John 18 28 to 38 now hear the Word of God as we as we once more witness the passion of Jesus his trial and we consider his crucifixion death and resurrection one more time John 18 28 then they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the Praetorium and it was early morning but they themselves did not go into the Praetorium lest they should be defiled but that they might eat the Passover Pilate then went out to them and said, what accusation do you bring against this man? They answered and said to him, if he were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered him up to you. Then Pilate said to them, you take him and judge him according to your law. Therefore, the Jews said to him, it's not lawful for us to put anyone to death, that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he spoke, signifying by what death he would die. Then Pilate entered the praetorium again, called Jesus, and said to him, Are you the king of the Jews? Jesus answered him, Are you speaking for yourself about this, or did others tell you this concerning me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you to me. What have you done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight so that I should not be delivered to the Jews, but now my kingdom is not from here. Pilate therefore said to him, are you a king then? Jesus answered, you say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice. Pilate said to him, what is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, I find no fault in him at all. Amen. Let's pray. Father in heaven, oh God, we pray you'd open up the word to us. Help us to be able to see what Pilate could not see. Father, help us to be able to see the things the Jews could not see. But only by your spirit this morning, Father, we pray you would enable us, that you would awaken us, and that you would plant the truth in us that we too, all of us in this room, would be part of your kingdom. In Jesus' name, amen. Please be seated. You remember that Jesus has already been to the house of Annas. Annas not a good guy. Annas being the previous chief priest, his son-in-law, Caiaphas, is now the chief priest of the Jews. And now they're shuffling Jesus over to Pilate, that is the Romans, over in the Praetorium. But the question I want to start with this morning as we consider this, here Jesus is standing before the Romans and the Jews And Jesus is standing before us too. So the question I want to ask again is this question, who is this man? Who is Jesus? And what's wrong with these people? What's wrong with these people? Please understand what's going on here. The Romans really constitute the highest civilization that man has seen to date. meaning that in terms of their ability to hold their civilizations together, in terms of their institutions, in terms of their civic morality, in terms of their structures, in terms of their law, the Romans are seen as a very advanced civilization. So, what you have here is the greatest civilization on earth, that is the Romans, and the guardians of the moral code of God's law that is the most religious people on earth gathered together in Jerusalem in roughly AD 33 to crucify the Messiah. I just want that to sink in for a moment for you. The greatest people on earth in the civic arena and the religious arena gathered together in one place in Jerusalem to crucify Jesus. Okay, that's what's happening. Now, you may be saying right now, I would never have done this. Is that true? Would you have done this? Would you have risen up against Jesus and would you have been in the crowd crying, Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Put Him on the cross! Would you have been part of the crowd crying out against Jesus, the perfect Son of God? The fact is the Jews didn't know who this was, didn't understand who this was, and the Romans didn't either. And these are my two points. The Jews didn't realize who was standing in front of them, and Pilate didn't understand who was standing in front of him either. So this is the sermon. They just didn't recognize him. They didn't recognize him. Who is this person who is standing in front of Pilate in this story, in this account that happened some 2,000 years ago? Who is this person? And let's just say he is the Lamb and the King. This is who he is. Jesus is the Lamb and the King. Now, not the Lamb they expected during the Passover of roughly 1833. Not exactly the lamb they were looking for, and not exactly the king they were looking for. But nevertheless, here's Jesus, the lamb and the king. Do you know him? Do you recognize him? That's my question for all of you. Young people, older people, children this morning, do you know who this is in this story? Do you know him? Do you know the lamb? Do you know the king? But here, what were they thinking? That's the question I want to ask as we look at verse 30. Read verse 30 one more time there. Verse 30 of chapter 18. Back up to verse 28. Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the praetorium, and it was early morning, but they themselves did not go into the praetorium, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover. Pilate then went out to them and said, what accusation do you bring against this man? They answered and said to him, if he were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered him up to you. So they perceived Jesus first as an evildoer. They saw that there's something wrong with Jesus. And this is the problem with all of us, is we don't come to grips with God's law. We develop in ourselves our own law, our own sense of right and wrong, and they didn't have the right sense. They were autonomous or antinomians in their minds. Jesus called them anomians in Matthew 23. It says inside you're full of hypocrisy and lawlessness, or anomia. So, you know, even though they were meticulous about the externals, and we'll get to that in just a moment, they had these external laws, but inside they're raging antinomians. They have a hatred to God and His law when God speaks to the fundamental moral requirements for man. There's this sort of rebellion that goes on in the very core of the being of man. His heart is against God. His heart doesn't submit to God's law. And he's this onomian. It's odd to refer to the Pharisees as onomians. People think of them as legalists, you know. But they were at heart against God, against His law. They perceived Jesus as this horrible evildoer. But then back up to 28, the mindset of the Jews was, man, we gotta crucify this guy. But I can't get close to the Gentiles, can't walk in the praetorium. So that's the mindset of the Jews. Their goal is, we've got to get rid of him, got to crucify Jesus, but I can't walk into the praetorium. Why? Because this is the Passover, and for the Passover, there's this requirement in the Old Testament law that the Jews maintain a very high standard of cleanliness, especially as they approach the temple during the week of Passover. They were not allowed to go into the temple or the tabernacle in the Old Testament if they were unclean or had touched a dead body. The Jews were fastidious about this cleanliness. They didn't want to touch a Gentile. for the Gentiles, they assumed to be unclean, because the Gentiles didn't have the same standards of cleanliness. So if you touched a Gentile, then see, you would be contaminated by the same thing that was contaminating the Gentiles. And so that's why they would stay out of the Pretoria, they'd stay away from the Gentiles during this week of Passover. They had cleaned the leaven out of their homes. They spent some time getting all the leaven out of the home, all the yeast out of the home, so any kind of bread that had yeast in it, that got cleaned out of the house. They'd been up and down the roads and the bridges leading into Jerusalem, cleaning up the garbage and the corpses of dead animals. The graves had been whitewashed so the pilgrims coming to Jerusalem would not be defiled by them. Now, this is something very common with almost every religion in the world. I've just spent the last several weeks studying ancient religions, the ancient world and the religions that were very common, and those religions that were basically developed through the BC years and then eventually affected all of the nations around the world. There is a very strong sensitivity to filthiness and contamination amongst most cultures, if not every culture in the world. For example, the Polynesian peoples would forbid touching certain foods, sometimes at the pain of death. Women were typically treated as unclean by many cultures, particularly at certain times of the month. The Persians, very cleanly, externally, had many, many rights to clean themselves. The Zoroastrian holy book would go on for pages and pages detailing various ceremonial cleansings. They treated nail clippings and hair clippings as unclean. So if you had any contact with a nail clipping, that would be unclean. And if you had touched it, you would be unclean for a certain period of time until you had been cleansed. So the Zoroastrians are very much concerned about that. So are the Japanese. The Japanese may be the most cleanly people on earth today because the Shinto religion requires purification with temizu, that's the pure water. Haraigushi, the purification wand that's waved by the Shinto priest, and Shibatsu, which is where they scatter the salt around. You know, they do the sumo wrestling in Japan, and before they do the sumo wrestling, you see these big fat guys distributing the salt around the ring. That's to clean out the ring. So the Japanese have a very, very strong sense of cleanliness, and you see this right away when you walk into Japanese culture. And to this day, the Hindus also are big on ritual baths. They bathe in sacred rivers, usually filthy rivers. Ritual cleansings happen with smoke. It's called dupa. Light, that's the diapam. Water, that's akhamanam. And they sprinkle with ritual water and further purify to remove the evil eye. They're fastidious about their sacraments, their sacrificial ceremonies, their expiation ceremonies, their wearing of charms, amulets, and sacred objects, and abstaining from food or certain foods. It's called upavasa. So the Hindus have many, many systems whereby they want to purify themselves and clean themselves up on the outside, but all of this in vain. See, there's no relieving of the guilt or the feeling of contamination to the human soul. The pig always returns to his wallowing in the mire, and the dog returns to his vomit. The problem is man's heart needs the cleansing. And man is minimizing the problem, therefore rejecting the ultimate solution, this God solution. So there's these constant efforts to band-aid up the cancer, or the heart disease. Children, if you've got a problem with your kidney, or if you've got a problem inside of your body, with cancer or with some kind of heart disease. You can't solve it by a band-aid and you can't like put a thousand band-aids on you. Even, you know, band-aids with superhero figures on the band-aids. That's not going to help you any, kids. If you've got a problem inside with your appendix. We had a child in this church who had a problem with her appendix this week And there was no band-aiding. The parents didn't pull out all of the band-aids and band-aid all of the outside of their body in order to deal with this appendix that could have been fatal for the little one in our congregation. You can't solve the problems by band-aiding it. And that's what man is doing constantly. Because see, the problem is not with the skin. The problem is with the human heart. So the Jews said, we'll just stay out of the praetorium and crucify Jesus. That's the way we'll find our salvation. But you see how futile this is. All of these things are just external efforts to cleanse our guilty consciences and befouled hearts, but it's all in vain. Just trying to clean the heart by scrubbing the skin. It's just not going to work. They had problems not just with the leaven in their homes. The problem was the leaven or the yeast in their hearts, the yeast in their lives, that ugly thing about sin that's like a disease and works as a cancer or works as that leprosy disease that just eats out of the human heart and does all that corrupting work. This was the problem with man. over all those centuries, over all those millennia. Now, modern man says, we don't need any of this. And that's why psychosis, that's why neurosis. That's why psychotropic drugs. And the sooner we, as modern man, would admit to this, the better. Man is on a suicidal track. Man is doing his best to drug himself and to disconnect himself from the pain and the agony of knowing he's contaminated. This is man's issue. And modern psychology presents the idea they can solve it with a band-aid or with a psychotropic drug or whatever it is. But, brothers and sisters, you know that's going to be all in vain. You know it's all in vain. Paul speaks to the futile systems of religion in Colossians chapter 2 where the people of the New Testament were wanting to reintroduce the Old Testament cleansings. The Old Testament cleansings for a reason, it was simply to point out that the need was internal, simply to point out that the circumcision on the outside would not do any good if there wasn't a circumcision on the inside. The Word of God in the Old Testament was clear these things are not sufficient. And those with faith should have seen it, should have heard it, and should have received it, but they didn't. So Paul speaks of this in Colossians 2. Let me read from Colossians 2, 20 through 22. from the basic principles of the world. Why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to the regulations? Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle. Why do you always return back to this desire to circumcise and this desire to bring the food laws back in and the Sabbath laws and all of these things? Why are you always wanting to bring back all the Old Testament cleansings? Why would you want to do all of this if you died with Christ? which, he says, all concern things which perish with the using, according to the commandments and doctrines of men. These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion. False humility. Oh, I'm so religious. Oh, look at me doing all my cleansings. I cleansed myself with smoke, and then I climbed into the filthy river, the sacred river, and then I did this, and then I did that. There's salt all over the place. I've been cleansing and cleansing and cleansing. Surely this is doing some good. And Paul says, no, it doesn't. Appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, neglect of the body, but no value against the indulgence of the flesh. No value for the Muslims. No value for the Hindus. The highest pornography download rates and the worst forms of pornography and the worst forms of sexual degradation that we ever find. I hear these reports coming back from Afghanistan and Pakistan and other places. No, it doesn't do them any good. They're filthy, filthy hearts. just continue to do the filthiest things possible and all of the external cleansings of the Muslims and the Hindus and the Buddhists and all the others, it doesn't do any good at all. But the human soul is crying out and saying, but I'm contaminated, but I'm guilty before Almighty God. But I have this horrible leaven and this terrible cancer, and the Ebola virus is seeping through my being, and I need help. Maybe I can get another Band-Aid to help me with this. But it doesn't. It's all in vain. Jesus refers to this in Matthew 15. Listen to what Jesus said when His disciples were eating without washing their hands, By the way, there was no rule in the Old Testament requiring the washing of hands before eating. There wasn't. It was just one more rule that somebody had added to the list. It's okay, moms, if you require the little ones to wash their hands. I'm okay with that. But it's not a religious requirement. It's not a moral law connected to this. And so when we heighten our own mama's rules, or the Jews' rules above what God said in the Old Testament, or what God is saying to us in the New Testament, we're displacing God's commandments with the traditions of men, and that's what Jesus was saying there in Matthew 15. But listen to 16, Jesus said, are you also still without understanding? Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? That is, Jesus said, you eat some dirt, it goes through your liver, and your liver's really good at cleaning everything out, and then eventually it gets eliminated out through waste products. That's what Jesus is saying. He's a little biology lesson here. In Matthew 15, isn't that great? Jesus knows, you know why he knows about biology? He made it, yeah. Okay. This is, okay, this is what happens. You get a little dirt in your system. You know, everybody eats, what, a quart of dirt total in a lifetime? What is it? I don't know what it is. Is it 20 pounds of dirt? How much dirt do you eat in 80 years? What is it? It's a lot. But that's what the liver is for. Jesus said, so, you know, relax a little bit here. Mom, relax. Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart. See, what Jesus is saying here, and they defile a man, what he's saying is the heart is the source of the Ebola virus. The heart, the inside of you, the very inside of you is the cesspool of all the green goo that pours out, it contaminates you and makes you even more contaminated, and of course it contaminates everybody else around you as well. So that's what our Lord is saying when He says, out of the heart proceeds These things that defile a man, for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, and murder, and adulteries, and fornications, and thefts, and false witness, and blasphemies. These are the things that defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man. So what our Lord is telling us here is we have two problems, not just one. We are guilty, yes, but we are also contaminated. By nature, yes, we're guilty before God, but there's also something wrong with our nature. It's a contaminated nature. We have a sense for our contamination. We have a sense that we are not clean people. We are smeared by sin. It's a stain of sin. And so you ask, why do I act so neurotic and psychotic? Why do I respond this way or that way? Why do I deny my guilt and why do I try to hide this and try to hide that and so forth? All of these are attempts to hide the guilt and the lack of cleanliness in our own hearts and minds by nature. So every lustful glance, every hateful, envious, covetous thought, every proud look, every sexual sin has turned us unclean as the leper, contaminated with the Ebola virus. And Isaiah 64 puts it this way, we have all become like one who is unclean. And all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment, filthy rags, like menstrual rags. That's the word for menstrual rags, collecting that unclean thing that you don't really want laying around the living room. It's unclean, you want to put it away, you want to flush it down the toilet. He says, we are all like this. Our righteous deeds are as a polluted garment. So we do righteous things. You know, we help an old lady across the street, still all perverted, all corrupted with all the wrong motivation. There's not that love for God. There isn't a loving the neighbor as we love ourselves. It's the wrong motives, there's the wrong end in mind and so forth, that working in all of these things, even our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf and our iniquities like the wind take us away. So by nature, we're so contaminated, so yucky, such a sense that we have the Ebola virus and if we walk out there, we're probably gonna contaminate others with it. So much a sense of contamination. Man can pretend he's cleaning himself up by penance and by blame shifting, by external cleansings. It's all superficial. These are cheap religions selling us a cheap solution to a real problem. So what is the solution? Well, the solution is right before them. They're concerned about ceremonial cleansing. They're not going to Praetorium. They want to crucify the Savior, not realizing it's Passover. But not just an ordinary Passover. The Passover lamb has been killed 1,400 times on Thursday. And this is Friday. They have just killed the Passover lamb on Thursday. But this is Friday. By the way, there are some arguments that this trial occurred on Wednesday, on the Preparation Day. So it's possible that Jesus died on Thursday. It's possible. The Preparation Day was Wednesday, and this was Preparation Day. So there's debate amongst various people about it. But whatever the case is, they were still looking to the Passover lamb that they were killing every Thursday, every Thursday for 1,400 years. There were five requirements for the Passover lamb, and I want to go through these quickly. Exodus chapter 12 brings these out. The lamb was to be without blemish, Exodus 12 verse 5. The instruction to Moses was clear in Exodus 12, 46, that not one of the lamb's bones was to be broken. Number three, it was to be selected out four days before it was slaughtered. Number four, it was to be roasted with fire, not boiled in water, roasted in fire. And it was to be slain in Jerusalem, or that place that God had designated. So the Jews didn't recognize their Lamb. The Jews didn't recognize their Lamb. This was the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world, but they didn't recognize. They didn't realize that this was a different Passover and would require a different Lamb. They didn't recognize the horrible lack of cleanliness in their own hearts. And so they didn't realize that they would need the Lamb of God to be sacrificed for them. They didn't see the necessity of this. They solved their problem, it's not really down deep in the heart, not at the core of their being, but something that was external. Something that they could deal with by an external means, by the sprinkling of the blood of the lamb over and over again. But this time the lamb was the true Passover lamb, and that was Christ. 1 Corinthians 5-7 clearly tells us that Jesus was our Passover lamb, sacrificed for us. So if you have a question as to where is the fulfillment of Exodus chapter 12 in the New Testament, it is most definitely in Jesus. Jesus is our Passover. He really was the Passover lamb that was sacrificed. And you remember back in Genesis chapter 22, perhaps one of the most horrifying chapters in all of scripture. We go back to Genesis 22 and we walk up towards Moriah, which is modern day Jerusalem. The mountains of Moriah really were Jerusalem. And so when God called Abraham to take his son, his only son, and this is, again, one of the most horrifying stories, one of the scariest stories in scripture. And there they are, Abraham, Isaac, the servants, heading out to Moriah, taking this long day journey, three-day journey, taking a three-day journey, all the while Abraham believing his son was dead and looking for a resurrection on the third day. Amen? God says, take your son, your only son, the son whom you love, and sacrifice. make him a whole sacrifice on the altar on Moriah. And you can hear the voice of Isaac saying, we have the wood, we have the fire, but Father, where is the lamb? And Isaac is bound to the altar. But what does Abraham say? Probably the most important prophetic word ever found in any part of the Old Testament. Certainly the most piercing prophetic message at probably the most intense and difficult time of anybody's life as he's going up to Moriah challenged to sacrifice his own son on that altar. He says to Isaac, the Lord will provide a lamb. The Lord will provide a lamb. And indeed He did. In Isaac. Isaac's seed. It turned out it wasn't going to be Isaac. It would be his seed that would be the lamb. that God would choose, the lamb that God would provide, the perfect lamb of God to take away the sin of the world. And indeed, Jesus was a lamb without blemish, a lamb without sin. He had no sin in him. He was perfect. He was the lamb without any blemish at all, not a mark anywhere. Every other lamb that had ever been sacrificed for the Passover had a blemish. If you had looked carefully at those lambs, you would have seen something of a blemish on those lambs, but not so with Jesus. Not one of his bones was broken. He had entered Jerusalem some four days earlier in the triumphal entry, and he was not boiled. He was set on the cross in the sun to bake. He was pierced, but he also received the torture of roasting on the cross in the sun. A tremendous, painful sacrifice. And he was killed in Jerusalem. And like a lamb before his shearers was dumb, so he opened not his mouth. John the Baptist, as he opened his ministry, he would say about Jesus, behold the Lamb of God. Behold. Do you see? Behold the Lamb. That's really the essence of what it is to be saved. It's to look, to behold. Simply to look and to look and see this is Jesus, the Lamb of God. Behold the Lamb of God. Yet the Jews did not behold. That's the issue here. They did not behold. They didn't behold Jesus. They didn't behold the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world. They just didn't behold Him. John the Baptist said, Behold the Lamb of God! But they wouldn't behold the Lamb of God! So it's for us, brothers and sisters, to simply behold. Look! The Lamb of God! who's been sent to take away the sin of the world. Without the shedding of blood, there would be no remission. That is God's way, that is God's law. There could be no life without the shedding of the precious blood of Christ that cleanses us from our sins. It is pure blood, it's perfect blood, it's a blood that cries out better things than the blood of Abel. And the benefits of this blood, it reconciles us. It diverts the avenging angel that's killing the firstborns and would kill every one of us. It's the blood that redeems us from Egypt. It's the blood that cleanses. That's the value of the sacrifice for us. Amen. So brothers and sisters, God has provided a lamb. Imagine the relief that Abram felt when the angel said, stop, there's a ram in the bush. Imagine the relief that he felt. There was a whew. And I think sometimes there needs to be a cumulative whew amongst the people of God. Do you understand that God requires Death. God requires a penalty for sin. And it's not just physical death, it's eternal death. And it's not the death of your son for you, it's the death of yourself, for you and for your sin. But God steps in and says, wait, I will provide a lamb. And there needs to be a relief about this. Our worship needs to be something of a relief. Like, we're not bound to bear the penalty ourselves. It's not on our shoulders anymore, brothers and sisters. We are released. As we behold the Savior, as we receive the Savior, we believe in the Savior, this is God's lamb. We don't step in and say, wait a minute, I'm gonna pay for the sin myself. We don't say, God, not sufficient for us. We don't say any of that, do we? We simply say, thank you. We receive the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world and is stepping into the judgment, the condemnation in my place. Thank you, God, for the provision of the Lamb. God has provided a Lamb through Jesus, and we receive that Lamb, and we're relieved. Thy grace alone, O God, to me can pardon speak. Thy power alone, O Son of God, can this sore bondage break. No other work save Thine, no other blood will do, no strength save that which is divine can bear me safely through. A thousand amens to that. A thousand amens. All right, let's move on to Pilate. We looked at the Jews. The Jews did not expect the Lamb. They did not expect the Passover. They didn't expect this to be the fulfillment of 1,400 years of Passover sacrifices. But now Pilate is also oblivious. Look at verses 33 through 37 of our text. Pilate entered the praetorium again, called Jesus, and said to him, are you the king of the Jews? And Jesus answered him, are you speaking for yourself about this, or did others tell you this concerning me? Pilate answered, am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you to me. What have you done? Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now my kingdom is not from here. Pilate therefore said to him, are you a king then? Jesus answered, you say that I'm a king. For this cause I was born and for this cause I have come into the world that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice. So what's going on here? Pilate's oblivious, as well as the Jews. He's missing it. He's not seeing it at all. Who is this one standing before him? Now, the accusation against Jesus is what? He is king of the Jews, or he says he's king of the Jews. This is the accusation placed against Christ. But there's something very mysterious about this. It's one of the most cryptic passages in all of Scripture. learned their lessons well. They didn't want to crucify Jesus, put Jesus to death themselves, because Annas had attempted that 15 years earlier. He was a little over-anxious at going after people and executing people right and left, and he was pulled out of his position as high priest. So Annas had made the mistake 15 years earlier, so they don't want to make that mistake again. So they're sending Jesus over to Pilate in order for Pilate to consider the accusation against him, which is that he was king of the Jews. Now Pilate doesn't really take this seriously, why? Well, because the Jews sent Jesus over to Pilate with a request, we would like you to crucify our king. And it's obvious, who's gonna take that seriously? Pilate's not taking it seriously, it's a joke. As far as he's concerned, he's not seeing it, he's not getting it. He doesn't realize what's going on here. He doesn't understand the antipathy between these hypocritical, Pharisaical people who didn't understand their problem and their need for a Savior and for a King, their lack of the fear of God, their total lack of a love for God and so forth. He didn't see the problem with the Jews and with all their hypocrisies, but Pilate was looking around, he didn't see that Jesus had any real followers. The last of his followers were over there denying him. That is Peter, so it's not as if he had a huge following. But then we get this cryptic moment in the life of Christ where Pilate asks him directly, are you the king of the Jews? Now, a number of translations will stick in the word rightly. You say rightly that I am the king of the Jews. And that's wrong, it's just wrong. It's putting a gloss on Scripture that shouldn't be added. Please don't add to Scripture. I plead with you, don't add to Scripture. If it's not in the Greek, you don't put it there. In the New King James Version, put it there. You have rightly said, I am a king. No, it doesn't say that. It says, you say I'm a king. And that's what it says in Matthew, Mark, and Luke as well. So it's cryptic. Receive it as cryptic. Don't get over-anxious and say, hey, I'm gonna clarify this for everybody by adding a word. Don't do that, don't do it to the scripture. It's just wrong. Jesus did not answer Pilate directly. He said, you say that I am a king. He's acknowledging the accusation against him. He's not denying it. He's not affirming it, but why? The answer is because Jesus was a king. but not in the manner conceived of by Pilate. Now he clarifies his kingdom, that's true, but he doesn't give way or agree to the charge that he is king of the Jews. I think there are other reasons for it as well. Jesus wasn't born only to be a king of the Jews. He was born to be king of kings and lord of lords. There are other reasons as well. But this was a kingdom that Pilate could not even conceive of. Pilate's problem was he was blind. Pilate's problem is he had nothing to do with this kingdom. In John chapter 3, Jesus had said, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. So there are many that do not see the kingdom of God. What they hear from these passages, what they read from scripture, as they hear the preaching of the word of God, they're not taken by it. They don't resonate to it. When they hear the descriptions of the kingdom of God as righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, they don't say, yes, I relate to that. Praise Jesus. Praise God for His kingdom. I can see it all around me. And I love the kingdom of God. Its manifestations are everywhere in the church of Jesus Christ. And I resonate to it. They don't say that. Their eyes glaze over, and they can't relate to the preaching. Jesus was speaking to a dead man. There's no life and therefore no participation or knowledge of the kingdom. Suffice it to say that the Lord was very unimpressive to Pilate. But let's not pass by the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a kingdom that we are committed to. with everything in us. It's a kingdom that is characterized by two things. Verse 36, the kingdom of Jesus is not of this world. That it's not from this world, doesn't derive from this world. It is otherworldly. It is derived ultimately from the throne of God and from the right hand of the throne of God where Jesus sits. It's otherworldly such that it doesn't bear the characteristics of earthly kingdoms. Thus, Pilate is not going to relate to it. If Jesus had said, yes, I am a king, and I am the king of Judea, or the king of the Jews, Pilate would have not understood the answer, and would have misinterpreted the answer. And so, Jesus is wise, and he's careful not to give the answer. Because see, the kingdom of Jesus is not a coercive power. It's not a political power. Governments fight their wars and they execute a murderer from time to time. But friends, that's not impressive. That's big deal. Wars, executing murderers, who cares? Okay, you need a little bit of that to maintain social order, I get that. So that somehow human life can continue on earth. But the kingdom of Jesus must be more than that. The kingdom of Jesus is not from this world. It is a hundred million times more powerful in the hearts of men. than all of these external restraints and these civil laws that regulate every aspect of man's existence on earth and all the rest. The coercive powers of men, not impressive. They don't change the hearts of men. They don't make the hearts of men willing in the day of his power. The kingdom of God is something we're looking for that's bigger than the impact of the last 10 conferences I did. Forget that. No, the kingdom of God is the power of God. The kingdom of God is real resurrections, not fakey American Christianity that hardly produces anything anymore. No, real resurrections, real people getting the real message of the gospel, responding to it by a changed life, by a love for God that manifests itself in 10,000 ways, by a true heart-oriented, passionate worship for God. on a Sunday morning and on Monday morning and Tuesday mornings. The kingdom of God is the power of God, exercised in people's lives, really raising the dead, really giving them freedom from pornography and the great addictions that seem to hamper the vast majority of Americans attending churches. No, no, the real power of God, the real kingdom of God, when it comes, It transforms. It changes men and women. It sets them free from their neuroses and their psychoses and all of their sinful tendencies and addictions. That's the kingdom of God. That's what we're looking for. It's a million times more wonderful, more glorious than the kingdom of Trump. And we would hope it to be. Amen? Secondly, the king has come to bear witness of the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears the voice of Christ. Again, very strange. It doesn't sound like a king, does it? It sounds maybe more like a prophet than a king. But this king has a kingdom of truth. He doesn't come with swords and guns. He comes with a very special sword. Let me close with Revelation 19.11. Now I saw heaven open and behold a white horse and he who sat on him was called faithful and true and in righteousness he judges and makes wars. His eyes were like a flame of fire. On his head were many crowns. This is Jesus. This is Jesus. I believe it's the risen Christ. I believe it's what Jesus is doing right now. Jesus has a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe, dipped in blood, and His name is called the Word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he has on his robe and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He comes not with guns. He's not coming back with some kind of millennial reign in which he develops a kingdom where he's just bombing the living daylights out of the bad guys using F-16 fighters and all the rest. Give me a break. Of course, that's never going to happen. That's just carnal thinking. Okay, that's the wrong kingdom. It's the wrong religion. No, no. This king comes with a sword. Right here. And this sword will harden the clay or soften it. One way or the other. It will curse you. It will curse the nations, wherever it's preached. Or it will bless the nations. There's no neutrality when it comes, this is dangerous. The word of God is what crushes the nations. The gospel will crush the nations. The preaching in the Romanian prisons, I'm convinced, is what brought Ceausescu down. He said, no way. Richard Wurmbrand and all of his brokenness and his persecution, they whipped on him. He had so many scars up and down his body, you couldn't count them at the end. But they preached and they preached. Every day they preached in those prisons. And Ceausescu came down, and so did the Eastern Bloc. And so did communism. And the same thing is happening in China today. Why? Because of this. Because our Jesus has a sword that's coming out of His mouth. It is the Word of God. And it is transforming lives. And it is bringing empires down. It is the truth that does it. We also have some excellent clues as to the Kingdom of God. It is in our midst, it's mixed around the world like yeast and bread, it's all over the place. 1 Corinthians 4.20, the kingdom of God is not in talk, but in power. You see, it matters not my rhetoric. It matters not how I present. It matters not who presents. Gabe, come on up here. I'm just kidding. Won't put pressure on you right now, but it doesn't matter how it's spoken. The spirit of God binds himself around that word and accomplishes mighty deeds in the hearts and lives of millions upon billions of people around the globe. The kingdom of God is not in talk, but in power. Matthew 12, 28, if I cast out demons by the spirit of God, the kingdom of God is come unto you. So we start to see demons running. If we start to see people set free from sinful bondages that have been upon them for years upon years upon years, we see the power of God coming. Friends, that's the kingdom. And I just encourage you to open your eyes to see the kingdom of God in your own life and to see the kingdom of God in the church and amongst others around you. The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Can you see this kingdom? Do you delight in this kingdom? Is this the glorious kingdom that thrills your heart? Is there nothing that excites you more than to read the stories of how the gospel came to Tahiti for the first time in 1798, or how it came to the Fijians in 1836? Does it thrill your heart to see that Jesus really does change hearts? The power of God is here. The power of God is present. And the righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit that marks the church of Jesus Christ is the kingdom of God on earth. He brings righteousness in the earth, and that is men and women who love God with heart, soul, mind, strength. Can you see the kingdom of God? Can you see this King? Can you see the Lamb of God? And today He is the Lamb still and the King. There He was the Lamb on the cross, King of the Jews. Now He's the Lamb on the throne, King of kings and Lord of lords. He's still a Lamb and He's still the King and will be forever and ever. Amen. A hundred hallelujahs. Amen. Praise be to Jesus. Father in heaven, we glory in the kingdom of God. We glory in the power of God. We are always watching you, Father. We're not fixated upon what man's gonna do, what man's supposed to do. We're not just addicted constantly to the 10 things we're supposed to do today. We follow through as servants of the living Christ and the ruling Lord. But Father, we are overwhelmed by the work of God happening in our own lives and happening in the lives of our brothers and sisters. Jesus, you are the King of kings. You are the King that makes your people willing in the day of your power. You do that work through the word that comes out of your mouth, and we are so excited by every single powerful work that you do in others as well as ourselves. Oh, Father, we look to you to part the waters. We look to you to do the powerful work of God. We are addicted to the kingdom of God and to the great grace that you have poured out upon us through Jesus Christ. We praise you, Father, for the Lamb. Indeed, we needed a Lamb. We needed a Lamb. We needed the perfect Lamb, and you provided the Lamb, Jehovah-Jireh. Oh, Lord, we praise You, Jehovah. We praise You, Jehovah-Jireh, that You provided the Lamb. What a relief to know that You have that Lamb. You provided that Lamb that would take away the sin of the world. And that's what He's done. We look to Jesus now as our Lamb and our King, that Lamb on the throne. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, we come to the table now. And as we take these elements, I want you to think about that first Passover, three things about the first Passover. The first is that the lamb was killed on Thursday or Friday. The lamb was killed. That's the first part of Passover. The lamb was killed. And then secondly, the blood was applied to the gates of the homes. so that the avenging angel would pass over. the various homes of the Hebrews. And the word Passover comes from pasach, which is to really pass over, to exempt somebody from punishment or to placate. There's different words used to translate, but I think probably the best translation of pasach is pass over, to pass over. So the typical reference we use in English is absolutely appropriate. the avenging angel would see the blood on the lentil on top, and on the two posts on the right and the left, and the angel would pass by and exempt that home from punishment. But now, brothers and sisters, God sees the bloody scars on our house too. On the head of Jesus, his lentil, and then on the doorpost on the left and the right in His hands and His feet. And because we are in Jesus, we are in the house of Jesus, and His head is bloodied, and both of the posts of His house on the left and on the right is bloody, God will pass over us too. because there is no more condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. If we are in the house of Jesus, God sees the blood on His head. God sees the blood of the Lamb on His hands and His feet, on the left and the right, the dark parts, and because we are in Jesus, He passes over us. What a relief it is for us, brothers and sisters, that Christ is our life, our eternal life, and He has saved us from the worst possible fate. Let's all say, whew, whew, a little louder, whew. What a relief, especially when you hear the cries of the Egyptians. A great cry went up out of Egypt, for there was not a house where somebody was not dead. Imagine all the cries amongst all the houses throughout Egypt, and yet in the Hebrew houses, protected by the blood and the lentil and the doorposts, no deaths. Exempted, passed over from the deaths that came to the houses of the Egyptians. I want you to contrast Revelation 6 and 7 for just a moment. I've never seen this till last night. Listen. Revelation 6, the kings of the earth, the great ones, and the generals, and the rich, and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free. called to the mountains and the rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of their wrath had come, and who can stand?" But then Revelation 7, a great multitude that no man could numbers, cried out, Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. And they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen. These are the ones coming out of the Great Tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the same Lamb. that poured out His wrath upon those that cried for the hills and the mountains to fall upon them. So, what are you going to cry? What are we going to cry today? Are we going to cry, fall on us hills and mountains? No. We cry, thanks be to God, praise be to God for the blood of the Lamb. Salvation belongs to our God. A different cry altogether. So this is us, brothers and sisters. Today, let's say in our hearts, salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb. And if you want to fall on your face and say blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, be to our God forever. Go ahead. Then finally, they killed the Lamb, the blood was applied to the gates, And thirdly, here it is, the children of Israel ate the Passover lamb. And that brings us to this table. The lamb is slain, we have blood applied to us as we are in Christ, and now we eat. It's called communion with the body and the blood of Jesus. Communion means you come into close contact with. you come and you have fellowship with. When we take this bread and this cup, we internalize the sacrifice. What is it when you eat anything, you are saying, in faith, I believe this will sustain my life. In faith, I believe that this food will be nutritious for me and keep me alive. We always eat in faith. We don't eat thinking, oh, this isn't gonna do me any good, unless you eat at McDonald's. No, I'm kidding. Whenever you're eating, you're eating in faith, believing that this is going to do. Same thing here, as we come to the sacrifice, this being a representation of the sacrifice, the body and the blood of Jesus, we eat in faith saying, the body and the blood of Jesus is for me, and His life is for my life, and I rely upon His life. So in faith, believe it will nourish you. and say, I am dependent upon this sacrifice as I receive the bread and the cup. Amen. Let us pray. Oh, Father in heaven, we come as those who are beggars yet adopted sons into the family of God. And Father, you have provided a lamb, the lamb being your only begotten son. And Father, to say we receive the blood, we are in Christ, we embrace Him, we believe in Him, we look to His cross, and we receive His blood, and we cry out, salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. And blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power be to our God. forever and ever. Amen.