Well, it's good to be saved, isn't it? Good to know the Lord. And I'm grateful that God saved me a long time ago. And matter of fact, I've been, I'd have to stop and think about it, but I've been preaching, probably not as long as Brother Joe Bryant, but I've been preaching for about 56 years, I've been at this, and been trying to declare the gospel. I don't know anything in this world that's true and you know if i had a chance to go back in and rewind the clock i'd tell you i'd i'd want to do it uh... just like we've done it but just a little better maybe we're going to be in Luke 23 today and i want to say along with uh... Brother Piercey, it is a joy to be here. We love this place. We love y'all. We pray for you. And many of you we know, I say many, maybe that's an exaggeration. I know some of you, but we always enjoy being here and being in services and trying to be a blessing to help. I do apologize, Ms. Wells cannot be with us. The pastor has already informed you. but she had colon surgery. They found a little blockage that was blocking her bowels, and so they had to take out about 12 inches of her colon. Non-cancerous, which I'm thankful for, but it's taking much longer to recover. than what we thought. So, what have I been doing? Well, I've been a chauffeur, I've run the laundromat, and I've been a dishwasher, I've been a cook, I've been a housekeeper, and I've been a nurse. Amen. So I've had a lot of hats on, and somebody said, what are you doing today? I said, all these put together, amen. Now, I don't have any trouble doing them one at a time, but when they all just bunch up in on you, then it does take a little bit of effort, so amen. Well, all right, Luke 23, if you would, and are y'all accustomed to standing? I don't know what y'all do. All right, let's stand. Luke 23, I'm going to be reading from Luke 23, and I'm going to start our reading in verses 33, and I'll read down to verses number 45. So, follow with us if you will. And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified him and the malefectors, the one on the right hand and the other on the left. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment and cast lots. And the people stood beholding, and the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others, let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God. And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him and offering him vinegar and saying, if thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself. And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek and Latin and Hebrew. This is the King of the Jews. And one of the male factors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Does not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds. But this man doth have done nothing amiss, And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise. And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the mist. You may be seated if you will. Let me pray with you. Then I want to bring you to what I want to give you today. Lord, I want to thank you again for the joy of being here, the joy of hearing God's Word preached again, and Lord, and your precious name sung about. I want to thank you, Lord, for these dear saints of God that, Lord, we have met, we know, we love, we thank you for, Pastor, and that, Lord, what you're doing here at this church, and that, Lord, as Brother Stacey has already stated earlier today, without you, Lord, we can do nothing. So I'm aware today, Lord, that all the work, whether it's here or wherever it is, Lord, it's done because of you and your power and not any good thing that we can do. I want to bless and praise you that in your mercy you saved us and, God, you let us have a little part in your work. I pray now for the blessings as we try to look at your word now. Give us the help we need today, and Father, we're gonna honor you for what you do. In Christ's name, amen. Now, you notice as we read the scripture that Jesus said, in verse number 34, Jesus made a statement on the cross, Father forgive them for they know not what they do. When you drop down to verse number 43, he spake again, and he said, Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise. Now, stay with me a moment and let me lay around work and then we'll be done. So, you know, as a Bible believer, you know that Christ, when He's on the cross of Calvary, He made seven statements from the cross, with the first two we read here in the book of Luke. The next one will be found in John 19, when Jesus said, when Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciples standing by whom he loved, he said to his mother, woman, behold thy son. Then he said to the disciple, behold thy mother. And from that hour, that disciple took her unto his own home. Then, when you jump back to Matthew, it records the fourth time Christ spake from the cross. In Matthew 27 and 46, the Bible said this. At about the ninth hour, Jesus spake with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lammas sabachthani, that is to say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Now that's, of course, the fourth time the Lord spoke. Then you jump back to John 19, and He spoke two more times. And He said, and I'll not quote the verse, I will tell you what it said. Jesus said, I thirst. Then the next time He spoke, He said, it is finished. Now, in Luke 23, again, which I did not read, the final thing Christ said is recorded in verse 46. And here's what it said. When Jesus had cried, now listen to how it states now. When Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Now, he's not crying this out, but he's saying it when he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Now, I want to ask you a question. I just gave you seven statements that Christ gave from the cross of Calvary. Is there any connection between each of these statements? Is there a theme? Is there a thread of something Christ is relating as He makes these statements from the cross? And I will tell you this and answer it later. There is a theme that is a subject or an idea that runs through every statement that Christ made while he's on the cross. What is that? I'll tell you in a moment, but I want to say this in the beginning of our talk together today. I want to make mention that the cross of Calvary is not an afterthought of God. See, Christ did not fail and then God's trying to figure out a way to overcome the failure. That's not Him. The Word of God made it clear that Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. Before there was ever a world, before there was ever a man, before there was ever a devil, before there was ever a sin, God, in His foreknowledge, foreordained that His Son would come and would pay a sacrificial death on the cross of Calvary. And then there's other verses to back that up. Now, listen to me a moment now. So we know that, we believe that, but what was the purpose of Calvary? Somebody said, well, I should have been there on the cross. No, you should have been somewhere else besides the cross. You should have been in the lake of fire burning forever. See, Christ did not just take my place on the cross as if I were to die on the cross. That's not it. Because it was more than the cross I deserve. I deserve the judgment of God in hell forevermore. So when Christ is on the cross, What is the purpose for him being there? Well, you might say, just to save me, yeah, but we can put it like this. We can say, it was for atonement, it was for perpetuation, it was for substitution, it was for justification. We could say all those things and they would be right. But now I wanna give you a verse of scripture that just touches my heart. Listen carefully. The Bible said in 1 Peter 3 and 18, listen to what it said. For Christ also had once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust. Did you get that now? But the next phrase is a short phrase, but it states clearly why Christ died on the cross. For Christ also had once suffered for sin, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. being put to death in flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. The entire purpose of Christ dying on the cross of Calvary was to bring us to God. You and I as a lost person could never find God when they were with all the secret services of all the nations of the world. We could never find God. But when Christ died, He died like this. It was as if God was taking me by the hand and leading me to Himself. Do y'all hear that? If you'd go back and just think a minute about your salvation experience, it was not just a spur-of-the-moment thing. It was in your life, somewhere along the way, God was using circumstances or somebody or some church or somebody, as it were, to lead you to a step closer to God. And the moment you got saved was the culmination of all that leading of God to get you to Himself. Amen. Now you go back and think about that and you'll say that is true. Now, I want to make, I want to do something else now. Hang with me a moment. So I know, I know the purpose of Calvary, but now what is Is there a theme that runs through every statement that Christ made? The first and then, Father forgive them. The last and then, Father into thy hands I commend my spirit. So is there a theme that runs through every statement that he makes? And so the answer is yes. Now, you got your Bible, Luke 23? So look back at verses 34. In verse number 34, Christ is going to proclaim, or he's going to announce the theme of everything he says on the cross. So what'd he say? He said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. So here's my take on that. The theme of everything Christ said on the cross of Calvary has to do with the forgiveness of sin. He said, Father, forgive them. The first thing that came out of his mouth on the cross of Calvary is, I'm interested in the forgiveness of sin. So how does all this tie together? Well, so number one, what you see here is the desire of the Son of God and God Himself to forgive sin. But now wait a minute now. So the second statement we read in your hearing was when Christ said to that thief, He said, verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise. So in verses 23 and 24 of this, I'm sorry, verses 42 and 43, here's what Christ is doing. He shows his desire in verse number 34. In verses 42 and 43, he gives a demonstration of fulfilling that desire. He is saving a sinner just before that sinner dies. So he is demonstrating the forgiveness of sin. Let me take you the last thing he said, and I'll not give you others. So the last thing Christ said from the cross was this, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. So how does that relate to the forgiveness of sinners? Well, he starts off with the desire, and the last thing he says, he is showing us The destiny of every forgiven sinner. Every forgiven sinner, no matter who he is, is destined for the good hands of God. Amen to God. So now, I want to come back in a few moments and I want to speak for a few moments, preach whatever you want to say. I want to talk to you about this now. I want to talk to you about the first statement Christ made, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Now, before I do that, let's talk about this a moment. Let's talk about, He said, Father, forgive them. Now, let me ask you this. So, no others make the statement. So, in Christ's statement, Father forgive them for they know not what they do. The word sin is not used anywhere in that verse. So, how do I understand that it's sin he's talking about? Because sin is what must be forgiven. So I know Christ is talking about sin here. Now, y'all stay with me a moment. So I want to take a few minutes before I talk about this verse, and I want to talk about sin for just a moment. So I know what sin is, yes, but I want to try to elaborate a little bit about it. So let's talk about this. So what is the definition of sin? Well, here's what the Bible said. The Bible said, for whosoever commit a sin transgresseth also the law of God. Do you all hear that now? I said, did y'all hear that now? All right, so now here's what that is. God has taken this book and this is God's, now listen again. Whosoever committed sin transgresseth also the law of God. Well, that word transgress, it meant the word trans in the cross, it means to step across. So here's what it is. So sin is like this. I'm over here, I'm a happy-go-lucky, good-for-nothing feller, just loving my wicked sins, and somebody said, hey, you ain't supposed to do that, and I say in my heart, I don't care what you say, I don't care what the law says, and I don't care what God says, I'm gonna do what I wanna do. So what you've done, you have stepped across, you have transgressed the commandment of God. Y'all hear that now? So see, sin is not just a naughty, naughty, shouldn't do, that's another foul on you. Oh no. See, what sin is, is a stepping across what the God of heaven has said for me either not to do or to do. Are y'all hearing that now? So, Brother Wells, so what's the big deal here? Well, here's how sin affects God. See, it affects God so adversely that here's what he told the first parent. He said, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you're not to eat thereof, right? All right, so now, in the day that you eat thereof, you're gonna... So here's how sin affects God. So God says, all right, so if you sin, yet this sin has so affected me that I'm attaching the death penalty to every sin. Did y'all hear that now? You better hear that well. God attaches the death penalty to every single sin. Brother Wells, but I'm not a bad sinner. Well, then by that statement, you're saying that you are a sinner. So you're classifying yourself not bad because you're looking at somebody else that's worse. But here's what God said. God said, no matter how big or how little sin, God attaches the death penalty to it. You better not bypass that. That's what Brother Stacey was preaching about that man in hell this morning. He had bypassed that. He had said, no, he had said, I don't care what God says, I'm gonna live my life the way I'm gonna live, and doing so in transgress, transgress, transgress, transgress, and God attached a death penalty to every single transgression. Help us now, Lord. So now, let's think about that a moment. So, Brother Wells, is he really serious? Yeah. God said, the soul that's in us, it shall die. Now, I want you to listen to me carefully. I want you to listen to me carefully. Listen to what Brother James said. James 1, 14, 15. He said, every man is tempted when he's drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Is that right? All right, and the Bible said, and when lust hath conceived, it brings forth sin, and sin, when it is free, it's bringing forth what? Huh? Death, now I want you to listen to me now. If you think that I'm just talking about death to sinners, you're wrong. Listen to me now. See, when God said, when lust and sin bring sin, sin and lustiness brings forth death. So, brother, what I've been saying a long time, and I know I'm not a perfect man, but I sin, but let me say this to you. God said, if you sin, there is a death penalty that's attached to it. But I'm saved by God's grace. Yes, but what about you've been saved a while and you found yourself one day with sin in your heart and life? But now we're saying this as if that you really are saved, you really do know Christ. So what if I know him and I sin? Is there still a death penalty? Yes. So, what dies? If I sin against God and a preacher, what dies? Does something die? Yes, sir. My fellowship with the Son of God dies immediately. My joy dies. My zeal dies. My love of the Word died. My love of the preaching died. My love of the church died. See, that's why some of y'all sitting here this morning and you don't like nothing that happens here. You'd rather be out fishing somewhere or hunting somewhere than have to be in the house of God. You know why? Sin has killed your desire for the things of God. Amen. So sin has the death penalty attached to it. Y'all okay now? All right, so now, don't you listen, listen to me carefully. Oh, come here, come here, come here. So, what is the solution to sin? By the way, the Bible just didn't praise that you've got a good case of self-righteousness. This Bible said this, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Wherefore as by one man sin in the world, and death by sin, so death passeth upon all men, for they all have sinned. There are nobody on this top of the, I don't care who they are, not even the Pope. That is sinless, amen. Every one of us have got sins to deal with now. So now, what is the solution for sin? Is there a solution? Well, I tell you what, all right, now let's do it like this. So I've known pastor a long time, but let's just suppose a moment now that I've been preaching just a few moments now, I guess, but so let's think now. So now I've said something from the pulpit here that is just absolutely devastating to the pastor. Or use your imagination. I mean, I've said something that devastated. I could have said, well, I'm not going to use an illustration, but let your mind go where you will. But now I've devastated this man of God. And so it so hurt him that he may never, ever, ever be able to come to a place where he's willing to forgive what I've said to him today. So how do I get that right? How do I get that right? Does it depend on me? Now, listen to me now. So, getting that situation right, is it dependent upon what I do, or is it dependent upon what he does? Think now, don't answer, just think a moment. All right, so let's say, all right, so I say, I find out he's been hurt. I say, he's a grown man, suck it up and move on. Okay, does that reconcile the situation? Does that correct it? All right, so I say, brother, I get it, repent of my heart, and I say, oh my, I gotta get this thing right. So I go to pastor, and I say, pastor, I'm an evangelist, and I know we don't have a lot of money coming in, but I feel so bad at what I've done. I'm gonna take my next year's offerings that come in, I'm gonna give them all to you. Does that straighten it out? What if I say, pastor, that's been such a terrible thing I've done. I tell you what I'll do, I'm gonna leave my house, I'm gonna come over here, and I'm gonna be your servant for the next 10 years. I'm gonna serve you for the next 10 years for what I said to you. Did that straighten it out? You better listen to me now. So now, in my heart, I am dreadfully sorry about what I've done. Dreadfully sorry. So I come to pastor. And remember, he's been hurt so bad, he may never get over it. Now forget about him being a pastor. So I just fall down on my knees. I plead, I beg. I say, I did such a wrong thing to you. I want you to please forgive me. But he's been hurt so bad, he looks at me and says, never. So I've tried to get it right. But is it right? It's never forgiven until the offended party forgives. If the offended party is not willing to forgive, it'll never be right. But where's God's willing to forgive everybody? Is he really? Try this one out. The Bible said that Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. The Bible says, for then you know how afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he sought it carefully with tears, but he found no place of repentance. You better listen to this man of God. That Bible makes it clear that if you see your brother sin a sin which is not unto death, you shall ask and you shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death. I do not say that you shall pray for it. By the way, you better hear this now. If you think that God is such a soft, loving God, and he is, he's a loving God, And if you think that God is such a loving God, he sweeps filth and sin and trash on the rug indiscretionally forever and ever and ever, and you say, well, when I come, he'll take care of that. Well, let me ask you this. Have you ever read the book of Jeremiah? Have you ever read the book of Jeremiah? I'm talking about the weeping prophet that was concerned. That wept his heart out. How do you think he got there as a nickname, the weeping prophet? Because he wept over God's people. You know what God continually told him? Don't pray for them no more. I'm not listening. Now, why did I tell you all this? Here's why. This generation takes the forgiveness of God so lightly, they think they can just hop on the first step of His throne anytime they want to, and God just forgive all of them, and they can go back and do the same thing they did before. Oh, no. This God is a forgiving God, but you better be careful about mocking God with a sinful lifestyle that you feel like God will just wipe your sin away. Any little time you decide you wanna run, I'll tell you what I have concluded. I've concluded that most of this religious generation that live like that have never got the issue of Calvary settled in their life. Now, does God want to forgive my sin? Does God want to forgive me? Y'all don't know that, do you? Well, look back, look back at the first text we read. He said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Now, I want you to look at that a moment. Now, first of all, now let me say this and I'll be done and, you know, as short as possible. So here's what I want to do. I want to talk for a minute about the desire of the Son of God to forgive sin. There are three things mentioned in this verse that show us clearly how God wants to forgive sin. What are they? All right, look at the first three words. Then said Jesus, got that? Help him now. So where did Christ speak those words? Where was he when he spoke those words? Help. You're saying, well, that's not the word we're looking for. We're looking for the cross. Jesus Christ is on the cross when he spoke those words. Is that right? So let me ask you something. Is the cross a picture of a vacation spot? Is the cross a picture of a neighbor? Is the cross a picture neighbor of some pleasant gift? Or is the cross a picture of suffering? who the cross is a picture of suffering. So here's what I conclude. When I read that verse, Father, then spake Jesus, then said Jesus, here's what I get. Number one, I see the suffering that Christ is doing because he speaks to us in something about forgiveness. So the very fact that Christ is suffering on the cross of Calvary is proof that he has a desire to forgive my sins. Amen. So, Brother Wells, what about his suffering? Well, I know that y'all heard a lot about it, but I will just touch it and go on. So, what's involved in Christ's suffering? If you think that all his suffering was just done physically in his body, you're wrong. So, when Christ is dying, a neighborhood suffering for our sin includes physical suffering. Now, I'm not going to take time and run down some of the things he did, but if you're a Bible reader, you know some of the things that went through, that came to Christ in his cross experience. But wait a minute, is that all his suffering, just physical? What about this one? What about the emotional suffering you went through? Has anybody ever been, don't answer this, but has anybody ever been depressed? Thank you all for not answering. Has anybody ever been depressed? Anybody ever been in a place where you didn't see any good thing in life anymore? I mean, it was almost like you're ready to check out. If God didn't just take you, you're not the place where you're gonna take your life. But you're just at the place where you see no sense of living anymore. Does that hurt? Does that hurt? I mean, to get to that emotional state, does that hurt? Yes, but if you say, Christ wasn't that way, wait a minute. Here's what the Bible said, he came on his own and his son received him not. He left the points of glory to come down and give himself a sacrifice for our sin. When he got here, they said, we'll not have this man to rule over us. Well, let me ask you this, what if, what if, well, let's pick on you men, what if you men, just you men alone, what if you men, what if your wife and your children, your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren looked at you and said, we don't want nothing else to do with you the rest of our life and your life, I'm done with you, would that hurt? How bad would it hurt? Here's what the Bible said. The Bible said his own brethren did not believe him. His own household, his own family rejected him. Oh, y'all hear me now. He was the only one that truly believed in him and that truly did not forsake him, I know was his mother. The disciples fled, left him. Everybody, he had counted all, forsook him. So Christ is suffering physically, emotionally, and mentally. But now I want you to listen to me a moment. I want you to turn your Bible. I want you to turn your Bible to Isaiah 53 for just a moment. I really prefer you being there. Will y'all be there with me? Thank you. Amen. Now, I want you to see this, and then I'll move along here. So, I want you to see what the Bible said in Isaiah 53, verse number 3. So, what it's about to say is Christ is suffering spiritually for your sins and mine. Here's what the Bible said. He was despised and rejected, verse number three. He was despised and rejected by men. Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. And verse four, surely he had borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, verse five. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. They were chastised, but our peace was abounding. Would you agree that Christ has taken our sin? Would y'all agree with that? Y'all agree with that? So now, I'm gonna step down here a moment to be with y'all a second. Y'all listen to me now. So, I'm sorry, I wish I could remember your name. Tell me. Joey? How old were you when you got saved, Joey? 26. Is it David? So David, how old were you when you got saved? 13. How old were you when you got saved? 17. in 13 and 17. All right, would you listen to me a moment? All right, so, Joey, let me just have you participate. Stand up with me just a minute. That'll wake y'all up, because you're wondering what I'm gonna do to him. All right, so now, did y'all believe this? The Bible said, Jesus, his own self, bear our sins in his own body and truth. Y'all believe that? All right, so now, I'm gonna ask Joey a question. Joey was 26 when he said he got saved. So, in those 26 years, would you say your sins were many or few? Many. All right, so now, thank you now. All right, so, I'm gonna put imagination to work. So Joey said, my 26 years of living, my sins were many. Now, I want us to take our mind, and I want us to think like this. Each one of Joey's sins is no bigger than a pinhead. It's not big, is it? All right, so each one of Joey's sins, whether it's a big sin or a little sin, no matter how many in class find, no matter how big or little, each one of those sins carry the death penalty with it. All right, so let's take this now. Let's gather all of Joey's sins, all the sides of a pinhead, let's gather them all together in one bundle. One bundle. Now, let's go put them on Jesus. David verse 13. when he got saved. So let's take all of David's sins, size of a pinhead, let's group them all together, bundle them up. Age 13, the bundle might not be as big as Joey's, but it's a bundle. Now let's go put them on Christ. And 17, what about you? When did you get saved? How big was your bundle? Come here now. How big was your bundle? You were this young, weren't you? Fifteen. How big was Stacy's bundle? How big was Pastor's bundle? How big was my bundle? Listen, if we took everybody's sin in this building that's saved, we bundle your sin up, we place it on Christ. Could we even see Christ? But what about the sins of everybody in Madison County? What about all the sins of everybody in North Carolina and Tennessee? And what about the sins of all the people in the United States of America, all of them bundled together in little bundles, and they probably wouldn't be little, and it's put on the Son of God. Remember, he bare our sins in his own body on the tree. But wait a minute now, listen to me. So that, now we just, where our imagination is just running like, in America, what about all the countries of the world? And all their sins, even those in the darkest places of the world, who've never heard the gospel, yet they're still responsible for their own sins, their own Christ. But what about all the people that's already died? What about every person that's already died? What do you do about this? God, in His sovereignty, gathered the sins of every man, past, present, and future, and placed them on the Son of God. How could that be? How could God take all their sin with a sign of repentance and each one of them screamed out, death, death, death, death, death, death, death? How could Jesus bear all those sins? Because I've got you thinking in terms of mass. I've got you thinking in terms of substance and mass. But spiritual things don't have mass. You say, don't get it. Well, let me ask you this. How can one man, how can one man, we call a Galilean maniac, how can he have a legion that would be between 4,000 and 6,000 demons in one man? How can one man have that many demons in him? And he did. Because when Christ asked him what his name was, he said, my name is Legion. How can he have that many? Here's why. Spiritual matters don't contain mass the way that you and I think. Now y'all with me now? Look in chapter 52 of Isaiah. Don't you see this? So there he is. Jesus showing his desire to forgive sin by suffering for our sins. And here's what the Bible says, listen now. So see, that's, I'm just trying to explain it a little bit so we can get it with our human thinking. But there's the Son of God on the cross. Yes, and I know that Jesus said, Father, why has thou forsaken me? I know, I know that for a moment that God Almighty forsook him when all of our sins are on him. But how did Jesus look to the Father's eye in heaven? Well, you know Isaiah 52? Look at verse 14. As many as were stunted at thee, his vestige is so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men. To me, that's how he's looking from the Father's perspective because of his great desire to forgive sins. You think you don't want to forgive? Look how he suffered. Look what he went through. Now look back at verse 34 in Luke. He said, Father, now when he addresses the Father, he's gonna make a request here. He said, Father, forgive them. So when Jesus Christ is addressing the Father, he's praying, is that right? Yes, he is praying. So here's how I know he wants to forgive me. He wants to forgive me because of what he suffered, because of what he's supplicating and what he's praying. Oh my, y'all listen to me, please listen. Jesus said, he said, Father forgive them. Now think about that. All of his abuse, all the things he's suffering physically have been induced to him by the human hand. Since Christ preached his first sermon, they put the religious outfit, sought to kill him. From the very first time Christ spoke in public, they plotted and planned his murder and his death from the very beginning. How would you like it if every time you opened your mouth, the folks was trying to catch you in some word to condemn you for some crime? Jesus. Now listen. He said, Father, forgive them. Who, Lord? Those that wanted to kill me all the days that I've been in this world. The religious crowd that hated me. This crowd, Father, that's been marching by. And that's what the Bible said. The Bible said they passed by. And the crowd that passed by him looked up at him and spit on him. and smote him and said all kinds of ugly things. Lord, Father, forgive him. That crowd, Lord. What about us in this building that blasphemed his name? We didn't pay no attention, but we opened our mouth and cussed him and blasphemed his name with no thought at all. And a matter of fact, the Bible made it clear that if we take the name of the Lord God in vain, He'll not hold us guiltless. And yet, here this Son of God is on the cross. And he's God in his mind. He knows beforehand every man that has been, is, and will be, including you and I. And yet he knows everything we've said, everything we've done, all the blasphemy, all the deeds of our life. And yet this Jesus Christ has such a desire to forgive sin. He said, Father, forgive them. Are y'all listening to me? I saw a documentary the other day on Joseph Stalin, the dictator of Russia. He murdered 30 million people, then blamed it on another man. You reckon Jesus was praying for him too? Do you reckon Jesus was praying for Hitler? You reckon Jesus was praying for Joseph Stalin, and not just him, but you reckon he was praying for Jeffrey Dahmers and Ted Mundes? You reckon he was praying for that little gal that's under in Nashville that shot all those people? You reckon he was praying for you? You reckon his prayer was reaching out from the cross all the way to 2023? For you. Look at the last phrase I'm done. In Luke 23, 34. Father, forgive them. He's praying. Oh, he's praying. He's praying. And then he said, for they know not what they do. Here's how I take that. Those last words in that verse, he said, for they know not what they do. It's like this. It's like you and I riding down the interstate, and we see a nice, attractive young lady standing on the side of the interstate with her thumb out. She's nice, I mean she's very attractive, just young in her prime, and just from the prime of her teenage years. She's stinking out wanting a ride. Who do you think's gonna pick her up? A church deacon? Some would. And not for good. Do you reckon it would be one of the vilest men that would be on the interstate? Who do you think would be the one that would stop and get her? And when you saw that, there wouldn't be nothing you could do about it, but you'd look at that little gal and say, she don't know where she's going. She don't know where she's headed. She don't know where she's going. That's what Jesus is doing on the cross. He's looking at us out here, sinners, filled with their own self-will, filled with their own ways, and saying they don't know what they're doing. Oh, they think they do, but they don't know what they're doing. I hope it's gonna get back. Can you pause that video a minute or something? Can you cut what I'm about to say out? Can you cut? Just put me on, put me on silent recording for a minute. I want to say something that I don't want on there. Tell me when you're ready. Thank you. I've got three keys. We're burnin'