#John #Risen #Bible
You see what the atheist has to say, he’s got to be able to prove that it is impossible or improbable for God to have a morally sufficient reason for permitting these facts of suffering, and that’s a burden of proof which is so
Heavy that no atheist has ever been able to sustain it. [Moderator] Explain that, because the question I was going to ask you is let’s talk about this subject of faith, which is where I was going, so you jumped right where I was headed. When they say
That, okay, explain that idea that you just entered into. [Craig] Take someone’s little daughter dying of leukemia, or getting run over by an automobile. We don’t see why that happened, and we wonder why wouldn’t a sovereign God intervene to stop it? And what the atheist has to say is that it’s either
Impossible or it’s highly improbable that God could have a morally justifying reason for allowing that to occur, but there’s no way given our finitude, our limits in space and time, for being able to make that kind of a claim with any justification. God’s morally sufficient reason for allowing your daughter’s
Death might not emerge until 300 years from now, maybe in another country. Every event that occurs sends a ripple effect through history so that the consequences of any event are simply incalculable and incomprehensible for finite, local persons. So the atheist is making a claim here which is just completely unsustainable;
There’s no way for him to show that it’s improbable or impossible that God has a morally sufficient reason for allowing this evil to occur, and therefore his argument really has no intellectual credibility. It’s a purely emotional argument. [Moderator] And it’s a compelling one, isn’t it?
[Craig] Emotionally compelling, but not intellectually compelling. [Moderator] Correct, and so when somebody says in that moment, in immense pain, I don’t care what good he can bring out of this, [yes] I reject him. And we hear that a lot, [sure] C.S. Lewis drifted towards saying that in his Grief Observed, and
God, when God hears us say those kind of things, okay, his response is one of understanding. Scripture says he too has been tempted in every way, even as we were. [yes] And so God doesn’t shut us off when we
Say that. [Craig] No no, no I think that’s absolutely right. Look at the Psalms, how the psalmist expresses anger toward God, and God where are you, why are you allowing this, why am I going through this? I think the lesson of
The Psalms is come to God with your hurt and your pain and your anger and don’t try to stifle it and suppress it. Let it out and he’ll listen to you. [Moderator] He’ll listen, and if you’ll let him, if you’ll listen to him, as Christopher Hitchens
Acknowledged he gives the only consistent logically constructed plausible answer that frankly even Hitchens acknowledged; you know what? Christianity alone solves this problem. [Craig] Yeah, I remember Bertrand Russell, the great atheist philosopher, once said that no one can sit at the bedside of a dying
Child and believe in God, but when Jan and I were in Paris we met a young minister who was trained and now worked in counseling dying children. And I thought to myself: counseling dying children, what would Russell have said to those children? What could he say? Too bad?
Tough luck? That’s all the naturalist has got to say. As you say it’s theism, it’s belief in God, that provides a hope and a reason for the suffering that its redeemed, whereas in atheism we’re locked in a world that is filled with gratuitous and unredeemed suffering, and there is no hope of escape.
#Doesnt #God #Stop #Evil
SPROUL: Let’s look this morning at Mark, chapter 15 where I’ll be reading again the later portion of the text we looked at last week. I’ll be beginning at verse 33 and reading through verse 40. And I’d like to ask the congregation to stand for the reading of the Word of God.
“Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ which is translated, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’
Some of those who stood by, when they heard that, said, ‘Look, He is calling for Elijah!’ Then someone ran and filled a sponge full of sour wine, put it on a reed, and offered it to Him to drink, saying, ‘Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to take Him down.’
And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed His last. Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. So when the centurion, who stood opposite Him, saw that He cried out like this and breathed His last, he said, ‘Truly this Man was the Son of God!’
There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joses, and Salome, who also followed Him and ministered to Him when He was in Galilee, and many other women who came up with Him to Jerusalem.”
Again in your hearing this morning, you have heard that word that comes to us from God Himself. He who has ears to hear it, let them hear. Please be seated. Let us pray. Our Father and our God, there is no more important, no more unfathomable treasure for us to contemplate
Than the meaning of the cross, and so we pray that in this hour, you would lend your help to us who are Your frail creatures. Give us insight into the meaning and the significance of our Savior’s death, for we ask it in His name. Amen.
Last week we looked at the narrative of the execution of Jesus by way of my normal method of biblical exposition, but I mentioned that this week I would depart from that and focus on a theological interpretation of the meaning of the cross. Again, I mentioned last week
That anyone who was an eyewitness of that event would likely not understand what was taking place in the cosmic realm that day, and that was left for the apostles in their epistles to give to us that added revelation of the meaning and of the significance of
The death of Jesus. We remember that Paul announced that he was determined to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified, that is Paul’s focus was on the cross, and of course that statement was something of hyperbole, which is a literary form of intentional exaggeration
In order to make a point, but really it’s not too far as an exaggeration that we know Paul knew other things besides the cross; nevertheless, all that he knew and all that he taught had its convergence in that central message of what took place that day on the cross.
I remember my first year of seminary where a student in our class in preaching gave a moving and eloquent sermon on the substitutionary satisfaction view of the atonement. And in that class on preaching, it was customary when the student finished for the professor
Of homiletics to give a critique. And the idea was to be a constructive critique on the art of preaching. But that day the professor was furious, and he glared at the student, and he said, “How dare you preach the substitutionary satisfactory view of the atonement in this
Day and age.” And I heard that and I was thinking within myself, “How dare this professor question the legitimacy of preaching on the satisfaction substitutionary view of the atonement.” What is it in this day and age that makes this central understanding of the cross suddenly
No longer acceptable? And I mused on that for many years to come because when we talk about the satisfaction substitutionary view of the atonement, we’re trying to answer the question: What really happened there on the cross? And one of the questions that attends
That question is the question: Was Jesus death on the cross really necessary at all? And there have been different answers to that question throughout church history. Early on, the Pelagians taught that Jesus’ death and atonement was not necessary at all, that
God could have redeemed His people by many different ways. He simply could have waved His wand of mercy and grace and pronounced His pardon on sinners without such a grizzly method of execution. Others took an intermediate position saying that the cross was hypothetically necessary
But not absolutely necessary. It was only necessary because though God had many ways He could have done it. From all eternity He chose to do it this way and was in agreement with His Son and with the Holy Spirit to reconcile the world by way of an atoning death. And
So the atonement was not necessary “de facto.” It was not necessary “de jure,” that is legally. But it was necessary “de pacto,” that is because an agreement had been reached, a covenant had been made between the Father and the Son, and once that covenant was made, it had to be carried out.
But then the third view, which is the classic orthodox Christian view is that the atoning death of Jesus was absolutely necessary. We reach back in time to one of the greatest thinkers God ever blessed the church with, the philosopher theologian Saint Anselm of
Canterbury, whose little book, “Cur Deus Homo?,” has become a Christian classic, and that little book that is really a question is translated by the words, “Why the God Man?” And in that little book Anselm spelled out the reasons why the cross was absolutely
Necessary. And the grounds and the necessity for Christ offering payment and satisfaction for our sins was to be found in the character of God Himself. The reason why an atonement was necessary, dear friends, is because God is just, because God is righteous, and because God is holy.
But we’ve lost sight of the character of God in our age. We conceive of God some celestial grandfather, a cosmic bellhop who is on duty 24/7 to give us all of our needs. And we allow the love of God to swallow up His justice, to swallow up His righteousness, and to obscure
His holiness, and we think that not only will God forgive all of our sins without an atonement, but we believe that He must do it if He’s really going to be good and loving. And yet at the other side of that coin always stands His holy, righteous, justice that must be satisfied.
I remember the story of Abraham in the Old Testament where he got word that God was about to bring judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah, which cities clearly invited that judgment from God, and Abraham was concerned about the few innocent folks there in those cities
That might possibly be punished along with the guilty, and so he raised the question to God, “Lord, will you punish the innocent or the righteous with the guilty?” And the reply was God forbid that God would ever do such a thing. And then the statement came
Out of that narrative, “Will not the Judge of all of the earth do what is right?” To ask that question, dear friends, is to answer it because the God of heaven and earth doesn’t know how to do anything except that which is right. The God of heaven and earth has
Never done anything that is wrong. Now according to our sensibilities, there are times in the Scriptures that we object to what God does. I’ve told you before how when I was in my first year as a Christian
As a college student, and I was reading the Old Testament, that I used to pace the halls of my college dormitory long into the night, three o’clock to four o’clock in the morning because I’d never heard of this God that was being revealed to me in the Old Testament.
And all I can remember from that is thinking that wow, if I’m going to be a Christian, I’m going to have to be a Christian because God plays for keeps. If you don’t believe that, let me just direct your attention to one passage in the Old Testament, the passage
That you’ve already heard this morning. When God delivered His law to Moses, after He had rescued His people from slavery and the focus of that law was a prohibition against idolatry. And while Moses was speaking with God on the mountain, Aaron and the people
Made for themselves a golden calf and worshipped it. And the Scriptures tell us that when God saw that, He was outraged, and He demanded satisfaction for that sacrilege, for that work of idolatry. I remind you, dear friends, that that episode in the Old Testament chronicles for us the
Most successful worship service in human history. The attendance that day at the worship of the golden calf surpassed all statistics before or after in Israel. The singing was so lusty, that miles away Joshua hears the music, and he thinks he’s hearing the sound of warfare.
The church was filled to the brim, and the people loved the music as they danced around an idol that distorted the very character of God. Do you think that was the last time that happened in church history? That’s our propensity.
It’s to exchange the God of heaven and earth for an idol and fashion for ourselves a God who requires no satisfaction, who requires no payment for sin. And in a day and age when we preach that God loves all people unconditionally, who in the world needs an atonement? You do.
And I do. Because the righteousness and the justice of God must be satisfied. Now when we look at the concept of the atonement in the New Testament, it’s not monochromatic. I like to use the metaphor of a gorgeous tapestry that is woven by several strands. And I don’t
Even have time this morning to even touch on some of the strands that the New Testament uses to describe what took place on the cross. But one of the major themes in the New Testament is the theme of reconciliation, that Christ is the reconciliation for us. And one of the
Things of course that is absolutely necessary for reconciliation to take place anywhere is a previous estrangement because parties that are not estranged have no need of reconciliation. I gave a message many years ago in a university to the atheists’ club that invited me to
Speak there. And they wanted to hear my case for the existence of God, and I gave it to them. And after I was finished with that part of the message, I said, “I’m happy to deal with these intellectual issues that come up.” I said, “But you have to know where
I’m coming from. I believe that for you the issue of the existence of God is not an intellectual issue at all. It’s a moral issue. Your problem is not that you don’t know that God exists. Your problem is you hate the God whom you know does exist.”
That’s the closest I ever came to being tarred and feathered. I was lucky to get out of there with my life. They were vehement in their denials and protests, “We don’t hate God.” Well, if the Word of God is the truth of God then by nature, dear friends, we are His enemies.
We are at war with Him. We despise Him. But we don’t get angry at the golden calf. If we create a new God, then we can live in comfort with that God. But the biblical God is the
Object of our wrath to such a degree that the Scripture says, “We will not have Him in our thinking.” That’s where the estrangement is. That’s where we are at war with God. That’s where we are at enmity with God. And that enmity was mediated for us on the
Cross, so that Christ became an enemy of the Father to satisfy your hostility and your enmity toward Him. Another dimension about which the New Testament describes the cross, the atonement is the dimension of ransom. Earlier in our study of Mark’s gospel, we read where Jesus said
That He did not come into the world to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. And because of that statement and others, the church has developed what’s called the ransom theory of the atonement. In fact, there is more than one ransom theory
Of the atonement. There’s a good one and there’s a bad one. The bad one that is popular in some circles is the idea that Jesus paid a ransom to Satan, after all Satan is the prince of the power of the air. He’s the prince of this world.
He holds us captive and hostage. In a sense he has kidnapped the people of God and now demands payment or ransom for our release, and so Jesus makes a deal with the devil. He pays him what he wants to purchase our freedom from him. No, no, no, no. In that
Case the cross would not represent “Christus Victor” but “Satanas Victor,” Satan would be the winner. He would get the payment and enjoy it forever. No, there is a ransom paid, dear friends, but it’s not paid to Satan. It’s paid
To the Father. A debt has been incurred to Him that has to be paid. Now quickly, we think of the New Testament speaking that we are debtors to God, and not only are we mildly in debt but that we are hopelessly in debt, and the way in which the New Testament sets
It forth is that we are debtors who can’t possibly their debt. We have an IOU that can never be redeemed. But there’s different ways to understand that concept of debt. I’ve told you on another occasion in another concept my favorite illustration of that. I tell the story of the little boy
Who goes to the ice cream store, and he asks for an ice cream cone with two scoops of ice cream, and when the lady behind the counter hands the little boy the cone, she says, “That will be two dollars,” and the boy’s face sinks. He’s crestfallen. His lip begins
To tremble, and he said, “But my Mommy only gave me one dollar.” So what do you do if you’re watching that transaction? You know what you do. You reach your hand in your pocket, and you get out a dollar bill, and you hand it to the lady, and you say, “Here, this
Is legal tender. I’ll pay the little boy’s debt, and we all can go home happy.” And she has to accept that payment because it’s a pecuniary payment, a monetary payment of commercial debt. But that’s not the kind of debt that we’re in here. The debt that we have before God
Is not that we owe Him money that we can’t pay. It’s a moral debt. It is a moral obligation that He has imposed upon us, which we have not paid. Now we turn the story around with the little boy. Now he comes to the ice cream store and
He said, “I’d like to have an ice cream cone with two scoops, and the lady comes and hands him the ice cream cone, and she says, “That will be two dollars.” He sticks his tongue out at her, runs out the door, doesn’t pay her anything, and she’s chasing
Him, yelling, “Stop, thief.” And the little boy runs right into the arms of the patrolman who’s walking down the block. He grabs the boy by the scruff of the neck, brings him back into the shop, said, “What’s going on here?” And the lady said, “That boy
Just stole two dollars worth of ice cream.” And I’m watching that. I reach in my pocket and I take out two dollars instead of one, and I say, “Look, everybody settle down here. Here’s the two dollars. No harm. No fowl. Let the boy go.” Now does the owner
Have to accept it? Absolutely not. Because now a crime has been committed. Now a moral debt has been incurred. And a policeman can look at me and my two dollars and look at the woman in the store and say, “Do you want to press charges?” And the storekeeper
Has that option on this occasion. Now with God we have a moral debt. And even when His Son pays the debt as our Substitute, when He pays the debt vicariously, the Father does not have to accept it. The fact that
The debt is paid means that justice is satisfied. The fact that the Father accepts the payment expresses His mercy and His grace, that as the Apostle says, “He may be both just and justifier of His people.” The justice is there insofar as Christ paid what was required, and that God wasn’t playing.
As the text I read indicated, the Son of God was forsaken, completely forsaken. And as Paul uses the other metaphor later in Galatians, “He was cursed by God.” He became a curse to fulfill the law of the Old Testament because all who break the law of God, all who sin
Are exposed to the curse of God’s wrath. And you say, “But that’s not fair.” But as I mentioned last week, once Christ willingly took upon Himself your sin and my sin, God didn’t play games. He punished Him to the fullest extent of the law. Christ
Didn’t just go to the cross. When He was on the cross, He went to Hell, not after He died but while He was on the cross. He experienced the full measure of God’s wrath when the Father turned His back on the Son and cursed Him for you and for me.
Again, I’m terrified when people come to me and say, “I don’t need Jesus.” I want to grab them by the throat and say, “O foolish one, don’t you understand that there’s nothing in the universe that you need more than Jesus. Don’t you realize that at the
End of your life, you will stand before God and you will be held accountable by God. And the God before whom you stand will be holy and just and righteous. And you either stand in front of Him on your own merit—and the only thing you have to bring is demerit, friends—or
You stand covered in the righteousness of Christ. If you deny Christ, you face the curse on your own, a debtor who can’t possibly pay your debt.” Karl Barth, the late Swiss theologian with whom I disagree more often than I agree, made
A comment once many years ago that I agree with completely. He said the single most important word in the New Testament Greek is the word “huper,” which is the Greek word that is translated by three English words, “in behalf of.” And that’s how the New Testament
Describes the death of Jesus, “in behalf of” His sheep, “in behalf of” the godless, “in behalf of” God’s enemies, He paid this price and He purchased you, so that the apostle says, “You are not your own.” You see the thing that we tend to think even
As Christians is we may not own the biggest house in the community, we may not own the biggest car in the community, but one thing we own, there’s no mortgage on, is ourselves. I own me. No, you don’t. No I don’t. Paul said, “You are not your own. You don’t
Own yourself. You’ve been bought. You’ve been purchased.” Paul said, “You’ve been bought with a price.” And the price tag is the blood of Christ. Finally, my friend John Guest once preached a sermon on the blood of Jesus. He said, “If
Jesus would have come to Jerusalem and scratched His finger on a nail, would that have done it?” There’s blood. It wouldn’t have done it. It took more than a scratch. The figurative significance to the Jew of blood means life. Jesus didn’t just give His blood.
He had to give His life. He had to pour out His blood unto death, and that was the price tag. That was the ransom. That was the purchase price. And the New Testament tells us that in God’s eyes at the top of the cross was not simply
The accusation written by Pilate, but the words, “It is paid,” appear on that cross. God is satisfied, propitiation. Our sins are removed, expiation. As I told you before, every time you come down that aisle, look at that cross. You come down the center aisle
Of the church. You remember that the architectural form of this building is a cruciform. It’s built in the shape of the cross. If you look from an airplane, and you cross over Saint Andrews, you’ll see the form of a cross. The center aisle if the vertical beam of the
Cross. The transepts in which you are sitting are the crossbeams. And I said the vertical beam points to heaven in the sense that propitiation was made. The Son satisfied the Father. And in doing that on the horizontal level was expiation, our sins were removed as far as
The east is from the west. Therefore, dear friends, come let us reason together, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they be as crimson, they shall be as wool, for He bought you with His life. Let’s pray.
O Lord, if we had a thousand tongues to sing the praise of our great Redeemer, that would not be enough to express our gratitude, which gratitude carries on for us into eternity. Thank you for the cross. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
#Atonement #Mark #Sermon #R.C #Sproul
Hi I’m Israel Wayne I’m an author and Conference speaker my most recent book is called questions Jesus asks where Divinity meets Humanity it’s a followup to a previous book that I wrote with new Leaf press entitled questions God asks and this really came out of a Bible
Study that I was doing in the Old Testament initially and I noticed that there were many occasions in the Bible where God ask people questions and I thought this was rather intriguing and then I began to think about how in Jesus ministry was common for him to engage
People with probing questions in fact the very first time that we see Jesus speaking in the Bible in Luke 2 he’s 12 years old at the temple and he is asking questions of the teachers of the law Jesus often had the practice of answering questions that he was asked
With a question and this is a model that I find is really helpful for evangelism and apologetics as we engage with those who are skeptical or those who are uh critical regarding the Christian faith one of the things that I learned from writing the questions Jesus asks is how
Jesus questions tend to dig deeper than the surface they tend to go to the heart of the issue many of us have questions that we ask of God there are many questions that we have like where is God when it hurts or if God is good why is
There evil and suffering in the world but Jesus asks questions of us and these questions help us to assess our biases and assumptions and presuppositions these questions deal with a huge range of our human emotions and experiences things like suffering and pain and relationships and money and
Healing and so many other issues that are engaged in these questions that Jesus asks because these questions are contained in the Holy Scripture they have relevance not only for the people that Jesus asked 2000 years ago but they have relevance for us today one of the things that we learn from studying the
Questions that Jesus asks as we learn about him we learn about his nature and his character John 173 says this is eternal life that they may know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent this is really our primary purpose for our existence is to know God
In Jesus Christ which is one of the main reasons why I wrote questions God asks and questions Jesus asks I want to know Jesus better and you can come to know Jesus better through this intensive study of the New Testament through the questions he asks many people in our day
Are looking for Hope Jesus questions show us that even though he was fully God he was also fully man and he experienced many of the same things that we experienced so we have a high priest who can identify with us who can relate to our suffering and to our struggles
This is a great comfort to us to know that in many of the issues that we face and that we go through in our life Jesus went through those same issues and those topics that are close and near to and dear to our heart are topics that are
Explored within the questions Jesus asks I hope that you will pick up a copy of this book and maybe use it as a family read aloud for Family Worship or just for your own individual Bible study or perhaps for a small group study I think you will be encouraged you will be
Educated and you will come to know Jesus better and know how to relate better uh to others and to love and serve other people better through this study thank you God bless you
#Questions #Jesus #Asks #Divinity #Meets #Humanity
My guest has declared war on the spirit of fear that battles against you fulfilling your destiny. Tables turned. You become the devil’s greatest nightmare, next. [Applause] SR: Welcome, Holy Spirit. I surrender this platform totally to You. Have Your way. Jeremy Johnson pastors multiple churches in the LA area. Jeremy, I love the name of your church, Fearless. How did that come into being? JJ: Yeah, you know what, Sid?
I’m going to have to blame that one on my wife. She read a quote as we were coming up with the name of our church that said, “A scared world needs a fearless church,” and somehow that quote stuck out to her, from Oswald Chambers,
And that’s exactly why we’re getting a group of people to declare war on fear, and what better place to do it than the darkness of Hollywood and the darkness of LA? [Applause] SR: I agree. JJ: So the story of Fearless is my story, and that perfect love came
And found me at an early age, 17 years old. I made Jesus not only Savior but Lord. It actually happened through two of my classmates getting hit by a drunk driver, head-on car collision. Both died. I was at the funeral, and the mom of one of the kids who passed away
Knew that I was a believer and asked me to pray. And when I got up to that mic, I could have shared the gospel with my whole class, and I didn’t, Sid. I heard – SR: Why? JJ: I heard that spirit of fear yelling at me, and I just sat back down.
I said a nice little prayer, and that night one, of my best friends went out and got drunk and high and ended up taking his life at a train because he had no hope, and I remember every day in high school just that voice of fear saying, “You’ve failed.”
Every time I would drive over that tracks, it was just a hopeless time in my life at 17 years old. SR: But every time you would drive over those train tracks where your – one of your best friends got killed – JJ: Yeah. Yeah. SR: – you would be reminded.
JJ: Then about 30 days in, I heard a voice, and it was the Voice of the Lord. It was an audible voice, and I didn’t know who it was at the time, but I just knew something was calling me down those tracks, and so when I’d drive over them, 30 days later,
I got out of my car, and I walked down the tracks what was probably for miles, and I ended up, I believe, where he took his life because his mom had set up a rosary cross with his name, and I just fell at that cross, Sid.
I – It wasn’t in a church. It’s wasn’t with a pastor. It was that voice that called me down the tracks, and I remember that voice as I wept what felt like for hours because I felt like I had failed God,
This God that was my Savior but who was about to become my Lord. And He said, “I am the God of the second chance.” And, see, today I’m a pastor of a church not because I woke up one day and said, “Wow, it sounds nice to be a pastor,”
But I just that day made a choice for the rest of my life. I’m going to take my second chance, and that’s led me to win souls all over the world and to set people free from fear. SR: That – let me – [Applause]
SR: Let me ask you, what was the difference from before you heard the Voice of God and after in you? JJ: Mm. The difference in me is that I realized that God actually saw me. He cared about me, and He was okay that I was broken,
And He was okay that I didn’t have all the answers, and that perfect love is the thing that kicked fear out. See, it says in the Bible, I John 4:18, I found out since then that, “There is no fear in love.” So when love shows up, fear has to leave.
In fact, the Bible, God commands, “Fear not.” It’s a command. He commands us, “Do not be anxious for anything.” So He only commands it because fear is not just an emotion. It’s a spirit, and He kicks fear out. It’s not us that kick fear out,
Because what happens if you keep facing your fears, and you find a fear you can’t face? Your child is sick or your marriage falling apart, those are fears that are difficult to face, but when perfect love – When you follow perfect love, perfect love over your shoulder kicks fear out –
SR: I hear the words, follow perfect love. What does that mean? JJ: Perfect love isn’t a feeling. It’s a person, and His Name is Jesus. He came near, and He met me right there. SR: Many of you watching right now are saying, “I wish I heard a voice.”
Well, Jeremy needed to hear God’s voice. Each of us has different needs. Jeremy, real quickly, you speak about a man named Cardboard. What do you mean? JJ: I met Cardboard on the streets of LA before I would ever pastor in LA. When I was a college student in Bible college,
We had a traveling ministry, and we ended up at this event that a church was pulling off in Hollywood, of all places. They blocked off the streets, and they chose us to be the final drama for the night, and then I was going to give a salvation message.
Well, when I finally got up there to give the message, over 5,000 people are gathered in the streets of Hollywood. This is wild, and when I get up there, my mic doesn’t work. We did all this work, all the – And so you think it’s going to come on. You’re waiting. You’re waiting.
The sound guy is freaking out. Nothing happens. Over 30 minutes go by, 40 minutes, an hour, and as you know, people are leaving. They’re there for the hot dog, and when it’s over – SR: Of course. JJ: – they’re gone. And so I sat on the end of the stage,
And I thought God missed it. I thought God made a mistake. “God, You couldn’t get the sound on?” And no sound would come on. So I saw McDonald’s across the street, and I said, “I don’t want one of these lousy hot dogs. I want a Big Mac, large fry and a Coke.”
And so I went across the street, and when I went over there, I tripped on something that I thought was trash, but it was a person. I tripped on this guy, and he popped out of a blanket, and he said, “Hello, my name is Cardboard.” And I thought, “Well, that’s a weird name,”
And I kind of scurried out of there. I wasn’t used to LA yet, and I went and got my fry, Coke and drink, and I came out, and I for the first time heard the Lord. And He said just as clear as day,
“Give Cardboard your Big Mac, your large fry and your Coke.” SR: Oh, that’s a toughie! JJ: And I told God – I said, “Get behind me, Satan, in the Name of Jesus.” That couldn’t be from You, Lord, as these – This conviction got stronger, and I finally gave it to Cardboard.
When I did, I woke him up, and as I was walking away, I could just hear him weeping, and I turned around to see what happened, and he began to explain to me. He said, “Who told you to give this to me?” And I said, “Cardboard, you’re never going to believe me.
Jesus told me to give that to you.” And he just wept uncontrollably at – It seemed like for minutes I held him, and eventually he said, “I used to go to that church that puts on that outreach, but I lost my job. I ended up out here, and every year they come out
And tell us how much Jesus loves us.” He said, “But I don’t feel very loved by God, and know what? God is not real. And today I heard a voice, as they were setting up, ‘in the middle of the message today, climb to the top of that building
And, at the middle of the message, jump.'” So he said, “I climbed up there. I had the hot dog in my hands,” and he said, “When I got up there, I came out to the balcony, and you were about to speak.” And he said, “Right when you started to speak,
Your mic cut off. So,” he said, “I climbed back in the window because I didn’t have the instructions after that.” And he said, “I heard another voice that said, ‘Cardboard, ask Me for anything.’ And I said, ‘Okay. If this is You, God, I’m going to be under my blanket,
And I want that speaker to bring me a Big Mac, a large fry'” – SR: Oh, my goodness! JJ: – “‘and a Coke.'” [Applause] JJ: See, that day Cardboard gave his life to Jesus, but, Sid, that day I learned something, that the God that I serve, He always sees the one.
He doesn’t see crowds. I saw 5,000 people, and I thought God missed it, but God didn’t miss it. He didn’t have us cook hot dogs for the 5,000. He didn’t even have me get a sermon ready that I would preach. In fact, I would speak my message without a mic to one guy
That had forgotten his name. His real name was Samuel. So funny that he was hearing the voice of the Lord. SR: And by the way, that’s what Samuel means, hearing God’s voice. Now Jeremy’s ministry – JJ: Wow. SR: – even after this, hit a wall. He was actually ready to give up.
Many of you watching us right now, you’re ready to give up. Then God said, “Are you done yet?” God showed Jeremy something opposite all his logic and opposite all of your logic, too. Be right back. [Music] [Applause] >> We will be right back to “It’s Supernatural!” >> When you submit a prayer request at sidroth.org/pray, we print it out and place it inside of this basket. The basket is then taken to our prayer room where, every morning, each team member selects a stack of prayer requests, reads through them carefully and prays for each one individually.
So if you or someone you know needs prayer, please submit your prayer request to us at sidroth.org/pray or by calling or texting to 704-943-6503. >> We now return to “It’s Supernatural!” [Applause] SR: What did God show Jeremy that made the next time he spoke the most supernatural night of his life? Tell me about that. JJ: Sid, it was so wild. I had this passion to ignite a generation on fire for Jesus,
To know the God that I had met, and I couldn’t seem to do that. I tried everything that I could think of, and every time I would come to youth ministry as a youth pastor, the youth group would shrink. It was like I was the incredible shrinking church.
SR: You had what’s known as a membership drive. He was driving away the members. JJ: There you go. And I remember walking out, and the crowd was smaller. There were so many empty seats, and I just walked right back into my office, and I just remember beating on the wall
As if I was beating on God’s chest, saying, “God, You know my heart.” And I heard the Voice of God say, “Are you done yet? Are you done with all your ideas, all your clever sermons?” And I said, “God, I’m so done.
I didn’t sign up for this. I just want to help people.” And God said, “Okay, then let Me take over.” So He said, “Rip up your sermon. It’s not that good.” So I ripped it up, and He said, “When I –
When you go out there, I’m going to tell you what to say.” And I got the microphone, and when I got the microphone, the Lord said, “Call every sick person on the stage.” So I said, “Okay, God, these are teenagers. Not many of them are sick.”
That night over 30 kids filled the stage in wheelchairs and with sicknesses I had never seen, growths and broken legs, and God said, “Now pray for them.” And so that night, instead of a sermon I prayed for 30 kids on a stage. Sid, I can’t tell you, but it was wild.
Every kid, it’s like as I started praying, I didn’t even believe what I started. And as I started praying, one kid began to yell that, “Your hand is hot! Your hand it hot!” And I said, “God, it’s working. It’s working!” So I prayed, and one kid after another,
Kids were getting out of wheelchairs, throwing – And I’m telling you what, Sid, every kid in the room got saved that night. Every kid got filled with the Holy Spirit. It was – And I remember walking off the stage, and I heard the voice of God say, “Did you like that?”
I said, “God, I could do that with two kids. I loved that!” And so God told me, He said, “Okay, if you like that, instead of working this week, I want you to pray. So 8 hours a day, Jeremy, I want you” –
And I said, “God, I can’t. I’m a youth pastor here. I got a lot of jobs to do,” and God said – SR: A lot of work. JJ: “So you’re telling Me your church will let you go if you pray?” So I said, “Okay, God.”
So He said, “Okay, if anyone wants a meeting, have them come pray with you for an hour, and if they still need a meeting, then meet with them.” Well, guess what? No one really lasted the hour, and 8 hours a day I would pray. That next week, I came to youth service,
And that next week as I was preaching, a young man filled with a demon answered the altar call, and he was – He came to the front, and he then went to the middle of the crowd, and he started dragging a girl out of the crowd.
And I didn’t know what to do, so I just started praying, started praying the Spirit. Within seconds the kid with the demon was at my feet begging me to stop. Well, there’s one thing I didn’t do, Sid. I didn’t stop. I put my head on his head. He flipped backwards and started squirming
All over the front of the aisle, filled with the demon. I said, “Lord, what do I do?” He said, “Well, send him in the back room and have your associate cast it out.” So I was so thankful. “Thank You, Jesus.” My associate went in the back room.
He said instantly, the demon came out of the kid, and I said, “God, why did You have me do that?” He said, “Because he was trying to take over the service where I was going to set people free.” And so that night I told all the teenagers, “See? I told you, it’s real.”
Every teenager got saved again that night, and as I was walking back, God said, “Did you like that?” I said, “No, God, I didn’t like that, but I’m so glad You’re with me.” And He said, “Then pray another week.” So I said, “God, another week?” So for another week, 8 hours a day,
By the second day I noticed the lights were on in my – off on my secretary’s office, and I looked out, and she was praying, too. And then the next day, 10 teenagers showed up, and they began to pray with me, too.
By the end of the week, Sid, we had over 100 teenagers gathered in that room, crying out to Jesus. I’ll tell you what, Sid, we didn’t need flyers anymore. I didn’t need cool, catchy things anymore. We didn’t even have to have the free pizza anymore. Kids were coming to Jesus
Because they met a Jesus who sets free, who heals, who is alive and well and supernatural. [Applause] JJ: That’s when God took over our youth ministry. SR: Boy, I’ll tell you something on what you just said, especially towards the end, it was like the level of the presence of God started rising.
He’s up to something important. It’s time to silence fear. Whether you’re a student, have a secular job or a housewife or in ministry, you have an amazingly good destiny. When we return, Jeremy will teach revelation knowledge about the spirit of fear and pray for you to be fear-free, fearless. Be right back.
[Music] [Applause] >> We will be right back to “It’s Supernatural!” >> Call or go online at sidroth.org, and you can start walking in the fullness of your God-given destiny with Jeremy Johnson’s brand-new book, “Declare War on Fear: Dethrone the Spirit of Fear That Wars Against Your Destiny,” plus receive his brand-new and exclusive three-part audio CD teaching series, “Become the Devil’s Greatest Fear,”
Yours for a donation of $35. Shipping and handling is included. Ask for offer number 9898. JJ: Fear is not going to go away by leaving it alone. You must dethrone the spirit of fear. You must declare war on fear. God told me this. He said, “David didn’t just fight Goliath. He killed Goliath.”
You’re going to become a giant-killer. It’s time to stand up and get some new ammunition. >> Kick fear out of your life for good with Jeremy’s new book and exclusive audio CD series that will show you how to overcome the taunts of fear and silence the intimidation that keeps you
From having more abundance in your life; confront fear with the Heavenly power of perfect love; be delivered from the shackles of fear and instead walk in confidence and joy; be healed from wounds received in church, within families and at work and be set free from the hurt of rejection by others;
Move quickly from feelings of suffering as a victim and stand victorious; neutralize fear’s greatest weapons of anxiety, depression and worry; defeat fear, so you can move in the miraculous and fully release your destiny; dethrone the spirit of fear that has attacked you and tries to take over your life;
Make the devil run, the demons flee and make hell nervous as you live a fearless life. JJ: Fear has been the greatest battle in my life. I really believe that through my story, you will find your fearless self. I encourage you today, if you’re tired of it,
Why not make a new decision and declare war on fear yourself? >> Call or go online at sidroth.org and receive the brand-new book by Jeremy Johnson “Declare War on Fear: Dethrone the Spirit of Fear That Wars Against Your Destiny,” plus receive his brand-new and exclusive three-part audio CD teaching series
“Become the Devil’s Greatest Fear,” yours for a donation of $35. Shipping and handling is included. Ask for offer number 9898, or send your check to Sid Roth “It’s Supernatural!” P.O. Box 39222, Charlotte, North Carolina 28278. Please specify offer number 9898. >> We now return to “It’s Supernatural!” [Applause] SR: Okay, Jeremy. JJ: Yes? SR: What would you say is the devil’s greatest fear? JJ: I believe the devil’s greatest fear is a fearless you. The devil is more afraid of you than you are of fear, and really the devil is afraid
Of you finding out your identity in Christ. The Bible is very clear that, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Well, fear is just awe. It’s just worship. When we worship God, we have to worship nothing else. When we fear the Lord, we have to fear nothing else.
Here’s how I say it. Both your worry and your worship enthrone a spirit, and for far too long, I’ve enthroned the spirit of fear in my worry. But God is saying, “If you’ll declare war on fear, and you’ll become a son or daughter, and you’ll worship
Me, then you can dethrone fear and put Me back on the throne.” Sid, for a long time, I looked at the brokenness of my life and thought, “How could God see anything great in me?” I brought something on the show that I didn’t tell you about, but –
SR: No. JJ: – the Lord told me to bring a puzzle on the show. See, I believe that life is kind of like a 1,000-piece puzzle, and at first it’s clean and nice, but after a while, life has a way of dumping out on us,
And it’s a little bit here and a little bit there, and I’ve found that many times, I’m trying to go God with my piece. I don’t know if you can see that in the camera, but many times, I try to go to God with my piece,
And I say, “God, what do You see in this? How could this ever be used? God, I was cut here. I was wounded here. I was abused here. I was walked out on here, and for many years, I’ve been trying to put the puzzle together
And find greatness in it, and it causes fear, fear and anxiety and depression and worry.” And the Bible says this, if you give your life to Him, you’ll find it, but if you keep it, you’ll lose it because I’ve found that only the master of the piece
Has the ability to see the picture – SR: The whole picture. JJ: – at the end – [Applause] JJ: – while you hold the brokenness. And, Sid, I just feel like for someone out there that is watching this, and you’ve lost the top of the box.
You’ve lost sight, or maybe you’ve never even seen – SR: The picture. JJ: – the picture of what – see, God – Vision gives purpose to pain, and when God begins to show you the vision of what He has from the pieces – See, when you look at a puzzle finished,
You never are you really awed by the picture. It’s really that you’re awed by – that someone would take the time to put 1,000 pieces together, that they had the masterful eye to see wholeness in the brokenness, and that’s our God. That’s our Jesus. [Applause] JJ: Can I say something to them?
If you’re watching right now, I just felt like this was for you. This wasn’t a part of this – the moment, but I felt the Lord said, “Bring a puzzle and dump it out on Sid’s new table.” And maybe you’re watching and you feel like this,
And you don’t know how God could ever use you, and fear keeps lying and lying and lying. Well, I dare you today to declare war on fear and to pursue Jesus – [Applause] JJ: – and to say, “Jesus, I give You not just the good parts of me, but I give
You all of me. I give You the brokenness. I give You the addiction. I give You that pain when I was 5. I give You that death that I went through in my family. I give You my broken marriage,” and you watch what the master of the piece is going to do.
I just prophesy right now. I prophesy over that person that, at a young age, you went through a trauma. You went through tragedy. I see you out playing with your friends, and someone got hurt, or someone got hit by a car even, and there’s trauma that’s there.
There’s triggers that come with simple things. You purposely lock yourself away. The gifts of God in you have been stopped because of you stopping them and allowing the enemy to rule through the throne of your ear, and you speak out what he tells you.
And I just declare right now, in Jesus’ Name, over your life, I declare every stronghold broken. I declare every chain broken. I declare trauma be healed. God, even use the pain. God, use the scars, use the wounds. See, the thing I want to tell you is that my Jesus,
He does not come to make bad people good, but to make dead people live. When I met Him – [Applause] JJ: – at 17 on those railroad tracks, I didn’t go from being bad to good. I went from being dead to being alive, and God wants to give you that same life today.
If you’re there watching this, and you are riddled with fear, God wants to remove the death and the fear and the anxiety and the depression, and He wants to replace it with joy, life to the abundance, freedom, and all you have to do right there is receive that gift.
If you’re watching, if you’d pray this prayer with me – Dear Jesus. SR: Dear Jesus. JJ: Today. >> Today. JJ: Come into my life. >> Come into my life. JJ: Remove all the death. >> Remove all the death. JJ: Remove all the fear. >> Remove all the fear. JJ: Remove the shame.
>> Remove the shame. JJ: Be my Lord. >> Be my Lord. JJ: And my Savior. >> And my Savior. JJ: Here’s my life. >> Here’s my life. JJ: I hand it to You. >> I hand it to You. JJ: Use it. >> Use it. JJ: For Your Glory. >> For Your Glory.
JJ: I want to be fearless. >> I want to be fearless. JJ: Amen. SR: Amen. [Applause]
#Destroy #Fear #Satans #WORST #Nightmare
Když vidím slovo “peklo”, jaké obrazy to ve mě vyvolává? Nejčastější odpovědi asi budou oheň, kostlivce, zlý duchové, červená barva. A možná přijde i na mysl sám Satan. Když se vyobrazuje peklo, je to vždy s těmito prvkami, které popisují místo. Ale proč? Jak jsme se k tomu bodu dopracovali?
Je potřeba se vrátit k základní myšlence pekla. Koncepce pekla nebo nějakého podsvětí existoval ve většině náboženství a mytologií nejrůznějších kultur. Ale já se chci zaměřit na peklo z pohledu židovství a křesťanství. Kolem 8 století pr. Kr. Bible Židů neboli Starý zákon odkazoval na posmrtný život jako Šeol.
V překladu to znamená hrob nebo místo smrti Šeol byl popisován jako bezútěšná temná jáma kde mrtví setrvávali ve stavu tiché existence, Očekávali vzkříšení těla, kdy spravedliví budou bydlet v Boží přítomnosti a zlí budou prožívat muka I nejhlubší podsvětí je kvůli tobě rozrušeno, čeká na tvůj příchod, probudilo kvůli tobě přízraky všech vojevůdců země.
Všechny krále pronárodů přimělo vstát ze svých trůnů. Ti všichni se ozvou a řeknou tobě: „Také jsi jako my pozbyl síly? Už jsi nám podoben! Do podsvětí byla svržena tvá pýcha, hlučný zvuk tvých harf. Máš ustláno na hnilobě, přikrývku máš z červů.“ Teď jsi svržen do podsvětí, do nejhlubší jámy!
V 1 století po Kr. se v novém Zákoně popisuje Ježíš peklo jako věčný oheň “Ghenna”. “Ghenna” je existující údolí nacházející se za hradbami Jeruzaléma Králové toto údolí používali k obětování dětí. Později se stalo skládka, kde oheň neustále plál. Ježíš použil tuto známou prokletou lokalitu jako názorný obraz posledního soudu zlých
Kde bude pláč a skřípání zubů. Ghenna je konečným místem, kde tělo a duše jsou sjednoceni, aby zde na věky byli odděleny od Boha. Svádí-li tě k hříchu tvá ruka, utni ji; lépe je pro tebe, vejdeš-li do života zmrzačen, než abys šel s oběma rukama do pekla, do ohně neuhasitelného.
V mnoha variantách textu, je slovo peklo lze nahradit slovem Gehenna. V knize Zjevení se píše Moře vydalo své mrtvé, i smrt a její říše vydaly své mrtvé, a všichni byli souzeni podle svých činů. Pak smrt i její říše byly uvrženy do hořícího jezera. To je druhá smrt: hořící jezero.
Právě v těchto biblických textech nalézáme původ našich představ o pekle. Jsou plné děsivých obrazů, ale většina popisů jsou záměrně ponechána v mlze a někdy se přímo protiřečí. Nechci tím diskreditovat Písmo. Vyzývá čtenáře, aby se popral s neznámým. Je nám, řečeno, že peklo je neuhasitelný oheň,
A zároveň je úplnou temnotou, přičemž oheň dává světlo. Jak se to dá zkloubit? Zákony pekla nám nedávají smysl. Oni nemají dávat smysl. Mají být spíše odstrašující, drtit naše duše, než aby poskytli pochopení našim smrtelnému rozumu. Tyto mlhavé obrazy, které nám biblické texty dávají dávají prostor pro interpretaci.
A jsou dva umělci, které zásadně ovlivnili naše představy o peklu Dante Aleghieri a Hieronymus Bosch Bylo to na počátku 14 století, kde italský básník Dante vydal své dílo Božská komedie. Filosofie této epické básně je směs biblických prvků, nauky katolické Církve, mytologie a tradice se středověkými a islámskými kořeny.
Výsledek je báseň v první osobě, která popisuje protagonistu Dante na jeho pomyslné cestě posmrtným životem peklo, očistec a nebe. V první části díla se peklo popisuje jako jako 9 soustředěných kruhů v zemi každá postupně se menšící. A každá představující stupňující se zlo. Hříšníci jsou trestáni dle jejich činů.
Scéna vrcholí ve středu země, kde Satan je drží v otroctví. Předpeklí, chtíč, obžerství, chamtivost, hněv. kacířství, násilí, podvod a zrada John CIardi, americký básník překladatel Danteho díla Božská komedie, říká “Zákon Danteho pekla je zákon symbolické odplaty. Jsou potrestány podle toho, jak hřešili. Například v 8 kruhu kouzelníci ve smyslu věštce
Astrology a další žliprorokové kteří zneužívali své duchovní schopnosti, aby zkoumali budoucnost, mají nyní svých tělech své hlavy přetočené a jsou nuceny chodit pozpátku, a to po celou věčnost. jak jsem nakláněl hlavu ještě více, jsem viděl, že každý úžasně vypadal zkřivený mezi bradou a hrudníkem. jejich tváře se krčily směrem k jejich zadkům
A byli nuceni chodit pozpátku, protože dopředu neviděli. John Ciardi připomíná tedy ti, kteří se snažili proniknout do budoucnosti nevidí ani před sebe. Na zemi se snažili předstihnout čas a proto musí věčně kráčet pozpátku. A protože čarodějnictví je deformací Božího zákona, tak jsou těla čarodějů deformována v pekle. Na přelomu 15 a 16 století
Nizozemský malíř Hiernymus Bosch oživil peklo ve svých nádherných groteskách o pekle. Poprvé v díle Poslední soud. A později v Zahradě pozemských slastí. Tyto obrazy vznikli v době Reformace, kdy laici začali pro sebe interpretovat Slovo Boží a už nespoléhali na Církev jako prostřednici. I Bosch nalezl tuto novou nezávislost a
Opustil biblickou verzi pekla, která představovala ohnivé tresty a zatracení. Místo toho vymyslel podzemní bojiště plné děsivých surrealistických tvorů, které měli zálibu v mučení křehkých hříšníků. Bosch maloval monstra se lví hlavou ovládající meče, ptačí muže neustále zvracející kostky ženy roztrhané psy muže znásilněné démony. Výsledkem je bezútěšný portrét chaosu a utrpení neskutečného rozsahu.
Bosch ztvárňuje peklo tak děsivě, že je horší než naše nejhorší noční můry. Od počátku filmu na konci 19. století peklo bylo populárním tématem. Na jedné straně se jednalo o náboženské filmy, které představovali peklo z duchovního hlediska: filmy představující zničující izolace pekla, nekonečné temnoty, nebo prohra ďábla v Utrpení Kristovo…
Či film z roku 1911 o Dantovo Infernou. Tento film nádherně oživuje noční můru, kterou představuje Dantovo peklo. s strašidelnými obrázky a pomocí barevného tónování zdůrazňující 9 kruhů pekla vedoucí dolů až na dno, kde najdeme Satana, který pojídá Jidáše. Jiné filmy se pojali peklo z hlediska emocí.
V tomto případu se peklo stává místem sebereflexe. V konfrontaci s peklem se protagonisté zamýšlí nad svou morálkou, svými touhami a svou hříšností, za účelem změny života. V dalších filmech je peklo hrozbou, která má přijmout hlavního protagonistu dojít ke smíření a obrácení.
Jsou také filmy, ve kterých se jak hlavní protagonista, tak sám ďábel zdráhají převzít odpovědnost za vedení pekla. V tomto filmu je peklo představováno jako osobní vězení, přesahující jejich největší strachy. Tato komedie podává překvapivý pohled na peklo, jako místo, kde člověk nemůže utéct před představami svých nejhorších nočních můrách.
Peklo z perspektivy emocí se soustředí na vnitřní konflikt. Peklo z fyzické perspektivy se soustřeďuje na vnější konflikt. Bolest, utrpení, mučení, zkáza… Proto se fyzická perspektiva pekla často představuje v horror filmech nebo alespoň v scifi či fantasy filmech s prvky horroru. V těchto filmech, peklo je ohnivou hrozbou; definitivní protivník.
Naši hrdinovou mohou přitom vstupovat do pekla, kde bojují o přežití. Jako v těchto filmech. Nebo se to může týkat pekla, které vstupuje do našeho světa. Hrdinové přitom náhodou narazí na brány pekla jako v těchto filmech nebo se jedná o osobu, která je personifikací pekla v podobě Satana, padlého anděla, démona,
Který opouští peklo, aby pokoušel naše hrdiny. Například v těchto filmech. Peklo bylo vyobrazeno v desítkách filmů, ale nemyslím si, že je lepší interpretace než ve filmu “Jak přicházejí sny”. A to zejména proto, že zahrnuje všechny 3 typy muk: duchovní, duševní a fyzické. Nepřítomnost Boha, trápení kvůli oddělení od milovaných osob
A bizarní formy trestu jako tzv. moře tváří. Film “Jak přicházejí sny” je téměř moderním převyprávěním Danteho “Inferna”. Prožijeme cestou peklem s průvodcem strašlivé pekelné stoky plnými unikátními tresty Peklo je mnohotvárné Místo bolesti, nepochopitelného utrpení Místo, které představuje naše nejhorší strachy a noční můry Místo, které lze různě interpretovat a vnímat.
#Hell
Hi I’m father Jim Martin I’m a Jesuit priest and author of Jesus a pilgrimage and I’m here with 10 things to know about Jesus Jesus is always fully human and fully divine now I know you probably know that the humanity and divinity of Jesus is an article of our Catholic
Faith but it’s an important to remember that Jesus wasn’t divine at some times and human and others in other words it’s not as if Jesus puts his divine hat on one day and his human hat on the next day it’s not as if he’s human when he’s working in the carpentry workshop in
Nazareth and divine when he is performing miracles no he is fully human and fully divine at all times sometimes I like to challenge people and say that Jesus is divine when he is sawing a piece of wood and he is human when he is stilling a storm healing the sick or
Raising someone from the dead it was hard for the disciples to understand this and it’s hard for us to understand it too it’s a real mystery but it’s essential for our faith to remember that Jesus is fully human and fully divine at all times I’m father Jim Martin author of Jesus a
Pilgrimage god bless you
#Jesus #human #divine
Pop culture is filled with depictions of fallen angels, once holy beings that have succumbed to sin. But how and why did the idea of fallen angels even come about in the first place? Here’s the untold truth of fallen angels.
Fallen angels are basically angels that have given up on the good and righteous path and turned to evil, right? Well, not necessarily. It’s true that Jewish and Christian traditions believe that fallen angels were originally just as holy as any of the other angels, but fell when the most beautiful of them – Lucifer
– decided to rebel and enticed others to go with him. But in Hindu traditions, it’s a little different. They believe that the creator god, Brahma, actually made some angelic beings good and some evil from the very beginning. Why? Because it’s meant to illustrate the natural order of things, and balance in the universe.
And fallen angels don’t even exist in Islam, where traditions says that all angels are good, including the ones tasked with overseeing those whose evil souls have landed them in hell. These angels are lording over hell, yes, but they aren’t fallen, as they are still doing divine work.
There’s another explanation for Satan there, too, and it basically says he’s not an angel, he’s a jinn: a creature made from fire and free will. Put a pin in that, because there will be more about this pesky “free will” stuff later.
Historically, those who believe in fallen angels typically have believed them to be responsible for things like tempting mortals into sin. And fallen angels are tricky about it, too, sometimes masquerading as good angels as they torment and tempt. How do believers know all this?
Well, these days, most of it comes from the non-canonical Book of Enoch, which was written about 350 B.C. The text claims to be the revelations of Enoch, who was taken up to heaven and told the universe’s deepest secrets, then shown just what would happen during mankind’s ultimate judgment.
Enoch shows up in other texts as well, which claim he lived to be 365 years old, and eventually told his tales to his son, Methuselah, who lived to be an impressive 969 years old. Strangely, even though the stories of Enoch were influenced by the mythology of places
Like Babylon and, in turn, influenced Judaism and Christianity, the only place that all 100 chapters of the book survived was Ethiopia. And among those chapters was a fascinating explanation on fallen angels. One of the most widely told tales of fallen angels says it was Lucifer who rebelled against
God and brought a bunch of angels down with him, but the story told in the Book of Enoch is very, very different. It tells a story of lust. According to the Book of Enoch, long before the Great Flood, angels and humans met and mingled pretty commonly, and the inevitable happened: children.
Those sons and daughters of angels were a race of 450-foot-tall giants. The angels started teaching their giant offspring evil ways, and God not only imprisoned them, but subjected them to judgment and sent the flood to hit the reset button on his creations.
Enoch, the story says, tried to speak on behalf of the angels and their giant children, but sadly, a lot of the texts are missing. We do know that Enoch was the one God selected to act as an intermediary to the fallen angels,
Instructing him to tell them what their punishment would be for their transgressions. They were to be condemned to the ends of the earth, with an eternity of punishment to follow. Early Jewish writers considered Enoch to be a prophet, but when Christianity started to
Adopt his teachings, he largely fell out of favor with Judaism. Christian writers then took the Book of Enoch with them when they converted isolated areas of Ethiopia in the fourth and fifth centuries. Though the Book of Enoch was lost to the rest of the world, it was preserved in Ethiopia,
And was finally brought back to Europe in 1773. In the meantime, though, with the Book of Enoch to guide them, Christian scholars and writers had centuries to let their imaginations go wild, leading them to the really convoluted origin of Satan as a fallen angel. See, that’s not actually in the Bible.
But theologians turned themselves into pretzels trying to explain how Satan exists in the first place. The reasoning went like this: God created everything in the universe, and therefore, God created Satan. But the only things God creates are good things, so therefore, Satan must have been good at one point.
He also needed to have the free will to turn bad. But since he clearly wasn’t human, he must therefore have been a fallen angel. Clearly, these scholars went to the Princess Bride school of logic and reasoning. “You must have studied, and in studying you must have learned that man is mortal, so you
Would have put the poison as far from yourself as possible, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me!” Oh, and once more, there’s that free will thing. Don’t worry, it’ll come up again! According to the Book of Enoch, the first batch of fallen angels was each responsible
For teaching humanity about a specific sin. Asbeel, for example, was repsonsible for teaching humanity about sex, so thanks very much for that. Tamiel, on the other hand, taught humanity about demons and spirits. And then there’s Shernihaza, who is apparently responsible for that race of giant half-angels.
Those giants, if you remember, led to the imprisonment and punishment of the fallen, as well as the Great Flood, which was brought to cleanse Earth of their gigantic sins. Perhaps the strangest fallen angel of all, though, was Penemue, who was credited with
Giving mankind something that led to all kinds of evil: the written language. With writing came knowledge, and that, of course, is really really bad, because it might lead to…free will. The big lesson you’re apparently supposed to learn from fallen angels?
That knowledge and free will are bad and will get you killed, so the only way to remain safe is to choose ignorance and obedience. Funny how that works. Maybe the biggest diversion The Book of Enoch takes from the regular Bible is its depiction of the Garden of Eden and the fall of mankind.
Everyone knows the traditional story from the Bible: a serpent, usually associated with Satan, tempts Eve into eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (there’s that whole knowledge is bad thing again) and then, boom, goodbye, paradise!
In the Book of Enoch, though, it’s not Satan who tempts Eve, it’s a fallen angel named Gadreel. And then this jerk also went on to give humanity weapons and armor and teach us all how to kill each other. Sounds like Gadreel has a lot to answer for! Quick, describe a fallen angel!
There are probably some scowly faces, bat-like wings, maybe even some horns or cloven hooves, right? Maybe a double chin…who knows. But it wasn’t always like that. In early Christian art, fallen angels looked pretty much the same as their holier counterparts.
One of the earliest representations of the idea that there were angels and fallen angels opposing each other in an otherworldly battle is featured in an ancient mosaic in Italy. Jesus is in the middle, and on one side is an angel in red with some sheep, representing the home team.
On the other side are the bad guys, a figure thought to be Lucifer or Satan, standing with some goats. He’s wearing blue, which is the color of the damned, plus he has goats, so we know he’s the bad guy, but otherwise he doesn’t seem all that bad.
The mosaic even suggests fallen angels kept their iconic halos, which at the time were a symbol of power, not holiness. It wasn’t until the middle ages that images of fallen angels started turning more grotesque. During that time, something weird happened: Creatures from ancient Babylonian texts, called
Lilitu, began to be associated with Adam’s non-canonical first wife, Lilith. At the same time, parallels were drawn between Satan and the ancient Canaanite deity Beelzebub, and the ancient Roman half-goat, half-man god of nature, Pan. In the 14th Century, these pop culture influences led Dante to describe Satan as lording over
The depths of hell while sporting bat wings. And that in turn influenced the 17th century author John Milton to describe fallen angels in his work Paradise Lost as the sort of grody monsters we think of today. Remember those theologians who turned themselves inside out trying to explain how Satan existed?
Well, they faced the same issue with the rest of the fallen angels, and came up with some typically convoluted explanations. Until the 12th century, “pride” was the typical answer as to why fallen angels fell. But that meant God would have had to create something with a crippling, all-powerful amount
Of pride, and that didn’t fly. So scholars came up with the idea that angels had been created with a natural love that allowed them to love God, themselves, and each other. It’s the last part that scholars in the Middle Ages believe caused the fall of the angels.
After Lucifer fell because his love was a selfish love of power, the other angels who fell did so because they loved Lucifer. God was largely an absent, distant figure, after all, and Lucifer was their friend. Rather than condemning themselves to struggle for the acceptance of an unreachable father,
Perhaps they followed their brother into exile. It’s kind of heartbreaking, when you think about it, especially once you add love to free will and knowledge as things too dangerous for mortals to contemplate. According to the Mirabilia Journal, one of the most convoluted bits of theology that
Grew up around the legend of fallen angels is the way Christian writers used it to excuse and promote the persecution of the LGBTQ community. Scholars have long debated about whether fallen angels and demons are capable of love, with many believing that instead, fallen angels are consumed with lust, a desire to use others
For their own ends. Indeed, Christian writers as far back as the apostle Paul himself warned women about the danger of attracting the attention of a lusty fallen angel. But since they didn’t write anything about fallen angels having lust for members of their
Own gender, early scholars decided that meant that there was something so fundamentally wrong about the idea that even fallen angels wouldn’t do it. This kind of self-satisfied circular logic was used as an excuse for centuries of persecution, which still continues today.
Our contemporary view of fallen angels might suggest that they kind of got off easy. After all, though they might be in hell, they aren’t exactly at the mercy of the demons there, because they…kind of are those demons, right? Well, not exactly.
According to the Jewish Virtual Library, the seven archangels (those are the leaders of the good angels who stayed loyal to God) count the punishing of the fallen angels among their heavenly duties. Each one of the archangels was in charge of particular facets of the otherworldly life:
Jeremiel, for example, keeps watch over the souls in the underworld, while Michael protects Israel, Gabriel is the overseer of Paradise, and Uriel leads the host. They’re the ones with direct access to God, and they’re also in charge of punishing the fallen. Punish how?
Take Azazel, who according to some sources was the one who taught mankind how to make weapons rather than Gadreel. According to the Watkins Dictionary of Angels, Azazel was punished by Raphael, who put him in chains, threw him in a pit full of sharp rocks in the middle of the desert, and brought
The darkness down on him while he waited for his condemnation after the final judgment. That doesn’t sound so great after all. And it’s a pretty steep price to pay for expressing love and free will! Better luck next time, fallen angels. Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Grunge videos about your favorite stuff are coming soon. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don’t miss a single one.
#Untold #Truth #Fallen #Angels
How are you saints i heard about 1200 of you i said how are you saints okay because i’ve seen about 50 of y’all getting starbucks all day so i know you’re woke uh i i i say this every tgc conference that i
Have the opportunity to teach it i i need to let you know i’m from a country called black church okay you might have heard me say that before what that means is when someone is speaking or teaching it’s not a monologue it’s a conversation okay so when when i say something that moves
You in your spirit you have the right and the authority and the permission to talk back to me you can clap you can speak in the tongue just find a translator but don’t throw don’t throw no shoes though okay you can do everything else but don’t throw your shoes
Up here unless i like them throw the other one and i’m gonna take it take it back home please turn in your bibles to genesis chapter 22. say amen when you got it sorry to get verse one it says after these things god tested abraham and said to him abraham and he
Said here i am he said take your son your only son isaac whom you love and go to the land of moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which i shall tell you
So abraham rose early in the morning saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and his son isaac and he cut the wood for the burnt offering and rose and went to the place of which god had told him on the third day abraham lifted up his eyes
And saw the place from afar then abraham said to his young men stay here with the donkey i and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you and abraham took the wood of
The burnt offering and laid it on isaac his son and he took in his hand the fire and the knife so they went both of them together and isaac said to his father abraham my father and he said here i am
My son he said behold the fire and the wood but where is the lamb for a burnt offering abraham said god will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering my son so they went both of
Them together when they came to the place of which god had told him abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound isaac his son and laid him on the altar on top of the wood then
Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son but the angel of the lord called to him from heaven and said abraham abraham and he said here i am he said do not lay your hand on
The boy or do anything to him for now i know that you fear god seeing you have not withheld your son your only son from me and abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold behind him was a ram
Caught in a thicket by his thorns horns and abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son so abraham called the name of that place the lord
Will provide as it is said to this day on the mount of the lord it shall be provided let’s pray lord i thank you for this moment thank you for your word i thank you for your spirit
I thank you for your church i thank you for our feelings and our emotions and how they are so involved in the way we read your scriptures i pray that you would do whatever it is that you want to
Do with us in this moment i pray that you would help me that you would use me that you would speak in jesus name amen this narrative opens up with the words after these things god tested
Abraham i think before we even get to the nature of the test we need to know something about the one being tested we are introduced to abram his original name in genesis 12. when out of nowhere
God calls abram an idol worshiper to leave his home leave his family leave his country and then god gives abram a promise he tells them that he will make him a great nation and that all the families of the earth shall be blessed through him we also learn some about his wife’s arrive
And how she is barren they have no children which makes god’s promise a smidge complicated because if abram is going to be a nation then abram needs a child in genesis 15 god speaks to abram again
This time he expands on his original promise he made he tells abram he’s going to give him a son but not only that god gets all built now the science guy on him and tells him to head outside
Look at the stars and that the amount of stars he sees is the amount of offspring abram will have this is a big promise because remember abram ain’t got no kids sarah’s womb is bearing barren
So abraham is like god how i know that’s going to happen this is the jhp version by the way so god backs up his promise by entering into a covenant with abel a covenant is a promise made between two parties to perform certain duties one party might promise to share their resources
Their strength and protection while the other party promises their loyalty if abram were one of us hypothetically speaking and he wanted to buy a house in 2022. he would have to get a realtor get on zillow redfin whatever’s your your thing find a house hopefully his
Credit score is in order that’s a word for some of y’all know some of y’all in the 500s god is able he’s able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all we can never ask i think his lender
Would then have to give him a decent loan to purchase the house when it’s time to close on the house he would sit down with a lawyer with a realtor they would give him a big old stack of
Papers for him to sign these papers and contracts between him and the bank he’s getting the loan from the contracts have a bunch of words but the bank is basically saying hey we promise to give
You this money you promise to give us the money back if you don’t you’re going to be homeless so when you purchase a home then you are entering into a loose kind of covenant both parties
Are making a promise to do a certain thing and if one party fails to keep that promise there’s a consequence in abram’s cultural context covenants weren’t ratified by signing a bunch of contracts they were a little bit more dramatic than that what would happen is that uh they would get
Some particular animals who would be killed sliced in half laid side by side creating a path for both parties to walk through the bodies by making a covenant this way the parties were reenacting what
Would happen to them if they didn’t do what they said they would do is them saying if i don’t keep my promise to you let me be put to death like these dead animals that i just walked through to establish his covenant with abram then god has abram get a heifer
A goat a ram two birds basically the whole meat section of the grocery store and abram cuts the animals in half except the birds because that’s odd and lays them side by side usually both parties that are ratifying the covenant would walk through the animals but this time shockingly abram
Isn’t awake for the ceremony abram goes into a deep sleep similar to the one that adam went into in genesis 3 and the bible says that a great and dreadful darkness came over him but what i don’t
Want you to do is take this as a abram laying down and taking a nap taking going to bed it’s probable as some commentators say that he is made unconscious by god’s presence and as that happens god manifests himself as a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch and god
Himself walks in between the dead animals god himself all alone walks in between their bodies walks in between their blood and by doing so god is saying that he is putting his very own nature on the line so as to make sure that this covenant is maintained remember
Abram asked god to give him evidence that god was going to do what he said he would do and god responded by saying if i don’t give you what i promised you the blood will be on my hands
Now that didn’t convince abram that god was worthy to be trusted i don’t know what else god could do moving forward you might be thinking okay now god then showed up as a pot in the torch and walked
Through some heifer blood sari is definitely going to get pregnant next week but nope abram and sarah just get old and older and older making god’s promise seem that much more impossible in genesis 17 when abram is 99 and sarai is 90 god shows up again adding even more specificity to
His promise he tells abram that sarah will have a son from her own womb whose name will be isaac in genesis 18 god shows up again and tells abram now named abraham that this time next year god will
Give him a son sarai now called sarah was being a little nosy don’t know if you remember the story she heard what the lord had said and the text says that by this time the way of women had
Ceased with sarah what does that mean it means sis ain’t got no time in the month no more okay her uterine lining ain’t shedding nothing but dust she ain’t used always she ain’t had kotex in her cabinet in decades and now god is saying it’s a women’s conference i can say that
Now god is saying she’s going to give birth to a son which is absolutely crazy so sarah laughs she like god must don’t know how old i am how in the world am i going to have a whole baby
This is one of my favorite parts of the bible the lord says to abraham because sarah had laughed when god said what he has said uh god says why does sarah laugh is anything too hard for the lord to which sarah responds like she ain’t talking to god i didn’t laugh
Then god was like no but you did let’s be clear but in all seriousness i think we all need to remember the reality of god and that there is nothing too hard for him all of us have something in our life where this truth needs to be applied
It may be the salvation of a family member the restoration of a marriage deliverance from addiction the opening of a barren womb the resources to adopt the power to forgive the ability to put to death your favorite sins whatever it is god can do it
Because this is the thing god is not like anyone you have or will ever know he has no limitations he is the one that made the heavens and the earth he is the one who has all power he is completely
Sovereign always strong and never tired but unbelief will move you to construct a god in your own image and therefore you will start to believe that either god has a weakness and cannot do the impossible or that god isn’t good and therefore he won’t do the impossible for you
Which isn’t to say though everything we ask of god he is obligated to do god is god so he has the right to move however and whenever and wherever he pleases but the challenge is this to believe that god is god which means god can answer my impossible prayers
And god can give me an impossible faith to still trust him if he doesn’t is anything too hard for the lord in genesis 22 or 21 the impossible happens it says the lord visited sarah as he had said and the lord did to sarah as he had promised and sarah conceived
And bore abraham a son in his old age at the time of which god had spoken god is not a liar so by quickly walking through genesis chapter 12 to genesis 21 we are clear on three things
God has promised to make a nation out of abraham that all families of the earth will be blessed through him and that god will do this through abraham seed isaac with that in mind now when we get to genesis 22 the first two verses should be shocking it says after these things god
Tested abraham and said to him take your son your only son isaac whom you love and offer him there as a burnt offering if you’re like me the first time i read this passage i was like now god
You promised this man that all nations of the earth will be blessed through his seed isaac you don’t make covenants you don’t walk through blood and became pots and stuff and now you’re telling him to sacrifice the son he done waited decades for not only that god’s promise
To abraham hinges on isaac being alive it’s crazy but what helps us to give us some pause is the beginning of this verse and how it begins by saying that this is a test the concept of testing
Is all throughout scripture usually it’s explicit like in exodus when god said he allowed israel to be in the wilderness for 40 years to test them or in luke 4 when it says that the holy spirit led
Jesus in the wilderness to be tested god tests for two reasons usually to reveal and to refine when a test is used to reveal something what is exposed is whatever is in your heart testing reveals
What you really believe if you really have faith if there are a few idols hiding in a corner somewhere a little pride that you didn’t know you had which is such a merciful thing for god to do because i don’t know if you know this we tend to think really highly of ourselves
The natural state of the sinner as described in romans 1 is that we think we are wise when we are full so we may have a self-conception that has nothing to do with reality but also we can get
Therapy we can take enneagram tests enneagram three wing four and b as be as self-aware as possible and even then it is impossible for you to discern everything about yourself so in god’s sovereign compassion he will allow your kids to act up so you can see how impatient you are
He’ll let your money get funny so you can discern your greed or your distrust in god’s provision tests reveal but tests also refine peter said in first peter 1 6 though now for a little while if necessary you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested
Genuineness of your faith more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire imagine who you’d be if you didn’t go through anything if your faith was never challenged if life never got hard intense if you never had any angst or confusion or anxiety about what to do or where
To go and and who to trust without the refiners fire what would the quality of your life look like i can bet that it might be easier but would it be fruitful why because tests purify your faith it is only fire that refines gold and it is only trials that will refine
You and yes i know trust me no discipline seems enjoyable at the time but it will yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it circling back to genesis 22 since this narrative is fr as a test we can know that whatever god is doing with abraham it will
Reveal something to him and reveal something out of him and what greater test is there for abraham than for god to tell him to sacrifice his son the son he loves note that this is the first mention
Of the word love in the bible which is really fascinating to me that it’s set in the context of sacrifice and not self-centeredness but that’s a completely different conversation anyone one thing about this test is that if you’re familiar with abraham’s story at all
If you followed his life up until this point you know that this test actually isn’t unfamiliar do you remember when god commanded abraham in the beginning in genesis 14 what he commanded him to do he told him to leave his country leave his family leave his home and go where god wanted
Him to go abraham then is well acquainted with god telling him to sacrifice stuff that he loves since abraham was called he was repeatedly tested so even though sacrificing isaac is an extreme test god didn’t start there he has been readying abraham’s faith so as the test got more intense he
Had the stamina to endure it charles spurgeon said this he said the lord knows how to educate you up to such a point that you can endure in your years to come what you could not endure today
Just as today he may make you stand firm under a burden which ten years ago would have crushed you into dust perhaps this is the reason you don’t he read anything about abraham pushing back or asking
Questions he just he just gets up and obeys verse three abraham rose early in the morning saddled his donkey and took two of his men with him and his son isaac and they cut the wood for the burnt
Offering and arose and went to the place of which god had told him in other words abraham obeyed immediately why because he had faith the writer of hebrews says that faith is the assurance of
Things hoped for the conviction of things not seen another way to see it is that faith is an inner certainty regarding things you cannot see that engages your will leading you to act in relation to what you believe i’ll say it again because y’all taking notes faith is an inner certainty
Regarding things you cannot see that engages your will leading you to act in relation to what you believe for example you ever seen one of those team-building exercises called the trust fall it’s weird basically one person stands on a platform with their eyes clock closed and
Their arms folded looks like they’re about to die beneath them behind them are co-workers or their team standing in the line with their arms out ready to catch not the bouquet but the person the reason it’s a trust fall is that the person on the platform can’t see nobody
Can’t see the people behind them so they have to trust what they cannot see but it wouldn’t be enough for them to just say they trusted their team like yeah i trust you and stay there that’s not good enough words are easy trust is actually realized when the person chooses to fall backwards
The inner certainty gave them confidence that their team would catch them even though they couldn’t see them and that certainty engaged their will which was why they chose to fall i use this example because faith cannot be separated from behavior faith is at work in abraham because
Remember god has made him a promise and isaac is a pivotal piece of that promise is isaac dies the promise does too the irrationality of it all doesn’t seem to hinder abraham though i think any
Rational person would be like um god this test ain’t it there has to be another way tell people to steal my donkeys and burn down my tents but don’t make me sacrifice my son but the thing
Is abraham isn’t like me he doesn’t barter with god he is certain that god is going to do what he said he would do because he is god so because he believes and trusts god he behaves accordingly
It says that he woke up early in the morning cut the wood that he would sacrifice his son on and he goes to the place that god told him to go to then we finally get an idea of what’s in
Abraham’s mind in verses five and six look at it it says on the third day abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar then abraham said to his young men stay here with the donkey
I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you do you hear his faith somewhere in between god telling him to sacrifice isaac and him getting the wood he has concluded that after he has killed his son isaac is going to come back how does he know that
Who or what is he trusting to make him so certain it’s simple he believes god not merely the promise of god but the person of god because the promise is only trustworthy because the one who made the promise cannot lie so so it’s the very nature of god that abraham has
Considered and in so doing he has reckoned that because god cannot lie he is obviously going to do something to ensure that isaac ultimately doesn’t die the writer of hebrews said this by faith abraham when he was tested offered up isaac and he who had received the promises was in
The act of offering up his only son of whom it was said through isaac shall your offspring be named he considered that god was able even to raise him from the dead wait we are in genesis 22 right
Amen no yes okay so we are centuries before elijah raises a widow’s son from the dead we are we are centuries more for when jesus raised lazarus easter ain’t on abraham’s radar he don’t got a clue about pastel outfits and shiny white shoes there has yet there has yet to be an
Empty tomb for him to base his faith on so how is it then that abraham knew the very concept of resurrection was even possible i think that before abraham rose early in the morning while he thought
About what god was calling him to do and that it meant that he have to put his son to death i think i think abraham remembered his own body and how god had brought life from death before
So surely he could do it again unless you think i’m just making up stuff i want you to remind your romans 4 19 which says this he abraham did not weaken in faith when he considered his own
Body which was as good as dead or when he considered the barrenness of life or lifelessness of sarah’s womb the word dead here literally means corpse-like so then god had to resurrect their bodies in a real sense so as to give them the power to create life in the form of
Isaac abraham had the audacity to say that he and isaac would go worship and return because he remembered that god had did it before in 1953 this guy by the name of henry malaysian went in for brain surgery to treat his epilepsy during the procedure the doctor
Removed a piece of henry’s brain affected his memory especially his short-term memory and one recording a doctor doing a study this on netflix by the way i ain’t making it up a doctor doing a study on the brain in memory asked henry if he remembered what
He did yesterday henry said i don’t know the doctor asked him again what he did that morning henry said i don’t remember that either then they asked him if he knew what he’d do tomorrow to which henry responded whatever is beneficial you’d expect henry to have some kind of loose schedule
I’m gonna wake up i’m gonna get some coffee i’ma watch the news but he didn’t because henry couldn’t tell you what he would do tomorrow because he couldn’t remember what he did yesterday he answered the question the way that he did because the portion of henry’s brain that was
Removed affected henry’s ability to make new memories and since henry couldn’t remember the past he had no context for how to imagine his future without his memories henry had no expectation when abraham thought about the sacrifice that he had to make in the future
He remembered the resurrection in the past and that if god could do a miracle then then god could do a miracle now almost all of us have a hard time trusting god to do what he said
He would do in his word through his son and it might be because we have a memory problem how quickly we forget that he made the heavens and the earth that he split the sea and delivered his
People out of bondage how he brought life from a dead womb we forget how faithful he’s been to us and our family how he’s provided for us when we didn’t even ask how he’s protected us from all
Kinds of mess but when trials show up now all of a sudden is i don’t know if god is going to come through i don’t know if god is going to do this i don’t know if god is going to do that i don’t
Know if god is going to show up hasn’t god always showed up hasn’t god always been good hasn’t god always been faithful just because you change your mind every six seconds doesn’t mean that god does
He is the same god today as he was yesterday some of us don’t need to fast we need to remember and it isn’t isn’t this true that the word of god has provided for us 66 books worth
Of memories of who god is and how god works which will inform our faith so that we can obey without hesitation because abraham has faith in his god he is willing to sacrifice his only son the text says abraham took the word of the burnt offering
And laid it on his son isaac he took in his hand the fire and the knife and they went both of them together to the place that god had told him i want to be clear about something a burnt offering was a total sacrifice there were other offerings that would allow you
To sacrifice an animal and the priest could take a portion of it home to eat but a burnt offering was the one offering where the whole animal was totally consumed the process went something like this as described in leviticus 1 a male animal without blemish was taken
The offerer would lay his hand on the animal which was symbolic of the transferring of the offer ascends onto the sacrifice an act of atonement then they’d kill the animal blood would be collected and thrown on the altar then the animal would be cut into pieces and arranged on the wood
Then the animal would be burned and totally consumed and as the smoke of the animal rose towards heaven it was said to be a pleasing aroma to the lord and god told abraham to do that
To his son the son he loved if this were not a test god’s character would be questionable at best seeing that god himself said that human sacrifice was detestable in deuteronomy 12 and 18. but since it is a test sacrificing isaac or at least being willing to do it resolves god of any
Guilt and refines abraham of any potential sin this test solidifies abraham’s loyalty to god over and above love for his son it is clear that abraham has a deep affection for isaac god even acknowledges it by saying take your son your only son isaac whom you love
And this love is natural this love is good we should love our children they are good gifts from a creative god but how easy it is to take these good gifts and make them god isaac was special he was the promised child the seed through whom the whole world
Would be blessed abraham had parted ways with his son ishmael years earlier so this was the only son he had and maybe god knew abraham’s potential abraham was an idol worshiper before he was called so it wouldn’t have been out of character for him to worship something other than
God maybe god knew that the son he loved could become the lord he worshiped so to set him free from any inkling of idolatry god had to put him in a position to choose and he did he built the altar
He laid the wood he took some rope and wrapped it around his son’s body so he couldn’t move and i can only imagine the pain because it wouldn’t be a sacrifice if it didn’t hurt a sacrifice isn’t a sacrifice if it doesn’t cost you something
This body on this altar is his boy who he saw every day ate dinner with every night on the altar he probably looked at him and saw his own features in his face alongside fear but either way even with all the faith in the world sacrificing what you love is
Devastating but even then god must be worthy of it all and abraham knows that so with inner certainty engaging his will leading him to act in a way that is relative to what he believes he takes the knife
Ready to slaughter his son then he hears his name verse 11 abraham abraham and he said here i am he said do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him for now i know that you fear god seeing you have not withheld your son your only son from me
If there was any doubt who abraham’s god was this moment made it clear god had refined abraham’s heart removing any other allegiances and now he’d revealed it to for god to say i know that you fear god this anthropomorphic language god knows everything so it doesn’t
Mean that god didn’t know it it means that god is affirming that abraham’s faith is real and isn’t that what we all want the affirmation that our faith is authentic because there are those who will present themselves before jesus with a bunch of evidence for why they deserve
Glory did not prophesy in your name did not cast out demons and perform miracles on your name i think some of us in this room we would say god did not preach and expose at the passage correctly
Did not tithe didn’t i go to seminary and lead worship and go on mission trips and vote though certain ways surely that’s proof of my faith all of which looks impressive it looks like power it looks like the fruit of faith but jesus turns to these kinds of people
And calls them workers of lawlessness god forbid you have to wait till judgment to find out who you really are but the irony of it is this the very act of looking to what you’ve done for jesus
As evidence of that you know jesus might be the proof that you don’t because the truly faithful ones know that they have never done anything apart from jesus so when they stand before god they stand before him like the men and the parable of the talent saying this is what i’ve done with
What you have given me and do you know what the master will say to them he’ll say well done my good and faithful servant and that is the point of everything my friends when all the tests and all the trials and all the pain and all the angst and all the discipline
And all the suffering is over the point of it all is that the god of the glory the judge of the universe the one who cannot lie seated on the judgment say will say i know that you fear god
Verse 13 and abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his stars and abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son so abraham called the name of that place the lord will provide
This moment right here is an act of substitutionary atonement instead of isaac being sacrificed the ram is killed in his place with substitution one person takes the place of another bearing the penalty that we reserved for someone else if isaac was killed as a burnt offering a few things would have happened
He would have experienced the death and thus he would have been separated from his father he also would have experienced the desecration of his body as it burned in the fire and all of this would have happened at the hands of his father it is because
God provided the ram that saved isaac from death separation and destruction but there’s a problem with all of this sacrificing the burnt offering functioned as atonement abram and isaac were both sinners and the wages of sin is dead god’s justice had to be satisfied by virtue of blood
Being spilled a life being taken either their own life or somebody else’s life so the realm was not only sacrificed instead of isaac before isaac but even then the ram wasn’t good enough why because hebrew 10 4 says it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin
Meaning that this ram though it was a sacrifice it wasn’t a sufficient one if anything this ram was a shadow pointing forward to a better sacrifice one that would not be accomplished by jehovah
Providing a ram in a bush but by jehovah jireh providing his son in the flesh and who is this son i’ll tell you first of all the son was born to a woman by virtue of a miracle
His mother wasn’t barren but she was a virgin named mary who by all accounts should not have been able to get pregnant seeing as though she had not been with a man but because nothing is too hard for the lord she conceived by the power of the spirit the son grew up
Learned obedience through what he suffered being tested by the devil to turn stones into bread and to worship and thus love anything more than god but he resisted every single time to which god publicly affirmed that his son’s faith was real by saying that this
Is my beloved son with whom i am well pleased by then or but then the scenario for which the son habit was born came to pass the night before the son had prayed to his daddy prayed to his father
Said that he wanted this cup to pass from him he was in a position where he had to choose he had to choose either his will or his father’s will and he did this son was made to carry his own wood
On his own back as he walked toward the top of a mountain and while up there this son’s body was secured to the woods so that he couldn’t move the people said if you are the son of god
Come down the cross what they didn’t understand is if he came down they would have had to go up in his place not dying for them but receiving the penalty of death that belonged to us because
It’s easy to forget that since i was born a sinner and the wages of sin is death that if jesus did my sins i would have had to pay for my own that even if i sinned once that meant i deserve the judgment
That through this death i would be eternally separated from the life of the father that i would endure the the pain and the desecration of eternal destruction and that all of this would happen at the hands of god the father but for these people to tell jesus to come down the cross
They clearly didn’t realize that if he came down there would be no substitution and that the reason he stayed is because he loved them to death maybe they didn’t remember that day when abraham was asleep and god himself walked through a line of death walked through blood making it known
That he was going to keep his promise and do you know what on the cross god got blood on his hands god became man so that he could die so as to maintain a covenant relationship with his people
There he was god in the flesh being killed like an animal being slaughtered like the animals that he walked through becoming a lamb that he promised to be and there were no rams this time there was no voice to cry out from heaven to stop it there was only silence and then those
Three hours and the dreadful darkness of god’s presence was the only begotten son whose very own father was pleased to crush him jesus became sin so that you could be declared righteous jesus died so that you could have life jesus was bruised so you could be healed jesus rose
From the dead so that you could too that is the beauty of substitution jesus is the ram and the bush and jesus is the son who returned from the dead to worship with his daddy and now it is through this son jesus that all who have faith in his name are called
The sons and daughters of abraham and look at us a people from every tribe and every tongue and every nation a church that has lasted for centuries with millions of saints that have gone before
Us and who will come after us and if you just look into the crowd don’t we look like stars what god promised to abraham in genesis 12 has been realized in us the children of the promise is there anything too hard for the lord lord we thank you for this day we thank
You for your faithfulness we thank you for your nature and how you have revealed it through christ by the spirit in the scriptures we pray god that this would be more than words that this would be
More than knowledge that it would actually inform the way we do life the way we love people the way we engage on social media the way we engage with our families and our friends in our local churches
I pray that it even changes the way we pray that we would pray with power that we will pray with confidence knowing that we are praying to a good and a faithful god we love you in jesus name amen
#Jesus #Substitutionary #Atonement #MyNameIsJackieHill
NICHOLS: You know, you’ve heard people say—I’ve heard people say all sorts of things about who Christ is. And in our State of Theology survey, one of the statements that we put on the survey directly gets at who Jesus Christ is.
And the statement is this: “Jesus was a great teacher, but he is not God”. Now, when we put that survey to the general U.S. population, 52%—that’s the majority—agree with that statement. That’s to say that the majority of Americans espouse a heretical view of the person of Christ.
And this is a truly crucial, essential doctrine, because the person of Christ is behind the work of Christ. When we’re talking about the work of Christ, we’re talking about the gospel. And without the true gospel, people are lost, and they are without hope in this world, and they are facing eternal damnation.
There could be nothing more important than getting the doctrine of the work and person of Christ right. And as this survey shows, there’s a lot of false understanding and confusion out there about who Christ is. But what’s even more tragic about this survey is that we put that same question to evangelicals.
Now, when you hear us use that term of “evangelicals” in this survey, let me explain to you what that means. It’s not someone just simply checking a box. We actually attached at the end of the survey four questions which have historically served as sort of a grid to identify evangelicals.
There’s a question regarding biblical authority; a question regarding the necessity of evangelism; there’s a statement regarding who Christ is and His atoning death on the cross; and then, fourthly, the exclusivity of Christ, that only faith in Christ can lead to salvation.
So, people who strongly affirm all four of those, they get considered “evangelicals.” We can pull that data out separately and analyze that. And here’s the tragedy. When it comes to that statement, “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God,”
Thirty percent, three out of 10, almost a third of evangelicals agree with that statement. So here are folks who want to say, “Yes, we must have the death of Christ in order to be saved. It is absolutely necessary for this work of Christ.”
But then they turn around, and they’re just so confused that they affirm a heretical view of who Christ is. What are we to do with this? What’s the takeaway? All of this underscores the importance of our studying the doctrine of Christology and teaching the doctrine of Christology.
We just can’t assume that folks sitting in our churches and the Christians we know and our family will just “get it” by osmosis. We have to be intentional and programmatic about teaching this cardinal doctrine. Because if this survey tells us anything, it tells us that we’ve got a lot of work
To be doing.
#Jesus #Divine #Evangelicals