INTRO: 1. Pilate…a man who in his lifetime knew so much prestige and so much power.
a. He had many times been the guest of Caesar himself.
b. He had ruled over thousands in his lifetime.
c. His word was as good as law.
d. Held the lives of so many in his hands.
e. He lived in the finest palaces, surrounded by many servants.
2. But if you where granted an audience with Pilate today, he would say nothing about his great accomplishments, the power, wealth or prestige he held.
a. But with tears in his eyes Pilate would cry out “Almost, Almost!! I almost did the right thing. I was so close but let it slip right through my fingers.”
b. I could have listened, I could have changed my life and most of all changed my eternity.
3. “Almost” speaks of missed opportunities, aborted efforts, fumbled chances.
a. So important was the lesson here that all four of the gospel writers included it in their gospels.
4. God had orchestrated this time in his life. (So it is in your life)
a. Couldn’t blame it on a lack of opportunity.
ILL. As I studied this I came to discover that there were only a few years that Pilate dealt with civil matters. (First 6 years. temporary filled in for the absence of Legate of Syria)
b. Couldn’t blame it on lack of power or authority. (Wore the signet ring)
c. Couldn’t blame it on a lack of understanding. (Understood Jesus’ innocence, even that Jesus claimed to be Christ, even applied placard on Cross—King of the Jews))
d. Couldn’t blame it on a poor messenger. (Jesus himself)
e. Couldn’t blame it on lack of warnings. (Even Wife that loved him most sent a warning)
5. Five chances Pilate had…five chances he let slip through his fingers.
a. Never had there been a more important choice than what Pilate faced.
b. Never will there be a greater question given you than “What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ?”
6. Many of the poor attempts Pilate made when it came to this decision, multitudes are still making today.
a. Many are convinced that if I can almost make a decision then God will honor that.
b. Pilate would tell you this morning that when it comes to deciding for Christ… Almost is never enough.
I. PILATE THOUGHT HE COULD AVOID THIS DECISION
a. Pilate knew what should be done, but he failed to act.
b. Pilate thought avoiding this decision was the easy way out.
c. Many believe if they just avoid God’s house, God’s people, hearing a message, reading a tract then God will give them a free pass.
d. How often I’ve seen people I know need the Lord, simply slip out of that door before the message.
e. But just as Pilate tried to pass Jesus along to Herod… Jesus just keeps coming back.
f. No matter where we go or how bad we live the question remains ever before us.
A. THIS IS AN INESCAPABLE DECISION
1. Avoiding it won’t make it go away.
2. Can’t escape into sin, for He died for the sinner.
3. Can’t escape into darkness, because He is the light.
4. Can’t escape into the crowd, He know the number of the hairs on our head.
5. Avoiding Jesus won’t free us from making this decision.
Heb. 2:3 How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him;
B. THIS IS AN INTENTIONAL DECISION
1. If we make no decision, we’ve actuality made a decision.
2. This isn’t a matter of choosing between being a sinner or a saint…we were born sinners.
3. Our neglect will return to condemn us.
4. It’s intentional because we know what we’ve ignored.
Heb. 12:25 See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven:
5. When you avoid making this decision you aren’t refusing the preacher or the church… but Jesus Christ himself gave everything to turn you from a path of damnation.
6. It’s intentional because we neglect to act on it.
ILL. If you neglect to pay your taxes or renew your driver’s license the law doesn’t give you a break. There is a penalty in the natural world for neglect.
7. Jesus has made it so easy that we have to be intentionally negligent to refuse it.
8. Intentional because we’ve decided to remain against him.
Matt. 12:30 He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.
9. Pilate seemed to like Jesus and want to protect him, but liking Jesus isn’t enough.
10. To ignore the cure is the accept the illness.
11. To ignore the pardon is to accept the punishment.
ILL. I had a young man ask me “How can a loving God send anyone to hell?” I told them “God ‘s not to blame for your destination, Adam is. God has simply provided another way. If you open your eyes in a devil’s hell it will be because you chose to, Jesus has done everything to prevent it. But are responsible for your choice.”
II. PILATE THOUGHT HE COULD GO HALF-WAY.
a. When Pilate discovered that this was one choice he couldn’t avoid making, he decided that he’d try making a compromise.
b. Pilate would try and please Jesus and the world.
c. He thought that if they could see Jesus beaten that would quench their hatred of him and in turn let him go.
d. Pilate’s strategy of appeasing the mob didn’t work.
e. Pilate tried to go half-way and found it doesn’t work.
A. IMPOSSIBLE BECAUSE WE CAN ONLY SERVE ONE LORD.
Luke 16:13 No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
1. One won’t let us serve the other.
2. The world won’t let you serve God, if you give them a say.
3. Our heart won’t let us serve two masters—devoted to only one.
ILL. William H. Hinson tells us why animal trainers carry a stool when they go into a cage of lions. They have their whips, of course, and their pistols are at their sides. But invariably they also carry a stool. Hinson says it is the most important tool of the trainer. He holds the stool by the back and thrusts the legs toward the face of the wild animal. Those who know maintain that the animal tries to focus on all four legs at once. In the attempt to focus on all four, a kind of paralysis overwhelms the animal, and it becomes tame, weak, and disabled because its attention is fragmented. So is our life paralyzed when we try to be devoted to more than one master.
B. IMPOSSIBLE BECAUSE THERE’S NO MIDDLE GROUND WITH GOD
1. Like the space between two cliffs… it just doesn’t exist.
2. No middle ground between the pure and impure.
1 Cor. 10:21 Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils.
3. No middle ground between God and the world
James 4:4 …know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
C. IMPOSSIBLE BECAUSE HALF-WAY IS NEVER ENOUGH WITH GOD
1 Kin. 18:21 And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.
1. When we decide for Christ, we surrender our all.
2. Don’t be like Pilate trying to please others and still do the right thing.
3. There were many voices that day directed at Pilate… even his wife warned him against making a popular judgment… be he was convinced he could compromise and make things right.
4. Time to stop listening to the mob and see Jesus standing before you.
5. This is one those decisions in life that can’t be half-way.
ILL. In American history, the Battle of the Alamo stands as a prime example of the kind of decisiveness Jesus calls for. In 1836 a band of fewer than 200 men defended the little mission in San Antonio, against General Santa Anna’s 6,000 Mexican troops. For two weeks they held the Alamo against impossible odds. Then, on March 5, the night before what would surely be the final assault, William Barret Travis, the commander of the Texans, called a meeting of his men. Telling them he knew the enemy would break through the walls on the morrow, he drew his sword and cut a line in the sand. He invited those who wanted to stay and defend to the death to cross the line. Jim Bowie, who was sick on a pallet, asked to be carried across the line. And so today Jesus has drawn a line in the sand and he asks you to cross it. Will you stand united with him?
III. PILATE THOUGHT HE COULD DO THE RIGHT THING IN THE WRONG WAY
a. He then tries to trick the people into releasing Jesus.
b. He offered them a hated political criminal so he could let Jesus go.
c. But the crowd surprised Pilate by saying let Barrabus go and crucify Jesus.
d. What he was trying is admirable and good… but he was doing it in the wrong way.
e. If we choose Jesus we must choose Him His way.
A. GOOD INTENTIONS WON’T SAVE US
1. Pilate intended to let Jesus go, but good intentions made the wrong decision.
2. O how many will stand before God on that great judgment day and cry… “Lord I intended to choose you before I died.”
3. Many dress up every Sunday and hear a multitude of sermons but never come to a point of decision.
4. Many say “the Lord knows my heart”…yes he knows his blood is not applied there.
B. GOOD DEEDS CAN’T SAVE YOU
1. Ask most anyone on the street what it takes to go to heaven and they’ll most likely say “Doing good things.”
2. A filthy sinner can know Jesus after just a minute of prayer.
3. The Pharisee with all their good works rejected Jesus and was lost.
4. The rich young ruler had obeyed all the commandment but rejected the cost of following Jesus.
5. I hear people say “If anybody deserved to go to heaven they do.”
6. But the fact of the matter is that none of us deserves to go to heaven.
7. Only the blood of Jesus can gain us access into that place.
8. Being close to the cross isn’t enough.
ILL. Soldiers sat at the foot of the cross, could have reached out and touched the blood, but they where too concerned with gambling for the garments of Christ.
9. You’ve been so close but what insignificant thing in life will rob you of eternity?
10. Are you playing games at the foot of the cross?
C. JESUS IS THE ONLY DOOR
John 10:9 I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.
1. Jesus is the only way out of sin.
2. Jesus is the only way to salvation
Acts 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
IV. PILATE THOUGHT HE COULD JUSTIFY AN ‘ALMOST’ DECISION.
a. He washed his hands and said “I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.”
b. I believe this morning Pilate is still trying to wash his hands of the blood of Jesus.
c. Yes, Jesus went to Calvary because of Pilate… but let me tell you this morning, you’re as guilty as he.
d. If you refuse Jesus this morning his blood is on your hands and as the writer of hebrews says you are trampling the blood of Christ underfoot.
A. CAN’T WASH THE BLOOD FROM OUR HANDS BECAUSE WE DIDN’T MAKE TIME
1. ILL. Paul spoke to the ruler Felix who sent him away for a more “convenient time.”
3. Pilate may have protested that this time was inconvenient with all the political unrest that was going on.
4. Five times he had the chance, but never more in scripture do we see Pilate had another.
5. This is your time… don’t let it pass you by.
B. CAN’T WASH THE BLOOD FROM OUR HANDS BECAUSE OF BAD INFLUENCES
1. Pilate blamed the crowd, but this was his decision to make.
2. Adam tried to blame Eve, but this was his decision to make.
3. Aaron tried to blame his sin on the people, but it was his decision to make.
4. We are all guilty until Jesus washes that guilt away.
C. CAN’T WASH THAT GUILT AWAY BECAUSE WE WERE NOT WARNED
1. Paul said that we are “without excuse.”
2. God has sent his messenger this morning to give you yet another chance, yet another choice.
3. With every decision Pilate had to make it became harder for him to choose Christ.
4. It’s not going to be easier later for you—now is the time.
5. God is under no obligation to give you another chance… His mercy cried out “Today is the day of salvation.”
6. King Agrippa gripped the throne he was sitting on and said something to Paul that would haunt him throughout eternity “Almost thou persuaded me to be a christian.”
CONCLUSION: What will you do with this man called Jesus?
This decision can’t be ignored away.
This decision can’t be a half-way decision.
This decision must be through Jesus Christ.
It’s one thing to forgive yourself for something you’ve done… something else to try and forgive yourself for something you might have done, but didn’t.
