[0:00] Let's go with me to the book of Matthew, Matthew chapter 26, Matthew chapter 26. Not very many verses this morning, but a very important portion of the passage. Matthew 26 verses 47 through 56 will be our text.
[0:14] Matthew 26 verses 47 through 56. We will be looking at the arrest of the king in our time together this morning. If you remember, we are now in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus has left the upper room.
[0:27] They have sung the Halil, they've sung a praise and worship of Psalm 116 to 118, which is really just a confession of what God has done of redemption.
[0:37] It is a reminder that the Jewish people would sing at the Passover meal so that they would be reminded of their redemption. How sweet it must have been to sing that portion of scripture with not only he who wrote it, because it is the word of God, not the word of man, right?
[0:52] I know that there's an author attributed to most of that, but it is the word of God. So you have the word in the flesh, Emmanuel, singing his own words, but then you also have it singing about himself, about what he has come to fulfill.
[1:06] But they have left the room. They went across the Kidron Valley. They're up there on the Mount of Olives, and they're in Gethsemane, this private garden. And Jesus has exposed the weakness of man because they could not even tarry with him one hour while he prayed.
[1:20] And he was praying, and they were sleeping. And we're picking it up right after that. Three times he has prayed. We know that he has asked the Father that if it is possible to let that cup pass from him, but if it is not possible, that his will would be done.
[1:35] We know that he has petitioned the Father. We know from the other gospel accounts that great sweat drops of blood. And I am a literalist when it comes to scripture, and I believe when it said that he sweat drops of blood, that it was literal blood that came from his brow, that he was in such agony that the blood vessels literally ruptured and started coming through the pores of his skin.
[1:55] And I believe that the weight of man's sin being pressed upon him was almost to the point of being unbearable. Yet he strengthened himself. The scripture tells us that he was strengthened by the angels to the purpose that God had called him to.
[2:10] And all this while, man was sleeping. And he's come to them, and he tells them to get up because he who betrays them is drawing near. And that's where we pick it up because his time of agonizing, his time of seeking an alternative route is over.
[2:27] That is amazing to me, right? It is amazing that in a moment, we don't know how long he prayed. We can read it in just a few short sentences, but we know that it was some time.
[2:37] When he got up from his knees, when he got up from being face down on the ground, prostrate before the Father, when the Son of God got up, his face was set to the cross.
[2:49] No turning back, no doubting. Now he's going to do what the Father has ordained from the foundation of the world that must be done. And now we come to the place where those series of events which were started when Jesus looked at Judas and said, what you do, do quickly.
[3:08] And it tells us in the Gospel of John that Satan moved in Judas, and Judas left the room. Man had been conspiring, but now Satan is bringing these things to pass. And we come to this point in Matthew 26, starting at verse 47.
[3:22] If you are physically able, will you join with me as we stand together and we read the Word of God, found in the 47th verse down to verse 56 of the Gospel of Matthew.
[3:34] While he was still speaking, behold, Judas, one of the twelve, came up accompanied by a large crowd with swords and clubs, who came from the chief priests and the elders of the people. Now he who was betraying him gave them a sign, saying, whomever I kiss, he is the one who sees him.
[3:50] Immediately Judas went up to Jesus and said, hail Rabbi, and kissed him. And Jesus said to him, friend, do what you have come for.
[4:00] Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and seized him. And behold, one of those who were with Jesus reached and drew out his sword and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, put your sword back into its place, for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword.
[4:16] Or do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels. How then will the scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must happen this way?
[4:29] At that time Jesus said to the crowds, have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me as you would against a robber? Every day I used to sit in the temple teaching and you did not seize me.
[4:39] But all this has taken place to fulfill the scriptures of the prophets. Then all the disciples left him and fled. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this day.
[4:50] We thank you for the opportunity. We have come together, together to worship you. Lord, to sing of your praise, to exalt your name. Lord, now as we've come and we have read your word and we have heard your word, we pray that your word would speak to us.
[5:04] Lord, that it would be more than just the sound that our ears receive, but it would be the truth that penetrates to the very core of our being. And we pray that those truths, oh Lord, would shape and mold us and conform us to be more like you.
[5:17] And we ask that it would bring you all the glory and the honor. And we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. We're looking this morning at the arrest of the king. We know what takes place following this arrest.
[5:30] We know that he will be led away. We know that Peter and John will follow him at a distance. We know all of these things. We will get to all of those things as we move forward. We know that immediately following this arrest, he will be subjected to probably six trials if we were to count them accurately.
[5:46] Some Bible scholars will count them as five, but as we go through them, hopefully we will see them as six. We will see them broken down. It doesn't matter if it's five or six, but we know there are a number of trials in which he goes through.
[5:58] Trials as I count them, and we will look at them together, three of the Jewish people and three of the Roman people. We know that at the end of those trials, that it will come to a time of condemnation.
[6:08] He will be mocked. He will be ridiculed. He will be beaten. He will be flogged. All of these things will come about, and then he will be led down a hill. He will be led up down a road, and he will be led up the hill of Golgotha, which we call Calvary, and upon that hill he will be crucified.
[6:24] We know all of these things, but these things could not take place until we get to the arrest of the king, and we see that this morning in our text, and we learn a number of things as it regards this arrest.
[6:36] We have seen from beginning to end how Jesus is in absolute, complete control. If you remember, even in a setting, it is the time of the Passover. If you remember that when the leaders, the religious leaders were conspiring, they made this remark that not during the festival, unless we cause a riot.
[6:53] It wasn't the desire of man to arrest Christ at this time. It wasn't the desire of man to bring these things to happen at this time. They wanted to do it secretly, but yet we know that even though they said not then, Jesus had said it's going to happen then, because that is the very clear word of God as it's portrayed through all of Scripture, and that which has been portrayed through Scripture now is transpiring before our eyes.
[7:17] We see every bit of it being in absolute control of the one who is going through it. Not at one moment is he out of control. Hopefully we will see that in particular when it comes to his arrest.
[7:29] They did not take him away. He went with them away. They did not come and take him. He went with them. That is a big difference.
[7:40] Man never overpowered him. The Savior submitted to them. And we need to understand these realities, because if anyone could ever overpower the Savior, if anyone could ever overpower Christ, and if he is fully man and fully God, then it is a way of saying that man is greater than God and that man can overpower, and that is absolutely an impossibility.
[8:04] Never once was he overpowered. Never once was he overcome. Yet he submitted, and he went, just like the book of Isaiah says, as a lamb to be slaughtered.
[8:15] Remember, when we opened up the book of Matthew, we looked at the reality that Matthew is writing of the King of kings and Lord of lords. And in order for us to rightly understand Matthew, we opened up Matthew in what appeared to be maybe an unlikely place.
[8:28] We opened up the prophet, the book of Isaiah. And we looked at the book of Isaiah, how there was an expectation of a king that would come. And Isaiah gives this expectation of a king.
[8:39] But the expected king would also be a suffering servant. We're seeing these things come about. And we stand in wonder of them, because we realize that it wasn't just for people in the past, but it was for us today.
[8:51] It's for those who will hear. It's for those who will know. So that we can proclaim, just as the Bible itself ends, in the last verses of the book of Revelation, come Lord Jesus, even so come.
[9:08] That there would be this expectation and this longing to meet the one who has done so much for us. To the one who subjected himself for these things because of us.
[9:19] That there would be this growing anticipation. Not the running of our heads, hands through our hair, and kind of the mourning and saying, oh, well we have to do this for Jesus.
[9:29] But rather there would be that we get to do this for Christ. Because we rightly understand what he's done for us. We see at this arrest of the king, number one, it is a time of recognition.
[9:42] It is a time of recognition. And while he was still speaking to them, it says, Judas, one of the twelve, came up. While he was still speaking to them. Remember the verse which precedes this.
[9:53] It says, get up, let us be going. Behold, the one who betrays me is at hand. Again, stand amazed at the reality that Christ knew all things, understood all things, and was in control of all things.
[10:04] We recognize that as we should. And then it says that Judas, identified as he is every time, one of the twelve. We recognize the reality that Judas, who is coming to betray him, Judas, who is leading the multitude to him, Judas, who is bringing those who will try to arrest him, it is Judas, one of the twelve.
[10:26] We recognize the reality that nearness to Christ does not mean oneness with him. Just because you're close, it does not mean you are, right? He is one of the twelve. He may not be one of the three, Peter, James, and John, but he's one of the twelve.
[10:40] He's definitely closer than the seventy. He's closer than the one hundred and twenty. See, we see these numbers throughout Scripture. And being one of the twelve means he was there and he was privy to everything he did.
[10:51] Go to the book of Acts, and when you open up the book of Acts, and Judas is no longer there, and Judas is removed because Judas took his own life. Remember that. And they had to replace Judas because, as they said, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, and it also needs to be fulfilled, and then another would take his place.
[11:05] You remember, right? They're in the opening chapters of the book of Acts, and they cast lots, and they're choosing. And sometimes we say, well, they shouldn't have cast lots. They should have waited on the presence of the Holy Spirit. Well, you're getting ahead of yourself.
[11:16] The Holy Spirit wasn't there yet, and casting lots was an Old Testament thing that they should have done because it says that man casts lots, but God determines its landing, right? So they were literally putting it into the hands of God and saying, who do you want?
[11:27] But remember the qualification. Those two that they put forward said, it had to be someone that was with us from the beginning until the end, someone that was there at his baptism, and someone that was there at his death.
[11:37] It has to be someone who has seen it all, which is a reminder that Judas, being one of the 12, my friend, listen, had seen it all. He had been there. And we recognize the reality, just seeing what Christ does is not enough because this is still the one who's coming in.
[11:57] There are people today who said, well, if I could just see him, if I could just see what God would do, if I could just see him, if he would just manifest himself and make himself known to me, then I would believe.
[12:07] And I argue with that and say, just like Jesus said, even though one come back from the dead, if they will not hear the scriptures, they will not believe that one. Seeing does not necessarily imply believing.
[12:21] We can look at Judas and see this. He saw it all. We recognize this. And yet Judas comes up and it tells us that he's leading this crowd of people, this armed crowd.
[12:34] Never miss that because this shows us that this is more than just a Jewish crowd that is coming because surely the inhabiting empire of the Romans would not have allowed the Jewish people to arm themselves.
[12:46] So we have to put ourselves, here's where we understand the historical setting, right? Rome was so on edge about revolts, especially during the festivals and celebrations, there's no way they would have let Jewish people to arm themselves with swords and clubs.
[13:00] So more than likely, they had the religious kind of court officials, but they also had these Roman officials who were to guard around the temple, the temple guards, if you will, because they are armed and they're with him.
[13:12] We need to understand these things because this helps us to get a greater grasp of the correlation between the gospels we'll get to in just a moment. But it is Judas who is leading there. And it says, and Judas had given them a sign.
[13:24] See that? It says, now he who was betraying him gave them a sign saying, whomever I kiss, he is the one sees him. Many, many years ago, a little bit after I came to Christ, I'll never forget, I heard an evangelist preach.
[13:36] It was at Edgemont Baptist Church in Shelbyville. And I can't even remember what his name was. I heard him preach on the kiss of death. And he preached from this text. And every time I read it, I get that, this kiss of death, that Judas, the one of the 12, betrayed the son of God with a kiss.
[13:52] And it's even more amazing when we understand that this kiss was to be a time of communion with one another, a time of friendship, phileo, right? Philo love, not this feeling love.
[14:07] Philo love is a brotherly love. I'll try to understand this correctly. The city of Philadelphia, right? The city of brotherly love. So we understand that phileo love in scripture is a brotherly love. It is to be united, that a brother would lay down his life for another brother.
[14:18] And it's to have that nearness and that closeness. And this is the very thing which Judas is attempting to portray even as he is betraying the Savior. He is mimicking him or mocking him and saying, I am your friend.
[14:33] And he gives him this false sense of greeting. But here's the greater recognition because Jesus says to him, friend, friend. Now, here's where we stop.
[14:44] Because phileo is the word for friend, deep friend, a good friend that I love as a brother. The way we can look at one another, or we ought to as genuine believers, look at other believers and say, I love you and mean it, right?
[14:58] That I love you as my brother. I love you as my sister. And we ought to have that kind of phileo love for one another. Okay, it has nothing to do with feelings. It has nothing to do, it's not euros.
[15:08] It's not a erotic love. It's a phileo love, right? I love you as a brother. Jesus doesn't use that word. Instead, he uses a totally different word for friend. It's not used very often in scripture.
[15:19] But this word he uses merely means acquaintance. See, Judas is giving him a sign of a brotherly love and Jesus reminds him, you're not a brother to me, you're just an acquaintance of me.
[15:32] Jesus recognized him for what he truly was. I know you as somebody. Someone ever comes to you and say, oh, do you know so and so? And you say, well, I know their name. Or I know of them, but I don't know them, right?
[15:45] People all the time talk to me, oh, do you know so and so? Yeah, I know of them, but I can't tell you that I know them like a brother. I can't tell you that I know them with any kind of intimate knowledge. I know them as an acquaintance or in passing.
[15:56] And I've spoken to them for a time or two, but we're not really close. They don't know much about me and I don't know much about them. We're not even really in the circle of friendship here. We've just passed one another. And this is exactly what Jesus is implying.
[16:08] Think about this. Judas has lived with the Son of God for three and a half years and he just reminds him, we're just mere acquaintances. Because there's the recognition. Again, nearness does not always imply oneness.
[16:25] Remember when Paul wrote to a church to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. He's telling the church to examine oneself and to make sure I'm not just near.
[16:37] I don't want to just be close to the Savior. I want to be one with the Savior. We need to understand who we are. Judas here had put on a front long enough and yet we see Christ saw straight through.
[16:51] It is a time of recognition. The second thing we see during the arrest of the king is it is a time of reaction. It's a time of reaction. It says, So they came to him.
[17:01] What's amazing, and you need to go, you'll see it on your table talk questions if you go through those. And you remember, again, Jesus gives them permission here. Notice this, when Judas comes up and he kisses him and does this, now this is like on cheek to cheek, right?
[17:15] So he kisses both sides of the cheek and he calls him a friend. He calls him rabbi. He doesn't call him Savior. He doesn't call him Master. He doesn't call him Lord. He says, You're a good teacher. And Jesus says, Friend, do what you have come for.
[17:25] Don't miss that. We don't want to skip over that. Jesus gave them permission. He gave them permission. Because if Jesus had not given them permission, no one was going anywhere.
[17:37] John records for us that when they come and Judas comes up, Jesus says, Who are you looking for? And they said, Jesus is Nazarene. I know we've talked about it. He says, I am. If you read it in the English word language, you're going to see it says, I am he.
[17:49] But if you have your Bibles and you're looking at them, the he is often in italics. When he says, I am he, the he is in italics, which means it is not in the original text. Literally what Jesus says is, I am, which is important because when he said, I am, he was proclaiming the name of God.
[18:05] And as soon as he proclaimed the revealed name of God, which God revealed to Moses in the burning bush, then everybody falls down. And then Jesus says, I told you, I am. Get up.
[18:16] Right? Again, he gave them permission. And these are Roman soldiers, not just Jewish leaders, right? These are Roman soldiers, well-trained soldiers. And he tells them who he is and they fall down.
[18:28] He says, get up, you know, do what you came to do. And then we read a little bit further and we remind ourselves of who's here. There's this time of reaction because Matthew tells us, then one of those who was nearby, we read on in verse 51, and behold, one of those who were with Jesus reached and drew out his sword and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear.
[18:46] Here's a reaction. Now, we know, again, from the other gospel accounts that this is Peter. Right? Peter reaches in, takes out his sword and leave it up to Peter to have a sword.
[18:58] There's only two swords with him. Remember in their upper room and Jesus says, you remember how I told you before that go out not to take money belt nor sword nor money bag with you, but just to go out now and tell you to take it. And someone says, here's two swords and he says, it's enough, let us be going.
[19:11] Who gave Peter a sword to begin with? But Peter had a sword, you know, I mean, if he's the guy who's the most reactionary of them all, he has one. I don't know how it works. This is just how I play it out. You know, there's two swords found among the 11 that are left and Peter says, hey, y'all are going to give me one of them because I done told y'all I'm the only one that's going to stay true anyway.
[19:29] He's really self-confident, right? But Peter tries to give this false sense of self-confidence here because as soon as these things start going down, he takes his sword out and he cuts off his ear. Now, you and I know it's his right ear, right?
[19:42] It's his right ear. You don't aim for someone's ear. He missed. He's aiming for his head, his neck. He's trying to, for lack of a better word, and I know we have kids in here, trying to cut man's head off is what he's trying to do.
[19:57] What a reaction. He does it just like that. Jesus stops him. We'll get to all that in just a moment because you have to have the rest of it.
[20:08] Now, we know that Matthew and Mark are very similar in their telling of this. Bible scholars are often in agreement that Mark was a traveling companion of Peter and that he was writing from the sermons of Peter that God used what Peter preached or declared and has Mark, also known as John Mark, the one whom Paul got upset because he abandoned him on his first missionary journey, is traveling around with Peter and he's recording Peter's sermons.
[20:37] So, we're even more astounded that it is Peter himself that tells this account. Peter says, I remember where I was at. I remember what I did. Here we see the reaction of man because when things start going unplanned, when things start going as we did not anticipate them, again, Jesus is in control.
[20:58] The problem is is Peter is not. Jesus knows what's happening and when he should have been awake and praying, he was asleep and waiting and when he should have been preparing, he was sleeping and when he should have been listening, when Jesus says, I am going to be handed over, I will be tried and I will be crucified.
[21:16] He wasn't listening, he was reassuring himself that he was able and see, what we see in this reaction is the effort of man. Peter does the best he can and the best he can is to stand up for his man who is Jesus and the best thing that Peter can do is to react in the moment and the problem with reaction is man's reactions do not bring about God's purposes.
[21:41] Understand that. We do not fulfill or completely fulfill the will and the purposes and the plans of God by reactionary efforts. That is, we do not react and all of a sudden what God wants to bring about comes about.
[21:57] Reactions is a natural instinct but quite often it is not reaction that brings about the purposes of God, rather it is submission which is another way of saying what we want to do in the flesh is not too often the right thing to do because naturally we want to push back against anything that's uncomfortable, anything that doesn't fit our agenda.
[22:20] See, Peter had a different plan. Peter didn't think that the Savior should die. Peter thought the Messiah would reign. Peter knew that according to the book of Isaiah that he would sit upon the throne of David.
[22:32] Peter thought that God's purpose was to rule and to reign and it is. What Peter was missing was the suffering and the dying and Peter wanted nothing to do with that.
[22:45] Reaction does not fulfill the purposes of God which means just to bring it down and to bring an application into our life. When you read the word of God, I didn't say if, I said when, when you read the word of God and you get in the scriptures and God begins to move within your spirit and the Holy Spirit is communing with your spirit and God is talking to you.
[23:12] The way you're going to bring about the purposes of God is not necessarily just reacting to what he's doing but submitting to what he's saying. But I, because I can assure you our natural reactions are usually self-motivated.
[23:31] We want to push back, we want to fight against and the word of God challenges us. God often calls us to do things that run contrary to our reactions.
[23:43] Remember when Jesus says, whoever slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him on the left also. That's not a reaction most of us want to give. Like man, that hurt, here do this one too. Whoever compels you to walk one mile, walk with him too.
[23:54] That's not a reaction that most of us want to give because the compel means when a Roman soldier comes to you and tells you, you have to carry my equipment one mile, Jesus says, go ahead and carry it too because your reaction as a good Jewish individual at that time is, I don't want Rome ruling over me and I for sure don't want to carry all his equipment.
[24:13] Your reaction is to curse those who curse you but what he challenges us is to bless those who curse you. See, the word of God challenges us to submission, not just a reaction and the problem is is that many individuals and many churches believe that we can serve our Savior through reactionary means only.
[24:34] That is, we would just react to the moment. Friend, when we react to the moment, we're often contrary to what God is telling us to do. We need to submit to the Savior and see exactly what it is he wants us to do.
[24:48] We see the reaction here of man. This is a time of reaction. The third thing we see is a time of restoration and this is good because Jesus restores what Peter messed up by reacting.
[25:04] It's a time of restoration. Jesus tells him to put the sword back. We don't get it in the Gospel of Matthew. We get it in the other Gospel accounts. I'm not going to ask you to turn there.
[25:14] You can go read in Luke and you can read in John. Luke tells us what I'm about to proclaim to you. John tells us their name. John tells us that the name of the high priest servant is Malchus. Malchus is the high priest servant.
[25:27] Where is Jesus carried the first time? To the house of the high priest. One of those who question Peter when he betrays him the three times is a relative of Malchus. We understand how everything is kind of interwoven here.
[25:40] What we see here is at this moment when Peter reacts and Jesus stops the reaction and reminds him that Peter has completely misunderstood the purposes and plans of God God did not come to fight a battle God came to die for man's sins to fight a spiritual battle not a physical battle and Peter's reaction is running contrary to that so he stops him but that hasn't cleared the mess up yet because I got a question for you if you're coming with a group of soldiers and there's a man with a sword who cuts the ear off of someone else are you just going to leave him alone?
[26:13] Have you ever thought about that? How's Peter even walk away to begin with? And these are Roman soldiers people trained for battle the Romans were known for their brutality that's when we come to the flogging of Christ we don't need to read that lightly they're known for their brutality they're known for their defense they were known kind of like the navy seals of the warfare of that day and if someone pulls a sword and attempts to kill another individual and there's only two swords among the twelve that are over there because Jesus is now counted with the eleven there's only twelve there's two swords there and you have a whole crowd here of people with swords and clubs and one of them cuts another guy's ear off how does he even get away?
[26:58] well the reason he gets away is because Jesus restores his mess Jesus stops them tells him to put the sword up they didn't even take the sword away from him did you see that?
[27:10] Jesus said put the sword down and then it tells us in the gospel of Luke and Jesus reached out and healed his ear he healed his ear he put it back on because all that Peter messed up by reacting Jesus restores by miraculous efforts even at the moment of his arrest when things are going as bad as they can go as far as the world is concerned he who has done no wrong is now being falsely accused and being led away but he still has time to restore what man has messed up by their efforts and he restores it and this restoration this pause in the middle of the chaos this restoration is quite possibly the only thing that keeps Peter alive because if he had not done anything surely Peter would have at least been arrested surely Peter would have been carried away and more than likely since this is the slave of the high priest and it is the high priest who has orchestrated all of these events surely Peter would have been executed but see
[28:19] Jesus not only restores Malchus' ear but Jesus enables it for a further restoration of Peter's denial Peter would have never got to the restoration that comes after the resurrection had it not been for Jesus intervening the truth of the matter is we would never know how many times or how often the Savior has restored what we have messed up by our efforts and his restoration is the very thing that enables us to live until the moment where he redeems us completely if we look back on our life and we see the work that he has done through my own efforts and through my own abilities so many things I have messed up so many times I've pulled a sword and I've messed up and cut somebody's ear off not literally I haven't really done that okay I don't even have a sword but so many times I've been just like Peter and I've reacted in the ways I thought was best and in the end what I was doing what I thought was best was actually contrary to what God was trying to do and in my reactions I had made a mess and the end results of my reactions would be surely my own detriment it would be to the death of me it would be to bring me to the place where there would be no hope but yet we see the
[29:28] Savior stepping in and restoring our faults and he does it not only in compassion of those we've hurt but in compassion expressed towards us to enable us to come to a greater day of restoration we see that over and over again it's amazing even before I came to Christ how often I can look back and see how Jesus restored so much of what I had faulted and messed up by my own actions and he had brought me to a place where I could be renewed this is a time of restoration fourth and finally we see not only is it a time of recognition a time of reaction a time of restoration at the arrest of the king we see this as a time of restraint it's a time of restraint probably the greatest testimony that we see here during this moment is a testimony that Christ gives to Peter when Peter reacts he tells him to put his sword down and he says in verse 53 or do you think that I cannot appeal to my father and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels see with that question
[30:38] Jesus is saying Peter do you think that I'm not in control of this do you think that I lack the ability to redeem myself do you think that I lack the strength to set myself free do you not know Peter that if I wanted to if I wanted to all I would have to do is ask and I would not have to go through this meekness has been defined as strength under control there are two men in scripture that are referred to as being meek and it is Moses Jesus not weak but meek absolute perfect strength under control Jesus reassures Peter and all those that are present that if I so desired I could be free at any moment from anything that is transpiring not only himself but he said twelve legions that would be a legion for each of those
[31:43] Jesus and the other eleven we would all have a legion of angels around us many people went back and forth on the number but a legion was somewhere around two thousand Roman soldiers he is not giving a literal number here he is saying there would be more than enough angels to come set us free that all of the power and all of the strength and all the ability even of the Roman empire would not be enough to hold back what I could call out and he is reminding Peter that he is not operating by weakness but by!
[32:09] He is operating in a time of restraint we stand amazed because what he could have done he did not do what he could have done he would not do he did not do what he could do so that he may be able to do what none of us would be able to do what he could have done he did not do so that he may do what none of us can do he says how then will the scriptures be fulfilled which say that it must happen this way Jesus here reminds Peter that these things are not happening because of my lack of ability these things are happening because of my submission to the word of God what God has declared will come about see my friends sometimes God calls his people to live in moments of restraint what we can do we must not always do because it is not our abilities which must determine our reactions but it must be the scripture alone it must be the very word of
[33:13] God that tells us what it is we should do and sometimes that declaration is that we will operate in moments of restraint that we would keep from doing what we could do!
[33:26] so that we we see here that this is a time of restraint Jesus in absolute complete control refused to do what he could so that he may do what we could not and he reminds us this is how it has to be even the place and the setting of his arrest he reminded them every day I used to sit in the temple and teaching and you did not seize me but all this has taken place to fulfill the scripture of the prophets then all disciples left him and fled here is the arrest of the king even at this critical moment he's in absolute control man seems to be out of control but he even responds to man's lack of control and restores what man has messed up it is submission to the word and submission to the word alone which brings about the will of god let's pray we thank you for this day we thank you for your word god we thank you for the challenges that it poses to us we pray that you would be with us now that we would be people who submit to your word lord that we would serve you not by the best of our efforts but by the greatness of our submission that we would say have your own way oh god and do what only you can do we ask it all in jesus name amen so
[35:51] Thank you.