John 19 one then pilot therefore
took Jesus and Scourged him That is to whip somebody with what
they call the cat of nine tails a Scourge or whip and the soldiers
platted a crown of thorns and Put it on his head And they put
on him a purple robe and said, Hail, King of the Jews. And they
smote him with their hands. And Pilate therefore went forth
again and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you that
you may know that I find no fault in him. And then came Jesus forth
wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe and Pilate saith
unto them, Behold, the man. When the chief priests, therefore,
and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, crucify him, crucify
him. Pilate saith unto them, take
ye him and crucify him, for I find no fault in him. The Jews answered
him, we have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because
he made himself the son of God. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for your precious word. Teach us tonight, Lord, as we
look into this. Give us grace to speak with clarity
and with your authority, Lord. Give us open hearts to hear of
our Savior. What a difference, Lord, to just
hear when we're tired and kind of agree with everything, but
what a difference it is when you come. Open our hearts Lord
and touch our hearts with the truth of our Savior Please be
with us tonight and May you be exalted in every word and in
every heart in Christ's name we ask Amen We'll focus our attention really
tonight on two words from that text Crucify him Remember what it was that they
saw here when Pilate brought the Lord out on the porch of
that place and the mob is gathered. And he brought him out and said,
behold the man. And remember what they saw. The
scriptures say he was disfigured, the word marred. in Isaiah 52
means disfigured. So when it talks about them putting
a reed in his hand and taking that reed out of his hand, mocking
him as king and then smiting him with that reed. And then
it says they buffeted him with their fists. It tells you a little bit about
the extent of that. when you read that he was disfigured
by what they did. He was marred more than any man. His form more than the sons of
men. In other words, he didn't look
like a man anymore. And that's what they saw as he
was brought out. Isaiah 52, 14 speaks of that. It says they were astonished
Have you ever seen anybody that was so disfigured and beaten
and bloody that it shocked you? I'm not sure I have. But did
they say that's enough? When Pilate said, behold, the
man as if to say, look at what he's already suffered. And this
is somebody I find no fault in and look at him now. Was that
enough? Did they say that's enough? Behold the man, as if to say,
you accuse him of being a threat against Caesar, and clearly he's
not. I suspect that Pilate had no
idea what he was really saying. Behold the man. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only real man that ever lived. The idiot men of this earth are
always trying to prove who's more of a man than somebody else,
not knowing that all of us have failed utterly and miserably
to be anything close to what a man actually is. There is one man that honored God, one man that
glorified God, one man that had all authority. We want to run
our little Circles and whatnot. We don't run anything Behold
the man and Religious man is the most cruel and heartless
and merciless ruthless creature on God's earth Just in my limited experience
I've had enough dealings with religious people and Nobody ever,
I don't think, I've said this before, I stand by it. I don't
think anybody ever hated me, and I had some adversaries in
the business world. I was in sales in Houston, Texas,
high-dollar sales. It was dog-eat-dog. I had some
real adversaries, but I don't think anybody ever hated me until
I began to preach the gospel. Even seeing him there bloody
and broken, religious man is not satisfied, but cries, crucify
him. Taking it up apparently as a
chant, because it's recorded twice. Religious man, and there's
nothing more sickening either. Is that your experience? There's
nothing more sickening. than religious man. He gets a
religious smile on his face, sings away in a manger, no crib
for his bed. The little Lord Jesus lays down
his sweet head and in their heart, the real son of God, the true
Christ of the Bible, they're saying crucify him. The emphasis on the word him,
crucify that one. There were many then and were
after that and always will be, I guess, saying, lo, here is
Christ, there is Christ. We have Christ down in our church. Nobody wanted to crucify Him.
Crucify Him. And here's the thing about that,
and this is really the, The main focus of the message tonight,
you could call this message, the name of the message, the
title of it is Crucify Him. But you could call it the sovereignty
of Christ because here's the problem. Folks don't mind the
sweet little Jesus laying his head down in the manger. And
they don't mind bread breaking, fish handing out Jesus, giving
him something to eat. They don't mind, in fact, they
love the idea of a Jesus who came down here to teach and was
cruelly mistreated by bad people in order to make salvation available
for them. They don't mind these things
because they appeal to man's notion of man being the one worthy
of the glory and honor. Look what he did for us. It appeals to man's false sense
of false godhood to think that God would go to so much trouble
to save them. It's all about them. They don't even mind calling
him God as long as he is the God who serves them and they
don't have to serve him. That's the God that they preach,
the one who does everything for them. It's all about them. It's
honoring them. Here's who people hate. King
Jesus, the sovereign of this universe who gives life to whoever
he wants to and damns whoever he wants to. The reason men hate
effectual atonement, that is particular redemption, Christ's
atoning blood, accomplishing what he shed it for, not making
something available. to men, the reason they hate
that is because when you acknowledge the truth of effectual atonement,
atonement that gets the job done, you're shut up to the fact that
God is sovereign. If Christ's blood atones for
all for whom he died, and it did, then it's got to be assumed
necessarily that he died for specific individuals because
it pleased him to do so. That's the one when they say
crucify him, that's the one they mean. It makes it very difficult when
you acknowledge that truth to misunderstand his own clear testimony
when he said, I lay down my life for my sheep and they shall never
perish. So even in the matter of the
atonement, it is the sovereignty of Christ, the kingly right and
authority of Christ to do with his own what he will, that causes
man to despise him so. And that's something that's always
important to remember when you're dealing with your friends and
family or whoever, and they're listening to another Jesus, they're
following another Jesus, which is not another, There is only
one, but they've created one in their own minds and hearts
that serves them instead of them serving him. You see here the
character in which they crucify him. They put a crown on his
head, a cruel crown. Not just rose bushes with little
thorns like that, thorns several inches long. These thorn bushes,
I've seen them, and that's all they are is thorns. which we suspect is what it was. A purple robe they put on his
back that had been so cruelly whipped. It was their common
practice to whip you with that scourge, and they would often
tie sharp stones in the ends of the whips. There was a cat
of nine tails, nine whips, And they would commonly use 39 stripes. Paul mentions that in
his letters somewhere, that he had been quite a few times whipped,
39 times with scourge, because it was forbidden in their law,
in Jewish law, to whip anybody more than 40 times. And so they
went 39, you know, just to make sure they didn't break the law
when they were destroying the Lord's back. They took that mock reed, they
put a reed in his hand as a mock scepter, never knowing that they were
in his hand. And they took that reed and smote
him with it. And you can imagine when they beat him with their
fists, several men there, until he no longer looked like
a man. When they had the crown and the
robe and the reed in place, they bowed and mocked him, saying,
Hail, King of the Jews. But listen to what it says. Turn
with me to Hebrews chapter one. Verse three. This is who they're mocking. Who being the brightness of his
glory and the express image of his person and upholding all
things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged
our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high,
being made so much better than the angels as he hath by inheritance
obtained, a more excellent name than they, for unto which of
the angels said he, or God, at any time, thou art my son, this
day have I begotten thee, and again, I will be to him a father,
and he shall be to me a son. And again, when he bringeth in
the first begotten into the world, he saith, let all the angels
of God worship him. And of the angels, he saith,
who maketh his angels' spirits and his ministers a flame of
fire. But unto the sun, he saith, thy throne, O God, is forever
and ever. A scepter of righteousness is
the scepter of thy kingdom. You see why they did what they
did? They mocked him probably unknowingly in the very character
in which God has exalted him, down to the very scepter in his
hand. But you see how he was rejected
in that character. Posted over his cross in three
languages. Pilate cried to that mob, shall
I crucify your king? That's exactly who they wanted
him to crucify. The one who said he was their
king. You recall the parable of Luke 19 of the nobleman who
went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom. In Luke
19, 14, it says, but his citizens hated him and sent a message
after him saying, we will not have this man to reign over us.
That's our Lord telling a parable concerning himself. That's the
problem. They didn't say, they didn't
send word after him saying, we don't understand your instructions,
it's too complicated. They didn't send a message after
him saying, you know, we're tired of this, we just don't wanna
do this. It was specifically, you're not gonna be boss of us.
That's the issue. The parable ends with verse 27
though, where it says, but those mine enemies, which would not
that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them before
me. That's the Christ that our brother
Moose preached on Sunday morning here. That as he mentioned in
that message, you're not gonna hear that in most places. The Lord Jesus Christ who is
gonna look his enemies in the eye as they're slain before him
because they wouldn't bow to his throne. That's the reason,
that's the reason given. In Matthew's account of Christ's
arrest and interrogation, Christ told the high priest in Matthew
26, 64, it says, Jesus saith unto him, thou hast said, nevertheless,
I say unto you, hereafter shall you see the Son of Man sitting
on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven. You think about that, there he
sits, falsely accused, controlled under arrest, controlled seemingly
by men, his freedom taken away, no more wandering the hills and
the places of the cities around about preaching the gospel. He's
arrested and supposedly at their mercy. And he says to him, to
that high priest, next time you see me, I'm not gonna look like this.
It's not gonna be like this. I'm gonna be sitting on the right
hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven. And then in
verse 67, that same context, it says, then when he said that,
then did they spit in his face and buffeted him. In Luke four, we have the account
of when Christ preached the things concerning himself in the synagogue,
You preached from Isaiah and they enjoyed the message for
a while. They sat quiet and every eye was fixed on him. Turn over
there with me and let's read Luke chapter four, verse 16.
I know this thing's a little loud.
It's kind of ringing. Can y'all hear that? Luke four, 16. And he came to Nazareth where
he had been brought up. And as his custom was, he went
into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up for a read.
And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. Can you imagine the son of God
reading his own book? Wow, that would have been something
to be there. But when he had opened the book,
he found the place where it was written, the spirit of the Lord
is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the
poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach
deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable
year of the Lord. And he closed the book and he
gave it again to the minister and sat down and the eyes of
all of them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.
And he began to say unto them, this day is this scripture fulfilled
in your ears. And all bear him witness and
wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth.
And they said, is not this Joseph's son? And he said unto them, you
will surely say unto me this proverb, physician, heal thyself. Whatsoever we have heard done
in Capernaum do also here in that country. And he said, Verily
I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in his own country.
But I tell you of a truth. Many widows were in Israel in
the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six
months, when great famine was throughout all the land. But
unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of
Sidon, unto a woman. that was a widow. And many lepers
were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none
of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. And all they
in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with
wrath." Oh, God saves who he wants to. And passes many by. They didn't like it. They still
don't. and rose up and thrust him out
of the city and led him under the brow of the hill whereupon
their city was built that they might cast him down headlong. It went from church to throwing
somebody off a cliff real quick when the Lord preached his sovereign
mercy to whom he pleases to have mercy. You see who it was they were
talking about when they said crucify him? You tell folks that Christ came
to this earth to redeem a chosen people whom God loved, elected,
and predestinated in eternity. There were many sinners on this
earth when Christ came, but he was sent to those whom the Father
had given him. And that he redeemed every one
of them and only them with his precious blood. You tell them
that we, his people, are predestinated according to the purpose of him
who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will,
Ephesians 111. You quit talking about the will
of man for a second and talk about God's will. being salvation. You tell them that he hath mercy
on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth, Romans
9.18. You tell them that before Jacob
or Esau were ever born or had done any good or evil, God said,
Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated, Romans 9.13. You tell them that this God whom
we preach is such that when it pleases him, When he wants to,
he separates a sinner even in his mother's womb and calls that
sinner by his grace. And he reveals his son in that
sinner when it pleases him. He does all these things, Galatians
1, 15 through 16. That's what Paul said about himself,
when it pleased God. He separated me from my mother's
womb and called me by his grace. And
then one day he revealed his son in me when it pleased him. You tell religious people this
and you'll get the same reaction Pilate got when he said, shall
I crucify you a king? Men have not changed. The Lord
Jesus Christ has not changed. Verse seven, the Jews answered
him, we have a law and by our law he ought to die because he's
sovereign. You see that? Because he made
himself the son of God. And see also here the great truth
of man's depravity, how truly did God say in Isaiah 55, eight,
my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,
saith the Lord. According to God's law, which
is the only true law, the Lord Jesus Christ was and is perfect,
holy, righteous man. We don't even know what that
is, except it's him. As a man, he lived for 33 years
on this earth, perfectly according to the law of him whose eye is
in every place beholding the evil and the good. And he, God,
said of our substitute, I am well pleased in him. But we say we have a law. According
to God's law, Christ is sinless, perfect, spotless, the only lamb
whose blood is worth anything, whose blood can actually atone
for sin. He's my beloved son in whom I'm
worth, but we have a law. Really? Where did we get a law? You ever think about that? Where
did we get a law? Nothing wrong with men having
laws, but all the ones that mean anything came from the word of
God. Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill. We have a law, and they weren't
talking about that. They weren't talking about the
civil law. Here's man's law when it comes
to spiritual matters. In those days, there was no king
in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own
eyes. It's chaos, it's evil. Men just follow in their hearts. We have a law. It seemed right. It seemed necessary. It seemed proper for the prince
of life to die. It seemed good to us for the
only one who could ever be good to be punished and murdered and
tortured. The one who went about everywhere
doing nothing but good, who did always those things that pleased
his father, who was holy, harmless, and undefiled. By our law, he
ought to die. What a shameful, horrible pronouncement
that is upon our nature. That pretty much says it all
about us. According to what we deem necessary and good, he ought
to die. But that's the kind of sinner
that our Lord spoke of when he, while they were in the very act
of mocking him and murdering him, he said, father, forgive
them. They don't know what they're doing. Again We give our reason that he ought
to die John 10 turn with me to John chapter 10 verse 24 John
10 24 Then came the Jews round about
him and said unto him, how long dost thou make us to doubt? If
thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. And Jesus answered them, I told
you and you believe not. The works that I do in my Father's
name, they bear witness of me. But you believe not because you're
not of my sheep. As I said unto you, my sheep
hear my voice and I know them. and they follow me, and I give
unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall
any man pluck them out of my hand. My father which gave them
me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out
of my father's hand. I and my father are one. Then
the Jews took up stones again to stone him. He said, I'm God,
I'm God. If you've seen me, you've seen
my father. We are one. And then they took up stones
and Jesus answered them many good works. And I showed you
from my father, for which of those works do you stone me?
And the Jews answered him saying for a good work, we stone me
not, but for blasphemy, because that thou being a man, make us
thyself God. They knew that the Christ was
the son of God. They knew that God was coming,
they'd tell you that now. But not this one. Not this one. Not this one who says, you don't
believe me because you're not mine. This can't be him. This can't
be him. We want a benefactor. We want
a martyr. A miracle worker is just fine. Everybody loves a savior. But
the fool hath said in his heart, what? No God. No God. And let's look at Psalm 14, or
I'll read it to you. Psalm 14, one through three. I want to see the context of
this. Psalm 14, one through three. The fool hath said in his heart,
no God. You notice the words there is
are in italics. They're not there in the original.
People don't say there is no God. Very, very few people ever say
that. And when they say it, they're
lying. They know there's a God. You can't hate somebody you don't
know. They are corrupt. They have done
abominable works. There is none that doeth good.
The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see
if there were any that did understand and seek God. If it was like
religion says, you know, and God did all he could do and now
it's up to you, okay, it's up to you, let's see. Let's look
and see who's gonna decide something for God or just decide all of
a sudden they're gonna honor the Lord or believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. There weren't any, none. They're
all gonna sigh. They're all together become filthy.
There is none that doeth good. No, not one. Not one. And think about that now. People
don't say there is no God. And the ones that claim to be
atheists, you know, there are imaginary things that people
believe in. The fact, that the earth is round
seems to have escaped some people, for example. All right, they
believe the earth is flat. Do you want to kill them for
that? You want to kill anybody for thinking the earth is flat?
Who cares? Who cares what they think? But the so-called atheists
hate God so much, they walk around with signs saying, we'll crucify
him again if he comes back. You can't hate somebody that
doesn't exist. Let me close tonight by making
a clear statement. The broken, beaten, bloody man
who stood on the porch of Pilate's Hall in our text is your God. Whether you like it or not, whether
you believe it or not, and he will sovereignly do with you,
everybody you know, everybody that exists, what he pleases. We had, by his design, our way
with him for a little while. Of course, it was his way, they
did, we did, whatsoever his hand and counsel had determined before
to be done. the sovereign, so sovereign,
so high and lifted up that even when they were humiliating him
and mocking him and beating him, disfiguring him, he was on the
throne causing them to do everything they did. When they were mocking
him as king, he was controlling their thoughts and their actions
and the intents of their heart. even when it seems That we had
our way with him. It was him having his way with
us and he always does And he will ultimately have his way
with us Eternally we sing that song have that own way Lord have
that own way. I Like that song and we don't
sing that It's not because the matter of whether he will or
or will not have his way is in question. That's not why we're
saying it. It's because it's what we want.
We agree with him in it. The Lord Jesus Christ taught
us to pray, thy will be done, not because his will being done
is in question, but because that's what we want. That's what we
agree with. We acknowledge before him that
we like it that way. We all, by nature, have bowed
the knee in mocking the Lord Jesus Christ, and there's just
no getting around that. We're all guilty of murdering
the Son of God. The question is, have you ever
bowed like Thomas did? On your face at his feet and
honed him as your Lord and your God by his sovereign grace. It's the issue in the matter
of salvation. Romans 10, one through four,
if you wanna read that later. Paul says you haven't submitted
yourself to the righteousness of God. You have a form of godliness,
but you deny the what? Power, the authority thereof.
It's always been the issue. I've heard preachers say before,
and I know what they mean like this. I'm not criticizing when
I say stuff like this. Maybe I am a little bit, but
I've heard preachers say, if you don't preach against the
issue of the day, you're not really preaching. The issue has
always been who's God and who's not. It's always been the issue. And as we sit here tonight, that's
the issue. Who's God? God said, I've set
my king on my holy hill of Zion. The heathens say, we'll cast
his cords from us. We have a free will. And he laughs
from the heavens and said, there's my king, if anybody wants to
know. And you'll bow to him and you'll
kiss him or you'll perish forever. Those who believe right doctrine
concerning the gospel have five points that they make, originally
made by John Calvin of the Reformation. They're called the five points
of Calvinism. But I want us to understand that
Christ crucified is the point of scripture. Not that these
doctrines are wrong, they're right. But listen, total depravity, okay? But the total depravity
of man is defined at Calvary. Not in your systematic manual
of theology. It's defined at the cross. Unconditional election. Absolutely. But the difference
made between sinners The culmination of God's choice, the expression
and reality of God's love for Jacob and hatred of Esau is Christ
crucified. It's the definition of God's
love, Christ crucified, herein is love. That he loved us and
sent his son to be the propitiation for our sin. And that's the love
that chose Jacob and not Esau. That's where it happened, at
Calvary. Limited atonement, self-explanatory. Christ said, I lay down my life
for my sheep and they shall never perish. Irresistible grace. The Lord
said, if I be lifted up, I'll draw every one of them to me. everyone that the Father gave
him. What is the means whereby God draws sinners to Christ?
And this is vital because the Lord himself said, no man can
come to me except the Father which has sent me draw him. Where
do they come when the Father draws them? To Christ. How? By the preaching of Christ crucified. Perseverance of the saints, what
is the perseverance of the saints? Looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before
him endured the cross, despising the shame. Looking, looking,
not I looked to Jesus when I was 12. Here's the perseverance of the
saints, looking unto Jesus. the one who gave me faith, and
if I die with it, and I will if he gave it to me, that's him
too. And he's the object, who for
the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising
the shame and is set down where? At the right hand of the throne, What have you done if after hearing
and agreeing with the gospel, you ultimately believe a lie?
And that might happen. You might agree fact for fact
with every point of the gospel, and yet believe a lie before
it's over with. What have you done? You've looked
away from the author and finisher of faith. The anchor of your doctrinal
intellect and human understanding, however correct, has not held,
and you've drifted away from the rock of ages. And here's
my prayer for us tonight. Lord, keep us looking unto Jesus. Which one? The one on the right
hand of God. The one who's on the throne.
the one who for the joy, for the sheer joy of God, gave himself
for us. Isn't that a wonderful verse
of scripture? Why did he die for us? Because it rejoiced him
to do it. He loved us that much. Keep our
eye of faith that you gave us fixed upon the Son of God, high
and lifted up. May we find in Him our confidence,
our security, our comfort, our peace, our very life. And may He be exalted in everything
we do, how worthy He is. Amen, let's pray.