Outlaws in the right

Pilate delivers Jesus to be crucified. “That’s an interesting thing,” says Jordan, “because, when you read that, you think Pilate’s doing that on his own, but if you go to Luke 23 it says, ‘And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed. And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required.’

“Pilate was doing it in reaction to and as the requirement of the Jews. That’s why in Acts 2 Peter would say to the leaders of Israel, ‘Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.’

“Well, they didn’t physically do it. The people who drove the nails in the hands of Jesus Christ were Romans. You need to remember that when you hear people talk about Romanism.

“There’s a lot of motivations behind it all. The Jews want Him dead; Pilate sentences Him.

“There’s a lot of discussion about what’s right, and our rights, and what we have a right to do and, ‘You have no right to treat me that way,’ and people have no right to do this or that or the next thing.

“Read Psalm 94. Here’s a Jew calling out to God to show vengeance against His enemies. Verse 20 says, ‘Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?’

“I read that I say, ‘Wow, they’ve got wicked laws on the books. They framed mischief by laws. They pass laws that produce mischief in reality.’ Ever see a law like that? We see a lot of them around today.

“The next verse says, ‘They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.’ It’s a fascinating world we live in. That same attitude prevails in our day.

“In the last two decades, that kind of a framing mischief by law has taken control of the culture of western civilization and it’s taking control of the culture of America, and you now have mandates that are the law of the land, that really are nothing but the framing of mischief and iniquity.

“You’ve got cultural mandates that allow a young woman at the Olympics to stand up and just make the comment that she’s a virgin and what happens to her?

“She was mocked by the media for being out of touch: ‘How can you be 29 years old and still follow . . .?’ Then you have the young teenager who won a gold medal and she gives the Lord glory for everything and it rankles them.

“Now you have the same crowd win the gold medals and they can be sluts and harlots and they’re glorified. The media touts them. Those are not just attitudes but those have become the accepted norms of our culture. It’s almost as if you’re an outlaw if you’re going to be different than that.

“Psalm 94 is a Jew during the tribulation period but also it’s what’s happening back here.  Now before you get too bent out of shape about it happening to you, whether it’s in your personal relationships where people are unjust to you and you’re made to endure those kind of things, or it’s a cultural kind of thing like this where it’s the government, understand the Lord Jesus Christ had the same type thing happen to Him. The difference is He had no deserving of it.

“Isaiah 53:7 says, ‘He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.’

“Isaiah says he was taken from prison, then he’s going to be taken to the judgment and from the judgment he’s going to be taken to death. The normal order of trials and execution aren’t going to be followed and the pattern in Isaiah is he’s taken from prison, then he’s taken from judgment and then to death.

“What happens in John 19? Prison, judgment, death. They don’t know anything about the prophecy or the type. They’re not thinking about that at all. In the blindness of their unbelief they’re fulfilling what the Scripture said was going to take place. Every detail of what happens in this passage it’s crafted in such a way that what God said in time past about what was happening comes to pass.

“John 19: 17 says, ‘And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha.’  You go back to Exodus 29 and you’ll see that God said the burnt offering is to be sent forth out of the camp. It’s not to be offered in the city. It’s to go forth outside of the camp to be offered.

“Hebrews 13 said it took him OUTSIDE the camp. They’re not doing it because they want to fulfill the Levitical laws; they’re doing it because of their hatred and their anger, and yet God uses the wrath of men to praise Him and do it exactly the way He said they would do it.

“Genesis 22:2 says, ‘And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.’

“God gave this place a prophetic name called the mountain of the Lord and that name, if you go over into Solomon’s reign, when Solomon picks a place to build the temple in II Chronicles 3, he builds it on that mountain where Abraham offers Isaac. Isn’t that fascinating? Right outside of the city of Jerusalem, as far back as Gen 22, on the same location where later on the Lord Jesus Christ is going to go out and be crucified, he’s offering Isaac!

“Verse 3 says, ‘And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.’

“Abraham knows he’s going to go there, he’s going to sacrifice His Son, and he and the lad are going to come back. Abraham believed in resurrection. ‘And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together.’

“Who carried the wood for the offering fire up the hill? It was on the back of Isaac. So when the Lord Jesus Christ here is to be crucified, ‘bearing His cross he went forth’ outside the camp to the very spot where Abraham’s going to offer Isaac, He goes forth to take the burnt offering.”

(Editor’s note: To be continued tomorrow . . . )