SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/19/2023 11:38 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
“More on the Sufferings of Jesus”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
20:17-18a
Message of the verses: “17 As Jesus was
about to go up to Jerusalem, He took the twelve disciples aside by
themselves, and on the way He said to them, 18 "Behold, we are going up to
Jerusalem;”
In today’s SD I am going to quote from the sermon by
John MacArthur that goes along with these verses. It is kind of a bonus SD that will speak more
about what the Old Testament predicts about Jesus’ sufferings.
“Now
let me talk about a second point. First, the plan of His suffering. Secondly,
the predictions of His sufferings. He adds to what the Old Testament prophets
say His own prophecies: “We go to Jerusalem. The Son of Man shall be betrayed
unto the chief priests and the scribes.” Look at the detail. “They shall
condemn Him to death; shall deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock, to scourge, to
crucify; and third day He’ll rise again.” I mean He’s predicting these things.
“And
only God knows that. Only God can tell the story before it happens, right? Only
God can make history before it even occurs. This is God in human flesh; who
else knows all of that? I mean who else can give all these incredible details:
betrayal, handing over to chief priests, scribes, condemned to death, handed
over to the Pagans where He will be mocked. Matthew and Luke add, “He will be
spit on.” He says, “I’ll be spit on.” How did He know all of that? “And then I
will be scourged, and then crucified, and then rise again.”
“Well,
how does He know all of that? I’ll tell you, there’s only one who knows that;
that’s God, and that’s who He is. This is no ordinary man. He knew how many
husbands a strange woman he’d never met had; and the one she was living with
wasn’t her husband. And He knew a conversation before a conversation occurred.
He told His disciples to go get the colt, the foal of an ass; and He told them
the conversation that would happen when they asked the guy for the animal,
before the guy even was asked.
“He
forecast the fall of Jerusalem in Matthew 21. I mean this is God. He calls
Himself the Son of Man; that was His favorite term. He used it 80 times – or
it’s used 80 times, I should say, in the Gospels. It’s a term of His
humiliation; but it also incorporates His exaltation out of that humility.
“But
He says the Son of Man, first of all, shall be betrayed. Now the verb
“betrayed” is not here, it’s simply the verb “to be handed over.” But it was
obvious that it implied the betrayal. And that’s why the translators put it in
here, because it was Judas who turned Him over. It was a betrayal.
“And
He was turned over the chief priests – the chief priests among the priests, and
there were thousands of them. The chief priests were the upper echelon ones.
There were the Levites; they were at the bottom of the priestly totem pole. And
then there were the normal course of priests. And there was the guy who was the
head of the daily course, the guy who’s ahead of the weekly course. And then
there was the sort of the captain of the temple, and then there was the high
priest. And the guys at the top of the ladder were known as the chief priests.
And so these chief priests were the hereditary aristocracy. They were in the
priestly line; they got their rank by heredity.
“They
were also accompanied by the scribes, who got their rank not by heredity, but
by knowledge. They attained to knowledge by studying the law. They were the
lawyers, and nobody could interpret anything without them. Very much like
today, if you want to interpret any kind of law, you get into any kind of legal
situation, you have to have a lawyer. Well it was that way then. In trying to
interpret the Mosaic economy, they had to have “lawyers,” quote/unquote, who
really were the scribes who could come along side and explain the meaning of the
law, and interpret the law, and so forth.
“So
you had the hereditary aristocracy, and you had the knowledge aristocracy, and
they made this body of people who ultimately condemned Jesus Christ to death,
because He so threatened the security of their system. Well, Jesus sees Himself
being betrayed to them, to this executive body of the temple priesthood, being
handed over. And, indeed, that’s what happened; Judas betrayed Him. The priests
were simply Christ rejecters who were in a position to pull off a fake and
mockery trial, and condemn Him to death. And that’s what He saw happening, and
that is exactly what happened. This is not a surprise. This is exactly the way
it was planned, and He predicts the details.
“Now
obviously they couldn’t kill Him because the Romans had removed their right to
do that, and so they had to give Him over to the Gentiles, verse 19. After the
condemn Him to death in a false trial, said He should die for what He’s done,
trumped up charges against Him. Ultimately the charge was that He speaks
against Caesar and so forth, because they knew that the Romans wouldn’t like
that. They delivered Him over to the Pagans, because the pagans, the Romans,
had the right of execution, and they alone could take His life.
“And
you remember the story, Pilate couldn’t find anything wrong with Him, but
finally succumbed to crucifying Him because of blackmail. They said they’d tell
Caesar. And he already had two strikes against him in his relations with the
Jews; and Caesar probably would have taken him out of there, and maybe taken
his life with one other mistake; and so he succumbed.
“But
in the meantime, you read the story of what happened when they took Him down
into the Fort Antonia. They mocked Him. Remember they put a reed in His hand,
crammed a crown of thorns on His head, spit all over Him, and they jeered at
Him – and all of that kind of mockery He describes. Then they scourged Him.
They lacerated His back with leather thongs in which there were bits of bone
and metal in the end. And they did all of this because they were laughing to
scorn at Him. And, ultimately, they crucified Him. And all the details are
there. And, of course, He rose from the dead.”
I
will add some more from this sermon in our next SD. I think that it is very important to
understand more about the sufferings of our Lord, and the reason is that He did
it for us.
4/19/2023 11:55 AM
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