Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth, where we challenge you to think through an issue of life and faith. Today, I invite you to think through the issue of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, in keeping with the Lenten season. Now, I have a lot more to say concerning a variety of issues, things like the war in Ukraine. We've dealt with that a little bit or the economy, the collapsing economy.

What do you think about that? But especially the gender corruption recruitment that's underway right now. Yes, the gender corruption recruitment that has a lot to do with how we are created. It goes to the very essence of who we are as people, as men and women, as the human race. So I have a lot more to say about those things.

But we must now return to those seminal events during Lenten season, those seminal events upon which the entire Christian religion rests. After all, where would any of us be without the crucifixion and the resurrection, the cross and the crown, the shroud and the cloud, as one commentator puts it? Not only would there be no hope for eternity and the afterlife, but really, when you think about it, no hope for this world either. There would only be the dark pagan religions of the world, the satanic system.

We would have no science, no justice and mercy, no safety, no security, no prosperity as we have known it without the crucifixion and the resurrection. Well, how can we say this? I hope to unfold for you in the next few weeks the profound earth-shattering transformations that have occurred in the very bones of creation, precisely because of our good shepherds' obedient work in dying, being buried, and rising again from the dead. Jesus himself predicts three times, and I quote from the Apostle Mark right now.

He said, the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. Mark records our Lord saying these things. Jesus went willingly, premeditatively, as an obedient son, executing the will of his Father. Why? Was this some cosmic drama played out for the masochistic entertainment of a God and his court, or was it absolutely necessary and an act of supreme incalculable sacrifice, the price and benefits of which we, his children, will spend an eternity unfolding?

Oh, dear listener, of course it is the latter. What do you tell people when they ask you, why did Jesus die upon the cross? The usual answer, of course, is that Jesus died for my sins. Of course, this is true insofar as it goes, but involves so much more. There were only really two turning points in history, we must say.

When we look at the broad sweep of history, there are only two true turning points. The rest of history is like Solomon's, there's nothing new under the sun. Well, those two turning points are the creation and fall of man and the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's when history really changed. So, the proposition from the Bible I would like to put forward for your consideration is this.

The cross is the altar of covenant curse. First, I would like to deal with this proposition with you. The cross is the altar of covenant curse. The cross is the altar of covenant curse. And I'd like to take these one word at a time.

First of all, the cross. The Bible tells us that they took Jesus and he went out bearing his own cross to the place called the place of the skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified him. So, the apostle John tells us in chapter 19 of his gospel, after a mock trial, which is a travesty of Jewish and Roman law, Jesus was executed in the fashion of Rome. He was taken to a highly visible public place, nailed at the wrist to a cross beam of olive wood, and then hoisted to a vertical cross or tree, even, in which a notch had been carved for the cross beam.

Few methods of execution have been or will be invented more monstrous or hellish than crucifixion. Crucifixion was begun in the mists of antiquity by the Persians and Indians and Assyrians, used by them as a means of death and torture for the worst of their enemies. Well, leave it to the thorough and practical Romans, however, to adopt and exquisitely refine crucifixion and use it as a means of political terror and repression for its subjugated peoples. Crucifixion was against the law. It was against the law in Rome to crucify a Roman citizen.

So horrible was it to witness and to endure. Ah, the great statesman Cicero says it was the most barbarous of abominations, unquote. Well, stunned into submission and shock with a thorough beating such that Jesus' appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and is formed beyond that of the children of mankind, as Isaiah puts it, positioned such that, with hands and feet nailed to the cross, if he attempted to lean forward to relieve the excruciating pain to his feet caused by the weight of his body on them, well, his wrist and his entire rib cage would throb with pain and also would be collecting fluid and he would begin to choke.

The only way to relieve this condition would be to attempt to stand on the small piece of wood to which his feet had been nailed, but which then would induce another round of racking pain to every muscle in his body as he attempted to straighten his posture and thus would begin the cycle of endless torture and pain, which would last for hours, maybe days before mercifully death would come. Also, under a broiling Middle Eastern desert sun, he would cry for water and soon become delirious. Birds of prey haunted Golgotha and would pick at the victims before they even died.

Adding to the madness and shame of a slow, painful death was the final shame of being crucified naked in public, exposed to the cynical, mocking commentary of soldiers who relished your death and, of course, in Jesus' case, the mocking insults of his own people. Such was the hell Jesus of Nazareth endured for his people, the church. Oh, Christian, the whole point of this is not a divine masochism, a desire on God's behalf to suffer for suffering's sake. No, rather, this is exactly what is due each and every human being born of Adam's race.

Revelation 20 verse 15 says, if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. We see in the cross a vignette, a preview of what is in store for all of us throughout eternity unless someone intervenes on our behalf. In fact, no one spoke more of hell than did Jesus. He says, for instance, that there men will be thrown into hell where the worm dies not, which means unending death, as in Adam and Eve, right, when God said, in dying you shall die, and where Jesus said, the fire is not quenched, which indicates endless suffering. Hell is a place of darkness and not light.

It is a place of separation and alienation. Oh, it's not partying. You won't be with your friends. No, no man is more alone than the hellion. Hell will be a place of shame and grief.

As Isaiah says, those in hell will be an abhorrence to all flesh. The Bible is full of this death by cross, this cross death as an anticipation of hell. For example, the shame and alienation and separation from God. First experienced by Adam and Eve in the garden, the blood and the sweat and the curse and the thorns and the pain, all which came crashing into creation as an anticipation of that ultimate death. That is hell.

Oh, the example for instance of the 10 plagues in Egypt, those 10 plagues rotted flesh. They brought darkness and suffering and blood and fire and disease and ultimately the angel of death at Passover or the sinking of the Egyptians at the Red Sea in the abyss. That's a picture of hell. All through the Bible, lepers and those stoned to death, madmen, the deaf, the blind, the crippled, those cut down in war by the sword or consumed by fire, all such things are but tokens and emblems of hell and the cross. Oh, yet ultimately we as Christians are to glory in the cross, dear listener.

As Paul says in Galatians chapter 6, far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. The apostle Paul glorying in the cross. He also says in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and a folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Ah, dear listener, such is the cross.

Christians take this instrument of shame and torture, the cross, and we brandish it as a symbol of our deliverance because it was there that the God-man Jesus of Nazareth, Yeshua the Christ, had heaped upon him the very hell that we so richly deserve. He stood in our stead. The cross becomes that place where God meets man again, that place between heaven and earth which had been lost at the fall. Dear listener, the tree, the picture of the tree, has long symbolized the vertical connection between heaven and earth. The roots sink into the underworld.

The trunk dwells on earth and the branches reach to heaven. Ah, so we have the underworld, the earth, and heaven all broached by the tree. And the two trees in the garden connected vertically man with God, heaven with earth. The pillars of fire and cloud connected vertically man with God, heaven with earth. The pillar of fire and smoke in the temple, the holy of holies connected vertically man with God, heaven with earth.

The snake lifted up upon the cross by Moses in the desert by which Israel was healed connected vertically man with God, heaven with earth. Even Jesus said, and I, when I be lifted up, will draw all men unto myself. Even Jacob's ladder seen by Jacob at Bethel connected vertically man with God, heaven with earth. And our Lord said, truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man. Ah, Jesus' cross is the tree.

Jesus' cross is the tree which reconnects vertically man with God, heaven with earth. Even as Peter puts it, he says, he himself bore our sins in his body, on the tree that we might die to sin and live unto righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed. Oh, dear listener. Well, the cross is the altar of covenant curse, isn't it?

The cross is the altar of covenant curse. Next we have the altar. If the cross is the altar of covenant curse, we have next the altar. An altar is a place where sacrifice is made, where blood is shed, where life is taken. The mere fact of an altar is testimony to tragedy.

Something is so wrong in the fabric of creation, in the order of the universe, in our life with God, that sacrifice must be made, that blood must be shed, that life must be taken. The fact of an altar is mute testimony to the fall. As Genesis 2 puts it, in the day you eat of it, that is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall surely die. Well, ever since then, man has sought desperately for a substitute for his own life, which has gone forfeit ever since the garden. Ever since then, our own lives have been inadequate, our own righteousness unacceptable, our own goodness and utter abomination and stench in God's nostrils.

What you are and what you have will not do any longer, dear listener. In fact, God has demanded a substitute for your life, for my life, and my righteousness, your righteousness and goodness ever since. And man has vainly tried to find one on his own. The life of the fruit of the earth, the life of an animal, even the life of his own children. It is here at the altar where mankind has attempted to reconnect vertically heaven and earth man to God.

What happened when men did this in an acceptable fashion to God, when they did it in his prescribed way as he gave Israel? Well, Leviticus tells us that the sinner shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and that shall be accepted for him, that is in his place, to make atonement for him. Ah, the result, when we do it in God's acceptable way, the result is that God reconnects heaven and earth, God and man, and he does it at the altar.

Ah, in 1 Chronicles chapter 7, at the dedication of the temple, we see that as soon as Solomon finished his prayer, the text tells us, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. So it is, when we do acceptable sacrifice, any other way than that prescribed by God is an abomination, and it's idolatry. Instead of those sacrifices of the worshipers being accepted and consumed, false worshipers find themselves being rejected and consumed themselves.

Cain and Abel, example, or the Tower of Babel, or the multiple altars of human sacrifice to Moloch, or Baal, or Ashtoreth, or even the strange fire of Nadab and Abihu, who were consumed by fire for their false worship. Dear listener, all other religions other than biblical religion are attempts to reconnect heaven and earth, God and man, by some other way, at some other altar. No, the cross is the only altar at which a perfect sacrifice was made, where a perfect substitute was found for your sin in Adam and my sin in Adam, and for your very nature, my very nature.

As Hebrews puts it, Christ has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Having been offered once to bear the sins of many, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Oh, yes, on the altar. Even as Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, for Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Dear listener, the cross is the altar of covenant curse.

The cross is the altar of covenant curse. Well, we've covered the cross. We've covered the altar. How about covenant now? The cross is the altar of covenant curse.

The covenant. How does God work? Let me ask you, dear listener, within what kind of system? Dispensationalism? No, there's not a word of that in the Bible.

Does he have a method to his madness? Or is God whimsical and capricious? Does he manifest himself willy-nilly here and there, now one way, now another? No. He is the God who works in an ordered method and economy, a covenant economy.

And the Bible is clear. God deals in mercy and wrath, justice and grace, damnation and salvation in a covenant economy. Oh, we talk of financial economies all the time, the feudal system by which goods and services were distributed, or socialism, or capitalism. Well, God has an economy as well, by which he dispenses mercy and wrath, justice and grace, damnation and salvation, and he does it in a covenant economy. What is a covenant?

A brief definition I love is a bond in blood, sovereignly administered. Covenant is a bond. That is, you are bound in a covenant, and you're bound in blood. That is with your very life, and it is sovereignly administered by God. God bound himself, for example, to Adam in the covenant structure of creation, a covenant that Adam promptly proceeded to violate.

Hosea puts it this way. He says that when he was talking about the Israelites of his day, he said, they, like Adam, transgressed the covenant. There they dealt faithlessly with me. Yes, Adam was in a covenant as well. Adam was our first covenant father, the one who represented us all at creation.

By the one man's disobedience, as Paul says, the many were made sinners. Adam was our federal head, and we not only inherit his nature as his children, but also his unrighteous record as a sinner. As Paul says, the judgment following the one trespass brought condemnation. Adam's sin is credited that is imputed to every one of us. We start out at birth guilty and polluted from having Adam's unrighteous credited to our moral account.

Yes. Well, this economy God set up with Israel through Moses as well, the covenant mediator at Sinai. Exodus 24 tells us, Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, behold, the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words. Oh, that covenant called the old covenant or the old Testament was the very economy by which God dealt in mercy and wrath, justice and grace, damnation and salvation dealt in these things for centuries as he taught and disciplined his people in preparation for another final covenant. And this new covenant, God set up with the church through Christ.

Oh, at the last supper, our Lord said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. Oh, dear listener, Christ was our second covenant father, the second Adam, the one who represented us all at the cross. By the one man's obedience, as Paul says, the many will be made righteous. That one man and his obedience, Christ, Christ was our federal head. And we not only inherit his reward as his children now, but also his righteous record as an obedient servant.

As Paul says again, God made Christ to be sin who knew no sin so that we might become the righteousness of God. Oh, dear Christian, you are now the righteousness of God. His righteousness is credited, imputed to you, to every one of us in the church. We start out at our new birth. We start out righteous and holy from having Christ's righteousness credited to our moral account.

Oh, dear listener, do you see the dark transaction that took place on Good Friday at the cross of Christ? He not only died for your sins, but he also took upon himself all of the filthy rags of your unrighteousness and all of the debt loaded to your account by your first father, Adam, and he erased it and he replaced it with all of the positive righteousness you owe to God in his covenant economy, not dispensationalism. God expects to be paid in full in the currency of complete and perfect obedience to all of his covenant laws. This is a thing you cannot do yourself in your dead and fallen state. Only Christ can do this.

Well, the cross is the altar of covenant curse. The cross is the altar of covenant curse. Finally, we come to curse. The first words from God's mouth after discovering Adam's sin, cursed are you. Well, ever since the fall, man and all creation have been laboring under a curse, which can be briefly defined as a curse, a series of binding conditions of sin and misery.

He can never rise above. All the sinner is under a series of binding conditions of sin and misery, to which that sinner can never rise above the curse. Enmity and hatred, pain and suffering, unfulfilled desire, sweat and fruitless labor, thorns and weeds, and finally then death. Did you ever wonder why the best that you can do, the best that you can be, is never quite good enough? The most fastidious, meticulous regime of diet and exercise may extend your life a few years, but you still die.

You may spend a fortune on Botox treatments, facelifts and creams and makeups, but wrinkles, spots and gray will all betray the march of death. You may live a good life, never murder or rob a bank, pay your taxes, love your wife and kids, be a hail fellow well met, but never meet God's standards of utter perfection. None is righteous, Paul says. No one understands, no one seeks for God, no one does good, not even one. Oh, there are dire consequences for this failure of perfection, too.

Paul says in Galatians, all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to do them. All of our merely human efforts, our pride, our science, our wars, our superhuman efforts, our sacrifices on one another's behalf, our art, our culture, our civilization, all other world religions, none of them will ever bring us back to the garden and our original state of bliss and union with God. This is utterly guaranteed by the curse, dear listener, and this is clearly seen in the failure of every human effort.

Since the beginning, we are under a curse. We saw it at the Tower of Babel. We saw it in Babylon, who rose to the heights. We saw it in Rome as well, even in the fall of Rome, even as Isaiah says, the earth lies defiled under its inhabitants, for they have transgressed the everlasting covenant. Therefore, a curse devours the earth and its inhabitants suffer their guilt.

That's indeed the human condition, is it not? We are under a curse. The curse devours the earth and its inhabitants suffer their guilt. Oh, and there is only one place where the curse is lifted, dear listener, and that is at the cross. The cross is the altar of covenant curse.

Only there is it taken away. Even as Paul says in Galatians chapter 3, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. Indeed, the cross is the altar of covenant curse. And by bearing your curse, by bearing mine, O Christian, and suffering all the consequences of the curse on that cross, Christ has delivered you.

He has delivered me from the curse so that all of the benefits of the resurrection might come to us, might come to you, might come to me. That's the promise of the resurrection of Easter. Oh, what are those benefits, dear listener? What are the benefits of Christ suffering the curse of the law? Oh, the meaning and the significance of the resurrection is next.

Oh, the resurrection is coming, but let us not go there too quickly. Let us ponder, indeed, that the cross is the altar of covenant curse. The cross is the altar of covenant curse. Ponder these things over Good Friday and anticipate, indeed, the resurrection. We will be having a Good Friday service as well.

This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth. We challenge you to think through these things, and we will have a Good Friday service at which you may ponder these things, a Good Friday service on April 7 at 6 p.m. at our sanctuary. New Geneva meets for holy worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard, and you can call us for more information at area code 208-523-0196. Join us for a Good Friday service April 7 at 6 p.m. at our church, 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard, and call us at 208-523-0196. Good Friday service April 7 at 6 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m. at 11 p.m.