I don't know. I think my mama took me to church probably within a month after I was born. All I can remember ever is going to church, singing these same songs that we sing today. Haven't gotten tired of them yet. Don't reckon I will. Well, let me invite you to open the Word of God to Matthew chapter 27 this morning. Matthew chapter 27 We are still in the passion week of Christ Still in it We're going to start reading in verse 45 this morning Those willing and able I'm going to ask that you stand with me, please and we'll share together the reading of the Word of God and Now from the sixth hour, darkness fell on all the land until the ninth hour. At about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. And that is my God. My God, why have You forsaken me? Let's pray. Father, once again we approach Your Word and Your service with reverence in our hearts for who You are as a sovereign and holy God. We thank Heavenly Father for your great wisdom whereby you have made a way for us to have eternal life and to escape the pits of an eternal hell, which you would have been justified in leaving us in that condition. But not only are you just, you're gracious. You're eternally gracious. We are truly humbled by how You extended to us this wonderful privilege to know You and to have our sins eternally forgiven because of the act of one selfless Son of God. I pray that your love for us this morning will be a great motivation factor for us this week. As we face a world that clearly is in rebellion against you, in anger and hatred fills their hearts. And we will stand as light, a light of love, a love of God that we have tasted that we will share with this world through the power and the help of the Holy Spirit. In Christ's name we pray, Amen. Thank you, and please be seated this morning. And so as we've seen, the Gospels give us this very detailed and accurate description of the crucifixion and the death of Jesus Christ. And there's a sense in which we read this account together this morning, and the verses preceding, the verses after, that tell us about the dying of this one Jesus of Nazareth. We're getting a verbal, a written picture of how a man died on a cross. And so when we read the Gospels, we're transported back in time to a real event, to a real year, to a real month, to a real week, to a real hour as we read the Gospels. It shouldn't be a surprise to us of what we read. It should be rather expected because those of us who are in the Scriptures are familiar with the prophecies, right? And I share with you one prophecy in particular from Daniel. So you are to know and discern, Daniel wrote, from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Messiah, the Prince, that will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. And it will be built again with plaza and moat, even in times of distress, then, After 62 weeks, the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing. Daniel's prophecy 700 years before Jesus ever was on the cross gave us a specific time when Jesus Christ would be crucified. And we would know the time, as a matter of fact. The Gospels give us an inspired account of the prophecy of Daniel. You know, in some ways, the watching of Christ die on the cross wasn't different than watching the two thieves die on either side of Him, on their crosses as well. It's no different. Until we put it all into the context, a bigger context, of God. From God's perspective, what appears to be a spontaneous revolt was not spontaneous whatsoever. 700 years earlier, the Bible says as Peter was preaching He said, Men of Israel, listen to these words. Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through him in your midst, just as you yourselves know, this man, delivered over by the predestined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death. Peter knew about Daniel's prophecy. He knew the predetermined plan of God. He understood. He looked back and he saw what God was doing. Peter said that Jesus was handed over, that He was delivered over. A compound Greek word, which simply means that God gave Jesus unto these men to do with what they would want to. It reminds us again of what we saw in chapter 27 and verse 27 earlier, when Pilate turned Jesus Christ over to the soldiers to do with Him. whatever they wanted to do with Him. From an earthly perspective, the soldiers took authority over Jesus Christ. But when we look at it from Peter's perspective, when we look at it from God's perspective, that's not what happened at all. From God's perspective, God gave them authority over Jesus Christ. That's really what was happening in the scene that we're looking at. You can't take what God hadn't given. Are you saying that under God's authority then that they did these horrible, humiliating, disgusting things to Jesus Christ? That's exactly what I'm saying. I'm saying that God gave them authority to do everything that they did to Jesus Christ. But what they did to Jesus Christ was evil. What they did to Jesus Christ was demonic. What they did to Jesus Christ was wicked. Yes, it was. It was. But, but, but, but by God's standards, it is His way to deliver us from eternal hell. This is how Paul explained it. In Him we have redemption through His blood. Through His blood. The forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace. What? According to the riches of His grace. We are forgiven only because the blood of Jesus Christ was spilled on the cross. That's the only way that we can possibly be forgiven. That our trespasses can be covered by His blood. They tortured Him, they beat Him, they killed Him to bring about God's desire to redeem us by His grace. When we look again at what they did to Jesus Christ from an earthly standpoint, what they did is quite natural. I mean, Pilate thought he was in control. The soldiers thought they were in control. The high priest thought he was in control. The elders thought they were in control. Everybody thought they were in control of what was happening. But they weren't in control at all. As we read from Peter, God was the one who was in control. We need to look at these events from God's perspective and see reality as it really is. Jesus made this very clear in an earlier discussion that he had with Pilate. Pilate said, I've got the power to let you go or to crucify you. Jesus looked at Pilate. He said, you would have no authority over me unless it had been given to you from above. For this reason, he who delivered me to you has the greater sin. Who was it that had the greater sin? Who was it that delivered Jesus Christ to Pilate? It was Caiaphas and the high priest. Jesus said, they're the ones who have the greater sin. But this is a monumental statement and I think it helps us understand how Jesus Christ interpreted what he was going through. It's an important statement because he recognized that it wasn't Pilate that had authority over him. It wasn't the Roman government that had authority over him. It wasn't the high priest that had authority over him. It certainly wasn't Caesar who had authority over him. Jesus was saying to Pilate, the only one who has any authority, any control over me whatsoever is my Heavenly Father. And I am going to do His will, and thus by doing His will, I am going to be completely obedient to God regardless of what it looks like to you. regardless of what it looks like to you. That little discussion, I think, that took place between Pilate and Jesus Christ, I think is an eye-opener, at least to me, because I think it highlights, at least to me, why there is disobedience in my life. I mean, just like Pilate and just like all of us, we think we're in control. It's our natural inclination to think that we have control over life and we have authority to do what we want to do or that some other earthly power has authority. We're living in a culture today where the government is trying to assert more and more authority over our lives. Where politicians are trying to assert more and more authority over our lives. Where social leaders are trying to assert more and more authority over our lives. We've got to realize they don't have the authority. They're not in control of us. We're not to be obedient to them. Our president doesn't control us. You are in two realities. There is a reality in which what you are experiencing in your body, what you're experiencing in this life, is real. Just like Jesus Christ going to the cross was real. But there's another reality. And that reality is why the things that are happening to you are happening. That is a bigger reality than the physical reality that we are going through. What was happening to Jesus was real, but he was able to understand why it was happening to him because he was looking at his life from a spiritual, King of God perspective. He understood his life from a Kingdom of God perspective. He was experiencing real life. Don't make any bones about it. But he understood God's perspective. It's the kingdom of God authority over everything that happens to us on this earth and embracing that reality that God is in control that is going to determine how you respond to your circumstances in life. Bottom line. Jesus saw the authority of God over everything that happened to him, folks, and he lived his life in subjection to that authority. From an earthly perspective, the crucifixion of Christ looked just like all other crucifixions. But from a kingdom perspective, it was the saving power of God. Paul said this, but we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling block, to the Gentiles foolishness. But those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ. power of God and the wisdom of God when the Gentiles look at the cross they said it's foolishness but when we look at the cross we see the power of God and we see the wisdom of God because we have a different perspective the cross what they had verse 45 verse 45 pick up the scene with me please in verse 45 Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour." And so we're picking up the crucifixion of Christ in the middle. Neither Matthew nor Luke really tell us when Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross. Mark tells us, though, that it was the third hour when they crucified him. Now, if you were to go to the Gospel of John, you would see that John talks about Jesus talking to Pilate in the sixth hour, which would be six o'clock in the morning. Mark tells us that Jesus was crucified at the ninth hour, which was nine o'clock in the morning. So you see there's this three hour difference here and the three hour difference can be attributed to the fact that John is simply recording the events. He's not specifically talking about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. He's just talking about all the stuff that started and when it started about six o'clock in the morning when he first appeared before Pilate. You gotta remember John wrote some 60 years after Mark did. So having said that, it seems natural that we should go with Mark's rendition, which was the third hour, or the sixth hour, which is about nine o'clock in the morning. Nine o'clock in the morning, or the third hour. And so we pick up the scene here in the sixth hour at nine o'clock in the morning. The sixth hour, nine o'clock in the morning. And Matthew is very definitive. He says that From the 6th hour to the 9th hour, there was darkness on the earth. That would be from noon till 3 o'clock, there was darkness upon the earth. My translation says that darkness fell upon the earth. If the King James Version there says, There was darkness. The Greek word ginomai simply means to be or to become. And so the idea here is that he's saying that the hours that were normally marked by light became dark. That's what he's saying. The hours normally marked by light became dark. What all the Gospels agree on was that this was totally unnatural, that this was a supernatural event. It went from being light to being dark without any reasonable explanation. This is not a natural phenomenon. This was not the same kind of darkness that came at night when the sun went down and darkness prevailed upon the earth. That is not the same kind of darkness that he's talking about here. some say well this was an eclipse this couldn't possibly be an eclipse it was impossible to be an eclipse and why it was it was not an eclipse is because the Passover always came on full moon and the full moon was on the opposite side of the earth of the sun and so there's no way the moon would pass between the two and cause an eclipse this was something that was absolutely supernatural that was going on here. So what's going on? What was happening? Bible says it became dark. Nobody prepared for it. Nobody was ready for it. Nobody had their candles ready. Nobody had any oil in their lamps. Nobody had their torches at this particular time. There was no light anywhere. when it became dark. They couldn't see where they were going. They couldn't see what to do. They couldn't see what was happening on the cross. They didn't even know what to say. There was total silence. Not even the animals were making any noise. It was total deafening, complete silence. They were overawed by what was happening. The people were filled with fear and terror. What happened was so astonishing that they didn't know what to say. Next, what they were witnessing was beyond words. It was literally physically dark. Dark. This was not a figment of their imagination. This was not some psychotic state that they were in. It was a darkness like any other darkness they had ever experienced. Do you remember when Moses introduced us to darkness? Do you remember when Moses introduced us in Genesis chapter 1 to darkness? Do you remember this story? In verse 2, the Scripture says, "...the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Before there was light, there was darkness. And then God called forth the light, and He called it day, and the darkness He called night. And that light, whatever it was, and that darkness, whatever it was, on day one, continued to alternate day and night. That is until the fourth day. What happened on the fourth day? God created what? The sun and the moon. So there was darkness and light before there was a sun and a moon. So on the fourth day he creates sunlight. And apparently the darkness that came before the fourth day wasn't the darkness of the absence of the sun. And apparently the light before the fourth day was not the result of the sun. And so there was this darkness that was not attached to the fourth day in the darkness where the sun was absent or the light where the sun was there. But a darkness, a darkness that came over all creation. The darkness was over the surface of the deep. It was there. So where did this darkness that we start in verse 2 with come from? Where did it come from? Since God is light, did God do something that was uncharacteristic of Him and create darkness? If God is light, there's no darkness in Him. Did God do something extraordinary and create something He didn't have within Him the ability to do and create darkness? I don't think so. John said, this is the message we have from Him, and announced to you that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. So where did this darkness come from that we start the Scriptures out with in Genesis chapter 1 and verse 2? I think that only leaves us with one alternative. Satan. Satan. It's an evil darkness. Now since Satan cannot create anything, pardon me, anything, he can only take what God has created and pervert it. And Satan took the light and he perverted it when he fell from heaven and turned it into darkness. What did Jesus say? When he was in the garden, when he was in the garden, they came to get him, they came to arrest him in the garden. What did Jesus say to the Pharisees? What did he say to the high priest? What did he say to those people who came to arrest him? Do you remember what he said? Just a few hours before he was crucified, this is what Jesus said. While I was with you, daily, in the temple, You did not lay hands on me, but this hour and the power of darkness are yours. So Jesus was in the garden just moments before this, just hours before this darkness fell here, and Jesus said to them, the power of darkness is yours. And the word for power, exousia, has the idea of the right to do something and to carry it to its completion. The right to do something, he says you have the right to do this and you have the authority and the power to carry it to its completion. So God gave Satan the right to do whatever he wanted to do to Jesus Christ and bring it to its full completion, to its final end, to its ultimate result. The power of darkness is yours. That's what Jesus said. It's yours. Can you imagine for a moment giving Satan Full control. Can you imagine turning Satan loose? No holds barred. You're free to do whatever you want to do. Can you imagine that? The power of darkness is yours. So God withdrew from Christ all of His protection and all of His defenses and all of His grace and all of His mercy and all of His love and all of His compassion and He turned Jesus Christ over to the devil. And Jesus is completely under Satan's power in that time period. And Satan threw everything he had against Jesus Christ. This is the Mount of Temptation. You remember when Jesus was on the Mount of Temptation and Satan came to Jesus Christ? This is the Mount of Temptation on steroids. Satan was turned loose. He attacked Jesus Christ with every spare demon that he had. He threw every temptation that would ever come upon men. He reminded Christ of those who had rejected him and who were in Hades. He sent every kind of torture he possibly could upon Jesus Christ in this darkness of three hours. He opened up Hades and reminded him of those who rejected him. He opened up the horrors of war and deprivation and death and sorrow and grief and looked full on Christ Jesus. All of it. All of it. From noon till three o'clock, Christ was in the darkness. Satan throwing everything. possibly could at Jesus Christ. The question then becomes, what was he trying to do? What was Satan hoping to accomplish? What was Satan's goal? What was the one thing that would cause God's eternal plan of salvation to fail? Let me tell you what. There's only one thing, there was only one thing that would give Satan his victory and the victory that he wanted was to somehow get Jesus Christ to turn his back on God. The whole goal The whole essence, the whole design of this moment of three hours was to somehow get Jesus Christ to deny His Heavenly Father, to deny the promises of God, and for Jesus Christ for one nanosecond to say, I give. That was the goal. You remember the first commandment? What's the first commandment? What did Jesus say? You shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy soul. Satan's goal was to somehow or another get Jesus Christ to break that commandment. If he would have failed, if he would have failed in loving God on the cross, with all the demons of hell possibly upon Him and remain true. And to get Him to fail somehow to not remain true, everything would have collapsed. Verse 46. Now about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani, that is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Satan had unmitigated authority over Jesus Christ. And so all the power of Satan and all that sin that men were guilty of were released upon Jesus Christ. And all the power of darkness carried with it all the sins of man. Peter says this, and he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross. Because God is God and because Jesus Christ is God, He was able, between the both of them, God was able in His omnipotent power and omniscience to deliver every sin that we would ever be guilty of upon Jesus Christ in His body as He was on the cross. All the guilt and all the shame He put on Jesus Christ as He hung on the cross. And then, I want you to hear hear what Jesus said in response to all of this. What did Jesus say? My God, my God, I don't know if we understand the power of that second person personal pronoun, my, two letters, my, He didn't say a God, your God, the God. When Jesus got to the end he proclaimed my God, my God. Why did he say that? He said that because Satan did not break him. God was still his God. And in the ninth hour, and the power of darkness, the power of Satan, the power of sin, Finally broken when Jesus Christ said, you are still my God. The miracle isn't that God abandoned Jesus Christ. That's not the miracle. God did what God needed to do because Jesus Christ had become our sin. The miracle is that when Jesus Christ got to the end, He said, you're still my God. I'm still faithful to you. I have not broken the law. I love you. I will serve you and I will be obedient to you. That's what he said when he said, you're still my God. Satan's not my God. The government's not my God. There's only one God and you're my father and you're my God. That's what he said when he said that. It's not a cry of defeat. It's a cry of faithfulness in spite of everything that he had not abandoned his father or his father's will. It's evident that he had completed the task. Look at the Scriptures again. It says in verse 45 that from the sixth hour, darkness fell upon all the land. until the ninth hour. And then in the ninth hour, the darkness ended. The darkness was over. Jesus cried, my God, my God. And the sun came out and no time was lost. But time picked up where it had ended when the sun went down. It went on. It continued on. And when the ninth hour came, the sun came out. And when the sun came out, Satan knew he had lost. When Jesus said, My God, Satan knew he had lost. Satan knew that he had been defeated. and that Christ was the fulfillment and the embodiment of the command, you shall have no gods before me. No other gods before me was the command that he gave the nation of Israel. You shall have no other gods before me. Jesus Christ came back in his rightful position of obedience to God. Satan did his best to get Jesus Christ to deny God. and to disobey God, which is the basis, I remind you, of all of your righteousness. Any time we sin, we are denying the supremacy of God in our lives, which is His rightful position in our lives. Jesus won our righteousness through His refusal to bow before anyone except the Heavenly Father and be obedient to Him at all times. That is where your righteousness is. And because of His obedience on the cross, hell is not in your future. It's not there. Paul said this, "...giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light, for He rescued us from the dominion of darkness." He rescued us from the dominion, the authority, and the power of darkness through His own death on the cross through darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son. If you are without Christ, you are in the dominion of darkness. You are. You say, how can I get a transfer? How can I get out from the dominion of darkness and into the kingdom of light? Number one, you repent. You repent of any idea that you can do anything whatsoever to help you win God's approval. That you have no power whatsoever in you to do what is 100% You don't have it. And that brings you to one conclusion, to put your faith in the one who did, through the cross, through the night, who came out victorious with a robe of righteousness, which he will put on your shoulders when you trust his son as your personal savior. That is his promise. I'm going to ask Brother R.D. to come and help us with an invitation to him this morning. Each and every one of us need to bow in humble reverence before what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross. We could not have done it. We could not have sustained obedience. We could not have sustained unbroken love. to our Heavenly Father. We couldn't have done it. Jesus said, I am the truth, the way, and the life. He said that for a reason. Because He's the only one that ever did it. Right? He's the only one. There's no other option. Christ is it. I'm going to ask that you stand with me, please. And Brother R.D. is going to introduce our hymn. And we're going to pray. 544 Father, we thank You so much for the opportunity to be in Your house today and to worship You and to open Your Word. We thank You so very much for what we've experienced today from Your Word, the death of Jesus Christ, how He went to the cross, how He faced off, how He squared off with all the forces of demon and hell and sin and death. And He came out on the other side. And the sun broke out and He said, My God, You're still my God. You're still my God. evidence of His faithfulness, evidence of His complete obedience. And we call that righteousness. And He so much loves us that is willing through our repentance and faith to deposit that righteousness into our account and give us the hope of eternal life that will never fade. It'll never fade. Draw us close to You, Lord. We want to be faithful. We want to be faithful if possible. We want to be faithful just like Christ and serve you and love you to the very end. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.