Our passage of scripture this morning is again in John nine, well, first time in John 19. John 19 verses one through six. John 19 verses one through six. So Pilate took Jesus and scourged him. And the soldiers twisted a crown of thorns and put it on his head. and they put on him a purple robe. Then they said, hail, king of the Jews. And they struck him with their hands. Pilate then went out again and said to them, behold, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no fault in him. Then Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate said to them, behold, the man Therefore, when the chief priests and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, crucify him, crucify him. Pilate said to them, you take him and crucify him, for I find no fault in him. In verse five of John 19, Pilate says to the chief priests, the officers, and other Jewish people who were there, he says, behold the man. And Pilate could not imagine at that time, I imagine that we would still be rehearsing those words today, that I would be saying to you, behold the man. quoting Pilate, but in a different way. For us to draw a vision, you know, we sing, be thou my vision about Jesus. We should see him for what he is and what he did for us. We should learn about him. We should behold the man. The Greek word behold, there is a very powerful word. It means to really pay attention here. And Pilate was telling them to see Jesus. Surely those who crucified Christ, those who were not sorry for their sins, those who did not believe in Jesus, that indeed he was God's son, those who, after 2,000 years in hell, have just started their eternal stay there, surely they must regret not beholding Jesus more carefully. not understanding who he is and what he would do. If they would have studied Christ, if they would have considered his words, perhaps they would have been saved or among the saved and not lost. In John 17 three, in the prayer that Jesus prayed to his father, just a matter of hours before, he prays, and this is eternal life that they may know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. And so let's make every effort to know Jesus and to know his father. And that's what we have in this passage. Maybe it's a passage that you've read before, you've studied before, and maybe it comes as old hat to you, but let's seek to know Jesus in it even anew. What we see here first in this passage is we see the scourging. It says in verse one, so Pilate took Jesus and scourged him. Now a scourging, what is a scourging? Well, a scourging was when they took a whip and it wasn't an ordinary just leather whip. It usually had sharp pieces of bone or rock in it. And they would use this to rip open a person's flesh. M.R. Vincent says, with scourges called scorpions, leather thongs, whips, they tipped with sharp spikes. That's how they would scourge someone. And yet scourging was not limited to whips. It could and it often also would include metal rods. And so they'd have these rods and they'd have these whips and they would take turns beating someone. Though scourging was a common pre-crucifixion practice, historians of the time, Eusebius, Josephus, and Cicero write of people dying during the scourge. It was something that you had a very good chance to die before you got the worst of your pain. When we look at scripture, Paul speaks, the Apostle Paul of his own beatings, And in 2 Corinthians 11, 24, it says, from the Jews, five times I received 40 stripes minus one. And that's 39 whips with this lash. And he says, three times that happened that I received 39 lashes. And 39, why 39? 39 was the limit. for a Roman citizen to be beaten, and Paul was a Roman citizen, but Jesus was not a Roman citizen, and his beating, his scourging was not limited. Typically such punishment continued until either the person who's doing the whipping gets tired, Or if somebody was gonna be crucified, they wanted them to have maximum pain, so they really didn't want them to die before they would go to the cross. So if they looked like they were gonna die, they would stop this and send them to be crucified. The pain of the crucifixion would not be missed These punishments were public to deter crime. They wanted criminals to look horrible so that nobody else would commit the same crime. It was very different than what we have today, where we want it to be as easy as possible if we're putting somebody to death. In Isaiah 53, five, we read, but he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our inequities. The chastisement for our peace was upon him and by his stripes, we are healed. And stripes is a reference to the bloody stripes on his back caused by the scourge. And so there we see that part of our healing, part of our salvation is not just from the cross itself, but from some of the beating that Jesus endured before the cross, in this scourging we see part of what sin deserved. Sin deserves this harsh punishment. As I said just a moment ago, we are, in our nation, often soft on extreme crime. But God, when he punishes, he's not soft. He's just, and his wrath will be strong. And even when his own son endures it, there's no ease for this. So that's the first part, discouraging. The second part that we see here is, and we should understand, is understand the crown of thorns. Think about the mocking and beating. It says in verses two and three, when the soldiers twisted a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe, Then they said, hail king of the Jews. And they struck him with their hands. The Romans thought themselves to be superior to the Jews. They thought they could make fun of and humiliate the king of the Jews. The one, he's of a lesser nation. He's inferior to us. And it seems to be a joke for them to crown Jesus, not with a real crown, but a crown of thorns and put a purple road on it and beat him. The four beasts of Daniel 7 included the Roman Empire, and this is how they ruled by brute force. The soldiers thought they had this over Jesus. They thought themselves strong and him weak. In Daniel 7, 23, it says, thus he said, a fourth beast shall be a fourth kingdom on the earth, which shall be different from all the other kingdoms and shall devour the whole earth and trample it and break it. into pieces. That's what beasts do. They destroy things and they don't build things. They knock things down and Rome was one of those. As much as they built up themselves, they knocked others down. Yet as they say, hail the king of the Jews, they acknowledge something that is true. They acknowledge the true king who would one day return, not so humble, but as, and not again as a savior, but as a judge. It says in Revelation 7, 14, these will make war with the lamb and the lamb will overcome them for he is Lord of lords and King of kings. And those who are with him are called, chosen and faithful. That war is going on even today. And today, we might as a church, or like churches, be beaten up by the world, and in many places, the church is persecuted to almost no end, and yet in the end, the church will be victorious, and these kingdoms of the world will all be destroyed. The crown of thorns was appropriate for he who would conquer sin's curses. Jesus's suffering was meant to gain us victory over sin and death. Look back in Genesis Genesis 3, right after Adam and Eve had sinned, God speaks to the serpent and he speaks to Eve and he talks about the curse that would come upon them because of their sin and then he speaks to Adam about his curse and this is what he says, then to Adam he said, because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat of it. Curse it as the ground for your sake, and toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. and you shall eat of the herb of the field, and the sweat of your face you shall eat, Brad, till you return to the ground, for out of it you are taken, for dust you are, and to dust you shall return." Notice, part of the curse was the thorns and the thistles, that if you had no sin, there would be no such thing as thorns and thistles. I believe there wouldn't even be any weeds. There would only be nice plants growing up easily from the earth. And some of our best plants, like a rose, even has thorns on it because of the curse, because of sins. And the thorn which crowned Jesus' head would not have existed except for Adam's sin. And we see he's the king who would conquer sin. He takes the pains of sin upon himself. The thorns on Jesus's crown were probably up to 12 inches long and very sharp and sin is great and so was Jesus's pain because he was, as I said before, enduring what sin deserved. Jesus became a curse. It's symbolized in those thorns. It's part of the curse, that we might be saved and that we might be blessed. As it says in Galatians 3, 13 and 14, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. That's what the cross was, a tree Jesus hanged on. that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. The crown of thorns preceded the cross. He is the king, even of our eternal joy, because his sorrow brings us joy. And when Jesus took the cross, it says about that in Hebrews 12, two, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Jesus's joy that he was looking forward to as he took the cross. He despised the pain, the difficulties, even the crown of thorns because he knew he was going to save us. He knew he would have the joy of our salvation. Joy is not found in the freedom to sin. As many say today, joy is found when you can do whatever sin you want. And we're called kill joys if we don't allow people to do whatever sin they want. But true joy is found in freedom from sin. Gained for us by Christ on his cross. One verse in our famous Christmas hymn, you may have been wondering, why are we singing joy to the world? On September 1st, well, because it fits with this passage, one of the verses is, no more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found. In that crown of thorns, we see a symbol of the curse that came upon man because of sin. And Jesus says, the King of salvation takes that curse upon himself that we should have had to endure and we do endure in this world. He takes it on himself to eliminate it and to bring blessings. Those blessings flow as joy to the world says, as far as the curse is sound. Eventually there will be no more thorns and thistles in this world. There'll be no more death or sorrow, no pain, as it says in the book of Revelation. So that's the crown of thorns. Number three, behold the desperate display. Verses four and five. Pilate then went out again and said to them, behold, I am bringing him out to you that you may know I find no fault in him. Then Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate said to them, behold the man. How horrible, how pitiful Jesus must have looked. Isaiah 52, right before chapter 53, that talks in depth about the sacrifice of Christ for us. Even in chapter 52, it's talked about because it says in 52, 13 and 14, behold, my servant shall deal prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. Ultimately, that's what Jesus is. Then in verse 14, it says, just as many were astonished at you, so his visage was marred more than any man and his form more than the sons of men. If you don't understand visage, it's the same as a face. And in the ESV, maybe it's a little clearer because it says, then many were astonished at you, his appearance, His face, his looks was so marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of mankind. When the Roman soldiers were hitting him, they were almost certainly hitting him in the face when they said, hail the king of the Jews. And from my understanding, we don't know for sure how many was there, but there were likely a hundred soldiers who each took turns saying, hail the king of the Jews, and they were hitting him in the face. And by that time, his face was probably very distorted. He did not look to be human according to Isaiah. And so this is what we see. Arkent Hughes says, evidently he, Pilate, thought if he mutilated Jesus, the mob would pity him and set him free. Well, that didn't happen. This was his desperate attempt. I'll bring him out, I'll show him. He's already endured a lot. He looks worse than any person we've ever brought out before because not only did he have the stripes on his back, which they say could tear the flesh so you would see the insides of a person. They would tie them to a post like this so it was just easier for the whipper. but they also had him stand up and they put this crown of thorns on him that likely caused blood, but he had already been beaten in his face. And it says in scripture, marred more than any man. Learn from this not to expect anything good from the ungodly. They will never pity the righteous. They go on and they say, crucify him, crucify him. Number four, hear and take note of the murderous hatred. Verse six, therefore, when the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out saying, crucify him, crucify him. Pilate said to them, you take him and crucify him. for I find no fault in him." It's interesting. Sometimes I look on the internet when I'm studying scripture and I found this man and I have a picture of him and I almost sent it to Eugene to put up here, but I decided, no, I don't need this ugly man up there. But I have the picture in front of me and he has a t-shirt on and it says, if Jesus returns, kill him again. And if you're interested, he has a website. If Jesus returns, killhimagain.com. And he talks about how it's loving to hate Christians and hate religious people and want to destroy them. And that's the way the world typically thinks. Even from the beginning, the first person or one of the first people to do anything right was Abel. and his brother Cain had to kill him. Why? Not because Abel was mean to him or did anything wrong, but because Abel did what was right. In John 15, 20, Jesus says something similar. He says, remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also. We should expect as a nation, if we get worse and worse and worse, if people get further and further from God, eventually they will persecute us. It says in Romans 8, 7, because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be. Remember Psalm 2 that we read at the start of the service as our call to worship. It says, why do the nations rage and the people's plot of anything? And that's what we see, even in John 19. And we see it in this chapter when not only did The Jews want to crucify Jesus, but the Gentiles in the form of the Roman soldiers are beating him. Today, the innocents and persecuted and killed, while the guilty go free. And Florida Four. It's something we'll be voting on. And I'm thinking I'm going to preach on it before we get to there. It talks about how abortion should be legal in almost every situation. And I'll talk about it more later, but it's about killing babies up to nine months and maybe beyond. Why did the nation's riot and the people's plot of anything, the kings of the earth set themselves? And the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us. Notice how so many are trying to just turn upside down the laws of God. They want to break all the rules of God. That is a horrible, horrible thing. It says in Hebrews chapter 12, Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight in the sin which does so easily ensnare us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. That's why I'm singing or having us sing today the song, Joy to the World, because Jesus suffered on the cross. and suffered even before the cross to bring joy and salvation to us. And so this song is just as appropriate now as it would be at Christmas time. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your goodness to us. We thank you for your love and kindness. We thank you for Jesus who, would suffer on the cross for us. Father, we pray you'd bless us now as we sing and as we praise him for what he did. And we thank you for that joy that he brings. The curse was on him that we might be blessed. Father, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.