welcome welcome it's not that high no i wasn't saying you're yeah you're i was i was doing that welcome to the grow people podcast that is pastor jason Fresh off of 23 Easter gatherings. I am David Stein. I am the discipleship pastor here at Revolution Church. And the purpose of the Grow People podcast is to help grow people. Thank you. No. You're welcome. I was trying to come up with a segue into this first topic today.
There's the Pope died. That's not funny. I'm not laughing. No, we're not startled me with that. Yeah. Yeah. I actually thought, okay, what's a good segue into this? Cause I want to talk about this. Cause it's interesting. But that's it. Yeah, so the Pope passed away.
Was it on Monday that he passed away? It was either late Easter night. Yeah. Or, you know, I don't know what the time changed, but I think it was early Monday morning. Yeah, Easter Monday. Wow. No resurrection. Yeah. Woke up to that. Yeah. And, you know, one of the reasons I want to talk about it is I don't you probably don't know this about.
And I think you know everything about me. I was going to say, I don't know where you're going with this one. Yeah. I was Pope once. No. I have always had, since childhood, a fascination with funerals. You know, state funerals, presidential funerals, celebrity funerals. So not just funerals in general. Oh, no. Like you're not hanging out at a graveyard. No. No, I'm not down at Darby hanging out. Hey, guys. What you doing today?
Yeah, that is fascinating. Royal funerals. The pomp and circumstance of it all. Yes, and even as a... A non-believing atheist. I was watching, you know, John Paul II's funeral and Pope Benedict. Well, I think I was a believer when Pope Benedict died. But, you know, I'll be watching because it is fascinating. It is fascinating and nobody does tradition like the Catholic Church. No.
And it is – especially us as Protestants, you know, we don't have a pope. And we can talk about that, the papacy in general. Because neither did the – the early church didn't have a pope, even though Catholics would say it was Peter, you know. So, for us – As Protestants, we don't have such a venerated figure, you know, like he is the head of the church. So it is.
I was going to say it's as big as the president dying, but I would say it's bigger. Sure. Because it's worldwide. Because it's worldwide. It's not one country. Yeah. So right now it is. sede vacante yeah uh the seat is open and oh that's right you know latin yeah oh that the litany of the saints yeah um you know they would they would Go through the names of all the saints in Latin. And then there's a response. Pray for us. So it'd be like.
I'll do the impression. Yeah. Santa Matthew. Is that how you said it? Yeah. It's like you're singing him. Yes. Yes. Chance. Chance, yeah. That's the response. Pray for us. Pray for us. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what they're talking about, but they're going through all the saints and it goes on for, I don't know, 15, 20 minutes. Yeah. That's why it's called the Litany of the Saints, I guess. It's wild. Yeah. And I'll be watching, too, because obviously...
Even though we're not Catholic, I do think it's important for Protestants to understand we all came from Catholics. Because from, you know, the fourth century and... Until the 15th century or 16th century, um, there was. Well, at least from the 300s to the 1000s, there was only one church, Catholic. And then in the 1080, Catholics and Orthodox broke apart. But then Protestants came from the Catholic branch of that break.
And there's a lot of reasons for, I mean, we could talk about that one day on the podcast, like the Protestant Reformation. But I do, clearly there are theological differences between Catholics and Protestants. One of them, the papacy itself. The other one, the veneration of saints. Like, we don't pray to saints. And no offense to Catholics, I don't think we should, nor should we venerate Mary.
However, I think it was Luther who said this. I can't remember who said this, a theologian. But in the divorce of the church, like Catholics and Protestants. The kind of the old moniker is Protestants got the Bible and Catholics got the tradition, got church tradition. So I do think it's important for Protestants today to realize like. Before 1500, whenever that was 1595, when was it when Martin Luther nailed the 500 and 15, 500 years ago? Yeah. Um,
Whatever year that was, I can't remember off the top of my head, but our history didn't start in the 1500s is what I'm trying to say. Our history goes back, obviously, to the time of Christ. And it's actually... For us as Christians to ignore the role of the Catholic Church, does it injustice? Because we also take away the tradition of church history. We take away a lot of... A lot of leaders like Aquinas was Catholic. I mean, one of the greatest.
Not only theologians of all human history, but the greatest. minds of human history. Aquinas is revered. Chesterton, there's so many Catholics. And even Martin Luther himself didn't want to break away from the Catholic Church. He wanted to reform it. He wanted to change it. So, I do think it's important for us as believers, again, to recognize the differences on some theological grounds, but at the same time to honor that. And so, I think it's...
Like the Pope dying again, I do not believe what Catholics would believe is like the Pope. Still has the power to, in essence, like to almost write scripture because. He's in a succession of lines, and so therefore he's the head of the universal church. And that's all a Catholic means, by the way. Catholic means universal. Not universalism like that. But yeah, over the whole universe. You know, that's what Catholic means.
So the Holy Roman Catholic Church, you know— It wasn't Constantine, you know, when when Rome basically started quit persecuting Christians and. Um, and started that became the official Roman religion 300 years after that, which is again, crazy because Paul and Peter were crucified. Where is believed today to be the Vatican, you know, where that's where Peter was crucified. And so now it's called St. Peter's Basilica. Like it's, but that's where Nero crucified him, you know? So it went from.
crucifixion of the first pope to now. uh, the Vatican, um, is where the Pope lives. You know what I mean? Like that right there just shows you the power of Christianity to change a culture, to change. And again, I think we need to honor that the sacrifices that. I mean, again, Christians between 300 to 1500 AD, it was mostly Catholic. And we're a part, that's a part of our history is what I'm trying to say. We can honor that. Yeah. I just saw the conclave.
the movie that came out last year about the election of a pope. I thought it was great until the end. I'm not going to spoil it, but I thought it was great until the end. I haven't seen it. With the black smoke and white smoke and all that. It's crazy. One of my favorite movies, I would put it in my top 10 favorite movies of all time.
with anthony hopkins oh i love him it's really the story of benedict and the pope who just passed away and how they became friends and benedict stepped down yeah and I do hope for the sake of the Catholic church. In fact, I saw a post this morning. There's kind of, you know, three or four front runners for it. the god what's the pope this what's his name um francis francis he was from latin america um
Which I think he was the first Latin American pope, wasn't he? First from any of the Americas. Yes. Because typically they're European. And he was more progressive, more liberal, you know, than popes before him, which obviously being a conservative Christian, I didn't. Like he gave some weird rulings, especially on like gay marriage and blessings and those kinds of things. So I really hope from the Catholic Church perspective, they do elect a more conservative pope.
And one of the front runners I saw, he's actually – he's African, which would be the first – not African-American pope, but first black pope. I think that would be fantastic because he actually is the most conservative one of. I think they're front runners. So I do think it's important for us to pray for the Pope and for the Catholic Church to make a good selection because, again, even though we are not Catholic and they don't control what we do.
I do think it's important to have a solid biblical Pope, you know, for the world. Yeah. You know, and I think it would be, I can't remember the. The guy's name in Africa. Was the American guy one of the top four? Dolan? I think maybe what I have heard and read, a lot of people are wanting a Roman one again, you know, a European one, just obviously because of the connection to the Roman Catholic Church. But again, I think it'd be fascinating if we got an African one, because African Christians—
tend to be more conservative. Right. Because Christianity is exploding there. And anytime Christianity goes into a country for the first time, it has a profound moral effect on people, changes morality. And then sadly, over a time of centuries, and you see that happening here, it has happened here in America, especially like mainline denominations like Methodist and Episcopalian.
The more established they are, the more they tend to go more progressive, more liberal theologically on issues. And therefore, almost every mainline Protestant denomination in America is dying. There is a resurgence, thankfully. In fact, a New York Times article just came out this week talking about. Bible sales are at an all-time high. So that's what I'm saying. I think there's something happening. In fact, my professor, Ed Stetzer, just wrote a USAID article today talking about the data.
So I think now is the time to get a more conservative theological pope. And the guy from Africa is probably the most conservative one because, again, Christianity there is more new. And they have a stronger sense of morality. And what you said about it waning over the years, that's why we're going to Scotland. That's why we're planting churches in Scotland. Because Scotland at one point, what, 80% Christian, now less than 2% Christian. Yeah, less than 2%. And that's two generations.
In two generations, that happened. Yeah, and the Church of Scotland, just like the Church of England, broke away from the Catholic Church. created their own, but it's a very similar state to where... Again, very progressive now, theologically. Again, when I say those words, it's hard not to think politically. Like in the messages last weekend when I said left and right, I'm not talking politics.
But Paul, our take-home church there in Scotland, would tell you the Church of Scotland is very progressive. So that's what happens over time, sadly, a lot of times. And yeah. So places like that, places here. So I just think it would be good for Christianity, good for the world to have, you know, arguably the greatest religious leader in the world. stand up for biblical values and biblical morality? Well, he's got the greatest title.
in the world uh did a little research did you yes and and you've been watching the west wing oh i love it have you gotten to the episode this is not going to get well we're in season six okay all right so you've seen will will bailey Which is, um, the speech writer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. And you've seen him become, uh, officially director of, of speech writing or communications. Yeah. And the, um, And when President Bartlett, you know.
commissions him yeah he says there's only one person that has a better title than me and it's your father supreme allied commander nato forces europe yeah okay so that's so those are two pretty cool titles president of the united states and that Six-time Masters Champ is a pretty cool title, but check this one out. The Pope, the Pontiff, which means bridge builder, is the Bishop of Rome, the Vicar of Jesus Christ. successor of the Prince of the Apostles.
supreme pontiff of the universal church patriarch of the West primate of Italy, archbishop and metropolitan of the Roman province, sovereign of the Vatican city state, servant of the servants of God. Wow. That's his whole title? That's his title. That's a big old business card. That's what I mean about nobody likes tradition like Catholics. Yeah, and it feels like probably... Almost every time a new pope or something like.
They want to add something else to that title. Over the centuries, they just keep adding more to it. Wow. I did not know all of that. Yeah. Again, we didn't study the Pope much in Southern Baptist seminaries. But for historical sake, I'm certainly going to watch the... The funeral. Yeah. And again, I think it's good to watch one because that's a part of our history. And two, just to be intelligent about the world because people.
Like we were discussing this today, like even some of your neighbors think that like the Pope is the head of our church, you know, he's not. which is uniquely Baptist distinctive, like the autonomy of the local church. Like we have our own elders and board. So there's not a power above us like a bishop. Vicar is actually my favorite. That is very European. Like my friends in the UK and in Canada, since it's a, what is it? It's not a province of the...
It's not a territory. It's something. I can't remember. But Vicar is very, you know, is very Anglican, very Church of England, you know, so I kind of like Vicar, you know, Bishop. And we've talked about this. Bishop is actually a transliteration of a Greek word, of episkopos, which is episcopalian, where that comes from. Bishop is what it means. So it's okay. But it always just makes me laugh when I'll meet a guy and he's like, I'm Bishop so-and-so. And I'm like...
Just go with pastor, too. I'm an apostle so-and-so. Come on, bro. I don't know if you can name yourself bishop. Yeah. You know, like someone else has to name you that. Yeah. Well, and, and I don't, I don't know if this is right or wrong. You know, I see people name themselves. Sorry. I said Episcopos.
presbyterian yeah where yeah um evangelist i've seen i've seen titles of evangelist so-and-so prophetess so-and-so things like evangelist is probably the one that i might be okay with simply because Like in Ephesians 4 when it talks about the gifts that Jesus gives the church evangelists as one, teacher as one, shepherd as one. And apostle is in there too, you know? And so I do think there is a gift of apostle, because apostle just means sent one, but like we've talked about.
There's a difference between capital A apostles, which we would call those that actually saw Jesus resurrected, like in the New Testament. So at best, we're small A. But I think I like to think of it more of as a gifting. than a title. Yeah, because Reinhard Bonnke was evangelist Reinhard Bonnke. Yeah, I'm good with that. You know, it's fine. And again, Bishop... Bishop is not a bad title if you're within, like, the Catholic Church, if you're within a Methodist church, a bishop.
Biblically speaking, a bishop was somebody that was over multiple churches. Overseeing. Overseeing. You know, that was the thing. And that's how it is in the Presbyterian church, you know. So again, I don't have a problem with that, but if a dude's just leading a local ministry or a local church, like, bro, you're not prophet so-and-so, bishop so-and-so, it just makes me laugh.
we're here to pastor people. You know, I think of first Peter five is the best one. Like we are under shepherds. And then it says when the chief shepherd arise, you know, so like. We're pastors, man. That's what we do. Well, I want to get to a couple other things, especially Easter. Although I might be Pastor Jason slash Vicar of Canton. Bishop of Cherokee and Pickens County. Maybe we can add some of that. Sorry. Sovereign.
Sovereign of the highway 20. I'm just going to get this highway named after me one day. That's all I'm doing. I want Pastor Jason Highway out there. stop please no that was a joke yes that was a joke that was a joke i don't need a sign parking spot and i don't need a highway and not a reference to anyone else oh no there are plenty of pastors around the country who have highways named they do they do which again
But while I'm still alive, no. Like, you know, I don't want to be driving to work on a highway named after me. That just doesn't seem to be good for your ego. No. Sorry. No, no, you're good. You're good. We'll get to some... I'm going to have to hold off on this because I'm looking at the clock and I'm going, I have some fascinating things about some state funerals. I went to Reagan's funeral. Oh, you did? Yeah. The part that was...
in Simi Valley where his presidential library was. Oh, I said, I want to go to his library. I've heard it's amazing. It's amazing. Cause there's the air force one is there. Yeah. There's the hangar. There's an air force one and like the entire plane. Yeah. The whole plane. Yeah. And it is. tilted up at i don't know 20 degree angle yeah
And then in front of it, it's all glass. And you can see over the valley, right? Looking over the valley. So you feel like you're flying. Can you go in the plane? Yeah. So you can see what it was like. Yeah. Actually, a buddy of mine pastors in a church that was in the Palisades where all those fires were. And he's told me many times, like, dude, come stay with me. We'll go see the library. And I want to go see it.
Yeah, there's an F-14 Tomcat display. And, you know, obviously all the presidential libraries have a replica of the Oval Office. But it was pretty cool and so solemn. And just to walk past his casket, it was wild. Wow. Yeah. Oh, is he buried there? Yeah. Oh, I did not know that. Yes, yes. Wow.
And I would imagine Nancy is also. I would think, yeah. Yeah. I mean, and my favorite book of all time, next to the Bible. Yeah. Favorite book of all time, Death of a President, which is the four-day account of the Kennedy assassination. told to William Manchester, who wrote the book by Jackie and Bobby. Wow. Yeah. It's the only first-person account of those four days.
He got an interview with them in 1964. So it's on my shelf in my office here. Wow. I should read that sometime. When I am tired of... reading theology books not that i ever tired of course yeah you just need a mental break yeah yeah or something different yeah i'm not a big I'm not a big fiction guy. I think I used to be, but I'll talk about that in the sermon. Yeah. You ask it. Yeah. Let's see what you're doing there.
But yeah, I'll pull that book off the shelf. I will say my favorite genre of books now, outside the Bible, like you said, let's just make that disclaimer. Anytime we talk about the Bible's number one. Outside the Bible. But my favorite genre of books is biographies. Oh yeah. I love a biography. That is what I've really gotten into. So guys that I really like, um, I mean, autobiographies as well, obviously.
I prefer it be written by somebody else, but autobiographies do, like that whole thing. Let me write about myself. Yeah, yeah. It's just fascinating to see. Like I read one on R.C. Sproul not too long ago. Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I've got one on Martin Lloyd-Jones. I haven't read it yet. C.S. Lewis. Lindsay's actually reading one right now. Those things are just fascinating to see what went into making a person. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay, let's talk Easter. A little segue out of all of that stuff we were just talking about. Let's talk Easter, because apparently, apparently it's not over. It's not. At Revolution Church. We are in the Easter life. Yes. Pastor Chad said to me, well, I saw him on Tuesday. I hadn't seen him all weekend. And I said, hey, happy Saturday.
Well, I saw him Saturday. Yeah. He was here at the gatherings, but I didn't see him Sunday. Yeah. And I saw him Tuesday morning and I said, happy Easter. He goes, Easter's over. Yeah. No, it's not. It's not. Not here. No. So why three weeks? How did that come about? Because it has been. Probably the most talked about Easter service I've ever heard here. We had next door neighbors come visit on Sunday.
And they cornered me in the driveway. Not cornered me in the driveway. Pushed you up against the wall of your garage. And said, we're coming back the next two weeks. Everybody wants... Not that it's a cliffhanger. We know how it goes. What's going to happen next? Yeah. But they're fascinated that the entire sermon was on the crucifixion. Yeah. Well, I was up in the mountains. With the Lord. Upon high. Yeah. With the Lord for 40 days. not eating and drinking.
And I came down with these tablets. No, I'm just kidding. It was Tylenol. Yeah, it was Tylenol. No, I say that to say I'm joking because there was no grand spiritual revelation of why we're doing this. So the backstory is, it's always a backstory. Yeah. We had, I knew we were going to finish Ezra. Ezra was going to get us to Easter looking at the calendar. And I was laying out the teaching calendar and I saw Mother's Day is coming up in three weeks or two weeks now, I guess three weeks.
May the 11th, I think it is. And then we had Easter. I didn't want to just do something different in between two weeks. So I was actually talking with Lindsay about it, and she was like, well, what if we did Easter for like three weeks? That way we do Easter, then we go into Mother's Day, then we have a worship weekend after that, and then we'll start a new series. We're going to do it on the Psalms in the summer.
So that was really the first reason was simply a calendaring one, you know, because Mother's Day typically is a standalone. Not always. So it was really just a simple calendar one. But when Lindsay said that, when she said, what if we just did like Easter for three weeks? And it's three weeks because that's how many weeks there is on Mother's Day. The moment she said that, it was like an instant illumination, not revelation, but instant. I was like, oh.
Yeah, we can talk about the crucifixion, resurrection, ascension. Because, again, when you read Luke 23 and 24, that's the order of events, you know. And I said, I really like that idea because that's the hardest, like I mentioned in Easter, that's the hardest thing to do on Easter is try to cover everything. Because it is, you know, it's the crux of our faith. And so I think sometimes we can minimize one or the other, you know, like.
Like, the resurrection... obviously was preceded by the crucifixion. But I think sometimes we can focus so much on the fact that he overcame death, which is obviously true and good, and we'll talk about that. But not deal with the fact that why did he have to die, though? And why did he have to die like that? Why was the crucifixion the most brutal form of torture there was? Why? But then without the crucifixion, only...
becomes relevant to us because of the resurrection. Yeah. One of the things you said, and I don't know if you said it at every message. I tried to, I think, if I know what you're going to say. If it weren't for the fact that he rose from the dead, we wouldn't be talking. We wouldn't be talking about him. Yeah. Because we don't talk about any other crucified man.
And not just because there wasn't other great people crucified. There were. But again, Romans were so good at crucifixion, it was not just to punish a person, it was to obliterate them from the human record. And we've only found two crucified men. And the way we know, again, I say we, I wasn't a part of the archaeological dicks, but we as humanity. One in Jerusalem and then one in Cambridgeshire, just north of London, by Cambridge.
They were buried with the nail in their heels. And so the nail was still present. So we've only found two people like that. And you think about all the people that were crucified. In fact, I read something the other day. The Romans crucified so many people. That if you did the simple math between the time of Jesus until now, on average, they crucified 50 people a day over 2,000 year period. Wow. And they did that within a short amount of time, you know, within a couple hundred years.
The fact that, I mean, they stopped doing, like, Constantine banned crucifixions when he became emperor. So it was only in the time of Jesus until the 300. So in about 300 years, they crucified thousands of people, on average 50 a day. And we don't know anything about those people, you know? So yeah, without the resurrection, we wouldn't know anything about who Jesus was. We would have forgotten about him. But again, I didn't want to rush too quickly to the resurrection as well and miss.
The fact that without the crucifixion, it's not just that Jesus died. It's not just that Jesus rose again. It's that he died in our place. You know, he substituted himself in our place. So the fact that he died innocent is crucial to our faith, because if he wasn't innocent and he didn't die, then guilty people can't be justified as innocent. Three things that, you know, were my takeaways. If I had to pick three key, three crucial parts. See what I did there. The fact that.
We don't earn anything because the. Guy on the right. Yeah. The thief on the right. Yeah. Didn't earn it. No. No, that story of Alistair Begg, like the man on the middle cross that I could come. Yeah. It was funny because in our Saturday morning Bible study in my neighborhood, which is not a revolution, small group, it was just 15 guys in our neighborhood have this Bible study. So we're going through John. We've been in it for two years, I think.
And the guy who leads it was talking about the Alistair Begg thing. And I didn't mention it to you. And then when you brought it up, so, oh, I had invited him to Easter. And I said, there's going to be something in the message for you. Yeah. And when you got to that, I turned around. I caught his eye. Oh, he was there? Yeah. Yeah. So he came. He just thought it was just wonderful. But if you don't know what we're talking about.
just go to YouTube and type in the man on the middle cross. Man on the middle cross, you'll find it. Alistair Begg. Yeah. Yeah, and you do a pretty good impression because he's Scottish, as I said, and he has a sign of like... You made it! You made it! You made it! How'd you make it? It is Scottish accent, like he...
He illustrates it really well, and I couldn't do that justice. He's funny in and of itself. Yeah. But with his accent, he's so much funnier. Yeah. I'm a little jealous. Oh, 100%. Yeah. Yeah. I'm jealous, you know. To the rest of the world, Americans sound dumb. But to the rest of the world, typically, British or Scottish people sound smart. So that accent does something. The other thing, well, the fact that the... The man on the right didn't have to earn it.
I hope that stuck with me. Not that I'm trying to earn my salvation and not that I don't understand that it is grace through faith. Faith through grace. By grace and faith. By grace and faith. It was just that exclamation point of juxtaposing the guy on the right and the guy on the left. Yeah. And I loved how you didn't give that away. You just kept, you kept going. Now there's one guy who's right and one guy who's left. Yeah.
do you get what i'm saying yeah yeah no one guy who's right yeah one guy and there were like three people behind me that went oh yeah i got it yeah he was left in that he didn't go to paradise um yeah again and that's that's why i love um and The way we did Easter this year. Again, because it's a detail like that, that Luke adds in of like, Jesus was crucified with two criminals, one on his right, one on his left. And you kind of think about that. It's like, okay.
Like, that's just a fact. You know, you've seen a hill, you see three crosses. Everybody knows that. Jesus is in the middle. So that's a historical detail. But then when you start kind of playing with words, you're like, oh, yeah, but one. One was not just on his right, he was right. You know, and one was not just on his left, he was left. He was left. He was left behind, you know.
Yeah, and I made the reference of the cheesy Christian movie of Left Behind. We've talked about that on here as far as the rapture and stuff. But again, the principle... is the same. Like whether there's a rapture of the church, you know, in the order of events for the future. The principle is true. Jesus is coming back and we will either be with him in paradise or we won't be. We'll either be with him or we'll be left behind. And so clearly the criminal on the left
Was left, you know, he didn't get that promise. Um, and so, yeah, that's why I like talking about this and I've had conversations. uh, with people as well about that fact of like, Oh yeah, I didn't think about it. You know? And I had to say like, again, I'm not talking politics, you know? Yeah. Uh, and I'm not trying to insinuate that. Politically, you know, if you're on the left, you're left behind. That's what I'm saying. But in that instant.
Yeah, it was an important, again, one of those points that if I'm trying to cram it all into Easter, I don't think I'd probably make. Yeah, yeah. But the point of that is they were both criminals. They're both criminals. Yeah, that's the point. One just realized it. We are criminals. We're criminals. All criminals. The other thing, well, one of the other things was. And it was in the invitation in a couple of the sermons that I saw.
But you kind of went Seinfeld and talked about no paradise for you. No soup for you. But that struck home for a lot of people. Hey, there's no paradise for you. And that's not a turn and burn statement. It's just the fact. Just true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If Christ isn't substituted in our place for our sins, we're done. And that's the point I was trying to make. And I even said this early on in most of the messages. I tried to say it again.
Or try to remember to say it in all of them, but like when I make the point of like our entire faith hangs on that cross. I'm making that, again, that's a loaded meaning there. It hangs on the cross in the sense of the cross itself, but it's hanging on the cross in the sense that Jesus is hanging on the cross. Our faith is hanging in him.
He is the innocent lamb of God that was substituted for us. And so... without a recognition and that's what i love too like the criminal and cross juxtaposition you know the graphic that i put on the screen um I didn't see that until Thursday when I was finalizing the message. Like that's the essence of the gospel, you know, is that
Jesus was not a criminal, but he died in the place of criminals. And that's what makes it, it's only good news if you realize, like the criminal on the right, I deserve this. He's innocent. I'm not. but yet he substitutes himself in my place. That becomes... And that was the point I was trying to make, especially with the Lamentations verse of like, don't just pass by this. that that's that was my next thing yeah because had it just ended with
Left and right, and we wouldn't be talking about him if he hadn't been raised from the dead. That would have been great. It would have been an incredible Easter message. But then bringing in Lamentations 112. That set it apart completely because it brought it back into our world. Yeah. Yeah. And that was the... So this weekend, hopefully we might show a clip of... A theologian where I got that idea, a lady named Fleming Rutledge who wrote arguably the most seminal work called The Crucifixion.
And she was just talking about that. Like that's when she was 13, she listened to Handel's Messiah, as I referenced. And in Handel's Messiah, when it says, it quotes that, you know, is it nothing to you all who passed by? That's what struck her. And that's what made her look to the cross. And how, as we've talked many times, she's never gotten over that.
And so, yeah, that's when I think it went from just passing by to making it personal. You know, like, look at that. Is that nothing to you? And if you read those verses, is it nothing to you all who pass by? Look and see. Look and see. If there is any sorrow like my sorrow. Yeah. And she put in like his sorrow. Well, Handel did. Handel did. Yeah. Handel and Jennings who wrote it. Yeah. Which was brought upon me. which the Lord inflicted on the day of his fierce anger. Yeah.
Yeah. And I didn't even, I didn't even get into that last part because again, clearly, uh, Jeremiah, the prophet Jeremiah more than likely wrote that. And. That was talking about the Lord judging the nation of Israel, the Jewish people, for their sins and sending them into exile. So God was enacting justice on Jerusalem and the Jewish people in his anger, sending him into exile.
But that's a type that's a prototype or a foreshadowing of what God would do with Jesus. As I've said many times, it annoys me when people say, I don't like the God of the Old Testament. I like the God of the New Testament. The God of the Old Testament's mean. The God of the New Testament's nice.
It's a failure to understand what's actually happening in the New Testament. On the cross, God is enacting his same fierce anger. He's just not enacting it on his people anymore. He's enacting it on his son. The same God of the Old Testament that shows us he's holy and he has to judge sin, the same God who did that all came down on Jesus. That's why Jesus on the cross said, like he quoted Psalm 22,
Eloy, Eli, Eloy, Eli, Eloy, Eloy, something subacthony, you know, however you say that. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And I'm not trying to be super critical here, but I heard that as a kid, like that was at the moment that God turned his back on Jesus because God couldn't look at sin. I think that's a very like too simplistic way of a see that. And the reason I'm like, I'm not saying that didn't happen per se. So don't, but what I'm saying is like.
To say that God can't look on sin is to deny the divinity of Jesus. Jesus is God. Like, it's not like the Father could look on sin, but Jesus could take sin. I don't think that's what's going on there is my point. I think the reason why Jesus quotes Psalm 22, it's not because God had turned his back on him. Like, again, God's everywhere. How does God turn his back on his son? Like, I think the father in that moment was bringing down the full weight of his anger on Jesus.
And Jesus is God. The Father is God. The Spirit is God. So, the Father was feeling that too. It's not like Jesus, even though there are three persons, one God. It's just in that moment, the whole weight of the anger of the holiness of God coming down on sin was coming on Jesus. So he was being forsaken in the sense, not that God couldn't look at him, but he was being forsaken in the sense that he was now being judged.
for something he didn't do. And so I didn't even get into that part of the verse of Lamentations because we were done at that point. But yeah, at the cross, the justice of God meets the mercy of God. In a way, again, that's why it's the crux of our entire faith. Without the cross, there is no paradise. Yeah. Just as Lindsay said yesterday in our creative meeting, she went back and read Lamentations 1. Yeah. And I read Lamentations 1 and...
We get to for the next two weeks not pass by. Yes. Because it's so easy. for Easter to come and go. Yeah. Easter comes and goes. Maybe you had Easter Monday off. Maybe you didn't. Now we're into, all right, it's graduation season. It's end of school. It's wedding season. It's this, it's that. But we get to spend two more weeks looking at what happened and who Jesus is and his resurrection and ascension. And I know you love words, but that first verse, is it nothing to you all who pass by?
that in Hebrew, pass over, pass by, one of the definitions is alienate. So it's like all, is it nothing to you all who. Give that the Heisman. Yeah. And just push it away. And isn't that something we all do? Yeah. We have a tendency to. Okay, I've got Jesus in my Sunday box, maybe in my Wednesday box, but I'm giving him the Heisman. I'm alienating him the rest of my life. Yeah, I'm just passing by. Yeah.
Yeah, man. No, and again, that's the power of the gospel. And I'll even reference this this weekend when Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, he's like, He reminds them of the gospel. He said, what I receive and what I pass on to you, that Christ died, was buried, and rose again. Most people dismiss the crucifixion and the resurrection, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. They dismiss it. Or pass by it because if it is true, it's the most life-changing news on the planet. Like I can't.
If that's true, then that means everything in my life must change. And so obviously what people who don't believe in Christianity, they'll try to dismiss it. They'll try to discredit it. And like I said in the message, you cannot deny historically. that Jesus lived, that he died, and that... What atheistic scholars would say is they would say like, well, I can't say that he did rise again. But what they will say is, but I can't deny that.
Yes. Like the other possibilities of like he didn't really die. He survived it. Or the body was stolen. None of those are historically viable. There's just way too much evidence against those thoughts. And the eyewitnesses, hundreds and hundreds. Hundreds. Over 500. Paul says. Yeah, another great book is called Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Baucom. Again, with seminal work on that. You can't deny it. But the reason what we're talking about.
You can't deny it historically, so what most people do is just dismiss it. They just pass by it because— If that's true, everything is different, which is the whole point of it. It is true. And so, therefore, everything should be different. I think we talked about this on a podcast or maybe it was in a message.
that, you know, people believe the Battle of Waterloo, that Napoleon had his Waterloo at that battle. Yeah. And everybody, it's in every history book, every kid studies it, Battle of Waterloo and Napoleon. One historic account of that. One. every jewish person growing up knows about masada you go to israel right now they take you to masada yes yeah the israeli army the idf goes to masada for their swearing in yeah
There was one historical account by Josephus of what happened at Masada. 500 historical eyewitnesses. Yeah. Well, even Josephus himself, who is arguably the most famous Jewish historian of all time. he's the one who wrote of the crucifixion and the resurrection. Like we have outside of the Bible, like there's the witnesses in the Bible. Then we have historical references like Josephus who were written, who back up so much of what the Bible says. And again,
As far as we know, Josephus wasn't a follower of Jesus. He was a Jewish historian, but he writes so much about the crucifixion and the resurrection in ways that— Again, just undeniable historically. Yeah, there's so many accounts of it. And that's what most theologians and scholars would say today is you can't discredit it historically. You just can't. So therefore they just dismiss it. They were like, well, maybe it happened, but.
I'm not going to pay much attention to it. Is it nothing to you? And again, sadly for a lot of people, it is nothing. unless you know you're a criminal. The moment that you know that you're a criminal, the moment that you know, as one guy and- He's an older guy, kind of funny, came up to me after the gathering on Thursday night. And he's like, I'm not a criminal. I'm a sinner. And we were joking. And his point was, it's like.
It doesn't normally, it's not normally said that way. And I'm like, I know, but, you know, for the context, that's what was going on. But it's like, but you are a criminal. Yeah, you're on death row. You know, yes, you have committed crime. But not just against the state, against the sovereign God of the universe. You're under condemnation. Let's just say it like that. And that's why, like Romans 8.1, one of the greatest verses,
There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You know, my condemnation, my crimes, my sentence is gone. So that's why the cross must be everything to us. Those are in Christ because we realize without Christ, man, there's no, I'm a criminal and there's no paradise. And I loved how you said, The crucifixions would happen on a popular road.
So there would be people passing by. Oh, they pass by it all the time. Yeah. So if we had that on 515 or 575, as you said. Yeah. And just I want you to all picture and I'm picturing it myself. If Jesus were being crucified right now on 575 and we just all passed by not knowing that we are criminals. Yeah. We would alienate. We would just pass by, give them the Heisman. That's not for me. I'm going to discount that, dismiss that.
But if we know that we are criminals, what would we do? Yeah. Well, and Jesus said, you know, and we talked about it in there. He said, Father, forgive them. And I didn't even make this point, but I'm kind of thinking about it now. Well, who's the them that Jesus is talking about? He's not just talking about the two criminals on the cross. He's talking about the Jewish leaders. He's talking about the Roman soldiers, the Roman leaders.
And he's talking about his own disciples because all of his disciples deserted him. So the them there is everyone. The them there. That's good. Yeah, it's everyone. The them is not just the Romans who actually executed him. It's not just the Jewish leaders who... wanted him executed.
It's everybody going back to the Passover. Yeah. Like at the Passover, God judged the nation of Israel too. He wasn't just judging the Egyptians. He judged the nation of Israel. They just happened to be under the blood. on the doorpost. God is judging everyone. But then Jesus in his act was now providing grace for everyone. So the them is everyone, but not all of them.
stopped to see they just passed by in fact i didn't we didn't have time but the next verse in luke after the centurion says then all the crowd went home beating their chest um there's many different you know, theories on what that means of like, they're beating their chest out of like, Oh my gosh, we just killed an innocent man. Or they're beating their chest almost like we won, you know, but the point is whatever it means.
They didn't come to the realization that the thief on the cross did and that the centurion did. They just went back to their life, you know? And it's like, one, like, God, how brutal would that have been to what? And it not affect you. Oh. Yeah. If you read any account of the physical torture of crucifixion. Yeah.
Imagine just watching one happen. Oh, yeah. And Mel Gibson, you know, who did The Passion of the Christ, he read their famous interview now, I think with Barbara Walters or with somebody. Was asking him, like, hey, why did you make this rated R, basically? He said, because I wanted people to see what it was really like. Like, I wanted people to feel the pain that he went through.
And Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus, talks about like he almost died. Like he got very, very, that was very, very torturous just to play the actor of doing that. So just watching the movie is hard enough, but imagine standing there, seeing it. And then just leaving it and not affect you. But standing there and watching it and saying, I deserve that, but he did it for me. Amen. Amen. Sit in that because part two is coming up.
This weekend. Coming up. Resurrection. And then part three, Ascension, as Easter continues at Revolution. I always like to commend books. The Fleming Rutledge book is called The Cross. The Crucifixion. The Crucifixion. Other wonderful books on the cross. The Cross of Christ by John Stott. Scandalous. D.A. Carson. Amazing book.
And what I love about D.A. Carson is his avuncular nature to write something so deep as the crucifixion. But I understand it. He just had a clip that went viral the other day. Did you see that? No. Now that I reference it, I'm trying to remember exactly what he had said. But it was kind of like the Alistair bag. I'll have to find it and show it to you. It was really good, though.
And then your guy, R.C. Sproul, Truth of the Cross. Yeah. So, so good. That's the show today. That's the podcast. So we must now conclude it with this. I don't know. If you want a transcript of everything. We said write it down unless you're on YouTube and you're watching it where it is already transcribed. Our producer is Brian Damero. Our video technician is the king, Keon Sadishi. Our key grip is Jakob Boussikovsky. Our film director is...
Marcos Guardiola. Guardiola. Roll the R. Our head of doctrine and theology is theologian. Our chief evangelist is Salvation. Our backsiding prevention officer is Luke Borm. Do people come up to you and say some of these names? None of them. None of them? No, because you're...
them. So they definitely come up to you and say that. All the time. Somebody will just pass me by in the lobby and go Bjorn again. Yes. Our director of Swedish witnessing is Bjorn. And let me clarify to you. You don't have to come up and say those names to me. I'm not
I'm not upset about that. You can just do it to Pastor David. Director of Swedish Witnessing is Bjorn again. That is my favorite. Our expert on Russian eschatology is Pitof Hell. Pitof Hell. Our Director of Holiness is Mortification. Our staff counselor is Les Moody. Our giving coordinator is Generosity. Our director of tithing is Tim Percent. Our nativity coordinator, she's from France. Her name is Beth Lechem. Lechem. She's French. The co-pastors of plagues.
Armani Locust and Lance Boyles, our Scottish eschatology professor. You'll see him if you go to the church plant in Scotland, Marco the Beast. The director of communication is Bernie Bush, the director of the Doctrine of Election. I am chosen. Our sabbatical director is trip along. Our missional expert is Sam area. Our resident Trinitarian is Holly spirit strategist for the final battle is Irma. Irma Geddon, uh, our resident prayer warriors kneel down. Our executive,
of director of spiritual warfare is Demonic. Our staff golf pro, who always loses his golf ball up in a tree, is Jack Nicodemus, of course. Our church growth strategist is Momentum, our head of our new AI. initiative is artificial. Our director of Old Testament covenants is circumcised. He's been knighted. Our video technician in charge of instant replay is slow Moses. This one is a deep dive.
Is this the new one? No, this is the last time. We have a storage problem at Revolution. Our chief strategist for storage, you know him from Ezra and from Esther, King Ahasha Warehouse. Ahasha Warehouse. And the new one, no, no, no, I'm sorry. You had two last time. Yeah, two. Our new director of Old Testament Boxing Underdogs. He's from Philadelphia. He's the priest. He's the scribe. He's the master of the sweet science, Ezraki. Yeah, that one was the one.
that I didn't think was very good. Yo, Abraham. That's funny. Yeah. That's funny. Yeah, that's pretty funny. Yeah. Okay. Now, I love Rocky. Yeah. And the final one, our new one. member who has won the Vatican Masters Golf Tournament. I bet you didn't even know there was a Vatican Masters Golf Tournament. Yeah, there is one. He's wearing the red velvet jacket now. His name is Rosary McIlroy. Rosary.
McElroy. Rosary McElroy. We can just say the Vatican Golf Tournament. The Vatican Golf Tournament. The Vatican Mass. The Holy Vatican. The Holy Vatican Golf Tournament. And as we now... As we now say at the end of every show, the king has one more move. So trust God and take a nap. See you next time.