MESSIAH CRUCIFIED: THE
BITTERNESS OF THE CROSS OF JESUS CHRIST:
The real causes
for, meanings and effects of the cross of Jesus Christ are missed by most
believers and preachers. Read the following carefully and prayerfully.
SPURGEON
I extracted quotes from: “SPURGEON’S SERMONS ON THE CROSS OF CHRIST”. Chapter 8 is “The bitterness of the Cross”
Zechariah 12:10. This is godly and life changing for any sincere person.
“.. the first effect upon any man who has a
true sight of Christ- is that it produces sincere sorrow: "They shall look upon me whom they have
pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and
shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn"
.... for they who behold His wounds are themselves wounded, they who gaze upon
His pierced heart are themselves pierced to the heart - nay, they are pierced
in the heart, and they who, by faith see the flowing of His precious blood feel
their very hearts bleed on account of Him, and all that He endured on their
behalf. (because of them – my comment)
A sight of His crucifixion crucifies sin. A
sight of His death - if it be a true sight - is the death of all love of sin.
If, then, you have never felt the mournful effect of the sorrowful spectacle of
the bleeding Saviour, you have still need to stand, and to look, and look, and
look again until you feel it, for so it will always be: "They shall look upon me whom they have
pierced, and they shall mourn for him"
There will come over your soul, when you get a
true sight of Christ, much bitterness on account of your having slighted the
extraordinary love of Christ to you. And yet I have been all this while
slighting Him! Others have loved me, and I have returned their love, ashamed to
be thought ungrateful; but all of them put together have never loved me as He
has done, yet I have been His enemy, and, as far as I could, I have opposed
Him. Woe is me! Woe is me, that I should have treated so ill my best Friend!
Then there follows, over and above all this, the
black, bitter thought that our sin caused His death on the tree. The awakened
soul sighs, “My sins! My sins! My sins!” Nothing ever reveals sin like the
cross of Christ. So does the cross touch what we thought to be only mistakes
and errors, and they rise before us in their true character as hellish sins. In
the light of Calvary , sin does like itself
appear; and what is the likeness of sin there? Why, the murderer of the Son of
God – the murderer of the Prince of Life – the murderer of man’s best Friend,
whose only crime was this: “found guilty of excess of love,” and therefore He
must die.
O sin, is this what you are? Are you a
God-killing thing? I have heard of men being guilty of regicide, but what shall
I say concerning Deicide? Yet, sin virtually and as much as it can, stabs at
the Godhead, crying, with the wicked husbandmen, "This is the heir; come let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be
ours." This is the terrible character of sin - it will imbrue its
hands in the blood of Him who is perfectly innocent and perfectly benevolent;
it will take man's best Friend by the throat, condemn Him as if He were a
felon, nail Him to a gibbet, and then stand and gaze at Him, and mock his very
death-throes. There is nothing upon earth so devilish as sin. O to what
extremes of atrocity has sin not gone!
And such is your sin and mine, to a lesser or
greater degree. A sight of the cross, therefore, brings bitterness into the
soul, because it shows us what sin is, and what are its ultimate issues and
true designs if it could carry them out. Never do we smite upon our breasts so
hard as when we see the cross of Jesus. We are condemned at the mercy seat even
more fully than we are at the judgment seat. This is the condemnation of sin in
the soul of man, that he sees what it did in murdering the Christ of God, and
this causes the repenting sinner to “be
in bitterness for him, as one who is in bitterness for his firstborn.”
I feel quite sure that God intends our first
sight of Christ to fill our soul with bitterness; and therefore I ask you most
seriously to question your conversion unless there was some measure of this
bitterness mingled with it. A sinner's sight of Christ must breed sorrow for
sin; it is unavoidable; and the more clear that sight shall become, and the more
it is mixed with faith, and the more sure we are of pardon, the more bitterness
will there be in it. When we know that our sins are forgiven, it is then that
we most of all realize their guilt, and abhor and hate them.
As the
great love of Christ is better known, it brings deeper grief for sin. We then
more deeply lament that we should ever have slighted such love. .. and side by
side with that will be a growing sense of abhorrence of yourself, and
detestation of the sin which nailed your Saviour to the tree. It must be so;
deeper love to Christ will breed greater grief and a yet more bitter bitterness
on account of sin.
There will also be, in your heart, a more
intense bitterness arising from the dread of grieving your Lord. I believe
that, the higher your joy in Christ, the greater will be your fear lest you
should bring disgrace upon Him.
I have a great fear concerning your condition
if you never felt anything of this bitterness – this dread lest, in thought, or
word, or deed, by omissions or by commission, you should grieve the sweet and
tender love of Christ. It is thus that the holy soul feels the bitterness of an
inward jealousy lest she should be treacherous to her Lord, or that anything
should occur to grieve Him.
Then, again, I am sure there is another
bitterness that will always accompany a true sight of Christ, and that is, an
intense horror at man’s rejection of Him. With those who love Christ most,
there comes to be, after a time, sympathy with Jesus rather than with men.
But, brethren, there is an intense bitterness
in your heart when you come truly to see Christ on the cross, as you realize
that all people do not believe in Him, that His kingdom has not yet come, and
that His will is not done on earth as it is in heaven. Still do men reject Him;
they scoff at His gospel, they despise His cause, they set up idol gods and
false saviours, and all this is as a dish of bitter herbs to those who really
love Him.
This bitterness has the most gracious effects
upon us.
1 This
bitterness works great hatred for sin. We dread the fire of sin because it
burned the Saviour; that is why we hate it so intensely. Sin murdered Him; so,
can we ever tolerate it? Could anyone ever play with the knife that had killed
his best friend? Could he preserve it as a choice treasure? Nay, he would, if
he could, fling it into the depths of oblivion; and sin, that cruel murderous
thing that slew our Saviour, we would take revenge upon you! We abhor you; God
has made you bitter to us; and there dwells, in that bitterness, a power
that helps to sanctify us.
But next, that bitterness makes Christ very
sweet.
2. It makes all worldly things lose their
taste. The world loses its charm for true believers.
3. It removes the bitterness from the things of
this life.
4. It takes away all bitterness against your
fellow men.
5. In this bitterness with Christ, there is an
unutterable sweetness.
I think that mourning for sin is as sweet a flower as blooms outside
heaven. I do assure you, from my own experience, that the still, calm, quiet
joy which does not well up out of yourself, but comes into you direct from
Christ by the way of the cross, is the rarest and most roseate dew that ever
charms us this side of the glory-land. God give you all to know, to the full
extent, the sweet bitterness – the bitter sweetness – that comes of a sight of
Christ crucified, for His dear Name’s sake! Amen.”
Is this not wonderfully put? Does this not also stir your heart?
Does this not bring sadness and bitterness and wonderful hope? It is when we
admit to Jesus with each sin that that sin has pierced Him and has spilled His
blood, and if we mourn for what we have done to HIM and if we repent from that
sin, that He forgives us and that He uses that blood to cleanse us from that
sin. If we don’t do this, we remain guilty of His body and His blood and we
never find cleansing and deliverance. When we realize and accept we have
wounded Him, His wounds heal us.
From Spurgeon’s book:
“12 SERMONS ON THE CRIES FROM THE CROSS” I quote the following:
Chapter 2 “Christ plea for ingorant sinners.” “Then Jesus said: Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Luk.23:34. I think too that we did not know all that we were doing in our
rejection of Christ, and putting him to grief. We refused and rejected Christ.
We did not know that, in that rejection, we were virtually putting him away and
crucifying him. We were denying his Godhead, or else we should have worshipped
him. We were denying his love, or else we should have yielded to him. We were
practically, in every act of sin, taking the hammer and the nails, and
fastening Christ to the cross, but we did not know it.
The fact is, we were refusing Christ, and choosing the pleasures of
sin instead of Him; and every hour of delay was an hour of crucifying Christ,
grieving his Spirit, and choosing this harlot world in the place of the lovely
and ever-blessed Christ. We did not know that.
.. and we did not know that we were even then perpetrating the
highest insult upon Christ.
He prayed for you when you were crucifying Him.
Chapter 4. “Lama Sabachthani?”
What an accursed thing is sin, which crucified the Lord Jesus!
Surely I, too, must be an accomplice in the crime! Sin murdered Christ; will
you be a friend to it? Sin pierced the heart of the Incarnate God; can you love
it? Oh, that there was an abyss as deep as Christ’s misery, that I might at
once hurl this dagger of sin into its depths, whence it might never be brought
to light again! Be gone, O sin! Thou art banished from the heart where Jesus
reigns! Be gone, for thou hast crucified my Lord, and made Him cry, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” O my hearers, if you did but know yourselves,
and know the love of Christ, you would each one vow that you would harbor sin
no longer.
Chapter 5. THE SHORTEST OF THE SEVEN
CRIES. “After this, Jesus knowing that
all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith:
I thirst” John 19:28
The utterance of “I thirst” brought out A TYPE OF MAN’S TREATMENT OF
HIS LORD. It was a confirmation of the Scripture testimony with regard to man’s
natural enmity to God. According to Scripture man is a fallen creature, with a
carnal mind which cannot be reconciled to God; a worse than brutish creature,
rendering evil for good, and treating his God with vile ingratitude. Alas, man
is the slave and the dupe of Satan, and a black-hearted traitor to his God. Did
not prophecies say that man would give to his incarnate God gall to eat and
vinegar to drink? It is done. He came to save, and man denied him hospitality; at
first there was no room for Him at the inn, and at the last there was not one
cool cup of water for him to drink; but when He thirsted they gave Him vinegar
to drink. This is man’s treatment of his Savior. Universal manhood, left to
itself, rejects, crucifies, and mocks the Christ of God. This was the act too
of man at his best, when he is moved to pity,.. but though he felt a degree of
pity, it was such as one might show to a dog; he felt no reverence, but mocked
as he relieved. He pitied the sufferer, but he thought so little of Him that he
joined in the voice of scorn. Even when man compassionates the sufferings of
Christ, a man would have ceased to be human if he did not, still he scorns him;
the very cup which man gives to Jesus is at once scorn an pity. For “the tender
mercies of the wicked are cruel.” See how man at his best mingles admiration of
the Savior’s person with scorn of his claims; writing books to hold him up as
an example and at the same moment rejecting his deity; admitting that he was a wonderful
man, but denying his most sacred mission; extolling his ethical teaching and
then trampling on his blood: thus giving him drink, but that drink vinegar. O
my hearers, beware of praising Jesus and denying his atoning sacrifice. Beware
of rendering him homage and dishonoring his Name at the same time.
Alas, my brethren, I
cannot say much on the score of man’s cruelty to our Lord without touching
myself and you. Have we not often given him vinegar to drink? Did we not do so
years ago before we knew him? We used to melt when we heard about his
sufferings, but we did not turn from our sins. We gave him our tears and then
grieved him with our sins. We thought sometimes that we loved him as we heard
the story of his death, but we did not change our lives for his sake, nor put
our trust in Him, and so we gave him vinegar to drink.
We may therefore come before Him, with all the rest of our race,
when God subdues them to repentance by His love, and look on Him whom we have
pierced, and mourn for Him as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.
Chapter 12. “Mourning at the Sight of the Crucified”
“And all the people that came
together to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their
breasts, and returned.” Luke 23:48.
The grades of difference in feelings were as many as the minds in
which they ruled. There were many, no doubt, who were merely moved with a
transient emotion. Ere the next morning light had dawned, they had forgotten it
all. Their beating of the breast was not a breaking of the heart.
Others amongst that great crowd exhibited emotion based upon more
thoughtful reflection. They saw that they had shared in this murder of an
innocent person. “Our race has killed its benefactor.” Such feelings would
abide, but I can suppose that they might not bring men to sincere repentance;
for a while they might feel sorry that they had oppressed the innocent, .. They
have regretted that Christ should be put to death. “I would have defended Jesus
with my life” some may say, but those very feelings have been evidence that
they did not feel their share in the guilt as they ought to have done.
No doubt there were a few in the crowd who smote upon their breasts
because they felt, “We have put to death a prophet of God.” Such mourning was an
advance of other forms; it showed a deeper thought and a clearer knowledge, ..
but it would not of itself suffice as evidence of grace.
Let us hope there were some who said: “Certainly this was the Son of
God,” and mourned to think He should have suffered for (because of) their transgressions, and been put to grief for (because of) their iniquities .. that we
may be saved.
I shall ask you first to smite your breasts, as you remember that
you see in Him your own sins. They must be infinite sins to require an infinite
person to lay down his life in order to their removal.
I will not accuse you; I will ask those dear wounds to do it,
sweetly and tenderly. I will rather accuse myself; for, alas! alas! There was a
time when I heard of him as with a deaf ear;..
O Spirit of the living God, win an entrance for the blessed Christ
this morning! If anything can do it, surely it must be a sight of the crucified
Christ; that matchless spectacle shall make a heart of stone relent and melt,
by Jesus’ love subdued.
Beloved in the Lord, if such grief as this should be kindled in you,
it will be well to pursue the subject, and to reflect upon how unbelieving and
how cruel we have been to Jesus since the day that we have known Him. What,
doth He bleed for (because of) me and have I doubted Him? Have I stood
at the cross’ foot unmoved? Have I spoken of my dying Lord in a cold,
indifferent spirit?
Brethren, you may smite upon your breasts as you look at the cross,
and mourn that you should have done so little for your Lord.
He shows that since our sin pierced the side of Jesus, there is
cause for unlimited lamentation, but since the blood which flowed from the
wound has cleansed our sin, there is ground for unbounded thanksgiving.
Lastly, there is one thing for which we ought always to remember
Christ’s death with joy, and that is, that although the crucifixion of Jesus
was intended to be a blow at the honor and glory of our God – though in the
death of Christ the world did, so far as it was able, put God Himself to death,
and so earn for itself that hideous title, “a Deicidal world,” yet never did
God have such honor and glory as He obtained through the sufferings of Jesus.
O heart of God, I see thee nowhere as at Golgotha ,..
You have but to look into the heart of Christ all crushed and broken and
bruised, and you have seen it all.
From the book “MORNING
BY MORNING” by Spurgeon, I quote:
20 January. Abel was hated by his
brother – hated without a cause; and even so was the Savior. The natural and
carnal man hated the accepted man in whom the Spirit of grace was found, and
rested not until His blood had been shed. Abel fell, and sprinkled his altar
and sacrifice with his own blood, and therein sits forth the Lord Jesus slain
by the enmity of man while serving as a priest before the Lord. Let us weep
over Him as we view Him slain by the hatred of mankind, staining the horns of
His altar with His own blood.
11 March. “Sin… exceeding
sinful.” Rom.7:13. Beware of light thoughts of sin. Sin a little thing? It
girded the Redeemer’s head with thorns, and pierced His heart! It made Him
suffer anguish, bitterness and woe. Look upon all sin as that which crucified
the Savior, and you see it to be “exceeding sinful.”
17 March. “Remember the poor.” Gal.
2:10. Why does God allow so many of His children to be poor? There are many
reasons: one is to give us, who are favored with enough, an opportunity of
showing our love to Jesus. Remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, “inasmuch
as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it
unto me.” Surely this assurance is sweet enough, and this motive strong enough
to lead us to help others with a willing hand and a loving heart – recollecting
that all we do for His people is graciously accepted by Christ as done to
Himself.
23 March. “His sweat was as it were
great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” Luke 22:44. This proves how
tremendous must have been the weight of sin when it was able to crush the
Savior so that He distilled great drops of blood!
31 March. “With His stripes we are
healed.”
See how the patient Jesus stands,
Insulted in His lowest case!
Sinners
have bound the Almighty’s hands,
And spit in their Creator’s face.
With thorns His temples gor’d and gashe’d
Send streams of blood from every part;
His back with knotted scourges lash’d,
But sharper scourges tear His heart.
We will first pray our
Beloved to print the image of His bleeding self upon the tablets of our hearts
all the day, and at nightfall we will return to commune with Him, and sorrow
that our sin should have cost Him so dear.
8 April. “If they do these
things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?” Luke 23:31. What whips of burning fire will
be yours when conscience shall smite you with all its terrors, Ye richest, ye
merriest, ye most self-righteous sinners – who would stand in your place when
God shall say, “Awake, O sword, against the man that rejected Me; smite him,
and let him feel the smart forever”? Jesus was spit upon: sinner, what shame
will be yours. We cannot sum up in one word all the mass of sorrows which met
upon the head of Jesus who died for (because of) us, therefore it is
impossible for us to tell you what streams, what oceans of grief must roll over
your spirit if you die as you now are. By the agonies of Christ, by His wounds
and by His blood, do not bring upon yourselves the wrath to come!
9 April. “And there followed
Him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented
Him.” Luke 23:27. Amid the rabble rout which hounded the Redeemer to His doom,
there were some gracious souls whose bitter anguish sought vent in wailing and
lamentations – fit music to accompany that march of woe. When my soul can, in
imagination, see the Savior bearing His cross to Calvary ,
she joins the godly women and weeps with them; for, indeed, there is true cause
for grief – cause lying deeper than those mourning women thought. They bewailed
innocence maltreated, goodness persecuted, love bleeding, meekness about to
die; but my heart was a deeper and more bitter cause to mourn. My sins are the
scourges which lacerated those blessed shoulders, and crowned with thorns those
bleeding brows: my sins cried “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” and laid the cross
upon His gracious shoulders. His being led forth to die is sorrow enough for
one eternity: but my having been His murderer, is more, infinitely more, grief
than one poor fountain of tears can express.
Why those women loved
and wept was not hard to guess: but they could not have had greater reasons for
love and grief than my heart has. Nain’s widow saw her son restored – but I
myself have been raised to newness of life. Peter’s wife’s mother was cured of
the fever – but I of the greater plague of sin. Out of Magdalene seven devils
were cast – but a whole legion out of me. Mary and Martha were favored with
visits – but He dwells with me. His mother bore His body – He is formed in me
the hope of glory. In nothing behind the holy women in debt, let me not be
behind them in gratitude or sorrow.
Love and grief my
heart dividing,
With my tears His feet
I’ll lave –
Constant still in
heart abiding,
Weep for Him who died
to save.
A.W.TOZER
In his book “WHO PUT JESUS ON THE CROSS?” we reed the
following:
Chapter One. Who Put Jesus on the Cross?
There is a strange conspiracy of silence in the world today – even
in religious circles – about man’s responsibility for sin, the reality of
judgment, and about an outraged God and the necessity for a crucified Savior.
Let us not eloquently blame Judas nor Pilate. Let us not curl our
lips at Judas and accuse, “He sold Him for money!” Let us pity Pilate, the
weak-willed, because he did not have courage enough to stand for the innocence
of the man whom he declared had done no wrong. Let us not curse the Jews for
delivering Jesus to be crucified. Let us not single out the Romans in blaming
them for putting Jesus on the cross.
Oh, they were guilty, certainly! But they were our accomplices in
crime. They and we put Him on the cross, not they alone. That rising malice and
anger that burns so hotly in your breast today put Him there. That basic
dishonesty that comes to light in your being when you knowingly cheat and
chisel on your income tax return – that put Him on the cross. The evil, the
hatred, the suspicion, the jealously, the lying tongue, the carnality, the
fleshly love of pleasure – all of these in natural man joined in putting Him on
the cross.
We may well admit it. Every one of us in Adam’s race had a share in
putting Him on the cross!
I discover that repentance is mainly remorse for the share we had in
the revolt that wounded Jesus Christ, our Lord. That painful and acute
conviction that accompanies repentance may well subside and a sense of peace
and cleansing come, but even the holiest of justified men will think back over
his part in the wounding and the chastisement of the Lamb of God. A sense of
shock will still come over him. A sense of wonder will remain – wonder that the
Lamb that was wounded should turn His wounds into the cleansing and forgiveness
of the one who wounded Him.
ROY HESSION
In his book “THE CALVARY ROAD” we read:
P45. God wants, moreover, to take us back to that Cross and show us
our sins wounding and hurting the Lamb. “Were you there when they crucified my
Lord?” asks the old Negro spiritual. The answer is, ‘Yes, we were.’ By our
willingness to ‘break’, we show that we were part of that crowd slaying Him at Calvary . For it is only when we have seen these sins
of ours in the heart of Jesus, so that we are broken and willing to repent of
them and put them right, that the Blood of the Lamb cleanses us from them and
the Dove returns with peace and blessing to our hearts.
A saintly African Christian once told a congregation that as he was
climbing the hill to the meeting, he heard steps behind him. He turned and saw
a man carrying a very heavy load up the hill on his back. He was full of
sympathy for him and spoke to him. Then he noticed that His hands were scarred,
and he realized that it was Jesus. He said to Him, ‘Lord, are you carrying the
world’s sin up the hill?’ ‘No,’ said the Lord Jesus, ‘not the world’s sin, just
yours!’ As that African simply told the vision God had just given him, the
people’s hearts and his heart were broken as they saw their sins at the Cross.
Our hearts need to be broken too, and only when they are, shall we be willing
for the confessions, the apologies, the reconciliations, and the restitutions
that are involved in a true repentance of sin.
OSWALD CHAMBERS:
From his daily
devotions, “My Utmost for His Highest” 23 June, I quote:
“We have to
recognize that sin is a fact, not a defect; sin is red-handed mutiny against
God. Either God or sin must die in my life. The New Testament brings us right
down to this one issue. If sin rules in me, God’s life in me will be killed; if
God rules in me, sin in me will be killed. There is no possible ultimate but
that. The climax of sin is that it crucified Jesus Christ, and what was true in
the history of God on earth will be true in your history and in mine.”
SELWYN
HUGHES
From: Every Day With Jesus esubscription March/April 2007 [mailto:edwj@cwr.org.uk]
Sent: 06 April 2007 01:12 AM
Subject: Friday 6 Apr…‘I did that!’
Sent: 06 April 2007 01:12 AM
Subject: Friday 6 Apr…‘I did that!’
Every Day with
Jesus e-subscription March-April 2007
Issue Title: The Cries from the Cross
Selwyn Hughes
Issue Title: The Cries from the Cross
Selwyn Hughes
'And when the
centurion ... heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, "Surely this man
was the Son of God!"' Mark 15:39
Friday 6
Apr.'I did that!'
For reading
& meditation - 1 Corinthians 1:10-25
Haven't got your
Bible?
'For . the cross
is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is
the power of God.' (v.18)
On this Good
Friday we pause to remind ourselves of something that is so often overlooked,
namely, that Jesus Christ was not only crucified for our sins, but also by
our sins. We should never allow ourselves to forget that Christ was done
to death, not only by a few peculiarly atrocious sins committed by a small
number of evil men, but by every sin, including 'ordinary sins' - the sins that
you and I have committed and maybe are committing still. There was, for
instance, the bigotry of the Pharisees, the self-seeking of the Sadducees, the
dismissiveness of Pilate, the angry clamour of the crowd. Those were the sins
that nailed Jesus Christ to the tree - and we have committed those very sins.
Who can stand up
and say he or she has never been prejudiced, self-seeking, dismissive or angry?
Not one of us. Perhaps you feel that you have never been a bad person and have
no responsibility for putting Jesus Christ on the cross. You have lived a
fairly decent life and have never deliberately harmed anyone. Then travel with
me to Calvary and let the consequences of
'ordinary' sins come home to you. That is one of the purposes of the cross. It
makes us see plainly what is normally hidden - the awful foulness and horror of
what we so often describe as 'little' sins.
My friend, there
are no 'little' sins. Every sin is a violation of God's law, however small it
may seem to us, and it strikes deep into His heart. That's the awful thing
about sin - even the offences we may consider very trivial; it doesn't just
break His law, it breaks His heart. Today, as you focus on the cross, pause and
think and say to yourself, 'I did that!'
Lord Jesus
Christ, contritely I look at Your cross and confess 'I did that!' Please help
me to break with all sin - the 'little' sins I commit as well as the 'big'
ones. Amen.
CWR, Waverley
Abbey House,Waverley Lane, Farnham, Surrey GU9 8EP, England
SP
LANCASTER & JM MONSON.
Isaiah’s Exalted
Servant in the Great Isaiah Scroll, Messiah Journal, Issue 107, Spring
2011/5771
p26 Human agency
(Assyrian violence or the crucifixion) is not the cause of the servant’s
oppression; human depravity is. A direct object indicator, et follows bo (“upon
him”) at the end of statement 7and leaves no doubt that “the iniquity of all of
us” receives the force of the verb: The LORD “brings the iniquity of all of us”
upon the servant. All humanity is responsible. …
The above leaves us dumbfounded, like the
non-Israelite kings in statement 1.
We begin to understand the full force of
the metaphor often used by the Apostle John, “Look! The Lamb of God, who
carries the sin of the world!”
PERSONAL COMMENTS:
WHEN AND HOW
ARE WE TRULY SAVED?
HOW ARE WE
SET FREE AND CLEANSED FROM OUR SINS?
HOW DO WE
FIND A HOLY LIFE WITHOUT WHICH WE WILL NOT SEE GOD?
It is clear from scripture that it is only through the cross and
blood of Jesus that we are forgiven, saved, cleansed and delivered from all sin
and by which we are justified (made just) and sanctified (made holy) Matt. 26:28; Acts
20:28; Rom. 3:25; 5:9; 1Cor. 1:18; Eph. 1:7; 2:13-16; Col. 1:20-22; Hebr. 1:3;
9:12,14,22; 10:10, 14, 19, 22; 13:12, 20-21(see KJV); 1Pet.1:18-19; Rev 12:11.
Most people say it and know it, but most never experience it. Why? How do we
find salvation to the uttermost and holiness?
People who were and are sincere and honest towards God, the Almighty
Creator, have been asking these questions since beginning of time. Some indeed
found the answer, like Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, John, etc. The answer
to this question is found in the Bible but one must search for it with one’s
whole heart. But even if it is spelled out as clear as daylight as Jesus
showed, taught and lived, people who do not sincerely want to perfectly obey
God and who do not want complete deliverance from all sin and a holy life, will
not see it and will not accept it. In fact, they will fight it as the plague
itself. They will try and destroy it and kill it – as has happened to Jesus and
almost all the holy prophets of God who spoke these things.
The clearest answer to these questions is found in Zechariah 12 and
13 and no wonder Zechariah was also killed between the temple and the altar.
Even today this portion is hardly preached on or is discarded as only applying
to the Jews in the end times. Zechariah told the Jews and wrote to us:
“And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem Jerusalem
In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and
for the inhabitants of Jerusalem
“And it shall be in that day that every prophet shall be ashamed of
his vision when he prophesies; they will not wear a robe of coarse hair to
deceive. But he will say, ‘I am no prophet, I am a farmer; for a man taught me
to keep cattle from my youth. …”
I will bring the one-third through the fire. Will refine them as
silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name,
and I will answer them. I will say. “This is My people’; and each one will say.
‘The Lord is my God.’” Zech.12:10 - 13:9.
When we sincerely want to obey God and stop with our sin, God will
send us His Spirit of grace and supplication / pleading. The Holy Spirit will plead
with is to look up and see it is Jesus we were hurting and piercing with every
sin. He bore our sins like wounds in His body on the cross. We see every sin
pierced and crushed His heart, caused spilling of His blood (life) and grieved
and quenced His Spirit.
This will cause us to mourn bitterly for HIM and we will repent
utterly with deep grief and sorrow. Then God will open that fountain of Jesus’
blood which will wash us and cleanse us and work mightily against all our sins.
Every time we sin again, the Spirit pleads us to again look up to
Him whom we have pierced by that sin. If we obey the Holy Spirit, we will again
confess and repent with deep sorrow and mourning – and in grace He will forgive
us, deliver, cleanse and free us from that sin - THROUGH THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB.
So eventually we will be fully cleansed and sanctified – and sin no more. Oh,
His grace and love!
Zecharriah says GOD will now cause the idols, false prophets and
unclean spirits to depart from our hearts and lives. If we now hear someone
telling lies in the Name of the Lord, we will tell him he may no longer live
doing that and even if it is our own child, we would rather loose him through
death than that he continues to tell lies about Jesus because we know how sin
pains and pierces Jesus. The priests and prophets will now see the truth of
what sin is and what it has done to Jesus and they will be ashamed of the lies
they spoke and of the way in which they have deceived the people. They will
admit they were and are no prophets, but earthly and like people tending to
cattle. The sword will also awake against Jesus and strike at Him and scatter
His sheep and little ones. And so He will utterly purify and test everyone. The
true ones will be purified and call on God and God will answer and show they
are His and these ones will in truth worship and acknowledge the true God.
Is. 53:10 says: by this
knowledge of Him shall My Righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear
their iniquities / sins. Knowing He bears our sins like wounds will
work mightely in our hearts and minds and we can excuse sins no more. We
confess it with deep sorrow, repent seriously form it – and by grace He
forgives and cleanses us and makes us just and righteous. Oh, glory to Him!
When are we then saved? When we stop piercing Jesus by stopping our
sins.
Sonder (die erkenning van) bloedvergieting (van Jesus deur elke
sonde) vind daar geen verlossing of vergifnis van sonde plaas nie. Hebr. 9:22.
Without (acknowledging and confessing) the shedding of the blood of
Jesus (through each sin), there is no forgiveness or deliverance from sin.
Hebr. 9:22. Without the remorseful admission and confession that you have shed
the Messiah’s blood with every sin, there is no forgiveness or deliverance from
that sin.
1Pet.2:24 says: “…who Himself bore our sins in His own body on
the tree, that we may die to sin / stop with sin, and might live for
righteousness – by whose stripes you were healed.” He bore our sins like
wounds to show us how hurtful, evil and inexcusable sin is and His overwhelming
love for us, to utterly condemn all sin in the flesh – so that we may stop with
sin and that we may live righteously and justly. Those terrible wounds our sins
have made will now heal us from our sickness of sin.
Ps. 69:9 and Rom.15:3 confirm this. “And the reproaches of those
who reproach You have fallen on Me.” Ps.69:20 says: “Reproach has broken
my heart and I am full of heaviness / sickness.”
Logically then, if we continue with sin, we are damned and doomed
because of murdering Jesus. That is why we will still surely die if we eat of
the forbidden tree and why the wages of sin is death and why the soul that sins
will surely die. But thank God, there is forgiveness AND cleansing and
deliverance from all sin – that we may stop disobeying, hurting and piercing
our own loving Father. In view of the cross, we have no excuse for our sins
anymore. If we continue with sin and excuse it, we are guilty of killing God
and Jesus and we will pay in hell for that. But if we admit and confess and
repent from it all, then we will experience the wonder of the mercy and
salvation of Jesus Christ namely that it is His blood that indeed is the power
of God to cleanse us for all sin and that makes us holy and righteous.
NB. Jesus did
not die in your place and He did not pay your debt so that you may still go to
heaven by merely accepting it - whilst you continue sinning. Do not believe
this lie. You will loose heaven because of it. Is. 53:10 was translated and
interpreted incorrectly to fit this teaching. For the correct translation see Gesenius' Hebrew Chaldee Lexicon on
Is.53:10 Strong's numbers 2470 and 1792. The correct translation is: "Yet it pleased the Lord to be bruised /
smitten, to be made weak / to be put to grief." God allowed us to
bruise and grieve Him – for the reasons as explained.
Without holiness,
no one will see God or enter heaven BUT the blood of Jesus can cleanse us from
ALL sin, so that we may live a holy life to enter heaven. Will Jesus find this
faith when He returns? Only the Joshuas and Calebs believe God and persevere
until they receive and enter the promise. The majority fights it, rejects it,
ignores it, does not desire it - and dies in the wilderness under the wrath of
God.
According to
Jesus’ words, those who deny that they are guilty of all the righteous blood
ever shed on earth, from the blood of the righteous Abel to the blood of
Zechariah killed in their churches, even to the blood of Jesus, are thereby
witnesses and proving against themselves that they are the sons of those who
murdered the prophets. On top of not admitting their guilt, most even
blame God falsely for punishing Jesus in their place for their sins. However,
those who see and accept the truth, will admit and confess that their sins
killed Jesus and all the holy prophets every time they went against their
words – and they will be forgiven and changed.
SELA
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