By John Larkins
The way is the covenant, Church, method and instructions God has provided for humans to rejoin Him in this world and the next. It is singular even though God has modified it from time to time. The days of Jesus Christ on earth, some of which will be presented in today’s message, revealed the modification that is His latest mission. The main problem for us is that our common parents, Adam and Eve, sinned and insulted God by directly disobeying Him. God has revealed several times that He is a jealous God, in reference to man-made Deities, some of which are even called by His precious name even though that is a lie! It should come as no surprise to a reasonable person that being God, He demands obedience.
You have learned that God started from scratch in developing a Church. At that time, there was no nation that had a sizeable group of fairly similar people to train as a Church. So, about 2,000 years ago He began this process with the descendants of a man called Abram or after being chosen as the primary source of God’s Church, Abraham.
After about 500 years in Egypt, these people, called Israelites, were numerous enough to get started. God appointed a man called Moses to lead them to a selected land and be trained as the first officials and members of God’s Church. This man and others of the nation wrote documents and developed procedures, under God’s direct supervision, that would become known as the Old Testament of the Bible.
Exodus 19 – 40 gives a detailed account of God’s laws at that time. God had many disappointments with these people. They were never given a path to God’s kingdom, after their death, because the Gates of Heaven had been closed upon Adam and Eve’s sin. We can be certain that God will save whomever He wishes.
However, in the prophecies God proved to the Israelites, there was a consistent and prominent promise of a Redeemer for them, who would show them how to go to God’s kingdom! In church celebrations we are commemorating the beginning of the last covenant between God and Man. This time is about 500 years after God appointed Moses to train and lead the Israelites, about 500 BC in the modern calendar, the Gregorian Calendar, named after Pope Gregory XIII (the 226th Pope).
It may have never dawned on the Jews that the Redeemer’s mission was TO CONVERT THEM from Moses’ God given theology.
Jesus left no doubt that He was establishing a new Church. He referred to “My Church” as Peter’s ultimate job. For three years He preached, taught and performed miracles. He recruited men to go out to Jews and teach the new ideas: men could be delegated the power to forgive or retain sins, God’s people must love one another, men would indeed be judged after death for their actions on earth and unless you eat My body and drink My blood, you have no life within you.
More frightening to the priests and elders was the presumption that they who ran the temple and were given many material advantages were no longer going to be in charge!
There is no more brutal, degrading, foul, nasty and insulting account of a murder than that of the Lamb of God. Yes, we must rejoice, but what a price He gave! Are we tricked into dismissing the significance of Holy Week, especially Thursday and Friday? Or are we as candid and admiring as the Centurion, who said, as He witnessed the earthly events at Christ’s death, “Truly, this was the Son of God.” (Matt 27:54)
John Larkins was born in Oklahoma to an U.S. Army family. His education was in the Catholic Church and teaching in the United Methodist Church for 10 years. After 50 years of various positions in federal service at home and in Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, John and his wife Carol live in Gadsden. His formal education includes a BS certified for science teaching, an MBA from the University of Missouri and an MPA from Jacksonville State University in public administration and environmental management. For the past 15 years, John evangelized on the street, door-to-door, in tent revivals, and church situations. Contact him at johnlarkins@bellsouth.net.