Tag: John

Text: John 20

This morning, we’ll read verses 10-18.
“Then the disciples went back to their homes. But Mary
stood outside the tomb crying. And as she wept she bent
over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white
seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and
the other at the foot. They asked her, ‘Woman, why are
you crying?’ ‘They have taken away my Lord,’ she said,
‘and I don’t know where they have put Him.’ At this,
she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she
did not realize that it was Jesus. ‘Woman,’ He said, ‘why
are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?’ Thinking
He was the gardener, she said, ‘Sir, if you have carried Him
away, tell me where you have put Him and I will get Him.’
Then, Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’ She turned toward Him and
cried out in Aramaic, ‘Rabboni,’ which means ‘teacher.’
Jesus said, ‘Do not hold onto Me, for I have yet to return
to the Father. Go and say to My brothers and tell them I
am returning to My Father and your Father, to My God and
your God.’ Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the
news, ‘I have seen the Lord.’ And she told them that He
had said these things to her.”

I remember some years ago I was in a church and I was doing noon services. I was speaking from Psalm 37. And after I finished one day, a man in the church came up to me…I was expecting a compliment, I guess. I wasn’t expecting what he said. He said, “You know, Preacher, you missed the whole point of that passage.” The pastor heard that and every once in awhile he writes me little note that says, “You missed the whole point.”

I guess it is easy sometimes for us to miss the whole point. As a matter of fact, that’s what Mary Magdalene did when she came to the tomb and saw the empty tomb that morning…she missed the whole point. And it’s interesting to realize that the first person who saw the risen Lord didn’t recognize Him. Now, she had known Jesus…had seen Him on other occasions, but this morning…on this first Easter Sunday morning, she did not recognize. She looked into the tomb, supposing to find the body of Jesus there, but all she saw was angels. Interesting how the angels didn’t seem to startle her, or scare her. Nor, did they cause her to stop weeping. The angels wouldn’t satisfy her. Seeing the angels was not enough…she was looking for the body of her Lord, and she failed to recognize Him when she saw Him.

I think we need to pretty much put ourselves beside Mary, because she is typical of a great many of us…how we fail to see Jesus. When sometimes we’re looking straight at Him we fail to see Him and we miss the whole point of that empty tomb. So, there needed to come to Mary that day as I think there needs to come to all of us a new recognition…a new revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. You’ll notice it was only when He spoke her name…and there’s no way that you and I can reproduce that name… First of all, He said, “Woman, why are you weeping?” and that meant nothing to her, but then when He spoke her name… “Mary” immediately the scales fell from her eyes and she recognized that it was Jesus.

Now, how is it that she missed the whole point of that empty tomb? Instead of seeing the empty tomb and rejoicing and singing her hallelujahs, she wept! And her grief was so great…the Greek word when it says that she wept means it was a loud and long lament. She was terribly upset and she lamented long and loud as was the custom among those Jews of that day. And she said, “Lord, where have you laid the body of my Lord…tell me and I will go and get Him.” Of course, her enthusiasm got the better of her. I don’t know how that little woman could have carried the body of the Lord, especially with all the spices that were on that body, but anyway, in her enthusiasm she wasn’t thinking clearly. Why? Because she had missed the whole point!

I’d like to share with you this morning why sometimes we miss the whole point of the resurrection and why we fail to see Jesus as He really is. Now there are several reason. One that has been suggested is that she couldn’t see Jesus through her tears…she was so overcome with grief, so overcome with sadness that her eyes were filled with tears and she could not see Jesus through her tears. That is one suggestion. And I think it is a valid suggestion.

Sometimes it is hard for us to see Jesus when our eyes are filled with tears. Sometimes it is hard for us to see Jesus when our hearts are breaking. Sometimes when circumstances have turned against us and our life seems to be going down the tube, it’s hard for us to see Jesus in all of that. And so, actually Mary did some unnecessary weeping, because she was weeping over the fact that the body of the Lord was gone…that Jesus was absent…that He was still dead and she didn’t know where He was and her weeping was unnecessary.

I think there are times when our weeping, even it may be great and heavy and long, may be unnecessary. If we could see the truth through our tears we might understand that much of our grief is really unnecessary. But it is hard for people who have suddenly undergone some tragedy…it is hard for people whose life has not turned out the way they expected…it is difficult for people whose life seems to be a tangled mass of threads…it is difficult for them to see Jesus, because they become so absorbed with the tears of their life that the tears form a kind of veil through which we cannot see the Lord Jesus.

There’s another reason suggested why we cannot see Jesus when He’s standing right there in front of us, and that’s because oftentimes we’re looking in the wrong direction…we’re turned in the wrong way…the Bible says that she had to turn around to see Jesus. She couldn’t see Him because she was turned in the wrong direction.

And there is a sense in which many of us live our lives turned in the wrong direction…looking in some other direction to try to find peace and looking in some other direction to try to find solace…to try to find strength we look to the world and we look to the success of the world and we’re looking for friends or we’re looking for society or we’re looking for the politician or we’re looking for the sociologist or we’re looking for the experts of our age to somehow make sense out of our lives and we’re looking in the wrong direction. And for joy and happiness sometimes we’re looking in the direction of the world. We think somehow that the world has the answer to all of our problems and we think that if we could somehow lose ourselves in the world…

When I flew up here yesterday there were two young men sitting over close to us and they were already pretty “happy.” They had engaged the stewardess in conversation and I just happened to overhear it. You didn’t have to eavesdrop…they were letting everybody know that they were flying from Cincinnati up here to Grand Rapids just to go to a bar. I mean, that’s the only reason they were flying up here…just to go to a bar owned by their cousin, and they were going to party, you know. Well, they were expecting to have a good time and as a matter of fact they already were having a good time. I’d hate to be in their place this morning and feel their headache and all of that. But there are a lot of people who feel that if they can just somehow find their fill in the world and fill themselves with the booze of the world and the drugs of the world and all the pleasures of the world that they’ll find whatever they’re looking for, and most people can’t see Jesus because they’re looking in the wrong direction for Him! They’ll never see Him until they turn around and stop looking in that direction. They’ll never see Him until they realize they’re turned the wrong way and they must turn to Him before they can ever see Him!

But, there’s a third reason that I think Mary missed the whole point. A third reason why she failed to see Jesus is because she was looking for a corpse instead of a living Lord. And here again, many of us have to take our stand. She went to that tomb. If Jesus had been lying in that tomb, she would have been satisfied! Still grieving, still sad that He was dead, but she would have been satisfied! Her weeping here is not because Jesus is dead, her weeping here is because the body is missing! She has nothing tangible to hold onto! And so she’s looking for the body and she says to the gardener who was really Jesus, “If you’ve taken Him somewhere, tell me where and I’ll go get Him.” In other words, “If I can just possess the corpse.” “If I can just believe that there was a Jesus on this earth at one time, then I’ll be happy.”

Well, I want to tell you something this morning, I’m glad she didn’t find what she was looking for! If she’d found what she was looking for none of us would be here this morning. There would be no resurrection! There would be no Easter! Listen…it’s not always a bad thing when you don’t find what you’re looking for! Sometimes the best thing that could happen to you is when you fail to find what you’re looking for!

I think that many of us today don’t look for a living Lord. I wonder how many of you this morning came into this service and you expected to meet the living Lord. Did you come to celebrate a Jesus who used to be…a Jesus who once walked on this earth…a Jesus who once arose again, but is long gone now into heaven. I’m afraid that the trouble with much of our worship as we gather together on a Sunday morning is that we’re still worshiping a dead Jesus for all practical matters. Oh, we wouldn’t call Him dead, but we would say that He is far removed from us and uninvolved in the lives that we live. Actually, we’re looking for a corpse instead of the living Lord.

I noticed in the paper coming up yesterday…strange things like this are always happening…down in New Orleans they’re performing an investigation…I wonder if you read this in the paper…there was a Catholic church and the priest took an old wafer and he dropped it in the holy water to let kind of, you know, get soggy. He left it there for two or three days, and lo and behold, it turned to human flesh. It had turned into the body of the Lord Jesus Christ! Still looking for the wrong relationship to Jesus!

You know, there’s an interesting statement that the Lord makes in this that has a lot to say to us. He says in verse 17, “Do not hold onto Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.” The Greek idea there is “Stop clinging to Me…” It was a prohibition to stop something that was already in progress. And of course, when Mary saw her Lord, I can just imagine her falling at His feet and wrapping her arms around His feet and Jesus said, “Don’t hang onto Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father.”

What’s He saying here? What He’s saying is, “Mary, the old relationship of sense and smell and touch and sound and taste…those things no longer exist, but now there is a new relationship between us…the old relationship is gone and with this new revelation comes a new relationship.” That’s why Paul could say, “Henceforth, we know no man after the flesh. We know them after the Spirit.” Now, folks, our relationship with Jesus Christ is not based upon finding the bones of Peter or finding shards of the Cross or finding the shroud of Turim or worshiping some Jesus who used to be…who is still on some Cross somewhere…oh no, that’s the worship of Mary. No, we’re looking for a corpse instead of a living Lord…

I think sometimes when we pray if we really analyze our praying and were honest with our hearts, we’d be praying to a Lord who we don’t really believe is alive and active in the affairs of our hearts today! There’s a new relationship that we have with Jesus. It’s no more after the flesh. It doesn’t consist in things. It doesn’t consist in physical and material things. It consists in a spiritual relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And it doesn’t matter if you come here this morning and sit on this pew and listen to this music and worship in this physical building…if that’s as far…if that’s the extent to which your relationship with God goes this day, you have not worshipped! Not only do you come here in this physical place, but you come here to meet a spiritual Lord, and to meet a living Lord and I wonder this morning if you are seeing a living Lord…or if you’re still just looking for some historical Jesus who used to be.

I think there’s a final reason that we sometimes miss the point…and that is that we miss that God may be in the circumstances. Now, when she saw those two angels, that should have told her something. It’s amazing how we miss the obvious! I tell you, when you see those two angels, that ought to tell you that God’s around! I mean, wouldn’t you think that? I would! I’d think God’s around! Angels didn’t make a bit of an impression on her. They said, “Woman, who’re you looking for?” And she turned away from the angels…not fascinated with the angels…not satisfied by the angels…and then she turned to this Man whom she supposed to be the gardener, and she said, “Lord, they have taken my Lord and I know not where they’ve laid Him.”

See, she thought the whole dilemma was between her and other people. She thought there was somebody else who had taken the Lord…it was somebody else’s hand that had caused this mysterious disappearance to take place. She never considered that it was God! She never considered that it was God! The missing body of Jesus…the only explanation had to be somebody had taken Him away. It never occurred to her that Jesus Himself might have taken Himself away!

Sometimes the clouds grow dark in our life because we fail to see God in the midst of the circumstances. We fail to see God’s hand as He is working in the various circumstances of our life. You need to do something, friend, in your everyday life and that is to always look for the hidden hand of God! Always look for the hidden hand of God… All Mary could see is what she thought men had done! All she could see was an empty tomb! All she could see was a missing body! If she had looked beyond and could have seen and recognized the hand of God and taken God into account, there would have never needed to be any tears shed in her life.

I wonder this morning as you look at your life and you see all the things that are happening in your life…and I’m talking about the unhappy things…the sad things…the disasters that you’re going through…the difficulties that you’re going through…I just wonder this morning if you’ve missed the whole point. Are you able to look beyond the immediate and see the hand of God? Do you not realize that the hand of God is always working? It’s unseen, invisible and so you give it no account. We take all the circumstances of our life and we calculate them, but we don’t put God into our calculations, and that’s why there comes the grief and the tears and the heartache and the lack of hope, because we do not put God into our calculations.

The next time you sit down and you figure up all the circumstances of your life, why not include God in your calculations. It’ll make the outcome a lot different!

Oh, there was a new recognition with Mary. And there was a new relationship with Jesus. And there was a new responsibility given to her. Notice what Jesus said to her, “Don’t hang onto Me. Don’t try to hang onto Me…but rather, go instead to My brethren and tell them I am returning to My Father and your Father and My God and your God…” and Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news – “I have seen the Lord” and she told them that He had said these things to her.

Now, here’s an interesting thing…here is Mary who is wanting to cling to Jesus! Naturally, she doesn’t want to leave Jesus’ presence and she’s clinging to Him, and Jesus said, “Let Me go…don’t cling to Me because I’ve not yet ascended to My Father…” There’s a new relationship that we have and it’s not based on the old relationship of physical touch and seeing a all of that. He said that there’s going to be a new spiritual relationship. “Now, that you know that…don’t cling to Me, but I want you to run and go and tell your brethren.” She has a new responsibility! And that is to go and to shout the good news that Jesus Christ is risen! And to say, “I have seen the Lord!”

And if you and I get the point of the resurrection at all, it will be that we are to share with others that the Lord is risen and that we have seen the Master… “I know He’s alive!” The old song says, “I know He lives because He lives in my heart.” But I tell you people who come to church and worship God on Easter and they talk about the resurrected Lord and they go out and they never mention it to anybody, they’ve missed the whole point!

I’ve always thought the resurrection had to be one of the saddest days of Jesus’ life. Why is that? Because not a single person was there to meet Him when He arose! I mean, He’d told them He was going to rise! Even Mary remembered the words after the angels had warned her. But they’d all forgotten! They didn’t believe! And it says in this chapter that Peter puzzled over these things…it never occurred to him that the Lord had risen…He puzzled over these things… “What’s happened? What’s happened?” Can you imagine the disappointment that must have come to the Lord when He comes out of that grave on Easter Sunday morning…the greatest act of human history and there’s not a single person to meet Him. WHY? Because nobody believed Him…they missed the whole point! They missed the whole point!

My prayer this morning is that we’ll not miss the point of the resurrection. The point of the resurrection is that we have a new recognition of Jesus…we see Him and we have a new relationship with Him…and we have a new responsibility and that’s to tell others that we have seen the Lord. Would you bow with me?
Father, we thank You for this day and we thank You
that our Lord is alive and I pray that we would do more than
just come to church and celebrate a day on the calendar. I
pray that we’d hear Jesus speak our name, and that we would
come to understand that with the risen Lord we have a new
relationship with Jesus and a new responsibility. Let us not
miss the whole point of the greatest thing that God ever did.
We pray in Jesus’ name,
Amen

© Ron Dunn, LifeStyle Ministries, 2005

Text: John 18:36

Open your Bibles to the Gospel of John once again. We are going to begin reading with verse 28 of chapter 18 and read through verse 40. We really need to read the entire chapter. I wish that you would read chapters 18 and 19 together. They are some of the most powerful words that have ever been written as they concern our Lord as he is arrested, brought to trial, and then to the cross. You see great conflict between individuals and a great conflict between their goals. It is a wonderful psychological study, seeing the interplay between all those characters in these chapters.

Then they took Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate’s headquarters. It was early in the morning. They themselves did not enter the headquarters so as to avoid ritual defilement and to be able to eat the Passover. (I underlined that as I thought there was great hypocrisy. They didn’t have scruple one about crucifying an innocent man, but they were certainly not going to defile themselves ceremonially. The sad fact is that some people wouldn’t smoke a cigarette or take a drink of wine if you put a gun to their heads, but they do not mind murdering someone with gossip and innuendo. I have found in my own ministry that sometimes those who are the most particular and the most precise about maintaining the ritual cleanness they are the worst at the massacre of the reputations of others.) So Pilate went out to them, and said, what accusation do you bring against this Man? They answered, if this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you. Pilate said to him, take him yourselves, and judge Him according to your law. The Jews replied, we are not permitted to put anyone to death. This was to fulfill what Jesus had said when he indicated the kind of death He was to die. Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, are you the King of the Jews? Jesus answered, Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about Me? Pilate replied, I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me; what have you done? Jesus answered, my kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews; but as it is, my kingdom is not from here. Pilate asked him, so you are a king? Jesus answered, You say that (ought to put a period there) I am a king. (In our vernacular, it would be something like, you said it; I am a king.) For this I was born, and for this I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.

Pilate asked him, what is truth? (Not waiting for an answer because he really wasn’t serious; he was a practical man, a cynical man. He turned after he said this and went out.) He said, I find no case against him. But you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover; do you want me to release for you the king of the Jews. They shouted in reply, not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a bandit, a thief, an anarchist.

If you hate someone, and you want to get rid of them, one excuse is as good as another. If you want to get rid of someone so badly, you don’t need to resort to the truth, especially if there is no truth that will help you in your case. So you pounce upon any part of a statement they have made and you bring up charges that cannot be enforced. Anything—it doesn’t matter. If somebody doesn’t like you, it doesn’t matter what you do; they are going to find some way to find fault with what you do.

The chief priests were this way. They were so absorbed by their hatred of Jesus that any old reason would do. They brought him to Pilate and Pilate asked what he was charged with. They didn’t really have a stand-up, legal charge or accusation, so, they said he was obviously a criminal or they would not have brought him to you in the first place. Somewhere along the line, someone had mentioned to Pilate that he claimed to be a king. This caught Pilate’s attention because if there was another king floating around, he was a threat to the empire, and a threat to Caesar. He brings Jesus into his headquarters and asks if he is king of the Jews. And Jesus said, are you asking for your own sake or do you perceive something in me, or has somebody else put this notion in your head. Pilot said, I’m not a Jew. I don’t know about that stuff. Your own people have brought you here. So there has to be something wrong. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. If there is an accusation, then there has to be something to it. After all, we are guilty until we are proved innocent. Are you a king?

Jesus said, you said that I am a king. And then come what I believe are the key words in these chapters. In verse 36, Jesus answered, my kingdom is not from this world. Literally, it is not out of this world. Literally, it is not laid aside this world as for comparison. It is not like this world. If my kingdom were like this world, and from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. As it is, my kingdom is not from here. Then Jesus defines his kingdom. He says, I am a king, and for this cause I was born, and for this I came into the world (and here it is) to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice. Now, I want us to focus on those words as we think about the king and his kingdom. Let me just point out five things about the kingdom of our Lord.

1) This kingdom is not of this world.

This is not a worldly kingdom. If my kingdom was like this world, and of this world, then my followers would fight. In the garden, when they came to take Jesus, Peter did pull out a sword and fight. He went to Malchus and cut off his ear. Peter wasn’t afraid to fight, but he was a poor shot. He didn’t mean to cut off his ear; he meant to slice him down the middle—Mal on one side, and Chus on the other. Jesus said, put away your sword. And he restored the ear. You would think right then and there, that would be enough to say this man is a good man. This man must be a godly man, but that makes no difference. He said, if my kingdom were of this world, then my people would act like that and they would use worldly methods to obtain their goal.

One of the problems that Christianity has always had is that there has always been the temptation to make his kingdom a kingdom of this world. Even the Jews thought when the Messiah would come that he would establish an earthly kingdom right here and now, and throw off the Roman yoke of bondage. They did not accept him because he did not appear as they expected him to appea, and his goals were not their goals. Even the disciples didn’t understand. After the resurrection in Acts 1, they said, Lord, will you at this time now restore the kingdom to Israel? Pagan writers like Tacitus ?? and Setonia ?? said, there were legends and tales that out of Judah would come a deliverer. Everybody was thinking in terms of an earthly kingdom, an earthly power, an earthly reign. But Jesus said, my kingdom is not of this world.

In about 320 A.D. Constantine did the worst harm that has ever been done to the Christian church. He made it a kingdom of this world. Jesus said, if my kingdom was of this world, I would use worldly methods to build it. Of course, the implication is to build my kingdom I do not use worldly methods. The church throughout the centuries has often forgotten those words. There is that constant temptation for us to revert to the methods of the world to build the kingdom.

You see, this is the kind of Messiah the disciples started to follow. When they started to follow Jesus, they had a different Jesus in mind. They had a Jesus who one day would overthrow that Roman yoke of bondage. That’s why the sons of Zebedee said they wanted to sit one on the right hand and one on the left hand. They were anticipating a worldly kingdom, and they were wanting to share in that power and authority. This Jesus of the cross—oh, no, this is not the Jesus they wanted to follow. If you notice as you study the gospels, every time Jesus brought up the cross, the disciples tried to change the subject. This is not the Christ they decided to follow. Not the kind who was going to be humble and humiliated and act as a servant and finally die on a Roman Cross. This is not the Jesus they chose to follow.

I am afraid today many of us are trying to follow the wrong Jesus. We are not interested in following the Jesus of lowliness and humility and service and suffering and sacrifice. We are wanting to follow the Jesus who will make us healthy and wealthy. Jesus said, my kingdom is not of this world. The values of this world do not have any values in the kingdom that are mine. Each one of us needs to apply this to our own lives.

2) This kingdom is a kingdom of truth.

He says, for this cause I was born, and for this I came into the world to testify to the truth. His kingdom is not of this world; his kingdom is of the truth. Jesus is saying, if my kingdom were of this world, my followers would use worldly methods as their weapons. But he said, the only weapon I have to gain candidates for the kingdom is the weapon of truth. I came to testify of this truth. My disciples will be commissioned to testify of the truth—to preach the gospel, to preach the Word. The thing that disturbs me so much today is that we have gotten to the place that we think you can’t build a church, or you can’t build the kingdom just with preaching. Oh, I heard a pastor ust a week or so ago bragging. That he didn’t preachdoctrine at his church. He just preached Jesus. Well, Jesus is doctrine, folks. They say doctrine divides. Well, doctrine is just another word for truth, and truth does divide. That is what it is intended to do. Paul believed that you can build a great church by just preaching Jesus. You read in Colossians 1 where he says, whom we preach, teaching and warning every man, that we may present every man perfect, full grown in the presence of Jesus Christ. Paul’s method was by preaching the truth. Yet, so much today we withhold the truth in order to make sinners feel comfortable. I don’t think the truth ever makes anybody feel comfortable. I don’t want to know the whole truth about myself, do you? We hide from that truth.

When I had reconstructive surgery done on my hand, and they took the bandages off my hand, I didn’t want to look at it. I can’t stand the sight of my own blood. I can’t stand the sight of your blood as a matter of fact. We are getting mighty personal when we talk about my blood. And I’m afraid if I saw the innermost of my being, down in the guts of my soul, I am afraid it would make it sick. Don’t want to know too much truth. But Jesus says, this is the only way to build the kingdom—by testifying of the truth. I want to re-emphasize this truth: the one weapon that the church has to conquer the world is truth.

3) This kingdom is based upon allegiance to Jesus Christ.

You’ll notice he says, everyone who believes the truth listens to my voice. In other words, in this kingdom, there is an allegiance to Jesus Christ. We believe that he is the way, the truth and the life, and that no man comes to the Father except by him.

Listen to the chief priests. Pilate didn’t want to have anything to do with Jesus. We’ll see why in a moment. In verse 10, he said, do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have the power to release you, and the power to crucify you? In your dreams, Pilate. Jesus answered him, you would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above. What a tremendous statement! The Jews cried out (because Pilate was wanting to release him), if you release this man, you are no friend of the emperor. Everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against Caesar. Then the damning statement they make in verse 15: they cried out, away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate asked, shall I crucify your king? And the chief priests answered, we have no king but Caesar.

Well, if you want to get rid of somebody, any excuse will do. They were lying. They knew God was their king. Besides, they hated Caesar, the emperor. What they were looking for was to be delivered from Rome. If Jesus had come promising that, they would not have hated him. But, you see, they will side with their own enemy in order to get rid of truth. We have no God but Caesar. This is a kingdom of truth. The way you gain members in this kingdom, the one weapon we have, is to preach and proclaim and testify of the truth. My dear friends, if the truth about Jesus will not bring men into the kingdom, you had better not bring them in any other way.

4) This kingdom depends upon the king dying.

In Yugosloslavia, as long as Tito lived, there was one kingdom. When he died, the kingdom fell apart. It is the way of the kingdoms of this world that the king must live.

In the ancient days in England they guarded the king’s life. Why? Because there were always those who were threatening to overthrow the king. Then all kinds of changes could come about and the political ramifications would be too much for them to take. There was always someone else waiting to take over. So, they guarded the king’s life. They had men who tested the food before the king ate of it. Why? They couldn’t afford for the king to die.

I hear the pope is sick. They are trying to keep it quiet, because that is a kingdom of this world, and the political ramifications if there is a new pope, are more than the establishment wants to bear. You see, worldly kingdoms depend upon their king surviving. But this kingdom, not of this world, depends upon the king dying. This kingdom will only survive, and only be brought forth into abundance, if the king himself dies.

Jesus is not trying to save his life. He doesn’t have any royal food testers around. He doesn’t have bodyguards around him. He doesn’t travel in a bullet-proof donkey. He is not trying to protect his life. Why? It is necessary that he die. So Jesus gave up his life. He said, I lay down my life. No man takes my life from me; I lay it down. In chapter 19, verse 28: After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said, in order to fulfill the Scripture, I am thirsty. A jar full of sour wine was standing there, so they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, it is finished. Then he bowed his head (the idea is voluntarily he bowed his head) and he gave up the Ghost. It was a voluntary death.

There is a statement in the Gospel of Luke that I find quite remarkable. In Luke, chapter 23, verse 46, when Luke is talking about the death of Jesus on the cross, he says, then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. Crying with a loud voice!

People don’t die that way. People don’t die with a loud voice. Oh, if they see they are going to be in a car crash, they may scream. If they see somebody is going to shoot them, they may scream. Here is a man who has been hanging on the cross for hours, dying, dying, dying. People don’t die with a loud voice. They die with a whisper. I learned this from doctors. I would be visiting in the hospital and, passing by a room, I would hear somebody in the room yell, Oh, I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying. I would expect all the doctors and nurses to run in there. They didn’t do it. I asked one why, and he said, ah, they are not dying. He said, nobody dies shouting. They go out in a whisper, even if they are able to do that. But Jesus cried with a loud voice. What was he saying? I’m in control. This death is of my choosing. You haven’t weakened me one bit. You haven’t taken one thing from me. With a loud voice, he cried, it is finished. You see, the only way this kingdom is going to be brought about is if the king himself dies.

I have a fifth thing I want to say about the Kingdom. Why was Pilate so interested? You cannot get away from the fact that Pilate didn’t want to crucify him. Pilate tried again and again and again to get away from the issue. He wanted to release him. Over and over again, he wanted to release him. He said, I find no fault in him. . I guess he thought to himself, I know these people are simple and good enough if they had a choice, they would choose the right man. He said, it is your custom at the Passover that one man be released to you. Surely you want Jesus, the king, released to you. They said, no, away with him. Give us Barabbas! I wondered why they singled out Barabbas when there were a thousand prisoners anyone of whom could have been released. You see, Barabbas was guilty of the crime with which they accused Jesus. He was an anarchist. He wanted to overthrow the government. So they will murder the innocent child of God and take a thief. Pilate is desperately trying to release him. Pilate’s only interest in Jesus was his threat as a king. In the final analysis, Pilate released Barabbas to keep his job. They caught his attention when they said, well, if you side with Jesus, you are no friend of Caesar’s. Pilate wanted to be the friend of Caesar. All Pilate was interested in was whether this man who claims to be a king is a threat to Rome. That was his only interest. Is he a threat to the overthrowing of the empire? Jesus said that his kingdom was not of this world, his followers do not fight, so Pilate was assured that this man and his kingdom were no threat to Rome.

5) This kingdom will bring down all the kingdoms of the earth.

So Pilate said, let him go. Why? He’s no threat. Look at him, this peasant, this Jew that his own nation rejects. He refuses to talk to me to save his life. He has no soldiers. This man is no threat to Rome, and yet it was this man who destroyed Rome. It was this kingdom who brought down the kingdom of Rome. The thing about Jesus’ kingdom is that it will bring down all the kingdoms of the earth.

The other day my wife asked me for a credit card, and I gave her one. She said, I want another one. I said, why two, Kaye? I worked hard to get that in! The millennium is bringing out all the nuts. Most of those preaching and talking about Y2K are also selling books and tapes. I was in the bookstore the other day, and they had a whole table full of books on Y2K. One book was entitled, Y2K, It’s Already Too Late. I thought that was a terrible title. If it’s too late, why buy the book? It is amazing. I’ve had people try to sell me thousands of dollars worth of food. There may be a few glitches when we turn 2000. I’m prepared for that. I have an extra carton of cream soda, and a couple of extra mud pies, and a little bit of extra money in my pocket. They are so worried. Friends, it’s just another date on the calendar. You say, well, the world’s going to end. Well, so what? I don’t care. I’m ready. Frankly, I’ve seen all of the world I want to see. If there’s going to be some madman push a button, and we are all going to be nuked to death, you’ll go out in a flash and won’t feel a thing.

I know this much. The kingdom to which I belong rules over every other kingdom. The king to whom I have given my allegiance rules over every other king. I have nothing to fear. So, there they are in that great coliseum, those Christians being torn and eaten by lions, slain by the gladiators. They were just a little group of people who prayed, and as the lions licked the blood of the saints, and Caesar seemed unconquerable, who would ever have imagined that the little group who prayed would win—and be victorious. This kingdom shall bring down all the kingdoms of the earth.

© Ron Dunn, LifeStyle Ministries, 2006