Tuesday, March 24, 2009

The Last Supper, Part 2 of 15

TEXT: "Then the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council and said, 'What shall we do? For this Man works many signs. If we let Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away our nation.' And one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, 'You know nothing at all, nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish.' Now this he did not say on his own authority, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation. And not for that nation only, but also that He would gather together in one the children of God who were scattered abroad. Then from that day on they plotted to put him to death" (John 11:47-53).

IDEA: The witness of who Jesus is and what Jesus did on the cross often is spoken and given in strange ways.

PURPOSE: To help listeners realize that whenever you hear a testimony about Jesus Christ, that testimony can be a message of salvation or of damnation.

One evening, when he was still a skeptic, C. S. Lewis had a conversation with a friend who was an atheist. The friend said, "Lewis, do you ever wonder if perhaps what the Christians are saying about Jesus Christ is true?" That question raised all kinds of questions in Lewis's mind. Here the comment of an atheist began to move C. S. Lewis from atheism to belief.

I. Sometimes when we least expect it, a witness to Jesus Christ will be given to us from the most unexpected source.

John refers to this in John 11:49-53:

Caiaphas was the high priest and he said "It is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish."

What was he talking about? In essence, John 11:48 says, "You don't know anything at all: it's better to kill Jesus than to have the Romans destroy the Jews." But John sees this as the summation of why Jesus would die (John 11:51-52).

It was an unintended explanation of Christ's death.

II. Sometimes the enemy of Christ speaks truth when he doesn't realize it.

William Ward Ayre, Calvary Baptist Church NYC, and two men in the park.