beginning with verse 15. Now
at that feast, the governor was wont to release unto the people
a prisoner whom they would, that is, whoever they decided. And they had then a notable prisoner
called Barabbas. Therefore, when they were gathered
together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto
you, Barabbas, or Jesus, which is called Christ? For he knew
that for envy they had delivered him. When he was sat down on
the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing
to do with that just man? For I have suffered many things
this day in a dream because of him. But the chief priests and
elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas
and destroy Jesus. The governor answered and said
unto them, Whither of the twain will you that I release unto
you? They said, Barabbas. Pilate saith unto them, What
shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say
unto him, Let him be crucified. And the governor said, why, what
evil hath he done? But they cried out the more,
saying, let him be crucified. Pilate saw that he could prevail
nothing, but rather a tumult was made. He took water and washed
his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the
blood of this just person. See ye to it. Then answered all
the people and said, his blood be on us. and on our children. Then released he Barabbas unto
them, and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be
crucified." This is a very familiar story
to most folks. They've heard it over and over
in Bible classes and And the preachers talked about it and
told that story of Barabbas. And I saw here recently where
they either made a series about it or a movie about it, I'm not
sure which. I usually kind of tune out on
things like that when I see Hollywood trying to take something biblical
and set it before the people. But it's a very familiar story
to most of you. And I titled the message tonight,
Substitution Illustrated, because that's what's going on. There
was actually three men singled out to go to the cross that day,
and the Lord will save two of them. He's going to save one
of them and manifest in that man the substitutionary sacrifice
that he was about to accomplish on Calvary's cross. And the other
one on that cross beside him, he's going to manifest the pure
grace of God and save that man in the last hours of his life. substitution illustrated. And there's not in the whole
of Scripture, as far as I'm concerned, a better illustration of substitution
that can be found than what we have right here before us in
this story about Barabbas. Now I'm going to give you the
meat of all four accounts. This is accounted for in Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John's Gospels. You can go in there and read
about it, and one will give you a few more details than the other
one did. And so you'll see if I happen
to mention something tonight and you say, well, that wasn't
in your text. Well, it was. It was just recorded by a different
Gospel writer. So this story is about Barabbas,
and it's about what our Lord is doing. He's manifesting why
he's going to that cross. He's going to manifest his substitutionary
sacrifice, and he's going to do it with this notorious criminal,
Barabbas. That was my Sunday school lesson
this morning, and I had so much liberty with it that I decided
to develop it a little bit more and give it to you this evening.
Now, let me give you a few things about this man, Barabbas. and
the things that took place in his life, and let's see if we
can, by the grace of God, take our place with Him. Here's what
our Lord's doing. He's illustrating to us those
ones for whom He is about to die. He marked out in this man
Barabbas the character, the attitude, and condition of fallen sinners
that He's about to offer Himself in the stead of them. In this
man Barabbas. And so what my question to you
tonight and to myself is just this. Can I take myself and put
myself in the cell with this man? Can I take my place with
Barabbas in that cell? If I can't, if I can't find some
identification between me and him, then I've got no right to
claim that substitutionary sacrifice which the Lord is about to offer
up on the tree. You see what I'm saying? This
is what he's manifesting here. What this substitutionary sacrifice
is all about. And I find my identification
with him first in his name. Has your pastor ever taught on
this subject and told you what the name Barabbas means? It means
son of his father. He had no name. He had no name. Just son of his father. That's
what they called him. And are we not all sons of Adam? We're all sons of Adam. Every
last one of us. Identify with Barabbas in his
name itself. I don't know what kind of a child
he was. He might have been a bastard
child. I don't know. Like the young girl over in Ezekiel
chapter 13. Here she is, cast out in an open
field. Had no parents, had no name,
had no nothing. She just cast out to the loathing
of her person. As she said, cast out in her
own blood. Nobody to love her, nobody to
swaddle her, nobody to care for her, nobody to cleanse her. Her
navel wasn't cut, she's just an unwanted child thrown out
in the wilderness. That was Barakas, son of his
father, son of his father. Polluted, says in her own blood. Unpitted, unwashed, and unloved. And if so, he certainly pictures
a believer who goes astray as soon as he'd be born, speaking
life. Our Lord said to those natural
men who claim God to be their father, He said, you are of your
father the devil. You don't know who your father
is. But this name really becomes fitting to us in our identification
with Adam. We're all sons of Adam and bear
his image and his nature and his character. We're sons of
Adam. We can't deny it. Our own character
testifies to the fact that we're Adam's sons. We can't get out
of it. There's no getting out of it.
We're just like Him. We're just like Him. We all bear
His image by one man's disobedience. Listen to this. Many were made
sinners. They were made sinners. David
said, I was born in iniquity. He said, I come forth from the
womb speaking lies. I went astray as soon as I'd
been born speaking lies. Paul said this, he said, I have
before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they're all under sin. All
of them. If they weren't under sin, they would have knew who
the Son of God was. They would have submitted themselves
to the Word of God. They would have submitted themselves
to the Lord's Christ. They would have submitted themselves
to those preachers that He sent out. They would have submitted themselves
to the Word of God. But they were all under sin,
and there was none righteous, and none that understandeth,
and none that seeketh after God, and none good, no, not one, together,
become unprofitable, all gone out of the way, he said, mouths
full of cursing and bitterness, feet swift to shed blood, destruction
and misery in their ways, and no fear of God before their eyes."
Can you take your place with Barabbas? Can you see yourself in that
cell? Can you justify the court's judgment of you? Can you take
your place with that guilty, cold-hearted murderer down in
that cell? Because that's where the Lord
finds His folks. They're all sinners. He looked
at those Pharisees and He said, He said, the well need not a
physician, the sick. He said, I think not that I come
to save the righteous. I'm not come to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance. The well have no need of a physician. Well, I'll tell you this, Paul
took his place there. He cried out, O wretched man
that I used to be. That ain't what it says, is it?
He cried out, O wretched man that I am. That's what he cried.
Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Isaiah saw
himself there. He said, woe is me. He spent
that whole chapter in chapter 5, woe and the drunkard and woe
and the harlot and woe and everything coming and going. And he gets
over there in chapter 6 and he saw the Lord. And he said, woe
is me. Woe is me. I'm undone. I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean lips. Isaiah
saw it. He said, woe is me. Nebuchadnezzar
saw him. And he said, all the inhabitants
of the earth are refuted as nothing. Job saw it. And he said, how
much more abominable and filthy is man that drinketh iniquity
like water. Can you identify yourself with
Barabbas as the son of your father? Can you take your place there? Barabbas is a fitting example
of God's elect in His name, and He's a clear example of them
in His crimes. There were three men that day
awaiting execution. Why was Barabbas chosen to be
the one God would use to set forth the substitutionary sacrifice
of His Son? Why choose this man Barabbas?
There were two other thieves there. There was two other men
there. Court had already passed their
judgment upon them. Why didn't he single one of them
out? Why Barrett? Because his crimes sum up the
heart and character of every depraved sinner. He was, according
to our text there in Matthew, a notable prisoner. Something
to take note of, something to look at, something to examine.
This man was a notable prisoner. What were Barabbas's crimes?
Well, if you'll take time to read all three of the gospel
narratives, you'll find out that robbery was one of them, and
sedition was one of them, and murder. Robbery. Are all men robbers? Huh? You know the difference between
a robber and a thief, don't you? Scott Richardson built a whole
message around this one time. Just bless my heart. Any of you
that know Scott, you know Scott had one subject, and he set it
up here on the fence pole, and he'd walk around and just keep
shooting at it. Until he got that one point,
you would not forget what he preached on. And he was talking
about, well, a man robbed God. He was preaching out of Malachi,
and he's talking about a man robbing God of His glory, robbing
God of His grace, and robbing God of all these things. And
he said, you know the difference between a robber and a thief,
don't you? A thief comes in in the night. He sneaks in. Nobody
even knows he's there. The only reason, you'd have never
known he was there, but you went to get something, and now it's
not there. And you start asking around, and pretty soon you figure
out, hey, there's somebody come in here and took that. In the
middle of the night, you didn't even know he was there. But not
a robber. We hear about these robbers on
the TV all the time. They come in with that .357 stuck
down in their belt and pull it out and stick it right up between
the eyes of that 7-11 clerk and say, give me all your money.
It's noon. It's broad daylight. Bogues. Bogues. Rebels. Coming in by
force to take things from God. You think about that. Will a
man rob God? You bet your buttons he will.
You bet He will. He'll rob God. He's a robber. He'll rob Him of the glory of
His justice, and He'll rob Him of the glory of His mercy, and
He'll rob Him of the glory of His grace, and He'll rob Him
of the glory of His conversion. When He gets done telling His
tale, you listen to it. You listen to it in detail. When
He gets done telling His tale, all the glory will be on Him,
not on the Lord. Not so with a believer. Not so. A believer will glorify God in
everything that God's done for him. He'll reach out and steal
the very deity of the Son of God and seat Himself on the throne
in His stead. You can read 2 Thessalonians
2 if you'd like, and you can see that man is a robber. A robber differs from a thief
in his boldness. David, speaking of the very words
of Christ, said, The bands of the wicked have robbed me. The bands of the wicked have
robbed me. Robbed him of the glory of his
person and work and the glory of his offices. Trodden underfoot,
the Son of God counted the blood of the covenant wherewith they
were sanctified an unholy thing and done to spite under the Spirit
of grace. All men are robbers by nature.
Robbers. And all natural men are guilty
of sedition. Well, what is that? What is sedition? Is that some kind of old ancient
crime that only happened back in the day before we had computers
and automobiles and planes? What is sedition? Very simply,
it's rebellion. That's what it is. Rebellion.
And it's rebellion. If you have rebellion in your
heart, rebellion is going to leak out on you. It's going to
come out. How does it come out? It comes out in exciting others
to that rebellion. Encouraging others to that rebellion
and that sedition. To be carnally minded is dead,
for the carnal mind is enmity against God. It's not subject
to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. That's rebellion. He's lawless. He's not subject
to any authority that's not forced upon him. Isn't it funny that your pastor
was a policeman, and he and I used to talk about this all the time.
Guy going down the road, he's going 70 miles an hour, and he
ain't paying attention to speed limit signs or nothing. The minute
he sees that state patrol boy, that foot comes off their gas.
You know why? Because that law is forced upon
him. If it wasn't for that law, he'd
do 90. He'd do 100. He would care less what that
sign said. Why? Because we're rebels. We're
rebels. All of us are. And this condition,
this rebel condition generated by the fallen mind of men that's
enmity against God, that's rebellion. He's lawless. He's not subject
to any authority that's not forced upon him. He's a rebel. Jude
said these filthy dreamers defile the flesh. Now listen, despise
dominion. God puts dominion on him. He
gives them parents. But that child isn't, it ain't
going to obey a parent. Why? Because he's a rebel. He's
a rebel. You don't force him, he ain't
going to obey. Why does teaching him obedience? No, you won't.
No, you won't. Obedience has to be forced upon
him. And the reason why is because
we're rebels. We're rebels. King of Glory set all civil authority
in its place, but natural men must be forced to obey him, and
so he elected and ordained these ministers called governors and
presidents and mayors and all that type of thing, and he did
that and put the sword in their hand. Why? To force them into
obedience and to constrain evil men from being as evil as they
could be. God has delegated authorities
in His church. We're plainly told to obey those
that have the rule over us. But we don't obey, not for the
most part. We submit to them. We'll take a vote. Pastor tells you what to do.
Well, wait a minute, Pastor. We're going to take a vote. We're
going to vote on it. Do you know every time Israel voted, They
fell under the curse of God. Did you ever notice that? Every
time they voted, they were wrong. You remember they voted one time,
Corridation and Abiram got together and they said Moses got too much
on him, folks, and they went around behind Moses' back and
convinced everybody that what they were doing was right when
they knew in their own heart it wasn't. Then when they got
enough votes behind them, they went up to Moses and said, Moses
said you got too much on you and here's what's going to happen.
And Abiram, we're all here together, and we're going to take some
of this authority from you. And we're going to take this
many tribes. And Dathan, he's going to take this many. And
Abiram is going to take this many. And we're going to help
you out here. We're going to help you out. We voted on it,
and that's the consensus of the multitude. So Moses went out,
and he said, everybody on the Lord's side line up right here
behind me. Everybody that's on their side, you line up over
there. You know God opened up the ground and took that multitude
to hell with their shoes on. Took them, their wives, their
children, their cattle, took everything they had and swallowed
it up in the ground. Why? Because they would not submit
to God's authority, his delegated authority. We're rebels, that's
why we do these things. Paul said, I know your election
of God when he spoke to the Thessalonians because you became followers
of us and the Lord. Men say, well, I follow the Lord,
but they won't bow to no kind of delegated authority. Well,
you're not following the Lord. You're not nearby following the
Lord until you follow his preacher, you follow his pastor, Paul talked about some folks
obeying from the heart. That's how he knew their election. They obeyed from the heart that
form of doctrine delivered unto them. I've got some folks I've
preached to from time to time who think they can be saved apart
from submission. That's sedition. That's what
that is. That's sedition. And sedition
never keeps silence. It always manifests itself in
a seditious act of exciting others by their own example. An ever-natural
man is a rebel. He must be reconciled to God. And then thirdly, Barabbas was
a murderer. Now wait a minute, pastor, I'm
not a murderer. Oh, yes, you are. If you're a
son of Adam, you are. You know what he said about Judas?
I looked at this verse forever and never really knew what it
meant. He said he was the son of perdition. He said he was
a murderer from the beginning. And I thought to myself, you
mean God chose him to be a murderer? That's not what that's talking
about. It's just simply telling you that he was a murderer by
nature from his birth, from the very beginning. He was a murderer.
And that's what we are. That's what we are. He said to
be angry with your brothers to be guilty of murder. You don't
have to go out here and stick an ice pick in somebody to be
a murderer. Just hate your brother. Hate
your brother. You're guilty of murder. And
he said, you know no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. Turn with me to Matthew chapter
15. Let me show you something over here. I've heard parents
defending their children against this crime, and they say this about their child.
They're defending their child. Now, the child's been guilty
of murder. There was a young woman guilty of it. There was
a young man guilty of it. I've heard this over and over
and over. When the parents stand up to testify about the child,
they said, if you knew my daughter, if you knew my son, You'd know
that he wasn't capable of doing such a thing. You ever heard
that? Watched them guys on court on
TV? You'd know that. If you just
knew them, you'd know they wasn't capable. Oh yes, they are capable
of it. They're capable of it because
they have that fallen nature of Adam in them. And that nature
is murderous. It's seditious. It'll rob God. Watch this here in Matthew 15,
19. He said, for out of the heart
proceed evil thoughts. What's that next word? Murders. You mean that's in my heart?
That's in your heart. And it's in mine. And if it wasn't
for the constraining hand of God, we'd be no different than
Charles Manson. We'd be no different than any
murderer who's ever been arraigned in court. We'd be just like them.
But the constraining hand of God has saved us from such a
thing in this world. He said it's not what goes into
his mouth, but what comes out of his heart. And then John says this over
in the book of Revelation. Now he's talking about this group
here that saved, this group here that he saw by the vision of
God who would be justified at that final judgment of Christ
and set apart with Him. And he said, now you know this,
without... What's he talking about there,
without? Without what? Without Christ. Outside the grace
of God, outside Christ, outside the church, outside the salvation
of God. Outside, without, he said, are
sorcerers. Sorcerers out there. And whoremongers,
and dogs, and murderers. Murderers in their hearts. Can
you take your place with Barabbas and his character and conduct? Can you take his name as your
name? And then thirdly, this man Barabbas is a prisoner of
the court. He's not a free man. He's not
a free man. He has no free will. The only
will he had was a will not. He's got no free will. Our Lord
said, you will not come unto Me that you might have life.
You will not receive the message of the book. You will not submit
to my messengers. You will not submit to my king.
You will not have this man. Ain't that what they said? We
ain't going to have this man reign over us. Rabbis was a prisoner
of the court, and he was a notable prisoner, and he was banned. Oh, I tell you, if the Lord would
reveal that one thing to you tonight, how different you'd
be listening to me in that piece. If He could reveal to you how
that you're bound. Bound by chains of darkness.
Bound by fallen nature. Bound by the judgment of God. Under the curse of God. Paul
said, we were by nature children of wrath even as others before
God called us out. Bound. That's Barabbas bound. His arms were in chains and shackles
and his legs were locked. He was in a dark dungeon deep
beneath the earth. A natural man is a prisoner of
the court. Judgment's already been passed.
He's waiting judgment. No, no. Mankind ain't waiting
judgment. Mankind's awaiting the executioner.
Judgment's already happened. We're all under the condemnation
of God. Our Lord said His condemnation
When light came into the world, men loved darkness rather than
light. They wouldn't do that if they weren't under the judgment
of God. The sentence has already been decreed. Man's not just
waiting with Barabbas, he's waiting there on the executioner. He's
not waiting for court to be held. Nobody's concerned with what
Barabbas is going to do. Isn't that funny? That whole
court was convened up there. And here's a picture. Here's
a picture of God's elect in this world. Him for whom Christ is
about to die. And nobody was concerned with
what Barabbas had to say. Nobody went down there and said,
boy, you think about this whole thing, Barabbas. Now, Barabbas,
we're going to sing one more verse. Nobody cared what Barabbas had
to say. He was guilty. Wasn't he? He was guilty. He's already under the judgment
of God. He's guilty without a doubt,
and justice demands his death, and holiness demands his death,
and the law demands his death, and the Word of God demands his
death. Die he must, or else God must
cease to be God. The soul that sinneth, it shall
surely die. And the very oracles of God will
do him no good because he's bound in chains of darkness. Solomon
said, his own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and
he shall be held with the cords of his sins, and he shall die
without instruction. And in the greatness of his fall,
he shall go astray. I talk about natural men, they're
bound. Bound. Bound. Can you take that name of Barabbas?
Can you see yourself in that cell with him? Can you identify yourself with
him in your attitude and conduct? Can you picture yourself in that
dark dungeon, shackled in chains, held in bondage by the judge
of all the earth? Let me tell you this. If you
can, I've got some good news for you. I got some good news
for you. A decree was made by the judge
that another be chosen to die in his stead. And he didn't have anything to
do with it. He wasn't seeking God, was he? Huh? He wasn't seeking God. He wasn't
down there reading his Bible. He wasn't down there talking
to those prisoners, saying, we're all guilty, you all know that,
don't you? No, no, that wasn't what... Grabby was waiting to
die. Waiting to die. By God's eternal, omnipotent
grace, He arranged for His Son to go to the cross and be fashioned
there in the place of that robber, that rebel, that cold-hearted
murderer. Listen to what Paul says here
in Romans chapter 5. I'm not going to quote this word
for word. I'm just going to give you the
meaning of it. He said, if you search the ram, you might find
one willing to give his life for a righteous man. You might.
You might find one. You might go down here to Cleveland,
knocking on doors, and a good man is about to die for wrong,
and he said, well, I'll take his place. You might find one.
I doubt it, but you might. You might find one. And if you
comb the whole earth over, you might find one willing to die
for a good man. But God commended His love toward
us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Can you even fathom what's going
on here this day? This old cold heart, I mean society
wouldn't have, they wouldn't have had him, they wouldn't have
had him released. Pilate was exactly right in his
thinking. Nobody in their right mind is
going to say release to us Barabbas. Not until those legalists went
out in that multitude and influenced them to vote their way. And isn't that what religion
does? Ravish must die, and die he did,
and he died in the person of his substitute. We've been studying
the ransom over in Exodus chapter 30, and that ransom was a half
shekel of silver. And I pointed out to my folks
Wednesday night that the value of that coin was not the value
set in the marketplace. It wasn't the value of that silver
that they held in their hand. But it was after the shekel of
the sanctuary. That is, its value was manifested
in the sanctuary. It's what it represented. And
so Peter tells us over in 1 Peter 1 that we're not redeemed with
corruptible things like silver and gold, he said, that you received
from tradition, that vain tradition from your fathers, but with the
precious blood of Christ. Ain't that what was manifested
in that sanctuary? Sure it was. The blood of Christ. And this is the true value, not
the coin itself. Manifested in the precious blood
of Christ. And he said that this ransom
was paid, now listen to this, Exodus 30 verse 15, to make an
atonement for your sins. There's no way silver made that
atonement. But the blood of Christ, which
that silver coin represented did, made atonement for their
souls. And here's the last thing I want
you to see. All of this transpired without
Barabbas knowing anything about it. You don't know anything about
the death of Christ unless somebody tells you. You wasn't there.
We wasn't there. We didn't know anything about
it. Old Barabbas, he was still in darkness. He was still bound
and chained, still locked up in the prison house. He didn't
know what was going on. I heard Brother Mahan talking
about it one time, and in his message he was talking about
these servants of the court that came down to release Barabbas.
And Barabbas is down on the ground now, and the only thing he can
hear is when this crowd elevates their shouts to a scream outside. And so what he heard was, Give
us Barabbas! Give us Barabbas! And he thought,
my soul, I knew I was going to die, but he said, I didn't know
I was going to die at the hands of a lynch mob. And then the
next thing he heard was, Crucify Him! Crucify Him! He didn't hear
anything that went on in between all that. And the next thing
Moravius heard was servants coming down that hall. Boy, don't you
know all the strength drained from his body. He heard them
coming. And they come and they unlocked
that door to the cell. They walked over there to Brabish
and they unlocked his things and no doubt had helped him up
to his feet. He'd been down that old cold
dark dungeon for who knows how long. And helped him up to his
feet and walked him up into the daylight and said, you're free
to go. Wow. You reckon that was good
news? You know why? Because he was
a sinner. And I'm telling you this, the
gospel to natural men is foolishness. Absolute, total foolishness.
We don't need that. What do you mean a sovereign
God? What do you mean? Election. What do you mean by
all this? Well, I tell you, when you take your place in that dark
dungeon, God ever makes you experience sin in your heart. presses that
conviction home to you and lets you know who you are and where
you are and why. Oh, I tell you, election will
sound good to you. It'll sound good to you. One's been chosen to die in your
stead. Then in the order of things,
it was time the court ordered some ambassadors and servants
of the court to go down where Barabbas was being held and open
the door of the cell, loose his chains of bondage and help him
up to his feet and lead him into the full light of freedom. Are you out there, Barabbas?
Are you out there tonight? Are you listening? Rabbish, you guilty son of your
father, you cold-blooded, hard-hearted sinner, you're free to go. You're
free to go. Now wait a minute, preacher.
No mere man can loose the chains of man's depravity. He can't loose the chains of
man's depravity. No mere man can lead this man
out of darkness. No mere man can take this man
who's bound in chains and shackles and darkness and held under the
order of the court, under the conviction of the judge of all
this world. No mere man can deliver that
man from his bondage. He can if the court sends him. Are you hearing me? He can if
the court sends him. And that's exactly what happens
when God sends a preacher to his elect. They unloose the shackles. You know our Lord said to Peter
after his confession of the Lord, you know what he told him? He
said, I'm going to give you the keys. Keys to what? What was Peter going to unlock?
This religious world got him as a gatekeeper up in heaven.
What's his keys all about? What's he talking about when
he talked to Peter about those keys? He's talking about the
gospel he preached. And that gospel unlocks and shackles. And it sets the prisoner free.
And it lifts him up. The power of God that accompanies
that gospel takes that servant and that servant lifts him up
with that gospel. And he helps him into the perfect
light of pure freedom. And he said, you're free to go.
You're free to go. Is that a miracle of God's grace?
That's what substitution's all about. That's what it's all about.