How encouraging it is for us as God's people to come together on the Lord's Day and to worship Him. Here we have His precious Word given to us in Jeremiah 37. And we see some of the difficulties that Jeremiah faced as a prophet of the Lord. and how He was unjustly tried and sentenced to punishment, even as our Lord Jesus Christ was unjustly tried and sentenced to punishment. Jeremiah 37, beginning in verse 1. Now, King Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, reigned instead of Keniah, the son of Jehoiakim. whom Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, made king in the land of Judah. But neither he nor his servants nor the people of the land gave heed to the words of the Lord which he spoke by the prophet Jeremiah. Zedekiah the king sent Jehuakel, the son of Shalamiah, and Zephaniah, the son of Maaseah, the priest, to the prophet Jeremiah, saying, Pray now to the Lord our God for us. Now, Jeremiah was coming and going among the people, for they had not yet put him in prison. Then Pharaoh's army came up from Egypt. And when the Chaldeans, who are besieging Jerusalem, heard news of them, they departed from Jerusalem. Then the word of the Lord came to the prophet Jeremiah, saying, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, Thus you shall say to the king of Judah, Who sent you to me to inquire of me? Behold, Pharaoh's army, which has come up to help you, will return to Egypt, to their own land. And the Chaldeans shall come back and fight against this city and take it and burn it with fire. Thus says the Lord, do not deceive yourselves, saying, the Chaldeans will surely depart from us, for they will not depart. For though you had defeated the whole army of the Chaldeans, who fight against you, and there remained only wounded men among them, they would rise up, every man in his tent, and burn the city with fire. And it happened when the army of the Chaldeans left the siege of Jerusalem for fear of Pharaoh's army, that Jeremiah went out of Jerusalem to go into the land of Benjamin to claim his property there among the people. And when he was in the gate of Benjamin, a captain of the guard was there whose name was Uriah, the son of Shalamiah, the son of Hananiah. And he seized Jeremiah the prophet saying, you are defecting to the Chaldeans. And Jeremiah said, false. I am not defecting to the Chaldeans. He did not listen to him. So Uriah seized Jeremiah and brought him to the princes. Therefore, the princes were angry with Jeremiah, and they struck him and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe, for they had made that the prison. When Jeremiah entered the dungeon and the cells, Jeremiah had remained there many days. Then Zedekiah the king sent and took him out. The king asked him secretly in his house and said, Is there any word from the Lord? Jeremiah said, There is. Then he said, You shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon. Moreover, Jeremiah said to King Zedekiah, What offense have I committed against you, against your servants, or against this people that you have put me in prison? Where now are your prophets who prophesied to you, saying, The king of Babylon will not come against you or against this land? Therefore, please hear now, O my lord the king. Please let my petition be accepted before you and do not make me return to the house of Jonathan the scribe lest I die there." Then Zedekiah the king commanded that they should commit Jeremiah to the court of the prison. That they should give him daily a piece of bread from the baker's street until all the bread in the city was gone. Thus, Jeremiah remained in the court of the prison. There we'll end the reading of God's word from the Old Testament. Let's go over to our New Testament reading from Matthew, chapter 26. Matthew 26, and we'll begin in verse 57. Here is the word of the living God. And those who had laid hold of Jesus led him away to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were assembled. But Peter followed him at a distance to the high priest's courtyard, and he went in and sat with the elders to see the end. Now, the chief priests, the elders and all the council sought false testimony against Jesus to put him to death, but found none. Even though many false witnesses came forward, they found none. But at last, two false witnesses came forward and said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days. And the high priest arose and said to him, Do you answer nothing? What is this? These men testify against you. But Jesus kept silent. The high priest answered and said to him, I put you under oath by the living God. Tell us if you are the Christ, the son of God. Jesus said to him, It is as you said. Nevertheless, I say to you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power and coming on the clouds of heaven." Then the high priest tore his clothes, saying, "'He has spoken blasphemy. What further need do we have of witnesses? Look now, you have heard his blasphemy. What do you think?' They answered and said, "'He is deserving of death.' Then they spat in his face and beat him. And others struck him with the palms of their hands, saying, Prophesy to us, Christ, who is the one who struck you? Now, Peter sat outside in the courtyard, the servant girl came to him, saying, You also were with Jesus of Galilee, but he denied it before them all, saying, I do not know what you're saying. And when he had gone out to the gateway, another girl saw him and said to those who were there, this fellow was also with Jesus of Nazareth. But again, he denied with an oath. I do not know the man. A little later, those who stood by came up and said to Peter, surely you also are one of them, for your speech betrays you. And he began to curse and swear, saying, I do not know the man. Immediately, a rooster crowed. Peter remembered the word of Jesus who had said to him, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. So he went out and wept bitterly. May God bless the reading of his holy and infallible word to us. Now let's join our voices in singing Psalm 22. We'll carry on with our series in Matthew's Gospel. We recently completed a section in which we looked at the preparations that were made for Jesus' death with the woman who anointed Jesus and with the Lord's Supper where Jesus prepared his disciples for his death. We saw his enemies preparing for his death in the Garden of Gethsemane. We saw Jesus himself preparing for his death. But last time in Matthew, we began the section where the preparations are over and Jesus begins to enter into that time of suffering, where we find Him actually tasting of the affliction that the Father had appointed for Him as our Redeemer. Last time we saw Him before His arresters We saw how he was betrayed by Judas, who was in the company of those arresters and one of them. And how he was arrested in the night. And yet, how in the midst of it all, he who was arrested showed himself to be in control of the whole situation. We saw his regal bearing through the whole affair. that He was presented to us as one who is deliberately giving Himself into the hands of His enemies and not one who had been taken by them. Matthew emphasizes that aspect of Jesus as King in his entire Gospel. Well, this week we see King Jesus before His accusers in the passage that I read this morning. And once again, it is His regal bearing. before His accusers that comes to our sight, for these accusers who falsely accuse Him of wickedness. I want you to see, first of all, as we look at this, that from His accusers, King Jesus receives horrific treatment. In Matthew's account that we read today, you see how He is brought before Caiaphas, the high priest, and before the scribes and the elders of the people. and how this assembly is looking for an occasion to put him to death. This was no trial to ascertain truth at all. It was an effort to come up with something that they could charge him with. Something that would even be worthy of death. You see, they had a bit of a problem because God, in judging His people Israel, had years before, some 500 and some years before, had brought them into captivity, into the exile. And though they had been delivered from the land of Babylon, they were still, as a people, under the domination of foreign nations. And at this present time, when Jesus came to earth, they were under Roman domination. The Jews still were allowed their ecclesiastical courts. And so you have the priest with those that were gathered with him and they were given some authority to punish certain offenses, but they did not have a king of their own with their own civil government. The Romans had given them these certain liberties and authorities within the church court, but they did not allow them to have their own Jewish governor. And they even had taken it upon themselves to appoint the Jew that would be the high priest so that the high priest was changed every year rather than being a lifelong commitment as God had ordained. And so these Jewish leaders here had already determined that they must find a way to put Jesus to death. But in order to do that, they had to find a way that would satisfy their own laws, so to speak, however corrupt, that they could have a pretense that they were doing it in justice. And then they also had to find something that the Romans would accept because the Romans reserved the power of the swords themselves. They didn't allow the Jews to execute anyone. So they had to come up with charges that the Romans would also acknowledge. So in an effort to pull this up off, they have a number of witnesses that come forward. But none of these are able to come up with anything that really serves the purpose. But then at last some witnesses come forward who twist the words that Jesus had spoken when He said, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. When Jesus said that, He was talking about the temple of His body that He dwelt in human flesh. And that when they destroyed His body that He would raise it up in three days. But these witnesses twist the words to indicate that Jesus was threatening to tear down the temple, the building that was made with man's hands in Jerusalem, and then claiming that he would be able to raise it up again in three days or to build it in three days. Now, it was a great offense in these times in any nation for anyone to destroy a holy building, a place of worship, even if it wasn't your religion. This is something that all in the ancient world would have acknowledged. Caiaphas is excited when he hears this charge. Here is something that maybe we can work with. Here is something that we can use. And what's more, Caiaphas sees in the claim that Jesus makes to divine powers that perhaps He made a claim that He was somehow the Messiah or the Son of God. And he sees that Jesus, speaking of coming in the clouds of glory and all this, it was something that was a divine prerogative. He was showing that he himself had the power of judgment that belongs only to God. And so Caiaphas feels that he has found just what he is looking for. And he immediately declares this to be blasphemy to those that are assembled in this court. And they agree that Jesus is worthy of death. Now, of course, the Romans would not recognize blasphemy as a capital offense. But as Jesus claims to be the Christ or the Messiah, who is to be the king of the Jews, then the Jews find that this is also an occasion that they can use with the Romans, because they can present it as treason before their governor. Obviously, if Jesus is claiming to be the Christ, the Christ is the king of the Jews. That means that he has to get rid of Caesar, who is now in the civil realm, the king of the Jews. And so they are prepared to bring before the Romans an accusation of treason. Now that this charge has been concocted, and we'll look more at the details of what Jesus says later on today, but as this charge has been concocted in the court, the court does a very wretched thing here. They begin to treat the Son of God with horrendous disrespect. They spit in His face to show that they utterly reject His authority. There is perhaps no greater way to show contempt for authority than this. According to John Gill, the Jews say that he that spits before or in the presence of his master, not upon, but just a servant that spits in the presence of his master is worthy of death. That's how strongly that they looked upon spitting as so nauseous and filthy. that it was accounted worthy of death. And how much worse was it to spit in the very face of one's master? And here, in the face of the one who is the Son of God, they are showing that they have absolutely no regard for Him. No respect. They also beat Him and slap Him about. In this way, as they have denied His authority, they now deny His power. They set themselves up in this way as those who have power over Him, denying that He who was before them was able to destroy them with His breath, if He had chosen to do so. And you think what blindness was in these men. What malice had excited them to do such a thing that they would slap about the One who is appointed to judge them. And then they play blind man's bluff with him. A game that has been known since the very ancient days, where they blindfolded the man and called upon him to name the person who had struck him. The Greeks called this game Kalabismos. It was known in the ancient world. They do this to mock him as being a prophet. To say that he is no prophet. because he is not even able to tell which one of them had struck him. What wretched hospitality they show to the Son of God, who came to dwell in our midst. We ought to be sickened by these things. But, brothers and sisters, you need to understand that we are all a part of this. We cannot isolate ourselves from the human race here. This is the way that we, all of the inhabitants of this world, treated the Son of God when He came to redeem us. Do you see who these men were that did this to our Lord? It was the high priest. The one man who was appointed to be a type of the only mediator between God and man. There was only one temple, and there was only one High Priest. There was only one representation in all the world of our Lord in each generation. The High Priest, a figure of the mediator between God and man, and those who sat in the council represented the entire church, and in one sense, the entire world. As such, these were the ones who were called and appointed by God to receive the Savior in behalf of the whole world. You see, the Jewish nation and their representatives were chosen by God to be the welcoming committee of the Messiah when at last He came to gather the world to Himself in order that He might save us from our sins. These men are our representatives. They acted in our behalf. And brothers and sisters, the sad thing is that they represent us all too well. Not one of you can excuse yourself as a non-participant. What does everyone do when he is confronted concerning his sins by the Lord? What does he first do? We do what these men do. We begin to look for some way by which we can reject our Lord in His authority. We invent contrary standards of righteousness that justify everything in us, from the bitterness that we harbor against our neighbor, to the abortion of our own children, from the denial of God as Creator, to justifications for our Sabbath breaking, from denial of the divinity of Jesus, to excuses for why It was necessary for us to disobey our parents. How the world labors is the way of mankind to suppress the truth of God and unrighteousness. We labor to suppress the truth as soon as it confronts us in our sin. There is not a one of you who can claim that you're entirely free from such conduct. And such conduct is reprehensible to whatever degree it is found in that it even deserves the very wrath and curse of God, no matter what degree. We all deserve to go to hell on account of this. This rebellion is native to every man, woman and child until and unless the Lord changes our hearts. Jesus said that no one can enter his kingdom unless he was born again. The Spirit of God must give you a new heart that loves God, that delights in God's law. Until then, we're blinded by the God of this world, such that we refuse to accept the truth of God. And even after we're born again, we continue to struggle, do we not, with these same things? The flesh rising against the Spirit, pushing away the truth, looking for pretexts by which we can deny and reject the Lord's authority. Yes, Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin are the representatives of all of the sons and daughters of Adam. This is what we are until God reaches out to save us. What a dreadful reception we gave to the world's only hope of salvation. Who stooped to come into this sinful world to redeem us. What marvelous grace is displayed by Him that He should be willing to come into a world like this. to redeem people like us. That He Himself should be willing to bear the shame and curse of God that justly belongs to us as such people. Here He is coming to save us. And here we are inventing pretexts by which we may reject Him. Spitting in His face. Disdaining His authority. Striking Him. as those who deny His power and think that there is no judgment. Mocking Him as one whose word is not true. The Apostle Peter could not bear all of this shameful treatment of his Lord. This is the next thing I want you to see this morning. The Apostle Peter could not bear all of this shameful treatment of his Lord. He knew who Jesus was. He was the one who had initially confessed that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. He had seen miracle after miracle performed by this One. He had seen His godly and consistent life lived before Him. Peter had declared that he was willing to die for his Master only a few hours before. And he had courageously shown himself to be ready to fight when Jesus was arrested at Gethsemane. Even though he was sorely outnumbered, he was prepared to die in battle for Him. Peter was disturbed that at least as far as he saw it, Jesus was not acting like the Son of God at all at this time. When Israel was in Egypt and when the Egyptians surrounded them by the Red Sea, God parted the sea and brought His people across. When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were cast into the fiery furnace, the Son of God was with them and the flames did not hurt them. And they were brought out unharmed. When the Lord Jesus in the flesh was present with Peter in the boat and the storm came and the waves raged, He spoke, Be still! And all was quiet. When the blind and the lame and the lepers came to Him, He commanded and they were healed. When legions of demons were presented before Him, He commanded them and they obeyed Him immediately. Whenever the Pharisees and Sadducees had come around with their questions to try to trap them, Jesus had always put them to silence. He bested them. But what was Jesus doing now? Why had He allowed these men, these unjust men, to arrest Him and to take Him away? Why did He stand meekly before them in silence and bear with these foolish and unjust accusations? Why did He even allow them to spit on Him? To slap Him about and to mock at Him? It was unconscionable. This was no way for the Son of God to behave. Who would think this to be Christ? When he behaved this way, Peter had been ready to fight for him, but he was not ready to stand with him while he willingly allowed himself to be shamed like this. How can Jesus stand by and let such injustice continue? And so you see what Peter does. He does just what Jesus had warned him he would do. He denies his Master. I want you to notice in the passage the progressive nature of his denial. At first, he's a little bit reluctant to just deny him outright. He uses the old, I don't know what you're talking about, kind of approach. You've all seen this. I remember a lighter story. I did this when I was in university. I've told some of you about this. I filled the elevator with Wall Street journals. And the head resident assistant called me down to his office about this and I said, What newspapers? What Wall Street journals? And his reply was, the ones that had your name and address on every one. And so then I was put to silence. Well, here's Peter. What are you talking about? I don't understand what you mean. Of course, he understood. But you see, this is the way our denials often start. we're offended about something that He's doing, something that He's called us to do, something that He's not doing, that we think He should be doing. And so, when we're asked, we plead ignorance. We don't like something that He's commanded, but instead of saying, listen, Lord, if You're going to ask me to do this, I don't want anything to do with You. We say, hmm, I wonder what He meant by that. This is a little bit confusing to me. I don't quite understand what You're saying. We pretend that we don't know. We blur everything. It's a way of avoiding it. It's evasion. But this is not where Peter ends. Because you see, whenever we do something like that, there's more that comes. A little crowd seems to come together here if we look at the different Gospels. There's this woman here, and she's now in the company with others, and probably several of them speaking. And you say, this fellow also was with Jesus of Nazareth. Well, now Peter's going to go a little bit deeper. It's not as much hesitation in denying. He's already started down that path. So he goes from evasion to direct denial with an oath even. Now, by the oath, it means that he swears in God's name that he doesn't know this Jesus. He calls God to bear witness to what he's saying. Peter perjures himself here. Now, we suppose, you see, this teaches us something. We suppose that we can engage in a little lie. Or, in a related matter, in a little bit of sin. Here and there. But learn from this, brothers and sisters, you have no ability to contain your sin. You can't say, I'm going to go just a little bit here, and then I'll stop. You see, as soon as you move away from the will of God, you move away from the grace of God. As soon as you deliberately say, I'm not going to listen to God in this, but just in this little thing, you have no more the grace of God with you. You have distanced yourself from Him. We've taken matters into our own hands. And so the Lord leaves us to ourselves that we may discover our own weakness. There are many murderers who would have never dreamed that they would hurt a fly. when they first started on the downward path to murder. Most people don't start out in their youth and say, I'm going to go murder a bunch of people when I get to be 40 years old. No. It starts out with the little things. A young girl violates her conscience in order to please her boyfriend. And the next thing she knows, she's aborting a baby. David. gazes upon his neighbor's wife, and he supposes that that is all he will do. And he murders his neighbor. Do not suppose that you can give yourself to a little sin and then stop. We're kept by the grace of God. And it is not for you to put yourselves under your own lordship and rule. As soon as we do, we have no idea where we will end up. All those you see who are in deep bondage to sin began with little sins, with little steps away from the Lord. Well, Peter is pressed even further. The whole room seems to be abuzz with him. We're told in the other Gospels that these happen about an hour apart from each other. So as people are walking around, you know, there's all this talk and there's this prophet they've just arrested. And these are the guards and the different servants there at the temple court. And they're talking to each other. Did you see that? That guy over there, he was in the garden, wasn't he? And they're all talking about this. And so a group comes over and they bring forward some evidence. You know, they've been talking about this and they say, surely you're one of them for your speech betrays you. See, being from Galilee was sort of like being from Newfoundland or from Cape Breton. You have a certain kind of accent and people can recognize you're not from around here. You're not from Jerusalem. Your speech. And Jesus is from Galilee. That's proof. You know, you must be one of his disciples. Well, Peter's in a corner. He's already set his stand that he doesn't know him. So now he has to take more drastic measures. He now begins to imprecate himself with a curse. When it says he curses, what this means is that he calls a curse down upon himself. In other words, he's saying, God, take vengeance upon me if I know this man. God, do to me and more also if I know this man. See how terrible a contradiction this is. We who know Christ know that to be out of Christ is to be cursed. So Peter puts himself in the place where there is no possibility except to be in the place of cursing. Because he says, if I know Him, let me be cursed. Of course, if he doesn't know Him, he's cursed too. In effect, he is saying, let me be cursed if I have anything, whatever to do with the only salvation that God has given. See how feeble this mighty man of courage is apart from the sustaining grace of God. Let this teach you to rest in the grace of God. If Peter can fall so far, how much more you? Do you see your weakness? Do you see what folly it is to presume your own strength? Learn to pray that you be led not into temptation. Do not dabble in sin. Walk in communion with your Lord. Brothers and sisters, look at the marvelous grace of our Lord here. Peter had forgotten the Word of the Lord Jesus. He had forgotten how the Lord had warned him about this. He had forgotten how the Lord had told him expressly that he would deny Him. This is what we do, you see, whenever we deny the Lord. We become deaf to His Word. We go on as if He had never spoken to us. We go on with indifference as if His Word is nothing. But what happens by the grace of the Lord? The cock crows and Peter is suddenly awakened to the voice of Christ. This is the grace of God. This is the Lord bringing His Word to him by the power of the Holy Spirit. There are many who hear the Word, and it has no lasting effect on them at all. It can stir up a little excitement. It can give them a little fear. It can give them a little comfort. But it doesn't really reach to them to transform them. It doesn't lay hold of them. But, if you are a child of God, then you know what it is for the Word of God to come to you with power and conviction. You have had this happen for the Word to stop you in your tracks, for the Word to awaken you, for it to lay hold of you and bring you what you need. You see, and if not for the grace of God, if God had not done this to Peter, if he had not awakened him at this point, what might Peter have done? He might never have returned. In fact, he wouldn't have if God hadn't called him back. If not for the grace of God bringing the voice of God to Peter to stop him, what would have prevented Peter from going on with this crowd? And when they began to stand before Pilate and say, Crucify! Crucify! What would Peter do then? He had already set himself up as one who did not know this man. And when he was told that this man was a blasphemer, a false prophet, They would look at Peter and say, why are you silent? What would have prevented him? But praise be to the Lord. Peter was not left to this destruction. The grace of God abounds toward those who are truly His, and He will not let us fall away from Him. He calls us back. Jesus prayed for Peter that his faith would not utterly fail. And He brought him back. Now, oh, that this might happen to any of you here who may have hardened your hearts to His voice, who have been ignoring His call, resisting His will, not receiving His Word, ignoring it as the thing indifferent, that His Word would break into your soul this very day and root you out of yourself. May it come to you as power and slay you from what you are and give you new life. to what He has called you to be. Let it jolt you out of your lethargy. What a marvelous thing that God should speak to rebels like us, even after we have denied Him. Brothers and sisters, have you heard His voice? Are you serving Him today? Are you walking in His truth today? Then how grateful you should be. How good He has been to you. Where would you be? if he had not brought his voice to call you to himself." And so we see poor Peter then before his accusers. Peter could not bear to own Jesus when he was as a lamb before the slaughter. And Peter knew him to be the Son of God. But now let us look at Jesus before his accusers. Jesus. is not ashamed to declare that he is the Son of God, even at the very hour that he is allowing himself to be treated in this horrendous way by his enemies. Look at how he conducts himself before his accusers. First, he remains silent. Now, by this silence, he shows that he's not intimidated by them. He's not one who is desperately looking for some way that he can get a loophole in the court or find some way that he can get out of this matter. By this silence, he also shows that he has no regard for these accusations that they're bringing against him. He doesn't consider these charges worthy of an answer. But then the high priest puts him under oath and asks him directly, Are you the Christ, the Son of God? Jesus says, It is as you say. Now there's a certain difficulty in answering the question that was asked him here. Caiaphas had a very different understanding of what the Messiah was to be from what the Messiah was to be. What the Messiah was. Caiaphas certainly did not expect the Messiah to be as a lamb before his slaughterers, and for those slaughterers to be the very Sanhedrin that he presided over. This is why Jesus says, it is as you say. He is saying, in effect, since you put it that way, then yes, I'm the Christ. I cannot deny it. Jesus had ordinarily, you see, avoided declaring that he was the Christ to the multitudes because they had such distorted understanding of what the Messiah would be. It would have confused them more than it would have helped. But now he has a double purpose, a double reason to affirm that he is the Christ. By affirming it, he makes it known once again to the church. He'd made it known to his disciples, and we have the record of that. Now he makes it known in this more public setting for the records of the church in God's Word. And secondly, by affirming it before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin on this occasion, He gives them occasion, at least in their minds, gives them reason to crucify Him because the appointed hour has come. Well, we're told in Luke that Jesus also tells them that He knows that even though He tells them that He is the Christ, that they won't believe Him. Clearly, they are not interested. He tells them, I know what you're doing here. You're not really interested in investigating my claim to see if it's true. They are not ready to examine the evidence. You see, they've already concluded that if he said yes, that he was the Christ, the Son of God, they will count him a deceiver. Even though all the evidence was there that showed that He was the Christ, even though He had fulfilled the signs that were given in the Old Testament and we're told of the Messiah, they did not consider even the possibility that it might be true that He was the Christ, the Son of God. Now think about this. There is no crime in saying, I am the Christ, the Son of God, if you are the Christ, the Son of God. This is what Jesus is charged with. Only for saying, I am the Christ, the Son of God. No evidence whatsoever is brought forward to disprove that He is the Messiah or the Son of God. It is just automatically treated as a crime that He should claim to be such. Even though all the people in the court believed that the time appointed by God for the Messiah to come was at hand. They simply assumed that He was not the Messiah because He was not acting the way they expected the Messiah to act. Especially that He was arrested and standing trial before them in this manner. But you see here that Jesus nevertheless affirms that He is the Christ in this context. He is not ashamed. Even though now he does not look like the Christ to anyone in that room, he boldly says, I am. And then he adds the marvelous declaration to this claim. Verse 64, Hereafter, you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power and coming on the clouds of heaven. He may not look like the Messiah to them as He is on His way to the cross now. That's going to change. The day is coming when He will look like the Messiah to them. He is going to come with the majesty and glory of the Son of God to judge those who this day were judging Him. Sitting at the right hand of the power shows that it will be given to Him to exercise the very power of God Remember before I told you that Caiaphas saw this as a claim to divinity? Well, it was. Because when he says the right hand of power, he is saying that the power of God is going to be exercised through me. The right hand of the power of God, he would be given the ability to exercise that great power, that omnipotent power of God. And coming on the clouds shows that he will use that power to bring divine judgment upon his enemies. God's coming on the clouds is used in the scriptures again and again to represent Jehovah's display of power and judgment. They will not see him in this status with their bodily eyes until the last day of the resurrection of the just and the unjust. But they will see the effects of his reign in their own generation. He will first be raised from the dead. Then He will pour out His Spirit upon His disciples and they will be endued with power to work signs and wonders in His name and to preach the gospel to the nations. Then He will gather those nations to Himself as God had prophesied. This was a divine work that suddenly those Gentiles who had been in the darkness, the light comes to them and they turn to the Lord. And He will come on the clouds to bring judgment upon Jerusalem, as He had told them in Matthew 24, upon that generation. Now, it is this powerful testimony of Jesus coming as one arm with the power of God that incites the rage of Caiaphas and draws from His lips the word, blasphemy. The very idea that this One, who is as a Lamb, prepared for the slaughter, should claim to be the Christ, the Son of the living God. This is enough to call for His death. To say that this One, who as a lamb before His shearers is dumb, is going to be judging the nations of the world. You see, Peter was ashamed and afraid to identify with Him in this humbled state. Jesus was not ashamed to make the claim that this is who he was in this humble estate. Jesus was not ashamed because he knew that giving himself as a lamb for the slaughter was the very heart of the work that he had come to do. It was glorious for him to do this. In one way, it is true that it was not fitting for the Son of God to be treated in this way, so shamefully by His enemies. It was not fitting at all. Especially that the very high priest who had been appointed to represent Him should treat Him in this way. On the part of the Sanhedrin representing the church and the world, it was a display of reprehensible injustice. It was a thing most shameful. But for the Son of God Himself, He was not ashamed. It was His most glorious act to give Himself in this way. He was acting every bit like Himself when He stood as a Lamb destined for the slaughter. He was giving Himself up wholly to the Father's will as He had always done as the second Person of the Trinity. And He was doing it now in order that the world might be saved. Not every person, but the world which Jesus and His saints will inherit. The world is soon to be renewed by Him as a world where there is perfect righteousness and where perfect love abounds. He was most like Himself in that He is a God of infinite love and grace who is willing to bear this rude treatment in order to bring us to salvation. This is the very highest form of royal dignity, brothers and sisters, that a king The king should sacrifice himself for the sake of his subjects and for no benefit to himself in that sacrifice. That he should use his authority not to oppress them and to draw force from them, but in order to give them life and salvation. Not to oppress, but to bless. Oh, it's marvelous. Royal love. What royal love ought to be. What love every husband ought to have for his wife and his children. What every king ought to have for his nation. What the Lord Jesus has for us. He is not ashamed of the cross. And of His presence under trial by these wicked men. Because He knows what He's doing. He knows that it's glorious. He knows that He's on the pathway of procuring eternal salvation for His people. He knows what the end will be. He knows that His glory for all eternity will be found in the shame that He, the Messiah of Christ, the Son of God, was willing to undergo for our sakes. Blessed be the name of the Lord forever and ever, the gracious Redeemer, the Savior of the world. did not glory in the cross at this time when Jesus was crucified, but He gloried in it afterward. Peter had an excuse, in a sense, because the fullness of the cross had not been revealed to him yet as the glorious thing that it was. But afterward, he knew there's no excuse for us. We have the whole picture. It is for us to glory in the cross. It was Peter himself that said, But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow in his steps. Who committed no sin, nor is deceit found in his mouth. Who, when he was reviled, did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but committed himself to him who judges righteously. who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed." Please stand and let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, how we glory in the presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ to us in the passion narratives of the Gospels. We thank You for how Matthew presents our Lord to us in His regal bearing, who stood before His accusers with such majesty, declaring that He would come in the clouds, that He was the Christ, the Son of the living God, that He would be seen, exalted to the right hand of the power on high. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would make us worshippers of King Jesus. That when we behold him and his majesty bearing our iniquities, suffering, deliberately suffering in order that he might bring us life. I pray, O Lord, that you would make us glad. And that we would give ourselves up to this salvation. what folly it is for the citizens of this world to continue to resist the One who came and bore our transgressions, to continue to push Him away, to make excuses, to find fault with Him, to try Him according to our own twisted standards, and to find Him unworthy of our loyalty and trust. Father, we pray that You would have mercy upon us. I pray that Your voice would come to us with power the way it came to Peter, that it would awaken us out of our delirium, that it would awaken us out of our deception. You would make us live, O Lord, by Your powerful Word, the living Word that begets all those who receive it. The Lord Jesus who said, my sheep will hear my voice and they will follow me. that we would not depart from Him, that He would keep us. Father, we praise You and we thank You for that. And we do come to You now and we say, Lord, take us and receive us as Your own. Make us to be Your disciples. We look to You, O Lord Jesus, for You have done all that was necessary for us. We are unrighteous, but You are righteous and holy. You paid all of the penalty that we deserve. You bore the wrath and curse of God for us. You bore it willingly, and we're not ashamed to own you. as our master and our Lord, though you are still spit upon in this world, though you're still despised and rejected and though your people are often sidelined. We thank you, O Lord, that you are still our glorious king and that even in these ways that we follow your example as we bear patiently with the troubles that we have continuing to confess you all along the way. Give us boldness to stand before you in the office place, to stand and own you in the place of the university or in the school. Father, we pray that in our neighborhoods that we would be known as the followers of the Lamb of God that was slain. Father, we pray that You would cause us to bring forth the fruits of this salvation that our Lord has accomplished. That You would work mightily and powerfully in us to renew us and to make us whole. That we might live as Your people. That we might love one another. That we might reproduce the love that was in Jesus in our families and in the roles that we have in leading and such. Father, we commit these things to You. We do pray this morning, too, for our nation, for the kings and for those that are in authority over us and our land that you have appointed. Father, we pray that we would show the proper respect to them, that we would not yield your truth, but that we would also not be rebellious and disorderly. But, Father, that you would give us wisdom to function in our society as we ought. Father, we pray that You would be merciful to us and You would appoint those over us that would bring about those things that would be good for Your church and for Your people. We pray, Lord, that You would draw many to a knowledge of salvation, that we might call upon Your name together in unity with the citizens of this land and the inhabitants of this city. We ask these things in the glorious name of Jesus, who is the reigning Lord and the power on high. Amen. You may be seated. Now may the God of peace, who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well-pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.