Amen. Well, if you're returning your Bibles to the gospel of Matthew, chapter 27, verses 15 through 26, is our text this morning. Matthew 27 verses 15 to 26 last time we considered the trial of Jesus and indeed the trial of Pontius Pilate. And in fact, the trial of each and every one of us in this life who are continually faced the claims of the Christ of Holy Scripture and the claims of the world about that Christ and about that Scripture, Jesus makes His absolute claim to be the true King, the King of truth, and therefore the Savior of all those who are of the truth, all who have faith in Him, receive Him as their King, who hold nothing against that man, that righteous man as the wife of Pontius Pilate so nobly, for witness and exhort at her husband to do, hold nothing against that righteous man. That's what we do who believe in Him and who receive Him as King. The world, however, has something against Him. They have many things against Him. The world opposes the true Christ and anyone who would believe in Him and live for Him as their ultimate King and only Savior know, you must first bow to the world, you must first agree with the world, you must first please the world, then you can have some lesser Jesus. Jesus of this world, the Jesus who works with this world because there's some good things that the world's doing, you know, to bring in a partnership kingdom. But what you can't have is the Jesus who brings His kingdom by being crucified to the world. A Jesus who says with the Apostle Paul in Galatians 3, 14, the world has been crucified to me and I have been crucified to the world. The world will not allow that Jesus to reign. And that is the Jesus that condemns all that comes from the world and the flesh and the devil for it all needs to be crucified and washed by His blood. Well, in today's text we come to the question really of the ages, the question that comes before everyone who has ever heard the gospel. What shall I do with this Jesus who is called Christ? Would you to consider that? Have you really responded definitively, truthfully, savingly to that question? And if you can say that you have, are you being faithful to live out that answer before God and before the world? What does it mean to choose and to live for Jesus as Savior King? That's what we're going to look at in the text this morning. Let's pray as we turn to God's Word. We're again, we just pause for a moment, we're about to read your Word. We confess our inability to receive it or to believe in it or to be changed by it except by your grace and by your power and by your spirit. So send forth your spirit with your Word into the hearts of all of your children, either for the first time or again for the many, many times that you quicken your children in faith and repentance. Do this now for the glory of your Son and His Kingdom and Jesus name amen. We are now the Word of the Lord from Matthew, chapter 27, beginning in verse 15. This is God's holy and perfect Word. Now at the face, the governor was accustomed to releasing to the multitude one prisoner whom they wished, and at that time they had a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. Therefore, when they had gathered together, Pilate said to them, whom do you want me to release to you? Barabbas? Because this who is called Christ, for He knew that they had hand in Him over because of envy. While He was sitting on the judgment seat, His wife sent to Him, saying, have nothing to do with that just man, for I have suffered many things today in a dream because of Him. But the chief priest in the elders persuaded the multitudes that they should ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor answered and said to them, which of the two do you want me to release to you? They said, Barabbas, Pilate said to them, what then shall I do with Jesus, who is called Christ? They all said to Him, let Him be crucified. Then the governor said, why? That evil has He done, but they cried out all the more, saying, let Him be crucified. When Pilate saw that He could not prevail at all, but rather that the tumult was rising. He took water and washed His hands before the multitudes, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person you see to it. And all the people answered and said, His blood be on us and on our children. Then He released Barabbas to them. And when He had scourged Jesus, He delivered them to be crucified, the Word of the Lord. And He established it in our hearts this morning. I want you to notice, first of all, this morning, the character of Barabbas. I want you to notice the character of Barabbas. Verse 15, the feast at the feast, the governor was accustomed to releasing to the multitude. One prisoner whom they wished. Josephus confirms this custom. We know that the Romans did it. We don't know how many cities they did it in. I mean, Jerusalem is the only one that has this feast that they do it in other cities on other holy days. We don't know. It was a wicked custom. We looked at that last week because it literally institutionalized injustice. It made it possible for any criminal. You'd be set free from whatever crime He committed simply by a majority vote. Crime really does pay if you're popular enough. You could be set free. You could be a capital, felon. You could be an insurrectionist, a murder, whatever, and set free by a majority vote. Pilate knows this tradition exists to remember it in an opportune time. It really is an example of Rome pandering to the mob. Doing something wicked to get the mob to side with them and think they were doing something wonderful. But if you think about it again, how evil it was to set someone free simply because he got a majority of the vote to be set free. But remember pilots in the chess match with the Jewish leadership, they hate him. They would kill him if they could. They would be independent if they could. But Rome is by force ruling over to Ruslimin over Israel. And pilots certainly doesn't want to do anything to please the priests because again they're constantly having difficulty. They've reported him already once and gotten him in trouble at least once with the emperor possibly twice, depending on what traditions you believe. So he knows he has to be careful here. He can't make it look like and he can't get them to go to Caesar with one voice and make it look like somehow he's not doing his duty. He could be in trouble. Caesar has already rebuked him at least once. And he knows also that Christ has not done anything wrong. He knows it's out of envy, verse 18, that they've delivered him over. And he's already seen Jesus, and he's already interviewed him. We've seen that in John that Jesus has no government claims. He has no nationalistic claims. He is a king of truth, whatever that is as pilot pessimistically said. Some kind of philosophy or religion or something. Pilot wasn't concerned with that. That's no threat to him or to Caesar. And so he knows Christ is not the criminal that he says. And he's already been impressed with Jesus, right? When Jesus stood there silently. As they heed these heinous accusations and pilot the Bible says marveled greatly. Remember that scripture? Scripture is saying what pilot felt and thought about that. And it says he marveled greatly at Christ's silence. There's no ability in the face of crucifixion. Most people would have been on their knees begging pilot for mercy. Christ doesn't move. It wasn't at all afraid of the cross. The sweating of great crops of blood the garden had nothing to do with physical death. It was that he would be the object of God's wrath that he shrunk from. So pilot's already seen that. And then he gets this word from his wife. That again, we looked at last time in verse 19 and it's an astonishing thing that she would send to him. This urgent message, while he is on the judgment seat, as the governor of this entire providence, she would never have done this unless it was very urgent, very important. She was seriously troubled by this and so pilot would have definitely taken this seriously. Now he has all these reasons to try to let Jesus go. And as Hendrickson says from start to finish, he does everything that he can to try to let Christ go. How does he get out of it? The priest with one voice, the elders with one voice, crucify Jesus. And they're the leadership. They are the Roman allowed leadership in Jerusalem. Pilot has to work with them at some side. Well, he gets the idea. I have no doubt that he is very pleased with himself when he remembers the custom. Because now he can turn the crowd to his side. And if the crowd sighs with him to let Jesus go, it doesn't matter what the priests and the elders say, he'll defeat them. If they appeal to Caesar, he could say the whole crowd was with me. They are the ones who were rebellious and they would not dare to appeal to Caesar when the crowd was with pilot. And so no doubt pilot thinks he has a way out of this. John Calvin actually says this quote, there can be no doubt that pilot in order to prevail upon them through shame selected a very wicked man by contrast with whom Christ might be set free. Verse 16 of our text, at that time they had a notorious prisoner named Barabbas, notorious, right? Infamous. He's famous for being evil. We don't know all the specifics of what he did. We do know, in general, what he did, Mark tells us. There was one named Barabbas who was chained with his fellow rebels, Mark says, Mark 157, and they had committed murder in the rebellion. So here's a rebel. Here's an insurrectionist. In a rebel, we don't even know how many murders, they murdered people. Barabbas and his accomplices, Luke says, Barabbas had been thrown into prison for a certain rebellion made in the city and for murder, but he both say the same thing. All the things that the priests and the elders have said of Jesus, he's an insurrectionist. He stirs up the people, he's dangerous. Barabbas wants that. And everybody knew it. He committed his crimes publicly. He killed people publicly. John just says, Nabarabbas was a robber. Don't get the wrong idea on that. A robber isn't a thief, who sneaks into your house and a robber is one who holds you up to your face. A man of violence would kill you at the drop of a hat for a gold piece or something. A robber is a violent sociopathic man who has no scruples to hurt anybody for any reason. This is Barabbas. This is the man that Pilate wants to put up against Jesus. Of course, we know why. Because in his mind, anybody is going to choose Jesus over this horrible person. Nobody would possibly choose this scoundrel. And so Pilate, no doubt, is pleased with himself, oh, I got the priests, I've got the elders, I'll just, I'll set Brown, and you notice how Pilate determines the two, right? He's the governor. He remembers they had this, so he calls out, you know, who's the war sky in the prison? Oh, we got Barabbas. Oh, my goodness. So he says, again, in verse 17, whom do you want me to release? Barabbas? And then he even says it, or Jesus, who is called Christ? Pilate learned something. He would have done some investigation. He would have had guards and different ones report to him. Oh, he's called the Christ. Yeah, you know, the anointed one that the Jews are waiting for and so forth. And so he even uses the title here, title here. Some actually, some manuscripts actually have it Jesus, Barabbas, or Jesus, who is called Christ, which is interesting. It's only a few manuscripts, but some think that that's the case. By the way, Barabbas could be son of a father, or could be son of a rabbi. Priest might have had another reason to put Barabbas up. But whatever the case may be, I think we see this text, right? And we, you know, we recognize that just the vileness of this. To put the Lord of glory beside one of, you know, the most righteous man who ever lived next to and on the same block as it were, as one of the most wicked people who've ever lived. And ask for one of them to be released. We look at that and I think we rightly shrink with disgust and horror at the thought of that that Jesus would have to suffer that kind of shame and disgrace to be put on par with Barabbas. Which one are you going to choose? And then to have the crowd choose, Barabbas, and you imagine being there and you were completely righteous and the highest authority in the land, you're, I mean, this is your Supreme Court. Jesus is not Paul. He's not a citizen of Rome. There's no appeal to Caesar, Pilates is high of a court as he can get. You have the judge, you have your people, the leaders, and they're all shouting for Barabbas the most wicked man in that city and maybe in that generation to be set free. We shrink from it. We're disgusted by it. And yet what I want you to see in this is that every one of us is literally Barabbas. I mean, this little illustration that actually happens in this account, this is a description of what Jesus really does spiritually. Every one of us is Barabbas. We are ready to be executed. We deserve to be executed. In fact, in the eyes of God, I really want us to see this. As bad as Barabbas is in our eyes, we are so much worse in the eyes of God, right? We are so much worse. I mean, Barabbas's sins are all on the second table of the law. We've broken all the first table. We don't love God with all of our hearts. We make idols in our hearts all the time. We constantly take his name in vain, even if we don't do it verbally. We do it in our minds, discounting him and dishonoring him. All of these commandments we break all the time. We are so much worse than Barabbas in the eyes of God. And yet Jesus willingly goes to the cross. And the Father willingly sends him knowing all this. It's really not the crowds that are shouting, shouting, Barabbas. It is the Father and Jesus, choosing that Barabbas would go free and that Jesus would suffer in their place. But each one of us, beloved, really is. Barabbas, and I want us to see this as we go through this because, secondly, I want you to notice the character of Christ. I want you to notice the character of Christ. Well, we've heard the testimony of Judas back in verse 4. I have betrayed innocent blood. Judas, the first one, that night to say Christ was innocent. He's righteous. He doesn't deserve. To be put in jail and alone put to death. The second one we saw is Pilate's wife, verse 19, have nothing to do with that righteous man. Don't do anything against him. Terrified that her husband would bring some great judgment if he did, and so far out of her love for him. She pleads with her husband. Don't do anything to this man again in a very urgent way in the middle of the trial. She had this note sent to him. She is the second person who pleads for the righteousness of Christ. And as I said already, the only one doing the trial, nobody else stands up for Jesus until he's on the cross. The only one who pleads before Pilate to set him free because he's righteous. And again, I think Pilate was confident. William Hendrickson, the procurator, must have been fully confident that the people would answer Jesus. But with one voice, they shout, brab us. And so Pilate, at this point, what then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ? They said, let him be crucified. And then here's Pilate, verse 23, why what evil has he has done? Here's the third witness to Jesus' innocence. Pilate, the judge, is telling the people, I don't know anything that he's done wrong. I don't know a single thing. What evil has he done? Not one. So we have Judas, we have Pilate's wife, and by the way, only Matthew gives us those two. Mark Luke and John never tell us about Judas, speaking up, calling in repenting, at least in semblance, but saying that Jesus is innocent. And no one else reports about Pilate's wife. And it's often been said that remember Matthew's writing to his fellow Jewish people. And he's pleading with him by saying, look at this Gentile woman. She says he's innocent. How can you not? It was the privilege of the Jewish church to proclaim the Messiah to the world, and yet Pilate has to proclaim them while they're crying out for his blood. But at this point Pilate declares the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and you say, well, he doesn't really do that that much. I mean, what evil has he done, that's not that clear cut. Let me set before you the full witness of Pontius Pilate, as recorded in the four gospels. Six times in the four gospels, Pilate says, I find no fault in him. I find no fault in him. I find Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, just totaled it up. I know some of them are parallel accounts, and so it only literally happened once in the actual event. And yet the gospel still says it six times. The four gospels, the biblical witness, six times I find no fault in him. One time neither did Herod, therefore he sent him back to me. That's another witness that Christ is innocent, that even Herod, Pilate, gives first hand evidence of Herod's declaration because Herod sent him back to him without any charge. Three times Pilate says, why would evil have he done? We get one of them that I just read to you in verse 23. Why would evil have he done three times? One time Pilate says, he has nothing deserving of death has been done by him, nothing deserving of death has been done by him in one time in our text, verse 24. He says, I am innocent of the blood of this righteous man. Do you know what that means? Twelve times, twelve times Pontius Pilate declares the righteousness, the innocence, the absolute guiltlessness of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is the judge of the case. Twelve times he bears witness, and so we have Judas bearing witness, we have Pilate's white bearing witness, and now we have the judge himself. This man hasn't done anything wrong, this man is righteous. There is no fault in this man, and that's what I want us to see in this text, the witness here, a Pilate to the character of Christ, because it's crucial to us that we be saved that Jesus not only goes to the cross and pays our penalty, what theologians refer to as the passive obedience of Christ, right? He's obeying, because God sent him to do this. Remember, he says, I laid down my life of my own accord, I do the Father's will, not my own, so it was God's will they do this, even please in the garden, if it be possible in your will to do it some other way, but there wasn't so much, your will be done. So Jesus willingly goes to the cross, he allows them to do all that they do, so he's passively obeying in that sense. But then Christ also, before that, had to actively obey. You see, it's not just that we are sinners, and we need to be forgiven. God requires righteousness from us. He made us to be like Him, we are in His image. If all that Jesus did was wash away our sins and leave us sort of neutral, we're back in the garden again, and how long before we fall. And you say, well, we can keep being forgiven, but you could never be righteous, because to be righteous, we have to keep the law perfectly, and God requires that of us. He made us to do that. We had all the ability to do it, and we threw it away in our Father Adam and Eve when they willfully chose to rebel against Him. And so Christ, in His active obedience, kept all the law perfectly, and here it is death. The judge, the God appointed judge, Pontius Pilate declares it twelve times. He was righteous, a righteous man, and washes his hands again of that righteous blood. John Calvin says, quote, by the terror which his wife had suffered during the night, God compelled Pilate to defend the innocence of his own son. Listen, not to rescue him from death, but only to make it manifest that in the room of others he endured that punishment which he had not deserved, then quote, John Calvin. Pilate in the providence of God is making it clear Jesus did not deserve this death. That's what the priest wanted everybody to think. They wanted to go on in history. The Christ was this horrible heinous criminal because He died in this horrible, ignominious way that Rome only reserved for the worst of criminals. He must have been a terrible person. And yet history, how does history look at it? It doesn't look at it that way, doesn't. History looks at the priests and the elders as being scoundrels and heinous in lives. Even the Jewish, Talmud and others, the house of anus, desperately wicked. They reject them as wicked. Yet the world, the whole world, admires Christ as righteous. Do they not? I mean, even other religions. His law calls him a prophet, a great prophet, without sin, even. How many others, even atheists I've read, you know, Nietzsche, admire Jesus. How many others look up to Him? Very few if any. People look at Jesus as wicked. All of the church distorted what He said. The church gets it wrong. You know, even today in the progressive camps, Jesus was a great Marxist, don't you know? Jesus is the one who says, love anyone or anything and be married anyone. I mean, even they hijacked Jesus, but He's a good person. God would not allow. He does not allow Christ's character to go down in history as anything less than righteous. Isn't that a marvelous display of His providence to us? How much more should we believe who know Him from His word? By the way, John Calvin called Pilots wife's dream, quote, an extra-ordinary inspiration of God. He saw God as inspiring her through this dream to plead with her husband. So again, Pilate would bear witness to the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Beloved, if Pilate, who was, history shows us, who was a cruel despot. If He can declare, well, kinds, how righteous Christ was, shouldn't we? Shouldn't we want to run out there and say, Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Savior, Jesus is righteous. His commands are perfect. His word is what I live by, shouldn't we want to do that? When this tyrant bears witness, let's not let the rocks cry out, beloved, let's bear witness to the character of Christ. Thirdly, I want you to notice the response of Pilate, notice the response of Pilate. He tried everything that He knows how to do to avoid crucifying Jesus. By the way, Matthew mentions scourging, verse 26 almost as an apt thought, but Luke and John showed this too was an attempt to deliver Christ from the cross. The thought seems to be that He could humiliate and beat Christ up enough and injure Him enough. The natural human pity would shrink from death and, okay, yeah, we're not going to want to die now, but that's not what happens. He brings him out after having been scourged and John we see and they still want him crucified, but we'll look at that maybe a little bit more next week. Even after the crowd initially chooses Brabis, you see in verse 21, Pilate, what then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ? It says, if he's saying, all right, you have the tradition, I said, one person free, you've chosen Brabis, but what do you want me to do with Jesus? He's not going to do anything at this point. He wants to hear what the crowd says. By the way, here we see sort of the wickedness of Pilate even in this scheme, why is Jesus a choice to set free as if He's already a prisoner, as if He's already been sentenced and condemned, Brabis is a prisoner. Jesus hasn't done anything wrong. He shouldn't be on the block as part of the choice. He should just be set free, so we're already seeing Pilate's corruption here. But once more, in vain, after he says, what shall I do? And they say, let him, they all say, let him be crucified one more time. He says, why, what evil has he done? How can I crucify? Pilate knows. Everybody knows it's wrong to kill an innocent person. We all know that. Why do they argue when it comes to abortion that it's not a baby? Somehow, some way it's not because they don't want to say you're killing an innocent person because everybody knows that's wrong. The same thing's true for whatever kind of evil. They got to say it's right in some way. Pilate knows everybody knows from nature that it's wrong to kill, that's wrong to murder, to kill without just reason. And so Pilate sets that before them. What evil has he done, recognizing it's wrong, but rather than put anything else before him, they just cry out again, and verse 24 then takes place where Pilate's seeing it says that he could not prevail, but rather than a tumult, a riot literally was rising. The very thing that he wants to stop, because if they riot, and they report to Caesar, then he could lose his head, a riot was rising, then he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I'm innocent of the blood of this just person, you see to it. Here's Pilate's last desperate attempt to try to get out from his responsibility. Just try to not do anything against Jesus. And he tries to wash his hands. By the way, the Jesus understood this symbolism. If somebody was found dead in a valley, God commanded and do toronomy that the elders of the nearest city had to come out and wash their hands over a sacrifice heifer to say, symbolically, we don't know, we're not responsible, we have no idea who killed this person, because God would charge even his own people. God cares about human life. It requires a reckoning for the blood that is spilled. How much in this nation, when we consider the innocent blood that's been spilled? But also Psalm 26, verse 5, I have hated the assembly of evil doers, and will not sit with the wicked. Verse 6, I will wash my hands in innocence, so I will go about your altar, O Lord. Now there in that verse you see that the washing of the hands is a sign of a prior reality. The washing hands doesn't make you innocent. That's why the text says, 26, 5, I have, sorry, I have, yes, I have hated the assembly of the evil doers, and I will not sit with the wicked, therefore I wash my hands in innocence. Because I'm doing this, that's washing my hands in innocence. It has to be the reality. Pilot has the opposite. Pilot's about to deliver Jesus to be crucified and he tries to wash his hands. And you can't do it. It's like Lady Macbeth. You can wash the hands over and over again, right, and there's still blood on them. He's the judge. He's responsible. If you're in a position of leadership, you can't just say, well, I'm just going to give it up. I mean, that's true, especially, we talk about this sometimes in counseling to husbands. God has made you the head of the house. You're required. God will require you what happens in your family of you. You could say, well, my wife and I have decided to switch places. God's still going to come to you, right? If Mike Tomlin suddenly says, well, the offensive coordinator is going to run this game. The owner's still going to come to Mike Tomlin and say, why did you do that? You're the one in charge. You can't get out from under your responsibility. Same thing is true for Pastor Appleton and I. We can't say, well, the world is saying that we're supposed to say this. God's going to require us on how we preach this word. That's what he's going to hold us accountable to. And Pilot is the judge. In verse 26 says, he delivered him to be crucified. No fault I find in him, no fault, no fault I find in him. This righteous man, innocent, innocent, innocent, deliver him to be crucified. And I'm going to wash my hands. It doesn't work. And that's true for all of us this morning. We can't get out from under the claims of Christ. You can't sit on the fences at work while I'm not going to, you know, choose anything against Jesus. Those who are not for me are against me. He said the claims of Christ on everyone. These either are Lord in our Savior or he is our judge and our destroyer. There's no washing your hands of him. He stands before all and we all have to make that choice. What we live for him or what we live against him and to not live for him is to live against him and so forth. The last thing I want you to notice is the response of the crowd. This is probably the most abominable thing in this text, isn't it? These are his people. These are the people who were crowning Huzanna to the son of David, Huzanna in the highest save now we pray. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the king when he was healing people, when he was casting out their demons, when he was multiplying the loaves and the fishes. When he was teaching them in such wondrous ways, when he was rebuking and embarrassing the leaders that were fleecing them, oh, they loved him. They cheered him, except when he didn't heal the people he wanted, they wanted him to in Nazareth and they were going to throw him off the cliff and remember that one. Or when he declared that he was the son of God and they tried to stone him for making himself equal with God. There were times, but when he was saying what they wanted to hear, when he was doing things that benefited them in the temple, they blessed us. And now that he's standing there and chained, beaten, humiliated, ripped up, closed crown of thorns, shameful, horrible looking, powerless, weak, pathetic, the leaders hurling abuse upon him. They don't want any parts of that. They can't do anything for us now. Guess we'll have to look for the next one down the road that can help us have a better life now. Crucify him. The Bible says that the priests and the elders persuaded the multitudes, verse 20. We don't know how they did it, but I think it wasn't that difficult. I don't think they went around promising or paying off money. All they had to do is start setting an example themselves and really seriously telling people, look, where are your leaders? And you need to set for Abbas free and you need to have them in destroy Jesus. And when he asked, we want to destroy it. And they had to be very adamant and very forceful in that. And they used their numbers and their servants and they threatened the crowd, you have to follow us, where are your leaders? And I think that's really probably all it was because that's what happens in a mob. Mob is easy to control, easy to turn, all you got to do is start to put some pressure, get some voices that are known and well known and the leaders and the recognized ones to celebrate this course of action, to condemn this course of action. And what does everybody start to do then? The most scoundrel at first, the most cowardly at first, but then the volume just keeps going to a cacophony and then it becomes incredibly difficult to stand against. We see this on the internet all the time, don't we? When they crucify, when they cancel somebody, somebody is considered bad and some really loud popular voice to say it first and that's some others. And then all the crowds start jumping on and then nobody wants to touch this guy and nobody even knows who he is, nobody's heard from him, he's not allowed to speak up in his own defense. Everybody becomes the judge, the jury and the executioner and we can't break this, you know, signal our virtue by jumping on with everybody else and that's what a mob does. A lynch mob, we have them now virtue, but it's the same thing. This mob completely turns against Jesus Christ with just no doubt, a little bit of pressure and example and the leadership and they cry crucify him to the one who was healing them in the temple three days earlier, healing them of leprosy, of blindness, crucify him. Look at him, he must be an awful man, you know, it reminds me when I was growing up in the 80s and a lot of the movements that are now sort of part of the culture that we're pressured to bow to, we're starting to form like on the fringe societies, you know, the tiny little department at Penn State or something of some of these studies, you know, nobody took it seriously, well, we should have, but they used to say when conservatives would start to say, oh my goodness, you know, I remember when they would say, you know, when they were trying to get recognition at some level for homosexuality, the servers were saying, wait a minute, they're going to, they're going to want marriage and then you're foolish that no one's marriage is a man and a woman, don't be, don't be a conspiracy theorist, don't be some radical, nobody's talking about marriage, we're just talking that we would just recognize homosexuality is something okay and they did the same thing with the tree and everything else, you're crazy if you think it's going to go there and they used to say when someone would try to get a law and protect marriage, they say, you can't legislate morality and they always say that to us, you can't legislate morality. Now the truth in that is what, you can't bypassing the law and make something good or evil. Well, of course, that doesn't even need to be spoken, but the fact of the matter is every law that we have has to be based upon what is good or evil or it's an unjust law. Even the moral philosophers understood that no group of human beings has the right to curtail or restrict any other human being unless it's a matter of good and evil. Every law that we have, speed limit laws, that has to be based upon the good of saving life and that's why it's a just law, let's be them it's ridiculous, I mean they can make it five miles an hour in the highway or something, but every law is an example of a moral that we pass a principle from and it has to go back to that or it's an unjust law, no man has the right to pass laws willy-nilly, you know, everybody has to wear a red hat on Thursday, that's an unjust law, there's no reason for that in morals. So everything has to be grounded in morals, but I want you to, I want to go a step further. Typically when we say you can't legislate morality, we also mean that by passing laws you can't actually make people believe right or wrong and you know that's absolutely not true. First time I read that was in Thomas Aquinas, I didn't believe it when I read it, where he said that by passing laws the government actually can shape the morals of the people. That's exactly what we're seeing today. Every gay marriage was passed into law by the court legislating from the bench illegally and unconstitutionally. Before that happened, every poll that was ever taken national or as a state, including California and several polls were taken in California because they were trying to add an amendment to their state constitution to protect marriage and it's just being between one man and one woman. Every poll, a majority of Americans always was against gay marriage, every poll, every one national state, California, three times. All the Californians, the majority of them, and it was a strong majority, did not want gay marriage. Did you know what happened? After gay marriage became the law of the land, within a year the majority of Americans said it was a good thing and it's in the majority's grown, each year since then. Do you know why? Because you can legislate morality because the crowd follows the leaders and the leaders said, crucify him, and so this crowd that probably did not go into that market square that morning wanting to crucify Jesus, they're now cheering for it. And let me just say this, if you're not grounded in the word of God, you're going to be led astray by the crowd today. You are going to be led, you probably already have and you don't realize it and you're real self-righteous about it because you think you're so much more enlightened as you go along with evil and condemn certain things in the Bible. Are you going to stand with the word of God or are you going to stand with the word really of Satan ultimately? And that's what we have to see in this text. The most important verse in this text, it's a question and it comes down through the ages and it comes to each one of you. Right now, it comes to me, it comes to every man, woman or child, who's ever heard the gospel and the governor asks it in verse 22, what then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ? That's the question you are asking, you need to ask yourself, you do ask yourself in your heart. God puts that to you through the gospel. What shall you do with Jesus who is called Christ when you go along with the crowd? Have the acceptance of the crowd, have the applause of the crowd, whatever the crowd is not saying about Jesus and being a Christian or will you say, even if he goes to the cross, I'll take up my cross and follow him, even if he has to suffer outside the camp. I too will go outside the camp where it's shameful, where there's persecution, where there's ostracism, but he is the king, he's my king. What shall I do with Jesus who is called the Christ? You're doing something with him, what will you do? The good news is beloved and the ironic thing is that this death that they think is his weakness and his failure and his shame, it's actually his victory and his power and his glory. He defeats in and death and the great and he satisfies the wrath of God. On the cross, on the thing that they think they're killing him, they have ensured they have accomplished, as it were, his victory and that's true for you, if you believe in him, if they make you suffer, God will reward you, he's coming again and every eye will see him. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your goodness, we thank you for your word Lord Jesus, we thank you for giving the good confession. We thank you, Father, for the witness of Pontius Pilate, for the witness of his wife. We thank you, Lord God, that even Judas declared his blood was innocent and we know this to be true from the record of Scripture, from the testimony of the church. Lord God, we know it in our hearts by the conviction of the Holy Spirit. I pray if there is any here who are struggling with that question, that they're listening to the crowd, that what the crowd is saying seems so loud, so powerful, there's so many of them. Oh Lord God, let them hear your voice, let them see the wickedness of that, of that kind of power and it's going to come to an end, Father God, help us to fear you more than we fear men, that we would love you more than we love the approval of men. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.