Worship The Lord For The Miracles Of The Cross Series

Worship the Lord for the Miracles of the Cross

The Gospel of Matthew

Matthew 27:45-54

Sermon by Rick Crandall

(Prepared May 11, 2023)

MESSAGE:

*Our God is a miracle working God! I am sure that He is working miracles in our world every single day. I am sure, because people we know have experienced miraculous healings, and other kinds of miracles too. There are also countless other testimonies of God working miracles in people's lives. On top of that, we know that God works miracles, because every time someone gets saved, that is a miracle too, the greatest miracle of all!

*God is certainly able to work miracles. In Jeremiah 32:17 the prophet said this to the Lord: "Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You." Hebrews 13:8 says, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." So we know that yesterday, today, and forever, our God is a miracle working God! And we can worship the Lord today for the miracles of the cross.

1. WORSHIP HIM FIRST, FOR THE MIRACLE OF THE DARKENED SUN.

*This is the miracle Matthew described in vs. 45, where he said, "Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land." This darkness began at noon and lasted until 3 p.m. By the time it started, Jesus had already been on the cross for 3 hours (Mark 15:25). Luke 23:45 tells us that "the sun was darkened."

*Many people believe this unique event was simply a total eclipse of the sun. These eclipses happen when the moon comes between the sun and part of earth. But total solar eclipses are only about 100 miles wide. Plus, a total eclipse can only last 7 ½ minutes at the most, and most of them are much shorter than that. (1)

*This three hours of darkness all over the earth was not an eclipse of the sun. It was one of God's miracles of the cross. And we don't know how God did that. But remember that God was able to turn on every single star in the universe! Think about this wonder for a moment. Our own Milky Way galaxy is estimated to have 100-400 billion stars. But the supergiant galaxy "IC 1101" is estimated to have 100 trillion stars, and that's just two out of countless other galaxies. (2)

*Richard Wimer said if you hold your thumb at arm’s length toward the sky, your thumb nail is covering up more than 250,000 galaxies out in space. Isaiah 40:26 in the New Living Translation says, "Look up into the heavens. Who created all the stars? He brings them out one after another, calling each by its name. And he counts them to see that none are lost or have strayed away." (3)

*I forget people’s names all the time, but God knows all of the stars by name! And He turned every single one of them on, so He can certainly turn one off, whenever He wants to. And that's what He did on the day Jesus was crucified.

*Again, Luke 23:45 tells us that "the sun was darkened." The New Living Translation says, "The light from the sun was gone." And the International Standard Version says it was dark "because the sun had stopped shining." What a mighty miracle!

2. WORSHIP THE LORD FOR THE MIRACLE OF THE DARKENED SUN, AND WORSHIP HIM FOR THE MIRACLE OF FULFILLED SCRIPTURE.

*This miracle is in vs. 46, where "about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?'' that is, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?''

*Well Christians, we know why don't we? It was because of our sins. That's why Charles Spurgeon said this about the cross: "See what our sin deserved. It was all laid on Him: Ridicule for the folly of sin, scorn for the pretension of sin, shame for the audacity of sin, and Jesus took it all." (4)

*Jesus cried out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?'' Those words are a direct quote from Psalm 22:1, and this is one of many miraculous fulfillments of Old Testament prophecy. Some people think Jesus was simply quoting the words that King David had written. But just the opposite is true. Led by God's Holy Spirit, David quoted what Jesus would say on the cross a thousand years later. And David could do that, because God knows the end from the beginning.

*God made this truth clear in Isaiah 46:9-10, where the Lord urges us to: "Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure.'" God knows the future, and He has revealed it to us in the Bible. This is a miraculous blessing for us to see.