Israel Promise

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[Israel Promise @IsraelPromise2]

Look to Jesus Christ and live.

[Adam | Faithful Messenger @Adam_FaithfulM]

Barabbas woke up that Friday expecting to be dead by sundown.

Picture the cell. Stone. Dark. A man who's killed people, waiting to hear the nails. And then, outside, a crowd starts chanting his name.

Barabbas. Barabbas.

He would have assumed it was for his blood. Why else does a mob scream a murderer's name?

Then he hears the other chant. Crucify him. Crucify him.

He hears his own death sentence being roared by a city.

And then the door opens, the shackles come off, and a soldier tells him to go home.

No explanation. No sermon. Just: get out.

That's the first man the cross ever saved. Not spiritually. Physically.
A murderer who never asked for it and never said thank you.

Now look at who he was, because it matters.

Mark 15:7. Barabbas, who lay bound with them that had made insurrection with him, who had committed murder in the insurrection.

Luke 23:19. Cast into prison for a certain sedition made in the city, and for murder.

Not a thief. Not a drunk. An insurrectionist with blood on his hands. By Rome's definition, a terrorist.

Now look at what Jesus was charged with.

Luke 23:2. We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ the King.

Sedition. Rebellion against Rome. Claiming a throne.

Read those two charges next to each other.

Barabbas actually did the thing Jesus was accused of.

The guilty man was in a cell for the exact crime the innocent man was standing trial for. And when the verdict came, they swapped them. The innocent man took the guilty man's sentence. The guilty man walked out on the innocent man's record.

That's not a metaphor for the gospel. That's the gospel, staged in a courtyard, with a real body.

Now his name.

Barabbas isn't a name. It's a title. Bar - son of. Abba - father.

Son of the father.

The crowd was offered two men that morning, and both of them were called son of the father. One was the counterfeit. One was the real thing. They chose the counterfeit.

It goes further. Some ancient manuscripts of Matthew's gospel record Barabbas's full name.

Jesus Barabbas.

Origen, the greatest Bible scholar of the third century, saw those copies and didn't like it; he couldn't stand the thought of a murderer sharing the Lord's name. But there it was. And in those manuscripts, Pilate's question reads:

Whom will ye that I release unto you? Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?

Two men named Jesus. Two sons of the father. Same name. Same title. Same charge.

The crowd looked at the two of them and picked the one who'd actually killed somebody.

Now open Leviticus 16, because God had been rehearsing this for fifteen hundred years.

On the Day of Atonement, the high priest took two goats. Identical. And he cast lots over them. One goat died; its blood was carried into the holy place for the sins of the people. The other goat was released. Set loose. Walked away alive.

Two. Lots cast. One dies. One goes free.

Pilate stood in a Roman courtyard and re-enacted the Day of Atonement without knowing what he was doing. Two sons of the father. A choice. One to the altar. One out the gate.

And here's the detail that stops me.

The men crucified on either side of Jesus that day, the Bible calls them by the same word it uses for Barabbas. Lēstēs. Not petty thieves. Insurgents. And Mark says Barabbas was jailed with the men who'd made insurrection with him.

Three crosses on the hill. Three condemned rebels scheduled to die that morning. Barabbas's two companions on the left and the right, and in the middle, the spot cut for their leader.

Many scholars think the center cross was built for Barabbas.

Jesus didn't die on a cross that was His. He died on the one with another man's name on it.

Isaiah 53:5. He was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him.

2 Corinthians 5:21. He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin.

And what did Barabbas do with it?

Nothing that's recorded. He doesn't repent. He doesn't follow. He doesn't show up at the tomb. He walks out of the story, and history never hears from him again.

The exchange was finished before he understood it. It did not depend on his gratitude. It did not wait for him to deserve it. Guilty at sunrise. Free by noon. And the only thing he contributed was his crime.

Now stop reading this as history.

You're the one in the cell.

Not accused falsely. Guilty of the actual charge. Rebellion against the King. Blood on your hands that you know about and God knows about.

And this morning the door is open.

Not because the case was dismissed. Because someone else is standing where you were supposed to stand, taking the sentence with your name on it, on the cross with your measurements.

Barabbas never went to Golgotha to look. Maybe he should have. Maybe he'd have seen a stranger hanging in his exact place and understood.

You can look. That's the difference between you and him.

Go look at the hill.

Then go home.

Someone else is on your cross.

[Israel Promise @IsraelPromise2]

@cPenCoreTeam Good one.

[Israel Promise @IsraelPromise2]

@INKCoreTeam List $INK first

[Israel Promise @IsraelPromise2]

@Tansiq_Official @nissison
This is mine

[Israel Promise @IsraelPromise2]

It's Tuesday, September 1st, 2026 , the first day of the month. 🙏❤️

May God bless you, your family, our children, and the whole world. Wishing you all good luck, peace, and strength throughout this new month.

Christ is King. ✝️

[Israel Promise @IsraelPromise2]

In Romans 12, it says, “Never overcome evil with evil. But overcome evil with good.” If you’ll be good to those who were not good to you, you are passing the test. This is not easy, but you have the grace to do it.

[Israel Promise @IsraelPromise2]

@StevenErtelt Amen.

[Israel Promise @IsraelPromise2]

@Onengie_Ofori @drkenon2 Very pathetic.

[Israel Promise @IsraelPromise2]

Matt. 5:
47 If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that.
48 But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.

It is at point we live out the Christ in us.

[Joel Osteen @JoelOsteen]

People may do you wrong, but there will be a day when they’re down, and you’re up. Your kindness, your mercy, your being good to them when you had every right to push them down-that's being the bigger person. That's showing them how to live a life of character, honor, and integrity.

[Israel Promise @IsraelPromise2]

@JoelOsteen Matt. 5:
47 If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that.
48 But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.

It is at point we live out the Christ in us.

[Israel Promise @IsraelPromise2]

@Franklin_Graham @SamaritansPurse God we offer our prayers for your healing, consolation, help, courage and salvation to Your families in Nepal this period of greaves and shock in Jesus name, Amen.

[Joel Osteen @JoelOsteen]

God chose Joseph because of his heart. He had a forgiving spirit, a willingness to bless and not retaliate, a refusal to let bitterness take root. God promotes based on character, not position. He’ll elevate you based on integrity, not seniority. Long before Joseph ever got to the palace, he proved to God that he could handle the power.

[Israel Promise @IsraelPromise2]

@cPenCoreTeam It's alright.

[Israel Promise @IsraelPromise2]

"Nevertheless, do not rejoice that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." (Luke 10:20)

Many preachers today, especially in Nigeria are obviously doing the reverse of this verse.

Power over darkness wasn't the prize. It never was.

[Adam | Faithful Messenger @Adam_FaithfulM]

"I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven."

Jesus said this out of nowhere. One sentence. No explanation. Then He moved on.

It's one of the strangest verses in the Gospels, and most people skip right past it.

Here's what was actually happening.

In Luke 10, Jesus sends out seventy-two disciples ahead of Him. Ordinary people. Not the twelve. They come back stunned: "Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name!"

And Jesus answers: "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven."

The Greek unlocks it. The verb is ἐθεώρουν (etheōroun) - imperfect tense. Not "I saw" as a single glance, but "I was watching." Continuous. Ongoing.

While the seventy-two were out preaching in village after village, Jesus was watching Satan's dominion collapse in real time. Every demon that fled, every town that received the Kingdom, another crack of lightning. Sudden. Visible. Irreversible.

Some hear an echo of Isaiah 14:12 here - "How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star" and the ancient fall of the enemy. Others see Jesus speaking prophetically of the cross, where the ruler of this world would be driven out (John 12:31). The early church fathers read it both ways, and the verse holds both: what began before time was now breaking into time.

But notice what Jesus says next because it's the real point, and almost nobody quotes it:

"Nevertheless, do not rejoice that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." (Luke 10:20)

Power over darkness wasn't the prize. It never was.

The enemy falls like lightning - fast, loud, spectacular.
But your name in heaven is written quietly and permanently in a Book no lightning can touch.

That's where Jesus told them to fix their joy.

That's where He tells you to fix yours.

[Israel Promise @IsraelPromise2]

Wow. This is very compelling and profound.

[Adam | Faithful Messenger @Adam_FaithfulM]

There is a statue in Milan Cathedral that tourists mistake for a man wearing a robe.

Then they look closer.

The robe has hands. The robe has a face. The robe has feet, hanging down his back like the hood of a cloak.

He is wearing his own skin.

Saint Bartholomew Flayed. Carved by Marco d'Agrate in 1562. Every muscle exposed. Tendons like rope. Veins running down forearms with no skin to hide under. And draped over his shoulders, folded neat as a priest's vestment, everything they took off of him.

The sculptor was so proud of the anatomy that he carved a boast into the base: Praxiteles did not make me. Marco d'Agrate did.

But the statue isn't the story.

The story is who this man was.

Bartholomew is Nathanael. Same man: Bartholomew is the family name, Nathanael the given one. And Nathanael enters the Bible by insulting Jesus to His friend's face.

John 1:45. Philip runs to him: We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth.

Nathanael's answer: Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?

That's the future apostle. First recorded words: trash-talking the Messiah's hometown.

Then he walks up to Jesus, and before he can say a word, Jesus says something no one had ever said about him.

Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!

No guile. No mask. No hidden self. Nothing performed. What you see is what he is, even when what he is, is rude about Nazareth.

Nathanael is stunned. Whence knowest thou me?

Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.

Under the fig tree.

Slow down. Where have you seen fig leaves before?

Genesis 3:7. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

Fig leaves are the first thing shame ever made. The first human invention was a covering. Adam heard God in the garden and hid, and men have been hiding ever since behind reputations, behind religion, behind the version of themselves they let people see.

And Jesus finds Nathanael under a fig tree, the plant of hiding, and announces that this man hides nothing.

I saw thee.

Before Philip called you. Before you knew My name. Under the tree. I saw you already, and I'm still calling you.

That one sentence broke Nathanael. Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel. From insult to confession in two verses.

Now follow him to the end.

Scripture doesn't record his death, but the tradition is ancient and unanimous about the manner of it. He carried the gospel east, as far as Armenia. And when they decided to kill him for it, they didn't hang him or behead him first.

They flayed him. Alive. They took his skin.

The man in whom was no guile, no covering, no mask, no hidden layer, died with the last covering he had peeled away.

And here's what the sculptor saw that the executioners didn't.

D'Agrate didn't carve the skin lying in the dirt. He didn't carve it in an enemy's fist. He carved it draped over Bartholomew's shoulders like a stole. Like a garment of office. Folded. Worn. The way a priest wears what he's been given, not what was taken.

The thing they used to destroy him, he wears like vestments.

Because that's what God does with what the world strips off His people.

Isaiah 61:10. He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation; he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness.

Revelation 6:11. And white robes were given unto every one of them, that's the martyrs, the ones killed for the word of God.

They took his covering. God had a better one waiting.

Now you.

You're under the tree right now. The fig leaves fit so well you've forgotten you're wearing them. The polished version of you at church. The profile. The reputation. The self you perform because you're certain the real one, seen plainly, would be walked away from.

Ask Nathanael how that works out.

The only man Jesus ever publicly certified as having no mask is the man He praised on sight. Seeing all of him was not the obstacle. Seeing all of him was the compliment.

He already sees under yours. Before you ever call on Him, before your Philip ever finds you, He has already looked under the tree, seen the whole thing, everything the leaves were for.

And He's still calling you.

Come out from under the tree.

He has robes.

[Israel Promise @IsraelPromise2]

God sees you trusting when nothing is changing, praising even though the problem is not turning around, being obedient even though doors aren’t opening. Your time is coming. You may not see anything happening, but God is working behind the scenes.

[Israel Promise @IsraelPromise2]

@cPenCoreTeam A locked wallet address cannot be changed without verification, adding another layer of protection if someone gains unauthorized access to your account.
That is very nice.

[Israel Promise @IsraelPromise2]

@thecableng @FBI @FBIDirectorKash you have already endangered many innocent Nigerian lives by your defiant to disclose your investigation report @officialABAT drug records. You and @realDonaldTrump @TrumpDailyPosts are the enemies of the well meaning Nigerians. You are the real enemy.

[Rabbi Brian Samuel @rabbriansamuel]

I was raised Jewish, but my journey led me to a conviction I never expected: Jesus is the Messiah.

I am convinced that the promises and prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures point to Him.

I believe He is the Messiah of Israel and the Savior of the world.

I am Jewish. And I believe in Jesus.

[Israel Promise @IsraelPromise2]

@Sheltieman3 I believe it must surely come.