Jesus Loves Murderers - Part A

Murder has always been an issue, been a problem with humanity. It was the first human crime ever committed. Genesis chapter 4, Cain killing Abel. And history is peppered with such crimes. When we first had rocks, and then we had knives, and then we got javelins, and then we developed guns and bombs. We've always had a problem with murder.

Public mass shootings have become a repeated occurrence in the U.S., causing many people to feel hopeless about our future. Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip explains why there is hope for tomorrow and where you can find it. And at the end of today's program, Skip and his wife, Lenya, share how you can guard your heart practically from sin. Watch what you say, because Jesus said you're going to give a full account of every idle word that is spoken. So be very careful what you say, how you use your words, number one. Number two, don't look for trouble. Thank you, Skip.

Be sure to stay tuned after today's message to hear the full conversation. Now we want to tell you about a resource that will help you reach others with a deep love of Jesus. People everywhere have a deep God-given need to be loved. But sadly, sometimes the people who need love the most are the most rejected.

Here's Skip Heitzig. We all crave love. We will do sometimes almost anything to get it.

To know that we are loved by somebody else unconditionally. No one did that better than Jesus. He loved the worst of sinners. He loved the best of saints. Jesus showed the love of God in human flesh. We want to give you a glimpse of God's relentless love for all people, including you, by sending you the Jesus Loves People four-booklet collection by Skip Heitzig.

All four Jesus Loves People titles, including Jesus Loves the Broken, are our thanks for your gift of $25 or more today to help connect more people to God's love through His word. Okay, we're in Luke chapter 23 as Skip Heitzig starts today's study. One of the most notorious criminals in American history was called David Berkowitz, the son of Sam, he was nicknamed. He went on a killing spree and killed several people in that city and then he was arrested. By his own admission, he was involved previously in the occult.

When he was arrested, he was sentenced to six life sentences, six life terms, 365 consecutive years in prison. A few years back, I was in New York and I was speaking and a pastor said, would you mind visiting a prisoner in the Sullivan Correctional Institute? His name is David Berkowitz and my head just turned like, what? He said, yeah, I've been meeting with him over the years. He's become a believer and it's true, it's real. He's not doing this to garner a favor, he's not getting out.

He knows he'll never get out. But the Lord's using him and he listens to you, Skip, on the radio and he would just love to meet with you. So I spent a couple hours with him in prison. And I heard his testimony, how he was 10 years into his sentence and he was given a Gideon's Bible. God bless the Gideons, once again, a Gideon's New Testament and Psalms. And he was reading Psalm 34 that says, this poor man cried unto the Lord and he heard his call. Berkowitz got on his knees after reading that and he asked Jesus to forgive him and to be his savior and he has seen his life in prison as a ministry to inmates who have emotional problems and coping problems. Sees him really as a congregation. Well, he was brought to my mind because a couple weeks ago I received this card from him and once again to see on the envelope, David Berkowitz, Sullivan Correctional Facility and he reminded me of our visit.

But also, once again, thanked me and thanked you for the radio broadcast that feeds him and his fellow inmates. And he signed it by saying, on behalf of all the brethren here in the prison, we salute you, brother David. David Berkowitz, like Christopher Pritchard in the video, has discovered that Jesus loves murderers. I love, love, love the redemptive story that has been in all of these little paracopes of scripture we've been looking at, whether it's a prostitute or a religious person or what we see today, murderers.

The willingness of Christ to forgive. Murder has always been an issue, been a problem with humanity. It was the first human crime ever committed.

Genesis chapter four, Cain killing Abel. And history is peppered with such crimes. When we first had rocks and then we had knives and then we got javelins and then we developed guns and bombs, we've always had a problem with murder. Want to know a stunning statistic? The United Nations released a report two years ago measuring the murders on the earth in a single year. 437,000 people murdered in a year. That's the population of this place gone because of murder. You have a one in 153 chance of being murdered.

That's staggering. It is one of the chief causes of death in our country. It ranks right up there with heart disease and cancer and accidents. You'll find intentional killing is one of the causes of death. But I would venture to say that virtually everyone in this room has gotten away with murder.

How's that for a statement? Listen to the words of Jesus carefully. You have heard that it was said by those of old, you shall not murder. But I say unto you, if you are angry at your brother without a cause, you are guilty of judgment. Murder we find out from Jesus doesn't originate with the hands, but it begins in the heart. It is an action, but it is far more.

It begins with an attitude toward someone. I found it a bit humorous that one of the famous attorneys in American history, Clarence Darrow, once said, I've never killed anyone, but I frequently get satisfaction out of obituary notices. That's an honest attorney. According to a group of researchers out of New York, 7% of our population say they would murder someone for enough money. That is one in every 14 people.

Whether they could actually pull the trigger is another question, but 36 million say they would be willing to consider the offer. Now, today I bring you to a story that is so very familiar to every believer. You know it well. But I want to frame it for you a bit differently today. I want you to look at it a little bit in a way that you have not in the past. We want to consider today the greatest murder in human history, the killing of the Son of God. When I say that, I know there are always two sides. There's the divine side and there's the human side. On the divine side, it is the ultimate sacrifice for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.

It was a gift. Jesus said, no one takes my life from me, I lay it down of myself. But that's the divine side. On the human side, it is the ultimate crime. It is a flagrant violation of the sixth commandment, thou shalt not murder. I bring you now to the cross of Christ in Luke chapter 23, beginning in the 32nd verse. There were also two others, criminals led with Him to be put to death. And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him and the criminals.

One on the right hand, the other on the left. Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. And they divided His garments and cast lots. And the people stood looking on, but even the rulers with them sneered, saying, He saved others.

Let Him save Himself if He is the Christ, the chosen of God. The soldiers also mocked Him, coming and offering Him sour wine and saying, If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself. And an inscription also was written over Him in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.

This is the King of the Jews. I want you to first consider the murder of Jesus, and it was nothing less than that. For look in verse 33 where it specifically says, there they crucified Him. They crucified Him.

This is the most evil act ever perpetrated by sinful hearts. The killing of the sinless Son of God, the Son of God, the author of life murdered. And Jesus would say as much, because He predicted as much. He told His disciples, The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him. After the fact, the Apostle Peter said to the people of Jerusalem, You have taken Christ by lawless hands and put Him to death. So they murdered Him. Not only was it murder, but to add to it, it was a conspiracy to murder. For we understand the Jewish leaders, the elite plotted against Christ how they might ensnare Him and then deliver Him over to the secular government to enact the death penalty.

Matthew chapter 12, the Pharisees went out and plotted against Him how they might destroy Him. In the modern criminal code, that's conspiracy to murder. That carries alone up to a life sentence. But in reality, what we have here with the Romans who carried out this crime is nothing short of state-sponsored terrorism, because that's how the Roman government used crucifixion.

They used it to intimidate, to terrorize people, to say, Don't you ever think of crossing the Roman government, because this is what you might get. Crucifixion was so horrible that a Roman statesman by the name of Cicero said these words, To arrest or bind a Roman citizen is a crime. To beat him is an abomination. To kill him is an act of murder. But to crucify him, there is no fitting word that could describe so horrible a deed. Now the Romans didn't invent crucifixion, the Persians did.

The ancient Persians believed that the earth was sacred. And if you're going to execute a person, it shouldn't be touching the ground, because the ground was sacred. So they devised a means by which the victim could be lifted up above the earth and killed. And they invented crucifixion. Before the Romans came along, we have record of Egyptians and those from Carthage and the Phoenicians all using crucifixion to execute criminals in pre-Roman times. But then, then came the Romans and they, they perfected it.

In fact, they loved it. They considered crucifixion to be their favorite form of execution. You may not know this, but you should know that by the time Jesus was put on a cross, the Roman government had already crucified about 30,000 people from Judea and Jerusalem alone. So that for the citizens to see men hanging on crosses was very, very common a sight.

And there is Jesus taken to Golgotha and there they crucified him. According to history, the idea behind crucifixion is that it deliberately delayed death and gave the maximum amount of pain, torture, to the victim. A victim could last for days on a cross. Essentially a cross, as you know, is a vertical piece of wood to which would be attached a cross beam known as a patibulum, weighed about 75 pounds. And it was just that cross beam that the victim would carry from the place of sentencing to the place of execution. Jesus did that, we are told. And then they laid him down on that as they affixed that piece to the vertical piece. They stretched out Jesus' hands and two large iron spikes like railroad spikes, but much sharper were, were used and placed not through the palms of the hands.

That's too fragile, that would rip the flesh, but through the wrists because that would stabilize the victim and staple him without tearing to that cross. But what you really need to understand is that no victim of human injustice has ever been more innocent than Jesus. And yet he was murdered. The murder of Jesus.

Now that is not the full story. It's not enough to say he was murdered because behind the scenes we see that even with the most vile act of crucifixion, God brought the maximum amount of good out of it. And it was always in the plan and purview of God the Father to see this happen.

That's what it means, John 3 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. And the prophet Jeremiah, excuse me, Isaiah predicted something when I first read it when I was a new Christian, it just, I was stunned by it. Isaiah 53, it said, for it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He, it says in Isaiah 53, he has put him to grief.

I was shocked by that. It pleased the Lord to bruise his son. He has put him to grief.

Why? The very next phrase answers the question to make his soul and offering for sin. That's why that's God's redemptive purpose in this horrible thing that is going on. And so we're told verse 33, when they came to the place called, please notice the word Calvary. It's not cavalry. You know why I make an issue out of this is you don't know how many times over the years people have said, Oh, you're at cavalry chapel. I go, no, we're not a regiment on horseback with swords. That's a cavalry. We're Calvary.

Completely different. Calvary comes from the Latin Calvarium. The Greek is cranium.

The Hebrew is Golgotha. It means the same thing, a skull. It indicates the shape of the place where the execution took place. That's the murder of Jesus at Calvary, the place of the skull. Next, please notice in verse 34, the mercy of Jesus.

Then Jesus said, father, forgive them. Jesus was on a cross for six hours from nine in the morning to three in the afternoon. During that six hours, he made seven short statements recorded in the scripture. We call them the seven words, the seven last sayings of Jesus on the cross. A person's last words are always significant, but these are most significant. As Warren Worsby said, they are windows that enable us to see into the very heart of God. These seven statements on the cross.

I like to think of it this way. While Jesus was doing the greatest work on earth, he was uttering the greatest words on earth. And the first statement is, father, forgive them. It's a shocking statement.

It's not what we would expect. It's an unusual request for the victim of murder to say, father, forgive them. You know, we talk about Jesus loves people and it's one thing to say Jesus loves murderers. It's another thing to be the person being murdered and say God loves people.

God loves murderers. Father, forgive them. Forgive them? This crowd, this world that pushed him away from birth, that could offer no room in the inn when he was about to be born. One of whose leaders tried to murder him when he was a baby in Bethlehem.

This crowd, whose leaders plotted this murder, who brought forth false charges and false witnesses to get him up on that cross, who shouted vociferously, crucify him, crucify him. Father, forgive them? What is the natural human reaction if you are being attacked?

It's not father, forgive them. Let me bring it down to a level we can all understand because some of you have never been attacked. Let's say you're driving down the road.

You're just driving. And some, I won't even give a term to that person, some person pulls in front of you and cuts you off. Is your first reaction, father, forgive them? No, no, my first reaction, I pray for them, but it's a very different prayer.

The other day I prayed a prayer when I was being cut off by not one, but two trucks going at least three times the speed limit. I said, father, please, may there be a police officer somewhere close by to give these numbskulls tickets, something like that. It was more like, father, judge them.

And may they have four flat tires, oh, that'd be great, and a spare, that'd be even better. Father, forgive them? It's not what we would expect. In fact, maybe we would expect Jesus to say, father, judge them for this act. We would understand that.

Or even if you were to turn to the crowd and say something like, three days, just three days, I'm coming back, and I'm coming for you. But he said, father, forgive them. You know what's even more amazing? In the Greek language, it's in a continual tense. He was continually saying, it could be translated, father, forgive them.

You know what that means? That means that was his undergirding prayer, not once, but during the whole event. So I imagine when they brought Jesus and stripped him at Golgotha, father, forgive them. When they placed him down and they stretched out his hands and put spikes in his hands, father, forgive them. When they raised up the cross, father, forgive them. And as the day wore on, father, forgive them. Father, forgive them. Father, forgive them. That's his statement. I read a story this week.

I had read it before, but it was just so amazing, I revisited it this week. In 1993, a murder was committed by a 16-year-old boy. I think he was 16 at the time.

His name was O'Shea Israel. He's in prison. He murdered a 20-year-old boy. The mother of the boy that was murdered, her name is Mary Johnson.

Let me rephrase this. It wasn't the son of that mother, it was the only son. The only son of this mother was murdered. The mother tried to get to the prison and visit the murderer of her son. She was denied access by the prisoner himself. Finally, after a period of time, after incessant asking, she was allowed entrance to the prison to have a visit.

Now this is what she said. She goes, as a Christian, I knew I had to forgive him, but I just needed to find out why he killed my son. So she went to the prison, she visited with him, and after the visit was over, something came over.

She was so emotionally distraught, she just broke, she had an emotional breakdown, and she started collapsing to the ground. The prisoner, the murderer of this woman's son, looked at her and he said, the only thing I could think of in my mind is what would I do right now if this were my mother? He said, I would hold her up. So he grabbed her and picked her up, held her, picked her up, and embraced her, because she was so distraught, embraced her. And she hugged him back, and just stayed in that position, locked in an embrace for a moment. And she had this thought, she goes, I just hugged the murderer of my only son.

She said, as I left that day, all of the pain and bitterness and anger and animosity melted away. That's Skip Heitzing with a message from the series Jesus Loves People. Now let's go in the studio with Skip and Lenya, as they share how you can guard your heart practically from sin. In today's study, you said that murder doesn't originate in the hands, but it begins in our hearts. That shows us how important it is to constantly keep our hearts and our attitudes in check. Skip, what are some practical ways we can guard our hearts? There's nothing more important than guarding your heart.

It's the principle thing. It says in Proverbs, guard your heart with all diligence or above all else, because it determines the course of your life. So, you need, I need, we need to rule our emotions, not let them rule over us.

You're in charge of that, and it's a full-time job, because some people will disappoint you, others are going to hurt you. So, a couple of tips. Watch what you say, because Jesus said you're going to give a full account of every idle word that is spoken, so be very careful what you say, how you use your words, number one. Number two, don't look for trouble. Some people just look for controversy.

They're always in the muck and the mire of other people's business. Just focus on God's calling on your life and pray for people, but don't meddle. Thank you, Skip and Lenya. We hope this conversation with Skip and Lenya encouraged you in your faith.

Now, we'd like to tell you how you can help keep these biblical messages coming to you and others, so you can keep growing in your walk with Jesus. Visit connectwithskip.com slash donate to give a gift now. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate. Or call 800-922-1888.

800-922-1888. Thank you. Tune in tomorrow as Skip Heisig shares with you the real divine purpose behind the cross. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross. Cast all burdens on His word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heisig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.