On the way to the cross, Jesus was bleeding badly and suffered so much of the hands of the Roman soldiers. After all those whips and mockery and spit, there was a huge multitude of men and women following him. The woman were mourning for him.

Luke 23:28–29 (ESV)

²⁸ But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. ²⁹ For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’

The pain carried by the loved ones and followers of Christ following Christ to the cross

You can imagine the scene seeing the greatest man on earth who saved you from sickness, demonstrated signs, who did signs and wonders of miracles before you, and  spoke most gracious, beautiful words, full of truth and grace, and now, completely drenched in blood in a despicable sight. It’s beyond comprehension! Unbelievable! It’s a sight that evokes deep emotions of outcry, a deep cry of anguish to God. “Why, Lord? What happened?”

I can just imagine the mother of Jesus the human mother on earth, Mary, was weeping and crying all the way to Golgotha, following Jesus, her own precious son. It is in those moments that its almost like darkness descended on earth. It’s like emotionally the world has come to an end as they come to such tragic, unexpected and much beloved son.

At that moment, in the minds of those who believed in Christ, who loved Christ, who has been loved by Christ, and touched by Christ, and taught by Christ, it was a totally devastating moment to walk to Jesus cross, and funeral.

To witness the glorious one, the Son of God, the promised Messiah to end up in such a state, it’s just beyond words, simply unbelievable and it’s totally disappointing & heart breaking.

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And it is at that moment of time, Jesus turned around and said to the women, “Luke 23:28–29

²⁸ But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. ²⁹ For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’

“blessed are those who are the barren ones, who never breast nursed a baby because the doom day is a judgment coming just going to be so severe that you’re going to cry out of the mountains, fallen spirit cry for yourself, weep for yourselves in which children. ³⁰ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ ³¹ For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?

Do not weep for me, weep for yourselves and your children

In reality it is actually out of this world. The fact that son of God himself would be crucified on the cross drenched in blood, it’s out of this world. And Jesus give a sober warning to the women weeping for him. Do you know you would’ve thought that this is the time to show appreciation and love towards the women who throughout the expression, the emotions, weeping and crying for the one they loved, but Jesus said to them “weep not for me daughters of Jerusalem, weep for yourselves And your children.”  This  may sound harsh, but it actually carries the absolute truth. What you see now is a death that will be resurrected in three days and they will bring the glory of God.

You’ll see my glory

That’s what Jesus go to tell them essentially don’t weep for him. The world of darkness has no power over him. The prince of darkness has not won. In fact, Satan, the devil will be defeated when he dies on the cross and resurrected from death conquering over death, defeating the devil. So it is great news. Therefore all daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourself and the children.

If you do not believe in Christ suffered so much, agonizing and anguish on the cross, you should be weeping for yourselves. If your children don’t appreciate what Christ has done on the cross, in anguish and sufferings for them and for us, they should be weeping for themselves to

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He changed the world, the entire cosmos, forever and ever

It is just simply incredible then, the depth of emotions so profound that came off of the lips of Jesus at such moment, highly emotional, highly charged, highly stated with expectation, and the entire profundity of it, He changed the world, the entire cosmos, forever and ever.

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The cross changed everything in this world decidedly. There’s no turning back. He has risen. Hallelujah Jesus has risen from the dead. That’s our only hope for all eternity.

Amen.

Psalm 110 The LORD says to my Lord: “Sit at My right hand Until ”2 The LORD will stretch out Your strong scepter from Zion, saying, “Rule in the midst of Your enemies.”3 Your people will volunteer freely on the day of Your power; In holy splendor, from the womb of the dawn, Your youth are to You as the dew.

David prophesied in Psalm 110 that the Lord says to my Lord “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool for your feet.” Now this is truly significant who is the Lord,? And who is my Lord? As it is also been repeated by the Lord Jesus, himself in the gospel, The Lord is God, the Father Yahweh, my Lord is clearly the son of God our Lord Jesus Christ. David called Jesus, my Lord, and the Lord the Father.

I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet

This is commonly used as one of the proof evidence that Jesus is of the deity, he’s God. The second person of the Triune God. Now what I want to bring up is the theme of the conversation is a spiritual warfare, which is much neglected by the contemporary evangelical and reformed world.

The entire context is the spiritual war between God and the satanic forces. God, the Father spoke to God the Son ” Sit on my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool it. The word “make” is a warfare word in the context of enemies. What does that mean? That means God is going to crash the forces of darkness, satanic forces enemies of Christ to the point of becoming a footstool for Jesus. It is a metaphorical language, this size Jesus will crush Satan and the forces of darkness completely. When is that happening? It began at the time Jesus rose from the dead, and went back to heaven, and seated on his throne on the right hand side of the father. Now, the process of “until” means it’s ongoing process. Basically God the father is saying “sit here my son on the throne on my right hand side until I crush enemies.”

That is the language used for spiritual warfare. That is the language that the evangelical world has been eerily silent. That’s the kind of language that charismatic Pentecostal prime them selves in, this is an unfortunate scene because it all we talk about is the gospel centered message, the grace of God, and forgetting the huge emphasis of the spiritual warfare is defined by God, the father, that he’s engaging in now, as we speak until all the enemies of Christ will be crushed. the kingdom will never be complete until the enemies of Christ are crushed the kingdom would not become complete just by us preaching the love of God per se.

Jesus on the cross is not just manifesting his profound love, but also for his profound defeating the devil and death.

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The implications of the spiritual warfare, crushing the enemy of Christ, has huge impact upon the church ecclesiology and eschatology and systematic theology. The definition of spiritual warfare in the words of God the Father to God the Son, “ Sit on my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool” should fire up the church to make that happen. We should immediately put on notice in prayers, worship evangelism to crush the enemies of Christ, which is really the enemies of the church.

We should balance out the reformed theology of gospel, send a messages which is far more appealing to the world of modernity today. Because modernity hates war in any language of confrontation aggression war is not welcomed. However, the Bible says we are now in the spiritual warfare against forces of darkness, principal principalities of darkness, not against flesh and blood, we must combine the gospel centered message on the grace of God in Christ with  the God warrior redeemer in Christ Jesus.

The LORD will stretch out Your strong scepter from Zion, saying, “Rule in the midst of Your enemies

 Christ will rule in the midst of his enemies. Who is Zion? Zion is the church. God will stretch  out Christ strong scepter from the church so that Christ will rule in the midst of his enemies and our enemies. The ruling does not only happen when Christ returns, but it’s an ongoing ruling mow in the midst of spiritual warfare facing our enemies. Who are our enemies? The forces of darkness and principalities of darkness, ruling and raging against the people of God in our society. The forces that devour churches the most today is the issue of sexuality for example that has caused many mainline denomination churches to split up, to the extent even supposedly very strong word based Presbyterian church into PCA and PC USA. And the list goes on :The United Methodist, the Episcopalian, the Reformed churches just to name a few. Our country has never faced such a wrecking ball in our society with our president pushing for transgenderism homosexuality, abortion and the lot. The accountability at the end of the day will be enormous.

The forces that caused Christians to be disheartened, to be sucked into the cultural forces of being catechized by them, like being strong committed Christians it’s out of fashion. Accusing Christianity is standing on the wrong side of history etcetera. Truly the Bible says the devil prowls around like a roaring lion waiting to devour someone.

1 Peter 5 ⁸ Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

But God has promised to crush his enemies and still continue to have Christ rule in the midst of his enemies. We may not see a lot of ruling in our society looking at our news, but you also see a new movement of outpouring the Spirit of God is happening in Asbury, Kentucky and spreading across the country. We are believing a tremendous move of the Spirit of God will move across our nation the next five years and more to come. Amen.

2 Samuel 7: 1-5; 11–17

March 3, 2023

When David was finally moved into in his beautiful gorgeous cedar house, and God has given him rest from all his enemies, the king, said to Nathan, the prophet, “See, now I dwell in the house of cedar, but the Ark of Covenant lives in a tent.”

This is such a significant statement that just reflects David’s hard for the greatness of God. He has a tender heart for God, and he loves God. That’s what we want to be, and that inspires me! When he sat down his beautiful, gorgeous palace, he looked outside and saw the arc of God‘s covenant dwelling in a tent outside, and he feels bad. He feels the urging of his heart’s desire. That pleased God so much that God promised David through prophet Nathan, to tell his servant, David that He will give him rest from all his enemies. Moreover, the Lord will raise a new king up from his offspring, from his body.

God said, “I would establish his kingdom. He shall be the house for my name, and I would establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. And his throne shall be establish forever.”

This is a lent time written by Tim Keller. When David desired to build a house for the Lord, the word of the Lord came to Nathan, telling David that instead of allowing him to build a temple, the Lord, will establish the house of David, culminating in one who sit on the throne forever. Obviously God is not simply promising that he will ensure the continuation of David, as a sort of memorial to him – the common belief of many religions that we live on in our descendants. He’s promising to raise up his own Son, from a descendant of David, one who would bear our stripes and our iniquity.[1]

How like God this is! We offer God some grandiose plan of how we planned on him, to honor him. And he counters with a completely counterintuitive plan, one in which he is glorified by becoming both king and substitute. [2] This is really something enormously powerful plan God has for bigger than our little finite mines feeble mind can even ever to handle. Imagine David was thinking beauty in physical palace, God turned around calling Nathan to bless David with a descendent sits on the throne, forever and ever. But that son is actually the Son of God himself incarnate into this world, Jesus Christ. It is amazing how God enlarged a request to a phenomenon unmatched that is ultimately far bigger than our wildest dream.

Pray and pray, prayer so that they are far more than we would dare to ask. Imagine like Tim Keller said this is truly incredible. I’ll just pray and pray and pray to the limit of our vision and faith, and then be prepared for God to do something even better.[3]

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[1] Tim Keller, Lent Devotional 3/3/23, https://gospelinlife.com/lent-devotional/?mc_cid=a1a56d4a76&mc_eid=3a8d3b536a

[2] Ibid

[3] Ibid