Admonition Podcast

Good evening.

take your bibles and open them to mark chapter fifteen

Let's get into our study after we have a word of prayer.

Gracious Father in heaven, we come before your throne grateful for the day that you've
blessed us with.

grateful for the opportunity that we have to serve you and to glorify your name.

We are grateful for the opportunity to edify one another and encourage one another, lift
one another up in the spirit and in boldness to proclaim your word throughout each and

every day.

Lord, we pray that you be with those who are striving to declare the truth in countries
where it is very difficult because of persecution.

and because of the threat that comes upon them for doing so.

Lord, we pray that you help them to always be bold to speak the truth and remain steadfast
and sound in the faith.

We pray for this nation and we pray for its leaders and we pray for the leaders throughout
the world.

They might make decisions which are wise that are in accordance with your wisdom and your
word and the understanding that we have from scripture that we might know how to walk, but

that we might have peace as well, that we might be able to

to focus on preaching and teaching the gospel.

All this we pray and ask in Jesus' name, amen.

In Mark 15, the record of Jesus' trials and His time before Pilate and ultimately His
sentencing to be crucified are given in this chapter.

We got down to about verse 14.

Pilate said to them, why, what evil has He done?

But they cried out all the more.

crucify him.

So Pilate, wanting to gratify the crowd, released Barabbas to them, and he delivered Jesus
after he had scourged him to be crucified.

Many evil things have been done in history out of a desire to appease someone else.

You think all the way back to Genesis chapter 3.

And while we're not explicitly told that Adam partook of the fruit to appease Eve,

We are told that Eve was deceived and Adam wasn't.

So Adam, knowing what he was doing and knowing that he was sinning, participated anyway in
eating of that fruit after it was given to him by Eve.

In this passage, you find those chief priests and the crowd and the Jews coming to Pilate,
and they are insistent.

They would rather have a murderer back in their midst.

They would rather have a seditious person and a leader of a rebellion in their midst.

that killed his own countrymen rather than Jesus.

And it is somewhat of a testament to the fact that oftentimes the facts of the matter, the
truth of the matter has very little to do with the circumstances and the actions that

people participate in.

sure certainly be great for all of society if every court case, every legal decision was
based upon truth and based upon facts and if the law actually reigns supreme, but more

often than not, in most places in the world, people reign supreme.

You'll notice that Pilate made this decision out of selfish.

reasons.

He made the decision because he wanted to appease the people.

We mentioned two weeks ago when we were discussing this that Pilate had been dealing with
revolts amongst the Jews and he was under pressure by indication of tradition and some

historical evidence that has been found through the years.

He was under pressure because of those revolts that if he didn't get the revolts under
control, it would be his head.

that would be on the chopping block from Rome.

And so it is for his own interests that he will choose to send Jesus to the cross.

Now, we know from the other texts that Pilate will wash his hands of the situation
publicly and even physically as a demonstration that I'm not doing this, you're doing

this.

and the people would cry out, let His blood be upon us and upon our children.

They were so motivated and so desirous to see Jesus dead because they trusted their
religious leaders.

because they were willing to accept the Word, the testimony, and the incitement of those
who were supposed to be their teachers, were supposed to be teaching them how to live and

how to be obedient to God, and instead they were inciting them to kill an innocent man
because of their selfish ambition.

Selfish ambition put Jesus on the cross.

We need to be careful that we do not allow selfish ambition to destroy congregations.

when John is writing about diatrophies and he is writing in those letters about this
individual who loved to have the preeminence.

That's the type of person who put Jesus on the cross.

That's the type of individual now in that scenario in the body of Christ that would have
gladly sacrificed his Lord to keep his power.

Verse 16, then the soldiers led him away into the hall called Praetorium, and they called
together the whole garrison, they clothed him with purple, and they twisted a crown of

thorns and put it on his head, and began to salute him, Hail, King of the Jews!

Then they struck him on the head with a reed and spat on him, and bowing the knee, they
worshiped him.

the mocking and the attitudes of the soldiers so that they mocked his situation.

Now, for a Roman, who would they have considered king?

Caesar, Caesar.

For a Roman, they would have considered Caesar to be king.

They would have considered any individual who sought to be a king over a province that
Rome had rule over to be someone who was already bound for destruction.

Somebody who was not quite all there thinking they could oppose Rome.

And so you have them carrying out this mocking, you have them uh behaving in such a way as
to ridicule the very idea that he was the king of the Jews.

Verse 19, then they struck him on the head with a reed and spat on him and bowing the knee
they worshiped him.

And when they had mocked him, they took the purple off him, put his own clothes on him and
led him out to crucify him.

Then they compelled a certain man, Simon of Cyrenean, the father of Alexander and Rufus,
as he was coming out of the country and passing by to bear his cross.

The text indicates that as Jesus has gone through the scourging, He's gone through the
beating, He's been up all night.

And if you pay attention to the text before that, He had been up quite some time even
before that point, that His exhaustion and His weakness is such that He cannot bear on

Himself or His own uh ability.

the beam that would be carried from the city center out to Golgotha.

And so they lay that beam partly on Jesus and partly on this Simon.

They brought him to the place Golgotha, which is translated place of a skull.

Then they gave him wine mingled with myrrh to drink, but he did not take it.

And when they crucified him, they divided his garments, casting lots for them to determine
what every man should take.

Now it was the third hour and they crucified him.

And the inscription of his accusation was written above the king.

of the Jews.

With him they also crucified two robbers, one on his right and the other on his left.

So the scripture was fulfilled, which says, he was numbered with the transgressors.

And those who passed by blasphemed, wagging their heads and saying, Aha, you who destroy
the temple and build it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross.

Likewise, the chief priests also mocking among themselves with the scribes said,

He saved others himself he cannot save.

Let the Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the cross that we may see and believe
even those who were crucified with him reviled him." What was it that the Jews had said so

often to Jesus, just show us one more what?

Sign!

Just show us one more miracle and we'll believe.

The scribes, the elders, the Pharisees, always one more sign, one more sign.

Jesus said that He wouldn't show them one more sign except save this.

What sign did He say He would show them?

All right, the sign of Jonah as he references Jonah going down into the belly of the fish
for three days and three nights and then being spat back up on the seashore to go into uh

the city and to proclaim the word of God.

It is that sign.

He says, go look in your Old Testament.

You'll see the sign.

And when you see it, you'll know.

Quite often, we find that the Scripture identifies there were things that Jesus taught,
there were things that Jesus said, where people had to listen to them, then they had to

remember them, and then eventually they would see the reason and the actual enactment of
the thing which He taught.

good reminder for us that it's important as we're listening to the Word of God, as we're
being taught the Word of God, that we don't let it go in one ear and out the other.

For those who were casual with the word that Jesus spoke, they were casual with the things
which Jesus said, they lost the opportunity of hearing the very Son of God and being

impacted by those things.

You think about the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus would say in the Sermon on the Mount there
at the end that the one who hears these sayings of mine and what?

And does them.

him I will liken to a wise man who builds his house upon the rock and he describes how
that when the person hears these sayings and does them, there's a long-term continual

blessing that comes from building your life on the Word of God.

But the comparison is to a man who does what?

Build this house on the sand, is the analogy of doing what?

He hears the sayings and then doesn't do them.

It's not that he didn't hear the sayings.

It's not that he never heard Jesus speak or heard Jesus teach.

It's that he heard it, didn't do anything with it.

We have to be admonished and we need to be reminded that it is not just the hearing of the
Word of God that is important.

but the hearing, the retaining, the enacting in our lives and the building of our lives on
top of the Word of God.

If people around you don't wonder why you live the way you do and why you act the way you
do and why you do the things that you do and don't do the things that you don't do, maybe

you should be looking a little closer at Scripture.

Because trust me, when you live like the scripture describes, people wonder why you are
the way you are.

as they mocked him.

They mocked him because he claimed he could save others.

They mocked him because he performed miracles to deliver people from blindness, deafness,
being mute, being dumb, being imprisoned by evil spirits, and even from death.

And their accusation was, if he can save others, but he can't save himself, he certainly
isn't the son of God.

He can't possibly be the king of the Jews cause he's about to be dead.

So again, we're reminded and encouraged to consider.

that what many people believe to be true is only true because they don't understand the
actual situation.

So often in the first century and later on in the second century and the third century as
well, Christians would be persecuted by Rome, they would be taken into the Coliseums, and

they would be fed to the lions.

and they would be rejoiced over in their deaths that they died and that they were able to
be killed.

And the thought and the mindset of the people was these individuals not only were
deserving of death, but they were powerless to stop it and they were defeated.

Were any of the Christians who were killed in the Coliseums defeated?

Or were they, every single one of them, victorious?

See, that's the message of the book of Revelation.

that when you give your life for the testimony of Christ and when it costs you everything
in this physical life, that's not defeat.

That's victory.

And so as the chief priests and as the elders and as the Pharisees are standing there
mocking him, claiming that he's not able to save himself, they're actually proclaiming the

very act of him saving himself and everyone else to be the exact opposite of what it is.

They considered it defeat.

He knew better.

Six hour had come.

There was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice saying, Eli, lama sabachthanai, which
is translated, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Some of those who stood by when they heard that said, Look, He is calling for Elijah.

Then someone ran and filled a sponge full of sour wine, put it on a reed and offered it to
him to drink, saying, Let him alone, let us see if Elijah will come down, will come to

take him down.

And Jesus cried out with a loud voice and breathed his last.

Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

So when the centurion who stood opposite him saw

that he cried out like this and breathed his last, he said, truly this man was the Son of
God.

Do you believe or do you think that the centurion's reaction is a casual one?

think the centurion had been paying very close attention because he had been at guard
during the proceedings.

He'd heard all of the things that had been said.

He even probably heard the one thief who started off reviling him, and Mark doesn't record
the occasion of the thief turning his...

perspective around.

But through the midst of this, he observes all of these things.

And what are some of the things that would have been a clear sign that this wasn't just
another criminal dying?

The way you spoke, what else?

The darkness, we mentioned two weeks ago as we were talking about it, the darkness here is
not the idea of, uh yeah, it was kind of a shadowy day.

It's not the idea of uh the clouds covered and blocked out the sun.

The darkness and the idea here is the darkness like on Egypt during the plague of darkness
where they could not even move.

They did not come out of their beds because they couldn't even see in a house.

They could light a candle and they still couldn't see the candle.

darkness came upon the face of the earth.

And it wasn't a momentary thing.

wasn't an eclipse of the sun.

It was for three hours.

And as the centurion has been watching these things and listening to these things, he has
the honesty.

compared to the Jews.

to state at the end of these things, surely this was the Son of God.

the Jews had been so bent on their destruction of Jesus.

It didn't matter how many signs they saw.

It didn't matter how many scriptures they witnessed being fulfilled by the actions and the
statements of Jesus.

None of those things mattered.

None of those things broke through the barrier of their hate and their self-interest.

But for this, perhaps you could call him disinterested centurion.

In other words, he didn't have a dog in this fight, he wasn't a Jew.

he could honestly as a third party stand back and go that had to be the son of God.

and saints rising from the grave.

And yet, the Chief Priest and the

the temple's curtain was torn and they saw all this stuff and yet they still tried to
cover things up.

Absolutely.

It's interesting to uh note, know, we're not told, least no recollection in my memory, are
we told how many people were raised from the grave?

But...

It does make you wonder if some of those 120 that are there 50 days later with the
apostles had been dead 120 days or had been dead 50 days before.

And so here they are.

He's cried out.

He's quoted the Psalms.

He's fulfilled so many different prophetic statements concerning the Messiah.

and the veil of the temple is torn from top to bottom.

First of all, any inkling for how big the veil of the temple was in the temple?

My memory serves me correctly and I could be wrong, but I was thinking it was 30 cubits in
height, which would be about 45 feet.

So you have a not small object.

And it's not torn the way it would be torn if a man were to tear it.

If you have a man tear it, you get one really strong guy and you start cutting and one guy
pulls one way and one guy pulls the other from the bottom and it tears from bottom to top.

That's not how it tore.

It tore from top to bottom.

But at end of that...

Who's allowed to be in the temple?

in the holy place on the front side of the veil, the priests are going in throughout the
day, offering the offerings, offering the incense, doing the things that they would do

with the sacrifices and with the things pertaining to the showbread.

You have the table of showbread that would be there.

So, there things that were going on throughout that time.

And so throughout the day you would have the priest entering and exiting the holy place.

But in the most holy place, on the other side of the veil, only the high priest was
allowed to go.

And how often was he allowed to go?

Once a year.

There wasn't a single priest.

alive and serving at the time of Christ who, excluding the high priest, who had ever, by
all indications of text and scripture and ordinance, who had ever passed through that veil

to see the Most Holy Place.

But here's something else maybe you haven't considered.

When the tabernacle was first built and when Solomon's temple was built, when the most
holy place was erected and the temple was consecrated and the tabernacle was consecrated,

what was inside the most holy place?

Ark of the Covenant, the mercy seat, which was on the lid of the Ark of the Covenant.

the cherubim that were there over the ark, all of these things would have been inside the
Most Holy Place.

What did the mercy seat signify to Israel?

What would happen on the Day of Atonement when the high priest had offered that sacrifice?

Remember there were the two lambs.

One was the scapegoat that was let go.

and one was sacrificed, what would the high priest do with the blood of the sacrifice?

Alright, there would be a sprinkling of the blood.

and the blood after there was a consecration of the high priest and atonement for his
sins, atonement for the people's sins, the blood would be carried into the Most Holy

Place.

And on the day of atonement, the high priest wore a garment that had bells on it because
they were instructed that the bells were to essentially announce their presence as coming

into the Most Holy Place.

And so they would wear the garment, they would wear the bells, you would hear the sound of
them going in, going into the most holy place, and then going in, or going into the holy

place, then going through the veil and going into the most holy place.

And there was a process to it, but when they got inside the most holy place, then they
would take the blood, and the blood would be poured out on what?

On the mercy seat.

as an atoning and a reminder of the sins of Israel year by year, according to the book of
Hebrews.

Now, when Jesus dies, who is our atonement?

Christ.

John would write in John chapter 1, grace and truth came by who?

Jesus Christ.

when the temple veil is torn, when those regular priests, as we could call them,

saw perhaps for the very first time inside the Most Holy Place, what did they see?

The answer is an empty room.

The Israelites in the first century didn't have the Ark of the Covenant.

They didn't have the mercy seat.

They didn't have the cherubim.

They didn't have the articles that would have been in the most holy place in Solomon's
day, in the most holy place in Moses's day.

When the veil was torn,

all those who were in the temple could see through to realize that Israel had an empty
presence where God was supposed to be.

because God was out there on Gotha's Hill on a cross.

Their sacrifice was the one they had just killed.

Their atonement was the one they had just put to death.

and there was no representation of God inside the temple.

And so it was fitting as a testament to who Jesus was.

that everyone could look in and see it's just an empty room.

as go down through the text.

Verse 40, there were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary
the mother of James, the less of Joses, and Salome, who also followed him and ministered

to him when he was in Galilee, and many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem.

Mark highlights the presence of the women, the women who followed Jesus.

They didn't follow Jesus because they were his adoring fans.

They followed Jesus because they knew who he was.

It was Mary who anointed Jesus there at that supper at Simon's father's house, or Simon
the father of Judas.

It was these women who had provided for Jesus in so many different occasions.

And as they are witnessing this, you'll notice where are they.

They are far off.

Now, who was closer?

Who was a woman?

His mother.

John will tell us that she was at the foot of the cross.

as Jesus life ends.

There are those who are.

mindful of what needs to come next.

among which are these women.

There's an interesting thing as you're going to see him buried and what the women will do.

First of all, they will prepare the body or they will prepare to to prepare the body for
burial.

But they observe the Passover.

In spite of everything that they've witnessed, in spite of everything that they've
believed, in spite of everything that they've done, number one, they still consider Him to

be their Lord.

Number two, they will not forsake the command of God and the binding law and God's
ordinances on the matters of the Passover for their own personal grief.

as they are waiting until that Sunday morning.

Why would they wait until the Sunday morning to go and to actually finish preparing the
body for burial?

All right, first reason reason number one, they weren't allowed to touch a dead body.

Otherwise they were no longer able to participate in the Passover.

What else?

All right, it's a Sabbath day.

Can't work on the Sabbath.

They couldn't prepare the body for burial on the Sabbath day.

The body is taken down that night so as to be down before the Sabbath begins and before
that uh Sabbath day starts.

And so as a result of that, there are these events that are leading up.

They're simply not time to do.

all the things that need to be done before the Sabbath.

So they're waiting.

Have you ever experienced a worship service where because of the loss of a loved one, you
can't concentrate at all on what's going on in the worship service because all you can do

is think about the person who you've lost.

I imagine those women went through a Sabbath day very much like that.

where their only thought was continually on Jesus.

So we find verse 42, now when evening had come because it was the preparation day, that is
the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent council member who was

himself waiting for the kingdom of God, coming and taking courage, went into Pilate and
asked for the body of Jesus.

Pilate marveled that he was already dead.

and summoning the centurion, he asked him if he had been dead for some time.

So when he found out from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph.

Why do you think that Pilate wanted to know if he'd been dead for a while?

So there are many skeptics who still to this day in spite of zero evidence whatsoever for
it will argue for the swoon theory.

Jesus just appeared to be dead.

He had passed out and it was so it was so thoroughly that he had passed out that no one
realized he was still alive when they put him in the grave.

That's why he came out of the grave.

He was still alive.

There are some things that the Roman centurions weren't good at, but knowing when someone
was dead or alive wasn't one of them.

If the Roman centurion said he was dead, he was dead.

They were quite skilled at telling the difference and fixing the difference.

Mark doesn't record it, but what had one of the centurions done as Jesus was there on the
cross after they observed that he was dead?

They took a spear and they shoved it into his side and what was the evidence that he was
dead?

Out came blood and water, meaning that the blood had begun to separate from the water in
the body, which happens after death, not before.

As I mentioned, they're pretty efficient at knowing whether or not somebody's dead.

One action was all it took.

Now,

Based upon the other texts, what did they not do that was customary in the crucifixion
process because he was already dead?

Didn't break his knees.

fulfilling again prophecy that not one bone would be broken.

Allsuit tells you that he went through all of that pain and all of that suffering, the
scourging, the beating, and not one bone was broken, but there was a whole lot of pain

that was inflicted.

The Romans gave witness to the fact that he was already dead.

Joseph of Arimathea, who is a disciple of Christ, he is waiting for the kingdom.

comes to Pilate and asks him, and Mark points out he was one who took courage.

You've just had the person who you knew to be the son of God killed not for anything that
he did, but just for being who he was.

takes a whole lot of courage to then go associate yourself with him publicly before the
person who ordered the execution.

But he comes to Pilate and he asks for the body.

So verse 46, then he brought the fine linen, took him down, wrapped him in the linen and
laid him in a tomb which had been hewn out of the rock and rolled a stone against the door

of the tomb.

And Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Joseph, observed where he was laid.

They're watching.

You can visualize if you would a hill and the body being taken down by Joseph.

I imagine Joseph had some servants.

Because if Joseph had taken the body down himself, he couldn't have observed what?

The best of the Sabbath.

So the body is taken down, the body is carried away to the tomb.

What was unique about the tomb according to Scripture?

It was among the rich.

It was a tomb that was unused.

It was intended by all indications for Joseph when he died.

So this is a man of wealth.

This is a man of prominence.

This is a man of oh means.

Yes.

I don't know that that would have been his thought process, but perhaps it certainly would
be true.

um Now, of course, because, you know, we know everything about history and every single uh
identifying mark was uh immediately notated.

We know exactly where Jesus' tomb is,

Now if you go on a tour...

You'll find Simon's house is still standing and Jesus's tomb was right here and this...

aah Anything for a dollar.

Now when the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome
brought spices that they might come and anoint him.

Very early in the morning on the first day of the week, came to the tomb where the sun had
risen, or when the sun had risen, and they said among themselves, Who will roll away the

stone from the door of the tomb

for us.

They've put all the preparation into preparing his body for final burial.

They've brought everything that they need.

and they come into the place where the tomb is and it occurs to them.

we're not gonna be able to this stone.

Why was the stone there?

The argument from one side was to keep the disciples from stealing the body and claiming
that he had been risen.

The argument from the other side would be to keep the chief priests and the elders from
getting their hands on the body.

But what else was in front of the tomb?

centurions and guards.

But when they arrived at the tomb, they looked up, they saw the stone had been rolled away
for it was very large.

And entering the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting on the
right side, and they were alarmed.

But he said to them, Do not be alarmed.

You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.

He is risen.

He is not here.

See the place where they laid him.

As they walk into the tomb, they observe this young man sitting there.

He's on one side, body would have been on the other side.

You could almost mentally picture it.

He's not here.

We'll put a pause in it there.

Come back next week.