And Lord, as we now come to your word, we thank you for the assurance that your word does not return void to you, that you accomplish your work in us through your word. And so we ask, Lord, that our hearts would not be hardened today, but that our hearts would be softened by your word. As we remember that your word is supreme, your word is sufficient, your word is inspired, inerrant, infallible, unassailable. Your Word is your power. And so we pray, Lord, that as we study your Word, that by the power of the Holy Spirit working in us, that we would have understanding, that we would see our need for Christ, that we would see the sufficiency of Christ, that we would lean, that we would trust more wholly, more fully in Christ. O Lord, use this time to glorify Christ. and to draw us ever nearer to Him. In His name we pray, Amen. If you have your Bibles please turn to John chapter 19. We'll be continuing our study in John's gospel today looking at John chapter 19 verses 13 to 16. Our next study is going to be 1st and 2nd Samuel. I figure we should be starting that around January or February. And for our first Sermon of the Month series, we like to keep one foot in the Old Testament, one foot in the New Testament. So that's going to be our main study, is 1 and 2 Samuel. But our first study of the month, every month, is going to be the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew chapters 5 to 7. So be looking forward to that if you want to study that ahead of time, by all means. But today we're going to be in John 19, verses 13 to 16. Very early in Israel's history, they operated as what you would call a theocracy. If you're not familiar with that term, a theocracy is basically a society that is directly ruled over by God. So that's not to be confused with every other nation. God rules over all the nations. but not in a direct way, not in the way that he ruled over ancient Israel. With ancient Israel he governed them through various spokespersons, people such as Moses or Joshua, the men and women whom God raised up as judges in the book of Judges, and other figures who closely resembled the men who would one day be referred to as prophets, men like Samuel. for example. But the theocratic system was one that God had specifically given to Israel. And for that reason, it was a good system. I mean, how could it be anything other than good if God was directly ruling over them? It was a system that was unique to Israel, designed by God for His glory and for the good of His people. But in the later days of Samuel's life, the system started to crack. And that wasn't because of any fault in God. It wasn't because of any fault in the system that He had given them. There was no fault in His rule and reign. It was because the Israelites looked around at the nations around them, and they started to compare themselves to the nations that they were surrounded by. And so the Israelites started to feel like they'd kind of been given the short end of the stick by having God as their king. And these other nations, wow, look what they had. They had all these strong warriors who were their kings, these powerful, respectable kings and governors, leaders who were feared greatly. And Israel, looking at them, coveted. They coveted what the other nations had. And so we read in 1 Samuel 8, verse 5, of how the elders of Israel came to Samuel at one point, and they said to him, Behold, you have grown old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations. What a stupid request. And then verses six and seven tell us, but the thing was displeasing in the sight of Samuel when they said, give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed to the Lord. The Lord said to Samuel, listen to the voice of the people in regard to all they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. Now it's been said that the surest way to have history repeat itself is to not learn anything from history. Ignorance of history, therefore, is a sure way to cause or allow history to be repeated. And if you look at history, the one thing you learn about what people have learned from history is that people haven't learned anything from history, and so things keep repeating themselves. That certainly was the case With Israel, when you go through the book of Judges, it's like the same cycle over and over again. It's because they weren't paying attention to their history. See, the most tragic thing in the world is for people to reject God's rule and reign over their lives. That is the most tragic thing that can happen to a person. We have so much to learn from Israel's history and the way that she rejected God as her king. But we aren't alone in that. Israel also could have learned so much from their own history. In ancient days, they rejected God as their king. And as we've seen in our study of John's Gospel, as we've now entered into the 19th chapter of the book, Israel has now not only rejected God, but they have rejected God's only son. the Lord Jesus Christ. They've put Him on trial, and they did so illegally, holding the trial at night, charging Him and finding Him guilty of blasphemy, that is of claiming to be God's equal, of claiming to be the Son of God. And as a result of their verdict, the Jews brought Jesus before Pontius Pilate to have Jesus, the only son of God, executed, murdered by order of Pontius Pilate. And yet, Pontius Pilate decides to have a fair trial. And so he goes and he interviews Jesus, and after talking to Jesus, he says, I find no guilt in him. His verdict is that Jesus is perfectly innocent of any wrongdoing. But despite Jesus' innocence, Pilate refused to release Jesus. Tired as the Jews were so angry about the idea. Pilate desired, therefore, to please man, to please the Jews, rather than pleasing God. Appeasing the Israelites, appeasing the Jewish leaders was a higher priority for him than doing the right thing before God. So following a second interrogation in which Pilate tried to find out if Jesus really was the Son of God, v. 12 told us, Pilate made efforts to release Him, but the Jews cried out saying, if you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar. Everyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes Caesar. And this put Pilate between a rock and a hard place. But what we've seen over and over again through these events is a picture of humanity when God's restraining hand is lifted, when it's removed, and how great humanity's hatred of God is apart from God's restraining grace. And so for that reason we can't look at the Jews down our noses as if we're better than they are because God's restraining grace is the only thing that prevents us from doing the exact same thing. But in all of this, in all of these events that are leading up to Jesus's crucifixion, what we see is God's sovereignty. This is how God can allow evil things to happen and yet not be the cause of them. Is something evil about to happen? Yes. The only sinless man, Jesus Christ, who has ever lived, is about to be unjustly executed. Is that evil? That is the most evil act that has ever been committed. But is God response, is God making them find him guilty? Is he making them hate him? Absolutely not. All God needed to do was remove his restraining hand. So who's responsible for Jesus being delivered up to die? Yeah, it's the Jews. Yes, it was because of Judas Iscariot. Yes, it's because the Roman soldiers arrested him. Yes, it's because Pontius Pilate refuses to do the right thing. But ultimately, through all of this, we see God's sovereignty. Ultimately, it all happened because it was the Father's will that the Son should be crucified. in order that he may redeem a people for his glory. In the words of Octavius Winslow, he said, quote, Who delivered up Jesus to die? Not Judas for money, not Pilate for fear, not the Jews for envy, but the Father for love. End quote. So Pilate is now in a situation where he risks the end of his political career, if not possibly the end of his life, which would be the cost for defying Caesar. As the Jews have said, if you release this man, you're no friend of Caesar. Everyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes Caesar. That's a threat to Pontius Pilate. And this is what pushes him to finally make a decision to either be a friend of Christ or to be a friend of Caesar. Now, when I talk about being a friend of Caesar, I'm not just talking about having an inroad to the king or to the Caesar. I mean, much, much more than simply being his friend or being an ally or being an acquaintance. No, it's what Caesar represents. Caesar represents the world, the rebellious, defiant world system that opposes and indeed hates God. So the point of our passage today is that you can't be a friend of God and a friend of Caesar. You can't be a friend of Jesus and a friend of the world. To be a friend of the world is to lose your soul, but to be a friend of Jesus is to gain your soul And Pilate is about to lose his soul. So let's look at our passage today. John chapter 19 verses 13 to 16. We read this. Therefore, when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha. Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. And he said to the Jews, Behold your king! So 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 then handed him over to them to be crucified. One of the first biblical themes that gets established and developed outside of the Garden of Eden, after the fall of mankind, is the distinction between the world and God's people. The distinction between friendship with the world and friendship with God. We see Cain, who chooses to be a friend of the world, murder his brother, who was a friend of God. And that kind of set the course on its way. That kind of set the whole trajectory for the way these two kingdoms would interact. So we see in Genesis chapter 4 verses 16 and 17 that after God had dealt with Cain, after he murdered his brother Abel, We read, Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain had relations with his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch. And he built a city and called the name of the city Enoch, after the name of his son. So what this turns out to be is the establishment of a worldly kingdom that was violent, a kingdom that was barbaric. It was opposing everything good that God had ordered and established. We find the first song that was ever written outside of the Garden of Eden in Genesis chapter 4, and we find out that it's a song that glorifies murder and death. This is the very antithesis of what the Garden of Eden was created to be. So it's not too surprising that the first song was a song about death, glorifying death, since that was Cain's lineage. But then we read in Genesis 4, verse 26, to Seth, to him also was born a son, and he called his name Enosh. Then men began to call on the name of the Lord. What that tells us is that here God is pouring out His grace on people even though there's this civilization being built that is so opposed to God. These people are referred to in Genesis 6-2 as sons of God, reflecting the reality that God had poured out His grace despite the establishment of this system that we call the world. And nevertheless, only a few verses later in chapter 6, we see that sin nevertheless continued to prevail and grow around the earth. And so God raises up Noah, saving him and his family while destroying the rest of humanity in a flood of judgment. When the flood subsided, Noah and his family once again inhabited the earth. They once again dwelled on the earth and they were instructed, just as Adam and Eve were, to be fruitful and multiply. but their sin nature remained. That's one thing that also survived the flood. Not only Noah and his family, but a sin nature within each and every one of those individuals. And so in chapter 11, we learn of how the whole human race from the line of Noah's three sons. The whole human race comes together saying, Come, let us build for ourselves a city and a tower whose top will reach into heaven. And let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth. What we see is that this world system has always been opposed to God. Why did they want to come together and build this great city with a tower that reached to heaven? So that they could be God for themselves. This world, this worldliness has always been a system that has stood against God's created order. And it does to this very day. It does to this very day. It has always refused to submit to God's sovereign rule and reign. And while it may look somewhat different today than it did, you know, five or 6,000 years ago or whenever, the world system nevertheless remains intact today, motivated by the exact same things, the exact same principles that it has always operated by. And these were the same principles that motivated the events that are unfolding in our study of John's Gospel in Jesus' trial with Pilate. 1 John 2, verses 15-17 gives us a very serious and stern warning that every Christian should take heed of and should take to heart. He writes this, he says, Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lusts of the flesh and the lusts of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts, but the one who does the will of God lives forever. Now, world in this context is not the earth. It's not the globe. It's not the physical creation. It is the satanic order, the satanic system of humanity that opposes and defies and denies God's sovereign rule and reign. And so in light of John's warning there, we have to understand that it is a terrible thing It is indeed a frightful thing to be a friend of the world. I mean, we all understand the appeal of it, right? I mean, we've all got a flesh nature, so we understand the appeal of being a friend of the world. We see the shiny, beautiful temptations that the world just dangles before us. Things like wealth and power and influence and, you know, what have you. Being liked, being respected, you know, feeling like we belong. These are things that John refers to as all that is in the world. The lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life. See now I understand that choosing to be friends with the world might feel right because it allows us to indulge our flesh. But something that we have to remember is that our feelings cannot lead us. We need to be in control of our feelings because our feelings are the most convincing liars around. Our feelings lie to us all the time. The heart is deceitful. Who can know it? Only the Lord. It deceives even the person who has the heart. But we see the progression that John describes in Adam's choice. to have the world, the sin that brought about the fall of the entire human race. First, he and Eve were tempted to doubt God, which led to the temptation to defy Him, which is exactly what they did when they ate the fruit from the tree of good and evil knowledge. This was their surrender to the lusts of the flesh. Second, they were tempted to desire what appeared to be pleasurable, which the world always does. It always pursues what appears to be pleasurable to the flesh. And yet the truth is that nothing could have been more undesirable than that fruit. This was the lust of the eyes. Third and finally, it descends to the boastful pride of life. In their pridefulness, they sought to be equal to God. That was part of the lie, that they would be like God. The serpent said that if they ate from the fruit of the tree of good and evil knowledge, they would become like God. And to them, that made them feel like, oh, we're missing out on something. And they weren't humble enough to pause and realize that eating of this fruit would actually make them less like God than anything else that they could possibly do. And this is always what happens when a person chooses the world over God. It feels good. It appears to our eyes and our senses to be desirable. But what does it profit a man to gain the world if he loses his soul? Pilate. in refusing to do what is right, in choosing to be a friend of Caesar instead of being a friend of Jesus. Pilate is a picture of the fool who chooses to game the world at the cost of losing his soul. And the reason it's so foolish to gain the world is because you won't keep it forever. You can't keep it forever. Even if you do feel like the world and all the neat and shiny, glimmering things in it are yours. A, first of all, nothing is yours. The earth is the Lord's and all who dwell therein. Nothing is yours. It's on loan at best. But B, as John tells us, the world is passing away and so are you. And so am I. So what does it profit us to have something that's passing away when we're also passing away? We are guaranteed to lose it. The soul, on the other hand, the soul is not passing away. It is so foolish, and maybe that word just isn't strong enough. Maybe insane is a better word. Maybe irrational is a more suitable word. Whatever word you prefer. It is the height of foolishness, of insanity, to choose to be a friend of the world, thereby not being a friend of Jesus, because the cost is your soul. Consider Jesus, on the other hand, who was tempted just like Adam was tempted. While in the wilderness, after his baptism, Jesus was tempted by Satan with an opportunity to gain the whole world. In Matthew 4, verses 3 and 4, we read this, And the tempter came and said to him, If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." I find it very interesting that the first temptation that Christ faced here was the same temptation that Adam and Eve faced to satisfy his physical appetite by making a spiritual compromise. His lust of the flesh was being tempted, and yet Christ prevailed. Next, Christ was tempted to test the faithfulness of the Father. We read, then the devil took him into the holy city and had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple. and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, he will command his angels concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. And Jesus said to him, on the other hand, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. How interesting. Satan knows scripture very well, but he twists it. The temptation to do something dramatic like this, something spectacular, was the temptation of the lust of the eyes. Something that would impress people. And Christ once again prevailed. Then we reach Matthew chapter 4 verse 8 and we read this again. The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their glory. And he said to him, All these things I will give you if you fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, Go, Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only. Here Christ was tempted with idolatry, and the pride of life. And this is what is so wrong with choosing the world, friends. Because to choose to be a friend of the world is not just turning your back on worshipping a god. Rather, it's to dive headlong into idolatry, worshipping lesser, worshipping wicked gods, small g, of our own making. If God has warned us about the cost of being a friend of the world, we don't need to take a proverbial bite to see what the fruit is going to taste like, to see if the fruit is gonna be good and appealing and good for us. It's not. Rather, we must follow the example that Jesus has set for us and not put God to the test by befriending the world. So the question I want to ask you is simply this. Is God's Word and the warnings that He gives us in His Word about becoming friends of the world, is it sufficient to convince you to simply trust Him and to act on what He has warned us against? Because if God's Word isn't sufficient for you, your decision's already been made. If God's Word isn't sufficient for you, if you need to Take it for a test drive. If you need to try things out for yourself, you must know that you are, by doing so, in essence, defying and denying God's sovereign authority, which is exactly what the primary characteristic of the world is. Thus, even by sticking a toe in to test the waters, so to speak, you're choosing to be a friend of the world. You're not trusting what God has warned us against. So when Pilate is confronted with this choice, he chooses, very foolishly, He had an opportunity to do the right thing. He could have done what was morally upstanding in God's sight. He could have chosen to be a friend of Jesus and released him. Instead, however, Pilate chooses to be a friend of the world. He brings Jesus to the place where he would render his final verdict. And he says to the Jews, and I think he says it sarcastically, He says to the Jews, behold your king. One of the consequences of choosing the world is that it forces a person to compromise their integrity. If you're a friend of the world, you will be put in a situation just like Pilate is here. where you'll be between a rock and a hard place and you will have to compromise your integrity. What's integrity? The dictionary defines it as an adherence to moral or ethical principles. I would like to add to that an adherence to moral or ethical principles when nobody is looking. despite the consequences, despite who it might please, despite who it might anger, you adhere to those principles. That's what integrity is. See, the world is completely unprincipled. If we're talking about moral and ethical principles, the world has no moral or ethical principles. You have to know that. Why is the world so comfortable with child sacrifice? Why is the world so comfortable with the defilement of the institution of marriage? It's because they have rejected the unchanging standards of God's Word and are thus necessarily untethered, just free-floating, unprincipled human beings. Because all they have is their changing opinions standards to base their principles on. And an unprincipled person, a man or a woman who lacks integrity is always more than happy to compromise with the world just like Pilate does here. Earlier that morning Jesus had said to Pilate, everyone who is of the truth hears my voice. What a profound statement. What an opportunity for Pilate. And Pilate, he wants nothing to do with Jesus. So he just flippantly asks, what is truth? As he turns away and walks away. Listen, if a person turns away while they're asking a question, they don't really want the answer. And Pilate didn't want the answer. If only Pilate had listened. If only Pilate had thought about this opportunity and chosen rightly, he could have received a full pardon for every sin that he had committed, including the murder of all the Jews in the temple that we read about in Luke's Gospel. He could have received complete forgiveness, a clean slate, if he only would have chosen to be a friend of Jesus, if he only would have asked Jesus and listened for the response. He could have been cleansed of all of his guilt and all of his shame before God if he would have been a friend of Jesus. And friends, so can you. You can be cleansed of all your guilt. and all your shame, all the sins that you have committed can be washed away by choosing to be friends of Jesus instead of the world. And if Pilate had done that, surely God's grace would have been sufficient for him to stand on before the Jews, empowering him and enabling him to act with integrity being willing to do the right thing, no matter what the cost might be, no matter who it pleases, no matter who it makes angry, he would have had the grace to act with integrity, even if it cost him his life. Friendship with the world will always involve compromising your integrity. But conversely, friends, if you are friends with Jesus, if you choose to be friends with Jesus, not only are you cleansed of sin, guilt, and shame, but He is also able to fill us with the grace that is necessary and the courage that is necessary for us to walk in integrity, to do the right thing regardless of whatever the consequences might be. Why are we able to do that? Only by God's grace. Only because He gives us the strength to do so. Friendship with the world will always, on the other hand, involve compromising your integrity. Friendship with the world will make you a slave to things like fear and anxiety, because friendship and approval from the world are conditional upon your compliance with whatever it is that will please them. And whatever pleased them yesterday might not be what pleases them today. And what pleases them today might not be what pleases them tomorrow. But that's not how it works with God, whose standards are never changing. Do you see how Pilate not only fears making the Jews angry, he not only fears displeasing them, but even more so how great his fear and trepidation is that he should displease Caesar. that his life might be on the line if he does the right thing. But conversely, friendship with Jesus results in freedom from fear and anxiety and it fills us with a peace that passes all understanding. J.C. Ryle says this of Pilate, he says, quote, let us learn what miserable creatures great men are when they have no high principles within them and no faith in the reality of a God above them. The lowest laborer who has grace and fears God is a nobler being in the eyes of his creator than the king, ruler, or statesman whose first aim is to please the people. And he goes on to say, let us pray that our own country may never be without men in high places who have grace to think right and courage to act up to their knowledge without truckling to the opinion of men. Those who fear God more than man and care for pleasing God more than man are the best rulers of a nation. End quote. And while it's true that God is sovereign, and it's true that God had predetermined that Jesus would be crucified, the only person who can be held responsible for Pilate's sin of choosing to be friends with the world is Pilate himself. We've seen this repeated throughout John's gospel. God is sovereign, and yet man is still responsible. In his wisdom, in God's wisdom, and in accordance with nothing but the sovereign counsel of his own will, God ordains all things, yet without causing sin or evil. How ironic that he says, behold your king. How ironic that just like Caiaphas had in his sinful ignorance prophesied of the significance of Jesus' death when he said, it's better for you that one man should die for the people and that the whole nation not perish. How ironic now that Pilate, who represents the worldly rule and power of the greatest military on earth at the time, prophetically now hails Jesus as king. Is he right? Yes. Would his flesh nature incline him to do so, to think so, to believe so? Absolutely not. He's speaking contrary to what he actually believes. Behold your king, he says to them, probably pretty spitefully. But what a mystery it is. that God is even able to speak such glorious truths as this from the same tongue that would agree so eagerly, so sinfully to crucify the one and only unblemished Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. The response of the Jews is to revolt in disgust at the idea that Jesus is any king, much less their king. Take him away. Crucify him is what they demand. Shall I crucify your king is what Pilate says again and I think with a lot of sarcasm. And the chief priests, keep in mind the chief priests are the men who have been entrusted with the responsibility of spiritually leading the people of Israel. They cry out in unison in what is unquestionably the lowest, the single lowest and the single most vile, most wicked point in all of their history. They say, we have no king but Caesar. Let me translate that for you a little bit more literally. We are friends of the world, not God. We're not God's friends, we are his enemies. We belong to Caesar, not God. We're loyal to Caesar, not God. And of course, this isn't surprising to us as the readers. We've read and watched these false, self-serving, cruel shepherds who have fleeced the flock for so long as they've gone toe-to-toe with Jesus throughout John's Gospel. So it's not surprising to see them say something like this. But the irony is that the chief priests, like all the Jews, like all of Israel, They didn't like having Caesar as their king. In fact, they hated Caesar. They despised him. They hated the Roman Empire for occupying their land, for occupying within their borders. Not only did they despise Caesar, but they simultaneously, they claimed to love God. They claimed to be loyal to God. Every temple service would include the instruction, Hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. and with all your might, these words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart." From Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 4 to 6. Now you would think that saying, in light of that, right? In light of their Shema, in Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 4 to 6, you would think that saying, we have no king but Caesar, would have made them sick to their stomachs. It should have just made them tremble. So why didn't they? Why were they able to say it so plainly, so fearlessly, with a straight face? It's because like Pilate, They preferred to compromise on their convictions. They'd rather do that than do what was right. They would rather forsake every grain of integrity within them than allow Jesus to get out of there alive, much less worship Him as God as they should have. But the truth is, what they say here, we have no king but Caesar. It's strangely true. As much as they hate Caesar, as much as they hate the Roman Empire, it's true. They're being truthful here. They weren't friends of God. They were friends of the world. They chose to pursue the world and all the things in and of the world, money and power and respect and fear, influence. Because you see, you cannot love God if you don't love Jesus. You don't believe in God if you don't believe in Jesus. To reject the Son, to reject Jesus, is to reject the Father. John writes again in his first epistle, chapter 2, verse 23. He says, whoever denies the Son does not have the Father. The one who confesses the Son has the Father also. So you can't have the Father without having the Son. You can't love the Father without loving Jesus. So their choice is clear and their words are true. They have no king but Caesar. They chose friendship with the world. They chose friendship with Caesar over friendship with God through faith in Jesus, the Son of God. They've learned absolutely nothing from their own history, their own rejection of God as king back in the days of Samuel. If that was a low point in Israel's history, and it absolutely was, how much lower is this rejection of their king? They have literally spent hours upon hours working to this ultimate rejection of Christ. They stayed up all night in order to arrest Him. They stayed up through the darkest hours of the night in order to charge and find Jesus guilty of blasphemy in an illegal trial. And then they brought him in the morning to stand outside of Pilate's praetorium again for hours now, insisting that Pilate crucify Jesus. By rejecting Jesus, the Jews forsook their sacred covenant with God, for by rejecting Jesus as their king, they were revolting and rebelling against Yahweh as their God. So great was their contempt toward God that they replaced Him with someone they absolutely despised. They replaced Him with a vile, wicked, evil, godless worldly ruler. And yet, as James Montgomery Boyce observes, he says, quote, it is not a Jewish report alone. For the rejection of God and Jesus is not a Jewish verdict alone. It is the verdict of the human race, end quote. And there are no exceptions. As we saw in our previous lessons, the doctrine of total depravity is being illustrated here more clearly than in any other scene in all of human history. Man's absolute, unconditional hatred. Their irrational rejection of God. We see that in the second Psalm also. In the second Psalm, we see that rebellion against and rejection of God isn't confined to just a nation or two, but that all the kingdoms of all the earth's inhabitants rally and rebel against God. The psalmist writes in Psalm 2, verses one to three, he says, why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us." In essence, that's exactly what the Jewish leaders are saying here about Jesus. That they reject Him. Let's free ourselves from these fetters and cords. Now, the Lord is God. His anointed, in Psalm 2, is Jesus. And we see that those revolting and rebelling against Jesus include everyone from the common man to the highest earthly kings and leaders. Why are they in such an uproar? Why do they rage? The answer is because they don't want God to rule and reign over their lives. God's rule over them. It's referred to in Psalm 2 here, verse 3, as fetters and cords that they want to be freed from. See, the world doesn't want freedom from sin. The world wants freedom from God's reign, from God's sovereign authority over them. And so thus, in both Pilate and the Jews, we see that there is a serious warning to all who reject Jesus as their King and Lord, to all who would choose to be a friend of Caesar, a friend of the world, instead of friends of God through Christ Jesus. The Jews illustrate the reality that the cost of rejecting Jesus is the loss of your soul, even if it means gaining the world. They preferred physical enslavement of man over freedom from sin that's found in Christ and in Christ alone. Do you, friends? Do you? So great is humanity's hatred of God. So great is human depravity that he prefers physical enslavement to spiritual freedom. Do you? Do you? How many people hear the gospel being preached? By our team of street preachers, for example. Whether it's maybe outside of a stadium where the Seahawks are playing or the stadium where the Mariners play or wherever else they go. And yet those people who hear the gospel as they're walking in or walking out reject the good news. that Christ died for the sins of all who believe in Him. That we are reconciled to God in Him. And they choose instead, they walk right by, choosing instead friendship with the world. How many people? There are even many who sit in churches every week, and they hear the gospel being preached, and yet they continue to persist in rejecting Jesus as their King, choosing instead to be friends of the world, choosing instead to be friends of Caesar. Do not be counted among them, friends. Do not let that be said of you, that you hear the gospel and remain a friend of the world. Friendship with the world is never, ever worth it. In fact, God warns us that friendship with the world makes us his enemy, which means that friendship with the world ensures a person's eventual destruction. And Israel illustrated this for us as well, as their rejection of Jesus as their king ultimately resulted in the destruction of the city of Jerusalem by a man who came after Tiberius Caesar's reign, a man named Nero, who had Jerusalem absolutely leveled to the ground by Roman forces. It was an invasion in which 500,000 Israelites were slain, which means The next generation had to pay for their rejection. Their own children would suffer greatly for the way that their fathers rejected Jesus. Now, don't get me wrong, every person has to stand before God with their own sins, right? They're not being charged before God with the sins of their fathers, but the sins of their fathers had real temporal consequences for their children. Do you guys love your children? Can you imagine rejecting Jesus and them falling in your footsteps because they just don't know any better? That's a heavy weight. That is a heavy burden, but even worse than the eventual destruction of Jerusalem. was the eternal destruction of the souls of those who rejected Jesus as their God and King. How foolish, how insanely foolish it was for the Jews to reject Jesus as their King. And it is no less foolish, insanely foolish, for anyone today to reject Jesus as their personal God and Savior and King. Psalm 2 ends with this admonition, this instruction, for all who persist in rebelling against God's anointed, against Jesus. It says in Psalm 2 verse 12, do homage to the Son, that is submit to Him, revere Him as He is due, honor Him as He's due, worship Him as He's due, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way, for His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him. See, you can join the Jews, and you can choose to be friends of the world, having no king but Caesar. You can do that. But you must know that you cannot choose both friendship with the world and friendship with Christ. You can't be a friend of both the world and God. To be a friend of the world is to lose your soul. But to be a friend of Christ is to find it. It's to gain it. You must know that Caesar is a fickle, fickle friend. You must know that the world is passing away. You must know that if the cost of gaining the world is losing your soul, Friends, that is a terrible, terrible deal. And you must know that unlike the fickle friendship that the world offers, there is no better friend than Jesus. There is no more faithful friend than Jesus. To choose him, to believe in him, is to gain a friend who will be faithful and true, not only through this life, but through all of eternity. And he invites you to take refuge in him by grace alone, through faith alone, in him, in Christ alone, and to thereby find the richness of his blessings. But it comes at a cost. It means rejecting friendship with the world and letting the consequences be whatever they may be. in choosing to hand Jesus over to be crucified. Pilate chose to be a friend of the world. Let that never, ever be said of you, friends. Instead, may God grant each of us the grace, the wisdom, and the integrity, the courage to choose wisely, to believe savingly in Jesus regardless of the cost or consequence, and to be blessed by taking refuge in Him, in Him alone. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank You for Jesus. We thank You that You have turned our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. that we may choose friendship with Him over friendship with the world. Father, all we can do is confess before you that every inclination by nature within ourselves would incline us to be friends with the world. But we thank you for your grace. Your grace that opens our eyes. Your grace that transforms our hearts and our minds and our thinking. And allows us to see things as you see things. To see things as they really are. To see that apart from Christ, we stand condemned in darkness. We stand condemned in our sins. And we thank you that Jesus bore our sins. We thank you that he took our sins upon himself, that all of them were imputed to him, were transferred to him, and that in exchange by your grace, your righteousness, his perfect righteousness was imputed to us. that he would stand as though he had committed every sin that we have, and we may stand as if we had never sinned before you. Thank you for this great gift of redemption and reconciliation with you. We pray, Lord, that our lives would bear testimony to the fact that we choose to be friends with Jesus instead of friends of the world. Give us courage to face the consequences, whatever they may be, knowing that Jesus and friendship with Him is worth far, far, far more. In Christ's name we pray, Amen.