Who's Really on Trial?, Part 1

Today from Chuck Swindoll. The Gospel writer named Matthew painted a colorful picture of Jesus' final week on earth. It includes a shocking sequence of painful events, such as the betrayal of Peter, the desertion by his disciples, and a series of six bogus trials in which Jesus was dragged before the authorities on false charges. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll invites us to enter into these dramatic scenes. In doing so, our love for Jesus grows deeper as we engage in the suffering He endured on our behalf.

Chuck titled today's message, Who's Really on Trial? We are working our way through the Gospel by Matthew and have come to the 26th chapter. The last few verses that appear in this chapter are of our interest today. And these verses turn our attention to the dark part of the whole story of our Savior's passion, suffering, and death.

If we forget the bright part of it having to do with the benefits that come our way, we will be lost in the misery and the torturous experiences that were His. So we want to do both as we look at the story as it unfolds. I'm looking at Matthew 26, beginning at verse 57 down to the end of the chapter. I'll read excerpts from these verses. At this point, Jesus is now taken on trial, and He begins what will be not one or two trials, but in fact six, all of them illegal, not one of them proving Him guilty, but all of them resulting in His being crucified at Golgotha, the place of the skull. But this begins the story after He has been taken under arrest and takes us into this trial that takes place in Caiaphas's court.

So we're looking at it. I have my Bible open to Matthew 26, 57. I'm reading from the New Living Version, and your Bible may read a little differently, but basically it will coincide well.

The New Living Translation is a little bit more easily heard when it is read in a public gathering like this. Matthew 26, 57. And the entire high council were trying to find witnesses who would lie about Jesus so they could put Him to death.

But even though they found many who agreed to give false witness, they could not use anyone's testimonies. Finally, two men came forward who declared, this man said I'm able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days. Verse 69.

Meanwhile, Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. A servant girl came over and said to him, you were one of those with Jesus the Galilean. But Peter denied it in front of everyone. I don't know what you're talking about, he said. Later, out by the gate, another servant girl noticed him and said to those standing around, this man was with Jesus of Nazareth. Again, Peter denied it, this time with an oath. I don't even know the man, he said. A little later, some of the other bystanders came over to Peter and said, you must be one of them. We could tell by your Galilean accent. Peter swore, a curse on me if I am lying.

I don't know the man. And immediately the rooster crowed. Suddenly, Jesus' words flashed through Peter's mind.

Before the rooster crows, you will deny three times that you even know me. And he went away weeping bitterly. I've often thought how grateful I am that the Lord no longer records his word. How thankful I am that all of that ended at the end of the first century.

Because who knows how many of our names would appear in places where we have failed. It so happens in Peter's case, it is here for all of us to witness and down through the centuries for everyone to work over. I hope that in the presentation this morning, you will come away not so much with a dislike for Peter, but in fact, a compassion for the man in his worst moment, which is recorded for us here, Matthew 26. But far more importantly, with what our Savior suffered on our behalf. You're listening to Insight for Living. To study the book of Matthew with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scripture studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies.

And now the message from Chuck titled, Who's Really on Trial? Most people have never made a serious study of the life of Jesus. Even critics, even cynics, as they attack and make their statements which sound so forceful and often convincing, would often have to confess that they've never really made a study out of the Scriptures of the person of Jesus. It was many years ago I was serving a church up in the Boston area and was invited to appear on a sort of a panel discussion, which was held over the radio and people called in to talk with us about various subjects that related to the Bible. And the subject of the day happened to be the person of Christ. There were three others on the panel that I served on. One was a professor at a local university, not a Christian school, but he happened to be a Christian scholar. The second was the host of the show, who was himself a believer. The third was a leader on the campus nearby, I think either InterVarsity or Campus Crusade, I forget. And he was one of the four, and then I was there serving as a panelist, as a local pastor. We got a lot of calls. In fact, there were times that all the lights were on for representing calls coming in.

We were not able to take them all. But I noticed the longer we were there for that hour, hour and a half, maybe as long as two hours, the very same kind of thought kept washing around in my head that people who are asking these questions, while they are some of them speaking with such critical words regarding Jesus, lack information about him, because they were referring to things that I'd never heard of in my life. And I made a lifetime study of his life. And for the life of me, didn't know where some of them had come up with the things that they were mentioning. So toward the end of the broadcast, I began asking everyone I could talk to, have you ever made on your own a study of the life of Jesus from the Bible? Have you ever gone to one of the four sources of those who walked with him, who knew him, who wrote of him in what's called the gospel accounts? And would you believe not one, I got to give them high marks for honesty, not one of them admitted he or she had ever made a serious study of Jesus from the scriptures. That is easy to do in our day in which everybody has an opinion, but often it isn't based on original sources or facts that can be backed up.

Giving us those opinions, as I read somewhere not long ago, everybody has a right to his opinion, but no one has a right to his own facts. And if you want to get the facts about the truth, the best place to go is the Bible. Now obviously many people don't believe the Bible, which undercuts the information that is of the greatest value to anyone who wants to know about Jesus. This is true when it comes to the ending of his life. I've noticed that most Christians tend to jump from the Garden of Gethsemane to his death at Golgotha.

In Gethsemane to Golgotha, most have never made a serious study of what transpired between his arrest in the garden and his death on the cross. I find that a fascinating reality because so much is contained both in history and in the legality of his day as it relates to the trials. For example, there's a surprise to many here that there wasn't one or two hearings, there were six.

You can even call them six trials. Three of them were Jewish and three of them were Roman. The reason it didn't stop with the Jewish trials is because the Jews were not allowed under Roman authority to carry out capital punishment. That required the Romans to approve that, which explains why he would ultimately have to stand before Pilate, who was a representative of the Roman government. None of the Jews had the right to take him to the cross. Had the Jews killed him, he would have been stoned or strangled or drowned. He wouldn't have been crucified. Crucifixion was a Roman punishment. All of that is found when you do a study of the trials and the events surrounding the death of Christ. You realize that he was declared not proven guilty, but declared guilty of crimes he never committed, that he endured punishment that should never have been inflicted. Furthermore, he went through a death that he did not deserve, and the most excruciating form of death ever devised by humanity.

Now all of this is the horizontal perspective, and when you look at only that, it's all dark. Our response could easily be, how cruel, how unfair. But when you bring in the theological, when you bring in the vertical, you realize that this is the fulfillment of his earthly mission. Unlike all of us who come to live, he came to die. In fact, he dies at the age of 33 before most people who live and die, die on this earth. He had fulfilled his mission, which explains why he would say on the cross, it is finished.

Mission accomplished. His death made possible this marvelous provision of our salvation. Charles Rari, the late theologian, writes in his study bible, here is the heart of the gospel. The sinless savior has taken our sins that we might have God's righteousness. Maybe you never thought of that before, but had he not borne our sins, we would never know the privilege of gaining God's righteousness.

It's called the doctrine of imputation. By the death of Christ and our believing in Jesus, God graciously imputes to us his own righteousness in place of our unrighteousness. He who knew no sin became sin on our behalf, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. So the trade-off is magnificent when you look at it vertically. Without that vertical perspective, it's all a tragedy.

It's all heartbreakingly cruel. But the moment of salvation, God grants the believing sinner his righteousness because of what Christ did on our behalf. He was, as the baptizer put it, the lamb of God who took away the sins of the world. And by doing that, we are not then forced to pay for our own sins because Christ has done that on our behalf.

We find ourselves surrounded by and smothered in the grace of God where we get what we don't deserve and how grateful we are for that. And now we go from that good news back to the awful horizontal scene of the dark part of the story as we look at two men on trial, actually. One is Jesus, whose trial is public, albeit all of them are illegal, should never have been held at night. There should never have been violence in a courtroom. Of course, they should never have those who would lie brought in as witnesses.

These who met as the council knew the code of the Jewish law, but it deliberately ignored it. But because he was there on trial to pay for our sins, he did not fight it. He did not resist it. Remember, it was at Gethsemane he won the victory over whose will would have the way, and that would be the will of the Father, not my will, but yours be done. And because of that, when Christ went on trial, it wasn't a fight or a struggle for him, although it was excruciatingly painful. The other one on trial is Peter. Remember the words of Jesus to Peter?

Before the rooster crows this very night, you will have denied me three times. And Peter, with great dogmatism, says, though all these others may desert you, I will never desert you. And he spoke too soon, because within a matter of a very short period of time, as we will see in this study, he denies him exactly as Jesus said he would, not once, not twice, but three times. Let's pick up the trial at verse 57 here in Matthew 26. Turn in your Bibles there, and we will look at both men on trial, one of them hiding away, that's Peter, the other is in public, and that's Jesus. The people who had Jesus arrested led him to the home of Caiaphas, the high priest.

By the way, when we come back to this study, a week after next, I'm going to give you a chart I put together that offers the times of these events, and also will give you the events themselves, one after another, front and back of the same sheet, so you'll be able to track the events that seem to sort of run together. For example, no one gospel writer covers all six trials. You have to go from one to another. If we were to go to John's gospel, we would pick up the first trial, which was held before a man named Annas, A-double-N-A-S. Annas is a former high priest of the Supreme Court of the Jews, called the Council. Annas is out of office, but his son-in-law, Caiaphas, is now in office. And Caiaphas now acts as the high priest and serves in that capacity. And he holds the second trial, which is the one that Matthew begins with here in verse 57. Follow along, will you?

The people who had him arrested led him to the home of Caiaphas, the high priest, where the teachers of religious law and the elders had gathered. Now, if I figure correctly, and I've worked on it tediously, this is about three o'clock in the morning. Okay?

Think about it. Three o'clock in the morning. And there's a trial being held in the home of Caiaphas. The Jewish Code states the members of the court may not alertly and intelligently hear the testimony against the accused during darkness.

Period. Clearly stated that there was to be no trial at night. Last time I checked, three o'clock in the morning.

It's dark. Interesting, isn't it, that all of them found their way to Caiaphas' home ready for the trial. Normally, people are not up at three o'clock. Certainly not sitting at a trial where a notorious criminal like Jesus is the one being accused. But they're all there sitting before Caiaphas, the high priest. It's obviously the result of a conspiracy. They weren't there to find out the facts. They were there to rush to judgment. To declare him guilty and to put him to death.

They wanted to get rid of him. So all of this is mockery. This is a kangaroo court. In fact, the code further stated before the verdict would be given, hear this, the council was to eat light food, drink light wines and sleep well in their homes and once again return to hear the testimony against the accused. Then and only then were they to vote.

They knew the code, but they didn't go home and spend those two days resting and waiting before the verdict would be cast. They're ready to cast the verdict right now. Remember, their goal is to get him on a cross. To get rid of him.

And they are pushing for that at every cost. So Jesus is on this kind of trial. I like the way Matthew eases into Peter's setting. We read in verse 58, meanwhile, Peter followed at a distance and came to the high priest's courtyard. He went in and sat with the guards and waited to see how it would all end. Peter has fled in the darkness out of the Garden of Gethsemane along with all the other disciples not wanting to be known as one of the followers of Jesus for fear of his own life.

He does not want to be identified. Chuck Swindoll is setting the stage for a message that continues Thursday and into Friday as well. You're listening to Insight for Living. Chuck titled this study in Matthew chapter 26, Who's Really on Trial?

And to explore a variety of resources available on this study, please visit us online at insightworld.org. If you've been with us from the beginning when this brand new teaching series started, you can truly feel the momentum growing as we near the conclusion of Matthew's gospel. To that end, I'll remind you Chuck wrote a full length commentary that parallels this teaching series. It starts in Matthew chapter 1 with the genealogy of Jesus and ends in chapter 28 with his Great Commission. The commentary comes in two volumes and it's called Swindoll's Living Insights on Matthew. And you can purchase your copy right now by calling us. If you're listening in the U.S., dial 1-800-772-8888 or go to insight.org slash offer. When you decide to give a donation to support Insight for Living, you can be confident that your investment truly makes a difference.

Let me give you an example. Someone from New Mexico wrote a note that said, Chuck, my life eerily parallels David's. My life was riddled with sin including adultery and alcoholism for a long time.

I hid it well from everyone except God. And then this listener added, Chuck, at my lowest moment, I read your book on David. I'm happy to tell you I've been sober for nearly five years now and found my way back to Christ. Thank you and the entire team at IFL. Well, it's encouraging to hear how God is working in ways we never expected. And it's your gift to Insight for Living Ministries that enables us to touch lives like this one. So thank you for giving generously as God prompts you to do so.

If you're listening in the U.S., call 1-800-772-8888. Or to give a donation online, go to insight.org. . In March 2022, Insight for Living Ministries is hosting an unforgettable journey to Israel, carefully planned to deepen your understanding of the Bible and draw you closer to God.

Chuck Swindoll. For thousands of years, no place has been more meaningful to God's children than the land of Israel. The rugged landscape reminds us to find refuge in God alone. The fertile valleys invite us to follow our shepherd. Jerusalem's position at the very center of the world announces the good news of Christ to every nation. And now you can see Israel with Chuck Swindoll and Insight for Living Ministries March 6 through 17, 2022. Every time I visited the Holy Land, I returned home with a refreshed heart for God and a renewed vision for the world.

Really, I mean it every time. And so I want you to have the same life-changing experience. For more, go to insight.org slash events.

Or call this number 1-888-447-0444. Insight for Living Ministries Tour to Israel is paid for and made possible by only those who choose to attend. Tomorrow Chuck Swindoll continues his message about Peter's denial of Jesus.

Be sure to join us Thursday to hear Insight for Living. The preceding message, Who's Really on Trial?, was copyrighted in 2017 and 2021. And the sound recording was copyrighted in 2021 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.