Monday Morning Coffee, Welcome

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Hello and welcome to the West and Church's special Monday morning coffee high. On this I can have a preacher Mark Rubber, we will help you get your week for the one. So we grab a cup of coffee and we start the week together on Monday morning coffee.

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Good morning, good morning. Welcome to the Monday Morning Coffee Podcast for the week of July 5th through the 11th. It's Monday, July the 6th. I'm Mark. I am, ooh, I'm getting close to the bottom of a cup of coffee here. I'm excited about tonight's soccer game. Uh Dean and I have been to Belgium. We love Belgian chocolate, but I got nothing for Belgium today. Want that USA men's team to keep moving forward in the World Cup. I know everybody is excited about that. Okay, maybe many of you didn't even know we were playing tonight. But more to the point. I'm ready to talk about the sermon yesterday. I'm ready to talk about daily Bible reading. We're at a crucial place in the book of Matthew. So much is going on, and it is time. That's right. Grab your Bible, grab your coffee. Let's grow together. In

Sermon Notes

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yesterday's lesson, I talked about the road to ruin and talked about how we just get involved in sin, maybe even in sins that we never even thought we would have any trouble with. And the next thing you know, the devil is winning and we're losing, and it's just terrible. And so for a minute here, can we just talk about 1 Peter 5, verse 8? Be sober-minded, Peter says. Be sober-minded, be watchful, 1 Peter 5 and 8. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Wow, what a text that is. You thinking about that? Yesterday I talked a lot about choices and environment, but I just want to simply ask, especially if you are dealing with an ongoing habitual sin, you're dealing with some kind of sin of addiction. Let's just talk more about that environment business. What would we think of somebody who jumped the rail at the zoo and decided to go pet the lion? We would say that was super unwise. Someone gets out of their car at Yellowstone and walks toward Mama Grizzly Bear with her cubs because I want to get a selfie. Oh, what were you thinking there? So here we go. Are you paying attention? Are you paying enough attention to your environment? Are you walking toward the Lord or are you getting closer to the lion? Are you walking with the Lord or are you trying to get closer to a grizzly bear? So the application here would be to your companions, to your friends. I've said before, you're the average of your five closest friends. That's not original with me. A lot of people have said that kind of thing. But if those friends aren't disciples, how long till that affects you? How long till that brings down your average discipleship? Don't pet the lion. Don't go take a selfie with the grizzly bear. Don't make it easier on the devil to lead you into sin. Control your environment and especially control who are your friends, who are your companions. Don't be unwise and follow the road to ruin. Let's think about daily model reading now.

Monday Matthew 24

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And I don't know, this episode of the podcast may last about three days because Matthew chapter 24 is a challenging chapter. There is no ifs, ands, or buts about that. Let's try to work through it together. I think a couple of couple of guardrails help us as we navigate through here. Notice in verse three, we just need to make sure that we're holding on to the question that the disciples are asking. And that comes out of verse two. Jesus says, you see all these, maybe verse one as well. Maybe I should just start at the beginning of the chapter. Maybe I should drink more coffee. Jesus left the temple, verse one, and the disciples are pointing out the buildings of the temple, and then Jesus says, it's all going to be demolished. Verse 2 and verse 3, tell us when will these things be? What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? And so we need to realize that the disciples are asking about the destruction of the temple. They are not asking about the second coming of Jesus. Remember, the disciples don't know Jesus is going, so why would they ask for the second coming? They are asking about the destruction of the temple. And someone says, well, they asked about the sign of your coming and of the end of the age. And the reality is to the Jewish mind, the idea that the temple could be destroyed, that could only happen at the end of the world. I mean, it's God's temple. So for example, there is an uninspired work called 2nd Baruch. And in 2nd Baruch, which deals with all the questions the Jews had about their place before God after the temple was destroyed in AD 70 by the Romans? In 2 Baruch, the writer says, One thing I will ask of thee, O Lord, what is to happen after this? For if thou destroyest thy city and dost deliver up thy land to those who hate us, how will the name of Israel be remembered? How will anyone proclaim thy praise? To whom will what is in thy law be explained? Is the universe to return to its original state and the world to revert to primeval silence? Is the human race to be destroyed and mankind to be blotted out? Second Brook chapter 3, verses 4 through 8. So the only way the temple could be destroyed is if it is the end of the world. So they're lumping all that together. We, of course, separate that out because we know that the temple was destroyed in AD 70 and Jesus hasn't returned yet. So we're making more out of that passage than they intended for it to be made. And the other thing that I would certainly say here is that Jesus gives the time limitation, verse 34. Truly I say unto you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. So this isn't a second coming passage. It can't be a second coming passage, or Jesus is wrong. Jesus is mistaken. That that's not we're not doing that. We're not doing that. There's a whole lot of things that go with deciding Jesus is mistaken, and that's not on the table here at all. So I'm going to work this passage as being entirely about the destruction of the temple, the destruction of Jerusalem in the AD 70 revolt of the Jews against Rome. And when you read the passage that way, it's amazing how much more sense it makes. There's just all kinds of stuff in here where Jesus says, hey, look out for this. Like in verse 16, you need to flee. Well, if it's the second coming of Jesus, what good does it do you to flee? I mean, when the second coming happens, Jesus will be everywhere. You can't run away from that. So just watch all these passages that are so directed to them because something will happen in their time, in their generation, that they need to be ready for and that they need to take specific actions to make sure that they avoid the dangers and the troubles that will come. I can say a lot more about the apocalyptic literature, uh, apocalyptic ideas that are being advanced here. I'm doing a lot of that in my preaching through the book of Revelation. And some of you have heard me talk about that before. I wrote a book about understanding and reading apocalyptic literature. So I try to forego some of that, maybe work a little bit of that in as we're working along. Probably the biggest issue here is we just don't know enough about that revolt. AD 67, the Jews revolt against Rome, and it goes badly from the get-go. And part of that problem was the Jews themselves did not present a united front. They fought amongst themselves. And in fact, there were three factions in the city of Jerusalem once it was besieged. One of those factions burned down their wheat and grain storage to just spite the other two factions, and now nobody had any food. That was that was really good planning. Good job there, guys. Now we're all starving to death. So we don't know enough about that war to appreciate how awful it was. Josephus tells us about women eating their children. So wow, that is that that is bad. Okay. That's that's just awful. If we knew more about that, we probably could read this a little bit better. But again, let's just work down through here. Jesus says some things here about the coming destruction. And my Bible has signs of the end of the age. And so, you know, that's pushing people, that's a subtitle there. And so that's pushing people to think end of the world. But these signs are not the end of the world. Most of what Jesus lists here, you're going to hear about wars and rumors of wars, and that don't get excited about that. One fellow said, uh, David Padfield said this: today, every time a firecracker goes off in Jerusalem, some preacher starts sweating and telling his congregation the end of the world is at hand, you would think the Middle East has never experienced conflict before. That's just so spot on. There's always going to be trouble in that corner of the world. And Jesus says in this section 3 to 14, don't sweat that. Don't get excited about that. That's not the sign of the destruction of Jerusalem. But when, verse 15, you see the abomination of desolation, that is the sign something horrific is happening. And the abomination of desolation is a stock and trade phrase. It's a cliche that comes out of Daniel for something that is absolutely unthinkable, something just horrifically awful. It's used that way in Daniel, and it's being used this way here. Luke 21.20, the parallel account to this seals what this is. It's the Roman army surrounding the city of God, surrounding Jerusalem. That's exactly what it is. And you go read Luke 21.20, there's no question about any of that. And so when you see this horrible thing happening, then you need to get out of town. And there actually is very good evidence that the Jewish Christians saw the oncoming armies of Rome and said, Hey, Jesus told us about this, and that they fled and went south, and they missed all the atrocities and the famine and the horrors of siege warfare and then the bloodshed and the mass slaughter and all those people being driven off into slavery. They missed all of that because Jesus had warned them here in Matthew chapter 24. So lots of discussion here about don't be fooled. When you see verse 23, you see someone says, There's the Messiah. Remember in the book of Acts, there'll be a couple of times where there's talk about false messiahs. Paul gets arrested one time and a Roman centurion says, Hey, aren't you that false Messiah guy? And Paul says, No, that's not, that's not me. That's not me. That's not me. And so then there's discussion here, and maybe this is one of those passages that we could use a little help with in verse 30, the sign of the Son of Man. You'll see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven. Son of man coming, that's that's just standard coming in judgment language. So often Old Testament apocalyptic literature uses, Isaiah uses that, Zechariah used that, Ezekiel uses that, coming in judgment, not the final second coming, capital S, capital C coming. No, this is the sign of the Son of Man coming with power and might to judge Jerusalem. What did we read last week? Jerusalem is a barren fig tree. That's what we read last week. So here we get to the idea that the gospel is gathering people, verse 31, and then look at verse 32. There's that fig tree metaphor again. There's that fig tree metaphor again. So when we understand this in terms of the awful destruction of Jerusalem, which fully and finally ends Judaism, you can't have Judaism without a temple and without sacrificing and all the things that go with that. And I know, I know Judaism is still going on, but it's not biblical Judaism, is it? It's not like what you read about in the Old Testament. They they had to reconfigure and redo some things because they didn't have a temple anymore. And if you don't have a temple, then you don't really have Judaism. And so that awful destruction brings it into the Jewish dispensation fully and finally. And I think that's exactly how God intended it to be. And the providence of God sitting on the Temple Mount now is an Islamic mosque, the third most holy shrine in all of Islam. And that is absolutely preventing all the groups who want to rebuild the temple. There are Jews that would like to do that. There are certainly premillennial denominational Christians who would like to do that and think that has to be done. And it's never going to get done, is it? It's never going to get done. You can't do that anymore without having World War III and World War IV all combined together because the Muslims are never going to allow the Jewish people to demolish their holy site to build that. No. No, no, absolutely not, with a side order of never. So let me just give you this last note. Sometimes people will say things coming here out of some of this last text, verse 36, concerning that day and hour, no one knows, that no one knows the time of the second coming. And that is biblically true, but there are other passages that say that, like 1 Thessalonians 5.2. Don't use this passage to establish we don't know when Jesus will return. What Jesus says is we don't know when this destruction is going to happen. And the point of verse 36, that's the sad thing about verse 36, is that it's often the point of that is overlooked. Jesus doesn't want his followers to become consumed with charts and calendars and timelines and speculation about when things are going to happen. He's given them the warning signs. Now, go be Christians, go be disciples. You'll know it when you see it. And of course, what's happened to Matthew 24? It's used to develop all kinds of timeline and idle speculations and fuel premillennial thought, which is exactly what Jesus says must not happen out of the things that He's telling his disciples will happen in their generation, in their time frame. So the reading for Monday, Matthew 24, and I hope these notes helped you see tomorrow as we push further in the Gospel of Matthew. But the reading for Matthew, the reading for Matthew, the reading for Monday is Matthew chapter 24. It's

Tuesday Matthew 25

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Tuesday. It is Tuesday. And the reading today is Matthew chapter 25. The reading for Tuesday, Matthew 25. This is a big chapter of parables. Let me set up the first of those, the parable of the ten virgins. I have seen lots of crazy stuff done with this parable. Some have argued that the five women in each category stand for the five senses used for good or evil. Others have said that the sellers of oil they bestow merit on those who give them money. Wow, you're buying merit with money. Five foolish and five wise mean that half the world will be saved. Lots of crazy done with this parable. Let's see if we can get it right. What you need to work this parable correctly is to understand how marriage worked in Jesus' day. Marriages were arranged long in advance by the parents, and then the bridegroom would come to get his bride. Everybody knew there would be a delay in the bridegroom coming. I mean, come on, when's the last time you went to a wedding that started on time? So the key is to be ready when he does arrive. This is a parable about preparedness, and I do think it flows out of the material in chapter 24 where Jesus is saying, watch, be ready. These terrible things will happen in Jerusalem. Yesterday's reading was all about some things that would happen to that generation. So they have lamps, verse 7. These would be small oil-fed lamps. I'll try to post a picture on Facebook. I have very, very fortunate to have a couple of New Testament-era lamps, and I'll try to post something like that. And you can easily see if you Google New Testament lamps, it's a little saucer that holds oil, and then the edge of the saucer is pinched in one place. You put a wick in there, it pulls some of the oil up. They run out of oil, and their failure, these foolish virgins, their failure to prepare means that they are excluded. They are excluded from the feast. You need to watch, you need to be ready. Then Jesus tells the parable of the talents, and that really says something about waiting during a delay. You don't just sit on your hands and do nothing while you, oh boy, Jesus told us this terrible thing is going to happen to the temple. I better just look out from the Roman armies and do not know. You need to be busy in the kingdom. By the way, this is not the same as the parable in Luke 19. Some people try to make it into that parable. That won't work. This is, by the way, a lot of money being entrusted to servants. And it does say that in the New Testament world, servants could be entrusted with great sums of money. This may be as much as 6,000 denarii. One talent could be as much as 6,000 deneri. And that would take a working man about 20 years to earn, because a deneri is one day's wage. And there is a sense in verse 25 in which the one talent man is blaming the master. If I'd made any profit, why you just take it. So what's the point in that? And I'd be in even more trouble if I lost it. So I just didn't do anything here. Take your one talent. Nope, that will not work. We need to be busy in the kingdom. Then in verse 31, Jesus transitions here and talks about the final judgment. And I'll talk about this more in the Zoom call tonight and see if we can flow that and have good understanding where this is fitting. But I will say this. I don't think there's anything here in 25, 31 and following that makes us go back and reread yesterday's reading and make that into a second coming passage. People try to do that. I do think this final, it's not really a parable, this final discussion is about the final judgment. For example, verse 32, all nations are gathered, the devil and his angels are being judged, verse 41. That's not a local judgment on Jerusalem. That's the last judgment. This is the end of all things kind of deal. And Jesus talking about watching and being prepared naturally leads him to talk now about the ultimate judgment and being ready and being prepared for that. I have seen in research and studying all kinds of just directly contradictory statements about whether you separate sheep and goats. Do you separate sheep? Sheps? Yeah, separate sheep and goats because the sheep need to be cool in the night air and the goats need to get be together to be warm. And then I've seen exactly the opposite. Um, you separate them because the sheep need to be warm and the goats need to be cold. I'll also I've seen lots of writing about that goats are mean and sheep are really, really nice. And then I've seen other people say sheep are just dumb and goats are really, really smart. I don't know. Do you have a sheep? Do you have a goat that would like to come on the podcast and kind of clear that up? That would be great. Uh contact me and we'll get your sheep or your goat on here to say a few words about some of that. Maybe the thing that stands out the most here is how surprised the righteous are in verse 37. They have done what many people thought was unimportant, and it turns out to be the most important thing. And please notice verse 46. Whatever eternal punishment means, it lasts as long as eternal life. I truly do not understand folks who are always trying to make hell just be annihilation. It's terrible, but you're just gone. You're just done away with. There's no lasting punishment. Whatever, however long heaven lasts, hell will last exactly the same length of time. And we can talk more about that tonight, Westsiders, on the Zoom call. We'll have Zoom this evening. Looking forward to that. See you on the Zoom call. Everybody else, see you tomorrow. The reading for Tuesday, Matthew 25. Welcome

Wednesday Matthew 26

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to Wednesday. Welcome to Wednesday. Today's reading is Matthew 26, the 26th chapter of Matthew for Wednesday. And our summer series continues tonight. Braden Schleybach will preach for us this evening. Now, this is a massive chapter. We need to get right busy with it. There's lots to work with here. I think in verses 1 to 5 we're getting some of that transition. Notice the formula statement, verse 1, that Matthew uses when he ends a section and begins another section. And I think it is important to see that they say we're not doing this verse 5 during the Passover. And of course, Jesus says we are doing this during the Passover. All of this information about this last night and the Last Supper and Gethsemane, all of it emphasizes how Jesus is not caught by surprise and how he's absolutely in control. That takes us to the anointing that happens in Bethany. Excuse me, a little coffee helps that, doesn't it? Bethany is about two miles from Jerusalem, and this is not Mary Magdalene or Mary Jesus' mother. This is Mary Lazarus' sister, and it is the account in John chapter 12 and verse 3 that helps us with that. This ointment, uh this cologne, this wonderful, wonderful, good-smelling ointment is worth about a year's worth of wages. So think about whatever you make and think about a bottle of perfume that costs that kind of money. And maybe this is kind of difficult always, but people don't get to take baths rule regularly in the New Testament world and they're not wearing deodorant. So think about how. How amazing it would be when somebody had this kind of perfume, cologne, whatever you want to call it, this ointment put on them, and they smelled so good. It would be absolutely incredible. This does seem to be a triggering event, verses 14, 15, and 16 for Judas. And there is so much speculation about Judas's motivations here. I think what Matthew wants us to see is that his greed and desire for a little bit of money, 30 pieces of silver apparently is not a lot, is in stark contrast to Mary's complete generosity. That then leads us 17 to 29 to the institution of the Last Supper. And there are some things about the Passover that are known from the writings of the time and so forth. There was a fairly set order. There would be a cup of wine and then the eating of bitter herbs and then the Passover story and the singing of the first part of the Halel. That's Psalm 113, a second cup of wine, and then the main course. That would be lamb and some of the things. There's no mention of a lamb in any of the gospel accounts of the Last Supper, which is which is kind of fascinating. Some people think maybe Jesus is presenting himself as the Lamb of God. That's never specifically said, maybe worth thinking about a little bit. Then there's a cup of blessing, a third cup, the prayer of Thanksgiving, and then the singing of the rest of the Halal Psalm, Psalm 114 to 118, and a final cup of wine. That is not said in concrete, but it may be that Jesus is presenting himself here in the place of the Passover story and saying, instead of telling the story of the deliverance from Egypt, we will talk about, I'm going to deliver everyone from sin. And this is some of the best material, 26 to 29, about how Jesus sees himself as the Messiah and what he has come to do. And this language is heavily out of Exodus chapter 24, where the blood ratifies the covenant. Poured out is a terminology for violent death. Jesus knows what will happen to him. And this is all out of Jeremiah 31, the new covenant passage. Jesus is bringing in a new covenant. So just as the Passover looked forward to the promised land, Jesus' Passover looks forward to the Messianic banquet. And that's probably what he means in 29, I'll drink it new with you in my father's kingdom. And so now from there, things begin to really accelerate. And Jesus tells Peter that he will deny him. And notice Peter and all the other disciples, 35, they're all saying, This won't happen. This won't happen. And you just get a real sense here of how out of the box the idea that the Messiah would be taken from them, that Jesus would be taken, they can't handle that. They don't see that as a possibility at all. They then go to the Garden of Gethsemane in verses 36 to 46. This is outside the city walls of Jerusalem, and even today it's still outside the city walls of Jerusalem. It's across the Kidron Valley. And even with all the hustle and bustle of a modern city, and there's a Roman Orthodox church that's built in the middle of the garden now, but even still with all of that, it is a peaceful place. There's a bunch of olive trees there, and it's very beautiful and very serene. And I can easily imagine at nightfall, Jesus praying here, it would be a place where he could have some time and do some praying. And it does seem in many ways that Jesus suffers here in Gethsemane, maybe, maybe even more than he suffers on the cross. This is the moment of decision for Jesus. He prays about it and he makes up his mind to do the will of the Father. And people have struggled with some of that. If this cannot pass unless I drink at 42, your will be done. And I think that means exactly what it says. Jesus doesn't want to do this. It's enormously difficult from a physical side, the pain and suffering and the torture of crucifixion, but from the spiritual mental side, being our sin offering is beyond anything that humans can begin to imagine. And Jesus says, this is terrible, but I will do it because it's the will of the Father. And so then Jesus is arrested. Please be mindful. Verse 48, there's this sign. Remember, nobody is carrying an 8x10 color glossy of Jesus. And there would be people in this group who maybe had never seen Jesus. Everyone's heard of Jesus, but which ex- it's dark. Who's Jesus? Well, Judas has given them this sign. And Jesus here greets them and clearly is totally in control of the situation. Maybe a word here about Peter, verse 51. It's Peter here who thinks this is the moment, this is it, whips out a sword, goes to work with that. This is not the time. And one Bible scholar says Peter is both magnificent and pathetic. Isn't that true? That's just exactly right. So there are two trials. One will be Jewish, and the charges there are very different than the Roman trial, but the Jews don't have the ability to bring about capital punishment. So they need to convict him, have this kangaroo court. There's a lot that's illegal in this trial, these Jewish trials. And then they're going to drag him up in front of the Romans and see if they can get the Romans to put him to death. And verse 64 is the verse of verse. It's the key verse here. It's Daniel 7 and Psalm 110 combined together. Jesus is still maybe being a little careful because his understanding of what it means to be the Messiah and what Caiaphas' understanding, the Sanhedrin Council's understanding, is very, very different. But Jesus says, the tables will turn and the judges will be judged. The Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven. That's coming in judgment. Coming in the clouds, that's judgment talk. I'm the one who will judge you. I'm the one who's in charge here, not you. And then the chapter concludes with Peter's denials. And please remember he's not using profanity here. It talks about swearing. He's not using four-letter words. Profanity here is invoking a curse upon yourself. May I die. That's the curse, a self-curse, not profanity, a self-curse. May I be struck dead if what I'm saying isn't true, that kind of thing. And maybe, maybe this says something about Matthew. Matthew never mentions Peter again. Matthew does not mention Peter again. This is the last glimpse that we have of Matthew. So I'm sorry, the last glimpse that we have of Peter. Isn't it wonderful that we have other New Testament gospels and other New Testament books to tell us more about what happened to Peter? Because right here he's ending badly. The reading for Wednesday, Matthew 26.

Thursday Matthew 27

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It's Thursday. It is Thursday, and today our reading is Matthew chapter 27, one of the darkest chapters in the entire Bible. Sanhedrin takes counsel together. This is only in Matthew's gospel. Only in Matthew's gospel. And there's some questions in verse 9 about this prophecy from Jeremiah. If you go read the book of Jeremiah, this is not in Jeremiah, it's in Zechariah. There are very solutions to why Matthew attributes that to Jeremiah. It's possible that Jeremiah is the first book in the book of the prophets. And so he's just referencing the book of the prophets by its first book, kind of like he might reference the Bible, you know, in Genesis it says, you know, from Genesis to Revelation, that kind of thing. It may be that there are some echoes of some passages from Jeremiah in this text, and Matthew's weaving that together with the Zechariah text. Jesus then is brought in front of Pilate, and that goes about like you would think it's going to go. There's really not much point in Jesus talking with Pilate, verse 11, because trying to explain theology and who the Messiah is and that he's not a threat to the Roman Caesar, Pilate is certainly not going to understand any of that. In a Roman trial, the judge would hear the charge, he would question the defendant, and then he'd go think on it and he'd come back with an immediate verdict. And it is John who tells us the most about the trial before Pilate. That's really the place to go read if you want to know more about that. But Pilate knows what's going on. There's no question about that. And he's jerking the crowd around. He is giving the Jews a hard time. Notorious in verse 16 means famous. It doesn't have the connotation of evil like it does in our world. But this Barabbas guy is not a good guy. And he's making them choose between what appears to be, as best we can tell, maybe a zealot, uh a terrorist, someone who's fought against the government, maybe has murdered, done bad things. Hey, do you want this bad guy or do you want this Jesus guy? And he's just making the Jews twist in the wind. And they say, we want Jesus. And now, now Pilate's hands are tied. And so he ends up handing Jesus over to them. 24, 25, and 26 is only in Matthew. And there's some other accounts in Josephus and some other times that a Roman governor beat someone, scourged someone severely, and then turned them loose and said, That's enough. We're all done here. Be happy. The guy you don't like got a beating. Everybody go home. And I think maybe you're seeing some of that here with Pilate, but it it wasn't enough. They want Jesus killed. And so Jesus is mocked by the soldiers. And I think there's a lot of detail in some of this to emphasize very much how Jesus has consistently forecast, foretold exactly what would happen to him. And I think this makes readers decide who's right here, the Jews, the soldiers who mocked Jesus, or is Jesus really the Messiah? Is he really the king? And the death that Jesus dies here is just unspeakably awful. Being crucified, all the medical authorities, all the science, everyone will tell you that it's a long, slow death in which a victim would struggle for hours, sometimes even days. And the issue here is suffocation as the body slumps down on the cross and the muscles pinch the lungs and you can't breathe, and then you have to push up. But that hurts because there's a nail in your feet. And there are records of people staying on the cross and dying of exposure and dehydration and so forth, being on a cross several, several days. And so, even worse than that, for the Jews, it would mean that you are cursed of God. That's Deuteronomy 21, 23. This is a bad death. This is a hard death. Everything about this is awful. And sometimes we would like a lot more details, like was Jesus crucified on a T? Was Jesus crucified on what we traditionally see as the cross? Was he crucified on an X? All of those were used by the Romans. Hey, tell us more. In fact, if it wasn't for John telling us that Jesus had nail prints, we would not even know how Jesus was fastened to the cross. So, Matthew, tell us some more. And I think the reason he doesn't tell us more is because everybody in the New Testament world knew exactly what that looked like. And it's not pretty, and they don't need a lot of details. So Jesus is on the cross from noon till about three o'clock, and there's darkness, and that's not a solar eclipse, because you can't have a solar eclipse when you have a full moon, and there's a full moon with Passover. So this is an act of God. And Jesus then says, Why have you forsaken me? And that is a quote from Psalm 22, which becomes very much a psalm of trust. There's a hinge verse in the middle of it, verses 21 to 24. The psalmist moves from, I don't know what's happening to me, and I feel abandoned by God, to I know God will take care of me and I know that I'm going to be delivered. So even in the psalm that Jesus quotes here on the cross, Jesus is saying, I know that I will be delivered. And I wish I knew everything about this statement, but there's no way that we can enter into the mind of the Christ and know everything that Jesus is experiencing as he bears the sins of the world and the punishment for the sins of the world and all the things that go with that. Jesus is standing in our place. He is bearing our punishment. He was not made a sinner. I talked some about that in Q ⁇ A recently. There's no transference of his righteousness to us and our sins to him, but he suffers the penalty for our sins, and that is just truly awful. That is awful in a way that we cannot fully understand. And I think that's what's happening in this terrible, terrible moment. The veil of the temple is ripped open, verse 51. So everything that Matthew's been saying about the Messiah bringing a new covenant, we don't need the temple, the temple will be burned down. All of that has been pointing to verse 51, and there's an earthquake, and that's usually a symbol of judgment. And yes, there's a resurrection. There's a resurrection, 52, 53. And I can't tell you more about that because I can't tell you more about that. I don't know any more about that than what you know about that after reading 52 and 53. But wow, that is some seriously crazy stuff. And all of that is just to mark that Jesus' death is a monumental event. It is the single most important event in human history. Then Jesus is buried, and there's really good detail about this to make sure that everybody knows that there wasn't just some random throwing him in a pit with a bunch of pauper bodies, or his body was disposed of later, and we don't even know where. Nope, they know exactly where he is. His tomb was not lost. There's an allusion there to Isaiah 53, 9. He's buried with a rich man. So Matthew's pushing a little bit of that. And this is courageous to do because you're risking the wrath of the Sanhedrin. You're risking, you are risking Pilate's wrath because Jesus has been executed by the state and now you're taking care of him. Hey, are you on his side? Are you part of the problem? Maybe we need to execute you too. So Matthew 27 comes to an end in the in the very worst way. The Messiah has come, he has been rejected, and he has been murdered. He has been murdered. The reading for Thursday Matthew 27. Friday's

Friday Matthew 28

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here. Friday is here, and we're reading Matthew 28. Aren't we thankful for Matthew 28? Yesterday's reading was just awful and dreadful. And today's reading is amazing and wonderful and delightful and changes everything for everyone. Try to imagine if you'd never read this before, would you even think that Jesus would be risen from the dead? Well, maybe if you're paying attention in Matthew, you would, because Jesus had said it would happen. But would you be expecting this? This is really incredible kinds of stuff. And if the Bible didn't record it for us, of course we wouldn't believe it. But the resurrection does stand as the cornerstone of Christianity. It's what makes Christianity truly unique and a completely different approach to God than any other system of spirituality. And there are some differences in the synoptic accounts, and all of that can be harmonized if you're minded to do that. I'm not minded to do that. As you know, usually I'm just not very interested in that kind of thing. Some people get really caught up in that sort of stuff. That is just not for me. And there will be people who will criticize the women for their lack of faith here, but honestly, they were the last ones at the cross and they're the first ones to the tomb. How about the eleven? Where are those boys? So yeah, I'm I I think the women here are doing pretty well. And by the way, women were not allowed to testify in court. They are not legal witnesses. So if you're making stories up, these are the wrong people to have here. This is the wrong way to start the story. So Jesus is raised. Wow, what do we need to do about that? Yes, more coffee. More coffee. Sometimes people ask who raised Jesus from the dead. And the Bible says that the resurrection of Jesus was the work of the triune God. The Father raised him from the dead, Romans 6 and 4. The Spirit raised him from the dead, Romans 8, verse 11. The Son took back his life, which he has laid down, John 10, verse 18. There are many other passages. So the three are one, and they always will be one, and they accomplish this work. And there are some that need to think a little bit more about what Jesus has said. Verse 7, see, I have told you. Hark back to all those things that Jesus had said. And notice he is raised from the dead. He has risen from the dead. Verse 7. It's not a metaphor, he did not arise in their hearts. This is real. It genuinely happened. And so Matthew then works with the cover story that is circulating. This is so bogus. Guys saying, Hey, we were asleep, but we're going to tell you what happened while we were sleeping. Okay, yeah. Oh, that'll stand up in court. And some people have still tried to circulate this idea. If the disciples had stolen the body, come on, the disciples are in no position to steal the body. They ran away into the darkness. They're utterly and completely lost here. They don't even believe it when they first hear about it. The tomb is empty, and the more people talk about it, both the enemies of Jesus and even Jesus' closest friends, the more we see the tomb is empty. And maybe that clues us. Maybe Mark Matthew, by covering some of this business with this big bogus story that's circulating, is telling us that the attack on the Christian faith will always be made on the empty tomb. That's the major feature of the Christian faith. It's the most important thing about the Christian faith. Lots of people were crucified. Only Jesus was crucified and rose three days later. So we have to be ready and we have to be alert and we have to be ready to talk about the evidence for the empty tomb. And the resurrection is extremely difficult to get rid of if you are a fair-minded person. And I think we see, we see exactly how hard it is to deal with the resurrection if you're going to doubt this when we get to verse 17, because in verse 17, there are some doubted. They're seeing Jesus and they're still doubting. These are not gullible disciples who are making this up, who are perpetrating a lie, who are, hey, we can have some shenanigans here and make a lot of money out of this deal. No, they're still trying to get all of this put in place and get all of this figured out. They're not just naively wanting to believe some myth that somebody is telling them. So the book concludes then with an emphasis on all authority, all nations, all things, and all days, always to the end of the age. Please be mindful that baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is not a formula that has to be pronounced when you are baptized. It means by the authority of, and it emphasizes relationship. It emphasizes belonging to. And the gist here is that you make disciples by baptizing and teaching. The imperative here is to make disciples. How do you make disciples? You baptize and teach, not they become a disciple, and later we baptize them when we have the once-a-year baptismal service. Baptism is essential to salvation. And Matthew 28, 18, 19, and 20 is one more time that we get to see that. Finally, please be mindful that in Matthew, we get a bunch of stuff about teaching after we've had a bunch of activity and a bunch of doing. So now here's this teaching, 18, 19, 20, and and and and what? There's not a bunch more teaching because the book ends open-ended. We go and do the teaching. That's where Matthew is leaving his gospel. He's leaving it with us. The reading for Friday, Matthew 28. Thanks so much for listening. I hope the podcast is a blessing to you. I know it certainly is to me, and I certainly do appreciate all the kind people who say nice things to me or email me or send me a message in some way to say they appreciate the podcast. It's a joy for me to get to drink coffee and talk with you about the Bible every day, talk with you about the sermon, help us work all of that into our lives. I'm Mark Roberts, and I want to go to heaven, and I want you to come too. I'll see you on Monday with a cup of coffee.

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Thanks for listening to the Westside Church of Christ podcast, Monday Morning Coffee with Mark. For more information about Westside, you can connect with us through our website, just Christians.com, and our Facebook page. Our music is from Upbeat.io. That's Upbeat with two Ps, U-P-P-P-E-A-T, where creators can get free music. Please share our podcast with others, and we look forward to seeing you again with a cup of coffee, of course, on next Monday.