HIS FINAL WORDS The Seven Sayings of Jesus on the Cross Message One: Words of Acquittal Luke 23:33-38 Thank you again for joining us this morning as we begin a brand new message series on Christ s final words from the cross. I doubt if any of us here know who Veronica Hynes is, but she has a message that is very precious to her. The message is from her husband, Captain Walter Hynes of Ladder Company 13, New York Fire Department. Captain Hynes and his crew were heading for the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The second hijacked jet had just flown into the south tower. He called home and left a voice mail message: Honey, it s real bad. I don t know if we ll make it out. I want to tell you that I love you and I love the kids. Veronica Hynes takes comfort that she has these final words from her husband. It comforts her to know that he was thinking about his loved ones in his final moments. If you knew that death was near, and you had a chance to leave behind a final message, what would you say? Who would you say it to? It s interesting that most last words focus on first things - those things that are of ultimate importance. There is no stunning revelation expressed in Captain Hynes message; not really anything that his wife or children did not know. But his message was one that needed to be shared. Because last words tend to focus on those things that are most important, they are a kind of window to the soul. In contrast to the final words of Captain Hynes, listen to those spoken by the great circus showman, P. T. Barnum. If you know anything about P. T. Barnum, his entire life was devoted to making money, and in the end, his words reflected that very thing as he asked, How were the receipts today at Madison Square Garden? If last words are truly a window to the soul, and if they reveal the priorities of the ones who utter them, then without a doubt, the most precious words ever uttered by a dying man would be those of the Lord Jesus as He hung suspended between heaven and earth. Luke 23:33 Please keep in mind that Jesus did not utter His final words from a hospital bed or while He was being lovingly cared for in the familiar surroundings of his family s home. Jesus was hanging on a cross. He was being crucified for sins He did not commit. Crucifixion was a horrible way to die. According to journalist Jim Bishop, the original inventors of this horrible form of execution designed it to be a way to inflict the maximum amount of pain on a victim before death. He writes, They had tried death by spear, by boiling in oil, impalement, stoning,
strangulation, drowning, burning - and all had been found to be too quick. They wanted a means of punishing criminals [publically] and slowly, so [they] devised the cross. It was almost ideal, because in its original form it was as slow as it was painful, and the condemned, at the same time, were placed in clear view of the people. A secondary consideration was nudity. This added to the shame of the evildoer and, at the same time, made him [even more] helpless before the thousands of insects in the air. The Romans adopted the cross as a means of deterring crime, and they had faith in it. In time they reduced it to an exact science with a set of rules to be followed. Unlike today s swift, and somewhat merciful executions, crucifixion was designed to be a painful, humiliating, lingering death. Merrill Unger, the late Biblical scholar, states that instances are on record of persons surviving for nine days on the cross. Can you imagine that? Nine days of unending torture. No wonder Klausner, a Jewish historian, says, Crucifixion is the most terrible and cruel death man has ever devised. Cicero, who, as a Roman citizen, was himself well-acquainted with crucifixion, would have agreed. He once said, It is the most cruel and shameful of all punishments. And, as if crucifixion and flogging and the crown of thorns thrust into His brow weren t enough, that day our Lord also endured bitter, hateful, mocking words from the onlookers, and the religious leaders, and the soldiers who were in charge of overseeing these horrible events. You can well imagine, that as Jesus hung there battered, bruised, and bleeding, He heard every obscene and coarse comment devised by degraded minds, and it was all aimed at Him. Dr. David Smith, in his Life of Christ, speaks of the kind of thing that often happened when criminals were crucified. They shrieked, yelled, cursed, and spat at their torturers. But not Jesus. Jesus prayed for His. Notice, if you will, the words of this prayer. Luke 23:34-38 As we consider this prayer for forgiveness, we will find that it was... I. A PRAYER THAT FULFILLED PROPHECY Isaiah 53:12 A. His Position on the cross fulfilled prophecy 1.... He was numbered with the transgressors... 2. Luke writes,... there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. B. His Praying on the cross fulfilled prophecy 1. Isaiah prophesied some 700 years before the crucifixion that Jesus would pray for those who crucified him. 2. And by the way, Jesus still prays for us. 3. Romans 8:34 says, Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
II. A PRAYER THAT SET FORTH A PRINCIPLE As Jesus hung on the cross, He could have prayed for any number of things. He could have prayed for deliverance. He could have prayed for vengeance. He could have asked the Father to send 10,000 angels to destroy the world and set Him free, but He didn t. He prayed,... Father, forgive them... In doing so, Jesus sets forth... A. The Principle of Personal forgiveness 1. Ephesians 4:32, And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ s sake hath forgiven you. 2. Colossians 3:12-13, Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. 3. Author Warren Wiersbe writes, An unforgiving spirit is the devil s playground, and before long it becomes the Christian s battleground. If somebody hurts us, either deliberately or unintentionally, and we do not forgive him, then we begin to develop bitterness within, which hardens the heart. We should be tenderhearted and kind, but instead we are hardhearted and bitter. Actually, we are not hurting the person who hurt us; we are only hurting ourselves. Bitterness in the heart makes us treat others the way Satan treats them, when we should treat others the way God has treated us. In His gracious kindness, God has forgiven us, and we should forgive others. 4. Notice that the forgiveness we extend is not for our sake, it is not even for the sake of the one being forgiven. It is for Christ s sake. 5. If for no other reason, we ought to forgive because we love Jesus. 6. But Pastor, you don t know what they ve done to me. You don t know what they ve said to me. They ve hurt me deeply. 7. Let me ask you this, have they nailed you to a cross? Until they do, you have no excuse for not forgiving those who you feel have wronged you. 8. Charles Spurgeon once said, Let us go to Calvary to learn how to be forgiven, and then let us linger there to learn how to forgive. 9. If Jesus didn t hold a grudge, what gives us the right to hold one? If Jesus didn t get bitter, what excuse do we have for being bitter? If we have been forgiven, what else can we do but forgive? 10. When the deacon Stephen was being stoned to death for His witness and testimony of Jesus, as he was dying he knelt down and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. 11. In 2 Timothy 4:16 Paul makes reference to those who had turned their backs on him and forsaken him. He then writes,... I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. 12. Where did these men learn to forgive? They learned it from Jesus. May God help us to go and do likewise. B. The Principle of Perpetual forgiveness 1. Note the word said at the beginning of verse 34. In the original Greek language, that word was in the imperfect tense which indicates a repeated action in the past. In other words, Jesus didn t pray for the forgiveness of His crucifiers just one time. He prayed for them repeatedly throughout the entire process.
2. When Jesus was put on the cross, He prayed Father, forgive them. When the nails were driven into the quivering flesh of His hands, he prayed Father, forgive them. When the spike was driven through His feet and into the wood, He prayed, Father, forgive them. When the cross was raised and then dropped into the hole, ripping and tearing at the flesh of the Lord Jesus, He prayed Father, forgive them. When the onlookers mocked Him and spat upon Him, He prayed Father, forgive them. When the soldiers gambled for His robe, He prayed Father, forgive them. 3. What was Jesus doing? Among other things, He was setting us an example to follow. 4. Remember when Peter came to the Lord and asked Him how many times He was required to forgive his brother? Jewish tradition required three acts of forgiveness, after that you didn t have to forgive any more. Peter, being the spiritual giant that he was, was prepared to offer better than twice that. He was prepared to offer forgiveness seven times. Do you remember what Jesus said? He said,... I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven. 5. In other words, there is no end to forgiveness. Jesus taught us that on the cross. We are to practice perpetual forgiveness of our brothers and sisters in Christ. III. those: A PRAYER FOR PARDON A. Who this prayer References Jesus prayed, Father, forgive them. Who is them? I believe Jesus was praying for 1. Beneath the cross a. The rulers who sent Him to the cross, the soldiers who nailed Him to the cross, the crowd who mocked Him on the cross. b. He was praying for Judas who had betrayed Him and Peter who had denied Him. c. But in an even larger sense, Jesus was praying for those... 2. Beyond the cross a. In Isaiah 53:4-6 we read, Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. b. Quite literally, When He was on the cross, I was on His mind. c. Jesus was praying for you and for me. We are just as responsible for Christ s death as the mob that desired His death; the religious leaders that
demanded His death; the ruler that decided His death; and the soldiers that delivered His death. d. We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God, and therefore Jesus prayed for us all. B. What this prayer Reveals 1. The Nature of God a. It is God s nature to be forgiving. (1) Psalm 86:5, For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee. (2) Daniel 9:9, To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him; b. It s a good thing that it is God s nature to forgive because it is man s need to be forgiven. 2. The Need of man a. For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:23) b. As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: (Romans 3:10) c. For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not. (Ecclesiastes 7:20) d. We re all guilty of sin. We re all guilty of transgressing the law of God. And we re all deserving of death because the wages of sin is death. e. The songwriter pick up his pen and wrote: I should have been crucified, I should have suffered and died. I should have hung on the cross in disgrace, But Jesus, God s Son, took my place. f. But Jesus, God s Son, took my place. When Jesus was on the cross, He was not only praying for you, He was dying for you. g. Because the price of sin is death, someone had to die because of your sin. Rightfully, it should have been you, but thankfully, it was Jesus. And He didn t die for your sins only, but for the sins of the whole world. h. By His death on the cross, Jesus made it possible for every man, woman, boy, and girl to be forgiven of their sin and saved for all eternity. i. This salvation is a gift that is received by faith. j. Paul wrote in Romans 10:9-10, That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. k. He went on to write in verse 13, For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. l. Someone once asked Abraham Lincoln, Mr. President. I don t understand you. You treat you enemies with such kindness. It seems that you would want to destroy them. President Lincoln replied, I destroy my enemy when I make him my friend.
m. The truth is, if you re lost, you re the enemy of God. But, God wants to make you His friend. CLOSING: When Jesus prayed on the cross, He prayed, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. Make no mistake about it, they knew what they were doing physically. They knew they were crucifying Jesus of Nazareth. What they didn t know was what they were doing spiritually. That is, they did not know they were crucifying the Lord of glory the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world the way, the truth, and the life. As God would have it, many of these same people were given the opportunity to hear Peter preach on the day of Pentecost, and many of them repented of their sin and were saved (Acts 2). You however, if you turn away from the Lord in unbelief, it will not be in ignorance. In will be in shear rebellion against the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. You will be without excuse on the day of judgment. The responsibility to either receive or reject Jesus is all yours. Which will it be?