Chapter 15, verses 21 through 32, where we will be looking at just a very simple subject, but one that is filled with magnificence and reverence and glory. It's the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ. A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country. And they forced him to carry the cross. They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha, which means the place of the skull. Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get. It was the third hour when they crucified him. The written notice of the charge against him read, The King of the Jews. They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, So you are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days. Come down from the cross and save yourself. The same way chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. He saved others, they said, but he can't save himself. Let this Christ, this King of Israel, come down from the cross so we may see and believe those crucified with him also heaped insults on him. God, as we come to this most holy subject, the suffering, not end death, but the suffering death. the crucifying, torturous death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I pray for your blessing upon this word, that it may edify your people, may strengthen them, and may bring them closer to the holy grace that fills the hearts of believers everywhere as they look upon and marvel in our Savior, in whose name we pray. Amen. It's amazing. I was thinking about it yesterday as I was thinking about this message. Summer's over. Think about it in terms of Labor Day weekend, summer's over. And I think of the way summer's described, summertime. I thought of five or six songs that I wouldn't want to try and represent to you that have summertime as the wording that's in it. And I think we all are aware that before we know it, we'll be shoveling snow out of our driveways. You meet someone, though, and What do you say as you look at the leaves changing color? You look at me, you say, you might say, summertime is over, but you might also say, it's happened so fast, time just, time flies. Or if you're inclined, you can say to each other, you look at each other, you know, where did all the time go? Where did it go? You look at your life. People look at their lives that way. And that's what they say at the end there. Where, where did the time go? I thought about this yesterday. I thought life. seems to revolve not around our experiences, but around time. Because we all know there's always another time. That's the way we think anyway, because there isn't always another time. Or, you know, just you've messed something up, oh well, wait until next time. There are countless expressions to express the fast, relentless, irreversible passage of time. In the verse that's just below our text, the text is verse 24, there's an interesting expression. It says, it was the third hour. The verse in immediate context with the cross of Christ, the crucifixion, are a few words about time, the third hour, that for Jesus is the end of time on this earth. For three years now, Jesus has been dealing with time. He says to people, it is not the time. They ask him how things they do things is it is not the time or he says anything else. It's just like that The hour is not yet But now on this particular Passover day We've reached the time it is the hour It's the hour for the Son of God to be crucified. It is the most critical hour of in the history of the world. And every person acknowledges the significance of this day, every day of his or her life. Everyone does, because for today is September 1st, 2013 is one way of putting it, in the year of our Lord. Anno Domini, in the year of our Lord. For all time in the Western world revolves around the coming and the dying and the rising of our Lord Jesus Christ. And in the entirety of our Lord's work, if there is to be a climactic piece of his work, if there's the one aspect which rises above all others, it is his work on the cross, his giving himself up on that day in that hour to be crucified. The hour he said now is the hour. And now is my hour and the power of darkness in that hour. And so this being the case, I want us to look in the first place at just how Jesus was crucified. I don't know if you've taken time to think about this aspect of the cross, but it's interesting and it's helpful to understand what our Lord experienced. Some writers suggest that the cross was laid on the ground and that Jesus was nailed to it as it lay in that position on the ground. Others say that the cross was first placed into the ground and Jesus was nailed to it at that point as it was planted in the ground. Some say that Jesus was lifted up and one or two others drove nails through his hands and feet. Some think that Jesus was made to stand on a platform in order to place himself in a position that would allow himself to be crucified. Amazing what people want to think about how this aspect took place. And then there are others who are convinced that Jesus was first tied to the cross with ropes. Some of them say it's ropes that just they wrapped it around his body to hold him there. And then the nails were driven through his hands and feet. Some suggest that his feet were nailed to the cross, others that his feet dangled, others still that each foot was nailed separately. I don't know exactly, but I would say most probably Jesus was nailed to the cross while it lay on the ground with one spike that went through both feet. I want to take a few moments then in the second place to describe just what happened to Jesus when he was crucified. So as we look at the cross of Christ, there are people who think And I've heard this too many times to consider it just a casual, perhaps, mistake, but that the crucifixion wasn't necessarily so bad. That as far as torture goes, it would be on a scale of 1 to 10, maybe around 4 or 5. That the spiritual side of the cross was the only really painful aspect of the crucifixion. And I think there's a pietistic streak in all of us or a mystical streak that wants to do that. That was the real suffering. This was really nothing. But this is also completely false. I'm convinced of that. First of all, Jesus' body was placed in a completely unnatural position. Unmoving, unmovable for such an extended period of time with his arms spread outward that that procedure alone, if nothing else was done to him, that procedure alone was a torture beyond comprehension. Think about this. Not the slightest movement could be made without producing a searing pain throughout his body. The slightest movement. But pain that would be even worse to the hands and feet which were impaled with spikes into his back, which had been beaten raw by his scourging that he received just a short while before this. the nails went through his hands and his feet at the areas where there was a convergence of many sensitive nerves and nerve endings. And so the excitation of these nerves produces a flood of pain, pain which would only increase and increase over time. The more raw and exposed areas of his body would have swollen more and more and more along with other parts of his body where the liquids of his body were held back by the tremendous pressure. which would produce increased inflammation in these places as the time went on and on. There's also the fact that the blood which is carried to all parts of the body would not be able to go through the areas which were exceedingly inflamed and swollen. What happened instead was that it went to the head in far greater volume than before, pressing hard on the arteries there, producing headaches that would have made your worst migraine seem like a child's play. There would be an inability for easy blood circulation in the lungs, which would begin to damage the heart as well, with enormous increase of pressure on all of the arteries. During all of this, Jesus was completely unable to turn or adjust throughout all of this pain, increasing pain, for only his head was free. His body never had a chance to move to a natural position or to even move an inch or two. His nerves, arteries and muscles stiffened. But at the same time, all his bones would have come out of joint. Due to the placement of the hands and the feet in the crucifixion. Friends, can can you just imagine, I think we want to talk to see about the cross in a very abstract way. Went to the cross, he suffered, died, is on for several hours, et cetera, et cetera. Now here he was separated from God. That was all I heard. No, it's not that way at all. Let's understand it. It'll help us in our faith. It'll help us appreciate what God did in sending his son to this death. Can you imagine that aspect alone? Every bone is out of joint as part of the pain. Think about that. I used to have a recurrent dislocation of my right shoulder. Any of you who have gone running with me have seen this huge scar down the side here, and that scar is because I had surgery twice on that. After the first time, I got back into the activities that I did that created the first problem, and then it happened again, and even more. It involved bone grafts and other things, but my shoulder would regularly go out of joint, and the pain when it did this was like nothing I've ever felt in my life. It was beyond comprehension once, When this was happening, I was at someone's home in the country and I was being transported to a hospital in a small sports car that he had and it was over back roads with potholes everywhere. Every movement of that vehicle, just the slightest movement as he went forward, exploded my head with what seemed to be a sky full of stars. I was even saying, wow, look at the stars. You were not even seeing outside of the car. I was told that this kind of dislocation is one of the most painful injuries that is known to man. Far more painful than a knife wound or a gunshot wound, for example. And so, when I think of Jesus, all of his bones are out of joint. For me, the moment would come, every time this happened to me, it was over 40 different times between the two surgeries, and the times in between that, and the painkiller would be given at the right time. And there was an almost immediate respite from the agony for him. The agony was of infinitely greater proportions and there was no relief because even the painkiller offered to him had to be rejected so that the full curse of God could be experienced by him as our substitute. Add to all of this the blazing sun beating down upon him relentlessly. without the help of even the slightest bit of shadow in the hundred plus in terms of Fahrenheit or 40 plus in terms of Celsius temperature. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of flies and other insects gathering upon his open wounds, licking them, biting them, causing a kind of hellish torment. You know what it's like when there's a mosquito in your bedroom at night, one mosquito, and you don't go to sleep, you're waiting, you're hoping, come on, come on, close enough, and you try and get it, and then two seconds later you hear it, and you're freaking again to try and get that one mosquito. Imagine, imagine your body being licked, being bitten by biting flies, bugs, gnats, mosquitoes, whatever else is there, and you can't do a thing to stop it. It's just one of the tortures, a hellish torment, after a brief period of time. Jesus' breathing would have become increasingly more difficult, and the person in that situation would finally suffocate after such unremitting torture. If Jesus had not died by what Matthew says was the giving up of his spirit, Matthew 27.50, so that he might fulfill the prophecy that not one of his bones is broken, What would have happened was that a large iron Roman mallet would have smashed into the bones of his legs, shattering them, producing immediate, immediate internal bleeding and shock from which he would have died. Crucifixion is so horrible that having your legs shattered in this way was seen as the mercy that they did to one of these convicted criminals. There is no way that anyone here can imagine the complete torment. There would not be even an inch of his body free from total pain and torture. From the top of his head, where the thorn crown had been placed, piercing him deep into his skull, to the tip of his feet, where the spikes had found entry through the soft tissue of his body, along with every bone being out of joint. Such, my friends, this is the death that Jesus faced. Such, you see, my friends, is the way of death that is known to us as crucifixion. Such is what our Lord faced in His body for us. But this is not the full fury of the cross, because the cross, in the case of Jesus alone, seared through not only His body, but His soul as well, because God used the cross. He used it and what we'll see as we take a look at it today is then what the meaning of the cross is. I want us to see this now. First of all, the cross is a substitutionary death. What is its meaning? It is a substitutionary death. That is, In the cross, God planned that Christ would take the place of his people. He became sin. The scriptures teach, he who knew no sin became sin. 2 Corinthians 5.21. And you know what this is? This is incredible because he hated sin. It doesn't just say that He took some sins. It says He became sin. It doesn't say He ever sinned, but He's so identified with His people and their sins that it can say of Jesus, He became sin, who never committed any sin, but was so identified with us in our humanity that His bearing of the cross is called becoming sin. Secondly, it had to be a public death. public display, and that's what crucifixion most certainly is. He says of himself, I, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men to myself. John 12, 32. God wanted his son Jesus to be lifted up before the world so that like the serpent in the wilderness, anyone whose eye of faith was raised up would have his life redeemed. raised up in faith, trusting in that death, that it was a death not because of his crimes, but because of our sins, and in many cases, crimes as well. The third place, the cross, is Rome's torture. Not Israel's. It's Rome's torture. But it's explained by Israel because God says, curse it is everyone who hangs on the tree. That's the understanding. What they did, we understand through Tanakh and through the New Covenant. Curse it is everyone who hangs on the tree, Galatians 3.13. This is it. The curse is what comes upon Jesus in the crucifixion. He goes through it all, not just to die, But to be cursed, he becomes not only sin, he becomes a curse to have limitless evil brought upon himself. He does this to have that happen to himself and friends from the perspective of human beings. Nothing could ever be worse. In other words, from our way of looking at reality, there is nothing worse than becoming not cursing, but becoming in his being, in his entity, this defined as a curse. He became a curse. Understand that perhaps like this, when sin entered the world. through our first parents. Well, actually earlier through Satan. The world deserved absolute death. I don't know if we could maybe think of it as it deserved a cosmic explosion destroying every remnant of it and all things would have experienced the immediate introduction of the horror of hell for eternity. But God introduced the suspension of the fullness of the curse. during which the curse was not experienced on earth with the finality it would experience on the last day and during this time out. It was possible to start over, but only through Jesus Christ. And then, of course, only because He placed Himself first under the curse that should have fallen upon us. Now, you know what this is? This is absolutely unimaginable. Why is it unimaginable? Because He actually did it. He did it. And that's what the curse is all about. His voluntary assumption of all the sentence that would have been due to each one of his own people. That reality is an explosion of grace whereby all who are covered by Christ are covered when the explosion of the last judgment is ignited. But on the other hand, there is that other explosion an explosion powerful enough to counter judgment. It's an explosion of the curse. Yes, you see, it's the curse which counters judgment. And if the explosion of grace renders us alive, the explosion of judgment renders Christ dead so that we can be alive. so that we can be the recipients of grace. And even if the wicked proceed merrily along on their way, even if it's the wicked who prosper while the righteous suffer, as we know, as we sing about in the Psalms throughout. Even if all that is good and right seems to be on its head, none of this is so because all will come to rest at the last judgment when the explosive power of God will reveal a final curse all who have not been sheltered from that blast in the only way possible, and that by the blood of Christ. And even though the full fury will not be seen until the end, even still in this life, this curse is everywhere in evidence. We see it in every heart that refuses Christ as that heart becomes prouder and more indignant every day. We see it in every death and the angry defiance of those who curse God for allowing this for allowing them to die, even after being given 70 years or 80 years of grace when they should have been cursed from the beginning. And only see it as unfair, God is unfair, no. God is not fair, not fair, who says? What is not fair for a world under the weight of the coming catastrophic curse? What is unfair to a world that thinks it can point their finger proudly and contemptuously in the face of God because things aren't fair the way they say fairness should be? Yes, point their fingers in the face of the God of the cross who sent the only righteous person since Adam and Eve before the fall to the fury of hell so that we might escape. But because sinners don't like the escape route, they curse God instead of thanking Him for blessing them and taking their place. on the cross, taking it himself, because Christ, you see, is either an absolute fool in doing this or is absolutely filled with love. Surpassing anything we can imagine to do what he did. You think that earthquakes and disasters of all kinds Make people hate the thought of turning to God. You hear this from people. But my friends, if you if you think this way, you know what you're doing, you're kidding yourself, you're deceiving yourself, because when the last judgment whirls in its fury against sinners, they will not point the finger. They will not spit in the face of God. They will be caught in a whirlpool of fire and blood and screaming judgment from which their proud cries will be forever silenced. Because you see, this is why there was a cross to save you from such horror. For even if a fire or storm or earthquake takes you now, yes, the cross saves you from what's worse, far, far worse. And indeed, there is a way out his life for your life. And if you're concerned with fairness, remember this. There is nothing, nothing at all fair about the cross. There is nothing fair about the judgment that goes the just for the unjust. What's fair about the death of Christ? What is involved in the death of Christ is not fairness. It is grace and love and mercy. When you point your finger and speak of fairness and justice, ask where's justice in this, in the cross? Where is a just God in the cross? Did you ever hear anyone say that to you? Speaking about justice, where is a just God when his son is being crucified like that? Remember, whether it's the law, whether it's sin, whether it's justice, there's only one of two verdicts that's possible. Our death or the cross. But also remember this. Neither sin nor God's holy and unassailable justice necessitates the cross. It's not made necessary by this. He could have just given you over to death in whatever form it would happen. It would be what we deserve. But the gospel isn't sin and justice, because when we come to the cross and behold the Savior, Unrecognizable. That's right. Beyond recognition is suffering and judgment. What we see is the love of God. That's what we see. The Bible doesn't teach. God demonstrates his justice toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. But rather, God demonstrates his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. It is the cross. The cross that meets our wretched sin with the perfect measure of justice and the love of God. Don't forget the vileness of our sin and the perfection of His justice, left to itself, makes just one thing. You know what it is. It's hell. But the love of God makes a cross. Christ faced the curse of God so that we would be spared. And if you will be redeemed, you must suffer the same curse Christ must suffer it for you that would have plunged you into infinite misery and torment. And that's why we speak of the breakthrough of the last judgment on Christ. That's why the sun darkened. He was being judged. We were being judged in him. That's why he screamed our judgment in him. Because in his sinless soul, he experienced the reality there in the course of the seven bowls and the seven trumpets and the seven seals and the seven souls and the seven thunders of a world that's breaking apart. And while we will never know that kind of judgment as believers, he will never forget. For the revelation written by the spirit of Christ shows our warrior king standing with his sharp, two edged sword. If you want to understand Armageddon, look at Golgotha. And when you hear the hammers drive the nails into his flesh, then then you really see, you see what you were spared from, not just death, for you're going to die anyway. But from the second death, the death from God's judgment on the last day, from that you're going to be spared through faith in Christ. You see, friends, It is altogether wise to fear Him who takes His knife and plunges it deep within the soul of a son, a son whom He has made to be sin. Fear Him who has the power to turn aside and not even hear. even an utterance or a plea from the lips of his own son. Fear him who unleashes a darkness which can only choke the soul of our Savior. Fear him who makes his son scream. Did you ever wonder why all this is in the Gospels? It's because God is beckoning you to come. He calls you over and says, take a look at this. As the hammer smashes into the fists of our Lord and as the spikes plunge deeply, deeper and deeper, until they're stopped by becoming deeply embedded in his outstretched hand and the blood shoots forth. And if you were to look to the Lord God and observe him, did you ever wonder what you would see at that moment? Would you see a clenched fist raised in defiance, shouting, how can this be? Not at all. Instead, if you could see into the holy of holies, And look carefully into the presence of almighty God. You would see a smile. A smile. But the scriptures, the holy scriptures themselves say it pleased God to crush him. putting Him to grief if He would render Himself a guilt offering. And we can come now into that Holy of Holies because God Himself has ripped the veil and split open the covering keeping us from the Holy of Holies. so that you could come now and meet with him freely. His anger is quenched in the death of his son, and you can enter in faith and see that he is pleased. Yes, he is very pleased. God is pleased. It says he is pleased to crush what is absolutely perfect for what is irreversibly bad. The cross, you see, is wave after unceasing wave of grace, pouring it upon a parched shore that is you and me. We are that parched shore, teaching lessons that only a new creature can even begin to fathom. And so what Adam started, Golgotha finished for every son of disobedience will be consumed under the curse. All that is not of faith. The word the word says is sin. All that is without Christ is consumed by the curse. It's hard to believe that in a day of 20 and $25 million a year athletes. I was listening to an interview saying that Albert Pujols, who was a popular baseball player, injured himself, he's out for the year and may never come back, and they were describing his team, and I don't know which team it is, the news show, the sporting show said, well, they're gonna have to pick up $100 million that's left on his contract. Almost like saying, well, he's gonna pick up the check at the restaurant after dinner. We can't, we find it hard to comprehend what was paid for that the true man, the true man, sinless beyond any kind of. Disrepute of any sort or any reproach is nothing more. He's not a hundred million dollar athlete. He's not the six million dollar man. He is none of these. He is nothing more than a bag of bones hanging from a simple wooden cross. Can that man truly be the life for the world? He said it so clearly, even anticipating the nails and the hammers. He said, I am the life. So listen carefully, because you see hidden under the sound of each hammer blow are those words. I am the life. Life waiting only for death in order to burst forth in resurrection life. That's the mystery of the cross, a mystery veiled to those who are perishing. I want to look in the last place at the significance, just a few points of significance of the cross for us. First of all, when you behold the manner in which he died, remember, you're beholding not just the manner in which he died, you're beholding the manner in which he loved us. For the cross, you see, is the highest act of love for sinners like you and me. So understand it, and understand it really well. The cross is Christ's initiative. The cross is Christ's demonstration of His love. The cross is His laying down of His life. The cross is His giving up of the Spirit. It is all done because of His great and His merciful love for us in this is love. Not that we love God, but that he loved us and gave his son to propitiate their the guilt of the wrath of our sin to propitiate for our sins. You have to understand this. The cross shows his love and in a confused world that people wonder how evil can happen so often. God counters it all and he counters it all with the cross and he takes history's greatest evil. He takes it upon himself and he does so and he does it for us. And secondly, the cross brings access to God. brings access for us to God. Yes, the veil was rent. Yes, this unveiling shows what the cross is all about. Full and free access to God for all his people. We have access. And that's what Paul says in Romans 5 too. You don't have to live in sin. You can flee to God. You can receive full and permanent pardon. In the third place, the cross brings access only through Christ. You can only come through Christ if it's faith and it's faith in Christ. As you read, in him was life. And that life was the light of all men. Everything of the Christian life is all through Christ. As we read, for from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. In fourth place. The cross. brings us identification with Christ, because as believers, we both fill up the sufferings of Christ. Colossians one. Colossians two, verse four, we live a life in which we bear our own cross as we faithfully witness of him and serve him daily. The cross leads us right into the road of Christ. And that's the road of servanthood, serving Him daily. I want to conclude with the eyes of our hearts looking towards Golgotha. Beholding the man, Christ Jesus, clothed not in a robe of righteousness, but in the sweat and the blood of the cross, in the ugly garments, not of righteousness, the ugly garments of sin, which he placed upon himself, choking out not only his life, but the life of God from within. And he did it all for you and for me He did this for us. And so I say to you, if you're desperate because of your sin, if you're in despair because there's no rest for your soul, you need Jesus. You need this One who suffered and bled and died for sinners such as you. And He bids you to come. And He opens the way for you to come. And the way to come is a way of mercy for all who are in need. If you're in need, come to Him. Confess those sins. Repent of that. Repentance means to turn around. Metanoia means to turn around. To go in that opposite direction from unbelief to faith. From mocking Him to adoring Him. Which is why mercy is why the essence of the cross is death for Christ, but life for you. My prayer this morning is that when you behold Christ, you will believe upon Him. You will trust in Him. You will love Him. You will cling to Him. and you will be saved by him. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the cross. We thank you for such great love for us that you would send your son to the cross. In our death in sin, in our life being born dead in transgressions and sin. Through Christ we are born to live. But because of such transgression, Christ is the only person who ever lived who was born to die. And we thank you for this. We thank you for the cross. We thank you for the spit, for the crown of thorns, that vile, wretched crown of thorns. We thank you for the whipping and the beating. We thank you for the bleeding that left him unrecognizable, marred beyond human likeness as one from whom men hide their face, so we esteemed him stricken, smitten, have gotten afflicted, and we thank you. for the smiting. We thank you for the affliction. We thank you for the suffering. We thank you for the cry of forsakeness. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Because I love them. And you love them. I love. This is why something so unimaginable, un-understandable, could be presented, it is the sacrifice of love through a heart of justice in his Father. So, Lord, enable us to keep gazing at times of trouble, times of struggle, times of confusion, bring us ever closer to the cross. In Jesus' name, Amen.