Talk of JESUS . com

Tag: good friday

  • You’re a Damn Sinner

    Sinners and Damn Sinners

    Are you offended by me calling you a damn sinner? I must confess: I’m also a sinner every day; in thoughts, words and deeds. In that sense I’m just like you.

    Lord, forgive us our treapasses.

    For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God… – Romans 3:23  (but read further for understanding the Sacrifice of Christ)

    “And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. – Deuteronomy 21:22-23a ESV

    Damn; Damnation; Damnable:

    I was somewhat shocked to read in a definition that these words have changed meaning.  Yet I acknowledge a contemporary preaching trend toward not offending the hearers of God’s word.  A brief look at the definition of ‘damn, damnation and damnable’ reads:

    These words have undergone a change of meaning since the King James Version was made. They are derived from Latin damnare = ” to inflict a loss,” “to condemn,” and that was their original meaning in English.

    Now they denote exclusively the idea of everlasting punishment in hell. It is often difficult to determine which meaning was intended by the translators in the King James Version. They have been excluded altogether from the Revised Version (British and American).

    Damnation invades the guilty minds of the wicked.  They then accuse the Christian of morality irrelevant to their own demise. Hell for so many revelers is their daily entertainment of self-indulgence. Raising hell becomes their goal of response to a life without meaning and a death without consequence.

    A further defining of the concept of damnation will include uncomfortable synonyms given infrequent consideration by most men of dust. These include:

    condemn, damn, judgment, avenge, accusation, go to law, pernicious, perdition, destruction, waste, die and to perish.

    Not a list of well-used words in our 21st century lexicon or smiling solicitations from some pulpits.

    Hellfire and Brimstone!

    Not to dwell too long in these hell-pointing descriptions above for damnation, but here would be the time to mention that other contemporarily offensive word: sin.

    Sin, damnation and other uncomfortable, almost archaic words like judgement point to man’s accountability to God.

    Jesus, the Messiah, perfect and sinless, became substitution for my sins and for yours. God therefore sacrificed His righteousness, undeserving of death, as redemption from the damnation you and I deserve.

    The sin of man and love of God led to the Cross.

    Jesus and Judgment

    For the LORD is our judge; the LORD is our lawgiver;
    the LORD is our king; he will save us. – Isaiah 33:22

    John 8:

    31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples… 

    42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. 43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. 44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. 46 Which one of you convicts me of sin?

    No, they could not convict the Son of Man of sin. The accusers of Jesus could only bring the righteous Messiah to the Cross by bribery and lies.

    51 Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”

    A King’s Condemnation for the Sins of His Subjects

    Matthew 26:

    .. Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people…

    55 At that hour Jesus said to the crowds, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to capture me? Day after day I sat in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But all this has taken place that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.”

    Then all the disciples left him and fled.

    57 Then those who had seized Jesus led him to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered…

    59 Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death, but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward and said, “This man said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to rebuild it in three days.’”

    62 And the high priest stood up and said, “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?”

    63 But Jesus remained silent.

    And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.”

    Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

    65 Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. What is your judgment?”

    They answered, “He deserves death.”

    67 Then they spit in his face and struck him. And some slapped him, saying, “Prophesy to us, you Christ! Who is it that struck you?”

    The Damn Shall Hang on a Cross, Yet this Passover Sacrifice is Pure

    Isaiah 42:

    Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
    my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
    I have put my Spirit upon him;
    he will bring forth justice to the nations.
    2 He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice,
    or make it heard in the street;
    3 a bruised reed he will not break,
    and a faintly burning wick he will not quench;
    he will faithfully bring forth justice.
    4 He will not grow faint or be discouraged
    till he has established justice in the earth;
    and the coastlands wait for his law…

    9 Behold, the former things have come to pass,
    and new things I now declare;
    before they spring forth
    I tell you of them.”

    … he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him… – Hebrews 5:8b-9

    Only two mortal choices: judgement or grace.

    Are you a damn sinner? Or are you a forgiven sinner In Christ?

     

  • A King Unexpected

    A King Unexpected

    Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?”

    Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” – John 18:37

    We want a King to fix what is wrong. The economy demands hard work, which is difficult to find and pays little. We demand a different leader. Forget that tyrant in charge now. What does the present King or Emperor or President or Chairman or Pharaoh care about us? What does God have to do with us? After all, our nation is devastated by the greedy and oppressed by the strong.

    Oh… does this sound a bit too much like our 21st century life and not like the same old politics of Jerusalem, Rome and the Nations for centuries long past?

    In truth, the Jews then and Christians now easily miss the point. We miss the significance of Jesus because He is not the King we expected.

    In fact, the Jews only begged for a King to be in charge so that they could escape direct obedience to the LORD. (Are we so different?) Moses had warned them, as Jesus has cautioned us to be prepared for His return to a new Jerusalem – as He has prophesied perfectly of the new heavens and the new earth.

    Deuteronomy 17:

    14 “When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ 15 you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose.

    Years Later in the Promised Land

    1 Samuel 8:5b ” Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.”

    … 7 And the LORD said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.”

    Saul was a popular King until things went wrong. David was even more respected as King, for David was a man after God’s own heart. Solomon became one of the most powerful kings on earth, yet Israel separated into two weaker kingdoms as his sons abandoned the LORD. The LORD even set kings of enemies of Judah and enemies of Israel against his own disobedient fallen kingdom and chosen people.

    It is the LORD who rejects those who reject Him. It is the LORD who rejects those who refuse the sacrifice of the Son, Christ Jesus. Let the reader understand the surpassing love of God and the final judgment of every man’s sin.

    Hosea was a prophet who lived and prophesied just before the destruction of Israel in 722 BC. He preached to the northern kingdom. https://bible.org/seriespage/1-hosea

    NASB (UPDATED) TEXT:13:9-11
     9It is your destruction, O Israel,
     That you are against Me, against your help.
     10Where now is your king
     That he may save you in all your cities,
     And your judges of whom you requested, “Give me a king and princes”?
     11I gave you a king in My anger
     And took him away in My wrath.

    The LORD punished by the hand of God’s enemies.

    Rome we know. Babylon and Persia and Egypt… Israel was no more.

    Judea, Syria, Palestine all provinces of conquering generals, pompous emperors and corrupt caesars. Ungodly men leading enemy countries by the might that would make right, the conquest that brings glory only to a mere mortal.

    They use religion as tolerance of diversity and intolerance of righteousness and truth. The fallen fall into the snare of the conquering culture, offering the bribe of peace and the negotiation of principle.

    Into Rome, into Washington, into Moscow, into Beijing, into Mumbai, into Lagos… into Jerusalem a man comes.

    Armies have destroyed and conquered before him. Kings and rulers have been killed and taken away in chains before. It is time to negotiate under the terms of our captors. We are not free to live in peace… to have hope for food and families and homes of our own. We serve no King. We serve noone… yet we cry out for a new King to our liking.

    Will this man overthrow Rome? Will he use His evident power to defeat the enemies of our own lusts for sin?

    Into Jerusalem rides a King who will act when He will.

    He came once as the Son of Man to be sacrificed on a Cross for our sins. He was raised from the dead, in body and soul! He IS and will be.

    The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John:

    1:7 Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.

    Revelation 5:worthy is the Lamb
    6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. 7 And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne…

    Revelation 15:

    3 And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying,

    “Great and amazing are your deeds,
    O Lord God the Almighty!
    Just and true are your ways,
    O King of the nations!

    4 Who will not fear, O Lord,
    and glorify your name?
    For you alone are holy.
    All nations will come
    and worship you,
    for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

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    Is Jesus the King you expect?

    Therefore I ask you, as we celebrate a weeklong festival of Passover about to be celebrated by the crowds entering Jerusalem… a conquered Jerusalem without a godly king some two millennia ago:

    Do you expect Jesus to return as our King?

    By your life and witness, is Jesus your King?

    For He IS and will return unexpected.

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  • Jesus Is Nailed to the Cross

    Jesus Is Nailed to the Cross

    Roger is born again in the Holy Spirit!

    I owned a business just across the parking lot and cemetery next to the church where we worshiped each Sunday. It is the church where our daughter was baptized and where I read scripture and ministered communion to shut-ins.

    I made the short pilgrimage down the sidewalk to the Good Friday Stations of the Cross service at noon. We are well familiar with the scriptures read each Holy Week in most every church. I chose to worship during my regular lunchtime.

    I’m not certain if today’s text is the same or just similar. (I have linked it to its source above & only offer it here in part.) May I recommend your prayerful consideration of the entire text.

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    As part of their acts of devotion, early Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem retraced the route of Jesus as he carried his cross to his death. Early pilgrimages varied considerably with different starting places and different routes. As the practice developed in the medieval period, the starting point for this journey through the streets of Jerusalem began in the ruins of the Fortress of Antonia that originally housed Pilate’s Judgment Hall, now incorporated into the Ecce Homo Convent. It concluded at the ancient Church of the Holy Sepulcher that marks the traditional site of Golgotha and the tomb of Jesus. By the sixteenth century, the route this pilgrimage took through Jerusalem came to be called the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrow. Along the Way, certain points on the journey (stations) were associated with specific events recounted (or implied) in the Gospel accounts.

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    1. Christ condemned to death;
    2. the cross is laid upon him;
    3. His first fall;
    4. He meets His Blessed Mother;
    5. Simon of Cyrene is made to bear the cross;
    6. Christ’s face is wiped by Veronica;
    7. His second fall;
    8. He meets the women of Jerusalem;
    9. His third fall;
    10. He is stripped of His garments;
    11. His crucifixion;
    12. His death on the cross;
    13. His body is taken down from the cross; and
    14. He is laid in the tomb.

    IF you have never truly considered the pathos and suffering which led up to Christ Jesus’ final crucifixion for our sins, Good Friday is a most appropriate time to consider your sin and repent in all thankfulness and grace.

     Station 1:  Pilate Condemns Jesus to Die

    (Matt 27:11-14, 24, 26b)

    Speaker: Jesus, I wish you would speak!  I wish you would proclaim who you are.  I wish you would confront the disbelief of the crowds and the arrogant cowardice of the powers that be. Surely someone will speak up for you!  Where are the lepers who were healed?  Where are the blind who can now see?  Where are all the people who ate the bread and fish on the hillside?  Where are those who followed you so easily when they thought you would become King of the Jews? Yet no one speaks.  No voice in the crowd comes to your defense. You stand alone…

    I have been alone.  I have been falsely accused, and no one has spoken for me.  I have been treated unfairly by those who could have used their power for better purposes. I can understand some of your feelings as you stand silently before Pilate and watch him proclaim his own innocence as he condemns an innocent man…

    Station 2:  Jesus Accepts His Cross

    (Matthew 27:27-31)

    Carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. (John 19:17)

    Speaker: Jesus, I cringe at the pain of the thorns. But I am wounded far more deeply at the humiliation and degradation you suffer, that the very thing you came to offer us as a gift becomes a source of ridicule.  The crowds thought of a King in terms of power.  But you came to be the kind of King who shepherds his people, who takes responsibility for their well being, whose principles are faithfulness, justice, and righteousness. And yet, the people are not ready for that kind of King.

    I would like to think that I am ready to follow you who offer a Kingdom of peace and love for one another.  But am I?  Am I willing to yield my ideas of what the Kingdom should look like for the role of a servant?  Am I really so willing to give up my human preoccupation with power and control and accept a different kind of crown than I was expecting? …

     Station 3:  Simon Helps Carry the Cross

    They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. (Mark 15:21)

    Jesus, I can only imagine the awful weight of that cross you carry. It is not just the weight of beams of wood that presses down on you. It is also the weight of the burden you carry for those whom you have loved.  You came to offer them life, and yet they return only death.

    So I see you fall from the crushing weight of pain and grief.  I don’t know how many times you have fallen.  But I know that your physical strength is failing.  The soldiers must recognize this as well, because they force a man from the crowd to help you carry the cross the rest of the way to the place where you will be crucified.  Perhaps they are afraid that you will die before you make it to the top of the hill. The man of Cyrene was just a bystander passing through on his way into town from the countryside.  And yet he bears the weight of the cross to save your strength.

    I would like to think that if I had been there I would have rushed from the crowd and volunteered to carry that cross for you.  But would I have had the courage to face the Roman soldiers and risk being forced to join you on a cross?  Would I have really been so eager to share your cross if it meant that I might have to die on one as well?  Would I have been willing to risk everything to ease your suffering for a few moments by letting you know that you were not alone?

    Besides, I have my own crosses already.  I have as much as I can bear without taking on the added burdens of others. And what would people think of me if I were seen consorting with criminals and enemies of Rome in such a public spectacle?  So instead of offering to help, I tried to become invisible in the crowd…

    Station 4:  Jesus Speaks to the Women

     (Luke 23:27-31)

    Jesus, as you struggle along the road toward that awful place of death, you see a group of women among the crowd following you, already grieving at your impending death.  You have heard this wailing many times before at funerals and tragic events.  But now, they mourn for you.

    You have always shown equal compassion to women you have encountered across the years.  You have always seemed to understand the unique burdens that women bear in a world and a culture that pushes them to the margins of society. So here, as you bear the most unimaginable pain of body and heart, you stop to speak to them. You are about to die, and yet you are more concerned with others than with your own suffering and death.

    But your words are strange and seem out of place on this road of sorrow. They have a prophetic ring to them as if you were still trying to tell people something important that they cannot quite grasp, or that perhaps they do not really want to hear.  You speak of even darker days, of far worse things to come upon the people.  Yet, how can things get worse? …

    Station 5:  Jesus Is Stripped of His Garments

    (John 19:23-25a)

    Jesus, I want to follow you on this journey. But I cannot watch this. I must turn away as you are humiliated.

    You came into this world amid celebration and anticipation…

    They wanted to make you king! Just a few days ago the crowds followed you in the streets of Jerusalem singing praises to God: “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! ”

    Yet now, you are forced to suffer the worst of human indignity. You stand alone as the soldiers strip from you the last thing that you possess, and play games to see who will claim it…

    Are you still trying to teach us something about what it means to serve others?  Is your surrender to such degradation a model for how we are to live in the world as your followers?

    I don’t like such an idea. I would rather walk with you into Jerusalem with the praise of the people ringing in my ears than to risk such humiliation. I want to follow you!  But is this really what it means to be a follower, that I must lay aside everything and risk this kind of degradation?

    And yet, that is exactly what you are doing…

    Station 6:  Jesus Is Nailed to the Cross

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    Our small group of worshipers had now stood at each of the stations along the right side of our small church. We had prayed and considered each as the group slowly processed to Station 6 near the front of the sanctuary. At the words of the following scripture the Holy Spirit pressed me to my knees. I could no longer stand.cross and light

    Now I am not a weak man or prone to fainting; yet in this moment of weakness beneath the Cross of Christ, I would have fallen to the floor had I not grabbed hold of the pew beside me and then sunk into the humility of worship.

    I could not walk further after this station, either, until near the end of the worship. I testify as God is my witness of a powerful moving of the Holy Spirit through our church in weeks to come which slayed many in the Spirit and also attracted false worshipers before the Spirit moved on to other believers in places known only to the Lord.

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    And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take it. And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take. It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. The inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.”

    And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!”  In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also taunted him. (Mark 15:23-32)

    Jesus, I do not want to see this.  Yet I force myself to watch.nailed to the cross

    I hear the sharp crack of hammer against nail and shudder.

    It sounds so final. Is it over?  Did all those wonderful lessons you taught by the seaside mean anything? You spoke of being a light to the world, but it seems that darkness is winning…

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    From my knees in a pew behind those standing I wept for Jesus and for my sins.

    Lord forgive us. 

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    Station 7:  Jesus Cares for His Mother

    (John 19:25b-27)

    Station 8:  Jesus Dies on the Cross

    (Mark 15:33-39)

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    Link to original complete post: http://www.crivoice.org/stations.html#top

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    Jesus once asked a man,

    “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” – Mark 10:18 & Luke 18:19

    I had never understood this. I thought I had always been a pretty good Christian.

    Beloved friend, that is NOT good enough. You and I can never be anything but sinners!

    Only then, humbled by the cross, did I lose my burden of sin by the love and grace of the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ our Lord on the Cross of our Redemption. Only in that moment was I born not only in the water of baptism, but also born again in the Spirit of the Holy and Living God!

    Praise to our Lord Jesus Christ!

    O beloved, will you not consider how great the Sacrifice for your daily sin?

    Dear friend, will you humble your soul He does love (as do I) in the great hope of the resurrection we have only in Christ Jesus?

    For Jesus Christ was also nailed to the Cross for you.

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