You know this world is full of preachers, but just a few were chosen. Stay tuned for Treasured Heritage, a preaching program spotlighting those servants who have gone on to glory. Isaiah 5417 says, this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord. And now, Treasured Heritage. Chapter 27, beginning at verse 13. Then said Pilate unto him, Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee? He answered him to never a word, insomuch that the governor marveled greatly. Now at that feast the governor was wont to release unto the people a prisoner, whom they would. And they had then a notable prisoner called Barabbas. Therefore, when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus, which is called Christ. For he knew that for envy they had delivered him. When he was sat down on the judgment seat, his wife said unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man? I have suffered many things this day in the dream because of him. But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor answered and said unto them, Whither the twain will ye that I release unto you? And they said, Barabbas. Pilate said unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified. And the governor said, Why? What evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified. When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person. See ye to it. Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children. then released Heber Rabbis unto them. And when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. And the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers, and they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe. And when they had plaited a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand, and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews!" They spit upon him and took the reed and smote him on the head, and after that they'd mocked him. They took the robe off from him, put his own raiment on him, and led him away to crucify him. And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. Him they compelled to bear his cross. And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull, They gave him vinegar to drink, mingled with gall. And when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet. They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots. And sitting down they watched him there. and set up over his head his accusation, written, This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Then were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand, another on the left. And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads, and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross. Likewise also the chief priest, mocking him with the scribes and elders, said, He saved others himself. He cannot save If he be the king of Israel, let him now come down from the cross. We'll believe him. He trusted in God, let him deliver him now, if he'll have him. For he said, I am the Son of God. The thieves also which were crucified with him cast the same in his teeth." Now from the sixth hour, there was darkness over all the land under the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli lema sabachthanah, that is to say, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? Some of them stood there, and stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elijah. And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, put it on a reed, and gave him to drink. The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him. Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And behold, the veil of the temple was rent entwined from the top to the bottom, and the earth did quake, and the rocks ramped, and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city and appeared unto many. And when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly, this was the Son of God." We'll pause our reading there. May we pray. Our Father, we thank Thee for this sacred scene of God's eternal and unchangeable love. We thank Thee, our Father, that You demonstrated and donated and willing to distribute the sweet and precious love of Jesus. Give us faith to believe this unusual record, this wonderful experience which has constituted only hope of humanity in all of its sin. We thank you Lord for the millions that have been saved by believing that Jesus died for our sins according to scriptures. We thank you Lord that there's no limit we can put on God's saving grace. We thank you that your love is inexhaustible, unfathomable and indestructible and eternal and everlasting. We pray now that we might preach the truth tonight. Bless the radio friends that will be listening to this message when it comes. Lord, I pray that every person that listens might heed and hearken and come straight to Christ, confessing sin and crying for God's forgiveness through Christ, and pardon and peace through the shed blood. In Jesus' name, amen. I've read to you the most sacred scene of the Bible, the crucifixion of our Lord. First of all, he went before the judge but had no lawyer. He stood in a courthouse without a friend to represent him. This is the most unusual thing I've ever read about in my life. In the first place, As I said a moment ago, it's the greatest miscarriage of justice that's ever been enacted in the history of the human race. There's never been a man go to court but what he has done wrong of some sort. But this man has done nothing amiss. The thief said, even the wife of Pilate came and said, I've dreamed about this fellow called Jesus, and I want you to have nothing to do with this just man. I've been troubled in my sleep about him. Even Pilate said, this man's a just man. What evil has he done? And the lie of the Christ was a mob. It was a demonstration And it is the most unusual scene. The centurion said, surely this man was the Son of God. He saw the earthquake, the sun go blind, he saw the graves open, and can you imagine the caretaker at the cemetery? I mean, standing in the cemetery and the graves just opening up. Just the grave, just like you open a big door. The grave just opened up. and the caretaker looking down in the open graves. Now remember, nobody got up. No. Because Jesus is the first fruits of the resurrection. Get the little word A-F-T-E-R. Nobody could get up. Nobody could get up before Jesus got up. And my getting up depends on his getting up. I have no doubt about the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And the resurrection is the greatest event that ever happened in the history of the world. But let me give you the unusual things about this trial and this crucifixion. Number one, it certainly was a miscarriage of justice, and the governor, the pilot, the judge, and everybody at the courthouse knew it. But there was pressure from the public pressure from religion, and the second thing, he let a criminal go free by the name of Barabbas, because the people, not because they loved Barabbas, they didn't mind him killing Barabbas, but it was the custom in that day for them to release somebody at that particular season. And he said, now, and I think he felt sure that they'd permit him to release Jesus, he said, whom are you that I release unto you? Barabbas or Jesus? Why, they said Barabbas! I think it's stunning, the old judge. But you see, religion without righteousness is so brutal and mean. That's the reason I'm disturbed about people that go off into religion, swap off maybe a salvation. I don't say anybody could ever be saved, or really saved, and then go off into religion without Christ. It puzzles me to think that anybody that says you've been saved and then be sucked under by some old dead religion, I don't understand how you could ever be that blind. And these people were religious people. And they were going to commit the world's greatest crime by crucifying the Son of God. So this is an unusual scene. It's unusual because religion is at the head of it. That's the reason we need to run from religion. We need to have nothing to do with religion. Religion's the most dangerous thing on the face of this earth. It's subtle and satanic. And nearly everybody in Corpus Christi has religion. Oh, they're so religious. Nearly everybody belongs to some church. And yet, when you pin them down to say, are you really saved? Do you know Jesus as your personal Savior? The answers are very vague. Religion crucified Christ. It's unusual in that there was no court-appointed lawyer, nobody to represent Jesus. Not a soul. Out of all the lawyers it might have been, the scribes it might have been. And then the thing that's unusual is that out of all the people that Jesus helped, there was not one that showed up to testify at his trial. When he stood in that old army courthouse, A man that had never done anything wrong in his life. And there wasn't a man to represent him. Nobody stood. There were ten lepers healed at one time. It looked like one of them could have happened by. I mean, people were raised from the dead. A little boy was raised from the dead. Lazarus was raised from the dead. And many of the people had been blessed. Multitudes by the thousands had been fed. And yet not one soul showed up. to testify. It was an unusual trial, wasn't it? None of his kinfolks, none of his disciples. The closest thing he had to a witness and a lawyer was Simon Peter, and he was shaking his head in the wrong direction, saying, I don't know him. I had nothing to do with him. Judas already betrayed him. Many of the disciples forsook him and fled. And Simon Peter, was trying to go to the last ditch and turn back at the time of the trial. There's one thing you can say about it. Jesus made the journey alone, didn't he? And I'll tell you something else. I believe that if you have Jesus in your heart, you can make it alone, too. We lean on too many human props. We'd say, well, I think I'd have made it if it hadn't been for my friend or my mama or my daddy or somebody. Listen, if you've got Jesus, you can still make it. We need to know that He's bigger than all the mamas and the daddies and the brothers and the sisters and the friends and the enemies and everything else put together. And I believe if you have a real saving faith in Jesus Christ and anchor yourself in the Word of God, He'll see you straight on through. No need to be defeated. There's an unusual time, though, when you think about what happened on that old hill that day. There wasn't a friend to come and protest. There wasn't a petition signed. There wasn't a letter written. The judge had nothing to go on except the fact that there's Jesus, and then it was unusual in the fact that Jesus wouldn't even testify for himself. But after all, Jesus knew why he came. He came not to live, he came to die. And listen, he only lived long enough to prove that he could live, and did live, and meet every need of the human heart. And then he said, now then, I'm going to go die for him. Jesus, most of us are born to live, aren't we? We think about living. He didn't live 33 years, really. He only lived in the ministry 3 years. 3 years! He got everything done he was supposed to get done when he entered the public ministry. Yet the Bible said, As a lamb is led to the slaughter, and a sheep is done before her shearer, so openeth he not his mouth. He was oppressed, he was afflicted, yet openeth he not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living, And for the transgression of my people was he stricken? Made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death because he had done no violence? Jesus was never a violent man. Neither was any deceit found in his mouth. I tell you, this is an unusual scene. We're looking tonight into the door of our only hope of salvation. Because without the shedding of blood there's no remission. I was thinking this afternoon about the old song that says, when I surveyed the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain I count but loss, and poor content on all my pride. See, from his head, his hands, and his feet, char and love flow, mingle down, Dear, there's such love in solemn eater, thorns composed, so rich a crown. Where the whole realm of nature mine, ever a present far too small, love so amazing, so divide demands my soul, my life, my all. That's what we ought to get. We're looking at an unusual scene tonight. We're standing in the shadow of Calvary. And we're looking in the face of the most wonderful man, and yet we're looking in the face of a devilish religion that's nailing nails to his blessed hands, while he pays the price for my sin and your sin. Yes, the friends turn their back on him. You know this one bright thing, though, the Bible said that stood by the cross, the mother of Jesus. And I got to thinking about that this afternoon, and that is, right where she stood, I know the first answer you're going to give me is this. She stood because she was his mother. I don't believe that'll make you stand. I know a lot of mothers that won't even stand for their children. I know of some mothers that did not do anything about their children when they got killed or when they got electrocuted. They didn't want anything to do with them. They did not show up. They didn't claim their body at all. What was it that made the mother of Jesus stand? Now, you know, she's not the mother of God. You know, you hear people say, Hail Mary, Mother of God, pray for us now in the hour of our death. Now, Jesus was God himself. She might have been the earthly mother, and she was mother of Jesus, but not the mother of God. And I'm going to show you an unusual thing. She gave birth to the human Jesus, and he gave birth to the divine Mary. She gave her son birth, and he turned around and gave his mother birth. You say that's a mystery, but that's the truth. There wasn't anything divine about Mary until after she got saved. And it took her son to save her! And I believe she'll testify all over heaven, just like I'll testify. I've been saved, in a sense, by my older brother. She was saved by her son. Because Jesus is the only Savior there is. There's no way to get... The Bible said, He said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life, and no man cometh to the Father but by me. As one God, one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, and if Mary's in heaven and I believe she is, she got there through her son. It's an unusual experience here. wonderful wonderful debt that he paid that I couldn't pay and you couldn't pay but there's something else that's unusual about it when they crucified Christ when they took the hammers and drove the nails through his hands that were stretched on the cross did you know they were driving nails through the creator the wood that he was being nailed to was the wood that he made grow. The nails that they nailed were the nails that he made. The breath it took for them to nail those nails, he gave to them. The strength, the strength that they had, he gave to them to crucify the Creator and the King of kings. Can you imagine a king permitting people to crucify him? And yet he did. Jesus had power. It wasn't a matter of him needing help. Why, he could have called down a legion of angels. There are many legions of angels. He said he could. Simon Peter sought to protect him with a sword. He used the wrong sword. Jesus said, you can put it up now. Not by might, nor by power. If you take the sword, you'll perish with the sword. If you take people into captivity, you're going to go into captivity. That's right. The best man, the King, the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings is being crucified. The sun, I want to give you three unusual things that happened in nature. Number one, the sun went blind for three hours, had a blackout. I mean, that old ball of fire up yonder, she refused to shine. God dropped some black crepe down over his sunshine. The old world was plunged in the darkest of the dark. You'd think it got dark when old Celia came through. My, listen, when Jesus hung on Calvary, I know, you know, Jesus was the most modest man that ever lived. Sometimes you think maybe Brother The little chief in his preaching, because I warned you about the clothes, and we have to drop hymns, you know, and get the girls to wear lady-like clothes, because we don't wear men's clothes. The Bible said not to wear them. What do you think we're going to go by anyhow? We're going to go by the book. What kind of home do you want out here? And so God's people ought to be a model. And yet the Bible said they stripped him. Jerked his clothes off of him. expose the most modest man that ever lived, and you imagine the shame, burn and blushing shame of the Lord Jesus. But I tell you one thing, this old wicked world is going to stand stripped in his presence one of these days. God's going to jerk the mask of religion off of them. and the wrath of God, and God's going to put on his war clothes again, and the people that have crucified him, and hated him, God's going to bring them to judgment one of these days, and strip off all the junk from around them, and they're going to stand there before God. Think about it, when flesh, wicked, sinful, decaying flesh stands stripped before a holy God, with the very vengeance of God burning in their soul. You wait, that'll come. Not very far off, even. And the nations are going to be judged, too. Oh, yes, the judgment morning is rolling around. The sun went blind. He said, I can't shine on that, my soul. I'm not going to give light for anybody to see what's taking place. He said his visage was so marred that he didn't even look like a man. Think about that. Jesus hung on the cross. in such agony and pain and no doubt his hands were twisted and torn and his face was in such tremendous pain. He suffered more because he was so human, he was perfectly human and yet perfectly divine. And I'll tell you something else, he didn't take any tranquilizers and they didn't shoot him with dope in his arms either. He suffered and bled alone. Jesus died for my sin and for yours. This is the very heart of the gospel that we preach tonight. O man of Galilee, how could you love such as we are so much? I wanted Ernie Steen to sing if she'd had the music. The king died for such as I, or who am I, that a king could suffer and die for, or who am I? I'll tell you who am I. Just an old sinner. But I'm thankful that because he died I'm a sinner saved by grace. Know how we need to love him and serve him. But that's not all that happened. The sun turned everything completely dark that day for three long hours from about twelve o'clock until three o'clock in the afternoon. It wasn't an eclipse because you don't ever have an eclipse to last in three hours. It was dark. Something else happened. had a shaking spell. The old earth quaked and jumped up and down. That precious blood of our eternal life began to drop on the ground, roll down that old cross, and somehow or other I feel that the blood was so powerful every time a drop hit the ground the old earth would jump up and down and quiver. Earth quaked and great cracks came in the ground. And God's Son was crucified. It was a horrible time that day. The poor blind religion didn't repent It dusted off their hands. Said, I'm glad we're rid of him, but somebody better go guard the tomb. So he said, will you get your guards yourself? I think Pilate, he said, make it as fast as you can, safe as you can. I think Pilate knew there wasn't anybody going to keep him in the grave. But they got 16 soldiers that went out there, Roman soldiers, big old strong men, swords and spades and spears and all the rest of it. where 16 men could completely encircle the grave, put him in a barred grave, and the next thing that happened, the cemeteries were ripped open. The graves came open. The sun refused to shine, the earth refused to be still, and the graves refused to keep their mouths shut about it. The old graves opened up and said, we might as well get ready because something is taking place. And we don't want any dirt in our way when it comes time to get up. And I tell you, heaven sent out her bulldozers and opened up those old graves, dipped out the dirt, and is all ready for the resurrection. Ah, listen dear friends, can you imagine what a scene we can see now on the third day. My, I tell you this is shouting ground for God's sakes, on the third day. Little old hand of disciples drug off down the road, so I guess it's all over. I thought sure that this new movement was it. I really did. And yet, he's dead. They hauled him off to the grave. We'd put our trust in Him. Listen. I don't understand it. I saw Him feed the hungry, make no charge. I saw Him raise the dead. I saw Him heal the blind. I saw Him unstop deaf ears and turn loose dumb tongues. And I saw Him straighten out crooked limbs. And yet they got Him in the grave. And it's all over. What are we going to do now? And so they went back home. I guess ready maybe to duck back into an old dead religion. And some of them went in and said, I guess that's the power of religion, it's conquered our Christ. The president and founder of the Christian movement. The lowly Nazarene is dead and our hopes are gone. But dear friends, there's another chapter to be written on the third day. The Bible said Jesus got up out of the grave and the 16 soldiers fell back like dead men And Jesus went in and had a meeting with his people. We appreciate you listening to Treasured Heritage. Tune in at the same time every weekday to hear God's Word.