Today, I listened to a sermon entitled Judas Iscariot, The Suicide of Satan, and The Salvation of the World, which is the last in the Spectacular Sins series that John Piper preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. You can listen, read, or watch the entire sermon here. By the way, you should totally listen to the entire sermon, as I will just be posting a small portion of what Piper addresses.
Instead of interpreting Piper's words, I am just going to post them. :)
Piper says:
When Jesus began his ministry on the way to the cross, Satan tried to turn him away from the path of suffering and sacrifice. In the wilderness, he tempted him to turn stones into bread and jump off the temple and get the rulership of the world by worshipping him (Matthew 4:1-11). The point of all these temptations is: Don’t walk the path of suffering and sacrifice and death. Use your power to escape suffering. If you’re the Son of God, show your right to reign. And I can help you do it. Whatever you do, don’t go to the cross.
Then do you remember the time when Jesus predicted he would suffer many things from the elders and the chief priests and be killed and Peter rebuked him and said, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you” (Matthew 16:22). In other words, I will never let you be killed like that. Jesus did not commend him. He said, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” (Matthew 16:23). Hindering Jesus from going to the cross was the work of Satan. Satan did not want Jesus crucified. It would be his undoing.
But here he is in Luke 22:3 entering into Judas and leading him to betray the Lord and bring him to the cross. Why the about face? Why try to divert him from the cross and then take the initiative to bring him to the cross? We are not told. Here is my effort at an answer: Satan saw his efforts to divert Jesus from the cross failing. Time after time, Jesus kept the course. His face was set like flint to die, and Satan concludes that there is no stopping him. Therefore he resolves that if he can’t stop it, he will at least make it as ugly and painful and as heartbreaking as possible. Not just death, but death by betrayal. Death by abandonment. Death by denial (see Luke 22:31-32). If he could not stop it, he would drag others into it and do as much damage as he could. It was a spectacular sequence of sins that brought Jesus to the cross.
Okay, so it's always sorta bothered me that Jesus was so hard on Peter for saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you” (Matthew 16:22). I mean, Peter loved Jesus. Peter was just expressing (from the hip, as usual--not thinking things through before speaking) that he loved Jesus and didn't wish for Him to die. He was trying to protect Jesus? Maybe. That is foolish, but it was Peter (and me sometimes too).
However, today I see most clearly that Peter's assertion of "no, never, Lord!) was a direct assault against the very plan of God and was something that Jesus had heard before from the lips of the enemy. Jesus commanded the enemy to find his proper place behind Himself. Jesus knew what He had to do in order to accomplish the plans of God that had been set before the foundations of the world.
Oh, thank You, Lord! Thank You for staying the course and for being bold and furious about sin and what You and Your Father had set out to do about sin before the creation of the world. May I be able to stay the course as You have.
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