Many of us do it. We live an Old Testament existence in a world of New Testament promises. I guess Law will always appeal to our flesh more than Grace. So we go along mistaking the physical lesson of the Old Testament for the spiritual truth of the New Testament.

Recently, there it was in my Bible reading. In Joshua 5 there was a lesson I found thrilling. Here were the Children of Israel freshly arrived in the Promised Land, and after the drama of the Jordan crossing, the Lord’s first order of business was the practice of circumcision. They had carried it out years before in Egypt, but over the years of wandering they had neglected it.

Well, we are supposed to look at OT stories with NT light, right? The circumcision that the Lord is really after is circumcision of heart. So many times we neglect it and it is urgent that we put it in practice again. Just think of the pain of carrying out that call to circumcision! I understand that “sharp knives” of Joshua’s day were flint stones. I don’t want to be too graphic, but I would dread it! Any surgery with stones instead of modern day knives would terrify me.  So, I suppose even at the cost of discomfort we must do the work the Lord seeks in our hearts. In verse 9 we were even told that “This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you.” He never said it until the events of this chapter. This we need and in verses 13-15 the Lord came. Pretty exciting stuff, huh?

These lessons get by us too easily. We’d rather pull out the stones of flint than do real heart surgery. We’ll inflict the pain of body and leave our souls at ease.

We become consumed with the object lessons. We prefer the tangible, outward things over the spiritual, inward things. Since this lacks spiritual power, we turn on each other and watch for the pool of blood and listen for the screams.  We are always ready to point out everyone’s failure as if circumcision could tell us all of our hearts. Our conclusions miss the point and hurt others, as well as ourselves. Need I remind you that Jesus has come through in the interim between Joshua and us?

Perhaps we find the pain exhilarating. Perhaps we enjoy it more if we see others suffering with us. I don’t know. We inspect the circumcision, so to speak, while the Lord says you are seeing the object itself as the lesson and missing the point. But we can see the circumcision and we can prove we did it. We can never prove what is in our hearts. We settle for what we can impress others with while being indifferent to what might please the Lord. We live the Old Testament as if the Lord had no greater revelation in the New Testament to share. Pretty ridiculous, wouldn’t you agree?

If I saw the point I’d pray for my heart and yours. I’d listen carefully as the Lord spoke to me and encourage you to do the same. But I’d leave the stones of flint to your own consideration and ask you to keep them away from me. Live the Old Testament if you please and I’ll keep my mouth shut. As for me, though, I’m rather fond of the New Testament.

What do you think of the days in which we live? More importantly, what should you and I do about it? As Christians, what exactly does it mean for us when we state the obvious “It is an evil time?” Are we to sink into despair and hopelessness?

The Bible has more to say than many think; not only what constitutes evil days, but how we should approach them as well. Look at Amos and the dark days he lived.  It was in Amos 5:13 that the statement itself was made: “It is an evil time.”

Those days were filled with injustice. Official judgments were pathetic. Those who were supposed to rule righteously, judge fairly, and protect the helpless were failing at every level for their own selfish ends. Sound familiar?

We live in times of such injustices coming at every level. Whether it’s the local official taking care of his buddy, or a high-ranking official fleecing a multitude, or a court failing to protect the helpless, it’s the norm of our times. The severely disabled, the elderly, the unborn, and the poor live without the common decency that should be afforded them. I just heard of a court approving a parent’s request for surgery to alter their severely disabled daughter for their convenience. They made it where she couldn’t grow anymore, gave her a hysterectomy to avoid any sort of monthly inconvenience, and the ethics committee of the hospital approved it! Yes, it is an evil time.

Our text laid it out plainly, but I am so glad the Lord has more to say. In Amos 5: 14-15 we are told: Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken. Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.

The trouble with most of us is that we don’t have more to say. We moan and say “It is an evil time.” That’s it. If that were really all of it, it would be the most hopeless, depressing message imaginable. The Lord tells us what to do and moaning has nothing to do with it.

Seek the good. What the world is doing around you should have no effect on what you are doing. Despite the evil and death all around, you have the vibrant life of Christ and His fellowship. When the Lord in His holiness is forced to raise His hand in judgment, you can still be held close to His heart!  He “shall be with you.”

Then, hate the evil. Don’t be part of it. You treat those others fairly and provide honest and righteous judgement in everything. Yes, you will be the proverbial fish out of water in our culture, but what is at stake? Did you notice the last part of the above verses? (“ it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious…“) It may just be that you will extend God’s mercy to your own people. It’s not that you sway the Lord, or that He is indebted to you, but that you have made it so a Holy God can legitimately extend the mercy He wants to give.

Yes, things are a little bleak these days. Is our task just to gripe? No, we have much more to do now that “it is an evil time.”

 

Synthesis of Crucifixion Day (Click here for a .pdf of the chart below. Feel free to print out for personal study.)

(Click image for larger view).

It’s no surprise that this most pivotal day of human history has the most details given in Scripture. Perhaps they aren’t given in the way we like things given today. There’s 4 Gospel records and the design behind which Gospel gets to tell which detail is far beyond us. In fact, the way the Lord has given us the Scriptures means that I am at no loss at all to, say, read Matthew straight through. Several facts are missing, but the great theme shines through.

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If you enjoy this chart, it and several others from the Gospels have been collected in my new book “Following Jesus Through the Gospels”. Click HERE for more information.

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Still, as I study God’s Word, I may want to put those details together for my own study. Who could blame me? That day made forgiveness, salvation, and Heaven itself all possible for me. It seems as one grows as a Christian there will always be a growing, healthy fascination about Christ–what He did, Who He is, and on and on. That will entail the production of a Harmony of the Gospels. Many exist. Most are fairly standard, except for a few hard-to-pin-down places. Only those who can’t come to grips with the idea of an infallible Word might shun the whole idea.

What some Harmonies fail to do is slow down at the Crucifixion. Each Gospel gives from a third to a half of its pages to that week. There is a reason for that. Then the pace slows even more for the day of the Crucifixion. My approach on the above chart is totally geared toward our culture. Midnight not only didn’t start a new day for those in Jesus’ time, but also it didn’t mean anything to them. Their day began with sundown. That’s totally unusual to we who even wait up till midnight to watch the new year come in.

Jesus makes it to the Garden of Gethsemane on this day. The horrors, the betrayal, and the arrest all happen after dark and so on this new day. By the time midnight comes Jesus has already endured at least part of the 3 religious trials He faced before Jewish authorities. Peter denied 3 times and ran off weeping. It was already a hectic day before our midnight kicked in. Here our chart picks up.

Dawn came pretty early then in those days of no daylight savings time. The custom of that day would be to get up early and get going, so Jesus’ civil trial before the Roman authorities all being done before 9 a.m. would not be not that remarkable. Even though we think of His suffering starting a little later, He probably has had no sleep in 24 hours (unless He caught a cat nap while being held till morning), He had a near-death experience in the Garden, and He suffered one of the most gut-wrenching betrayals ever known at the hands of Judas. Those supposedly still on His team are shivering in their sandals somewhere. Plus the trial had been a joke. One terrible false accusation after another has been hurled at Him. Finally, He is scourged with a cat-o-nine tails whip and is forced to carry His Own cross. No wonder He collapsed under the weight of the main beam of the cross.

By 9 a.m. He is actually hanging from that cross facing one of the most gruesome execution methods ever devised. Here’s where a synthesis of the Gospel records proves handy. So much happened. There were 3 hours of light and interaction with those around Him including much ridicule. He, as you surely know, never wavers. The three statements He makes during this time prove that pain and suffering couldn’t squeeze His great love out of Him.

At Noon a darkness overtakes all around. It was a darkness you could almost feel. You can sense an edginess by many. The suffering intensifies as every moment brings Him closer to death. What might not be obvious in any one Gospel record is that He gives His last 4 statements near the end. These all have to do with the agony of the sin He bears for us. “It is finished” is profound in its meaning, and exhaustive in its scope. All that could ever be required for my sin is given here.

At 3 p.m. He dies. More accurately, we say He laid down his life as He chose the time and the place. No person in Jerusalem that day could ever forget what it was like at 3 p.m. that day!

Others things happen, as you can see on the chart, but are rarely discussed as what happened at 3 p.m. eclipses all. Can you imagine how those women felt who left at dark after watching the stone being fully in place at His tomb? Remember for them it ended the Day of the Crucifixion. For us it might as well have even though midnight was roughly 6 hours away. Put a marker in your mind for that ending day as it set in motion a 3-day period that at its end will melt all the gloom there away forever.

Questions For Study

1. How do our customs affect how we view the story of the Crucifixion?

2. What is the difference in how the 4 Gospels present the story to how we looked at it in our chart?

3. What are your thoughts on the scope of Christ’s suffering?

4. Describe your thoughts on the few minutes before and after His actual death.

5. Compare and contrast the Day of the Crucifixion and the Day of the Resurrection.