Jesus Sentenced To Death

Matthew 27:1

 When the morning was come, all the chief priests

 and elders of the people took counsel 

against Jesus to put him to death: 

   They charged Jesus first with being a revolutionary, second, with inciting the people not to pay their taxes, and third, with claiming to be a king, (Luke 23:2). They fabricated three political charges, all of them conscious lies, because they knew that only on such charges would Pilate act. So, then, everything hung on the attitude of Pilate. What kind of man was this Roman governor? 

   When Pilate came to Judaea, he found trouble in plenty, and much of it was of his own making. His great handicap was that he was completely out of sympathy with the Jews. More, he was contemptuous of what he would have called their irrational and fanatical prejudices, and what they would have called their principles. Pilate was a man so entangled in his past, and so rendered helpless by it, that he was unable to take the stand he ought to take. Pilate is a figure of tragedy rather than of villainy. 

   Now let's talk about the traitor, Judas. Here in all its grimness is the last act of the tragedy of Judas. However we interpret his mind, one thing is clear Judas now saw the horror of the thing that he had done. Matthew tells us that Judas took the money and flung it into the Temple. The suicide of Judas is surely the final indication that his plan had gone wrong. He had meant to make Jesus blaze forth as a conqueror; instead he had driven him to the Cross and life for Judas was shattered. There are two great truths about sin here. 

   The terrible thing about sin is that we cannot put the clock back. We cannot undo what we have done. Once a thing is done nothing can alter it or bring it back. No one needs to be very old to have that haunting longing for some hour to be lived over again. When we remember that no action can ever be recalled, it should make us doubly careful how we act. 

   My Friends, The strange thing about sin is that a man can come to hate the very thing he gained by it. The very prize he won by sinning can come to disgust and to revolt and to repel him, until his one desire is to fling it from him. Most people sin because they think that if they can only possess the forbidden thing it will make them happy. But the thing which sin desired can become the thing that a man above all would rid himself of and so often he cannot. Jesus was not sentenced to death because of sin against Him. Jesus was the Son of God and He died so that we, all people could be saved.  Just remember we are the sinners even if you are saved, because you are saved by God's Grace!  

Amen!

Reading: Matt. 27: 1-66

Ref HGSB

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry