 All right, well good evening everyone. We are super excited for tonight. We have a different format tonight. If you're wondering like, am I at the right church? What happened to that guy over there? There's two. You know, as I was sharing with you guys, you know, we were gonna do something much different for our Sunday night service that we have here. And so I am super excited to have a guest, a friend of mine, we've done this before on pastor's perspective a couple of times. And I was thinking about, you know, we're at Easter or Palm Sunday and there's so many things happening that I'm like, you know, let's do something different that will kind of encourage us as believers and even non-Christians if you're here and you're not a Christian. We're just gonna talk about the historical Jesus and we're gonna look at the basically events from Palm Sunday throughout the week into Friday and the weekend which is considered the Resurrection Sunday. And so, you know, Dr. Joe Holden is here. He's gonna be part of this whole conversation. I'm gonna be asking him questions and I'll be carrying a conversation with him throughout this time. So thank you for being here today. It's good to be with you, Robert. So what we're gonna do is I wanna start off with a video. So if you guys can play the video, we'll start this as an introduction. Historical figure? I don't know. I think he was just a person. I don't know. A normal person like us? He was a selfless person. I have no clue. He was a man. I think he was marketing genius because he got people to believe him. I don't think he's the son of God. I don't feel believe that at all. If David Copperfield was in the day of Jesus, he would be Jesus. I'm pretty sure he existed. Like I'm not gonna say that he didn't exist. He was God's son, but so was Gandhi and so was Muhammad and so was, you know, we're all God's children. Jesus is someone I pray to. Well, Jesus is my Lord and Savior. And he to me is the like symbol of just ultimate forgiveness and ultimate love. He's sort of that like constant figure in my life. Jesus is also Arisa in Arabic and he was a messenger as well. He was just extremely enlightened like religiously and morally. Was somebody that just tried to impart wisdom on others and make the world a better place. I think he saw something that a lot of people didn't see and still don't see in others. And I think that's just a lot of love and hope. Jesus sort of seemed like an ominous figure. You know, he just, he was God and it was hard to relate to him, but I think as I've grown in my faith a lot, I've really started to see Jesus as my closest friend. You know, Joe, we're Palm Sunday. And you know, when we think about Palm Sunday, we think about Palm Sunday and we think about Easter and everything in between gets kind of fuzzy. We forget that there was a lot of things that really happened during the life of Christ and that final week of Jesus when he was on this earth before he went to the cross. You know, right now schools are celebrating spring break. You know, it used to be called Easter break, right? And spring break and so a lot of schools are out. People look at this time for vacation. I remember when I was in a Christian, one of the things I enjoyed about spring break was just going party, you know? You don't think about what went on in the life of Christ, of course, not being a Christian. But one of the things that I see during this time and perhaps you can talk a little bit more about this is that liberal scholars will tend to come up with shows, documentaries on the history channel, different places on television where they begin to try to debunk the historical Jesus. They purposely wait for this time and I kind of did a quick little search on what's out there right now or what's been out there. Some of the titles that some of these secular historians have done, one title is called Secret Lives of Jesus. Another one is Who Is Jesus Christ? Another one is called The Jesus Strand, A Search for DNA, that's another popular one. They're trying to find Jesus a DNA. One is called Lost Worlds, Jesus, Jerusalem, Jesus is Jerusalem. And then recently Rob Bell came out with this documentary, this thing about his life and he's calling it the heretic. That's the commentary or the documentary. And he's explaining what he believes what he believes. And he's one obviously we know that has always tried to reduce the Christian faith. And so some of these things that are happening, I mean, what do you see in your profession when it comes to this time in liberal theologians? Well, it seems like when you look at the academia, you look at universities, you look at some seminaries, even some seminaries that are Christian seminaries, they're talking about things that are all about the historical Jesus. And as Robert said, the historical Jesus is the real Jesus that lived in time and space history 2000 years ago. It's not the one we read about in the scriptures. You see, for you and me, we don't have to go look for the historical Jesus because the historical Jesus is already in the text. So there's an assumption that lies at the heart of the search for the historical Jesus among these scholars today. And that is that this isn't enough. This is only footprints in the sand. And footprints in the sand can only tell you something very limited about what we're searching for. Maybe the height, the weight, the size of the foot of the person walking on the sand on the seashore. And that's how they approach Jesus. And that's unfortunate because these are the most well-attested documents that we have that tell us about Jesus. In fact, Jesus is mentioned in over a dozen extra biblical documents as being a real historical person. And it tells us a lot about him. Now, what do you do with the person who claims to be an atheist? And they say, well, I don't believe in the Bible. And therefore I don't believe that Jesus was a real person, probably the result of a combination of stories about several individuals. How do you reach an atheist during this time when they're denying the fact that Jesus actually ever lived on earth? Sure, that's a great question. How many of you have talked to an atheist within the last year or two? Okay, even though atheism is only about 2% of our population here in America, in large part, the further east you go, especially into Russia, you're gonna get more atheistic worldviews. But the best thing to do with atheists is discover what kind of atheists they are. There's either soft, agnostic atheists, which means that, simply this, that I just don't know, and therefore I haven't made a decision on the issue. And then there's the hard, agnostic atheist that says, you can't know, and we definitely know there is no God. Now, everybody heard of Richard Dawkins, maybe Christopher Hitchens, Michael Martin, and some of these other atheists. Those are what you call hard, agnostic atheists. And they would take a different response than the soft atheists. The soft atheist, it's great to deal with that kind of person because they're open. It's the hard atheist that poses a threat to Christianity, and we can take their arguments one by one based on whatever they bring up. But keep the discussion on Jesus and the intellectual and evidential support that undergirds the whole Jesus story, especially the Passion Week and the Resurrection. Now, what if, let's say, you established the existence of Christ, and I think most secular historians, and correct me if I'm wrong, they know that a man by the name of Jesus lived on this earth. I mean, there's no denial, if they're really honest, they know that, yes, Jesus lived on this earth. The question is whether he is God and whether he rose from the dead and all of that, right? But there is also another group of people that will deny the crucifixion. I've read something recently that said there's no evidence that the Romans crucified prisoners 2,000 years ago. How would you refute that? First of all, I would say, let's go look at the Roman documents and see what they say. These are extra biblical Roman historical documents that were written shortly after the crucifixion of Christ. Let me give you an example. There is an author named Seutonius. He's a Roman historian. He works for the Roman government. And he tells us that Jesus was crucified under the reign of Pontius Pilate, the prefect of Judea. That document says it and spells it out. In fact, it even says this whole Christian superstition arose again in Rome in the later years after he was put to death. We also can go into Jewish literature, even the Talmud. Has everybody heard of the Talmud? It's a Jewish piece of literature that talks about their traditions and their different belief systems. And even in that document, it says that Jesus was hanged on a tree on the eve of Passover. So that tells you that Friday, Jesus was crucified, hung on the tree doesn't mean with a rope, it just means nailed to a tree across, if you will. So now that we've established the historical Jesus, we know he died on the cross, I wanna look at this final week of Jesus. I wanna see what went on. And so I wanna take a look at this because I think looking at it from a chronological order, I think helps us out Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Matthew chapter 21 verses one through 11 kind of gives us the triumphal entry. And I wanna start with that. Today's Palm Sunday, we celebrate Palm Sunday. There's a date that comes to mind, March 29th, AD 33. How accurate is that date? Most historians will say this is the date that all this happened. Is that accurate? Yes, if it's not, it's really close to it. I mean, we have different dates out there. Some say 29 AD, some say 30, some say up to 34. But the point is that if we see this as a historical, what we call synchronism, that means that there was a historical event that occurred here and it follows the biblical progression, the dating in this area makes it plausible of your belief. It makes it reasonable to assume that that date is it or right around the immediate vicinity of it. So the dating is pretty firm. There's not too much flexibility there. Now, as we go on into the story, here's Jesus. He tells two disciples, go and get occult and tell them, if they ask you, what are you doing? The Lord is in need of it, which is kind of ironic that Jesus is in need, right? It's where the ones are always in need. And so we come to this place and they go to get the occult and all. And so we have what we call traditionally Palm Sunday or Passion Week as we're in. Why do we call it Palm Sunday? Why can't we call it anything else? Well, we can call it other things, but traditionally it's been called Palm Sunday because the people who received Jesus into Jerusalem, riding on that young donkey, were laying palm branches down on the ground so the king of kings could ride on top of the palm branches. So the first order of business was do you have a jacket? If you have a jacket, you wanna lay it down on the ground in front of Jesus as he's coming by on the donkey so he can walk over your jacket so he doesn't have to walk on that dusty road. A king deserves to walk on royalty. So the people were actually throwing down their jackets and when people didn't have them, they would go get the palms from the trees and lay them down instead. Hence the term Palm Sunday. Jesus rides into Jerusalem. And this was fulfilled just according to Zechariah 9.9 that said it would. It's another fulfillment of prophecy. So why palm branches? Palms are awesome. I love palm branches because in the ancient Near East, those branches were symbolic of life, of nourishment. You get dates from palms, remember. They're also typical of what you'd call a broom. And a broom is to sweep out dirt or things you don't want. And when you find out when Jesus goes and cleanses the temple a couple days later in Matthew 21, you're gonna see that he's gonna sweep out the leaven from the temple, which is another picture of how we practice the Seder today. The Jewish families, they get rid of all the leaven in the house, they sweep it out. Well, that's what Jesus is doing in the temple along with them. Does that make sense? So you have this huge procession, this parade, if you will. It was almost like they were giving Jesus a red carpet kind of experience. Here's Jesus coming through. And people are singing Hosanna, shouting Hosanna. And so as he's walking through here, I'm sure a lot of things were going on in the minds of the Romans because the Romans understood what it meant to see a king come through with the way they did parades, which was a lot more, I guess, the experience was a lot more vibrant, I guess. It was better than what they saw. And so when the people laid the branches on the ground, what were they expecting? I mean, were they really embracing Jesus at that moment as the son of God from heaven, the Messiah? Or were they thinking of something else? You know, to me, I don't wanna add or take away from the text. It seemed like they were giving the red carpet treatment to Jesus and they were receiving him as the long-awaited Messiah. Now, those things change in just a matter of hours and days when he said, boy, I would have gathered you as a hen gathered her chicks, but you would not, it says. So the obstinance and the fickleness of the human nature would certainly play itself out. But at this point, it seems like the people was receiving him as such, as the Messiah, the long-awaited Zechariah 99. Were they thinking of more of a political leader, perhaps? More than a spiritual king, somebody coming in, bringing in the kingdom of God? Because I know they were under the impression of the Romans, right? Absolutely, no doubt. When people look for a Messiah, traditionally it would have been, this Messiah should be riding on a stallion, decked out in armor, drawing the sword because this Messiah is gonna take us away from the domination of Rome. Remember, Rome had their boot on the Jewish neck at that point in time, and they were looking for Jesus to overthrow, and he would take over the kingship. Get rid of the emperor, get rid of Herod, get rid of Pontius Pilate, and you got it made. Jesus is gonna be our next king politically. Unfortunately, they misunderstood the whole story leading up to this point. Even the disciples had a little problem remembering certain things, didn't they? Now, the other question is why a colt? Why not a horse? Wow, hey, horses? That symbolizes warfare. That symbolizes strength. But when you ride a colt, and now remember, a colt is a young donkey, okay? And most likely that young donkey that Jesus was sitting on was accompanied by the female donkey, the mother donkey, or else the little donkey probably wouldn't go. It'd be very stubborn. But sitting on a young donkey, it tells us that Christ the Messiah was humble. The humility he's coming in, and the lowliness he's coming in, and the softness he's coming in is trying to send a message, I'm not here to be your warrior, political warrior, Messiah. I'm here to be your meek, your mild, but strong Jesus, your spiritual savior. And ultimately, those warrior things will take care of themselves in time because he will come back in the second coming as a warrior, won't he? Riding a white horse in the name written on his thigh, what is it? King of kings, Lord of lords. That's right. And he's gonna take care of business. So the first coming was the cross, humility. The second coming, he's coming with the crown in fierce judgment. And all this was a prophecy, like Zechariah 9.9, which I'll read this for those of you who are watching. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion, shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem, behold, your King is coming to you righteous and having salvation. Is he humble and mounted on a donkey on a colt, the fall of a donkey. So that's a prophecy that was obviously fulfilled. This was something that Jesus was fulfilling in their eyes, in front of their eyes. I mean, they had no clue what was happening. Obviously they were looking for political Messiah, helping them to get out of the oppression of the Romans. And they began to shout Hosanna. What does Hosanna mean? What does that word mean? God saves, save us now. God saves, savior. It all has to do with that spiritual context of saving me, save me, Lord. You are the one that's from on high coming to save us as the lowly Messiah. Please save me now. It has everything to do with justification, forgiveness of sins, and ultimately salvation before God. Now Psalm 118.26 says, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Is that any significance to Palm Sunday or to that triumphal entry? Yeah, absolutely. The scriptures, as you know, you're well aware of this. There's no wasted words. And God doesn't waste a sentence. He doesn't waste a word. And they're all perfectly interconnected. And when you talk about the Psalm passage, this is the fulfillment of what was told about much earlier. In fact, we don't even wanna stop at Psalms. It goes back further to Genesis 315. That's called the Proto-Vangelium, the first mention of the gospel. It says the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent are gonna have a little battle, aren't they? Now the seed of the woman will crush the head of the seed of the serpent. But the seed of the serpent, Satan will bruise the heel of the seed of the woman, the Messiah, Jesus. And this is the week we're talking about, that battle. Jesus would crush the head of the serpent and ultimately he would have to give his life, his heel, in other words, it wouldn't be any forever moment if he would rise three days later. So it is the fulfillment of the very first mention of the gospel. And that's what's so exciting about this, Robert, is that everything is coming to pass just the way the Lord said it would in the scriptures. We could take Psalm, we could take Genesis, we can do Daniel 9, 24 through 27 to 70 weeks. It's all coming to a conclusion right here. So is that why we call it the triumphal entry? Yes, yes, absolutely. It's like the king has come and you give a king a parade, right? Well, this is exactly what's going on here, is he's triumphant and God's word has come to pass. We are celebrating because God is faithful. He has provided a savior. So that was a Sunday, that was something that went on, all this stuff went on. And now moving into Monday, and I know chronologically we can be off on some of the events there in Matthew 21. Some scholars believe verses 12 through 46, it's Monday and a lot of things happen there. Jesus cleanses the temple, he leaves Bethany, he curses the fig tree on the way. So a lot of things were going on on that next day. After Sunday, what else was going on as Jesus was heading towards that cross? Well, first of all, most likely he was staying with Mary and Martha and Lazarus. That's most likely was his home while he was there for this week in Bethany. That was on the east side of the Mount of Olives. Has anybody been to Israel the Mount of Olives? Maybe you've gotten over to Bethany. It's on the east side, it's on the other side that does not view the Temple Mount. Well, since it was the Passover week, the population would swell to perhaps over a million people in this small city. And those who have been there know how small this is. This old city would swell and you'd have to do this, get through people and really try to work your way through these crowds. And there was a lot of preparation. There was a lot of anticipation of what's gonna happen with the Passover and the Sabbath, the High Holy Day that was coming near. So a lot of preparation was going into here and Jesus was teaching. He went into the Temple. He was teaching, he was preparing, he's teaching his disciples these little lessons about the fig tree and the cursing of the fig tree and about faith and so forth. And it's just an amazing time this Monday is because we take one further step closer to get to that Sunday morning. And one of the things Jesus did during this time was that he actually, he wept, like you said earlier, he wept over Jerusalem. Luke 19, 41, 42 says, as he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, if you even you had only known on this day what would bring you peace? But now it is hidden from your eyes. That hidden from your eyes, what does that mean? Did God purposely hide this from them or is this something that happened in their own heart? Yeah, remember God wants your eyes open all the time. So we know it wasn't God trying to close eyes to see his provision, his Messiah, his Son for these people, but it was a blindness in accordance with the people's will. In other words, sometimes we just don't wanna see something. Maybe we're looking for something we want, right? We've all been there I think. We want a powerful warrior savior that's gonna get rid of Rome. We don't have to pay taxes to Rome anymore. We want liberation militarily. And so people weren't seeing Jesus for really who he was, what he was, and what he came to accomplish. So unfortunately the blindness was in accordance with their own will, just like Pharaoh. Remember it said, and God confirmed Pharaoh's heart and he hardened Pharaoh's heart that way. Well, the hardening of Pharaoh's heart was in accordance with Pharaoh's decisions and his will. It wasn't against his will. So do you think that the crowd that was here, saying Hosanna, most likely was almost pretty much the same crowd that said crucify him. That here they're going from Hosanna, save us now to kill him. To kill him, yeah. And that's the flightiness of crowds, right? You have them haraying you and then I don't like you kind of thing, right? That's right, fickle. The fickleness of people, generally speaking. Because a lot happened between that Sunday triumphal entry and then the Friday crucifixion. Jesus went in and cleansed the temple. He upset, ultimately, the whole city about doing what he did. He did something almost sacrilege to the people and began believing that false story that the Sanhedrin and the religious leaders were putting forth about Jesus. Namely that he's into the magical arts and he's a blasphemer. Unfortunately. Which leads us to Tuesday, which where Jesus and Matthew 23 and chapter 24 and 25, he confronts the hypocrisy of the Jewish leaders. Obviously they didn't like that Jesus was presenting an authority that was above them. And so they set out to just destroy him. I think that was one of the verses there, I think in the Gospel of Mark, it said that they actually made it their goal to try to kill him, right? But they couldn't because of the crowd. Why was that? Well, there was enough people who believed that Jesus was the Messiah, still left. And secondly, there were also, do you want your religious leaders seeing killing somebody who just recently was received like a king on Palm Sunday? It just wouldn't go over well. Obviously they'd suffer a public relations nightmare and a meltdown if that ever happened. They wouldn't be able to justify it because there was just too many people who saw miracles up to this time and they weren't gonna allow it or at least let them off the hook for doing something like that. Okay, so let's move into Wednesday, Matthew 26, 14 through 16. We see Judas is bribed. I mean, some say it would happen on Tuesday, some say it was Wednesday, but Judas in that week, in this week, he was bribed by the religious leaders to betray Jesus. And so this was also a day that was the preparation of the supper, of the last supper. And do you know from your studies that middle week of this passion week, some say it was like a silent day. Judas was being prompt to betray Jesus, but nothing else really went on. It was more of a preparation. Is there any other things that we could be missing on that middle of that week? Not really. It was Judas making arrangements to get his money, his 30 pieces of silver for betraying Christ. He was trying to get the plan together to go get Jesus. And Wednesday was the last day that you really had to prepare for the Passover meal, which would be celebrated on Thursday after sunset. So Judas was a busy guy at this time. And Jesus knew what he was up to. Obviously he said, you were a devil from the beginning. So he had no illusions about what Judas was up to or what kind of person he was. But this is called the silent day, as Robert said. And it's interesting because we don't learn much in the gospels about Wednesday of this passion week. Even though you can see the drum beat just getting louder and louder and the anticipation really coming to fore here. In fact, John's gospel really emphasizes this last week very powerfully because he dedicates nine of his 21 chapters to the last week of Jesus' life. It's almost half the content of his gospel is dedicated to this one week. We think we know John's emphasis here in his gospel. I think we do. It's about Jesus and that sacrifice he'd make this final week. Okay, and so as we get into Thursday, Thursday it was a big day. Last supper, Judas betrays Jesus, Peter's denial. And so here now he's approaching that day of death, the crucifixion. And so Peter, John was sent to make preparations for the Passover meal and all this stuff was happening. And so here's Thursday, the betrayal, the denial. You can only imagine what was going on in the mind of Jesus as far as the stress and what was coming. Can you comment a little bit about this full day of Thursday and with a high priest that has Sanhedrin? I mean, so much was going on at this time. Well, it's getting darker and darker. The storm clouds are coming in rapidly and Jesus is feeling the pressure. The Bible says he sweat great drops of blood as he agonized and prayed to the Father while the disciples slept. Isn't that add to your agony? You know, your best buddies, you know, right there. They're sleeping while you're going through all this turmoil. You're about to carry the sins of the world on your shoulders and bear them upon you and you knew what awaited you. Lord, if this cup could just pass, take it, but nevertheless, let your will be done and Jesus was obedient to the end. But Peter here is denying him three times during this time. Thursday was an amazing time because Judas is gonna eat the Passover meal with Jesus and the disciples after sunset on Thursday evening because that really ticks it over into Friday, which is Passover now, as soon as that sunset occurs. And Judas goes out to betray him. They finish their meal and then they cross the Kidron Valley and go up into the Mount of Olives where the Garden of Gethsemane was. Now, if you've been to the Garden of Gethsemane, you still see all those great olive trees there today. Perhaps some of them were there when Jesus was there, but that was the place where he would be finally betrayed by a kiss of Judas. He'd be taken into custody and he would be then put forward and put through six different trials over the next several hours, which was just amazing and excruciating. But if you want a parallel, in the Old Testament, it says that David escaped across the Kidron Valley at the time that there was some insurrection and his kingdom was under threat by his sons and by the people who wanted to take over the throne. So it was almost like a mirror replay of what David went through was a picture of what Christ is gonna go through in the future. And this week actually brings that to a head here. So that brings us to Good Friday. Good Friday. And the question that I have is why Good Friday? We know it was a bad Friday, right? What was good about the Romans torturing Jesus? It was called Bad Friday for Jesus, but Good Friday for us. He gave it all that we might live. That's what's so great about Good Friday. It's Good Friday because it's good to have salvation. It's good to have your sins forgiven. It's good to have all this sin problem be put away once and for all for anybody who would receive Jesus. They can go to heaven. That's why it's so good. And that's the great message of the gospel, isn't it, Robert? Amen. I mean, the resurrection and the crucifixion, the payment for sins was incredible. First John 2, 2 says, he not only died for our sins, but the sins of the whole world. He was the propitiation or the satisfactory sacrifice that made Friday so wonderful and so good. Yeah. Amen. When it comes to the crucifixion of Jesus, I mean, there's a debate among us Christians and scholars and he died on Thursday, it was Friday, and they come up with all these different things. I just, I've read this article from the scientist from the University of Oxford and it was published a few years ago and he said this, that the evidence strongly points the exact day it was Friday, April 3rd, AD 33. What are your thoughts on that? Because I know others will believe that Jesus was crucified on a Thursday. Yeah. That's a great question, Robert. We know Jesus was crucified on a Friday because John 19 says he was taken off the cross and he was on the cross on the preparation day. That word preparation is a Greek word. It's called periscue, periscue. Even the modern Greeks today use periscue as the sixth day of the week, which is Friday. The seventh day is Saturday and the first day of the week is Sunday. So even modern Greeks are telling us, but if you go over to the passage in Mark, actually, give it the exact passage in Mark, if you go to Mark, let's see here, chapter 15, don't crucify him, first 15, he's gonna ratify the crowd, excuse me. Look through chapter 15 on this, and let me see here, I wanna make sure I'm on the right one. But yeah, oh, 1542, there it is. Now, when the evening had come, because it was the preparation day, the same day John uses, says preparation day in John 19, that is the day before the Sabbath. What is the day before the Sabbath? Friday, so Friday he was crucified. Even modern Greeks use the same Greek word, periscue today. So Thursday was a preparation day, sunset, Friday was Passover, Sabbath was Saturday. Jesus definitely died on a Friday. Okay, okay. Another thing is, you know, some Christians will ask, well, where in the Bible does it state that we're to remember Christ's death by honoring him on a Friday or a Palm Sunday, whatever, what would you say to that? Well, when we remember Christ's death, we take communion, we take the Lord's Supper. It was the Passover meal on Friday where the Lord instituted the Lord's Supper. It was the Passover that was the backdrop to say, eat this bread, this is my body that was shed for you, and drink this cup for this is my blood that was shed for you as well. So the Lord's Supper has an intimate connection to the Passover meal. In fact, back in the book of Exodus, when they put, remember the blood over the doors and the angel of death would pass over those homes that had the blood when they were there in Egypt in captivity. Well, that worked itself into the law, ultimately to the feast of Passover, and the Passover has now changed hands and it's now placed into the Lord's Supper. So the Lord's Supper is a profound moment here where Jesus makes the connection between the Old Testament and the New Testament or the Old Covenant and the New Covenant and what is the crux of this new thing? It's Jesus the person, his body, his blood and Jesus the person. It's no longer ceremony. It's no longer ritual. It's no longer types or shadows. It is the person live and in color in the flesh right here on Friday. Okay, and so continue on with our Friday. I wanna look at the seven statements that Jesus made on the cross. There are really interesting statements and I wanna kinda go over these and I wanna hear your take on some of these because I know that there are a lot of questions and some of the statements that he actually made. But before we get into this section, I just wanted to just take a quick little break and just wanna let people know that you're the president of Veritas. Was it? International. International, I'm so used to Veritas. Seminary, but now it's changed. Tell us a little bit about that school and what we were talking in the back about some interesting things that are happening. Sure, absolutely, I'd love to. Veritas International University was originally founded under the name Veritas Evangelical Seminary. I've been the president of that school, the university now for over 10 years since its founding. Dr. Norman Geisler is the co-founder of the school. We focus on archeology and biblical history. We offer degrees, bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in apologetics, defending the faith, biblical studies, theological studies, and we're located right in Costa Mesa on the same block in the Logos building right next to Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa. All of our board members are Calvary Chapel pastors for the most part. I'm a graduate of Calvary Chapel Bible College. I went on to get my PhD at the University of Wales, Trinity St. David in Europe. And it's been a wonderful 10 years. God, it's really blessed. We have graduates from all over the world. We have distance learning programs. We have residential programs and get this. Since we just added an archeology and biblical history PhD and a master's degree in that subject, we are now partnering with Trinity Southwest University to dig up, archeologically excavate, the biblical city of Sodom. We are in our 13th season digging that city up and what we're finding will blow you away. We're finding melted pottery. Now, hot it has to get to melt pottery. Thousands of degrees Fahrenheit. And those kilns or ovens back then, they couldn't get that hot. Something fiery and very hot happened there just like the Bible says it does, it did. And we're in our 13th and we're really rewriting all the Bible maps and charts books because of what we're finding there. The chronology is changing or in the midst of a big revolution when it comes to getting the accurate dating that really follows what the scripture actually has said. You know, a lot of these liberal scholars, they write their books and then every time we finish a dig they have to either burn their book or edit it severely or just say I give up and just throw it away, you know what I mean? And that's, you know, I'm sorry about that but that's the way it goes when you meet truth face on. So, wonderful things are happening at Veritas International University. If you wanna learn more about us or maybe even take a course, in fact I'm teaching a course on the nature and character of the Bible. It's called Bibliology. April 18th, 19th and 20th, right there at the campus there in Costa Mesa. You're more than welcome to sit in for personal enrichment or audit or take it for actual graduate credit. Go to VES, that's Veritas Evangelical Seminary, V-E-S dot E-D-U. You can find out all about our programs, more about us. I think it's fascinating just to hear about the excavations of Sodom and, you know, to know that the Bible or faith or Christian faith is an objective faith. It's not a subjective, it's not how I feel, what I think it's objective and, you know, you have manuscripts, you have archeology and prophecy that just confirms that what we read here is the actual Word of God, you know? Boots on the ground, real life, historical Christian faith. In fact, all of you can participate in the Sodom Dig. We need volunteers every year. We go from January to the first week in March. You can stay for five days, 10 days, two weeks, or three months. You can stay the whole time. We train you in archeology and then you actually dig up biblical history there. I took my two sons, I went twice. I've taken my two sons both times and they've found jugs. They found carbonized grain in these huge storage drugs in the Palace of King Barra. You know who King Barra is, right? He's the king of Sodom, back in the book of Genesis. So all kinds of great stuff being found there. My kids love to dig, maybe they'll help. They would love it. They would love it. Bring them on over. They dig holes in my backyard like moles, you know? Incredible, that is just, it's fascinating. That's one of the things that I think, being a Christian, the confidence that we have, that we're not, you know, believing in this make-believe God, you know? If you're here tonight, you're not a Christian. I mean, the Christian faith is an objective faith. It's not a faith that is based on feelings or I mean, there's evidence in what we believe and that's the exciting thing because the Bible, you look at the book of Acts, bunch of cities, bunch of geographical areas. If the Bible was gonna be debunked, it would have been right there, right? Even in the Old Testament. That's right. Because archeology wouldn't be able to find these cities, these places and we know that obviously it's true. In fact, the book of Acts, it's funny you brought that up, Acts is a book that actually leads the scholars and what I mean by that is, Acts uses terms and phrases and locations and titles that nobody ever heard of before and they were claiming that Luke is a bad historian because we don't have any evidence of all these terms and titles. For example, Luke calls the rulers of Thessalonica polytarchs, that's the Greek word he calls them. He uses, oh, these guys are called polytarchs. We don't have any record of polytarchs being used of anybody in the whole world, especially in the ancient Near East and what they found were when they dug up the city, not too long ago, they found 19 polytarch inscriptions. Three come from the first century when Luke and Paul were traveling together. So it's just, and then what do the liberals have to do? They have to get their books, come back to the drawing table. Okay, or even the language spoken in Troas was Lyconian. Luke was the only one that knew that. Nobody knew that and they were busting Luke's chops about that and we found out the language spoken in their area was Lyconian, you know? So Luke, amazing, amazing historian, God chose the right person to write that book. Wow, incredible. All right, so let's get back to the Good Friday. Jesus made seven statements from the cross as he was there dying and so the first thing he said is Father forgive them for they do not know what they do. Why did Jesus say this and who are they in this passage? Father forgive them, who are they? Who are those guys? Well, they would be the world in a broader perspective but it would be the Romans who crucified him but we all put them on the cross, right? I mean, technically we all put them there with our sin. He had to die to forgive sin. So he's saying forgive them the religious leaders who unjustly accused him, the Pontius Pilate, the Roman government who unjustly condemned him, the Roman soldiers who nailed his hands and his feet to the cross and to the people who shouted crucify him. They don't know what they're doing but that takes a big person to say that. Father forgive them. After all this my beard has been plucked from my face. I've been spit on, I've been hit. I've been whipped to almost to the point of death. I couldn't even carry my own cross to Golgotha to be crucified on it. Simon the Cyrene had to help him. It takes a large individual to be able to say that when he's being crucified in his undergarments on a thoroughfare outside the city as a common criminal but yet Father forgive them for they know not what they do. He's saying we're blind and we don't understand the significance of that day but ultimately people will. That's why we have over two billion Christians on the planet today because people's eyes were opened because the Holy Spirit opened their eyes. Just amazing. So Jesus was crucified. He was with thieves, both criminals and he said to one of them today you will be with me in paradise. That's right. Two questions that come to mind. One is what is paradise and why did Jesus say today both of you will be with me in paradise? Interesting. You know that paradise is a Persian word and it means an enclosed well-watered garden. That's what it means, paradise. Paul tells us where paradise is. He says it's in the third heaven. He said I was brought up into paradise into the third heaven, into paradise. The first heaven is where the birds fly, our sky. Second heaven is space, the terrestrial, the planets. The third heaven is God's domain. That's where we go after we die, right? Okay, that paradise is where Jesus and some people say the thief, some people say both thieves but if the word says both thieves then both thieves are going. They're going to this perfect place of bliss, this well-watered garden if you will. The place where there's no more pain, no more sorrow, no more tears, no more grief, no more death and darkness, no more sin. Today, this very day, why could he say that? Because he paid the price for the sins. What an amazing statement that was. Another statement, Jesus looks down and says to Mary, woman behold your son. This is in John chapter 19, verses 26 and 27. Why is Jesus saying this? Well, Jesus is hanging on the cross and it's getting to the end. You know, it's almost 3 p.m. in the afternoon. He hung on the cross from nine to three and he's basically transferring Mary, his mother, over to John. The disciple most likely was John that was there saying, hey, he's going to treat you like a mother and you treat him like a son but he also could be implying that, hey, behold your son on the cross. Here I am, you know, take a good look because though you may be weeping now, you won't be weeping in a few days because he knew what was gonna happen. So shouldn't our eyes always be beholding Jesus? We should always be beholding what he did for us on the cross. As soon as we lose track of that, that's when things start to fall apart. We lose perspective and we just don't get it. But ultimately he wanted to take care of his mother. He wanted to take care of John. He wanted John to take care of his mother and this all played into the context of seeing what was happening to Jesus on the cross. So woman behold your son or madam behold your son. Here's one that I think we have a lot of questions. Jesus said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Matthew 27, 46, in what sense did God forsake his son? Interesting. This is a passage that's been debated for quite some time and Jesus is actually quoting a Psalm here and he's basically saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabbathini, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Now remember, Jesus was a man, wasn't he? He was 100% man, he was 100% God. He was the God man. They call that the theanthropos. As a man, Jesus felt forsaken on the cross. Probably as many of you have, even walking with Christ, maybe you say, God, where are you? Have you abandoned me? Have you left me? I'm in a desert here. I feel like you're nowhere to be found. But God has not left you. He is certainly there. He promised to be with you to the end of days. He will never leave you nor forsake you. As you read through the end of that Psalm in the Old Testament, you find out it also claims, but you are there and you've heard me. So it implies that in reality, God the Father did not forsake the Son, though the Son did feel forsaken as a human being, like many of us would in times of trial like that. Now, if there was an actual forsaken, it would be a momentary turning the back on the sin that Jesus was bearing. There wasn't a separation between the divine persons. The Son and the Father, there can be no separation between the Son and the Father. But there can be a momentary separation between the human Jesus and the human nature and the divine Father because of the sins he was bearing. And that was just the penalty for bearing the sin of the world that we should have taken. You see, we should all be separated from him forever for our sins, but he made it possible that Jesus would take that upon him so we wouldn't have to be separated or forsaken by God. What a great moment that was. A sobering moment of which all time is measured in AD and BC. There's the pinnacle of time right there. And the scripture that he was referring to is at Psalm 22. Yes, Psalm 22. That's considered a messianic psalm. Yes, it is. Right, messianic psalm. Go read it, read it over and over. It's just a beautiful psalm. It lets you take a peek inside of the heart, the feelings, the emotions and the mind of Jesus on the cross some 1,000 plus years before he ever came to die. Just amazing. And even before crucifixion was ever instituted, right? That's right, because crucifixion came by way of the Persians and the Persians taught it to the Romans and then Constantine outlawed that in the third century, early fourth century. So there was no more crucifixion after that time, the edict of toleration by about 310. But it was a horrible practice. It was designed to make the person suffer beyond even thought. I mean it was, you suffocated basically. You had to keep pushing yourself up to get air. That's why they nailed your feet and your hands. And then that's why they would break the legs. Why not the arms or just spear them? Well they break the legs so they can't push themselves up to get oxygen anymore and they just asphyxiate ultimately. So it was a horrible, shameful death. But Christ did it for you and me, even though he could have walked off that cross at any time. He stayed there. And that's why I believe in him because he stayed there when he didn't have to. He could have got off and people were saying well he can't even save himself. Let's see if he saves himself. Well they don't believe him because he didn't save himself. We believe him because he didn't save himself. It's just the polar opposite. And the Romans, you said the Persians were the ones that kind of put this, they came up with the crucifixion. When the Romans came and they were taught to the Romans, the Romans actually made it worse, didn't they? Yes, they wanted to prolong the agony and the suffering. Remember, Romans are not just these men wearing miniskirts or something like that. They were professionals at killing. Okay, they were professionals at killing and they want you dead, you're gonna be dead. And that's why we know that Jesus did die on that cross. How do we know? Because the Bible says blood and water came out where the spear had pierced his ribs or his chest. In other words, the Journal of American Medical Association said the fact that blood and water came out of his side was evidence that he already suffered like a heart rupture or the pericardial sac around the heart had already ruptured. He was already dead at that time. And that's why we know Jesus actually died and that's an important point because we wanna make sure that Jesus died at that moment because you can't have a resurrection if somebody didn't die. So Jesus did in fact die, yeah. And he also said from the cross, I thirst. Here's his moments of death and he says I thirst like you drinking right now. Was Jesus fulfilling a prophecy by saying this? I thirst. I'm sure he was. He got thirsty. He was a human being and he thirsts but I think there's even more to it. I don't wanna discount the historical aspect to it. Certainly as a human being it was hard work dying from nine to three in a very agonizing way and there was thirst. But he also thirsts for righteousness, doesn't he? For all of you and I, I mean that's what his thirst was. Remember in John four when he said I have food you do not know of that I am eating when the disciples went away to go get food and rations and so forth. He's saying I have food you do not know of. I've been eating that food and he's been drinking that drink ever since and that's the spiritual food and the spiritual drink that sustained him ultimately. And then he says of course it is finished. It is finished. What a powerful phrase. Now the Greek word is instructive here for us. It's important that we realize this. The word is called to tell a sty. To tell a sty in the Greek text means paid in full. They actually use to tell a sty to put on bill of ladings on invoices back in that day. They just rubber stamped it to tell a sty when they paid it in full. So Jesus is using an accounting phrase to say that all the work that he was sent here to do his death on the cross is now finished upon his death. There is no more to add. There is nothing to take away. And when he says something is finished why should we add any works to his finished work? It's done only believed by faith alone through grace alone in Christ alone. That's what he calls us to do. And the last thing he said father into your hands I commit my spirit. What was Jesus demonstrating when he said this? Into your hands I commit my spirit. A total yielding and an offering of himself to the Lord as a sacrifice. Do you know to put yourself in somebody's hands is like the ultimate devotion to somebody. Take me Lord I'm yours do with me what you want. Romans 12 is very instructive for us isn't it? It says you're a living sacrifice. It's your reasonable service to offer yourself as such. So to into your hands I commit my spirit was God or Jesus was saying hey I'm dying Lord take me you're in sovereign control take my spirit take my soul take all of me and it's yours to do what you want. You're the potter on the clay take it. So what a wonderful lesson it is for us to yield that word yield is very powerful here because if you yield to the Lord you know your life is gonna take a great change and a great turn. I mean we often pray Lord fill us with your Holy Spirit but maybe we should be praying Lord help me to give more to you so the Holy Spirit can use me because the Holy Spirit is here and he wants to use you but some of us are like cups that are turned sideways and not turned upside to be filled to overflowing in that manner. So God here is or Jesus is yielding his spirit to God himself. What an active devotion. And so looking at all of this all these statements and what Jesus went through I mean it shows us that the death of Christ was not an accident. No. Right because some believe that this man came to earth lived a good life and shared some good moral things and then all of a sudden he gets ransacked by the Romans and they kill them and bummer he's dead now right. It wasn't like that right. No this was purposeful. In fact the Bible says he was slain before the foundations of the world and then the prophets foretold of this Messiah that would come. Isaiah 53 says he would be bruised. He would be pierced for us and our iniquities and our transgressions. So the prophets played a very important role to overthrow the argument that Robert just you know Jesus was caught in this unfortunate circumstances and it wasn't really planned out. Well the prophets foretold of every event to its minutiae and its detail to how many pieces of silver he would be betrayed with and so forth. So this was no mistake. It was the greatest empire in the world with the greatest jurisprudence who condemned Jesus to death. This was no kangaroo court per se. This was the Roman government. Yeah. A few other things here because we're gonna wrap it up here in about five minutes or so. A lot of things happen after this. Luke 23 to 44 says it was about the sixth hour and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. Now some theologians have assumed that a solar eclipse occurred during this time. What are your thoughts on this? First of all, a solar eclipse can't really happen on a Passover. This was actually brought up. The ancient historian Thalus said, well the darkness might have been due to a solar eclipse but Julius africanus which is a Christian historian re-butted the whole thing by looking at astronomy and so forth where eclipses never really happen on passovers. It just can't astronomically occur at those times accordingly. So he basically debunked astronomically why there couldn't be just an eclipse. Oh, and isn't it an eclipse that it just so happened to be right at the time the Son of God is dying on the cross? I mean, come on. The preponderance of evidence is no. It was a divine cosmic action by God. So Jesus dies. He's buried Sunday. We celebrate here a week from today, resurrection. Here's where the secular mind has a problem. I believe in your Jesus. I get it. I see what he did, he came to the cross, whatever. But for you to say he was God and for you to say he resurrected, here's where the secular minds have a problem. I was reading this article, BBC News came out with this article that stated the resurrection did not happen says a quarter of Christians. And here's a quote, what they said, a quarter of people who describe themselves as Christians in Great Britain do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus, a survey commissioned by the BBC suggests. So here's where they come out of the woodwork, right? This is the week that we celebrate the resurrection of Christ. In fact, one liberal pastor said this and I want to quote him. He says, so to ask an adult to believe in the resurrection the way they did when they were at Sunday school simply won't do. And that's true of much of the key elements of the Christian faith, the resurrection. How do we, in a one minute briefs and offsets, how do you convince someone of the resurrection when we weren't there? Well, there's so much historical evidence to suggest it actually happened. Number one is, there's nearly a dozen eyewitnesses that he personally appeared to within 40 days after he rose. In fact, Axe says he presented himself by many infallible proofs during those 40 days. That word infallible is like incontrovertible proofs. We're talking, hey Thomas, touch me. Luke 24, here I'll eat a piece of broiled fish so you see him a real human being that came back from the dead. Mary appears to Mary. She thought he was the gardener, but here he is appearing to him. Appears to Thomas to all the 12. By the time it's done, these are primary source eyewitnesses recorded in scripture and any legal mind, even the Harvard professor Royale of law, Simon Greenleaf. Everybody heard of Simon Greenleaf? He even put the rules of legal evidence to the test and he analyzed the statements of Jesus and the resurrection and he concluded that any court would justify that a physical resurrection actually took place. I mean, when somebody rises from the dead, you have eyewitnesses to prove it and you backed it up with miraculous acts to confirm who he was. That person has instant credibility in my book. I don't know about you, but instant credibility if somebody rises from the dead. And then as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1520, but Christ has indeed been raised from the dead and that's the Christian faith. Without the resurrection, we really don't have a faith, right? Don't have a gospel. It's the capstone of the Christian faith. That's right, because I chuckle when you say Christians who deny the resurrection, well, the whole definition of Christianity is Christ died on the cross and he physically rose from the dead three days later. So whatever Christian they are, they're certainly not a historic biblical Christian. Yeah, it's amazing what can be argued and so forth. Well, let's end with this. I want you to talk directly to the person who is not a Christian. Perhaps you're in this room right now. They're watching on webcast. Talk to them. Now that we've talked about the whole week of Christ, how important Jesus is, just give them a quick little encouragement. Sure. What an important week this is. Everybody lives by faith in something. We live by faith sitting in this room, having faith that the roof won't collapse in on us. We have faith when we start our engine in the car, we know we're gonna get to work, or when we drive over a bridge, we have faith that it'll support us. Everybody has faith. The real question is, what is the object of your faith? Is it your bank account? Is it your car? All those things will let you down, illicit relationships? I mean, all those things will let you down. But Christianity is called a historic Christian faith because it's rooted in reality. We have eyewitnesses, we have manuscripts, we have archeological data, we have scientific data. We have all this evidence to Marshall that being a Christian is reasonable. Now I take the survey a lot. How many of you became a Christian because it was a contradiction and unreasonable? Everybody became a Christian because it was the reasonable thing to do. It made sense. And yes, you take a step of faith, but we're not taking a blind leap of faith in the dark. We're taking a step of faith in the light of the evidence. And Jesus left us more than enough evidence. The only thing that remains now is, are you convinced to take that step of faith, that free step of faith that says, Jesus, you're my Lord and my Savior. I give you myself. Thank you for forgiving my sins. I believe that you died on the cross for my sins and that you physically rose from the grave three days later. You're saved at that point. There is nothing unreasonable about that. Even scientists and atheists live by faith. They live in faith of their knowledge. They trust their knowledge in their scientific inquiries and their testings in the laboratories. They live by faith in that they should write their journal articles honestly and truthfully based on the knowledge that they've received. Everybody lives by faith. But what is the object of your faith? That's the key and hopefully it's Jesus Christ because it's him alone and it's his name is the only name under heaven whereby we must be saved. And that's it. And we're taking a step of faith in the light. So I encourage anybody and everybody, if you're not safe tonight, grab ahold of Jesus and never let go. He'll always be there. Joe, thank you so much for taking the time to come out here and to do this talk. It's been very encouraging. I hope you guys were blessed and it was very insightful and all the things that you shared. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Don't forget that as you guys walk out to my right here, the Veritas table is there. If you want information, you can talk to Vanessa or perhaps are you gonna be out there? Yes, yes. Okay, I'll be out there. If you guys want to talk, ask him any questions and all that'd be great and I'll hand it over to Jared. God bless you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.