So we're in Luke chapter 23,
and I was thinking as I was preparing
the lesson today that everyone knows the old, old story.
tell me again the old, old story that I know so well. And that's
kind of where we're at in Luke as he's been interrogated by
the chief priest and asked questions that they weren't really interested
in hearing a truthful answer about. They were just looking
to find something by which they could accuse him. And they believe
they've gotten a response that's sufficient to cause his execution
if they can only get him in front of the right person, which would
be Pilate. And that's where Chapter 23 picks
up today. So I wanted to kind of explore
a little bit about, we know the details of what's going to happen.
He's going to go before Pilate, and Pilate's going to quiz him
and declare him faithless. And we'll talk about that and
cover that a little bit. But I just wanted us to maybe
look at a few things that, you know, it's just an opportunity
to come up here and talk about the manifold grace of God, and things that we don't normally
think about in regards to what's transpiring in this portion of
Scripture. I wanted to start out with reading
a couple of Scriptures, one from the Old Testament and one from
the New Testament, have bearing on what we're going to talk about
today. And the first one is found, and
we read this several weeks ago in one of our other messages,
and it's found in Jeremiah 29.11. Jeremiah 29, 11, these words
from the Lord to the church. He says, For I know the thoughts
that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and
not of evil, to give you an expected end. And the thought being there that
the church, the elect, the sheep, the children of God were in the
thoughts and in the heart and in the mind of Christ from all
eternity, from before the foundation of the world. And then turn with me to Ephesians
chapter 3, and we're going to read five verses from Ephesians
chapter 3. And Paul's writing to them, and
he wants to express some deep thoughts to the church there. have them be focused on Christ
and not on him. And he says, you know, I think
he was just always humbled that after his behavior in a prior
life, the Lord used him in such a mighty way. And he was like,
I can't believe that I'm doing what I'm doing and God is made
me a chosen vessel to bear his name to the church. In Ephesians 3, 7, he says, Whereof
I was made a minister according to the gift of the grace of God
given me by the effectual working of his power. Boy, he just calls
right attention to what's required in every aspect of our journey. unto me, whom less than the least
of all saints is this grace given, that I should preach among the
Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." And you know, there's
just, it's just a bottomless, topless, there's no way to, you
know, we just have a, few minutes to gather around
his word this morning and we try to pack into it all that
we can. the unsearchable riches of Christ.
And he said, and to make all men see what is the fellowship
of the mystery. And boy, it's all the deep things
of God are truly a mystery from which from the beginning of the
world has been hidden God who created all things by Jesus Christ. And boy, I kind of highlighted
that last part of that sentence, who created all things by Jesus
Christ, because that That comes into play in our lesson today,
how important that is and what that really encompasses. He says, to the intent that now
unto the principalities and powers and heavenly places might be
known by the church the manifold wisdom of God. And you know,
we covered that word manifold many, many times in many, many
messages. And in the translation of that
word manifold means variegated in its it has to do with mostly
with color. And it means a broad expanse
of color. And when we talked about the
rainbow, we said, well, in the human eye, we can only see like
the seven primary colors and some variations between them
and around them. But there's an infinite an infinite
spectrum of color and light in all directions beyond that, but
we can only see just this little bit that's in the middle. And
that's what kind of what that word manifold tries to express,
that we can only see a tiny bit of the grace of God But it's
so immense and so infinite, it's beyond comprehension. It's unsearchable,
is what Paul says. that might be made known by the
church the manifold wisdom of God according to the eternal
purposes which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord in whom
we have all boldness and accidents with confidence by the faith
of him." And that's another thing that's critical to highlight
is it's the faith of Christ and not our meager little faith that
Norm mentioned the other day that we don't even have faith
as a grain of a tiny, itty-bitty mustard seed. So we depend so
much on Christ's faithfulness. Let's pop back into where our
lesson starts today in Luke chapter 23. And Christ was brought before
Pilate here, and the whole multitude of them arose. That would be
all the chief priests and the elders and the soldiers or the
temple guards and things that they used to arrest Jesus. and
they led him unto Pilate. And they began to accuse him,
saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding
to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a king. And Pilate asked him, saying,
Art thou the king of the Jews? And he answered to him, and said,
Thou sayest it. Then said Pilate to the chief
priests and to the people, I find no fault in this man. And they
were the more fierce, saying, he stirs up the people, teaching
throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place. And of course, then Pilate says,
Galilee? Ooh, that belongs to Herod's
jurisdiction. So I know where I can get rid
of this little problem. So we're not going to dwell on
that too much this morning, but kind of what we're going to talk
about today is the manifold grace of God and all these things that
are coming about that make up the gospel. He was in Jerusalem because he
normally lived over on the coast at Caesarea Maritima. That was his home digs. But because
of the Passover, there was going to be millions of Jews in Jerusalem,
and they were a seditious lot. They were always causing trouble.
In fact, some of the ones that were going to be crucified with
Jesus were Barabbas, in prison because of seditious acts and
murder. So that was in the background.
So Pilate had to kind of keep a close eye on this. If there
was any trouble, he needed to be able to quell it in a hurry,
otherwise the Romans would put somebody else there and he'd
be sent off to Gaul or some uninhabitable place
that he didn't want to go. So that's kind of the background
here. He's in Jerusalem, and when he
was in Jerusalem, he usually occupied Herod's palace there
and used that as his office there to administer whatever official
Roman business needed to be administered there. So what I'd like to do now is to
examine that all of this was by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge and purpose of God. Every detail of everything
that has transpired from the beginning before the beginning
of the world was purposed and willed by God and carried out.
And we see that. We read that verse where He created
all things by Jesus Christ. Well, in the ages ago, when the
creation was taking place, the tree bearing the seed of the
very tree that would become the cross of atonement was created
by Jesus Christ. and purposed for this one use."
Can you imagine that? And he's there in front of Pilate,
and he's saying, all things are by my power. I created the very tree that
you're going to hang me on. It's right over there. I created
that for the purpose that you would hang me up on. Isn't that
amazing? Amazing grace, we call that. In Genesis 129, God said, Behold,
I've given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of
all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree
yielding seed, to you it shall be for me. Boy, how much meat
is there in the cross of atonement for the church. Before the foundation of the
world, there was a lamb slain. Before the foundation of the
world, I just enjoyed so much yesterday at the services for
our dear sister, Jo. Norman was mentioning Matthew
25, and he read that verse that said, Come ye blessed inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of
the world. I know my thoughts to award you,
to give you an expected end." That all comes into play here. Before the foundation of the
world, he prepared a kingdom for his people. And in time, He caused that tree to be propagated
through ages and eons to produce that tree that would be the cross
of Calvary. In time, he caused the Romans
to be brought into power. That was a result of Him by whom
kings reign and do His will. Boy, Norman's been bringing that
out so fully in Esther and Numbers and all the Old Testament where
my servant Cyrus will set my people free and all those things
that he causes to have happen. It was necessary that the Romans
be brought into power because it was necessary for the execution
of the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world in
the exact manner which was before determined. It wasn't just a random stuff. It wasn't just random happenchance.
Well, the Romans just happened to be in power and therefore
they were connived into doing this evil deed. It was determined
by God from before the foundation of the world. And most importantly,
this lamb, was ordained to be the atonement
for the redemption of the elect, the church, the children of God
whom He gave to Christ to Him to be that atonement for them.
And long ago, God caused it to be written as he purposed it
to come to pass. And you know, a lot of religion
kind of gets it backwards, that he just foresaw what was going
to happen. And he had a really good crystal
ball into the future. And he could see what was going
to happen. He could see who was going to
believe. Well, he could do all that because he caused it. to
happen. He determined every detail of
everything. In Psalms chapter 2, the psalmist
wrote, Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain
thing? Why do they imagine a useless thing that they can do away with
the Lord of glory and for Him? That is truly a vain thing. The
kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together
against the Lord and against his anointed. That's just truly
remarkable that the human mind, in its natural unregenerate state
can rationalize that. You know, the Jews were not,
the Jews had been conquered by the Romans and the Romans removed,
supposedly, officially removed their power to execute anyone. And their method of execution
was stoning. That's how they executed people. They took them out and stoned
them. And I'm talking they were like good-sized rocks. They didn't just like little
ping-pong-sized rocks that they threw. They were like rocks meant
to break bones and crush skulls and inflict fatality. That was the stoning. And we find that they actually
did stone some folks. They stoned Stephen. They were
going to stone that woman caught in the act of adultery. When Pilate was over at Caesarea
Maritima and nobody was looking, they could say, yeah, we could
take this woman out and stone her. It's just a religious thing.
They probably won't even care too much. But you know Jesus
was a different sort of a person. He was wildly popular with the
people. He did all these miracles in
front of them, and healed people, and all those things that he
did to display who he was. And that really griped those
Jewish elders and religious folks because he was, people were going
after him. And we read that in John chapter
11, verse 47 through 51, then gathered the chief priests and
the Pharisees of council and said, what do we for this man
do with many miracles? And if we let him thus alone,
all men will believe on him, not us. And the Romans shall come and
take away both our place and nation. And one of them being
Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them,
you know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient
for us that one should die for the people and that the whole
nation perish not. We get rid of him, all the trouble
goes away. Things can go back to being like
it was. We can be in the religious power.
The troublemaker is gone. And this he spake not of himself,
but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should
die for that nation." Interesting that here's a guy prophesying
according to, thus saith the Lord, even though he didn't really
fully understand that. And he was, on the one hand,
plotting his murder. But he uttered words by the Spirit
caused him to say these things that really had a lot more meaning
than he gave credit for. So the Jews not really officially
able to execute anybody. And they said, if we do execute
him, everybody's going to be mad at us, and there's going
to be a big revolt, and the Roman legions are going to come in
and kill all of us. So that's off the table. That can't happen. Remember,
they had to come and take him by night, because they didn't
want a big crowd watching what they were doing. So the Jews not permitted to
execute anybody officially under Roman law and John 18, 31 said,
Pilate said unto them, take ye him and judge him according to
your law. And the Jews therefore said unto him, it's not lawful
for us to put any man unto death. We're not allowed to do that
this time, officially. Pilate, again, he would have
been in Jerusalem because the Passover was at hand, and there
would have been a mass of Jews there who would have been in
the city for that observance. The Jewish religionists, they
wanted Jesus dead, but he was very popular. To stone him would
have caused an uprising and swift judgment. They would have all
been killed. What to do? What do we do? And remember the manifold wisdom
of God in all of this. Their minds, their defective
minds, connived to get the Romans to
do the dirty work, so the blame would be on them that nobody
liked anyway. But everybody was powerless to
do anything against them because they were in control and they
had the army there and people were pretty much resigned to
whatever happened under those Romans. The blame would fall
on them, the people would fall in line, the priests and the
elders would be back in business and happy, all acting according
to their own motivations, yet performing the perfect will of
God that we see so often in all the scriptures. You know, a religious
squabble wouldn't have been enough impetus for the Romans to execute
him. Because he said, we don't care about your religious junk. That's your business. You guys
see to it. So had they been able to do that, they would
have stoned him. And of course, that was not in
the will of God. Consequently, charges must be
made then that would satisfy the Roman requirement for execution. And generally that, if you read
in the commentaries, that crucifixion was held out for serious violations
and sedition, and they said not only
was Barabbas guilty of sedition and murder, but he was a robber
too. And that word robber, there's
a couple different words for that kind of business in the
Greek. The word for minor theft, like
if you went into the marketplace and swiped a melon, that would
be kleptos. theft, minor theft, like if you
were to go into the 7-Eleven store and swipe all the cigarettes. Now that's called a kleptos here
in America because that's a misdemeanor. That's what we call that now. The term for a robber was much
more serious, and it indicated someone that physically assaulted
someone and robbed them and maybe killed
them and didn't really care. In that narrative about the Good
Samaritan, about the man that was traveling, remember when
we were talking about traveling that road between the upper sea
and Jerusalem? and he was robbed, the Samaritan
or the traveler was robbed and left for dead. Well, you don't
get left for dead unless something bad has happened to you. and
the good Samaritan comes along and takes care of him. But that's
the kind of thing, the word robber, where it says Barabbas was a
thief and a robber. He was an assaulter. Those kind of things generally
And it was, if a slave rebelled against its owner or misbehaved,
that would be the execution that they would, and there were various
kinds of crucifixion. You know, we typically have the
picture of Jesus with his arms nailed to the cross like this,
but sometimes they, took their arms and bent them backwards
over the crossbar and tied them behind their back. And they kind
of hang there like that. And they had various positions
that they could make you pretty uncomfortable with until you
passed away. And most of them involved your
lack of ability to breathe, which is why they wanted their legs
broken so they couldn't use their legs to raise themselves up where
they could get oxygen. If they broke their leg, then
they couldn't do that, so they would die quickly and suffocate. The stoning would not have complied
with the determinate counsel of God. The Son of Man must be
lifted up. That's what it tells us in the
Old Testament. Lifted up in death, and that's what Jesus said himself,
the Son of Man, like Moses wrote of in the desert, the Son of
Man must be lifted up. And we read that verse from John
18 a minute ago. It said, Pilate said unto them,
take you him and judge him according to your law. And the Jews therefore
said unto him, it is not lawful for us to put any man to death.
Verse 32 says, that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled which
he spake. signifying which death he should
die. It was determined before the
foundation of the world what kind of a death he would die.
And in John 3, 14, 15, it says, Moses lifted up the serpent in
the wilderness. This is the red letter Jesus
said words. Even so, must the son of man
be lifted up that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
have eternal life. And so it was purposed that Moses
in the Old Testament there in Numbers 21, Someday Norman will probably
cover that again. The Lord said unto Moses, make thee
a fiery serpent, a brazen serpent, and set it upon a pole, and it
shall come to pass that everyone that is bitten, when he looketh
upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass
and brass, you know, in the Bible, that's usually a brass is a symbol
metaphor for judgment. So he made a serpent of brass
and put it on a pole and it came to pass that if a serpent had
bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.
And, you know, there was just a lot of people that just wouldn't
look up. He said, that's foolishness. The preaching of the cross is
foolishness. but unto us who believe it's the power of God
and salvation." And so, you know what the people that looked up,
looked up because God caused them to look up and believe. The Jews, when Pilate would have
dismissed the matter, They engaged in loud rhetoric and shouting
in the place of producing true evidence of a crime against Rome. And their charges were demonstrably
false in each case. They lied every time. As to forbidding tribute, they
said, this man forbids tribute to Caesar, and Christ said, render
unto Caesar the things that be Caesar's, and unto God the things
that be God. So the exact opposite of what
he actually said is what they accused him of. Isn't that funny
about religion? We read that verse from Isaiah
29 and 16 here, your turning of things upside down is how
man operates. As to being a rival king attempting
to usurp Caesar, Christ said, my kingdom is not of this world.
In John chapter 6, he was doing some miracles there with a crowd
of people, a big mass multitude, and he said, when he perceived
that they would have taken him and made him king, he disappeared
out of their sight. He said, that's not why I'm here. So again, another lie that they
took the exact opposite thing that happened and turned it around
and lied about it to accuse him to the government. It was ordained
and rightfully so that Christ would ultimately be found faultless
by the ordained powers, because that's what God determined had
to happen. You should take your lamb, and
have it examined, and it'll be without spot, without blemish,
and then it will be killed. Your lamb shall be without blemish,
a male of the first year, and he shall take it from the sheep
or from the goats, Exodus 12, 5. It had to be, it was determined
and written ages before that he had to be declared without
blemish. So then we have in Acts 4.25,
a quotation of some of the verses that we've already read from
the Old Testament in Psalms, where, who by the mouth of thy
servant David had said in Acts 4.25, why did the heathen rage
and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood
up and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and
against his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy
child Jesus whom thou has anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate
with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together
for to do whatsoever thy hand and counsel determined before
to be done." Determined before the world was even created. Every
detail, and we were just reading in Luke chapter 23 about how
Pilate said, oh, he's a Galilean. That's Herod's mess. So they
sent him to Herod, and Herod couldn't find anything wrong.
We'll read about that in the upcoming verses. But you know, the scripture, the gospel tells
us that Herod and Pilate, they were at enmity with one another.
They didn't like each other. But Jesus was the uniting factor,
and they became friends in uniting against Jesus. So from Pilate, the question,
Art thou the king of the Jews? To which Jesus replied, Thou
hast said. It was the truth. But it couldn't be seen or believed
by Pilate or those Jews that were in attendance. Unless a
man be born again, he can't see the kingdom of God, even though
he was standing right in front of them. And you know, unbelief,
as we've been brought to our attention so often in our Old
Testament messages from Norm, unbelief, does not preclude God
from causing them to fulfill his purpose. It does not. For this power have I raised
thee up, that I might show my power in thee, is what he said
to the Pharaoh. And so unbelief didn't cause
or preclude God from causing Pilate to fulfill his eternal
purpose. after he was falsely accused
of sedition against the government, but he was officially declared
without fault and blameless. And this must be for the effectual
working of the substitute, exchanging his perfect righteousness. There's
no fault in him. Him who knew no sin, imputing
it, that righteousness to the people who God had given Him
and for whom He would lay down His life as sacrifice in their
stead. Took all of our sins and nailed
them to the cross in our place. You know, I mentioned here a
couple of messages ago that Martin Luther called that the great
exchange. Imputation is the great exchange. He gets all our sin,
and we got all his righteousness. Paul wrote about that in 2 Corinthians
2, verse 5. We'll read a couple of verses
there. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature,
and old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become
new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself
by Jesus Christ, and given to us the ministry of reconciliation,
the ministry of spreading the gospel, telling the good news
that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.
to wit that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself,
and not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed
unto us that word of reconciliation. Now, then, we are ambassadors
for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you
in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him
to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in him. That's what's transpiring here
in Luke 23. The psalmist relayed the same
message in the ages before. In Psalm 32, he said, Blessed
is the man, blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose
sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity. He's not rewarded us according
to our iniquity. And in whose spirit there is
no guile, no pretending, no acting, no false pretenses, no religious
stuff. We've gone through that so many
times, I'm not going to repeat all the false things that people
do to proclaim themselves righteous. In Hebrews 9.14, And we're going to close out
reading this. How much more shall the blood
of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without
spot to God? I find no fault in this man.
And purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living
God. Dead works is the thing that
we rely on before regeneration. Works, things that we do, things
that we've done. And for this cause, he's the
mediator of the New Testament that by means of death, someone's
sin is going to be paid for and someone's going to die for it.
And that person is either us or it's going to be, it was Christ.
that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions
that were under the First Testament, they which are called might receive
the promise of eternal inheritance. And so that tells us the title
of our message today is, What God Requires, He Supplies. He determined it all before the
foundation of the world. He determined it all in eternity.
He created each thing to give us and expect it in. God will
provide himself a sacrifice, is what Abraham said. So we'll
close there, and we'll take up the interaction between Pilate
and Herod and Jesus in Chapter 23 again next week. So until
then,