Latest / INSIGHT FOR LIVING: Biblical Wisdom For Everyday Living / Those Final, Dreadful Hours Msg 1821 - Pastor Chuck Swindoll Insight for Living

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Those Final, Dreadful Hours Msg 1821 - Pastor Chuck Swindoll Insight for Living · INSIGHT FOR LIVING: Biblical Wisdom For Everyday Living

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Speaker 1: There are some passages of scripture that we feel we
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Speaker 1: can simply sit before in awe let the wonder in.
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Speaker 1: We've come to one of those today in Matthew twenty seven,
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Speaker 1: twenty seven through fifty. I would like for us not
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Speaker 1: only after standing for the reading of the scriptures in
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Speaker 1: a few moments, but simply to remain standing in silence
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Speaker 1: after the reading. You'll understand why, having heard God's word read,
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Speaker 1: this represents the final dreadful hours our saviors spent on
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Speaker 1: earth before breathing his last and releasing his spirit as
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Speaker 1: he bore the ends yours and mine and those of
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Speaker 1: the whole world after the Father had turned away from him.
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Speaker 1: Truly one of the most awesome scenes ever recorded, if
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Speaker 1: not the most. So we'll observe with great interest, and
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Speaker 1: then we will show our respect in absolute silence. After
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Speaker 1: the reading. I'll be reading from the New Living Translation
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Speaker 1: Matthew twenty seven, beginning at verse twenty seven. May we
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Speaker 1: stand together. Some of the Governor's soldiers took Jesus into
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Speaker 1: their headquarters and called out the entire regiment. They stripped him,
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Speaker 1: put a scarlet robe on him. They wove feign branches
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Speaker 1: into a crown and put it on his head. They
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Speaker 1: placed a reed stick in his right hand as a scepter.
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Speaker 1: Then they knelt before him in mockery and taunted, Hail,
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Speaker 1: King of the Jews. And they spit on him, grabbed
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Speaker 1: the stick and struck him on the head with it.
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Speaker 1: And they were finally tired of mocking. They took off
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Speaker 1: the robe and put his own clothes on him again,
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Speaker 1: then led him away to be crucified. Along the way
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Speaker 1: they came across a man named Simon, who was from Syene.
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Speaker 1: The soldiers forced him to carry jesus cross, and he
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Speaker 1: went out to a place called Golgatha, which means place
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Speaker 1: of the skull. The soldiers gave him wine mixed with
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Speaker 1: bitter gall, but when he had tasted it, he refused
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Speaker 1: to drink it. After they had nailed him to the cross,
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Speaker 1: the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice. Then
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Speaker 1: they set around and kept guard as he hung there.
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Speaker 1: A sign was fastened above Jesus's head announcing the charge
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Speaker 1: against him. It read, this is Jesus, the King of
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Speaker 1: the Jews. Two revolutionaries were crucified with him, one on
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Speaker 1: his right and one on his left. The people passing
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Speaker 1: by shouted abuse, shaking their heads in mockery. Look at
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Speaker 1: you now, they yelled at him. You said you were
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Speaker 1: going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. Well, then,
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Speaker 1: if you are the son of God, save yourself and
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Speaker 1: come down from the cross. The leading priest, the teachers
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Speaker 1: of right of religious law, and the elders also mocked Jesus.
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Speaker 1: He saved others, they scoffed, But he can't save himself.
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Speaker 1: He is the king of israel is he Let him
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Speaker 1: come down from the cross right now, and we will
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Speaker 1: believe in him. He trusted God, So let God rescue
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Speaker 1: him now if he wants him, For he said, I
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Speaker 1: am the son of God. Even the revolutionaries who were
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Speaker 1: crucified with him ridiculed him in the same way. At noon,
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Speaker 1: darkness fell across the whole land until three o'clock. At
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Speaker 1: about three o'clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice,
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Speaker 1: aileen lamak samakfani, which means, my God, my God, why
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Speaker 1: have you abandoned me. Some of my standers misunderstood and
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Speaker 1: thought he was called for the prophet Elijah. One of
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Speaker 1: them ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, holding
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Speaker 1: it up to him on a reed stick so he
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Speaker 1: could drink. But the rest said, wait, let's see whether
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Speaker 1: Elijah comes to save it. Then Jesus shouted out again,
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Speaker 1: and he released his spirit. Our father, how grateful we
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Speaker 1: are for all that Christ endured on our behalf. How
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Speaker 1: grateful we are. The Calvary covers it all our sin
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Speaker 1: and despair he took on him. There, cal re covers
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Speaker 1: it all. We stand in silence and in awe of
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Speaker 1: You are God and none other, And we worship the
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Speaker 1: Savior and none other. For he who knew no sin,
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Speaker 1: was made sin on our behalf, that we might be
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Speaker 1: made the righteousness of God in him. For that reason
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Speaker 1: we come boldly to the throne in prayer. And for
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Speaker 1: that reason we give generously to the work of ministry
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Speaker 1: for your greater glory. In honor of Christ, who loved
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Speaker 1: us and gave himself for us, we pray these things
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Speaker 1: in his name. Everyone said, amen, please be seated. History
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Speaker 1: has no shortage of cruel ways to kill a person.
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Speaker 1: Sadists and sociopaths and psychopaths have occupied positions of power
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Speaker 1: since civilization began, and they have devised dozens of ways
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Speaker 1: to execute their enemies, all of them designed to bring
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Speaker 1: death as slowly and as humiliatingly and as painfully as possible.
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Speaker 1: In his memoirs, Pierre van Passen writes of an ugly
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Speaker 1: scene that reveals this as it was carried out by
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Speaker 1: the Nazi storm troopers at the beginning of World War Two.
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Speaker 1: They had seized an elderly Jewish rabbi and dragged him
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Speaker 1: into their private headquarters. At the far end of the
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Speaker 1: same room, two other Nazis were beating another Jew to death,
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Speaker 1: but those who had seized the rabbi had decided to
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Speaker 1: have some sadistic fun with him. After stripping him naked,
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Speaker 1: they commanded that he preached the sermon he had prepared
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Speaker 1: for the synagogue the coming Sabbath. The rabbi asked if
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Speaker 1: he could wear is yarmaca in doing so. The Nazis,
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Speaker 1: with a cynical grin, agreed to them. It only added
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Speaker 1: to the sick joke, And there he stood, trembling with
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Speaker 1: a raspy voice, delivering a message on what it means
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Speaker 1: to walk humbly before the Lord God, all the while
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Speaker 1: being poked and prodded by the hooting and cursing Nazis,
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Speaker 1: and at the same time while hearing the last cries
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Speaker 1: and screams of his fellow too being beaten into oblivion
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Speaker 1: at the other end of the room. Horrible scene, horrible
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Speaker 1: beyond description. As I read the sacred record of the
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Speaker 1: unfair trials and the brutal mockings and the cynical mistreatment
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Speaker 1: in the final execution of Jesus, I think of that
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Speaker 1: naked rabbi, standing humiliated and forced to preach in front
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Speaker 1: of those beastly brutes in that private place of horrors.
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Speaker 1: I do my best to imagine the pain mixed with
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Speaker 1: the brutality that our Savior received. It's all I can
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Speaker 1: do to fathom the indignity, the absolute humiliation that he
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Speaker 1: endured as he too was stripped, naked, flogged, hits in
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Speaker 1: the face, and spat on. Bernard of Clairvau comes the
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Speaker 1: closest to giving me the words I need to read
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Speaker 1: at times like that, Oh sacred head, now wounded with
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Speaker 1: grief and shame, weighed down, now scornfully surrounded with thorns
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Speaker 1: by an only crown. What language shall I borrow to
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Speaker 1: thank the dearest friend for this dying sorrow? By pity
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Speaker 1: without end? How simpul the words fall off our lips.
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Speaker 1: When we read of soldiers taking Jesus into their into
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Speaker 1: their headquarters, the word is the Greek term praetorium. I
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Speaker 1: think of it as a barracks, and there they call
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Speaker 1: the entire regiment. The Greek reads the whole band, the
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Speaker 1: new American standard, the whole cohort. It represents one tenth
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Speaker 1: of a legion. So this would be six hundred men
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Speaker 1: jammed in the barracks for that spectacle they would make
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Speaker 1: of our savior. And what a sick blast they had together.
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Speaker 1: As they scourged him. They dressed him up like a
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Speaker 1: like a silly king, putting a robe on him, putting
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Speaker 1: a scepter in his hand. He needs a crown, so
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Speaker 1: they made one of foreign's and jammed it on his head.
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Speaker 1: As the blood ran, they taunted and mocked him, heyo,
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Speaker 1: King of the Jews. And then they spit on him,
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Speaker 1: took the scepter and struck him with it, shot him
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Speaker 1: with their fists, until, as Isaiah writes his the old
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Speaker 1: king James his visage no longer appearing as a man
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Speaker 1: swollen great welts, and finally, tired of discouraging, they lead
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Speaker 1: him out to the streets toward Galga. Let's not leave
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Speaker 1: the scene too quickly. Not one of us has ever
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Speaker 1: witnessed a crucifixion, Thank god, we don't know the procedure.
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Speaker 1: We haven't even a man image except from artists who
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Speaker 1: can never do its service. How can you possibly put
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Speaker 1: on canvas words like I'm going to read? In those days,
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Speaker 1: there were two kinds of scourging or flogging, Jewish and Roman.
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Speaker 1: The Jewish method is described in Deuteronomy twenty five one
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Speaker 1: to three, where we are told that a person was
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Speaker 1: not to be beaten more than forty times. Because the
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Speaker 1: jew was afraid of breaking the law of God. He
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Speaker 1: would commonly strike the victim thirty nine times, making sure
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Speaker 1: he counted meticulously so that he didn't go beyond forty.
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Speaker 1: But in Roman scourging there was no specified number of
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Speaker 1: times that a victim could be beaten. Think of that understandably, then,
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Speaker 1: the Romans commonly called their torturous act of scourging halfway death.
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Speaker 1: Before the scourging began, the victim was stripped of all
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Speaker 1: clothing and bent forward over a low, thick stump or post.
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Speaker 1: At the base of the post were four metal rings,
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Speaker 1: the wrists and the ankles of the victim were shackled
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Speaker 1: to the rings. Jesus was stripped of his garments, bent
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Speaker 1: low over the post, with wrists and ankles shackled into
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Speaker 1: that position. The scourging was done by a man called
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Speaker 1: a lictor lcor, a professional in the grim art of torture.
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Speaker 1: The instrument used for scourging was called a flatgell, a
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Speaker 1: piece of wood fourteen to eighteen inches long, circular in shape,
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Speaker 1: not unlike our own broom handle, only shorter, to which
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Speaker 1: were attached long leather thongs. Into these leather thongs or
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Speaker 1: straps were sung bits of glass, bone, and pieces of metal.
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Speaker 1: Jim Bishop, in his work The Day Christ Died as
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Speaker 1: these details. The soldier who performed the flagellum the flagellations
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Speaker 1: moved to a position about six feet behind the victim
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Speaker 1: spread his legs. The flagellum was brought back all the
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Speaker 1: way and whistled forward, making a dull drum sound. As
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Speaker 1: the strips of leather smacked against the back of the
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Speaker 1: rib cage. The bits of bone and chain curled around
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Speaker 1: the right side of the body and raise small supcutaneous
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Speaker 1: hemorrhages on the chest. The flagellum came back again, aimed
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Speaker 1: slightly lower, and again aimed higher, and again and again
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Speaker 1: and again, crashing against the skin and flesh the flagellum.
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Speaker 1: The flagellum now moved in slow, heavy rhythm. It was
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Speaker 1: designed to reduce the naked body to strips of raw
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Speaker 1: flesh and inflamed, bleeding wounds. It was not uncommon for
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Speaker 1: a man to die on the stump. I should add
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Speaker 1: that it was not uncommon for the teeth to chatter
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Speaker 1: like a death rattle in that horrible time of panic,
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Speaker 1: and the body shook uncontrollably. That's our savior, scourged by
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Speaker 1: brutal Roman soldiers who could care less about who he was,
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Speaker 1: just another crucifixion criminal to them. When they wearied of this,
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Speaker 1: if the victim lived through it, and Jesus did, which
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Speaker 1: tells us something of his physical condition. He was in
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Speaker 1: great physical shape to endure such torture. They lead him
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Speaker 1: now along a path we read of it in verse
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Speaker 1: thirty two through thirty four. Along the way they come across,
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Speaker 1: or they came across, a man named Simon. It's a
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Speaker 1: Jewish name. He was from Sirene, so Greek settlement located
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Speaker 1: west of Alexandria in northern Africa on the coast of
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Speaker 1: the Mediterranean, had a large Jewish population. Simon being Jewish,
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Speaker 1: no doubt was reared in this prosperous trade center. Quite
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Speaker 1: likely had come to Jerusalem at the time of Passover.
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Speaker 1: He's randomly chosen, and to begin with, he's forced into
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Speaker 1: the scene which he never expected as a visitor in
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Speaker 1: the land of Israel. He's forced to carry jesus cross
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Speaker 1: verse thirty two inns, not the entire cross. No one
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Speaker 1: could carry four hundred and fifty pounds. Back then, they
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Speaker 1: carried only the cross beam, which is the horizontal piece
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Speaker 1: that weighed approximately two hundred It was heavy enough, so
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Speaker 1: heavy that part of it dragged on the ground as
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Speaker 1: it was carried on the shoulder or under the arm.
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Speaker 1: As long as the victim could carry it, so they
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Speaker 1: brought him in and he carried the cross for Jesus.
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Speaker 1: And then we read they went out to a place
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Speaker 1: called Gaulgatha, which means the place of a skull. Doesn't
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Speaker 1: mean skulls were there, it means it was the terrain
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Speaker 1: shaped like a massive skull. Gaugatha is a Hebrew word
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Speaker 1: that answers to cranion in the Greek or cavalry, which
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Speaker 1: is Latin standing for the same thing, the whole idea
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Speaker 1: of a shape of a skull. How simply Matthew records it,
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Speaker 1: and the details are left out, like I'm giving you becase,
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Speaker 1: because those in the first century are all familiar with crucifixion.
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Speaker 1: They've all witnessed it. It's the most common form of
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Speaker 1: Roman capital punishment, which they took delight in because it's
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Speaker 1: stated to everyone crime does not pay, rebel against the emperor.
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Speaker 1: That's where you wind up. It also explains why Jesus
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Speaker 1: was taken along this pathway. If you travel in Israel today,
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Speaker 1: it's called by the popular name the Viodomo Rosa. And
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Speaker 1: when you take that path, if it is a similar
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Speaker 1: path to the one he literally took in the first century,
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Speaker 1: it's narrow. There are markets on either side, sometime very
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Speaker 1: close to one another of the path narrows, so the
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Speaker 1: marketplace where people are gathered with would give public attention
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Speaker 1: to the one dragging his crossbeam. They all knew what
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Speaker 1: it meant, they all knew where he was going, they
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Speaker 1: all knew what it represented. So without a word, as
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Speaker 1: he goes through this they all see the one carrying
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Speaker 1: the crossbeam on his way to Golgatha when he gets there,
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Speaker 1: before they do the nailing. And again Matthew writes it
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Speaker 1: with such simple words. There they nailed him to a cross.
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Speaker 1: But before that, notice the soldiers gave him wine mixed
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Speaker 1: with bitter gall. It's mixture of oil with mir a
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Speaker 1: thick oil designed to stupefy the one about to be
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Speaker 1: nailed to large beams, to keep him from struggling and
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Speaker 1: screaming violently. These aren't small nails. These are what we
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Speaker 1: would call spikes. They are driven into the beam through
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Speaker 1: the palm or the base of the palm, or the wrists,
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Speaker 1: and once on the beam, through the feet that are
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Speaker 1: brought over each other, that are drawn up so the
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Speaker 1: knees protrude like explain why in a moment. From here on,
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Speaker 1: it's almost more than our imaginations can comprehend. The most
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Speaker 1: hideous and anguishing method of execution ever used. We read
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Speaker 1: verse thirty five after they nailed him to the cross,
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Speaker 1: and then Matthew goes on understand that he's nailed. While
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Speaker 1: everything is on the ground, the cross beam is attached
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Speaker 1: to the vertical beam, and then it is lifted and
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Speaker 1: the vertical beam pole is dropped in the hole as
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Speaker 1: the victim now hangs pulled by gravity. Those are the
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Speaker 1: words of various New Testaments students and scholars describing crucifixion.
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Speaker 1: William Barclay the dreadful routine. He calls it. Klausner, a
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Speaker 1: Jewish historian, the most terrible and cruel death man has
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Speaker 1: ever devised. Cicero the Roman, the most cruel and shameful
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Speaker 1: of all punishments. William Wilson of the UK, in his judicial,
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Speaker 1: literary and historical investigation of what he called Jesus execution rites.
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Speaker 1: Not only was the cross the most painful of deaths,
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Speaker 1: was also considered the most debasing the condemned, with strip
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Speaker 1: naked left exposed in his agony. The Romans even denied
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Speaker 1: bare to the victim, allowing the body to hang on
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Speaker 1: the cross until it literally disintegrated. Harvey Branscomb summarizes pain, thirst,
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Speaker 1: the torture of insects, exposure to brutal spectators, the horror
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Speaker 1: of rigid fixation, all continuing interminably combined to make it
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Speaker 1: a supreme humiliation and torture. One of my sources stated
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Speaker 1: that during the Roman era as many as thirty thousand
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Speaker 1: victims were put to death by crucifixion. What is easy
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Speaker 1: to forget is how long it took for the victim
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Speaker 1: to die, which was part of the plan. While there
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Speaker 1: were only two spikes, one for each hand and then
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Speaker 1: one for the feet, that were driven through the victim's
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Speaker 1: body onto the beam, so that he would live longer
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Speaker 1: and die more painfully over time. The late Biblical and
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Speaker 1: Hebrew scholar under whom I had the privilege of studying,
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Speaker 1: Merrile f Unger, writes in his Bible Dictionary, that there
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Speaker 1: are instances on record of persons surviving for nine days
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Speaker 1: before death came while hanging on a cross. How simple
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Speaker 1: the words appear in the text. They nailed him, and
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Speaker 1: a little later as he hung there, As he hung there,
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Speaker 1: throwing dice for his clothing, maybe they had three others
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Speaker 1: that day that would be crucified. He's just one in
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Speaker 1: a group they set around. Someone put a sign over
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Speaker 1: his head. Because those who were crucified there was a
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Speaker 1: public display of the crime. In his case, he was
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Speaker 1: crucified in the eyes of the Romans for declaring to
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Speaker 1: be the king of the Jews, a threat on the emperor.
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Speaker 1: They set around people shouting abuse, leading priests and teachers
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Speaker 1: mocking him. Even the two revolutionaries on either side mocking him,
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Speaker 1: though one later did say, remember me when you come
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Speaker 1: into your kingdom. Before I go further, may I describe
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Speaker 1: this scene? Bear with me. Some historians describe a saddle
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Speaker 1: like piece of wood on the upright pole, where the
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Speaker 1: victim could wrest the base of his pelvis and find relief.
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Speaker 1: His arms were now in a v position, and Jesus
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Speaker 1: became conscious of two unendurable circumstances. The first was the
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Speaker 1: pain in his wrists became beyond bearing, the muscle cramps
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Speaker 1: knotted his forearms and upper arms, and the pads on
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Speaker 1: his shoulders. The second was that his pectorial muscles at
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Speaker 1: his sides of his chest were momentarily paralyzed. This induced
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Speaker 1: in him an involuntary panic, for he found that while
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Speaker 1: he could draw air into his lungs, he was powerless
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Speaker 1: to exhale. To be able to keep breathing, writes Bishop,
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Speaker 1: the victim on the cross had to stay in constant motion,
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Speaker 1: so he literally dragged himself up and down, up and
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Speaker 1: down constantly, so as to make breathing possible. Eventually, he
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Speaker 1: could no longer lift himself sufficiently to continue breathing. I
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Speaker 1: interrupt for a moment to quote doctor Truman Davis in
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Speaker 1: his work The Passion of Christ from a medical point
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Speaker 1: of view. As the arms fatigue, great waves of cramps
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Speaker 1: sweep over the muscles, knotting them in deep, relentless robbing pain.
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Speaker 1: With these cramps comes the inability to push himself upward.
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Speaker 1: Hanging by his arms. The pectoral muscles are paralyzed and
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Speaker 1: the intercostal muscles are unable to act. Air can be
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Speaker 1: drawn into the lungs, but cannot be exhaled. Jesus fights
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Speaker 1: to raise himself in order to get even one short breath. Finally,
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Speaker 1: carbon dioxide builds up in the lungs and in the
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Speaker 1: blood stream, and the cramps partially subside. Spasmodically, he's able
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Speaker 1: to push himself upward to exhale and bring in life
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Speaker 1: giving oxygen. All this represents hours of limitless pain, cycles
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Speaker 1: of twisting, joint rending cramps, intermittent partial asphyxiation, searing pain
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Speaker 1: as tissue is torn from his lacerated back as he
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Speaker 1: moves up and down against the rough timber. Some suggest
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Speaker 1: that victims of crucifixion died of sussification. Others teach that
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Speaker 1: they died from hunger. Still others main they died from
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Speaker 1: sheer exhaustion, as the body eventually wore out from the
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Speaker 1: unendurable pain and the unnatural suspension of the organs and muscles,
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Speaker 1: so they crucified him. People who pass by, according to
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Speaker 1: verse thirty nine, are shouting their there's mockery, and they
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Speaker 1: are shaking their heads as they yell at him, misquoting
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Speaker 1: his words from earlier times. Even the leading priests and
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Speaker 1: teachers of religious law and elders join in the scene.
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Speaker 1: Dare I add that his own mother is watching it all,
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Speaker 1: along with a few of his closest friends, unable to
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Speaker 1: do a thing, hearing these words that taunt the one
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Speaker 1: they love as he is going through his darkest hours.
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Speaker 1: Let me add this as horrific as the pain, that
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Speaker 1: isn't the worst part. You'll read the worst part at
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Speaker 1: verse forty five down through forty six. Look in your bible.
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Speaker 1: At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o'clock.
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Speaker 1: We would call it an eclipse, but it isn't a
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Speaker 1: natural eclipse. It is a supernatural shroud of darkness over
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Speaker 1: the land. At about three o'clock in the afternoon, Jesus
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Speaker 1: literally screams with a loud voice, he lo he loi
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Speaker 1: loma Sabachthani translated, My God, My God, Why have you
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Speaker 1: abandoned me? For the first time in all of existence?
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Speaker 1: God the Father turns his back on God the Son.
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Speaker 1: Why because the lamb of God is bearing the sins
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Speaker 1: of the world. A holy God cannot in any way
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Speaker 1: relate to such a conglomeration of evil being borne by
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Speaker 1: the Son. Thus the Father's abandonment in that brief period
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Speaker 1: of time, as Jesus bore your sins, my sins, the
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Speaker 1: sins of the whole world. If you were like me,
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Speaker 1: you were reared in a church, You've heard of the cross,
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Speaker 1: the crucifixion, You've heard of the death of the Savior
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Speaker 1: all your life. But I doubt that you have ever
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Speaker 1: heard sins listed as I'm going to listen them. In
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Speaker 1: all my years of ministry and preaching, I've never done
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Speaker 1: this before. But I sat down alone in my study,
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Speaker 1: and so that I might have some sense of order
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Speaker 1: to keep myself on target, I listened as many as
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Speaker 1: I could think of, alphabetically you'll hear yours, and I
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Speaker 1: heard mine as I read the list aloud several times,
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Speaker 1: always thinking I could add more, and finally deciding it's inexhaustible.
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Speaker 1: These are the things he bore on our behalf. Listen
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Speaker 1: to your sins as I listened to mine. They're in
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Speaker 1: the list He died for our sins of abuse, adultery,
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Speaker 1: argumentative spirit, arrogance, assault, backbiting, bitterness, blasphemy, boasting, bribery, complaining, coveting, contention,
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Speaker 1: coarse joking, deceit, defrauding, denying and despising the poor, dishonoring
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Speaker 1: the aging, disrespecting parents, envy, evil motives, fornication, fraud, falsifying
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Speaker 1: tax report, giving grudgingly and even not giving at all,
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Speaker 1: the height of selfishness, gluttony, gossip, greed, hating others, holding grudges,
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Speaker 1: harsh words, hypocrisy, idolatry, spiritual indifference, immodesty, jealousy, a loose tongue,
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Speaker 1: loss of temper, lust, lying, malice, manipulation, mistreatment of children
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Speaker 1: and others who are defenseless and helpless, murderous thoughts, murderous acts, prayerlessness, prejudice, partiality, pride, racism, rage, rape,
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Speaker 1: rebelling against authority, refusing to forgive, resisting the Holy Spirit,
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Speaker 1: returning insult for insult, selfishness, being sexually inappropriate, slanderous, slothful, stealing, ingratitude,
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Speaker 1: secretly viewing pornography, violence, loving the world's system, not loving
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Speaker 1: your neighbor as yourself, not loving your spouse as you should,
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Speaker 1: being unequally yoked with partners in business. And I finally
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Speaker 1: tired of the lists, and I've hardly begun. The lamb
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Speaker 1: of God bore those sins and thousands of others in
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Speaker 1: his own body on the tree, that he might free
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Speaker 1: us from that which would otherwise conquer us and lead
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Speaker 1: us to a perishing grave. What an unattractive, unpleasant, undesirable
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Speaker 1: list of wrongs. Yet he came, and he died for
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Speaker 1: each one and thousands of others, those in your life
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Speaker 1: and those in mind. A message like this is not
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Speaker 1: easy to declare, It isn't easy to hear. I understand
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Speaker 1: the subject isn't attractive, it's altogether unattractive. The historical setting
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Speaker 1: and the biblical scene are gruesome, just to imagine, to
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Speaker 1: say nothing of reading the sins our Savior bore on
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Speaker 1: our behalf are distasteful, shameful. The price that he paid
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Speaker 1: was awful, enduring it to the point of his final
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Speaker 1: releasing his spirit, having borne the sins of the world.
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Speaker 1: But there's good news. There's good news. Had it not
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Speaker 1: been for what he did for us on that cross,
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Speaker 1: we would all perish in our sins. We would die doomed.
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Speaker 1: Our world would be a dark world without hope. And
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Speaker 1: is there any worse way to live than without hope?
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Speaker 1: And when we face our final day, our last breath,
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Speaker 1: what we would then experience huh. I cannot put into words.
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Speaker 1: Thank God for his forgiveness. Thank God that he so
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Speaker 1: loved us, He gave his one and only son to
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Speaker 1: do for us what we could never do for ourselves.
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Speaker 1: It took us thoughtless, lamb, and he was that willing
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Speaker 1: to bear the sins of the whole world, and that
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Speaker 1: he did. Therefore, all our shins are fully and completely forgiven.
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Speaker 1: Jesus paid it all all to him. I owe sin
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Speaker 1: left a crimson stain, and he washed it what white
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Speaker 1: as snow, Crimson sane, white as snow. Because of what
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Speaker 1: he did on the cross, on our behalf. There is
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Speaker 1: only one appropriate response to what he has done for
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Speaker 1: us gratitude. Thank you Lord for during the scourging that
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Speaker 1: I deserve. Thank you Lord for taking the nails that
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Speaker 1: should have been driven into my hands and feet. Thank
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Speaker 1: you Lord for paying the complete price for my sins.
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Speaker 1: Thank You Lord for dying that day that I might
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Speaker 1: live forever and ever with you. How grateful I am
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Speaker 1: for the rest of my life. We have, in rather
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Speaker 1: recent months laid to rest some people from our congregation,
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Speaker 1: loved ones we knew and appreciated and enjoyed during the
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Speaker 1: years of our friendship, and God chose, for one reason
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Speaker 1: or another, to take them to himself true death. So
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Speaker 1: we lost them on this earth, though they gained him.
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Speaker 1: To be absent from the body is to be at
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Speaker 1: home with the Lord. What a great message we were
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Speaker 1: able to proclaim as we stood before loving families and
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Speaker 1: friends who admittedly were grieving the loss on this earth,
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Speaker 1: but were living in the hope of forgiveness. Why because
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Speaker 1: He book our sins on our behalf, and he forgave
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Speaker 1: us so that we could die at peace with hope,
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Speaker 1: facing an eternal home with Him forever. How great, how
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Speaker 1: great is that? Filled with hope, filled now with the
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Speaker 1: joy and anticipation of Resurrection. I am so ready for
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Speaker 1: the passage on Resurrection. I could scream, I have not
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Speaker 1: come to the end of myself in these dark scenes
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Speaker 1: that have led up to it, and finally this would.
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Speaker 1: But it's part of the message and I can't leave
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Speaker 1: it until I speak to you who are here without
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Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. Think of where you are. You are still
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Speaker 1: under the load of that list. How do you think
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Speaker 1: you could possibly step into God's perfect, snow white heaven,
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Speaker 1: where all is pure and clean and fresh and lovely
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Speaker 1: and forgiven. If you've never come to Jesus, who took
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Speaker 1: your place on his cross, what on earth will it
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Speaker 1: take to convince you to turn to Jesus Christ. You're
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Speaker 1: surrounded by those who have you listen to one Sunday
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Speaker 1: after Sunday, life has been changed by the grace of God,
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Speaker 1: and I plead with you to be numbered among us,
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Speaker 1: to be a part of the forever family of God.
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Speaker 1: Let's make that happen. Right now. About your heads, please
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Speaker 1: close your eyes, sit very quietly. Please pray for those
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Speaker 1: sitting around you whom you do not know, some of
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Speaker 1: whom do not know Christ. Right now I speak to
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Speaker 1: you who are without Christ. God, so love you that
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Speaker 1: he gave his one and only son. He so loved you,
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Speaker 1: your sin separates you from him. He's holy, you're not.
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Speaker 1: It's perfect. You're not. He's clean. You're not. Right down
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Speaker 1: to your thoughts. God saw that even the thoughts of
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Speaker 1: men and women were wicked, even in the earliest days
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Speaker 1: of Genesis, and your thoughts are wicked. You are separated
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Speaker 1: from God by birth, by choice, by your everyday life.
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Speaker 1: But the day that can change. He's built a magnificent
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Speaker 1: bridge across the chasm between your sinfulness and His righteousness.
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Speaker 1: And that bridge is the cross of Jesus Christ. If
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Speaker 1: you will trust in Christ, simply trust in Christ, taking
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Speaker 1: him alone as your savior, you walk across that bridge,
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Speaker 1: and you will know instant forgiveness and eternal kind of life.
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Speaker 1: Do that now. If we can possibly help you in
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Speaker 1: the journey, please contact us, Please let us know how
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Speaker 1: we can help you, and if you make the decision,
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Speaker 1: we wish to help you in the journey from Earth
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Speaker 1: to Heaven. As you begin to walk the Christian way
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Speaker 1: of life, which is altogether different from the life you've known.
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Speaker 1: He who has the Son has the life, but he
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Speaker 1: who does not have the Son of God does not
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Speaker 1: have the life. Believe on the Lord Jesus. Right now
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Speaker 1: you will be saved and saved forever. In the silence
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Speaker 1: of this moment, Our Father, I pray that you will
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Speaker 1: do a work in every heart that is unprepared, not
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Speaker 1: ready to die, therefore not really ready to live. I
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Speaker 1: pray that you will break through their wills, reach deeply
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Speaker 1: into their minds, so that they see and understand clearly
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Speaker 1: that there is no hope apart from Jesus Christ. There
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Speaker 1: is one God and one mediator between God and man,
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Speaker 1: the man Christ. Jesus ends them a bet. Bring them
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Speaker 1: to faith, I pray, and then we will forever rejoice
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Speaker 1: over the rescue that you have performed. Now, Father, we
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Speaker 1: thank you for this significance of this message. Maybe never
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Speaker 1: again envision the Cross without these images coming to mind,
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Speaker 1: along with a deep sense of gratitude for all your
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Speaker 1: son has done for us. We pray this in his
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Speaker 1: matchless name and for his sake alone. As everyone said Amen.
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Speaker 2: The preceding message those Final Dreadful Hours was copyright in
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Speaker 2: twenty eighteen and twenty twenty one, and the sound recording
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Speaker 2: was copyrighted in twenty twenty one by Charles R. Swindall, Inc.
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Speaker 2: All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for
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Speaker 2: commercial use is strictly prohibited.