we read there in Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53 is a prophetic passage about the suffering of the Savior and as we come into the week of what's often called the Passion Week. It's actually a phrase used there on the Book of Acts. But the week in which Christ entered into Jerusalem for the last time and stayed there, was arrested, put on trial, crucified. buried and then risen again. What we'll celebrate next Sunday, commemorate especially next Sunday, is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But when looking here, starting last week and then today and then next week, just at these important doctrines of Christ last week, looking into the essential belief that we have in the perfect and sinless life of Jesus Christ, perfect in every way, sinless in every way, and how important that is for that to be the truth and for that to be the case. And had that not been, that we would not have a Savior that could die for us on the cross, that His death would not have been the redemptive work that it is. And what we look at here today is that sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, that substitutionary death of Jesus Christ, that was so fundamental and foundational to our salvation, that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. and that the blood of bulls and goats, as it tells us in the book of Hebrews, the blood of bulls and goats could only provide for a temporary covering, a temporary satisfaction of the demands of God's justice, but Jesus Christ died for us once for all. And it would not even be possible had Jesus Christ not been fully God, but fully man, and entirely perfect, and holy, and sinless in His life. And it was absolutely essential that He did come, and He was virgin born, and that He lived a sinless life, and went to the cross to die in our place. when Jesus kept his final Passover with his apostles, that we call the Last Supper, and the model for what we call the Lord's Supper, an ordinance of the church. When he had kept his Last Supper, and that final Passover meal with his apostles, he led them out to the Garden of Gethsemane, And there in the garden of Gethsemane, he spent time in prayer. He asked his apostles to pray. Judas had left from the supper early and had gone to betray Jesus Christ. The other eleven went with Christ to the garden. He left eight of them in one place and he took Three of them, what's sometimes called the inner circle, Peter, James and John, took them farther in to the garden and left them in a place and charged them to pray and to watch and to pray. And then Jesus went a little farther away from them and He began to pray. And one of the things that's recorded for us in His prayer was that He had said, Oh my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. But nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. And Jesus submitted Himself to the will of God. The cup that He was about to drink of was the suffering that He was about to endure in a physical sense, but the separation that He would experience from the Father for the only time, when we say the only time in all of eternity that Christ was not one with the Father and that He was separated from the Father, was while He hung on the cross, bearing the sins of mankind. And Jesus prayed, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me. Nevertheless, not My will but Thine be done. And Jesus Christ submitted Himself to drink of that cup of suffering, and drink of that cup of separation from the Father, and drink of that cup of substitution for My sins and for your sins. being fully man, Jesus would experience the physical pain of what He would endure just like we would. Some false doctrines that have cropped up over the centuries about Jesus Christ have suggested that He did not experience the pain of the beatings and of the torture and of the crucifixion the way that we would experience it as only man. because of His deity, that His suffering was in some way attenuated, and that is not what the Bible shows. Jesus Christ felt the pain of the beating that He took from the Roman soldiers, of the beard being plucked out, of the crown of thorns being plaited upon His brow, of being nailed to the cross, and suffering there for hours, suffering there on the cross. He felt every bit of it the way that you or I would feel it. And maybe more so because many suggest from other historical records that any one of those things might have been the death of a mere mortal. And Jesus Christ endured all of it. He felt it just like we would and felt all of the pain being fully God. and having never experienced the taint of sin, having never experienced separation from the Father would be absolutely agonizing for Him, but He drank of that cup to take your place, to take my place on the cross. He endured both of those things willingly for our sake. Isaiah 53 and some other places prophetically give us a little bit of a picture into what Jesus Christ would endure. And in the Gospels, All four Gospels record the crucifixion story. It's in Matthew 27, it's in Mark 15, it's in Luke chapter 23, and it's in John chapter 19. And I would encourage you here, three on his left and one on his right, and Christ hung on the middle cross there. And so it was a punishment that the Romans would impose a capital punishment that they would impose on those they deemed worthy of it, and they condemned to death according to their law. And these other two were justly crucified according to the law. One of them admits that, that they were suffering justly for what they had done as being thieves and criminals, and whatever it had been that they had truly done, they were suffering justly. But Christ did not deserve the punishment that He took upon Him. He did not deserve to be crucified. He did not deserve to be executed and put to death the way that he was. But Roman crucifixion was regarded as the worst way to die. purposefully designed and meant to be a slow and an agonizing death. In fact, the word applied would be excruciating, and our word excruciating refers back to crucifixion. The root in that shares the same root word as crucifixion. And so for something to be excruciating would be to liken it to death by crucifixion. It was intended to be a horrible way to die. Slow and agonizing and painful and just the worst, worst way to die. being fastened to a cross and lifted up for all to see was meant to not only take the life ultimately of the subject of crucifixion, but at the same time to rob them of all of their dignity in front of as many people as they possibly could It's meant to be a public execution and an example to others, a warning to others as they would pass by. They would be hung in a prominent place, sometimes crucified by major thoroughfares and highways in and out of cities, or in Christ's case, on a very visible point, a high point in the city, in the area where it could be viewed by all and by many when it was nailed to a cross and hung there, ultimately would suffocate to death. And typically, that would be what was the acute cause of death. The crucifixion was the cause of death, but what the crucifixion would do would cause a person, after being exhausted and suffering, would eventually not be able to get their breath, and they would die by suffocation And it would take hours for this to be accomplished. And Jesus hung on the cross for six hours. The substitutionary death of Jesus Christ on the cross, again, is a foundation to our salvation. We understand that what Jesus did for us there is that he satisfied the demands of God's justice. of God's righteousness, that Jesus Christ, in living the fullness of the human experience, born as a man, became man, took upon Him the form of a servant, was made, as Romans says, in the likeness of sinful flesh, but lived and experienced human life in every way, yet without sin. We understand that He satisfied the law. He came to fulfill the law. All of those thou shalt's and thou shalt not's that the Old Testament was full of, Jesus Christ never broke one of those. He's never a sinner in the faintest sense of the word. And to man, in His death, His perfect life allowed for Him to be the Lamb of God, which takes away the sins of the world. But the Lamb had to be slain. His blood had to be shed. to make a covering for our sins. The Bible in the New Testament calls Him the propitiation for our sins in a couple of different places. The propitiation is the satisfaction, the expiation. It's the same word that is used for the mercy seat. of the Old Testament, the place where the blood was applied that satisfied God's wrath from year to year, where the atonement had to be made every year, once a year, by the high priest for the sins of the people. And Jesus Christ was those things for us. He was the satisfaction for our sins. He was the satisfaction to God's justice and His righteousness and His wrath. Jesus is our Passover Lamb. 1 Corinthians 5, 7 says, For even Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. His blood redeems and justifies and reconciles us to God. 1 Ephesians 1, 7 says, In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace. Romans 5.9 says, much more than being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. Colossians 1.20, God having made peace through the blood of His cross by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself. And 1 John 1.7, the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son cleanseth us from all sins. Let me remind you that Jesus Christ didn't suffer and die and shed his blood to make salvation easier. It wasn't just to make it simpler for us or to make it more widely available. Jesus Christ suffered and shed his blood and he died to make salvation possible. It was impossible before he died, before he shed his blood. Man could not save himself. I could not save myself. Had I lived my life to the best of my ability from the moment I was born to the moment I died and lived a perfectly selfless life by everyone else's estimation, it wouldn't be enough. It would not be enough. He didn't die to make salvation easier. He died to make salvation possible for us. As horrific as the death of Christ on the cross was, we look at it as a wonderful thing Wonderful for us, not wonderful for Him, but wonderful for us. And a necessary thing, and a beautiful thing. And we sing hymns and songs like the old rugged cross, and we glorify the cross, not because we are thankful that Christ had to suffer, but we're thankful that He did. The thought of the cross should be a humbling thought for us, because He did it for you and me. And like the thief on the cross said, we die, justifiably we die for our sins. We earned our death on the cross. And had I died on the cross, I could have died for nothing more than my own guilt and my own sinfulness, and it would not have been enough to redeem myself. But Jesus died, not having earned it for himself at all, but died to satisfy the wrath of God against my soul. And one of the things we find in the four accounts of the crucifixion is that Jesus said seven different things And it shows us the spirit of Christ and His willingness to go to the cross and what was taking place while Christ was on the cross. And we get some insight into that through the four different accounts and the seven things that are written for us in the scriptures. So when we look here to the Word of God here for the rest of the message this morning, we're going to be looking at a couple of different places, mainly Luke 23 and John 19. and where most of those are found. The first thing that Jesus Christ said on the cross is found there in Luke chapter 23. In fact, if you want to look there, the first couple of these that we're going to look at are right out of Luke chapter 23. The first thing that Jesus said there is found in verse 34. And verse 33, right before it says, And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified him. And the malefactors, one on the right hand and the other on the left. And Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And they parted his garment and cast lots. The first thing that Christ said, after having been nailed to the cross and lifted up, On that cross there, the first thing that Jesus said was, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. This is Jesus praying to God for sinners. This is Jesus making intercession for the transgressors. That's what we read there in Isaiah 53 prophetically. It said that He would make intercession for the transgressors. That the first thing that Jesus Christ did from the cross was pray to the Father on behalf of those who were transgressors. murdering Him there that day, that were participating in His crucifixion, who were there to take His life and there to abuse Him. Those who had participated in His arrest and His false trial and His torture leading up to it, ultimately to His crucifixion and His death. And Jesus Christ prayed for them, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Jesus forgave and He asked the Father to forgive. We know that at least one of those standing by, one of those seemingly random people standing by that would have participated in this in some way, came to believe on Jesus Christ that day. It was the centurion over in the book of Mark. We know that he says, surely, truly this man was the Son of God. that a centurion who would have had some authority in the actual execution of the crucifixion, the actual putting Christ on the cross and hanging Him there, came to believe even on that day. Jesus prayed for them, Father forgive them for they know not what they do. that even in the pain and the pangs of death, that Jesus Christ was still praying for sinners. A few verses later, there, verse 39, we've mentioned this a couple times here, it says, "...one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds, but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom, And Jesus said unto him, verily I say unto thee, today thou shalt be with me in paradise. And the second thing that Jesus said was spoken in response to one of the thieves that hung on the cross. One continued to rail against Jesus Christ with the crowd himself, and the other says to the to the first thief, to the first balefactor, he says, do you not fear God? You're the same kind of, you're about to die, you're about to enter eternity. Do you really want to go into eternity with that on your lips? Is that really what you want to be, the last thing that you said? And he turns to Jesus and he says, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus, his response to this man was, today thou shalt be with me in paradise. What a wonderful thing. And certainly we could take all of these and make an entire message out of them. We're not going to do that. But what a wonderful thing Jesus says to this thief hanging on the cross beside him. Jesus says to this believing malefactor, when he asked Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom. This man obviously came to understand that Jesus Christ was the king, not of an earthly kingdom, but of the kingdom of heaven. And he was praying to Jesus to remember him when he enters into his kingdom. And Jesus shows compassion for this man's soul. This man was a sinner. And he admits as much, right? He says, I'm dying on the cross and I deserve it. I'm a sinner. I'm a thief. I'm a criminal. Jesus shows compassion on this man. Understand that the dying thief did nothing but believe. He did nothing but believe. He had no opportunity to do anything but believe. He's hung on a cross too. He can't get down and go do some good deed. He can't go help an old lady across the street. He can't go give his offering at the temple. He can't go perform a sacrifice or anything at all. He can't do any good work. All he could do and all he did do was believe. And Jesus said to him, today you'll be with me in paradise. I think another interesting truth we have confirmed for us here is that he was with the Lord that day. Today thou shalt be with me in paradise. Today thou shalt be with me in paradise. There was no purgatory to go through. There was no soul sleep. There was no holding period. There was no third place. To be absent from the body, to be present with the Lord. Today thou shalt be with me in paradise. Thank God for this second saying of Christ on the cross. They go to the third here is found in John chapter 19. And John, Jesus is hanging there on the cross. In verse 25 it says, Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas and Mary Magdalene. And Jesus therefore saw his mother. And the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son. Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother. And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home. And so here, again, hanging on the cross and considering others and thinking of others and seeing this small group of His disciples and loved ones and friends that were gathered. Of the 12 apostles, Judas betrayed Him and has gone out and hanged himself. The other 11 that went with Him to the garden, scattered. Peter and John made it to the high priest's house where Jesus was being held on trial. The other nine, scattered into the wind, ran away and don't show up here until later on. Peter goes to the high priest's house where Jesus is on trial and denies three times the message that my father-in-law just sang about, denies Christ three times, he runs out and weeps bitterly. So only John is left of the apostles, only John is left, and then these women, and they come, and they're at the foot of the cross, and Jesus, seeing them there, considers them and considers the responsibility that he had for, as the oldest son, we believe Joseph to have probably passed on by this point, Jesus, the responsibility as the oldest son that he would have for his mother, and looking around and seeing none of his brothers there, his human brothers there, half-brothers, seeing none of his other apostles there, no one else he trusted, commits the care of his mother, Mary. to the disciple whom he loved, John, then charges John with the care of his mother. Woman, behold thy son. And to John, behold thy mother. Even in death he honored his mother and ensured that someone he trusted would care for her. I think another picture in this, of course, is also Jesus emphasizing the important spiritual family relationship of the church. That the church is a spiritual family, and we are brothers and sisters in Christ, and the church has a responsibility for its members, and there's a familial relationship that is established there, and emphasized here, that is taught to us in other places in Scripture also, that we are to treat the older men as fathers, and the older women as mothers, younger men as brothers and the younger women as sisters. And no matter who you are, that kind of is all-encompassing there. We treat them with that kind of familial care and relationship and love and respect. Jesus taking time to care for the physical well-being of his mother before he leaves this world, but also emphasizing that important familial relationship between believers. One that is found in Matthew and Mark both, but one we're familiar with, you won't necessarily need to turn to, in Matthew 27 and verse 46. This is about the ninth hour. I'm sorry, hold on, let me back up there. Verse 45 says, and from the sixth hour, there was darkness over the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. That is to say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And some of them that stood there when they heard that said, this man calleth for Elias. and one of them straightway ran and took a sponge and filled it with vinegar and put it on a reed and gave him to drink. And so we find this recorded for us both in Matthew 27 and in Mark 15, virtually identical accounts given in both of those Gospels. It was spoken in the last hour, the ninth hour was when Christ was, it was the last hour Christ was hanging there on the cross. He hung there from the third to the ninth hour. And Jesus cries out, after three hours of darkness. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? That darkness covering the earth for three hours signifying the time which Christ was bearing the weight of the sin of the world, the time in which the Father was turning His back and separating Himself from the Son for the first time and the only time in all of eternity, past and future. while He bore our sins. This line, the only one. spoken in Aramaic. There were some there who didn't quite understand the Aramaic, which was kind of the native language of the Hebrews at the time, out of a mixture of Hebrew and some other localized languages, Syrian and that. And Jesus spoke these words in His mother tongue, if you would, rather than in the common tongue of the Koine Greek that was spoken by everyone. And Jesus spoke these words in that, and it was a quotation, really, of Psalms 22. And those who heard it and those who understood the Hebrew, those who understood the Aramaic, would have heard it to be a quotation of Psalms 22, 1, that starts with those very words, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And understood it to be a reference to, really a claim to being the Messiah. understood to be a messianic psalm even from then. The suffering of the Savior and Jesus attaching His moment of suffering, His time of suffering with the prophetic psalm, Psalm 22. This forsaking of Jesus by the Father is hard for us to comprehend, as difficult as it is for us to comprehend, and we can't even entirely do so, but as difficult as it is for us to comprehend the nature of the Godhead, the Trinity, that God is one God in three persons, that He is three persons in one God, and they are all co-equal in power, and in eternality, and in character, and in nature. And one is not more important than the other. They all have different functions and ministries to us, and different works that are attributed directly to them, yet they are one God, and they never do anything independently or separately from the other. As hard as it is for us to understand that, it's even harder to understand that one could be separated from the other two for three hours. And yet, this kind of unique, almost miracle, if you would, takes place for our behalf. That the Father and the Son are separated. The Father turns His back on His Son while He bears our sins. It's the only occurrence in which Jesus Christ addresses Him as the Father, as God, rather than as Father. We're going through the book of John on Wednesdays, and he's always talking about being one with the Father, being one with the Father, being one with the Father. He never refers to the Father as God. He refers to Him as the Father in here. He says, My God, My God. Took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, and He took upon Him the sins of the world. This is the most painful moment of the cross for Jesus. For all of the physical pain that we are assured of, that we understand that took place there during the crucifixion, how intensely, physically painful it would have been. Much worse for Jesus Christ was the pain of being separated from the Father. He leaps right into The next thing that Christ says, which was, I thirst, it's found back in the book of John. I thirst. We saw there, it was, my God, my God, why has not forsaken me? They misunderstood him, thought he was calling for Elias. And one runs over and fills a sponge with vinegar and puts it to his lips. In John 19, it says, after this, knowing that all things were now accomplished, this is verse 28, that the scriptures might be fulfilled, he said, I thirst. that Jesus had borne the sins of the world, and it was agonizing, and He had endured this pain of the cross for six hours. He'd endured torture for some six to twelve hours before that. He was physically exhausted. His humanity was evident here. His suffering was real. He thirsted. And he thirsted while providing the living water of which he had testified. He had testified to the Samaritan woman, and he had testified that I am the living water, and yet Jesus Christ thirsted. His suffering was real. His humanity was very real. After suffering and enduring all of that, he thirsted. Then in verse 30, when Jesus had therefore received the vinegar, he said, it is finished, bowed his head and gave up the ghost. Jesus cries this out in victory, it is finished. Saying it was complete, it was perfect, that it was paid in full. There was nothing that the Father had given him to do that had yet to be accomplished. There was nothing that he was sent to do that was undone. Yes, his suffering was finished, but he had completed the work that he was sent for, the redemption of man. He fulfilled the scriptures. There's nothing left to be done for our redemption. Jesus did not do 90% of the work of salvation, leaving 10% for us to do ourselves. He didn't leave. He didn't do 99% of the work of redemption, leaving 1% for us. He didn't do 99.99% of salvation, leaving us a 100th of a percent of work for us to do. Jesus Christ did it all. It is finished. It is complete. It is paid in full. Jesus didn't pay the bill and leave us to cover the tip. Paid in full. It is finished. And then one more in Luke 23 verse 46. It said, When Jesus had cried with a loud voice, He said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. And having said this, He gave up the ghost. Jesus said earlier in John chapter 10, He said, No man taketh my life from me. No one taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. Jesus had to surrender His spirit. He had to lay down His life so that He could take it back up by His own power. That's His words, not mine. That He had to lay His life down and that He would take it back up again by His own power. No man takes my life from me. He says to Pilate during his trial, he says, you only have power to do this to me because I'm giving it to you. You can only crucify me today because I'm letting you. And so Jesus had to surrender his spirit to death, to physically die for three days and three nights so that he could take it back up again in power and victory on resurrection day. The cross, the death, the blood that Jesus Christ shed, fundamental, absolutely essential to our salvation, absolutely essential to our faith. Yes, Jesus had to rise from the dead to give to us eternal life by His power over sin, death, hell and the grave, but He had to die first. He had to shed His blood and His blood to be the propitiation for our sins, the redemption for our sins, our reconciliation back to God as those verses we read earlier said. Let me encourage you to thank God for His death and His shed blood that purchased for us the gift of salvation. Let me ask, have you received that gift? It's paid for. All it must be is received. Have you received it by faith? Let's close here with a time of prayer. I encourage you here to take some time here this morning and respond to the Lord in whatever way He may be speaking to your heart. If you need to be saved this morning, if you need to receive the gift of eternal life, let me encourage you to not leave here without doing that, without talking to me or to someone here about that and getting your questions answered and placing your faith in Jesus Christ. The Lord has reminded you of the price of your salvation and I hope that He has. Let's take some time and let's humble our hearts in gratitude for that this morning. Let's take just a few moments here before we dismiss to respond to the message in whatever way the