August 3, 2024 • 33 mins
Welcome to Current Events and Christian Expectations! In today's episode, we delve into the topic of assassinations, exploring their historical impact and their relation to the origins of government. We'll discuss why it's wrong to assassinate someone, even if they are considered evil, and examine various biblical scriptures, starting with Psalm 75:6-7.
Join us as we uncover the divine providence in the rise and fall of rulers and the importance of praying for those in authority. Discover how God's mercy can turn even the darkest events into opportunities for redemption and salvation.
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Music.
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Good day to you, brothers, sisters, friends, and new faces, and welcome to Current
Events and Christian Expectations.
And today in this podcast, we're going to be talking about the assassination nation.
We'll answer questions like how assassinations relate to the origin of government
and why it's wrong to assassinate someone, even if they're considered evil.
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We'll start off with Psalm 75, verses 6 and 7, and we'll have many other scriptures
that we reference and read today.
But with Assassination Nation in the focus of our biblical learnings, let's just dig right in.
Right. Thank you, Randy. And hello to everybody out there in podcast land.
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The word assassination comes from a movement within Islam in the 11th century,
a group that lacked the power to defeat their enemies.
They tried to kill certain political figures.
And interesting, this is the influence of Shakespeare, the word assassination
shows up in English by way of Macbeth, first time it's used. Out, out.
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Not quite. But the word is used, yes.
What is the importance of what we're talking about?
Well, if you know history, some of you may know that there was a teenager back
in the early, early days of 1900 who shot Archduke Ferdinand,
the one who is going to be next in the throne of the Austro-Hungarian,
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Empire, as it was known then.
Started World War I. And everybody pretty much agrees that starts World War I.
And if you're familiar with the history segwaying from World War I to World
War II, you know that the treaty that was signed out of World War I was the
basis for, unfortunately, World War II.
So you can make a good case that one assassination by a teenager plunged the
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world into two world wars. That's interesting. I didn't think about that. Yes. Yeah.
What about our nation? Are we an assassination nation?
Well, listen to these truths.
Assassinated presidents in this country, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy.
Those who were shot but not killed but wounded, Teddy Roosevelt.
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This is in 1912. He had already been president. He was running on the Progressive Party.
And his life was spared because the bullet went through his glasses case that
he had in his jacket along with his speech, which apparently was a long one
because it was folded up several times and that helped blunt the bullet.
Reagan, of course, wounded, and now Donald Trump.
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And, of course, there have been many attempts and plots that failed.
So there were four presidents killed, three wounded. Yes, three wounded.
The plots and attempts were made against Andrew Jackson, Lincoln long before
John Wilkes Booth, William Hart Taft, Hoover, FDR.
In fact, it was the first time he was running for president,
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and the assassin missed FDR, and the bullet went and killed Mayor Cermak of Chicago.
Eerily similar to the attempt on Donald Trump, where the fellow,
unfortunately, also got killed.
Harry Truman, JFK, JFK, long before his assassination, there was plot against him.
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Nixon, Ford, Carter, the first George Bush, Clinton, the second George Bush,
Obama, Trump, besides obviously the one they got shot at recently,
and even President Biden.
So let's start with this question because it's probably interesting to some people.
Was Trump spared because God loves him more? Well, I don't think so. though.
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Was he spared because he has plans for him? Absolutely. That's the conclusion I would draw.
Are they personal, though, or political, or both? Only God knows,
and only he can reveal it if it pleases him.
We'll never know why. We sure hope Donald Trump does.
So let's move on to the big picture. What does assassination have to do with
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the origin of government in that governments Governments come to be ruled or
governed normally throughout history by one person.
In other words, assassinations are normally not about killing committees.
Why is it wrong to assassinate a ruler or a leader of a government?
Isn't all fair in love and war?
No, according to Scripture, removing leaders is to be left to God. Psalm 75, verses 6 and 7.
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For not from the east or from the west and not from the wilderness comes lifting
up, but it's God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another.
Surely that's true from the psalm, but we also have the prophet Daniel who chimes in on this.
The Lord God is the one who decides who gets promoted to the exalted position of ruler, not man.
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And Daniel said this truth for all time when he says to the king Nebuchadnezzar
in Daniel 2 verses 20 and 21, Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name
of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might.
He changes times and seasons. He removes kings and sets up kings.
He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding.
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He removes kings, and we could say presidents, prime ministers,
dictators, etc. Exactly. And sets up new ones.
He removes kings through his providential ways, which apparently are often too
slow for fallen human beings, and we take matters into our own hands to try to eliminate.
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And apparently we do that with every sitting president in some way.
It seems to be. Thank goodness for the secret service. Yeah.
As we shall see, God does not approve of this because that's his responsibility.
What Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar as truth, he later, Nebuchadnezzar, experienced as truth.
He got leveled, so to speak, and God raised him up again.
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As with so many truths that we've looked at over the period of years here with
our current events podcast.
The problem of assassinations, the killing of one person that changed things
supposedly for the the better, begins with creation, where the rule of one begins.
Genesis 1, 27, 28. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God
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he created him, male and female he created them.
And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill
the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over
the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
Clearly, Adam and Eve were called to rule.
The words subdue and have dominion over clearly refer to ruling.
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So, Adam and Eve are made in the image of God. And that means what?
They're rulers of earth.
Adam, obviously, is the leader because later on, Eve is called his helpmate.
But we can call her queen. Don't have a problem with that.
The rule of one dominates all of history. We need to understand that to understand
why assassinations are so important.
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Keep in mind that when we get to the New Testament, this is really big with
Paul. He does this Adam-Christ comparison.
He does it in Romans chapter 5. He does it in 1 Corinthians 15.
Well, basically, he points out the rule of one, Adam, brought death,
and the rule of one, Christ, brings life.
So, the rule of one is important throughout biblical history.
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And this truth, the rule of one with helpers, will be especially so in the world
to come, where saints having having served in this age, will be rulers,
with Christ being Christ's helpers, with Christ in the next.
Listen to this from 2 Timothy 2, verses 11 through 13.
The saying is trustworthy, for if we have died with him, we will also live with him.
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If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us.
If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.
Right. If we have died with him, we'll live with him.
Now, died means died to the world, and live with him means in the world to come.
Because if you look at the next line, which in Hebraic way of doing things parallels
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it, if we endure, that means if we're dead to the world, we'll endure with him.
We will also reign with him, which parallels to live with him.
And that means, of course, at the resurrection.
We were created to reign. We see that in Adam and Eve, but currently serve in a fallen world.
But having been faithful servants, endurance, we will one day be raised to reign
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with the One who is supremely God's image, the One who reigns and whose reign we get to reign with.
And we see this in Hebrews 1 verses 1 through 3.
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Heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance
of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the
universe by the word of His power.
After making purifications for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
He sat down. In other words, to rule, as the book of Revelation points out.
In chapter 1, that He rules over, present tense, He rules over the kings of the earth.
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He now rules from the right hand of God. Amen.
At his return, he will rule on earth with his saints, as in your kingdom come.
However, others rule now on earth, mostly in rebellious ways.
How'd this happen? How'd it come about that in this evil age,
that's what Paul calls this in Galatians 1, this age we're currently in,
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yeah, before Jesus returns, we're in an evil age.
Only certain one gets to be rulers and kings and presidents.
How does that come to pass? Two reasons. Number one, Jesus' followers are called in this age to serve.
Then others, by default, are the providence of God, will rule their various
constituencies. And that's going to continue until Jesus returns.
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Here's how Jesus outlines that in Matthew 20, verses 25 through 28.
But Jesus called them to him and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles
lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.
It shall not be so among you, but whoever would be great among you must be your
servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave,
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even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his
life as a ransom for many.
We are called to serve. We will get to reign when Jesus returns in the next
age, but currently we serve.
Therefore, there are the rulers of the Gentiles. That's basically the whole world.
When did this start? Well, it started with the fall of Adam,
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the rule of Gentiles. And this rule of one shows up very clearly right after the flood.
So let's go back to Genesis now again. We're going to go chapters 8 and 9 to
see how this develops, okay?
First, Genesis 8, verses 20 and 21.
Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and
some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
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And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart,
I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's
heart is evil from his youth.
Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.
Right. And the key there is God makes that heartfelt confession that man's heart
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is evil from his youth. That's one problem.
And therefore, he promises never to strike down every living creature as he has done in the flood.
So that raises the question, how then will evil be dealt with?
What's the answer to evil on earth that is dealing with it if there's no more worldwide why floods.
What is God's plan to curb evil? Capital punishment.
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Now, just listen to this. I think we can pull it together. This authority was
granted back in Genesis chapter 9.
After the flood, when governing arrangements are changed by God.
So, listen to Genesis 9, 1 and 2, then 5 and 6.
And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
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The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth
and upon every bird of the heavens,
upon everything that creeps on the ground and all fish of the sea.
Into your hand they are delivered.
And so that changes. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every
beast, meaning having dominion over the animal world is going to be difficult.
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It's not going to be easy like it was before.
But then we come to verse 5. And for your lifeblood, I will require a reckoning.
From every beast, I will require it, and from man.
And from his fellow man, I will require a reckoning for the life of man.
Yes, thank you, Randy. And then concluding in verse 6, whoever sheds the blood
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of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.
In other words, when a man kills another man, and obviously it's a murderer,
then he is subject to the rest of mankind in some governmental form.
He is subject to them, and they have legitimate right to take his life, shed his blood.
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So, here is established a legitimate taking of human life by other humans,
which before only God could do legitimately, although he didn't.
You know, Cain's a good example. He killed Abel, but Cain was banished.
Yeah, he had mercy even upon him. Right.
But then the flood came. And, of course, everybody except the eight people,
Noah and his family, went away. way.
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So now in this post-Diluvian age, that is after the flood, that authority is
delegated to humanity to set up law and order because as God has made it clear,
there's not going to be another flood because it won't make a difference. Humans are depraved.
They're going to be that way. It's not going to solve the problem.
Evil nonetheless has to be curbed, and it's going to be curbed according to
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this plan without destroying all of humanity.
And this is the origin of governments as we know them, duly ordained to enforce
laws by force, even the most extreme force, capital punishment.
Here's kind of what you call a dark joke to illustrate this.
I heard it in my college days, and it's used to explain.
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Purpose of capital punishment and how it's tied to the establishment of government.
People had been at sea, their ship had wrecked, and they were on land,
and they'd been traveling for several days trying to find people.
Where is, is anybody here? They come upon a rise and get up to the top of the
hill, and there in front of them is the gallows.
And they all say, at last, civilization.
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And you say, well, that's sort of sick, but it tells a truth.
If there is a hangman's noose there, there are people organized as a government.
They enforce laws. Civilized.
That's right. That's right. So this is how Paul says it in the New Testament.
Now listen to this and you'll see how it ties into the passage we just discussed here in Genesis 9.
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Romans 13, verses 1, 2, and 4.
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority
except set from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.
Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed,
and those who resist will incur judgment.
For he is God's servant for your good, but if you do wrong, be afraid,
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for he does not bear the sword in vain.
For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.
He carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.
He does not bear the sword in vain.
What is the main purpose of government? To provide safety by punishing the evildoer.
Remember Paul's instructions to Timothy, 1 Timothy 2.
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He says, make sure you have the churches, pray for those in authority,
especially kings and others in high positions, so that you can have peaceful and quiet lives.
If the rule of one doesn't go well, everyone suffers.
Hence the need to remove the one, not by prayer, but...
But by assassination. And note how Genesis 8, the quote, whoever sheds the blood
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of man, by man shall his blood be shed, pairs very well with Romans 13.
He does not bear the sword in vain. He carries out the wrath of God.
But people will object. What if he, the servant in government, is evil? Is evil.
Yeah. Because he serves an evil king or president.
It's got to be okay to kill him. It's got to be okay to kill him.
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Well, no, we got to let God take care of that.
Assassination usurps the rule of God. And since made in God's image means to
rule, God is the one, a pattern set up of one ruling over many develops.
That's part of the image of God. So where does this rule of one after the fall
of Adam and therefore after the flood, when God establishes government,
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primarily by the force of capital punishment, where does this rule of one first show up?
Very clear. Genesis chapter 10, verses 8 and 9.
Cush fathered Nimrod. He was the first on earth to be a mighty man.
He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore, it said like Nimrod,
a mighty hunter before the Lord.
You know, Nimrod was Noah's grandson.
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Yes. Great grandson. Something like that. Yeah. Not too many generations removed.
Not too many because it's right after the flood.
Yeah. He was the first on earth to be a mighty man. That means the rule of one.
How do we know that? Because he was a mighty hunter. Well, what did he hunt? He hunted people.
So let's look at Genesis chapter 10, verse 10. The beginning of his kingdom
was Babel, and we all know what Babel was.
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It was a kingdom of idolatry.
So, Nimrod's rule was not righteous.
But a subjugation of many peoples through idolatry. Now, was Nimrod God's servant
to bear the sword of God's wrath?
Yes, as certainly as the Roman emperors did in Jesus' time, Paul's time.
But that rule, as was Nimrod's, is so often harsh, people say.
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Well, and I respond, yes, and that's why we need to be praying,
Lord, your kingdom come, and then we'll have a righteous rule.
Israel was given that blessing, however, of being the kingdom of God with the
rule of one. That's the Lord. The Lord our God is one.
And he ruled over Israel. But even with God over them, they rebelled and were judged.
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1 Samuel 8, 7, God says to Samuel, they've rejected me as king over them.
So now we must deal with the many evil human kings.
Thus arises the assassinations of so many because it is figured by folks.
That's the quickest way to get rid of a bad person at the top.
And then we'll get a good guy in there. and things will work out.
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Everything will be different when my guy gets in there. When my guy gets in
there, it's going to be going good.
So let's do this. Let's turn to Israel's history because we're opposed to what
Paul says in Romans and 1 Corinthians, study the Old Testament to get wisdom
and understanding and to be encouraged and to understand how God works.
Let's turn to Israel's history to see how even under an evil ruler,
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assassination is not God's ordained way to restore government.
We're going to use, first of all, Saul as the example. Now, keep in mind,
Saul becomes the first king after God's rejected, and he turns out to be a very
jealous, unstable, and murderous person.
We have the incident of the city of Nob, where by his own order and authority,
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he destroys the city, men, women, and children, says the Bible, and kills 85 priests.
Okay. So listen to Samuel 24 verses 1 through 7.
When Saul returned from following the Philistines, he was told,
Behold, David is in the wilderness of En Gedi.
Then Saul took 3,000 chosen men out of all Israel and went to seek David and
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his men in front of the wild goats' rocks.
And he came to the sheepfolds by the way where there was a cave,
and Saul went in to relieve himself.
Now David and his men were sitting in the innermost parts of the cave.
And when the men of David said to him, Here is the day of which the Lord said
to you, Behold, I will give your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him
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as it shall seem good to you.
Then David arose and stealthily cut off a corner of Saul's robe.
And afterwards David's heart struck him, because he had cut off a corner of Saul's robe.
He said to his men, the Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my Lord,
the Lord's anointed, to put out my hand against him, seeing he is the Lord's anointed.
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So David persuaded his men with these words, and they did not permit him to attack Saul.
And Saul rose up and left the cave and went on his way.
Yes. David's men thought this was an excellent time to kill him and change things.
And this slaughter that took place at Nob with the city and then also the priests
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who were killed, all this is happening while Saul is pursuing David to kill
David through the wilderness and in Gedi and all that.
So David has this opportunity. He's encouraged by his men.
He doesn't do it. He's convicted in his heart that what he was about to do was wrong.
He didn't have the right to remove a rebellious and unworthy king.
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And here's what I find really interesting.
He's also now been anointed by Samuel to be the next king.
But he never claims his own anointing as justification to kill Saul.
It's not like, I'm the one who's really been chosen. I'm the one who really
got elected. So you need to go.
Now, do assassinations make things better? Because that's always the idea.
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Let's take Hitler, for example. There were at least, that we know about,
42 attempts to assassinate him.
One of those was made into a movie with Tom Cruise. With Alcrey. Yeah.
Klaus von Stauffenberg tried to leave a bomb under a table.
The bomb got moved and Hitler got messed up a little, but he wasn't killed.
But as a result of that, they rounded up 5,000 people and promptly executed
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them. No trial. So you got to know most of those people were innocent.
Yeah. That's what happens when you have an assassination that goes wrong.
Even a good man like Bonhoeffer got in on a plot to assassinate Hitler.
And you would think God being God and Bonhoeffer being as I believe he was a
real believer and brilliant man in theology.
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It didn't happen. He ended up being hung. Yeah. Yeah. David Oliver is given
another chance to do this to Saul.
And again, he will not do it. 1 Samuel 26, verses 8 and 9.
Then Abishai said to David, God has given your enemy into your hand this day.
Now, please let me pin him to the earth with one stroke of my spear,
and I will not strike him twice.
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But David said to Abishai, do not destroy him, for who can put out his hand
against the Lord's anointed and be guiltless?
Yes. Do not try to take out the Lord's anointed, you will be guilty of a grave sin.
So, I hear somebody asking, what's David's plan for dealing with Saul?
Here it is, 1 Samuel 26, verses 10 through 11.
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And David said, As the Lord lives, the Lord will strike him,
or his day will come to die, or he will go down into battle and perish.
The Lord forbid that I should put out my hand against the Lord's anointed. Yes.
And I believe this is a God-given pattern of truth because there's three of them.
And we're told time and again in the Bible, even in the New Testament,
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in the mouth of two or three witnesses, it is so.
So let's take a look at these. David gives three reasons. The first one is the
Lord will strike him, an act of God.
Well, we turn to the New Testament, Acts 12, 21-23, and we find this happens to King Herod.
On appointed day, Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne,
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and delivered an oration to them.
And the people were shouting, The voice of a God and not of a man.
Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God
the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last. Yes.
And the Jewish Roman historian, Josephus, collaborates that,
confirms that story, what we find in the book of Acts.
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And notice the similarity. The Lord struck him down. That was what David said.
Secondly, his day will come to die.
Why is that? Because as all men do, even evil men, sooner or later they die.
So here's an example from a king named Omri during the days when Israel was
in the ten tribes and given over to idolatry.
1 Kings 16, 25 through 28.
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Omri did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did more evil than all who were before him.
For he walked in the way of Jeroboam, the son of Debat, and in the sins that
he made Israel to sin, provoking the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger by their idols.
Now the rest of the acts of Omri that he did, and the might that he showed,
are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?
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And Omri slept with his fathers, and was buried in Samaria, and Ahab his son reigned in his place.
There you go. So it's, he just come to a point where finally he died.
That's what David said could have happened to Saul.
Thirdly, David says he'll die in battle, which is in fact what happens. Yes.
And David, finally, after many years of persevering, becomes king.
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However, we have this interesting story in 2 Samuel 1 where David executes an
Amalekite because this Amalekite comes to David and is bragging almost,
I think, thinking he's done a good thing. He was the one who killed Saul.
And David gives orders for this Amalekite to be executed.
And here we have his reasoning in 2 Samuel 1, verse 16. And David said to him,
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Your blood be on your own head, for your own mouth has testified against you,
saying, I have killed the Lord's anointed.
Didn't shoot the messenger, but he clearly jumped off the head of the messenger. Yeah, yeah, yes.
So David believed this matter of being anointed as a king by God in place.
It was God's business alone to deal with, whatever way God chose to deal with
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him. Now, we can take a look at another example here.
Ammon, he was a son of Manasseh, and he gets assassinated.
Listen to this, 2 Kings 21, 22 through 24.
He abandoned the Lord, the God of his fathers, and did not walk in the way of the Lord.
And the servants of Ammon conspired against him and put the king to death in his house.
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But the people of the land struck down all those who had conspired against King
Ammon, and the people of the land made Josiah, his son, king in his place.
Well, things are really getting messy in Israel as they're moving toward the final judgment of God.
You killed him, we killed you. Yes, tit for tat.
Ammon's servants assassinate him. He was not a good king. And they,
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in turn, are killed by others.
Now, the result of this is Josiah becomes king.
Now, assassination here seems to be the easy way out, although these people
had known the wickedness of Manasseh and despite his wickedness,
which they participated in, they neither repented nor assassinated him.
They went along with him.
But here comes his son and now him they assassinate. There's an arbitrariness about assassination.
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But God is good. God is good. Because why? Josiah, Ammon's son,
was one of the few good kings.
Why would God have wanted the servants to do? Well, to appeal to him,
the God who grants mercy and repentance.
So, good came out of this, not because assassination is a valid political tool,
but because God is merciful.
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Rulers, kings, presidents, queens, etc., whether they acknowledge God or not,
they are in place by divine providence.
So how successful are assassinations? And we just mentioned earlier,
World War I got started by assassination.
World War I actually led to World War II. Man.
And think of Lincoln. He was assassinated and he had a good plan for the South,
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but what happened? That plan went South.
And a hundred years of problems are still with us today because of that assassination.
The CIA tried to assassinate Castro, that we know of, at least seven times.
This is from NBC back on November 28th of 2016.
And there were other people who wanted Castro dead, apparently.
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There was a documentary in the UK in 2006, rather well-known one,
entitled 638 Ways to Kill Castro. But Castro stayed in office.
He stayed in office. Elvis. I thought he was 90. And yeah, as David said,
maybe he'll just, you know, he will die in the course of time.
He died at the age of 90. Yeah.
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Sometimes assassinations become the way of a country, which is certainly God's judgment.
Roman emperors from 41 AD, we're not going to count Julius Caesar,
who would be the first one, so to speak.
He was, depending on how you view history, he was an emperor,
a dictator, or both or whatever.
But, you know, the emperor, the one who rules Rome was firmly established by
41 AD, first assassination, 41 AD.
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From 41 AD to 480 AD, there are 36 assassinated Roman emperors,
about one every 12 years.
And so where is Rome today? It assassinated itself into the dustbin of history.
Well, what about the USA?
Well, we have concerns. I mean, and anybody would. There's incompetence of Secret
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Service with this attempt on Trump.
And once again, will we get to the bottom of it? And already people are expecting
another attempt at assassination?
Are we heading the way of banana republics? We shall see. But better than that, we need to pray.
We believe that assassination as a political tool is condemned by God.
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God's dealing with Israel shows us this, and David's way of dealing with it in particular.
But glory be to God, God brings good things out of assassination,
not just Ammon with Josiah becoming king.
But by the story of Jesus. Acts 2, verses 22-23.
Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by
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God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst.
As you yourselves know, this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan
and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
You crucified and killed by the
law hands of lawless men yes you
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were the promoters of assassination you were the originators and you did it
by proxy you got other people to do it but the unlawful killing of the king
of kings who was the true anointed one fulfilling all previous anointments so
there'll be no more anointments for a king ever for planet earth Jesus is the one.
In chapter 3, Peter comes back to this same theme. Chapter 3, verses 14 and 15.
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But you denied the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted
to you, and you killed the author of life, whom God raised from the dead.
To this we are witnesses.
Yes, you are assassinators of the Holy One. And as the people cried out on the
day of Pentecost, what shall we do?
Because they just heard that they were guilty of this.
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Let's listen to this from Acts 2, verses 36 and 37.
Let all the house of Israel, therefore, know for certain that God has made him
both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.
Now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and
the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do?
Yes. Brothers, what shall we do?
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This is great because they didn't say it's over. There's there's nothing we
can do, we're damned, and et cetera. They want help.
They realize what they've done. So what does Peter tell them? Acts 2.38.
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.
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The incredible, unbelievable mercy of God.
Even the assassinators of King Christ, the anointed, can be saved.
And if that's so, you can be saved, I can be saved, Randy can be saved, anyone can be saved.
And that's the Christian expectation.
Thank goodness for God's mercy. Mercy. Well, thanks, Jim.
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You've given us a lot to think about, and perhaps you've got questions or comments on it.
And to that end, please send your email to eventsandexpectations,
that's the word events, the word and, the word expectations,
all together at gmail.com. or post your question or comment on the podcast commentary.
We will use your question or comment on air where possible, and we will always answer you.
(33:20):
This has been Current Events and Christian Expectations, and until next time, keep looking up.
Music.
(00:07):
Good day to you, brothers, sisters, friends, and new faces, and welcome to Current
Events and Christian Expectations.
And today in this podcast, we're going to be talking about the assassination nation.
We'll answer questions like how assassinations relate to the origin of government
and why it's wrong to assassinate someone, even if they're considered evil.
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We'll start off with Psalm 75, verses 6 and 7, and we'll have many other scriptures
that we reference and read today.
But with Assassination Nation in the focus of our biblical learnings, let's just dig right in.
Right. Thank you, Randy. And hello to everybody out there in podcast land.
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The word assassination comes from a movement within Islam in the 11th century,
a group that lacked the power to defeat their enemies.
They tried to kill certain political figures.
And interesting, this is the influence of Shakespeare, the word assassination
shows up in English by way of Macbeth, first time it's used. Out, out.
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Not quite. But the word is used, yes.
What is the importance of what we're talking about?
Well, if you know history, some of you may know that there was a teenager back
in the early, early days of 1900 who shot Archduke Ferdinand,
the one who is going to be next in the throne of the Austro-Hungarian,
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Empire, as it was known then.
Started World War I. And everybody pretty much agrees that starts World War I.
And if you're familiar with the history segwaying from World War I to World
War II, you know that the treaty that was signed out of World War I was the
basis for, unfortunately, World War II.
So you can make a good case that one assassination by a teenager plunged the
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world into two world wars. That's interesting. I didn't think about that. Yes. Yeah.
What about our nation? Are we an assassination nation?
Well, listen to these truths.
Assassinated presidents in this country, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy.
Those who were shot but not killed but wounded, Teddy Roosevelt.
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This is in 1912. He had already been president. He was running on the Progressive Party.
And his life was spared because the bullet went through his glasses case that
he had in his jacket along with his speech, which apparently was a long one
because it was folded up several times and that helped blunt the bullet.
Reagan, of course, wounded, and now Donald Trump.
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And, of course, there have been many attempts and plots that failed.
So there were four presidents killed, three wounded. Yes, three wounded.
The plots and attempts were made against Andrew Jackson, Lincoln long before
John Wilkes Booth, William Hart Taft, Hoover, FDR.
In fact, it was the first time he was running for president,
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and the assassin missed FDR, and the bullet went and killed Mayor Cermak of Chicago.
Eerily similar to the attempt on Donald Trump, where the fellow,
unfortunately, also got killed.
Harry Truman, JFK, JFK, long before his assassination, there was plot against him.
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Nixon, Ford, Carter, the first George Bush, Clinton, the second George Bush,
Obama, Trump, besides obviously the one they got shot at recently,
and even President Biden.
So let's start with this question because it's probably interesting to some people.
Was Trump spared because God loves him more? Well, I don't think so. though.
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Was he spared because he has plans for him? Absolutely. That's the conclusion I would draw.
Are they personal, though, or political, or both? Only God knows,
and only he can reveal it if it pleases him.
We'll never know why. We sure hope Donald Trump does.
So let's move on to the big picture. What does assassination have to do with
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the origin of government in that governments Governments come to be ruled or
governed normally throughout history by one person.
In other words, assassinations are normally not about killing committees.
Why is it wrong to assassinate a ruler or a leader of a government?
Isn't all fair in love and war?
No, according to Scripture, removing leaders is to be left to God. Psalm 75, verses 6 and 7.
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For not from the east or from the west and not from the wilderness comes lifting
up, but it's God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another.
Surely that's true from the psalm, but we also have the prophet Daniel who chimes in on this.
The Lord God is the one who decides who gets promoted to the exalted position of ruler, not man.
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And Daniel said this truth for all time when he says to the king Nebuchadnezzar
in Daniel 2 verses 20 and 21, Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name
of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might.
He changes times and seasons. He removes kings and sets up kings.
He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding.
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He removes kings, and we could say presidents, prime ministers,
dictators, etc. Exactly. And sets up new ones.
He removes kings through his providential ways, which apparently are often too
slow for fallen human beings, and we take matters into our own hands to try to eliminate.
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And apparently we do that with every sitting president in some way.
It seems to be. Thank goodness for the secret service. Yeah.
As we shall see, God does not approve of this because that's his responsibility.
What Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar as truth, he later, Nebuchadnezzar, experienced as truth.
He got leveled, so to speak, and God raised him up again.
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As with so many truths that we've looked at over the period of years here with
our current events podcast.
The problem of assassinations, the killing of one person that changed things
supposedly for the the better, begins with creation, where the rule of one begins.
Genesis 1, 27, 28. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God
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he created him, male and female he created them.
And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill
the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over
the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
Clearly, Adam and Eve were called to rule.
The words subdue and have dominion over clearly refer to ruling.
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So, Adam and Eve are made in the image of God. And that means what?
They're rulers of earth.
Adam, obviously, is the leader because later on, Eve is called his helpmate.
But we can call her queen. Don't have a problem with that.
The rule of one dominates all of history. We need to understand that to understand
why assassinations are so important.
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Keep in mind that when we get to the New Testament, this is really big with
Paul. He does this Adam-Christ comparison.
He does it in Romans chapter 5. He does it in 1 Corinthians 15.
Well, basically, he points out the rule of one, Adam, brought death,
and the rule of one, Christ, brings life.
So, the rule of one is important throughout biblical history.
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And this truth, the rule of one with helpers, will be especially so in the world
to come, where saints having having served in this age, will be rulers,
with Christ being Christ's helpers, with Christ in the next.
Listen to this from 2 Timothy 2, verses 11 through 13.
The saying is trustworthy, for if we have died with him, we will also live with him.
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If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us.
If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.
Right. If we have died with him, we'll live with him.
Now, died means died to the world, and live with him means in the world to come.
Because if you look at the next line, which in Hebraic way of doing things parallels
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it, if we endure, that means if we're dead to the world, we'll endure with him.
We will also reign with him, which parallels to live with him.
And that means, of course, at the resurrection.
We were created to reign. We see that in Adam and Eve, but currently serve in a fallen world.
But having been faithful servants, endurance, we will one day be raised to reign
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with the One who is supremely God's image, the One who reigns and whose reign we get to reign with.
And we see this in Hebrews 1 verses 1 through 3.
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Heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance
of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the
universe by the word of His power.
After making purifications for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
He sat down. In other words, to rule, as the book of Revelation points out.
In chapter 1, that He rules over, present tense, He rules over the kings of the earth.
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He now rules from the right hand of God. Amen.
At his return, he will rule on earth with his saints, as in your kingdom come.
However, others rule now on earth, mostly in rebellious ways.
How'd this happen? How'd it come about that in this evil age,
that's what Paul calls this in Galatians 1, this age we're currently in,
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yeah, before Jesus returns, we're in an evil age.
Only certain one gets to be rulers and kings and presidents.
How does that come to pass? Two reasons. Number one, Jesus' followers are called in this age to serve.
Then others, by default, are the providence of God, will rule their various
constituencies. And that's going to continue until Jesus returns.
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Here's how Jesus outlines that in Matthew 20, verses 25 through 28.
But Jesus called them to him and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles
lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.
It shall not be so among you, but whoever would be great among you must be your
servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave,
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even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his
life as a ransom for many.
We are called to serve. We will get to reign when Jesus returns in the next
age, but currently we serve.
Therefore, there are the rulers of the Gentiles. That's basically the whole world.
When did this start? Well, it started with the fall of Adam,
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the rule of Gentiles. And this rule of one shows up very clearly right after the flood.
So let's go back to Genesis now again. We're going to go chapters 8 and 9 to
see how this develops, okay?
First, Genesis 8, verses 20 and 21.
Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and
some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
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And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart,
I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's
heart is evil from his youth.
Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.
Right. And the key there is God makes that heartfelt confession that man's heart
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is evil from his youth. That's one problem.
And therefore, he promises never to strike down every living creature as he has done in the flood.
So that raises the question, how then will evil be dealt with?
What's the answer to evil on earth that is dealing with it if there's no more worldwide why floods.
What is God's plan to curb evil? Capital punishment.
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Now, just listen to this. I think we can pull it together. This authority was
granted back in Genesis chapter 9.
After the flood, when governing arrangements are changed by God.
So, listen to Genesis 9, 1 and 2, then 5 and 6.
And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
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The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth
and upon every bird of the heavens,
upon everything that creeps on the ground and all fish of the sea.
Into your hand they are delivered.
And so that changes. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every
beast, meaning having dominion over the animal world is going to be difficult.
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It's not going to be easy like it was before.
But then we come to verse 5. And for your lifeblood, I will require a reckoning.
From every beast, I will require it, and from man.
And from his fellow man, I will require a reckoning for the life of man.
Yes, thank you, Randy. And then concluding in verse 6, whoever sheds the blood
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of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.
In other words, when a man kills another man, and obviously it's a murderer,
then he is subject to the rest of mankind in some governmental form.
He is subject to them, and they have legitimate right to take his life, shed his blood.
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So, here is established a legitimate taking of human life by other humans,
which before only God could do legitimately, although he didn't.
You know, Cain's a good example. He killed Abel, but Cain was banished.
Yeah, he had mercy even upon him. Right.
But then the flood came. And, of course, everybody except the eight people,
Noah and his family, went away. way.
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So now in this post-Diluvian age, that is after the flood, that authority is
delegated to humanity to set up law and order because as God has made it clear,
there's not going to be another flood because it won't make a difference. Humans are depraved.
They're going to be that way. It's not going to solve the problem.
Evil nonetheless has to be curbed, and it's going to be curbed according to
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this plan without destroying all of humanity.
And this is the origin of governments as we know them, duly ordained to enforce
laws by force, even the most extreme force, capital punishment.
Here's kind of what you call a dark joke to illustrate this.
I heard it in my college days, and it's used to explain.
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Purpose of capital punishment and how it's tied to the establishment of government.
People had been at sea, their ship had wrecked, and they were on land,
and they'd been traveling for several days trying to find people.
Where is, is anybody here? They come upon a rise and get up to the top of the
hill, and there in front of them is the gallows.
And they all say, at last, civilization.
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And you say, well, that's sort of sick, but it tells a truth.
If there is a hangman's noose there, there are people organized as a government.
They enforce laws. Civilized.
That's right. That's right. So this is how Paul says it in the New Testament.
Now listen to this and you'll see how it ties into the passage we just discussed here in Genesis 9.
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Romans 13, verses 1, 2, and 4.
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority
except set from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.
Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed,
and those who resist will incur judgment.
For he is God's servant for your good, but if you do wrong, be afraid,
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for he does not bear the sword in vain.
For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.
He carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.
He does not bear the sword in vain.
What is the main purpose of government? To provide safety by punishing the evildoer.
Remember Paul's instructions to Timothy, 1 Timothy 2.
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He says, make sure you have the churches, pray for those in authority,
especially kings and others in high positions, so that you can have peaceful and quiet lives.
If the rule of one doesn't go well, everyone suffers.
Hence the need to remove the one, not by prayer, but...
But by assassination. And note how Genesis 8, the quote, whoever sheds the blood
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of man, by man shall his blood be shed, pairs very well with Romans 13.
He does not bear the sword in vain. He carries out the wrath of God.
But people will object. What if he, the servant in government, is evil? Is evil.
Yeah. Because he serves an evil king or president.
It's got to be okay to kill him. It's got to be okay to kill him.
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Well, no, we got to let God take care of that.
Assassination usurps the rule of God. And since made in God's image means to
rule, God is the one, a pattern set up of one ruling over many develops.
That's part of the image of God. So where does this rule of one after the fall
of Adam and therefore after the flood, when God establishes government,
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primarily by the force of capital punishment, where does this rule of one first show up?
Very clear. Genesis chapter 10, verses 8 and 9.
Cush fathered Nimrod. He was the first on earth to be a mighty man.
He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore, it said like Nimrod,
a mighty hunter before the Lord.
You know, Nimrod was Noah's grandson.
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Yes. Great grandson. Something like that. Yeah. Not too many generations removed.
Not too many because it's right after the flood.
Yeah. He was the first on earth to be a mighty man. That means the rule of one.
How do we know that? Because he was a mighty hunter. Well, what did he hunt? He hunted people.
So let's look at Genesis chapter 10, verse 10. The beginning of his kingdom
was Babel, and we all know what Babel was.
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It was a kingdom of idolatry.
So, Nimrod's rule was not righteous.
But a subjugation of many peoples through idolatry. Now, was Nimrod God's servant
to bear the sword of God's wrath?
Yes, as certainly as the Roman emperors did in Jesus' time, Paul's time.
But that rule, as was Nimrod's, is so often harsh, people say.
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Well, and I respond, yes, and that's why we need to be praying,
Lord, your kingdom come, and then we'll have a righteous rule.
Israel was given that blessing, however, of being the kingdom of God with the
rule of one. That's the Lord. The Lord our God is one.
And he ruled over Israel. But even with God over them, they rebelled and were judged.
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1 Samuel 8, 7, God says to Samuel, they've rejected me as king over them.
So now we must deal with the many evil human kings.
Thus arises the assassinations of so many because it is figured by folks.
That's the quickest way to get rid of a bad person at the top.
And then we'll get a good guy in there. and things will work out.
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Everything will be different when my guy gets in there. When my guy gets in
there, it's going to be going good.
So let's do this. Let's turn to Israel's history because we're opposed to what
Paul says in Romans and 1 Corinthians, study the Old Testament to get wisdom
and understanding and to be encouraged and to understand how God works.
Let's turn to Israel's history to see how even under an evil ruler,
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assassination is not God's ordained way to restore government.
We're going to use, first of all, Saul as the example. Now, keep in mind,
Saul becomes the first king after God's rejected, and he turns out to be a very
jealous, unstable, and murderous person.
We have the incident of the city of Nob, where by his own order and authority,
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he destroys the city, men, women, and children, says the Bible, and kills 85 priests.
Okay. So listen to Samuel 24 verses 1 through 7.
When Saul returned from following the Philistines, he was told,
Behold, David is in the wilderness of En Gedi.
Then Saul took 3,000 chosen men out of all Israel and went to seek David and
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his men in front of the wild goats' rocks.
And he came to the sheepfolds by the way where there was a cave,
and Saul went in to relieve himself.
Now David and his men were sitting in the innermost parts of the cave.
And when the men of David said to him, Here is the day of which the Lord said
to you, Behold, I will give your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him
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as it shall seem good to you.
Then David arose and stealthily cut off a corner of Saul's robe.
And afterwards David's heart struck him, because he had cut off a corner of Saul's robe.
He said to his men, the Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my Lord,
the Lord's anointed, to put out my hand against him, seeing he is the Lord's anointed.
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So David persuaded his men with these words, and they did not permit him to attack Saul.
And Saul rose up and left the cave and went on his way.
Yes. David's men thought this was an excellent time to kill him and change things.
And this slaughter that took place at Nob with the city and then also the priests
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who were killed, all this is happening while Saul is pursuing David to kill
David through the wilderness and in Gedi and all that.
So David has this opportunity. He's encouraged by his men.
He doesn't do it. He's convicted in his heart that what he was about to do was wrong.
He didn't have the right to remove a rebellious and unworthy king.
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And here's what I find really interesting.
He's also now been anointed by Samuel to be the next king.
But he never claims his own anointing as justification to kill Saul.
It's not like, I'm the one who's really been chosen. I'm the one who really
got elected. So you need to go.
Now, do assassinations make things better? Because that's always the idea.
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Let's take Hitler, for example. There were at least, that we know about,
42 attempts to assassinate him.
One of those was made into a movie with Tom Cruise. With Alcrey. Yeah.
Klaus von Stauffenberg tried to leave a bomb under a table.
The bomb got moved and Hitler got messed up a little, but he wasn't killed.
But as a result of that, they rounded up 5,000 people and promptly executed
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them. No trial. So you got to know most of those people were innocent.
Yeah. That's what happens when you have an assassination that goes wrong.
Even a good man like Bonhoeffer got in on a plot to assassinate Hitler.
And you would think God being God and Bonhoeffer being as I believe he was a
real believer and brilliant man in theology.
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It didn't happen. He ended up being hung. Yeah. Yeah. David Oliver is given
another chance to do this to Saul.
And again, he will not do it. 1 Samuel 26, verses 8 and 9.
Then Abishai said to David, God has given your enemy into your hand this day.
Now, please let me pin him to the earth with one stroke of my spear,
and I will not strike him twice.
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But David said to Abishai, do not destroy him, for who can put out his hand
against the Lord's anointed and be guiltless?
Yes. Do not try to take out the Lord's anointed, you will be guilty of a grave sin.
So, I hear somebody asking, what's David's plan for dealing with Saul?
Here it is, 1 Samuel 26, verses 10 through 11.
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And David said, As the Lord lives, the Lord will strike him,
or his day will come to die, or he will go down into battle and perish.
The Lord forbid that I should put out my hand against the Lord's anointed. Yes.
And I believe this is a God-given pattern of truth because there's three of them.
And we're told time and again in the Bible, even in the New Testament,
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in the mouth of two or three witnesses, it is so.
So let's take a look at these. David gives three reasons. The first one is the
Lord will strike him, an act of God.
Well, we turn to the New Testament, Acts 12, 21-23, and we find this happens to King Herod.
On appointed day, Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne,
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and delivered an oration to them.
And the people were shouting, The voice of a God and not of a man.
Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God
the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last. Yes.
And the Jewish Roman historian, Josephus, collaborates that,
confirms that story, what we find in the book of Acts.
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And notice the similarity. The Lord struck him down. That was what David said.
Secondly, his day will come to die.
Why is that? Because as all men do, even evil men, sooner or later they die.
So here's an example from a king named Omri during the days when Israel was
in the ten tribes and given over to idolatry.
1 Kings 16, 25 through 28.
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Omri did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did more evil than all who were before him.
For he walked in the way of Jeroboam, the son of Debat, and in the sins that
he made Israel to sin, provoking the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger by their idols.
Now the rest of the acts of Omri that he did, and the might that he showed,
are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?
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And Omri slept with his fathers, and was buried in Samaria, and Ahab his son reigned in his place.
There you go. So it's, he just come to a point where finally he died.
That's what David said could have happened to Saul.
Thirdly, David says he'll die in battle, which is in fact what happens. Yes.
And David, finally, after many years of persevering, becomes king.
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However, we have this interesting story in 2 Samuel 1 where David executes an
Amalekite because this Amalekite comes to David and is bragging almost,
I think, thinking he's done a good thing. He was the one who killed Saul.
And David gives orders for this Amalekite to be executed.
And here we have his reasoning in 2 Samuel 1, verse 16. And David said to him,
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Your blood be on your own head, for your own mouth has testified against you,
saying, I have killed the Lord's anointed.
Didn't shoot the messenger, but he clearly jumped off the head of the messenger. Yeah, yeah, yes.
So David believed this matter of being anointed as a king by God in place.
It was God's business alone to deal with, whatever way God chose to deal with
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him. Now, we can take a look at another example here.
Ammon, he was a son of Manasseh, and he gets assassinated.
Listen to this, 2 Kings 21, 22 through 24.
He abandoned the Lord, the God of his fathers, and did not walk in the way of the Lord.
And the servants of Ammon conspired against him and put the king to death in his house.
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But the people of the land struck down all those who had conspired against King
Ammon, and the people of the land made Josiah, his son, king in his place.
Well, things are really getting messy in Israel as they're moving toward the final judgment of God.
You killed him, we killed you. Yes, tit for tat.
Ammon's servants assassinate him. He was not a good king. And they,
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in turn, are killed by others.
Now, the result of this is Josiah becomes king.
Now, assassination here seems to be the easy way out, although these people
had known the wickedness of Manasseh and despite his wickedness,
which they participated in, they neither repented nor assassinated him.
They went along with him.
But here comes his son and now him they assassinate. There's an arbitrariness about assassination.
(27:45):
But God is good. God is good. Because why? Josiah, Ammon's son,
was one of the few good kings.
Why would God have wanted the servants to do? Well, to appeal to him,
the God who grants mercy and repentance.
So, good came out of this, not because assassination is a valid political tool,
but because God is merciful.
(28:07):
Rulers, kings, presidents, queens, etc., whether they acknowledge God or not,
they are in place by divine providence.
So how successful are assassinations? And we just mentioned earlier,
World War I got started by assassination.
World War I actually led to World War II. Man.
And think of Lincoln. He was assassinated and he had a good plan for the South,
(28:30):
but what happened? That plan went South.
And a hundred years of problems are still with us today because of that assassination.
The CIA tried to assassinate Castro, that we know of, at least seven times.
This is from NBC back on November 28th of 2016.
And there were other people who wanted Castro dead, apparently.
(28:51):
There was a documentary in the UK in 2006, rather well-known one,
entitled 638 Ways to Kill Castro. But Castro stayed in office.
He stayed in office. Elvis. I thought he was 90. And yeah, as David said,
maybe he'll just, you know, he will die in the course of time.
He died at the age of 90. Yeah.
(29:12):
Sometimes assassinations become the way of a country, which is certainly God's judgment.
Roman emperors from 41 AD, we're not going to count Julius Caesar,
who would be the first one, so to speak.
He was, depending on how you view history, he was an emperor,
a dictator, or both or whatever.
But, you know, the emperor, the one who rules Rome was firmly established by
41 AD, first assassination, 41 AD.
(29:34):
From 41 AD to 480 AD, there are 36 assassinated Roman emperors,
about one every 12 years.
And so where is Rome today? It assassinated itself into the dustbin of history.
Well, what about the USA?
Well, we have concerns. I mean, and anybody would. There's incompetence of Secret
(29:55):
Service with this attempt on Trump.
And once again, will we get to the bottom of it? And already people are expecting
another attempt at assassination?
Are we heading the way of banana republics? We shall see. But better than that, we need to pray.
We believe that assassination as a political tool is condemned by God.
(30:16):
God's dealing with Israel shows us this, and David's way of dealing with it in particular.
But glory be to God, God brings good things out of assassination,
not just Ammon with Josiah becoming king.
But by the story of Jesus. Acts 2, verses 22-23.
Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by
(30:41):
God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst.
As you yourselves know, this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan
and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
You crucified and killed by the
law hands of lawless men yes you
(31:02):
were the promoters of assassination you were the originators and you did it
by proxy you got other people to do it but the unlawful killing of the king
of kings who was the true anointed one fulfilling all previous anointments so
there'll be no more anointments for a king ever for planet earth Jesus is the one.
In chapter 3, Peter comes back to this same theme. Chapter 3, verses 14 and 15.
(31:28):
But you denied the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted
to you, and you killed the author of life, whom God raised from the dead.
To this we are witnesses.
Yes, you are assassinators of the Holy One. And as the people cried out on the
day of Pentecost, what shall we do?
Because they just heard that they were guilty of this.
(31:50):
Let's listen to this from Acts 2, verses 36 and 37.
Let all the house of Israel, therefore, know for certain that God has made him
both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.
Now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and
the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do?
Yes. Brothers, what shall we do?
(32:11):
This is great because they didn't say it's over. There's there's nothing we
can do, we're damned, and et cetera. They want help.
They realize what they've done. So what does Peter tell them? Acts 2.38.
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.
(32:34):
The incredible, unbelievable mercy of God.
Even the assassinators of King Christ, the anointed, can be saved.
And if that's so, you can be saved, I can be saved, Randy can be saved, anyone can be saved.
And that's the Christian expectation.
Thank goodness for God's mercy. Mercy. Well, thanks, Jim.
(32:55):
You've given us a lot to think about, and perhaps you've got questions or comments on it.
And to that end, please send your email to eventsandexpectations,
that's the word events, the word and, the word expectations,
all together at gmail.com. or post your question or comment on the podcast commentary.
We will use your question or comment on air where possible, and we will always answer you.
(33:20):
This has been Current Events and Christian Expectations, and until next time, keep looking up.
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