What is Finished?

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Take out your Bibles and don't turn to the book of James.
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Don't.
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No, don't turn to Psalm 42 either.
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We're going to do something different this morning.
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This week is a special week.
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It's an important week in the history of the church.
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And even though I don't often deviate from...
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If I'm preaching verse by verse, I don't often deviate.
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I figured this morning I had the freedom to do that.
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And so we're going to go to John chapter 19.
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And we're going to walk through the crucifixion narrative in John chapter 19.
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We're going to focus on one verse.
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We're going to focus on John 19 verse 30.
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Really we're going to focus on one word.
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You might know this word.
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You've probably heard it before.
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It is a Greek word, tetelestai.
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And so this is going to be the focus of the morning.
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Now before we read in John, I want to remind you of a passage in 1 Corinthians.
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You do not have to turn there.
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This is just sort of setting the principle of what we're studying this morning.
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In 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 2, the Apostle Paul says, For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
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I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
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In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says, I delivered to you that which was most important.
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That Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.
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That He was buried and that He was raised according to the Scriptures on the third day.
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So we have in that text, both at the beginning of 1 Corinthians and at the end of 1 Corinthians, a reminder that the entire Christian faith revolves around a central moment in history.
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Not about feelings, not about emotions, not about how we want things to be, but about facts.
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And the fact of the matter is, Jesus Christ died for our sins.
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He was buried and He was raised on the third day.
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And that's the entire foundation of our faith.
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Paul says in 1 Corinthians, If it were not so, we above all men would be most to be pitied because we will have believed a lie.
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If Christ be not raised, you are still in your sins.
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So we have a moment in time, a moment in history that we look to as the foundation for everything that we hold to as true.
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And if it be not true, we are most to be pitied.
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So that as our starting point, turn back to John 19.
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We're going to read verse 30 and then I'm going to pray.
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John chapter 19, verse 30.
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This is Jesus speaking.
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This is one of the few things He was able to say from the cross.
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And I'm going to talk later about why it was so difficult for Him to say it.
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Verse 30 says this, When Jesus received the sour wine, He said to Telistai, It is finished.
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And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.
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Father in heaven, I thank You for Your Word.
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Lord, as we open the Word together and examine what it says, I pray, O Lord, that You would by Your mercy and grace, first and foremost, Lord, make me able to preach by the power of Your Spirit.
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For Lord, if I preach under my own power, it would be useless and would have no effect.
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So I pray that You would fill me with Your Spirit.
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I pray that in the Spirit, Lord, the Word of God would go forth into the ears and the hearts of these men.
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And Lord God, for those who know You by faith, that they would be encouraged, that they would be challenged, that they would be edified, that they would be called to account.
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And for Lord God, those who do not know You, maybe, Lord, they have been playing a role or simply playing lip service to You.
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Maybe, O God, they've never considered these things and what the cross means.
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Maybe, O God, they are sitting here in this room and they're wondering about what's going to happen on the day that they face You.
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And they know not yet what that will be.
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Your Word tells us it is appointed unto every man once to die and then comes judgment.
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So I pray, God, that we would be prepared for judgment, not by trying to hold up our own laurels and our own goodness and our own righteousness, but that we would hold up the cross of Christ.
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That we would be covered in His blood.
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That we would be sanctified by Your Holy Spirit.
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Father, for only in this will we know that we have eternal life.
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And so, Father, we pray all these things.
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And I pray that You would keep me from error as I seek to expound Your Word.
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In Christ's name, amen.
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What is finished? And Jesus said in John 19, verse 30, It is finished.
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That phrase in one word in the Greek language describes an accomplishment.
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It is finished.
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And so I've written on the board the question of today.
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The title of today's message is the question of what? What is it that Christ is referring to when He says it is finished? What is finished? I'd like to propose to you three things that were finished on the cross.
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And then we're going to go back and we're going to read through John chapter 19 beginning back at verse 16.
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And we're going to see how these things were fulfilled.
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There were three things that were accomplished when Jesus said it is finished.
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Number one, the Scriptures were fulfilled.
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The Scriptures were fulfilled because the Scriptures had said these things were going to take place.
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And if you want to say in the Scriptures, and I'll just put the outline here.
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Number one, the Scriptures were fulfilled.
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We could say in two ways.
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First, by prophetic announcement and by types.
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In the Old Testament we have the prophetic announcement of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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In fact, I remember a few years ago a lady came to my church and she said she didn't know if she believed in Jesus and she was having a hard time believing that He was all that He said He was.
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And I opened the Bible and I said, can I read something to you? And I read to her from Isaiah 53.
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He was broken for our transgressions.
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He was beaten for our transgressions.
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By His stripes we were healed.
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I was reading all this to her and I said, who is this about? And she said, that's about Jesus.
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I said, dear, this was written 500 years before Jesus was born.
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So that's what we call the prophetic utterance.
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It makes a promise about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is fulfilled in the New Testament.
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But then we also have types.
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Types are those things in the Old Testament which are meant to represent the work of Christ in a picture or an illustration.
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For instance, the Passover lamb represents the Lord Jesus Christ.
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I don't have to wonder about that.
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1 Corinthians 5 tells me very particularly that Jesus Christ is our Passover lamb.
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Tonight at our church we celebrate the Passover meal.
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Every two years we celebrate the Passover meal just as a way of reminder of what Israel suffered because you remember what the Passover was.
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On the night of the Passover, after nine plagues, God told Moses, He said, I am going to pass through the land of Egypt.
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This is in Exodus chapter 12.
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He said, I am going to pass through the land of Egypt.
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And I am going to strike down the firstborn in every household.
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And I am going to execute judgments on all the gods of the Egyptians.
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Exodus chapter 12 verse 12.
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He said, but when I see the blood on the door, I will pass over that house.
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That's where we get the word Passover.
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And where was the blood from? Because Moses had said, take a lamb each for his household.
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A lamb without spot or blemish.
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Do not break any of its bones, but rather slaughter it.
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And take the blood and dip hyssop into the blood.
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And cover the lintel of the house and the door posts of the house with blood.
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And that will be a sign for you.
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Not for me, because God knows who is His.
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But the blood was a sign for them.
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Exodus 12 verse 13.
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The blood will be a sign for you.
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And I will pass over.
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Exodus chapter 12 verse 12 and 13.
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Egypt.
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It's a sign to demonstrate that this is God giving them a provision.
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It's giving them a prescription.
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He is saying, do this.
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Do this to show you are mine.
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To show that you are my people.
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Yeah, and as He passes through, He sees the blood.
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He passes over that house.
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He will not enter into that house and execute judgment on that house.
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The Bible says later in that same chapter, there was not a house in Egypt where there was not one dead.
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You see, God had passed through.
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And He had executed judgment on the Egyptians.
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But the Israelites did not receive His judgment.
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Why? Because they were covered in the blood.
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They were protected by the blood.
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How is that not a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ? Of course it's a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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When you die, the Bible says it is appointed of every man to die.
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And then comes judgment.
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And when you are judged, you will either receive the full, unmitigated force of the wrath of God.
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Or you will be protected by the blood of Jesus Christ.
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That is how the Passover points to Christ.
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It's a picture of God's divine protection.
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And so we see the Scriptures are fulfilled.
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When Jesus said it is finished, we see the Scriptures are fulfilled, the prophecies are fulfilled, and the types are demonstrated in their fullness.
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The second thing we see that is fulfilled, when Jesus said it is fulfilled, is the work of the Father is accomplished.
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The work of the Father is accomplished.
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What are we talking about there? Jesus said very clearly, I have come not to do my own will, but what? But the will of Him who sent me.
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Jesus came to accomplish something.
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He came to demonstrate His righteousness.
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The Bible says in the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, that He might redeem those who are under the law, and give them the what? The adoption of sons.
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So Jesus Christ came, and He fulfilled Scripture, and He also fulfills the will of the Father.
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Everything He did was the will of the Father.
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He accomplished what God sent Him to do.
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Remember the night before the crucifixion? Jesus is on His knees.
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He's sweating, as it were, great drops of blood.
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And He says to the Father, if there be another way, take this cup from Me.
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And by the way, what was the cup? The cup was God's wrath.
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In the Old Testament, we see this picture.
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The cup being poured out is always a cup of God's wrath, which is filled up with the sins of people, that causes God's wrath to get fuller, and fuller, and fuller, to the point that it flows over.
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And Jesus said, if it be able, take this cup from Me.
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Nevertheless, not My will, but Thy will be done.
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Right? So Jesus has the cup to drink.
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And it's the cup of the Father's wrath.
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When Jesus died on the cross, when He sweat drops of blood, He wasn't sweating drops of blood over a crucifixion.
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He wasn't sweating drops of blood over a whipping.
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Those things were horrible and they were bad and physically tormenting.
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Absolutely.
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But Jesus was sweating drops of blood over the wrath of God, which is going to be poured out upon Him.
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The wrath that I deserved was poured out on the Son.
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The wrath that I deserved was filled, the cup of the Lord was now going to be given to the Son and He was going to drink it down to the last drop.
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That's what caused the great sweating, as it were, drops of blood.
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So He did the work given to Him by the Father.
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And the third thing, so what is finished? The Scriptures are fulfilled.
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The work of the Father is accomplished.
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And number three, atonement is made.
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Atonement is made.
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What is atonement? Atonement is important.
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This is an important word.
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In fact, if you're unfamiliar with the word, it's actually an English word that we've sort of created because atonement literally comes from the idea of being at one.
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To atone means to bring together that which was broken.
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To bring together that which was separated.
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Imagine you have someone in your life that you're separated from.
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Maybe it's a wife.
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Maybe it's a child.
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Maybe it's a mother.
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Maybe it's a father.
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Maybe it's a sibling.
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Aunt, uncle, whatever.
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There's somebody in your life that you're broken from.
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You're estranged.
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You ever heard that phrase? To be estranged from someone? And you're estranged from that person? And some mediator comes in and says, look, you come here.
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And look, you come here.
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We're going to bring you guys back together.
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We're going to make you at one.
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Because you're separated.
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We're going to bring you back together.
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That's atonement.
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That's making two who are apart at one with one another.
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So when Jesus dies on the cross, He takes the Father who is separated from us because of sin and He makes us at one.
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So there is the atonement.
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And that's accomplished on the cross.
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Atonement is made.
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So we have the Scriptures are fulfilled.
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The work of the Father is accomplished.
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And atonement is made.
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And that's where Jesus said it is finished.
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Tetelestai.
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The word tetelestai literally was a term.
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We don't find it anywhere else in the Bible except for right here.
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It's used twice.
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If you look at John again, look at me.
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John 19, verse 30.
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You'll see it here.
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Jesus says it is finished.
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That's verse 30.
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But if you go up, back up to verse 28.
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After this, Jesus knowing that all was now tetelestai.
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All was now finished.
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So it's actually twice in the same context.
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Jesus knowing that all was finished or all was accomplished said it is accomplished.
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Knowing it was finished said it was finished.
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What does it mean? It does mean paid in full.
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It was something that was the only time we see it outside the Scripture.
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And by the way, that's how we determine meanings of words.
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Context determines meanings, right? And so if we have this word in Scripture and it's only in one place, it's hard to determine a context.
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So we go outside the Scriptures and we see how it was used in other places.
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We see how it was used in letters.
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We see how it was used in documents.
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We see how it was used historically.
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This is how we determine meanings of words.
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This is called finding the semantic domain or finding the range of use for a word.
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And you know where we find this word? On business documents.
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Receipts.
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That's where you find this word.
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Business documents and receipts.
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Why? Because someone had been paying for something.
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Maybe someone had taken a loan out on something and they'd been paying it off.
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And finally, the last payment was made and they would write at the bottom, Tetelestai, which means paid in full.
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Debt is finished.
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Paid in full.
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That's what this means.
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Paid in full.
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Everything I've set out to do is done.
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Everything I've set out to accomplish has been accomplished.
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The Scriptures have been fulfilled.
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The work of the Father has been accomplished.
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The atonement has been made.
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That is what we see in the word Tetelestai.
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Now, with that in our minds, I want us to go back and we're going to walk through the text since we have time.
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And we're just going to see some of the things that lead up to this.
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We're going to begin in verse 16.
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We could begin all the way back at verse 1, but I was trying to think of how much time we had.
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And I thought beginning at verse 1 would probably take too much time.
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Let's look first at verse 16.
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So He, that is Pilate, delivered Him, that is Jesus, over to them, that is the Jews.
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By the way, it's always important to know who your pronouns are.
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See, that's why I do it that way when I'm talking.
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I say the Him, the He, the Them.
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You know, the He there is Pilate, delivered Jesus, that's the Him, over to the Jews to be crucified.
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So they took Jesus and He went out, bearing His own cross to the place called Cronion.
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Cronion is the word for the place of the skull.
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In Aramaic it is called Golgotha.
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In Latin, this doesn't say it in the text, but in Latin this is where you get the word Calvary.
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Calvaria is the word for the skull.
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Now we don't know exactly where this is.
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If you go to Israel, they'll tell you this is where it was.
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And it is interesting, if you go and they'll show you where it is, it does look like a face.
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You can see pictures of it online.
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It almost looks like the hill looks like a skull.
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It looks like it's got two eyes and a mouth.
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It's a very interesting looking hill.
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And obviously, through erosion and time 2,000 years ago, it might have looked a little different than it looks today.
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Yes, sir? Do you have a picture? Afterwards, show everybody if you don't mind.
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It's an interesting idea.
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The thing is, it's outside the city.
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They're not going to do the crucifixion inside the city.
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They're going to take Him outside the city to this hill.
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And it says in verse 18, there they crucified Him.
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Now before we go on in verse 18, because I want to talk about the two others, I just want to talk for a minute about what crucifixion is.
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Crucifixion from a medical standpoint is a horrible way to die.
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Crucifixion is death by asphyxiation.
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Meaning you essentially the insides of your body are crushed under their own weight and you begin to have the inability to breathe.
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And depending on the situation, they would either take and put the nails in your hands or they would put the nails in your wrists.
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Wrists would have more of an effect because it would hold between the ulna and the radial bone, which are the two bones that are here in your forearm.
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And it would have more of a purchase, something more to grab upon.
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But there is also the chance that His arms were bound by ropes to the cross and the nails are used simply for the sheer agony of the pain.
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But the ropes are actually what's holding Him up.
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So there's no, we don't know if it was wrists or in His hands.
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We know that in the Gospel of John later, He'll say, I see My hands in His eye when He's talking to Thomas.
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So there's a chance it was probably in His hands.
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But again, historically, they sometimes would put the nail in the wrist.
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So you'll see some pictures of the crucifix and you'll see it in the wrist.
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Sometimes you'll see it in the hands.
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I don't think it's a matter of point.
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I think the point is, by holding the hands above the shoulders...
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By the way, when you lift your arms above your shoulders, your arms get very weak.
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You're actually stronger down here than you are up here.
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Because as you lift your arms above your shoulders, you create a cavity here in your shoulder and you get weaker.
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And that's why you're able to do certain things here that you can't do up here.
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And so as His arms are above His shoulders, all of the weight of His body is being pulled down on that pressure right here in His shoulders and the lungs inside the rib cage are beginning to constrict and everything's beginning to pull together.
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Now there is, again, there is some debate as to how His feet were laid.
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Some people believe His feet were laid one on top of the other and one nail was placed on top of the instep of the foot and driven through the back and it went out the heel.
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And thus the argument goes this was fulfilling the promise of Genesis chapter 3 where it says that the serpent would bruise His heel.
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The heel was the portion that the nail came out.
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There are other archaeological examples which actually show that the legs were spread apart placed on the sides of the pole and the nails went in through the sides.
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Can't even imagine the pain of either having one here or one here.
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But here's what you have to remember.
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Today we're talking about Jesus speaking from the cross.
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The only way to speak would be to take the weight off of the lungs long enough to say something.
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And so to do that Jesus had to take His weight push down onto the nails whether it was in His ankles pushing sideways or on His feet pushing downward and He was having to push down to lift up so that He could yell out whatever it was He was going to yell out and then of sheer exhaustion fall right back into the nails in His arms which were holding Him up.
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So here He's being crucified is excruciating death.
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Sometimes it would take men days to die because of the sheer will not wanting to give up.
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And so they would lift themselves up and breathe in and they would go down and they would take short little breaths and then they'd lift themselves up and we're going to see in a minute why that's the reason for the breaking of the legs.
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No there was about 3,000 crucifixions actually no let me back that up there were thousands of crucifixions in that time but it was only a period of a few hundred years that it happened.
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It was a very specific point in time that crucifixions happened but while they were happening they were happening a lot.
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So Christ wasn't the only one.
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He wasn't even the only one crucified that day.
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As we were just fixing to see verse 18 it says they crucified Him with Him and two others.
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One on either side.
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You notice there's three crosses in a lot of churches.
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You'll see the middle cross is the big one and then there's two smaller crosses.
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Yeah three wooden crosses.
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That's the song Randy Travis song.
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That's talking about Jesus in the middle and there's one man on one side and one man on the other.
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These two were the cohorts of Barabbas.
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Barabbas was the man that was supposed to be on the middle cross.
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Pilate even gave them the opportunity.
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He pulled Jesus out and he pulled Barabbas out.
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And by the way the word Barabbas means the son of the father.
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Interestingly enough that's what Barabbas means.
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It means the son of the father.
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And so the son of the father and the literal son of the father are now being placed before the people.
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Who do you want? Do you want this robber? This thief? This murderer? Barabbas? Or do you want Jesus who is called King of the Jews? And they said release Barabbas crucify Jesus.
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Release the murderer crucify the King.
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And by the way this is the same people who a week earlier had been out saying Hosanna.
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Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.
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Now I'm sure there were some that weren't mixed in the crowd but it's amazing to see how opinion can change.
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It is said Jesus was only put up for political vote once and he lost to a murderer.
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He was only voted on once and he lost to a murderer, Barabbas.
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Shows you how bad politics can be.
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Winds of change can turn so quickly.
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And that's what happened with Jesus.
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He's there and now He's being crucified between two men who were likely the cohorts of that Barabbas.
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Jesus is hanging on another man's cross.
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And He's going to be buried in another man's tomb.
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He said I have nowhere to lay my head, remember? Do you think they still crucified after Jesus? Yeah, they crucified for a while after Christ.
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I think it began, if I had to go back to my history books I think it began in Persia, actually.
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It was a pretty interesting there's a very short timeline of crucifixion how it happened, when it happened, but it was it began and it only lasted for a few hundred years.
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It's very interesting that Christ because the prophecies of His crucifixion predate the act of crucifixion.
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And then He's crucified.
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That it was prophesied.
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Yeah, that's what's interesting.
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It was such a narrow window of history for it to happen.
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And by the way, you remember Jesus when He's talking to His disciples before He was crucified? He said, unless any man take up his cross and follow after Me, he's not worthy of Me.
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That's proof right there that people understood what crucifixion was, because Jesus is talking about something that they were so familiar with they would have been able to identify an illustration that even though He hadn't been crucified they'd seen other people crucified.
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So it was so common that they'd seen it happen.
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That's crazy.
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Go ahead.
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I've seen something in the Old Testament, when we were reading Scripture a couple weeks ago I don't remember where it was, but it was in the Old Testament and it was one of the prophets saying something about crucifixion or the cross.
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I'm pretty sure it was before Jesus was crucified.
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Well, Isaiah 53 very clearly walks through what's going to happen to Christ on the cross.
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It might have been that.
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I don't know, it wasn't there.
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Yeah, that He's going to be lifted up.
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They're going to pierce His hands and His feet.
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That's Psalm 22.
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They're going to pierce My hands and My feet.
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That's the clear prophetic utterance.
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Yeah, you can cast them off for a cloak.
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Yeah, and that's what we're getting.
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We're going to try to read through.
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In ancient Hebrew, the 22nd letter of the Hebrew alphabet is actually a cross.
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Okay, yeah.
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And so there's Psalm 22.
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Alright, so let's look real quick now.
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Verse 18, He was crucified with two other men.
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And I wish I could go into those men, but I want to get through this text.
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John doesn't say much about them, but in the other Gospels we find out both of them were unbelievers at the beginning of the day.
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But halfway through the day, one of them looks at Jesus, and He changes His mind.
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And He says, Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.
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And He reviles the other man.
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Do you not fear God? We deserve this.
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But this man did nothing wrong.
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He used His strength to lift up just to be able to yell at the other guy and say, are you nuts? We should be here, and He should be here.
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And He said, Lord, remember me.
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And Jesus said, today, you will be with Me in Paradise.
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The promise of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Can you imagine if the Lord Jesus Christ looked at you and said, you will be with Me in Paradise? The great comfort.
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The comfort of hearing the Lord look you in the face, Johnny, and say, today you will be...
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I mean, this is amazing, isn't it? To even consider that.
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Here's the thing, if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that's the comfort you should have.
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If you place your faith in Him, that's the comfort that you will have.
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You will know you will be with Him.
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Because His promises are not in vain.
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So verse 19, Pilate wrote an inscription and put it on the cross, and it read, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.
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Many of the Jews read this inscription for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic and Latin and in Greek.
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Why? Aramaic was the language that the Jews were using at the time.
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Latin was the language of the Romans and Greek was the language of commerce.
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It was the language of the nations.
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Pilate wanted everybody to know who this guy was.
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They would put those signs on the crosses because it was a demonstration of what they had done.
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Liar, thief, insurrectionist.
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But what did they put on top of Jesus? King of the Jews.
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The Jews didn't like that.
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So the chief priest of the Jews to Pilate said, Do not write the King of the Jews, but rather this man said he was King of the Jews.
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And Pilate answered, What I have written, I have written.
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Nothing changes.
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I will say this, Pilate was an evil man.
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And if you've ever read any of the history of Pilate's life outside of the Scriptures, and what we know about Pilate, he was an incredibly evil man.
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But there does seem to be an indication in the Scriptures that he is a politically motivated man.
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That were it up to him, he wouldn't have done this.
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But he's being motivated by, not because he loved Jesus, but because he hated the Jews.
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Not because he wanted to save a Jewish man, but because he hated them so much.
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And you ever heard the phrase, the enemy of my enemy is my friend? Here's Jesus, who's the enemy of the Jews, at least from their perspective.
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And Pilate looks at him and his response is, if they hate you, there must be something good about you.
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If they hate you, there must be some good in you if they hate you so much.
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I hate them so much.
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So Pilate wrote this to smite them.
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He wrote this to spite them.
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And when they said, no, don't write that, he said I have written what I have written.
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And it will stand.
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Verse 23.
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This goes with what you were talking about, brother, the fulfilling of Scripture.
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He says when the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took His garments, divided them into four parts.
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One for each soldier.
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Also His tunic, but the tunic was seamless.
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It was woven, one piece from top to bottom.
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So they said to one another, let us not tear it, but cast lots for it and see whose it shall be.
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Why did they do that? Just fixing to say it.
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Just fixing to answer it.
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This was to fulfill the Scripture.
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Which says, they divided my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots.
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So the soldiers did these things.
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That's Psalm 22, verses 14-18.
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It's a fulfilling of the Scripture.
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They didn't do it to fulfill the Scripture.
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They did it in their own accord.
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But God had promised it that it was going to happen.
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The text isn't saying they knew the Scripture and they were doing what the Scripture says.
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It says that when they did it, it was a fulfillment of what the Scripture had prophesied.
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But if they didn't believe that He was the King...
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They're not doing it to fulfill the Scripture.
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They're doing it.
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Just to get the clothes? Yeah, they're doing it because here's this guy's stuff.
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It's basically like everything Jesus owned was on His back.
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And when they stripped it off of Him and beat Him with that scourge, which is essentially a whip that had all these integrated pieces of metal and different things.
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So every time they'd hit it, it'd grab ahold of flesh and rip flesh off as it pulled back.
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He'd been beaten and now that bare back of His had been laid flat against an unsanded piece of wood.
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I don't know if you've ever had splinters in your hands.
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Imagine having them all over your back and your back doesn't have any skin to protect itself.
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That's why halfway to where He was going, He fell under the weight of the cross.
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And Simon of Cyrene...
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By the way, Cyrene is in Africa, so Simon was probably a black man, picked up the cross and carried it for Jesus.
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Right? So we have this narrative of Jesus falling under the weight of His own cross and here comes another man who is compelled to come and take up the cross and He carries it for Christ.
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All of this is happening to fulfill Scripture, but nobody's doing it because of Scripture.
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They're doing it on their own.
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They want to do these things.
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It's like being in jail.
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Somebody gets locked up.
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What do the people do? They take their stuff.
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Yeah, they take their stuff.
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What happens when somebody leaves set free? People walk around splitting up their stuff.
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But yes, that's what they're doing.
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But wouldn't his clothes probably all cut up and bloody? Why would they want those? Unless they thought that...
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I mean, the way I look at it, unless they thought that some people, you know, maybe they thought maybe this really is...
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Let's not...
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I don't want to get bogged down in the minutia of this.
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Their motivation is not told to us in Scripture, so everything we say would be speculation.
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Ultimately, we know this.
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There was a reason why they wanted it.
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Maybe they thought they could use it.
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Maybe they thought they could sell it.
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Think of how valuable fabric was at that point in time.
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Just even if it was stained.
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Think of how valuable just fabric would be at a time when they don't have manufacturing plants like we have today.
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I mean, there's all kinds of reasons.
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Yes, sir, I don't want to miss you.
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Yeah, they wouldn't have known this.
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And certainly the Roman soldiers wouldn't have believed it, even if so.
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But they're fulfilling Scripture simply by acting the way they want to do.
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They're proving God that He is the truth.
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He has said this would happen and it did.
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Now, there's a short little aside right here about Jesus' mom.
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Again, time doesn't allow me to say everything, but I want to at least read it.
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I'll make a few comments as we go.
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It says, But standing by the cross of Jesus there was His mother and His mother's sister Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.
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When Jesus saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved, there's that word, the disciple whom He loved.
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So it's John is there standing nearby.
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He said to His mother, Woman, behold your son.
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Then He said to His disciple, Behold your mother.
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And from that hour, the disciple took her to his home.
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Why did Jesus do this? I've had this question before because honestly, it makes me wonder.
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Jesus had brothers.
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Why did He give His disciple to John? Or why did He give His mother to His disciple John? And I think the answer is in the question.
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The reason why He gave His mother to His disciple rather than to His brother or His brothers is because at this time His brother was not a follower of His.
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His brothers were not His people yet.
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Now later, James, his brother would become a disciple.
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In fact, become the pastor of the church of Jerusalem and the writer of the book of James that we've been studying.
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But at this point in time, Jesus' brothers and His sisters were not His followers.
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But John was.
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And if Jesus is going to entrust His mother to someone, He's going to entrust His mother to someone that loves Him as who He is, as Messiah.
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Here's something to consider.
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Who is your closest family? I'm not asking you to answer.
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I want you to think in your mind.
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Who is your closest family? From a biblical perspective, if you love the Lord, it's those who love the Lord.
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I have family that I'm blood related to that I feel a million miles away from.
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But people who love the Lord are my family.
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Jesus said, my mother and my brothers are those who hear the Word of the Lord and keep it.
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They do it.
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These are my brothers and sisters.
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This is my mother.
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The point of the matter is, when Jesus said this, He's showing that familial relationships are not the same and not even to be compared to spiritual relationships.
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Our family is important, but they are not going to be our family forever unless they know Christ.
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This reminds us of two things.
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One, your spiritual family should take priority.
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And two, if your family that's your blood relatives don't know Jesus, one day they're not going to be your family anymore unless you go to them and share Christ with them and they come to know Christ.
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Do you really love your mama? Have you told her about Jesus? Do you love your brothers and sisters? Have you told them about Jesus? Your daddy? Your uncle? Your cousins? Have they heard the Gospel from you? Again, each one of these sections could be a whole sermon, right? I'm running through the text here, but everything here needs to be something we need to consider.
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Verse 28.
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This is where we started.
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After this, Jesus, knowing that all had been finished, all was finished, said to fulfill the Scripture, I thirst.
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That's Psalm 69, 21, by the way.
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A jar full of sour wine stood there.
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So they put a sponge full of sour wine on it.
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And a hyssop branch.
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Interestingly, a hyssop branch.
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Where did I mention hyssop earlier? Blood on the doorpost, right? A hyssop branch, and they held it to His mouth.
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And when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, Tetelestai, it is finished.
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And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.
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Notice this.
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Jesus said, No man takes My life from Me, but I lay it down on My own accord.
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Jesus didn't die on the cross.
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He gave Himself on the cross.
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Hear that.
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He wasn't murdered and killed by the Romans.
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He gave His life willingly.
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He gave up the ghost.
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You don't get to do that.
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You die when your heart stops beating.
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You die when your brain stops working.
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You die when something happens.
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You lose enough blood.
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You lose enough blood pressure.
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You're going to die one day, right? You're going to die one day.
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And when you die, it's not going to be because you willed it to be.
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But Jesus willed it to be.
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That's right.
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That's right.
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He did this because it needed to be done.
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As we said already, He did this to fulfill these things.
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Now, I do want to go a little further because I just want to mention a couple of other things and we'll draw to a close.
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Verse 31.
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Since it was the day of preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, for the Sabbath was a high day, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, that they might be taken away.
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Remember what I said earlier.
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They hold themselves up.
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They hold themselves up by their legs.
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Some guys could go all night.
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Some guys could go the next day.
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Some guys go two days.
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So they would take a wooden club and they would come to the front of the shins and they would just smash the front of the shins, causing the bones in the legs to break.
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Now you can't lift yourself up anymore.
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You'll be dead in minutes.
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But they didn't want them up there.
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They didn't want them there for the Sabbath.
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They didn't want them dying there on the hill, crying out, disturbing the festival.
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Yes? Wasn't the prophecy fulfilled though because they did not break Jesus' bones? That's where I'm going, brother.
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Yes, sir.
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They did not.
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They said His bones would not be broken.
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That's right.
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You took the words out of my mouth because look here, verse 32.
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So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with Him.
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Verse 33, But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs.
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But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear and at once there came out blood and water.
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I'm going to go back to that in a minute.
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I just want to read on.
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He who saw it has borne witness, his testimony untrue, and he knows that he is telling the truth and that you also may believe.
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For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
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Not one of his bones was broken.
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That's Psalm 34, verse 20.
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And again, another Scripture says, They will look at Him on whom they have pierced.
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That's Zechariah 12, verse 10.
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Is that what God told them to do whenever they had to get the lamb? That's where I'm going.
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See, you guys are outrunning me.
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You're preaching the sermon for me.
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That's okay.
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Because here's the point.
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Jesus is the Passover lamb.
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And that lamb was to be without spot, without blemish, and none of its bones were to be broken.
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Rather, it was to be roasted over the fire and eaten.
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And you think of Christ.
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Not one of His bones was to be broken.
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But rather, He was to go up onto the cross like one who was placed over a fire and receive in Himself the wrath of God.
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The flames of the wrath of God, the fiery wrath of God would be poured out on the Son of God.
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And notice again, going back up, I said I was going to mention again, verse 34.
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Even though He was already dead, they pierced Him with a spear.
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Why? So, Zechariah 12, verse 10.
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They will look on Him whom they have pierced.
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And when they pierced Him in the side, it says He bled blood and water.
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And there's two reasons why that might be.
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Go ahead.
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Blood and water.
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There's two reasons why that might be.
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Either He had been dead long enough that the blood had already began to separate.
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And your blood, when it separates, it separates into two chemicals.
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One looks red and one looks clear.
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So it wouldn't actually be water, but it would look like blood and water.
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It would be plasma.
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It would be separated.
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There's a possibility He'd been dead that long.
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The other possibility is that the pericardium, the sack that surrounds the heart that's filled with a clear liquid, it's possible that when they went up and stabbed Him with that spear that the pericardium was pierced and that what came out was blood and a liquid that would have looked like water.
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Either way, this is the proof that He was dead.
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See, there are theories that Jesus didn't die on the cross.
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There are theories that say He simply passed out.
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It's called the swoon theory that He simply swooned or fainted.
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That He was placed in the tomb and over a period of three days He woke up and He was able to dig Himself out and He went about proclaiming that He'd been raised from the dead when He'd never really died.
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Let me respond to that by simply saying there's a Greek word for that and it's baloney.
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It's baloney.
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There's no way that a Roman soldier was going to take a live man off the cross and give his body away.
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He was going to be dead.
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When Jesus Christ died on the cross He was dead.
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He was absolutely, verifiably dead.
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Imagine being that guy that got hit in the face with all that blood.
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He got really washed by the blood.
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There's a story that He was actually blinded.
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Again, I want us to go back just a few final thoughts as I draw to a close.
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What is it that was accomplished? What is it that was accomplished when Jesus said it is finished? We've read through the narrative today.
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We've stayed in one Gospel.
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We've walked through the text.
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What is it that was accomplished? I call your attention to one thought.
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In 1 Corinthians 15 when Paul is reiterating the Gospel he said Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture.
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That's what was accomplished.
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All these things we talked about earlier.
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He fulfilled the Scripture.
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He fulfilled the work of the Father.
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He made an atonement.
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Ultimately, all that is to say He died for our sins.
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Your sin stands before God as a judgment against you that is worthy of the unmitigated wrath of God upon you.
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The Bible says the wages of sin is death.
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And the death that's being spoken of there is hell.
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You know what the problem with most men when it comes to the subject of hell, most men think that they're good enough to escape it.
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And the problem is we are not.
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We are not good enough to escape hell.
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We are worthy of God's punishment.
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Not just because of the things that maybe brought you here or the things that you've had to deal with that brought you here.
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I am worthy of the wrath of God.
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I was born in sin and I have lived in sin.
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And I have sinned against God.
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I have spit in the face of my Maker.
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I have spit in the face of He who created me.
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And I have done what I wanted to do even though His law told me no.
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I have trespassed against Him.
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I have sinned against Him.
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And when I stand before Him, I will stand before Him as absolutely guilty unless my sins have been paid for by Jesus Christ.
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When Jesus Christ died on the cross, all of the weight of the guilt and the judgment that I have was placed upon Him.
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And He took that weight for me.
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He took that punishment from me.
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Oftentimes we'll ask people, Are you saved? People ask me that.
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You know what I ask them? People say, Sir, are you saved? I ask them, Saved from what? Saved from what? Because at the end of the day, if you know that you've been saved, you should know from what you were saved.
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You were saved from God Himself because His wrath was pointed at you.
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His wrath was upon you.
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His wrath at any moment could have destroyed you.
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You were like, as Jonathan Edwards said in the great sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, you were like a spider that was held on a web over an open flame and at any moment, that flame could have licked the edges of that web and dropped you in and consumed you.
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And yet, God is merciful.
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And even though His wrath is what you deserve, His mercy is what He provides.
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But He doesn't do it at no cost.
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He does it at the cost of His Son.
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He pours out the wrath you deserve on His Son.
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And His Son drinks the wrath you deserve.
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And He says when He's done, it is finished.
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You will stand before God one day.
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You will either be standing in your righteousness which is as filthy rags and you will go to hell.
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Or you will stand in the blood of Jesus Christ.
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And the Bible says though your sins be as scarlet, you will be washed whiter than snow.
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Though they be as crimson, they will then be as wool.
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There's only two ways.
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The broad way that leads to destruction or the narrow way which leads to life.
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And Jesus said, I am the gate of that way.
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I am the way, the truth, and the life.
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And no one comes to the Father except through me.
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Have you come through the narrow way? Are you still on the broad way that leads to destruction? Where are you this morning with Christ? Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for the cross.
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We can't thank You enough.
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To say thank You is by itself not enough.
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It feels almost shameful to utter those words because they just are so impotent in comparison to how powerful the cross is.
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Lord, I pray this morning if there are men here and I'm certain that there are who are still on the broad path that leads to destruction that they would see that man on the cross crucified, beaten, bloodied and understand that what he did was he took the wrath of God.
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And Lord, the Word of God tells us that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but will have everlasting life.
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So I pray, Lord, that we would trust in Him.
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I pray that the men under the sound of my voice would trust in Him.
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I pray that they would not trust in themselves and in their own goodness.
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I pray that they would give up their goodness, forsake their righteousness and seek out and reach for the righteousness of Christ while it may be found.
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Lord, Your Word says now is the acceptable time and today is the day of salvation.
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Lord, may it be that You save souls today.
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In Christ's name.
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Amen.