The Hinge of History | Dr. Conrad Vine

And so last night um we discussed the prophecy of Daniel chapter 9, the 490ear prophecy. We saw that the Messiah came exactly on time in AD27 in the fall of AD27 and he died exactly 3 and a half years later on Calvary in spring or Passover AD.31 and that that prophecy went through to AD.34 with the stoning of Steven and the gospel going to the Gentiles. And so we've seen so far that God is the Lord of history. Would you agree with me on that? God reveals mysteries uh centuries in advance.

He reveals what is going to happen centuries in advance. And uh from tomorrow onwards, we're going to get into some more uh some related topics such as what happens when you die. And that's one of our topics this coming week. Uh tomorrow we're discussing what happens when you are baptized and when you are born again in Christ. And we're going to be discussing what happens at the end of time later this week.

But tonight I want to discuss uh the topic is the hinge of history. And I guess I should put it up on the slides for you there. Uh, I hope that appears. Yep, there it is. The hinge of history.

Because everything in the Bible revolves around the cross of Calvary. And the entire Old Testament points forwards to the the life and the death and the resurrection of Christ. And the entire New Testament explains what the first coming of Jesus meant and what it means to live for his second coming. And Martin Luther said that scripture was the cradle in which the baby Christ was laid. And so tonight we're going to discuss the turning point of human history, the hinge around which everything else revolves.

And it is the death of Christ on Calvary. So as we begin, I invite you to bow your heads with me. Invite the presence of the Holy Spirit. So shall we pray? Our dear heavenly father, we thank you for the gift of Jesus Christ, your son, who came into this world not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

Father, as we dwell this evening on the death of Calvary and what it meant, what it meant then, what it means for us today, I'm asking that your Holy Spirit to inspire these scriptures will speak through me and you'll bring conviction and conversion and courage Aresh to all those who are present here tonight and those who are watching online. Tonight, we ask, Father, that Jesus will be glorified not just as the savior of the world, but as our personal savior as well. I thank you, Father, for hearing this prayer. In the name of Jesus, we humbly ask. Amen.

All right. So, uh, being raised in England and this this is our journey tonight. We're going to look at some of the context for Calvary. Then, God with us, Emanuel, God for us, the Lamb of God, God over us, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Then, we're going to dwell on what the cross of Calvary actually means.

And then, we're going to come to our conclusions. When I was growing up in in Europe, uh what Europe is famous for is its history and particularly its art treasures. And if you ever get the chance to go to Europe, I'd encourage you to go to some of the great art galleries there because you see the most fantastic art and sculpture anywhere in the world. One of the most famous pieces is the Pieta by Michelangelo um done in 1499. It shows um Mary holding the the dead body of Christ.

Um, and it's a it's a very very lifelike sculpture made out of pure marble. And when you come close to it, it kind of glistens this soft white. It's an incredible piece of of sculpture. And then this is one of my favorite paintings here. It's Christ before the high priest by Van Hontos.

And there's a lot of symbolism in these pictures, but here you see the light between Christ and the high priest. Jesus is the light of the world. The light, the face of Jesus is lit up. Everybody around him is in the shadows. And the high priest has his finger up.

He's accusing. And in front of Christ, there is a light. And in front of the high priest, there's an accusing finger. And the high priest, his hand is between him and the light of the world. There's a lot of symbolism in this particular picture.

And I don't have this at home. Um, but it's a picture I I often kind of think about um in my personal life. And this is maybe my favorite picture of all. It's a very famous picture. It's called Eche Homo.

It's painted by Antonio Ceseri. And uh this is a picture of Pilate presenting Jesus and the judgment hall to to the crowd of the Jewish leaders and the Jewish people there in Jerusalem. And there's a lot of details in this picture. If you're familiar with familiar with the Bible story, you see the woman on the right hand side with her face turned away from Christ. That is Pilate's wife.

and she's just passed her message onto her husband to have nothing to do with this man because she suffered much in a dream that night because of him. And there are many other details. If you take the time, you see the details in this picture. But Pilate, the Roman governor, he Jesus has been scourged and his back has been torn open by the um the flogging. And Pilate brings him out and Jesus is wearing a crown of thorns and he's wearing a royal purple robe.

He's been mocked by the soldiers and Pilate brings out this this battered bleeding body and he says to the Jews, "Behold the mane homo like is this really your Messiah? Is this really your king?" It's a poignant moment um in the story of the crucifixion of Christ and so let's think for a few moments about the immediate context of Calvary itself. So we start on the Thursday night because Jesus we believe was crucified on the Friday. On the Thursday evening, Jesus had been in the Garden of Gethsemane. He'd been arrested um by Judas and some soldiers.

He was taken first to Annus, who was the ex- high priest. Then he was taken to Caiaphas, the current high priest. And then he was taken to the full Jewish legal council known as the Sanhedrin, and through an exhausting night of legal exchanges. And none of this was legal because the Sanhedrin was not allowed to meet at night. This was an extra legal process going on.

They were so determined to get rid of Jesus, they were willing to break all of their rules. By the time Jesus is carrying his cross to um Calvary, he'd been dragged like a commons criminal through the darkened streets. He's been spat upon. He's been beaten about the face. He's been slapped in the head.

He's been cruy bound. He's been abandoned by his disciples. He's been denied by Peter. He's been publicly mocked and ridiculed and condemned to death. all before his legal trial has begun.

If you want to know about police brutality, take a look at this story here. And John 19 1-5, [clears throat] Pilate has Jesus flogged. And the text says, "Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. And the soldiers wo a crown of thorns and put it on his head. And they dressed him in a purple robe.

And they kept coming up to him saying, "Hail, King of the Jews." and striking him in the face. Pilate went out again and said to them, "Look, I'm bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him." So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate said to them in Latin homo or in English, "Behold, or here is the man." And so Pilate recognizes that Jesus is innocent, that there is no case to be answered, and that Jesus should really be set free. But if you look at what Pilate did to Jesus, it's very meaningful there. The Romans had three kinds of beatings you see there on the screen.

The first was known as a fusigatio. That's a minor beating for a min for a common offense. You might say that's a track a traffic ticket today or parking ticket. But if if you were to if you were guilty of a serious crime, then they had what was called fugilatio. We get the word flogging from that in English.

And that was a severe beating that would cause you severe bodily injury and that was for a severe offense. But the intent was not to kill you or to prepare you for death. But what Pilate did to Jesus was a verbatio which was a brutal scourging. And uh it was designed to bring you within literally an inch of death itself. It was a brutal scourging designed to soften up the prisoner literally.

Um the the beatings were so bad with the scourges that it would take all the flesh off the back. Your your bones would be visible. Your endrails would be visible. Josephus writes about this in his Jewish histories. Then the Galilean revolt.

He used to do this to people until quotes their endrails were bare. And so Jesus goes through a brutal scourging designed to bring him quite right up to the point of death, but not quite to kill him. And the soldiers, they mock Jesus. They crown him with thorns. The thorns of a date palm go up to 12 in long.

These aren't like 2 in thorns. These are long thorns on a on a date palm tree from the Middle East. It's like the crown of a divine Greek god on the head of Christ. They give him a robe, a symbol of royalty. They put a reed in his hand.

They're mocking him with the idea of a royal scepter. And the soldiers come down to Jesus and they fall down in false worship. And they think, "This is the king of the Jews. These people are fighting against us to put this man on the throne. We're going to make fun of him before we kill him." And those soldiers, they pour out their hatred upon Jesus.

And if you want to know what soldiers will do, look at the killing fields of Cambodia under Pulpot. Look at what the communists did in Chowoescu's communist prisons in the 1950s, the 1960s, 1970s in Romania. When when law enforcement and the military want to take it out on somebody, they really brutalize the individual involved. And then when Jesus has finished going through this process, Pilate brings him out and he says, "Behold the man." And what do they see? They see a man who is tired.

He's gone without sleep. He's hungry and thirsty. His gaunt face is actually swollen from the beatings. His eyes are puffy from repeated poundings. Down his face mi runs a mixture of blood and spittle from the soldiers.

His back is torn to ribbons. The crown of thorns presses upon his brow. It causes fresh bleeding with every movement. Maybe the bones on his back are now showing. He's probably pale and slowm moving from loss of blood and shock.

He's abandoned by friends, denied by colleagues, victim of a corrupt legal system and official brutality. He's a refugee from his childhood. He's a peasant from a workingclass area in Galilee. He probably speaks uh um Hebrew with a funny accent as his disciples speak like Galileans. Maybe so did Jesus.

Everybody knows who his mother is, but nobody knows who his father is. As you might say, he's mama's baby, but papa's maybe. When Pilate says, "E homo, behold the man." Who do we see? The first thing we see is one of the names for Jesus is this Emmanuel which means God with us. They see a man who is battered and bruised and bleeding but nonetheless they see a man standing before them.

The Bible describes Jesus in his flesh. It says and the word became flesh and lived among us and we have seen his glory. And when we imagine Jesus standing there in the Pilate, the judgment hall of Pilate and Pilate is saying, "Behold the man, this picture removes any doubt about the humanity of Christ." Jesus knows what it was to suffer physically. He also knows what it means to suffer emotionally. He was abandoned by those closest to him.

Peter, his lead disciple, denied him. And it's probably better to not to imagine what those soldiers actually did to him. Jesus suffered physically and he suffered emotionally. The Bible says this, "He was despised and we esteemed him not." And Psalm 22, a messianic psalm that Jesus applies to himself on Calvary, he said, "I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people." When I think of the ocean of human existence out there tonight and all the pain that there is out there on planet Earth tonight, I realize that God hasn't abandoned us in our suffering. But Jesus has walked the path of suffering for each one of us.

He knows what it means to suffer. And God with us means that God hasn't abandoned us to this little corner of the universe. But God has walked with us. He's walked my path. He knows what extreme physical pain feels like.

He knows what extreme emotional and psychological pain feels feels like. And the good news is he didn't walk away. What else do we see on that on that judgment hall of Pilate? We don't just see God with us, Emmanuel, but we see God for us. That is the lamb of God.

At the beginning of his ministry, John the Baptist points to Jesus and he gives this very famous um prophetic utterance. He says, "Behold the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world." And the death of Jesus, his crucifixion is taking place at the Passover festival. You know, last night we spoke about the Passover in Egypt and the the angel of death passing over and the Jewish people having to sacrifice a lamb and put it on their doorways and the lentils of their homes. This was it. This was looking forward by faith to Jesus as a lamb of God who had come to take away the sins of the world.

Uh the apostle Peter wrote this about the death of Christ on Calvary. He said, "He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross so that free from sins we might live for righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed." So the death of Christ on Calvary was a liberating death. It was a healing death for us. Why is he died on Calvary so that we might live free from sins.

It means we might live free from the presence of sin. Might we we it means we may live free from the power of sin, the dominion of sin and addictive and compulsive behaviors that drive so many people today. It means that we live free from the presence, the power and also the penalty of sin. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. And so when we accept the death of the lamb of God on our behalf, so healing begins in all those dimensions of life that are important to me and important to you, we start to experience healing with our relationship with God, relationship, our relationships with our spouses and our children and our loved ones.

In the garden of Eden, when the Lord God came walking after Adam and Eve had taken of the fruit, God asked them a question. He said, "What have you done?" I often think to myself, how did God say that question? Um, I'm presuming he spoke English in that moment. So, um, I don't think he spoke English, but just imagine for a moment he spoke English. Maybe it was in Hebrew, maybe it was in Russian.

I don't know what language he was speaking that moment, but if Jesus spoke, if God spoke that question in in um in English, there are four ways to say this question. The first way is this. What have you done? It's like an exasperated patient, a parent. Another way to ask this question is what have you done?

The third way to ask this question is what have you done? And the fourth way to ask is what have you done? And each of those questions is slightly changed in intonation has a slightly different meaning. But the question that God asked of the first Adam in the Garden of Eden is the same question that Pilate asks of Jesus in his trial as the second Adam. Pilate says to Jesus in John 8 John 18:35, "What have you done?" He knows Christ is innocent.

And so he says,"Well, what have you done?" And the same question from the Garden of Eden that was asked of the guilty Adam is now asked of Christ, the innocent Adam, at his crucifixion and his trial before Pontius Pilate. So on that podium, beneath the blood and the gore, the sweat and the tears, and the spittle and the pain, what do we see? We don't just see God with us. A God who shows solidarity with us in the midst of our sufferings and doesn't turn his back on us when we're weeping and going through health crisis and the the challenges of life. But we also see God for us.

That is the lamb of God, a savior dying to save and dying to save you and me. And then the third thing we see up there on Calvary is not just God with us. Emanuel is not just lamb of God, God for us, but it's also God over us. that is Jesus Christ as the king of kings and lord of lords and the question was asked of Jesus in all four gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke and John that pilot asked the same question. He said are you the king of the Jews?

Now this was a loaded question because if Jesus was the king of an earthly kingdom then he would be viewed as a threat to the Roman Empire and Pilate would be justified in killing Jesus. But Jesus said to Pilate that my kingdom is not of this world or my servants would fight to save me. So Jesus is a king, but he's not a kingdom of this world. And so when Pilate had Jesus crucified, the text says that above the head of Christ, Pilate wrote a little expression in Latin, in in in Greek, and in Aramaic. And there's just um an artist's impression of there.

I N R I I N R I I N R I which means Jesus Nazarenus Rex Udeorum. That's Latin. It means Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. And so when Pilate crucified Christ, he put above his head Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews. There you see the the the um it's the acronym there in the Latin language.

He was mocking the Jewish hopes of Messiah. So Jesus was a tool in Pilate's hands to rub the Jews messianic hopes in the ground and he was paraded before the crowd in this sense of mockery. "You believe you have a Messiah," says Pilate. "Well, here he is. Behold the man, a pathetic, a beaten, a bowed, a bloodied figure, his entire regalia, his robe of of um purple robe and his crown of thorns, a mockery of what it means to be a real king." And the Jewish audience and the Jewish leaders, they understood the significance of the moment because when Pilate said be said, behold the king, behold the man.

Later on, the Jews cry out and they say, "We have no king but Caesar." And in so doing, the Jewish people gave up their official hopes in the Messiah. They gave up, it was the abandonment of the messianic hope of the people of Israel. They gave up the fundamental relationship between God and Israel. Earlier in the prophecies, the prophets say, "We have many, we've had many rulers, oh God, but you alone are our God." But when the Jews now say at the trial of Jesus, "We have no king but Caesar." And this is their rejection officially of the Messiah of God. But despite the mockery and the rejection and the fun and the games, the Bible says that Jesus is still a king.

And when Jesus comes again that we read this in Revelation 19:16, it says there on his robe and on his thigh, he has a name inscribed, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So Jesus is a king and he's my king and by God's grace to be your king as well. So what does the cross of Christ mean? Well, the cross of Christ towers above every other moment in human history. And when Jesus was with his disciples in Matthew 16, he asked them a question that has echoed down through the ages and every man, woman or child has to answer this question.

And it is this. Jesus said to the disciples, "Who do you say that I am?" And everybody has to answer that question. And your answer to that question uh determines whether you receive eternal life or whether you receive eternal destruction. And you may say, "Well, Pastor Vine, Jesus died, you know, 2020 2,000 some years ago. Um, is his death really that important in my life today?" Well, let me ask you the question.

Um, do does everybody here have a birthday? Yes. Does anybody here not have a birthday? Okay. I Okay, thank you, brother.

So, um, I I've just turned a certain age, like I'm early to mid-40s. I'm not saying exactly where I am, but I've reached a certain point where I don't want to remember my birthday anymore. And I dread my birthdays coming along because it means I'm one step closer to the grave unless Jesus comes soon. And you you reach a certain point in life where things start going wrong with your body. All right?

And and so, you know, when I was 40 years old, I woke up one morning and um I didn't think anything of it. I sat up in beside my bed. I put my foot down, my feet down, and there was this stabbing pain like um a nail going up through my right heel. I thought, "What on earth could that be?" So, I hopped to the to the bathroom and I sat down. I pulled out my phone and I and I typed in uh stabbing pain under the right heel and it said plantto fasciitis.

I thought plantto fasciitis. I'd never heard of this before. So, I did a quick Google search. What is plantto fasciitis? Remember it was my 40th birthday and WebMD said plantto fasciitis is a condition that particularly affects men aged 40 and above.

I thought, "What remarkable accuracy." And I go to the doctor at the age of 40 and the doctor says, "Mr. Divine, the time has come." I said, "What time has come?" She says, "Now you're age 40. We have to check your prostate every other year." I thought, "Are you kidding me? Some of you guys know what I'm talking about. Some of you younger guys, praise the Lord, you're still younger." And then I turned 50 and the doctor said, "Mr.

Vine, the time has come." I thought, "Oh no, what's happening now?" And she says, "Now it's time for you to have a colonoscopy every 5 years." I thought, "Colonoscopy?" as far as I know, I'm okay. She says, "No, we need to take a look inside you." And so, I'm dreading going to the doctor when I'm 60 and we discover there's a whole new range of tests they want to perform on me. But this question, who do you say that I am? Each one of us has to answer that question. I was born in, let's say, hypothetically, 1975.

That's not my real date of birth. But the day, the month, and the year of my date of birth are calculated from the life of Christ. And the day I entered elementary school was calculated from the life of Christ. And the day I graduated from elementary school is calculated the calendar from the date of Christ. And the day I entered high school and took my leaving my high school leaving exams.

And the certificates that I have, the certificates on my high school leaving exams have dates which are calculated from the life of Christ. And the day you get married and the day you have children and the day you get your first paycheck and every paycheck you get here in Hawi today in 2026 has a date on it. Every paycheck you have from the daily bread you eat is dependent upon the life of Christ. There is nothing significant in your life that is not calculated in reference to the life of Christ. So whether you believe in him or not as the savior of the world, everything significant in your life is based on the life of Christ.

The day you know you have your wedding anniversaries. Some people remember the first date, the date of the second date, the date of the third date. Um and some people remember the day that you asked me to marry me and so forth. But wobbitai, the man who forgets his wedding anniversary. Yes, that's the one thing you are not supposed to forget.

And uh your your spouse's birthday and so forth. But every significant event in your life in Maui in 2026 is calculated with reference to the life of Jesus Christ. There is nothing significant in your life that is not calculated from the time from the time of Christ. So you say, "Well, his life has no impact on my life." Really? Well, if I were to claim social security from the federal government next week when I get back to Michigan, they're going to say, "Oh no, Mr.

Vine, you're not old enough." Or, "How do we know that?" Because when we calculate your life from the life of Christ, you haven't reached the requisite number of years. That's what the federal government's going to say to me. You can't retire with the federal government system unless you've reached a certain number of years from the time of Christ. So everything important in your life is reference to the life of Christ, whether you accept him or whether you don't accept him. And Jesus asked this question of the disciples.

Who do you say that I am? And your response to that question determines whether you receive eternal life tomorrow and forgiveness for your sins today or whether you walk a life that knows that one day you're going to go to death and then eternal nothingness. This is an important question. So why did Jesus come? The Bible gives us a variety of answers.

The first one is fulfillment of the promise of God in the Garden of Eden. We've covered this a few times already where God spoke to the serpent after he tempted Eve and Adam into sinning. And God says to the serpent, "I'll put emity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers. He will strike your head and you will strike his heel." So, one of the reasons Jesus came was to crush Satan once and for all. And I say praise God for that cuz there's too much suffering in our world.

If you don't believe me, just walk through any hospital ward, go to any assisted living facility, go to any old person's home and you just see a lot of suffering. There's a lot of suffering going on in Maui right now. There's in all across the United States, people are suffering. And Jesus came to destroy the cause of all suffering. Jesus also came to reveal God to us.

The apostle Philip said to Jesus in John 14:8, he said, "Uh, Lord, show us the father." And Philip wanted Jesus to show us who God really is. And in Jesus' response to Philillip, two verses later, Jesus said, "Whoever has seen me has seen the father." So if you want to know who God is, you want to know what his character is like, you want to know how he relates to human beings, you want to know what his plans for you and his purposes for you, you need to only look at the life and ministry and teachings of Christ, and you're going to get a perfect image of what God the Father means to you and what he wants for you in your life. Jesus came to reveal God to us. There wasn't a town Jesus walked through, but the sick were not healed. There wasn't a funeral he w he came up to, but the dead were raised to life.

there wasn't a leper he would meet, but he would cleanse him of that of that deathdeing um illness of leprosy. Uh I can just imagine when Jesus walked through town um you might say Jesus wasn't the rain maker, he was the joy maker. If Jesus walked through your town, if Jesus walked through Kihi and every single individual of Kihi was cured of all their diseases, can you imagine the joy in Kihi? Can you imagine the joy all across this island? But that's what Jesus' ministry was like.

He came to reveal that there is we have an awesome heavenly father who loves us as his children and who delights to do good for his children. Jesus also came in the gospel in the book of Isaiah. He came to be the suffering servant of God. Now the passages are up there on the screen. We're not going to look through those passages here tonight.

But Jesus came to be the suffering servant of God. These are some profound passages. The suffering servant of God is the anointed of God. He is the Messiah of God. He came to establish justice on the earth.

He came to extend God's saving ways not just to the Jews, but to the Gentiles all around the world. He came to be God's agent of our salvation. And he would fulfill these tasks by voluntarily submitting to a death on the cross of Calvary. Jesus also came to leave us an example. He came to leave us an example of what perfect obedience to our heavenly father looks like.

You know, obedience has got a bad reputation these days. But obedience within a loving relationship is a sign of love. So, let's say that I know hypothetically what my wife's favorite restaurant is and it's our wedding anniversary and being a righteous husband, I offer to my wife, let's go for a meal. My wife says yes. and she knows that I know what her favorite restaurant is.

But we drive into town and we drive past her favorite restaurant and we pull into Taco Bell. Did I take my wife out for a meal? Yes. Did I win any brownie points for that Taco Bell? No.

That may be my favorite, the the cheese bean and rice burrito, maybe. Or it used to be the seven layer burrito, but then it got discontinued for some tragic reason. But I know what my wife's favorite restaurant is. And if we go out for a meal, because I love my wife, I want to bring her joy. I'm going to take her to her favorite restaurant.

And Jesus said, "If you love me, keep my commandments." And so when you're in a loving covenant relationship, love is expressed by honoring the wishes of the other party to that relationship. And so Jesus came to give us an example of what perfect obedience to God looks like. He showed us what it means to abide in our heavenly father's love. He showed us what it means to please our heavenly father. And it's because Jesus is our perfect example.

The apostle Paul says that we are to be imitators of Christ. The apostle Paul goes on to say in Romans 13:14 that we are to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires. We are to abide in Christ. We are to walk as Christ walked. And we are to live in love after the pattern of Christ.

So Jesus came to show us how we are to live um uh as as he lived so that we can perfectly reflect our heavenly father's will. Jesus also came to heal the weak and the sick. Jesus said that the healthy have no need of a physician but the sick need a physician and each one of us is sin sick in our souls. That's the truth of the matter. Far from looking down on the weak and the frail, Jesus paid particular attention to the broken in body and the broken in heart.

He touched the lepers when nobody else would go near them. He touched the ceremony unclean. He embraced little children. when Jesus comes to this 12-year-old girl, the story is in Mark 6, and uh the the woman, the girl's father is called Gyrus, and he's the ruler of the synagogue, and he's been begging Jesus to heal his daughter. When Jesus finally gets to that little girl's bedside, he says to her, and the text says, "Talithakum," and the the English says, the English translation says, which means little girl, arise.

But the Aramaic doesn't quite mean little girl. It's a term of endearment. Now, I have a daughter and we have a term of endearments in our family for our daughter. I won't say what it is here tonight, but who here has a child that you have a personal term of endearment for? Let's say the ch your son's name is James, but you have a personal term of endearment for your little boy.

Most parents have that for their child. When Jesus says that to that Gyrus's daughter, that 12-year-old girl who's dead, he doesn't just say, "Little girl, get up." Um the the the expression in Aramaic is better translated as little lamb. Little lamb. It's time to get up. And Jesus is the good shepherd who comes looking for his little lamb.

And he raises that little lamb from the dead and she's restored to her father. You know, Jesus is the son of David. David was a shepherd boy. And Jesus said to King Saul before the battle with Goliath, he said, "Um, your servant is a shepherd boy." He says, "When a lion or a bear would take one of my sheep, I would go and fight that lion and I would kill that liner. I'd kill that bear.

I'd rescue the lamb and bring it back to the flock." Now, let me ask you, if you were a shepherd boy and a lion takes one of your lambs, let's say you have a hund sheep in your flock, what's the sensible thing to do? Fight the lion for that lamb or hustle a 99 to safety? What would you do? I'd hustle a 99 to safety. Why?

Because next year those 99 will be 150 anyway. And if I were an accountant, I'd just write off that one lamb as a bad debt provision every year. I'm going to write off one lamb a year because the lions or the bears are going to get them. But Jesus is the lamb of God. And when David, that shepherd boy, he fought the lion in order to win back that lamb.

No matter how badly damaged that lamb was covered in blood and spittle and gore and probably limp from shock being taken by the lion, David went looking for that lamb. He was going to get his lamb back. For David, the shepherd boy, no cause was a lost cause. And Jesus is the son of David and he is the good shepherd. And for Jesus, no cause is a lost cause today either.

He comes looking for his lambs. He fights for his children. He fights for my children. He fights for your children. He fights for me.

And he fights for you. He didn't just come to heal the sick. He came to save us from the attacks of Satan. He also came to reveal to us the true extent and horror of sin in this world. I've flown on many planes.

I've been flying non-stop since I was 18. I must be at a couple of million miles by now, which is a terrible, terrible achievement in life. If any of you have reached a million miles, you know that that's not an achievement you want in life. But I used to fly a lot into Africa, particularly Kenya and um Sudan, Kartum. And when you're flying in in in Kenya Airways, you read through the in-flight magazine, and the the rear third of the magazine is filled with adverts.

They're advertising 24/7 armed security units and response units. They're advertising barbed wire. They're advertising electric fences. They're advertising automated steel gate systems. They're advertising how um steel grates on your windows.

And you fly into the city thinking what kind of place am I flying into here if they're advertising all the security equipment. And so somewhere in buried in all the midst of this security stuff, they're advertising on the air Kenya air Kenya Airways magazines. They say, "But we have an incredible culture and a vibrant history and come to our um the the uh the traditional market where you're going to find traditional handiccrafts all made in China." And I would fly into somewhere like Nairobi. Just outside Nairobi, you've got very large what we call shanty towns or centers where millions of people live in in very very poor conditions where the average onset age of sexual activity for girls is between 9 and 10. And you know that's not of their own free will.

And you'd fly in under cover of night and you look down and under the cover of darkness there's a whole lot of suffering going on down there. And Jesus came to reveal to us the horror of sin because we've kind of gotten too used to it. We've reached a stage in society where if there's a gruesome death in a movie, people laugh. Where if somebody is suffering, we tend to walk by on the other side of the road because we don't want to get sucked into that vortex of chaos. Who knows?

They might invite us to come and visit and spend time with them and offer practical assistance. But Jesus came to reveal to us the full extent and horror of sin in our world. His sinless life rebuked sin and invited us to receive God's forgiveness and to enter into a union with Jesus through baptism who from the first has overcome the world and who alone can save us from the wages of sin which is death. Jesus came to be our faithful high priest. What does it mean to be a priest?

A priest has two roles. A priest represents God's to the people and the priest also intercedes on behalf of the people with God. So a priest has two roles and Jesus came to be our faithful high priest. He came to um re reveal God to us and he also came to intercede with God on our behalf. So he is our faithful high priest.

But when he comes to the specifics of what he did on Calvary, the death of Christ on Calvary, he his death was a saving death. There are some verses I'll put there up on the screen that reveal what the Bible says about this, how Christ's death was a saving death on our behalf. It says that Jesus came in 1 John 3:8 to destroy the works of the devil. I can say amen to that. We read in 1 John 3:5 that Jesus was revealed to take away sins.

And you may say, well, that's a theological concept. Well, if if you've grown up with divorce and disease and drugs and despair and depression, you know what Jesus came to save you from. Luke 19:10 when Jesus spoke with Zakius. Jesus says to Zakius, "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the who?" The lost. I say, "Praise God for that.

God hasn't forgotten me. God isn't is just not consigning me to the dustpin of eternity. He sent his son to seek and to save the lost. Those who have yet to have a saving knowledge of Christ." John 3:17, we quoted this last night. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

And I say amen to that. And then the final quote there, 1 Timothy 1:15 says, "The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to what? To save sinners." And I say, "Praise God for that." God did Jesus did not come into the world to condemn sinners. Jesus came into the world to seek and to save those who are lost in sin. And if you are a sinner today, Jesus came for you.

He didn't come to condemn. Didn't come to wag his fingers. He didn't come to announce your eternal destruction. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. So his death was a saving death.

His death was a sacrificial death. We read in John 1:29, "Behold the lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." 1 Corinthians 5:7, the Apostle Paul says, "Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed." Romans 4:25 discusses the death of Christ and says he was put to death for our trespasses. Ephesians 5:2 says, "In his death, Christ was a quote, a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to death." and Matthew 26:28 um when Jesus spoke in the Lord's supper and he was passing out the the the grape of the the the glass of grape juice as they went through the Jewish last supper process. Jesus says his blood was quote poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. That's really good news.

I have a 20-year-old daughter. I may have mentioned this last week. If I have, please forgive me. And when she wants to stir the pot at home, she say, "Mommy, do you remember when dad did this a few years ago and I look at with I look at my daughter with something other than pure love in my eyes cuz I'd hope that was forgiven and forgotten and disappeared in the dust bin of history." But my daughter says, "Mommy, do you remember when daddy did this? Wasn't he really bad?

Mommy, has daddy paid the price for what he did five years ago?" And she says it with a twinkle in her eye. And I think I say my poor daughter, woe be to whoever marries her. But when Jesus died, the forgiveness of sins means that God will remember our sins no more. As far as the east is from the west, so far he'll remove our sins from us. And so there is no remembrance of sins when we confess them and receive forgiveness of God by grace.

We also read read in the Bible that his death was a substitutionary death. The theologians call it vicarious. It means on behalf of somebody else. I've highlighted for you there the Greek preposition hooper or for in the red in each of these verses. Romans 5:8 says, "While were we yet sinners, he died for us." Ephesians 5:2 says, "He gave himself for us or on behalf of us." Galatians 3:13 says, "He became a curse for us." 1 John 2:2 says he was the experation or the the the sacrifice of reconciliation for our sins.

And then Mark 10:45 maybe the most famous verses where Jesus speaks himself. He says, "The son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for or on behalf of many." That these texts are all very clear. Jesus didn't just die to give us an example. He didn't just guide to show us the love of God. He died in our place that we might have his eternal life.

I was studying once with a bunch of Muslims. It was in the Middle East. And the they'd come with a very Muslim idea of God. God is out there. God is unknowable.

God is implacable. God says he's merciful, but nobody knows what that mercy looks like in Islam. And so I was going through the book of Romans with them, chapter by chapter. And we came to Romans chapter 5. And we come to this verse here um Romans 5:8 the top screen there and the full verse says but Christ God demonstrated his love for us or God proved his love for us that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us and this Iranian girl raised in Islam she stopped at that moment and she said I've never seen a picture of God like that before because in Islam if I do something for Allah he'll do something good for me.

But the gospel says that before I was even born, God proved his love for me and for you, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Whether we accept his death or not, he's died for us regardless of how we respond to him. Praise God for that. That lady was baptized a couple of days later. And um I asked the next lady, "Do you want to be baptized?" And she said, "Yes." I said, "Why do you want to be baptized?" She says, 'Well, I'm the youngest daughter of a poor man and my father wants to marry me off as the fourth wife to an old businessman in our city.

She says, 'I don't want that marriage and if I go back and tell them that I'm a Christian, he won't want to marry me. I said, well, that's fair enough. I said, but why do you want to be baptized? She says, because when I read in the Gospels, Jesus only treated women with dignity. And he never forced a woman in any way, shape, or form.

He respected the dignity and the the moral standing of every woman he met, regardless of whether she was a Jew or a gentile, rich or poor, Jesus always treats a woman with respect. And she said, "Growing up in Iran, I have never been treated with respect." And I find in the gospels the only person who ever treats somebody with respect, and it's Jesus Christ. I asked the men why they want to be debate, to be baptized, and they gave their reasons. We had the uh we had the baptism. The water was 18 in deep.

It was in uh Yeravan, the capital of Armenia. It was January. The water was frozen in the outdoors bapt I couldn't baptize in the traditional sense. So I said, "I'm just going to have to lie you down on your back. Then I'm going to roll you over and that way you're going to be wet all over.

So hold your nose when I roll you over." And they said, "It's cold." cold. I said, "Yeah, I'm standing here as well, brother. You know, you and me, we're all getting cold here. So, we're going to make this as quick as we can." And so, we went through the baptisms and to my horror, somebody found um um eight baptismal robes and they all had the white robes. One of those robes had run soft pink in the wash and that was the robe they gave me.

It was a terrible robe. They had these beautiful white robes. I was in this kind of soft pink robe. And uh anyway, we when we [clears throat] finished the baptism, we went inside. We had a Lord's supper and then there was a choir singing there.

There was it was a bunch of uh old Russian grandmas called babushkas and they had their little scarves on their heads and they were practicing for the next Sabbath and I didn't want to listen to them because it didn't sound too good. But I know that these grandmas had survived the Soviet Union. They were heroes of faith. So I sat and I listened to these barbers practicing and they needed practice. I was getting kind of impatient cuz I needed to get to the airport to fly back home to Chicago.

And I said to one of the Muslim guys who's now an Adventist, I said, "Shouldn't we leave? Like it's time to go." He says, "Coned," he said, "Next Sabbath you're going to sit in a church in America and you're going to sing praises to God in your own language without any legal problem." says, "I'm going to go back tonight on a coach to Tehran. I will never sit in a church again in my life. I will never hear the live praise of Jesus again in my life." He says, "I don't understand what these Russian grandmas are singing, but let us sit through the entire practice." That those Iranian young people, they understood what it meant to follow Christ. said, "You know, if you go back to Iran and tell people that you're baptized, you could be executed for this." They said, "Yes, we know." I said, "So, why do you want to be baptized?" They said, "Because we want to bear the name of Christ." And in a world that hates him, in a world that says we will not have this man to rule over us, we know what he's done for us.

So, we're going to be his ambassadors, his representatives in under the Iranian regime. And so, those brave young adults, they went back into Iran. And I still don't know what happened to them. But that girl, she cames that first text there that Christ proved God proved his love for us. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

When the Bible says that God loves you, God doesn't need to prove it. He's already demonstrated it on Calvary. And then we see that the death of Christ was an atoning death. The Bible says in Luke 1:79 that humans sit in darkness. In Ephesians 4:18, it says we are alienated from the life of God.

Colossians 1:21 says, "We are estranged and hostile in mind doing evil deeds." Romans 8:7 says, "We are hostile to God." The Bible is pretty clear. We are alienated from God. And as God is the source of life, we are born, but the moment you are born, from that moment on, you are slowly dying. Is that not right? If there's one thing you can say about a baby is that one day it's going to die.

That's the only thing you can say with great certainty. But the Bible says in Romans 5:10 that we were reconciled to God by the death of his son. The death of Christ brought reconciliation between lost humanity and our loving heavenly father. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree as the apostle Peter would later go on to describe it. So our time is up here tonight.

We just been exploring some what happened on Calvary, the hinge of history. So when you think of Calvary and you think of that picture of Pilate saying, "Behold the man." What do you see here in Maui in 2026? I want to encourage you to see that Jesus standing there as God with us, Emmanuel, God become flesh, God not abandoning us in our world of suffering, but God living in this world of pain, and God partaking in all of our suffering. Jesus took the worst this world could throw at him. He knows what it means to be brokenhearted, to be abandoned, to be a man of sorrows, to be rejected of men.

He knows what it is to face unjust legal systems and government brutality and an unjust death. Jesus has tasted the worst this world has to throw at us. He is God with us. He isn't the God who's abandoned us. He's the God who shows solidarity with us today in the midst of our suffering.

We also see that he is God for us. He is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Through whose death he paid the price for my sins and he paid the price for your sins. And not only is he Emanuel, God with us, not only is the lamb of God, God for us, but he is the king of kings and lord of lords, he is God over us. He's not just a king from the past, but he's the coming king of humanity.

A there's a famous quote by Lyall Rawlings. He says this, "The greatest man in history, Jesus, he had no servants yet they called him master. Had no degrees yet they called him teacher. had no medicines, yet they called him healer. Had no armies, yet kings feared him.

Won no military battles, yet he conquered the world. He did not live in a castle, yet they called him Lord. He ruled no nations, yet they called him king. He committed no crime, yet they crucified him. He was buried in a tomb, and yet he lives today.

And that is who we follow as Christians. As Christians, we are disciples of Jesus Christ, God with us. Emanuel, God for us, the lamb of God. God over us, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And so the Bible, if you may summarize the Bible in one verse, there it is on the screen.

For God so loved Maui in 2026, that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever in Maui in 2026 should believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. The death of Christ is grounded in love for broken humanity. All around us, we see brokenness in our society. But when we look to Calvary, we see a love that will not let let us go. A self-sacrificing love.

A love that is from everlasting to everlasting. A love that transforms sinners into saints. A love that binds up the brokenhearted. Replaces strife with shalom or the peace of God. Brings alienation.

replaces alienation with reconciliation, turns despair into hope, and brings with us the promise of life tomorrow. Truly, the death of Christ was the most significant death in all human history. I've traveled around the world. I've been to see the par the tomb of Napoleon in Paris. I've been to see the tomb of Marx and Lenin and Lenin in in uh in in um in Moscow.

I've been to see the see the tomb of Shakespeare in England. I've been to see many famous tombs around the world. You can even go to Saudi Arabia and you can go to Medina and you can see the the tomb of the prophet of Islam Muhammad. But there is no tomb of Christ because he is risen and he is coming again. The Bible says that Christ having been offered once to bear the sins of many that was on Calvary.

He will appear a second time not to deal with sin. That was what he did on Calvary. But he's going to he's coming to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. And that is why I'm an Adventist. I don't just look back to Calvary, the first coming of Christ.

I'm looking forward to the second coming of Christ when he's coming to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. The demons know that Jesus is coming again, but they're not eagerly waiting for him. Satan knows that Jesus is coming again, and he's not eagerly waiting for him. Merely knowing with your head that Jesus is coming again doesn't mean he's coming for you. The Bible says he's coming for those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Which means my head knows he's coming and my heart is engaged. I want him to come back as soon as possible. I want to see my Lord and Savior face to face. And when he comes, we will be changed, said the prophet uh Paul, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed.

And on that glorious day, the Bible describes not just what happened in Nazareth in Galilee when Jesus did his healing ministry. The Bible says this, "And the ransoms of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing. Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." What a beautiful promise. And if you're living today with sorrow and sighing, maybe it's time to put your trust in Jesus as your savior.

So when he comes again, he's coming not just for those who are eagerly waiting for him, but he's going to be coming for you and coming for me. And so if we come back to that original question that Jesus asked those disciples, our final slide here, who do you say that I am? Your answer to that question will determine whether you live with hope or despair. Your answer to that question will determine whether you have the promise of eternal life or nothing but a grave and then eternal nothingness. Your answer to that question will determine whether you experience the fullness of God's blessings in your life today or whether or whether you just fight through life and all the problems it brings and then die old and tired of the battles of life.

Jesus asked those disciples, who do you say that I am? So I want to ask you tonight, who do you say that Jesus is? And your response to that question will determine whether you have the gift of eternal life or not. His death was the most significant death of human history. It was the fulcrum.

It was the hinge of history. Every significant moment in your life revolves around the picture you see on the screen there. The life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus. And maybe tonight, maybe for the first time in your life, you have to ask yourself that honest question. Who do I say that the man from Nazareth is?

Is he God with me, Emmanuel? Is he the lamb of God that takes away my sins? Is he the King of Kings and Lord of Lords in general? But is he also the Lord of my life? If you can respond tonight and say that he is God with me and if he's the lamb of God taking away my sins and he's my king and he's my lord and he's my coming savior you will have the gift of eternal life.

So who do you say that I am? asks Jesus. Don't let this question leave your mind until you've answered it. You may want to answer tonight, maybe tomorrow, maybe in this coming week. But don't let this question just slip from your minds.

Your eternal destiny hangs on your answer to this one question. Who do you say that I am? My prayer is that each one of us can say with doubting Thomas when he realized that Jesus was alive again, he fell at the feet of Jesus and he said, "My Lord and my God." And it's my prayer that each one of us can say that with faith and we will receive the gift of eternal life. May God be with you as you think about this question. May God guide you as you think through the implications of this question.

And may the Holy Spirit work on your heart and give you the gift of faith so that with Thomas you can say, "My Lord and my God." And you can eagerly wait his second coming when he comes to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. May God bless you as you think about this question. May God guide you into the answer that will lead to eternal life. for his name's sake. Amen.

And so tomorrow we're going to be speaking about how we enter the kingdom of God. Tomorrow we're going to be speaking about baptism. Um what does baptism mean? Um what is the theological significance of baptism? Um what are you leaving behind when you're baptized and what are you stepping into when you are baptized?

That's going to be the subject of our discussion tomorrow. And then on Monday, we'll be speaking about what happens when you die. Um, do the dead live forever or do they die? Do they sleep in the grave or do they roast in hell or purgatory? Or when if you died, do you go straight to heaven?

Those are important questions. We'll be asking that question on Monday night. What happens when you die? And tomorrow we'll be discussing the question, how do you enter the kingdom of God? And hint, it is through the waters of baptism.

But there's a whole lot more to it than just that. So, we look forward to seeing you tomorrow night, 6:00. We'll begin again with some delicious food. Brother Ernie, Sister Kim, what are we learning about tomorrow, Sister Kim? Washing machines.

Washing machines. Like the round things with water in them. Okay. Washing machines. Okay.

Thank you very much. Thank you. I know that's going to be a fascinating topic. Um I still remember I've got my my mind is filled with with um intestinal bugs, those pictures we showed on the screen the other night. And [snorts] so I'm now looking at my food with greater interest.

I know I look I bought some broccoli recently. And um my wife says, "You need to put it in the water. Why?" So I put it in the water and these little white things came wiggling to the surface. Have you seen those on your broccoli? So So um I I I look at broccoli with a new set eyes of caution.

You know, as a vegetarian, I don't want to eat these bugs. But uh anyway, we look forward to seeing you tomorrow at 6:00. Uh may God be with you. Go in peace and go with God. Amen.