Now let's open up to our main text of passage of the gospel of Mark chapter 15 and stand with me as you have your Bibles open. Mark 15 in our passage for tonight on this Good Friday service will be from Mark chapter 15 verses 33 to verse 39. Verses 33 to 39. This is the reading of God's word. Mark chapter 15, beginning with verse 33. When the sixth hour came, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour. At the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, which is translated, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? When some of the bystanders heard it, they began saying, behold, he is calling for Elijah. Someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine and put it on a reed and gave him a drink saying, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down. And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. When the centurion who was standing right in front of him saw the way he breathed his last, he said, truly, this man was the son of God. Amen, please be seated. Now we began tonight with the reading of Isaiah chapter 53 verse 10. In Isaiah 53 10, the word pleased appears twice. One in a verbal form, he was pleased, and then secondly in a noun form, and the pleasure of his hand. will accomplish it or give him success. And that's what it says. The pleasure of the Lord will prosper his hand. So twice in that verse, the word pleased is used. It pleased God to crush his son. But it also says it was the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper his hand. So upon a superficial glance, They seem to contradict. It pleased God to crush his son, but the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand. So which is it? It's both. Because upon a deeper inspection, the believer walks away with the profundity of this verse that the Lord intended that through suffering there will be great glory. Suffering will lead to his good success. So it pleased the father to crush his son and so that the wages of sin and all the ramification of sin and the justice of God would be met in his son. But through that humiliation and suffering that he would exalt his son. The Lord is both the cause of the suffering and the guarantor of the success. And that's what Isaiah 53 verse 10 teaches us. So only through the cross there is glory. There's no circumventing the cross. That's why Jesus prayed three times at Garden of Gethsemane. If there's any way, Father, remove this cup from me, but not as I will, but thy will be done." And Jesus prayed in John 17 1, Father the hour has come, glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you. So the pleasure of the Father was in the exaltation of his Son but there's no way that the Son of God could be exalted because he was also Son of Man. Jesus Christ is so perfectly incarnated, infused, and his humanity is subsumed with his deity in the infinite God-Man. There's one person, two natures, this glorious mystery in his being. had to absorb the full penalty of sin, and only human beings can die. Jesus died. God cannot die. So God did not die, but the man Jesus died, and God cannot be separate from God. That would be a contradiction. And only in the Son, only in the perfect incarnation of the Son, could this be possible. So the joy of the Son was the glorification of the Father. The Son has to suffer the cross in order to bring all glory to the Father. So this is the joy of salvation of our great God. Both the Father and the Son along with the Spirit working in unison to bring about the redemption of the elect for his own glory. Hebrews 12 verse 2 tells us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. He endured the cross because he thought little of the shame of the cross. and He's glorified. And so, from this passage in the Gospel of Mark, I want us to see three movements in the goodness of God in the cross of Calvary. I want us to understand why this Friday is called the Good Friday and not Horrible Friday. It's from a vantage point of both man, it's good for us, but it's also good from God's vantage point, as we shall see. I want us to perceive God's amazing grace, that all who come to Him, to Jesus Christ, is truly blessed, and that we will all walk away saying, this indeed is the greatest news. We need to share this good news with others. Let's take a look at the goodness of God and the forsaking of the Son. What's so good about the forsaking of the Son? Well, we need to understand that the scriptures testify that Jesus endured great persecution by sinful men who rejected him as the Messiah. You know, it's very painful when you are falsely accused. It's greatly damaging when somebody steals your identity and pretends to be you and does all kinds of crimes in your name, but you're innocent. But because someone has stolen your identity, you have to suffer the consequences. It's very painful to be misunderstood this way. Here is the Son of God, incarnate, come to forgive and to die for their sins, and they are persecuting Him and rejecting Him. Who does that? Satan does that. He doesn't acknowledge God. He wants Jesus crushed. He doesn't want Jesus to win. And so Satan is using human beings to persecute the Son. So he goes before the religious magistrates and they spit on him, they slap him, and they toss him from one place to another all early morning to Herod, then to Pilate, and then to the high priest, and back to Pilate. And then finally they blackmail Pilate to crucify him. Pilate being merciful has Jesus mercilessly beaten because through the beating, you basically take away their energies so that they will not experience the excruciating pain of the cross, which for a healthy person would take days for them to suffer, slowly ebbing away their life. And so Pilate had Jesus beaten to a pulp with a cat of nine tails And even after that, bearing his cross, he could not even make it to the place of the skull. And so another one was recruited by the Roman detachment to carry it for him, Simon of Cyrene. So there, Jesus finally came. And in the morning, in our time, 9 a.m., they began the crucifixion. We pick up here in verse 33, the sixth tower, which is noon. Our time. When the sun is supposed to be at full noon, strongest, from three until the ninth hour, so the sixth hour to ninth hour is from noon to 3 p.m. When the sun is the strongest, darkness fell over the whole land. And that's what we find. That's because Jesus at this time is bearing the sins of the world, suffering, and the darkness is a sign of judgment. Because when God judged Egypt, there were three days of darkness. Now there's three hours of darkness over the land. This is supernatural darkness. It's not a natural eclipsing. This is just supernatural darkness. All of a sudden from light it just became dark at noon. And so darkness is associated with the day of the Lord in the prophets, especially in Amos chapter 5 verse 20. The prophet says, will not the day of the Lord be darkness instead of light? Even gloom with no brightness in it? And that's what it's going to be. There's going to be another judgment of great darkness and cataclysmic heavenly signs in the last days. So during this period of three hours of darkness, the Lord Jesus is undergoing the greatest suffering, and it's not just pain of physical suffering. This is the pain of being forsaken. This is a great emotional and spiritual pain. This is why Paul says, he made him who knew no sin. Jesus never sinned. He doesn't have any experience of sin. to become sin. He took all of our sins upon Himself so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. He was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. By His scourging we are healed, Isaiah says in Isaiah 53. And the Lord has caused us all, our iniquities, to fall on Him. It's for us, the believers. Verse 34, at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice. Notice Mark explains that what Jesus said was a shout. It's not a normal volume of speech. And here he records the only saying of the seven sayings of Jesus on the cross. This is the only saying in the Gospel of Mark. Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani. It's an interesting translation because we know that it had to be Aramaic and not Hebrew because Hebrew says Eli, Eli. And it's given the translation, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? This is the only time when in the Synoptic Gospels that Jesus refers to his father as my God. And it's in direct contrast to the most enduring address that Jesus used in the Garden of Gethsemane just hours before. Mark 14, verse 36, and he was saying Abba, Father. And there in the literal translation in the Greek it says Abba and then Pater. Daddy, Father, twice. Very enduring. All things are possible for you, he says, remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will. Mark 14, verse 36. So Jesus here on the cross is quoting scripture that David quoted. David, being filled with the Holy Spirit, expressed a great inner anguish and he wrote it in the psalm. Little did he know that he was a prophet writing prophecy. Why have you forsaken me? One poet called this the orphaned cry. Orphaned cry, a child who is forsaken by his or her beloved parents. Could you imagine you're a child old enough to know what's going on and your mom and dad dresses you up, drives you over to the orphanage and drops you off and then they leave. You just realized that you're an orphan. Could you imagine the anguish of that child? That's a good poetic way of expressing it, but the sufferings of Jesus is even more than that. It's more than abandonment. But it's an accursed forsaking. Accursed forsaking. Citing Deuteronomy 21 verse 23, Apostle Paul writes in Galatians 3.13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. So Jesus had prayed three times and pleaded with the Father to take the cup of the full wrath of his sins away from him, but the Father willed that Jesus would drink it to the full. Here, Jesus is drinking that cup of God's wrath to the full for the sins. Now the decision of the Lord Jesus is to fully accept the will of the Father. and voluntarily go to the cross, must drink the full cup of the wrath of God against sin, and become a curse, and be accursed. forbearing all of our sins upon Himself, as an object of the wrath of God as our substitute. That's what the Lord Jesus Himself taught in Mark chapter 10, verse 45. Even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many. Ransom is a price that you pay to release somebody. In the slave marketplace, it's to buy and release a slave. For those who are in bondage to sin were ransomed by the price that Jesus paid. So Jesus already talked about that price being paid. That's why he said it is finished. He paid the price in full on the cross. And so the goodness of God in the forsaking, a cursed forsaking of his son, is that God saw it pleased the Lord to crush his son Because at that point, Jesus in his humanity absorbed the full wrath of God, cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He was forsaken. He was accursed. The judgment of God is gloomy. It's dark. Jesus being fully rejected, all wrath of God is fully being poured. He is crying in anguish. And the father turns his back. Why? Well, because the next passage tells us why. Because most of us do not understand the mystery and the depth of depravity and sin. We don't. We excuse it. We're born into it. And so we need to see the goodness of God in the foulness of men. In the foulness of men. Verse 35. One of the vilest and the most foul expressions of sinful humanity is this taunting, taunting the savior of the world. It's when the most egregious, immoral, wicked person taunts the most righteous and just and pure individual, then you have a picture of the vileness of humanity. Look at this in verse 35, when some of the bystanders heard it, they heard Jesus' loud crying. in anguish. Now these bystanders were Jews who witnessed Jesus's crucifixion. Mark records their response to what Jesus shouted from the cross. They said, and in the imperfect began saying, continue to say, behold he is calling for Elia. Elia. Now notice what they're concluding. They're willfully ignorant and they are sinfully callous. In their ignorance, the Jews thought that Jesus was begging God to rescue him. Begging God to rescue him. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Come and rescue me. It's what they assumed. But Jesus was not begging God to rescue him. He's expressing his great pain and agony of being forsaken and accursed by him. In their callousness, they were indulging in a cruel joke now. As we see Luke reporting in Luke 23 verse 35, and the people stood by looking on and even the rulers were sneering at him saying, he saved others, let him save himself if this is the Christ of God, his chosen one. Of course, they don't believe that. Whenever you hear people using jabs like this, nasty, slanderous, wicked, curses and assaults, is because they believe in something and they don't believe in the truth. They don't believe Jesus is the Messiah. They believe that he is a huckster. Even though he demonstrated all the traits of the true Messiah, they say, you did not meet my standards, our expectations, therefore we reject you. You are a false Messiah, when Jesus was the true one. And so what did they do? to this supposed false messiah in their own mind. In their hatred, in their blindness, they utter some of the most wicked things against the only Savior who could save them. And so they were sneering at him, cursing him. Verse 36, and then we have someone. Notice the plural, the bystanders, plural. Someone, singular. This is an individual. He's separate from the Jewish bystanders of the previous verse. And since the crucifixion was conducted by a Roman army, a Roman cohort, this someone must have been a Roman soldier, commanded by the Roman centurion, because centurion is introduced later on. saying, let us see whether Eliyahu will come to take him down. So someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine. That's the deed. Put it on a reed, gave him a drink. That's the deed. Verse 36. So since this is under the auspices of the Roman garrison, it had to be a Roman. But what about the saying? Saying. Who talks like this? Let us see whether Eliyahu will come and take him down. Why would they say such a thing? What are they thinking that they would say such a thing? Because Jesus said, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. They knew what he was saying. They took the Eli sounding and they made a joke out of it. Because in the Jewish eschatology, behold, I will send Eliyahu before the great and terrible day of the Lord, Malachi. And so the Jewish eschatology says, Elijah will play a key eschatological role coming before the great and terrible day of the Lord of Judgment. So with that, they made a cruel joke. He's calling for Elijah. He's calling for help. Now in the Greek, there is an imperative and the ESV brings this out well. This is what it says in Matthew 27 verse 49. But the other said, wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him. But other said, wait, when? After he's been given some vinegar to drink. This detail highlights the foulness of evil men who are mocking Jesus. Wait, stop. Don't alleviate his thirst. He's calling for Elijah to help him. Let's see if Elijah will indeed come and save him. Ha ha ha. That's the sense. There's just bitter irony all over the place here. Jewish religionists are cruel and foul. being used by Satan to taunt Jesus. Who utters slanders like this? Who taunts someone like this who is undergoing agonizing pain? Who has healed so many people? Who has brought salvation to so many others? Who does that? Satan does that. Satan does that. While the Gentile soldiers were being used by God. How so? To fulfill scripture. John writes in John 19, 28, Notice that's when they brought a sponge filled with, that's hyssop plant, dipped it in sour vinegar that the Roman soldiers drink, the cheap kind of stuff that would quench their thirst and bring a lot of saliva into their mouth so that it will quickly quench their thirst because of the acidity. put on a long reed, a stick, to give it to Jesus for him to suck on to alleviate his thirst. The specific passage that Jesus was fulfilling was Psalm 69 verse 21 that says, They also gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar. That same word that's used here in the Septuagint. This passage indicates that Jesus is no victim. But he's sovereign, he's in control, even in his own suffering, he is conscious and he is fulfilling scripture. While he's paying for our sins. Experiencing the accursed forsaking on the cross. in midst of foul men who belittle his sacrifice. That's the picture that we get. And I think unless people see a little bit of their sin, there's no genuine repentance. Repentance is an incredible gift from God. Repentance means there's brokenness of the soul. Repentance means they see sin and its ugliness for what it is. And no one is seeing it right now. And that's why genuine faith is not here yet. And so there's the forsaking of the Son of God and the goodness of God, the foulness of men, and the goodness of God is shown here. You think that the Romans were any different, the soldiers, the centurion? No, they're all in on it. They're mocking. Remember the Roman soldiers? They played a little game, put a crown of thorns on Jesus, put a robe around him, and they blindfolded him, and they beat him, and saying, prophesy to us, O Christ, who hit you? They made a game, mockery of him. They were no different. They were just as callous, just as wicked, but they were Gentiles. They didn't know the Old Testament scriptures. These religious Jews, they're worse. And so this bitter irony here that the Jewish religion is cruel and foul and Satan is using them to taunt Jesus, to tempt Jesus, to test him at the last time as Satan did. Now we see the Romans, the goodness of God in the fullness of grace. And here we come to verse 37 to 39. We saw the forsaking in the goodness of God, the foulness in the goodness of God, and now the fullness of grace in the goodness of God. Here it is, verse 37. And Jesus uttered a loud cry. Luke gives us additional details of this second loud cry. In Luke 23 verse 46. And Jesus crying out with a loud voice said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Having said this, he breathed his last. Luke gives us the final, the ultimate cry. John gives us the penultimate cry, right before that. John 19.30, therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished, and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Now crucified victims had no strength to utter any cry, let alone a loud one. Moments before they die, they're barely holding on to life. They're gasping for breath because the gravity is set in, the lungs are collapsing, you're in great pain, you have to pull yourself up, push yourself up by your feet, pull yourself up by your arms to just get the lungs to open up so you can take a breath of air and then gravity sets up again and this is constantly. Constantly. Your survival mechanism kicks in and you just don't die. You suffer. And yet here it says we hear Jesus uttering for the second time a loud cry. And then he gave up his spirit voluntarily. Again, Jesus is no victim. He let out a loud victory cry, it is finished or the debt for sin has been paid in full. The ransom price for which I came has been paid. Mark writes, and breathe his last. Singular word in the Greek literally means expired. He expired. We note that none of the gospel writers report that Jesus died. Even though that word appears so many times in the New Testament. but that he gave up his spirit and he breathed his last. Did Jesus die? Of course he did. But why then do the gospel writers not say that he died and says that he gave up his spirit, he breathed his last? To indicate that Jesus is sovereign over his own death and voluntarily gave up his spirit. No one took his life. away from him. He voluntarily gave up his life after he paid it in full. After he suffered, after he was mocked and ridiculed and scorned and beaten and rejected by men, after he had received the full wrath of God on the cross and his judgment, he laid down his own life. And now Mark records two miracles back to back. Verse 38. Now all the synoptic writers record this event. The thick curtain or the veil at the embroidering of the cherubim, the kruvim, which guarded the way to the tree of life in Genesis chapter 3 verse 24. When God told Moses to build the tabernacle and the ark and the curtains according to the design he showed Moses on the mountain, there's like red and purple Threads and white threads interwoven to make the angels, the Kruvim, on both sides of the curtain and have the curtain closed at all times. until the Yom Kippur, the Day of the Atonement, when the high priest can enter in only with a bowl of blood of one of the two goats. Interestingly, one goat is called a scapegoat that we know very well, Azazel. The other goat is, in Hebrew it just says, Unto Yahweh. It's a goat unto Yahweh. It's the Lord's goat. That's the goat that's killed and the blood taken in into the curtain. Once a year, by the high priest, after he had prepared himself and offered sacrifice for himself, he goes in with the blood, only with the blood, and he sprinkles on the altar and even the altar. Not only on the curtains where the pictures, the embroidery of the cherubim, but on the altar, the two cherubim with their wings touching, looking down on the very casing of the Ark of the Covenant, that's where the blood was sprinkled, that we know very well. That's on the Day of the Atonements. So what's going on here? No one's going inside the Holy of Holies. That's just separate from the thick curtain. Gotta wait until the Day of the Atonements. But this is the Passover. So at 3 p.m., the Levites were busily preparing the slaughter of the Passover lambs. Soon as the 3 p.m. comes, a whole bunch of Levites prepare the lambs, and in unison, they start slitting the throats of the lambs. And Josephus says that a river of blood would come down from the altar into the Kidron, the Kidron Valley. And that was the sewage system that would just drop rivers of blood. There's so many lambs being slaughtered all at one time because that's what the law required at twilight. So the priest would be directing the Levites And they would be praying, both inside and outside the temple. By the way, inside the temple, only the priests could go in. They would go in to trim the wicks, pour the oil for the golden menorah, the lamp. And then they would go in to put some incense, so the incense, the smoke would continue to rise. And then once a week, they would go and change the showbread, the consecrated bread, with freshly baked bread. And so the priests would go in there. and constantly monitor this in shifts. Priests had access to the holies, only the high priest had access to the holy of holies. So those inside the temple would have directly witnessed the veil rending in two, precisely when Jesus died and when the Passover lambs were sacrificed. That's why scripture says Jesus is our Passover. He is the Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world. All the lambs prior were just symbolic. The Passover that was celebrated at the end of the 10th plague to protect the Jewish firstborn as God punished the Egyptians was just a picture of the perfect lamb who would truly take away their sins. The only human witnesses were the priests who could go inside the temple to do their duties. we find this particular, peculiar verse in the book of Acts. Let's go there, Acts chapter 6, verse 7. And I want us to take a look at this. Acts 6, verse 7 says, And the word of God kept on spreading, and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem. And, notice this, great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith. Well, they're done. They get their livelihood from their role as priests in serving in the temple. It is because the priests uniquely had the experience of the witnessing of the thick veil of the temple, which separate the holy of holies from the holies, being torn from top to bottom, indicating God's actions, not man's. That happened precisely at the moment that Jesus gave up his spirit. And the priests knew it. but they didn't make any theological connection until they heard the preaching. See, they knew the facts, but they didn't know the meaning until they heard the apostles' teaching. God's goodness is seen in the fullness of grace, granting salvation to the priests. That's why a great many of them came to faith. You see, they rejected Jesus also. But God gave them grace to believe and turned them around, saving them from the judgment that was coming upon them and the nation. There would be no temple in just about 30 some years from the event of the crucifixion. There would be no temple. The Romans would completely destroy it. But before then, the Jews would desecrate it. The writer of Hebrews gives us the theological application of the historic event of the rending of the veil in Hebrews 10, verse 19. Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, his flesh. So the rending of the veil, again, symbolic of the fact that God has given us full access Why? Because in Christ, and only in Christ, we're a nation of priests unto God, and Christ is our great high priest giving us full access to the Father. When? Not once a year, every day, every moment. No hindrance. Only the Jews? No. Everyone who is in Christ are priests, holy, immediate access because of Jesus. And so now anybody can go in, in Christ, have access to God. We're welcome. That's amazing grace. The salvation of those who witnessed the veil being torn in two came after Pentecost. That's why it's found in Acts chapter six. Pentecost is described in Acts chapter two. So much later. It took a while for them to hear the message of the apostles. to make a sense and connect all these things. So salvation came later for these priests, but great many of them were saved. But Mark here reports the salvation of the most unlikely person granted fullness of grace at the moment of Jesus' death. And that's verse 39, the centurion. It's interesting how there's not a negative remark of any Roman centurions in the gospels. Isn't that really interesting? There's a lot of negative things being said about the priests, the Pharisees, the scribes, the Sadducees, the teachers of the law and all those, but never about the Centurion. They're always placed in a positive light. Let me share with you a couple of insights why I think that that is. And if you understand who the centurion is and how he gets to be a centurion, then you'll understand. A centurion is basically a private, if you will, a new recruit who has gone through years and years and years of hardened training and experience and have been placed in the Roman army to command a hundred soldiers. A hundred soldiers. And so how do you get to be a centurion? You have to fight many battles, prove yourself and survive many battles. You have to place your life on the line at the commander's order without asking any questions, fulfill your duty again and again and again. and you prove yourself that way. Centurions were the backbone of the Roman army and since they were the proven, experienced soldiers, they were the mothers and the fathers for the younger or the less experienced soldiers. They kept them in line, they made sure that the morale was high, they made sure that none of them were afraid when they faced the enemy. Centurion was the backbone of the Roman army. They took their life And they made judgments between life and death without asking any questions to their commander because the order has been given. Now you see why the centurion at Capernaum said to the Lord, Lord, I'm unworthy to have you under my roof. Just give the order. Because I am a man under command. I take orders and I give orders. I say this man go, this man come, and they follow my order. Just give me the order. And Jesus said, I've never seen such great faith in all of Israel. That's a great compliment. He only gave it to the centurion. He rebuked his Jewish disciples and apostles and said, you have little faith. You still don't get it. But to the centurion, he said, that's a man of great faith. There's something about these centurions and these Roman soldiers under the centurion are commended. Notice how Mark reports. He says, who was standing right in front of him? If you're the commander of a cohort, the detachment who is carrying out this crucifixion, and there were others, remember the thief on the right and to the left? There were others. So there are multiple men, and the centurion is giving commands to the soldiers to do this and do that. You're standing right in front of Jesus, only one of the three has a sign above his head. That means the only one he has actually the head, and the others are a T. The reason why there's an additional head is to put the sign up there. There was a sign that Pilate made, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, in three different languages, a language of law, Roman, the language of lingua franca, language of the nations, the Greek, a language of religion, Hebrew, so that everyone could read. It's Pilate's way of rubbing it into Jewish leaders' faces because he was angry that they blackmailed him. But even that, God used. What is he seeing? He's seeing that sign. He's seeing everything. He's seeing him suffer. What else is he seeing? He's seeing someone who is young and healthy. Jesus was in his prime physically. No doubt, he had a perfect, healthy body. And it would have taken him days to die, not hours. And those who are suffering on the cross would often scream and pain and hurl insults like the two thieves. Remember, they hurled a lot of insults. Matthew 27, verse 44, the robbers who had been crucified with him were also insulting him with the same words. Luke 23 verse 39 says, one of the criminals who were hanged there were hurling abuse at him saying, are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us. That's a nasty comment of desperation. And when people are dying, either they humbly and sublimely submit to the Lord and acknowledge their frailty and a failed life, or they do this, hurl insults. But one of them was given the grace of repentance and faith, as Luke reminds us. Let's go there and take a look. Luke 23 verse 40. Now they were both insulting, all of a sudden the one stops and then he begins to rebuke the other. And by the way, he's rebuking across Jesus, because they're on the opposite side of Jesus. And so Jesus is hearing all this. Do you not even fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? Wow, that's humble. Verse 41, and we indeed are suffering justly. Oh, they must have done a lot of bad things. They were. They did a lot of bad things because these were dagger men. These were zealots. These go in in a crowded place and they just stab the person that they don't like, Herodian, a traitor, a Roman, whoever, for political ends. These are political insurrectionists. And so we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds. That's a humble admission for a life of sin. But this man has done nothing wrong. You could tell Jesus had done nothing wrong. And he was saying, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Wow. When you take a look at this verse, verse 42, you see amazing grace. This man has been given spiritual 2020 vision to see who Jesus is, what he said, what he promised, and he believed it. Remember me when you come into your kingdom, there's an afterlife, you're a king, you're gonna have a kingdom, you can give me life. Remember, the Hebrew idea of remember is act on my behalf, that's a request. And he said to him, that's the Lord Jesus, saying to this man, again across to him, to his right, he's looking at him now, truly I say to you, today you shall be with me in paradise. Commentator William Hendrickson writes, it is comforting to know that when Jesus went to paradise, he did not go alone, but carried with him the soul of the penitent robber. Now who's seeing all this? Mark says the centurion who is standing right in front of him seeing all this. He sees the sign that Pilate made. He witnesses Jesus ministering to his earthly mother, Mary, entrusting her to his beloved disciple, John. John 19 verse 26 says this. When Jesus then saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, woman, behold your son. And then he said to the disciple, behold your mother. From that hour, the disciple took her into his own household. And now Jesus assured the entrance into paradise that day to the robber on his right, who actually repented? And then Matthew reports that on top of all that, top of the darkness over the whole land, there was an earthquake also. Matthew 27 verse 51, and behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom and the earth shook and rocks were split. Right, there's a celestial sign, there's a terrestrial sign, there's a supernatural rending of the veil, all this is happening. Of course the centurion doesn't know that the rending of the veil is actually happening. He feels the tremors, he sees the rocks splitting and he sees the darkness all of a sudden coming upon the land at noonday sun and for the next three hours and he sees Jesus ministering. Not a single curse, crying out. Never had the centurion witnessed crucified victim minister to others so selflessly while suffering so greatly. Never had the centurion witnessed a vile sinner repent and believe so sublimely right in front of him. Never had the centurion witnessed a dying victim make such bold and confident promises, today you'll be with me in paradise. Never had he witnessed any of that. All the while, he's right in front of him, he sees the sign, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. Not to mention the supernatural darkness. Not to mention the violent shaking. Not to mention all the people hurling insults. He's soaking it all in and all of a sudden all these things come together. Remember what we just discovered how the priests, so many of the priests believed. It took a while for them to piece these things together. Only after the Pentecost, only after hearing the preaching of the apostles, then they repent and they believe. Here is the piecing of all this together. Was Jesus king then? Only the king of the Jews, as Pilate said? No. Centurion comes to a different conclusion. He believes and he exclaims, truly this man was the son of God. Now, what could be the reason why he would make such a proclamation? When we look previously, it was the taunts, the callous taunts of the Jews. Let's take a look at verse 29 of Mark 15. In the same way, the chief priests also, along with the scribes, were mocking him amongst themselves and saying, he saved others, he cannot save himself. Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross so that we may see and believe those who were crucified with him were also insulting him. Matthew records greater details of the slander and the villainy. Matthew 27, verse 40, you are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself if you are the son of God, come down from the cross. Matthew 27, verse 43, he trusts in God, let God rescue him now if he delights in him, for he said, I am the son of God. Here are wicked men, evil unbelievers who thought Jesus was unable to save himself, taunting him. Verse 31, he saved others, he cannot save himself. Ah, but they were wrong. Jesus saved the robber by his right and even this Gentile centurion by granting him the fullness of grace. Jesus saves sinners not by coming down from the cross but hanging on the cross, bearing the full wrath of God's punishment for sins, for our sins, granting the fullness of grace of salvation. If he did not pay, no one will be saved. But because he paid, we're saved. So the gospel vividly portrays Jesus's sacrificial death and calls men to acknowledge their obvious sins and their rebellion against God. The gospel calls our sins for what they are, an insult. More than that, an assault. rebellion, a desire to dethrone God, to kill God and take his throne. That's what sin does. That's what sin is. The gospel calls sinners to repentance from their rebellion and their attempt at overthrowing God's sovereignty. If we knew how vile unbelief is, then we would all castigate those who reject the truth and the love of the Son of God. Let's take a look at 2 Thessalonians 1 and take a look at what the Word of God says is the ultimate result of sin. Apostle Paul here in 2 Thessalonians 1 says it's eternal destruction. Eternal irreversible damage. 2 Thessalonians 1 verse 6, For after all, it is only just for God to repay the affliction of those who afflict you. God is just and he will use his talionic justice to bring about justice upon the wicked. Verse 7, And to give relief to you who are afflicted, and to us as well, when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God. You see that word, those who do not know? That's a perfect active participle in the Greek. Reminds the readers that this is a willful ignorance and unwillingness to acknowledge the truth and they remain in that state. And so it's willful ignorance. It's not just passive ignorance. It's willful ignorance. I don't want to know. I don't care to know. I didn't know that Jesus is the Messiah. That's their excuse. Like Cain, who was warned, but he didn't care for God's warning. Dealing out retribution to those who do not know God Does it sound a little too harsh? God's going to deal out retribution to those who are ignorant? Only if you knew how wicked and evil willful ignorance really is. Only if you knew how much people reject and how they suppress the truth. Only if you knew how actively they act against the truth. Only if you knew how they belittle truth, how they don't value it at all. Only if you knew, then you would see that those who do not know God and those who do not obey the gospel of our Jesus Christ should receive the greatest penalty. Verse 9, these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction because they're sinning against an eternal being. away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power. They will never see the Lord's glory or experience the goodness of His power on their behalf. And when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, verse 10, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, for our testimony to you was believed. See, that's the gospel. People who welcome truth, who welcome the Savior, they receive the Lord, They love the Lord and when the Lord comes with this amazing rewards, not retribution, but rewards, we're going to marvel. What? This is too amazing to be marveled at. So the eternal destruction is the penalty for unbelief. So this is a land where the Christian faith has been proclaimed for over 400 years. And each generation receives more light in our land, more Bible colleges and more seminaries, more radio and TV and internet broadcasting than ever before. It's preponderance of truth, and yet you see people suppressing it. You see people rejecting it. They don't even value it. Most of the Christians throughout the centuries didn't even have their own Bible. We have so many different Bibles. And yet, people still claim ignorance. They don't have a love for the Lord. How can you love someone that you hardly even know? Because you hardly even pick up his self-disclosure, his word. It's very difficult to love someone that way, through ignorance. And it's easy to reject something that you have no desire for. That's the penalty of eternal destruction. The gospel also is the good news of our Lord's love for sinners, whom he chooses to save through the substitutionary atonement. He's our substitute. That's why he was forsaken, so that we would be beloved. That's why he overcame our depravity and foulness of our sin, and he clothed us with his perfect righteousness. That's why he extends to us the fullness of his grace to fill all the emptiness of our inner soul. The gospel brings to us the good news of new life in Christ. He rose again from the grave. He commissioned his church, go and tell people, make disciples of all the nations, baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. and I will be with you always to the very end of the age when he will come back and so the gospel is the good news of the Lord's salvation this is what we anticipate the glorious resurrection that historically proved that God accepted Jesus's perfect sacrifice that when He said, it is finished, it was indeed finished. There's nothing you can add or I can add or subtract from the perfect and finished work of Christ for our salvation. So we don't earn our salvation, we don't work for our salvation, we simply humbly, thankfully appropriate it. We say, thank you, Lord. Thank you. And so every day that we live as a Christian, we live in gratitude, in joy of His salvation. What circumstance can bum us when He has given us His only begotten Son? How can we be lonely when He was forsaken for us so that He would be with us forever? We have the best friend in the world, our Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. This is truly good news indeed. Only for people who don't see Jesus, only for people who don't believe in Jesus, they will be filled with bitterness, sorrow, complaints, loneliness, emptiness, and they will demand that people fill their void. But they can't. That's an impossibility. And they'll look to men and circumstances for solutions, but it's empty. It can't. Only the one who said, it is finished. Only the one who said, today you will be with me in paradise. The only one who gave up his life so that we can have eternal. Only he can do it. And yet today people still refuse to come to him. They still refuse. And so we are the ones, the early birds who received the Lord. Is it because we're so good? No, we're no different than the vile Jews who rejected Jesus but who served in the temple, the priests. We're no different than the Romans, the secular Gentile Romans who are carrying out their orders, crucifying the Savior. And so the signs in three languages shows that the whole world is guilty under God's penalty. And so why did God do it? He did it because it brought him great pleasure that through his son's absolute and utter rejection and suffering that he will be exalted. You know, our Lord Jesus Christ volunteered to come and take upon himself humanity to become one of us and to live with us. Our Lord let go of his glory in heaven. He came down as man, which means he is forever human. He doesn't just like stop being human and then go back to heaven and start being God. No, no, no. He's the infinite God man. He's forever changed. That's what He did for us. He's forever changed. When a single man gives up his freedoms to marry a young lady, says, I am committed to you, I will serve you until we die. All right, that single man is giving up a lot to be a husband and a father. He's forever changed. He can't go back to singleness on his own terms and neglect his duties to his wife and his children. Our Lord has committed himself to be with us as our great husband, as the head of the church forever. That's how much he loves us. He's not going back, back to be God and only God. No, he's forever human, infinite God-man. But what kind? He was so absolutely humiliated. It was put to death. It pleased God to crush Him, and so that in His hand He would prosper. So it's through the cross that would be great glory. Brothers and sisters, there is no glory without suffering, without humility, without dying. There is no glory, there is no heaven without first self-denial, discipleship, and following after Jesus and being united with him in his death and resurrection. There's no other way. It's the way of the cross. And so our Lord blazed a trail for us, and he had the joy that through his personal sacrifice, God will be exalted in bringing many, many souls into heaven, that God's will will be accomplished. And God would exalt his son high above all other names, is the most exalted human being in the universe. and he continues to be God, but he chooses to identify with us forever, and he will forever be our great husband, our Lord, our friend. So he was forsaken and accursed, and it pleased our father. So we learned something about the love of God, did we not? God so loved the world that he gave up his only begotten son. He loves you. And that's why he did what he did. That's why he crushed his son. So that you and he, his son, would be forever in perfect harmony, unity, and in sinless bliss for all of eternity. So our Heavenly Father wanted that. And that's what he did through his son. Well, today is Good Friday. Now we understand the goodness of the Friday because we look at from God's vantage point. That is not a terrible Friday. It's truly good because God meant it for our good and for His glory. This Sunday is the Lord's resurrection. I think we need to prepare to meet Him. He is returning. He's coming back. And either you're ready or you're not. So ready or not, here he comes. And so I pray that you would show up on Sunday welcoming him into your hearts and he's going to manifest himself to you in a way that you need to behold him in your heart. And may the Lord bless you. But tonight, savor the goodness of God and his incredible grace towards sinners like you and me. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for your great love toward us in Christ. Thank you that you sent your Son to die for pathetic, worthless sinners, and yet you saw worth in us that is only found in Christ your Son. You save priests, you save the wicked immoral robber on the right of Jesus, and you save the centurion. We thank you Lord that you are mighty to save through your Son, and your Son's work on the cross is powerful to save anyone. And so we pray that you would bring salvation to many homes, many lives, and many people, and so that they will fill your heaven. We thank you for giving up your son in a great love demonstrated through him. We thank you for the goodness of the cross of Jesus Christ. Now may we live in light of that goodness, in gratitude, in joy, and experiencing more and more of your goodness each and every day. To your glory, and in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.