Back to chapter 19 also. We are thankful that Madge had
a successful aortic valve replacement today. And on all accounts, she
seems to be doing well. Talk to Connie. a couple of hours
ago, and she said that her mother was doing very, very well. She'll
stay in ICU through the evening, and then she'll get out in the
morning, at least out of ICU, and they'll do a couple of tests
to make sure everything's okay, and then she should be discharged
to go home. And that's quite remarkable for
her. Connie said that her mother told
her, she said, I don't even feel anything. I don't hurt. And Connie
said, that's good. She said, well, what do you feel?
She said, I feel hungry. And so they got her something
to eat. And so we're thankful for that. Other sick ones of our congregation
and friends of our Congregation, some had surgery today. Norm had surgery today. And we pray for Brother Wells
that things went well. This was a surgery, a hernia
surgery, and hope that that went good. One of our regular viewers,
Brother Vic, also had the same kind of surgery today. His wife
contacted me and said that he was doing good, and hopefully
he and she are watching tonight. And I would say to Brother Arthur
and Sister Kathleen, thankful to God for you, and pray that
you have full recovery, Arthur. Others are sick. Carolee is a
little bit better, but we continue to pray that She'll get even
stronger. Likewise for Pat and others of
our group who are sick and having infirmities of the flesh, we
certainly are remembering them as well. All right, if you have John chapter
19, I'll start reading with verse 19. So we'll pick up the reading
here in John 19, verse 19. Our Lord has been crucified,
verse 19 says, and Patil wrote a title. He put it on the cross. The writing was Jesus of Nazareth,
the King of the Jews. This title then read, many of
the Jews for the place where Jesus was crucified was not to
the city. And it was written in a Hebrew
and Greek and Latin. Then said the chief priests of
the Jews to Pilate, write not the king of the Jews, but that
he said, I am king of the Jews. And then Pilate answered, what
I have written, I have written. Then the soldiers, when they
had crucified Jesus, took his garments, made four parts to
every soldier a part, and also his coat. Now the coat was without
seam woven from the top throughout. They said, therefore, among themselves,
let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be,
that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, they parted my raiment
among them, and for my vesture did they cast lots. These things,
therefore, the soldiers did. Now there stood behind the cross
of Jesus his mother and his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Cleophas,
and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus, therefore, saw his
mother and the disciples standing by whom he loved, he saith unto
his mother, Woman, behold thy son. Then said he to the disciple,
behold thy mother. And from that hour, that disciple
took him unto his own home. After this, Jesus, knowing that
all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled,
said, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full
of vinegar. And they filled a sponge with
vinegar and put it upon Hyssop and put it to his mouth. When
Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, it is finished. And he bowed his head and gave
up the ghost. And I think we'll stop our reading
there with verse 30. Let's seek God's face as we continue
the service tonight. Oh, our great God, thou who art
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, thou who art our
Father, We bow before you this evening in reverence before you,
recognizing the infinite greatness of our God. We seek to enter into your courts
with thanksgiving and praise. And we ask that as we begin the
message And as we go through this special time of worship,
that you would be to us our instructor, our teacher,
our guide. Direct our minds and direct our
hearts to the one who is crucified on our behalf, who gave himself
a ransom for many. Lord, let us hear the word of
God. Let us see by faith the beauties
of Christ Jesus. May we not be like those of whom
the master spoke and said, They have ears, but they hear not. They have eyes, but they see
not. And he said, their hearts are
far from God. May that not be said of any of
us here this evening, nor of any who have joined us by way
of the internet. Oh God, open our eyes, open our
minds, open our understanding that we might receive wondrous
and glorious things out of your law. Make your word to be to
us a light to our path Make it to be to us a source of life
by your Spirit. May we take heed to the things
that you have for us this evening. And oh, dear God, as we come
to this, the very heart of the gospel, the crucifixion of our
Savior, we dare not begin a message on such a vital, vital topic
without asking you to bless our meeting together. Hedge us about. Keep us faithful
to the Word of God. And may we never seek to honor
ourselves or honor this church but always seek the glory and
honor of our Lord Jesus Christ. May we know him and the very
power of his resurrection. Let us worship the crucified,
buried, risen, and exalted Son of God. Thank you for these who have
safely come through procedures and surgeries. Lord, we give
you the thanksgiving. You guide the surgeons. You give knowledge to those in
the medical community who undertake the care of people who mean a
great deal to us. And we thank you. We ask that
you would continue to strengthen the weak, encourage those who
are downfallen, those who are dejected. Lord, give us the blessed
assurance that Jesus is indeed ours and that we belong to you. Thank you for the blood of the
Lord Jesus that has washed us And all of our sins have been
drowned in that crimson flood. And we thank you that we're robed
in that impeccable, glorious righteousness of our Savior,
which has been so freely imputed to us. Lord, how gracious you
are to your people, and we bow to thank you. We bless you for
all you are and all you do for us unworthy sinners. So, take
us by the heart and lead us into the things of Christ Jesus tonight,
O blessed Spirit. We ask these things in the name
of Christ our Savior. Amen. All right. come again this evening to John
chapter 19. And I feel led to bring this
message. I hope God has laid it upon my
heart. I believe he has. The subject
is five viewpoints of the crucifixion. We have set before us in this
portion of the Word of God the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus. And in His death, we have set
before us the only hope that God ever holds out for salvation. This is the very heart and the
very soul of the salvation that is for
sinners. It is this. Christ died for the
ungodly. This is the very center of it. Everything hinges and rests upon
this foundation. If there is no death of one equal
with God and One who is bone of our bone and flesh of our
flesh, there wouldn't be any hope for any of us. This is the
only way to glory. This is the only way to heaven.
This is the only way of salvation. This is the only way of forgiveness.
This is the only way we could be made the righteousness of
God, is in this very One who was crucified for us. as you look through the Word
of God. Over and over again, this is set forth. The death
of the innocent one in the stead of the guilty. From Genesis,
the third chapter, where God killed the animals, and then
He clothed our guilty mother and father, Eve and Adam. God killed animals that they
didn't rebel against Him. They didn't sin against Him.
Those animals did nothing to transgress God's law. Man did that. God said to Adam,
in the day ye eat thereof you'll surely die. While the man has
sinned against God and he has died. And God himself must find suitable
victims to die in the stead of the guilty or else they're going
to die. And so innocent victims were
found by God. And this is a principle established
there right from the beginning, right after the sin of men. God
steps in. Man had no answer for the dilemma. Man had nothing to do with finding
the means whereby this problem could be solved. How can the
guilty stand accepted before a holy God? Man didn't have the
answer. Man has never had the answer. Only God had the answer. And
the answer is through the bloody sacrifice of innocent victims. And in this, God himself was
establishing a vital, vital principle. And as you go through the Old
Testament scriptures, you see this again and again and again,
until we get to the gospel narratives. And in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John, we see that all of those animals of the Old Testament
that died upon altars in the stead of the guilty, though they'd
never put away one sin, they were all pictures of the one
who would come and do what needed to be done to answer to God for
all of the sinfulness of his people. This is the only way whereby
God could be just and justify the ungodly. That's why the apostle
wrote to the Corinthians and he said, we preach Christ crucified. He didn't just say we preach
Christ crucified. Though he did preach Christ,
but that's not all of what he said. He said, we preach Christ
crucified. That's what he said, one day,
Ron. Crucified. Not Christ as example, Christ
as a martyr, Christ as one who came to establish a new religion. No, Christ crucified. That's what he said. He said,
under the Jews, a stumbling block. and under the Gentiles foolishness,
but under them who are called, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ,
who is the power of God and the wisdom of God. And so, therefore, this evening,
it behooves us in sticking with the context of this passage to
visit the crucifixion of our Lord once again. And I wanna visit it, I want
to look at it from five different viewpoints. And I'll begin this way because
this is the most important. I want us to look at this crucifixion
from the viewpoint of God. This death was to God a propitiation. That is a full satisfaction to
his law and his justice. This was the way God ordained
for sin to be put away. The only way. The only way whereby
men could be reconciled unto him. Therefore, the apostle says
in 2 Corinthians chapter five, God was in Christ, reconciling
the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and
hath committed unto us the ministry of reconciliation, not imputing
their trespasses unto them. Who did he impute them to then? That which is obviously implied,
he imputed them to Christ Jesus. Behold at the cross, a holy God
exacting from his darling son the full payment of the sin debt
of his people. And if you want to see how seriously
God takes this matter of sin, visit those portions of holy
scripture that speak of the substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Romans chapter eight in verse 32 says this, he that spared
not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall
he not with him also freely give us all things? God spared not
his son. Upon His Son, He rained down
all of His anger and all of His judgment and all of His vengeance. When it came to the Son of His
love, His only begotten Son, that One who was with Him from
all eternity, God did not lessen the punishment. He did not lower the degree of
His anger and His vengeance. He spared not His own Son. When the sins of His people were
made to meet upon the Son of God, the Father did not curb
His vengeance. He did not lessen the severity
of the punishment. He did not spare even his only
begotten son in pouring out upon him the fullness of his anger
against sin. In a few minutes, I'll attempt
to set forth the actions and the attitudes of the enemies
of our Lord, and they were indeed horrible. They mocked Him, they
railed against Him, they taunted Him. They did as much as they
could do to heap on Him shame and sorrow, disgrace, mockery. But God did something to His
Son that none of the enemies of our Lord Jesus could possibly
do. God poured on Him all of the
vengeance that all of the sins of all of God's people of all
ages demanded. And while they punished His body,
God punished his soul. Our Lord Jesus was crucified
at 9 a.m. And from 9 a.m. till noon, man
was active. All the despicable things that
were done before he was ever crucified and all the horrible
things done through the crucifixion. But that's what men did from
nine till noon. But then something happened. God who created the very son the light to shine by day. God put His hand over the sun
as if to say, now, I'm going to do something. Men did their
utmost to disgrace and mock and humiliate and heap pain upon
Jesus of Nazareth. And they did that up until noon,
but then all that they were doing stopped because God made it dark. And you read through, and I did
this last night, I read through Matthew's account, Mark's account,
Luke's account, and John's account. Once God sent forth the darkness,
Once he blotted out the sunshine, no more actions of men are recorded,
nothing that they did during the darkness. Now I'm sure that
they finally lighted some torches and things like that, but nothing
is recorded that they had any more mockery or anything like
that during the darkness. And it was as if God was saying,
now I will act. Now all of the focus is going
to be upon Me. You see, up until noon, All of the focus was upon what
men did to the Lord Jesus. And even in most of the preaching
today concerning the substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus or His
crucifixion, the main emphasis is upon His bodily wounds. They were horrible, no doubt
about that. From the beatings and the scourgings
and the crown of thorns and then the nails through His hands and
through His feet. All of that was awful. But that's
all most preachers focus on. But something else happened on
the cross that not many preachers even mention anymore. Except
preachers of the gospel. God causes it to be dark. And darkness pictures the wrath
of God. Darkness pictures judgment. For instance, go with me to the
book of Exodus. Look with me in the book of Exodus
and chapter number 10. The book of Exodus. Chapter 10. Darkness pictures judgment. Wrath. Here we are. Israel is in Egypt
and I don't need to give you a history lesson on this. You
all know what's going on here and this back and forth between
Moses and Pharaoh. In verse number 20 of chapter
10, but the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart so that he would not let
the children of Israel go because God is bringing this awful tyrant
to the point that he would have him to be. Because ultimately,
that which God is going to set forth is redemption by the blood
of the Passover lamb. That's what it's all pointing
to. You say, well, I don't understand why Pharaoh didn't release them
to begin with. Because God hardened his heart,
that's why. God's going to bring this man
to the very end of himself, and he's going to experience death
in his own family, and whether he will acknowledge it or not,
he's going to know that those who are saved are saved by substitution. The lamb dying in the stead of
somebody else. So the Lord just not, this man,
he's not fully ripe for that judgment of God yet. Look at
verse 21. And the Lord said unto Moses,
stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness
over the land of Egypt, even darkness, which may be felt. And Moses stretched forth his
hand toward heaven, and there was a thick darkness in all the
land of Egypt three days. They saw not one another, neither
rose any from his place for three days, but But I love this. All the children
of Israel had light in their dwellings. No wrath for them. No judgment for them. The wrath
and the judgment, that's reserved for all the enemies of God. Darkness indicates light. Darkness
indicates wrath, whereas light indicates the presence and the
blessings of God. And so as we go back over to
our text in John chapter 19, we notice this. It is left for Matthew, Mark,
and Luke to mention the darkness. John doesn't do that. And I don't know the reason why
the Spirit of God had John leave this out. Some purpose of God,
which I don't know. And if you were to ask me, why
is it, Jim, that Matthew, Mark, and Luke speak about this darkness
that God sent, and yet John, as he writes, by the same inspiring
Spirit, John is not led to mention this. If you ask me why is it
like this, I don't know. I don't know. But I know that the other three
gospel narratives mention the darkness. The darkness. Suddenly, at the brightness of
the noonday, God, who made the son to rule by day, blotted it
out as if God was saying, vile and wicked men have done all
they can do to my son. And all the focus has been upon
them. Now, I will heap upon my son
wrath and vengeance and judgment that cannot be measured by man. James read back in the office
from the 90th Psalm. And once again I was struck by
one of the verses, especially by one of the verses in Psalm
90 where the psalmist said, who knoweth the power of thine anger? There's one who knows. There's only one who knows. You
see, all of those who are in hell, they know something of
the power of the anger of God, and the wrath of God, and the
vengeance of God. But yet, that is, somehow God tempers it. so that
they won't be totally destroyed. And is it not indicated in the
Scriptures that there are different degrees of punishment? There
are different degrees of the judgment of God. The Lord said
to the cities of His day in which all His miracles were performed,
it'll be more tolerable for Sodom than for you in the judgment. Does that not indicate that the
vengeance and the wrath of God can be controlled by God? And so that the people of Sodom,
the people of Tyre and Sidon, they won't feel as much of the
wrath and vengeance of God, though it would be horrible for them,
but they won't feel it to the same extent as those cities that
the people in the cities who saw Him, who witnessed His miracles,
who heard His teachings, and yet turned thumbs down on Him.
But none who are in hell know the fullness of the anger and
the wrath of God. Who knoweth the power of thine
anger? Your Son knows. The Lord Jesus Christ knows. because he felt all of that vengeance. It came rushing in upon him. And God wouldn't let us see what
he was doing. There's a real mystery to this. And I fear lest we be tempted
to enter into the darkness and see what happened there. If God
wanted us to know exactly what happened there, he would have
recorded it or he would have put a little light in there so
that we would see it. No, it's all done in blackness. So it's very mysterious. God forsook God. God abandoned God. The Lord is the light of my salvation,
the psalmist says. And God who is light forsakes
his son and leaves him in the darkness, the darkness of hell. He experienced hell in his heart. All the wrath and vengeance of
God. Our Lord Jesus endured it. Of the day of vengeance, we read
in Zephaniah 115, that day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble
and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness
and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness. And I'll tell you that day when
our Lord was crucified, there was a thick darkness during those
three hours. A thick darkness. God forsook his son. God poured
out judgment upon the Holy One. Our Lord Jesus never ceased to
be the Son of God. And He never ceased to be the
pure One before God. But in His Holy Soul, He felt what we will never feel He experienced what we will never
experience. He had an agony within Him that
we'll never have because He was our substitute. This is from God's viewpoint.
Secondly, there's the viewpoint of the Savior. Death was the ultimate act of
obedience to the Father. He was the willing sacrifice
going forward, typified by Isaac. You remember the story, and I'm
sure you do, in Genesis, the 22nd chapter, when God told Abraham
to take his son, his only son, Isaac, whom you love, take him
up on a mountain and offer him to me as a burnt sacrifice, a
burnt offering. And they got ready to go and
they have the servants that are with them, the two servants,
and they go out so far and Abraham says to the two servants, you
two stay here, I and the lad will go yonder and worship. And
you know what Abraham did? He put on the back of his son
the wood, the wood. The Scripture says he laid it,
he laid it on Isaac. Look up the word, it means to
place upon one for whom it is appointed. It is to place upon one, the
one who was appointed. That is Isaac. And we read here
in John chapter 19 that our Lord Jesus bore his cross. He bore his cross. Now we know
that Simon of Cyrene was called upon to carry the Savior's cross.
The Bible never says the Savior stumbled. It never indicates
that. But perhaps the soldiers were
concerned that after all he had been through and looking at this
hideous looking man covered with blood, they perhaps thought he's
going to die under the load of the cross. And so they compelled
Simon of Cyrene to carry it the rest of the way. But the Scripture
doesn't indicate that he grew weak. He carried His cross. He was brought as a lamb to the
slaughter. He is the lamb. And He's going
to the slaughter. But He never opened His mouth. He was obedient to the will of
the Father. When He came into the world,
He said, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. Whatever's recorded
in the book, that's what I've come to accomplish. From the viewpoint of the Savior,
He was the obedient servant of Jehovah. Not my will, Father. Thy will be done. No wonder God
the Father said in Isaiah 52, God the Father said of Him, He's
my servant. That's my servant. Earlier he
said in Isaiah 42, he's my elect. And the father says in Isaiah
53, he's my righteous servant. My righteous servant. He was the shepherd laying down
his life for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, the good
shepherd giveth his life for the sheep, he said in John chapter
10. And that one who was a beautiful
type in so many ways of our Lord Jesus David, he was a shepherd. And in his duties as being the
shepherd over his father's flock, he protected the sheep. And when
Israel was being mocked by the Philistine and David goes out
to take bread to his brothers who were there engaged in the
battle. But the battle wasn't ensuing
because they were all fearful of Goliath. And David said, let
me at him. And they said, you're nobody.
You're just a shepherd boy. Go back home. He said, I'll tell you, I killed
a bear and a lion who tried to attack my father's flock. And
I'll take care of that enemy over there, too. You just let
me at him." That's what he said. And here is our Lord Jesus. And
He goes to the cross to fight the battle, to protect and to
save and redeem His sheep. The bear and the lion, read Lamentations
chapter three. The bear and the lion, the justice
and judgment of God. He took on the bear, he took
on the lion, and he took on the lion who goes about seeking whom
he may devour. He took on Satan, he took on
all of the enemies of all of his people, and he defeated them
at the cross. every enemy of your soul. Think
of the enemies of your soul, Satan, the world, your sin, your
sin. He defeated all of your enemies
when he died upon the cross of Calvary. He was the redeemer
buying us from divine justice. I generally wake up quite early
and try to slip out real quietly, not wake Nancy up, and get a
cup of coffee and do a little bit of reading. Every once in
a while, I'll turn the TV on and see what's on. There's this
guy on there, and he's a Bible teacher. I don't remember his
name, and his name doesn't need to be remembered, because I certainly
would not advise you to watch him. He wears a short-sleeved
white shirt, and he's kind of a teacher. I was going through
the channel, just seeing what was on, and I heard this guy
say, my subject is redemption. Oh, that got my ear. That got
my attention, so I stopped. And sure enough, he's preaching
from, or teaching from, Ephesians chapter 1. And he's talking about
redemption. In whom we have redemption through
his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of his grace. I said, well, I'll sip my coffee
while I watch him. I'll listen to what he has to
say. And men are so foolish. He said, Jesus died in order
to buy us from Satan. He said Satan owned us and he
demanded blood as the payment price. The payment was not rendered
to Satan. Now there is a sense in which
we can say our Lord redeemed us from Satan, but that was redemption
by power, not by price. Because Satan was not owed anything. It's like when Israel was redeemed
from Egyptian bondage. They were redeemed by price,
the blood, and by power, the hand of God. So only in that
sense were we bought or redeemed from Satan. Well, who was the
payment rendered to? The justice of God. divine law. It held us for ransom. And the law says, I'll keep these
people and I'll keep them forever unless there's the proper payment
price. What's the price? The death of
an impeccable substitute. who is suitable and satisfying
to God and suitable and will meet the needs of the sinners.
One qualifies, the Lord Jesus Christ. He was the Redeemer. Thirdly,
and I must go quickly, the viewpoint of Satan. At first he thought
it was a triumph. He had entered into the heart
of Judas to betray the Lord Jesus. He had sought to do away with
Jesus of Nazareth on many occasions. But now it appears that his goal
will be reached. When sitting at the Passover
supper, Judas was there. And John asked the Savior, who
will betray you? And the Savior said, he it is
to whom I will give a sop. And when he had dipped it, he
gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the sop,
Satan entered into him. And then Jesus said unto him,
unto Satan, that thou doest, do quickly. Let's get with it. Let's get with it. Kind of like
Madge said regarding that aortic valve she was going to have to
have and did have today. This was her attitude. Let's
get with it. She said, let's do this. And our Lord Jesus,
He's looking at death. He's looking at being forsaken
of the Father. And He knows what's in store. He knows what Satan doesn't know. Satan is going to be used just
like the chief priests and the Sanhedrin and the soldiers. Satan is going to be used to
fulfill God's redemptive purpose. And Judas goes out and betrays
him. And Satan thought he finally
had the upper hand. But that which he thought was
his victory was his defeat. In fulfillment of Genesis chapter
three and verse 15. Christ destroyed him who had
the power of death. And our Lord Jesus conquered
all the powers of darkness. And fourthly, there's the viewpoint
of his people. This is where we were redeemed.
This is where we were reconciled. This is where we were made the
righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, in his crucifixion. The scripture says, for he hath
made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin that we might be
made the righteousness of God in him. And the Spirit of God
comes to us not to make us righteous, but to reveal righteousness. To reveal that the Lord Jesus
is our righteousness and He's already settled the issue by
His death. And He gives us faith to receive
the righteousness and to believe what Christ has done for us.
as our substitute, and then quickly and lastly, the viewpoint of
his enemies, and I must hurry. Both his religious enemies and
his secular enemies. From their viewpoint, they were
getting rid of an imposter and a felon. And you read about these religious
people, Oh, how horrible they treated Jesus of Nazareth. They treated Him in a despicable
way. From the spitting and the slapping
and the balling of their fists and hitting them in the face
to all the taunting and the mockery. And one writer says the mockery
included hand gestures to Jesus, the Son of God. As they walked
by, they made hand gestures to Him. And you don't need for me
to tell you what sort of thing that would be. There's the Holy
Son of God. And here's what they thought
of Him. They stripped him of his garments. They divided one
garment in four parts, which was four parts. They divided
that among themselves. Then the other one, they cast
lots for it to fulfill the scriptures. And there he hangs naked because
that's the way they crucified people. That's the way the Romans
crucified people, absolutely stark naked. From their viewpoint, this was
entertainment. And his secular enemies, well,
the religious enemies should have known better. The secular
enemies, the Romans, well, they were the ones who stripped him
of his garments, put on him a scarlet robe, and then put the crown
of thorns on him. on his head, a reed in his right
hand, bowed the knee. And then they took the reed and
hit him over the head with it. And they took the purple robe
off of him and then put his own garments on him. And then as
we read here in John 19, then they took the garments. What do you folks think of Jesus
of Nazareth? I said, we hate him. That's what
we think of him. But all that happened was according
to the will of God. So, to review, from God's standpoint,
he was satisfying his own law and justice, dealing with his
son in the strictest, the strictest of justice, in order to save
the people he loved with an everlasting love. From the son's standpoint,
he was the shepherd laying down his life to save his sheep. And he would say to the father,
of all that thou hast given me, I've not lost a one of them.
From the standpoint of Satan, the crucifixion was the fulfillment
of that word of God spoken in the garden concerning the seed
of the woman who would bruise the head of the serpent. From the standpoint of his people, that's our Savior dying. That's how he saved us. That's
how he reconciled us. Jesus paid it all. From the standpoint
of his enemies, they did all they could do to him. But it
was all according to the purpose of God. I'll give you three statements
to leave with you, and I'll send you home with these three statements. God takes all sin seriously. Don't you take it lightly. You
want to see what God thinks of sin? Take a look at the cross. God takes sin seriously. Secondly, God judges sin severely. Severely. He's never too hard
on those who break His law. He's never too harsh. And yet, to no one has He ever
poured out the fullness of His anger except His only begotten
Son. God takes sin seriously. God
judges sin severely. God loves His people savingly. God loves His people savingly. That's what I see at the cross. Well, why don't you get your
black folders out. And I want you to go to number
15, and this is Rock of Ages, and we're going to sing it to
the same tune that we've sung it to for years.