Jesus Before Pilate Series

They say they don’t want God – so He gives them over to their debased minds. He gives them over to their sinful nature. And it’s in direct correlation to the amount that they chose not to retain Him in their knowledge (That’s Romans 1 by the way). And the further they move away from God, the less and less they bear His image. Instead of acting like human beings they act more and more like savage beasts. Instead of agreeing with God saying “He made them male and female” they say, I can be whatever I choose, ignoring reality. They begin to worship the created things instead of the Creator, and so environmentalism becomes their “god”. We think – “Oh all those people from long ago, who worshiped rocks and trees, and volcanos and the sun, isn’t it good that we’ve moved past that now.” But we haven’t – there are still people doing it, and Al Gore has made a lot of money off them.

And so, the world hates Jesus, including these religious leaders of Jerusalem. And I mentioned this on the back of your bulletins, but I want to address it here as well. The hypocrisy of these priests is astounding! They are obsessed with external, ceremonial cleanliness. Their hearts are as black as coal, but they want to appear to be noble, and upright, and righteous. Again, imagine the kind of seared conscious a person has to have here. They know the trial is a sham. They know that Jesus is innocent. They want Him dead because He’s a threat to their bank accounts, their authority, and their comfortable lives and positions. And they’re willing to kill Him because of that. He’s committed no crime. He’s never done wrong. He’s only done good, and spoken the truth. But they don’t care! They’re going to see Him killed no matter what the cost. Even if it means locking arms with Rome. They’re going to see Him crucified. And yet, at the same time they’re like, “We can’t go into the Praetorium because it’s a gentile palace.”

You know what that is? It’s straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel. It’s a heart so hardened, and a conscience so seared that it isn’t moved at all by the fact they have defrauded, and abused, and misused God’s people. That they created a system which allowed them to get rich off of God’s people. You would think at some point they would go, “Oh my goodness, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t pretend to be this righteous person, serving God, while I do such horrible things.” But they didn’t. And what happened? Their sin escalated. It went from robbing God, to wanting to kill Him.

The Bible tells us that evil men will wax worse and worse… and that’s what these evil men did.

Now it’s so interesting, because Pilate comes out to them and says to them, “What are you charging Him with?” And their reply is telling, isn’t it? They say, “Well if He hadn’t done something wrong, we wouldn’t have brought Him to you, now would we?” So Pilate says, “Go judge Him by your own law.” And they say, “We can’t put Him to death. It’s not lawful.”

NO IT’S NOT LAWFUL BECAUSE HE’S INNOCENT!