What Happened On The Cross

Total Depravity: Man Slaughtered His Benevolent Savior 0:27

Over the past week or so, there was a stir in the national media. There was a journalist, and he uncovered audio of a major political figure, in which this major political figure had made the statement that mankind, mankind is inherently evil. So this journalist encounters this real scoop, that there's this individual who comes from a Christian background, he's in public office, and he believes that mankind is inherently bad, inherently wicked, inherently depraved.

And the idea that the journalist had was that this is an outrageous proposition, outrageous that anyone could ever believe that. This is radical. This is an extreme position was the context of this journalist's approach. Now, I don't pretend to know what the experience this journalist had had with Scripture, but I would wager that the individual who wrote this article has probably not encountered chapter 27 of Matthew.

You see, the entire Bible talks about man's depravity. It's not hidden in the dust jacket. You don't have to like flip to some annex and go, oh my, depraved? No, it's not like that.

From one end to the other, just look at Genesis 3 on through the rest of the book, you'll see that man has fallen, man is depraved, man is wicked. With that said, although you can find it across the whole of the book, you can find it with special clarity in chapter 27, when the very people that Jesus Christ, the Son of God came to save and to heal and to encourage and to come alongside slaughtered Him.

The most benevolent single figure ever to walk into their lives. And their reaction was what? To nail Him to the tree, to nail Him to the cross. In Matthew 27, we're reading about a man who for the past 26 chapters went from this place to that place, back to this place, healing, encouraging, teaching, praying over people, raising the dead, healing lepers, the blind, the whole lot of it.

Anyone who approached Him, anyone who so much as touched the hem of His garment was healed. This is a man of the greatest kindness and patience and benevolence this globe has ever seen. For 26 chapters, that's all He did, was go and teach and encourage and was kind and loving and so forth.

And yet, in Matthew 27, at the culmination of those efforts, the very people He came to offer all this stuff to killed Him. Man is evil. They slaughtered this individual and they hung Him alongside thieves. Not only did they do that, but when they had the opportunity to release Him, this kind, benevolent, forbearing Jesus, when they had the opportunity to release Him, who did they insist be released instead?

Barabbas. What do we know about Barabbas? Well, we know this much. He was a zealot.

He was a murderer. He was one who was guilty of his crimes. He knew of his guilt. The people knew of his guilt.

And yet the people wanted him back, not Jesus. Jesus they wanted dead. And it wasn't just the priests and the others. It wasn't just them.

It was the people at large. They were chanting, crucify him, crucify him. Give us Barabbas, not him. He had spent 26 chapters loving on them, encouraging them, healing them.

The signs of His good works and His love and His kindness were everywhere they looked. There was people walking around that couldn't walk before. There's people walking around who had been dead not long before.

Sheep and Goats: Man Is Not Morally Neutral 3:41

And in spite of all this, they killed Him. Those who say that man is morally neutral, that's not the testimony of the book. It's not the testimony of your own experience. Man is not morally neutral.

We don't come into this world with moral neutrality. We're not all sitting here with moral neutrality. When Jesus sees the globe, what does He see? He sees goats and sheep.

How does one become a sheep? His own volition, not ours. But I know this much, those who received Him, those who heard His voice and followed Him, something was different about them. They had in some way been changed, regenerated, born again.

But those who remained dead in their sins and trespasses, they looked at Him and they hated Him, and they wanted Him dead. In chapter 27, they got their wish.

The Divine Eclipse: Darkness From Noon to Three 4:25

In chapter 27, Jesus has already been crucified by the time we get to today's verses. He's already there. He's on the cross. But that said, something was going to happen at high noon.

Something was going to happen at noon, from noon to three, that was going to be different than what had happened the hours previous. Something that would startle, shock, and amaze the onlookers. Let's consider what that is as we return to the text. Let's look at verses 45 through 46, and then again, work our way through.

Verse 45. Now, from the sixth hour until the ninth hour, there was darkness all over the land. In other words, a darkness came that wasn't there before. Jesus was still on the cross.

The darkness hadn't been there previously, but now it had come. At noon, from the sixth hour until the ninth hour, there was darkness all over the land. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, that is, my God, my God, why have You forsaken me?

All right, as we said a moment ago, Christ's crucifixion took place about nine in the morning. They got up and they just got busy with the crucifying. Nine o'clock, he's crucified. From about nine to twelve, nine a.m. to noon, His blood is just pooling out.

It's pooling at the ground. He's suffering there on the cross. This had to be dreadful. It had to be painful.

This was a tormenting few hours. And yet, at this point, it's still daylight. You understand this? Jesus is on the cross.

It's still daylight. At this point, what's he doing? Well, if we read the chronology of the events that are going on on the cross, we know he's talking. Who is he talking to?

He's talking to the thieves, right? At least the one thief. The one thief recognizes Him for who he is. And Jesus looks at him and says, Truly, this day you will be with me.

Where? And paradise. So he's talking to the thief. Who else is he talking to?

Well, we know he talks to Mary, his mother. We also know he talks to John, the disciple that he loved. Mother, behold your son. The idea is that John would help assist and take care of Mary in the time yet to come.

So from nine to noon, things are bad. No doubt about this. Terrible. His suffering is overwhelming.

This is the most grievous form of execution imaginable at this time. But for what it's worth, at this point, Up until this point, up until noon, his suffering is largely on par with what the two men to his side are experiencing. But then we come to verse 45, and something changes. Verse 45, we read that from noon to three, darkness fills the land.

Darkness fills the region. Now, what is the source of that darkness? What's the cause of this darkness? This is a three-hour window here.

What's the cause of it? Well, you know, there's folks who will look at this and they'll say, well, we've got to come up with some normal, natural explanation. It got dark. What causes it to get dark in the middle of the day?

What do you think? An eclipse. Right, so what do they do? You go, well, shocking, amazing, what a coincidence.

At the very time he's on the cross, I guess there was a solar eclipse, lasts for three hours, and that's the source. That's the reason why it was dark. The same people who do that, who reach to that sort of explanation, who reached for any natural explanation to explain supernatural divine phenomena, they do it elsewhere in the book as well.

They do it when it comes to the Red Sea. The Red Sea parted. How? Well, the tide shifts, the moon in orbit.

You know, an earthquake helped part it. No! God did it. That's the answer. And that's the answer here.

Right here, this is no solar eclipse. This is a divine eclipse. But why? Why dark? why a divine eclipse?

The Imputation of Sin and the Father's Turning Away 7:57

R.C. Sproul described what happened this way. He said it was in this time period, in this window, in this window of time, that God the Father imputed the sins of the people onto His Son. In this window, it was when the sins of the people were imputed, placed, credited upon him, laid upon his back, so to speak.

And the sight, Sproul says here, the sight of Jesus bearing all these iniquities, was so repugnant that the Father turned away from Him, which we see come later when Jesus says, Why have you forsaken me? When the Father turns away from Him. The darkness, Sproul said, was a sign of divine judgment on the sins Jesus was carrying, for God is too holy to cast His light on sin.

The one who had come into the world as the incarnation of light was now, for this moment, the incarnation of darkness. If that sounds strong, remember the Bible says this, he who knew no sin became sin for us at noon on Calvary. Now, ordinarily, we don't think of darkness when we think of Christ.

When we think of Jesus, you typically think of light. What did Jesus say? He says, I'm the light of the world. When Jesus was born, which we'll talk about in a few weeks when, ironically, we get back to the incarnation.

But when we talk about Christ's birth, What great sign was there? It was the star of heaven, the star of Bethlehem, the star that shone down. We see that at His birth, and yet here on the cross, the light is taken away. On the Mount of Transfiguration, what happened?

Divine light broke through His clothes, His face, everything. Divine light that testified to the divinity within. This is the God of light. The Apostle John would say, God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.

And yet, darkness. Why? Because he who knew no sin became sin for us. It is in this window of time, this window that the very sins you committed yesterday were placed upon the one who saved you.

This window of time on the cross. Imputation is a word we don't fully understand. We know he paid our debt. We sort of understand that.

We talk about Christ saved me from my sins. He paid my debt. We understand that the word imputation, we sometimes, we lose the plot with a little bit. Imputation simply means this.

Our sins were credited and placed upon Him as if He was the one who did them.

Isaiah 53: The Suffering Servant Foretold 10:26

“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

— Isaiah 53:4-6 (NKJV)

Imputation, Isaiah 53. I've said it before. That Bible right there is open to Isaiah 53 every time I preach. Isaiah 53.

Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, afflicted. This is written 700 years before Jesus. Just to be clear, In case anyone in this room has not encountered this concept before, the words we're reading here from Isaiah 53 are 700 years before the resurrection, before the crucifixion.

So surely He has borne our griefs, He has carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, afflicted. But He is wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Imputation. The Lord has laid on Him, on Christ, on Calvary, in the darkness, at noon, on the cross, has laid upon Him, has imputed to Him the sins you committed yesterday, sins you committed this morning.

All the sins of His elect, through all time, came upon Him at this moment. And in that moment, the Father turned His face away.

The Cry of Dereliction: My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me 11:55

“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

— Matthew 27:46 (NKJV)

12 p.m., the wrath of God came down upon our Savior. At 12 p.m., separation occurred. That separation, you see it, you hear it. And Christ's agonizing cry, and it wasn't agonizing just because of nails. in his hands.

It was agonizing because the wrath of His father was upon Him. So he says, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, my God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Now, what did he mean by that? Some of us who read that text and go, well, was he surprised?

Why have you forsaken me? Was he shocked at this turn of events? No. The past number of weeks as we've been studying Matthew, we see he habitually talked about this. He knew it was going to come.

He knew it was going to happen. That's why in the Garden of Gethsemane, one chapter earlier, what did he do? He sweated like drops of blood. He knew what was going to happen.

He wasn't surprised. This is not a statement of surprise, so what is it?

Psalm 22 Fulfilled: The Crucifixion Prophesied 12:50

Well, where do these words come from? You heard them this morning. Brian read from Psalm 22. It's the very first line, Psalm 22.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? If you read through Psalm 22 as Brian did this morning, you'll see that the whole psalm deals with the prophecy, the anticipation of Christ on Calvary. It talks about the piercing of his hands and feet. In fact, Psalm 22, let me just read one line from it.

After opening up by saying, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It later goes on to say, They pierce my hands, they pierce my feet, I can count all of my bones. They look at me and stare at me. They divide my garments among them, and from my clothing they cast lots.

If I just read that verse on any block in the entire country, who would people say I'm talking about? Jesus. Because they know the story. Even if they don't all trust it, but they know the story.

The Jews knew this passage. And on Calvary, just as he had anticipated every prophecy for the entire balance of his life here on earth, the entire balance of his incarnation, just as he fulfilled every prophecy, even with his dying breath, he's fulfilling yet another one. He goes back to this prophecy that anticipated the crucifixion and identifies him, himself, as his fulfillment.

Forsaken So That We Would Not Be: The Joy Set Before Him 14:06

With that said, we also have to recognize and appreciate to the degree we can that in that moment he was forsaken. It's not hyperbole. Separation is not strong enough a word. You can separate two people and stand them five feet away.

What if you put a wall between them? Then it's different. But here's the thing. If for that time God the Father did not forsake the Son, then you know who he would have to forsake?

Us. And yet for the joy set before him, which we read earlier, what did Jesus do? Even though he knew how terrible this was going to be, and he knew it, but it was for the joy set before him that he did this. Again, when you have troubles with esteem, when you look in the mirror and you don't like what you see, remember this, for the joy of taking you back to himself, he did this.

The Misunderstanding About Elijah and Christ the Rescuer 14:54

All right, let's see what happens next, verses 47 through 49. Now, some of those who stood there, when they heard that, when they heard his words, this man is calling for Elijah. That's an interesting reaction. And immediately one of them ran and took a sponge and filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed and offered it to him to drink.

And the rest said, let him alone. Let's see if Elijah will come to save him. All right. Well, what is the deal with the references to Elijah here?

One minute you're reading about Jesus and the crucifixion and the like, and all of a sudden, Elijah. Why are these references to Elijah come up? Why did some of the Jews think that Jesus might have been calling for Elijah? Well, the Aramaic expression, the Aramaic expression for my God, Eli, my God, my God, Eli, Eli, it's similar enough to Elijah.

Many commentators believe that it's possible that Jesus was misheard. So he says, Eli, Eli, and maybe in the noise and all the other tumult that might've been going around them, maybe they, did we hear him right? Is he calling for Elijah? I I don't know.

Is he calling for Elijah? Let's see. Let's see if Elijah shows up. So that's possible.

I'm not sure that's what happened, though. The reason I'm not sure that that's the case, that he was simply misheard, though, is because in verse 45, it says what? It says he cried out with a loud voice. Remember, the whole process of crucifixion is intended to really take the air from your body.

You die by asphyxiation as much by anything else. Your energy drains out, Your blood pools out. The air leaves your lungs. And at this moment, for this statement, Jesus cries out, Eli, Eli, lama, sabachthani.

The level with which he cried it out does not really leave open to interpretation the possibility he was misheard. And at least some people heard it because it got recorded properly. Whatever the case, the Jews were apt to misunderstanding. How many times have they misunderstood Jesus across the past 26 chapters?

Oh, I don't know, just about every chapter throughout. They were apt to misunderstand him, so why not one more time? Why not one more time? They didn't understand or get anything else he had said up to this point.

All the warnings and admonitions, all the things he'd been saying, they'd tuned the deaf ear to it the whole time. They had rejected the testimony of their own eyes. When miracles had happened right in front of them, they'd rejected it. So it shouldn't shock us that they reinterpret his words.

Whatever the case, some thought that Elijah might come, whether they heard it right or heard it wrong. Some thought Elijah might come, let's see if he'll save them. There was in the first century this belief that Elijah, if someone was in grave distress, if some righteous individual was in grave distress, that Elijah would come down on the chariots of fire and save them.

Now why would they believe that? Well, number one, Elijah hadn't died, right? He'd been taken up to heaven in the chariot. So the thought was maybe he can come back, right?

He'll come back and save those who are in need. So that's at least one reason that they thought that maybe he's praying to Elijah that Elijah would do just that because that was a common understanding in the day, as wrong as it was. When you leave Scripture behind, you can get some weird places awful fast, and that's one of the views they had in the day, so they think maybe Jesus is hoping that would be the case.

Wrong. Jesus was not desiring, anticipating, expecting rescue. Not for a moment. Why?

Because it was Jesus who came to do the rescuing. Jesus didn't need rescuing. He came to do the rescuing. It was Jesus who was sent in that moment to perform the greatest act of rescue the world has ever seen, even if it was not understood by the very people that he came to rescue, the very ones he desired to gather close.

It Is Finished: The Completion of the Redemptive Work 18:43

Let's look at verses 50 through 53. Now Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. Then behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earthquake, the rocks were split, the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.

And coming out of the graves after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. All right. Verse 50, you get one more cry out. Jesus cries out again before dying, and Matthew does not record explicitly what his words were at this interval.

However, we have other gospel records that do, other gospel records that do tell us. And there's two specific things that we see occurring at the very end of Christ's time on the cross, two specific things that he said. Number one is this, Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit. That's one.

And the other is this, three words, it is finished. Now, what was finished? There's a whole lot of eternity that hinges on the balance of that. What was finished?

What is finished at this interval? How do you answer that? Think that through. How do you answer?

What was finished at this point? Well, I guess to save us a little time, we'll say this. This is a reference to the completion of the saving, redemptive work that He came to do. As we said before, He didn't come into this globe just to do the healings and miracles.

I mean, He did them, but that was not His mission. The Father and the Spirit and the Son didn't send the Son to go do some wonderful miracles and heal some people while you're there. Now, He did those things, but that was not His mission. So what was?

What was finished? What was complete at this interval? What was His whole work? Well, His whole work was the cross.

If all you had was chapters 1 through 26 and you never had chapter 27, then you and I are dead in our sins and we have no future. But we do have 27. We have the work that he came to do, the sacrifice, the atonement for our sins, without which we have no hope and no future.

In Mark 10, Jesus told the disciples, He said that his work was to give his life as a ransom for many. In John 12, with the cross, immediately in his future, Jesus said this, He says, my soul is troubled, but what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? It's for this purpose that I have come to this hour.

You see that? He wasn't a masochist. He didn't love what was going to happen, but this was the reason he was here to begin with. And even though he was tempted by Satan and everything else, even Peter routinely said, no, you don't need to do this.

It's got to be plan B. There's got to be a plan B there somewhere. He just always says, no, no, no. Satan, get behind me. This is the reason I came. This, to give my life as a ransom for many.

I came for this hour. Of all the thousands and thousands of hours of ministry Jesus had performed up to this time, this is the hour on which your future hinges. All the work that he did, all of his ministry finds its culmination when he takes our sins on Calvary, pays the debt that we owe.

And when the payment is done, he says, it is finished, and he dies.

The Torn Veil: Access to God Through Christ's Death 22:06

Now what happened next? Well, verses 51 through 53 say that a lot of things happened next, or at least a number of interesting things. Now the first one may be the most significant of all of them. Apparently at this time, at this moment, in the temple, in the temple down around the corner, around the bend, in the temple in Jerusalem, the veil, the 60 foot high, four inch thick curtain that not a speck of light can pass through.

It's that thick. It's ripped in two. From where? From the top.

Not from the bottom, but from the top. Now, why was the veil there to begin with? In order to care why about this ripping of a veil, ordinarily we wouldn't care at all. It's a piece of fabric, right?

Why should we care about this? Well, what did the veil represent? What did the veil represent? Where was it placed?

It was placed in the temple, but just not at any place in the temple. The veil, the curtain was placed in front of the Holy of Holies. What was behind the Holy of Holies? God, the presence of God.

This is historically where the presence of God had been within the temple behind the curtain. So the curtain itself, the veil, represented what? It represented separation. Ever so surely as if there was a wall between the two halves of this congregation, a wall that went up 60 feet in the sky, a wall that light cannot penetrate, that your voices can't be heard through.

This curtain, this veil, was a wall of separation between God and man. And yet, what happened when Jesus died? It was ripped in two. What does that mean?

It means you now have access to something you otherwise would not have access to, God.

From Eden to Calvary: Sin Separates, the Cross Restores 23:48

You see, think of the garden. What happened in the garden? Initially, Mankind was able to dwell with their God. Adam and Eve, they walked and talked to God in the cool of the afternoon.

The Creator and the created were able to be together. Then what did they do? They partook of the fruit of the one tree. They told not to eat.

They broke the one law that God had told them not to break. Sin entered in. Through sin came death. And were they permitted to stay in the garden?

No. They were evicted. Everybody out of the pool. They were evicted from the garden. But then what did God do to make sure there would be no re-entry?

What did he place at the fringe of the garden? The cherubim, the flaming sword. You see, separation. Sin separates you from God.

Sin separated Moses from God. Sin separated Adam from God. Sin separates every man, woman, child from God. And whether it's this picture in the garden of the cherubim, the mighty cherubim with the sword that flames in all directions, blocking your access, or whether it's this huge veil that prevents mankind from getting to God, our problems that we're sinners, God's holy, the wages of sin is death.

How in the world can I ever hope to dwell with Him on high in heaven for all eternity with a wall permanently between us? I can't and you can't. So what had to happen? On Calvary, Jesus took our sins upon Him and He paid our debt.

God can't just sweep our sins into the choir room in heaven. God can't do that. He couldn't do that because if he did that, he wouldn't be just. A good judge down the courthouse doesn't fail to do his work just because he's kind and loving.

If a judge down the courthouse was letting murderers and the like go scot-free, what would we think about that judge? He'd say, I'm kind, I'm loving, right? And we'd say, you're not just. You've abdicated your responsibilities.

Well, in the same way God had to fulfill His responsibilities and He has to pour out judgment against those whom judgment is due. And if this is true of just one sin in the garden, eating a piece of fruit, then think of all the things you and I have done across the course of our lives.

What have we earned up? Judgment upon judgment. But on Calvary, all the things that you've done were lifted from you, even if you knew it not, and placed upon Him in a real sense, and then paid for in a real sense. Your payment is complete.

And because your payment is complete, you are now innocent in His sight and righteous. And now, you know what? There is no wall at all. You are now free to approach your God, not only to approach Him, but to approach Him boldly.

That's what Hebrews says. Hebrews says we can now come to the throne boldly. The Jews had no context for that at all because all they ever saw was the veil. You know, the priest maybe goes in and maybe he comes out.

Through Christ's death, the entire veil is ripped asunder. You don't have a path, not only to heaven, but a path to the God who's made you. And it's not because you earned your way into His good pleasure, as so many of the Jews were trying to do then and are trying to do now.

It's because you have faith in the one who died on the cross, in His work, and in His sacrifice. And you say that when it is finished, when Christ said, it is finished, it means that your sins have been paid for in full, full stop. And there's nothing you can add to it by doing something good tomorrow, even though we should do something good tomorrow, because we love Him.

Well, that said, in these verses, in verses 51-53, this veil is rent in two.

The Earthquake and Raised Saints: Firstfruits of the Harvest 27:08

We now have access to the Father that we otherwise would not have. Now, what else happened in verses 51-53? Well, verses 51-53 describe this earthquake, the opening of graves, the resurrection of folks. What do we make of all that?

And that's kind of a fascinating development. What do we make of the resurrection of the dead at Christ's death? Well, remember, A, this is not new. Christ had resurrected folks before.

But Jesus also had said this in His life. He says, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes me, though he die, yet shall he live. And at the moment of Christ's propitiating sacrifice for their souls, that's exactly what happened.

Elsewhere, Jesus said this. He said, assuredly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much grain. At the moment of Christ's death the grain appeared.

The fruits of his salvific redemptive harvest were immediately evident, just as was the ripping of the veil in the temple. But that said, all this stuff, if you'd been there, what would all that stuff done if you'd watched all that? Let's say you're one of the guys, you know, you're a temple guard, you're standing there, and boy it got kind of dark, kind of dark out here, and all of a sudden you hear a tremendous noise, a noise that seems to come from angels from heaven, wings of flutter, and the very veil behind you in the temple gets ripped in two, and you're now to look into something you never before could.

What stories would you have to tell? What stories would you have to tell if one day you're just in the field, all of a sudden the ground is shaking, a quake, and the sky has grown dark? Off on the hillside, you see three crosses, you don't know what to make of it, but what story would you tell of this set of events?

Then you look down the road, there's graves opening up. What is going on here. Well, these signs were intended to validate the work that had just occurred. And there was some, and maybe many, who up to that point, their hearts had been hard.

But when all this went down, their hearts grew soft. And God used this moment, as dark as it was, to save some of those present who observed it. Now, if we need an example of that, we have one in our remaining verses.

Hope for the Guilty: The Centurion's Confession and Ours 29:17

Let's look at verses 54 through 56. So when the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus, when they saw this earthquake and the things that had happened, they feared greatly, and they said this. They said, truly, this was the Son of God. Many women who followed Jesus from Galilee ministering to Him, where they're looking on from afar, among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee's sons.

With our balance of time here, let me ask you a question. Do you think salvation is possible for the Romans who killed Jesus? Is salvation, imagine what they just did. Imagine the Romans here, they scourged him silly, right?

They just scourged him to the degree he couldn't even carry, I think it was Simon the Cyrene who had to help bring the cross along. They just scourged him to the point, you couldn't even recognize him. The Romans, the soldiers did this. Then they drove through the Son of God, through God Himself, they drove spikes through his hands, through his feet.

They hung him on a cross, and later there would be a spear involved. Could such men find hope? Could such men be saved? I sure hope so, because I'm a guilty man, and so are you.

I sure hope that's exactly what would happen, that such men would find hope and find salvation. When Jesus was on the cross, which do you think caused him greater harm? Was it the spikes? Was it the spear?

Or was it your sin when it was placed upon him? Well, you've already talked about it. You know the answer. You see, what the Jews and Romans did was terrible.

It was cruel. There was betrayal and murder and crucifixion, all like it was dreadful. But as Jesus was on the cross, you know, the hammer, the nails, and the spear, they were a far lighter burden to him, from 12 to 3 in particular, than the presence of your sin and mine on his back.

Our sins held him to that wood more than the nails ever did. And because of that, I sure hope that there's hope for centurions. And those who are guilty even of those acts. Because I am not an innocent man, and neither are you.

And in a few moments, we'll actually sing this same lyric, this same concept. It was my sin that held him there until it was accomplished. His dying breath has brought me life. I know that it is finished.

Is it possible for the Romans on Calvary to find forgiveness? Absolutely. In fact, know this, Jesus had prayed for that outcome. Think about it.

Jesus had prayed to the Father for that exact outcome. What did he say? He says, Father, forgive them. They do not know what they are doing.

Father, forgive them. Jesus prayed for this exact same outcome. You know, church tradition suggests that the actual Roman centurion from today's passage was later converted to the faith and lived to become a martyr down the road. It's actually a fascinating story if you're inclined towards it.

Because it's tradition, I don't put a lot of stock in it, but I certainly believe it to be plausible that those who were actively complicit in the death of Christ could find forgiveness. As we wrap up, if Saul of Tarsus could find forgiveness, then so could the centurion, and so could you. If King Nebuchadnezzar could find forgiveness, then so can the centurion, so can you.

If the thief on the cross next to Jesus could find salvation and hope, then so could the centurion, and so can you. This morning, I don't know the hearts of everyone in this room, But if you hear these words and you understand what our God has done for you, turn to Him in faith, perhaps for the first time.

Lay down your own efforts. They are nothing. And turn to his. Let's pray.