Acts 4: 27, 28
For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy Servant Jesus, Whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the gentiles and the peoples of Israel,
to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.
This is part of the prayer the Christians were praying after Peter and John were charged by the Jewish leaders not to preach Jesus any more; after they healed the 40-year-old crippled man who begged at the Temple gate, and were preaching that Jesus was Resurrected.
The Jewish leaders didn't want to be charged with the death of Jesus, and they were the ones who bribed the Roman guards at the Tomb to say that His disciples stole His body away.
But all this happened according to how God had planned it out before He created this Earth. He planned that both the Roman rulers along with all of the Gentiles and all the peoples of Israel--all of Mankind--would put to death His own Son, that we all would be guilty of this dastardly crime.
This is why Jesus was born into our World, to die our death so He could give us His life. He gave us His Law to describe what Jesus would accomplish, and He raised Him from the dead to prove He accepted that Sacrifice as payment in full for all our sins.
O my Father, thank You for Your Love for us, all of us and each of us. Thank You for sending Your own Son to be that Lamb of God, Whose blood was shed for each of us individually to save us, and for all of us together to purchase us, for judgment. Thank You, Father, that His blood washes us white and pristine as the snow, as though we'd never sinned.
This was Your plan from the beginning, Father. To be able to redeem us from our very sin-nature, so that we will shine like the Sun in Eternity with You. We are washed thoroughly clean from every stain, to be perfectly fit to live with You where You are, in Your Heaven, forever.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
