My hope is that we come here
today with one purpose in mind, and that is to remember the Lord's
death until He comes again. That's what He has taught us to do, and I trust
that that is a most precious thing for each one of us. this
morning as we consider him, who died for us, who he was, who
he is, and why he came. And you know, none of those things originate with men. All of them
originate with him. Just as He made us, we are not
ourselves. We do not belong to ourselves. And it's because He determined
to redeem sinners that sinners have the hope of redemption. Not a thing a man could have
done to have brought himself into the presence of God. He
dwells in the light, the scripture says, to which no man can approach. That's what he revealed unto
Moses when he told Moses to put off
his shoes, off his feet, for the ground where he was standing
was holy ground. He said, you don't have any business
being here. You can't come here. What he told Moses on Mount Sinai,
he says, I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy. It belongs
to him. Men don't have any claim on it
and don't have any way to obtain it. Mercy must be sovereignly
dispensed or it wouldn't be mercy. There can be no such thing as
mercy which is in any wise deserved. We think of it in that fashion.
You know, we'll look at somebody and we'll think of some good
deed they've done or something that they've, you know, done
for men and we'll think, well, you know, they really deserve
some blessing. But men don't deserve blessings
because every one of us, by nature, the scripture says the wicked
go forth from the womb as soon as they're born, speaking lies. Now, you know, you don't like
to think of that when you look at a little baby, oh so nice
and sweet and laying in a crib and you know, and no doubt about
it, he's as innocent and as pure as he'll ever be when he's in
that state. But he comes forth with a nature.
which is full of rebellion and full of desire to fulfill his
own desires. I mean, that's what we all are.
You can't escape that. You want what you want, and you'll
want what you want till the day that you die. But in the grace
of God, he is pleased to come and take men out of darkness and
into the light. And though He does not take away
our sinful nature, He does indeed cause us, by His grace, to be
born again by His Spirit, that we might behold Him. And so we
give thanks to Him today, remembering the Lord's death, because really,
without that, we don't have any reason to be here. Paul said
that he would preach nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. There's a lot of things that
can be preached, a lot of good things. There's a lot of good
advice here in this book that anybody would profit from if
they read it and they followed it. Just a world, you know, really. And of course our society at
one time understood that, at least in the main. I'm not saying,
there's never been a time when all the men and women in the
United States have been people who believed the Bible was the
word of God. But there was a time when the
preponderance of people, that were in this country did at least
believe that. Whether they adhered to it or
whether they had any love for it is another issue. But we live
in an age now when, you know, this here is considered to be
some kind of a, it's not really considered in any fashion. Because
what has taken place is that men have decided what they decide
to be right is right. What men want to be, they can
be. and it's okay because it's okay with me but because i was
okay with me and that make it okay with god and so we we have
a standard and that standard is jesus christ the right by
the lord ever conforms to his image that we might be like him
as we walk in this world and so we look last week at the taking
of the Lord Jesus Christ into the judgment hall where he was
judged, where he was spat upon, where he was mocked, where he was designated as the
king of the Jews. You know, men can't help but
speak the praises of God. It doesn't make any difference
what they set out to do, the Lord will cause all creation
to bring praise unto Him. Even things that men might speak
in a blasphemous way, God will have glory from it. And there's
not a thing in the world a man can do. I remember Brother Forbes,
A lot of you don't know him, but some of us do. He came here
from over in the Virgin Islands, but he said one time he had a
radio broadcast and he was preaching on the sovereignty of God. And
a guy had met him somewhere and said, well, I don't believe what
you're saying. He says, I can curse God anytime
I get ready. And so Brother Forbes said, well,
why don't you? And so he said, well, I'll show
you. And so he, you know, led off into some litany of what
he considered to be curses to God. And when he got through
by the fourth example, when are you going to curse God? I mean, you can say all kinds
of stuff you want, but you can't do anything to, you know, in
any wise, if you, the concept of cursing something is that
you bring it down, you know, you bring harm to it. You cannot
bring harm to God. You can't change His way in any
way, shape or form. And so let's read, let's start
reading in verse 21. I think we might've talked about
some of this last week, but we'll start reading there. They compel
one Simon, a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country,
the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross. And they bring
him into the place Golgotha, which is being interpreted the
place of a skull. And they gave him to drink wine
mingled with myrrh, but he received it not. And when they had crucified
him, They parted his garments, casting lots upon them, what
every man should take. And it was the third hour, and
they crucified him. And the superscription accusation
was written over the king of the Jews. And with him they crucified
two thieves, the one on his right, the other on his left. And the
scripture was fulfilled, which saith, and he was numbered with
the transgressors. And they that passed by railed
on him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ah, thou that destroyest
the temple and buildest it in three days, save thyself and
come down from the cross. Likewise also the chief priest,
mocking, said among themselves with the scribes, He saved others,
himself he cannot save. Let Christ the King of Israel
descend now from the cross that we may see and believe, and they
that were crucified with him reviled him. And when the sixth
hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the
ninth hour. And at the ninth hour, Jesus
cried with a loud voice saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani,
which is being interpreted, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? And some of them that stood by
when they heard it said, behold, he calleth Elias. And one ran
and filled a sponge full of vinegar and put it on a reed and gave
him to drink saying, let alone, let us see whether Elias will
come to take him down. And Jesus cried with a loud voice
and gave up the ghost. And the veil of the temple was
rent in twain from the top to the bottom. And when the centurion,
which stood over against him, saw that he so cried out and
gave up the ghost, he said, truly, this man was the son of God. There were also women looking
on far off among whom was Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother
of James the last and of Joseph and Salome. And so, who also,
when he was in Galilee, followed him and ministered unto him,
and many other women which came up with him unto Jerusalem. And
now, when the even was come, because it was the preparation,
that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, an honorable
counselor, which also waited for the kingdom of God, came
and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus.
And Pilate marveled if he were already dead, and calling unto
him the centurion, he asked him whether he had been any while
dead. And when he knew of the centurion,
he gave the body to Joseph. And he brought fine linen and
took him down and wrapped him in the linen, laid him in a sepulcher,
which was hewn out of a rock and rolled a stone into the door
of the sepulcher. And Mary Magdalene and Mary,
the mother of Joseph, beheld where he was laid. Now, as we come this morning
to remember the Lord's death till he comes again, we see it
described for us in Mark. Some of the other writers of
the other gospels give us some more detail than what Mark does
here in this passage, but the truth of the matter is that he
was crucified for us. why we consider and understand
from what we have been told that crucifixion was the most horrible
form of death. You know, our forms of execution
in this country, if they exist at all, are designed to be painless,
supposedly, or at least with the least amount of pain that
can be brought to bear to those who are condemned. But in those
days and in that situation, the idea was exactly the opposite.
They wanted to cause the one being crucified the most pain
that they possibly could. And so everything that they did
was unto that way. And so we saw and we talked about
a little bit last week about Simon the Cyrenian who they pressed
into duty to carry the Lord's cross. And one thing that we
learned from that, number one is that when Simon the Cyrenian
was there in Jerusalem that day, he had no idea that he was going
to be, but he didn't come and volunteer for the job, he was
appointed to that job. And just like all of those whom
the Lord is pleased to call unto himself, he singles them out. of the crowd. You know, we think
of Zacchaeus. We think of the woman with the
issue of blood. We think of blind Bartimaeus. We think of the woman
at the well. You know, the Lord met with those
people. Now, I don't know, we don't have a lot of knowledge
about who Simon the Cyrenian was. He does mention that he
had two sons, Rufus and, I forget the other one's name, what was
his name? Alexander and Rufus. And there are, in the New Testament,
in the book of Acts, there are mentioned two fellows by the
name of Alexander and Rufus. I have every idea that they wouldn't
have been mentioned there if they weren't probably the same
ones that are mentioned, or at least that they were men known
unto the children of God that were followers of Christ. And
so the Lord brought Simon to that place. Now I don't know
what effect this had on Simon, but I can imagine in my mind
that would be quite an undertaking to carry the cross of the Lord
Jesus Christ, knowing that this instrument of death which was
upon his back was the very one that would cause the Lord's suffering. But we ought to remember that,
that when we look at Christ on the cross, it was our sin that
put him there. You know, and so in that same
fashion, may the Lord cause us. See, when we come to take this
table, now down through the years, as Paul wrote, let a man examine
himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and take of that
cup, for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily is worthy, open to damnation. Now, what
did he mean by that? I mean, is there a way that a
man can come to this table in a worthy fashion? I've had men
preach and teach. I've heard men preach and teach.
Well, you need to do this, and you need to do that, and you
need to get your life all in order and everything before you
come and take this. Well, that's not what he's speaking
about at all. To take this cup and this bread unworthily is
to take it without a due regard unto the one who poured out his
blood and gave his body to be broken. That's to take it unworthily. And I believe sometimes men do
take it unworthily because they take it without a regard to what
it is. They take it because everybody else did. They take it because
it's a religious habit. They take it for many reasons.
But it is a reminder of what Christ did in our behalf. And that's how it should be taken.
And so we see those thieves on the cross. And we know that one
of them turned unto him and asked him
to remember him when he came into his kingdom. But we also
see that he wasn't always like that. Because he reviled the
Lord Jesus Christ. It says both of them reviled
him. They mocked him as they hung
there on the cross. But you see the Lord in his mercy. He said, I'll show mercy to whom
I will show mercy. And the Lord showed mercy to
one of those thieves. And he said, Lord, when you come
into your kingdom because you see what that's what the Lord
revealed to him that he was the king and that's what the Lord
reveals to men when he brings them into the light of salvation
is that he's the king he's not somebody hoping to do something
but he's somebody who does things according to the good pleasure
of his will and when the sixth hour was come There was darkness
over the whole land until the ninth hour. The sixth hour was
about noontime, and because their day started at about six o'clock
in the morning, and went to the noontime was six hour, and the
ninth hour was about three o'clock in the afternoon. Now, it's not
usually dark at three o'clock in the afternoon, but it became
dark. because the sin of God's people was laid upon the Savior.
And the Lord will not look upon sin. And so it was dark. And he cried out, my God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me? Now, In consideration of that,
I want to read, I read a passage last week and Thomas read it
again this morning. I want to read another passage
to you. When these things are shown to, before they ever occurred,
as prophets of old spoke these things. Now David wrote these
words, but these are not the words of David. as we see. Because as we went through the
Psalms, and I hope to have pointed out, that the Psalms are the
Psalms, the words of Christ. These are the things that we
would learn of Him. If you read through the Psalms
and you don't see Christ, then you missed it. You missed what
the Psalms are all about. Psalm 22. And it begins with exactly what
he says there. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping
me and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime,
but thou hearest not, and in the night season, and am not
silent. But thou art holy. O thou then
inhabitest the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in thee,
they trusted and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee and
were delivered, they trusted in thee and were not confounded.
But I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised of the people.
All they that see me laugh me to scorn, they shoot out the
lip, they shake the head. saying he that trusted, he trusted
on the Lord that he would deliver him. Let him deliver him, seeing
he delighted in him. But thou art he that took me
out of the womb. Thou didst make me hope when
I was upon my mother's breast. I was cast upon thee from the
womb. Thou art my God from my mother's
belly. Be not far from me, for trouble
is near, for there is none to help. Many bulls have come past
me, strong bulls of Bashan have sent me round. They gaped upon
me with their mouths as a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured
out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is
like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength
is dried up like a pot shirt, and my tongue cleaveth to my
jaws, and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For dogs
have come past me, the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me,
they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones,
they look and stare upon me, they part my garments among them.
and cast lots upon my vesture. But be not thou far from me,
O Lord. O my strength, haste thee to
help me. Deliver my soul from the sword,
my darling, from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's
mouth, for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.
I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the
congregation while I praise thee. "'Ye that fear the Lord, praise
him. "'All ye that see of Jacob, glorify him, "'and fear him all
ye see of Israel. "'For he hath not despised or
abhorred "'the affliction of the afflicted. "'Neither hath
he hid his face from him, "'but when he cried unto him, he heard.
"'My praise shall be of thee and the great congregation. "'I
will pay my vows before them that fear him.'" The meek shall
eat and be satisfied. They shall praise the Lord that
seek Him. Your heart shall live forever.
All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord,
and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Thee. For
the kingdom is the Lord's, and he is the governor among the
nations. And they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship.
All they that go down to the dust shall bow before him, and
none can keep alive his own soul. A seed shall serve him. It shall
be accounted to the Lord for a generation. They shall come
and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born,
that he has done this. Oh, you see, that's what the
prophecy there by the Lord Jesus Christ of all these things that
he underwent and that would occur as he sent
forth men into the earth to declare the gospel. And what is the gospel? that he hath done this. See,
that's what preaching of the gospel is. Preaching of the gospel
is not trying to get folks to do something. The preaching of
the gospel is the declaration of what he has done. And that's
what we come to remember here today, what he has done. See,
he has paid the price. He's poured out his soul unto
death. He has cried out, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me that his people might not be in such a situation as that?
He was forsaken that we might not be. And Jesus cried with a loud voice
and gave up the ghost. And the veil of the temple was
rent in twain from the top to the bottom. Now that's the blessed truth
of the gospel. Is that that way into the holiest
of all. See that curtain that was in
the temple was a separation between the outer courts and the holy
of holies. The place where the mercy seat
was. The place where the offerings were made. And men couldn't go
in there. Only the priest and only the
high priest once a year could go into that place. It was a
place set apart. Well, when the Lord Jesus Christ
died, the scripture says that the curtain in that temple, that
veil, was torn right down the middle. Can you imagine the consternation
of those priests when they went into the temple and they saw
that temple, that veil torn and that place open? I'm sure they
must have been in great consternation. Oh, what could be done? Nothing
could be done. Because you see, that which the
Lord opens cannot be shut. Even as that which He shuts cannot
be opened. Oh, what a glorious God He is.
What a wondrous salvation. And so, we see another man whom the Lord
singled out, even after he was dead. And when the centurion,
which stood over against him, saw that he so cried out and
gave up the ghost, he said, truly, this man was the Son of God. You see, that's the same thing
as the Lord told Peter when he declared, so he said, Peter,
flesh and blood have not revealed this unto you, but my Father,
which is in heaven. And he's the one who causes men
to know and understand that. Now you see, you can't persuade
a man that that's true. I mean, you can bring all the
arguments you want, and he can be as smart as the smartest man
ever lived, probably a hindrance to him more than anything else,
but you can't convince him. But you see, when God is pleased
to open a man's eyes to see, nothing can convince him otherwise.
And this centurion said, this man was the son of God. And so
they buried him. Joseph of Arimathea came to Pilate
and asked him for the body. Now Joseph of Arimathea was an
honorable counselor. He was one of the Sanhedrin.
He was a high up man in the Jewish councils and government. And
up to this time, he had been kind of hiding back in the shadows. You see, there were some of the
Sanhedrin who were believers, but they were timid believers.
And when all these things were taking place, they kind of hung
back. But don't blame them, because look at what his closest disciples
did. I mean, they all ran away. Why? Because the Lord would bear these
things alone. No man stood with him. So, if
you'd have been there, you'd have been in the same shape.
But, when it pleased the Lord, when it pleased the Lord, Joseph
of Arimathea stood up. And he was not ashamed to be
numbered with Christ. He wanted to be numbered with
Christ. You see, that's the activity of baptism. That's what it is. I mean, a man can be baptized.
It doesn't mean anything. You can put him in the water
and take him out and whatever. But the Lord gave baptism in
water as a sign, as a symbol. of the answer of a good conscience
toward God. That a man says, I desire to
acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that He's
the Savior of sinners, and that I desire to be a follower of
Christ. And that's what Joseph of Arimathea
did right there. He declared by coming in there
and getting the body of Jesus Christ, there was no doubt in
anybody's mind on which side he stood, was there? And he,
and of course it doesn't mention it here, but does in I believe
John's gospel or one of the other gospels, that Nicodemus came
also and he brought the spices and whatever they used to prepare
a body for burial. And so he identified even though
he came to the Lord by night. So when the Lord is pleased to
call a man, he'll bring him out of the darkness and into the
light according as he sees fit. And you can't make that happen
quicker than it'll happen, and you can't hinder it from occurring,
because the Lord will call his people. And Pilate marveled if
he was already dead. Now, why is that a marvelous
thing? Well, it's marvelous because
it usually took a lot longer than that for a man to die, but
you see, the Lord had told Pilate, had he not, and here's the witness
to Pilate. So he told Pilate, you don't
have any power at all over me. He says, I can lay down my life,
I can take it up again. Pilate said, don't you know I've
got that power? He said, no. He said, you don't
have that power. And Pilate marveled because the
Lord, I believe the Lord brought those words back to his mind
that the Lord laid down his life at the moment that he determined
for it to be. When he determined that his heart
would beat its last beat, that was it. And there was nothing
that a man could do to revive him. There wasn't anything that
a man could do to stop his heart before it was going to be. And he gave the body to Joseph.
I believe the Lord put fear into him. Now whether he believed,
I don't have any reason to say that he did. And oft times the
Lord may cause a man to tremble, just as he did I believe it was
Festus or Felix. I always get them confused, one
of them. You know, he trembled. He said, you know, this thing's,
maybe I need to hear some more about this. And they wrapped him in fine
linen and laid him in the tomb of the rich. And as we read there
in Isaiah 53, the other day, that
he made his bed with the rich. He made his grave with the rich.
Oh, what a glorious thing. All those things took place.
You see, it's amazing, I mean, as you read through the scriptures
and you see all these prophecies. And they seem obscure. I mean,
you know, a man can read over these things and never give it
a moment's thought. until he sees Christ. And then
he sees, you know, all these things were there, just like
Brother Thomas brought out this morning. All of these things
were there. They desired to look into them. They wanted to understand it.
I mean, I think about Isaiah, the things he wrote. He didn't
know what he was writing about. He didn't have any understanding.
of what was actually going to happen, but the Lord gave him
these things to write and to prophesy, and he wrote them down,
not for his sake, but what did it say? For the sake of those
it was to come, so that we might look back and read Isaiah's prophecy
and say, praise God, I mean, he set these, he ordered these
things from before the foundation of the world, and these things
are set in stone, and they must occur. Oh, what a glorious Savior
he is. See, all these things had to
happen. They had to happen. Nobody could have prevented it.
And Mary Magdalene and the mother of Joseph beheld where he was
laid. You know, we behold where he was
laid. But the glorious thing is, see, at that point in time
when they beheld where he was laid, they were dejected, no
doubt. They weren't filled with hope
when they put him in the grave. I mean, this was a sad day. I
mean, it's a sad day when anybody that we love is laid to rest
in their grave. I mean, that's a sad thing, is
it not? And even more so, if this person
is one upon whom our hopes of deliverance are put, and we're
thinking, you know, all these things are going to, we're gonna
just receive all these great blessings, and then all of a
sudden, he dies. But brethren, we're blessed,
even as they were blessed in a few days, when they saw that
that tomb was only a temporary dwelling place for the Lord.
He was only there for a few days. And in the Lord's time, he arose. And that's what we celebrate
today. Because we don't celebrate a Christ who is dead. but we celebrate Christ who is
alive. He's not still hanging on the
cross. Now you can see all these religious symbols and what not,
and see a picture of Christ on the cross and all that, and you
know that is what it is. But it's not a true depiction,
because Christ's not on the cross. Christ's seated at the throne,
at the right hand of God. being God and he ever lives to
make intercession for those that come unto God by him by the very
things that we remember today Christ doesn't make intercession
with prayers but he makes intercession by his presence see he makes
intercession by the fact that he poured out his life's blood
for his people and he stands before the throne of God in that
same body You think about that, you know
that was a real body that he came out of the grave in, was
it not? Thomas said, I don't believe it. I won't believe it. Unless I put my hand in the nail
prints, into his side, I won't believe it. The Lord said, come
here, Thomas. Be not faithless, but believe
it. And you see, that's what we come
here today to do. It's exactly the same thing that
Thomas did. We can't believe these things.
These things are beyond our comprehension. And you know, we can think of
it in a theoretical sense, but this is real. This is the real
thing here. I mean, the Lord said, remember
my, I'm giving you this bread. He said, this bread is my body,
which is broken for you. Now we know it's nothing but
bread. But he gave it to us for the
same reason that he told Thomas, reach forth your hand. Because
we're weak and we need that. But see, we won't do this forever.
He said, I'm going to drink this wine with you one more time or
again. But he said, not in this world.
He said, but in that which is to come. And if these things
are not so, he said, and this is a great comfort every time
I read this, he said, if these things that I'm telling you,
that I go away to prepare a place for you, if this was not so,
he said, I would have told you. I believe he would. If this was
all a pipe dream, he'd have said, look, boys, there's nothing to
this. But he said, I'm going. And he
said, not only am I going away, But he says, I'm coming back.
And so we come today to remember the Lord's death until he comes
again. And it's a temporary thing. But
it's a true thing, it's a real thing. I couldn't have ever devised
a means to remember the Lord's death until he comes again. in this fashion but that's the
way he decided to do it. And it is a blessed thing because
the saints of God in all ages have done exactly what we're
doing. He said for the saints of God to remember his death
till he comes again by eating the bread and drinking the wine
and that's what we're going to do today. So we come here today
and remembering what Paul wrote and reminding us In the same
night in which he was betrayed, he took the bread and he blessed
it and he broke it and he gave it to his disciples and he said,
this is my body which is broken for you. This do in remembrance
of me.