Liberty
Christian Centre 14/4/2017
Despite
what people may say, Easter is not based on pagan festivals. I was reading recently that Christians
celebrated Easter in the Mediterranean countries long before Christianity
arrived in the north where the pagan festivals were held.
Of course, we celebrate Easter for no other reason than to remember Christ's death and resurrection, His conquest over sin, sickness and death. So Happy Easter everybody.
Today is
Good Friday. The day we celebrate Christs
death. Seems strange to celebrate
someone’s death but we have every reason to.
· Not because He was an evil man but
because He was a good man.
· Not because He did wrong but because
He did right.
· Not because He was against God but
because He was God.
· Not because it was planned by the
devil but because it was planned and prophesied by God.
In our
kind of church we hardly ever mention Mary.
But today I think we should spare a thought for the woman who stood by watching
as her innocent son was tortured and murdered.
What mother could stand that kind of anguish?
And of
course, the Father watched on knowing that He could stop it at anytime but if
He did, then man was lost.
As a
parent I don’t know how I could stand watching my child suffer. But many do even today.
We still hear
of Christians who have to watch as their children suffer to get them to deny
Christ. And I’ve also heard of children
who were forced to set fire to their parents live bodies.
The world
can be so cruel but the whole reason Christ died for us was so that all this
wickedness will one day come to an end.
Christs
death was no ordinary death. It was a voluntary
sacrificial death. He was the sacrifice
for our sins.
And the
cross is the symbol of that sacrifice.
It is the altar on which the sacrifice was made.
Animal
and human sacrifice have been practiced throughout the world for thousands of
years.
Apart
from the animal that died to clothe Adam and Eve, we first see animal sacrifice
from their own sons Cain and Abel.
Genesis 4:3-5 (NKJV)
And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering
of the fruit of the ground to the LORD.
Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the
LORD respected Abel and his
offering,
but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry,
and his countenance fell.
How did
they know to offer a sacrifice? I don’t
know, but I do know
that the animal sacrifice was accepted by God.
It would
seem to me that Adam and Eve must have continued to worship God after the fall and
taught their sons to worship Him too.
In the Old Testament,
God commanded Israel to perform sacrifices according to certain procedures
prescribed by Him.
· The animal being sacrificed had to be
spotless.
· The person offering the sacrifice had to
identify with the animal.
· The person offering the animal had to actually
kill it.
When done in faith,
this sacrifice provided a temporary covering of sins.
One sacrifice
called for on the Day of Atonement, described in Leviticus 16, demonstrates forgiveness and the removal
of sin.
The high priest was
to take two male goats. One of the goats was sacrificed as a sin offering for
the people of Israel (Leviticus 16:15), while the other goat – the scapegoat – had all the sins placed upon
him and was then released into the
wilderness (Leviticus 16:20-22). One goat the price for the forgiveness of our sins, while the other
goat removed the sin.
We no longer have to offer animal sacrifices because Jesus was the ultimate, perfect
and final sacrifice.
John the Baptist
recognized this when he saw Jesus coming to be baptized and said, “Look, the
lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).
We needed a saviour
because Adam had sinned and we inherited his sinful nature.
Paul, James and John all tell us that Jesus was the
propitiation for our sins.
About 20 years ago,
someone asked me what did the word ‘propitiation’ mean. I
didn’t know.
I have since
discovered that it means both the appeasement of God’s wrath and the removal of
our sins.
Isn’t that good to
know? God’s wrath is appeased and our sins have been not just forgiven
but removed altogether.
As 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “God made him [Jesus] who had no sin
to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
It is through faith
in what Jesus accomplished on the cross, that we can receive forgiveness.
But what is sin?
In the Old Testament, Sin is usually more to do with breaking of the law, wrongdoing, evil devising, false speaking. crime or offense,
In the New Testament the words translated sin have a broader
meaning. It means to ‘miss the mark, to
err, to be mistaken, to miss or wander from the path of uprightness and honour,
to do or go wrong, to wander from the law of God, to violate God’s law, in thought or in
deed.
Missing the mark may include breaking the law but also means we don’t do exactly what God tells us to do or in the way He says we should do it.
For instance, if I preach on a subject that God gives me but
don’t say exactly what God tells me to say, then even though I preach
the subject He gave me, I have sinned.
Much of what we say, think, and do can be sinful. The Bible says that calling someone a fool is worthy of hell fire and lusting in the heart is equivalent to adultery.
But thankfully, because our sacrifice has already been made, we can now repent, confess our sin and as 1 John 1.9 says “He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness”.
That can only happen because God is faithful and just and because Jesus has paid the price for our sin.
Why would someone suffer and die for another person?
There have been examples of ordinary people suffering for someone else;
In World War 2, there
was a priest who offered his life in place of a teenage boy in Nazi Germany.
His offer was accepted and the priest died to save the boy’s life.
In the 17th
century a young soldier had been condemned to death by Oliver Cromwell. He was
to be shot at the ringing of the curfew bell. His fiancée climbed the bell
tower and tied herself to the clapper of the giant bell so that it would not
ring. When the bell did not ring, soldiers went to investigate and found the
girl battered and bleeding from being bashed against the sides of the bell.
Cromwell was so impressed by her love for the young man that the young soldier
was pardoned.
But why would you suffer and die for a people who don’t love you? Who reject you? Who disobey you? Who can’t be bothered about you?
John 3.16 sums it up so perfectly;
John 3:16 (NKJV)
For God so loved the world that He gave His
only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have
everlasting life.
Jesus went to the cross because God
loves us and we should never forget it.
John 15:13 (NKJV) says;
Greater love has no one than this, than to lay
down one's life for his friends.
In the cross, God shows His wonderful love, His justice and His mercy.
He showed justice because sin had been committed and a penalty had to be paid.
He showed mercy to man by going to the cross Himself. Suffering and dying to pay the price for our sin. It was our debt but God paid the price for us
There’s a story of a judge in New York who found a girl guilty of shoplifting. The shop owner demanded justice so he find the girl $10. Then he showed the girl mercy by paying the fine himself.[1]
In Romans 5:8-10 (NKJV) it says
But God demonstrates His
own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved
from wrath through Him.
For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death
of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
God created man. He loves the man He created so much that He
was prepared to suffer and die for that man to save him and return him into His
family.
Romans 5:19 (NKJV) says
For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's
obedience many will be made righteous.
Before the cross, Jesus was
scourged. According to historians, the
whip used was designed to rip into the skin and turn muscle into pulp making
the victims blood flow in streams and their intestines exposed.
He was then crucified. Crucifixion was the most brutal method of
killing someone the Romans could think of.
They were hung in a way so their
rib cages were fully expanded and they could not generate the pressure to
breathe. After a while, through sheer
exhaustion, blood loss and pain, they would asphyxiate and die.
Despite what the Koran may say,
there can be no doubt that Jesus did go to the cross.
Christian, Jewish and Roman
reports of Christ’s crucifixion were circulated very shortly after the event
and long before any of the new testament was written.
In Philippians, Paul quotes an
early church song believed to have been written just a few years after the
cross which says “He humbled Himself and became obedient to the
point of death, even the death of the cross.”
Even Christianity’s most
vehement critics say there can be no doubt that Jesus died by crucifixion under
Pontius Pilate[2]
Let’s look
at some of the things that happened in that last week of the cross. I tried to put days to these events but
scholars don’t all seem to agree.
Some hold
to His death on the Friday which doesn’t leave 3 nights to Sunday. Others say He probably died on the Wednesday
or Thursday because of an annual weekday Sabbath and these people claim He rose
on the Saturday or Sunday.
What we can
say is this;
On Palm
Sunday, Jesus rode triumphantly into Jerusalem on a donkey. Mat 21.7-9. The crowds
lay their clothes on the road and branches of palms as they shouted "Hosanna
to the Son of David! 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!' Hosanna
in the highest!"
Some 450 years earlier, the prophet Zechariah had said in
Zechariah 9:9 (NKJV)
"Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of
Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having
salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey.
Jesus then moved on to Bethany about 2.4 kilometres east of Jerusalem.
Matthew 26:6-13 (NKJV) says
And when Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, a
woman came to Him having an alabaster flask of very costly fragrant oil, and
she poured it on His head as He sat at the table.
But when His disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying,
"Why this waste?
For this fragrant oil might have been sold for much and given to the
poor."
But when Jesus was aware of it, He said to them, "Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a good
work for Me. For you have the poor with you
always, but Me you do not have always. For
in pouring this fragrant oil on My body, she did it for My burial.
Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is
preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a
memorial to her."
We have just fulfilled the prophecy
by telling this story in Australia.
Then Judas,
one of His disciples who witnessed many of His miracles.
Goes to the
Chief priests to plot to betray Him for 30 pieces of silver. Luke 22.4 worth today about $600 but at the
time it was about 5 weeks wages.
After he sees what happens, Judas throws the money back into the temple but the Jews then used this money to purchase the Potters Field as prophesied in Zechariah 11:12-13 which said;
… "If it is agreeable to you, give me my wages; and if not, refrain." So they weighed out for my wages thirty pieces of silver. And the LORD said to me, "Throw it to the potter"--that princely price they set on me. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD for the potter.
Then Jesus celebrated the Passover at what we call the last supper.
He had sent his disciples ahead into the city to prepare the meal.
Passover is the remembrance of when the angel of death passed over the homes of the Israelites that had lambs blood sprinkled over their doors.
It was at the
Last Supper that Christ told His disciples one of them would betray Him and
where He initiated what we call communion, the last supper or the eucharist. Luke 22.14-20
Can you
believe that at an important time like this, we find the self centred disciples
arguing which one of them is the greatest. Luke
22.24
After the meal, Jesus washed the feet of the disciples. Peter didn’t think it was right but Jesus said that He was doing it to be an example to them and that they were all to become servants to everyone.
Later, Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane at the foot
of the Mount of Olives whilst the disciples fell asleep. Mat
26.36-39
He asks for the cup of His suffering to be removed but then says ‘not my will but thy will be done’ Mat 26.42. This really shows how much suffering He was to go through. He was about to bear and take responsibility for all the sins of the whole world.
It was so great that He Sweats blood. Luke
22.44
Then Judas comes along with a band of the priests men and
with a kiss, betrays Jesus Mat 26.47-50
Jesus is Arrested John 18.12. .
Trying to defend Him, Peter cuts off one of the soldier’s ears but Jesus heals it straight away.
Then Jesus is taken to the High Priest for the first of His
false trials. Luke 22.54
Psalms 35 and 109 talk about the false witnesses who speak with lying tongues.
Peter denies Jesus 3 times. as Jesus had already told him he would. Mat 26.69-75
Jesus is taken to Pontius Pilate Mark 15.1
Pilate sends him to Herod Luke 23.6-10
Herod sends Him back to Pilate Luke
23.11 but Pilate can find no wrong in Him so he has Him scourged anyway!
Mark 15.15 John 19.1
It is at this point as He is being whipped that Jesus paid the price for our healing;
Isaiah 53:5 (NKJV) But He was wounded for our
transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for
our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.
The Soldiers mocked Him twisting a crown of thorns and
putting it on His head, and they put a purple robe on Him.
Then they said, "Hail, King of the Jews!" And they struck Him with
their hands and spat at Him. Luke 23.36-37 John 19.2
Jesus is Sentenced to death
Luke 23:23-24 (NKJV) says
‘ But they (the crowd) were insistent, demanding with loud voices that He
be crucified. And the voices of these men and of the chief priests prevailed.
So Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they requested.’
Jesus is then led to the Cross on a hill outside the city. Luke 23.26
In His weak state He can not carry the weight of the cross so they find someone else to do it for Him.
He speaks to the women of Jerusalem warning them of trouble
to come. Luke 23.28
At 9am or the third hour in Jewish time, He is Crucified by being nailed to the cross. Luke 23.33 Mark 15.25.
Psalm 22.16 says (NKJV) …The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet;
John, Mary Magdelene, Mary His mother and other women followers stand away watching Him as He suffers.
Psalm 38:11 (NKJV) says ‘ My loved ones and my friends stand aloof from my plague, And my relatives stand afar off.’
The rest of the disciples have already run away as Zechariah 13:7 (NKJV) prophesied …. "Strike the Shepherd, And the sheep will be scattered; …
The soldiers divide His clothing amongst themselves fulfilling. Mark 15.24
Psalm 22:18 (NKJV) which said ‘They divide My garments among them, And for My clothing they cast lots.’
From the cross, Jesus asks the Father to forgive them Luke 23.34 as Isaiah 53:12 (NKJV) said; He made intercession for the transgressors.
The People hurled insults at Him saying, "You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross" Mat 27.39-40
fulfilling Psalm 22:7-8 (NKJV)
The Chief Priests mocked Him Mark 15.31
The soldiers put up a sign over Him saying ‘This is the King
of the Jews’ Luke
23.38
He is crucified in between 2 criminals as Isaiah 53:12
(NKJV) said….. He was numbered with the transgressors,
One of the criminals being executed insults Him Luke 23.39
The other criminal is saved asking Jesus to remember him
when Jesus comes into His kingdom. Luke 23.40-43
Despite His suffering, Jesus shows His concern for others by
asking John to look after His mother John 19.26-27
At 12 noon until 3pm darkness comes over the earth. Mark 15.33
Amos 8:9 (NKJV)
"And it shall come to pass in that day," says the Lord GOD,
"That I will make the sun go down at noon, And I will darken the earth in
broad daylight;
Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" that is, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" Matthew 27:46 As prophesied in Psalm 22:1
He is thirsty and He is given some sour wine.John 19.28 as prophesied in Psalm 69:3
Jesus says ‘It is finished’ John 19.30
Bowing His head, He commends His spirit to the Father Luke 23.46
At 3pm Jesus dies.
There is an Earthquake and the curtain in the temple is torn from top to bottom. Mat 27.51
The price for our sins has been paid in full.
The tombs are opened and the dead are seen in the Holy City. Mat 27.52
The Centurian confesses ‘Surely, He was the Son of God’ Mat 27.54
The Crowd come to see Him beating their breasts. Luke 23.48
Both the thieves had their legs broken John 19.31-32
But Jesus is already dead so they just pierce His side with a spear John 119.34 fullfilling what the prophet
Zechariah said 12:10 (NKJV) ….. then they will look on Me whom they pierced.
And Numbers 9.12 which said His bones would not be broken.
His body was taken down and given to Simon of Arimathea who
took it and buried it in a tomb hewed out of rock. John 19.38-42 Luke 23.50
Isaiah 53:9 (NKJV) said; And they made His grave with the wicked-- But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth.
The tomb was then sealed with a big rock and guarded by Roman Soldiers. Mat 27.66
Now, I’m not going to tell you what happened next but I can tell you there is a surprise coming! You’ll have to come on Sunday to find out!
As tragic
as these events were, they were all prophesied hundreds or thousands of years
before. It should have come as no
surprise but it did. I have already
mentioned some of the prophecies.
There were
many more. Over 300 prophecies were
fulfilled in the birth, life and death of Jesus.
Maybe Jesus
could have manipulated some of these events where He had total control such as what
He said. But why would anyone force
events that would mean they themselves suffer and die?
Most of the
prophecies were fulfilled by other people.
Many by His
enemies who had no desire to see Him recognised as the messiah.
Others by
Romans who had no understanding of the prophecies.
It would
have been impossible for a man to have orchestrated these events to prove that
He was the prophesied messiah.
When we think of the cross, we think of it as a horrific event where the forces of evil win. I guess I am guilty of making it sound like that today. But it wasn’t like that at all.
The cross was actually a victory for God.
And it was a victory for man.
Jesus came to Earth in order to go to the cross.
God was in control of the situation.
Without the cross, we would not be here. There would be no church, no Liberty Christian Centre.
We would have no hope, no future, no saviour, no chance.
We would have no Holy Spirit, no teacher, no guide, no comforter, no intercessor, no helper, no strengthener.
We would have no access to the throne of grace.
There would be no healing, no deliverance, no freedom.
No name to pray in.
We would be in darkness and subject to the whims of the devil.
Jesus was the only one who could pay the price.
Jesus was innocent, without sin.
He gave up everything He had in Heaven and risked it all by coming to Earth as a man.
We owe everything to Jesus.
During all this time of Jesus’ suffering, the disciples argued, fell asleep, denied Him three times and fled.
The people He came to save rejected Him.
The people who should have recognised Him from the scriptures didn’t want to know Him.
The Roman authorities couldn’t handle Him.
Despite all the signs and prophecies, He was still rejected.
Do you think we would have behaved any better?
It’s easy to say “Oh yes I would have done this or done that” but wouldn’t we just have gone along with the crowd?
But now, we know better, we know the truth.
We should act in a way that shows how grateful we are.
Let us pray and give thanks for the cross. Repeat after me.
Almighty God, I thank you for your love, for your justice and for your mercy.
I thank you for the cross.
I declare today that I believe Jesus is the Son of God.
I believe He died for my sins on
the cross He became sin for me, He was wounded for my transgressions, He
was bruised for my iniquities; The chastisement for my peace was
upon Him, And by His stripes I am healed.
I repent of all sin and renounce all other gods.
I commit my life to you Lord Jesus, my saviour and my God.
Amen.