Judgement Day

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St.

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Luke, chapter 23, verses 27 through 43. And there followed Jesus a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for Him.

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But turning to them, Jesus said, Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.

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For behold, the days are coming when they will say, Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.

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Then they will begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us and to the hills, Cover us. For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?

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Two others who were criminals were led away to be put to death with Him. And when they came to the place that is called the skull, there they crucified

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Jesus. And the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

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And they cast lots to divide his garments. And the people stood by watching, but the ruler scoffed at him, saying,

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He saved others. Let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his chosen one.

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The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine and saying, If you are the king of the

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Jews, save yourself. There was also an inscription over him. This is the king of the

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Jews. One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, Are you not the

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Christ? Save yourself and us. But the others rebuked him, saying, Do you not fear

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God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds.

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But this man has done nothing wrong. And he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

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And he said to him, Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. In the name of Jesus.

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Amen. That's better. Today is the last Sunday of the church year.

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This is the Sunday when we focus our attention on Judgment Day.

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Now, the last couple of weeks, we've been focusing on everything leading up to that. As we get into the end days, now we focus on the day itself.

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Yet our gospel text seems to be out of sync. This is a Good Friday text that I just read.

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Why is this passage making an appearance on this day? In other years, the lectionary has us end the church year with either like the parable of the ten virgins or the parable of the judgment of the sheep and the goats.

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Well, that makes sense if you want your focus to be on the day of judgment. But if you take a little bit of time, walk with me through this text today and you ponder what is revealed there, what you're going to find is that Jesus' death on the accursed wood of the cross is actually connected directly to Judgment Day.

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And Jesus' crucifixion comes into focus. When you start to walk through this, you can see that the day of Jesus' death, well, that's

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Judgment Day. But I have to make myself clear here.

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That's Judgment Day for believers. Have you ever been to the doctor and the doctor says, we need to do a procedure?

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I've been there, done that, right? And when the doctor says, we're going to do this procedure, come in on Wednesday at 10 a .m.

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So what happens all night Tuesday? You can't sleep because all you're thinking about is the procedure.

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And so when you have the procedure done, the doctor says, all right, this is the part that's going to hurt.

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And what do you do? You look away. You don't want to see it. You don't want to feel it. And then you don't really feel anything. You go, that's it?

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Yeah, that's it? You see, that's what Judgment Day is like for Christians.

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It's like that accursed, hated procedure that you're really worried about and at the end of the day, you sit there and go, well, that was like nothing.

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And the reason for this is simple. It's because Judgment Day for us occurred 2 ,000 years ago while Christ was on the cross.

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That's not true for those who persist in sin and unbelief. And we'll explain that as we go. And the reason for this is quite simple.

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Jesus was judged for your sins and He was found guilty for your sins and mine.

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Jesus was made the singular sinner of all of humanity and God poured out

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His wrath down to the dregs for you. So the crucifixion of Christ is

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Judgment Day for believers. And so with that, we return to our Gospel text, which begins with these words,

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Now notice here, Jesus in saying to these women who are weeping and mourning about Jesus being led away to be crucified,

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Jesus said, don't weep for me. In fact, you should be happy for me because I'm dying for your sins.

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It is my joy to save you. But then He points them not to the immediate future, but to the distant future.

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The end of days. The days when the book of Revelation tells us that people will desire so badly to die, but will not be able to.

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They will call on the mountains to fall on them and they won't. Death will not, well, visit them on those days.

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And so Jesus focuses on the eschaton, basically saying, listen, weep for yourselves.

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The days are going to get worse and worse and worse and worse and it's going to be a really bumpy ride all the way until the end.

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So when the world gets worse and worse and worse and worse and gets to be a bumpy ride, we should say this is exactly how

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Jesus said it would be, even here on the day when He's being led off to the cross. Verse 32 then says,

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Two others who were criminals were led away to be put to death with Jesus. And when they came to the place that is called the skull, there they crucified

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Him and the criminals, one on His right and one on His left. I seem to recall a passage of Scripture in Matthew 25 that talks about Jesus returning and while people being separated like sheep and goats, goats on the left, the sheep on the right.

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You start to see the theme here. In fact, one church father notes that this is exactly what it sounds like and he says this,

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The very appearance of the gallows showed the criterion that He would apply when He comes to judge everyone.

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The believing thief's faith prefigured those who would be saved while the blasphemer's wickedness foreshadowed those who would be condemned.

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Christ's passion therefore contains the mystery of salvation.

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And although I completely agree with this church father, I would say that this isn't a prefiguring, if you would.

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This is the first court case of the judgment day. That's really what's going on.

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So Jesus, in the midst of all of the circus going on around Him, the weeping women, the shouting and the jeers,

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He's just been nailed to the cross, hands, feet, and all. He's bleeding badly from the back where He had been scourged.

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And rather than saying, That's it! Father, give them what they deserve.

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He instead says this, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. So they cast lots to divide

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His garments, which is a polite way of saying that Jesus was crucified naked. The people stood by watching.

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The rulers scoffed at Him. There's your politicians saying, Well, He saved others.

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Let Him save Himself. If He's the Christ of God, His chosen one. The soldiers also mocked

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Him, coming up and offering Him sour wine and saying, If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself.

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What's all this, if you are, save yourself? Show us a sign. Perform a miracle. Do a magic trick,

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Jesus. And then we'll really believe in you. There was also an inscription over Jesus that said,

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This is the King of the Jews. And by the way, this inscription had it absolutely right.

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Now, as we here in the United States prepare for our new president, President Trump, takes power in January, I assure you they are already planning his inauguration ceremony.

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They're working out a list, a short list of people who would like to give an invocation, maybe say a prayer, give an opening thought.

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They're probably already starting to work on the draft of President Trump's inauguration speech.

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And, of course, the invitations will be going out shortly for the inaugural ball. You've got lots and lots and lots of planning to do.

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Well, keep in mind, the cross is Jesus' inauguration.

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Rather than wear a crown of gold, He's wearing a crown of thorns. And this was by His own choice.

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This is what King Jesus chose. He even carefully invited two fellows to have the greatest seats of honor, one on His right and one on His left.

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It's important to note that James and John wanted these important seats of honor, but they were denied to them.

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Instead, these seats of honor were held in reserve for these two thieves. One of the criminals, who were hanged with Jesus, railed at Him, saying,

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Are you the Christ? Save yourself and us. So note, this criminal joins his voice with those who mocked

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Jesus and railed against Jesus. It's as if he's saying, Well, if you're really important,

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Jesus, if you really are who you are, please, please, let's engage in some kind of great, big prison escape right now.

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Escape from prison, well, literally on the gallows. That's what he's talking about here. So if you are the

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King of the Jews, save us. Are you the Christ? Save us. All of these voices that we've heard thus far are the voices of unbelief.

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These are the voices of rebellion. Jesus is literally suffering, bleeding, and dying for their sins right there, including the sins that they are committing at that very moment, so that they could be forgiven and live.

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But they are having none of it. Filled with the venom of Satan's hatred, they hurl insults at Christ while he prays for them and for us.

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Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. And like I had already pointed out, what is

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Jesus doing? He is bleeding and dying for the sins of the world. Paul says in 2

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Corinthians 5 .21, For our sake God made Jesus to be sin, who knew no sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God.

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Paul in Galatians 3 .13 says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written,

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Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. And the prophet Isaiah, hundreds of years before Christ was crucified, prophesying as to his suffering and his death, says this in 53, starting at verse 8,

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By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.

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They made his grave with the wicked, with the rich man and his death. Although he had done no violence, there was no deceit in his mouth.

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Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief when his soul makes an offering for guilt.

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He shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand and out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied.

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By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous.

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That's right, the prophet Isaiah prophesying how Christ's death on the cross for us then gives us by God's, well, divine imputation the ability to be counted as righteous even though we are not because he has been crushed for our iniquities.

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And it says he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many. He shall divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul to death and he was numbered with the transgressors.

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Yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors. In fact,

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Jesus right there on the cross is making intercession for them praying, Father, forgive them.

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We know not what they do. And so think carefully about what

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Jesus is suffering for. Although he had never committed any sin he is numbered with the transgressors.

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And the sins that he is suffering and bleeding and dying for, well, these are quite evident.

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Galatians 5, 19 -21 comes to mind. He's dying for the sins of sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, gossip, coveting, and things like these.

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And then you say, but Pastor, I heard some things in that list that I am guilty of.

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Exactly. There's nobody in this building or in the world who hasn't committed one or all of these sins.

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And this is what Jesus is bleeding and dying for. While Jesus is suffering in that moment, like I've said,

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God has made him the singular sinner, placing on him the iniquity of us all.

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Jesus there on the cross has taken into himself, think about it, all of the Nazi atrocities and war crimes, the guilt of every couple who have aborted their child, the guilt of every terrorist, thief, crooked politician, child molester, bank robber, tax cheat, adulterer, fornicator, gossip, slanderer.

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That's everybody. And all of those sins and iniquities, God has imputed to Jesus.

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And when they are imputed to Jesus, Isaiah says, it was the will of the Father to crush him.

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It's judgment day. See, Jesus was found guilty so that you can be declared innocent.

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And in the midst of this circus, one sees things the way they really are.

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And I'm talking about one of the thieves. One of the thieves sees what's really going on. One of these thieves recognizes that he is actually getting what he deserves, and Jesus is not.

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One man has a crystal clear moment of sanity in the midst of the insanity of sin run amok, run amok so much that we're crucifying the

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Son of God. And rather than join his voice with those who are mocking Jesus, this thief's voice cries out loud and clear above the taunts.

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And the text says, the other thief rebuked him saying, do you not fear

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God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds.

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But this man has done nothing wrong. That's quite the confession.

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That's a confession of sin. And a confession of faith. A confession of his own guilt.

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And a confession that Jesus truly is innocent. A confession that he is getting exactly what he deserves.

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But Jesus is getting none of what he deserves. He doesn't deserve this. Remember, Jesus has willingly gone to the cross for you.

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And so rather than say, if you are the Christ, save us and yourself.

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This guy can't even ask Jesus to be saved. Instead he says, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

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So he doesn't ask to be saved. He knows that he deserves death. He knows that he's suffering rightly for his own sins.

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And he's asked Jesus just to remember him. Keep this in mind.

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Every time we partake in the Lord's Supper, we join our prayers to this thief's prayers.

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What does the text say? Take, eat, this is the body of Christ broken for you for the forgiveness of your sins.

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Do this in remembrance of me. Do you think you're the only one doing the remembering? Do you not think that God is remembering his promises to forgive and be merciful to you?

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So every time we take the Lord's Supper, we join our prayers with this thief's.

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To be remembered by God is for God to recall and to know your name.

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Your name is written in the Lamb's book of life. To be remembered by God is to have God forget your sins.

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To persist in sin and unbelief is for God to remember your sins and forget your name. That's how that works.

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So Jesus hears the cry of this thief. One of his lost sheep.

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Hears his cry and Jesus comes swiftly to comfort him even while he is suffering.

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And Jesus said to him, truly I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise.

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Clearly this man wasn't saved by his good works. He had none to count.

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He was saved purely by grace, through faith, in the crucified

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Lord who was dying right next to him. Now note this, Jesus didn't offer these comforting words to the crowd who were mocking him.

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Jesus did not offer these comforting words to the criminal being crucified on his left, the one who was mocking him.

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To them, there was only silence. And an awkward one at that.

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Now, the scary thing is that if we're honest with ourselves, we can see a lot of ourselves in the mocking criminal.

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I want you to think about this. None of us wants to suffer. We don't want to die.

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We want Jesus to spring us out of the situation we're in, but in a particular way.

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We're looking to figure out how to perform the ultimate Houdini trick by cheating death, finding a way to not be paid the wages of our sins.

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If any of you have ever been served court papers, somebody's filed suit against you, they have those guys who go around and they serve you papers.

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Of course if they can't find you, they can't serve you. And so some people have actually made a game of never being served the papers by the person they know is trying to sue them.

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So this is what we're trying to do. We're trying to figure out how to not be served the wages of our sin.

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And we want a Savior who would do that for us, but that's no Savior at all. So we say things like, well, if you're the

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Son of God, prove it by paying off my credit card debts. If you're the Son of God, could you give me some help on my student loans?

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If you're the Son of God, prove it by giving me a promotion and a raise at work. Make me powerful, influential.

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Give me six -pack abs. That's a prayer I pray every day. And thousands like...

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Yeah. And a thousand... Give me a thousand likes on my

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Facebook posts every time I post something. Make me beautiful, healthy, rich. Give me a way to cheat death so that I can go on living for myself.

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That's what we want, isn't it? You see, dissatisfied with merely eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

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We want to eat from the tree of life also and be affirmed in our sin for eternity as little gods.

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And we think that if we mock God, threaten to murder the Son of God, make Him have to prove

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Himself while He's suffering and dying, that by doing so, that we'll somehow get what we want.

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It's the ultimate sinful temper tantrum. It's like we've kidnapped the Son of God and have sent a ransom note to God the

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Father saying, give us what we want and we'll be happy to let Jesus go. That's kind of the picture, right?

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And see, everything is going according to plan in our Gospel text. Everything is going according to plan for evil until verse 44.

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Just a little bit more. It was about the sixth hour. That's noon. And there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour while the sun's light failed.

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The sun's light failing is a picture, is one of the signs of the day of judgment.

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Let me quote from the prophet Isaiah 13 starting at verse 8. Behold the day of the Lord. It comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it.

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For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light. The sun will be dark at its rising and the moon will not shed its light.

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I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity. I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless.

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And see, there it is. Jesus bleeding, dying, naked on the cross. The wrath of God being poured out on Him in full strength and fury.

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And He's drinking it all the way down. And the sun stops giving its light.

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This is the day of judgment. This is your judgment day.

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So the prayer of faith says to God, I am getting what

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I deserve. Jesus has done nothing wrong. The prayer of faith confesses sin before God and confesses that Jesus is in the right and that He is innocent.

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And then prays out, Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. But remember me when you come into your kingdom.

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So put away your taunts. Put away your mockery. Put away your foolish unbelief and cynicism.

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Christ has not come to help you cheat death or to make you the apple of the world's eye.

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By the way, the devil won't share that with you anyway. If you persist in your sin and your unbelief, then there is a day coming, a dreadful day, when

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Jesus will return in glory to judge the living and the dead, and you will be numbered with the damned. And there will be no one who could save you then.

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If you recognize that death, suffering, misery are the right wages that you've earned for your selfish, satanic rebellion against the one true

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God, and you confess your guilt, calling out to Christ to remember you, to have mercy on you, then like that thief on the cross, the believing one, you too will be with Jesus in paradise forever.

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Good Friday for all who are in Christ is the day of judgment. The righteous one has been found guilty for all the wicked and the unrighteous.

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In other words, the righteous one has been found guilty for me, and for you. He's been pierced for our sins, bruised for our iniquities.

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God has forgiven us all of our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

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He did this by setting it aside, nailing it to the cross, after Christ had finished his mission.

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So Good Friday for all who are in Christ is not only the day of judgment.

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I should also note this. It's also the day of paradise beginning to be restored.

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It is the day where the old creation begins to disappear, and the new creation begins to make its arrival on the scene.

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Paradise has already returned. It's here now and not yet.

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Can you see it? No? Look harder. Look again.

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Look through the holes in Jesus' hands. Do you see the sunlight of the new creation shining through His torn flesh and flowing blood?

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You should. It's the day of judgment. Matthew says, when the

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Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.

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Before Him will be gathered all the nations and He will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

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Search your hearts. You already know this day is coming. You've known this day is coming from the time you were a little tyke.

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This is the day that you fear. This is the day that you dread. This is the day that when thinking about it in the middle of the night, it causes you to wake up with a start.

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It's worse than those falling dreams because you know you're going to have to stand before Jesus and you know you're guilty.

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But you have already gone through the judgment day if you are in Christ.

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So He will place the sheep on His right, the goats on His left. And if you are in Christ, forgiven, then you are a sheep.

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If you persist in sin and unbelief, continue to scoff and mock the

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Son of God, then you are a goat. Plain and simple. Salvation is a gift, not something you earn.

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Then the King will say to those on His right, Come, you who are blessed by My Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

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Then He will say to those on His left, Depart from Me, you cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and all of his angels.

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Note, Jesus is silent to the unbelieving thief while He's being crucified.

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But when He returns in glory to judge the living and the dead, He breaks the silence and basically says to hell with you.

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And these goats will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

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You who are baptized into Christ, you who trust in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, you who bear fruit in keeping with repentance because you have been made new in Christ and continue to mortify your flesh.

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You have already made it through the day of judgment. It's the procedure we all dreaded, and it turned out to be nothing.

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You've made it through. Christ remembers you. You will be with Him in Paradise along with that thief.

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And when we arrive, the first order of business is the wedding feast of the

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Lamb, and you ain't ever seen a party until you see that thing. Maranatha!

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Come, Lord Jesus, in the name of Jesus. Amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744. And again, that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744. We thank you for your support.

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