His Crucifixion

[0:00] And if you would open up your Bible to Matthew chapter 27, we're going to be looking at the crucifixion account of Jesus and what preceded it. Kind of alluded this to in my prayer, but maybe some of you came in this morning and you, when it comes to salvation, when it comes to Christ crucified, your thoughts are kind of like, yeah, that happened, I'm so happy for it.

[0:30] But really, it doesn't make that much of a difference in your life. May God stir your heart this morning through His Word.

[0:42] Maybe some of you are in here this morning and you are, you've been trying to fight pride in your life. You've been trying to live for others, or maybe you know you should be.

[0:54] But really, it's been a hard, hard thing to die in you, this desire to live for yourself. Well, this morning, we're going to see Jesus give Himself up.

[1:09] And it is such an example of humility. We're also going to see is what the Apostle Paul calls the matter of first importance. That which makes a difference.

[1:23] That which prioritizes, is in pole position in the life of a church. This is first things. That Christ was crucified.

[1:37] The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. And the main thing, when it comes to biblical Christianity, can be summed up in two words.

[1:48] Christ crucified. And so this morning, I'm going to read Matthew chapter 27. And we're going to start in verse 27.

[2:01] And I'm going to read through verse 61. And then we're going to walk through it. There are six scenes here. And we're going to walk through each scene.

[2:13] And I'm going to make a point and then bring it to bear. But let's just read God's Word together. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor's headquarters, known as the Praetorium.

[2:28] And they gathered the whole battalion before Him. And they stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. And twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head and put a reed in His right hand.

[2:41] And kneeling before Him, they mocked Him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! And they spit on Him and took the reed and struck Him on the head. And when they had mocked Him, they stripped Him of the robe and put His own clothes on Him and led Him away to crucify Him.

[2:58] As they went out, they found a man of serene, Simon by name. They compelled this man to carry His cross. And when they came to a place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull, they offered Him wine to drink mixed with gall.

[3:12] But when He tasted it, He would not drink it. And when they had crucified Him, they divided His garments among them by casting lots. Then they sat down and kept watch over Him there.

[3:23] And over His head they put the charge against Him, which read, This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Then two robbers were crucified with Him, one on the right and one on the left.

[3:34] And those who passed by derided Him, wagging their heads and saying, You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, Save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.

[3:49] So also the chief priests with the scribes and elders mocked Him, saying, He saved others. He cannot save Himself. He's the King of Israel. Let Him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in Him.

[4:01] He trusts in God. Let God deliver Him now, if He desires Him. For He said, I'm the Son of God. And the robbers who were crucified with Him also reviled Him in the same way.

[4:13] Verse 45. Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, Leme Sabachthani.

[4:26] That is, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And some of the bystanders hearing it said, This man is calling Elijah. Elijah. And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink.

[4:41] But the other said, Wait, 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 curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

[4:56] And the earth shook, and the rocks were split, the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection.

[5:06] They went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with Him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake, and what took place, they were filled with awe, and said, Truly, this was the Son of God.

[5:24] There were also many women there, looking from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to Him, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and this mother of the sons of Zebedee.

[5:36] When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. And he went to Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus.

[5:47] Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. And Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen shroud, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb, and went away.

[6:02] Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb. The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing.

[6:13] And here before us, is the main thing. Christ crucified. So let's walk through these six scenes, and let us see what God would have for us this morning.

[6:29] Let's look at verses 27-31. Jesus is mocked in the praetorium. I'm not sure if you noticed this when we read through it just moments ago, but the way in which these Roman soldiers were mocking Jesus.

[6:47] Do you remember last week, we talked about Jesus was before Pilate. He was up on the charge of treason. He's claiming to be a king. Pilate tries to get him off.

[6:58] He doesn't think he's guilty, but the Jewish crowds are yelling, crucify him, crucify him. And Pilate washes his hands and says, hey, this is your responsibility.

[7:09] They say, his blood is on our heads. And so Pilate gives in, hands him over to the Roman soldiers. They bring him, they scourge him, which is a brutal whipping.

[7:23] And then in verse 27, these soldiers, they bring him into the praetorium before the battalion, which would have been about 600 soldiers, a cohort. They stripped him, and they put a scarlet robe on him.

[7:35] A scarlet robe would have been akin to the royal robe of a king. It was mockery. It would have been one of the short, scarlet capes of one of the Roman troopers.

[7:50] It would have been obvious that they're making fun of him. But they don't stop there. They put a crown of thorns together on his head. It was to imitate the laurel crown, the laurel wreath that went around Caesar.

[8:05] Caesar, you're the king. Here's your crown. And they pressed it on his head. Verse 29. But it didn't stop there.

[8:19] They put a scepter in his hand. It was a reed. You know what cattails are? We see cattails in swamps.

[8:30] That's akin to what we're talking about. It was complete mockery. And then they kneeled down. Job 29 and paid a mock homage.

[8:44] Hail, king of the Jews. It would, a ring of hail Caesar. So these Roman soldiers, they couldn't resist the opportunity of this guy who's claiming to be a king.

[8:56] Now they have the opportunity to get him ready for crucifixion. And they're brutal. Their mocking is awful. They spit on him. And they start beating his head with that reed, with his crown of thorns on him.

[9:15] All the while, we know what's going on. For those of us who've been studying Matthew together, we know that Jesus, he was born of a virgin, conceived by the Holy Spirit.

[9:27] His other name is Emmanuel, God with us. We know who these soldiers are mocking. They have no idea. We know that he's a descendant of David.

[9:43] That he's in fact David's greater son, Psalm 110. That he is the true king of Israel. We know that. They don't.

[9:54] And so they mock the one who truly is the king. What is striking here is how Jesus responds.

[10:10] He doesn't. He's silent. He's letting it happen. He's not doing anything to stop it.

[10:21] These Roman soldiers don't see him for who he is. And we, almost 2,000 years later, we do. But this mockery by these Roman soldiers, this wasn't the worst thing that happened on this Friday.

[10:43] This is before 9 a.m. The trial itself before Pilate would have been at daybreak. Mark tells us that Jesus was actually crucified at 9 a.m. So this has happened somewhere maybe 8 a.m.

[10:54] that Friday morning. So they get the deed done. They mock him behind praetorian closed doors. And then they redress him and then they bring him out in order to crucify him.

[11:06] And that moves us to our next scene in verses 32 through 38. They bring him to Golgotha. Verse 32, as they went out, they found a man of Cyrene named Simon.

[11:20] Now, they compelled this man to carry his cross. What's going on here? Why would they do that? What's happening? Why would they take this guy named Simon and force him to carry Jesus' cross?

[11:34] It wouldn't have been the whole cross. It would have been the cross member. The pentibulum is what it was called. And it weighed somewhere between 75 and 100 pounds. And so if Jesus, who had been scourged, had already lost a huge amount of blood, he is struggling.

[11:48] His body is failing him. And so they're going to bring him out of the city of Jerusalem proper. And they're going to crucify him outside. And so he's having to carry this cross. His body fails him.

[11:59] And so the Roman guards, which would have been four of them, they're not going to carry his cross. And so they're within their legal bounds to say, you take up his cross to Simon of Cyrene.

[12:11] And he does. He's got no other option. But as soon as you hear that name Simon, what should be going through your head? Where's the rock? And it reminds us that Jesus has been abandoned by his own.

[12:30] Verse 33, they come to this place called Golgotha, the place of a skull. It had a reputation for death. And just as a side note, when we use the word Calvary, Calvary comes from a Latin word, Calva, which means skull.

[12:47] And so when we talk about Calva, we're talking about Golgotha, the place of a skull, the place known for death. In verse 34, the soldiers offer Jesus wine mixed with gall.

[13:04] Now you see that in your Bible and you're kind of like, well that was really nice of them. What changed? They're just being to be sweet. It wasn't. Has anybody in the room innocently kind of grabbed a glass of water and you start drinking it and then you realize someone spiked it with salt?

[13:24] Has anybody experienced that before? You put it to your lips and you're like, ah! And then you hear the chuckles, right? That's what's happening. The soldiers spiked this wine with gall.

[13:40] It was very distasteful. As soon as Jesus puts it on his lips, it's gross. He's not going to drink it. Then the Roman soldiers are like, gotcha! It's more of the same.

[13:55] More mockery. Verse 35, this is striking. It's so understated. And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots.

[14:12] Matthew's just matter of fact. It doesn't go into big detail. And the reason why is if you're living in the first century and you were the recipients of this gospel originally, you would be very familiar with crucifixion.

[14:23] It was estimated that Rome would crucify upwards to 10,000 people every year. And so you would have been used to seeing crucifixions even though they're horrific.

[14:36] They're an awful way to die. Crucifixion was reserved for the worst of criminals and the lowest of society. It was designed to inflict the maximum amount of pain for the longest amount of time in the most humiliating of ways.

[14:53] And just to give you a sample of it, we have an English word, it's called excruciate. Have you heard that word before? It's one of our words to try to get at the worst kind of pain we experience.

[15:04] And literally, what excruciate means, it means out of the cross. X out of cru, C-R-U-C, that's short for crux, cross, out of the cross.

[15:15] Our English word for worst possible pain has its root in the cross. And he was crucified naked.

[15:27] That was the Roman way of doing things. Probably would have had a loincloth on to be respectful to the Jews, but it would have been humiliating. That's why they were dividing his garments up among them and casting lots for them.

[15:43] It actually fulfills Psalm 22, 18. And what you're going to see is Psalm 22 is backlaid against this. Matthew helps us see that this is fulfillment all over the place. One other thing you need to know is that Jews considered someone who was crucified as being cursed by God.

[16:04] Paul says, quoting Deuteronomy, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. And what you need to know is that Jesus is coming under the curse of God at these moments.

[16:17] But the question we need to start asking is, I thought Jesus was innocent. Why is he being accursed by God? For who is he being accursed?

[16:31] Verse 36, the guards sit down and keep watch over Jesus. They're protecting him. There's the possibility someone would try to steal someone off a cross. But Matthew's really set this up because these Roman guards, there's four of them with a centurion, they are watching what is about to happen.

[16:51] And we know what they're about to see. They have no idea what they're about to see. And what they are about to witness is going to change them. They're going to be those who say, hail, king of the Jews, mockingly, to one saying, truly, this was the son of God.

[17:09] They're going to see something. But they don't know what's happening yet. verse 37, we learn about what was tacked above Jesus' head.

[17:23] Criminals would have had this sign put above them that would say who they are. This is Jesus of Nazareth and what they're charged with. He's charged with being king of the Jews, tongue in cheek.

[17:35] It was mocking Jesus and thumbing their noses at the Jews. Here's your king. And what we see going on here is very subtle, but very important to see.

[17:48] Though they think that it's mockery, we know it to be true. This is Jesus. Do you remember what his name means? The Lord saves, Matthew 1.21.

[18:01] And it's, he's the king of the Jews. It's true. And he's hanging on a cross. To Jews, this would have been a stumbling block.

[18:13] To Greeks, it would have been just a fool's errand. But this is the second time now we've seen king of the Jews show up in our section.

[18:27] The first one was a mocking hail king of the Jews, but it's true. And now it's, it's written on the sign above Jesus' head on the cross. It's true.

[18:38] verse 38, there's two robbers crucified, one on the other, each side of him, and they're called robbers, but there's, there is a reasonable belief to believe that these were more than robbers, that these were actually other freedom fighters, other insurrectionists.

[18:57] And the idea behind it is Barabbas was their leader. And he would have been crucified in the middle of them. And so what's happened is, if that's true, Jesus gotten swapped out for their insurrectionist leader.

[19:11] But what we see come the end of verse 38 is the stage has now been set. Jesus is hanging on a cross with these insurrectionists on either side.

[19:25] There's the Roman guard watching him. And now we move to the third scene. The passerbys, the leaders, the criminals, themselves.

[19:37] And what Matthew does, he moves us from this activity of these Roman soldiers now to the reviling of the Jews. In verses 39, we read this.

[19:53] And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads. These were, these were Jewish passerbys, sojourners coming into the city. This is just everyday activity that they've been doing.

[20:05] They're wagging their heads is a fulfillment of Psalm 22, 7, where we read, all who see me, mock me. They make mouths at me.

[20:16] They wag their heads. And so these are ordinary Jews walking by. Jesus would have been crucified in a place that was very prominent and public.

[20:30] And so people just coming in and out of the city, they'd have to see it. It was Rome's way of saying, don't mess with us. And these passerbys are saying in verse 40, you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself.

[20:46] This is what was accused of Jesus and the hearing in Caiaphas' house in chapter 26, 61. And they're referring to something Jesus said back in John chapter 2, 19, records for us, where Jesus wasn't actually speaking about the temple proper in Jerusalem.

[21:07] He was talking about his own body. He was saying, hey, destroy this body of mine and in three days later it will be raised.

[21:19] And the great irony of this all is that he is going to give himself in order to save others. And then they go on to say in verse 40, if you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.

[21:39] These passerbys, these Jewish passerbys, they obviously don't understand why the Son of God had come. They're thinking, hey, if you come down from the cross, that will prove you're the Son of God.

[21:56] But we all know that it's because he stayed on the cross, it proved he was the Son of God. And that's exactly what you're going to see the centurion say.

[22:08] He's going to witness everything in verse 54. He's going to say, truly, this was the Son of God. He saw the way he died. He stayed on the cross. He'll be in his very dying that his identity is confirmed to those who believe.

[22:26] Well, these Jewish passerbys persist in their blindness. righteousness. And Jesus has no response. He doesn't say anything from the cross to them. And then in verse 41, we start seeing the Jewish leaders get in on the play.

[22:46] And it's very subtle. There's a very subtle shift here. If you look in verse 40, you see the passerby saying, you who would destroy the temple.

[22:56] You save yourself. You, you, you, you, you. You. They're speaking to him on the cross. And then in verse 41, the chief priests, scribes, elders mock him saying, he saved others.

[23:09] He cannot save himself. They're not even giving him the dignity of speaking to him. It's like their backs are turned talking to one another. He, he, he can't even save himself. He saved others, but he can't save.

[23:21] They're not talking to him. It's like when someone talks about you in your presence, but they're not talking to you. They're just humiliating him.

[23:32] He saved others. He cannot save himself. The irony, of course, is that he's giving himself to save others. He's the king of Israel.

[23:43] Let him come down now from the cross and we will believe him. Even if he did come down, they would not believe him because their heart are so hard towards him. They're thinking that, hey, we will acknowledge the reign of this king if he comes down.

[24:01] And the reality is he's establishing his reign by staying up. There's that phrase again, king of Israel. In verse 43, these Jewish leaders quoting Psalm 22, 8, he trusts in God.

[24:22] Let God deliver him now if he desires him. For he said, I'm the son of God. Oh, Jesus, if he has that special relationship with God, if he is really God's son and he trusts God, then God should deliver him if he desires that.

[24:38] He will want him to be delivered. Again, these Jewish leaders are thinking, hey, if he is who he claimed to be, then God's going to bring him down.

[24:48] He's going to rescue him from the cross. But they don't seem to remember Isaiah 53, 10, which says it was the will of the Lord to crush him.

[25:02] Jesus does trust in his father. And God's not going to deliver him. He's going to crush him. He's going to crush him. They don't see it.

[25:16] They reject Jesus as their Messiah. Son of God, King of Israel, taken together equals Messiah. They reject him. And Jesus doesn't respond.

[25:29] Verse 44, the Jewish criminals on either side of him, they get in on the game. They revile him the same way Luke tells us, are you not the Christ?

[25:43] Save yourself and us. Us too. We know later that one of them will actually have a dramatic change of heart and he will, to that day on the cross, will be the day of salvation for him.

[26:00] But Matthew records for us here, it's all the Jews in this area are heaping up reviles on him. It is like a chorus of revilings of these Jewish spectators.

[26:16] The passerbys, the leadership, the criminals on either side, they've rejected Jesus as the King, the Son of God, and they revile him. Remember, Jesus, this is not about power.

[26:36] Jesus had the authority. He healed sick people of their sicknesses with just a touch. He just spoke words to raging seas and they were peaceful.

[26:49] He spoke a word of exorcism to legions of demons and they left their victim. And he raised people from the dead.

[27:02] This is not an issue of ability. It's not that Jesus cannot save himself. Jesus will not save himself.

[27:14] He's choosing not to save himself. He's choosing to give himself. And these Jews around him right now, they don't get it. They don't see it.

[27:27] But for all this Jewish reviling, it's not the worst of it. This isn't the worst of it. It's what happens in 45 through 50 that's the worst of it.

[27:39] And now we move to scene four. His cry of dereliction and his death. In verse 45, we see darkness coming over the land. It's the sixth hour.

[27:50] That means noon to the Roman mind. So it's noon and there was darkness all over the land. It would have been very odd.

[28:00] Do you remember, do you all remember the solar eclipse this past summer? It was high day. If you're in Missouri, you'd be like, this is weird and freaky, but kind of awesome.

[28:11] Some have speculated that what's happening here on this Friday is a solar eclipse, but the reality is it would have been Passover, it would have been full moon, and apparently you can't have a full moon and a solar eclipse at the same time.

[28:29] So it's not a solar eclipse. Something else is going on. What is this darkness for me? Jesus has been on the cross for three hours, 9 a.m.

[28:42] It's noon. Darkness is coming over the land. Back in Exodus, before God, the tenth plague in which God pours out death on the firstborn and he provides a Passover lamb.

[29:01] And before that, the ninth plague, darkness. Three days of darkness. It starts getting at this sense of judgment.

[29:17] God's wrath building up. Throughout the Old Testament, there's a linkage between darkness and judgment. Now, if it's true that this gathering darkness is a manifestation of God's judgment, we've got to start asking a question.

[29:37] What is God's wrath being aimed at here? Why is God's wrath being gathered visibly? What is happening? We have the Son of God on the cross, and we have darkness gathering in this area, in this land.

[29:55] Who is this judgment aimed at? Verse 46. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

[30:11] The judgment isn't on the Roman soldiers. The judgment isn't on these reviling Jews. This gathering judgment is falling upon the Son of God on the cross.

[30:25] His wrath being poured out on Jesus. In verse 46, we're told that it's the ninth hour Jesus cried.

[30:37] 3 p.m. Friday afternoon. He's been on the cross for six hours. This darkness has been there for three hours. This judgment being poured out on Jesus for three hours.

[30:50] My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? This is the worst part of it. This is what Jesus has been dreading in the garden. This is the cup that he was going to be drinking that he didn't really want to drink but was willing to drink out of obedience to his Father.

[31:07] He's quoting Psalm 22.1. Psalm 22 is about an innocent man who suffers greatly. It's that basic and simple and that is exactly what's going on here.

[31:21] Jesus is experiencing God forsakenness. It's the cry of dereliction, of cry of abandonment.

[31:35] He's drinking the cup. And we've got to ask, well, in what sense is Jesus being forsaken here? And there's a couple clues in the actual quote.

[31:49] My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The relationship is still intact. The second person of the Trinity has not ceased to be the son of the first person of the Trinity, the Father.

[32:02] But in some way, in ways that we can't fathom, there is now a hostility between Father and Son.

[32:13] There's something there that's never been there before for all eternity past. And we get a flavor of it. In Matthew chapter 3, after Jesus is baptized, we hear the Father's voice.

[32:28] This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. And then in Matthew chapter 17, after the transfiguration, this is my beloved Son who I'm well pleased.

[32:39] Listen to Him. And here on the defining moment of salvation, what do we hear from the Father? Nothing! We just hear the Son.

[32:53] My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why would He forsake His Son if His Son is innocent?

[33:06] Why would He do this? It's all according to plan. From before the foundation of the world, God ordained His Son to be sacrificed for those who would one day believe, to gather a people for Himself.

[33:29] If you turn in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians 5.21, we read this.

[33:44] For our sake. For our sake. For sinners who would one day believe. For our sake. For our sake, He, the Father, made Him, the Son, to be sin who knew no sin.

[34:01] He was innocent. So that in Jesus, we might become the righteousness of God. Why would God the Father forsake His innocent Son? He put our sin on Him and poured out His wrath on it for our sake.

[34:22] In Matthew 20.28, Jesus, speaking of His death, says, I have not come to be served, but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many.

[34:34] Right here at this moment, Jesus is ransoming the many. He's giving His life for all who would one day believe in the Son and pay for their sin.

[34:49] A ransom is a payment to release a slave or for to give a debt. And Jesus is paying the ultimate ransom price with His life for you and for me.

[35:03] The eternal wrath of God was being poured out on the eternal Son of God. Remember, this is Passover. He's our Passover sacrifice whose death delivers us from God's pending judgment.

[35:17] Because we're under the blood, God's wrath is satisfied. It's because of this ransom payment that Romans 8.1 is something that Christians can say with full confidence.

[35:33] There is therefore now no condemnation. There's no wrath. There's no judgment for those who were in Christ Jesus because He ransomed me. He paid for it.

[35:45] 1 Peter 3.18 For Christ also suffered once for sins on the cross. The righteous for the unrighteous. He's a substitute that He might bring us to God.

[35:58] He ransomed sinners in order to reconcile sinners to God. Why did God the Son, why was He forsaken by God the Father?

[36:15] To ransom sinners from their sins. It comes all the way back to Matthew 1.21 where Jesus is named and He says, You are the Lord saves because you are going to save your people from their sins.

[36:31] And here He is doing it. Christ crucified.

[36:44] The King of Israel. The Son of God. Emmanuel. Being crucified and forsaken by His Father in order to ransom sinners from their sins.

[37:01] And then it's really odd because if you turn back to Matthew 27 in verse 47 through 49 you have this really strange event that takes place.

[37:13] The bystanders there are like, Hey, this man is calling Elijah. Eli, Eli sounds like Elijah. And so they're like, Hey, hey, hold on a second. Maybe Elijah is going to come. Now, they have no idea who this is on the cross and they have no idea what He's doing.

[37:30] That He's accomplishing salvation. In verse 50, we read, And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up His spirit.

[37:47] John records in 1930 what Jesus actually said. It is finished. What was finished?

[38:00] His ransom payment was finished. Paying for your sin and my sin was finished. And then in the end of verse 50, He yielded up His spirit.

[38:12] It's very clear. The language is very clear. His life was not taken from Him. He gave His life as a ransom for many. He was willingly there as our substitute.

[38:25] We move from scene 4 and the main thing to seeing its immediate effects.

[38:41] In verse 51, And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The curtain being talked about is the curtain between the holy place and the holy of holies in the temple.

[38:53] It was 60 feet high, 30 feet wide, and what Matthew records, it was rend from top to bottom. And so it's like, what does that mean? Here's what it means. Through the death of Jesus, we all now have access into the presence of God.

[39:10] That's what that means. There's a new way to come to God. It's through Jesus. That's the point of Hebrews 9 and Hebrews 10.

[39:24] But there's another implication. The temple was then and there rendered obsolete. No more need for it. Because there's a new and better way in Jesus to come to God.

[39:41] The temple now has been rendered obsolete. Major shift in God's saving plan for the fullness of time. The focal point is no longer on the temple.

[39:54] The focal point becomes Jesus. The curtain of the temple was torn from top to bottom. God initiated this. God wanted all to come to Him.

[40:06] Verse 51, there's an earthquake. The significance is the death of Jesus had immediate creation effect. It literally shook things up.

[40:24] One might have this anticipation of what else is going to happen among creation at the start of this work of redemption. We read that.

[40:35] Tombs were opened up. Verse 52. Now you've got to remember that the tombs in that day were tombs hewn into the earth. And so if there's an earthquake, rock splitting, it opens up tombs.

[40:48] Now that might be a little confusing to you to read. The tombs also were opened up and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. The best way to understand that is on this Friday, the tombs also were opened up, complete stop, and then that and picks up on Sunday, resurrection Sunday.

[41:10] And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised on that Sunday and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to man. Do you know what happened as a result?

[41:20] Old Testament saints who trusted God would be raised to life and what it says is even Old Testament faith depended upon the Christ. Now could you imagine if you were there?

[41:39] You'd just taken all this in. You're just sitting around watching this. You're the centurions and his three other Roman soldiers. You've seen the revilings of the other Jews. You've seen how Jesus responded to that.

[41:51] You yourself had reviled him. You nailed him to the cross. You've seen it happen. You saw the darkness come in. You heard him say, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

[42:04] You heard him say, it is finished. You felt the earthquake. And so what we read in verse 54, truly, this was the Son of God.

[42:27] You have the first Gentile convert after the death of Jesus. Jesus. The centurion, he's somehow, someway recognizing that this is God's Son.

[42:48] Christ's death opened up a way and the immediate response is a Gentile centurion confessing Jesus as the Son of God.

[43:00] in verses 55 and 56, Matthew is clear to show that there are women there. Though the male disciples have bailed, the women are there.

[43:13] They're holding out. The last scene is the burial in Joseph's tomb.

[43:24] And that's 57 through 61. Matt's here. I'm going to leave that to you to do a little bit more work in next week. But here's what I want you to see. He's dead. He really died.

[43:37] He's put in a tomb. Here's the point of it all. This is the climax of Matthew's gospel. And he's showing us what Jesus had to endure in order to save sinners.

[43:49] The worst part wasn't the mockery of the Roman soldiers. The worst part wasn't the pain of the cross. The worst part wasn't the mockery, the reviling of the Jews.

[44:02] The worst part was being forsaken by his Father. And he did that for you that you could be forgiven. Ransomed. He gave his life for yours.

[44:16] Let me close with one application. It means salvation for you.

[44:32] It means salvation. If you came into this room and you're thinking, oh, I believe that Christ was crucified. My prayer is that you would recognize that he was crucified for you.

[44:47] It is personal. He did it for you. When was the last time you took stock and thought through all that the Son of God endured in order to pay for your sin so that you could come into a real and living relationship with God, it means salvation.

[45:16] And that's something we sing about. That's something that we proclaim. That's something that informs our very, very life as a church.

[45:31] This is what is of called first importance. The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

[45:47] And when it comes to biblical Christianity, the main thing is summed up in two words. Christ crucified. Christ crucified. Do you believe he was crucified for you?

[46:04] And if this is the day that lights are going on for you for the first time, come on down front after we sing. I'd be glad to talk to him about you.

[46:16] Let's pray. God in heaven, we give you great thanks and praise for all that happened to Jesus by your will on the cross.

[46:29] we see the outworking of Isaiah 20, of Psalm 22. We see Isaiah 53 10. It was your will to crush him. And we see him willingly doing it, lovingly doing it to save us.

[46:46] God, would you do a work, press this into our hearts, change the way that we live. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[46:56] Amen. Amen.