The Illegal and Unjust Confrontation to Induce Self-Incrimination (Matt. 26:62-64)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/26/2024 9:45 AM

 

My Worship Time  Focus: “The Illegal and Unjust Confrontation to Induce Self-Incrimination”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                              Reference:  Matthew 26:62-64

 

            Message of the verses:  “62 The high priest stood up and said to Him, "Do You not answer? What is it that these men are testifying against You?" 63 But Jesus kept silent. And the high priest said to Him, "I adjure You by the living God, that You tell us whether You are the Christ, the Son of God." 64 Jesus said to him, "You have said it yourself; nevertheless I tell you, hereafter you will see THE SON OF MAN SITTING AT THE RIGHT HAND OF POWER, and COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN.’”

 

            I want to begin with what are the motives that are behind this illegal sham trial of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  Jesus was truly the Son of God, prophesied to come at the exact time that He came to earth which can be seen in different OT books, including the book of Daniel.  The Jews were not looking for their Messiah to come in the way that Jesus came, but were looking for their Messiah to come and defeat the Roman Empire which most of the world at that time was under.  It is kind of strange to me to think that the next time that Jesus comes to earth that He will fighting against the revived Roman Empire which is headed up by the Antichrist.  The Jews were in a hurry to have this trial over, which they have already known the outcome, which was the death of Christ in order for them to go and celebrate the Passover.  Yes that sounds very strange to me; I guess ironic would be the best word to describe it.  I have mentioned before that all of this that was happening was planned before the world began, and that Jesus was the One who was in charge here and those that are putting Him on trial were actually the ones who were on trial, and the first sentence would happen in about 40 years when Israel will be defeated by the Romans and would go into exile all the way until May 5, 1948 when the Lord would cause the United Nations to give the Promised Land back to Israel as it was on that date that they would become a Nation again, all in the plans of God.  The true Passover Lamb would die in the afternoon of this day as Jesus would die at the exact time that the Passover lambs would be killed.  This was the end of Passover as the Lord’s Table would replace it which Jesus began the night before as He and His disciples celebrated the last Passover and the first Communion service before they went out to the Mount of Olives.

 

            The Jewish leaders were trying to steer Jesus into self-incrimination as the high priest and the presiding officer therefore said to Him, “Do You make no answer?  What is it that these men are testifying against You?”  At this point we may be able to conclude that Jesus was staring right into the eyes of Caiaphas as Jesus kept silent, adding still more to the high priest’s anxiety.  I have mentioned that the testimonies of the two men talking about Jesus destroy the Temple were inconsistent, which should have been rejected by the court according to the Jewish laws of having a trial.  MacArthur writes “A rebuttal by Jesus not only would have been futile but would have given the false testimony and the entire illegal proceedings the appearance of legitimacy.

 

            “Jesus stood majestically silent.”  Jesus was certainly innocent and so there was no need of Him saying a word at this time, remember He was in control of this sham trial in order to die for you and for me so that we can have eternal life in heaven with Him.  Jesus, as we saw earlier while in the garden praying to His Father took some time in order to get to the point of Him doing what His Father wanted Him to do, and after He got to that point He was ready to move forward to accomplish what it was that was planned for Him to accomplish from before the earth was made.  This certainly showed the fact that not only was Jesus the second Person of the godhead, but that He was also human too.  100% God and 100% Man! MacArthur writes “It was silence of innocence, the silence of dignity, the silence of integrity, the silence of infinite trust in His heavenly Father.  It was the silence in which the lying words against Him reverberated in the ears of the guilty judges and of the false witnesses they had bribed.  Goaded by that silence, which accentuated the travesty of justice over which he presided, the enraged high priest continued to badger Jesus, saying, ‘I adjure You by the living God, that You tell us whether You are the Christ, the Son of God.’”

 

            With that I will stop and Lord willing will finish this section in my next SD.  It was my plans to do this entire section today, but as I have been writing these Spiritual Diaries for a very long time, and began to put them onto my two blog sites I have come to the conclusion that it is better to keep them brief, trying not to pass 1000 words so that the people that the Spirit of God leads to read them will not have to spend too much time in reading them, and it is my desire that the Spirit of God will cause those who read these to first of all realize their need for salvation, repent and come to Christ.  For believers to grow in Christ as Peter states in the last words that he would write in 2 Peter.  For believers to receive revival from the Spirit of God, and for the Spirit of God to send these around the world, which He has certainly been doing, and then there is one more prayer request that I pray most every day after posting these SD’s onto my blogs and that is that if it is the Lord’s will that the very last person that the Holy Spirit gives an effectual call to salvation to which would be the last one to become a believer would do this after reading one of these Spiritual Diaries.  At that time the Lord would come in what is called the rapture of the church to take the bodies of the believes from the beginning of the church age and those who are alive at that time to meet the Lord in the air, then take them to heaven where we would always be with Him.

 

6/26/2024 10:23 AM

PT-3 "The Illegal and Unjust Conspiracy to Convict Jesus" (Matt. 26:59-61)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/25/2024 8:40 AM

 

My Worship Time                  Focus:  PT-3 “The Illegal and Unjust conspiracy to Convict Jesus”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                              Reference:  Matthew 26:59-61

 

            Message of the verses: “59 Now the chief priests and the whole Council kept trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus, so that they might put Him to death. 60 They did not find any, even though many false witnesses came forward. But later on two came forward, 61 and said, "This man stated, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days.’’”

 

            As I begin this last SD on this topic I want to quote from John 2:19 to look at the actual words that Jesus spoke:  “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” Now His hearers concluded that He was referring to the Jerusalem Temple building that He had just cleansed as seen in verse 20 of John chapter two.  So the two false witnesses not only shared that false assumption but accused Jesus of saying, that not only shared that false assumption but accused Jesus of saying, on the one hand, that He Himself was able to destroy the temple of God, and on the other hand, “I will destroy this temple” (Mark14:58).  Mark notes that “not even in this respect was their testimony consistent” from verse 59.

 

            MacArthur adds “In addition to the inconsistency of their statements, which itself made the testimonies inadmissible in a legitimate hearing, the two men did not relate the year, month, day, and location of the incident they claimed to have witnessed, as they were required to do by law.”

 

            When you want someone to be guilty then you do whatever it takes to make him guilty and once again I compare this with the sham trial in New York city that former President went through and although he was not guilty the sham judge ordered the jury to make it to be that he was guilty in order to make him a criminal, even though he was not guilty.  In both cases it was all in the plan of God in order that He will receive glory as He is in control of all things.

 

            Now one of the things that I have thought of for a very long time off and on, and that is that I know that Jesus was talking about His body which will be destroyed, and then in three days He will rise again, but I am wondering that perhaps Jesus will build the Millennial Temple in three days.  I know that if it is in His plans that He could do this, but I don’t know if it is in His plans.  I guess we will have to wait and see.

 

            There are all kinds of legal things that the Jews and the Romans did wrong in these trials of Jesus, but in the end it was all in the plan of God for Christ to die, and die at the exact time that the Passover Lambs were to be slain.  Now the truth is that the ones who were ultimately on trial that day were those who stood in judgment of the perfect, sinless Son of God, and that tribunal of sinful, unjust, and hate-filled men will one day stand before the God of heaven in His tribunal and themselves be eternally condemned to the lake of fire.

 

            God is Just as one of His attributes, and God is patient, but there comes a time when His patience runs out and in the end all those who have not come to Christ asking for forgiveness realizing that they are sinners, and then invites Him into their hearts and then will live for Him will be the ones forgiven. 

 

6/25/2024 9:20 AM

 

           

PT-2 "The Illegal and Unjust Conspiracy to Convict Jesus" (Matt. 26:59-61)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/24/2024 9:52 AM

 

My Worship Time                  Focus: PT-2 “The Illegal and Unjust Conspiracy to Convict Jesus”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                              Reference:  Matthew 26:59-61

 

            Message of the verses:  “59 Now the chief priests and the whole Council kept trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus, so that they might put Him to death. 60 They did not find any, even though many false witnesses came forward. But later on two came forward, 61 and said, "This man stated, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days.’’”

 

            I don’t think that I will be able to finish this section today, but I will try.  A number of weeks ago I mentioned that my wife was rapidly losing her hearing in her left ear.  The hearing doctor that we went to told me that I should have my wife get an MRI because this could be very serious.  I believe that the Lord worked to get us a fast appointment to see a doctor that my wife had seen before.  On the day of the appointment we got a call and were told that he had to do an emergency surgery and so the appointment was delayed a week.  After looking a fairly long time into her left ear he stated that she had fluid behind the ear drum and would need to have it drained.  He mentioned nothing about any MRI.  Today is the day she has to have this minor surgery to remove this fluid.  We are thankful that she can have this done to help her hearing, and pray that God will guide the hands of this surgeon to restore her hearing on her left ear.

 

            I will just quote a couple of paragraphs from MacArthur’s commentary and hopefully finish this up tomorrow.

 

            “But try as they would, they did not find any legitimate charges against Him, even though many false witnesses came forward.  During that first attempt to manufacture a charge, even the many false witnesses who were willing to perjure themselves could not devise a story that would stand scrutiny even in that corrupt biased proceeding!  Their testimonies not only were spurious but grossly inconsistent with each other (Matt. 14:56), as is typically the case with liars.

 

            “The frustration of the assembly continued to mount until later on two witnesses finally came forward with a charge that seemed usable.  The asserted that Jesus stated, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.’  Mark’s more detailed account reports that they claimed Jesus said, ‘I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands’ (Mark 14:58).  Or perhaps Matthew reported one of the witness’s words and Mark the other’s, in which case the testimony even of those two men was not consistent.”

 

6/24/2024 10:14 AM

PT-1 "The Illegal and Unjust Conspiracy to Convict Jesus" (Matt. 26:59-61)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/23/2024 8:18 AM

 

My Worship Time                              “Pt-1 “The Illegal and Unjust Conspiracy to Convict Jesus”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                              Reference:  Matthew 26:59-61

 

            Message of the verses:  “59 Now the chief priests and the whole Council kept trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus, so that they might put Him to death. 60 They did not find any, even though many false witnesses came forward. But later on two came forward, 61 and said, "This man stated, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days.’’”

 

            I want to begin by looking at verse 47 “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.”  It seems that the chief priests were the primary instigators of the arrest of Jesus and that is why I have included verse 47.  However as Matthew makes clear it was the whole Council, or Sanhedrin, was present.  I do have one question and that is I wonder where Joseph of Arimathea was, as surely he would not vote to have Jesus crucified.  Perhaps he was sleeping and was not awakened by the other members of the Sanhedrin because they knew he would not agree with this sham trial.

 

            MacArthur writes “The Council was empowered to act only as judge and jury in a legal proceeding.  They could not instigate charges but could only adjudicate cases that were brought before them.  But because they as yet had no formal charge against Jesus, they were forced to illegally act also as prosecutor in order to carry out their predetermined plan to convict and execute Him.  Consequently, they kept trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus in order that they might put Him to death.”

 

            I can’t help but see similarities in what is going on with the different sham trials against former President Donald J. Trump.  I’m sure that there were trials like that that happened throughout the history of the world, and the reason is that Satan is the one behind all these kind of trials including Donald Trump.  I for one cannot wait to see that the first thing that Jesus does on His return to planet earth which happens after the seven year Tribulation period is to send Satan, Antichrist, and the false prophet straight to hell.

 

            Now Jesus Christ, the second person of the godhead, the One who became man in order to take the place of all who will truly believe in Him could never do anything wrong as it is impossible for God to do wrong so because of this the only possible way to convict Him was to be on the basis of false testimony.  The truth is that His accusers would have to be liars.  Now because the Council was so controlled by satanic hatred of Jesus, they now were willing to do anything that was necessary to condemn Him, even if that meant violating every biblical and rabbinical rule of justice.  In order to accomplish their wicked conspiracy they found themselves perverting the very heart of the Sanhedrin’s purpose, which was stated in an earlier SD which was “To save and not destroy, life.”  Their purpose now, however, was not to discover the truth about Jesus and it was certainly not to save His life.  Their single, compelling desire was to put Him to death.  6/23/2024 8:41 AM

PT-3 "The Illegal and Unjust Convening of the Sanhedrin"

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/22/2024 11:17 AM

 

My Worship Time                  Focus:  PT-3 “The Illegal and Unjust Convening of the Sanhedrin”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  Matt. 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.”

 

            As I begin looking at the end of this section it may be that this SD will be a bit shorter than the other ones on these verses.  The first thing that I want to do is to look forward to Acts 23:1-5 “1 Paul, looking intently at the Council, said, "Brethren, I have lived my life with a perfectly good conscience before God up to this day." 2 The high priest Ananias commanded those standing beside him to strike him on the mouth. 3 Then Paul said to him, "God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! Do you sit to try me according to the Law, and in violation of the Law order me to be struck?" 4 But the bystanders said, "Do you revile God’s high priest?" 5 And Paul said, "I was not aware, brethren, that he was high priest; for it is written, ‘YOU SHALL NOT SPEAK EVIL OF A RULER OF YOUR PEOPLE.’"  Like Jesus Paul was in a trial with the Sanhedrin and was struck in the face, but Paul became angry and vehemently rebuked the presiding officer for his illegal treatment as seen in these verses.  It was only when he learned that he was addressing the high priest did he apologized as seen in verse five.

 

            Jesus did not lose His composure, accepting His abuse with perfect calmness.  Jesus simply said to the officer who struck Him, “If I have spoken wrongly bear witness of the wrong; but if rightly, who do you strike Me? “John 18:23)

 

            MacArthur writes “In complete exasperation and having no other recourse, ‘Annas therefore sent Him bound to Caiaphas the high priest’ (24).  It was the middle of the night, perhaps shortly after midnight, because cock crowing, which normally began about 3:00 A.M., had not yet started (see Matt. 26:74).

 

            “Jesus was then brought before Caiaphas, the high priest, at whose house the scribes and the elders were illegally gathered together as the supreme Jewish Council (see v. 59).  Contrary to expectations, however, no charge had yet been brought against Him.  The high court of Judaism had been illegally convened at night to illegally try a man who had not even been indicted.

 

            “Though not as clever as his father-in-law; Caiaphas was equally devious and corrupt.  He, too, despised Jesus’ truthfulness and righteousness because they were a judgment on his own wretched ungodliness.

 

            “During the time, Peter also was following Jesus at a distance, first to the house of Annas and then as far as the courtyard of the high priest Caiaphas. Out of a conflicting mixture of cowardice and commitment, Peter tried to be as near his Lord as prudence permitted without being discovered, and he sat down with the officers to see the outcome.

 

            “The fact that Peter and others were sitting in the courtyard of the high priest reveals still another infraction of Jewish legal protocol.  As previously noted, the Sanhedrin was permitted to hold a trial involving capital punishment only in the Temple and only in public.  The private meeting at Caiaphas’s house clearly violated both stipulations.”

 

6/22/2024 11:47 AM   

PT-2 "The Illegal and Unjust Convening of the Sanhedrin" (Matt. 26:57-58)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/21/2024 8:25 AM

 

My Worship Time                  Focus:  PT-2 “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.”

 

            I want to look at the 18^th chapter of John’s gospel to see what happened before happened as seen in the gospel of Matthew:  13 and led Him to Annas first; for he was father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year” (John 18:13).  After this we see that the Roman soldiers who had seized Jesus then led Him away to Caiaphas. 

 

            Now in MacArthur’s commentary he talks at length about Annas as “some twenty years earlier Annas had served as high priest for a period of four or five years.  But although he had been replaced as ruling high priest, he not only continued to carry the title but also continued to wield great influence in Temple affairs, largely through the five sons who succeeded him and not through Caiaphas, his son-in-law.”

 

            When one looks at the Old Testament that speaks of the high priests they will find out that it was God’s design for high priests to serve for life.  But the position had become so politicized that some of the served only a few years or even at sometimes even just months, and this was because they came into disfavor with a king or a Roman official.  There are some scholars who believe that it is likely that Annas had been removed from office by Rome because they feared too much power was being amassed by one man.

 

            “Annas was the racketeering boss behind the priesthood.  He was the guy who was really behind the scenes in charge of everything, though he had been set down as high priest by the Romans because he was getting too powerful, and Caiaphas was in his place.  He still maintained the title high priest, which you kept for life, and he was still the power behind the scenes.  He ran all the bazaars in the temple, the buying and the selling and the money changing” (MacArthur’s sermon.) 

 

            During this time in Jewish history we can see that a Jew never came to the temple empty-handed.  He always brought either a gift of money or a sacrifice to offer it to the Lord. One of the things that a Jew could not offer was Gentile coins for they had pictures of the Roman emperors and thus in the Jewish eyes they were idols.  So they had to exchange them for Jewish money and of course the one who had these Roman coins would get taken advantage by those in the Temple, something that Annas had a part of.  The same took place with when a Jew brought an offering to be sacrificed, say an offering of a lamb which had to be without blemish, and of course the same thing happened as with the money.  Is it any wonder that Jesus cleansed the temple two times, once at the first part of His ministry as seen in John’s gospel and then in Matthew’s gospel He did it at the end of His ministry as we saw in a previous SD.

            “Jesus was a persistent threat to Annas’s power, prestige, security, and prosperity, for which He was bitterly despised by the high priest.  In addition to that, Annas resented Jesus for His holiness, truth, and righteousness, because those virtues were a judgment on his own vile character.  Everything Jesus said and did angered Annas, because, like Judas, his absolute rejection of Christ had placed him utterly in the hands of Satan, the great choreographer who was staging this heinous travesty against God’s Son.  Annas was one of a large cast of characters who were manipulated by hell” (MacArthur’s commentary.)

 

            I want to look at Isaiah 53:7 which has to do with much of the unjust trial that our Lord went through “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth.”

 

            “Annas was embarrassed, infuriated and frustrated.  Because of their complicity, the entire assemblage was also angered, and ‘one of the officers,’ perhaps to help his superior save face, ‘gave Jesus a blow, saying ‘Is that the way You answer the high priest?’’ (John 18:22).

 

            6/21/2024 9:05 AM

PT-1 "The Illegal and Unjust Convening of the Sanhedrin" (Matt. 26:57-58)

 

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