Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev19970504.htm

MATTHEW: JESUS AS ISRAEL'S MESSIAH AND HIS MESSIANIC KINGDOM
Part XII: The Postponement Of Messiah's Kingdom
C. The Passion Of The King
3. God's Permission For Atrocious Events To Occur As Wake Up Calls To His People
(Matthew 27:1-10)
  1. Introduction
    1. Every now and then, an atrocity occurs either on the national or local levels that shocks believers. It can be the mass suicide in Jamestown or the bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City or the appointment of a gay minister as its Plummer Professor of Christian morals at Harvard.
    2. There is a divine purpose involved in God's allowing such atrocities as we learn from the atrocious events surrounding Judas Iscariot's death.
  2. God's Permission For Atrocious Events To Occur As Wake Up Calls To His People, Mtt. 27:1-10.
    1. After Jesus had been taken captive and was led away to be put to death, Judas Iscariot who had betrayed Him had second thoughts about what he had done, and tried to undo it, Mtt. 27:1-4a:
      1. Following the capture and illegal nighttime trial of Jesus by the Sanhedrin (Walvoord, Matthew, p. 226), Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus had a change of mind about his awful deed, Mtt. 27:1-3a.
      2. Judas had not intended Jesus to be put to death by the betrayal as Mtt. 27:3b implies. Though he didn't believe that Jesus was the Messiah according to Christ's Word in John 17:12, Judas nevertheless had not planned on putting him to death, for he knew Jesus was at least not guilty of that punishment, 27:3b-4a.
      3. Accordingly, he came to the religious leaders who paid him the betrayal money, desiring that they take the money back so he could get out of the "deal" and assuage his conscience, Mtt. 27:3b-4a.
    2. When the religious leaders refused to back out of the betrayal deal, Judas took the thirty pieces of silver and cast them down in the temple, feeling too guilty to keep this "blood money" anymore, Mtt. 27:4b-5 a.
    3. Judas then went out and attempted suicide by hanging himself. However, this attempt failed as the rope apparently broke, and his body fell over a cliff beneath the tree branch and burst his bowels out in a ho rribly violent death, Mtt. 27:5b; Acts 1:18.
    4. Concerned about using "blood money" in the temple as that clearly violated Mosaic law, the religious leaders picked up Judas' thirty pieces of silver and bought a potter's field full of holes dug by potters as easy burial spots for the poor, Mtt. 27:7-8.
    5. This incredibly bleak, tragic series of events seems almost a sorry waste of space in the Gospels were it not for the insight offered that it fulfilled the purposes of God as a wake up call to His people:
      1. Matthew notes that the thirty pieces of silver being used to buy the potter's field fulfilled Zechariah 11:12-13 regarding the Messiah's rejection by Israel.
        1. Matthew claims that the prophet Jeremiah spoke these words that are written in Zechariah 11:12-13, and some have used this to imply the Scripture is errant, that Matthew had a slip of memory!
        2. However, the prophecy of Jeremiah in the Hebrew canon stands at the head of the prophetic role, and in keeping with Jewish practice, often the name of the first book of the section is given as the name for the whole segment. A similar case appears in Luke 24:44 where the book of Psalms is mentioned for the entire third section of the Hebrew canon. It is like the term "Washington" in a journalistic report being used to refer to the official position of the United States nation on an issue!
      2. The prophecy in Zechariah 11:12-13 deals with God's effort to shame and shock Israel into realizing the horrible position it has taken in rejecting the true Messiah:
        1. Messiah is pictured asking for his wages when rejected after serving as Israel's shepherd, 11:8-12.
        2. The "goodly price" was that of a gored slaved, not even of a freeman, cf. Ex. 21:32 (Unger, Zechariah, p. 199). It was a vindictive amount intended to describe pure hatred for Jesus.
        3. In the Zechariah prophecy, further to shock the people, God ordained that the money not be used by Messiah, but be cast down in the temple and spent to buy a lowly potter's field, Zec. 11:13; Ibid.
        4. Thus, God ordained in this prophecy to shock the onlookers as a wake up call to repent!
Lesson: If seemingly unalterable atrocities occur in the international, national or even local or church levels, they are divinely-permitted signals that a PROBLEM exists, and it's time to FIX it or ELSE!