SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/27/2024 10:53 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-3 “Shocking
the Twelve”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt.
26:21b-24
Message of the verses: “He said, "Truly
I say to you that one of you will betray Me." 22 Being deeply grieved,
they each one began to say to Him, "Surely not I, Lord?" 23 And He
answered, "He who dipped his hand with Me in the bowl is the one who will
betray Me. 24 “The Son of Man is to go, just as it is written of Him;
but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good
for that man if he had not been born.’”
I ended up yesterday by stating that it was credit
to the disciples by thinking that they were the ones who were guilty, but I don’t
think that they really realized what the consequences of the person who was
guilty were going to be. Another thing
is that the disciples had recently been rebuked by Jesus for their self-serving
egotism and fleshly ambition that they now showed signs of genuine humility and
self-distrust. At this point they were
brought face to face with the sinfulness of their own hearts, and I have to say
that this was a good thing for them or for anyone who truly is a believer. Now because their sins of pride had been so
clearly exposed, they were open even to the possibility that somehow they had
perhaps unwittingly said or done something that would endanger their Lord.
John
MacArthur writes “Jesus’ response did nothing to alleviate their anxiety. In fact, it emphasized again that the
betrayer was one of them. He said
cryptically, ‘He who dipped his hand with Me in the bowl is the one who will
betray Me.’ Because each one of them had dipped his hand…in the bowl, the
disciples had no better idea of the betrayer’s identity than before. Jesus did, however, assure them that only one
of them was guilty and that the others genuinely belonged to Him. ‘I do not speak of all of you,’ He said. ‘I know the ones I have chosen; but it is
that the Scriptures may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats My bread has lifted up his
heel against Me’ (John 13:18). Ahithophel
was an Old Testament parallel to Judas, the ultimate betrayer.”
Now
I am going to quote some more from MacArthur’s commentary and then write
something about what he wrote. “But
Jesus then put the betrayal in its divine perspective by assuring the disciples
that the heinous act would work to the fulfillment of God’s sovereign plan. ‘The
Son of Man is to go, just as it is written of Him.’” I have heard from time to time from different
people that they felt sorry for Judas, in fact one person that I know actually
said that he thought that because Judas said to the priests in the temple “I
have sinned against innocent blood,” that Judas was a believer. Of course that is not true at all. Judas did what he did because that is what he
wanted to do. Just because it was prophesied
that this would happen does not mean that Judas did this kind of like a robot, for like I said Judas
really wanted to do this, and I believe the reason was that he was disappointed
in the fact that Jesus was not the prophesied Messiah that would come in great
power and destroy Rome. That is the next
time that He comes that He will do that, this time was to pay for the sins of
the world, the ones who would accept the forgiveness that He has to offer. MacArthur goes on to write “Jesus did not
fall into Judas’s trap but rather Judas, by his wicked rejection of Christ,
became an instrument of God’s plan. God
would use even that vile scheme to work the righteousness of the Son of Man. The betrayal had been written ages beforehand
in the pages of divine prophecy. Jesus
Christ was ‘delivered up by the predetermined plan and knowledge of God’ (Acts
2:23). Judas’s malicious decision to
reject and betray Christ was used by God in fulfilling Christ’s gracious
mission of redemption. An unholy man in the hands of a
holy God was used to accomplish a holy purpose.” I like that statement as it sums up what
Judas did in a very short true statement.
4/27/2024 11:24 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment