If I Be Lifted Up

Welcome and Happy Sabbath to everyone. What day is it today? As of this recording, it is Sabbath, May 25th, 2024. And that is a memorial date for what special event? The crucifixion of Jesus.

Exactly. Jesus' crucifixion was on May 25th, as we understand it from God's calendar, in the year A.D. 31. So today, in honor of that anniversary, we will be talking about Jesus' crucifixion.

And I titled this, If I Be Lifted Up, quoting Jesus when he was referring to that event of his crucifixion. So what comes to mind when you see pictures such as these? Yeah, the sacrifice of Jesus. And why? Why do you associate that with a picture of two pieces of wood? The cross of Jesus' foot.

So it was the cross where Jesus was crucified. But these are not the same pieces of wood that Jesus was crucified on. So, but it's something similar that brings our mind back to that event where Jesus was crucified.

And this is the essence of the symbol. That's what makes the symbol, is when we have something that is similar in some respect, and it brings our minds back to that which it symbolizes. So in John 12, verses 32 and 33, Jesus says, And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.

This, he said, signifying what death he should die. So the people in that time understood what he meant when he said, I, if I be lifted up. That was an expression that they all understood meant he would be crucified on a cross, exactly.

They understood that in their context. Notice he says, I will draw all men to me. Now, how should that be understood? Should we expect that he would then be the center of attention and everybody in the world would be in a big crowd around him? Or is he speaking in a more figurative sense? So it's clearly figuratively spoken, whereas being lifted up from the earth was more literal.

Now, maybe we can come back to this later and see if that's the only way to understand that expression, what he said there, that he would draw all men to himself. Because I think we will see there's also that literal application. Because in Jesus' time, when he came the first time, he spiritually drew people to himself.

As he is lifted up on the cross, all throughout Christian history, people have looked back on the cross, on the stories of the Bible, and spiritually were drawn in their hearts to Jesus. But Jesus is coming back the second time. And this time, what is he doing? He comes as the king this time, and he literally draws all of those who accepted him, at least, to himself.

So then it becomes a more literal fulfillment of that aspect. Now, let's look at this symbol of the cross. There are many different ways to illustrate a cross, and they all give us that same idea, the same basic concept.

If you saw any one of those, you would still be brought back to the crucifixion of Jesus. They all represent the same thing. Some focus on different aspects, some maybe in different contexts, some we're used to seeing maybe within a certain religious body.

But still, we recognize them as a symbol of the crucifixion of Jesus. It brings our mind back to that. What is the common element in all of these pictures? What is it that points to the cross? There's a common shape in it.

There's two lines of some sort, whether drawn as a rough brushstroke, or a beam, or a decorative element. But there's a horizontal and a vertical crossing line in the symbol. So, that has the basic shape of the cross that Jesus was crucified.

It's the shape that brings our attention back to the cross. Likewise, also, the chief priests mocking him with the scribes and elders said, he saved others, himself he cannot save. If he be the king of Israel, let him now come down from the cross.

Even the name is representing that shape, that form. And we will believe him. So, the shape of the cross brings our attention back to that historical event.

Is that the only thing that is used as a symbol for Jesus' crucifixion? Is there anything else that would bring, okay, a crown of thorns? Something like that. This also points to Jesus' crucifixion. It brings back our mind to the same event.

Perhaps a different aspect, focusing on the pain inflicted from the thorns, focusing on the mocking that he endured, because it says, and when they had plaited a crown of thorns, they put it on his head, and a reed in his right hand, and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, hail, king of the Jews. They had also given him a royal robe, purple robe, and presented him to the people. And this was all in mockery, that he endured all of that mocking, and part of that was this crown, not a noble crown of gold, but a crown of the worthless thorns forced on his head, piercing his brow.

What other symbols? There's the nail scars in his hands, for example. Those point also to his crucifixion. Just last night, we celebrated the Lord's Supper.

What symbols did we use? Bread and wine, exactly. And these also represent that which Jesus gave on the cross. And when he had given thanks, he break it, the bread, and said, take, eat, this is my body, which is broken for you.

This do in remembrance of me. After the same manner, also, he took the cup, and when he had supped, saying, this cup is the New Testament in my blood. This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.

So, Jesus himself said, when you break the bread, when you drink the grape juice, do it in remembrance of me. So, he defined that as a symbol of his body and his blood that would be given on the cross. And that is what we do in our Lord's Supper services.

We reflect on his gift on the cross of his body and his blood. So, all of these are different symbols that are used in the Bible to point to that crucifixion event when Jesus was lifted up on the cross. But there are other symbols also, even in nature, not specifically something described per se in the Bible, at least not in so many terms, but it's interesting.

Have you ever seen this variety of flower? I don't know what it's called in German. A crying heart. Okay.

In English, it's similar. It's called the bleeding heart. So, this flower also, by its name, brings our attention to a bleeding heart or a crying heart, a broken heart.

And that is like in Psalm 69. Reproach hath broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness, and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. Now, this is David speaking, but it's prophetic of what Jesus endured on the cross, and that's brought out in the next verse.

They gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink. You remember when Jesus was on the cross, he said, I thirst, and they gave him vinegar or gall to drink. So, and the reproach that broke Jesus' heart was what? What was that reproach and from whom? It was on account of our sins.

It was placed on Jesus by God himself because that was the plan, to put the sins on Jesus, to bear our reproach, the reproach of our sin. So, this points to Jesus on the cross, and even in something like a flower in nature, our mind can be brought back through that symbolism, thinking of the bleeding, the broken heart of Jesus as we look at the things of nature. What else could be used as a symbol and is used as a symbol to point to Jesus? We've talked about the shape of the cross, different things that were used in that scene, the crown of thorns, for example, or the nails in his hands, the stone on the grave that would point to his burial and potentially his resurrection.

There was also the sign on the cross that said, this is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Yes, all of these things are different aspects that bring our attention back to the cross. Now, there's one other element that I want to talk about in particular that directs our attention to the cross, and it comes from, well, it's in all the Gospels, actually, but I'll be reading here in Matthew 27, and about the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, that is to say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? So, Jesus was on the cross, and these were some of his last words that he cried out, and it specifies in the ninth hour.

So, the ninth hour in the Bible actually is what we would see as three o'clock. So, first of all, let's just understand biblical reckoning of the time, because they didn't have a 24-hour cycle exactly divided the same way that we do it, two cycles of 12 equal hours, but they divided the night separately from the daytime, and there were 12 hours in the daytime, and what time was sunrise? That would begin the day. That was around six o'clock, right? So, and in Matthew 27, verse one, when the morning was come, that is sunrise, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death.

So, this was the morning, the sunrise on May 25th of AD 31. They took counsel, and it's mentioned this hour of the day. It's mentioned in the Bible when they took counsel and said, we have to put this criminal, as they considered him, to death, but that's not the only hour that's mentioned.

We already saw the ninth hour, but also it says, and it was the third hour, and they crucified him. So, there was morning, and then they counted the hours from the morning, from six at morning, then about seven would be the first hour there, the second hour, and then the third hour would point to nine o'clock. What we would look at as nine o'clock, they considered that the third hour of the day.

So, that is when he was crucified. It took them three hours to go from taking counsel to put him to death to lifting him up on the cross at nine o'clock. But the Bible mentions other times also in connection with his crucifixion.

In Luke chapter 23, beginning in verse 44, it says, and it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth. So, the sixth hour, we have from morning, count six hours, and you get noon, what we would call noon. And there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.

So, it was dark from noon until three o'clock. The ninth hour, and the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst. And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.

And having said thus, he gave up the ghost. So, Jesus died at the ninth hour, what we would count as three o'clock. So, here we see various times around the clock that the Bible specifically mentions in connection with Jesus' crucifixion.

And there's even one more. In Matthew 27, again, in verse 57, it says, when the evening was come, that is, sunset, there came a rich man of Arimathea named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple. He went to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus.

Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered. And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher and departed.

So, that brings us then back to the evening, to the end of the day. So, we see every three hours through the day, the Bible specifically mentions an event that took place with respect to his crucifixion. From the morning when they took counsel to crucify him to what we would call nine o'clock, or the third hour of the day when they put him on the cross.

Then the darkness that came over the land at noon and his death at three o'clock, or what the Bible calls the ninth hour. And then by evening when he was buried or put in the tomb. What do you notice about those periods of time? They're three hours apart, and when we look at them on the clock, it's like a cross.

If you look at each of those hands, they form a cross. All right? So, in this way, we see how the hours of the time itself point not just to those events, but even in their shape, they point to the cross. It reminds us of Jesus' crucifixion.

In Genesis, now we transition a little bit, because I want to take us now with that background and see how we can see this representation of the time in the heavens, and how the cross can be seen in the heavens. So, in Genesis 1, 14, God gives a principle, and he says, God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons and for days, and years.

Now, what he says those lights in the heavens are for, which would include the sun, the moon, the stars, they're for giving the time, whether it be seasons, days, or years, all those things come from the lights in the heavens. And he also mentions the signs.

The signs also are in connection with the time. So, if we want to see or understand God's time, we need to look in the heavens. And he will show us signs, that is, symbols that represent certain things that give us information about the time.

Now, looking in the heavens, you just see some stars. Where do you go from there? Well, that's where the constellations come in. Because throughout history, when men have looked at the stars, like children connecting the dots, you make the constellations, and then you think, well, what does that look like? And so, in 1755, an astronomer looked in the stars in the south, southern hemisphere, and he wanted to document the southern constellations.

And there weren't so many that had been identified in any way, and so he looked at them and said, what does that look like? What it brought to his mind was a pendulum clock, something like that, because it has this long arm like a pendulum and then like the hand of a clock. Now, notice what hour it would be pointing to. That's 3 p.m., and in the context of the story of Jesus, what event took place at 3 p.m.? That was when he died, exactly.

And so, here, we see a clock in the heavens that points to the hour when Jesus died, and therefore, God uses that as a symbol in the heavens to teach us about his crucifixion, to bring our minds back to the cross of Jesus. So, God knows the end from the beginning, and he knew from ancient times that Jesus would be crucified on a cross, and therefore, even in the Hebrew alphabet, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet in ancient times looked just like a cross, and that was the symbol of a covenant. They would cross two sticks for a covenant.

So, all of these symbols, they came through history, and in God's foreknowledge of the history, he wrote those things into the prophecies, and that continues even into modern times when he inspired an astronomer to imagine a clock in the arrangement of those stars. God knew that that would be how it would be viewed from ancient times, and these things then form symbols that apply especially in the last days, especially in the time since these stars have been identified as a clock. I mentioned that this was, that the astronomer noted this as a clock in 1755.

Who can tell me what else happened in 1755? There was an earthquake where? In Lisbon, Portugal. That was a very significant and prophetically significant earthquake relating to the classical sixth seal, the great earthquake, because that earthquake in Lisbon in 1755 was felt throughout a very large area, and it had a lot of lasting ramifications that affected the world thereafter. So it was a very significant earthquake and was considered the fulfillment of the great earthquake of the sixth seal, and indeed that is a legitimate interpretation that builds until our time now.

We have a different layer of interpretation for those seals as well, but this marks in a sense the time of the end, that great earthquake of the sixth seal. In the classical sense, it marks the end times, and there in that same year is when the Horologium was identified as a pendulum clock in the heavens. The end time clock, exactly.

Connecting that with the last days, I'll say, our end times, because there's a big difference between 1755 and our time, that's what, 270 years? So there's often God, you know, when we look at nature, we see things in kind of a fractal pattern. You know, you take a leaf and it has a broad shape, but then on a smaller scale, you see a similar shape as well, and that's called a fractal representation. It is self-similar.

One shape on a larger scale is similar on a smaller scale, like, and we see this in many examples in nature, and it's also so, it's the case with time. History repeats in a way that is self-similar. So the end times began in 1755, but that was the big end times.

You know, on the scale of 6,000 years, the end times fits for 270 years, that works. But now we see a smaller scale end times, and it's interesting that in 2014, there was discovered an object in the heavens, an asteroid, and it was nothing especially significant until 2021. In 2021, it was discovered that it wasn't just any old asteroid, but this was actually a comet, and this was a remarkable discovery, the comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein, because it made it the biggest comet ever known.

When they realized that this was actually a comet, it was the first time that they had observed this coma around the object signifying that it was a comet and not just an asteroid. This was in 2021. It was around June when they discovered that.

The mega comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein is the find of a decade, and this space.com article describes its discovery. But the point being, it was a very newsworthy comet. It was in many different articles around that time in 2021, especially because of the fact that it was the biggest comet ever discovered and still is today.

And here's the very interesting aspect, is that when it was discovered to be a comet, its location was exactly at the cross beam in the Horologium clock, pointing again to that crucifixion time of Jesus. Looking at that time, this would be the nine o'clock hour when he was lifted up on the cross. It's the biggest comet in the smallest, one of the smallest constellations of the sky.

So that's a remarkable coincidence that this newsworthy comet, taking the title of the mega comet, the biggest comet ever discovered, and it's in this tiny little constellation. This part wasn't so much in the news. You had to look up the location of this comet, and then in Stellarium you could see, oh wow, that is exactly in the clock constellation, the Horologium, this pendulum clock.

And when we understood that, later as we recognized the cross in this constellation, then we could see that it was pointing to the time that he was lifted up on the cross, that third hour of the day. So this coming together, bringing these things together, how it's pointing literally by its location to Jesus on the cross. We began to see some other aspects that related to Jesus.

And I want to show you a short video that we prepared. All right, so what were some of the things that the video portrayed as being connected with the Son of Man? There was perihelion. When was the perihelion, or when will be the perihelion of Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein? In 2031 is when this comet will be closest to the sun.

And not just in 2031, but right at Passover time. And so this is pointing again exactly to 2,000 years after Jesus' crucifixion, even to the same time in the calendar year. What else was there? It was discovered on Jesus' birthday in 2014.

On the Hebrew calendar, his birthday was on October 20th. And that was the very day when they first identified this comet in an astronomical photograph before realizing that it was a comet. But that was when it was first discovered.

Jesus' birthday. And it comes from the Oort cloud, just like Jesus, when he returns, comes with the clouds as well. So all of these things led us to understand that this was the Son of Man, or rather the sign of the Son of Man.

And indeed, what we have seen is that it was at least the introduction to the sign of the Son of Man. When we have, as we have been studying it over the last months, we've recognized how it all began at the Horologium. And that was when this comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein entered into the Horologium constellation, when the comet was in the Horologium, and then in time we understood more and more, and we began to see how the whole sign of the Son of Man came out of that understanding.

So this was the introduction to the sign of the Son of Man. God leads us step by step, and this was the first step in the discovery of the sign of the Son of Man, recognizing that it's talking about the Horologium. It begins in the Horologium, looking at the comets, specifically this one identified with different characteristics of Jesus and his return.

So that is just an overview of how we can see in the heavens the symbols that point to Jesus' crucifixion, that we have a memorial of today, as of the time of this recording, and also it points to his return, as we see in the comets. It points in general to the time of the end, and that's the time that we are living now in, in the last moments of that time. And so as we go forward, we will talk more about those themes, but I just wanted to introduce that with how we can see the cross in the heavens.

And even when we look up into the night sky and we see the constellations with the mind's eye, God, in so many different aspects of life, brings our attention back to the gift that he gave to humanity to give freedom from sin. And then, just as we saw in the beginning, how he has been drawing all people to himself in a spiritual, heartfelt connection since his crucifixion, and now he comes the second time, this time he will literally be drawing all men to himself, and he also draws our attention to his cross. If I be lifted up doesn't just mean erecting the wooden cross on the earth so that he is suspended above the earth, but if I be lifted up to the heavens, he will draw all men to himself.

As we look to the heavens, Jesus said, when you see these things begin to come to pass, then look up for your redemption, draweth nigh. And that's what we see when we look up and we see Jesus lifted up, then we know that our redemption is near. Everyone, in some way, is drawn to Jesus.

It's just a question of will you accept him or will you reject him. In the end, everybody will see. It doesn't speak of the relationship that we have to him, but everyone will be drawn to see what he is doing in the heavens.

Sooner or later, all will be known by all men. So it is literally all men, but of course those who he literally draws to himself is not all of humanity, but those who accept him. So with that, let's stand for a word of prayer.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time that we have and that you have marked on your clock as a memorial of what you have done in the earth and the gift that you have given to humanity. The most precious gift that you could give, the gift of your son, your only begotten son, that you gave because you loved the world and you didn't want that any would perish, but that all would come to everlasting life. And so we thank you for making that possible.

We thank you for the body and the blood of Jesus that he gave willingly for our salvation, that we may be united with you, both physically and spiritually. And we look forward to that time not far off from now when we can see you face to face. And like David said in the Psalms, when we awake in your likeness, then we will be satisfied.

And that is our heart's desire, and we thank you because we know that we can trust you to bring us to that time in peace. And we praise your name in all that you do. In the name of Jesus Christ, Alnitak of Orion.

Amen. Thank you, and we'll see you again later.