The Hour Is Come

The Friendly Fire Room Presents

2018 Good Friday Sermon: THE HOUR IS COME

Aganst a firey back ground in white text are the words Good Friday

THE HOUR IS COME

Good Friday message

March 2018

Dr. Mary Craig

Many times attempts were made to kill Jesus, but His hour had not come and He walked away. Many conspired against Jesus, but plots were thwarted. His hour had not come.

Then in John 17 we read this:

Father, the hour is come; glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You:

As You have given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life

To as many as You have given Him.

And this is life eternal, that they might know You the only true God,

And Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

I have glorified You on the earth: I have finished the work which You gave Me to do.

And now, O Father, glorify You Me with Your own self with the glory

Which I had with You before the world was. John 17:1-5

Now was the time. Now was the hour. Jesus was fully conscious of what was happening, what would happen, and what would result. In Jesus’ mind it was already a finished work. The Father had given to Jesus power over all flesh in order that Jesus should give eternal life to as many as the Father had given Him. Jesus would be glorified just as He had glorified the Father on the earth. Jesus prays for oneness, that oneness which He had with the Father before the world was.

The plan was that Jesus, a divine Person with a divine nature, would take on human nature in a human body. The Incarnation. He would live the life of personal, perfect, perpetual obedience required to merit eternal life. He would fulfill all righteousness. Having no iniquity, having no bent toward evil or within Him any evil or impurity, Jesus would be tempted in all points yet without sin. He would be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He would have no personal sin but He would suffer and die voluntarily as an offering and in the place of those given to Him by the Father. He was given power to lay down His life and take it up again. He would die by crucifixion, be placed in a tomb, and rise the third day. The love of the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit would raise Him up to be the firstborn of the dead to rise in the Resurrection. He would have pre-eminence. He would ascend into heaven and sit at the Father’s right hand. He would be King of kings and Lord of lords. He would rule in the midst of His enemies. He would make a public spectacle of Satan and the kingdom of darkness.

Tonight I want to remind us of the power of Jesus’ blood shed for the remission of our sins. Jesus instituted a New Covenant in His blood at the time of Passover.

1.Circumcision. Jesus was circumcised the 8th day. He received the sign of the covenant under Mosaic Law, making Him a child of the covenant. The mark of the covenant in the flesh reminded of God’s promise to take away the corruption of sin due to man’s fallen nature resulting from Adam’s sin. The 8th day prefigured the joy of new creation which would come through the finished work of Christ. God had promised a new heart to be brought about by the cutting away of the filth of the flesh. At age 12 He became a Son of the Law. He fulfilled all righteousness. He was baptized by John the Baptizer and after three years of public ministry, after choosing and training His disciples, after preparing them for His death by crucifixion, His hour had come.

The Law overcome through fulfillment of all righteousness. The corruption of the sin nature overcome by the purity of Christ’s holy heart. The filth of the sins of His people are washed away in the Blood of Christ. (Mark 10:38, 39; Colossians 2:11-15) The circumcision of Christ, who had no sin, showed He would be cut off for His people; it showed what He was sent here by the Father to do.

2. Jesus shed great drops of blood like sweat in the garden of Gethsemane.

Luke 22:44 And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

In the Garden of Eden, Eve was deceived by the serpent and believed another wisdom. She ate the forbidden fruit. Adam was not deceived and freely partook of the forbidden fruit, believing another wisdom and thus rejecting the Wisdom of God. That sin plunged humanity into the estate of sin and misery as in Adam all die. They are born dead in trespasses and sin, by nature children of the wrath of God.

Jesus blood in the Garden of Gethsemane reversed the curse of what Adam had done in the Garden of Eden. As Adam took his will and consciously disobeyed the Living God, wanting to be like God, so Jesus took His will and surrendered it to the will of the Father, whose will was that the Christ should necessarily suffer sufficiently according to the Scriptures to release His own from bondage.

“Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done”. Luke 22:42.

After agonizing, Jesus triumphed over tremendous assaults in His mind with, “The cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?” (John 18:11)

The will of the flesh overcome by the mind of Christ.

3. Jesus shed His blood at the whipping post. He took 39 stripes upon His back.

Joh 19:1 Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him.
Isa 53:5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
1Pe 2:24 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

Jesus bled from the whipping He endured at the whipping post, the scourging, by which we are healed.

The curses of the Law for disobedience overcome by Jesus taking our punishment.

4. Internal bleeding.

Jesus was bruised for our iniquities, wounded for our transgressions. Not only did Jesus shed His blood by the stripes upon His back, outward bleeding, but He was bruised and battered inside for our iniquities, wounded inside as well as outwardly for our transgressions.

The evil core of our being overcome by the Blood cleansing and enabling that truth be in our inward parts.

5. The crown of thorns, blood shed from the head of Jesus.

Joh 19:2 And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe,

A crown of thorns, a purple robe, a reed placed in His right hand, Matthew 27.29 tells us. They mocked Him. They bowed the knee before Him. This was the worship they would give Him, for they esteemed Him not. They called the Worthy, worthless. They deemed the only Righteous One evil, lawless. They would strip Him of His Rod of Iron, His Robe, His Crown, for their desire was to trample the holy, make it common, defile Him.

A crown of thorns. Thorns were part of the curse of God upon the ground (Genesis 3.18). Israel was warned by Yahweh that if they would not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before them, those which they let remain would be pricks in their eyes and thorns in their sides, vexing them in the land. (Numbers 33.55) Joshua charged the people to remain loyal to their Covenant Lord, warning that if they went back to cleave to the remnant of the nations they had defeated, to marry and mingle, that God would no longer drive out the evil, but they would be snares and traps, scourges in their sides, thorns in their eyes, until they perished from off the good land which God had given them. (Joshua 23.11-13)

Thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse (Proverbs 22.5). The children of Belial were as thorns (2 Samuel 23.6). King David, at the end of his life, told how he could not defeat them because of iniquity in his family line. David was accused of being a son of Belial himself. Belial opposes the kingly anointing with false accusations of evil, worthlessness, lawlessness, unrighteousness, and descriptions of Belial himself.

Thorns were good only for the fire. (2 Samuel 23.6; Nahum 1.10). How descriptive this is of the sons of Belial, the sons of rebellion. Yet Jesus is the Light of Israel who is for a fire, the Holy One who is for a flame, to burn and devour both thorns and briers in one day. (Isaiah 10.17)

Jesus wore a crown of thorns, taking our shame and guilt and rebellion as the Lamb of God slain. His Blood purges the conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Dead works, worthlessness, the world’s value system, the curse of God upon the ground, that which opposes the kingly anointing overcome to enable the Crown of Life and to enable Dominion over devils, disease, and death.

6. Jesus’ hands bled. While Scripture does not say expressly in any of the gospels, it is assumed because of John 20:27.

Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

Isaiah 49:15-17

Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;

Believers are engraved on the palms of Jesus’ hands. The scars remain as a testimony of God’s love for us in Christ. We are remembered. We will not be forgotten. We are forgiven, overcoming alienation from God, overcoming the wrath of God, overcoming guilt and liability of sin.

The hand of the LORD against ______ overcome by the blood shed from Jesus’ hands, believed because of His scars.

7. Jesus’ feet nailed to the Cross. Not expressly stated in the Word but coincides with the manner of crucifixion.

The broad way of destruction overcome to enable believers to walk in righteousness, walk in love, walk in wisdom, walk as children of the light, walk as children of the day, walk in truth, walk in the Holy Spirit, by the blood of Jesus shed on the Cross.

8. The piercing of His side.

Joh 19:34 But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.

This occurred after Jesus had already died. Jesus had already declared from the Cross that “it is finished.” He had already committed to His Father His Spirit. He had endured the Cross, despising its shame. When He was pierced, out came blood and water. Some believe the water refers to Living Water flowing out from Christ. Out of Adam’s side came Eve. Out of the side of Christ came the Called-out ones, the Ekklesia, the church, the bride of Christ.

All was now overcome by Jesus Christ.

The believer is free from guilt and liability of sin, redeemed out of bondage, reconciled to the Father; has peace with God, the peace of Christ, and peace in God having the wrath of God propitiated. Satan’s kingdom and the works of darkness are destroyed. Everything has been accomplished for a person to have eternal life. Know it and live accordingly.