[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the preaching ministry of the Agopic Baptist Church in George, South Africa.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good morning, church.
[SPEAKER_01]: As always, it's a joy to be with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Together with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're visiting today, especially welcome to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're glad you can join with us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we hope that as you leave today, after the service is over, that you can say that the Lord was both worshiped and you were encouraged through His Word and the worship with His people.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you would, please turn with me to John, chapter 19, John 19.
[SPEAKER_01]: going to be beginning our reading in verse 17 or rather just at the very end of verse 16 it's a odd verse break so we'll read the very end of verse 16 and continue on through the end of the chapter.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now as many of you know I tend to go long so it's very wise for me to pick a short section of scripture and you might be feeling nervous as you see it's verses 17 through 42.
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually don't anticipate you'll hear too much from me this morning because I want the weight of John's testimony here in this chapter to fall on our ears and on our hearts.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has really not given much teaching in this chapter.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really narrative.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the narrative of the cross and I hope that you're able to see what I saw this week is that John is here at the end as we approach the end of the gospel.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is compiling the evidence, compiling his testimony that Jesus is the Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is the Messiah, which means the anointed one, the chosen one of God, the ascintant of the world, to be the king of Israel, the Savior and Redeemer of Israel, the promised one.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's what John is doing here as he,
[SPEAKER_01]: draws to a close of this gospel.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so my goal is to first read a short section of this chapter, and then go back to another passage that was written prior to show that Jesus here in his crucifixion is fulfilling the words of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: The images, the symbols, the direct promises of the Messiah,
[SPEAKER_01]: that Jesus in his death and all that is happening here in this chapter, that Jesus is fulfilling the scriptures, which means that which was written from God, the words of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: So my hope is that the weight of that will fall on all of us this morning and that you will rejoice and be convicted, that you, your hope will increase.
[SPEAKER_01]: As you are reminded that this is the only hope you should be resting on the hope in that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the only one who can bring us into the life of God eternal life, God's kind of life.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have seen the man here in chapter 19 already, we have beheld the man, we're going to do that again this morning, the man Jesus of Nazareth.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has been betrayed, captured, accused, condemned to death for daring to claim he was the son of God, born to shepherd his people as the king of truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: That has been our journey for the last few weeks, and now we come to the crucifixion.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please remember as we come to this passage, John's goal for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: in the writing of this gospel.
[SPEAKER_01]: He gives us his purpose and his goal in John 20 verse 3331 something that you have heard many times.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's up on the screen in summary.
[SPEAKER_01]: John says, now Jesus did many other signs.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was much more that Jesus did in his ministry.
[SPEAKER_01]: He did this in the presence of the disciples, John says, which are not written in this book.
[SPEAKER_01]: He couldn't fit it into this one gospel.
[SPEAKER_01]: But John says, these were written, or these are written.
[SPEAKER_01]: These things, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.
[SPEAKER_01]: The name of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why John is written this to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why we're going to read the narrative.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why I'm going to go back to the Old Testament passages and some in the new.
[SPEAKER_01]: and just show you how Jesus is proving, showing revealing that He is the Messiah, the anointed one of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Before we begin reading, let's go to the Lord in prayer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Heavenly Father, my hope this morning is in your word, your written word, and your spirit who makes it alive in our hearts, who wields the written word as a sword.
[SPEAKER_01]: to cut away unbelief and doubt and false loves so that true life can begin.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a surgeon cutting away the cancer so that we can have life.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is what the Spirit of God does with the words of God as it is proclaimed and the hearing of men and women and children.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Father, that is my hope.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is your people's hope that your word is powerful as it is wielded by the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not by men.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, men must proclaim the words of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Women must teach other women and teach their children.
[SPEAKER_01]: The words of God, fathers must lead their families as the shepherd of the home.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yet it is only powerful as the Spirit of God wields it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we ask Lord that as the words are read this morning and proclaimed that the Spirit would be among us wielding your word, that those who are skeptics might lay down their unbelief and doubts, and might pick up the gift of faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Lord that those who are believing
[SPEAKER_01]: that they would cut away even more, that the Spirit of God would cut away even some of the doubts that linger in their hearts, about the goodness of God, or the power of God, or the sovereignty of God, or his wisdom in their lives, that they would keep on believing to the end.
[SPEAKER_01]: For this life is erased, with a crown to be wanted to end by the mercy and grace of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Jesus, name my prayer, amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: The title of this morning's sermon is that the scriptures might be fulfilled.
[SPEAKER_01]: John repeats this phrase three times, and my hope is to show you through the passage that Jesus Christ fulfills the promises of God about the Messiah, especially the parts about the suffering Messiah, the servant of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: So first, John 19, I would begin reading it in the verse 16 through verse 17,
[SPEAKER_01]: looking at how Jesus bore his own cross.
[SPEAKER_01]: John writes, so they took Jesus, and he went out bearing his own cross to the place called the place of a school, which an aromatics called Golgotha.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's stop there.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's going on here?
[SPEAKER_01]: What should we take away?
[SPEAKER_01]: What should be going through our minds as Jesus carries the cross-being.
[SPEAKER_01]: Most likely not the whole cross.
[SPEAKER_01]: Typically the cross, the vertical beam was already planted in the ground at the place where they crucified criminals.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Jesus is most likely carrying the cross beam on his shoulder as he walks most likely.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what should be going on in our minds?
[SPEAKER_01]: Think with me on Genesis 22 and if you have a pencil and you like to write versus references in the side of your Bible If you're one of those people this is these passages I'm gonna put up on the screen are there for you for later for your joy and your hope and that when you are trying to explain to someone that Jesus is the Christ You can bring them to John 19 and you can show them he bore his cross Why does that important?
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's look at job Genesis 22 verse 2 and 6 is what I will read
[SPEAKER_01]: God said to Abraham 2,000 years before Jesus, take your son, you're only son, Isaac, whom you love and go to the land of Mariah, remember that word, Mariah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And offer him there as a burn offering as on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you, that's what the Lord said to Abraham in Genesis 22 verse 2.
[SPEAKER_01]: We see an Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac's son.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he took in his hand the fire in the knife, so they went both of them together, a father and a son walking up a mountain in the land of Mariah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Isaac carrying the wood on his back, on his arms, on his shoulder.
[SPEAKER_01]: You might think to yourself, Daniel, aren't you making a little bit of a stretch here to think that this might be a reference to John 19 and Jesus bearing his cross?
[SPEAKER_01]: If that's all there was, it would be a bit of a stretch.
[SPEAKER_01]: But think with me on second chronicles, verse chapter 3, verse 1, written a thousand years after Abraham and a thousand years before Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were told in second chronicles, then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the temple.
[SPEAKER_01]: began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem where, where does the passage say, on Mount Moriah?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the mountain where Isaac was going to be slaughtered.
[SPEAKER_01]: The mountain he climbed with the wood in his arms,
[SPEAKER_01]: We see that this picture of a father taking his son, his only son, laying the wood on his shoulder and having Isaac carry the implement of part of his torture of his death 2,000 years before on the Temple Mount is where this altar would be built.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a picture of foretelling.
[SPEAKER_01]: of how Jesus would also carry the wood which would be the implement of His torture of His death to the temple mount or to the mountain rather.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was crucified outside the wall, but he is on this elevated mountain, which in the Old Testament they called Mariah, which then we are told is Mount Zion Jerusalem.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is what should be going in our own and in our minds.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we understood the Old Testament and the pictures that are throughout the Old Testament, this is how we should read the New Testament, seeing that Jesus is the true and better Isaac, the Son of Promise, the Father's One and only Son that He loved.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Isaac didn't lay down his life.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wasn't the perfect sacrifice for the people of God, and Jesus was the true and better Isaac.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's keep moving for the sake of time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Next, we see John 19 verse 18.
[SPEAKER_01]: There, they crucified Jesus and with him two others, one on either side and Jesus between them.
[SPEAKER_01]: insurrectionists, those that the passage says in another gospel, they testified, we deserve our punishment.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what they said.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were criminals.
[SPEAKER_01]: Think with me on Isaiah 53 verse 12, and how the Lord sees His righteous one, and a prophecy about the Messiah
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord says, I will divide him, my servant, a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death, and was numbered with the transgressors."
[SPEAKER_01]: Yet, this is the truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was in the midst of criminals, and from human eyes we are like condemned the cursed of God, a sinner.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yet, Isaiah.
[SPEAKER_01]: An Isaiah the Lord says, Yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was carrying this hour since, since it got people.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was not the transgressor, though from human sight that's what it looked like.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Isaiah 53 verse 12, we see that Jesus bore the shame of being executed as if he was the loliest and most vile of society.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what's happening here.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what crucifixion was reserved for.
[SPEAKER_01]: A Roman citizen could not be crucified.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's for those who are lolly and vile for slaves and peasants, the worst of society.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yet in Isaiah 53, verse 12, we see that the Lord, the men, the men were condemning Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord says, I see my righteous one, and I will exalt him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's keep moving.
[SPEAKER_01]: John 19, verses 19 through of 22, pilot also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross.
[SPEAKER_01]: It read Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, keep that in mind, Nazareth, the word Nazareth, the place and the title, the King of the Jews.
[SPEAKER_01]: Many of the Jews read this inscription for the place where Jesus was crucified, was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic and Latin and in Greek.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the chief priest of the Jews said to Pilate, do not write the King of the Jews, but rather this man said, I am the King of the Jews.
[SPEAKER_01]: pilot answered what I have written.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have written, I want to focus on the word Nazareth and the title of the King.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think with me on Isaiah 9 verse 137, that's what I'll read for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: 137, Isaiah 9.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the former time, the Lord brought into contempt, the land of Zebulin and the land of Nathalie.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in the latter time, he has made glorious the way of the sea.
[SPEAKER_01]: The land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
[SPEAKER_01]: The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness on them has light shown.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, we're using a lot of different things.
[SPEAKER_01]: pause there and I say we're using geographical language that to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like you're saying George and Nizan and Sedgefield.
[SPEAKER_01]: You actually, because we don't live there and we're not familiar with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You sometimes just pull up a map and look where Zebulin and Naph to Lee is.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is that line?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's part of the tribes and heritans.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where is that area?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the area to the west of the sea of Galilee.
[SPEAKER_01]: even calls it Galilee of the nations.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where is this in Jesus' time?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is one of the towns in Galilee in Jesus' time?
[SPEAKER_01]: Nazareth.
[SPEAKER_01]: So all of these references to a light coming to the people.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the area of around Nazareth.
[SPEAKER_01]: where Jesus' home town was.
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't his place of his birth, but it's where he grew up as a child, and it's also where much of his ministry happened in this area around Galilee.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when Isaiah prophesies the light has come, and the people living in their sins, the people whom God judged harshly in past time, he would bless them with a great light that would come.
[SPEAKER_01]: to Nazareth, to Galilee.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's keep reading an Isaiah 9.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna pick up the verse 3.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are words of victory and peace when this light comes.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have multiplied the nation, the Lord has.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have increased its joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: They rejoice before you as with joy as at the harvest as they are glad when they divide the spoil for the yoke of his burden and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have broken as on the day of Midian.
[SPEAKER_01]: For every boot of the trampling warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as we're fuel for the fire These are words of victory and peace when this light comes to Galilee Why?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is this light going to bring victory and peace?
[SPEAKER_01]: For six of Isaiah nine.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm still in Isaiah 700 BC before Christ
[SPEAKER_01]: or six of Isaiah 9.
[SPEAKER_01]: For to us, a child is born.
[SPEAKER_01]: To us, a son is given.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the government shall be upon his shoulder.
[SPEAKER_01]: And his name shall be called wonderful, counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, of the increase of His government, and of peace, there will be no end, and on the throne of David and over His kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Isaiah prophesies that the King of Israel, that's what all that language is about, the authority on his shoulder, the government, the rule of over the throne of David, all of this is Kingly language, the King is coming Galilee is going to see it,
[SPEAKER_01]: And now, Pilate writes over the head of Jesus on this probably some kind of tablet of wood that's nailed to the cross above his head most likely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Pilate writes, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has come, he has born witness in Galilee,
[SPEAKER_01]: He came as a great light.
[SPEAKER_01]: He came to conquer and to bring peace to his people.
[SPEAKER_01]: But how did he conquer and bring this peace the first time?
[SPEAKER_01]: What kind of peace did he bring?
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't for like peace from warfare and earthquakes and tsunamis.
[SPEAKER_01]: That wasn't the kind of peace he was bringing the first time.
[SPEAKER_01]: He came to conquer.
[SPEAKER_01]: By breaking sin's grip over his people, sin and death was conquered for all who would believe in him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he brings us peace in our souls to know that we are at peace with our maker.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Holy God has accepted us, even though we're sinners, because through the crucifixion of Jesus and the spilling of His blood,
[SPEAKER_01]: We are washed clean and he doesn't just leave us there.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, I will wash you clean and then I will robe you in the righteous robe of my son as if you were the one who obeyed me without fault.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the peace in the soul of a Christian.
[SPEAKER_01]: not because I am perfect.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I'm walking around telling people like going through evangelism walks, some of you have joined me on those, uh, those are interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes they feel pointless, but what I'm doing that I tell them, listen, I'm not coming here telling you if you're just our perfect person like me, you can at peace with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just go speak to my wife.
[SPEAKER_01]: She will testify.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am not a perfect person.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, that is not the gospel.
[SPEAKER_01]: be perfect like me and you're gonna piece with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is not the gospel.
[SPEAKER_01]: The gospel is that though you are vile, though you deserve to be hung naked on a cross and crucified, and me with you as one of the criminals hanging next to you, though that's what we all deserve death eternal.
[SPEAKER_01]: God sent His Son to die in our place so that if we believe we can be washed clean of all of our vileness past present and future and can be robed in the righteousness of a Son so that we can stand before God one day saying, I hope in your Son and His righteousness and that alone in God will
[SPEAKER_01]: that's the gospel.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus has broken since grasp on his people, the people of faith, not bloodline or ancestry, the people of faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has broken since grab grasp over us and has brought us peace with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's keep moving.
[SPEAKER_01]: John 19 verse 23.
[SPEAKER_01]: When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took His garments and divided them into four parts.
[SPEAKER_01]: One part for each soldier, also his tunic.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they said to one another, let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who's it shall be.
[SPEAKER_01]: John notes, this was to fulfill the scripture which says they divided my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the soldiers did these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where is he quoting from Psalm 22?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll begin reading verse 1.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is 1,000 years before and the Psalms.
[SPEAKER_01]: And please remember each time I quote a Psalm, this is the song book of Israel.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what they would sing at different times of the year for different occasions, for different holy days, and in their homes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, from a child, you would know many of these songs.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you were a Jew growing up in the Old Testament or in the time of Christ's life, you knew these songs, many of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, John quotes Psalm 22,
[SPEAKER_01]: David says, In Psalm 22, My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are you so far from me?
[SPEAKER_01]: From the words of my groaning, Oh my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer and by night, but I find no rest yet you are holy.
[SPEAKER_01]: and throned on the praises of Israel.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you are Father's trusted, they trusted, and you delivered them to you, they cried, and were rescued, and you, they trusted, and were not put to shame.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I am a worm and not a man scorned by mankind and despise by the people.
[SPEAKER_01]: All who see me mock me.
[SPEAKER_01]: They make mouths at me, they wag their heads.
[SPEAKER_01]: He trusts in the Lord, let him deliver him, let him rescue him for he delights in him.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm mocking phrase.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you are he who took me from the womb, you made me trust you at my mother's breasts.
[SPEAKER_01]: On you as I cast from my birth and from my mother's womb, you have been my God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Be not far from me, for trouble is near and there is none to help.
[SPEAKER_01]: Many bulls encompass me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me.
[SPEAKER_01]: They open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.
[SPEAKER_01]: My heart is like wax, is melted within my breast.
[SPEAKER_01]: My strength is dried up like a pot shirt and my tongue sticks to my jaw from his thirst.
[SPEAKER_01]: You lay me in the dust of death for dogs encompass me, that's a title of Gentiles.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those outside the family of God, the Gentiles encompass me, the dogs encompass me.
[SPEAKER_01]: A company of evil doers and circles me, they have pierced my hands and a feet.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can count all my bones.
[SPEAKER_01]: They stare and glote over me and then verse 18, Psalm 22, they divide my garments among them and for my clothing, they cast lots.
[SPEAKER_01]: The language of someone condemned to die.
[SPEAKER_01]: The executioner would get to collect their clothing as part of their price, part of their payment.
[SPEAKER_01]: We see in Psalm in the Psalms, really, this is just one example, that Jesus endured the anguish of the Psalms.
[SPEAKER_01]: He endured the anguish of the Psalms, but not for his own sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: Much of the anguish of the Psalms is Lord, do not take your spirit from me for I've sinned against you as what David said.
[SPEAKER_01]: coming repented from my own sins, the sins of the people, the Jesus did not suffer for his own sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: He suffered in the place of his people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, Jesus is the true and better Psalmist, the true and better David.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's look now at John 19 verse 25.
[SPEAKER_01]: But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopus, and Mary Magdalene, when Jesus saw his mother in the disciple whom he loved, standing nearby which we believe is John.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said to his mother, woman, behold your son, then he said to the disciple, behold your mother, and from that hour that disciple took her to his own home.
[SPEAKER_01]: John was there, I believe.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe he is the disciple that Jesus loved the one.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is writing this gospel, but he wouldn't say his own name.
[SPEAKER_01]: He just gave himself the title that to him was most important.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fact that my name really isn't even John anymore in my thinking, in my thinking, when someone asks, who are you?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm someone Jesus loves.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's who he is.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's his identity.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I believe that in John, in this gospel, whenever that phrase comes up, John is referring to himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's possible this is just an intermission in John chapter 19, because that memory is so vivid in his mind as he stood there at the foot of the cross with Mary and he heard Jesus' love for his mother, even as he's suffering.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus proclaiming that mother,
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't look at me as you're dying son.
[SPEAKER_01]: From now on, think of this moment, think of this day as me saving you, redeeming you, woman, daughter of Eve.
[SPEAKER_01]: Think of me that way, and maybe it will help comfort your soul, that this was necessary for your salvation and the people's of faith salvation.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, that is very possible why John gives this part of the narrative.
[SPEAKER_01]: I also love to point your attention to Luke 2, and how Luke 2 is fulfilled.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a prophecy prior to the new covenant.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could say this is an Old Testament prophecy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's prior to the new covenant coming into effect.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is when Jesus is a baby.
[SPEAKER_01]: Luke 2 verse 25, now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon and this man was righteous and devout waiting for the consolation of Israel and the Holy Spirit was upon him and it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ, this is the Messiah.
[SPEAKER_01]: and he came into the spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law.
[SPEAKER_01]: Simian took Jesus up in his arms and blessed God and said, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples.
[SPEAKER_01]: A light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.
[SPEAKER_01]: and Jesus' father and his mother marveled that what was said about him.
[SPEAKER_01]: and simian bless them, and then listen to this, and said to Mary his mother, it's been talking to them, talking to God, and then in the spirit he turns to Mary and looks her in the eye, and says, behold, Mary.
[SPEAKER_01]: This child is appointed for the fall in rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed in verse 35, and a sword will pierce through your own soul also.
[SPEAKER_01]: so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord sees Mary, Simeon sees Mary in the Spirit, being pierced in soul.
[SPEAKER_01]: As many mothers have told me, they would prefer to suffer the pain of their children rather than witness their children in pain.
[SPEAKER_01]: However,
[SPEAKER_01]: Mary could not die for her own sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: She could not save herself nor could she save anyone else.
[SPEAKER_01]: And her son was not merely just her son.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was the son of God sent into the world to be the savior of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as Jesus looks down from the cross, I believe he's attempting to comfort his mother in the years to come, that this was necessary that I'd be the Lamb of God, to be your
[SPEAKER_01]: take comfort in that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Next, we see John 19, verse 28.
[SPEAKER_01]: After this, Jesus knowing that all was now finished, said to fulfill the scripture.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, I thirst, a jar full of sorrow, winds there and so they put a sponge full of the sorrow wine on a hissed branch and held it to his mouth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, from the Psalms, we read Psalm 69.
[SPEAKER_01]: And please keep in mind, again, as a Psalm, Israel had been singing this for 1,000 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: For 1,000 years, this Psalm had been sung.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know my reproach and my shame and my dishonor.
[SPEAKER_01]: My foes are all known to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Reproaches have broken my heart so that I am in despair.
[SPEAKER_01]: I looked for pity.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there was none, and for comforters that I found none, they gave me poison for food.
[SPEAKER_01]: We read about it in another gospel, the gall that they gave him, and he spat it out of his mouth.
[SPEAKER_01]: They gave me poison for food, and then in John the fulfillment we read, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a song that Israel had been singing for a thousand years of their Messiah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's look at John 19 verse 30.
[SPEAKER_01]: When Jesus had received the sarah wine, he said, it is finished, and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is something Jesus foretold to his disciples in John 10, or 17.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus says, for this reason the Father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again.
[SPEAKER_01]: This charge I have received from my father.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus' life, again, John is emphasizing, was not taken from him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He willingly went to the cross as the victorious king going into battle, charging into the ranks of sin and death and hell to defeat it for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: The heat of the battle.
[SPEAKER_01]: of this life and of the life to come has the heat of the battle has already been born by Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
[SPEAKER_01]: The victory has already been won through Christ Jesus and He says, Christian, live in the victory I have already won.
[SPEAKER_01]: Live in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Believe, hope.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you not give up your hope?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you not stop believing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Sufferings are now finished and therefore Jesus lays down his life.
[SPEAKER_01]: He gave up his spirit John 19 for 31
[SPEAKER_01]: Since it was the day of preparation and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross and the Sabbath, for that Sabbath was a high day, that Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him, but when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is that important?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, to show you
[SPEAKER_01]: On this imagery we can read 1 Corinthians 5.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is in the New Testament.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the letters and in 1 Corinthians 5 verse 7, we are told that Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the church and the apostles agreed on the imagery of Jesus Christ as the Passover Lamb.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we hear John the Baptist saying, look, behold the man, the Lamb of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's talking about the Passover Lamb.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the image.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've learned about the Passover in Exodus 12, which is up on the screen for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll read in verse 30, 43 and 46.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, this is, at the Exodus, at the Exodus, the Lord gives the instruction, the command about the Passover Lamb.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, this is the statute of the Passover Lamb, verse 46, you shall not break any of its bones.
[SPEAKER_01]: for hundreds and hundreds of years as they put lambs to death on the Passover, they always reminded their children and the men were making sure that as they put this lamb to death they made sure not to break any of its bones.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is Jesus just trying to prove that he's the Passover lamb?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that what's happening?
[SPEAKER_01]: or did God give a commandment about how to kill the passive or lamb and how to carve it up and how to cook it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because he is foretelling.
[SPEAKER_01]: The passive or lamb is all for hundreds of years is all about the one who is coming, foretelling for shadowing the one who would come, not one of
[SPEAKER_01]: also in Psalm 34, it's not on the screen.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll read this for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Psalm 34, verse 19.
[SPEAKER_01]: David accounts many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.
[SPEAKER_01]: He, the Lord, keeps, sorry, the Lord keeps his bones, not one of them is broken.
[SPEAKER_01]: Affliction will slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord redeems the life of His servants, none of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this Psalm is ultimately true in the Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is the righteous one.
[SPEAKER_01]: He keeps all of his bones, not one of them as a broken.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was not ultimately condemned by God.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you compare the judgment of God with the judgment of men who cares about the judgment of men, as long as you are not condemned in the sight of God and you are exalted by Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's look at John 19 vs. 34.
[SPEAKER_01]: But one of the soldiers pears to side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water, who saw it as born witness, this is John, his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth that you also may believe for these things took place that the scriptures might be fulfilled, not one of his bones will be broken.
[SPEAKER_01]: looking back at the one we just looked at.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, another scripture says, they will look on him whom they have pierced.
[SPEAKER_01]: What scripture is he referencing?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's Zachariah 12, verse 10.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord says, and I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, a spirit of grace and
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, when they look on me, and then he switches and he says on him whom they have pierced, it's a very odd Hebrew mix of words here, when they look on me on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him as one mourns for an only child and a week bitterly over him as one weeps over a firstborn.
[SPEAKER_01]: So even in Zechariah 12 or 10, the Lord prophesies that they would pierce him as they pierced his servant.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in some sense Zechariah is prophesying that the Lord is saying, you will pierce me when you pierce my servant.
[SPEAKER_01]: They pierce their God.
[SPEAKER_01]: They acted in ignorance.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know that they did not know to the full extent what they were doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: But even in Zechariah 1210, the hint is made that Israel was going to pierce God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is what John references.
[SPEAKER_01]: They will look on him when they have pierced.
[SPEAKER_01]: others looked weeping.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Roman soldiers for the most part were probably just in different.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just a job and I want to get some clothes out of the exchange.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we're told in Acts that many Jews repent when they realize what they've done.
[SPEAKER_01]: They've killed their Messiah in the first church.
[SPEAKER_01]: is begun.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thousands are saved when Peter preaches the gospel that we humanity have put to death the Messiah yet God, although we humanity meant our sins for evil and they put the Lord Jesus Christ to death meaning evil against him.
[SPEAKER_01]: God meant it for good.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the gospel.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they put him to death, God meant it for good that many sons and daughters might come to glory through his sacrifice.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so throughout history what we're seeing is that as people look on the one that was pierced, that humanity has pierced, many have wept tears of repentance.
[SPEAKER_01]: or felt grief in your soul over the death of Christ and your part in it, that I think you seriously need to consider why Jesus hung on the cross.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not just the Jewish leaders and the Romans who are guilty of his death, my friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our sins nailed him to the cross.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we were not sinners, the cross would not have been necessary
[SPEAKER_01]: So we have a part in his hanging there.
[SPEAKER_01]: My transgressions are why he was whipped.
[SPEAKER_01]: So my friends, as we look on the one whom we had a part in his crucifixion, let us weep tears of sorrow.
[SPEAKER_01]: But his repent of our sins is they far from them, for we know what they have caused, the grief that they have caused.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's repent of them, turn from them.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what will also happen throughout history is that some will look on him whom they have pierced.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they are not going to weep tears of repentance.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are going to weep.
[SPEAKER_01]: because he is coming in judgment in the end is here and they have rejected him in their life.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's think carefully on these things and make sure that we have wept the tears and have come to the cross in repentance, not just fear of one day facing judgment but repentance.
[SPEAKER_01]: John 19 vs. 38, final sign.
[SPEAKER_01]: After these things, Joseph, Aramathia, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission, so he came and took away his body.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of mirror and allos about 75 pounds and weight, so they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen claws with spices, as is the custom of the Jews.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.
[SPEAKER_01]: So because of the Jewish day of preparation since the tomb was close at hand they lead lead Jesus or lay Jesus there.
[SPEAKER_01]: In and of itself it would be hard to see how this is a reference to prophecy.
[SPEAKER_01]: But let me give you a little bit more detail from Matthew 27.
[SPEAKER_01]: When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so Joseph of Arimathea in John's Gospel is a rich man, we're told by Matthew.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was also a disciple of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: He went to pile and ask for the body of Jesus, then pile it ordered it to be given him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which he had cut in the rock.
[SPEAKER_01]: and he rolled a great stone into the entrance of the tomb and went away.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the tomb is the one that Joseph, a wealthy man in this garden area, so it's a garden tomb.
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't just a tomb of the peasants or of slaves or those who typically were crucified and considered cursed by God and they would kind of put them or chuck them in these public type graves away from
[SPEAKER_01]: respectable families they typically weren't allowed to be buried with their in their family tomb because they might corrupt those other bodies because they were cursed they were hung on a tree so you had to put them with the cursed people that was what was usual.
[SPEAKER_01]: But here we see that Joseph of Aramathia comes and takes the body of Jesus, a rich man.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can he place his Jesus in his own new tune, a wealthy man is tune, in a garden?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is this pointing us to?
[SPEAKER_01]: Isaiah 53, verse 9.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll begin reading verse 7.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can see this is clearly of the Messiah.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was oppressed and he was afflicted.
[SPEAKER_01]: like a land that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before it's shears a silent so he opened not as mouth.
[SPEAKER_01]: By oppression and judgment he was taken in a way and asked for his generation who considers that he was cut off out of the land of the living stricken for the transgression of my people.
[SPEAKER_01]: and they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth.
[SPEAKER_01]: The grave and death picture or symbolize the same thing in poetry in this Hebrew type poetic language or symbolism.
[SPEAKER_01]: The grave and death depict dying,
[SPEAKER_01]: of death.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we were told in Isaiah 53 that in his death the servant of the Lord would both be with the wicked in his death and with the rich in his death.
[SPEAKER_01]: How does that happen?
[SPEAKER_01]: We see that he was crucified between two criminals as the lolliest and vileest criminals of society were.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he was with the wicked in his death, but he was not disposed of like those criminals in a common grave reserved for the cursed.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, Jesus was buried in a wealthy man's garden tomb, thereby fulfilling Isaiah 53 verse 9, with the wicked and with the rich in his death.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are the ten signs and the crucifixion and death of Jesus that I wanted to point out to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ten fulfillments of the Word of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: So very briefly, before we sing this closing song, what am I hoping you will take away as we've looked at John?
[SPEAKER_01]: But what am I hoping has been stirred in your soul as you look at the word of the Lord fulfilled by Jesus?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, first, I'm hoping that you can see that God is true.
[SPEAKER_01]: Always faithful to His words, and He is clearly the one and only God.
[SPEAKER_01]: The only one who is the author of history, the only one,
[SPEAKER_01]: who has brought over thousands of years to pass his words.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he always will, he will not fail, not one of the words of God ever falls to the ground.
[SPEAKER_01]: Each one of God's words he has written will be fulfilled exactly as he intended, not a single word for what will fall to the ground.
[SPEAKER_01]: Second, I'm hoping you will walk away knowing in your soul.
[SPEAKER_01]: that God has revealed Jesus, the man, Jesus as His promised anointed one, that He promised in the Old Testament, anointed one, which is the Christ, the Messiah, those three things of the same thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Christ, the Messiah, which means the anointed one, the one God says, you are my chosen
[SPEAKER_01]: I am hoping that both skeptic and believer are all convinced in their heart and mind that that is what God has revealed in His Word through His witnesses, the apostles.
[SPEAKER_01]: And third, I am hoping that as you see this and realize this, that you believe and follow Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm hoping that you will see that he is the Messiah, the Christ, and that in believing that, and seeing it, that you will believe and follow him because, as John says, he is the only way to have God's kind of life now and forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why it's called eternal life, not just because it doesn't just have an end, that
[SPEAKER_01]: eternal life is God's kind of life.
[SPEAKER_01]: The life that means that God is with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We should be able to say in my life, I walked with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: By his spirit, the word, by following Jesus, I walked with God in my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not perfectly, I stumbled and fell down and through repentance and faith he picked me back up again.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I kept walking with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the Christian life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so whether you're a skeptic here this morning and you need to lay down your doubts and your unbelief, or whether you are a believer who has already repented and been born again, born of God, and you are one of God's children, please think on these things, dwell on these things, and make sure that you keep on believing.
[SPEAKER_01]: keep on believing.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's one of John's goals.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not just to call the unbeliever into saving faith, he is also calling the church to keep on believing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do not be swayed by the lies of the devil or false hopes, believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that it's in his name that we can have life, believe on that, keep on believing.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is
[SPEAKER_01]: a reward to be had at the end, eternal life if we keep on following Jesus in faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's pray.
[SPEAKER_01]: Heavenly Father, thank you for your word.
[SPEAKER_01]: I pray that it would pierce into our souls.
[SPEAKER_01]: Father, human preachers and teachers are flawed, sinful men.
[SPEAKER_01]: As parents try to teach their children the word, mothers and fathers, they come many times scared because they know that their own sins, they know their own inability and weakness.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I believe that Godly preachers also recognize their inability and their weakness.
[SPEAKER_01]: We all, Lord, should come to the Word of God as we even read it, knowing that our minds are too fragile for these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yet Lord my hope is that the Spirit of God is able to take weak vessels, to fill it with the words of God and the Spirit of God and then to be poured out on others, that though we are weak and fragile vessels, the Spirit of God is mighty and powerful as the Word of God is taught.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so Lord may that be true today as we've heard the Word and may our
[SPEAKER_01]: families be families of the Word, though we are weak at the Word of God would go out into our families, to our wives, to our children, our neighbors and friends, grandchildren.
[SPEAKER_01]: May we all share the hope we have in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, knowing that the Spirit of God is able in Jesus' name amen.