S. Lewis Johnson: Simon

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth. And today, S. Lewis Johnson, Jr., the teaching of S. Lewis Johnson as he focuses on the divine drama that's going on at Golgotha and leading figures there.

Today, Mark chapter 15, divine appointment and human disappointment, Simon of Cyrene. That is, I keep saying Matthew because I'm preaching on a Matthew on Sunday morning. Mark chapter 15, verses 16 through 21.

Part one today, Lewis Johnson, divine appointment and human disappointment, talking about Simon of Cyrene. You're going to love his gospel-centered ministry. You're going to even see that you can listen to somebody with a Southern accent, somebody that roots for the Dallas Cowboys, somebody that roots for Alabama Crimson Tide.

And this is S. Lewis Johnson today on No Compromise Radio. His Romans commentary will be out next year, edited by moi, and so nocompromiseradio .com.

Reading Mark, Luke, and Romans on Simon of Cyrene

For those of you who are here for the first time this morning, I see some who are. The series of studies that we have been undertaking in the Ministry of the Word Hour has been under the general title of Prominent Figures in the Drama of Golgotha, or God Unveiled and Man Unmasked.

Today our subject is Simon of Cyrene. And so, in order to get the complete picture of this man as he appears in the New Testament, it's necessary for me to read from three passages in the Word. The first, the Gospel of Mark, chapter 15, verse 16.

Mark 15, verse 16, through verse 21. And the soldiers led him away into the hall called Praetorium, and they called together the whole band. And they clothed him with purple, and plaited a crown of thorns, and put it about his head, and began to salute him, Hail, King of the Jews.

And they smote him on the head with a reed, and did spit upon him, and bowing their knees, worshipped him. That, of course, in mockery. And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple from him, and put his own clothes on him, and led him out to crucify him.

And they compelled one Simon, a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross. And I want you to notice two things in that text. They compelled him, and then, as he was coming out of the country.

Let's turn now to the next of the Synoptic Gospels. The Gospel of Luke, chapter 23, and read beginning with verse 26. Luke chapter 23, and verse 26. And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country.

And on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus. And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus, turning unto them, said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.

For behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bear, and the paps which never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us, and to the hills, cover us.

For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry? And there were also two other malefactors, led with him to be put to death. One final verse, it's in Paul's letter to the Romans, the last chapter, and the thirteenth verse.

The apostle, you'll remember, is in Corinth, writing to Rome, and he states in the thirteenth verse, Salute Rufus, chosen in the Lord. Now may I translate that again. Salute Rufus, a choice servant in the Lord, or a choice one in the Lord, and his mother and mine.

And I want you to notice, Rufus, and then the expression, his mother and mine. The subject for today is Simon of Cyrene, or divine appointment in human disappointment. The unexpected things in our lives are often the most practical.

And the question that often comes to us in the midst of these very practical things is, what will we do with them? For example, you have determined that tonight will be a night in which you enjoy yourself.

And so you get everything in hand. You go out and get the wood, and you set the fire, and you have just kindled the fire. You have some books. If you're a woman, you have some catalogs near at hand. You're going to sit down in front of the fire, and you're going to look at the catalogs and just imagine the wonderful things that you can purchase and order.

Or if you're a man, you have those newspapers that you've been wanting to catch up on. And so everything is arranged, and you have a cup of coffee, and it's hot, and you're just about ready to drink it, and the doorbell rings.

And you go to the door, and there is Cousin Harry, his wife and seven little children. Now what are you going to do? Or perhaps you have an experience like this. A few years back, we invited a couple over for supper.

On the appointed day, they didn't show up. Well, we shrugged it off. We just had a little more to eat that night. We were somewhat startled, however, the next week, the same day, to look out just before hamburgers to see them walking up the driveway.

The fact that it was their mistake doesn't really help a whole lot at a time like that. Someone has said, I remember a preacher saying a few years ago, these are the bludgeonings of chance. Simon of Cyrene had such an experience as that.

Simon was not a Negro. It has been said that he was a Negro because he was from Cyrene. And furthermore, there is a Simeon who was called Niger, which means black, associated with another man from Cyrene in Acts chapter 13 and verse 1.

Now, a great deal could be made of this if he were a Negro compelled to bear the cross of Jesus. What could not we do with this in the day in which we live? But he was not a Negro. He was most likely a Jew.

Now the evidences for the fact that this man was a Jew lie not only in his name, which was very Jewish, Simon, but also in where he was and what he was doing. The chances are he was a Hebrew who had come to the city of Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.

After all, a Jew outside of the land was never really at home. A few months back I read an account of Israel in the National Geographic magazine. It was an account written from the standpoint of some who were on a steamer and were coming to the land of Palestine for the first time.

And the weeping, and the joyous weeping, that took place on the ship as they neared the harbor for their first sight of the promised land. No Jew was ever happy away from the land of Palestine. And they always looked forward to the time when they could come back from their youth.

They were given names like Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and they still are, and Simon. And they were told the wonderful stories of the Old Testament so that they thrilled as they thought of the great men of the faith.

And then they saved in order to be able to visit home, and particularly at one of the great feasts of Israel. Now this is somewhat imaginary, and I want to put you on guard to say that I do not know that this is exactly what transpired in Simon's case.

It seems most logical, and I think it has persuaded most of the students. And so most likely Simon was a man who lived in our modern-day Tripoli, in Libya, and he had finally reached the place where he could take a trip to the land which he had heard about so much.

And he came, and apparently he stayed with someone outside the city. And so that day, as he came into the city, he had his life-transforming experience. Now it must be a noteworthy story, and this man must be a very significant character because each of the synoptics mention him, and they mention the experience that he had.

And when they do, for the Bible student at least, and for the student of the men of the New Testament, they lift the curtain on exciting history. Now the first thing that I want you to do with me this morning is to go to the scene of Simon's misfortune and fortune as Luke records it in his 23rd chapter, and let's take a look at the situation as Simon met Jesus Christ.

The Crowd on the Road to Golgotha

Now in Luke chapter 23, Luke says that when the time came for Jesus to leave the Praetorium and go out to Golgotha to be crucified there, there went out with him a crowd. We read in the 27th verse of Luke chapter 23, and there followed him a great company of people and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him.

The road from Jerusalem to Golgotha that Friday morning was crowded, and it is crowded today. And oh, that it was crowded today because of real spiritual desire to know our Lord Jesus Christ. But just as today, there were crowds in the company of our Lord Jesus on the day in which the feast was to begin that night.

But they were not all interested in our Lord Jesus, and they were not all interested in knowing him. Some of the people were there because they just were curious. They were like dead trees. They had no life in them.

They were suffering from the chlorosis of indifference, someone has said. And they were kind of carried along by the multitude, not because they wanted to know this man, but just kind of mildly curious about why the crowd was here.

And today there are men just like that in the company of our Lord Jesus Christ. To mention the meeting of the saints on Sunday morning, and the study of the word of God, and the sermon from the servant of God, well it kind of makes them yawn.

And in making them yawn, there is an evidence of the fact that judgment has already begun to work. And that it is possible that that judgment, which is eternal, may soon overtake them. Now I'm not suggesting to you that every preacher is the kind of preacher who excites excitement in those who contemplate hearing him.

But I do think that every genuine Christian has a desire to hear God's word. And whenever I run across some Christian, I don't expect a man outside of Christ to have a great desire to hear a sermon. But when I see a man who claims to be a Christian and he has no real interest in the word of God, I kind of wonder if the real life is there.

There were those like that in the crowd that day. Then there were others who were interested in religion. After all, the Pharisees and Sadducees were at hand, and their followers were also at hand. And there were others who were interested in Judaism and the things that had transpired in recent days.

The people was thronged. The crowd was a group of people who had thronged the city in order to partake of the feast of the Passover and to begin the feast that followed the next day. They were men who were interested in religion, but they weren't interested in Jesus Christ.

They were interested in him only as an object to whom they might, whom they might commit to this great crime. And so they were men who were religious, but they had no heart's relationship to Jesus Christ.

If you had come and had spoken to a great number in that crowd that day and asked them why they were there, they would have given you reasons like this, I think. I think that there were very few in that crowd who would have said, this is the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.

Today our churches are crowded with people. This church is, by the grace of God and miraculously, I must say, in an auditorium like this, crowded with people. I wouldn't be surprised if there were not some here today who were just here because of indifference or interest in spiritual things.

Interest not in Jesus himself personally. Then you know there are people who are kind of interested just in religion, just as they are interested in art and politics and even sports. I've run across people like that and so have you.

People who will tell you, I'm interested in the things of the Bible. The other day I talked to a man who was very interested in archaeology, but not interested in Christ. It's good to be interested in both.

And I think there were lots of people that day who were interested in our Lord Jesus for the simple reason that they saw in him a kind of model of human moral greatness. And that's as far as they're at it.

That's as far as their real true spirituality went. Now the text also mentions women. I'm kind of embarrassed about this and kind of embarrassed to say it, but did you know that the New Testament never presents any woman as being unopposed to the things of the Spirit of God in our Lord Jesus.

Never do we have a woman who was opposed to him. That's kind of striking, isn't it? Now I'm not going to make any application and say that therefore all women are good. The Bible doesn't say that. But it is striking nevertheless.

I don't want to even comment upon the fact that our churches are filled with women today and few men. I have a good friend who loves to say, the church is full of strong women and weak men. I'm so glad that Believers Chapel is filling up with strong men, men who really want to put Jesus Christ first in their lives.

And I hope we have the strong women too, women who are strong spiritually. But the women were there, and the text says that they were bewailing and lamenting him. Now I think the easy way would be for me to say they were the genuine Believers, but I'm not so sure.

Now the reason that I'm not so sure may kind of startle you, and therefore I'm going to say I'm not certain, but I just think. I think they were there because they were sentimentally attached to him. They were misguided, we know that, for our Lord rebukes them in just a moment.

He says, weep not for me, daughters of Jerusalem, but weep for yourselves and your children. You don't understand what is happening here. Now we could make a tremendous application of this. There are lots of people in the Church of Jesus Christ today who weep and lament when they hear the old familiar hymns.

And when they think about the things that Jesus Christ suffered for us, tears run down their cheeks. But oftentimes that is as deep as it goes, it never really touches the heart. You know, I'm also so glad that in Believers Chapel I've noticed this, that whenever we come to the subject of the cross of Jesus Christ, there are some big men in the audience and I begin to notice some tears coming down the cheeks of the men.

That's quite an encouragement to a preacher, you know. I used to have in the audience constantly a Brannick Pollard. He was a very wonderful man, a very tender-hearted man, on the outside quite the opposite.

And he used to come over and sit down on about the second row, and I could always tell whether I was preaching under the power of the Spirit or not by just taking a look at the water that was coming out of his eyes.

If it was flowing freely, I knew I was doing pretty well. If it wasn't flowing, I really wasn't touching him. But anything that came, any time the subject came around to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ and what he had done for us, that man, that great hard-appearing man, you could just see his eyes well up with tears and, you know, I've got some in the audience now and I just love to see them, because it means that there are some who have been touched by Jesus Christ and touched in their hearts.

Now I'm thankful that the women were touched, and I don't want to make too much of this, but Jesus Christ does not despise their tears, he does not resent their tears, but he does not need them, and he says he does not need them.

He seems to regard this as an evidence of sentimentality only. We know that these are not the women who ministered to him. These are the daughters of Jerusalem. Those who ministered to him were the women who had come with him from Galilee, and they were different from these women.

They were women, of course, in whom there was a genuine faith in Jesus Christ and the work could not have progressed without them. They ministered to our Lord in a financial and material way. But these are the daughters of Jerusalem, and Jesus wants to let them know that he is no waif who is broken upon the wheel of fortune, that everything is proceeding according to the plan and purpose of God, and it's not necessary to be sorry for him.

And it isn't necessary for us as Christians to be sorry for him. He doesn't need our sentimental, emotional outbursts of tears. He wants us to understand the fact that he is in control of his destiny, and yet at the same time to realize that it is his love that enables him to do what he is doing.

Simon's Compelled Cross-Bearing

Well, this is the scene. Now let's take a look at Simon himself as he meets this crowd and meets with fate and meets with divine favor. There are really three acts in the life of Simon. Act one is Golgotha.

In Mark chapter 15 and verse 21 is our text. I said it was early Friday morning. There was a great commotion on the way out to Golgotha. It was a commotion of a very disorderly procession. There were yapping Jews who were yapping at our Lord's feet.

They were, of course, accusing him of blasphemy and tormenting him because of that. There were hard-course Roman soldiers cruelly carrying out their duty. And then the weeping women, and I think also off in the shadows a few dismayed followers of the Lord Jesus who were wondering really what was happening.

And then there was the pathetically weakening Savior of the world. Tradition says that just as Simon came on this scene, Jesus stumbled. He said he was a Cyrenian coming out of the country. Now I don't know why he was out in the country.

I rather think that that's where he was staying because the feast was a time in which Jerusalem was crowded and so that was his home outside the city during the feast. And early in the morning he had come in.

Perhaps he was just taking a morning walk to look over the city which had meant so much to him for so many years. At any rate, he saw the procession. Apparently he made no effort to become a part of it, but as it passed by the procession and Simon met.

And if our Lord Jesus Christ stumbled and was just about to fall because of the fact that during the night he had not had a chance to sleep, a Roman soldier seeing that he was just about to fall with the cross which it was their duty to carry, came upon Simon and a spear he felt upon his shoulder.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's Word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

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