I can say with absolute assurance that the scene to which we refer in this PODCAST, was and is the single most dramatic moment in all of human history.
Thank you for listening, and for sharing this message!!!
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As you will hear in this PODCAST, the exact same question that I asked of a couple of hundred of the best high school students you’d ever want to meet. Here’s my question:
Do you want to live your life in the midst of God’s blessing?
If your answer to that question is “Yes,” THIS is what God’s blessing means; THIS is what a God-blessed life looks like.
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As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, all you need to know about the precious people to whom Peter wrote is summarized in three telling terms. One phrase, really.
One phrase that so accurately described them.
One phrase that so accurately describes each of us.
ἐκ-λεκ-τοῖς παρ-επι-δή-μοις διασ-πορᾶς—literally, “elect foreigners in the diaspora.”
Now why in the world would Peter begin his first letter with this carefully crafted first phrase?
“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the elect foreigners in the diaspora.”
Because the one question looming in minds of Peter’s distressed audience was this:
Has God abandoned us?
Not to get too personal with you, and at the risk of invading your private space, I cannot help but to wonder if you have ever asked of yourself that exact same question:
Has God abandoned me?
And Peter wanted them—and us—and you!—to know that as he penned this epistle, that same question was looming large in his own mind and his own soul.
Peter knew his audience.
Peter knew them.
Peter knows us.
Peter knows you!
Peter feels our pain.
Peter asks our questions.
Peter understands our doubts.
Peter feels our fears.
Peter can relate.
Peter “gets” it.
Peter “gets” us.
And I, for one, am profoundly grateful that he does.
And in “getting” us, he will assure us in this podcast that NO!!! God has NOT abandoned you. He has NOT turned His back on you. He will NEVER stop loving you. He will NEVER leave you. He will not now or EVER forsake you.
In a word, we are SECURE in His omnipotent hand.
Aren’t you glad?
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Caiaphas, the high priest that year, must have been fit to be tied.
Well, somewhat so.
As you will hear in this PODCAST, it was Passover. The Holy City, Jerusalem, was teaming with pilgrims. The all-important 3 PM Passover sacrifice at the Temple was fast-approaching.
It was arguably single most financially-flourishing day of the year (second only, perhaps, to the Day of Atonement) as far as the corrupt Temple Industrial Complex over which Caiaphas presided was concerned. There was money to be made this day. Lots and lots of money.
But the heavens seemed to conspire against Caiaphas.
Of all the luck (bad luck indeed), a most-rare, hauntingly-eerie atmospheric anomaly threatened to diminish severely Caiaphas’ shady haul of ill-gotten shekels.
At 12 PM, high noon, a mere three hours before the afternoon sacrifice, the sky turned ominously dark. If it stayed that way, there would be no 3 PM Passover Lamb sacrificed that day.
Well, according to Matthew 27 — Read ’em and weep, Caiaphas.
“At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until 3 o’clock.”
A darkness that drove everyone away from the cross as they scrambled for shelter from the encroaching gloom of that midday backness.
Coincidence? No way!
Now there would be no Passover Lamb sacrificed at 3 PM on this day.
Or would there?
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