Matthew Pt. 108 - Jesus Dies & Life Begins

I often say God's people should. Christians should have the best

marriages, Christians should have the best family cultures.

Christians should have the best health.

Christians should have the best everything.

As we walk out obedience to the word of God, as we walk in

wisdom, we should be a people of wisdom and self-control and that

leads to good fruit. So we're going to keep growing

in all these ways. Turning your Bible to Matthew

27. A heavy day, a monumental day, a

magnificent day, a wonderful day, a terrible day known as

Good Friday. The day that Jesus dies on the

cross. We started with him on the cross

last week, but we didn't finish. And today we come all the way

through and Jesus dies on the cross.

Matthew chapter 27, verse 45. Now from the 6th hour there was

Matthew 27:45

darkness over all the land until the 9th hour.

And about the 9th hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice

saying, Eli, Eli, Lemi Sabachthani, that is my God, my

God, why have you forsaken me? And some of the bystanders

hearing it said, this man is calling Elijah.

And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with

sour wine, put it on a Reed and gave it to him to drink.

But the other said, Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come and

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, and the earth shook, and the rocks were split.

The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the Saints who

had fallen asleep or raised. And coming out of the tombs

after his resurrection, 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. There were also many women there

looking on 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 the mother of the sons of

Zebedee. God, thank you for really the

miracle that life itself could die, the miracle of Jesus's

sacrifice, the perfection and the completion of him

accomplishing everything he set out to do.

If Jesus hadn't been perfect, if Jesus hadn't been holy, if Jesus

had not accomplished his mission in perfection, then there would

be no hope for us and we would forever be lost.

All of the Old Testament Saints, we're looking ahead and

depending upon this moment and the perfect sacrifice coming and

all of the New Testament Saints look back on to this moment and

the perfection of the New Testament, the perfection of the

Lamb accomplishing all things for us.

Well, we thank you for the salvation that Jesus

accomplished and provided. I pray you would bring us

revelation and light this morning.

Help us to see more that we would worship more in Jesus

name. We thank you, Amen.

A mighty moment, an incredible moment.

We're going to marinate on it together and then we're going to

take communion together at the end of our sermon in verse 45.

Now from the 6th hour. So the the way time was kept can

look different. John keep keeps time different

in his gospel than Matthew does. Matthew's using the traditional

Gospel, the traditional Jewish way of time, tracking the 6th

hour. This is 9:00 AM, so it's 9:00 in

the morning now. No, sorry, he was crucified at

9. It's now noon, so he's been on

the cross for three hours. Now we come to noon, which

should be the brightest point of the entire day.

But instead the Lord does a supernatural thing here.

And from the 9th hour, which is noon until 3:00 PM when Jesus

dies and gives up his life, there's darkness over all the

land. This is not an eclipse.

This cannot be an eclipse because Passover is a full moon.

So the full moon the night before.

We know this isn't a solar eclipse or this isn't a lunar.

There's no eclipse possible. What's happening here is some

sort of supernatural darkness that the Lord brings over the

land. We have good reason to believe

just from the passage itself, it would make sense that God brings

darkness over the whole earth. We have historical reason to

believe. It was recorded in Egypt, it was

recorded in Rome that this day went dark as well.

So this isn't just a local thing.

This isn't just over Jerusalem. This isn't like clouds showed

up. There's some sort of

supernatural darkness that is coming now as God is judging

your sin in Christ. Jesus who never sinned, Jesus

who never did anything wrong, is having the fullness of the wrath

of God pressed onto him as he is being fully abandoned, which is

some sort of miracle and mystery that we can't explain in the

Godhead. Some sort of separation that's

never taken place between the Father, the Son, and the Holy

Spirit is now happening in this moment.

For this three hours. The fullness of sin is being

judged and condemned and punished.

All the condemnation that Satan wants you to feel for your sin,

all of the guilt that we rightly feel for sin, is also being

carried by Christ fully and completely.

Now there is darkness over all the land until the 9th hour.

In about the 9th hour I messed up my times with everything I

told you, but with the way I read it, the point is we'll stop

using Matthew's time. Jesus was crucified at 9:00 in

the morning. From 9:00 to noon he's on the

cross suffering. At noon the whole land goes

dark, and then at 3:00 PM is when he died.

This is when he cries out though, as God is bringing

supernatural darkness over the land, not a natural darkness.

This is the time we should be experiencing the brightness of

the day. But this is fulfilling what's

said in Amos 89700 years earlier.

The Lord said I will make the sun go down at noon.

So God didn't literally make the sun go down at noon, but

figuratively he did. God turns off the light.

It's also brings to mind, takes us back to Egypt.

The last plague before the first born son was killed was

darkness. Darkness came over the land of

Egypt, and then the next plague that happens after that is the

death of the first born son. In the same way, darkness comes

over the land and now the Passover lamb is killed.

Here again the Passover lamb is killed.

This is the very death of God's Son.

Darkness comes as judgment. God is judging sin.

As Jesus suffers, Jesus becomes sin, the Scripture says as God

turns from his Son in separation, Jesus now is feeling

for the first time something he's never felt.

He's experiencing something he's never experienced.

The Word of God forever, God forever with God.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and

the Word was God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And now the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

He's born of a virgin. He's lived his whole life and

fellowship still with the Father and the Holy Spirit until this

moment. He is abandoned.

He is forsaken. The thing that we're all afraid

of, the thing that we've been worried about, will God forsake

me? The thing that many people

throughout, throughout the earth, what will happen in the

moment that I die? What will take place?

There's no more vulnerable moment than anyone will ever

experience in the moment when they feel this is the last

breath that's about to leave my body.

That moment is coming for you. That moment is coming for me.

So it's supposed to scare me. For those in Christ, not at all.

For those outside of for those outside of Christ, of course.

Absolutely. It's supposed to drive you to

the Lord. It's supposed to drive you to

the cross so that you can come into the place of comfort and

know that Jesus was forsaken so that you would not be.

Jesus was abandoned so that you never would be.

God's wrath fully comes to bear. Why?

Because God hates sin. Remember we said last week, why

was Jesus crucified? We all know he died on the

cross. Why?

Because of sin. Back to Genesis 3, Sin is the

problem. Sin is the reason for every

brokenness in the world. Sin is the reason for every

trauma we've ever experienced. For every sin is the reason that

there is a news cycle at all. If there was no sin, there would

be no news. Sin is the reason for tornadoes.

Sin is the reason for war. Sin is the reason for all

brokenness. And God hates sin.

But God still loves us. This is the miracle of the

gospel. This is the goodness of God in

our sin, in our foolishness, when we love our sin, when we

fight against our sin, it's still not enough.

We still have to be saved from our sin.

We have to become a new creation and we have to receive the

sacrifice for sins because we can't sacrifice enough.

Going to church does not save us from our sins.

Reading our Bible does not save us from our sins.

Praying does not save us from our sins.

How can I be saved? I put faith in the Lord Jesus

Christ, but what does that mean? Faith doesn't just mean I

believe that Jesus existed. The demons believe Jesus

existed. It doesn't mean I believe He was

raised from the dead for all people.

The demons believe this. Believing with my brain the

facts of history does not save my spirit.

Believing with my brain the objective truth of the Word of

God does not save me from my sin.

Jesus, at the beginning of His ministry, started His ministry

with a call to repentance. He calls people to repent and to

follow Him. This is the same thing that is

carried throughout the New Testament.

The reason we have our New Testament also is because of

sin. Most of the letters written to

the churches were saying, hey guys, act like Christians, knock

it off, let's adjust, let's correct, let's help, let's

encourage this weakness in you. You, you have been saved now,

Christians, and yet you're still sinning here and there.

We want less and less of that. We want holiness.

God requires that we be holy as He is holy.

Without holiness, none shall see God.

So there is not a formulaic process for salvation.

There is an upheaval that happens in a person's heart and

they recognize that they are a Sinner and they're crushed by

it. This is what salvation looks

like. I've been reading an

autobiography of an old preacher who was a part of the Great

Awakening. His name was Charles Finney and

the way he writes about salvation continues to move me

and continues to fill me even with more the fear of God.

Whereas we live in an age where we want in, I think with good

motive. We want to create such a

simplistic formula for people to come to Christ.

So we say, hey, just repeat after me and then it's you're

going to be secure. And the way Finney writes about

people's salvation in the, in the particular villages that

he's going to minister to, in the particular places that he's

going, these people like press in through prayer.

And, and they're even people who are convicted.

They hear him preach and they hear him preach again and they

hear him preach again. And then they sit with him and

they want to talk with him. They want to meet with him and

he talks with them and he meets with them.

He's telling the story of of a wealthy man in a town who he was

meeting with. And the man had come to a

meeting and then he'd go into his house and met with him.

And he said, as I was sharing the gospel with him, he said he

just put his head down in his hands.

And I thought, oh, he sees the conviction of the Lord coming

upon him. Finney's now about to lead him

right, like a Good Shepherd should.

He's about to lead him in prayers.

But he said, brother, talk to like, I want to help you.

I want to shepherd you. And Finney said I immediately

left the room. I was like, why would you do

that? He said I left him to do

business with God. Go after him if you want him.

If you're crushed by your sin, like you have enough information

to run to Jesus, I'm not going to give you a formulaic path

that gives you confidence in my formula.

I want you to know that you're saved because you've encountered

the living God, not because you've encountered a formula

that I may have compassionately put together for you.

That may be theologically accurate, but that cannot

guarantee what's happening inside of you.

And as a pastor, I have repented for all the times where I may

have misled somebody wanting to do what was right, but saying if

you believe and then you repeated, you're secure.

And they're like, am I real? Yep, Yep, Yep, Yep, Yep, Yep.

Whereas if I could rewind, I'd go, well, tell me your

understanding of of the Lord Jesus.

Tell me about the weight of your sin upon you.

Well, like, is it real? Like, because if they've

encountered the living God, they ought to know, know something

about that. So what happens over and over in

these villages that he visits? These people go out into the

woods alone to mourn and to weep and to pray until they have

apprehended it, until they've apprehended their salvation.

Not that they earned it through their prayer, but they just felt

such an angst. They felt such a conviction from

the Holy Spirit that they were not satisfied with cheap

solutions. They would not be satisfied just

because some other person told them.

How could you be? Why would you ever be comforted

by another man telling you you're good when you have

something in your heart that's unsettled?

If you have something in your heart that's unsatisfied, pursue

the Lord. Yes, you need to do it with

biblical knowledge. No, you don't need to do some

foolishness. I mean that you because you

could take that people go, I feel bad for my sin.

Yes. So press into the grace of God,

not don't beat yourself with whips, which people have done

they're they're people have done all kinds of foolish things.

I I don't feel right with God. And then they invent a formula

to supposedly comfort themselves.

There's only one comfort. His name is Jesus.

You have to come fully to him fully repentant, fully hating

your sin and saying God, I need to be saved.

And if you don't think you're saved, you can go to Jesus and

settle it and resolve it. Go out into the woods, find a

rock and make it your altar and lay down your life before him.

Go into your prayer closet, whatever you need to do.

But don't, don't entrust your soul into anyone's hands except

the hands of the Lord Jesus. And if you're not certain, then

you can get that certainty. Pastor, are you trying to remove

my confidence? No, I'm preaching the Word of

God to you. I'm showing you your confidence.

Jesus is your substitute. Jesus is your salvation.

Jesus is your solution. But if you're not sure you can

be, and you should be, New Testament Saints should be sure.

New Testament Saints should not fear death.

New Testament Saints should look forward to the return of the

Lord Jesus Christ. Because like good stewards, New

Testament Saints should be able to say, I've been hoping you'd

come back soon. Let me show you what I've been

up to. I took what you gave me, Lord,

and I've multiplied it not. I'm not sure I'm ready for him

to come back with the way I'm living.

Friend, your soul's the most important thing you've got.

Fear the Lord, love the Lord, receive the grace of the Lord,

and pursue the Lord fully. Jesus was abandoned so that you

would not be. God does not want to crush you.

God does not want to abandon you.

But if you reject the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, you will

receive fully what you deserve. The blood of the Lamb had to be

applied to the doorposts of the houses in Israel, in Egypt, the

Israelites in Egypt. And if you didn't, he said you

didn't take the sacrifice. You didn't provide the

sacrifice. Well, then of course you're

saying I'll pay my bill myself. Jesus paid your bill.

But if you insist on paying it yourself, then yes, God has

created hell for that. Jesus is utterly forsaken,

completely abandoned and condemned at this time of day.

On this Friday, as he's being crucified, as darkness has come

over the land, the people are actually preparing their

Passover lambs. So the Passover meal was going

to be eaten actually on Friday evening.

Jesus took it early with the disciples because he wasn't

going to be there for Friday evening.

So he's taking it a night early. On Thursday night, he's saying,

I've looked forward to having this meal with you.

And then, of course, he says, this is the blood.

And they're like, yeah, yeah, we know.

He says, no, this is my blood. This is the new covenant in my

blood. This is my body.

And they're going, this is different.

He just changed the Passover forever.

He's showing us what it always meant, what it was always about.

But right now, the people of Israel are actually cooking

their Passover lambs at the moment when Jesus is

figuratively receiving the most heat and the most pressure and

the most overwhelmed that he could possibly endure.

The Passover lambs are being cooked as Jesus himself is

suffering. The Passover lamb is suffering.

God orchestrated all of this and His sovereignty.

Of course, Jesus is experiencing the full wrath of God.

And Jesus is quoting Psalm 22 when he says, my God, my God,

why have you forsaken me? He's quoting David 1000 years

earlier. David was not praying that

prayer for himself. David was prophesying by the

Holy Spirit about the Messiah. All the Jews know that Psalm 22

is about the Messiah. Matthew here writing to Jews

once again goes, hey guys, you know that Psalm?

Jesus quotes it on the cross. My God, my God, why have you

forsaken me? Even here, Jesus is still

claiming his identity in front of everyone.

He's still saying I am the Messiah, even in his very, very,

very last breaths. He's telling everybody I am the

Messiah. Why?

Because he's quoting the messianic Psalm.

He's saying God is forsaking me as a substitute.

This is not Jesus confused. This is not Jesus asking a

theological question. God, why have you forsaken me?

I'm wondering. This is not Jesus searching for

an answer. This is Jesus crying out in

anguish. He's crying out in prayer as the

tortured lamb, and in his wisdom and in his honesty, he prays the

Scriptures. You will never know, or I should

say you never have to know, how Jesus felt on the cross when he

was forsaken. So far, none of you have ever

known what it felt like to be forsaken by God.

I've been. I've had some low times.

That may be true. You've had some low times, but

you've never been forsaken by God.

Jesus has Jesus knows what it feels like to be forsaken.

The difference is I deserve to be forsaken by God.

If God ever decided to turn from me, I couldn't blame him.

I couldn't say why would you? How could you?

Because he could say it's pretty obvious you don't deserve

anything. And yet he turns from Jesus, his

own Son. Jesus is perfect, still on the

cross, sinless, still on the cross, faithful, still on the

cross. We experience pressures, we

experience afflictions, we experience confusion, we

experience pain, but we do not experience the abandonment that

he went to, went through, and we never have to. 2nd Corinthians

48 and 9. We are afflicted in every way,

but not crushed. We are perplexed but not driven

to despair. We are persecuted but not

forsaken, struck down but not destroyed.

God abandons Jesus as Jesus becomes sin because God cannot

fellowship with sin. Dear Christian, when you sin,

you do not experience a severance in your relationship

with God. Is it possible to eventually get

to that place? Yes.

How do I stay saved? The way you got saved by God's

grace through your faith. Do we believe once saved?

Always say, do we believe you can lose your salvation?

I don't answer that question the way people like me to answer it.

I answer it this way and I say the way you stay saved is the

way you got saved. So did you get saved?

Yes, I did. And that's how you stay saved by

God's grace through your faith. Both of those things matter.

Your faith doesn't save you in the sense that you've earned

anything because even faith itself is a gift from God that

comes from when we hear the word of God.

So he's still the origin of everything.

And no point do we go, I had faith.

That's stupid. You're stupid to not have faith.

So of course you had faith. But when you sin, the reason you

experience this distortion, you feel like God is far from you.

It's not that he's abandoned you.

It's that you've run from your father's house.

You've run from the presence of God.

He still loves you. He's so eager to welcome you

back. But a severance in fellowship

can happen without a severance in relationship.

If Natalie and I have a fight, our fellowship has been

hindered. Has our relationship been

severed? No.

You're still married. I still love her.

She still loves me, but our fellowship is hindered in the

moment. This can be restored.

This can be healed. It's also possible, though, that

Natalie and I fight and we fight and we fight and we fight and we

fight, and eventually we say we're severing the relationship.

We're divorcing now. We're not in covenant any

longer. We've broken our covenant.

We've severed everything and we are separate.

This is a quick and simple picture of what salvation could

look like. I thought I was told once I was

saved, I would always be saved. Well, they're they're brothers

and sisters in Christ who interpret the Scriptures

differently on these passages. I think it's I land where I land

and I think I have very strong biblical precedent for it.

Obviously, this is one of those things that I do pound the

pulpit on because I do think those who endure to the end will

be saved. I think Hebrews makes a lot of

this very plain and very clear. But you're not abandoned by God.

You're not forsaken by God. We forsake God.

We might abandoned God, but he does not abandon us.

When you have physical or emotional pain, you can and you

should call out to God. Yes, He is an ever present help

in a time of need. But Jesus calls out to God in

his time of need. God did not answer him.

He calls out. He's crying out.

Jesus is loyal to God. Jesus is faithful to God all the

way to the end. And God abandons Jesus.

That's wild to me. Jesus is that devoted to his

Father. Father, I love you.

Father, where are you? And his Father left him.

Father, I love you. Father, I'm still yours.

Father, I'm doing everything you wanted me to do.

I'm doing everything I wanted to do.

Father, where are you? His father?

Not only does he not answer, he continues to crush him as Isaiah

told us he would. It pleased the Father to crush

him is why I want you to have such confidence to know that

there is a mechanism for your salvation.

It is not a vague sentimentality.

It is not a vague spirituality. There is a way that humanity

must be saved and there is no other way that they can be.

And it is through this man, the God, man, the Lord Jesus Christ,

perfectly fulfilling God's will, being the perfect sacrifice all

the way to the end. His prayer is not answered.

He is not comforted. He receives no peace.

God has completely forsaken him. Jesus's cry to the Father is met

with condemnation and wrath, so that your cry to the Father

would be met with love and comfort and forgiveness.

This is how justice works. This is how satisfaction works

in the heart of God. Jesus calling out to the God he

loves. My God, my God, still loyal,

still faithful, still loving, brings to mind Job 1315.

Though he slay me, I will hope in him.

Jesus stays faithful even when he's been abandoned by God.

How much more can you and I remain faithful when God is

always with us and pursuing us? God is actively pursuing us with

His love and with His grace. He is actively giving us

opportunity to draw near to Him in fellowship, to grow in

holiness, to repent of sin. He's patient with us, but it's

not because he's tolerant of sin.

It's because Jesus has brought such mercy and grace through his

absorption of our sin so that we can become the righteousness of

God. Church, you should call out to

the Father, not just in moments of deep desperation.

Jesus did not cry out only when he was on the cross.

Jesus lived in fellowship with God the Father.

He prayed. He got alone.

He lived with God. Your loyalty and your devotion

to God should be the most important thing in your life.

It should be the deepest prayer and the highest value of your

soul that you would stay loyal and faithful to God all the days

of your life, no matter what. You got nothing better to do to

be obedient, to endure to the end.

We want to be faithful all the way to our dying breath like

Jesus was. What a man, the perfect man.

Verse 47 after he cries out some of the bystanders hearing it

said this man is calling Elijah. So what might have happened

here? We don't know for sure.

Whenever he called out Eli, Eli, someone could have misheard.

So my God, my God, they could have also heard Elijah's name

also has God in his name. So someone might have misheard

what he was saying. And there was a a Jewish

superstition at the time that Elijah might come and help

someone who's in need. Elijah might come help a

suffering man. So this then turns to mocking.

Maybe someone in verse 48 has compassion on him.

Maybe someone has an ounce of humanity as the fear of God

probably fills everybody with the darkness, the supernatural

darkness that's come over the land.

And at once one of them ran and took a sponge, filled it with

sour wine, put it on a Reed and gave it to him to drink.

So theologians have debated on what happened here.

The Roman soldiers also would have been known to give you

something to drink to sustain your life, to increase your

suffering. You're most likely going to take

the drink because you are an excruciating thirst as your your

fluids have been leaving your body for hours now.

So was this a Roman guard saying oh let me just add to the

torment he's crying out. Was this a a laughing Roman

guard? I don't know.

I tend to think not. I tend to think that the

supernatural darkness that's come over the land is haunting

and terrifying to everyone. I tend to think this is more

someone, maybe a Roman, maybe not, but someone going, he's

crying out to God. And maybe they actually felt a

bit of compassion. This drink that they gave him,

this was not the narcotic that they tried to give him before.

The narcotic they tried to give him before was a pain numbing

substance that was called gall. This is a sour wine, a mix with

water and vinegar. Most likely this would have been

a drink that soldiers and laborers had available.

This is the this is their, their, their cheap Gatorade that

they mixed up and this is something that they just had

available to them. This is most likely what's being

offered to him. The sponge has been speculated

that the sponge was most likely a toilet brush.

Why you might have wondered if you ever why is there a sponge

on top of this mountain? So most likely the sponge is

used for bathroom purposes. So potential cruelty, potential

mockery, We really don't know all the details.

But it was put on a stick because the crosses were

elevated and they can't reach his mouth.

And that's why it's raised on a stick up to his mouth.

So either way, the mocking continues.

They once took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a

Reed and gave it to him to drink.

Verse 49. But the other said, wait, let us

see whether Elijah will come to save him.

So they're saying, no, no, no, don't give any assistance, don't

give any compassion, don't give any care, don't give any help.

Still, the mocking that had happened from 9:00 to noon was

happening even now, most likely the Jewish leaders are still

mocking because nothing moved these men, even after a few days

later, even after the resurrection of Jesus, they're

still not moved. Even after they know that he was

raised from the dead, They don't go whoopsie, they go well, we'll

cover this up as well. When you see someone without the

fear of God, it's a baffling thing to see.

I've seen it multiple times in my life and it is a it is just

baffling. It's so unnatural when you see

someone without the fear of God. It's a it's a strange thing that

you can't, you can't make sense of it.

Have you, have you ever been in that situation?

Maybe it's been you. Maybe people have seen you in

your life. And and they're like, what is up

with them? They don't have the fear of God.

There's No Fear of God in their eyes.

Like, but what about the Lord? Yeah, but I like my sin.

Yeah, but but what about what's going on there?

What do they need? They need you to pray for them

because they've been blinded. They're so far deceived.

It's not natural what's taking place.

It is a deception. So what?

What can help them? They need the breakthrough, the

Holy Spirit. They need the blinders to come

off of their eyes. You think if I could explain it

to them, or if so and so would meet with them, or if this thing

would happen, or if that thing would happen?

You're looking to natural circumstances.

You're looking at natural solutions.

You're trying to solve a supernatural problem with

natural solutions, and it won't work.

God has to breakthrough, just like you did for anyone who He's

ever saved. God has to breakthrough and

bring conviction of sin and deliverance into the light.

Wait, let's see whether Elijah will come to save him.

Elijah had already come to help Jesus.

He had done so with Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration, maybe

a few weeks earlier, maybe a few months earlier.

But remember, Jesus goes up to the top.

He brings Peter, James and John with him, and Moses and Elijah

appear to the Lord Jesus and they talked with him about his

soon coming departure. They would have encouraged the

Lord that day. What a fascinating conversation

for the disciples to have witnessed, to have heard, to

have listened to, if they could even hear it at all.

Jesus was glowing, his clothes shining wider and brighter than

any light. Moses representing the Law,

Elijah representing the prophets.

They spoke with him about this day, about this moment.

They spoke with him about everything he would endure.

Elijah helped prepare Jesus for this moment, just like Moses

did, and they encouraged him in the fulfilment of his mission.

Verse 50. And Jesus cried out again with a

loud voice and yielded up His Spirit.

Here we have the way, the truth and life Himself yielding up His

Spirit. He permitted His Spirit to be

sent away from His body. It's just like He said in John

1017 and 18. No one takes my life from me,

but I lay it down to my own accord.

Men didn't die on the cross because they said I choose to

die. Now.

Men died on the cross because they suffocated to death.

Their ankles nailed, straddling either side of the cross, their

wrists pierced. They would have to press

themselves up to expand their ribs to take their next breath.

And eventually their weakness increased that they're

suffocating, they're getting less and less air.

They suffocate to death because they can't even take their next

breath. This isn't how Jesus dies.

He dies with full lungs, he dies with shouts, and he dies by

giving up his life. Nobody could kill Jesus.

But Jesus said I give up my spirit now Jesus did not die

from weakness the way men normally died.

Jesus gives up his own spirit. John tells us that Jesus also

cries in these last moments. What he exactly says?

He yells out a in a loud voice for all to hear, not a whisper

with his barely with his his last breath of suffocation.

He yells out, it is finished. Just such strength of heart,

such devotion to God in our in our best moments.

The reason they are they are our best moments is because we are

filled with the Holy Spirit. Jesus is alone, but Jesus is

still Jesus. He has no father with him.

He has no Holy Spirit with him and he's been abandoned and

forsaken. But thank God, Jesus is still

Jesus and he accomplishes his mission.

It is finished as in it is accomplished as in I did it

completely. I did it His very last moment,

33 years up to this moment, Perfection, no sin.

The three years of ministry, the disciples that he trained who

are scattered at the moment, who He knows are going to be

restored to actually turn the world upside down.

The people that He healed, the sinlessness that he walked

through. And then this day, starting from

last night in the garden, all the way up and through this

moment, I did it. I accomplished it.

He has the full satisfaction. He has the full knowledge.

He knows that He has fulfilled the will of the Father, that he

has absorbed the full wrath of God for the sin of mankind from

Adam all the way to whoever is going to be last.

I saved them. I took all the sin.

I took all the shame. I swallowed all the

condemnation. I took all the wrath.

I took all the judgment. I rescued my church, I fulfilled

the mission, I obeyed the Father.

I was perfect. Jesus was perfect, flawless,

flawless victory. Praise God, after He has full

confirmation and certainty that He has accomplished the mission,

He then calls out the very last thing he says.

Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

And with that He breathed his last.

What a mighty exit for our glorious King.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And then it is finished. And then, Father, I commit

myself into your hands, still faithful, the abandoned Jesus,

the tormented Jesus, the judged Jesus, the crushed Jesus, the

suffering savior, the suffering servant, the suffering son says,

Father, I trust you. The father hadn't answered him.

The father hadn't comforted him. And he said as as Jesus is

swallowed in darkness, he says, Father, I give myself to you

whatever comes next. Verse 51 And behold, the curtain

of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the

earth shook and the rocks were split.

Now the Father wants to preach. Now the Father wants to declare.

Now the Father wants everyone to know that he just crucified his

Son. God announced the new era that

Christ has just accomplished. Redemption has been

accomplished. Forgiveness of sins has been

purchased. And this dramatic and

magnificent event starts happening in the temple.

There was a room called the Holy of Holies.

This was I think 30 by 30 room 3030, thirty perfect cube.

And this is where you can't just go in whenever you want.

I want to go pray today. I'd like to go to the temple and

we'll go into the Holy of Holies.

This is where the manifest presence of God dwells.

I can't live in people. People are sinful.

So God lives in this room, this sacred room, this holy room.

But you can't just go in anytime you want.

Oh, you can't go in ever. Only the high priest can go in,

but he can't go in whenever he wants.

He can go in one day out of the year on the Day of Atonement,

and that's it. This room has a massive curtain

hanging in front of it. It serves as the doorway of how

they would enter in. This curtain was at least 30

feet tall and according to history we think it was around 3

to 4 inches thick. Matthew says it was torn from

top to bottom. It's been said as it was done as

though God himself grabs it from above and rips it.

What is this doing? What's the purpose of this?

This shows us deliberately the Lord is using the physical to

preach the spiritual and say my spirit is no longer confined to

a room and I am pouring out my spirit on all flesh through the

death of Jesus. God is saying people can now be

my temple. We could not before they had, we

had to have the temple. And the moment Jesus died, the

Father said well done son and that won't be needed anymore.

He's so pleased with Jesus, which is why he gives them the

name above every name. The Father loves Jesus.

Make no mistake, there's not a cruelty from the Father in

anything that I described. This is the will of the Father.

This is the will of Jesus because of his love for us.

This is the will of the Holy Spirit.

So God tears this curtain from top to bottom.

The Lord is showing His presence is no longer going to be

confined to a building through the death of His Jesus.

He has now made other holy temples.

He can dwell in us because of the sacrifice of Jesus.

Pentecost is also coming. The Holy Spirit would fill the

people of God. That's impossible before the

sacrifice of Jesus because we were not holy temples.

But now through Christ, holy temples can be filled by God.

This is good news for all of us because God wants to be with us.

God wants to be with you. God loves you.

God wants to be with you. It's what you were built for.

It's the reason he made humanity.

God would come and walk with Adam in the cool of the day.

And it was supposed to say, and we all lived happily ever after.

That was it. That was supposed to be the

book. And we're just here and all is

well and all is delightful. But early on, Adam blew it, and

now we're all born as sinners. Now we're all doomed.

But the Lord we're, we're in this massive, beautiful detour,

this whole middle of your Bible, this whole chunk here.

In the beginning we walked with him in the cool of the day.

And at the end we get back to the garden.

But there's no snake in it. And there can never be any more

temptation. There can never be any more

suffering, there can never be any more tears, there can never

be any more pain. And we'll have the marriage

supper of the lamb to celebrate and and the marriage will

continue forever and ever and ever.

The earthquake's another supernatural announcement of the

significance of Jesus death. The Father's declaring that

something monumental is taking place.

So God is shaking things. We don't know how far, how

widespread the earthquake was there.

I've heard some historians say that there was a global

earthquake on that day. I've heard different reports.

I don't really care. God shook the earth.

He's declaring things, but he does something wild here in

verse 52. Unexpected, unpredictable.

The tombs also were opened and many bodies of the Saints who

had fallen asleep. That means death.

Many people who had died were raised and coming out of the

tombs. After his resurrection, they

went into the city and appeared to many.

So at the crucifixion, at the death of Jesus, people are

raised from the dead in the tombs.

They stay in the tombs, and they come out of the tombs with

Christ after his resurrection. This is wild.

What's the point? God makes plain from the very

first moment that the death of Jesus brings life to others.

Jesus had already raised people from the dead.

But right away we see Jesus has victory over death.

Jesus just beat death even before the resurrection because

he still is the life. He has conquered death.

So this is a foretaste of the resurrection of Jesus and a

foretaste of the resurrection for All Saints to come.

These people who are raised on this day, they die again.

They don't, they don't have glorified bodies like Jesus has

after his resurrection. Right now, Jesus is the one with

the glorified body. But it's still the promise.

It's still the comfort for all of us that we will not all stay

dead. We will be raised, will be

resurrected like Jesus. The devil also gets noticed

right away. Through all these supernatural

events that the Lord is bringing to pass, Jesus has accomplished

His mission. If Satan had any doubt, like I

see this guy dying, I know who he is, I know what he's doing, I

know what the point is here. But did he really fulfill it

perfectly? There's no doubt.

He is the sinless, spotless lamb.

He is the final and only acceptable sacrifice.

Hebrews chapter 2, verse 10. For it was fitting that He for

Hebrews 2:10

whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to

glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect

through suffering. For He who sanctifies and those

who are sanctified, all have one source.

That is why He is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, I

will tell your name to my brothers in the midst of the

congregation, I will sing your praise, and again I will put my

trust in him. And again, behold, I and the

children God has given me. Since therefore the children

share in flesh and blood, He himself likewise partook in the

same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has

the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who

through fear were subject to lifelong slavery.

Don't be afraid. Do not subject yourself to

lifelong slavery and fear of death.

Dear Christian, do not fear death.

You will never really die. You will live in glory forever

with your Savior. Dear, not yet, Christian.

Dear former Christian, Dear fruitless friend who thinks

you're Christian because you received bad information or have

some misunderstanding, come to the only acceptable sacrifice

and be received into His loving and forgiving outstretched arms.

Jesus will free you from your sin.

Jesus will free you from your fear of death and from the wrath

of God that you deserve. Because Jesus really did pay at

all. Don't forsake His kindness.

Don't overlook His goodness and His grace to you don't go to

hell. God doesn't want you to.

You don't want to, you don't have to.

Verse 54 When the centurion and those who are with him keeping

watch over Jesus saw the earthquake and what took place,

they were all filled with awe and said truly this was the Son

of God. These are soldiers, they have

killed a lot of people in combat and they have crucified a lot of

men on the cross. This was supposed to be just

another crucifixion for them, but they are filled with fear

and enough faith to recognize that Jesus is the Son of God,

His own people. The Jews denied it, but the

Gentiles saw it. Another foretaste for all of us

Gentiles that we will be grafted in.

The Lord is pouring out His Spirit on all flesh, and we're

closing in verse 55. There also were many women there

looking on 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 the mother of the sons of

Zebedee, faithful mothers, caring mothers, gracious

mothers. But at the time of his writing,

no authors would have been presenting women as the heroes

and men as the scattered cowards, which is exactly what

had happened. The disciples had scattered.

We don't know which disciples were there.

We know John was there. We don't know which other

disciples had scattered. We don't know the distance.

He says the women are at a distance, looking on.

But we know John and Mary were close enough for Jesus to speak

to both of them so that they would care for one another.

But Matthew's honesty gives even more historical weight to the

Gospels because the disciples are not presented as heroes

here. The women are there.

The disciples most likely are not.

When men write stories about themselves, the temptation is to

write themselves in a better light.

But the disciples are shown failing over and over and over

in the Scriptures. There's one who always gets the

glory. It's Jesus.

Jesus always gets the credit. He earned it.

He suffered for it. What are we supposed to do with

this? Don't pity Jesus.

He does not need your pity. He does not need your sympathy.

He does not need your tenderness.

Jesus calls for your repentance. Jesus calls for your love.

He calls for your worship. He calls for your devotion.

He came to show how much He loves you as your divine

substitute. Jesus experienced A horrific

divine abandonment, and that is the greatest of all human

horrors. To be completely abandoned by

God, to be forsaken by the Lord, to be left alone.

This is what Jesus experienced and he traded places with you.

What am I supposed to do with that?

Worship them. Love the Lord your God with all

your heart, soul, mind and strength.

That's what you're supposed to do with it.

Realize that there is forgiveness of your sins.

Realize that if you're a Christian and you feel

condemnation, I'm not talking about the guilt that we should

feel when we do sin, that we we get rid of through confession

and repentance. I don't want to confuse anyone

and think, Oh yeah, every time I sin, I shouldn't feel bad.

No, that's foolishness and that's unscriptural.

But what I'm talking about is things in your past that you

have repented of and turned from, and still you feel

condemnation and condemnation and condemnation.

What should I do with that? Pastor?

You should believe the gospel. Your problem is if I need to

forgive myself. No, your problem is unbelief.

Believe the gospel. Believe that Jesus was crushed.

See the suffering servant on the cross.

Stop thinking such a big deal of yourself and think a big deal

about Jesus. Oh, my sin is so great.

You haven't looked closely enough to the cross.

His love was greater. Oh, I think the Lord put other

people's sins on Christ, but I don't know about all of mine.

Friend, believe the gospel. All of it was carried by Christ.

How could you not love Jesus? I don't get in.

How could you not want him more? How could you not pursue him

more? Like we said, it's it must just

be the blinders of Satan. Anytime that we're not loving

the Lord, we're deceived because he's so good and he's so worthy.

We only get upgrades. Jesus was downgraded that we

would be upgraded. We're going to close and and

worship with one song and then we're going to take communion

together. Would you stand as we sing?

Jesus paid it all.