whole world. God put that in there for a reason. He wanted you to know that Jesus died for everybody. Everybody is accountable for their sins now. If he would have just died for one group's sins, the rest of the world could walk by him on their way into hell and say, you never did anything for me. But as it stands, he did. He gave them the gift of salvation. They just don't want to have his gift. I've wondered sometimes when people get to looking at things like this, and you get into a passage like we're fixing to look at tonight, it's kind of hard on a person to read about this stuff sometimes. I'm going to try to get through it myself. The theme of this chapter is the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. Key verse is verse 45, and your Bible says there, now from the sixth hour, There was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. There's a reason why God turned His back on His only begotten Son, poured out our sins on Him at that point, and He became sin for us that knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. And as we look down, we have 66 verses, 1,359 words, this particular chapter at a 4.4 grade level. And as we saw, the betrayer of Jesus, and that was Judas. Then we saw the judge of Jesus, that was Pilate. Then we look at the death of Jesus. Now we look at his burial. We'll pick up in verse 57. It says, when the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathea named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple. He went to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered. And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth. and laid it in his own tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock, and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre and departed. And there arose Mary Magdalene and the other Mary sitting over against the sepulchre. Now the next day that followed, the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together under Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, after three days I will arise again. Command, therefore, that the sepulchre be made sure until the end of the third day, lest his disciples come by night and steal him away. And say unto the people, He is risen from the dead, so the last hour shall be worse than the first. Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch, go your way, make it as sure as ye can. So they went and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone and setting a watch. As we look at this passage of scripture tonight, I want to preach to you on the committal of Christ. That's where they bury him right here in just in a few seconds. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, we do thank you, Lord, for letting us be here tonight and be alive. God, what a blessing, a privilege, and an honor it is to come to the house of God. Lord, there's no substitute for being around your people, Lord, because we get around them mothers that are saved, and there's a spirit between us, Lord God, and that's your Holy Spirit. And Lord, we thank you for that. We thank you for the fellowship of God's people. Tonight, while we're here in the house of God, we pray Psalm 119, verse 18. Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. God, that you'll teach us this book through your Holy Spirit. And God, that you'd help us tonight, Lord God, and help me as I preach. According to 2 Timothy, chapter four, verse two, to preach the word, be ye instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering doctrine for us. In Jesus' precious and holy name we pray. Amen. As we look at this chapter, as we saw all the things that have taken place here, when we get to this section, we arrive at some conclusions we're gonna see about this committal. But before we get into it about this tonight, I wanna just ask you a question, Knight. What is it at the grave side that hurts so much? I've never saw people tell too many jokes there. I think the funniest thing I've ever seen there, and this is not sacrilegious, nor is it any of your families, I hope none of them are watching, but me and Brother Clifford Phillips, the pastor of High Point Baptist Church, was to preach a funeral. And I got, he sloughed off on me to write the order of service and all that, that's what they do to you when they get older, they want you to do everything. Hope he's watching. And we're out there at the graveside, and they get, the family, neither one of us knew the family. We put down, we'd sing Amazing Grace and have prayer, and he'd preach and I'd preach. And at the last second, when they come up, you can guarantee it's one of two things they fixin' do to you. They either gonna play Highway to Hell, or they gonna play Elvis. Thank God it was Elvis Presley instead of the other crowd. They come up at the last second and said, Daddy's favorite singer was Elvis, and we got him singing a gospel song. I said, okay. I mean, I don't care one way or another what people do at a funeral unless it's just that sacrilegious stuff. I don't care. But the funniest thing was, I got to sitting there thinking, I bumped Brother Clifford, and he laughed when I said this, and they heard him, so they thought bad of him, not me, for saying it, because they didn't hear what I said. I said, it's good to know when you've arrived in the ministry. He said, what are you talking about? I said, Elvis Presley is opening act for me and you. That's the only time I think I've ever laughed at a funeral. But I got to thinking about that, just the sheer humor of that thing. What, y'all thought Elvis was dead? Well, for us, that funeral sounded like it had just been recorded, I think. But anyway, you see things like that, it's kind of funny, but most folks head to that graveside and they hurt in a way they've never hurt before. Sometimes it's because of the finality of what they're seeing. For the first time in their life, some folks walk to that graveside and they look at that casket, it dawns on them, I could be next. And the finality of death is this is it, there is no more. Or the finality of the person that's being buried, I'll never get to talk to them anymore. I've been in several funerals where they'll have the family on the front row and one or both the daughters head towards the coffin. Oh mama, please don't leave us. Finality, it's over with. Then you wonder sometimes if it's the financial argument about everything. And I'm not talking about with the funeral director. They're as nice as the people I've ever seen. But I'm talking about the ones that's left behind, that's arguing over all the finances. Well, daddy told me I could have it all. Well, mama said I could have everything. Well, daddy told me I could have, and then boy, they had to bag it to police, and they're sometimes keeping people apart. Why? Over money that perishes us, and the most important thing is in that casket, you arguing over what they left behind. That financial argument, boy, that goes on sometimes years after a funeral. Or it could be tonight, the fear of it. They get hurt because they get, for the first time in their life, they actually see their self as somebody that could die. I remember the first time I ever faced death in my life where I thought I was going to die. I was in a hospital room at the old Cherokee Memorial Hospital. I think I was in maybe the eighth, ninth grade. Had pneumonia. When I would wake up, I'd see Grandma over here praying. I couldn't stay awake, and I'd go back to sleep. I don't know if they had me on medicine or what, and I'd wake up again, and there'd be like four or five people with their hands holed around me praying. I kept thinking, this is really, really bad. And I kept thinking, I'm alive and well, and I'd go back to sleep, and then I woke up one time, and there stood my preacher, and I thought, oh my goodness, we're in the funeral home, we're in the hospital, I was scared to death. And I thought, if they didn't call him up here, this is bad serious here, friend. When I finally got to waking up to say some words, first thing I said is, where are we at? I wanna make sure we went down there at Shuford. That's where he took everybody, you know. I was scared about that thing. It finally occurred to me as a 14-year-old boy, I could die. And I almost died. And the doctor come in and said, we didn't think he was going to make it. I said, yeah, I kind of gathered that. When you see the doctor holding hands with the preacher, when you wake up, you know something's up right there. They've been putting the doctors praying with the preacher, and you got the family around you, you know it's on. Scary stuff, that fear of death will get all over you. Listen to this. These conclusions at this committal, number one is the entombment of our Lord. It says in verse 57, He points out, when the evening was come, there came a rich man of Arimathea named Joseph. It says, who also himself was Jesus' disciple. And the decisions he made as Jesus' disciple, I wanna read you a couple of these decisions so you'll understand what kind of man this was. You probably know more about him than I do, but I'm gonna show you two verses. Luke 23, verse 51 is one of them. Luke chapter 23, verse 51, and it says here the same, it says, and behold, verse 50 says, and there was a man named Joseph, a counselor, and he was a good man of justice. The same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them. He was of Arimathea, the city of the Jews, who also himself waited for the kingdom of God. Joseph of Arimathea did not vote with him to put Jesus to death. He might have been the only holdout on the whole council. But he didn't go for it. But don't feel bad. Listen, none of the disciples did either. I must go to Jerusalem and be crucified. Not so, Lord. We're not going to let that happen. Lord, if I have to kill the whole army, you ain't going to be put to death. Get behind me, Satan. Thou savest not the things that are of the kingdom of God. First Pope becomes blessed, then Satan, all in the same chapter. How about that? and then later on you discover he's got a mother-in-law and you think he's blessed, Satan, and cursed, all in the same book of the Bible. Now listen to this. We got this man saying, you know, we can't do that, that wouldn't be right, and all this other stuff. And in John chapter 19, I believe it's down in verse number 31, he'll bring up mention of that thing and tell us that about that Sabbath day and what happens on that Sabbath day. If you look in John chapter 19 verse 31, your Bible says this, the Jews therefore, because it was the preparation that the body should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, for that Sabbath day was in high day. a basalt pilot, that their legs might be broken, that they might be taken away. So in John 19.31, we've got a very important truth revealed to us, and that's the fact that the preparation day was the day Jesus was crucified on, and that Saturday was the Sabbath, and so was the Friday, because it was a holiday. What holiday was it? Passover. So they have a Passover on the 14th, and they, listen, they have the Sabbath there, another Sabbath, and then the 17th. Isn't that something right there in front of you, right there in the Bible? But that's what that means about that Sabbath was in Hyde. If you go back over to Matthew chapter 27, It says when Joseph was come, it says he was Jesus' disciple, he went and begged the body of Jesus, then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered in Matthew 27 verse 58. So the decision of the disciple was, he voted not to go against the Lord. And then the demand of the disciple, he said, look, I want to bury him. What an honorable thing for somebody to do for somebody who didn't own anything. Jesus did not own land. He did not own but what he had on, and they've already taken that from him. They hid him on top of the head while he had a crown of thorns put on him. All of that's happening, and all of that's just there, and then you got Joseph of Arimathea who went into Pilate, and that's a very serious thing to walk in there and ask that guy for anything, because number one, he hated every Jew in town. He hated Jews. He didn't want to have anything to do with them. He thought they were a lower class of people. He thought that Rome, since they conquered them, was obviously the more powerful race of people and things like that. But Joseph walks in there bravely and says, let me have him or I can bury him. Isn't that something? That's compassion beyond all else. But I noticed that when he does that, if you look at verse 59, your Bible says this, and when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a what? a clean linen cloth. Now that's important. It says he wrapped in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb which had hewn out of rock and rolled a great stone in the door of the sepulcher and departed. So we see that he goes out there and he wraps the body of Jesus in a clean linen cloth there. And the importance of that is this. That cloth he wrapped him in would soon be folded and put to the side by the Lord himself when he resurrected and come straight out of it without having to unwrap anything. Isaiah chapter 53 verse 9 says, and he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death. Isaiah saw that very thing happening right there. It's no coincidence that that was a rich man that buried Jesus. Can you say from the virgin womb to the virgin tomb? How'd that get in the Bible, wonder? But there it is. And he made his grave with the wicked. There were sinners buried all around. He was buried in a rich man's tomb. And the Bible says that because he had done no violence, neither were there any deceit in his mouth. Our Lord buried after he died. He did not faint. He died. They don't put people that faint in tombs. and they would have known whether or not he was dead. The very fact that he made it through the scourging and didn't die, the cross was gonna kill him. It was just a matter of a few hours is all they had to have him there for. The other men that were crucified that day with him, both were thieves, they had to break their legs in order for them to go ahead and die because the way a death and crucifixion works, when you're holding yourself up, you can breathe, But when you let down and the pressure of that thing comes, you start losing your breath over the course of a day or two. In Jesus' case, it took a little less than that. But I find out that he made his grave with the wicked there, just like the Bible said. They hung him on the cross, he died, and he's buried in that rich man's tomb. And then in verse 61, it says, and there was Mary Magdalene and the other Mary sitting over against the sepulcher. So we see the decision of Joseph, we see his demand, and we're gonna see his departure, and as he departs, there's two women still there. Out of all the crowd that said they were his disciple, in the very end of it, two women remained. But get this, God honors faithfulness. He that is first shall be last, and he that is last shall be first. It's gonna be these two women that's gonna show back up on the day after the Sabbath, and he's gonna let them see him first. In fact, he says, go tell that bunch of backslid disciples and Peter that I'm alive. That's going to be for their ears only. But you don't get that by going ahead and celebrating with the rest of the city. You get that because you stay beside the stuff. God has not called us to go out and do a warfare against America and against Russia and against China. He's called us, listen, to stand by the stuff in this church age. There are older preachers that will tell these younger preachers there real quickly, thank you for your stand. not for your attack, for your stand. God requires us to put on the whole armor of God that we may withstand, and in the same chapter he tells about the whole armor of God, he says, stand. If you watch riot police, they get together and they get shoulder to shoulder, and they all have a shield in front of them, and they're to advance the border there that they've made with that thing. And they're to advance that thing, and they've learned that from military. That's what the military used to do back then. If they were gonna conquer land, they'd stand at their own border and line up however many they had, shoulder to shoulder, everybody with a big old shield. And when the commander said, go forward, they went forward and they advanced the border. They advanced until they were made not to advance. And they could only advance then if they could take the crowd in front of them. That's a military thing. And God has put us in his military, put us in the whole armor of God, lined us up, and we're waiting on the millennium for him to say, forward march. In the meantime, in the meantime, we're still gathering troops. Amen. This much, oh dear God, let the kingdom, help us advance the kingdom of God. If the rapture happened tonight, you're seven years too early with that prayer. That's when the kingdom comes. That's when thy will be done. That's when all that happens. These other guys, they want to be Catholics is all that is. Now watch this. If you look down at the second conclusion we have about our Lord's committal here, every secret believer needs to study the cross of Christ and His death, burial, and resurrection, and really seeing the cross will turn any secret believer like Joseph into a bold witness for Christ. And along the way, you're going to find this second conclusion, and that's the enemies of Christ. Even after his death, they were still wanting to start trouble for him. You know why? They knew he was gonna rise from the dead. Out of all the people there in Jerusalem, they knew if there was any outside shot, they knew they were wicked and corrupt, so they knew who he was. You know why? He was the one out of all of them that didn't break the law. He was the one that could quote scripture. He was the one that could feed the 5,000. He was the one that could raise from the dead. They knew that. That's why they had to kill him and get him out of the way, because if he's real, they're all fake. They're also scrambling trying to do damage control, because by the way, we just found out there wasn't no man behind the curtain and there was no Ark of the Covenant behind the curtain. And because those two things were not there, they had to try to fix the thing real quick. Watch this, look at verse number 62. It says here about the enemies, they misquote our Lord. It says the next day, we find that it says that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together under Pilate. So we got the preparation day, then the next day's the high day Sabbath, this is them. And it says, verse 63, saying, sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, after three days I will rise again. Now they're gonna misquote Jesus, and here's what they misquote. If you look back at Matthew chapter 16, what they say here, look at it again, after three days I will arise again. Matthew 16, look at this. Matthew chapter 16. So they're putting him on a four day schedule. And most people that are in the position, these guys, they're trying to misquote Jesus all the time. Matthew chapter 16 verse 21, from that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must go into Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and raised again the third day. What day? The third or the fourth. Third, all right, if you look over Matthew 17, down at verse 23, Matthew 17, 23, Jesus is talking about his death and resurrection, says in Matthew 17, 23, and they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again, and they were exceeding sorry. Matthew chapter 20, look at verse 19. Matthew chapter 20 verse 19, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock and discourage and to crucify him, and the third day he shall rise again. It doesn't take learning new math to figure this out, but the Sabbath day and the Passover shows up on the 14th day of the month. Every converted Jew that gets saved will tell you what I'm fixing to tell you, because they've been celebrating the Passover on the 14th day of the month of Abib, however long they've been alive. If you were to go up to a Jew and tell him that Jesus was crucified on Wednesday and He rose again on Sunday, they'd say, He rose on the Sabbath? A Jew would never do that. So how do you figure that? Because one of the type of Christ in the Old Testament is Noah's Ark. I promise you it rises on the same 17th day of the month of Abib when the months get changed. You got him being crucified on the 14th, and three days later, 15, 16, 17. See, that's not even the new math, that's the old math. Do I have to get apples and oranges out here? I will. It'll never bother me to do that for you. But three days after the 14th, it's always the 17th. They crucify him on Thursday. He rises again on Sunday. But these guys are trying to make it a four-day crucifixion. Did you read with me every time he said the third day? Course you did. We just read three verses of the Bible right here in the book of Matthew. Then we go back over here and we will see what they say about him in verse 63 of Matthew 27. We remember that the deceiver said, while he's yet alive, after three days I will. He never said that. I just showed you three places where he said the third day, not after three days. Six o'clock in the evening starts the new day, Thursday afternoon, they put his body in the ground. Six to six, there's one day, six o'clock, six o'clock, second day, six to six, third day, he's up on the 17th. works out every time. Numbers don't lie. People lie. These people are lying. They're misquoting him. They wanted that watch extended past that third day just to make double sure, and they misquoted Jesus to get a watch. The only problem they didn't see coming was the fact that the Lord's gonna send an angel down there that could take out a legion by himself. Watch my finger. He rolls that big stone away out of the way, and he sits on top of it and waits on somebody to get there where he can tell them, come on in. See the place where the Lord lay. to announce his resurrection to those two women that's gonna show up. Now ain't that something? They've committed him to burial, they put him in the tomb, they gave, listen, his disciples are in an upper room somewhere scared to death. Why are they doing that? Because they don't believe he's gonna come back from the dead. You know who's the ringleader of that crowd? Wouldn't it be Peter? No, it's Thomas. Remember him? Mr. I-wouldn't-show-up-for-church-on-Sunday-night Thomas? Why wasn't he there? Well, he didn't think nothing was going to happen. So when Jesus shows up the first time, it's a night service, and Thomas ain't there. And he made this statement, if I see him, I'll have to reach my hand into his hand and see that nail print. I'll have to reach my hand into his side and put it in his side. And when Jesus shows up the next time when Thomas is there, he said, reach hither thy finger. Thomas falls down and says what we all ought to say, my Lord and my God. And thus is the last time Thomas is quoted in the Bible. You can't doubt God and go anywhere with him at the same time. They were as far as they were gonna get in the upper room until he showed up and installed faith in them like he needed them to have. The Bible says in John 19, he done this, he said, receive you the Holy Ghost. Wouldn't you love to have been there for that part? What a great meeting. He's gave them the Holy Ghost prior to Pentecost. I bet nobody wants to deal with that subject, do they? permanently indwelt prior to Acts chapter 2. Only 11 guys it happened to. So where were everybody else? Afraid. You don't remember the two guys walking away from Damascus saying, well, you know, it's been three days, he ain't come back yet. You know who they was telling it to? Him. He was walking there beside them, they didn't know who he was. It couldn't have been Jesus, after all, he's dead, remember? See, there's a lot of people that believe Jesus died. They believe in this committal right here. They say, man, that's gotta be it. But look down at verse 64. It says, command therefore that the sepulchre, this is what they're wanting here, that the sepulchre remain sure until the third day. Lest his disciples come by night and steal him away, and say unto the people he is risen from the dead, so that the last day shall be worse than the first. They're telling Pilate what his business is and how to do it, and he says this to them, verse 65, Pilate said unto them, you have a watch, go your way, make it as sure as you can. He didn't dress them as rabbi and Dr. Smell Fungus and all that. He just told them, get what you want and get out of here. He didn't want them in his courtroom there. And it says, so they went and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone and setting a watch. Imagine, we got the Roman soldiers down there. They're all around that thing. They know how to set a watch, and they know how to keep a watch, and they know how to make sure nobody comes within distance of that thing. After all, they've been trained to kill people more ways than the current US Marines have. Very violent men. Trained, trained killers. One angel is all God sent. When you see Joseph of Arimathea rolling that stone back in the way, you see a man having to put his shoulder to the rock and get with it and go to pushing and everything else. This angel, look here. And guess what, when he showed up, them trained killers, they said, oh my. It wasn't some sweet little woman with blonde hair and a couple of stork feathers on her. I mean, this was an angel come up there, and he just shows up. He didn't come flying in with wings. He just walked up on them. He walked from one place to the other. They see him, and they're terrified, the Bible tells us. Why? Now they know why they've had to set a watch. It wasn't for Peter and it wasn't for James. They stayed holed up. Remember, they ain't come out yet. After they all got back to the upper room, what did they do? They all sat in there afraid to come out of the upper room. Why? The Lord's dead. Every hope they had died on the cross. They didn't see him as coming back. Look, he walked by a funeral and the funeral was over and they had to give a refund back to the family when Jesus showed up walking by a funeral. He had touched the casket, the person comes alive. How could you see that and still doubt him? After all, they'd never seen nothing like that before in that fashion. When the people there at Jerusalem laid out their coats and said, hail, king of the Jews, as he come in on the beginning of the week, by the end of the week, they're saying crucify him. And at the very last day of the week, he's dead. They're not looking for him anymore. And just like they didn't look for him then, people are not looking for him now. This is his first coming, we're waiting on his second. I've been asked by people when I think the Lord's coming. I know exactly when, when God the Father says come, that's when he's coming. I know that for a fact, that's in the Bible. Now what day and hour, I can't tell you. I don't know what hour to be here, I don't know what, I don't know if it'll be night or day, I don't know any of that, but I do know this, from everything I've read, that's gotta be the next thing on God's prophetic calendar. And you know who's not watching? If we're going to look at types in the Bible, we're going to look at the way things go, it's going to be the church that's going to not believe He's coming. And I promise you this, from the top of your head to the soles of your little feet, most people don't think He's coming. They plan their lives as if He's not coming. They live their lives as if He's still dead. but you and I have one glorious great hope and one blessed hope in the whole thing, that Mr. Blakely get cheated out of burying us and we'll get to go in the rapture instead of the death and by way of the grave. We've invested a lot in graveyards over the years and we've invested a lot in burial plots and tombstones and caskets and all that and we're praying even so come Lord Jesus as to us getting to avoid that very thing. In the meantime, everybody's looking for a God to worship. When the Antichrist comes on the scene, they're going to say, finally, a God we can look at, we can believe in. But our Lord will have done God us. For these guys that don't believe in the rapture, too bad for you. That's part of the gospel. and believing in the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's Titus chapter 2 verse 11 down to verse 15. And the good part about this is, is when he comes, the misinformation campaign will be no longer for our ears. We'll be in heaven enjoying the best music, the best preaching, and the best eating we'll ever have. And while during that seven-year period, while we're waiting for we get to come back here with Him, I do believe in that time God will show you some things about life you've totally missed about Him. But one thing you don't miss when you're saved is this. This is not the end of Matthew. This is not the end of your Bible. But it is the end of chapter 27. You know why there's an end there? Because there's fixing to be a beginning here in just a second. And as we look at this tonight, I want to ask you a question. Do you believe He's dead? Do you live like he's dead? Have you done anything that would indicate to anybody else other than in your own mind that you believe that Jesus Christ is alive and well? See, a lot of folks claim the title Christian, but they've never attained the title Christian. It's never been a gift to them, it's just a name only. Do you know what I found out? When we got married, I looked at my wife's driver's license and it didn't magically say little on it. She had to publicly go somewhere with a piece of paper in her hands and tell, well, she had to wait five hours before they waited on her back. It was the old days. And this is pre-Covid, I'm talking about. She had to go in there and wait five hours and say, here's my wedding thing, marriage license, whatever it is. I want to change my name to his name. And at that point, they didn't say, well, bring us proof. There was the proof. The thing was there. It was signed, sealed, and delivered by the magistrate. It had the probate judge's name on it, whoever he was back then. I don't remember. But it had all the stuff. And I signed it, and she signed it. And they said, go stand over there, please. And they walked her over there and snapped a picture when she wasn't ready like they always do. And she had the driver's license handed to her. Here it is. Now it had the word little on it. You know what that said? I'm married. Are you with me so far? When you get saved, you become part of the bride of Christ. You and I don't have to go telling everybody anything. They just look at how we live and know exactly who we are. They already know. They know by the way you live and the way you talk that the Lord Jesus Christ is alive. They know by the way you treat others whether or not Jesus Christ is alive. And only those that believe he got up from the dead are the ones that gets changed. Let's stand with every head bowed and every eye closed.