Well, thank you, Miss Gayle and Diane. That was a. You almost hesitate to say a wonderful song because of what it's talking about, but it is it is a wonderful song because of what was accomplished on that tree and. How fitting it is to fall in the place of where we are currently at in John's gospel and the passion week and the passion of the Christ. If you would take your copy, God's word turned to John 19 this morning. If we keep in count and know how many chapters are in John's gospel, we are near the end of this gospel. We continue to inch closer to the Lord's crucifixion in our series through John's gospel, and I hope you've been grateful that we haven't fast-paced it to get to there. We're walking through the events as they lead up to that event. This morning, though, we, Lord willing, will conclude our message with Jesus being handed over to be crucified. The last couple of weeks, we've walked through the three mock trials held by the Jewish leaders that our Lord faced, in which the verdict was reached well before that, those trials of that he must be killed. We studied that back earlier in John. they were just kind of rubber stamping what they had already agreed to do. He was handed over to Pilate, the Roman governor, the Roman authority in the area, because they needed him to carry out the death sentence of which they had rendered the verdict for. Expecting him to just do what they had asked him to do, Pilate instead questioned him, wanting to know why this man deserved to die. Pilate found no guilt in him, declared that, the people still demanded that he be crucified. Jesus was then sent to Herod once that Pilate found out that Jesus was from Galilee and fell in Herod's territory. Herod likewise found no guilt in him and sent him back to Pilate. Pilate, while wrestling with what to do and how to get out of this situation, Tried to send him to the Jews at least twice, and he gave them permission, or at least he was mocking them with not quite sure to tell them, y'all take care of him. You do what you want to do. That didn't work out. Pallet had him beat, mocked, a crown of thorns placed upon his head as Miss Gale sang about. Once again, presented to the crowd in hopes that this would be enough punishment. that he was no longer a threat. And then as we find ourselves, or as they found themselves on the eve of the Passover, the day of preparation, there was a custom that they could release a prisoner. Hallett thought, well, maybe here's one more chance that we can release this man in which he found no guilt. And the people cried out for Barabbas to be released instead. In the midst of all that, lest we forget, Pilate's wife had had a dream and sent a message to him to tell him, have nothing to do with this righteous man. We know the scene, he washes his hands of him. The Jews say, let his death be upon us and on our sons. Pilate still found himself in a situation in which he's responsible, but yet he wanted to separate himself from it. As we had said last week, he was already on thin ice with the governor, or with governor, with the emperor, with Tiberius. As well as facing a potential revolt amongst the Jewish people, he was in the proverbial between a rock and a hard place. If he didn't bend to the wheels and the desires of the Jewish leaders, a revolt could happen and or they could report back to Tiberius, of which he was already on thin ice. And Tiberius was not known as a man that had a lot of compassion. That brings us to today's text and these final events before Jesus is handed over to the executioners. So if you're following along in your copy of God's Word, we're in John 19, beginning in verse eight. Therefore, when Pilate heard this statement, he became more afraid. And he entered into the praetorium again and said to Jesus, where are you from? But Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to him, you do not speak to me. Do you not know that I have authority to release you and I have authority to crucify you? Jesus answered, you would have no authority over me unless it had been given you from above. For this reason, he who delivered me to you has the greater sin. As a result of this, Pilate kept seeking to release him, but the Jews cried out saying, if you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar. Everyone who makes himself to be a king opposes Caesar. Therefore, when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out, sat down in the judgment seat at a place called the Stone Pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha. Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, behold, your king. So they cried out, away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate said to them, shall I crucify your king? The chief priest answered, we have no king but Caesar. So he then delivered him over to them to be crucified. Let's pray. Father, we have been in this pivotal moment in redemptive history for a couple of weeks now. We are inching closer to the culmination of these events And as we look upon the words that were said amongst these leaders, human leaders, as we think upon our savior with the crown of thorns, beaten and bloodied, he is king. He was king then, he was king before the creation of the world, and he is king forevermore. Let us take these words in, let them resonate within our hearts to understand a bit more of what our Lord went through for us. And although it breaks our heart, simultaneously it should give us great joy. This is a conflict within the heart and the mind of the believer. Lord, I ask that you help us navigate that today. It's in Jesus' name I pray, amen. Kind of an odd place to start off with a therefore statement. I talk often about when you find a therefore statement, well, you need to know what is it there for, and it's always pointing back to what was said. So, what was this statement that caused Pilate to become more afraid? Well, let's take a glance back at the last verse we closed with last week for just a moment, John 19, 7. The Jews answered him, we have a law, and by that law, he ought to die, because he made himself out. to be the son of God. But Pilate had already heard that they wanted him to die. And they hadn't really been able to bring any good charges against him. There was this feeling of being an insurrectionist against Rome and Pilate had found that not to be the case at all. So now they say, okay, he has made himself out to be the son of God. Now, why would this statement make Pilate more afraid? Why would that make you more afraid? I mean, Pilate wasn't a Jew, was he? Of course not. He hated the Jews. He didn't claim to worship Yahweh God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Now we have evidence of Pilate being cynical. I think we looked at it last week. And when he questioned Jesus about truth, when Jesus said he came to speak of the truth and that he is truth, and Pilate said, what is truth? So there's some cynical comments there. But here he is shaken by their statement that Jesus claimed to be the son of God. So again, why would that make him more afraid? A.W. Pink contends that since Pilate became more afraid, These statements didn't incite a new fear within him, they intensified what was already there. That from the very beginning, there was an uneasiness, if nothing else, present in Pilate. He's standing before Jesus, questioning Jesus, finding no fault in Jesus. And now the claim moves up a level to he says he's son of God. there had to have been some easiness within the man. Some, I mean, just a conflict within. Pilate never stood before such a man. If you look back through the gospel accounts, when Jesus would talk to normal everyday people, they would follow him for the miracles, they were all in for the feeding and for everything else, but as soon as he started teaching, look at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, never has a man spoke like this before. He speaks with authority. And again, I think we have this confusion in our minds, humanly speaking, of authority must be the loud, boisterous, you know, the loudest voice in the room. No, no, no, that wasn't necessarily Jesus most of the time, was it? But what he said was dripping with truth, was dripping with, because he's God. Everything he said was perfect and full and refreshing, but also quite convicting. And of course, when he started talking, that's when many people would leave, right? I mean, Pilate's the last one to have this one-on-one type conversation with Jesus before he went to the cross. Have you considered that? We know there's a little bit of a conversation on the cross, but this kind of conversation. His words would have been impactful. The warning from his wife, probably ringing in his ears too, right, of her saying, I had a dream about this guy. Don't, get away from this situation. And now these people are telling him that this is the son of God, or he claims to be the son of God. Whether he was devout to the Roman pantheon of gods isn't clearly told to us in scripture, where they had a multitude of gods that they worshiped. But at the heart of the matter is that the Roman people were extremely superstitious to begin with. Let me back up. All people are extremely superstitious, really, when you boil it down. So for this man to make this claim, that would have triggered that superstition in his mind too. If Jesus was a man with divine power or maybe a god or a son of a god, this is lowercase g as he would have thought of, in human form, he would have every reason to fear about vengeance, a proverbial, I don't mean to quote a movie title or a book, but a wrath of the gods. That could have been a real fear as well. Later in the book of Acts, While in Iconium, Paul and Barnabas, different Barnabas, were there and Paul was mistaken for this very type of person in Acts 14, verses 11 and 12. And when the crowd saw what Paul had done, they raised their voice saying in the Iconium language, the gods have become like men and have come down to us. And they began calling Barnabas Zeus and Paul Hermes because he was the chief speaker. So it's not unprecedented for them to think this way and this to be part of their, mixed in with their mythology at all. Demigods were a real concept in their minds. Hercules being one of the most famous ones that we know of at least. Now let's shift back though. So Pilate returns back in the praetorium, this formal setting, to question Jesus one more time. This question, Where are you from is reflective of Pilate's fear. He already knew, he just found out, remember, that he's from Galilee, because he sent him to Herod when he found that out. So what is this question all about? This speaks to what his fear is. You remember that last week when we found that out and they sent him to Herod and Herod sent him back, this question is about Jesus' nature. Are you from this earthly realm or are you from somewhere else? That speaks to what his fear is, right? That helps us give insight into what his fear was. Are you earthly? Are you just a man? Or is there some truth to this statement of being son of, as I said before, he would think a son of a lowercase g, God. Are you of godly origin? And Jesus didn't respond. He'd been talking to him this whole time, and now he doesn't respond. Jesus gave no answer. Why? Well, a couple of reasons potentially for this. One of which fulfills a prophecy that we read last week in Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53, seven. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb that is led to slaughter and like a sheep that is silent before its shearer, so he did not open his mouth. Also, Jesus had already told him where he's from. He'd already admitted that his kingdom was not of this world. Y'all remember that? Just last chapter, John 18, 36 and 37. Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would be fighting so that I would not be delivered over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here. Therefore Pilate said to him, so you are a king. Jesus answered, you yourself said I am a king, for this I've been born and for this I've come into the world to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth, here's my voice. And that's immediately when Pilate answers back, well, what is truth? Jesus' silence was also judgmental. There's judgment in silence of the truth. Once you've heard the truth, once you've been told the truth and it's rejected, God often brings a silence after that. That should be fearful. That should be extremely fearful. Persistent rejection of God leads to silence and rejection from God. Psalm 81, 11 and 12. But my people did not listen to my voice and Israel was not willing to obey me, so I released them over to the stubbornness of their heart that they would walk in their own devices. Very similar to the verses we read in Romans 1, right, about God giving them over to a reprobate mind. Matthew 15, 14, Jesus speaking. Let them alone, they are blind guides of the blind, and if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit. That external call, that persistence does not continue. Continual rejection of the truth leads to greater silence, leads to greater darkness. No response from Jesus. Pilate is kind of working things out, but this and his position would have aggravated him to say the least. Perhaps infuriated him, but definitely aggravated him that you dare not speak back to me. I mean, I've got the power to release you or crucify you, he's saying. Literally, that's what he said. You do not speak to me. Do you not know that I have authority to release you and I have authority to crucify you? What I really think is going on here in Pilate, I believe Pilate was probably bouncing and wrestling between his own emotions. He's afraid of who this man is, his fear increased, we just read. Is he truly the son of a God? But his own arrogance and his own pride is also on display in this verse, is it not? Jesus isn't making it easy on him. Easy. You know, I said this is part of God's plan. This is part of the Father's plan. Do what you've gotta do. You don't speak to me, Pilate says. I'm the one who has your life in my hands. Oh, Pilot, you're so wrong about that. He's claiming he has the authority to release or crucify. He did have the right, but he was conflicted. I mean, we see him and his humanity being conflicted here, don't we? Now, this is an interesting paradox, is it not? In these questions, Pilot claims to be the only one with this authority, yet he was doing everything he could to get out of it. This leads to Jesus speaking up again, proclaiming where the true authority lies. Verse 11, you have no authority over me unless it had been given you from above. For this reason, he who delivered me to you has the greater sin. Pilate is a responsible agent. and therefore accountable, just like we are for the things we do. Yet the ultimate power, the ultimate authority over everything, including every single one of these events, is God. In his humanity, we read in the Garden of Gethsemane about him wrestling with facing the cross, but also in his humanity, he took comfort in the Father's sovereign authority over everything. Can this cup pass from me? Yet if not, your will be done. No one or no thing is outside of God's sovereignty. He is in control, folks. Salvificly, John 6, 43 and 44, Jesus answered and said to them, stop grumbling among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. Same chapter, a little further along, verse 65. And he was saying, for this reason I've said to you, no one can come to me unless it's been granted him from the Father. Genesis 50, verse 20. As for you, we know the story about Joseph and his brothers. As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to do what has happened on this day to keep many people alive. In the midst of evil, human intentions, God is still on his throne and in control. Proverbs 21.1, the king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of Yahweh. He turns it wherever he pleases. The most powerful rulers who ever walked the face of this earth are like channels of water, as it were, in the hands of God. A couple more verses that jumped out at me before we came over here that are not gonna be on the board. In Job chapter 36, beginning in verse 26, Behold, God is exalted, and we do not know Him. The number of His years are unsearchable. For He draws up the drops of water, they distill rain for His stream. Which the clouds pour down, they drip upon man abundantly. Can anyone discern the spreading of the clouds, the thundering of His pavilion? Behold, He spreads His lightning. about him and he covers the depths of the sea for by these he judges peoples he gives food in abundance he covers his hands with the lightning and he commands it to strike the mark it's thundering declares about him the cattle also concerning what is coming up the weather bends to god lightning strike where he says it strikes Hebrews 1.3, speaking of Jesus, who is the radiance of his glory in the exact representation of his nature and upholds all things by the word of his power who having accomplished cleansing for sin sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. Jesus as God has that same power and authority. What more can you think of? He's in control. He set the boundaries of the oceans. He said the mountains will rise this high and go no further. He has placed the stars in the skies and in the firmament. There is nothing outside of his sovereignty. And Pilate says he's in control. He's already proven he's not, right? But the Jews aren't in control either. They think they are. Pilate says he is, but Pilate knows he's not. Pilate is responsible for his actions while God is still the authority. Yet here Jesus says, he who has delivered me has the greater sin. So we need to open that up a little bit. This isn't removing the responsibility from Pilate, only that others are more guilty. Who is Jesus referencing here? The Jewish leaders, but probably even more specifically, Caiaphas as the high priest and the Sanhedrin as the religious Supreme Court of the day. They had seen overwhelming evidence that who Jesus said he was, he had fulfilled all this stuff, right? He had healed. Overwhelming evidence that Jesus was the promised Messiah, but he, along with the Sanhedrin, had already passed judgment before they ever got to the trials. We looked at that a couple of weeks ago. And they were the ones handing him over to the ones who could actually complete this dastardly deed. I don't know if I've ever said dastardly deed before. It felt pretty good. D.A. Carson says this. Pilate remains responsible for his spineless, politically motivated judicial decision, but he did not initiate the trial or engineer the betrayal that brought Jesus into his court. There have been formal charges now. They're not Roman formal charges. Nothing that they said about Jesus would cause them to need to crucify him. As a result of this, Pilate kept seeking to release him. He just told Jesus he's got all the authority, but he's still trying to figure out a way to get out of it. So he brings him out to the Jews, or he goes out to the Jews again. Now, we don't know. The formal charge was given as blasphemy. Further questioning by Pilate, he still could not be convinced that this man was guilty of a crime deserving of death. He kept trying to find a way to release him, the scriptures tell us. Now, we aren't told exactly what that was, what he did. What his plan was, was he trying to reason with the crowd again? Remember, this crowd is riled up at this point. They got the mob mentality going on. Possibly comes out again and says, I find no guilt in him. King Herod, your paper King Herod finds no guilt in him. Whatever his plan was, the Jews confirm their next move if Jesus was released. They told Pilate what they were going to do if he released him. They realized Pilate was trying to get out of this. They've been realizing it the whole time he's been trying to get out of this. They hit him with this comment. If you release him, you're no friend of Caesar. Everyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes Caesar. So they go back to this king thing of this insurrectionist type mentality. This corruption and hypocrisy of the Jewish leaders is just continuing to foment and get bigger and bigger. Now they hated Rome. They hated the corruption. They hated the occupation. They hated that they had to bend the knee to Rome. So what are they saying here? This is a clear threat to Pilate. If you let him go, we're going back to the emperor. Remember, we shared a couple of weeks ago, there's already been at least three formal charges brought against Pilate back to Tiberius. And we've already made a comment today that Tiberius was not a very forgiving man. Pilate couldn't risk them reporting back to the governor that he let a revolutionary go. And that's what they would have said. They wouldn't have went back to the governor or back to the emperor and said, this guy says he's a son of God, Pilate won't kill him. They'd say, no, this man is trying to, he's a revolutionary. He's trying to come up against Rome. Now, what we don't know, it's not in our Bible, the Maccabean revolt had happened not all too long before this. It's kind of in that 400 years of silence between the closing of the Old Testament and the New Testament where a major revolt happened in Israel. They probably would have pulled on that too. Emperor, you remember when the Maccabees came up against you? Yeah, that's about to happen again. That's what he's trying to do. Now, I'm adding something there, but they would have used some language similar to that. Their fallback tells us that by saying Jesus makes himself out to be a king. Let me make a small rabbit trail discussion here. This comment about being a friend of Caesar. What does that mean? It doesn't mean a whole lot to us. So I did a little research on this. My research led me to R.C. Sproul, who did the research for me. So by AD 75, the title Friend of Caesar was actually a formal title. It wasn't just throwing that out there. It was a formal title, well-established in Roman politics and protocol. So to be called a Friend of Caesar was to be accorded a certain status that in the empire you were somebody. Now we don't know when it really became an official title. We know by 75 AD it was, so about 40 years from these events, 40-ish, 40 plus years. We know it was already well established by then. So the Jews may have been telling Pilate that he would lose or would never gain this title if he did this. Now he was already on shaky ground with the emperor. The Jews probably would undermine Pilate every chance they got. There's another possibility of what this means. That title is set in history. We know that for sure. Philo and Josephus, the preeminent Jewish historians of the day, record that Pilate was mentored and tutored by a man named Sionis. Now, Sionis was very high in the Roman courts, and he held the title Friend of Caesar. Well, I already told you Tiberius was a kind of a superstitious, hard man, Sionis was actually the one that helped get Pilate in the position he was in. Well, in 31 AD, Sionis and a lot of other friends of Caesar were executed. So, this is around the timeline of Jesus going to the cross, and that would have spread throughout the kingdom. And so, that's a possibility, too, that that was a reminder of, hey, you know what happened to your mentor? He was a friend of Caesar, too. He had him killed. Anyway, small rabbit trail, back on focus here. Tiberius, the current emperor Caesar, had already gotten at least three negative reports. We've already talked about that. Pilate would have been fearful for his position and his life. Not just losing his job, but potentially losing his life. That makes him an easy target for a couple of things, doesn't it? A very easy target for blackmail and corruption and coercion. If these people have all this on you and they know they can twist the knife pretty easily, they kind of got you on a leash then, don't they? That's where Pilate's at. That's where we are in the course of events. Now we get another therefore, verse 13. Therefore, when Pilate heard these words, remember the words we just talked about, when he heard these words, he brought Jesus out, sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the Stone Pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha. when he heard these things. He has no runway left, to use a more modern analogy. Because all these things, he realized there's no way out of it. There's no way now. They had threatened him. That was a threat, okay, by the Jewish people. Again, let's not remove responsibility from Pilate, because he still was the one that hands him over. He brings Jesus out and then Pilate takes his place on the judgment seat. Ironically, isn't it? Or ironic, isn't it? Ironically, we see this earthly governor taking the position of judge over the judge of all the earth. He's about to levy judgment upon the true king. The true judge, the one for whom the father has granted all authority to judge all mankind. John 5, 22 and 23. For not even the father judges anyone, but he has given all judgment to the son so that all will honor the son even as they honor the father. He who does not honor the son does not honor the father who sent him. This man who judged Jesus and sent him to the cross faced Jesus at the great white throne judgment. In many ways, though, in many ways, Pilate sat in the place of all men for all time. And just as the majority of all mankind would agree with Pilate and the judgment he would render, Many are called, but few are chosen. The path is narrow, the gate is small. Most mankind does the same and will crucify him all over again. Would be in that crowd yelling, crucify, crucify. That's the majority of mankind. Pilate's just the one proverbially pulling the lever on this. Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover. It was about the sixth hour and he said to the Jews, Behold your king. The hour had arrived. All redemptive history converge on the events we've been looking at for a while now. To this day, to this hour, to this minute. The drama intensifying. John paints the picture for us quite well. The day, the day of preparation for the Passover. We'll begin at sundown. When we get to that point, that's when Jesus' body had to be pulled down before the sun went down. It will be late morning, the sixth hour, or near noon. Now, if you are a biblical scholar and a harmonizer of the gospels, you might see a bit of a conflict right here. Before we move on, I wanna bring attention to two important aspects of what we're looking at in this verse. First, there's an apparent contradiction here. of the time when you harmonize the other gospel accounts. The sixth hour, I've already told you, is near noon. And they reckon time by the hours, the hours of watch, which would be in three hour increments, when you see the third hour, the sixth hour, the ninth hour, et cetera, when you look, read in scripture. Mark's account, now hold this right here. When does John say the? Sixth hour. Sixth hour. near noon. Mark's account says the third hour Jesus was crucified. That's around 9 a.m. In many ways, in Mark 15, 25, now it was the third hour and they crucified him. Do we have a contradiction? Do we have a conflict? One of these guys get it wrong? That's a question you might face someday if you're doing apologetics and you come across somebody who knows their Bible. How do you respond? Let me start off this way. There's no contradiction anywhere in God's word. Nowhere, not one. When we find an apparent contradiction, it can always be reconciled. Let me say that again. When we find a potential contradiction, it can be reconciled. That's not to say we can understand everything, but we can reconcile all apparent contradictions. Usually we see a perceived contradiction because of one of two things. Usually it's either because of our lack of understanding of the divine plan, or as in this case, our lack of understanding of the culture and the context. So let's expand on that a little bit. Simply put, the Jews reckoning of time, the way they reckoned time, was not as precise as ours. We count things down to the second, don't we? We know down to the second. People in the ancient world weren't wearing smart watches. They weren't even wearing analog watches. They weren't carrying around sundials on their wrists either, by the way. No matter how many Fred Flintstone cartoons you watch, they weren't doing that. People in the ancient world would have estimated to the nearest watch, to the nearest watch, the time to the closest three-hour mark in their mind. It was closer to the ninth hour. It was closer to the sixth hour. So there's some subjectivity there, is there not, in the human side of that? Some subjectivity of that? Because if we're at 1030, I might say it was the ninth hour or the sixth hour, where Claire might say, no, no, no, it was the third hour. 9 a.m. to 12 noon is the window. Now, I think this is actually amazing because both gospel writers put us within a three-hour window on a very specific day. We want it to the second. We're talking about 2,000 years ago, people. Didn't mean to be so harsh with y'all. I know y'all know it's about 2,000 years ago. Any time between those two watches could be estimated differently by who was doing the estimating. But in perfect unity with the gospel accounts, as I've already said, I think it's amazing that we've got it within a three-hour window. Don't you? Within a three-hour window? On a very specific day? So there's no contradiction. Actually, this helps show the agreement between the two gospel writers. In my mind, that they both got it within three hours? 180 minutes? It's pretty impressive. No contradiction. None whatsoever. We just didn't understand the culture. We don't understand the context. Their reckoning of time is completely different than ours. The second point I want to make is tied to our title today. The sermon title, Behold Your King, or Behold The King, I'm sorry. Pilate said, Behold Your King. I say, Behold The King. Pilate was mocking them. while at the same time unknowingly proclaiming the divine truth. His mocking statements are actually declaring the truth that yes, here is the king. Here he is. We see that throughout the gospel accounts too. Remember the guy who said it would be beneficial for one man to die for the people? He was proclaiming gospel truth, but he was doing it from a mindset of thinking it'd be better that he be killed than Rome come down on all of us. No, no, no, the truth was Jesus, it was beneficial for Jesus to die, because he's the only one that could die for the sins of all his people. So he was proclaiming a divine truth while doing it in a subversive type way. Let's expand on this truth for a minute. But before we do, let's look at the response. Let's look at the response from the people when Pilate said this. So they cried out, away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate said to them, shall I crucify your king? The chief priests answered, we have no king but Caesar. Think about that for a minute. They'd accused Jesus of blasphemy. Here they actually find themselves guilty of that very crime they laid at his feet. They said, the Lord God, Jesus, the son of God, was a liar and wasn't who he said he was. The bitter irony here is the response of saying no king but Caesar is true for them. They rejected their king, so guess what? The only king they had is the earthly king. They rejected the true king, so he was all that's left. Yet God is the true king. King Jesus rules and reigns. Now, this is interesting. If you know the Old Testament, even at a cursory view, you know that Israel always wanted a king. God said, I'm good enough for you, and they said, we want a king. We want a man king. We want an earthly king. We want a king like all these other nations have. Israel always pined for an earthly king, and that always brought ruin to them. Let's look at just a couple of examples. You can find this throughout scripture, but Judges 8, 23. But Gideon said to them, I will not rule over you, nor shall my son rule over you. Yahweh the Lord shall rule over you. 1 Samuel 8, verses four through seven. Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. And they said to him, behold, you have grown old. Your sons did not walk in your ways. Now appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations. But the thing was evil in the sight of Samuel, when they said, give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed to Yahweh the Lord. Then Yahweh said to Samuel, listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they rejected me from being king over them. Psalm 149 too. Let Israel be glad in his maker, let the sons of Zion rejoice in their king. In our text we're in, no less than seven times in these trials and conversations between Pilate and Jesus and between the other authorities, Jesus and the other leaders, from Pilate to the Jews, conversation back and forth, Jesus has been called king no less than seven times. Have you ever thought about that in this conversation? He'd been called king no less than seven times. We even shared last week, the Roman soldiers had mockingly twisted a crown of thorns and placed it on his head and given him a reed scepter and beat him over the head with it. Now I had a couple of comments on last week's message and I was looking at the narrative perspective because I knew we was going to get to this point today, but a couple of good points were brought out by a couple of people that I wanted to touch on today. One of them being this events we looked at pretty graphically last week, if you'll remember. Pretty graphic in what was going on, what they did to Jesus. And we think about that, and we have to go back to Genesis 3 for a couple of points I wanna make. Let me read it, Genesis 3, 15. And I'll put enmity between you and the woman, this is the serpent, between your seed and her seed, he shall bruise you on the head, you shall bruise him on the heel. This is speaking of the moment in time we're at right here. The bruising on the head will be Jesus' victory over death and the powers of Satan on that cross. The bruising of the heel of Jesus was what he's going through right now. So you've got the satanic influence and you've got the human depravity working hand in hand for what we're reading. If you continue in Genesis 3 and you look more at the curse, and you consider this crown of thorns that was placed upon Jesus' head, Genesis 3, 17 through 19. Then to Adam he said, this is God speaking to Adam. Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you saying you should not eat from it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you will eat bread till you return to the ground because from it you were taken for you are dust and the dust you shall return. What does God tell Adam is a sign of the curse? Thorns and thistles. The crown of thorns was put together and pressed into our Lord's head. The true king worthy of much more than any crown any man could put on their head is wearing a crown of thorns representative of the curse that he was going to that tree to pay for. And what do they say? They claim no king but Caesar. And yelled, crucify him. Let's consider this just a bit longer. 1 Timothy 6, 13 through 15. We've already quoted this first verse, we're gonna quote more of them. I charge you in the presence of God who gives life to all things and of Christ Jesus who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate. Pointing back to this moment. that you keep the commandment without staining or reproaching to the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, for he which he will bring about at the proper time, he who is the blessed and only sovereign, the King of kings and the Lord of lords." Harkening back to this kingship language. And when he returns, Revelation 17, 14, These will wage war against the Lamb and the Lamb will overcome them because He is Lord of Lords and King of Kings. And those who are with Him are the called and elect and faithful. Revelation 19, 16. And He has on His garment and on His thigh a name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The King will return to this earth. Verse 16. So he then delivered him over to them to be crucified. All options are exhausted for Pilate at this point. There's no getting out of it. At the behest of the crowd, Pilate bends to their wishes to have Jesus handed over to be crucified. Notice though, he didn't hand them over to the Jews because he was the one that had to take the executioner's step, right? Had to swing the axe, so to say. What does this statement mean then? It means he carries the sense of submitting to their wishes and doing what they want done. And acknowledging, yep, you're rejecting him as your king. You're gonna do it, and your king is Caesar. This is a graphic, dramatic, historical, actual account of the events as they happened. while also pointing to a spiritual truth. What will you do with the king of kings? There's no middle ground. Pilate tried his best to walk the middle ground. It's not possible. It's not possible. Will you stand with his rejecters and mockers that day? Yelling crucify, crucify, I have no king but Caesar. It's the same question today that it was 2,000 years ago. or bend the knee in acknowledgement that he is King of Kings, he is Lord of Lords, and submit to him as Lord and Savior in repentance and faith as he calls you to himself. Matthew 12, 30 puts the stamp that you cannot walk the line. He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. Father, we thank you for this place that you brought us to in this study. Lord, we've tried to be faithful to covering the totality of this gospel, as we always try, Lord, but we can't do that without the help and guidance of the Spirit leading us, guiding us, directing us. Thank you for the spirit that leads. Thank you for that same spirit that calls. Thank you for that same spirit that regenerates and gives the new birth and breathes life into the dead, cold heart of sinners. Lord, if someone here today has been trying to walk that fence, it should be quite obvious that that's not possible. For anyone in this whole world that has not submitted