thieves dying on the crosses beside Him revile Him. They challenge Him to come down from the Cross. How won- derfully the prophecies meet in the Cross. " T h ey part my garments and cast lots for my v e s t u r e ," Psa. 22:18. This was never true of David. " H e was numbered with the transgressors,'' Isa. 53:12. He trusted in the Lord that he would deliver Him, Psa. 22:8. They testified that He saved others and thus set the seal to their own guilt in crucifying Him. In the midst of it all, the silent sufferer was dying to save his enemies. Had Jesus come down they would never have believed Him. He came forth from the grave but they believed not, Luke 6:28-31. They would not come unto Him that they might have life, Jno. 5:40. He could not save oth- ers if He saved Himself. He haved others by sacrificing Himself. THE DARKNESS AND DEATH. "There was darkness." "Jesus yielded up the Ghost." God gave them a sign from heaven. There was darkness over the whole land for three hours. It was not an eclipse, the paschal moon was full. This was the time of His awful grief; three hours segregated from all other hours in history; three hours in which the awful mystery of the atonement was The Resurrection. Matt. 28:1-20. Golden Text—28:20. Outline. (1) The Messenger and Message, 1-7. (4) The Meeting on the Mount (16 20. The theme is so great and the ac- counts so full when all are considered that we must confined ourselves to the Matthew story. (2) The Master Himself, 8-10. (3) The Money Bribers, 11-15.
worked out. God veiled His face. ' ' God is of purer eyes than to behold inquity and can not look at s i n ," Hab. 1:13. The Son of God broke the stillness of that gloom with the heart rending cry, " M y God, My God, why hast thou forsaken m e ? " God is light; dark- ness is the absence of light. There was no presence of God in that horrible night of His suffering soul. He was treading the wine-press alone, Isa. 63:3. The prince of darkness and all of- the hosts of evil held carnival in those hours. He was then indeed made sin, '2 Cor. 5:21. His cry was the cry of a lost soul. This was the will of the Father, Luke 22:42, who spared not His own Son, Rom. 8:32. God laid on Him the iniquity of us all, Isa. 53:6. In that hour the Lamb of God bore away the sins of the world, Jno. 1:29, and sanctified His followers with His own blood, Heb. 13:12. In the closing moment, He cried with a loud voice and yielded up His life. The loud voice is the testimony that He had power to lay down His life, Jno. 10:18. The veil/ in the temple was rent, vs. 51. Gara could now come out of the thick dark- darkness and on the basis of the^ fin- ished work of His Son. manifest grace and blessing to lost men. At His birth the darkness was dispelled by the glory of the angels. At His death day was turned into night that our night might be turned into day. THE MESSENGER AND MESSAGE. "The Angel of the Lord." The two Marys are on their way to the tomb. There was a great earth- quake. The stone was rolled away and an angel sat upon it. The guards lay prostrate upon the ground as dead men, A.ets 17:31, Rev. 1:17. The stone was rolled away, not to allow Christ to pass out, for He was already gone, but to allow the women to look in. There is no description of the resurrection it- self. No mortal eyes beheld it, no pen records it. The facts are stated. The silence of the Scriptures is often as impressive as the words.
LESSON 12. DECEMBER 18.
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