Monday, July 8, 2024

Intro to "The Traitor's Suicide" (Matt. 27:1-10)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/8/2024 10:04 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                             Focus:  Intro to “The Traitor’s Suicide”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                Reference:  Matthew 27:1-10

 

            Message of the verses:  1 When the morning came, all the chief priests and elders of the people met in council to decide how they could get Jesus executed. 2 Then they marched him off with his hands tied, and handed him over to Pilate the governor. 3 When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was overcome with remorse. He returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and elders, with the words, 4 “I have done wrong — I have betrayed an innocent man to death." "And what has that got to do with us?" they replied. "That’s your affair." 5 And Judas flung down the silver in the Temple, left and went away and hanged himself. 6 But the chief priests picked up the money and said, "It is not right to put this into the Temple treasury, for it is the price of a man’s life." 7 So, after a further consultation, they purchased with it the Potter’s Field to be a burial-ground for foreigners, 8 which is why it is called "the Field of Blood" to this day. 9 And so the words of Jeremiah the prophet came true: And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was priced, whom certain of the children of Israel did price; 10  and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord appointed me.”

 

            The total age-adjusted suicide rate in the United States in 2021 increased to 14.0 per 100,000. In 2021 , the suicide rate among males was 4 times higher (22.8 per 100,000) than among females (5.7 per 100,000).  I got this statistic from the internet and I suppose that it is true, but I feel that it is higher now.

 

            In his commentary on this section MacArthur writes the following in his intro to this section:  “Researchers who analyze human behavior list five primary reasons for committing suicide.  I believe most people kill themselves for retaliation.  Because they are angry over an offense or mistreated, they take their own lives a a means of hurting those who have hurt them.  Whether their abuse was real or imagined, they invariably succeed in inflicting deep pain on those they seek to hurt.  This is almost always the case when young people kill themselves.  And usually it is their parents they want to hurt irremediably.”

 

            He goes on to talk about the other four primary reasons for suicide, and I will just list them without too much comment.  Second reason is that a person wants to join the one who has just died, and in most cases that would be a mate.

 

            Next one comes from the influence of Eastern religions and many of them believe in reincarnation so if a person doesn’t like who they are they then kill themselves hoping to come back in another form.

 

            I had better quote this next one:  A particularly distorted reason for suicide is referred to as retroflex, the killing of oneself in place of someone else who is unreachable.  Some years ago a man killed himself because a brutal Nazi war criminal could not be found and brought to justice.

            Next this one could be qualified as being guilty, they think that they are so guilty that no one could ever forgive them even God and so they kill themselves.

 

            Suicide in actuality is murder and Exodus 20:13 says “You shall not murder” and so that, of course, makes it sinful and wrong.  I knew a man who used to go to our church who was deeply depressed and the medicine that he was on was just doing much harm to his situation.  We learned one day that he had killed himself.  In my mind this man is now in heaven for I truly believe that he was and still is a believer in Jesus Christ to save him from his sins.

 

            While listening to the sermon on this section MacArthur writes that there are only two suicides sited in the Scriptures.  He does site Saul’s armor bearer who took his life he did so only because they faced a much more brutal and humiliating death at the hands of their enemy.  He then writes “But in the usual sense, only the deaths of Ahithophel (see 2 Sam. 17) and Judas was suicides.”

 

            “Because Judas’s sin was so monstrous, it is not difficult to understand how unrelieved guilt drove him to take his own life.  He committed the most heinous crime any man has ever committed or could commit, betraying the only truly innocent and perfect man who has ever lived.  Because he could not live with his guilt, Judas had only two choices.  He could have gone to Jesus for forgiveness and salvation, which the Lord had so often offered.  But because he would not do that, his only recourse was self-destruction.

 

            “For the account of Judas’s suicide, Matthew briefly interrupts his portrayal of Jesus’ trial.  His purpose is presenting the story of Judas’s final hours of life was not simply to show the dreadful fate of Christ’s betrayer but also to show, by several contrasts, the beauty, purity, and majesty of the one betrayal.  Jesus is exalted even against the backdrop of sordid sin and death.”

 

            Lord willing in the next SD I will look at “The Contrast Between the Wicked Leaders and the Sinless Christ” as we begin to look at the first two verses of Matthew 27.

 

7/8/2024 10:39 AM

 

 

 

           

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