And the men that held Jesus mocked
them and smote him. And when they
had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face and asked him,
saying, Prophesy. Who is it that smote thee? And
many other things blasphemously they spake against him. And as
soon as it was day, the elders of the people and the chief priests
and scribes came together and led him into their council, saying,
Art thou to Christ? Tell us. And he said unto them,
If I tell you, you will not believe. And if I also ask you, you will
not answer me, nor let me go. Hereafter shall the Son of Man
sit on the right hand of the power of God. Then said they
all, Art thou then the Son of God? And he said unto them, You
say that I am. And they said, What need we any
further witnesses? For we ourselves have heard of
his own mouth. I get my title from a message
there in verse 64. And they smote him and said,
Prophesy, who is it that smote thee? Who smote thee? Who smote thee? Now, just in
chapter 22 alone, we have, by God's Word, seen some incredible
things. We saw our Lord's last Passover,
and at that last Passover, He instituted the Lord's Supper.
Take ye, this bread is my body broken for you. Take this wine,
this is the blood of the New Testament which is in my blood,
shed for you. And then we have Judas' betrayal.
In Judas, the scripture says, Satan entered into him and he
left, and he found opportunity to betray the Lord Jesus Christ.
And they were glad, and they covenanted to give him money.
He said, I'll tell you what, I know just exactly where he'll
be, and I'll be able to deliver him to you without there being
a crowd around. I'll be able to see that. That's
why they didn't get him before, they were afraid of the people.
And then after that, you have the strife. of the disciples
among themselves, which one of them should be the greatest?
Who's going to be the greatest? Who's going to be the closest?
Who's going to be the most powerful? Who's going to be the best preacher?
Who's going to be the one that everybody admires and looks up
to and comes to for advice? Who's going to be the greatest?
And then after that, his promise to them of a kingdom. I promise
you a kingdom. As my father gave me a kingdom,
I'm going to give you a kingdom. In fact, he gave Simon Peter
the keys to the kingdom. And then after that, he told
Simon Peter, he said, Simon, Satan's desired to have you,
to sit you. That's the only place where you
find where Christ or God told a man that the devil was after
him. The only place. You know, when he manifested
himself in the book of Job, him and God had a conversation. But
here's where our Lord says, you know, Satan is standing here.
He's designed to sift you. He's going to sift you just like
wheat. But, but, I prayed for you that your faith fail not. That in and of itself was worth
the whole book. And then we see our Lord Jesus
Christ in Gethsemane praying. Oh, how He prayed there. Earnestly,
earnestly prayed. Earnestly prayed. And what he
was still yet praying, here comes this howling, screaming, bloody,
thirsty mob out with swords and sticks and staves, you know,
that you stick into things. And they come to take the Lord
Jesus Christ. And Judah says, now the one that
I kiss, that'll be the one you take. There was nothing about
our Lord that distinguished him from any other Jew. He had to
be identified. He had to be pointed out as to
who he was. Judah says, the one that I kiss,
that's the one you take. And the Scriptures tell us that
Judas, and our Lord said, Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man
with a kiss? With a kiss. And then, last of
all, before we get to where I'm at tonight, we have Peter's three
denials. Our Lord told him, you're going
to deny me three times. He had two prophecies concerning
Simon Peter. The devil's going to assist you.
And you're going to deny me three times before the rooster crows. And he certainly did. He denied
the Lord Jesus three times. And then it says there in verse
62, And Peter went out and wept bitterly, because he remembered
the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. So always remember the words
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Always remember what He said.
Remember what He said. Don't remember what maybe somebody
else said, but remember what He said. That which hides His
word in your heart Hide it in your heart. Hide it in your heart.
And then look what happens. And then it says, And the men,
and the men that held Jesus mocked Him and smote Him. Now here our
Lord Jesus Christ is. Innocent. Sinless. Never did anybody any harm. Always
went about doing good. Performed many miracles for them
and they saw it. And here our Lord Jesus Christ
is so shamefully treated by his enemies. Now it says here the
men held Jesus. Why would they have to hold him?
Was he not led as a lamb to the slaughter? Dumb as a sheep before
his shearers? Was he not dumb? But it says
they held him. They held him while he was going to try to
escape. They held him like it was some kind of a criminal and
had to be held. And you know, you heard Milton
talk last week about the men coming in there with all the
shackles on them. That's what they felt about him. Maybe he
has to be shackled. He has to be held. He didn't
show any resistance. He never pulled against them.
He never said, why are you all doing me this way? He never struggled
to get free. He just stood there calmly, unresisting. So why did they hold him? What
was the purpose of them holding him? And then when they held
Him, look what happens. And it says men. Like it would
take more than one man to hold the Lord Jesus Christ. The whole
world couldn't hold Him had He not choose to be held. And He did not need to be held
by anybody because for this hour He came into this world. And
then look what it says, and not only the men that held Him, they
mocked Him. They mocked Him. I looked up
this word today, and it means to play like a child, like children
play. You know how they'll mock people,
make fun of people, ridicule people, torment people, tease
them and just never let them get any rest? They say that's
what they're doing with the Lord Jesus Christ. They're like a
child playing with Him. They want to make sport out of
Him. They use Him for jest. And all of the things that they
said to Him, and all the things that they said about Him, and
all the ways that they treated Him, we could not begin to imagine.
But they mocked him. Mocked him. And then not only
did they mock him, but they ran back and they smote him. They
would hit him. I'm sure they hit him about his
face. I'm sure they hit him in his arms. I'm sure they hit him
in his side. Hit him in his back. I mean, they'd just smite him.
Just hit him to be hitting him. And he stands there. And then
look what else they've done. Then they said, that ain't enough.
We'll blindfold him. Somebody give me a blindfold
here. Why do you want a blindfold? Let's blindfold him. He says
he's a prophet. He says he knows everything that's
going on. He says he knows the hearts of
men. He says that God sent him into this world. So let's blindfold
him. And then look what it says. And
they struck him on the face. And I mean, I looked up this
several times and it says that they drew back with their fist
and wham! Wham! It wasn't like this walker was
slapping somebody. I mean, they drew back their
fist and smacked him. Huh? Struck him on the face. Struck him on the face. And then
they stood back in mockery. This is mocking. Prophesy! Who it is that smokes you. I
guarantee you, I don't know exactly who it was. He was predestinated
to do that for the foundation of the world. And you know what? He was doing exactly what he
wanted to do. He was just another instrument in God's hands. And
our Lord knew that. Our Lord understood that. Struck
him on the face. Here they take the sinless Son
of God. Look with me now in Matthew 20.
There they took the sinless Son of God, a man without flaw, a
man without blemish, a man who brought glory to God and treated
men with compassion and mercy all the days of his life. Look
what our Lord said about Himself here in Matthew 20 and verse
18. We go up to Jerusalem, and the
Son of Man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto
the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver
him to the Gentiles to mock, to scourge, and to crucify him. And the third day he shall rise
again." He had done said, this is what's going to happen to
him. He wasn't surprised about it. But does that really lessen
the awfulness, the heinousness of the crime that these men did?
Huh? How wicked and cruel and corrupt
is human nature? Look at the maliciousness involved
here in the way they dealt with our Lord Jesus Christ. The maliciousness
of it, the enjoyment they had out of it. They truly enjoyed
it. And they said, who smokes you?
Here you are, you call yourself a prophet? That's what they're
doing, they're ridiculing his office as a prophet. Your prophet,
tell us now, if you know who it is that smote you, and our
Lord could have called his name, could have called his mother's
name, and his daddy's name, and his grandpa's name, and his grandmother's
name, just like that. But you know where you'll find
out in that Christ knew who smote him? When he faces him after
judgment, he'll stand before the Son of God and say, Oh my
soul, that's the one, that's the one, whenever I shall behold
him. Everybody looks at him, even those who crucified him.
He said, you'll see me someday, and you'll look at me, and that
man will say, oh, my soul, that's the one. And our Lord will look
at him and say, you ask me who smoked me? Here he is. Take him, binding hand and foot,
cast him into outer darkness. Oh, my. George Whitfield said,
man left to himself is half beast and half devil. And you know
man hates God, the natural man hates God and all who bear any
image of him at all. They hate God and if you bear
the image about him, they hate you. The carnal mind is enmity
against God and if God did not restrain evil in this world, The natural man would turn this
earth into hell itself. There is places in this world
where God has took his hand off and you better hope you don't
wind up in that place because you'll never get out alive. Where
God takes his hands off of people. Oh, but see, our Lord's come
submission to these cruel mockers. Look what he says here. Oh, how
easy, how easy would it have been for him to have stopped
them. He could have stopped them. He cast out devils by his word. He raised the dead by his word.
He could have called twelve legions of angels. And there was one
time, you can look it up yourself, I believe it's in Kings where
there was One angel one night, and they'd been under siege in
Jerusalem, and they'd been under siege there, and they'd been
there until they was eating, children, women were eating their
own babies. And this folk says, well, we just will give ourselves
over to the Syrians, because we're going to starve to death
anyway. And what are we going to do? Well, that
night, God said, one angel, one, smote 85,000 Syrians. And he
went out there the next day, and of course God said, this
time tomorrow, you'll have more flour than you can know what
to do with. How's that going to happen? He
said, one angel killed 85,000 men. And they left everything
that there was. Oh, so if our Lord called 12
legions of angels, if one could do that, what could 12 legions
do? Oh my, but here, His heart, while
He's submitting to this, His heart set on the work that He
came to accomplish. His heart and will is set towards
the cross. His heart and will is set in
order to redeem us. He must first come into humiliation. Oh, He must be humiliated. And
you know, the old timers talked about His humiliation. He says,
must not the Son of Man suffer before He enters into His glory?
And the Old Timers talked about all of his humiliation, and you
go through the Scriptures and see how he was so humiliated
and so shamed and so evilly entreated. You know, as our Lord Himself
said, He made Himself of no reputation and humbled Himself, emptied
Himself of all vestiges of glory on this earth, and humbled Himself
even unto death. Not just death, but the death
of the cross, the death of a common criminal. You know, Milton used that verse
of scripture last week in Acts chapter 8, verse 33, and his
humiliation, his judgment was taken away. His humiliation took
away his judgment. They said, oh, he can't do nothing.
But what our Lord says was, I won't do anything. I won't do anything. You see, our Lord Jesus didn't
flinch. Did not flinch here to pay the
uttermost farthing. I mean, to keep us out of prison.
To save us from the justice of God. To save us out from under
the curse of the law. To save us from the wrath of
God due us for our sins. He didn't flinch to pay the uttermost
farthing. He had willingly undertaken to
drink the bitter cup of our suffering and the suffering of his people.
No wonder, he said, who for the joy that was set before him despised
the shame. Sit down at your right hand. What a great lesson for you and
me. What a great lesson for us. You know, we get upset somebody
mistreats us a little. It's because we think so highly
of ourselves. But here's a great lesson for us. When we're mistreated
by the world or anyone else, don't murmur. Don't murmur. Don't complain. Don't even show
any irritation. Our Lord didn't. Let me show
you that over here in 1 Peter 2. 1 Peter 2. Now, I know it's
hard. But oh, what a great lesson.
Here our Lord just calmly submitted to these people. Calmly submitted
to what they were doing. Calmly submitted to their smiting,
their beating. Never said a word. Never opened
His mouth. Oh, He didn't murmur. He didn't
complain. He didn't even show any irritation. Look here in
1 Peter 2 and verse 21. For even hereunto were ye called,
because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example
that ye should follow in his steps, who did no sin, neither
was God found in his mouth, who when he was reviled, he reviled
not again. When he suffered, he didn't threaten
anybody, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. Father's going to take care of
this. Now look back over in our text. So the men that held him
mocked him, smote him, blindfolded him, struck him in the face,
asked him, saying, Who prophesied? Who it is that smote thee? And
watch this, and many other things, many other things. And Luke decided,
you know, Luke didn't say anything about it. It must have been so
horrendous, so awful. that he wouldn't even enumerate
them and tell what they were. And many other things blasphemously
spake they against him. Blasphemy spake they against
him. I wonder what all the things they said about him. But I know
what some people say about him now. And what they say about
him now is bad enough. But you imagine what men who
are turned loose without any recriminations, without any fear
of suffering for it. What they'll do. What they'll
do. That's what they did. Then look
at our Lord's prophecy concerning Himself. Down here in verse 69. Hereafter shall the Son of Man
sit on the right hand of the power of God. Now how did he
get to that place, this prophesying of himself? It says in verse
66, and as soon as it was day. Now see, they had been judging
him that night. They had already condemned him.
He had already been taken into the judgment hall. Brought him
to the high priest's house and set him in there and took him
in there and tried him. Now here it is, daylight, and they got
all the Sanhedrin together. Maybe some of them had been missing
that night, and they're going to make a stab at trying to make
this as legal as they possibly can. And so it says here, as
soon as it was day, the elders of the people, that's the people
like Job and those who sat at the gates and judged people,
and then there were the chief priests. And then there are the
scribes who transcribed the law, and interpreted the law, and
taught the law. So there you have three types
of people in the Sanhedrin. The elders, the chief priests,
and the scribes. Seventy of them. That's how many
is gathered together here to judge our Lord Jesus Christ.
And they came together, and then they brought him out into their
council. Brought him out and set him before them. And they asked this question.
Now, ask this question. Aren't thou the Christ? Are you
Him? Tell us. What a question. Are you the Christ? That's what
John the Baptist said. Are you He that should come?
Or should we look for another? But John, I think John asked
more so for his own disciples than he did for himself. so that
they would follow Christ and trust Christ and look to Christ
because John came to point men to Christ. And aren't thou to
Christ? Are you the one that God promised
before the world began? Are you the one that God promised,
prophesied that should come? Are you the one that came into
this world to save sinners? Are you the one that came into
this world to be the lamb led to the slaughter? Are you Him? Are you Abraham's seed? Are you
the son of David? And they said, tell us. Tell us. Look, our Lord, look
over in John chapter 10, just a minute. John chapter 10. You know, the only way you'll
ever know who Christ is, is seeing Him by faith. For Him to make
Himself known to you. That's the only way. That's the only way you'll ever
know who He is. Huh? That's why they asked Him, they
said, You will also turn away, Lord, to whom shall we go? You've
got the words of eternal life, and we believe and are sure that
Thou art the Son of God who should come into this world. Now look
here in John 10 verse 23, And Jesus walked in the temple
in Solomon's porch. Then came the Jews round about
him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If
thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. They said, In another place,
if the Christ come, will he do more works than this man? What's
it now? Our Lord answered them, I told
you, I told you that you don't believe. You didn't believe me
then. You ain't gonna believe me now.
You won't believe me tomorrow. You won't believe me next year.
You won't believe me. You'll die without believing
me. The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness
of me. Who else has done the works ever
in the history of the human race that I've done? Whoever heard
of opening the eyes of a blind man, born blind, and opening
their eyes, who's never saw before? Whoever heard of a man being
dead four days in corruption, and him being called by name
and coming out of the tomb? Who else ever heard of taking
five fish and two loaves of bread and feeding 5,000 people, men
alone, not counting the children and the women? The works that
I do, my father's works, they bear witness of me. He said,
I'm going to tell you why you don't believe. You believe not,
because you're not of my sheep, as I said unto you. You know
why you believe? Because you's a sheep. One of them days, I was talking
to Greg Amcrest today, and he said he was preaching last Sunday.
And he said he was preaching on effectual calling, and he
said that he was preaching, and he said, and Christ come by where
Matthew was sitting at the receipt of custom, and just told him,
says, follow me! Just follow me! He said, he just
stopped and followed him. He says, I'm just so astounded. He said, it just dawned on me
the power of that call, when Christ calls somebody, he says,
follow me, and they follow him right now! What a powerful call! And when
He calls His sheep, they hear Him, and they say, if you're
the Christ, we don't have to ask if He's the Christ, we know
who He is! We know He's the Son of God,
we know He's the Lord of Glory, we know He's the Redeemer of
sinners, we know He's the Savior of sinners. We know He's the
only man between God and man. How do we know? He taught us. He taught us. Now, back over
in our text. And they said, I doubt that Christ,
now in verse 67, I doubt that Christ tell us. And look what
he said. He said unto them, if I tell
you, you will not believe. You won't believe. You won't
believe. How many times have we told somebody
about Christ and they won't believe? But when Christ tells them about
himself, they'll believe. They'll believe. Now look what
else he says now. And I will also ask you, you
will not answer me nor let me go. And what our Lord means here
is if I question you, if I ask you, what is the Christ? What's the
signs of the Christ? What's the signs of the Messiah?
What's the evidence of the Messiah being here? Of the Christ being
here? He said, you won't answer me.
You won't let me question you. Of why you don't believe I'm
the Christ. Why you didn't believe the signs. Why you didn't believe
the miracles. Why you didn't believe the wonders.
Why you didn't believe the Word. If I ask you, you won't answer
me either. And if I do answer and prove
to you, that don't mean nothing. You're still not going to let
me go. That's what he's saying. I can prove myself innocent to
you right now, but you're not going to let me go. You're not
going to let me go. I can prove to you that I'm the
Christ, but you're not going to let me go. That's what he's
saying here. And then look in verse 69. And oh, this just got them here.
Because they understood here what he's saying. Hereafter shall
the Son of Man sit on the right hand of the power of God. Oh
my! I'm leaving this world and I'm
going to the next. And I'm not just going into eternity. I'm going back to glory with
the glory that I had before the world was. And I'm going to sit
down. You say you know God. You say you trust God. I'm going
there and I'm sitting down at His right hand. They understood
clearly that that's what the Messiah is going to do. Let me
show you that in Daniel chapter 9. Daniel chapter 9. Let me show
you that. They knew that. Do you remember
when, in Psalm 110, excuse me, Daniel chapter 7,
not 9, chapter 7 and verse 9. You know when the Lord said unto
my Lord, set not my right hand until I make thine enemies thy
footstool? They understood that the Christ is going to ascend
back to glory, that the Christ is going to sit on the throne,
that the Christ is going to have all power in heaven and earth,
that the Christ is going to rule and reign in this world. Now look in verse 9 of Daniel
chapter 7, I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the
Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow." Now
you look in Revelation chapter 1, that's Christ. There He is,
He's white and glistening, His hair is white as snow, and the
hair of His head like the pure wool. His throne was like the
fiery flame, and His wheels as burning fire. And a fire streamed,
issued, and came forth from before him. Thousands and thousands
ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood
before him. The judgment was set, and the
books were opened. And I beheld him because of the
voice of the great words which the horn spake. I beheld even
till the beast was slain, his body destroyed, and given to
the burning flame. As concerning the rest of the
beasts, they had their dominion taken away, yet their lives were
prolonged for a season at a time. And I saw in the night visions,
and behold, one, like the Son of Man, came with the clouds
of heaven," remember he ascended up into glory up to heaven in
a cloud, "'and came to the Ancient of Days, and then lying there
before him, And the Ancient of Days gave him dominion, and glory,
and a kingdom, and all people, and nations, and languages serve
him. And his dominion is everlasting
dominion, which shall not pass away. And his kingdom, that which
shall not be destroyed. They knew when they read that.
That's where the Christ was going before the Ancient of Days. And
oh my! Now look what else they ask him
then, back over in our text. Hereafter you're going to say,
shall the Son of Man say it? You ain't going to believe me
and you ain't going to answer me. But hereafter, hereafter. And then verse 70, Then said
they all, I believe they all, I don't know if they took a time
about, or if they all just at one time said, Are you the Son
of God then? Are you the Son of God then?
Aren't thou the Son of God? Because they understood that
the Son of God, that Christ, was going to set at the right
hand. He's going to go to His throne. He's going to have all
the men and all power and all authority. But they thought He
was going to be from Jerusalem. But look what He says. And look
at the bold confession He makes of Himself. And He said unto
them, You say that I am. What he said is, you speak of
the truth, you say that I am. What you say is true. What you
say is true. You say that I am, and that's
true. That's what he told Pilate. He
said, are you the king of the Jews? You say that I am. Now watch this now. And they
said, what need we enter for the witnesses? You see, they
had witnesses before. Look over here, and I think it's
Matthew 26, and I'll be done in a minute. Matthew 26. They
had witnesses. They had witnesses that they
hired that came. Matthew 26 and verse 52 from
59. Now the chief priests and elders
and all the council sought false witness against Jesus to put
him to death. But they didn't find any. Yea, though many false
witnesses came, yet they found none. At the last came two false
witnesses and said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the
temple of God and build it in three days. And the high priest
arose and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? What is that which
he has witnessed against me? So they had these witnesses.
Now back over here in verse 71, in closing, they said this. When
he says, You say that I am, and hereafter shall you see the Son
of Man sitting on the right hand of the power of God. Why need
we any further witnesses? We don't need no more witnesses.
Now watch this. For we ourselves have heard of
his own mouth. Oh, so their hatred and their
unbelief We'll be without excuse. Why do we need any more witnesses?
We heard ourselves. We heard him say he's going to
have sinned and sinned at the right hand of the parent of God. We
heard himself say that he's the son of God. We heard himself say that. And
here's their condemnation. We don't need no more witnesses. We've heard with our own mouth.
We've heard out of his own mouth. And do you know, I'm going to
tell you something. Do you know that here he stood
as a prisoner and said nothing? But when they face him as the
judge, he'll have a lot to say. So you see, when they said, we've
heard ourselves, we don't need any more witnesses. Out of their
own mouth. Out of their own mouth. Out of
their own mouth. They were without excuse. They
said, we heard ourselves. What an awful indictment against
them. We heard ourselves. And we come
to the conclusion we ain't going to believe. We're not going to
bow. We're not going to submit in
it. We're going to hold our positions. We're going to hold our power.
We're going to hold on to what we've got. We ain't given up
our righteousness. We ain't given up our priesthood.
We ain't given up our power. We ain't given up our positions,
especially over a man like this. We're not going to do it. And
oh my, Paul says, the day is coming when God shall judge the
secrets of men's hearts by my gospel. Oh, blessed Savior, thank you
for allowing us to speak of you tonight, to talk of you. Thank
you for your glorious submission. Lord, we see your suffering and
we see your submission. And we see that even ourselves,
had we been there, we would have took part had you not had mercy
on us, had you not opened our hearts, had you not made yourself
known to us. But, O Lord, had you not suffered,
there'd be no salvation, there'd be no glory. Without humiliation,
there'd be no exaltation. And thank you, Lord, for willingly,
willingly taking our place. willingly suffering the shame
and the mockery and the humiliation and the mistreatment for sinners
like ourselves. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Blessed
be your name. Oh, how glorious you are that
you would suffer so, suffer so for sinners like us. Oh, blessed
be your name. Blessed be your name. Amen. Amen.