Crucified by Christians (Part 2): Resurrection Comes Through Yielding

Brothers and sisters, what an honor to be crucified because beyond it is resurrection and a new creation. Gene, have you ever been crucified? Have you ever been mistreated? Gene, have you ever had lies told about you? Have you been publicly massacred? Vehemently brutalized? Have you ever had everything destroyed, the loss of everything, all your life’s work?. I want you all to know that it’s really hard to lose everything you’ve done. By the way, Jesus Christ lost everything He did on this earth the day He was crucified. Excuse me, but those 10,000 or 20,000 people or 50,000 who heard Him…there weren’t any of them around that day, and you don’t really hear from them anymore, and He also lost His disciples; they couldn’t have told you a sentence He ever said.

The others crucified Him in ignorance, and they crucified Him…and knew it. Have you ever been crucified, Gene? Nothing but the truth? No, I never have. But we heard… I don’t remember. I wasn’t there. It has slipped my mind. Didn’t they…? I don’t recall. You said, and they did, and you did, and there must have been some…tell us that story. Tell us what they said, what they did to you. Excuse me, but you must have some sort of mistaken identity going on. You must know another Gene Edwards. Saints, that’s the only choice I’ve got. That’s the only one I’ve got, and by Henry, that’s the only one you’ve got. You don’t have any other choice. Have you ever been crucified? No. Have you ever been mistreated? Can’t remember. I can’t recall that I did. That was another world and another life. That life is dead. That world is gone…and then we live in the resurrection. We live in a new creation, and we are a new creature.

One night, somewhere alone, we go back, and we see the hand of God writing His history in our lives, and we say, ” Thank you, Lord, for doing that to me. Lord, I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. That’s where life begins…but it’s not life. It’s greater than life. It’s life that passes through death. And man, listen, you can kill life. You can even kill divine life, but you can’t kill divine life that has passed through death. There is nothing that can touch it. When you have died and passed through death and come out on the other side, you’re going to have to come up with something bigger than death. I want to pray. Lord, keep cleaning it up. Keep taking out the memories that never happened. Take the memory away, for Lord, it belongs to another world. The history books are all closed to those events. Lord, I’m living over here, and I forgive my enemies. And I forgive those who despitefully abused me. They all thought they were doing something for me, and you know something – they were not wrong. And you love them. And I’m going to see them in the Lord. I’m going to be here on earth because God got his way in my life. Lord, for every brother and sister in this room, turn into something and give us our Gethsemane, so that we can yield to it.

Lord Jesus, there are brothers in this room who are going to be bitter the rest of their lives. And they’re not, either, because Your Holy Spirit’s going to come and touch them and heal them. And they’re going to forgive, and they’re going to forgive, and you’re going to raise them from the dead. They’re going to want to be raised from the dead, and they’re going to walk with You again. Even though some of them may scream, “I don’t want to do this again,” you’re going to get your way. Oh life; oh one, born out of resurrection. Life that came out of death…move in my brothers and my sisters. Yield, kill, bury, and resurrect. Amen.

Okay, please look at me. I don’t give invitations, but you need one. I’m going to, in just a minute, ask everybody to close their eyes again. By the way, you don’t have to bow your head; you can close your eyes, but you can bow your head if you want. It would help you a great deal to raise your hand. In fact, we ought to have an altar call, shouldn’t we? Do you think there are no prospects, present, for healing? I really want to put it on you tonight. I want to force you to make a decision. I want to force you to deal with this. You see, in the world you and I came from, we’re just “sermon-callous.” That was really a good message last night. Praise the Lorad. Pastor, that was a good message this morning. You slept through the whole thing, you lying dog. That was a little different last night down there at Day’s hotel, wasn’t it? No. I didn’t come here for that. I came here to force you to take action. I want you to become a bitter, cynical, ugly, unforgiving soul.

I want you to know that you couldn’t forgive, and you couldn’t forget. I want you to know that you really enjoyed spending the rest of your life telling people about how ugly you got treated by a Christian. I want you to know that you chose that. I want you to know that you enjoyed nursing it; it gave you a good excuse for not being a Christian anymore. It gave you license to cop out, that you don’t really want to get healed. You want to nurture a wound, or by the graces that can only be given by the Holy Spirit, and gifts that are not from men, you went down with Him, and He got down with you, and He touched you, and He gave you the graces. If you ask for them, He’ll give them, and it will be put behind you forever, and you came out of there a trusting Christian, ready to commit suicide all over again for the glory and honor of Jesus Christ; ready to risk it all.

Gene, I just can’t do that. Listen, I got a better reason for not doing it than you do, I think. If not, I’ve got one as good. But Prem Pradhan of Nepal, who got one better. John Hus and Joan of Arc, who died rejoicing in the Lord, got them better—got us all beat. We don’t have any excuses. I’m asking you. No, I’m forcing you, deal with this one way or the other. Hey saints, it was your Father who did it, and He did it out of His good pleasure, and He did it for you, and that was so we were harmonized.

I’m going to ask two questions. The first one was, do you really feel you were really unjustly treated by Christians, and did you really get hurt? That’s number one. Number two, are you ready to utterly put this behind you? Deal with all of it. Take it from the Lord’s hand, and believe He’s going to raise you from the dead, and seal it off. That may be the worst part of all because you probably really did not know how much you enjoyed telling people how badly you got treated, and leaving it behind might not be so easy. Just close your eyes for a minute, I’m going to ask those questions. Let’s drop the word crucifixion here. We won’t be dramatic because you may say, “No, it wasn’t quite a crucifixion.” Maybe some of you don’t know you were really crucified, but let’s start with a word we can all understand.

Have you really been mistreated by some other Christians? Would you raise your hand? I like to see it. You know you were mistreated, and it hurt, and you got scars to prove it. One, two, three, four, five, six… Eleven, twelve, thirteen. About fourteen people. Put your hand down. I’m talking about coming back to the full reality of Christ, like you had the first few days after you got saved. Believing all things, trusting all things, hoping all things, and rejoicing in all. Okay, here’s the question again, and this is going to end it. I’m not going to give an altar call. Will you deal with this thing toward utterly ending it in your life and putting it behind you forever, and going on to the beauty of resurrection? But Gene, I’m not sure I can do that. I didn’t ask you if you could do it. I ask you if you will hold your nose, jump in, and ask Him for His graces, but you will deal with it. Not asking you to do it. I’m asking if you’ll deal with it. Will you raise your hand? Praise the Lord, that’s more hands than the first time.

Lord, I want to raise my hand. Amen. I want to ask you, Lord, to do something: take this message and that tape and use it. I’ve never prayed that before, Lord. Brothers and sisters, I’ve never prayed over a tape. There are so many. I ask you to bless this work, brothers and sisters everywhere. There are too many damaged Christians. Enough of my brothers and sisters who raised their hands – every one of them, heal them utterly. May the past be utterly and forever gone. It didn’t happen. That was some other person. An old man, whose name I have forgotten, died in an old creation, in some sort of holocaust, in which some kind of instrument of destruction up on a hill took the entire universe and annihilated it. And I was born three days later. Hallelujah. Amen.

This is my parting word. Praise the Lord. One last word. How many Christian workers are there? If you’re a Christian worker, would you raise your hand? We got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Oh, I’m going to say something I never thought I’d say. I hope you get really good and crucified somewhere down the road. You know why? Because you need it. Really something ugly and unjust. And I have a notion, you will. I don’t think I even need to pray for it. I think it was decided before the foundations of the world.

But I want to tell you something. If you can get past it, come out of that thing with your garment smoking but out, rising out of hell, alive and healing, and then walking in the newness of His resurrection. Then you will be able to do something we so desperately need. And I say this now not only to the Christian workers present, but also to every believer here. It is a ministry we all need to have. It is won in the fires of adversity; it is won in Gethsemane and on the cross.