“Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds,” Hebrews 12:2-3.
Paul exhorts us to be “followers of God, as dear children,”Ephesians 5:1. The word “followers” in the Greek is mim-ay-tace. It is the word from which we get the English word ‘mimic’.
We can only imitate the Lord by constantly observing Him and reading the divine records of His words and ways. Thus Paul in our text urges upon us to ‘Look” unto the Lord Jesus, Who is God, and consider Him.
The two words, “look” and “consider” are very informative. The first one means to ‘to turn the eyes away from other things and fix them on Him.’ The second word means: ‘to think over, consider, ponder.’
The Psalmist gives us an illustration of just what it is Paul is urging upon us.
“But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night,” Psalm 1:2.
“My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips: When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches,”Psalm 63:5-6.
“My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the LORD,” Psalm 104:34.
“I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches. I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways. I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word,” Psalm 119:14-16.
I wish to set forth the blessed truth that Christ, as He faced the fury of His enemies at the cross, at the close of His earthly ministry, presents to us a picture of that which those who would live and walk as He did, will face as this age draws to a close.
1. From the beginning of His earthly sojourn, the Saviour faced the opposition and hated of evil men.
We are surely familiar with the scheming pretences of Herod as he enquired “diligently” (Matthew 2:1-8) of the wise men just when the ‘star’, that led them from the east, had first appeared. He claimed he wished to worship Him but it was murder he was planning!
“Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men,” Matthew 2:16.
The spirit of Herod is illustrative of the opposition the Saviour encountered during His three year ministry.
AT THE FIRST
Yes, at the first He was followed by multitudes of men and women and youngsters who looked with joy upon Him. This chiefly was because of the wonderful benefits He bestowed upon them.
“And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them. And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan,” Matthew 4:24-25.
However, He knew that in most of those that followed it was not the working of true faith that drew them, but the carnal instinct of benefiting from His mercies.
“Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled,” John 6:26.
ROMAN EMPEROR
Likewise, such was the response of many nations shortly after the beginning of the gospel age. Perhaps the best example of those who saw the social benefits springing from the gospel was Constantine the Great, a Roman emperor.
‘Constantine I (27 February 272 – 22 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337 and the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. He played a pivotal role in elevating the status of Christianity in Rome, the Edict of Milan decriminalising Christian practice and ceasing Christian persecution. This was a turning point in the Christianisation of the Roman Empire. He founded the city of Constantinople (now Istanbul) and made it the capital of the Empire, which it remained for over a millennium.’ (Wikipedia)
WORLD’S VIEW
That is the world’s view of the man who claimed that he became a Christian as a result of ‘seeing a cross in the sky and hearing a voice saying: ‘In this sign you will conquer.’
From thenceforth he supposedly fought under the Christian banner and took control of the Western Empire, later the East as well.
That ‘conversion’ is a mere ‘fairy tale’, peddled by the Roman Catholic Church in order to give a foundation for its claims.
What actually began under the pretended ‘Christianisation’ of his empire, was the polluting of the doctrines and practices of the church founded by the apostles, which increased in its wickedness until the blessing of God fell upon Europe in the days of Martin Luther.
There followed a recovering of the truth of the gospel of Christ amongst multitudes under the leadership of such men as Zingle, Luther, Calvin, Knox, the English reformers and many others.
As it was with Israel in the Old Testament, the recovery did not last long. The ways of God were once again opposed and corrupted and there was great persecution of those who sought to walk in the ways of God during the 17th and 18th centuries.
TIMES OF REVIVAL
Yes, there were times of refreshing and revival, otherwise the gospel would have been taken away by the cruelty of men and the cause of God defeated amongst the nations.
We here in Ulster, in this corner of His Vineyard, know something of the record of God’s mercy, shared by many people in the world.
In 1859, in the 1920s and within living memory, there have been ’showers of blessing’ falling down from heaven to restore, revive and rejuvenate the cause of Christ here.
But over against these blessings of God we may trace the unceasing opposition of those who hate the truth of God.
HOW IT WAS
That is how it was with the Saviour. Time and again we read words of this ilk: “But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves,” Luke 7:30.
What was the lot of our blessed Saviour is the lot which we too must face.
2. As the Saviour’s ministry and influence became more widely known, so the opposition toward Him increased.
“Then assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, And consulted that they might take Jesus by subtilty, and kill him. But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar among the people,” Matthew 26:3-5.
The Saviour had informed His disciples of this coming attack.
“And they were in the way going up to Jerusalem; and Jesus went before them: and they were amazed; and as they followed, they were afraid. And he took again the twelve, and began to tell them what things should happen unto him, Saying, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests, and unto the scribes; and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles: And they shall mock him, and shall scourge him, and shall spit upon him, and shall kill him: and the third day he shall rise again,” Mark 10:32-34.
He did not want them to be overcome by an unexpected turn of events. However, the disciples were most unwilling to believe that the like could happen.
“For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day. But they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him,” Mark 9:31-32. This was one reaction to His warning!
This was another! “Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men,” Matthew 16:22-23.
There is a great reluctance amongst believers to actually accept the revelation Christ gives, both back in the days of the Saviour’s foretelling of Calvary’s cross and also with regard to that prophesied of the last days!
Devil-like!
The Saviour informed Peter that in rejecting what He had revealed of His coming sufferings, he spoke as the devil! Peter’s words were the devil’s words!
That is all too commonly the case amongst TRUE believers concerning the times that the Lord has revealed to us His people are coming on the earth.
The warnings of times of great apostasy and the wicked actions that spring from such are largely ignored by God’s people. There seems to be a blindness upon the eyes of the succeeding generation of a people who protested against the rise of apostasy and diligently, in obedience to God’s Word, separated from it. A past generation could see the wickedness from which separation had to take place but many in this generation seem to be oblivious to what is taking place in the mainline churches and feel that they can form associations with those within them without offence to The Lord!
Many Free Presbyterians today seem to care nothing about what is happening in the ‘anti-Bible’ ecclesiastical world, and rather than opposing it, are content to engage with it.
Of course, such an attitude will most invariably result in a full engagement in the apostasy.
An example of this was sent to me the other day.
This man, Danny Roberts, was preaching in one of our neighbouring Free Presbyterian churches quite recently. By allowing that to take place there is an endorsing of his association with an apostate denomination, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, which as far back as 1927 embraced the teaching of an arch-deceiver, Dr J E Davey.
RECORD
Rev James Edgar, a contemporary of J E Davey, records his thoughts on the heresy trial of 1926-27, in his book, ‘Presbyterianism on its Trial’. He says, in what might be deemed a summary of the ‘logic’ of the ‘great’ Prof Davey, ‘Pro. Davey’s beliefs and teachings are all wrapped upon such a mass of needless and sometimes meaningless verbiage, that I never yet met a man who said he could follow his meaning . . ,’ (Page 91).
Davey said of Christ that He was not ‘God’. When notes taken by a Presbyterian Church ministerial student, W. J. Grier, one of Davey’s accusers, were read out by him at the trial, Davey agreed that they were accurate! In the notes Mr Grier took down as a student under Davey’s tuition, he recorded that Davey had taught that Christ was ‘divine’ but ‘divine’ was ‘not equal to God’ and that ‘Paul never thought that’!
DENIAL
Is that not a clear denial of the deity of Christ?
It was, but the Presbyterian Church in Ireland decided it wasn’t!
He further said: ’There is no Omnipotent or Omniscient and independent Christ in John, any more than is in the other Gospels.’ (Page 94).
And yet the opening words of John in his gospel are: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” John 1:1.
In what I deem the most evil of J E Davey’s blasphemies, he is quoted by a student making a most wicked assertion. This a quote from a sermon preached by Dr Paisley in 1983.
“When a student, Mr. W. J. Grier, Bachelor of Arts, returned from doing two years in Princetown Seminary, and came to finish his final year in Assembly’s College, he was aghast at what Professor Davey was teaching. Another student, Mr. Nesbitt, was also aghast at the statements which the Professor was making. The Rev. W. A. Nesbitt affirmed that when he was a student in Assembly’s College, one day Professor Davey said, ‘The Jewish view was that Jesus was the illegitimate son of Joseph and Mary, and I accept that view.’ Mary was a strumpet and our Lord a bastard, according to Professor Davey.”
ENEMY
J E Davey was simply an ‘educated’ enemy of God, supported and honoured by the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.
Not only was J E Davey exonerated of all error by a very large majority in the General Assembly in 1927, but again in 1953, when he was elected as moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.
That was the ultimate endorsement of the antichristianity of this wicked man. I believe the denomination lies under the judgment of God for that decision. It has been marked by departure after departure from the truth of God until it exists today as a companion of Romanism, the endorser of female ministers, and the pathetic unscriptural view of sodomy and transgenderism!
A statement issued in 2007 states:
‘The Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI) at her 2007 General Assembly (GA) adopted guidelines on how to offer “pastoral care” to homosexuals within her ranks. The guidelines were adopted after ineffectual opposition from the conservatives. A motion to send the report to presbyteries for their consideration was defeated by 168 votes to 163. This report will now be published by the PCI’s General Assembly.’
A Significant Number of Homosexuals
In 2006, the General Assembly adopted a motion requesting the Social Issues Panel of “The Board of Social Witness” to “prepare guidelines to help the Church develop more sensitive pastoral care” to homosexuals. This request was made for “recognising homophobic attitudes within Church and society.” The PCI’s concern over “homophobic attitudes” is particularly acute because of the number of homosexuals in her membership.’
That statement alone highlights the degree of departure in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.
Disobedience
It is wrong and very contrary to God’s will for a Christian to fellowship in a church which holds this view of sodomy, and even worse, to receive funding from such.
It is also wrong, according to the Word of God, for a Christian to have fellowship with any brother who acts in this fashion.
“Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple,” Romans 16:17-18.
“And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother,” 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15.
NO WELOME
Mr Danny Roberts should not be welcomed in a Free Presbyterian pulpit and if he is, the minister who invited him is acting contrary to God’s Word!
This is the ‘SEPARATION’ the Lord has called the Free Presbyterian Church to but which many seem to think they can cast aside and flaunt with impunity.
Time will show that such is not so!
3. The final rejection and crucifixion of the Saviour, reflects to some degree at least, the coming experiences that will face the child of God.
The cry of the multitude, in which they defiantly rejected the Saviour as their Messiah, sealed the fate of Israel from then until the Saviour returns.
That cry was followed by them taking Him to Calvary and cruelly crucifying Him.
“But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar. Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away. And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha: Where they crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst. And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS. This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin. Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews. Pilate answered, What I have written I have written,” John 19:15-22.
JEWISH NOT ROMAN
The hands that drove in the nails and secured the Saviour to the cross may have been Roman, but the guilt was Jewish!
So said Peter: “Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain,” Acts 2:22-23.
The Jewish race has lived with that guilt since that dreadful event long ago.
Let me be clear, what the Jews did as a nation, individuals of the Gentile races have done ever since as well.
I personally lived for twenty years utterly rejecting Christ and instead, I believed that by the merest amount of ‘religious’ activity within the boundaries of the Church of Ireland, I assured myself of a place in heaven.
My notion was as repugnant and as wicked as the actions of the Jews outside Pilate’s Judgment Hall.
What Paul said of the Gentiles in Colosse, can be said of me some 61 years ago.
“And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled,” Colossians 1:21.
In condemning the crime committed by the Jews some 2000 years ago, I am not promoting a hatred against them for I know that I was guilty as they are.
LOVE FOR THE JEW
Furthermore, I and every true Christian, shares the apostle Paul’s love for the Jewish nation.
“I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh . . . Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved,” Romans 9:1-3, 10:1.
No, far from hating them I would seek to obey that injunction laid down many years ago: “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee,” Psalm 122:6.
This every true believer should be engaged in as the “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jeremiah 30:7) draws near.
As the final days of the Saviour amongst men were marked by cruel and murderous opposition toward Him, so I believe will be the experience of God’s people as this age ends.
In the last seven years of this age, there will rise to the very forefront of affairs within that territory that lies within the boundaries of the ancient Roman Empire, one whom Scripture calls, “that man of sin”.
He is “The son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God,” 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4.
He will make Jerusalem the centre of his persecuting activities against the Jews, though his empire’s capital will be the rebuilt Babylon.
He will enter into a ‘covenant’ with the Jewish nation and appear as a friend and benefactor to them. It is to that which the Saviour refers in John 5:43. “I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.”
However, half way through that seven year covenant, he breaks it and reveals his true character.
“And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate,” Daniel 9:27.
This again is what the Saviour refers to, this time in Matthew 24:5-21.
“When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.”
While the tribulation will be felt mostly I believe by the unbelieving Jews, there will be Christians, Jewish and Gentile, who will be victims of the antichrist’s wicked cruelty.
This is evident from Revelation 20:4.
“And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.”
As it was with the Saviour
Just as the final days of the last age was for the Saviour, so it will be for believers in the final days of this age, just prior to His return in glory.
Paul told us of the Christian sharing in the sufferings and rejection of the Saviour, at least to some measure.
“The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body,” Romans 8:16-23.
In the final words of Paul in the above quote, there is awaiting us, something of that which the Lord Jesus entered upon after His death and resurrection.
“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father,” Philippians 2:5-11.
As already quoted, Christian, whatever faces us in the future, just remember this, “If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.”
Therefore, “Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach,” Hebrews 13:13. This how Moses, the great man of God, lived.
“By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward,” Hebrews 11:24-26.
May the Lord give all His people minds and hearts that reason as did Moses.
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
Wednesday, 8th October 2025