Rahab [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. When you think much of the crucifixion of Christ, though it may be sobering to your soul, it will simultaneously bring profound blessing, an ultimate delight to your soul.

Because when you see the depth of what God has paid for you, you see the depth of your worth to God. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series titled, God Used Who?

And you may just be surprised, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at pastoralan.org, or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. Okay, you ready for some good news? When you think much of the crucifixion of Christ, though it may be sobering to your soul, it will simultaneously bring profound blessing and ultimate delight to your soul. Because when you see the depth of what God has paid for you, you see the depth of your worth to God. We are going to today join some Hidden Jewels women that were at the cross, who watched on from a distance while so many others had scattered. And I'll turn you to Matthew, chapter 27.

I know it's the day of Palm Sunday in which we remember Jesus and his so-called triumphal entry. But let's remember when he entered into Jerusalem amidst the loud hosannas, that he was coming as one foreordained, purposefully, resolutely, headed towards the cross on Good Friday. And I pick up reading at Matthew 27, verse 27. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor's headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. And twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand.

Kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews. And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him.

As they went out, they found a man of serene, Simon by name. They compelled this man to carry his cross. And when they came to a place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull, they offered him wine to drink mixed with gall.

But when he tasted it, he would not drink it. And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots. And they sat down and kept watch over him there. And over his head, they put the charge against him, which read, This is Jesus, King of the Jews. Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself. If you're the Son of God, come down from the cross.

So also the chief priests with the scribes and elders mocked him, saying, He saved others. He cannot save himself. He's the King of Israel. Let him come down now from the cross and we'll believe him. He trusts in God.

Let God deliver him now if he desires him. For he said, I'm the Son of God. And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way. Now from the sixth hour, that's noon, until the ninth and about the ninth hour, there was darkness over the land. And about the ninth hour, verse 46, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, Elle, Elle, lama salatane.

That is my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And some of the bystanders hearing it said, This man is calling Elijah. And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink.

But the others said, Wait, let's see whether Elijah will come to save him. And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom and the earth shook and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him keeping watch over Jesus saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, Truly, this was the Son of God.

And there were also many women there looking on from a distance who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. I'm like most, I'd rather jump quickly to Easter day. I would like to think mainly about the Easter egg hunts and the chocolate bunnies and the basket. We had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of kids with happy faces and bright baskets picking up eggs here and at the Union Cross YMCA and what a delight it is and such a wonderful thing. It is maybe because we like these happy thoughts that we tend to jump right past the cross so often.

In fact, the cross seems to have been trivialized in so much of our society. I always chuckle at the story of the family that decided they'd take their teenage boy and remove him from public school and put him in a strict Catholic school because he was doing so poorly in his academics, especially in math. He was doing so poorly. It just gave a different environment to him. And sure enough, they moved him over to this Catholic school. And before long, his math grades had all improved to straight A's. And they said, this is amazing, son. They said, what is it? Is it better teachers? Have you suddenly come to love math?

What has brought about this difference in your math grades? And the boys said, oh, it was none of that. They said, well, when they took us to chapel that first day and I looked up there on the wall and said, oh, had they nailed that guy to the plus sign?

I knew they were serious. We wear little crosses around our necks like it's jewelry, forgetting that it is the symbol of the most gruesome form of execution known to the world. Think of wearing a hangman's noose around your neck or a little silver guillotine. The cross is not one part of the gospel. The cross is the gospel. Paul said, I resolve to know nothing but Jesus and Him crucified. And the thought of letting your soul contemplate the sufferings of Jesus, I know at first is not an attractive thought, but I invite you into at least some level of that contemplation today because there are blessings that come about.

That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. God's love. You've heard about it with your ears.

You've believed it in your mind. Now experience it in your heart with Alan Wright's beloved book, Lover of My Soul. The Bible is a love story from beginning to end. You are the spiritual bride of Christ, the perfect bridegroom. The Bible tells about a God who has gone to unimaginable lengths to woo you, to win you, and to walk with you hand in hand. For any man who has fallen in love with a woman, you've tasted the sweetness of what God's love for you is like. For any woman who has searched for true love, what you long for can only be found fully in God. Gary Chapman, renowned author of the five love languages, says the incredible reality that God pursues us in love comes to life in Lover of My Soul. Ancient biblical accounts explode in the heart. Accept Christ's proposal, enjoy His embrace, revel in His love.

After all, it's a match made in heaven. It's Lover of My Soul by Alan Wright. We're in the final days of this special offer being made available to you. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org.

Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. I was thinking back to the phenomenon of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, the movie that surprised everybody. And I know Mel Gibson's had his issues. That aside, it was so surprising. He just wanted to make a graphic representation of what the sufferings of Jesus would have looked like if you had been one of these women and you had beheld it. And did you know that it's astonishing to me, but everybody was surprised by this, that it remains the highest grossing domestic R-rated film in the history of our country.

It's an interesting movie. Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus, was struck by lightning on set violently and was somehow unharmed. Two people were converted. An Italian actor who played Judas was an angry atheist and by the end of the filming had converted.

And a Muslim who played a role as one of the guards who beat Jesus was also converted. What was amazing about it was that anybody could sit through it. My wife's never seen it. I saw it once and then in preparation for this weekend, I watched portions again.

It's hard to watch. It's something so deep and so troublesome, not just about the violence, but about who the violence was being perpetrated against. And so it stirs you sometimes too much. I think of the old spiritual, were you there when they crucified my Lord? And the reason it's such beautiful, haunting poetry is because the initial answer to that is no, I wasn't there. But there's a deeper answer that can be seen on several levels, least of which is I was there in this sense because it was my sin that he was paying for.

And so I was there in that sense figuratively. But for any Christian, you're there because if you don't see the cross, then you haven't seen the gospel. And so to be a Christian means that you have seen, at least at some level, what has happened on the cross. I just want to invite you today to come alongside of these unheralded women that witness the crucifixion and instead so much of preaching about these women, I want to just simply turn your eyes to the cross and ask you to look with them and ask you, what do you see?

And ask you, why are you more blessed having seen it? And then ask you, what is it that you could not see if you were there as one of those women, but that you can see today through the lens of the gospel? These women who were there, they are much discussed. We have three that are mentioned in Matthew, but other ladies are mentioned in other gospels. We know there were at least three Marys that were there. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Jesus was there.

We also know there was a Mary who was called the sister of Mary who was called the sister of Mary who most scholars think was probably Joseph's brother's wife. We're not totally clear about who they all are, but it's almost like the point of it is not so much who they were individually, but you recognize that their lives had been touched so much by Jesus and they couldn't bear being away from Jesus when he was being crucified. So it's interesting by contrast so many of the men disciples we see conspicuously absent and these women who had been healed by Jesus, who supported his ministry financially, and who had traveled with him, they were there. These women had never been so honored by an authority figure much less a religious authority figure ever in their lives. Jesus was completely countercultural in the way that he honored women.

In his time, for example, no Jew would speak to a Samaritan, no man would speak to a woman, and he went and had an in-depth conversation with a Samaritan woman at a well. They had never been so loved, and there was something about what was happening that the men were able to run, but the women stayed. Why were the women there and the men not there? You might say, well, the men were just wimps.

I don't know, maybe that's it. But I think maybe there's something else that's going on in an interesting thought process. Some commentators have pointed to a growing body of research about how different men and women actually are in their endocrine systems, and that when men have adrenal responses to a dangerous situation, to a hurtful situation or traumatic situation, there's the famous fight or flight tendency. But a growing body of research has shown that women in similar circumstances, where there's something that is traumatic, something that is harmful or hurtful or dangerous, that they move not to fight or flight as much as they do to tend and befriend. And it's really a beautiful thing.

I talked to an endocrinologist this week to have him explain it to me. When women are in that sort of situation like would have been at this horrific scene of the crucifixion, their endocrine system releases oxytocin. Men have adrenal release of oxytocin also, but women, because of heightened estrogen in their bodies, are more receptive to the oxytocin, and it does something that causes an instinctive desire to nurture.

It's a beautiful thing. This is how mothers are able, children might be in some bad situation, and everything within you wants to just get away from them, doesn't want to think about it, but the mother can't help herself but just to draw near. And it may be that there's something like that, that in their hurt and in their frustration, the men, they felt like they could only fight or they could only flee, and they couldn't fight the Roman army. And so they weren't there, but the women, even the mother of Jesus, was there. And we know from John's gospel that when they have a subset of these women at some point pull close to the cross where they're close enough to hear the staggering breaths of Jesus himself. And I think one of the most beautiful and poetic scenes from the Passion of the Christ is when Mary sees her son fall under the weight of the cross. On the Via Dolorosa, and he is bleeding, the crown of thorns has pierced his brow, he is been flogged, and his flesh is raw, and he falls. And Mary has a flashback to a scene when Jesus was a little boy, and he stumbles on the cobbled sidewalk, and she runs over to him and says, Mary, I'm going to walk.

And she runs over to him and says, Mother is here. And so as Gibson's movie depicts it, when he stumbles under the cross, Mary runs to him and says, Mother is here, even while you're under the weight of the cross. It's a beautiful thing. There was a blessing for these women who dared to watch the crucifixion.

There's a blessing for us if you'd let yourself see it. And imagine yourself that you're there with those women, and they gathered at nine in the morning for this crucifixion, but what they would have seen had preceded that flogging the famous cat of nine tails that was a horrific torture, a whip that has leather cords and hard balls that pound the flesh and metal hooks that gouge the flesh. They would have seen him flogged.

A lot of scientists say that the experience of that brutal beating is one that many didn't live through. He could have died before the cross, but he was going to live until it was time to lay down his life. And so they watched him be flogged. The cross itself is so horrible. Cicero said that no Roman citizen should even come near a cross. No early Christian leader suggested that it become the symbol for Christianity. It really was Constantine in the fourth century after the Roman emperor had had a vision of the cross. He finally banned it as a form of execution, and then it became a symbol more and more.

But C.S. Lewis put it this way, the crucifixion did not become common in art until all who had seen a real one had died. Phil Yancy tells the story of a Jewish rabbi in the pre-war years of Nazi Germany who one day was picked up by the German police just for fun. And they came and illegally arrested this rabbi and took him to police headquarters where for fun they stripped him totally naked and demanded that he preach the sermon he was going to give that Shabbat service that weekend. And the rabbi asked if they would allow him to wear his yarmulke and so they put the little covering on his head and made him preach. And he stood there wearing that little yarmulke completely naked and preached out of Micah on what it is to walk humbly with your God. Until you begin to allow your soul to see something like that, you can't even begin to understand what Jesus was enduring. The petibulum, the cross beam, may have been what he was carrying because oftentimes the custom was that the one to be crucified would carry that cross beam and then the upright beam they would attach there on the hillside. Just outside the city's northwest walls a place they called Golgotha which means the place of the skull. It was a very common entryway into the city. It was Passover time.

So thousands and thousands of thousands and thousands of Jewish pilgrims would come by and see Jesus being crucified. Allen Wright. And in our series, God Used Who? Unheralded Women in Astonishing Ways, it is the teaching on the women at the cross. And Allen is back in a moment with additional insight on this for your life and a final word. God's love. You've heard about it with your ears.

You've believed it in your mind. Now experience it in your heart with Allen Wright's beloved book, Lover of My Soul. The Bible is a love story from beginning to end. You are the spiritual bride of Christ, the perfect bridegroom. The Bible tells about a God who has gone to unimaginable lengths to woo you, to win you, and to walk with you hand in hand. For any man who has fallen in love with a woman, you've tasted the sweetness of what God's love for you is like. For any woman who has searched for true love, which you long for can only be found fully in God. Gary Chapman, renowned author of the five love languages says, the incredible reality that God pursues us in love comes to life in Lover of My Soul. Ancient biblical accounts explode in the heart. Accept Christ's proposal, enjoy his embrace, revel in his love.

After all, it's a match made in heaven. It's Lover of My Soul by Allen Wright. The gospel is shared when you give to Allen Wright Ministries. We're in the final days of this special offer being made available to you. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Allen, what's the contrast? What stands out here to you in this teaching as you were studying the women at the cross? Well, it's a beautiful thing in the first place that they were there when so many of the disciples had fled out of fear and were hiding. And you can imagine how grisly and difficult it would be to watch the Son of God be crucified, to watch your beloved teacher friend be crucified in that way. And yet these women were there and they saw the flogging, they saw the horrors of the cross, they saw the mockery, and they saw Jesus's mercy and the wonder of all that was happening. And I just think that there's a benefit, even though it's difficult even for us to do, but there's a benefit of joining these women and looking deeply at the cross. Let yourself see the suffering, the depth, the cost, how deep the payment. Because when you do, what you're really seeing is your own worth to God. So it's not an exercise in the end of discouragement and darkness to us, but thinking on the cross becomes our greatest, greatest joy. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.