It is Top Ten List time again. Below are the top ten natural and spiritual reasons that caused them to crucify Jesus, in my opinion. With
this list, see how many of these would get “you” condemned and crucified along
with Him if you lived back then. Think about this one thing. If a perfectly righteous man such as Jesus
desires to get crucified, this is a real problem, for how would you pull it off
without ever sinning? I guess you would
need to count on the sin and weaknesses and emotional baggage of others, and
the degree of religiosity they are in bondage to, and the yielded-ness to Satan
that they possess. You realize of
course that if there are ten top reasons, there are probably 80 or 90 more
reasons also, or a top 100. These items below
in my opinion are the top ten. It is
fun to watch the ever-increasing order of importance develop here as you read
these points down to number 1.
And Now, The Top Ten List – Of Things that Led Mankind to Crucify Jesus!
Least important reason:
10 - Jesus was a Jew living in an occupied Roman territory
and Empire where human life was not highly valued.
This alone was not enough to get Him crucified, but it would become ever
so necessary towards the end. That fact
that His people were oppressed and bigotry was rampant against them was a key
to be crucified. Remember, the goal is to be crucified without sinning. We will see this kind of persecution increase as time goes by in
America. Santa Monica, California just
banned their Nativity scene that has been running for 60 years. There are winds of change coming. Could you martyr for Christ some day in
America or somewhere in the world?
9 - He was popular and the Jewish leaders were not. There was a high degree of jealously and
motivation to kill Him. They were like the mean girls in high school. (Or guys :
) They had a clique and he was their target.
They probably gossiped about Him and spread rumors about Him from the
beginning, and so by the time they killed Him, they totally believed all their
own propaganda and felt absolutely justified from 3 years of self-deception and
continual maligning gossip.
8 - His message and delivery was far more interesting. He was about Divine love and hope and He
pointed to Father God all the time and He got people healed. The Jewish leaders had on their itinerary
weekly sermons at Saturday’s Temple Service like this one:
“Ceremoniously Washing Your Pots and Cups!” He was fresh and His message was fresh and the Jewish leaders were in stale and dead
religion. Do we know of any dead
religion out there today? Signs and wonders even today are a smash hit over
carefully prepared sermons, and this is God’s way.
7 - He only told the truth.
In an evil world, that will get you in trouble. There was no political correctness, He spoke
out His mind and let chips fall where they may. Oh, that more people would do this. There was no fear of loss factored into His choice of
comments. You liked Him or you didn’t. I am sure there was never any middle ground
on that. Always do and say what is
right, and not just what people want to hear.
Only temper what you say in God’s
timing and wisdom, and always do it in love.
6 - He outsmarted them with wisdom on every turn. Thinking they would catch Him up about money
and giving, He gave them an answer about Caesar and giving that had no
comeback. He did this over and
over. What a blow to their self
esteem. They must have felt cerebral-ly
more deficient every time they tried it.
They had funny exchanges, like, “Jesus, by what authority do you do these
things?” He fires back a question,
which they strategically decide not to answer. He then says, “Neither then will
I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
Touché.
5 - When Jesus saw a vision or picture in the Spirit of His
opposition in the religious leaders and how they were off course and corrupt,
He spoke it out in truth and described what he saw and it was quite
insulting. As an example, He called
them “whit-ed sepulchers full of dead mans bones.” This was always prophetic and a Holy Spirit unction, and,
dangerous. God will cause you to stand
at times “against the foreheads” of wicked men, in prophetic unction, and
prevail.
4 - He seemingly and overtly defiled their Sabbath over and
over, in their presence. In their
minds, this was blasphemy. But it was
only blasphemy to them because they did not know who He was. You and I know
that Jesus could not defile anything, for He was the Creator of everything, and
had the right to change or do anything.
He kept their laws in His own thinking.
He did not visit the carpenter’s shop on the Sabbath. But He would pull a donkey out of a pit,
using common sense, and He would pick some grain and feed His disciples on the
Sabbath, and He would heal a cripple or cast out a devil on the Sabbath. He then said the Son of man is Lord of the
Sabbath, and that opened it up to the fact that any Born Again person as sons
and daughters of men and as sons and daughters of God would also be lords over the
Sabbath. This created unit here, me, Greg,
is far more significant and credible than that other created unit known as the
day. In God’s mind, as
recreated beings, we are over, in lordship, any day of the week or year. Days bow in subjection to the lordship of God's people.
3 - He turned over the money tables, and He insulted their
very character in doing that.
The Jews train up their children to be frugal and good stewards of money
and to make a profit on everything they do.
This is a high priority in their thinking. Since they were not born again, they had corruption and it even
spilled over into the temple. If you
mess with some people’s money, you will find a hornet’s nest that gets stirred
sufficiently to crucify you. When He
told them on another day that they were breaking the 4th commandment
and not honoring their parents, I am sure that this did not set them to
scheming on His life like the money table incident did. When He did this event,
I am sure it was from His heart, but He also may have calculated that He did
not have enough crucifixion points racked up against Him to get the job
done. I can see Him looking at Peter,
and saying, “watch this.” Then, He
grabbed the whip and went on a Holy tirade.
Peter probably watched in horror and said, “This could get you
killed.” Jesus smiles.
2 - He performed miracles.
His love and huge heart to see people healed and delivered was a big
offense to His enemies, for men just don’t do such things unless they are a
prophet of old, and no one had told them they had a prophet in their midst, so
He was not signed in or registered with them, or endorsed by them, so to speak.
This brought out the worst kind of pride in them. They knew He was of Israel, and a prophet has no honor in His own
village, town or country. Imagine that
a crippled boy comes to the Pharisees for a blessing, and they bless Him and
send Him away, but His next stop is Jesus, and Jesus heals him. I can see the Pharisees frothing at the
mouth. I personally have done the
healing ministry since 1982 and I will say that no one thing has made me more
disliked than healing the sick and walking in the power of God. It will clean out your old group of friends
faster than foul body odor. This fact
about His miraculous life is a huge reason for crucifixion as it no doubt also stirred up the
rulers of darkness and principalities over Israel and Rome more than anything
else. To those beings, no man was going
to get an open Heaven over a region and a people without paying the
consequences. Praise God that when we
now do this, we walk in a greater degree of protection than He did because the
Redemption is now completed.
And… the number one reason of what led them to crucify Jesus; drum
role please… the 1st and the most important!
1 - Jesus obeyed His Father to die on the Cross-by walking
into the hands of demons and weak-minded and easily influenced and lesser
men. The Holy Spirit did not tell them
to crucify Jesus; the devil did that.
God only knew that they would do it and allowed the earth’s stage to be
set up by millennia of clever maneuvering where evil was thinking that they had the upper hand in the matter. Jesus came to do God’s will.
It was prophesied in the Old Covenant and Jesus knew it. I believe that Jesus got a revelation of His
own crucifixion even before that time His parents found Him in the temple with
leaders at 12 years old. He was
obedient unto death. He was the Lamb of
God. This is the first and foremost
reason that He got crucified, because it was the will of the Father, and at 12
years old, He said, “I must be about my Father’s business.” With every part of His being, for all 33
years of His earthly life, He was, in the power of the Holy Spirit, fashioning
His own death, for you and for me. He became the skilled and anointed Master Craftsman of
the work of Calvary, as you have read in these ten points.
There my friends are the top ten reasons that He was
crucified. These are not reasons why He
went to the Cross. That is another
writing for another day. It is no
accident that this writing is completed on Thanksgiving Day. (2012) Thank you Jesus for being so obedient, and
so wise, and so clever, and so sacrificing.
You knew what you were doing, and what it would cost you, and you did it anyway. May we be as loving and obedient to you and
the Father for our generation. If we
perish in the doing, then we perish.
Bless his name forever!
Greg Nichols
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