This is one of my favorite CD Brooks sermons. I first heard it almost twenty years ago and have always gone back to listen to numerous times.
Introduction of CD Brooks Sermon : Ah ha
On this first Sabbath of the new year it’s a privilege to join you in worship here in the sanctuary. This won’t be the most extraordinary sermon you’ve ever heard but I guarantee you it has an extraordinary title. One word. An exclamation. Ah-ha!
Jesus Arrested In The Garden of Gethsemane
And these colors boldly exclaim the qualities of the participants in that scene – red of anger; purple of rage; the green of envy, the yellow of cowardice, the grey of indecision and thank God the blue of loyalty to the white of purity and the gold of faith and love.
When they approached him Jesus asked, “whom seek ye?” And when they had responded divinity flashed through humanity and the record is, they fell as dead men.
You would have thought this enough to teach them a lesson. But Christ would not be delivered by divinity. Not now, and so divinity passed away as it were and he again became Mary’s boy.
Identifying with us in humanity and he asked again “whom seek ye?” and the same group having just recovered stood up and said Jesus of Nazareth and Christ said “I am he send them away, let these go”. Jesus always like that, facing danger, taking the brunt of things and letting us off. Take me let Brooks go, Take me let sinners go.
After that he was abused and humiliated unspeakably. There was an excitement about sin that day and the fair countenance of our Lord was soon covered with spittle.
Jesus Before Pilate
Then he was ushered before Pilate. The true king before the bar of an apparent ruler is the crowning paradox of history and the mystery of self-abasing love. Who can understand it?
And Pilate looked at Him as if to say thou a king, poor peasant. He was incredulous. What a specimen to call yourself a king, said Pilate.
But if you are a king you should have a crown and so a crown of thorns was brought to be pressed upon his head until the spikes ran along the cranium of his skull. A crown of thorns. Thorns represent the curse, you read that in Genesis 3:18.
And I ask you, does not the thorns staring from the naked bulb winter in threatening ugliness or lurking beneath the flower in leap of summer fitly represent the curse? When Jesus lifted the crown to his own head he lifted the curse from the earth. Through Him we need not live condemned. The curse is removed.
Jesus Carries The Cross
Finally one of the Empires’ three hundred fifty pound hardwood crosses is hauled out and dropped on his lacerated shoulders. The Son of God now is headed towards Dead Mans Hill.
His back had been laid open with a Roman rawhide whip. His clothes were sticking in his wounds. The fabric threads seem anchored in drying blood as though taking root in the new furrows which the whip has laid on his back. The gentle wind that rustles his garments brought both torment and refreshing.
History of Cross Crucifixion
The cross was not a Jewish implement. Their penal ordinances did not require the cross. The cross came from the Carthaginians through the Romans.
How Criminals Were Crucified on The Cross and How They Died
There was nothing quite like the cross. It consisted of an upright beam with a slanted block at the bottom so as to offer no support to the victim’s body. And across the top a horizontal beam where a man’s arms were first stretched and then fastened.
His legs were bent in the unnatural position affecting circulation and inducing numbness and asphyxiation. You see on the cross suffering was supreme, killing. meant very little. Killing was anticlimactic. All it meant was the show is over and the crowd can go home.
People came not to see men die but to watch them suffer. And they were fastened on a cross to do just that. The nails were set so as to avoid vital arteries so that a man would not bleed to death quickly.
And a criminal paid according to his crime. It is said that a healthy man could spend four days and nights on a cross and if he stayed there long enough for all the things concomitant with dying took place in the presence of an audience curious and morbid.
A man’s tongue would swell in his mouth and if his head fell forward instead backwards he could choke to death on his own tongue. And the sounds from the crosses were grisly sounds of labored breathing.
Jim Bishop graphically pictures the well made, well cared for, suntanned, muscular body of Jesus on the cross. Hanging there by the weight of his body against the nails until the excruciating pain in his hands reached a crescendo of agony and screamed for relief.
And then he pushed up from the slanted block to relieve the agony in his hands only to feel it in his feet. And he could stay there until his feet could bear it no longer. Then he would ….. again up and down up and down in spasms of unspeakable torment.
In addition to that the vultures circled high and then low. Vultures and ravens would take a meal while life still resided in the wretched and fevered tenement of the flesh. The insects would feast before the breath had fled. The cross is not pretty as we think it.
Pilate’s Inscription on The Cross
Above the head of Jesus, Pilate ordered a jarring sarcasm aimed at humiliating the Jews. He nailed this board against the protestations of the Jews with this superscription, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.
And all the evangelists tell us it was written in three languages. First of all in Hebrew, the language of the patriarchs representing the language of religion. And secondly it was printed in Greek, Greek- the language of culture, the golden tongue which gave a soul to the objects of sense and body to the abstractions of philosophy. And after that it was written in Latin, the dialect of those originally the strongest of the sons of men.
These three expressing revelation in art and literature and progress and war and jurisprudence. In every language then known Jesus was called king. Hebrew the language of religion. Greek the language of culture. Latin the language of power.
The Meaning of The Inscription on The Cross For Us
Message From The Cross For Men of Culture
Let’s go back through these and consider now what is the message from the cross for those who are men of a culture. It is the same message of Pilate’s joke – it is the message that Christ must be king in intellectual circles, in academic communities.
Christ must be king in the classroom, in the med school. Wherever men aspire to intellectual greatness, Christ must be king or else they as Ellen white says are but polished instruments of the devil.
Message From The Cross For Those In Positions of Power
What is the message from the cross to those in positions of power? It is that Christ must be king and that he must bring with him into the hearts and into the circles of power the divine standards of heaven.
Christ must be king among men of position, men in the White House, men in the Senate, men in the House of Representatives. Christ must be king in the Supreme Court.
He must be king in the board room, when the committee meets, on the bench in local assemblies. Wherever men exercise power over other men, Christ must be king or this power will be prostituted and men will be oppressed.
Message From The Cross For Religious People
And finally what is the message of the cross to those in religion. Hebrew. If Christ is not King here then all of our gathering together for worship and all of our praying and testifying is but sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.
It is not only nothing, it is worse than nothing, for it is the perpetration of fraud. Christ must be king amongst the religious.
Jesus As King Even in Death
On the cross, Pilate’s joke became an awesome prophecy and a terrible reality. A king though crowned with thorns. A king though the cross is his throne. The rusty nails are his scepter and mace.
He is a king, He ruled as he died. He reigned while asleep. The sufferer is author and finisher of our faith. Pilate’s whiteboard long since perished, crumbled and returned to dust. Yet there is a glorious sense in which that inscription can never be obliterated. Christ is king.
It said on that board, Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews. Let’s look at it again. Jesus, blessed name, Emmanuel, God be with us. You wanna know what God’s like? Look at Jesus, that’s what God is like.
How can you think of Jesus as being merciful and think of God as being austere. He came to reveal the father. Jesus, God with us. Blessed and holy name. Jesus, JEHOVAH unspeakable gift.
And then it said Jesus of Nazareth indicating his great condescension. Few towns were notorious for lascarity as Nazareth. As a matter of fact, Nazareth was such an awful town, one of the disciples who had not yet gotten acquainted with Jesus asked, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? The spirit of Prophecy says God chose Nazareth as a place in which His son should grow up.
Jesus Grew Up In Nazareth: Location No Excuse For Failure
So many of us blame our weaknesses on our location, on the atmosphere around us, on our neighborhoods.
Some of us say that if we could move into a better community we could be better Christians.That’s hogwash. It is simply not the truth.
Noah was perfect in his generation, the Bible says so. In the midst of a perverse people he was perfect. The problem is not location. It’s nature not what happens around us. It’s what happens in us that makes the difference you see.
Jesus of Nazareth. God chose a place where his son could grow up rubbing shoulders with profligates. He heard the awful music pouring out of the windows of his village.
He heard the profanity and the cursing from the taverns. Jesus grew up in a rotten place but so pure that one of the appellations by which he is known is Lily of the valley. A lily grows up in the muck and the mire of the swamp and unfolds its petals so pure.
Jesus of Nazareth, king, king he is called and king He was, He is and He shall be. And the day of His coronation is yet in the future and at that time the Scriptures declare that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess.
Jesus King of The Jews
And then finally king of the Jews. And this refers to his future glory, in order to understand that we must go back to the Apostle Paul who declared, “he is not a Jew who is one outwardly in the circumcision is that of the flesh but he is a Jew who is one inwardly and the circumcision is that of a heart”. Paul said further “if ye be Christ’s then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise”.
When we become Christians therefore we become spiritual Jews. This will not change the color of your skin or the texture of your hair but I tell you it will change your heart.
King of the Jews, king of the Redeemed, king of those who have enough faith to trust in Him and accept his authority in their lives. Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews and one day to be crowned the king of kings and Lord of lords. And ladies and gentlemen, Golgotha, the place of the skull, where men went to die they now go to live. There we see him hanging in our mind’s eyes.
Women At The Cross
A small group of women who attended him are the only ones to offer him solace. The menfolk have fled, only John stands on the periphery of the crowd, drawn by love than repulsed by fear. The women are there.
Jesus made woman in the beginning to be an helpmate for man; a consolation to him. And they’ve gone from Adam’s rib to women’s rib but women’s rib notwithstanding, God’s way is the best way.
And I want to say to the ladies here-you owe Christ something for only in Christian places are women elevated to the pedestal of lady-hood.
And I want to tell you something else, there is no risk to your person, your individuality or anything else, when you submit yourself to your own husbands if those husbands love their wives as their own flesh which the Bible commands them to do. There is no threat to you when your husband loves you that way. So the Lord’s way is the best way.
Woman was made to be a comfort to man and of course men was to reciprocate.
And now as the Son of Man hangs on the cross he does not refuse the attention of these holy women who have come into His presence to offer comfort.
Mary is there, the mother of life and with her is Magdalene, out of whom he cast seven devils. And then there is Mary the wife of Cleophas and Salome, each the mother of two apostles.
They are there. And they are there in the midst of an angry and hostile crowd. A crowd whipped into a frenzy of hysteria by the priest and the Pharisees.
The Cross And Following A Crowd
And there is something to say here about following a crowd. Humanity is afflicted with a herd instinct. Crowds don’t make decisions. Crowds don’t even think. Crowds are led and manipulated and used and thus abused.
And there was a crowd whipped into hysteria and these faithful women in their midst.
In that crowd a type of every one of us. The priest were there.The Pharisees were there.They incited the crowd according to Desire of Ages.
In that crowd were shopkeepers and grocers. They had something against Jesus for he had fed the five thousand with a little boy’s lunch cutting in on their trade.
And in that crowd were doctors who were turned off by him because he healed people for free and did damage to their lucrative business of blood sucking and extortion.
And in that crowd were funeral directors who had to give refunds on funerals because when Jesus met one he brought the dead to the life and sent the caskets back and dismissed the mourners.
In that crowd someone like you and someone like me.And then two thieves. Jesus was dying between belief and unbelief.
Ah Ha! (Mark 15:29)
And and now we come to verse 29 of Mark 15 where we find this expression that is my title today and those who passed by derided him. Wagging their heads and saying ah-ha! If you read the Authorized Version it simply says ha.
What a word! First of all let me point out that the context seemed to suggest that it was not their real problem they were just passing by and were influenced by the sentiments of the crowd.
This word AH-HA! is an exclamation of scorn and contempt. Ah-Ha! is a derisive cry. It is a cry of mockery and ignorant men and women who had not known the Lord beheld him suffering and were unmoved having never known the mystery of compassion and grace.
Instead of feeling sorry for him these non-thinkers, these lowly souls who simply went along with what others were doing cried ah-ha! and cast their arrows of bitterness towards the heart of the Lord. They saw Jesus hanging there and they knew he was helpless as a man it was all over except the shouting and they shouted a head wagging jeer ah-ha!
Ladies and gentlemen if the final balance had been taken at sunset that day they would have been right.
The church calls that day Good Friday but it was not good. To the disciples it was the worst Friday that had ever dawned. It was was bad Friday.
Peter didn’t recognise it as good, he had cursed and sworn. His soul was barren his heaving breast exploded in grief. It was a dark Friday for Peter.
The others had fled also into darkness but you know it wasn’t finished on Friday, Friday was was the devil’s day.
A modern evangelist has proposed an allegory that I cannot resist. He said that Death and Hell had a meeting that day and death said to hell, “if I claim him and deliver him to you will you hold him?
And hell from Hades the grave replied, “If you deliver him I will hold him”.
And so they made a covenant. Death hounded the Lord until finally his heart burst in his breast. He dropped his head in the hollow of the shoulder; screamed in passion and yielded up the ghost.
Then death said to Hell, “now Hell I have done my part, you take Him and you do your part. You hold Him.”
And according to this man allegory Hell cried out “get these women out of here, seal my bowels with Roman mortar. Set a guard of Roman soldiers at the gate. I’ll hold Him and if I keep him for four days His body shall see corruption and I’ve got him forever”. So good Friday closed with a-ha!
But you know God acts cannot be measured in a short time frame. Like Election Day all the returns are not in at sunset and God was not finished.
So a day passes and death is a little anxious and death visits the garden says, “Hello, have you still got him?”.
And Hell replied “I’ve got him.”
They didn’t know that Jesus was just keeping the Sabbath – resting in the tomb. And then two days, on Saturday night and death came by and said, “what about it Hell, have you still got him?”.
Hell said, “I still got Him and the Roman soldiers are still on duty outside. Everything is okay”. Ah-a!
The smearing taunt of the bystanders was premature for the third day came and death was getting a very anxious. Death cried into the gray murky darkness of a coming dawn, “Hell have you still got Him?”
And Hell responded “well Death, you see it was like this, there was a blinding light from glory and an angel rolled the stone away and I couldn’t hold Him. He got up and walked out and as if that was not enough he insulted us both for he looked with might and holy scorn and said, “oh death where is thy sting. oh grave where is thy victory?”
And so the silence of Sunday morning was not broken by the hawkers and vendors or the rabble of Israel finally rid of their nemesis. It was broken rather by pounding foot leather as Roman soldiers ran hysterically past the antonium tower crying to the sleeping city, “He’s alive, He’s alive”.
That cry struck with the suddenness of thunder and death and jerked the high priest up from his slumber. He’s alive! was the cry and the crowd that on Friday evening had shouted Ah-Ha. Now says Haa!
Lessons From The Passage
What are we talking about. I think it’s important for us to remember that the flood tide always follows the ebb tide. We may do as we please, with contempt and scorn but there is a day for settling the score.
There is a day of judgment; there is a day to be reckoned with; a day to give of account and we are close to that day.
God is trying to wake us up in every conceivable way. We’re living in an age of national and international perplexity. God is trying to speak to us showing us the uncertainty of man and the insecurity of man’s affairs. And what do we say to God ah-ha! as though we are indeed masters of our own people.
Morals are cast to the ground. Great truths are on the cross again. We live in an age when it’s smart to be filthy; it,s cheek to utter profanities; to be lewd, rude, filthy in our speech.
The Bible said this day would immediately precede the day of the Lord. And Christ is showing us by the signs that we are near the end of time what do we do, ah-ha! Contempt for what he has to say.
Drugs have turned young people into the streets and produced streets full of amoral networks. So that we live in a time of constant peril. It’s dangerous even to walk out of your door night or day. God is trying to tell of something but what do we say to him, ah-ha!
Mysterious anomalies haunt the soul. Last year the Church of Satan turned down five thousand applications to the priesthood and the Roman church run five thousand short. God’s trying to tell us something.
Eastern mysticism is invading western culture and is attaching itself to popular things and to violence. With kung fu and karate and etc goes the philosophy of meditating until you are faster and stronger and swifter than anyone else.
Movies dwell on forbidden themes. The lowest blasphemies are unraveled on the silver screen in films such as the Exorcist and Godspell. And the churches stand up and approve and have thus become in fulfillment of prophecy in many cases “the cage of every unclean and hateful bird and the hold of every foul spirit”.
There is a judgment going on ladies and gentlemen and God is speaking to society for a final time. The scriptures cannot be broken and prophecy has spoken clearly. The things that show His coming near are fast fulfilling you year by year.
It is almost impossible to discover a prophecy that is not now being fulfilled. The last one or two have to do directly with the actual appearance of our Lord and those things which transpire along with that great event.
Are we asleep or awake? How do we feel when God speaks to us so directly, when he steps on our toes, so to speak, in an attempt to get our attention and turn us around. AH-HA! You must be born again. Ha!
Young man give me your heart. Not me.
He goes on to say “keep thyself unspotted from the world”. A Christian cannot indulge in everything his flesh desires and be ready for the coming of the Lord.
But we will go to our movies. We will drink our cocktails. We’ll listen to our music. We will wear whatever clothing we desire. Ah-ha! we are saying to God, whose counsels are best and whose counsels produce happiness here and in the life to come.
Be ye not equally yoked together with unbelievers. Ah-ha! I will marry whomever I choose and I will associate with whom I choose.
This contempt of God as though he were just another man. Indeed society today deems Him less than another man. Someone to be ignored. The butt of blasphemous jokes. Ah-ha!
But the day comes when God’s church will be thrust into prominence not through the excellent services of our P.R. department but through persecutions and trials which the Bible says will come as God throws His people into the crucible of fire that the gold might be refined and the dross consumed.
It’s coming because the Bible says so. Like it or not it comes for the word of Scripture cannot be broken. And this shall be followed by God’s voice thundering from heaven, “it is done, it is done”.
The spirit of prophecy tries to give us some graphic portrayal of the terrible upheaval and commotion at that time. I read these words, “foundations of the earth will shake, buildings will tatter and fall with a terrible crash. The sea boils like a pot and the whole earth is in terrible commotion”. The bible says mountains will be moved out of their places and men will scream in terror.
For the proud the recalcitrant, those who stood up against God and would not listen, the day will come when they will want to listen but it will come too late for them.
For the Bible says the decree will go forth “he that is unjust let him be unjust still he that is filthy let him be filthy still”. Whatever you determine to be go ahead and be it for probation will have closed. Doors of mercy will have swung shut on the hinges of grace and there will be no further opportunity for repentance of for prayer.
It is done and the end shall come and the proud and the haughty and the rebellious and those who wouldn’t listen are going to be sorry. It’s no kick to be lost. It is ultimately and inevitably not smart to ignore God. It is stupid. It is foolish. It is the height of folly.
Last Words of Saints and Sinners
Today is the time to pray. I have an extraordinary book in my library. It’s called, The Last Words of Saints and Sinners.
The scholar who wrote that book ravaged the pages of history looking not for the great achievements and triumphs of men but looking for the closing. The descriptions of the closing moments of great men’s lives and he has recorded these.
Last Words of Dwight Eisenhower
In that book the final known words of Dwight Eisenhower former president of this country. According to that book Dwight Eisenhower asked Billy Graham, “how does a man know when he’s ready to meet God? ” and after hearing the explanation, Dwight Eisenhower said, “thank you, I am ready”. If those indeed were his last words, how noble, how wonderful.
Dying Words of French Philosopher Voltaire
But I was looking for something else in my study of that book. I wanted to find out what the big shots had to say who thrust their fists in the face of God and who laughed in His face. I wanted to see what they had to say.
So I looked up men like Voltaire, the great philosopher, who said that in fifty years the Bible would be an exploded book nobody would read it, it would be laughingstock. Well he’s been dead longer than that, many of you never heard of him but the Bible is still the world’s best seller.
When Voltaire died, he died according to this book looking about his room as though assaulted by a thousand demons. Afraid. His eyes rolled in fear and he said “I am damned, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy”. Nearly all of his life he had said ah-ha! to the word of God but now, “Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy”.
Dying Words of Thomas Paine
Next year is our bicentennial year. One of the great patriarchs of America was Thomas Paine who wrote the Age of Reason.
I went to New Rochelle New York and visited his home. I went into the room where it is said he wrote that blasphemous book urging thinkers not to accept anything by faith particularly the Word of God but to believe only that which is rational and logical and which can be proved and which had been tested scientifically.
But when he came down to die the noble patriarch Thomas Paine cried out, “I would give a million worlds if I had them if the Age of Reason had never been written. Don’t leave me. God have mercy upon me I am a lost man. Lord have mercy upon me”.
In his book, ah-ha!, when he died Lord have mercy upon me.
Conclusion of Sermon
This is a brand new year with new challenges, new problems, new trials, new vicissitudes, but new opportunities, new grace.
How will we face it? Will we listen to God while there is time, or wait until it’s too late and join the crowd in a prayer meeting praying to rocks and mountains to fall on them and hide them from the face of God.
How shall it be? Not in big things only but in small things when God speaks what will it be? Ah ha! or I accept Lord. I wanted you to think about that as we begin this new year.
Closing Prayer
Let us pray. We thank thee our Father that thou hast spared our lives through 1974 and we are brought to a new year.
This month January named from the mythological god Janus, the god of two faces, one looking forward, one looking backward. As we look back, “Great is thy faithfulness”.
But as we look ahead the future is unknown. We pray that thou wouldst arrest us. And while you have our attentions, speak to our hearts and speak peace. Give us wisdom that is from above.
Help us we pray to submit to divine authority. Help us, we pray, to accept your providences and to line up on your side.
For soon the heaven shall split wide open and Christ shall be seen riding down through space in the chariots of flaming fire. The earth shall be thrown into convulsions and earthquakes such as never was, the Bible says, will take place. Islands of the sea will be swallowed up, mountains will move out of their places.
The great masses will flee from Thy presence because they have never known Thee. They have never submitted to Thy love or received Thy pardoning Grace.
But, Lord there’s going to be a group there, present at that time, that shall not be afraid. They will realize that the age of eternal relief has come. They will look up and hail Thee with joy. In the name of Jesus grant that we will be in that number.
And now let thy peace be upon us and as we go into this new year, by their grace, may we go with God.
Below is this CD Brooks Sermon youtube video (audio version) of this powerful sermon, Ah-ha!
This marks the end of this beautiful CD Brooks sermon. I hope you have blessed by this sermon.
These are wondergul sermons, are cds available?
Very touching and life changing sermons
Very touching and life changing sermons
Very touching and life changing sermons
Very touching and life changing sermons
Very touching and life changing sermons
These are indeed life changing sermons.