Mission 66 (English podcast)
Matthew 27 God Murdered by Man
'Everyone who followed Jesus and saw what he did and said expected, that he would be crowned king, raise an army and bring about the kingdom of God on earth by force. Nobody expected that it would end like this with him being condemned and killed.' This is Mission 66. Your deep dive into the 66 books of the Bible brought to you by Bible teacher and pastor Dr. Luis Seow, and collaboration with Transworld Radio, let me remind you to download your free study guide of the Gospels. You'll be able to go deeper into God's word and follow along with each day's program. It's a great companion resource of the audio teaching of John Matthews and Esther Susula. To get your free study guide of the Gospels, visit Mission66.org. That's Mission66.org. Get ready for an impactful session as John Matthews, along with his co-host Esther Susula, guide us through today's study. Today we'll focus on one of the most important moments in the history of humanity. And I mean by this, of course, when the son of the living God was crucified on the old rugged cross on a hill called Calvary. Well, the account is found in chapter 27 of Matthew, and I'm so thrilled to be with you today, friend. My name is Esther, and I'm inviting you to follow along with our teacher, John Matthews, on the theme, "God Murdered by Men." Esther, thank you so much. Good to be with you and great to be with you. Our listeners, wherever you are listening to Mission66 today. And if you've been following along with us, you'll know that we have come to what is called Passion Week, the final days of Jesus' life. It's already the famous Friday of the Passion, often referred to as Good Friday when Jesus turns himself over to be tried, tortured, and crucified before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. And the passage in Matthew chapter 27 is going to begin by telling us the sad story of Judas Iscariot suicide. You might remember that Judas Iscariot was the one who betrayed Jesus. So after doing everything that led Jesus to be condemned to death, the Bible says that Judas saw that Jesus was condemned. He changed his mind and brought back the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elder, saying, "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood." They said, "What is that to us? See to it yourself." Throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself. Judas' betrayal fulfills a prophecy from Zechariah chapter 11, which shares in the Old Testament of the Bible many years before. Then I said to them, "If it is agreeable to you, give me my wages, and if not refrain." So they weighed out my wages, 30 pieces of silver. It wasn't just coincidence that Judas sold Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, but the chief priests, concerned with religious details, taking the piece of silver, said it is not lawful to put them into the treasury because it's blood money. So they took counsel and bought with the money the potter's field is a burial place for strangers. Therefore, that field has been called the field of blood to this day. See, these priests weren't afraid to condemn and kill the messiah, but they wouldn't put the 30 pieces of silver into the treasury because it was blood money. You know, this is the sort of hypocrisy that Jesus had been rebuking the Pharisees for throughout his ministry. And so the Bible here tells us that they took back the 30 silver coins and bought this piece of land known as the potter's field. And this very thing is written in chapter 13 of the Old Testament prophet, Zechariah, some 500 years before Christ arrives. And after reading about this sad story of what happened to Judas, who was filled with remorse, we look at what happened to Jesus himself. Jesus was taken before Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who was in charge of the region at that time. And naturally, Pilate was worried about Jesus from the political point of view. He was a man who was wrongly accused of being an agitator as if he wanted to initiate some sort of rebellion, which he never did. And so Pilate asks Jesus in verse 11, "Are you the king of the Jews?" Jesus replied, "You have said so." But when he was accused by the chief priests and the elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate said to him, "Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?" But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed. You know, there was a prophecy in Isaiah that said how the Messiah was led to the slaughter and he did not open his mouth. And Pilate was just dumbfounded when Jesus made no defense. Pilate was smart enough to know that Jesus had been arrested by these Jewish chiefs. Now, Pilate was smart enough to know that Jesus had been arrested by these Jewish chiefs out of jealousy and not because of any justifiable reason. And on top of this, in verse 19, it says his wife sent word to him saying, "Have nothing to do with that righteous man, where I have suffered much because of him today in a dream. God has many ways of warning us away from a sinful course, sometimes a faithful friend or loved one cares enough to confront us if we will take the warning." And Pilate was actually afraid. He knew he was dealing with something beyond the understanding of mortal man. And so he tried to free Jesus. Now, they had this custom where once a year at the time of Passover, the Romans would release a prisoner as an act of goodwill. And Pilate saw how he might get Jesus released if he could get public approval for it. And so he had one of the most notorious prisoners. His name was Barabbas brought out. By doing this, he would give the crowds as was the custom, the choice to release one of these prisoners in his mind. Pilate thought surely they would not want to release Barabbas over Jesus because Barabbas had committed murder. And then Pilate would be able to release Jesus with the approval of all the gathered assembly. Well, he was about to be surprised was Pilate, verse 20. But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas to be released and to have Jesus executed. Pilate couldn't believe his eyes and his ears. Why? He asked. What evil has he done? But they kept clamoring for him to be crucified. So Pilate suddenly realized that he was not going to be able to resolve the situation the way that he thought he would be able to resolve. It took water, washed his hands and said, I am innocent of this man's blood. See to it yourselves. By this act, Pilate had become a proverb and a byword for anyone seeking to get out of a tough spot. And he said, they washed their hands of the whole matter. And it comes from this place in the gospel. And now you have the crowd beginning to yell out something that has haunted them ever since. Let his blood be on us and on our children. What a statement that is. And it resounds through the corridors and the centuries of history. And so Jesus was flogged and handed over to be crucified. Now, flogging in the days of the Roman Empire was a horrible whipping, which tore the flesh off the saviors back. And that was bad enough, but worse was yet to come. And so Jesus has taken two pilots, official residents called the Praetorian. And this is what it says in verse 28. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, a mocking gesture. You see scarlet being the color of royalty. And then they twisted together a crown made of thorns and pounded it down on his head with rods, cutting open his scalp and his face. And they spit on him. They beat him on the head. And this is the way he was mistreated and mocked again and again before they led him away to be crucified. Jesus stumbles. So they grab a foreigner, Simon from Cyrene in North Africa, out of the crowd. That's an area that's present day Libya. And he was forced to carry Jesus's cross. And they finally reached the place known as Golgotha, which means the place of a skull. And there Jesus is offered wine mixed with gall. But Jesus refuses to drink it. The substance would have helped alleviate the pain and suffering of his death. But he resolutely determines to bear the full weight of the torture, paying the full price of our sin, not even pausing to take a pain killer. So Jesus is finally crucified. Crucifixion was a death used only among the Romans regarded by many as the most inhumane form of execution known to mankind. A cross was laid in the ground to which the hands and feet were nailed. It was then lifted up, fixed up right so that the weight of the body hung on those nails till the sufferer died in agony. Then it says the soldiers divided up his clothes by casting lots and afterwards they wrote on the cross. This is Jesus, the king of the Jews. At his side there were two criminals who were crucified as well and those who passed by hurled insults at him. While he was nailed there to the cross in unimaginable suffering. Can you see even those self-righteous religious leaders gloating? They even had the nerve to say he saved others. But he cannot save himself. He's the king of Israel. Let him come down from the cross and we will believe in him. What a gold that was. But since Jesus was indeed the son of God, the Bible tells us here in Matthew 27 that darkness fell over the land from midday to three o'clock in the afternoon. Around that time Jesus cried out, "Ili, Ili, Lamma exthani," which means in Aramaic, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Quoting King David's words from Psalm 22. Jesus' terrible agony on the cross was made even worse, so much worse because God, the Father, turns his back on his one and only dear son. Because Jesus who knew no sin had been made sin for us, for you and for me. And the Father could not even look upon it. It wasn't just Jesus who was feeling the agony of the moment but God himself was weeping the whole time. And at this moment some thought that Jesus was calling for the prophet Elijah and said they brought him some vinegar and offered him a drink. The Bible says that when Jesus had cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit, the Savior, the sinless, pure, spotless Son of God had offered the acceptable sacrifice to God for the sin of the world. And in this exact hour, notice this my dear listener. Things happened that cannot be explained by any scientific law known to man. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. This curtain was what separated the most holy place from the regular holy place in the temple. The common people couldn't approach past that curtain on pain of death. And when this curtain was torn, it represents that Jesus tears away the separation that exists between sinful humanity and a holy God so that now we have free access to God. It is finished. Our sin has been paid for with Jesus' death and then came other signs and wonders to prove that Jesus was certainly no regular person. The cosmic powers were shaken, darkness at noon day. An earthquake rattles the ground, breaking open some of the tombs. The earth shakes, the rocks split and the tombs break open. And it says the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life in that moment and was seen by the people in Jerusalem. Many eyewitnesses you see experience and witness these things. And now verse 54 when the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus saw the earthquake and what was taking place, they were filled with awe and said, "Truly this was the Son of God." This wasn't just any death you see and it was no fairy tale. Also the women were there watching from a distance, among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Jesus and Joseph and the mother of Zebedee sons. And we finally come to this moment when our Lord killed to save us from our sins must be taken down from the cross and buried. See the blood running down that wooden cross splashing onto the ground. Hear the cries of Mary his mother as the sword of grief stabs her in the heart and her anguish screams pierce the darkness. See the mournful procession as Jesus is buried by a wealthy man, Joseph of Arimathea, who went to Pontius Pilate asking for Jesus' body and Pilate gave him permission. Jesus placed then in a new tomb that had been cut out of the rock and you can visit the place where this tomb was thought to be in Jerusalem to this very day. And then a big stone was rolled in front of the entrance to the tomb. And now it's interesting that at the end of chapter 27 we see the High Priest and the Pharisees go to Pilate and say, "Look here, this Jesus fellow, this deceiver said he would rise again afterwards so the burial place must be well guarded or else his disciples may go there, steal his body and claim that he rose from the dead." And so Pilate gives the order and an entire guard was sent to where Jesus was buried and a whole security plan set in place and they put a seal on the stone which could not be removed. That is a seal. It's a seal of the Roman government and soldiers guard the entrance carefully so that no one can enter the burial place where Jesus was. And now the surprising and fascinating aspect of this entire account is that everyone who followed Jesus and saw what he did and said, expected that he would be crowned king, raise an army and bring about the kingdom of God on earth by force. Nobody expected that it would end like this with him being condemned and killed, murdered like a criminal in the most cruel way possible. But this is not just a crucifixion of a great man of history. It is the story of the Father God who loved the world so much that he sent his only son to be born a man, live a perfect life after which he would give himself up to be butchered for us so that we believing would no longer be separated from God the Father so that we could have eternal life and an everlasting relationship with the Father. This is mission 66 and we are journeying through the Bible where we find ourselves at the climax of the earthly life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Well I'm Esther with our teacher John Matthews. Now John can we talk about Judas? You know it said that he felt bad afterwards after what he had done but do you think he ever repented and truly felt sorry for what he had done like peated it after he betrayed Jesus? Well Esther we see don't we in this chapter that Judas was remorseful but there's a difference between feeling bad about something we've done and true heartfelt repentance. You know there are people who are sorry for what they did but they don't really repent and in many cases they go back and repeat the same offense again and again and that's not repentance. You know everybody feels bad when they do something silly or that their conscience tells them is wrong especially if they get caught but I think with Judas it was a case where his course was determined all along. You know he was secretly coveting the glory of the kingdom but yet was unwilling to accept God's time. He thought about selling the Lord out long before he actually did it. With Peter it was more of a momentary lapse into fear than it was anything else and this is something that all of us will have experienced and indeed will continue to experience while we live in these you know these mortal earthly bodies. Yeah and now what do you think was going through Pilate's mind when he heard that Jesus might be a king? Well I think Pilate was wary of any rival. He was suspicious of Herod who held some political sway in Jerusalem even though Pilate was appointed there by Rome. I don't think that he ever understood the Jewish people, their culture, their system, the prophecies and so he was acting out of extreme distrust and was afraid of causing a disturbance which he might not be able to control meaning his own position and indeed his life would then be threatened and so when Jesus accused of being a king didn't even speak to defend himself Well Pilate's fears about Jesus being a rival king were completely laid to rest and he begins to correctly see that this was some sort of power play from the priests. So let's understand that Jesus is the king of king and lord of lords and he will reign forever and ever and it's just that Jewish people misunderstood the messianic prophecies which foretold that it was necessary for the messiah to come twice once to suffer Isaiah chapter 53 and then later after he had suffered the beatings and the rejections to put a waste in by the offering of himself as described in the book of Daniel then would he return and set up the eternal kingdom the second coming made up of all the redeemed from every age and that day will come and he's coming dear listener but it hasn't arrived yet. Well let's quickly go back to verse 59 John it mentions Joseph of Arimathea who wrapped Jesus' body in a clean linen cloth and then placed it in the tomb. Here's a question for you do you think that this linen cloth is what is known as the shroud of Turin? Yeah I don't know it could be but we simply don't know do we but what we do know Esther is that God in his love and his mercy sends his one and only son into the world to die on the cross because perfectly righteous blood needed to be shared for sin and God did this because it was the only way that sinners who've disobeyed the righteous demands of the law could be saved from the penalty and the power of sin and so he longs for us to see what he has said and done with respect to the sending of his son and God he's not willing to pardon anyone who makes light of his son's death on the cross and so he won't pardon anyone who doesn't or cannot accept the saving grace and the name of Jesus Christ and he won't pardon anyone who disrespects the Son of God and he won't pardon anyone who stops his ears at the preaching of the gospel so friends don't be distracted by lesser concerns don't be worried necessarily about the the Turin shroud but worry far more about your own standing before God because the gospel call has got out Christ crucified for sinners we ought to repent and believe what God has said and done and Jesus Christ said and says today I am the truth thank you so much for that John well then how can we summarize Matthew 27 today yeah let's do that so Jesus the compassionate Christ after healing so many people and performing so many miracles and teaching so many beautiful and extraordinary things this Jesus ends up being betrayed and accused condemned to death and cruelly tortured like a common criminal what's the real guilty ones go free you know last time we had this discussion didn't we as to who really killed Christ well beside the fact that God himself is the one who pre-planned the sending of his son to to be the sacrifice for us in certainly the Jewish leaders Judas Iscariot the passive Roman governor the fickle crowds they all played a part but that was then and this is now and since we are also sinners like they were we have to put ourselves in that crowd of mocking scourners can you see us there shouting for his death shaking our fists at the the one hanging on that cross truly that was the day that God was murdered by man killed by us by me by you the very ones that he died to save it was my sin and your sin that put him there for thank God John that the story does not end there right no Esther it most certainly does not and there is the most magnificent morning in the history of the human race coming soon because Friday is now over but Sunday is coming oh yes indeed friend and John and myself invite you to join us next time for this glorious conclusion of this earth-shaking account right here on mission 66 John Matthews will be closing out the teaching of the gospel of Matthew so until then my friend goodbye and God bless you has God used today's program in your life then you'll want to receive the free study guide of the gospels that we've prepared you can get it right away by downloading it at mission 66.org review what you've heard on our series in the gospels and have the guide handy for the next program visit mission 66.org and download your free study guide of the gospels at mission 66.org you can also leave a comment or make a donation to help this listener supported ministry thank you for helping mission 66 continue here and around the world pick up your study guide of the gospels at mission 66.org mission 66 is a ministry of trans world radio I'm Rob Dempsey (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]