We're going to start this morning with a story of rejection. A story of rejection that turned out to be deeply ironic. I'm speaking about a meeting that occurred in the year 1959. It was a meeting where an executive for Universal Studios ended up rejecting two men who were hoping to be actors. To the first man, the executive said this, you have no talent. And that man turned out to be Burt Reynolds. To the second man, the executive said, you have a chip on your tooth, your Adam's apple sticks out too far, and you talk too slow. Any guesses about who that might be? Talk about a story of rejection and also something that's deeply ironic. that man turned out to be Clint Eastwood. Same meeting, and the Universal Studios executive slammed them both. It's deeply ironic that two of America's most famous actors were both rejected in the same meeting. But to be honest with you, that irony doesn't hold a candle to the ironic statements that came out of the mouths of three groups of people in the scriptures that we're going to look at this morning. Would you turn to Mark chapter 15? You know, we're getting pretty close to being done with this gospel. I mean, I'm sad and I'm excited at the same time. I love accomplishing something and I want to move on to a new book, but I'm grasping at the... I know this is going to be the last time I'm going to get a preach from, at least in a series, from the gospels for some time. And so I'm nearing the end and kind of... missing already the Gospel of Mark, but we're not quite done yet. This text is very powerful. What God's going to reveal to us here today, I think is going to be amazing. So, three groups of people rejected Jesus on the day of His crucifixion. And we'll read now these verses. to find out what these three ironic statements reveal about our Lord and Savior. Mark chapter 15, beginning in verse 16. As we read, try to identify what is deeply ironic in this passage. And the soldiers led him away inside the palace that is the governor's headquarters, and they called together the whole battalion. They clothed him in a purple cloak and twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on him. And they began to salute him. Hail, King of the Jews! and they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put on his own clothes on him, and they led him out to crucify him. And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. And they brought him to the place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull. And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them to decide what each should take. And it was the third hour when they crucified him. And the inscription of the charge against him read, the King of the Jews. And with him, they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads saying, ha, you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross. So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked Him to one another, saying, He saved others. He cannot save Himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe. Those who were crucified with Him also reviled him. It is ironic, deeply so, that these three groups of people criticized, mocked through insults, derisive statements toward Christ, and that their very statements ended up being true. It's ironic that they meant these things for evil, but that these statements were recorded by none other than Mark, and have been repeated for thousands of years now to teach three grand truths about our Savior. Let's pray. Our Lord, today we ask that you would meet with us and that you would illumine our minds and our hearts from your Word. Teach us about the deep irony of these statements that you had 2,000 years ago, a man named Mark. to pen down that we might read even today in 2018. Teach us and move us, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. What is revealed by the statements of those who rejected Jesus? These statements reveal three deeply ironic truths about our Lord Jesus Christ. And the first irony that is revealed here is Jesus' identity. As we were reading through, did you pick up on the three ironic statements? The first one comes from the Roman soldiers. Let's reread verses 16 through 20, verse by verse. And the soldiers led him away inside the palace, that is, the governor's headquarters, and they called together the whole battalion. All right, so they led Jesus away. Where are they leading him from and to? Well, Herod has just arrived. decreed Jesus guilty. And we know already as we have learned in the last couple of weeks that, I'm sorry, Pilate decreed him guilty and Pilate didn't actually believe that Jesus had done anything wrong. He believed he was innocent, but he declared him guilty nonetheless because of the political pressures. And he then commanded that Jesus be flogged and so forth and then crucified, executed. So here we jump back into the story and the soldiers are in the courtyard of the great palace of Herod. Up on the dais sits Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea. Inside this courtyard, there are hundreds. This is a huge building on the west side of ancient Jerusalem. So inside this courtyard stand and sit hundreds and hundreds of people. Chief priests, your average day Jewish person, and people have been stirred, they've been crying, crucify him, crucify him. It's such a touchy situation that I think Pilot has sent one of his close confidants away to call in. a battalion of soldiers, just in case things might get out of control. Now, a battalion is one-tenth of a legion. A legion's about 6,000 soldiers, so we're looking at 600 soldiers who are called in by pilot to just make sure nothing gets out of control. And what do they do? they lead Jesus, the condemned, from the courtyard of this grand palace inside of one of the larger, perhaps banquet rooms. Now, I don't know if all 600 of these soldiers all went inside with him. Some were probably guarding the courtyard, some were guarding different points of the palace, but many of them undoubtedly went inside with the Lord Jesus. And they began to do what we're now going to read, verse 17. They clothed Jesus in a purple cloak. Now, there's all kinds of discussion about the purple cloak. Purple was a very hard to come by color. Anything that was colored purple in the ancient world was very expensive. So some, perhaps correctly, have surmised that this was perhaps an old robe, outer garment, worn by a past king that maybe was you know, maybe had a few holes in it, was folded up, kind of on the side, hadn't been burned, hadn't been thrown away, it was purple, and they just pulled it out of some dustbin and put it on Christ. Whatever it was, whether it was a brand new purple robe or whether it was an old robe, maybe with some moth holes in it, it was a purple robe and they put it on Christ. the Lord Jesus is back. Now they had already whipped him 39 times with a cat and nine tails. So he has blood, he's got open wounds all over the front of his torso, probably up into the chest, all over his back. So when they put this cloak on him, it is going to begin to meld with the clotting blood. And as they rip it off in a moment, as we read, it's gonna be quite painful. So they put the purple robe of a king on the back of Christ. And then what did they do? Middle of verse 17, they twisted to gather a crown of thorns and put it on his head. And I've been over to Israel three times. I've seen what these thorns are like. The thorns on these trees, I'm sure they would have plucked off the viney branches and then woven this together. These thorns are about two to two and a half, even three inches long. These aren't just like the little thorns that you might have on thicker bushes out in the woods here in Wisconsin. These are some mean, long spikes. They wove, I'm sure carefully, so that they didn't get pricked by these thorns. They wove this crown of thorns together and then put it down on the Lord Jesus' head. And we're told in other Gospels that with a baton, they bashed it so that those thorns would have sunk deeply into his scalp, probably even striking the bone of his skull. A purple robe, a mark of leadership and wealth and power, of kingship. A crown, okay, it's of thorns, but a crown nonetheless. Do you see the irony building? But the most obvious part of the irony, undoubtedly what Mark is trying to communicate here, is what came not from their actions, but from their own mouths. For in verse 18, we read this, they began to, okay, I was about ready to do this, salute him. They would have done this, the Roman salute. They began to salute him and say, with mocking, derisive, attacking tone, hail, king of the Jews. course they didn't mean it. They were striking his head with a reed. They spat on him. They even knelt down. He is supposedly king, right? That's the the accusation upon which he is now going to be crucified, executed, so they kneel down to him in mocking homage, and in verse 20 it says, when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak, put on his clothes, and then led him away that he might be crucified. Hail, King of the Jews." You might want to say, out of the mouths of babes, but these men certainly weren't babes. Out of the mouths of Roman soldiers recorded by Mark for 2,000 years. Their words have been proclaiming, yes, revealing the first of the three deeply ironic truths about our Savior that we find in this text. And what is that first deeply ironic truth? It is Jesus' identity. The Roman soldiers meant it for evil, but in fact, what they said was true. Jesus was actually a king. Now, they brutally mistreated this man who would one day be not just the king of Israel, but who would be king of kings, and we know, Lord of lords. Would you turn to Zechariah 14. Zechariah 14. Some may wonder, when is Jesus ever going to be king? There is coming a day when their statement meant for evil will be fulfilled. Zechariah 14, beginning in verse 16. Here is a prophecy. that explains what will be about Jesus. Then everyone who survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts. All right, so we're dropping down into the middle of Zechariah 14, what's happening? Jesus has just won the series of battles that we would call the War of Armageddon. He has destroyed the Antichrist and the false prophet. defeated all of the armies in the four major places where Armageddon occurs. He has alighted down now on the Mount of Olives. He has sent out his angels to call those who have survived the great seven-year tribulation period from all around the planet to come to the judgment of the sheep and goats at Jerusalem. That judgment has just finished. Jesus is now, over a 75-day period, having the entire city cleansed of all the filth and refuse from the battles. They are preparing for the beginning of the millennium. And as the millennium is about to start and then begins, what does Zechariah say? Everyone who has survived the tribulation period and the judgment of Christ, for everyone who was a goat, that is, who was unsaved, who made it through the seven years of God's judgment of the earth, Everyone who made it through but who is not a believer in Christ, they have already been condemned and sent to hell. Everyone who survives then at that point on the face of the planet is a believer. But it's not just Jews who will survive. There will be people who survive from all the nations of the earth. And look what it says, everyone, verse 16, who survives of all the nations, who have come up against Jerusalem, that would be the whole world through the Antichrist, they shall go up year after year to worship the king. So we learn that when Jesus takes over at the beginning of the millennium, there will still be nations, there will be people groups, and this isn't the only prophecy, there are many of them that say the same thing. There will be people groups all around, races, nations, all around the earth. But at the beginning of the millennium, all of the remnants of these nations, those people will be saved and they will go up year after year for a thousand years for three major feasts to come to Jerusalem from wherever they might hail on this planet to worship, not just their savior, but their king. the Lord of hosts, to keep the feast of booze." Verse 17, "'And if any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, there will be no rain on them.'" So, you know, we've read Jesus will rule with a rod of iron. He will have to rule. You say, well, everybody in the Millennium is saved. That's true at the beginning, but as people procreate during the millennium, some of their children will not follow Christ. They will reject Him in their hearts, even to the point where they will disobey the King of kings, Jesus, the King who rules all the nations of the planet. And so, He then in judgment will not allow rain to fall upon them. In fact, middle of verse 18, there will be plagues that Jesus our Lord will afflict the nations with who don't obey Him. This shall be the punishment to Egypt and the punishment to all the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Booths." And that's one of three feasts that they will, during the millennium, come to worship the king with. So, what an ironic statement. Coming from the mouths of the soldiers, if they only knew how true this would be. What is revealed by the statements of those who rejected Jesus? There are three deeply ironic truths about our Savior that are revealed for us back now in Mark chapter 15. The first irony revealed Jesus' identity, that He would be King one day. Even though they rejected Him, He would be King. The second, irony, revealed Jesus' accomplishment. Look at verses 21 through 30. We'll walk through this verse by verse. And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene. A brief tidbit about Simon. Simon was from the city or area of Cyrene. That's in North Africa. He has come on the pilgrimage for the Passover, right? He's here for the Passover, which tells us that he is Jewish. So we also know that in Cyrene, there was a large Jewish population. So this Jewish man has come to the Passover to worship the Lord at the temple. to sacrifice the lamb and so forth. And he just happens to be a passerby as Jesus and the soldiers are coming out of the gate, going to the north outside of the city to go to Golgotha. As Jesus walks by, he's stumbling. And so the soldiers conscript Simon, this man, this Jewish man from North Africa who's come to carry the cross for the Lord. And it's really interesting. What else do we surmise from this verse? That Simon of Cyrene, probably not a follower of Jesus at that point, most likely becomes a believer. Why do we think that? Because it says, Mark writing to a Roman audience, that he was the father of Alexander and Rufus. And yet Mark doesn't explain who those men were, so what can we most likely surmise from that? That Alexander and Rufus were in the church, were at least known to the churches in Rome. And so Mark doesn't even have to explain who they are, they must already know them, which means They're probably themselves believers. Probably Simon became a believer. Very interesting. Anyway, they conscript Simon to carry Jesus' cross. In verse 22, it says, they brought him to the place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull. And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he didn't take it. The wine mixed with myrrh would have killed pain Jesus didn't want to, I mean, I'm sure he did in his human flesh, but as God, he knew that he must not do this, so he did not partake of this painkiller. He instead bore the full brunt of the sins of the world on his back that day. So they offered him the painkiller, but he wouldn't take it. Verse 24, and they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them to decide what each should take. Folks, when Jesus died, he died without a house. He died without a penny. He died without even clothing. He did that for us. It was the third hour, meaning about nine o'clock, first hour of the Jewish daytime. The light time is 6 a.m., so about 9 a.m. is when the trials are done, when they've gotten Jesus to the hill that is called Golgotha, or Place of the Skull, and they dropped the Lord's crucifix into the hole. And the charge above him, the thing that he was accused of saying, read the king of the Jews. And with him, they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left. But now we come to the ironic statement, a statement made by those who were passing by. In verse 29 it says, "...and those who passed by derided Him..." You can just feel the derisive tone, the mocking snide. emotions being emitted from the souls of those who are passing by. They're wagging their heads, shaking their heads, saying, ha, aha, you think you're so great. You who, and they're talking to Christ, of course, you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, If you're so great that you could destroy the temple of Jerusalem and what took a long, long time and a lot of craftsmen to build, you can rebuild that in three days? Come on. You think you're so big and so powerful? Okay, you can't even save yourself. Come on down from the cross if you can do this. So in this second ironic statement that Mark purposely records for our benefit and for the benefit of readers from Rome, the initial target audience down through the ages, what do we find? The very statement that they make is, in fact, true. The death of Jesus ended the need for the temple. Here's the great irony. The death of his body, his body was the temple that he spoke of. The death of his body ended up being the death of the temple, the end of the temple, the end of sacrifice. Sacrifices were made for thousands, years. Sacrifices had been made at Mount Horeb, at the tabernacle. They had been made during the wilderness wanderings. They had been made for hundreds and hundreds of years, thereafter, in fact, thousands of years. The temple was destroyed in 586. It was rebuilt by Zerubbabel, finished by Ezra. We know all this. Beautified by Herod. During all of that time, sacrifices of countless millions of animals, sheep, bulls, goats, turtle doves, and on and on. Millions of animals died today in the life of Jesus as He's hanging on the cross What great celebration is taking place? It is the Passover. And it is the day in which Passover lambs were being slaughtered for the people of Israel, for the Jews. While Jesus is... you know, in the trial, as he's walking to, or, you know, being forced to go up to the place of the skull, as he's being nailed to the cross, as he's being dropped into the hole, as he's hanging there. Don't think for a minute that all of Israel is focused on that. For what else is going on? What are most of the people focused on? They don't have time to pay attention to Jesus. I mean, the priests are, as fast as they can, they are moving in the temple precinct area, right? I mean, lambs are being brought, lines are just, I mean, they're out through the Huldah Gate, they're out through the North Gate, they're through the East Gate. I mean, lambs and men are just packed into the temple area. And the priests are going. All 24 courses of priests are just going nonstop. Grab the head of the lamb. The man puts his hand on the head of the lamb. His hands go on it. The priest does the same thing. They make a little statement that indicates that the sin of that husband and father's family is then being transferred onto the lamb. the priest takes the knife and cuts the throat and captures the blood. Approximately, we don't know exactly how many, but approximately 200 to 250,000 lambs had to be slaughtered from the crack of dawn. Actually, there were a few other things they had to do first at the crack of dawn. But once all the other sacrifices took place, then the rest of the entire daylight time, Lambs are being slaughtered. So Jesus is hanging not very far away from the temple on the cross. But yet, most of Jerusalem isn't focused on Him. They're focused on what's happening. Animal after animal. Blood gushing. Lots of it. And it's not just the day of Passover. Think of the Day of Atonement. All kinds of animals slaughtered on that day. Let's just talk about two. The goats. And you've got a priest, the high priest would come out, and he would be in front of the temple area, just in front of the main door into the holy place, and there would be a golden box brought out to him. And inside that golden box, there were two golden, we'd call them lots, they looked like big chopsticks. And inscribed in the gold on those, one of them said, for the Lord, and one of them said, for absolute removal. And the high priest would reach in and grab one without looking at what it said, and put it on the head of one goat. He would reach in, grab the other, put it on the head of the other goat. The goat whose head the lot that read, for the Lord fell on, would then be taken." Throat slit. The blood would be taken by the priest, sprinkled on various places, including on the Ark of the Covenant, as a picture of what? As a picture that the goat's blood, like the lamb's blood on the day of Passover, that blood was a covering. That blood shielded that person who was offering the animal from the wrath of God. It appeased, at least temporarily, as the Old Testament days went by, the wrath of God. The other goat, the goat upon whose head the lot for absolute removal fell, that goat was led outside of the city, far, far away, many, many miles away. And it was, in the early days, it was just released. In later days, many believe that it was pushed over a cliff. So that the goat that symbolized, that carried the sins of all of Israel on its back and left the city and left the Jewish nation, it would... remove symbolically the sin of all of the people of the entire year, animal after animal. We only talked about two sacrificial days. Sacrifices took place day after day after day throughout the year. And of course, a lot of them on these big festival days. Folks, they were right. These passersby were absolutely right. Jesus said, I will destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. We know that He was talking about the temple of His body. But they prophetically, unintentionally, deeply, ironically said, Ha, you know, he thinks he can destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days? He can't even come down from the cross. And you know what? Because he didn't come down from the cross, because he allowed his body, that temple, to be destroyed, he did in fact destroy and fulfill the purpose of the temple. And it is important for us to understand what Jesus accomplished. Jesus accomplished salvation for all of us. He finished the job. We don't add, we can't add even one good deed to what Jesus did on our behalf. We come to the cross utterly helpless as sinners without any hope in and of ourselves. And if you have done this or if you need to do this when we bow the knee to Christ, what happens? all of our sin because of what Jesus accomplished 2,000 years ago is removed from us. And His righteousness, just like the blood of the lambs, His righteousness is placed on us so that when the Father looks at us, He doesn't see our sin, He sees His righteousness. Perfect human beings. Perfect, not because we're sinless, but perfect because of Christ. So why does this matter to us? Well, I've done much counseling over the years of Christians, and one of the things that I've noticed over the years is that there are, and it's not a bad thing, but there are some Christians that have really sensitive consciences. There are some Christians who hold on. I think unbiblically, to their sin. They beat themselves up repeatedly for past failure. They remember those things that they've done. And it might be a year ago. It might be ten years ago. It might be when they were teenagers and now they're 60. I've noticed that people sometimes hold on to their sin. They beat themselves up over their failures. They become spiritually depressed. They sometimes feel like they can't even serve the Lord in His church because they're just too dirty. They know they need to come, but they don't feel like they really belong in the church. What is that? Now again, I'm not, we shouldn't be opposed to a sensitive conscious, we all ought to be sensitive to our own sin. But when we beat ourselves up over our own sin, what are we in fact saying? If we have already confessed our sin, then it's passed, it's covered, it's done. We ought not to keep repeatedly bringing up sins of our past that we've already asked for forgiveness. and then mentally meditating on those and bringing ourselves low, that's really a form of works righteousness if you think about it. No, when Jesus died on the cross when his body was destroyed for three days and then of course he rose, He destroyed the temple, just like these mocking pastors by were saying. Sometimes people won't forgive themselves. They'll relive past sins in their mind. Psalm 103, verse 12, and I've shared this verse at least once before. The psalmist says, as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. Your sin because of Christ is utterly removed. from your life. Live triumphantly. Live with the knowledge that Jesus fulfilled the purpose of the temple. No more animal sacrifices and no more beating ourselves up for confessed, already confessed sin. Jesus has won that victory. What is revealed by the statements of those who rejected Jesus? These three statements, one from the soldiers, the second from the passersby, and now finally the third from the chief priests, reveal three great things. First, we saw Jesus' identity revealed. from the mouths of the soldiers. Second, we saw what he accomplished, revealed from the mouths of the passersby. And in the last two verses of our text, out of the mouths of the chief priests and scribes, as they talked among each other, probably being overheard by many, we see the third great truth revealed about our Savior, and it is this, Jesus' mission. Verse 31, so also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another saying, he saved others, he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe. Those who were crucified with him also reviled him. The chief priests and the scribes formed a third group of mockers. What is it that they said that is deeply ironic? He saved others. but he cannot save himself. It's interesting that even the chief priests are willing to admit, they're forced to admit that he could save others, right? You ever thought about that? I mean, here they are, they are responsible, well, I think God is ultimately responsible for it, but I mean, they've been a part of God's plan, and in that sense, responsible for getting Jesus put on that cross. And yet they even, at the end here, they even admit that Jesus did save others, He healed and miraculously, so they admit that. It's the second part, though, that's even more ironic. He cannot save himself. This is a truth and a half-truth all at once. He saved others. That's a truth that they could not deny. That is true. But you know what? The second part of their statement, I think is a half-truth. Or if you want to put it this way, it's, It has an element of truth and it has an element that is not true at the same time. It's so similar to the way that Satan tempted Eve in the garden. He told her three half-truths and she ended up biting the fruit. What is it that is so ironic about the last part of this statement? He cannot save himself. Folks, Jesus could have very easily saved himself. I can think of at least three ways that he could have saved himself. He could have simply defended himself and by way of diplomacy with Pontius Pilate, he could have easily had himself delivered, right? I mean, if, the God-man, Jesus, could escape the three trapping questions, first of the Pharisees, and of the Sadducees, and then of the scribes, back on Tuesday, with amazing answers that no one could have ever thought about. Let me see that coin. Who's in Scripture now? I mean, Jesus was more brilliant than we can even comprehend. I mean, he was God, he knew everything. He could have easily defended himself and turned the heart of the governor. In fact, the governor wanted to release him. He could have easily gotten himself released with diplomatic words. But, as it says in John 19, 11, Jesus said, you would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. The second way in which Jesus could have saved himself, he might have escaped by appealing to the crowd. Now folks, I mean, you have a whole host of just regular everyday Jewish people, business owners, you know, so forth, who are in this large courtyard in the palace, in front of Pontius Pilate. And Jesus allowed the chief priests and the scribes to get at those people first and to stir the crowd. But, I mean, we know from Matthew 26, verses 4 and 5, that the crowd revered Christ and they were They believed that he, many of them, most of them, believed that he was a prophet, and so, you know, if Jesus would have simply taken the initiative, of course he didn't want to do that, but if he would have taken the initiative, he probably could have swayed the crowd with his words, so that even the crowd wouldn't have cried out, crucify him, just the chief priests. And a third way. that he could have escaped is by his own mighty power. There's an old hymn written in the 50s that says he could have called 10,000 angels just that fast. The whole heavenly host could have come down and just plucked him right out of the midst of that courtyard. 600 Roman soldiers would not have stopped them. Folks, Jesus could have saved Himself. And that's what's ironic about their statement. They're insinuating that He couldn't have. In fact, in reality, He could have. But yet at the same time, is it not true? Bound by the will of God, a will that He would follow because of what we read in the Garden of Gethsemane, He could not save Himself. Yes, He could have, but at the same time, no, not if He was going to follow God, His Father's will. He could not have saved Himself. Why? Because Jesus died to save us from our sins. The soldiers, the passersby, and the chief priests all made a mistake. They rejected Jesus. Don't make that same mistake today. If you are here today and you are not sure if you were to die, that you would be in heaven. If you have never humbled yourself, recognizing that you are a sinner and that Jesus 2,000 years ago came to this earth and died a cruel death on a cross to accomplish a mission, the mission of salvation for you, then Am I to encourage you? It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, your family members. You say, I've been harboring serious doubts. In fact, I really don't even know if I'm a believer. It doesn't matter what your husband or wife or what your children think or if you're a teenager or a child. It doesn't matter what your parents think. If today you are here in this auditorium and you are not sure of your own salvation, you do not know if you have ever been born again, you don't know if you have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, then might I encourage you not to delay even an hour? I'm going to be standing just out in the lobby there. I want to encourage you as soon as the song is completed and Robin dismisses us to just quickly make your way out and shake my hand. Be the first one there and just say, you know, Kurt, I need to talk to you. If you're a woman, I'll have my wife come, we'll meet in the office, we'll talk. If you're a man, we'll just go into the office and we'll talk. And I want to encourage you, don't make the same mistake that the soldiers, that the pastors buy and that the chief priests made. Don't reject Christ. Today, as the scriptures say, is the day of salvation. If you know or if you have doubts, would you meet with me in the back in a few moments? Let's pray. Our Lord Jesus, three great truths were revealed about you in a deeply ironic way. The fact that you would one day be king of all kings, the fact that you accomplished salvation for the world on the cross, and the fact that you fulfilled your mission by freely giving yourself for us, you could have saved yourself, but you did not so that you could save us. We are, beyond what words can express, grateful. May today be a day of victory, contemplation, encouragement, and even conviction. We pray in Jesus, in your son's name, amen.