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SOMEONE ELSE IS PUNISHED
There was once a movie called The Last Emperor. A young child was anointed as the last emperor of China and lived a life of luxury with 1,000 servants at his command.
He was once asked by his brother, "What happens when you do wrong?"
"When I do wrong, someone else is punished." Then he demonstrated by breaking a jar and one of his servants was beaten.
In Christianity, Jesus reverses that ancient pattern so that when the servant(us) makes a mistake, the king is punished. Instead of being condemned eternally for our sin nature, Jesus is condemned instead.
North American and British rock and pop stars are more than twice as likely to die a premature death as ordinary citizens of the same age according to the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. (USA Today 9/4/07)
THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS LIKE A HOME
The father and son never could get along. The boy was constantly in trouble and the father was harsh in his attempts to correct him.
F: What have you done this time?
S: What difference does it make? You always take the other side no matter what I say.
F: If you weren't such a trouble maker, I might be able to trust you.
S: If you would trust me a little you might see that some of the "trouble" as you call it has another side to the story.
F: What other side? You constantly bring shame on yourself and your family wth your irresponsible ways and shady friends.
The shouting match continues, but the words are unimportant, because neither is listening. It is a replay of a hundred quarrels. The son's accusations, the father's ultimatums reach fever pitch, and the fight ends the way they all do. The son turns on his heels and walks out of the house, slamming the door behind him.
What the father does not know is that this time is different. His son does not come back in time for dinner. This is not new, it has happened a dozen times. He does not come home to sleep. This is not unique, he's done that a time or two. But the next day stretches on and the son does not come home. The mother sits down with the father during dinner.
M: What happened?
F: I don't know. He was being unreasonable as always.
M: What did you say?
F: I told him he was a troublemaker.
M: That wasn't very helpful.
F: I suppose it wasn't.
M: Where did he go?
F: He didn't say.
M: Maybe we should make some calls.
F: He'll be back.
M: Aren't you a little concerned?
F: He has friends. He'll be fine.
The father goes into his study and closes the door, the mother sits by the phone and begins calling her son's friends to see if she can find him. No one is willing to say that they have seen him. Yes, they've heard from him and he is angry. No, they don't know where he went. The mother bends her head, depressed and frustrated. She makes one more call, and this time it is right. Her son's friend puts him on the phone.
M: Son, come back home.
S: Why? So dad can berate me some more?
M: He dosn't mean it.
S: Then why does he say it so often?
M: He really loves you. I love you.
S: I really don't think I can put up with it any more.
M: Please.
S: No, mom. I love you, but He is too much. Good bye.
She hangs up the phone and is lost in thought. The father comes out of the study.
F: What's wrong?
M: I think I know where he is.
F: Where?
M: He is at that tall boy's house. The one that lives four blocks over, beyond the traffic light.
F: Is he coming home?
M: No, he is still angry with you.
F: What do you think we should do?
M: I'm going after him.
F: I'll come along.
The two leave and quickly walk a few blocks. At the traffic light in the glare of a street lamp near a coffee shop, they see him. He is standing with his back to them. The tall boy he is talking with sees them and points. He turns, looks with surprise and begins walking up the street, away from them. The mother calls out, "Wait!" He keeps walking. She rushes after him. She does not see the truck bearing down on the intersection. The father shouts, the son turns, brakes whine, but it is too late.
The tall boy at the corner pulls out a phone and begins frantically punching in 911. The son turns and rushes back to the street. The father is immediately at her side, gently holding her head in his hands. The driver comes around, "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry ... I couldn't stop."
The son rushes into the street where he kneels on the other side of his mother, speaking gently to her. As he looks up he sees his father's eyes, distorted by tears. Great sadness is in his face as he sees his son across from him, "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry ... I couldn't stop," he says.
The two men, kneeling in the road, realize together that they really do have something in common: a love for this woman who completely disregarded herself to bring them together.
THE LAW SHOWS YOUR STAINS, BUT DOESN’T CLEAN THEM
The late, J. Vernon McGee said: "There must be shedding of blood for sin. You have a mirror in your bathroom, which is a picture of the law, and there is a basin underneath the mirror. You do not wash yourself with the mirror; it only reveals the dirt. Just so, the law is the mirror that reveals our sin. And beneath that mirror there is a wash basin."
"There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunge...
Some EARLY SETTLERS were traveling together across the western prairies of the United States. One day they were horrified to see a fire fanned by strong wind coming their way.
As the flames raced closer and closer, one man, to the amazement of the others, set fire to a large patch of grass downwind. The tinder-dry grass burned quickly and left behind a charred and barren area. Then he told them to move onto the burned-over place. They watched as the fire swept toward them until it reached the burned area-and then stopped! They were safe as the fire passed by them on both sides.
The fires of God’s judgment will descend on a wicked world, but God has provided a burned-over place. At Calvary, the fire of God’s justice was met by Jesus. He bore our sin there and fully paid for our transgressions. He made full satisfaction for our sins, and we who have taken our stand by faith in the finished work of Christ are safe in the burned-over place. There is nothing left to burn.
Jesus "bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness-by whose stripes you were healed" from living a life of iniquity (1 Pet. 2:24). Are you in the burned-over place? Jesus died in our place to provide a place of safety.
M. R. De Haan, M.D.
The flames of God’s judgment can never touch me,
For Jesus has borne all God’s wrath on the tree;
I now stand secure in the burned-over place,
A sinner, unworthy, yet saved by His grace.
Bosch
Jesus Took Our Place At Calvary
A man named Goho rose to be chief of the tribe. He was a good man, and far wiser and advanced in understanding than his fellow tribesmen. The year he became chief, the tribe brought in 40 heads. He judiciously suggested that the tribe use one head each year as a gift to the gods and not hunt heads for the next forty years. He believed that a 40-year reprieve in headhunting would stop the practice.
The tribe agreed with the new chief and followed the suggestion for a number of years. But their thirst for blood, and the habits of their pagan religion finally won out, and they decided to hunt for the heads of men again. The chief agreed, but under one condition; the tribe was to take only one head, and it had to be the one he proposed. They agreed. He told them to wait in the jungle by a path, at the evening hour, and a man would pass in a red cape.
The tribesmen waited with their bows and arrows in hand. Then he approached, the man in red, and twelve arrows quickly brought him down and killed him. They decapitated him. Alas, when they held up his head, it was the head of their chief. The tribesmen fell on their faces, weeping. They vowed never to kill another person as headhunters.
In a much larger way, Jesus took our place at Calvary. He took the arrows of judgment aimed at us.
Peace Child
In 1962, missionaries named Don and Carol Richardson went to New Guinea to bring the Good News of Christ to a group of people known as the Sawi. The Sawi was a headhunting, cannibalistic tribe who used the skulls of their victims as pillows. He wrote a book about his experience called Peace Child. He began his work among the Sawi by reading through the Gospel of Matthew. But to his consternation when he got to the part of Judas betraying Christ, everyone cheered. He did not realize that their culture was one built around treachery.
The one who was the most devious was the one who had the most respect in their tribe. The missionary searched for every possible means to explain the greatness of God’s gift of truth and pure love to a people whose values were based on deceit. Then one day, he witnessed a solemn ceremony between two warring tribes. One of the chiefs walked over to the other and handed him a child. In fact, it was the chief’s own son. Their custom had been that peace could come between two tribes only if the chief of one of the tribes would give his son over to the people of the other tribe. He was called the “peace child.” The chief would place his own son in the hands of a people who hated him and had been his enemies. It was the only way to bring peace between them. Richardson saw in this act the perfect bridge to help these people understand what God had done.
God had given his “peace child” into the hands of a hostile world in order to bring the hostility between us to an end. The angels said at his birth: “Peace on earth, good will toward men.”
From a sermon by William D. Brown, "CHRISTMAS" 7/31/2008
HE TOOK THE LASHES
Cliff Barrows tells of the time his two young children did something wrong. Although they were gently warned, they repeated the offense and needed to be disciplined. Cliff's tender heart was pained at the thought of having to punish the ones he loved.
So he called Bobby and Bettie into his room, removed his belt bare back he knelt by his bed. He told each child to whip him ten times. Oh, how they cried! But the penalty had to be paid. The children sobbed as they lashed their daddy's back. Then Cliff hugged and kissed them, and they prayed together. "It hurt," he recalls, "but I never had to spank them again."
Are you haunted by the memory of some cowardly, selfish, or shameful acts? Jesus took the lashes for all our sins. Now He invites us to accept His forgiveness and devote the rest of o...
When Jesus was tortured, it was the torture that should have been ours. On a very small scale, we all understand this principle. Imagine a young boy at the store counter. He is buying a small piece of candy. The clerk rings it up and it comes to 20˘.
He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a pile of change that fills his small hand and he begins counting, and the clerk helps.
* He has a nickel, that's 5˘.
* He has a dime, that's 10˘ more.
* He has three pennies
* 18˘
You are behind him and reach into your purse and contribute two more pennies to the pile. Everyone smiles. The boy gets what he wants, the clerk gets what he needs, and you have paid the price.
You got no candy, you had no drawer to count, and yet that boy's shortfall, for a moment, became your debt and you paid it. It was your effort and earnings that met the need. You had what he was missing, you provided what he could not.
Our sins require payment to the Judge who holds the balance. Jesus paid that price. Since the cost is an eternal cost, and since we are mortal, we could not pay it, but Jesus could and did.
THE GOLDEN CHAIN
When Adam sinned in the garden he condemned all of his children to death. When Adam walked the earth without sin, heaven and earth were connected...man walked with God, Angels could be heard singing, heaven was very near—connected, if you will, by a Huge Golden chain. When Adam sinned, the chain was broken, and heaven drifted further away, until the sounds of heaven could no longer be heard on earth.
And Jesus the perfect man without sin willingly gave up his life for you and I. As he hung on the cross and said "It is finished.” He stretched out his arms and grasped that golden chain and united Heaven and Earth. With a loud cry he announced freedom from sin for all who would believe in Him.
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