"And while He was being accused by the chief priests and elders, He answered nothing....Then Pilate said to Him....But He answered him not one word....His blood be on us and on our children....And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His Spirit." (From Matthew 27)
I preached from Matthew 27 back in 2001 in some Sunday services of Covenant Church of Pittsburgh. After I read the entire chapter, we sang, "Holy, Holy, Holy." We could have gone home.
Jesus had been before the Jewish Authorities; now He was before the Roman Governor for Judah. Our Lord Jesus said something to the Roman Governor which must have startled Pilate. John's Gospel records that Pilate had threatened Jesus with the words, "Do You not know that I have authority (power) to release You, and have authority to crucify You?" Jesus' answer must have flabbergasted Pilate. "You would have no authority (power) against Me, unless it had been given you from above...."
So there you have it, my friend. If Jesus is ruling in you and me today, the world, the Spirit of Darkness, nothing has any power over us. Jesus comforts us with His Words, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My Words will not pass away." Nothing and no one in Jesus will, "pass away." When the Trumpet sounds, "....the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive who remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord." I think I'll have some lunch now.
Father, in Jesus' Name, Thank You for taking my, as Your Words say, sins, sicknesses, pains, grief, sorrows, disease in the Blood of Your Cross. Amen.
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When Peter, an 18 year old Norwegian, "heard the call to evangelize China, on that day he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"
Hebrews 12:2
Hebrews 12:2
