The Mighty Miracles at the Cross

Grace much more abounds. Praise God. Well, I'd like for you to go ahead and open your Bible to Matthew chapter 27. This is the crucifixion chapter, and it is loaded up. There is so much here. As Jesus dies, there are so many accompanying signs.

I will not be able to touch on all of them. As you turn in there, I'd like to say a few things in way of introduction that some of these miracles are from heaven and some of these miracles are from the earth.

But they are all in a class of wonders that God has wrought by themselves. And all the gospel writers speaks of this. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and they report it just as it is. But Matthew, unlike the other writers, surrounds it with reports of the miracles that took place when Jesus died.

And it is not surprising that the miracles accompanying the death of Jesus since they accompanied His birth are so important. James Montgomery Boyce says we talk about His birth miracles, the virgin birth itself, the angel visitations, the star that guided the wise men.

But we do not pay much attention to the miracles that took place at the crucifixion. And he goes on to say there is probably a good reason for that. And what is that? He says Jesus' death was followed by His resurrection which is the most important miracle of all.

And we get so focused on that event, nonetheless, it is striking that the first three gospels record miraculous events that took place at the time Jesus was on the cross, Boyce says, and when He died, but through Matthew's account, it is the most complete, end quote.

So beloved, today, as we come before the foot of the cross, and that is where we go today, we come before the foot of the cross. We see the gospel in its clarity. We see something that God is doing. We take this time to gaze and worship as God the Father does great miracles and signs and wonders that took place while Jesus' son was dying.

The great question that looms over the Old Testament is not the question, is God good? Is God gracious? But the real question is, is God righteous? That is the question that looms over the entirety of the Old Testament.

And it is very obvious that God is gracious, God is merciful, God is good. You know, think of it, sinners survive, sinners live another day, sinners prosper, sinners are even blessed, and believing sinners are forgiven.

So the great question before us is, how can God do that and be righteous? That is the question. And that is what is set before us today. Now, brethren, I like to say this, the cross of Jesus Christ answers that question.

The cross is the great symbol. As horrifying as it was, and as excruciating as it was, it was invented by the Romans to put the end of a man completely, to crucify him in a slow, agonizing death. But God did His wonders at the cross.

Christ died to satisfy the wrath of God as a sacrifice, as the Lamb of God, upon the altar, and that was the altar of that Lamb being slaughtered. The Lamb of God was slaughtered on the cross, ultimately unto God, just not for our salvation, though that is a secondary miracle that Christ did do, a very important one, or we would not be saved.

But you need to see today, along with me, that ultimately Jesus Christ died unto God. He died ultimately primarily unto God to satisfy the wrath of God and to proclaim God as being righteous. See, that's the answer.

The cross is the answer to that. The cross is the answer that God is consistent, and yet He's gracious and He's merciful. So what am I saying? God displays all of His attributes on display on the cross.

The cross is the answer to that. All of the attributes of God are put on display before us,.

Before the world,.

As Jesus Christ died. So keep this one great truth in mind. Jesus is God's Lamb. John 1 .29, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Not sins, plural, but the sin, once and for all.

So in saying that, as we look in Matthew chapter 27, let me begin with verse 45 and we'll be reading to verse 54. There's no way we could cover everything here in this whole chapter. It's so loaded up.

There's so much that took place in this entire chapter. But you see that Jesus delivered unto Pilate. Then we see that Judas repents, but we know that it's not genuine repentance, right? It's worldly sorrow.

And we see that He hangs Himself.

Barabbas is freed.

Then Jesus is scourged. The crowds cry out, crucify Him, crucify Him. The same crowds a week before said, Hosanna in the highest, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Then Jesus is led to Golgotha, the place of the skull.

Then He's crucified. And now, in verse 45,.

Hear the word of the Lord.

And now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, Ila, Ila, lama sabacladen. That is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And when those who were standing there, when they heard it, began saying, this man is calling for Elijah. Immediately one of them ran and taking a sponge, he filled it with sour wine and he put it on a reed and gave him a drink.

But the rest of them said, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him. And Jesus cried out again.

With a loud voice.

And yielded up His spirit. And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And the earth shook and the rocks were split. The tombs were opened and many of the bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.

Coming out of the tombs, after His resurrection, they entered into the holy city and appeared to many.

In verse 54,.

Now the centurion and those who were with him keeping guard over Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the things that were happening, became very frightened and said, truly, this was the Son of God.

Let's pray. Father, I want to say a short prayer because You're the one that can only touch the hearts this morning. As I only can touch the ears, reach the ears. So, Father, my prayer is this. Our Lord,.

Speak.

For Your servant hears. In Jesus' name,.

Amen.

The Darkness at the Cross and the First Three Sayings of Jesus

We see the first act of God. We see the first great miracle that God was doing on Calvary's cross as Jesus, the Lamb of God, was dying between two thieves. The greatest event that the world will ever know.

And we read it in verse 45. Now from the sixth hour, darkness, darkness,.

Fell upon all the land.

Until the ninth hour.

There are many miracles.

That surround the cross. And God was doing many works as Jesus hung there dying and taking upon Himself the wrath of Almighty God. It's beyond our comprehension that the best we can do is by the help of the Spirit of God to teach us the things of Christ is look at exactly what the text is saying.

Now, this is the first miracle. According to the Scripture, it lasted from 12 noon to 3 pm. Three hours of complete darkness. Luke in 23, 44, 45 says it was now about the sixth hour and darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour because the sun was obscured.

The sun itself was obscured. The earth was plunged in absolute darkness. Very similar, we're reading as Brother Ben goes through the book of Exodus, you notice there are judgments that's coming upon Egypt.

Ultimately, we will see that there are ten judgments that came upon the land of Egypt that God brought. The tenth would be the final one that would set God's people free. That would be the death of the firstborn.

But the ninth judgment was a judgment of darkness. Similar here, God brought darkness on the land, the whole land. But here, and we read in Exodus in the land of Egypt that lasted for three days, by the way.

It was a force of darkness and the Bible calls it a darkness in Exodus 10, 21, a darkness that could be felt. Think of that.

You can feel the darkness.

This was such a blackening out of light that was intensified. A true miracle of God. This is the very first miracle and it's a very important miracle because it is something that God did with His hand.

Now think of this. In no sense, in no wise was it an eclipse for various reasons. An eclipse lasted just for a few minutes. But this lasted for three hours. The darkness lasted for three hours.

Three hours.

Now within those three hours, we don't know everything that took place because our little finite minds cannot comprehend the Almighty God and what He was laying upon His Son on that day.

But I assure you,.

Jesus Christ was taking upon Himself the wrath of God. It was a miracle of God from the heavens when God's hand blotted out the sun. During those three hours, Jesus broke into silence three times.

Once He said,.

And it was the first prayer that He said on the cross, Father forgive them for they do not know what they're doing. That was His first prayer.

The next,.

He said to the penitent thief,.

Truly today,.

You will be with me in paradise. And the third, He said to His own mother, woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother. And Jesus was basically putting His own mother in the care of John the Apostle.

Now I want you to think of this. Each of those first three sayings on the cross were expressions of the compassion and the grace of Jesus Christ. The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

I want you to think of it. In one of those acts of compassion that Jesus speaks, Father forgive them for they do not know what they do. And He asked the Father for forgiveness for the very ones who crucified Him.

That nailed Him to the cross. And the next act of compassion, He welcomes a wicked man, a wicked thief, into paradise. And this man repents.

And Jesus said,.

Today you will be with me in paradise. That was a miracle. And the third, He shows tender, loving compassion to His own mother, Mary, at the foot of the cross. As He hangs there in shame. Each act showing grace and mercy.

And as I read this,.

I have to hold back tears because it is so touching. How can any of us not be moved with a heart of affection of the acts of mercy that our Lord showed even being crucified? This is the way God is. He is completely gracious and merciful.

Unlimited.

Infinite. Even in the midst of His sufferings. And all the excruciating pain physically, but what He is about to take upon Himself will be something that will be far.

Beyond the physical.

At noonday, when the sun is at its very height, an astounding miracle is done and God puts out the sun. Now I want you to go with me and think of this. Complete darkness takes place and interesting enough,.

Even the Romans.

And their history records, and you can check this out, and their history books recorded that there was darkness over the known earth at this time. We don't have a lot of detail on the darkness, but only that it was completely dark for three hours.

And what I love about this is, and I was sharing this with my wife on the way here, the gospel writers actually are restrained.

They don't speculate.

They don't throw other words on top of it to speculate on it or to reminisce. They simply report it as it was and as they saw it. And I told my wife, I said that's the clarity of Scripture and the credibility of these writers and they leave the interpretation to the Spirit of God.

They record exactly what they saw.

And don't you love that?

Revelation, Jesus says, basically when the Word of God says you don't add to the Word of God, you don't subtract from it. It is what it is. And I like what Scrolls says, when God says it, the argument's over.

Because this is Almighty God.

Now here we are,.

We're standing before the cross and yet this is God's first commentary, if you will, on the events that happened there and darkness was the first symbol or the first miracle that took place and it is the symbol of judgment, obviously.

That's what darkness is, it's judgment. God brings judgment and He pours that judgment upon His own Son. God's salvation is spoken of light and you read in Isaiah, it makes me think of the prophecy that was fulfilled when Jesus was born and when He came into the world.

What does it say? In great darkness a light has shone. Jesus is that great light in great darkness. And the light will overcome the darkness. God's judgment is spoken of as darkness and in Scripture it even tells, hell is even called outer darkness.

Hell itself. So what is the meaning of this darkness, of the sun and those three hours from the high noon until Jesus died? Now let me say this, I've already touched on this, but in some way it was God's hand covering the suffering of His Son.

It's a mystery. I'm not going to elaborate on something I don't know,.

But I can tell you this,.

It was a mystery and it's a mystery that we cannot fathom. All we can do and the best we can do is worship. Because God and only Jesus knows. Smitten of God and afflicted, Isaiah 53 says, It pleased the Lord to bruise Him.

We cannot enter into the infinite understanding, the deep, deep mind of the infinite, unfathomable mystery of God as He turned His face from His Son and when Jesus cried out, why hast thou forsaken Me?

I never will forget, the first time I read the commentary on G. Campbell Morgan, as he brought this text to light,.

He says,.

Here I put my pen down and I bow and worship because all we can do is take off our shoes because we're on holy ground. That's one of the greatest commentaries I think I've ever read on that text. The sun went out, darkened, it refused to shine.

Isaac wants,.

We're going to sing it,.

We're going to sing it after a while when we have communion,.

He said this,.

Will might the sun in darkness hide and shut His glories in? When Christ the mighty maker died for man,.

The creature sinned.

Beloved,.

It's a miracle into which we cannot enter into the sufferings of the Son of God. And the Lord from heaven,.

The Holy God,.

Turned His face away and darkness came upon that land and in that time, in three hours of darkness, Jesus took the wrath of God. Next we see the second miracle that comes before us.

Like I said,.

We can camp right there on the darkness, but I want to move forward to bring everything I possibly can before your eyes today as we behold the Lamb of God. Next we see the second miracle of Calvary. There's many, many miracles.

I'm going to lose count. We're going to lose count in a minute,.

But anyway,.

The miracle of divine separation. The first being there was a divine darkness, now there's divine separation. And only our Lord can know this. No one else can dare enter there. The text in verse 46 says, Jesus cried out with a loud voice.

He cried out. And literally the Greek says, He screamed out.

He screamed out.

That is, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? Notice he didn't say, My Father. It was, My God, My God.

Twice.

Again, this incomprehensible text. How can we know this? We cannot know this. We cannot go there. Only Jesus went there.

We will never know.

Even our glorified state,.

Once we get to heaven,.

A lot of people say, Oh, I know everything. Forget that. I mean, you'll know a lot more than you know now, but you will not know this kind of depth. No matter how great the saint is. This is only for Jesus.

How can God be separate from God? How can the Trinity be divided? Creatures of the earth, we dare not even try to answer those kind of questions. It's absolutely holy ground, and we come humbly at the feet of the cross.

And we do this again, as I say, and you'll hear me say this time and time again, and I think what Brother Michael says this morning about a burning bush experience, it's as if we take off the sandals from our heart, off our feet, because we are standing on holy ground.

Here God is a consuming fire, and He consumes sin, because on His Son. Beloved, this is holy ground. Even the holy prophets were coming face to face with God, would even put their hand to their mouth and be silent.

For here we see Jesus, the Son of God, separated.

He's alienated,.

Bearing the punishment of our sins. The sin that took Him there. You know, the more I go to the cross, the more I see, Lord, I hate my sin.

And I want to love You more.

I want to hate sin, and I want to love righteousness, and we know the righteous one. And to look on Him and His suffering, James Montgomery Boyd says again, at the same time, quote, the darkness cried out against the blackness of our sin, and testified to the tremendous cost to God of our redemption.

Verse 48 to verse 50. There's still six hours until His crucifixion, and Jesus is strong enough, even though He's lost much energy, there's no telling how much blood He's lost. Oh, the precious blood.

Strong enough to scream out, He screams out, and He's not going to slowly face, or should I say, fade into a coma, and not take the pain. No, He takes all of it.

He drinks the cup,.

But He doesn't halfway drink it. He drinks all of it. And at the crucifixion, in Roman times, sometimes a crucifixion, a person to die could take days. Yet Jesus takes it,.

The pain to the full.

The physical pain to us is incredible. But did you know, even the physical pain does not even match the spiritual alienation that He took. Folks, He took hell. He took alienation from God. And then He will yield up His spirit in the right time.

If you read this, it is in God's timetable. You notice the life of Jesus as He went from His birth all the way to the cross. He desired and He walked in such perfection. Not only being sinless, but He walked perfectly in accordance to the spirit of God as a man.

But everything was in God's perfect timetable. Isn't that incredible? Everything was perfectly timed. You even read this one text, I don't remember exactly where it's at, but it says they tried to lay hold of Jesus and they tried to catch Him and He would get away.

Because the Scripture says it was not for His time. It was not His time. So He knew it needed to be everything on the Father's timetable.

Now, I want you to think of this.

If you compare the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Luke, you find that Jesus had already said it is finished. In John 19 .30. And He already said, Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit. And that brings us to the next great miracle.

In verse 50. Notice verse 50. This is a miracle of acceptance. He's rejected of God the Father, but now there is an acceptance.

Verse 50.

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up His spirit. He screams out. The work was done. The victory is won. Paid in full. The price was paid. God the Father was satisfied. He volunteered to lay down His life.

And by the way, you remember that wonderful text. Jesus said, No man takes my life from me. And He says, I had the power to lay it down and I had the power to take it back up again. And Jesus knew when the Father departed, but He also knew when He was forsaken, but He also knew when He was welcomed.

Now, we don't understand all that, but that's what took place. And notice these miracles.

God is...

Notice in each one of these miracles, God is in absolute full control. To the human eye, it looks like things are out of control. But God is in perfect full control. Now, I love that about God, don't you?

It looks like there's total darkness, and there was. But Jesus knew that was not the end. Oh, this is wonderful. When Jesus said, All authority is given unto Him, unto me, He said. It didn't mean some authority.

We're talking about all authority.

We're talking about all power.

Not some. But all. It's another miracle.

Verse 51.

Behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Now, this is a whole sermon. I don't want to just touch on it. The great veil that separated the holy place from the most holy place in the temple, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and all report of the tearing of it.

And it was torn by God's hand, another act of God from His hand. It was torn from top to bottom, signifying that this was something that God Himself did, and the event was very heavy with spiritual significance.

If you study about this veil, it was 60 feet long, 30 feet wide. And the same rabbis say in the Talmud that it would take 300 priests to raise it up and to lift it. The historian Josephus tells us so strong and mighty that the veil, that teams of horses could not pull it asunder.

And yet, at the voice of Jesus, when Jesus cried out, it is finished, God took that veil by His hand and He tore it from top to bottom. Doesn't that make you want to shout? A mighty miracle of God by the hand of God.

Notice all these miracles that have taken place, but this one is so significant. And after the veil was torn by God's almighty hand, the earth shook and the rocks split. God shook the earth. According to Hebrews 10, 19 -22, the Bible says,.

Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus,.

By a new and living way,.

Which He inaugurated for us through the veil,.

That is, His flesh,.

Since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near. That's where the cross brings us in. Draw near with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

There's another text in Luke. It talks about another miracle that takes place, and I surely don't have time to go there. I'd like to preach a whole sermon on this sometime. When the soldier pierced him on his side to make sure he was dead, blood and water came out.

Oh, the blood and the water, beloved. The blood that cleanses from all sin. The water that washes whiter than snow. Beloved, this is very powerful. And by the way, Paul says, this is the power of the cross.

You know, you could take all the powers of this world. There's nothing that compares to this kind of power. Absolutely nothing. And what a lesson in this. It's an imagery in this verse. It's taken from the sacrificial, talking about the veil, of the sacrificial ceremonies of the old covenant where the blood was sprinkled as a sign of cleansing and the priests were continually washing themselves in the sacred vessels and basins of clear and pure water.

And there was animal sacrifices offered.

Constantly, constantly.

But now, God in Jesus Christ tore the veil asunder and every eye could look sweeping into the presence of God. I tell you what, this makes me want to shout for joy. Because now it's a new and a living way.

Because Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. You know, I was reading a devotion and I shared this with Brother Keith. This is something glorious. You know, you think of it. We are to preach and preach the whole counsel of God and Paul confirmed that.

But when he talked about that I know nothing save Jesus Christ and Him crucified, what he was talking about that this is the primary importance of the whole Bible. Take away the cross, you take away Christianity.

And it's not a golden cross too. My old mentor at Holmes College of the Bible, he said, have you ever seen anybody go around with an electric chair around their neck?

That's the truth.

In other words, it means execution. He was going to be executed. Oh, I tell you what, this is glorious because through the blood and the water of the Lord Jesus Christ, the tearing of the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ when He was broken there, it is as if God tore the veil and now we can come boldly.

That doesn't mean arrogantly. That basically means you have confidence in God that you can go right into the presence of God. The throne of grace, the throne of mercy. Don't we need that throne of grace?

Don't we need that throne of mercy? That favor, undeserved favor, that we don't deserve it? That mercy that God shows compassion to the uncompassionate. Right into the presence of the throne of God to ask help in time of need.

I tell you, when I get down personally and when I see my world's falling apart, there's one place I can go, beloved, and one place that you can go. And you go to the cross of Jesus Christ. Nothing else will last.

Everything else will dim in comparison. But the cross stands firm. While everything will fall apart, I assure you the cross will stand firm. God rends the veil. Our entrance right into the very presence of God.

That's what it means. There's so much more I can say about that, but I've got to move on. The next miracle we find that is within the same text there is the earth quaked and the rocks were split. The earth quaked and the rocks were split.

When our Lord shouted the word of victory, by the way, again, it is finished. All this took place.

That's glorious.

The earth responded. The earth responded. It's waiting for its regeneration. You know, this world that's out there, they look at this earth as mother earth, but I'm here to tell you, this earth is waiting for a regeneration.

It's waiting for a change. Beloved, we have no idea of the magnitude of what Jesus did on the cross. It not only changes us and a hard heart, which is a divine miracle and a great miracle, but it's going to change the earth.

There's going to be a new heavens and a new earth one day. And Jesus, when He took the crown of thorns upon Himself, He took the curse of the earth. The thorns will be taken away. Everything will be reversed.

I'm telling you, when it comes to the scriptures and everything in the 66 books of the Bible, when you come to this chapter, you come to the primary reason why God did what He did. Everything goes to the cross.

When our Lord shouted the words of victory is finished, the earth responded.

Why?

Because it's giving of the law of God that condemns us. No man has kept the law. None of us has kept it in its perfection.

Only Jesus did.

Only Jesus.

Scripture says it.

All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And in the law and its giving, you know what happened at Mount Sinai? Lightning was flashing. Heavens were filled with the mighty thundering of God's awesome voice.

And you can read the text in Exodus and we'll be reading it. We're coming up on it here in a few weeks, Lord willing. The whole mountain shook. There was such loud thunderings and voices of trumpets. And the children of Israel literally thought they were going to die.

They trembled. Well, that's the way it is at Sinai. We tremble.

We quake.

The rocks were split. Oh, but the holy law of God, the perfect standard by which man is tried, is condemned to death. But oh, can I say, this beloved at Calvary's cross, the love and the grace and the mercy of God was poured out in redemption so that you and I can be redeemed.

We don't deserve it. We deserve the justice. We deserve the blow.

And Jesus took the blow.

The earth shook. All the tremors of Sinai were absorbed in Mount Calvary. Mount Calvary took the absorption of the law.

I want you to think of that.

Everything Jesus took. I tell you, when you read a text like this, it should melt our heart more and more to fall in love with Jesus Christ more and more. And to hate sin even more and more. Oh, He is such forgiveness and love and grace through His blood.

And Jesus broke down the middle wall partition. So mighty and so powerful was Jesus' shout of victory when He said, It is finished. The earth shook. And the wonder and the glories and the regeneration that is yet to come.

Well, next we see another great miracle.

Look at verse 52.

The tombs were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. Oh, this is glorious. Now this, all I could tell you about this is as much to be said about the resurrection to come.

But this is really what took place here was a foretaste of final resurrection to come. Matthew, only Matthew alone mentions this miracle. It's interesting, isn't it? The miracles that surrounds Jesus' death is absolutely staggering.

And it's just awe-striking. But at the same time that the earth shakes and the rocks were split, the tombs were splitting up. And the Scripture says, Out came the resurrected saints who have been given glorified bodies.

Now we know what the Scripture says. They don't literally go into Jerusalem until after the resurrection of Jesus.

That's interesting.

Why? Because Jesus is the firstfruits. Jesus is the firstfruits. And all the others are to follow. See, God knows exactly what He's doing. There's no mistake with God.