I think I know a little bit of
what the disciples felt like. The Lord kept telling them what
was going to happen to Him. Back in chapter 18, He said,
Behold, we go to Jerusalem, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things
written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished.
He shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, the Romans, and shall
be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on. And they shall
scourge him, and put him to death. The third day he shall rise again.
The disciples didn't understand, and they didn't want to talk about
it. It just gave them such It's horror and great to think about
it. And approaching this passage, I think I feel a little bit what
they felt. But we must, must we? Scripture
says Christ must suffer these things. He must suffer these
things. And we must face his sufferings,
and we must, Paul wrote, enter in the fellowship of his sufferings,
somehow. Our Lord's crucifixion clearly
reveals, as we've already noted, what man really is. What we are,
were, by nature. What we are, were. And clearly reveals who God is. He's just not like us at all.
And what God is. God's great wisdom. Man's great
shame and guilt is revealed here as never before. We talk about
depravity. It's not a doctrine. This is
depravity. When God, the title of this message
is when man was faced with God. And this is what they did. When
God came to this earth, this is what man did. Because that's
what's in us, in man, by nature. Thank God it's not in us now. Such were some of you. God-man, this was God walking
this earth. Emmanuel, God with us. And in chapter 22, before this,
He stood before religion, the religious leaders. religious
leaders, scribes, pharisees, chief priests, elders, rulers.
Our Lord called them all hypocrites. He could see right through them,
couldn't he? The Lord looks on the heart. He could see right
through them. Their facade of religion, there was no covering
to his Aussie in Iowa. But they, a lot of people, fools.
And our Lord said that one time. He said, you appear to men as
moral and upright and, you know, outstanding men on the outside.
He said, you're whited sepulchers. You're full of extortion on the
inside. Extortion and excess. And it
all came out here, didn't it? It all came out here finally.
They hate religion. Hates God. You know that? False religion hates the God
of the Bible. They hate His reign and His rule. They hate the Jesus Christ of
Scripture. False religion. You can't put
language strong enough like that. This was religion. This was orthodox,
Bible-believing Jews. Good, moral, law-keeping, Sabbath-keeping. These were the seventh-day Adventists
of that day. And they hated Jesus Christ. And they plotted his murder.
Finally got their way. This is man's will, isn't it?
The last verse we read, it says Pilate delivered him to their
will according to the will of God. But when you talk about
three wills, it's not a doctrine to be debated. Right here it
is. Right here is man's will. This
is what man will do with God if given the opportunity. Why? Turn with me to John 15. Our
Lord tells us why. John 15. Clearly. You know, there were times when
even the disciples said, Lord, you've been too hard on these
Pharisees. Remember that? There were times that the Pharisees
were offended. He said, leave them alone. They're
blind leaders that are blind. He said, come to sea and land and
make a proselyte. When they made them, they were
twofold more of a child of hell than before. Wolves in sheep's clothing. That's
what the Lord called them. Why did they hate Him? Because
John 15, the Lord is talking to His disciples and to us. Verse
16, He says, You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you. He
kept saying that, didn't He? The Gospel of John, as nowhere
else, declares the Lord Jesus Christ to be God manifest in
the flesh, doesn't it? And He kept saying things like,
No man cometh unto the Father but by Me. I am the way, the
truth, and the life. He said, you will not come unto
me. No man can come unto me. He kept saying that. But all
that the Father giveth me shall come unto me. I give eternal
life. It doesn't mean His God gave
me. He declared His absolute sovereignty over all flesh, all
powers given unto me in heaven. And they heard Him, and they
hated it. Disciples didn't. He made new
men out of them, didn't he? And then he said in verse 18,
if the world hate you, verse 18, you know it hated me before
it hated you. If you are of the world, the
world would love his own. You're not of the world. I've chosen
you out of the world. Therefore, the world hateth you.
Remember the word I said unto you, the servant's not greater
than his Lord. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute
you. Down in verse 22, here it is. He said, If I had not come
and spoken unto them, they had not had any sin, but now they
have no covering for their sin. Our Lord came to magnify the
law, meaning to blow it up, preach it so plainly
and clearly, to expose all man's transgressions. By the law is
a knowledge of sin, that's why. The law was never given for man
to keep it and be saved by. And there's people back then
and people now trying to keep it and thinking. And Paul said
this, he said it's so serious, if righteousness come by the
law, Christ died in vain. There's only one way to be saved
by Jesus Christ dying under the light, being made a curse for
the light. So any, Brother John, any compromise on that is calling the wisdom of God
into question, calling the holiness of God into question, calling
the Word of God into question. Any addition or subtraction from
that is just anti-Christ doctrine. Man is saved one way. By grace,
sovereign grace, God choosing whom He will. Ain't nobody on
this planet worth saving. They say man deserves a chance
to be saved. No, he doesn't. Adam didn't deserve
it. Eve, look what all the Lord did
for them. Same thing as Satan. They shook their fist in God's
name. We'll be God's. Our will. Verse 24, he said, verse 23,
He that hateth me, hateth my Father also. And he plainly said
that, didn't he? And if you say today that somebody
hates God, People are just shocked, aren't they? That's what Christ
said. They hate me. They hate God. Verse 24, If I had not done among
them the works which no other man did, they had not had sin.
But now they have seen and hated me and my Father. Is that plain? Man hates God by nature. Man loves himself. Man loves
his will. Man loves his way. Man hates the truth. That's a
fact. And see, preaching this, I'm
preaching to people that love it, but in showing the absolute
Hatred of man for the gospel, it should make you rejoice to
high heaven that you don't. You know? Some of you came out
of religion. And when you first heard this,
maybe you did say, I don't like that. Oh, you ought to thank
God more than anybody in here. Romans 1, I was going to turn
there, but I'm not. Romans 1 talks about how to change
the truth of God into lie or not thankful. This eternal power
of God has clearly seen the wrath of God from heaven clearly revealed
against all unrighteousness. No, man doesn't believe in a
God like that. He goes on to say in Romans 1
that God is not in all their thoughts. He did not like to
retain God in their knowledge. Man doesn't want a God. So he
makes up, professing themselves to be wise, they become fools.
They make up the most foolish notions of how all of this came
to pass. All of this marvelous and glorious
creation that declares our God, yet man says, nope, don't want
that God. No God for me. I'm God. See, it's a whole lot more serious
than And I can make it. It really is. And what God had
to do to save any of us despicable creatures is to kill His Son
in our place. It's not just a question of doctrine
here. It's who God is. It's what man is. It's what it
takes to save man from the wrath of God. Oh, not now preacher. This is
civilized society. This is modern world. We've risen
above that. Rome was the center of civilized
society. It was the highest, it was at
that time, it was the pinnacle of society. It had everything. It had all of the The things
that you consider of a civilized society, all the science and
the technology and the arts and crafts and politics, oh, politics. Oh, they had all their philosophers,
all those Greek philosophers sit around, and they're all homosexuals.
They all sit around and talk about things and their philosophy,
and God ain't in it. God in whose hands their breath
is. All right? That was Rome. Do you see any
difference today? No, it's worse. Why is it worse? Because we've got more evidence.
We've got more witnesses. We've got a great cloud of witnesses.
And the mercy and the grace of God has tended to mercies over
all His work, all these years, all these years. Undeniable. Yet, man, they're willingly ignorant,
Peter said. Willingly ignorant. Religion mocks God now more than
ever. They've got God, a bystander,
a lovesick old man upstairs that wants everybody to do something
for him. That's an abomination. This is what Daniel talked about.
This is what our Lord said. When you see the abomination
of desolation in the temple, what's that? That's in the so-called
church. That's where God's supposed to
be worshipped in fear. That's where God is supposed
to be thanked and prayed. When you see this abomination,
everything about it is an abomination, desolate. Ichabod over the door. The glory is departed. When you
see that, know He's near. He's near. When you see it, that
religion all over is an abominable thing, you know He's right at
the door. Do you not see clearly that God
has taken His hand off of this world? Our Lord, they kept Saying, aren't
thou the Christ? Aren't thou a king? Aren't thou...
He said, Thou sayeth. Remember? He kept saying, Thou
sayeth. You said it. Now I'm holding you accountable. A man
shall be held accountable for every idle word, they said. Every
use of the name of God. Yeah, you called my name, but
you never called for mercy. Again. Who maketh us to differ? Who? That's it. A man makes God a bystander,
you know. Can't do anything unless the
creature lets him. The Son of the Most High God
who came according to the will and purpose of the Father, and
the love, the mercy, the grace, the infinite cognizance of God
to send His blessed, darling Son to this despicable, hell
hole. He came down here to save a people.
And now they make Him out to be a helpless martyr named Jesus. He's not mad at anyone. He loves
everyone. There's no right, no wrong, no
rules, no fear. He's no threat to anyone's sinful
lifestyle. Just go ahead. Jesus loves you. It's despicable. It's worse than
it's ever been. Worse. It's mockery. But God
is not mocked. I love thinking about it. And
we read this. We're not going verse by verse to it. We read
it. You read it with me. I love thinking about our Lord
standing there before His accusers. And they'd already beaten Him
up. You know that? Those religious scribes and pharisees
and Bible scholars and elders and chief priests had been hitting
him in the face. His face was already marred,
bloody. But I love the thought of him
standing there, indignant. He's not hanging his head. He's not even wincing. You know who's shaking? Pilate
is. I love this. You know, not written
in this story, but I think it's John's account, Pilate's wife
sent word to Pilate, said, don't have anything to do with that
just man. I couldn't sleep all night because of him. Pilate
is the coward. Pilate is a pinhead little... in the palm of our Lord's hand.
And our Lord's standing there in chains before all His accusers. Brethren, they were trying to
heap the most shame and ridicule and belittle Him that they could
heap on Him. But never did our Lord look more
glorious, more dignified, more honored. Never did a man... Pilate
couldn't even help it. He said, Behold the man. He'd
seen many strong criminals cower and beg for mercy, but not this
man. Because in fact, this was not
his greatest suffering. His greatest suffering and what
made him sweat blood is to think that God's going to deal with
him. That God's going to come down on him. The wrath of God's
going to fall on him. This was nothing. Being hit by
the palm of a man's hand was nothing compared to the hand
of God coming down on me. And he knew it. He wasn't doing
it. He was doing it for us. So that hand wouldn't fall on
us. Revelation 6, I was going to
turn there also, which says in the end, when everything is over,
the whole world is going to have a prayer meeting. Martin says
the greatest prayer meeting ever held is when they call for the
rocks and hills to fall on them and hide them from the face of
Him that is on the throne. Brothers and sisters, when Peter
preached at Pentecost, he preached this Lord high and lifted up
on a throne, whom they with wicked hands had taken and crucified,
and said they desired a murderer, instead of the blessed Son of
God desired a murderer, mind you. Things are no different. People will follow perverts and
murderers and thieves, knowing they're thieves, and they'll
follow them and not Jesus Christ. Oh, man, it's worse. Peter preached at Pentecost what
God determined before to be done, what God allowed to be done,
what God purposed for them to do to His Son. And how that now
God, He said, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that
God has made this same Jesus whom you crucified, Lord! And He didn't ask anybody to
let Him be nothing. That was His last words. And
He sat down. And it struck fear in their hearts. Three thousand men and women
cried out for mercy at the hands of this sovereign Jesus on a
throne. Do you hear any of that today?
They don't know this Jesus. It's another Jesus. The truth will strike fear in
people. The truth of who God is, the
truth of who Jesus Christ is, the truth of what man is. When
we ever find out what we really are, when we look within and
see this hell in our hearts, it will make us hit our knee
and cry to God for mercy. Now that was standing before
the religious, and then standing before these two world leaders,
these two powerful rulers. We saw that, didn't we? Pilate's
a pawn. Herod's a, he's a man on the
tape. These men are utterly, the leaders
of this world are utterly corrupt. Nations, political systems, rulers,
leaders, these two fellows were cowards. They were controlled
by popular opinion, weren't they? They were completely controlled
by popular opinion under the pretense of being some powerful
group. Did you see how, you know, there's no justice. Look, remember
where Pilate kept saying, I find no fault in it. I find no fault
in it. And then, I think it's John's
account, he said, I'm going to wash my hands. You can't do it.
You can't wash the blood of Christ off your hands. Only the blood of Christ can
wash that off your hands. Pilate said, I'm innocent of
this. No, you're not either. There's no one human being innocent. No man, woman, boy, or girl.
Innocent. Indifferent. You can't be indifferent
to them. If you are indifferent, you're
guilty. It means you don't care if you lived or died. Oh, my. And our God came down to this
place, so-called civilized, and mankind is worse than a beast. You know, you know how that man
brutalizes creatures on his circuit. That's bad enough, isn't it?
Somehow or another he got manly and macho years ago to just brutalize
helpless animals. Chain them up and starve them
and beat them like a, beat them to a pulp. What a manly thing
to do. No, that's worse than animals. And John, I just read before
we came here, Psalm 22, Psalm 18 and Psalm 22. Psalm 22 is
the Psalm of the cross. And the Lord said, dogs have
come to me. You ever seen a pack of wild
dogs go after a helpless animal of prey? You ever seen it? It's ruthless. It's bloody. They
eat that thing alive. It's sad. And I'm not, you know,
we shouldn't look at this as being sad. In the next few verses,
our Lord was carrying His cross and He turned and weeping and
said, Don't weep for me. I'm going to try to preach on
that. Don't weep for me. And we're not to be sad. He said,
Weep for yourselves. Weep for your children. Weep
for those who don't know me. Or else this is going to happen
to you. God let man's true nature come
out when Christ came and they tore him to bits, didn't they? Like a wild animal. Now, the
Scripture says the wrath of man shall praise him. I've been reading all, as much
as I can, of the prophesied of our Lord's crucifixion, David's
psalm, Psalm 18, Psalm 22, Psalm 69, Isaiah, and on and on it
goes. The very things they did to Him
were prophesied long, hundreds, even thousands of years before
He came, proving who He was, proving that God did all this,
proving that Christ must suffer, proving what man is, proving
God's Aren't you glad God's slow to
anger, slow to wrath, and of great mercy? Why, why, why would
He allow men to do what they did to His Son? Because that's what would happen
to us if Christ hadn't done it for us. You know, we ought to
be so thankful our God reigns over this vile, this is a vile
world. Right before the flood is when
our Lord said, He looked down, the whole world was corrupted
His way, and it's full of violence. Full of violence, bloody men. Blood sports now have never been
more popular. There's nothing people like more
now than to watch Two people just beat one another. It's horrible. And it was sport. They made a
sport out of it with the son of God. And mocked his pain. What kind of creature would
do that? Animals don't do that. Mock the
pain of a fellow creature. You've got to be bound. Oh, aren't you thankful our God
reigns over all this, huh? If He doesn't, you better carry
a gun. You better carry two. Be thankful. And here's where we began, I
hope. Be thankful that the Son of God
has come and given us an understanding. who He is, who God is. We wouldn't
know God if Christ hadn't come, revealed the Father. Nor the
Son if the Father hadn't revealed Him. Be thankful if He's revealed
Himself to us, the living and true God, before it's too late.
There's going to be a multitude standing before the thrice-holy
God, pleading what they've done. And they're going to be shocked
and horrified when they say, when God in anger, finally they
see the anger and the wrath of God, casts them into outer darkness.
And they're going to be incredulous. Look at what all I've done for
God. Look at what all I've done for Jesus. In light of what our Lord did
for us, have we done anything? He forgave our bodies to be burned
and have not all love for Him. Isn't that? Oh, my. Be thankful that the Lord has
revealed Himself to you and who He is and why He came, what He
did, what He endured. Somewhat, like I said, we don't
know the half. We just don't understand. If
we did, we couldn't hardly hear the gospel without just being
broken. Well, Where am I? You know, Pilate and Herod became
friends there. Let's look at this, verse 12.
It says, Pilate and Herod, they were enemies before this, and
then they became friends. Now isn't that an indictment
against everybody and everything? You know, religions and all the
denominations and Catholics and Methodists and Episcopalians
and Baptists and all these Presbyterians and all that can be divided over
so many things, but when it comes to the truth of God, they're
all united in their hatred of it. And they can get together
with the people of this world against those who believe the
truth. They can just join right together with people, don't even
make any profession of faith in God a crime. And join right
together and condemn Him, be truth. They were friends. And they were
both so, you know, when we read about Herod and his men of war, set him at naught, mocked him,
put that robe on him, that purple robe. Unbelievable. men of war. And I thought of
the revelation that says they are making war with the lamb.
They're making war with the lamb. You are making war against the
wrong person. I think of Abigail down there
being held by those, was it Midianites or whoever they were, Syrians?
I forget. Abigail, they came and took her
captive and all of David's Wives and friends and all that. And
she's down there, you know, captive to them. And I can hear her now.
Boys, you don't know who you're messing with. You don't know
whose wife you've taken. And I'm just going to tell you,
I think she might have said to you, if y'all would just stack
your guns right now. If you just lay them down right
now. Get on your face right now. I know he's looking at us right
now. He's coming for me. He's coming for me. Now if y'all
just surrender right now. Ask Him for mercy. He's a merciful
man. He'll show mercy to you. But do it right now. Hurry. Or
He's going to slaughter you. And they didn't do it. And He
did, didn't He? He slaughtered them all. Oh, this is our great God and
our great Savior, our merciful Lord standing before these people.
delivered up for us all by our God. It should have been us. It would be us if Christ hadn't
have done this for us. And it says they chose a murderer
instead of the blessed Lord Jesus Christ. Christ Jesus the Lord
came, the holy, harmless, separate from sinners, undefiled. Scripture says He had dove's
eyes. Pure, spotless, love personified,
mercy personified, meek. The most lovely man who ever
lived. And this is what man did. Does that tell you what man is?
Now, does that tell you how merciful God is? And Pilate, you know, there's
no justice in this world, is there? Talk about justice. Pilate
said, I find no fault in it, so I'll just beat him to a pulp
and let him go. It's no wonder, isn't it, that
the innocent are accused and the guilty are set free. That's man. That's man. God is just, though. God is righteous in His dealings. Aren't you glad? Listen to this.
God will by no means clear... Here's the Gospel. God will by
no means clear the guilty. When He gave Moses His name,
He said, I'm going to show you my glory. Here's my name. The
Lord. The Lord God. Merciful. Gracious. And He went on to say,
I'll by no means clear the guilty. I'm not going to clear the guilty. Every sin will receive a just
recompense. It's going to receive exactly
what it deserves. Every sin, every wrong is going
to be dealt with. You know, God will by no means
punish the righteous. Now there's the Gospel. Isn't
it? You see, it's not by words of
righteousness we have done. That's our right to substitute
God and stand in there before man hates him. And we'd have
done the same thing if we'd been there. It was that fellow, that
false prophet, Rex Humbard. Anybody remember Rex Humbard?
Just like Oral Roberts and all those other... Billy Graham and
all those false... those quieted sepulchers. Rex
Humbard. I saw that. He was standing there,
oh, he was weeping. Weeping and talking about Jesus
being crucified. He said, if I'd have been there,
I'd have stopped it. That's what he said. No, you wouldn't. You'd have
been the ringleader. Everybody got in on it. Everybody. Simon Peel went running
scared. Christ had to suffer. He did
this by Himself. He did it by Himself. The whole world against Him. Stephen, He did it by Himself. Who gets the glory? Huh? Who gets all? Let's read that
and close it. Revelation 5. Let's close with
it. Let's close with this, all the redeemed, all whom Christ
died for, unworthy though they be, here's what they're saying
in glory when it's all over. And you know, all through Revelation,
we see a lamb, a lamb, as it had been slain, a lamb, a lamb,
a lamb. They made war with a lamb. But
the first thing you see before you hear the word lamb, you know
what you see? Before Lamb is mentioned in Revelation, look
at Revelation 5, 5. You can remember that. We're left with Revelation
5, 5. Before there's any mention of the Lamb, it says, Behold
the Lion of the tribe of Judah. King. Lion. That's those four faces concerning
the four Gospels. The lion, the calf, the man,
and the eagle. But first a lion, a king. Everybody is going to see him
as he is, a lion. And then all his people are going
to see, verse 6, a lamb as it had been slain. And here's what
they're going to say. In verse 9, they're going to
be singing a new song. Thou art worthy to take the book,
to open the seals thereof, for thou wast slain and hast redeemed
us to God by thy blood. That's it. Out of every kindred,
every tongue, people and nation, blasphemers, idolaters, harlots,
publicans, all of them, not worth saving, but Jesus Christ saved,
chosen, saved, has made us kings and priests, and they all say
with a loud voice, verse 12, with a loud voice, worthy is
the lamb that was slain to receive, that is, to be acknowledged as
having all power and riches, all riches, and all wisdom, and
all strength, and all honor, and all glory, and all blessing,
and every creature saying blessing, and honor, and glory, and power,
and him sitteth upon the throne unto the Lamb forever and ever. And they all fell down and worshiped
him that liveth forever. Oh, my. And all these people
talking about what they've done for God. It's abomination. Words are not the way I like
them. Stand with me.