Words of Jesus Podcast - Eternal Consequences

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

...your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 1 Corinthians 2***113: Barabbas Released And Jesus MockedMatthew 27:15-30; Mark 15:6-19; Luke 23:13-25; John 18:39-19:16Barabbas Released And Jesus MockedWhen Pilate could find nothing in Jesus worthy of death, he said to Jesus’ accusers:            “Ye have a custom that I should release unto you one at the Passover. Will ye therefore that I release unto you the King of the Jews?”            The people cried out:            “Not this man, but Barabbas.”            Barabbas was a robber.            So Barrabas–the insurrectionist, robber, and murderer–was released; and Jesus was turned over to be crucified.            He was scourged by Pilate, and the soldiers who guarded him covered him with a purple robe and placed a crown of thorns on his head. Then, as they struck him with their hands, they said:            “Hail, King of the Jews!”            Then Pilate said to the people:            “Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him.”            As Jesus came out, garbed in purple and wearing the crown of thorns, Pilate said:             “Behold the man!”            The chief priests and officers cried out:            “Crucify him, crucify him.”            Pilate said to them:            “Take ye him and crucify him, for I find no fault in him.”            Jesus’ accusers replied:             “We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.”            When he heard this, Pilate was afraid. He asked Jesus:            “Whence art thou?”            Jesus did not answer.            Pilate tried again, saying:            “Speakest thou not unto me? Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?”            Jesus answered him, saying:            “Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above. Therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the...

Music Think Red Ink Ministries presents The Words of Jesus Series with Don C. Harris Music Hello my friends, welcome once again to the Words of Jesus series. We are in chapter 113 now and what we're dealing with now is the third plan to try to get Jesus killed. They failed with the high priest.

They considered what he said was blasphemy, but it was a very weak argument. Then they carried him to the Romans, and unfortunately the Romans just didn't find anything wrong with him. So how are we going to get the Romans to execute Jesus Christ? We're going to have to do it somehow. We can't really say that he was an insurrectionist. We can't really say that he was a zealot.

We can't say that he worked against Rome. None of these things can be said. What are we going to do? Well, somebody had the great idea. And, well, actually the idea presented itself. Well, let's go ahead and read where Barabbas is released, how he was released, and that Jesus is eventually mocked.

Then Pilate could find nothing in Jesus worthy of death, said to Jesus' accusers, You have a custom that I should release unto you one at the Passover. Now this was done and said by Pilate, but Pilate was trying to give them an opportunity to spare the life of Jesus. His intention was not what the Jews decided to do. His intention was to try to release Jesus. He says that you have a custom that I would release somebody from the prison to you at the Passover. Evidently it was some agreement that they'd made in advance. Will you therefore

that I release unto you the King of the Jews? Here's an opportunity for you boys. Why don't you take this opportunity? Why do you want to kill this man? He's innocent. The people cried out, not this man, but Barabbas. Now, Barabbas was a robber. So Barabbas, the insurrectionist, the robber, the murderer, was released. Jesus was turned over to be crucified. He was scourged by Pilate, and the soldiers who guarded him covered him with a purple robe and placed a crown of thorns on his head. Then as they struck him with their hands, they said, hail, King of the Jews.

Then Pilate said to the people, behold, I bring him forth to you, that you may know that I find no fault in him. Jesus came out garbed in purple, wearing the crown of thorns. Pilate said, behold the man. The chief priest and officers cried out, crucify him, crucify him.

Pilate said to them, take ye him and crucify him, for I find no fault in him. Jesus' accusers replied, we have a law and by our law he ought to die because he made himself to be God. That's not what it says. He didn't make himself out to be God. Jesus never ever claimed to be God. Why are they going to crucify Him? Because He made Himself out to be the Son of God. When Jesus said that He's the Son of God, He puts Himself into a line of royalty that the religion of the Jews simply would not allow. There has always been, well how can I say that? I can't say there's always been, but by golly at this present time there was something known as, Paul called it, the Godhead. Understanding that they should have had and they repeated the Shema every day

They would have heard that the Lord Though he is plural though. He is a Godhead is one God They would have understood that because that's exactly what the Shema says. When the Bible uses the word Elohim, it is the plural of Eloah. They knew this. They knew it instinctively, they knew it repetitively, they knew it by rote, they knew it by memory, they knew it by tradition,

they knew it in every way a person can know it. Yet, they ignored it. They would not, they could not let this man reign over them. They did not want him to reign over them. So they said that he makes himself to be the son of God. When he heard this, Pilate was afraid. He asked Jesus, when art thou? I believe he whispered this to him as he stood there beside him on that portico, on that porch that day, looking over out at the people saying, behold the man. And he said, whence art thou? Where did you come from? What's going on here?

Pilate was desperate to know. Jesus did not answer. Pilate tried again. Speakest thou not unto me? Knowest that I have the power to crucify thee? And have power to release thee? Jesus answered him saying Thou couldst have no power at all. Except that we are of the above from above

therefore he that delivered thee me unto thee hath the greater sin again Pilate sought to release Jesus but the people shouted if thou let this man go thou art not Caesar's friend whosoever maketh himself a king speaks against Caesar. Pilate took Jesus before the judgment seat in the place called the pavement known in Hebrew as Gabatha. And it was about the sixth hour. Pilate said to the Jews, Behold your King!" The Jews shouted, "'Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!'

Pilate answered, "'Shall I crucify your King?' The chief priest replied, something that will ring in the annals of time and memoriam for the Jews and all the people that followed this religious leadership of this day. Shall I crucify your king? The chief priest replied, We have no king but Caesar.

Unbelievable. They spurned and separated and I mean, they they hated and resented the people that they called publicans. Who were the publicans? They were the Jews who were employed by the Romans to collect taxes from the Jews. They were considered treasonous. They wanted nothing to do with them, yet they had no trouble at all saying, we have no king but Caesar. Then Pilate delivered Jesus to the chief priest to be crucified.

They took him and led him away. I want to propose an idea here. This is strictly my opinion. It's just my musings. And you can take this or leave it. But do you know what Bar-Abba means? Barabbas, his name, comes from two Hebrew words Bar-Abba. The Bible says that the Jews went through the crowd and told them to ask for

Barabbas. Do you think perhaps? I mean, just stretching the imagination a little bit. We're talking to a crowd of people who just accepted Jesus as he descended from the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem on that great day. They call Palm Sunday, it wasn't Sunday at all, but nonetheless as he had descended into Jerusalem and they said, Hosanna, Hosanna to the king. These were the people that they had to deal with. These people

believed that he was actually the son of their father God. You know what Bar Abba means? Bar Abba is the son of the father. Do you think that they may have used this term to get the people to ask for the Son of the Father? And in the rushed and loud and murmuring crowd, it sounded very much like they were asking for Barabbas. Barabbas by the way

is the Greek form of the name Baraba. You'll notice that Greek names always many times have an S on the end of them to distinguish them from the words son of the father because the son of the father is son of the father but if we say son of the father putting an S on it it becomes a name it becomes a proper name that's why yesu is known as Jesus we pronounce the J differently but his his name was Jesus in Greek because that S denoted a name. And if he called him Jesu or Yeshua or the word, the name that comes from deliverer or Savior, it wasn't necessarily his name it would have been a title but his name required that Greek s to be added so it's very

possible that these people were out there chanting Bar-Abba because they wanted released to them the son of their father God. It could have been. How did they change this entire crowd's attitude from just a handful of hours prior? I don't know. But isn't it interesting that the name Barabbas, Bar Abba in Greek, in Hebrew, would have been exactly what those people wanted. Those people, they didn't want Jesus to be executed, it very well could be that the chant was to give us the

Son of our Father God. It's just a thought and as I say it's my musing you can take it or not but I wondered how how did they change these people so dramatically in such a short amount of time to ask for Bar-Abba moving now to chapter 114 we are going to read about Jesus' trip to Calvary, trip to Golgotha where he is eventually going to be slain and executed. After Jesus had been mocked and the purple robe had been

taken from him, they dressed him again in his own clothes and led him away to be crucified. The guards forced Simon a Cyrenian, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry the cross. Two common criminals also sentenced to death were in the procession. Well they're gonna have an execution. They're gonna have a Roman crucifixion. So they pulled the men who were scheduled for execution to be executed on that day. There were a large number of people following, many of them women, who had bewailed and lamented for Jesus.

Hearing their crying, Jesus turned to them and said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming in which they will say, Blessed is the barren, and the wombs that never bear, and the paps which never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us, and to the hills cover us. For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" Jesus is asking a very profound question at this point.

Jesus knew that it was a very different thing for Him to be here and be among his disciples working the miracles of God doing things that are just unquestionable, well maybe not unquestionable but certainly undeniably supernatural. He was proving at every point His power, the power of His Father, His willingness to serve his father, and miracles that transformed lives. This was that green tree. There was a time when

this tree, Christ, the newly reborn church, that Israel was coming into this covenant of faith with Abraham as they should. There were people being regenerated and being changed. Man, this was the heyday, if you will will Jesus didn't use the term heyday but he did call it the green tree he says you know when I go away it's gonna be different it's going to be as time goes by drier and drier and drier. The branch will become browner and browner. It's going to become less and less from now. Ladies, what you're seeing today, it's bad. Yeah, I understand. But there's coming a day when it's going

to be worse. There's gonna, I know you're concerned about your children. I know you're concerned about the future of your family. But there will come a day when you'll wish you didn't even have children. You know, I don't know. Anybody with any sense can look at the world today and I would say that on top of the list of thinking people anyway the most fearful thing that that we could even conceive in our mind is to raise a child in the environment that we've created on this earth. But the church essentially has been guilty of or at least responsible for

what we have in the area of in the pursuit of some kind of religion and some kind of relationship to God man this thing is so messed up and it's so confusing and it's so ridiculous and you have to dispense with logic and common sense and good thinking and proper definition of words you have to change the Bible the way it says things and you have to have different translations and transliterations and all kinds of stuff to try to make sense of what we believe.

We have more affinity for the books on the Christian bookstore shelves than we do for the Scriptures themselves. It's really bad. And in the day when a person's main concern was seeing their children in the kingdom of God Not necessarily seeing them in a good Ivy League college or have you know making a good living or driving a nice car Or having beautiful children But when it was it was the concern of parents that their children see the kingdom of God And it was the concern of parents that their children see the kingdom of God. There was a strong concern about just exactly how are they going to do that?

How are we going to accomplish that? Jesus is saying, ladies, you're living in the best time. I understand why you're weeping. I understand why you're sad. Boy, if they do this in the green tree, what's gonna be done in the dry? It's going to be so bad that people are going to essentially pray to die. Pray that the rocks of the mountains will fall on them. Hide them from the face of Him that comes. Because this isn't the end. The end is worse than today. Chapter 115 deals with the actual execution, we call it crucifixion, of Jesus Christ.

When they arrived at Calvary, Jesus was given vinegar mingled with gall, which he tasted lightly, but would not drink. It said that this vinegar mixed with gall was a pharmaceutical concoction that perhaps would alleviate the pain that he was about to endure. It said, I don't know that to be a fact, but it is said. In that particular case, Jesus is, I can't help but believe that he is actually thinking back to the prayer in Gethsemane when he says, if this cup would pass from me, then that's fine as long as it's your will. But if not, I'll drink it to the dregs. He's not talking about drinking the vinegar mingled with gall. He's saying this cup, this persecution, this execution, this death, I'm going to taste it all. I'll taste it all.

And if it was indeed a concoction, a pharmaceutical concoction, to alleviate pain, Jesus refused it. The other speculation is that when Jesus said, I thirst, He was given this on a sponge, on a stick, brought up to His mouth, and when He tasted, He would not drink. It could have been a mocking on the part of the people.

Oh, you're thirsty, huh? Hey, next time you're thirsty, go get yourself a glass of apple cider vinegar. The apple cider sounds good, the vinegar sounds really bad. The apple cider might have a nice taste to it, but the vinegar that comes behind it, if it does anything in the world, it does not quench your thirst. And perhaps this was a mocking gesture on the part of the people, we don't know, but nonetheless we see that Jesus would not drink. Now Jesus and the two common criminals were nailed to crosses, one on the left, one on the right, and Jesus in

were nailed to crosses, one on the left, one on the right, and Jesus in the center. Jesus said, Father forgive them for they know not what they do. What he said here, it's important and it's profound and it's a beautiful thought. But the weight of what he is saying here I don't think is considered properly. You know, many of us in a situation, if we have the forgiveness of God within ourselves, if we do indeed love our brother as we love ourselves, and we do care about them we can see them doing things that are just not right they may be doing things against us and you know with with Peter's promise Peter was promised that although a person when they sin against you they may not be sinning against me, and I'm adding

words and thought to what the Lord God actually said, but they may not be sinning against me, but they are sinning against you, and I take that very very seriously, and should you decide to forgive them, I'll forgive them. If you decide to retain their sins, I'll retain them. In other words, I'm going, I'll forgive them. If you decide to retain their sins, I'll retain them. In other words, I'll avenge you. I will avenge you. Now, it is, I think, it's always proper to forgive and to let things go. But you see, I understand that within myself. Perhaps there's a little egotistical and perhaps a little bit of selfishness involved. It's true. Because I fully understand, fully

understand that if I don't forgive people, their trespasses, neither will my Heavenly Father forgive my trespasses. Therefore, I forgive freely. I forgive and forgive and forgive. And my intention is to make sure that I don't have anything against anybody and that nobody has anything against me as much as is in my power to actually accomplish. But that's all within myself. That's all within the purview of my brain. I'm able to deduce that. I'm able to see that as an important thing. But the weight of what Jesus said behind this is much more than that. It's much more than that because he was in a unique position as the Son of God and the Son of man to be able to say, to be able to formulate a sentence, a statement,

a declaration like this with the mind of God and with the flesh of man, He was able to understand that, Father, they do not know what they are doing. He could have easily added here that, I know they don't know because I'm one of them. I know what it's like to think with a brain that only operates on like seven to 11%. You remember what you gave Adam? They don't have that anymore.

The spirit you put in Adam, they don't have that anymore. Their intention is not to serve. Their intention is fleshly and it's selfish and it's wrong. And it leads them to do things that they don't know. Also, I wonder if he wasn't saying to the father, you know, they were asking for Barabbas. Not Barabbas. Forgive them. They don't know what they're doing.

Then Pilate made a sign that was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin and was put on the top of Jesus's cross and it read Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews. This was Pilate's crowning achievement, the crowning action of his participation in the crucifixion. Alright, time's gone. Think Red Ink, till I see you again. Bye bye. You've been listening to Don C. Harris of Think Red Ink Ministries. Email don at thinkredinc.com. That's thinkredink.com.

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