and it's wonderful to be back
in the house of worship. I've selected for my reading
the book of Luke chapter 23. And I'll begin in verse 46 and
read through the end of the chapter. Because this evening I am going
to be speaking on the burial of our Lord Jesus. And we'll
go back to John 19. in just a bit, but I wanted to
read Luke's account of this as the Spirit of God inspired him
to write of this very significant event, the burial of our Savior. And so we go to Luke chapter
23 and verse 46. And when Jesus had cried with
a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. And having said thus, he gave
up the ghost. Now, when the centurion saw what
was done, he glorified God, saying, certainly this was a righteous
man. And all the people that came
together to that site, beholding the things which were done, they
smote their breasts and returned. And all his acquaintance and
the women that followed him from Galilee, they stood afar off,
beholding these things. And behold, There was a man named
Joseph, a counselor. He was a good man and a just. And then Luke tells us in parentheses,
he said the same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them. He was of Arimathea, city of
the Jews. who also himself waited for the
kingdom of God. This man went into Pilate and
he begged the body of Jesus and he took it down, wrapped it in
linen and laid it in a sepulcher that was hewn in stone wherein
never man before was laid. That day was the preparation
and the Sabbath drew on. And the women also which came
with him from Galilee, they followed after and beheld the sepulcher
and how his body was laid. And they returned and prepared
spices and ointments and rested on the Sabbath day according
to the commandment. And may the Lord bless the reading
of his word. Let's bow our heads together. Our Father, it is with gratitude
that we meet and open the scriptures to see what you have for us. We ask it as we gather that you
would even as we have opened the Scriptures,
I pray that you'll open our hearts that we might receive the Word
of God with joy and with great thanksgiving. May we, may we
indeed find a strong consolation in our great Savior and in this
Word which you have left us. We're so thankful, our Father,
that you minister to us. And though we are a people who
are laden with iniquity still, we're a people who are still
sinful, yet you do speak to us and you open up the things of
your word to us. Your own spirit is our comforter. And He reveals to us the things
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, as we gather tonight, I
do ask that you would give us more understanding and a greater
insight into the death, the burial, and the resurrection of our Savior.
These are subjects that we have studied many, many times. But
we ask that these things may never be commonplace to us. May
we never weary of hearing the message of the gospel, how that
our Lord Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures,
and that he was buried, and that he arose again the third day
according to the scriptures. These things are written for
our spiritual nourishment written for our edification and as we
focus this evening and for a little bit upon this man Joseph this
man that you raised up this man who was except for one passage
was is unknown to us before this and then after this we don't
hear anymore of him. And yet you raised him up to
do a great thing. He was your servant. And Lord,
we ask that you would use us in a way that magnifies your
name and glorifies you and works for the good of all of those
around us. Here was a man who was just.
He was a justified man. He was a righteous man. Lord, you said he was a good
man, made good by grace. And he was one that belonged
to you. And though he was himself a secret
disciple, yet Lord, you set in motion the right events to bring
him forth. And he confessed that He was
a follower of the Lord Jesus and He did it by His works. He
did it by His actions. He was obedient to you. And He
did a marvelous, marvelous thing in removing our Savior's body
down from the cross and anointing that precious body with ointment
And then, along with Nicodemus, wrapping that body in fine linen,
that body that was the very tabernacle of God. Lord, how thankful we
are for the men that you have used and the women you have used
down through the years in manifesting their faithfulness to you and
their love for the Lord Jesus Christ. May we be like these
women who stood afar off and were viewing all the things that
happened regarding his burial. And they were there, they stayed
as long as they could, faithful, loving the master. And they watched
that tender moment when Joseph and Nicodemus laid our bodies,
our Lord's body in that tomb. And then those ladies, they went
home to observe the Sabbath and to make ready their fragrances,
their spices and ointments in order to anoint the Lord's body
the day after the Sabbath. Lord, give us that kind of love
for Christ Jesus. May we believe him more fully
and love him more deeply. So we thank you for the record
that you have given us of these faithful saints of God. And Lord,
may we be found faithful, always believing the Lord Jesus, and
faithful to rise to the occasion when you give us those valuable
opportunities to manifest that we are followers of the Lamb
of God. We ask that you bless the sick
ones of our group. And Lord, these burdensome things
to the flesh, they arise according to your good and wise providence. And I pray that all of your people,
especially of our congregation, would realize even now the joy
of knowing and being known of Christ Jesus and of having our
sins washed away and being robed in that wonderful salvation which
is of the Lord. Bless these who have ventured
out this evening. And we ask that you would teach
us from your word. Magnify your name and the name
of your son. And Lord, speak to us as we gather. For Jesus' sake, I pray. Amen. If you would, go back with me
to the Gospel of John. And we'll look at John chapter
19. The last few verses, and as I
mentioned, Our subject is the burial of the Savior. It's an
amazing thing here. We arrive at the end of John
chapter 19. Our Lord's lifeless body now
hangs limp upon the cross of Calvary. His holy soul has left
that body and it's gone to paradise. The greatest event in all of
the history of the world, and certainly the greatest event
in all of Christianity has taken place. Our Lord Jesus has died
for our sins according to the Scriptures. You see, all of our
salvation depended upon His death. We rejoice in His life. We rejoice
in his faithfulness. We're thankful for his obedience
to the law of God and being obedient to every jot and tittle of the
law and that life that he lived. We're so grateful for that. But
we understand from the scriptures, without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission of sins. And so it is his death that the
scriptures always point to. It is his death that was the
fulfillment of the penal aspect of God's justice. He had to die. There had to be the penalty of
sin executed upon one who was mighty and one who stood in our
stead, and that was indeed the Lord Jesus Christ. He died according
to the determinant counsel and the very foreknowledge of God. And he put away all of our sins
by bearing the wages of our sins, not the wages of his sins because
he didn't have any, except by imputation. And he bore the wages
of our sins in his own body on the tree. I'm sure that when
we think of the death of our savior, we should think of sovereignty,
He died because God purposed that he would die. We should
think of the truth of substitution. He died for his people. He died
for his sheep. He died for his church. He died
for his bride. He died for those the Father
gave him in covenant love. We should think of the satisfaction. Our Lord Jesus died that God
might be just and justifier of all who believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. And we should always remember
that his death was successful. So we read in Hebrews 9, he hath
obtained redemption. He has washed our sins away. He has brought in everlasting
righteousness. He has answered every demand
of the law of God. Everything a holy God required
for the salvation of His people, our Lord Jesus has Himself made
satisfaction. Our indebtedness to God has been
canceled. It was by the death of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The battle has been won. The
war has been ended by our Savior. The head of the serpent has been
crushed. All of our sins have been buried
in the depths of the deepest sea. And therefore He bows His
head and He gives up the ghost. And everything now is fairly
quiet at the cross. Three men, the three men who
were crucified, Our Lord Jesus gave up his life. The two thieves,
their legs were broken so that they died quickly. All of them
have died. Most of the crowds are now going
away. The spectacle is over. The public
execution has satisfied their demands for, in their minds,
justice, but has also served to give some degree of entertained
to the religious folks. But it's all over. The one on
the middle cross has nothing more to say. He has spoken his
last words and then bowed his head and gave up the ghost. And then he is to be buried. I'll endeavor to ask three or
four questions here and then see if I can answer them. The
first one is, why must Christ be buried? Well, I can give you
several reasons why he must be buried. We focus on his death,
and of course we focus on his resurrection, but we also need
to focus on the fact that he was buried. Because the scripture
says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 how that Christ died for our
sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried according
to the scriptures and that he was raised again the third day
according to the scriptures. And then he was seen of many.
So let's focus upon his burial as each of the gospel narratives
do, as each of the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Of course, they all write about his life. They all write about
his death. They all write about his burial.
And they all write about his resurrection. Why must he be
buried? Number one, to fulfill the word
of prophecy. It was prophesied in the Old
Testament that he had to be buried. Psalm 16 verse 10, David speaks,
for thou wilt not leave my soul in hell or in the place of the
grave, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to seek corruption. Isaiah 53 and verse number nine,
he made his grave with the wicked. And with the rich in his death,
because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his
mouth. So his burial fulfilled prophecy number two. His burial
fulfilled his own word. He said, for as Jonah was three
days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so shall
the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart
of the earth. It fulfilled Old Testament scripture.
It fulfilled his own word. Number three, his burial pictured
exactly what he did with our sins. What did he do with our
sins? He buried them out of the sight
of divine justice and out of the eye of the all-sufficient
or all-omniscient God. The God who sees all things no
longer sees the sins of His people. The Son of God has buried them. They're all covered over with
His blood, like the scapegoat. And this comes to my mind. You
know on the Day of Atonement, this is recorded in the Book
of Leviticus, of course, there were two goats selected and one
was the goat for the Lord. The second was to be the scapegoat.
The first one for the Lord was killed. It was butchered. The
blood was caught in a basin and then taken in and sprinkled upon
the mercy seat seven times. But then there was that live
goat and Aaron confessed the sins of all of Israel upon the
head of the scapegoat, and it was a symbolic thing. There wasn't
any transference of guilt, of course, to an animal, because
the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin. It's a picture of that which
happened to our Lord Jesus. And Aaron laid his hands upon
the head of this goat called the scapegoat there in Leviticus
16. He confessed all the sins of
Israel, and then he looked upon the congregation of Israel to
find a fit man. And he selected and brought him
up and said, take this out into the wilderness. Take this goat
out there. He didn't kill the goat. He took
the goat out into the wilderness and left him. There's the burial
of our Lord Jesus. And there's the burial of our
sins. They're gone. They're out of the sight of God.
And when the man came back, that's a picture of our Lord's resurrection. The resurrection of our Savior.
He came back. That man didn't have the goat
anymore. And of course, the symbolic teaching
is that when our Lord Jesus came forth from the grave, when He
arose, He didn't have our sins. And if He didn't bear our sins
anymore, we didn't bear them either. And we don't bear them
now. Because He bore them away into a land uninhabited. And so his burial pictured what
he did with our sins. He buried them. He just absolutely
got rid of them. So that the justice of God will
never, never ever punish anybody in whose stead he died. God's
law has got satisfaction in the death of the Son of God. And
then his burial, I'll tell you something else it says, it says
that he really died. We don't bury live people. We
bury dead people. And that's what his burial says.
See, when the Lord Jesus, when He died, He had arranged, because
He is the one who is orchestrating all things throughout His life,
and throughout His death, and His burial, and His resurrection.
In fact, He's the one who orchestrates all things. He always has. And
He saw to it that there were witnesses to His death. There
were people who could validate the fact Jesus of Nazareth really,
truly died. And there were three kinds of
witnesses. Number one, there was the centurion. Now he has
no interest really in Jesus of Nazareth. This is not his fight. This is not his cause. He's doing
what he's commanded to do. Pilate said, take him and crucify
him. And that's what the centurion
did. He's the one who was in charge of the activities that
day. Under God, of course. He's the
one who said, you do this, you nail the nails, and you do this,
and so forth and so on. And he's the one that when Joseph,
and we learned this from Mark, Joseph went to Pilate and he
said, could I have the body of Jesus? And the governor said, you mean he's
dead already? He said, I want to see the centurion.
And he comes forth. And the governor says, is he
dead? You tell me the truth. Yes, sir, he's dead. We didn't
have to break his legs. But I tell you what, one of my
men ran a spear up in his side. It punctured his heart. Out came
blood and water. Yes, sir, I can testify to this. He's dead. First witness, an
ungodly man. a man who had no saving interest
in Jesus of Nazareth. He's not even involved in this
squabble between the Sanhedrin and Jesus of Nazareth. He's just
doing his job and he steps forward and he says, yes, he is dead. First witness. Second witnesses
would be Joseph and Nicodemus because they handled his lifeless
body. And they anointed his body and
they bound him with the linen. First the limbs, the arms, the
legs, and then the whole body. Then put the napkin over his
face. Oh yes, they knew he was dead. There's no question about
it. And then the women. They were
the third witnesses. The women, they saw him expire. These women had been faithful
to Him. They had followed Him. These
are women from Galilee. And they loved Him. They believed
Him. And they listened to Him. They
sat at His feet. They believed Him. All of their
salvation is wrapped up in Jesus of Nazareth. And they hung on
every word that He taught. They gave Him financial support. And they supported the rest of
the disciples. And they were there at Mount
Calvary when the rest of the disciples forsook Him. Only John
was there and then John was given the commission to take care of
the Savior's mother. And so John has now gone to take
Mary to his own house. But these other women, they're
still there and they follow. They watch all the proceedings.
They watch how tenderly and lovingly Nicodemus and Joseph handled
the dead body of the Savior. They see how limp he is. They
see that it's a lifeless corpse. And they watch it all happen
and they watch as these two men stoop to go inside of Joseph's
new tomb. And they watched as the bodies
laid out. They were witnesses. And so our
Lord has died, and he must be buried. Here's the second question
I want to ask. Who will God use to bury his
son? That'd be a great honor. You
think about this. The Son of God. This is a death
purposed by God Almighty from old eternity. And of the millions
and millions and millions of people who were alive, God in
His providence has one specific man who's gonna take charge of
this. And it's Joseph. Now it's getting
late in the day. Verse 42 of John chapter 19 says this, now,
there laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews preparation
day for the sepulchre was nigh at hand. The Jews preparation
day, it was that day. It's getting late. It's getting
late. If you read the other evangelists
record of this, They talk about it was evening. In fact, Mark
says it was past evening. And in your studies of the Jews,
I'm sure you understand, they had two evenings. One began at
three, and the other one began at six. Our Lord Jesus died at
three in the afternoon. When the evening began, that
was the time of the death of the evening sacrifice. And we
know that the second evening was at six. And that's when the
Sabbath began. At sundown. Well, which evening
was it that they went to claim the body of our Savior? The Savior.
That was the first evening because they're not going to prepare
the body on the Sabbath day. So this must be done quickly. It's getting late in the day.
It's the first evening. And you know, it's an interesting
thing. Our Lord has nowhere to be buried. Where is He going to be buried? Peter, James, John? You followed
them for three years. He told you this was going to
happen. Is there somewhere you're going to have Him buried? Some might say Peter, James,
and John aren't here. What about the rest of the disciples?
Well, they're not here either. They're all gone. And I'll tell you, as in his
life he had nowhere to lay his head, in his death there was
nowhere to lay his body. And I suspect these dear ladies
who were there at the cross, and they saw Him die, I bet you
they wondered and worried about this. Is His body going to be
cast aside like Pilate casts the rest of the bodies aside?
The two thieves, most likely their bodies were taken down
and just tossed in a shallow grave, if a grave at all. Is
that what's going to happen to my Lord? That's probably what
the women were worried about. And of course, there was great
sadness. I read to you there from Luke, people were beating
upon their chest, a sign of very extreme grief. What's to be done
with him? It seems like the powers of darkness
have overcome the power of light. Jesus is dead, but not only is
He dead, but there's nowhere to bury Him. Oh, but behold the
working of divine providence. None of the Lord's disciples
came to claim His body. Ten of them have scattered, and
apparently John is taken married to go home with Him. And when
the saints of God throw up their hands and say, I don't know what's
going to be done here. It's as though the Lord says,
I have taken care of this. And He raised up one man for
this occasion. And it's interesting as you look
through the Word of God, in great times of sorrow, times of momentous
events, when you wonder who's going to rise to the occasion?
God always has somebody. Don't be fearful for the cause
of God. Don't worry as to whether His
purpose is going to be fulfilled. I tell you, the cause of God
is never in jeopardy. The Lord always has a Joseph
of Arimathea at His disposal. It's like there was a day when
the world was sunk in darkness, Judaism, full of self-righteousness,
works, religion. Where are the preachers of the
gospel? Where are the voices that lift
up the name of Jehovah our God? Nobody! Oh, but wait. A man comes on the scene. His
name is John the Baptist. Kind of a quirky fellow. Odd
dress. Unusual diet. But he had the
message. In that time of darkness, God
raised up a man, and he wasn't afraid to tackle these Pharisees,
and he called them a generation of vipers. He's the last of the
prophets. And then when things looked as
bleak as they could possibly be, when spiritual darkness engulfed
all the world, when the world by wisdom knew not God. Just
at that time, what did God do? He sent His Son. He sent His
Son into the world. This is the one the saints of
God had longed for and waited for. And even in the temple,
there is Simeon, there's Anna, and even Joseph. waited for the
kingdom of God, is what the scripture says. And he came. The Son of God came. To settle all debts that his
people owed. To make things right with God. And we can go back in the Old
Testament when it appeared that the promises of God made to Abraham
concerning making of him a great nation and concerning that seed
that would be born, not seeds, but seed as in one, as in the
Lord Jesus Christ, when it seemed that promise would fail because
Jacob and his family were in the midst of a famine, God used
another Joseph, another Joseph to preserve his people. and to
keep his oath that he made to Abraham. And here God uses yet
another Joseph who begs the body of our Lord Jesus to fulfill
the word of God. When a young virgin was chosen
by God and the messenger from God came to her and said, you're
going to have a child? And she said, impossible. I've
not known a man. And he said, you'll be. this
conception will be the result of the power of the Holy Spirit
overshadowing you? Who's going to help her? Who's
going to assist her? Somebody's got to get her to
Bethlehem. Because Micah said that baby's going to be born
in Bethlehem. Who's God going to use? Oh, another
Joseph. Another Joseph. And he will be
as a father, he won't be the father, but he will be as the
father of our Lord Jesus and protect both the infant and the
mother, and he will provide for the infant and the mother, and
he will even take him into Egypt when Herod would have killed
the infant. So as there was another Joseph, that the Lord used at
the Savior's birth, here is another Joseph that the Lord uses at
His death. You see, God is never without
resources to fulfill His purpose. The covenant promises of God
cannot be broken. The purpose of God cannot be
frustrated. That which God has ordained must
come to pass, exactly as He ordained it. There was a very dark day
in the history of Israel back in the Old Testament, when Eli,
the high priest, was old. He didn't discipline his sons
who were priests, and they brought disgrace upon the family of Eli. and they were wicked men? It
seemed as if God had forsaken his people. Not to worry. God has a woman over here to
the side. Her name is Hannah. She couldn't
have any children. Said, oh Lord, could I have a
son? If you'll give me a son, Soon
as he's old enough, I'll take him to the house of God at Shiloh,
and he'll serve you all the days of his life." The Lord granted
her a prayer request. Had a little boy, Samuel. When
he was weaned, Hannah kept her word, took him to the temple. You see that little fellow there
in the house of God, in Shiloh? He's just like all the rest of
the boys through Israel. But wait! He's going to be a
prophet of God. And he's going to restore the
truth of God to Israel in a time of spiritual darkness. No, God
doesn't ever leave Himself without a witness. Always somebody who's going to
use. And don't you love the book of
Esther? In fact, look at Esther chapter four. And I was reading
this today. Permit me to just go over here
to this passage of scripture just briefly. Esther chapter
four. Find the book of Job and then
just back up. Job chapter, or Esther chapter
four. During the time of the captivity
of the people of God, they're now under the servitude of, first
of all, the Babylonian servitude, but now it's Persian. And King Ahasuerus, who in history
is known as Xerxes I. Israel had an enemy. His name
is Haman. And he had risen through the
ranks to be the king's advisor, but he hated the Jews. He hated
God's people. He hated God's church. He wanted
to kill all the Jews. He wanted all the Jews to be
exterminated. Do away with all of them. In
fact, he offered the king great sums of money if he would just
wipe out all the Jewish population. Well, the king wasn't happy with
his wife. Bashti. Got rid of her and said, I want
to see all the beautiful women in the nation of Persia. Brought them in. And I tell you,
there was one beautiful Jewish lady that caught his eye. Her
name was Esther. And God moved upon his heart
and said, You marry that one. Man, he didn't
know it was the Lord moving him, but that's what happened. Well,
Esther had a cousin who had kind of adopted her and he sheltered
her and made sure she got a good education and so forth and so
on. His name was Mordecai. Well, Haman, he insisted everybody
in the kingdom bow to him. Mordecai wouldn't do that. And so Haman was real upset,
and we won't get into the whole story. But anyway, Mordecai,
he gets word to Esther that this man Haman, if he has his way,
he's gonna wipe out the Jewish population. So in chapter four,
Mordecai sends word to Esther. And I'll just read the first
three verses for the sake of time. Chapter four, you there?
Chapter four, verse one. When Mordecai perceived all that
was done, Mordecai rent his clothes, he put on sackcloth with ashes,
he went out into the midst of the city, he cried with a loud
and a bitter cry, and came even before the king's gate, for none
might enter into the king's gate clothed with sackcloth. And in
every province, whithersoever the king's commandment and decree
came, There was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting,
and weeping, and wailing, and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
And so he sends word to the queen. He sends word to Esther. We're
in trouble. And Esther kind of sends word
back to him. Well, I tell you, the king, he
hadn't seen me 30 days. And I'm fearful for my life if
I go in. And Mordecai has this to say
to her, and this is the thrust of what I want to say to you.
Look at verse 13. Then Mordecai, chapter four,
verse 13. Then Mordecai commanded to answer
Esther, commanded the messenger. Think not with thyself that thou
shalt escape in the king's house more than all the Jews. In other
words, if he kills all the Jews, that's you too. Verse 14. For if thou altogether
holdest thy peace at this time, rather than going into the king
and saying, listen, this is, this is, Heyman's an ungodly
man. I know he's offered you a lot
of money and everything, but he's an ungodly man. He wants
to do away with all my family, all the Jews. For if thou altogether
holdest thy peace at this time, Mordecai tells Esther, then shall
their enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another
place. In other words, if you don't
do this, God's going to use somebody else. If you're not faithful to do
this, you'll miss out. But Mordecai says, believe me,
the Lord is going to use somebody to deliver His people. So at verse 14, it continues,
but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed. And he asks
this. Boy, underline this if you haven't
already. Surely in all the preaching you've
heard, Somebody's told you to underline this. For who knoweth,
who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such
a time as this? Mordecai's saying, listen, all
that God has done in His providence has to bring you to this point
to spare His people. This is your opportunity, could
I put it this way, to shine. This is your opportunity to be
a witness, to stand up and be counted. But know this, Mordecai
says, if you don't, God will have somebody else stand
up. And you'll miss out. In fact, you'll die. See, God never leaves Himself
without a witness. He made provision for His people
with Esther. And now we go back to the book
of John quickly. Back to John chapter 19. Here's
the body of our Savior. What's going to happen to it?
You've got women crying and upset because of His death. What's
going to happen to His body? Not to worry! And I say this
to all of the people of God, when you get in a tight jam and
things look hopeless, don't worry, don't fret yourself. God always
has somebody that He will use to fulfill His purpose. I was thinking about the message
I preached Sunday morning about the rich man and Lazarus. Poor fella needed a little comfort. You know, God gave him some comfort,
sent him some dogs, licked his sores. And I'll bet, you know,
I kind of imagined some things, but I can just imagine those
dogs just kind of laying their head in his lap. Old Lazarus
rubbing their head, that gave him some comfort. See those dogs? They're the Lord's dogs. The Lord's dogs. There's a fellow
on an altar, and his father has a knife ready
to kill him. God says, stop! I see you love me, and you're
obedient. And God has a ram try to work
his way through the thicket and got tangled up with his horns. Oh, because this is the occasion
for that ram to take Isaac's place. Here's a preacher. Here's a preacher. He's hungry. He's out by the river. Lord says,
don't worry. I got ravens that'll feed you.
I'm just saying God has never pushed. God is never in a jam. He can use anybody or anything
He wants to use to be a blessing to His people and to work things
out for His glory. Now, quickly, what do we know
about Joseph? Here's the third thing. What
do we know about Joseph? Remember, in this situation,
time is of the essence. So Joseph steps forward. And it just so happens, verse 41, that in the place where
he was crucified, there was a garden. Right there where he was crucified,
there was a garden. And in the garden, there was
a sepulcher. It's not very far away. It's
gotta be close by. And everybody else, they didn't
know. What are we going to do? Not to worry. The Lord's got
a sepulcher for His Son. In fact, it's just right over
there. You didn't even know about it. And I'm telling you, God
has deliverances for us that are just right over there, but
we can't see them. And we won't see them until He
shows them to us. And this man was a secret disciple.
Now as a rule, as a general rule, I would say secret disciples
are suspect disciples. But this man was indeed a follower. So I don't know how he could
continue to meet with the Sanhedrin. Me neither. Me neither. He meets with them, but he's
not one of them. and so far he had stayed quiet. But God has arranged things to
where now he can't stay quiet any longer. Now he has seen the teaching,
he's heard the teaching of the Lord Jesus, he's seen the life
of the Lord Jesus, but there's something that has happened that
brings this man forth. You know what it is? The death
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, that's what emboldens him.
That's what gives him courage. He sees the Savior suffering,
bleeding, dying for him. And I just think that Joseph
was there when he heard the Savior say, Father, forgive them for
they know not what they do. And I bet he took that to heart
and said, Father, he's praying for me. Forgive me for not standing
up before. Forgive me for my fear of the
Jews. Forgive me. Oh, what power there
is in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. We sing there's power,
power, wonder-working power in the blood of the lamb. He's bold. He's not a coward
anymore. He's bold. He steps forward. And you can read, he went to
Pilate. He begged for the body. I tell you, Joseph, it's going
to get you in trouble with those old cronies over there in the
San Hedrin. I don't care. That's my Savior. I believe Him. I love Him. I want to give Him proper burial. Got to love this man. Got to
love this man. You remember the Savior, He was
silent before His accusers. But Joseph's not going to remain
silent. You see, the sun in the sky has
refused to shine, acknowledging this is the Son of God. The earth
below their feet has shook as though evidence of this is the
Son of God. The graves of the dead saints
have burst wide open. All of creation around Him is
responding to the death of Christ Jesus. And over there in the
temple, the veil is rent. from top to bottom, access to
God now for us. And Joseph said, I've got to
acknowledge him too. I've got to acknowledge him too.
Now, he's rich. Joseph is rich. That gives him
credibility to go in to talk with Pilate, because money talks. This is not a poor man. Not many wise men are called.
Not many noble, but there are a few. This is a man of means.
This is a man of wealth. He was an honorable counselor,
which means he was somebody in the Sanhedrin. He's not a nobody
like we are. He's somebody. And when he stepped
before Pilate, Pilate knew this is an important man in Israel
right here. But God has put him in that position,
you see, so that that for which he asked is granted. He's an
honorable counselor. He's an influential member. He
waited for the kingdom of God, and he's bold when everybody
else was afraid. And the Scripture says he was
a good man and a just man. Had a good reputation in the
community. but mainly he's righteous with
God. Now here's the last question
and I'll quit. Kind of a simple question. Does
Joseph need some help? Yeah. He needs some help. And the Lord emboldens another
unlikely helper. Nicodemus. And he brings with
him, he said, hey, I'm ready for this. I got 72 pounds of
ointment here. That's what he had, 72 pounds. Look at verse 39. And there came
also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night
and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pound
weight. Hey, I've got the spices right
here, Joseph. Don't ever worry about that.
Wow. I didn't know you was going to
do that, Nicodemus. Well, I didn't know, Joseph, that you was going
to step out and ask for his body either. Well, I guess this must
be of God now. I guess the Lord must be leading
both of us. And Joseph said, yes, brother,
He is. Let's go take the Lord's body
down and prepare it for burial. And they anointed Him with all
these spices and laid that body in there. It was a perfumed body. Smelled wonderful. Because his
sacrifice to God was a sacrifice of a sweet savor to God. Now I'm going to tell you something.
You and I, who are the people of God, we're going to die one
of these days. But because of the death and the burial and
the resurrection of our Savior, our tomb is gonna be perfumed
too. That's right. Because certainly
there's grief when a child of God dies, especially if we're
close to them, a husband, wife, there's grief. But there's also
joy. And you know in your heart, they're
with Christ Jesus. Oh, the fragrance of his person. They're in the presence of the
King. And they wrapped His body with linen clothes. That's an emblem of His righteousness
and the righteousness He gives to us. So not to worry. People of God,
those of you who are here, those who are watching, those who are
listening to this CD later on, always be aware that the Lord,
He's never without means to accomplish His purpose. And we must not
fret. It isn't right to. We must not
doubt. We must not worry. God always,
He has His Josephs. He has His Ravens. He has his
widow who has just a little meal left and a little bit of oil
left. But God can make that meal go a long ways and the oil too. That's our God. That's our God
who does all things well and works all things according to
His eternal purpose and for our spiritual good. Well, let's sing
a closing song, shall we? 228. My faith is found a resting
place. 228. 228. My faith is found a resting