SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/4/2017
10:53 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “Pilate’s Fatal Panic”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John 19:8-12
Message of the
verses: “8 Therefore when Pilate
heard this statement, he was even more afraid; 9 and he entered into the
Praetorium again and said to Jesus, "Where are You from?" But Jesus
gave him no answer. 10 So Pilate said to Him, "You do not speak to me? Do
You not know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to
crucify You?" 11 Jesus answered, "You would have no authority over
Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered
Me to you has the greater sin." 12 As a result of this Pilate made efforts
to release Him, but the Jews cried out saying, "If you release this Man,
you are no friend of Caesar; everyone who makes himself out to be a king
opposes Caesar."”
Now because we probably know this story we can see that
the boast from Pilate was arrogant: “"You do not speak to me? Do You not
know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to crucify
You?"” This broke the silence of
Jesus who said to Pilate “"You would have no authority over Me, unless it
had been given you from above.” Now we
have mentioned before that Pilate thought that he was in control of this
situation, but actually it was Jesus who was in control. Jesus wanted to be crucified because that is
why the Father sent Him to earth, and although as we can see from His prayer in
Gethsemane it was so very difficult on Him, He knew that it was the Father’s
will so that Jesus could pay for the atonement of those that the Father was
giving to Him as a love gift. In the
United States we just spent eight years living under a President who was and
for that matter is still arrogant. He
though he was in control, but just like Pilate he was and still is wrong. A good leader realizes that he is always
second in command.
Jesus tells Pilate that there is one who will have the
greater sin for what was about to happen, and we suppose that that person is
Caiaphas. John MacArthur writes that “He
was more guilty than Pilate for at least two reasons. First, he had seen the overwhelming evidence
that Jesus was the Messiah and the Son of God; Pilate had not. Further, it was Caiaphas who, humanly
speaking, had put Pilate in the position he was in. As C. A. Carson notes, ‘Pilate remains
responsible for his spineless, politically-motivated judicial decision; but he
did not initiate the trial or engineer the betrayal that brought Jesus into
court.’”
Verse twelve tells us that in spite of the latest
evidence that the Jews brought against Jesus, he was not buying it and
therefore we read “As a result of this Pilate made efforts to release Him.” The text does not tell us how he made these
efforts, but perhaps he continued to speak to the crowd about the innocence of
Jesus as the Jews had failed to convince Pilate that Jesus was guilty.
Next we read what the Jews told Pilate “"If you
release this Man, you are no friend of Caesar; everyone who makes himself out
to be a king opposes Caesar."”
MacArthur writes “Here is yet another corrupt, hypocritical irony, since
the Jews’ hatred of all Roman rule certainly indicated that they themselves
were anything but friends of Caesar.”
I have mentioned before that the Jews had things against
Pilate and he did not one more thing to be reported to Rome about him. Now you have to figure that Rome did not truly
like Pilate that well because they put him in this place where it was hot most
of the year and where there was a great amount of trouble that went on between
the Jews and Rome. With that said, as we
read in the 5th chapter of Daniel, the hand writing is on the wall.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: My prayer is that
I will always stand up for the truth and not waver like Pilate did.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to trust the Lord to speak to my
heart about what He desires me to talk about for this Sunday’s lesson.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Hebrews.”
Today’s Bible
question: “What was the eight plague that
God placed on Egypt?”
Answer in our next SD.
5/4/2017 11:32 AM
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