The Crucifixion Of Christ

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Turn with me, please, to the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 27. The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 27.
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Let us ask the Lord's blessing upon us as we look to His Word. Our great and gracious Father, we come before you this morning, and once again we plead for your
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Spirit to be with us on this special day as we consider the great saving act of the
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Triune God and the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord and Savior. We ask that our contemplations would not be marked by tradition or apathy, but instead,
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Lord, we would hear your Word and would once again be stirred to the very depths of our souls concerning what you have done to glorify yourself, what you have done to provide for us forgiveness and eternal life.
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We ask that you would bless this time to your honor and glory. We pray in Christ's name.
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Amen. There are many today gathering in our nation, or have already done so, who have, at least in some shape or fashion, in some way acknowledged the centrality of the cross of Jesus Christ and the resurrection.
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Now, I submit to you that a person who attends a religious service wherein the cross is presented, wherein the death of Christ is presented, and wherein the resurrection from the dead is presented, who tomorrow lives the same life they would have lived if they had not attended that service, probably has not heard much of what was said in a spiritual sense.
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That is, there is a tremendous amount of nominalism, there is a tremendous amount of religiosity that still remains, even though all studies say that that is diminishing.
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The nones, N -O -N -E -S, are the fastest growing group in our society.
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Protestants are no longer the majority in our society. The none of the above group is a fast growing group.
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But even amongst those who call themselves Protestants, we must be honest with ourselves and recognize that to find a gospel preaching church where the gospel in its fullness, not just in a traditional sense, but in its biblical sense, is presented, and people are challenged to actually live their lives daily thinking about the issues of the world in light of the crucified
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Messiah and His resurrection, well, those churches are not nearly as common as they once were.
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And so many people have heard the story today, and in many, many churches, and I could name a few churches within just a few miles of where we are right now, there have been crosses shown and processions done, but the reality is the preaching and teaching has been based upon the idea that this is all myth and legend.
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That even if there was something that happened, certainly there is nothing about the Bible that is consistent enough, inspired enough, to give us a meaningful understanding, a solid foundation upon which to understand what
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God's purposes were, or what Christ's intention was. And so what we're supposed to do is we're supposed to look at the many voices of Scripture, which is a nice way of saying contradictory teachings in Scripture, and what we do in our day as good postmodernists is we take all of that and we create a narrative for ourselves that makes us, we think, better people.
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I would submit to you most of the time it's just a narrative that makes us more comfortable with the way we are and doesn't challenge us really to change or to live a godly life or anything, but that's what postmodernism is all about, and I could name some churches very nearby where that's probably what has happened today.
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And so if we want to really consider the significance of this day, we have to recognize that though today is the day when we celebrate the resurrection, the resurrection obviously first required an understanding of the crucifixion, and I really, really wonder how many people today,
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I would suggest to you that there may be a higher percentage of the people attending
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Christian services who have understood the real purpose of this special day outside Western cultures than inside Western cultures.
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In other words, churches where the people are poor, churches where the people do not have nearly the physical blessings that we do, and yet they are focused upon the things of the gospel in such a way that maybe a higher percentage of those people really have entered in today to understand what the biblical message actually is than amongst people who are so distracted with the things of the world, so distracted with entertainments and everything else that they look at the cross and what they really embrace is a tradition, it's a sentimentality, it's a childhood story that they've never recognized has a much deeper element to it than they might be comfortable with.
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And so we look this morning, as I normally do when I preach, I have a morning part and an evening part, and so this morning we will be looking at the crucifixion, this evening at the resurrection.
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So if you are really focused upon the resurrection element, you've got to come back this evening.
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So that's just how that's going to work. But here in Matthew chapter 27, you know the background, you know this story very, very well, and one of my concerns is that you know this story very, very well.
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That's one of the concerns we should all have, is that we know the story very, very well. We've heard it. If you've been blessed like I have to be raised in a
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Christian family, it's the first story that I can even remember hearing or understanding was the cross of Jesus Christ.
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And you know the background. You know the betrayal. You know about Judas. And so we just jump directly into the narrative, and I want to walk through this and make some applications, and I hope we can hear the text in a way that transcends just simply our familiarity with it.
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I will admit that I saw something in my preparation that, well, anymore,
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I have to really wonder if, I was going to say that I had never seen before, but once you get past a certain age,
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I may have seen it before, but I've forgotten that I did see it before, and hence I've forgotten that I've forgotten that I had seen it before, and it becomes a really, really sad thing, and I just need to talk to Pastor Fry about how to handle these things a little bit better.
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But he did say he was looking for a new elder, so maybe
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I just, you know. No, it's just saying that he has more experience at these things than I do. That's the real issue there.
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Verse 33, and when they came to a place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull.
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By the way, just for your information, just for your information, we talk about Mount Calvary, don't we?
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Unless you have the King James Version of the Bible, you don't have the word Calvary anywhere. You know why? It's only found one place in the
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King James Version of the Bible in Luke chapter 23, as I recall, and it's because the translators there for some reason decided to just transliterate the
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Latin. And the Latin is Calvary is the skull.
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And so this is the same place. The place of the skull is in Latin, Calvary, and that's where it came from.
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So if you're wondering why the different words, I've not had the opportunity of going over there, but my understanding is from certain directions, this particular hill looks like a skull.
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Just like from certain directions, you have Camelback Mountain. In other directions, you go, why did they call it that?
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I have no earthly idea. But that's where this comes from. And when they came to a place called
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Golgotha, which means place of a skull, they gave him wine to drink mixed with gall, and after tasting it, he was unwilling to drink.
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This was actually an act of mercy on the part of the
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Romans because crucifixion is an incredibly painful experience.
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And then notice verse 35. All of the movies that we have that focus in upon the camera angle, upon the nails and the hammer and all the rest of that stuff, it's never found in Scripture.
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Never found in the recording of what took place. In fact, all you have are three
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Greek words which are introducing the rest of the verse.
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And when they had crucified him, this focus upon the issue, it wasn't necessary for the writers because everyone knew back then what
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I've emphasized to you many, many times. And that was everyone in this society knew what crucifixion was.
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They did not need a description. They did not need a graphic description or reminder.
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Sometimes we do, though sometimes I think we go beyond that because we have so taken away the scandal of the cross.
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But I remind you, just in case you've not heard me say it, there were writers in the ancient world that wouldn't even use this word because it was almost an off -color word.
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It was so reprehensible. It was so despicable. In fact, one of the primary apologetic arguments against the early
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Christians in the 2nd century was how can you be a follower of a man who was crucified?
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Crucifixion is for the lowest of the low. It is for the worst criminal.
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And yet, the Gospel writers state it plainly, but they do not expand upon it because they didn't need to.
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And when they had crucified him, they divided up his garments among themselves by casting lots.
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Now, yes, crucifixion was not only a painful, horrible way to die, but it was a humiliating way to die.
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All of our representations, obviously for modesty's sake, provide some kind of clothing, but there was no clothing.
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This was meant to humiliate. It was meant to be an example of Roman power. And so they divide up his garments amongst themselves by casting lots.
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And then, because there had been in times past those situations where having crucified someone, the
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Romans left, and then local people sneak out of the hills or wherever else it might be and come and take down their loved ones or people like that, it had become common to place a guard during the time of crucifixion so that that would not take place.
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And so sitting down, they began to keep watch over him there. And above his head, they put the charge against him which read,
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This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. So you know what has gone on before.
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You know now what has taken place. Jesus has come to the place of crucifixion. Probably he has at first been carrying the crossbar very frequently.
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You see someone carrying the whole cross. That's probably not the way it was. They would leave, since this had been used before as a place of execution.
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They would leave the upright in the ground because it would be very, very heavy and just force a person to carry the cross beam which itself would be very, very heavy.
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And because of the beating, Jesus is not able to do that. And Simon of Cyrene is caused to carry it that final distance.
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But when they attach the cross beam to the bar, clearly above his head, unlike what
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Jehovah's Witnesses would like you to think when they come to your door and say that Jesus was crucified on a single pole.
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John talks about the nails in his hands. But they often have just a cross beam and the bar.
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But above his head, they have put the charge, This is Jesus, the
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King of the Jews. And as in so many of the events in the crucifixion of Christ, what you have said on the part of his enemies is true in a way that they could not begin to understand.
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It reminds me much of John 11 when at the end of the chapter, after Lazarus has been raised from the dead, the chief priest abrades the others and says,
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Don't you know it is better for one man to die of the people than for the whole people to be destroyed.
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And he's prophesying, but he doesn't even understand the meaning of what he's saying.
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In the same way, here you have the Romans, and they're the same ones who had mocked him and had beaten him and had plated the crown of thorns and placed it upon his head.
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And they were engaging in humiliation of this one, partly to demonstrate their supremacy and to put down any ideas of rebellion,
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King of the Jews, etc., etc., but partly because, well, evil men in company with other evil men who are used to doing violent things like to do violent things in the presence of other violent men.
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And so, mockery is very common in that situation.
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And so this is the accusation. And in other situations, this placard we placed above someone, this person was a robber.
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This person wounded a Roman soldier. This person was a traitor. This person was...
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Whatever the crime might be, the idea was to give the passers -by a clear indication of just what it was that had caused this person to come to such a gruesome and horrific end.
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And, of course, the idea was, you took away from that, that's something I don't want to do.
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And so the idea here is, there is only one King of the Jews, and that's
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Caesar. And the irony was, that's exactly what the Jews themselves had said. Those who had stood before Herod and Pilate and had said, we have only one
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King, and that's Caesar. And yet, there was more truth to the accusation than the ones making the accusation could ever begin to understand.
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Because the placard was true. This is Jesus. And He is the
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King of the Jews. And by the end of this narrative, a
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Roman himself is going to look upon this one and recognize, not only is
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He the King of the Jews, He's really the King of all. He is the Son of God. But there's no way that those
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Romans at this point in time could understand the truthfulness of what they themselves were saying. And we're given a little bit of the background here.
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At that time, two robbers were crucified with Him. One on the right hand and one on the left hand.
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I mentioned to Pastor Fry this morning, I just happened to look at the Latin translation at that point, and I did not realize that the word for left was sinister.
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I guess if any of you are left -handed, you might want to consider what that might mean. I don't know.
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But you have the standard vision of Jesus in the center and one on each side of the
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Messiah. Two robbers, two thieves. We learn a little bit more about them in the other
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Gospels. In fact, Matthew really isn't overly concerned with them. He doesn't narrate the situation that takes place with one of these two.
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None of the Gospels are attempting to give us a minute -by -minute description of the entirety of this time or everything that took place.
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In fact, when you talk about the seven last words, or in all probability, six last words of Jesus, what we're doing is we're taking a number of accounts and putting them together as best that we can.
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And that's perfectly appropriate to do, but it's always important to let each author give us exactly what he wants to give us.
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He's the one that's made the choice of all the things that are available to him, what he's going to include in his story.
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And Matthew says that there were those who were passing by. They were passing by.
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So, these weren't really necessarily people. All of them. Some of them obviously were, but this was a place in and out of Jerusalem.
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And so, I mean, the Romans aren't going to do crucifixion out in the backwoods someplace, because then it doesn't have the effect it's supposed to have.
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They would normally do it along roadways. So that as you're going in and out, I mean, they wouldn't do it out in the middle of a park here in Arizona if this were to happen.
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They would do it along I -17, along a major thoroughfare, because it was meant to have an effect upon the population, especially at this point in time.
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At this point in time, you have the Romans very concerned about rebellion and messiahs and things like that.
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And this is the time of Passover. Jerusalem has more people in it now than it does at any other time of the year.
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And so that's when they're going to have the biggest problems. They bring in the most soldiers at this time, etc., etc. And so they want this to have some kind of a meaningful impact upon the population.
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And so there are passers -by, and they are hurling abuse at him, wagging their heads and saying, you who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself!
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Now this has been part of the accusation of the trial. They tried to get him, a destroyer of a temple, with someone who was in a great deal of trouble with the
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Romans. The Romans recognized that one of the scariest things that could have happened was to have strife in between various religious groups.
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And so a very serious criminal offense was to be a robber or a destroyer of temples.
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You were supposed to respect even those temples. You didn't worship that god, but you better not rob from that.
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That could cause all sorts of problems. The Romans had strong arguments about that. So they had attempted to accuse
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Jesus of being a destroyer of temples. Destroy this temple, and in three days I'll raise it up. And we know the story of that from John chapter 2 especially.
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Of course, they didn't understand what Jesus was saying. And we, knowing the rest of the story, know the rest of the story.
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You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! The temple had taken many, many, many years to build.
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In our day, we are astounded at how quickly buildings are built. Sometimes you'll go down a road.
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Certainly this was the case, especially in the 70s and 80s here in Phoenix. And you go down a road, and you hadn't gone down that road for just a few months, and all of a sudden, here's this big, huge building.
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And it's just like it just popped out of the ground at the speed at which building was going on.
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It's obviously slowed down a lot over the years, but you can put buildings up very, very, very quickly.
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That's a modern thing. It has been well said that every single one of those architects who designed the great cathedrals that we see in Europe, for example, never lived to see the building.
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They designed it. They never saw it built. Because it would take 60, 70, 80, sometimes hundreds of years to actually complete these massive projects because they did not have the technology and manpower that we have in the modern day.
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And certainly, it had taken decades to build the temple. And so, it had gotten around.
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Jesus had made this statement. And so, there are those who are passing by, you who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself.
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If you have such power over a physical building, and they didn't understand the temple was the temple of His body, and all the rest of this stuff, again, there's truth in their words that they don't know.
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If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.
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Jesus had made that claim. They knew that Jesus had spoken of being the
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Son of God in a way that could not be used of any other human being. There are many who are called sons of God in the
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Scripture, but not in the unique way that Jesus is called the Son of God. If you are the
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Son of God, come down from the cross. Now, once again, we must see the picture of what is going on here.
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The One who created the wood of the tree that He has hung upon certainly had the power to deliver
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Himself. Not only could He have destroyed the temple and raised it in three days, if that's what
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He had been talking about, He certainly could have done that. But He had the power to fulfill this mocking chant from the passers -by.
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But the problem was, if He did that, then He would betray His own mission.
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He would betray His own purpose. He would betray being the Son of God because as the Son of God, He had said it was for this purpose that I have come.
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And so there is deep irony in that the humility that is shown by the
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Son of God is a humility of power. He is seen right now as being totally helpless, completely weak, without power.
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And yet the reality is He has all power, but is controlling that power.
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Controlling that power for the majesty of God, the glory of God, and for the accomplishment of a purpose.
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In the same way, the chief priests also, along with the scribes and elders, were mocking
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Him. These are the ones who had stood before Pilate and said, the curse be upon us and upon our children.
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And now they mock Him and say, He saved others. He cannot save Himself.
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He is the King of Israel. Let Him now come down from the cross and we will believe in Him. Now once again, there's a portion of truth, but it's not what they wanted.
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They don't intend to be speaking that truth. For example, they didn't really believe that He saved others.
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Oh, they had seen the miracles. They had dismissed that as the work of Beelzebub.
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But they didn't really believe that He could save others. They didn't believe He could save Himself. They didn't believe
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He was the King of Israel, but He was. And if all of a sudden a bright light had shown and Jesus had jumped down off the cross and His hands were instantly healed and the bleeding stopped and the
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Roman soldiers fell over dead at the doornail, what would they have done?
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What would they have done? Well, what did they do when
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Lazarus rose from the dead? They didn't stand there going, nah, it must not be
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Him. They didn't deny the reality of it, but they went away and took counsel together as to what they might do to destroy this one.
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Would they have believed in Him while standing right there? What could you say? Wow. But that's not the same thing as believing in Jesus.
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Because you see, if He had come down from the cross, then what would you believe in Him for? What would that belief accomplish?
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He's in the midst of doing the thing that is absolutely necessary for belief in Him to have any saving power, any saving effect.
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And so if Jesus had done what they demanded He did to believe in Him, there wouldn't have been any reason to believe in Him other than, well, okay,
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He's the Son of God, but now He hasn't done what the Son of God came to accomplish. Great irony found in the words of His enemies.
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But then we have verse 43. And notice something about verse 43. Hopefully your translation warns you about something here.
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He trusts in God. Let God rescue Him now if He delights in Him. For He said, I am the
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Son of God. Does your translation have some italics? Maybe some bold? Hopefully just at least a note.
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Because this is a quotation from the Old Testament. And here is some of the deepest irony.
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Because it's Psalm 22. It's Psalm 22.
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It's a Messianic psalm. It's a psalm about the one who is abandoned and it's being fulfilled right in front of them and yet in their mouths are the very words.
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Did they just use them because they were accustomed to this or something? They've heard that before? Were they even thinking about the 22nd
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Psalm? Because they make the application for He said, I am the
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Son of God. That's not in Psalm 22. But verse 43, the first few phrases are a paraphrase.
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Pretty much directly straight from it, but a few words added in. He trusts in God. Let God rescue
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Him now is put in. And then, if He delights in Him, that's all from the 22nd
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Psalm. Why is that important? We'll see in a moment. Just mark it for now and you'll see. And as I said,
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Matthew doesn't go into the story of the robbers the way that Luke does. The one, the penitent thief.
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The robbers who had been crucified with him were also insulting him with the same words. We know that one of the two continued to do that.
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One, over this period of time, because the period of time is marked off for us in verse 45. One of them is granted grace.
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Now, from the sixth hour, darkness fell upon the land until the ninth hour. I hope I don't need to mention to you. I'll just mention it very, very quickly.
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John uses different hours because there's Jewish time reckoning and Roman time reckoning. When you put the two together, they're the exact same thing.
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From the sixth hour, darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. Now, that does not mean it was like you had during the plagues where people are feeling around and it's darker than midnight.
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But there is a strange darkness. The sun hides its bright light.
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And for three hours, we are told about almost nothing. We are told really nothing.
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I mean, maybe some of the other events, the other Gospels tell us. See, Matthew's not trying to give us a report that you'd put into a history book.
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Instead, he's narrating these events. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice,
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Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. Now, we know where that comes from.
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These are the first words of the 22nd Psalm. The very
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Psalm that in the words of the mocking high priest or the priests and the scribes and the
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Pharisees had just been used to say, well, if God were really pleased with you, well, this is the very point in time where the
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Father is the most pleased with the Son, is it not? Is not this the very time where the
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Son is offering Himself? He is submitting Himself to the Father. Is this not what
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Philippians 2 is talking about? The great act of humility. He humbled Himself even to the point of death.
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And so it's right here. As they have raised the question three hours earlier.
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If God is pleased with him, well, that's the one of Psalm 22.
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And now at the point of His death. Now after the three hours of agony.
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Now after the Son of God has submitted Himself to the will of the Father. He has made
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Himself to be a sacrifice for sins. He says,
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Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. My Muslim friends think that this is blasphemy.
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They think this is blasphemy. Why? Well, because many a man has met his death with bravery.
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Some with bravado. And so they think it's blasphemy that Matthew would place upon His lips cowardice?
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A feeling of abandonment? They just don't take the time.
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They don't take the time to read in context. They don't take the time to consider what
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Jesus is doing here. He's quoting from the hymn book of the Jews. They know what these words are.
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They had in mockery just been using the words of this Psalm. But if we go back, sometimes on the
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Lord's Supper nights, instead of reading from Isaiah 52 and 53,
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I'll read the 22nd Psalm. Over and over again, the
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Messianic prophecies. But how does it end? It ends with the vindication of this suffering servant.
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And so what Jesus does is He points them to the fulfillment.
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I am the fulfillment of this. Think of what that hymn is about.
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Let it run through your mind. Because that's what the Psalm is. It's a hymn. Let it run through your mind.
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And step back and look at what's going on here. You will see that I am the fulfillment of these things.
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And in point of fact, the Father is pleased. The Father is pleased in the submission of the
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Son. He who knew no sin was made sin in our behalf, in our place, that we might become the righteousness of God.
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I know there have been many, many sermons preached about how there is a fundamental disruption of the
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Godhead here. I just don't see it. Yes, as a man, surrounded by his enemies,
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Jesus would. His disciples have fled. Those who have said,
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I would stand with you. They're not here. On that level, I can understand all of that.
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But we need to see that the Jews had been using the 22 Psalm.
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It is one of the richest prophetic texts on the Messiah in all of the
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Old Testament. And when Jesus starts off, He can't sing the whole thing. He's about to die of suffocation.
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But what He can do is begin it. He can do for us, it would be like my saying, amazing grace.
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How sweet the sound. Do I have to finish the rest of it? Do we have to get out the hymnal to finish the rest of it?
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We don't. Or for us to reform, folks, a mighty fortress is our
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God. Do I need to quote the rest of it? No. Neither did Jesus. So at the end of these three hours of suffering, about the ninth hour,
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He cries out with a loud voice. He quotes from the 22 Psalm. And some of those who are staying there, when they heard it began saying, this man is calling for Elijah.
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Well, why would they think that? Well, the Eli, Eli. And there was also a number of complex traditions in regards to who was to be coming.
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And remember all the questions the Jews asked of John the Baptist. Are you the prophet? Are you the prophet?
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Are you Elijah? And John says no. And immediately one of them ran and taking a sponge, he filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed and gave him a drink.
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But the rest of them said, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him. And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up His spirit.
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Then in verse 51, we have a description of one event. And I want to use it to summarize and try to make some applications so we might have some way of thinking about how we can with clarity, and we need to with clarity, explain to others why the cross and the resurrection is so central and why it is vitally important for them and why it is that in our society today, as our society throws off all restraint and embraces all forms of evil, that in point of fact, our society is saying this story and what it means is wrong.
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It's evil. It must be rejected. That's what our society is saying. And they need to be called to repentance for it.
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What do I mean? Verse 51, And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
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Now there are many naturalistic scholars that just scoff at this and they say, well, this is just Matthew coming up with his ideas.
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And the Jews never recorded this. Do you really think they would? I love,
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I love modern day scholarship. We have no other evidence of this outside of the gospel accounts and certainly there would have been mention of it in Josephus.
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Really? You really think that the Jews are going to run around going, well, by the way, this really strange thing happened.
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Now you've probably heard stories. According to Jewish tradition, according to rabbinic tradition, the veil that separated the holiest place was about the thickness of a man's palm.
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Now that's just a tradition. It comes from a good bit after that, so we don't know. But given how, if you look at just the size of how big this thing had to be, it had to be very, very thick because something that could hang that high and be moved, it would have to be very, very thick.
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If it was any thinner, then the movement of it and the sheer weight of it would tear it from its moorings, basically.
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And so we don't have a specific amount, but let's say it was about four inches thick.
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That's, ever tried to tear something, ever tried to get into simply a plastic thing you get from Amazon?
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I mean, it is horrible. I don't know why they do that. You have to have so many tools to get to the tools that you bought from Amazon just to get into this thing, and that's just a little bit of plastic.
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And here you have woven fabric about, let's say, somewhere between one and four inches thick, and it's torn from the top to the bottom, not as you would do it if you were to use horses to try to do it and attach one part to one, and that would be from the bottom to the top.
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No. We see the purpose for this, and the very fact it has a purpose is why so many people doubt that it ever happened.
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Because God could never do anything for a purpose in this world, and so if someone records that God did something for a purpose in this world, they must have been making it up.
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That's the mindset of many of the quote -unquote critical scholars that aren't all that critical about anything but the
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Bible. They're certainly not very critical about their own mindset and their own worldview. But the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
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Why? Why? Well, we've read through the book of Hebrews already.
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We've read through Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10. Remember those texts? Hebrews 6, that beautiful section at the end that talks about that firm anchor we have that goes within the veil into that holy place, and that anchor is described as Jesus.
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I mean, in Hebrews 10, even the veil is described as Jesus' flesh, and so the breaking of His flesh, the breaking of His body, symbolized in the opening of the way into the very presence of God.
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The very point is that there is a fulfillment which has taken place.
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And as the rocks, the earth shook and the rocks were split.
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As that took place, as there were supernatural signs of the pent -up power of God as sinful man crucifies and murders the sinless
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Son of God. The veil in the temple is rent. Can you imagine what the priests thought at that point in time?
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Maybe they weren't in there right then when it happened, but somehow when they come in, what has happened?
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What has taken place? And we see the significance of these events.
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Something has happened in the death of Christ as it has opened up the way into the very holy place.
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But it is just that element of the cross that is lost on so many today.
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So much of what is called Christianity is embarrassed. Not only about the historicity of an event like this, but the whole purpose of the cross in the first place.
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I was directed to an article just yesterday by a professor at a seminary up in my city of birth who in an article, in essence, mocking the concept of the wrath of God and the substitutionary atonement of Christ, not only could not even begin to accurately represent what we believe, but just showed truly the way of modern man in rejecting the existence of the wrath of God.
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We talked about this. Let me remind you. Why was there a veil? Why did
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God, we have read through the instructions, the building of the tabernacle.
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It's taken us quite some time. It's not been easy to do. And some of us have thought you could have skipped some of the part about how many planks of wood and how many brass things.
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Could you just move on a little bit? You see, the whole reason that's there is to give us a very clear picture of the fact that God is the one who gave to Moses the explicit instructions as how to put that veil there.
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And a lot of people think, yeah, that veil is there to keep us in the presence of God. No, it isn't.
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No, it isn't. What sinful man is trying to break into the presence of a holy
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God? The Bible tells us it's the opposite. Men flee from God.
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They flee from the light. They love the darkness. They don't want to get into the presence of a holy God. What do you think false religion is?
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The whole reason for false religion is to make up another God so you can have the benefits of God. I have to deal with that holy
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God over there because I know I'm not holy. The veil is not there to keep men from getting into the presence of God as if men seek
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God in the first place. Men do not seek God. There is no God -seeker. Romans 3. No, you see, the veil...
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The veil is protecting the people. The Jews understood that. How many times did
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God's wrath break forth against the people of Israel? Plagues, fire, the earth opening up and swallowing people.
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It happened. And the veil is an act of God's grace protecting the people from the glorious presence of God which they cannot survive.
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They can't see it. They can't be there. That's why there's a veil over Moses' face because he was in the presence of God and he glowed.
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And people are like, oh, we don't want to see that. And so it's God's duty to open the way.
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But he only does so once he's been able to open the way because his wrath has been propitiated.
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And you see, there's so many people, I don't want a wrathful God. Well, you've got one. You've got a holy
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God. Well, I don't want a holy God. Well, you're not going to worship God. Well, I don't want a
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God that's smaller than we are. I mean, I can hold my wrath in. God's wrath is not something outside of his control.
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It is the necessary, absolutely necessary response of a truly holy being to the presence of that which is unholy.
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And when I see a people today mocking the wrath of God and denying the wrath of God, it's because they don't understand who
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God is in the first place. And so you see, the opening of the veil is
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God's way of saying, I now have made the way open because I have provided in my own
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Son the propitiation. And that's why that's the only word we can use.
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We keep trying to dumb it down in our translations. Don't do that. Explain what it means. Don't dumb it down.
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I have provided the sacrifice by which not only is my wrath appeased, but what caused my wrath, that sin has been dealt with in the giving of the perfect life of the sinless
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Son of God. And so I opened the way. I have made the way.
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And I will then draw my people unto myself.
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The cross of Jesus Christ. When man looks at it, he sees weakness.
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When the liberal theologian looks at it, he sees sticky sentimentality. But when the
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Christian with the eyes of Scripture looks at the cross, we do not for a moment hesitate to affirm,
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I see there the holiness of God.
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God's absolute holiness and the justice of His wrath is what brought that bloody cross into the position of being the center point of history itself.
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And only because I see all of that, only because I see the consistent biblical testimony to that truth, can
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I then bow down in amazement at the love demonstrated not just by the
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Son, who voluntarily takes that place, but the
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Father, who in eternity past decreed it would happen. The fount of that mercy and love.
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The Spirit that enabled the Son to do what He did and that now draws out our hearts in response to it nearly 2 ,000 years later.
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We want to see all of what took place that day. We don't want only what is culturally acceptable because you and I know if you're the recipient of God's grace, you and I know that it is only because of the
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Son's obedience upon that tree that you and I can have life, that you and I can have forgiveness, that you and I can be adopted in the family of God.
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If Christ had not been obedient, we would be lost. That is the greatest possession we have.
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Out of nothing that we could ever have in this world, no relationship, no possession, no position could ever, ever come close to having the value of recognizing the cross of Calvary for what it really is.
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That was the place, my friends, where you received life. If you have life this day, it's because of what
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Christ did then. If you are here this morning and you have heard the story before, but the idea that that should be the most precious thing in the world to you, you'd understand it, then
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I pray that God will reveal to you your sin and your need of a Savior. For that truly is the message of the cross, the message of the
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Christian faith. It's what we celebrate today. Let's pray together. Almighty Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we rejoice in your
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Gospel, the Gospel of the Triune God, the Gospel that flows forth from the mighty counsel of the
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Father accomplished in the tremendous humiliation, obedience, and love of the
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Son made alive to us, preserved for us the power of the
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Spirit to this day. It is that Gospel we rejoice in. And oh, as we consider the great condescension of the
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Son of God to allow Himself to be nailed to that tree, the great power that was
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His which was controlled even in the face of the mockery of His enemies.
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Lord, we know that were it not for Your grace, we would have been amongst the passers -by shaking our heads and raising our voices in mockery.
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But You have, in Your grace, quelled that rebellion and changed our hearts, and we thank
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You for it. If there be any in the sound of my voice this day that have not bowed the knee to that One who was taken down from that cross and put in a tomb, and yet death could not hold
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Him, He rose from the dead and is alive to this day and will come to judge the living and the dead.
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If there be any that have not bowed that knee, may this be the day of salvation for them. We thank
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You for the Gospel. We thank You for Your love. We pray in Christ's name, Amen.