Go with me to John 18 now, John
18. You read with me, I hope you
followed carefully and entered into it, Psalm 2. And I hope you read these texts
beforehand, like Exodus. The time won't allow us to read
all those verses, so I want you to do that at home, at your homework. I hope you've read John 18, but
Psalm 2 is such a clear prophecy of that. In fact, the church
in Acts chapter 4, when they were being persecuted, they came
and they all prayed that, that God said, you said that against
the King and Christ, they'll all be gathered together to do
what God purposed to do. Now you read with me, why do
the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing, and the
kings of the earth set themselves. Rulers take counsel together.
Here in John 18 is a story of the heathen, Romans, Gentile,
and the people, the Jews, raging, raging against the king, the
ruler of heaven and earth. What fools. And you read with me where it
says, God says, He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. Jew and Gentile, religious
and irreligious. This is the story of man judging
God. He's still doing it. You're not going to be king unless
we let you. This is a story of the great
king being judged. The next message will be the
great king being condemned. And the last message is the great
king being crucified. But the great king is the one
manipulating all of this. The great king is making man
do what he purposed for them to do to him for his glory. That's a whole story. But here,
he's called the king throughout this passage. Look at verse 33. Pilate entered into the judgment
hall again and called Jesus and said unto him, Art thou the king?
Now, God wrote this book, and it's precise. But he uses
the. That's a definite article. That
means one, doesn't it? And he always capitalizes K. Okay? Look at verse 33. Art thou the king of Jews? Capital
K. Verse 37. And then Pilate asked
him, Art thou a king? Small K. There can't be more
than one king, can there? Did you catch that? Are you a
king, small K? No, he's THE KING, capital K. God wrote this. Verse 39, Pilate said to the people, will
you therefore that I release unto you THE KING, capital K? Chapter 19, the soldiers mocked
him and his kingship. Verse 3, they said, Hail King,
capital K, of the Jews. And verse 12, the people said,
the last line said, whoever maketh himself a king, small k, speaks
against Caesar. Pilate, in verse 14, said, behold,
your king, capital K. and then they put the subscription
over top of his cross and verse 19, Jesus of Nazareth in all
capital letters, the King. God wrote this book. It's in
air, it's infallible. King. Now a king to modern man,
modern man has no concept of a king, a true king. I'm talking
about a true sovereign ruler. A king, in the truest sense of
the word, a king is one who does as he will, to whom he will,
because he will. A king is the only one anywhere
who has free will. You understand me? Man has no
concept of that. We have never seen a king like
that. We just crowned... Did you see that? Them crowning
the king and the queen. That's sad. You know that Parliament
can remove him any time they want to. Not this king. And we don't crown
him. God did. God did. A king is one who has free will,
doing as he will, to whom he will, just because he will. And
you can't question him. A king has absolute power. He
can kill you, or he can let you live. He can set you up, or cast
you down. He can make you rich or take
everything away from you. He can. He can give, He can take. He's King and none can stay His
hand. No one can stop Him from doing
what He pleases. That's King. Jesus Christ is
the King. He has on his thigh in Revelation
19, it says, has a name. The King of kings, small king. The Lord of lords. It was as king that the Jews
and the Gentiles, the religious and the irreligious, rejected
him then. They rejected his sovereignty.
They rejected him then and they reject him now. It's still the
issue. Sovereignty of our Lord Jesus
Christ. It still is. Ironically, hypocritically,
the Jews, religious people, got together and they wanted to make
Him king. Hypocritically. They didn't want
a king to reign over them. They wanted somebody to give
them a carnal utopia. Like in the days of Solomon.
Protect them from their enemies and make everybody rich and under
their own vine and fig tree. That's all they wanted. They
didn't want somebody reigning and ruling over them. And ironically, hypocritically,
they went to make him king. Did he let them? Oh, no, he passed
it to them. Why did he let them make him
king? He already is king. He was king
before he got there. He was king when he got there.
He'll be king after he leaves. Who made him king? God did. We read it. I'll declare the
decree. Long before Christ came, God
made the decree. This is my king. The Lord Jesus
Christ. So the Jews, religious people,
they claimed to believe God. They claimed to believe the Bible. They sure did love the law, didn't
they? They hated the lawgiver. They hated and rejected the Lord
Jesus Christ. They said of him in chapter 19,
verse 12, they said, he makes himself a king. No, he didn't.
God did. And at the time they said, you're
a man, you make yourself to be God. No, he didn't. He was God. He made himself a man. He made
himself a man. He took upon him. The likeness
of sin. He made his own body. That's
the king. That's God. That's the Creator.
They said we have no king but Caesar. That's revealing, isn't
it? That's revealing it. When it's all said and done,
religion is going to bow to one king. Money. We don't want to
lose our temple. We don't want to lose our place.
We don't want to lose our tax-free status. We really have no king,
but the government. So religion talks about a God,
but they hate sovereign God. They talk about Jesus, but they
hate a sovereign Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus. They call him
Jesus, but they don't call him the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus. Jew and Gentile. And they questioned
him. And they mocked him as king.
They mocked him. The irreligious world. The Romans.
The Roman soldier in chapter 19. And brethren, I prayed for you. Are you praying
for me? I prayed that the Lord would
give us attentive minds and heart. There's nothing in this Bible
that requires and demands our utmost attention in Christ being
crucified. And there's no subject in this
Bible that gives me more fear and causes me such a weight. And who is sufficient for these
things to enter into what our Lord entered into for us? And
I'm ashamed of myself, my poor attempts at trying to declare
the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He demands the best,
doesn't He? The best sermon I can preach
and your best attention. The irreligious world says, no
God, no God, I don't believe in God. The Romans didn't have
a God. They didn't believe in a God. The Romans didn't. The
Jews did, but their God wasn't God. The irreligious world, the
Romans said, no God. They have no creator, no owner,
no sovereign controller, no judge. We're gods. We're our own gods. We determine what's right and
wrong. We determine our destiny. Isn't that America today? Isn't
that the world at large today? No God, no judge, no law, no
right or wrong. Every man does that which is
right in his own eyes. If there is a God, we're all
just... He just loves us. He's just an old man. Brothers and sisters, now, I
hope through all of this, that we'll be praising God to high
heaven, that He's made Himself known to us. Because such were
some of them. That was me, a Roman. I was both
a Jew and a Gentile. I was raised religion and rejected
it. And then I went out in the world
like Philemon Onesimus. Went out in the world, went to
Rome and had my fling. No God. I'll do what I will. This is why I can't preach. I
can't tell you my story without these two words. But God, you will believe me. You will
know me. You will bow to me. You will
fear me. You will worship me. You're mine. Bless God, people, if you know
the living and the true God. Bless God if you know that God
is God. Not trying to be. That'll be
God if you let me be God. These people are all having a
little council together to decide what to do with Jesus. And God is manipulating this
whole thing. Look with me at Proverbs 16. I told myself the other day,
I'm not going to holler again. Brothers and sisters, forgive
me. I am who I am. I can't change. I get excited over this. Forgive me, my poor preachers,
forgive me. God forgive me. I ask Him all
the time to forgive me for not saying the things the way they
ought to be said, and saying things the way they ought not
to be said. Forgive me. But I tell you what, this needs
to be shouted from the rooftop down. Everybody in this world
needs to hear this. Thy God reigneth! He's not God if you let Him do
anything. And bless God, He's your God
if He causes you to know that He is God and He's let you know
that He's God. And bowed your knee and broke
your heart and filled your mouth with His praises. Bless God.
That wasn't your will. That wasn't your choice. That
wasn't your decision. No, you didn't accept Jesus.
He accepted you. Proverbs 16, verse 1, the preparations
of the heart in man and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.
Every single thing Pilate said this day, God said, say it. Everything
the Roman soldiers did, God says, do it. Everything. Verse 4, the Lord hath made all
things for Himself. Yea, the wicked, for the day
of evil, He chose Judas to betray Him. He chose Pilate, he put him in
office. Herod, he put him in office.
Like Pharaoh, Romans 9 says, I put you as king that I might
make my mighty power be known. He put Pharaoh on the throne
to throw him in the river. That's the God of the Bible.
I'm so glad. I'm so glad our God reigns, aren't
you? If He doesn't, people, we're
hurting. Look at Proverbs 21. Look over
at Proverbs 21. Look at this, verse 1. You have
it? Oh, how I love this. The king's
heart is in the hand of the Lord. As the rivers of water, he turneth
it whithersoever he will. Whose will? His will. This is
the reason we say it over and over again, that man, with all
his talk of free will, and some of them even put it on top of
their so-called church building, free will Baptist church, that's
the utmost rebellion against God there is. That's the most
blasphemous thing that man can say. Free will. That's what Satan said. That's
what an Adam and Eve said in the garden. But God said, no,
I will. I will. And if God doesn't make
us willing in the day of His power to bow to His will, as in Psalm 2, you cast us in.
Psalm 2. Oh, my. Aren't you glad? Aren't you glad? Our God reigneth. Our Lord is King. The Lord is
King. Bow to Him, ye brothers. Arise,
ye saints. Nancy and I look at each other
every time we get to that verse and we do this. Salute your king. King. Big king. He's my king. And I'm glad he is. I'm glad
God reigns, aren't you? Say unto Israel, say unto my
people, thy God reigneth. Oh, I'm so glad. What ignorance. What folly that the creature
didn't know his Creator. Huh? That the subjects don't
know their King. And John 1, this whole Gospel
of John begins this way. John 1. Is John 1, Sister Helen,
a declaration of who Jesus Christ is or what? Your mother Mary
loved that John 1. She could quote the first, I
don't know, maybe the whole chapter. But it speaks of the Word being
made flesh. He's God. Christ is God. Not if you let Him be God. He
is God. Always has been God. Always will be God. Well, there's
a man named Thomas. A man named Thomas in John 1.
That he met Christ. You know what he did? He hit
his knees and he said, Rabbi, you're the Son of God, the King
of Israel. How does he know that? Why'd
he say that? Where'd that come from? Christ
chose him. Shows him. Thomas, I'm your God. I'm your Lord. That's the first
thing. Chapter 1, it begins that way. And this whole Bible, this
whole book of John, talks about the King, the King, and Lord,
and Lord. He came as a King. He was born
as King in Bethlehem. He hugged on the cross with this
above his head, the king. And he was the one reigning over
that whole crucifixion. What great joy and comfort this
gives God's people, that our God reigns and no matter how
things may appear, no matter how awful things may be, no matter
how evil things may be, the worst thing, the most Evil day in the
history of mankind is when God came to earth and they put him
on a cross. This is mankind. The true depravity of man, the
true heart of man, the true evil of man is seen at Calvary like
no other place. When holiness personified walked
this earth, and man hates him. When sovereignty walked this
earth, and man said, nope, we won't bow. And they hung him
on a cross and they did all manner of anything they could think
of to brutalize him and torture him and show their detestation
for him. That's mankind. But God, he did
all that willingly. He did all that sovereignly. Now people, no matter how things
may appear, our God reigneth. No matter how evil things may
become, our Lord reigneth. Our God reigneth. All things
are not as they appear. Here's this man in chains standing
before this pompous pilot, this pinhead pompous pilot sitting
on his little peanut throne thinking he's ruling over. And later he
said, don't you know I have power? Here he is, the king of kings
in chains, standing there before this peanut ruler. And do you
know what's happening? Before this happened, Pilate's
wife came to him at night and said, she couldn't sleep all
night long. She's trembling on her bed and
said, that's a just man. Don't have anything to do with
him, honey. Wash your hands. Get out of this. And he tried,
didn't he? He tried, Pilate said. And three
times he said, I find no fault in it. I find no fault in it.
He's trying to get out of it. You can't get out of it. You can't be neutral. You either bow to him or you
don't. Look at this in our text, John 18. Oh man, God is not mocked. The
Jews led him to Caiaphas under the hall of judgment. Who led
who? Who's leading who? Who's the one in chains leading
who? And they delivered him up to Pilate. They said that. We've
delivered him unto you. Who delivered him up? Who? Who's in control of this whole
situation? The one in chains. You see, things are not as they
seem. And they were religious, you
know. They said, we can't go into that judgment hall. We've
got to eat our Passover. We can't go in there. Touch not,
taste not, handle not, you know. Well, they serve alcohol in there.
Well, what grocery store are you going to buy groceries in?
Anyway, they're hypocrites. It's all show. Verse 29, Pilate
said, what accusation bring you against this man? And they had
to sum up false witnesses. And everything that man says
that's contrary to God's Word is a false witness. It's a lie.
Make it up. You can't use the Word of God. Verse 30, they said if he were
not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him unto death.
Well, they didn't deliver him, and he's not a malefactor. Malefactor
means an evildoer. Malefactor means evildoer. Peter
got up and preached at Pentecost, Jesus of Nazareth, who went about
doing good. This is the only man who ever
walked this planet that didn't do evil. That's how warped man
is. That's how confused man is. There
was one human being, one man who ever lived that didn't do
evil. And they accused him of evil.
And we've done every evil that is. If we haven't done it, we
thought it. And everyone's going to stand before this man's judgment
seat someday. And how's anybody going to be
exonerated? How's anybody going to be justified, John? How? If
he says so. I hope we're going to get to
the end of this. This ends gloriously for us. We're going to see why he's doing
this. Why he's allowing this. It wouldn't have happened if
he didn't allow it. But he didn't direct it. Well, they said, they
took him to Pilate, and Pilate said, you judge him according
to your law. They said, we can't kill a man. We can't kill a man. It's not lawful to put him to
death. Wait a minute. You haven't even judged him yet, and yet
you're going to kill him. Boy, that's man's justice, isn't it?
Nothing's changed. You let one accusation come against
a person, and they're guilty. It's supposed to be you're innocent
until you've proven guilty of it. By two or three witnesses. Well, they brought all these
witnesses against Christ. None of them could agree. Man's justice. He's innocent. No, he's not. As soon as you
say something, he did something. He's guilty and everybody thinks
that. Right? There's no justice. Isaiah 59
says nobody calls for justice. Truth. The Jews says we can't
kill him. We are determined to kill him.
Without a trial? Yep. Verse 32. Why? To fulfill God's Word. That the saying of Jesus might
be fulfilled. He'd been saying this all along.
He'd been telling his disciples. The Son of Man must go as it
has been written. To be crucified. He's going to
be delivered up to the Jews. God delivered him up. He's going
to be delivered in the hands of Jews. They're going to mock
Him. They're going to spit on Him. They're going to beat Him. They're going to crucify Him.
He's going to rise. He's going to rise. He told everything that was going
to happen to Him. It's all written. It's all written
in the Lamb's Book of Life. And it's going to happen. Verse 33, Pilate entered into
the judgment hall again and called Jesus. And he said, now listen
to this. He said, Art thou the king of
the Jews? And our Lord answered him and
said, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell
it thee? Amen. Is this what you're calling me? Are you calling me king right
now? Is this what you heard? Do you see this? Now he's judging
Pilate. Am I your king? Or is this just
what you heard? Do you call me king? That's a
good question to ask everybody. Is Jesus Christ your Lord? Or
is this just what you hear the Bible says? Is He your Savior? Is He your
Savior? By Savior, I mean, did He save
you? Not you let Him save you. That's
no saviorism. That's a joint effort. Is He
your Lord, reigning and ruling, doing as He will? Do you have
no free will? He does. He has His will. He
does as He will with you and you're glad of. Is He your Lord?
Is He your King? Is He your Christ? Is He your
Atonement? Is He your Covenant Head? Or
do you just hear somebody say that? Or do you just believe
that as doctrine? Is this what you say with your
mouth, with your heart? Is this what you believe in your
heart? That He's your absolute Sovereign Ruler and Controller
and your Christ and your King and your Savior and your All
in All? Is that what you're saying? Or is somebody just telling you
that? Oh, what the Lord can say in
a few words, isn't He? Boy, who's on trial now?
I believe Pilate's trembling. Don't you know he's looking in
the eyes of God? And those piercing eyes that
were at times like eyes of dove and at other times like a flame
of fire. And he's looking in those eyes
and he said, don't you know that? He's trembling. This is God. This is the Christ description.
This is not no weak peanut Jesus standing outside men's door.
Oh, this needs to be preached all over the land. That's another
Jesus. Helpless, hopeless, wanting,
wishing, trying, failing. That's not the Jesus Christ description. Our Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus
Christ, came to this earth, sent by God to do a job. He did it.
He went back, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on
high, and the whole earth is His footstool. He's coming back
for his people. He chose. He died for every one
of you. Do you say this of yourself?
Or somebody tell you? From my heart, I ain't just preaching. Scott used to say, I'm not just
preaching now, I'm telling you the truth. From my heart, brothers
and sisters, if you'd have seen me I was a teenager in my early
20s. You thought, there's no hope
for him. No hope. He'd be in jail or dead soon. But God, according to Richard, he said, the whole world rejects
the sovereignty of God and the sovereignty of Jesus Christ.
I don't. Do you? Don't you say from your heart,
Ron, he's my God and he's my candy. Bless God. Why do you say that? He chose
you. An old boy from Carter County.
Does anybody know where Carter County, Kentucky is? Anybody
but one. Anybody know where... I even
forgot where you're from, Irene. Doesn't matter. Dingus. Anybody know where Dingus, West
Virginia is? God did. God did. And he went there looking for
her. Found her at a well. And revealed himself to him. Man. Sovereign. Sovereign over all things. Everything,
no matter how evil, how bad it is. Sovereign over souls. Sovereign
over lice. I love it. I love it. They said
to him, Pilate, I'm no Jew. Am I a Jew? Your own nation and
chief priests delivered you unto me. What have you done? Verse
35. What have you done? Our Lord answered, My kingdom
is not of this world. Oh, what is said in this verse. My kingdom is not of this world.
It doesn't come with observation. Well, they're going to build
a temple. So what? Let them build a temple. Christ
is not going to be in it. He's already in his temple, John.
Reigning king. I've set my king on my holy hill.
Zion is in the temple. He's in the midst of his people. My kingdom is not of this world.
If it were, we'd fight. People are going to be waiting
on an Armageddon. They're waiting on a big battle to be fought.
Who's fighting who? Who's going to be fighting? God's
people are going to be fighting? Who are they going to fight? Let me go ahead and tell you
again that the battle is not yours, it's the Lord's. And where
that battle happened was on Calvary. And Jesus Christ did it by Himself. Some of these things I can't
say without hollering. Lift up your voice. Say unto
the cities that thou behold your God. He said, what have you done?
He said, my kingdom's not of this world. If it were, my servants
would fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews, but
my kingdom is not from hence. Pilate said in verse 30, he said,
art thou a king then? A king? Our Lord said, you say
that I am a king. But here's why I came. Here's
what he said. He didn't come for man to crown
him king. He didn't come for man to acknowledge
him as king. He already is king. He doesn't
need man to acknowledge him as king. He doesn't need anybody
to crown him. David did. You know, people had
to take him and crown him. Not this king. Not the son of
man. Here's what he says. To this end, this is why I was
born, and this is the cause for which I came into the world,
that I should bear witness unto the truth. I have come to bear
witness of the truth, and everyone that is of the truth heareth
my voice. The truth. What does that mean? What is truth? Pilate said that.
Verse 38, what is truth? He didn't want to know the truth,
did he? Truth is standing in front of
him. He didn't know the truth. He
didn't want to know the truth. He's just philosophizing. Our Lord said,
Now he that is of the truth, I came to bear witness of the
truth, and he that is of the truth heareth my voice. Our Lord said in John 16 to his
disciples, to his disciples and them only, he said, I am the
way, the truth, and the life. What's that? That's everything.
That's all. That's all there is. I am the
way of what? Name something. I am the truth. Truth of what? Who God is? What
man is? What salvation is? What the Bible
says? What the truth is? The truth
is a person. I came to bear witness of the truth. Bear witness of
God, the true and living God. Who's the true and living God?
Jesus Christ. He's God. What man is? What salvation is? Salvation
is of the Lord. Salvation is in Christ. Salvation
is of Christ. Completely of Him. One of our
sisters this morning listened to the radio and her comment
or text to me was, the key to it all is Christ is all. That's right. That's right. He's the truth, and everyone
that is of the truth. James said this, of his own will,
of his own will, begat he us, gave birth to us by the truth,
with the word of truth, didn't he? The truth, the truth of who
God is, what I'm declaring this morning, the gospel. It's good news that God reigns.
If God doesn't reign, it's bad. It's good news that Christ is
God that came to do what he was sent to do and he did it. That's
good news. If he failed, and it's up to us, that's bad news. If you have to let him do whatever,
that's bad news. Good news. Have his own will. And this is life eternal that
they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ. That's the truth. The whole truth.
Nothing but the truth. So help me God. So let me close. Now here's the amazing thing.
He just said that. Everyone that is of the truth
heareth my voice. And you got, here you got all these Jews hating
him. Wanting him dead. Thousands of
them. Listen to me. Stay with me, okay?
Thousands of Jews calling out, crucify him. Crucify him. Kill
him. Kill him. All of them. This mass
crowd of people. You can only, you can't, Fine,
but a few here and there, like Mary Magdalene, just here and
there. But the whole multitude's crying, kill it, kill it. The
Roman soldiers mocking him, jeering him, spitting in his face. You
ain't no king. Who do you think you are? An
amazing, marvelous thing. We preach amazing grace. The
amazing, marvelous grace of God is seen here is what He was doing. That He was doing all this. The
judge of the earth was being judged. The King of kings was
being judged by a man, by this petty king. He was doing it for
somebody. You know what the Scripture says?
If we will judge ourselves, we won't be judged. What's that
mean? Well, you know what the law sayeth to us? Guilty! Every single person, guilty as
charged, subject to the wrath of God. The way Jesus see it
is what? Christ is going to be killed.
For what? Not for anything he did. Then
why is he doing it? If we judge ourselves, how do
we judge ourselves? Brother John, here's our faith.
Here's our faith. I was crucified with Christ.
Christ didn't deserve to be crucified. He didn't deserve to be stripped
and exposed before everybody in His nakedness. I do. He didn't
deserve His face to be spit on. I do. He didn't deserve for everybody
to taunt Him and mock Him. You think you're this, you think
you're that. I do. He didn't deserve to die. I do. But we'll judge ourselves before
God and say, Oh God, I'm guilty. Let the crucifixion of Jesus
Christ be me. Let what He did be for me. Would you accept on my behalf
what Christ did for sinners? We'll judge ourselves. There
is no judgment, there's no condemnation now for them that are where?
In Christ. Crucified with Christ? Buried. You know, my name needs to be
blotted out of every book. It needs to be forgotten for
all eternity. There's one name that needs to
be remembered. They wanted to put the name of Jesus Christ
away forever. God says, no, everybody else's
name but His. Everybody knows. There's a name
above every name. And men, you know where they
said, Pilate said, are you a king? And people take God's name in
vain. People that claim to not believe
in God, they use God's name. God's making them accountable.
Using a name that they don't even believe in. He's making
them accountable. Don't do it, people. Don't use God's name.
Oh my God, don't do it. Oh God, don't do it. Fear His
name. Don't let your children do it.
Don't do it. Don't get used to people doing
it. Don't do it. Fear His name. Fear His name.
That amazing mercy here. The judge being judged for the
accused. Made sin a criminal. He who did no evil was made criminal. a malefactor, a substitute. Who? The ones that killed him. Just a little while later, just
a short time later, he's hanging on the cross before all these
thousands of people. And his first words were, Father,
forgive them. They don't know what they're
doing. And a little while after that, a man got up preaching
this gospel of Christ crucified, reigning and ruling, doing what
God done to him, what God determined before to be done, and now seated
at the right hand of the majesty on high and struck fear. And 3,000 of these Christ-haters,
3,000 of these God-rejecters, 3,000 of these free-willers hit
their knees and said, Do you reckon He'll have mercy on us?
Peter said, I reckon he will. As soon as they repented. Isn't
God good? Kelly didn't make them do great
things, and now you've got to undo everything he did. No, no,
no. What shall we do? Believe! Is that it? That's it. We don't have to atone for our
sin? No, he already did. We don't have to undo everything
we did. No, he already did. It's not do, do, do. Brother,
it's done. It's done. It's done. Belief
saved. Oh, man. I could go on another
hour, but I'm going to quit. I'm going to quit. John, you
come lead us in a hymn.