Now returning again to the Gospel of John chapter 19. And our text this morning is found in the verse 19 of the same chapter. There we read that Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross. And the writing was Jesus of Nazareth. the King of the Jews. Let's just seek the help of God in prayer. Father in heaven, to give help indeed now in the preaching and in the hearing of thy precious truth, we ask our Father that through thy Holy Spirit that thou would minister to each and every one of us. That thou, O God, who looks not upon the outward appearance but upon the heart, we pray that thou would come And speak to us of the very point of our need, that whatever our spiritual condition might be this day, that we might find that answer, hope, even in the Word of God, that the my Holy Spirit would cause us to follow after Christ more fully and more completely. If help now we pray, I ask again through Christ our Saviour. Amen. This morning I want to draw your attention to the sign that was placed above the head of the Lord Jesus Christ while he hung upon the cross. And our text tells us that Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross. And the writing was Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. Back in the 17th century, it wasn't unusual for people to be seared with branding irons as a public recognition of their crimes. The letter T would have been branded on one who was guilty of being a thief. The letter A was reserved for those who had been found guilty of adultery. And after being sentenced by the court, they'd have been brought to a public place and branded with the letter of their accusation. And they would have carried with them that mark all their days for everyone to see their shame and to know the crimes of which they'd been guilty. In more recent times, I read of a man from Sydney who was forced to sit at the side of a road with a placard. I think it was his wife who gave it to him. listing the crimes of which he had been guilty, namely of adultery and of not taking care of his family. And he wore that sign for all the passerbys to see, see something of his guilt, to ridicule him for his folly. And I've no doubt it was a demeaning experience for him this public acknowledgement of his guilt. Well, the nailing of the notice on the cross above the Lord Jesus Christ was for that purpose. It was part of the humiliation of our Saviour. He had been arrested He had been forced to stand trial, he had been interrogated and finally he had been found guilty and charged with blasphemy and with insurrection. He was beaten, whipped and condemned to be crucified and as he walked through the streets of Jerusalem, pulling behind him that cross upon which he would later be crucified, the sign The accusation that had been levelled against him would have been carried before him. And as people stopped to see this ghastly sight, they read the accusation. Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. When they finally arrived at Golgotha, drove those nails through his hands and his feet, as they lifted him into the earth upon that cross, hanging there in unimaginable pain, that accusation was nailed above his head. And everyone that passed by could read that outline of the crimes for which he had been accused and was now dying. John tells us that they set it over his head. The superscription carried these words, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. Each of the four Gospel writers, Matthew and Mark and Luke and John, tell us about this inscription. Mark tells us that it was a written superscription. Matthew tells us that it was set above our Saviour's head. Luke tells us that it was written in three languages, in Hebrew and Latin and Greek. John tells us that the man who actually chose the wording was Pilate himself. Each of them have something to say about the sign veiled above our Saviour's head. This sign, this notice, was a revelation of Christ's shame, Christ's humiliation and Pilate's shame. Pilate dictated the words, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. Now let's remember something, Pilate despised the Jewish people. With all of their talk of a coming Messiah, with all other thought of a king who would raise the nations in glory and dispel their enemies. Pilate hated them. And we can see him thinking, how can I be as irritating and annoying as possible? You see, Pilate felt humiliated. He had been backed into a corner. He didn't want to condemn this man. He sought to release him. He even presented them with the most awful of choices. To release Barabbas, the most guilty of insurrectionists, instead of the Lord Jesus Christ, one of whom Pilate said he could find no guilt within. But they backed him into a corner. And they forced Pilate to release Barabbas and crucify Jesus. You see, the people were determined that he was to be crucified. So Pilate taunted them. Even through the course of the trial, when he realised that he was going to have to put this man to death, he brought him out before the crowd of people and he said to them, behold your king. They brought out the bleeding Savior who had been whipped and scourged. He asked them a little later in verse 15, shall I crucify your King? Forcing them to the protest, we have no King but Caesar. And since Pilate has been forced to go against his conscience, He both physically and publicly washes his hands of the responsibility of the death of the Lord Jesus. And then, no doubt in an angry temper, he summons his scribe and he tells him, get your quill out and take down this notice. Put these words on a placard, have it carried before Jesus through the streets of Jerusalem and then nail it above his cross. Write it down, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. It was no doubt intended as a humiliation for our Saviour. The King of the Jews. These words were meant to belittle the Jewish people and mock the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. What sort of king was this? Bruised, broken, bleeding, dying? In Pilate's mind this is the sort of king that such a pathetic people are worthy of having. This is their king. What a humiliation for the Lord Jesus Christ. When we look at that scene at Calvary, the most holy and solemn scene that the world has ever witnessed. When we know that the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour was bearing the justice of God against our sin. We see him being mocked. and demeaned and humiliated by Pontius Pilate. He's going to use this sign above our Saviour's head as an act of revenge. Something to heal his damaged pride. He's had to send this man to the cross in order to save his job. Knowing that he was unworthy of such a death. And Pilate allowing this blameless man to die in this horrific way, it's no wonder that he's bitter. These horrible Jews have a pathetic king and here he is. The king of the Jews. What's Pilate saying here? He's saying the death of this man is not my doing. He is the unfortunate king of some other people. It's an attempt to distance himself from what's happening. He's telling the world, I'm not the one responsible for this injustice. It's his own people that have crucified him. He understands that I'm not one of his subjects. It's the Jewish people that have rejected him and killed their own king. It's got nothing to do with me. Others did it. You know, we hear the same stance being taken today by many. They'll protest concerning the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's got nothing to do with me. Others are responsible. Another place. Another time. Not me. Not my sin. You see, while people will readily acknowledge and recognise the Lord Jesus Christ being Great. A colossus of history. The preacher of the Sermon on the Mount. The man who loved his enemies and prayed for them. The only sinless man that this world has ever seen. Yes, he's great. But then they add, but we're not responsible for his death. Not us. The sins of others put him on the cross. Not my sins. Is that what many say? They want to wash their hands of their responsibility for the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Pilate puts this placard above the cross, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, and we're told that it was written in three languages. In Greek, in Latin, in Hebrew, Those three languages would have been known by the vast majority of the entire world at that time. The Jewish people that gathered to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover, as they walked by the cross, would be able to read it in the Hebrew language. We might refer to that as the language of the religious. But then it was also written above his head in the language of Greek. Greek was the language of culture. It was the language of the civilised world. It was the language of the philosophers and the learners. It was also written in Latin. The language of the Romans. The language of law and order and of power. This superscription in Hebrew and Greek and Latin, the languages of the religious, the languages of the cultured, the languages of the powerful and the lawmakers, they've all condemned him to this death. We might say that these three languages combine to mock the Lord Jesus Christ who has come to be the prophet, the priest and the king. And yet what Pilate has written as an act of mockery and scorn, God will overrule and honour his son. For you see, the Lord Jesus Christ is David's greater son. He was born into the royal line of Judah. The angel told Mary at the beginning of Christ's life, She was told that she would give birth to the Lord God. He shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Luke chapter 1 verses 32 and 33. This was David's greater son. He'll ascend to the throne of his father David, he'll rule over the house of Jacob, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. And here at the end of his life Pilate wrote these words, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. It's a title that vindicated While it was meant for mockery and scorn, there is an honour here, and a dignity, and there's truth being recorded for all to read. They had called him a blasphemer, and they had whipped him, and stripped him, and kneeled him to that cross, but as they read the superscription, the King of the Jews Everyone who read it was reading the truth. Now the Jewish authorities didn't like it. They urged Pilate to change the wording. Don't write the King of the Jews. Write that he said, I am the King of the Jews. Pilate said, what I have written, I have written. I am not changing it. I won't alter a word. This is the man who was like the reed blowing in the wind a few moments back. Now he's a man of resolution and determination. His heart is in God's hands. God will not allow him to change. The King of the Jews. Lord Pilate wrote concerning the Lord Jesus Christ that he was the son of David, the King of the Jews. Now he read a portion in Daniel chapter 2, a very solemn prophecy given to King Nebuchadnezzar in a dream. And in his dream he saw an enormous statue, dazzling and awesome. The head of the statue was made of pure gold, the chest and the arms of silver, the belly and the thighs of bronze, the legs of iron and the feet of iron and clay mixed together. And as the king saw that huge statue, he witnessed a rock dislodged from the mountain that bounded down the hill and struck the statue upon its feet of iron and clay and smashed And then the iron and the clay and the bronze and the silver and the gold were broken into pieces. They exploded into chaff and the wind swept them away and left no trace of them. There was no hint of where it even stood. But the rock that struck the statue began to grow and to expand and became a huge mountain that filled the entire earth. Such was his dream. And Daniel explained to the king the meaning of the dream. It was a vision of the future. The King Nebuchadnezzar was the head of gold and his empire of Babylon was the greatest on the earth. But there would come a time when Babylon would give way to another empire. That would be the chest and the arms of silver. And following that would come another empire. The bronze belly and the thighs. Then would come the empire of iron, the strongest in many ways, but with divisions and weaknesses like iron mixed with clay. But what about this rock that would become more powerful than them all and expand and fill the whole earth? Well Daniel explained that. He said, In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom. which shall never be destroyed, and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. For as much as thy sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it break in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver and the gold. The great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter. The dream is certain and the interpretation thereof sure." Nebuchadnezzar's dream was a revelation of what would happen over the next 500 years. Babylon's empire of gold would be replaced by the silver empire of the Medes and Persians. That empire would eventually be conquered by Alexander the Great, who established the bronze empire of Greece. And finally that empire would be crushed by the iron strength of Rome. And Rome would seek to attempt to unite the iron with the clay of the conquered territories, yet never succeeding fully. And these empires would rise and fall just as God told Daniel they would. And the small rock that was dislodged from the mountain, the one that was not cut by hand, No human hand formed it in other words. It was formed by God himself in the womb of the Virgin Mary. The babe Jesus was born in Bethlehem because that's where Caesar Augustus had issued a decree and a census would take place over the entire Roman world. And our Saviour's life would take place under that Roman occupation in Judea. He lived during the time of the iron rulers of Rome. But he is the stone from the mountain in Nebuchadnezzar's dream. The one that was prophesied to smash in pieces the great statue that glorified man. Now, is that what you see when you read John chapter 19 this morning? Can you read of our Saviour's crucifixion and His slow death upon the cross? Can you say, yes, that's the stone that's going to smash the empires of men to pieces? You wouldn't think that, would you? That's the last thing on our mind when we see the Saviour struggling to survive on Golgotha. As we witness Him being crucified under Pontius Pilate, look at Him. suspended upon a cross, gasping for breath, dying. The Roman soldiers are gambling just a few metres away for his road. And yet there, in the Hebrew language, we find recorded for us the triumph of the Son of Man. We read the taunt the King of the Jews. And we are wondering, who has won? The statues of the empires of men or the rolling stone? And it seems to outward appearances that the statue has triumphed, that the stone has merely bounced off the statue and broken in pieces. Ah, but in the dream the stone destroyed the statue. But surely here, on this hill just outside of Jerusalem, something has happened. In real life it seems that the Gentile empires have triumphed over the King of Heaven. Has paganism conquered free religion? The title above our Saviour's head seems to underline his humiliation. And pile of shame. Ah, but the cross is not the end of the story. The phrase, the King of the Jews, would not be the last word that day. Because we know that on the third day he rose from the dead. That he said to his friends, peace be with you. The Lord Jesus will have the last word. There in Jerusalem, in the very place which our Saviour was crucified on the day of Pentecost, our Saviour pours out His Spirit upon a group of former cowards and runaways. And these men will become the King's champions. and they'll preach the word of God with great boldness. And thousands of men in Jerusalem, very many of them who stood and called out, crucify Him, crucify Him. Thousands of them will believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as King of Kings. And by the Spirit of God enter into His kingdom. The Lord Jesus Christ is beginning to set up his kingdom in Jerusalem. His own people are beginning to believe. A little while later in the book of Acts, we read of a Roman centurion by the name of Cornelius, who calls for Peter to come and to preach the gospel to him and to his circle of friends and family. Then we find the Apostle Paul taking the Gospel message into Greece. And at the same time, a church is being established in Rome. And even in Caesar's household, there are believers breaking bread and fellowshipping in the Gospel. And what's happening? The stone is growing. And it's filling the entire world. And God is setting up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, just as Daniel had predicted. And today, 2,000 years after our Saviour's birth, 2,600 years from Nebuchadnezzar's dream, where is the empire of Babylon today? Where are the Medes and the Persians? Where is the empire of the Greeks or of the Romans? They are resigned to the history books. And the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ remains and today it includes people out of every nation and every kindred and every people and every tongue. The great empires of men have crumbled to the dust. Rulers have come and gone. Empires have risen and fallen. But Christ and His kingdom continues to fill the earth and will remain forever. The truth of the Bible is confirmed when it says in Revelation 11 verse 15 that the kingdoms of this world or become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever. The Lord Jesus Christ humbled himself by his death upon the cross and yet in doing that he triumphed over the guilt of sin, he triumphed over death, he triumphed over the devil and now the great king takes the spoils of the fruit for his victory. Psalm 2 verse 8, we read, Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Because the Son of God was willing to be lifted up upon that cruel cross, God has promised to draw all men unto Him. He is the King of the Hebrews. He is the King of the Greeks. He is the King of the Romans. Oh, He was mocked in all of those languages, and now today people come Pentecost onward, realize that Jesus Christ reigns. God will vindicate Him. And that superscription over the cross, will prove to be a proclamation of God's great power. His own nation, His own fellow countrymen that have refused Him and hated Him. Their leaders and rulers conspiring to condemn Him. Yet God will save them. Pentecost thousands bowed before the name of Jesus Christ. I believe the Apostle Paul points forward to the day when Israel will be saved, confessing as King of the Jews. History is moving towards that display of our King's glory and that's in spite of all of the attempts of men to prevent it. You look in Russia, for instance, and you find the living Church of Jesus Christ. For 70 years and more in the 20th century, the Soviet Empire tried to destroy Christianity. through propaganda, and atheistic schools, and secret police, and prison, and torture, and mass murder, and yet what do we find today? They couldn't wipe out the Christian faith. As the 21st century is now underway, it's the Soviet empire that lies in ruins. The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ goes forward still. What about China? Another country that sought to destroy belief in God and faith in Jesus Christ. China's Chairman Mao once declared that power comes from the barrel of a gun. But all the guns of Mao and his cronies can't match the power of Jesus Christ. Chairman Mao is dead. His reputation as a monster is sealed by history, and as this new century moves on, it's the kingdom of Christ that's spreading through China. There are more Christians in that vast country than there have ever been before. Today, very few, if any, want to build their lives upon the writings of Marx or Mao. while millions dedicate their lives to the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't it amazing that it only took a few decades for communist ideology to grow old and tired while the life that Christ gives to his people remains fresh and vigorous even after 2,000 years? Now there are still parts of the world today where Christians experience ferocious persecution, where they are tortured for their faith, where they are sold into slavery, where they are slaughtered. But let me assure you that these attacks on Christ's kingdom are doomed to feel like all the others. It has been well said throughout history that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. The Lord Most High has seen and planned everything long in advance. Nothing can thwart His purposes from being carried out. What was it Daniel said? In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed. And the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." There in a nutshell is the story of history. God bringing one empire after another to an end, while all the time building an unconquerable kingdom, founded on the rock of ages. God spoke of the spread of his kingdom. And when the Lord Jesus Christ arrived, the promise given to Mary, thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, he shall be great. and shall be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. It has been well said, Jesus of Nazareth, without money and arms, conquered more millions than Alexander, Caesar, Muhammad and Napoleon. Without science and learning has shed more light upon things human and divine than all of the philosophers and scholars combined. Without the eloquence of the school he spoke the words of life such as never were spoken before nor since. and produced effects that lie beyond the reach of poet or orator. Without writing a single line, he has set more pens in motion and furnished themes for sermons, discussions, works of art, learned volumes and sweet songs of praise than a whole army of great men of ancient or modern times. Born in a manger, Crucified as a malefactor, he now controls the destinies of the world and rules a spiritual empire that shall never end. This king is the only one who's worthy of your ultimate trust. The only one that's worthy. We don't put our trust in political rulers or empires or ideologies. They come and go. They may look enormous and dazzling and awesome in appearance, but like the statue of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, they are destined to disappear. Put your trust in the great King whom God has promised. who rules all events, who foresees all things, who directs the very flow of history all through the ages, who rules a kingdom that will never be destroyed. Put your trust in that rock that smashes every political idol, that rock that becomes a mighty mountain filling the earth, the rock of ages. the dream come true, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ. Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross, and the writing was Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. Not just King of the Jews, But King of all who come and bow before Him, of all who come and confess their guilt unto Him, to all who receive Him as Lord and Savior, He brings Him to His everlasting kingdom. And He says to those that come to Him, I give unto them eternal life. His is an everlasting kingdom. And there is a place reserved within that kingdom for all that put their trust in Him. Tell me this morning, is He your King? Is He your Saviour? Have you bowed humbly before Him and confessed your need of Him? Praise God, all that call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. and will be brought into that Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Lord enable us each and every one to examine our hearts and to ask the question, am I part of Christ's Kingdom? Do I belong to Him? Is He my King?