Trash Talking
Pastor Ricky Kurth
“I’ll beat him so bad he’ll need a shoehorn to put his hat on!”
That’s what acclaimed boxer Mohammed Ali said about Floyd
Patterson ahead of their championship match back in 1965. Known as
“trash talking,” boxers also engage in this form of verbal sparring in
the midst of the actual fight itself, taunting and goading their
opponents.
In the midst of the greatest fight of all time, the Lord Jesus Christ
engaged in a little verbal sparring of His own. In a passage that
eavesdrops on the Lord’s thoughts as He hung on Calvary’s cross, He
first reflected on the scourging and shameful spitting to which He’d
been subjected (Isa. 50:6), and then the prophet heard Him call out His
foe:
“He is near that justifieth Me; who will contend with Me? let us stand together: who is Mine adversary? let him come near to Me” (Isa. 50:8).
Just picture the scene! Outwardly, the Lord was the sacrificial Lamb of
God, meekly submitting to the will of His Father. Inwardly, He was the
defiant contender to the throne of the world, thundering forth a challenge
toward His unseen adversary, the reigning champion who had wrested the
throne away from Adam. The god of this world thought he had your Savior on
the ropes that dark day, but inwardly the Lord was roaring, as it were,
“Bring it on! Is that the best you’ve got? A little scourging? A
little shame and spitting? A little crucifixion” (v. 6)? By all outward
appearances, your Savior looked like a helpless victim that day, but
inwardly He was the vanquishing Victor!
How could someone in such an impossibly hopeless situation feel so
overwhelmingly triumphant? It was simple, really. He trusted in God, as
the next verse shows:
“Behold, the Lord GOD will help Me; who is he that shall condemn Me?…” (Isa. 50:9).
If those words sound familiar, it is because those are the words that
the Apostle Paul chose to encourage you in whatever impossibly hopeless
situation you may find yourself:
“Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God
that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died,
yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God,
who also maketh intercession for us” (Rom. 8:33,34).
With all of the “tribulation” in your life (v. 35), outwardly it
might look as if you are “accounted as sheep for the slaughter” (v.
36), living in the impossibly hopeless situation of a lamb about to be
butchered. But knowing that “it is God that justifieth” you, you can
say, as it were, “Bring it on! Is that the best you got? A little
unemployment? A little cancer? A little grief when the dearest on earth is
ripped from my side?”
As with the Lord Himself, God does not promise that we will be able to
conquer whatever harsh trial we are going through, but He does promise
that in every trial we are “more than conquerors through Him that loved
us” (v. 37), for none of these things “shall be able to separate us
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (v. 39). The
key is to remember that “our light affliction, which is but for a
moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory”
(II Cor. 4:17), and to remember that we are only more than conquerors when
“we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are
not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which
are not seen are eternal” (v. 18).
King James Bible
The Preserved and Living Word of God
Posted By Cecil and Connie Spivey
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