SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/3/2024 9:08 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “The Ignorant Wicked”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
27:27-37
Message of the verses: “27 Then the
soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole Roman
cohort around Him. 28 They stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. 29 And
after twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed
in His right hand; and they knelt down before Him and mocked Him, saying,
"Hail, King of the Jews!" 30 They spat on Him, and took the reed and began
to beat Him on the head. 31 After they had mocked Him, they took the scarlet
robe off Him and put His own garments back on Him, and led Him away to
crucify Him.
“32 As
they were coming out, they found a man of Cyrene named Simon, whom they pressed
into service to bear His cross.
“33 And when they came to a place called
Golgotha, which means Place of a Skull, 34 they gave Him wine to drink mixed
with gall; and after tasting it, He was unwilling to drink. 35 And when
they had crucified Him, they divided up His garments among themselves by
casting lots. 36 And sitting down, they began to keep watch over Him
there. 37 And above His head they put up the charge against Him which read,
"THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.’”
We
begin what will take us many days to get through this section. Now I just posted on my other blog a section
from Colossians 3:16 and in that post I mentioned that at that time, (May of
2017) I was studying also the book of John and spent weeks going over the crucifixion
of Jesus Christ and spoke of the emotions that I had when I studied the
crucifixion, and as I have been studying the crucifixion from Matthew’s gospel
these same emotions have come upon me.
This is a difficult section of verses to study when you realize that you
are the one that caused Jesus Christ to go through what He went through to save
me from my sins. I should have been the
one hanging there on the cross, but because of the great love that Christ has for
me He took my place there on that awful cross and in the three dark hours when
the Father was separated from Jesus He was taking my punishment in those three
hours so that I did not have to take it.
There is no greater love than when a man lays his life down for a
friend.
MacArthur
begins this very long section by writing “The ignorant wicked were the callous
Roman soldiers who actually performed the crucifixion under orders from Pilate,
who finally had succumbed to the intimidation of the Jewish religious
leaders. The Roman governor had publicly
declared Jesus’ innocence several times, but for fear of a riot that almost
certainly would have cost his career and possibly his life, he capitulated to
the execution. He had perverted Roman justice
by agreeing to convict a man whom no one was able to legitimately charge with a
crime against the state. He had sinned
against his own convictions, integrity, and conscience, and against the truth. He bargained his eternal soul for temporary
security.”
Now
as we think of the Jewish leaders who even in a worse way had perverted not
only scriptural principles of justice but their own rabbinical traditions. Now although they had been unable to properly
charge Jesus with sin against God, they were very determined to destroy Him,
whatever the cost to Scripture, justice, or righteousness.
Now
as we look at verse 26 “Then he released Barabbas for them; but after having
Jesus scourged, he handed Him over to be crucified,” we can see that the
soldiers were under Pilate’s orders to scourge and crucify Jesus, however they
exhibited their own wickedness by far exceeding what basic duty required. As they took into the Praetorium, they
decided to make public sport of their prisoner and gathered the whole Roman
cohort around Him in order to watch.
Lord
willing we will continue looking at this awful scene in the next SD.
8/3/2024 9:31 AM
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