We're taking our Bibles this morning and turning to Matthew chapter 26. And as we turn there this morning, I'd like to especially welcome Ken Tukey's grandson, Mike, to our service. He introduced himself to me out in the foyer this morning with a collar on and I didn't recognize right away. which grandson it was because we've been praying for his grandson, Mikey. Mike, we're glad you're here this morning. He was terribly injured this fall, and God has done a great work in answering a lot of prayers and allowing him to be in the service this morning. It's also a blessing to see Paul, another one of Ken's grandsons here today. The Lord has used this event in his life, I know, to give him assurance of salvation. And so we're thankful for the Lord's working in the Tukey family and their ability to be part of this service with us today. We're turning to Matthew chapter 26 this morning. We're coming to the last section of the Gospel of Matthew. And for some, this is probably a welcome relief. After all, it's been almost two years since we started our exposition of the Gospel of Matthew. I think this is our 68th sermon in the Gospel of Matthew. For some of you who are here this morning, you're probably thinking the only book Pastor Phelps knows to preach on Sunday morning is the Gospel of Matthew. We're opening this morning to the climax of the Gospel of Matthew and the events that are spoken of here really form for us the climax of human history. Matthew has been moving with surgical precision to the moments that he records for us here as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords approaches his death on the old rugged cross for our sins. Matthew chapter 26, 27, and 28 presents to us the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. In chapter 26, we see the preparations for his death. In chapter 27, we see the crucifixion and his death. In chapter 28, we see the resurrection from his death. While the theology of the cross will be developed for us in the epistles, the story of the cross is presented for us here in Matthew 1-25. the sayings and the doings of Christ are recorded. In Matthew chapter 26, 27, and 28, the sufferings and the death of Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of glory is recorded for us. Matthew chapter 26, beginning in verse one, as we consider together the cross this morning, it came to pass when Jesus had finished all these sayings, that he said to his disciples, you know that after two days is the feast of the Passover and the Son of Man is betrayed to be crucified. Then assembled together the chief priest and the scribes and the elders of the people under the palace of the high priest, which is called Caiaphas, and consulted that they might take Jesus by subtlety and kill him. But they said, not on the feast days, lest there be an uproar among the people. Now when Jesus was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, there came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment and poured it on his head as he sat at meet. When his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, to what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for much and given to the poor. When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, why trouble ye the woman? For she hath wrought a good work upon me. For ye have the poor always with you, but me ye have not always. For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial. Verily I say to you, wheresoever the gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this that this woman hath done be told for a memorial of her. Then one of the 12, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priest and said to them, what will you give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted. with him for 30 pieces of silver. From that time he sought opportunity to betray him. Let's ask the Lord to bless as we look into his word. Now Father, I pray that you would allow your word this morning to be the food for our souls. As we gather around this table, may your word this morning remind us of the why. May we come reflecting in remembrance of you as we consider the cost and the significance of the cross. And oh God, I pray if there be someone in this room today who has not yet come to Christ as Savior, that today would be the day of salvation, and we'll thank you for it, for it's in Christ's name we pray, amen. The story is told of four blind men who had an encounter with an elephant. One of the blind men grabbed the tail of the elephant. Thus he described the elephant as a rope. He said, it's like a rope. The other blind man grabbed the trunk of the elephant and he said, the elephant is like a serpent. One of the blind men touched the side of the elephant. As he touched the side, he said, the elephant is like a wall. And one of the blind men grabbed the leg of the elephant and he said, no, it's like a tree. You see, it all depends on one's perspective. Perspective is personal. Perspective can differ. For some, a bulldog is cute. For others, it's ugly. For some, a cat is cuddly. For others like me, a cat is creepy. It all depends on your perspective. As we open our Bibles to the Gospel of Matthew chapter 26, the cross is casting a shadow over the text to which we've entered. Jesus has said in verse two, the Son of Man is betrayed to be crucified. And in the verses that we read this morning, four diverse perspectives of the cross are on display. In the first two verses, we see the perspective of revelation. Then in verses three, four, and five, we see the perspective of religion. As we come to verses six to 13, the perspective of relationship is seen. And finally in this passage, the perspective of rejection of the cross is discovered in verses 14, 15, and 16. Friends, the right perspective of the cross is a matter of eternal life or eternal death. So let's consider this morning the cross, first from the perspective of revelation. the perspective of revelation. From the perspective of revelation, the cross is seen as a divine plan. Jesus said in verse two, you know that after two days is the feast of the Passover and the Son of Man is betrayed to be crucified. The cross was no accident. The cross was the divinely planned and revealed appointment. All of the Old Testament points toward the cross. As Abel gave sacrifice to his God, he was pointing toward the cross. As Abraham offered Isaac, he was pointing to the cross. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, It was pointing to the cross as the Israelites put the blood on the doorpost on the night of the Passover. They were pointing to the cross as the prophets spoke of the one in Psalm 22 who would be pierced and in Isaiah 53 who would be bruised. They were pointing to the cross. As Simeon spoke to Mary when she brought the little one to be dedicated in the temple and said to her, a sword will pierce through you also, he was pointing to the cross. And when John the Baptist, the last of the Old Testament prophets, said, Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world, he was pointing toward the cross. When you take away the cross, the Bible has no theme, for the cross is the central theme. The Old Testament was ratified by the blood of bulls and goats. The New Testament is ratified by the blood of Jesus Christ, which was shed for our sins on the cross. Take away the cross and history has no climax. We know B.C. and A.D. before the common era, and Adonai, or see there, the mind is gone. A.D., after death, we'll say it that way this morning. I'm not gonna go to Latin on you. I can't get there if I wanted to. Without the cross, sin has no remission. For it's in the shedding of blood that sin is remitted. Without the cross, mankind has no hope. For he took the handwriting of the ordinance and nailed it to the cross. And folks, the cross was no accident. Throughout his ministry, Jesus was focusing on the cross. In Matthew 16 and verse 21, he said to his disciples that he must go into Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed and raised again the third day. In Matthew 17 and verses 22 and 23, Jesus said, the Son of Man shall be traded into the hands of men, and they shall kill him. The third day he will be raised again. It was no accident. In Matthew chapter 20, Jesus said in verse 18, behold, we go up to Jerusalem and the Son of Man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests, unto the scribes, and they will condemn him unto death. They will deliver him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify, and the third day he will rise again. As we open our Bibles to Matthew 26, notice with me quickly that Christ speaks very specifically about the cross. When he says after two days, is the feast of the Passover, and the Son of Man is to be crucified. Josephus, the historian who was hired by the Romans to write the history of the Jews who lived during the times of Christ, said that during the Passover, 260,000 lambs would be slain, representing the sacrifices of some two to three million Jews who consecrated themselves during the Passover. 1 Peter 1 tells us in verse 20 that there was one Lamb who was slain before the foundation of the earth. 2 Corinthians 5 tells us in verse 21, He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin. he might bring us to God, he was slain. Christ speaks prophetically of the cross in this passage, not only specifically, but very prophetically saying after two days on the feast of the Passover, he would be crucified. A Judas would be humanly responsible for handing over Jesus to the authorities of his day. But the cross of Christ was a divine plan. Acts chapter two says in verse 23, he was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. Acts chapter four says in verse 28, it was determined by God before it was done. So from the perspective of revelation, the cross was a divine plan. Pastor, what's the big deal? The big deal is this. In the cross, I see the sovereignty of God. Jesus would say in John 10 and verse 18, no man taketh my life from me. The one who could still the seas, the one who could heal the lepers, the one who could make the lame to walk, the one who could raise Lazarus from the dead, gave his life for us. It was not taken by some accident, it was given by divine appointment. And oh dear friend, as I see the revelation of the cross as a divine plan, I see the love of God, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever would believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Many of you are carrying driver's license this morning, and on your driver's license, commonly there's a note that says whether you're a willing donor or not. donating organs to those who could benefit from your death. It's a valiant and worthy thing for people to say, I'm willing to give up, after my death, part of my body for others to be blessed. I read not long ago of a situation in which a person who had not signed A donor will, if you will, and placed it on their license. Someone else forged their name. And body parts were taken and donated. There was no intent for that to be done. There was no consent for that to be done. And while others benefited from it. It was really a tragedy. When we come to the cross of Calvary. There was intent. The father sent the son to be the savior of the world. And there was consent, Jesus went, knowing that he would die upon the cross for your sin and for mine. And he that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also freely give us all things richly to enjoy? As we look at the cross from the perspective of revelation, I see a divine plan. But as I look in this text, I see the perspective of religion also. As the cross is seen by the perspective of religion, the cross is seen really as a detrimental program. Verse 3, then assembled together the chief priest and the scribes and the elders of the people under the palace of the high priest who is called Caiaphas. They consulted that they might take Jesus by subtlety and kill him. But they said, not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar among the people. With just a few words, the Spirit of God tells us much about organized religion, not only in the times of Christ, but throughout time. As the cross looms largely in this passage, religion is found to be in conflict with the cross. To religion, the cross is a detrimental program. Let me explain to you. What do we discover about religion in Matthew 26? Religion is concerned about position. Look at the titles in verse three. The chief priest, the scribes, the elders of the people. Religion is concerned about possessions. They went to the palace of Caiaphas. Religion is concerned about popularity. As they spoke together, they wanted to execute Jesus, but not on the feast days. They wanted to do it subtly, lest the people be in an uproar. And so religion is about popularity. Religion is concerned about power, after all. First and foremost, religion confronts the cross, and the cross confronts religion in this way. Religion says, do! Do, do, and you'll be saved. And the cross says done. And so the religionists seek after their position and their possessions and their popularity and want to hold on to their power. And the chief priest and the elders and the scribes, they had a form of godliness, but they denied the power thereof, for they denied the cross. Caiaphas was the high priest at that time. He had paid much to be the high priest. He married the 12-year-old daughter of Annas, the high priest before him. He struck a deal with the Romans whereby the bazaars of the temple courts, which would bring such profit to Caiaphas that he could live in a palace, would also bring profit to the Romans. Not long ago, archaeologists discovered the ossuary box that once contained the bones now evaporated to dust of Caiaphas, the former high priest, the one before whom Jesus will soon stand in trial. But understand this, this man who had such position and such possessions and such power and such popularity in his lifetime, is one that the word of God says will one day stand before the great white throne. And Hebrews chapter 9 says it's appointed unto man once to die and after this the judgment. Religion has long confronted the claims of Christ. Throughout the book of Matthew, religion is in conflict with Christ from the very first chapter. In chapter one, the pedigree of Christ is given. He traces his lineage back to David and to Abraham before him. In chapter two, the place of his birth is given. He's born in Bethlehem of Judah, for thus it was required of Malachi that he would be born in that place. He traces his lineage not only in chapter two, but as you come to chapter three, there's that predecessor, the one about whom Isaiah had written, John the Baptist, the one who goes before him. And in chapter four, Jesus' purity is seen as he stands in conflict with Satan in the wilderness, breaking forth into chapter five and six and seven, where he preaches like no other man the great sermon on the mount. And all this is escalating in conflict against the organized religion of his day, as Jesus in chapter 8 and chapter 9 performs 10 wonderful miracles that no man could ever do. And in chapter 10, He produces His program and sends out His disciples. And as the conflicts continue to build, the religionists saw, the religionists heard. Hosanna is still ringing in their minds and in their ears, and yet they're going to reject Jesus Christ, and He's going to be nailed to the cross. Oh. the condemnation that comes to them. And even so, in modern religion, if you think about it, it's about titles. It's about power. It's about prestige. It's about popularity. But seldom do the hungry ever hear that Jesus died in their place, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. The cross has been forgotten, but it's the cross that makes everything. And so we see the religionist here. One of the old reformers visited the Vatican. And as the reformer went on his tour of the Vatican, the people in power at the time said to the reformer, no longer do we need to say silver and gold have we none. What a truism. Religion has great possessions without the power of it. No longer do we need to say silver and gold have we none. And the reformer looking at his host said, yes, and no longer can you say, rise, take up your bed and walk. All the form without the power, today religion embraces the cross on occasion as a marketing tool to attract the sympathy of Christians so-called. When people are considering the cross, seldom do they hear that they ought to come to the cross and repent of their sin. and by faith turn to the sacrifice that was offered there for the sins of the world and trusting by faith that Jesus died for you and Jesus died for me. For he's the propitiation of our sins and not our sins only but the sins of the whole world. Friend, if you're suffering under staggering sin this morning, plug your ears to the voice of religion that says do and look to the cross and understand it was done. Perspective of religion is seen here. My wife and I were in Israel a number of years ago. A big tour bus stopped in front of one of the holy churches. And as people stepped off the bus, they bought candles and they placed candles there as they bought them and lit them and prayed for their loved ones. And they turned and they got back on the bus. And as they were getting back on the bus, the priest who was watching over that church picked up the candles, blew them out, put them in a box to sell them to the next tour bus. As the sting of that smoke came up into his eyes, I considered the worthlessness, the utter worthlessness of so-called organized religion, even as it's portrayed here in this passage. From the perspective of revelation, the cross is a divine plan. From the perspective of religion, the cross is a detrimental program. But oh, from the perspective of relationship. from the perspective of relationship as we discover beginning in verse six that when Jesus was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, Matthew takes us on a flashback in this account. He moves back from the middle of the Passion Week to the Saturday before the Passion Week. He does this on purpose. He wants us to see a different perspective of the cross. A perspective of the cross through the eyes of Mary, who would anoint him. For Jesus was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, verse 6. Then came unto him a woman named in the other gospels as Mary, the sister of Lazarus. She had ointment and she poured it on his head. It fell down even over his feet, the other gospel accounts tell us. And when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, asking, what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for much and given to the poor, and when Jesus understood it, he said to them, why do you trouble this woman? She threw out a good work upon me. For you have the poor always with you, but me you have not always. For in that she had poured this ointment on my body, watch it now, she did it for my burial. She did it for my burial. Verily I say to you, whosoever the gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this that this woman hath done be told for a memorial of her. The cross inspired Mary's devotion. The perspective of a relationship, the cross is seen. The cross is seen with devotion and with passion. As Jesus spoke of the cross, Mary's devotion was so inspired. The gospel of Mark tells us that when she opened up this alabaster box, that frail, translucent box was broken and poured upon him the contents that were worth some 300 denarii in our values today, that ointment was worth some 30 to $40,000. And she drained it all. And the disciples said, what a waste. But Mary had considered the cross. Mary was responding wisely. You see, from the perspective of relationship, the cross always inspires acts of faith. Let me explain. Listen carefully, dear Christian. Faith is acting with the confidence of the revelation that God has given to us. Acting with certain confidence that what he has revealed to us is true and we can count on it. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. There are charlatans in our day who speak of faith as something that we claim in order to make God some kind of genie. Claim it by faith. The Bible speaks nothing of such faith. True faith is this. God said it. I believe it. I can act upon it. If I could give you all of what the stock market will do next week, and I was 100% certain and you were 100% certain that all of my predictions could come true. If you were wise, you would take everything you could take and make loans for the rest. and make your investments confident by faith that you would have huge increases. When God says something to us, it is always true. His word is yea and it is amen. So when we act in faith upon it, we understand that he will always give the increase. Now the disciples had the same revelation that Mary had, but only Mary acted by faith on the revelation. She saw the death of Christ before it happened because he had made the promise of that death before it happened. She recognized the certainty of his death was imminent. And Mary, having heard the message of the cross, believed, and because she believed, she invested everything in it. She understood that the prophecies of God were very real. And so from the perspective of relationship, acts of faith abound. When we come to the cross in relationship with Jesus Christ, our faith is inspired. For the one who gave himself for us has promised to come again. And how sure can we be of his coming? This sure, he stretched out his arms in love for us and he rose again from the grave. He's coming again, friends. We ought to live in faith then in light of that promise. since the promise is sure that acts of faith ought to follow. And from the perspective of relationship, the cross will always inspire sacrifice. In verse eight, even the disciples seeing Mary pouring out the alabaster box of ointment upon Jesus said, it's a waste. But from the perspective of relationship, it was no waste. It was an act of sacrifice inspired by the cross. I spent time this past week with a dear Filipino pastor whose father was a fabulously wealthy Filipino attorney. This dear pastor came up through Jesuit schools and while a college student, he renounced Catholicism and embraced the cross. And as he embraced the cross, he has suffered the stigma of it, even being disowned by family members. But he's happy in the work of the Lord, why? How does such things happen? I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. When you come to the cross of Calvary, and you come there by relationship, when you come by relationship to the cross of Calvary, you come to discover devotion and passion such as you've never discovered before. And so we've seen the cross through the perspective of revelation. The divine plan is seen. God is sovereign and God is love. And God's redemptive price has been paid and God's justice has been satisfied. We've seen the cross through the perspective of religion. And it's always detrimental to the religionist, for the cross threatens their popularity. We've seen the cross through the perspective of a relationship, inspiring devotion and passion. The folks note with me this morning, finally, that there's another perspective that is seen in this text, and it's the perspective of rejection. For in verse 14, then one of the 12 called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priest, saying, what will you give me? I will deliver him to you. They covenanted with him for 30 pieces of silver. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him. Judas had heard the same message Mary had heard, but he did not receive the message of the cross for his own salvation. Instead, he rejected the message of the cross. To him, the cross held no value. The very ointment that was poured in preparation for his death was seen as a waste. For him, the cross inspired no loyalty. He would rather have 30 pieces of silver and grab hold by faith of the mercy that's seen on the cross of Calvary and for so many, so many, so many throughout the ages. The cross remains a mystery, a mystery to be rejected. The things of the world are held in greater value. Today the world would rather fill its barns with the goods of the world than fill its heart with the faith that the cross represents. Friend, what's your perspective of the cross this morning? The Christian perspective of the cross is summed up in Galatians 6 and verse 14. Paul said, God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world. What's your perspective of the cross? Romans 1 and verse 16 says the cross is the power of God unto salvation to those who believe. And so well the songwriter said, in the cross of Christ I glory, towering o'er the wrecks of time. As the light of sacred glory gathers round its head sublime. When the woes of life overtake me, hope declines and fears annoy. Never shall the cross forsake me, lo, it glows with peace and joy. Pain and blessing, pain and pleasure, by the cross are sanctified. Peace is there that knows no measure. Joys that through all time abide. Have you embraced the cross where Jesus died in your place? rising again to prove that the offering of sin was forever received by a just God. You must receive that message by faith. You must receive and believe in order to go to heaven. Listen, life eternal and death eternal are in the power of the cross. What's your perspective? What's your perspective? What's your perspective of the cross this morning?