Okay, again we're looking at
Luke 23, and this will not be the last message, Lord willing,
from chapter 23 of Luke. I plan to bring one more message
from verse 50 down through verse 56. But I want to camp on this
statement here made by this Roman centurion. This Roman centurion,
verse 47, Luke 23, verse 47, now when the centurion, This man was a Roman soldier,
a Roman soldier. He grew up in idolatry, knew
nothing of the gospel, of the grace of God, but yet when he
saw the events of this day and heard all that the Lord had said,
what was done, he glorified God in saying this, I mean, this is beyond doubt.
He's saying, and God reveals us the purpose and the secrets
of His heart. Certainly, He says of the Lord
Jesus Christ, this One who had just died, this One whom He just
heard say, Father, into Thy hands come in my spirit. He glorified
God saying, certainly this was a righteous man. Amen. He is every way possible,
for He is our holy God. So the title of the message today
is taken from that verse, and I'm going to call this message
the Centurion's Confession. The centurion's confession. God made him confess this. Certainly
this was a righteous man. As we read earlier over in Matthew
27, he also said this, truly this was the Son of God. It's recorded in Mark chapter
15, there it says that truly this man was the Son of God. Now think
about that. This man, righteous man, he's
the Son of God. This truly is a right confession,
saying that the Lord Jesus Christ was a righteous man, or we could
put it this way, this righteous man is God in the flesh. This is a righteous man, this
is God in the flesh. For the Word was made flesh,
and glorified God, the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth. The Word was made flesh, and we beheld His glory,
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth." Now this statement, he says, and he glorified God. This confession that he made,
and was confessed of his heart out of the mouth, glorified God. And that's what saving faith
does. Now here's the verse I mentioned a moment ago, Romans 4, where
Paul writes of Abraham, he staggered not at the promise of God through
unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, being fully
persuaded that what God had promised Now, you think about everything
he's promised. He's promised a whole lot. His whole book is
full of exceeding great and precious promises. Of all that he has
promised, not one word has fallen. He is able to perform. You see, salvation is based upon
his performance. Aren't you glad it's that way?
Aren't you glad that salvation is not based upon what you do,
on your performance, or how you're sorry thing you? You couldn't
be based upon your performance, you wiggling maggot, you sorry
thing. That's all of us, guilty before
God. You see, salvation is based upon
His performance. And I love what David said in
Psalm 57, verse 2, He performed all things for me. Everything
He has promised, He has performed, and He's performed all things
for us. May God be pleased to give us faith To make this confession,
the Lord Jesus Christ is God the Son, and the Lord Jesus Christ
is God our righteousness. Confess and own him as the Apostle
Paul did, as all his righteousness before God. He says of himself,
I count all my goodness as filthy rags, and count them but dung,
that I may win Christ and be found in Him who is the Lord
our righteousness. Now confess, and also to confess
and know Him as the Son of God. Now I want you to hold your place
there, and let me show you how important this is. Over in Acts
chapter 8, turn over there, you remember Philip was sent down
to preach the gospel to a eunuch in the desert country? And that
eunuch was reading from Isaiah 53. He somehow had went to Jerusalem,
had received a copy of a portion of scripture, and he was reading
from Isaiah 53, talking about the Lord Jesus who was wounded
and bruised for us. Our iniquity was laid upon him.
And the eunuch said, verse 34, "'Of whom speaketh the prophet,
this, of himself or of some other man?' And Philip opened his mouth
and began at the same scripture, verse 35, Acts chapter 8, you
got it? And began at the same scripture
and preached unto him Jesus, which means Savior. And as they
went on their way, they came unto a certain water, and the
eunuch said, See, here is water. What doth hinder me? to be baptized. Now evidently there's a whole
lot of conversation that went on between Philip and Eunuch
that's not given to us here. But Philip said this, if thou
believest with all thy heart thou may, and he answered and
said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Now that's
a confession of faith. What happened? Philip commanded
the chariot to stand still. They went down both into the
water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. Upon that
confession, I believe that Jesus cried to the Son of God. Do you
believe that? I certainly do. Bring us back one more time to
this scene at Calvary, what a scene it is. And behold the Lord Jesus
Christ as he accomplishes our salvation for us. Never look
at his death as a defeat, it's a victory. A victory over sin,
death, hell, and the grave. He declares in his last breath
unto us, as we've studied in John 19.30, one of the seven
sayings the Lord declares, it is finished. Salvation is done. When He by Himself purged our
sins, He sat down on the right hand of the throne of God. Why
did He sit down? Done. Salvation is done. Salvation is not you must do
something. Salvation is D-O-N-E. Done. Well done. The Lord Jesus Christ said it
is finished. And He sat down on the right
hand of the throne of God. But I want us to look and to
consider all the miraculous event that took place that day which
caused this hardened Roman ungodly soldier and others to openly
confess that the man that they just nailed to the cross and
crucified in such a brutal, horrible way is the Son of God and is
the righteous man. He is the God-man mediator. Or in other words, He's saying
this man, the Lord Jesus Christ, did not deserve this punishment
and death. He is a righteous man. He's called
in Scripture the just one who had no sin, knew no sin, and
did no sin. This man recognized somehow by
the revelation of God that that man nailed to the tree, beaten
and brutalized, mocked and railed upon, is a righteous man. is the very Son of God, is God
Almighty manifest in the flesh. Now what did cause this callous,
hard-hearted sinner to see and to make such a drastic, glorious
statement? Well, we read a moment ago in
Matthew 27 verse 54 where it says that when the centurion
and they that were with him watching the Lord Jesus Christ. They were
looking to Him, and when they experienced the earthquake and
the different things, they made this confession. They sat down,
it says, as I read earlier, Matthew 27, 36, they sat down and they
watched Him die. Now this was a cruel thing that
they did. You imagine to nail someone to
a cross and often times it took hours and hours and hours, maybe
days for someone to die that was crucified. But they watched
the Lord Jesus Christ for three hours. He was upon this tree
and when he died, For our sin, according to Scripture, they
make this confession. They sat down to make sure that
no one attempted to remove or rescue the Lord Jesus Christ
from His crucifixion. In doing so, the Lord in His
sovereign providence forced these soldiers and others to behold
the event that took place around the cross. They heard the Lord
make those seven statements that I brought to you last week. And they heard and they saw all
these things, and this particular man confesses with a good confession,
glorifying God, he is a righteous man, he is the Son of God. Now, let's go back for a moment,
and let's look at the event that took place, and may God the Holy
Spirit convince you and us to confess that the Lord Jesus Christ
is indeed the Lord in glory, the only Savior of sinners, that
He indeed is the Son of God, that He is God our Savior, that
He is the Lord our righteousness, and the Lord our salvation. I mean, He's not some of our
salvation. He's not some of our righteousness. He's all of our
salvation. He's all of our righteousness
before God. As a matter of fact, the Scripture
says it this way, "...in Him dwells all the fullness of God's
head bodily, and you in Him, as a believer, stand complete."
Completely redeemed. Completely justified. Completely
made holy. Our sin has been completely put
away. I love that word, complete. Christ is all and in all. Now
there are several miraculous events that took place that day
by the sovereign hand of God to declare unto us again that
salvation is of the Lord. All that happened that day is
the Lord's doing. No accident that the Lord at
this time, at this place, is dying this death. At the appointed
time, for the appointed people, by the appointed means, to accomplish
God's appointed end. Him being delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. We say with David in Psalm
118, this is the Lord's doing. This is the Lord's doing, and
it is marvelous in our eyes. Now, the first thing, and there's
four of them I want to bring to our Attention here, in Luke
23, begin reading at verse 44. Three hours of darkness, three
hours of darkness. And it was about the sixth hour,
that is 12 o'clock, high noon. And there was darkness over all
the earth, all the land until the ninth hour. Three hours of
darkness. How could that happen? At noon,
high noon, at high noon, at midday, it suddenly became midnight. It was as though the sun refused
to shine on such a scene as this, as though all nature itself mourned
over such a sight as the creator of glory dies this horrible death. Three hours of darkness was not
something that occurred naturally. Some say there was an extended
eclipse of the sun. I don't think that that was the
case. It wasn't something that occurred
naturally. It was a supernatural occurrence
by the awesome power of God, God who created the light. You
remember in Genesis, he said, let there be light. Now he says,
let the light stop. He turned off the sun. You say,
how can he do that? He's God. He created the light. He created the sun. He controls
all things, all elements. And when he says sun, shine. And when he says sun, stop. What do you have? Darkness. That's
what happened. Three hours of darkness. years,
hundreds of years before this event actually took place. You
know, God, through the prophet Amos, said it would take place
in Amos 8 verse 9. And it shall come to pass in
that day, saith the Lord, that I will cause the sun to go down
at noon. Isn't that amazing? He said it
would. And it happened. And I will darken
the earth in a clear day. Now, what's the lesson for us
here? Well, number one, foremost, God
is control of all things. He is the King of all the earth. Whatsoever the Lord please, that
did He in heaven and earth, sees in all deep places. He controls
the sun, the elements of everything in heaven and in earth. He does
according to His will in the army of heaven among the inhabitants
of this earth and no one can stay His hand. We call that the
absolute sovereignty of God. God is in control of all things.
Secondly, In this darkness we see that God is too holy to look
upon sin with favor. When the Lord Jesus Christ had
all of our sin laid upon Him, God had to turn away. That's
why the Lord cried out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? And we read from Habakkuk, Thou
art of pure eyes, and to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity. God could not look on this sight.
He blotted out the sun. When the Lord Jesus Christ was
made sin for us and to bear the wrath of God. For our sins, He
was forsaken by God. No wonder the Lord cried out
from the cross, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? Remember
what I said from last week in Psalm 22, where it says, Thou
art holy, I am a worm and no man. The Lord Jesus Christ was
actually made sin for us. The Lord God turned off the sunshine
for three hours, To show His abhorrence of sin, and to show
that He is holy, to show that the Lord Jesus Christ was really
and actually made sin for us, He dies as a guilty convicted
felon. Now, He had no sin of His own.
But our sin was so much made His that in Psalm 40 He said,
My iniquities have taken hold upon Me. He really, really was
made sin by the act of God Almighty. Sin is the reason of death. He
was made guilty for our sin. Had He not been made actually
guilty, actually made sin, He could not have died. Death is the result of sin. The wages of death is sin. But think of this also for a
moment. As soon as the Lord Jesus Christ, it says in verse 46,
as soon as He yielded up the ghost and said, Father, into
Thy hand I commend my spirit, having yielded up His spirit,
having accomplished our salvation, you know what happened? The sun
came out. He commanded the sun to shine
again. How do we know that? Malachi
chapter 4. But unto you that fear my name
shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings. You remember by his stripes we
are healed. Three hours of darkness when
he was made sin for us. All the sin of God's elect laid
upon him. All that darkness gathered together
upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And when He by Himself put away
our sin and said, Father, into Thy hand I commend my spirit,
and when He yielded up the ghost, when we yielded up life and accomplished
our salvation, the sun starts to shine. Wow. Another lesson
for us here, by nature we're all born in darkness, loving
darkness, hating the light, because our deeds are evil, the carnal
minded enmity against God. But the Lord in mercy and regenerating
grace causes and commands his light to shine in our hearts,
to cause us to see and believe the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now that's what happens when
God saves a sinner. It's just not moral reformation. I got a letter from a prisoner
yesterday who is, he said in his letter, life without mercy. Up here in the Mount Olive Correctional
Facility up in West Virginia, I actually received letters from
three prisoners there, but this is a new one, and he sent me
a Somehow, I don't know how this happened, but somehow while in
prison he got a bachelor's degree in theology. He's got a degree. He sent it to me. I don't know.
I guess he wanted to impress me or something. I don't know.
I wasn't impressed. But I read his letter and he said that he's
conducting a ministry there in the prison and it's grown from
12 or 15 people to over 100 people a week. And he said, one of the
goals and aims and objectives of our ministry is to reform
the bad morality of the prisoners. I thought to myself, quit the
ministry. If that's your goal and that's
your aim, we don't need a little bit of cleaning up and morality.
Man, we need life from the dead. We need to be regenerated by
the grace of God. He must quicken us and raise
us up from the dead. We don't need just a little moral,
you know, they got this thing in prison. We're going to turn
all their bad people and make them good people. No, they were
bad when they got there. When they get out, they're going
to be just as bad. Guilty. Sinners. They need life from
the dead. But this is what God does in
regenerating grace. He causes the light to shine
in our hearts by His command. He calls us out of darkness into
His marvelous light. We don't just need a little bit
of moral reformation, do we? We're dead. Guilty. Smelly. Graveyard dead. God must
give us life. Or we're going to stay right
in the darkness. So that's the lesson for us. Thank God he calls
us out of darkness into his marvelous light. Thank God he translates
us out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear
son, and he does that by his grace. The second thing I want
us to see, and this is very, very vital and important to us,
turn over here to Matthew 27 now. Matthew 27. So three hours of darkness. The second thing I want us to
see is this. The veil of the temple was rent. The veil of
the temple was rent in two pieces from top to bottom. Now this
veil here was a multiple veil. Some say it was five inches thick. Five inches thick. That separated
the holy place, you remember, from the Holy of Holies. Behind
that veil was the Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy Seat,
and inside that Ark was the Table and the Covenant of the Law.
Upon that Mercy Seat, once a year, the priest, the high priest,
with a designated blood sacrifice, went under that veil, once a
year, into the holy place, to put blood on the Mercy Seat.
making an atonement for the sin of the people. And all that is
a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. Upon that mercy seat, He shed
His blood, enabling God to be just and merciful unto us in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, separating that Holy of
Holies from the holy place was that thick veil. When all that
pictured in that day of atonement was fulfilled and Christ crucified,
what did God do? He tore up the picture. He tore
up the picture. We don't need the picture anymore
because all things have been fulfilled in Christ. All that
was pictured and the type for many thousands of years, the
Lord Jesus Christ, who is our propitiation, who is our mercy
seat, who is our atonement, fulfilled all things, God said, that veil
that separates sinners from coming to the mercy seat, God said,
I'm going to rip it from top to bottom. A complete rending. Why doesn't it say from the bottom
to the top? To show that salvation is from
the top down. That salvation is from the throne
of God down to us poor vile sinners. To show that it was a miraculous
rending and tearing up by God. When the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled
the law, we no longer are under the curse of the law, because
He redeemed us from it. The Lord Jesus Christ, having
entered into glory when He shed His blood, fulfilled the picture,
and God fulfilled the type, and God tore the type up, because
it has been fulfilled. Now I want you to find in your
Bible, this will be a blessing to you. Stay with me now. Turn
to Hebrews 9. And this is exactly what the
Lord, when He fulfilled that day of atonement, as being our
atonement for sin, the holy place, that veil, was rent. Now, the
Lord Jesus Christ, Hebrews 9 verse 11, having obtained for us eternal
redemption. What holy place is he talking
about here? It's not the temple in Jerusalem. Look at verse 24,
Hebrews 9, 24. For Christ is not entered into
the holy places made with hand, which are figures of the true,
but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God
for us, nor yet that he should offer himself often as the high
priest enters into the holy place every year with the blood of
others, For then, must he have often suffered since the foundation
of the world, but now once in the end of the world, hath he
appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, as it is
appointed, and the man wants to die, but after this judgment.
So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto
them that look for him shall he appear the second time without
sin unto salvation. He is our Mercy Seeker. He is
our Propitiation. He is our Great High Priest.
He is our Sacrifice. All things have been fulfilled
in the Lord Jesus Christ, and He tore up the tithe because
it's been fulfilled. Now upon the merit of the Sacrifice
of Christ, God commands all sinners to come to Him, come to Christ. That's what he says in Hebrews
4. I meant for you to stay there, but I'll just try to quote it
to you. Hebrews 4 verse 14 says that we have a great high priest
that descended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of
God, who attempted and tested in all points like as we are
yet without sin, and then he said, come unto me. Come boldly
unto the throne of grace that you may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in our time of need. The Lord our God has opened
the door of mercy for all who are in need of mercy to come
to him for mercy. All you who are laboring and
heavy laden, the Lord said, come. The veil's been rent. The mercy
seat's wide open. You need mercy? Come to Christ. Look to Him. He is our mercy
seat. If any man thirst, the Lord said,
let him come to me and drink. So, you got the first two. Here's
the third thing. Right there in Matthew 27, verse
50, the veil of the temple was rent in two from top to bottom,
the earth did quake, and the rocks were rent, and
the graves were open, And many bodies of those saints who had
been sleeping their body in the grave came out of the grave after
his resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to
many. Now, a miraculous event again. God raised up dead sinners. The Lord, our God, shook the
earth. There was a resurrection of bodies
of dead saints, maybe Abraham, maybe Jacob, maybe David, I don't
know, who were raised from the dead and came forth from the
grave on the third morning that the Lord came forth. Even the
rocks and mountains cry out that salvation is of the Lord. The
resurrection of these dead saints only happened for two reasons.
The Lord Jesus Christ appeared to put away their sin by the
sacrifice of Himself. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's
Son, cleanses us from all our sin. The second reason was that
the Lord Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. Remember, He was
delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification.
His resurrection is the only guarantee of our resurrection
from the dead. Right, that's right. That demonstrates
he has all power over death, hell, and the grave. The Lord
said, because I live, you should live. Yes, he did die a real
death, but he didn't stay dead, did he? His spirit and soul went
back to God that very moment, but three days later his dead
body came out of that tomb as a real living man. He says in
Revelation 1, I'm he that liveth and was dead. Behold, I'm alive
forevermore. I have the keys. Death and hell. Hell and death. This also is
a glorious picture of our salvation, where He breaks our hard and
stony hearts, making us new creatures in Christ. He brings us up from
the spiritual grave of sin by His mighty power and quickens
us together with Christ. For by grace are you saved. He
has quickened us together with Him. Ezekiel writes about this,
this rending of the heart and this quickening from the dead
and this resurrection from the dead. He said, a new heart also
will I give you, a new spirit will I put within you, I will
take away the stony heart out of you, I will give you a heart
of flesh. Now notice how many times that
Ezekiel 36, 26, he said, I will give you. a new heart. I will give you
a new spirit. I will take away that stony heart.
The Lord has died them of a broken heart. Save us such as we of
a contrite spirit." And then he says, I'll give you a new
heart. A heart of flesh he calls it
here. But a heart that's a new heart. A new heart that's created
anew in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now here's the last thing I want
us to look at for just a moment here. And my time is about expired,
but if you turn back to, well we can stay right there in Matthew
27, 54. Now when the centurion and they
that were with him watching Jesus, that's a good thing to do, to
sit down and watch him, look to him. Watching him and saw
the earthquake, felt those things, those things that were done,
they feared greatly, saying, truly, this was the Son of God. And then it says over here in
Luke 23, 47, if you want to turn back over there, now when the
centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, certainly
this was a righteous man. Now what a marvelous confession
this man made, and I think others made too because there were others
there with this centurion, this captain, this Roman soldier.
It seemed to be more than just one man. Those who were forced
to confess that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, is the Son
of God, the Son of God, and He indeed was a righteous man. Now, like many others who were
forced to save the Lord Jesus Christ, he is a righteous man. Remember, we studied what Pilate
said. What did Pilate say of the Lord
Jesus Christ? Not once, not twice, three times. This is, he said, a righteous
man. He said, I find no fault in him. He couldn't find any fault in
him. Pilate's wife even said this, have nothing to do with
this just man, for I've suffered many things in a dream about
him. Even Judas, who betrayed the
Lord Jesus Christ, said this. Remember what he said after he
threw the money back and tried to recant and tried to undo what
he had done in betraying the Lord Jesus Christ? He came back
and said, I've betrayed innocent blood. Surely this is a righteous
man. Truly the Lord Jesus Christ was
and is the holy God-man mediator, the spotless Lamb of God, who
was able to save them to the uttermost, all that come to God
by Him, seeing He ever lived to make intercession for us.
For such a high priest became us, who was holy, harmless, undefiled,
and separate from sin, made higher than the heaven. Yes, He is.
the righteous man. Yes, he is the Son of God, the
Son of God. And truly the Lord Jesus Christ
is the God-man mediator. He had to be the spotless Lamb
of God to die for our sins according to the scripture. And think of
this, the Son of God became the Son of Man born of a woman, made
under the law, to redeem them that were under the law. He had
to be a man, but he's more than just a mere man. He's the God-Man
Mediator. He had to be both. God cannot
suffer. Man alone cannot satisfy. The
God-Man Mediator both suffered and satisfied the Lord Jesus
Christ. In the fullness of time, God
sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that we might
that He might redeem us from the curse of the law. The Son
of God became the Son of Man, that sinful sons of Adam might
be made the sons of God by His righteous obedience unto death. Think of it. Behold what manner
of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called
sons of God. He was obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross. For by one man's disobedience,
Adam's rebellion against God, for by one man's disobedience
were many made sinners, so by the obedience of another shall
many be made righteous. He is the righteous man. He is the God-man mediator. He is the Son of God, the Son
of Man. He is the Lord our righteousness.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes righteousness without
works. May God be pleased to work this
salvation in our hearts and cause us to confess Him as God our
Savior, to cause us to confess Him as the Lord our righteousness. How righteous must I be to stand
before God? Your morality won't cut it. Your
morality won't get it done. You have to be as righteous as
God. How can that be? Only in Christ. That's why Paul said, I must
be found in Him. May God give us faith and grace
in our heart to say with the Apostle Thomas, remember what
his confession was? My Lord and my God. Yes, He is the Son of God. Yes,
He is a righteous man. Yes, He's God, my righteousness. Verily, verily, our Lord said,
I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath. H-A-T-H. Hath. What does that mean? Got it.
Everlasting life. He that believeth on me. everlasting
life. Well, may the Lord bless His
word to your heart.