Classic Christianity – Jesus His Final Hours P4 (04-16-20)
Synopsis
As you ponder over all that Jesus was willing to go through, to be spit on, mocked, with a crown of thorns on his head, marred beyond recognition, being dragged from city to city, beaten and flogged. He was hated by all men for one reason. He told the truth about the condition of the hearts of all men. What kinds of thoughts go through your mind?
I sure hope you do not have the attitude of the religious Jews, who would rather defend their traditions and their interpretation of scripture than to show mercy, grace, love and kindness. Religion makes you mean. So you see the hypocrisy and stupidity of religion, that it is all based on outward performance, with no thought at all for mercy, love, kindness and forgiveness. You cannot stand anyone pointing out the condition of your heart. All of us are like that to some degree. Did you know that a righteous man loves rebuke? Now that sure goes against the natural way a man thinks. So why is that true?
Jesus came to expose the hearts of all men. Why? If we do not see our own sinfulness in light of his perfect holiness, would we ever appreciate the value of Jesus death on a cross. Jesus wanted us to see the depths of our need so we would come to him for our provision for that need. Indeed, the law is meant to show us our sinfulness so that we might seek a Savior.
The contrast between Jesus and our unrighteousness should be clear. It his loving-kindness that leads us to repentance. He took away the sins of the entire world. All of the sins back to Adam and forward to eternity, was all placed on him. He came not to condemn, for we already were. He came to lavish His grace in us, to live in us forever by the same Spirit that raised him from the dead. He desires for us to choose to put our faith in Him for life, for Him. It is our choice.
Jesus death on a cross was the only way man could have his sins forgiven, taken away forever, never to be seen again by the eyes of God. Death is required for the just punishment of sin. We were guilty. The payment of death for sin was paid in full, and he took it all. Now that you are forgiven, then, at the cross, there is now no sin attributable to man.
Therefore, when Jesus was raised from the dead, he offers eternal life to all men. To anyone who comes to Christ for life, who receives the resurrected life of Christ Jesus, he has the Spirit of God placed in him, and has become a new creation. Now you can allow Him to live His life in and through you. You are internally lead by Him, not by the law, but by a loving Father who guides you into all truth and sets you free, free to live by the Spirit of grace and not by the letter of the law. That is why those in Christ, born again, call to Him, “ Abba (Daddy), Father ” .
Transcript
That is the best religion can offer to you, to just try harder or be the best you can be. And you try that, don’t you? So you go to church and tithe. Then he tells you to do something else, so you go to the prayer meeting and then you go to visitation. And then you try harder and try harder and then try harder, but there is nothing that can calm your heart. That thing he said in the beginning about peace. You have peace right in front of you and you refused it. That was certainly true of the priest, the religious leaders and the elders.
All of those things is the best that the world and religion can offer to man when confronted with your own imperfection and depravity. So they had no solution. You are guilty. You go to the day of atonement, kill a bull and a goat, but something is still troubling inside of you. Jesus wanted us to see the depths of our need so we would come to him for our provision for that need. So they spit in his face and said “Prophesy to us, Messiah. Who hit you?”
Matthew 26:69-75
69 Now Peter was sitting out in the courtyard, and a servant girl came to him. “You also were with Jesus of Galilee,” she said.70 But he denied it before them all. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
71 Then he went out to the gateway, where another servant girl saw him and said to the people there, “This fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth.”
72 He denied it again, with an oath: “I don’t know the man!”
73 After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, “Surely you are one of them; your accent gives you away.”
74 Then he began to call down curses, and he swore to them, “I don’t know the man!”
Immediately a rooster crowed. 75 Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken: “Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly.
They took them over to Pilate’s house. That is all across the city. They dragged him from Chaiphas’ house through the streets all the way over to Pilate’s house. They humiliated him and beat him half to death along the way, from people putting sacs over his face and torturing him. Then he went before Pilate.
John 18:28
28 Then the Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness they did not enter the palace, because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover.
In other words, we are bringing this guy over to kill him, but I do not want to get involved in ceremonial uncleanness. So they did not enter the palace. They wanted to eat the Passover. You cannot kill a guy too late if you want to celebrate Passover.
In Jerusalem, in their elevators, their buttons are disabled. They have a Sabbat elevator. When the Sabbath comes, 5 o’clock in the evening, on Friday, when you go in it, it goes to the top floor and stops on every floor on the way down because you cannot push a button on the Sabbath, for that would be work. You have to get in the elevator, and it automatically goes up and down. This still occurs today.
So they do not want to be involved in anything ceremonially unclean, yet want to kill somebody before that takes place. That is why Jesus said, “You are clean on the outside but dirty on the inside.”
John 18:29-30
29 So Pilate came out to them and asked, “What charges are you bringing against this man?”30 “If he were not a criminal,” they replied, “we would not have handed him over to you.”
The audacity these people had is unbelievable.
John 18:31
31 Pilate said, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.”“But we have no right to execute anyone,” they objected.
The reason we are taking him to you is so you can execute him. We have no authority to do so, but we want you to do it before the Passover because we want to eat the Passover.
John 18:32-38
32 This took place to fulfill what Jesus had said about the kind of death he was going to die.33 Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
34 “Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”
35 “Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”
36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
38 “What is truth?” retorted Pilate.
A good question isn’t it. How would you and I ever know what truth is if it was not for Jesus who said, “I am the truth”. How would we ever know what truth is if God had not given us the scripture and said, “My word is truth”? We wouldnt. So Pilate made a statement of absolute truth. What is truth? How are you ever going to know what truth is?
John 18:38
With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him.
I know what Pilate was thinking here. “I will offer this guy an alternative to prevent Jesus from being crucified, for I know your customs.”
John 18:39-40
39 But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?”40 They shouted back, “No, not him! Give us Barabbas!” Now Barabbas had taken part in an uprising.
So they are saying, “No, we do not want Jesus. We want Barabbas, the one who led a revolt against the Romans.”
John 19:1-3
1 Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2 The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe 3 and went up to him again and again, saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” (mocking him) And they slapped him in the face.
He had been beaten by the Jews. Now, he is beaten by the Romans. Imagine the sight of Jesus, after all this beating!
John 19:4-5
4 Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews gathered there, “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him.” 5 When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!”
Pilate sent him all over the way back to Herod’s place. Herod sent him all over the way back to Pilate’s place. That is a lot of travel when you are beaten half to death. He is now back at Pilate’s place.
John 19:6
6 As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!”But Pilate answered, “You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him.”
Pilate was trying to get out of this thing.
John 19:7-8
7 The Jewish leaders insisted, “We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.”8 When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid,
Remember his wife had also warned him, have nothing to do with this man.
Matthew 27:18-20
18 For he knew it was out of self-interest that they had handed Jesus over to him.19 While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat, his wife sent him this message: “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.”
20 But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed.
That tells you that you should listen to your wife. When Pilate heard this, and having his wife tell him as well, he was more afraid.
John 19:9-11
9 and he went back inside the palace. “Where do you come from?” he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer. 10 “Do you refuse to speak to me?” Pilate said. “Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?”11 Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.
Jesus could have said, “You just think you have power.”
John 19:11-12
Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.”12 From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jewish leaders kept shouting, “If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.”
Now they are appealing to his fear of Caesar. “You are claiming, ‘let this man go’, but he is claiming to be a king, and that is against Caesar, and you are going to let him go. We are going to let Caesar know about this.”
John 19:13-17
13 When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha). 14 It was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about noon.“Here is your king,” Pilate said to the Jews.
15 But they shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!”
“Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked.
“We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered.
16 Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.
So the soldiers took charge of Jesus. 17 Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha).
It looks like the face of a skull, if you were to go there, with two eyes and nose. Then, just over the hill, nearby is a garden. There is an underground spring that feeds that garden. A natural garden being fed by a natural spring. That is where the tomb has been discovered. It had to be in proximity to this place. So where Jesus was crucified was not on a hill but on the street level, so people could walk by and see all this happening. Where the scourging was taking place you could hear all the sounds of the city. So all the normal activities of life was going on when Jesus was being crucified. The same thing is going on today.
Luke 23:26-33
26 As the soldiers led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. 27 A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. 28 Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ 30 Then “‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!”’[Hosea 10:8] 31 For if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?” 32 Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. 33 When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals – one on his right, the other on his left.
The death of Jesus ceases to be a theological issue. There was a man named Jesus of Nazareth who was hanging on a cross. When he hung on that cross, he took away the sins of the entire world. He took them away once and for all and cried out on the cross, “it is finished”(John 16:9). That is not a subject to debate. That is truth. It is finished. It is done. It is love. For the Christian world to be quibbling over that issue of forgiveness is a spit in the face just as these men were spitting in his face then. It is spitting in his face today.
The plans have already been laid out, where the orthodox Jews today are going to rebuild the temple and to have preparation for a sacrificial system to be re-initiated. A sacrificial system will be the ultimate spit in the face as to the final sacrifice of Christ. Because we do not know the difference between the old and the new covenant, and all of those things you see taking place, were shadows pointing to Jesus. Now that Jesus has come, we should leave the shadows where they belong. But Christians in the world keep dragging the shadows in today’s reality, if indeed there ever was such a reality, instead of walking in the newness of life.
When that temple will be rebuilt and the sacrificial system is initiated, Christians will contribute millions of dollars and people flocking over their killing a bull and a goat, because people would rather be a Jew than a Christian. When you see these things, it is not an American form of Christianity. You see the contrast of a system that says, “I do not believe Jesus is the Messiah. I do not believe he came to die for the sins of the world.” with one that says, “I do believe he is the Messiah. He did die for the sins of the world. He did take away my sins, and he did it one time and one time for all, at the cross of Jesus.”
For the world to keep dabbling with that issue is the biggest spit in the face of Jesus. Instead of walking in the Spirit of thankfulness, that you, as a child of God are not a person who has the potential to be forgiven. That was the Jew prior to the cross. But you, who are born again, you are a forgiven person. You are not a person who gets forgiven. You are a forgiven person. If that is not true, then Jesus lied at the cross, all of the apostles lied, and you are making a mockery of the grace of God that sanctifies and treating as a holy thing the blood that sanctified us.
Hebrews 10:28-29
28 Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?
It is about time for the Christian world to see that you become a true believer or you keep dabbling in this fellowship deal. There is nothing in the bible about being in and out of fellowship nor is there anything in the scripture that tells you to keep asking God to forgive you. It is not because you do not need forgiveness. It is because he has already provided it. Once that has been done at that cross, at the skull, by a man named Jesus of Nazareth, then having been raised from the dead, he can come and live and lead us into all truth by His Spirit who lives in us, no longer practicing religion, trying to keep yourself forgiven but walking by faith that you are a forgiven person, and as a forgiven person. I have no fear of entering the presence of God, calling him “Daddy, Father”. The curtain has been torn from top to bottom, allowing all of us to enter that curtain. What a privilege to walk in that life. What a privilege to walk and see the skull, and say that is where he said, “It is finished”. As a result of that I can walk as a forgiven person who has been set apart by God to be a new creature. That is the privilege of all privileges that we have. This was the scourging floor. That is the exact floor, when you see excurisons in Israel, and this is the place he was scourged, and then went over to Pilate.
John 19:1-3
1 Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2 The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe 3 and went up to him again and again, saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they slapped him in the face.
If you could imagine the scene here, of people so angered at Jesus, for no other reason except telling the truth. All of your religion is on the outside, but God is looking on the inside. All of us have a problem on the inside. There is not a person sitting in this room who did not have a problem on the inside.
Mark 7:14-15
14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15 Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”
We do not have drinking problems. We have heart problems. We do not have drug problems. We have heart problems. The issues we have in our marriage are heart problems. It is not our circumstances. It is our heart. Jesus came to change our heart. As a matter of fact, he came to give us new hearts. Our old one is not worth changing. That is where new birth is a necessity. We needed something new to be interjected in order to enable us to live a life God has called us to live. Because of teaching this truth, they were so angered at him, they struck him in the face.
John 19:4
4 Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews gathered there
These are the religious ones, who were hell bent on getting their interpretation of scripture across.
John 19:4-5
“Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him.” 5 When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!”
When you see the size of those thorns, you can imagine the blood all over his face, and the pain of that.
John 19:6-7
6 As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!”But Pilate answered, “You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him.”
7 The Jewish leaders insisted, “We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.”
So the Jewish leaders were saying, “It is our law.” Why did they bring him to Pilate? Because under their law, they could not kill a man. In other words, the Jewish leaders were saying, “We have already determined his death. He does not need a trial. He does not need a testimony. We have already made a determination about him, that he is guilty and deserving of death. But we cannot kill him according to our law, so we are going to turn him over to you so you can kill him. It is against our religion to kill him. So you see the hypocrisy and stupidity of religion, that is all based on outward performance, with no thought at all for mercy, love, kindness and forgiveness.
John 19:8-12
8 When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, 9 and he went back inside the palace. “Where do you come from?” he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer. 10 “Do you refuse to speak to me?” Pilate said. “Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?”11 Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.”
12 From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jewish leaders kept shouting, “If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.”
The Jewish leaders were saying, “If you keep on insisting of letting him go, we will go to Caesar and tell him what you did.”
John 19:13-17
13 When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha). 14 It was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about noon (6th hour)“Here is your king,” Pilate said to the Jews.
15 But they shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!”
“Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked.
“We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered.
16 Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.
So the soldiers took charge of Jesus. 17 Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha).
You can see where that took place. In a photograph, you might see the skull, the eyes and nose that is in that stone, that has been there for over 2000 years. You can certainly see it in person, if you were there, in the formation of the rock. Here they crucified him. Jesus was not crucified up on a hill. At the foot of this rock was the street, and it was one of the busiest intersections in that part of Jerusalem. It was a main road from North into Jerusalem. So the heavy traffic would be there. When they crucified people, they did it so the people walking by and those in the heavy traffic could see what was taking place.
John 19:18
18 There they crucified him, and with him two others – one on each side and Jesus in the middle.
