 That said, let's begin reading here in Mark 15. I'll begin reading at verse 21. Read to verse 26. As is my normal way of teaching, I'll be reminding you of some of the things that have taken place up to this point and hopefully developing that foundation for us to pick up in verse 21. So I'll begin reading at verse 21. I'll read to verse 26. Then they compelled a certain man, Simon, a Cyrenian. The father of Alexander and Rufus as he was coming out of the country and passing by to bear his cross. And they brought him to the place Golgotha, which is translated place of a skull. Then they gave him wine mingled with myrrh to drink, but he did not take it. And when they crucified him, they divided his garments, casting lots for them to determine what every man should take. Now it was the third hour and they crucified him. And the inscription of his accusation was written above the king of the Jews. Now as we've been reading through and studying through the gospel of Mark, we've seen that up to this point, Jesus has been delivered to be crucified. He's on his way to a place called Calvary. He had gone through a long night of interrogations. He had appeared before several men. Anas, the former high priest, Caiaphas, the presiding high priest. Herod, who was a leader of a certain area there in Israel, as well as Pilate, who was the Roman governor. Now each of them had, as Jesus was before them, demanded that he answer questions. When you look at Anas in John 18, 19 through 24, Anas had asked him about his disciples and his teaching, his doctrine. But Jesus protected his men. He refused to give any information up about his disciples. He also told him that his teachings were public. Asked someone, he said, who has heard me. And the response was one of the officers striking him with the palm of his hand. He was then taken to Caiaphas, who was the presiding high priest at that time. And Caiaphas had sought charges to put him to death. Many false witnesses, as we've seen, had spoken, but none of their lies would stick. Finally, Caiaphas had asked him, are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? Well, in doing so, we saw that this is illegal because it was self-incrimination. But he didn't care. He wanted Jesus to make a confession. And we saw how that, to that question, Jesus answered yes. And he even went further in his answer. In Mark 14, verse 62, he said, I am. And you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power and coming with the clouds of heaven. In saying that he was the Son of Man, he was referring to himself as Messiah. And he was speaking concerning his return. And in doing so, that became a charge that was sufficient to call for the death penalty because it was referred to as blasphemy. So before he had finished with him, the officers had mocked Jesus. They had spit on him and they began to hit him. Now Pilate didn't want anything to do with this petty religious squabble. Jesus stood before him, but at first he would not defend himself. So Pilate asked him if he was a king. And Jesus said it as as you say. Well, as this is taking place, the chief priests had kept accusing him, but Jesus would do nothing. He would say nothing in his own defense. And Pilate said that he found no fault in Jesus. But when he did so, the crowd got angrier. Luke 23, 6 and 7 says they were the more fierce, saying he stirs up the people, teaching throughout all of Judea, beginning from Galilee to this place. When Pilate heard of Galilee, he asked if the man was a Galilean. And as soon as he knew that, he belonged to Herod's jurisdiction. He sent him to Herod, who was also in Jerusalem at that time. So Jesus, we saw, went to Herod. And it pleased Herod because he had many questions. And for a long time, he had wanted to see if Jesus would perform a miracle before him. Well, he interrogated him intensely. But again, Jesus refused to answer. So in response, Herod mocked him. He put on Jesus a gorgeous robe. Then he sent him back to Pilate. Well, once again, in this long and endless night, Jesus is there before Pilate. Now by this time, Pilate had considered him to be innocent. Again, in Luke chapter 23, 13 and 14, Pilate, when he had called together the chief priests, the rulers, and the people, said to them, you have brought this man to me as one who misleads the people. And indeed, having examined him in your presence, I have found no fault in this man concerning those things of which you accuse him. So he offered them the choice, Barabbas or Jesus, murderer or Messiah. They cried out for Barabbas. They said, crucify him, crucify him. In Luke 23, 22, Pilate said to them the third time, why, what evil has he done? I found no reason for death in him. I will therefore chastise him, let him go. The word chastise speaks of discouraging. While the chief priests resisted this, stirring up the crowd, demanding his death. Well, in Matthew 27, 24, when Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all, but rather that a tumult or riot was rising, he took water, washed his hands before the multitude sang, I'm innocent of the blood of this just person, you see to it. Again, Pilate was not convinced that he should die. He knew that Jesus had been set up because the religious leaders were envious. So what he did is he had him scourged, perhaps hoping it would satisfy their anger, but it didn't. In Psalm 94, 21, it says they gathered together against the life of the righteous and condemned innocent blood. So after scourging him, Pilate released him to be crucified. We saw how the soldiers had put on him a purple robe, a crown of thorns and a scepter. They had bowed the knee before him, saying, Hail, king of the Jews, and they began to spit on him. They took the scepter and they struck him on the head, and then they took the robe off of him, put his own clothes on him, led him away. John 19, 17 says carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the skull. So Jesus is being led to Golgotha, also known as Calvary. The condemned were forced to carry either the entire cross or the cross beam. And now he's carrying this. Now he's endured an entire night of interrogation. He's been tortured, beaten. His beard has been torn. He's been scourged. Isaiah 52, 13 and 14 says, Behold, my servant shall deal prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled, be very high. Just as many were astonished at you, so his visage, his appearance, was marred more than any man, his form more than the sons of men. So shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at him. For what had not been told them, they shall see. And what they had not heard, they shall consider. So now Jesus is exhausted. He's weak. He can't carry the cross. Any further, he begins to seek under its weight. He needs help to carry it. And this is where Simon of Cyrene enters the picture. Verse 21 says, they compelled a certain man, Simon, a Cyrenian, the father of Alexander and Rufus, as he was coming out of the country and passing by to bear his cross. Now he's been at what we will call the governor's mansion. He's now been let out. He's been let out and he's carrying this cross. But as he's carrying the cross, he begins to sink under its weight. The estimated weight of the cross would have been 350 pounds. And so he's beginning to sink under the weight. And so Matthew gives us a general location of where this takes place, where Simon is compelled to carry the cross with Christ. Because in Matthew 27, verse 32, Matthew said, now as they came out, that would be saying that Jesus bore the cross from the palace to the gate that he's about to exit. Now the gate would be the Damascus gate. And it would be in the northeast portion of the city of Jerusalem's walls. We've been there many times. We go to the Antonia Fortress, then we will walk on what is called the Via Dolorosa. We walk from that via, and then we'll turn going north. And then as you go north, you go through the Damascus gate and then you'll step outside and you take a right and you'll walk, you can walk. We normally will have the bus drop us off there, but it's a walk from the Damascus gate off and into the area that Jesus was bearing this cross. It was too much weight for him to be able to do that. And that's why they compelled this man, Simon. Now, when we look at this, we see a man who is named Simon, Simon who is a Cyrenian, Simon of Cyrene. Now, we can pick certain things up from this. And I want to develop this for a moment. The name Simon is a Jewish name. It's a Hebrew name. And he was more than likely a Jew living in Cyrene. Now, Cyrene was a Greek settlement in modern Libya and it had a large population. Now, interestingly enough, the name Simon is the English rendering of the Hebrew shimon. And shimon is derived from a Hebrew word shema, shema. And the word shema is associated with hero Israel, the Lord thy God is one. It's called the hear. So the word Simon shimon means to hear or to listen. And it usually will carry the connotation of hearing, listening and acting. And so I think there's significance in the name Simon here. It gives us insight into what is about to happen in his life, listen, understand and act. He's about to do exactly that. Now, it says in verse 21, Simon was coming out of the country and he was passing by. He had been in a rural area outside of Jerusalem. He's now in the city. And as he is walking towards this gate, he hears a commotion. There's a lot of noise that's taking place. And he looks towards this gate. And as he looks at the gate, he'll see Jesus, he'll see someone and he'll see soldiers. And he can hear the rough voices of the soldiers. But he also would have seen Jesus as Jesus is struggling to carry this cross. He's unable to carry the full weight. At this point, the soldiers see Simon and they compel him to help Jesus, to bear that cross. I want you to notice the word compel. They forced him to do it. It wasn't something Simon saw and thought from the goodness of his heart. I think I'll help this poor man. It wasn't that at all. They compel them, they forced him to do this. You see, Roman law during that day allowed a soldier to compel somebody to do this. This was something that the Jewish male especially saw as humiliating. The Jews hated the idea that some pagan in Jerusalem, some Roman soldier in Jerusalem could force them against their will to carry a burden that wasn't theirs. And so when Simon is there and the Roman soldiers see him, they call him over. Now there's no indication in any scripture I'm familiar with that says that Simon was a follower of Christ. You don't see that. He simply named Simon a Cyrenian was being forced compelled to carry this cross and the carrying of this heavy weight and this burden was a humiliation to the man. Now according to verse 21, Simon is mentioned as a father of two men, Alexander and Rufus. Notice their names are mentioned without any explanation. Their names are simply mentioned. That would mean that they were known to the readers of the gospel. Now Alexander, we don't have any information really that that we can actually apply from any of the commentators that I used when I prepare my studies. None of them were able to say with certainty who this man was but there is a general thought that perhaps he's the one Alexander who was mentioned in the book of Acts because when you read the book of Acts, you get to chapter 19 of the book of Acts and it's a story of when Paul, the apostle, was in a city there called Ephesus. And as he was in the city of Ephesus, many were coming to faith in Jesus Christ and the Bible tells us there that he ministered for two years in the city of Ephesus and had a great impact on the people. God was working on unusual miracles through Paul. Many of those who were demon possessed were being freed and the ministry of Paul was exploding and he became well known. People were turning away from idolatry. The name of Jesus it says was being magnified but when that happens, any time good is present, evil is present also. Whenever God begins to move, the devil tries to stop it and that's exactly what happened. It had caused resistance and there was a silversmith, a man by the name of Demetrius who made his living by crafting idols and what he did is he united idolaters in the city to oppose Paul and the work God was doing through him. He said, you know that we make our living from these idols because they had made idols to Diana and he said this great goddess that we worship in that all, everybody knows we worship is being besmirched, he's being degraded and so he started a riot. He started to cause a tumult. He started to cause a lot of people to come together and so he rallied the city against Paul. In Acts 1929, it says the whole city was filled with confusion, rushed into the theater with one accord having seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians, Paul's traveling companions and then in verse 32 of Acts 19 it said this, some therefore cried one thing, some another for the assembly was confused. Most of them did not know why they had come together. Sounds like a church service and so in Acts 1933 the Jews in the crowd pushed Alexander to the front so he could speak. There are those commentators who believe that this Alexander is the one who is being referred to. It's not for certain but it may be. The other one, Rufus is a little more well known. He was prominent in the church, especially in the church of Rome. He was well known by the people. When I introduced the Gospel of Mark, I mentioned to you that each one of the Gospels had a particular people or purpose that it was written. Mark was written to the Romans. He was written in that mentality. It was written to Romans because he presents Jesus as the perfect servant which was an ideal example to the Romans. So that helps us to understand why Paul would speak of Rufus in the book of Romans in chapter 16 verse 13. He said, greet Rufus chosen in the Lord and his mother who has been a mother to me too. Rufus was well known. And so he had a mother and I want you to notice this. He said, greet Rufus chosen in the Lord and his mother who has been a mother to me too. He was well known chosen of the Lord but he also had a mother who had treated Paul with love and kindness like she was his mother. Now that would mean that Simon's wife had come to faith in Jesus Christ. So this is what I want to speak to a way of application for just a moment. The carrying of the cross with Jesus very well may have led to the conversion of a man named Simon. In his moment of deepest humiliation and under a heavy weight he saw Jesus. I think that that's the way many of us came to faith in Christ. In moments when we're the lowest. In moments when we were carrying the deepest and heaviest burden. When we were in the moment of pain maybe a season of pain. That's where I was that maybe some of you were too. Where everything that you were doing at that time with everything I was doing at that time seemed to just fail everything. Relationships you name it were all failing. Humiliation, hurt, embarrassed, rejected. Humiliation and under a heavy burden our sin can be that. Our sin can be a terrible burden that we carry. Something that we try to carry. It sometimes even roll off our own shoulders and it just shifts from one side to the other. It never comes off it only increases. I've discovered that perhaps some of you that in my moment and perhaps in yours of the lowest of the low and the feeling the most burden is when I had an opportunity to see Jesus who carried a cross for me. Because as we look at this not only does Simon is it referred to as Simon the sirenian but we see in scripture his sons as well as his wife and so it inspires me as a father and as a husband. And perhaps we have fathers and husbands in this in this room this morning. I'm certain we have many and there are many who are watching. It should inspire us that the testimony that we have of God's grace in our life not be kept to ourselves but that we take what God has done and we give it to our wife if you're married and if you have children we give that testimony of how good God is and what God can do in a broken man's life and if there's anything I think that we the church need to wake up to today it's a need for us as men to take the lead the way God has called us to do. God has not called my wife to lead the home. God called me to. God didn't call my wife to lead my children. God called me to. God called me to have the responsibility of doing the devotions of praying with the children of ministering to them the love of God to do them the greatest favor I could ever do for them to love their mother so they could learn how to man loving a woman is all about. That's your job that's my job and as I look at Simon here I see it was his job. His wife was beloved. His wife was somebody that was so beloved that Paul himself could say she treated me like I was her own son. Rufus and Alexander were so well known. Why? Because their father Simon saw the price that Christ paid and loved him. There's no doubt about that and loved him and brought his family to Jesus Christ. Let us learn from that. A second thing it says to us as Jesus was being led to Calvary there were people who were crowding the street and they were watching in Luke chapter 23 verses 27 through 31 Luke says a great multitude of the people followed him and women who also mourned and lamented him but Jesus turning to them said daughters of Jerusalem do not weep for me weep for yourselves and for your children for indeed the days are coming in which they will say blessed are the barren wombs that never bore and breast which never nursed then they'll begin to say to the mountains fall on us to the hills cover us for if they do these things in the green wood what will be done in the dry Jesus turned and said daughters of Jerusalem don't weep for me their cry was one of sorrow they were pitting this one on his way to crucifixion but Jesus is saying this such tears are wasted stop crying for me instead save your tears for yourself why why would you say that human compassion Jesus is so important why would you say something like that save your tears for yourself well because they were not weeping tears of repentance there have been times in my life in yours too I'm sure if you're a Christian you'll understand this that you just felt terrible about what you've done something that you may remember you've done even and it could draw tears to your eyes and you say God I don't want to ever go back there or God I don't want to be that we call those tears of repentance but these were not tears of repentance they weren't weeping over their sins they weren't weeping concerning the sins of the crowd they were not weeping over the sins of their rulers they weren't weeping over a nation that had rejected its messiah they had compassion but no faith in him and so Jesus says you're the one who should be pitied he was dying for them but they didn't receive that and therefore they were lost judgment awaited them and their children and that should drive them to tears any tears they cried should have been tears of repentance not pity for a man carrying a cross you see in less than 40 years Jerusalem would be destroyed amongst great suffering Jesus is saying death by disaster would be preferred to the torment many will undergo Jesus is innocent but he's suffering imagine the judgment that will fall on those who are guilty and don't repent and so verse 22 says they brought him to the place Galgotha which is translated place of a skull Galgotha is the Hebrew for place of a skull and it the Roman the Latin is Calvary now why would it be called the place of the skull according to Smith Smith's Bible dictionary Galgotha was a spot where executions ordinarily took place and therefore abounded in skulls or it may come from the look or form of the spot itself bald round and skull like whichever of these is the correct explanation Galgotha seems to have been a well-known spot again when we go to to Israel we go to a place it is called the place of the skull and as you look at it we have many pictures we've taken there it does have the appearance of a skull well it says while it was there verse 23 they gave him wine mingled with myrrh to drink but he didn't take it this was a mild narcotic it was intended to stupefy the victim in order to keep them from struggling as they put them on the cross this would have dulled his senses from the full experience so Jesus refused it there are those who point out that this may have been an act of mercy and giving him this because according to Proverbs 31 verse 6 it reads give strong drink to him who is perishing and wine to those who are bitter of heart so the rabbis interpreted in this way they said the one who is perishing is the one condemned to die the bitter of heart results from the fact that he's going to suffer the punishment of death and so that may have been an act of mercy to stupefy the criminal in order to make it less difficult for him to struggle and also get it done quicker well as this is taking place verse 24 when they crucified him they divided his garments casting lots for them to determine what every man should take casting lots now during the time of christ jewish men normally had five articles of clothing they had a turban they had an inner robe an outer robe there were sandals and they were a belt or a girdle one of the garments jesus was wearing is a tunic it's an outer robe so the prisoner's clothing would have been divided amongst the four guards who accompanied him to his crucifixion and each one would take something but jesus sent five not just four so now they have to make a determination how they're going to divide it up john in chapter 19 starting with verse 23 said the soldiers when they had crucified jesus took his garments and made four parts to each soldier apart and also the tunic now the tunic was without seam woven from the top in one piece they said therefore among themselves let us not tear it but cast lots for it whose it shall be that the scripture might be fulfilled psalm 22 18 which says they divided my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots therefore the soldiers did these things what is significant about this is it speaks of this beautiful seamless robe and then you need to know that the high priest wore a seamless robe and so this is a picture of jesus acting as our high priest verse 25 it was the third hour and they crucified him it was 9 a.m and they crucified him crucifixion i've said this so many times but i'll say it briefly now crucifixion was a an extreme form of torture the person who was crucified did not necessarily die quickly sometimes it would take two to three days for the person who was crucified to finally die there are records of many who died in the term they use they died raving lunatics because the pain of crucifixion was so intense that they lost their mind during that pain we see in scripture or we see in history that there were different peoples who use different forms of capital punishment the assyrians prior to the to the romans and all the assyrians and a form of of crucifixion was actually called impaling and what they would do is they would take a a young tree a sapling they would cut it then they would sharpen it like a pencil then two strong soldiers would take the victim lift him up in the air and then impale him on the on this sapling and they were so good at it that the the weight of his body very slowly would bring the body down so that the point of the stake would finally pierce his heart and he would die the romans had taken that method of capital punishment and refined it and so when you see the crucifixion of jesus when you read in the word of god the crucifixion of jesus is telling you that this was an intense form of capital punishment that was incredibly painful again sometimes those in in israel who were crucified sometimes it would take two to three days for them to finally die certain roads were filled with crucified prisoners so that the criminals so that the people who would walk past these roddy or dead bodies would see them as a warning not to trifle with rome it was a horrible form of crucifixion of death it was outside of the city wall so that when people would walk by they would see the ones who were crucified and this is what's taking place now in crucifixion the risks would be nailed and there's a bone in our wrists where they would drive the nail between so it wouldn't break a bone it actually would go between the the bones in your wrist as well as near your ankles and so the wrist would be nailed the legs would be twisted under the the prisoner it would be twisted in someone use the term serpentine it's like a a snake twisted sideways so that it would be in the most uncomfortable position he could be and then they'd nail him and that way he'd get cramps and it would hurt every time he moved there would be a rope around the waist and and they had a sharpened saddle that was a peg that was metal so that the person who was on the cross when he would breathe because he had to lift himself to breathe when he would lift himself to to expand his lungs to take the pressure of the rib cage from his from his lungs when he would lift himself in that way to breathe that sharpened peg would be in his lower back and then it would go straight up and then it would come straight back and the pain would have been so intense and they would do that every time they took a breath the cross would be made of two pieces they had what was called the post and they had the cross beam the person was either nailed to the cross beam or it was raised by cords to the cross beam and nailed to it the cross was usually twice the height of a man dislocation would occur and your shoulders would be popped out the veins would be bulging with blood congestion of blood would be in your heart your head your lungs when you look at the picture that's taken place already with Jesus he had suffered head wounds his back had been ripped open it was now on that sharpened peg as well as the rough splintered post every time he would lift himself the peg would rip and so would the the the post itself would be driven into his back his legs would be cramping they would have intense fever they'd have dehydration and then they'd go into shock and because he was bearing the weight of his body on those nails his lungs eventually would simply collapse rather his ribs over his lungs and it would suffocate him slowly it would suffocate him slowly now we have a video we're going to show it's just going to take about a minute it's a doctor speaking about crucifixion and as the doctor speaks concerning it the doctor's a believer and he gets emotional you'll see a bit of that as he speaks about it it only takes a minute but from a medical kind of point of view he's going to share a few things just to kind of highlight what i'm trying to say so let's show that very quickly check this out watch this trauma surgeon medically explain the physical sufferings of jesus and towards the end of it try to hold back the tears the median nerve goes right straight through that particular portion of the wrist there would have been either destruction of the nerve or impingement of the nerve that would have been created tremendous amount of pain so every time you try to take a breath you'd be it'd be agonizing you'd be pushing down on spike feet which of course hurt and then you'd be hanging on spike darts and so you alternate from excruciating pain to excruciating pain i'm profoundly impacted by it because i realized the price that he paid was something i'm not i would never be willing to do for probably anybody it's very difficult for me to even sing songs about the cross even in worship because i truly do understand what he paid the price that he paid the nerves the pain the shock the dehydration you know sometimes we christians i i think in some ways because we're so thankful and so grateful and we're we're so blessed by the grace of god and we should be but sometimes we really don't understand the cost of your salvation like that doctor said i wouldn't do it for anybody because he knew because he knew the pain just as a physician he knew the nerves that were there he said every time he'd move it would go from pain to pain that's what jesus went through for us and you got to ask yourself a question you have to ask yourself as we make these things personal we have to ask ourselves why why would he do that why would he die in this terrible way especially because there is no sin in him he didn't deserve it you see the things and you'll see that later on i'll i'll be sharing a little bit about this but the thieves that were placed on the crosses next to him one of them said we deserve what we're going through but this man has done nothing wrong and so why would he do that and the bible makes it very clear because this is the way god provided salvation we cannot we cannot earn our own salvation i say that we all know that but sometimes maybe maybe someone's here who doesn't we can't become so good that god owes us heaven nobody's good there's none good the scripture says no not one you know the every person has gone their own way and so what happens is we needed somebody to do this for us i i don't understand you don't understand we as a group we really can't understand why would he do that he is the lamb of god who takes away the sin of the world and that idea of that sometimes may pass us by i see people all the time sometimes people who aren't known for being christian sometimes they they're their musicians or they're they're people who are involved in the music world and they're where their crosses or they have earrings with crosses and i wonder if they understand what that is because for many people the cross is an article of jewelry it's something you put on because it's something you like you think think it's kind of cool or it symbolizes something and i see that all the time but i've been a christian a long time and i'll see people who who obviously have no real relationship with christ but they have a cross why if they understood what that cross symbolizes the death of a perfect man who suffered in the way that he did maybe that would awaken them to why why they they shouldn't take that lightly and and why they should ask god to be merciful to them because it was my sins he died for right why would he do that well because he loved us god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life god sent not ascending to the world in order for us to just ignore that god sent ascending to the world so that we would see that so that we would understand that and so jesus is is is on the cross and and he's on the cross he's he's giving his life for us in matthew 20 verse 28 jesus said even this even as a son of man came not to be ministered to but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many they crucified him his mom's there john's there some other ladies are there the other men the other 10 are not mentioned as being at the cross they're hiding for fear the jewish authorities but not john you know as i've said before you you remember if you've been around to hear this but john refers to himself in the gospel of john several times but he never uses his own name he just says i'm the one jesus loved when you contrast that with the boastful prideful bragging of peter who said to jesus though all forsake you i never will i'll die for you when you contrast that with john's coming to awareness i was loved by christ the one who boasted that he would die was hiding but the one who was aware of god's love jesus's love was there why because john seems to have had a bit more insight into jesus dying for him and it wasn't the amount of love john had for jesus that drew him to the cross it was the amount of love jesus had for him that drew him there we'll look at this later in more detail obviously but i see the mother of jesus she was there she's the one who had a baby and placed him in a manger who had to flee to egypt for a couple of years because it's dangerous for her to remain in israel who returned went to a small city in the north nazareth and was a mother to her baby who grew up she was a mother like any other mother she loved him with all of her heart probably more than she could love any other human baby she cared for him she loved him as a mama loves a baby and now if she's standing there we'll look at this closely but she's standing there at a cross watching this when she loves so much die for her olive sin fall short of the glory of god mary praised god who was her savior only sinners need saviors and she knew that her son on that cross was dying for the sin of the world which would include hers on a cross and the bible says to us in verse 26 the inscription of his act isation was written above the king of the jews the prisoners crime would be written on a placard it would be placed around his neck and when they were crucified the placard would be nailed above his head these are the these are the charges it was written in Hebrew it was written in greek it was written in latin and when you look at the four gospels and begin to put together what they write by combining them we get the full accusation this is jesus of nazareth the king of the jews and there is his crime because he's the king but john gives us further insight in john 19 21 and 22 it says the chief priest of the jews said to pilot do not write the king of the jews but he said i am the king of the jews don't write that he's the actual king he only claimed to be that don't say he's the king of the jews how dare you call this man our king he's a blasphemer he made him out to be this himself out to be the son of god take that placard off and change it and you need to add that he said he was the king and then pilot answered what i've written i've written i'm not going to change that for you and your pettiness i'm not going to change this for you simply because you're telling me to he claimed it that was what he called you call his crime he was the king of the jews so the question is is he or is he not and even more personal is he my king or is he not is he yours or is he not is he your king because if he's your king you serve him if he's not your king you refuse to he's my king he is my king and i serve him that's why he asked the question why do you call me lord lord and do not the things that i say that's why he said if you love me keep my commandments how can i demonstrate that i love you jesus i say do if you love me keep my commandments as a father as a grandfather as a husband over the years those things have become more and more important to me and i'll close with a couple of thoughts i became aware fairly early that i had a limited time to be an influence to my children i had thought about it so much that i i wrote down how many minutes i have a week everybody has the same amount obviously it's 10,080 minutes a week but i only have in this room 45 minutes to help you to see jesus clearly the question is being asked how are you using the other 10,000 plus minutes in your life fathers are you raising your kids to know jesus christ mama are you a great example of what it means to be a godly woman before your kids if you have babies christian couples do people know that you're christians because of how you are not what you say how do i use the minutes that i've been given by god i have the same amount of minutes as you do i made a choice i made a choice i want to use them for the lord i want to be in his word i want to be in prayer see i know that the world is is going against us going against me a hundred percent all the time i'm aware of that the devil seeks whom he may devour he prowls like a roaring lion he's looking for weaknesses he's looking for things that he can take advantage of in your life and in mind so as a pastor who who is guarding my own walk and encouragement to you i would say be careful with yours i would say read your bible every day i would say pray spend time with believers share your faith have devotions with your children open the book and read it and pray with them do it as unto the lord because i can't tell you how many people i've known over the years who didn't take that time with the kids and now they weep because the kids have found something else other than christ do it now where you can understand that jesus died for you that wasn't easy he knew no sin but he became sin so that i could become the righteousness of god in him so that my name would be on his book of life so that one day i will see him face to face and i'll be able to say thank you for all you did for me i wouldn't have made it in here without you and now for eternity i get to praise you for what you've done that's called christianity and the united states needs the real dose of it because there's a whole lot of counterfeit going on let us let us be the examples of those who understand we've been bought at a price our father we bless you and we thank you