[0:00] Well, I'd like us to turn together for a short while to Matthew chapter 27, the passage that we read, and we're going to look at the whole section that we read, but let me read again from verse 11. Now, Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, Are you the king of the Jews?
[0:16] Jesus said, You have said so. But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate said to him, Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?
[0:28] But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed. Our title this evening is The Heat of the Moment, and that's a phrase that I'm sure that you're all likely to be familiar with, and it captures the fact that there are certain times in life when the pressure is on, and in that moment, decisions are made, steps are taken, and momentous things can happen.
[1:02] And sometimes the heat of the moment is when our greatest triumphs come. So maybe in a job interview, we just say all the right things at the right moment.
[1:14] Maybe in an exam, everything just goes really well for us. Maybe in a penalty shootout, you score the winning goal. Maybe you finally pluck up the courage to ask out the girl that you really like.
[1:27] And she says, Yes. Sometimes these moments can bring out the best in us. But it's probably the case that more often than not, the heat of the moment is when our biggest mistakes are made.
[1:43] It's often when crimes are committed. It's often the moment when relationships are broken. It's often the moment when lasting damage is done.
[1:55] So maybe we lose our temper at work or when we're driving in the car. Maybe we have that drink that's just one too many. Maybe we give in to that temptation to look at pornography or to get the latest piece of juicy gossip about someone.
[2:13] Or when we're facing a challenge and we just give up because we're afraid that we're going to fail. The heat of the moment can bring out the best in us.
[2:24] But it can also bring out the worst in us. The passage that we read in Matthew 27 is a moment like that.
[2:34] The tension is very, very high. For the past three years, Jesus has become more and more well-known in Jerusalem and in the surrounding area.
[2:45] He has gained followers. But there are also others who are now very much his enemies. And this is the moment when it all comes to a head.
[2:57] This is the moment when Jerusalem is going to decide what it's going to do with Jesus. And in the heat of this moment, we hear two things in this passage.
[3:13] We hear voices and we hear silence. Voices and silence.
[3:23] And that's our two headings for our sermon tonight. So first of all, there's voices. In fact, there's lots of voices in this passage.
[3:34] I want to pick out four of them. The first is Judas. Judas was one of the 12 disciples. Judas had been with Jesus for the past three years.
[3:46] But over that time, and particularly it seems in recent weeks and months leading up to this point, he'd become increasingly disillusioned with Jesus and his mission.
[3:57] Now, it's very likely that Judas expected Jesus to lead a kind of political, maybe even a military revolution against the Romans. That's what many people expected Jesus to do.
[4:08] And the fact that Jesus didn't do that became more and more frustrating for Judas. And it all culminates in the previous chapter, Matthew 26, when Judas approaches the Jewish leaders and he agrees to betray Jesus for payment of 30 pieces of silver.
[4:29] And in that chapter, you can read about how Judas led a crowd with swords and clubs to where Jesus was. He identified Jesus by kissing him, and in doing so, he betrayed him.
[4:41] But the section that we read, and especially verses 3 to 5, tell us what happened to Judas after that. When Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind.
[4:53] And he brought back the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, I've sinned by betraying innocent blood. They said, What is that to us?
[5:04] See to it yourself. And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself. Here, Judas' voice is a voice of despair.
[5:20] And the words are so tragic. Here's a man who took the devil's bait. He took the action that he thought was going to fix things once and for all. And here, in the aftermath, he's left totally empty, with nothing but agonizing regret.
[5:38] And we can see that Judas made many mistakes. He was wrong in terms of what he expected from Jesus in the first place. He got it wrong when he decided to go to the chief priests.
[5:49] And even then, Jesus warned him. In the previous chapter, Jesus had said to him, You're the one who's going to betray me. It's a terrible idea, but Judas did not listen. He got it wrong again and again.
[6:01] But I think that the biggest mistake that Judas makes is in terms of where he went with his regret. When he realized his mistakes, he went to the chief priests, and in desperation, he says to them, I've made a terrible error.
[6:21] But they replied saying, what is that to us? See to it yourself. And in the heat of that moment, Judas took his own life.
[6:39] And the tragic mistake is that if Judas had taken his remorse to Jesus, things could have been so different. In Judas, we see the horrible destructiveness of sin, and we hear a voice of desperation.
[7:00] The second voice is Pilate. Pilate was the Roman governor over Judea, and in many ways, as that governor, he was the embodiment of the fact that the Jewish nation was under the control of the Roman Empire.
[7:12] And so although in the previous chapter, the Jews had decided that Jesus should be put to death, they couldn't actually carry out the execution without Pilate's permission. So Jesus is taken to Pilate the governor, and Pilate questions Jesus, and he hears all the numerous charges that the chief priests have against him.
[7:31] But the fascinating thing is that Pilate's conclusion is that none of the charges add up. And when the crowd calls for Jesus to be crucified, Pilate replies, why? What evil has he done?
[7:45] But confronted by this crowd that's calling for Jesus' death, and even though he knows that there's no justification for doing so, Pilate is coming under increasing pressure.
[7:57] He then gets a warning from his wife, and she says to him, don't have anything to do with this righteous man. I've suffered much in a dream. And in the heat of that moment, Pilate tries to claim personal innocence.
[8:12] For himself. You see that in verse 24, when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, rather that a riot was beginning, he took water, washed his hands before the crowd, and said, I'm innocent of this man's blood.
[8:23] See to it yourselves. And Pilate, like so many other people in history, he was trying to claim a position of neutrality.
[8:33] Trying to say, look, this has nothing to do with me. I'm innocent of this. But that neutrality is a myth. Because when Pilate is supposedly having nothing to do with Jesus, in effect, he is condemning him.
[8:51] He releases Barabbas, scourges Jesus, hands him over to be crucified. And I think you can think of this almost in terms of traffic lights.
[9:02] I think that Pilate's own instinct was that he wanted to put a red light on everything that was happening. Because he didn't think that Jesus deserved to die. He didn't want it to happen in many ways.
[9:13] And I think deep down, he wanted to put a red light in front of the whole thing. But with the pressure that he was under, he thought he could make the light amber. So it's kind of like in between. It's not really his problem.
[9:24] He's just, you know, handing over responsibility. He probably thought, well, I'm just offering an amber light. But in reality, it was Pilate who set the light to green.
[9:38] Because the moment he said, see to him yourself, he gave him permission to crucify him. Pilate was desperate to avoid a decision about Jesus.
[9:52] He wanted to hide behind claims of neutrality. But in Pilate, we see that that kind of neutrality is a myth. We hear the voice of someone trying to escape responsibility.
[10:09] The third voice is the crowd. In these verses, we see how the crowd gathered before Pilate. And they were given the choice between Pilate releasing Jesus or releasing this notorious prisoner called Barabbas.
[10:29] And they chose the criminal. And when asked by Pilate what they wanted to do with him, they cried out repeatedly, let him be crucified. You see that in verses 20 to 23.
[10:39] And the contrast is astonishing because just a week earlier, Jesus had entered Jerusalem. The crowds had been breaking off palm branches. They'd been laying their clothes down on the ground.
[10:50] And they'd been shouting out, Hosanna! Here is the king! Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Now, the crowds of Jerusalem are shouting, crucify him!
[11:07] And here, we have the voice of popular hostility. The crowd is fired up and together they're united and saying that they don't want anything to do with Jesus. They want him dead.
[11:18] And in doing that, they are convinced that they're doing the right thing. And that's why in verse 25 they say, His blood be on us and on our children.
[11:29] They're not saying that because they're nutters. They're saying that because they're convinced that they're right. To them, Jesus is a major problem that needs to be got rid of.
[11:41] And they'll gladly assume responsibility for that. And because it's a crowd, the voice seems so strong. There's so many of them. And everything seems so convincing.
[11:53] Everybody's saying it. And there's this kind of, as is often the case in our experience, there's a kind of security and a safety in following what the crowd is saying. But there's a crucial thing you have to notice in this passage.
[12:07] We've got this massive crowd. They're all shouting the same thing with one voice. But the truth is this is not really the voice of the crowd at all.
[12:20] The crowd's voice is actually the chief priest's voice. You see that in verse 20. The chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus.
[12:37] And so the big crowd is crying out for Jesus to be crucified because they've been stirred up by a small group in the background. And the result is that you've got a crowd that is shouting without thinking.
[12:51] And in doing so, they're just accomplishing somebody else's agenda. In the heat of the moment, the crowd's just going along with what the chief priests are telling them.
[13:05] And they're jumping on a bandwagon that sees Jesus as a massive problem. In the crowd, we see popular hostility to Jesus.
[13:17] We hear a voice that's manipulated and mindless. And the fourth voice is the soldiers. After the crowd calls for Jesus to be crucified and after Pilate attempts to wash his hands of the situation, Jesus is handed over to a group of soldiers.
[13:36] They are the ones who now have the King of the Jews in their hands. They're about to drive the nails into the hands and feet of the Son of God. They're about to crucify the Messiah with the whole of heaven watching and with all of history pointing towards this event.
[13:55] In the heat of that moment, what do they do? they decide to have a laugh. You see that in verses 27 to 31.
[14:10] They strip Jesus, they put a crown of thorns on his head, they spit on him, hit him, and mock him saying, Hail the King of the Jews. They think that Jesus is someone to make fun of.
[14:23] They think that he's someone to laugh at. And in these soldiers we see great cruelty. They're absolutely brutal in their treatment of Jesus, yet amidst that cruelty is the voice of hilarity and laughter.
[14:42] In the heat of this moment in Matthew 27, we are hearing lots of voices. We're hearing the voice of desperation, the voice of neutrality, the voice of hostility, the voice of hilarity.
[15:03] And I want us to notice two really important things. One, we hear these voices in Matthew 27, but we also hear exactly the same voices around us today.
[15:18] So if people are confronted with the big questions of life and death, when people are asking what is the truth, when people are asking what happens when I die, what does God require of me?
[15:35] In the heat of the moment that these questions generate, some people cry out in despair. And all around us you can see people who are lost, they're broken, they're confused, confused, and in their own lives all they can see is a huge amount of regret where they feel like they've just mucked things up, things have not worked out the way they wanted them to, and they've got so much anger and frustration and sorrow about the things they've done and about the way life has turned out, and yet, just like Judas, they take their sorrow to the wrong place.
[16:23] And so some people will go looking for comfort in alcohol, others will go further, they'll take drugs, some people will look for comfort in casual relationships, others in that kind of endless cycle of self-pity, and yet all of these things will do the same thing.
[16:46] They will leave you empty. Some people cry out in despair. Other people just try to claim neutrality. You've got the big questions of life and they just think, I just want to stay on neutral ground.
[16:59] I'm not sure, I'm not sure about any of this, I'm not going to commit to anything, I don't think that I'm perfect but I don't think that I'm too bad, I don't really want to distinguish one religion from another, I don't want to pass judgment, I'm not going to say yes but I'm not going to say no, I'm just going to stay neutral.
[17:18] And yet we have got to recognize that that neutrality is a myth, it doesn't exist. Neutrality before God does not exist.
[17:33] As Jesus himself said, whoever is not with me is against me. some people join a crowd shouting hostile things and today around us we'll see plenty things, plenty crowds that you can join who will shout against Jesus.
[17:53] Some people will deny his existence, some people will dismiss his authority, some people will reject his morality, other people will just see Jesus as a huge problem.
[18:04] But the same thing happens today as happened in Matthew 27, that hostility is mindless. And all too often the crowds don't think about these things, they just follow what somebody else is saying and they embrace an opinion that they haven't really thought about.
[18:22] And I heard a fascinating example of this a couple of years ago when I listened to a radio interview between two atheists and one was a kind of very popular radio presenter who basically his whole show was based around promoting atheism and discrediting Christianity.
[18:45] That's basically his aim in his show. And he had brought on this very well-known scholar, an academic scholar who was also an atheist, or if not an atheist certainly somebody who did not embrace Christianity.
[19:02] And I think the idea was that they were going to have I think the popular presenter thought, well here's a really smart expert, we're going to get him on, and we'll talk about a whole pile of stuff that would just undermine Christianity.
[19:16] And they were talking in particular about the Bible, because the scholar was somebody who had a lot of experience studying New Testament documents.
[19:28] And they were talking about Galatians. and as they were talking about Galatians, the scholar mentioned Paul, and the radio presenter immediately butted in and said, yeah, that's assuming Paul wrote it.
[19:42] And the presenter was trying to sort of say, you know, like the Bible says Paul wrote it, we don't even know if he wrote it, so he was trying to just add fuel to the fire as this scholar discussed Galatians and discussed Paul, and he was like, yeah, assuming that's if Paul even wrote it.
[20:00] And the scholar who wasn't a Christian and may well even have been an atheist said, absolutely nobody who has any scholarly awareness of the New Testament doubts that Paul wrote Galatians.
[20:16] And it was so fascinating because here you had somebody who wasn't a Christian but yet he was like, you're just talking absolute rubbish. Because the presenter had just embraced something that he'd heard, he liked the idea of being hostile to Jesus, and he thought, that he would impress people.
[20:31] And he ended up looking like a fool because he had just jumped on a bandwagon that he knew nothing about. And this happens in so many different ways and you can see all around us that there are loud voices where people are talking about things that they have not really thought about and really that they know very little about.
[20:56] And there's a massive question there for anybody here who's who has maybe pushed Jesus away. And I don't know you all well enough to know whether there are any of you in that situation where there's anybody here who's sort of like, well, actually, this is not for me.
[21:11] And it's like, well, I'm actually, I'm not going to respond to the gospel. I'm not going to follow Jesus. If that's you, if you are rejecting Jesus, you've got to ask yourself the question, do you really know what you're talking about?
[21:34] Do you really know what you're talking about? Because if you don't, you are taking a massive gamble.
[21:44] But perhaps most of all, around us we see that in the heat of the moment, that's generated by life's big questions.
[21:57] People respond by trying to laugh it off. So Jesus is laughed at here, and Christianity has been the butt of jokes ever since. And people just want to move on to the nearest distraction as quickly as they can.
[22:13] And instead of taking the gospel seriously, they'll just make a joke about it. And you'll hear Jesus' name taken in vain far, far more than you'll hear Jesus' name spoken about with reverence.
[22:37] And it's so interesting, I heard someone talking about that. They were speaking to a little boy. And she was telling the wee boy about Jesus. And he said, oh, you shouldn't say that word.
[22:51] Because he had thought that the only times he had been exposed to the name Jesus was people taking his name in vain. And he'd been told, don't say that word. In other words, don't do what everybody else is doing.
[23:03] God said, oh, don't say that the wee boy didn't realize was there's a really good way to talk about Jesus. There's a really positive way that we can speak about him.
[23:15] And that's just because all around us we have massive crowds laughing at Jesus. I want to ask you, do you hear these voices around you? The voices of despair, of neutrality, of hostility, or of hilarity.
[23:39] Do you hear those voices amongst your classmates, amongst your colleagues, amongst your friends? But maybe even more importantly, in the heat of the moment, do you ever say the same kind of things yourself?
[24:06] We hear these voices around us. That's the first thing I want to notice. Second thing I want to notice under the heading of voices is that the voices we hear in this chapter are the voices of the humanity that Jesus came to save.
[24:25] that humanity is one that has repeatedly messed up in the heat of the moment. And that's been our story from the very beginning.
[24:38] Humanity faced a crucial moment in Genesis chapter 3 when the devil tempted Eve and Eve influenced Adam.
[24:50] And in that crucial moment where humanity had the choice between obeying God and rebelling against him. In the heat of that moment we chose rebellion. And ever since humanity has been making mistake after mistake in the heat of the moment and yet that is exactly why Jesus has come to save us.
[25:10] Jesus has come to save those who are utterly desperate. need to heal you. And if that's you, if you have come to heal you.
[25:22] He's come to bind up every wound in your life and in your heart. He's come to love you forever. Jesus has come to save those who want neutrality.
[25:33] If that's you, if you're longing for that place where you can just have safe ground, where intellectually, morally, and spiritually, things are just in the right place, well, Jesus has come to satisfy you.
[25:47] Jesus has come so that you can trade neutrality for eternal security. Jesus has come to save those who have been sucked in by popular hostility.
[26:04] And so if that's you, if you've spent your life jumping to the conclusion that Christianity is a waste of time, Jesus has come to save you. He's come to show you that the gospel is utterly brilliant news and that the only crowd that will actually last is the family of God.
[26:23] And in that family, everybody is equal. In that family, every injustice is going to be put right. In that family, everybody is utterly loved. And into that family, everyone is invited.
[26:36] and Jesus has even come to save those who laugh at him. And maybe that's you.
[26:49] Or maybe that's been you. Maybe there's times when you've maybe dismissed Jesus with a joke. Or you've just looked for another distraction.
[27:00] Or maybe you've gone along with friends when they were making fun of the gospel or of Jesus. If that's you, Jesus has come to save you.
[27:14] He has come to make you so safe that when the big questions of life and death press against you, in the heat of that moment, you will be so safe, you will never need to distract yourself again.
[27:34] I look at myself and I can see that in the heat of the moments that life can bring, I have been all of these voices at one time or another. And I'm sure it's the same for many of you as well.
[27:49] These are the voices of the humanity that we're all part of. The incredible truth of the gospel is that it is this very humanity that Jesus has come to save.
[28:04] And that brings us to the second thing that we see in this passage and we'll be a wee bit briefer with this. We see voices in this passage. We hear, sorry, we hear voices in this passage.
[28:17] We also hear silence. And there's an astonishing contrast between the many voices that you hear and the silence of Jesus.
[28:30] read again at verse 11. Now Jesus stood before the governor and the governor asked him, are you the king of the Jews? Jesus said, you've said so. But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer.
[28:44] Then Pilate said to him, do you not hear how many things they testify against you? But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.
[28:59] very often in life, silence is very hard. Imagine being a disciple watching this.
[29:09] Imagine you are Peter or James or John watching what's going on. You see all this stuff being said about Jesus and you see him standing there in silence and you'd be thinking, come on Jesus, this would be a good time for that 12 legions of angels that you were talking about in the garden.
[29:24] This would be a good time to tell them what's really going on. The men and women who were disciples must have felt like such a tiny and powerless minority.
[29:39] And Jesus just stays silent. And in any part of life, when it feels like God is silent, it can be really, really tough.
[29:52] And there's probably times when you've experienced that, when you've felt like you're just not hearing God's voice in the way that you'd hoped you would. And even Pilate was amazed that Jesus didn't speak.
[30:08] And what I hope that we can see is that Pilate chose a good word to describe Pilate's reaction. Because Jesus' silence is amazing.
[30:20] Now any of you who know me will know that that's my favorite word. And when I say that Jesus' silence is amazing, I don't mean in the Pilate sense of being astounded. I mean in the Thomas Davis sense of the fact that this is so cool and so, so exciting, so brilliant, so amazing.
[30:40] Throughout this passage, there's an overwhelming sense of injustice. False charges are being made, the crowd's being manipulated, a notorious criminal is set free instead of Jesus, and even the Roman governor can see that Jesus has done nothing wrong.
[30:54] And you know yourself that when you see injustice, it's hugely provocative, and the whole world just now, I think, is screaming at Ukraine and at the Middle East because it just seems so unjust, everything that's going on, on both sides of the conflict.
[31:10] It's so hard when we see it, and when we come across injustice, or when we're on the receiving end of it, that injustice provokes us to respond, it stirs up an urge to say something.
[31:26] And previously, when Jesus was provoked by an injustice, he always had an answer, he always spoke up. When he was accused of casting out a demon by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, he had an answer to that injustice.
[31:40] When he was criticized for mixing with sinners at Matthew's house, he had an answer. When the disciples tried to stop children from reaching him, Jesus had an answer to that injustice.
[31:51] But here, when the injustice seems to be at its greatest, when the provocation is at its highest, Jesus stays silent.
[32:06] And the reason he is silent is because in the heat of this moment, silence is essential.
[32:17] silence is crucial to Jesus' mission. Because at this moment, guilt is being hurled onto Jesus.
[32:33] At this moment, he is being condemned. At this moment, he is taking a death sentence. In this moment, God's wrath is going to be poured out, and Jesus silently takes it all.
[32:52] And in doing so, he is fulfilling God's great plan of salvation. And that is seen so clearly in the details that Matthew gives us.
[33:04] And you can see that in verses 27 to 31. There's a crown of thorns placed on Jesus. And that points to the fact that Jesus is taking the curse of fallen creation onto himself.
[33:16] Because back in Genesis 3, when Adam sinned, God cursed the ground, and what came forth? Thorns. And here Jesus is taking that curse on himself.
[33:28] Jesus is given robes and a reed. They're mocking him as the king of the Jews. They're making him suffer. And yet that's exactly what the servant king prophesied in the Old Testament has come to do.
[33:40] Isaiah 53 7 tells us that he was oppressed, he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, like a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.
[33:52] And Jesus is struck on the head. And here you see the devil is trying desperately to get rid of Jesus. Because back in Genesis chapter 3 in verse 15, God cursed the devil and said that the seed of the woman is going to crush your head.
[34:10] Here, the devil is trying to strike the head of the seed and do to Jesus what he knows Jesus has come to do to him.
[34:23] Jesus is confronting all that the kingdom of evil can throw at him. And he silently takes it all. Jesus' silence is amazing.
[34:37] salvation. Because in that silence he's fulfilling every detail of God's plan of salvation. There's three things I want us to notice before we close.
[34:52] Number one, in the heat of the moment, Jesus is never stupid. So often we are, so often I am.
[35:03] It's in the heat of the moment I've done the most stupid things in my life. That's when our plans are abandoned, when our intentions are forgotten, it's where our mistakes are made, but that never happens with Jesus.
[35:19] Here we see God, Father, Son, and Spirit. We see that he is sovereign, he's immutable, he's wise, and he is utterly committed to saving us.
[35:30] And no matter how much heat is turned up in this moment, Jesus' silence is telling us that he's never going to flinch. And all the provocation was utterly powerless to shift Jesus from his mission.
[35:50] To us, it would seem like this is the moment for Jesus to just let rip and show these people who he really is. But he stays silent.
[36:02] And in that silence, it could so easily look like Jesus was weak. It could look like he was at his weakest. But the truth is, his silence is such a magnificent display of strength.
[36:19] He will never abandon his mission to save you. And in that moment, when all our sin is being thrown onto him, he doesn't say a word.
[36:34] He silently takes it all. Number two, Jesus' silence here means that we now have got something to say.
[36:48] here in this passage, Jesus is faced with a barrage of accusation.
[36:59] And he could so easily have defended himself. He could have said, none of this is true, and I can prove it to you. But he didn't do that. In the face of the accusation, Jesus is innocent but silent.
[37:14] Innocent but silent. for us, it's the very opposite. Because if we are accused of doing wrong before God, we're guilty.
[37:29] We're all guilty. And in day-to-day life, we might be the subject of false allegations. Maybe someone says something about us that's not true.
[37:40] That's an awful experience. But in terms of eternity, in terms of standing before a holy God, if the devil accuses us, no one can stand up on that day and say, I'm innocent.
[37:56] I've done nothing wrong. So for us, when we face the judgment of God, we're the opposite of Jesus. He was innocent. We are guilty.
[38:08] But in terms of speaking, we are also the opposite of Jesus. Because in him, even though we are guilty, we are not silent because we've got something that we can say.
[38:25] If we are trusting in Jesus, if you are a Christian or if you become a Christian, when we are confronted by our guilt before God, we can say something.
[38:38] We can say, Jesus is my advocate. Jesus is my savior.
[38:52] When we are confronted with our guilt, we can say, Jesus is my advocate. And that's amazing because it means that we don't need to desperately try to make amends for our mistakes like Judas tried to do because Jesus has done it all.
[39:08] We don't need to frantically claim neutrality like Pilate did because in Jesus we'll be justified, not condemned. And it doesn't matter if we're following the crowd around us because Jesus is going to bring us into a multitude of brothers and sisters who are united together for eternity.
[39:26] And we don't ever need to make a laugh out of cruelty again because with Jesus we don't need distraction, we don't need jokes, we don't need hilarity because we've got something far, far, better to smile about.
[39:41] Jesus' silence here means that we've now got something to say. And then the third thing is this, this, chapter 27 of Matthew, this is the only moment when Jesus is silent for you.
[40:02] this is the only moment when Jesus is silent for you. Here, he's silent, the reason he's silent is so that you can be saved but this is the only moment when Jesus will be silent for you because if you are a Christian or if you become a Christian, he is not silent now.
[40:24] Now he is interceding for you. He's at the right hand of his father speaking to God the father on your behalf. Now he is defending you and he'll always speak up in your defense and on the day of judgment he will gladly declare that you are his.
[40:44] Now he is guiding you and we want to listen to his voice speaking to us through his word and now he is delighting in you. He's preparing a place for you. He's waiting for you and for Jesus you are a wonderful person to talk about.
[41:00] He's not silent for you and he's never going to be silent again. But what if you're not yet a Christian? Is Jesus silent?
[41:17] No. He is not silent. Because he's calling you. he's calling you again tonight to trust in him.
[41:42] All of this means that if we're talking about the heat of the moment, if we're talking about those times in life when we're confronted by the stuff that really matters, if we are talking about the moment when we make the best or worst decisions of our lives, if you are not yet a Christian, the moment that matters most is right now.
[42:20] Because Jesus is calling you. Jesus is saying, my silence then is so that I can save you right now.
[42:35] And from this moment on, if you put your trust in Jesus, it will transform every other moment of your life, of your death, of your eternity, because you'll be safe in Jesus.
[42:48] And all you have to do is pray, Lord Jesus, please save me. Please help me to follow you. This is the moment.
[43:03] This is the moment. Amen. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you for your silence, your silence in front of the accuser, your silence in front of Pilate, your willingness to go to the cross for us.
[43:34] And we come to you with our weak and trembling voices. And we pray, Father, that you would save us to every one of us through your son, our Lord, Jesus.
[43:52] For every one of us here, please throw us closer to you. And for anyone here who's not yet come to faith, we pray that you would save us all, that you'd help us to follow you, and that we'd all hear your voice tonight.
[44:19] Amen. Amen. Our concluding psalm is Psalm 22 in the Sing Psalms version.
[44:34] Psalm 22, that's on page 27, and we'll sing verses 22 to 26. Psalm 22, on page 27, from verse 22.
[44:45] Now to my brothers I'll declare the praises of your glorious name. Within their gathering I will stand, and your renown I will proclaim.
[44:56] 22 to 26 will stand and sing to God's praise. praise. Now to my brothers I'll declare the praises of your glorious name.
[45:21] Within their gathering I will stand, and your glory now I will proclaim.
[45:39] Praise Him, all you who have feared the Lord. Give honor to Him, Jacob's grace.
[45:55] grace. All Israel's children worship Him, bow down with awe before His face.
[46:15] He has not scarred the suffering which on the lifted one is laid.
[46:32] He did not hide His face from Him, but listened to His cry for Him.
[46:50] You are the theme of all my praise within the great assembly, Lord, before all those who fear your name, I will fulfill my solemn word.
[47:27] Leopard will eat and will be filled, and those who see the Lord will give.
[47:44] a shout of joyful praise to Him, O may your hearts forever live.
[48:02] just before the benediction, if I may, I had one more intubation I wanted to share, and that's that on Friday evening, there's a big praise night in Carloway at half past seven, and we would love to extend a really warm invitation to you all.
[48:16] So it's this Friday evening, an evening of praise, music, and singing. Roddy Cunningham is going to be speaking, and we would just love to have visitors from other communities, so you're all very, very warmly invited to that.
[48:30] And now, as you go into a new week, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.