross. 118, when I survey the wondrous
cross. We'll stand and sing all four
stanzas, and the Lord willing, we'll meet again this Lord's
Day morning. When I survey the wondrous cross
? Prince of glory died ? ? My riches
gained ? ? I found but loss ? ? And poor contempt on all my brow
? Forbid it, Lord, that I should
boast, Chained in the death of Christ my God. All the vain things that charm
me most, I sacrifice Him to His blood. See from His head, His
hands, His feet. Sorrow and love flowed me, flowed
me down. Dear such love and sorrow me, O'er thorns composed so rich
a crown, Were the whole realm of nature bound. And we're a prison far too small
Love so amazing, so divine He mends my soul, my life, my
all.