Politicians and the media obsess about economic growth, but what if that glorious 30 years of economic expansion from the 1960s has ended? This landmark text at the degrowth movement explores why growth's end is nigh and why this should be welcomed. To suggest that further economic growth has become near impossible is a secular heresy. Once so great it ultimately excludes that person from a leading role in politics or the media. It's perhaps unsurprising then that research into degrowth gets such little attention. Originated by many figures over 60 years, degrowth has become a cohesive movement over the last 20 or so. A leading figure is the French political scientist Serge Latouche. His book, Farewell to Growth, published two months before the economic crash of 2007, provides an introductory guide to what degrowth represents and why it may create a better life for many in the western world. Though I think a literal translation of the French title, a small treatise on serene degrowth is more descriptive. Latouche defines the term in the introduction. To begin with, degrowth is no more than a banner that can rally those who have made a radical critique of development and who want to outline the contours of an alternative project for a post-development politics. Its goal is to build a society in which we can live better lives whilst working less and consuming less. This is an essential proposition if we are to open for space for the inventiveness and creativity of the imagination which has been blocked by a columnistic, developmentalist and progressive totalitarianism. From my own experience, making such statements in public marks the point where people in the audience start to shuffle and fall quiet. An immediate environment where economic growth is treated as an incontestable good to even question it leaves many confused. Growth represents a whole new approach to how we provide goods and services in society. As Latouche says, Degrowth is not, in my view, the same thing as negative growth. That expression is an absurd oxymoron, but it is a clear indication of the extent to which we are dominated by the imaginary of growth. We know that simply contracting the economy plunges our society into disarray. Just as there is nothing worse than the work-based society in which there is no work, there is nothing worse than a growth-based society in which growth does not materialise, and that social and cultural regression is precisely what is in store for us if we do not change direction. A society predicated upon constant growth, made worse in recent years by fuelling that process with debt, is fundamentally unstable. The seemingly inevitable concentration of economic power it creates also leads to greater inequality, excluding many from the profits of growth. Even more so when states bail out failing financial institutions, protecting the private wealth of creditors, by nationalising the losses created. Latouche explores inequality as one of the key reasons why the modern economic process is failing. Whilst pauperisation in the economic sense seemed counter-intuitive in the North during the consumerist age, deculturalisation and depoliticisation were becoming much more pronounced. The rise of mass marketing, supermarkets and hypermarkets. The car and the television surreptitiously undermined citizenship, creating a second people who were almost invisible, had no voice, and could readily be manipulated by the power of inscrubious media with links to transnational companies. At its simplest, exponential growth in a finite environment must crash at some point. The founders of modern economics, such as Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, foresaw this. Latouche, the culture created by adopting growth as a primary social imperative, is also at the root of the ecological crisis. Advertising makes us want what we do not have and despise what we already have. It creates and recreates the dissatisfaction and tension of frustrated desire. Prime necessities have been forgotten. Increasingly, demand no longer centres on very useful goods, but on very useless goods. Advertising is an essential element in the vicious and suicidal circle of exponential growth. One of the psychological drives which influence this human decision making is fear of loss. Modern capitalism's great success has been to make the public associate its core principles. Free markets, private property and economic growth has been intrinsically linked to the maintenance of their own lives, and that losing these will be the end of that existence. For Latouche, this is a failure of the human imagination, which would otherwise allow us to see beyond these arbitrary restrictions. Once again, a certain decolonisation of the imaginary is required. Whilst they do not necessarily worship progress and modernity, which we all do to some extent, decent people are obsessed with a fear of going backwards, which would mean poverty and humiliation for them. Their fear of being plunged back into a wretched past is, no matter how distorted their memories may be, quite legitimate. The alternatives Latouche examines, from greater regionalisation and local economists to greater democratic accountability in politics and economics, to more durable consumer goods and public transport, are too complex to explore here. The point about degrowth is that there are alternatives, and that to avoid an inevitable decline we need to abandon the primacy of economic growth in order to fully explore those alternative approaches. For a number of reasons, illustrated by two decades of poor growth and failing financial institutions, this is the predicament we face today. Whilst politicians refuse to discuss, critically, the reasons why growth has reached its limits, we will remain trapped within the self-justifying rationale of a failing economic process. With the added urgency of the ecological crisis, we have moved beyond the realms of reform. We must find different, more stable mechanisms to secure our essential needs for living. That ultimately is the core message of Latouche's book. After thoughts on farewell to growth. I have three priorities for our economy. Growth, growth and growth. From Jacques Allure to Albert Camus to Guy Debord, perhaps it's a revolutionary spirit of the French people, who as I write are once again massing on the streets to oppose the worsting of their economic conditions, which allows French academics to depart from the approved script and think outside the box. For those who have studied ecological issues, and the long-standing debate over technological development, reading Farewell to Growth connects many dots, allowing us to see how the assumptions and beliefs of the economic and political process obstruct real, positive change. After the publication of my book, Energy Beyond Oil, in 2006 I began a new project centered around the then developing ideas of de-growth. I called it, Less is a Four-letter Word. It sought to explore the growing body of research showing society-based pump growth must, for both technological, ecological and economic reasons, ultimately fail. By 2011, I'd given up on that project. The title I had chosen was self-fulfilling. Especially following the financial crash of 2007, people were offended by yet more criticism of a system they felt are grudging, yet necessary dependence upon, and in the height of the economic strife which followed that collapsed, to consider having less was just too much to ask. This is the more general problem about discussing de-growth, as Latouche outlines, across much of the Western political and media environment, any systematic criticism of the core ideas of capitalism is rejected or ridiculed. And if you persist to advance those arguments, very quickly you realise the accuracy of his words, blocked by a columnistic, developmentalist and progressive totalitarianism. The logic behind the modern economic process is self-referential and is therefore not critically introspective. Any criticism results in a doubling down upon the same failing tropes, be that technological innovation will cause for the liberalisation of markets and business standards, which over the last 70 years have forced both painful social degradation, greater economic inequality, as well as progressively greater ecological destruction through the material demands of those states which have most zealously enacted growth-led policies. Put simply, modern economics has become a secular religion with all the dogma, adherence to the liturgy and sacred text and the institutional intolerance towards non-believers that typifies the practice of established religions. And though it claims to be based upon reason, clearly any process which pursues a cause of action that leads to its own destruction cannot be considered rational. It is the self-referential nature of economic theory, a belief that if the economic medicine hasn't worked, then it's because the dose hasn't been strong enough, which traps the public, stripped of agency by a seemingly bureaucratic state, within such limited horizons for change. More significantly, as the major political parties in the mass media routinely exclude those who raise well-researched criticisms, the alternative options are never openly explored and therefore no popular political movement supporting these ideas can emerge. Even when relatively radical proposals are advanced from within mainstream politics, the highly centralized and elitist nature of this system conspired to obstruct change, as shown by the way the political and media establishment combined to bring down Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party, pushing a largely fabricated storyline to unseat him. And yet when that system commits the very same offenses, it accuses others of committing. The system's ideological exceptionalism allows such egregious crimes to pass and challenged, such as Keir Starmer's failure to address racism and bigotry in the Labour Party, or the Western media as a whole, failing to recognize the parallels between the invasion of Iraq and the invasion of Ukraine. So here we are, trapped in a representative democracy which only represents a narrow set of economic interests, seemingly unable to escape the inevitable fate of declining economic and environmental well-being, which awaits us if we stay on this expansionist pathway. This is fine. I'm okay with the events that are unfolding currently. That is why we must work from the bottom up to popularize the ideas of degrowth, circumventing the restrictions on debate in Paris from above. As Latouche discusses throughout the book, we can't simply halt growth because that would hasten the collapse and inevitably create the kinds of social strife which would amplify this crisis. Instead, we need to enact measured alternatives to that process, progressively replacing elements of the existing economic and political system with more stable alternatives to keep the essential material, social and cultural heart of society beating. Of course, if society as a whole cannot do this, then those who are able should try to do this independently, trialling the realizable options for rapid change to create a base of knowledge and experience for others to follow before the greater crisis takes effect. Arguably, this is where the broad church of degrowth studies diverges, which, as Latouche admits, is really no more than a banner that can rally those who have made a radical critique of development. This is where the personal becomes political and where we must accept that differences of opinion must exist and be recognized. As we open up a space for the inventiveness and creativity of the imagination to find solutions to our daily needs, so it opens up many different opportunities for disagreement. For this reason, we must learn, as a society, to enact many different ideas simultaneously so that we can trial as many different options as possible relatively quickly to see what works. Of course, such a response does not work within the centralized top-down and elitist systems of control typified by liberal capitalism. Such changes don't necessarily mean an end to markets or self-interest and it definitely does not require going backwards, but it does mean accepting that the historic concentration of economic power created by economic colonialism, globalization and paparazzi rights is an obstruction to change and freeing ordinary people of those restrictions is a precondition to allow a more diverse set of responses to enact radical change. This is why I think Latouche's point about radical localization is so important. Liberal capitalism is monotheistic. Its central philosophy provides a top-down set of rules which are not open to criticism from below. That is its key power for domination, but that is also its greatest weakness due to the inflexible dictatorial and unequal nature of the social impacts it creates. The point about localism and creating local democratic control over the economic process is that it allows far greater flexibility, taking account of both the culture of the locality and the ecological characteristics of the area. The modern political state inevitably gives rise to regional inequalities as liberal capitalism centralizes and modernizes to create ever greater economic efficiency. Localization removes that tendency from the national or global centralization of economic power by enshrining decision-making and the flow of wealth and resources within a smaller geographic area as possible. Of course, that will never be as economically efficient, albeit in most cases, it will be more ecologically efficient. And so the presently accepted norms and expectations of liberal politics and economics can no longer apply, which inevitably brings us to the issue of technological progress. The modern idea of technological progress, which developed in parallel to the economic processes which gave rise to the belief in endless growth, is based upon physical processes limited by both the laws of physics and the availability of finite resources. All technological inefficiency measures represent limited and on average, a diminishing return. And over recent decades, the pace of new technological discoveries has consistently diminished. It is discrepancy between ideological belief and physical reality, which negates the idea that technology will save us. The dominant belief in technology and progress is arguably pursued as a proxy, avoiding harder discussions over the very real limitations of the political and economic system which creates both human inequality and ecological destruction. This dogmatic belief, again, part of the self-referential arguments of liberal capitalism, prevents any progress being made on stopping climate change and other forms of ecological destruction. It constantly promises jam tomorrow, but that promise tomorrow never really arrives. In Britain, the structure of land ownership and planning laws trap most people in urban areas, where they are wholly dependent upon the economic process for all their needs. Modern urbanism, which developed in Britain in parallel to the industrial revolution, has now been replicated across the world, trapping much of humanity within this same doomed system of exploitation and control. At the same time, the current political and economic system obstructs people's desire to change the way they live by demanding that all ideas for change conform to economic expectations and seeks to obstruct those with more radical ideas from realising them. Property rights especially and the concentration of land ownership amongst an economic elite restrict people's ability to change. In Britain, land ownership represents a centuries old division of the land and national wealth, which alongside the systems of planning control, prevents people adopting the kinds of low-impact, self-supporting lifestyle that would truly reduce our impact upon the global environment. Without such radical changes to underlying assumptions, technology alone can never deliver the scale of change required to avoid ecological collapse. Structural change is essential to adapt to climate breakdown, resource depletion and the global tensions that structure will result from these effects in a world which is addicted to increasing material consumption. In all likelihood, by the time the situation becomes so bad that the economic fiocacy can no longer avoid reality, as in J.K. Garbarov's classic argument on the power of the conventional wisdom to stall change, the catastrophic failure Lutush believes is inevitable will be unavoidable. For those trapped within urban society, separated from their basic food and material needs and a rent-extracting economic process, this very real outlook should easily overwhelm most people's loss aversion to create a movement for radical change. Arguably, as Lutush notes at many points, the reason this does not happen is that politics and the media do not represent the mass of the people. Instead, it represents the economic power of the institutions controlling the state, blocking such troublesome issues from being objectively presented via the mass media. The degrowth movement exists to advance these difficult arguments, to take the large body of evidence as to why the current economic process is failing and propose a range of alternatives which might avert the catastrophic failure of this system. If these arguments are not commonly heard, it is not due to a lack of research evidence or lack of practical alternatives. It is due to the deference of our politics and media to an economic elite who dominates society today. Ignoring the arguments from the degrowth movement will not make these realities go away. Instead, the inexperienced decline of well-being across Western states will continue, proceeding at an ever more inevitable collapse as each year passes without action to address the causes of this decline.


Tonight, we are actually in Mark chapter 15. So if you guys open your Bibles to Mark chapter 15, we're gonna be looking at verses 33 through 47. Mark 15, we're gonna be looking at this section here again as we're focusing on the death of Christ at verse 33 to verse 47. We're pretty much gonna finish chapter 15. And next week, we're gonna end Mark chapter, the Gospel of Mark.  I can't even remember when we started this book, but it's been a while now. But Mark chapter 15, tonight, 33 through 47, Mark writes, now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, the Eli, Eli, Lamasavaktini, which has translated, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Some of those who stood by when they heard that said, look, he's 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 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. There were also women looking on from afar. Among those were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the less and of Joseph and Solomon, who also followed him and ministered to him when he was in Galilee and many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem. 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 with 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. Then he bought fine linen, took him down and wrapped him in the linen and he 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 and Mary the mother of Joseph observed where he was laid. You know in Romans chapter five verse 19 it says this, for as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners. So also by one man's obedience many will be made righteous. We talked about this a while back that the death of Christ was not an accident. It wasn't something that Jesus stumbled upon. Jesus purposely gave up his life. It wasn't some kind of accident that Jesus actually got caught up with the Romans in the wrong place and all, but God had this event planned way before Jesus ever showed up on earth. In fact, the gospel is preached in Genesis chapter three. If you guys turn with me to Genesis chapter three, go all the way back to the first book of the Bible, the Genesis, the book of beginnings, that's what the word means, Genesis, the book of beginnings. If you go all the way back, we're gonna see that in the consequence there, the consequences from Adam and Eve that when he took off the fruits and as God was bringing judgment upon these guys that did this, Satan himself, the serpent, also received some judgment. And in chapter three of Genesis, a very, very unique verse. In fact, we'll read verse 14. The Lord said to the serpent, because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field on your belly you shall go and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. Now let me stop there real quickly. I was in, I was a few years ago, I was in a zoo and I was reading, I was going through the reptile section and I went through the section where all the snakes were at and all that. And it was interesting because according to their evolution theory, they were saying something very fascinating that kind of made me think about this. They said that, yeah, billions of years ago, it's possible that snakes actually had legs. I'm like, interesting because as I read here, God says on your belly, you're gonna be going now.  Did they have legs? I don't know, but I just thought that it was interesting. So I just kind of want to make that point. But my point here in verse 15 is this. He's, God said, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed.  What's going on here? We see here that the offspring of this woman at Eve, as we trace it all the way into the New Testament, we come to Mary. But there's something happening here that it says very clearly that the seed of the woman will bruise his head while the devil will bruise his heel. Now a wound to the head is more fatal than a bruise heel, obviously. And it's interesting because that's exactly what Jesus Christ did on the cross. He literally crushed Satan. He crushed his power. He disarmed him, as the Bible says, he disarmed him.  Obviously he went through a lot of agony, but Jesus was not crushed as Satan was crushed.  He was preached the gospel way back in Genesis chapter three. So as you follow the Old Testament, you follow the lineage of Christ, you see all these attempts of these prominent characters in Scripture that were tied to the lineage of Christ, things were happening to these guys. He was trying to knock these guys out. And it's interesting that we see here that as God made it very clear to Satan at the beginning of time that listen, your days are numbered. Your days are numbered.  Cause he knows how the Bible ends. He knows his destiny. He knows what's going to happen. So he's not just kind of cruising around on earth, just hanging out, just kind of like taking some naps here and there. He is on full force because he knows his time is short.  He's not going to just take a break. He doesn't take vacations. He is actually always attacking. He's on an attack mode all the time.  And we see here in Genesis chapter three that he's known for thousands of years that God is going to deal with him. So as he saw Christ come on this earth, he was like, oh no, here we go. Now he's getting serious because now here's the son of God. He's on earth now. That gospel was already preached.  And as Jesus was walking on earth, obviously the enemy was trying to knock him down. Remember when he was tempted, he went through that temptation.  This is yours, Jesus. Please stop going to the cross because he knew exactly what was going to happen. So because of that, the enemy has been going crazy. He's on a rampage. He's coming after you.  That's a reality. That's Christianity 101.  And the hard thing about our enemy is that he's invisible. You don't see him. He doesn't appear in your room with a red suit and a pitch for it. Hey, how are you? I'm the devil.  Oh no, don't do it, please. You don't do that. You're just going to go through your day and all of a sudden things are going to happen. People are going to go against you. All of a sudden you get tempted for something and all these things, you've got this spiritual battle going on with you because you have the world that's constantly attacking you.  And that's a pretty crazy warfare, isn't it? I mean, as a Christian, the moment you get out, you're wrestling with your flesh as you're on the freeway, right? You're like, get out of the way I'm late, right? I mean, you're already wrestling with your flesh and then the world is throwing stuff out to you.  I mean, he's using it all just to get you Christian to stop following Jesus or at least to keep yourself away from becoming effective for his kingdom. That's his nature. He's not a good foe.  And what we see here that as Jesus finally makes it to the cross, I guarantee you that the kingdom of darkness was cringing at this. Say no way. Here we go. Jesus willingly submitted to the Father's plan. He submitted to the Father's plan and it was obedience that kept Jesus on the path to Calvary. It was his obedience to the Father. Tonight we're gonna see here the importance of the cross of Christ's and we're gonna be looking at the significance of the cross and how it really, it personalizes us or we can personalize it ourselves to see how that becomes an impact in our own personal life. So as we get into Mark chapter 15, I wanna make a couple of observations real quickly. There are three miracles that Mark actually records in this gospel. One, he records just a miraculous darkness that falls upon the land. Secondly, we see just the death of Christ in itself is an actual miracle. And finally, the veil is torn into two from top to bottom. Big, big significance there. So let's look and see what's going on here. Verse 33, Jesus is on the cross. He's dying on the cross. Notice in verse 33 it says, when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. This was about noon by Jewish time at the halfway point of Jesus' six hours on the cross. And we see here that Jesus was hanging on the cross for three hours in the daylight and another three hours basically at night when it went dark. Now, what's going on with this darkness? I mean, Mark makes it clear. All the other gospels makes it clear except for John. All the other ones, Luke and Matthew, record this incident. But we see here that as Jesus is on this cross, all of a sudden there's this miraculous darkening. You're wondering, what is that? What's going on? Now, of course, scholars get involved in this entire thing and they're saying, you know what, it could have been some type of miraculous solar eclipse. Perhaps, I don't know. I mean, we weren't there. A lot of secular historians actually record something like this happening during the time of Christ. So we know this was not some type of, you know, folktale or anything. This was actually real. This actually did happen. It's not just within the Bible, but also outside of the Bible. Other sources that actually prove that something happened at this time, especially this becoming dark. But we know that the Passover fell on a full moon. And if it was a natural eclipse, it could have happened. We don't know. Either way, I believe this was a cosmic sign of God's judgment on human sin.  You got to go way back to Exodus. And in fact, in Exodus chapter 10, at verse 21 and 22, this is what it says. One of the judgments that fell upon Pharaoh was this. Then the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt. Darkness, which may be even felt. So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt, three days. That here, we see that God's judgment fell upon the land of Egypt, and it was dark for three days. And I said, it was so dark that you can feel it.  And you kind of like feel the darkness, right? You're like, man, this is, it's dark, pitch dark, can't see nothing. But you can feel it.  But the Egyptians here, especially Pharaoh, willingly stayed in spiritual darkness. He did not want to let God's people go. So we see here that because Pharaoh did not want to let God's people go, Israel, God judged him and his kingdom. And as God kind of showing them that how spiritually blinded they were, he caused this darkness to come upon them. And all of a sudden they couldn't see. Which is interesting because if you go back to the cross, what is the significance of this darkness? Now, again, we're speculating here, but we wonder what was this darkness? Was there something tied to this? Well, if you remember the people that were walking by as Jesus hung on that cross, we're mocking him, remember that? They were still calling him names. They were still making fun of Jesus while he was on the cross bleeding to death. So even the people that were hurling insults at Jesus who hid him, who spit on him, actually stayed in their own darkness. They were basically blinded by their own sin. So it could be perhaps that this entire darkness kind of symbolized the spiritual condition of the people at the time. That they were still not willing to surrender their lives to God. They were still not willing to see Jesus Christ as the Messiah as he hung on that cross. But we see that the darkness here describes the realm of sin and rebellion. And that's exactly what was going on at the time of Christ. That as though he, as he was still being crucified, yet we see that they were still in their sin. Now the Bible uses the word darkness to speak about the sin and rebellion. Let me give you an example. First, John 2.11. He who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes. Spiritual blindness, spiritual darkness. Somebody who says, oh, I know God, but it hates your brother. It's like, you know what? You're still walking in darkness. There's still something wrong there. Here's another example, Jude chapter one, verse six. And the angels who did not keep their proper domain but left their own abode, he has reserved an everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day. Again, darkness. So we see here as Jesus was on this cross at verse 33, the sins of the entire world was placed on Christ so that forgiveness would be available for all sinners through the blood of Christ. This is what makes Christianity unique. This is what makes Christianity stand up out and stand above all the other religions in the world because there's no other religion in this world that actually claims that their leader died on a cross or died for their sins. I mean, Muhammad didn't do that. Joseph Smith didn't do that. Charles T. Russell, who started the Watchtower, did not do that. Buddha didn't do that. And as you gather together all these leaders, the religious leaders, and you look at Christianity, you see, whoa, their leader died for them, for their sins. Well, the rest did not deal with that. That's what makes Christianity unique. That's the heart of the gospel is that we preach Christ in him crucified because that's what sets people free. That's what set you free tonight.  That's because of what Jesus did for you on that cross. You've recognized that and praised God that you did. And maybe there are others here tonight that you're like, I don't know Jesus and I'm still in my sin and I'm not interested in your Jesus. I was just brought here because they keep bugging me. So you're here, but you're listening and listen, Christ died for you too. And that's the reality of this whole entire sacrifice. So Jesus is there, look, notice in verse 34, the ninth hour, 3 p.m. Jesus lets out a powerful cry. Eli, Eli, Lama Sabactini, which is translated, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? We see here that Jesus is actually quoting a scripture. Psalm 22 is a Messianic Psalm. And if you have time tonight, I encourage you to read it. It's a pretty long Psalm. But Psalm 22 is a Messianic Psalm that actually has this sentence in it. And Jesus is kind of living out the situation described in Psalm 22. And to any Jew, any Jew, this would ring about big time because they knew their scriptures and they actually embraced Psalm 22 as one of their Messianic Psalms. And Psalm 22 that has this here shows that crucifixion was predicted even way before it was even ever invented. And so we see here that Jesus here is basically crying out, using scripture to kind of grab their attention, claiming that he is that person in Psalm 22. But also we see here, as Jesus says, why have you forsaken me? The word literally means, why did you abandon me? There's a lot going on here on the cross. We see that the horror of the Son of God being abandoned by the Father at the moment of this crucifixion. We need to understand that the implication here is very sobering in the life of Christ because Jesus wasn't afraid of demon possession. He wasn't afraid of people demon possessed. He wasn't afraid of storms. He wasn't afraid of the religious leaders. But one thing that Jesus Christ had a hard time with was this here, the cross because of what he was gonna do to take the sin upon himself for the entire world. That right there was something that was not good for him because he knew exactly what he was gonna experience. If you remember in the Garden of Gethsemane, he fell on his knees and he pleaded with the Father if there's another way for this cup to pass. But then he says, but not my will, but your will be done. He understood clearly the agony that was ahead of him on this cross. And we see here very clearly that God himself is God, he's holy. And here he's seen his own son taking the punishment upon himself. You know, it says in Habakkuk chapter one, verse 13, Habakkuk said this about God, you are of pure eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on wickedness. So as Jesus was on this cross, this also reveals his intimate relationship that he had with the Father when he was here on earth. He modeled that over and over and over. Let me give you an example. John five, verse 19 and 20, Jesus answered and said to them, most assuredly I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do, for whatever he does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all things that he himself does and he will show him greater works than these that you may marvel. So we see Jesus here is now becomes, he becomes now the sin bearer for this whole world. That's one thing that's hard to kind of grasp as human beings because of our finite mind to understand the entire implication of Christ taking upon the sin of this entire world. Listen to this second Corinthians five, 21, for he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of him, of God in him. When he says that he made us, this is what you call the doctrine of imputation and substitution. It's a huge, huge doctrine. And what this says is that God the Father treated Jesus as if he were a sinner, though he was not, but he had him die as a substitute to pay the penalty for sins of those who believe in him. Now, some people make the mistake of thinking that just because the Bible says that Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the whole world that people are automatically going to enter into heaven. All you have to just understand intellectually that Christ died on the cross for everybody's sins and therefore you're gonna get into heaven. That's not right because you see, you have to take the, you have to look at the death of Christ and you have to personalize it. You have to embrace that death of Christ and you have to look at it personally and say to yourself, I want Jesus Christ to save me of my sins because you cannot assume heaven without you personally having a one-on-one talk with God. You need to have that one-on-one talk with God. It's just like our relationship with Jesus. Nobody can live that relationship with you. You have to have that personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It's between you and Jesus, not between you and your spouse, not between you and your pastor, Pastor David and all the teachers that teach here encourage you to walk with Jesus, but you're ultimately responsible to cultivate that personal relationship with Jesus. But before you get into that relationship, every sinner is responsible to actually have a one-on-one encounter with Jesus and say, Jesus, forgive me of my sins. You personalize it and you say, I want you to be my personal Lord and Savior. It doesn't happen automatically. And as we see here that even though this doctrine of imputation and substitution, we see here very, very clearly that this substitutionary death of Christ must be personally applied to each heart. That's important.  Oh yeah, I've been a Christian all my life. You have? Yeah, all my life. What does that mean? Well, my parents go to church and therefore I'm a Christian too. That doesn't count, you know? I mean, I hate to burst a bubble, but it doesn't happen that way. You have to make that personal relationship with Jesus. You have to make that decision yourself. You can't go through your parents. You can't go through anybody else, but you. Because everybody wants to kind of get into heaven.  It's like, you want to go to heaven? Of course I do, you know? But now you got to go through Christ though. Well, I don't want to go through Christ. I just want to go to heaven. But it doesn't happen that way. Heaven is a special place for people who have recognized Jesus as Lord and Savior. And Jesus did not die on that cross to automatically give everybody entrance into heaven. Jesus died on that cross so people personally can recognize him and say, yes, I want him. Yes, he's my savior. Like what I did and what some of you here have done as well. That's an important thing here we see that the cross here, Jesus himself died on the cross for the sins of the world, but we have to make that personal acceptance of him. That's the heart of the gospel as we see here that Jesus died on the cross for your sins. But I want to kind of take this a step further. It says very clearly here that, as I mentioned that we might become the righteousness of God. You know what's incredible when it comes to these things is that sinners are given the righteousness of Christ.  And what makes us right with God is not that we're good people. It's because the righteousness of Christ has been imputed in us. It's like God took the righteousness of Christ and he just poured it into you. So now what God does when he sees you, he doesn't see you anymore. He sees Christ in you. I hope you kind of grasp this because this is huge when it comes to Christianity. Is that when God looks to you, when God answers your prayers, when God is listening to you, when God is looking at you, he's looking at Christ in you that you've actually accepted him. You've embraced him. So all of this walking with him, it's through Christ's. You've been imputed righteousness without the righteousness of Christ. There's no way, no way you can get into heaven. And this is what we see here very clearly as Jesus is on that cross. All these things are happening. The transaction of all this is happening together. So when a person is saved, when a person comes to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, at that moment that person is receiving the righteousness of Christ. Sinners are declared right before God, be right before the eyes of God because of Jesus Christ. And that's what we see as through this cross, the significance of the cross for us. You know, before Jesus went to the cross as a sinful man that I was, obviously I was obviously separated from him. I was living a life apart from Christ, but it was the Holy Spirit that drew me. And then it was the Holy Spirit that convicted me and convinced me that Christ was true and real. And then we see here that this is exactly what Jesus is doing. And people are watching this on the cross. If they were to understand what's happening, these guys would be saved, but they didn't understand. They were mocking Jesus. Notice it says here very clearly, verse 35, some of those who stood by when they heard that said, look, he is calling for Elijah. Now remember, there were some false beliefs about Jesus, about the Christ. Some say that it, you know, that some say he was Elijah, one of the prophets. And here we see that they're thinking he's calling Elijah for help. So again, their theology was still off and they didn't understand what was going on at the cross, even though Jesus is quoting one of their big Psalms, Psalm 22. But we see that Jesus is crying out to the Father as we see here that Jesus himself begins to cry out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So it says there in verse 37, that Jesus cried out with a loud voice and breathed his last. He breathed his last. We see here that as Jesus is dying, or he's dead here as he's breathed his last, they try to offer him some sour wine. It was just basically cheap wine it was diluted with a mixture of eggs and water. And obviously, we see here that Christ was offered certain things like this, but we see though very clearly that when he breathed his last at verse 36, according to Luke chapter 23 verse 46, Jesus actually said, father into your hands I commit my spirit.  He gave it up. Nobody took it away from him. That's exactly what he said to Pilate. You cannot take my life away. I mean, I'm the one that gives it up. And Jesus is saying in Luke 23, Father into your hands I commit my spirit. You know, what's interesting is that another person kind of used almost the same phrase. You know, we remember Stephen in Acts chapter, I think it was chapter seven, I believe, where Stephen was being stoned and he looked up into heaven. He saw the Son of Man standing and then he just literally just said, you know, obviously just the Lord took him right then and there. And God himself met him there. And he used almost the same phrase as we see here, Father into your hands I commit my spirit. It's almost like God received me, I'm done. I mean, I would do the same thing if somebody was throwing rocks at you, right? You'd be like, take me now, right now. You know what I mean? These are hurting me, you know? And God obviously granted his requests. But the cool thing is, notice what happens to the veil. This is what's powerful. It says very clearly here, it says that when this happened in verse 38, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. That was a miracle from top to bottom. This huge curtain that separated from the sanctuary, the main sanctuary and the Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies was only a place that only high priests went in once a year. The common priests stayed out of it. They were actually in the sanctuary, the other side of this curtain. And the crazy thing is, is that all of a sudden the temple or the veil rips from the top to bottom showing that the one who was ripping it was God. From the top. All of a sudden coming through. That is crazy.  I mean, what would you think if one of your curtains ripped from the top to bottom? You know what I mean? Just all of a sudden, I mean, you would freak out, right? You're like, what is going on here? Nobody's up there. Could you imagine what these guys were thinking? And this is happening somewhere else. I mean, Jesus is on the cross and this is in the temple now. Could you imagine what these guys were thinking when they were just sitting there, knowing Jesus is being crucified. Ah, he's gone. We finally killed him. And all of a sudden they hear this. He's from the top to bottom. Now, what does that mean? You know what that means? And there's a huge, huge implication to this when this veil is torn. What this means is here is that not only has Jesus Christ completed his work on the cross, but it means that now people have free access to God without this veil. You don't need priests anymore to go to God. You know, I was raised a Roman Catholic and I went through all the confirmation and stuff and it was very weird as a young guy to go before a priest and confess my sins. First of all, as a young kid, I didn't even know what was sin was and I didn't think I had sin.  What is that? Is that a drink? I didn't understand. So I had to make something up. Oh, Father, I'm sorry. It was mean to my mom today. I think I was. Yeah, I think I was. I mean, it was just weird. And then I thought, you know what? Then he says, okay, do you know, do seven Hail Marys or whatnot? And then I do that. But my thinking was this is like, what happens if you forgot? If you forgot to tell God to forgive me, you know?  And what we see here very, very clearly is that it was a sign that Jesus's death ended the need for repeated sacrifices for sins and opened up a new and living way of free and direct access to God. You know, many years ago, I was at a mall and River, when Roadrunner came out, this high speed internet, right? People were like eating it up like crazy. Like, wow, we can get the internet faster than whatever, DSL or whatever, right? Well, I remember that they actually put a kiosk in the middle of the mall and they had about six stations with free internet. People flocked it. I mean, I had to get in line just to check my email. You know what I mean?  And people were like flocking this kiosk because it was free access to the world wide web. Listen, you have free access to God. We should flock prayer time, right? We should flock that time of prayer. We should look for time to spend with God because I have free access to God. I don't have to bring a sacrifice. I don't have to call a priest.  I can do it every minute if I wanted to because God has given me free access to his throne. And a lot of us don't take advantage of that. We make it hard to actually understand that listen, we have free access to God, the God of heaven that we should be flocking to prayer and spending time talking with God. I know it's not that easy. I know we have busy lives and God always gets the end of it. I mean, he always gets the bad side of things, I guess, if you will. I mean, we just don't give him too much attention. And I'm speaking for myself too. You know, I think one of the things that distracts us so much right now is social media. It really does. That it bogs our minds so much that when it comes to prayer or reading the Bible, we don't because our minds are fried by then. Like I just spent 50 hours right now just chatting with somebody on the internet. I just Instagrammed 16 meals today, you know? So I'm tired. Lord, I did a lot of work for you today, you know?  For us to understand every day that listen, I have free access to God's kingdom.  I have free access. I could talk to him now. I could share with him my heart. I don't have to wait till I get to heaven. Listen to these scriptures about when it comes to access to God, what Jesus did on this cross, Hebrews chapter six, verse 19 and 20. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul both so sure and steadfast and which enters the presence behind the veil where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus having become high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. Hebrews chapter nine, verse 11 and 12. But Christ came as high priest of the good things to come with a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is not of this creation, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood. He entered the most holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. And lastly, Hebrews chapter 10, verses 19 through 22, therefore brethren having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way, which he consecrated for us through the veil, that is his flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. That's the whole book of Hebrews is all about. It's about showing us that Jesus is now our mediator. He's our high priests. And we don't need the blood of goats and calves. The blood of Christ did it all.  I can talk to him anywhere, anytime, and he's listening. He's not busy with Billy Graham. He'll listen to you because he's able to. And that's the opportunity that we have. That's the great, great benefit we have as Christians is that we can talk to our creator anytime and he's listening. That's cool. I think that's awesome. But notice though what happens in here. There's a centurion who caught on verse 39. When the centurion who stood opposite him saw that he cried out like this and breathe his last, he said, truly, this man was the son of God. The centurion was given more insight into what was going on with Jesus. And a centurion was a Gentile in charge of the execution squad and thus accountable to Pilate. This guy was a high official and he had done many crucifixions before. This was nothing new to him. But this here, something was different about this crucifixion because something was divine about this man hanging on the cross, especially with what he said. And not only was he there, but notice there were some women. Mark names a few here while he says other women who came up with Jesus to Jerusalem. And men were the Roman guards here, the Jewish bystanders and perhaps Peter were here too, was here, but he was left weeping because he denied Jesus. But Jesus dies and this centurion is being touched very, very deeply by the death of Christ. So what happens is now Jesus that when evening had come, the body had to be taken down before the end of the Sabbath. So verse 42, notice it says when evening had come because it was the preparation, 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 and 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. Now under law, the release of a crucified man's corpse for burial was determined only by the imperial magistrates. So usually the request here by a relative was granted but sometimes the body was left on the cross to decay or for other animals to eat it up, birds or whatever it was and then they would just throw the rest in a common grave. But the fact here is that Jewish law required a proper burial for all bodies, even those condemned as criminals, Jews had to do this before the Sabbath, before basically a sunset, began at sunset on Friday, sunset to sunset. So that body had to be done away with, something had to be done. So Joseph of Arimathea comes in and perhaps a very rich, wealthy man comes in and asks for the body. Some believe he was a secret disciple. He did not want to make himself known but we see though that he wanted the body of Christ and he finally got the courage to stand up for Jesus and he asked for his body. He was not a relative, he was requesting the body of a man guilty of treason according to Jewish people.  If you touch the dead body you'd be considered defiled. And you had to go through a lot of ceremonial washing and cleansing. So he took a chance. So he prepares the body in verses 46 to 47. What we see here is the preparation of this body. I'm gonna show you what they did with this body. Turn with me to John chapter 19. John chapter 19, go to your right there at the last gospel. John chapter 19 at verse 39. Just to kind of give you a little more insight of what they did here. In John chapter 19, verse 39, we can begin at verse 38 actually, we'll take it up from the top. After this, Joseph of Arimathea being a disciple of Jesus but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus. And Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took the body of Jesus. And Nicodemus, remember him? Back in John three, who at first came to Jesus by night, also came bringing a mixture of myrrh and alloys, about a hundred pounds. Then they took the body of Jesus, bounded in strips of linen with the spices as the custom of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden and in the garden, a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So there they laid Jesus because of the Jews preparation day for the tomb was nearby. So this confirms that Jesus was dead. He didn't faint. He didn't fake his death as some skeptics believe he did. But we see that Christ actually died. And we see that obviously next week, the resurrection as Jesus comes back, we see very clearly here that according to all the other officials, they confirmed, yep, he died, he's dead. Take the body. But little did they know that he was gonna come back alive. And we see here very clearly that Joseph of Arimathea and some of the others were preparing the body of Jesus, given a proper burial before sunset, before the end of the actual Sabbath. But what I wanna do is I wanna close with some things here, some application here for us. I wanna look at these three miracles with you one more time. But what I wanna do is I wanna apply those three miracles. I wanna show you the significance of these miracles that relate to you and to me today as Christians. The first thing is that you remember, the first miracle that we saw was the darkness. There was darkness in the land. You know, the Bible says that Jesus Christ is the light of the world. And he was put, basically he was here to shine the light in a very, very dark world. And you and I were actually people of darkness. Before you became a Christian, you were living in darkness. You were blind by your sin. You didn't understand what was going on. The world was kind of like a blur to you. But then the moment you got saved, it's like the world became more colorful to you. All of a sudden, now you can make choices of right and wrong where before you didn't make that choice because you were prone to sin all the time. You were in darkness, living in darkness, day in and day out.  We are not of the night nor of darkness. You do not belong to the darkness, Christian. You shouldn't live in darkness. You don't belong there anymore. Jesus Christ, that on the cross for your sins, and that's where he removed you from that darkness. He opened your eyes, now you're children of the light. It says this in Ephesians 5.11, have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.  Christ has made you a human flashlight. And I'm speaking obviously figuratively here, that now through your life, you're actually shining truth to your friends. When you go to work and people see that Bible on your desk or see a scripture that you have maybe on your computer screen or something, or when they see you talking to people in a very gentle way, you're not swearing, you're not stealing, you're not talking bad about your boss like everybody else. All of a sudden you're shining the light when they ask you, who are you? I noticed that you don't trash people like we do.  I'm a Christian. I love Jesus. I'm a follower of Christ. I'm no longer in that darkness. I used to do that absolutely, but now I'm considered a child of the light. That's who you are.  We're no longer there anymore. We're people of light. So you're not described that way anymore. God doesn't see you as children of darkness. He sees you as children of the light because of Jesus Christ living in you. The second miracle is his death. Jesus tasted death and in doing so, he conquered death. He conquered death. Death is not the end of life. We do a lot of people today. Death is the end. It's over. You know, it's like, I got a party hearty right now because man, one day I'm going to die. You're going to continue on even after that. Death is not the end. That's the cool thing. Listen to this first Corinthians 15. For this corruptible speaking of our bodies must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption and this mortal has put on immortality, it says, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. Oh death, where is your sting? Oh Hades, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law. Death is over. There's nothing to fear about death. I mean, just think about it.  Everybody, it doesn't matter who you are.  Nobody can escape that. I don't know, people are trying to escape death today and trying to freeze their body forever, right? Trying to take pills, medication, whatever, just to prolong your life.  Your body can't live that long. Unfortunately, because of our sin, our body is deteriorating every day. Tomorrow you're going to be closer to death than you are today because your body's getting older and older and older and older. Even you young bucks, you're dying, okay? We're all dying. Unfortunately, some might die earlier than others, perhaps through accidents or something, but we're going to die. We're going to face death. But the cool thing about Christianity, the cool thing about Jesus is that because of his death, he's actually removed the stinger from death. That means that we don't have to freak out because there's more to life beyond this life. There's a lot more. What you see here is just temporary. But the moment you close your eyes and you open them up, you're going to be in eternity. And hopefully everyone here will be with Jesus because that's what we want. That's the goal. That's the upward call that Paul talks about, that we're heading in that direction. That upward call. That's what he says. Keep moving forward. Forget what's behind and reach up to what lies ahead. And we see here very clearly that the death of Christ, the death of Christ is what gives us that hope. You know, I've asked one guy, I remember years ago, one friend of mine, actually a co-worker, he would always mock me of my faith.  You know, and I know he was mocking me. And I had him, I got him by himself one day. We were upstairs. It was like a two-story building and we were upstairs. We were filing some things. And I remember saying to him, I was like, I was kind of getting tired of him mocking me. And I said to him, I said, hey, listen.  He looks at me. I don't. And I was able to share the gospel to this guy. They don't under, they don't know. If you were to get somebody, that person that constantly mocks you at work or at school, if you were to get them one-on-one and you ask them that question, I guarantee you they would collapse. They'd be honest with you and say, no, I don't know where I'm going. Because sometimes it's just a facade. They're just trying to be cool. But inside their heart, they're like, I don't know where I'm going. But you see, we have the truth. We know where we're going to go. And we share that hope with those who have no hope. And Jesus Christ gave us that hope. Lastly, the third miracle is that the veil was torn into two from top to bottom. And that is basically the free access that we have to the Lord. We have free access to God. It's through Christ. John 14, 6, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Pretty simple, but yet powerful for us as Christians. Renzi was a story of a little boy who lived in New England, Seaport. He loved to watch boats come in and out. And one day he wanted to build his own little boat.  And he couldn't wait to go back to the wharf to actually float his little boat in this little channel, in this actually big channel where these boats were coming in and out. He wanted to see his little boat kind of cruise around in the waters. So he took a long time to build this thing. And then all of a sudden he came to the wharf and he allowed his little boat to just drift away. And he was hoping for the little boat to come back. And then all of a sudden this wind caught that little boat and basically took the boat away.  And he was heartbroken that he lost his little boat. So every day he would come back to see if the boat actually washed up. Nothing, no news, no hope. One day he was walking by this store and he noticed this little boat in the store window. And he says, that's my boat. So he goes in and he asks the employee, says, hey sir, that's my boat. He goes, no, it's our boat now. He goes, it's two bucks. And he pleaded with him, sir, this is my boat. I made it, this is mine. He says, it's two dollars. So reluctantly the little boy takes out two bucks out of his pocket and gets it to the man and he buys his boat back.  You are mine because I made you and now you are mine because I bought you. You know, that really shows and shares the truth about where we're at as Christians is that we belong to God way before Jesus ever came to this cross. We are creations, we're His creation. We belong to Him. Now we belong to Him even more because now He bought us by down on that cross or twice His, amen? We belong to Him now. He's brought us back. He was heartbroken when sin entered the world and we drifted like that little boat. But because of His death and a lot of you including myself, recognize Jesus. Listen, it's made the Father's heart so excited because now He's brought a lot of His own children back because of Christ, because of the death of Christ. Listen to what Colossians 121, 22 says, and you who were once alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in His sight.


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