The profound significance of the "darkest daybreak" in history, focusing on Jesus' trial before Caiaphas and Pilate. It details the stages of Christ's suffering during that night and morning, highlighting the mockery, beatings, and accusations he endured. The narrative contrasts the Jewish leaders' religious scruples with their intent to murder, emphasizing Jesus' declaration of his non-worldly kingdom and Pilate's dismissive question, "What is truth?" The sermon concludes by urging listeners to consider their own response to Jesus, contrasting Pilate's evasion with the choice to accept Christ as the truth and the way to salvation.
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Shall we open our Bibles, please, to the eighteenth chapter of John's Gospel, John chapter eighteen. I will read from verse twenty-eight. John chapter eighteen and verse twenty-eight. Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas into the hall of judgment, and it was early. And they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover.
Pilate then went out unto them, and said, What accusation bring ye against this man? They answered and said unto him, If ye were not a manufacture, we would not have delivered him up unto thee. 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 a man to death. That the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled which he spake, signifying what death he should die. Then Pilate entered in, the Judgment Hall again, entered into the Judgment Hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, "'Are thou the King of the Jews?'
Jesus answered him, saying, "'Says thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?' Pilate answered him, "'Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me. What hast thou done?' 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 my kingdom is not from hence. Pilate therefore said unto him, Are thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king.
To this end was I born. and for this cause came I into the world, that I might bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? When he thus said, he went out again unto the Jews, and says unto them, I find in him no fault at all, but ye have a custom. that I should release unto you one at the Passover. Will ye therefore that I release unto you the King of the Jews? Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas.
Now Barabbas was a robber. Turn back to Matthew twenty-eight, please. Matthew twenty-eight in verse one. Pardon, Matthew twenty-seven in verse one. when the morning was come. Matthew twenty-seven, verse one, when the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death, and when they had found him, they led him away and delivered him to Pontus Pilate, the governor. And then to Luke twenty-two.
Luke twenty-two. And verse sixty-six. Luke twenty-two, verse sixty-six. As soon as it was day, the elders of the people and the chief priests and scribes came together and led him into their council, saying, Oth thou the Christ tellest? And he turned to them, If I tell you, ye will not believe me. If I ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me go. hereafter shall the son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God. Then said they all, art thou then the son of God?
And he said unto them, ye say that I am. And they said, what need be any further witness? For we ourselves have heard of his own mouth, and the whole multitude of them arose and led him unto Pilate. And then in Mark chapter fifteen, verse one, Mark fifteen, verse one, and straightway in the morning the chief priest held a consultation with the elders and scribes, and the whole council, and bound Jesus and carried him away, and delivered him to Pilate.
And Pilate asked him, Oth thou the king of the Jews, and he answered, said unto him, Thou sayeth, Now one more scripture, the first verse in the Bible, Genesis one, verse one. In the beginning God created the heaven, the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the teeth. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light, and there was light.
And God saw the light that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness, and he called the light day. And the darkness he called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. The evening and the morning were the first day. I sometimes wonder why it doesn't say the morning and the evening were the first day. evening and the morning were the first date. We may see this morning why. Shall we pray? Blessed God, our Father, we bow before thee now and thank thee for this precious book in our hands. Thy holy word, the Bible, the inspired word of God without one mistake from beginning to end.
Thy plan for man, thy plan for thy beloved Son, Thy plan for thy people Israel, thy plan for Gentile nation, it's all written in this book. We thank thee for it. And we thank thee that thy plan for the eternal salvation of sinful man is in this book. We pray thee that as we open it this morning, the Holy Spirit might take the word of God and apply it to our hearts and work some work in every heart for thy glory. We ask it in our favors, precious name. Amen. Our subject this morning is the world's darkest daybreak.
The world's darkest daybreak. You notice in those four scriptures I read in Matthew and Mark and Luke and in John He talked about the morning, when the morning was come. And in Genesis we've just read that God created the light, and he saw the light that it was good, and he said the evening and the morning were the first day. And I say again, I wonder why he didn't say the morning and the evening, that's how we'd reckon, the morning and the evening were the first day. What a prophetic scene that was, really, that the evening is mentioned before the morning, because when God's beloved Son came here to this earth, there was a long, long night, a night of sorrow, a night of pain and agony, a night of mocking.
They spat on his face and they smote him on the face all during that long night. And then the morning broke. I can't understand. I often ask myself, if God could say in the days of Joshua, in the days of Joshua long ago, thou sun stand still in Gideon, and thou moon in the valley of Hedgeland. If God could stop the sun and stop the moon and hold them still, why didn't God say this morning, sun stand still and don't pray? Why didn't God say, let there be no light today? Why should light shine upon such a terrible, terrible scene as a scene we're going to witness this morning?
But there it is written in the four scriptures that the morning broke and the sun rose. I watched the sunrise this morning, a beautiful red ball. I was sitting in the office, or rather standing by the bedside of our brother Heist last night, looking out the window, a gray red ball, the sun went down. And I said to my wife, this one, as we looked out there, when they looked, that red ball had come up over there, the same red ball. And the day broke. And this awful morning broke, the darkest daybreak in the world's history. I'd like to think a little bit about the night first. You see, there are stages.
to the sufferings of Christ. Now, I'm not talking about the Roman Catholic stages of the cross. If you go to Jerusalem, you'll find a painting on the wall here, and that's called the sixth stage of the cross, and the seventh stage of the cross, and so on. As you go up the Via Dalla Rosa and visit the various scenes in Jerusalem, I'm not talking about that, but there were kind of stages to the cross. First of all, there was a scene in the garden where they arrested And then there was the scene before Anas, the father-in-law to the high priest. And then there was the scene before Caiaphas. That's what I want to talk about for a moment. And then there was the scene before Pilate, and then before Herod, and then back to Pilate, and then the handing him over to the executioners and the actual execution stages and steps in the sufferings of the Son of God in that awful night and that awful morning.
It was really early when the Son of God was crucified, about nine o'clock in the morning. I often am amazed how these fellows were up in the morning. When they went to Pilate and at daybreak, you think the fellow'd be sleeping. It's a job to get some of these fellows. They usually drink half the night and the next morning you can't get them out of bed. But they were all there early that morning to carry out this judgment against the Son of God. There's some strange things here that I can never really fathom. First of all, how God would let the sun rise. And then how God would have got these fellows out of bed that morning to be there, to carry out the judgment. Let's go back to that night scene.
When I last spoke, I think it was about ten weeks ago that I was out speaking here at this platform on a Sunday morning. And we have been studying John's Gospel for a period of maybe three years here as I have spoken, morning by morning, when the opportunities come. And the last time we left the Lord before Annas, we talked about the Christian, the Lord, the High Priest asked, well, it wasn't before Annas, because I think before the time we got to this stage, he'd been handed over to Caiaphas. You can't quite see in John's Gospel where he was handed over to Caiaphas. But I think it was Caiaphas, the High Priest, who asked him about his disciples.
You remember he said to them, he asked two questions. He asked about his doctrine, he asked about his disciples. And we were talking about this last time I was speaking, how Caiaphas might have said, the high priest might have said to him, how about Judas? What do you think of Judas? Judas came a few nights ago and bargained with us, and we struck the bargain. We gave him thirty pieces of silver to betray you. What do you think of that man? He's a disciple of you. He might have said, listen. And just at that very moment, out there in the courtyard, Peter was saying, I tell you, a woman, I don't know him. And Caiaphas would say, what do you think of that man?
That's Peter. That's your favorite. What about him? Listen to what he's saying. I don't know him. He asked about his disciples. I remember years ago when I was reading that verse one morning, it struck me this way. If someone could get up to the throne of glory, where the Son of God is sitting at the right hand of the Father. And that someone could go and say to the Son of God, how about that fellow that calls himself a disciple, Bob Willie? What do you think about him? And I wonder if the Lord this morning, if someone could ask about every one of them. What do you think of that disciple down there?
Well, that's what Klaus did. He said, what do you think about your disciple? What do you think of What do you think of Peter? What do you think of all these that have forsaken the enslaved? What do you think of the disciples? But that night was a terrible night. It says in Isaiah that the Lord was led from prison and from judgment. Now nowhere in the scripture that I know of do you find the Lord in prison. He was a prisoner, put it that way if you like. But when I went to Jerusalem and they took us to the, what they call the Church of the Alacander, that's a Roman Catholic, a beautiful Roman Catholic church, is they built over the site of the Palace of the High Priest, the supposed site of the Palace of the High Priest.
The Church of the Alacander means, that's French, for the Church of the Cock-Crowing. and they showed us around this beautiful place and then they took us down under. And down under that edifice, that church, there were the remains of prison cells. Spots where prisoners have been bound and chained down there. And these Roman Catholic priests down there told us that's where the Lord spent the night down there in that prison. Did he? I don't know. It says in Isaiah he was He was taken from prison and from judgment. That was some time during the evening after the Passover supper, the last supper, that they arrested him in the garden and then they took him to Anas and then they took him to Caiaphas.
How long all that took, I don't know. But it seems to me they had to spend the night somewhere. Did those Jewish leaders, spend the night all night brawling and shouting and seeking his death or did they get some rest somewhere? I don't know. Did Caiaphas go to sleep that night? I don't know. I don't think the Lord did. That to me is one of the awful things you can face a lot when you've had a good night's sleep. But to face all the sufferings he had to face without a good night's sleep, that was terrible. That gets anyone down. And during that night, Just for a moment see what happened in the, let's look at Luke twenty two for a moment, Luke twenty two.
This is one of the stages in the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. Luke twenty two. Verse sixty-three, this is where Peter went out and wept bitterly, and then we come back to the Lord, and it says, the man that held Jesus, now this is before Caiaphas, sometime during that night, the man that held Jesus mocked him and smote him, and when they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face and asked him, saying, prophesy, who is it that smote thee?
and many other things, and I'd like to know what they were. Many other things blasphemously spake they against you. Is the lowly, meek son of God always so tender and so loving and so kind? He's standing before these wicked men, whose breath he held in his hand, mind you, and he allows them to do this. The men that held Jesus mocked him and smote him. And when they blindfolded him, they struck him on the face and asked him, saying, prophesy. I think Mark pushes a little differently, but the same thing is there in Mark.
Verse sixty-four, sixty-five, and they began to spit on. This is where the spitting took place, before Caiaphas the priest, not before Pilate, before Caiaphas. It was the Jewish people, the Jewish people that spit upon him. And some began to spit on him and to cover his face and to buffet him and say unto him, Prophesy, and the servants did strike him with the palms of their hands Now, I cannot really tell them the word, the palms of their hands in the Greek. And there's a lot of question about this in books I have read, but there is something that the Greek words used here can be translated, not just that they struck him with the palms of their hand, but they struck him with a rod.
Now, if you go back to Micah, In the Old Testament, Micah, and chapter five and verse one, chapter five and verse one, it says this, and the end of the verse, they shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek. Now I know in another place it says, they smote him on the head. And the cool thing of that was that they put the crown of thorns on his head first and then smote him on the head with a reed when the crown of thorns was on his head. But here, thou shalt smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek.
Now everything that was done to the Lord Jesus that night was already prophesied. It was prophesied in the Old Testament. And all the Old Testament scriptures had to be fulfilled. And this was one, they shalt smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek. And nowhere do I read those exact words that they smote him on the face with a rod. But sometimes they, in Matthew, in John, it says, just a moment. Verse twenty-two of John eighteen. And when he had thus spoken, one of the officers which stood by struck jesus with the palm of his hand saying answers thou the high priest thou and some say that right here it wasn't the palm of his hand they smote him with a rod again i would suggest that you don't angry men don't fight with the palm of their hand they fight with their fish and i do know it says in isaiah that his faith was more marred than any man.
And I remember once, soon after the war, I was walking down Regent Street, London, England, and in a little store corner, there was a display of an exhibition of pictures and some of the things connected with the German atrocities in the war. Pictures of Buchenwald and all these places where they six million Jews were massacred. And some morbid curiosity got me to pay the sixpence or a shilling of what it was. And I went into this space and walked around.
And of all the things I saw, the pictures of the dead bodies and the torture chambers and all this, the one thing that impressed me most of all was hanging on a pillar There was a picture, wasn't much bigger than, oh, about so big, I suppose. And it was a picture of a face, would it? Yeah, it was a face. But it was a picture of someone whom the Germans had tortured and beaten. And they'd beaten this face, and then it was, it was just like a round, I'm not talking about an American football that you play football, but I'm talking about the kind of ball you use in the English soccer game, a round ball.
And that face was just round like that. The eyes were two little splits, and the nose, two little holes, and the mouth a little split, and it was so swollen up that you couldn't recognize just like a round ball. And that was some face that had been beaten and pummeled by the Germans until it had so swollen up that it had lost its shape and all together. And then as I looked at it, I said to myself, his face, was more marred than any man. And I asked myself, could the Lord's face have been worse than that? Well, that's what it said. More marred than any man.
And there before Caiaphas, they beat him up. They covered his face and they beat him and said, prophesy. And then they had to spend the rest of the night somewhere. I am inclined to think there was something about that old priest called me. that down there was the prison chamber and down there they chained the Lord. And you could see the rings on the wall where the chains used to be. And it wasn't a, it was just a dirty hole. And somewhere, maybe the Lord spent some hours down there. And then when the day began to break, they dragged him out again.
Because we have read that as the day began to break, the morning came, they called him out. And then they took counsel together. As the sun came up that morning and the day broke, that's when and where the final counsel was taken, that they'd go on with this business and take him to Pilate. And they took counsel together to hand him over to the Roman governor. And so we come to our scripture this morning. Twenty-eighth verse of the eighteenth chapter. Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas under the hall of judgment. And it was early, and they themselves went not into the hall, lest they should be defiled.
Now I found one way of studying these verses now, from verse eighteen of nineteen, of verse twenty-eight of chapter eighteen, down to verse sixteen of chapter nineteen. I found one very interesting way of studying it. is to see what happened inside the hall and what happened outside the hall. And what I've done with my Bible, I've drawn a kind of a parenthesis, my all down one side, on the outside of my Bible. That's when Pilate came out. Then on the inside, down that center of the horizon, I write another one, that's when he was in. Then next he goes out and then he comes in.
And so you'll find in verse twenty-eight, It says that verse twenty nine, Pilate went out. I emphasized it if I read it. I don't know if you noticed it. And then verse thirty-three, Pilate entered in. And then in verse thirty-eight, he went out again. And then in verse in chapter nineteen, he's in there again with him. And then in verse four of nineteen, Pilate went forth again. It's in and out all that trial that morning before Pilate. Pilate comes out, Pilate goes in.
The Lord is kept in there. But Pilate comes out. Because the Jews would not enter into this Jewish judgment. This was their Passover. And if they had gone two steps inside, they would have been defiled and could not eat the Passover. And there was no time now to get cleansed. time had gone, they had to be ready for their Passover that day, and so they dare not go in. They were so careful to keep these religious scruples. They were going to crucify, they were going to murder the Son of God, but never mind that. They had to carry out their law. And so they would not go in. They went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover.
So Pilate went out to them. It's amazing how this man accommodated himself. and accommodated them rather, and went out to them. He went out to them. And they had it already. He says, what accusation bring ye against this man? They answered and said, if he were not unmanifacted, we would not have delivered him up to thee. Then Pilate said, take ye him and judge him according to your law. The Jews therefore said, it is not lawful for us to put any man to death. You see, the sentence was already passed. It wasn't a matter of having a judgment and deciding is he guilty or not guilty.
They had made up their mind he was going to be killed. And they made up their mind the way he was going to be killed, not by stoning. The Jewish method of execution was by stoning. I rather think that they used to, in that day, they used to take people out to Skull Hill and throw them over the hill. and then down below finish off what they had done by throwing them over with great stones they hurled at them and put them to death by stoning but they weren't going to do that they wanted the Son of God to be crucified why did they want him to be crucified they didn't know but I can tell you because Psalm twenty two describes in detail the sufferings of crucifixion I tell all my bones, they stare.
My mouth is dried up like a potsherd. All the details of crucifixion are in that twenty second sound. God had written them long, long before. And God allowed that cruel Roman Empire to invent this cruel, the most cruel method of execution. I can't think of any more wicked or any crueller way. for a man to have to die. It seems to me that to hang, you hang, just hang yourself on a door for a few minutes. Jump up and grab the top of the door and try and hang the weight of your body on your hands like they nearly cut your hands in a half. But to have nails put in your hand and to hang the weight of your body on those sore festering every moment getting worse, festering sores in your hand must be agony beyond test.
That's how the Son of God, God in his plan had arranged it this way, amidst so many other sufferings. And so they had planned that he should be crucified. God had planned. So they wanted him crucified. They said, we can't put him to death. We wouldn't do it the right way. We want you to do it. We want him to be crucified. That the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he spake, signifying what death he should die. Because he said, I, if I be lifted up, should go all men. If I be lifted up. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, not thrown down and stoned, but lifted up and crucified. That's how the Lord Jesus said it would happen.
And this is how it was fulfilled. And that's what's brought before us in this chapter. And verse thirty-three, Pilate entered in again. He goes in now to the hall and called Jesus and says, Art thou the king of the Jews? And Jesus answered what he says is, yes. He said, well, first of all, he said, did you ask this thing of yourself? Did others tell me of it? And Jesus said, am I a Jew? Thine own nation, and the chief priest had delivered thee. What has thou done? And then Jesus talked about his kingdom. Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world.
What a wonderful thing this is for your heart and mind. My kingdom is not of this world. all other great rulers and leaders they wanted a kingdom they wanted world empire and they've all risen and they've got the sway over the world and they've all gone down everyone they're all gone the son of god he said my kingdom doesn't belong to this world his is an eternal kingdom his is a heavenly kingdom and his kingdom is yet to come although in a sense We have the kingdom today because he dwells in your heart and mind. But the kingdom here is a future thing. 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 Ancestor. My kingdom is later on. Two thousand years later on. Pilate didn't know, but he learned. Pilate therefore said to him, are there a king? Seems amazing. They brought a man here with his face so battered, so beaten up with a filthy spittle from the mouth of a man slowing down his beard and down his face. They brought this awful spectacle before Pilate and he claims to be a king. Usually kings have armies to defend them.
And the Lord Jesus said, I could ask my Father now, and he would send twelve legions of angels. And in the Roman army, a legion was six thousand men. So the Lord would have sent seventy-two thousand angels. There, Pilate said seventy-two thousand angels. And don't forget that in the Passover night, one destroying angel, one angel of it, the destroying angel, passed through the land of Egypt and destroyed the firstborn in every home. So what infinite, tremendous power was at his disposal, but he didn't call it.
No, because he came there to suffer for you and for me. Aren't thou a king? 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 of the truth. Everyone that is of the truth here is my voice. Pilate said, what is truth? But you know, he never stopped for the answer. Pilate says, what is truth? And when he said this, he went out again. He didn't stop for the answer, what is truth. And truth was standing before him. The Lord Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Now we need to pause here a moment.
What is truth? The world is searching today for truth. The world is searching today for the way. And they left this old book out. They say that's out of date. We don't want that. We have our universities, we have our education, we have our systems, and we are going to find out the truth. And they go on searching forever and they never find it. Because the truth is in this book. The fear of the Lord... Oh, Solomon puts it, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding. This is true.
The fear of the Lord. What if there's someone here this morning? I look back over many, many years, and I remember when I was perhaps as young as some here this morning, God saved me when I was ten years of age. But I remember before that. And I heard so many men preaching from the Bible. And I had some knowledge of the truth. And I knew the Lord was coming back. I knew this day of grace was going to end. And I knew that if the Lord came back and I wasn't saved, I'd be left behind. I knew all this.
And it used to worry me. And I remember so clearly, I used to say sometimes, as a boy, I wish I had never been born. One awful thing to say. But I say, I wish I'd never been born, because I couldn't fathom it and couldn't face it. I could think of eternity and all the vast ages and the great universe, but I couldn't understand it. And I used to think, I'm going to be launched out somewhere into that great eternity somewhere, and I've got no anchor, and I've got no hope, and I don't know how to find a way. And I used to be like you, some of you young people here, My parents took me as yours have brought you today, and I used to sit down Sunday after Sunday and listen to the preaching.
And there was that vast universe, and I couldn't make it out. And I used to say to the Lord, tell me how to be saved. How can I be saved? I don't know. And yet, from my mother's arms, the first place my mother ever took me when I was a month old was to the Lord's table, and I've been there ever since. But from my mother's arms, I didn't know the way. My sister, who was some three years older than me, when I was three years of age, she died and went to heaven. And in the morning she went, she said goodbye to me. Goodbye. Bobby, she called me goodbye. I'm going to Jesus. And I knew she'd gone to heaven. And I wanted to go to it. I wanted to know the way anyhow. And I couldn't find it out.
What is truth? Where can we find the truth? And this was Pilate's great question. What is truth? He didn't start to get the answer. You went out, and how many people there are, they come to a meeting like this, and you're faced with a question, what is truth? How can I find the way? How can I know the truth? And what happens? We close the meeting, and you can't stop them. They go out so fast, you can't even shake their hands before they start. I found that so many times. Why? Why do people run away from truth? I don't know. Because if you'd only pause and stop them, wait a minute. Why, we could show you the way to be saved. I think the greatest joy I've had in preaching the gospel is to get to the back of the door and you can usually tell a person that thanks us.
And somehow you can kind of break through and say, can I help you? I remember once in, I was preaching in Alexandria in Egypt. Back in the war days, Sunday night I was preaching there. And I was so disappointed, the meeting closed and nobody was saved. I really expected to be a soul saved that night. And they went out one by one by one. And I got the last one to go out with a little boy of twelve. His name was Andrew. I shook and I said, Andrew, how are you? He said, oh, if you could only help me. I said, what's the matter? He said, I want to be saved. I'd like to be saved tonight. The last one going out and I took his hand and I took him in and I led him to Christ.
I was back there three years later and preached at a conference, and our brother Neil Dugel was speaking at the same conference there. We were nearly all military people. Neil Dugel was in the Navy. I was in the Air Force, and I was speaking there, and somebody said, I want to introduce you to Andrew. I said, you need to introduce me. I know Andrew. He was twelve before. Now he was fifteen. And Andrew said, I saw you getting on. He said, I've been baptized. I'm in fellowship. and I'm going on with the Lord. What a joy. But most people you know, they run for all their work. I remember once I was speaking out in, I can't think of the name, a suburb of Los Angeles on a Sunday night, and it seemed to me that the caretakers and the trustees and stewards, whoever they were, they were looking out the meeting.
Their main job was to get the door locked and get everybody out. And so they did, and now I'm outside. Nobody been saved that night. And a little girl came up the path and she was twelve. She said to me, I wish you could help me. She said, I want to be saved tonight. I said to these men, hey, open that door again. Let's get back inside that chapel. They want to shut it all up so fast, you know. Let's just get back in. And I led that little girl to pray. Pilate said, one is true. And he went out. And that's what people do. Now, we have time yet. It's ten minutes ago, really. Why hurry?
What is true? Is there someone here not saved? I don't know if we could help you. The Lord Jesus says, I am the way. So you can't get to heaven any other way. You can't get to heaven by doing the best you can. You can't get to heaven by good works. That's not God's way. It's good to do all these things, but that's not the way to be saved. You can only be saved by accepting what Christ has done for you. As we go further on in this wonderful Gospel of John, we shall see how the time came when the Lord Jesus hung upon that cross of shame, and those kind hands that did such good, did such good, they nailed them to a cross of wood.
And upon that cross, the Lord Jesus took your place in mine. The Bible declares, and God declares, that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. You'll never get to heaven by coming and telling God how good you are. The way to get to heaven is to come and tell God how bad you are. Tell him you're a sinner. And tell him that you believe that the Lord Jesus bore your sins in his own body upon the tree. And that's the truth. That's the truth. That's what the world needs today. If the world today could only get the gospel, if we could only get the gospel over, and their minds could be opened up to accept the gospel, the truth of God... we could change this world now, but they don't want it.
They want to go their way. They want to go by their education and all their knowledge, but they don't want this old book. But thank God still, in the world today, it's so wonderful to get the missionary report of what God is doing in faraway lands, not so much in this country today, although much is going on today amongst our young people. We thank God for that. But it all comes from this book. the Lord Jesus. What is truth? The Lord is truth. And the truth is in this book. And that's the only possible way of salvation. And so Pilate asked the question, didn't wait for the answer. He hurried through the door and went out again. And he said, I can't find any fault in this man.
I find no fault in him. Then he made the proposition. We have a custom that we should release unto you one at the Passover, one prisoner, will ye therefore that I release unto you the king of the Jews? They cried all of them again, saying, not this man, not this man, but Barabbas. And they rejected the Son of God and chose Barabbas, who was a robber and a murderer. Then when we get to that stage, we reach a new stage in the sufferings of another stage in the sufferings of the Son of God, when Pilate handed him over to his soldiers.
See, Caiaphas, he seemed to hand him over to the mob, to spit upon him and to buffet him and beat him. Pilate handed him over to the soldiers, but before that he sent him to Herod. And Herod, he handed him over to his men of war, it says. And he put on him a purple, a gorgeous robe they put on him, and sent him back to Pilate. And then Pilate handed him over to the soldiers. And then the soldiers handed him over to the executioners. These were the steps along the pathway to the place called Calvary. May God bless these kind of rambling remarks as we go further through this wonderful gospel. We place the steps of the Son of God from those early, early days, first days of his ministry here on earth when he went out, and John said, Behold, the Lamb of God, three and a half years have passed, and now at last we see the Lamb of God.
John looked on three and a half years, and the Lord Jesus said, When John said, I can't baptize you, I have need to be baptized, if the income is thou to me, and the Lord said, Suffer it to be so now. And the Lord was saying in effect, if baptism means death, when we're baptized we look back to death with Christ, but the Lord is saying that baptism looks on another three and a half years. And I'm going to die upon a cross at Calvary. And so John said, a lamb. Another king, before then he preached that the king is coming, now he said, behold, the lamb of God. And this is what we're heading up to as we come further on in the story of the suffering of the Lord Jesus.
before Pilate and then on the cross. Should we sing our verse, I think, number three hundred and forty-eight. Three hundred and forty-eight. Maybe God will speak to some heart as we sing this verse. And please don't go out if you're unsaved, young or old. I'd love to sit, sit down. talk to you and show you the way of salvation. Three forty-eight. Jesus is standing in Pilate's hall, friendless, forsaken, betrayed by all. Harkened, what mean is this solemn call? What will you do with Jesus?
Jesus is standing on trial still. You can be false to him, if you will. You can be faithful through good or ill. What will you do with Jesus? Will you evade him as Pilate did, or will you choose him, what ere be tithed? Vainly you struggle from him to hide. What will you do with Jesus? Let's sing the first verse and the third verse in the last verse. Thank you.
i hope Amen. painly in
the earth will help him to love and what will you do with jesus The way my heart will be at night. For Jesus I give thee. Verse five, Jesus, I give thee my heart today. Jesus, I'll follow thee all the way, gladly obeying thee.
Will you say, this is what I do with Jesus. Jesus, I give thee my heart today. Jesus will follow me on the way. Grant me, O baby, will you pray? Wish I do with Jesus. One will do in the kingdom, new to the Father's name, one day of God will be added to him.
God will be with me. Blessed God, our Father, we thank thee for the scene that's been brought before our vision this morning. We read the words when the morning must come, and we have wondered and marveled that thou shalt ever allow the sun to rise that dreadful morning. And as we gazed upon the sufferings of thy beloved Son, dragged around the streets of Jerusalem, buffeted, blindfolded, spat upon, then taken to Pilate, who wouldn't even stop to reason the thing out at all, and didn't want to know truth, O God, search our hearts, We have a book of truth in our hands, Bible.
Help us to put it into practice day by day. And if there should be one here this morning out of Christ, young or old, we ask that this might be the day of decision, and they might be saved. We ask it in the precious name of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.