Setting The Stage In Luke

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You are listening to Heed the Word with our pastor and teacher Ken Davis. Pastor Ken is the senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Southwest Metro in Burleson, Texas. Please join us as we study the Gospel of Luke verse by verse.

Enemies United, Church Divided

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Isn't it interesting how Satan can persuade enemies to be at peace with one another in order to do evil? And yet so often Christians cannot be at peace with each other in order to do good. It's a sad situation, isn't it? A sad state of affairs. When we look at the needs in our community and we say, you know, there is this particular thing that if all of the churches would band together, they could do and could accomplish for the Lord, and yet they don't because of the differences that they have.

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The Gospel of Luke is the third account in the Gospels of the life and teachings of our Savior, Jesus Christ. As believers, there are a few studies that will benefit us more spiritually than studying the life and teachings of the Master. Why is it that the very worst of enemies can become friends in order to work some scheme of evil? And yet those who profess to walk with the creator of the universe can't set aside petty differences in order to accomplish the will of God. The cause simply is pride. We think we're right, and they, whoever they is, is wrong. That keeps us from getting together to serve the living God. Don't forget to stay with us after today's message to hear more information about He the Word, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, please open your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 22, verse 16, as we join Pastor Ken.

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Now the men who held Jesus mocked. They mocked him and beat

Night Of Mockery And Blindfold Blows

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him. And having blindfolded him, they struck him on the face and asked him, saying, Prophesy, who is the one who struck you? And many other things they blasphemously spoke against him. We don't even know everything that they said, but we know that their design was to humiliate him. Their design was to belittle him and to degrade him. What cause did they have for this? What had Jesus ever done but heal and speak the truth? And yet the depravity of man is revealed in their actions. There gets to be this mob mentality, I'm sure you've seen it, where once the smell of blood gets into the nostrils of sinful man, such atrocities can take place. And this went on through the night. They're saying, Hey, look, just come right out and say it. Are you the Christ? Are you the Messiah? Are you the one we're supposed to be looking for? Tell us. You know, don't beat around the bush, Jesus. You know, make yourself clear. If you're the Messiah, say so, right? I mean, we know he's supposed to be coming soon. And you know, we know that he's supposed to deliver us from Rome and set up his kingdom. So is it you? Tell us. You see, they're asking a question that they don't really want an answer to. They're asking a question, hoping that he'll say something by which to accuse him.

The Unanswerable Question Of Messiah

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They're wanting him to make claim to something so that they can say, See, you're lying, and have him put to death. And Jesus says to them in verse 67, if I tell you, you will by no means believe. If I tell you that I'm the Christ, you're not going to believe that I'm the Christ. You're not going to believe anyway. So I'm not going to tell you. He refuses to answer that question. And then he says, and if I also ask you, you will by no means answer me or let me go. Meaning this, if I you're asking me a question, and if I gave you the answer, you wouldn't believe it anyway. And if I in turn ask you a question, you will not answer the question. Meaning, if I ask you a question, you will not be able to respond to me. And yet, besides the fact, or in spite of the fact that you won't be able to respond to me, still, you're not going to let me go. In essence, he's saying there's no point in my giving a defense of any kind because it would be a useless defense. You're not going to believe me, you're not going to answer me, and you're not going to let me go. You see, the question that Jesus is referring to is one that he had asked them previously when he said, you know, whose son is the Messiah? And they said, Well, he's David's son. And he says, Well, if he's David's son, then how is it that David said of him, the Lord, said unto my Lord, Sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool? He's saying, How is it that if he is David's offspring, David prophesying, calls him Lord? The answer to that question is this: the only way that David would call his offspring Lord is if his offspring were in fact the Messiah or God incarnate. And so had they answered that question, had they been able to answer how it is that David could call him Lord, then they would have acknowledged the fact that the one who was to be the Messiah would not be merely a man, but would be greater than a man. In fact, he would be the very Son of God. But they had refused to answer that question because they couldn't figure it out and they wouldn't admit the point. And so Jesus said, If I ask you, you won't answer me. And not being able to answer me, you won't be able to let me go. In essence, it's as though he were saying this look, I can ask you a question that if you will answer, it would prove to you that I am the Messiah. But you won't answer the question. And so if I said I am the Messiah, you cannot prove that I'm not the Messiah. But in spite of the fact that you cannot prove that I am not the Messiah, you won't let me go anyway. That's what was being said here. Then, verse 70, they all said, Are you then the Son of God? Revealing that they really knew the answer to the question. So he said to them, You rightly say that I am. And they said, What further testimony do we

Son Of God And The Charge Of Blasphemy

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need? For we have heard it ourselves from his own mouth. They're like, you know, hey, that's it right there. He said what we wanted him to say. He admitted that he was the Son of God or that he laid claim to it. He's blaspheming. Well, guess what? It's only blasphemy if it isn't true. If it's true, then it's not blasphemy. And it was true, but they refused to believe that it was true. And so the only acceptable answer that they saw was that he was blaspheming. And so here they say, we've got him, because blasphemy under Jewish religious law is punishable by death. And so they're gonna kill him. Moving into our text for this morning, verse 20, chapter 23, verse 1.

Shift To Pilate And Political Accusations

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Then the whole multitude of them arose and led him to Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a king. Now do you notice something? The charges have changed. He's not being brought to Pilate because of blasphemy. He's being brought to Pilate. Why? Because he's perverting the nation, meaning trying to lead them away from Roman submission, to submission to Rome, that is, and he's forbidding them to pay taxes to Caesar. And he's saying that he himself is Christ, and hey, Christ is a king. So he is setting himself up as the governing authority. He's causing a rebellion to take place. That is the charge that they levy against him. Now, why do you think they levy that charge? Because Pilate isn't gonna care if he blasphemed. Pilate doesn't care at all whether or not he broke some religious law that the Jews had among themselves. And he's not going to lend the authority of the Roman government to enforce some Jewish religious law. He's just not gonna do that, and they know it. And so they realize that if they want him put to death, then they have to bring a charge that the Romans would consider worthy of death. And even though they know he's not guilty of the charges they bring, they've justified it in their minds, saying it doesn't really matter because we know he deserves to die anyway. So we can lie and bring charges against him that we know to be false in order to bring about the end that we desire, that is, his end or his death. In doing this, in turning him over to Pilate, they were fulfilling two prophecies that Jesus himself had given. One that he would be turned over to the Gentiles, and so they have fulfilled that one. The second being the method or manner of his death, when Jesus said, If the Son of Man be lifted up, he will draw all men unto himself. Speaking of his death by crucifixion, you see, when the Jews would put someone to death, their method was stoning. They would throw rocks at them until they died. The Roman method was crucifixion, and it was prophesied that that would be the manner of Jesus' death. And so they bring this charge.

Prophecy Fulfilled In Roman Trial

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Then Pilate asked him, saying, Are you the king of the Jews? And he answered, It is as you say. Now there's a little bit more to this interview that I want us to look at in the Gospel of John. Let's turn to John chapter 18, starting in verse 28. Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the Praetorium, and it was early morning. It's probably about five or six in the morning when all this is happening. But they themselves did not go into the praetorium, that is, into Pilate's area there, into the Gentiles' quarters, so to speak, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover. We have here an example of hypocrisy taken to the ridiculous extreme. Here they have it in their hearts to murder an innocent man, never mind the fact that he is their own Messiah, God Himself. They have it in their hearts to murder him, and yet they don't want to defile themselves by stepping foot inside of a Gentile's grounds. They have this

Pilate’s Dilemma And Jewish Tensions

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understanding that it is the outward things that they did that would defile them, rather than truly understanding that it's not the things that are outside of us that defile us, but it's what's in our hearts that defiles us. Here they are straining at this little bitty gnat of going into Pilate's praetorium, and yet they swallow the camel of committing murder. What hypocrisy. What self-deception, that they could take part in such a horrendous sin, and yet think in their minds that they were clean. Pilate went out to them and said, What accusation do you bring against this man? They answered and said to him, If he were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered him up to you. In other words, look, Pilate, just kill him and don't ask any questions, okay? Don't ask any questions, don't involve yourself. This is a private matter. We just want him dead. I want you to think about this for a second. Put yourself in Pilate's frame of mind. It would probably help to know a little bit about who Pilate was. So let me tell you, Pilate was the Roman governor of Judea at this time. And without going into a long biography, let me just tell you that he hadn't had the best relationship with the Jewish people up to this point. There had been several incidents that had occurred that had really set the tone for their relationship. For instance, he had had the Romans bring in their standards, their flags, you know, that had the picture of Caesar on them, and he'd brought them into the holy city of Jerusalem. Well, there was a little problem with that, and that was that the Jewish people considered those things idols. And they were furious about the fact that Pilate had brought idols in and they began to protest this. And a bunch of them came together and they said, Look, you know, you can't do this. And he says, You know what, leave me alone about it, or I'm gonna kill you. And they said, You know what, that's fine. And they laid down and they bared their necks and they said, kill us, because we'd rather you kill us than have these idols in our city. And he was unwilling to shed that much blood at that time in such a blatant manner, and so he said, Okay, fine, take them down. So he backed off in that situation. But there was another situation when an aqueduct needed to be built. And Pilate looks around and he says, Well, you know, we need some money to build this aqueduct. This is a public works project. It's a worthy investment for the city. We need water in the city, right? So let's take some of the money out of the temple treasury and let's use this to build the aqueduct. Well, again, these huge protests began to erupt. And Pilate said, No, no, no, I'm not backing down this time. And so what he did is he decided to execute his judgment in a very covert way. And that is this he had the Roman soldiers dress in civilian clothing and go out and mingle with the crowd that was protesting. And at the given signal, they turned upon the crowd and began to beat them with sticks, killing many of them, shedding a lot of blood. And so Pilate's relationship with the Jewish people was a very tenuous relationship. Then you added the fact that on more than one occasion, at least on one occasion, I should say,

My Kingdom Is Not Of This World

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they had sent word to Rome saying, look, we don't like what Pilate's doing. And Pilate had been rebuked and said, don't do that. And so there was this tension that had developed in Pilate's relationship, both with the Jews over whom he was ruling and also with the Romans whom he was serving. So as you can see, Pilate was in a bit of a pickle. He was in kind of a difficult situation. His work life was not the simplest that it could be, let's just say. And you know, Pilate is a politician and he has ambitions, you know. There's a good chance that he's thinking I might like a nicer post or a better assignment, and I might like to

What Is Truth And No Fault Found

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move up in the ranks. And so he's an ambitious person as well. And so he has a difficult dilemma here because it's his responsibility to keep peace, to keep order. And here we have the Passover going on, and there are just hundreds of thousands of people in Jerusalem, and the last thing he needs right now is trouble with the Jewish elders. And so they answered him. Then Pilate said to them, You take him and judge him according to your law. He's saying, Look, if you don't want to tell me what he did, then don't involve me in it. You take him and you judge him according to your law. It's your problem, you take care of it. Therefore, the Jews said to him, It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death. The reason that they say that is this. Under Roman rule, the authority to meet out capital punishment had been taken from the Jewish

Pass The Case To Herod

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elders. They did not have the authority under Roman law to execute someone. And yet they executed Stephen, didn't they? They stoned Stephen to death. And so there was something more here than just abiding by the regulations that they were living under. You see, they also knew that there were hundreds of thousands of people in Jerusalem at that time, and they also knew that many of those people were loyal to Jesus. And so they wanted him dead, but they didn't want the responsibility of having been the ones to carry out that sentence. And so they hoped to use the Roman authority as a tool to bring about his execution. Then Pilate entered the Praetorium again and called Jesus and said to him, Are you the King of the Jews? Jesus answered him, Are you speaking for yourself about this? Or did others tell this, tell you this concerning me? Pilate, have you heard that I was king of the Jews? Are you inquiring

Herod’s Curiosity And Christ’s Silence

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for yourself as to whether or not I'm the king of the Jews? Why do you want to know, Pilate, that I am the king of the Jews? He's asking Pilate very directly, Is this something you've come up with on your own, or are you just asking that question because that's what they told you? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you to me. What have you done? Jesus answered him, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now my kingdom is not from here. Pilate therefore said to him, Are you a king then? Jesus answered, You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice. Pilate said to him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, I find no fault in him at all. You see, they had accused

Mocked, Robed, And Returned

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him of stirring up and fomenting rebellion, and of telling the people not to pay their taxes to Caesar, when in fact we know that he told them just the opposite, right? He said to them, Render unto Caesar's that which is Caesar's, and render unto the Lord that which is the Lord's. The kingdom that Jesus was proclaiming was a spiritual kingdom. And he reveals this very plainly to Pilate. And Pilate understands what he's talking about in the sense that this man is. Is no threat to the Roman authority. The charges that they have brought against this man are purely false. And Pilate knows it. He knows that it's because of envy that they want to kill Jesus. And he was right. Let's turn back to Luke chapter 23. So Pilate said to the chief priests in the crowd,

Herod And Pilate Become Friends

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verse 4, picking up really where we left off in John, I find no fault in this man. But they were the more fierce, saying, He stirs up the people, teaching them throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee to this place. They're saying, Listen, Pilate, you don't understand. This guy is causing something crazy to happen. I mean, he's stirring up the people. They're not listening to us anymore, they're listening to him, is what they're really saying. All the way from Galilee to here, and all of a sudden something clicks with Pilate. Ah, Galilee. Maybe I can just pass the buck on this problem.

A Call To Christian Unity

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Maybe I don't have to make a decision at all. Verse 6. For when Pilate heard of Galilee, he asked if the man were a Galilean. And as soon as he knew that he belonged to Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who was also in Jerusalem at that time. Now, when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceedingly glad. For he had desired for a long time to see him because he had heard many things about him and he hoped to see some miracle done by him. You know there are a lot of people like that today, aren't there? They want to see a miracle. They want to see something amazing. These are the people who are seeking the experiences, but not the relationships. They want to see all of the wonderful signs, and they want to maybe hear wonderful worship music, and they want to be entertained, and they want and they want and they want. But what they don't want is to be called to repent of their sins and to turn their lives over to Jesus Christ and to follow him as their Lord and as their Savior. They don't want that, but they do want to see something, they want that flash and that excitement, and that's what Herod wanted. He wanted to see a miracle. Then Herod questioned him with many words, but he answered him with nothing. And the chief priests and scribes stood and vehemently accused him. Then Herod, with his men of war, treated him with contempt and mocked him, arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him back to Pilate. That very day Pilate and Herod became friends with each other, for previously they had been at enmity with each other. Isn't it interesting how Satan can persuade enemies to be at peace with one another in order to do evil? And yet so often Christians cannot be at peace with each other in order to do good. That's a sad situation, isn't it? A sad state of affairs. When we look at the needs in our community and we say, you know, there is this particular thing that if all of the churches would band together, they could do and could accomplish for the Lord, and yet they don't because of the differences that they have. We need to recognize the fact, guys, that you know what? The Baptists up the street and the Methodists over there and these various groups and denominations, if they proclaim the name of Jesus Christ and if they believe this word of God, then we can be in fellowship with them and we can work together with them, and we don't have to be against them or them against us. Do they understand some things differently than we do? Yes, of course they do. But you've heard me say it before, and I'll say it many times more. I agree with the statement of Martin Luther when he said that in the essentials of the gospel we must have unity. That means there are certain things that the scripture clearly teaches that we cannot compromise on.

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For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds. And to him who knocks, it will be

Closing, Resources, And Invitation

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opened. That's chapter 11, verse 10 of the book we are currently studying here on Heed the Word, Luke. Luke's gospel account of the life of Jesus is an invaluable study that we know God will use in your life. We do thank you for joining us today. This has been another edition of Heed the Word with our pastor and teacher, Ken Davis. As you likely heard at the beginning of today's program, this message is available free of charge at our website. Simply log on to www.heedheword.org. That's heedtheword.org. Once you're there, select the listen online page. There you'll find the Heed the Word Media Player. For your convenience, today's message is available in MP3 podcast and mobile formats. By far, the best way to stay current with all the latest teachings from Pastor Ken is to subscribe to the Heed the Word podcast. So log on to Heedheword.org and continue studying with us today. If today's message has ministered to you and you live in the Burleson, Texas area, or will be passing through, we'd like to invite you to join us for worship. We meet each Sunday morning at 10.30 a.m. and Wednesday evenings at 7 p.m. You can log on to HeedTheWord.org for driving directions and more information. So please stop by and visit us. Well, that's all the time we have for today. We encourage you to join us next time as Pastor Ken continues teaching through the Gospel of Luke on the next edition of Heathe Word.