Again, I'm reading from Luke 22, and I'm going to read verses 63-71. Luke records, And the men that held Jesus mocked Him and smote Him. And when they had blindfolded Him, they struck Him on the face and asked Him, saying, Prophesy Who is it that smote thee? And many other things blasphemously spake they against him. And as soon as it was day, the elders of the people and the chief priests and the scribes came together and led him into their council, saying, Art thou the Christ? Tell us. And he said unto them, If I tell you, ye shall not believe. And if I also ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me go. Hereafter shall the Son of Man sit on the right hand of the power of God. Then said they all, Art thou then the Son of God? And he said unto them, Ye say that I am. And they said, What need we any further witness? For we ourselves have heard of his own mouth. May God bless the reading and the hearing of his word once again in this place, and let's go, Lord, together in prayer. Gracious and loving God, we are thankful that you are a God who feeds his people. As the Israelites of old were in the wilderness, you provided them daily the manna and the quail as the prophet Elijah was in the time of drought provided for by the ravens who brought him food and nourishment. So you have provided for your people in our days your Word to feed us and to nourish us. And so let us receive this from you today as the hidden man of your Word. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen. And you may be seated. Well, if you've been watching television news or watching your computer screen in recent months, you have no doubt seen many of the horrific scenes coming out of places like Iraq, where prisoners have been taken by Muslim extremists and they have been humiliated and they've been beaten and they have been mocked very often then before being put to a gruesome death. There have even been some very unsettling presentations of people who are Christians. Now, oftentimes, you know, when they say someone there is a Christian, it may mean simply that they are part of a historic Christian church and not necessarily their evangelical believers. But I've even seen some where these people are forced literally at knife point or at gunpoint to recant or to make a Muslim profession of faith and then they are summarily executed. People mocked, beaten, humiliated. Well, some of those things would probably provide a background or a closer reality for us this morning for understanding something of what Christ experienced as it is described here in the gospel of Luke and in the other canonical gospels. In fact, the backdrop of seeing men humiliated, mocked and beaten before being summarily executed is probably a closer picture to what Jesus experienced that we would really care to know. We'd rather have one of those cleaned up passion plays. that are put on in churches where there's sort of a clean and a neat presentation of these things. But those last moments of our Lord when He was mocked and beaten, these were not some cleaned up performances upon the stage. But what we see are pictures of real depravity, real cruelty, real violence and real suffering that our Lord underwent, the type that makes us want to turn our heads away and disgust, not even to look upon them. When our old Reformed forebears wrote the catechisms that teach biblical truth. They described how Christ, our Redeemer, executed or carried out what they called the offices of a prophet, of a priest, and a king, both in his state of humiliation and exaltation. And later, that catechism describes how Christ's humiliation consisted not only in his lowly birth, but also, as the catechism puts it, in his undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God and the cursed death of the cross. And what Luke is going to paint for us today as we look at this segment of Jesus on trial is a picture, a master portrait, picture, verbal picture of Christ in the state of humiliation. And so this is what we have to meditate upon today. Last time I noted that all the Gospels agree that Jesus underwent two trials before he went to the cross. First, there was a religious trial that took place before the Jewish authorities. And then secondly, as we'll see in upcoming messages, there was a civil trial that took place before Pontius Pilate, because the Jews did not have the civil authority to put Jesus to death. And in the religious trial, the charge against Jesus is going to be blasphemy. In the civil trial, it is going to be insurrection. He is trying to make himself to be a king. We know that on the night that Jesus was arrested, according to John's gospel, he was taken first to Annas, who had previously served as the high priest, and then he was taken to Caiaphas, who was the current high priest. Luke is describing how Jesus was being tried there through the night of His arrest. And I noted last week that really there were two trials, right? There was the inside trial where Jesus was being examined. And then outside, what we saw last week was the outer trial where Peter, the disciple, was being examined by the bystanders as they stood around the fire. And whereas Peter, failed in his trial, denying that he even knew Jesus, even though he had promised that he'd be willing to go to prison even later on in his life for Christ. We noted finally last week that though Peter fails in his trial, Jesus will triumph in his trial as he will demonstrate his obedience to the will of God, just as he did when he prayed in the garden. not my will but thine be done, showing both his active and passive obedience to the will of God. If you read through the gospel accounts, again, they all mention these trials. Each one of them gives a unique account of it. And that's why we have four gospels. The Hebrew scriptures taught that every important matter had to be established by two or more witnesses. And so we have more than one witness that gives account of what happened to Jesus. And particularly Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell things very similarly, but again, each tells it uniquely. And Luke, remember at the very beginning, if you remember way back when we started this series, back in Luke 1 verse 3, Luke particularly said he wanted to tell his gospel in order to set in order or in sequence the events in the life of Jesus for Theophilus, the man for whom he wrote this gospel, so that he could be catechized or taught the basic things about Jesus. And it seems that if we look at this account, Luke wants to focus upon four main points or four events that happened to Jesus while he was on trial before the high priest and before the Sanhedrin, before he was handed over to Pilate. The first of these things is that Jesus was abused physically and verbally by those who guarded him particularly during the nighttime interview that took place at the home of the high priest. Secondly, Luke says, at daylight, after this night of being interrogated and being abused, at daylight Jesus was taken before the Jewish council or the Sanhedrin where he was in particular asked if he claimed to be the Christ or the Messiah. And they did this not because they were honestly interested in his answer, but because they wanted to entrap him. They wanted him to say that he was claiming to be the Messiah so that they could use this as evidence to condemn him. And then thirdly, during this interview, Jesus identified himself as the Son of Man. And the backdrop for this we're going to look at and see is in the book of Daniel, the 7th chapter, the 13th and 14th verses. Daniel's vision of the Son of Man who would come in a cloud with power. Jesus identifies himself as the Son of Man. And then the fourth thing that Luke wants to Make sure that we know the fourth point, or in this sequence is, Jesus was asked if he considered himself to be the Son of God. And when he answered in the affirmative, yes, I am the Son of God, his interrogators decided, now we have the evidence that we need to condemn him. So, Luke is pointing us to these four events, sequence of events. And so let's let's turn and meditate, if we can, on each one of these in turn following Luke's flow. First, Luke describes how Jesus was abused. by those who were guarding Him. And we see this in verses 63 through 65. In verse 63, Luke begins, And the men that held Jesus mocked Him and smote Him. We can just start off with that opening phrase, and the men that held Jesus. The verb here in Greek is synecho. In addition to simply meaning to hold, to have a grasp upon, the verb can also mean or have the sense of to surround, to hem in, or to encircle. And so we're supposed to, I think, get a visual picture. Luke often, and the other gospel writers, paint a visual picture through their words. The idea is that they're encircling Jesus. They're holding Him in, pinning Him in by encircling Him. And think about it. This was the age before anyone thought anything about humane treatment of prisoners in custody. I've had the opportunity over the last year or so to teach, as you know, a couple of courses in a prison. And I can tell you, having gone through the orientation for people to go in there, that there's a lot of care for the humane treatment of prisoners, at least by the staff, and even a lot of watching as to how prisoners treat other prisoners. But remember, this is the first century. There's no such concept of humane treatment of those who are in custody. In the first century, you were guilty until proven innocent, and the punishment began even before your trial ended. Here's one of the ironies. It is the life of the man that they're encircling and beating. It's the life of this man That will change the way prisoners are treated. That's one of the one of the ironies of this, the teaching of this man that says every person ought to be treated humanely, even if they've been accused of crimes. Luke continues, and he says here in verse 63 that they mocked him The verb here in Pisa means to ridicule, to make fun of, to trick or to deceive. And they smote him. They beat him. They struck him. They hit him. And we don't know which was worse probably for our Lord. Was it the emotional abuse that they inflicted upon him as they mocked him? Or was it the physical abuse, the pain of the blows as they hit him. And I feel sure that probably no physical blow probably hurt our Lord as much, humanly speaking, as when His eyes, remember, had locked upon Peter. Look back at verse 61. The Lord turned and looked upon Peter when Peter denied Him. So vociferously, that third time, I imagine none of the blows that were laid upon Christ here by these guards hurt as much as the blow of Peter's emphatic denial. There were blows that were laid upon our Lord which no human eye could see. Then, in verse 64, we see one example of both the emotional and the physical abuse that was laid upon our Lord. As the guards had probably picked up from the trial what they had heard about Jesus was that either he claimed to be a prophet or people said he was a prophet, and so in their sadistic cruelty, they decide to make up a game. And look at verse 64, "...and when they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face and asked him, saying, Prophesy, who is it that smote thee?" Again, you get it? He claims to be a prophet. Well, prophesy then! Jesus, who's the one who struck you? We talk these days about bullies and bullying as the public school system is about to start up again. There'll be more and more talk of this, I'm sure, more and more stories about bullying. But we don't really know what bullying is. Consider the bullying that our Lord underwent for our sakes. We see first in this the physical brutality that our Lord endured. If you look there in verse 64, the little phrase, they struck him on the face. By the way, this is another place where this only appears in the traditional text, and it's a phrase that's omitted in some of the modern translations. I think it should be retained. If you look at The little phrase, the verb, therefore, to strike him in the face is the Greek verb tiptoe, and it's the root for the English word type, which has the sense to hit so as to leave a mark or an impression, or we might say a bruise. Some of us in this room, me certainly included, are old enough to remember typewriters. Yes, children, go to a museum and you might see a typewriter. When I was in high school, one of the classes I took was typing. It ended up being useful because I was able to use it on a computer keyboard later on. And even when we were missionaries in Hungary, one of my prized possessions that I got there was a Hungarian typewriter that had the Hungarian letters on it. I ended up giving it to a Romanian pastor who was as happy as a clam to get this old Hungarian language typewriter. But if you remember the old typewriter, when you struck a key, What happened was the type went up and it had the physical imprint of the letter and it struck the ribbon and impressed the mark upon the paper. And so it's that word there that comes from this Greek root that means to strike, so as to leave a mark. They struck our Lord upon the face so that a mark, an impression, a bruise was left. We can think of what the prophet Isaiah spoke in Isaiah 53-5 when he prophesied about the sufferings of our Lord. And he said, but he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. There was the physical suffering Jesus endured. We also see the irony of their mockery. Prophesy! He thinks he's a prophet! Prophethood! Blindfolded! We'll strike it! Who's the one who hit you? Prophet! You can imagine them saying things like that. And of course, there's irony in this, is there not? Because what have we seen in this Gospel? In particular, more recently, what have we seen? Yes, Jesus is a prophet. He is the great prophet, priest, and king. Everything that He has prophesied has come to pass. Remember, before He entered into Jerusalem, He sent His disciples ahead and He said, you're going to find a man who has a colt of a donkey upon which no one has ever ridden. and bring it to me, and they go and they find it exactly as Jesus said. His prophecy was absolutely true. And remember, when he wanted to prepare the Lord's Supper, or the Passover, and he sent his disciples ahead, and he said, you're going to see a man carrying a water pitcher, follow that man to the room he's going to go, and then tell him the Master has need of it, and they do, and it happens exactly as Jesus predicts. What else happened? He predicted that one of the disciples would betray him. What happened? Judas betrayed Him. What else happened? He predicted that Peter would be tested and tried, and that he would fail. And what happened? We've just seen Peter deny Jesus three times before the cock crowed. Everything that Jesus has predicted has come true. And in fact, Jesus even predicted the very suffering He's undergoing at this moment. If you were to go back and look at Luke 9.22, after Peter had made the confession, you are the Christ of God, Jesus had said in Luke 9.22, the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected of the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be slain and be raised the third day. He predicted the suffering he was undergoing, and yet these men are ironically mocking him and saying, oh, you're a prophet. Prophesy who's striking you. Their silly mockery reminds me of the Russian cosmonauts who, when they went into orbit the earth and space, they mockingly reported, there is no God. We cannot find Him here. He must not exist. Silly men. You prove nothing when you claim that God does not exist because you cannot see Him in space as if we thought He was out there orbiting the earth. So these men prove nothing but their own spiritual darkness in mocking our Lord, who is the perfect prophet, priest and king. Note especially how Luke concludes this scene of abuse, verse 65, "...and many other things blasphemously spake they against him." The word here that's translated blasphemously speaking in Greek is blasphemeo. When you're learning Greek and you get to a word like that, you're like, I can translate that every time because it's the root for our same English word, to blaspheme someone. Blasphemeo. And though it can mean to speak against, to slander, or to insult a man, you can blaspheme a man by slandering him or insulting him, the most powerful meaning of this verb is what? to speak sacrilegiously or profanely about God. That's what blasphemy is. To speak sacrilegiously or profanely about God. So what is Luke's not so subtle point? What does Luke say? Look at verse 65. And many other things blasphemously spake they against him. I think what Luke is doing is he's giving some relief to believers when they read this passage, because he's reminding us of who Jesus is. To blaspheme Jesus is to blaspheme God, because Jesus is Lord. the one whom these men scorn and ridicule, myriads will fall down before and worship as King of Kings and Lord of Lords." I think Luke gives us this verse to alleviate our disgust at how Christ was so shamefully treated. The second of the four events that Luke narrates then in verses 66-68 is his trial that took place at daybreak before the Jewish council or the Sanhedrin. It starts off in verse 66, and as soon as it was day, the elders of the people and the chief priests and the scribes came together and led him into their counsel. Now, many people, scholars, look at this and they noted that in later Jewish custom, we have the writings of some of the later rabbis that say it wasn't legal to have a trial at night. that a trial had to take place during the day, and probably, even though those rabbinic writings were later on, probably the same custom held true during the time of Jesus. They had to wait until the morning to gather together the Sanhedrin, which was a sort of Jewish council that was given some autonomy by the Romans to rule, particularly in religious issues. among the Jews as the Romans were occupying the land of Palestine. Luke says it consisted of the elders of the people, the chief priests and the scribes. Some other historical notes that we have say it consisted of 70 men. who were gathered together. Perhaps all of them were there, perhaps not all of them were there, we don't know. But they gathered to sort of give a rubber stamp of approval to the decision to condemn Jesus and to seek his execution at the hands of Pontius Pilate. Do you notice that some, usually I think those who want to do something unjust, they usually try to do it as quickly as possible. before anyone can have the time to think or to reflect upon their actions. Young people, keep this in mind. There's almost no decision that you can make in life that isn't helped by taking more time and being patient and thinking about it a bit more. And what people want to do when they want you to do something unjust is they try to rush you to a judgment quickly. And this is what the Sanhedrin, this is what the Jewish leaders are doing. They want to quickly try Jesus at night Gather the Sanhedrin in the morning. He's only been arrested. It's been only been about 12 hours probably that he's been held. And they want to immediately, even less than that, they want to immediately seek his execution, the death penalty for him. Think about our Lord's suffering and humiliation at this point. He has not slept through the night. His dearest friends have betrayed him and denied him. And he has been physically and emotionally abused by cruel and sadistic men. And then he faces in the morning light another round of questions. In verse 67, the question that they posed him is this, Art thou the Christ? Tell us. And you probably well know that the English word Christ is really a title, it means Messiah, or it means the Anointed One. Jesus knew that those in the Sanhedrin, the religious authorities, the elders, the scribes, they were expecting a different kind of Messiah. They were expecting a political Messiah who would come and build a kingdom on earth, rather than the kind of Messiah that Jesus came to be. A spiritual Messiah who would build an unseen kingdom, heart by heart and life by life. Think about it, even Jesus' own disciples did not understand the kind of Messiah that he had come to be. This is why we can again look back to Luke 9, verse 20, when for the first time Jesus asked the disciples, who do you say that I am? And Peter says, you are the Christ of God. And right after that, Luke 9, verse 21, it says, Jesus straightly charged them and commanded them to tell no man that thing. And lots of people puzzle over that. If Jesus is the Christ, and Peter confesses He is the Christ, why does He warn His disciples not to go and tell this to anyone? And the reason is because He knew that His disciples didn't really understand what kind of Messiah He had come to be. He knew that they didn't properly understand. They didn't understand that He had come to be a suffering Messiah, a bleeding Messiah, a dying Messiah. And if His disciples did not understand, Surely these religious authorities did not understand. That's why when they asked this, Luke records in verse 67, when they asked, Are you the Christ? Art thou the Christ? Jesus replies, look at verse 67, If I tell you, ye will not believe. If I tell you, ye will not believe. I want to suggest that that little phrase is worthy of our meditation this morning. If I tell you, you will not believe. The problem with unbelievers is not that they have never heard the gospel, or that they have not heard the gospel in a compelling manner. The problem with unbelievers is that they are spiritually incapable of hearing the gospel. They are spiritually incapable of believing in Christ. Their hearts are hard toward Christ. Their eyes are blinded to Christ. Their ears are deaf to Christ. If I tell you, you will not believe, Jesus says. Consider two parallels in the Gospel of John. One from chapter 8 and one from chapter 10. In John chapter 8, Jesus is talking with a group of men who are challenging him. And in John 8, 42 and following, Jesus says this to these men. He says, if God were your Father, ye would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God, neither came I of Myself, but He sent Me. And then He says in verse 43 of John 8, Why do you not understand My speech? Even because ye cannot hear My word. And then this must have really bug them, because these were Jews and they were claiming, our father is Abraham. Jesus says, John 8, verse 44, Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. Then in verse 47 of John 8, Jesus says, He that is of God heareth God's words. Ye therefore hear them not because ye are not of God. Does that sound like what Jesus says here when He's on trial? If I tell you, you would not believe. The other passage I've laid aside this is in John 10. John 10 is when Jesus tells the parable of Himself being like a shepherd, and His people being like His sheep. And it says in John 10.24, Then came the Jews round about Him and said unto Him, How long dost Thou make us to doubt, if Thou be the Christ? Tell us plainly. It's another situation where people are coming and saying, Are you the Christ? Are you the Messiah? Tell us plainly. John 10.25, Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believe not. The works that I do in My Father's name, they bear witness of Me, but ye believe not, because ye are not of My sheep. As I said unto you, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me." If you're a believer, you hear the gospel. Your heart is strangely warmed. Your ears acknowledge you hear the voice of your shepherd. If you're not a believer, if you're not among the elect, you can hear the gospel be preached all day long and it leaves you cold and indifferent to it. This response of Jesus to his interrogators here again in verse 67, If I tell you, ye will not believe, deserves our meditation. For it underlies a common error in church practice, and that is the error of pragmatism. Now, we should use all biblical means. And what are the biblical means for the spreading of the gospel? the preaching of the Word. God was pleased by the foolishness of preaching to save those who would believe. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 in Romans 10, he says, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. We should be diligent in using all biblical means to reach the lost. But There are those who begin to think that the reason people do not believe is merely because they have not heard the gospel in the right way or by the right medium. The same logic drives the desire for new Bible translations and for new worship styles and for new evangelistic methods. Here's the problem. Let's take Bible translations. The main reason people don't find the Bible interesting is not because the old translations are too hard to understand. The main reason people don't find the Bible interesting is because they're not believers. And even when you're a believer, you've got a lot of slothfulness and a lot of the world's ways to overcome. The reason, the main reason that people do not respond to the reading of the Scriptures and to the preaching of the Gospels, not because it's not relevant enough for them, because it hasn't been couched enough in the clothing of this world and this age, but it's because apart from the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, they cannot believe in Christ. If I tell you You will not believe, Jesus says. Remember the prophet Isaiah, Isaiah 6, when he is commissioned to be God's prophet. This is quite a commission that God gives to Isaiah, Isaiah 6, 9 and 10. He says, go to this people. Go to this people and tell them, hear ye indeed, but understand not. See ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert and be healed. Jesus continues this train of thought in verse 68, And if I also ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me go." Here he notes that not only can they not properly hear him, but they also cannot properly answer or speak to him about the Messiah that he has come to be. And he also lays bare their disingenuousness. They're not asking him truly if he's the Christ because they want to know. They have no intention at all to declare his innocence and to let him go. He reveals their hearts. Now, they are put on trial. They have thought to put Christ on trial. He instead puts them on trial. If I tell you, you would not believe, you cannot answer, and you will not let me go. The third point in the sequence then is in verse 69. Jesus identifies Himself as the Son of Man. along the lines of Daniel 7, verses 13 and 14. In verse 69, just after being asked if you are the Christ, he says, Hereafter shall the Son of Man sit on the right hand of the power of God. The phrase there, hereafter, literally in Greek, it means from this moment or from this now shall the Son of Man sit on the right hand of the power of God. And again, Jesus is drawing upon... He knew the scriptures, the Old Testament scriptures, the Hebrew Bible, better than any man who's ever lived. He's drawing upon Daniel 7, verse 13 and 14, in which Daniel said, I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him before Him, and there was given Him dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom, that which shall not be destroyed." Jesus is essentially saying here in verse 69, I'm the one about whom Daniel is speaking. I am the Son of Man. I am the One who has been given by the Father power and dominion and authority and people from all nations will worship Me and serve Me. And He is also saying, I am the One who will come again at the end of the ages in the clouds of heaven to judge the living and the dead. The One who soon after His crucifixion, resurrection and ascension will be seated in session at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Fourthly then, they ask Him if He is the Son of God after He makes this claim for Himself. In verse 70 it says, Then said they all, Art thou then the Son of God? Notice all the spiritual titles that come up in this trial. Is He the Christ? Is he the Son of Man? And now, is he the Son of God? And when he goes to trial before Pilate, the question will be, have you claimed to be a king? So, again, all these titles, Messiah, Son of Man, Son of God, King. Who is Jesus? Notice that when they ask this question, it is, art thou then the Son of God? There was a phrase, you see it sometimes in the Old Testament, Son of God, which seems simply a human being is a believer, someone who worships God. But here is the definite article. Are you claiming to be one who has a special relationship with the Father that is unique and is shared by no one else? Are you, as the writer, author of Hebrews puts it in Hebrews 1.3, are you the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person? Are you the Son of God? Of course, Son of God is a title of Godhood. A lot of times, when you think concretely, you hear this and you think, you know, literal, physical Son of God. Of course, this is not a reference to some coarse physical understanding of Jesus as God's offspring, God the Father's offspring, as Muslims often misunderstood it. and as Mormons misunderstand it. It's a question of whether Jesus shares in essence the very being of God the Father Almighty. Is He the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person? In John 10.30 Jesus said, I and my Father, we are one. Jesus claimed a unique relationship, the Father is only explained by the Trinity, that God is Father, Son and Spirit, and he is the Son of God. Luke records second half of verse 70, that Jesus responded and said, ye say that I am. Ye say that I am. Believe it or not, there have been those who have read this account. And they pointed to this reply and they said, see, Jesus never claimed to be the Son of God. He only said, you say that I am the Son of God. They overlooked the fact that Jesus was apparently using an idiom here to express an obvious, affirmative answer to their question. The New King James Version thus renders Jesus' reply, You rightly say that I am. That's probably what the idiom meant. Ye say rightly that I am the Son of God. The New American Standard Bible simply translates the idiom, Yes, I am. This is the proper interpretation of Jesus' words as given is proven by two things. First, if we compare the Gospel of Mark, Mark chapter 14, verses 61 and 62, as it records this same interaction, Mark records that the high priest asked him and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed, the Son of God? And Mark records in verse 62 of Mark 14 that Jesus said, I am. Ego, I me. I am. The second evidence that proves the proper interpretation of this is that Jesus affirmed that he is the Son of God is the response of those who heard him. Look at verse 71. And they said, what need we any further witness? For we ourselves have heard of his own mouth. The second proof is that this is exactly the way those who stood there understood what he said as an affirmation. Are you the Son of God? And his response is, ye say that I am, ye rightly say, I am the Son of God. And they take Jesus' words here as his signature on this death warrant. He has, from their perspective, committed blasphemy in that He has made Himself equal to God. He has taken titles for Himself. He has called Himself the Christ, the Messiah. He has called Himself the Son of Man. He has called Himself the Son of God. Well, having worked through the passage, let me bring us finally back round to where we got started. What we are seeing here again, is a master portrait of the humiliation of our Redeemer. He was mocked. He was smitten. He was stricken for us. He was bullied for us. God incarnate was blasphemed by sinful men for us. He was misunderstood for us. Have you ever been misunderstood? That's the most frustrating thing in the world. The Lord was misunderstood for us. You probably know that there's been much in the news this week about all the civil unrest outside of St. Louis, Missouri. after a young man was shot by the police. And immediately there were those in the media grabbing the racial overtones and they began to paint this young man as an innocent victim, a young college student who was executed, even they said, by overzealous police. We certainly don't know all the circumstances of that, and we shouldn't pass judgment. One of the crazy things about it is, having you wanted people to say, some of those authorities, having you wanted them to say to the critics, guys, you live in America where people are innocent until proven guilty. And also, friends, people have to be accountable for their actions. And also, has anybody asked about the parents of this young man? Their responsibilities? But in the end, initially, the urge was to paint him as the innocent victim. And then, as you know, probably know, video came out of this innocent man robbing a store and strong-arming a shop owner. Again, I don't pretend to know this situation or to think that I can evaluate it, but my point is, that if you look close enough, there are very few, dare I say, any completely innocent victims in life. We all deserve the wrath of God, both in this life and that which is to come. Luke 13, remember Luke 13 when Jesus was asked, what about the people who were killed by Pilate? What about the people on whom the Tower of Siloam fell? And how did Jesus respond? He said, do you think those people were any more sinful than you? You too should repent lest you perish. There has only been one man, one man of whom this might not be said. There has only been one man who was tempted in all points, even as we are, and yet was without sin. And that man, as Isaiah put it, was wounded for our transgressions and was bruised for our iniquities. That man, as the Apostle Paul put it in Philippians 2.8 in the Christ hymn, that man was being found in fashion as a man And He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. And here is the most amazing part. If God would not melt your hard hearts, if God would not open our blinded eyes, if God would not unstop our deaf ears, We would not believe, even if we heard it spoken plainly from Christ Himself. And yet, by the grace of God, who are we but the people whose eyes have been opened, whose ears unstopped, whose hearts softened to understand that He is the Christ. He is the Son of Man. He is the Son of God. Amen? Let me invite you to stand together. Let's pray. Gracious and loving God, we stand here with shame to think of how Christ was treated with shame because we know that in our unregenerate state, we are capable of the same types of shameful rejection and even worse than what Luke describes. And we are reminded of the one innocent man who stood and took upon himself the scorn and abuse that we laid upon him. and who could say from the cross, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do, and who took our rejection and made it your acceptance. And we are in awe of that today. We praise you for it. We admire you for the wisdom of your plan. Gracious God, help us to understand it. Help us to prize it. Help us understand the privileged status we have been given as believers. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. Let's remain standing.