Transcription

Connor:
You’re listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun and practical ways.

Jeff:
Well, you know, it’s not just me. You also are fun about it. I am. And one of the ways we know is that it says literally on the thing, there’s two guys that like to talk about the Bible in front of us.

Chris:
And it calls us friends. It calls us a couple of friends.

Jeff:
A couple of friends. That’s right. Yeah.

Chris:
We’re also coworkers and pastors. Yeah.

Jeff:
We live in the same state. And humans. Yeah, that’s right. We both eat food.

Chris:
We have so much in common. Did we just become best friends?

Jeff:
Yeah, we both walk up.

Chris:
Shout out your favorite dinosaur right now. You ever see that brothers?

Jeff:
No.

Chris:
Oh, goodness gracious. That’s a great scene. Okay. And they all look at each other and they say, Velociraptor! Anyway. Okay.

Jeff:
So today, Jeff, you are going to pretty much… I’m leading you down the path with words and you have to guess the word. It’s a lot like the game Taboo. Yes. So I’m going to try to get you to say a word without saying the words that are posted on the screen.

Chris:
Yeah, for the viewers, we’re going to post the italicized words on the screen, because to be honest with you, my job isn’t as hard as yours is. Right. You have to somehow get me to say this word without saying the italicized words.

Jeff:
That’s right.

Chris:
All right.

Jeff:
So the profession of several of Jesus’ disciples.

Chris:
Fishermen.

Jeff:
Yes. And what would they be doing when they were acting like fishermen? They would be fishing. Fishing. There you go.

Chris:
Okay. What couldn’t you say?

Jeff:
I couldn’t say sport, rod, line, hook, or catch.

Chris:
Oh, yeah. There you go. All right. And you weren’t already allowed to say fish because it was a part of the word.

Jeff:
That’s right. Okay. Okay. Let me see. There’s a game that you have to go to a course and you do a thing with a stick, try to get it in a hole.

Chris:
Croquet.

Jeff:
No, no, no, no. Golf. Yes. So you said golf. What is the thing you’re trying to get in the hole? Golf ball. There you go. Golf ball. I wasn’t allowed to say white, dimple, small, hit, or curb.

Chris:
Oh, I would have just said Tiger Woods plays. Yeah.

Jeff:
With, with a… There you go. I’m glad that’s what you would do. It’s not what I did.

Chris:
Yeah. Well, I’m just letting you know the better way, Jeff.

Jeff:
It’s not the better way.

Chris:
That’s okay. It’s just your way. That’s what we do in life. Okay. We live and we learn a little bit.

Jeff:
Okay. This is one of the areas where I think that you are superior to me. Oh, uh, better looking. With, uh, with… Handsome.

Chris:
Guapo.

Jeff:
With regard to maintenance. Maintenance? Yeah, maintenance like on your home. Landscaping. Nope, nope, nope, nope. In the building itself. So… The building itself? She wants you to be… Remodeling. Okay, yes. So when you’re a guy that can do remodeling and things like that.

Chris:
Handy man.

Jeff:
She would say he’s so… Handy. Handy. There you go.

Chris:
Handy.

Jeff:
Okay.

Chris:
Let me see. By the way, I’m not really that handy. I just attempt. And then, you know what, so many times I’ve attempted something, I destroy it, then we have to call somebody to fix it.

Jeff:
We just call somebody now because I’m not an amateur.

Chris:
I’m not even kidding. This has happened so many times in my home.

Jeff:
That’s funny. But I attempted. Okay. Uh, usually men like to build these giant things in their basement and then watch it. Man cave. Nope. And watch it run around and around and around. And they’ll build a little town. Chi-chi train. And there you go. Uh, what kind of train? Train set. Train. What kind of train?

Chris:
Uh, freight train.

Jeff:
Okay. You also make, sometimes people will make cars. Sometimes they’ll make. Caboose. No. Railroad. No, no. They’ll make automobiles sometimes. I’m talking about the word before train. Uh, so, uh, make a, sometimes they’ll put together a plastic car or sometimes they’ll make a model train. There you go.

Chris:
Yes.

Jeff:
Very good. All right. Oh man. I bet you all of our listeners beat me on that one. I bet you. Yup. And then here’s one, uh, Besides a movie star, you would think of John Wayne as a cowboy. There you go. Nice. Okay, good job. So I wasn’t allowed to say cattle, herd, ranch, boots, or a horse for that. And for model train, I wasn’t allowed to say hobby, toy, transport, tracker, scale.

Chris:
Good job, Chris. You were five for five today, baby. Thank you, buddy. Hey, by the way, real quick, 22nd story. My father served in the Navy, or no, excuse me, my father-in-law served in the Navy on the USS Enterprise, and they were docked, and John Wayne had come up to the Enterprise, and all of the men who noticed that he was there on the shore were gathered on the side. We’re talking thousands of men. They’re cheering, right?

Jeff:
The Enterprise was an aircraft carrier.

Chris:
Well, you know how big those things are. Right. Well, John Wayne was wanting to go on to the aircraft carrier, but they didn’t have a bridge or a walkway or something like that. They didn’t have it out. So he decides. to uh to shimmy on the big huge black chain from the shore all the way up now you can imagine how high that is yeah and those are greasy and those are greasy yeah so he shimmies he actually gets on it and and he hangs below the chain and shimmies all the way up and by this time he’s drawn the crowd of almost every other whole ship right right and here comes john wayne and so he shimmies all the way up and then finally when he gets up there he looks at the people and he He strains his hat, his cowboy hat, and he says, and I’m going to say heck, but he didn’t say heck, okay? And he goes, well, what the heck do I do now? That was it. And my father-in-law will never forget that quote, right? And he thought that was the best thing in the world, you know? But he didn’t say anything.

Jeff:
That was a tough guy.

Chris:
Oh my goodness. Tough guy. But I mean, think about it. Like that is the epitome of his image, isn’t it?

Jeff:
Right, right. There’s no gang. I’m not going to wait for a gangway. I’m just going to shimmy up this chain. I’m going to shimmy up this big black chain. Several hundred feet up and out. Yes. Right? And he makes it. He doesn’t fall. He makes it. It’s crazy. Yeah. Okay. Well, we are continuing on. It’s a little silly there. We don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we do take our faith seriously. That’s right. And today this is a big one. I mean, this is where Jesus is placed on the cross. Oh yeah. And in Matthew chapter, this is in all four gospels, Matthew chapter 27, Mark 15, Luke 23, in John chapter 19. And one of the most important moments in human history is right here. Yeah, it is. As he’s taking the punishment for our sin in his body. So Matthew chapter 27, verse 33 says, and they went out to a place called Golgotha, which means place of the skull. The soldiers gave him wine mixed with bitter gall, but when he had tasted it, he refused to drink it. After they had nailed him to the cross, the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice. Then they sat around and kept guard as he hung there. A sign was fastened above Jesus’ head announcing the charge against him and it read, This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Two revolutionaries were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. The people passing by shouted abuse, shaking their heads in mockery. Look at you now, they yelled at him. You said you’re going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. Well then, if you’re the son of God, save yourself and come down from the cross. The leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the elders also mocked Jesus. He saved others, they scoffed, but he can’t save himself. So he is the king of Israel, is he? Let him come down from the cross right now and we’ll believe him. He trusted God, so let God rescue him now if he wants him. For he said, I am the son of God. Even the revolutionaries who were crucified with him ridiculed him in the same way. In Mark chapter 15 verse 22 it says, And they brought Jesus to a place called Golgotha, which means place of the skull. They offered him wine, drugged with myrrh, but he refused it. Then the soldiers nailed Jesus to the cross, and they divided his clothes and threw dice to decide who would get each piece. It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. A sign announced the charge against him. It read, The King of the Jews. Two revolutionaries were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. The people passing by shouted abuse, shaking their heads in mockery. Ha, look at you now, they yelled at him. You said you were going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. Well, then save yourself and come down from the cross. The leading priests and teachers of religious law also mocked Jesus. He saved others, they scoffed, but he can’t save himself. Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down from the cross so we can see it and believe him. Even the men who were crucified with Jesus ridiculed him. In Luke chapter 2, verse 32, it says, two others, both criminals, were led out to be executed with him. When they came to a place called the skull, they nailed him to the cross, and the criminals were also crucified, one on his right and one on his left. Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing. And the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice. The crowd watched and the leader scoffed. He saved others, they said. Let him save himself if he’s really God’s Messiah, the chosen one. The soldiers mocked him too by offering him a drink of sour wine. They called out to him, if you are the king of the Jews, save yourself. A sign was fastened above him with these words, this is the king of the Jews. One of the criminals hanging beside him scoffed, so you’re the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself and us too while you’re at it. But the other criminal protested, don’t you fear God even when you’ve been sentenced to die? We deserve to die for our crimes, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong.” And then he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus replied, I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise. And then in John chapter 19, verse 17, it says, carrying the cross by himself, he went to the place called the place of the skull in Hebrew, Golgotha. There, they nailed him to the cross. Two others were crucified with him, one on either side with Jesus between them. Pilate posted a sign on the cross that read Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. The place where Jesus was crucified was near the city and the sign was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek so that many people could read it. Then the leading priests objected and said to Pilate, change it from the King of the Jews to he said I am the King of the Jews. Pilate replied, no, I have written, no, what I have written, I have written. When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they divided his clothes among the four of them, and they also took his robe, but it was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. So they said, rather than tearing it apart, let’s throw dice for it. This fulfilled the scripture that says, they divided my garments among themselves and threw dice for my clothing. So that is what they did. Standing near the cross where Jesus’ mother and his mother’s sister Mary, the wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother standing there beside the disciple he loved, he said to her, dear woman, here is your son. And he said to his disciple, here is your mother. And from then on, his disciple took her into his home.

Chris:
There is a lot in there, buddy.

Jeff:
Yeah, there sure is. It covers a lot of the big events that happen on the cross here.

Chris:
Yeah, so I think the best way to do it probably is just to go in chronological order, you know, start with Matthew and work our way through. Yeah. Just so we don’t miss anything.

Jeff:
So it says they took him out to the, to Golgotha. Yeah. You’ve been to Golgotha.

Chris:
Yeah. And there’s a place right outside the city walls, uh, that I believe is the more accurate place where he would have been crucified on the crossroads, a public display. And, uh, it looks like a, it looks just like a skull.

Jeff:
Yeah. The two deep eyes are still there. The nose has come off of it, but back in the 1800s, when it was discovered, you could see it. Now there’s a bus depot down there at the base of it. Which is crazy. Yeah, and then one of the reasons why I think it’s pretty clear that that would be the legit Golgotha is because of the fact that it was just outside what was then the city walls. So then there were new walls built after that, but then the city walls. And it was at the main crossroads between the road that would have head out to the Mediterranean Sea and the road that would have gone to Damascus. And the reason why you know that that’s important is because the Romans loved to crucify in a public place where everybody could see it. That was the purpose. Right. That’s why Pilate put the, here’s the King of the Jews, right? Jesus of Nazareth, King of Jews in all three languages was so that everybody could see it was a message. Right.

Chris:
Yeah. And, and he wrote it in Hebrew. So the Jews can read it. He wrote it in Latin. So the Romans could read it and the Hellenists and others who could read Greek. That’s why he wrote, wrote it in Greek. Right. So, so then it says they, they gambled over his robes.

Jeff:
Well, they mixed with bitter gall.

Chris:
Oh yeah, the gall is like a narcotic. It was a narcotic. It was like us saying, give me more morphine. Right. Right. But he refused to drink it to fulfill the prophecies. That’s correct.

Jeff:
So Jesus faced this full on, fully conscious, nothing deadened in him. He faced the punishment for our sin without any medication at all. It’s pretty brutal.

Chris:
Yeah, and the fact that they were mocking him the whole way, telling him to save himself. Little did they know that he had just had a conversation with Pilate and said, don’t you know that if I wanted to, I can call legions of angels down at my command. But you know, so he’s not going to go on the cross, you know, take himself off the cross. We know that. And then once again, they gambled for his clothes. They threw dice and they cast lots. And that was another prophecy.

Jeff:
After they nailed him to the cross.

Chris:
Yes, yes, yes.

Jeff:
Yeah, yeah. And so we often think of being nailed right through the, through the palm of the hand. Right. But the hand would have always also considered the forearm. If they nailed you through the palm of the hand, it would have just slowly, your own weight would have torn out of your, you know, between your, your middle finger and your ring finger. But normally what they do is come just below the bottom of the wrist and nail there, which by the way has one of the most sensitive nerves in your body. And they would nail right through that and that would hook you on to the cross, you couldn’t get off. And then the same thing with the feet, rather than nailing between the metatarsals, they’d come up, go right through just above the ankles and nail you to the cross that way where you couldn’t fall off the cross then. It’s horrific. One of the most painful ways to die because you didn’t die from being nailed to the cross, you died from being exposed out in the weather, in the sun, dehydration, and then eventually suffocation, by not being able to lift yourself up to breathe.

Chris:
Right, because it was a seesaw effect, and so it was really a battle of pain from wrist to hands, and a shifting of endurance just to breathe. And now another detail. And then they gambled over his clothes.

Jeff:
Yeah, right, right. Sorry.

Chris:
And then another detail is, so we move from Matthew, which includes all those details. Mark includes the detail that they crucified him at nine in the morning, which some of your versions may say it was the third hour. So there was this thing where the calendar began at sundown at 630, that started the day, and they considered 630 to 630 sort of the sleeping hours, even though it was just sort of categorized. And then from 630 in the morning when the sun rose all the way until sundown, those 12 hours, they had this thing in the scripture where they would say like the first hour, the second hour, the third hour, the eleventh hour would have been like five o’clock. And so it gives us incredible detail, because again, remember, they did not want him to be crucified on the Sabbath, which is why they were hurrying this, which is why on Friday he dies, we’re about to find out, right before the Sabbath hits. Just three hours before the Sabbath hits. So at nine o’clock in the morning is when they threw him on the cross. The two revolutionaries on either side, apparently Mark includes the fact that they were both partaking in the mockery. And then Luke was the one that actually talks about how eventually one of them has a moment of repentance. Right. Because apparently they were up there for obviously hours. And who knows why, but this one criminal on the cross decides to put his faith and trust, recognizing that he is the Christ. And he says, remember me when we come into your kingdom, which by the way, is like a death row salvation, right? Somebody who spends their whole life deserving sin and death and destruction and execution, and then at the last minute on death row says, I put my faith and trust in you. And what does Jesus do? Today you’ll be with me in paradise.

Jeff:
I wonder, this is just, Circumstantial, but Jesus in Luke chapter 20 to 23 had already said, Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing. And then this guy says, Hey, Jesus, would you forgive me? Right? I wonder if that was the pivotal moment for this guy was everybody’s yelling, you know, revolutionaries and thieves and all them, they’d be shouting and cursing the Romans and spitting in their faces. And Jesus said, they don’t take mocking him. And Jesus says, they didn’t take my life from me. They, they, I’m going to lay it down. So Jesus wasn’t fighting while probably these other revolutionaries were now all this hostility. They stand Jesus up on the cross and his first statement, his father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing while they’re nailing him to the cross. And that may have been, in my mind, that’s a logical place for one of them to go, what? What is this about? And then watching everybody, all this hostility towards Jesus and the love and the peace that Jesus is extending capture this man’s attention. So one goes, get us both off the cross. And the other one goes, dude, Jesus, take me where you’re going. Yeah.

Chris:
And by the way, the Bible says to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And if God truly exists out of time, which we believe that he does, then today you’ll be with me in paradise. And just that idea that you know, that promise that Jesus gives is something that we could all hang on to. Right? So it’s never too late. That’s the invitation. That’s right. It’s never too late to repent. It’s never too late to turn to Jesus, regardless of what you’ve done, regardless of your past.

Jeff:
When you find out that forgiveness is available. That’s right. Maybe that guy had never contemplated the idea that he could be forgiven and then finds out he can be. Because his request for forgiveness comes after hearing that Jesus was willing to forgive. And that’s pretty significant. Anyways, then Jesus said, today you’ll be with me in your kingdom. In my kingdom, I mean. Today you will be with me in paradise. And that’s one of those moments that you just have to understand. A lot of people say, oh, you can’t go to heaven if you don’t get baptized. Well, this guy didn’t. You can’t go to heaven if you don’t take communion. This guy didn’t. You can’t go to heaven if you don’t do a bunch of good deeds. This guy didn’t. right? What is necessary at its very foundation, at the base, the bottom level is faith in Christ and repentance in your sins. Jesus is the Savior and I need him to forgive my sins. Right? And that’s it. And that’s all that this guy did.

Chris:
So Jesus plus nothing.

Jeff:
That’s exactly right. That’s what you can say to heaven. There are no works. So.

Chris:
And so it goes on to say as well, so if you move into John’s account, it talks about how he has another saying on the cross, right? So some of the sayings on the cross that he’s already spoken is, Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing. And then he also cries out, today you’ll be with me in paradise. And then he has a third, another seven sayings on the cross. That’s right. But this is three included right here in this passage. And the third one is, Jesus looked over and he saw his mother standing there beside the disciple he loved. Yeah. Who’s that?

Jeff:
Who’s that? Oh, it might be the author of this story, which is John.

Chris:
And he says, dear woman, here’s your son. And he said to the disciple, here is your mother. And from this and then from then on, this disciple took her into his home. And by the way, this is an indication. This is why we believe that Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus, had passed because he disappears somewhere in the equation in Jesus’s ministry. He’s gone.

Jeff:
Yeah. He’s never mentioned again after Jesus was 12.

Chris:
Right. And then here, you know, here Jesus is doing something practical and customary for Jews, which is to make sure that his mother is taken care of after he’s gone. So he passes the responsibility of his mother on to John, And this would have made sense, because John was there present at the crucifixion, because John was the one who was present in Caiaphas’ house, and he had an inn, and so some people believe that he was there for those reasons.

Jeff:
He appears, he’s the only disciple named at the cross, at the crucifixion of Jesus. And that’s pretty significant. Now there are other, when we say disciple, what we’re talking about is one of the 12. 12 apostles. Right. Because we do know that Joseph of Arimathea was there. We’re going to read about that tomorrow. We know that Nicodemus was there.

Chris:
And those are also disciples.

Jeff:
These are disciples, followers of Jesus, but they weren’t the apostles. So when you talk about the 12, but it’s interesting, the women show up.

SPEAKER_01:
Right.

Jeff:
Right? Isn’t that something?

Chris:
Well, you know, my old pastor used to say, women first at the cross, first at the tomb. Yeah. The women were the first at the cross and first at the tomb.

Jeff:
Absolutely. And so Jesus has great love for his mother and is taking care of the family. He’s the oldest son. And so, hey, we need to button this up. And John, who, by the way, is the youngest of all the disciples. Yeah. So he says, hey, John, I want you to take care of my mom. for me.

Chris:
Now, didn’t you also hear this morning that John might have been a cousin of Jesus?

Jeff:
Yeah, yeah. So we’ve commented on that here on our podcast, right?

Chris:
We have, yeah.

Jeff:
So I just heard another pretty famous pastor and professor, he’s a college president, mention that John was Jesus’ cousin.

Chris:
James and John, sons of Zebedee.

Jeff:
That’s right. And the mother of, or the wife of Clepus or Mary, right? You’ve got all these, the names of all these women that are there, but John was probably a cousin of Jesus. So it makes sense that he would hand off his mother’s responsibility to family members.

Chris:
That’s right. And the reason why people believe that they’re the cousins is because of the two references that talk about the women at the cross, and one refers to them by name, and then the other one says the sister of Mary.

Jeff:
The sister of Mary, right.

Chris:
So you could deduce that. And again, we don’t know, but it’s very probable.

Jeff:
Right there in John, standing near the cross was Jesus’ mother and his mother’s sister, Mary, the wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene. And in another one it mentions the name of Mary’s sister, who is the wife of Zebedee. Right. Right. So that’s how it works out. And so John is standing with his mom and his aunt at the cross.

Chris:
And it makes a lot of sense also if Zebedee was a priest, and that would give the reason why John had access to the whole thing. So there’s a lot here, and I would just definitely say that As we’re moving through, you know, these events in Jesus’ life, you know, again, every single hour counts. Every event on the cross is significant. And even the things that seem like they’re minor details were done, you know, to fulfill prophecy. And so just imagine, you know, if the odds are incalculable that one man will fulfill all of these prophecies, just know that the details given are given to prove that he is the Messiah. He is the long-awaited Messiah who is fulfilling all the scriptures, all the prophecies, God’s promises from the very beginning thousands of years ago, which again are insurmountable, incalculable odds. And Jesus fulfills every single one of them. Hundreds of prophecies.

Jeff:
One other thing, and this is incredibly practical, here’s Jesus just before he dies preparing for his family. It’s appropriate for Christians to prepare to take care of their family after they die. Most people in America die without a will, they die without any plan to provide for their family, but Jesus is doing that here. There’s a note here in the Life Application Study Bible that says, What can you do today to show your love to your family? What a great thing, you know? Right in the middle of this devastating time, Jesus goes ahead and makes sure he’s providing for the gift that God gave him in his family. Yeah, that’s great.

Chris:
Well, that seems like a great place to end, and we will pick up next time, and we’ll hopefully see you then on The Bible Guys.