Page 88, Luke chapter 1.
Luke is a doctor and he writes this, he says,
Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative to write the history of the things that have been accomplished among us,
just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us,
just as we've been taught about what's happened.
Verse 3.
It seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past,
to write an orderly account for you, singular, most excellent Theophilus,
that you may have certainty concerning the things that you've been taught.
And it's 20 years today, actually, that I was on camp in Bala in North Wales,
and a friend of mine who has now given his testimony,
and he finished the testimony with this hymn that many of you know,
When I surveyed the Wondrous Cross, we sang it, I think, last week.
And the last verse goes like this,
Were there whole realm of nature life that were an offering far too small?
Nothing has been the same since in many ways.
That last verse, love so amazing, so divine, so God-like,
demands my life, my soul, my all.
As I think back to these past 20 years, you never get beyond that, do you?
You never get beyond that.
The love of Jesus Christ so amazing, so divine, demands.
It doesn't ask you, it demands.
Your life, your soul, your all tonight.
And that is why Luke is taking his time, walking us through the humiliation,
and the suffering, and the passion of the Lord Jesus.
He takes his friend, Theophilus, who he wrote the Gospel for,
and he takes him to the very heartbeat of what Christianity is all about.
And Luke is a kind of genius.
What he does is he tells the story as it was.
But he tells the story as it was,
so that Theophilus and you and I would see the meaning,
and see the significance of the story,
not just for Jesus, but for ourselves,
and for those around us.
And so Jesus is moved from scene to scene tonight.
And that's really what we're going to do.
I'm not going to point, so we're just going to walk through the passage.
That he was despised and rejected.
He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
He's hurried by the high priest,
in order, first of all, at the beginning of chapter 23,
to be placed on trial.
Do you see it, verse 1, before Pontius Pilate?
But, it's fascinating, in the opening words,
then the whole company of them arose,
as a single man.
They arose like one.
And we see the sheer isolation,
and the desolation of this for the Lord Jesus.
It is utterly unimaginable.
They moved from their proceedings,
which had begun as this kangaroo court.
They began at midnight, or earlier, kangaroo court.
And now they are deciding legally,
what they decided illegally to do long ago.
That Jesus must be dealt with.
That there must be something done about him.
That Jesus must be crucified.
And so they bring their charge,
which could never stick.
Why could it never stick?
Against the Son of God,
that he has committed blasphemy,
making himself the Son of God.
Well, he is the Son of God.
But more than that, you notice,
when they arrive at Pontius Pilate,
they use legal language
to describe what they have done illegally.
They use legal language,
but it doesn't change that their accusations
are just as illegal.
I don't know, I've not been in court,
but when the judge turns to the jury,
and he asks for the verdict,
he says something like this,
he says,
how do you find the accused?
And the foreman of the jury will say,
we find the accused guilty,
or we find the accused not guilty.
And they say,
we find this man guilty.
We find this man guilty of misleading our nation,
and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar.
We find this man guilty of sedition.
Now, it is contrary to all natural justice,
in that they hurried Jesus away,
having accused him of blasphemy,
but they go to another court,
and they say,
we find him guilty of,
not blasphemy, treason.
The charge is utterly false,
on two accounts, isn't it?
They say,
he was telling people,
not, verse 2,
to give tribute to Caesar.
But we know, don't we,
we've seen it earlier on in Luke's Gospel,
that Jesus had urged people
to pay their taxes to Caesar.
Remember,
when he asked for a denarius,
and he says,
whose face is on this coin?
And they say,
well, it's Caesar's face.
Then give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.
Pay your taxes.
But make sure,
since God's image is on your life,
that you give to God what is God's.
So far from committing treason,
far from misleading our nation,
and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar,
he's encouraging his disciples to be the very best citizens they can be.
Or they possibly could be.
And how false of them to find him guilty of blasphemy,
and then to say that they've actually found him guilty of treason.
And Pilate sees through the whole thing.
It's amazing.
This man,
Pontius Pilate,
who's so deeply unpopular,
a man who is of desperately flawed character,
as the story makes clear,
but he's at least got enough grasp of Roman law,
and natural justice,
to say,
I find this prisoner not guilty.
And then having heard,
and this is his out,
having heard that Jesus is a Galilean,
taking the opportunity that's given to him,
by the legal system,
to have him tried under the jurisdiction of residence,
rather than the jurisdiction he is,
he was being charged with this crime of treason,
he sends him to out her it.
But his verdict,
Pontius Pilate's verdict,
is absolutely essential to the story.
And you will not understand Luke's story,
unless you see that here,
and on six other occasions in this chapter,
the Lord Jesus is announced,
by a variety of individuals,
to be not guilty.
The Lord Jesus is utterly innocent.
And so he's hurried off to Herod Antipas.
And do you notice,
in verse 8,
when Herod saw the Lord Jesus,
he was very glad.
Now this is the Herod,
who has executed John the Baptist,
who cut his head off,
and put it off a plate,
when he was in a drunken sleeper.
This is the Herod,
who earlier on,
seems to have at least,
have some sensitive conscience.
To be frightened of who Jesus really was.
He thought,
perhaps this is John the Baptist,
back from the dead,
and he's afraid of that,
to haunt me.
But all of that is now in the past.
Herod is like the person,
who comes to church,
and goes from church,
and on his way,
although the preacher,
has maybe raised his voice,
and spoken about the depth of sin,
and the wonder of the Lord Jesus,
says on the way out of church,
he says,
well actually,
I didn't get much out of that today.
It's like water off a duck's back.
This person can hear the most moving sermon,
can hear of their need of Christ,
and they think,
but I didn't really get much out of that.
It's like being like Herod.
This man who is interested,
and then scared,
and now hardens.
And it's like being like Herod,
isn't it?
And the danger is,
the next day,
and the next day,
well actually,
you get to the stage,
where you can make fun of Jesus.
And you can make fun of Jesus' people.
And you join in the fun,
about Jesus and his people.
How foolish that is to do.
How glad he is to see Jesus.
You have a conscience,
that is peaceful,
and is clear,
clear enough to make fun of the Lord Jesus.
Well if that's you,
your name is Herod.
And your need is desperate.
And this was his situation.
Can you see what happens?
It is appalling.
We don't often linger on this.
And of all the gospel writers,
Luke may be the most careful.
So just stand a little bit back,
from all that the Lord Jesus is going through.
But look what happens.
Here is a man,
who gathers the chief priests,
who are accusing Jesus vehemently.
Here is a man,
who encourages his soldiers,
his soldiers of all people.
His most disciplined of people,
his most disciplined of men,
who obey his will.
He encourages his soldiers,
to mock and derive the Lord Jesus.
To play games with the Lord Jesus.
And he joins in.
And they array him in splendid clothing.
And even from a human point of view,
it should break our hearts.
But the Lord Jesus Christ,
who has been declared,
just been declared,
by the highest court in Jerusalem,
to be utterly innocent of all the charges,
should be treated with such contempt.
It's interesting.
You must have noticed it in your own life.
People who have no reason to do it.
And they blaspheme in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Every single day.
And their consciences,
they go home at night,
they eat their meals,
they lie down,
they sleep the sleep of death.
Because nothing touches their consciences.
And they're the most desperately needy people,
in all the world.
And you can be one of them,
this evening.
You've heard the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ,
it touched your conscience,
you know,
I need to get right with God.
I know that I'm a sinner.
And yet you've hardened your heart,
again and again and again.
So now you can sit through all the sermons in the world,
and it doesn't affect you.
I'm reading,
John Elias,
his biography.
He's a Welshman in the 18th century,
he's a great preacher.
And it's a good story.
And John Elias used to go down to his blacksmith.
And his blacksmith obviously helped John Elias
with his transport problems.
The blacksmith used to put shoes on his horse.
And he put new shoes on his horse.
And Elias loved to go down and speak with the blacksmith
every couple of weeks.
And each year,
the blacksmith hammering on the anvil,
you know that noise of sparks
and bright red metal coming up the water.
And as he prepared this new shoe
for John Elias' horse,
he went down one day
and he discovered that John Elias had a new dog.
And every time the hammer went down on the anvil,
the dog went absolutely crazy.
The dog would howl and howl and howl.
The hammer would come down,
bang, bang, bang,
and the dog would respond with howl, howl, howl.
Elias got on his horse,
thought nothing of it.
He went on his preaching tour.
And he came back from another part of North Wales.
And as he was approaching the blacksmith,
he heard the hammer,
bang, bang, bang,
on the anvil.
But there was no howl, howl, howl.
What had happened?
Well, the dog was lying fast asleep
when he went in.
Because the dog had got a used and sound
with the bang, bang, bang, didn't it?
And your conscience can be like that dog.
You can have a peaceful conscience
that knows the message of the Lord Jesus Christ
but has done nothing about it.
And it used to disturb you,
but now it doesn't disturb you at all
and you sleep the sleep of death.
And that's what this man has.
And we don't often reflect
on how awful it must have been for the Lord Jesus.
Maybe we should do that more.
None of the ransomed knew
how deep were the waters crossed
or how dark was the night
that our Lord passed through
to find the sheep that was lost.
Well, now he's back to Pontius Pilate.
They've taken him to Annas the Caiaphas,
to the Sanhedrin, to Pilate, to Herod,
all in a matter of hours.
He's been poured to and fro geographically,
physically.
He's been despised, demeaned, rejected.
His glory has been turned into shame.
And now he is back with the man
who lives in notoriety
because every Sunday,
millions of believers around the world
confess the Apostles' craze,
that he suffered under Pontius Pilate.
And so he's on trial before Pilate.
And he's taken to Herod.
And now he suffers under Pontius Pilate.
Do you see it?
Mob violence breaks out.
This is your saviour.
This is not some figure in a stained glass window.
This is our saviour.
And mob violence breaks out against him.
And they demand that he should be crucified.
Pilate begins to wilt.
He stays with Roman justice.
Strict Roman justice.
He says, doesn't he,
he has done nothing deserving death.
Do you see that?
Look at verse 22.
I have found in him,
just over the page on page 884,
I have found in him
no guilt deserving death.
Therefore,
I will punish him
and set him free, release him.
What kind of logic is that?
Do you understand that?
Therefore, I will punish him
and set him free,
even though he's done nothing wrong.
What kind of logic is that?
What kind of court does that stand up in?
He's done nothing wrong,
therefore I will punish him.
And Pontius Pilate is saying this, isn't he?
I don't want to yield,
but the pressure is too great.
Theophilus, who,
and we read about right at the start of Luke's Gospel,
he was probably a Roman figure.
A patristic figure.
Probably he was a government figure, perhaps.
Perhaps this is one way,
as Luke writes this,
he is praying,
Lord, break through into Theophilus' heart.
Show Theophilus,
this is where he is
with respect to the Lord Jesus.
Show Theophilus,
that this is where he is
with respect to the Lord Jesus.
I want the Lord Jesus to be free,
but I'm not willing
to pay the price of him being free
in my personal life.
And so over and over again,
they cry out,
crucify him, crucify him.
And they shout out for Barabbas,
give us Barabbas,
the insurrectionist,
the localized terrorist,
the murderer,
instead of the Lord Jesus,
the Savior.
And Pilate hands him over.
And I wonder,
as Luke is writing this,
he's projecting forward,
isn't he?
Because he wrote this
years and years
after the event.
He wrote this
when he already knew
what would happen.
In the first 15 or so chapters
in the Acts of the Apostles,
Luke doesn't personally appear
in the Acts of the Apostles
right until the middle.
So he already knew
of that occasion
when the early church
saw this
as the fulfillment
of all kinds
of biblical prophecies.
Luke knew that.
That the kings
of the earth,
set up to,
would gather together
against the Lord
and his anointed one.
Or that wonderful story
of Philip
and the Ethiopian eunuch,
who's reading
Isaiah chapter 53,
that he was led
as a sheep
to the slaughter,
as a lamb
before his shearers,
is dumb,
and again and again
in this passage.
Luke goes to great lengths
to say,
Jesus said nothing.
It is as though
he is saying to you,
do you see what's
happening here?
Do you see that Jesus
is the suffering servant?
He is despised
and rejected of men.
Do you see that Jesus
is the Lamb of God
who will take away
the essence of the world?
Do you see that Jesus
is standing silently
because while judged
to be utterly innocent,
he is willing to be treated
as though he were guilty?
And not least,
how significant
that he is innocent
of,
but he is condemned
for blasphemy
and treason.
Which,
as you read
through the passage
with me,
did you notice
they were the two crimes
of Barabbas?
That he was charged
with treason
and murder.
And murder,
if you know your Bibles
at all from the early chapters
of Genesis,
murder is a capital crime
in the Bible
because it is an offence
against the image of God.
And I wonder if Theophilus
ever saw what is really
being acted out here.
Of the man
who was guilty
of blasphemy
and treason
was being set free.
Because the man
who was the son of God
and who lived in obedience
to God
was going to be crucified.
I wonder if it ever
dawned on him
that he was in the same position.
Because these are actually
my essential sins
as well as yours.
Blasphemy,
what have you done?
What have I done?
I have made myself
rather than the Lord
the centre of the universe.
If I asked you
to stand up tonight
if you've never done that
you know, don't you,
there wouldn't be
a single person
that hasn't made themselves
the centre of their universe.
It's the very heart
of our sin.
We are so accustomed
to being the centre
of our universe
that we don't even
begin to think
that it's actually
blasphemy against God.
But he hasn't become
to you and I
the centre of our universe,
of our life,
of our adoration,
of our homes,
of our ambition,
of our families,
of everything that we do.
And treason.
That we have denied
Jesus as absolute king
over our lives.
And so this is
the story of the gospel.
That Jesus again and again
is innocent.
He is innocent,
not guilty.
He is pure
and righteous
and holy
while I am a blasphemer.
And I am guilty
of treason
against the most high God.
And in the most amazing
providence of God,
Jesus is the one
who is crucified
and Barabbas
and I
and you
are the ones
who may go free.
And if you ever
really want to understand
how awful
your sin is,
if you ever want
to understand
how awful
your sin is,
how awful
your blasphemy is,
how awful
your treason is,
please do not
compare yourself
with anyone else.
But you go to the
cross of the Lord
Jesus Christ
and you watch
everything that takes
place in these
24 hours
before his crucifixion.
And you say to yourself,
if this alone
will take away
my sin,
how profound
and how awful
my sin must be.
And the amazing
thing is this,
the amazing
thing is this,
that the name
Barabbas
means
son of the
father.
That's what the name
means.
Bar
Abba.
Son of the
father.
And so you
might say,
the very first
man in history
during the
life and story
of our Lord
Jesus,
who would ever
be able to
say,
in my place,
condemned
he stood,
sealed my
pardon with
his blood.
Hallelujah,
what a
saviour,
was a man
who was
privileged to
live the rest
of his life
and somebody
said to him,
who are you?
Who are you?
He could say
if he ever
came to trust
in the Lord
Jesus,
my name is
the son of
the father.
I am the
son for whom
the eternal
son of the
eternal father
took my
flesh and
bore my
judgment and
paid the
penalty for my
sin to set me
free to live
as a child of
God.
We don't know.
We don't know
whether that was
ever true of
Barabbas.
But the one
thing that really
matters is that
it should be
true of you
and it should
be true of
me.
Have you ever
seen your
sin?
There is no
way to the
joy of
grace without
seeing your
sin.
But there
just isn't
another way.
There is no
other way to
see the
marbles of
his grace and
his kindness
and his
fatherly
care until
you realise
why that
grace is
marvellous.
So the
gospel's first
word to you
tonight is
have you seen
your sin?
Have you seen
how much Jesus
suffered for you?
He suffered
and bled and
died for you
and he did that
for you
in order to
take away
your sin?
And I wonder
if I and
perhaps you
are in the
position that I
think I was
in 20 years
ago.
But reading
this chapter I
want to say
with all my
heart,
whatever the
future holds,
love so
amazing,
so divine,
shall have my
life,
my soul,
my all.
And if you've
never done
that,
why not do
that tonight?
Let's pray.