0:05

Good Friday to all of you and

0:07

just wanted to take a second and

0:09

welcome all the Vince viewers We really do

0:11

appreciate you guys staying around for us

0:13

on this special good Friday episode We are

0:15

actually going to get into the story

0:18

of Easter Talk about the crucifixion talk about

0:20

the resurrection But really what I want

0:22

to do is tell you a lot of

0:24

details that maybe you don't hear in

0:26

church things that I think are really just

0:28

the fingerprint of God that show you

0:30

Places where you can dig where you can

0:33

grab a bit more understanding and really

0:35

start to see the texture behind the

0:37

story. So it isn't just a

0:39

story that you're hearing. So stick

0:41

around. This is Good Morning Mug

0:43

Club. Look,

1:01

we have gotten it all

1:03

wrong. Good Friday is not a

1:05

day of mourning. It is

1:07

a day of celebration. Now, I understand if

1:09

you are somebody who grew up in the church,

1:11

You've probably heard this story a million times

1:13

over. If you're not, welcome. Thanks for hanging out

1:15

with us on Good Friday to hear a

1:17

little bit more about this story. I have to

1:19

start with people in the audience, maybe who

1:22

are, you wouldn't classify yourself as

1:24

somebody who's spiritual or a believer. It

1:26

is the most important decision you can make

1:28

in life. For one of two ways, either it's

1:30

true and it changes everything about how you

1:32

live your life, or it's not true and it's

1:34

a complete waste of time and you don't

1:36

want to end up falling into that trap. Either

1:39

way, it's important to look into this

1:41

issue of who Jesus is, who God is,

1:43

what the story of Easter is, and

1:45

decide for yourself what you believe. I have

1:47

a point of view and I hope

1:49

you follow along with that point of view,

1:51

but I understand people are coming from

1:53

a lot of different places. So hang out

1:55

with me for just a little bit

1:57

and we will get into the details. But

1:59

I grew up in church like a lot of people

2:01

did. Just going to church because my parents did and

2:03

I spent Every Easter hearing about

2:05

how Jesus sacrificed his life to reconcile

2:07

me to God and I'll be honest

2:09

as a 6 7 10 year old

2:11

kid I didn't even understand really what

2:14

all of that meant other than Jesus

2:16

was good and he sacrificed himself and

2:18

I knew the stories It was a

2:20

tough story to hear right because as

2:22

anybody who has seen the Passion of

2:24

the Christ by Mel Gibson before he

2:26

went crazy or during I don't really

2:28

know which one but either way

2:30

it is absolutely

2:32

brutal but I was eternally

2:34

grateful that the story was being

2:37

told. With that being said

2:39

though, there are a lot of details

2:41

that I never really heard in church. Now,

2:43

I want to make sure that I'm clear at

2:45

the outset. I am not going to be one of those

2:47

like history channel shows where I promise that we're going to

2:49

find the mummy at the bottom of some ancient thing that

2:51

nobody's ever discovered and we don't actually find the mummy. What

2:54

I want to tell you though is

2:56

that there are a lot of really

2:58

interesting details that churches either don't know

3:00

about, don't have time to cover, or

3:03

cover, but maybe you've missed them, so probably

3:05

in one of those three buckets. And

3:07

really what they do is they show the

3:09

fingerprint of God on the greatest story that has

3:11

ever been told. This is

3:13

the story of Jesus' death, burial,

3:16

and resurrection, and this is

3:18

why we celebrate Easter. It

3:29

doesn't mean that, but nevertheless, they're never going to

3:31

correct that. For years,

3:34

I grew up in the church studying the Bible,

3:37

and I loosely would call studying the Bible, making sure

3:39

that I read a little bit of it here

3:41

and there. I would go to Sunday school. I

3:43

would irregularly attend church. And

3:46

when I was 26 years old, I

3:48

moved from Ohio back down to Texas. And

3:50

I found a church that really interested

3:52

me. I really wanted to get back into

3:54

church and really connect with God in

3:57

a way that I felt like I hadn't

3:59

done many times throughout my kind

4:01

of early 20s late teens. And

4:04

an opportunity came up to go to

4:06

a friend's church and it turned out

4:08

to be a life -changing moment for

4:10

me. Not because of the church necessarily

4:12

that they played a big role in

4:14

this, but because of what the church

4:16

introduced me to. I started discovering a

4:18

love. a passion for studying scripture, for

4:21

digging deeper than just doing a

4:23

devotional. Though those are fantastic. Don't get

4:25

me wrong. It just,

4:27

it became something bigger

4:29

for me. And I knew that God

4:31

wanted me to do more. I knew

4:33

that this was an area of my

4:35

life that I wanted to pursue.

4:37

I wanted to pursue my relationship with

4:39

God. I wanted to pursue an understanding of

4:41

scripture. And I wanted to do it in

4:43

a practical way. And I wanted to put it all

4:45

into practice. And I signed

4:47

up for a ministry school that was

4:49

offered by the church that I was

4:52

going to. And during that time,

4:54

I met somebody who had insomnia. And

4:56

it's only relevant because this guy, I

4:58

mean, insomnia sounds like the worst possible

5:00

punishment for somebody ever if it was

5:02

devised as a punishment, not letting somebody

5:04

sleep. But he just

5:06

had insomnia and, you know, through no

5:08

fault of his own and would end

5:10

up studying scripture and doing all kinds

5:12

of things with the extra hours. And

5:14

he came across a teacher who was

5:16

called Chuck Misler. And Chuck did in -depth

5:18

Bible studies where he would go line

5:21

by line through Scripture. For example, I

5:23

think his Genesis study is something on

5:25

the order of 30 hours long. And

5:27

it's fantastic. I immediately fell in love

5:29

with it because it would go verse

5:32

by verse and it would talk to

5:34

you about different things that would happen

5:36

in Scripture. and tie

5:38

it to other places in scripture, whether it was

5:40

something that was a fulfilled prophecy or just

5:42

a story that had a connection. And

5:44

I just remember being fascinated because

5:46

I had no idea. that all

5:48

of these little details in scripture connected

5:50

to all of the other places

5:52

when Chuck would show us those things.

5:55

So my goal today is basically to help you

5:57

see some of those connections and encourage you to

5:59

go and do some of this study for

6:01

yourselves. So one quick analogy. There's

6:03

there's several things that I could tell you,

6:05

one of which would be that and look

6:07

this up. God gave an entire people hemorrhoids

6:09

as a punishment for stealing the Ark of

6:12

the Covenant. That's pretty hilarious. If you're God

6:14

and you've got to roll it ex of

6:16

punishments, you know, you're looking through, you're like,

6:18

no, done that. Locust, done that. Frogs. It's

6:20

a little dated. Hemorrhoids.

6:23

Haven't done hemorrhoids. Let's see how this one

6:25

goes. I think that's kind of funny. I think

6:27

that shows that God has a sense of humor even

6:29

though he's getting a message across. Or perhaps

6:31

the... idea that during the Exodus there

6:33

was a giant cross in the middle of

6:36

the desert that only God could really

6:38

see because we didn't really have the power

6:40

of flight. Maybe I guess if you

6:42

stood on a mountain nearby you could see

6:44

it. But if you look at how

6:46

the Israelites were supposed to camp around the

6:48

kind of the tabernacle that they took

6:50

with them. You will essentially see

6:52

if you put some mathematical equation together of,

6:54

I don't know, every person is one square foot

6:56

and look at the number of people and

6:59

where they were told to camp, you'll see that

7:01

it makes a giant cross. Those kinds of

7:03

things were things that I never really knew about.

7:05

And they're not doctrinal positions necessarily,

7:07

but they're just little interesting details

7:10

that give the Bible more

7:12

texture. So I wanted to start out

7:14

with one of those and go into a little bit

7:16

more depth. And that is the story of the

7:18

serpent on a pole. One thing I

7:20

want you to keep in mind as we

7:22

go through this is that to the Jewish mind,

7:24

pattern is prophecy. Right? In

7:26

our kind of Western mind, we think of prophecy as,

7:28

you know, you make some kind of a prophetic

7:30

claim and then there's some fulfillment to that claim. Like

7:32

it's going to rain tomorrow and then it rains

7:35

tomorrow. Well, for the Jews, you

7:37

start establishing a pattern. And

7:39

when you see something that fits that

7:41

pattern, that is prophecy. Right? Pattern

7:43

is prophecy. It's a different way of

7:45

thinking. And I think what

7:47

you'll see is that sometimes we miss

7:49

those prophecies in Scripture because we don't

7:51

see the pattern for what it really

7:53

is. So in Numbers 21, 7 through 9, I'll just

7:55

read it for you and then I'll tell you kind of what I think

7:57

about this. It says,

8:00

Remember that word. We've

8:02

sinned. Not that they've done something

8:04

wrong. They specifically said, We

8:06

have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against

8:08

you. Pray that the Lord will take away

8:10

the snakes. It's also a pretty wicked

8:12

punishment that God sent like a bunch of

8:14

snakes to bite people. That's got to be terrifying.

8:17

So Moses prayed for the people. Then the Lord

8:19

told him, make a replica of a poisonous

8:21

snake and attach it to a pole. All

8:24

who are bitten will live if they simply

8:26

look at it. So Moses made a snake

8:28

out of bronze and attached it to a

8:30

pole. Then anyone who was bitten by

8:32

a snake could look at the bronze snake

8:34

and be healed. Okay. So

8:38

these people, let me go back to

8:40

what their sin was. We spoke

8:42

out against you or the Lord and

8:44

against you. Okay, so they spoke

8:46

out against them. That's their sin. If

8:49

you're somebody looking at

8:51

this story going, okay, what's the night like

8:53

the bad movie lines game we play sometimes?

8:55

What's the next line from God? I

8:57

guarantee you you're not choosing the option

8:59

where God says go and make a snake.

9:02

out of brass and put it on a

9:04

pole and put it on a heel and

9:06

everybody who looks upon it is going to

9:08

be healed. So why did God do this?

9:10

It doesn't make any sense unless he's trying

9:12

to continue a pattern for them to

9:15

be able to see. So all

9:17

they had to do was look

9:19

at the snake on a pole and they would

9:21

be healed of their sin. So let's

9:23

take a look at the elements here. You've got a snake Where

9:26

do we know the snake from in Scripture?

9:28

That's that was basically the curse of

9:30

Satan was made a snake, right? So Satan

9:32

equals a snake equals sin. Okay, so

9:34

now let's clearly we have sin Let's do

9:36

it like that and then you can

9:39

look at the pole Why why put

9:41

the snake upon a pole? Doesn't

9:43

seem to be much reason for that but let's

9:45

just kind of surmise Maybe it looks something like

9:47

you know a straight -up pole and then you kind

9:49

of hung this snake on it like this, right?

9:52

Now you start to see, okay, maybe

9:54

that has some similarity to the

9:56

cross. How it looked

9:58

isn't quite as important as what it symbolized

10:00

though, right? So we've already said that the

10:02

snake symbolizes sin, so if

10:04

you put sin on a

10:06

pole, on a heel, those

10:09

who have sinned can look

10:11

upon it and be healed. If

10:14

that's not a picture of what Jesus

10:16

Christ did, during the crucifixion, during

10:18

the Easter celebration that we know it, I

10:20

don't know what is. And it's really interesting

10:22

because all you had to do was look

10:25

upon it. There was no other work needing

10:27

to be done. You just had to look

10:29

upon this saving

10:31

figure and you were

10:33

saved. So when we call Jesus sin on the

10:35

cross, he literally was made sin and we'll get

10:37

back to that in just a minute. But

10:40

he became sin for us, was on a

10:42

cross and all we have to do

10:44

is look on him and we'll be saved.

10:46

So that's an interesting story out of numbers

10:48

that not a lot of people will have

10:50

heard the comparison. But it is

10:52

part of the pattern. So again, I hope you

10:54

do more digging, dive into that story a little

10:56

bit more if you want to. But before we

10:58

go any further, because this is our Friday show,

11:00

we're going to do just a little bit of

11:03

a free portion here, which we've done. We are

11:05

going to go ahead and go to Rumble Premium

11:07

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you'll get to see more

11:33

content like this, but we'll be right back. Don't go anywhere. All

13:06

right, now that we are in the

13:08

confines of this Premium thank you again guys

13:10

for your support. I want to go

13:13

through a story that obviously, I'm very hopeful

13:15

that many of you have heard over

13:17

and over and over again throughout your life.

13:19

And you spent any time in or

13:22

around the church, around people who

13:24

celebrate Easter and who in Christ and

13:26

in God, then I think you

13:28

have. Unfortunately, Unfortunately, all

13:30

too often we find that

13:32

familiarity breeds contempt. And this case,

13:35

that that basically manifests in that we

13:37

start to lose sight of the

13:39

awesomeness of what Jesus did for us

13:41

on the cross I remember watching

13:43

the movie The Passion of the Christ

13:45

when Mel Gibson put that out

13:47

and thinking, I'm to cry. I

13:50

have to cry, right, because I'm a Christian

13:52

and I believe in God and I understand that

13:54

what Jesus did on the cross was a

13:56

Heart thing, but I didn't cry. And

13:58

I felt a little weird. of course I felt Sad

14:01

at what I was seeing because it

14:03

was a depiction of what Christ went through

14:05

the suffering that he went through for

14:07

us But for some reason I don't know

14:09

why it just it didn't connect with

14:11

me the same way that it connected with

14:13

other of my friends who said that

14:15

they were balling uncontrollably and that maybe that

14:17

says something about me I don't know

14:19

but I know that there are things like

14:21

this in scripture that become kind of

14:23

commonplace for us for example if I Said

14:25

can anybody tell me what John 3

14:27

16 says? You know, this is one of

14:29

the most famous, if not the most

14:31

famous Bible verses in scripture, for God so

14:33

loved the world that he gave his

14:35

only begotten son, that whosoever shall believe in

14:37

him shall not perish but have everlasting

14:39

life. Right? But

14:41

when you hear that, you just, you just,

14:43

it's, you've said it so many times, you've memorized

14:45

that it kind of becomes like a car

14:47

alarm in some ways, not completely, but it just

14:50

loses its impact sometimes. And so

14:52

I'm hoping that what we do

14:54

is give the story a

14:56

little bit more depth because I

14:58

think when you get that depth

15:00

these stories become more real to

15:02

you. They're not just words on

15:04

a page. They're things that actually

15:06

happened. There are so many

15:08

things that are going on behind the scenes that

15:10

sometimes we miss and so that's my goal today.

15:12

I hope that's what happens. One thing I do

15:14

want to say and this is again something I

15:16

lifted from Chuck Messler. So Chuck in heaven, thank

15:18

you very much for that. I'm not saying we

15:20

can communicate directly with him so I don't want

15:22

any any hate mail from that

15:24

one. But Acts 1711 is something that

15:26

I constantly think about when I do

15:28

lessons like this, and it's what I

15:31

look for in teachers whenever I go

15:33

and do some study on my own.

15:35

Basically what it is is I want you to

15:38

receive the teaching with an open heart, but

15:40

then I want you to go search scripture and

15:42

see if it's true. Or as Chuck said,

15:44

don't believe what Chuck says, go look up what

15:46

scripture says. Fine, don't believe what Gerald says, go

15:49

check scripture and see if it's true. All

15:51

right, so That

15:54

the story is a world -changing event

15:56

that really should shape everything about

15:58

our lives if you believe that it's

16:00

true So let's start from the

16:02

beginning beginning Don't worry. This isn't gonna

16:04

be a six -hour lesson on this

16:06

stuff But I just want to

16:08

lay the groundwork that according to the

16:10

Bible man is sinful and without

16:12

hope No real need for explanation there.

16:14

Just look around you watch the

16:16

news See what's going on in the

16:18

world and you'll see that left

16:20

to our own devices that we are

16:22

not naturally going to tend

16:24

towards doing good, selfless works. Of course,

16:26

there are examples where people do

16:29

that, but for the most part, we

16:31

have a very broken world that

16:33

is around us, especially right now. You

16:35

can look around and see on

16:37

the news every single day, war. Unfortunately,

16:40

if you check your X feed,

16:42

you can see all kinds of

16:44

stuff that you don't want to

16:46

see about human depravity and just

16:48

terribleness, the likes of which you never thought

16:50

you would see. We broke

16:52

this world and we've blown it over

16:54

and over and over again and

16:56

rejected God but God and I want

16:58

to pause on that because those

17:01

are Two amazing words when put together

17:03

save us God chose to have

17:05

mercy on us while we were still

17:07

sinners That's incredible We didn't do

17:09

anything to deserve it. We didn't have

17:11

anything that promoted God's Desire to

17:13

do it in addition to all that

17:15

he already had for us all

17:18

the love that he had for us

17:20

But while we were sinners God

17:22

chose to have mercy on us. Thank

17:24

God that that actually happened All

17:26

we have to do is believe in

17:28

his son Jesus that he was

17:30

sent for us that he died for

17:33

our sins that he was a

17:35

perfect sacrifice and He rose again on

17:37

the third day to reconcile us

17:39

to the father to basically make sure

17:41

that we did not have a

17:43

broken relationship anymore with the father a

17:45

number of people When I've

17:47

talked to them who are maybe not believers

17:49

or casual believers have a little bit of

17:51

a hard time with that. Like why would

17:54

God want any of his children to go

17:56

and be separated from him? And the answer

17:58

is he doesn't. God doesn't

18:00

take any pleasure in the death

18:02

of the wicked. He wants all to

18:04

come to repentance and not to

18:06

be lost. And so when

18:08

he outside of time set history

18:10

in motion, he knew that

18:12

this time would come where man

18:14

would be separated by sin

18:16

from him. But he also knew

18:18

he had a way to

18:20

fix that. And it was a

18:22

very simple way. It's

18:24

by design that it's simple though, guys,

18:27

because we need simple. We

18:29

try and take simple and dress

18:31

it up with routine and rigor

18:33

and some kind of, you know,

18:35

structure to make it more difficult

18:37

because I need to earn my

18:39

salvation. God? doesn't see it

18:41

that way. It's a very simple equation.

18:43

So the simplest form of the gospel

18:45

that I have seen is written in

18:47

1st Paul, I'm sorry, but written by

18:49

Paul in 1st Corinthians 15, 3, and

18:51

4. And it says, But

19:06

why did Jesus have to die

19:08

for us to be reconciled to God?

19:11

I'm gonna give you some broad strokes here,

19:13

but if you have never read the

19:15

Easter story or Really know a whole lot

19:17

about it. I would encourage you right

19:19

now to just pause where we are Go

19:21

and read Matthew 26 starting in verse

19:23

17 through you know the end of Matthew

19:25

is a good place to go but

19:27

that starts basically at the Last Supper and

19:29

kind of kicks off a series of

19:31

events that we would call kind of you

19:33

know Holy Week Passover essentially for Christians

19:35

as well and also kind of Easter all

19:37

encompassed into that And it'll give you

19:39

a more full understanding. So yeah, go go

19:41

and check that out Make sure that

19:43

you read through the end of Matthew that

19:46

is going to be a good kind

19:48

of summary of this But let's let's start

19:50

this conversation off from from a different

19:52

place and then we'll get there very quickly

19:54

Like I said before pattern is prophecy

19:56

in the Jewish mind. So beginning in the

19:58

Garden of Eden We saw that sin

20:00

can only be covered by the shedding of

20:02

blood when God slew the animals

20:04

to make coverings for Adam and Eve. If

20:06

you guys remember that story, Adam and Eve

20:08

were hiding from God after they ate of the

20:10

fruit of the tree of the knowledge of

20:12

good and evil. And they

20:14

covered themselves with fig leaves because they

20:16

knew they were naked. And they

20:18

had this conversation with God after hiding.

20:22

And he was asking them, like, who told you that

20:24

you were naked? And then God

20:26

went and made Clothing for them

20:28

basically by slaying some animals and so that

20:30

that's one of the really the first time

20:32

that we see okay covering sin Takes the

20:35

slaying event it takes blood essentially to cover

20:37

this sin, okay? Then we have it reaffirmed

20:39

with the Passover and the spotless lamb and

20:41

going into that story is is very interesting

20:43

about when they had to bring the lamb

20:45

in it had to be a spotless lamb

20:47

they couldn't break any bones they had to

20:49

consume at all and Then using the blood

20:52

of the lamb to put over the doorpost.

20:54

It's just this really interesting scenario

20:56

where it just kind of

20:58

repeats this pattern, the shedding of

21:00

blood to cover sins, to

21:02

provide salvation, to provide this protection

21:04

against the rightful punishment of

21:06

sin. And then it was highlighted

21:08

in Hebrews 9 where Paul tells us about

21:10

the law of Moses and states, for

21:12

without the shedding of blood there is

21:15

no forgiveness. And this isn't

21:17

a surprise, we have it in the sacrificial

21:19

system as well, throughout the ages where it

21:21

wasn't really forgiveness of sin that you were

21:23

getting, it was basically pushing your debt off

21:25

another year, right? It wasn't

21:27

completely reconciling it and having no

21:29

debt whatsoever, it was saying we're

21:31

basically paying off our debt and

21:33

refinancing for another year by the

21:35

sacrificial system that we have. And

21:38

so to reconcile us to the

21:40

Father, there had to be a perfect

21:42

sacrifice to literally cover our sins

21:44

so that when God looks down upon

21:46

me as sinner, big

21:48

sinner, he only sees the

21:50

blood of his son, Jesus Christ. Thank

21:52

goodness. And Hebrews 9, if you

21:55

want a little bit more on this, does

21:57

a great job of going into further detail

21:59

and kind of laying this out for you.

22:01

And again, Hebrews is written to the Jewish

22:03

population who would have had a framework of

22:05

understanding and Paul's trying to communicate to them

22:07

what Christianity is, that Christ is the Messiah.

22:09

He is the fulfillment of everything that they

22:11

have been looking for. And like I said,

22:13

Hebrews 9 does a great job of laying

22:16

that out. But I'm not just saying that

22:18

I think based on my understanding of Scripture

22:20

or based on anybody else's in here. We've

22:22

even got Sam in the office and based

22:24

on his understanding of Scripture, Jesus

22:26

literally became sin in 2 Corinthians 521.

22:28

This wouldn't be in in the Old

22:30

Testament. So Sam may not have seen

22:32

this one, but that's okay. That's okay.

22:35

We'll talk to him about it. It

22:37

says, for he made

22:39

him who knew no sin to be

22:41

sin for us. So 2

22:43

Corinthians 521, he literally made

22:45

him to be sin. And

22:48

Chuck Missler is somebody, like I said earlier, who

22:50

does a great job of kind of telling these

22:52

stories. He does the verse by verse studies, like

22:54

I said, but he also does topical studies. So

22:56

if you're ever interested in just going and hearing

22:58

what he says about Easter, It's a

23:00

great presentation. He's got videos. You can go on YouTube

23:02

and look for his content. I don't know if it's

23:04

on Rumble. It should be, but as of right

23:06

now, I don't think it is. But

23:08

he does a great job of kind

23:11

of laying this out for people so you

23:13

can understand that this isn't just a

23:15

story where we say that Jesus paid the

23:17

price for sin. He literally became sin. The

23:20

reason that I'm harping on that is because

23:22

in just a minute, that's going to mean a

23:24

whole lot more to you if you haven't

23:26

heard this story than maybe it does right now.

23:28

It's a lot. But it's a lot more

23:30

in just a second. So let's pick the story

23:32

up at the last supper. We

23:34

all know the scene Jesus

23:36

is celebrating with his disciples. They're

23:38

going through and taking the

23:40

bread and the blood, the wine

23:43

essentially. And

23:45

Jesus tells his disciples that he's going to be betrayed.

23:47

Now Jesus has been telling them over and over.

23:49

If you've ever watched The Chosen, by the way, it

23:51

does a good job of highlighting this. over

23:53

and over Jesus is trying to tell and

23:55

trying to convey to his disciples that he is

23:57

going to be portrayed, put to death. This

24:00

entire thing is going to come unraveled in their eyes,

24:02

right? It's going to be a really bad day from their

24:04

perspective. But he's like, hey, don't worry. This is the

24:06

whole reason that I came here. But

24:08

they're not really getting it. But now he literally

24:10

says somebody at the table is going to betray

24:12

me and they are questioning and saying, Lord, is

24:14

it me? And then he basically

24:16

says, it's Judas. It's

24:19

this guy right here. And he's dipping

24:21

his bread. Now, can you imagine sitting

24:23

next to who you believe to be God?

24:25

And there's a lot of argument that

24:27

Judas was trying to force Jesus' hand into

24:29

kind of bringing about the earthly kingdom

24:31

of heaven. Or he was just

24:33

a complete sinner and was actually trying to thwart the

24:35

plans of God, whichever view you hold. I understand

24:37

why people say both of those. But can

24:39

you imagine staring into the face of Jesus and seeing

24:41

the miracles that he's done? And he's like, you're the

24:43

guy. That's a really

24:45

bad place to be. Now

24:48

Judas has a problem, though. because

24:50

Judas has to act. He's been exposed

24:52

as a betrayer. Now the plan that

24:54

he's been putting in place has to

24:56

happen now. And the plan he's been

24:59

putting in place is to betray Christ

25:01

and turn him over to the temple

25:03

authorities because they've been after him for

25:05

a very long time, trying to catch

25:07

him in his words in any way

25:09

that they can. So

25:11

who do you think, just by that

25:14

one statement, who do you think is

25:16

in charge of the timing of

25:18

all of this. Who's in charge of this

25:20

situation? It's Jesus.

25:23

Jesus is forcing Judas'

25:25

hand. And we know

25:27

that the Romans, they don't want any

25:29

uprisings in any of the territories that

25:31

they are in. That is what you

25:33

get judged on if you're the person

25:35

in charge of a territory, is how

25:37

peaceful is it? Are they paying the

25:40

taxes they should have been paying? Well,

25:43

the Jews knew that and they knew that

25:45

if there was any kind of an uprising

25:47

they were going to be the ones held

25:49

responsible and they would lose some of their

25:51

religious freedom potentially or maybe even their lives

25:53

and a new leader would be brought in

25:55

to see if they could manage the people

25:57

a little bit better. And so they didn't

25:59

want to arrest Jesus on a feast day

26:01

because they knew the crowd would get angry

26:03

and that would potentially lead to a riot.

26:05

Where do I get that? Matthew 26, 3

26:07

through 5. At that

26:09

same time, the leading priests and elders were

26:11

meeting at the residence of Caiaphas the

26:13

High Priest, plotting how to capture Jesus secretly

26:15

and kill him. But not during the

26:17

Passover celebration, they agreed, or the people may

26:19

riot. So why

26:21

were they there on the

26:23

biggest feast of the year?

26:27

Well, approximately one million people would

26:29

have been in Jerusalem for this

26:31

feast. They wouldn't have wanted

26:33

to go and take Jesus. during this time,

26:36

because not only is that a time when

26:38

there's a large crowd in the city, it's

26:40

the largest of all of the feasts for

26:42

Passover. That entire kind of holy week,

26:44

essentially. There's multiple feasts, by the way. There's

26:46

multiple Sabbaths, I should say, during this week, and

26:48

we'll get to why that's important in just

26:50

a minute. But they would be

26:52

taking a huge risk by taking Jesus

26:54

during this time, and they're also going

26:56

to be breaking their own laws to

26:58

arrest Jesus. I have a complete list.

27:00

Well, I shouldn't say complete. I have a list of that.

27:04

will be pretty shocking to you, but it's not

27:06

an extensive list. There are books written about

27:08

all of the laws and rules that the Jews

27:10

broke. And when I say Jews, by the

27:12

way, just to make sure some of these anti

27:14

-Semites that are out there like, that's right, the

27:16

Jews. No, that's not what I'm saying. The

27:18

Jewish leadership of the day, just like

27:20

when we talk about China being bad, it's

27:22

the leadership, the CCP. So the Jews broke

27:25

their law. The leadership broke their own laws

27:27

to arrest Jesus. One of the ways they

27:29

did that is arresting him at night. We're

27:31

not supposed to be any trials at night or anything, adjudicated

27:34

contracts being done at night either, but

27:36

they did it. Why? Because

27:38

Jesus is completely in control.

27:40

This is not a tragedy, this

27:42

is an achievement. And

27:44

it's the greatest achievement of all

27:46

mankind. So next

27:48

we see Jesus leave and go to the

27:50

Garden of Gethsemane. And this again is a famous

27:53

story where Jesus goes with some of his

27:55

disciples and he has disciples kind of stop and

27:57

stagger a little bit and then he goes

27:59

a little bit further and he prays. comes

28:01

back to them, finds them sleeping. We've all heard

28:03

that story. One thing I want to focus on

28:05

though is that in the garden Jesus is sweating

28:07

blood. Literal drops of blood are

28:09

coming out as he's sweating and he's

28:11

praying because of the intense pressure that he

28:13

is under. And that's actually a medical

28:15

condition. So this isn't just some kind of

28:18

piece of additional information that we're given

28:20

to try to highlight that this is a

28:22

tense situation. This is actually a

28:24

physical condition that is going on with Jesus

28:26

because of the amount of stress that he's under.

28:28

Now, you might want to ask yourself why. And

28:31

initially, I thought it was pretty simple. Again,

28:33

I've seen the Passion of the Christ. I've

28:35

heard the depictions of what actually happens when

28:37

you're receiving lashes and having a crown of

28:39

thorns put in your head and having your

28:42

hands and your feet nailed and all of

28:44

the things, all of the physical punishment of

28:46

crucifixion. It is One of the most excruciating,

28:48

and that's where that word comes from, actually,

28:50

is through the process of crucifixion. It's the

28:52

most excruciating way to die that I can

28:54

think of. And most people die after a

28:56

long period of time of several days through

28:58

asphyxiation because they can't hold their body up

29:00

anymore. But I don't

29:02

think it was the physical punishment, or at

29:04

least not only the physical punishment that

29:06

was causing that kind of intense reaction from

29:08

Jesus. I think

29:10

he understood what was about

29:12

to happen that had so much

29:15

more significance. So, if

29:17

you're a Christian, you believe that there's Father,

29:19

Son, and Holy Spirit, and those three are

29:21

one, right? That's kind of the three

29:23

flames analogy. If you want a good way of depicting

29:25

it, you have three candles, you put it together,

29:27

it has one flame, but you can pull them apart.

29:30

Don't worry about getting too much into the Trinity right

29:32

now. That's a lesson for another time. But just

29:34

understand, Jesus also said,

29:36

I and the Father are one. He

29:39

had been one with the Father.

29:41

He had been in communion perfectly with

29:43

the Father forever, for all of

29:45

eternity. And I think

29:47

what was driving this sweating of blood

29:49

and this intense pressure was that

29:51

he was preparing to be separated from

29:53

God for the very first time

29:56

ever. And he

29:58

was going to become sin. So

30:00

not only separated from God,

30:02

but God would not even be

30:04

able to look upon him

30:07

because God cannot be associated with

30:09

sin. And so this makes

30:11

his words on the cross in

30:13

Matthew 27 -46 even more impactful when

30:15

he said, My God, my God,

30:17

why have you abandoned me? Consequently,

30:20

that's also the only time that

30:22

Jesus ever referred to God without calling

30:24

him my father. It's

30:27

a very interesting thing because Jesus

30:29

was now in our place. Jesus was

30:31

now sin. He's worse than in

30:33

our place. We aren't just sinful. He

30:35

is literally sin. And

30:37

Jesus even asked in the

30:39

garden, If the cup could be

30:42

taken away, essentially saying, God, if there's

30:44

any other way, if there's any other

30:46

way of making this happen, please, let's

30:48

do that. Because this is a daunting

30:50

task, but he added a caveat in

30:52

Matthew 2639. Thank

30:58

goodness for that last part, because

31:01

there was no other way, otherwise God

31:03

didn't answer Jesus' prayer, and because

31:05

there was no other way, I am

31:07

grateful beyond anything that I can

31:09

even imagine that Christ

31:11

did not back out. He

31:13

could have called down legions of angels

31:15

to protect himself even. He said that that's

31:17

not what the program is here though.

31:19

That's not the plan right now. The plan

31:21

is to go and to save humanity

31:23

for anybody who would believe. Thankfully, that's what

31:25

he did. One of the things we

31:27

need to do in our lives a little bit better every

31:29

single day. I know I'm guilty of it to say, God,

31:31

your will be done, not mine. I tend to operate a

31:33

lot on my will on what I want to happen. But

31:36

thank God. There is a good example for

31:38

us in Christ saying, God, your will be done,

31:40

not mine. So just

31:42

after this, Jesus sees a crowd

31:44

of Roman soldiers and temple guards coming toward him

31:46

to arrest him. Again, this is at night. Listen

31:49

to the exchange in the Garden of

31:51

Gethsemane according to John in John 18, 4

31:53

through 8. Jesus, therefore, knowing all

31:55

things that would come upon him. Just stop right

31:57

there. Knowing all things that would come upon him. He

31:59

knows every single detail of what's going to happen

32:01

here. And that's not a surprise to us believers. But

32:04

just think through it practically. You know exactly who's

32:06

going to betray you from the day you call

32:08

them as a disciple, Judas. You

32:10

know what's going to happen to some of

32:12

the people around you, family members, maybe

32:14

they don't necessarily understand who you are initially.

32:17

You know that you're going to be rejected

32:19

by people after being praised by people just

32:21

days before on the triumphal entry. You know

32:23

that people are going to spit on you

32:25

after praising you for the healing that you

32:27

brought to them, maybe not the same person,

32:29

but the crowds. You know all

32:31

of these things at the exact same

32:33

time. I don't understand how to hold those

32:36

two pieces of information in my mind

32:38

and still have compassion for the people that

32:40

I'm about to go die for. But

32:42

Jesus did it. So, going

32:44

back to that, I'll just start again from

32:46

the top. So, John 18 .4 -8, Jesus, therefore,

32:48

knowing all things that would come upon him,

32:50

went forward and said to them, whom

32:52

are you seeking? They answered him,

32:54

Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus said to

32:57

them, I am he. And Judas who betrayed

32:59

him also stood with them. Now, when he

33:01

said to them, I am he, they drew

33:03

back and fell to the ground. I

33:05

thought it was funny because

33:07

Jesus is simply saying, it's

33:09

me. And they draw

33:11

back and fall down to the ground.

33:14

Jesus' power is incredible.

33:16

The command that he

33:18

has of the situation

33:21

is total and complete. He

33:24

goes on to make sure that they get it. He

33:26

doesn't let this backing off

33:28

and falling down, distract from the

33:30

purpose. He actually presses them again. Again,

33:32

Jesus is in charge. In

33:34

verse seven, then he asks them again, who are you

33:36

seeking? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus

33:39

answered, I have told you that I am he. Come on,

33:41

guys, get with the program, right? I've already told you who I

33:43

am. The last time I said it, you went backwards and

33:45

fell down. Can you please just stand your feet and do your

33:47

job? I'm adding a little bit

33:49

there because, you know, it seems like that's

33:51

something he might think. And then he says,

33:53

therefore, if you seek me, let these go

33:55

their way. I'm not sure

33:57

if you're familiar with Roman soldiers or

33:59

not, but they typically don't take orders from

34:01

people. They're arresting very well. Jesus is

34:03

in complete control here saying, yeah, that's me.

34:05

Let these guys go. I

34:08

think we lose some of that in

34:10

the translations. We don't understand that Jesus is

34:12

in such control. I didn't even put

34:14

this in here, but Peter is kind of

34:16

a ready fire aim kind of guy

34:18

based on scripture. He's got foot and mouth

34:20

diseases. Chuck Missler says he always opens

34:22

his mouth and puts his foot in it

34:24

and He struck one of the servant's

34:26

ears and cut it off, and had not

34:28

Jesus healed that guy's ear, that was

34:30

probably going to be a death sentence for

34:32

Peter. Jesus completely in charge of the

34:34

entire situation. Crowd's not in charge. Jesus

34:38

is orchestrating the entire thing.

34:41

Next up in our story, Jesus is taken to

34:43

the house of Caiaphas, the high priest, where

34:46

the chief priests and the elders are assembled.

34:48

And remember, it's nighttime again, and that's illegal according

34:50

to their own rules. Jesus stays

34:52

silent as many false witnesses are brought

34:54

before him and the leaders accuse him

34:56

and that's one of the prophecies about

34:58

Jesus I believe in the Psalms and

35:00

Isaiah those two parts have a lot

35:02

of really interesting pieces of the story

35:04

that you can find that just basically

35:07

describe the crucifixion or describe some of

35:09

the time periods leading up to it.

35:11

But finding none of these witnesses to

35:13

come that could even convince the leaders,

35:15

they finally had to get to two

35:17

false witnesses that accused Jesus of saying

35:19

that he could destroy the actual temple,

35:21

the building of God and rebuild it

35:23

in three days. We now

35:25

know he was talking about the temple of his body

35:28

and come back to life in three days, but

35:30

they didn't know that at the time. And

35:32

after this point, the high priest arose and

35:34

he asked Jesus to answer to the charges and

35:36

Jesus said nothing. But then something

35:38

weird happens he and we miss this because

35:40

this is a legal matter that actually

35:42

happens and Jesus is actually required by law

35:44

to respond and this is when he

35:46

does finally respond in Matthew 26 62 through

35:48

66 where Jesus is put under oath

35:50

by the high priest it says Then the

35:52

high priest stood up and said to

35:54

Jesus well aren't you going to answer these

35:56

charges after all those people like I

35:58

said the false charges had been brought against

36:00

them and finally the two final people

36:02

that's this is at the conclusion of that

36:04

What do you have to say for

36:06

yourself? But Jesus remains silent and then

36:09

the High Priest said to him, I demand in

36:11

the name of the living God, tell us if

36:13

you are the Messiah, the Son of God. Okay.

36:15

He's actually putting him under oath there and Jesus

36:17

is legally now obligated to answer this question. We

36:19

don't really get that. We just see that Jesus

36:21

answered this time and he didn't answer last time.

36:23

There's a reason though. Jesus is

36:25

following the rules of his own

36:27

rig trial and they're not right.

36:29

Tell us if you are the

36:32

Messiah, the Son of God. I

36:34

hope that people pay attention to

36:36

what Jesus says next, and it's

36:38

going to lead into some very,

36:40

very strange things happening. Six

36:42

different trials, rules being broken

36:44

all over the place, pronouncements of

36:47

innocence multiple times, and still

36:49

it leads to his death. So,

36:51

picking up in verse 64, Jesus

36:53

replied, You said it,

36:55

buddy. Essentially is what he's saying

36:57

to him there. And in the future, you

37:00

will see the Son of Man seated in

37:02

the place of power at God's right hand

37:04

and coming on the clouds of heaven. So

37:06

Jesus didn't just say yes. He

37:08

said, you said it and guess what?

37:11

One day you're going to see the Son of

37:13

Man seated in the place of power at God's

37:15

right hand. He basically twisted

37:17

the knife a little bit on

37:19

the yes. Jesus Wasn't

37:21

playing around at this point. He was

37:23

making it abundantly clear. I am

37:26

the Messiah You're gonna see it one

37:28

day might not be today though The high

37:30

priest in verse 65 then tore his

37:32

clothing to show his horror and said blasphemy

37:34

Why do we need other witnesses? You've

37:36

all heard his blasphemy. What is your verdict

37:38

guilty? They shouted he deserves to die.

37:41

Okay There a number of people out there

37:43

who claim that Jesus never actually said

37:45

that he was God that he never

37:47

compared himself to God or said that he was

37:49

the Son of God. That's clearly not true. I

37:51

don't know if you hear that or if anybody's even

37:54

still saying that as much as they used to. This

37:56

puts it all to rest. He did it and he did it

37:58

at his own trial. And

38:00

this is really what they were putting him

38:02

to death for. But then the Jewish

38:04

leadership begins to break their own laws. So

38:07

let me go through a list

38:09

of the laws that they broke in

38:11

just so far in the story. And

38:14

one of those I'll just start with this

38:16

right at the end of that verse there

38:18

It says that the high priest tore his clothes

38:20

when the high priest is adjudicating a trial

38:22

like this He's supposed to have on a

38:24

serial monitor your robe and he's not supposed

38:26

to tear that so that that a that's one

38:28

breaking of the law right there Judges participating

38:30

in the rest of the arrest of the

38:32

accused that's against the law having Jesus's trial

38:34

at night That's against the law the arrest was

38:36

through an informer or a trader against the

38:39

law binding Jesus in John 18 or they

38:41

said they bound him and brought him before the

38:43

people, before he's been convicted, without

38:45

any resistance given or anticipated, that's

38:47

against the law, providing false witnesses.

38:49

That's against the law. Using self

38:51

-incrimination as the basis for an

38:54

indictment, which we just talked about,

38:56

that's against the law. Jesus'

38:58

testimony, that couldn't be the reason

39:00

for his indictment, him saying it, pronouncing

39:02

the guilty verdict on the same

39:04

day as the trial. That is

39:06

against the law. You could pronounce

39:08

an innocence. You could basically say that

39:10

this person is innocent and can go free, but supposed

39:12

to have the trial on one day, the judgment

39:15

on the next day. The judge

39:17

set Jesus up. That's also against the law, obviously,

39:19

right? This is a kangaroo court. They know

39:21

the outcome of this trial. They are just trying

39:23

to make it look as good as they

39:25

possibly can to get there. Also,

39:27

the trial took place at Caiaphas'

39:29

home instead of the council chamber.

39:32

That's against the law. The

39:34

list goes on and on and on and

39:36

on on things that were done improperly. The

39:39

Jews broke their law to try to

39:41

get somebody that they said was breaking

39:43

their law again Jewish leadership So there

39:45

were six trials that actually happened. I

39:47

don't know that I knew all this

39:49

I kind of it's hard to follow

39:51

the story Sometimes understand why we go

39:53

from one to the other and then

39:55

back to the other again But there's

39:58

the first trial before Anas and John

40:00

18 12 through 14 and then before

40:02

Caiaphas and Matthew 26 57 through 68

40:04

then before the Sanhedrin and Matthew 27

40:06

1 and 2 but Here's

40:08

a bit of a problem, and this

40:10

is another thing that I think is a

40:12

very interesting point, a rim as some

40:14

of the Jewish scholars will say, the place,

40:16

there's something deeper going on here. The

40:19

Jews don't have capital punishment authority at this time because

40:22

when the Romans come in and take over somebody, there

40:24

are certain things they don't allow them to do. One

40:26

of those things is essentially to be

40:28

able to have power over life and death.

40:31

So in 6 or 7 AD, the

40:33

ability to adjudicate capital cases was taken

40:35

away officially by the Romans. When

40:37

that happened, the priests covered their heads

40:39

in sackcloth and ashes and bemoaned, going

40:41

through the streets, saying, Woe unto us,

40:44

for the scepter has departed from Judah and

40:46

the Messiah has not come. That's in

40:48

the Babylonian Talmud chapter 4, folio 37. They

40:51

literally thought that the word of God had been broken.

40:54

And the word of God that they thought

40:56

had been broken was Genesis 49 -10. Deceptor

40:58

shall not depart from Judah,

41:00

nor the lawgiver from between his

41:02

feet until Shiloh comes." For

41:04

them, that was Shiloh, read Shiloh

41:06

as Messiah, and Deceptor read

41:08

that power. It's kind of a symbol of authority.

41:12

For them, that was broken at that point.

41:14

So it's not us saying this is something

41:16

that they would have thought. This is something

41:18

that we have in the Babylonian Talmud. We

41:20

have a record of them thinking that. But

41:22

little did they know that there was

41:24

a young boy growing up in Galilee.

41:27

that was that Messiah. So

41:29

let's go to the next part because this is

41:31

where they have to get the authority to put

41:33

Jesus to death or really have somebody carry it

41:35

out for them. So you have

41:38

Roman trials and first one being before

41:40

Pilate John 18 28 through 38. And

41:42

then before Herod, because there seems to be a little

41:44

bit of a thing where Pilate realizes he might

41:46

be able to push this trial off on somebody else. So

41:49

he sends Jesus over to Herod in

41:51

Luke 23, 6 through 12. You get

41:53

a little bit more of that story.

41:55

And then back before Pilate in John

41:57

18, 39 through 19, 16. It's

41:59

really interesting too to hear about

42:01

the trials before Pilate because Pilate

42:03

comes out and announces in John

42:05

18, 38 that Jesus is innocent.

42:09

He says, ah, this guy hasn't

42:11

done anything wrong. What are you guys doing? And

42:13

then the crowd insists, so Jesus goes

42:15

in and has him flogged. Okay, I've put

42:17

some punishment on him. You guys get

42:19

out of here, like take Jesus. But

42:22

they insisted that Jesus be put

42:24

to death and instead of taking

42:26

Jesus being released to them, they called

42:28

for a convicted murderer, Barabbas, to

42:30

be released to them. Now, Probably

42:33

heard about that before because that's

42:35

part of the story That is

42:37

very familiar to many many Christians

42:39

and we talk about it every

42:41

Easter that Barabbas was released Barabbas

42:43

is us He's guilty. We're guilty

42:45

of sin right for all have

42:47

fallen short of the glory of

42:49

God We've all sinned and fallen

42:51

short of the glory of God.

42:53

Okay. We're all sinners We're Barabbas,

42:55

but We're set free Because somebody

42:58

else is taking our place Jesus

43:00

Barabbas is is the He's the

43:02

quintessential us. He's the first us

43:04

there was in this story where

43:06

Jesus is going to take our

43:08

place. Again, the symbolism is

43:10

throughout the entire scripture, all the way

43:12

through, every single time. Now,

43:14

there's another really interesting thing that happens

43:16

right after this, okay, so they take him

43:18

away and then you've heard a lot

43:20

of the details of the crucifixion. I'm not

43:22

going to get into that because it's,

43:24

again, it's one of those things, it's... It's

43:26

terribly sad, especially when you pull some

43:28

of the stuff out of Isaiah and some

43:30

out of the Psalms. It's

43:32

terrible what they did. But

43:34

really what I want to focus on is some

43:36

of the highlights of why this is happening and

43:38

some of the interesting things that happen that you

43:41

might not know. Are you familiar with

43:43

what an acrostic is? An acrostic is

43:45

when you take like the first letters of

43:47

words to make a word right maybe you

43:49

can use that for a code or something like

43:51

that like you know back in sixth grade

43:53

when we're trying to call our teacher stupid and

43:55

that's not the best thing in the world

43:58

to say I got in trouble for doing it

44:00

but you can do it in a cross

44:02

stick you can write something out so that the

44:04

teacher can't see it and see that you're

44:06

being mean well when Pontius Pilate wrote the name

44:08

of Jesus this plaque to be put on

44:10

the cross where Jesus was going to be hanging

44:12

he he wrote Jesus of Nazareth the king

44:14

of the Jews And

44:17

it's funny because if you ever miss an opportunity

44:19

to see a little bit deeper into the story,

44:21

don't worry. The Jewish leadership is going to come

44:23

to your rescue because anytime they freak out, that's

44:25

a place where you need to look a little

44:27

bit deeper. They freak out and say, no, no,

44:30

no, no, no, no. Don't write Jesus of Nazareth,

44:32

the king of the Jews, only that he said

44:34

he was the king of the Jews. And

44:37

Pilate essentially says, what I

44:39

have written will always be written.

44:42

Now, whether he knew or not, whether he

44:44

was a believer or not, there's a

44:46

lot of speculation on if he became a

44:48

believer later on, mostly the Coptic church

44:50

kind of propagates that, who knows. But

44:53

anyway, his acrostic that was

44:55

spelled out on there was

44:57

Yodhe Vavhe, which is the

44:59

unpronounceable name of God. So

45:02

either he did it to dig

45:05

the Jews, right, or He

45:07

knew who Jesus really was at some

45:09

point. I think it's more likely that he

45:12

was trying to get a bit of

45:14

a dig in at the Jews and he

45:16

had some kind of an idea that

45:18

this may be more than just a regular

45:20

man and Another interesting little tidbit and

45:22

again that like the fact that the name

45:24

is Yahweh the unpronounceable name of God isn't

45:27

necessarily something you build doctrine off of

45:29

but it's a it's a key little insight

45:31

that you miss if you just read

45:33

through the scriptures and you don't do a

45:35

study where it looks at some of

45:37

these things and there are so many men

45:39

and women who throughout history have kind

45:41

of brought these little tidbits up so we're

45:43

in debt to them and so it's

45:45

our job to kind of go out and

45:47

tell people as well hey there's all

45:49

of these little details in scripture that are

45:51

really fascinating so the crucifixion also took

45:53

place as is somewhat debated on the spot

45:55

that Abraham offered up Isaac again this

45:57

was a kind of a foreshadowing of sacrificing

45:59

your son. That story of Abraham offering Isaac

46:01

doesn't make a whole lot of sense

46:03

as a story in and of itself because

46:05

you've got Abraham offering up Isaac who

46:07

is probably not a young boy, probably more

46:09

like, you know, a little bit older,

46:11

definitely somebody who wasn't like, you know, super,

46:14

super young that where he wouldn't understand what

46:16

was going on and then God providing

46:18

a sacrifice at the last minute, kind of

46:20

this test of Abraham. It makes a

46:22

lot more sense if it's Abraham offering his

46:24

son Isaac, not having to do it, but

46:26

Jesus being offered and God having to

46:28

do it, right? So basically Abraham didn't have

46:30

to, but God knew later on down

46:32

the road, his son would be offered. So

46:34

it kind of makes sense as a

46:36

pattern. But going

46:38

back to the crucifixion, Christ

46:41

uttered the words at the end of

46:43

that crucifixion, it is finished. And

46:45

it was, it was definitely

46:47

finished. The sacrifice had been made,

46:49

the perfect sacrifice. Here's

46:51

the problem, though, if the story had

46:53

ended there, we would be in huge trouble.

46:56

Here's why 1 Corinthians 15 14

46:58

and if Christ is not risen

47:00

then our preaching is empty and

47:03

your faith is also empty

47:05

Without the resurrection we are among

47:07

all men to be pitied because

47:09

we're believing in something that is

47:11

not real something that is not

47:13

true because Christ said that he

47:15

would be raised he made that

47:18

claim that's the victory over sin

47:20

and death and just to make

47:22

sure that you understand there are

47:24

a lot of different theories out

47:26

there about what happened to Jesus'

47:29

body. Is it possible that

47:31

some of his friends came and stole his

47:33

body away because they had this prophecy of him

47:35

rising in three days? They were aware of

47:37

this. They were worried about it. That's why they

47:39

wanted to make the tomb secure. So they

47:41

had Roman guards put there. The

47:43

Roman guards would have been

47:46

under penalty of death for falling

47:48

asleep on watch. They

47:50

had a big problem. There's no way anybody

47:52

got there and did anything to that body

47:54

that the Roman guards would not have been

47:56

aware of. They also sealed the tomb so

47:58

that if it had been opened it would

48:00

have been very clear that that seal had

48:02

been broken. There's a lot

48:04

of theories about what happened but none

48:06

really make any sense or deal

48:08

with some of the issues that we

48:10

would have seen had these Roman

48:12

guards just been falling asleep that night.

48:14

They would have been in big,

48:16

big trouble. So there's no real

48:18

credible evidence that anything other than the resurrection

48:20

actually did happen. based on the stories that

48:22

we have. And also the

48:24

type of death is an interesting thing that

48:27

Scripture tells us in the Old Testament. The

48:30

type of death that Jesus would die, you

48:32

know, 100 years, 200 years, or

48:35

sorry, hundreds of years prior to when

48:37

it actually happened. It was

48:39

described in Isaiah 53 .5, that

48:42

he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for

48:44

our sins. He was beaten so we could

48:46

be whole. He was whipped so we could

48:48

be healed. Isaiah

48:50

52 -14 also says, but many were

48:52

amazed when they saw him. His

48:54

face was so disfigured, he seemed

48:56

hardly human. And from his appearance,

48:58

one would scarcely know he was

49:00

a man. These are all kind

49:02

of well -accepted descriptions in the

49:04

Old Testament of the crucifixion and

49:06

the impact that it would have

49:08

had on Jesus' form. And it's

49:10

a heartbreaking, graphic depiction of the

49:12

suffering that Jesus went through, that

49:14

he wasn't even recognizable as a

49:16

man. And it helps us

49:19

to understand why certain people had problems.

49:21

I believe Mary in the garden didn't really

49:23

recognize if it was Jesus or not. When

49:26

she was talking with him and on the

49:28

road to Emmaus, a couple of his

49:30

followers walked with him for a while and

49:32

got a Bible study essentially on their way

49:34

down and didn't recognize it was him until the

49:36

breaking of the bread. And there's, you know, some

49:39

kind of conjecture that when he broke the bread,

49:41

you saw the piercings in his wrist and they

49:43

knew who it was immediately and then Jesus was

49:45

gone. But the disfigurement

49:47

that he suffered from having his

49:49

beard ripped out and being beaten

49:51

having the crown of thorns was

49:53

so bad that even his close

49:55

friends that had been with him

49:57

frequently didn't recognize him and that's

49:59

all contained in Isaiah Another interesting

50:01

point is that Jesus fulfilled prophecy

50:03

from the Old Testament about the

50:05

Messiah and I know we all

50:07

know that But there's some debate

50:09

about how many And it doesn't

50:11

really come down to did he

50:13

fulfill every prophecy according to Christians

50:15

in the Old Testament about the

50:17

Messiah. It's more about, well, what's

50:19

prophecy and what's not. So

50:22

Jesus fulfilled at least 300 prophecies from

50:24

the Old Testament about the Messiah and

50:26

when he would come and how he

50:28

would come and what he would do.

50:30

And there as many as 574 if

50:32

you count certain other things as prophecy

50:34

as well that he fulfilled. Basically

50:37

leaving very little room for anybody

50:39

to have another opinion about him

50:41

other than he is indeed the

50:43

Messiah So just a couple of

50:45

quick final points. I

50:48

Don't know that you necessarily are going to

50:50

have to worry too much about this, but

50:52

it's interesting in case you come across this

50:54

was the Was it really today Friday? That

50:56

he was crucified or was it some

50:59

other day? Ultimately, it's like to me

51:01

celebrating a birthday We celebrate

51:03

Jesus' birthday on December 25th here in the

51:05

United States. Was he born on December

51:07

25th? Almost certainly not. Just based

51:09

on the sequence of events, it was most

51:11

likely sometime in the late fall. But it

51:13

doesn't really matter. We're celebrating the birthday we're

51:15

choosing to commemorate that. It's not terribly important

51:17

which day we're talking about, but there is

51:19

some evidence that is pretty compelling that the

51:21

crucifixion didn't happen on a Friday. Here's

51:24

three things. One, Jesus specified that

51:26

there would be three days and three

51:28

nights between the crucifixion and the

51:30

resurrection in Matthew 1240. Jesus traveled to

51:32

or from Jericho to Bethany six

51:34

days before Passover in John 12 one

51:36

and that required more than a

51:39

Sabbath stays journey if the Passover was

51:41

on a Friday Kind of hard

51:43

to do that There were

51:45

also two Sabbaths between Passover and Sunday

51:47

morning according to Matthew 28 one the

51:49

feast of unleavened bread one of the

51:51

seven high Sabbaths of each year and

51:53

given these problems It doesn't really look

51:55

like Friday is the correct day of

51:57

the week though really doesn't change anything

51:59

for us as Christians But I just

52:02

wanted you to be aware that if

52:04

you dig into scripture You can answer

52:06

some of these questions You can get

52:08

a little bit more insight and see

52:10

that there might be some evidence that

52:12

kind of helps line this out a

52:14

little bit more for you. And as

52:16

I said when I started talking about

52:18

the Good Friday episode, talking about Easter,

52:20

talking about some of these things that

52:22

are in Scripture, my goal is

52:25

to give you just enough tidbits of

52:27

information that make you go and do

52:29

further research, that make you open your

52:31

Bible, that make you sit down and

52:33

pray to God, Lord, guide my reading.

52:35

Let this not just be something that

52:37

I read, a story that I put

52:39

into my mind, but let it be

52:41

something that impacts my heart. Let

52:43

the words that are on

52:45

this page, this playbook that

52:47

you've given, swatting away the

52:49

microphone, let the words on

52:52

this page be life to

52:54

me. That's a

52:56

different thing than just getting through a reading

52:58

because that's what it's supposed to do for

53:00

us. It is supposed to be life for

53:02

us. So my question to you is what

53:04

are you going to do with it? Don't

53:07

build doctrine off of all

53:09

these interesting sometimes really

53:11

interesting, sometimes maybe a little less interesting points,

53:13

but let it be a sign of where you

53:15

need to dig. Let it be something that

53:18

makes you say, gosh, there's so much more going

53:20

on here than I ever imagined. Let it

53:22

be something that makes you think, my goodness, I

53:24

need to under, if I'm missing this, if

53:26

I didn't know about the hemorrhoid judgment, which again,

53:28

maybe that's funny to you, maybe not. Maybe

53:30

you've had hemorrhoids and you're like, oh, that's really

53:32

mean. I don't know. There could have been

53:34

a lot worse things happen for stealing the Ark

53:36

of the Covenant, okay? I'm just

53:39

saying that God chose to do

53:41

something interesting there. Why did he

53:43

have people be cleansed of leprosy

53:45

by going and dipping themselves seven times?

53:47

Why did he have the army

53:49

march around Jericho seven times silently or

53:51

six times silently and on seventh

53:53

time making a loud noise and different

53:55

number of times? Why did he do

53:57

all of these things? Because God

53:59

isn't doing anything by chance. He's not

54:01

doing anything haphazardly. It's all part of

54:03

a plan and it is a

54:05

plan designed through every single

54:07

word and story to point

54:09

us to Jesus Christ. The

54:12

question is how? Why

54:14

is he doing it? Dig into

54:16

it. Grab whoever's study you

54:18

can and start putting the

54:20

pieces together because I guarantee

54:22

you, friends, when you go

54:24

on that journey, when you

54:26

start looking at the Bible

54:28

as more than just a

54:31

story, it changes your life.

54:33

You become amazed at the

54:35

God that we serve. You

54:37

become absolutely 100 % in

54:39

love with a God that

54:41

would sacrifice His own Son

54:43

to make sure that you

54:46

had the opportunity, not that

54:48

you had to do it, but that

54:50

you at least had a chance. That's

54:52

what Jesus did for us. He

54:54

sacrificed Himself for us. And that's

54:56

why as Christians we can say,

54:58

Happy Easter. He is risen. Gerald

55:06

apologizes apologetics. It

55:08

doesn't mean that! They

55:14

make up 56 %

55:16

of the world's population,

55:18

80 % of global GDP,

55:21

yet they occupy only 1 %

55:23

of the Earth's surface. This

55:26

is the story of our world

55:28

cities, the globalist leaders that control

55:30

them, their insidious plans, and how

55:32

they've even rigged the game to

55:34

skirt democracy, our republic, and really

55:36

America itself. If

55:39

the 20th century was about the United

55:41

Nations, the 21st should be about United Cities. The

55:44

network of cities, I think, needs

55:46

to be a counterpoint to dysfunctional

55:48

national politics. What

55:50

they have failed to do

55:52

at the national level They're repackaging

55:54

and planning for the city

55:56

level. Are

56:02

these people crazy or like

56:04

what's driving this narrative? I don't

56:06

accept the premise that one

56:08

community is a problem. There's

56:17

no reality. I gave you a

56:19

real answer. Now

56:22

we have the irrefutable proof that

56:24

these mayors and city leaders

56:26

around the world are pushing these

56:28

agendas. So what is the

56:30

actual goal? It's

56:32

control The future

56:34

does not

56:37

belong to globalists

56:39

the future

56:42

belongs to patriots

56:45

There is nothing about EI

56:47

that's going to preclude anybody.

56:49

This is a new way

56:52

of doing politics, and I

56:54

think it is an antidote

56:56

for the turbulence and the

56:58

division. Those on the left

57:00

in positions of power, they

57:02

view you as nothing more

57:05

than an economic unit. Who

57:07

you are, your culture, your

57:09

nation's history, your values, what

57:12

makes you A

57:15

citizen of your

57:17

country could not

57:19

interest them less.

57:22

They know better than

57:24

you what you need. They

57:27

know better than you when you

57:29

need it. They know better than

57:31

you why you need it. They

57:34

just know better

57:36

than you. You

57:39

and all that makes

57:41

you you. Who

57:43

cares? But

58:00

it's the last thing that went through And

58:02

it's the last time I've seen it But

58:04

it's just for today