Believe in Jesus who died for your sins
[0:00] Lord, a prayer for us. Dear Lord, we confess that we have no wisdom on our own.
[0:13] As the Bible told you tonight, we ask you, Lord, to open our eyes. Open our eyes to see how we, to see Jesus and what he did for us.
[0:25] And that, Lord, an understanding of all that he suffered. And for what our sin cost him. We thank you for your work, Father, as we come to him.
[0:39] We thank you, Lord, that we can trust him. In this day, Lord, of half-truths and untruths and false truths. We thank you, Lord, that your word is secure and steadfast.
[0:52] That the word is true. We can cling to it, believe it, trust it and love it. So, Lord, that we open the group that it loves tonight. Amen. In the presence of our Lord Jesus.
[1:04] Amen. Amen. I always ask you tonight, what do you think the greatest event?
[1:19] The greatest event in human history. What do you think it would have been? If you want to do all that, you'll get lists of 50, or 100, or 10, or whatever.
[1:33] Some, today, who thinks they have the knowledge, want to present to us. And it will go through all sorts of things, like World War I and World War II, the discovery of chloroform.
[1:46] It will go through all sorts of things, from cultural aspects, to industrial revolution, from first generation. What was the greatest thing that ever happened to mankind?
[2:00] What was the most terrible thing? And there are lots of suggestions and lots of theories that people will give to you. Well, you wouldn't be surprised if my thoughts would come to this chapter that we read in this part of the chapter.
[2:19] And in particular, verse 46, where it says, About the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama samtani, that is to say, My God, my God, I ask thou for speaking to you.
[2:44] Only Matthew and Mark record this verse. But you know, what we're going to look at tonight is what the four Gospels say. And each of the Gospels has slightly different stories.
[2:58] Not convicting each other, but having. And we need to put them all together. So, tonight, I'd like to take you to that hill from work, or Calvary.
[3:14] I'd like you to stand there with me and see what happens there. Because my suggestion to you tonight is that since mankind began, this is the moment that changed everything.
[3:33] This was the most important moment. Whatever other things have happened since then, this is the most important moment. Whether we take in terrorism, whether we take in the Roman Empire, or whatever, peace treaties, and all sorts of things.
[3:52] For me, this is the important thing. At this moment in time. But if we stand here in Calvary, we come to the cross just before noon.
[4:06] And it's a horrible sight, really. There are three men being laid on the crosses on the ground and being nailed to the cross.
[4:20] Jesus, who's taken Barabbas' place, has been nailed to the middle cross. They take the crosses, they lift them up, and they drop them into the holes that have been dug to carry on.
[4:39] And above the cross of Jesus, they put this sign, this is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. They prepare for him a drink of vinegar mixed with gall, which he rejects.
[4:58] It's given to them all to ease their suffering and ease their suffering. And besides us standing there are some of the women, probably more women than men, that stood there.
[5:12] Because I think that the men would be frightened to be there. Mary Magdalene, there's Mary, his mother, her sister, there's one disciple who is identified as the one whom Jesus loved, presumably it was John, maybe not.
[5:33] There's Simon, who carried the cross. There's Joseph of Arimathea, who claimed his body from fire. There's the two other men who are dying there.
[5:44] They thieves, one on either side. There's the chief priests, the elders, and the scribes, who schemed for his death and were desperate to have him gone.
[5:58] There's the centurion and all the soldiers who gambled for his clothes. And then there's the casual passers-by who mocked him.
[6:11] Spartan says, crucifixion was a death worthy to have been invented by demons. The pain in which it involved was immeasurable.
[6:24] There was the awful position that these people were crucified in. And as time went by, they had to get a breath and they had to cool themselves up to get their lungs filled.
[6:36] That meant that the pain through the nerves and the hands and the feet was excruciating. But if they didn't get the breath, then they would gasp and die. So there was this element of torture all through it.
[6:51] And as we stand there in the heat of the day, there is a cry that goes out and it's Christ and cries, Father, forgive them for they know that what they do.
[7:09] A little later, he gets into a dialogue with one of the thieves and he speaks to the thief and he says to them, truly, I say unto you today, you will be with me in paradise.
[7:25] The stov's words go to his mother as she's put into the care of John. He says, Son, behold your mother to the mother, behold your son.
[7:38] John chapter 19. And as we stand there in the heat of a Middle East day, it starts to get a little cooler and then we suddenly notice that it's getting darker.
[7:57] And the brightness of midday where we are at noon, it begins to come to complete darkness.
[8:07] the farmers stopped in the field. The merchants stopped their business and shut the doors.
[8:19] The children run to their mother's side, frightened. Servants are set to find candles. And the silence no doubt will come to the squawkers at least.
[8:35] And around the cross they begin to get very quiet and darker and colder. This is not natural.
[8:46] There will be fear, there will be panic, terror. What is happening in the world? This is impossible. It's unnatural. This was not a cloud passing.
[8:58] Luke 23 tells us it was about the sixth hour and there was a darkness that were all the earth until the ninth hour and the sun was dark.
[9:12] It seems, as Spurgeon points out, that the darkness came over all the land first and the darkness overcame the light of the sun and closed out the light of the sun upon it.
[9:27] What darkness? If we go back to the time of Pharaoh and the children of Israel and Egypt, we read in Exodus chapter 10 and Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven and there was darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days.
[9:46] Listen to this verse. They saw not one another if neither there was any from his place for three days that all the children of Israel had light and the fire.
[9:56] you and I are standing on the cross of Christ when we couldn't even see each other and there is quietness and darkness that is almost thick enough to touch.
[10:11] These are the events of the crucifixion of Christ. You remember it is first that there are legions of angels that filled the sky.
[10:23] In Luke chapter 2 we read these words and suddenly there was with the angels a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying glory to God in the highest and earth peace goodwill to reward men.
[10:37] We read these at Christmas and we'll read the next Christmas of God's hearing us. When Christ was born a multitude of angels how many of the multitude the sky was filled with angels singing and today he's dying and you might feel standing there looking at that cross if you want to turn your eyes away you might want to turn round it's too bitter to watch it's too distressing and when we consider what was being done however the creator of all world has been put to death the great sacrifice that was being offered there the plan of redemption that was unfolding for is it not fitting that at his death his creation should draw veil over his death and his form is it not fitting that all nature should bow as the son of
[11:43] Lord was dying as the greatest crime ever known to man was committed to that day he came on to his own but his own received from God it seems that heaven did not want to look at the son of righteousness being brought to this shame the darkness hid or saved the shame what shame he endured he was spotless without sin and all the evil deeds of mankind were laid on the shoulders and God brought down up in darkness what happened during those three years things and they had to save I believe there were heavenly bad being brought spiritual bad Satan and all his demons were at the work to destroy the plan of salvation you you think of the garden when
[12:49] Christ was praying before he was arrested and prayer was oh my father it would be possible let this pass from me nevertheless not as I will but as thou will he knew what was before him he knew what was before him and he if it had been any other way would have taken what spiritual suffering was endured in these three hours I don't think we'll ever understand this side of eternity I certainly cannot look into this with any answers the son of God became sin as all the sin of the world was poured over him and his father looked away Matthew Henry says never was there three such hours since the day God created man on the earth never such a dark and awful scene it was the turning point of that great affair man's redemption and man's salvation we can imagine that we were there standing there but you know we were there we were there each one of us was there because our sin nailed him there your sin and my sin sin of the whole world nailed him to that cross and he was dying for the folks in
[14:21] Tarver tonight and there are folks in this meeting tonight he was dying for you and for me the demons dance and Satan thought himself victorious the son of God was reduced to dying as a criminal in shame and Christ said in the garden do you remember when they came to the rest and Christ said to him when I was daily with you in the temple he stretched forth no hands against me and then he said to him this is your hour and the power of that this is your hour and this was Satan's hour if we go back to the if we go back to the garden in Genesis chapter 3 you remember the promise that was given when God threw him out of the garden he said he shall bruise thy head and thou shall bruise his fear that day war was proclaimed war was proclaimed between heaven and hell and these two can never be reconciled
[15:28] God said to Satan I will put enmity between thy seed and cross seed Jesus was her seed between Jesus and Satan and so they are sworn enemies in the great heaven that's why as Christians we are at war we are at war with Satan and Satan is at war with us you might think that Satan doesn't bother you very much if Satan is not bothering you very much then Satan is quite happy with you but Satan bothers you from the moment you wake him until the moment you sleep for you to rejoice because Satan only bruised the Saviour's heels and he might hurt us but he will never hurt us out of the Saviour's hand but God said he shall bruise thy head and
[16:30] Satan's wound will be to his head and the fatal blow to the head is a lot different from the blood to the heel 1 John chapter 3 verse 8 says this for this purpose the son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil and that's exactly what Jesus was doing on the cross Calvary is the bruising of Christ healed Christ suffered physically on the cross he suffered spiritually he took her sin but he rose victorious from the grave and secured there is victory he will bear the marks of Calvary for all eternity on your behalf and mine he said to his disciples behold my hands and my feet and as others have said before the only thing in heaven made by man are the wounds of Jesus he bears the marks the sin of the world my sin your sin bore everyone to
[17:36] Christ spot this land Christ the one who claimed to be equal with God and dying on a lone cross cross I remember as a young boy watching mostly the world of football or big sporting events that you used to see and sometimes I used to look for a sign you'd see in the crowd people would have a little sign sometimes that would hold up not so much in this country this foreign country mostly you would see it and what was written on the sign was John 3 16 and you would see the football raging there and somebody would be standing there with a sign or a banner in front of John 3 16 these were in the days when everybody knew what John 3 16 was not so much nowadays as they would think it's something to google or something or something but that's the verse that the whole world knew that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son and that's the verse that comes to mind now when we think of how he and what he did and whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have ever lasting life all I can say after this thank you
[19:01] Jesus so we stand in our imagination fearful in the darkness and after three hours of standing there in silence and darkness Jesus cries and we come to this verse in verse 46 what a terrible cry it says he cried with a loud voice this was not a defeat the son of god was dying and he cries out with a loud voice his life was not taken from him and he let all the worms hear his works the son of god is dying he is redeeming his broken sinful creation and he cries out my god my god why are still seeking when you think of christ in that position before his father this is my beloved son in whom
[20:08] I am no free to have these ones and here we are in darkness a cry of loneliness a heartbreaking cry the fellowship is broken this is what his creation has cost the son for to redeem his creation we sang in Galilee the first three verses of psalm 22 we had a chance to poem read psalm 22 psalm 22 is a prophetic psalm that David wrote maybe a thousand years before crucifixion and it details exactly what was happening at Calvary it talks about his garden to be divided it talks about his joy and his born to be a miracle of joy as would have happened to each of the people tried to heal himself up to get a bread and the wonderful thing about psalm 22 is crucifixion was not a Jewish thing it was a woman form of death so David the psalmist had no knowledge however imagined it but he writes exactly what happened that's why we can pray that the
[21:27] Bible is true it's God's work and he comes here my God my God why this town for Satan he quoted this psalm perhaps because the chief priests and the elders and the scribes were standing there in front of him they knew the psalms like your little ones they learned them work by work they learned them they knew them all all the years of their studies this psalm 22 was before them and when we come to verse 12 it says many bulls have compassed me strong bulls of Bashan have you sent me around Bashan was an area of Israel which had the best grazing and the most fertile land and the bulls of Bashan were the biggest and fiercest in Israel and the psalmist were saying they stood around them these bulls of Bashan how did the religious rulers feel when Christ quoted this psalm how did the people standing there seeing this man who had done no harm who had fed thousands who had brought dead to life the blind to see the lame to walk the common people help him gladly and loved him and they had killed him they had taken him and killed him how did they feel
[22:58] I wonder if they regretted him I wonder if even then were they getting a tinge of conscience and thought what have I done and I have a wonder that one of the formats of hell is the memory and I wonder if it will be a memory for those people who found themselves in hell the number of opportunities they would have had to trust Christ rejection isn't it sad that it was a it was a thief that trusted Christ at Calvary and the religious ruler walked in my God my God why hast thou forsaken me I would never try to explain what happened between Christ and God his father at this time
[24:02] I just couldn't I wouldn't try to give any meaning to it what the relationship was how it was carried out but Sam put me through the third verse gives us some sort of indication when it says that thou are holy who thou inhabitest the praises of this world God can't turn his eye but can sin but Christ could say to his father I did not commit any sin but sin he put upon me he was sinless and the sin that was put upon him was yours and mine and the sins of the whole world were placed upon him Isaiah said he bore our griefs and carried our sorrows he was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our inimities just as when our peace was laid upon him by the stripes we are healed the life of the sinner you and
[25:06] I were spared because Christ is the death he was stripped that you and I made the Lord with righteousness a crown of thorns left running down his face that you and I might wear a crown and go there twice cries again I thirst and then the sixth cry after that it is finished it's not a sign of defeat it is finished with a cry of the trick it was job done and then the last cry he says father into thy hands I commend my spirit and having said thus he gave up the doors he gave up the doors and what happened then it tells us that the temple he was calling to it tells us that the earth shook the rocks were split and that doesn't mean that the rocks just broke the rocks were split taken by some gigantic chisel and split apart the graves opened and his creation blown don't just think this is a biblical record there's there's there's there was a just in order way back in 155 AD in a man by the name of
[27:00] Tiltillion and he wrote that the notice of this darkness was found in the archives of Rome at the time and there are some other historical secular references who support us from this time and one of them stated this either the god of nature is suffering or the machinery of the world is being dissolved these are the events that surround the crucifixion of Jesus Christ he gave up his life out of love for you and me the spirit left his body the human flesh that he took on was put in a tomb but he arose and after three days he took off that body again Satan to Jesus at about the time
[28:04] Jesus was dying the daily evening sacrifice was offered in the temple at this time of day about three o'clock in the afternoon but this day was different there was three courts the outer court the inner court and then there was the holies of holies where only once a year the chief priest went in with the sacrifice on the day of the tournament once a year only 364 days of the year that place would not enter and any who entered it would die in front of the holy of holies there was this great curtain it was 60 feet high and it was 4 inches thick woven from the cry of christ on the cross that curtain was torn from the top to the bottom torn apart no human hand could have torn it it was too thick too well woven but from top to bottom it was ripped apart god was signifying the end of the jewish sermons he was signifying that there was a breakdown of the partition wall between jews and gentiles he was signifying that through christ for all believers we could now enter into the holy of holies having therefore brethren boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of jesus by a new and living way which he had consecrated for us to reveal that is to save his flesh christ is now the mediator between man and god no more sacrifice was necessary the rituals of the temple were no more the jews had rejected christ and had put him to death in christ and god said enough the time of repentance is given but if we continually turn aside and reject christ we see him dying on the roman cross in agony for us and turn aside from the offer of love and mercy there is no other remedy like the great curtain we will be destroyed two men died with jesus that day one on either side both thieves and both dying injustice that one was saved that no man may despair one man was saved that none need despair that one man was lost that none should presume the scripture says now is the accepted time now is the day of salvation this is what jesus did for us this is a momentous event in our history in 1871 d.l.
[31:25] moody was preaching to a huge congregation in chicago in his own church he preached to the words pilate's words verse 22 of the chapter that he read where pilate said to them what shall I then do with jesus and moody preached on these words what shall i do with jesus who is called christ and towards the end of the service moody asked those who were listening to him to think about that and come back next week when they would go on to the path of the chapter that we were on tonight as he finished the service he called out the end the last singing and he started to sing the last hymn and just as he started to sing they had fire engines outside and the fire engines got so loud and the disturbance got so big that they didn't finish singing the hymn and the church was clear because that night that Sunday night the great fire of
[32:33] Chicago spread right through all the timber buildings that were there and the way they built at that time and the fire lasted from Sunday to Tuesday and 300 people died Moody lost his church and he lost his house but the thing that bothered Moody so much was the fact that he had told these people wait till next week and come back from the world to Calvary he didn't know how many he lost that night he didn't know how many people would never get the chance again to come now is the accepted time now is the day of salvation I remember the church that I used to go to the young man in the vestry of the church there was a notice just opposite where the minister was sitting before he went through to preach and on the notice it said
[33:40] I will preach as though I never will preach again as a dying man to dying men you and I could be a half feet away from eternity we don't know we have no promise and tonight we have heard what Jesus and we have read what Jesus did for you what he did for me he has purchased your salvation he has offered it freely to each one of us have you understood that tonight if you've understood it then you're without excuse you may be sitting here tonight thinking one of these days I'll become a Christian the centurion waited till the very end and then he said this man was a son of God too late is this the greatest event in human history
[34:43] I'll leave I'll leave that to your thoughts but the greatest event in your life in my life and the greatest event in any life is the day that you choose Christ as your saviour there is no other event that marks that there's no other event that will happen in your life that makes a difference like that because that's when you seal eternity heaven or hell there will there will be another tale event just as equal to this event 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and 16 says this that event you will not miss one way or the other it will happen tonight tonight why should anyone walk out these doors in the knowledge that they have not accepted
[36:21] Christ and that they have been advanced by Christ I would plead with you tonight this is what Jesus did when you start to go into the book and see the things that happened this is God's walking he is in it this was his son that he nailed to a cross it wasn't the pain it wasn't the agony it wasn't the cruelty it was the sin that he took upon himself he came from heaven's glory where sin could not be considered but looked upon and he took the sin of the world in his own body he was in mine so I would pray with you tonight get things right with God he is a merciful God he is a loving God this might have been a very gloomy subject tonight but I'm sorry if it seemed that way but eternity revealed hell is real the devil is real in your salvation in nine months so I would say to you tonight think on these things make sure that you know Christ as your saviour make sure you know him within your life and in your heart because you don't want to meet him as your judge spirit
[37:53] God we thank you a fresh tonight for the love that has shed and power with us we thank you tonight for your great plan and redemption that you looked upon us before we were even born and knew us and yet you have loved us and you have given us this opportunity again tonight Lord to trust in you and to know you as our saviour father we pray that we are tonight none of we lost and we ask your God to speak to our hearts open our hearts Lord show us that we are before you show us our need desperately for forgiveness that Christ offers to us in Jesus name Amen
[38:54] Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen