Light on the Hill

Guest (Male): Pastor James asks an important question we'll carefully considered today on Light on the Hill.

James Kaddis: What's going to happen when it reaches the point that you see something taking place that you know you need to act on? Because any reasonable person in your situation who's walking with the Lord would act on it. What are you going to do? Are you going to say I'm content with being comfortable and I'm going to try to coast and cruise in this world that gives me the comfort that I'm so used to? Or are you going to say I'm going to walk according to the compelling that's just been handed to me. No matter what the consequence may be.

When God through the circumstances puts you in front of a situation where you will be compelled to act, what will you be doing? That's the question that I would ask.

Guest (Female): I have found the peace only comes from you. I have found the joy only comes from you. Cuz all I need is you.

Guest (Male): Today on Light on the Hill, we follow our Lord on his road to the cross. He was mocked, beaten, spit upon, and unjustly accused. Soon he'll be crucified. The question we'll consider today is what will you do the next time you see Christian persecution like this and are compelled to take action? Will you remain on the sidelines or get involved? Here's Pastor James Kaddis in Mark chapter 15.

James Kaddis: Okay. So last week we spent some time talking about Pilate who had chosen to walk in a certain function of neutrality in the hopes that he could maybe from that neutral position convince the crowd to actually extend grace to Christ, knowing full well that he did not want to have anything to do with wrongly condemning a man who did not deserve to be condemned. And Pilate knew that Christ was not guilty as they were charging him, that he was a man who had committed no crime, that he was a man who had the truth that stood behind him.

And of course, all of these things are very very obvious from what we can see in the text. And then of course, Pilate thought that maybe he had extended a really great opportunity by which some people would be able to agree with him on and extend to him this exit for Jesus. when in reality all it did was it made it stronger. It made the hatred in the hearts of the people towards Christ stronger. It made the what was inevitable happen and it sort of accelerated the path to what we know was going to happen with Christ.

Now of course, this is very interesting in that we know that God's timing is God's timing. Things will happen as they happen. God's timing is perfect. We know it and we understand it and especially as it relates to the message of salvation, this becomes something hugely consequential to our discussion and one that's very very important. So the decision has been made by the people. They wanted to crucify him. And so that's what they said. So they said exceedingly, they said crucify him. And then in verse 15 we read so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them and of course delivered Jesus when he had scourged him to be crucified.

Of course, we've talked about the scourging process and we can get into the mechanics of that a little bit later because I think that it is important. But what they did to Jesus was so incredibly unjust. And the scourging that he's talking about was with a tool that was referred to as the Cat of Nine Tails. Often times was referred to that. And basically what it was was it was in essence a piece of wood or often times a big thick leather piece that's wrapped in a way. And what it would have coming out of it was a strand of leather anywhere from between 9 to 25 strands of leather that would come out of it.

Often times it wasn't that much. Sometimes it would be two strips, three strips, four strips. It just depend on on on who had it and what was being used. And within the leather embedded within the leather would be pieces of stone, pieces of bone, and glass in some cases. And what they would do often times is they would take this Cat of Nine Tails. They would dip it in a very acidic type of an acid, something where the acid level was relatively high. And then they would bend the person over, lay them out, and then they would take this whip, put it in their back, allow it to settle in the skin, and then pull out.

And and that's kind of what happened. And a lot of people would go insane or die after nine of these. Of course, we know that Jesus took 39. And that's should be something to speak concerning with respect to the fact that he was a very tough man. Jesus of course was. He took a lot. He was able to stomach a lot and he suffered immensely in going through what he went through. And it's interesting because if any of you go to Israel with me, you will get to go to what we say we call it meaning the house of Caiaphas.

The priest you guys will get to go there and you'll get to see this little cave area where they believed to have lowered Jesus into that cave area. And we went in there. The very first time I went in there, it was one of the most like eye-opening moments of my trip to Israel. This was I still remember this like it was yesterday. This happens in 1994. That was my first trip. And we're standing in this area where they show how the Roman legionnaires would tie up these people when they would hit them. And of course, the guards, the temple guards did the same thing, especially in areas where there would be containments where people would be held in custody.

So you see this little area where they stretch the person over. And as they stretch the person over, that's literally what they do. They stretch them pretty consequentially. I mean they're they're stretched over quite a bit. So they can't like lean back, they can't roll over, they can't protect themselves, they can't put their hands to cover the pain that they're going through. They can't like switch over where they're at. Like none of that can happen, okay? So it's it's just very interesting that you see this set up there and then you see it. And this is where I learned about the acid cuz I didn't even know that that existed.

When I'm over there, I see that there are these they look like little dog bowls that are on the right and the left of the scourging area and they actually look like they're built into the ground. Like they they just look like somebody took a dog bowl, put it in there, and then put cement over it. That's kind of how it how it looks like. And that when they explained to me that what they basically did, and this was obviously stone that it's kind of carved into, they said what they would do. And and of course, you would see it.

That whole area was much smoother than the rest of the stone that it was embedded in. And they explained that's where they would put the acid. And that's of course where they would do what they had done. So the idea here when you read about it is when you read about the fact that he was scourged, that's in essence what's happening. That's exactly what they did. So Christ goes through this. He doesn't have a guilty bone in his body. He's never done anything evil. Everything about Christ is righteous, but it's important to understand this contextually.

This it's a critical place to really to really understand what's going on. So let's look at verse 16. It says and the soldiers led him away into the hall called Praetorium and they called together the whole band. So you understand what the Praetorium is and and kind of the environment of what we're looking at here. You have to keep in mind that when Herod built the temple, it was already controversial as it was. Don't get me wrong. The Jews loved having a temple by which they could come and they could worship the Lord. And of course, as many of you know, maybe some of you did not know, but the temple that Herod built did not have an Ark of the Covenant in it.

Some people assume that that it did. It didn't. It was actually the first temple to be built that didn't have the Ark of the Covenant. As a matter of fact, a lot of people believe that the Ezra era temple also did not have the Ark of the Covenant. And actually if you had believed that, your assertion in that would be correct. As far as we know, the last time we have any record of the Ark of the Covenant being anywhere near us was in the temple during the time of Nebuchadnezzar, during the time of Jeremiah, during the time of Daniel.

And of course, when Zedekiah was taken away by the Babylonians, of course, there's a lot of beliefs as into what happened with that holy of holies, with the Ark of the Covenant in the holy of holies. But the prominent view is that Jeremiah himself took it as well as many other articles from the temple and he actually hid it somewhere and no one ever found it ever since that time, which is very viable. It's a it's a real possibility that it was taken and hidden. Some people say somewhere around the Temple Mount area. We just don't even know.

But this temple would not have had the Ark of the Covenant. Of course, Ezra's temple would not have had the Ark of the Covenant in it either. So the only temple that had the Ark of the Covenant would have been Solomon's temple. And of course, I would suspect that the Antichrist's temple will also not have the Ark of the Covenant in it. Maybe it will. I I don't know if we discover it. I just don't know. I I kind of have a hard time thinking that that would be the case. But anyway, so when this temple got built, you had a big problem.

And the big problem was Rome needed to guard the area, okay? Cuz you're not building the temple for some pagan practice. You were building the temple so that the Jews could come and they could worship. And it was done to spec biblically. But the problem is you can't have Gentiles, meaning the Romans, right? You can't have them guarding the area, walking, doing foot patrols in the courtyard of the temple. So what they did as a compromise, and it was kind of brilliant of Herod, is they actually had a fortress that was there. It was sort of posted there.

It would have been on the northwest corner of the whole infrastructure there. And think about it like this. If you're staring at the western wall today in the modern day and you sort of look to the left and you were to walk further, you would see where the Praetorium would actually have been placed. So the Praetorium is is you're seeing these. They look like it just looks like a castle basically. But what they were where they were lookout posts that kind of led to an area that was on the edge outside of the temple. So what would happen was the Romans would patrol the courtyard without being in the courtyard.

And if something happened and someone was going crazy or there was an uprising in court you know, the Romans needed to handle it, they would run from the area of the Praetorium, down these stairs into the courtyards, quickly sweep up whoever was causing the problem, bring them back up and try them or do whatever needed to be done. By the way, it's very interesting because you can picture this story manifesting where the apostle Paul is in a moment where he is perceived as being someone who was a complete troublemaker. And if you remember the way that the story tells us in the book of Acts, you can actually put it together when he gets arrested in Jerusalem.

It's a very interesting story. He's in the Temple Mount area. He's worshiping the Lord. He is doing his thing. People get upset by in essence his presence there. The the Roman guards recognize that something is wrong. They mistake the apostle Paul is being someone who was maybe trying to lead some kind of an insurrection. And the apostle Paul as he's being taken up the stairs away from the courtyard and from the area of worship as he's being taken up the stairs to be moved into the Praetorium, he asks to be able to stop and to address the people.

And so he stops. He speaks to them in Hebrew. He says I'm going to the Gentiles. They all lose their minds. They go crazy. I mean completely crazy. And then the Bible tells us that the soldiers, the Roman soldiers line them up. They're getting ready to strap him over the same way that they did Jesus and they are getting ready to give him the scourging. And he looks up at them and he says are you going to do that to a Roman citizen? And then sure enough we see the apostle Paul beginning to contend in the political arena and actually uses the political infrastructure to provide an advantage for the gospel being preached.

Kind of an interesting situation. So that 's what 's happening here. Jesus is now being taken up into the Praetorium where he is now they're going to prepare him in essence to be sacrificed. And that's a a crazy thing to think, but that's exactly what's going on. So look at what happens here. Verse 17 and they clothed him with purple and planted a crown of thorns and put it about his head. Now we should probably talk about the crown of thorns for just a second. If you go to even to this day, I wouldn't call it a function of some kind of display.

It's just the way it is. You will see this area outside this house where there are these thorns. And these these thorn bushes are pretty intimidating looking. And they have thorns on them that are anywhere from between I would probably say an half an inch to 2 in long. And they're so hard that they could be pounded into softwood like a nail could, okay? So that's what's happening here. That's the picture that's being depicted. And of course, they were making the crown with that, putting it on his head. Of course, you you would understand the fact that there'd be tremendous amounts of copious blood loss as a result of this happening.

So you know, all of this happened and it's a sort of a a thing where it's it's it's solidified now. They're mocking him, they're putting him down, they they clothe them in purple is what the Bible says. They put the crown of thorns on him. They put it on his head and it says they began to salute him. Hail, king of the Jews. And they smote him on the head with a reed and did spit upon him and bowing their knees worshiped him. Notice this. And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple from him and put his own clothes on him and led him out to crucify him.

Now I should probably note this and we're going to speak about this one person. Matter of fact, we'll talk about him right now. We'll We'll actually go over this verse today. We'll also go over the verse next week. But they treat him terribly. And they cause him to suffer immensely. The Bible actually gives us an account in terms of saying that they actually beat him while they blindfolded him. And and I can tell you this right now. I've been in a pretty good amount of fights, my my own fair share of fights. And and I can just tell you this right now.

If you can brace for a hit that's coming, it's way better on you than if it comes out of nowhere and you just got sucker punched, okay? Let let me just tell you that there's something to be said about that when you don't know. And so this whole idea of them hitting him as hard as they were, where he didn't even know where the punches were coming from, it was terrible. What they did to him was terrible. What they did to him was completely unthinkable. And I think that what's happening right now, especially in the world in which we live today, is there are so many people, so many people that are being persecuted like Christ was in those days because of the fact that they choose to represent Christ.

And we see it happening again and again and again and again and again. And it's terrible what's happening. It's terrible how the enemy is seeking to exploit anybody who would choose to glorify God, anybody who would choose to do the right thing. And he's doing it in so many different ways. It's not even funny. And quite frankly, it's happening more and more and more and more. And as the body of Christ, guys, listen to me. We're seeing this happen more and more, especially in the United States of America. Look and see what these people that are literally inspired by Satan.

I call them Satan worshipers. Look at what these Satan worshipers are doing to people who are trying to take a stand for righteousness, trying to do the right thing. I mean did we ever think we would see the day where people were proud of? They take pride in exploiting somebody who's a newly minted widow with children without a father. I mean imagine. It's becoming a sport. It's like people love to play the game and especially terrible because none of it is founded in truth. And yet the world seems to reward these Satan worshipers that continue to do the evil things that they do.

And God will not be mocked. That's a thing. God will not be mocked. We speak the truth and it's amazing the kind of things that people will say. You you would be mind boggled if you knew the kind of messages that I got every now and again for people that like I could never show those messages to my wife. Never. Why? Because I choose to take a stand for the nation of Israel? Because we choose to stand for righteousness, because we call out things that they're that are happening? Look, I have to bring out a critical aspect of this that a lot of people tend to not talk about because if they do, it requires them to have their necks out on the chopping block.

And that's this. They're mocking our Lord. They're putting him down. They're spitting on him. They're unjustly accusing him. He's about to be killed for you and for me. He gets killed. He resurrects from the dead and he's still taking the hits. It's happening through his body, the body of Christ. It's happening in other circumstances. And in this very moment there were a massive contingency of people that were watching every bit of this persecution taking place. And we're not doing anything about it. They weren't acting on it. They weren't saying anything. As a matter of fact, I would venture to say that many of them probably didn't even feel affected by what they were seeing in the moment.

Let me read the last verse that we'll land on. And this is an important one. Verse 21. And they compel one Simon, a Cyrenian, who passed by coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus to bear his cross. Now we'll get into why that name being given to us is important. We might even speculate next week a little bit on who Alexander and Rufus is. Maybe we'll get into a little a little bit of that conversation. But this man was compelled to do something that nobody in human history will ever be able to say they had the privilege of being able to do.

He gets compelled to take the very bar that would have been strapped across Jesus's back. The cross being that would attach to it, he himself was compelled to take that along the road as his master was being beat up. Now this is where I want us to rest in the application cuz I think it's important. I am going to go as far as to say that I will never blame any of you for not inserting yourself into a difficult situation when you see Christian persecution taking place. When you see your Lord being mocked, whether it be through somebody else getting hurt, whether it be through a series of circumstances that you're beginning to discern, it doesn't matter.

When you see that happening I'm not going to blame you. I'm not for not getting into it and contending the way you ought to be. I'm not going to do it. I think you could waste a lot of time doing that and I think it could be hugely detrimental. But what happens? And this is the question that I want you to think about deeply because you are going to be confronted with it. You will. I promise you. What happens when things get so bad that eventually the ones who are hurting him, beating him, mocking him, cursing him.

What happens when those people where it gets so bad with what they're doing that those people compel you? What's going to happen when it reaches the point that you see something taking place that you know you need to act on? Because any reasonable person in your situation who's walking with the Lord would act on it. What are you going to do? Are you going to say I'm content with being comfortable and I'm going to try to coast and cruise in this world that gives me the comfort that I'm so used to? Or are you going to say I'm going to walk according to the compelling that's just been handed to me.

I see Pilate not wanting to be inserted into the situation and even when compelled not doing the right thing. And then I see somebody on the other end of it, the Cyrenian, who is compelled and immediately upon being compelled acts. And some of you might argue well he was compelled by a Roman soldier. And if they don't act once compelled, then of course they have consequences themselves that they have to deal with. No matter what the consequence may be. When God through the circumstances puts you in front of a situation where you will be compelled to act, what will you be doing?

That's the question that I would ask. What will you be doing? Will you be seeking to absolve yourself of the moment that exists? Or will you allow God to use you that you may be inserted into the situation and maybe just maybe be counted worthy to carry the cross.

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us today for Light on the Hill. What you just heard is one part of a study in Mark's gospel from Pastor James Kaddis. You can hear it again at lightonthehillradio.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Not long ago, Pastor James released his new book on the first half of Revelation. It's entitled The Last Book. He points out that Revelation isn't a book of fear, but rather a book of hope. Pastor James will help you understand the world we live in and current events through a biblical lens, preparing your heart for what lies ahead.

Get a copy by going to lightonthehillradio.com or through Amazon. We're so grateful for your support. Each donation that's sent in is an investment in what God is doing over the radio and internet. Lives are being impacted daily for the glory of God as a result. If you'd like to stand with us through providing either a one-time donation or ongoing monthly support, please visit lightonthehillradio.com. While you're there, you can also send us an email. It would be great to hear from you and have you share the station you listen to as well. Just visit lightonthehillradio.com and then click on contact.

As we return to Pastor James, he emphasizes this is a time in human history when we cannot afford to sit on the sidelines.

James Kaddis: Ltd you be seeking to absolve yourself of the moment that exists? Or will you allow God to use you that you may be inserted into the situation and maybe just maybe be counted worthy to carry the cross. It's a heavy question. It's not one that I feel very good about asking and then moving on to the next text. It's a question that I feel we must stop and contemplate deeply because I'm here to tell you that the world is becoming something completely different than we've ever known it in human history. I'm here to tell you that we've never seen spiritual warfare like what we're seeing right now.

I'm here to tell you that we are clearly clearly in the last days. It's very obvious. Question I would ask you is what are you going to do about it? Are you going to allow fear and discomfort and concern and worry cause you to continue to rest in the place of comfort, not confronting or dealing with the area that God has compelled you to function in? Or are you going to just put it all out there and let God do the work that he wants to do that the profound effect he wants to have using you on other people will take place.

I'm here to say that we're running out of time. And it's my prayer that when compelled you will carry what you need to carry along whatever road God has called you to instead of running and not considering the massive responsibility that you have.

Guest (Male): Remember you are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.

Guest (Female): I have found the peace only comes from you. I have found the joy only comes from you. Cuz all I need is you.