Turn back to John chapter 19. I just read to you our salvation. Christ himself is our salvation. I titled this
message, The Lord's Passover. This was a preparation just before
they, or as this was happening, Shortly after this was the Passover.
There was a preparation, it says, for the Passover. And was it
ever. Was it ever. Let us look at this. Then Pilate
therefore took Jesus and scourged him. And he scourged him according
to the Roman law, not the Jewish law, which was forty stripes
save one. They whipped him mercilessly. And what an astonishing event
that took place this day. The Son of God, God Almighty,
that's who this is. in the flesh, being whipped by
men, being whipped by his own creation. That's astonishing
to me. When I read this, I thought,
how astonishing that God would allow men to whip him. But this is done in order to
fulfill the scripture that says, by his stripes we are healed. Every strike had our name on
it. Every strike. Every stroke purged us from our
sin. Every stroke. Here our substitute is taking
our scourging. This should happen to us. Really,
this should happen to us. What we see here is the fountain
being opened for sin and for cleansing, the fountains being
opened for cleansing. And those soldiers who should
have submitted to him as the captain, he's the real captain,
he's the king of kings and lord of lords, instead they made a
crown of thorns. They're going to make a mockery.
of his office as a king. They make this crown of thorns
and they put it on his head. Everything he suffered had a
curse attached to it. Look over in Genesis chapter
three. Everything he suffered had a curse attached to it. In Genesis chapter three it says
in verse 17 And unto Adam God said, Because
thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten
of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not
eat of it, cursed is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt
thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles
shall it bring forth to thee. and thou shalt eat the herb of
the field," but everything in his death had a curse attached
to it, even those thorns, that crown of thorns that was driven
down upon his head. But also we see here Isaiah 53
being fulfilled, says he's despised and rejected of men. No one's
ever been more despised than Jesus Christ. He's a man of sorrows
and acquainted with grief, our grief, our sorrow. But I want
to show you something else here. Turn over to Genesis chapter
22. Genesis chapter 22. I'll tell you something else
we see here. I'm sure you've already beat me to it. In verse
8, Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for
a burnt offering. I'll never forget, I heard Henry
preaching from this years ago, and he said, God will provide
himself a lamb, and God provided himself the lamb. He is the lamb. God is. So they went, both of
them together, And they came to the place which God had told
him of. And Abraham built an altar there,
and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid
him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his
hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the
Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, Here am I. And he
said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything
unto him. For now I know that thou fearest
God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from
me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold,
behind him a ram caught in a thicket." Here's the ram caught in the
thicket. That's Christ. That's the substitute. But those soldiers couldn't see
that. And they mocked him as king. And there was a time that I mocked
him, too. In my conduct, in my attitude, in everything I did
and the way I lived, I mocked him. And you did, too. They mocked
him as a king. With a crown of thorns and a
purple robe, they put it on him. They said, now you're the king.
OK, you're a king now. We'll make you a crown and we'll
put a purple robe on you. And then they slapped him in
the face, making fun of his power as a king. But through all this shame and
humiliation, he opened not his mouth. He never once tried to stop the
proceeding. Not one time. Because he was
willing to suffer and die for the glory that lay ahead and
for the people that he was doing this for. Look what it took to
save you and me. I read this and I think what
a wretch I am that it took such a person to die such a death
to redeem me. But not one time did he try to
stop it. An old pilot comes out and he says, I find no fault
in him. He says, I find no fault. I have
examined this man. I have talked to him. I find
no reason to execute this man. Here's the sacrificial lamb being
examined, and the verdict comes back, no fault. No fault. No blemish. God did not find a fault in it. Man
did not find a fault in it. Even Satan, it says, Satan hath
come and hath nothing in me. He can find nothing to get a
hold of. If there was just a grain, just a grain of sin, Satan would
have got a hold of it. God would have found fault with
him, and he would have perished just like you and me. No fault, no blemish. Jesus Christ
is the spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
God provided this Lamb. Would you think there'd be a
spot in something God provided? No. Now Christ is brought before
the whole crowd to see. And they see Him in that crown
of thorns and in that purple robe, and Pilate cries out, Behold
the man. Behold this man. You know, all
that crowd could see was a beaten down, and for the most part,
most of them believed an imposter. This is just an imposter. They've
seen a lot of them. There was a lot of people who
came and claimed to be this and that. They've seen them. And
he was just another one to them. Well, what do you say? What do
I say? What do we see? He's not just
a man. Here's the Passover lamb that
God requires and that God provided. This is the Passover lamb. This
is the Passover lamb being prepared for the slaughter. This is the
Passover lamb that is our hope. This is our hope right here.
I just said, I read to you our salvation. This is our pardon. We see our pardon. We see our
freedom from the law. That's what we see. We see God
in human flesh taking our place that we might go free. That's
what we see. Now He says, Behold the man. What do you see? Who do you see?
Well, if you see God in human flesh, if you see your hope,
if you see your pardon, if you see everything you need, Blessed
are your eyes, for they see, and your ears." Not everyone
sees this. Not everyone sees this. The majority of the world
hates the Lord Jesus Christ. Not the Jesus of our day. You
know that. Nobody hates Him. He just likes
having a genie in a bottle. That's what He's like. You ever
watch I Dream of Jeannie? That's what it's like. But the
Christ, the sovereign Christ of God, very few people love. And he had to make them love
him. He had to give them a nature to love him. I tell you this, the next time
this world beholds this man, they part him out, and there
he was, a beaten mass of flesh. Blood everywhere. His back laid
wide open. But the next time they see this
man, this real man in the flesh, They're going to see Him with power and all authority and all
judgment committed to Him. They're going to see Him in great
glory. They're not going to see this Lamb. They're going to see
the King of kings and Lord of lords. First time He came, He
came as a Lamb. Next time, He's the King of kings
and Lord of lords. The reason I read that in Revelation But here also it says, here in
verse 6, we see that they rejected him. In verse 6, when the chief
priest, therefore, and officer saw him, they cried, crucify
him, crucify him. The scripture says he came unto
his own, and his own received him not. The very ones that should
have recognized him, rejected him, and despised him, they had
all the pictures and the times. They read Isaiah every week.
I mean, they would read these scriptures every week that spoke
of Him, the Law and the Prophets. And when He came, they rejected
Him. And Pilate says to them again,
but I find no fault in Him. You're saying, crucify Him, crucify
Him. Give me a reason. Give me a reason. He said, I
find no fault in Him. You know, it can only be said
of this man. No fault. I have plenty of faults. We all do. We all have plenty
of faults. More than we'd like to mention. But not this man. He didn't even have one blemish. We really cannot grasp perfection,
can we? We know how to spell it. That's about all we know
of perfection is how to spell it. He is the embodiment of perfection. Not one blemish was in this man. But they said, we have a law.
We have a law that says he ought to die because he made himself
the son of God. We have a law. No, God has a
law. God has a law that says a soul
that sinneth shall surely die. And if somebody doesn't die in
my place, then I have to. If this man, not somebody, this
man. If this man did not die in my
place, I have to because God has a law that says the soul
of the sinner shall surely die. It's God's law that has to be
satisfied, not mine. It's God's law. And old Pilate, when he heard
that, he became afraid. He became more afraid to deal
with this man. He said, where are you from?
He took him back in there and he said, now where are you from? And the Lord gave him no answer. Two reasons. First of all, he
didn't know anymore. Scripture says he gives no account
of any of his matters. He'll answer us if he pleases. But he owed him no answer. But
if he had answered him, if he had given him an answer, he wouldn't
have understood it. You have to be born again to
understand who I am. Everybody is saying to Nicodemus,
Nicodemus, you have to be born again to see the kingdom of God,
to understand it, to understand the gospel. You have to be born
again. You can't understand it. Old Pilate, he makes a proud
boast. He pops his chest out there. He says, Do you know that I have
the power to let you live, to crucify you? I have the power
to crucify you. And I have the power to release
you. Do you understand who you're standing in front of, Pilate?
This is what Pilate is saying to him. who you're standing in
front of. It's a little feon. This is a
worm. This is a maggot talking here.
But this is the arrogance of men. This is the revelation of
men. Don't you know I have the power?
I'm a powerful man. Our Lord said, you have no power
at all against me, except that we're giving thee from above.
All power comes from God. All of it comes from God. All
the powers that be come from God. Don't think so highly of
yourself there, Pilate. What power do you do have that's
been given to you? I bet you right now in hell, Pilate wished
he didn't have that power. But you know, right now as he's
in the flames, He remembers this day. Our Lord said, you know this,
you're guilty of condemning innocent blood, but the ones who delivered
me, they had the greater sin. They had the sin of envy and
hatred. That's why they delivered me
to you, Pilate. And from that time forth, here's a contradiction,
from that time forth, Pilate sought to let him go. I thought
you had the power to release him. From that time forth, he
sought, he tried and he tried to release this man, but he couldn't
do it. He couldn't do it. Why? Was the
Jews too powerful for him? Was he afraid of the Jews? No,
God wouldn't let him do it. God would not let him do it because
this is God's tribunal going on here. This is Christ taking
the judgment that belongs to us. And God's not going to let
him go. Pilate sought to release him,
but he couldn't. He just said, don't you know
I have the power to crucify you and the power to... Well, then
release him, Pilate. I can't. I can't do it. Because God's not going to let
him go. This is the Lord's Passover. This is our salvation. This is
our redemption. It pleased God to bruise him
that he might save us. The Jews were just an instrument
in God's hand to carry out his purpose in redeeming us from
our sins. They were just an instrument.
Do you ever play chess? I love to play chess. You've
got all those pawns on that chessboard. You use all those pawns and you
move them and you try to block this move. These are just pawns
on a chessboard being used of God to fulfill His purpose. That's
all they are. It says in verse 14, it was a
preparation for the Passover. And as I said, was it ever a
preparation for the Passover. Here is the real and the last
Passover lamb to be offered. Here is the one that all the
other ones that all the other ones pointed to. This is the
Lamb of God provided. This is the Lamb that Abraham
said God will provide Himself a Lamb. Here it is. Here is our salvation. And then
He delivered Him to be crucified. And they led Him away. He's not
driven. I bet you those two thieves didn't
go so willingly. I bet they dragged Him up to
that hill. He's not driven or dragged. He's
led as a lamb to the slaughter. Never did a man die so willingly. Never did a man look so forward
to dying as the Lord Jesus Christ did to die on that cross for
the sins of His people and set them free. And He, bearing His cross, that
cross of shame and the cross of suffering, and that wooden
cross, they put it on His back and made Him carry it. That's
what he came to do. I find myself trying to get
out of these things sometimes until the Lord makes it evident
that it's of his will. But he so willingly bore the
suffering and the shame that belonged to every one of his
people. He willingly did it, wanted to, loved to do it, that
we might go free. bore all our suffering and shame
as his own, as his own, not as though it
were his own, as his own. As the Scripture says, he was
made to be sin for us. As the Scripture said, the Lord
hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. As the Scripture says, he bore
in his body our sins on the tree. You know, the Scripture, if you
read it, never speaks of our sins being imputed to Him. It
says He's made sin. He's made to be sin. He bore
our sins in His body on the tree. The iniquity of us all was laid
on Him, made to actually meet on Him. That's the way the Scripture
speaks of it. That's the way it speaks of it.
And then it says He went forth He was always going forth, never
backwards. God does not go backwards. He
has cast all our sins behind His back. That's good because
He never looks back. No, we look back, but God never
looks back. He's always going forth. And
He went forth with determination and eagerness to do this. To
do this. He said, for this hour came I
unto the world. Those soldiers that crucified
Him had to keep up with Me. They didn't have to coax him
along and drag him along. No, he went forth. He went forth. And they crucified him, it says,
with two other thieves. And the reason is because that's
the kind of people he came to save. And to fulfill the scripture,
he was numbered with transgressors. He was numbered. He got in the
same line with you and me. He was numbered with us. He died
the death of a criminal so that he could open the prison house
and set the captive free. That's why he did it. He became us that
we might become like him, holy, harmless, undefiled, and spotless. in his sight. Spotless. And old Pilate finally got a
little backbone. He wrote a title, a true title. If ever there was anything that
Pilate wrote that was true, this is it. Jesus of Nazareth, the King of
the Jews. Now what a king. King of kings
and Lord of lords. That's who he is. King of kings and Lord of lords.
And he wrote it in three languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Because
he came to save people out of every kindred, tribe, tongue,
and nation under heaven. He didn't just write it in Hebrew.
No, he wrote it in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. He wrote it so people
like you and me could read it and understand it. And they said, don't write that
he's king of this. Write that he said this. He said
this. And old Pilate said, what I've
written, I've written. I can't change that either. He was so
under the control of God Almighty that everything he spoke, and
he said, I find no fault in him. He said, what I've written, I've
written. He was under the divine control
of God. Every event was being divinely controlled by God. Things
were not just happening. Things never, ever just happened. You know, and that's not easy
to grasp, because there are things that I think, well, it's stupid
of me and I shouldn't have done that. And even though I probably
shouldn't have, there's a reason for it. There's a purpose in
it. There's a purpose in it. Every vent is controlled by God.
And God is going to let this world know who's really King
of Kings and Lord of Lords. Someday that's going to happen.
That's hard to grasp, isn't it? Someday. A whole host of heaven
is going to come with him. He's going to be king of kings
and lord of lords. And then they parted his clothing
and they cast lots for him. I wonder why they did that. Why
did they do that? Because God said they were going
to do it. God said they were going to do this. He said this
many, many, many, many years before it ever came to pass.
God said this is going to happen. And it happened. And as they sat there and did
that, they had absolutely no idea they were fulfilling the
Scriptures. But now listen, the same God
who controlled all those events controls all the events of today.
Same God, same God. His purpose is still being fulfilled. In His most agonizing hour, pain
and suffering, they had beaten Him and then they nailed Him
to the cross. And then He does something that's
just like Him. It's just like Him to do. Now it says there
in verse 25, Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother
and His mother's sister Mary, the wife of Cleophas, and Mary
Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw his
mother and the disciple standing by whom he loved, he said unto
his mother, Woman, behold thy son. Then said he to the disciple,
Behold thy mother. And from that hour that disciple
took her unto his own home. In his hour of suffering, in
his hour of greatest grief, in his hour of being made sin, in
his hour of the worst of all hours, he takes care of her. He takes care of her. He's always taking care of his
sheep, isn't he? Always taking care of his sheep.
The shepherd never quit tending the sheep, ever. He never does. Never does. And after this, Jesus knowing
all things were now accomplished, He came into this world to fulfill
a work that his father had given him. I must be about my father's
business. My father worked at Hitherto and I worked. And now
he had accomplished what he came to do. He accomplished it. The scriptures were all fulfilled.
Nothing left to fulfill. He fulfilled everything written
of him. He said, I thirst. I thirst. Because it was written
that he had to say this. And after that, he gave out a cry of victory. I'm telling you, this is a cry
of victory. He said, it's finished. It's
finished. Our redemption is finished. Our
righteousness is finished. And I know you are too. That
we do not have to add not even a grain of salt to it. Not even a grain of salt. It's
finished. And you'll never appreciate it
more than the day you have to leave this world. We appreciate
it now, but never like when we're laying on that bed and it's time
to go. And it's finished. He's the only one that could
say this. And this is what we preached. This is what we preached
and this is what we preach. It's finished. Come. Come and
dine. Come and drink of the water of
life. Come. It's finished. The table is ready. Come. And then he gave up the ghost. Let me read Isaiah 53 to you. This is the fulfillment of this
chapter, Isaiah 53, very familiar, and it ought to be. Who hath
believed thy report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root
out of dry ground he hath no form nor comeliness, and when
we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire
him. He is despised and rejected of men. a man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces
from him. He was despised, and we esteemed
him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him strict
and smitten of God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep
have gone astray. We have turned every one to his
own way, and the Lord hath laid on him, to make to meet on him
the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was
afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a
lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is
done, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and
from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? He was
cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression
of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the
wicked and with the rich in his death. Because he had done no
violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased
the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. When
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed,
he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of
his soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many. for he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore will I divide him in portion with the great, and he
shall divide the spoiled with the strong, because he hath poured
out his soul unto the dead, and he was numbered with the transgressors,
and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the
transgressors." That's our salvation. That's it.