30th Mar 26 | 13:54
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Luke 23 44-49 THE DEATH OF JESUS 02 16Jan2022 Luke 23 44-45 Jesus bore our sin
📖 Luke 23:44-49
02 - 16Jan2022 – Jesus bore our sin - Luke 23:44-49 - THE DEATH OF JESUS - Bible reading: II Corinthians 5:21
“Lord Jesus, we thank You that You long for us to come into Your kingdom and enjoy the Shalom of God. Lord, we are in a terrible state, which we have caused ourselves by rebelling and going away from You. Thank You, for You were reconciling us back to Yourself on the cross. It is now for us to apply what You have provided for us on the cross. We give You all the glory and praise and in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.”
Luke 23:44-45 Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. (45) Then the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two.
We have begun to understand that these three hours of darkness, which came on Jesus, represents man’s sin and rebellion against the authority of God.
II Corinthians 5:21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
The sin of man and its cumulative effect on creation was now laid on Jesus. This was the terrible time on the cross, regarding which Jesus agonized in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Matthew 26:39 He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will."
Each of us has sinned against God in a personal way. Every person’s sin, who has lived on the earth, past, present and future, added together, was laid on Jesus.
Man’s individual sin has its cascading effect on families, communities, societies, cultures, systems, structures, nations and all of creation. This effect of sin continues to gather momentum and has larger and larger ramifications.
This is the terrible darkness of sin. This was the dreadful darkness that was now upon Jesus.
Amos 5:18-27 Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD! For what good is the day of the LORD to you? It will be darkness, and not light. (19) It will be as though a man fled from a lion, And a bear met him! Or as though he went into the house, Leaned his hand on the wall, And a serpent bit him! (20) Is not the day of the LORD darkness, and not light? Is it not very dark, with no brightness in it? (21) "I hate, I despise your feast days, And I do not savor your sacred assemblies. (22) Though you offer Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them, Nor will I regard your fattened peace offerings. (23) Take away from Me the noise of your songs, For I will not hear the melody of your stringed instruments.
God sees the duplicity of His people. On one side they carried their own gods and simultaneously they presented offerings and songs to God. God hated their double life.
(24) But let justice run down like water, And righteousness like a mighty stream. (25) "Did you offer Me sacrifices and offerings In the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? (26) You also carried Sikkuth your king And Chiun, your idols, The star of your gods, Which you made for yourselves. (27) Therefore I will send you into captivity beyond Damascus," Says the LORD, whose name is the God of hosts.
Justice and righteousness, which are attributes of God’s kingdom, should have been present in the society but God saw only evil amongst the people.
Amos 8:4-10 Hear this, you who swallow up the needy, And make the poor of the land fail, (5) Saying: "When will the New Moon be past, That we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, That we may trade wheat? Making the ephah small and the shekel large, Falsifying the scales by deceit, (6) That we may buy the poor for silver, And the needy for a pair of sandals— Even sell the bad wheat?" (7) The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: "Surely I will never forget any of their works. (8) Shall the land not tremble for this, And everyone mourn who dwells in it? All of it shall swell like the River, Heave and subside Like the River of Egypt. (9) "And it shall come to pass in that day," says the Lord GOD, " That I will make the sun go down at noon, And I will darken the earth in broad daylight ; (10) I will turn your feasts into mourning, And all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on every waist, And baldness on every head; I will make it like mourning for an only son, And its end like a bitter day.
God sees the evil that takes place in our lives, individually as well as cumulatively and His heart breaks over us.
Isaiah 50:1-3 Thus says the LORD: "Where is the certificate of your mother's divorce, Whom I have put away? Or which of My creditors is it to whom I have sold you? For your iniquities you have sold yourselves, And for your transgressions your mother has been put away. (2) Why, when I came, was there no man? Why, when I called, was there none to answer? Is My hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? Indeed with My rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness; Their fish stink because there is no water, And die of thirst. (3) I clothe the heavens with blackness, And I make sackcloth their covering."
Jesus was now identifying fully with the terrible condition of man and his sin. These were the three hours of darkness that took place on the cross.
Jesus was paying the full cost of man’s sin, both our personal as well as the cumulative nature of our sin, on the cross.
Thought to ponder
How great is our foolishness that we chose darkness rather than light!