your Bibles to Matthew chapter 27 and while you're turning there we are meeting for the Lord's Supper this morning as well and we want to consider participation in that supper. It is a sacrament. It is a means of grace that is always joined with the preaching of the Word. It doesn't stand alone. It always is connected with faithful admonition from the Lord's Word of the Lord. but it is not for everyone. It is for those who love the Lord Jesus Christ, but there are other certain stipulations. In order to come to the Lord's table, you must have repented of your sins and that you are trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ apart from any works of your own for right standing with God, that you have been born again. As a result, those who have been born again are required to be baptized. And so, if you have been baptized, baptism is the sign of union, which always precedes the Lord's Supper, which is the sign of communion. And as a result of that then, Baptism connects you to a visible church and you ought to be a member in good standing of a local church, particularly of this church. But you are also not living secretly and unrepentantly in sin, but are striving by the help of the Holy Spirit to glorify God with your entire life. and that you are currently a communing member in good standing of a reformed or evangelical church if you're visiting, and that you've not been excommunicated or disciplined by that church because we do respect the discipline of other faithful churches. So bear that in mind as we listen to the word of the Lord and prepare our hearts for the Lord's Supper. As we're going through the Gospel of Matthew in the Lord's providence, we are in fact studying this morning about one of the passages about the death of the Lord Jesus. And so we want to read from Matthew chapter 27 beginning at verse 27 and through 44. Matthew 27 verse 27. This is the word of God. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers. 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. And they spit upon him and took the reed and smote him on the head. And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him and 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. 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 and another on the left. They that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads, 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 priests 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 and we will believe him. He trusted in God, let him deliver him now, if he will 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." That's far in the reading of God's Word. Let us pray. O Lord, our God, as we consider these sacred moments in the life, the very end of the life on the earth of our Lord Jesus Christ, We pray that we may receive thy word with solemnity and with reverence. We pray, Lord, that it may be blessed of thee to the building up of thy church and our own hearts' preparation to receive the Lord's Supper. We ask, Lord, that Thou wouldst be pleased to break down every barrier, deliver us from a hardened heart or a stiff neck. We pray, Lord, that we may be healed unto Thee, that our hearts may be made tender by Thy Spirit to receive good things for our soul, the good things of eternity. We ask that Thou wouldst hear our prayer now. For Jesus' sake we pray, amen. of a congregation, most of us do not enjoy being disliked or losing friends, it happens. And it's often very awkward, uncomfortable, and it's something that we don't really enjoy when it happens. But that is made even worse when people are actively mocking you and making fun of you. They're not just disliking you for some minor reason, they're actively opposing you and making fun of you, especially when that mockery is unjust. If you know that you've done the right thing and somebody makes fun of you for it, it's very hard to take that, isn't it? But we want to look this morning at our savior as we see him enduring blasphemy against him and many unjust accusations. So we want to consider these cruel mockings, mockery by the army, mockery in action, mockery in advertising, and mockery in accusation. We see, first of all, that the Lord Jesus is mocked by the army. Pilate has delivered sentence. Jesus is to be crucified. He's yielded not to righteousness. He's yielded, as we saw last week, not to the many declarations of Jesus' innocence, because we saw that Jesus was not found guilty. He was found innocent, repeatedly. He was declared to be innocent. And yet, Pilate yields to the cry of the mob, saying, crucify, crucify. He delivers them over to the army. He says, take them over to the place of crucifixion, to Mount Golgotha. And then the army has their way with him. Now, these are men who are themselves under authority. Remember the centurion that came to Jesus for the healing of his daughter? He understood authority. Jesus marveled at what he understood. And these men must have a pretty good understanding of what authority is. They're soldiers. They're not, as far as we know, officers. But they now have Jesus, whom they have probably seen heal and preach, heard preach, and they have him where they want him. And so we're going to have our day with this one who says he's a king. Come, let's take off his garment, we'll put on a scarlet robe, and we'll make a mockery. Said he was a king, let's pretend he was a king. And so they put A scarlet robe on him, they put on a crown of thorns. They take time to make a crown of thorns. They press it on his head, and they give him a reed for a scepter. And then they all laugh. Look, isn't this a wonderful joke? How clever we are to make fun of this man. And they bow down before him, and they say, Hail, King of the Jews. And then they spit on him. They spit in his face. And I can't think of too many things worse than that. But they actually spit upon him. They take the reed and they hit him on the head with it. And they removed his robe then finally and led him away to be crucified. So beloved, I hope this is a touching scene for you. As other portions that we've seen here in Matthew, you almost wonder why the Holy Spirit determined that it should be part of our scripture. But you read about it and even describe it in ways that are, you just don't want to say them. But they are, the Lord has given this description, this detailed description of the mockery of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you need to know it, and you need to know about it, in exactly the amount of detail that we have, not only in Matthew, but all of the Gospels. So, beloved, I imagine, and I hope and trust that this pulled at your heart, is this, You're a king. One of the other gospel writers says that he was so beaten in fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy that you couldn't even tell he was a man. Everything is just so swollen by this time, even on his face. And he hardly can call him a man. And this is the abuse that he suffers. And now, if we were there, we know, doctrinally, we know that we are guilty of a sin. Apart from the Holy Spirit, we would have been involved in the cry, crucify him, because naturally, we don't like the righteousness and the perfection of Christ's holiness. It disturbs the natural man. And he dislikes it. When he's confronted with it, he wants it out of the way. Crucify. Crucify. Get rid of him. Get him out of my life. But here, looking after the fact then, as those who are the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, is this your king? He doesn't look much like a king, does he? And the world now has him exactly where they want him. even these soldiers. How could a king allow these things to happen? We might, by parallel, think about what would happen if they did this to Queen Elizabeth. Of course, she's very frail anyway, but even in her stronger years, where she maybe would have had a little bit of pushback, you'd think, that's just a cruel, mean-spirited thing to do to someone who hasn't even been found guilty. Again, repeatedly, he was declared innocent, but Pilate said he was guilty, so off he goes to die. So now we're going to have our way with him. Now we'll just mock him. King of the Jews, eh? Yeah, we'll see what kind of a king you are. But do you behold your king? This is the king of all glory. This is the king who willingly suffered for his church. And he is a king. He is a king. His face doesn't look like a king because it's swollen and filled with spit. But by faith, do you see the Lord Jesus in this situation as your king? He is a king. And he's governing. As he's suffering, we can say, in a sense, he's sustaining the world. Doesn't it add to the insult that he's being insulted and mocked by people that he created? That he gave life to each of those. He knows them on some level. He knows that they're flesh and blood that he had a hand in creating. So there's the mockery by the army And then we have what I've called mockery in action. And again, the weakness of the Lord Jesus is emphasized here in verse 32. And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name, him they compelled to bear his cross. So here's Jesus in his humanity, and surely one of the strongest men, because he had a perfect body, and yet he's shown to be weak, he can't carry this cross. It would have been a great burden. But Simon of Cyrene is called to bear the cross, and the Lord Jesus likely has been awake for, what, 24 more hours through the trial, through the night. And here he is compelled to, or Simon is compelled to take his cross. So he appears to be very, very weak. And they took him to Golgotha, the place of the skull. It's the place that Hebrews says is outside the camp. So he was tried within the cities, he was taken outside the camp. And the writer to the Hebrews, let's turn there for a moment to Hebrews chapter 13. been looking at this just recently on Wednesday nights. Hebrews 13, when the argument here is to the Jews particularly who the gospel say you don't need the tabernacle, you need the altar, but he says we do have an altar, Christians have an altar too. And that altar is the Lord Jesus Christ. And Wherefore, verse 12, wherefore Jesus also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered without the gate, outside of the gate. And here's the exhortation then, let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp bearing his reproach. Not in the place where everybody is dwelling and doing their business, it's the place where Who was there? The lepers, the criminals, the vile. It was a garbage heap. It was a disgusting place to be and it had disgusting associations. And Jesus was taken outside the camp to suffer for the sins of his people. The writer of the Hebrew says, let us go therefore outside the camp bearing his reproach. And that is what the Lord calls us to do, to bear the reproach of Christ. We often say that The world is no friend to grace. They hate a gospel of grace. They hate a gospel that has nothing to do with works. That's purely a gift of God. And so here is the reproach then that we bear. Even as we gather at the Lord's Supper, we're identifying very intimately with the reproach of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is not a table which the world appreciates except in an external sense. There are many people that want to partake of the elements because they think that there's some holiness connected with that. We see that especially in, well, any church, the Roman Catholic Church, even some Anglican churches put an emphasis on a misuse of this term, the means of grace. Some people think that just by taking the elements, you're going to receive a blessing from the Lord. That's not the case. Only if you partake with the hands of faith. You have to partake with physical hands. You have to have physical bread and physical wine. Isn't that true? Those are elements, but we only receive a benefit, beloved, when we partake by faith. So we go outside. Here we are following Christ then, outside the camp. He's going to be crucified, and his faithful ones are following him, bearing his reproach. Once he's out there, they gave him vinegar to drink. Verse 34, they gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall. And when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. Why would he not drink, beloved? It's not just because it's bitter, the vinegar, but it's because it was something that was administered to people who were crucified in order to take away the pain. It was a kind of anesthesia. And so here is something you have to die, but we don't want to make it worse than it is already very, very cruel. We'll give you this as an act of mercy. Jesus said, no, I'm not going to take anything that's going to lessen the pain. I'm going to bear the fullness of the wrath of my father against sin. And I want to be conscious and aware of what's happening. We had a friend of ours who died quite a while ago. She died of cancer, and it was her wish, and she was able to, not everyone gets to this wish fulfilled, but she said, I don't want any drugs administered to me before I die, because I want to be lucid as I pass into the presence of my saviors. Interesting, interesting thought. But here, Jesus wants to actually bear the wrath. He must. He must bear the wrath of the Father, the full wrath against sin. And it can't be minimized in any way. He must bear that wrath in order to be our Savior. Spurgeon said, he solemnly determined that to offer a sufficient atoning sacrifice, he must go the whole way from the highest to the lowest, from the throne of highest glory to the cross of deepest woe. So beloved, if his mind would have been unclear, how would he have been able to pray for those around him? He did, didn't he? How could he pray for those around him? mind is all unmuddled. If his mind was unclear, how could he have given us those seven sayings on the cross? And we'll look at them, Lord willing, a few of them next Lord's Day, but he would have just been in a daze. He wanted to be clear, and he was very clear-minded so that he could atone for the sins of his people. And then they cast lots for his garments. Verse 35, 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. It's a fulfillment of the prophecy in Psalm 22. Verse 18, they part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture. So here the Lord died and a picture is here of his unified garment, the unity of that garment, a picture of the garment of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ that is given to vile sinners, these soldiers. In that case, they didn't appreciate it. It's always given to those who appreciate. We're not always aware of the fullness of the meaning of that garment. It's a beautiful growth and grace to appreciate that we bear and are adorned with the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we have the mockery by the army, a mockery in action by those around him. We have also a mockery in advertising. Verse 37, they set up over his head his accusation written, this is Jesus, the King of the Jews. The chief priest said, take that sign down and don't say this is the King of the Jews, but say he said that he was the King of the Jews. And what did Pilate say? What I have written, I have written. So God determined that the signage was going to stay as it was. This was a declaration. Jesus is the King of the Jews. So God's sovereignty overruled their authority. what they wanted to say, and Pilate said what God wanted them to say. So here's the king of the Jews hanging upon a cross, and again, is it not by faith that you have to receive then that Christ is your savior? Against all the objections and cries and the mob mentality that's going on around you, you're gonna say this is the king of the Jews, this is my king. And then we have mockery in accusation. He was crucified between two guilty thieves, verse 38. Then were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand and another on the left. They blasphemed. Verse 39, and they that pass by reviled, the word there is a Greek word that you may be familiar with. It's blasphemous, it's blasphemy. We have that word in English. They blasphemed him and they wagged their heads. And that word just means, you know, they shook their head like they're pitying him. How can a man be so deluded? They weren't short of blasphemies, but they just kind of said, you know, this is a pretty sad case before us. And then they raised up the challenge. Prove yourself to be the Son of God. They said, verse 40, thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be'st the Son of God, come down from the cross. So everyone is saying this, now show us, show us that you're the son of God. Verse 41, likewise also the chief priests mocking him with the scribes and elders said, he saved others, talked about salvation, he forgave sins, he saved others, himself he cannot save. Look at him. If he be the king of Israel, let him now come down from the cross and we will believe him. Is that true? Well, it's not true. They would not have believed him. Remember the rich man in Lazarus? Send Abraham to my brothers. See, even from the flames of hell, people want to control God and tell him what to do. You tell my brothers. If they heard Abraham, they would listen. And Jesus said, no, they won't. They won't listen. The one rose from the dead. Of course, he's talking about himself there. The one rise from the dead. They have Moses and the prophets. They've got lots of evidence, even in the Old Testament, much less the fulfillment of the new. But how brave they are here, right? If he be the king of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. If you do our bidding, you prove yourself to me, and I will present myself to you. And that's the way the natural man is, just calling all the shots. This whole idea of free will is really destroyed here, isn't it? Where people are not willing to yield to God as he is, as he's presented in the scriptures, the plan of salvation, the way of salvation that's presented clearly through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, if we had another thing, if we could command Christ, it would be a different story. We would believe you. This is exactly what happens when man exercises his so-called free will. He makes demands of God to prove himself. And perhaps you've heard stories, perhaps you've even gone through a situation like that where You know, Jesus didn't, I pled with Jesus for something. I asked God for something and he never gave it to me. So he is not a God who hears prayers, not a God who answers prayer. So I'm not going to have anything to do with him because he didn't do my bidding because he wasn't God in the way that I thought he should be God. but a yielded heart just submits entirely to everything that God says, not just about Christ and the Holy Spirit and God, the Holy Trinity, but also what God says about you. It's hard to take. It's hard to take what God says about you if you really understand it. You need faith to believe that you're a guilty, vile sinner whose sin can be covered only by the blood of the Son of God. Isn't that an extreme case? How can you be saved? No man can die for you. No man can shed his blood for you unless he's also God. That's the case of the Christian. That's the plea of the Christian and the awareness of his own depravity. So here's the lie. If you do what we say, we will believe. So God is, everybody loves God when he's their puppet. when he fulfills their command. But as soon as God starts making demands or requirements or requests, demands, then no, he couldn't be a God like that anymore. So these are very hard, hard, verses to read, a very difficult passage. I certainly haven't done it justice even in describing what's there. It was a very, very intense day. As we come to the Lord's Supper, we want to remember that this sacrament is exactly about the very scene that we have just read about. Remember, we're remembering the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. We meet every week to remember his resurrection, or on account of his resurrection, right? We're coming to that in a few weeks, to talk about his glorious resurrection, his victory over death. But this table was given to us to remember his death. We don't have a crucifix. We don't have a picture of Jesus on a cross. But this is what Christ has given us, to remember his death. And he says, you know, you're prone to forget. You need to be reminded. You need to be reminded that your sin caused the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This is your only hope of salvation, is the blood that's represented by the wine the broken body that's represented by the bread. And as you take the bread then, beloved, and you feel the bread being ground by your teeth, you remember that Jesus was ground down by the wrath of the Father. And he did it without holding back. He couldn't say, this is my son, so I wouldn't punish you as much as I would somebody else. He poured out all of his wrath upon his own son. Why? Isn't God a loving God? Absolutely, he's a loving God. But he's also a just God. He's a just God. and part of what we call the doctrine of the simplicity of God. He's not loving sometimes and angry other times. He is the same all the time and evenly. He is God in a way that we can't understand. We don't think we can be, or we are not very often loving and angry at the same time. God can be. But in order for his justice, the demands of his justice to be met, He had to pour everything out upon the Lord Jesus, everything. He couldn't hold back and say, well, this is my only son. I'm not going to give him everything. If he hadn't, your sins wouldn't be covered, would they? You would still be in your sins. But we can look and say, Jesus received everything. that I would have received in a lifetime of hell and eternal damnation. Jesus received that upon the cross in just a few hours. Who could bear that but one who is also God? A mere human could never bear that because a mere human would have to spend eternity in hell. But Jesus suffered that punishment in those few hours for all of the sins of his elect. Isn't that remarkable? And what a grievous, grievous thing it was for him. What an agony it was. And we have to remember that it was agony because he suffered these things in his body. It's a very gloomy scene, but it's also very victorious. Before we go to the Lord's Supper, I want to quote from F.W. Krumacher, he was a German theologian, wrote on The Suffering Savior, just a beautiful, beautiful book. This is what he said. The lion of the tribe of Judah bleeds, but his blood is the enemy's overthrow. He falls into the hands of his adversaries, but this is the means of rescuing us out of their hands. He suffers himself to be fettered by the bands of Belial, but his chains beget our liberty. He empties the cup of wrath, but only that he may fill it with blessings for us. He suffers himself to be wounded in the heel, but at the same moment breaks the head of the old serpent and conquers the enemy, like Samson, by his fall. Let us open our Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 11 as we prepare to partake of the Lord's Supper. I'll call upon the elder and our brother Carl also to assist in distributing the elements. 1 Corinthians chapter 11. beginning at verse 23. Apostle Paul says, for I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks, he break it and said, take, eat. This is my body, which is broken for you, this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup when he had supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood. This do ye as oft as ye drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come. Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. So let us pray. O Lord our God, how precious unto our souls is the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ. Though we view with great abhorrence the goriness, the pain, the agony, the wickedness of his death, yet we hold it to be precious. as needful for the salvation of our sinful souls. We thank Thee that Thou has made full atonement by the blood of our Savior to redeem us out of all sin and iniquity. And how we praise and bless Thee this morning that the Lord Jesus Christ, in the hours approaching His death, took time to give unto us this remembrance of his dying. Lord, we pray that as we partake of these elements, that thou would bless them as a means of grace whereby we may grow in faithful service towards the Lord Jesus Christ and in love and devotion to Christ. We pray thy blessing upon these elements. consecrate them to this special use for which Christ has designated them. We pray that each one may partake with hands of faith, believing that Christ is their King, that Christ is their Savior and Redeemer. Lord, we pray that as Thy covenant people, we may receive Thy rich blessings. Thank Thee, Lord, and praise Thy name, for Jesus' sake, amen.