Matthew (Part 9)(BST 11-18-07)

Matthew (Part 9)
Bible Study Time 11-18-07

Shortly before the Lord was crucified, He entered Jerusalem riding upon the colt of a donkey with the crowd chanting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” According to the book of John, Jesus had just raised Lazarus from the dead not too many days before, and it seems the crowd was ready to crown Jesus as the King of Israel.

When Jesus arrived at the temple, He was greatly disturbed to find the money changers working within the confines of the temple. Matthew says that:

Matthew 21:12-14 NKJV
12 . . . Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.
13 And He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you have made it a 'den of thieves.'"*
14 Then the blind and the lame came to (Jesus) in the temple, and He healed them.

Jesus gave sight to the blind and made the lame to walk, but He also spent much of His time teaching. As Jesus taught, the Chief Priests and teachers of the Law were constantly looking for some way to justify arresting Him for they had already determined that they would put Him to death.

The Gospel of John tells us that after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead:

John 11:47-48 NKJV
47 . . . the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council and said,"What shall we do? For this Man works many signs.
48 If we let Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation."

You see, the Jewish leaders knew that if the people did crown Jesus as the King of Israel, the Romans would most certainly intervene. The Romans were content to give the religious leaders a great deal of autonomy as long as they were able to keep the people under control. The Romans didn’t care what the people believed or practiced as long as they paid their taxes and gave every outward sign of being loyal to Rome. So when Caiaphas, the High Priest, saw that Jesus was about to be crowned as the King of Israel, he said to the council:

John 11:49-50 NKJV
49 . . . "You know nothing at all,
50 nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish."

At this point, John interpreted the words of the High Priest, saying:

John 11:51,53 NKJV
51 Now this he did not say on his own authority; but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation,
53 Then, from that day on, they plotted to put (Jesus) to death.

So as Jesus taught in the temple, the Jewish leaders were closely watching His every move and paying close attention to His every word. They often presented Him with trick questions hoping that He would incriminate Himself and give them an excuse to arrest Him.

Now, this whole exercise of arresting Jesus and putting Him through a trial was obviously something that the Jewish leaders had cooked up to appease the people. When they did finally arrest Jesus, they took Him to Pilate and Pilate said:

John 18:31 NKJV
31 . . . "You take Him and judge Him according to your law." Therefore the Jews said to him, "It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death,"

Well, this is interesting because they had already attempted to kill Jesus on previous occasions. In John, Chapter 10, when Jesus said, “I and My Father are one,” John says:

John 10:31-33,39 NKJV
31 . . . the Jews took up stones again to stone Him.
32 Jesus answered them, "Many good works I have shown you from My Father. For which of those works do you stone Me?"
33 The Jews answered Him, saying, "For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God."
39 Therefore they sought again to seize Him, but He escaped out of their hand.

Obviously, if there really was a law which prohibited the Jews from putting criminals to death, it was a law which was very loosely enforced by the Romans.

Six years after the crucifixion, Stephen was killed by the official order of the Sanhedrin. Then shortly thereafter, Saul of Tarsus was sent to Damascus by order of the High Priest to arrest the followers of Jesus. When Paul was arrested in Jerusalem after his third missionary journey, he stood before the Jews and said:

Acts 22:4-5 NKJV
4 I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women,
5 as also the high priest bears me witness, and all the council of the elders, from whom I also received letters to the brethren, and went to Damascus to bring in chains even those who were there to Jerusalem to be punished.

When Paul recounted these events before King Agrippa, he said:

Acts 26:10 NKJV
10 . . . many of the saints I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them.

Clearly, the Jewish leaders could have put Jesus to death, but they decided to arrest Jesus in the middle of the night and take Him to Pilate so that they could blame Pilate for Jesus’ death. If there was a law against their using the death penalty, it was a law which they obeyed only when it suited their political agenda.

When the Chief Priest stated that it would be better for one man to die for the nation than for the whole nation to perish, he revealed his personal respect for the Roman army, but he also revealed his lack of respect for Jesus and the fact that he did not fear the Lord.

Jesus had done great miracles to show His power over those in authority as well as His power over the creation. As I mentioned earlier, Jesus simply disappeared when they tried to stone Him. Jesus said:

John 10:17-18 NKJV
17 " . . . My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again.
18 No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father."

Jesus was the Son of God. Because He was Jehovah God in the flesh, He had all the power of the Almighty God. The Romans on the other hand were mere human beings with only human force and human armies, and yet the Chief Priest respected and feared the Roman army more than he feared the Lord.

If the Chief Priest and the scribes had put their faith in Jesus as the very Son of God, they would have seen the Lord Jesus in all of His glory as the One who could defeat the Romans and establish the Kingdom of God on the earth. When they refused to believe, they actually condemned their nation to destruction for in 70 A.D. the Romans came into Jerusalem and burned the temple and the city to the ground.

Before Jesus was arrested, He looked out over Jerusalem. His heart was heavy because He knew the death and the destruction that lay ahead. He said:

Matthew 23:37-39 NKJV
37 "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!
38 See! Your house is left to you desolate;
39 for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!'"*

Then Matthew says that:

Matthew 24:1-2 NKJV
1 . . . Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple.
2 (But) Jesus said to them, "Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down."

By rejecting Jesus, the Jewish leaders were condemning their nation to what would become centuries of exile, persecution and suffering. It’s no wonder that the Lord Jesus likened them to the blind leading the blind.

While Jesus taught in the temple area, the religious leaders approached Jesus with their trick questions. They asked Jesus if it was appropriate to pay taxes to Caesar. Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar those things that are Caesar’s and render unto God the things that belong to God.” When the Sadducees asked Jesus about marriage in the resurrection, Jesus confirmed that there will indeed be a resurrection of the dead, but He plainly declared that in the resurrection there will be neither marrying nor giving in marriage.

This silenced the Sadducees, but then one of the Pharisees questioned Jesus, asking which of the commandants is the greatest? Jesus answered by saying that the greatest commandment of all is, thou shalt love the Lord thy God will all thine heart, and the second is, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

What a beautiful God we serve! Here Jesus was under a barrage of trick questions from people who were determined to kill Him, and He takes the opportunity to talk about love. Human beings so often get wrapped up in making and keeping the rules, but Jesus knew that love is the reason for the rules. He knew that the only reason God gave the rules was because of His great love for man. Jesus said that all of the Law and the prophets hang on these two commandments that we should love God and love our neighbors.

When God said, love the Lord with all your heart, He knew that those who do love the Lord are the ones who experience the love of God. They experience the fullness of His love, His joy and His peace. If we love ourselves or if we love the world more than we love God, we will rob ourselves of the blessings of God.

Notice that God never commanded us to love Him more than we love anything else. He didn’t say, I want to be your number one. No, He said, there is no room for number two. It’s kind of like most wives feel when it comes to the affection of their husbands. They don’t want to be the one who comes in ahead of everyone else; they want to be the only one.

Well, that’s the way God is. He wants to be my all in all. He doesn’t want just part of my heart. He doesn’t even want the biggest part of my heart. He wants all of my heart. He said, love me, completely and totally, with all of your heart.

This week, as we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, we need to think about the fact that God is so very deserving of all of our love and all of our thanksgiving. People who love the Lord will be thankful people. When we experience the fullness of His love, His joy and His peace, we cannot help but be thankful.

If we refuse to love the Lord with all of our hearts, we will always be unthankful. Regardless of how much we get or how much we achieve, the things of this world will never satisfy.

The people who lived in the days of Nimrod were great achievers. They were actually planning to build a tower that would reach into the heavens. God even said, if they are left alone, there is nothing that they propose that will be withheld from them. But were they thankful to God? Not at all. All of the pagan idolatry in the world can be traced right back to them. Romans, Chapter 1, says:

Romans 1:18,21,22 NKJV
18 . . . the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were (they) thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
22 Professing to be wise, they became fools,

Indeed, it is a foolish thing to refuse to love God with all of our hearts. If we do refuse to love Him, we rob ourselves of His love, His joy and His peace. When we love the Lord with all of our hearts, we find ourselves being thankful for all of the blessings of God. Even in trial and tribulation, we sense the presence of the Lord, and we see the hand of the Lord working all things together for good. Paul wrote to the Philippians and said:

Philippians 4:6-7 NKJV
6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;
7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

To the Colossians, Paul said:

Colossians 2:6-7 NKJV
6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,
7 rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

Colossians 3:15 NKJV
15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.

Colossians 4:2 NKJV
2 Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving;

God has called us to be thankful for all that He has done. It is a blessing to us and to God when we give thanks to God. Those of us who know the Lord can sing with the Psalmist:

Psalms 100 KJV
1 Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands.
2 Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing.
3 Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
5 For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endures to all generations.

Thank you so much for joining me for Bible Study Time this morning. I hope you have a joyful time of thanksgiving this week, and I’ll look forward to studying with you again next week at this same time.

Church links:
http://www.peacechurch-ok.org/
http://www.eleventhavenuechurch.com/
http://gracebiblechurch-fw.com/