The lesson this morning is Luke
23. Luke 23, verses 26-43. We're coming to the cross now,
and there's just endless lessons to be taught from the cross of
Christ. But this morning, I'm going to
try to limit what I have to say to just four things. four lessons
from the cross. So let's read these verses together.
Luke chapter 23, beginning with verse 26. And as they led him away, they
laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country, and
on him they laid the cross that he might bear it after Jesus. And there followed him a great
company of people and of women, which also bewailed and lamented
him. But Jesus, turning unto them,
said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for
yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming
in which they shall say, Blessed are the barren and the wombs
that never bear. and the paps, which never gave
supper. Then shall they begin to say
to the mountains, fall on us, and to the hills, cover us. For
if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the
dry?" Now that's kind of a mysterious saying there, but the green tree
is Christ. If they do these things in a
living A true tree of God. If they do these things in me,
what are they going to do when they die? And there were also two other
malefactors led with him to be put to death. And when they come
to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified
him and the malefactors, one on the right hand and the other
on the left. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do. And they parted his
raiment and cast lots. And the people stood beholding.
And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, he saved
others. Let him save himself, if he be
the Christ, the chosen of God. And the soldiers also mocked
him, coming to him and offering him vinegar, and saying, If thou
be the king of the Jews, save thyself. And a superscription
also was written over him in letters of Greek and of Latin
and of Hebrew, This is the king of the Jews. And one of the malefactors
which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be the Christ,
save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked
him, saying, Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same
condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we
receive the due reward of our deeds. But this man hath done
nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Remember
me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto
him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in
paradise. There's four lessons that I want
us to see in these verses and I hope that God will enable me
to teach them. The first lesson comes from a
man called Simon. Simon Peter, but Simon the Cyrenian. The significance of Simon in
this whole thing is that of bearing the cross of Christ. Not given
a lot of detail as to why he had to carry his cross, but most
writers speculate that our Lord had been up for more than 24
hours A lot of them say 48 hours in prayer. You remember he told
his disciples, you watch here and I'll go yonder to pray. But
they couldn't stay awake. Now they'd only been up 12 hours,
they couldn't stay awake. They'd been up with him. But
he prayed all through the night while they slept. And then they
come and got him and they tortured him all day and then they took
him here and they took him there. This man hadn't slept. in two
or three days. Plus, he'd undergone untold mocking
and stress and just outright punishment. Being lashed, it
was no easy thing to be lashed with a catenante. And he was
in bad shape. And most speculate that he collapsed
under the weight of the cross. And they didn't want him to die
there. They had plans for him to die on that cross. And so
they see this man, this Simon, a Cyrenian, and they got him
to come and bear that cross. He collapsed under the weight
of the cross. And the multitude, I think, feared
being cheated out of his crucifixion. Got this man to carry the cross. This was the hour, our Lord said,
and the power of darkness. Now Simon didn't come there to
bear his cross. You ever think about that? What
was Simon doing there? He didn't come there to bear
our Lord's cross. He bore it because he was compelled
to bear it. That's what it says in Mark 15,
21. And in Matthew 27, 32, in those two accounts of the same
situation, it says they compelled Him. He did not carry His cross. I always hear people talking
about bearing your cross. You don't have a cross. Christ
has a cross. He didn't bear His cross, He
bore Christ's cross. And when we're talking about
cross bearing in this world, we don't have a cross. We bear
His cross. And notice this, He didn't carry
it to be crucified on it. Did He? No. He carried the means
of our Lord's crucifixion. That's why we carry that cross. Some say He carried only the
bottom of the cross, and so carried the backside after Jesus. That's what it says, He bore
the cross after Jesus. The cross we carry is the cross
of Christ, the way of eternal life, the means of substitution,
the way of redemption. Preaching of the cross is to
them that perish foolishness, but unto us that are saved it's
the power, it's the authority of God. We preach Christ crucified,
and Paul said, we glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom the world is crucified unto us, and us unto the world. Another thing here. It was not
Christ that compelled Simon to carry the cross. It was the multitude. It was the enemies of Christ
that compelled him to carry it. Not Christ. They'll have every believer identified
with Christ. The Christ that they have rejected.
And notice this, he was not compelled to carry the Savior on his cross. On his cross. So if we learn
the lessons of the cross, I must learn what it is to be compelled
to carry His cross. We have a cross to bear. It's
His. It's His. And we'll suffer. He suffered. Here's Christ carrying
that cross and they're mocking Him, making fun of Him. They
hate you because they first hated Him. Their hatred for you has
to do with Him. It doesn't have to do with you.
when he learned this. And then the second act of God's
providence that day, which is recorded for our learning, is
this bewailing company of people and women who bewailed and lamented
Christ. Most, if not all, those who were
lamenting over his death were bewailing out of ignorance of
it. They didn't understand why he
was dying. On the road to Emmaus, two of
the disciples walked and talked with the resurrected Christ,
but he didn't reveal himself to them, and he said, why are
you so sad? And they turned, you only been
here today, don't you know what's going on? And they started telling
him about this man called Jesus, and all the good that he did,
and all the miracles he performed. And then they said, we thought,
we thought. He was the Deliverer. They didn't
understand what His death was all about. That's why they bewailed
Him. They thought His death was the
end of their hope. We hope that this should have
been the Christ, the Deliverer, the Messiah. They saw His death
as a victory over evil. They saw his death as a miscarriage
of justice, wrongly judged. They saw his death as an opposition
to the will of God. The death of Christ is the crowning
glory of the work of our Redeemer. Well, that's why we rejoice in
it. Ephesians 1, 6 says, To the praise
of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the
beloved, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness
of sins, according to the riches of his grace." His death was
a victory, not a failure. His death didn't dash our hopes,
it found them. In Colossians 1, 21, and 22,
he said, we're reconciled in the body of his flesh through
death to present us holy and unblameable and unreprovable
in God's sight. It says also in the scripture
that he robed himself in human flesh as a representative man. He's the head of the body of
the church. He ain't talking about a physical
head. He's talking about a federal head. Adam was the federal head
of mankind. Christ is the federal head of
his elect. He's a representative man. He took on him the seed of Abraham,
the seed of promise, not seeds as of many, but thy seed, which
is Christ. And as our federal head and representative,
he become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Men and women find no hope in the death of Christ because they're
ignorant of it. They're ignorant of it. I heard
a famous evangelist back in the 60s, Rex Humbard. He was on TV
one morning, and he was preaching, and he started crying. He said,
if I'd have been there, I'd have stopped it. All the powers in
hell couldn't stop the crucifixion of Christ. That's why he came
into the world. If it be possible, let this cup
pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but
thy will be done. I come to do thy will, O God.
And this was the will of God. They find no hope in the death
of Christ, because they're ignorant of his death, not only of what's
being accomplished by it, but the resurrection of the victorious
Christ, whose resurrection declares our justification. delivered
for our offenses, raised again for our justification." Listen
to this, Romans 4, 25. He was delivered for our offenses,
raised again for our justification. That's what the Word of God says.
These folks were crying and sobbing over this man's sorrows and suffering
and were ignorant of the impending judgment soon to follow. totally
oblivious to their own judgment, of what judgment is. His death is called an act of
kindness. Did you know that? That's what
the scripture said. He gonna show to us the riches
of His grace in His kindness toward us. His death is unparalleled. It's the unparalleled manifestation
of God's love. God commended His love toward
us. in that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. And his death was the effectual
work of reconciliation, reconciled to God by the death of his son.
His death is the hope of helpless sinners. When we were yet without
strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. And what
of that glorious day of the saints' arrival in glory? They all shall
sing, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? And so he turns to these women,
they're bewailing and sobbing and all of these things behind
him. Some with sincerity and just
some because that was the tradition. Some to keep the law. The law
commanded mourners, did you know that? And here's what he tells them
all, sincere or not, don't weep for me. Don't weep for me. Weep for yourselves. Weep for
yourselves and weep for your children. My friend, his death
had an end. It had a purpose. It had a goal.
His death was necessary. His death was sufficient and
effectual. And his suffering and death satisfied
God's justice. His death blotted out our sin,
the scripture says. And while it's commendable to
weep over my sin and weep over my children, it's not commendable
for me to feel sorry for Jesus. Though His suffering and death
had no purpose or reward. Believers rejoice in the cross.
That's the lesson here. We rejoice in the cross. What
if there were no cross? Huh? And then thirdly, I see in his
words a warning concerning the rejection of Christ. Days are
coming, he said. They're coming. Everybody's dancing
and mocking and having fun today. Everybody's standing out here
laughing and spitting in my face, but there's a day coming. And
it ain't far off. And you're going to cry for the
mountains to cover us. You're going to cry to the hills
in that day, fall on us. Hide us from the face of Him
with whom we have to do. Days of wrath, days of destruction,
days of blood up to the bridle of horses. 1.1 million people destroyed
in Jerusalem in 70 AD. Almost a million taken into slavery. Why? They spit in the face of
God's salvation. Here's the very way of God of
salvation. Here's the very glory of God
manifested before men. They spit in his face. They laughed and mocked at God's
Redeemer. They put on a mocking robe of
purple, put on his head a crown of thorns. slapped him and said, blindfolded
him and said, prophesy, who is it that slapped you? Oh, he'll
tell you. He just wasn't going to tell
them on that day, but he'll tell them. Every eye shall see you
and those that pierced you, they're going to see you. They pretended to worship him. They rejected the hope of glory.
And God poured out His wrath on those people and is pouring
it out yet today. But there was a handful there
that day who took part in these things. And our Lord said, Father,
forgive them. Huh? And on the day of Pentecost,
He did. He did. Some 5,000 souls who
actually took part in that crucifixion bowed their knees before Him. I tell you false religion is
a social cancer. It eats away at a nation's flesh
until at last it comes to a devastating end. And that's exactly what
happened to Israel. The reality of sin and judgment,
suffering and separation from God. He that believeth not the
Son, John chapter 3, this is the last verse. He that believeth
not the Son shall not see life. That mean life wasn't manifested?
Oh, it's manifested. Might have been manifested with
him sitting there, but he's not going to see it, because the
wrath of God abideth on him. The prophet said with tears,
except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we'd been like
Sodom and Gomorrah. There'd been nothing left but
ashes. The sin of this religious generation is bringing this country
down, and if it continues to go unrestrained, it will end
in disaster, I guarantee it. Weep for yourselves. That's what
he said. Weep for yourselves. Weep for
me. This whole generation, this whole
religious generation out here, weeping over him with false tears,
weeping. And then lastly, he tells us
in these verses about two malefactors. What do we know about them? Well,
scripture said they were thieves and robbers, probably guilty of sedition and
other crimes. Roman crucifixion was reserved
for the worst of crimes. And I don't know who first said
it, but there were three men that died at Calvary, and one
of them died for sin, one died in sin, and one died without
sin. Three men went to the place of
the skull called Golgotha, and there three men represent all
men. in all times. These three men
represent what took place at that day and every day from that
day to this. They all had names, but two of
them were withheld. I see a man, first of all, dying
in his sin. This man is typical of all men.
All of them born in Adam. Sin entered, death passed. This
is a man who has, like many, heard the gospel and laughed
at the scorn. Heard about mercy and found no
need of it. Heard about grace. Somebody told
him about grace, but his hope was in his own works. He had a life, and he chose to
lead it as it seemed good to him. Over time, he'd become hardened,
gospel-hardened. His heart was like flint, and
standing on the brink of eternity, this man mocked the Son of God.
He did so to gain favor of those religious folks who were standing
on the ground. I see in this man every man,
any man, all men, who have no one to blame but themselves for
their sins, and I see them leaving this world, hating God. You think about that. The second man I see is the God-man,
the Redeemer, the promised Christ and Savior of chosen sinners.
He can't save himself. They said, save yourself if you'd
be the Son of God. Come down from the cross. He
couldn't. I see him bearing the wrath of
God alone, glorifying God in his death, justifying his father
in his own death. I see in him a righteous obedience,
a faithful servant, and a victorious reconciler. That's the Christ. And thirdly, I see a man of faith,
a man whose eyes have been opened by God. He was railing on him
the same as the other one. He joined right in with the crowd.
These men are being crucified next to him. Even being crucified
next to him, they still didn't have any favor. Still couldn't
find any affection for him, no sympathy for him. But all of a sudden, this man's
eyes were opened by God. He sees his sins and his representative. hanging next to Him. I see a
man seeing God's Savior dying for another. I see a man confessing
this dying Savior to be the Lord of Glory. It's a funny thing,
everybody else is calling Him Jesus except this thief on the
cross. He said, Lord. Huh? Oh, I tell you, when God opens
your eyes, He ain't just Jesus anymore. He's Lord. He's Lord. Lord, He said, remember me when
you come into your kingdom. You ain't going to the grave.
You're going into glory. The grave is not going to hold
you down. In these three men, I see how
near to Christ a man can get and still be lost. He could almost touch him. I see in these three men how
near to hell a man can get and yet be saved. Think about that. And I see one who to save others
could not save himself. Oh, by the grace of God, I pray
that the Lord enable us to see these things. to learn them and
know them in our heart. Amen.