Well, my throat's hurting today, so I'm gonna make it even worse by talking louder, I guess, with no microphone. If you would take your copy of God's word and turn to somewhere you probably were not expecting this morning, or perhaps you were, Romans chapter three. Now, we are obviously stepping out of John again this week based on what I just told you, and next week is our continuing series in John. Now today is recognized as Palm Sunday by Christians around the world. And it marks the beginning of Holy Week, or Passion Week, as some would say. We remember that Jesus' triumphal entry on that Sunday prior to the cross, and how riding that young foal, the people were yelling out, Hosanna, Hosanna, throwing out the palm leaves, and glory to God, they were saying, as Jesus rode into Jerusalem. Well, we know the rest of the story, and within four short days, those same people were saying, crucify him, crucify him. Even when they were given the opportunity to spare his life, put up against an accused criminal, they chose to let the criminal go loose, and our Lord went to the cross. The convicted criminal, instead of their Messiah, And our Lord would go to the cross, and he would die a criminal's death. The Bible tells us that cursed is anyone who is hung on a tree, and that's how our Lord died, hanging on that tree. Now, lest you think this was something contrary to God's plan and purpose, we see that balance that we so often talk about with responsibility and sovereignty coming face to face. The Jews were crying out to crucifying him. to send him to the cross. So they bear responsibility. There's no doubt about it. The Romans had to be the one to carry out that as they were the occupying force and a death penalty could not be carried out outside of Romans. And yet, although they bear responsibility, they were just the human instruments God used to fulfill his divine plan and timetable and purpose. Before the foundation of the world, the lamb was slain in the mind of God. Revelation calls him the slain lamb as well. Within the context of God's sovereign timetable, Christ came and lived and went to that cross and died. Isaiah 53, verse 10. When we say who is responsible, well, we can say the Jews, we can say the Romans, we can say you and me, and all of those are true. But ultimately, Isaiah 53 10 tells us this. But Yahweh, the Lord, was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief. If you would place his soul as a guilt offering, he will see his seed, he will prolong his days, and the good pleasure of Yahweh will succeed in his hand. It pleased the Lord to crush him. Now that doesn't make a lot of sense to us. That's why as much as we spend time thinking about the cross and that march up Calvary's Hill, and we understand so much of there, we're gonna do a little bit of a backwards look at the cross. We're gonna see the purpose and back up to the actual event itself this morning. And I don't know that we've approached it that way before, but it's a very interesting and appropriate and edifying way to look at the cross in my mind. But why? Why did it please him? Well, immediately after Isaiah 53 10, the Lord says this, as a result of the anguish of his soul, he will see it and be satisfied. By his knowledge, the righteous one, my servant will justify the many as he will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will divide for him a portion with the many, and he will divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul to death. and was numbered with the transgressors, yet he himself bore the sin of many and interceded for the transgressors." That gives us a glimpse of the why, right there, the next two verses after verse 10. Now, prior to looking at the events of that day, when our Lord went willingly to the cross, and as we are in Romans 3 this morning, as I already mentioned, it's not a place that most people expect to hear a sermon in regards to the cross, and or on a Palm Sunday morning. Unless, of course, you're a member here and then you may not realize that there's an opportunity for us to preach from Romans almost any Sunday. But considering our Lord's crucifixion, this is a precious text that we should consider in regard to what happened. So with that said, Romans 3, starting in verse 21. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe, for there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith for a demonstration of his righteousness. Because in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed for the demonstration of his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Let's pray. Father, we come to this text this morning, understanding this is a turning point in this letter. And Lord, as we are here on this Palm Sunday, Many are celebrating the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, which is worthy of our praise, no doubt. The events that would happen later that week is the turning point in human history. Lord, let us cling to that old rugged cross. Let us consider what was done, what was accomplished, what was purchased for all those who would believe as the text just told us at that cross. Lord, give us greater understanding to the meaning and the importance of our Lord going to that cross and dying that death. I follow the letters, ponder these things this week as we come to next Sunday and we will celebrate the resurrection of the empty tomb. Lord, let us think long and let us drink deeply from these truths of the cross this morning. And Father, anywhere that I may be a stumbling block to the clear proclamation of your word, Lord, I would ask that you would remove me and that your word alone would go forth and your people would be nourished by it. Lord, I ask these things, I lift these things, I commend this service to you. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. So if you're familiar with Romans, besides just my occasional reference of Romans, you will know that before Paul gets to the good news, before Paul gets to the gospel that we just start seeing him etching out for those believers in Rome, he gives them the bad news first. The first two and a half chapters of Romans are not good news. After he gets past the introduction, he spends the majority of these first two and a half chapters telling us, by extension, the Romans immediately, of the bad news. What is the bad news? I'm not just talking about turning on the TV, we see plenty of bad news there. This is greater, this is bigger, this is larger than that. What does he tell us? Some of the things. He tells us about the bleakness of the human condition, the sinfulness of sin, where man stands before a holy God outside of Christ Jesus. He tells us that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven. He tells us that the evidence of God is all around us, and yet fallen man suppresses the truth. He does so willingly, while we also acknowledge that in God's sovereignty, he blinds eyes and minds and hearts as well. Man is responsible and God is sovereign at the same time. The remainder of chapter one leads us down a truly ugly path of human depravity before you get to the end of that chapter. It tells us of this self-worship, this idol worship, and really you don't separate the two. If you worship yourself, that is an idol. Anything outside of God is an idol. Your children, your family, your spouse are good things, but to worship them above God has made them an idol. worshiping the creation to a point that leads to sexual promiscuity, which leads to homosexuality, which leads to all sorts of unrighteousness and morally depraved behavior. If you look around, you see this everywhere around us today, yet he said this 2,000 years ago. When we move to Romans 128, near the end of that chapter, there's 31 verses in that chapter, listen to this, and this should frighten So many, but of course it doesn't because they suppress the truth. Romans 128, and just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, gave them over to an unfit, many of your translations say depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper. That's not just human depravity running roughshod, that is God saying, and I will remove the shackles. Guys, I hope we understand that sin in this world is terrible and awful, but God does restraining at a point. Why was Hitler as bad as he was? Well, he was a sinful, fallen man. Why wasn't he worse? God restrained his evil at a point. He did restrain it at a point. He did not accomplish all he wanted to do. That is obvious to us. Now he used human resources to do that, right? The allied forces, the Americans, the Russians, the British, all these, but he restrained his evil at a point. He did not reach the total end of what he wanted to do. Evil is restrained. This language in Romans 1 talks about a time when those shackles will be removed and you think it's bad now? Just wait. Now, leading to condemnation, not only for those he describes, but also for those who give approval for such behavior. This is where we are right now, guys, because We have some that are professing believers. Say they're believers, and they'll say, you know what, I don't want anything to do with the alphabet mafia, as I call them, the LGBT, just fill them out, but we should leave them alone and let them do what they wanna do. Well, that is giving hearty approval. That is what he's talking about near the end of Romans. Yeah, I don't want anything to do with it, but we must not say anything against it. Now, we'd do that in love. We're not supposed to do that militantly, but to give hearty approval, let me read the verse. It's not up here. And although they know the righteous requirement of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. You don't have to be in the midst of the act, if you just say it's okay, God says that's not right either. Do not give hearty approval to sin. Not just what we're talking about here, but any sin, adultery that you know that's going on, or any of this stuff, don't give hearty approval to it. And then he goes into chapter two and the apostle moves to speaking of how God's judgment is righteous and just. That man isn't to mistake God's patience with dealing with sin to God ignoring sin and judgment. It is coming. He speaks against the Jew who trust in their own works, who trust in their own nationality. And guys, we've got American Christians today doing the same thing. When my daddy and my granddaddy and everybody else was a Christian, I was born into a Christian family, I'm a Christian because I'm a white American. That goes against flies in the face of God's clear teaching also. And just before he concludes how dark and how doomed the human condition is, he goes one step further. Romans 3, 9 through 11. What then? Are we better? Not at all. For we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin as it is written. There is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God. He just ramped up how bleak and dark the situation is to another level. Because anytime you see the word all in the New Testament, I could go down the rabbit trail here and I'm gonna try to restrain myself, but all in the New Testament can be translated several different ways. But when he makes the distinction on the front end and he says Jews and Greeks, that is the all he's speaking about. He's speaking of every single human being. Because he prefaced it with the Jews and the Greeks. That includes everybody. He's saying all of sin. Now, there are other times when all doesn't mean all like that, and it's prefaced by something said before, and we'll talk about that, because we're gonna see one of those verses in a minute. Verse 18, there is no fear of God before their eyes. Verse 20, because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in its sight, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. Guys, this is very, very bad news. Do we see how bad it is? Do we understand how sinfulness sin is? Do we see how bad sin is? I'm afraid we don't see it as bad as we should. Definitely, the world doesn't. Then and only then does he get to the gospel. This is not the pattern of evangelism most people would take today, is it? Most people would not spend that amount of time telling them how bad, wicked, vile, and deserving of hell they are, and then switch over. The modern form of evangelism today is you're a pretty good person. Now, this goes back to the video that Marty wanted me to show today. Mostly, you're a good person. You just need to add Jesus on your life to make it perfect. You're pretty good. Most people are pretty good, the world will tell you. You just need to add Jesus. He's a cherry on top of your life. That is not what the Bible teaches. Were that the case, the cross would be unnecessary. There'll be no need for it, because you can fix yourself up. You just need to add Jesus onto the back end of your life. That is not what scripture teaches. The gospel shines most brightly against the dark, black bleakness of the situation of humanity. I've used the analogy before and I'll use it again. You go to a jewelry store, they take a diamond and they want to show you how beautiful it is. They don't just set it over here, set it right there. They put it against something black so you can see the glory of that diamond against the blackness behind it. The gospel is the same way. Were it not for God providing the way, there would be no way. All men eternally lost in their trespasses and sins. All mankind rightly deserve the wrath of a holy God. Amen. Verse 21, but now, but now God says, but now to the apostle Paul, he says, how glorious, how monumental, how beautiful are these two words? But now he did. He did it. Now this is after the cross. I hope people realize that. He's thinking back to the cross, but now God has done it. And only he could. Sin is generally a word that people laugh at today. They mock that word. People have gotten their own definition of sin today, which is completely different than what God says about sin, by the way. There's no shame attached to it. I tell you, that's one of the biggest issues we have in the world. Nobody feels shame anymore. There's no shame. It's hard to get across to fallen humanity. Quite frankly, it's hard to get across to professing believers sometimes how heinously ugly sin really is. How offensive sin is to God. There's so much in our culture that teaches us that we define our own sins. Is there not? Think about that. Either individually or socially. We belong to certain communities and groups that kind of define sin in the ways they want to, and it's very fluid and ambiguous. Here's what we see more often than not, that man is just a victim of their circumstances or their environment. Now man is affected by their circumstances and their environment, but that's not the problem about sin. We are affected by these things, but that's no excuse for sin. Your environment, how you were brought up, what happened to you is no excuse for sin. Your workplace and the way that you speak there, that's no excuse for it because everybody else is doing it. Sin must be dealt with either by the offender or the one who was offended. Catch that? Sin must be dealt with either by the offender or the one offended. And because we have ultimately sinned against the Holy God, we have a problem. No one else can satisfy that wrath of God. No one is righteous enough that they can atone for your sins, nor that, because they can even atone for their own sins. The problem is obviously much worse than the world wants to acknowledge. Do we understand that? I certainly hope we do. Sin is much more than a wrong committed against our fellow man. It is that, but it's much more than that. What did David say when he sinned? Clearly he sinned against man, and he said, against you and you alone, oh God, have I sinned. That should be the cry of every one of us when we sin as well. Man is born a sinner and his sin is a violation of God's holy law. You catch that? You don't start sinning and become a sinner. You're born a sinner, therefore you sin. You're just validating what God said. You're validating the need for the cross. Man has sinned against the creator of the universe. the creator of the universe, the creator of every cell in your body, the fact that your heart is pumping blood, that your lungs are sucking in oxygen, that is who we've sinned against. As R.C. Sproul has said, there's not one rogue molecule in the entire universe, but man shakes their fist at God. And because of our sin nature, man can do nothing to gain favor and righteousness with God. I'm gonna say that again. Because of our sin nature, man can do nothing to gain righteousness and acceptance by God. You can't do it. Worse still is that not only are we unable to do it, guess what? Man is unwilling to do it. Unless God provides a way. And praise him, he did. You see, God must provide a way. not only provide a way, but he must change our very nature, give us the gift of faith and repentance, so that not only can we believe, but that we will believe and that we want to believe. That cannot happen unless God does a mighty work within the heart of the sinner. Even then though, we still have a problem. We still have this payment of sin. If God is just and a justifier, we still have the penalty of sin. and it must be paid for. Justice must be served. After all, the most just judge, humanly speaking, you could ever think of is still a sinner, and that affects and impacts his judgments no matter how much he tries to stay to the law. There is that emotional issue. God is just above all. God is a justifier above all. payment for our sins must be dealt with. Justice must be served. After all, God is just. Just as he is sovereign and merciful and wrathful and long-suffering, he is just. We have lost the concept of just because our justice system is so broken in this country. Other countries don't have a justice system at all. We don't understand justice like we should. Only an unjust judge allows evil to go unpunished. Verse 22. Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe, for there is no distinction. Atonement must be made. Not only does he provide a way, he himself is that way. He himself paid that price for all those who would believe. You say, we must be made righteous to stand before a righteous God. You can't stand before Him. That person you know that you witnessed it, well, when I stand up to God, I'll say, no, you won't. And every knee will bow. He may break your legs to do it, but every knee will bow. No one is gonna get to the judgment seat of Christ and tell God, try to make vindication for what they did. It will not work that way. We can't attain that righteousness, so it must be applied to us. It must be given to us. That's what the scriptures clearly teach. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe. It is applied to those who believe. The reformers called it an alien righteousness. The righteousness outside of ourself. Because what do we know about our righteousness? They're all like filthy rags. It must be applied to us so that we can stand before a holy God. Romans 4, 5, and 6, we read this. But to the one who does not work, but believes upon him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Just as David also speaks of the blessing of a man to whom God counts righteousness apart from works. It's not the will of the man, it's not the will of the flesh. God applies that righteousness through you, to you, through Christ Jesus. Verse seven and eight, not in PowerPoint. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account. Now he can't just dismiss it because that's not just either. That's not justice, is it? Think about that. It's not justice to just throw it away and say, I don't see it. God sees all. Justice must be dealt with. It must be, the sin, it must be paid for. Some today have a view of the gospel that makes Jesus out to be something like a car repairman. He's a nice guy. He's a very, very nice man. And when you break down, he just comes along and fixes you up. Changes your flat tire, if you will. Yet Paul depicts here The nature of our brokenness turns first and foremost to our offensiveness to a holy God. That's altogether a different problem. It's the wrath of God that's disclosed from heaven, not the wrath against what you've done to fellow man. We do not sin against our fellow man only, but we do sin against our fellow man. Oftentimes, we sin the most against our fellow man that we love the most, and vice versa. Those that we love the most will sin against us. On the other hand, though, if we think of ourselves only in terms of victimhood and victims of our circumstances and our environment, then we only do need a healer or a repairman. That's all we need. If the problem is horizontal only with our fellow man, that's all we need. It's a way to fix us up a little bit, but that's not the problem. The problem is vertical, not horizontal only. The problem is we sin against the holy God. All men have. In the Bible, the most fundamental category of all the biblical writers to show us the nature of the sin problem is the offense against God. It follows that what's needed first and foremost for us to be saved then, for it to change, is to provide a means by which we can be reconciled to God. Verse 23, just repeating what we already know, all have sinned and fall short. That just reiterates everything Paul has said leading up to this point, all have sinned and fall short. Now the solution. Now the solution. Unless we understand the problem. That's why we spent so much time talking about the problem. If we don't understand the problem, we don't understand the solution as we should. We just don't. You can use that in everyday life, but you need to use it in talking about the cross and the gospel too. Verse 24 tells us, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. To be justified, we've received it as a gift, a gift of grace. What is grace? It's unmerited favor. You didn't do anything to earn it, but yet you're called justified? That is a glorious truth, guys. Never get far away from that word and that language of being justified before a holy God. And the fact that you can't do it, it's a gift of grace through faith. We've been redeemed. We've been redeemed for Christ, by Christ, and through Christ. This redemption is in Christ Jesus. Being justified, proclaimed justified. Your sin no longer held against you. The payment has been made, he says. Since you are or have been made just, you're redeemed. That's what this verse tells us. You are redeemed and you will be finally redeemed. But to be made just, nothing can come back from that. The payment has been accepted. And we're going to look at that in just a moment. Since you are, live that way. And it's in Christ Jesus, this verse tells us. And we still haven't spoken of how yet. I know. We're going to get to that in just a second. As I said before, we're somewhat working backwards to the cross here. Romans 6, 5 and 7. For if we become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing that our old man was crucified with him in order that our body of sin might be done away with so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. For he who has died has been justified from sin. That gives us a little bit more insight, does it not? That the old man is crucified with Christ. We still haven't gotten to the starting point, but we're working that way. We are recognized with him and his death. This is representative in the way we would look at believers' baptism, right? That we're buried and raised. We're no longer slaves to sin, the verse tells us, if we're connected with him and his death. Sin does not have that power over us. We're still influenced by it. We're still in sinful flesh. We still sin, but we shouldn't mark that off as, well, I'm still in sinful flesh, so it's okay if I sin. Paul deals with that also. He says, should I sin more that grace may abound? He said, may it never be. That's one of the key things to conviction of a Christian, in my mind, is whenever you feel convicted about the sin you committed because you know you committed a sin against God. If it doesn't bother you, there's a problem. There is a real problem. Verse 8 is not in the PowerPoint. Now, if we die with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. Now, that's kind of getting into next week a little bit. Speaking of our living with Him in accordance with His resurrection, but next week we will talk about His resurrection. Verse 25 in our text, speaking of Christ, displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith for a demonstration of his righteousness because in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed. Now we're back to the hell again. How did he do it? Well, first of all, before we go any further, God or Jesus as truly man could be our actual representative as he is man. But he had to be truly God in order that the death would be satisfactory to a holy God because no man alone can do what he did. No man alone's life is worth the value of his life. But yet he had to be truly man so he could identify with us and be our high priest. God displayed him, not quietly, not in a little corner, not for us to ever hear about again. Historians have to deal with the fact that Jesus went to the cross, that they deal with it a myriad of ways. And of course, myriad of ways to deal with his resurrection, but it cannot be denied what history tells us along with the Bible. He did it publicly in front of a crowd. People gathered for all to see. As a propitiation, we've dealt with this word before, so I'm not going to spend a tremendous amount of time, but there's that $1.50 word. We said that interest made them, but not 50 cent words anymore, the $1.50 words. It's all too often ignored though. We've talked about it a couple of times, but what does that mean? This word speaks to penal substitutionary atonement. These words are true of what happened at the cross. Sometimes the word in your translation may change to expiation or sacrifice of atonement, and those all happen at the cross too. But the word propitiation is the most literal and accurate word used. What is propitiation? It is the act by which someone, in this case God, becomes propitious. What does that mean? That is favorable. Propitiation is the sacrificial act by which someone becomes favorable. This isn't a new concept, right? Throughout the history, pagans have made sacrifices to a god to try to appease that god. But only in Christianity does God himself make propitiation, make himself propitious through what he has done and what he has accomplished. That is altogether different. Because it's true. And all the other are fake. It carries the meaning, though, of appeasing or satisfying the wrath of God. In the case of Christ, on our behalf, his death on the cross and on our behalf satisfied God's justice due to all who believe. As God is just, that justice must be satisfied. If it's not, he's not just anymore. Do we understand that? If sin is not paid for, God is not just. Even for those that are his, that sin must be paid for. Now the word expiation, it's a sacrificial act also in which sin is canceled or removed, which is true and which does happen and which we see, but the object of the sin and expiation is sin. The object in propitiation is the one who is offended and that's God. That's why that word is important to recognize it's used here. He is the object and the satisfaction of his wrath must be meted out. He demonstrates his righteousness and sinful man could come into his presence only through the payment of that offense. And the only payment acceptable to God is God himself. Galatians 4, 4 and 5. But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law so that he might redeem those who were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. What a glorious truth that is. I read a quote from D.A. Carson that says this. This marks the fundamental difference between pagan propitiation and Christian propitiation. In pagan propitiation, a human being offers a propitiatory sacrifice to make a God propitious. In Christian propitiation, God the Father sets forth Jesus as the propitiation to make himself propitious. God is both the subject and the object. God is the one who provides the sacrifice precisely as a way of turning aside his own wrath. God the Father is thus the propitiator and the propitiated, and God the Son is the means in which he does that. Paul establishes that God's justice, his righteousness, is demonstrated through the cross of Christ, that you see it clearly on that hill in Calvary. Through his blood, that is, through his death, the propitiation. Now it is true, if you think about verse 26, for the demonstration of his righteousness at the present time so that he would be just and the justifier, the one who has faith in Jesus. From God's perspective, do we see right there what he says, the reason for the cross? So that God would be just and the justifier. It is true that Jesus went to the cross to secure eternal life for those he loves. It is very true. It is very true that He went to the cross for His elect, that He went to the cross for His bride, that He went to the cross for His sheep, which is all in one, the same, to demonstrate His love. However, first and foremost, what verse 26 tells us is He did this. He went to the cross to demonstrate His righteousness and that His justice would be meted out and accepted through the one and only Christ Jesus. His justice as just and justified for those who have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now this does not equate to some kind of cosmic child abuse as some liberal theologians would try to say. It was the only way. It is the only way. And it was the plan of salvation before the foundation of the world, before he created Adam and Eve. The Bible tells us the lamb was slain before the foundation of time in the mind of God. It means the demands of his holiness are met in the sacrifice of his son, Jesus Christ. It means that his justice is satisfied in Jesus' propitiatory work. It vindicates God himself, as if he needed vindication from man, but it vindicates him because he is just, and it must be paid for. God simultaneously preserves his justice while justifying the ungodly. That is a problem for man to wrap their head around. He satisfied his justice while also justifying the ungodly because it was poured out upon Christ Jesus on that cross. He felt the wrath of God. The cup in the garden, the wrath of God. He drank down the wrath for you, elect child of God. He drank it down. He paid the penalty that you deserve. Do we realize why man is eternally sent to hell, that one who's outside of Christ, and why the punishment is eternal? Because it can never be fully paid, even in eternity. That's why that punishment is forever and ever. Jesus paid it all for his children. He's not paying it continually. He paid it once. All sin must be punished. Propitiation is in fact that which holds together all other biblical ways of thinking about the cross. You must understand that he was that sacrifice. All sin must be punished for the believer that has been punished in Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 5.21, we're nearing the landing spot here. 2 Corinthians 5.21. He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. He took our place. 1 Peter 3, 18. For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, so that he might bring you to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. Quick sidebar here, when it says all there, we must understand the context. I told you I was gonna have another verse there. Who is he speaking to? Which all, is this all the same Jews and Greeks? Did he pay for everybody? If he paid for everybody, everybody would be saved. First Peter, very first verse. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as exile, scattered throughout Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to the obedience of Jesus Christ and the sprinkling of his blood, may grace and peace be multiplied to you. That's who he's speaking to. That's the all he represents in 318. It has to be, that's who he's writing to. Hebrews, chapter nine, verse 22. And according to the law, one may also say all things are cleansed with blood. And without shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. When you move into chapter 10 of the same letter in Hebrews, that's the chapter that tells us that the blood of bulls and goats never satisfied or appeased God's wrath. They were all a shadow of what was to come on the cross. Back to Romans as we near the conclusion. Have I said that already? We're nearing the conclusion. Romans 5, 6 and 8, for while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die, but God demonstrates his own love towards us and that while we were yet sinners. Christ died for us. Have you ever witnessed somebody and they said, why did he clean this up in my life before I come to church? I mean, I need to do this. I need to do that. While we were yet sinners. While we were yet sinners. Now let's go to the cross and read the narrative statement at the cross. Let us read. Now if you go to any four of the Gospels, they all capture the crucifixion. But from different angles, and something here that's maybe not there, they all are connected and all of it happened. Because all the words in the Word of God are absolutely true. Okay? Don't try to let that dissuade you somewhere. Just one author uses, talks about something that the other author doesn't. But, I chose to go to Mark this morning. Mark 15, pretty lengthy text, but this is gonna basically conclude our message from today. Mark 15, 22 through 39, I do not have this on the board because I got lazy last night and did not want to put all these on the PowerPoint. But follow along with me in your scripture, in your copy of God's word if you have it in front of you. Mark 15, 22, then they brought him, Jesus, to the place called Gotha, which is translated place of a skull. And they tried to give him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. and they crucified him. Let me pause for just a second. They crucified him. They drove nails through his hands, more likely his wrist, because those two bones could support his weight in the hands, could not. Those nails went through his wrist, those nails went through his feet, and this was normally a long, drawn-out death. not for our Lord. Divided up his garments among themselves, casting lots for them to decide who should take what, which is a fulfillment of prophecy in and of itself. Now it was the third hour, and they crucified him. And the inscription of the charge against him read, the King of the Jews. And they crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. And the scripture was fulfilled, which says, and he was numbered with transgressors. And those passing by were blaspheming him, shaking their heads, and saying, ha, you who are going to destroy the sanctuary and rebuild it in three days, save yourself by coming down from the cross. In the same way, mocking him to one another, the chief priest also, along with the scribes, were 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. And when the sixth hour came, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabathani, which is translated, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And when some of the bystanders heard it, they began saying, Lord, look, he is calling for Elijah. And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave him a drink saying, let us see whether Elijah will come and take him down. And Jesus, uttering a loud cry, breathed his last. And the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion who was standing right in front of him saw the way he breathed his last, he said, truly, this man was God's son. The veil was torn from top to bottom. Man cannot do that God alone. It would take a team of men to tear it anyway from the bottom to the top, it was so thick. That shows the access now for the believers in the Lord Jesus Christ to come into the presence of a holy God. What did he cry out? What did he cry out at the end? John 19, 30. Therefore, when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished. And bowing his head, he gave up his spirit. He cried out, it is done, it is paid, it is finished. At the cross, God's justice, his wrath was poured out upon Christ Jesus for all those who would believe in his name. I hope you've seen the need for us to understand the details of the cross, what it meant, as we circle back and we think about Christ on that tree. I pray that somebody here has not received Him, who has not, who has seen for the first time their great need for a Savior, who has seen the sinfulness of sin in their own lives, that you would repent and believe the gospel today. Behold, today is the day of salvation. Let's pray. Father God, how glorious are you. Incomprehensible. Father, I just pray that you would work upon the hearts of your people, that you would bring many sons to glory as you promised. We trust that. We pray that we've been faithful to share the word. We ask these things in your son Jesus' name, amen.