And Father, as we now come to your word, we thank you that you have saved us. We thank you that You have ordained that somebody would preach to us and share the good news of the gospel with us, and that You would pour out Your Spirit in us, giving us life, giving us hope, putting us in Christ by Your grace. We pray, O Lord, that He would nourish us today as we study Your Word. We remember that Your Word is sufficient, it is inerrant, it is infallible, it is unassailable, And so, in light of all these wonderful truths, O Lord, we pray that you would do your work in us through the preaching of your word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, if you have your Bibles, please turn to John chapter 19. We'll be continuing our study in John today looking at chapter 19 verses 1 to 6. Now last week was the first Sunday of October so we studied a psalm but it's October and in case you have forgotten October is a very special month for those of us who are Protestant. And it's special because October 31st marks the anniversary of the day that the Reformation started with a young monk named Martin Luther. And so for the past several years, we've had a message and a sermon in the month of October that deals with a subject related to the Protestant Reformation to remind us that we are protesting We are literally protesting false ideas about the gospel. So we did five messages, one each year on the five solas of the Reformation. And then if you remember last year, we had a Sunday where we were reminded of the slogan that emerged from the Reformation. That slogan being Semper Reformanda, which means always reforming. The way we always reform is we are always holding ourselves to what Scripture says, and we always need to be going back to that. It's a reminder that the true church must always be reforming because our theology, just by virtue of fallen human nature and the passing of time, our theology tends to deform over time. It tends to drift over time, so we need to keep going back to Scripture. and reforming our theology. Now, as I came to our next passage in the study of John's gospel, I couldn't help but notice that it is probably, I'd say in my opinion, undoubtedly the best physical or visual illustration of yet another doctrine that was recovered in the Protestant Reformation. The doctrine that we refer to as total depravity. Now notice that I did not say that it was invented in the Protestant Reformation. I didn't even say that it was discovered in the Protestant Reformation. I said that it was recovered in the Reformation. Now what critics of the idea of total depravity will do is they'll say that this idea, this doctrine of total depravity was invented by a man named John Calvin. After all, when we talk about total depravity, the starting point is, hey, these are the doctrines of Calvinism, right? So surely, skeptics and Armenians and just people who don't understand the doctrine will say, they'll say, so surely John Calvin is the one who invented this doctrine. It's a doctrine of man. It's not a biblical doctrine. Man is not totally depraved, is what they'll say. But that is completely, completely wrong. Calvinism, if you want to call it that, I prefer to call it the doctrines of grace. Calvinism introduced nothing new. There was nothing new that came out of the Reformation. So what did Calvinism do then? Calvinism, or John Calvin, was one of the people who recovered doctrines that had been lost over time. Doctrines that the church had once upon a time upheld, had once upon a time held in high esteem, had once upon a time practiced, but over the course of time they had drifted from it. And the doctrine of total depravity is one of those doctrines that over time was kind of lost, was kind of forgotten. It was first discovered, if you want to use that word, by Saint Augustine. Augustine had written a prayer a book of prayer in which he said to God, he said, grant what thou commandest and command what thou dost desire. grant what thou commandest and command what thou dost desire. Now a British monk named Pelagius took issue with the idea that good and righteous works could only be accomplished, could only be achieved by God's grace working within us and working through us. So he disagreed with the first part, grant what thou commandest. He didn't disagree with command what thou dost desire. He was okay with that. He was okay with the second clause there, but not the first. So he pushed back, arguing that God couldn't and wouldn't command something if mankind was incapable of doing it on their own. In other words, he denied that man needs God's grace in order to do what is good and righteous in God's sight. So he wasn't opposed to the idea of grace in the sense that we need grace like forgiveness. He agreed with that, but he opposed the idea that grace was necessary for us to do what is good and what is righteous in God's sight. And so if you know your church history, you know that a very public debate ensued. And one of those two sides was declared heretical, while the other side was recognized as orthodox. And if you don't know which one is which, let me introduce you to a heresy called Pelagianism. Not to be confused with a Star Wars villain, by the way. Pelagianism is essentially the denial of original sin. That's what Pelagius was denying, ultimately. the doctrine of original sin. Original sin denies that we are born with a fallen nature, that humanity in and of its essence, apart from God's grace, is fallen. Meanwhile, Augustine's view held that even our best works are corrupted by sin, even after we've been saved, because we are still sinners by nature. See, the doctrine of original sin, it can sound very confusing. It doesn't refer to the fact that, you know, to the original sin that Adam and Eve committed in the Garden of Eden. Rather, what the doctrine of original sin refers to is the fact that all of humanity fell when Adam and Eve fell, when Adam's nature fell. So Augustine won the debate, needless to say, and yet the church in the aftermath of this debate, immediately started drifting from his teachings on original sin. And by the time the Reformation happened, it had been all but forgotten. The doctrine of total depravity was an essential component of Augustine's view, and it was recovered, not invented, it wasn't even discovered, although you might say it was rediscovered in the Protestant Reformation. Again, it's worth noting that the passage that illustrates and exemplifies this doctrine that we call total depravity more thoroughly than any other passage in Scripture is the passage that we come to today in John's Gospel. Chapters 18 and 19 of John's Gospel deal with the arrest and the trials of Christ. We've seen that he was illegally tried by the Jews, that he was found guilty of blasphemy, which means claiming to be God, a fact that is still recorded in the Jewish Talmud. And that's something you might want to remember next time somebody tries to tell you that Jesus never claimed to be God, by the way. People in our day and age might miss the fact that Jesus over and over and over again was claiming to be God, but people in His day clearly did not miss it at all. So if anybody's missing anything, it's people today. But because the Jews didn't have the authority to carry out an execution, they didn't have the authority to kill Jesus on their own, they were forced to bring Jesus before Pontius Pilate, where they demanded that Jesus be convicted and sentenced to die. But Pilate, who earlier that morning had been warned by his wife that Jesus was an innocent man who had given her troubles in her dreams, he ends up giving Jesus a fair trial. the fair hearings, he asks Jesus if he is indeed a king. And Jesus responded by saying that his kingdom is not of this world. He's a spiritual king, not an earthly king. He has a spiritual kingdom. He did not come to establish an earthly kingdom. When all was said and done, Pilate declared of Jesus, I find no guilt in him. In other words, not guilty. He's innocent. And yet this did absolutely nothing to set the Jews at ease. They persisted in demanding that Jesus be put to death. Pilate could have simply done the right thing by just defying the crowds and letting him go, but Pilate wanted to make everybody happy. So Pilate proceeded to exercise a custom in which he annually released a Jewish prisoner on the day of the Passover feast. He asked them if they would rather have this heinous, insurrectionist murderer named Barabbas released, or if they would choose to have Jesus, who never hurt a fly, released. And to Pilate's dismay, they chose this insurrectionist murderer named Barabbas to be set free. Well Pilate still didn't want to sentence Jesus to death. So what he tries to do is he tries to appease the crowd another way. That is by having Jesus publicly scourged. We'll read about this today and we'll see that it was indeed another very significant detail surrounding Christ's arrest, trial, death, and resurrection. The point of the passage that we'll be in today is that because we are by nature Sinners who are at war with God. We are constantly in need of God's grace, even after we are saved. The story of Jesus' trial and suffering continues, therefore, as we begin the 19th chapter of John's Gospel. We'll be looking at verses 1-6. We read this, Pilate then took Jesus and scourged Him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head. and put a purple robe on him. And they began to come up to him and say, Hail, King of the Jews! and to give him slaps in the face. Pilate came out again and said to them, Behold, I am bringing him out to you, so that you may know that I find no guilt in him. Jesus then came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, Behold the man! So when the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify! Crucify! Pilate said to them, Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him." From the time we start to understand language and onward, We are so inundated, we are so indoctrinated by ridiculously unbiblical sayings like people are basically good, or so-and-so has a good heart, or so-and-so only means well, or people by nature are inherently good. But none of these sayings, not a single one of these silly little slogans can withhold the weight of the testimony about humanity that is contained in these six short verses of Scripture. John Calvin. followed Augustine's lead in writing in his Institutes that if we are to know God, we must know ourselves, but at the same time, we can't know anything about ourselves unless we know God. So Calvin began book one of his Institutes with these words. He wrote, quote, our wisdom insofar as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom consists almost entirely of two parts. the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other." But then he would immediately follow that by noting that, quote, no man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts toward the God in whom he lives and moves, end quote. And so, in order for a person, that includes us, to understand ourselves, we must first look to God. We must first know God. And so, with that much said and with that much established, let me begin by challenging you to behold your God on display in this text. Who is this man? Who is this man who has stood trial before Pilate? It is none other than God incarnate. It is the second person of the Holy Trinity. Truly God and simultaneously truly man. He has been falsely accused by the Jews of blasphemy. What he was claiming was absolutely true. But Pilate realized that Jesus was completely innocent, perfectly indeed innocent, and that there was no crime with which he could rightly charge, much less execute Jesus. But Pilate wasn't the only one who would declare the perfect innocence of Jesus on that terrible and blessed day. Indeed, it was the verdict of all who dealt with Jesus on that day, starting with Judas, the very man who betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. In Matthew 27.4, we see Judas lamenting his decision of betraying Jesus and proclaiming to the chief priests and elders as he returned to them their 30 pieces of silver. He said to them, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. Pilate wasn't the only one who knew that Jesus was innocent. Judas knew it too. Pilate's wife also knew it. She had warned Pilate about his hearing with Jesus. She said, have nothing to do with that righteous man. That word righteous includes the thought that he has done no wrong. She says, for last night I suffered greatly in a dream because of him. That's from Matthew 27, 19. Then we saw that Pilate himself found Jesus to be innocent. I find no guilt in him, he said, back in chapter 18 of John's gospel. Herod also found Christ to be innocent. Luke tells us that Pilate said of Herod's verdict, he sent him back to us, Herod sent Jesus back to us, and behold, nothing deserving death has been done by him. It's from Luke 23, 15. The dying thief on the cross next to Jesus, even joined in this assessment of Christ's innocence, saying to the other thief, we are indeed suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong. The Roman centurion guard agreed, noting after Christ's death, certainly this man was innocent. Even those who stood by and watched as Jesus was crucified and died had to agree, as Matthew tells us, that they declared after his death, truly this was the Son of God. So what we have here is really something of a consensus among those who closely examined Christ. These aren't people who examined him from a distance. These aren't people who waited years or generations or centuries to make this announcement that he was innocent. These are people who were there, who saw him with their own eyes, who heard his testimony with their own ears. and declared him innocent. Now, our instinct when we see an innocent person suffer is to seek vengeance. Our instinct is to demand some kind of retribution, some kind of action. But how much more is that our reflexive instinct when we're the ones who are being falsely accused, when we know that we have done nothing wrong, we know that we are completely innocent. If anyone in all of history who has been falsely accused of anything, if anyone had the power to bring all this nonsense to a halt, it was Jesus. And yet He endured this scourging. that Pilate sentenced him to. Pilate had a plan in mind. He was thinking, surely, in his mind he's thinking, surely the crowds are going to quit crying for Jesus' life, quit crying for His blood, if I just give them a little taste of His blood. And so despite Jesus' innocence, and despite the fact that everybody knew that Jesus was innocent, Jesus was scourged. Now, if you're not familiar what a scourging is, it's sort of like a beating times a hundred or a thousand or something like that. It is, it's a disgusting practice. It was a disgusting barbaric practice. In fact, the scourging was such a brutal and barbaric punishment that most depictions of Christ's suffering, whether in art or in video, completely leave it out. There's only one exception, I believe, and that was a movie that didn't even articulate the gospel message. So I don't want to encourage anyone to watch that movie by naming that movie, but there's only one movie that I've seen that accurately depicted the scourging that Jesus underwent. Richard Phillips notes in his commentary, quote, the Roman practice of scourging was a horrific form of physical abuse, employing a whip with leather tails onto which bone fragments and pieces of metal were attached. The idea was that somebody would have their back whipped over and over again and each whipping would rip the skin, rip the flesh right off of their back. And this was such a brutal form of punishment. This was so barbaric. People often died in the middle of a scourging. Some died while they were being scourged. Others died due to their organs being exposed and damaged as a result of the skin on their backs being ripped off. Others would die from the infections that these cat of nine tails would inflict on people. It was absolutely gruesome. It was barbaric. But they didn't only scourge Jesus. They were only instructed to scourge Jesus as far as we know. But they take it beyond that. The Roman soldiers who do the scourging, sure they do the scourging. but they also openly mock Jesus. John tells us that the Roman soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. Now there are all kinds of thorns out there, thorns and thistles out there, and they have varying lengths and varying densities. Obviously the more dense a thorn is, the more likely it is that it's going to penetrate your skin, the more it's going to hurt. We live in a place where there are thorns everywhere because we live in a place where there are blackberries everywhere. And I don't know about you, but I can never resist picking blackberries because they are just so delicious. But they have those sharp little thorns on them. And if you pick enough blackberries, you're inevitably bound to eventually catch a thorn in your skin as well. And they hurt. They draw blood very, very easily. But in the region around Jerusalem, you would find these things called date palms. And the branches from these plants have thorns on them that are up to a foot in length, a foot in length. And that makes the thorn on a blackberry seem very reasonable and not very threatening. Blackberry thorns don't even compare to that. But many commentators agree that that was the date palm thorns. That was probably the type of thorn that was used to make a crown to put on Jesus' head. Not only would it be just absolutely inhumanely painful, but it would also create a crown with radiant beams extending outward, which would have looked very similar to the crowns that were worn by royalty at that time. The crown of thorns, we have to remember, we should remember. The crown of thorns is only there because sin exists. Why do any thorns exist? Because sin exists, it's a reminder of the consequence of sin. Back in Genesis chapter three, after Adam and Eve had fallen into sin, and God was pronouncing his judgment upon them, he said to them, in Genesis chapter three, verses 17 and 18, curse it is the ground because of you, in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life, both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. So why are there thorns? Because there's sin. The thorns only existed because sin entered into creation, and this reminds us of that. To add insult to injury, the soldiers wrapped a purple robe around Jesus. Purple was a very royal color. It was a very expensive color. The dyes for purple garments were extremely rare, and for that reason, supply and demand, they were very expensive. But they wrapped this purple robe around Jesus, mocking the idea that he was royalty, mocking the idea that he was the king of the Jews. Now, the other gospel narratives, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they tell us that the soldiers took turns striking Jesus, spitting at Him as well. But Jesus had the divine authority in that moment. As He's being scourged, as He's being mocked, as He's being spit on, He had the divine authority to do what? To rain down fire from heaven? He could have done that. He could have rained it down upon these soldiers. He could have rained it down upon Pilate. He could have rained it down upon the crowds of people who were insisting that he be crucified. But he didn't. Instead, as Peter tells us in 1 Peter 2.23, while being reviled, he did not revile in return. While suffering, he uttered no threats, but kept entrusting himself to him who judges righteously. In other words, he continued to trust the Father's plan and providence, knowing that this was the cup that the Father had for him to drink, and that there was no other way. But even in this terrible time of suffering, Jesus confidently trusted in the Father's plan and providence. Should we not also resolve to display the same grace, the same confidence, the same trust that Jesus showed when we suffer? whether we suffer wrongly or rightly. Jesus was an innocent blameless man. None of us can say that about ourselves. You and I might be wrongly accused of something but you and I are not without sin. Jesus however was. If there's anybody in all of human history who never deserved to suffer anything, It was Him, and yet He did. And so for us to be like Christ when we're falsely accused, we have to remember that that sends a message to the surrounding world, a much stronger message than revenge does, a much stronger message than vengeance or social justice does. Paul writes to the Romans instructing them this, Romans chapter 12. He says, never pay back evil for evil to anyone. And he goes on to say, never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God. In other words, God's gonna deal with people. When you're falsely accused, you can rest assured that it's not without consequence that God is going to deal with that person. There are people who have done me very wrong. And what I've resolved is the best thing that I can do is display God's grace, extend God's grace to that person, because if God will convict that person of sin, that's worse than anything that I could possibly do to that person. Beloved, leave room for the wrath of God. leave things in God's hands. Jesus gave us a crystal clear image of what obedience to this instruction looks like in a very practical sense. Now will this ever happen to you? Will you ever be accused of anything falsely? Will you ever be tempted to seek revenge? Will you ever be tempted to seek vengeance? I think we'd be kind of foolish to say anything less than possibly, if not probably, at least maybe. And so if and when that time comes, friends, especially as the culture around us gets darker and darker, and the culture's animosity towards Christians grows greater and greater, let us remember Jesus and the way that He endured suffering. the way that he endured this agonizing scourging, yet did not revile them in return. And let us vow to glorify God whenever we suffer by suffering well, which is a concept that has been almost completely lost on our generation. The idea of suffering well. Instead, what the world is calling for is things like euthanasia, when somebody gets to the point of suffering. Now let us resolve instead to suffer for the glory of Christ and to suffer well. Now you and I have to ask the same question that anybody who reads of what happened on this day has to ask. And that question is, why is this happening? Why is Jesus being scourged ultimately? Not just because Pilate said so. Why did Pilate say so? You know, kick it back another, you know, kind of like with a three-year-old. Why? Why? Why? Right? Why did Pilate sentence Jesus to be scourged? Because the crowds wouldn't be satisfied. Well, why wouldn't the crowds be satisfied? Why did this happen? Why did the Roman soldiers do this? Why did the people delight so greatly in Jesus' blood being spilled and in Him being publicly mocked and humiliated in such a manner? Let's go back and remember what Calvin said. He said that no man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts toward the God in whom he lives and moves. In other words, we cannot know ourselves accurately without looking at God first. And here we behold our God who is beaten mercilessly. Why? The answer is total depravity. The answer is because by nature man is not ambivalent toward God. Man absolutely hates God and rebels against God. He despises God. As James Montgomery Boyce notes, quote, the people saw in the beaten and disfigured Jesus that moral deformity that they saw or feared to discover in themselves, end quote. So the reason that they were demanding that his life be taken from him, the reason that they were delighting in him being beaten beyond recognition. The reason they were delighting in his blood being spilled is because of their adamant refusal to yield their lives to him as God incarnate in repentance and faith. In his heart, the natural man resents and hates true righteousness, and Jesus was the epitome of true godly righteousness. Now there are no historians from this time which tell us of any other time when people were so bloodthirsty and so insistent upon murdering a man whom they knew was innocent as they did on this day. So, having beheld our God, having looked at God incarnate, We now look at ourselves and realize that it's true, that we were all born totally depraved by nature. Don't be so prideful as to think that you would not have joined the crowd in calling for Jesus to be crucified on that day. You would have, and so would I. You might insist, no, I would never do such a thing. I'm not bloodthirsty. I don't hate Jesus. I love Jesus way too much to join with the crowd in demanding that His innocent blood be spilled. Really? Come on. I mean, because every time you sin, you are doing something worse to Jesus than the people were doing that day, than the people were delighting in that day. Every time you sin, you are inflicting infinitely more punishment upon Jesus than you could possibly imagine, certainly more than an entire scourging involved. Because if you are in Jesus, you understand that your sin, every single individual sin, has to be dealt with. It has to be judged. It has to be punished. You understand that either you had to bear it yourself and bear the wrath that was due for your sin, or that Jesus would bear your sin, take your sin upon himself, and take God's wrath in your stead. A full scourging, a full scourging doesn't even begin to compare to a nanosecond of an outpouring of God's wrath. So none of us can say that we're innocent here. Even if we're in Christ, none of us can say that we wouldn't have joined the crowd on that day. We would have. So we're left with no choice but to concede that it's true, that by nature we are Totally depraved. And that, by the way, doesn't mean that you're as bad as you can possibly be. For example, could Hitler have been worse? This is, you know, this is the example that I always go to. Could Hitler have been worse than he was? Absolutely. He could have killed 6,000,001 Jews or, you know, whatever. He could have always killed more people. He could have told more lies. He could have stolen more stuff. Of course he could have. So it doesn't mean that you're as bad as you can possibly be. It simply means that everything that we do, even our most righteous acts, are corrupted by sin's influence. And thus, we need God's grace, not only in the sense of needing to be forgiven, which is absolutely true, we need forgiveness for the uncountable number of sins that we've committed, but we also need God's grace to do what he commands as well. We even need grace in the forgiveness sense for our best deeds, for our most righteous deeds, because everything that we do is corrupted to some extent by sin. What we see here in Pilate's court is that when the hand of divine restraint is lifted, when God cuts the cord of restraint free, we have no good within us of which we can boast. And so this forces us to confess unto God as David did in Psalm 16, I have no good beside you, beside God. Now there's an article that you can find on the CNN website. Those of you who follow me on social media, you probably saw that I posted it this week. I thought it was absolutely hilarious. It was published on Tuesday, December 11th of 2018, and the headline reads this, Breaking News Alert. So this is very important. People are inherently good, nonviolent. Now, if you are like me, you just kind of laugh at that and shake your head like you can't believe that anybody would say such a thing. But you also know that CNN is and has been apparently for quite a while in the business of spreading fake news. And this is the consummate example of fake news. You know, they report what they report with an agenda in mind and that much is no longer difficult to figure out. They've been in the fake news business for a long time, but what is difficult to figure out is how a headline like this, that's worthy of being published on a satire website, gets published on cnn.com. But the article states this, it says, quote, when we hear about bad things happening, especially when lives of many are lost or damaged at the hands of a few, we need to remind ourselves that people are generally good, end quote. That's breaking news. It's crazy. And yet, if all that we had in the entire Bible were these six verses at the beginning of Matthew chapter 19, if this is all that we had in the entire Bible, we would have to say that no assessment of humanity could possibly be more mistaken than that. The truth is that we are not fundamentally good, but that we are fundamentally evil, because we are fundamentally rebels against God's created order by nature. And so we're forced to ask with the psalmist in Psalm 130, if you, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? Don't try to answer that question. It's a rhetorical question. It's a question that everybody knows the answer to. Not one of us, not a single one of us, could stand before the Lord if our iniquities were marked against us. Scripture testifies of the wickedness of our fallen nature. From Genesis 4, where the first murder takes place, to the end of the Bible, we read in Genesis 6-5, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continuously. It's not that his thoughts were only evil once in a while. It wasn't that his thoughts were only evil from time to time. They were continually nothing but evil. Jeremiah 17 9 says, the heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick. Who can understand it? I mean, why would anybody doubt that? Why would anybody doubt that the heart is more deceitful than anything else? The answer is kind of funny. Only because their heart is more deceitful than anything else will they deny that their heart is more deceitful than anything else. One can only affirm it when they try to deny it. Romans 3, verses 10-18 says of humanity by nature, There is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become useless. There is none who does good. There is not even one. Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes." Nowhere else in all of Scripture, at no time in all of human history is this more clearly demonstrated as being absolutely true as it is in the gospel accounts of Jesus' trial, scourging, crucifixion, and death. Now why does it matter? Somebody might ask, why does it matter if we're totally depraved? Why even bring it up? What difference does it make if we're totally depraved or not? Friends, that is such a good question, and I actually hope that it's one that you've been asking. or wondering, the reason that it matters, the reason total depravity matters, is that it reveals how completely desperate our need for God's grace truly is. It reveals how urgent it is that God attend to us in His grace. and that He remove the heart of stone, that He replace the heart of stone with a heart of flesh, that He put His Spirit within us to direct us, to empower us unto obedience, to enable us to do His will, causing us to walk according to His statutes, and compelling us to observe His ordinances. If we were not totally depraved, The need for this stuff wouldn't be anywhere near as great. But because we are, we can see how great our need for God's overwhelming grace is in our lives. It reminds us of the fact that apart from God's grace, we would do nothing but rebel against God. In fact, were it not for the doctrine of total depravity, there would be no need for the other four points of Calvinism, or as I prefer to call them, the doctrines of grace. There would be no need for the doctrine of unconditional election, the doctrine of particular redemption, irresistible grace, or perseverance of the saints. We'll be studying those in the years to come. But these doctrines are all made necessary if anybody is going to be saved. These doctrines are all made necessary by the doctrine that we see on display in our passage today. The doctrine of total depravity or total corruption. It's also important to note that the doctrine of total depravity changes us. Because by nature, you and I are prideful. I mean, why do you think headlines like that show up in CNN? Because we're so prideful. We see ourselves so wrongly. But the doctrine of total depravity has a humbling effect. It causes us to see ourselves the way we truly are, not comparing ourselves to one another. You might look like a good person compared to so-and-so or whatever, you know. But what about when we compare ourselves to God? What about when we compare ourselves to God's standards? We're not even in the ballpark of being good at that point. We're not even in the ballpark of being righteous at that point. So the doctrine of total depravity humbles us and it leaves us no room for boasting about anything of ourselves. And to be humbled is to be thankful for what God has done. And thankfulness results in obedience. But it starts with seeing ourselves the way that God sees us, not the way people see us. Man looks on the outside, God is the one who looks at the heart and only God can see the heart. And what he sees apart from his grace isn't good. And that's humbling. Pilate, perhaps himself also thinking that people are basically good, he believed that the crowds would be appeased and would allow for Jesus' release if only a little bit of his blood was spilled. So he presents Jesus to the masses exactly as Isaiah had foretold when Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 53 verse 3, and like one from whom men hid their faces, he was despised and we did not esteem him. So rather than arousing a sympathetic response from the crowd, it was like pouring oil on a fire for Jesus to be presented before the crowd that way. Seeing him stricken, seeing him afflicted, seeing him bloodied and beaten, they cry out, crucify, crucify. The famous words of Pilate, behold the man, force us all to look at our God, to see the natural hatred, the hatred that humanity has toward him by nature and as we see him, We also see not only a reflection of ourselves and our own moral deformities, but we also see the price of our redemption and the depths of his love for us, the vastness of his grace that he would endure this in order that he might redeem us. Ironically, speaking of the words, behold the man, it was actually a fulfillment of prophecy that he said that. In the time of Zechariah, the exiles who were returning from Babylon to Jerusalem and were rebuilding the temple, which had been destroyed, they had a prophecy come through Zechariah of the promise of a Messiah. Zechariah was instructed by God to create a crown made of silver and gold and to set the crown on the head of the high priest whose name was, anybody know what his name was? Joshua. If you know the name Joshua, that is Jesus' name. It's the Hebrew name that gets rendered Jesus in Greek. We read in Zechariah 6, verses 11 to 13, where Zechariah is instructed, take silver and gold, make an ornate crown and set it on the head of Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Then say to him, thus says the Lord of hosts, behold the man whose name is Branch. For he will branch out from where he is and he will build the temple of the Lord. Yes, it is he who will build the temple of the Lord and he who will bear the honor and sit and rule on his throne. Did you catch that in there? It's so subtle, it's so fast, it's like there one second and then you're past it. Behold the man. Like all of the faithful remnant of Israel, Zechariah would have longed to see the day that this prophecy would be fulfilled. But surely he had absolutely no clue. Surely he had absolutely no idea that this is what it would look like. That it would be responded to with the Jews crying out, crucify, crucify. Zechariah probably had no idea that it would be through the Messiah's own death that the promised Savior would build his true temple. See, the temple that the Lord would build would not be an earthly temple. The previous temples in Jerusalem, yes, those were physical, but those were types and shadows of the true temple which was to come. The true temple wouldn't be built of physical stones, but of saints who would repent and believe the gospel. The true temple isn't physical at all. It's spiritual. Listen to what Peter says in 1 Peter 2, verses 4 and 5. He says this, And coming to Him as a living stone, which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for the holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Listen also to Ephesians 2, verses 19-22. It similarly says, "'So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God's household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. Now, a lot of people will say, Jesus can't return until the next temple gets built. That is completely wrong. We aren't waiting for another physical temple to be built before Christ returns. What we're waiting for is for him, for Christ, to finish building this one, this spiritual temple, the one that we're all part of. We're waiting for all of his sheep to be drawn to Christ, to be drawn to our Good Shepherd, then He'll return. That actually fits with the Scripture a lot better than the idea that Christ's return is preeminent. In other words, it could happen at any time, but we're waiting for a temple to be built. No, the temple that Christ is building is in Himself. He is the true temple. And His sheep are the stones. We are the stones. Friends, behold our God, who is our true prophet, priest, and king, and in whom fallen sinners are reconciled with their holy God, who loved us with such a love that He would endure such suffering in order to purchase us, in order to redeem us, cleansing and forgiving us through the shedding of His own blood. God's only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is Himself the true temple where God is reconciled to and meets with all who have repented and believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. See in Him what great love He has for fallen sinners. See in Him the only sinless true man. See in Him what great need you have of grace. And see in Him what great grace He's capable of providing. This is the day of God's grace for you. See the gateway of grace and salvation opened to everyone. What prevents anyone from entering in? Only hardened unbelief. But what about What about you? Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. Friends, because we are sinners who are at war with God by nature, We are constantly, even after we're saved, we are constantly in need of God's grace. And we find it freely offered in the Lord Jesus Christ. As surely as the lips exist to reveal what fills the heart, therefore may the cry of our lips be, my Lord, my God, save me. even as the world around us continues to cry out, crucify. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank You for Your Word. Thank You for the clarity of Your Word, for the way that we clearly see in this text the depravity that exists within every one of us All we can do is confess, oh Lord, that we would have joined the crowd that day. And thus we are just as guilty as they. But we thank you and we praise you. that by your grace, you replaced the heart of stone with the heart of flesh. You put your spirit within us, causing us to walk in obedience to you, causing us to observe your ordinances. Oh God, we thank you that your grace is greater than our need, and our need is great. And so we come to you today, Lord, thankful that you have saved us, humbled by the fact that you would change us and transform us into the likeness of Christ, and asking for your grace to reign in our lives, that what we do would be for your glory, and that what we do would be by your grace. We pray, O Lord, for the culture around us that continues to cry out, crucify. And we know, Lord, that if you could change our hearts, we know you can change theirs. So give us courage, O Lord, to share the truth of the gospel with those around us. Help us to be the light in the darkness that you have called us to be. Help us to be salt And we ask these things, not for our own comfort, not for any benefit of our own, but for the glory of Christ. In his name we pray, amen.