Welcome to Truth Talk Live. All right, let's talk. A daily program powered by the Truth Network. This is kind of a great thing, and I'll tell you why. Where pop culture, current events, and theology all come together.
Speak your mind. And now, here's today's Truth Talk Live host. How exciting is that? Stu is in Washington, D.C. with the Center for Christian Statesmanship, and they are blessing the freshman members of Congress with Bibles up there.
How cool is that? He is up there with Pastor Rob, and we're going to be getting a call from them any minute now to give us an update. But along those same lines, you know, yesterday we talked about, you know, when you survey the cross, how do you begin to prepare for Easter? Well, part of the way that we do that here at the Truth Network for the last 10 years, because Stu came out with his book 10 years ago, The Last Words of Jesus, and there we know, or I hope you've had a chance to look at him before, there were seven of them. There were seven different sayings that he said actually from the cross, and so with that, you know, the question that we have today for our live show is, you know, and we love it when you call, by the way, is which of those seven words had an impact on you? Something that just really sank in like, ooh, or maybe it was the combination or the order that he said them in, or maybe it was some other detail about those words that spoke to your heart. We would love to hear from you. 866-348-7884, 866-348-7884.
Again, the question is, which of those seven words had an impact on you? Again, we got Stu calling in. He's up there in D.C., and then we have Pastor Rob with the Coral Ridge Ministries, right? And I understand he's with us right now, so Pastor, what's it like up there in D.C.? It's busy.
I'm walking the halls of the Capitol right now, so it's a bit noisy. We're meeting with freshman members of Congress right now. We're delivering Bibles from our ministry, welcoming them to Washington D.C. and letting them know from our ministry at Coral Ridge and the Center for Christian Statesmanship that we're here to support them as a Christian outreach to members on the Hill.
So how cool. So have you actually, Pastor, had a chance to hand one of those Bibles out yet? Yeah, we have, and your very own Stu Epperson has been handing them out with me all day as well. And we've been greeted very warmly today.
That's cool. How are those received? I mean, are you actually like, you're with the new congressman or some of our senators, I guess? Yeah, either the congressman, a senator, or a member of their staff. We walk in, we introduce ourselves from Coral Ridge Ministries and the Center for Christian Statesmanship, our outreach to Capitol Hill, and we welcome them as a freshman member of Congress and their staff, and we let them know why we're here and why we exist. And then we present them with a Bible from our ministry, some other resources, so they can get connected to us. And we just remind them that we're here to support them, encourage them, and equip them in their calling on Capitol Hill, and very warmly received today. Hey Pastor Rob, Dwayne Carson here. Just want to, for our listeners, tell us a little bit more about the Center for Christian Statesmanship.
I love this. Let our listeners know what you guys are seeking to accomplish. Sure, so the Center for Christian Statesmanship was founded by D. James Kennedy, our founder, 30 years ago exactly, and he really desired to set up an evangelical outreach to what he called at the time modern-day Rome. And as many people have challenged me as we relaunched the Center, if we needed the Center for Christian Statesmanship in 1995, how much more do we need it now in the 21st century? So the Center conducts Bible studies for members of Congress and their staff. We have lunches on a monthly basis called Politics and Principles, where we meet with members and their staff and really help them understand how their faith applies to public policy. We do an awards luncheon every year with a Statesman of the Year, where we honor a member of Congress for standing true to the Judeo-Christian heritage of this nation and a lot of other resources. We have our headquarters located about five blocks from Capitol Hill, and we're just seeking to encourage members of Congress and their staff to live out their faith as the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Yeah, Dr. Carson, actually, I had a chance to interview one of the ladies that works in that Center and holds those Bible studies, and they've had amazing—I mean, amazing—breakthrough with people's faith in these Bible studies right there, right, Pastor? It's amazing.
They really have. And we've seen on a deeply personal level as well, as people start coming to these studies and small groups that we host, people become very vulnerable and transparent. And it's an incredible opportunity for not only fellowship, but also to counsel and to provide support. As one member of Congress told me, you know, some of the loneliest people in the world are right here on Capitol Hill, and to know that there's a ministry like the Center for Christian Statesmanship, where they can come, they can be themselves, they can take off the mask, and we love them unconditionally, and provide support, prayer, counsel for them and for their family really does make a difference.
So we're not only trying to equip them, but also trying to care for their soul and offer pastoral support to the men and women that are leading the legislative branch of our government, which is no small thing. No, unfortunately, we've got a whole bunch of freshmen people up there this year, right, that have been elected in. And how neat, really, to take part in this historic event that Stu and you are—are you doing it for more than one day, or is it just today? We're doing it for more than one day. We'll have a team, most of our team was here today, but we'll have members of our team doing work all day tomorrow to make sure every freshman member of Congress is greeted from the Center, getting a copy of the D. James Kennedy Topical Study Bible, a resource for me called Christianity in Politics. So every freshman member of Congress between today and tomorrow will get a visit from our team to warmly welcome them to DC.
As I hear you say, every. So for our listeners, again, just making sure they're understanding what you're seeking to accomplish. This isn't a Republican thing or Democrat thing or independent thing. You're doing this with every new congressman, senator that shows up there. All different parties are invited to get to know the Word of God and be prayed for and loved by you guys.
Absolutely. We are a 501c3. We're not a lobbying firm. We're not trying to lobby them for anything. We're not asking them for anything.
We are here to serve them just as Christ served us, here to serve every single member of Congress and their staff, Republican and Democrat. It's amazing if I have time for a really quick story and then I do need to go to another member's meeting. Unfortunately, we're going to break.
I'm sorry, Pastor. Okay, that's okay. Well, I'd love to be on maybe tomorrow or the next day to tell some of the amazing testimonies. We will do that.
And meanwhile, stay tuned. We got a whole lot more coming on Truth Talk Live! Welcome back to Truth Talk Live! Today we got Stu on the streets up there in D.C. with the Center for Christian Leadership there.
And Stu, great to have you on. You're there live in Washington, D.C., right? Well, the Lord's at work here, and I was just surprised. You know, you do anything with politics, you do anything with these politicians and staffers, you think you bring a Bible in to give to them, they might throw you out and say, hey, don't ever come back, but they were so kind and warm. We even prayed with some of the staff, and we just delivered these Bibles. You know, the Center for Christian Statesmanship, Dr. D. James Kennedy started this years ago, and Dr. Rob Passienzo, I think he just talked to him.
He just gave you a report, didn't he, from the field out here? Yeah, he's really done a great job with this ministry. Of course, so many people that are listening to my voice right now on this show are, you know, they can hear truths that transform with Pastor Rob Passienzo on all, you know, just about all of our stations in the Truth Network and other great affiliates. But I'm telling you, these folks have a heart to reach the heart of Rome, which is Washington, D.C. And so, given these Bibles, it's amazing what you've seen the Word of God does, what the Word of God does, what it can do. Dr. Carson, with these politicians, even politicians can date the Word, right? Absolutely, and they need to date the Word, because the truth will transform them, and that transforms a nation.
They're making major decisions. They need to be, righteousness exalts a nation. So God's Word lets us know what's right and what's wrong.
Yeah, that's really amazing. So, Stu, is there something that you've come across that our listeners should be praying about? Like, man, this person looks like they really could use our prayers, or what could— Well, yeah, great question, and I appreciate that. I tell you, what really blows my mind is you walk into this office, you're thinking, okay, I want to give the Congressman or the Congresswoman a brand new Bible and bless them.
Well, the fact is, most of the time they're not there, even. They're on the floor voting. They're out meeting, you know, with some kind of lobby or something. But the staff, we need to pray not only for our elected officials, but pray for their staff, their schedulers, their chief of staff.
I learned new terms today, like there's these legislative aides, you know, they go around and help the staff think through the bills that are coming up. They got a lot on them, and these kids come up from all over Texas. I met people from New York and Texas, California, and these kids moved to DC, and they just kind of jump in. And so what we're trying to do is help them find good Christian community where they can be discipled, a good solid church that teaches the Word of God. There's great Christian radio up here.
Our family, my uncle Ed and dad, started Salem years ago. 105.1 FM is a great Christian radio station. All kinds of politicians love that station. We met the chaplain of the Senate, who's a godly man who shared a great message. His son is a doctor in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
So I told him to tell his son about Christian radio there, 97.7, in a little bit of heaven. So it was just kind of neat to make all these connections, but it helps me to understand, I mean, there's a whole, each of these senators and congressmen has a staff, could have a staff of as many as 10 or even 20, depending. And they all have families, and they all have temptation.
They all have challenges. And so we need to pray for them that, you know, God will bring gracious Christians into their life. And given these Bibles away today, we actually had people that, you know, we sensed the, we tried to sense and let the Spirit lead, but we actually stopped and said, hey, can we just pray for your team?
And there'd be three or four, five, six in there. They say, we'd love that. And one lady took a call, and immediately, right when I said that from a constituent, and she said, hey, can I put you on a brief hold? And I'm like, what does that mean? This has to be a brief prayer.
What are you talking about here? But I got to pray for them, and for, you know, for their stuff going on, and their family. They would connect closer to God. They would grow in the Lord.
They'd be bold witnesses, you know. So that's something that really hit my heart, like, I just kind of like went on a missions trip, right? I literally walked through the offices, the corridors of the Senate, of the House of Representatives, and we were in a room this morning for Bible study, where they have Senate major intelligence hearings, and it was just like kind of a wow, aha moment to hear the Word of God taught in there. So it was just great, and just makes me so grateful for the Truth Network, and for all the incredible stuff we were able to do, and spread the truth, and hear on this great network, and you guys doing the show.
Thank you all for what you're doing. Well, you know, this is a special time of yours to you, and I, you know, I went and got my book. You told me, Robbie, go get my book, you know, and I went and looked at it, and do you realize that you signed this for me on the 22nd of January, 2015?
It's been 10 years, Stu. It's been a decade of Last Words of Jesus. For you, it's been more like 14 years, but, you know, it's an amazing thing, and I, you know, to say that God blessed me to be able to work with you, and the Truth Network, and all that, and to see, you know, all these things have happened, and how this book has impacted so many of our lives. I know it's impacted your life, right, Doc? It has greatly impacted my life. I look for these kind of things to enhance my Easter, and one of the best books ever put in my hands was The Last Words of Jesus, written by Stu Epperson, and I devoured it as it devoured me, because, and I hope that makes sense, but as I read it and thought about what it really meant as he spoke on the cross, it's life-changing, and Stu, thank you for this great work. We're hoping our listeners will get a copy of The Last Words of Jesus, but we wanted to hear from you, Stu, the author. What statement really impacted you as you think through, as you were writing this, which one really just really blew you away? Well, it's a great question.
I have asked that question to all kinds of people. Johnny Eric Shontada, what's your favorite one? She said the last one where he said, Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit, and as I'm studying that, actually that was Anne Graham Lotz that said that. I can't remember which one Johnny liked, but I asked all these people, and I asked them kind of which one, you know, sticks with them, and I told Anne Graham Lotz that that last one is actually a Hebrew bedtime prayer that Hebrew moms and dads would pray with their children right out of Psalm 31. You know, into thy hands I commit my spirit, just a prayer of protection, a prayer of, you know, the hands of God, and so Jesus opens up praying to the Father.
Father, forgive them. He closes his final word, which we find in Luke 23. Father, into thy hands, you know, I commit my spirit. There's seven total words of life from the tree of death. We find three in the Gospel of John chapter 19. We find three in the Gospel of Luke chapter 23, but we only find one in Saint Mark, and we only find one in Saint Matthew, and it's the same one in both, and it's the most profound one, and I'm in the middle of it, of my like deep dive on this for the who knows how many times I've done this, and I'm just looking at it right now. Well, I know we got to take a break, but through the eyes of the centurion who heard these words as well, and maybe we can talk about this when we come back from the break, but some say it's the most, the deepest words ever uttered, and arguably the most profound, mysterious words in the whole Bible, where Jesus said it's the first time he didn't call God his Father. He didn't use that language. It's the first time that he calls God something different.
He says, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Yeah, buddy. That is, and we know how many times you have been on that deep dive, and so when we come back, we're going to hear that, and maybe as we talked about at the beginning of the show, which of these has impacted you? Which of these words we would love for you to call us?
866-348-7884. For those in Winston-Salem, so goodbye, but we're going to be on, and Ohio continues. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live! Today's show, we've been talking about—Stu's been on the scene there at the Washington, D.C., with the Center for—let me get it here, I had it written in the Statesman—yeah, the Center for Christian Statesmanship out of Coleridge Ministries.
They're in Florida with Rob Passiana. I'll get it yet, but anyway, he's been there, and we've also been talking about these seven last words of Jesus, and right before the break, Stu had mentioned that the one that he continues to dig deeper and deeper and deeper on is that one, my God, my God, my house now forsaken me, which, you know, interestingly, Dr. Carson and I were talking about that, but how about you? Which of these words impacted you greatly?
866-348-7884, 866-348-7884, that one is a whopper in so many different ways when you think about it, because how many of us have felt that way? Right? Where is God?
Right. And he's given us something that we can just totally relate to, but also, you know, it's interesting to me—we've been looking at this actually during the break—that it was the fourth word that he spoke, and Stu made the observation to me that I've never forgotten, especially with the sixth word from the cross when he said, it is finished, it lines up perfectly with the fact that on the sixth day, God finished his work, and Good Friday was the sixth day, and this idea of it is finished lines up with the days of creation. Well, when you think about the fourth day of creation, you know, that's when he made the sun and the moon and the stars, which were four signs in the sky, and it grew dark at this particular moment when he said, my God, my God, wow, why has thou forsaken me? And all these things were signs, especially right, about Psalms what? Dr. Day, the word Carson? Psalms 22.
Right. He wants people to take a look at the prophecy. Psalms 22 tells us all about Jesus, and he says, I'm the fulfillment, take a look. This is exactly what God wanted to happen so that you could know redemption.
You use the darkness, Stu put a line in there. We go from midday to midnight, and all of a sudden, it's almost like God himself didn't want anybody to be looking at his son in such torment as he's enduring the cross. Yeah, it's, it is certainly, and I don't know if you've ever seen this alignment, but it, actually, Mark Blitz put it together in his God's daytime or that all solar eclipses and lunar eclipses line up with Jewish holidays, because their holidays, you'll usually find around the 15th of the month. But whatever, for their point of view, Passover happens when that point of a new moon would be always the first of the month, and when these signs would be in the sky is telling them that, oh, this is Passover because of where the sun and the moon are in alignment for. So every single solar eclipse and lunar eclipse have always happened for all time.
On the 15th of the month, I think it was, one of them always happens on the first of the month, the other one always happens on the 15th of the month, which always line up exactly with those 30-day months or the way the Jewish people keep the calendar. And so, naturally, it was timed, you know, from the beginning of creation that that particular moment was going to be when the sun would grow dark, but it would be a sign to everybody, like, pay attention, this is huge. And one of the things that Jesus wept and wept about, which I think they did a great job in the chosen of showing, was the people of Jerusalem missed the time of their visitation. That's a good point. And here was the time, and it was timed exactly so that everybody could see it that was looking at the prophetic calendar at the time to give us a sense of, wow, we need to pay attention to the times, you know, that we're in and pay attention to these same kinds of things that Jesus is talking about and opportunities that we have. So how about you?
866-348-7884, 866-348-7884. Which of these words, and why don't you go through the words for them, Doc? Yeah, when we think about Jesus, he's right there at the cross, and he says, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. What a prayer he prayed right there. And then, today, you shall be with me in paradise.
He spoke that to a repentant thief. Woman, behold thy son. Disciple, behold thy mother. I think about Mary and her availability in the Christmas story, and now the anguish that she must be feeling at this moment as she looks at her beloved son hanging on that cross.
And he has such compassion for his mom. And then there's the fourth statement, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? What pain? You know, it wasn't just physical pain he endured. It was emotional pain, and it was spiritual pain. I thirst.
I think that's the one that hits me the hardest, that he went through such agony to cry that out. And then, it is finished. And we always put a little emphasis on it. It is finished. The work is done.
It's complete. And then, Father, into thy hands, I commit my spirit. And there's something about the peace that he had at that very moment. We've got Stu back to talk about, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Stu, welcome back. Hey, guys. Good to be back, sir.
Running around, navigating D.C. and trying to get things going. Thank you so much. Tell all the Museum of the Bible people, give them our love, okay? Appreciate you guys.
You're all the best. We just popped in at the end of the show. We just popped in. You can't go to D.C. and not go to the Museum of the Bible, guys. And Dr. Carson, this is going to shock you. You know how much your membership is to the Museum of the Bible? Twelve months.
Go anytime you want. I hope it's zero. It's not a thousand a month. It's not five hundred a month. It's five dollars a month.
Five dollars a month, and you're a member of the Museum of the Bible. I'm just telling you, and they've got stuff. They had a huge Narnia production today.
Parents bringing their kids. It's like a block away from Washington, D.C. Did you type in the map quest? One block away from Washington, D.C., the capital. Well, a few blocks away. It's in Washington, D.C., but it's a block away from the capital, right? That's exactly right, and the whole thing is a tribute to God's powerful Word, and how it's changed lives, and people who've died for it and martyred.
You know, these dear folks, the Green family, they put up all this money, man. This is a massive quality presentation, and so the rest of us need to jump in and join, and support, and take busloads and truckloads, and get behind this thing, and it's a great... Imagine taking a friend that doesn't even know the Lord to a Bible museum that's all about the Bible. They've had souls transformed coming in here, so we were able to see them, and I was able to see a couple exhibits. You know, the most moving exhibit for me was the one... There's a whole floor where they took Jesus off the cross, and can you just imagine that scene of, you know, Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, maybe the centurion was involved who made the great confession, and then Mary and the different ladies, yeah. Yeah, we talked about that yesterday, the Rembrandt painting.
Right, I saw it in Saint Petersburg, Russia at that time. I saw that painting, the Rembrandt itself, like, oh my gosh. It is something to, you know, really spend some time meditating on, like getting back to your... You've spent so much time on that fourth word, I know, so year in, year out, it brings you there, but you say you've got new insight this year? Well, I'm looking at it, you know, through the... You look at it through the lenses of the other people there, you know, like the centurion. Like, how about Simon the Cyrene, the only human being to carry the cross of Christ besides Christ himself?
I mean, imagine looking at and hearing, you know, there you are, you've ruined your great clothes for Passover, your whole time with your family's hijacked by these rough Roman soldiers who said, hey, you carry that cross, this guy's, you know, we don't want this guy to die before he gets up there, and we can, you know, have our heyday on him, and here you have to hoist that thing, and the power of that process. So then these words of Christ become even more enunciated. I'd love to talk about them some more if we could, maybe in our final segment. I hope so, I hope so. You stay with us and you call us.
866-348-7884. We'll be right back with Stu and more of the last words of Jesus. Truth Talk Live!
You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live. How fun, we got Stu on the streets today in Washington, D.C., there with the Center for Christian Statesmanship out of Core Ridge Ministries, Dr. G. James Kennedy's original ministry.
Now, Rob, and I'm going to let you say his last name, Stu. Yeah, Rob, Rob Passian is a great, great friend, great man of God, great partner on the Truth Network, and it was an honor. We were, we just came, we just finished up, and I'm exhausted.
We just walked, I probably walked 10,000 steps in a few hours. We walked up and down the halls of Congress, the offices of freshman senators and freshman house members, and just delivered new Bibles to them and just prayer and support for them and give them some spiritual encouragement and hope. And their interns and their pages and their different support staff. So, grateful to the Center for Christian Statesmanship. And, you know, the whole is, we were joking as we were wheeling up all these Bibles, dozens of them, that we are delivering billion dollars of amazing consulting to Washington, D.C., because that's what's in the Word of God, and that's honestly the premise of the whole book, Last Words of Jesus, where many times I say in there, you know, hear him speak and be changed forever.
Right. Because everyone on this, everyone in this conversation and many listening have, their lives have been changed by the Word of God. They just left the Bible Museum. It's all about godly men, Wycliffe and Huss and others, John Knox, who sacrificed much, in some cases, their very lives, to give us the Word of God.
So it changes everything. And there Jesus spoke these powerful words from the cross as he was dying. And the most profound one we were talking about, you know, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why hast thou forsaken me, which is a statement directly out of Psalm 22, verse 1, and the only time that Jesus didn't call God, referred to God as Father in the whole Bible, you know, dozens of times he refers to him as Father in the Lord's Prayer and all over the place.
But it's still a possessive, personal, my God, my God. So there's still an intimacy there. But there's a why question.
And it's, you know, think about it. We are in a world fraught with why questions. We have why questions everywhere. Why do bad things happen to people that, you know, we're decent people? Why cancer? Why war?
Why all this, you know, horrible stuff in Croatia? Why all this, you know, evil of the Holocaust and the killing fields and such? And so here you have the most profound why question of all time. Really, representing, it's almost like a representative of all other why questions ever asked, kind of bundled into one, where Jesus is experiencing something, abandonment and forsakeness and darkness that he had never experienced. And he's experiencing that because he's not calling God his Father, because now he is the sacrificial lamb. He is paying the price for our sin. So he doesn't cease to be God. He doesn't cease to be the Son of God or God the Son. But it's a great mystery that confounds all theologians.
You know, Martin Luther came upon these words studying in the Scriptures, my God, my God, why is God forsaken me, in his study. And he went behind closed doors. He refused food and water and stayed there prostrate on the ground, wrestling with these words. And he came out a long time after that and finally came out. And all he could say was, God forsaken by God.
How can this be? And so it's in this depth. It's, listen, it is in this, you use the word hell. Hell is outer darkness.
And by the way, it went pitch black in the middle of the day at the scene of the cross, okay? And so you have all these characters of the cross. You have all these religious leaders. You have this mob. You have these thieves. You have the centurion. You have the soldiers. You have all these people.
You have the ladies watching from afar. But you know, what's fascinating is when the curtain, when the lights go down in the sixth hour on crucifixion day on Good Friday, it's pitch black. And another character shows up, the one who's in full control, because it says it pleased the Lord to bruise him in Isaiah 53. God Almighty shows up in full wrath, in full punishment. And he, and he, he puts on his son. He puts on him the sin of the world. The lamb of God is hanging right there. The mediator is mediating and he's feeling the full brunt of the wrath of God upon all the sin, all the shame, all the evil that was heaped upon him.
He bore in our sin, our sin on his body, on the tree, first Peter tells us. So this is the moment. This is the most pain ever experienced anywhere. So when you say, I feel your pain, you don't. Well, but I lost, I lost a loved one just like you did. You didn't lose my loved one.
And you didn't lose my loved one like you, you know, like exactly like I did. But let me tell you who can look at you with those eyes and say, I feel your pain, Jesus Christ can, because he felt it right there on the cross in that moment, feeling the wrath of God, bearing our pain, bearing our shame, and bearing our punishment. And those words are, are, don't even begin to express the true, the true gravity of this, but we're there in scripture there for us to look at and just to say, praise God, from whom all blessings flow. Well, Stu, as we move this show, we're going to be concluding shortly here. Let's, let's walk through real quickly the all seven statements and just love to hear just a brief comment from you on your thoughts about each statement. Because what we're trying to do is get people prepared for Easter because it's coming. And we want to survey the wondrous cross.
And I can't think of a better way than these seven last statements. Oh, yes, sir. Yes, so we got, there's seven words of life from the tree of death.
It makes a great, some folks do a seven-day prayer and meditation, you know, seven days out of Easter, starting on Palm Sunday. Yep. I'd encourage that. You have, you just want me to take them from the top? Yes, sir. Okay, so you have the very first words, you know, as, as, as, as he's attacked, as he's assaulted, as he's beaten, hoisted on that cross, as hate hits him, love comes out of his mouth. In these words of forgiveness, come as blood flows from his wounds, the words of forgiveness flow from his mouth. And he says, father, what a great statement.
What a great relationship. Father, forgive them, not destroy them, not judge them. Father, forgive them.
They know not what they do. And they had no idea from the soldiers gambling over his clothes to, to the deserting disciples, all the other ones, they had no idea what they were doing and that their sin is why he was there. So that's a powerful statement of forgiveness that came right out of his mouth. The second word is, is a word of, of pardon.
So the second word is really an answer to the first word. See, he says, father, forgive them. Well, who's them?
Well, just a few feet away. Both thieves reviled Jesus, both thieves, both thieves attacked him, made fun of him. And they joined in with a mob at Matthew 27 tells us, but one thief saw the light. He heard the light. He heard those words of forgiveness. And he, and he said, Lord, he confessed Jesus as Lord. He said, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Both thieves, by the way, asked for salvation.
The first thief said, save yourself and save us. He wanted out of his fix. He didn't want, he wanted his best life. Now he didn't want the crucified Christ. He said, get off that cross. If Christ answered that prayer, we'd all be doomed.
But the second thief rebuked the first. And he said, he said, Lord, remember me when you come in your kingdom, when you come to your kingdom, believing in the resurrection, Jesus said today, you will be with me in paradise. So that is a powerful statement of pardon.
It's never too late for you to turn to God, the God of the second chances. The third world is a beautiful word of social justice from the cross. Jesus says, you know, woman, behold thy son and son, behold thy mother. He gives the widow a new son. He gives the son a mom to mentor him. And John steps in. You have a beautiful picture of Christ caring, even as he's dying, he's caring for the woman who suffered much travail to give him birth. And now she's watching him die and he's giving her a son.
It's a beautiful picture, you know? And then the fourth state, which we covered, you know, a little bit, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Which is just a word of absolute abandonment, a word of darkness, a cry of dereliction from the Lord, a mysterious word. But he was forsaken, abandoned, so we could be accepted.
And we could be called sons and daughters. And then the fifth word, which is a word of pain. I thirst, which is the only thing he said, the only thing he said, of all the things he said, that reflected his discomfort.
And in chapter, now this book, the publisher had to edit parts out because it was too graphic, because I went into the graphic nature. The Passion of Christ is rated G compared to what truly happened to Jesus in his passion. But the I thirst reflects that there was a physical torture. Crucifixion victims were one-way trips. No one got off the cross and he truly did die. And then the great statement, the greatest closing statement of all time.
I think I asked the governor of Wisconsin, his favorite word from the cross, and he shocked me. He said, it is finished, which is the statement at John 19, 30. A powerful statement of perfection. He did exactly what he came to do. He finished the work.
And because it is finished, we are not finished. And then the final word is this beautiful word. Jesus prayed to his father. He suffered. He's paid the price for our sin.
And the veil has been rent from top to bottom. And he prays, opens up, closes like he opens. Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit in the great mighty hands of God. He laid his life down. The good shepherd, John 10 tells us, no one took his life from him. He laid his life down willingly for his sheep. That's the kind of Savior we have who came and died and gave it all so we could have it all. That's the gospel. We didn't earn it. He died in our place and he rose from the dead and he's coming again.
The serpent crusher has won. And we have that kind of Savior. Hallelujah, what a Savior. You got that right. Hallelujah, what a Savior.
These seven statements, they need to be studied. Get the last words of Jesus by Stu Epperson. Right.
You can get the ebook, all that right there on Amazon. Stu, I'll let you close the show since, you know, something about maybe the Center for Christian Statesmanship. Yeah. Hey, no blessings. Hey, truthnetwork.com. It's all there. And share this with someone.
