If you would turn with me to Mark chapter 15. Mark chapter 15. And we'll be looking at the resurrection this morning. Mark chapter 15 verse 21. We'll read down through verse 29. This lesson and the next lesson that we have are the two most important things that we can ever know, ever read about. These two events are the reason we're Christians, the crucifixion and the resurrection. Now, we could camp out here in this section for weeks. But as we've mentioned several times in the last few weeks, we're going on behind Brother Robbie and his exposition of the Gospel of John. So it's fresh on our minds. I don't want to stand here and repeat so many things that he has already said. It's necessary to do some to cover the section. In this part of the chapter, but we'll do this the crucifixion in one lesson because of that Mark chapter 15 and verse 21 where it says and they compel one Simon a Cyrenian who passed by coming out of the country to the father of Alexander and Rufus, the bearer's cross. And they bring him into the place Golgotha, which is being interpreted, the place of a skull. And they gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh, but he received it not. And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments, casting lots upon them, whatever man should take. And it was the third hour, and they crucified him. And the superscription of his accusation was written over the king of the Jews. And with him they crucified two thieves, the one on his right hand and the other on his left. And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, and he was numbered with the transgressors. And they that passed by railed on him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ah, thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself, and come down from the cross. Likewise, also the chief priests mock and said among themselves were described, he saved others himself he cannot save. Let Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe. And they that were crucified with him reviled him. And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, which is being interpreted, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And some of them that stood by when they heard it said, Behold, he calleth Elias or Elijah. And one ran and filled a sponge full of vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink, saying, Let alone let us see whether Elias will come to take him down. And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and he gave up the ghost. And the veil of the temple was rent twain from the top to the bottom. And when the centurion, which stood over against him, saw that he so cried out and gave up the ghost, he said, truly, this man was the Son of God." Now, Jesus has been tried before Pilate. they were going to crucify him. And they lead him away to be crucified, and it says that this man, it was a man that was compelled or pressed into public service to carry Jesus' cross. He didn't carry the whole cross, it would have been the cross piece that went across to his hands would have been nailed to. This man was called Simon, a Cyrenian, a Libyan. This was where modern day Libya was, is where this man was from. Now Simon is a Jewish name, so more than likely this was a Jew that had wound up up in North Africa, or actually from there would be down in North Africa, and he was probably in town for the Passover. And we don't know a lot about this man, very little, but we do know from our text that he was the father of two men named Alexander and Rufus. Now, we don't know really much about any Alexander, but if you look in the Book of Romans, you'll find there's a man named Rufus in that church that Paul salutes, that he makes note of when he writes this letter. Is this the same Rufus? I mean, we really don't know, but you know what makes sense? Jesus, or excuse me, Mark wrote this Gospel of Jesus, particularly to the Romans. In the book of Romans, the letter to the Romans, this man's name shows up, so there's a good chance it's the same name. We gotta understand something. All these little details that's given in this account of Jesus' life, particularly in the crucifixion and the resurrection, the two most important doctrines, these details don't just happen to show up. It just didn't happen to say, oh yeah, there was a man named Simon of Cyrene, and it was compelled to toke the cross. There was a reason behind this. If this Rufus is indeed Simon's son, Rufus would have been, obviously was well known in the church at Rome. He could tell the church, you know something? The crucifixion happened. My daddy was there. Daddy was compelled to tote the cross up that hill for Jesus. I know it happened. He told me, he gave me a first-hand eyewitness account of it. These things, they're not just there. Jesus made no fillers. The Holy Spirit doesn't. It was there for a reason. Jesus, according to John's account, he had carried his cross part of the way up the hill, and he collapsed, probably due to the scourging and all the beating and all the pain he'd had to endure. He was probably exhausted, unable to go any further. And this Simon was compelled or conscripted to carry the cross the rest of the way, which was common in the Roman Empire. A Roman soldier could tell you, carry my gear, a mile, because Jesus says, whoever compels you to carry the burden for a mile, carry it two, carry it 20. So at any time they could take anybody and force them into labor to do this. And this is what was done to Simon here. Hey, some of these Roman soldiers just tote this cross, toted up our hill right there. Now they went to a place, we all know the names, it's called Golgotha. It's an Aramaic word, which was understandable, because this is what most of the Jews spoke at this time, at least the ones in and around Jerusalem. If this reason being this was the Chaldean language, it was brought back from the Babylonian captivity during their 70 years there, they adopted the language. And this is what most Jews spoke, not Hebrew at the time. Obviously, Jesus spoke this, as we're gonna see at the end of the crucifixion. Now, this word Golgotha means the place of a skull. The more normally used, commonly used term for this place, this hill outside of Jerusalem is Calvary, and that's Latin, which is understandable since the Roman Empire was in power at the time. But as we said, it was known as the place of a skull. Probably because either the hill resembled a skull or because this was a execution site, which would have been a proper name. But this place that's set outside of the city, it was placed on the major highway coming into the city, so all travelers would come in would see this. Now, Jesus executioners, It says in our text that they offered him wine mingled with myrrh. This would have been a pain numbing narcotic. Wine having the alcohol in it and myrrh being a painkiller. They offered him this before the crucifixion. Now Matthew said that when he had tasted he would not drink. Jesus refused it. I had a fellow tell me one time that this was grounds for saying that drinking alcohol was forbidden, but it had nothing to do with that, nothing. Because at the very end, after the atonement had been paid, we could see in John 19.30 that it says that Jesus received the vinegar. which we're gonna talk about here in a few minutes. And his vinegar was a sour wine than what these Roman soldiers drank. The reason that Jesus wouldn't drink this wine mingled with myrrh was because he was fixed to pay the penalty for sin. He wasn't gonna be a zombie when this happened. He wasn't gonna be lessened. What Jesus faced was real. It was unhindered. He's not numb in any way. Why did they offer him this? More than likely somebody paid them. Now, they didn't do this out of the goodness of the heart. They didn't want Jesus to suffer. Somebody paid him, I'm sure, and there's a good chance it may have been Joseph of Arimathea. This is one of Jesus' few wealthy friends. We don't know that. That's all speculation. But he refused it anyway. It says here that the Roman soldiers parted or divided his clothes, casting lots. They was gambling for who got what piece. And this fulfills Psalm 22, 18, it says, they part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture. You know, there were so many prophecies that was fulfilled. We can go back and look at the Old Testament and just prophecy after prophecy. We can see there's no way, there's no way anybody could plan this. There's certain things that Jesus did. He said, well, you know, all he's doing is just parroting what he's read in the Old Testament. He couldn't make these men sit there and gamble for clues at the cross. He had no control over that. Now it says in the third hour, this would have been nine o'clock in the morning, they crucified him. In John's account, John 19, 14, it says that Pilate is still presenting Jesus to the Jews at the sixth hour, which would have been noon. But we needn't trouble ourselves about this. There was a difference in the reckoning of time between the Romans and the Jews, so that easily explains that. Now, as Brother Robbie went through, and we have heard time and time again, that crucifixion was a form of punishment. that was actually invented by the Persians. The Romans adopted it, and they perfected it. The Romans were very creative in their punishment. Somebody within that empire had a warped mind, because they came up with things that I don't know how a human can come up with. They had a penalty for somebody that committed parasite, which is killing a family member. They would take this, once they were found guilty, put them in a big sack. They would put an ape, probably a chimp to be able to fit in the sack, an ape, a rooster, a snake, I know you'd like that one, and a dog. And they'd sew the sack shut or tie it shut and throw them into a body of water. Could you imagine what was happening? When they started to suffocate, started to drown, them animals went crazy and probably just disemboweled the person before they drowned themselves. As horrible as this sounds, and it had to be, this wouldn't have lasted long. I mean, once they threw the sack in, I mean, in a matter of minutes or seconds, you know, you're going to drown and the human brain can't go without oxygen for very long. If the animals didn't kill them immediately, the drowning did. Cicero, who was the great Roman order lawyer, statesman, Cicero said crucifixion was the most cruel punishment that could be administered. Because the difference between that and what we just spoke of here with the sack with the animals, like I said, this lasted for a minute, minutes at most. Crucifixion could go on for days, days and days. As we all know, as I've already stated here, we know how crucifixion worked. A person was nailed to the cross through their hands and through their feet, and they died eventually of suffocation. They lifted themselves up. The only way that they could breathe was to lift themselves up, and eventually they gave out and couldn't do it any longer, and they would stay there and they would suffocate. The one that would be crucified, I mean, we spoke so many times on what a horrible death this was, is focused on the not having any breath and the nails being in the hands and the feet and how painful that would be. But one that we don't seem to have mentioned as much is the spasms, the muscle spasms that have been caused from this. I mean, when you laid up, stayed up there so long, and you was dehydrated severely from being over no liquids and in intense pain and constant trying to hold oneself up to be able to breathe. Eventually muscle cramps would take place. Now, everyone of us I'm sure has had a cramp at some time. Oh man, it hurts. You think you're gonna die, get one in your calf. It's terrible. This would have probably been cramps running throughout the body. And these weren't cramps like we've experienced. Psalm 22 in verse 18 says, excuse me, wrong Psalm. Psalm 22, 14 says, I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted in the midst of my bowels. Jesus had these cramps so intense that it pulled his bones out of the joint. This would have been horrible to have watched, much less experienced. I've never had a dislocated bone, so I don't know what it's like, but I'm sure it's excruciating. This is what he was enduring. The superscription, it says, of his accusations or the title of his crimes, this was placed over his head, which was common, and it said, the King of the Jews. And the Jewish leaders didn't like that. They told Pilate, no, don't put that he was king's king of the Jews. You put that he claimed to be king of the Jews. But Pilate wouldn't change it. He said, boy, I've written, I've written, according to the Gospel of John. Pilate never realized it, and Brother Robbie's stated this, but I've got to do it again. Pilate had no idea that he wasn't even in control of what was going on, that he was proclaiming the Gospel. He was naming Jesus as Messiah, and had no idea. I said he was king of the Jews. Do you think he was his king? Which he was a Jew, I understand, but do you think he really realized that Jesus was Messiah? No, but the Lord overrode his ignorance and his sin, and he was used as an instrument to proclaim him as Savior. Now it says they crucified him between two thieves, and this word is robber or bandits. I doubt seriously that these two men were just common thieves. This isn't a normal penalty for a thief. Although, there was different stipulations according to how and when you committed these crimes. But I suspect that these two fellows was probably part of this insurrection that Barabbas was a part of. If you remember, Barabbas, as I said, was locked up. He was in jail with his co-conspirators. and they attempted to form an insurrection and overthrow the Roman Empire, and in the process, they murdered somebody, so they were set up to be crucified or executed. And Barabbas escaped this when the Jews called for him to be released instead of Jesus. These two men, if they were indeed, and we don't know for certain, were indeed part of this, they was left behind, and they were crucified on each side of Jesus. that fulfilled Isaiah 53 in verse 12 said, and he was numbered with the transgressors. Jesus had already been subjected to multiple forms of humiliation. Jesus had been publicly ridiculed by both the Sanhedrin and the Roman soldiers in both trials. He'd been beaten, he'd been spit on, mocked, everything that could be done to humiliate him. And now he was being executed between what would have been considered to be the scum of the earth. This is how Jesus died. He took that shame that was ours, He took that and that suffering that sin brought, and he bore it for us. He willingly endured this guilt and this shame of what we created. The next time we get to thinking a lot of ourselves, let's remember that. He went through this for us. Now, as the crowds pass by, it says that they railed. This word means to blaspheme. They vilified Jesus. They went by just like we would if there was a murder or a child molester or something being punished, a public execution, and we'd come by, and he'd get what he deserved. Sorry, rascal, I wish I could pull the switch on the electric chair, whatever, you know, the phrases we all use. This is what they was doing to our Lord. They blasphemed, they vilified. Says that they were wagging or shaking their heads. You know, it's a sign of contempt. They come by and he's up there on this cross, suffering, and they're going, look at that. They mocked him. It says here that they said, ah, that word there is an exclamation of surprise, a mocking-like surprise. Ah, thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in three days, save thyself and come down from the cross. Ha, I thought you were supposed to be so great and so powerful and you claim to be equal with God. Why don't you come down off that cross if you're so great, you're so powerful? Ha, look at him, he's still there, he's still there. It says that the chief priest joined in by saying, he saved others, himself he cannot save. Now these Jewish leaders should have been the pillars of dignity. This should have been below their standard, to join in with this mob, this riot, and make fun of Jesus. But I mean, it stands to reason because they were the authors of this. He was in this situation because of them and their lies and their forcing the pilot's hand to do this. Even the two criminals that he was crucified between. Our text tells us that they were crucified when him reviled him. They were even mocking him on each side of him. These men who were dying alongside Jesus said they'd take part in it, except for one out of the two, one of them became convicted. Scripture doesn't tell us this, but you can imagine why this man went from mocking him to believing. Don't you know he saw how Jesus willingly suffered and he knew he was innocent, both of them did. And he even states it later. That this man's innocent. Me and you's getting what we deserve, but this is in the middle. He's got no reason to be here. And he saw that he willingly did this, and the fact that he prayed for those, forgave those that were doing these things to him, that was crucified, had an impact on the man, I'm sure. And whenever he realized this, he was convicted. He was converted. He was changed. He was transformed. He became a child of God. He was convinced, this man's God, and I believe in him. And he asked Jesus to remember him when he entered into his kingdom. He asked for forgiveness. He put all his faith, hope, and trust in this man that was suffering and being crucified by him and this other criminal. Jesus answered, as we all know this, we've read it and heard it thousands of times. Luke 23 and verse 43. Verily I say unto thee, today thou shalt be with me in paradise. Salvation can't be that easy, can it? Can't be. You gotta do something. I mean, I couldn't tell you how many times people's told me, you can't live a life of a sinner and then all of a sudden on your deathbed repent and go to heaven. I don't believe that. That's because you don't understand salvation. You don't understand grace. What you gonna do to gain it? What you think you can do? What you think I can do? Nothing. Here we got a man, as we said earlier, that was the scum of the earth, our murderer. A man that would make fun of Jesus dying on the cross, and this man has been convicted, and the Lord says, you'll be with me today, 40 days out, and you'll be with me in paradise. This man had no baptism. I don't remember, I don't see anywhere where anybody took him down and baptized him. What kind of work do you think he had? Been kind of hard to serve the Lord in any kind of physical way when you're hanging on the cross, when you're saved hours before you die and you never come down. He never did any teaching. He never did any singing. He never did any witnessing other than what we read, which is a great witness. All he had was grace. That's all he had. How anybody can believe in a word salvation, I do not know. This man didn't deserve salvation. You didn't deserve salvation. I didn't deserve salvation. It's all grace. This is the greatest argument for grace. I know of actually a circumstance, something that took place in the entire Bible. Grace and grace alone. This is a weak, powerless sinner. He was as bound as anybody could be. He wasn't going anywhere. He couldn't do anything, but he believed in Jesus, and he put his trust in him, and the Lord saved him. Now, Mark tells us that in the sixth hour, this would have been noon, that Jesus had been on the cross for three hours at this time. And Mark says there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. This would have been three o'clock in the afternoon. He had been there, like I said, for three hours with his suffering as we spoke of, being crucified, the muscle cramps, the spasms, all these things, the mocking. And now, now it's fixing to get worse. It gets dark. Now, we don't know how far this darkness spread. The Bible doesn't tell us that. But there are historical accounts that this darkness took place as far away as Egypt, which is a long way from Jerusalem. The word land used here is actually in the Greek region. So this sounds like the darkness was local. This was just some, you know, in the Middle East. But we don't know. It might have been worldwide. The Bible doesn't tell us this. But there was a darkness. Now, why was there darkness? There's got to be an explanation. Usually, when it gets dark during the day, what do we think of? An eclipse. a solar eclipse. But, you know, a solar eclipse only happens during the new moon. I didn't know that until I studied this. During the new moon. When it's Passover. Full moon. So this wasn't a solar eclipse. This was supernatural. And the reason that it got dark is because darkness is representative of God's wrath being poured out, being cast out into outer darkness. Jesus, in Matthew 8 and verse 12, he's describing hell, and he describes it as outer darkness. Peter, in his second epistle, he says in 2 Peter 2 and verse 4, he uses the term chains of darkness to describe hell. And I've heard people say, well, how can it be dark in hell if hell is fire? Well, you gotta think about something. Number one, we don't know if there's a literal flame in hell or not. I mean, burning is one of the most excruciating pains that we'll ever know and that we can understand. God gave the Bible in terms that we can understand. I don't know that there's gonna be fire. I don't know there's not gonna be. But let me ask you this, is God, if there is fire, is God bound by the same laws of physics that we are? Can he have a fire that's black? Can he have a fire that gives no light? He can do anything he wants to. Well, is the sinners and hell gonna be so separated so far? There's no boundaries to be so far you couldn't see that light. It could be a number of things, but we do know that darkness describes God's absence and God's judgment. We just read here back in, we went through the sermon, no, excuse me, the Sermon on the Mount, all of that discourse, whenever the heavenly light, the body's not given their light was, to describe God's judgment in many cases. This is what's happening here. In three hours, in this darkness, the father poured out his unbridled punishment on Jesus, the sin bearer, on his son. The physical pain that we spoke about this morning, I went into detail on None of us in here can imagine having to endure this. I can't. I would think you would go into shock. That's just how terrible it sounds. But this was nothing, nothing compared to what Jesus was having to endure now in his darkest separation from the Father. In three hours, Jesus experienced what an eternity in hell felt like or would feel like. He experienced hell. I don't think the Father, I know the Father did not pull one punch. He poured out his entire wrath on Jesus. He abandoned him. In the ninth hour, three o'clock in the afternoon, Jesus cried out, Eloi, Eloi, lama, sabachthani. That's in Aramaic, as we've already said, it's interpreted, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Actually, I looked up exactly how to pronounce this this morning, I was on YouTube. Told Sherry I was learning Aramaic, and she said that went along well with this deep southern accent. But this was, once again, it was in Aramaic, fulfilled Psalm of David, Psalm 22, one, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me? And from the words of my Lord. Once again, to satisfy God's judgment, which is righteous, totally righteous, totally pure, He pulled no punches. He poured his entire wrath out on Jesus. He completely abandoned him. This is what hell is. Jesus never had known what separation from the Father would be like. He was completely righteous, never sinned, there was nothing that was gonna bind His relationship with the Father, nothing that was gonna force the Father to have to put Him in His place. No separation until now. We often focus on this physical suffering like we've talked about here just a minute ago of the cross. But once again, that was not even the bad part of it. Jesus experienced hell, the true anguish of the absence, the complete and total absence of God. Even the most hardened sinner, even though they don't realize it, they probably think the absence of God would be something they would welcome. They don't even wanna hear you talk about God. But I can believe this with all my heart, that if they had any idea, they had any understanding of what the absence of God would be like, they'd tremble. They would tremble. Can you imagine everything good taken Taken. Forbidden. Jesus knows his feeling because he bore the full weight of our sin there on that hill. Some of the crowd claimed when Jesus cried this out, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And in the Aramaic, Eloi, Eloi, sounds a little like Elijah. They claim, listen to him now. He's hollering for Elijah to come and help him. You think he will? Now, we don't really know if they really misunderstood the garbled words of a man that had been through unimaginable torture Or if this was just Thurgood's mocking of him, I think he's calling Elijah. They laughed at him. They called him a blasphemer. And he's right here at the end of paying the atonement. And it was along this time that John, of course, as Jesus said, John 19, verse 28, I thirst. And you can imagine, probably had the most powerful thirst he had ever had. In response, it says that one, which was probably one of the Roman soldiers, because I doubt seriously anybody was allowed within the area around these crosses, the execution sites, except these Roman soldiers that was administrating it. One of these, it says, ran and filled a sponge with vinegar, which we've already explained was the sour wine that these Roman soldiers drank. Now, you're probably wondering, like I used to, what were they doing with the sponge there? I mean, who brings a sponge to a crucifixion? What was the purpose? Probably the sponge acted as a cork. on one of these wine bottles. We'd take and stuff it down in there, and then it'd expand, and it would keep the perfume from leaking out, at least better than no top. But he took his sponge, and he sucked it in that sour wine, and it says he put it on a reed or a staff. And this was, according to John's account, this was the stalk of a hyssop plant. And they took it, it was like being on a pole, and he stuck it up and he offered it to Jesus, and Jesus drank. And this fulfills Psalm 69 and verse 21. They gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. Now, this vinegar was not given to Jesus to drink out of compassion. Jesus wanted a drink of water. He was thirsty. Would you, if you were thirsty, would you want some water or some sour wine? This was another way of mocking him. You want something to drink? Yeah, here, drink this. Jesus drank it. They said, let us see whether Elias will come to take him down. Mocking him. With the atonement paid, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, according to Luke's account, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. John records his final words, and they were, it is finished. It is finished, three little words. Three, just three words that have more meaning than any words that's ever been spoke. It says with this, after he says it, it's finished. It says he gave up the ghost. And this word means he breathed out. Jesus took his last breath. We gotta understand something. They didn't kill Jesus. Jesus gave up his life. They were incapable of killing Jesus. He had no sin. Jesus gave his life up. When it was time, Jesus expired on his own. And his final words here went to those of a dying man, a defeated man. This was the shout of a conqueror. When he said, it is finished, he wasn't talking about his life. He was talking about his work. He had come and he had conquered sin. He had destroyed the works of the devil, just like was promised back in the Garden of Eden. It's finished. At this time, the veil of the temple, we spoke on this two or three times here lately, the curtain that was over the door of the Holy of Holies, this curtain, which was probably a very thick curtain, it wasn't soft flimsy, just ripped supernaturally. What was the reason for that? Because the day of atonement that they had to do every year to atone for the sins of the people was over. There was no longer any sacrifice for sin. Jesus paid it all. It's finished. I once believed this myself, and I don't understand how I ever did, that one day the Jews will rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, and they'll go back to animal sacrifices, and this is gonna be God-honored. I can't tell you whether they really will do this or not, but I can promise you this much, it won't be honoring God, because it is finished. Jesus paid it all. For those that feel that you can be saved and then turn around and be lost again, they've missed the whole point here. It is finished. There's no more sacrifice for sin. What else could be done? If the Lord saves you and you turn around and you're lost again, what else could be done to recover your soul? It is finished. Jesus paid it all. Not only was the veil of the temple ripped supernaturally, but at Jesus' death, according to Matthew's account, there was an earthquake, and graves were opened, and people got up out of them graves and came in and went into town. I bet that made the papers. All these people they had buried was walking around. They probably got a lot of, well, I'll see you later. You know who I just seen? No, we buried him a while back. Well, I can tell you right, he's right over there. These people were resurrected. This is just how great the atonement was. Jesus' death spilled over the power and raised these people from the dead. No detail is insignificant. When people doubted Jesus' death and the power of it, You had a bunch of Jews that could say, no, no, no, no, no. I saw Simon, and I saw Abraham, and I saw all these people that had been married and married. They got up and walked out the grave and come into town. Now, you ain't going to tell me I didn't see that. And it was them. More witnesses. More witnesses. Also, it says that when this happened, this earthquake happened, that the centurion, the Roman soldier who would have been over 100 men, it says in Matthew 27, 54, that this centurion, who had oversaw the crucifixion, that was in charge, he was the chief in charge of Jesus' crucifixion, said, says, they feared greatly, saying, truly, This man was the son of God, they being the Roman soldiers that assisted him, or actually did the work. Truly, this man was the son of God. Didn't take long for Jesus' atonement to have an impact, did it? The very men that was crucified him a few minutes ago were now servants in his kingdom, now trusted in the man that they just crucified. Can you imagine the impact that this had? on the other Romans. This man was a man of honor and dignity. He was a centurion. He was a respected army officer. And these men that others looked at and said, him and these soldiers, they killed him. And yet they're saying he was God? Come on, I got to hear more about this. No detail in this whole thing is insignificant. The King of the Jews was victorious. The Savior's mission was accomplished. It was finished, and it is still finished today. Mark, if you would lead us in a word of prayer, please.