Easter 2025 I Pastor Jentezen Franklin

0:00 Hello, this is Jensen Franklin, and thank you so much for joining us for this week's podcast. Our goal is to provide you with biblically-based teachings that will challenge, inspire, and equip you to live for Jesus. If you haven't already, I'd love for you to go ahead and subscribe today to this podcast so you can get the latest updates from us and you don't ever have to miss a new message. Let's go right into the service. Record it at Free Chapel. I believe it's going to bless you today.

0:33 In Matthew 27, they took Jesus to the house of Caiaphas. When we go to the Holy Land, they found the ruins of his house, and we go there. and it was at that place that he sent for a band of soldiers which was 600 men 600 to guard one man the scripture said that they began with cruel mockery to make fun of Jesus and they beat him with their fists 600 of them hitting him slapped him in his face. They ripped his beard. They would make an incision and not just tear off a part of the beard, but they would rip it from one end to the other until Isaiah said his visage or his image was unrecognizable.

1:30 they then spit on him according to Matthew 27. They were spitting upon him. They were hitting him with their fists. They took rods, reeds, and clubs and took a crown of thorns and shoved it on his temple. And when they put it on his head, they took those reeds and they smoked driving the thorns deeper and deeper into his temple.

2:08 It was not incidental that it was a crown of thorns they used to mock Jesus. They didn't understand what they were doing, but God was in complete control that the very thing that they would use to mock him and crowned him with King of the Jews was the very emblem that the Bible said in Genesis 3 was the emblem for the curse. When Adam and Eve were in the garden and they sinned, the Bible said at that moment, although there were no thorns, there were no thickets in the garden of Eve, suddenly thorns sprang up.

3:01 The emblem of sin, listen carefully, and the curse was thorns. It was not by chance. It was not some random thought to, hey, let's make a crown of thorns and put it on Jesus and spit on him and beat him. But it was the sign of the curse. They didn't even know what they were doing. And that crown on his head that he wore all the way to the cross, and when he was hanging on the cross, it was on his head, is exactly what happened in the book of Genesis 33, when God told Abraham to climb Mount Moriah, which is the same hill that Jesus 2,000 years later would be crucified on. and God said, take your son Isaac and tie him down on the altar.

4:01 and sacrifice him to me, a type of the father giving his son to die for us. And when he raised the knife, Abraham, an angel spoke and said, don't stab your son. Don't kill him. I have provided, listen to the wording, a ram that is caught in the thicket. The word thicket, if you look it up in the Hebrew language, is he's caught his horn and his head in the thorns. The thorns, The ram that has thorns around his head is my sacrifice.

4:52 Therefore, Abraham, cut your son loose from everything that binds him. You and your family can walk off of this mountain, the same mountain that he didn't know that Jesus would shed his blood and wear a crown of thorns on. You can walk off free. You can walk off forgiven. You can walk off knowing that because the ram that was crowned with thorns shed its blood and died on this mountain, your family will never have to wear the curse. This is the emblem of death. This is the emblem of the curse of sin. This is the emblem that represents addiction and bondage and fear and defeat and failure and everything that is wrong in our lives that has come against every family and every person in this room. Every failure that we have ever had is because of sin.

5:58 We needed to be delivered from the curse. and it's not that I have to be perfect or you have to be perfect. He took the curse and he gave us his blood that cleanses us and he says, I don't want your children cursed. I don't want your family cursed. I don't want you cursed. I'll give you a past forgiven. I'll give you a purpose for living and I'll give you a home in heaven and eternal life if you'll just take what I've done for you on a hill called Calvary it's yours for the taking But when you say, no, I don't need a Savior. then what you do is you reach up and you take the crown of thorns off Jesus' head, and you choose to put it on your own head.

7:01 And not just you, but it affects your family. It affects your children. It affects your children's children. I'm telling you that the power of the blood of Jesus and the crown that he wore has taken the curse of Satan off of your life. The moment that you say, Lord, I receive you as my Lord and as my Savior. I close with this. Thank you. I was reading it the other day when Jesus died on that cross. he preached about two things from the cross.

7:47 Out of all the things he could have said, he said, Father, forgive them. as he was leaving this world, the one thing that Jesus was extremely concerned about that all of us ought to be concerned about is forgiving them. I don't know who your them is, but Jesus, as he was leaving this world, thought, I need to release forgiveness to the people who are doing this to me. you need to receive and you need to think about this Easter forgiveness. Receive it from God and then forgive yourself. If you've messed up, if you've failed, you can get up. Because Jesus then preached his second sermon on the cross when he said, it is finished.

8:45 Don't just forgive, but finish. Don't just start out, but keep going. Well, some things have happened and I'm discouraged and I just give up on God. I'm bitter, I'm mad, I'm angry. But he said forgive and he said finish. I don't know about you, but I didn't get this far to quit now. I'm still in love with him. I still get moved to tears when I see songs sung like these young people have been singing. I still get excited about the fact that there's an empty tomb and Jesus rose from the dead. And one day I'm going to heaven. Hallelujah. I believe in heaven. When my father died, when my brother died of cancer, the one thing that would encourage me, it's always hard that Easter, that Easter especially when the death of a loved one is really fresh.

9:48 And the thing that would get me through is I would go to the last two chapters of the book of Revelation because the last two chapters of the book of Revelation is all about heaven. And it talks about a real place where there's streets of gold and gates of pearl and walls of jasper. And there is no more pain. There is no more sorrow. There is no more death. There is no more suicide. There is no more cancer. There is no more tears. For God shall wipe every tear. Can you imagine? There's no more sin. There's no more murder. There's no more wheelchairs. There's no more asthma. There's no more heart disease. There's no more funerals. There's no more undertakers. There's no more caskets. Hallelujah. Jesus has secured eternal life for you.

10:44 Shout about it just a minute. Shout about it. Never be ashamed of Jesus, the one who took the curse of death. And if you don't say yes to him, then you take that curse and you put it upon yourself. Because all your righteousness is as filthy rags. But when you say, Jesus, I believe. And I'm ready. I'm ready to surrender all to you. He will not turn you away. He'll give you a pass for giving. He'll give you a purpose for living.

11:32 And one day when the trumpet sounds, graveyards are going to explode with resurrection power and you'll be caught up with those loved ones in midair if you're ready, and you will know them in heaven. The Bible's crystal clear. You will know your own family, and you'll know. I can prove that to you scripturally. What a day it's going to be, all because Jesus rose from the dead for you. Grave, where's your victory? Death, where's your sting? It's all on Jesus. It's all on Jesus. Pray this prayer.

12:19 Everybody in overflow touches me right now that I'm preaching live to prisons all over the place. You may feel forgotten in that prison cell, Whitworth Women's Prison, and all the prisons, men's prisons that we're in. You may think people have forgot about you. You're down in the belly of the fish that swallowed you. maybe you're like that thief on the cross you've wasted your whole life but it's never too late to turn it over to Jesus nine words got him into heaven Lord remember me when you come into your kingdom and Jesus said this day you'll be the first one in turned all that didn't let all the religious people all the holy people he said come on Mr. Thief, my blood's enough.

13:13 I took the curse and you get all the blessing. All you got to do is receive it. How many of you like that kind of deal? Just say this. Say it with meaning. If you mix faith with this prayer, your name will be written in the book of life. That's right. So say it with faith. Everybody, pray it out loud. In the prisons, pray it out loud. Wherever you're watching this around the world. He loves you. Pray this. Lord Jesus, I believe and I receive the blood that flowed from the King of Kings, that took my curse, that took my crown of thorns off of me and my family and put the crown of righteousness.

14:07 I am forgiven. I am cleansed. That crown of life is on me because of Jesus. I believe and I receive. Now let me say this and I'm done. If you just prayed that prayer like over 2,000 people have done and then raised their hand to let us know they did it, over 2,000 have already done that since we started Friday at noon. To God be the glory. And if you prayed that prayer and you didn't know when you came in, but now you believe and you know, and there's something powerful about saying, I have decided to follow Jesus publicly. I'm not going to embarrass you, but right where you are, if you meant business and you prayed that prayer and you got right with the Lord, raise your hand high as a witness saying, I'm one of them.

15:12 I'm one of them. Lift that up. Look at that. Oh, families. families are having the curse broken right now to God be the glory on the third day something magnificent happened in the city of Jerusalem I really want to say thank you for joining us this week. If you haven't already, make sure you click on the subscription button and leave us a review. It helps this podcast reach even more people when you comment, when you give us your feedback. For more messages and inspirational materials, download the Jensen Franklin app. Or you can head over to jensenfranklin.org. I want to thank all of you who give generously to help us produce weekly content like this to reach the world with the message of Jesus.

16:08 God bless you and we'll see you next time.