The story of our Lord Jesus Christ being condemned
by the mob and Barabbas being set free. And Barabbas is described
this way in Matthew 27, 16. And they had then a notable prisoner
called Barabbas. That word means notorious. He was a well-known, prisoner. How many people in prison have
you thought about today? Unless you know somebody personally
that's in prison, you probably haven't given a lot of thought
to people in prison. It's not something we think about
a lot. People, they're out of sight, out of mind. They're getting
what they deserve, generally speaking. And we're not going
to waste a thought on them. But this man was notorious. How
many prisoners throughout all history do you know their name?
You ever thought about that? They knew this man's name. He
was notorious. There's a few I could mention.
You'd say, oh yeah, I'm familiar with that name. There's been a lot of murders
in this country over the years. Just in this country alone, there
were 16,200 murders in 2018. And I'm sure more than that in
last year. And that's just the ones that
we know about. I suspect a lot of people get away with it, don't
you? Of those murderers, how many names do you know? Just a few in our whole lifetime,
don't we? And this is just to give us an idea of what it takes
to be a notable prisoner, who for sedition and murder was cast
into prison. The name Barabbas, means significantly,
instructively, with gospel spiritual significance. Barabbas means son of his father. And he is us. We are all sons
of our father, Adam. And it says he's guilty of sedition,
murder, and it says in another place, now Barabbas was a robber. And so being the son of his father is
significant here because in Adam, we are all guilty of the most
notable murder of all, the murder of God. We're guilty of the whole law
before God, as Barabbas, a murderer, a robber, a sedition. James in
James 2 said, we're guilty of all of the law. If you've ever
sinned, you're guilty of the whole law of God. There's not
one statute that does not cry out against us for justice against
us. There is in us no good thing.
There's no evil that we can say, well, at least we haven't done
that. There's not one evil that we're not guilty of. And because
we have sinned against the holy God, Heaven and earth our sin
is infinite in nature though. We ourselves are finite creatures That's why those outside of Christ
go to hell forever without reprieve without review Now we've seen
in what we've already read that Barabbas was guilty of sedition
and murder and robbery and And all of those are significant
too. John 18, 39, you have a custom, it said, that I should release
unto you one at the Passover. This is Pilate talking in John's
account of this. Will you therefore that I release
unto you the king of the Jews? Then cried they all again saying,
not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber. These
are all the things that we're guilty of before God. We murdered
God himself. This is the condemnation, that
light came into the world and you loved your darkness Than
light and that's in the context of Christ being crucified there In that passage of scripture
now He was a murderer he was a robber
What did we do in the garden when we said we'll be gods that's
Robin God of his glory and honor and And sedition is to stir up
the people, and that's clear throughout all this. We're not
happy just being evil and hating God ourselves. We want everybody. We not only love evil, but we
like to participate in it with others, don't we? He said of the Pharisees, you
don't only not want to enter into the kingdom of God yourself,
but you bar everybody else from getting in. Sedition, spiritual
sedition. I think about it this way, too.
Barabbas wasn't the only criminal that could have been released
that day. What about the two thieves that ultimately were
crucified on either side of the Lord? They might have been candidates
for release, don't you imagine? It just says he had to release
a prisoner to them. Barabbas was to hang in the middle
that day. And those two on either side
of Barabbas, if it had all gone according to man's plan, So I suspect here that Pilate
gave the mob a choice between Barabbas and the Lord Jesus,
thinking, if I forced him to choose between the two, and that's
what he did. We have that in other scripture. No way will
they choose Barabbas. No way will they let Barabbas
go. Nobody wants Barabbas living among them in society. Nobody
wants to live with a monster. You know who wants to live with
a monster? monster a Bunch of monsters That's what
so it stands to reason that pallet would have forced him to choose
between the one he wanted to release It was he says it says
it was his will That's why he kept coming at him. It was his
will to release unto them the Lord Jesus so he forced him to
choose between the one he wanted to release and the worst possible
other choice. But though, this is gospel, this
is the gospel, every aspect of this. Though there were other
candidates, only Barabbas was set free. And so it is in the
salvation of the sinner, the Lord picked me out. He picked
me out of my immediate family. There were others he could have
released. And as far as I know, has not.
He picked me out of a city full of people, a nation, a world
of sinners. And when he picked me, he picked
the worst one. Why would God do that? Because
I am Barabbas. the son of my father. And maybe you're thinking, wait
a minute, Chris, you just said that was a bad thing. We're the sons
of our father, Adam, and thus we are wretched, vile sinners,
worthy of eternal wrath and damnation. Yeah, but now I'm talking about
my other father. I'm the son of another father,
too. My eternal father, my true father. I'm set free, not condemned,
free from wrath and free from the law. In other words, not
only am I pardoned of all of the crimes that I've ever committed,
but I'm not under the law at all anymore. The law can't touch
me. No sin I ever commit will be
recorded against me because I'm not under the law but under grace,
and it's all because my name is Barabbas. I'm the son of my
father. Remember, we just talked about
paying taxes last time, and remember what the Lord said to Simon?
He said, who do people tax, their children or the strangers? And
he said, strangers. And he said, then are the children
free? You don't owe anything to this world, and by God's grace,
you don't owe anything to God. Not a penny. Because Christ has paid it all. I am a son of my father, a son
of God. You have not received the spirit
of bondage again to fear. And what is bondage? Bondage
always has to do with the law, the bondage of the law. Paul
wrote, don't put me under a yoke of bondage that nobody's been
able to bear. That's the yoke of the law. You
can't bear that yoke. You've not received the spirit
of bondage again to fear, but you've received the spirit of
adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Abba is Father. Barabbas. That's Romans 8.15. Listen to
1 John 3.1. Behold what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the
sons. God That's why we're free this
morning if we are because we're Barabbas We're Barabbas now and
because we are somebody died in our place And we're set free
The account we read from John gives us another beautiful gospel
reminder And I'll read it to you again. If you're not still
turned there Why was Barabbas released? Why was he released? Listen to John 1839, but you
have a custom that I should release unto you one at the Passover.
Ah. If it hadn't been the Passover,
nobody would have been released. That's the gospel. Without Christ,
our Passover, nobody's going free. You have a custom that should
release unto you one at the Passover will you therefore that I release
unto you the king of the Jews and of course they cried no Not
this man, but the robber Barabbas if not for the Passover everybody
dies that day. That's condemned That's the gospel
The spiritual true Passover is is the occasion upon which God's
elect go free. The Jews went free from 400 year
bondage because of the blood of the lamb. Barabbas went free
because it was the Passover. And I'll tell you this this morning,
God says concerning you and I also this very morning, when I see
the blood, I'll pass over to you. Not when I see you, your
works or anything you do, when I see the blood. Otherwise, you're
condemned and you will suffer the penalty of your crimes. But I'm Barabbas, and it's the
Passover. That's why I stand free this
morning. Now, Barabbas had no idea that
he was free, did he, until he was free. Now, what do you mean
by that? Well, think about this. This
is true of every sinner saved by the grace of God in Christ
Jesus. All of this that happened, the
words that were spoken, the decisions that were made then, the back
and forth between Pilate and the people, all of that, it resulted
in Barabbas being released and it happened without him. He wasn't in on the conversation
and neither were you. in the eternal covenant of grace, when because of the surety ship
and precious blood of the son of God, sinners were made free
in the eternal covenant that God made with his son and his
Holy Spirit, you weren't there. You weren't involved in it. Barabbas had no claim on freedom.
What would he have said if he had been there? If he had been
in on the decision making, what would he say? He'd either have
to lie or bow to his justice, the judgment, the justice that
was due unto him. He had no case to make. He had
no grounds upon which to campaign for his own release and no opportunity
to present such an argument if he had had one. That's me, I
was saved that way too by the free grace of God in Christ.
The transaction that determined my freedom happened without me.
It was between God the Father and God the Son. This is our condition before
God in our sin and guilt too. We don't have a case if we had
been there. If we were in on it, all we could do is say, guilty,
mercy. When we find out about it, that's
what we do. Guilty, mercy. But the thing is, you see, when
we say that, we've already been set free. It's already happened. That's how it was with Barabbas. He had no reason whatsoever to
believe that he would not be punished justly for his crimes. The first Barabbas knew that
he was free. He was already free. He just
didn't know it yet. And when I heard the gospel,
I was already saved or I couldn't have heard the gospel. I was dead in trespasses and
sins. The only way I could even know
I was alive was to already have been made alive. That's how much
you have to do with your salvation before God. A zero with the rim
knocked off of it. It's grace and it's free grace. It's grace in spite of, it's
grace anyway. It's grace without you, it's
free. I will love them freely without
a cause in them. That's real love, that's God's
love. I don't know the exact circumstances
of Barabbas' release, and I hate to ever speculate about anything,
but it's easy to imagine, really, that when the guard opened the
prison door, Barabbas may well have thought that it was to lead
him to the place of crucifixion. Well, they're here. The time
has come. You think he got much sleep that
night? But then he was told that the
door is open because you're free to go. Because the decision had already
been made. I suspect he slept pretty good
that night. And listen now, you cannot decide
to pardon yourself. What does your decision have
to do with a pardon? Guilty sinners don't decide to
pardon themselves. The verdict this morning is not
coming from you. We preach for a verdict from
God. I'm not here to try to get you
to do something for God this morning. I'm here hoping with
all my heart that God will do something for you. The guilty
don't render a verdict, the judge does. And I tell you this, you can't
get away from it one way or the other though. You can't be neutral
when the gospel is preached. His blood is upon you one way
or the other, one way or the other. You don't have the power, you
don't have the authority to pardon yourself. That's not up to you. I don't care how many times false
preachers say it's up to you, it's not up to you. Pardon is
not up to you. That leper said, Lord, if you
will, you can make me clean. I don't suspect anybody would
go to hell if it was up to them, you reckon? To my utter eternal shame, I
used to knock doors with religion and they would ask me, well,
you want to go to heaven when you die? I never heard anybody say no.
Have you? But it's not up to you. Somebody's
on the throne and it ain't you. Somebody's guilty and it ain't
him. You're guilty and worthy of God's
eternal wrath. And you're waiting for the sentence
to be handed down. And there's not but one thing
that you can do now. I recommend it highly. I'd beg
for mercy is what I'd do. I'd beg for mercy. And listen,
it was one or the other. Oh my God. Impress this upon
us. Think about this with me. You
see now in our text, verse 17, He said of necessity. It says
of necessity there. Somebody's got to be set free. And I want to talk about that
word necessity for a minute, but not right now. You know what
word I want to talk about first? One. One. There's not but one going free.
It's going to be one or the other, not both. Not both, now you think
about this. Of necessity, there's gonna be
one released and the other one's gonna die. Somebody's gonna die and somebody's
going free. Of necessity. For me to be set free, the Lord
Jesus Christ must, needs, have suffered in my place. There's
just one going free if it's gonna be me and it's not gonna be him He listened to Hebrews 2 14,
I should probably turn there if you would please Hebrews 2
14 Hebrews 2 For me to be set free, the Lord
Jesus Christ must die. He must die. Hebrews 2.14, for
as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood,
he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through
death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that
is the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were
all their lifetime subject to bondage. We're in jail. We're waiting for the sentence
to be handed down now. For verily he took not on him
the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
There were angels that sinned too, but they have no substitute. Man who sinned have a substitute in the Lord
Jesus Christ, those for whom he died. He took on him the seat
of Abraham, wherefore in all things it behooved him to be
made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and
faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation
for the sins of the people. He took our place as man. He took our place with our sins
upon him on Calvary, And he was our great high priest in things
pertaining to God with somewhat to offer. A high priest has to
have something to offer. And he offered his own precious
blood in our stead, in our place, as a ransom for our souls. And Paul said he obtained, when
he did that, he obtained eternal redemption for us. It wasn't
a venture. It wasn't a gamble. It was a
purchase. Acts 17, one. Now, when they
had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica,
where was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul, as his manner
was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them
out of the scriptures, opening and alleging that Christ must
needs have suffered. Of necessity, one is gonna be
released, just one. and risen again from the dead,
and that this Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ." He's God's
anointed. He's God's son. Both can't be
set free, the sinner and the Savior, because of the Savior. Think about that. If the Savior
is set free, then we're not. Didn't he say
to Simon, I could call on my heavenly Father right now. And
he would send more than 12 legions of angels and deliver me out
of this. For this cause, he came into
this world. He could have called on his father
to set him free, but then nobody else goes free. He said, how then shall the scriptures
be fulfilled? That I will love them freely,
that I will have mercy on whom I'll have mercy. How shall all
of the promises be yay and amen? Because they're yay and amen
in Christ Jesus, because of what he accomplished on Calvary. But if he did then call upon
the Father that he might be freed, then we can't be freed from sin
and the consequences of our sin. But listen to me now, both cannot
be set free and it's necessary that it be one. But think about this too. It can't be both either. It cannot be both. It's necessary
that one die For my sin, it is necessary also that it only be
one of the two. One's got to be set free and
one has to die. either the sinner or the Savior
now, because if the Savior dies in my place, then I can't die.
God's perfect justice demands the death of one or the other,
but not both, only one. If the sinner dies in his sin,
then the Savior did not die for him. But if Christ dies for that
sinner, oh, then death, where is your sting? Death is swallowed
up in victory. O grave, where is that victory?
The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ. Death is swallowed up in victory
with Christ died. in your place, victory over sin,
victory over death, victory over the consequences of sin, which
is hell. They are a gift from God given
to us through our Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we just read.
A gift through the crucified son of God. Christ took our place
on Calvary or he didn't. One must go free of necessity
because there's a Passover. But one of necessity must die
too. They ain't both going free, the
sinner and the savior. It's not going to happen that
way. That middle cross was assigned to Barabbas by men. And he richly deserved to hang
there. He richly deserved. What a wretch. You know, I think
about this every once in a while. Religion almost romanticizes
sin. You know what I mean by that?
They talk about, oh, he's just an old sinner. No, there's no
ha-ha-ha to it. A sinner is a vile thing. If
we had any idea what it was, we would say with Job, I can't
stand myself. I hate myself. You see what I mean? They talk
about sin as though, well, you know, he's just an old sinner.
Well, you know, I sowed my wild oats in my youth. That's not
anything to take lightly. Sinners hurt people. Sinners
hate people. Sinners hate God. Sinners are
disgusting and vile and wretched and they ought to go to hell.
You see what I mean? There's a difference between
the way religion talks about it and the reality of it. He was guilty, he was notoriously
evil. If any of the notorious prisoners
that we're aware of, very few, were set free, we'd be mad about
it. He was condemned already and
sentenced to death. And we see in our text that it
was man's will that Christ be destroyed. Look at verse 25 back
in our text. Luke 23, 25. He released unto
them him that for sedition And murderer was cast into prison
whom they had desired, but he delivered Jesus to their will. But I'll tell you this, men were just pawns in this.
It was their will. If you wanna know something about
man's will, don't listen to what religion talks about. Look at
what God says about it. Our will is evil. There's nothing
free about it. We're bound by sin. We're taken
captive by Satan and his will by nature. You're a puppet of
Satan by nature. Clearly revealed in the word
of God. If you believe in the sovereignty
of God, that makes man a puppet. You wanna be Satan's puppet or
God's? It was their will, wasn't it?
It was their will, but more importantly, it was God's will. It was God's
will. Isaiah 53 tells us that it pleased
the Lord to crush him. The Lord Jesus Christ. It was
the Lord himself that said in John 10, 17, therefore does my
father love me because I lay down my life that I might take
it again. It was the will of those wicked,
vile, wretched sinners, us, that the son of man be destroyed.
They would rather live with a monster than with him because we're monsters. But he said, no man taketh my
life from me. I lay it down of myself. I have
power to lay it down and I have power to take it again. This
commandment have I received of my father. So we're always to
remember that. What happened there is the most
vile display of man's evil that has ever taken place, and everybody
that's ever lived or ever will is guilty of it. But what happened
there is the most beautiful display of the grace and glory of God
that a sinner has ever seen. That's the difference between
man's will and God's will. Remember what Joseph said to
his brothers? You meant it unto me for evil, but God overruled it for good.
You remember what he said next? To save much people alive, that's
the gospel. That's what happened on Calvary.
That's what happened. We have this beautiful passage
in Acts 4.26 that's so applicable to our text that we have to read
it again. The kings of the earth stood
up And the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, against
his Christ. Listen to how many times the
word against is in it. Against the Lord, against his
Christ, for of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou
hast anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles
and the people of Israel. That's everybody. were gathered
together for to do whatsoever thy hand and counsel determined
before to be done. You see what I'm talking about?
That's Christ dying on Calvary and that's Barabbas being released.
It was determined before that somebody's going free because
it was determined before that somebody was gonna suffer in
his place. Oh, salvation's the eternal sovereign
work of God Almighty. And we rejoice in Him. I was gonna read to you from
Genesis 50. This'll be your homework, Genesis
50, 15 through 21. That's where Joseph confronted
his brothers, and they thought they were goners. They thought
they were goners. They had mistreated him. They
threw him in a pit because they were jealous of him. Because
God had revealed to Joseph that he was going to rule over his
brethren. This is the gospel. Why do we hate Christ? We crucified
him as the king. We mocked him as the king. We
will not have this man to reign over us. We'll see about that,
they said. And they threw him in a pit.
And he was ultimately taken out of that pit and sold into slavery. And they stripped that coat of
many colors off of him and put animal blood on it and told his
father, well, he's dead, he's been killed. And then, lo and
behold, the day came when Joseph did have authority over his brothers.
He held their lives in his hand. You see, it was up to him. He
had control over the storehouses. Christ every blessing that God
has for a sinner is in Christ bestowed at his discretion And they came and they pleaded
with him They sent a messenger to Joseph Saying that father
did command before he died saying so shall you say unto Joseph
forgive? That's what's got to happen in
it Not, well, you just need to understand the circumstances,
or we've got a case to plead. No, forgive us, forgive us, forgive
us. I pray thee now the trespass
of thy brethren and their sin, for they did unto thee evil.
And now we pray, forgive the trespasses of the servants of
the God of thy father. And Joseph wept. When they spake
unto him and his brethren also went and fell down before his
face and they said behold we be thy servants Reminds me of
Saul of Tarsus saying Lord What would you have me do What
would you have me do? And Joseph said unto them fear
not for am I in the place of God? But as for you you thought
evil against me But God meant it unto good to bring to pass
as it is this day to save much people alive. And now therefore
fear ye not, I will nourish you and your little ones. And he
comforted them and spoke kindly unto them. In our text, their will, our
will, man's will was crucify him. And we thought evil against
God and his son, but God meant it unto good to save much people
alive. And like Barabbas, is it okay
if I call you Barabbas from now on? Wretched, murdering, robbing, just a vile monster. the son of his father, but set
free because he was the son of his father. By God's grace, I'll take that
name. I'll take it. Jacob was a worm, but God said,
fear not thou worm, Jacob, because you're mine. And like Barabbas went free that
day, though guilty, much people have been saved alive by the
sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. I love that song. I love this song. Who can number
his generation? Who shall declare all the triumph
of his cross? Millions dead. Now live again. I can't even say that much less
sing it because I'm one of those millions. Millions dead now live
again Myriads follow in his train Victorious Lord Victorious Lord
Victorious Lord and coming King