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“Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of Me this night: for it is written, I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad” (Matthew 26:31).
The Lord Jesus was going to the cross, and that night Judas would bring a band of soldiers to arrest Him in the Garden of Gethsemane. He knew that all His disciples would forsake Him, and would be offended. The word “offended” means that the situation would stumble them, or trap them, and perhaps be so hard for them that they would be tempted to sin by denying the Lord. We know that this actually happened, for all the disciples ran away when the Lord Jesus was arrested. Later John and Peter came back and went into the palace of the high priest, but then Peter ended up denying his Lord.
The disciples loved the Lord Jesus, but they did not want Him to go to the cross and die. They did not understand that this was the only way that sin could be put away, so that we could be saved. The Lord Jesus knew that He must go through it all alone; no one could follow Him to the cross, for only He could bear the punishment for sin.
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