in your Bibles John chapter 18 remember last week we looked at verses 12 through 27 and we looked at the denial of Peter and as we looked at that we also looked at the possibility what's that this is live on it there you go see except I can't read it because it's in like very fine pen writing so Amen. So, uh, anyway, so we looked at his denial and then we asked about your denial, whether or not you deny the Lord in word or in work or in heart. And, uh, so this week we are picking up in verse number 28. We're going to read to the end of the chapter. Um, I know it's a little bit there to read, but we're going to read to the end of the chapter and we're going to just kind of go through it and make some comments on it and, uh, try to draw some applications and such as well. Amen. All right, John chapter number 18, verse number 28. Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the judgment hall. And it was early, and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover. Pilate then went out unto them and said, what occasion bring ye against this man? They answered and said unto him, If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto thee. Then said Pilate unto them, Take ye him and judge him according to your law. The Jews therefore said unto him, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death, that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he spake, signifying what death he should die. Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again and called Jesus and said unto him, Art thou the king of the Jews? Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me. What hast thou done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight. That I should not be delivered to the Jews, but now is my kingdom not from hence Pilate therefore said unto him Art thou a king then Jesus answered thou sayest that I am a king to this end was I born and for this cause I came I into the world that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all. But ye have a custom. that I should release unto you one at the Passover. Will you, therefore, that I release unto you the king of the Jews? Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this day. We thank you, Lord, for your word. We thank you, Lord, for just how this all came about and what it led to. Although it's a time of of sober rejoicing, just recognizing that what you went through for us is a sobering thought, and it's a sorrowful thought. But at the same time, it's a time of rejoicing, knowing that you ended up, as this continued on, you ended up taking our sin upon yourself. You were bruised for our transgressions, and Lord, we just thank you for sending your own son to die for us. We just pray, Father, now that you would help us to consider these things that were taking place up to that point, and Lord, we just pray that you'd help us to take good application as we consider this. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. All right. in John chapter 18 y'all know right they they had the time there with the disciples and then we have then we have the the prayer right there in chapter 17 and they go off into the garden right and we have this this time in the garden where there's prayer and such now it's not mentioned here in John but in other Gospels we see that there are those or that we see the account of Jesus praying to the father and then we have the Then we have the betrayer, Judas, coming and betraying him, bringing the chief priests or the soldiers there, officers rather, and they arrest him and they take him to basically a night trial, not necessarily a quote-unquote trial of his peers. It wasn't something that was brought before the people to be considered. There was no Sanhedrin meeting per se but the priests and and the chief rulers they're just kind of snuck it in at night took him to Caiaphas and and Caiaphas says that he's you know, hey, we want to we want to get rid of him we got to send him over to Pilate and so they take him to Pilate and He ends up Going to Pilate now. I'm just kind of kind of just summarizing I'm not hitting every detail, but he goes over to Pilate and and Uh, what takes place here, um, uh, is, uh, they, they go into the, so it starts out mentioning something interesting that we probably don't think about too much. And that is the fact that the Jews, when they brought him to the judgment hall, they did not go in. They just sent him in. And there are a few things to note here, and I'm trying not to take too much away from the main point of the message, but I want to make sure that we catch things as we go through as much as possible. So we see here that he goes in, or they send him in and they stay out. Why does it say that they stay out? They didn't want to be defiled. How is it that they would be defiled? Not the reason they didn't want to be defiled, but how is it that they would be defiled? Perhaps, could be. Although they end up then doing so, but perhaps. It was before Passover, right? They wanted to be able to eat the Passover, which it's an important feast, right? important thing. Of course they're missing the fact that they're actually bringing the Passover to be slaughtered, and then he's going to be the next day. but they wanted to not defile themselves. Now, my first thought was that maybe going into the judgment hall, and that's a good point, possibly bearing false witness or something, but my first thought really was that maybe there was some reason that entering into the judgment hall would have, yes, it was a Gentile judgment hall, but Pilot came out and spoke with them and they spoke back with him. So evidently talking to him wasn't going to defile them or maybe it did and they just didn't mention it or whatever. It could have been. Yeah, actually that's a good possibility that the judgment hall could have been. dedicated to a Roman God. Another thing could be, sometimes judgment halls are also feasting places, right? And so, you never know when you might show up at the judgment hall and Pilate's sitting there having him a big plate of bacon. Or, and bread, or something, right? Or, you know, bacon and eggs, right? And biscuits and gravy and all that stuff. Of course, it's the middle of the night, probably not. but for whatever reason, they're concerned about defiling themselves. And what this tells us isn't so much about them and defiling themselves, although we could probably try to dig down and try to figure something out there, but I think really more that we can take from this is the fact that, of the timing, the exact timing of what's taking place, right? What is specifically mentioned, somebody already said it, specifically mentioned at the end of verse number 28. What is that? Passover. The fact that Passover is at hand. This is important. This is extremely important because the timing. God doesn't do things by mistake, especially when it comes to fulfilling prophecy. When it comes to the initial Passover and the complete Passover, right? So the initial Passover was a picture of the complete Passover. So you have the interaction between Pilate and Jesus, and the things that I really wanted to just bring out were kind of the high points on this. Of course, Pilate is interested in the political factor, right? Pilate doesn't come in and say, and now he does ask him, what have you done, right? But the first thing he comes in and says is he says, now he asks them, he says, what accusation do you have? And they respond, now this is before he talks to Jesus, he's speaking to the leaders there. He says, what accusation bring ye against this man? Right? He's like, you're bringing him in here to be judged. What's your problem? What did he do to you? And I think it's interesting how they answered. They could have said he has committed blasphemy Because that was the accusation that that against him, right? Would that not be What he You know what what they they have here going on I mean they What's that? that's Well, there were there were accusations right but in another gospel They say, art thou the Christ? In another gospel, from another perspective, we hear him say, flat out, I am. And they said, remember he said, what further need have we? You've heard him with your own ears. And they said, this is blasphemy. I think it's interesting that they would say that someone who claims to be the Messiah is speaking blasphemy. I would say that you would then test, right? Well, he says he's the Messiah, let's look at the scriptures, right? Where is the king of the Jews born? Of course, they first were thinking, well, he's from Nazareth. No, he wasn't from Nazareth. I mean, that's where he ended up growing up and leaving out from, but he was born in Bethlehem. city of David this was an important factor something that they could have said where were you born sir let's think back at that time right remember the that he was born in Bethlehem then we see that the wise men who come are they come to to see the king of the Jews right and hmm forget the name now the king king Herod there we go he says he says you know where do we find this where do we find the king of the Jews so he asks I think it's interesting this is only you know that these ones who are accusing him are the ancients right in other words they were around, now maybe they were younger adults at the time, but it's only about 33 years after this whole incident with Herod, right? In Bethlehem, well, and from the region of Judea, Bethlehem specifically, he goes and he asks the leaders of the Jews, where is the Messiah supposed to be born? And they quote to him, I forget the passage they quoted, but they quote to him that it's to be in Bethlehem of Judah. And so, interestingly enough, they don't think to ask, sir, where were you born? Because they just assumed he came out of Nazareth. So he just must be from Nazareth. Missing the several facts of where the timeline and all of the different things that go into that. But we find, though, that they answer the question by simply saying, listen, pilot, you know that we wouldn't bring him to you if he hadn't done anything wrong. So. What did they tell him that he had done wrong? They didn't. They didn't have an accusation for him, for Pilate, here in this passage. They said, well, you know that we wouldn't bring somebody who never did anything wrong to you, right? We wouldn't bring him to you if he didn't do anything wrong. Why you gotta ask us that? How do you think that would fly? You show up in court and the judge says, plaintiff, what's your accusation against the defendant? Say, don't you see where we're at? We're in court. I obviously wouldn't be here if he didn't do something wrong to me. Well, you're right. I'm sorry, yeah. Should have realized that I was in court this morning in my robe and sitting at the judgment seat here. Okay. But the fact is there's no accusation brought. And then we see, now that's not saying that they didn't accuse him in other times and other places. It's just saying that right here, they're just like, look, you know, obviously this guy evil he's a malefactor obviously or we wouldn't have brought him to you right he's they're like if he were not a malefactor we would not have delivered him up unto thee then pilot says well do what you're gonna do take ye him and judge him according to your law and notice They say, what? It is not lawful for us to put any man to death. Wait a minute. What has he done? He did something, that's for sure. Well, then go judge him. Well, we can't kill him, you got to. I'm simplifying for us, you know, hillbilly folk. Right? Okay, I'll be back, I'll go talk to him. So Pilate comes in, and then it gives a little point here that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he spake, signifying the death he should die. What did Jesus say about the death he should die? He said that he would be taken and crucified. He said that ahead of time before it happened. And guess what? The door opened. And they took him. What's that? Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't lock the door. But we're gonna lock the door. Oh, we'll be all right. We'll be all right. So what? Oh, yeah, blocks good. I mean, actual tornado might just pick us all up and take us somewhere, but they could pick blocks up. So maybe it's I mean, what? All right, live event. So nobody get hurt. Okay. Hey man, so Working on firing him and finding somebody else but there you go Good timing though, of course, right? So anyway, so he goes in That was pilot walking in the door no, he comes in and he says I Oh, wait a minute, let's back up before he comes in. Jesus said he would be crucified, right? And then in verse 33, it says he enters into the judgment hall again, and he calls Jesus to him, and immediately, politics, right? Who is Pilate? He's a governor of sorts, right? Some sort of leader, right? The Roman ruler of that place, that area. Actually, I think the title's governor for that, but they didn't do like cities and states and all. You'd have the region, and then you'd have governors and kings. and then the emperor is Caesar, he's the king emperor. Right, you'd have various different, anyways, without going into all the Roman politics and positions and everything, Pilate is a politician of sorts. Little bit different way that that works. The Roman Empire started out a democracy, ended up a dictatorship, the way that they would get into power would have some to do with some influence that they would have with the leadership above them, but it would also have to do with the area that they're governing, right? As you'll find when the apostles are going and preaching, and there's like an uproar with Paul in Ephesus, and he's like, the leader comes out, he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on everybody. we're gonna be called into question from this uproar, right? He's worried about his job. And he's like, hey, settle down, right? Well, Pilate is here to say, well, what's going on? What's the, you know, first question, art thou the king of the Jews? First question, are you the king of the Jews? So at this point, there's another Herod who is a king who rules the Jews at this time. So Pilate comes in and he's like, so you must be Herod, you're just like dressed up somebody different, right? No, that's not what he's doing. But he asked him, are thou the king of the Jews? Are you the king of the Jews? And you'll find, and we'll deal with it, we'll talk about it a little bit more when we get to when we get to chapter 19, but Pilate is honing in on a particular thing. You know, politicians are really good at finding when somebody's up in arms about something, let's use this, right? So that's exactly what he's doing. He's going to determine that this man must be the king of the Jews, and I am going to, if I have to, I'm going to execute the king of the Jews. And that's what we're going to do. Amen. I don't know if that's wind or rain or what that is. But praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. We still have lights for now until Okay, we still have lights. All right. So you know, with this weather, we do we do run the risk of of losing power. But our sound equipment, except for our speakers, are on battery backup. So we'll keep streaming live and our internet still on battery backup. So theoretically, it should continue working just fine. I'll just put my phone on flashlight. We'll go. So in case of an emergency, the safest place for you to be is are so The window pretty solid. Brother Travis put him in so. And the walls are all block that. You put that one in and that one. You put two of the three windows. Yeah, I mean those holes in the trash bags over and that's the. I'm just kidding. So. Those of you that are having some sort of storm right now that's interrupting us. So, here we are in the judgment hall, Pilate's honing in right on, hey, you a king or what? What gives here? And he's, I think, genuinely somewhat curious about whether or not Jesus is a king, or claims to be the king of the Jews. And so he asks them, or asks him rather, Then Jesus says, did you bring this? Did you think or did somebody else tell you? Notice that they didn't come to him saying that he said he was the king. He came to Jesus asking, are you the king of the Jews? That's why Jesus asks him, so is this in your own head or did somebody say this to you? By the way, there were probably a lot of little things going on in the background and the you know, you know that those who were in leadership knew what was going on in their in their area. They weren't completely like, Oh, well, who's this guy that they're bringing here, right? He knew what was going on. He was probably informed by others probably had ears the ground in various places in the city as well as regionally, right? But we'll find here that he asks the question of whether or not he's a king, and he asks him, well, who told you? Where'd this question come from? And Pilate responds, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Am I a Jew? You know, you're not my king, is what he's saying, basically. Am I a Jew? Then he says, Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me. What hast thou done? They won't tell me. Maybe you will. What hast thou done? Don't you hate when that happens? When you're in trouble for something, you don't know what it is. And then somebody asks you, what did you do? Well, if you did something, you know what you did, right? But if you didn't do something, that's a tough question to answer, isn't it? What did you do? I don't know. I didn't do anything right. That's exactly right. You get pulled over and he said and the officer says, Sir, do you know why I pulled you over? You were bored. I don't know. What did you do is what he's asking you, right? Say I was in front of you. And your lights were on. That's right. I don't know. Did you pull me over, sir? And then he says, well, you were going 55 and a 35. And I said, well, my GPS says it's 55. So I just was going by. Anyways, and then he gives you a warning. And I'm glad he didn't crucify me anyways. So. So we see here, he asked, what did you do? He says, and so he just goes back to answering the other question. My kingdom is not of this world. My kingdom is not of this world. else or then would my servants fight right so now if you remember in the garden when he was arrested what happened because of the confusion about the coming of Christ Peter took out his sword and was ready to defend his king. But Peter didn't realize that at that time, I believe Peter did not realize that the coming of Christ for the first time was for him to be crucified, not to be kinged. So that's where the confusion was, right? That's why he fought at first. And Jesus said, put away your sword. And then in another passage, you find he picks up the guy's ear and just puts it back on. Kind of neat. I would appreciate that if somebody cut my ear off, if somebody else would pick it up and put it back on. Rather than going to the hospital and having them staple it back on. What's that? Yeah, and then I'd take him to jail right now. No, I wouldn't. He says, then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But notice what he says. He says, but now is my kingdom not from hence. He says, now, is it not of this world? Right? In other words, he's saying it's not it's it's not of this world. Now. I don't have a kingdom here now. The fact of the matter is, it's because he hasn't yet come for his kingdom to be in place. At that point, he was not there to be the king. He was there to be the crucified one. When he comes again, he will come to be the king and there will be no question. Nobody's gonna say, art thou a... They won't finish the sentence. Art thou the king of the Jews? No, they're gonna know when he comes in the clouds and every eye sees him and all the nations wail because of him. And Israel looks upon him whom they have pierced. And then the sword proceeds out of his mouth and slays all of Israel's enemies in a moment. Nobody's gonna ask, I wonder if this is the Messiah. No, they're not. They're gonna say, yep, that's him. Here he is, ready to bow. That's him. Here he is. King Jesus is coming in and he's going to walk through the eastern gate and he's going to sit down on the throne of David and he's going to rule there for a thousand years just like he said so. And by the way he will rule his kingdom forever. It's just going to be transplanted from this earth to the new heaven to the new Jerusalem and his kingdom will never end. But we find here that it wasn't time And his kingdom wasn't here yet, right? That's why he said when he was here, the way, what we should pray, one of the things that we should be praying is that his kingdom would come. Why? Because it's not here yet. Now, from the spiritual perspective, his kingdom is here. He rules from heaven, the hearts of men on earth today. However, there's coming a time when he will rule from earth, all of men. Right? And so whether from the heart or not, he will rule. We'll find at the end of that thousand years, there were many who did not follow from the heart, they just followed because of what was convenient, what would work for them. Unfortunately, we have those today that do that, right? They say they follow the Lord because of him, but in all reality, they follow him because of them, because of what they're going to get from him. And in that day, that thousand year period, when nobody's going to say, hey, know the Lord. They're not going to say that. Why? Because everybody's going to know. Everybody's going to know and say, well, Messiah, say, go to the capital of the world and find out he's sitting on the throne. Nobody's going to wonder because they're going to know they're not going to have to be told because they're going to know. But they will serve Him because of what they're getting from Him. Because as they serve Him, He rains the rain upon them and shines the sun upon them and allows them to have crops and allows them to have what they need. And if they don't, guess what? They don't get all that. It's like our housing ministry. Sometimes people may come in and they may follow the Lord while they're forced to when it benefits them and then when it doesn't benefit them anymore, guess what? See you later. We never see them again. Why is that? Because they were using God. Now, I don't mean that everybody that disappeared, that's why. I understand sometimes people move to be with family and they're further away. I understand that, but there are some cases that that's how it works. People serve God because of what God gives them, instead of what they have for Him. I'm glad Brother C.D.' 's still with us. Amen. He's been out of the place for two months now? Three months? No? Two months? Hadn't been quite two? June. June 2nd. So July, August, almost three months. Yeah, almost two and a half months and you still haven't, we still haven't run you off. Amen. We got you. We got you here and you're still here. Amen. But he says here, now is my kingdom not from hence. Pilate therefore said unto him, art thou a king then? It's like, well, uh-oh, wait a minute. He just said my kingdom. So Pilate, he must be a king. He must be a king. If he's got a kingdom, he must be a king. Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause I came, or came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice. He's not trying to speak random things to confuse Pilate. He's saying exactly what he needed to say, and in fact, if you've If you look at history, you'll find that Pilate's conversation with Jesus and his decision regarding Jesus plagued him and haunted him for the rest of his life. If you remember, if you look at history, what happened to Pilate? Anybody know what happened with Pilate after the fact? It's not recorded in the Bible. He kept trying to wash his hands. He kept trying to wash his hands and he could not, he could not be clean. He could not stop washing his hands. In fact, he took himself into a body of water, I can't remember which one it was, wringing his hands and drowned himself. Committed suicide. That's how Pilot died. If I'm remembering correctly, this is what ended up happening. Plagued with this thing. Now, if you remember another account of this, remember Pilot's wife says, hey, don't, yeah, don't do it. Get back, don't be involved in this. Says, I've had some bad dreams. So don't, don't do it. Don't do it. Right? I don't know. Maybe she was having dreams of pilot later on and what was going to happen from this. Who knows? But he tells pilot what he said. He says, uh, what he says to pilot. And I believe that it impacts him. I believe that it sticks with him for the rest of his life. And by the way, I believe that pilot right now still replays this conversation over and over and over again in the grave. Imagine that, having to think about the fact that you stood face to face with the one who could save you from eternal damnation And you said, well, not my problem. What did he say? He said, what is truth? And then he walked out. Pilot by this point has obviously experienced a whole lot of lying and deceiving and all kinds of, all manner of deception. as a politician here of the world power at the time, all kinds of, I mean, by this point, and by the way, the more leadership you involve yourself in and find yourself in, the more you find that what some people think is the truth is absolutely not the truth. Not saying that they're outright lying, some people just have no idea. Their perception is wrong. And by the time you get to the point where you've had hundreds of people come to you and give you an account of something that they think has happened. And then you go and you search it out and you're like, that's not at all what happened. And then you, you have others come to you and they say this happened on this thing. And that's not at all what happened by the time you get to. the point where you're you've had thousands of accounts of people coming to you and asking you to judge something and telling you this is what happened and this person said this and this person did that and then next thing you're like you know what I just don't know how is it even possible to know whether this person's telling the truth whether they're intentionally lying or whether they have no idea what they're talking about. Anybody ever been there? Right? It's like, I want to believe you. I don't believe you're lying to me. You know, then that's what people say when you say, you know, I want to believe you. And they're like, well, I would lie to you. Okay, well, I'll take you at your word that you wouldn't lie to me. But it may be that you don't know the truth that you just think you do, right? doesn't mean that I think they're lying to me. It means that I think they just don't know. And so This is where we get sometimes, right? You get to where you like you just... How am I to know? Well, you can stick with one thing. Had Pilate stayed in the room long enough for Jesus to answer him, Jesus might have said... What he said. Chapter 14. When Thomas Thomas said, Thomas asked him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest. And how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way. The truth and the life, no man cometh unto the father, But by me, he could have just repeated that had pilots stayed in the room long enough. I picture pilots saying what is truth and just storming off. Not pilot could have said no. Pilot could have said no, but he was. He was afraid of the crowd. And you'll find another in parallel passages that they manipulated as well. And they said, we have no king but Caesar. Right. And because he he presents him as the king of the Jews. What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do about this? Right. Actually, in fact, we see. Pilate says in chapter 19, verse number five, behold, the man And they said, crucify him, crucify him. He says, take ye him and crucify him for I find no fault in him. And in saying this, he's on the fence. He had the authority to say no. I find no fault in him. No. But instead of saying no, he said, you do it. And by saying that, he gave them permission to do it. Thinking that giving them permission to do it and washing his hands of it, as we find he does, he thinks that he can just say, well, let me tell you that if you were to stand in front of Pilot today and ask him, is it possible to wash your hands of something, he would shake his head and he would say no. No, no, no, it is not possible to wash your hands of anything, everything you do. In fact, when you wash your hands of something, you've chosen a direction, right? When somebody says, I'm washing my hands of you, you deal with your, you just get on and do what you're gonna do, guess what you've done? You have chosen to push them in the direction that they're going. You can't wash your hands of anyone. You know, sometimes people say, well, I've had him, I'm washing my hands of, I'm just not gonna get involved anymore, not gonna talk to him anymore, not gonna do anything. Guess what you've done? You've cut off God's ability to use you to help them in their life. You don't wash your hands of people. Pilot would tell you that. He didn't know it then, but he knows it now. You can't wash your hands. You can't just say, oh, I'm clean. not my problem, because it is our problem, right? Whatever it is, it's our problem. But you see, Pilate says, what is truth? And then leaves. And again, Jesus could have said, I am the truth. I am truth. But Pilate goes out and says to the Jews, listen, I don't know what your problem is, but I can't find anything wrong with this guy. What do you want me to do? And then he has this thought, oh yeah, that's right. I can release, I can pardon somebody, right? Now that doesn't mean that he couldn't pardon both of them. He just used this little loophole so to speak to say oh yeah we have a custom right look who cares about the custom what's the law what's the law the law is that the Jews cannot execute someone without Roman permission by the way that's why Jesus said to the Jews there that brought the woman taking an adultery. That's why he said, he that is without sin cast the first stone. It wasn't because he was trying to say, you can't judge her because you're sinners. No, he was throwing out something that he knew would keep him from being held in account by the Jews or the Romans because they were trying to deceive him. They were trying to get him caught and tripped up because if he would have said, well, she committed adultery, kill her. Guess what? The Jews didn't have authority to execute someone without Roman permission. And if he would have done that, they would have said, see, you don't follow Rome. You can't be the Messiah. You're a lawbreaker. Or if he would have said, go ask the Romans, guess what they would have said? Well, he can't be the Messiah because the Messiah is not going to submit to the Romans. Trying to trick him on both sides. And so that's why he said, he that is without sin cast the first stone. He wasn't trying to tell everybody, hey, this is something y'all need to use later on in the future. Because you're a sinner, you can't say that somebody else did something wrong. By the way, my first question would be, where's the man? If she was caught in the act, where's the man? The law says both of them die. In other words, which one of you men are dying with her today? That's another reason I believe he said he that is without sin very well could have meant which of you have not been with her cast the first stone. Yeah. Anyhow, we see though, that Pilate says, I find in him no fault at all. I like the fact that he says at all, no fault at all. By the way, this isn't just in your New Testament. You can find the historical documentation that Pilate told the Jews. I find no fault in him at all. in case you wondered whether or not they crucified Jesus for just cause. The ruler told them no. He just basically said, you know what? I'm out. I don't see any problem with him. If you want to do something, that's up to you. And so he says, but you have a custom that I should release unto you one at Passover. Will you therefore that I release unto you the king of the Jews? I think, by the way, this was a slightly sly remark, because Pilate had to have known that if he said, King of the Jews, they would immediately respond in indignation. And they did. They cried, saying, says, Then cried they all, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Give us the one that stole from us. We want him. would rather have him. There's a neat story in this as well, a neat application there, and that is that Jesus took Barabbas' place when Barabbas deserved death. And by the way, it wasn't just a robber. Other passages, you're gonna find that he was also a murderer and he was involved in insurrection. He was a rebel. Now in this pat, now it's not saying, I'm not saying that he was wrong about him being a robber. He was a robber, but he was also one who rebelled against Roman rule, rebelled against Jewish rule, was trying to raise up people against the leadership of the day. He was a seditious fellow. And they said, hey, You know what? Give us the worst sinner you got in there, the worst criminal. Keep him. And you know what that says to me? If Jesus died for the worst criminal, how hard is it for me to receive forgiveness? He died in his place. He died in my place too. well I've committed too great of sins I can't be forgiven Barabbas was died for I don't know if he was forgiven or not because I don't know if he ever repented there's an interesting movie about Barabbas like like it's a I'm pretty sure it's not true but just about him you know getting saved or whatever because of Jesus dying in his place and all that interesting thought but I don't know don't know that it happened but But as we look through this and as we see this, I'm not just trying to make it like, hey, look at what happened here and see these things that happened. The application for us needs to be, first of all, is he your king? I hope so. I hope so. And I don't mean just in position. I hope he's your king in practice, and not just for what you can get from him. but what you can give to him, right? See, we serve our king because he first served us. He gave us the opportunity for eternal life. When he took our place, when we deserve to be crucified, he took our place. When we deserve eternity in hell, he took our place. He paid our sin, our sin debt. And now he gives all of us the opportunity to be born again. And in his kingdom, able to serve him. In his kingdom now, being the kingdom in heaven, but ruled from our hearts, or in our hearts, right? And then the kingdom later, when he comes to earth. Amen? So, by the way, if you don't serve him today, you're really not gonna like the future very much. That's the thing, when people, you know, sometimes Christians have a hard time serving God now. Think about this. You know right now is just preparation for later. Because we're serving him now when, you know, heaven's temporary. The heaven that is now, it's temporary. We go up there, we enjoy our time with him, then we're coming back. We'll be back here on this planet for 1,000 years alive. Everybody that's born again will be alive for 1,000 years on this planet. And you know what we're gonna do for that 1,000 years? It's not gonna be about my job and my economic status and my family and all this. No, no, no, it's gonna be about serving the king. Now, think about this. If we have a hard time serving the king, for the short 70, 80, 90, 100 years that we live now, how is it now, I know we're gonna be glorified bodies and all that, everything's gonna change and the curse is gone, all that, but rather than that or outside of that fact, how is it that we could claim that we're gonna be okay with serving him for 10 times the amount of life that we're going to have today in the future? How is it, right? Folks who say they're Christians, but they don't like church. You're not going to like heaven. Not going to like heaven. You made the wrong decision. You probably should have just decided, you know what? Take the course. I'm not saying that you should have chosen to go to hell, but I kind of am, aren't I? You didn't weigh it, right? Jesus said, count the cost. Right? No man sits down and says, well, build a building. Don't build me a tower. Let's get started. No, what's he do? He sits down and he says, Okay, hold on a minute. He gets his exacto made out, he sketches it up, and he starts writing his estimate. He figures out what it's gonna cost him. Right? I don't know that Jesus was saying you get exactly made out right, but what do you do? You estimate, you figure out what's it going to cost me first? Lest you start the tower and you don't finish and everybody, everybody that walks by says, Oh, yeah, that's that guy that couldn't figure out whether or not he could do it. He started his work that he couldn't finish. Right? Instead, you plan. Right? But he wasn't saying that to give us some practical advice for today, although we could use it as good practical advice. It was talking about like, hey, count the cost. What you're getting yourself into when you get saved. You are getting yourself into something. Sometimes we don't really know what we've gotten ourself into, right. But if you saved today, now you do. Now you know. By the way, the Christian life isn't just about turmoil and trial and trabajo. Sorry, I was looking for another T word, and that's the Spanish word for work. That's not all that it is, but you know what? I rest in the Lord and I get to work a whole bunch in His strength, right? In His strength. Sometimes it hurts my back. Sometimes it hurts my elbows. Sometimes it hurts my head. But the fact of the matter is, what's that? What's that in light of eternity? You know, we have such small amount of time here. And people I mentioned to people and people ask me all they're like, how do you find time to do all that? I say I don't have time to do all the stuff that I do. I don't I don't I don't. I make I have maker. It's in my car. I just make time. I just, you know, it's this little tool that I have in my car and makes time. And so I actually get 46 hours a day when you get 24 hours a day. So that's how I get all the things that I get done. That's how I'm so involved in all that I'm involved in. Right? No, we know that's not true. Not at all. But the fact is, we often say we're not promised tomorrow. Right? So why do today what you can put off for tomorrow? Wrong. Why, why wait till tomorrow to do you know, that's why when I get claims, I schedule them for today. Now, I scheduled for as soon as I could possibly do them, right? So I can get the stuff done and out of the way and get on to the next thing, right? As people say, why are you in such a hurry to get everything done? Because I only have so much life. And when it's over, I've done everything I can. Right? Are we ready for the kingdom? I hope so. I hope so. The way you get ready for the kingdom is you learn to be diligent today. Yes, a lot of things are going to be fixed when we're resurrected, but I do believe that he pretty well clearly spells out what we're going to be or how much responsibility we're going to be given in the kingdom based upon how much responsibility we took now. So who's going to be the guy cleaning out the sewers? And who's going to be the guy ruling the city? I think that might have a little bit to do with what we do here. We don't think about it. Now that, by the way, that's temporary too. See, I mentioned temporary brother. I said to brother Travis something temporary the other day. I can't remember what I think is a building or whatever. I was like, it's just temporary three to five years. And he's like three to five years. That's pretty permanent. I'm like, well, three to five years is very temporary. You know, 35 years is temporary. A thousand years is temporary in light of eternity. Everything's temporary. Uh, in fact, we'll never have a permanent church building. Not till the New Jerusalem. It's all temporary. What's that? The church will be the New Jerusalem. So, you read Revelation 21. Saw the bride, right? Coming down out of heaven. Or I saw New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven as a bride prepared. That's the church. So, what are we doing? Are we ready? He's coming to the end here in our passage here. He's coming to the end of his mission on the planet. Now some of us are, here's the thing, we don't know how long we have. Brother Rob talks about he might not have too much longer. I think he's got a little while. I think he's got just as much time as each of us do from the perspective of the fact that none of us know how much time we have. In other words, they may have more time than some of the younger children even. I hope the children all grow up to be Well actually I hope the Lord comes back and we don't have to compare how long who's gonna stay around and just we all get to go. But I hope I get everything done I'm supposed to get done before he does. I sure wouldn't want to have a to-do list when Jesus comes back, you know, and then for him to show me, oh yeah, you missed a few things. I could have done this, and this, and this, and this, and this with you, but you were too busy doing this, and this, and this, and that. Man. Right? That's exactly right. We don't want to be found wanting, right? That's lacking, like you found, oh man, well, I was going to do that, but didn't get around to it, right? And I don't mean a little round disk thing that says round to it on it. I mean, you know. The thing is, so so from all of this, you say, man, we got there's a whole lot of stuff here we can apply, right? He's he's toward the end. We're in the last days. Times, times of wasting, right? Amen. Well, whoever that is has a key so. When they lock it back, the winds pulling it open. Yeah. Yeah, the wind pulled it open earlier. It was perfect. I said something about pilot came in the judgment hall in the door open. Like OK. So alright. So we're gonna we're gonna close up here and and have some dinner, I want you all to consider the king of the Jews. By the way, he's not just the king of the Jews. He's the king of glory. What's that mean to you? Spend some time talking to the Lord about what it means to you. Let's pray.