Man, Luke chapter 23, beginning verse number 1, the Bible reads,
And the whole multitude of them arose, and led him unto Pilate.
And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation,
and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is a king.
Now, who is this group? Well, let's back up into chapter 22,
and we'll see, beginning in verse number 66,
And as soon as it was day, the elders of the people, and the chief priests,
and the scribes came together, and led him into their counsel, saying,
Art thou the Christ? Tell us.
And he said unto them, If I tell you, you will not believe.
And if I also ask you, you will not answer me, nor let me go.
Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God.
Then said they all, Art thou then the Son of God?
And he said unto them, Ye say that I am.
And they said, What need have we any further witness?
For we ourselves have heard of his own mouth.
Then it says, The whole multitude of them arose, and led him unto Pilate.
So it's the Jews, it's the chief priests, the scribes, the elders of the Jews,
who bring him to Pilate, the Roman governor, and they want him to condemn them.
Now, the reason why they did this is because it was not lawful for them to put anyone to death.
The Jews were allowed to punish people, but they could not dole out the death penalty.
That was reserved for the Roman governor, and they want Jesus dead.
They don't want any punishment for him than death.
And so they take him to the Roman governor and say, This guy's perverting the nation.
And then they say he's forbidding to give tribute to Caesar.
So they're trying to speak this Roman governor's language, saying,
Well, he's telling us that we're not supposed to pay taxes to you.
Now, this is, of course, a bold-faced lie.
They specifically came to him and asked him whether it was lawful to give tribute to Caesar or no.
And he specifically said, Yes, render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's.
So this is just a blatant lie where they're saying that he forbade them to give tribute to Caesar,
saying that he himself is Christ the king.
Now, Jesus Christ truly was a king and is the king of kings,
and he's called in the Bible many times the king of the Jews.
But he did not go around proclaiming himself to be a king.
In fact, when they tried to make him a king by force, he slipped away.
He departed. He left because he knew that the plan was for him to give his life on the cross
and that his time was not yet come to be the king.
It says in verse 4, Then said, Pilot to the chief priests and to the people,
I find no fault in this man.
And they were the more fierce, saying,
He stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place.
Because remember, they had preached in every town and every village
all the way through the land of Israel from Galilee all the way to Judea.
When Pilot heard of Galilee, he asked whether the man were Galilean.
Verse 7, And as soon as he knew that he belonged unto Herod's jurisdiction,
he sent him to Herod, who himself also was at Jerusalem at that time.
So Pilot just doesn't even want to get involved.
That's pretty much his attitude.
He says, Well, why don't you go judge him?
Well, we can't because we can't put anybody to death.
Well, I don't find any fault in him.
No, that's not good enough because we have a law and he needs to be punished.
So then as soon as he hears that Jesus is from Galilee,
this is like an excuse to just kind of get this out of his hair.
He just doesn't want to mess with it. He'd rather that someone else deal with it.
So when he hears Galilee, he's like, Yes, this gives me an excuse to just get this thing out of my courtroom.
So he just sends him, Well, let's have King Herod deal with him.
That's his jurisdiction. He's over Galilee.
Well, Herod, even though he's ruling over Galilee, is in Jerusalem at that time.
And it says, you know, so it's just a quick trip, basically.
So they just kind of send him down the street to Herod.
And it says in verse 8, And when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding glad,
for he was desirous to see him of a long season, because he had heard many things of him,
and he hoped to have seen some miracle done by him.
Then he questioned with him in many words, but he answered him, Nothing.
Now, this is a pretty interesting scripture here where Herod is happy to see Jesus.
He wants to see Jesus. He wants to hear what he has to say.
He desires to hear the word of God out of the mouth of Christ.
And he'd like to see one of Christ's miracles.
So why is it that Jesus refuses to even say a word to him?
I mean, what we're taught in 2018 about Jesus is that,
Well, anybody, you know, anybody is just ready to be welcomed by open arms with Christ.
Until their last breath, it's never too late for anyone.
Isn't that what we hear over and over again?
But here we see a perfect example of someone for whom it is too late.
Because Herod, even though he says, Okay, Jesus, what do you have to say?
Preach to me. Let me hear you preach. Let me hear the word of God.
You know, you'd think that Jesus would talk to him, right?
But there's a specific reason why Jesus won't talk to him.
And the reason is this.
Earlier on, John the Baptist had been arrested and put in prison.
And if you remember, Herod listened to him preach often.
Herod would go into the jail cell and listen to what John the Baptist had to say.
And John the Baptist would preach the word of God to him.
And Herod actually had respect for John the Baptist, listened to him, and so forth.
Even though he was not saved, even though he didn't receive the truth of what John the Baptist was saying,
he still liked to listen to John the Baptist and he respected him.
But if you remember, there came a point where he made this foolish oath.
And he ended up having to execute John the Baptist.
So Herod actually had John the Baptist beheaded.
Now, he beheaded John the Baptist.
Now when Jesus comes along, Jesus won't talk to him.
And I believe what the Bible is teaching us here is that God sends a messenger to speak his word.
And when you silence that messenger in your life, you know, you might be at the end of your chances right there.
Now, we don't know how many chances God's going to give people.
But if you look at Pharaoh, for example, you know, the messenger was sent.
Moses came and preached to Pharaoh.
Pharaoh refused to listen to Moses.
He did not hearken unto the word of God at the mouth of Moses.
And what happened?
The Bible says Pharaoh hardened his heart.
Well then, later on, as we read that story, it stops saying that Pharaoh hardened his heart and it says God hardened Pharaoh's heart.
But first he hardened his own heart.
And this is what's important.
Because the Calvinists will make it sound like God just picked people and just hardened their heart for no reason.
Just according to his will.
But that's not true.
Pharaoh hardened his own heart and then God hardened his own heart.
See, if a person hears the word of God over and over again, doesn't respond to it, hardens their heart,
then eventually they'll come to a point where God will harden their heart and where it's too late for them.
It got to the point with Pharaoh where everyone around him is telling him, let the people go, are you insane?
The whole country is being destroyed.
But God hardened Pharaoh's heart to where he couldn't hear reason at that point.
Well, it's the same thing with Herod.
When he hardened his heart and chopped off the head of John the Baptist, basically God's done talking to him.
If you're not going to listen to John the Baptist, then why would I waste my time preaching to you?
If you're not going to listen to Moses, you're not going to listen to Aaron, you're not going to listen to anybody else either.
God's word is God's word.
So Herod here had silenced the voice of God in his life because John the Baptist was that voice crying in the wilderness,
preparing the way for the Lord Jesus Christ.
And he's saying, if you want to listen to him, I have nothing to say to you.
It's sort of like where Jesus said, if you'd believed Moses, you would have believed me.
But if you believe not his writings, how should you believe my words?
If you're not going to listen to John the Baptist, you're not going to listen to Christ.
If you're not going to listen to Moses, you're not going to listen to Jesus Christ.
Because God's word is God's word no matter the messenger.
Now obviously you say, well Jesus was God in the flesh.
Yeah, but here's the thing, even though Jesus was God in the flesh, he spoke God's word and John the Baptist spoke the same word of God.
The word of God had just as much power coming out of John the Baptist's mouth as it did out of Jesus' mouth.
Because it's the word of God.
It's still God's word no matter who says it.
Even if it comes out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, it's God's word.
And that's why the Bible said they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them.
And if they won't hear them, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.
So this is a classic example of someone who is reprobate.
Someone where God has rejected them.
God's already decided no, I'm done with you.
Even if he wanted to hear the gospel, Christ won't even tell him the gospel.
Why? Because he's not going to cast his pearls before swine.
It's too late for the guy.
That's a pretty chilling warning if anybody out there is not saved.
To realize, hey, if you're hearing the gospel, if you're hearing the word of God, you better respond to it before it's eternally too late.
Before your heart is hardened.
And we don't always know when people get to that point.
So whenever we can give the benefit of the doubt, we try to give people the benefit of the doubt.
Even if they do seem very negative toward the Lord and the word of God.
We still want to try to give people the benefit of the doubt unless it's just obvious and crystal clear that they've gone over that line and are a reprobate.
We still will attempt to preach the gospel to them.
But here, Jesus, he knows all things.
He already knows that Herod's done.
So he holds his peace.
He answered him nothing.
Verse 10, the chief priests and scribes stood and vehemently accused him.
So what's Herod's response to being ignored?
What's Herod's response when God won't talk to him?
It says, then Herod, with his men of war, set him at naught.
What does that mean?
Well, naught means nothing.
Set him at naught means they're basically just giving him no respect.
Treating him like he's a nobody.
They're making fun of him.
They're taking him down a notch.
They mocked him and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe and sent him again to Pilate.
Okay, so they begin to make fun of Christ.
And you'll see people that are reprobate.
They'll make fun of Jesus Christ.
And they'll mock him and ridicule him.
Just with such vehemence and just such vitriol and his hatred of the Lord.
And so they treat him hatefully.
Now what's interesting here is that this is the only time you'll ever find Christ on this earth wearing a robe.
We're taught our whole lives that Christ wore a robe.
And the apostles all wore robes.
The only robe that Christ wore was when he's made fun of.
Because the robe is something that a king wears.
So they dress him up like a king and make fun of him.
And they send him to Pilate dressed up like that to make fun of him.
So then it says in verse number 12,
In the same day, Pilate and Herod were made friends together,
for before they were at enmity between themselves.
Now this is that old saying of,
My enemy's enemy is my friend.
But this is prophetic of the second coming of Christ.
Because if you remember in Psalm 2,
it says that the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his Christ.
And so in the end times we know that all of the kings of the earth,
all of the rulers of the earth are going to be united together.
And they're going to give their kingdom unto the anti-Christ.
And they're going to be against the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now today a lot of the nations of this world are at enmity with each other aren't they?
Just like Herod and Pilate were at enmity with each other.
But the nations of this world one day will put aside their differences and unite against Jesus Christ.
That's what Psalm 2 is saying.
That's what the book of Revelation teaches in chapter 17 and chapter 18.
And so we see this foreshadowed with Herod and Pilate burying the hatchet and becoming friends over condemning the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now obviously one is worse than the other.
Herod is a complete reprobate. Christ won't even talk to him.
He wants to mock and ridicule Jesus Christ.
But in verse 13 it says,
And Pilate, when he had called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, said unto them,
You brought this man unto me as one that perverted the people.
And behold, I have examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him.
No, nor yet Herod, for I sent you to him, and lo, nothing worthy of death is done on him.
I will therefore chastise him and release him.
So what he's saying is, I want to punish him.
I will, means I want.
I will chastise him and release him.
For of necessity he must release one unto them at the feast.
They have a tradition that they release one prisoner to the Jews during the Passover.
And so he says, you know, I'll just chastise him and release him.
I don't believe that he's worthy of death.
So Herod represents the guy who hates Christ, mocks Christ.
And then Pilate represents the guy who basically, he's not really antagonistic toward Jesus Christ.
He's not just hateful toward him, but he's willing to kind of just sit back and let them kill Christ.
You know, he doesn't want to be the one to do it, but he's willing to sit back and let it happen.
And I think that's also going to be how it is in the end times, too.
There are a lot of God-hating elements in this world.
But then there are a lot of people, too, that just, they don't believe in Christ and they just kind of don't care.
And they'll just kind of sit back and let the evil take over and let the evil Jews and the evil King Herod do what they're going to do.
And then they'll kind of say, well, you know, I'll wash my hands of it.
It wasn't me that did it, which is what Pilate's going to do, right?
That's what a lot of people are going to do in the end times.
Everybody in the end times isn't just going to be this cold-blooded hater of Christians.
But they're going to just sit back and allow Christians to be persecuted in the end times.
That's what happens throughout history.
People who are the Pontius Pilates of this world who just don't take a side.
They're just neutral.
And that's what Pilate's trying to do.
But by not taking a side, who is he aligning himself with?
In the end, he's lined up with Herod.
In the end, he does what the Jews want him to do, and he ends up killing Christ.
And he can wash his hands and say, well, I'm free from the blood of this just person.
But that doesn't change the fact that he sealed his fate at that time.
You say, how do you know he sealed his fate?
Well, think about Herod.
I mean, was Herod just chomping at the bit to kill John the Baptist?
No, Herod did not want to kill John the Baptist, but what did he do?
He went along with it.
Herod went along with it, and what happened?
Apparently, Christ never wants to talk to him again.
Okay?
So when Pilate went along with this, he's pretty much doing the same thing that Herod did.
He had his chance.
He heard the word of God.
Jesus preaches to Pilate.
He won't talk to Herod, but Jesus does talk to Pilate.
In the book of John, we get a little more of the back and forth between Jesus and Pilate.
And Pilate, instead of receiving Christ as Savior, just kind of takes a, well, I'm not going to make a decision approach.
And Christ goes to the cross, dies, and I believe that Pilate sealed his fate at that point, just like Herod did.
It's symbolic of that as well.
So look down at your Bible.
They said in verse 18, he says, you know, let's release Christ because we have to release one at the feast.
Verse 18, and they cried out all at once.
I mean, there's no hesitation.
Away with this man and release unto us Barabbas, who for a certain sedition made in the city and for murder was cast into prison.
Sedition is sort of a treachery or a rebellion or a coup.
And it says that he was cast into prison and Pilate, therefore, willing to release Jesus, spake again to them.
So he's again trying to get them to release Jesus or let him release Jesus.
But they cried saying, crucify him, crucify him.
And he said unto them the third time, why, what evil hath he done?
I found no cause of death in him.
I will therefore chastise him and let him go.
I mean, he keeps saying it over and over again, right?
But you know what, does that make him saved?
Is he saying, hey, Christ is the son of God.
This is the Messiah.
This is our savior.
In fact, I believe in him.
I'm his disciple now.
No, he's just being neutral.
And you know where neutral sends you?
Straight to hell.
Because if you don't receive Christ as your savior, by default, what are you doing?
You're rejecting him.
If you don't receive him, that's rejecting him.
You can't just be neutral and say, well, I find no fault in him.
Right?
I mean, I don't have a problem with the teachings of Christ.
I think the Bible is a pretty good book.
I think the New Testament is a powerful scripture.
And you know, I have no problem with Christianity.
I think it's a pretty good religion.
You know, people may have that as their crutch or whatever, and I'm okay with that.
You know, that's a rejection of Christ.
You've got to accept him as the king of the Jews and as the lord of the universe and as our savior, the son of God.
I mean, we don't see Pilate say, hey, I believe he's the son of God.
And by doing that, he's rejecting him by default, even though he says a lot of good things.
Look, there are a lot of people today who say a lot of good things about Jesus.
A lot of good things about church.
They like church.
They like Jesus.
They like religion.
They like God.
But do they believe he's the son of God?
Have they put their faith and trust in him to get them to heaven?
This is what Pilate did not do.
And by being neutral on Jesus, he goes to hell.
The one who's negative about Christ goes to hell.
The one who's neutral goes to hell.
You have to confess him as the son of God.
You have to believe on him.
You have to, you know, go all the way in your faith for Christ and put your faith and trust fully in the Lord Jesus Christ.
So, I mean, he keeps pleading with them.
And they were instant, verse 23, 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.
So what does Pilate end up doing?
I mean, he ends up sentencing him to death.
So Pilate's guilty even though he tries to worm his way out of it and not take a side, not take a position.
And this is the way life is.
You must take a position on Christ.
What will you do?
That's what he asked.
What shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?
And they said crucify him.
What did he do?
He crucified him.
You have to take a side.
You have to take a position.
You either believe in him or you reject him.
The Bible says here,
He released unto them him that for sedition and murder was cast into prison, whom they had desired, but he delivered Jesus to their will.
And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country.
And on him they laid the cross that he might bear it after Jesus.
Now, we know from the other gospel accounts that Jesus has been severely beaten at this point.
So it's possible that they're putting the cross on someone else.
They're having someone else carry the cross who's in better condition to carry the cross because Jesus has already been beaten.
Okay.
So get the picture.
Simon the Cyrenian is bearing the cross before Jesus.
And then Jesus is walking there with him.
And, I mean, he's got to be a sight to behold.
Because after he's beaten, Pilate shows him to the people in the book of John and says, Behold the man.
Like, look at him.
Look how he's been beaten and punished.
But that wasn't enough.
Even to look at Jesus, bloody and beaten, his visage more marred than a man.
Right?
Isaiah 53.
His face beaten and 40 stripes laid on him.
Or even more.
Who knows?
Because the Romans didn't even have that compunction.
But he just looks horrific and they're still saying crucify him.
They still hate him.
It's still not enough for them.
So get the picture.
Jesus Christ beaten and bloody and bruised is there as Simon the Cyrenian carries the cross.
And there followed him a great company of people and of women which also bewailed and lamented him.
So women and people that feel sad, they're sorry.
They don't want to see him get crucified.
But Jesus turning unto them, verse 28, said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.
Now, this is a scripture that I haven't really heard it preached very often.
In fact, I don't know if I've ever, growing up, heard this scripture preached or taught.
It's not that famous.
Usually we focus on Christ saying, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
Or Christ saying, today, shalt thou be with me in paradise.
Or where he said, I thirst.
Or where he made sure that John took care of his mother and he said to John, behold thy mother.
And he said to Mary, you know, John, behold thy son of John.
This is one of his utterances at the cross that you don't really hear that much.
It's pretty interesting because this is one where he's pronouncing judgment.
Right before he goes to the cross.
So imagine he's bloody, he's beaten, he's bruised, and they're crying and saying, oh, poor Jesus.
And he's saying, no, no, not poor me, poor you.
Poor your children.
He says, weep not for me.
Weep for yourselves.
Why? Because he knows that, yes, he's going to endure the cross.
Yes, he's going to go through intense, extreme suffering.
But he knows that there's joy that's set before him.
For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, the Bible says.
And Jesus said in Psalm 16, he knew that the Father would not leave his soul in hell.
Neither would he suffer his flesh to see corruption.
And he said that at the right hand of God the Father, there were pleasures forevermore.
So he knows that there's a light at the end of the tunnel for him.
But he's saying, you know what, you and your children, you're doomed.
I mean, for them, many of them, the destination is going to be hell, where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.
And Jesus Christ knew that even though he's going to endure that same punishment for sin, for him there's hope.
His soul would rest in hope, he said, because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption.
So he says weep not for me. He says weep for yourselves and for your children.
Well, you know what, that tells me that if we follow in the footsteps of Christ and we endure great suffering,
whatever we go through is not as worthy to be wept over as what the unsaved are going to go through.
So even when we go through the worst things, even if we go through the worst beating and the worst suffering and the worst loss in this life,
we can always know that there be those suffering worse than us in hell right now that have no hope.
So no matter how hard our Christian life gets, instead of feeling sorry for ourselves, we should think about the fact, hey, there's other people who aren't even saved.
They're doomed. They're going to die. It's over for them. They're going to hell. There's no hope.
You know, there's always somebody where, look, Christ is not here feeling sorry for himself.
He's saying, no, no, no, weep for yourself. Don't weep for me. Don't feel sorry for me. Feel sorry for yourself. Right?
He understands that there be others that are worse off than him even because they have no hope.
So he says to them in verse twenty nine, for behold, the days are coming in the which they shall say,
blessed are the barren and the whoops, the wombs that never bear and the paps which never gave suck.
Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, fall on us and to the hills, cover us.
For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?
So what is he saying? I mean, he's he's this this is reminiscent of Revelation Chapter six.
You know, the great day of his wrath, where there's that great earthquake and the sun and moon are darkened and the kings of the earth and the rich men and the mighty men and the chief captains,
they all hide themselves right in the dens and the mountains of the rocks and say the mountains and rocks fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sits on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb.
For the great day of his wrath is come and who shall be able to stand? And so Jesus Christ is alluding even to his second coming.
He knows as he's on his way to the cross, he's coming back with a vengeance, literally.
And so he throws that out there. It's pretty interesting.
Verse 32. And they were also there were also two other malefactors. Malefactor is just an evil doer led with him to be put to death.
And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified him and the malefactors, one on the right hand and the other on the left.
Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
So Jesus Christ, he's giving them a warning when he says, hey, weep for yourselves, weep for each other.
He's not just being spiteful there. He's saying, no, really, be warned, weep for yourselves and your children.
You know, be afraid of what's coming because by the fear of the Lord, they might be saved.
So he tells them here or he says to the father, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
So his thoughts are on other people. He wants to warn them of the wrath to come.
And he's asking the father to be merciful unto them.
They parted his raiment castle. By the way, the modern Bible versions leave out this phrase, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do in many of the modern Bible versions.
And even in the modern Bible versions that contain this phrase, they will have a footnote in it that says, oh, by the way, that's not in the original.
In fact, I didn't I didn't prepare this before the sermon, but I do have the NIV right here.
So I can look it up. This is the old NIV. It's a few years old.
Then the most common NIV that's out there, the 1984 edition.
So let me just look up this verse quickly and see what their little footnote says.
What verse are we in? Somebody help me out.
Yeah, some early manuscripts do not have this sentence.
It says in the NIV, like, you know, what are they trying to do? Putting doubt whether Jesus really said that to where you look at that.
Father, forgive him for they know not what they do. And you're like, wow, that's powerful.
But then you're like, oh, what's this little footnote? Oh, the early manuscripts, they don't have this.
So some overzealous scribe put that in there because he was too offended by the mountains and rocks falling on people.
So, you know, we'll throw in some sweetness here. Father, forgive them.
I mean, it's garbage because the whole point of that footnote, does that footnote really help somebody understand the Bible?
Is that leading them to a greater understanding? That footnote has one purpose to cast doubt on that sentence.
That's all. That's the only purpose. Now, here's the thing. If that sentence doesn't belong there, take it out.
But you know why they don't take it out? Because they know it's a famous sentence.
And if they take it out, people are going to freak out. Like, what in the world?
This doesn't say, Father, forgive them. I'm going back to the King James. This one's too weird.
So what they do is they take a more subtle approach and say, well, you know, we'll leave it in there for you.
You like it? You like that verse? We'll leave it there for you. But just so you know, it's probably not original.
And this is how the devil is. The first thing the devil did in the Garden of Eden was to attack God's Word.
But he does it indirectly. Because he starts out just by questioning. He doesn't say, hey, listen, guys.
God's lying to you. You can eat this fruit all day long and it's good for you.
He comes and says, well, yea, hath God said? So he puts a question mark where God put a period.
This is how the devil is. This is how false teachers are. They just kind of want to plant little seeds of doubt in your mind and let them grow.
And he wants to put a question mark where God puts a period. And then after that he says, well, you shall not surely die.
Because God said you shall surely die. And he's like, well, maybe you won't die.
And this is how the devil works, right? So all these footnotes. And look, the NIV, it has a footnote like that on almost every page.
I mean, you get to the Mark chapter 16, it says verses 9 through 20 are not in the main manuscripts.
Are not in the oldest, most reliable manuscripts. And when they say the oldest, most reliable, they're talking about these garbage manuscripts.
They're talking about Vaticanus and Sinaiticus that are so corrupt and so ridiculous that no modern version is translated from them except for the Jehovah's Witnesses Bible.
The only modern Bible version that's translated primarily just using Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, or the Westcott and Hort Greek text that's produced from Sinaiticus and Vaticanus,
the only one that goes directly from that to my knowledge is the Jehovah's Witness New World Translation, which is a hardcore Bible perversion.
The modern versions like the NIV and the ESV, the more mainstream corruptions like the New Living Translation, they pull a lot from Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.
But even they realize that it's just so out to lunch in so many places, they end up even pulling from the Textus Receptus at times.
They end up pulling from other manuscript traditions.
And someone brought out a verse where it says that at last two false witnesses testified against Jesus, neither did they agree amongst themselves.
This is Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. The two false witnesses, they don't even agree with each other because they disagree in the Gospels alone thousands of times.
In the four Gospels alone, these two false witnesses.
Okay, so the King James Bible is based on the preponderance of text. It's a traditional text.
It's often been called, or at least mostly been called, the majority text because of the fact that out of 5,900 and some handwritten Greek manuscripts, 90-some percent of them are going to agree with the King James 99% of the time.
And they're going with the anomaly. They're going with a handful of manuscripts, which they claim are older and more reliable, to basically just negate 5,900 and some Greek manuscripts.
That's what they do 99% of the time the King James is following the majority text, unless there's a compelling reason not to.
Whereas the new versions, they love to gravitate toward these anomalies, the Egyptian manuscripts, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus as well.
So anyway, I don't want to go too deep on that subject because that's not what the sermon's about, but we need to beware of the modern Bible versions and stick to King James only.
And this is extremely important. It's not a small issue because there are changes on every page and there are footnotes at the bottom of every page just casting doubt on this phrase, that phrase, this verse, that verse.
In fact, there's another twist while we're on the subject of modern versions. The New World Translation, which I mentioned a little bit earlier, the Jehovah's Witness Bible,
which even people who love the NIV and the ESV, even they would admit, okay, the Jehovah's Witness Bible is really bad.
It relies only on Westcott and Hort, only on Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. I mean, it's just translated directly from the Westcott and Hort text, whereas the new versions are from the Nestle-Allen 28th edition or whatever, 28 per version.
Well, another change that the New World Translation, the Jehovah's Witness Bible makes in this passage is from the famous verse 43. Look down at verse 43.
And Jesus said unto him, this is the thief on the cross, right? Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise. That's a pretty famous verse, right?
Well, the Jehovah's Witnesses, that verse isn't going to work for them. And here's why. Because the Jehovah's Witnesses believe in this thing called soul sleep.
So they believe that when a person dies, they're just unconscious in the ground, waiting for a future resurrection.
Well, that's not what the Bible says. The Bible talks about the rich man who died and in hell he lift up his eyes being in torment.
And then the apostle Paul said, I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better. He said to die is gain because he would go to be with Christ.
He said to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. I desire to be absent. But he said, nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.
So he's saying, I want to stay on this earth to finish the work that God gave me to do. But in reality, death has no sting. The grave has no victory because I'll go to be with Christ.
We see in Revelation chapter 6, the fifth seal being opened, and the martyrs of the Lord saying, how long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
They're very conscious, aren't they? So when the Bible talks about being asleep in Jesus, it's the body that's asleep in Jesus. The soul is very much awake. The soul is alive in heaven.
So they believe in a false doctrine called soul sleep, where body and soul are both sleeping. Everybody's just completely unconscious. That's what they believe.
So that doesn't really work for today, shalt thou be with me in paradise. How can the thief go to paradise if they believe he's just staying there dead, soul asleep, dead body on the earth?
So they change this, and what they change it to is, verily I say unto you today, comma, thou shalt be with me in paradise.
So basically they take the today and they attach it to I'm saying it to you today. I'm telling you today that you're going to be with me in paradise a really long time from now.
Now that's stupid. It doesn't make sense. It turns the grammar on its head, but I guarantee you that there's not a single Jehovah's Witness that speaks Greek.
And if they are, then they got to be the dumbest person in the world because of the fact. I mean, the people look, the people who translate it, you say, well, the people translate it speak Greek.
Well, they're first of all, I'm not sure of that because I know a lot of the people who work on these modern Bible translations are not even fluent in Greek.
They are just charlatans who are going off of lexicons and things like that. Number one.
But number two, the people who head up the Jehovah's false witness religion, the Watchtower Society, they're just pure evil.
They can't be stupid. If they were stupid, they wouldn't be running this gigantic organization that puts out millions and millions of magazines.
I mean, you got to be smart to run an organization like that. And you have to be stupid to believe in the Jehovah's Witness doctrine.
And so these guys at the top, they're just pure evil. And I guarantee you that the people at the bottom that follow this religion,
they don't speak Greek because anybody who flipped open a Greek New Testament is going to realize something real fast, that it never has the word Jehovah in it one time.
Not even once. OK, so you can read the Greek New Testament as many times as you want. You're never going to find the word Jehovah in it.
So Jehovah is only in the Old Testament. Never find it in the New Testament. So that right there is a big problem for Jehovah's Witnesses.
So they take the word for Lord in the New Testament. The word that we see in our King James Bible is Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord.
They keep putting that as Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah. Except once where it says that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Because if they translated it there, then it would say, hey, that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Jehovah.
That wouldn't fly either because they don't believe Jesus is Jehovah. We believe that Jesus is Jehovah. Amen?
Yeah. So because Jehovah is the Old Testament name of God that applies to the whole Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost collectively as the Lord, Jehovah God.
So they just, they take great liberties because none of their followers know the language. So they just have to trust them.
You know what I mean? Now, who here is fluent in Greek here tonight? Right? Okay. I see zero hands raised.
So therefore, you know what? You have to have faith in an English translation, right?
So you've got to put your faith in the King James or you're going to put it in the NIV or the ESV or you're going to put it in the New World translation because you don't know the original language, right?
So you're going to trust. And I don't think you should have to go learn Greek to read the Bible.
God didn't expect us to go learn a foreign language. He gave it to us in our language. We have it translated into English. That's all we need.
Okay. And so you're going to have to trust some English Bible to be your Bible that you pick up and read every morning.
So what are you going to trust? The one that's been around for 400 years? The one that's been used to win people to Christ and to preach hard sermons against sin and to be used in mighty power?
Or are you going to trust the one that just came out last week? Or the one that just came out in 1984? Or the one that just came out in 2010?
Or are you going to trust the one that's being used down at the mega church, the rock and roll church, the fun center church? Or are you going to trust the one that's being used now at the soul winning church?
Show me a righteous, fired up, zealous, soul winning church that's doing great works for God that doesn't use a King James Bible, doesn't exist.
Why? Because you can't do great works without the word of God. How do we know the King James Bible is the word of God? Because the tree is known by its fruit. That's why.
What's the fruit of the King James? What's the fruit of the modern versions? It's the sorry excuse for Christianity we see today in these NIV preaching, ESV preaching, New Living translation preaching churches.
That shows what's wrong with that book right there. And not only that, all you have to do is just look at the book itself. You read the King James Bible, it's filled with power.
You read the NIV, even by the world's literary standards, they'll say it's a bad translation, it's junk. There's no power. It's like a butter knife, the King James like a two-edged sword.
The King James Bible agrees with itself. These new versions are filled with contradictions. They can't even agree with themselves. They don't even make sense.
Even just internally. Read it and see. And if you're saved, you shouldn't have any problem. Because the one who's saved, he knows the voice of the shepherd and the voice of strangers.
The one who's saved will be guided by the Holy Spirit into all truth. When you hear these modern versions, you know something's wrong.
When I was 12 years old, or around 12, 13 years old, I began to attend a church that preached the NIV.
And I'd grown up on the King James, I started going to the NIV church, and I didn't know that the NIV was bad.
And I just immediately knew something's wrong with the NIV, when I would hear it in church.
I sat for five years in churches that primarily taught at the NIV, and I had a King James in my lap, and they would read it from the NIV and I'd follow along in my King James for five years.
And the King James was always better. Every single time.
And you say, well, you just like that style. You just like that, you know, archaic style.
No, because it's funny, I read the Apocrypha translated by the King James translators and it was junk and it had no power.
Same style, translated by the same men. Exact translators, exact year that it came out.
There's no power in the Apocrypha, but every word of this book is filled with power.
I had multiple youth leaders try to take me aside and say, hey, you gotta get rid of the King James, you need to get something you can understand.
And I said, I can understand this, you know. I'm not as dumb as you think I am, apparently.
And they tried to talk me out of it, they used to make fun of it. I'd go to these Bible studies.
And you sit in a circle and everybody reads a verse, you know, you read a verse, they read a verse.
And whenever we get to me and the these and the that start dropping, you know, oh man, get a load of this, this guy's got the King James.
They'd laugh and snicker, but you know, that was like the only word of God that these idiots ever heard.
Because they're listening to the NIV, they're listening to the ESV, you know, and they laugh at the true word of God.
You know what? Those people turned out, they weren't saved.
I mean, they heard the true word of God and they laughed at it. They mocked it.
They loved that which was written by men. They loved that which was carnal and of the devil, the NIV.
And when they heard the King James, all they could do was scoff. All they could do was laugh.
All they could do was mock at it. You know, and then it's funny.
At that time I was naive and I just assumed anybody who goes to a Baptist church must be saved.
Anybody who goes to a non-denominational church must be saved.
I mean, that's what I thought as a teenager because I'd never been soul winning.
So I'd never actually asked people about what they believe.
I just knew, hey, if there are these Pentecostals who believe that you can lose your salvation, I was taught they're not saved.
And I was taught that the Catholics aren't saved.
And I was taught that the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses are not saved.
But, I mean, when people were Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Methodist, Lutheran, I mean, I just assumed they were saved.
When they went to this community church, I just assumed they were saved.
And, you know, I'd go to these Bible studies and they'd snicker at the King James and stuff.
Then I learned about soul winning. I went back to all those same people and I started asking them what they believed.
And I'd ask them, do you know for sure you're going to heaven?
And they'd say, well, I remember one conversation in particular.
I asked this girl and she said, well, you know, I feel like if I died now I'd go to heaven because I'm, you know, I'm on track with the Lord right now.
But a few months ago I was backslidden. I'm pretty sure I would have gone to hell if I would have died back then, a few months ago.
But I feel like now that I'm back reading my Bible and going to church, I think I'd go.
So then I started explaining to her, like, no, you can't lose your salvation. It's all by grace through faith.
And I'm trying to preach her the true gospel. But she didn't get it. It went over her head because she just walked away and said, oh, great.
Well, I guess if I would have died a few months ago I would have gone to heaven then because I guess I just, I guess you can't lose it.
But I'm like, yeah, except you have to actually believe that it's by faith and you clearly believe it's by works.
But she, it's like she never grasped that there was a difference. It's whoop, right over her head.
Why is that? Because it's by the Word of God that we're saved.
It's the Word of God that brings faith. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
And she'd just been hearing the false doctrine for so long and the false Bible.
It was just so ingrained I couldn't cut through it with the King James at that point, with the true story of salvation by grace through faith.
And so we've got to be aware of these modern versions. It's a little bit of a rabbit trail there.
But he said to him, today you'll be with me in paradise.
That actually makes sense than to say, I'm telling you today you'll be with me in paradise a really long time from now.
That's a stretch. But they, you know, they must have struggled with how can we change this? This doesn't fit our doctrine.
And we should let the Bible change our doctrine. Let's not take our doctrine and then go change the Bible.
And you know what? It's not just the Bible translations that do that. People do it all the time.
You go to people and say, hey, look, here's what the Bible says. And what do they do?
They try to change the Bible right then and there by saying, well, I think if you go back to the Greek, it's a little different.
They don't speak Greek. They don't speak Greek. They've never even ordered food in a Greek restaurant in Greek.
They can't even count to ten in Greek. Right? You think that they can?
And you know, that's why whenever I'm confronted with these people, like I had a guy pull this when we were in Botswana.
Remember that preacher that wore a black dress and had the collar turn around backwards? Reverend Mambani? Is that what his name was?
He was, you know, he's like, brother, my brother, you've got to go to the context, you know.
And he said, if you go back to the Greek, and I said to him, I'm like, oh, great, you speak Greek.
I said, katala venete ele nika? And he's like, what? Katala venete ele nika?
He's like, oh, I'm like, well, you're talking about Greek. You must speak Greek, right? Oh, I don't know Greek.
Oh, really? Oh, you don't know Greek? So why should I listen to anything that you have to say about the Greek when you don't even speak Greek, huh?
Milate ele nika? Huh?
And you know what? That shuts them up fast. Everybody needs to learn at least just enough Greek to be able to shut them up like that.
And you've got to learn the part in Hebrew, too, when they come up to you with the Star of Remfan around their neck,
and start, hakflem shabashalom, and then you just go, ata mevinivri?
What? Oh, you were just telling me what the Hebrew says.
Now it turns out you don't even speak the language? What kind of a fraud are you?
But you know what? What they're doing, they're just regurgitating lies that they hear from someone else, right?
They just regurgitate the lies that they hear, and they just read some commentary, or they get it from their study Bible,
or they get it from a TV preacher, that the Greek says this, or the Hebrew says that.
Look, until you're fluent in that language, don't talk to me about what the Greek says, and don't talk to me about what the Hebrew says.
I'm not interested. Because I think that the 54 scholars who translated the King James Bible,
which had already been following on the works of other translators who went before them,
and that finished product that we've had for over 400 years, the King James Bible,
is more trustworthy than somebody who can't even count to 10 in Greek telling me what the Greek says,
but people do it every day. Every single day.
There are preachers right now all over America telling their congregation what the Greek says.
They don't even know what tzatziki even tastes like, let alone how to even read one page of the Greek New Testament.
It's lies. It's a fraud. I want to make a whole documentary about it, in fact, exposing this fraud of going back to Greek.
I'm a little bit off topic, but here's how I'm going to bring it back to Luke chapter 23.
Verse 38 is the key, how I'm going to tie this all in. Oh, it's all tying in. It all fits. It's like a puzzle.
Verse 38, and a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek. See? I was going somewhere with that.
In letters of Greek and Latin and Hebrew, this is the King of the Jews.
Now, it's pretty interesting how it tells us this detail, how there was a sign above Jesus' head that had the accusation written, as it says elsewhere.
This is Jesus, the King of the Jews, and it's in three languages, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. Now, why those three languages?
Well, Hebrew being the language of the Israelites, the Hebrews, the Jews that are there.
I mean, they're the ones who wanted him crucified in the first place, right?
They're the ones there watching it happen, and they're the ones who scream crucify him, so it's in Hebrew for their benefit, right?
Then it's in Greek because of the fact that Greek was the lingua franca of the region at that time.
What does that mean? That means that that was sort of the main second language of everybody, okay?
So if you go to Africa, for example, they have all kinds of local languages, and then everybody's got their one big overarching language, which is usually English, right?
So you go to Nigeria, there are 521 different languages in Nigeria. I think 512 of them are spoken commonly, and obviously they have to have some kind of national unity, so the language that they unify in is English.
So everybody from Nigeria pretty much speaks their own language, Hausa or Yoruba or one of the other 500 languages, and then they also speak English as a second language.
Same thing when you go to India, right? They've got their language. They've got, whether it's Telugu, Tamil, Canada, Bengali, Punjabi, whatever, but then they also speak English as a second language, okay?
And really, English is sort of becoming a universal second language for the whole world, right?
To where there are like 2 billion people who speak English at some level right now on this earth. That's a lot.
You know, including people that are learning it as a second language and various levels of proficiency.
Well, back then, Greek was like the English of its day, because Alexander the Great, when he conquered and when the Macedonian Empire spread, they brought the Greek language with them, and they built all these schools all over that Greek empire, and the schools instructed people in reading and writing the Greek language.
So Greek was the big language that most people spoke as a second language in order to do commerce, in order to do business.
You know, they want to do business in more than just their hometown. They don't want to just do business in Judea, so they're going to need to speak Greek.
Now, Jesus was from Galilee. Galilee is even called Galilee of the Gentiles.
So Jesus grew up in a place that was right near where Greek was the main language, and because he's in a border town, there's a lot of Greek being spoken where Jesus and the disciples were from. The disciples are from Galilee, right?
It'd be sort of like if I went down to McAllen, Texas, or if I went down to Nogales, Arizona. What am I going to hear a lot of? Spanish.
I mean, the people down there are going to grow up speaking English and Spanish. There's a lot of Spanglish going on.
Well, it's the same thing with Christ and his disciples. Then, Latin. Why Latin? Because Latin is the language of the Roman Empire, of the soldiers themselves that are nailing the sign to the cross, that are nailing Christ's hands to the cross.
The centurion himself is going to speak Latin. Now, riddle me this. If Greek was not spoken in Judea at the time of Christ, if Greek was not spoken in Jerusalem at the time of Christ, why would that language appear on that sign?
It would have been enough to just do what? Hebrew and Latin. Hebrew for the Jews and Latin for the Romans. Why Greek? Because Greek is the main language, that's why. Greek was the lingua franca. That's why the New Testament is written in Greek.
Now, explain this to me. If Peter didn't speak Greek, how did he write 1 and 2 Peter in Greek, the language that he didn't even speak? Think about how dumb that is.
But we're taught our whole lives, oh yeah, they didn't speak Greek, they only spoke Aramaic and Hebrew. Well, no, they spoke Greek because otherwise explain to me how John wrote the book of John in Greek.
5,900 and some handwritten manuscripts of Greek. John, not one Hebrew manuscript of John. You're going to tell me that these books were written in a language that the author didn't even speak?
Or you think these guys when they're 30, 40, 50 years old picked up Greek well enough to, oh, now we've got to learn Greek, guys, let's write the Bible in Greek. They already spoke Greek. Jesus spoke Greek.
Okay, now he also spoke Hebrew, but see, people just get fixed in on what language did Jesus speak? Was it Greek, was it Aramaic, was it Hebrew? And pretty much all scholars agree that it's Aramaic, maybe Hebrew, but certainly not Greek.
Although there are a few scholars that think he may have spoken Greek. But here's the thing, he spoke all three. Just like your average Indian speaks all three, just like your average African speaks three languages.
Why? Because especially when you live near the border, that's normal. So that's where these three languages are coming to play. Greek here, and that's listed first.
Because that's the main language of the whole region, Greek. That's the lingua franca, that's the English of its day. Hebrew for the Jews, Latin for the Romans, everybody's covered, everybody knew what it said.
Now what's interesting too is that these are the three main languages of the Bible. Because the Old Testament is written in Hebrew, the New Testament is written in Greek, but then the whole Bible was put together in Latin.
Old and New Testament together in one place. Latin was the main language of the Bible for over a thousand years. So the Bible went through this progression. Hebrew, then Greek, then Latin, and then English.
What's interesting also is that our English alphabet is derived from what alphabet? The Roman alphabet, the Latin. We use what's called a Latin alphabet.
Where did the Latin alphabet come from? It's derived from the Greek alphabet. Where did the Greek alphabet come from? It's derived from the Hebrew alphabet, and the Hebrew alphabet is the oldest alphabet on this earth.
Did you know that? Because of the fact that even though there are writing systems before Hebrew, they weren't alphabets. You know, you have like the hieroglyphics of Egypt, that's not an alphabet, that's a picture.
China, it's pictorial. The cuneiform and everything of the ancient Sumerians, it's not an alphabet. The first true alphabet is the paleo Hebrew alphabet. That's where we get our word alphabet.
The first two letters, aleph bet. And then what does that become in Greek? Alphavita. So it all comes, so literally our alphabet comes from Hebrew, then Greek, then Latin, then English.
And then that's pretty much how the word of God came to us. Although obviously we know that our English Bibles translate directly from the original Hebrew and Greek, it's still in history spent a lot of time in Latin as the main language.
So that's a symbolic point as well about this. Anyway, I will close on this point here that Jesus Christ is crucified in this chapter. Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.
He's winning someone unto the Lord, literally as his final act here. Because even as he's on the cross, he gets the guy next to him saved. Right? That's pretty cool.
And so Jesus Christ, the ultimate example of enduring suffering and caring about other people and preaching to others, warning others, and even just winning people unto the Lord all the way up to the end as he died on the cross.
Now Simon the Cyrenian, he carried the cross for Jesus. That picture's what? We should take up our cross and follow him. Take up the cross daily and be a partaker of his sufferings with him. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word in this great chapter, Lord. Thank you that we have a King James Bible that we don't have one of these deceptive new world translations or new international version, new King James.
Lord, help us to stay with the traditional Bible that's been passed down to us through the years and been used and borne good fruit for 400 and some years, Lord.
Help us to continue to use this great tool, this sword, this weapon, to continue to produce fruit for your kingdom. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.