The Killing of Jesus Act 3 - Mark: The Messy Gospel

Alright, would y'all turn in your Bibles to Mark chapter 15?

Mark 15 · chapter mention

And we are finishing up Mark over the next couple weeks, and then we're going to go into a series in the summer called War.

And the series is on spiritual warfare this summer.

And we're going to talk about Satan, demons, the power of the cross, how we get demons.

Believers can be demonized.

Much to the false theology that we've heard, which kind of fits with the way the enemy works.

Oh, I'm a Christian.

I can't, I don't deal with demons.

Every reference to the demonic and satanic and the epistles is written to believers.

So the inspired word was written to believers.

I believe that most, I'll tell you this, I believe that most Christians are demonized.

Most Christians are packing some growlers.

And you picked them up in childhood, you picked them up in getting bullied, maybe you were raped as a child.

There's so many ways.

We'll talk about these different avenues that the enemy gets in, and it's hampering your growth.

You know, it's kind of weird, but you you you know, if you saw someone who's trying to play football and they have a broken leg, you might say, this isn't going to work out super well for you.

Um and just because they put on a jersey that said they're now a football player doesn't change the fact that they have a broken leg.

Well, in a sense, that's what spiritually happens, is that we have stuff that's happened to our heart, and then we become a believer, and yes, the blood of Jesus has completely justified us.

You are justified in Christ.

We're gonna talk about that tonight.

But you're hampered in your sanctification, you're hampered in your wholeheartedness because half your heart is still so wounded.

And so we're gonna talk about this that this summer and how we can get set free.

Because there are steps you can take to be set free, and it works.

And I've cast out hundreds of demons out of people, and I can tell you it works.

You can be radically set free by the power of Jesus Christ coming into those areas.

So that's coming up.

So we've got about two more weeks after tonight with uh Mark.

So we're in Mark chapter 15, and it's the crucifixion of Christ, and uh we've been talking about the killing of Jesus, and this is Act 3.

Mark 15 · chapter mention

So two weeks ago we started, and uh we come now to Jesus uh being brought before Pilate.

Immediately in the morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council, and they bound Jesus, led him away, and delivered him to Pilate.

So the Sanhedrin is about a 71-man Supreme Court of Israel.

Jesus has been dragged before them.

They've had a mock trial the night before.

We covered that last week.

It was an illegal tribunal.

It was an illegal tribunal in three ways.

First, it was illegal because it was held at night.

That was illegal.

Number two, they they brought forth an edict.

They brought forth a verdict in less than 24 hours.

That was illegal.

And then thirdly, they didn't even have the right to the sword because the sword had been taken away by the Romans, and the Romans were the only ones who could enact the death penalty, and thus they've got to convince now Pilate that he's guilty in a way that Pilate will understand.

Because if you recall last week that the issue with Jesus was he did claim to be the Son of God.

And so and so the high priest ripped his robe in crying out for blasphemy upon Jesus for claiming to be God.

Well, Pilate couldn't care less what he says about the religion of the Israelites because the Roman pantheon had many gods.

So, okay, he claims to be God.

Well, I guess he's just another God out there.

So they're gonna come to Pilate with a whole different strategy because they've got to convince Pilate to crucify Jesus.

Now, Pilate's interesting, and I just thought I'd throw this in as a sidelight, and that is that there was actually until 1961, there was no reference anywhere in history to Pontius Pilate even being alive.

And uh this was one of those, this was one of those um kind of uh battering uh apologetic points that secular humanists and liberals would hammer the church with.

Well, you know, you don't have any proof there was even a Pontius Pilate.

Well, what they don't tell you is there was hardly any proof of any of the of the provincial governors.

There's really no record of the 40, let's see, what is it?

There were 36, 36 uh provincial areas all over Israel with governors over them, and we didn't have any record of any of them.

But in 1961, the the Pontius Pilate, it's called the Pontius Pilate Stone was found in Caesarea, and uh and it had Pontius Pilate on there.

And so again, what archaeologically speaking, what continues to happen as archaeology gets better at better at dating and also better and better at digging into some of the archaeological sites, it continues to confirm the Bible.

And so Pontius Pilate really did live.

If anybody ever asked you about that, and some people who are aware of these things will say, well, he said, well, in 1961, everything changed.

Pontius Pilate's inscription was found from the first century.

So he really lived.

Then Pilate asked him, Well, are you the king of the Jews?

So this is this is their first point, gang.

The first point, church, is that he said they're saying he says he's a king and he's a king of the Jews.

They knew that would really ruffle the feathers of Pilate.

Actually, it doesn't, but that's what they thought.

And he answered and said to him, It is as you say.

So Jesus says, Yes, that's true.

And the chief priest accused him of many things, but he answered nothing.

So they're they're hitting him with stuff.

He's answering nothing.

Pilate's getting, he's just he's baffled by this guy who hasn't really done anything wrong, but he won't answer.

So then Pilate asked him again, saying, Do you answer nothing?

See how many things they testify against you.

Well, if you look at Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, what they're saying is several things.

One, he claims to be the king of the Jews.

Number two, he's trying to lead a revolution.

And then number three, he's saying that you don't have to pay taxes to Rome.

All three he never said.

All three were untrue.

And all three, Jesus doesn't respond.

He doesn't respond.

Now Jesus affirms that he's a king of a different kingdom.

You say rightly that I am a king.

For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth.

Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.

Now Pilate knows he's innocent.

Pilate knows he's innocent.

Matthew records that Pilate believed that the Sanhedrin turned Jesus over to him because of envy.

Luke says that Pilate said, I find no fault in this man.

And if you recall, Pilate's wife had a dream the night before not to mess with Jesus because he was a righteous man.

Yet Pilate, and this is important for all of you in your work and all that you do, is the consummate politician.

And so, politicians, the key to success in politics is compromise.

Compromise.

And so Pilate is looking around and he's trying to figure out what to do.

He knows he's innocent, but he's not sure what his next move will be.

Verse 5.

But Jesus still answering nothing, so that Pilate marveled.

Now the question I've always had is why did Jesus not answer anything?

And I believe he had settled this in Gethsemane.

I think he had settled in Gethsemane that he was taking on the wrath, the cup of the wrath and the fury of God, and that it was inevitable that he was called by his father to go to the cross.

And there wasn't anything that was going to change that.

And so there was nothing to say.

He didn't need to fight, he didn't need to argue.

And I think he's fearless before his detractors because he knows what has been settled in his heart at Gethsemane.

Now at the feast, he was accustomed to releasing one prisoner to them whomever they requested.

So the customary idea of taking a prisoner and setting them free was called the Pascal Pardon.

There's no other place anywhere in our history books or any religious books, any Christian books, or any Jewish books of this ever happening, but it is in the Bible.

So evidently there had been a tradition that had that had grown forth in that century where at the Passover they would release a prisoner.

But we have no other record of that.

So just so you know, Pilate had some options.

And one of his options was what they call the abolito.

That's where we get the word abolition.

Abolito.

And that's the idea of an acquittal of a prisoner before he's condemned, because he's not condemned yet by Rome.

He's condemned only by the Jews.

Or the indulgentia, indulgent indulgentia, which is the Latin indulgence, is the pardoning of one who is condemned.

I find that interesting.

With an innocent man who's going to pardon all of us that are condemned.

So he could pardon.

He has the power from Rome as a governor to pardon Jesus if he was condemned, he's not condemned yet.

Or an abolition.

He could set him free before he's condemned.

But God the Father needs his son to go to the cross because all of us are condemned.

So that he can set us free.

And you see, Jesus came with the abolito.

Jesus came with the indulgence.

That's where the word, the Catholic term indulgence is.

If you come out of a Catholic background, that's where the word indulgence has come from.

It's an indulgence.

It is you back at the time of Luther, wherein you gave usually money, you gave money to the Roman church, and then they gave an indulgence which related to the dead, your family that had died, in relation to setting them free from the treatment they were under in their death state.

Well, Christ came to give you a truly an indulgence and to make you righteous, for you've already been condemned.

And there was one named Barabbas who was chained with his fellow rebels.

They had committed murder in the rebellion.

Then the multitude crying aloud, by the way, there's no reference to this rebellion, so we don't know what this insurrection was.

There's no Josephus doesn't write about it.

If you're watching the TV show AD on NBC, I think this is where they get this reference because there's all this stuff about the zealots going on, kind of the backside subplot of that, which it has no historical data to support it, but we do know that there's something that happened with Barabbas.

And I happen to believe from reading this that the high priest, possibly Herod, maybe even the parts of the Sanhedrin actually wanted Barabbas set free.

And they probably and maybe were in somehow cahoots with the rebellion that had occurred with Barabbas.

So he's probably a Jewish zealot.

And he's chained to his fellow rebels.

They had committed murder in the rebellion.

Then the multitude, crying aloud, began to ask him to do just as he had always done for them.

I like that part.

People like leaders who do whatever you want them to do for them.

And Pilate was no exception to that.

But Pilate answered them, saying, Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?

For he knew that the chief priest had handed him over because of envy.

So Pilate sees through all of it, he just doesn't have the courage to do anything with it.

But the chief priest stirred up the crowd so that he should rather release Barabbas to them.

So some kind of an insurrection had happened.

Could be that the Sanhedrin was behind the insurrection.

They wanted Barabbas free.

They saw an opportunity.

Maybe one of them even suggested to Pilate release Barabbas, and they got a two-for-one deal.

I mean, they got Jesus condemned, so they got rid of him, but then they also got one of their main zealots out who might lead another insurrection in the future.

We know there were movies made about Barabbas.

Have you ever seen the great movie on Barabbas?

It's really interesting about Barabbas coming into the Lord.

It's it's history says, there's tradition more than history says that Barabbas did become a believer.

And um, I remember years ago hearing a sermon, I think it was by Chuck Swindal.

I think I was a new believer.

I never forgot this sermon.

And I've forgotten every other sermon, but I didn't forget this one.

Um and the way he painted this, just I want you to imagine this just for a moment for me.

Just Barabbas, when you go and you're in the praetorium area in Israel, you can see how this would occur because the prison, the area where the prisoners were, wasn't far from there.

Okay?

So Barabbas is down in this dungeon, changed to his fellow insurrectionist, and he hears, crucify him.

Crucify him, crucify him.

And it's getting louder and louder.

Think what Barabbas is thinking.

They're gonna crucify him.

He doesn't know anything about Jesus.

He doesn't know Jesus.

He's in prison.

He doesn't know what's happening with this guy, this Galilean revolutionary named Jesus, and he hears crucify him, and then he hears the guards coming to get him, and then they open the doors and they grab him, and they maybe they even haul him, because the Romans would have no love lost for Barabbas.

So they're probably roughly pulling him out, and they hate this guy.

He killed possibly one of their soldiers, and they bring him up, and then they unshackle him.

And he may be facing Jesus.

Jesus might be right here, he's been beaten that night, he's bloody, he can barely stand, he hasn't slept all night, he doesn't know who he is, and suddenly Barabbas is set free.

That's what Jesus did for us.

You deserve, I deserve, crucifixion.

We deserve the fury and the wrath of God, and Jesus took it.

And so Barabbas, who thinks he's gonna be crucified, is set free.

Isn't that a beautiful picture of this scene?

Man, I just think, I just think Barabbas must have just been.

Nobody'd ever done that for Barabbas.

It's interesting when you study Pilate.

Um, there's actually some the Catholic tradition, I believe even the Orthodox tradition, is that Pilate became a believer.

Now that's interesting because he committed suicide later in life.

So I don't know, we don't know what happened to Pilate, but I mean he had to.

You see it in A.D.

in the TV show, kind of the tortured soul of this guy.

But um, so all this is this is a big drama.

I mean, there's a lot going on here.

Verse 12.

Pilate answered and said to them again, What then do you want me to do with him whom you call the king of the Jews?

So they crowded again, crucify him.

And then Pilate said to them, Why?

What evil has he done?

But they cried out all the more, crucify him.

So Pilate, wanting to gratify the crowd, release Barabbas to them.

And so what's happened is that Pilate has lost control of the situation.

He's let kind of the, he's let the Sanhedrin take over, whisper, create almost a riotous crowd there in this very, it's actually a very small arena, the area where this crowd was, about half the size of this room.

So this is not like all of Jerusalem came out.

This is probably a hand-selected group by the Sanhedrin to come in and sway Pilate.

And so he delivered Jesus after he had scourged him to be crucified.

Any of you guys have been around, if you've been with me through some Easters and some Good Friday services, I've talked about the scourging, but the scourging was they would they would tie the victim to a pole or post, and then they had a flagellum, which was a whip with leather tongs coming out, tied with iron balls and um bone and iron shrapnel that were tied to that, and then it was designed to create contusions as the iron balls hit the subterranean side of the muscle tissue of the back and the buttocks, and then it would come around also and hit the front part as it whipped around the person, and then the bone and this and the metal was made to rip the skin away.

And so it was the most cruel of all punishments.

They say the only thing worse than to be a scourging, a Roman scourging, was a Roman crucifixion.

And Josephus writes about it, and at one point in Josephus' career, he actually had some of his enemies scourge and had them scourged to the point where their enterils came out.

And so there was no maximum.

There was no 40 lashes, there was no maximum in a scourging, so the soldiers could decide, or the uh the centurion who was over the scourging could decide when it stopped.

And so most died in just the scourging.

So Jesus' cattusions are being built, it's bruising across his back, and and the skin is just coming off in shreds as he bleeds to death.

Isaiah 53 says this about the scourging of Jesus.

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

And we hid, as it were, our faces from him.

He was despised, and we did not esteem him.

Surely he had borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed.

And we, like sheep, have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

So the fury of the cup that we talked about last week, the fury of the cup of the wrath of God mentioned in Revelation, meant in Jeremiah, is now being poured out upon Jesus.

And then the soldiers led him away to the hall called Praetorium, and they called together the whole garrison, and they clothed him with purple, and they twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and began to salute him.

Hail, King of the Jews.

And then they struck him on the head with a reed and spat on him, and bowing the knee, they worshipped him.

And so it's kind of an ugly vaudeville act as the palace guard, which was made up of non-Jews in that area from Caesarea, probably who had come to Jerusalem with Pilate.

Put a purple robe on him, a crown of thorns, to enact a vassal king.

And when they had mocked him, they took the purple off of him and they put his own clothes on him and led him out to crucify him.

And so it would appear that he was probably dying.

Maybe at this point he's on his hands and knees and can't stand.

And they pulled away from the scourging.

They probably realize he's not going to survive the crucifixion if they hit him anymore.

So they pull back so that the so that the torture can last longer.

And they put clothes on him so that the exposure won't kill him because they really want to kill him at the cross.

Church.

Walking into the fury of God, the wrath of God.

And that's why Jesus said, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish.

Should not experience the wrath of God, the fury of God's hatred of sin, but love for the sinner.

But we are seeing, we're experiencing on Jesus before he even gets to the cross, the fury of the wrath and the judgment of God.

Verse 21.

And then they compelled a certain man, Simon I Syrenian, the father of Alexander and Rufus, as he was coming out of the country and passing by to bear his cross.

So he can't even carry the cross.

He's at the point of almost complete collapse.

So they they realize that.

And they brought him to the place Golgotha, which is translated place of the skull.

Then they gave him wine mingled with myrrh to drink, but he did not take it.

And when they crucified him, they divided his garments, casting lots for them to determine what every man should take.

Now it was the third hour, and they crucified him.

And the inscription of his accusation was written above, the King of the Jews.

Death by crucifixion was one of the most cruel and shameful things ever known to man.

Josephus writes, the most wretched of all ways of dying.

It is where we get the word in English, excruciating.

Excruciating comes from crucifixion.

Jesus right now is becoming a curse for us.

He is fulfilling Deuteronomy.

In Deuteronomy we read: if a man has committed a sin deserving of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day, so that you do not defile the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

Listen to this, this is the cryptic part.

For he who is hanged is accursed by God.

The cross is the focal point of the gospel, and it's at the cross that Jesus became sin.

So as the cross was lifted up, a man hanging on a tree, the curse of God came upon Jesus.

The Bible says, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.

And then parenthetically it says, for it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.

That the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

So you say, well, where did Jesus become a sinner?

Jesus lived a perfect life.

How did he become a sinner for us?

Well, there was this cryptic passage in Deuteronomy.

We didn't know why it's there.

When that was written, there was no Roman Empire.

When that was written by Moses, there was no crucifixion.

It made no sense.

But Moses, under the inspiration of Scripture, wrote that so that in Galatians, Paul would write later, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.

That at the point where that cross was lifted up with all that Jesus had been through, that's when he became a curse, church.

When he was raised up, this cryptic passage, which is even parenthetical, which is even parenthetical, in Galatians chapter 3, Jesus took on all our cursing upon himself.

Galatians 3 · chapter mention

He became a curse for us.

And so by taking on our sin, the fury and the cup of the wrath of God was poured upon Jesus.

Which we deserved.

And with him they also crucified two robbers, one on his right and the other on his left.

So the scripture was fulfilled, which says, And he was numbered with the transgressors.

And those who passed by blasphemed him, wagging their heads and saying, Aha! You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, which he never said.

He never said it that way.

Save yourself and come down from the cross.

He never said he would destroy the temple.

Likewise, the chief priests also mocking among themselves with the scribes said, He saved others himself, he cannot save.

Let the Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the cross that we may see and believe.

So they're saying this in a mocking way.

Even those who crucified with him reviled him.

Theologian Don Carson said, one cannot long talk about Christian joy or Christian ethics or Christian fellowship or Christian doctrine of God or anything else without finally tying it back to the cross.

Men and women, everything rises and falls on the cross.

This is why satanic, demonic doctrines have been raised up to somehow give an explanation of the cross that is unbiblical.

Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, said, For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Paul, who knew that he was not an eloquent speaker, who knew that he didn't have the wisdom that the Greeks were looking for, and he certainly didn't have the right words related to the religion and the circumcision and the and the commands of the law that the Jews were looking for, would say later to the Romans, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes.

Church, Jesus went to the cross.

He took on the fury and the wrath of God so that you wouldn't, and if you by faith give your heart to Him and you lay your life before Him and you repent of your sin before Him, all of the fury of God laid upon Christ is taken away.

And all of the righteousness and all of the love and all of the grace of God is poured out into your heart.

For by grace you've been saved through faith, not of yourself.

It is a gift of God, not as a result of your works that anyone should boast.

And so we have nothing to stand before God to merit his salvation or to merit his forgiveness.

Christ did it all.

And if you don't come to Christ, if you don't come to know him, if you don't repent of your sin, the full fury of God is upon you.

Because a holy God can do nothing less than judge sin.

Paul said, For I first delivered to you, first of all, that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.

That's first of all, that is the last of all.

That is the theme, that is the purpose, that is the answer, that is the solution, that is the righteousness of God given to all of us.

When we give our hearts to Christ, we are clothed with the righteousness of Christ, and that is first of all, Paul says.

It is foremost, and everything in your life stands or falls on the cross of Jesus Christ.

You can live a great life, you can give your money to the poor, you can give your body to be burned.

You can be honest in all your dealings, you can be wealthy, you can be successful, you can be an effective businessman, you can be a great dad, you can be a great mom, you can be a wonderful student, you can have integrity in all that you do, and it does not merit you one ounce of righteousness from God until you come to Jesus Christ.

Because if there was any other way for us to be righteous before God, if there was any other way for us to have eternal life and a personal, dynamic, growing relationship with Jesus Christ, God would have chosen that way.

It is the only way, it is the only truth, and it's the only life.

And if you have not given your heart to Christ tonight, if you come tonight and you can't recall a time where you've given yourself wholeheartedly to him, the fury and the wrath of God is on your life.

And I say, do it.

Do it tonight.

It's called justification by faith.

And what it means is that you're justified before the Lord by coming to him by faith, and he justifies that.

He makes you who are a sinner and unrighteous under the fury and under the wrath of God, he makes you righteous by Christ coming and covering you with his righteousness and his merit because of what he did at the cross.

You do not have to experience the fury of God.

You can experience the love of God and the forgiveness of Christ and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul said, We preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks, foolishness.

We could reframe that.

Here's the way we'd reframe it.

But we preach Christ crucified unto the most successful people, a waste of time.

And to those of great wisdom and knowledge and very high IQs, foolishness.

But Christ to us, listen, is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Listen, church, you have to become a fool to become wise.

You have to realize you have no power to receive power.

You have to realize that you have no righteousness to realize that you can have all righteousness.

And so there is this process by which what Christ is showing us and what Mark is writing about here is that is that there is a process here of which Christ fully took it all.

So that you don't have to.

But when you believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord, when you speak forth in your mouth that you believe that he rose from the grave and that he's your Lord and your Savior, you shall be saved.

Forever and ever and ever to the uttermost parts of your heart.

So some churches preach politics and economics.

We don't.

Some churches preach the five ways to get your marriage working, we don't.

Some churches preach about how to get miracles and signs of wonders.

We don't.

Some preach about how we can have a successful, effective, joyful life.

We don't.

Do I believe in all that?

I do.

But we preach Christ crucified.

Because Christ crucified is the crucible of all that matters in everything that I've just mentioned.

And until we get that, the rest of it means nothing.

We preach Christ nailed to the accursed tree, bleeding at every pore and dying on the cross, yet living forevermore.

We preach Christ suffering agonies that are indescribable, yet being at the same time the God at whose right hand there are pleasures forevermore.

We preach Christ, the man who could not have sympathized with you and me, nor could he have suffered in our place if he were not a man.

Fully man and fully God.

Christ, the one whom Isaiah was inspired to prophesy, his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

That's what you want.

That is what you want.

And if you don't think you want it, then you just keep showing up here because you'll know.

That's what you're longing for.

No amount of money, no amount of success, no amount of miracles, no amount of sex, no amount of walking into successful things that we do will ever satisfy the heart like Jesus Christ will.

So when the devil comes to you at night and says you're a loser, you tell him, Yes, I am.

But because of the merits of Jesus Christ, I'm righteous in him, and I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

And he comes and he says, Well, you know, because of what happened to you and the shame that you've been through and stuff, you're dirty.

You say, Yes, I am.

But because of the merits of Jesus Christ at Calvary and what he's done at Calvary for me, I put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and because of him, I am proclaimed righteous in every area of my life.

So, church, that's what happened that day in Calvary.

Come to Jesus, it's the answer to all your problems.

It's a solution to all our shame.

It's the beginning point.

Yes, it is.

It's justification.

There's a whole big adventure called sanctification, which is a whole process of growing to be more and more Christ-like.

It's only the beginning.

But if you don't get through that door, if you don't get through that door, then your life is futile.

And you won't experience all that God has for you.

Let's stand.

Well, I have no idea what's happening with these lights, except that they've got a lot of problems here, I think, because of the rain and all the leakage, so maybe it's getting into the electrical system.

But I don't care.

I think it's kind of cool, you know.

I preached in I preached in Manila, man, in eight inches of water.

And I'm telling you what, there was there were electrical lines running all through the sides and top, and that'll get you going.

So you're okay.

I think it's good for us to have all this stuff happening.

I mean, leaks in the ceiling and all that stuff.

It's got to be the power of God.

Not gonna be fancy buildings, right?

So if you haven't come to know Jesus Christ, your Lord and Savior, we're gonna go into worship right now.

And uh I'm gonna be over here.

I'm gonna be right up here on the front row.

And I'm gonna give you a chance at the end of worship to come to Jesus.

Don't belabor this opportunity to fulfill your destiny of a personal, growing, vital relationship with the one who has righteously taken all of the wrath and all of your sin and then taken it upon himself so that through his blood you can be made righteous when you are unrighteous and begin the great adventure, the great journey of knowing Christ, loving Christ, and worshiping Christ.

Father, we bless you tonight.

Jesus, thank you for going to Calvary for us.

Thank you for taking the fury and the wrath of God so that we don't have to.

Thank you for taking our place.

And we can experience your grace.

Thank you, Lord.

I want to read from Colossians 2 before we sing this last song.

Um it says, and you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he is made alive together with him, having forgiven you all of your trespasses.

That means all of your sins, all of your guilt.

Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us.

It seems like in the heavenlies there is handwritten, there's handwritten stuff by the enemy against you.

I don't understand it exactly, but it's like there's some, there's requirements that have been written against your life.

And some of you hear it in your mind, you hear it in your heart, you hear the accusations of the enemy in your heart.

And I believe those are demonic, and I believe everybody has these requirements that are being that are being poured out into your heart through accusations.

Because Revelation 12 says that the enemy accuses the brethren all the time, constantly, day and night, especially at night.

So having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us, he has taken it out of the way and nailed it to the cross.

So when that so when that cross was raised up, he took all the accusations that you feel, and it was and it all came on Jesus.

So it was all taken and nailed to the cross.

So if you could think of like a scripting that you received as a kid, or a scripting that you that you battle with in your heart, like I'm not good enough, or I'm never gonna quite make it, or I can't do this.

Those are the handwritings that are in your heart that have been nailed to the tree.

So it says he's been he's nailed it to the cross, but listen to the next part.

He says, having wiped it out, now he says, having disarmed principalities and powers, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.

So the triumph of Christ between the cross and the resurrection, I believe, is that he went into hell, he came there, he proclaimed his victory, he unlocked the doors of the prison of the saints that had gone before him, and he disarmed principalities and powers and accusations and handwritings and shame over your life.

Listen to this.

So then he says, He made a public spectacle of them.

So here's the public spectacle.

The public spectacle is when you receive Christ.

In other words, when you get up and you come forward and you give your heart to Jesus Christ, you're making a public spectacle of the enemy.

And so we're gonna sing this last song.

And as we do, if you've never or you're not sure if you've given fully your heart to Christ, make sure tonight.

Because you can be transferred from this unrighteous life, this life of trying to figure it out and do it in your own power, to a life of complete surrender to Christ, where he does it through you in the power of the Holy Spirit.

So I want to ask the shepherds, would you shepherds come up here and be over here on this side?

And we're gonna wait there as we sing this last song.

And if you want to pray to receive Christ, we would count it the greatest privilege and honor to just be there for you and to pray with you a simple prayer.

Christ come into my life.

I repent of my sin.

I need you.

I believe in your cross.

I believe that you took all of my unrighteousness and you forgave me, and then I want to take on your righteousness and cover be covered by the blood of the Lamb.

And let that relationship begin in your life.

So let's have wives too.

That's right.

So uh men and women are over there.

So isn't that cool?

I mean, isn't that awesome?

That when the cross went up, all those accusations and all that shame was nailed there.

And the enemy doesn't want you to believe that.

And the enemy wants you to just stay where you're at and stay where you're at in your faith.

And God is saying, come forth, rise, O sleeper, rise from the dead and come into new life in Christ Jesus.