If you have a copy of the scriptures, let me invite you to turn once again to the Gospel of John and to the 19th chapter. And if you've been worshiping with us, you know that we have been going chapter by chapter, verse by verse through the Gospel of John on these Lord's Day mornings. And today we come to John 19 and we're going to be looking at verses 13 through 24. So let me invite you as you're able. Once again, let's stand in honor of the reading and the hearing of God's word. Let's look to John 19 beginning in verse 13. wherein the Apostle John faithfully records. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha. And it was the preparation of the Passover, and about the sixth hour, And he saith unto the Jews, Behold your king. But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your king? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar. Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. and they took Jesus and led Him away. And He, bearing His cross, went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha, where they crucified Him, and two other with Him on either side, one, and Jesus in the midst. And Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross, And the writing was, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. This title then read many of the Jews, for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city. And it was written in Hebrew and Greek and Latin. Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, write not the King of the Jews, but that he said, I am King of the Jews. Pilate answered, What I have written, I have written. Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments and made four parts to every soldier a part, and also his coat. Now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said, therefore, among themselves, let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be. that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, they parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. These things, therefore, the soldiers did. May God bless once more the reading and the hearing of his word in our midst, and let's join again together in prayer. Let us pray. Gracious and loving God, we stand before your word today. We stand open, ready to receive. We know that we need the help of the Holy Spirit. We need the illumination of the Holy Spirit. Without it, we will be indifferent, spiritually indifferent to your word. With it, our eyes will be open and our hearts will be open to what you would say to us. And so give us that illumination of the Spirit. We ask it in Christ's name and for his sake. Amen. And you may be seated. So we are continuing today to read and listen to what is at one and the same time what we might call the worst and the most wonderful narrative in the scriptures, and that is the inspired account of the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross. And so here is the climax, indeed, that we find in all four of our canonical Gospels, that the Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross, that he suffered, that he bled, that he died, and then he was gloriously raised. In fact, when Pentecost will come around about 50 days after the events described here, and the Apostle Peter will be the first one to stand up and preach what we sometimes refer to as the first Christian sermon as it's recorded in Acts 2. He had an opportunity to talk about Jesus. What would he talk about? The many things he could have said. He could have talked about his many miracles, changing water into wine. He could have talked about his parables. He could have talked about his great ethical teachings, love your enemy and so forth. But in Acts chapter two, in verse 22, when Peter stood up to preach, this is what Luke says that he said. He said, ye men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as you yourselves know, him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain, whom God hath raised up, having loose the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be holden of it." What did Peter preach about? The cross and the resurrection. That was the heart of the gospel preached by the first Christians, and it's still the heart of the gospel to be preached today. We're hearing today about the cross of Christ. We're standing at the epicenter of our faith. And again, it is at one and the same time, the worst account in scripture of man's rejection, sinful rejection of Christ. And it's also the most wonderful narrative in all the scriptures. We've been, as we've been making this pilgrimage through the passion, the account of Christ's suffering. We've been stopping at various points along the way, and we've been meditating upon some of the inspired statements that are recorded here by John. Last time, we were looking in verse five, where it says in John 19, in verse five, that when Pilate brought out the Lord Jesus Christ, he said, behold the man. Remember, behold the anthropos, behold the human being. And then that's going to be followed up by a statement that we want to meditate on today in verse 14, where Pilate again will take the Lord Jesus out before the Jewish authorities. And he will say, behold your King. from behold the man to behold your king. And so we come to the end, I want us to meditate on that statement today, behold your king. Before we get there though, we're gonna walk through our passage. We're gonna exposit it together. And as we look at this passage, this portion of God's word, verses 13 through 24, we can divide even indeed as the King James Version translators did the passage into three convenient parts. And so the first part is verses 13 through 18, where we have an account of Christ's final appearance before the Jewish authorities and his ultimate conveyance to the cross, the place where he will be obviously crucified. And then the second portion that we want to look at, verses 19 through 22, is the account of a title that was placed upon the cross, identifying the Lord Jesus Christ. And then thirdly, we want to look at verses 23 and 24, where there is an account of what is sometimes referred to as the parting of our Lord's garments, the giving away of the clothing of our Lord. And each of these details, of course, within this narrative, they have spiritual import, spiritual meaning, they're to be reflected upon, meditated upon. And so let's start off looking at the first part, the longest part, verses 13 through 18, which is John's inspired account of the final appearance of Christ before the Jewish authorities and his conveyance to the cross. Now, if you've been with us and you've been looking through the narrative here, you'll remember that Pilate has been going back and forth and occasionally taking Jesus back and forth between the place that is called the Hall of Judgment in the King James Version. In Greek, it's the Praetorian or the Praetorium, the Roman headquarters, where Pilate would have been in charge of the soldiers about him, and out before the Jewish high priests and their officers and others who had brought Jesus to Pilate. And remember, going back to chapter 18, verse 28, they had been unwilling to go in because of their religious scruples. They didn't want to become unclean before the Sabbath. And so we talked about their trifling over smaller things. Here they are turning over the Lord of Glory to be crucified. They're trifling over violating some religious code. But we see Pilate has been going back and forth and back and forth, and that's going to continue even today. Just trace this a little bit. Look back at chapter 18 verse 29. Pilate then went out unto them. He went from the hall of judgment out to the Jewish authorities who were without. And then look at chapter 18 and verse 33. Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again. He goes back inside the praetorium and then Look at verse 38, look at verse 38. It says there, he went out again unto the Jews and said to them, I find in him no fault at all. So he went back out to them once more. And then look at chapter 19, verse four, Pilate therefore went forth again and said to them, behold, I bring him forth unto you. And then look at chapter 19, verse nine, and he went again into the judgment hall. So you see, he's going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. This would be his effort at what could be called shuttle diplomacy as he's shuttling back and forth, seeking the release of the Lord Jesus, a man in whom he had three times confessed that he had found no fault. Look back again at chapter 18, verse 38, where he said, I find in him no fault at all. Chapter 19, verse 4, I find no fault in him. Chapter 19, verse 6, for I find no fault in him. Three times he had said, I find no fault in this man. He's trying to work out some arrangement whereby this innocent man can be relieved, look at verse 12, and from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him. But remember, going back to verse 12, what the Jewish authorities had said, they had accused Pilate for his unwillingness to put Jesus on the cross. They had accused him of not being Caesar's friend. And Pilate at this point realizes that he has to settle this matter once and for all. He has to act decisively. And so now, for the last time, he goes out to the Jewish authorities. For the last time, he brings out the Lord Jesus before them. And remember the state of our Lord Jesus Christ. He had been awake all night long. He had been scourged. He had been beaten to a pulp. He was exhausted. He had been humiliated. He had been mocked. Perhaps he was still wearing the crown of thorns. Perhaps he still had draped across his shoulders the purple rag, although those items are no longer mentioned. But he's brought out before the Jewish authorities once more. And we read then in verse 13, it says, when Pilate therefore heard that saying, that is the Jewish threatening, you're not Caesar's friend. He brought Jesus forth and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha. And so Pilate goes out this last time and he sits down on what this translation calls the judgment seat. Behind that is a Greek word, the bema, the bema seat. And that was the titular place of authority and judgment. And so he sits on the bema seat. And apparently they had set this up on a little patch of what is called in our translation, the pavement. The Greek word is the lithostraton. a patch of ground that had been paved with stones. And he tells us that in Aramaic it was called Gabatha, which means a lofty place. And apparently it was on a little rise, perhaps visually to symbolize the fact that Pilate was now going to sit on this seat, and he was going to speak with authority, and he was going to make pronouncements as the Roman governor over the Jews as to what was to be done with Jesus. And remember, he thought of much of his authority. Go back to verse 10, where he had said to the Lord Jesus, do you not know that I have the power to crucify thee and the power to release thee? And of course, Christ has said, you don't have any power unless it's been given to you by the Father. But he sits there on the Bema seat. There's a great irony here, as there is all throughout this account. because Pilate thinks that he is in charge. He thinks that he has authority. He thinks that he is the final judge. But we should lay us alongside of this verse, one that Paul writes as recorded in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 10. And there Paul wrote, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. that everyone may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. And guess what the word that Paul uses in Second Corinthians 5 10 for the judgment seat, Bama. Pilate was sitting on the Bama seat. But Paul said one day the Lord Jesus Christ is going to be sitting on the Bama seat, the judgment seat. and we must all appear before him to give an account for the things that we have done. Friends, we're not gonna have to stand before the Bema seat of Pilate or the Bema seat of Caesar, but one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess and we will stand before the Bema seat of Christ. And inherent in this, before we even get to the spiritual applications at the end of this message, we might just pause for a moment and ask ourselves, Whose judgment do you fear most? It would have been a fearful thing for a man to stand before Pilate as he sat on the Bema seat. Whose judgment do you fear most? Do you fear most the judgments of men? Are you a man pleaser? Or do you fear the assessment, the judgment of the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you have the fear of God? Young people, this happens, it's usually the youth get sort of verbally beaten up, you know? You have this tendency to be conformist and to be worried about what your peers think. You leave the house, oh my goodness, if I don't wear my clothes in the right way or my hair in the right fashion, my peers are gonna giggle at me or something like this. And you become a slave of being a man pleaser. But let me tell you, friends, here's the awful reality. It continues into adulthood. And people are afraid of what people think or what people will say or how they will evaluate them. And their whole lives become guided by this rather than being guided by the question of what will Christ say? How will Christ evaluate the way I live, the way I act, the way I behave? Because as Paul said, we will all stand before the bama seat of Christ, the judgment seat of Christ. And again, We can ponder that as we consider Pilate thinking that he has the ultimate authority here. There are a lot of historical details that are included in John's account, and I think I've noted this before that I think much of this is to remind us this is not a fairy tale, friends. This is not a once upon a time. This is a historical reality. This happened. John makes clear to us by giving us these many of these details. He tells us in verse 14, and it was the preparation of the Passover. When was it that the Lord Jesus Christ was put on the cross? It was on Friday. It was on the Friday of that week. And over the years, there have been some who have tried to say that it was a contradiction. And you might not even be aware of this between John's account and that of the other gospels about the timing of the crucifixion. But here, the day of preparation meant the day of preparation for the Sabbath that would occur during the Passover feast. The Passover feast covered eight days. There was a day of the Passover, and then there was a seven-day feast of unleavened bread. And the entirety of this was called the Passover. You can look at Exodus 12, verses 14 through 17. So the day on which our Lord was crucified was that Friday. And then it also tells us more specifically, and about the sixth hour, that generally the time was in the sixth hour. Of course, before modern specific time pieces and so forth, time was often referred to in more general terms. He says it was about the sixth hour. And this is another place where sometimes the skeptics have raised questions about the veracity, the truthfulness of the scriptures. We need sometimes to look at the scriptures and we do have to read them sometimes to arm ourselves apologetically to be able to defend the faith against skeptics. There have been those who said, wait a second, does this contradict some of the information that we find in the other gospels? For example, when we look in the gospel of Mark, in Mark chapter 15 and verse 25, it says, and it was the third hour and they crucified him. And some skeptics might say, wait a second, John says it was the sixth hour, and Mark says it was the third hour that they crucified him. And then if you go ahead and look at the Gospel of Mark a bit further, it says in Mark 15.33, And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And then in Mark 15, 34, it says, and at the ninth hour, Christ called out with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? How can we reconcile the timeframe given in Mark's gospel with that given in John's gospel? And of course, there is a very simple explanation. Mark was using the Jewish reckoning of time that measured time from the sunrise. So when Mark says that the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified at the third hour, it means beginning at three hours after the sunrise, which would have been about six in the morning. And so he was crucified, went to the cross around nine o'clock in the morning. Then at the sixth hour at noon, when the sun should have been shining at its fullest, we're told it became dark, darkness covered the earth. And then at the ninth hour, which should have been three o'clock in the afternoon, after our Lord had been on the cross for six hours from nine o'clock in the morning, it was then that he cried out and soon after, he breathed his last. Well, what about John? John is saying that the trial was happening at the six hour. Well, John is using a reckoning of time that was common among the Romans and is still practiced by modern Westerners to this very day, counting time from midnight. And so the six hour meant it was about six in the morning after he'd been up all night long, that this final portion of the trial took place. And sometime before the trial, we're looking at now, and three hours later, he's on the cross being crucified. And so in the end, there is no contradiction between what John records and what Mark records. And it becomes a little lesson for us that when we find any apparent distinction in the gospel accounts, given enough prayer, given enough study, and given enough reason We can easily see how the scriptures can be harmonized because they speak with one voice, because they are God's voice speaking through his word. The point, though, here is John is grounding this in history. It happened on a Friday. It happened early in the morning that they took the Lord Jesus out for the last time and Pilate sat there on the Bema seat, on the pavement, on Gabbatha, on the lofty place. And we're told in verse 14 that Pilate said that last time to the Jews, Behold your king! Behold your king! And he likely made that statement expressing contempt not only for Jesus, but also for the Jews. You Jews want a king, do you? You want a leader? You want a ruler? Well, here is your king. Behold your king. This is what your king looks like, a bloody mess. We've half beaten him to death, and we can take him off and crucify him if we want. Mocking the Lord Jesus, mocking the Jews, showing the Roman rule with a heavy hand, It's no wonder that within three decades, there's a Jewish war where the Jews are rebelling against the Romans, trying to overthrow them, and they'll be crushed by the Romans by the year 70 AD. At any rate, Pilate wanted to send out a warning. He wanted to send a warning out to all the would-be messiahs out there. This is what happens to those who claim to be the king of the Jews. This is what happens to those who oppose the power of mighty Rome. Behold your king. And then we're told in verse 15 that the chief priests and their officers, those who were assembled, they cried out, away with him, away with him, crucify him. And when Pilate Ask them again, I think, with a mocking, sarcastic question. In verse 15, he says, Shall I crucify your king? And then the chief priests, those who who are the guardians of the worship of God in the temple. It is they who respond in verse 15, we have no king but Caesar. And what is that but a denial of the sovereignty, the kingship of God over themselves and over their nation. Contrast that with what Jesus taught as recorded in places like Mark 12 and 17, when he said, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God, the things that are God's. Contrast that with the passage that the young people were looking at on a Wednesday night in Acts 5.29, when Peter and the apostles were told to stop preaching in the name of Jesus by the authorities. And they said, we must obey God rather than men. But now the chief priests say, we have no king but Caesar. And then we're told in verse 16, it says, then delivered he, him, therefore unto them to be crucified. He, here's Pilate, then Pilate delivered him, the Lord Jesus, over to them. Sometimes people want to say that's to the Jews, but no, it was to the Roman soldiers, his own soldiers to be crucified. And then it says at the end of verse 16. And they took Jesus and led him away. And so now, finally, we have, after this lengthy trial before the Jewish authorities, before the Roman authorities, under the charge of blasphemy by the Jews, under the charge of civil insurrection by the Romans, we have the Lord Jesus Christ being taken to the cross. In verse 17, it talks about our Lord carrying His cross. It says in verse 17, and He, bearing His cross, went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha. It was apparently the custom to have a condemned person, a person condemned to crucifixion, to carry usually the horizontal beam of the cross or one beam of the cross to the place of execution. And this was another act of public shaming and it was a form of public deterrence. The Romans wanted as many people as possible to see this and to be terrified by it. The message, if you don't obey Rome, this could happen to you. Although John doesn't record it, we've talked about this before. probably the last Gospel written, and so he doesn't often repeat some things that are in the other Gospels, figuring that people already know it. In the other Gospels, we are told that the Lord Jesus was physically unable to bear the cross. Remember, He'd been scourged. He'd had a huge loss of blood. Many people didn't even survive the scourging. And so he was unable to carry the cross. The other gospels tell us in Matthew 27, 32, Mark 16, 21, Luke 23, 26, that they compelled a man named Simon from a place named Cyrene and they pulled him out of the crowd and they forced him to carry Christ's cross. Mark even tells us that this Simon of Cyrene was the father of two men who may have been early believers. Luke says in particular that Simon of Cyrene bore the cross, as he puts it in Luke 23, 26, after Jesus. And so it becomes an intriguing visual picture of what Christ taught about discipleship. What did Christ say during his ministry in places like Luke 9, 23? If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. And what's happening at the end of his life? Here is Christ stumbling along, bleeding and weak. And here is Simon of Cyrene carrying the cross after Christ. And so it becomes a picture of what Christ called for his disciples, that they would come after him, deny themselves, take up their own crosses and follow him. The place of execution, we're told, it was called the place of the skull, or in Hebrew, it was called Golgotha. Why was it given this name? Some people have suggested that it was simply given this name because it was a place of death. And the skull then, even as it is now, what do we do? We have some lethal poison. We put a little label that has perhaps a skull and a crossbone on it. The Golgotha was an execution site. It's a place where people died, where people were put to death. Others have suggested that the topography of the place was like a skull, that there were indentures that looked like eye sockets, that looked like a mouth or something like this. In fact, there's still a place in Jerusalem today, a rocky hillside, that is called Gordon's Calvary, where a man in the 19th century said, this must be the place. It looks like the place of the skull. And the truth is, we don't know the exact place where the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified. There are people who suggest different sites, but in the end, we don't know the exact place where he went to the cross. I was tripping over the word Calvary, and that is indeed a name that is given to this site only in Luke's gospel, Luke 23, verse 33. the translation tradition from Tyndale through the Geneva Bible, through the King James Version, give it that name. In verse 18, it says then of that place, that it was at that place that they crucified him. And I want you to notice, once again, we talked about this back in verse one. that they took Jesus and scourged him. We talked about how simple it is and how discreetly spoken it is. And we get the same sense here in verse 18. Notice that there's no graphic detail. Notice that the inspired author doesn't feel like he has to tell us all the cruel details of the cross. This is the problem with Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, trying to think that we will convey things if we just make it so bloody and so gory and so graphic. And we see this in a lot of popular Catholicism, for example, some of the images that they try to put together of crucifixes and try to make the scene bloody and gory, trying to play to men's emotions and their vision. Well, that wasn't what the Lord Jesus Christ, when the scriptures were inspired and the account of His life was given, that wasn't the focus that's there in the Word. The Word describes things very discreetly. It is enough simply to say that He was crucified. There He was crucified. that crucifixion was a gruesome form of execution. The historian Martin Hengel called crucifixion the slaves' punishment of the Roman world. And we know it was common. The Lord Jesus wasn't the first, nor was he the last person ever to be crucified. In fact, about 70 years before the life of Christ, there was a slave rebellion led by a man named Spartacus. And there have been several films made about this man. And this slave rebellion or servile war, as it was called, was put down by the Romans ruthlessly. And they took Spartacus and 6,000 of his followers and they crucified them. They lined what was called the Appian Way from Rome to Capua. you could walk along and find 6,000 men crucified on the side of the road. The Roman orator, Cicero, once compiled a list of the worst punishments that one could endure. In third place, he listed a punishment called decolatio, which was beheading. In second place, he listed crematio, which is burning. I mean, your body burned. And in the first place, what he called the sumum suplicium, or the penalty of penalties, what was the worst way to die? The crux, the cross. The same historian Martin Hengel said that crucifixion was a punishment in which the caprices and sadism of the executioners were given full reign. The Roman philosopher and teacher Seneca wrote, can anyone be found who would prefer wasting away in pain, limb by limb, or letting out his life drop by drop, rather than expiring once for all? Can any man be found willing to be fastened to the accursed tree, long sickly, already deformed, swelling with ugly wheels on shoulders and chest, And drawing the breath of life amid long drawn out agony, he would have many excuses for dying even before mounting the cross. And what Seneca was talking about was the scourging, how you have the whelps and the beatings and the blood. And it was a slow, it was a painful, it was an agonizing death. And our Lord was suffering even as he was being led to the cross. And then there was suffering that would come to him as he was nailed to the cross and hoisted up upon it, his body heaving and pulling himself up, trying to catch a breath. We often do, we not sort of romanticize the crucifixion. I like driving along the countryside sometimes, particularly over in the valley, see more of these, don't you? You'll see a hillside and there'll be three crosses up there. It looks so picturesque and beautiful, but that's completely not what it was like when the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified. It wasn't some picturesque scene on a distant hill. but it was more likely a dirty, dusty road. That's where the Romans crucified people, on the roadsides. Why? Because they wanted men plainly to see it. And they weren't hoisted up 20 feet in the air. They were just a little bit off the ground. So you could walk by and look in their eyes, look in their faces, see their pain, see their suffering. It was a deterrence against crime for these men to be crucified. and they thought it a deterrence against crime to crucify our Lord. I remember once driving by a high school and someone had come up with the idea, perhaps it was a good one, but they took a car that had been wrecked in a drunk driving incident and they parked this mangled car right at the entrance to the high school. And what was the message to all those young drivers? If you get out and drink and drive, this could happen to you. And the mangled bodies of the crucified on those crosses were a message to everybody walking by. Don't go this way. Don't live like this. Because you're going to meet the same fate. You're going to meet the same destiny. In fact, we know that Christ was not crucified alone. Look at verse 18, it says, and two other with Him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst. In Luke's gospel, Luke 23, 33, and also in Matthew chapter 27, verse 38, it says that they were crucified, one on his left hand and the other on his right. John confirms that here as he simply says that there was Jesus, notice in verse 18, in the midst, Jesus there in the middle, and providentially so because Christ is, of course, at the center. Of course, Luke, as you know, is the only gospel that tells us that in fact, one of those two malfactors, one of those two criminals who was crucified alongside the Lord Jesus was in fact converted while he was on the cross. And the Lord Jesus said to him in Luke 23, 43, today, you will be with me in paradise. Well, there's that final trial, there's that final presentation, behold your King, there's the conveyance to the cross, and all that is described here. Let's move to the second section. The second section is the title placed upon the cross in verses 19 through 22. When someone was crucified, it was common for there to be a titulus, a placard or a tablet that was posted there spelling out the crimes of the condemned. And John records for us in verse 19 that Pilate also wrote a title, a titulus, and he put it on the cross. And the writing was Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews. And we're told, John says, looking at verse 20, that this title was read by many of the Jews. And he tells us confirming our earlier thoughts that the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city, probably a major roadway thoroughfare leading into the city so that many people could see it. And we're also told that, uh, Again, the Jews were offended by this. Look at verse 21. They said, write not the king of the Jews, but he said, I am king of the Jews. And yet Pilate resolutely answered like a lot of managers never willing to go back and change anything. He says, what I have written, I have written. And, of course, what was at work here was the providential hand of God directing Pilate. And, of course, what Pilate meant to be said in derision, probably in mockery as a warning against insurrectionists, we know it has the ring of truth to it because he is, in fact, what the title declares. He is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, the King of Kings, in fact, and the Lord of Lords. We're told also at the end of verse 20 that the titulus, the title, was written in Hebrew, in Greek, and in Latin. It was a trilingual message. And again, this inscription accused the Lord Jesus of being an insurrectionist. It mocked him as being a failed king. And yet, again, Pilate was unwittingly telling the truth. John Calvin in his commentary on this verse said, Pilate, a reprobate man by a secret guidance was appointed to be a herald of the gospel that he might publish a short summary of it in three languages. The trilingual note here anticipates, does it not, what we call the great commission. It's there in Matthew 28, 19 and 20, when the risen Jesus will tell his disciples that they are to go and teach all nations, and they are to baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and to teach them to obey everything that he has commanded. That little titulus there anticipates the fact that people like us, people who are not Jews, that we also will hear the gospel, and we will hear it proclaimed for us and to us in our language. I don't know if you've ever been traveling someplace. I know when we were in Ukraine visiting Hannah a couple years ago, and I wasn't very used to the Cyrillic alphabet, and I was trying to figure out how to ride the subway around in Kiev. And if you're not up with the Cyrillic alphabet, it's pretty hard to figure out. Man, when I saw any sign written in English, I was like, Hallelujah. I have some direction. I can read this. I can understand it. A few years ago, we were in China and everything was written in Mandarin. But when I saw something in English, my goodness, I could see it. And the titulus is written in the language of the Jews, the language of the Greeks, the language of the Romans, so that the whole world would know it again. It anticipates this great special benefit and privilege, friends, has come to us. that we can hear of the Lord Jesus Christ in languages that we can understand, even through the translations of the scriptures and the preaching of the scriptures in our heart language. And this was again, was nailed on the cross, probably above the head of our Lord so that people, the Romans thought could see what happens to insurrections. But again, ironically, it's declaring who he really is. When I read this, I also thought about a statement made by the Apostle Paul in Colossians chapter two, verse 14. Maybe you know that verse where Paul talks about Christ blotting out the handwriting of the ordinance that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross. And again, the titulus would typically list the crimes. And Paul takes that image, probably thinking of the titulus that was over the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, when you become a Christian, it's as though all your sins for which you should be condemned are written on a piece of paper and they're nailed to the cross because there the Lord Jesus Christ takes upon himself all your sins. It's extremely cheesy and has been done in countless youth groups, but they had this meeting where they all write down their sins, and then they will take them and nail them to the cross or something like that, to a wooden cross or something. That's pretty cheesy, but there's something about it that's right. Because when Christ went to the cross, he went there to bear our sins and to stand in our place. Well, I'm looking at the time. We have to save the last section on the parting of the garments for next time. Let me hasten to add a few words of application, though, for today. I want to return to that declaration made by Pilate, a declaration that he makes, I think, in mockery and as a put down for the Jews, as he places the Lord Jesus Christ before them, the beaten, the bleeding Lord Jesus, and he says, behold your king. But of course, again, what we know is that what Pilate says in mockery is in reality true. He is our king. He redefines what it means to be a king. He has, as it's been said, his coronation and humiliation. He rules by serving. He says in Mark 10, 45, that he didn't come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. When we look at the cross and we see our crucified Lord, when we see the empty tomb and Remember our risen Lord. We see that he is the king of kings and he is the Lord of Lords. And this is the scandal of the gospel. Again, Paul called it in First Corinthians one foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jews, that this man who died on a cross is our king. And this statement here, if we were to take another application of it, It also applies to and addresses how we ought to live in light of this. During his earthly ministry, Matthew records in Matthew 6, 24, that the Lord Jesus taught, no man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. My mam and he meant money. You can't serve God in money. But that has multiple applications, does it not? Pilate says, behold your king. Well, if Pilate were here today and he were to stand before us and he said to you, behold your king, who or what would your king be? Would it be a mirror? Your king is yourself. Would it be mammon? Would it be money? Would it be entertainment? Would it be pornography? Think, friends, of what we've seen in our church the last couple of months. Think of what we've seen, sadly, in the experience of one of our families. Behold your king. Will it be drink, drug, food? Behold your king. Will it be your job? It can even be your family if you make an idol of it. Homeschooling is my God. Behold your king. Is it your reputation? Is it sports? If there is anything or anyone there other than Christ, it is idolatry. Behold your King. Oh, in our hearts and minds, may it be the crucified and risen Christ who is there. Dear friends, behold your King. Amen. Let's stand together.