Pastor Barry's  "Chapter & Verse"  Day 197

July 16;    Mark 15:10;    43/260(III);    ‘Envy Kills’

Mark 15:10 For he knew that the chief priests had handed Him over because of envy.

The Lord Jesus had been arrested and was now before Pilate, the Governor,   The religious leaders who hated Jesus were also there accusing Jesus of things they could not prove.  During the Passover feast, the Romans would release one prisoner to the Jews, whomever they wanted.  Pilate knew Jesus had done nothing wrong and he wanted to release Jesus.  Defiantly and viciously, the religious leaders asked for the release of Barabbas, who was a murderer and demanded the death of Jesus.  This verse is almost too difficult to believe.  Pilate knew that the reason the religious leaders wanted to kill Jesus was that they were jealous of Him.  They were used to having all of the attention and felt Jesus had become more popular than they were.  Since that was the case, they thought that there was nothing else to do, but to kill Him.  They knew the people loved to hear Him preach, that He healed, raised the dead, had authority over demons and treated everyone with love, courtesy and respect.  They lied to themselves, declaring that Jesus healed and cast out demons by satanic power.  They accused Him of sinning, when in reality Jesus ignored their man made rules, not the Word.  They hated Him for spending time with those they considered sinners.  How else could those Jesus spent time with get right with God?  What I am saying is this, I find it hard to believe that those religious leaders did not know that Jesus was indeed the Messiah.  If they did know this and killed Him because of pride and jealousy, they were condemning themselves to hell.  Envy kills physically and spiritually, eternally.