The Gospel is Good News to all who will humbly accept Jesus and listen to His teaching.
We refer to the four books of the Bible which tell the story of Jesus Christ as the Gospels. These books are named for their authors: Matthew, a Jewish Apostle; Mark, a disciple of the first generation who recorded accounts of Peter and the Twelve; Luke, a gentile Physician and disciple of the first century; and John, one of the Twelve Jewish Apostles chosen by Jesus.
Today we look forward to Holy Week. In fact we also look back — to previous posts on TalkofJESUS.com in Holy Week and extended months of previous years, as well as centuries Before Christ in Prophesy …
We have looked at ASH WEDNESDAY which began 40 days of Lent.
.. and as Christians we look ahead in anticipation of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
FEATURED HOLY WEEK Series:
EACH SERIES contains brief posts with a NEXT POST link at the bottom.
SCENE: Jesus approaching Jerusalem from Bethany prior to Palm Sunday
The puzzling picture of Jesus from the Gospel requires some Old Testament understanding to realize the reality of the Messiah’s words.
13 And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. 14 And he said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.”
When the Prophets spoke a convicting word of repentance to the professed chosen of the LORD, WHY didn’t THEY repent?
Could it be that THEY refused to hear ANY word of conviction – an accountably of the GOD’s indictment of SIN?
(And like THEM, who among us is not GUILTY of hiding OUR sins from the Lord as we would like to think on occasion after occasion?)
Are those ancient LEADERS and PEOPLE of Judah, Israel and the nations JUST LIKE US?
Repentance!
Repentance oft’ served bitterly in the King James
(Of course most shepherds of Christ's 21st c. churches resist a call of evangelism by reading the KJV. Most will not preach any convicting word of God given to fallen people through His PROPHETS from ANY translation of the Holy Bible.)
After all, who comes to church to REPENT?
The Prophets use severe terms that a pastor hardly dare preach
– the ‘R’ rated word of the LORD –
NOT ever to be spoken to a sweetened Sunday flock of young christians, gracefully posing alongside a remnant of the faithful, as sinless sheep.
AND IF you are not repentant about your continued sins against Himdon’t think that your preferred personal designation of ‘King Jesus’ will save you from the grave.
We certainly wouldn’t want our Jesus-lovers sent home sorrowful [נֹחַם] over our sin.
Yet this is exactly the other meaning of the repentance of which the Prophet speaks in saying that the LORD will hide YOUR sorrow from His eyes.
Hosea and other ‘minor’ prophets will often rail on bitterly in a specific call of repentance.
The LORD reminds Israel through Hosea’s words and obedient unexpected actions of their former disobedience to obey their promises to Him.
The LORD’s word by the mouth of His Prophets may not only be bitter and offensive, but rated ‘R’ in the church gathering of culturally inclusive Sunday audience.
So would you with ears to hear prefer to hear the LORD in easier English than the King James?
(Any translation of Scripture can be convicting to a heart open to receive the word of the Lord.)
It is your ruin, O Israel,
That you are against Me, against your help…
I gave you a king in My anger And took him away in My wrath.
Hosea 13:9.11 LSB
The LORD laments over Israel when He sorrowfully gave them Saul as a king —
and then David, a man after God’s own heart
— and Solomon who built the Temple
— and his sons who as kings of Israel and Judah lost favor, because these kings and their subjects most often refused to repent.
Returning to Hosea's calling and also the King James:
The word of the LORD that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.
The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea.
And the LORD said to Hosea,
Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD.
Would you like to go tell your President or king THAT?
Dare you call your congregation and country ‘children of whoredoms?’ [v.2]
Will you warn them “.. ye are not my people, and I will not be your God?” [v.9]
AND from there, the LORD gets even more graphic in HIS imagery of nakedness of the sin of his CHOSEN PEOPLE who bear witness to HIS NAME (supposedly).
IS THAT how we witness JESUS when we whisper to Him gracefully on Sunday?
“‘King Jesus,’ WE love what you have done for US,”
Christ gets little mention.. no honor.. no priority in six and a half days of our weekly life?
When do YOU ever Talk of JESUS outside of the walls of a ‘worship’ service?
But to the unrighteous kings, princes and people God warns Israel and commands his last Prophet of Israel, Hosea:
Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD.
Hebrew – נָחַם
KJV Translation Count — Total: 108x The KJV translates Strong’s H5162 in the following manner: comfort (57x), repent (41x), comforter (9x), ease (1x). Outline of Biblical Usage [?] to be sorry, console oneself, repent, regret, comfort, be comforted
Source: BlueLetterBible.org
Repent – Greek – μετανοέω
Do you recognize the comfort of having your guilt removed by God when you repent of sin?
Of course YOU are not alone. For your witness of Christ our Savior ought to be that WE are included with THEM in that all have sinned [Romans 3]. JESUS paid the full price the justice of God requires (even for repentant sinners like you and me).
Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John 2:5 KJV – THIS to the 1st c. CHURCH at Ephesus
Shepherds of 21st c. churches also resist the New Testament repentance of preaching Jesus' Revelation of THE END to sheepish christian congregations more entertained than revived.
YES, JESUS is KING of Kings and Lord of lords! Is your worship of the KING appropriate to His call to obedience?
Outline of Biblical Usage [?] to change one’s mind, i.e. to repent
to change one’s mind for better, heartily to amend with abhorrence of one’s past sins
“Repentance (metanoia, ‘change of mind’) involves a turning with contrition from sin to God; the repentant sinner is in the proper condition to accept the divine forgiveness.” (F. F. Bruce. The Acts of the Apostles [Greek Text Commentary], London: Tyndale, 1952, p. 97.)
Howbeit many of them which heard the word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand.
Acts 4:4 KJV
Revival?
I shall ransom them from the power of Sheol; I shall redeem them from Death. O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your sting? Compassion is hidden from my eyes.
Since JESUS IS GOD, aren’t His followers redeemed by Him from Death?
Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know them; for the ways of the LORD are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.
Hosea 14:9 ESV – the Prophet’s closing cautions to the wise in the Lord.
The root of revival is ‘to live!’ – חָיָה
Yet Hosea warns that transgressors will stumble into Sheol and Death.
v.38 But transgressors shall be altogether destroyed; the future of the wicked shall be cut off.
Shall the transgressor of Christ’s grace receive carte blanche revival from the grave without witness of the saving Cross of JESUS?
In fact, what did the King of kings and Lord of lords have to say about such revival?
Gospel Truth (and the Way and the Life)
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord.. And then will I declare to them,
‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
Matthew 7:21-23 excerpt ESV
The word for lawlessness Jesus uses is: ἀνομία – anomia – its definition:
contempt and violation of law, iniquity, wickedness
When a man thought a family obligation should delay his discipleship to the Lord Jesus he received an unexpected answer from the Son of Man who could actually revive the dead:
And Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.”
Matthew 8:22 ESV
NO, I do not believe that we will have REVIVAL in the Church (people, and not the building of certain Shepherds) WITHOUT first witnessing the fruit of REPENTANCE by the crowds from which Jesus fled.
What do YOU think, my fellow follower of Christ Jesus?
Original post date: 29 March, in the year of our Lord 2022
Today’s topic is scandal!
ASH WEDNESDAY in the year of our Lord 2023, we begin with TODAY’S subject:
Christians in the shoes of Jonah
Repent, Jonah!
It’s raining and you are NOT Noah who will save only his own family from the flood.
The ground is shaking in the year of our Lord 2023 and you are NOT Abraham who will rescue only his family from the evil and the fate of Sodom or the judgment of Gomorrah.
This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says: “I, myself, have risen against Babylon! I will destroy its children and its children’s children,” says the LORD.
So YOU claim to be an evangelist of JESUS to the nations?
GO into all the world and preach Good News, the Gospel of forgiveness and eternal life for those who will REPENT of their sinful past and FOLLOW Jesus Christ as our Lord.
The Good News of Jesus’ death and resurrection, however, becomes BAD NEWS to any who turn the other way – in the direction away from God’s grace.
Such bad news for evangelicals! christians who suddenly turn in the other direction + a direction of SELF and a gospel of what God has done for ME (and should do for you).
Have you turned to a path AWAY from the word of God, even like Jonah?
Won’t sailing away from the command of the Lord have dire consequence?
I WON’T PREACH THAT, Jonah responded by sailing away from the command of God.
But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness
As we have learned in ACTS of the Apostles, disciples are followers of Christ Jesus.
Evangelical christianswho claim His Namebut turn away from God’s command become obstacles to the Lord saving others from the cities of destruction.
At the moment Jonah turned away from Nineveh even this Prophet of God was not an obedient disciple ‘chosen‘ for eternal life.
A last-days appeal to the Evangelical
Evangelicals who claim other cause of the world above Christ cannot boast of the burden of the millstone placed around their necks.
And evangelicals who embrace condemned cultures of the cities of destruction without revealing the cost of the Cross may find the weight of the Cross around their neck weighing down their witness with veiled hope while singing of ME and JESUS.
Scandal – Do you recognize it in the warnings of Jesus?
Then He said to the disciples, “It is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they do come!
“It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.
Luke 17:2 NKJV
“Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.
Luke 17:3
But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry.
Then the LORD said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”
So Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city. There he made himself a shelter and sat under it in the shade, till he might see what would become of the city.
– Jonah 4:4-5
The Millstone
“It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck..
Does this punishment (even self-inflicted) remind you of Jonah?
And he said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will become calm for you. For I know that this great tempest is because of me.”
the movable stick or trigger of a trap, a trap stick
(And evangelicals with ears to hear, now hear this:)
any person or thing by which one is (entrapped) drawn into error or sin
Scandal: fig. applied to Jesus Christ, whose person and career were so contrary to the expectations of the Jews concerning the Messiah, that they rejected him and by their obstinacy made shipwreck of their salvation
Is your faith scandalous because you dare Talk of JESUS?
‘But I have a few things against you, because you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumblingG4625 blockG4625 before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit sexual immorality.
Your comment on this post and these Scriptures encourage the witness of this author. RH (original post date 29 March in the year of our Lord, 2022)Thanks.
Comment on Scripture – Share the Gospel
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