Book of Luke - Ch. 23, Vs. 1-26 (12/19/2004)

Jesus Before Pilate and the Charge of Kingship

All right, I think we're ready to get started this afternoon, and we've been in the book of Luke, and I think we've made our way all the way to chapter 23, verse 1. So if you'll find that. Just finished studying Jesus being brought before the Sanhedrin, and we might want to read the last couple of verses up there, verse 70 and 71 there in Luke chapter 22 before we get started in the next chapter.

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 we any further witness? For we ourselves have heard of his own mouth. So they thought they had Jesus where they wanted him at this point.

Well, let's have a word of prayer, and we'll start with chapter 23. Father, thank you for the word that you taught us this morning. We ask you to teach us once again. Thank you that your Holy Spirit will teach us the sense of the meaning behind your word.

And we pray that you would show us some new things today in this passage that we've studied before. We ask you that you would teach us things both new and old. And Lord, we thank you for the Lord Jesus and the beautiful Christmas story that everyone's thinking about this time of year.

Lord, we thank you for the manger scene. We thank you for all that that symbolizes for us as we think about the incarnation and the fact that you were God with us. And so Lord, teach us this afternoon for Jesus' sake.

Amen. Amen. Chapter 23, verse 1, and the whole multitude of them arose and led him unto Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, we found this fellow perverting the nation and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ, a king.

Caesar's Tribute and the False Accusation Against Jesus

Now let's stop just for a moment. Did Jesus forbid people to give tribute to Caesar, to pay their taxes? What did he teach? And who was it he taught that to? The Pharisees. You know, to the very ones saying this, he held up a coin and he said, whose picture's on it?

And they said, Caesar's picture. And he said, given to Caesar, what is Caesar's? Now that was done in clear, in public. And now they come and accuse him of, you'd think they could think of something better to accuse him of than that one, but they didn't.

And so they say he teaches not to pay the taxes, and then they say that he himself is Christ, a king. And Pilate asked him, saying, art thou the king of the Jews? And he answered him and said, thou sayest it.

Same kind of answer he gave earlier up in verse 71, 70, verse 70, where it says, thou sayest that I am. Then said Pilate to the chief priests and to the people, I find no fault in this man. And they were the more fierce, saying, he stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place.

Now, who was really stirring up the people? They were. They were where Jesus went. It was in order. I mean, you remember when he would feed the 5 ,000, put them down in companies, and everything was in order.

And here they're causing riots in the street, and it gets even worse when Pilate said, I don't find anything wrong with him, and they border on riot at this point. So, they were even more fierce. Verse 6, when Pilate heard of Galilee, he asked whether the man were a Galilean.

Now, Pilate thinks he's found his way out. And as soon as he knew that he belonged under Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod. There you go, scapegoat. He's going to try to put this on Herod so that he won't have to make a decision.

And he's hoping this will work. And so, to me, it was a pretty smart thing he did here. He did not want to find anything wrong with this man. And so, oh, he's in Herod's jurisdiction, let's send him there.

So he sent him to Herod, who himself also was at Jerusalem at that time. Now, what you may not know yet, well, you do if you've read this before, but Herod and Pilate were not friends at this time. They did not like each other at all.

It doesn't give the reasons. It just says they don't like each other. And when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding glad for he was desirous to see him of a long season because he had heard many things about him, and he hoped to have seen some miracle done by him.

Herod's Desire for Miracles and the Life of Faith

Now, I want you to stop a minute and think about this. Place yourself here. It says Herod saw Jesus, and he was exceeding glad. Can you explain that to me? They want to know a star. So he just had a natural desire to want to be around a famous person.

Could this perhaps answer a longstanding question I've had, and maybe you have had, is why it is that lost people want to go to church in the first place? Why do we have tares in the church? Could some of it have to do with just some desire for power or fame or some desire to be up in front of the people or be popular in a group where a large number of people are?

They don't do that often in our church, but this may give us some insight into why it is that lost people even want to come around it. Why do they want to come around Christianity? But they do. They not even want to come around.

They want to teach, and invariably they want to interject some false teaching in with the truth, and they sneak in privily into our groups and begin to teach. So Herod was excited about seeing Jesus, should he have been?

Probably not, because as soon as he sees him, he has to answer for more, because now he has more information about the truth. So now he's more accountable. But anyway, he didn't know that. He was exceedingly glad, like Russell said, he wants to see a miracle, he wants to see something great here.

Very fleshly desire. Well that brings me to another thought about this verse. Do any of you know of any particular groups in the country that are fast growing, in fact worldwide, that have a strong desire to see a miracle?

Every day, and certainly every Sunday. Well, there are groups like that, and they even think if you don't see that in church that God hasn't been there, that God's not in the midst of it. And yet I find that to be very similar to Herod's desire to see Jesus do something.

In fact, the Jews of the day always were asking him, we'll do this and we'll believe on you. And he said, you generation of vipers, he said, you're evil and adulterous generation, you will not see a miracle except for the resurrection.

He says, I'm going to come out of the grave in three days, that's going to be what I let you see. And yet they wanted to see him do something with his hands. They wanted to see him do a magic trick, in their view.

And that's the same thing Herod wants. And I'm going to tell you, I'm going to give you a little warning, I'm not saying there aren't wonderful people, friendly people in all groups, and even saved people in many groups around us.

But beware of the doctrine of people who believe that if God's there, a miracle's going to happen. Do you know that there are many, many places throughout time, beginning with Genesis, going all the way through to the time of Jesus, many times of 600 years and longer in the Old Testament life when there was not one miracle for 600 years.

That happened more often than not. In fact, miracles were always the exception to the rule. And so we read the Bible, though, and we remember those cool parts, and we think, oh, it must have been that way every day.

It was not that way. Yeah, with lights. Well, and it should be considered so by us. But that's not the kind of miracle people want to see. They want to see someone raised from the dead. They want to see a blind man see right in front of their eyes, or a lame man walk right in front of their eyes.

And this is what they asked Jesus to do. And usually when they asked Him to do it in that tone, then He would refuse to do it. He would say, you're going to see the resurrection, that'll be your sign.

So we live in a day that have this same kind of excitement when they think about Jesus, they're exceeding glad in their desire for a long season to see Him do some of these many things that we've heard.

And yet we live in an age of faith, if nothing else. If the church age could be known by one word, it would be faith. Faith means the opposite of seeing with your eyes. It means of seeing things with your faith.

And so it's not that God doesn't do miracles. He does. He still does miracles when He chooses to do. I know that there are people who are healed, anyone who ever is healed from anything is healed by God.

Not by the doctors, not by the medicines. They're healed by the Lord. So He still heals, He's still powerful, He still can do anything that you've ever seen Him do in the Bible. But He does it when He chooses to do it because He is sovereign.

It is not done by the will of man. So you can't turn these things on and off. You can't turn God on and off. You can't turn miracles on and off. You can't control God. So what we're supposed to do is to study His Word, to study together, and to discuss Him and His name and His wonderful works together.

That pleases Him. And we're supposed to remain in prayer for one another. And pray enough and know the Lord enough so that you're willing for Him to guide your prayers, even when you're asking for something specific, that you would be willing for Him to guide you, that you are not going to receive that, so change your prayers slightly.

And be willing to know His will, not your own will, and that's the way it should be for a people of faith. So there's a lot to be learned by Herod in verse 8. He hoped to have seen some miracle done by Him.

There it is. How many people today who even call themselves Christians live in that realm? And I've met some dear, sweet people and talked to them, had them give me their testimony that are just absolutely consumed.

The only thing they're interested in in the entire Christian realm, really, is to see God heal somebody. And yet, their own spouses die of horrible diseases and they weren't healing their own spouse. I don't understand that.

If you have that gift, and you can do it at your whim, and you can have meetings in your home. I know a particular real sweet man in Dallas that I met that said that God gave him this gift and he was a Baptist, all of a sudden he had this gift, he just opened his home up to Bible studies, and instead of studying the Word together, what happened is everybody would show up from the neighborhood to be healed and they'd go home healed, he said.

And yet right now his wife has a disease, she's on dialysis and is not looking to me very well. So it's strange. And yet the whole desire of their heart is to see these kinds of healings. And I think that's off on the wrong tangent.

I think that we need to love God's Word, we need to love the Lord, we need to be His servants, and we need to be happy to do whatever He calls us to do today. Don't ever think it's mundane if all you do is speak a word to someone, or help them fix a flat, or be kind to them in the grocery store on the line, or things like that.

Don't think that's mundane. The huge majority of biblical history, that's the sort of thing that God's people are doing. Day to day kindness and love for others and giving the message. Verse 9, then he questioned with Him in many words, but He answered him nothing.

Isn't it interesting that Jesus didn't just open His mouth up and blurt out everything in you? And yet we have a tendency to do that, don't we? If we're not careful, we'll say too much in every incident.

We want to let people know what we know, and that can be a real danger. I think a good motto for life is people around you don't need to know anything other than what they exactly need to know. So tell them that.

You don't need to go into a lot of other things, because the book of Proverbs makes it clear that we ought to just, for the most part, not be talking a whole lot. Listen is better. To listen is better.

So they questioned Him in many ways, and He didn't answer a thing. Verse 10, and the chief priests and scribes stood and vehemently accused Him, and Herod with his men of war set Him at naught. What do you think that means?

It's easy to read over that one. What do you think that means they did to Him? They set Him at naught, and they mocked Him, and arrayed Him in a gorgeous robe, and sent Him again to Pilate. What did they do when they set Him at naught?

They treated Him like He was lower than they were, and like He was nothing, right? And this is what they did. Did He rear His head up and say, wait a minute, you don't know who you're doing this to. You don't know who I am.

And you know, if you go back to the first century, the Christians were more like that. Nowadays we're going to go protest. We're going to get a big group up and go down to the city hall and protest if the world's doing something to us we don't like.

And we're going to tell them, you know, in so many words we're going to tell them, you don't know who we are. We're upstanding citizens of this city. We go to the Park Meadows Baptist Church down here, and you can't do this to us.

We have to watch that attitude. We have to watch that inner attitude. Jesus' attitude was not that way. They put Him down to as low a denominator as they could put Him, and He didn't say a word. So this was, in fact, the spirit of the first century Christian, they were like this.

Very meek, very meek people. Didn't say one word as far as I can tell. Like a sheep. Very good point. Verse 12, in the same day Pilate and Herod made friends. They were not friends until this happened.

Isn't that amazing? So there are people who will come together around you and become friends in their common goal of being your enemy. If they find out you know the Lord and you love Him and you're following Him.

You'll have people that never even spoke to each other come together and try to have a common strength against you and what the Lord's doing in your life. And they had no use for each other until this happens.

So it's kind of an amazing statement. Pilate and Herod were made friends together this day, for before they were at enmity. I mean they literally hated one another before this. They were at enmity between themselves.

And Pilate, when he had called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, said unto them, You have brought this man unto me as one that perverteth the people, and behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things wherever you have accused him.

No, nor yet did Herod. For I sent you to him, and lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him. So I will therefore chastise him, and then I'll release him. For of necessity he must release one unto them at the feast.

And they cried out all at once, saying, Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas, who for a certain sedition made in the city, and for murder was cast into prison. Pilate, therefore, willing to release Jesus, spake again unto them.

But they cried, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. And he said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him. I will therefore chastise him, and let him go.

And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priest prevailed. And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required. Was he a strong man?

Was Pilate a big, strong man? He was weak, weak as he could be. He was afraid of these people. And you know, in the other parallel passages you read where the people said, May his blood be upon our head and the heads of our children.

Do you suppose they remembered that in World War II? When Hitler got hold of their children? You know, it is said that the Jews of that day, not being familiar with this passage since it's in the New Testament, questioned God so severely that they said, One of two things has to be true.

God could do something and didn't. Or God could not do anything. And they chose the second. And that's why most Jews today are agnostic. They just don't, you know, they don't believe anything about God.

And so it just heaped more and more upon their heads when they made this statement. You know, may his blood be upon our head and the heads of our children. Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required.

And he released unto them him that for sedition and murder was cast into prison, whom they had desired. Boy, didn't that speak a lot about human nature. But he delivered Jesus to their will. And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian coming out of the country.

And on him, they laid the cross that he might bear it after Jesus. Let's stop there. Brother Otis will pick up with verse 27 next time. Well, we start with the beautiful manger story and we end with this story.

We end with this story. And yet this is the story that the father recorded again and again and again in the scriptures, not to not so much the we don't even know the date of his birth. But we definitely know the date of his death, don't we?

What an amazing story from start to finish. And people debate about whether we ought to have Christmas and all that. But I'll tell you what, why don't you just use it as an opportunity to teach your little children about Jesus coming, God with us in the manger.

Would you have done that if you were God? You created this thing. Would you go down into this thing and let them kill you, kill your son? I don't think so. What an amazing story. Let's stand and we'll have prayer together.

In case we don't see you before next Sunday, have a wonderful time with your families. Lord, we thank you so much for your word. And Lord, you might direct many of us in our homes to finish reading the story with our children.

And during this week sometime, Lord, we just thank you so much for coming into this world in a way that we could touch you and hear you and see you in a way that we could comprehend even in our own language.

And you revealed yourself to us in that way. We will never see the depths to which Jesus suffered on the cross. But we're thankful, Father, that you will share with us some of the joy that he will have together with us in the future.

We will contemplate and understand much more of that. And so we look forward to that time, Lord, and we see the things happening in the world around us. And we know we're in the end, somewhere in the end.

We don't know exactly where, but it is exciting. We live in an exciting generation, exciting times. And Father, we ask you to keep our hearts and our minds on the word of God, that we might not be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, that we might not be deceived by any false teachers in these last days.

Prepare us to serve you as we ought until you come back for us. And we pray in Jesus' name, amen.