Blog Archives - WELCOME TO THE JOY OF TROY

October 11, 2021

10/11/2021

More About Staying on the Cross

        The high priests, along with the religion scholars and leaders, were right there mixing it up with the rest of them, having a great time poking fun at him:..."King of Israel is he? Then let him get down from that cross. We'll all become believers then!" Matt. 27:41, 42, Message.

    For the past two days we have been meditating upon the great TEMPTATION that leads to all the lesser temptations of life. In essence that TEMPTATION is to become the god of our lives, to do our own will. That is where Adam and Eve went wrong. The eating of the fruit was only the result of a minor temptation after they had already fallen for Satan's great TEMPTATION.

    Christ, as we noted earlier, experienced that TEMPTATION in two formats: not going to the cross, and not staying on it. Today we will examine more fully how the second aspect of TEMPTATION plays out in our daily life when we are tempted to get off our cross, break our relationship with God, and do our own thing.

    I have known for years that I cannot sincerely pray and commit a deliberate act of sin at the same moment. I have experimented. Temptation becomes sin at the point that I become conscious of the temptation. At that very moment I can choose to do one of two things. I can reject the temptation through God's power, or I can decide to dwell on the temptation and cherish it a bit. In other words, I can ask God into my life to help me overcome, or I can tell Him to leave me alone for a while so that I can enjoy my private sin. I comfort myself that I will pray about it later. Too often, we are like Augustine, who, in suffering with the central temptation of his life, prayed, "Make me chaste, Lord, but not quite yet."

    The alternative is to come to God, saying, "Lord, I recognize this temptation for what it is, and I am going to pray right now." I have personally discovered that when I sincerely and perseveringly pray for victory, I lose the desire for the sinful action. I believe that phenomenon is the power of God helping me overcome both the specific temptation and the TEMPTATION to get off my cross and live my life according to my own will.

    But sometimes, to be honest, I don't want the power and the victory. Instead, I want the sin. At that point, I fall for TEMPTATION in the same way that Eve did in Genesis 3. I have taken active charge of my own life and sidelined God. To consistently choose TEMPTATION leads to a life of falling for temptations as I separate myself from God.

October 10, 2021

10/10/2021

A Side Lesson on Staying on the Cross

        Aha! You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself and come down from the cross! Mark 15:29, 30, NKJV.

    Jesus had two great core TEMPTATIONS in His life: (1) not to go to His cross, (2) once there to get off of it.

    He battled the first of those TEMPTATIONS throughout His life. The great climactic points of that struggle were at His wilderness temptations, in which Satan offered Him all of the world of He would just bow to him; after the feeding of the 5,000, when the crowd and the disciples wanted to crown Him King on the spot; at Caesarea Philippi, when Peter played the role of Satan by telling Jesus that He didn't need to go to the cross; and in Gethsemane, at which time Christ prayed desperately to be released from going to the cross, but finally surrendered to God's will. Each of those episodes was a TEMPTATION to avoid the cross, to achieve the crown without the Crucifixion.

    The second aspect of His great TEMPTATION didn't take place until He was already on the cross. At that point TEMPTATION shifted to getting off the cross and using His dormant divine powers to give His hecklers exactly what they deserved.

    TEMPTATION in our lives follows the same course as it did in Christ's. Too many of us seem to think that it is the urge to perform some evil act. Wrong! Those may be temptations, but they are not the essence of TEMPTATION.

    As was the case for Jesus, the first avenue of my personal TEMPTATION is not to go to my cross. That is, the devil tempts me to live my own life, be my own person, and exert my own will rather than surrendering my life to God and living a life of service that represents the character of God and does His will. Avoiding the cross is the first great TEMPTATION for every person. But, as with Jesus, the only way to life eternal is to die to self, to be raised to a new way of life, and to live that life for Him.

    That last point brings us to the second major area of our personal TEMPTATION--to get off our cross. Once we have finally decided to get on our cross and live God's will, the devil then constantly hounds us to step off our crosses and give people who have irritated us or wronged us exactly what they deserve.

    Father in heaven, help me today not only to go to the cross but, through Your power, to stay on it.

October 9, 2021

10/9/2021

The Paradox of a Crucified Messiah

        Those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, "You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross." So also the chief priest, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, "He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down from the cross, and we will believe him; for he said, 'I am the Son of God.' " And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way. Matt. 27:39-44, RSV.

    How would you have responded to such people whom you were dying to save? If it were me I would have gotten off my cross and given them exactly what they deserved. I would show them in no uncertain terms who I was. They would be sorry that they had ever mocked me. I could, of course, destroy the whole mess of them by a limited atomic display. But then a slow fire would be more to my liking. Soon I would have them all begging and bowing.

    We can be thankful that Jesus wasn't like me. But the interesting fact of the situation is that Jesus is the only crucified individual in history who could have gotten off His cross. He could have used His divine power to escape it. But the One "who knew no sin" chose to stay on it and die in our place, to become sin..., so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor. 5:21, RSV). "I lay down my life," we read in John's Gospel. "No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again" (John 10:17, 18, RSV). Jesus had a choice. And He decided to do God's will rather than His own. He chooses to remain on the cross.

    The truth of the matter is that the Jewish leaders were quite correct when they shouted out "He saved others; he cannot save himself." The facts of the case are that if Jesus was to save anyone, He could not leave the cross. For Jesus it was a physical possibility, but not a moral or spiritual one. To flee the cross would be to reject His role as the Lamb of God who was to die for the sins of the world (John 1:29).

    Such is the paradox of paradoxes--a crucified Messiah, a dying Savior.

    Today we can thank God that Jesus hung on the cross to the bitter end. It is because of that sacrifice on Calvary that we can share Paradise with Him for eternity.

October 8, 2021

10/8/2021

A Promise Extraordinary

        And Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you, today, you will be with Me in Paradise." Luke 23:43, NKJV.

    Here we have a controversial verse, especially since many teach that it offers proof positive that believers go to heaven the very moment they die. But before we get into that idea we need to examine what the verse says about Jesus and the thief.

    When one looks at Jesus when He made this pledge, one wonders how He could in good conscience promise anybody anything. After all, He is in the process of dying the death of a condemned criminal. He is fastened to a cross with nails, is covered with blood and flies, and will soon end up in a hole in the ground. And then there were the taunting people surrounding the cross shouting out that if He was "the Christ of God, his Chosen One" He should prove it by saving Himself (Luke 23:35, 37, RSV).

    We know now that by not saving Himself it became possible to save others, since it is through His death in our place that we have hope. But that wasn't evident as He hung upon the cross. He looked hopeless indeed.

    Yet it is from His cross of death that He makes the remarkable promise to the thief that he will be with Him in Paradise or heaven. That promise indicates that He could at this point in His ordeal see beyond the tomb. By faith He realized that death was not the end for Him and that His life and death would make it possible for Him to save others.

    Just as remarkable as the faith of Jesus is that of the thief, who even asks for such a promise as they both suffer on their crosses. Here is a man who believed in spite of all outward appearances.

    We find another lesson here. Namely, that it is never too late to come to Jesus. As long as life remains there is hope.

    Now, we need to ask, what exactly did Jesus promise? Most read the verse as if the thief would be with Jesus in heaven that very day. But, since there are no commas in a Greek sentence, it can also be translated as "I say to you today, that you will be with Me in Paradise," meaning that Jesus was making the promise that very day.

    Which is the correct placement of that controversial comma? Let's let Jesus answer. For one thing, He didn't go to heaven that day. Three days later He informed Mary that "I am not yet ascended to my Father" (John 20:17). And in other places He plainly told His disciples that He would reward His followers at His second coming, when He would return in triumph "in the glory of his Father with his angels" (Matt. 16:27).

October 7, 2021

10/7/2021

A Glimpse of Kingdom Faith

        Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him....One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, "Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!" But the other rebuked him, saying, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong." And he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." Luke 23:32-43, RSV.

    A strange place for a conversation. Three naked, bleeding men, gasping for breath as they pushed up with their feet to let air into lungs constricted by the way they were affixed to their crosses. A more unlikely place for significant conversation is difficult to imagine. But there they were--two genuine criminals and the innocent Jesus.

    Taking up the mocking flavor of the crowd, Matthew tells us, both robbers "reviled him in the same way" (Matt. 27:44, RSV). But that didn't go on forever. One of them sees something in Jesus that the careless crowd had missed.

    But not the other thief, who sarcastically calls out, "Since you are the big-shot Christ, why don't you do something about it? Why don't you save yourself, and us while you are at it.?"

    At that point the other thief takes another look at Jesus and remembers what he had heard of His acts of healing and mercy. At that very point faith takes hold and hope ignites.

    Mocking was not in short supply at the cross. But now comes a cry of conviction by a person who had seen beyond the exterior to the core of who Jesus was. "In Jesus, bruised, mocked, and hanging upon the cross, he sees the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world. Hope is mingled with anguish in his voice as the helpless, dying soul casts himself upon a dying Saviour. 'Lord, remember me,' he cries, 'when Thou comest into Thy kingdom' " (The Desire of Ages, p. 750).

        Desperation and hope. Hopelessness and faith. Sinfulness and new possibilities. All of those thoughts and emotions surge through his mind as the Holy Spirit brings conviction to his heart and the power to speak for Christ.

    Those same emotions need to flood our souls as we behold Jesus hanging on the cross. It is only when we finally give up on ourselves and see the hopelessness of our situation that we are willing to abandon our ways to the kingdom and cast ourselves upon His boundless mercy for the only way into His kingdom.

October 6, 2021

10/6/2021

Enough Ignorance to Go Around

        And when they had crucified Him, they divided up His garments among themselves by casting lots. And sitting down, they begun to keep watch over Him there. And above His head they put up the charge against Him which read, "THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS."  Matt. 27:35-37, NASB.

    Meanings of the cross depend on the vantage point from which we view it. For the soldiers it was merely one more day of work. Another crucified cluster of Jewish scum. So what? And they passed some of the time gambling as they awaited the death of Jesus and the two robbers. They had not the foggiest idea of what they had done or its significance. Probably they would have laughed if told that they had just crucified the incarnate God, the active agent in the creation of heaven and earth. To them He was merely one more troublesome Jew.

    Then there was that sign: "THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS." Here was a bit of payback from Pilate to the Jewish leaders who had bested him in his desire to free Jesus. He hadn't cared for Jesus as a person, but he was tired of the craftiness of the leading members of the Sanhedrin who were constantly causing him difficulties.

    As a result, Pilate could send Jesus to a nasty death without remorse. But at the same time he took the opportunity to take a whack at the Jews with his sign.

    And it did upset the leaders, especially since it was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek and thus could be read by many. That, John tells us, meant another trip for the Jewish leaders to Pilate requesting that he change the wording to "This man said, I am the king of the Jews." The Roman governor's answer was a smug one: "What I have written I have written" (see John 19:19-22, RSV).

    Revenge is sweet. But beyond revenge Pilate's sign functioned as a billboard, announcing, in effect, that any person who posed as a king of the Jews could expect similar treatment. And that fact cut the Jews to the quick and flattened their pride.

    But above all of the sparing, the most interesting aspect of the sign is that it was true. Jesus was in fact the Messiah/King of the Jews.

    Pilate had the truth but didn't know it. The Jewish leaders had their Messiah but didn't recognize Him. The busy soldiers had participated in the central event of history but were not aware of it. It is no wonder that Jesus cried out, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34, RV). There is a wideness in God's mercy.

October 5, 2021

10/5/2021

The Exchange of Calvary

        He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Cor. 5:21, NKJV.

    Martin Luther, the great Reformer, captures the verse's intent. Writing to a monk in distress about his sins, Luther admonished: "Learn Christ and him crucified. Learn to pray to him and, despairing of yourself, say: 'Thou, Lord Jesus, art my righteousness, but I am thy sin. Thou hast taken upon thyself what is mine and hast given me what is thine. Thou hast taken upon thyself what thou wast not and hast given to me what I was not.' " To Luther that was history's "greatest exchange."

    But on that dreary day at Calvary the disciples of the crucified One didn't see it that way. "For the disciples who had followed Jesus to Jerusalem," penned Jürgen Moltmann, "his shameful death was not the consummation of his obedience to God nor a demonstration of martyrdom for his truth, but the rejection of his claim. It did not confirm their hopes in him, but...destroyed them." A crucified Messiah had never even entered the realm of their imaginations, in spite of the fact that Jesus had plainly told them several times the exact form of death that awaited Him.

    We humans can be real blockheads when the ways of God cross our own visions of the good life and our goals. But since He always knows what He is talking about, perhaps it is time for us to open both eyes as we read His Word to us.

    The Crucifixion may have been the darkest day in the disciples' lives, but it would not remain that way. His followers would soon see it as the high point of hope. Paul, for one, never ceased driving home the fact that the cross is the anchor point of redemption. It was the death of Jesus on the cross that made it possible for us to have His eternal life and His righteousness.

    The apostle in part defined "the gospel" in terms of the brutal fact that "Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures" (1 Cor. 15:1, 3, RSV). And the book of Hebrews asserts that Jesus died "once for all" and that "by a single offering" He made available the plan of salvation in all its fullness (Heb. 10:10, 14, RSV). It is Christ's spilled blood that forms the foundation for God's offer of saving grace to all who have faith in Jesus (see Rom. 3:23-25).

    Father in heaven, I thank You for Jesus and fully accept Your "great exchange."

October 4, 2021

10/4/2021

The Weight of Sin

        Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us--for it is written, "Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree." Gal. 3:13, RSV.

    Cursed be every one who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them" (Gal. 3:10, RSV, citing Deut. 27:26). One function of the law was to set forth God's ideal. A second of its purposes was to identify sin: "through the law comes knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20, RSV). The bad news is that "the wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23). And because "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23), every human being since Adan has been under the curse of the law.

    That's the bad news. The good news (literally "gospel") is that Jesus on the cross absorbed the curse for all of us and each of us.

    It was not the physical punishment of the cross or the public indignation that made Jesus dread it so much, but the mental anguish accompanying His bearing of the sins of the world. The Desire of Ages helps us peer into that anguish: "The guilt of every descendant of Adam was pressing upon His heart. The wrath of God against sin, the terrible manifestation of His displeasure because of iniquity, filled the soul of His Son with consternation. All His life Christ had been publishing to a fallen world the good news of the Father's mercy and pardoning love. Salvation for the chief of sinners was His theme. But now with the terrible weight of guilt He bears, He cannot see the Father's reconciling face. The withdrawal of the divine countenance from the Saviour in this hour of supreme anguish pierced His heart with a sorrow that can never be fully understood by man. So great was this agony that His physical pain was hardly felt.

    "Satan with his fierce temptations wrung the heart of Jesus. The Saviour could not see through the portals of the tomb. Hope did not present to Him His coming forth from the grave a conqueror, or tell Him of the Father's acceptance of the sacrifice. He feared that sin was so offensive to God that Their separation was to be eternal. Christ felt the anguish which the sinner will feel when mercy shall no longer plead for the guilty race. It was the sense of sin, bringing the Father's wrath upon Him as man's substitute, that made the cup He drank so bitter, and broke the heart of the Son of God" (The Desire of Ages, p. 753).

    We have but the faintest of ideas of what the cross involved for Jesus. The tragedy of earth's history is that it means nothing to most people.

October 3, 2021

10/3/2021

A "Crucified" Savior

        And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him. Luke 23:33.

    Crucifixion!

    The very thought of it was enough to bring a case of chills to the hardest inhabitants of the Roman world. A cruel form of capital punishment, crucifixion combined public shame with slow physical torture. Death on a cross, Martin Hengel writes, was not "just any kind of death. It was an utterly offensive affair, 'obscene' " in the fullest sense of the word. "Crucifixion was a punishment in which the caprice and sadism of the executioners was given full rein."

    The public shame began with dragging the crossbeam of a cross through the streets to a place of public execution. In an era that lacked TV programs and movies to satiate the downward side of human desire for violence, crucifixion was often the "best show" in town for the bored and curious. The victims were stripped of all clothing and affixed to the cross in a manner that prohibited them from caring for their bodily needs or covering their nakedness from the taunts and indignities of spectators. When the execution party reached the place of crucifixion, soldiers fixed the crossbar to the upright beam. Next they stretched the prisoner out on it and drove the nails through soft flesh and hard bone. Finally, they raised the cross and dropped it with a flesh-tearing thud into the hole prepared for it.

    The victim, being immobile, could not escape the burning Palestinian sun or fend off cold or insects. Since crucifixion affected no vital organs, death from fatigue, cramped muscles, hunger, and thirst came slowly, often after many days.

    The Romans reserved crucifixion for the punishment of slaves and foreigners who were considered criminals and often used it as a public demonstration of the folly of rebelling against the empire.

    Jews regarded anyone executed by crucifixion as rejected by the people of Israel, cursed by the law of God, and excluded from God's covenant with the Jewish people. To top it off, the Jews expected their Messiah to be a mighty conquering king, not a suffering criminal. No wonder Paul could refer to Christ's cross as "a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles" (1 Cor. 1:23, NIV).

    Jesus was the only person in history to volunteer for that form of death. He came from heaven for it. At the cross the crucified God met my sins.

October 2, 2021

10/2/2021

A Painful Meeting

        As they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. Him they compelled to bear His cross. Matt. 27:32, NKJV.

    It all happened so quickly. Simon, a Jew from North Africa, is pushing through the crowd surging into Jerusalem for the Passover. At that same time a cohort of Roman soldiers is escorting a condemned man out of the city. Covered with blood from the usual precrucifixion flogging and staggering under the weight of the crossbeam of a cross, the man falls to the ground. Seeing the hopelessness of Jesus' situation, the soldiers grab Simon and press him into service.

    It was the most important day of his life, but Simon had no way of realizing it at the time. All he knew was the splintery feel of the cross, the pushing of the soldiers as they tried to speed him through the thronging crowd, and the stares of those nearby as they mistakenly assumed that he was the condemned man. It was a shameful, unpleasant experience. But it changed his life.

    But why Simon? How come the soldiers had selected him from the crowd? The Bible doesn't tell us. It may have been his strong build. Or it may be he just happened to be the nearest man when Jesus stumbled and fell. But there may have been a more attractive reason. Perhaps Simon's face and body language had shown signs of sympathy for Jesus and made him stand out from the indifferent crowd.

    We don't know the "why" of Simon's selection, but we do know the "what" that came out of his short time with Jesus. In Mark's telling of the story he earmarks "Alexander and Rufus" as Simon's sons, indicating that they were known to the first readers of the second Gospel in Rome, its primary audience (Mark 15:21). In Romans 16:13 we find another tantalizing piece of information. "Greet Rufus," Paul wrote, "eminent in the Lord, also his mother and mine" (RSV).

    We have no way of knowing if there is a relationship between Mark 15:21 and Romans 16:13, but we can be assured that Simon, on that fateful day on the road to Jerusalem, met Jesus as his Savior and, in turn, passed on that knowledge to his sons.

    What a painful way to encounter Jesus. But what a reward. Jesus still meets men and women in painful situations--many upon beds of sickness, others in the shadow of bereavement. To all He offers a cross to carry and the honor of serving Him.