The Way to Golgotha

Introduction: The Manger and the Cross

0:05 This sermon was preached on Sunday morning, December 24th, 1989, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:18 Now may I urge you to follow with me as I read two portions of the Word of God, one that will be the focus of our ongoing expositions in the Gospel of Mark, namely Mark chapter 15, verses 20 through 23, this section from the Gospel of Luke, Luke chapter 23, verses 26 to 32. First of all then, Mark chapter 15, verses 20 through 23, and when they had mocked him,

1:00 they put on him his garments, beat him out to crucify him, and they compel one passing by, Simon of Cyrene, coming from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to go with them, that he, that is, Simon, might bear his cross. And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is being interpreted the place of a skull. And they offered him wine mingled with myrrh, but he received it not.

1:43 Mark chapter 23, beginning with verse 26. That way they laid hold upon one Simon of Cyrene, coming from the country, and laid on him the cross, to bear it after Jesus. And there followed him a great multitude of the people, and of women, who bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus, turning unto them, said, Brothers of Jerusalem, weep not.

2:21 Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming in which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wounds that never bear, and the breasts that never gave suck.

2:40 Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us, and to the hills, Cover us. Do these things in the green tree. What shall be done in the green tree? What shall be done in the dry?

2:58 So two others, malefactors, led with him to be put to death. Now let us again seek the face of God, that God by the Holy Spirit will come and illuminate our minds and open to our hearts his own holy word. Let us pray. Here we are drawn to providence, to focus our minds upon those things which stagger us, the human spirits, into that which causes.

3:40 And we are there for them both to tremble and to feel well nigh to breaking before the awesome realities of the incarnate God being treated as the worst of common criminals. And yet you have recorded these events for our edification and salvation. And we are therefore bold to pray that the Spirit would be given us this day, that we may be saved. Strong to grasp what he has revealed in this portion of your word, and that it may have

4:18 its due impact upon our understanding, relationship to you and to your son. Speak then with power, bind all of the works of the enemy, who would make our minds dull and distracted, who hates the doctrine of Christ crucified, for he knows it is his own death blow. Lord, bind that wicked one, we pray. Drive him from this place.

4:50 Drive his influence from our minds and hearts. And may the word run and have free course among us today. We plead in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

5:05 I don't know how many years ago it was, nor do I remember the particular circumstances in which the event occurred. But I cannot forget seeing, whether in a work of art, in a collection of famous works of art, or upon a Christmas card sent to me, a scene which sought to capture the true significance of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, as described in Luke 2 and verse 7, the familiar words which read as follows,

5:44 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and laid him in swaddling clothes, or wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. In this particular work of art, the artist depicted a very small, rough, barn-like setting, with several cattle in their stalls, barely visible in the limited space. However, one's eye was drawn instinctively and irresistibly to the most well-lit place

6:27 in all of the mini-stable where, lying upon a bed of straw, was the newly-born Jesus. But what made the image on my mind so vivid and unforgettable was the fact that the artist so positioned himself in the middle of the room, and so positioned himself in the middle of the room, the direction and the intensity of the light coming from the several lanterns in that manger scene, that while that light most vividly illuminated the infant Jesus in his manger bed, it also caused a sharp and distinct shadow on the manger.

7:09 And the shadow was cast by the configuration of the beams in relationship to the light lanterns and cast a shadow upon that manger that was unmistakably formed in the shadow and shape of a cross. And by this means the artist was depicting the grand reality of biblical revelation that Jesus of Nazareth was born to die, but not to die a natural death,

7:46 but to die the cruel death of the cross, and that we should not contemplate the manger divorced from the cross. And surely it is a patently kind providence that on this day before Christmas we should find ourselves in our regular course of expositions planted on the very place where Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. I say this is a patently kind providence, and that for two reasons. First of all, in the heart

8:25 of all true Christians, there is no desire whatsoever to contemplate the birth of Jesus detached from the ultimate purpose of that death or that birth, namely his death for sinners upon the cross. Every Christian is conscious that Jesus of Nazareth was born to die, but not to die a natural death, and that we should be aware that the angel announced at the conception of Jesus, Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Or the words of the apostle, This is a faithful saying, worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world

9:09 to save sinners. And no intelligent Christian would ever have that umbilical cord of reality between the incarnation and the crucifixion severed in the slightest way. No Christian would ever look upon the manger without a clearly etched shadow of the cross upon that manger scene. But secondly, in the heart of all who are devoid of a saving relationship to

9:47 Christ, nothing will more quickly and thoroughly cut through a mere sentimental and formal religious sympathy for the reality of the manger than to come into direct contact with the brutality, the gore, and the horrible realities of the cross of Christ, for all who think they pay real auction. homage to Jesus, while standing in the midst of foggy mists and sentimental clouds surrounding

10:29 his cradle, nothing will dissipate that fog and those mists more quickly than the chill wind that blows down from Golgotha upon the manger in Bethlehem. And so this morning we proceed in our expositions of the gospel of Mark, considering together what I am entitling the road to Golgotha, the road to Golgotha. And as we take up the account of Mark and the little sidelight from Luke, we shall consider

The Assistance Secured on the Way to Golgotha

11:11 the content of these passages under four very simple, straightforward headings. The first of which is, the assistance secured on the way to Golgotha. The assistance secured on the way to Golgotha. In Mark's gospel, chapter 15 and verse 21, we read that no sooner was our Lord handed over to the Roman authorities with the distinct order.

11:49 from Pilate that he be crucified, but that they compel one passing by, Simon of Cyrene, coming from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to go with them, that he, that is, Simon, might bear. Now as unpleasant as it is to every sensitive heart, we must seek to remember that collation of events. Of the preceding hours and the tremendous toll which they had taken upon our Lord's

12:30 physical and emotional constitution. One has accurately summarized these facts in the following words, since the paschal supper, Jesus had not tasted either food or drink. After the deep emotion of that feast. With all of the holiest institutions.

12:53 After the deep emotion of that feast, with all of the holiest institutions. Which it included, and after the anticipated betrayal of Jesus, Judas, and after the farewell to his disciples, our Lord had passed into Gethsemane. There for hours, all alone, since his nearest disciples could not watch with him even one hour, the deep waters had rolled up to his soul. He had drunk of them, immersed.

13:23 And almost in them. There he had agonized in mortal conflict, till the great drops of blood forced themselves on his brow. He had been delivered up while they all fled. To Annas, to Caiaphas, to Pilate, to Herod, and again to Pilate.

13:47 From indignity to indignity, from torture to torture, he had been hurried all that entire night, and all of the early hours of the morning. All throughout he had borne himself with the divine majesty, which had awakened alike the deeper feelings of Pilate, and the infuriated hatred of the Jews. But if his divinity gave its true meaning to his humanity, that humanity gave its true meaning to his voluntary sacrifice. So far then from seeking to hide in the darkness of the night, he had borne himself with the divine majesty, which had awakened alike the deeper feelings of Pilate, and the infuriated hatred of Pilate.

14:25 Now are you afraid? Is this slash too cruel for you to do this to yourself? Sincerity has tamed depuis termina. When the dice is still accompanied by Elias' fiery glory, what more can we seek but to make peace with?

14:48 Our only The Of True The Divine Ohh! Look over the Sta 건데 choreography here. The name stands for Fид flickering. as well as '' deriving the 1500 years spirit away."

14:55 The law says the valley of hell and the트eld像 "'Let the nation'sensible form of light be like the deutschen pacific. unable to bear the weight of the cross no wonder the pity of the women of Jerusalem was stirred but ours is not pity it is worship the sight I say in reading that paragraph I've summarized what we have expounded over many weeks as we have followed our Lord into Gethsemane from Gethsemane to the three dimensions of his ecclesiastical trial the three aspects of his civil trial to his brutal torture by scourging to the mockery there in the praetorium as we

15:38 contemplated it last evening and now our last Lord's Day morning and now as we come to the point at which is to be led out to be crucified the first fact that is underscored is that we are to be led out to be crucified the first fact that is underscored is that we are to be led out to be crucified is that his assistance is secured for him on his way to now it is clear from John 19 and verse 17 that when our Lord set out in the initial journey to Golgotha the cross was carried on his own back for we read they took Jesus

16:20 therefore and he went out bearing the cross on his own back for we read they took Jesus therefore and he went out bearing the cross on his own back for we read they took Jesus most likely it was the horizontal the transverse piece of the cross which those who have studied these things tell us weighed approximately a hundred pounds that would have been laid upon our Lord's lacerated back and strapped to his arms or his armpits and the upper part of his arms but he was not long enough in the bearing of that cross until it became evident that he was so weakened through the

17:02 fasting of the previous hours, so weakened physically and emotionally by the trauma of the trial, the horrible agony and brutality of the scourging, that he staggered beneath the weight of the cross and all of the tauntings and the proddings and perhaps the boot with the Roman's shoe could not bring him to a place where he could carry the cross, keeping pace with his two fellow criminals who are on their way likewise to execution, that they conscript a man in order to assist him in the carrying of that cross. Most likely our

17:47 Lord was able to carry the cross only so far as the gate out of which they would make their way to the cross. To the place of execution. And three questions take us to the heart of Mark's description of the assistance secured on the way to Golgotha. The first question is this, how was this assistance secured? And it was secured when the soldier simply grabbed a likely candidate who perhaps

18:23 looked refreshed. And they compelled him to bear the cross. Notice the language of the text itself. Mark tells us and the translators felt the pressure and the vigor of the verb that is used to describe their action. Mark tells us that they compel or impressed one passing by that he might bear the cross of Jesus.

18:56 And this is the same word used in Matthew 5 in verse 41, where Jesus perceiving just such a situation says, him that would compel you, him that would impress you to go one mile, go with him two. Under the Roman system it was the right of any Roman soldier to conscript anyone within the sphere of Roman rule to go with him two.

19:26 To be a common porter of any goods that he might desire to have carried. And so upon seeing this particular man, they simply made it known, it was their will, that the cross should be taken from Christ, placed upon him, and that he should carry it to the place of execution. The second question, who was compelled to offer this assistance?

19:55 And he is described to us in a very personal and intimate way. It was Simon of Cyrene, as he was coming out of the country, that Simon who had two notable sons named Alexander and Rufus. Simon of Cyrene. The word Simon, a common name. You know that from your acquaintance with the New Testament.

20:25 But this man, came originally from a place on the northern coast of Africa called Cyrene. He had probably been, or his parents, part of what was called the dispersion, when the Jews were scattered among some of the Gentile nations. And whether at this time his home was still permanently there in Cyrene, or whether he had settled in Cyrene, and now he was in Jerusalem as apparently a number of these Jews from Cyrene had done, we do not know.

21:06 But we know from Acts 2 and verse 5 that many dwellers from Cyrene were there on the day of Pentecost. We also know from Acts 6 and verse 9 that there were so many of them that they had their own synagogue right there in Jerusalem. So whether this man, Simon, originally born and reared in Cyrene, had emigrated to Jerusalem and was part of that colony of those from Cyrene, we do not know. Furthermore, we do not know why he is designated, particularly as the father of Rufus and Alexander.

21:50 Alexander, a relatively common name, Rufus, not so common. The assumption of most of the commentators, and it seems to be the most reasonable explanation, is that at the time of the writing of Mark's gospel, these two men, Alexander and Rufus, were probably well-known leaders in the church. And one of them may well have been a leading figure in the church at Rome to which the gospel of Mark was especially targeted, because in Romans 16 and verse 1, verse 13, a Rufus is mentioned along with his mother who had done service for the Apostle Paul.

22:35 How was the assistance secured? By the exercise of the rite of Roman conscription. Who was compelled to offer the assistance? Simon of Cyrene.

22:49 Third question, what precisely was the assistance given? Well, according to the text, the soldier simply grabbed this bystander, this Jew, and made him bear or carry the cross of Jesus. Why did they do this? For the simple reason that no Roman soldier would demean himself by assisting a condemned criminal and carrying the cross himself.

23:21 And no Jew would have volunteered, for you see, the cross leading to hanging upon a tree was a sign of being accursed of God. And therefore no Jew, no matter how much he may have been moved with pity, beholding a fellow Jew staggering and falling beneath the weight of this transverse piece of the cross, weighing somewhere in the vicinity of a hundred pounds as oft as they may have felt a twin, I am sure you remember that Jesus spoke to Simon of Cyrene in the chronological text, And so Simon of Cyrene, on his way to Stephen's tomb, made an denyst of the cross and promised this.

24:06 Now he here is simply heard, he's seen the cross, and he's not here to talk about the cross, he's asking the question, in the here and the now, you know, and yet he's saying this. The cross is the cross. So then, we can see, that this means that Simon of Cyrene, had been more needed than either of us, the 실제로, compel Simon of Cyrene to bear his cross. And there is a hint in the verb used in verse 22.

24:38 And they bring him. It's not the ordinary word that would be used in this case. It is the Greek verb pharaoh, which generally means to bear or to carry. And it may be that our Lord was so weakened that if they did not literally pick him up and carry him, they may have had to do with him as we so often see if we watch football at all, where a man's injury is such that he cannot under his own strength remove himself from the field of play.

25:14 And so people put their head and shoulders under each arm and he leans all of his weight upon them while he drags a limp leg behind. And the announcer says, so and so was carried, was borne off the field. Though he was not literally picked up and carried, his weakness is such that he needed major assistance to be removed from the field of play. And it could well be by the use of that verb, Mark is setting before us what Peter saw from a distance.

25:49 Our Lord so weakened that not only could he, not carry the transverse part of the cross, but he did not even have the strength to carry the weight of his own body to the place of execution.

The Company Found on the Road to Golgotha

26:07 Then on the road to Golgotha, we not only see the assistance secured, but secondly, the company found on the road to Golgotha. The company found on the road to Golgotha. And here we bring the, inside light of Luke's gospel. For Luke describes, along with the soldiers, two other groups that accompany our Lord to the place of execution.

26:40 We read in verse 27 of Luke 23, And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of the women who bewailed and lamented him. Verse 32, And there were also two, others, malefactors, led with him to be put to death. And so the company found on the road to Golgotha is, first of all, the mixed inquisitive multitude and the wailing women. They are described for us very vividly in the language of Luke.

27:22 And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of the women who bewailed, and lamented him. But Jesus, turning unto them, said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming in which they shall say, Blessed are the barren and the wounds that never bear, and the breasts that never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us into the hills, cover us.

27:55 For if they do these things in the green, what shall be done in the dry?

28:02 In that company there was this group of women. It is not said that they were believing women, that they were followers of Jesus, but apparently in the more natural tenderness of the feminine gender, less hardened than the men, they find this effusiveness of tremendous emotion as they behold the staggering Jesus, the cross being lifted from him to Simon. And now this is more than they can bear, and they are bewailing and lamenting him. And those familiar with Eastern custom know that this was not the muffled sob that we are accustomed to hearing in our funeral parlors.

28:39 Or when we visit loved ones who are facing for the first time the shock of the pain of the death, the pain of the death, the pain of the death, the pain of the death, the pain of the death, the pain of the death, the pain of the death, the pain of the death, the shocking reality that a loved one has been lost. This was the unbridled venting of the deepest emotion that would be the mingled wail and shriek of broken hearts. And our Lord turns to them and says in essence, while I appreciate this expression of your pity,

29:21 I remember the words of your husbands and your fathers spoken just a few moments before. And they still ring in my ears. Our children, in the midst of his own agony, in the midst of his own weakness, in the midst of his own pressure from all of the accumulated horror of the preceding events, Jesus is in perfect touch with reality and he says to these women, do not weep for me. Weep for yourselves.

30:01 For the malediction, which your fathers and husbands have pronounced upon you shall surely come to pass. And as Hebrew women who had the covenant promise that in God's blessing you would have fruitful wombs and full breasts and many children to nurse at them, the time is coming when those who bear children shall be considered cursed and those who nurse them cursed as well. The hour is coming when the barren and those who do not give suck shall be called blessed. The hour is coming when because of the very things you now see and that bring forth your sympathy

30:46 and your wailing and your cries and your tears, those very things will precipitate upon you and your children. Such outpourings of divine wrath that you will cry for mountains to crush you and for rocks to hide you. For if these things be done in a green tree, if while the living Son of God is among you, validating his identity by signs and wonders, validating his identity by his majestic silence before his accusers, if they take the green, sad-willed, attested Messiah and treat him like this,

31:28 what will God do to the dry tree of a barren Israel that has rejected its Messiah, has refused every evidence of his identity and has ripened itself for judgment when there is no sap of living spiritual life, empty, dried of formal religion? If these things be done to me in the green, what shall be done in the dry?

32:03 That was the first group accompanying our Lord to Golgotha, the mixed crowd prominent among them, the wailing women. Then according to verse 32, there were two other condemned criminals. The word malefactor children simply means an evildoer. By etymology and usage it means an evildoer.

32:28 They are identified in the other Gospel records as robbers. They are common criminals. They are the lowest of criminals. And so we see that our Lord has for his company not only the women part of a nation slated for judgment, but also two condemned criminals on their way to a righteous execution.

32:56 In summary, we say while weakened, yet the needs of others ever far from his large, and his holy heart, while his public shame is heightened by being found in the company of two convicted criminals, he appears as the worst among them. There's no evidence that they have contusions on their faces from blows being struck with bare fists as he received before the Sanhedrin. No indication that their backs were lassoed,

33:38 obliterated from the horrible ordeal of scourging. No indication that they had blood-streamed faces from a crown of thorns. No indication that their faces were wet with the crude spittle of the soldiers. And if you had been a visitor in Jerusalem that day and seen the three of them walking out and heard the wailing of the women, you would have said to yourselves instinctively, now three of them are being led to death, surely that one dripping in his own blood, and his blood mingled with the spittle of others, and his face contorted with manifold contusion,

The Arrival at the Place Called Golgotha

34:23 surely he must be the basest of the three. Considered the assistance secured on the road to Golgotha, the company found on the road to Golgotha now notice briefly the arrival at the place called Golgotha, the arrival at the place called Golgotha, verse 22, and they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is being interpreted the place, precisely where this place was and is,

35:07 is unknown to us. All we can say for certain from the word of God according to John 19, and verse 20, is that Golgotha was near to the city. And I don't mean to dismantle the travel agency racket of trips to the Holy Land, but Jerusalem has been conquered and rebuilt and reconquered and rebuilt so many times that hardly any place recorded in the Bible except such places as the Sea of Galilee and a few others, can for certain be identified in the present century.

35:51 It may well be that what was then Golgotha has long since been buried under rubble or blown away, the so-called Via Dolorosa, the way of sorrows that he supposedly walked is probably at least 20 to 40 feet underground, as one calculates the many conquests and rebuildings of Jerusalem. However, this much is clear. There was in that day, at that hour, a piece of real estate somewhere adjacent to the city wall of Jerusalem, but outside that wall,

36:35 which was mound-shaped and therefore named Golgotha, which literally rendered means skull's place. The Latin calvary comes from the Latin word calvaria, which means the Hebrew and the Aramaic Golgotha, skull's place, not because the Jews left the skulls of the executed there, that would have been abhorrent to them, and the Romans were sensitive to that abhorrence, and even common criminals were buried or were burned in Tophet,

37:20 but rather it refers perhaps most likely to the shape, the topography of that place, that it had a roundness and a barrenness that gave it the look of the round, smooth barrenness of a human skull. And they arrived. And in summary we say that with unadorned simplicity, Mark describes the arrival of the staggering Son of God, the soldiers attending him, Simon bearing his cross, and two other condemned criminals.

38:04 Also at a greater or lesser distance was the mixed crowd, the emotionally distraught women, and an even more distant place, according to verses 40 and 41, there were those believing devout women. There were also women beholding from afar, among whom were both Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James the less, and of Joses and Salome, who when he was in Galilee followed him and ministered unto him, and many other women that came up with him unto Jerusalem. And may I simply pause to say

38:48 that when people know, that when people declare that the Bible's teaching of female subordination is indicative of the Bible being anti-seminine, that is, blatant, in the time of his greatest loneliness, those manly disciples are described as having forsook him and fled, whereas the Holy Ghost is careful to point out devout women looked upon this sad scene from afar, women who had nobly,

39:31 out of love to him, ministered to his need. But now we come, having considered the assistance secured on the way to Golgotha, the company found on the way to Golgotha, the arrival at the place called Golgotha, fourth and finally, the alleviation offered to Jesus, at Golgotha. Verse 23, the alleviation offered to Jesus at Golgotha. And they offered him wine mingled with myrrh, but he received it not.

The Alleviation Offered and Refused at Golgotha

40:15 What was it that they offered him? Our translation says it was wine mingled with myrrh. It was a mixture of wine and myrrh, a combination intended to act as an analgesic and a sedative, to do what super-strength Tylenol will do when it acts as an analgesic, to remove the aches and pains of fever, and then to do what in common parlance we would say a downer would do, to dull and to slow down the senses, to act as a soporific,

40:56 to act as strong drink would act upon the brain with its concentration of alcohol. They offered him wine mingled with myrrh. That's what was offered him. And how did he react to the offer?

41:12 By the use of the aorist tense. Mark is careful to underscore that our Lord resolutely refused it. He would not partake of it. The verb for offer speaks of repeated action.

41:26 They were continually offering it, but he resolutely refused it. Once he knew what it was, and Matthew says he tasted it, and having tasted it, he refused it. Now this, in terms of the facts, raises two very practical questions. Why was this drugged wine offered?

41:51 And why did Jesus refuse it? As I've pondered the passage, I could not help but ask those questions. And it's the text that raises them, not undue speculation. The Scripture raises them.

42:07 And surely if we are commanded to meditate upon the Scriptures, we cannot reflect upon this statement of this alleviation offered, but refused and not asked the question, why was it offered? And why did he refuse it? Well, with reference to the first question, there are two possible answers. According to rabbinic tradition, when people were crucified, Jewish women would seek to give to them, through the hand of the soldiers, a mixture of wine mingled with myrrh in order to relieve the intensity

42:51 of their ability to experience pain. And they did so in their understanding, according to rabbinic tradition, this is not found in Scripture, to obey what is recorded in Proverbs 31. In Proverbs 31, 6 and 7 we read, Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto the bitter in soul. Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.

43:26 And there is a rabbinic tradition that at that time under Roman rule, when a Jew was crucified, that Jewish women would concoct this drugged wine and seek to make it available as an act of obedience to Proverbs 31. The other possibility is that it was concocted and repeatedly offered by the soldiers in order to make their task easier. And if you'll look at the text, I'm inclined to believe that this is the proper answer to the question, why was it offered? Notice the language of the text, verse 22.

44:07 They bring him to the place called Golgotha, that is, the military contingency. And without any indication that there is a different reference in the pronoun, they offered him wine mingled with myrrh. And so allowing the text to cast its weight of balance in our judgment, it is my own personal conviction that the soldiers offered it not as an act of compassion, but to make their job easier. For they had seen many times as professional executioners that the weakest of men, when brought to the point where he's about to be slain,

44:51 can become possessed of almost superhuman strength. Why is it that people are accompanied to the place of execution by four or five attendants? Because it is a known fact that in such a point of crisis the adrenaline can so flow that people are possessed of a strength that is what we can almost call superhuman. And in order to subdue what they thought would be a recalcitrant and a rebellious criminal, they offer him repeatedly the wine mingled with gall that they might get on with their task without too much kicking,

45:35 too much, too much resistance. Compassion was not their motive. Convenience and efficiency in getting their bloody, cruel job. But then the second question, why did Jesus resolutely refuse it?

45:57 Are we not to use the means that God has put at our disposal to ameliorate pain? Was not our Lord Himself the great example of this in healing man, in easing their pains and distresses? Does not His inspired apostles say to a young man who had a hyper-spiritual view, apparently, of the care of his body, be no longer an exclusive water drinker, but take a little wine for your stomach's sake and your oft-infirmities? Was our Lord violating some principle embedded in the sixth commandment by refusing the drugged wine?

46:39 No, there were two reasons why He refused it. Number one, to demonstrate the absolutely voluntary nature of His suffering and death. Our Lord's death had virtue only so far as it fulfilled His words. They lay my life and takes it from me.

47:08 I lay it and I have power to take it again. And so our Lord determined that no drug was needed to calm Him. He would demonstrate by the same passivity before the soldiers, the same heroic passivity shown in the Praetorium, when they put the crown upon Him in mock investiture with kingship, when they spat upon Him, when they took the reed and struck Him, and in the majesty of full self-composure

47:51 He stood and took the mockery, took the spittle, took the blows. So now again He would make it evident when they said, It's your turn, Jesus of Nazareth, that He would not resist them, that He would, as it were, save them the bother of grabbing one arm in the other and forcibly pushing Him down upon the transverse piece of the cross, that when it was placed upon the ground He would meekly and submissively take His place. He would stretch out His own arms to receive the nails that would have been placed in His wrists and in His feet.

48:35 He would demonstrate the absolute voluntary nature of His suffering. And had He taken the wine, mingled with myrrh, they might have said, Well, He's got a low tolerance to the myrrh and to the alcohol. Look how passive and submissive He is. There would be no mistaking that that passivity was voluntary.

48:58 And secondly, He refused it to secure His complete awareness of all the realities of the coming three hours, for His greatest suffering was yet to come. His greatest suffering was not that of Gethsemane, as horrible as it was, as intense as it was, ringing from Him, the sweat mingled with blood. His greatest suffering was not found before Caiaphas and Annas, before Pilate and Herod, nor yet before the soldiers in the Praetorium, in that horrible mock coronation and the mock adoration

49:42 that we contemplated last Lourdes day. His worst suffering lay before Him. There upon the cross He had a cup to be drained. There upon the cross He had billows of wrath to receive into His soul.

50:03 There upon the cross He had a conquest to be undertaken over the powers of darkness. There upon the cross He had a sinner to say, Even one of those criminals who was marched out to Golgotha with Him. There upon the cross He had profound words yet to speak. Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.

50:28 Today you shall be with Me in Paradise. There upon the cross He would consciously express the full-felt awareness of the terrors of hell, when He would not whisper with a drugged and slurred voice, but with a loud voice would cry, My God! My God! Have you forsaken Me?

50:59 He refused the drugged wine not only to demonstrate the absolutely voluntary nature of His suffering and death, but to secure His complete awareness of all the realities of the coming hours of His consummate suffering and His glorious triumphs. In summary then, with this closing incident, the road to Golgotha has been traversed, assistance is secured on the way, company is found on the way, the arrival is affirmed, the alleviation is offered, but refused. Now my question is,

The Wonder of the Savior's Love to Sinners

51:42 what do you say to these things? God is witness that I have wrestled with the determination that I should not allow imagination to embellish the simple unadorned testimony of Scripture, and I trust God has helped me in that prayer. But I want you in closing to do two things with me very quickly, but with concentration of mind and heart. Consider again the wonder of the Savior's love to sinners.

52:20 Pave the way to Golgotha wherever it was because outside the city wall was a stone paved by the eternal, immutable love of the Son of God for His own sheep. ...them even to the end.

52:49 And what but divine, immutable, eternal love could have bound our Lord to that road that would go to Golgotha, the road traversed in such weakness as to make Him the additional object of the pond and the jeers and the jabs and pokes and boots of the Roman soldiers. The humiliation perhaps of having to be great over these pagan Romans while they mumbled their curses and dragged Him in His weakness to the place of execution.

53:32 What but His love and His thirst for our salvation could have caused Him in the midst of all of this to refuse what in other cases would have been a legitimate means of lessening some of the physical agony, some spiritual torture that was to come upon Him. I ask you, if it is not eternal, infinite, divine love, what is it? There is no answer but that. For here in His love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be

54:16 the propitiation for our sins. And the Scripture says that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And this is the great and grand of the love of God in Christ. Consider again then the wonder of the love of God to sinners.

Simon of Cyrene: An Analogy of Saving Attachment to Christ

54:40 And then, having done that, consider again the only appropriate that love as illustrated in Simon of Cyrene. This was the question that plagued me in my preparation. Lord, why, why do You focus on Simon of Cyrene in a sense with greater detail than some things I would like to have known about my Lord? Where He came from, Simon of Cyrene, coming in from the country, father of Alexander and Rufus, Lord, what is the significance?

55:19 I think I understand at least part of the answer. Consider in Simon of Cyrene a beautiful illustration, a marvelous analogy of the only way can enter into the benefits of Christ's love expressed in His going to Golgotha. You see, Christ, the innocent one, dies for the guilty. We see in Simon of Cyrene an attachment to Christ forged in one context alone,

56:02 the cross of the Son of God. Whatever Simon of Cyrene's relationship to Christ may have been before this time, nothing is said in the Bible, but from this point onward, in all apostolic preaching, and to the end of the age, because it is embodied in the Gospel records, Simon of Cyrene is introduced. How? Attached.

56:27 He's first of all attached to it. When Christ, the innocent one, who does not deserve to die, has His cross, a man named Simon, and one thing we know about Simon from the rest of Scripture, whatever else he was, he was a sinner, who himself, who himself deserved to die. And one can only imagine if at some point Simon became a Christian, how he must have looked back and seen in his experience the heart of the Gospel. I was the one,

57:11 by, quote, chance, upon whom they laid the transverse. I mount as a guilty one, though not guilty, before the law of Rome. Yet guilty before the law of God. I should never have put down that transverse.

57:28 I should have been hoisted upon the other piece of that cross. I should have died under the anathema of God. When that was taken from me and placed upon Him, it was a transfer unmerited and undeserved. It was I deserved to die, not He.

57:51 What a beautiful picture of the Gospel. And my friend, whatever your previous relationship to Jesus Christ has been, until you see what Simon, we have reason to believe, came to see, your relationship to Christ is defective. He doesn't want you standing with the women, wailing, bruised and beaten and bleeding and stubble. Jesus says, no, don't weep for me.

58:26 Face your own condition as it truly is and you'll weep for yourself. My friend, don't pity the Son of God. But see that the cross that Simon bore for Jesus, He deserved to bear and you deserve to bear it. The cross as the symbol of being accursed of God is precisely what you and I deserve.

58:53 And if your attachment to Christ is ever to be a saving attachment, it will be so when you come to see that great truth. I am the sinner who deserves to die. Christ is the innocent one who did not deserve to die. He died in my place.

Taking Up Your Cross and Following Christ

59:14 The cross that should have been mine was His by voluntary choice of sovereign love. But then the second aspect of the cross is this. Simon is a beautiful picture and analogy of what it means to be savingly attached to Christ. For how did Christ describe a saving attachment to Him?

59:37 If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up my cross or His cross. What did He say? Take up His cross and follow me. You see what He's saying?

59:53 Do you want to be attached to me? Then say no to yourself and take up your cross. That is your instrument of execution upon which will be executed life centered in self. In this world, in its things, in its smiles, in its frowns.

60:12 Be in the train of rejection. Be in the train of suffering. Not a rejection and a suffering to obtain life, but a suffering and a rejection because you have found life in the cross that I bore for you that you might be liberated from the tyranny of self and sin in the world. In order to bear your cross and follow me.

60:45 Simon of Cyrene, he becomes a marvelous analogy and picture of what cross, Christ's cross is intended to produce in us. Stand back amazed at His love and then say, love that did what? Love that went the way to call gossip, taking the wrath that I deserved. Transferring to Himself what was legitimately mine.

61:16 And I see in the great transfer my only hope of life and salvation. And if you see that by the Spirit through the Word, then you're prepared to do what Jesus said, deny yourself, pick up your cross. That is the symbol of rejection, execution of life centered in self and in this present world. You say, why do you keep using that terminology?

61:42 Because that's exactly what it means. I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by which the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world. The terms of following Christ have never changed.

62:05 He calls you to say, no to self, take up your cross, follow Him, and you cannot follow Him until you say no to self and yes to your cross. And if the sight of what we've contemplated today has brought you there, then what He died for has come to realization. If not, He says, weep not for me. Don't gush your pity upon me, pity yourself.

62:41 For a day is coming when you'll cry for mountains to fall upon you and for rocks to hide you. The wrath that He bore upon the cross will be the wrath unleashed in the last day upon all who have found no refuge in His cross. May God grant that Golgotha with all of its gore will be the open door of life to us this day. Let us pray.

Prayer of Thanksgiving and Commitment

63:09 Father, we thank You again for the Holy Scriptures. We thank You for their witness to the Lord Jesus. We do thank You that across the manger in Bethlehem there is etched so clearly the shadow of the cross. And we thank You it is so that we do not gather in sentiment around a babe harmless.

63:42 That we have been brought this morning a room to go on in our sin intimidates us and stands as a witness to our folly. But if by grace we are willing to forsake our sin and trust only in Him, He comes to us. Lord Jesus crucified. We thank You Lord.

64:13 We find beauty in that which was ugly to men's eyes. We see a beauty in Your streaming wounds. A beauty in Your bruised and broken body. We thank You for loving us and driven by that love walking the road to Golgotha.

64:37 Lord Jesus, as never before to take up our cross and to follow You. For Your name's sake.