Good afternoon, Zane.
Rain on the roof again. I’ve already done a good deal of sawmill work today. At least I have the mill set up again under cover in what I call my MILL SHED. Before I could get back to the mill after some lunch, I was called away to check out and discuss a nearby sign job. So after launching this devotional, I will return to having another RUN OF THE MILL DAY. Smile.
Have you started your new job yet? Blessings. Love and prayers—Tua/Ray.
The full verse reads this way: “The high priest tore his clothes. ‘Why do WE NEED more WITNESSES?’ he asked.” (I did the capitals for emphasis.)
The wording that the high priest used here is clear evidence that Jesus was falsely condemned before this council ever tried Him. They only NEEDED some kind of substantial convincing WITNESS or accusation against Him that would support and confirm the sentence they had already passed. Since these enemies of Christ really wanted Him dead, they struggled to gather sufficient reason to kill Him so they could make it look like a legal execution.
I’ve met a lot of people in my time who were absolutely delighted, for example, to point out all the hypocrites in Christian churches. They had already made a judgment that rejects the Biblical God and His claim to their lives, so they are eager to put forth the nonsense exceptions of flawed or failed Christians in Christian churches to condemn the whole of the Christian faith. That way they think they can exempt themselves from any accountability to God and carry on living the way they want to live with some legitimate-sounding support.
Jeremiah 17:9 is certainly a revelation of God’s view of the deceitful and wicked leaning of the human heart apart from spirit conversion and rebirth. Perhaps I’ll quote it here again: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (KJV) And it’s clear that natural human hearts will never ever be able to arrive at correct and TRUE conclusions about Christ and God and His Word on their own. For, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (I Cor. 2:14). Like begets like, truth begets truth, and spiritual light begets spiritual light/understanding. That’s why David declares, “Surely you desire truth in the inner parts” (Ps. 51:6). That is the one and only basis for establishing truth in viewpoints, choices, and decisions. The person with the ruling influence of truth and honesty inside is absolutely free from the corrupt style used by those who NEED WITNESSES to support what their dirty hearts desire.