Suffering and Deliverance (Part 39) - Jesus (Part C)

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P. Two days before the Passover the chief priests, scribes, and elders assembled with Caiaphas the high priest and consulted how they might take Jesus by subtilty and craft and kill Him (Mat 26:1-4; Mar 14:1). i. Subtilty n. - 3. Cunning, craftiness, guile; = subtlety 3. ii. Subtlety n. - 3. Craftiness, cunning, esp. of a treacherous kind; guile, treachery. iii. Craft n. – II. Intellectual power; skill; art. 2. a. Skill, skillfulness, art; ability in planning or performing, ingenuity in constructing, dexterity. 4. a. In a bad sense: Skill or art applied to deceive or overreach; deceit, guile, fraud, cunning. iv. They had to use craftiness and deception because Jesus had done nothing wrong. v. They decided not to try to kill Him on the feast day because they feared the people (Mat 26:5; also see: Mar 12:12; Luk 20:19). Q. As the Passover drew nigh the chief priests and scribes again sought how they might kill Jesus (Luk 22:1-2). i. Satan entered Judas, one of Jesus' 12 disciples, and prompted him to go to the chief priests and offer to betray Christ to them for money (Luk 22:3-6). ii. Judas was a friend of Jesus (Mat 26:50 c/w Psa 41:9). iii. Sometimes the devil will use our closest friends to try to destroy us. R. Once they had arrested Jesus the chief priests, elders, and all the council sought for false witnesses to accuse Him so they could put Him to death (Mat 26:59). i. They could only find two false witnesses, but their testimony did not agree together (Mat 26:60-61 c/w Mar 14:55-59). ii. They finally asked Jesus to tell them if He was the Son of God (Mat 26:62-63). iii. When Jesus affirmed that He was the Son of God they accused Him of blasphemy and determined that He was guilty of death (Mat 26:64-66). iv. They were close to being able to put Jesus to death, but were not yet able. v. The penalty for blasphemy was stoning (Lev 24:16), but God had decreed that Jesus would be killed by crucifixion (Psa 22:16; Zec 12:10; Zec 13:6-7) which the Jews didn't have authority to do (Joh 18:31-32). S. The next morning the chief priests and elders again took counsel to put Jesus to death (Mat 27:1). i. They bound Him and took him to Pilate, the governor of the Jews (Mat 27:2). ii. The chief priests and elders accused Him before Pilate, but Jesus answered nothing (Mat 27:11-14). iii. Pilate knew that they had delivered Jesus to him because of envy and therefore tried to release Him (Mat 27:15-18). iv. The chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude to ask that the murderer Barabbas be released and Jesus destroyed (Mat 27:19-21). v. When Pilate asked what he should do with Jesus, they cried that He should be crucified (Mat 27:22-23). vi. Pilate tried to absolve himself from any guilt prior to scourging Jesus and delivering Him to be crucified (Mat 27:24-26). vii. After putting a crown of thorns on His head, mocking Him, spitting on Him, and beating Him (Mat 27:27-34), they crucified Jesus (Mat 27:35). viii. After suffering the wrath of God for several hours on the cross, Jesus died (Mat 27:50). T. None of the previous attempts at murdering Christ were successful because God had determined that He would be killed in a certain way at a certain time at a certain place (Luk 22:22; Act 2:23; Act 4:25-28). i. Satan and his followers tried 18 times to kill Jesus, before finally being successful on the 19th attempt. ii. God delivered Him from death each time until the appointed time and manner of His death was come. iii. After Jesus was killed, God raised Him from the dead and set Him at His right hand far above all principalities and powers (Eph 1:20-23). U. There are some lessons we can learn from this. i. Religious people, and specifically professing Christians, will often be our greatest persecutors. ii. There is a time to fight and a time to flee. iii. No good deed goes unpunished by the wicked. iv. God will not allow our persecutors to be successful in their persecution of us if it is not His will. v. Don't be afraid to rebuke your persecutors when necessary. vi. There is a time to lay low and not to antagonize our enemies. vii. There is a time to be confrontational, but not every time. viii. Our enemies will try divers methods of persecuting us. ix. If we speak the truth meekly, we can sometimes win over our persecutors. x. There is a time to hide. xi. Many are the afflictions of the righteous. xii. Don't be afraid to boldly preach the gospel even when you know you will be persecuted for it. xiii. It helps to have friends in the community so that persecutors in government will be hesitant to provoke the public to anger. xiv. Be careful what you say when you have enemies because they will use your words against you. xv. Our enemies will use subtlety and deceit to persecute us. xvi. Sometimes the devil will use our closest friends to try to destroy us. xvii. The devil will use false witnesses to falsely accuse us to get us in trouble with the law. xviii. God will allow our persecutors to afflict us and even kill us if it is His will. xix. Ultimately though, even if we are killed, we will be victorious over death (Rev 12:11; Rev 2:10; 1Co 15:54-55).