Flanigan, Jim: The King-05 ~ The Agony-Matt 26-Poor Audio

And we seem very quickly to be coming to an end of our series of meetings, and tomorrow evening is our final meeting, and we want to look at something of the authority of the king in the Gospel of Matthew. This is a very royal, kingly gospel, as we have seen. It is a very Jewish gospel, a Messianic gospel. We have seen that it is a gospel with its roots in the Old Testament, and eh, we have tried to follow the kingly way of the Lord Jesus in these lovely pictures. So we see him tomorrow evening, God willing, risen from the dead and with great authority. All power is given unto me in heaven and on earth. We want to talk about his royal authority tomorrow evening. We make you welcome this evening. We trust the Lord will bless you for how you come, and trust that we shall all learn a little bit more about the Savior this evening. I'd like to read, please, from chapter twenty six this evening, the Gospel by Matthew, chapter twenty six, and a few verses from chapter twenty We are looking this evening at the king's utterance, a kind of a paradox that we should read about the utterance of the king. Perhaps the irony begins at verse thirty six of chapter twenty six. Verse thirty six: Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and said unto the disciples, Sit ye here while I go and pray on him. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then said he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Carry me here and watch with me. And he went a little farther and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my God, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless not as I do, but as I do. Verse forty seven. While he yet stayed, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came and with him a great multitude with swords and staves from the chief priests and elders of the people. Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign saying, whosoever I shall kiss that same as he, hold him fast. And forthwith he came to Jesus and said, Hail Master, and kissed him. And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they and laid hands on Jesus and took him. Now chapter twenty seven, please. You pass the Paul along the reading and come to verse twenty seven. Chapter twenty and verse twenty seven. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers. And they stripped him and gave him a scar of gold. When they had plucked a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head and a reed in his right hand, and they bowed the knee before him and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews. And they spit upon him and took the reed and smote him on the head. And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him and put his own remnant on it and led him away to crucify. And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name, him they compelled to bear his cross. And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull, they gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall, and when he had tasted the gall, he would not. And they crucified him and parted his garments, cast him lots, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet. They parted my garments among them, and upon my breasthood did they cast lots. And sitting down, they watched him. May the Lord will bless the reading of his word. Now we come this evening to what must be the sweetest theme in our Bible. We want to see something of the agony, the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. And of course, there is quite a variety of ways in which we might approach any meditation on the sufferings of Christ. What I want to do this evening is to just try to follow the verses that we have read, and to link with them other verses from these chapters that we have not read, and to see just especially how Matthew deals with the story of Christ's sufferings. Now, it's rather interesting, I think, that in the Gospels like John, the story of the sufferings of Christ lies between two gardens. It's only John who tells us that Gethsemane was a garden. Humanly speaking, if it had not been for John, we wouldn't have known that. And again, it is only John who tells us that the truth was in the garden, and had it not been for John, we would not have known that it was a garden tomb. And you find that the story of Christ's sufferings then, in that fourth gospel, it actually lies between those two gardens. When you come to Matthew's gospel, the story lies between two evenings. You find an expression in Matthew twenty six, when the evening was come, and that somehow brings us to the end of that last day, the day before the crucifixion, the evening of that last day. But by the time, again, we, when the evening was come, in chapter 27, our Lord is now dead, and when the evening is come, Joseph of Arimathea, he comes to Pilate and begs the body of Jesus. So the story of the sufferings in Matthew's gospel lies between the eons. Now, if sometime you wanted to put those two things together, then you would find, of course, that in the gospel by John, you would be following the footsteps of the Lord from the one garden to the other. I suppose that walking directly, you could probably walk from one garden to the other in the space of about maybe twenty or twenty five minutes. But our Lord Jesus took the whole of the twenty four hours between the evenings to walk from the one garden to the other. In the gospel by John, therefore, it would seem that we'd be following the footsteps of the Lord. We would be concerned with places and where he was at different parts of the night, eh, between the gardens. But when you come to Matthew, it is not so much the place as the timing that you would be concerned with. And between the evenings, Matthew mentions quite a lot of, uh, hours. He sort of pinpoints the time for us and gives us a lot of moments to sort of guide us as to where exactly we are during the hours of that last night. He tells us about the evening, and then at the beginning of chapter twenty seven he says, when the morning was come, and then, of course, we read about the cock crowing, and we read about the third hour and the sixth hour and the ninth hour, and then we read again when the evening was come. So Matthew seems somehow to keep us right as far as the timing is concerned, and in the Gospel by John, we are following the actual footsteps. That means that if you put those two things together, you can actually, uh, sort of tell where the Lord Jesus is at a particular time during that last night, so you can follow his movements and synchronize his movements with the timing of that last Sabbath. Now I want to look at it this evening in a different way. I noticed that in the Gospel by Matthew, the story of the sufferings also lies between the mentions of two Marys, and this is a very beautiful thing. There is a Mary at the beginning of chapter twenty six who bows in worship, who pours her sycanard upon the Lord, who adores him there, acknowledging the greatness of his person, and fills the house with fragrance at the beginning of chapter twenty six. And then when you come toward the end of chapter twenty seven, there is another Mary, and a very delightful character also. One is Mary of Bethany, and the other is Mary of Magdala. One is a Judean, and the other is a Galilean, and they are only two of at least six Marys in the New Testament. I think it's very beautiful that these two Marys should sort of take their stand, one at the beginning and the other at the end of the story of Christ's sufferings in the Gospel by Matthew. But then the sad thing is this, that between these two Marys, there are quite a number of other persons mentioned in these two chapters, and what I want to do is to see how these other persons, in some way or other, contributed to the sufferings of Christ. Now that was a very, very sad thing, a terrible indictment against anyone, that he should have somehow contributed to the sorrows of the Lord Jesus, and yet there are no less than, uh, perhaps five names here of men who contributed to those sufferings. Now, as well as the men who are actually named, of course, there are other men who are not named. We read, for instance, about the priests, we read about the chief priests, we read about scribes and about elders, we read of soldiers, and we have two thieves, and then we have the multitude. So we have a great number of people that are not actually identified, and they're not named. Now, apart from all those people who remain anonymous, there are at least five people whose names are actually given, and I want to just try to link the story of our Lord's sufferings with these names of these men. Now, it is fitting that we begin, I think, with the name of Judas, and Judas begins the story of the sufferings of Christ. From Judas, we want to move to Caiaphas, and Caiaphas, of course, was the high priest at that particular time. And then from Caiaphas, we've got to go very sadly to one who was as close to him as Judas, and even closer, and that, of course, was Peter. And very, very sadly, Peter contributed to the hurt of the Lord Jesus on that last evening. It makes us very careful, I hope, that we shall never do anything that grieves him. Peter did, and we may, but I trust that we don't. Here is a warning note then raised in the story of Peter, that Peter, whom the Lord loved much, and who in his own way loved the Lord much, yet nevertheless, he lapsed that night, as we have seen, and contributed to the sorrow of the Lord Jesus. And then after Peter, we've got to come to the Gentile and to Pilate, and we see what our Lord suffered before Pilate, and then from Pilate and before Pilate, we have got to see the name of Barabbas, and Barabbas too is associated with the death of the Lord Jesus. Those are five names, then, between the names of the Marys that somehow give us the story of the sufferings of Christ. Now, Judas is a rather wretched man. We use him in gospel preaching. He is a sad character, a man of whom it is sometimes said that he kept the best of company, he heard the best of ministry, and he had the very best of opportunity, but he became the great apostate and turned his back upon everything he knew, and eventually sold the Savior and his soul for just a paltry thirty pieces of silver. Now, when we say paltry, it was, of course, paltry in relation to the value of the Savior and the value of Judas' soul. But we must remember that it was not just a few pence for which he did this terrible deed. It was thirty pieces of silver, and there would have been several months' wages here in thirty pieces of silver. So it was perhaps a fair amount, uh, for which Judas sold the war, thirty pieces of silver. But then the way that we remember it is, of course, that it was just really, in the language of Exodus twenty one, it was just the price of a slave, and that somehow adds to the terrible thing that Judas did, that he was willing to sell the Lord for just the price of a slave. Now, that comes from the old laws of Israel, eh, when these people were passing through the wilderness, there would have been about three million of them, I think, and passing through the wilderness, three million people, they needed a lot of rules and regulations. They needed a lot to keep them in order, passing through the wilderness, always on the move, as it were. And God gave them these regulations, and amongst them, he gave them certain rules and laws with regard to compensation. If a man did something wrong to his neighbor, the neighbor had to be compensated, and God had to sort of endless rules about compensations that had to be paid. There was the case, for instance, of a man who had a dangerous animal, and, uh, he didn't keep it under proper control, and his animal maybe gored his neighbor, uh, to death, and, uh, well, you know, that could have cost the owner of the animal his life. But then sometimes, you see, perhaps the neighbor might have been injured just, and, uh, well, that would have demanded a certain, uh, amount of compensation. Then maybe this dangerous animal was responsible for the life or for the death of a slave belonging to a neighbor, and in that case, uh, well, thirty pieces of silver, that was the sum, that was the compensation. So if a man lost a slave, he got thirty pieces of silver, perhaps with this in mind, that thirty pieces of silver would buy another slave. So then we sing about the Lord Jesus, thirteen mhm pieces of silver for the Lord of life they gave, Thirteen pieces of silver, just the price of a slave. When we come to the New Testament, to the book of Revelation, we hear them sing God worthily. We hear ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands singing God worthily, and the worth of the Lord Jesus is immeasurable. We love to sing it, uh, the matchless worth, uh, we sing about the Lord Jesus, his matchless worth. Come, let us sing the matchless worth. And here is worth, here is value that is incalculable. For Judas, who grumbled at the woman who poured her ointment upon the Lord, Judas who complained that it could have been sold for three hundred pence, now we find that the same Judas is willing to sell the barn for thirty pieces of silver, the price of a seal. So he partners with them in the way of the audience. They always bargain before they come to a final arrangement. I suppose they may have offered Judas twenty pieces of silver. I suspect that he might have asked for fifty. uh and they bargained and bargained for the door, as they might have bargained for some piece of merchandise. And then they finally came to the agreement and agreed on thirty pieces of silver, and Judas agreed that he would betray the Lord. Now, the reason for the betrayal, by the way, was this, of course, that these men in authority in Israel, they wanted to take the Lord quietly. They didn't want to take him when there were many people around because they knew that there would be an uproar, indeed they said that there would be an uproar if they took the Lord in the midst of the multitude. So what they wanted to do was to take him quietly somewhere, and eh, who better than one of his disciples to know where he might be at some particular moment that would make it an opportune moment for arresting him. So Judas agrees then, and now on this particular evening, he knows that the Lord is headed for Gethsemane, for the garden on the Mount of Olives, and decides that this is the time to betray. I hope that you have noticed, by the way, that when the Lord Jesus arranged the supper in the upper room, that he kept the location of it absolutely secret until even the men who were arranging the things there, making the preparation, even those two men didn't know until they got there, they didn't know where the place was. That explains why, you know, the Lord said to them, he said, you go into the city and there'll meet you a man carrying a pitcher of water, and you follow the man and he leads you to a house, and then you say to the good man at the house, the master says, where is the guest chamber? You see, the Lord Jesus could easily have said to those men, go to such and such a house in such and such a street. I know they didn't have the sophisticated system of names and addresses that we have, but nevertheless, they could have been directed to a certain house in a certain street or a certain location, but the Lord didn't do that. He gave them these strange instructions and directions because I'm quite sure he wanted that E nine left undiscovered. It would have been an ideal place for his betrayal if Judas had only known, but Judas was not to know, but Judas did know that when the Lord was leaving the upper room, he was then moving towards the garden. And so Judas goes then and says, right, I take you to him and the one that I kiss in the darkness. He's the one you're looking. So eventually then they come to get him. Now here's a question. Why did they come with lanterns and torches on the night of a full moon, passover moon? Why did they come with weapons, with swords and scales? Why did they come with lanterns and torches when it was the night of a full moon? Did they think that somehow he would hide himself among the, the, the olive groves, among the shrubbery of the garden? Did they think that he would secrete himself and hide himself there? Judah should have known better, but anyway, they brought lanterns and torches on the night of a full moon. Why did they bring weapons? As our Lord says, swords and staves, he says, you brought when you were coming out against the thief. Why did they do that? Did they think that he would resist? Did they think that he would rebel and fight against arrest? Again, Judas should have known better, but anyway, they brought their lanterns and torches and their weapons, their swords and their scales. And when they come to the Lord, it is Judas, his own familiar friend, who kisses him with the kiss of treachery, marking him up as the one that they want. Now, only a little while earlier, Judas had dipped in the dish with the Lord. That was a symbol of fellowship. He actually dipped his hand in the dish on the Passover table, how close he was to the Lord. And not only that, but the Lord Jesus had also handed to Judas what is called the sopo. And you know, that really was a signal honor that the Lord Jesus did to Judas, giving him the sopo. Some years ago, I had the privilege of dining in a Bedouin tent with a, a Bedouin chief and some of his family, and eh, they eat from communal dishes, you know, you just sit around, and there are several, eh, particular dishes in these little vessels, and everybody sits around them, and it's all very communal. You just eat from the dishes together. And in the course of the, the meal, this Bedouin chief, he looked in one of these dishes for a piece of meat, and he brought it out, and he put it back in again, and he looked in another one, and he lifted it out, and he threw it back in again, and he looked in another one, and he brought this piece of meat out, and he handed it to me. And my friend who was with me said, he's doing you an honor. He has collected something special for you. He said it's a signal that he is honoring you. He said you must take it. So I had to take it and thank him. And, you know, I thought, well, there is the old custom, you know, that lives on, that lives long, and this is exactly what the Lord Jesus had done with Judas. He had taken the sock, he had dipped it in the Passover dish and handed it to Judas as an honor, and Judas gave that. Now, he who had been honored at the table and who had fellowshiped with the Lord, dipping in the fish with him, now the same Judas kisses the master, and with the kiss. The last time the Lord addressed Judas, he called him friend. Something touching about that. Friend, he says, wherefore hast thou come? The matchless grace of the Lord Jesus that he should call the treasure friend. Then in the Psalms, we read, my own beloved friend hath lifted up his heel against me. So Judas began the story, as it were, and Judas contributed a lot to the story of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, the action of the king. We come to Caiaphas then, and by this time, of course, they had made their way across the Hebron Valley. It's a rather wearying walk, and this was the third time that evening that the Lord, and the third time that day that the Lord had crossed the Hebron Valley. You see, they had left Bethany earlier, left the Mount of Olives and crossed the Kidron, and they had gone over to the upper room. Then they had left the upper room and crossed the Kidron back again over to Gethsemane, but now they were leaving Gethsemane again, and for the third time crossing the valley. I can tell you that it's, uh, it's not an easy walk altogether, rather wearying and tiring, down into the depths of the Kidron Valley and up the other side to the Mount Zion. And for the third time now, our Lord had walked there. Well, when he arrives there at the house of Caiaphas, he's taken to Annas first, of course, who was an old retired priest, and now Caiaphas is the ruling priest, and the Lord has taken before Caiaphas. You notice that one of the first things that happened before Caiaphas was a terrible thing, really. Our Lord was accused by false witnesses. They accused him falsely. They bore false witness against the Lord, and they did that in the presence of Caiaphas, and indeed at the instigation of some of these priests, they did that. Who should have known better than Caiaphas that word which said, thou shalt not bear false witness? Caiaphas should have known that, and yet here he is sitting in his priestly seat and listening to false accusers. He knew well that they were false because they didn't agree, they contradicted each other, and at last they found two false witnesses that somehow agreed between themselves, and they accepted the word of these two mhm false witnesses, and they charged the Lord with blasphemy. How terrible that these blasphemous men should charge our Lord with speaking blasphemy. He of whom their own colleagues said earlier, never man spake like this man. That was the testimony of some of their own temple officers. Never man spake like this man. And they charged him with blasphemy, and of course, charging him with blasphemy was the very height of blasphemy on their part, and our Lord stands before the high priest, saying like a lamb dumb before her sheep. Then they say, who beat me? He is guilty. Oh, in a little while, very ironically, Pilate is going to stand and say, I am innocent. But they said of the Lord Jesus, he is guilty, guilty of death. He was the only one in the company who was entitled to live, the only one who had never sinned, and of whom there were no claim, and of him they said he is guilty, and guilty of death. Then they stuck on his face. Sitting has been the very worst and most expressive form of insult among men from the very beginning. And indeed, even certain animals, this is their way of expressing contempt by sitting upon their foes. Here's what they do to the law and animal life. They sat upon him. Then another word is used, and it says, they buffeted him. That word buffet means, apparently, to rap with the fist, and it was seen that with clenched fists they actually rapped our Lord. And then, not only with the clenched fist, but then it says that they smote him with the palms of their hands. Some will change that, uh, for some reason the reading is doubtful, and they will say that they smote him with the loins. And it might be true because you know, of course, that that was a prediction of one of the old proverbs, that they would smite the judge of Israel upon the chief of the law. Well, they smote him and they prophesied him, and then in a very general way, of course, they mocked him. And in one particular way they mocked him, they s- they smote him and they said, prophecy unto us, thou Christ. They blindfolded him and then said, prophecy now and tell us who was it that smote thee. And so they mocked him. Indeed, we shall see that they mocked him as a prophet and a priest and a king in every way, in every way that he had been anointed. They mocked him, they mocked his official glory. So he stands before Caiaphas, and all this, and perhaps more, his suffering began. Now it is sad to turn from the Jewish high priest and from Judas, and to see that Peter contributes with them the sufferings of the law. How sad that we should grieve him, yet it happens. Peter's a warning. He is held up and held out to us as a warning of what sorrow, what grief we cause. You remember that Paul said, grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, and it is possible that we should grieve divine persons by things that we do. But notice another thing, that Peter's fall, you know, it's not altogether a sudden thing. There is always a kind of a, a trail of preliminaries before backsliding. Backsliding doesn't happen on the spur of the moment. There are things that lead up to it. There are things that prepare the way for it. That was sadly true in the case of David before his terrible sin, and it's again is true in the case of Peter. The very sad thing is this, that only a little while before, Peter is singing in the upper room. He's singing. See, they sung with him. Here is Peter in, in the company of, of believers, and everything is fine. All right in meeting, you know, it's all right when we're with the Lord's people. And here Peter is with them, I'm singing, I'm no doubt enjoying the company. And then in the garden, Peter was sleeping. Not so good man. And when you come to Pilate's judgment hall, or to the house of Caiaphas, Peter is swimming. From singing through sleeping to swimming. And that's the sad story of Peter. But we'll hardly guess that. Says often that he followed afar off. We have sung this evening, Jesus, keep me near the cross. But Peter followed afar off. Then we read, not in Matthew, but in John, we read that Peter stood with them. I think two or three times you read that in John's account, that Peter stood with them. And then when you come back to Matthew, Matthew says he sat with them. So you see what he has done? He has walked with them, and stood with them, and sat with them. And who is not reminded of the Psalm number promise? Blessed is the man that walketh not, that sitteth not, that standeth not, neither walk nor stand nor sit at ease in their company because they grinded down. Peter walked with them a far walk. He stood with them, then getting easy, he sat with them. And it seems that the whole stage is being prepared for his last, his denial of the law. We don't read about it in Matthew, but in John, of course, we know that he enjoyed their fire. He sat at the fire with them and enjoyed, if you like, their comforts, their pleasures he shared with them. When the Lord was suffering, when the Lord was sorrowing, people was at ease at their time. Then he conversed with them. And you know, you can't simply walk with them and stand with them and sit with them and enjoy their things and converse with them. You can't do that safely, and Peter discovered that there was cost. So I appeal to all of us, and to those that are younger, that you be very careful of the world. It has many forms and many facets, and sometimes it looks bright and interesting and innocent. But if you want to really judge what your attitude towards the world should be, I know of no better way than this, than to just keep going back to these chapters here and see what the world would be. And see if you can read carefully and slowly what the world did to him, and then after that, still be a friend of the world. My old boy, when you walk with them, they're not really your company. When you stand with them, it's getting worse. When you sit at ease with them, it is really bad. And poor Peter is thoroughly mixed up with him, and then he denies knowing the Lord. No, it's hardly very significant that a man who had accompanied with the Savior for three years should marry the 9th one again. So let's just see what the best of men can do. And when they persisted, he actually quailed, then he got angry at the challenge of a girl. And you know, it was only hours before this that Peter said, he says, though all should forsake me, yet will not I. He says, I'll die for you. And then with the challenge of a maid, a girl, he quails the evil, and then he gets angry, and he begins to curse us. I think it must have been about that time that the Lord was moving from the one place to the other across the courtyard. Maybe they were on their way even now across the island. For as the Lord passed, he looks at Peter. And you, he doesn't need much of a lecture. There's no lecture at all. The Lord just loosened, and as our eyes meet, Peter broke up her people and hid out and left the earth. There are no people so sad on this earth as As Black backslid. Slater. Well, I know that some people profess Christ, and they give up their profession, and some of them never were saved. I know that. But there are those who genuinely knew the Lord and who have gotten away. I stand with you. You remember me having such a boy. I had known him in earlier years, and we had worked together, we had accompanied together in the meetings, we had sat together in the meetings. He was an early bright and promising young Christian. He got away from me. Sport took him away, by the way. Just be careful of the innocent thing. It was sport that took him away. And he seemed to be enjoying himself, getting on time, it seemed in the world. To all intents and purposes, to all appearances, he was thoroughly enjoying himself. One day, I literally bumped into, literally, in right in the middle of Belfast. I came along one street, he came the other, and at the corner we literally bumped into each other. I said, David. Yes. We stood at the corner and we talked. At the corner of May Street and Victoria Street, I remember a soup. After talking about things in general, we began to talk about the early days when things were going well. I said, David, you must think about those days. And standing in the corner, just like Peter, he left the town. And in the midst of his tears, he said, oh, I'd love to do that. And he did do that. And he wasn't very long back. And there was a lot sung into him. The star tale of the boxer. Judas, Judas. Caiaphas, Peter, and Pilate. What sorrows the Lord endured in the judgment hall, Pilate's judgment hall. It was there that in a very special way they mocked him as king. After all, Pilate was the man who in John nineteen said, behold your king. And I think sometimes that you can take those words of Pilate and you can write them across these verses that we read from chapter twenty seven. Behold your king. He's got a robe, crown, a scepter, homage, a throne, a palace, a cup bearer, and a temple. All the things that are linked to royalty and kingship are what Jesus has in Mark, in Pilate's judgment. His robe, perhaps an old tailored tunic of A a woman's scar figure, a scar of of gold loathing they through threw the about back of the his shield. shoulder. What indignation was this? They stripped him, said Matthew. They took his old clothes off from him, and they put on him this scar of gold that was intended to be a mark to run away. So they The came cane and of ruled wood. at It's start. stuck. They bow and they say, every cane is a crown, so we crown him. And they take a briar and they twist it, and they put a crown on. I wonder why Matthew, Mark, and John mentioned the thorn of pride, and only Luke does not. Is there a reason why Luke does not mention the crown of thorns? Anyway, Matthew gives it to us here, our Lord Jesus is now ruled and crowned. In the very next verse, well, every king has a scepter, so they put a reed in his right hand, and now he Victor the Lord, robed in scarlet, wearing the crown of thorns, and the old reed the stick of his right hand, and they're mocking him with robe and crown and scepter. Now they're up and dressed as a king. They bow before him, and they give him mock homage, and they say, Hail, King of the Jews. The story is, of course, and indeed there are markings on certain stones out there in Jerusalem to, I think, to to justify the claim, that there was a game that the soldiers played which was known as the king. And it might well be that that's what they were doing here, playing the game of the king with Of the the law. Lord Are are you moved removed and and crowned. crammed? He's got a scepter, and they bend the knee and they do him honor. Now he's got a throne, he's got to be lifted up. You remember Isaiah six? I saw the Lord high and lifted up, sitting upon his throne, lifted up. Now they want to lift him up, but for a throne they will give him a cross. Says the Lord Jesus, as written earlier in his ministry, he says, you see the Son of Man lifted up, lifted up. And the de- he said that already earlier in his ministry to Nicodemus, he says, as Moses lifted up the serpent, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. And several times he talks about being lifted up, he who was lifted up on the throne of Isaiah six. Now he's lifted up upon the tree. He's got a palace, a place which is his, a place called Golgotha, the soul place. Golgotha. Goll got on the face of the skull. Why do they call it so? Perhaps indeed there are skull figures upon the hill. Well, symbolically, perhaps we can see too that here is the very height to which man's intelligence can reach. Here is the peak of man's intelligence, the skull place, and the very best that men can do is to crucify the king, the Messiah. Anyway, this is his house, Golgotha, the hill. Nehemiah, you know, was the cup bearer. He was the king's cup bearer. That was an office given to certain men who carried the cup, they carried the the wine to the king. And this king has a cup bearer. It says they gave him vinegar to drink. It was the sour wine which was the common drink of the Roman soldier and the laborer of the day, and they filled the sponge with vinegar, the sour wine, and they carried it like a cup bearer to business. And then, of course, they gave her the title, and this title was Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. So before Pilate, who wants to wash his hands of all, he has a robe and a crown and a center and homage and a throne and a palace and a cup bearer and a talent. I would say, behold. Now there's another man here, by Barabas. us. I should know what the name Barabas means. B-A-R is the son of. Abba is father. Barabas's name means the son of God. And our Lord Jesus in John's epistle is the son of God. Beautiful title, a very difficult title to expound. The Son of the Father. Here it is, the only Son of the Father, all the likeness of the Father, the only begotten. But here is Parados, and when they put Parados and the Son of the Father together, they will shut Barnabas, Barnabas, the son of the Father. For when our Lord Jesus claims sonship, they charge him with blasphemy. So they gave to Barnabas what they denied to Jesus and called Barnabas the son of the Father. Now it says Peter, when he's charging the nation, he says, you desire a murderer, and you kill the Prince of Life. What a terrible thing. They desired a man who took life away and covered for the death of the man who gave life, the Prince of Life, the author and origin of life. They desired the murderer and killed the president. They chose a thief, and they rejected him, who was the great giver and benefactor. How often he had offered his gifts to man. What was grace? Grace means gift, and how often he had offered gifts to man. But they chose the thief rather than the great giver at that time. Strange, twisted human nature. As Barabas and Jesus stand together, really what we are seeing is a picture of the sinner and his substitute, and eventually our Lord Jesus goes out to the tree, perhaps dies upon a cross that had been prepared for the last. I often wonder, was Barnabas at Golgotha? And we find it easy to believe that he was. See, he was released before our Lord Jesus actually left the judgment hall for Calvary. Our Lord was released, well, our Lord was delivered after Barnabas was released. And it would be easy to picture Barabbas being released and following the crowd up to the hill. I sometimes think that perhaps a conversation with Barabbas had gone proper really interesting. You'd have seen him standing at the hill there, watching you see crosses. You'd have gone up to him and you'd have said, Barabas, you know these men? Oh, he would say, I know this fellow over here, and I know that one. Colleagues of mine in crime, thieves like myself and the law of the bus. You would say, Barabas, the man on the middle cross. You know him? Maybe. Perhaps by this time he knows. But this is the Nazarene, the Galilean, the miracle worker, the teacher. You say, Barabbas, why should he be there? You know, if Columbus really intelligently understood what had happened, he would have said to you, well, you know, I was condemned too. I was simply waiting for the day of my execution today. My cross was ready. That's my cross. The fact is that there was one cross, two men, one death to die for two men, one penalty to be about for two men. The substitute died instead of Barabbas. Barabbas would have intelligently said, he died for me. He took the place of the sin of Barabbas, died on his cross. Of course, that's exactly where we stand this year. We perhaps contributed to his suffering because we were sinners. We were just sent by God. For he died instead of us, substitute for the people. These are the men, Judas and Caiaphas and Peter and Pilate and Barabbas. These are the men that sought out the community between In the the merits. nations. How Our impression fresh and bad. then to turn at the end of chapter twenty six to another one, which will rapidly handle the body. Here is the king's act. May it make him more precious. My Father, again, we thank you for the Lord Jesus, we bless you for his deep sufferings, his sorrows, and thank you for the willingness with which he took our place. Help us to appreciate him more, to love him more. We ask you to help us to live true to him, not to cause And him to over after lose. We we commit let ourselves ourselves to do him. it once more in this session.