Caught Between Justice and the Crowd
Transcript
Tonight and tomorrow, my lessons are going to be focusing on uh what led up to Jesus's crucifixion and then actually the crucifixion. Berry's been talking about this kingdom that Jesus was going to come and establish. And imagine that you've got this king that everybody was expecting to destroy the Romans. And what he starts preaching are things like, "Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you." That wouldn't make sense to what the people were expecting of their Messiah to do. And then when he even allows himself to be crucified by the hands of the very people that the Jews were hoping he would conquer, none of this makes sense. But I I but just from the title of what we're looking at in this lesson, do you know who we're talking about? Who was it that was caught between justice like we just sang about and this crowd that was barking orders out? And if you're thinking Pilate, I would suggest to you that you're right, but partly right.
Because the very struggle that Pilate had is the same struggle that we have today. And if we want to understand what loyalty to our king is, we can find a counter example by looking at Pontius Pilate and challenge ourselves to ask, is this something that we're doing? We're going to work our way towards this. But John 19:16 says, "So he delivered him over to be crucified." What led to that? How is it that this ended up happening with a man that was supposed to do what was just? Historically, we don't really know much about Pontius Pilate. Seems like he rose to power because of a marriage that he had. He's mentioned 56 times in the Bible. All of those, but four, are in the Gospels. And so what I want us to do is I want to I'm going to start out by showing you I'm going to leave this up here for a moment because there's with any chart there's a lot to kind of take in.
But I want to I want to show you the trials that Jesus went through. And we're going to drill down on trials numbers four and six. But I just want to get the overview in our minds first to set the context for what we're looking at. Um, the first three judicial trials Jesus went through were by the hands of the Jews and then the last three were by the hands of the Romans. And if I was to ask you the question, why did the Jews have him first and then send him over to the Romans? The classic answer that you're probably going to hear is, well, the Jews didn't have the right to execute people. You think that's true? I don't think that's true. Can you think of anybody in the New Testament that the Jews were going or did execute? What about John the Baptist? What about Steven in Acts 7 and 8?
Maybe you could argue that that was mob mentality, but they still put Steven to death and there's nothing said in the text about how the Jews were in trouble from the Romans because of that. What about the woman caught in adultery and the Jews are holding stones? We're going to work our way towards this. But in John 19:6, Jesus is there. Pilate is going to tell the Jews, you take him yourselves and crucify him. I think the the Jews had the right to do executions under some contexts. So why would the Jews be wanting the Romans to do this? You guys do our dirty work because there's some Jews that do like Jesus. And if we can just say, "Well, the Romans are the ones who did it. our hands can be clean. The first trial that Jesus goes through is with a a an a guy who is no longer the current high priest.
He was deposed years ago, but he would have been one of these unofficial sort of authorities that people would trust in and they would look up to. And during this trial, Jesus is struck going against the kinds of things that the Jews themselves would know would be right and wrong. The second trial then goes to Caiaphas who is the functioning high priest at the time. The council this trial is held at night and Matthew 26:59 says that they were seeking false testimony against him. See, in other words, they're getting this guy on trial and they already know the verdict that they want to reach. Have you ever known people like this? I have people in my family that are like this that you can put a math problem in front of them and they can figure it out. You can put some kind of puzzle in front of them and they can figure it out. Good reasoning faculties, but as soon as Jesus gets put in front of them, their ability to think clearly just goes out the window.
Do you think that this this council Caiaphas and even the Sanhedrin council and all the ways that they're mistreating him, do you think these people were ordinarily level-headed people? Maybe. But when Jesus gets plopped in front of them, they just lose their minds. But all of them say, "Yeah, okay. Let's go ahead and have Jesus sent over to the Romans." And then you've got trials four, five, and six. Pontius Pilate, we're going to look at number four in a moment. We're going to look at number six in just a moment. That one in number five is when Herod Antipus gets Jesus and he says, "Uh, can you do a miracle for me?" No. Okay. Send him back to Pontius Pilate. Pilate's wife is going to have a dream. Says to have nothing to do with this guy. Pilate still has to do something, though. Before we drill down on trials 4 and six, let me let me bring up one point about this chart before we leave this.
Have you ever known anybody who left the Lord because of religious hypocrites? My parents call them holy rollers and we want nothing to do with these people. I have a question about this. When Jesus is Jesus being mistreated by religious hypocrites during all of these trials, the Jews are slapping him and striking him. And then when he's under Roman jurisdiction, the Jews are still yelling all kinds of things against him. And all the while, Jesus never says anything like, "I'm done with Moses in the law." You guys are all hypocrites. If anything, if you've ever been frustrated by religious hypocrites, this is not a reason to walk away from the Lord. It's all the more to come near to him because he was crucified by such people. Now, let's look at the first trial with Pilate, though, in more detail. Look at Luke 23. And I'm just going to give you a snippet of some of these. Luke 23:es 1-5 Then the whole company of them arose and brought him before Pilate.
And they began to accuse him, saying, "We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar and saying that he himself is Christ, a king." And Pilate asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?" And he answered, "You have said so." Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, "I find no guilt in this man." But they were urgent, saying, "Uh, he he stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee, even to this place." Imagine this crowd of Jewish people. They they've finally gotten to the point where their quorum is allowing them to bring him over to the Romans, and they they're finally getting a Roman to look at him. And they they come with some really scary charges. This guy, Pilate, he's been misleading the nation. Well, that's a concern because Pilate's got to answer to Rome for how these people are. So, you can imagine Pilate going, "Okay, well, tell me what are the charges?" Number one, he's been forbidding us to pay taxes.
Now, did Jesus ever say anything like that? Have you ever heard anybody make up a lie about the Bible to discredit the Bible? This exactly what these people are doing here. Now, what's the second charge in verse two? Whoa. The second charge in verse two is that he's claiming to be the king. Now, did he claim to be the king? Yeah, he he does it in verse four in this passage, but not the kind of king that the Romans need to be concerned about. They're mis they're misrepresenting a truth to discredit Jesus. Have you ever known anybody that misrepresented something that the Bible taught in order to discredit the Bible? And all of this, Pilate is looking at this. Okay, well, what do you think? Yeah, you you've said so. I'm the king. And Pilate goes, I guys, there there's there's nothing to this. Can you imagine being the Jews at this point? It says in verse 5 that they were urgent.
Some versions say they kept insisting or they became all the more fierce like candy being taken away from a baby. Now, that's the first trial. The next trial is in John chapter 18. Go over to John chapter 18.
And we're not going to read all of this passage, but in John chapter 18, after Pilate sent Jesus to Herod and Herod sends him back to Pilate, now this weight of the decision is resting on Pilate's shoulders. What will you do with Jesus? Isn't that a hymn that we sing sometimes? What will you do with you? What did Pilate do with Jesus? Look at John 18 starting in verse 38. And I'm going to read through chapter 19:6. And I'll let you know this now as I read this. There's a phrase that's repeated three times in this text. Look for that phrase. Beginning in 1838. Pilate said to him, "What is truth?" After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, "I find no guilt in him. But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover. So do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?" They cried out again, "Not this man, but Barabbus." Now Barabbus was a robber.
Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. They came up to him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews, and struck him with their h hands." Pilate went out again and said, "See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know I find no guilt in him." So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, "Behold the man." And when the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, "Crucify him. Crucify him." Pilate said to them, "Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him." Do you see the phrase three times? Verse 38, verse 4, verse 6. I find no guilt in him. I find no guilt in him. I find no guilt in him. In fact, in Luke 23, we saw that phrase as well. Look at this. Look at here's another chart. This is a charty sermon.
If you put all the gospels together and you look at the different times where Pilate is going to have to say something about Jesus to the Jews, he keeps repeating this over and over and over again. There's nothing wrong with this guy that I see is deserving of death eight times. At least it seems like he's defending Jesus. Which means whatever we're seeing here in John 19 18 and 19 are attempts by Pilate to release Jesus. They are attempts to save him. What's the first one? In 1838 to 40, they had this custom of releasing a prisoner and they say, "Well, uh, we would Barabus or Jesus." Have you ever noticed what Peter says about this in Acts 3:13 and 14? You delivered over and denied in the pres presence of Pilate when he had decided to release him. But you denied the holy and righteous one and asked for a murderer to be granted to you.
Pilate according to Peter here had made the decision, I'm going to release Jesus and I'm going to see if you know it can be Jesus being released instead of Barabus. Have you ever thought about what the name Barabus means? You remember in Matthew 16 when Peter confesses who Jesus is and Jesus says blessed are you Simon Barjonah. Son of Bar means son of. So you got this guy named Barabus. Bar son of what? Abba. Son of the father. You got the choice between the false son of the father or the true son of the father. And they still say, "We like that false one. That guy that was an insurrectionist. That's kind of what we would like in our Messiah, not this one that was telling us to love our enemies." That's the first attempt. But you know what the second attempt is for Pilate to release Jesus is the flogging. This is one of the things that I had misunderstood for a long time about Jesus's crucifixion and the sacrifice, everything that's happening here.
I used to look at the flogging as just something that you would do to somebody before they're crucified. But do you notice that again in verses four and six, Pilate keeps saying there's no guilt in him. There's no guilt in him. So why in verse one are you flogging somebody? Do you remember when Paul is in the temple in Acts 22 and they supposed that he had brought a gentile into the temple with him and Lissus the commander grabs Paul and he's trying to figure out what all this ruckus is about and he was about to be in Acts 22:24 examined by flogging. What does that mean? Paul, we need to know what's going on. What' you do? What' you do? what' you do? Tell us. And then eventually there would be a confession. That's how that's part of the purpose of flogging in this time period. And Pilate has Jesus flogged and then presents him to everybody and says, "See, do you see I I've examined him. He's not confessed anything. I see no guilt in him.
Can this be enough?" Is it? Skip down to verse 12. From then on, Pilate sought to release Jesus. Again, after the flogging happened. But the Jews cried out, "If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar." So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the pa the judgment seat at a place called the stone pavement and in Aramaic Gabbatha. Now it was the day of preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, "Behold your king." They cried out, "Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your king?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar." So he delivered him over to be crucified. Do you see in verse 12, there's this back and forth, back and forth. He's seeking to release him and then they wear him out to the point where he eventually just hands him over.
Now, before we get to the heart of the application of what I want us to see tonight, I want you to just look at this. How many times did the Jews hear the truth about Jesus? Find no guilt. I find no guilt. We've examined him by flogging. There he is. I still find no guilt in him. One of the things that I've done since I become a Christian, I became a Christian when I was 19 in college. And um I' I've really gravitated towards talking with older brethren, older preachers. When I lived in Atlanta, I treasured my time being able to hang out with Sewell Hall, especially during COVID. I would just come to his house every Wednesday after I live stream a sermon from an empty auditorium and I would just say, "What does a young preacher need to know?" One of the, you know, some of those old preachers had a lot of good sayings and statements. You know what?
One of those ones that has stuck with me is the e Do you guys remember the easiest time to repent is when? Right now. Cuz as as long as you delay doing the right thing, what does your heart do tomorrow? Gets harder, finds more excuses. How many times are these people hearing the truth? They're hearing from this guy that they're supposed to submit to. No guilt. No guilt. No guilt. And they keep fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting. How often do we come here and sing hymns that convict us, but it doesn't do a thing in our life? How often do we come here and have scripture readings that prick us in ways that we need to be provoked to serving the Lord? Does nothing to us. How often do we come here and hear sermons that challenge us in ways that we need to make tangible differences in our life and it does nothing to us. Are we any better? Keep hearing the very things you need to hear. You're not doing anything with it. But it's also not static.
They're getting worse and their hearts are getting more hardened as this is all happening. The easiest time to repent is right now. Now, what I want us to do is I want to show you the the pattern of what happens with Pilate here. I I'm afraid that what is happening with Pilate, right? Let me just I'm just curious. How many of you have known Christians that let's just say in the last three years have fallen away? Last five years, maybe since COVID, you guys have heard of more people going off into false religions, going off into the world. I've done a lot of Bible studies with atheists and skeptics. I've had lots of studies with former Christians that are now atheists and skeptics. And I'm going to show you what's happening with Pilate, I think, is the very pattern that each one of us could be susceptible to. Pilate starts out, as we've said, by finding no guilt in Jesus. Says it again, again, and again, and he's even really tenaciously defending Jesus. Really starts out in a good place.
Now, ask yourself the question, have you ever been the man or the woman caught between justice and the crowd where you know this is true? You know there's no guilt in this. And in fact, when you've had people that have said things against God, against the scriptures, against what the Bible teaches, you've stood up for what this says. Oh, the God of the Old Testament, he's just an angry, vindictive monster, and uh he's just always judging people. Actually, did you know that the book of Hebrews says that there's going to be a more harsh judgment in the New Covenant? Did you know that God is not capricious and that he's judging at very strategic times? Have you ever had those conversations with people? or you know the New Testament, Paul was just very sexist and he just really, you know, there's a lot of things that Paul said that we just don't like.
Well, actually, did you know that in 1 Corinthians 14, he says that what he's writing is a command of the Lord and that you should probably give it the benefit of any doubt you have cuz you're not as smart as you think you are? You have you had those kind of conversations here. Here's a really scary thought about Pilate. Has Pilate done more to defend Jesus than you have?
You ever wondered that? You know, we remember him as greenlighting the worst injustice in human history and we could sit here right now and he's done more to defend Jesus than we have. But maybe we can think of times in our life, maybe we are the kind of people that say, "No guilt. No guilt. No guilt. I don't care what anybody on Facebook says. I don't care what the news says. I don't care what my friends at work say or school say, whatever. There's no guilt in this. But you could eventually start to get worn down. And so what happens with Pilate? He's going to flog Jesus and he's going to represent him to the crowd.
You know how this happens today is you you got people that they start out defending Jesus. they're doing the right thing, but because they want to fit in with their family because they want to not be the oddball out at work or at school or whatever it might be, they go, you know, yeah, you know, they're they keep bringing up that whole baptism thing. They keep bringing up that whole women's roles in the church kind of thing. And I'm going to go and I'm going to I'm just going to take what I've learned and and by the way, please don't understand what I'm about to say is we should, you know, never re-examine the scriptures and restore as close as we can back to the what the scripture says. That's a different thing than flogging this and then representing it to other people. Oh yeah. Yeah. I I'm really sorry.
You know, I that thing that I said when you asked me that question about the Bible the other day, I I watched some YouTube videos and I was just being silly. I I I I actually have been a little bit more enlightened and will you still be my friend? Because here's my flogged represented version of the scripture and this is actually what I believe now. So, can we be friends? Can we be okay? I don't know if any of you have ever heard of Ed Harrell. He he he uh preached in Alabama, right? What town did he preach in? It was Birmingham. Okay. Yeah. In Auburn. Yeah. Okay. So, um Ed Harrell, one of the things that um Sewell Hall wanted me to read was this little book called The Emergence of the Church of Christ denomination. And in this book, Su uh uh Ed Harrell writes about how why churches split and divide over the years. And in the book, he talks about dogmatic churches. He means it in a good way. Dogmatic meaning you care about the truth.
You're going to hold firm to it in love, but you're going to hold firm to it. And he's contrasting Christians that are dogmatic in that way with Christians who become more liberal, who take more liberalities than what the scriptures do. I want to show you a quote from this book. These liberal churches or Christians, they generally accept the moral standards of the society in which they exist. They are less dogmatic, less active, and more interested in the world around them. Do you think that hits home? Could this describe some of the brotherhood, much of the brotherhood in the United States? Is that a fair statement to say something like that? That we've gotten way more concerned about politics. We've gotten way more concerned about fitting in. We've gotten more way more concerned about Netflix. We've gotten way more concerned about all these things in the world. And so, we start to adopt and accept whatever it is that the world is saying because we want to be able to fit in with these people.
What are some of the doctrinal things that brethren right now might be maybe at one point they defended, yeah, it's this this is the truth. This is the truth. they start to get worn down and I'm going to flog and re-examine it. How about baptism? I I'm I can't tell you how many conversations I've had in the last eight years with brethren who are going, you know, I I I just don't know that it's actually necessary. And there's no way that you reach that conclusion by reading the Bible, instrumental music. You you can go on on and on about all kinds of different things. And ask yourself the question, is there anything in your heart right now that out of a desire to please the crowd, you're flogging and representing to the world? Is there anything like that for you? Now, maybe you would think that the crowd would have been okay with a mangled, bloodied, represented Jesus.
You know, wouldn't it just been great if the crowd just said, "Oh, okay, Pilate, we see him bleeding out like, you know, you got him pretty good. Yeah, that's good enough." Is never what the world says. Cuz like Pilate, you end up crucifying. As soon as they smell blood in the water, they're never going to be satisfied until death actually happens. This is the process that I've seen happen with people who have fallen away. They've started out tenaciously defending Jesus. They let the crowd wear them out. They start re-examining things. And then they eventually hand it over to death and say, "You know what? I think I'm just done with this." When I was in uh middle school, I guess it was. Uh you know how a lot of people they got a TV, like a big TV in their room, uh in their in their living room.
So, I had a friend whose mom was a computer nerd and there was five siblings and rather than having a giant TV in the living room, they all had a desk in the living room with their computer and all of them had those chairs with the wheels where you could like go like this, you know, and so uh we would they'd all be at their own computers click click clack click click clack and then one of one of the nerds would like pull something up on their computer and one time they're like, "Hey guys, check this out." And we all go, "Okay, what'd you find?" and they found a bar a bar graph that showed the more educated you are, the less religious you're going to be. And of course, this was the time when I didn't believe in God or the Bible. And we all laughed at that and said, "That's right. The only kind of people that are Christians are the DUMB kind of people." Have you ever struggled with this?
Why is it that the more educated somebody is, the less likely they are to believe in the Lord? Do you think it's really because they're just really enlightened? Or do you think, can you imagine going through your college courses and you have your cohort and you're taking your biology classes and everybody around you thinks that believing in this is ridiculous and you're going to get worn down and say, you know what, I want to be able to fit in with these people. It has more to do with peer pressure. When I was in college, I had a professor who taught a class called Ancient Greece. And it was supposed to be a history class, but he turned it into a philosophy class. And in class, he would take every opportunity he could to take shots at the Bible. And I remember being very nervous to go to those classes.
And I would try my best, and I probably didn't have the best arguments all the time, but I would try my best to raise my hand and say, "Professor, have you thought about this or that?" And then he would just dig into me. And the students would laugh at me. And then there would be some students outside of class that would pull me aside and they would say, "You know, Erik, I think it's real cool that you're standing up for the Lord the way that you are." The next day in class, they're going right along with the teacher. I think peer pressure can do a lot to us as we get more and more interested on what's going around the world and I can't believe all these things are happening and all this sort of thing. What kind of people are especially tempted to do this? Pilate had a high position. He had more to lose.
And those who are having more to lose are going to be the very people that are more likely to hand Jesus over and say, "You know what? I'm done with that. This is not actually what I believe." We're talking about standing up for the king who died for us. And Pilate never even had loyalty to this guy. And we do. Yet Pilate could outshine us by having at least defended him more than us. We live in a world that is so concerned about justice and depending on what if you watch Fox or CNN, uh, everybody's got their own idea of what justice means right now. And all the while, each one of us could be complicit in the worst injustice that's ever happened. Right there with Pilate mangling this up, letting a bloodied version hopefully be accepted. It's not. I'm done with this. All the while in this passage, it appeared like Jesus was on trial before Pilate. But the truth is that Pilate was on trial before Jesus. Everybody's going to have to answer to him one day.
Philippians chapter 2 9-11 says that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. You know, that's a hard verse to believe cuz when you think about the most stubborn people you've ever known, the people that never budge an inch on anything, can you imagine them one day actually confessing Jesus as Lord? That's going to be what happens. And these very people that were shouting for the crucifixion of Jesus, what was offered to them 50 days later? Acts chapter 2 36-38. Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ. He's the King. This Jesus whom you crucified. Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, which means they believe what Peter is saying.
And said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." When you all caused Jesus to die, you also need to be buried like what you caused him to go through. You need to identify with what he went through and then you can be forgiven. Interesting. How many people is it that are converted in this chapter? 3,000 people. Do you remember in Exodus 32 when Moses is up Mount Sinai and they receive the law and then he comes down and he takes the tablets and he shatters them because they are already breaking what these laws say and then he asks the question who will go up for us and who will do something about this and the Levites take up their sword and in Exodus 328 they walk around the camp and how many people do they strike? 3,000.
When the law comes, 3,000 are killed. When the spirit comes in Acts 2, 3,000 are given life. The very people who let Jesus be handed over and die, any one of us that are complicit in the same thing. Our king is so great that the rather than holding a sword up to you right now, he's hoping you'll come. He's hoping you'll change and repent.
What will you do with Jesus? We're going to sing this song in between the lessons. And this is a good time for us as we're singing this to think about our own lives. We're not going to extend an invitation at this point. Berry will do that after his lesson. But I thank you for your good attention. And we're going to sing the song at this time now.