THE STEADFAST LOVE OF THE LORD NEVER CEASES
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning, great is Thy faithfulness.
Amen.
THANKSGIVING FOR THE WEEK GONE BY
The Lord provides for His people. He guides them in the path He set for them from before the beginning of the world.
His mercy is abundant towards those who are humble before Him because God cannot despise a contrite heart.
Give thanks to Him for the life He has granted us and the faith that He has provided for us to believe in Him for it is through this seed of faith that we can be saved.
THE EXELLENCIES AND PERFECTION OF CHRIST - 3
A perfect, infinite, eternal, sinless, righteous person suffered the death of the worst possible mortal sinner.
What could the result of such an imbalanced transaction be?
Jesus was the best possible man. His life was flawless by the measure of the strictest of law systems. He served the poor selflessly. He spent His days going about His Father's business. He healed the sick of all manner of diseases and injuries. He brought truth to the ears of men; the very words of life. He even raised people from the dead.
At his trials in the Roman courts, no crime could be found to have been committed by Him. Though accusers came forward, they contradicted themselves and the Roman judge could find not fault in Him by the standard of the laws on earth.
Nevertheless, for political expediency on both the Roman side and the Israel side, Jesus was condemned to be executed by crucifixion.
The death He suffered was the punishment usually meted out to the worst possible criminals. These were the men who had led people astray with frauds that destroyed their lives and who had maimed others and who had even murdered the innocent. They were the ones who merited the penalty of crucifixion.
The greatest possible imbalance was staged when Jesus, the perfect Son of God, was executed as though He were an evil murderer.
After His death on the cross came the judgment in the courts of the spirit realm. The accusers assembled to find fault with the one who died in order to justify His execution and His descent into hell.
In the same way Jesus could not be convicted of a crime by the Roman court, Jesus was found faultless in the spiritual court. No accusation could stand against Him by the world of spirits who have access to more knowledge than the knowledge of men. No secret fault could be found in Him and His perfection in His obedience to God the Father was his vindication and His victory. He routed the accusing powers and authorities, disarming them and making them a public spectacle.
Jesus came humbly to the earth as a person completely undistinguishable from other men. He was born in the small irrelevant village of Bethlehem. His birth place was a stable where animals are kept at night. He lived a life of lowly service even to the last day of His life on earth.
This humble man then emerged into His full majestic glory. His absolute authority in heaven and earth was firmly and permanently established.
In a thundering demonstration of power, the King Jesus descended into the hellish headquarters of the powers of darkness a strode into the chambers where men's souls were imprisoned.
He proclaimed the good news to the captives in hell and rose up with those who believed in Him from the abode of the dead and raised them from the grave as the first fruits of His own resurrection.
This very Jesus was seen by many witnesses after His resurrection around Jerusalem and after forty days of meeting people and teaching them many things, He visibly ascended into heaven where He was gloriously coroneted as the supreme monarch of heaven and earth. He was seated at the right hand of God the Father which is the highest administrative authority in all creation.
He has the power to save men from their appointments with death and destruction. Men know that their own reckless and sinful lives speak condemnation against them. Their hearts warn them that there will be a recompense for their deeds.
What they don't have is the knowledge that the great King shed His blood to ransom them from the partnership with darkness that they forged with their rebellious lives. His blood speaks the same words He spoke on the cross as He died, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do".
His blood speaks forgiveness and pardon for sin and as the great Lord, Jesus confers this forgiveness and pardon to any who would believe in Him and those who believe that Jesus has the authority to forgive sins.
Any person has the privilege to receive God's forgiveness and pardon. Any person who hears the good news of what Jesus has done for us by His death and sincerely trusts in it will be given the right to become a child of God.
If you have even a modicum of belief in your heart that this Jesus described here did indeed die to pay for your sins, then do not resist the opportunity to reach out to the Lord Jesus and ask Him for His forgiveness and His pardon.
You will be changed into a child of God and translated from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of light which is the Kingdom of our God.
THE EXELLENCIES AND PERFECTION OF CHRIST - 2
The person Jesus Christ is the exact representation of God the Father who is the creator of the universe. In fact, Jesus is the eternal Son of God by whom and through whom and for whom the entire universe was created.
Abraham, the great patriarch of Israel, had been chosen to launch the nation that would course through history to prepare a context and backdrop against which this man's life would play out before men to demonstrate the nature of the God at whose command all things that are sprang into being.
In this dusty land adjacent to the Mediterranean sea, a peculiar man suddenly emerged. A man who was diametrically opposite from all men in all of History through all time. This man had no house, no property except the clothes He wore as he walked to and fro across the ancient homeland of the descendants of Abraham announcing the good news of the Kingdom of God.
He spoke of the words of the prophets which foretold His arrival as the savior of all of Abraham's descendants and indeed the saviour of all mankind. At his word, astonishing miracles of healing and wonders were performed before the poor and rich alike in the society that sought for signs.
Humble and approachable, He interacted easily with people from all strata of the society He served. Wherever He went, he mixed scintillating proofs of his mastery over nature and over demonic powers with social exchanges with friends, strangers, religious leaders and His group of hand-picked followers.
He both astonished people and endeared Himself to them as He regaled them with home-grown parables about farmers and soldiers and wheat and sparrows and wine and bread and seeds and water and friendship and loyalty and service and duty and love. He seemed to have come from another universe with the power to command storms to cease and desist but at the same time, he spoke with such familiarity with everyday life, he seemed to be the next door neighbor.
Jesus was a startling anomaly among men but how much of an anomaly would remain veiled until the last days of His life.
The society He was serving began to resist His presence as the words He spoke challenged the status quo. Plots were hatched to arrest Him and kill Him so as to preserve the delicate balance that the leaders of the day had established under the rule of the Romans.
Knowing of these plots, Jesus began to prepare Himself for the event of His capture and when He had completed His final lessons to His disciples, He deliberately placed Himself within reach of the authorities so that they could arrest Him.
Here is where the anomalous nature of Jesus starts its exponential divergence from the rest of mankind.
Consider his capacities: He could command natural forces to do what He willed. He could walk on water and presumably on anything else. He could make people fall to the ground under the force of His personality. He stated that all authority in heaven and earth had been given to Him which means He had the power to command powerful angelic forces to intervene on His behalf. He had the power to extricate Himself from any fate decide on by men.
It was with these God powers that He went into the custody of the Roman authorities. The Roman empire was a regime that maintained its power with a harsh brutality and it was within this inhuman system that Jesus was detained. He was alone as all His friends abandoned Him to his fate. Such was the reputation of the Roman empire that even the most steadfast man would scramble to get away from its soldiers. Jesus however, identified Himself to the soldiers and surrendered with no resistance while even the strongest men buckled in fear as the theory of a Roman arrest became a stark reality at 3:00 AM.
The brutality began immediately with a guard striking Him in the face. As he awaited the various mock trials He was subjected to, the soldiers pulled out His beard, mocked Him, spat on Him and hit Him repeatedly on the head with sticks.
The book of Psalms looks forward into time to describe Jesus as having "set His face as flint" while He unwaveringly endured the mistreatment and the knowledge of the upcoming flogging and crucifixion that would culminate in His death.
After hours of being dragged around from court to court, a political remedy imagined by the Roman Procurator Pontius Pilate was decided on and it was to have Jesus flogged.
Flogging is a Roman punishment using a bone and metal tipped flagellant to whip the back and legs of a prisoner. This punishment is hard to survive on its own. The blood loss and pain it inflicts on its subject can cause unconsciousness and heart attacks and other bodily reactions to the extreme trauma.
He must have been trembling in shock as his body tried to generate heat as the core temperature dropped but having endured this trial, Jesus was still unwavering. He remained placid and subjugated completely concealing the primal power He retained at His disposal through all these events.
After political wrangling between the Romans and the leaders of Jerusalem concluded, Jesus was sentenced to death by crucifixion. He had just endured what is already nearly a death sentence and now, in a fatally weakened state, was lead out of the city of Jerusalem to be crucified.
The process is easily one of the most brutal things ever done to human beings. With His back raw and bleeding from the flogging, He was laid on a wooden cross. His arms were stretched out across a transverse plank on either side of Him and His wrists were nailed to the wood with heavy spikes. His feet were spiked to the support post and then, once secured to the structure, He was lifted up and the cross was dropped into a post hole.
Jesus was now dying. He had been brought to the state of shock already and now was in the horrifically painful position of hanging by His limbs from spikes that were punched through His nerves and cartilage and bone.
Remember, Jesus is the singular anomaly completely different from all humans. He had the power the whole time to stop the process. He had the power to completly bring all of human life to an abrupt halt. He had the power to spirit Himself away and never be seen again.
He had all power but He did not waver. He obeyed the command of His father right to the point of death and there was nothing in heaven or on earth or under the earth that could make him change from the course that His Father had set for Him.
Jesus was publically exhibiting the absolute perfection of the Almighty God. Being the Son of the Most High God, He is the exact representation of God. The moral perfection of the God the Father is exactly replicated into the Son. The Father could entrust this frightening undertaking to His Son who He knew was so perfect that he would see the command through to the point of enduring a long excruciating death at the hands of the very people He was sent to save.
The people Jesus spent His life serving and teaching and healing were the same people who were calling for His death and mocking Him.
It is for these people (including us) that He gave His life for and He would not waver from the task. This is nature of Jesus: Complete and exact fidelity to the Word of God His Father.
If Jesus had failed to see through His own crucifixion to completion, the effects of this break between the Father and the Son would have been a catastrophe of an immeasurable scope. It is impossible to describe what that would have meant for us, for all existence and for God Himself and so I will not attempt to do so but the Father, with perfect knowledge, placed the whole undertaking into the hands of the Son and knew He could not fail.
He is Lord and God. He is King and Master. He is the Supreme King of Zion. He is the mighty and Majestic Lord of hosts.
By the death He willing subjected Himself to, He earned the right to save men and to rescue them from their fate of destruction.
His demand of those of us who sense our desperate need to be saved by Him is that we simply believe in Him and believe that He died for us and that His majestic act of dying for our sins has given Him the power to redeem us.
Do this: Act on the gift of faith that He has given you. The seed of faith in your heart to believe in Him is a gift given freely to you. Accept the gift and believe in the Lord Jesus and be saved.
THE LORD IS RAISING A REMNANT
The Lord has set aside a people who are chosen for His purposes. Many are called but few are chosen.
A chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people who should show for the praises of him who has called us out of darkness and into His marvelous light.
Praise Him whose Kingdom is eternal and of it there will be no end.
Thanks be to the Lord who is our Adonai. He is our governor, our master and our king,
Amen.
HE IS RISEN
On the cross, forsaken, the Lord gave up His Spirit and He dropped His head forward and He died.
The Lord, who had walked the length and breadth of Israel preaching and teaching about the kingdom of God, healing the sick and freeing people from demons, had been rejected by Israel and condemned to a brutal and horrifying death.
He was alone. The second person of the trinity was isolated. A trial by powers and principalities was undertaken to test if there was any fault in the Son of Man.
There was not a single flaw that could be found for the Son of Man who encapsulates the absolute perfection of the Godhead and no accusation could be made against Him. He said to them, "If you have a case against Me, bring it". None was brought.
The Lord Jesus then preached the gospel to the captives in hell and led those who accepted the gift of salvation out of hell and they rose out of their graves and ascended with Him.
On the third day, He rose from the dead. As Isaiah the prophet said, He gave gifts to be distributed among the men who would believe in Him. This distribution of his mantles of gifts was a continuation of the distribution of His clothing at the foot of the cross when the Roman soldiers distributed His garments and drew lots for His mantle.
The Lord had risen indeed. Jesus, dead for three days, rose again from the dead. The grave that held him could not longer bear the death of a righteous man. The power of resurrection raised Jesus from the dead and he walked among His people for forty days. He showed them many things and then, standing on the Mount of Olives, the majestic King of Glory ascended into heaven in the sight of His disciples.
He was received into the heaven and there He was seated at the right hand of God the Father. He was made Lord and Christ for his perfect life and absolute obedience to God even unto death on a cross.
As for us, the King of Glory invites us into His kingdom of righteousness and those who accept the Lordship of the King and Christ are given the gift of salvation and are welcomed into the family of God and are given the right to become sons of God.
Praise the Lord who has the power to raise His people from the dead which he demonstrated by His own resurrection and ascension.