The crucifixion of Jesus is presented as the pivotal event for salvation, through which sin is put away and eternal life is made possible. The sermon details the indignities Jesus suffered before his crucifixion, including being struck in the face by an officer while being questioned by the high priest, as described in John 18:19. These sufferings, prophesied in Isaiah 53, underscore the depth of Jesus' sacrifice and the immense love of God. The core lesson emphasizes that Jesus, though sinless, bore our sins and endured shame for our redemption, calling believers to thank him and live for him.
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Thank you. Greetings, friend. John chapter eighteen and verse nineteen continues some of the events that led up to the crucifixion. We've been speaking a bit about the crucifixion. The one, the greatest event of all events under the sun. For it was the The Lord Jesus dying on the cross had put sin away. We don't have a day set apart as a holiday to remember his awful suffering. Of course, the Scripture makes it clear that we're supposed to, those who know him as Savior are supposed to remember him each Lord's day, each Sunday, with the breaking of bread and the drinking of the wine.
But there's no... holiday set apart for remembering the awful sufferings of the Savior at the crucifixion. We have his birth for Christmas, we have his resurrection at Easter time, and great celebrations, and well, they should be commemorated. However, it was his death that brings life to the guilty sinner. It's his death that puts sin away. It's his death that answered to God, for on our behalf, because we had committed the sins, he committed none. He knew no sin. He was without sin.
He was without spot and blemish. Therefore he could come forward and take the guilt, and there answer to God. Take the judgment, answer to God for the judgment that was due to your sins and mine. Oh, my friend, We do trust that you have accepted him as your Savior, and you thank him now, along with millions more, who have accepted him as Savior, and who seek to devote their life and time for him, and to him, as they do even their daily toil, they can still do them as for the Lord. Seeking to serve him, to enjoy his presence, to know that the Holy Spirit indwells, to be able to read his word and to learn from it.
and able to speak to God in prayer. It's the greatest, greatest benefit, the greatest joy, the greatest blessing. It can possibly fall to a human being. But the crucifixion was a terrible, terrible block, the greatest, the worst block on the pages of human history from the natural standpoint. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. God so loved us that he gave his son, and his son was the Lord Jesus, who was going to die for sin. But nevertheless, man had a terrible lot, and man did the execution.
He did the crucifixion. And we're looking a bit at what the heart of the Savior must have suffered when he undertook your cause and mine. at the cross of Calvary. Peter denied him that great man, Peter, and he was a great man. And we don't censure him too much for denying the Lord because the likelihood is if you and I had been in Peter's place with all the angry mob against the Savior, we would have found difficulty in deciding what to say. Nevertheless, be that as it may, it must have hurt the heart of the Savior at terrible loss, when he heard Peter, the first disciple and apostle, saying, I know not the man.
I don't know him. But then in verse nineteen of chapter eighteen, the high priest that finds Jesus brought before him now, and his disciples, he asked the Lord about his disciples and about his doctrine. And the Lord Jesus very properly suggested to him that he, the Savior, had spoken openly in the world and he'd ever taught in the synagogues and in the temple, whether the folks resorted. And in secret, he said, have I said nothing? Therefore, they can testify as to what I said.
This would be far more appropriate than for the Lord to give his own self-testimony, self-serving declarations. But when he said this to the chief priest, one of those that was standing by, one of the officers, he struck the Lord Jesus with the palm of his hand, saying, Answers thou, the high priest, so? He struck, he smote the Lord Jesus with his hand. My friends, what an indignity. A poor, mortal human being, and he strikes the Creator of heaven and earth, his own Creator, in the face with his own sinful hand.
What must have been the thought What must have been the piercings of the heart and soul of the Savior when he receives this indignity before the multitude? He's smitten in the face by the officer's hand. He made that hand. He made that officer. He gave him life at the very moment, and he gave him even the strength in his arm to swing it and smite. the Lord in the face. These are things that entered into the beginning of sorrow for the Lord Jesus.
For he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. The book of Isaiah tells us, Isaiah prophecies chapter fifty-three, but he was wounded for our transgressions too. Yes? He was bruised for our iniquities, and the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we were healed. But he was a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief. And he hid not his face from shame and spitting, and here the officer smites him in the face. Oh, it's far worse than if a child should smite his father or mother. Far worse indeed, because here's the sinless Savior.
And he's taken by all the people that were of one accord there. And they're going to do their worst for them. And they don't want to try them and judge them because they have already told the authorities, we can't put them to death. We're forbidden. We are subjects to the Roman government. And therefore we cannot of ourselves put them to death. And you see, only his death was going to satisfy them. They weren't going to have any other turn of events. And they even said, when they were asked why they had brought him before Pilate, well, they said, now if he hadn't have been a criminal, if he hadn't been guilty, we wouldn't have brought him before.
But that is not legal evidence. And that's not the way a legal court is conducted. Not even in those days. Because the Scripture shows that Paul... He was not going to be tried until his accusers could be brought before the authorities. This is right. So the whole of this, the Lord knew every thought. He knew that thinking of every man, woman, and child in the group, in the crowd, that awful multitude that was of one accord, there were entire agreement, unanimity here in completeness. that the Lord was going to be tried regardless of whether they had any reason for trying him or not.
They were bound that he should die. And Jesus said to the officer, if I have spoken evil, bear witness to the evil. But if well, why smite us thou me? And then Ananias, Anas, sent him bound unto Caiaphas the high priest. Now here's the Lord Jesus, and he's bound. He's put in shackles. He's put in chains. He didn't try to run away from the crowd when they came out to take him, and when Judas came forward and the traitor and put a kiss on his cheek. and identified him as the one that the multitude was coming to take.
He didn't try to get away. He didn't try to run away. He said, I am he. If you speak in Jesus of Nazareth, I am he. And the crowd went backward and fell to the ground twice, but they wouldn't stop. They came on. But he didn't run away. But here they put him in shackles. They put him in chains. Oh, what indignity. How shamefully they're treated, the Lord Jesus Christ. Any wonder that we read in the Old Testament where he said, My heart is smitten. He didn't say his body was smitten, it was. Later on it was laid, made like a plowed field by the Roman lash. His back was made like a plowed field. But it was his heart that was smitten.
The awful sufferings of the cross, friend. When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, Yes, the Chris of glory, the one who knew no sin, who did no sin. Yet for the love of God and the love to man, he went to the cross and put away our sins by bearing them in his own body on the tree. My friends, what a Savior. Do you know him? Do you thank him for the awful sufferings, the awful shame, the awful indignities that he was put to when he was going to? Take pure sins in mind on the cross, on his body, his own body.
We read in the Old Testament that all our sins were laid on Jesus. God laid them on him, believing we go free to him, writer, saying, Yes. He endured the cross, despising the shame that you and I might be with him and like him forever. Father, thank me for the Lord Jesus. setting his face as a flint to go to Jerusalem, and he didn't turn back from the cross. We thank thee he suffered and bled and died that we might live in glory by and by, and live on earth now to please him and serve him, happy and justified and free, saved by his grace. O God grant that many will turn to the Savior today and thank him that he suffered in their room instead and suffered for them as guilty sinners.
long ago. Again, Lord, we uphold to thee our country, our nation, our government, our president, and all who are in authority. We pray for the nations of earth. We pray that wars will soon cease for a peril at least. We pray in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.