Broken or Crushed?

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 20, verses 9 through 20. And Jesus began to tell the people this parable.

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A man planted a vineyard, led it out to tenants, and went into another country for a long while.

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When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants so that they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him, sent him away empty -handed.

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He sent another servant, but they also beat and treated him shamefully and sent him away empty -handed.

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And he sent yet a third, and this one they also wounded and cast out. Then the owner of the vineyard said,

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What shall I do? I'll send my son, my beloved son. Perhaps they will respect him.

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But when the tenants saw him, they said to themselves, This is the heir. Let us kill him so that the inheritance may be ours.

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And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them?

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He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others. And when they heard this, they said,

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Surely not! But he looked directly at them and said, What then is this that is written?

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The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces.

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And when it falls on anyone, it will crush him. The scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour, for they perceived that he had told this parable against them.

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But they feared the people, so they watched him and sent spies who pretended to be sincere that they might catch him in something he said so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor.

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In the name of Jesus. In Exodus chapter 34, we read the account where Moses had asked to see the face of God.

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God declined but came up with an alternative plan. And in that alternative plan, he chose to hide

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Moses in a cleft of a rock and put his hand over the cleft while his glory passed by.

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And then at the right time, he removed his hand so that Moses could see the back side of the glory of God.

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And in that account, we hear these words, that as the Lord passed by before him, it was proclaimed,

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The Lord, the Lord. Let me translate, Yahweh, Yahweh. A God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

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Keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

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But who by no means will clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.

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Yahweh, a God merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

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It is Yahweh who is the one who planted the vineyard in our parable, in our gospel text today.

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And I have never met a man like this. Not in this life. Let's return now to our gospel text and walk through this and consider what is going on in this text.

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Jesus began by telling the people this parable. A man planted a vineyard, let it out to tenants, and went into another country for a long while.

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Every one of the people hearing Jesus that day knew exactly what Jesus was talking about. The typology was patently clear.

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The vineyard is Israel. They know it. The scriptures in the

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Old Testament speak of Israel as the vineyard whom God himself has planted. And so Jesus, telling this very thinly veiled parable, says,

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When the time came, he, God, sent a servant. Read into that, he sent a prophet to the tenants so that they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard.

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But the prophets beat him, sent him away empty handed. Now normally a story like this would end right here.

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I mean if this was the 21st century, it would end right at this point. It's real simple. We now call the police. We get the courts involved.

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Sorry, you're going to be evicted from the property. You are in default of your agreement, your tenant lease, if you would.

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And then it goes to court. They lose. They're evicted. End of story. Justice is served. But Yahweh is slow to anger.

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Merciful. Forgiving iniquity. And so he does the unthinkable.

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He sent a servant to the tenants so that they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. Tenants beat him, sent him away empty handed.

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Verse 11, And he sent another servant. Another one. But they also beat and treated him shamefully and sent him away empty handed.

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Imagine how the story would have been different. What is this man who planted this vineyard seeking from these tenants?

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What is he seeking? Reconciliation.

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He's seeking their repentance. He's seeking to show them mercy. Because of the wrong that they had done.

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But these are wicked tenants. And we learn at the end of the parable, the people we're dealing with here, that Jesus is telling the parable against, are the chief priests.

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The religious leaders of Israel. Why on earth would anybody who is a religious leader in Israel claiming to worship the one true

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God, why on earth would such a person be so wicked as this?

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The answer is simple. And it's one that we must come to grips with. The harvest is plentiful, the workers are few.

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The devil has sown tares and sent in his workers into the harvest field as well. They are not harvesting.

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They are destroying the crop. For them it's all about them. And they're doing it all in the name of God.

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And their religion, their religion is the religion of self -righteousness. And the religion of self -righteousness will never tolerate the religion of grace.

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It will never, ever permit people to be forgiven.

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We read in stanza 4 of our sermon hymn. Why? What hath my Lord done?

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What makes this rage and spite? He made the lame to run, He gave the blind their sight.

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Sweet injuries, yet they at these themselves displease and against Him rise.

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So there's Jesus in Israel. God in human flesh. The God Israel claims to worship.

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And you know what He's doing? He's cleansing the lepers.

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He's forgiving the prostitutes. He's absolving the tax collectors. He's giving sight to the blind.

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And for this He must die. This cannot be permitted to go on.

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The religion of works will not tolerate grace. So this merciful, kind, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love,

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God sent yet another, sent a third servant. This one they wounded and they cast him out.

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Then the owner of the vineyard said, What shall I do? Notice, destroying them is not even on his mind at this point.

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Yet each and every one of us knows that what they all deserved is for them to be slaughtered mercilessly.

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This is what they've earned for themselves. And this vineyard owner, who is this guy?

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Who thinks like this? Most of us, myself included, you dare cross me, don't worry,

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I'm going to let you have it. This guy is snubbed over and over and over again.

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Rebuffed. And the only thing he can think about is continuing to show them mercy.

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So he sent yet a third. The owner of the vineyard then said, What shall I do? I'll send my beloved son. Are you out of your mind?

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Perhaps they will respect him. But when the tenants saw him, they said to themselves,

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Ha ha, this is the heir, let us kill him so that the inheritance may be ours.

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As if the kingdom of God can be possessed by him. So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

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And then Jesus asks the question. And watch the response. It's quite interesting.

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What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.

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The listeners should have said, That's darn tootin' right. That's what should happen. But watch their response.

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When they heard this, they said, Surely not. No way. Why is it?

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Because they knew exactly what Jesus was saying. The typology was thin.

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They got it. Jesus wasn't talking about a vineyard. He was talking about Israel. And the talk of giving

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Israel to others was unthinkable. Surely not.

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But he looked directly at them and he said, What then is this that is written? And then quoting Psalm 118,

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Jesus says, The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

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What an interesting statement. Now, I'm going to go outside of the Bible here for a minute.

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You can take this or leave this. There is an old rabbinic parable. And that's all it is.

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It's a rabbinic parable. We're not sure if there's any history behind it. And actually tracking down the origin of this thing is really tough.

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Here's how the rabbinic parable goes. It's a story told by the rabbis and it actually has different variations of it which is kind of fascinating.

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But the way the story generally goes is that when Solomon's temple was being built, the idea was this.

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Because it is a holy spot, no hammer blows can be heard on the temple mount.

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So, the stones had to be quarried 20 miles away and then drug to Jerusalem.

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Imagine what a difficult task this would be before the days of pickup trucks and things like that, right? So, the first stone to show up was this large cumbersome stone and the builders didn't know what to do with it.

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They had no clue what to do with this stone. And then the other stones began arriving and they knew exactly what to do with them.

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And so, the stone that came first, they thought it was some kind of a reject. And this is where it gets a little fuzzy and dark because again, this is a rabbinic parable.

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Not sure if this is even history or not. But it's very old. Some say that they put it off to the side and the grass grew over it.

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And other accounts say they actually threw it into the dump, the city dump in Jerusalem, Gehenna. And there it just disappeared, right?

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And so, as they got to the end of completing the Temple of Solomon, the builders send word to the stonemasons 20 miles away, we're now ready for the cornerstone.

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That was the first stone we sent. The stone the builders rejected has become.

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Maybe there's some truth behind it. It's an interesting story. I'm not sure. But just think about it.

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For sure, though, the Lord is quoting from Psalm 118 here. And then, we all know this,

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Jesus is that stone. He is the stone that has become the cornerstone. This is all about Jesus.

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And He says this, everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, which, by the way, is a good thing to happen.

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The worst thing that can happen to you is that stone fall on you and crush you.

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The one who falls on that stone and is broken to pieces is the one who has penitent faith in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins.

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The one on whom that stone falls and crushes is the one who persists in sin and unbelief and self -righteousness.

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And insists on saving themselves by their own works. And will have nothing to do with this mercy stuff that Jesus is about.

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In that case, the stone the builders rejected that has become the cornerstone will fall on you and utterly destroy you.

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And then we learn this. Here's kind of the subtext to all of this in our text. The scribes and the chief priests after hearing this,

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I wish it said this. I wish it said this. The scribes and the chief priests after hearing this said, you are so right.

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How can we have been so wicked? How can we, in the name of God, have been so evil?

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We repent. Forgive us, Lord. I wish it said that. But see, the religion of works blinded in its rage and its hatred of grace says this.

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The chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour.

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For they perceived that he had told this parable against them. How dare you cross us,

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Jesus? We're the chief priests. Yeah, that makes about as much sense as,

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I don't know, Taco Thursday on Monday. Right? Because the

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God they claim to worship is standing right in front of them. Sought to lay hands on him.

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They perceived that he had told the parable against them. And it's true. But here's, again, here's kind of the interesting thing.

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The religion of works always works through power and coercion. And they have to have the adulation and popularity of the people in order to survive.

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So they couldn't lay hands on Jesus because, whoa, polls would go down.

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Their popularity ratings would fall. Their approval numbers would plummet. So they said, we better not kill him now because they feared the people.

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So they watched. They watched Jesus. And they sent spies.

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They sent spies who pretended to be sincere so that they might catch

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Jesus in something that he said. When on earth did

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Jesus ever do anything conspiratorial? When was he never out in the open preaching and teaching in the synagogues and out in the fields?

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Everything he said is wide open. Nothing he says is subversive. Nothing he says contradicts

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Scripture. But they're, we're going to send spies. And you know what the spies are going to do? They're going to behave like they're listening to Jesus.

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Amen, Jesus. Way to go, Jesus. Make a note here, I like that. Yes, oh, Jesus, you're the best. Oh, we got him on that one.

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He actually touched a leper. And keep in mind, all of this behavior is going on in what?

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In the name of God. In the name of religion. At the behest of the chief priests. What kind of religion is this?

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What kind of religion is this?

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Answer? This is the religion that we all understand quite well.

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It's our default religion. We understand the law, but the

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Gospel is something that has to be preached to us. So think of it this way.

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The stone the builders have rejected has become the cornerstone.

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So they pretended to be sincere that they might catch him in something he said so as to deliver him. Why? In order to deliver him up to the authority and the jurisdiction of the governor.

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And you can read in the subsects there, in order to kill him. And so the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

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This is Christ. And then if you were to think of it this way, the cross then becomes the pinnacle center point of all of human history.

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And you are either on one side of the cross or you are on the other. When Jesus was crucified, he was crucified between two thieves.

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One hurled insults at him. If you're the Christ, save yourself! The other said, what has he done?

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What has he done? We're getting what we deserve. And he cries out to the

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Lord, Lord have mercy. Remember me when you come into your kingdom. And so this stone will either fall on you and break you.

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I'm sorry, you will either fall on it and be broken to pieces or it's going to fall on you and crush you.

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And so the cross then, the murderous ones, they want Jesus dead. And so he dies.

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And we're all culpable in that, by the way. Every one of us. But to those who believe in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins, the merciful

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God who's slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and forgiving and parting in iniquity, mine and yours, that death becomes our salvation.

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But for those who persist in saving themselves and despising the mercy and grace of God, Christ's cross and his blood is on their hands and they will be found guilty of murder.

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That's what this all comes down to. Are you penitent and forgiven?

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Or are you self -righteous and seeking to murder Christ and silence his grace?

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Something to think about. In the name of Jesus, amen. And again, that address is...

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