Unknown: Our text morning comes from the Gospel of Luke. We are in chapter 23 Luke, chapter 23 and I'll be reading verses 44 to 49 this morning. Before we read it, let's go to the Lord in prayer.
Unknown: Let's pray Our Father, we thank you. You are not silent, but that you speak to us and Lord, I pray that you will give us ears to hear. I pray that you will open up our blinded eyes, that we might behold our Lord and Savior, that we might behold His glory.
Unknown: Lord, we pray that you will open up our hearts to receive your word Lord, give us understanding. Help us to be able to put distractions aside, to have a singular focus of what you will say to us, that we might glorify you, that we might praise you, that we might entrust our spirits to you. And it's in Jesus's name we pray, Amen, people of God, hear God's word for us this morning from the Gospel of Luke chapter 23 beginning in verse 44 It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun's light failed and the curtain of the temple was torn in two, then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, Father, into your hands. I commit my spirit. And having said this, He breathed His last.
Unknown: Now, when the Centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, certainly this man was innocent. And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts, and all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things. He who has ears let him hear the Word of God. Please be seated. You.
Unknown: Well, I hope you all had a merry Christmas. And I don't remember who said it, but I recall one minister saying, Christmas can be dangerous. Christmas can be dangerous for the church. And what I think he was trying to communicate by that statement is around Christmas, there can sometimes be this romanticization around Bethlehem, and children sometimes get dressed up very cutely as Mary and Joseph, and then the unfortunate child who was dressed up in the Christmas play as a donkey or some other animal that they couldn't find a part for him. So there he is.
Unknown: And the church also looks very beautiful, and I'm thankful for that around Christmas time, and it's it can feel very special with these special decor decorations and and maybe we can even feel that church is even more special around Christmas because of all these things. And then the temptation, I think, is to think that all is made well with God because of Christmas, peace with God and goodwill towards men, but the scriptures don't say by his birth, we are healed. You know what the Scriptures say?
Unknown: They say by His stripes, by His wounds, we are healed. Luke and the other gospels actually do not focus all that much time around Bethlehem, but they focus it here at the cross, the emphasis of the gospel writers is not so much Bethlehem, but Calvary, and that's where we are this morning at the last breath of Jesus and His earthly ministry.
Unknown: Again, I want to emphasize to you that in Luke said there are no gory details of what crucifixion is like. Luke who is a doctor, Luke who would have known better than anyone else what crucifixion would have done to a human body. Luke would have known better than anyone else about the pain of nails piercing your skin, your hands and your feet. Luke would have known better than anyone else as a physician, what it's like to be hanging and the difficulty of catching your breath and dying in that torturous way. But the emphasis here in the crucifixion is not, what does crucifixion do to you? The emphasis here is, what does this crucifixion accomplish for you, and the answer is your salvation.
Unknown: The death of death is here, not in Bethlehem, but in the death of Christ and Jesus is here at the cross.
Unknown: He's giving up his spirit willingly. He is not helpless in any way. In fact, there are several things that occur in this text that we're going to look at that confirm to us what Isaiah said in chapter 53 it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him into grief when his soul makes an offering for guilt. This is all happening by the will of God, that God is in control of it all. And we see different divine things happening in this text. We see a divine darkness, we see a divine desecration, and we also see a divine deliverance. And let's look at those things. First, we see this divine darkness happening in this text. It tells us there in verse 44 it was about the sixth hour, and so that means, in the how the Jews kept time in that day, their day started at daylight. So it's about noon time, if you're keeping track, it's and then it's noon time, and then it says, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. So three hours of darkness, verse 45 while the sun's light failed, we've had nice weather recently here in Florida. This is why you live in Florida.
Unknown: You spend if you live here all year, you're here in the summer, and you're like, Why do I live here? And then you get to around December time, you realize it's nice, okay, I'm happy to be here. And hopefully you've been able to take advantage being outside and the nice weather and the sunlight.
Unknown: But imagine you are outside in one of these recent days, around lunchtime, around noon time, and then all of a sudden, just like that, it is complete darkness, pitch black. It is so dark.
Unknown: Imagine you're throwing a football with your son. You can no longer even see each other.
Unknown: It is so dark.
Unknown: It's like someone has has shoved you into a closet, it is that kind of darkness, and it remains dark not just for a minute or two like a typical Eclipse, but it remains dark for three hours. They didn't have electricity back then you'd have to go light an oil lamp, and you're going to be thinking, and no doubt, if that happens, your kids are going to be asking you, Mom Dad, what is going on?
Unknown: What's happening?
Unknown: And that's right, that's that's the right question. And I think this happening in our text should be causing us to be asking that question, why is that happening? Why is it still dark, Mom, Dad, is it ever going to be light again? Will the sun ever show its face again?
Unknown: I think there's a few things that are happening with the darkness here in the text. The first is the physical darkness represents a spiritual reality that's occurring in our text.
Unknown: There's a spiritual darkness here. And Jesus actually just said that 24 hours ago. If you look back at Luke, chapter 22 verse 53 he said to Judas and those arresting him, this is your hour and the power of darkness. This is a particular period of time and all of history when evil men did extremely evil things.
Unknown: And if you think about all the world wars and all the wickedness and all the perversions that would ever happen in the world, there is nothing more evil. There is nothing more dark to have ever occurred in the history of mankind, or ever in the history of mankind, than what you have read in this text, the putting to death of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Unknown: And this darkness physically shows the real evil that has occurred.
Unknown: It's also another prophecy, as there are many, many, many prophecies that are being fulfilled in this text, Amos 8:9 says, and on that day, declares the Lord, I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.
Unknown: Also remember, too, when the crucifixion of Jesus is a hat is happening in in the calendar of Israel was happening around the Passover. You remember, and the Jerusalem has swollen, tripled, quadrupled in size.
Unknown: Around this time, the crucifixion of Jesus is probably the most public crucifixion to ever occur in that time, with all the people around and the Passover, if you remember, was a celebration of being brought out of Egypt out of the house of slavery.
Unknown: You remember that, that time in Exodus, in your Bibles, where, where God goes to Moses, and Moses doesn't want to go, and but, but Moses goes, God sends Moses to Pharaoh and says to Pharaoh, let my people go, that they might worship Me, that they might serve me. And you remember, does Pharaoh relent?
Unknown: No, he doesn't relent. And God sends those 10 plagues. You remember the 10 plagues? There was like frogs and gnats and Locust boils, the Nile was turned to blood. Do you remember that? Do you remember the ninth plague, darkness. One of the plagues was darkness over the the entire land, showing God's judgment on Egypt. Do you remember what the 10th plague was?
Unknown: The death of the firstborn.
Unknown: Death all the first born males would die unless you took a lamb without blemish and you killed it and you spread its blood over the door post, and so that the angel of death would then pass over your house, and you would not die, but have life.
Unknown: And so then you had Israel, who had been celebrating that very fact, the Passover for now hundreds of years, every year.
Unknown: And maybe they even had children acted out. And you had, you know, a child dressed up like a little frog and, well, you know, there's that plague, and then darkness, and, you know, black.
Unknown: They probably didn't do that at all. This is probably an invention of the 20th century, 21st century, that we started doing those types of things. But you can just imagine that, that, you know, they're familiar with the story and darkness and then the death of the First Born.
Unknown: Everything that is happening there in that Passover and in that Exodus account is actually being represented and even fulfilled here in this text, Jesus, if you've been with us for a few weeks, Jesus is the Passover lamb. You remember back in Luke chapter 22 just the last chapter beforehand, when he institutes the Lord's Supper, he pushes the lamb off the table, if you will, and says, Now, this is my body and this is my blood. That lamb represented me.
Unknown: Now you'll do this in remembrance of Me, no longer remembrance of Egypt, no longer in remembrance of this lamb. I am the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world. And that is what's happening here in our text.
Unknown: The darkness is God's judgment on sin, the darkness is Jesus experiencing in our text, the full unbridled wrath of God for sin.
Unknown: It's the darkness of damnation.
Unknown: And what did Jesus do to deserve that nothing. He's innocent. Three times the judges have declared him innocent. Pilate says he's innocent, he's innocent, he's innocent. But remember, he was too cowardly to let Jesus go, so he gives them over to the will of the people. So what's going on here? Why is Jesus here?
Unknown: He's there because he's dying for your sins and my sins. He is bearing your guilt. He is bearing your shame and mine as Colossians one verse 13 tells us He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and has transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Unknown: If you do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you will face the judgment of God yourself, and there will be absolutely no mercy. There will be no more grace. You will not even have the kindness of the sun shining on you. In fact, you will face darkness, eternal death for forever and ever. In this text, it's as if the Sun runs away scared when God shows up as judge to judge his son, even the son cannot be in the presence of a righteous and holy God upon sin, and the son runs away scared. And you remember the words of Jesus said right before they nailed Him to the cross, where he said, Do not weep for Me. And.
Unknown: But weep for yourselves and for your children.
Unknown: Weep for yourselves. If you do not believe the gospel, weep for yourselves. If you will not repent of your sins and put your faith in Christ and Jesus says, If you don't, you'll even long for mountains to fall upon you.
Unknown: You'll long for the hills to crush you, to give you some kind of relief, some kind of mercy, and you won't find it. Today is a day of salvation. Today is a day to repent and turn from your sins and put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered darkness, who suffered wrath, that you might have life and be brought into the light.
Unknown: There's something else that's happening in our text, and it's actually happening away from the cross.
Unknown: You know, the attention here has been so singularly focused at the cross and so but something now shockingly happens away from the cross, and we see this Secondly, this divine desecration, this divine vandalism.
Unknown: We're told that the curtain of the temple was torn in two other gospels account how the curtain was torn from top to bottom, and this curtain is about 30 feet tall and about 30 feet wide and about an inch thick. This is not a curtain that you know Hulk, Hulk Hogan could come in here and just rip it in half. No one would have the physical strength to tear this curtain. If any man wanted to cut it, you'd have to get a sword or Saul of some sort, and just kind of hack away at it. But here it is, just torn from top to bottom. And you remember, what was the whole purpose of the temple? What? Why was the temple even there in Jerusalem? Well, ever since Eden, the problem was, how do we get back to Eden. How do we get back to paradise? How do we get back into fellowship and communion with God? We've been kicked out, and ever since Eden and Genesis, this has been the whole problem of the text is, how do we get back? How do we get back to God? And the temple was there to help with the problem. The temple did that.
Unknown: The temple gave us the sacrifices, the blood of the lambs would be spilt and and we could, we could enter into God's presence, and the temple gave us the priests, and someone could intercede and interact with God on our behalf.
Unknown: The Temple had the Holy of Holies, and that was off limits.
Unknown: It was the most sacred place in the world, and it was there in the temple in the holies. Of Holies, the place where God chose to manifest His Holy, holy, holy presence.
Unknown: And only one person, only once a year, could ever go into the Holy of Holies. And it was on the Day of Atonement, and that he never went inside. That is the high priest, who was the only one who could ever go in, and he could even never go in without a sacrifice, without the blood of a pure sacrifice.
Unknown: And this curtain was a symbol barring you from the presence of God, but Jesus, who was our Great High Priest, goes before the presence of God on the cross, as we've already talked, who is the perfectly pure sacrifice and the curtain tearing, is God telling us that the Temple has fulfilled its purpose. It's it's not needed anymore. And not only has the curtain fulfilled its purpose, the temples fulfilled its purpose, it's not, it's not needed anymore. It was just a picture that's been fulfilled in Christ. We don't need any more lambs. We don't need lambs. We don't need an altar. We don't need priests anymore. We have Jesus the only mediator between God and man, as Hebrews 10 writes, we have confidence now to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh. Not only is there no more curtain, not only is there now no more temple, there's actually this is the end to the whole Old Testament system. Hebrews nine, again, tells us for Christ has entered into, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but in the heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf, nor was it to offer himself repeatedly as a High Priest, enters the holy places every year with blood, not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared.
Unknown: Appeared once for all, at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. So again, the curtain was showing us that the whole Old Testament system is done. It's put away.
Unknown: No more temple, no more sacrifices, no more priests. We have Jesus. I've used this illustration before, but I think it's it makes the point is, you know, gentlemen, you might have a picture of your girlfriend, and you'll look at that and beautiful, long for her right there, but imagine your your girlfriend then shows up. She's right in front of you, and you're not looking at her, but you're just looking at the picture and longing for the picture, and she's right here, and that's what's happening. We don't need that stuff anymore.
Unknown: We have Jesus. Everything that that Old Testament pointed to is fulfilled in Christ, curtain torn. It's fulfilled its purpose. No more. We have access to God now through Christ, in Christ alone, and the way to God is here at the cross that God has come to save us. And we see that here God doing that very thing, saving. In our text, we see a divine deliverance in verse 47 now when the Centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, certainly this man was innocent, and all the crowns that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home, beating their breasts and all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things.
Unknown: Remember the temptation, and what we see here in our text is there's a lot of people that just go away.
Unknown: They feel heavy hearted. They see that Jesus was an innocent man, but that's about it. And they they just leave unsettled. They leave sad. And again, that's a temptation, I think, for many of us, as we leave church, or even reflect upon this text, is that we just leave feeling sad, having that pity for Jesus. Oh, I'm sorry that really. I'm sorry that happened to Jesus, that really was bad, that wasn't that wasn't good, and you can walk away feeling bad, and we see a lot of people doing that here in our text, but having a heavy heart won't save you. Even having a sorrowful heart will not save you. What saves you is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ will save you when we see God so graciously transforming here the centurions heart and granite in faith. This man, the centurion, was most likely one who was just mocking Jesus and maybe even beating Jesus. This Centurion here at the cross, very likely was even one of the men that actually hammered in the nails into Jesus's hands and feet.
Unknown: But he doesn't go away, just sad after these things happen. He declares that God that Jesus is innocent, and it also tells us that he begins to praise God.
Unknown: Why does he Why is he praising God for this? Says, this is horrible. Why would you be praising God for something like this? That seems odd, right?
Unknown: This is, this is the worst thing to ever happen. And you can understand people going away, sad. I get that. But why is this guy praising God?
Unknown: Well, Mark's account tells us that he said this is the Son of God, and if he declares that this man is innocent and he is the Son of God, but why is he praising Him?
Unknown: Because he recognizes who he's dying for, whose sin is he carrying, not his own. He's carrying mine.
Unknown: He's carrying my sin. And we should be able to look at the cross like the Centurion does, and not just walk away with sadness, but the proper response is to praise God. Hallelujah.
Unknown: What a savior that Christ is there, hanging all of my sins upon himself, not only the past, but today and even tomorrow. All of my sins, not in part, but the whole, are nailed to the cross, and I bear them no more praise the Lord. That's what happens to the centurion, and we can praise God using these words too, that Jesus declares his last words here at the cross, father into your hands. I commit my spirit. I'm sneaking in at a fourth point. You might even call it a divine declaration, but you know, you could just have three in your notes, if you want four, that's brief. It's more of really the conclusion.
Unknown: And Jesus here is quoting a psalm. He's quoting Psalm 31 verse five. He's declaring that his work, it's finished. I've done it. My work's done. Here.
Unknown: Jesus is in control of the whole situation, and we see that even in the surrendering of His Spirit to God with a loud voice.
Unknown: Imagine you're that Centurion, and you know you're used to these guys just kind of suffering and hanging there on the cross. But all of a sudden, a loud voice declares and shouts out, into your Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit.
Unknown: And this the mystery here, the son being separated for the first time from the intimacy and fellowship he has known with the Father and all eternity.
Unknown: But Jesus here has full confidence that death is not the end.
Unknown: He believes that there is life, there is even exaltation to come, and there is a lot more to be said there, but we who put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we can, too now confront death and even our lives using these words of Jesus, often we we don't even reflect on these words as something that that we too can Say, Father into your hands. I commit my spirit. This is what Stephen said, something along those lines. Remember, Stephen was being stoned to death in Acts. He entrusted himself to the Lord gave us, and the Lord brought him home, Father, into your hands. I commit my spirit.
Unknown: If you're in the Lord Jesus Christ, you can have that kind of confidence. You can entrust that your lives and even in your death, that's your comfort in life and in death, that you're not your own, but that you belong body and soul to your faithful Lord, Jesus Christ, and He will accomplish what he has started in you. When we feel anxious, when we feel worried or fearful, we can use these words, and we can even shout them out in all confidence, Father, my spirit is yours.
Unknown: You're in control of all things.
Unknown: I think that's our hope too, in our lives, as we look to the cross, where we see this most wicked, terrible thing to ever occur. And we asked, did, well, did God use even this great darkness where even the Son was afraid of the judgment of God that did God even, did God use that for His glory?
Unknown: Absolutely, he did. But did God even use this for your good?
Unknown: Yes, he did. And so even in your own life, when you face difficulties and fears and maybe even great evil, you can entrust your spirit to God, even knowing that he's using it for His glory and your good. And we can take comfort in that, that our God is working all things out.
Unknown: He's given us His Son. How much more will he freely give us all things?
Unknown: Put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Walk away this morning, not with just sadness, but with praise, with Thanks and Peace.
Unknown: You know when, often, when people are getting ready to die, one of the questions is, what will happen to my stuff, my things? Who will get them next? Well, in a similar way, at Jesus's last moment, Jesus doesn't offer an inheritance that is just possessions. There's eternal possessions, but he offers you peace if you put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that's what you will inherit this very moment, this very day, peace with God.
Unknown: Call upon the name of the Lord and be saved. Let's pray, Father. We thank you for giving us this account, and it is such a rich account we could plumb its depths forever and never reach the bottom.
Unknown: Lord, You're so good to us to give us your son. I pray that you will continue to help us better understand, to better understand who you are, your control, your goodness, your love. To us in Christ, why we were yet sinners. Christ died for us, Lord, I pray that you will also help us to remember that you're not only a God of mercy, but also justice, and there's a day of judgment to come. I pray that you will help us all to consider our eternal souls, to remember that it profits not to gain the entire world, but yet lose our souls.
Unknown: So let us focus on the cross and hold fast to it and have peace this day in Jesus' name, we pray amen. Amen.