SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
06-20-2024
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1
"The Illegal and Unjust Convening of the Sanhedrin"
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
26:57-58
Message of the verses: “57 Those who had
seized Jesus led Him away to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes and
the elders were gathered together. 58 But Peter was following Him at a distance
as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and entered in, and sat down with
the officers to see the outcome.”
Now instead of looking at these verses today I want
to quote from John MacArthur’s sermon, his second sermon on verses 26:57-68,
and in this quote he goes over what we have been looking at in the past four
Spiritual Diaries. I think that this is
important even though it is kind of a review of what we have been looking at
over the past four days. It is good for
us to understand that this was a sham trial that is going on as it is not going
on in the way that the Law stated trials should go. We must also understand that it is not really
Jesus who is on trial here but the Sanhedrin who is on trial. We must also understand that Jesus is the one
who is in charge, and not the Sanhedrin or even the Romans. And finally we must understand that the main
issue is the redemption of sins which Jesus accomplished here as He hung on the
cross dying for those who will receive this free gift of salvation.
“I
told you, didn’t I, last time, that the Jewish people
had a very wonderful system of jurisprudence and justice? That
their supreme court was the Sanhedrin, the
Jewish council that met in Jerusalem, made
up of 70 leading elders, priests
and so forth, and
then the high priest making it 71 so they would
always have an odd man in the voting. And
that that great group of men was the supreme court of Israel, and
it was their decision to deal with Jesus. And
we saw, didn’t we, that the supreme court of
Israel was built on the premise that everyone in a trial is entitled to three
things. One
is a public trial, two
is an opportunity for defense, and
three, no conviction without the conformation of at least two or three
witnesses. So
the Sanhedrin guaranteed public trial, the
right of defense and two or three witnesses before any conviction. We
also said that it was built into their laws that
any false witness would pay the same penalty he
sought for the one he witnessed against. That
they could not prosecute, they
could only try, so that they couldn’t be a kangaroo court.
“They
built into their safeguard system also that no court could convene at night, or
in any other place than the Judgment Hall itself. That
no courts could convene even in the late afternoon, lest
justice be hurried up, to
get over before the day was ended. That
no one could be executed the same day in which he was tried. That
no trial for execution could be held on a feast day, or
the day before a feast day, that
there always had to be a day intervening. That
all the votes had to be carefully counted; that
no one could incriminate himself by giving testimony against himself, which
testimony could stand alone against him. All
those were built-in safeguards. They
violated every single one of them – every single one of them.
“They, for
one thing, did not give Jesus a public trial. They
held it privately. They
did not give Him any defense. They
brought no witnesses to speak on His behalf. They
could not find two or more witnesses to convict Him of anything. They
actually bribed false witnesses, contrary
to their own system of punishing false witnesses. They
were not allowed to prosecute, they
did that. There was no prior prosecution. There
was no arraignment. There
was no indictment. There
was no crime. They
met in the middle of the night. They
sentenced Him one day, executed
Him the same day, and
it was a day before a feast day – actually, on
a feast day. They met outside the Hall of Judgment, and
never bothered to count the votes. Every
way you look at it, they
violated their own laws. I
told you last time, this
trial of Jesus has six parts. Three
of them were before the Jewish tribunal, three
of them were before the Romans. In
the Jewish religious trial, first
Jesus went to Annas, then
He went to Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, and
then a third time to Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, so
three phases. In the Roman secular civil trial, it
was Pilate, then to Herod, then back to Pilate. All
six of those sum up the whole mock trial of Jesus
in which justice was violated at every turn.”
I
truly hope that this SD will continue to bring new incites to those who read
it, and that most of all that it will bring glory to the Lord Jesus Christ.
6/20/2024 9:40 AM
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