Well, good morning. If you would
open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 27. That's where our
lesson will be from this morning. Matthew chapter 27. Before we begin, let's bow before
our Lord in prayer. Our Father, we bow before you
this morning. We bow in worship knowing and
thankful that thou art God above, that you rule and reign in everything,
that we are in your hands to do with as you please. And Father,
we beg of you that you would be pleased to show mercy to us
today, that you would make this the day where you reach your
mighty right arm of power down and reveal your mercy and your
grace to your people and the redemption that's had for sinners
in our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, I beg you that you send
your spirit upon us and enable us to worship. Don't let us just
go through the motions of religion, but Father, enable us to worship.
Enable me to preach the gospel in the power of thy spirit. Enable
your people to hear by that same power of your spirit. that we
would see Christ exalted and be given faith to believe Him,
bow to Him, cling to Him, claim Him as our all in all. And what we pray for ourselves
in this hour, Father, we pray for our children's classes that
you bless in a mighty way, that you'd use this time to plant
the seeds of faith in their heart, that you would reveal to them
who and what they are, and Father, that you'd cause them to run
to Christ. Be with our teachers as they teach. We thank you for
them, ask your continued blessing upon them. Father, we do pray
for those that you brought into the time of trouble and trial.
Father, we pray that you would speak peace to the heart, that
you would heal, that you'd comfort, that you would deliver as soon
as it could be thy will. Father, in this difficult day
in which we live, It's so dark and full of unbelief, full of
false religion. Father, in this dark, dark day,
we pray you'd show us your glory, that you'd be pleased to bring
a revival in the land and that you'd cause the glory of Christ
our Savior to shine out of the darkness. Father, all these things
we ask and we give thanks in that name which is above every
name, the name of Christ our Savior. All right, our lesson this morning
just has one verse because of the importance of the topic that
it contains. I've titled the lesson, Are You
the King? In verse 11 of Matthew 27, Jesus stood before the governor,
before Pilate, and the governor asked him, saying, Art thou the
king of the Jews? And Jesus said unto him, Thou
sayest. Now Pilate asked our Lord, Are
you the king? When Christ answers, you said
it. You said it, buddy. I'm the king. I'm the king of kings. Now that is such a plainly revealed
truth in the word of God that it, as Brother Hawker says in
his commentaries so often, I don't need to swell the pages of this
commentary talking about something that's so plainly revealed. The
Lord Jesus Christ is king of kings. I want to give you five
truths. I'm not trying to prove Christ
is king. He's king any more than I'm trying
to prove that God's the creator. He's the creator. But I want
to give you five important truths about Christ our king and how
they are vital to our salvation. Number one is this. There's no
salvation. until we submit to and we bow
to King Jesus. Now that was the problem with
the enemies of our Savior here who were trying to get him and
taking him to Pilate, trying to get him to be put to death.
Their problem was they refused to submit themselves to his righteousness. They refused to submit themselves
to his obedience and give up their obedience to the law, give
up what they could do to earn their own righteousness. They
insisted. they're gonna establish their
own righteousness. So they refuse to submit themselves
to the righteousness of Christ. That's the way the Apostle Paul
described him. He knew him well, he used to be one of them, didn't
he? And that's the way he described him. These men were so proud,
they refused to beg Christ for mercy. They refused to beg. I know they refused to beg him
because they thought their obedience, their morality, their works,
they thought that was good enough. But pride of heart is the issue
here. They refused to beg him for mercy. And the reason they put the Lord
to death is because he's the king. What was the charge they
thought worthy of death? He said he's king. He says he
has a spiritual kingdom. He's no threat to Rome, is he?
This is really the charge worthy of death, that he says he's king?
To them, it was. To them, it was worthy of death.
This is the charge Pilate rode over his cross and put on top
of him. This is the king of the Jews.
And the Pharisees said, no, don't write that. He said he's the
king of the Jews. Pilate said, well, I've written,
I've written. Here's the king of the Jews. And he's dying because
they would not have him reign over them. So they put him to
death. Now, the Pharisees would have
been fine. if the Lord was just a healer of the sick, wouldn't
he? That could come in pretty handy
down the road. You find yourself sick, it'd be pretty handy to
have a healer right there in town. They would have been fine
with the Lord being a miracle worker, performing many different
kinds of miracles, as long as he came from God and was not
God. They could have stood that. What
they couldn't stand is him being God, him being king. They would
have been fine with the Lord feeding the hungry. But they
were all for that, they'd have been fine with that. They even
would have been fine with the Lord being a religious reformer.
As long as he incorporated them and their laws and their traditions
into what he was reforming, they'd have been fine with him being
a reformer. And they would have loved the
Lord being an earthly king who would deliver them from Rome.
Now they'd have been real fine with that, Because I'm sure they
figured then that they would have had power and prestige and
stuff in his reign. But if he could deliver them
from Rome, reestablish the kingdom of David, make Israel a world
power again, oh, they'd have been fine with that. But they
would not bow to Christ as king, spiritual king, king over all.
They would not bow to him as the Savior. They would not bow
to him as God's promised Messiah. Now, I know I'm talking about
the Pharisees here, the enemies of Christ trying to put him to
death. But now let's make sure we apply this to our hearts.
There will never be any salvation until we get this issue settled.
Who's king here? I mean, who is it? Am I the king? Am I the one that decides whether
or not I'll accept Jesus as my personal savior? If I'm the one
that can decide to let Jesus into my life and let him have
his way in my life, sounds to me like I'm the king. I'm the
one that's allowing this to happen, right? Is that true? Or is Christ the king? Is Christ
the one who decides whether or not he'll have mercy on my soul?
Is mercy his to give and his to withhold? Is it his prerogative?
Is Christ the king who holds me in his hand and he'll do with
me what he pleases? If he damns me, he'll be right.
And if he has mercy on me and saves me, he'll be right. Whatever
he does is right. Is Christ the king so that there's
nothing I can do to get him to have mercy on me? I can't influence
him. I can't kind of earn it part
way to influence him to have mercy on me. Is it his sole prerogative,
his sole choice whether to give me mercy or withhold it? Is it
his to give? I'll tell you what every believer
will do. Eventually, when they hear of Christ the King, they're
going to bow. Look at Psalm 18. They're going
to bow. They're going to submit themselves
to Christ the King. Every believer does. There's
no salvation without it. Psalm 18 verse 43. This is Christ speaking, and
he says in verse 43, thou hast delivered me from the strivings
of the people, and thou hast made me the head, the king, the
ruler of the heathen. A people whom I have not known
shall serve me. As soon as they hear of me, they
shall obey me. The strangers shall submit themselves
unto me. This is what every believer does
when the Holy Spirit causes us to hear of Christ. As soon as
we hear him, we'll obey him. His commandment is to quit your
works, quit trusting your works, and trust me, believe on me.
As soon as we hear of Christ, we'll obey, we'll believe him,
we'll bow at his feet, we'll be happy to submit ourselves
to Christ. We'll be happy to submit ourselves
to the will of the king. We'll be happy to submit ourselves
to the righteousness of the king. We'll gladly bow at his feet
and beg him for mercy, because he's the only one who has it. A man told Janet one time, heard
me preach it a few times, and he said, Frank preaches a strong
God. Well, if you want to preach the
God of the Bible, that's what you have to do, isn't it? I mean,
nobody's going to bow to this sweet little Jesus boy that religion
is talking about today. I mean, it sounds like to me
you just pat him on the head and go on your way. Pat him on
the head, I'll call you if I need you. We'll only bow to a sovereign. who has complete and utter control
over us. That's the only God that we'll
worship. And that's what believers did. That's what those who believed
Him all through His earthly ministry did. At the Lord's birth, those
wise men came seeking Him, didn't they? And what did they say?
Where's the King? Where is He who's born King of
the Jews? I wanna know where He is. We've
come to worship Him. We've come to bow to Him. Now
that's what happened at his birth. As our Lord was dying, that dying
thief looked at the Lord and said, Lord, would you remember
me when you come into your kingdom? You're a king. You're coming
into your kingdom. Would you remember me? Now that's worshiping. That man couldn't bow. He'd nailed
to the tree. But he bowed, didn't he? And
everybody that bows that way shall be saved. We've got to
get this issue settled. Who's king? Christ is king, we're
gonna bow to him. And it is my prayer that the
rest of these points will make us want to bow to Christ, make
us want to bow to him, bow to him as our king and as our savior.
Look at Psalm 24. Here's the second point. Christ
our king fights every battle for his people. Psalm 24 is the
psalm of the king. It says in verse seven, Lift
up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting
doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King
of Glory? He's the Lord, strong and mighty,
the Lord mighty in battle. Now in the days of the old kings,
what the people wanted in a king was a king who was valiant in
war, someone who was a valiant warrior, and someone who was
a great general, leader of the army, so that they would be protected
from other You know, other countries would be afraid to attack such
a warrior, such a general. They felt like they had safety
if their king was this great warrior. Well, Christ our king,
we've already established he's king. He is the Lord, strong
and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. He defeats all of his
enemies, and he defeats every enemy of his people. You think
about our enemies. Christ our king has defeated
the sin of his people. Our sin would damn us, but he
put it away by the blood of his sacrifice. Our king has not only
defeated sin, he's defeated the sin nature of his people. He
gives us a new nature, doesn't he? That old nature, that old
nature used to be in control. And here's how you could tell
it was in control. You'd hear the gospel and you couldn't believe
it. You hear the gospel, but you couldn't hear it. You hear
the gospel and you might even think that makes sense. But you
couldn't believe it. You couldn't trust your soul
to Christ. And then God gives you a new
nature. And that nature believes and can't quit believing. That
new nature rules in that way. You believe Christ and you can't
not believe. Our king has made us willing to bow to him. Our king has no unwilling subjects.
We're willing when? in the day of his power. He makes
us willing to bow to him by the power of his grace. He makes
us willing to bow. Our King has defeated the law.
The law was against us, but Christ took it out of the way, didn't
he? Nailing it to his cross. Our King has even defeated death. Now these bodies will still die,
but our King took the sting out of death for his people by dying
for them. So they'll die no more. They'll
never die the second death. Our king has defeated Satan,
the accuser of the brethren. There's no one else had the power
to do that. Christ, our savior, defeated
Satan, the accuser of the brethren. And just like the Lord promised
in the garden at Calvary, Christ, our king, crushed Satan's head. He crushed his power. And you
know how he took away his power? Satan's the accuser of the brethren.
Well, Christ took away his power to accuse because he took sin
away. Satan's got nothing to work with.
There's nothing he has to accuse because Christ took the sin of
his people away. Christ our King defeated every
enemy. He took away every obstacle so
that that would keep his people from coming to God. He took away
every one of them. So now, Because of the death
of Christ, we can come boldly before a throne of grace to obtain
mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Every obstacle
is removed. I thought about those cities
of refuge. Remember, however so often they
do it, the priest would go out and they'd make sure the roads
were clear of any obstacle. There weren't any trees down.
They'd make sure the signs were not blocked by weeds and trees
or hadn't been knocked down or something. The way was plain. It was open and plain, easy to
get to the city of refuge. But you know what those priests
couldn't do? They couldn't make the manslayer go to the city
of refuge. And if he wanted to hide out someplace else, he wanted
to hide in the weeds, he wanted to hide in the ditch, he wanted
to run to the mountains or something to hide, the priest couldn't
make him. Every obstacle's taken away. It's easy to get to, but
the priest couldn't make him go to the city of refuge, could
he? Our King is so much better. Not only did he remove the obstacles
between us and God so that we can come to God, our King brought
us to God. He brings his people to God by
his blood. Christ, our King, doesn't just
open the way to God and leave it to us. You know, are we going
to decide, am I going to go in or not? You know, the door's
open. Am I going to go in or not? You know, I don't know.
No, our king doesn't leave it up to us because we make the
wrong decision. He brings his people to God. Now, what a king. I'm telling you, that's the king
I want to bow to. That's the king I want reigning
over me, isn't it you? All right, now look at Zechariah
chapter nine. Here's the third thing. Christ, our king, bring salvation
to his people. Zechariah nine verse nine. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of
Zion. Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem.
Behold, thy king cometh unto thee. He's just and having salvation
lowly and riding upon an ass and upon a coal, the full of
an ass. Now you know this is a prophecy of when our Savior
rode into Jerusalem in this very week that we're studying here
before he went through this mock trial and he was put to death.
But Christ our King, now he's the King, but he didn't come
to Jerusalem to set up an earthly kingdom. He came, he brought
salvation. How does it say here? Having
salvation, having salvation. He came, he has salvation. He
came bringing salvation to his people, not by setting up an
earthly kingdom, not by getting rid of the of Rome. He came to
set up a kingdom by suffering and dying for the sin of his
people. He came to suffer as the sacrifice for the sin of
the people. Now he reigns over his people.
They're his people. He reigns over them. He has complete
and utter authority over them. Yet the king gave himself as
a sacrifice. for his people so he could bring
them salvation. And when Christ our King comes
bringing salvation with him, his people are completely saved,
completely. And they're given peace with
God. This is a peaceable kingdom. Look at verse 10, Zechariah 9. And I will cut off the chariot
from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem and the battle bow
shall be cut off and he shall speak peace under the heathen. His dominion shall be from sea
even to sea, and from river even to the ends of the earth. His
dominion is everywhere, and all the people in His dominion, He's
gonna speak peace to them. They have peace with God through
the blood of His cross. I want a king to reign over me
that's gonna have peace and tranquility, don't you? That's Christ our
King. And when Christ our King comes,
bringing salvation, He sets His people free. Look at verse 11.
As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant, I have sent
forth thy prisoners out of the pit, wherein is no water. God's people are held as prisoners,
prisoners to the law, prisoners to our own sin, prisoners to
the darkness of our unbelief, and Christ our King comes and
he sets his people free. He just rips the prison doors
off the hinges and his people are free. Zacharias says Christ
comes. He brings salvation with him. And when he comes to his people,
he's not selling it. He's not offering it. He's not
saying, what will you give me for it? He's not, it's not up
for sale to the highest bidder. He gives it to his people freely. David said, Psalm 111 verse nine,
he sent redemption. unto his people. He sent redemption. Christ our King didn't suffer
and die to put away the sin of his people to save them and then
leave it up to them to decide, well, am I going to accept this
or am I going to reject this? Our King brings salvation to
his people. He brings it. He brings it by
sending it to them through the preaching of the gospel. And
he applies that salvation to the hearts of his people so they
can never be lost. He doesn't leave it up to them.
Now they're going to willingly believe it. They're going to
willingly bow to him, but he's the ones going to apply it to
their heart. He sent it to him. He sends it to him by the preaching
of the gospel. I was reading the other day about,
uh, I forget what battle it was in the civil war. Um, bloody,
bloody, bloody. And there was no really clear-cut
winner in that battle. Lee took tremendous losses, but
was able to escape back into Virginia. And after that bloody,
bloody day, this horrible day of death and suffering, President
Lincoln sat down and wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. And
he said, the slaves are free. How many of them in the Deep
South went free? Not a one. McClellan wasn't getting the
job done. And eventually, President Lincoln called General Grant.
He said, I'm putting an end to this thing. I'm sending you to
bring freedom to those people. I'm sending you to bring peace
to this country. And Grant went down there, putting
an end to this thing, didn't he? And he brought freedom to
those slaves. He brought it to them. Every
single time we preach the gospel. We've got a commandment from
the captain of our salvation Take this gospel forth declare
Christ the Savior to set my people free. They're gonna be free He
sent it to aren't you glad this didn't leave it up to you how
many of us just Before we ever knew the Lord, before we ever
heard the Gospel, just merrily going upon our way, never even
thought about the Lord. Never even thought about the
Savior. Never even thought about the blood. Never even thought
about righteousness. Well, how did you hear? I mean, everybody's
got a story. There used to be a thing I'd
watch on the news. Everybody's got a story. A guy
would throw a dart at the map of the United States and he'd
go to that town. Find out, sure enough, everybody's got a story.
We all have a story about how it is God worked it out for we'd
hear the gospel. And it can be different for everybody.
But here's the thing that's the same. As soon as we heard, we
bowed. And this is what we all have
to say. God sent it to me. He sent it to me and gave me
a heart to believe it. The king that's got the power
and the love and the compassion to do that for the likes of me.
to send that gospel to me, to send his son to suffer and die
for me, and then to send that gospel to me, give me the heart
to believe it, a heart to love it, that's the king I want him
out to, isn't it you? That's who I want king over me.
Now look at Hebrews chapter 10. Here's the fourth thing. Christ
our king is the successful king. He saved everybody that he came
to save, and not one of them will be lost. Hebrews chapter
10 verse 12. But this man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of
God. Now the Lord Jesus, he endured
this mock trial. He endured all his suffering
and death for the sin of his people. He did it willingly. He gave himself to be made sin
for his people. He took the sin of his people
into his own precious, sinless body upon the tree, and he sacrificed
himself. He sacrificed all that he is
to suffer and die to put away the sin of his people, because
that's what it took. It took all that suffering, all
that blood. It took his death to put away
sin. He offered that sacrifice. He
didn't offer that sacrifice to Umesha. As he was suffering there
on the cross, God turned the son out. It's just like on the
days of old, the Day of Atonement. That high priest would take the
blood, he'd go behind the veil. Business was being done between
the priest and God. The people couldn't see him.
The priest wasn't taking that blood and offering it to the
people. This blood was being offered to God. When God turned
the son out, the son of God, S-O-N, went behind the veil with
his blood. putting it upon the altar and
God accepted that sacrifice. That sacrifice paid the debt
of all God's people and put away the debt, the sin of all of God's
people by one sacrifice. Now he did that. You think of
what a sacrifice this is by one sacrifice. He put away the sin
of his people forever. Now it sure would be a shame.
Christ our Savior failed to save some of the folks that he suffered
not for. That'd be a shame, wouldn't it? What a shame. Well, it would
be a shame, but you never have to worry about that happening.
It's never gonna happen. When the sacrifice was complete,
our Savior rested in the tomb for three days. He rested there
to fulfill the scriptures, and then he rose again. He rose again
because the sin that put him in the tomb was gone. He put
it away by his precious blood, Death could no longer hold him.
He paid the debt, and he arose from the grave because sin was
gone. And after a number of days and some time he spent with his
disciples, he ascended back on high. Just ascended up in the
clouds. The disciples just stood there. Up he went. He went back to glory.
And when he got there, the writer of the Hebrews says he sat down.
He sat down. He sat down because the work
was finished. I started cutting down a holly
bush yesterday. We planted it when our daughter
Holly was little. It's getting out of hand. Time
to get rid of that thing. That's all I was told. So I was
working on it. Guess who came out there once
in a while? You want some water? You want to sit down? And I needed
to a few times. And I finally sat down and said,
I'm not going back out there anymore. I didn't quit because
the job was finished. The trunk of it is still there. I sat down because I was so tired
I couldn't do any more. Our Savior didn't sit down because
He's tired. He sat down because the job was
finished. It was finished. When He cried
from the cross, it is finished, He meant it. The job of redemption
is done. There's nothing else left to
do. And our Savior, you know, well, I would want to sit down
and take a little break from working on my little tree there
yesterday. I didn't even ask if I'd go sit
in Jan's living room on her chair, on her couches, all that thing.
I was dirty, I was sweaty. She didn't want me sitting there.
Our Savior, I sat down on a bench and on the steps and things,
you know. Our Savior didn't go to glory to sit down on a bench
somewhere. He sat down on the throne of heaven. He sat down
there as king, where he sits to this day, ensuring the salvation
of his people by working all things together to accomplish
the redemption of his people. He sat down on the right hand
of the father, where he still sits today, right this very moment,
making intercession for his people. And the father always forgives.
The father always accepts his intercession because our savior,
our king, is pleading his sacrifice for the sin of his people. Now
that's the king I want to bow to, isn't it you? All right,
now look back at John 18. Here's the fifth thing. Christ, our king, reigns in a
spiritual kingdom. John 18, verse 36. Jesus answered, my kingdom's
not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world,
then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered
to the Jews, but now is my kingdom not from hence. Christ our Savior
has a spiritual kingdom. Now it is true he reigns over
all. He reigns over all the earth, over all of his creation. He's
king over everything that happens in his creation. Whatever it
is that happens in your life today, you can rest assured of
this, It was God's will for that to happen, exactly the way it
was. It's according to his will. He reigns over all. The heart
of the hand is in his hand to turn whatever he will. But our
king's real business is a spiritual kingdom. And his real business
is not the politics of this world. His real business is spiritual.
And we better line up our goals with that. This needs to be our
business too. Our job is not to reform the
governments and the policies and the actions, the conduct
of people in this world. That's not our job. Our job is
to preach Christ. It's to call on sinners to bow
to Christ and to believe on him. Our job is to preach the gospel
so that God's people will worship him and praise him. I know believers
hold very strongly, we have some very strongly held beliefs about
right and wrong that do come from the word of God. No question
about it. But I'm telling you the worst
thing organized religion ever did, whether it's true preaching
or false religion, the worst thing organized religion has
ever done is get involved in politics. Biggest mistake ever
made. Because our job is not to govern
this world. It's not to tell people how this
world ought to be governed. We're members, citizens of a
spiritual kingdom. Our job is to preach Christ the
King. Hold him up so that sinners will
look to him and believe him. Now, I'm really out of time,
but I want to give you one more thing. Look back in our text.
Matthew 27. Here's the conclusion. Look at
this verse again. And Jesus stood before the governor,
and the governor asked him, saying, Art thou the king of the Jews?
And Jesus said unto him, Thou sayest. Now here's the king of
kings, the Lord of lords, the Lord Jesus Christ is king because
of who he is. He's the son of God. He's king.
Now why on earth is the king of kings in human flesh, God
almighty in human flesh standing before this heathen like this
heathen has the right, has the ability, is qualified to judge
him. Who's qualified to judge God?
I mean, Pilate is, I mean, of all the people that could have
been judging our Savior, Pilate's the weakest person I believe
I've heard of, you know, from the Roman government at that
time. Why is God in human flesh standing before this fellow?
Very, very soon, all men must stand before the judgment seat
of Christ to be judged by him. Why is he allowing this pipsqueak
to judge him? Let me tell you, because the king is standing
in the place of his people. The king has become the sin bearer
for his elect. He's been made sin, even though
he never committed any sin, so that now he can pay the penalty
of sin. We racked up the debt, his citizens,
the citizens of his kingdom racked up the debt And the king is going
to go pay it. The king is standing here before
this pipsqueak to be judged and condemned, because that's what
his people deserve. And he's going to suffer it,
so they never will have to. The king is standing before the
bar, not a pilot, of his father's justice. And you know why he's
doing that? So you never will have to. so
that you can come before a throne of grace, not a throne of justice. The king is going to die, so
his people will never die. He's going to be the king. I'm
going to get the king is going to be condemned so that his people
will never be condemned. I don't know about you, but that's
the king I want to be my king. That's the king I want to bow
to. I want that king to have the responsibility of me. Don't
you? I hope so. Lord bless you.