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At the end of time, millions of people
were scattered on a great plain before God's throne. Some of the group
near the front talked heatedly - not with cringing shame but with
belligerence.
"How can God judge us? How can He know
about suffering?" snapped a joking brunette. She jerked back a sleeve
to reveal a tattooed number from a Nazi concentration camp."We endured
terror, beatings, torture, death!"
In another group, a black man lowered
his collar. "What about this?" he demanded, showing an ugly rope burn.
Lynched for no other crime but being black! "We suffocated in slave
ships, were wrenched from loved ones, toiled till only death gave
release."
Far out across the plain were hundreds
of such groups. Each had a complaint against God for the evil and
suffering He had permitted in His world. How lucky God was to live in
heaven where all was sweetness and light, where there was no weeping,
no fear, no hunger, no hatred. Indeed, what did God know about what man
had been forced to endure in this world? And after all, God leads a
pretty sheltered life, they said.
So each group sent out a leader, chosen
because he had suffered the most. There was a Jew, a Black, an
untouchable from India, an illegitimate, a person from Hiroshima and
one from a Siberian slave camp. In the center of the plain they
consulted each other. At last they were ready to present their case. It
was rather simple: before God could be their judge He must endure what
they endured. Their decision was that dod should be sentenced to live
on earth - as a man!
But, because He was God, they set
certain safeguards to be sure He could not use His divine powers to
help Himself.
Let HIm be born to a hated minority.
Let the legitimacy of His birth be
doubted so that on one will know ho really is His father.
Let Him champion a cause so just, but
so radical, that it brings down upon Him the hate, the condemnation and
eliminating efforts of every major traditional and established
religious authority.
Let Him be betrayed by His dearest
friends.
Let Him be indicted on false charges,
tried before a prejudiced jury and convicted by a cowardly judge.
Let Him see what it is to be terribly
alone and completely abandoned by every living thing.
Let Him be tortured and let him die the
most humiliating death - with common thieves.
As each leader announced his portion of
the sentence loud murmurs of approval went up from the great throng of
people.
When the last had finished pronouncing
sentence, there was a long silence. No one uttered another word. On one
moved. For suddenly all knew: God already had served His sentence.
God served HIs sentence in the person
of His Son, Jesus Christ.
(Author Unknown)
Jesus go a bad deal. The Bible says He
took your sin and my sin on Himself and offers back His righteousness.
he died so that we might have life. The wages or price of sin is
misery, guilt, lack of peace of mind, death and hell. But Jesus died on
the cross to save us from that sin so that we might have real peace,
abundant life and eternal life.
Right now ask the Lord Jesus Christ to
forgive you of your sins and tell Him because He died for you, you'll
live for Him.
Isaiah
53:3-6
We despised Him and rejected Him - a
mon of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. We turned our backs on
Him and looked the other way when He went by. He was despised and we
didn't care.
Yet it was our grief He bore, our
sorrows that weighed Him down. And we thought His troubles were a
punishment from God, for His own sins! But He was wounded and bruised
for our sins. He was chastised that we might have peace; He was lashed
- and we were healed!
We are the ones who strayed away like
sheep! We, who left God's paths to follow our own. Yet God laid on Him
the guilt and sins of every one of us!
Living Bible
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