Jesus had just waged the greatest warfare of His life against the forces of death in the Garden of Gethsemane. With strong tears, He cried out to His Father that the cup of sufferings might pass from Him. Ultimately, He surrendered His will to the will of His Father, knowing that it was for this very hour He had come into the world. Luke’s Gospel records that an angel appeared unto Him and strengthened Him, indicating the intensity of His agony (Luke 22:43). As Jesus returned to wake His sleeping disciples, a multitude of Temple soldiers led by Judas, who had conspired with the high priest for money, came to arrest Him. Judas identified His Master with a traitorous kiss, and Jesus was whisked away to the house of the high priest for an illegal trial at night. He was declared guilty of blasphemy and condemned to death; although the Jews had no authority to put anyone to death.
In the morning, the religious leaders took Jesus to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor. In the beginning of his examining Jesus, he kept saying, “I find nothing in this man worthy of death.” His thinking probably was: Maybe he is a false prophet according to your Jewish faith; maybe he goes around saying provocative things according to your religion, and this irritates you, but I don’t see where it rises to the level of capital punishment. I can’t just execute someone because you don’t like him.
I believe Pilate, who ultimately condemned Jesus to be crucified, really deep down didn’t want to do it. He sought to bargain with the Jews for His release. It was Passover, the Jews’ annual Spring feast when they celebrated the Hebrews’ exodus from Egypt. Now they were slaves again, to the Romans, who begrudgingly tolerated their religious practices. As a gesture of good will (more likely to keep the peace), they had developed a custom at Passover when the governor released one prisoner in honor of the holiday. We know that during holidays people tend to be charitable, especially around Christmas time, and it was like this at Passover.
Pilate was prepared to let someone go free. It stands to reason that the people would want him to release a less threatening offender, like someone who may have stolen a loaf of bread, because he was hungry; rather than a hardened criminal who had committed rape or murder—Right?
At one point, he said, “I know that at Passover we have a custom that I release one of your prisoners from prison as a kindness on Rome’s part—How about I release Jesus?” But this would backfire.
Side Trip to Herod
Pilate was still pondering how to handle the situation when somebody mentioned the fact that Jesus was actually a Galilean—Galilee! Pilate knew Galilee was Herod’s jurisdiction, and as fate would have it, because it was Passover, Herod was in Jerusalem. Pilate didn’t even have to send an armed escort to take Jesus to Galilee. Glad to be done with Him, Pilate ordered his soldiers to take Jesus to Herod’s palace. Oddly enough, Herod was “exceeding glad” to see Jesus. He had never met Him, but was “desirous to see him for a long time, because he had heard many things of him, and he hoped to have seen some miracle done by him.” He not only didn’t get to see a miracle—he didn’t get one word from Jesus! Herod questioned Jesus at length, “but he answered him nothing” (Luke 23:7-9).
Think about the fact that. Jesus was a man with emotions just like us, and how He controlled Himself before Herod. Herod had beheaded John, His cousin, His friend, and Heaven’s prophet. Yet in Herod’s presence He never said a word. I would have expected Him to call him some kind of snake or rat, or to accuse him: You killed John, the holy one, and what did he do to you, but tell you the truth—that you are an adulterer married to your brother’s wife! But he never opened his mouth! “Neither was there any guile found in his mouth.” When He hung on the altar of the cross, He was going to be a pure, holy, sinless Lamb! He wasn’t going to lose His temper and say anything someone could misconstrue. He was going to go to that cross without spot or blemish (1Peter 2:22, 1:19). After a while, Herod got bored with the whole thing and had his soldiers take Jesus back to Pilate.
At this point, Jesus had been accosted by the Temple soldiers, the Roman soldiers, and now, Herod’s soldiers. After mocking Him and putting a purple robe, a sign of royalty, on Him to hail
Him as a king, they marched him right back to Pilate. Luke tells us that prior to this, Pilate and Herod had been enemies, but that day they became friends (Lk.23:11-12).
By then Pilate may have been sitting down to lunch and thinking, I am so glad I found a way to get rid of those crazy Jews and their religious rantings about some prophet who thinks he’s the son of God. But before he could enjoy his meal, in came Herod’s men with Jesus. Once again, he was faced with finding a way to rid himself of Jesus!
Pilate knew Jesus was innocent, and “it was for envy that the chief priests accused Him”
(Mark 15:10). To top it off, the night before his wife had a very powerful, dramatic dream that upset her. She sent a note to Pilate saying, “I have suffered many things this day in a dream, because of him: Have nothing to do with this just man” (Matthew 27:19). It was a divine intervention that Pilate ignored. Perhaps it’s hard to reconcile it in our minds, because we know
Jesus had to be crucified. It was God’s will for Jesus to go to the cross. Even so, incredibly, the Jews would refuse Jesus and spare a violent criminal.
“Then said Pilate unto him, Speak you not unto me? Know you not that I have power to crucify you, and I have power to release you?” Jesus answered, “You could have no power at all against me, except it were given you from above: therefore, he that delivered me unto you has the greater sin” (John 19:10-11). If Pilate had been nervous before; if his wife’s note had already unsettled him, he was really unnerved now. These words must have pierced his heart like an arrow.
Pilate had sought to get answers out of Him, saying, “They want me to condemn you to death.” The Jewish council had already condemned Jesus in their religious trial, but only Romans had authority to put people to death. This forced them to bring Jesus before Pilate saying, “This man is worthy of death. We can’t kill him. We want you to crucify him.” Pilate wanted to find out why Jesus was worthy of death. He scratched his head and for the third time said, “What wrong has this man done?” They answered that Jesus had said that He was a king. Pilate said to Jesus: “Are you a king?” He was probably thinking, He doesn’t look like a king to me!
For a while he didn’t get anything out of Jesus, which made Pilate marvel. Finally, Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” Pilate responded: “Oh, so you are a king then?” Jesus said, “If My kingdom was of this world, I would call My people to come and take you all down. But don’t worry, you won’t lose your job. My kingdom is not of this world” (Ref. John 18:36).
I Find No Fault in Him
Pilate had all this on his mind when he looked at Jesus, a soft spoken man who was not speaking
evil about anybody. Trying to find a way out, he said to the Jews, “I find no fault in him. I will chastise him and let him go.” But they vehemently replied, “No way! Let Barabbas go!” Barabbas was a seditionist and murderer. If anybody was threatening Roman rule, it was him.
Then Pilate tried to appeal to their humanity by having Jesus beaten. If you’ve seen the movie The Passion of Christ, you know how viciously He was beaten. When they looked at Him, it made people shudder. Looking through the telescope of time, Isaiah prophesied: “As many were astonished at you; his visage [face]was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men” (Isaiah 52:14).
His face and beard were matted blood, hair, and skin. His back was laid open, exposing muscle and bone. He was beaten so horribly, I’m sure Pilate expected that they would take one look at Him with pity and think, My God, He’s suffered enough. Let him go!
But he was mistaken. It didn’t faze them one bit. The crowd cried in cacophony: “Crucify Him!” Pilate insisted, “I don’t see any just cause to crucify this innocent man.” They cried out, “Release to us Barabbas!” I am surprised Pilate agreed to let him go, knowing he was a true threat to stir up anarchy again. Roman governors were always seeking to keep the peace, because if Pilate couldn’t keep the peace in Judea, Rome would recall him. He would lose his position. He pressed them to free Jesus, but they refused.
The Coup de Grace:
“If you let him go, you are no friend of Caesar.” The last thing Pilate wanted was for an evil report to get back to Rome that he had an anarchist who claimed to be a king, and he let him go. The truth—they were lying hypocrites, because no Jew would ever declare Caesar as his king! Remember when the Pharisees came to Jesus, asking if it was lawful for them to pay tribute to Caesar? Jesus asked for a coin, and they gave Him a Roman denarius. He asked, “Whose image is on this coin?” and they quickly answered, “Caesar’s.” Jesus dropped a proverbial bomb and said, “Then give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.” They were amazed, because they knew that Caesar claimed to be divine and demanded worship, and the inscription on the coin with his image stated so (Matthew 22:15-22). They would never bring such an idolatrous coin into the Temple; thus, the reason for moneychangers outside. But Jesus took them in their own craftiness and evaded their Caesar trap while honoring God. Now they were saying, “We have no king but Caesar.” How wicked! But it was the catalyst that moved Pilate to crucify Jesus.
Finally, as a gesture to absolve himself of any guilt in the death of Jesus, Pilate took water and washed his hands so everyone could see, and said, “I wash my hands of this. I am innocent of the blood of this just man” (Mt.27:24). But was he?
He said out of his own mouth that Jesus was a just man. So what made him condemn Jesus to death? He had told Jesus that he had the power to crucify Him or to release Him. So what made him give in to the Jews? The Jews said that Jesus claimed to be a king, and “Whoever makes himself king, speaks against Caesar.” When they said, “If you let Him go, you are not Caesar’s friend” (John 19:12), suddenly Pilate imagined it getting back to Rome that he had let go an antagonist who was challenging Caesar’s rule. No doubt he was thinking, I’ll lose my job, my palace, my position, my pension—I could lose everything! This brought fear to his heart, and he caved to the crowd, condemning Jesus, an innocent man, to die.
Caving to the Crowd
Because of the fear of man, he caved to the crowd. The fear of Caesar was greater than the fear of God that had caused his own wife to warn him not to condemn Jesus. Afraid that he would lose everything, he bowed to the intimidation of a man-fearing spirit.
Jesus said, “Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; I will be ashamed of him before my Father and the holy angels when I come into my glory” (Mark 8:38). There are many who don’t want to be saved and follow Jesus, because they are afraid of what people might say or think about them. Jesus never deceived anybody. He never made the way look easy, but He said, “Sit down, and count the cost” (Luke 14:28). Are you willing to pay the price? Because Jesus said that you may have to leave mother and father, houses and land, and some of your worst enemies will be those of your own household (Ref. Mt.10:32-38).
It means bucking the tide of anti-Christian culture. It means standing up for the truth of Scripture when today’s society is saying, Live your own truth. It means refusing to compromise to please the flesh and worldly-minded Christians who change the grace of God into lasciviousness—a license to sin (Jude 4). It means not caving to the crowd when it costs you acceptance by peers, co-workers, family, and friends. It could even cost you your job, which can be a very scary thing.
This past Sunday I prayed for a member who is dealing with cultural changes at the upscale daycare where she has been employed for years. They are bringing in literature about homosexual family relationships and other unbiblical gender-related indoctrination. She is being pressured to comply, but as a Bible-believing Christian she cannot. She is quickly reaching a crossroads where her job is in jeopardy. I have strong confidence in her that she will not compromise—She will not cave to the crowd. And I have strong confidence that God will see her through the aftermath and open a new door if it comes to that.
The Gospel alienates. It separates those who want to come to the light and those who want to cling to darkness, and never the twain shall meet. To those who are ashamed of Jesus and His Word now, I ask: What will it be like when you stand before the Judgment Seat of God, before all the world, and the books are opened and every filthy sin you’ve ever done is revealed, because they are not covered by the blood of the Lamb?
Things you did behind closed doors that you never want anyone to know—those skeletons in your closet that you hope will never get out—they’re all coming out at the Judgment Seat, if they are not under the blood. Everybody will know it then. Jesus said that what is done in secret, will be shouted from the housetops (Mt.10:26-27). Jesus said that if you are ashamed of Him and His words before this wicked and ungodly, filthy, lying, cheating, perverse generation, He will be ashamed of you before His Father and the holy angels (Mark 8:38).
The World’s Mold
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Rom.12:1-2).
Beseech is intense. In Greek, it is a compound word: parakaleo. Perhaps it sounds familiar, like paraklatos? The Holy Spirit is the paraklatos (Jn.14:15). The prefix para means alongside, and cletos means to call. In compound, meaning to call alongside, and the implication is to come to one’s aid. The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, comes alongside of us to comfort us, to support us, and even to help us pray according to the will of God (Rom. 8:26-27).
It is the same idea in this verse: The Holy Spirit on the inside is rising up strong in us, saying: “Don’t be conformed to this world!” [Don’t let the world put you its mold.] When we are under tremendous pressure, and Satan is pressing us to compromise, the Spirit is shouting on the inside: “Don’t cave to the crowd!”
Jesus said, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of this world, the world would love his own, but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore, the world hates you” (Jn.15:18-19).
When the world hates you because you stand for Jesus Christ and His unalterable teaching, you are in good company on the narrow and strait way; albeit a small number in comparison to those who are on the broad way that leads to destruction (Mt.7:13-14). Keep your eyes on the prize, and don’t cave to the crowd!
Jude minced no words in his 25-verse epistle. Its urgent theme: “Earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered to the saints!” The intent is “delivered once and for all!” It is a rallying call to Contend—Strive! Fight for the faith! Fight against opposition!
You can’t be silent! You can’t be indifferent! You can’t be lukewarm! You can’t have one foot in the church and the other in the world!
You can’t cave to the crowd!
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