"All Hail" By Brother Parrish Lee April 5th,
2015
Giving
honor to God, our Savior, our
Master, our Comforter, our King, our present help in time of need, our
bridge
over our troubled waters, our way when there is no way.
He who knows how to do all things and then
comes to do that for us. Giving
honor to
Him. Giving honor
to our founding
pastor, he and his family, who birthed this ministry, to our pastor, on
whose
shoulders the ministry now resides, giving honor to he and his family. Giving honor to all those
who have taken up
the mantle and have stood in the gap to make up the hedge for the
ministry as
God would call them. And
giving honor to
all of y’all, who—man, y’all are looking kind of good.
Wow.
Sometimes, you’ve just got to represent, you know? And giving honor to all of
y’all, who prepare
your heart, and come and say, “Hey, today is the Lord’s day.” Amen. Our
theme for the month, for the
month, is from: 1 John 4:8
He
that loveth not knoweth not God; for God
is love. That’s
our theme for the month,
but our theme for today is simply, “He is risen.”(Matthew 28:6) And, with that: Matthew 28:9 And as they went to tell his disciples,
behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And
they came and held him by the feet, and
worshipped him. If
you could bow your heads with
us for just a moment. Lord,
we thank You
as we come into Your presence, and, truly, Lord, there is none like You. Look at this beautiful day
that You’ve
blessed us with today, that we might be in remembrance, for it was a
day like
this. And look at
the blessings that You
would pour down on those who would worship You, for truly they join the
angels
as they say, “There is none likened unto the Lamb of God.” And, truly, Lord, as we
come into Your
presence, we ask—You have poured out bountiful blessings this day, and
not just
this day, but our entire lives, Lord—we ask that You bless the reading
of Your
Word that we might be nurtured thereby, that it would not return unto
You void,
but, as it says in Your word, but that it would accomplish that to
which You
sent it. And, Lord,
we present ourselves
to You. I pray that
I might be out of
the way, and that Your spirit take its liberty and that we might say
that it
has been good to be in the House of the Lord, and everyone said, amen. Well,
Happy Easter, everyone! Happy
Easter!
Easter’s really a great—I was kind of looking
forward to this time of
the year, and we hope that everybody is having a great Easter Season. We had a great lead up to
this Easter. We had
a wonderful Palm Sunday, and a great
Good Friday, being able to remember things in the path that the Lord
has given
for us. I really
like this time of year
because you get to see the movies on TV, you know?
They put movie on TV they don’t put on any
other time, you know? They
always have
“The Ten Commandments,” where Charlton Heston gets out there, “Let my people go!”
That’s kind of neat.
You know, I remember that from when I was a
kid, but they have a lot of other movies going around.
You know, you get a little excited, and, I
don’t know if you know this or not, but they’ve got a bunch of movies
out about
Noah. Yeah. But, one thing is for
sure, and that is you’ve
got to be careful about some of the things that they put out. Because, according to some
of the movies that
are out, eh, if you believe them, you might start not believing so much
of the
Bible, because they really don’t follow the Bible.
According to the movies, at least, the ones I
watched, Noah had a whole bunch of sons, but only three of them
believed him to
make it onto the ark. Wow,
I didn’t know
that; the Bible doesn’t say that.
Then
you kind of see, they had a bunch of stories about Mary, but you would
think
that she was standing right beside Jesus, and sometimes she told the
Lord Jesus
to sit down, that she was going to take over, in some of her movies. And then they have one,
believe it or not,
about Judas. If you
were to watch that
movie,--I was shocked, SHOCKED! If
you
were to watch that movie, Judas didn’t want to betray the Lord, but the
Lord had
to go over to him special, and had to convince him time and time again
that he
was really going to be the special one, because he was going to make
the
sacrifice that was going to enable everybody to be able to come to the
Lord and
be saved. So,
Judas’ sacrifice actually
rivalled that of the Lord. Yeah,
you have
to really be careful about what’s on TV.
You get the feeling that Hollywood is not a friend
of God. So,
I just wanted to say that
little piece, and, now, on with the message. We
would like to go over this, and have a few
points on Easter Sunday. Isaiah 53:1-6 Who hath believed
our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? For He shall grow up
before Him as a tender
plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: He hath no form nor
comeliness; and
when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and
rejected of men; a man of
sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces
from Him; He
was despised, and we esteemed Him not.
Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our
sorrows: yet we did
esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He
was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon
Him; and
with His stripes we are healed. All
we
like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way;
and the
LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. If
we could take a thought for
just a few moments here, we would like to go back, we’d like to go all the way back to a time when Israel
was
in captivity. At
the time that the Lord
was going around, Israel had been in captivity for somewhere around 750
years. 750 years
that they had been waiting for their
deliverance. They
had been in captivity
to the Persians, to the Assyrians, and the Medians, but this time they
were in
captivity to the Romans. And
the Romans
were a hard people, to say the least.
They were a hard people.
Now, the
Romans, they would do things like, they would come in and they would
completely
decimate a lot of the things that you held dear.
They would assimilate you into their culture;
they would show up with a force of strength and there really was no
resistance.
But the
Romans were interested in you
being able to do things for them.
So,
what would happen with the Romans is that they would come and take your
resources,
so, now, what was strong for you was now strong for them. But, they knew that if
they completely wiped
you out, took away all that you had, that you would fight for that
which was
gone. So the Romans
would leave you
enough of your culture, they would leave you enough of your semblance
that you
would say, “Well, I’m having a bad time, but I’m still me.” That’s what the Romans did
to you. This is the
time where Israel is, they were
in captivity to the Romans. One
of the
things that the Romans always aspired was that you would be productive
for
them. They desired
that you would be able
to be productive in whatever capacity, whether you were slaves or
whatever. You, and
whatever you had, would be able to
produce for the Roman Empire. So,
as the
Romans are here, they are under a person, at the place of Jerusalem,
they are
under the auspices of a person named Pontius Pilate.
He is a prefect, if we could. He
is a leader, but he’s not a major leader—he
wants to be a major leader—but, right now, he is what you would call a
prefect. Not a
super leader, but a
leader, nonetheless. He
is a
leader. But, under
his command is,
maybe, three-thousand soldiers. This
is
for a point; this is for a point.
Pontius Pilate was a politician and he had some
real concerns. There
were some ways that you had to do
things. So, he
didn’t want to have a
heavy uprising. He
didn’t want to have a
whole lot of people disgruntled, and, if he couldn’t handle the land… So, his main objective was
to be able to be
promoted to a higher location, because then the benefits would be
better. So, Pontius
Pilate was real careful in how he
was dealing with all the situations of Jerusalem.
Yeah, he had his finger on it and he knew
what was going on, and he was real careful trying to make sure that he
navigated properly. So,
it is important
to realize that when the Lord had come before him, and he said, “Art
thou…” He had to
bring Him simply,
"Art Thou king of the Jews?"
Not so much because he was wondering about His
power and command of the
Jews on a religious level, he wanted to know, “Are you going to be a
threat to my
powerbase? Sooner
or later, am I going
to have to take care of a problem that You are going to create for me?”
But, at this
time, Pontius Pilate also had
many other things going on. He
knew the
whole thing about the Sanhedrin, and that when they delivered the Lord
over to
him, their motives were not exactly pure.
He knew that.
And, speaking of
the Sanhedrin, to give a little background on the Sanhedrin—and all
this is
going on at the same time—to give a little background on the Sanhedrin,
they
were the religious hierarchy at the time, but that was how Jerusalem
was being
governed. You were
always going to have
the threat that the religious hierarchy, the priests, would say what
you’re
doing is not right. You
need to conform
to what the priests say, because, oh, somewhere along the line the
priests had
the commandment. So,
the Sanhedrin had a long
history of being those that were supported by the people. You see, if a religious
person gives you a
blessing, you kind of say, “Okay, I’m in good right now.” But the Sanhedrin, they
had heard about this
Lord, this Lord Jesus. They
had heard
about Him, and they had heard about a couple of His miracles here and
there;
they had heard all this stuff, but they still had it under control. He wasn’t a real threat to
them; their power
base was still in effect. That’s
how
they felt. “Yeah,
we’re keeping tabs on
everything; this isn’t the only little religious uprising going on. You know, there was that
guy that was out
there eating locusts and wild honey, and he was out there baptizing
people in
the Jordan; there was that guy.” But,
it
wasn’t a threat to them, that they could see, up until, up until
something
happened. You see,
they lived off of the
money that people donated, and they lived off of the food that people
would
donate. Something
has happened
recently. There’s
this guy, and He went
out there in the desert, and you know what He did?
He fed five thousand people with a lunch basket.
Five
thousand men. 5000!
No
commercials, no stores, no vendors, no
farmers bringing up the barrels, none of that.
He fed five thousand men—not mentioning women and
children—five thousand
of them at once, with a lunch basket, in front of all of them. And they heard about this,
and they’re
thinking, “Hmmmm! Five-thousand… You know what? If that guy continues,
then we’re not going
to be getting any sacrifices from those five-thousand men, and the
women, and
the children. And
we won’t be getting
any money! In fact,
this guy could start
His own thing.” That’s
what the
Sanhedrin is thinking, “This guy is a threat! And
then, if that wasn’t enough, about two and
a half weeks ago, He went over there in Bethany!
This guy, He went over there in Bethany, and
you know what He did? He
raised Lazarus.
Lazarus! We
knew Lazarus. We
went to his funeral! It
was a big deal! And
He raised him up from the dead! Oh,
good gracious! And
if that wasn't bad enough, on His way up
to Jerusalem, He kept healing people, and He kept healing people after He got into the gates. Oh, this is just too much! Do you know how many people
of the city came out
to be with this guy when he came in?
All
of them! All of
them have come to see this guy!” So much so, that the
Sanhedrin, the
Pharisees, said, “See how you prevail nothing?
The whole world has come after his man.” (John
12:19) So, there
was an agreement reached, “He's got
to go! He's got to
go! He’s a threat
to everything we have
built! He can tear
us down. And not
just Him, you know what? that man
that He raised, Lazarus, let’s get him, too. We’ve
got all these people believing on this
guy, and they’re believing on Lazarus, too.
Something’s got to be done!” So,
you see, to some, the Lord
Jesus was a threat. He
threatened
everything that was going on with them.
He was many things to many people. When
Isaiah saw Him—and
Isaiah saw Him some
600+ years before—when Isaiah saw Him, he said, "To whom is the Arm of
the
Lord revealed?" (Isaiah 53:1) Who
knows that this is actually God’s arm extended to us? Mark 15:9-21 But Pilate answered them, saying, Will ye
that I release unto you the King of the Jews?
For he knew that the chief priests had delivered
Him for envy. But
the chief priests moved the people, that
he should rather release Barabbas unto them.
And Pilate answered and said again unto them, What
will ye then that I
shall do unto Him whom ye call the King of the Jews?
And they cried out again, Crucify Him. Then Pilate said unto
them, Why, what evil
hath he done? And they cried out the more exceedingly, Crucify Him. And so Pilate, willing to
content the people,
released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged
Him, to
be crucified. And
the soldiers led him
away into the hall, called Praetorium; and they call together the whole
band. And they
clothed Him with purple,
and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about His head, And began to
salute Him,
Hail, King of the Jews! And
they smote Him
on the head with a reed, and did spit upon Him, and bowing their knees
worshipped Him. And
when they had mocked
Him, they took off the purple from Him, and put His own clothes on Him,
and led
Him out to crucify Him. And
they compel
one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the
father of
Alexander and Rufus, to bear His cross. The
path, the instance, the life
of our Lord and Saviour. And,
if this
were all the verses, then we would be wasting our time here this
morning. But the
truth is, why would God send His Arm down
here in the first place? Surely
there
was a reason. And
then why would He
allow that Arm to suffer, to be beaten by these people?
Why would He not have His Arm, as He said, to
be able to call down twelve legions of angels, and just wipe out
everybody that’s
oppressing Him? They
wouldn’t have stood
a chance against the angels. Why
wouldn’t that Arm, Who commanded such power that the wind and the seas
obeyed
Him, why not call on them, and do like they did in Egypt, and have that
wall of
water that would protect Him and just drown out all the enemy, and all
those
that were oppressing Him? Why
not? Why not do
that? And why, why
anyway, if this was of God, if
this was an actual part of God that had come down, why would He have
come down and
not have a place to lay His head? He
should have been king! Why
would He come
down and have the lowest estate for Him?
Why would allow Himself to be beaten; a crown of
thorns put on Him? This
Arm of the Lord that’s so magnificent,
why would He allow Himself to be put in a place that He would have to
suffer
when he deserved none of it? There’s
an
answer for that. Why?
Because He loves
us. Because, in
that fathomless love of
God, he opened His arms and He went and grabbed everybody. Why would He suffer? For all those that have
suffered. Why would
he allow Himself to be in the
position where he was between the heaven and the earth?
Why would He allow Himself to be suspended
there? And why on a
tree, on a cross? They
say that’s very painful. They
say that’s one of the most painful
deaths you can have, because you’re suffocating, and your bleeding all
at the
same time, and the crown of thorns, and they spit on You, and You’re
suffering,
and, of course, it went for hours and hours.
Why? For
every one of us here,
and for those that are out there, and for those that are in our towns
and in
our houses, for those that are on TV, for those that make movies, for
those all
over the world. Mark 15:22-34 And they bring Him
unto the place Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, The place of a
skull. And they
gave Him to drink wine
mingled with myrrh: but He received it not.
And when they had crucified Him, they parted his
garments, casting lots
upon them, what every man should take.
And it was the third hour, and they crucified Him. And the superscription of
his accusation was
written over, THE KING OF THE JEWS.
And
with Him they crucify two thieves; the one on his right hand, and the
other on
his left. And the
scripture was
fulfilled, which saith, And He was numbered with the transgressors. And they that passed by
railed on Him,
wagging their heads, and saying, Ah, thou that destroyest the temple,
and
buildest it in three days, Save Thyself, and come down from the cross. Likewise also the chief
priests mocking said
among themselves with the scribes, He saved others; Himself He cannot
save. Let Christ
the King of Israel
descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe. And they that
were
crucified with Him reviled Him. And
when
the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until
the ninth
hour. And at the
ninth hour Jesus cried
with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is,
being
interpreted, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken Me? For
everybody who's ever been mocked,
for everybody who’s ever been accused of something you didn’t do, for
everybody
who’s ever gotten the short end of the stick, for everybody wo’s ever
been
unfairly treated through no fault of your own, for all of us who have
ever been
in that case, the Lord can identify.
For
anyone who’s ever been put in the situation where you didn’t even have
the
words to defend yourself, the Lord, He can identify; not because He
didn't have
the words, but because He chose to be the Lamb of God to take away the
sins of
the world and be led, as a sheep, dumb before the slaughter. For everyone who’s ever felt
that, “You know,
I’ve been suffering for a long period of time here, and the pain is so
great!” For
everyone who’s found
themselves going through something, the Lord can identify; He hung
there, the
Bible says, from the third hour to the ninth hour. He
knows that feeling of pain and
suffering. Why
would He do that? for
us. To be able to
minister when we need
ministering to. For
everyone who has been mocked,
cheated, and made fun of, and maybe something was taken away that was
rightfully yours, the Lord, He can identify.
For everyone that, whatever your achievement was,
it’s been despised,
and spat on, the Lord can identify, for even with His crown of thorns
they mocked
His call. We
live in such an imperfect world,
Saints. We live in
a world where,
sometimes, you can find yourself in the wrong place.
They say don’t go down dark alleys at night;
that what they say in the wrong neighborhood; that’s what they say. They say, “Be careful who
you’re with and
where they’re going to lead you to.”
We
live in a world where you’re afraid for your children.
We live in a world where, you know, when a
woman’s going a certain place, whoever the man is, he’s thinking, “Man,
I hope
she’s safe.” We
live in a world where we
want to turn and have protection, and we don’t want to suffer, and we
don’t
want to be put into unfortunate circumstances, and want to be given
liberty,
and mercy, some of the folks out there that we know who do not know the
Lord. All you have
to do is turn on the
TV and see a world of hurt and pain; a world where people get abused,
children
get abused, people get abused. We
live
in a world where people get hurt, and sometimes they get killed. That’s the world we live
in. For everyone in
all those situations, the
Lord of Glory knows how you feel.
He
knows how you feel. The
Bible says that
His visage, His body, was beat, the Bible says, more than any other man. So bad, that they couldn’t
even recognize Him
as He was beat. His
visage was marred
more than any man, and more than the sons of men, and, yes, He was
numbered
among, the Bible says He was numbered with the transgressors, but it
pleased
the Lord to bruise Him for us. For
us;
that He might take away all that we feel, all that we have and have our
answer
where to go to. That’s
our Lord. He came
and did this for you. And,
our last Scripture. What
our Lord did for us. Matthew 28:1-9
In
the
end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the
week, came
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.
And, behold, there was a great earthquake:
for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled
back the
stone from the door, and sat upon it.
His countenance was like lightning, and his
raiment white as snow: And
for fear of him the keepers did shake,
and became as dead men. And
the angel
answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek
Jesus,
which was crucified. He
is not here: for
He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell
His disciples that He
is risen from the dead; and, behold, He goeth before you into Galilee;
there
shall ye see Him: lo, I have told you.
And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with
fear and great joy;
and did run to bring his disciples word. And as they went to tell his
disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and
held Him
by the feet, and worshipped Him. And
they came and held Him by the
feet and worshipped Him. I
was in the
service many years ago, and I had the privilege to visit Israel. This was amazing. I had the privilege to
visit many countries;
twenty-six countries while I was in the service.
Great tour, great tour; I learned a lot. But, as we visited
Israel—for those of you
who don’t know me, my name is Parrish Lee, and Andy Giebler and myself,
we are
the fellowship leaders here, but, me, I wasn’t a Christian always. In fact, I was, not just a
Muslim, but a
Black Muslim. If
that’s a little bit
foreign to you, you have to look a little bit at Louis Farrakhan and
the
rhetoric that he speaks; I would have been there in that crowd. That’s what I came from
when God saved
me. So, in the
Navy, here I am—and God
had told me that I was praying to a God that couldn’t save—in the Navy,
while
we were visiting these other countries, you could get a tour to Israel. So, I thought, “Hey! That would be kind of
neat, get a tour to
Israel; I had a tour to Egypt. That
was
kind of nice. Went
around and saw the
pyramids, the sphinx and all that; King Tut’s tomb.”
It was nice.
And I got a chance to go to Greece; I saw the
Acropolis and the
Parthenon; that’s nice. And
I got a
chance to go to Italy and walk around the Tower of Pisa; that was nice. Here’s Israel. I don’t
know much about Israel,
being raised Black Muslim, but I might like to have a tour. Who knows?
So, I went on a tour; we went on a tour to Israel. In the tour, I think it
was the Church of the
Holy Sepulcher. If
you ever get a chance
to go there, it’s a big church with a little, like a room inside it,
and the
room is all decked out with ornaments, and jewels, and it’s really
precious-looking. There’s
a line to get
inside that room. And,
if you go inside
that room, they have a really, really elaborate tomb, or casket, you
could say. And it’s
transparent, and there’s all kinds
of fresh flowers, and it’s really decked out, and there’s jewels all on
it. I’m in line
like everybody else, but
I’ve got to qualify it; as I said, I wasn’t raised a Christian, so
there’s a
lot to the story that I didn’t even know at the time.
And I’m with my friends from the Navy, and
we’re walking in there, and I am looking in the tomb, in this
casket—and it’s
transparent—because I want to see who this is in this tomb that they’re
all
talking about. And
we’re all lined up
and I’m looking in there, and I don’t see anybody.
So, I say, “Hey!
Where’s the body at?
Hey,” and I turned to my friends, “this is a
rip-off; there’s no body in there!”
They
promptly pretended that they didn’t know me, and they just walked away,
like
they didn’t know me, like, “Who’s that fool over there talking about
‘There’s no
body in there?’” I
said that because the Lord, He’s
many things to many people. Well,
very
early in the morning, in fact, it says just at the hint of dawn, the
women went
down to pour a blessing on the body, the body of the Lord Jesus. And, as they went down to
do that, they didn’t
go down there to do that because of what He was going to do; they went
down
there because of what He had done for them already.
You see, they remembered the miracles, they
remembered the sacrifices, they remembered the way that He would speak,
and the
voice that they would hear. They
remembered the presence of everybody; they remembered that when he’s on
the
scene, that things happened. So,
they
came in homage and honor to anoint that body, and to pay respect to who
was
their Lord. And, as
they came down—as the
brothers have read—as they came down, there was, of course, the angel
there,
but they didn’t realize that all those miracles that He had done
before, from
the feeding of the many to the walking on the water, from commanding he
seas to
shut it up and to shut it down, from the raising of Lazarus from the
dead, from
all the miracles that He had done, what he was about to do was going to
surpass
all of that.
They didn’t realize that, truly, He was about
to be what Isaiah had prophesied:
that Mighty
God, that Wonderful, Counselor, that Everlasting
Father, that straight up Wonderful, just Wonderful; what he was about
to do. The
Bible says that, here, there was a great
earthquake, a great earthquake; now, keep in mind, this is the second
in three
days. This is the
second great
earthquake in three days, the first one was when He gave up the ghost. The Bible says that the
rocks were rent and
there was a great tumult, and a great earthquake, as if the earth was
trying to
do what it had never done before, and that was to hold a completely
sinless man. Well,
three days later, there was another
earthquake. This
earthquake was, as it
was said by Peter, when he spoke in the Book of Acts, that the pains of
death
couldn’t hold Him, because it was not possible that it could keep Him. It was as if the earth
just broke forth as he
rose. I know he
wasn’t buried, but He
resurrected in such a way that even the angels gave subject to;
something that
the whole earth, the whole creation had been waiting for. So, this time, so many of
the other graves have
opened and people, they went and testified of this marvelous thing that
the
Lord was doing. Because
this is setting
everything else apart. This
time, it’s
not just somebody who was sick and rose, this time He rose, and now He
has power
over death, the grave, and the power to deliver from sin. He actually is giving
power to be saved;
something that’s never been done before.
And what he said to the women, who, incidentally,
make great
evangelists. You
can’t say women don't
make great evangelists; the angel told them
to go and start the spread of the story. So,
the women went to begin to tell the story,
and there it was: they met Lord, or the Lord met them on the way, and
He said
to them, “All Hail.” “All
Hail.” That
message wasn’t just to the
women; that message is to all. That
message is to the sick. That
message is
to the powerless. That
message is to the
hungry. “All hail.”
Got some
trouble in your life? “All
hail.” “You know, I got more money than I
know what to do with.” “All
hail.” “You
know, I think I’m about to go and make a decision on a car.” “All hail.” “I got some problems in my
family.” “All
hail.” “I need You
to work something out, Lord.” “All
hail.” “You know,
Lord, I don’t even know how to feel;
I don’t even know what to do.” “All
hail.” All Hail to
the Lamb of God that
takes away the sins of the world. Amen.
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