King Crucified (Good Friday)

The Shepherd's Church

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Hi, and thank you so much for listening to the Shepherds Church podcast and for listening to this Good Friday Sermon. Unfortunately, this is not the originally recorded message because we had a technology problem on our audio end, but what

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I've done is I've re -recorded the sermon and expanded it to give you additional content. So this is a long sermon.

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I understand that it's about an hour and 48 minutes and and it's chocked full of biblical detail.

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But what I hope is more than the length of it. I hope that it will be a blessing to you. I hope that it will showcase to you who

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Jesus is and why his death burial and resurrection is so important. God bless you, and I hope that you are blessed by the preaching of God's Word.

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You know as I was thinking about it this week, I was thinking that so much of what we understand about the resurrection and about the crucifixion of Jesus comes in just a few passages at the end, at the very end of his life.

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But yet what we often don't consider is what led to the events, what what was bubbling up underneath the surface of the events that caused us to see how

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Jerusalem would turn on Jesus and crucify him. We don't look at Matthew 21 on Good Friday or 22 or even 23 and 24.

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But what I want us to do today is I want us to look at the entire scope of the Holy Week. From the moment that he rode into town on a donkey proclaiming himself

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King and to the moment that he was penned up on a cross as Savior. Now last week you remember at Palm Sunday, I told you that Jesus was an eternal

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King. John 1 says that he lived in eternity as King and he came to a rebellious planet that was at war with God and he came as King.

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John 6, he walked on water as King. John 1, Nathanael declared him

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King. John 12, he rode into the city as King. He fulfilled the prophecy of Zechariah 9 as King.

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All of John and really all of the Gospels is all about the kingship of Jesus Christ.

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He's an eternal King bringing an eternal kingdom. But it's not a physical kingdom.

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It's not a geopolitical national kingdom that's going to be a king. It's a kingdom that's built on the back of war and violence and insurrection.

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It's a spiritual kingdom. It's a kingdom that would move forward not on power, but on the preaching of the gospel.

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It's a kingdom that would transform hearts and minds propagated by the Spirit advanced to the ends of the earth until every tribe tongue and nation believes the gospel.

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These are things that we've covered thus far and we saw last week that it's an eternal kingdom led by and ruled by an eternal

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King. But now today we're gonna ask the question, how does that kingdom get established?

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We've talked about what kind of kingdom it is. We've talked about when that kingdom is, but how that kingdom is, that's what we're gonna talk about today.

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How is Jesus going to establish the kingdom of God? And let me tell you the greatest enemy that he faces is

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Jerusalem. Standing in the way of Jesus's new kingdom is the Old Testament kingdom of temples and laws and clean and unclean regulations, priests and sacrifice, leaders bent on keeping all the power to themselves.

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There's so much that we could say. That Old Testament kingdom began well.

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It was ordained by God. It was a good thing. But over time it was perverted. If you'll remember in the

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Exodus, God wooed his people out of slavery in Egypt and he brought him to a mountain and he gave them a good law that was gonna showcase the heart of God to the people of God and he gave them temples and sacrifices.

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The temple so that they would know God and live in his presence and sacrifices so that they would be made righteous in their sin and festivals so that they could feast on God and enjoy him and be his people and priests who would mediate them into the presence of God.

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All of that was what God gave them so that they would know God. And if they had been faithful and lived according to the promises of God, God would have blessed them and God would have made them fruitful and multiplied them and made them into a mighty nation, a light unto the

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Gentiles. But they were not faithful to God. And instead of blessings being rained down upon them, they were cursed.

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God eventually and completely abandoned his people and divorced them and cursed them and I'll show it to you from the

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Old Testament story. The Old Testament story is the story of how God pursues unfaithful

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Israel and she would not remain faithful to him. Israel is called the bride and God is called the husband in Isaiah.

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And yet in Hosea it tells us the true nature of this bride that she played the harlot and she ran away from God and she made love spiritually speaking and committed adultery spiritually speaking to idols.

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Jeremiah tells us that God because of her harlotry had to write her a divorce decree.

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He had to actually write her a certificate of divorce because she was irredeemably unfaithful.

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So unfaithful in fact that she would not turn. So God divorces

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Israel and in the 700s Assyria came in and wiped

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Israel completely out. Ten tribes out of the twelve tribes were gone.

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Judah the other kingdom the other two tribes didn't fare much better in fact. There were times of faithfulness

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Judah had good kings like David and Josiah and Hezekiah.

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There were kings who lived in righteousness there were prophets who led the kingdom to repent and there was great moments of revival in the old kingdom.

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But there were also times of dead religion. There were times of spiritual idolatry and adultery to God.

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By the time we get to the New Testament the people are so dead in their religion and their idolatry that the most significant thing that they offer to the world is that they were the people from whom the

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Messiah would come. But they were also the people that would look at their covenant God and would crucify him.

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Holy week is the story of how God came in human flesh as king to be crowned king of the world.

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He came to a world that was in rebellion against God led by Satan who was the king and prince and power of this world and Jesus came to dethrone him and to plunder his kingdom.

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But the people that he came to did not receive him they actually murdered him and the consequence for that as we will see tonight fell squarely on Jerusalem.

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Judah and the people of Jerusalem would experience the wrath of Almighty God because they dared kill his one and only son.

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What I want us to talk about tonight is two predominant themes in the final week of Jesus's life.

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The last seven days that Jesus lived on earth before he was crucified there is two massive themes that bubble up underneath the surface.

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The first is that Jesus came to destroy the old kingdom.

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The kingdom of temples, tabernacles, priests, sacrifices, the law, all of that.

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He came to completely abolish it and in its place the second theme he came to set up the kingdom of God.

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Now everything that we're going to talk about is from tonight is from those two themes and we begin on the morning of Tuesday.

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As you remember last week Monday was the day that Jesus rode into the city on a donkey declaring himself to be king on Tuesday.

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He wakes up early in the morning he and his disciples and as they're walking toward Jerusalem says that Jesus was hungry and that he saw a barren fig tree and he walked up to the fig tree and it had no fruit on and it says that he cursed the fig tree.

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Now, I don't know about you, but that kind of seems like an overreaction. You may be thinking maybe one of the disciples reach into their bag and like Jesus don't worry.

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We got a hot pocket. That we've got food Jesus don't do you don't have to curse this tree because it didn't have any fruit on it but that's an overly simplistic reading.

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See what Jesus is doing here is he's not angry because he can't eat. He's angry because of a spiritual reality that he is enacting out in front of his disciples that we miss.

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This is called a lived -out parable. It's not a parable with words. It's a parable with actions. For instance in the

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Old Testament this happens multiple times. Isaiah for instance walks around the city of Jerusalem naked for three years showcasing how destitute and how impoverished spiritually the people of Israel had become.

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Ezekiel is another prophet. He constructs a model city.

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He builds this city and it mirrors Jerusalem. It's supposed to look like Jerusalem and then when people are watching him after this model city has been created then he takes a sword and he attacks that city and he goes to war with that city and he destroys that city and he looks probably a little ridiculous.

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He looks like someone who's throwing a temper tantrum against his Legos, but what

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Ezekiel is doing is he is enacting the judgment of God against Jerusalem.

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The judgment that's going to come through the Babylonians who are going to burn the city of Jerusalem to the ground in 586

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BC. So what Jesus is doing here is he is cursing a fruitless tree and don't get lost in the word curses.

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The Old Testament, Deuteronomy 28 says if you obey my commands, if you obey my statutes, if you obey the things that I have told you to do then you will go into the land and you will be blessed and you'll be blessed in the field and you'll be blessed when you come in you'll be blessed in everything that you do, but if you don't you will be cursed.

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Jesus curses the fig tree as a representation of the awful state of Jerusalem under the hand of God and his curse.

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It was a fruitless tree but Jesus says to us and points to the fact that that tree represents

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Jerusalem, the fruitless city. So Jesus rides past or he walks past a fruitless tree enroute to a fruitless city and the point that we are supposed to see is that Jerusalem is under the curse of God and like a tree that's cut down and thrown into the fire for firewood in 40 years from the events that are happening on that day in a single generation the

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Roman armies will come in and they will cut Jerusalem down. They will surround the city of Jerusalem with their armies and they will go to war with Jerusalem because of Jerusalem's attitude towards the

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Romans and because of their provoking the Romans to wrath but what Jesus is saying is that these things aren't because of the

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Romans these things are because God, God is sending his agents the Romans to Jerusalem to surround the city with armies and to destroy it and that is exactly what happened in 70

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AD. You can look at the events from the mouth of Josephus, a

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Jewish Old Testament priest and scholar, a historian who wrote details about these events in 80 -70 and what

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Josephus records to us is that when the Romans came in they killed more than a million Jews and at that time that was by percentage a greater

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Holocaust than the Holocaust that we know of in the 20th century. That day was an awful day.

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It was a day that there are things that I wouldn't even want to share with you in church that happened to desecrate the people of Jerusalem because why?

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Because they killed God's one and only Son. The judgment of God was upon the city of God because they killed the

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Son of God and like a barren fig tree they would be thrown into the flames in just 40 years from the moment

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Jesus spoke that parable. From there

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Jesus walks into the city of Jerusalem. He leaves the fruitless tree behind so that he can go to the fruitless city and so that he can go to the temple where the rot was most pronounced.

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Now if you remember in John 2 Jesus has already cleansed the temple early in his ministry and we learned about that in John chapter 2 and I believe that there was two temple cleansings.

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John says that one happened in the beginning of his ministry. Matthew says that it happened on the final week of his ministry.

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I don't need to figure out why Matthew doesn't mention two. I just know that both gospel writers talk about one.

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One's at the beginning, one's at the end and I think there was two. And I think that Jesus was so angry in the second one because he had already cleansed the temple two years earlier when he came to Jerusalem and overturned the temple tables.

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The money changers tables in the in the markets with the animals. But now after two years the

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Gentile courtyard is filled again with money changers, animal markets, merchants, customers, business, all of it and there was no room for the

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Gentiles to worship. You see the temple was a building that was surrounded by courtyards.

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There was an inner courtyard where only Jewish men could go and then there was an outer courtyard where Jewish women could go and then there was a court of the

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Gentiles on the outside. And that was the furthest courtyard away from the temple but it was the only place on earth where the

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Gentiles could come and worship God. And the priest hated the

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Gentile race so much that instead of making a place for them, instead of making a place where they could come and worship

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God, they filled the only courtyard dedicated to them with animals, with industry, with money, with all of that and Jesus was was furious about it.

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The whole point of the temple was to be a light to the Gentiles, a place where the nations could come and get to know

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God. But now it was a place that was shrouding the knowledge of God in darkness and keeping the nations away saying you're not good enough.

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You're not worthy enough. Don't come and try to know our God. You're not. So Jesus went to war surgically flipping over tables, chasing people out with a whip, reclaiming this sacred space for God.

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You know, we often talk about tender Jesus, meek and mild, the one who's got nice feathered hair and wears skinny jeans in Jerusalem and he's a hipster

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Jesus and he just loves everybody and he just he's just always passionate and peaceful and calm and that's not the

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Jesus that we see here. We see a ferocious Jesus who doesn't mind offending people because he knows that they have offended the holiness of God.

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This Jesus, the true Jesus, the real Jesus cares disproportionately about God's honor than placating people and making sure that they feel welcomed in their sin.

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Jesus is not cleaning this temple out because of preference. He's battling for the holiness of Almighty God and he's waging war against a perverted

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Old Testament system that was waging war against people who wanted to know

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God but religion was being weaponized against them. And look, as soon as Jesus does this, a funny thing happens like a gardener who cuts off all of the dead branches.

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As soon as Jesus does this, the temple starts to function and flourish like it was supposed to.

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Gentiles come back into the courtyard. The sick, the weak, the lame, the blind, all of them stream into the courtyard.

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Look at what it says in Matthew 21 14. And those who were blind and those who limped came to him in the temple area and he healed them.

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One of the most dramatic midday displays in all of temple history is when Jesus cleansed it and personally healed people that religion rejected.

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The broken, the sick, the weak, the ones who are not okay. Finally could worship

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God again. Finally, because Jesus in righteous zeal overcame the rot.

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That was pervasive. For the briefest of moments, praises broke out in the temple.

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Imagine that, the place where God is to be worshipped and people started worshipping It says in verse 15 that the people cried out,

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Hosanna to the son of David, which means son of David save us now. This is the rejects and the outcasts and the people who the temple did not want praising

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God to the top of their lungs. And instead of being happy about it, the Pharisees were angry about it.

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They show that condemnation and judgment had fallen upon their own heads because as soon as Jesus did this, they act out of the deadness of their own soul and they hate him for it.

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Matthew 21 15 in its full says, but when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that God had done and the children who were shouting in the temple area,

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Hosanna to the son of David, they became indignant. They were so diseased in their own soul that God himself came to the temple, purified it, indwelled it, with his presence and then people started worshipping and they missed it and they hated him for it.

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And after a very brief exchange with the Pharisees on Tuesday night, Tuesday came to a close.

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Jesus left the city of Jerusalem and he walked down from the city of Jerusalem and he traveled to the town of Bethany where he was staying.

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And that ended the events. The next morning before the sun came up on Wednesday, Jesus and his disciples were already ready to go.

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They left Bethany, the town that they were staying at with Mary, Martha and Lazarus, and they walked back to the city.

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And it was then that Peter was reminded of the fig tree. You can imagine that the sun is just starting to rise.

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Peter sees the fig tree and it's withered at this point. Mark 11 tells us this.

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As they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up. Being reminded about this,

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Peter said to them, Rabbi, look, the fig tree which you cursed has withered.

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And Jesus answered, saying to them, have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and cast into the sea and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he is saying is going to happen.

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It will be granted to him. Now, this is not

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Jesus being vague and teaching some hyper spiritual. You got to have faith.

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You got to move the mountains in your life. When you go to that promotion board, don't worry, if you have faith, you can move the mountains and you can move your boss to give you a raise and you can move this and move that and have your

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Maserati and have your mansion and have everything that you want because it just takes faith. That's not what

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Jesus is saying at all. And it doesn't even remotely match the context.

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Peter says, Jesus, look at the tree that you cursed, the tree that you applied to Jerusalem.

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And Jesus doesn't stop and say, Peter, don't worry about it, see it.

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If you can see it, you can have it. If you can dream it, it's possible. That's not what Jesus is saying at all. That's ridiculous.

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Jesus is saying that the same faith that it took to curse that fig tree that represented

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Jerusalem is the same faith that would call Jesus to look at the city of Jerusalem, the city on top of a mountain, the city that was literally looming over the landscape of where they were.

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They were standing in the valley at the foot of the mountain city of Jerusalem, looming over top of them.

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And Jesus says, if I say to this mountain being lifted up and thrown into the sea, when

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Jesus says this, he's looking at Jerusalem.

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He's looking at the mountain city. He's talking about the awful day of judgment when

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Rome comes in and it doesn't just destroy the city like we talked about with the fig tree.

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Jesus is adding clarity here. The fig tree is cut down and thrown in the fire, just like in AD 70,

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Jerusalem will be cut down and thrown into the fire. But it's worse than that. It will be lifted up and it will be plunged into the ocean forever gone.

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And history tells us what happened when the Romans had finished burning the city completely to the ground and the ashes were still smoking.

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They loaded up all of the treasures of Jerusalem, all the gold from the temple.

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That's why they split every stone in two, by the way, because the gold from the temple melted into the cracks of the rocks.

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So they had to split the rocks open just so that they could get the final pieces of gold. And they loaded up all the treasures of Jerusalem, which were legion, and they put them in their boats and they cast them out into the ocean.

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En route back to the city of Rome. When Jesus says this mountain will be lifted up and cast into the sea, it was.

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All of its treasure, all of its splendor, all of its glory was cast up and taken away from it, put in boats and sent back to Rome across the sea.

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What Jesus is saying actually happened. He's not trying to get us to muster up big, audacious, hairy faith.

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He's not saying that if you get sick and your dog dies, or if you get sick and a loved one dies, or if you get sick and or if something else happens to you in your life that hurts you and breaks you, that that you just need to have enough faith.

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And then then maybe if you have enough faith, then I will answer you, which which is a burden and a noose around all of our necks that we've probably sometime bore.

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Because when the bad thing happens to us, then the immediate response is, well, I didn't have enough faith. That is not what

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Jesus is saying. He's not asking you to have enough faith. He's saying, I have enough faith and that mountain, which is standing between me and my people, that old kingdom has to fall, that old kingdom has to be torn down so that I can start a kingdom with my people.

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I have enough faith to say to that mountain, be gone. And it will. And he did that on the mountain hill of Calvary, right at the very center of Jerusalem.

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He toppled the mountain so that he could start a kingdom that would never end after he has this discussion with his disciples.

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They go back to the city of Jerusalem. For another showdown with the religious leaders.

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And the religious leaders, again, try to trap him so that they can kill him. They want to kill him publicly because the crowds loved

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Jesus. The crowds were falling in love with Jesus, which meant power was being extracted from the

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Pharisees and they hated him for it. But if they tried to arrest him publicly, the crowd would turn on them and they would lose everything.

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So they had to do this with skill. So they tried to trap him in theological debate so that the crowd would turn from him.

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But Jesus, in his supreme wisdom, not only evades every single one of their traps, he teaches them with pulverizing clarity that he's not there to prop up their dead religion.

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He is God who is there to remove it and replace it with a people who will bear fruit for his kingdom.

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And he does this right after he has this sort of mini showdown. And the Pharisees are left embarrassed because of their lack of wisdom and knowledge in comparison to the supremely wise

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God. Jesus teaches them two parables in Matthew chapter 21. This is

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Wednesday morning, and I want to read them to you right now. The first is the parable of the two sons, and it's in Matthew 21, 28 through 32.

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Jesus says to the Pharisees. Well, what do you think? A man had two sons.

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And he came to the first son and he said, son, I want you to go to work today in the vineyard. And the son answered,

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I will not. But afterwards, the son regretted it and he went.

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But the man came to his second son and he said the same thing, and he and the son answered, I will, sir.

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But he did not go. Which one of the two did the will of the father?

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And the Pharisees themselves answered him the first. The one that said, no,

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I'm not going to go, but then eventually did end up going. That's the one that did the will of the father, not the one who just spoke the right words and then never ended up doing anything about it.

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And then Jesus turned to the Pharisees, and this is what he said to them. Truly, I say to you.

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That the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going to get into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in every way of righteousness, and you did not believe him.

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But the tax collectors and the prostitutes did, and you, seeing this, did not even feel remorse afterwards so as to believe.

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Jesus is saying that one looks like he's being obedient, and the other looks like he's being disobedient.

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But in the upside -down sort of kingdom that Jesus is bringing, the one who looks the most disobedient is the one who ends up coming.

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And the one who looks righteous and looks religious is the one who doesn't. And the Pharisees were the one who doesn't.

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Jesus is saying that they are doing everything that they can to keep prostitutes and tax collectors out of the kingdom of God.

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Jesus says they are going to enter the kingdom before you. But it gets worse. The second parable is even more stinging and damning.

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And that's the parable of the vineyard. Jesus said, listen to the parable of the vineyard.

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He's talking to people who loved wine and loved vineyards. And he's quoting from Isaiah here, well -known passages.

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He said there was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a winepress in it, and he built a tower around it.

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And he rented that vineyard out to vine growers and went on a long journey. When the harvest time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine growers to receive his produce.

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And the vine growers took his slaves and beat one of them. Killed another and then stoned a third.

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And again, he sent another group of slaves larger than the first, and they did the same thing to them.

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But afterwards, he sent to them his son saying, they will respect my son. But when the vine grower saw the son, they said among themselves, this is the heir.

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Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance. And they took him and they threw him out of the vineyard and they killed him.

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Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine growers? And the Pharisees looked right at Jesus and they indicted themselves by their own testimony.

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Verse 41 says, they said to him, he will bring those wretches to a wretched end.

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And he will rent out the vineyard to other vine growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper season.

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Jesus said to them, did you never read in the scriptures the stone which the builder rejected?

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This became the cornerstone. This came about from the Lord and it is marvelous in our eyes.

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Therefore, I say to you, Pharisees, that the kingdom of God is going to be taken away from you.

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It's going to be given to a people who will bear the fruit of it. He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but on whoever it falls, it will scatter him like dust.

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Jesus cursed the fruitless tree to show that it was a fruitless city.

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And they are under the mighty hand of judgment of God. Like a tree, they're going to be chopped down and burned in the fire.

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Like a mountain, they're going to be soon tossed into the sea. Like two sons, one of them is diagnosed as faithful and the other one is diagnosed as faithful.

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It's the unfaithful one who's going to be cast out into the darkness. Like the tenants, they're going to lose their kingdom.

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The kingdom that God entrusted to them from the time of Moses, they're going to lose it. Irredeemably so,

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Jesus is saying that it's beyond repentance at this point. Do you see the clear theme of judgment on Jerusalem?

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That kingdom is being crushed by Christ. It's the stone that fell upon it and crushed it and broke it and scattered it to the ends of the earth.

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And yet, even in the midst of that, Jesus is toppling the

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Old Testament kingdom, but He's beginning a new kingdom with new tenants, with new vine growers, who

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He will entrust to bear fruit. After Jesus spoke, even though they indicted themselves with their own mouth, they hated

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Jesus for what He had just spoken. It says that they knew at that moment that He was talking about them and they hated

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Him. But they couldn't kill Him because the crowds were following Jesus.

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The crowds loved Jesus and they could not kill Him. So Wednesday drew to a close as Jesus had just spoke these two powerful parables.

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Jesus went to sleep in Bethany with the Jewish establishment riled up against Him.

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And He awoke Thursday morning early and returned back to the city. And the first thing that He does when

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He gets to the city in the morning is He tells another parable. This is called the parable of the wedding feast. I'm going to read this one to you as well.

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This one ratchets up the judgment even more. Jesus spoke to them again in parables.

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And let me just tell you something about parables. Jesus disguises truth so that people who are under the judgment of God will not repent.

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It says in one passage, why do you speak in parables? Because these things have been kept a mystery from the kingdom, a mystery from those who won't repent.

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But for those who are in the kingdom of God, these mysteries have been revealed. Jesus is obfuscating this so that they won't get it.

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So that God's judging hand will fall on that generation because they were past the point of repentance.

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Jesus spoke to them again in parables saying, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.

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And he sent out his slaves to call all of those who had been invited to the wedding feast. That's the prophets who went out to the people of God all throughout the generations and called them to come and to feast and to dine and to be in relationship with God.

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But they were unwilling. And again, he sent out slaves saying, tell those who've been invited, behold,

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I have prepared my dinner. My oxen and my fat and livestock are all butchered and everything is ready.

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Come to the wedding feast. But they paid no attention and they went their own way, one to his own farm, another to his business.

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And the rest of them seized his slaves and mistreated them and they killed them.

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But the king was enraged and he sent his armies and he destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire.

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And he said to his slaves, the wedding is ready, but those who were invited are not worthy. Go therefore to the main highways, as many as you can find there, invite to the wedding feast.

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Those slaves went out into the streets and they gathered together all that they found, both evil and good, and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests.

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Do you see what Jesus is saying? God throughout the entire

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Old Testament had been inviting his people to come, but they refused to come. And more than that, they killed the slaves that God sent to invite them and to call them and to plead with them to come to the feast.

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They killed them. And in the providence of God's timing, eventually he became angry and he sent his armies.

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That is God sending Rome, his armies, because all armies belong to God.

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And he sent them and he set fire to their city. And Jesus is prophesying it here and they don't even realize it.

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Some of them in that generation would not taste death before they saw the prophecy that Jesus prophesied right here coming to bear.

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It says the king was enraged. He sent his armies, destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire. What else could this mean?

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He says the wedding is ready, but the ones who are called are not worthy. He ends the parable by saying many are called, but few are chosen.

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For a thousand years, people had been called to the wedding feast of God from the time of David, from the time of Solomon, from the time of Hezekiah and Josiah and Asa and all of them.

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All throughout the generations of Israelite history, they were being called to the feast and they would not come.

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And in this generation, the generation that Jesus was living in, they were being called to the feast and not only would they not come, like the parable of the vineyard, they took

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God's son, the last prophet, the one who called them to the feast and they murdered him.

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And God in his fury at Jerusalem would crush that city for killing his son.

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What's ironic about this parable is that most scholars believe that while Jesus was giving this parable, that John 12 is in the background of it.

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Jesus finishes that parable in Matthew, but yet in John, it says, then

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Gentiles started gathering around him. Many scholars believe that after the parable of the wedding feast, that Gentiles started to gather around Jesus and Jesus utters some of the most famous words that he says, when

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I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself. I am the king who has prepared the wedding feast.

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And look, the Gentiles are coming. The Samaritans are coming. The down and out are coming.

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And I will draw them to myself. I will bring them to myself when

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I am lifted up on the cross. He is bringing Jerusalem to an end. The wretched wretches will come to a wretched end on his cross and on his cross.

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Those who don't deserve to be in the kingdom are brought in. One kingdom dies, another kingdom rises, and all of it's centered on the cross, which would happen soon.

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But for right now, we're still in the events of Thursday. When the

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Pharisees heard this parable in the middle of the day on Thursday, again, they tried to trap him with probably their go -to theological argument that they use to confuse everyone around them.

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They knew that if Jesus answered this wrongly, the crowds were going to turn on him. So they asked him, Jesus, what do you think about taxes?

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Which is ironic because 2 ,000 years later, people still hate you when you ask them their opinions on taxes. It is one of the worst conversation starters.

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And if you don't want to talk to someone and you really want to have an introverted moment, then what you need to do is just go on and on and on about how much you love taxes and how you want to give all your money to the government and how you love the way that the government stewards resources.

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And they're doing such a great job. We should just give them more money. If you want to see everyone roll their eyes and walk away from you in abject terror, start talking about that.

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So the Pharisees asked Jesus, what does he think about paying taxes, knowing that the crowd was paying between Rome and Herod and between the temple tax and everything else, they were paying about 60 to 80 % of their income to taxes.

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So this was a hot button issue. And they thought, we got you, Jesus. Jesus said, render unto

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Caesar the things that are Caesar's, but render unto God the things that are

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God's. Jesus once again humiliates them.

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He once again demonstrates that he has superior wisdom and that they're incapable of trapping him, which means that they're going to be incapable of arresting him in public.

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So what they're going to have to do is they're going to have to do a secret meeting and a secret trial and a secret arrest and a secret early morning crucifixion, which we'll see very shortly.

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Because of the deadness of their hearts, Jesus turns away from them to the crowds and he tells them exactly what kind of frauds that they are.

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And in the first part of Matthew 23, he tells those people exactly who the

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Pharisees are and he condemns them, but it gets worse. He turns to the Pharisees themselves and he pronounces seven woes of judgment upon their head.

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Seven woes, because seven is the number of God. It's the perfect number. It's the complete number, which means that the woe, the judgment, the curse that is being placed upon their head is inescapable.

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It's a perfect curse. It's a total judgment. Now, we're not going to be able to read all of Matthew 23 or Matthew 24 for that matter.

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Both Matthew 23, 24 and 25 have to do with the events of Thursday. But I want to briefly share with you a little bit of Matthew 23, just a couple of examples to show you that judgment has come on Jerusalem.

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Again, we've already seen that judgment has come in the fact that it's like a fig tree.

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It's going to be cut down and burned. It's come because the temple was the center of the rot and needed to be purified.

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It's coming because Jesus said it's like a mountain. It's going to be thrown in the sea. It's coming like a vineyard owner or like the two sons or like the parable of the wedding feast.

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It's coming. But now in Matthew 23, Jesus finally and directly and clearly without a single bit of parables in the most straightforward language that he's ever uttered, he pronounces woe upon Jerusalem.

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And this is what he says. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people for you do not even enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.

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That's the first woe. Jesus is saying that they're weaponizing religion against the masses, the temple and Judaism, the law, the prophets, the priests, the sacrifices, all of it was supposed to bring people into nearness and fellowship with God.

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And they were using it to keep them isolated from God. They were heaping heavy burdens on the people's heads and making them follow exacting standards that were harming them.

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And Jesus said that judgment had come for that.

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The final woe that he pronounces or the finishing statements of the seven woes, the capstone on which the most poignant judgment statement ever uttered is spoken.

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It's verses 34 through 36. This is what Jesus says. And I want you to pay very close attention to it. Therefore, behold,

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I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify.

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Some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and you will persecute from city to city so that upon you,

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Jerusalem, may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth.

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Every drop of guilt that was shed on earth would be poured out on them.

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Jesus says from the blood of righteous Abel, the first murder, to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.

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Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

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Jesus is saying that the judgment to come is inescapable. It's unavoidable and it's not able to be repented of.

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They are so far gone in their hatred and their blinded fury towards Christ that the only thing left for them is judgment.

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Jesus, of course, is not happy. He's not excited for the fact that this is happening.

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The very next verse says, this is Jesus weeping as he leaves the city. As he turns his back on the

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Pharisees and walks away, this is Jesus weeping. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her.

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How often have I wanted your children together, to gather them, the way that a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling.

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Behold, Jerusalem, your house is being left to you desolate.

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It's ironic because the very next verse is Matthew 24, where the disciples who have just witnessed this sort of tense, passionate fury on Christ, where he pronounces these woes upon these wicked rulers and he says, your house will be left to you desolate.

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It's interesting to me that in verse one of chapter 24, they point to that house and they say, it says

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Jesus came out of the temple and was going away when his disciples came up and pointed out to him the temple buildings. And he said to them, do you see all these things?

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I say to you, not one stone will be left upon another, which will not be torn down.

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He was prophesying about the downfall of Jerusalem. He was prophesying about the day when their house would be left to them desolate.

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The fruitless tree was gonna get cut down. The old kingdom is not gonna come. That mountain was gonna be cast into the sea.

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That great city that refused to be gathered like a chick to its hens will be desolated. That city,

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Jesus tells them is gonna be destroyed with not a single brick left upon another and he dates this parable or he dates this judgment.

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Everyone who looks at Matthew 24 says, this is a statement about the end times.

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Jesus says, I say to you that this generation will not pass away. And so all of these things have taken place.

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Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words were not passed away. This house will be left to you desolate.

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Can you think of a better metaphor? Gathered together in a smoldering city,

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Jerusalem, which was supposed to be the picture of heaven has become a metaphor of hell.

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As the evening of Thursday was drawing near, Jesus taught Matthew 24 about the destruction of Jerusalem.

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Matthew 25, he taught about the coming kingdom. That's our two themes. The kingdom that is falling,

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Matthew 24, the kingdom that is rising, Matthew 25 even, in Matthew 26, verses one through five,

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Jesus says that the crucifixion, Good Friday moment begins now.

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You know that after two days, the Passover is coming and the son of man is to be handed over for crucifixion. He's telling them,

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I'm gonna die. And at the very same time,

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Matthew tells us that in Jerusalem, as the disciples are sitting on the Mount of Olives, listening to Jesus tell them that he's going to die in the city, cloistered together in a little room are the chief priest and the

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Pharisees. And it says that they were gathered together in the court of the high priest named

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Caiaphas and they were plotting together to seize Jesus by stealth and to kill him secretly.

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They were saying not during the festival, otherwise a riot might occur and the people turn on us.

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They were gonna kill him in secret. Both groups are gonna be busy into the night, but the

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Pharisees had the upper hand in this moment because before the events of Holy Week, before Jesus rode into Jerusalem, he was already betrayed.

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Not only was Judah turning on Jesus, Jerusalem, but the man who bears the name of Judah, Judas, which means a man of Judah, a true

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Judean. If you remember at a dinner party, he was offended at Mary when she anointed

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Jesus' feet with costly oil. And instead of him being able to steal that money out of the money bag later, that money was spent anointing

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Jesus for his burial. And he was so offended by it, he slipped out that very night, went to the

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Pharisees and betrayed Jesus for the price of a common slave. And every moment of the

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Holy Week, Monday, when Jesus rode into the city, the clanging of 30 pieces of silver was ringing in Judas' pocket.

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On Tuesday, when he cursed the fig tree, that cursed money was eating a hole in Judas' pants.

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On Wednesday, when he said that mountain would be thrown into the sea, Judas, the bringer of betrayal, was soon gonna hang from a tree, cursed and tossed away, abandoned the entire

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Holy Week. All I'm saying is that he was carrying the money of betrayal in his pocket, and he did not repent.

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And Jesus said nothing about it, knowing full well that that money was in his pocket and knowing full well that he had betrayed him.

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He said nothing until the last supper. And this is what he said, Matthew 26, 20 through 25.

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When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the 12. And as they were eating, he said, truly

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I say to you that one of you will betray me. And being deeply grieved in their spirit, each one of them said to one another, surely not

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I, Lord. And he answered, he who dipped his hand with me in the bowl is the one who will betray me.

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The son of man is to go, which means he's gonna die, just as it is written of him, but woe to the man by whom the son of man is betrayed.

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It would have been better for that man if he had not been born. And Judas, who was betraying him, spoke up and said, surely not

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I. Jesus said to him, you've said it yourself.

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Woe is gonna fall on Judas, just like Jerusalem, by his own testimony, he condemns himself, just like the

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Pharisees. And at eight o 'clock at night, when Thursday turned to Friday on the

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Jewish calendar, Judas slipped out to go and finish his betrayal, while Jesus and his disciples sang songs of worship and went to the

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Mount of Olives, to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus knew that he would be betrayed.

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Good Friday began in the upper room and it ended with an empty tomb. Good Friday began on Monday, when

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Jesus rode into the city, when the money was clinging in the pocket of Judas. Good Friday began when he set himself against the

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Jewish establishment who had partnered with Judas in this commiseration. But Good Friday began on the day that Jesus was born, because Jesus was born.

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As Jesus sat at the table, the feelings of betrayal began.

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As he walked to the garden, the emotional weight of the betrayal must have been crushing for Jesus.

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Judas, one of his friends, one of his ministry partners, sold him out to the mob who was busily planning his execution.

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The wicked priest who were called holy, set apart, are hiring hitmen and henchmen to crush the

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Son of God even one of his own followers. The betrayal, though, ran deeper than that.

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While Judas was going to Jerusalem, his disciples were with him in the upper room.

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And this is exactly what Jesus tells them when they leave the upper room and when they go to the Garden of Gethsemane.

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As soon as they get there, Jesus acknowledges the fact, this is what he says, you will all fall away because of me on this night.

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For it is written, I will strike down the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. Jesus is quoting the

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Old Testament where God himself will strike down the shepherd and his sheep and his flock will be scattered.

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Jesus is gonna be totally alone. Betrayed by the priest, betrayed by the city, betrayed by the temple, betrayed by the follower

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Judas, betrayed by the disciples and Peter and his impulsivity pops up and says, even though all may fall away because of you,

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I will never fall away. It's chapter 26, now verse 34. Jesus said to them, truly

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I say to you that this very night before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times

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Judas. Peter said to him, even if I had to die with you,

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I will never deny you. And then all of the disciples said the exact same thing.

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The emotional pain that our Lord experienced in route to the cross must have been a pain that is almost unimaginable.

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Abandoned by every human being on earth, the people that he loved most, totally alone.

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But it was the spiritual pain that Jesus was most anxious about.

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It was the spiritual pain that would be far worse than the emotional pain that Jesus could have dealt with.

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But as Jesus sat in the garden of Gethsemane, the garden where human life began and he's getting ready to die, the garden where God walks with his people and he is being abandoned, the garden where after humanity sinned, thorns came out of the ground and God instead of humans are gonna have the curse applied to himself.

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God, Jesus takes the crown of thorns on his head. Adam and Eve were clothed with the skins of animals and soon in the garden,

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Jesus is gonna be treated like an animal. The irony is rich.

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God is suffering for what human beings began in Eden. The curse is gonna fall on Jerusalem and its kingdom will be no more but the curse is also gonna fall on Christ because to free his people and to make them into citizens, someone had to die.

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Jerusalem was gonna pay for their sins. But Christ was gonna pay for the sins of his people and the pain that he felt from anticipating the spiritual reality of being separated from God.

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All eternity, Jesus had been in perfect relationship with God, fellowshipping with God, loving

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God, being the beloved son of God. He never knew distance from God.

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There was never a nanosecond in his eternal existence where he felt separation from God.

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But the pain of the impending spiritual reality that he was about to face was pushing him over the edge.

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Capillaries were bursting in his temples, causing him to cry tears of blood.

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There's a level of emotional, mental and spiritual trauma upon the savior that nearly killed him right there.

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It's something that you and I cannot even possibly imagine. The only son of God about to drink the cup of the father's wrath and he was in agony and he was all alone.

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While Jesus fought for prayer, his disciples slept.

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And why was Jesus praying in the garden? Out of all the things he could have been doing, why wasn't he preparing troops for war? Why wasn't he doing something else?

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Because he knew that he was getting ready to be separated from God and he spent the last waning moments that he could in prayer, in intimacy with God.

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He knew how great it was to be in the presence of God and he despaired at the thought of losing it, so he prayed.

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Very soon the crowds arrived with the pitchforks and torches. The guards descended upon him and arrested him and carried him away in chains.

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Peter drew out a sword and flung it around until he cut off the high priest servant's ear.

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Christ had to rebuke Peter in that moment because the kingdom that he was bringing was not physical, it was spiritual.

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He was dragged by the court of the high priest to Caiaphas' house, that's the high priest.

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And during these sham trial proceedings, one false witness after another stood up to try to indict him.

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Since according to the Old Testament law, a matter, an accusation had to be settled on two witnesses.

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And on and on and on it went because none of their stories were corroborating because they were making it up.

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It was a sham trial, it was a lie. Jesus had done nothing at all to be in this situation and yet they were trying to get their story straight.

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Jesus actually arrived too early because they hadn't ironed out their testimony yet. It's pathetic that a high priest, a man who's supposed to serve in righteousness and integrity would oversee such a trial.

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As soon as the witnesses got their story straight, Caiaphas himself, the high priest, became both judge and jury over Christ.

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You can imagine the irony. The high priest turning to his

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God and condemning him. What he didn't realize is that the condemnation had actually fallen on him.

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Finally, the two witnesses stood up and he said, this man, Jesus, stated that I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days.

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They went all the way back to John chapter two to find this one, which was two years earlier. This was a two -year -old tweet that they resurfaced so that they could cancel

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Jesus. The high priest stood up and said to Jesus, do you not answer?

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What is it that these men are testifying against you? But Jesus kept silent.

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The high priest Caiaphas said to him, I adjure you by the living God that you tell me whether you are the

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Christ, the son of God. And Jesus said, you have said it yourself again on the testimony of the lips of his accusers.

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They're indicting themselves. Jesus said, nevertheless,

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I tell you hereafter, you will see the son of man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven.

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And then the high priest tore his robes and he said, he is blasphemed. Now there's two things that I want you to notice here in this trial and what

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Jesus says. The first thing is I want you to see that Jesus is sovereign over his own death.

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This whole time, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, he has been prolonging his arrest so that he could be the true

01:08:25

Passover lamb sacrificed at just the right time. Now Jesus is finally ready to be killed.

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And he says exactly what was needed for the high priest to indict him.

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And the high priest knew what he was saying. He ripped his own clothing because of it. The high priest knew what he was saying, which is the second thing that I want us to see.

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We don't understand when Jesus says, I'm going to be coming in the clouds of heaven. So what we do is we punt that to the second coming.

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Jesus doesn't say somebody somewhere is going to see me come one day in the clouds of heaven. He says, you Caiaphas, you are going to see me sitting at the right hand of power and you are going to see me coming on the clouds of heaven.

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What is Jesus saying? Well, he's quoting Daniel 7.

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He's quoting a well -known passage that was talking about the kingdom of God.

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He's looking squarely at Caiaphas right in the face and he's saying, you might kill me, Caiaphas, but I am going to receive the kingdom when you do.

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You murder me, do it. But I am going to report to God after you murder me and he is going to give me the kingdom.

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He is going to take the kingdom away from you and he is going to give the kingdom to me. And Caiaphas knew that was what he was saying because he quoted from Daniel chapter 7.

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What does Daniel 7 say? Daniel says, I kept looking in the night visions and behold, with the clouds of heaven, there was one like a son of man who was coming and he came up to the ancient of days and was presented before him and he was given dominion and honor and a kingdom so that all the peoples, nations and populations of all languages might serve him.

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His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away and his kingdom is one that will not be destroyed.

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Jesus is saying, you kill me, Caiaphas, but I will go up to the throne of God when

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I ascend into heaven and I present myself in front of the father, I will be presented in front of him as victorious.

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I will rise out of the tomb and I will ascend to the throne of God and God will look at me and he will give me an eternal, everlasting kingdom that will replace you.

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In less than 40 years after Jesus ascends from the dead, that prophecy was fully completed.

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Jesus rose and ascended, was presented at the right hand of God in power, just like Daniel says, and God gave him a kingdom that will never end.

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If you're here tonight and you're a part of the Christian church, you're a part of the kingdom that Christ was murdered to begin.

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Think about that. The high priest Caiaphas killed your king and in so doing,

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Caiaphas lost the kingdom, not Jesus. Jesus resurrected to gain the kingdom.

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He ascended to heaven to rule over the kingdom and the ancient of days gave him the kingdom and you're now beneficiary of that kingdom tonight.

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All of the events of Holy Week tell the exact same message. The old kingdom is coming to an end in judgment and the new kingdom is coming in triumph.

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After Jesus says this, Caiaphas rips his clothes and he sends him immediately to Pilate.

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Pilate is a Roman prefect and governor. He's the one who executes criminals.

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The Jews had ways of executing criminals, you know. They stoned people to death.

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They can do that. That was part of their law. But look at what John tells us in John 18.

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Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas into the praetorium and it was early Friday morning.

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This means Jesus hasn't been asleep yet for more than 36 hours and they themselves did not enter into the praetorium so that they would not be defiled.

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Do you see how self -righteous they are? They're too afraid to enter into the court of Gentile rulers because it will defile them, but yet they're killing the son of God.

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They're murdering God and they're worried about Gentiles, dirty Gentiles.

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Do you see the smugness and the religion? This is why

01:13:52

Pharisees, Pharisaism, Pharisees is a pejorative term today. This is disgusting.

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But you know what though? If it were not for the grace of God and our life, you and I would be there with them.

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You and I would be holding Jesus's hand and leading him to the Romans. We would cheer, crucify him, crucify him as he bled and died.

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We're no different, we're no better. We're on the side of history where the

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Holy Spirit has through grace alone and faith alone and Christ alone redeemed us and resurrected us and regenerated us so that now we see the truth of Christ.

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But if it were not for the Spirit's work, dear friends, do not think that you and I would have been any different. We wouldn't have.

01:14:47

Because they wouldn't come in to see him. It says in verse 29, therefore Pilate went out to them and he said, what accusation do you bring against this man?

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And they answered and said to him, if this man were not an evildoer, then would we not have brought him to you? So Pilate said to them, take him yourselves, judge him according to your own law.

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But the Jews said to him, we are not permitted to put anyone to death, which is not completely true.

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But 32 tells us it was to fulfill the word of Jesus, which he spoke signifying by what kind of death he was about to die.

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Jews did never crucify anyone. It was a Roman ritual torture.

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The Romans invented crucifixion. They were the ones who prescribed crucifixion and they were the ones who administered crucifixion.

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And because Jesus said in John 12, when I am lifted up, then I will draw all people to myself, that's what he was talking about.

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In John 3, when he's talking about looking to the brazen or to the bronze snake in the wilderness, look at it in verse 3, 15.

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He's talking about the snake that was lifted up in the wilderness. Jesus is saying, I will be lifted up to take the curse away from my people.

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Multiple times he's saying that he's gonna be lifted up. In Matthew 26, he says,

01:16:11

I'm gonna be turned over to be crucified. He prophesied it and it's happening.

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Pilate said, take him yourself, judge him according to your law. They said, we're not permitted to put anyone to death, which fulfilled the words of Christ.

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Therefore, Pilate entered again into the praetorium and he summoned Jesus and he said to him, are you a king of the

01:16:34

Jews? Look at this man who has no familiarity with the

01:16:42

Bible, is more righteous and more moral than the Jews. Treating Jesus with respect and honor, asking him if he's a king because he can see something in Jesus.

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He's more righteous than the high priest. Jesus answered and said, are you saying this on your own initiative or did someone else tell you about it?

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Pilate answered, I'm not a Jew, am I? Your own nation, your chief priest delivered you up to me, what have you done?

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Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world. Now, what he's saying here, he's not saying that the kingdom of God only exists in heaven and it doesn't exist at all here on earth.

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He's saying it's not like the kingdoms of this world. It's not built by power and military might and war and bullets and guns and knives and swords and anything like that.

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He's saying it's not like this world. My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, then my servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the

01:17:46

Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not of this realm. It's a spiritual kingdom.

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Therefore Pilate said to him, so you're a king? And Jesus said, look at the self -indicting statements and the statements that other people are saying about Jesus that are true.

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Jesus says, you say correctly that I'm a king for that is the reason that I was born.

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And that is the purpose for which I came into this world. By Jesus' own admission, he's admitting that he's a king and that he's come to bring about a kingdom.

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That's the theme. He's gonna squash the old kingdom and raise up a new kingdom. And he admits that right there to Pilate, which is a fascinating thing to admit because no one in the

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Roman empire was king but Caesar. So when Jesus says it was my purpose to be brought into the world as king, he's making a pretty unbelievable statement.

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But still yet Pilate was unwilling to murder him. And he offered that he would give them

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Jesus or he would give them Barabbas who was an actual murderer, who was an actual insurrectionist, who actually had led a rebellion against Rome.

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Pilate's playing a dangerous game. He gives them someone who actually is dangerous versus someone that he sees is not a threat at all.

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And they choose the murderer. He tried to negotiate with the satanically fueled mob that was shrieking louder and louder, crucify him and they were unwilling.

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To be negotiated with. Pilate's wife warned him, do not have anything to do with this man.

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But the crowds overcame him. The chance of death were inescapable. If Pilate did not make a decision and fast, then his neck was gonna be on the line because they were gonna go to Caesar and say that Pilate is participating in a rebellion.

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Oh yes. If a man says he is king in Caesar's empire and you support that man, then you're a part of the insurrection.

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You must be put down. Pilate would have been fired and murdered if he supported

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Jesus. Something else you need to know in the

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Roman empire. Julius Caesar, before Jesus was even born, coined the term son of God.

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Julius Caesar said that he was the son of the gods and he was worshipped. Other Roman emperors were worshipped.

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So if anyone else is claiming that their divine son, the true son of God, then they were blaspheming in the

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Roman empire. So Pilate, if he supported Jesus, would not only be a blasphemer, but an insurrectionist and he would lose his life.

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So Pilate comes up with a modified position. Pilate didn't make it to governor without being crafty.

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He was a smart man. So he thought to himself, I will beat Jesus. I will scourge him and mangle him.

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And then, then they'll not want to murder him.

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So he commanded that Jesus would be scourged, which he was led out into the open square and stripped totally naked so that his back and his buttocks was exposed.

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He was tied to a post and beaten repeatedly with peculiar whips. It's called the cat of nine tails because it had nine straps of leather with bone and glass and metal attached to the ends.

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Of the straps so that when it wrapped around a person's body, the metal would actually stick into the flesh.

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And when you pulled it away from the body, it would rip, not just skin, it would rip actual meat and tendons and muscle away from the body.

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As they continued, subcutaneous tissue underneath would be ripped out and bones and organs would be exposed.

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The Romans knew about how many lashings that a normal person could take. And it was 40. 41 is generally the time when someone fell over dead.

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So they gave Jesus all 40 whips, taking him to the point of death, but leaving him just shy of it.

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Blood and circulatory loss would kill many men during this time.

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But Jesus still alive through the whole thing, even to the point that they ridiculed and mocked him.

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They dressed him up in purple garments which was the color of a king and they put them on his blood soaked back and they gave him a fake scepter, which was the symbol of the king's authority and power.

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And then they put a razor blade kind of crown of thorns on his head, which was a symbol of the king's authority.

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John tells us the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and they put it on his head and they put a purple robe on him and began to come up and say to him, hail king of the

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Jews. The thorns that they placed on his head were four to six inch thorns.

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Bigger thorns than what you and I have in North America. And they shoved them down onto his scalp, piercing his brow and they mocked him and they bowed down before him and worshiped him fakely like he were their

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Caesar. There's actually reports that say that some people who were being scourged would be wrapped with saltwater strips so that when their body, so that when the scabs healed, they would rip the strips off and expose the wounds a second time.

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Now, I don't think that happened to Jesus here, but I just want you to see the passion for violence these people had.

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The destitute nature of their own depravity that fueled them to inflict maximum pain.

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When a person was finished being scourged, they were unrecognizable.

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And they were permanently damaged. Physically, if they were set free at that moment, physically, they would never be the same.

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Their body was so badly mangled that they would bear the scars and the pain and the muscle deformation for the rest of their life.

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Like vultures salivating over a corpse, these

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Roman executioners gleefully beat him. Pilate was afraid.

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That it would take something so savage to get their attention. But when he brought them back, when he brought

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Jesus back in front of the unholy mob, it wasn't enough. He said to the

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Jews, behold, your king. So they cried out, away with him, away with him.

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Crucify him. But Pilate said, shall I crucify your king? And it was then that the

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Jews finally admitted the very depths and the darkest parts of their own heart. They cried out with passionate fervor, we have no king but Caesar.

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The people who were supposed to have God as their king, no matter if they had a human king sitting on the throne or not,

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God was the king of Israel. Even after David and Solomon and Rehoboam and all of them, even after all of that, it was clear that God was their king.

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And the Jews in a moment of lucid clarity admit, we have no king.

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Pilate knew there was Jesus over to the bloodthirsty vultures who would crucify him.

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They marched him through the streets like a prisoner of war until the weight of the cross beam collapsed him upon the ground.

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The circulatory shock at this point would have been so bad that he could barely stand.

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So they got someone else to carry the pole for him up the hill. They got him up to the highest point of the hill, it's called

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Calvary. They threw him down on his back, introducing dirt and sand into his wounds.

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It was here sometimes even that insects would get into the wounds, the open scars and pulsating blisters and eat away at their flesh.

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As he lied there, they nailed a sign above his head that said Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, mocking him.

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They wrote it in three languages so that everybody could see it. And they nailed it on top of the beams as they nailed him to the cross.

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They used a long railroad spike kind of nail to pierce through both of his feet to affix him to the cross so that he could not move.

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And then the other two nails, despite iconography and painting, would have been hammered into his wrist because human hands are not strong enough with all of their cartilage to hold the weight of a human body.

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So even though paintings depict Jesus as being crucified through his hands, it would have been through his wrist, crushing his veins, sitting right between the two bones of the radius and the ulna, pinning him up and letting his body hang on that bone, that radial bone, which would have caused excruciating.

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They lifted Jesus up and dropped the cross into a hole and the thud of the cross slamming into the hole would have pulled against the nails so that he would have felt the full force of his body yanking against the nails.

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Almost immediately from the upright position, he would have been breathless because the weight of his own body, specifically his chest cavity, would have pushed pressure down on his diaphragm, slowly suffocating the victim to death.

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In a crucifixion, your own body weight was what killed you, not the wounds, not the nails, not the stripes.

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You were ironically sentenced to be the executed and the executioner at the exact same time because the only way that you could breathe on a cross was to push up against the nails that were hammered into your feet, pushing against the nails in agony, pushing your body up the beam of the cross and splinters poking into your exposed open flesh.

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The only way you could breathe is through intense agony and effort so that by great pain and great labor, you would take a single breath before you dropped back down and experienced the maddening power of suffocation once again.

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It would be like being pushed under the water until the moment you almost die, being lifted up to take a breath and then being pushed down again over and over and over and most people lasted for two to three days because the mental anguish that a person experiences in that moment is unbelievable.

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As you drop down on the beam, you say, this time I'm not gonna push up, this time I'm not gonna push up because you're in so much pain and agony and you just want it all to end.

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But in that moment where you're about to die, your self -preservation takes over and in the most agonizing pain you've ever felt, you push up again and again and again.

01:31:15

It was truly the most horrifying death that a person could ever face, specifically designed to exponentially increase the pain and the madness until finally you collapse in death.

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The point of the cross was to maximize public exposure so that everyone can see it. They didn't put crosses in empty rooms like electric chairs and they didn't sanitize the process like lethal injections.

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No, a cross was put on the highest point by the roads and the highways so that everyone could see it.

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This is what happens when you defy Rome. The crucified wretch would become a hanging trophy to the might and the power of the

01:32:11

Roman Empire. And the not -so -subtly stated point was this is what rebellion looks like.

01:32:20

Take a good, long, hard look. The shame was intensified by the fact that you were crucified naked, which was a shameful thing in the

01:32:34

Jewish culture. That shame was compounded by the fact that insults were being thrown at him from every single possible angle.

01:32:44

Like today when traffic slows down at a car wreck because there's this morbid sense of curiosity that we all feel that we wanna see what happened.

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Or like when people would be invited to a public hanging in the early days of America because there was this sort of weird fascination with death that makes us unable to look away, but regretful and mad at ourselves even that we can't stop looking.

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There was that, but this was even worse than that because the people who were looking and watching weren't feeling guilty about that at all.

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It wasn't, they weren't feeling guilty about that at all.

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They were actually excited, cheering, crying out.

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You said that you could tear the temple down in three days, Jesus, why can't you save yourself? And the crowds would laugh and spit and mock.

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And then another would say, why don't you call down 10 ,000 angels, Jesus, and save you? And then the crowd would laugh and mock.

01:34:02

Insult upon insult would be hurled upon the Savior. Injury upon injury thrown his way, and yet he was the only perfect and truly innocent man that ever lived.

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One of the insults cried out from the cross instead of from the crowd, it was one of the criminals that was hanging beside of him.

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Luke tells us that one of the criminals who were hanging there was hurling abuses at him saying, are you not the

01:34:31

Christ? Well, save yourself and save us. The crowd broke out in laughter,

01:34:40

I'm sure, at the irony that a crucified thief would make fun of the crucified

01:34:51

Savior. Jesus was truly and utterly alone, even in that moment.

01:34:59

But in that moment, Jesus still purposefully chose to give us a glimpse of the kingdom.

01:35:10

You would think in all of his pain and all of his agony and all of his misery and all of his blood loss and the disorientation that he was feeling and the maddening thirst that he was feeling that he wouldn't be thinking about the kingdom.

01:35:24

He'd be thinking about himself and his pain and his misery, but he doesn't. On that moment, he shows us what the kingdom of God is all about.

01:35:32

Yes, he came to defeat the old kingdom, the temples and the priest and the law and the sacrifices. And when he died, the ground shook and the temple curtain tore in two and he accomplished it.

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But on the cross, he also shows us a glimpse of the kingdom and he brings for us because Jesus hanging on the cross is not defeated.

01:35:54

Jesus hanging on the cross is victorious and he shows that because he welcomes a citizen into his kingdom, not after he resurrects from the dead.

01:36:03

He welcomes him on the cross. Look at what Luke tells us. The other criminal answered and rebuked the other criminal and said, do you not fear

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God? Since you're under the same sentence of condemnation, we're indeed suffering justly for what we've done.

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We're receiving our just penalty. But this man's done nothing wrong. And he turned to Jesus and he said,

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Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Remember me,

01:36:37

Jesus. On the cross, this man saw that Jesus was, he wouldn't have asked him to bring him into his kingdom if he didn't see that Jesus was king.

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As we close tonight, I want us to understand something. Jesus Christ always hangs between two thieves.

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And what I mean is that there's the first type of thief, the reprobate thief who cheers on like the crowds did in John chapter 12, but they do not love him.

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The kind of thief who hates him and can never know him, the kind of thief that challenges him, but will not follow him, the kind of thief that mocks him and will not cherish him, the kind of thief that will abuse him, crucify him and reject him.

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And then there's the second type of thief, the regenerate thief, the thief who cries out in total humility, knowing exactly who they are, deeply deserving to die for their own sins, turning to Christ and calling out, remember me.

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As Good Friday comes to the close, and it looks like Jesus's kingdom is going to end in defeat.

01:38:47

I want you to understand what kind of thief you are. There's no one self -righteous here.

01:38:54

And if there is, I pray that you repent. We're all thieves. We're all liars.

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We're all adulterers. We're all murderers. If we were standing there in the crowd, we would have killed him too.

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And if you don't believe that, then you're deluding yourself.

01:39:17

There's two kinds of thieves that hang on the cross. The one who rejects

01:39:24

Jesus Christ and who goes away into eternal damnation. And the one who accepts

01:39:31

Christ and his kingdom and will be with him in paradise.

01:39:39

The question that you and I must ask ourselves today is in light of all that Christ has done, in light of his coming as king, in light of his judging the sin of the old kingdom, in light of him establishing a new kingdom and bringing it to fruition, in light of all that Jesus has done, will we die with Jerusalem?

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Will we be cut down like the fig tree and burned in the fires of hell? Will we be ripped up like the mountain and tossed into the sea of eternal perdition?

01:40:17

Will we be like Caiaphas who finds his eternal portion in hell?

01:40:26

Like Judas who'd been better if that man were not even born?

01:40:31

Will we be like that? Or will we look at this great king?

01:40:39

And will we see all that he has done and will in humility and honesty and courage and conviction turn to this king and say, remember me?

01:41:01

And he will say, because the point of the gospel is that Jesus came to set up a kingdom that would heal the wound of man.

01:41:15

And the greatest wound of man is in the soul of man and the soul of man is filled with sin. So Jesus came and experienced horrific physical pain and agony.

01:41:30

Spiritual pain that we can't even imagine what's worse than his physical pain because he drank the cup of God's wrath, but he didn't do that begrudgingly.

01:41:43

He did that joyfully and he did that joyfully for you. If you cry out to Jesus, your wounds and your sins and your brokenness will be healed.

01:41:55

And I wanna read a passage as we close from Isaiah 53. So a passage that was written 700 years before Jesus would hang on the cross, but it was a passage that talked about Jesus hanging on the cross and what that event would accomplish.

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And this is what it says. Isaiah tells us, who has believed our message?

01:42:21

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before us like a tender shoot and like a root at a parched ground.

01:42:30

He had no stately form or majesty about him that we should look upon him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to him.

01:42:38

He was despised and he was forsaken of men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, like one from whom men hide their faces.

01:42:49

He was despised and we didn't esteem him. Surely our griefs, he himself is born and our sorrows he has carried.

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Yet we didn't esteem him, stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.

01:43:10

For he was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities and the chastisement for our wellbeing fell upon him.

01:43:22

And by his scourging, we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray.

01:43:29

Each of us have turned his own way, but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him.

01:43:37

He was oppressed and he was afflicted and yet he didn't open his mouth. Like a lamb that was led to the slaughter and like a sheep that is silent before his shearers, so he did not open his mouth.

01:43:50

By oppression and judgment, he was taken away. And as for his generation who considered that he was cut off from the land of the living for the transgression of his people to whom the stroke was due, his grave was assigned with wicked men.

01:44:05

And yet he was buried with a rich man in his death because he had done no violence nor was there any deceit in his mouth, but the

01:44:13

Lord God was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief.

01:44:23

If he would render himself as a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and he will prolong his days.

01:44:34

Do you see the resurrection already in Isaiah 53? This son of man who will be crushed by his father, killed, will also see his own offspring and he will prolong his own days.

01:44:50

How's that possible that he's murdered and yet he lives? Isaiah's hinting.

01:45:00

Chapter comes to a close this way and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand. And as a result of the anguish of his soul, he will see it and be satisfied by his knowledge, the righteous one, my servant will justify the many and he will bear their iniquity.

01:45:18

Therefore, I, this is God, will allot him a portion with the great and he will divide the bounty with the strong because he poured out himself to death and he was numbered among the transgressors.

01:45:34

Yet he himself bore the sin of many and interceded for the transgressors.

01:45:41

That means you. 2 ,000 years ago,

01:45:47

Christ came as king into Jerusalem and they crucified him. Unwittingly, not even realizing that in crucifying him, his kingdom would be taken away from them and given to a people who would bear its fruit.

01:46:04

If you're in Christ today, you're a part of that kingdom. And if you're in Christ today,

01:46:10

I want you to feel the weight of it. I want you to feel the awful weight of what Jesus has done for you.

01:46:16

The physical brutality, the spiritual agony, I want you to feel all of it. But I want you to rest in the fact that Sunday is coming.

01:46:27

And it was for his joy that he marched up the hill of the cross. And it's for his joy that he purchased you.

01:46:34

So I want you to live in the tension of the sorrow of Friday, but in the joy of Sunday.

01:46:43

If you're not a Christian today, my prayer for you is that you would pray.

01:46:52

Jerusalem got to the point where they were incapable of turning to God. They were so corrupt and so wicked in their sin that they went too far.

01:47:02

They went beyond the pale of redemption. I pray that that would not be the case for you.

01:47:10

I pray that you would turn to Jesus like the people on the cross before it's too late. I pray that in Jesus's name.

01:47:20

Let's pray. Lord, every moment of this week, every second of it was all about your kingship and your kingdom.

01:47:33

God, I pray that we would see the beauty and the grandeur of it all. I pray that, Lord, our lot would not be with the folks of Jerusalem who perished in their sin.

01:47:46

But I pray that we would be counted among the righteous who are not righteous in their own standing, but who've been forgiven by the finished work of Jesus Christ.

01:47:59

Lord, if there's someone here today or someone listening to this message online, I pray that you would convict them of their sin and that you would have them turn to you and cry out to you.

01:48:15

And Lord, for the Christians, I pray that you would use this message to encourage them that that is how he loves you.

01:48:23

Greater love has no one than what Christ did for us on the cross.

01:48:31

Holy Spirit, I pray you'd write that love on our hearts. You'd deepen that love in our hearts and that we would live in that love in our lives.