Well, good morning, everyone. If you would, open your Bibles with me to Mark chapter 15. Mark chapter 15. I believe there's a lesson here that will be very beneficial to us.

Before we begin, let's bow before our Lord together in prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven, holy, reverent is your matchless name. Father, we carefully, reverently come into your presence this morning, daring only come before you in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. How thankful we are to be able to plead his obedience as our only righteousness. Nothing that we've done can add to it, but his perfect obedience is our righteousness before thee. We're thankful to plead his precious sin atoning blood that cleanses us from all of our sin and that we're accepted in him. Father, we're so thankful. We know we couldn't be accepted any other way. into your holy presence except in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we thank you for him. It's our harsh desire to learn more of him this morning, that his name would be lifted up and glorified and magnified. And Father, that you give each of us here this morning the faith to look to him, to look and live, to fall more deeply in love with him, to learn to depend even more and more and more on him, to trust him more and more and more. Father, let us be taken up with the Lord Jesus Christ and forget all the circumstances that are surrounding us, whether they're pleasant or unpleasant. Let us forget about those things. Let them fade into the background because of the glorious light of Christ our Savior.

And what we pray for ourselves, Father, we pray for your people wherever they're meeting together today. Father, this dark, dark day in which we live, how we pray that you'd show us your glory through the preaching of your word. We pray especially for our children's class at this time, Father, that you'd use this time to plant the seeds of faith in the hearts of our young ones. Father, we're so thankful for them. They're so precious to us. And father, we beg your mercy and grace would be upon them. Father, we also pray for those who are in times of great trial and difficulty, sickness, they're heartbroken, suffering loss in, in all the many difficulties of this sinful world. And father, we pray you'd be with them, that you'd heal, that you deliver and father above all that until you are pleased to deliver, that you'd comfort their hearts in a special way with your presence.

Now all these things we ask for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, for the sake of his glory we pray, amen.

I've titled our lesson this morning, Hail King of the Jews, and I wanna read the text and then come back and make a few comments. In Mark 15, beginning in verse 15. So Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him to be crucified. And the soldiers led him away into the hall called Praetorium, that's their military headquarters there in that town, and they called together the whole band. All the soldiers stationed there at that time, they called together the whole band, and they clothed him with purple, and plaited a crown of thorns, and put it about his head. and began to salute him, hail king of the Jews. And they smote him on the head with a reed and did spit upon him, bowing their knees, worshiped him. And when they'd mocked him, they took off the purple from him and put on, or put his own clothes on him and let him out to crucify him. Now this is a, I don't even know the word to use. What a, what a horrible, story and what our Savior suffered here. And I want to be clear from the outset here. I hope nothing that I say sounds like we should feel sorry for Jesus here in this situation. In just a little while, he's going to tell the women that he passes on the way to his crucifixion, don't you weep for me, he said. You weep for yourselves.

I want us to see the glory of our Savior and what He willingly endured and what He willingly suffered to save the souls of His people. And our need of salvation stands out in these verses, doesn't it? You know, man's depravity and man's fallen, sinful nature is seen more clearly in the events surrounding the cross, leading up to the cross and at the cross than anywhere else and anything else that we do.

Our fallen nature is seen in the way they treated the Savior. Those things that they did to him, how they, I mean, it's just unimaginable, the physical sufferings that they forced upon him. And you know, we'd be thrown in jail today for treating a dog this way. I mean, you treated a dog this way, you'd go to jail. And this is the way they're treating the Son of God. And that shows our sinful nature more than anything else.

Man's depravity is not seen most clearly in bars and heroin dens and prostitution and all these horrible things that you see go on in the world today. The heart of man's depravity is seen in our hatred of God. our hatred of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if this doesn't show you a blind, dead nature, man's depravity is seen in our hatred of the only one who can save us from our sin. And we hate him.

Man's problem has been the same from the time Adam fell in the garden. Adam fell in the garden because he did not want God ruling over him. And you and I have the exact same nature. but God does rule over us. I mean, there's no getting around it. God does rule over us and man by nature hates him for it. You know, we don't want to have to worship God. We don't have to, we don't have to, or want to have to bow the knee to Christ. We don't want to have to be dependent on God. There's nothing man hates worse than being dependent on God.

So just like our father Adam, we try to set ourself up as God so we can be the ones to make the rules. That was Adam's problem and it's our problem too. We don't want God to make the rules. We want to be the ones to make the rules. And so when we're faced with the Lord Jesus Christ, this is when our sin nature comes out in our hatred of him. That's exactly what the Roman soldiers are doing in these verses that I just read.

When they got their hands on the Son of God, they showed this is what man thinks of God. From what we read, our Savior's visage, his bodily appearance was more marred than any other man. They treated him worse than any other criminal they ever crucified. Now why is that? It's man's hatred of God, and I'll be able to show you that in a minute. They hated him. They tortured him. They mocked him. They crucified him as king, as king. They did it as slow and painful and humiliating as they possibly could because they hated him as king. They had heard, this man says he's a king, and they said, all right, let's see who's king. Let's see who's in charge here. We'll show you king.

And as we go through this, you know, I want to make this very, very clear to all of us. You and I have the same heart. We were born with the same heart and the same nature that hates God, that hates the Lord Jesus Christ, that will never believe him, will never love him, will never bow to him, unless God does something in mercy and grace for us.

So there's two things that I want us to see from this passage. First, I want us to see our nature. man's fallen nature in what we think of King Jesus. And second, I want us to see Christ the King who has saved his sinful people from all of their sin.

First, our sinful, depraved nature is seen in how these soldiers treated Christ. They said, you say you're a king? I mean, you don't look like a king to us, so we better dress you up like one. We better dress you as a king. And Matthew said, they stripped him. They stripped him naked, just to make it the most humiliating way possible. Before they put that purple robe on him, I mean, they could have just put the purple robe over his clothes, but no, that's not humiliating enough. First, they stripped him naked and mocked him in front of this whole band of soldiers. I mean, what a humiliating experience to be naked in front of all these people. And then they mocked him as king by putting this purple robe on him. And I don't know what this robe was. People talk about it being maybe an old purple rug or something, something that would be more painful when they put it on his lacerated back, but we don't know. All the word means is it's a purple cloth. So it could be an old rug. It could be an old rag. Maybe it was, we were talking about men's, men seem to have so many shirts. Maybe it was some soldier's old purple shirt, you know, it's almost like a rag. It's not worth wearing as a shirt anymore. That's what they put on him, just a rag. It wasn't something that looked nice. They're mocking him as king. They're mocking him as king.

And when I thought about that purple, You know, we're going through the study of the tabernacle on Wednesday night, and I thought of how many different places throughout the tabernacle you see these purple threads, purple threads, telling us that the one who's coming to fulfill all the pictures of this tabernacle, he's Christ the King. Purple is the color of royalty. The one who's coming to save his people is the King of Kings. He's sovereign in salvation. He shows mercy to whom, he's merciful to whom he will be merciful. He shows grace to whom, he's gracious to whom he will be gracious. Shows mercy on whom he will show mercy. He's sovereign. He has the power to save.

And that ought to be so thrilling. If you're a sinner that needs to be saved, that you can't save yourself, you love to hear about a king who's got both the power and the will. to save you. It should be so thrilling to us, but our fallen nature instead mocks him for it. He's not king. I'm my own king. I can do my own thing. And that's why our depraved nature hates Christ the most. We can't bear the thought of him being more gloriously dressed than we are. We can't bear the thought of him being higher and being on the throne over us.

That's why these Roman soldiers hated him so bad. They didn't want a king over them. They don't want any rule over them, and so they mocked him as king. Then they said, you say you're a king. Well, you don't look like a king. We better dress you up as one. King needs a crown. And what they did is they took and they wove a crown, a circle, you know, just like that wreath, you know, they put on the head of an Olympic champion. But this, they wove out of thorns. And I never had thought about that until this week I was studying this. You know, that took some time and effort, didn't it? To take, you know, a branch that's full of thorns and weave them together to form a crown. You'd think those thorns would be, you know, hurting you as you were making this crown, but they took the time to do it. They made the effort to do it, and then they put it on his head.

Not how we see kings crown in the big ceremony, you know, where they so gently lay that crown on their head. They shoved that crown down into his scalp so that his blood began to run down his face. And then they mocked him. They mocked him. Look at the king. Look at his crown. And they enjoyed it.

And left ourselves, we would do. Let's never forget the only reason you and I aren't those soldiers right there is God's distinguishing grace. It's the only reason. But they were enjoying this. And you know why? Because our depraved nature hates the crown rights of Christ more than anything else. If he's king, and he's sovereign in salvation, what you're telling me is you're taking away my free will. You're taking away my choice to accept Jesus or reject him. You're taking away my ability to earn my own righteousness. You say I've got to submit myself to the righteousness of God instead of earning my own righteousness. I don't like that.

If Jesus Christ is king, he's got the right to pass me by. Now he can save me if he will. And he can pass me by if he will too. And if he passes me by and sends me to hell, all of creation will glorify him for it, because that's exactly what I deserve. That's what that means. If Christ is king, I'm dependent on him to show mercy to me. I'm dependent on him to not give me what I deserve. I'm dependent on his grace. I'm dependent on him to give me what I do not deserve, And the nature of man hates that more than anything else.

And it wasn't good enough just to kill him, they had to torture him before they did it, to show their hatred of God. And I'll tell you something else about our depraved nature. Our depraved, fallen nature is stupid. It's stupid. Now I know that is not a politically correct word. I know that, but it's stupid. Some years ago, our niece was visiting with her children, so it was my niece and my great nieces were there. And I don't remember who I was talking to, but this, my great niece, this little girl, she started running into her mommy and said, Uncle Frank said the S word. He said the S word. I said, I did not. And she said, yes, you said somebody stupid. I know it's not a politically correct word, but that's what we are. By nature, we're stupid. You imagine the creature thinking he can kill God Almighty. The only way that thought can ever come up in our mind is a depraved, fallen, dead mind. That's all you can say about it.

Then they said, well, I mean, you say you're a king, you sure don't look like one, but we got you starting to look like one. We got you a purple robe, we got you a crown, but now you gotta have a scepter. You better have a scepter. And they just took an old reed, just a hollow reed. You know how they grow up from a wet area? And they took that reed to him and gave it to him and said, this is your scepter. And then they took it away from him and said, here's how much power you have. And they started hitting him on the head with it, just mocking him. Now a scepter, that's the symbol of power. This is the symbol of the king's power. And here's why you can just see them being filled up with so much hatred. Our nature hates the power of God over us, and they hate any symbol of God's power over us. They hate it. It's just, I mean, you just can't paint the picture black enough and dark enough.

And while they're smoking him, smiting him with this scepter, this reed, they started spitting on him. From the way the words are written in the original, it was just over and over and over, all of them, just this whole band, and not just one time per soldier, but multiple times per soldier, just spitting on him, so just drenched in spit. I mean, that is the height of disrespect, isn't it? Just the height of disrespect, just such hatred that you spit on someone. And then when he looked so weak and so humiliated, they cried, hail, king of the Jews. And they mockingly bowed the knee and worshiped him. Hail, king of the Jews.

And you know it wasn't worship. It's mocking worship. It's so just irreverent, just as you're gathering together in a religious setting. and not truly worshiping Christ is irreverent. You'd be better off staying home in bed. They're mockingly acting like they're worshiping Christ and saying, hail, king of the Jews, like it's the furthest thing from the truth. Isn't this obvious to everybody? This is not a king. They felt so superior to him. And that's our nature. You know why we don't bow to King Jesus? because we feel superior, like it's so humiliating we bow to someone that we're superior or that we're equals to. Now that's our sin nature.

What do you think God should do with somebody that's got that nature? He should cast it into hell away from his presence forever, shouldn't he? But here's the second thing. Christ our King has saved all of his people from all of their sins. He saved us from everything about this sin nature. You know, when these Roman soldiers, when they stripped our Lord naked, now they didn't know it, but you know what they did? They gave us a picture of how Jesus Christ made his people righteous. He was stripped naked physically, but you know the most humiliating thing to him? He was stripped naked before his father. He was stripped of his perfect righteousness because he had been made sin for his people. He'd been made sin, so there's no righteousness in him. He'd been made sin. And he was stripped of his righteousness and suffered that humiliation before his father so that he could clothe his people in his perfect righteousness. He stripped of his righteousness so he could give it to his people and make them the righteousness of God in him.

Now, the king did that for sinners. Sinners, his subjects, who had sinned against him, who had said, we won't have this man to reign over us. He suffered that for sinners so that they could be made righteous. I say with a songwriter, I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene. And I wonder, how could he love me? How could he suffer this and do this for me? How could he love me, a sinner condemned unclean? That's what the king did for his subjects.

Now, if you look with me, Revelation chapter 19, not only will these Roman soldiers see our Lord again, but we will too. And when we see him, he's not gonna be naked. He's not gonna be in a body of humiliation. We're gonna see him as he is, clothed in honor and majesty.

Revelation 19 verse 11. And I saw heaven open, and behold a white horse. And he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True. And in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, And on his head were many crowns. Remember that, we'll come back to that in a minute. On his head were many crowns. And he had a name written that no man knew but he himself. He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood. And his name is called the Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.

Now how are they in fine linen, white and clean? is because Christ was stripped naked for them and gave them his righteousness. Clothed them in this fine linen, white and clean, pure, perfect righteousness. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations. And he shall rule them with a rod of iron, and he dreadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture, on his clothing, and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings, and Lord of lords, that seeing Christ as he is. He's clothed in honor and majesty.

And here's the good news for God's people. If this king, who's sovereign over everything, he's the king of kings and Lord of lords, he's the king who clothes all of his subjects in this fine linen, white and clean, his perfect righteousness. If that king is set out to save you, My brother and my sister, you're saved. You're righteous and you cannot be condemned. The king won't allow it.

Then remember, they made a crown and they shoved it down on his head. Now, when they did that, they didn't know it. They had no idea. But they were giving us a picture of how Christ our savior takes away the curse of the sin of his people. He takes that curse away. by bearing it for them.

Let me show you that Galatians chapter three. You know, Christ didn't just bear the sin of his people and he didn't just bear the curse of the sin of his people. He bore it and took it away, took it away. Galatians three verse 13, Christ, Christ the King, this King that we're looking at is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. For it's written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree.

You know, thorns, remember, where do thorns, where do we first read about thorns in scripture? It's what the ground brought forth as a result of the curse of Adam's sin. That's the only reason crown or thorns ever grew. And when they made Christ a crown of thorns, it's a picture of him bearing the curse of the sin of his people. And I told you how he took that curse of the sin of his people and he bore it away so it does not exist for his people anymore.

If Christ died for you, you don't have to worry about the law. Don't look to, at any time you and I ever look to the law to see how we're doing, you know what we're gonna see? I'm doing mighty bad. All the law can do is condemn me. All the law can do is pronounce a curse on me Don't look to the law, look to Christ. Look to Christ. He bore the curse of sin away from his people.

When we see Christ again, in Revelation 22 verse three, I love this verse, John says, there shall be no more curse. It's gone. It's gone. You look at the first verses of the Bible in Genesis, And you see a curse. I mean, just the Lord has pronounced curse on everything because of Adam's sin. And then you look at one of the very last pages and it says, there shall be no more curse. And all these pages in between are written to tell us how Christ took away the curse of the sin of his people. So that there shall be no more curse.

When we see our King again, oh, we're gonna see him crowned. Hebrews 1 verse 8 says he's crowned, just like he's dressed, in honor and majesty. Crowned, covered in honor and majesty. And we read back there in Revelation chapter 12 that he's crowned with many crowns. Many crowns. He's crowned with all of them. Every crown. He's crowned with the crown of glory. He's crowned with the crown of holiness. He's crowned with the crown of victory. He's crowned with the crown of the monarch who is worthy to be praised because he won the battle for his people. He put away every enemy of his people.

And you can talk about crowns that those in heaven will have, but I'm telling you this, we're gonna be crowned, we're gonna be covered with his righteousness, we're gonna be covered with his glory, but we ain't gonna be wearing no crown on our head. Anything we're gonna cast at his feet, he's crowned with many crowns. All of the crowns, all of the kingship, all of the rule, all of the glory goes to our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now the one that's got all the glory, the one who is the mighty, victorious, successful king, I'm telling you, you trust your soul to him. You trust your soul to him. It's secure with him. It'll surely fail in our hands, but if it's in his hands, it's secure. I trust him.

Now, they didn't know it, but when they put that scepter in his hand, and then they turned and smote him with that scepter, you, they gave us a picture of Christ, our sovereign savior. You know the story of Esther? If you don't know the story of Esther, you can go home and read it this afternoon. But Esther married the king. But she can't come in to the king's presence unless he extends his scepter to her. She can come to the door, but she can't come in unless he extends that scepter to her. That scepter is his power. His power to allow someone into his presence or not allow them into his presence.

Christ our king has a scepter. Look at Hebrews chapter one. Hebrews one, in verse eight. But under the sun, he saith, thy throne, O God is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom. Christ our King has a scepter of righteousness. And if he extends that scepter to you, you're righteous. and you come into his presence accepted. If he extends that scepter to you, you must be saved. You must be. Now I say again, trust him. Just trust him. Bow at his feet and beg him to extend that scepter to you that you can come into his presence accepted.

And then when those soldiers mockingly bowed the knee and mockingly worship Christ our Savior, they gave us a glimpse of the future. They gave us a picture of what's going to happen to all of the world one day. One day, I shudder to think, unless God was merciful to them, I shudder to think what's going to happen the next time they see him. But we know what's going to happen.

Philippians chapter two. Philippians chapter two. In verse five, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men. and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Even that death of the cross, that means he's bearing the curse of the sin of his people. Cursed is everyone that hangs upon a tree. When Christ died on the cross, he died that way, bearing the curse of the sin of his people.

Wherefore, God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow. of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Every knee, one day, is gonna bow to King Jesus. We'll either bow in judgment, or we're gonna bow in worship, because God has been merciful and gracious to us. To the unbeliever, to those who hate Christ, they abhor that thought. To think, I'm gonna bow to him in judgment. But to the believer, the believer says, I can't wait. I can't wait to bow before him in worship with a pure heart and a pure nature and a sinless body and worship him.

One more scripture, Revelation chapter five. When all those that God was merciful to, all those that Christ died for, when they bow in worship and praise before Christ our Savior, then we will eternally shout, hail, King of the Jews.

Revelation 5 verse 19, or verse 9, excuse me. And they sung a new song, saying thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof, for thou was slain. and has redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation, and has made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth.

And I beheld and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts and the elders, and the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing, and every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever and ever.

That's just the, that song there is just the expanded version of hail, King of the Jews. And one day, by God's grace, that's what we're gonna be able to say.

All right, hope God will bless that to you.