Thank you. Let's open our Bibles
to the book of Luke chapter 23. Luke chapter 23. I'm going to back off from my
series in the book of Revelation today, but the Lord willing,
next Lord's Day, we're going to be studying back in chapter
6, and we'll study the rider on the pale horse. But I was studying yesterday and
actually been thinking about this the last couple of days
of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. You know, the Bible doesn't
tell us to set apart a day to remember His resurrection. In
fact, every Lord's Day, we meet together on this day, the first
day of the week, because this is the day our Savior arose. And those of us who know Him
and believe Him, those of us who have been brought by the
Spirit of God to rest in the Savior for everlasting reconciliation
with God. We don't need a date on a calendar
to put us in mind of His resurrection, do we? We don't need that. We're
thankful that we worship and we honor a risen Savior. And he did indeed conquer death
and the grave for all of his people. And yet, having said
those things, knowing that Easter is on everyone's mind at this
time, you can't avoid it. As you look in the newspaper,
as you look at other forms of media, I fell led of the Spirit
to bring you two messages today on our Lord's death and His resurrection. Understand this, there is no
salvation without His death. This is the way He put away our
sins, was by the shedding of His blood to His death. The Savior said, I lay down my
life for the sheep. The reason the sheep are going
to live and will live forever is because the shepherd died
in our stead. And that's the Bible doctrine
of substitution. The Savior has already satisfied
that which God's law demanded, death for sin. He died for our sins according
to the Scriptures. He's the sacrifice all through
the Old Testament. Whenever someone came to worship
God, and this is especially set forth in the book of Leviticus
beginning in chapter 1. Whenever an individual or a group
of people came to worship God, it was always by means of a blood
offering. A bullock if you were a wealthy
person, a sheep or a goat if you were just kind of middle
income folks, pigeon or turtle dove if you just didn't have
much money at all, but you couldn't draw near to God without the
blood. And that emblem was fulfilled. That picture was fulfilled. and
our Lord Jesus as those animals died. Not that they put away
sin, because the scripture says, by the blood of bulls and goats,
sin can't be removed. But here's what happened. They
all pictured the death of one who would come into the world
and he would honor and satisfy that which divine justice demanded. Death for sin. Our Lord Jesus
died. So how could the death of one
avail for so many? Well, it's because of whose death
it was. It was the death of the God-man.
It was the death of the Son of God. But He does die. He was raised again from the
grave. At resurrection says that he, I am, over every foe. At resurrection announced that
God was satisfied with the dead. He thanked God to measure up
to God's requirements. And God raised him from the dead.
The Savior having finished the work of redemption and conciliation,
the grand righteous mission of sin, the Savior had finished
that work in his day. God raised him from the dead.
The Savior warmed the earth a few days. He ascended back to heaven. We sometimes sing the song, I
serve a risen Savior, and indeed we do. As you prayed in your
prayer, I know there are some religions, they still have Christ
on a cross. He's not on a cross. He's not
in the grave. He's not in the tomb. He's in
heaven above making intercession for sinful folks like me. and like you. Scripture says
He's the only mediator between God and us. He's the man, Christ
Jesus. And I'll just begin this service
by saying if you need such a mediator, if you desire this Savior, you
want this forgiveness of sins, you want this righteousness that's
only found in Christ Jesus, And I say to you, you flee to Christ,
come to Christ, believe on Christ, receive Christ. May God the Spirit
enable you to do that because He's the only one who can. He's
the one who must do work within us. And the Savior said, all
that the Father giveth me, they shall come to me. Him that cometh
to me I'll in no wise cast out. He hadn't cast me out. And so
many of you, you've known Him for years. He brought you unto
Himself. He hadn't cast you out. You know,
He'll never cast any of us out. And the reason is because He's
the one who paid our debt. He's the one who satisfied every
stipulation that God set down for the salvation of sinners.
So we're saved forever. So these are the two themes that
I want to work on today. Our Lord's death and His resurrection. Let me begin here in Luke chapter
23. Go over to verse number 46. I want to read two verses to
you from chapter 23. Luke chapter 23. And then I'll
read two verses from chapter 24. Luke 23, 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, when
he saw what was done, he saw the whole thing. from the beginning
of the crucifixion all the way to the hearing Jesus of Nazareth
with a loud voice. You know, when a man's dying
after a loss of so much blood, after being on the cross for
six hours, nailed at nine in the morning, here it is three
in the afternoon, Such would be the weakness of
the body. You wouldn't think a man could
do this. But this is no ordinary man here. This is the God-man. With a very loud voice, he had
said, Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit. And this
man, this rough old soldier, he saw everything that was done
from beginning to end. And this is what he said, and
the Spirit of God gave these words to Luke many years later
to write this down. Here's what he said. He said,
this man said, certainly this was a righteous man. I'll tell you, he is absolutely
right because that's the Lord our righteousness right there.
That's the Lord our righteousness who is dying on the cross. Alright,
now go to chapter Look at verses 6 and 7. Verses 6 and 7, here the messenger of God says to these two messengers
from God, they say to the women who came to the tomb in verse
6, He is not here. He was here. He's not here anymore. He is not here, but is risen. And then they said, remember?
Remember? He spoke about this. Don't you
remember? Boy, we have very, very, very
poor memories when it comes to remembering the things of God.
Don't you remember? Oh, how often did the Savior
say to His disciples, the Son of Man must be delivered up to
the chief priests. He must suffer many things. He must die. And He must be raised
again. He said that over and over and
over again. And these two messengers say
to these women, don't you remember? Remember He said this? He told
you He was going away and you men were very sorrowful. As though
you would never, ever see Him again. But He said, I'm coming again.
I'll be raised again. He said, remember how He spake unto
you when He was yet in Galilee? And I look at verse 7 saying,
Here's what He said, "...the Son of Man must be delivered
into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third
day He shall rise again." That's what He said. Well, let's talk this morning. especially emphasize His death. And I'll really get into the
resurrection a little bit more this evening. But of course,
in dealing with the one, you have to deal with the other.
Let's emphasize the death of our Lord Jesus this morning.
There are many revelations to be seen in this chapter, to be
seen at Calvary. And I think the first one is
this. As I look at the cross, like this man, this old soldier,
he saw what was done. As I behold what went on at the
cross of our Lord Jesus, I see many revelations. The first revelation
I see is this. Here's a revelation of sin. If you want to know how bad sin
is, look no further than right here at the cross. As you look
back over the history of mankind, there are lots of wicked things
that stand out. Lots of sinful deeds and actions
that just kind of step to the forefront. And I know all sin
is wrong. The Bible says every transgression
shall receive a just recompense of reward, which is death. Every one. We tend to categorize
sin as big sins and little sins, like we categorize lies. That's
a little, I just told a little white lie, as opposed to a big
old black lie, folks. We tend to categorize sin, but
really, sin is sin before God. Every sin, what is it? It's a
transgression of God's law. That's what the Bible says. Sin
is a transgression of God's law. And yet, having said that, it
is also true that while every sin is horrible, every sin is
terrible, there are some sins that bring a greater result or
greater consequence than others do. And those really stand out. like the sin of Adam, which was
the sin of covetousness, the sin of arrogance, the sin of
rebellion against God. His sin affected everybody. We
say, well, I don't understand what the bill was. I don't understand
this. All Adam did was eat an apple. What's the harm of that? Well,
it's what it represented. Rebellion against God. That's
what it was. It was rebellion against God.
He justified God. God said, Adam, of every tree
of the garden you may eat freely. Eat to your fullness. There's
one tree in the middle of the garden. Don't you eat of the
fruit of it. And the day you eat of it, you'll
surely die. The serpent came and deceived
Eve. The serpent said, you won't die.
In fact, God knows if you eat the forbidden fruit, you'll be
as God yourself. The Hebrew word is Elohim. Just
like in Genesis 1.1, in the beginning God, in the beginning Elohim. That's what Satan said to Eve. He said, Elohim doth know that
in the day ye eat thereof, you shall be Elohim yourself. You'll
be God yourself. In other words, there won't be
anybody over you. You'll be over yourself. You'll
determine your own fate. You'll answer to nobody but yourself. And she was tempted. But Adam,
while he was tempted, he didn't give in to the temptation. Because
the Scripture says in the New Testament, Eve was deceived but
Adam was not. He knew what he was doing. And
what Eve did, that was sin, but nothing happened when Eve did
it because Eve was not a representative individual. She acted solely
and only for herself. It didn't have any effect upon
Adam. It didn't have any effect upon
generations that would come after them. Nothing happened. But Adam, he wasn't deceived. He entered into this willfully. Willfully. He deliberately. deliberately
defied God. That's an awful sin. The Scripture says in the book
of James, to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not,
to him it is sin. Adam knew, Adam knew, don't eat
of this. God said don't eat of this, and
he deliberately, he willfully ate of it. He willed to eat. Actually, the first sin, it wasn't
taking a bite of whatever kind of fruit it was. The first sin
was committed in His heart. He willed to eat. The action
only carried out the vileness of the decision to rebel against
God in His heart. That sin. One sin. See, it was just one sin. That's
all it was. Boy, but look what an effect
it had. Look what a result it's had.
He died spiritually. Everybody who's born into this
world is born spiritually dead. And later, 900 and some odd years
later, he died. Methuselah, he lived longer than
anybody else has ever lived. 969 years, but you read the Scripture,
it says, and he died. And he died. By one man, by one man's sin
entered into this world, and death by sin. And so passed upon all men. For that all have sinned. What
an awful consequence One wants to be high. For one Roman, for one disobeying,
the Erebonian. We fail. We die. Fact of the matter is, you are
a sinner, my friend. It doesn't matter whether you
acknowledge it or not. That is the fact. I see you now. And that was it. My head got it. I believe it. Settle. Oh, I'd say it's bullshit
whether you believe it or not. Isn't that right? Whether you
believe it or not, it's still a fact. All have sinned. All have missed the mark. That's
what the word sin means, missing the mark. Some of you go out
target shoot, maybe with a bow and arrows or with a gun, with
a rifle or a pistol. And they got some kind of target
hung up there. I've been out shooting before
and put it up and run it far away from you. And you take aim. First time I shot a big old rifle,
I missed the whole target. I said, did it go through the
middle? No, you didn't even hit the target, which was this big. Aiming for the bullseye. What
is this matter of S-I-N seeing? Missing the mark, missing the
target. We missed it. What is it that God demands?
God demands perfection. That's what God demands. God
doesn't require you to do the best you can do. Well, I'm doing
the best I can do, preacher. Well, maybe you are, although
I'd probably say you ain't telling the truth there. You're not doing
the best you can do. But let's just suppose you are.
I'm doing the best that I can do. That's not good enough. It's
not good enough. Leviticus chapter 22 verse 21
says, it shall be perfect to be accepted. We're missing the
mark. One sin. That led to this. Led to death. Death. Most all of us, we've made several
trips to cemeteries. We've gone, we've visited funeral
homes, and we've looked in the casket of folks that we loved,
embraced, and cared for. Death. Death's real. Why do people
die? Because of sin. It's a result
of sin. Sin. Sin. And yet, we embrace
it, and we love it, One man's sin. I think about the sins of the
people of Noah's day. Scripture says they ate and drank
and married and gave in marriage. But God wasn't in their thoughts.
God wasn't in their thoughts. They didn't think anything about
the Lord. They didn't think anything about His mercies. They didn't
seek God's grace. There was a man, Noah. Noah preached. He was a preacher of righteousness.
He said, you've got to be right with God. You've got to be right
with God. You've got to be righteous before
God. We're all sinful people. You've got to have a substitute.
Die in your stead. Because if the guilty die in
their guilt, they can't go to be with the Lord. You've got
to have a Savior. That's what Noah preached. And
he built the ark, and he preached, and he built the ark, and he
preached. 120 years. He said, God's going to send
judgment? Why was God going to send judgment? Because God said,
I've looked and every imagination of man's heart is only evil continually. That's what God said. God assessed
the situation. He has looked down from heaven.
He has found us all to be guilty. Guilty as He charged us in His
Word. And all those people, they had
no interest in the things of God. And Noah said, judgment
is coming, a storm is coming, water is going to fall from heaven.
And they said, are you talking about a flood? That water had never fallen from
heaven. There was a blessed firmament
around the earth, a watery firmament. Everything grew big and lush. People lived many, many years. Never rained, never rained. But
God kept everything blooming and fruitful. Are you talking
about the heavens are going to open up and the fountains of
the deep are going to open up? They said, oh, crazy man. I'm not anywhere. And he kept preaching. He's a
rat. Judgment's coming. I'm telling you, judgment. People
believe. I expect he hired some of them
as subcontractors. That'd be my guess, some who
had experts in building and such things. He tried to talk to them. Don't preach to us, preacher.
I'll work with you, but I don't want to hear you preaching. They
go home at night and say, man, that preacher, he tried to preach
to me again today. He's all the time preaching judgment,
vengeance of God, preaching against sin, preaching against there's
only salvation, there's only safety one place in the ark,
which pictures salvation in Christ Jesus. That's all that guy does. The ark was finished. The cup
of God's vengeance was full. And God said, Noah, you and your
family come into the ark. For you're the only one I've
seen righteous before me. You're the only one. Thousands
and thousands of people. You're the only one. Noah found
grace in the eyes of God. That's what Scripture says. All their sins, vile, vile before
God. God washed them away into hell.
Washed them away. What about the sins of Sodom
and Gomorrah? I think about those cities, people
guilty of sodomy. unnatural sex acts, homosexuality,
lesbianism. The Bible speaks out very forcefully
against such perversion. If you want to know what God
thinks of this kind of perversion that's going on back then, that's
going on today, you go over and see if you can find the city
of Sodom and Gomorrah. Oh, you can locate them. They're
beneath the Dead Sea. That's where they are. They're
beneath the Dead Sea. And that sea is aptly named the
Dead Sea because it has no life in it, no animal life, no plant
life. The only thing that grows in
the Dead Sea is bacteria. Want to know what God thinks
about that kind of lifestyle? Just look at Sodom and Gomorrah.
But God didn't destroy it until it got a lot out of there. It got a lot out. Oh, what sin. What sin. And there are other
examples that I can give. But I see in the death of our
Lord Jesus, I see a great revelation of sin. The greatest revelation
of sin that there is. So actually, if you want to see
how horrible and wicked man is in his sinfulness, you don't
have to go all the way back to Adam. You don't have to go back
to Noah's day. You don't have to go back to
Sodom and Gomorrah. You don't have to go back to any other
number of illustrations I could give you through the Old Testament.
Go back to Mount Calvary. And you see wicked men taking
the Son of God who's innocent of all crimes, perfect, absolutely
harmless, meek, went about doing good. There wasn't a disease
that he met that he didn't heal. There wasn't a diseased individual
that he met that he didn't heal them of that disease. He was
merciful to many, many people. His mercy is over all of His
works. And yet they hated Him. If you
want to see man's awfulness, man's sin in its blackness, in
its awfulness, just look at Mount Calvary. Just see what man did
to Christ. Once in all of human history,
God has given to man the ability to lay hands on him, do it at
will. One time. One time. God man in the flesh. One time. He said, do to me what you will. Whatever you want to do to me,
now is the time to do it. And they laid hands on the Son
of God, they beat Him, slapped Him, spit in His face, plucked
His beard out, put a crown of thorns on His brow, nailed Him
to a cross, put that cross in a hole, and after they stripped
Him of His clothing, and there He was, a spectacle for everybody
to see. That's what man did when they
got their hands on God. That's the worst sin of all. They turned up their noses at
the Son of God. They said, if you be the Son
of God, come down and save yourself. Mocking Him. Before they crucified him, they
said, you a king? Somebody got an old purple rag
and put it around him and shoved a reed in his hand and said,
oh, hail, king of the Jews! There's man at his best right
now. You want to see what man is?
You just take all the veneer off of man, take all the covering
off man to see man as he really is. Right there he is. Right
there they are. Wait a minute. Right there we
are too. We are right there with them.
You say, I would have never done that. Yes, you would have too.
But for the grace of God, you would have been right there.
It's like when they stoned Stephen. A man called Saul of Tarsus said,
hey boys, let me hold your coats so you can throw more accurately.
And he held the coats of them who threw rocks at Stephen and
murdered God's preacher. That's Saul of Tarsus. There's
the Apostle Paul before grace got a hold of him. mean as could
be in his religion and in his self-righteousness. Because I'll
tell you what, self-righteous religion will make you a mean
person. It takes the grace of God to
tame you. It takes the grace of God to
soften you. Oh, right here. This is S-I-N
as it really is. This is where we see sin in all
of its blackness and all of its horror. Peter said in Acts chapter
2, you with your wicked hands have crucified the Lord of glory. He said over in chapter 3, you
killed the just one, that's what you did. Paul just piled and stood before
the Jews and said, you have a custom every year about this time. I'll
release unto you out of the good will of my heart, representative
of the Roman government. I'll release unto you any prisoner
you want. Shall I release and let go Jesus
of Nazareth? I find no fault in this man.
Shall I release? And they said, no! Release Barabbas! Release Barabbas, a known murderer! What then shall I do with Jesus
of Nazareth? Crucify Him! Let Him die the
worst death that can possibly be inflicted upon a man. We want
to see Him in agony. We want to see Him crying in
pain and in bitterness of soul as He hangs on the cross. That's
what we want to see. That's what we want done with
Jesus of Nazareth. Because He said He's God and
we don't believe that. He's a blasphemer. That's what
man, right there is sin, right there. And we all have His blood dripping
from our hands. Don't you tell me you're a good
person. I know as we define goodness,
you're all good, fine people. But as God defines goodness,
He's looked the whole world over. And He sees hearts of men and
women and boys and girls. He's inspected us. His eyes burn
past the veneer, past the facade, right into the heart. And God
says, none good, no, not one. He said they've all gone astray.
They've all gone astray. There's none righteous, no, not
one. There's none that seeketh after
God, no, not one. Don't go bragging about how good
you are. You're not good. You're not righteous
before God in yourself. The only goodness to be found
is in Christ Jesus because there's none good but God and He's God.
And there's no righteousness to be found except in Christ
who is the Lord our righteousness. I tell you, here's a revelation
of sin. That's what I see at the cross.
I see a revelation of sin. Three men died on crosses that
day. One man died in his sin, an unbelieving
thief. Three crosses once stood on a
rugged hill. one side, one end, here's a thief,
there's the Son of God in the middle, and there's another thief
on that side. One of the thieves, he railed.
Actually, both of them railed to begin with. But then one of
them, God did something to his heart, but the other thief, he
kept on railing. He kept on mocking. And he died
in his sin. And our Lord Jesus said in John
chapter 8, he said, if you die in your sin, where I am, you
can't come. You cannot, there's no way. If you die in your sin, if you
die in Christ Jesus, if you die without the Savior, if you die
without this media, or if you die without the food that I grace
and goodness in Christ. He said, where I am, you can't. You can't come where I'm at. And one of those thieves, even
though he was so close, he could hear the breath of the Son of
God. That's how close he was. He could
glance over and see him bleeding and dying. But that Savior meant
nothing to him. He cursed him with his dying
breath. Isn't that something? Cursed
him with his dying breath. God, and what the hell? The soldiers
came around because they had to get those men off those crosses.
Had to get them off before sundown. Before the official Sabbath began. Broke his legs. And his dying
breath, he's still a rebel against God. Died in his sin. Oh God,
don't let me die in my sin. Oh God, don't let anybody here
die in their sin. Bring us effectually. Bring us
by sovereign grace. Grab hold of our hearts and bring
us to the Savior. The scripture says, Thy people
shall be willing in the day of thy power. Make me willing, oh
God, to be saved your way. Make me willing to be saved by
grace. Make me willing to be saved by
the death and the blood and the righteousness of the Son of God.
Make me willing, otherwise I'm going to perish. I'm going to
perish. One man died in his sin. After he died, according to Roman
law, they took his body out and threw it over a cliff. Let the
buzzards and what not pick the flesh off of it. But that ain't
near as bad what happened to his soul. God said, every soul's
mine, the soul that sinneth shall die. His soul went to hell. He
died in his sin. Another thief. Another thief. He was cursing and blaspheming
and mocking, just like his cohort in crime. But then, something
happened. Something happened. And it wasn't
something he did. It was something God did for
him. God got a hold of his heart. And he said to his buddy, he
said, we suffer justly. We're getting what we deserve.
You know that's true. I can almost see him hanging
on that cross. You know that's true. But this man hath done
nothing amiss. And he said, Lord, Lord, remember
me when you come into your kingdom. I believe you're the Lord. I
believe you're coming into your kingdom. I believe you are who
you say you are. I trust you. Remember me. Remember this poor old sinner.
I can't do any good deed. I can't do any work. I can't
be baptized. I can't walk an aisle. I can't
do one blessed thing. But if you do something for me,
I'll be all right. Remember me. Would you remember
me? I'll be all right if you'll remember
me. And he died to his sin. Because
the Savior said, today, you'll be with me in paradise. Remember me. I hope God help
me from my heart and help everybody here from our hearts to say,
Lord, remember me. Think on me. Lord, I ain't worth
saving. I've rebelled against You. I've
kicked against You. I've lied. I've cheated. In my
heart, I hadn't honored You. I hadn't read Your Word. But
I need Your mercy! I need Your grace. Oh, God, do something for me.
Lord, do something for me. You don't have to. And God doesn't
have to do anything for anybody here. He doesn't have to do anything
for us. He can leave us like He left
that unbelieving thief, that one who with his dying breath
cursed the name of Jesus Christ. He can leave us just like that
and we'll get exactly what we deserve. There isn't another
thing you can do about it. Because if you die in your sins,
if I die in my sins, we'll get what we deserve. But oh, Scripture
says He's full of mercy. Be full of mercy. Boy, we are
mercy beggars, aren't we? Fall at His throne. Oh, great
King! King of righteousness! King of
salvation! King of grace! I come to You. I'm a needy soul. Show me grace. Show me grace
for Christ's sake. One man died in his sin, one
man died to sin, and one man died for sin. That's the God-man. He died for sin. Paul said, For
I have delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received,
how that Christ 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. He died for our sins, and having
died for our sins, oh, I tell you, all those for whom He died,
How blessed they are. How honored they are that He
died for our sins. How do I know He died for my
sins? Well, the only way you know is
if you come to trust Him. And you come to believe Him.
You come to believe Him. You come to rest your soul's
salvation. You can say on the authority
of God's Word, it's because He chose me unto salvation and He
redeemed me by His blood. He's quickened me by His Spirit.
He's going to keep me safe until I go all the way to glory. It's a revelation of sin. Oh,
I've got several other things here. It's a revelation of love. It's a revelation of who he is. Centurion Luke says, he said,
surely this was a righteous man. Matthew quotes him as saying,
this was the Son of God. It's a revelation of his identity.
Because nobody else could finish the work of salvation and He
did because He said with His dying breath, it is finished.
It's finished. Everything's finished the way
God purposed for it to be done. I finished the work that He gave
me today. He said that in John 17. Oh, I tell you, a lot of
revelations of various things at the cross. I see my sin and
I see the love of God. Our brother read to us, herein
is love. Not that we love God, but that
He loved us. Gave His Son to be propitiation
for our sin. What in the world does that word
propitiation mean? Such a long word. It means satisfaction. Satisfied His law. Satisfied
His justice for our sin. Oh, what a Savior! What a Savior! And we want to be washed whiter
than the snow in His blood. That's what we want. That's our
next hymn. 310. Whiter than snow. 310.