Scandal, Betrayal, and a Killin’

A very well-dressed arm with a hand clenched in a fist came down and the voice connected to the person screamed, “Death.” His cheeks were red, his eyes were narrowed and his whole countenance was angered, the angriest he had ever been. He knew he was guilty, he heard the trial, heard the evidence, and said he was guilty, and then the audience yelled in a chorus with the well-dressed man, “Death!” There were enough words said against the man. He was doomed this time. He couldn’t escape. They finally caught him.  There were those who pleaded for his innocence, yet they were brushed away as the mob yelled more. Their voice carried no power or weight to these people, these were laypeople, they had no saw in the matters of God or the state. Aside with these people, we need this man to be gone—yesterday. There was no fairness about this trial, and no one cared. there was trumped up evidence even with some false witnesses! Bribery and probably extortion was there for others to follow the popular decision to get rid of this one man by putting him to death for crimes allegedly committed.

This wasn’t just any execution. It was an execution perfected by the Romans who took pleasure in hurting others.  Their method of execution wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t quick and painless, it was brutal, agonizing and terrible a torture execution called crucifixion in which the person is nailed to a cross or a tree with arms outstretched or above their heads and their feet nailed to the cross, eventually the lack of oxygen is the ultimate demise of the victim of the execution. It was a horrible way to die. It was not quick and reserved for those who were deemed to have the done worst crime. This man’s “crime” was blasphemy. Perhaps you’ve heard of the accused. His name was Jesus Christ and He was sent to earth for just this reason.

 This is just one account of someone saying something against the Son of God; “And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee. And, behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves, This man blasphemeth. And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk? Matthew 9:2-5.” Jesus knew the hearts and felt their unbelief. These were intelligent men who spent time in the books that we know now as the Old Testament. They studied the prophets and were very powerful and used to their traditions. They didn’t like Jesus coming in and upsetting their power and position. Jesus was telling them that God was going to give grace to people, something they didn’t deserve. The powerful didn’t like this because it made them powerless and weak and when Jesus was around, very vulnerable.
    
We see in the prior account that this man accused Jesus of blasphemy. Here is one of the accounts that got Jesus in trouble again for telling the truth. Jesus told the powers that be, the scribes and the religious leaders, “I and my Father are one. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?” Jesus asked a honest question, knowing their law and their traditions. They had a very basic answer. They knew there would be a Messiah coming but Jesus wasn’t the one they pictured or even wanted; “The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them…Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?” Jesus throws their accusations back at them by saying, “God has set me apart to do this, but you still say you are offended? Or God is offended? Then Jesus says, “If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.” Jesus was trying to get them to see that these things He was doing was because God allowed Him to. He could make the lame walk, the dumb to talk and the dead to rise again. Jesus was telling them “you don’t have to believe my words, but look at what I am doing, pay attention! Only God can do these things or allow them to happen. They didn’t like that and got really angry this time; “Therefore they sought again to take him: but he escaped out of their hand, John 10:30-39.” They were so mad they tried to take him, probably by lunging at him or planning to trap him. It wasn’t time yet to do this and Jesus escaped. Later on they tried to take up stones to stone him but he escaped again. I mean, He is God. He can make sure that doesn’t happen.
    
However, this escape pattern didn’t last forever. Not because Jesus got caught but because he allowed it. God had a redemption plan in place and Jesus was the one to pay the price from a person he considered a friend and from others who he thought had his back; “He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. And he came and found them asleep again: for their eyes were heavy. And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. Then cometh he to his disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going: behold, he is at hand that doth betray me. And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people. Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast. And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master; and kissed him. And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus and took him. Matthew 26:42-50.”  Betrayal happens in many forms in our life from someone betraying our trust to someone betraying in the ultimate sense and blackmailing or sabotaging a life. We must remember that our friends are humans too and can turn on us quickly and likewise as can we from rumors or things we witness. People will be quick to publicly shame, start a scandal and betray others just on what someone else says without checking facts or the other party first. We see it all the time in the media and even in our own circle of friends and acquaintances, things haven’t changed much since Jesus’ time! Even if we are innocent, we are never truly innocent of anything. The Bible says that there is no one who does good. “They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Romans 3:12.” No one is truly innocent. The only one that was innocent was put to death for a crime He didn’t commit. Jesus walked up totally innocent to a cross that was meant for the guilty. He was tortured for a crime that was against God Almighty when He was God in the flesh. Hard to wrap our minds around the totality of the redemption process. But the Scripture gives us aid in this regard, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: Galatians 3:13.” Jesus was made a curse for us? Why and how? What is all that about? Well the sin of blasphemy was punishable by death and not by just any manner. The Law reads, “And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree: His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance. Deuteronomy 21:22-23.” Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died this death so that we didn’t have to spend eternity separated from God. The punishment fit the crime even though he was innocent to show that the law didn’t save anyone but only Jesus can!  

God requires a sacrifice for sin, the first time was Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, where innocent blood of an animal was shed to cover their nakedness and disobedience. God required a sacrifice of this until Jesus Christ came to pay the sin debt, where before it was just covered, not eliminated. The only innocent man to walk this Earth, Jesus Christ, became our sacrifice and was crucified carrying the world’s sins upon Him and nailing them to the cross so to speak. He paid for them; all you have to do is accept what He has done. “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: 1 Corinthians 15:3-4.” We must believe that Jesus came to defeat sin and death without a cape or a wand. We must believe that Jesus died for us no matter what we’ve done. We must believe that Jesus has done it once and for all. He doesn’t get back on the cross every time we sin. His death was once, and His work was completed there but that wasn’t the end of it. The cross was just the beginning.

Even though Jesus died on the cross, suffering the anguish and shame, it wasn’t the end. It was just the start of a beautiful love story that was unfolding right before the believer and unbeliever’s eyes. Such as the centurion (Roman) soldier that helped in the persecution of Jesus and watched Him die, watching this blasphemous Jewish man die on a cross did something for him when he saw everything and took it all in, “ Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God. Matthew 27:54.” Even a pagan heathen like the Romans can understand God Almighty’s workings when they saw it. Sadly, we still look for things besides God’s grace and mercy through Jesus Christ, we look for self-help, we look for something we can see. I would say we look for something instant but God’s grace is fresh and renewed each day, “This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. Lamentations 3:21-26.” God’s love and mercy is everlasting and for everyone to partake of. Jesus didn’t die for a select few. Jesus didn’t die for those who had it all together. Jesus didn’t die for those who gave the most. Jesus died for all those and the rest and the least and the most, the best and the worst. Jesus came to say that everyone was special and deserved God’s love, mercy and grace making the tradition followers and legalistic people trip over their own selves.  As the scripture says, “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 1 Corinthians 1:21-25.”  Jesus being crucified had to happen for grace to come down from God. God had to come down to eradicate the sin nature because no mortal could do it themselves, no matter how pure they made themselves they were and are still sinners corrupted by sin and stained by it as well. “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Isaiah 1:18.” Jesus can take our sins and make us whole again, our nasty, stinking, ugly sins can be erased, and our soul can be made brand new; fresh, polished, and beautiful as God intended them to be. But there’s a catch, we talked about receiving Jesus as our Lord and Savior by trusting in that He died on the cross for us but did you know there was a cross awaiting us as well?

Now we may not see a physical cross in our size, in my case it would have to be a short one for me to tote around but we are told that to truly be a child of God we must give up on ourselves, the way Jesus did. This isn’t to say we shouldn’t be confident, but we should be wise enough to realize that God is our Creator, our Savior and wants the best for us and that means we have to let ourselves go to the backseat and let Jesus “take the wheel”. When we trust and ask Jesus into our heart because of what He did for us at Calvary, we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, and we are to let God have the first say so in our life. That is why Paul says this, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20.” We are not literally crucified like Jesus was, we don’t have to be nailed to a cross but we have to let Christ live in us. The life that we lived separate from God’s purpose and will must now obey God’s commands and urgings and will want to because of the Holy Spirit. Paul knew quite a bit about this and said, “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God…” When we are saved, we have eternal life, the grave had no power over Jesus, and it has no power over those who have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them. Jesus died for us so that we might live and if we are to be Christians and be Christ-like then we have to put ourselves to death too. “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. Romans 6:6-13.”  Our flesh can betray us because of the sin that resides within it. That is why we must tell ourselves that those sinful desires and the way we act are to be put to death because sin can still kill us. The wages of sin still pays out in death! However, as a Christian, sin doesn’t condemn us to hell any longer, but we shouldn’t sin because we’ve got a free one-way ticket to Heaven by trust in Jesus. God didn’t let Jesus die on the cross for our sins for us to keep sinning. That’d be like you washing a shirt to get the stains out, wearing it and purposely pouring stains on it again then washing it and wearing the shirt again. Eventually you will ruin the shirt. Well, my friend you are the shirt. Eventually sin will ruin you even if you are saved whether physically-God will take you home or by reputation, people will no longer believe you follow Christ and mark you as a heathen bound for hell. The Bible gives us some clarity about all this dying business; “So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Romans 8:8-15.”  God adopts us into His family with all our issues, our pasts, our present and our future. He adopts us no matter our background, age, or race. He is definitely an equal opportunity provider of salvation and grace!

Instead of the roots of sin digging itself deeper into every aspect of our life and infecting it with its poison we need to let God dig those up, cast them aside and go after healthy things to grow in our life.  “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. Galatians 5:22-24.” When we truly let our sin nature die, and let Jesus live within us (because they can’t both be there) we will have the same character traits as Jesus Christ! We will have the option to use them and be better prepared to use them as well. Maybe you have trouble being patient, but God has given you some things in life you’ve had to wait for and you’ve learned patience. Later on you may realize that you become more and more patient with people or things around you. That’s you growing! Go YOU! You have let God work through you! But don’t give yourself too much credit because it only takes a moment to ruin things. As Paul says, “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. Galatians 6:14.” We shouldn’t forget who got us this far! God loves us and wants to see us thrive in His will. We may not always be happy because growth hurts sometimes. Just like Jesus being crucified hurt exponentially, allowing our sin (yes even that favorite one) go and not be a part of your life no more hurts and can feel like something is missing so you got to let God fill you and be in You. It may seem like everything is against you, you are right, it is! Your body, the world, even people you may have considered friends but that can’t be compared to the joy and peace that’s within you! “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error. Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. John 4:4-15.”  When we confess Jesus as our Lord and Savior, things change and should! We shouldn’t expect the same thing. We will not have an easy life. We will have to let go of our favorite sins, people may not like us and even betray us, and it may be scandalous but life with God will be an adventure you will never regret. If you want to be a true Christian be prepared because Christ’s story had scandal, betrayal and a killin’, ours probably will too. You must die daily, betray your most basic instinct of sin and go through the trials and temptations of life with others watching you.  Don’t let your story end in defeat but in redemption like Jesus’ story did.