Are You Concerned?
How concerned are you over this terrible death you inflicted upon Jesus Christ? Do you feel and know your responsibility? Do you take it lightly or seriously? Do YOU TAKE IT LITERALLY?
God the Father and our Savior have forgiven us if we have repented. Their forgiveness has been according to our realization of the seriousness of the crime committed.
Everyone is naturally, selfishly, carnally concerned over his own life, his own health. Most of us have even imagined accidents where our wives or children were concerned. We have found ourselves deeply involved and worried over danger for self and family.
Are you concerned over Jesus Christ's sacrifice?
Not if you sin! Not if you just drift along! Not if you are filled with pride and vanity! Not if you are glorifying the self, the number one — the big you!
We all need to be concerned over our gigantic sin and part in crucifying Jesus Christ. We need to be genuinely humble, ". . . for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourself therefore under the mighty hand of God . . ." (I Pet. 5:5-6). In so doing we show our concern and exercise true repentance of our past misdeeds.
When we come to this attitude, when we come to true repentance and are properly baptized and, by God's Spirit, put into the true Church of God, the living body of Christ — then we have God's complete forgiveness, His love and His deep concern. God — the God we crucified abounds in loving-kindness. Through a multitude of tender mercies He is able to blot out our sins, our transgressions — no matter how wicked we have been (Ps. 51:1).
What Kind of God Was It That You Killed?
The God that you killed made the world! He was appointed heir of all things by His Father. He was the very express image, brightness and character of the Father and His power. This God, Jesus Christ, purged our sins and then sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on High, God the Father (Heb. 1:2-3).
He is made perfect, the One who works to bring us, the first begotten, into perfection. He is worthy of angels' worship!! (Heb. 1:6)
"Behold your God" — THE GOD YOU KILLED!! He, in His magnificence, is fully capable of measuring all the oceans in the hollow or palms of His hands. He can weigh all the mountains of this earth as easily as we would weigh a few pounds of salt on a scale!
We have not counseled this great God in His wisdom or instructed Him. In reality, we are in comparison as a fraction of a speck of dust. All "nations [on earth] are as a drop in a bucket and are counted as the small dust of the balance. . ." (Isa. 40:9-15).
No, we never counseled this great God — but we did kill Him — just as surely as I killed that little old Burmese twenty some years ago!
Have you ever contemplated how great you are by comparison — or contemplated the net worth of you, your value to God — your worth in terms of Christ's sacrifice? When all nations in totality are only a drop in a bucket — how large are you?
That drop of water in Isaiah 40 represents the billions of mankind! We as men would be totally incapable to separate a drop of water to the fraction that would represent one of us!
Yes, this great God we now worship is not likened to anyone or anything. No one, no thing is equal to the Holy One — OUR GOD! He is merciful, kind and full of compassion!
YET FOR ALL HIS GOODNESS — WE — YOU KILLED JESUS CHRIST!
He Gave All — For Your Life
This God, the One who suffered and died, laid down His life for His friends — friends that spit in His face and cursed Him in wicked disobedience (John 15:13). And He commanded that all men repent and bring forth the fruit which leads to eternal life in His soon-coming kingdom — the Kingdom of God!
He was made a man, just a little lower than the angels to suffer death for you and for me! He tasted death for every man. He humbled Himself to be flesh and blood that He might destroy death, pain, sickness, disease and misery (Heb. 2:9, 14).
Jesus Christ, the God that you killed was tempted just like you are tempted — yet He resisted without sin (Heb. 4:15).
Our Savior fought the downward pull of the flesh just as you and I fight the battle. He was wearied by the flesh that cries out, "Oh wretched man that I am!" (Rom. 7:24) But He conquered this pull of death and sin perfectly to qualify to die for you!
He resisted the carnal pull of flesh even unto blood. In agony He prayed earnestly for you and for me. ". . . and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground" (Luke 22:44).
None of us is worthy of so great a sacrifice, yet it took this Great One to pay for your sins! His life as Creator of all mankind, of all matter of the earth and the universe is greater than all our lives rolled into one!
He sat down with the Father and made the plans to come to this earth and suffer that we might live! He did this with joy. He took the job willingly. He predetermined to endure the cross that we might live (Heb. 12:2).
Yes, this is the God in the flesh that you killed!! Just as surely as I killed that old Burmese man — you killed Jesus Christ! All of us individually are responsible for His death.
His sacrifice, the thousands of years of positive, unfailing prophecy from Exodus 12 to Matthew 27:50 that predicted His death should inspire you to work harder — to resist evil with greater determination, to put sin out of your lives so that you can qualify to sit with Jesus Christ and rule from His throne.
Christ's sacrifice, His love, inspires me to write of this great God who has given His all!!
One day I'll be there with Jesus Christ when that old white-haired Burmese headmaster of the pack train is raised from the dead! I'll have one hundred years to teach him God's way! I'll be able to tell him, with tears in my eyes how sorry I am — and how his death twenty-five years ago helped clarify the fact that each one of YOU KILLED JESUS CHRIST!
Meanwhile, write for our free booklets on Easter, The Crucifixion, Twelve Reasons Why Jesus' Trial Was Illegal, and When and How Often Should We Observe "the Lord's Supper"?,They will make the truth plain.