Easter

To so many people in the Western World Easter is all about the Easter bunny and colored Easter eggs and similar things.  Young people grow up with Easter egg hunts put on and sponsored by their local communities.  On a national level Easter is celebrated by the Easter Egg Roll Party. Since 1878, American presidents and their families have celebrated Easter Monday by hosting an ‘egg roll’ party held on the South Lawn of the White House; it is one of the oldest annual events in White House history.  However, if you will stay with me, I would like to tell you what Easter is really about. Ron

Since Christianity is the largest religion in the world, around a third of the Earth’s population, and since Easter is the most important day to Christians, this day could be considered the most important day in the world!

President Ronald Reagan stated April 2, 1983: Christians have been commemorating the last momentous days leading to the crucifixion of Jesus 1,950 years ago. Tomorrow, as morning spreads around the planet, we’ll celebrate the triumph of life over death, the Resurrection of Jesus.” And in the United States we call it “Easter”.

Egyptians had enslaved the Israelites, with the Pharaoh’s order to have their infant boys thrown into the Nile River. In response, God sent plagues upon Egypt as judgment, the final one being similar to Pharaoh’s order, the sending of the angel of death to kill the firstborn.

On the 15th day of the Hebrew month Nisan, each Israelite family was to kill a lamb and put its blood over the doorposts of their house so that the judgment of the angel of death would “pass over” their home, indicating their faith that the lamb had taken the deserved judgment in their place.

Exodus 12:8 gave instructions regarding the Passover lamb: “And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.”

Jewish days began at sunset and lasted until the next sunset. In 33 AD, Jesus celebrated the Passover meal with his disciples in the evening and then in the morning he was crucified — on the day of Passover.

The Apostle Paul wrote in First Corinthians 5:7: “For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.”

The lamb is considered the most innocent of animals. John the Baptist saw Jesus and exclaimed: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world!”

Justin Martyr, who lived 100 to 165 AD, described: “That lamb was commanded to be wholly roasted a symbol of the suffering of the cross which Christ would undergo. For the lamb is roasted and dressed up in the form of the cross. For one spit is transfixed right through from the lower parts up to the head, and one across the back, to which are attached the legs of the lamb.”

Crucifixion was the most painful Roman torture, reserved for slaves and rebels.

Dr. Alexander Metherell, M.D., Ph.D. wrote: “The pain was absolutely unbearable. In fact, it was literally beyond words to describe; they had to invent a new word: excruciating. Literally, excruciating means ‘out of the cross.’”

Cicero called crucifixion, “the most cruel and hideous of tortures.” Historian Will Durant wrote that “even the Romans pitied the victims.

It is amazing to me that the Prophet Isaiah wrote from 740 to 701 BC all about how Jesus would be born to a virgin, many other things about him and his life, even about his suffering at the crisifiction, 2,800 years before it ever happened.

Isaiah chapter 53 prophetically foretold: “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent.

He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished. Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer. The Lord makes his life an offering for sin.

My righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. For he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.”

Of course skeptics could say: “How do you know that was written that long ago. Maybe it was just ‘made up’ in recent times and made to look that old.”

If you will stay with me, I would like to relate to you how I know it is true: I had several ranches, all with those big, beautiful Santa Gertrudis cattle. On the 1,600 acre ranch where we lived in an obscenely big house, we would have a cattle round-up each Spring. There we would cut-out the adolescent aged bulls and heifers and dehorn them, brand them with my brand, and brand their mother’s number to their rear flank.

My cowboys and I needed extra help for this. So, we started inviting a bunch of friends and made it into a big party. Most of the folks did not help with the tough cattle work, they stayed at the house around the swimming pool and cabana, playing tennis on my fine court, riding horses, and the other fun activities.

My friend Clint Murchison, Jr. who owned the Dallas Cowboys and I, had this thing going about who had the best BBQ ribs in Texas. We finally decided that for sure it was “Cattaas’s” (Carter’s) over on Oakland Ave. in East Dallas.

The best thing about this “Round-up Party” was that I would have a big “mess” of “Cattaas’s” ribs and a big bunch of his black folk’s sides to go with them together with his famous BBQ sauce. We served it out under the shade trees on a big, long table. Then, after all that, at sundown we had some fantastic entertainment.

Many of the guests waited for the entertainment. It was held in my big living room. That room had a huge fireplace, a library down one side, and as many square feet as most people’s whole house. The entertainment that everyone looked so forward to was: Danny Korem. Danny was not only considered the #1 magician in the world by the other professional magicians, but was considered the world’s foremost authority on “deception” by the major new’s media TV Channels and major new’s papers. When a major news outlet thought they had found someone with “Powers”, they would call Danny and get him to expose what “tricks” that person was useing. Danny exposed Uri Geller on national TV who had convinced so many that he could bend metal like car keys with his mind or “Powers”. Danny also exposed Jeane Dixon who had convinced so many people across America of her ability to make “accurate” predictions.

With eveyone assembled, the first thing that Danny did for us was to ask for a few vounteers to get out a sheet of paper and for each volunteer to select a single digit number and write it on that sheet of paper. Then he asked a volunteer to go over across the room an get a sheet of paper out of the briefcase that he had brought to the party. When we looked at the number that the volunteer had written down, sure enough the number on the sheet of paper that Danny had brought were exactly the same. The whole room got quiet at that point.

Next, Danny asked for 5 or 6 volunteers to go over to my library bookcase and select a book. Then he asked each volunteer to put the book behind their back and open it, and put their finger firmly onto a spot on the open page. Danny then had each volunteer step forward and he called out a short phrase. When each volunteer read the words from the book where their finger was placed, they were the very same words that Danny had calle out. That is when things got really quiet.

There were some really famous people there in the room. One was tha famous Christian artist, Jack Hamm, whose pictures each week are published in newspapers across the world. Another person there was, Jimmy Smith, the famous cowboy who won the National Junior Roping Championship for America when he was in highshool.

After some more feats Danny finished with and amsolutely amazing one. He had me go out to the horse barn and get a waterproof piece of canvas. He then explained that he had brought to the party a big block of ice and that he had put it in the freezer in my back entrance. He had two strong volunteers go back and get that block of ice and put it on the canvas on the floor of that livingroom. Since most Texas men carry a sharp poketknife, he asked for volunteers to chip down to the center of that big block of ice. He explained that there was a laminated card frozen in the center of the ice.

While they were chipping, he asked Jack Hamm to get a dollar bill from someone there. He asked several times if Jack wanted to use the dollar collected or get another one. Jack decided to just keep that one. Then Danny had Jack Hamm to write down on a piece of paper the serial number on that dollar bill. When the guys finally got down to the center of the ice and found the laminated card, it had a number on it. And when it was read out, it turned out to be the exact serial number on the dollar bill that had been collected by Jack Hamm. Wow!!!

So, Danny asked the folks there if they thought that he had “powers”. They all did, but he explained that he did not, but that he had used deception at levels they had neer seen. Then he explained that in his whole career of exposing fake prophesies, the only real prediction that he had ever found that was real and true, were the prophesies of Isaiah about Jesus. And he said that if they had not found the Dead Sea Scrolls and Carbon Dated them several times, they could have been produced after the fact.

Danny Korem is very Jewish. He is also a strong Christian. He explained to the Group that he never would have become a Christian without the proof of that one true predicion by Isaiah 2,800 years ago.

At Jesus crisifiection the Roman Centurion in charge of the Roman soldiers said that this man must have really been the Son of God, because of all that then happened, like the black clouds that turned the day dark, the shaking if the earth, and all kinds of amazing manifestations.

After Jesus crusifiction, they took his body down and put it into a tomb carved out of rock that had been prepared for a wealthy man. They then rolled a huge, heavy rock over the front of the tomb to seal it. But on the morning of the third day, when Jesus deciples came, the huge rock was rolled away, and the grave clothes they had put on Jesus were laying right there. He had risen from the dead!!!

Several hundred people saw Jesus over days that followed. They attested that they saw and touched the scars left from his crusifiction.

Then Jesus took a group of his deciples across the valley from Jerusalem to the top of the cliff there. After giving them some parting words, Jesus just ascended up through the clouds. And as He left, he said that one day he was coming back the same way, and that they should be anticipating his eventual return.

In closing, one last question needs to be answered. Why did the Lamb have to die?

To answer that, we must ask: Why did God make us?

First, we are creatures made with a free will with the ability to love God.

Secondly, God has to hide himself behind His creation for us to have a free will, because if He ever revealed Himself in all of omnipotent universe creating power, your response would be involuntary. And for love to be love it must be voluntary!

Thirdly, God is just and must judge every sin, because if He did not judge their sin He would by default be giving consent to their sin.

Numbers 30 explains that silence equals consent. This is seen in wedding ceremonies where the minister asks if anyone objects they should speak now or forever hold their peace. By staying silent, those in attendance are giving their consent to the wedding.

In mathematical equations, there are constants and variables.

In the equation of redemption the constant is that God forever was, is, and forever will be just. The variable is who takes the judgment – you or a substitute.

The Lamb is our substitute. The Lamb is God’s way to love you without having to judge you.

The Lamb of God took the judgment in our place: “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son.”

How was Jesus’ sacrifice enough to pay for the sins of all mankind?

Jesus is divine and experienced judgment in a dimension we will never understand.

Jesus suffered the equivalent of eternal judgement in all or our places, and He is THE ONLY ONE who could have done it!

When someone believes the Gospel – that Jesus suffered in their place, that their sins have been taken away, that they are forgiven and accepted by God – they are filled with joy and gratefulness.

The unconditional love they experience brings a behavioral change from the inside–out. “The goodness of God brings men to repentance.” (Romans 2:4)

They experience a polarity change in their heart — instead of avoiding God, they are drawn to God.

They enter into a personal relationship with God the Father through Jesus the Son, then they are filled with Holy Spirit who dwells within them and works through them to bring the love of God to a lost and hurting world.

To sum it all up: God made a way for us to be washed clean by Jesus blood and thus to be able to live in heaven for all eternity with the living God of this Universe. How foolish for so many to just throw this away and not accept it. If you have never accepted it and been saved into Heaven, please do so right now. Just get on your knees and pray this Prayer:

Lord Jesus, I need you. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. Right now I open the door of my heart and receive You as my Savior and my Lord. Thank You for forgiving my sins, and for giving me eternal life. Now Lord, just take control of the throne of my life, and make me into the kind of person that you want me to be.