Eight Days that Changed the World – Saturday
I’d like to ask you to turn, please, to, John chapter 19, and we’re going to break in at verse 28. John 19 and verse 28. After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar, and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth. When Jesus, therefore, had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished. And he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. The Jews, therefore, because it was the preparation.
That the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, for that Sabbath day was an high day, besought Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.
Then came the soldiers and break the legs of the first and of the other which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was dead already, they break not his legs. But one of the soldiers with the spear pierced his side, And forthwith came thereout blood and water. And he that saw it bear record, and his record is true. And he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe. For these things were done that the scripture should be fulfilled. A bone of him shall not be broken. And again, another scripture saith, they shall look on him whom they pierced. And after this, Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate, that he might take away the body of Jesus. And Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore and took the body of Jesus. And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pound weight. Then took they the body of Jesus and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden. And in the garden, a new sepulcher, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid day Jesus therefore, because of the Jews’ preparation day for the sepulcher was nigh at hand.
I think it is easy to overlook the importance of this week’s penultimate day, since it seems as though it’s a valley sandwiched between two Everests. After all, it’s situated between the two greatest days in the history of the world, the death of the Lord Jesus on the cross, and then his glorious resurrection on the Sunday morning. Nonetheless, there are important truths to discuss, which I hope that God will enable me to do. It’d be valuable for us to grasp at least these three things. I want you to think, first of all, about Christ’s sepulcher, that tomb, his sepulcher, and the fulfilled prophecy. And then we want to look at Rome’s seal. They put a seal across the door there. We want to think about Rome’s seal and the displayed authority, what that meant and what happened with that seal. And then finally, Israel’s Sabbath and the spiritual reality.
That sepulchre, which was carved out by a man named Joseph of Arimathea, was there for the Lord Jesus to use. There were many prophecies fulfilled at the birth of the Lord Jesus. There were many prophecies fulfilled during his life when the Savior was here. However, when you come to what we’re looking at, There are events surrounding his death when Jewish officials and Roman soldiers unwittingly, and in some cases, therefore unintentionally, fulfilled Old Testament prophecies in their mistreatment of the Lord Jesus. In other words, there were enemies who did things without even realizing they were fulfilling prophecy that God had stated centuries before. John specifically detailed the fulfillment of some of those prophecies, he recorded first that the soldiers gave the Lord Jesus vinegar to drink. That was an event foretold in Psalm 69. He said that the soldier.
The soldiers did not break even one of his bones. They broke the bones, the legs actually of the two malefactors, but Christ was already dead. So they did not break one of his bones. And that was a fulfillment of Psalm 34 and verse 20. Then we read that one of the soldiers plunged a spear into the side of the Savior, likely piercing the pericardium sack around his heart because John said he saw blood and water coming out. And that was foretold by Zechariah in his prophecy in chapter 12. Now, remember, please, these were enemies of the Lord Jesus. The last thing they wanted to do was to fulfill prophecy about Christ. Their intent was to harm him and to give him pain, not to fulfill prophecies that would prove that he was the Messiah. But all four divinely inspired biographies of the Lord Jesus, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, record an event that was prophesied almost 800 years before the Lord came into the world. And that was something that was done by a man who was a believer. We read about him. His name is Joseph of Arimathea. He was a wealthy man and he had a tomb already prepared, one that had never been used for a burial.
And incredibly, Pilate agreed to give this body to Joseph. Now, the government’s intent, what the government would have done would have been to take all three bodies down. They would have thrown them into a cart. The cart would have made its way out the south gate of Jerusalem to a place called the Valley of the Sons of Hinnom. It was a place where fires were burning down in the valley. They never went out. It was the city’s incinerator, and they would have thrown the body of the Lord Jesus together with the two malefactors into that valley to be burned. But that didn’t happen. That didn’t happen because centuries before, a prophecy had been uttered that they would make his grave with the wicked. That’s what they intended, but it was with the rich in his death. It was a rich man who made a sepulcher and prophecy was fulfilled when the Lord Jesus was placed in there. In other words, once the Lord Jesus said, it is finished, and that soldier pierced his side, when the Lord Jesus died, no sinful man touched his body again. And two believers, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, brought the clothes, the cloth to be wound, and the spices, and they buried the Lord Jesus. Prophecy fulfilled.
Also of great significance was the strident demand by the Jewish authorities, that the bodies be taken down before the Sabbath. Now, please understand that when people were crucified, sometimes they were left hanging on a cross for days, if not weeks. It would be a terrible sight. But because of this feast that was coming, the Jewish leaders, the very ones who demanded that Christ be killed, they go to Pilate and they demand that the bodies be taken down. They didn’t want the bodies hanging there on the Sabbath.
As a result, what the Lord Jesus prophesied was fulfilled because his enemies made a demand. The Lord Jesus said that he would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. To us, with the Lord Jesus being killed on Friday, placed in a tomb Friday evening, he’s there all day Saturday, and then he rises from the dead Sunday morning, to us, that sounds like a little more than 36 hours, but not to the Jews, because in Jewish reckoning, any part of a day was counted in the equation. So because the Lord Jesus was placed in the tomb Friday evening, before the sun went down and the Sabbath began, he was there Friday. Then he was there all day Saturday. And because he was there part of Sunday, rising early Sunday morning to the Jews, that is three days, not 36 hours. But please notice that was only possible because the enemies of the Lord Jesus, not knowing they were fulfilling prophecy, demanded of Pilate that his body be taken down. Now, let’s stop a minute. Because in all of this, there is a clear message to us today. And I want you please to get this message. Do you know what it is?
The Bible is not just a book. It is the book. It is the book inspired by God. Its batting average is a thousand. It has never missed. When God says something is going to happen, it happens when God says it will take place. This book is unique from every other book in the world. And it demands, it commands our attention because it is obviously a book that can only have come from God. That may be why Nikola Tesla’s mother said to him, He said, my mother taught me to seek all truth in the Bible. If you’re searching for God, if you want to be sure you’ll be in heaven when your life is done, if you want to have peace, please go to the Bible. That is where you’ll find God’s remedy for your sins. Many people, particularly those who have known the gospel for years, make the same mistake that I made as a teenager.
We fail to understand the important place that the Bible, the word of God, holds in the salvation of men and women. You see, I imagined that I, if I ever became saved, this is how I thought, if I ever became saved, I would know it because I would feel a burden roll away from my back, or I would feel very happy, or something, some feeling would indicate to me that that was salvation. And I was wrong. The only way that I know I’m going to be in heaven is because the Bible tells me. The same Bible, the same book that told me I was going to hell and I had never seen hell, the same book that told me I was going to hell and I needed to be saved, is the same book that told me Christ died to save me from hell, that Christ died for my sins so that I would not have to be in the lake of fire forever. And when a human being turns away from all his own ideas and his feelings and simply rests in the word of God, he is resting on a foundation that will never be shaken. John wrote to the Christians in 1 John 5 and verse 13, and he says, These things I write to you who believe on the name of the Son of God that you may know.
That you may know that you have eternal life. How did they know? What were the things he wrote? Just back up from what he’s saying, because he does that often. He’ll say some things and then he’ll say, this is why I’m writing you this. When you back up from what he said, do you know what he’s talking about? He’s talking about God bearing witness. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a courtroom.
But if you have, then you know a witness gets called. steps into the box, promises that he will tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And then he gives his witness and he says to you, yes, I saw the accident. Yes. He was driving the white car. Yes. And he hidt his, he’s giving his witness. And then if you’re in the jury, you have to decide, is this credible? Do I believe this person? Is this, do I accept this witness. Now, John says, and this is an amazing thing, God has given his witness. He’s witnessed to two things. He has witnessed to the fact that he gave his son to die for you and me. That’s his witness. And he has witnessed that he gives eternal life to every person who trusts his son. That’s God’s witness.
And John says, the person who doesn’t believe God’s witness is calling God a liar. So I would like to ask you, do you believe what God has said? Do you believe that God gave his son for you? Do you believe that by trusting Christ, you can have eternal life? That’s God’s witness. That’s God’s testimony. That’s what God is giving to you so that you could trust tonight. But I want you to think about Rome’s seal and the authority that was displayed by it. Once Joseph and Nicodemus were finished preparing the Lord’s body, they laid it in the sepulcher that he had carved, that he had hewn out of a rock, and they rolled a stone to close the mouth of this cave. Stones that sealed sepulchers weighed between one and two tons, and it was generally constructed so that there was like a ramp going down to the opening, and the stone could then more easily be rolled into place. Gravity would help you roll the stone into place. It wasn’t so easy to roll it back, but it was easier to roll it into place. So the stone was rolled into place. The sepulcher was sealed by that stone. And then these two Jewish men left to observe the Jewish Sabbath. But the tomb was sealed in another way. Those enemies of the Lord Jesus, they went to Pilate and they said, we’re afraid. We’re afraid.
We’re afraid about this thing about a resurrection and that the disciples could steal his body. It’s interesting, isn’t it, that the followers of the Lord Jesus and the foes of the Lord Jesus, the foes of the Lord Jesus seem to know more than the followers. The followers that followed Christ, the followers of the Lord Jesus were afraid for their life. And the foes of the Lord Jesus were afraid that he would rise from the dead. So they say to Rome, just seal it. Put the official seal across there. And that official seal says, keep out under order of death. In other words, you break this seal and you will die. And then Pilate stationed soldiers there. And these were men of war. They were trained in killing people. They would have been very happy, very happy to slaughter anybody who tried to open that sepulcher and break that seal. You know, in some ways, when I think of that seal, the government sealing that stone. It just reminds me that still today, the world, it just wants to bury Christ and his gospel and.
It’s okay the babe in the manger is okay, but a living savior who tells you that you need to be born again, who says that he had to die to save you from your sins, the world isn’t very much interested in that. And so whether it’s paganism or it’s religions of today, constantly what people want to do is just bury the gospel and be done with it.
And this too has a message for us today.
Because in this whole world, there are just two classes of people. And everybody in this meeting is in one of these two classes. I will tell you what the classes are, and then you will have to find out from God which class you are in. The first class is people who have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, and they have everlasting life. They are people who have a day in their life when they personally trusted Christ, they received him as Savior, and they were given as a gift from God, they were given eternal life. That’s one class. The second class is people who don’t have a day like that. They have never personally trusted Christ as Savior. They do not have eternal life. And what the Bible says is the wrath of God is abiding on them, and they won’t see heaven if they die. So two classes, people who have everlasting life, people who do not. This has nothing to do with religion. This has nothing to do with whether you’ve been baptized. This has everything to do with whether Christ is your personal Savior. Do you have a day?
In your life, when you turn from your sins and you personally trusted Christ, have you a day like that? You have every right to point the finger back at me and say, okay, Mr. Preacher, do you have a day like that? Yes, thank God, by the grace of God, I do. On a July night in 1966, I realized I was going to hell.
And at about quarter to 10 that night, I found out that Jesus died for me and that that was enough to take me to heaven if I would take him as my savior. That’s the night that I trusted him. And for the last 50 plus years, he has been by my side every step of the way. I have never seen his back. He has never deserted me or forsaken me. I have failed him countless times. He has never failed me once. That’s the savior that God wants you to trust tonight. And if you do, the Bible says you will have everlasting life. When I was a boy growing up, I heard preachers tell a story, an illustration in their preaching, and I heard a lot of versions of it. So I did my best to go back to the source so that I had my facts clearly. So the source was a preacher named F.W. Borum. He is a man that is quoted constantly by many Christian writers of his day and afterward. And the man that he was talking about and that I heard preachers talk about was a man named Edwin Rushworth. Edwin Rushworth was what used to be called a skeptic. That is, he didn’t even know if there was a God. He certainly didn’t believe the Bible, and he didn’t believe in the Lord Jesus.
But at some point, Mr. Rushworth decided he would read the Bible. What’s this all about that the Christians are all talking about? So, he began to read the Bible. Now I’m going to give you the source information. As he was reading the Bible, he looked up at his wife and he said to her, if this book is right,
We are all wrong. Got that? If this book is right, we are all wrong. He continued to read it. His comment to her a few days later was, If this book is right, we are lost. We are lost. Continued searching, but now not just out of curiosity, but with a deep interest. And he looked up at her one day and he said, if this book is right, we can, we can become saved. And he kept reading until he found Christ as his savior. If the Bible is right, where are you going to be when you die?
If the Bible is right, where would you be Easter morning if you died Saturday night? If the Bible is right, are you on your way to heaven or on your way to hell?
I can tell you the Bible is right, and I can tell you that if you trust that Bible, then you’ll be right, and you’ll be on the road to heaven as well. Finally, I want you to consider Israel’s Sabbath and the spiritual reality that God wants us to understand. Now, in the law of Moses, this has to do with Jewish people. In the law of Moses, the Sabbath was given to Israel and they were to observe it every week, every Saturday. No slavish work was to be done. They were to, in one sense, it was to be a time when they stopped working, but it was more, it was more than a day of rest and inactivity because on the Sabbath, they were to be thinking of at least two great works that God had done in the past. The first had to do with God’s life-giving work in creation.
In Genesis, it said that God, on the seventh day, God rested. It doesn’t mean he was tired or weary and he had to sort of back off. What it means is his work was finished. He saw that, this is what it says, he saw that everything was good. That is, everything was ordered by the creator in such a way to reach the goal appointed by that creator and to enjoy the purpose of its existence. Everything was good. Everything was doing what it was supposed to be. The engine of creation was just humming along. So God was done creating.
So on this Sabbath now that we’re looking at, this Saturday in the life of the Lord Jesus, Christ rested because his work was finished. His work was done completely and perfectly. Remember that anticipating Calvary, the Lord Jesus said to God, I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work that thou gavest me to do. And the work that God gave him to do was to die and provide salvation for every human being. And the Lord Jesus did that.
That’s why he said, it is finished. Not I am finished. He was going to rise again on the Sunday morning, but it is finished. He had finished the work God gave him to do. He had finished it mightily, marvelously, and miraculously. It was done. Any human being, any human being in the world tonight can go to heaven, can be saved, can have his or her sins forgiven because Christ finished the work. So he rested. Additionally, Christ rested on the Sabbath Because his death, had brought a new creation God created the worlds And then he rested when his work was done, Christ brought about a new creation And then rested in that tomb, In fact, in that new creation 2 Corinthians chapter 5 says That the moment that a person is saved That human being becomes a new creation. Old things are passed away All things have become new Suddenly that person has eternal life, has a new life, is linked with God. And when Christ had finished the work, just as God rested when his creation work was finished, Christ rested when his work was done to produce a new creation and to produce eternal life for sinners. So when they rested on the Sabbath day, when the Jews rested, they were to remember that God rested because he had completed the work of creation. Thank you.
But there was something else they were called on to remember. And you’ll find it in the book of Deuteronomy 5, when God said that they were to remember that they were slaves in the land of Egypt, and that God redeemed them and brought them out, and therefore they were to keep the Sabbath. So on that Sabbath day, they were to remember what they were. They had been helpless, dying slaves, oppressed by a cruel overlord who was determined to work them to death. And you and I, as sinners, when we come into the world, we also are enslaved by sin and are manipulated by a cruel enemy called the devil. And before the Lord Jesus came, our situation was just as hopeless and we were just as helpless. And Christ came to redeem you, to rescue you, to set you free. It was going to cost him his life. It was going to cost him his blood, but he would shed it at Calvary and he would lay down his life so that you could be saved. I’m sure everybody here knows the hymn, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. John Newton was the author. If you ever get to Olney, England.
You will see that just across from the desk at which he sat. So when he would be sitting there composing his messages for Sunday or for the midweek meeting, he’d be looking right across at a text that he had had made for him. It was actually two Bible verses brought together into one text hanging over the fireplace in his study. The two verses were one from Isaiah, one from Deuteronomy. The one from Isaiah said, since thou was precious in my sight, thou has been honorable. And then it just goes seamlessly into the next verse. But thou will remember that thou was the slave in the land of Egypt. He never wanted to forget that the Lord redeemed him, saved him by amazing grace. Can you look back? Can you look back?
To a day in your life when Jesus Christ saved you from your sins. Can you look back to a day when a whole new life started for you? Just like one book closing and another book opening, and your life started all over again because the Lord Jesus had redeemed you. Can you look back to a moment in your life when you were saved? They were not only to remember what they were, but they were to remember what God did, that God delivered them from their bondage. He smashed the greatest military and economic power of the day, and he set them free. And today, right now, that’s exactly what God is doing. He’s rescuing people from the grip of Satan. He is rescuing them from the chains of sin. He is setting people free. And when Paul wrote to the Christians at a place called Colossae. He said that they had been translated. They had been carried over from the kingdom of darkness. That’s the devil’s kingdom. From the kingdom of darkness. And they had been carried over and placed into the kingdom of God’s son. That happened to me on July the 10th, 1966. Has it ever happened to you? God wanted them to remember what it cost.
He wanted them to remember.
That it cost blood to set them free. So I hope I can say this in a reverent way. What if we could all just now, just in mind, what if we could all just come, to that sepulcher? If we could all somehow just look in on that Saturday into that sepulcher, and you will see what it cost God to save you. you will see the silent form, of the creator, the son of God, the prince of life in a place of death the one person who never had to die and yet he died for all the sinners who have to die so that you could have life, And when you look there, you will see what it cost God, to be able to offer you.
Salvation is a gift. Thank God tomorrow night’s subject is going to remind us that that burial was only temporary, that the Lord Jesus shattered the power of death, that he arose from the tomb, that they had to roll the stone away so that the disciples could get in, not to let the Lord Jesus out. He had already risen. But the message to us today is this. It incorporates all that I’m trying to tell you. Here’s the message from God. Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures. He was buried and he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures. And he was seen by hundreds of people who saw the risen living Christ. He has this savior, the Lord Jesus. He has entirely and eternally satisfied God about the problem of sin. If you trust him tonight.
Your greatest problem will be solved right now. You’ll have everlasting life. You’ll be on the way to heaven. Your sins will be forgiven. And you will never perish in hell and the lake of fire. Now, I don’t know why anybody would not want to know that. And that is what God is offering to you. So let me just close by giving you the Bible’s simple statement about salvation. Here is what the Bible says. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. Thank you so much for your attention.
Filed under: Gospel Series, higgins-eugene
