Why Did the Disciples Not Know Jesus Would Die?

Hello and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Okay, it's good to have everybody in today. And again, for those of you watching on television, this is another taping session. Four more programs hopefully come out of this afternoon. And again, we always like to welcome folk who have come from quite a distance to come in for the taping. We have a couple down from Missouri today, and we have a couple up from Muskogee and Bartlesville and Macalester. I don't want to miss anybody. And then, of course, the rest of you from the Tulsa area. But we're always glad that you take the time and put forth the effort to come in and spend the afternoon with us. Again, I'd like to remind the television audience that all the previous programs are available on videotape. And just watch for the 800 number, our address. You contact us and we'll send out the availabilities. And we've also got the first six tapes now transcribed into print. They're working on number seven. And if you can use any of those materials, you let us know and we'll get them out to you. Now, again, we're going to just continue in our study as we've been the last several weeks or a couple months now through the Gospels, Price Earthly Ministry. And I've been emphasizing that we never want to lose sight of the fact that this is still all under the law. Everything that Jesus says is to the Jew under the law. Never lose sight of that. And there is very little that you can go on here that speaks of what we understand, our basic doctrines, that salvation is by faith and faith alone in the finished work of the cross. But the finished work of the cross hasn't been accomplished yet. And so how in the world could they be preaching something that hadn't happened? Well, they didn't. So for starters, I'm going to take you this afternoon into Luke chapter 9. We'll just look at a few verses to show that even the 12, after being with Jesus now almost the full three years, we're just shortly before the crucifixion. We're going to go back as soon as we've looked at a few of these verses. And as these three years are now coming to an end, in Luke 9, drop down to verse 44, Jesus is speaking, and He said, "...let these sayings sink down into your ears, for the Son of Man shall be delivered into the hands of men. But they," that is the 12, "...they understood not this saying, it was hid from them, that they perceived it, or understood it not. And they feared to ask Him of that saying." In other words, they just couldn't even get up the courage to ask Him, well, what are you talking about? Now if you'll turn over to Luke 18, there's a series of verses that we've looked at before, but I have to constantly remind myself that we have new listeners coming in every week, and I guess I so often feel guilty that if I repeat things too often it'll become mundane. But on the other hand, some of these people are only hearing this now for the first time. And so Luke 18, beginning with verse 31, and again it's the same time setting, Jesus again is speaking, "...as He took unto Him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem," now this will be for the last time, this will be for the crucifixion, "...we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished. For He shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and He shall be mocked, spitefully entreated, and spitted on. And they shall scourge Him, put Him to death, and the third day He shall rise again." Now Jesus is speaking of Himself. Now look at the next verse, verse 34, "...and they," the twelve again, "...understood none of these things. And this saying was," and there's the word again, "...hid from them," that is by a sovereign God, it wasn't time for them to understand, "...so these things were hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken." They had no idea that in a few days that He would be crucified and placed in a tomb. All right, now if you'll come on over to John's Gospel, chapter 20, and even after the crucifixion, they are now at the tomb on the resurrection morning, and the Scripture again makes it so plain that they didn't know. John 20, drop all the way down to verse 9 for sake of time. The setting here, of course, is Peter and John running to the sepulcher after Martha had told them that it was empty. And so they are amazed, they're aghast, and they look in. And then verse 9, "...for as yet they," even Peter and John, "...they knew not the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead." Now my question always is, if they had no idea that He was going to be crucified, and that He was going to be raised from the dead, how in the world could they have been preaching our Gospel back there in His earthly ministry? Well, there was no way. And yet this is what's been shoved down our throat, at least from my point of view over the years, that the Gospel as we know it began back there as soon as Jesus came on the scene. But it's just impossible, because no one understood that He was going to die. The prophets had written it. Absolutely it was back there. The Old Testament was full of His death, burial, and resurrection. Some people have counted. I think there's 360-some distinct prophecies concerning His first coming, including His death, burial, resurrection, His ascension, His coming again. It was all back there. But it was in such veiled language, they didn't know what it was talking about. The prophets themselves couldn't understand. And so here it's so plainly put that these very men that were the closest to Him, such as Peter and John, had no idea that He was going to die. And after He was dead, they had no idea He was going to be resurrected. They just hadn't been able to comprehend it. All right, now I'd like to take you a little further into the New Testament, go all the way to Paul's letter to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians chapter 2. And I think this puts it also so appropriately. 1 Corinthians chapter 2, where Paul writes, 1 Corinthians chapter 2, and I'm going to start at verse 7. 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 7. I always have to make comment once in a while, and I think of things. I had one gentleman call, and he didn't think I should take the time for letting you people look up the references. And he says, my, that 30 minutes goes so fast. But if he could only see how many people have written, and one gentleman even showed me, as he came to one of their classes, how that they sit and they follow every one of these references with us. And they write them down, and they make notes of them. My one fellow came to a Macalester class, and he had all of the references over I don't know how many programs, all thumb -notched here in his Bible. Well, he couldn't do that, you see, if I'd have it all canned, and put them out just as fast as I could read them. So I purposely slow things down, so I can give you time to look them up here in the studio. Hopefully, our folk out in the living room will do the same thing, because I don't want people to lean on what I say. All I want folk to know is, what does the book say? And this is what counts. All right, now Paul writing to the Corinthians then, in chapter 2, beginning with verse 7, he writes, "...but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery." Now there's that secret, there's that hiding aspect again, that God has hidden some of these things. "...even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world under our glory." And I think Paul is just being less than, what shall I say, proud of his own efforts, and so he uses the plural pronoun, but I'm sure he's speaking of himself. He could just as well have said, under my glory. But now in verse 8, "...this wisdom that has now been revealed to the apostle Paul, which none of the princes of this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." So what? They didn't know. Now remember as we've been, now you can come back with me to Matthew 26, and you know I've been stressing ever since we came into the New Testament that the whole reason for Christ performing all these miracles and signs was to prove to the nation of Israel who He was, that He was the Christ, He was the promised Messiah, and that all they had to do was just believe that. That was their article of faith, if I may put it that way, and we've shown that in previous programs, how that Jesus asked the twelve, again just shortly before His crucifixion, "...whom do men say that I the Son of Man am?" And all they said, "...some say you're Elijah, some say you're John the Baptist, and some say you're one of the prophets." And Jesus came back again, now this is back in Matthew I think 16, and He said, "...but whom do you say that I the Son of Man am?" And then Peter spoke up. He's always the spokesman. And Peter said, "...thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." And what do I always put behind that? Period. He doesn't say, "...the One who died for me and rose from the dead." Martha at the death of Lazarus, weeping and in sorrow because the Lord didn't come quick enough to spare him. You know Jesus said, "...oh, He'll rise again." And she said, "...oh, I know at the last day." But then you go down a verse or two and Jesus said, "...I am the resurrection and the life." Martha, "...believest thou this?" And she says, "...yes, I believe thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." That's all they were expected to believe. That's all they were expected to confess because that's what He had revealed. And then you come all the way into Acts chapter 8, the Ethiopian eunuch, and Philip shows him out of Isaiah 53 who the prophet was talking about. And he explains that it was this Jesus who had now gone up and down the highways and byways of Israel proving who He was. And again Philip brings the eunuch to the same place. "...do you believe this?" And what was his confession? "...yes, I believe that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God." That was their profession of faith. And that was all still under the law. All right, but now we're coming up to Jerusalem and it's the final days leading up to the crucifixion. Everything is getting ready of course for the feast, the week of Passover. All right, chapter 26 of Matthew now, verse 1, "...and it came to pass when Jesus had finished all these sayings," now those are the ones that we talked about in the last few programs which were prophecy, where He laid out all the things that would come to pass before He would come and set up His kingdom. Then in chapter 26, reading on in verse 1, "...and when He had finished all these sayings, He said unto His disciples, You know that after two days is the feast of Passover, and the Son of Man is betrayed to be crucified. Then assembled together the chief priests and the scribes and the elders of the people under the palace of the high priest who was called Caiaphas, and they consulted that they might take Jesus by subtlety and kill Him. But they said, not on the feast day," in other words, during this whole week of feast is what it really amounted to. It wasn't just one day, it was the whole week of unleavened bread. "...not on the feast day, lest there should be an uproar among the people." But you see, the sovereign God was in control here because, again, I have to take you back, go all the way back to Psalms chapter 2, because in God's sovereign plan, there was only one way for Christ to be put to death, and that had to be at the hands of not just the Jew, which it would have been had the high priest let the people kill Him. It couldn't be at the hand of just the Jew. It had to also involve the Gentile in order to fulfill explicitly Psalms chapter 2. You all with me? Verse 1, Psalms chapter 2, verse 1, "...why do the heathen rage?" Now, who are the heathen in Scripture? Gentiles, the non-Jew. "...and the people," who are they? Jews, see? So now you've got the whole human race involved. You've got the Gentile world as well as the nation of Israel. And they imagine a vain thing. Verse 2, "...the kings of the earth set themselves," now we know it was Rome. David, of course, didn't realize that as he wrote this, but now we know that the kings of the earth at that time were the Caesars and the rulers of Rome. "...they set themselves," but not just the Gentile rulers, but who else? The rulers. Now, who are they referred to? The religious rulers of Israel, see? And so again now you have the Gentile rulers, which, of course, was Rome, and the religious rulers of Israel. "...they take counsel," what's the next word? "...together." Now, that's all important. It wasn't just a Jewish phenomenon. It wasn't just a Roman thing. Prophecy had dictated that they would work hand in glove to reject the king. And so we have it as we come then into the Gospel account. All right, come back to Matthew 26 once again. Verse 5 again, "...so they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar among the people." Now, we'll be pointing it out, if not in this half hour, in one of the next ones. I hope you all realize that the Sabbath day, the Saturday, was not a day of sacrifice. Never in Israel's history did they sacrifice animals on the Sabbath. Now, I know a lot of us have gotten the idea that the Sabbath was the day of worship and sacrificing and ritual. No, it wasn't. There is no record that they ever killed an animal on the Saturday or the Sabbath day. And consequently, the Passover, as we're going to be looking at it, could not have been a Saturday Passover because that would have flown in the face of everything that took place before. Now, this is going to probably shock a few of you, but I do these things to get people to dig. You go back in the Old Testament, you'll never find that the Jews offered animal sacrifice on the Sabbath. The Sabbath was a day of rest, not a day of worship. It was a day of rest. And that's why they weren't even to pick up sticks, let alone carry an animal up and have it sacrificed. So anyway, we'll be looking at that more in detail when we get a little further along. Alright, so now when Jesus, verse 6, was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, there came unto him a woman having an alabaster box, a very precious ointment. Now, again I want to point out that in these final days leading up to the crucifixion, I'm not going to take time in this program, this 30 minutes goes too fast. But if you'll, in your own study, we'll use all the Gospels, all four of them, and begin to pick out every time He goes back to Bethany for the night. He spends His night in Bethany, which of course is just outside the city of Jerusalem, and then He goes back into the temple again the next day. And that's His schedule throughout those days leading up to His crucifixion. So here again, He's back in Bethany for the evening, and in comes this lady with the box of precious ointment, and you know the account, and how she anointed His head with it, and the disciples were rather distraught. What a waste. It could have been cashed in and given to the poor. Doesn't that sound like religious people? And verse 9, they said, "...for this ointment might have been sold for much and given to the poor." But when Jesus understood it, He said unto them, Why trouble ye the woman? For she hath brought a good work upon Me, for you have the poor always with you. My, if the sociologists could get that through their head. My, it would save us so many tax dollars. And don't think I don't have a heart for the poor. In fact, I don't think anybody has a heart for people that are without means, any greater than Mine. I can be in a supermarket grocery line, and it just tears me up to see a young mother peel out that cash, when by looking at her you can just see they haven't got that much. So I'm not belittling the poor. But what I'm saying is the Word of God says you're never going to obliterate the poor. They have been part and parcel of the human experience from day one, and they will be until the Lord comes and sets everything straight. And so here He says it so plainly, you will always have the poor, but you'll not always have Me. Verse 12. For in that she hath poured out this ointment on My body, she did it for My, what? Burial. In other words, what would they do with the body after death? Well, they would anoint it with ointments and perfumes and so forth. And so Jesus says, she's doing this in view of My burial. Well now, in the light of those verses we just read in Luke and John, did they know what He was talking about? No. Now the lady that done it, what was her name? Is she named? No. But this lady, I'm not convinced in my mind that she knew why she was putting on a burial ointment. But it is amazing. She is the only one of this inner circle that does not go to the tomb to check out whether He's there or not. So whether the Lord had revealed something to her and that she knew what she was doing here, it's a possibility. And so consequently she was anointing Him for His burial, knowing that He was going to be killed and placed in the tomb. But whatever. Just gives you something to study again. And so He says in verse 13, And verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel, in other words, that He was the Christ, this Jesus of Nazareth was who He said He was, that's the this gospel, and it shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this be, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her. And of course it's true. Just about everybody in Christendom has heard of this woman who anointed the body of Christ before His death. Well, I'm not going to take all this verse by verse as I was telling Iris on the way up today. You know, as soon as I get into Acts it's going to be real easy. These half hours are going to be simple. In the same way in Paul's letters. But here as I'm trying to go through the Gospels and do it as quickly and yet as in-depth as possible, I can't take the time to just go verse by verse and chapter by chapter. We'd be here for the next 10 years. But as an overview now we come through these events in chapter 26 where Judas now makes the deal with the high priest to betray Him. We're going to see Jesus foretell Peter's denying Him before the cock of the crow in the early morning light. And then we come into the Garden of Gethsemane experience here in chapter 26 beginning with verse 36. I was just pointing out to Sandy before the class started, I don't know how many Christians or Bible students, however you want to refer to yourselves, realize that Matthew, Mark and Luke are what we call the synoptic Gospels and they deal primarily with His humanity side of everything. John's Gospel deals with His deity. And so you'll find that a lot of the things that are covered in the synoptic Gospels are not mentioned in John. For example, the temptations. The temptations are recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke. They're not recorded in John. His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, and I mean the agony of it, are recorded in all three of the synoptic Gospels, but it's not recorded in John's Gospel because that was part of His humanity, of His suffering. And so just keep some of these things in mind that all three of the first Gospels touch on a lot of these, whereas John does not. Alright, now as we come into his arrest, I think most of you have probably heard as many sermons and lessons on it as I have. You probably know it even better than I do. But I guess the thing I want to point out first and foremost, the human race hasn't changed a bit. Whenever totalitarian governments come on the scene and begin to arrest their people, what time of the day do they almost always choose? Nighttime. Nighttime. Three o'clock in the morning, two o 'clock in the morning. Well, why? Because it's a mental thing. You know, it's one thing to have somebody knock on your door in the daylight, but it's something else to have somebody knock on your door in the dark hours of midnight or early morning. It's just a traumatic thing. So, same way here. What time of the day do they choose to arrest him? Nighttime. Nighttime. Typical of totalitarian governments. And so evidently it was right around midnight. I think maybe even a little before. Because everything that transpires now in this whole process of his arrest and his mock trial, all takes place before the early light of dawn, remember. And so, I think the first sign of his arrest here in the garden was probably in the area of midnight. And you know the account of how Judas had betrayed him and led the soldiers. And here's another amazing thing. Here Jesus was so meek, so compassionate, and yet how many soldiers did they bring to arrest Him? Well, must have been at least a hundred. Because the military term that is used speaks of six hundred. Now that doesn't say that they all came to make His arrest. But nevertheless, it was a large group of army troops that the Romans and the rulers of Israel had brought together just to arrest Him. It's ridiculous. And in the nighttime. And then as Judas comes and introduces Him and betrays Him, I'd like to bring you all the way to Matthew 26 now. Verse 49, "...and forthwith he came to Jesus," that is Judas did, and he said, "...Hail, Master!" And he kissed Him, which of course was the clue. Now verse 50, "...and Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come?" Now I've told my classes over the years and told one again just the other night, do you realize how many times Jesus would respond with a question? Not because He didn't know. He knew why they were there. He knew what Judas was up to. Mine already told Him back at the Last Supper. Now, like I say, if I decide to just stay in the three Gospels primarily for this period of lessons, then I think before we go to the book of Acts I'll spend at least four programs on the Gospel of John. And when we get into that study, then I'll probably bring out some of the things that took place up there at the Last Supper. Number one, contrary again to what most people think, the Last Supper was not the Passover Lamb. The Passover Lamb wouldn't have been killed until the next afternoon, and then eaten later in the afternoon. And so there was no way that Jesus could have eaten of the Passover Lamb. It was simply the Last Supper that He had enjoyed with His disciples. It was not the Passover. And we want to get that straight. And so, now back to verse 50. As Judas kisses Him and points Him out, Jesus says, "...what friend?" Now, I've always maintained that this term was such a term of endearment. The margin in some Bibles will even use the word comrade. What was Jesus still extending to this demonic man Judas? An opportunity to still repent. Judas was not yet given up on, and He gives him that opportunity by addressing him with this term of endearment. And Judas could have at that moment still turned. He could have still not had to suffer the doom that we know now He did. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, OK, 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, OK, 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.