If you would now open your Bibles
and ask yourself the fourth step. We'll begin reading in verse
11, Matthew 27, verse 11. Meanwhile, Jesus stood before
the governor, that's Pilate, and the governor asked him, are
you the king of the Jews? Yes, it is as you say, he just
replied. And he was accused by the chief
priest and the elders He gave no answer. Then Pilate asked
him, don't you hear the testimony they are bringing against you?
But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge, to the
great amazement of the government. And it is remarkable to think
that as the Lord stood there before the one who He was humanly
speaking beside His face. He made no defense, and I believe
I know why. He stood there as you and me. Already, the Lord had laid on
Him the iniquity of all. And He made no defense of Himself,
because He was not going to try to relieve Himself of the sin
that He bore. He made no defense because as
the one who bore sin before the Lord, there was no defense to
be made. Now, it was the governor's customers,
verse 15, at the feast to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd.
At that time, they had a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. His name means son of the father. So when the crowd had gathered,
Pilate asked them, Which one do you want me to release to
you, Barabbas or Jesus, who is called Christ? I don't know if
Barabbas heard this or not. But I'm sure that if he did,
he, along with Pilate, thought surely they would choose to let
Jesus go and have Barabbas crucified. And when he asked that question,
verse 18, it says, For he knew, as the Pilate knew, that out
of envy that they had handed Jesus over to him. While Pilate was sitting on the
judge's seat, his wife sent him this message. don't have anything
to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal
today in a dream because of him. But the chief priest and the
elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have
Jesus executed. Which of the two do you want
me to release for you, asked the governor. Barabbas, they
answered. What shall I do then with Jesus?
who is called Christ, and I thank you. Crucify Him. The events on the day of our
Lord's crucifixion were as great a mystery of justice as there
ever has been among humans. There stood before Pilate the
one and only person and all of human history who had never committed
any sin. And yet there is charged against
him the worst sins imaginable. They charge him with blaspheming
God by claiming himself to be God. Well, it's true that he
did claim to be God. In fact, he said to them, unless
you believe that I am, I am, you will die no sooner. And he said many things which
led them to the conclusion that he was indeed claiming himself
to be God. And if he was not God, that wasn't
great blasphemy. And then, in order to come up
with some kind of claim that would excite the anger of the
Roman governor, they said, he calls himself the King of the
Jews. So, of course, that means Herod wouldn't like it, because
Herod was the appointed King of the Jews. And Pilate wouldn't
like the idea that anyone would claim to be king over even any
small section of Rome, other than the man that Rome put there.
So these charges were laid against him, though they were utterly
false, so far as it being blasphemy for him to declare himself to
be the son of God, or that he had any intention of overthrowing
the Roman government or the Jewish puppet government in place in
that day. He had no intention of doing
that. But he stood before them, accused
of saying that were not true, and yet so great was the hatred
of Christ on that day, that the crowd, and we don't know how
big a crowd it was, it was quite early in the morning, but the
whole crowd had been convinced to ask that a notorious criminal
be released, or abbot. And I think it is quite
instructive in his main meaning, the son of the Father. The Apostle John
says, now are we the children, the sons of God. Moravicus is
a picture of us, the children of the Father, the sons of the
Father. And for reasons Known only to
God, he chose and set us free. And it is upon his son the punishment
of which we will learn of. I don't know what Barabbas did,
but he was notorious for his crimes, whatever they were. He
deserved to be punished, as he is set free, and Christ, instead,
is punished. What shall I do then, in Jesus'
name? He is called Christ. Pilate's
words are often morphed into, what will you do with Jesus?
And I've titled, given that title to the message of what will you
do with Jesus? And, of course, it's suitable
that Pilate's words be changed like that, because when he said,
what would you have me do with Jesus, he was essentially saying
to those in front of him, what would you do with Jesus if you
were allowed to? You see, the Jews were not allowed
to execute anyone. Only Rome had the authority to
condemn someone to death. That doesn't mean the Jews didn't
kill anybody, but their courts didn't have that authority at
that time. And so, I said, what do you want me to do with this
fellow? Which, in essence, was to say,
what will you do with Jesus? However, we don't need to ask
that question. I don't ask people, what will
you do with Jesus? Because I already know. I already know that if that question
is put the people who have not been born again. So providential that the Lord
laid it on Scott's heart to read that scripture this morning.
Because in John chapter 3, the Lord was telling Nicodemus, unless
you are born again, and that's a work that God does without
us asking for it, You know, people that despair of this life say,
well, I didn't ask to be born. That's true. And it wouldn't
make you couldn't. Why? You can't ask to be born because you don't
exist. It's the same thing in the new
birth. Nobody can ask God to be born again. Why? Because they
have no understanding of what born again means. Until they
are born again. You have no more to do with your
second birth than you do with your first birth. But any time
it is put to those who have not been born again, which the Bible
otherwise calls natural men or unspiritual men, the response
is always the same, crucified. Natural man never responds positively
to the gospel. In fact, think of it now. Think
of who it is that asks this question. What would you and me do with
Jesus? It was accomplished by Al the
governor of the district of Divina, part of the Roman Empire, who
thought he would come by. The Lord said he'd stay with
us. In another place it says, when the Lord wouldn't give him
an answer, The pilot said, you're not answering me? He said, don't
you realize I have power to crucify you or to release you? You know
what the Lord said to him? You have no power but that which
has been given to you by heaven. I don't know what pilot thought
of the Lord's words. Part of me sounds scratched in
his head. What do you mean by that? Peter cleared it up, what was
meant by that, and the day of Pentecost, when he was preaching
to the people gathered at the temple there, and he said, you
with wicked hands. Now, what did he mean by the
wicked hands? He meant the Gentiles. Because with you, he sounded
the Gentiles, and that's what he was saying. You with wicked
hands. Crucified. Crucified. And he was crucified. And he said, you did this according
to God's foreordained purpose. Jesus Christ had said this himself.
He said, no man takes my life from me. Pilate said, don't you
realize I have the power to crucify you? No, you don't, Pilate. You
don't have the power or authority to crucify the Lord Jesus Christ
unless God the Father wills it and Jesus Christ consents to
it. The whole time that Pilate was there talking with the Lord
Jesus, he was breathing and his heart was beating. And he did
not realize that the one standing before him is the one who gave
him breath and kept his heart beating. And he dares to say
to the Lord Jesus, don't you know I have power? And a great deal of modern Christianity
tells people they have power over Jesus Christ. They say, Jesus Christ wants
to save you, but you won't let Him. Now really, how can that be? He that spoke
the universe into existence, and formed it according to his
own will, and who providentially rules all over it, he does not
have power over you and me. And somehow or another, we have
power to resist his will." And it's just the top lady, the guy
that wrote Rock of Ages. That's what I believe it to be. But he said, he says, to resist
the Lord of Glory? He says, I don't have power to
stop Him. No, He does. How dare I say I
have power to stop God from doing whatever He wants to do? So that's
who asked these words, what would you have me do with Jesus? And
then look at those to whom He asked it. They had gathered for
the express purpose of crucifying the Lord Jesus Christ. There
was not a one among them who had any sympathy, regard, or
honor for the Lord Jesus Christ. They are perfect pictures of
you and me without the Spirit of God. You say, well, I wouldn't
have crucified Christ. Yes, you would. Yes, I would.
I want to make sure that's clear. I'm not dumping this on you as
though it doesn't apply to me. I heard one, I didn't hear him,
I heard of him. He said this, if I'd have been
there, I'd have stopped them. Really? It was preachers in the
crowd that stirred, among us, stirring the whole crowd up to
say, crucify him. The religious world has no love
for the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the light. And
he comes into the darkness of human religion, and when the
light of who he is, and the light of the truth comes with him,
all the self-righteousness of religious people is exposed for
what it is, a great evil. And that's why it is written,
they love darkness rather than light, because their deeds were
evil. Those who are notably evil, well, that shows up even in the
darkness. But those who are righteous,
in their own sight and in the sight of the world? Well, they
can hide in the darkness and nobody sees their sins. Let Christ
come among them. Let true righteousness and the
light of the truth come among them and all will be shown that
they are exactly the same as everybody else. They don't like
that. And that's why they were the ones stirring up the crowd
to crucify the Lord Jesus. And so here we have a picture,
as it were, of common preachers who think, you know, who believe
this whole business of God's done everything he can to save
you, now it's up to you, it's in your hands. He's just like
that. He says, what do you want me
to do with Jesus? Which is to say, what will you do with Jesus?
And those people, just like everyone who has not been born again in
the spirit of God, they reject him out of it. The only reason you and I did
not participate in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is we were born
2,000 years too late and a few thousand miles from the Father's
cross. But if we had been there on that
day, dead in trespasses and sins like all of us were born in trespasses
and sins, we would have been right in that cross. I don't find the Lord Jesus or
the Apostles ever putting that question to you. Do you know
what could really concern you? Not what you would do with Jesus,
but what is Jesus going to do with you? Because you see, you can't do anything. God has set Him at His right
hand on the throne of universal salvation. He does as He will. In the armies of heaven and among
the inhabitants of the earth, and none can say His name or
say unto Him what in the world He should do. We have neither power nor authority. No. What we need to do, and we'll
only do it if we're born again, we'll only do it if God gives
us spiritual life so that we can begin to understand some
things about the Kingdom of God. We must ask this question, what
is Christ going to do? For Paul said to those philosophers
of Athens, God has appointed a day in which he will judge
the world in righteousness by that word he has raised from
the dead, even the Lord Jesus Christ. You will not be judging
Christ. Christ will be judging you. And
his verdict will stand. There's no court to appeal to
beyond that court. What will Jesus do? You know, there's an even more
fundamental question to ask, and if we know the answer to
that question, we'll know the answer to the other question. If not, what will you do with
Jesus? That's an irrelevant question. If not, what will Jesus do with
you? Because while that's an important question, it's not
the most fundamental question in the Gospels. What did God do with you? And if you know what God did
with you, then you will be able to
figure out what Jesus was going to do with you. And you won't
even consider what you were going to do with him. What did God
do with you and with God? Roman soldiers, and what Jewish
religious leaders called for, and what Roman soldiers did under
the command of Pilate, is not what put away our sins. It was
involved, but it was not merely a crucifixion, not merely a putting
to death of the Lord's body. That wouldn't do it. Seeing as it is God who is judged,
it is God who condemns, and it is God who punishes, whatever
must be suffered in order for sinners like you and I to go
free, it must be carried out by God himself. and say what the Lord Jesus Christ
endured for our sake. And verse 6, the prophet says,
we all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned
to the threefold way. In the Lord, that is, Jehovah.
You see with the Lord there, the word Lord is an all-capital
letter. That means that the phrase like sheep is a Hebrew name,
Jehovah. Jehovah has laid All of us want to be saved. Now, in all reality, I can't
lay my sins on the cross. I don't have that authority. I can't lay your sins on the
cross. Don't look to me. I can't do that. There's only
one person You can take the sins of one
person and put them on another, and that's all I can say. Now, you and I, all of that
charged us with sin we hadn't done, we were brought up before
the court, You know something, that'd just
be one more crime, one more sin among the millions we've already
done. while they wouldn't even have to accuse us of something
falsely. If it were just ever publicly
made known, the things that we have done in secret, or the things
that go on in our mind, it would be a great humiliation to us. Imagine what it was like for
Jesus Christ, who knew no sin, who did no sin, who sought no
sin, who desired no sin, to stand before God, the judge of all,
covered in the filth and wickedness of people like you and me. charged with our guilt and not
discharged and found guilty. Guilty and found guilty. I don't know exactly how this
was done. I know how it's described in history. So folks, we identified was the
sin of God's people. So closely was it identified
with our Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul could think of no other
way to describe it than this. For God has made the one who
knew no sin to be sin for us. And we cannot turn the Lord Jesus
Christ into sin. But Paul wanted to impress upon
us You say, yeah, but everybody
knew that it was not really his sin. In fact, the Apostle Peter
says, he bore our sins in his body on the tree. Yes, that's
what it says. But if you know how Christ used
it, let's go over to the place there in Isaiah 53. Let's go
over here to the book of Lamentations. Now, this is In verse 12 of Lamentations,
chapter 1. Here, it's Jeremiah speaking,
but as a prophet, he is speaking the words of the Lord Jesus Christ,
even though we have no record that Christ ever actually said
these things, yet they often said it. of our Lord's suffering,
and he said, is it nothing to you, verse 12, all you who pass
by, look around and see, is any suffering like my suffering,
that was inflicted on me, that the Lord brought on me in the
day of his fierce anger? From on high he sent fire, sent
it down into my bones. He spread a net for my feet and
turned me back. He made me desolate, faint all
the day long. Now notice these next words.
My sin. He didn't say, their sins have
been found in Jesus. He said, my sins. He did no sin. That's true. He knew no sin.
That's true. But our Lord standing there as
our representative, for our sins were laid upon Him. My sins have been bound into
a yoke by His hands and were woven together. They have come upon my neck,
and the Lord has sat my sins. He has handed me over to those
I cannot withstand. And bearing their sins, call
them My sins. That's exactly what the Holy Spirit taught Jesus. What did God do? He laid My sins. He laid the
sins of all His longings upon the Lord Jesus Christ. My understanding is that word
translated, laid, and from every age, at least
as far back as ages. And on through time, until the
last of God's feet shall appear on this earth. And across space
and time, all the sins of all God's chosen people will cross
and meet together before one person, and that is Jesus Christ. So much peace. So great liberty. All on one
person, no one, it's all said, Jesus made sin. And it's all in our blood, Jesus'
blood, and my blood. Going back to Isaiah 53, what
did God do with Jesus? That's the big question. What did God
do with Jesus? He laid sin upon the Lord Jesus
Christ. And then in verse 10 of Isaiah
53, we read it. Yet it was the Lord's will to question
and cause him to suffer. No father. I don't think I could do that. I don't think I can trust one
of my children for their own sake, much less could I trust
them and put them to grief for the sins of somebody else. It is amazing to consider the
love of God for the children. I can't say indiscriminately
that God loves everybody. We know that he said, Jacob,
have I loved? Esau, have I hated? No, the gospel is not going out
and declaring his love, but we know this. All of us who have
been saved by the blood of Christ, we must call that God commended
his love toward us, saying that while we were yet We are not saved by the love
of God. If the love of God could have saved us, He wouldn't have
had to send us sinners. Our sins had to be paid for. Love motivated
God to save us. But it is in the crushing of
His Son and in the putting of Him to grief that we are saved. That's where our salvation comes
from. But what love on the part of the Father that He was willing
to do, no more than willing. Willing generally means someone
else suggested it and we go along with it. It doesn't say God was
willing that He be crushed. It says it was the Lord's will
to crush Him. Back when that movie, The Passion
of Christ, came out, the Jews thought it was anti-Semitic,
because it was saying that the Jews killed Christ. And he said,
no, that's not what it is. And that's true. You know, as
he said, the Jews were wicked hands after us Gentiles. Everybody
was involved in that. But I'll tell you who crushed
Christ. I'll tell you who it was put
him to grief. It was God, the judge of all. That's who did
it. He is the one who purposed everything that happened that
day. Not only that, he's the one that carried it out. God! Christ! The King James says,
bruised. And that would have been fine
words back in the days of the King James, but we think of a
bruise as black and blue marks. This is speaking of someone being
beaten so much that as one from whom men turn their
face away, it described him. Such a gory mess, no one wanted
to look. And that's just what's going
on in his body. The Bible says, later here in Isaiah 53, He has made his soul to be an
offering for sin. I know what it's like to be soulfully hated, to feel
like you're hit so deep that you can never get out, to feel as though you're cut
off from every good thing. and that there is no love for
you, and God, and Mario is. I know what it is to feel like
that. To feel what you're saying to
me, and at times feeling like that, I knew it wasn't true.
I knew it wasn't true. The Lord Jesus
Christ, he said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And he wasn't just saying, he
wasn't saying, I feel like I've been forsaken, he was. It says,
all his disciples forsook him and fled. His soul crushed beneath the
weight of our sins, crushed under the fury of God's wrath. crushed
under the realization that he was truly the only man that ever
lived who was absolutely, solitarily alone, without help, nor care,
nor sympathy from anybody. I'll do the best I can. I'll never know what it is to be treated
like that, because we've been taught
for it to be like that. Thirdly, first, God made our King and God Him, and secondly, He
punished him He did all that Christ, all that a just and holy
God can do in response to sin. He did that through His Son,
the Lord Jesus. And then because of the essentially
righteous nature of our Lord Jesus Christ, because of who
He is, God is in His place. He was able, in the space of
a few hours, He absorbed what a multitude of sinners can never
absorb in an eternity in hell. He was able to absorb that, as
it were, within a few hours. He put our sins away, and therefore,
on the third day, God raised him from the dead. And 40 days later, and laid our sins on Him, and punished our sins
in Christ. And as I cried, He said, it is
finished. And I've never been able to say
that when it was true. I've got so many projects going
on at my house, and I say, I'm finished. And my dad, right in
front of my head, nearly got there. He wasn't quite finished.
He may not be able to do it. None of us ever get finished. He had done everything the Father
sent him to do. He had borne everything that
God the Judge could inflict upon someone. He was guilty in His
sight. He had endured it all. And therefore
God raised me from the dead. Why? Well, the tomb is for the
unrighteous. The tomb is for the wicked. The
tomb is for sinners. Death is the result of sin. Jesus
Christ bore our sins, so He died. But then by bearing our sins
and dying, He put them away. Therefore, He has no sin. And
a grave is no place for a righteous man. So God says, come on out.
I accept your word. You have done enough. And Jesus Christ came out and
gave his last instruction to his disciples, and then he ascended
on high. And God says, now you sit here
at my right hand until I make you a human being. And ever since
then, Jesus Christ has sat upon the
throne, and he has ruled there in the power and authority of
his Father. And He has sought and found all of His lost sheep,
or is seeking and finding all of His lost sheep, and bringing
them back to Him fast. He is destroying all His enemies,
and in time to come, God will send Him back. And the day, God
knows the day, nobody else does, that God has appointed a day
in which He will judge the world in righteousness. That's an awfully good question.
An awfully good question. And how are we reconciled at
all? Well, the crowd that does the reconciling lets you hear
it. But how will we know that we've been reconciled at all?
The scriptures say, Paul said, if you will confess
with your mouth, Jesus, to be Lord, and believe in your heart
that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
You say, okay, so we're back to what will we do with Jesus?
No, that's not about what you're doing with Jesus. You aren't
doing anything with Jesus when you confess Him to be Lord. When
you confess Him to be Lord, all you're doing, you aren't making
Him Lord. He already is Lord. All you're doing is acknowledging
that it is so. You cannot make a change in the
Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot do anything to Him
or with Him. But you can, as God gives you
grace, bow before Him and call Him in. You can, as God gives you the
grace in the new birth, you can call upon the name of the Lord
and find His salvation. In a few minutes, we're going
to observe the Lord's Table. What's the Lord's Table about? Is it
about what we do with the evil? No. Is the Lord's Table about
what Jesus is going to do with us? No. The Lord's Table is about
what God did to Jesus. Broken. Crushed. Unseen. Unseen. If we say that what God did through
Christ was done for us, we will be saved. The Lord therein is our salvation,
our comfort. Bless us now as we observe your
days, and may the truth that it let us in teach to our hearts'
contentment. We'll take out the course books.
We're going to send number 8 in the course books. We'll take
a hand out to that. We'll give her 74. We'll give
her 8 in the course books. We'll give her a 19. I'm going to do that. I love you. I love you. Inhale. Exhale. of our Lord would be broken,
and no bones were broken. His body was broken. And actually, when the Jews would
talk about a body being sacrificed, they meant the whole of the individual,
not just the physical. Our Lord was broken in every
aspect of His being. And on the night in which he
was to pray, he took the bread, and after he broke it, he said, you Our Lord and his disciples were
observing the Passover meal when he instituted the Lord's statement.
And part of that celebration included drinking the cup of
wine he said by fire. And it's interesting, Our Lord
said, this cup is an intercession of my blood. My Lord, we don't continue. I
understand everything. Everything about your suffering. And we make no claim to righteousness
of our own, nor any good of our own. And our hope is entirely
in the one who knew no sin, but was made to be sin on our behalf. It's not quite where you want it.