Joshua 5:13-14, Romans 5:8-10, 2 Corinthians 5:18

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Whose side are you on? There’s a scene in Joshua that I always find so fascinating when Joshua is leading God’s people into the Promised Land. And so they’re going, they’re getting ready for battle and for what’s ahead of them. We’re told that when Joshua’s by Jericho,

When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come.” (Joshua 5:13-14)

Such an intriguing scene, because Joshua is leading the people of God. It would seem like if Joshua is saying, oh, hey, whose side are you on that it would be a pretty clear answer. Well, I’m with you guys, but the answer isn’t that the answer is no. I am the commander of the Army of the Lord. It’s not about being on the people’s side. It’s about being on God’s side. And for us, it’s not about trying to get God onto our side. It’s about being on God’s side. What is God doing? What is God up to? What does God want?

That’s something really worth pondering today in our world where people are so quick to take sides. Are you a Democrat or a Republican? Are you for this or against this? On Facebook, if there’s a post, are you liking it? Are you hating it? Are you commenting this or commenting that? Are you for this thing at church? Or are you anti this thing at church? Or are you a yes vote? Are you a no vote? We’re so quick to take sides, but as a Christian there’s only really one side to take and it’s the Lord’s, the Lord’s side.

When we get off thinking about, okay, my opinion, my side versus their side or what they think versus what what I think, we so quickly go down a wrong path. And perhaps that’s a big part of why there’s just so much hostility and hate in our world today. And social media definitely doesn’t help with that.

So what do we do when we realize we’ve taken the wrong side? Well, first of all, we lay that before the cross and then we remember this in Romans chapter five, verses 8 to 10. It says,

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. (Romans 5:8-10)

Let’s think about that. We were enemies of God. We were naturally a sinful people. We didn’t do things God’s way. We did things our own way. And that went against God. And yet God, God is so for us that Jesus came into this world. God the Son became human and then lay down his life and died, absorbing all the justice that your sins and mine deserve. He took the death that we deserve, and he rose again so that God can now see us through him, so that through faith in Jesus, by the power of the Spirit, now we are new people. We are new creations. We are children of God.

We are no longer enemies of God. You are now on God’s side and now, by the Spirit, you are free to live as someone who is on God’s side. How different might we approach things? How different might we look? How much of a light might we be in this world if we approach things and go towards things, not thinking about what side I want to be on. What’s God up to in this? What does God want to do in this? What would the Lord’s army, if you will, what would their mission, God’s mission, be in this situation?

One thing I know that God’s mission would be in second Corinthians 5:18, we’re told that

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; (2 Corinthians 5:18)

So much as we think about the gospel and our role in this world, is to be people who are now sharing the good news, sharing forgiveness and people of reconciliation, where people are brought together around the cross through Christ and united in him. When we were his enemies, he died for us. We are now on the Lord’s side. And what is his side up to today?

Peace Devotions uses a combination of paid and free stock footage in the creation of our devotions. While we typically avoid the use of AI generated content in our videos, we occasionally may use AI generated illustrations, photos, or videos to help visually convey our message. We will do our best to disclaim the use of AI content when it is used. This video contains one short clip that was generated using AI.

Mark 8:34

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The older I get, the more I find myself making little deals with the devil. And these aren’t interesting deals at all. I don’t get any wealth or magical powers or anything like that. These are mostly deals that center around a very particular teaching of the Christian church, something called theology of the cross. The way the Bible puts it in Mark chapter eight, verse 34, it says.

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said, if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. (Mark 8:34)

When you are a Christian, your life is going to contain some suffering that’s particular to you being a Christian. It’s colloquial if something very bad has happened to you, especially if it’s ongoing, you’ll say that you’re carrying your cross, right? You get cancer and now that’s just your cross to bear. These are definitely things that are suffering. There’s certainly the result of life living in a sinful world, but they aren’t actually crosses that we’re bearing. This isn’t suffering that’s unique to a Christian.

So what is then, this unique suffering of a Christian? Well, the core of it is that there is a tension that exists between what I want and what God wants. And oftentimes because I’m sinful and he’s perfect, those things are in direct opposition with each other, and I end up suffering as they contend with each other. My will is not in line by nature with what God’s will is, and that hurts. I end up having to deal with that my whole life. Maybe you’ve had this experience, actually. You’re sharing the gospel with somebody and you can see it’s clicking, right? Their head is nodding. You can see, man, the Holy Spirit is doing something. And then all of a sudden, there comes this moment where their face kind of falls, right? There listening, and then they go, oh, right. And we refer to that moment as cost of discipleship. But really it’s an extension of theology of the cross.

They have faith now. And the same moment that they got faith, they also got their cross. They realized there are things in their life that are not compatible with what God wants, right? That God’s will is not the exact same thing as their will, and that now they’re going to have to deal with some of that. That’s the special, unique pain of a Christian. If you don’t believe in God, there’s no reason to, you know, try to conform your life to what God wants.

And so to avoid this pain, this is where we make those little deals with the devil, right? Where I’ll say there’s some temptation that plagues me. And so I will shake the devil’s hand a little bit and say, I’m just going to go this far with this temptation, And I won’t go any further. And, God, you’re just going to have to be good with the fact that I’m not doing the big sin, the really big like noteworthy thing. But I’m going to go this far, and this idea that God’s just going to have to be happy with the fact that we are going only this far with things, and that he’s going to have to be okay with that. Reality is, he’s not.

This is one of those places where Christians end up in this bounce between self-righteousness and despair. So what’s the antidote here? The antidote is exactly what it says inside of our verses here. Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Follow me. Right? The word deny, actually, in these verses is kind of interesting. It’s just as well maybe even better to translate disown, to disown yourself. How does one even do that? How do you, how do you disown yourself? Well, the key to it is acknowledging who actually has ownership over you. You don’t have ownership over yourself. The devil, when you were born, had ownership over you to some extent, right? We were dead in sins and trespasses. But as soon as you were baptized, as soon as there was faith in your heart, that moment Jesus puts you on his father’s knee and said, look, here is another one for whom I died. Here is another one who gets the rewards of heaven.

The way in which we find our peace, and the way in which we make God happy in this is not by something we’ve done. It makes him happy that we’ve received the blessings that he has won for us in His Son, that we are the recipients of the grace that he has laid out for us. That’s what it means when he says, my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

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I was going through the car wash and it dawned on me that as I was going in there and they instructed me to follow and get into line and then put the car into neutral. Take your hands off the wheel. Don’t hit the brakes. You have to have a lot of trust in this process in order to get your car clean. And it dawned on me that in many ways, it’s similar to the work of the Holy Spirit. This is something that Martin Luther in the Small Catechism really emphasized in his explanation to the third article of the Creed when he wrote,

I believe that I cannot, by my own reason or strength. Believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him. But the Holy Ghost has called me by the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith, just as he calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.

We’re tempted sometimes to think that we have to do things in order to get ourselves clean, and we take a lot of that credit. We take a lot of that pressure. We internalize it. What does God want from you and me? He wants us to come to him and let him do the work. And at times that work can be pretty intense. Just as you’re going through a car wash and and you’re hearing that beating of the brushes on the car, and you see the spray, and you can almost feel the vibrations through the window of that powerful washing. So too is it as God, the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives, to make us what he wants of us, to strengthen us, to make us holy and beautiful creatures before him. That work of sanctification that the Holy Spirit does. Sometimes it can be alarming, and we might be tempted to try and take control of things ourselves, but that can be really dangerous.

In fact, I saw a video recently of someone who ended up rear ending a car in front of them in a car wash, and it caused damage to their car, the other car, it caused thousands upon thousands of dollars of damage to the car wash itself. No, you have to keep your hands off the wheel. You have to leave it in neutral. You have to let the car wash do its work.

So to with us. Are we willing to let God do the work of cleansing us? As Christians, we know that he is the one who takes care of us. He’s the one who has already gone to all the effort. He’s already put the payment down for your cleanliness. And that payment, of course, was the blood of Christ your Savior. Jesus has done all the work, and now God wants to come and give that to you. And that’s the work of the Holy Spirit who goes to work in your heart, cleansing you by bringing Jesus to you, installing Jesus in you, putting faith in Christ into you. It’s not something we do. We get to be the passive passengers. And yet God does that incredible work for us.

What a blessing the pressure is off of us. Thank you Lord for giving us this cleansing. God’s peace be with you.

Ephesians 2:8-9

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I need to be loved, but I want to be lovable.

It’s a strange thing that I find in myself, and I want to share it in case it’s something that you can relate to. I find that with people in my life who love me, I want there to be reasons that they love me. Like, I’ve done something to be a really good husband or father or, you know, son or brother and friend and that they can look and say, yeah, because of that, like he’s done this or he will do this, or he’s a stand up guy in this way. That’s why I love him.

I want to be lovable, but I need to be loved. And the thing about love, true love, agape love, that “all in” love of God is that that love isn’t based on being lovable. Actually, if it’s a love that’s based on being lovable, it’s not really true love. “All in” love says that yes, you have faults. You have these different things. It’s not based on you being good enough. It’s the fact that I’m going to love you anyway. It’s the fact that I am for you anyway. It’s the love that we see ultimately from our God, who, when he looked at this world and saw that we had turned away from him. That we’ve been stuck in our sin. That he says, I’m going to love you anyway. I’m going to send my son Jesus into this world to die for your sins and to rise again, anyway. His grace is nothing about anything we do. It’s a free gift. It’s not at all about us being lovable. Ephesians two says this so beautifully,

Indeed, it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

God’s love, true love, has nothing to do with how lovable you are.

I think maybe I fall back in wanting to be lovable because since sin came into this world, what, what do we do? We try to do things our own way, gain wisdom, our own way. Even, you know, think about the temptation in the garden of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The temptation was that they would be like God, knowing good and evil. The ironic thing was that when God created humanity, how does scripture describe humanity? That they were created in the image and likeness of God. They already were like God in many ways.

Sin was getting them to try to get what they already had. And do it their own way. And trying to be lovable, being caught up with being lovable is the same thing.

You don’t have to earn love. You can’t. Love, by definition, true love is something freely given. It has nothing to do with you. You don’t have to try to be lovable today. I mean, go be lovable. Be nice to people in your life. Don’t get me wrong, but not to be loved. You already are. It’s a free gift. God’s grace. God’s love for you. You are loved.

Colossians 2:13-14

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One summer during high school, a friend and I spent nearly our entire summer riding bikes around town, having fun, doing all sorts of things that kids do, mainly stayed out of trouble. But we got ourselves into a little bit of trouble when one day we were really hungry. It was about lunchtime and so we went to a local bar and grill that my friend would go to quite often with his dad. We’d go in and we didn’t have any money. My friend said, it’s okay. “My dad has a running tab here at this restaurant. We can just order what we want and it’ll go on the tab.”

And so we did, and we started making that a more regular habit. Hey, we’re hungry. Let’s go over and eat. And before we knew it, my friend’s dad came rolling up into his driveway as we were sitting in his garage working on our bikes, and he said, you guys ran up a huge tab. I think you’re going to be going to work with me for the next two weeks in order to pay it off.

So it came back to haunt us. We had run up this great debt on someone else’s bill, and now we were indebted to him. Now, this is a slightly silly example, but this is also how it works quite often when it comes to sin. When you and I end up breaking God’s law and we make mistakes, we make terrible, selfish decisions. We’re running up a debt. A debt that we can’t repay, a terrifying debt. A debt that we deserve to suffer and die for. To die eternally for. But we have a loving father in God the Father who comes to us. And even though he knows and understands that this debt that we have worked up is one that’s beyond our capability to repay. He forgives us of that debt.

Let me share with you a verse, a really powerful verse from Colossians chapter two that speaks about how God forgives us our debt.

Colossians 2:13 and 14.

God made you alive with Christ by forgiving us all our trespasses. God erased the record of our debt brought against us by his legal demands. This record stood against us, but he took it away by nailing it to the cross. (Colossians 2:13-14)

Our debt was nailed to the cross and to the person that was on the cross in our place. We have a Savior, Jesus, who came and said, I’m going to pay your debt for you. And because of that, there is no longer any debt that you and I have as we stand before God. There is no anger. There is no fear as we stand before God, everything that should separate us from God: it’s been nailed to the cross. It’s been nailed to Jesus, and he has paid for it in full.

What a gift. What an awesome treasure this is that you and I have in our Savior Jesus. He has removed our debts from us. He had it nailed with him to the cross. Our sin is now forgiven, wiped out. So we now stand before God. And God smiles at us. And he says, my beloved children, yes, your debt has been paid. You have nothing to worry about. Do not be fearful. Do not run away from me. Instead, know that I am your loving father and I am here for you. What a gift that is. Glory be to Jesus for covering our debt of sin.

Peace be with you.

Ephesians 4:14-15

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I want a stronger faith. Maybe you’ve thought that before. Maybe you’ve prayed that before. If we want stronger muscles, we got to work out. We got to lift weights. We have to eat, right. We have to push ourselves. If you want to get better at piano, if you want to get better at shooting three pointers, if you want to get better at painting, you have to practice over and over and over. Is faith like that? Is it about grinding really hard and putting all of our effort into being a better Christian, and to digging deep to believing more?

Not quite. Faith is more like hunger. You can’t make yourself feel more hungry. You’re either hungry or you’re not. In a similar way, we can’t force ourselves to be stronger believers.

And yet in Ephesians, Paul says this

The goal is that we would no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching… Instead, speaking the truth in love, we would in all things grow up into Christ, who is the head. (Ephesians 4:14-15)

So how do we grow? How do we do that? How do we get a stronger faith? To strengthen our faith, the answer is never to turn inside. It’s not about trying really hard. It’s not about putting in more effort. The answer really isn’t about you at all. It’s about turning to the things that God says and promises will strengthen our faith. Those things are his Word. His Word attached to water and baptism and his Word attached to the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper.

When doubts come, when questions roll around in our minds, questions like am I good enough? Am I strong enough? Is my faith big enough? Am I Christian enough? Have I done too many bad things? Is God’s grace for me? The answer is never found here [inside you]. The answer is always found here in His word.

And the biggest answer that we find is, no, we are not good enough. But Jesus is. His grace and his mercy are enough. His righteousness is enough. His forgiveness is enough to cover up every single sin, every regret, every single mistake in our life. When you want a stronger faith, remember that the answer is not found inside. Remember, the focus of our faith is always on Jesus. And that’s what Scripture does. It continually points us to Christ. It is through that that we find our ultimate assurance and comfort, and it’s through that that our faith in him ultimately grows. Amen.

Psalm 46, Matthew 28:20

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Today, I’m going to share some of the comforting things that God has in store for us in Psalm 46. The Psalm says he is our refuge and our strength. A fortress is how Luther translated it. He’s never absent. Jesus promised, surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age or the end of the world. [Matthew 28:20]

Well, anyway, I love this psalm because I grew up out in Washington state. I was 12 years old on May 18th, 1980, and I know that probably that day, date, probably doesn’t mean a lot to many of you, but for kids from Washington back then, it was an unforgettable day. On Sunday, May 18th, 1980, at 8:32 a.m., Mount Saint Helens erupted. 1300ft, more than that, were blown off of the top and off of the side of the mountain. When the ash finally finished falling and all the dust settled, there’s this gaping crater that this hole in her north side. But still, in spite of that, she’s still there. Saint Helens, she’s over 8000ft to tall.

So with Psalm 46 in mind, think for yourself. What would it take? What kind of eruption? What kind of earthquake? Tsunami? Or God forbid, what kind of horror of nuclear war would it take for all the mountains to be leveled, to be thrown into the midst of the sea? And speaking of disasters, think of the chaos that would ensue in an eruption, in an earthquake. We see when Florida is trying to evacuate in front of a hurricane. The roads are clogged. Hospitals are overrun. Stores are empty. Their shelves are empty. Well, Psalm 46 assures us that if a mountain is gone the next day, if the entire Cascade Range or the Rockies or the Alps, we would wake up and find them gone, that we won’t wake up and find the Lord gone.

God is our refuge and our strength. He is ever present. There’s never a time when he will not be with us. Because didn’t God the Son come here, become incarnate for us? And wasn’t he rejected by those he loved by his own people? Wasn’t he hated by them? Didn’t he breathe his last and give himself into death?

Take your thumb and tuck the last two fingers of your hand behind the thumb. Three right. Three digits. Sort of tucked away, sort of hidden. And then what are you left with? You’re left with two. Two standing there together. Two fingers.

When Christian pastors, priests, ministers proclaim God’s blessing on God’s people, they often put their hand in this configuration, the three the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Holy Trinity are tucked away, somewhat veiled, but those two that stand so prominent for everybody to see. Those two represent the two natures of Christ, true God and true man together, one Christ. And that is how God’s people are often blessed.

So the Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge because God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God sent the Son of God here to this world to give himself into death, to rise again for our salvation.

So whether it’s the latest disaster that you’re seeing on the news and all the chaos that ensues, whether it’s rumors of war or real wars, whether it’s false friends or whether it’s your health that’s failing. I pray that the promises God has for you in Psalm 46 and along with Christ himself, will be your strength and your comfort. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. Amen.

Job 42:7

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Are you forcing answers that are too small for the big questions that you have? That happened to me. I’ve had a few seasons of my life, a pretty heavy doubt when it comes to God, and it actually started because I was really good at answering questions about God. But then when I got to where there were questions that I didn’t have the answers to, then I started to struggle. What was happening? I was depending too much on my own ability to answer these questions. But then God worked in my mind, in my heart, and I started to get some pretty good answers to the questions I had. And I started to feel better. But then my later kind of seasons of doubt started to arise. Partly because I started to get this sense that my answers I had come up with were a bit too small. They didn’t fully answer the question. So then I was back to, okay, what do I do now?

But I’ve come to really realize that God doesn’t want us to force answers. There’s something else he would have us do. Where I can see this, now, there’s this interesting part of the story with Job that doesn’t get talked about as much, but it’s really significant. Quick review: Job is a righteous, faithful man. He’s devoted to God. Loves God and he’s blessing these wonderful ways. Then Satan comes before God and God’s like, have you noticed my servant Job? And Satan’s just like, well, it’s because his life is good. And you take these things away, he’s going to curse you and he’s going to turn against you. And so then God allows Satan to inflict him into these different things. Well, actually, it starts with him losing a lot, including his kids, and then allows him to inflict his body and all these terrible things happen, and Job just loses basically everything.

And he has these friends that come and talk to him. And at first they just sit and grieve with him, which is great. But then they start coming up with potential reasons why this happened. And basically the conclusion of most of them is God is just so God wouldn’t allow this to happen if you hadn’t done something wrong, Job. So they basically accused Job of doing bad stuff, and Job maintains his innocence. He’s like, no, I didn’t do anything to deserve this. And there’s this back and forth and back and forth. And some of the time, Job really honors God. But there are other times where he seems to really be questioning God’s justice, too. He’s on this kind of roller coaster of emotions. But then towards the end, we get this really wild picture where God comes to Job and takes Job basically on a virtual tour of the universe and shows Job all these things that are beyond Job’s understanding. Job, do you know how all of this stuff works? No. You don’t. But I do. Job, I a, I’m good at being God. Is basically what God shows Job.

There are all these things in this world you don’t understand how they work, but they work. And you can trust it. I’m working in this too. So that’s kind of the big picture of the story of Job. But here’s the interesting thing is, is in Job 42, after he had spoken to Job, he speaks against Job’s friend Eliphaz, and he says,

“My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7)

Now Job had said some pretty strong things towards God. And here God says, hey other friends, you didn’t speak right about me like Job did.

So what’s going on there? Well, remember, Job’s friends had reached a conclusion of what they thought must have been happening. They forced answers that were too small. And what Job did instead was Job was brutally honest with God about how he’s feeling, what’s going on? He came to God and he wrestled with God, said some things that are pretty strong, but he didn’t reach the same kind of small conclusions that they did. And it makes me realize that, yes, we have a tendency to try to reach answers that are forced, and it’s probably because we think we should be able to understand God and wrap our heads around these things. Which is really ridiculous when you think about it.

Whenever we realize that we’ve had that tendency to try to wrap our heads around God, we need to lay those sins at the cross, know that we are forgiven. Jesus died for you and rose again. Your guilt is removed. You’re right before God and now you are free to not force too small answers. But to be honest with God about your big questions. He may give you answers, or he may be like he did with Job and say, you know what? This is too big for you. And that’s okay. There may be some things that are beyond you. There may be some answers that he gives you, but don’t force the small stuff. Come and be honest and embrace the forgiveness and new life and the bigness of your big, beautiful, amazing God.

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So in the last several videos, I’ve been explaining these other alternative theories that dismiss the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And now I want us to focus on the evidence for the truthfulness of the resurrection, and I want to do it this way. The lives of many people were changed, and they were changed drastically because of this testimony, and this proclamation that Jesus rose from the dead.

Take for example Peter. Peter who denied Jesus three times because, why, he was pressured by a 14 year old girl and several others. But what happened to Peter? He goes on to become the leader of the apostles. He’s willing to be arrested, willing to suffer. In about 68 A.D. he is crucified upside down for his belief in a crucified but risen Lord Jesus Christ. What explains this?

You have the half brother of Jesus by the name of James. James and his other brothers thought Jesus was not the Messiah. In fact, they said he was out of his mind. But what happens? James goes on to become the leader of the church in Jerusalem. James also suffers and is martyred.

And then you have Paul. Paul the great persecutor of the Christian faith. He not only has people arrested and put in jail, but he also votes to have them put to death. Paul goes on to become the greatest of the apostles in a sense, the greatest missionary, the greatest defender of the Christian faith.

He suffers greatly during his missionary trips, and finally he too is martyred in about the year 66-67 A.D.. So what explains this? What explains this? Does a swoon theory explain this? Does a wrong tomb theory explain this? Does a hallucination explain this? Does stealing the body explain this? No. Whether it be these three men or so many others who suffered for what they saw with their eyes and touched with their hands, and ate with their mouths as they joined him for a meal. The only thing that explains their willingness to suffer and even die is a man who was truly resurrected from the dead.

If he was resurrected from the dead and he was, it means that he is the Son of God.

But what does that mean? Well, it means before he rose, he was dead. And what does that mean? Well, it means that sin is very real.

It means that my sin is very, very serious. Your sin is very, very serious.

And it means, ultimately that my sin and your sin is really forgiven. Why else would the Son of God leave his place in heaven, come to earth, take on human flesh, and suffer and die in the way he did?

For those of us who are baptized and who believe in Christ, we have that forgiveness right now.

But if we are not there, we need to listen to the words of Peter in the book of Acts, where the Jews there, when they heard this message of the crucified and risen Christ, it says, they were cut to the heart. And they said, what should we do? And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

My name is David Thompson. I’m the director for The Center for Apologetics and Worldviews. Thank you for watching.

Psalm 98

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Today’s Psalm, Psalm 98. Let’s take a deeper look at these verses. It says that we are to sing a new song. It’s a fresh song. It’s something that’s never been heard before. This means all the way back to Adam and Eve. No one has ever seen or let alone done this new thing. And again, that Hebrew word has got the sense of being fresh. In other words, it’s not old. It’s not moldy or mildew y. It’s alive, it’s fresh. And it’s a miraculous thing because God has revealed the sense of that word is unhidden or unveiled his salvation.

Now here’s something really cool that Hebrew word for salvation is also the Hebrew name Jesus. Or they would have pronounced it Yeshua. God has uncovered, unveiled, unhidden Yeshua. Salvation. Jesus. And he’s shown this dropping down to verse two, to all people.

In verse two we find a great word goyim. And that’s me. I’m from, my ancestors or from northern Europe, and that’s probably you. Goyim is everyone who’s not Jewish whose bloodline can’t be traced back to Abraham. We’re the filthy masses, the unwashed, we’re the Gentiles conceived and born in sin. But the Psalm says that there’s this new song of salvation, this new song, a fresh song of Yeshua for all people.

Because verse three says, God’s remembered. He didn’t forget his mercy, his love. All the ends of the earth are going to hear about this and see it for themselves. Verse nine, it says that he’s coming. The Lord is coming and he’s coming to judge the world. He’s going to decide about the world and its fate, but he’s going to do it in righteousness. Right before God. So how can the world, how can the people, the Gentiles, be judged to be righteous? Well, there’s a new thing. It’s Christ, the crucified and risen Christ. So that new song, that thing that’s now unhidden for all the world, that salvation is the risen Christ. So that new song, that unhidden salvation fresh and never before seen. It’s God the Son giving himself for you, dying and rising.

We usually hear, see, Psalm 98 on Easter morning. What better day of the year to sing about this new, this brand new, never before seen thing than on the day our Savior conquered sin and death for us? Read Psalm 98 for yourself and the Lord bless and keep you.

Jeremiah 31:34

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Recently I went to Rochester, Minnesota for some fairly minor surgery. In fact, I was awake during the surgery that I had over there. My eyes were covered, but I could listen to the surgeon and to the resident who was helping the surgeon. And I have to say, it was interesting to listen to them talk about what they were doing. I couldn’t understand a word of it, but it was comforting for me to know that they were very sure of what to do next. And it all turned out well. As I think about it, it would have been quite distressing if I would have heard them lament about how confused and lost they were as they were operating on me. It was wonderful to know that those who were taking care of me know an awful lot, much more about this than I’ll ever know.

As Christians, you and I know a lot. We know especially a lot about what’s in the Bible. We know not that we want to dazzle and overwhelm others with our knowledge, but rather we want to share the good news that the Bible contains. The prophet Jeremiah in the 31st chapter, at verse 34, we read these words.

No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.” (Jeremiah 31:34)

It is through the Word of God that we know two very important things we know by his law the trouble that we’re in. The threat of his law makes us aware of our sin. When we see our lives reflected in that message of his will for us and our failure at obeying his will. There, though, we see not only our sin and the threat of God’s law, but in His Word, God shows us the gospel of our Savior, his own Son, who came and lived the holy life in our stead, and who accepted the blame for our sins and who suffered its penalty dying on the cross. That through him we have, as the prophet says, the forgiveness of our guilt and the assurance that God will remember our sins no more. There we see Jesus, who by his death on the cross, then gave us this wonderful knowledge of our salvation.

As I speak to you, we’re just about in the month of May. So we’re coming up on the summer season. And we know summertime as a time of traveling and vacation, a time of busyness. And it’s good for us to have a break from the routine of our work and our study the rest of the year. But please don’t take a vacation from church and from God’s Word. Don’t leave behind this wonderful knowledge that God wants us to have, that we know him and we know him through the preaching and the teaching of His Word and our own private reading of it, he wants us to hold on to His Word, for then we hold on to his love and his salvation by faith all year round. May God grant that to us all. Amen.

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In this video, we’re going to look at another theory regarding the resurrection of Christ, a theory that explains away the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. And this one we call the hallucination theory. And this one assumes that there was so much trauma for the disciples that they eventually had hallucinations of a risen Jesus. The problem with this theory, however, is that this hallucination occurred not just to one, but to many disciples. Another problem is that this hallucination occurred not just to individuals, but whole groups at the same time. And hallucination occurred not just once, but many times, at least 12 times over a period of 40 days. And finally, the problem with this hallucination theory is that the disciples not only saw Jesus, but they touched Jesus and they ate food with Jesus.

So all of these things combined together make it impossible for there to be such a hallucination. Again, according to the experts who have studied this, they say this is not how hallucinations occur.

So let’s go to another theory right away too. It’s called the stolen body theory. Now, the first three I mentioned the swoon theory, the wrong tomb theory, and the hallucination theory. There’s no historical evidence for them. They’re just ideas or theories made up in the minds of people, despite there being no historical evidence. The last one, the Stolen Body Theory, does have a little bit of historical evidence to it. Matthew chapter 27. And so this theory simply says that the disciples came and stole the body of Jesus at night. Well, even though there is some historical evidence for this one, it’s, you might say, kind of a really oh, I would say dumb theory. And let me tell you why.

So in order for this one to be true, the disciples who were gathered into a house, scared to death, they would have had to come up with the idea. Let’s suppose Peter said, men, this is a bad situation, but let’s make the most of a really bad situation. Let’s go steal the body of Jesus. So that means we have to sneak up there in the middle of the night without waking up the guards. Move the stone without waking up the guards. Go in there and unwrap the linen burial cloths from Jesus. It’s going to take a while and then we’re going to leave without waking up the guards. We have to get rid of the body. But then what we also have to do is we have to come up with a number of appearances of Jesus to us. So, Mary, we’re going to say that it appeared to you first. Then he appeared to me, Peter. Then he appeared to some of you other women. Then he appeared to you two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Then he appeared to all of us. Minus you, Thomas.

But then we’re going to say he appeared to all of us. And, Thomas, you’re there at that time, and you make this great confession of faith, my Lord and my God. And then we’re going to come up with a number of other appearances, and we have to make sure they’re fairly consistent with one another. And not only that, but then after we say that he appeared, we’re going to go tell everybody that we can that he rose from the dead. And we’re going to do so even under great duress and difficult, even if it means we’re going to have to suffer. Even if it means that if some of us might have to die, we know it’s a lie, but we have to be willing to suffer and maybe even die for what we know is a lie. There’s nothing in it for us, but let’s do it anyway for some reason.

So you can see how ludicrous this theory really is. It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. So again, this is one of those theories that doesn’t hold any water. Has a little historical evidence to it, but not much. But it is rather ludicrous. And again, Christians believe that the historical evidence is overwhelming. And it’s in those historical documents we call Matthew, Mark, Luke and John that clearly testify that Jesus was dead. But he rose again, and that is for us and our salvation.

My name is David Thompson. I’m the director for The Center for Apologetics and Worldviews. Thank you for joining us.