Monday, June 3, 2024

PT-2 "The Attack of the Crowd" (Matt. 26:47)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/3/2024 11:58 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                            Focus:  PT-2 “The Attack of the Crowd”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  Matthew 26:47

 

            Message of the verse:  47 While He was still speaking, behold, Judas, one of the twelve, came up accompanied by a large crowd with swords and clubs, who came from the chief priests and elders of the people.”

 

            I want to continue to quote from MacArthur’s commentary as he quotes from different sources as they speak about Judas.  Remember that these are not biblical.  “An ancient manuscript called Coptic Narratives of the Ministry and Passion maintained that Judas’s wife was exceedingly greedy and that he was nothing more than the pawn of a manipulative wife.  In the ancient Near East, to accuse a man of being subjugated to a dominating wife was considered highly slanderous.

 

            “A twelfth-century writing called The Legendary Aura claimed that Judas’s parents threw him into the sea when he was an infant, because even at that early age they supposedly sensed he was diabolical and deserved to be destroyed.  Somehow he managed to survive and grow to adulthood, and, according to the legend, soon after ferrying a beautiful older woman, he discovered she was his mother.

 

            “Such bizarre accounts are common in extrabiblical literature.  They are concocted to demonstrate the vileness of Judas and to reveal the contempt with which he was viewed.  The gospel writers, by contrast, simply called him one of the twelve.  Rather than minimizing the heinousness of Judas’ treachery, this heightens the insidiousness of his crime more than any list of epithets could do.” 

 

            In the end as I have learned that Judas will perhaps be the most punished person to occupy hell, and that is because he had the greatest opportunity of any person who will occupy hell because he spent three years with the Lord Jesus Christ while He was on planet earth and was able to listen to most everything that He was teaching.  Some would say that a person like Hitler would deserve this place, but Hitler did not have the opportunity that Judas had.  My thoughts that if George Soros does not come to repentance that he too may receive great punishment in hell because of being a Jew has great hatred for the Jewish people and God told Abraham that “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.”  God was talking about the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when saying this to Abraham. 

 

            Judas, the traitor came to the garden he was “accompanied by a large crowd with swords and clubs, who came from the chief priests and elders of the people.”  Now this great multitude was not your typical spontaneous crowd of admires that would often seek the Lord out.  It was in fact rather a carefully-selected group brought together for the very purpose of arresting Jesus and putting Him to death.  Now keep in mind this was all in the plan of God for this to happen even though it would cost Him His Son.

 

            Then Jesus said to the chief priests and officers of the temple and elders who had come against Him, "Have you come out with swords and clubs as you would against a robber?” (Luke 22:52)  In this verse we see some of the crowd identified who came out after Jesus.  This group was offered limited police powers by the Romans in matters concerning Jewish religion and society.  We cans see that this group was armed with clubs, and the multitude also included a cohort of Roman soldiers as seen in John 18:3, which, at full strength comprised of 600 men.  The truth about this is that if this was not in the will of the Lord to have this done, then it would not have mattered how man came after Him, and what kind of weapons that they would have, even modern weapons would not have stopped the Lord from defeating them, if this was not in the will of the Lord.  Think about when the Lord will return with His angels, and also both the Old and New Testament saints in the midst of a great war which will be going on in the Middle East at that time, and when they see Him they will begin to fight against Him, but to no avail. 

 

            I have mentioned that this will take some time to get through this section, but hopefully we will all learn things that perhaps we did not know before.

 

6/3/2024 12:32 PM

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