John 18:28-40

[0:00] And the Gospel of John chapter 18 will start reading about verse 28. John 18 says, Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas under the hall of judgment, and it was early, and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be to fow, but that they might eat to pass over.

[0:28] Pilate then went out unto them and said, What accusation bring ye against this man? They answered and said unto him, If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto thee.

[0:41] Then said Pilate unto them, Take ye him, and judge him according to your law. The Jews therefore said unto him, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death.

[0:53] Then said Pilate unto them, Take ye him, and that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he spake signifying what death he should die.

[1:05] Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again and called Jesus and said unto him, Art thou the king of the Jews? And Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?

[1:20] Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation, and the chief priests, have delivered thee unto me. What hast thou done?

[1:30] Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews, but now is my kingdom not from hence.

[1:44] Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest I am a king? To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world that I should bear witness unto the truth, everyone that is of the truth here, if my voice.

[2:04] Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews and said unto them, I find in him no fault at all, but ye have accustomed that I should release unto you one at the Passover, will ye therefore that I release unto you the king of the Jews?

[2:24] Then cried they all, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber, and we'll stop reading right there. So Jesus being brought, again being brought by this guard, that had come into the garden to arrest him, but not only them, but the chief priests of the Jews, and these folks had gone into the garden.

[2:51] Judas had already betrayed Jesus Christ, and Judas had already betrayed the Son of God with a kiss. He had been arrested, brought before this man Pilate, but Pilate in his own words here, Pilate said that in him he could find no fault at all.

[3:08] That's because in the precious Lamb of God, in the Son of God there was no fault to be found, that there was never any God that was found in his mouth.

[3:19] The Son of God never once sinned, never once dreamed of sinned, never once taught, seen anything sinful, never performed a sinful act, or set a sinful thing the entire 33 years that he walked on this earth.

[3:36] He never once sinned, so this man Pilate could find no fault within him, yet these chief priests had sought to kill him, they had sought to arrest him, sought to slay him, sought to bring him forth.

[3:50] Jesus Christ himself had predicted that this would happen. He had told his disciples, I must be delivered in to the hands of men, I must be delivered in to the Gentiles, I must be killed, but hey, I also, on that third day, must be resurrected.

[4:11] He told them in John 2, if you turn down this temple in three days, I will build it back up, I will raise it back up, but yet this man stands here before Pilate, he stands here and Pilate asks him, are you the king of the Jews?

[4:33] Jesus said, is this something that you have come up with yourself, or is it something that they have sent of me? Most of the world nowadays has all kinds of things to say about Jesus Christ.

[4:49] The world will say he was a prophet, the world will say he was a good man, the world will say he is a teacher, even those within the church are undecided on who Jesus Christ really was.

[5:06] Jesus Christ was the truth that was standing here before Pilate, when Pilate asked the question, what is truth?

[5:18] Jesus said himself, just a few chapters before this, in John chapter 14, he said, I am the truth, he said I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life.

[5:29] And just after that he said, no man comes unto the Father, but by me again the world has all kinds of things to say about this Bible, they have all kinds of things to say about Jesus and about God.

[5:47] It was brought up in Sunday school this morning, now that we can't pray in schools anymore, and if we do, we better not mention the name of Jesus, we better not pray in the name of Jesus.

[5:59] Folks, if we can't pray in the name of Jesus, it's best we just keep our mouths shut, because that's the only way that a prayer is going anywhere. We can pray in God's name, because there's all kinds of God's that people can relate to, but when you start praying in the name of Jesus Christ, that's where the land is grown, that's where offenses begin to be made in the world, that's what offended these chief priests and these Pharisees and these rulers of the Jewish people, it wasn't the Tatees, it wasn't anything like that, it was Jesus Christ proclaiming to be God.

[6:44] That's where the offense lies, and Jesus Christ absolutely was God, he absolutely was God, these Jews have been praying for hundreds, for thousands of years.

[6:56] God, you need to send this Messiah, God won't you send the Messiah that you have promised us, and even today, 2,000 years later, after Messiah has ascended back to the Father, 2,000 years later, they still stand at the wailing wall.

[7:16] He's already gone to send Messiah, He has already come, He's already bled, He's already died, He will not do it again.

[7:29] Next time He comes back, He'll be king. Next time He comes back, it won't be as a little helpless baby and a manger.

[7:39] That's where some of the world still got Him today, some of the world still got Him in the tomb, some of the world still got Him on the cross, some of the world has still got, has got Him, has never been resurrected, but my Bible says on the third day He came back to life, my God came back to life because it was prophesied that He would, He prophesied it, the prophets is a prophet of old and the old just, and the prophesied it, it could not, not come to pass, it had to come to pass because my God is not a man that He could lie, or that He should lie, God cannot tell a lie, it's two immutable things, oh my God according to the Hebrew, to the book of Hebrews, one of those is that He cannot tell a lie, and He will not tell a lie, hey folks, He's like a rock, He's like a stone, He cannot be moved.

[8:38] My God is truthful, my God is faithful, He was faithful to the end of His walk here on earth, from earth to the ascension back into heaven, and He'll be faithful to the end of this thing, He'll continue to be faithful.

[8:56] Pala here, asking Jesus, are you the king of the Jews? Jesus says, is this your question, or is it something to think of putting your head?

[9:10] Pala goes on, he goes on out to the Jews, goes on out to these people that have delivered Jesus Christ, his own people folks, the Jewish nation, that delivers the Messiah to be killed, the Messiah they have been praying for, the Messiah they have been hoped for, they delivered the very one, the very seed that was promised to bruise the head of the serpent in Genesis 3, they delivered him to be killed.

[9:43] That's because of their contention with Him saying who He said that He was, of Him saying that He was God, of Him saying that there was no way under the Father but by Him.

[9:57] And personally, there's a lot of teachings that Jesus give His disciples and give those other folks that were following Him, and give those other folks that were on the lakeside, and that were up in the hills, and that were down in the villages, they had all kinds of problems with some of the teachings that Jesus Christ was giving them because they were directly against what the Pharisees had been teaching these people for hundreds of years at that point, it was taking the spotlight off of them and putting it on God.

[10:31] That's why they had the contention that they did. Folks, we in the church and those out in the world are guilty of the exact same thing.

[10:42] We want to take the spotlight off of God, we want to put it on ourselves, we want to say look what I've done, look how well I've done, look how well I've preached, look how well I've taught, look at this one that I led to God, look at that one that I led to God.

[10:59] Jesus Christ said no man can come to the Father but by Him we let nobody to God. We might have told someone the gospel, we may have told the truth of Jesus Christ, we may have told them how much of a sinner they were, and how much of a Savior God was, but without the Holy Spirit drawing that man or that woman under God we could do nothing of the sinner.

[11:27] It takes God to bring people unto Himself. It took God in the Old Testament to do it, it took God in the New Testament to do it, and it takes God now to do those things.

[11:41] We cannot draw anyone, we can tell the good news and that's the only thing that we can do. Yes, I'm sorry, Paul asks the question, are you the king of the Jews?

[11:54] Yes, he was king of the Jews. Jesus knew who he was, Jesus done proclaims several times over in the gospels whom he was. The folks not only is he king of the Jews, he's king of the Gentiles, he is king of the world, he is king of the very universe, he's the maker of the universe, he is the master of this universe, he decides what happens and when it happens and everything else that goes on in your life and in my life, period.

[12:26] Everything that goes on in this world, the Paul asks, are you the king of the Jews? Jesus answers, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then with my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews, but now is my kingdom not from hands.

[12:47] Hope this was an insult. It was laced with a little bit of insult toward Paul. Paul was a ruler, was he not? Paul was a ruler of this area that they were in.

[12:58] Now, Paul had faced a little bit of problems that you don't read about in the scripture, you find out about it in history. He had had a little bit of insurrection to rise up in his area.

[13:09] He had had some people rise up against him and against his local government in that area. And folks, one of those insurrectionists was Barabbas that was mentioned here at the end of this chapter.

[13:22] He's one of the very ones that got that ball rolling. And so, but Paul had had some issues with the people around here. Jesus said, my kingdom's not of this world.

[13:34] In other words, he was telling Paul, you can keep this little local government that you have here. It's insignificant. It doesn't matter. My kingdom is above the stars.

[13:45] My kingdom is with God. My kingdom is up yonder somewhere in the midst of my kingdom. My servants would fight. Hey, Jesus Christ, to the collegian upon legion upon legion of angels to it.

[14:01] And he didn't wipe out Pilate, wiped out the Pharisees, the chief priests, and anyone else that he wanted to. But that when he defeated the purpose that he came.

[14:13] His purpose was to seek and save those who were lost. And his purpose was to die on that cross. His purpose was to shed his blood because the blood of bulls and the blood of goats that they had been doing for hundreds of years at that point.

[14:29] They've been done for centuries upon centuries. And they had done it at God's commandments. They had sacrificed those animals. But those sacrifices and those animals and that bloodshed was nothing more than a shadow of what was to come.

[14:45] The actual thing was standing in front of Pilate right here at this moment. This was no shadow. This was the real deal.

[14:55] This was the album and the sacrifice. And this was the untainted lamb of God. And Pilate had to ask, who are you?

[15:05] Who are you? Now folks keep in mind, he was a Gentile. He was a Gentile. Pilate could have cared less about the Old Testament. Pilate could have cared less about the prophets, about the Torah, the five books of Moses.

[15:18] He could have cared less about all the wisdom and literature, scripture, songs, proverbs, Job, and all like that. He could have cared less about any of that. But he had to ask, who are you?

[15:31] Jesus said, I'll say this, I'm a king. To this end was I born. As a very purpose that he came to be king. And for this cause came I into the world that I should bear witness unto the truth.

[15:46] Everyone that is of the truth, heareth my voice. Folks, he came to be king. You listen, Jesus Christ was a Messiah, he'd been Messiah since you were born or I was born, since the world was formed he was Messiah.

[16:01] That's something that was chosen before the beginning of time. That's something that was decided on, that Jesus Christ would be Messiah. However, this first time that he came, he came to be a Savior.

[16:15] He came to win back, to make a way that fallen man could be won back to an angry God. He came to make that way that we could be reconciled back to our Maker because we had been borrowed, we had been banned, we had been cursed by Almighty God for years.

[16:36] Jesus made a way that we could be brought back together. That was his purpose in coming. So when you hear people say, Jesus Christ didn't come that first time to be Messiah, folks, he was Messiah then, but he came to be Savior.

[16:54] He came to be Savior then. When he returns, he'll be king. When he returns, he'll be Messiah. He'll redeem not only the Jewish people at that point, and he will, that's a promise over in the Old Testament, that we Gentiles can't lay a hand on and we can't lay one claim on.

[17:10] We've already been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, anyone that'll accept that, anyone that'll take that, anyone that is willing to come to God with a broken heart and a contract spirit, anyone that the Holy Ghost deals with and says, you're a sinner, this blood can wash you clean.

[17:29] Those are the ones that can be and are redeemed. And those are the only ones right now. But God's going to come back and he's going to take his Jewish people.

[17:41] We ain't preaching that though. That's a whole other thing. Everyone that is of the truth, heareth my voice. What did Jesus just say? What did Jesus say? He's on 14.

[17:52] What are the scriptures teach over and over that Jesus is the truth? Everyone that is of the truth, they heareth my voice. This goes right on back to John chapter 10, there's all kinds of stuff in John, I was well preached the whole book this morning.

[18:09] John chapter 10, he says, my sheep, hear my voice. My sheep know my voice. And the world don't know the voice of Jesus Christ. The world doesn't care about the voice of Jesus Christ. We have church doors left and right, say am I lost or read? It's in shambles. I can't do anything with it. It's because you're not a sheep. You're a goat.

[18:20] You're a sheep. You're a goat. You're a goat. You're a goat. You're a goat. You're a goat. You're a goat. You're a goat. You're a goat. You're a goat. You're a goat.

[18:31] You're a goat. That's the problem. When you're a sheep, you hear the voice of Jesus. When you're a sheep, you'll hear the voice of the one that calls and you'll obey when he does call.

[18:44] Go on, flip on over there with John chapter 10. Read that. He talks about taking the sheep path. He says, hey, when they go out, I go out before them. And when I call them, hey, they come because they know my voice.

[18:56] They will not follow a stranger. The world may church. It's following strangers. Let them ride. They're following strangers to bars, to drug dance, to prostitutes, to everything except to the altars.

[19:11] Because they're not sheep. You read over in Peter's writing. He quotes Proverbs. He talks about the dog returned to his vomit.

[19:23] He talks about the pig, walling in the mire after he's cleaned. He's talking about lost folks there. He's talking about saved people. I'm a sheep.

[19:34] I'm not a dog. I'm a sheep. I'm not a pig. I'm a sheep. I'm none of these other things that the scripture describes. I am a sheep.

[19:45] Sheep don't return to their vomit. Dogs do. Sheep don't go to the mire and wall around. And the mud and the manure, that's something that a pig does.

[19:58] Are you a sheep or are you a goat? That's the question. The sheep, they hear his voice. The sheep know everyone that is of the truth.

[20:11] What is the truth? The shepherd. The shepherd is the truth. And what do they do? They know the voice of the truth. Here is my voice, according to John 18 here.

[20:23] Everyone that is of the truth. Here is my voice. Pilate saith unto him, what is truth? Most truth was standing right there in front of them.

[20:34] Truth was right before Pilate. And he had to ask the question, what is truth? What is truth? Jesus Christ is truth.

[20:45] This word, which is all about Jesus Christ, this is truth. Whether we accept it or not, that doesn't change the fact that it is truth.

[20:56] There's an entire world of atheists out there. There's an entire world of evolutionists. There's an entire world of professing Christians that aren't a one-bit Christian that deny the truth of this book.

[21:09] It is true beginning to end. It is true whether we lock it or not. Let God be true and every man alive. Every job and every tittle of this book is truth.

[21:22] And precept upon precept and line upon line, it is truth. There is no man that can change that. There is no demon that can change that. There's no devil that can change that.

[21:34] And there's certainly no angels that can change it. No principalities, no wickedness, no sin that can change the truth of God's word. Jesus Christ is truth. And Jesus Christ said, He came to seek and saved those that were lost.

[21:48] But we deny that it back the last day, according to Matthew 25, when the division comes, will we be on the rock, with a sheep, will we be on the left, with a ghost?

[22:00] That is truth. And the truth in all of its finality, if that's the one. When the separation between the sheep and the goats comes. When that separation comes, it's final.

[22:13] There is no change in that. There is opportunity for change right now to lost people. Pilate said unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again, unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all.

[22:28] He asked Jesus a question, but he didn't wait on him to answer it. What is truth? And then he went out. And he told the Jews, remember when he went out before he asked them a question, he came out this time and he said, I find in this man no fault at all.

[22:44] There was no fault to be found in Jesus Christ. There was no fault whatsoever. No sin, no God, no nothing to be found in Jesus Christ.

[22:56] I find him no fault at all. And Pilate thinking that he could get out of it pretty easy. In verse 39, But ye have a custom that I should release unto you one at the Passover.

[23:10] Will ye therefore that I release unto you the king of the Jews? He asked, he says, you've got this question, or you've got this tradition here. He says that I released unto the folks that ate Bible, there in a bit of Bible, it was a tradition of the Jews.

[23:26] And it's something that I'm positive that the Roman government did to appease the Jews just a little bit. They had to wait around all year for the Passover feast to come. And at the Passover, their Roman ruler would release somebody out of it.

[23:41] And somebody got arrested, somebody that they loved dearly, somebody that they adored, maybe one of their rabbis or something along those lines, they would have to wait until the Passover came for him to be released to the...

[23:54] But folks, they had done decided months in advance who would be released at that Passover. Pilate says, you wish, do you want me to release the king of the Jews?

[24:05] He calls them the king of the Jews after he had done asked them. And Jesus had given him a kind of roundabout yet straightforward answer as to who he was.

[24:16] Pilate calls him the king of the Jews. He refers to them as the king of the Jews now. I believe that was twofold. I think Pilate believed who Jesus Christ was.

[24:27] And I think Pilate did that also to insult those chief priests, to insult the scribes, to insult the Pharisees, to insult all the Jews that had brought this man to them.

[24:38] But he asked them, you want me to release the king of the Jews? They cried, then cried they all again, saying, not this man, but Barabbas. Now, Barabbas was a robber.

[24:50] Folks, not only was Barabbas a robber, as I've already said, he was also an insurrectionist. He rose up, not only not just he himself, he rose up a group of Jews against the Roman government.

[25:04] Basically trying to overthrow the government that was there in that little area in Jerusalem. He rose up this band of men and you, we would call that almost vigilaniism.

[25:15] Now, they didn't walk robbers either. In fact, you find you read in the descriptions, the two malefactors, they were on either side of Jesus Christ and were accused of thievery.

[25:26] They were accused of robbing or of stealing. So it was looked down upon by not only the Jews, but also the Roman government itself. But this man, Barabbas, had come against the Roman government and they were saying, release unto us Barabbas.

[25:41] We would rather have a robber. We would rather have a murderer. We would rather have an insurrectionist in our midst, released unto us, not bad enough, released unto us with complete freedom, released unto us to live among us as opposed to having this innocent man with his wonderful teachings, with his wonderful attitude, with his love, with his compassion, with his miracles.

[26:08] We'd rather have a sinner as the one that could forgive sin. That's what these Jews were saying, release unto us Barabbas.

[26:19] That being said, every Jew there was Barabbas. Paul was Barabbas. I'm Barabbas and you ever wanted to hear of Barabbas?

[26:32] Because we've been released from that immediate sentence of death. Now listen, that doesn't mean forever, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal after Jesus crossed our Lord.

[26:48] What's we going to die? We're going to die. That wage will be paid one day, Romans 6-23. It will be paid. That is not something that we're going to get out of.

[26:59] Let's cross comes back, calls his church out. Before I die, I will go by way of the grave. It will happen. There's nothing I can do to get out of that.

[27:10] Once again, there's nothing I can do to save myself either. There's nothing I can do to get out of my appointment with death. It is all of God. God didn't that. The Bible says it is appointed on the man, wants to die.

[27:22] And that's because it's the judgment. I've got an appointment somewhere out there on a celestial calendar somewhere. I have no idea when it is, where it is, or how it will be.

[27:33] But I do have an appointment and you do too. But we have a chance now. Barabbas was released free.

[27:44] He was free to go wherever he wanted to, do whatever he wanted to. As a prize for Jesus Christ, a sinless, thoughtless man taking his place.

[27:57] This was the last opportunity in man's eyes. This was the last opportunity for Jesus Christ to get out of that predicament. The folks that's the whole predicament that he came for.

[28:08] You read in the scriptures at the times that he would teach, at the times that he would offend. And Jesus Christ did teach some offending things to those that were around him. Hey folks, he said, I cannot bring peace but a sword.

[28:21] He said those things. He said that it was going to cause division. He knew that he was the prophet said in the Old Testament that it would cause division. These things were supposed to be.

[28:32] That's why the Bible says that some of our greatest enemies will be within our own families. Fathers will be against son. Mothers will be against daughter. And so on and so forth.

[28:44] Jesus Christ knew that these things would come to pass. But we've all got our opportunity. We are all Barabbas. We've been released with another chance.

[28:56] Now what happened to Barabbas? I've heard about half a dozen different stories. Therefore I ain't going to preach or teach none of them. Because I've gotten a lie, man. I don't know. But it doesn't matter what happened to him.

[29:10] After the thing is he was released. He was given another opportunity. We were released with a heavy charge against sinning against the holy God.

[29:24] Sinning against the cross, holy God. Sinning against the righteous God. Sinning against a God who has never known sin. That was our charge.

[29:35] And that charge carries a death sentence. Not only a physical death sentence, which we won't get out of, but it carries a spiritual death sentence. A spiritual death sentence.

[29:47] That's the one I'm most concerned about. I'm most concerned with that spiritual death. I'm most concerned with not being resurrected when the Bible says that we're all dead and a trespass is in sin.

[29:59] But it is by grace that we are saved through faith, not of ourselves. It is a gift of God. Let's say, man, should both say it's all grace of God. If this can happen, it was a grace, the grace of God that released Barabbas.

[30:14] It wasn't the decisions of the Jewish people. It was the grace of God that gave him another opportunity. And Jesus took that man's place because he was set to die.

[30:26] But Cross took his place. He took my place. He took your place. Whether you're saved or lost, He took your place. Lost people, He took your place. Saved people, He took your place.

[30:37] And He is still in your place. That sin was nailed to the cross, that cavalry. It was nailed to a tree. Oh, God, this hell, you cannot change it.

[30:48] And I cannot either. All we can do is accept that truth or reject it. That's all we can do. What do we do with it? Do we accept it or do we reject it?