April 7
A Mournful List of Honors
O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame? - Psalms 4:2
An instructive writer has made a mournful list of the honors that the blinded people of Israel awarded to their long-expected King.
- They gave Him a procession of honor, in which Roman legionaries, Jewish priests, and men and women took part, He Himself bearing His cross. This is the triumph that the world awards to Him who comes to overthrow man's greatest enemy. Derisive shouts are His only acclamations, and cruel taunts His only songs of praise.
- They presented Him with the wine of honor. Instead of a golden cup of generous wine, they offered Him the criminal's anesthetic potion, which He refused in order that he might, in all its unmitigated horror, taste death; and afterwards when He cried, "I thirst," they gave Him vinegar mixed with gall, thrust to His mouth upon a sponge. What wretched, detestable inhospitality to the King's Son.
- He was provided with a guard of honor, who showed their esteem of Him by gambling over His clothes, which they had seized as their treasure. The bodyguard of Jesus was a quaternion of brutal gamblers.
- A throne of honor was found for Him upon the bloody tree. The cross was, in fact, the full expression of the world's feeling toward Him. "There," they seemed to say, "you Son of God, this is the manner in which God Himself should be treated, could we reach Him."
- The title of honor was nominally "King of the Jews," but this was distinctly repudiated. They really called Him "King of thieves" by preferring Barabbas and by placing Jesus in the place of highest shame between two thieves. In this way His glory was turned into shame by the sons of men, but it shall nevertheless still gladden the eyes of saints and angels, world without end.
Family Bible reading plan
verse 1 Leviticus 10
verse 2 Psalms 11, 12
Capturing God
A family photograph taken in a familiar and endeared setting often captures the essence of all that a family represents. If we sought to capture a single image of God, what would that image be? What would it look like? Author Rico Tice takes us to the cross of Christ to view the single most insightful image of God. Here we find one extraordinary picture of God: unfathomable love, unconditional forgiveness, and the depth of His longing to save His children. Rico Tice dissects the description given in the Gospel of Luke to carefully examine the astonishing events that unfold at Calvary as God incarnate suffers as a substitute for sinners.
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From Morning & Evening revised and edited by Alistair Begg copyright © 2003. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org.
