It Is Finished # 3

It Is Finished # 3

Did people stand in awe and say, "The priest has gone in, will he come out?" This is what they said as the holiest man that ever lived trudged up that road that they call the "via dolorosa," staggering under a Cross. 'Ha, ha, He is the Man that talked about being strong and He gave strength to the weak, and eyes to the blind, and He did a lot of things, and look He can't keep up the load." He wasn't sinking under the load of the Cross. He was carrying the weight of the sin of the world!! 

Those poor dumb, blind folks that stood there, the gamblers, and the thieves, the lawyers and the doctors and the soldiers had no eyes to see. Here is a man staggering up this road Who is going to take the consummate sin and grief, not of one nation, but of the WHOLE WORLD! He isn't burdened under a Cross of wood - He is carrying the sin of the world which Samson, with all his strength, could not carry. He is solving a problem that Solomon, with all his wisdom, could not solve.

Oh, blind idiots looking out of their chariots, those Romans with their proud garments, those priests who thought they had an investiture from God, those merchants who scorned His poverty. God pity them!!

He is going to the Cross. He hasn't got a dime in His pocket! Nobody stood by Him. Not even His disciples. Isn't there a hymn that says: 

"The pain in His heart was the hardest to bear,
The heart that was broken for me."?

Again, I say, He is not going to repeat the act. He is doing it once and for all. That's what He is doing. See, Jesus is the consummation of everything, every type that is in the Old Testament. You can take the sacrificial type - He is the red heifer. - He is the perfect lamb. He is the dove whose breast was put in blood and thrown away, sent out into the air.

But the priest has no sacrifice. It does not cost him a thing - he is using the blood of beasts. This Man is going to enter the holiest place of all in His own blood. Not every year but once forever. The priest that walks into the holy place to the astonishment and amazement of all the people is going to go once and eventually is going to die - but our High Priest is going to live forever. He is the perfect offering and He is the perfect Priest, He is the perfect Prophet and He is the perfect King.

Moses is the greatest prophet, but a "greater than Moses is here." You take the perfection of every one of those characters in the Old Testament and He is the ultimate in perfection. He has the wisdom of Solomon. He has the patience of Job. He has the self-reliance of Nehemiah. He has the statesmanship of Moses. He has the courage of Joshua. He has the broken heart of Jeremiah. All rolled into one personality. Do you wonder that satan said, "If you can get that Man out of God's will, if we can push Him out of the main track, we can hold the world captive for millions and millions of millenniums.

Again, going down that road the people mocked Him - that's what the Bible says. "They that passed by reviled Him wagging their heads." What a bunch of dumb, blind, senseless folk. If Caesar comes down the road they bow the knee and say, "Hail, Caesar." If the priest comes, they stand in awe. But, you see, He not only was, He IS. In this mad, insane, world in which we live,k HE IS STILL DESPISED AND REJECTED OF MEN!

As you know, I am not very fond of translations of the New Testament - I like the good old King James. But I love this verse in Phillips's translation. I am going to get it printed as a little card. His translation of Ephesians 1:10 is this: "For God has allowed us to know the secret of His plan. He purposes in His sovereign will that all human history shall be consummated in Christ." I don't care how drunk the nations are with their iniquity today! I don't care that politicians are as hypocritical today as they were in Nixon's day or anybody else's. I don't care how intoxicated men are with iniquity. I don't care that people say we are nearer a blowout in the Middle East at this moment than ever we've been for years. But listen, God has allowed us to know. Come on, lift your chin up however rough the going. God has allowed us to know. We are initiated. We are believers. We know Him, and He has allowed us to know the secret of His plan, and it's this: "He purposes in His sovereign will that all human history shall be consummated in His Christ.

Could you try and imagine what Jesus was thinking on that road to the Cross? I think the earth shook beneath His feet. I say God draped the sun - He would not let anybody see His Son bear the sin. He became sin for us! Remember please, will you? When Jesus utters these three words - it is finished - it is after the three hours of darkness that covered the whole earth. There was a historian in Egypt at the time who wrote this, listen, "in this awful mid-day that has become midnight, either God is suffering or Somebody He loves is suffering." That was a pagan testimony. The whole  world shook under the impact. He is not bearing millions or trillions or quadrillions. He is bearing the total sum of human sin! Not only committed sin but depravity as a whole.

They reviled Him, they shook their heads. Verse 41 of that 27th chapter of Matthew says, "Likewise the chief priests." These are the men who know the law and the prophets. These are the men that read Isaiah 35 so many times, "When He comes the eyes of the blind shall be opened." And He did it before them and they still spit on His face, because that's what it says a bit later on.

Oh, you have it rough and I have it rough at times. Anybody boot your behind and nearly break your spine? Anybody get a nice mouthful of flem and spit in your eye? Anybody take your beard and pull the flesh out with it? Anybody say, "Well, I know you of course, you are devil possessed"? They mocked Him, they scorned Him, they reviled Him. The people passing by wagged their heads. And then the priests mocked Him. But wait a minute, there were two men beside Him crucified, you know what they did? The thieves which were with Him, they cast the same in His teeth. Isn't it amazing that to the very doorstep of hell itself they scorned Him and blasphemed Him? And they were a heartbeat away from eternity. Well, one of the hymns says about this Lord Jesus of ours, "It is the way the Master went, should not the servant tread it still?"

~Leonard Ravenhill~

(continued with # 4)

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