There was, throughout the days
of the Old Testament, a covering spread over all the nations of
the world, a veil that separated you and me and others like us,
and would have separated us forever had not God's own Son, the Lord
Jesus, taken it out of the way. It was a covering cast over all
people, the prophet says. A veil spread over all nations. That veil, that covering that
separated fallen, sinful man from the holy Lord God was the
covenant of works represented in the law that God gave to the
children of Israel. That old covenant covenant that
required perfect obedience. That covenant that required perfect
obedience. God's injured perfections demanded
total separation between us and him. That separation, that covenant,
that covering that kept us in darkness, hiding us from the
light of the knowledge of the glory of God, shining forth in
the face of Jesus Christ, was symbolized in the veil of the
temple, behind which was the Ark of the Covenant, where God
said, I will meet you there on the mercy seat. that veil that
separated all nations, not just the Jews, but all men from the
place where God's glory was revealed in the Holy of Holies. that thick,
thick veil hanging between the holy place and the most holy
place, stood before a fallen man and declared, your iniquities
have separated between you and your God. But now, by his precious
undertaking, fulfilling the whole covenant of works, Meeting all
the demands of God's holiness, righteousness, and justice. Satisfying
all the demands of God's holy law. Bringing to God as a man
perfect obedience, perfect submission, perfect faith, perfect manhood. The Lord God our Savior has restored
the honor of God, magnified the injured perfections of the Almighty,
satisfied the justice of God, and atoned for sin. And having
done so, he opened for us a new and living way by his blood,
that way which he consecrated through the veil of his flesh.
Our Lord Jesus, by his obedience unto God as the sinner's substitute,
has opened the way to God for sinners like you and me. John
was in the spirit on the Lord's day. And he said, behold, I saw
a door open in heaven. The Lord Jesus has opened the
way for sinners to come to God. Look here at Isaiah 25, verse
seven. This is what the prophet Isaiah
foretold in this text of scripture. And he will destroy. That word
destroy means to remove. to take away, to swallow up,
to consume, to take away by swallowing. And he will destroy in this mountain
the face of the covering cast over all people and the veil
that is spread over all nations. And my subject tonight is the
covering removed. I want to show you what the scriptures
teach us about the removing of this covering, this thick veil
that separated man from God and would continue to separate man
from God were it not for the undertaking and the accomplishment
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, hold your hands here in
Isaiah 25 and turn with me. I'll just put a bookmark there.
We'll be back in a little while. Isaiah, or Matthew chapter 27. I want
you to look at three gospel passages. that which Isaiah prophesied
in Isaiah 25 7, God the Holy Ghost inspired all three synoptic
gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, to describe for us
in the actual event of it. Let's read all three of the gospel
records of the rending of the veil by Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John. Matthew 27 and verse 45. Now from the sixth hour, there
was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about
the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli,
lama sabachthani. That is to say, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? Some of them that stood there,
when they heard that said, this man calleth for Elias. And straightway
one of them ran and took a sponge and filled it with vinegar and
put it on a reed and gave him to drink. The rest said, let
it be. Let us see whether Elias will
come and save him. Jesus, when he had cried again
with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And behold, the veil
of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, and
the earth did quake, and the rocks rent, and the graves were
opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and
came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into
the holy city, and appeared unto many. Now when the centurion
and they that were with him watching Jesus saw the earthquake and
those things that were done, they saw the rising of the dead. They saw graves opening. Men
get up and walk out of their graves in the city of Jerusalem. They saw the quaking of the earth. They saw those things. They saw
the sun darken for three hours. They heard the Savior's cry.
There's no way they could have seen the rending of the veil.
These other things they saw. They saw the things that were
done, they feared greatly saying truly, this was the Son of God. That doesn't mean they believed,
that doesn't mean they trusted Christ, that means they were
convinced this man who thus cried and this is the response, this
man is the Son of God. Turn to Mark chapter 15, the
15th chapter of Mark's gospel. Verse 33. 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 and 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. One more text, Luke 23, Luke
23, verse 45. Or verse 44, and it was about
the sixth hour and there was darkness over all the earth until
the ninth hour and the sun was dark, and the veil of the temple
was rent in the midst. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all
three were inspired of God the Holy Spirit. to show us how our
Lord Jesus, our Savior, that God spoken of in Isaiah 25, effectually
fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy. These are divinely inspired records
of our Savior's last three hours on this earth. as he hung upon
the curse tree, enduring those last three hours of torture for
us as our substitute because he was made sin for us. Let us
never read these inspired narratives or hear of them or think of them. without our hearts being broken
and yet at the same time rejoicing in the remembrance of what our
Savior has accomplished for us in the forgiveness of sin obtained
by his obedience unto death. May God the Holy Spirit sanctify
them to our hearts as we once more attempt to meditate on them.
The darkness. The darkness that was over all
the earth for three hours. This was not a natural solar
eclipse that would not produce darkness over all the earth.
This was a supernatural eclipse. It was something specifically
performed by God on this specific occasion because of the message
God would give us from this darkness. It was an eclipse that the prophet
Amos spoke of in the eighth chapter of the book of Amos. Just listen.
It shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that
I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the
earth in the clear day. The darkness lasted for three
hours. Imagine that. It was attested
to by men in other parts of the world who had no idea what was
going on. There was one fellow by the name
of Dionysus, living in Egypt at the time, who wrote these
words. Either the divine being suffers or suffers with him that
suffers, or else the frame of the world is dissolving. Apparently,
the eclipse was not just over that part of the world, but was
over the entire world itself. A remarkable, miraculous eclipse
for three hours. From high noon to three o'clock,
the sun refused to shine and God speaks. God often speaks
in his acts more loudly than he does even with his voice. There are clearly many things
to be learned from this, this darkness over the earth. Let
me call your attention to three or four. First, there is here
an obvious display in God's providence of the heinousness of the crime
being committed. Men, by their wicked hands, took
an innocent man, a righteous man, a good man. The only innocent, righteous,
good man ever to walk among men. The only one ever was. They took
an innocent, holy man and put him to death as the vilest of
men. But more than that, the man they
nailed to the tree is himself the Lord of glory, the eternal
God in human flesh. Men with their wicked hands,
by their wicked will, did exactly what man wants to do to God. Men, by their wicked hands, with
their wicked will, with determined hearts, did exactly what all
men by nature want to do with God. They nailed him to the tree,
spit in his face, trampled on his blood, and mocked him as
he died. I know, yes. We understand, yes. We believe, we proclaim, we proclaim
it everywhere. This was done by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. Nothing happens, nothing
happens in this world but according to God's determinate counsel,
according to God's predestination. But that gives no excuse to man
in his ungodliness. Now, men try to make an excuse
for it. Men try to use God's sovereignty, well, I couldn't
help it, God required that. I couldn't help it, God, you
tell me God, God ordained this, God purposed this. God purposed
every breath you draw. But every man is responsible
to God for everything he does, and you know it. You cannot escape
it. Your conscience won't allow it.
Every man is responsible to God for what he does, except those
men and those women whose sins have been entirely put away by
the sacrifice of that man we nailed to the tree. Another thing
that's obvious from these three hours of darkness is the blackness,
the darkness, the blindness of man's heart by nature. These
men we read about here, these men who their hands are dripping
with the blood of the Son of God, and they see the darkness
for three hours. Nobody ever heard tell us such
a thing. It wasn't written in any books. It had never happened
before. They see this darkness for three hours. And then they
are standing here and the earth begins to quake beneath them. And some of the graves are opened
right next to them. And folks get up and walk out
of the graves in the holy city. Now, Brother John, what does
all that mean? I don't know, except I know it means some folks
got up and walked out of the graves. Dead men got up walking, saints
of God resurrected by a miraculous intervention of God, and men
saw it with their eyes, and their hearts were unchanged. Isn't
that amazing? Their hearts unchanged. They
saw the Son of God die under the wrath of God. They heard
what we commonly call the seven sayings of Christ on the cross.
They heard every one of them. We delight to hear them preach,
delight to read them, delight to think of them. Father, forgive
them, they don't know what they do. Father, into thy hands I
commend my spirit. It is finished. They heard them.
Had no effect on them. No effect. Providence alone. Things that are looked upon as
good experiences of providence and things that are looked upon
as providential judgments. Mighty works displayed in creation
and in providence. Acts of God in human history
never work repentance in man. Never. They work up scares in
men. They work up religion in men.
They work up emotions in men. They never work repentance in
men. Yes, God uses events of providence
in conjunction with His Word and the power of His Spirit for
the saving of His elect, but providence alone Men left to
understand the things of God merely by the works of God in
creation and providence will never know God because there
is a blackness, a darkness in the heart of death that cannot
see or understand or hear God speak. Third, These three hours
of darkness certainly stand as a display to us of the emptiness
and darkness of Christless religion. The scriptures at this time refer
to the Jews' Passover and to the Jews' Temple. You see, the
religion of Judaism had become nothing but idolatry. It was
nothing but the Jews' religion. But they practiced religion in
theory, in creed, in ceremony, in ritual, in sacrifice, in holy
days, exactly according to the law of Moses in the outward letter
fulfillment of the law. They did, they did. But their
religion was nothing but idolatry. You see, it was a lifeless, Christless,
godless religion. And religion without Christ,
without life, without faith, without God is darkness. Just more darkness. Just more
darkness. No matter how orthodox it appears
to be. Oh, the darkness of men. Oh, the darkness of women, whose
sin-darkened hearts are darkened yet more with religion without
God. Some years ago, Brother David
Pledger and I were chatting one day, talking on the phone, and
the subject of infant baptism came up, And David said to me,
I believe it to be the greatest, most damning error in religion
today. By bringing children into the
church as infants and convincing children as children that they're
gods because they've been brought up to be gods. You convince children
early that they know God when they don't know God and make
them twofold more the child of hell than they were before. Here's
the fourth thing. And perhaps this more important,
certainly this more important than any of the others. The darkness
that passed upon and engulfed our Savior's holy soul when he
was made sin for us, here represented in three hours of darkness. Matthew tells us about the ninth
hour, about three o'clock in the afternoon, which was about
the time of the slaying of the evening sacrifice according to
the law. That imminent picture of Christ
in the evening sacrifice, about the time of the evening sacrifice
being slain and offered to God, Jesus cried with a loud voice. He cried out as one who was in
great distress. He had been silent during the
three hours of darkness, patiently bearing the soul of his sufferings. God, forsaken of God. God under the sense of the wrath
of God. God hiding his face from God. Our Savior's conflicts in soul,
his conflicts with the power of darkness, for three hours
they go on in silence, but now in the anguish of his soul, he
breaks the silence and cries with a loud voice, my God, my
God. Why hast thou forsaken me? I dare not attempt to pry into
things I don't know, things too sacred for me to pry into. But here our Savior speaks as
a man, the man who had been chosen, ordained, and anointed by God,
the triune Jehovah. with the oil of gladness above
his fellows. A man strengthened by the Father
just as we are. A man who trusted God just like
you do, only perfectly. A man who loved God just like
I do, only perfectly. A man who prayed just like I
do, only perfectly. a man without sin. And though
now the father hid his face from him, this man, in the midst of
darkness, like you and I, thank God can never know, still believed
God. Isn't that amazing? My God. God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
When he said that, he's not indicating in any way that he was separated
from his father's love, or that he did not know that the reason
for his abandonment. In fact, if you read the Psalms,
you see clearly that neither of those things are true. He
was not separated from the Father's love, but totally separated from
the sense of his love. Because of the sin made his,
and his abandonment because of that sin. Thou art of purer eyes
than to behold iniquity. This cry expresses the very soul
of his sufferings. Indeed, all the wailing and howling
of the damned in hell for all eternity will fall infinitely
short of expressing the evil and bitterness of sin. But here
we see how bitter and evil the thing is, this thing called sin
is. When God found sin on his son, he gave no mercy, no leniency. He didn't back away
at all, but rather pour out on him. Oh, the fury of hell! At one time, crying awake, O
sword, against the man that is my fellow, smite and slay the
shepherd. How great the price of our ransom. The Lord God Our infinitely holy
and just God will by no means clear the guilty. The Holy Lord
God must and will punish sin. Oh, how infinite, how indescribable
must be the love of God for us. For God so loved the world God
so loved his people, scattered through all the nations and ages
and places of the world. Every rank in society, God so
loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Now
learn this. Learn this. Sinners for whom Christ was forsaken
of God shall never be forsaken, no matter
what. Not at any time, not under any
circumstances. Sinners for whom Christ was forsaken
shall never be forsaken. not while the world stands and
not in the world to come. And after that, our Lord Jesus
yielded up the ghost and the veil of the temple was rent in
twain. What's that talking about? Obviously, it's referring to
the physical splitting of that veil. It was rent from top to
bottom. The language of Scripture is
specific. Had it been rent from the bottom up, you might have
supposed it were worn out with time. After all, for all those
years, it was pulled back by the priest. It was moved from
place to place. Had it been rent from side to
side, maybe the earthquake had done it. But no, it's rent from
the top. from the height of the roof of
the holy place, to the bottom of the golden floor, rent in
two. Rent in two. And when it was
rent in two, those golden cherubim that were worked into the fabric
of the cloth of that veil, that thick, thick veil. It was probably
at least a foot thick. And the cherubs were woven into
it so that the cherubs were part of the veil. Those cherubs, most
folks seem to think, were representative of God's church. Whether that's
the case or not, and I think I'm inclined to agree, but if
those cherubs represent us and the rending of the veil, God's people, every sinner in
union with Jesus Christ, God's elect, when he died, died with
him. We are crucified with Christ. And when he was buried, we were
buried with him. When he arose, we arose with
him. When he took his seat in heaven,
we took our seat in heaven with him. Certainly, the rending of
that veil means that God has opened the way for sinners to
come to God. That thick veil, that thick veil,
it was hung wherever the tabernacle went. And when they built the
temple, it was hung there. When Solomon's temple was torn
down by Nebuchadnezzar and then rebuilt after the Babylonian
captivity, they hung the veil up again, and there it hung.
And all those years, that thick veil said, man can't come to
God, and God won't come to man. God split the veil into. And God says, I found a way whereby
I can and do come to men, and men are welcome and free to come
to me. And that way is the sacrifice
of his son. He made him sin for us who knew
no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. And now the Lord God bids sinners
come to Him through Christ Jesus, our crucified Redeemer, and find
acceptance with Him, and find mercy and grace to help in time
of need with Him. God rends the veil in two, and
bids sinners come to Him, declaring by the rent veil that that old
covenant That old covenant of works. That old covenant that
required perfect obedience. That old covenant that declared
God must and shall punish sin. Justice must be satisfied. Righteousness
must be brought in. When God rent the veil, the Lord
God declared the covenant fulfilled. Justice satisfied. Sin put away. And now he who will by no means
clear the guilty, forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin freely,
righteously, and justly. That's the meaning of Isaiah's
prophecy here. He will destroy. He who is our
God, the Lord of hosts, the Lord Jesus Christ will swallow up. He will consume. He will take
out of the way. He will move aside in this mountain,
the face of the covering cast over all people and the veil
that's spread over all nations to this day. A veil, Moses, is
spread over the face of the Jews, we're told in 1 Corinthians 3,
but not just the Jews, of all men, of all men, there's a veil. God requires perfection. God
requires obedience. God requires righteousness. And
men groping about in darkness go about to establish righteousness
and they can't do it! Christ took the veil away, and
he comes by his Spirit, who swallowed up all the justice and wrath
of God, all the curse of God's law, and graciously takes the
veil from off our eyes, giving us light, and the glory of God
shining in our hearts is God bringing to light, bringing life
to light by the gospel. He brings life to light. And
now sinners understand what God requires. Everything
God demands. Oh my soul, how sweet the news. Everything God requires. Everything God demands, Jesus
Christ has accomplished and is mine in Him. And now Christ,
who is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who
believes, bids me come to God in perfect righteousness, in
complete justice. in the strict demands of holiness
by his matchless free grace through Jesus Christ, my crucified Redeemer. Oh, what a blessed, blessed privilege
to walk with God by faith in Christ. And then, then, something
better. something better, to see him
face to face as he is, where there is no temple and no sacrifice
and no ritual and no ceremony. but the continual beholding of
the Lamb of God and of all God's purpose and work and grace in
the face of Christ the Lamb who swallowed up the covering so
that we can see and walk with Him in the light. Christ who
took away the covering who split the veil in two. Tell sinners,
you're not only welcome to come to God by me. But this is the
safest place to be all the time. This is the best place to be
all the time. Walking with God in the Holy
of Holies within the veil as the priest of God, holy and righteous
and blessed. Amen.