The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ - Dr.Chuck Missler

Excellent study by Dr. Missler on the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Good stuff!

Charles "Chuck" Missler is an author, evangelical Christian, Bible teacher, and former businessman. He is the founder of the Koinonia House ministry. To listen to more Messages and view the other resources please do visit this Ministry's website : http://www.khouse.org/

The Gospel of John Movie - Chapters 18 & 19

It's good to remember who we are at this time of year, and why we remember the King, the cross and the empty tomb.  Above all it's Who we remember, and what He did for us...

and chapter 19

Jesus' Death: Six Hours of Eternity on the Cross

Lambert Dolphin   A superficial reading of the gospel narratives concerning the death of Jesus will show that He was nailed to the cross at 9 o'clock in the morning, and was dead by 3 in the afternoon. His terrible ordeal, it would seem, was over in a mere six hours.
The agony in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before had been an ordeal in prayer before His Father that we can scarcely understand. The writer of Hebrews comments on this incident,

"In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard for his godly fear. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered..." (Hebrews 5:7, 8)

Then, too, Jesus had been up the rest of the night without sleep enduring beating, cruel mockery and unspeakable brutality. The next morning, the Romans scourged Him. (Mark 15:15, John 19:1).
Jesus was already greatly weakened when he carried his cross, stumbling, to the place of crucifixion alongside the main public highway, probably just outside the Damascus Gate.

Several medical doctors and forensic experts have written books about the common Roman form of execution---death by crucifixion. Often the process took several days. The nailing of hands and feet forced the victim to push up against the weight of his own body to take a single breath. In the hot sun, terrible thirst ensued and death came in most cases from suffocation amidst great pain. The victim was also naked and humiliated---death on the cross was reserved for the most wretched of all criminals.
Wood was in short supply in Israel in Roman times. It is likely that small trees (such as these olive trees) were pressed into service to handle the thousands of executions. Crosses were stuck into the ground along major thoroughfares to offer maximum public viewing which included public ridicule and scorn. The terrible nature of this punishment helped enforce Rome's control over the Jews whom they hated anyway. In the Law of Moses hanging a criminal on a tree or cross was reserved for the most serious crimes, "And if a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is accursed of God), so that you do not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance." (Deuteronomy 21:22-23)

There is much more to the death of Jesus on the cross than the visible suffering, terrible pain and suffering, and the incredible ignominy of such a horrible death for One who was not only innocent but also the very Son of God.

The Cosmic Struggle on the Cross

After speaking of Jesus and his role in the creation of the universe Paul in his letter to the Colossians tells us about invisible events taking place outside of the physical realm, and outside of our ordinary space-time continuum during the dying of Jesus on the cross,

...in Jesus all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you, who once were estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him. (Col. 1:19-22)

The above passage reveals that not only did Jesus take upon Himself the sins of mankind when He died for us on the cross, but He also met fully the onslaught of demons, fallen angels, and all the power of evil forces in the heavens as well, disarming all of them completely.

Jesus' victory over man's greatest enemy, death, is boldly stated in the letter to the Hebrews:

"Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same nature, that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage." (Hebrews 2:14,15)

In speaking to the Apostle John from the heavens, Jesus sent these words to mankind:

"Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one; I died, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades." (Revelation 1:17-18)

Jesus, on the cross, also won back any and all claims Satan had on man, or the earth, or as an authority of any kind in the heavens. If, for example, Satan claimed to hold the title deed of the earth (having gained it because of Adam's fall) that deed now belongs to Jesus as one of the results of His work on the cross. (This is known as the "ransom" work of Christ on the cross---it's a topic sometimes debated by theologians, but one that makes sense). Satan's destruction, too, was accomplished on the cross, outside of time. For the final outworkings in history of Satan's we now eagerly are all waiting. What is a completed work in the eternal time frame will come to pass in human history at God's appointed time on our earthly calendars. His unseen and invisible victory over cosmic evil on the cross is yet another reason why Jesus alone is qualified to receive from the Father all honor and power and glory:

"And I (John) saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals; and I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, 'Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?' And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I wept much that no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. Then one of the (twenty-four) elders said to me, 'Weep not; lo, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered (overcome), so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.' And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders, I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth; and he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne." (Revelation 5:1-7)

Jesus: Great High Priest and Perfect Sacrifice

Two aspects of the death of Christ show something of the mystery of His death and the suffering He took onto Himself for our sake. The death of Jesus on the cross took but six hours as measured in dynamical time. Jesus was, for the first three hours on the cross, our Great High Priest. From noon till 3 P.M., during which time a strange and terrible darkness came over the earth, the High Priest became the Sacrifice.

If we now consider the nature of time and eternity (see Arthur C. Custance, Journey out of Time, Ref. 2) it must surely become clear that what was (for us) three hours' suffering by Jesus in total estrangement from the Father---was for Jesus an event in eternity which never ends. The work of Jesus on the cross, as far as we are concerned, is completely finished. Jesus is not now hanging on a cross. He has been raised from the dead, and sits in heaven, fully in charge of the universe as a resurrected man. One man, one son of Adam, Jesus the Lord is now living in glory and He is in charge of the universe.

But in another sense, if we could step into eternity and view an eternal being such as the Son of God experiencing life---if we could see things from the vantage point of eternity---then we would perceive that a part of the eternal God must suffer forever, outside of time, because of human sin.

The Eternal Sufferings of God in Christ

The statement of Jesus to one of the thieves crucified alongside him was, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." (Luke 23:43) This statement suggests that when He died, Jesus left our time frame and immediately entered eternity. Likewise, the spirit of his companion on an adjacent cross, the dying, redeemed thief also left time and entered eternity when he also died that same day.

The next event in eternity for the human spirit of Jesus was His return to reenter His body in the tomb just before dawn on Easter Sunday morning. By means of the mighty power of the Holy Spirit, He then experienced the complete transformation of His body and His resurrection "out from among the dead." In the time frame of earth, these events are separated by perhaps 40 hours, but in eternity they are an immediate sequence of events, one following another. The dying thief was not raised from the dead at the same earth time as Jesus was raised from the dead. However, in his own (the thief's) consciousness, he stepped out of time to join the general resurrection of all the righteous dead which coincides in history with the Second Coming of Christ.

Notice that phrase: "the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world." This statement confirms again that time is not a factor in eternity. The death of the Lamb actually took place in time, on earth, at a specific date on the calendar--yet it is reckoned here as an eternal event which has meaning for people who have lived ever since the beginning of time. That is why an Old Testament saint such as Abraham could be born again by grace through faith just like a New Testament saint--even though the tree which would be hewn into the cross of Christ had not even been planted as a seed in Abraham's time! The death of Jesus Christ was an event that can be fixed at a particular set of coordinates in space and time-yet it is also the summit of God's eternal program, utterly transcending both space and time. Thus the cross casts its shadow over all of creation. (Ray C. Stedman, God's Final Word)

In this sense, neither heaven nor hell are yet populated---all believers reach heaven at the same "time." The dying thief, Stephen the first martyr, the Apostle John, and all the rest of us will arrive in heaven at precisely the same "instant," experiencing neither soul sleep nor loss of consciousness nor time delay, whether the interval between our death and the Second Coming is a hundred years or one hour. The thief on the cross, in his own consciousness, will experience arriving in Paradise the very same day he died, as Jesus promised he would. (Of course if heaven is still empty, except for Jesus, from our vantage point in time, the prayer to Mary or St. Jude or any of the saints is pointless. These believers are each "time traveling" in their own split-second interval separating their individual death from the great resurrection of all of us believers. Thus, we all get to heaven at the same "time."

In His sinless and perfect human body---prepared especially as a perfect blood sacrifice for the sins of the world---Jesus suffered terribly in body, soul, and spirit during the long night of His trial. That suffering began with the agony in the garden of Gethsemane and in all the humiliating events of His trial and cruel torture prior to His morning journey to Golgotha. The worst was yet to come. Death by crucifixion is an especially painful and terrible death. It was common in Roman times for crucified men in good health to hang dying on a cross sometimes for days, yet Scripture records that Jesus died within six hours' clock time. Even if He only suffered normal human pain in this ordeal it would have been incredibly severe.

All this pain, however, was but the prelude to His real suffering, which involved being cut off from the Father's love and presence and consigned to carry our sins out of the universe, to hell as it were, like the scapegoat sacrifice of Israel of which he, Christ, is the antitype.

The Scripture records three statements by Jesus during the first three hours on the cross when He served as the true Great High Priest before the Father and four further statements during the time of darkness from noon to 3 P.M. when the High Priest became the Sin-Offering. It was during the latter three hours, evidently, that the sins of all mankind were laid upon Jesus and the Father turned His face away from His beloved Son.

"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Read the rest of this article at -  http://www.ldolphin.org/sixhours.html

This Islamic Terrorist Left Jihad for Jesus

Stacy Long AFA – Charisma News

"Many people in Islamic countries, especially young Muslims, are exhausted and overwhelmed. They are tired. They want to take shelter in a peaceful belief. But if you do not have peace with God, you will not be able to have peace with others, no matter how much you would love to. So, with Christianity, there is an open door for us to touch the hearts of millions of Muslims all over the world." -Daniel Shayesteh
"Many times I cried, 'Allah, I want to kill Christians, I want to kill Jews.' We planned a lot of things, evil things for the Christian world, cruel things for the Jewish world. ...It is by the grace of God that I am here." (Photo via Charisma News)

So begins the testimony of Daniel Shayesteh, formerly an Islamic terrorist and Iranian revolutionary; now a Christian evangelist. 

"I was a famous boy," Shayesteh recalls. "By the age of 9, I was able to do Islamic rituals and recite the Quran." 

Picked out from the 12 children of his father's two wives to do Islamic studies from his earliest years, Shayesteh's fame carried him to a position of power among Islamic extremists. With two others he founded Hezbollah, in its earliest days as the revolutionary army in Iran. The army overthrew Mohammed Reza Shah, the king of Iran, in the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and Shayesteh became a political leader helping to institute the rule of Sharia law. 

It didn't take long, however, for Shayesteh and other revolutionaries to become dissatisfied with Ayatollah Khomeini, the man they had brought into power to be the country's "Supreme Leader." After Shayesteh's colleague, Abolhassan Beni Sadr, was elected president in 1980, tensions escalated, and in 1989 Khomeini used his influence with Hezbollah to form a military coup against the government with the intent of killing the president. President Sadr and others in his political camp were able to escape the country alive, but Shayesteh was not among them. He was captured and put in prison, which he describes as "a painful place, a place where you beg to die." Even as he waited in a cell on death row, expecting to be executed, God providentially stepped in. 

"By the grace of Jesus, I escaped," he says. "Even though I didn't know Him, He had a plan for me." 
In an unbelievable and difficult escape, Shayesteh made it to Turkey, where he continued to seek a channel of influence. He enrolled in a university and obtained a doctorate in international management with a thesis on how religions, cultures and philosophies impact the human attitude. Even as he formulated that thesis, the conclusions that forced themselves into his mind startled and unsettled him. 

Read the rest of this article at -  http://www.breakingchristiannews.com/articles/display_art.html?ID=15789

Jewish Testimonies of How Israeli Professionals are Finding Jesus

Staff – Israel Today

"For the past 2,000 years, it would have been shocking - scandalous even - to claim that Jews can believe in Jesus!" -One For Israel
(Israel) - It is today no longer so uncommon to find Jewish people who believe in Yeshua (Jesus) as the promised Messiah of Israel, and within a Jewish context. Still, these people are often disregarded by mainstream Judaism as confused or disillusioned. (Photo via Israel Today)

The Israeli Messianic online ministry One For Israel has set out to demonstrate that Jewish people of the highest standing, and most certainly in their right minds, are indeed coming to a realization that Yeshua is Messiah.

“For the past 2,000 years, it would have been shocking - scandalous even - to claim that Jews can believe in Jesus!” the group wrote on its Facebook page. “We are proud to announce our new project I MET MESSIAH. Dynamic video testimonies of Jewish professionals who met their Messiah!”
Over a period of 10 weeks, the One For Israel team, in partnership with Chosen People Ministries, interviewed no fewer than 35 Jewish professionals who are today Believers in Yeshua. Their video testimonies are now available online at imetmessiah.com.

For more on this article read -  http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/26368/Default.aspx

Buddhist Parents Told Their Daughter She Couldn't Attend Church, Which Almost Killed Her, But Then Jesus…

by Mark Ellis :: God Reports

While recovering from a suicide attempt she prayed, "Lord, this is not the life I want. Bring me back to You."
(Chanthaburi, Thailand)—Raised in a strict Buddhist family in Chanthaburi, about three hours east of Bangkok, her parents didn’t understand when she became a born again Christian. (Photo via God Reports)

“My parents brought me to the temple, but I never felt connected to those things,” says Blue Erika Ployamporn. “They prayed in a language I didn’t understand.”
An unusual thing happened to her as a young teen. “When I was 13 brushing my teeth God called me,” Blue recalls. Her mother had been ill, and she told Blue she would have to take care of her brother and sister if she died.
She began to weep because she realized she didn’t know where her mother would go after she died. “I didn’t know how to see her again,” she says. “They said there is the next life, but you can’t choose where you go. I felt so hopeless.”

Where will I go when I die? she wondered. Will I remember myself after I die? Will I remember my name is Blue?

Shortly after that experience, she moved to Bangkok, where she attended school and lived with her cousin. One day a Christian neighbor knocked on her door.
“Hello. How are you? Do you know Jesus?” the woman asked.
“Who is Jesus?” Blue replied. She had never heard the name of Jesus.
“Do you want to know Him?” the woman inquired.
“Yes...who is He?”

The woman told Blue about the life of Jesus, how He demonstrated He was God in human flesh by performing many miracles, how He died on the cross for our sins, was raised bodily from the dead, and ascended to the right hand of the Majesty on high.

Read the rest of this article at -  http://www.breakingchristiannews.com/articles/display_art.html?ID=15735

The Passion of the Christ - Crucifixion

 The Crucifixion scene from Mel Gibson's 2004 masterpiece, The Passion of the Christ. Audiovisual content copyright Billion Dollar Boy Icon Film Distribution Pty Ltd (Australia VOD)

He Frequented Gay Bars in Hollywood Until God's Grace Set Him Free

Michael Ashcraft, Mark Ellis  God Reports

"I never got what I deserved... here I am alive and serving Jesus." -Paul Gualtieri
(Apple Valley, CA)—Molested a few times when he was a child, Paul Gualtieri dabbled with homosexuality as a largely unsupervised 13-year-old in Palm Springs. (Photo via God Reports)

It wasn't long before he found himself in his bedroom proclaiming his destiny: "I'm gay. I'm a homosexual," he said out loud with no one around. It was a pivotal moment of his life. "There's power in confessing both good and bad things. When I declared I was gay, I gave a right to a spiritual force in my life."
When he was 13, he ran away to Hollywood and threw himself headlong into the partying and gay lifestyle. "I just got sucked right into it," he recalls. "I thought it was great."
He was too young to be admitted to the gay bars but prostituted himself to support a lifestyle that included drugs like Quaaludes, coke and meth.
"I just ran rampant," he says. "I had different boyfriends. We would panhandle every day to buy drugs and pay our hotel."
He slept at anybody's house who'd have him, in Plummer Park and in the "Hotel Hell," once posh lodgings for movie luminaries that became decrepit and abandoned on Hollywood Boulevard.

Read the rest of this article at -  http://www.breakingchristiannews.com/articles/display_art.html?ID=15714

The Radical Cross

  By A.W. Tozer

 

 

“The work of Christ on the cross did not influence God to love us, did not increase that love by one degree, did not open any fount of grace or mercy in His heart. He had loved us from old eternity and needed nothing to stimulate that love. The cross is not responsible for God's love; rather it was His love which conceived the cross as the one method by which we could be saved. God felt no different toward us after Christ had died for us, for in the mind of God Christ had already died before the foundation of the world. God never saw us except through atonement. The human race could not have existed one day in its fallen state had not Christ spread His mantle of atonement over it. And this He did in eternal purpose long ages before they led Him out to die on the hill above Jerusalem. All God's dealings with man have been conditioned upon the cross.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Radical Cross: Living the Passion of Christ

Messianic prophecies

“Messiah” means “Anointed One”
Biblical prophecy specialists Peter and Paul LaLonde have noted that:

The Old Testament includes about sixty different prophecies, with more than 300 references, of the coming of the Messiah. It was through the fulfillment of these prophecies that Israel was told she would be able to recognize the true Messiah when He came. The four gospels record several times when Jesus said that He was fulfilling a prophecy of the Old Testament. Luke 24:27 records, for example,

“And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” And verse 44 notes, “And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and the prophets and the psalms, concerning me.” [Peter and Paul LaLonde, 301 Startling Proofs & Prophecies (Niagra Falls, Ontario, Canada: Prophecy Partners, Inc., 1996).]

Jesus Christ himself said, “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me” (John 5:46, NKJV). Likewise, Christ’s disciples taught that He fulfilled Old Testament prophecy (e.g., Acts 3:18; 17:2-3; 1 Corinthians 15:3-4).

Partial list of prophecies about the Messiah

Click to learn the story of  Moses in our God’s Story section.

1. A prophet like unto Moses. This was prophecied by Moses, himself:
   

   “The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear, according to all you desired of the LORD your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, lest I die.’ And the LORD said to me: ‘What they have spoken is good. I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him’.” (Deuteronomy 18:15-19, NKJV).

   Like Moses, the Messiah would be a leader, a prophet, a lawgiver, a deliverer, a teacher, a priest, an anointed one, a mediator, a human and one of God’s chosen people (a Jew) performing the role of intermediary between God and man—speaking the words of God—and like Moses, the Messiah would offer himself to die for the sins of the people. Both Moses and Jesus performed many miracles validating their message. As infants, both their lives were threatened by evil kings, and both were supernaturally protected from harm. Both spent their early years in Egypt. Both taught new truths from God. Both cured lepers (Num 12:10-15; Matt. 8:2-3) and confronted demonic powers. Both were initially doubted in their roles by their siblings. Moses lifted up the brazen serpent to heal all his people who had faith; Jesus was lifted up on the cross to heal all who would have faith in Him. Moses appointed 70 elders to rule Israel (Num. 11:16-17); Jesus appointed 70 disciples to teach the nations (Luke 10:1, 17). And there are many other parallels between the lives of Moses and Jesus.
2. The Messiah would be a descendant of Noah’s son, Shem. Noah said, “Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant (Gen. 9:26-27). Chapter 10 goes on list descendants of Shem, noting that he was ancestor of Eber (Heber: Luke 3:35), the founder of the Hebrew race.
   

   Noah associated Shem especially with the worship of Jehovah, recognizing the dominantly spiritual motivations of Shem and thus implying that God’s promised Deliverer would ultimately come from Shem. The Semitic nations have included the Hebrews, Arabs, Assyrians, Persians, Syrians and other strongly religious-minded peoples.
   …Shem was peculiarly His [God’s] steward with respect to the propagation of God’s will and plan for mankind, especially the transmission of His saving Word. (Henry M. Morris, The Defender’s Bible)

3. More specifically, he would be a descendant of Shem named Abraham ( Genesis 22:18; 12; 17; 22). Fulfilled: See Christ’s genealogy in Matthew 1.
4. 

   Click to learn more about the Abraham and Isaac in our God’s Story section.
   More specifically, he would be a descendant of Abraham’s son, Isaac, not Ishmael (Gen. 17; 21). Fulfilled: See Christ’s genealogy in Matthew 1.
   
5. More specifically, he would be a descendant of Isaac’s son, Jacob, not Esau (Gen. 28; 35:10-12; Num. 24:17). Fulfilled: See Christ’s genealogy in Matthew 1.
6. More specifically, he would be a descendant of Judah, not of the other eleven brothers of Jacob. Fulfilled: See Christ’s genealogy in Matthew 1.
7. More specifically, he would be a descendant of the family of Jesse in the tribe of Judah (Isaiah 11:1-5). Fulfilled: See Christ’s genealogy in Matthew 1 and Luke 3:23-38.
8. More specificially, he would be of the house of David (2 Samuel 7:12-16; Jeremiah 23:5; Psalm 89:3-4). Fulfilled: See Christ’s genealogy in Matthew 1; Luke 1:27, 32, 69. Note: Since the the Jewish genealogical records were destroyed in 70 A.D., along with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, it would not be possible for a Messiah imposter who was born later to prove his lineage back to David and thus fulfill this prophecy.
9. He will be born in a small city called Bethlehem, specifically the one formerly known as Ephratah (Micah 5:2). Fulfilled: Luke 2:4-20. Note: Christ’s birth in Bethlehem was apparently not by the choice of Mary and Joseph; it was forced upon them by Caesar Augustus’ taxation decree which required Joseph to leave his home in the city of Nazareth and return to his place of origin to pay the tax.
10. He will be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14). Fulfilled: Matthew 1; Luke 1.
11. The Messiah would be the “seed of of a woman” come to destroy the work of the Devil. Not long after Creation, God prophecied to the serpent Satan, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:15). The implication was that Eve’s descendant would undo the damage that Satan had caused.
    

    The “seed of the woman” can only be an allusion to a future descendant of Eve who would have no human father. Biologically, a woman produces no seed, and except in this case Biblical usage always speaks only of the seed of men. This promised Seed would, therefore, have to be miraculously implanted in the womb. In this way, He would not inherit the sin nature which would disqualify every son of Adam from becoming a Savior from sin. This prophecy thus clearly anticipates the future virgin birth of Christ.
    Satan will inflict a painful wound on the woman’s Seed, but Christ in turn will inflict a mortal wound on the Serpent, crushing his head. This prophecy was fulfilled in the first instance at the cross, but will culminate when the triumphant Christ casts Satan into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10).
    This primeval prophecy made such a profound impression on Adam’s descendants that it was incorporated, with varying degrees of distortion and embellishment, in all the legends, mythologies and astrologies of the ancients since they are filled with tales of mighty heroes engaged in life-and-death struggles with dragons and other monsters. Mankind, from the earliest ages, has recorded its hope that someday a Savior would come who would destroy the devil and reconcile man to God. (Henry M. Morris, The Defender’s Bible)

    In the New Testament, Christ’s apostle John confirms that this was His Master’s purpose, “He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work” (1 John 3:8). (Also see: Hebrews 2:14; Revelation 20:10.)
12. He will be a priest after the order of Melchisedek (Melchisedec) (Psalm 110:4). Fulfilled: Hebrews 5:6
13. The scepter shall not pass from the tribe of Judah until the Messiah comes. In other words, He will come before Israel loses its right to judge her own people. The patriarch Jacob prophecied this:
    

    The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. (Genesis 49:10)

    As Dr. Henry M. Morris’ The Defender’s Bible explains:
    

    This important prophecy has been strikingly fulfilled. Although Judah was neither Jacob’s firstborn son nor the son who would produce the priestly tribe, he was the son through whom God would fulfill His promises to Israel and to the world. The leadership, according to Jacob, was to go to Judah, but this did not happen for over 600 years. Moses came from Levi, Joshua from Ephraim, Gideon from Manasseh, Samson from Dan, Samuel from Ephraim and Saul from Benjamin. But when David finally became king, Judah held the scepter and did not relinquish it until after Shiloh came. “Shiloh” is a name for the Messiah, probably related to the Hebrew word for “peace” (shalom) and meaning in effect, “the one who brings peace.”

    According to the Jewish historian Josephus, the Sanhedrin of Israel lost the right to truly judge its own people when it lost the right to pass death penalties in 11 A.D. (Josephus, Antiquities, Book 17, Chapter 13). Jesus Christ was certainly born before 11 A.D.
14. 

    Click to learn more about the life of Jesus in our God’s Story section.
    He will come while the Temple of Jerusalem is standing ( Malachi 3:1; Psalm 118:26; Daniel 9:26; Zechariah 11:13; Haggai 2:7-9). Fulfilled: Matthew 21:12, etc. (Note: The Temple did not exist at certain periods in Jewish history, and it was finally destroyed in 70 A.D.)

Read the rest of these prophecies at - http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/messianicprophecies.html

The Gospel is GOOD News - Kinetic Typography - Sermon Jam

This is my first attempt at kinetic typography I hope to do more in the future.
If you would like to download 8 GB of Christian learning material for free go to my website here:
http://chriswhiteministries.com/?page...
The drawing of Jesus on the cross in profile was used with permission from the artist Michael Petrus www.michaelpetrus.com or FB https://www.facebook.com/Michael.DevC...
The speaker in the video is John Macarthur

The Old Cross and the New

By A.W. Tozer

ALL UNANNOUNCED AND MOSTLY UNDETECTED there has come in modern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles. It is like the old cross, but different: the likenesses are superficial; the differences, fundamental.

From this new cross has sprung a new philosophy of the Christian life, and from that new philosophy has come a new evangelical technique-a new type of meeting and a new kind of preaching. This new evangelism employs the same language as the old, but its content is not the same and its emphasis not as before. 

The old cross would have no truck with the world. For Adam's proud flesh it meant the end of the journey. It carried into effect the sentence imposed by the law of Sinai. The new cross is not opposed to the human race; rather, it is a friendly pal and, if understood aright, it is the source of oceans of good clean fun and innocent enjoyment. It lets Adam live without interference. His life motivation is unchanged; he still lives for his own pleasure, only now he takes delight in singing choruses and watching religious movies instead of singing bawdy songs and drinking hard liquor. The accent is still on enjoyment, though the fun is now on a higher plane morally if not intellectually. 

The new cross encourages a new and entirely different evangelistic approach. The evangelist does not demand abnegation of the old life before a new life can be received. He preaches not contrasts but similarities. He seeks to key into public interest by showing that Christianity makes no unpleasant demands; rather, it offers the same thing the world does, only on a higher level. Whatever the sin-mad world happens to be clamoring after at the moment is cleverly shown to be the very thing the gospel offers, only the religious product is better.

 

The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him. It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect. To the self-assertive it says, "Come and assert yourself for Christ." To the egotist it says, "Come and do your boasting in the Lord." To the thrill seeker it says, "Come and enjoy the thrill of Christian fellowship." The Christian message is slanted in the direction of the current vogue in order to make it acceptable to the public. 

The philosophy back of this kind of thing may be sincere but its sincerity does not save it from being false. It is false because it is blind. It misses completely the whole meaning of the cross. 

The old cross is a symbol of death. It stands for the abrupt, violent end of a human being. The man in Roman times who took up his cross and started down the road had already said good-by to his friends. He was not coming back. He was going out to have it ended. The cross made no compromise, modified nothing, spared nothing; it slew all of the man, completely and for good. It did not try to keep on good terms with its victim. It struck cruel and hard, and when it had finished its work, the man was no more. 

The race of Adam is under death sentence. There is no commutation and no escape. God cannot approve any of the fruits of sin, however innocent they may appear or beautiful to the eyes of men. God salvages the individual by liquidating him and then raising him again to newness of life. 

That evangelism which draws friendly parallels between the ways of God and the ways of men is false to the Bible and cruel to the souls of its hearers. The faith of Christ does not parallel the world, it intersects it. In coming to Christ we do not bring our old life up onto a higher plane; we leave it at the cross. The corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die. 

We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish good will between Christ and the world. We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, the world of sports or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum. 

God offers life, but not an improved old life. The life He offers is life out of death. It stands always on the far side of the cross. Whoever would possess it must pass under the rod. He must repudiate himself and concur in God's just sentence against him. 

What does this mean to the individual, the condemned man who would find life in Christ Jesus? How can this theology be translated into life? Simply, he must repent and believe. He must forsake his sins and then go on to forsake himself. Let him cover nothing, defend nothing, excuse nothing. Let him not seek to make terms with God, but let him bow his head before the stroke of God's stern displeasure and acknowledge himself worthy to die. 

Having done this let him gaze with simple trust upon the risen Saviour, and from Him will come life and rebirth and cleansing and power. The cross that ended the earthly life of Jesus now puts an end to the sinner; and the power that raised Christ from the dead now raises him to a new life along with Christ. 

To any who may object to this or count it merely a narrow and private view of truth, let me say God has set His hallmark of approval upon this message from Paul's day to the present. Whether stated in these exact words or not, this has been the content of all preaching that has brought life and power to the world through the centuries. The mystics, the reformers, the revivalists have put their emphasis here, and signs and wonders and mighty operations of the Holy Ghost gave witness to God's approval. 

Dare we, the heirs of such a legacy of power, tamper with the truth? Dare we with our stubby pencils erase the lines of the blueprint or alter the pattern shown us in the Mount? May God forbid. Let us preach the old cross and we will know the old power. (A. W. Tozer, Man, the Dwelling Place of God, 1966)

In Christ Devotion #2 | Polluted Pulpits & Home Church, You Can Seek Jesus At Home Too!

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The Many Degrees of Satan: Freemasonry, Martial Arts, Apostles, "Whosoever Will"

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The Vigilant Christian Compilation - From Katy Perry, MTV and Satanic Foolishness to a Born Again Christian

If I get behind on these guys like I do sometimes, I think it's better to catch up all at once.  So here's the latest very interesting and relevant work from Vigilant Christian...
 

The bible tels us that we defeat the enemy by the power of the word of our testimony! In this video I share a testimony of a teen girl who is now a new born Christian! Please subscribe to her to support, encourage and show Christlike love to her. She is young and her battle trying to stand for God in her generation will not be easy! Please share this video :) God Bless, STAY VIGILANT & FEAT NO EVIL !!!

Please Subscribe to Gabriella - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvPE...
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BORN-AGAIN CHRISTIAN TESTIMONIES !!! God is MIGHTY to Save! Playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...
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The Brutality of ISIS is Driving Yazidi Refugees to Jesus

News Staff : Christian Aid Mission

"We prayed with them. We said Jesus can heal, and they immediately give their hearts to the Lord. And Shirkhan was very touched by this ministry, and he said, 'How can I be a missionary like you and go help people? Shirkhan surrendered his life to the Lord and prayed with us."
(Iraq)-[Christian Aid Mission] An ethnoreligious community in Iraq was once inaccessible to native Iraqi missionaries, as members lived reclusively in distant mountains near the border with Turkey. Since Islamic State (ISIS) atrocities drove them from their mountain strongholds last year, however, Yazidis now account for most of the people who have turned to Christ through a local ministry. (Photo: Worshippers at a camp for Internally Displaced People in Iraq)

While ISIS terror tactics have contributed to many Muslims in Iraq and Syria coming to Christ, in the past six month about 70 percent of those displaced to the northern Iraqi cities of Erbil and Dohuk who have embraced Christ through one ministry's outreach are Yazidis, a native Iraqi ministry director said.
"When they were kicked out of their area, they all went south to Dohuk and Erbil," he said. "It was very far and very difficult for us to go there to reach these people, so the Lord just brought them to us."
With beliefs and rituals rooted in Zoroastrianism, mixed with elements of Christianity and Islam, Yazidis dwelled in the high-altitude Sinjar Mountain range stretching from Iraq's Nineveh Governorate to the lower, shorter segment in Syria. The Islamic State massacred as many as 500 Yazidis in an offensive last August in the Iraqi town of Sinjar and surrounding areas.
Among all displaced peoples the ministry has reached in the Erbil and Dohuk areas in the past six months, about 80 families have put their trust in Christ, he said. They are large families of seven to 10 people each. While more Muslims than Yazidis are coming to Christ among displaced people reached by other ministries, the director of this ministry (unnamed for security reasons) has seen Yazidis respond most. Among other converts, about 20 percent came from traditional churches where they had grown up with little knowledge of the Bible and had no relationship with Christ, and the remaining 10 percent came from Muslim families.
"Around Kurdistan there are so many churches and so many ministries, and I believe the number [of converts] is huge," the director said, adding that the total likely amounted to several thousand.
Among them was a Yazidi boy of no more than 15, named Shirkahn, who lost both of his sisters to ISIS kidnappers. When the ministry director met him in Dohuk, the boy was trying to help his mother and father survive by asking people if he could shine their shoes for the equivalent of less than 25 cents.
"He told me this story with tears," the director said. "His dad was paralyzed because of what happened to the family when ISIS kicked them out. Shirkahn told me that he hadn't eaten for four days."
Members of the ministry team prayed with him and asked if they could visit his family and pray for his father. He took them to their tent on the street.
"We talked to the mother; we talked to the father," he said. "We prayed with them. We said Jesus can heal, and they immediately give their hearts to the Lord. And Shirkhan was very touched by this ministry, and he said, 'How can I be a missionary like you and go help people? Shirkhan surrendered his life to the Lord and prayed with us." (Photo via Christian Aid Mission)
Ministries are able to bring the love of Christ into tents with supplies to meet the cold of winter.

Those who come to Christ are connected to tent churches, while some who live close enough to an established church might walk to its building for worship. Thus people of varied backgrounds and ethnicities meet together for worship and instruction in Kurdish and Arabic, he said. Yazidis are primarily Kurdish-speaking.
"With the Yazadis, most of the women were taken," he said. "So a lot of people went through hard times and are broken-hearted. We talked to them immediately."
Displaced Muslims, meantime, continue to be open to the message of Christ—including, in one case, an apparent ISIS sympathizer or associate. A team from the ministry assisted by Christian Aid Mission was distributing aid and strayed into an ISIS area. They realized their error when an area man began asking them what they were doing there.
"He was very extremist, you could see by his beard," the director said. "We said we were giving some help to these people. He said, 'Yes, but I see your car has Bibles in it and Christian materials.' We said, 'Yeah, we work with a church and we give these away. But we will leave now if you want.' He goes, 'Why do you give all these people Bibles, and you don't give one to me?' So we were surprised that this guy was extremist and he asked us for the Bible. We gave him a Bible, and we started to tell him stories about the Lord, and then immediately we left the area."

Read more at - http://www.breakingchristiannews.com/articles/display_art.html?ID=15412

How Can Christ Be the Only Way to God?

William Lane Craig

 

A rigorous attempt to answer the problem of the fate of the unevangelized and the challenge of religious pluralism.

Introduction

 

I recently spoke at a major Canadian university on the existence of God. After my talk, one slightly irate co-ed wrote on her comment card, “I was with you until you got to the stuff about Jesus. God is not the Christian God!”

This attitude is pervasive in Western culture today. Most people are happy to agree that God exists; but in our pluralistic society it has become politically incorrect to claim that God has revealed Himself decisively in Jesus.

And yet this is exactly what the New Testament clearly teaches. Take the letters of the apostle Paul, for example. He invites his Gentile converts to recall their pre-Christian days: "Remember that at that time you were separated from Christ, aliens to the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world" (Eph 2.12). It is the burden of the opening chapters of his letter to the Romans to show that this desolate condition is the general situation of mankind. Paul explains that God’s power and deity are made known through the created order around us, so that men are without excuse (1.20), and that God has written His moral law upon all men's hearts, so that they are morally responsible before Him (2.15). Although God offers eternal life to all who will respond in an appropriate way to God's general revelation in nature and conscience (2.7), the sad fact is that rather than worship and serve their Creator, people ignore God and flout His moral law (1.21-32). The conclusion: All men are under the power of sin (3.9-12). Worse, Paul goes on to explain that no one can redeem himself by means of righteous living (3.19-20). Fortunately, however, God has provided a means of escape: Jesus Christ has died for the sins of mankind, thereby satisfying the demands of God's justice and enabling reconciliation with God (3.21-6). By means of his atoning death salvation is made available as a gift to be received by faith.
The logic of the New Testament is clear: The universality of sin and uniqueness of Christ's atoning death entail that there is no salvation apart from Christ. As the apostles proclaimed, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4.12).

This particularistic doctrine was just as scandalous in the polytheistic world of the Roman Empire as in contemporary Western culture. Early Christians were therefore often subjected to severe persecution, torture, and death because of their refusal to embrace a pluralistic approach to religions. In time, however, as Christianity grew to supplant the religions of Greece and Rome and became the official religion of the Roman Empire, the scandal receded. Indeed, for medieval thinkers like Augustine and Aquinas, one of the marks of the true Church was its catholicity, that is, its universality. To them it seemed incredible that the great edifice of the Christian Church, filling all of civilization, should be founded on a falsehood.

The demise of this doctrine came with the so-called “Expansion of Europe,” which refers to the three centuries of exploration and discovery from about 1450 until 1750. Through the travels and voyages of men like Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, and Ferdinand Magellan, new civilizations and whole new worlds were discovered which knew nothing of the Christian faith. The realization that much of the world lay outside the bounds of Christianity had a two-fold impact upon people's religious thinking. First, it tended to relativize religious beliefs. It was seen that far from being the universal religion of mankind, Christianity was largely confined to Western Europe, a corner of the globe. No particular religion, it seemed, could make a claim to universal validity; each society seemed to have its own religion suited to its peculiar needs. Second, it made Christianity's claim to be the only way of salvation seem narrow and cruel. Enlightenment rationalists like Voltaire taunted the Christians of his day with the prospect of millions of Chinamen doomed to hell for not having believed in Christ, when they had not so much as even heard of Christ. In our own day, the influx into Western nations of immigrants from former colonies and the advances in telecommunications which have served to shrink the world to a global village have heightened our awareness of the religious diversity of mankind. As a result religious pluralism has today become once again the conventional wisdom.

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/how-can-christ-be-the-only-way-to-god#ixzz3PiaWCWxe

Russ Dizdar - Days of Noah Prophecy Conference

Russ begins his presentation at around the 5:30 mark if you want to skip ahead.  His presentations include explanations of the spread and working of the occult, not just in society at large, but in the churches as well.  He deals extensively in deliverance ministry and explaining what to expect from a spiritual warfare perspective as we approach the end of the age.  Good stuff!

Redeemed Unredeemable - When America's Most Notorious Criminals Came Face to Face with God

By Thomas R. Horn and Donna Howell

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PART ONE When Forgiveness Seems Impossible

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In February 2014, a ten-year-old girl from Springfield, Missouri (within an hour’s drive from Defender Publishing), was kidnapped, raped, and murdered, allegedly by her school sports coach. In spite of several eyewitnesses at the site of the abduction and a long list of mounting evidence (including the body) found at this man’s home only hours after the child was publicly taken from the street, this man is currently awaiting trial with a not-guilty plea. Immediately following the announcement of the girl’s death, a candlelight vigil was held in her memory. Several staff members of Defender Publishing attended this vigil.

The new investigative book Redeemed Unredeemable was being written at that time.

The Candlelight Vigil

Approximately ten thousand people marched at eight o’clock that night. The city of Springfield closed a number of high-traffic roads and coned off many popular alleyways as the crowds pushed in closer around the family in support of this young girl. Scores of those attending were wearing shirts that said, “[Victim’s name] has left her footprint for the world to see.” Every kind of personality, ethnicity, and community group was present and unified under one common moral law; the crowd included conservative and religious families with kids, homosexual couples, the elderly, men, women, children, gothic teens, rough and muscular motorcyclists, city officials, court officials, members of law enforcement, close family members, and friends of the victim, as well as those who had never heard of the girl prior to her murder. 

                                                                                                                                                    

As the march began, everyone lined up along the sides of the street held their candles high, respectfully allowing the victim’s family to pass to the front, some straining to catch a glimpse of the young girl’s mother, who led the march, others standing still with heads bowed in prayer. The victim’s mother did not cry, nor did she make eye contact with anyone. In a sort of mechanical or survival mode, she simply kept her legs moving, an odd expression on her face revealing devastation edged with a contrasting refusal of defeat. The sniffles of thousands echoed off the quiet buildings along the usually bustling streets. Then, from somewhere in the back of the group, a single, brave voice rose in the silence: “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine…” The air was emotionally charged as an unspoken determination to remember the girl the way she was in her innocence swept over everyone present. Voices joined in the singing. Candles flickered. Grown men cried. 

                                                                                                                                                    

Slowly, the people made their way down the street. Apartments, homes, and places of business were filled with onlookers sitting or leaning out of their windows, the lights from the rooms behind them extinguished reverently, their handheld candles swaying with the song. Suddenly, bursts of wild cheering that can only be described as an uplifting excitement dominated the march from one side. As heads turned to find the source of the curious enthusiasm, handmade cardboard signs were hoisted high: “Let him hang!” “We need harsher punishments for crimes against women and children!” Amidst this group was one man who was quickly identified in the waves of whispers preceding his position in the march. It was the prosecuting attorney, a man who had been on the news earlier that day stating that the victim’s legal team planned to seek the death penalty. Although the multitudes continued to sing “Let It Shine” until they reached the end of the road, spontaneous chanting of the victim’s name rose and quieted in response to signs, shouted statements, or relatives of the victim who inspired a more passionate, eager, and fervent reaction from those who came in support. 

                                                                                                                                                    

Our staff, who have since agreed that one sound from our throats would have uncorked a cascade of choking sobs, marched in silence, unable to sing or chant or cheer while our tears remained concealed only by the sheer force of our will. When the crowds reached the final cross street of the march, everyone grew quiet as one girl stood and sang “Amazing Grace.” The candles were raised again until the hymn was completed. Then, everyone was asked to take a moment of silence. The silence increased into around a full minute as many bowed their heads, lifting up unspoken prayers to whatever higher power they believed in.

Immediately afterward, members of the local motorcycle community offered to give rides for a small fee to raise money for the victim’s family. Attention turned to the tattooed and bandana-adorned men and women, as they regarded those around them softly and soberly, revving their engines. Candles from almost ten thousand hands were then blown out, the waxy smell permeating our senses, and the smoky haze lifting into the light of the streetlamps, wordlessly announcing the end of the march. 

                                                                                                                                                    

Though there were thousands of footsteps on the ground—and shortly thereafter, the thousands of vehicles were starting all at once across the city—few voices could be heard as the masses headed to leave. It was only after our staff was a mile or so away from the event that we could take a deep breath and gather ourselves. We will never forget that night.

One of many aerial shots taken by the present news crews the night of the candlelight vigil

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FORGIVABLE?

The issue with criminals giving their hearts to the Lord post-crime and post-incarceration, at least in the minds of most, is the underlying question of whether their conversion can possibly be sincere. Ultimately, of course, that question can only be answered by God. Despite this, many on the outside do hear the stories of these transformations and cast their opinions immediately—without knowing, or even wanting to know, all the details.

The crowds at that candlelight vigil were angry, and to say that they had every right to be angry is the understatement of the century. Anger is a powerful force of human nature, and though it is often destructive, there are times, such as when someone is murdered, when the emotion can inspire change or action toward good. In these cases, anger is even encouraged by many. One might say that we should all be angry when the life of an innocent person is taken for such detestable and selfish gains. (Based on our conversations on the ride home, we at Defender Publishing are also incredibly angry at the person who did this to that little girl.) Without passionate, righteous anger against violent crime, we would have no justice system, for the very meaning of justice is rendered void by the absence of the passion that drives it. 

                                                                          

However, God in His seat on high doesn’t follow the same justice system or emotional patterns as we do. The Bible is clear that He does feel emotion, including anger, and when He walked the earth as a Man, He certainly felt human emotions. According to Scripture, He feels compassion (Psalms 135:14; Judges 2:18; Deuteronomy 32:36), grief (Genesis 6:6; Psalms 78:40; Isaiah 66:10), love (1 John 4:8; John 3:16; Jeremiah 31:3), hate (Proverbs 6:16), jealousy (Exodus 20:5; Exodus 34:14; Joshua 24:19), joy (Zephaniah 3:17; Isaiah 62:5; Jeremiah 32:41), and yes, anger (Psalms 7:11; Deuteronomy 9:22; Romans 1:18). But where God trumps our finiteness is when the balance of anger versus forgiveness comes into the equation; He has the ability to feel several emotions for every person at once as it is deemed divinely appropriate to Him. His emotions are never limited to our predetermined, fragmented, human expectations. He does not experience “mood swings on high.” He is emotion, and it is only by our humanness corrupting His ultimate design that we move so quickly from one emotion to another or stay longer than we should on a single emotion, never fully understanding His perfect balance of emotions (anger and love) with their corresponding or opposing actions (wrath or forgiveness). 

                                                                                                                                                    

We, as people and as victims of others’ selfishness, may never find the strength to forgive some acts against humanity.

The same cannot be said of God. 

                                                                                                                                                    

Can God forgive even the sins of one as terrible as the man who murdered that little girl? What about others like Ted Bundy or David Berkowitz? 

                                                                                                                                                    

This brings us to an issue that will be addressed once, early on: It is NOT necessarily the opinion of this author that all of the criminals whose stories are included in Redeemed Unredeemable are completely sincere and will therefore spend eternity with God; it is NOT necessarily the opinion of this author that these criminals are insincere and will therefore spend eternity in hell. It is only the opinion of this author that the Bible clearly says that all sins are forgivable (except for two: blasphemy of the Spirit [Matthew 12:31; Mark 3:29] and those who take the mark of the beast [Revelation 14:9]).

 

Read the rest of this article at - http://www.raidersnewsupdate.com/Redeemed1.htm