SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/24/2017
10:03 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “The Interrogation”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John
18:33-38a
Message of the
verses: “33 Therefore Pilate entered again into the
Praetorium, and summoned Jesus and said to Him, "Are You the King of the
Jews?" 34 Jesus answered, "Are you saying this on your own
initiative, or did others tell you about Me?" 35 Pilate answered, "I
am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered You to me;
what have You done?" 36 Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this
world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so
that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of
this realm." 37 Therefore
Pilate said to Him, "So You are a king?" Jesus answered, "You
say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have
come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice."
38 Pilate said to Him, "What is truth?"”
It was because Jesus could not answer Pilate’s question
with an unqualified yes or no that Jesus spoke these words to him: “Are you saying this on your own initiative,
or did others tell you about Me?"”
Once Pilate heard that Jesus came into the world to be king he perhaps
was thinking about his own job that it could be threatened by Jesus, but then
when he found out that Jesus’ kingdom had something to do with the Jews he then
stated that he was not a Jew. “Now if
Pilate was saying this on his own initiative,” MacArthur writes, “he would be
asking if Jesus was a king in the political sense (and hence a threat to
Rome). Jesus answer in that case would
be no; He was not a king in the sense of a military or political leader. He had earlier rejected the crow’s attempt to
make Him such a king (6:15). But neither
could the Lord deny that as the Messiah He was Israel’s true king.”
We can tell that Pilate did not want to have anything to
do with the Jews by his sarcastic answer “I am not a Jew, am I.” He then brings up the fact that it was Jesus’
nation who had brought charges against Jesus and not him. You can tell that Pilate did not want to have
anything to do with what was now presented before him, but he was the one who
would be used by God to sentence Jesus to death by being crucified. In my preparation for our Sunday school class
that I am teaching I brought up some things that I learned from a sermon by
John MacArthur entitled “Twin Truths, God’s Sovereignty, and Man’s
Responsibility,” and in that message which I quoted parts of back when we began
to look at the third chapter of John, MacArthur points out that the nation of
Assyria was going to be used by God to attack the Northern Kingdom of Israel
even though they did not have plans to do so.
Not only were they going to change their plans and attack Israel, but
then God was going to judge them for doing it.
Isaiah speaks of this in the tenth chapter and verse five he writes “Woe
to Assyria, the rod of My anger And the staff in whose hands is My indignation.” MacArthur then says the following after
talking about how God was going to use Assyria “This is an amazing juxtaposing. God punishes a nation for doing what God
picked them up and made them do. There’s
no explanation. There’s no way to
harmonize these things.” I don’t think
that I am out of line by saying this is similar to what Judas did and similar
to what Pilate is about to do. As
MacArthur states “you cannot explain it” and as I have stated many times in my
Spiritual Diaries “"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the
things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all
the words of this law (Deu. 29:29).”
We learned when we will looking at John 18:19 that under
Jewish Law the accused did not have to answer any questions that would incriminate
him, like our fifth amendment, but not the case with Roman Law so Pilate asked
Jesus “what have You done?” He was
trying to get to the bottom of why He was brought to him. Let us look at Matthew 27:18 “For he [Pilate]
knew that because of envy they had handed Him over.” Pilate knew this to be a fact. However he still did not understand what
Jesus had done to provoke the Jews so much that they wanted to have Him killed.
Jesus then answered Pilate by saying “My kingdom is not
of (Greek ek; ‘out from the midst of’)
this world.” Now we know that this word
world speaks of the world system of which Jesus kingdom did not come out
of. We noted that Jesus had turned down
the opportunity of being king after He feed the 5000, and also when He came
ridding into Jerusalem, and there were many, many people who were surrounding
Him on His ride into Jerusalem.
We will pick up from here in our next SD, and look at the
next thing that Jesus tells Pilate “If My kingdom were of this world, then My
servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: As I look back at
Jesus’ words in John 17:1 “"Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son,
that the Son may glorify You,” I see that the beginnings of this happening here
in chapter 18, and remember that He did this for me, and for all others who had
or have placed their trust in Christ for salvation.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to continue to work in my
heart to give me things that He desires me to teach next Sunday in our class.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Peter” (Luke 5:8).
Today’s Bible
question: “Where did Isaac send Jacob?”
Answer in our next SD.
4/24/2017 10:47 AM
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