Introduction: Have you ever placed little value on something, only to miss it dearly once it was gone? We’ve often heard the saying, “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.”
Example: Earlier this year while itinerating to raise up our missions support, after completing a missions service for a church, the following morning before we left to return home, the pastor stopped by to say goodbye. He said, “I’m sorry I don’t have much time to talk. I’ve got an appointment with a man that has agreed to sell me some acreage for an agreed upon price of $20,000, and I’m hopeful to close on the land quickly. I already met with a lumber company with which I have agreed to sell the timber off of the land for about $400,000. So you see, I need to be going.” I could understand the rush! The poor seller had no idea of the value of what he had.
I suppose silver and gold shall pass with the using, but nothing compares with the presumption of this story: “The Origin of Taps”
It all began in 1862 during the Civil War when Union Army Captain Robert Ellicombe was with his men near Harrison’s Landing in Virginia. The Confederates were on the other side of the narrow strip of land.
During the night, Captain Ellicombe heard the moans of a soldier who lay severely wounded on the field. Not knowing if it was a Union or Confederate soldier, the captain decided to risk his life and bring the stricken man back for medical attention. Crawling on his stomach, the captain reached the stricken soldier and began pulling him toward his encampment.
When the captain finally reached his own lines, he discovered by the uniform that it was a Confederate soldier—the enemy—but the soldier was already dead. The captain lit a lantern and suddenly caught his breath and went numb with shock. In the dim light, he saw the face of the soldier. It was his own son. He’d been fighting an enemy with an unknown face all that day, which to him was of no consequence. But now the enemy had a face—his son’s face.
The boy had been studying music when the war broke out. Without the father’s knowledge, his son had enlisted in the Confederate Army. The following morning, heartbroken, the father asked permission of his superiors to give his son a full military burial despite his enemy status.
His request was only partially granted. He was granted permission to bury the soldier, but without the accompanying army band playing the customary funeral dirge. Out of respect for the father, the Commanders granted permission for only one musician to play, and so the captain chose a bugler.
Captain Ellicombe asked the bugler to play a series of musical notes he had found one a piece of paper in the pocket of his dead son’s uniform. The bugler consented, and the haunting melody we now know as “Taps”, used at military funerals, was born.
The song is a constant reminder that in the Civil War it was
Text: Matthew 27:9 “Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value.” The fulfillment of prophecy thus stated actually belongs to two original prophecies, one from Jeremiah, and the other by Zechariah. How sad a reflection of the sentiment of not only the Sanhedrin and its affiliates, but Levi in giving us the fulfillment of this prophecy, describes the demeanor of the nation of the Jews as a whole toward their Messiah, “whom they of the children of Israel did value.” How very wide is the gulf between the estimation of man and things which God highly esteems.
I. CONSIDER FIRSTLY, WHAT DISPLAY THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL WITNESSED FROM THE MINISTRY OF JESUS.
A. Witnesses of the Miraculous: Jesus’ ministry was wrought full of miracles, signs & wonders, and miraculous healings such as had never been witnessed in the world heretofore. And, in accordance with the fickle nature of man, Jesus enjoyed a season of popularity only to be followed by times of offense and rejection by His own people. Jesus questioned the Jews after healing a man on the day of rest, “For what good work do you stone me?” Yea, the Son of Man healed all that were sick and oppressed of the Devil.
B. The Response of the Multitudes: What thanks did they render unto Him for such merciful actions? What praise did they thus utter unto the King of kings? What song did they raise heralding the mighty actions of Him who was altogether lovely? Unto David they would sing, “David hath slain his ten thousands…”, but no such speech would they offer unto One mightier than King David, to whom David himself called Lord. What irony to see the very recipients of the mighty works of Jesus to be the very ones that raise their voices in accusation against Him.
C. Vindicating Christ’s Innocence: Remember that Judas, abiding for a time in the innermost circle of friends of the Lord, living daily in His presence, could find no fault in this man, “I have betrayed the innocent blood”. Consider that the Pharisees and scribes could not find fault in His speech or in His responses to their questions designed to trap Him. While Jesus displays His mighty power and brings deliverance to multitudes, instead of believing in Him, or at the least, praising God for the things that were done, the Jewish people as varied peoples throughout the ages hence, spend their time in nothing but trying to disclaim & disown Him. O foolish imaginations and wandering hearts not to see in Him the Source of their deliverance and peace! What petty trifles are their arguments that Jesus was a breaker of tradition, when their traditions were of a man-made sort, and often distorted or even were maintained contrary to the very Law of Moses in which they based their trust and hope for salvation.
D. The Conclusion of the Crowds: Another prophecy comes fully to pass in this same sentiment thus observed in our text, found in the book of Isaiah, “he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”
The very ones who were so blessed to have the Divine Presence walking and ministering among them, thus count their Messiah of little value: “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value…” THEY ESTEEMED HIM NOT! They added up the tally and found Him of no lasting value. Oh tragedy of the ages, that “light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” And so, it was of no great feat for the Sanhedrin to convince the crowd to condemn their King to crucifixion!
CONSIDER WHAT THEY OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL DID VALUE IF THEY RENDER THEIR MESSIAH OF LITTLE VALUE.
A. Their Great Hope: The Law of Moses. What is implied in the text and the surrounding passage is that, while esteeming the Son of God of no worth, they by zealous deeds and singleness of mind sought to uphold the ceremonial law. As the religious leaders scrupulously seek to uphold the command in Deuteronomy as to the proper use of the thirty pieces of silver, excusing them altogether from going into the common treasury, they are blinded to the very purpose of the Law. The Law, Paul says, was given to act as a schoolmaster pointing us to Christ. And if the Law points us to the person of Christ, we who never lived under its auspices, how much the more does it point those to Christ that lived daily under the Law, never finding rescue from their guilt-load, seeking to avert Divine judgment, and grasping futilely for liberation from the forces of sin that corrupted their nature. Could they not see in the God-man standing in their presence and hearing the commanding authority of His words, the essence of all their hope? Nay, say they. “We will yet cling to the impotent Law rather than fly to the Lawgiver and moreover, Giver of Life, and cry out for mercy at His blessed feet.” Such is the contradiction of sinners, who give themselves to philosophies, vain hopes, and sinful passions, rather than come by faith to the Savior. Jesus said, “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.”
B. Their Vain Display of Religiosity:
In our text it is stated that they chose to purchase the Aceldama, the Field of Blood, a place in which to bury strangers. What affront to the God of Heaven, as He freely gives up His “only begotten Son”, to be born among the nation that He chose among all nations of the earth to grant unto them the oracles of God and prepare the world through them for salvation, that now that the Son has come and grows up as a Jewish man, that at His tragic end, the Jews despise one of their own, while trumpeting the cause of strangers!
Was it because the Jews had any great love for strangers, those of non-Jewish descent? Quite the opposite was actually the case, as nation after nation found the Jewish people to be thorns in their sides. The Jews loathed the Romans, and scarcely tolerated the half-breed Samaritans. They were a proud people, delighting themselves in being the apple of God’s eye. Yet, Jeremiah vents his vexation of spirit over the attitude of his own people, “thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value.” The Jews valued the stranger more than He who was no stranger to them at all. They lay hands on the King’s Son to slay Him so that the inheritance of the vineyard might be their own.
The Jews’ animosity toward others is evidenced in Paul’s defense before the Jerusalem mob at his own prophesied arrest, when while giving his testimony of a voice from heaven that commands him to “Depart: for I (Jesus) will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles.” Then the Acts states that, “they gave him audience unto this word, and then lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live.” Here we see that the Jews had no love for the stranger, the Gentile, as they cry out as one voice for Paul to be put to death.
C. Their Darkened Hearts Reject Him:
What caused the chosen people to so exude hatred toward their King? Was it nothing less than His beautiful words of redemption, and He portrays to them the greatest need known to man, the salvation of his soul? Oh, but salvation must come by way of acceptance of their need of salvation, and to do this, one must keenly feel that need, and be stirred by the awful sight of their own depravity. These hasty men never yielded themselves to such stirrings of the Spirit. They considered themselves “whole”, better then other men, and so condemned themselves to remain in their state of spiritual slumber and separation from God.
D. The Requirements of God Concerning Salvation Never Waver:
And finally, salvation only comes to those who humble themselves in repentance. Oh the pride that consumed these hardened Jewish minds and hearts to reject and hold as less than worthy, their only Hope of true salvation. No wonder in just a few short hours they come unified in wickedness making the awful pronouncement, “Crucify him; crucify him.” “Shall I crucify your king? Why what evil hath he done?” It matters little that they have no evidence of guilt in Him. They simply do not want him. He means nothing to them. They prefer to cower in the cover of night and continue in sinful practices while holding of utmost worth their vain religiosity. Such was the state of the calloused Jewish heart in the presence of their true King. They esteemed Him not!
