June 6, 2017 Show with Marcus “Mike” McKnight on “The Arrest & Trial of an Innocent Man: An Examination of Christ’s Arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane & His Subsequent Trial & Execution”

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MARCUS “MIKE” McKNIGHT III, Esq., the majority shareholder of the Carlisle Pennsylvania, Law Firm of Irwin & McKnight, P.C., recipient of an undergraduate degree in 1974 from Drew University of Madison, NJ, cum laude with specialized honors in economics & a Juris Doctor in 1977 from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association & the Cumberland County Bar Association, active member in the Carlisle Rotary Club, past president of both the Cumberland County Bar Association & Carlisle Rotary Club, member of the West Shore Evangelical Free Church in Mechanicsburg, PA, & function speaker for CBMC (“Christian Business Men’s Connection”), who will address: “The ARREST & TRIAL of an INNOCENT MAN: An Examination of CHRIST’s Arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane & His Subsequent Trial & Execution”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister
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George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,
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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.
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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.
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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.
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Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon,
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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet
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Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this sixth day of June 2017, and it's been a long time coming, but I am so delighted to have for the very first time on Iron Sharpens Iron someone who has become a local friend of mine,
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Marcus Mike McKnight III, attorney at law. He is the majority shareholder of the
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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, law firm of Erwin McKnight PC. He is a recipient of an undergraduate degree in 1974 from Drew University of Madison, New Jersey, cum laude, with specialized honors in economics and a jurist doctor in 1977 from the
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University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He's a member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association and the
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Cumberland County Bar Association, an active member of the Carlisle Rotary Club, and past president of both the
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Cumberland County Bar Association and the Carlisle Rotary Club. He's a member of the West Shore Evangelical Free Church in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and he's a function speaker for a
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CBMC, which stands for Christian Businessman's Connection. Today he is going to be addressing the arrest and trial of an innocent man, an examination of Christ's arrest in the
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Garden of Gethsemane, and his subsequent trial and execution. And this was a message that Marcus gave at a recent
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Christian Businessman's Connection luncheon, and I was so taken aback and blessed by it and moved by it that I wanted
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Marcus to share with you as much as he can during the limited time frame that we have on today's program what he has spoken of in regard to the arrest and trial of Jesus Christ.
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And it's my honor and privilege for the very first time to welcome you into the studio of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Mike McKnight.
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It is a pleasure to be here. And I'm sorry I had your microphone on mute there, Mike, sorry about that.
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It is a pleasure to be here. And in studio with me is my co -host, the
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Reverend Buzz Taylor. Well, let's see if I'm doing any better than you are. Yes, I'm on the air too. All right, great. Good to have you with us.
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Thank you. And if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question for Mike McKnight, our email address is
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ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.
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And please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you are living outside of the
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USA. Well, as I typically do, Mike, especially when I have a listener on for the first time,
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I have them relate to our listeners a little bit of their own personal background, the religion of their youth, if any, and what providential circumstances the
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Lord used to draw you to himself and save you. Well, my story is a fairly simple one.
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I was raised in southern New York County in a little town called Spry, just south of the city of York.
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And my parents were very devout Christians. In fact, Dad was so devout that he would organize family devotions every night, which was never optional as I grew up.
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So we went to church at American Baptist Church in Carlisle. And it was a sound biblical church at that point.
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And as I grew up and started to enter my teenage years, I knew that the religion of my parents was not mine because I was very much into wanting to be accepted by my peers.
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I was not a great athlete. I was an average student because I was a little bit on the lazy side.
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And so I had joined organizations like Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, and in Spry, we had a tremendously large and very successful Boy Scout troop.
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And the leader, as his boys got older, announced when I was 13 that he was forming an explorer post.
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And he invited some younger Scouts, of which I was one, to join on a trial basis.
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And the trial was, go to Pine Grove Furnace in Cumberland County, and we're going to walk overnight 20 miles to Caledonia State Park.
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And I was so pleased to do this, but I was totally ill -prepared. And my parents, at that stage in their lives, didn't provide me a lot of good advice.
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My dad said, well, you know, there's snakes out there. So I decided I'd wear my
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Sunday shoes on this hike. And my mom said, I don't want you to starve to death, so here are all these cans of meat and baked beans.
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And they filled my new pack with about 40 or 50 pounds of foodstuffs that I could share with all my friends.
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I did not realize that if I had trouble lifting the pack, it's going to be hard to travel 20 miles with it on my back.
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But I soon found out that first evening. But I somehow survived that. And the next morning when we got up, several of the younger guys said to the leader, hey, can we head out before you're ready?
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Just an advanced group on this Appalachian Trail. And he said, look, don't get lost.
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Only an idiot can get lost in the Appalachian Trail. There are white markers all through. So go ahead.
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And I wanted to go with that first group because I had some friends with him. But one guy needed help with this pack, and so I decided to stay behind and help him.
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And we started out, just the two of us, following the first group with the leader and the rest of the explorers behind us.
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Well, about mid morning, I was about played out. The pack was heavy. It was tough.
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My feet were sore. And I just knew that if I failed in this effort, I'd be humiliated by the leader and by the rest of the guys.
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So I had been in church all my life, and I decided if there's really a
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God I was going to pray, Lord, please help me. I can't do this on my own. And sure enough, after a brief rest,
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I got my second wind somehow. And we went through this section of the woods in which all the trees had white markers and past trails going everywhere.
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And I figured, Lord, somehow get me through this safely on the right side of the trail.
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And he did. And we got through that and got to the rendezvous point. And the first group was missing.
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They were gone. And when the main group of scouts that arrived, the leader said, where are these other guys?
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He said, don't know, haven't seen them. So we went down to Caledonia, and it was obvious that they were totally lost.
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They had gotten lost in that maze of trees that were probably going to be clear cut. And so they had gone down the wrong trail.
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They were totally lost in the mountains. And so search parties were organized and so on.
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And late that night, well after midnight, it was dark. This small group of scouts tumbled into the
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Caledonia. And sure enough, the leader, he was scared in retrospect, but he really tore into those guys.
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And I never saw him again in scouting. But I was accepted into the group. But I was changed because I had asked
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God for help. And he had helped me and he had done exactly what I feared would happen to me to another group of guys who got lost and got totally.
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And that whole thing changed me in the sense that suddenly I said to myself, if God is real, if he can reach down and hear my prayer as weak as it was, then
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I'm going to start paying attention and being serious about this religion of my parents. And suddenly the pastor made sense.
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Not only did I participate in all the services and family devotions more actively, but I started to have my own devotions at night.
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And it was basically a prayer session, pouring my heart out as a young teenager to God. And I began to witness to my brethren, to fellow students or friends of mine at school.
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And three years later, I'd been praying that the Lord would lead me to a girl who
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I could date and really enjoy. And I met this lovely girl. Her name was
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Liz. She wasn't going to church. So I decided the Lord put on my heart to witness to her.
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But if she rejected what I said, I would then end the relationship with her. I poured my heart out and she looked at me and she said,
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I've never thought about those things. And she decided this part of our dating routine, we would come to church together.
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She'd come to my church and she eventually became a believer. We dated six years and we were married in 1974 after college.
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And we've been married ever since. Praise God. And is that American Baptist congregation still in Carlisle?
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It's in York. And yes, it still exists. It's still a really good church. In fact, they've moved a bit out of town, but they still keep in touch with my father, who's 92 years old and a devout member of that congregation.
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Yeah, well, it's a blessing that it's still faithful to the truth, because as you may know, the denomination of American Baptist has drifted very far to the left probably since then.
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And we thank God that there are those remnant churches and those denominations that hang on to the truth.
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And so when was it in your life that you had some kind of a thought in your head?
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I don't know how strong of an urge it was, but at some point you said, I'm going to go to law school and become a lawyer.
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Well, my wife claims that my mom was whispering to me in the cradle. That sounds about right.
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It turns out my mom was the guidance counselor at the high school I attended, Dallastown High School. And it was always in our thoughts that I'd become a lawyer.
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I grew up watching Perry Mason. I was always amazed that people confessed to crimes who were in the audience, which is unlike reality that I'm used to.
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And Perry Mason could somehow solve a case in the hour time frame that he was given. And real life isn't quite that easy.
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But when I went to Drew University, we had a wonderful economics professor, and I fell in love with economics and really thought hard about going into the banking industry after college.
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But I'd spent time in Europe as a junior abroad. And when
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I interviewed with some New York banks, some of the interviewees or interviewers said to me, you know, you're a nice guy.
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We really don't like nice guys in our profession. We want people who are ruthless, who have very little.
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And this is the 1970s, of course. And so they said, why don't you go to law school? And I said, yeah,
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I'll go. So I applied to several schools. Pittsburgh accepted me first.
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And that's where I went, thinking the big city had more to offer. But it was really neat.
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When I graduated from law school, I found what I interviewed in places like York, Pittsburgh, and also
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Carlisle, where my grandfather lived. He was the original Marcus. I got some interviews in Carlisle and found this firm, the
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Irwin firm, that were all believers. And I didn't know such a thing existed. And they didn't believe a
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Christian could come out of the law school at the University of Pittsburgh. So it was a mutual love fest when we met each other.
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And they did offer me a job. And I've been in that location ever since with a firm, first as an associate, then as a junior partner, then as a partner.
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And finally, in 2009, I accepted the responsibility of owning the business.
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Well, praise God for that. It's always good to have a good, solid Christian attorney nearby. And you were at one time an elder at Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, where I am a member.
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And now you're a member of the West Shore Evangelical Free Church in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Tell us something about that congregation.
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Well, it's a large congregation. Each Sunday probably between 1 ,500 and 2 ,000 attend worship services.
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There are two identical services. But the key to the church itself is there's a
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Sunday school called Fellowship Groups in which you get to know each other. I'm part of a group called the Vineyard.
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And then you're encouraged to join groups, prayer groups of men. I'm part of one of those located here in Carlisle.
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And then also life groups, which are couples or a mixed group of men and women.
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And we meet every other Sunday night. And we usually discuss the sermons we've heard in the morning or other issues that have come up that need discussed.
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But that's where you get to know each other. That's where you get to share concerns, prayer concerns, and life experiences with each other.
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And in a sense, you can get even much closer than the traditional churches I've been part of because you're in close contact with these people on a regular basis.
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And last but not least, tell us about CBMC, the Christian Businessmen's Connection, and what specific role you play with them.
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Well, first of all, I've always believed in the need for each individual Christian to be someone capable of sharing their faith with those around them, whether it's in the workplace or in the church or in the community itself.
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So I've always believed in that. I've always been part of groups for years that either share
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Bible studies on a weekly basis, or I'm always looking for opportunities to witness to people.
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That was true when I was at Grace, and it's true now. And that's because, in part, the
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Lord blessed my initial effort at a serious evangelism with my now wife.
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And time and time again, He's shown me that sharing your faith when it's important to you is the most critical thing that you can do in this life because life is so short.
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So I've believed in that. And CBMC is a group of businessmen in a particular community that meets on a weekly basis, and then they have scheduled outreaches in which people come in either from the outside or from within the group, and they give messages that are designed to encourage people to think more about Christ and about joining local churches and joining the effort of CBMC to make known
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Christ to those around them. People are perishing, and there are essential things that we can do to reach out to them.
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And the Holy Spirit is the guiding force, of course, in all that we do. We don't think that we have any magic ways of doing things, but it's the
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Holy Spirit that makes the words that we present to be effective.
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And it's that kind of thing. And I was first asked to speak at an outreach by the local
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Carlisle group, and so I decided before I did that, I had to meet the group. And once I met them,
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I joined them, and I've been with them ever since. Praise God for that. Yes, and I've gotten to know a handful of the men with CBMC, and it's been a pleasure getting to know them and was honored to be in some way a part of getting a guest speaker for one of your events,
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David Carnes, Staff Sergeant David Carnes, who rescued three police officers, transit police officers from the rubble of the
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World Trade Center on 9 -11, September, 2001, September 11th.
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And he is quite a remarkable man who went into an area that had been given up by the search parties and rescued those transit police officers.
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And the movie by Oliver Stone came about as a result of his efforts, and it was a great pleasure interviewing him several times on my old radio program, but then also again to have another interview in this new studio in Pennsylvania along with a member of CBMC was quite a joy, and David certainly was an inspiration to all that attended,
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I believe. By the way, if anybody would like to find out about a
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CBMC chapter near you, you can go to centralpa .cbmc
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.com. That's centralpa .cbmc .com.
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And if you contact them, they can give you the appropriate information to find out a location nearest you because they have
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CBMCs all over the United States. Do they have them in all 50 states or do you know? I believe so, and also it's international.
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Wow, okay. So it's international. And David Belinsky and David Waterman are both are the men that run the local
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Central PA CBMC, and that's centralpa .cbmc .com.
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And also later on in the program, I'll be giving you contact information for Mike McKnight's law firm,
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Irwin and McKnight PC, and also for the Westshore Evangelical Free Church.
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But our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, again at chrisarnsen at gmail .com.
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And as I said, we are speaking today about the arrest and trial of an innocent man, an examination of Christ's arrest in the
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Garden of Gethsemane, and his subsequent trial and execution. Now, when did this or how did this specific topic come to mind when you were asked by CBMC to speak for them at a luncheon?
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Well, in many respects, as I study God's Word and try to, often
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I think a law school education is a wonderful way to approach the scriptures, because you're required to bring various facts to bear on what you're reading, what you're doing.
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And I've done that throughout my career. But over time, I've developed some thoughts about the arrest and trial of Christ.
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And basically, when they asked to have an outreach, I said, well, I think I can put this together in an interesting way.
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And I think the Lord helped me to do that. Well, what I'm going to do is
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I'm going to go to a break right now. So this way, I don't have to interrupt you too quickly.
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When you go into your presentation, we're going to have Mike McKnight give a portion at least of this presentation that he gives.
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And it's not identical, he does change it here and there. When he speaks at different functions, of course, he doesn't change the facts from the scripture.
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But he changes how he delivers the facts and so on. And he has longer and shorter versions of his presentation.
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But we will attempt to bless you as much as possible with this. I was truly blessed greatly by this presentation.
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In fact, it was quite remarkable. I thought it was quite providential that after hearing of the death of a very dear friend of mine,
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William Norman Grigg, who some of my listeners may recognize that name.
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He is a renowned or was a renowned Christian libertarian. He was the senior editor at one time of the
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New American magazine, and an author. And he is or was,
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I should say, a former Mormon who became a born again believer in Jesus Christ. The day after Marcus gave his message on the arrest and trial of an innocent man,
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I had heard about the death of my friend William Norman Grigg at the age of 54.
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He died of a heart attack after an illness he was suffering with. And I found my interview with him from back in,
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I think it was 2007. And I had forgotten some of the details of that interview when
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William was giving his testimony of conversion out of Mormonism into biblical
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Christianity. And the initial spark that occurred in that conversion experience that he gave during his interview with me was when he was on a mission trip with a fellow
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Mormon in Columbia. And he was sitting in the room that they had there, reading the
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Bible. And he happened to be reading the account of Jesus's arrest in Gethsemane.
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And something about that brought him to tears. And he believed that he was forever changed at that moment and became a new creature in Christ.
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And not only did he cry when it actually happened, he was even crying during our radio interview when recounting it.
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But it was quite a providential occurrence, I believe, that the very next day after hearing
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Marcus give this presentation, I had been remembered of the crucial role that this account in the scriptures played in the conversion of my dear friend, who is now in eternity with Christ.
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But we are going to go to a break right now, as I said, because I don't want to interrupt Marcus too early in the presentation.
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So if anybody would like to join us with a question, later on in the program, we'll be trying to field as many listener questions as possible, as time will permit.
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So if you'd like to join us with a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, we will be right back with Mike McKnight and the arrest and trial of an innocent man.
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Welcome back. This is Chris Arns, and if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with about 90 minutes to go is
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Marcus Mike McKnight III, attorney at law, and he is also a member of the
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Westshore Evangelical Church in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and he is on the board with the
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Christian Businessmen's Connection. We are talking about the arrest and trial of an innocent man, an examination of Christ's arrest in the
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Garden of Gethsemane, and his subsequent trial and execution, which was a presentation he gave at a recent
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Christian Businessmen's Connection luncheon that I happened to be attending and was really blessed by it and wanted
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Mike to come on the program and share it with you. Well, Mike, you could begin now with the presentation as you see fit to give it.
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Well, these are a series of ideas based on God's Word that just are remarkable to me.
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The more from a lawyer's perspective you look at it, the more amazed you become because at the height,
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Jesus was arrested at the height of his popularity. He was the most popular, widely admired man in that region, and there were good reasons for it.
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I know in modern times, many people think of Jesus Christ as a good teacher, someone who had philosophical ideas that seem to bear a lot of weight and make a lot of difference in people's lives, but the most remarkable thing is that he himself had a remarkable healing ministry, not like anything that we've seen in our age or any age.
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In Matthew chapter 8, you see these remarkable words. Jesus entered Peter's house.
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He saw Peter's mother -in -law lying sick with a fever. He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she rose and began to serve him.
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Now, obviously, people knew in that town that she was sick and that she was very sick, and that night, this is what happened.
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That evening, they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out their spirits with a word, and he healed all who were sick.
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This is to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah, and he took our illnesses and bore our diseases, and this is from Matthew 8, 14 to 17.
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I don't think we understand in our modern age with medicine that we expect so much from, that at that time, there were no miracle drugs.
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People were dying of fevers, of all sorts of illnesses. They had widespread leprosy.
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They had people who were born with defects who could never walk, who were blind, and Jesus ministered to all these people, instantly diagnosing their problems and fixing them because he is the creator.
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He was there when the universe was created. He knows how we're made. He knows how to fix people, and he did it time and time again, and I tried to go through Scripture and itemize all the things, all the times that he had healed someone, and there are so many, but I think we lose sight of the impact that he had, those healing ministries had because think about your own lives.
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If you had a parent or you had a child who modern medicine couldn't touch, and suddenly a person came along and was healing across the board, anyone like that who had a similar illness, wouldn't you seek them out?
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And the reality is that Jesus was constantly being sought out as they were in this occasion with, he just went to Peter's mother -in -law, healed her, and the word went forth, and people came, and he healed them all.
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He didn't heal some of them or one or two of them. He healed them all, and so there are two occasions when
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I think it really reflects on what happened in his arrest and trial, two occasions that are really remarkable, and one of them is found...
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Hey Marcus, you might want to adjust your mouthpiece because it's brushing under your suit there. Sorry about that.
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One of them is the Roman centurion had a very sick servant, and he put out the word to Jesus, would you please come?
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And Jesus was, the centurion was an exception.
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The Jews hated the Romans who were there because the Romans had a very unique perspective in how to rule a country.
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They appointed tax collectors who they told collect a certain amount of money, and you can charge whatever commission you want on top of that, and so tax collectors who knew the local people got rich overnight by collecting taxes that were unreasonable from the people, and they used the
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Roman army to enforce their taxation. Well, they were universally hated, but this particular centurion appreciated the
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Jewish people that he was living with, and he built them a synagogue, and so Jesus had this man recommended to him, and of course
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Jesus knew all about him in the first place. So the word comes from Luke chapter 7.
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And he, after he had finished all these sayings, he entered
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Capernaum, and there was a centurion who had a servant who was sick at the point of death. He was highly valued to the centurion.
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When he heard about Jesus, he sent him elders of the Jews asking him to come, and he was a servant.
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When they came to Jesus, they pleaded with him earnestly saying, he is worthy to have you do this for him.
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He loves our nation, and he's the one who built our synagogue, and Jesus went with him.
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He was not far from the house. The centurion sent friends saying, Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I'm not worthy to have you come under my roof.
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Therefore, do not presume to come to me. First say the word and let my servant be healed.
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For I too am a man set under authority with soldiers under me. And I say to one, go, and he goes, and to another, come, and he comes.
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And to the servant, do this, and he does it. When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him. And turning to the crowd, he said,
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I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith. When those who had been with him returned to the house, they found the servant well.
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Now consider this for a moment. This Roman centurion has had his servant miraculously healed remotely.
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Jesus didn't even come to the house, and he remotely healed the servant who was near death.
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What would a centurion do? He would report it to, of course, his leaders, the people over him.
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And ultimately, the top man was the governor, and that would have been Pilate. And Pilate would have heard about this
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Jesus doing something well for this centurion under him.
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Don't believe for a moment that when Jesus finally arrives before Pilate, that Pilate hasn't totally vetted him well in advance.
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If he was the most popular man, the most well -known person in that region, wouldn't
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Pilate have taken note of him? And indeed, it was a healing like this,
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I think, that had a real impact on how Pilate dealt with Jesus when the trial came.
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The second issue is right after that passage in Luke chapter 7. This is a remarkable situation where Jesus is going to a small town.
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And he, his disciples, and a great crowd went with him to this town. As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother.
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She was a widow. And a considerable crowd from the town was with her. And when Jesus saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, do not weep.
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Of course, this is remarkable because this woman had every reason to weep.
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She was a widow. Economically, it was devastating to lose her husband. And now her only son, her hope, her future has died.
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Why wouldn't she weep? He came up to her and touched the barrow that the child was laying on.
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And the bears stood still. And he said, young man, I say to you, arise. The dead man sat up and began to speak.
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And Jesus gave him to his mother. Fears seized them all. And they glorified God, saying, a great prophet has arisen among us.
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And God has visited his people. And this report about him spread throughout the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.
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And this happens time and time again. Can you imagine how this young man who's been raised from being dead would live the rest of his life?
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How about that town? How about that community? And his fame, Jesus' fame spread throughout the region.
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He can raise someone who's died. And as the arrest and trial unfolds, people were perplexed.
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But then after Jesus rose from the grave, the word, this is the same man who healed this boy in this town.
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This is the same man who heals people remotely. He caused the lame to walk, the blind to see, those who have been crippled from birth to walk.
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He did all these amazing things. And people remember. And people know. And people were seeking him out.
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Because they had needs. They had issues. They had illness. And Jesus healed everyone that he came in contact with.
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And even those remotely like the centurion servant. So it's that context, then, in which we find out that this is the man who is going to be arrested by the
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Pharisees in charge of the religious, the temple and the religious community in Jerusalem.
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And what was the tipping point? What was it that Jesus did that made them so angry that they had to search him out and arrest him?
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It's pretty obvious from John chapter 11 that the greatest miracle that Jesus performed was what was the tipping point.
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And gentlemen, any time you want to hop in with questions or comments, feel free to do that.
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But I'm just saying we cannot appreciate how much people were looking for Jesus constantly trying to find time with him, not just to hear his wonderful teaching, but because he had a healing ministry which was unparalleled in that time or any other.
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Yeah, one of the things that I find fascinating, it actually shows you or proves to you the doctrine of unconditional election in many ways.
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Many people might scratch their head and wonder why you find that in the miracles of Jesus.
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But the fact that the Pharisees knew that he was performing miracles, and there were many people that rejected him, who even cried out for his death, that knew he was performing miracles.
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And that did not even stir them to repentance and drive them to their knees to cry out to him in saving faith.
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Even that vivid proof of his miraculous power in the name of God did not convince them, which shows you that the work of the
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Holy Spirit has to be wrought in the hearts and minds of individuals, even to see a miracle worker as being the true
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Messiah of his people. The thing that I talk about all the time in this context is miracles by Christ amazed many people, and of course did great good for those being healed, but it didn't save.
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That's right. If miracles saved people, Jesus never would have had to go to the cross. He never would have had to have been arrested.
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But instead, these things unfold because miracles cannot of themselves save anyone.
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It's the Holy Spirit changing hearts that make the difference.
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Amen. So we find in chapter 11 of John the amazing account of Lazarus, who was the brother of Mary and Martha, who
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Jesus was very close to all of. And it turns out that what they did was,
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Lazarus had become very ill. So ill, the sisters were alarmed, and they sent a prayer or a message to Jesus saying, um,
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Lord, he whom you love is ill in verse three. But when Jesus heard, he said, the illness does not lead to death.
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It is for the glory of God. So the son of God may be glorified through it. And so instead of rusting to the side of Mary and Martha and Lazarus, he delayed two days.
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And the disciples were saying, um, why are we delaying? And he said, well, we're delaying because it's for God's glory.
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And they said, he said in chapters in verse seven, that after this, he said to his disciples, let's go now to Judea.
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The disciples were concerned because they knew the Jews were out to do harm to Jesus if they could.
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And he said, it's time to go. Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but now
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I go to awaken him. Disciples said to him, Lord, if he's fallen asleep, he'll recover. But Jesus had spoken of his death and they thought he meant taking rest and sleep.
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But Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus has died. And for your sake, I'm glad that I was not there.
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So you may believe, but let us go to him. So Thomas said, let's go that we may die with him if necessary.
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And so Jesus came to Mary and Martha in chapter 11. And, um, they both, in a sense, were so disappointed that Lazarus had died because they believed that Jesus had the power to heal him.
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Um, and it's interesting when Jesus arrives, um, and sees them mourning, he says, he says, you know, it's, um, he, he looks at them and he says, um,
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Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Said, said Mary, but Jesus saw her weeping and the
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Jews who had come with her also weeping. He was deeply moved in his heart, greatly troubled. And he said, where have you laid him?
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And they said, come and see. And Jesus wept. Why did Jesus wept at that?
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Why, why was he weeping when he was about to do his greatest miracle? I think in a sense, it's, it's the same reason why he wept before Jerusalem.
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Um, he was so, in a sense, knew that this would start the, the end for him.
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This was the beginning of the end. This would cause his enemies to rise up and do whatever they could to put an end to him.
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And he knew that then he had to face the suffering of the cross. And he knew that the miracles alone would not save anyone that way.
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And it's similar, I think, to when he wept over Jerusalem.
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Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how much I love, love you. I wish I could gather you to me.
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Those words that he spoke over Jerusalem. So anyway, he moved and he went to the tomb. And of course, then he called
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Lazarus out using his God voice. Lazarus, come forth. And Lazarus, four days in the grave, walks out of the grave in front of a great multitude of people watching this.
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And of course, they were amazed. Lazarus was unwrapped.
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And he was as healthy as, as healthy could be. I remember a preacher once saying that if Jesus had not said,
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Lazarus, come forth and just said, come forth, every grave would have been emptied. He had the power to do it.
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Yeah, you're right. This was this was a major turning point, because that was the straw that broke the camel's back.
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It says later on that they even wanted to kill Lazarus to destroy the evidence. That's how strongly these leaders felt about it, because it says in verse forty five, many of the
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Jews who could come with Mary and see what he did, believed in him, believed that he was a great leader or prophet.
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But some of them went to the Pharisees, like any gossips do. They went to the Pharisees and talked about what he had done.
47:45
So what did they do? They gathered together the council and said, what are we to do?
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For this man performs many signs. If we let him go like this, everyone will believe in him, meaning we're going to be afterthoughts.
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So they were jealous and they said, we have to find a way to put this man to death. And that was their conspiracy then.
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Let's find a way to put him to death. And the amazing thing, of course, is the means to put him to death came as a result of Lazarus.
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Because what happens, one of the ways that Jesus raised money, and he didn't actually raise the money directly, but if you had someone who was near death and Jesus healed him, what would you do in return?
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Wouldn't you say thank you? And if you had means, would you support him? And many people did.
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And there was a treasurer and that treasurer was Judas. And not long afterwards, they have a dinner in celebration of Lazarus' resurrection.
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And Lazarus, of course, at the dinner expected a very worthwhile gift to be made.
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And sure enough, didn't Mary come and use a year's worth of wages to buy perfume, which she then anointed on Jesus?
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And Lazarus was beside himself, or Lazarus was the one who was benefiting, of course, by the dinner, but Judas was beside himself because it says in John, he was skimming from the treasury.
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He was expecting to get a nice return from whatever gift it was that Mary and Martha gave
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Jesus in celebration of their lost brother's resurrection.
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And because he didn't get a chance to skim that money, he was mad. And he was mad, and Jesus knew all about his thievery.
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He knew all about his anger. And then it's not long after that that Judas went to the
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Pharisees and said, I can give him to you at night. I can tell you where he is. And that's the tipping point for them.
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That's when they said, let's do it. We've got an insider, we've got an inside track, and we'll pay you 30 pieces of silver.
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Somehow Judas was more interested in the money and the return than he was in faithfully serving
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Christ. This is, I think, a good point for us to take our midway break.
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It's a bit longer than our normal breaks because we have to give a Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida, our program in two 54 -minute segments so that we have to take an elongated break in the middle.
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But if you'd like to join us with a question of your own for Mike McKnight, and we do already have quite a number of you who have written in questions, if you would like to join them on the air,
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I will answer, or I should say I will have Mike McKnight answer as many as we have time for.
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But our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.
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Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the
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USA. And we look forward to hearing from you and your questions after these words from our sponsors.
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So don't go away. We'll be right back, God willing, with Mike McKnight and the arrest and trial of an innocent man.
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