Eternity

We have seen Jesus as He is betrayed by Judas. And we've also seen Him before Caiaphas. Last time, which is two weeks ago, I started out with His time before Pilate and the statement that Jesus made to Pilate, My kingdom is not of this world.

We talked some about the kingdom of God and how man lost his dominion over the earth and how Satan became the God of this world and how man became a servant to sin. But Jesus has come to bring in dominion again, the kingdom of God, and to allow you and I to move out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son and come under, not a hard taskmaster, but one who loves us. And so we spent some time on that.

And we've come down here to John chapter 18 and verse number 38. Now Pilate is a man who is, as I see him, a man of fear. Pilate has many fears.

And maybe there are some here this morning who have many fears. But Pilate seems to have fears. He has fears of men.

He also has some of the fear of God. And unfortunately for Pilate, as we get to the end of this story, and I don't know where Pilate is today, whether he's in heaven or hell, we just see the testimony of his life. We don't know what's going on afterwards and the years to come, however long he lives.

So we can't make an affirmative one way or the other. But Pilate is consumed here, or he is troubled with many fears. And we're going to go down through here and see some of these things.

And I want to just take it verse by verse. Pilate is in a snare. The Bible says the fear of man brings a snare.

And he is very much in a snare. And he is trying to get out of this snare. He's in a predicament.

It's all based upon his fears. And he seems to have a hard time getting out of it. And he makes the wrong choice.

Instead of the fear of God, he makes a choice to fear man. And he delivers up the Lord Jesus. So let's pray and then we're going to pick up here.

And I'm going to go down probably 15, 16 verses till we get to where Jesus now is heading up to the cross. Next month or two we'll be in the crucifixion and the resurrection. And so let's pray.

And we'll consider this man Pilate. Heavenly Father, again, I acknowledge, Lord, that without you we can accomplish nothing this morning. And I know and understand that words that are spoken might teach truth, but unless the Spirit of God convicts us and opens up the heart and opens up the mind and people know that God is speaking to them of a truth, that we cannot move forward and accomplish anything in the kingdom of God.

And so I do ask you and we all ask you to pass us not, oh gentle Savior, and hear our cry. May our lives be moved in the direction of holiness and may we be elevated as we march to Zion, Lord. May we be more and more like the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And again, we pray today as we pray often for those who are unconverted in our midst that you would reach down, Lord, and save souls. And I acknowledge, Lord, that unless deep conviction comes upon the heart, that men will not seek you and turn to you. And so we pray that you would grant godly sorrow, godly sorrow, a sorrow that is grieving over the sin that it's committed against a holy God.

Grant that godly sorrow, Lord, to hearts. And I pray for everyone who is a child of God that we could be more sanctified and be freed, Lord, from the fear of man. Lord, instruct us and teach us.

We pray in Jesus' name, amen. I'm going to start reading in verse number 38. Jesus is standing before Pilate.

And in verse 38 it says, Pilate saith unto him, what is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all. Now, this is mentioned five times in different ways and different places in the Scripture and in Pilate's heart of hearts. And he is trying to communicate this to the Jews and to others.

As a matter of fact, his wife even is trying to communicate this to him. And even in another passage it talks about his wife has a dream, has a vision. And she says, in my vision and dream, you should have no dealings with this just man.

This just man. And so there's a lot of things coming to Pilate. Even Pilate's conscience is troubling him.

And he knows that Jesus is not at fault. There is no reason for him to deliver up the Lord Jesus to crucifixion. And if you jump down to chapter 19, verse 4, Pilate therefore went forth again and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you that you may know that I find no fault in him.

Verse 6, when the chief priests therefore and the officers saw him, they cried out saying, Crucify him! Crucify him! Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him and crucify him, for I find no fault in him. And so in Pilate's heart, he does not see any justifiable reason. I'm sure he's heard all the evidence, whatever evidence there is.

But in his heart, he simply does not see any reason why Jesus should be delivered up. And that is why in the end of this story, that Pilate becomes frustrated with the Jews. He finally gives in and walks over to a basin of water and he washes his hands.

And before the multitudes he says, I am free from the blood of this just man. And you know what those Jews said? His blood be upon us and upon our children. And truly that was the case.

Because it wasn't long, 30 years, those children would face one of the greatest travesties that Israel has ever faced. The Roman army would come through and obliterate the nation and disperse them to the four corners of the earth. Most of them were killed in a very violent and a very wicked way.

And they did face it. As a matter of fact, and I'm going to mention it here this morning, as Jesus leaves Pilate and he walks up toward the cross, the women are weeping and wailing and Jesus looks to them and says, don't weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children because the time is coming that they're going to level you to the ground. And so Pilate, we want to look at Pilate.

Pilate is one who knew that Jesus was innocent. There's something else we know about Pilate in another of the Gospels. Pilate knew that they had delivered him up for envy.

And we've talked about this story before, but Pilate understood that the Jews were envious. Jesus was drawing the crowds. Jesus was doing the miracles and the people were following him and Pilate knew that the Jews were envious.

And so early in the morning, this thing is happening, about six o'clock, I understand, in the morning, and Pilate should have acted upon what he believed, what he understood, what his convictions were, and could have just said, enough, he's innocent, and let him go, but he didn't. He didn't do that and we're going to see that here in just a little bit. Pilate has some fears.

He does seem to have a fear of God, but he has a greater fear of men. He has a fear of displeasing Caesar and this is one of the tools that the Jews are using. Listen, Jesus is calling himself a king and we think there's only one king and that king is the Roman king Caesar and if you don't take care of this one who thinks he's a king, we're going to report you to the Roman authorities.

We're going to report you to Caesar and you're going to be in trouble with Caesar. And so that causes Pilate some concern that he's fearful that he might lose his place in his position. He is fearful of displeasing the Jews.

They might cause an uproar and he's in charge of overseeing the nation for the Roman Empire and he doesn't want Rome to hear that there's an uproar in Judea and they need to send people down to try to squelch the uproar. So he's dealing with a lot of fears and because of these fears, he's in a snare and that's what Proverbs says. The fear of man will bring a snare to your life.

And a snare is simply a trap. He is trapped like an animal trap. He's caught and he's having a hard time getting himself out of it.

Now, Pilate's going to try a couple of ways to extract himself from this trap that he is in with regards to trying to deal with the Jews and we'll see these attempts here as we go down through this passage. Let's keep reading here in verse 39. Here's Pilate's first attempt to extract himself from this trap he is in.

But you have a custom that I should release unto you one at the Passover. Will you therefore that I release unto you the king of the Jews? Then cried they all again saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber.

Here's Pilate's first idea. Now it was a custom, I understand, that the Romans would appease the Jews. Maybe the Jews thought that one of their citizens had got a bad deal with the Roman judge or Roman government and was tried and convicted wrongly.

So in order to appease the Jews, the Romans would offer a pardon once a year on the Passover. And the chief priests and the leaders would go and request, or maybe Pilate would offer a few people and they would be able to choose. Here Pilate offers them two.

And he's thinking that if I offer them Barabbas. Well, Barabbas is a wicked man. As a matter of fact, we read in other accounts that Barabbas was a murderer.

He was a robber. And he was promoting sedition amongst the Jewish people. And so Pilate stands up and says, I'm going to offer you either Barabbas or Jesus.

He's thinking, Pilate's thinking, that they're obviously not going to let Barabbas go free. And so they're going to let Jesus go free. And I'm going to be extracted from this trap that I'm in.

And so what happens? He gives them the choice. And you know what happened. They choose Barabbas.

And they want Barabbas to go free. Who is this Barabbas? Well, we are just told he's a murderer. He's a robber.

He is one who is stirring up sedition. But I like the name. I think there's a lot of hidden things there.

Barabbas. Bar meaning son of. And Abbas coming from the word Abba.

And we know Abba means father. Son of the Father. Barabbas, the word means son of the Father.

And there's just a beautiful picture here of a message of salvation that Jesus was delivered up for crimes He did not commit. And someone was released for crimes He did commit. And He became a son of the Father.

And that's a beautiful picture of how you and I who are criminals in the sight of God can exchange positions with the Lord Jesus who is without sin, who is not a criminal, who has no spot, and we can become, like Barabbas, a son of the Father. Well, Barabbas is a wicked man. And they choose.

They choose to let Barabbas go free. Well, Pilate's thinking that the Jews would not want a murderer released or one who is causing sedition, but they choose him. And I'm just going to throw this in here.

When you think of the Jewish people, Pilate's already said they are delivering him up for envy, but people do strange things when they're envious. And we've talked a little bit about envy, but I want to mention it again. Proverbs 27, verse 4 says, Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous, but who is able to stand before envy? You know, anger, wrath, you'd rather face somebody who has anger and wrath than someone who is envious.

And if I go back in my life, and I've heard of stories, you've heard of news stories, that many, many people have been murdered based upon envious feelings or envy in their heart. And you know, these Jews are not going to say no. They're not going to take no.

I don't care what Pilate does. And the reason why they're not going to take no, they're not thinking straight, why would you let Barabbas go free, a notable criminal and a murderer, and let Jesus be crucified? Why would you do that? Because they're not thinking straight. They're very envious of the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore they are willing to deliver Him up.

And you've seen this happen. You've probably heard stories of maybe a young boy who a young lady leaves him, and he is very jealous and very envious. And it happens all the time.

His envy, his jealousy drives him to actually kill her, and even sometimes he'll kill himself, because his envy drives him to this thought of, if I cannot have you, no one will have you. And you know, he'll murder. He'll kill an individual.

Envy is a very dangerous thing to have upon the heart. I want to read to you a few pages over. You don't have to turn there, but when Peter was after healing the lame man there at the gate of the temple, he reminds the Jews of these things.

In Acts chapter 3, starting in verse number 11, let me read to you. And as the lame man, which was healed, held Peter and John, all the people ran together under them into the porch that is called Solomon's, greatly wondering. And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, You men of Israel, why marvel you at this? Or why look you so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we have made this man to walk? The God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his son Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he, Pilate, was determined to let him go.

Even Peter reminds them of that. He would have let him go. As a matter of fact, he was determined to let him go.

But you denied the Holy One and the just and desired a murderer to be granted unto you and you killed the Prince of Life. So Peter is going to bring this whole thing up to them in a few months there at the temple. You people, you're the ones, your envy caused you to force Pilate's hand to kill an innocent man, even though Pilate knew he was not guilty.

And so Pilate is trying to get out of his trap and he's appealing to them. Listen, I've got Barabbas here. He's a wicked man and you know it.

I've got Jesus here. This Passover you can have a choice. You're certainly going to choose Jesus to let him go, aren't you? And I can get out of this mess I'm in.

Well, they choose Barabbas. So that leaves Pilate still in a mess. So he tries something else here.

He tries empathy or pity. He says, I can't reason with these people. If they don't understand justice, then I'll try empathy.

I'll play on their emotions. Let's keep reading here in chapter 19, verse 1. What happens? Then Pilate therefore took Jesus and scourged Him. And the soldiers plaited a crown of thorns and put it on His head, and they put on Him a purple robe and said, Hail, King of the Jews! And they smote Him with their hands.

Pilate therefore went forth again and said unto them, Behold, I bring Him forth to you that you may know that I find no fault in Him. Then came Jesus forth wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, and Pilate said unto them, Behold the man. Now, oftentimes we think of Jesus and how He suffered scourging and how He was beaten in the crown of thorns and all of that.

But you know, that came at the hands of Pilate and the Roman soldiers who did not believe He was guilty. And the reason why Pilate is doing this is to try to work up some sort of sympathy or some sort of empathy that the multitudes would look, and as Pilate brings Him out, and they see Him with this crown of thorns in the blood, they've seen that He's been beaten, they've seen that He's been scourged, that the people would look at Him and say, It's enough. It's enough.

And Pilate says, Behold the man. Look at Him. Can't you have pity on Him? And he's hoping that this beating and all that Jesus had gone through there at the hands of these Roman soldiers would cause the people to have some empathy.

And I believe it did have an effect on some people. I mentioned those ladies, you know, when Jesus leaves Pilate and He starts heading to the cross, and as He's walking, He's not even carrying His cross, He's been so badly beaten, and as Simon is walking beside Him at the cross, Jesus is stumbling up the hill. The women! Praise God for the mothers' hearts.

Amen. The women begin to weep and to wail as they behold how badly He has been harmed and beaten and scourged. And they have empathy.

And I believe many of the people had empathy for the Lord Jesus. But you know, you go to the other places of the Gospel and the Scripture says this, that the voices of the multitudes prevail. You know, many people, because they are in a crowd, and a crowd is going one direction, they'll follow the crowd.

And the vast majority of the people still wanted Him to be crucified. So, Pilate tries to rough Him up, Pilate tries to satisfy their desire for vengeance by chastising Him, by putting a crown of thorns, by mocking Him, in hopes that this emotional appeal will turn their hearts, and they can have pity on Jesus. But, that's not going to work either.

And there is no pity. If you look down at John 19, verse 6, when the chief priest, therefore, and the officers saw Him, they cried out saying, Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Pilate said unto them, Take ye Him and crucify Him, for I find no fault in Him. So, in spite of reason, in spite of empathy and pity, this envy that is controlling, especially these chief priests and officers, this envy, this jealousy, is what's driving their hatred for the Lord Jesus Christ.

And I just want to ask you some questions here this morning about your own heart, you know, envy and jealousy. Is there any of that in our hearts? You know, a lot of times in life, some people wonder, why is someone so angry at this person? Why is someone so upset? Why can't they just let Him go? You know? Why can't they just let Jesus go? I mean, in reason. Barabbas, He's a criminal.

Why can't you just let Him go? What about this beating He's taken? Can't you have pity? What's the deal with you people? I'll tell you what it is. They have a deep-seated envy toward this man. And they're not going to let Him go.

I don't care what Pilate does. Their envy is driving them to kill Him. And you know, you see a lot of this in the Scripture.

There's a lot of envy over relationships. There's a lot of envy over money. There's a lot of envy over power and position.

And because of that, people destroy each other. I think of Joseph. You know, one of the most important or one of the most popular stories, Joseph, that young boy who had a coat of many colors, and these brothers see him coming their way, and the Bible says they envied him.

You know, they envied him. To such an extent, and I read that story again this morning, there were two brothers, I think Reuben and Judah, that had some empathy toward their younger brother, but most of those brothers, because of the envy, were willing to throw him into a pit, beat him, send him off to slavery in Egypt, basically write him off for the rest of their life, and then have the ability to go and tell his father and their father a lie that he had been eaten by a wild beast and watch their father's heart break before them. And they say nothing.

Wow! All because of envy. Envy. That's a lot to do for envy.

Now, there's a lot of stories in the Bible we could bring out about envy. Saul envied David, and it didn't matter what David did, Saul was after him. David was the man that got some praise and got some adoration by the people, and Saul just hated it, and Saul went after David.

Cain hated Abel because he envied Abel. Abel's sacrifice was acceptable before God, and Cain's was not. By the way, that's why the world hates you so much.

Because your sacrifice is acceptable. And Jesus Christ's is an acceptable sacrifice. And the world is trying to make appeasement with God based upon their own works, and it's not working, and they see in you rest and peace and joy, and they envy you.

They ought to envy you. And someday they might put us all on a post and burn us. And because it's envy... Well, Pilate here, let's keep reading, shows us a fear of God in his life.

Verse 7, The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God. Now this causes Pilate some real concern. Verse 8, When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid.

Now that means that Pilate was already fearful, but when he hears that Jesus is supposedly the Son of God, he gets even more afraid. There are two things that are at work in Pilate's heart. He has a fear of man, but he also has a fear of God.

He's like Agrippa. He's almost convinced that maybe this is the Son of God. And it troubles him deeply.

And when he hears the Jews saying, this guy said he was the Son of God, he is very fearful. Whoa, what am I doing here? If this is actually the Son of God, and I deliver him up, I'm in big trouble with God. And if I don't deliver him up, I'm in big trouble with maybe Caesar, or if not, with the Jewish people here.

And so he's in the middle of it. He's in a trap. And so he has a fear of God in some ways, but he also has a fear of man.

There's a lot of people like that. They have a fear of God, but they also have a fear of man. I thought of one of the saddest, it made me think of one of the saddest testimonies of Pilate.

It's found in Luke's account, and I'm going to read it to you from Luke chapter 23. One of the saddest testimonies here. In Luke chapter 23 in verse number 20, it says this, Pilate therefore willing to release Jesus, spake again to them, but they cried, saying, Crucify him, crucify him.

And he said unto them a third time, Why? What evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him. I will therefore chastise him and let him go. And they were instant with loud voices requiring that he might be crucified.

And here's one of the saddest verses. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevail. In other words, Pilate had a fear of God and he had a fear of these people.

And finally, because of the loud voices, he said, All right, I'll give up. They prevail. And the fear of God lost out in Pilate's life.

You know, oftentimes it happens in our own life. We're faced with an issue and our conscience says, You don't want to do that. You don't want to go there.

You know, the fear of God rises up in our hearts, and yet there are peers with us. You can do it. I think of Amnon.

You know, Amnon there in 1 Samuel or 2 Samuel, Amnon thought it hard to do anything to Tamar. Amnon would not have done what he did to Tamar, had an immoral relationship, but he had a friend whose name was Jonadab. And because of Jonadab's pressuring him and pushing him, it pushed Amnon over the line and Amnon did something wicked to his sister Tamar because Amnon had a friend whose name was Jonadab.

And in Amnon's conscience, the Bible says he thought it hard to do anything to Tamar. I can't do that. God help me.

I would never do that. But all of a sudden, Jonadab showed up and said, Hey, you can do that. And because of the voice of another, Amnon committed an act of immorality with Tamar.

So that's where Pilate is. He's in the midst of it. He's struggling.

He has a fear of God, but he also has the fear of man. And the fear of man won out in his life. And I realize today that many people are like Pilate.

The fear of man controls their life. They oftentimes act contrary to conscience. Contrary to conscience.

And you've got to believe that Pilate's conscience was bothering him. Because when this thing is over, he's washing his hands. I'm free from the blood of this.

He's trying to clear that conscience. His conscience was crying out. His wife was crying out to him, Don't do anything to this just man.

But he went against conscience. So I don't appreciate Pilate, but I understand that Pilate had a good heart in a sense. He was just overwhelmed by the multitude.

You take the multitude, the Jews, out of this whole situation, Pilate lets them go, and the crucifixion goes another direction. Well, I want to just comment on how can the fear of God win out in your life? And I thought about a number of different verses in the Scriptures, but I wanted to choose Matthew 10 here because I think this is the central key to having the fear of God win out in each of our lives. I can't preach to Pilate.

He's already gone, but I can preach to us. And I can encourage us to allow the fear of God to win out and not the fear of man. Because you're going to be challenged in life.

Some of you are already challenged now by your peers, by friends, by the society to buckle under and to not listen to the voice of conscience and do the right thing. How can the fear of God win out? Matthew 10 is a beautiful verse. Jesus said this, Fear not them which kill the body.

That's man. Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul. But rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Now if you put yourself in Pilate's position and Pilate thinking through this thing, if Pilate could have heard the words of Jesus, he could have understood how to overcome the situation that he was in. Now what the Lord is doing for His disciples and He does it for us too, is He directs our attention away from those things that are temporal to those things that are eternal. You know, I've heard someone say this, If you truly fear God, you won't fear anything else.

If you truly fear God, you won't fear anything else. Now, let's just be honest, we're going to try and experiment here this morning, but let's just be honest, you know. Fear not Him that can kill the body.

The body is a temporal thing. Your life is a temporal thing. Don't fear those who affect your temporal life and existence.

Don't fear those who affect your temporal relationships, your temporal prosperity, your temporal position in life, but fear Him who controls eternity. Fear Him who has the power to cast your soul into hell forever. So that's what the Lord is encouraging His disciples.

You know, this temporary stuff, don't worry about it. Don't let men cause you to fear. You know, most of the fears that we have deal with temporal issues, issues that revolve around this present life.

But God wants us to direct our fear toward eternal issues, eternal life. You ought to fear eternity. You ought to fear the living God.

You ought to fear those things. As you sit here this morning, every one of you is going to spend an eternity somewhere. And the right perspective on life as Jesus gives counsel is this.

You ought to focus your decision-making on eternity and forget this short period of life that you're in here, 80 or 70, 80 years. So let me draw here on the board that line. And you have, and I know this is way out of whack, on and on and on, this is eternity, but you have this period here called life.

Some of you it's 70, 80 years. Some of you it might be 30. But it's life.

And most fears, most people's fears are bound up in that little circle right there. They fear losing money. They fear losing their life.

They fear getting sick. They fear losing their position. They fear not getting the right person.

They have many fears, but they're all wrapped up right here in this little time frame called life. The temporal existence of life. The truth of the matter is most people, especially those in the world, do not pay any attention to that right there.

Eternity. As a matter of fact, to try to get them to even think about it or talk about it is very difficult. That's why most people don't like to go to funerals.

Funerals are a constant reminder of eternity. And many people, they like the idea of just putting that body in a furnace, burn it, and give me the ashes. I want to avoid the funeral altogether.

Funerals, when I was a kid, were scary to be at. I didn't like to go to funerals. Because it reminded me that someday I'm going to lay there.

Even as a child. And someday I'm going to stand in eternity. You know how to stop fearing in this present life? Is start fearing eternity.

Start looking to eternity. Fear God. He has the power to cast you into hell.

Forever. And so the Lord here is directing their fear away from the temporal to the eternal. And so I think from the Lord's perspective, it's really foolish to get all bound up in something so small.

And yet most people don't think about, you know, I need to fear God in eternity. I'll tell you what, you start fearing God in eternity, you'll change your whole life. As a matter of fact, the Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

You'll start acting very wisely if you'll change your fears and move them out of this temporal world and push them into eternity. And so in your mind, in your heart, you're thinking about eternity. It would be good for all of us to get consumed with eternity for a while.

You start thinking about forever. I do a lot of thinking about forever. I grew up rather a fearful individual.

I mean, I just can't fathom it. I cannot fathom it in my mind. And I'm probably a little bit on the too fearful side, but I just cannot fathom to spend an eternity in a lake of fire without ever ending the torment of it all.

I can't even fathom it. And to fear eternity will come back to this life and change the way you live. Or it certainly will motivate you in a very different way.

Judson here this morning read Psalm 103 and the word fear. God will show mercy to them that fear the Lord. His blessing is on them that fear the Lord.

And so we need to start focusing out here in eternity. You know Pilate, he's sitting there. Pilate's thinking.

He sits there and he thinks, you know what? If I don't deliver this fellow Jesus up, I'm going to lose my place as a leader in Rome. And what am I, 60 years old? I've got another 20 years. Probably I can be a leader in Rome and I'm fearful I'm going to lose this leadership for 20 years.

Oh, my fears, my fears, my fears. He just stopped and sat down for a while and said, you know what? Let's think about eternity for a little bit. And let's think about the fear of God.

What am I going to do here? You know, I could spend eternity in hell for what I'm about to do here. You know, this is not a very good way for me to go. I'm going to avoid this altogether.

I'm going to stand up and say I'm not going to deliver this guy up. It doesn't matter what it costs me on this earth. I'm fearing God and I'm going to spend an eternity with Him.

And so, our perspective of life. I want to just throw this out to you. You don't have to raise your hand.

How many of you spend a lot of time thinking about eternity? Eternity. Ever thought about it recently? Just stop and spend 15 minutes and just think about what you're going to do in the next 1,000, 2,000, 10 million. Eternity.

Forever. And can you stop and just fathom sometimes I wake up at night and I just think about what it would be like to spend an eternity in hell. And it doesn't take long before my heart starts to tremble.

And you know, even though I'm before you and even though I've been a Christian for 40 years, you know, oftentimes I read the Scripture verses and the Bible says many will come to me in that day and say, Lord, Lord, have you not prophesied? Have you not done all these things? And I'll say to them, depart from me ye that work iniquity. I mean, if one-tenth of one percent the possibility that I am going to go to hell, that enough causes me to fear. It ought to cause us to fear.

We ought to live our lives. The Bible says serve the Lord with fear, rejoice with trembling. We ought to live our life in the fear of God.

I think it's a good fear. It's not a dread. You know, you fear that you're going to lose money.

That's a bad fear. But to fear God, that'll change your life. Well, Pilate didn't fear God.

I mean, he had a fear of God, but his fear of men overtook the fear of God. Many people today are very fearful of being rejected by their friends and not fitting in and not getting the right girl or the right guy and all the fears. This stuff is only 50, 60 years, folks.

Look past that and I'll tell you who you ought to fear. Fear Him who controls forever. That's who you ought to fear.

And it'd change your life if you would look out and fear the Lord. So, eternity. That is where your fear ought to be placed.

Get consumed with eternity. Boy, it would be good for us as a church if we would talk about eternity a little bit. Amen.

Amen. Talk about eternity. We would think about eternity.

We would read an eternal book. Does anybody know what book that might be? That tells us about eternity. Turn with me to Hebrews.

We're coming back here. Hebrews 11. Moses here is an example.

There's many examples in the Bible of this, but I want to read one here in Hebrews 11 verse 24. Now let me say this. Just because you fear God doesn't mean that you can overcome your sin.

But fearing God puts you in a place where you can stay humble and broken before Him and God can give you the power of His Spirit to enable you to overcome sin. And it's a good place to be. Oh, God.

It's a good place just to get on your knees every morning and just say, Oh, God, you know, I'm heading for eternity. I just want you to know, Lord, I fear You. I fear You.

And Lord, help me to overcome sin today. Because I fear You. That's the kind of heart the Lord's looking for.

Well, Hebrews 11 verse 24, By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Now this is no small thing because we're going to find out that Pharaoh is going to be a little provoked. Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.

And notice verse 27, By faith he forsook Egypt. Now that didn't please Pharaoh at all. He forsook Egypt not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible.

In other words, Moses had a choice. He said I can either stay here and live this wonderful temporal life where I can go down and suffer with the people of God. If I leave here, the king is going to be upset.

He's got family ties. And it doesn't matter. Moses said it doesn't matter.

I don't fear him. No. I'm thinking about eternity.

And that's who I fear. I fear God. I'm willing to take the wrath of the king.

You know Pilate was not willing to do that. He's not willing to do it. He's not willing to take Caesar's wrath.

His fears overtook him. But Moses, he had eternity on his mind. I love this story.

John R. Rice is a famous Baptist preacher. One day he was sitting in his office and a man came in with a gun, pointed the gun at him and John R. Rice looked at him and said, You cannot threaten me with heaven. Now that's a man who has eternity on his mind.

I don't have to fear you. You shoot me, I'm going to heaven. So what? You can't threaten me with heaven.

Well, Pilate, he was troubled about eternity. He was troubled. But, the fear of man, the fear of this present life, what he would lose, won out.

The Bible also says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. When you make decisions, you make them according to... When you make decisions, if you're a wise person, you make them according to how it affects your eternity. So let's just stop and have an experiment here.

Let's use our minds and let's just think about eternity. Everybody, maybe you haven't thought about it recently, just think about it. Think about going to a place, either heaven, where there is blessing and wonderful things forever and ever and ever, or going to hell, where there is torment.

The Bible says they're tormented day and night forever and ever. So we have these two eternities before us. And I can assure you this, that the Bible is true and it is true that every one of you here are going to be in one of those two places.

Amen? And that's just reality. And when you get a hold of that, that will give you some wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

It's like the ABCs. You know, in first grade, you don't learn how to read. First, you learn your ABCs.

And then you can start reading. Well, the fear of the Lord is your ABCs on wisdom. You start off with, number one, I fear God.

That's the ABCs. Now I can go on to wisdom with the fear of God in my heart. Let's just pretend for a minute that in 30 minutes, it's a quarter till 12, in 30 minutes, every one of us are going to be in eternity.

Just ponder that. In 30 minutes. Truth of the matter is, most of us could die in less than 30 minutes.

But, just imagine you personally, in 30 minutes, it's 29 now by the way, in 29 minutes, you are going to be in either heaven or hell forever. What decisions in these next 28 minutes are you going to make? If that's the case. By the way, Brother Moe Stoltz just last week passed away during our services, I think 11 o'clock.

He went into eternity. People are going into eternity all the time. I think there's 100,000 a day that go into eternity.

You slip out into eternity. So what decisions would you make? Just ask yourself a question here this morning. If you're going to head off into eternity in 27 minutes now, what decisions would you make right now? If you're sitting here, and in 27 minutes, you're going to go into eternity.

Now, if you want to know what wisdom is, wisdom is your decisions that you're about to make are wise decisions. Unless you're really a foolish person. Those decisions you're about to make are wisdom.

So let me ask you this. Anybody want to volunteer? Give me a hand. What's one decision that you're thinking of that you've got 26 minutes, what decision are you going to make? Give me a hand.

Anybody. In your own personal life, you'd want to go into eternity giving praise to Him. Anybody here in 26 minutes would get on the phone and say, hey, brother, sister, I'm sorry I said this about you.

I'm sorry I feel so bitter towards you. I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry.

Anybody do that? There'd be some, wouldn't there? You'd want to make things right with people. Maybe your children. Maybe your wife.

Maybe your brothers and sisters in the church. Maybe somebody way back. If we're sitting here, we've got 25 minutes, I'm sure people would be on the phone.

I've got to go talk to somebody. That's probably something we would do. The Bible says, by the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil.

Do you think there's anyone here who is involved in sin that wouldn't get on their knees and say, God, be merciful, have mercy. I repent. Would you do that? I would.

Repent. Clearing your heart. 25 minutes.

You'd make whatever is wrong in your life, you'd make it right with the Lord. How many of you, if you're sitting here today, if you're not saved, would cry out to God for salvation? Everybody probably would, if you're not saved. Psalm 25, you don't have to turn there, but Psalm 25 and verse 14, it says this, The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will show them His covenant.

You know who God shows the new covenant, death, burial, and resurrection to? Those that fear Him. I love that story of Cornelius. The Bible says he feared God always and gave alms in Acts 10.

And you know what? God, because He feared Him, says, I'm going to show this guy my salvation. He sends Peter all the way from Joppa to come down and tell him how he and his house can be saved. Do you know why God opened the door to salvation to that man? He was a Gentile because he feared God always.

I'll show him my covenant. You know if there were people here this morning that weren't converted, 24 minutes, they'd get saved. They'd do something quick, wouldn't they? That would be why, by the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil.

Ecclesiastes says this, Fear God and keep His commandments. If I didn't do one of His commandments or I rejected one of His commandments, maybe some of you ladies, you're here and you don't have a head covering on, probably you'd put one on. Maybe some of you guys who are sitting here who never give of your wages, you never give to the Lord, you never supply of your abundance how God has blessed you, you'd probably in those last 25 minutes open up your wall and say, Lord, here it is! It's all yours! And so we would want to obey His commandments.

And these things would happen right here in these next 25 minutes because we have an eternal mindset. So I would encourage all of us to spend some time thinking about eternity. And I realize eternity is a staggering concept.

Whenever I think about it, it just blows my mind. But I do sometimes just think, Lord, am I missing something? I don't live life and walk around and wake up in the middle of the night and all these things and say, I'm sure, sure, sure. I still have some fear.

Fear in my heart. And those things are good because whenever I have that, it drives me to the Lord. It drives me to depart from evil and to keep His commandments.

Now let's go back here to John 19. See, Pilate didn't have that perspective. Pilate was consumed with his present day fears and he made a wrong choice.

I hope Pilate was converted later on in life. But in John chapter 19, I'm going to read down through here and just make comment. Pilate's frustrated.

Starting in verse number 8, When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid and went again into the judgment hall and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer. Then said Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? Knowest thou not that I have the power to crucify thee and have the power to release thee? And Jesus answered, Thou couldst have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above. Therefore, he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.

And from thenceforth, Pilate sought to release him. Pilate was still trying to get him out. But the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend.

Whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar. You're going against Caesar. You're going to get in trouble with Caesar.

And I like how it's written here in verse 13, When Pilate therefore heard that saying. Pilate is being thrown back and forth by what people are saying. He's hearing this about the Son of God and this about Caesar.

And he's just tossed, vacillating, back and forth. Now look what happens here in verse 13. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the pavement.

But in the Hebrew, Gabbatha. In other words, Pilate's coming out now and he's going to sit like at the judge's bench and he's going to make his judgment. That's what this judgment seat is all about.

Pilate's going to say, okay, he's going to hit the gavel down and here's my conclusion. My judgment. Verse 14, it says, and it was the preparation of the Passover at about the sixth hour.

It was the sixth hour of the night, which means six o'clock in the morning. And he says unto them, to the Jews, Behold your King. Now Pilate, I think in his heart, he's already decided that he's going to deliver Him up to the Jews and crucify Him.

But as human nature is, he's going to get them back. He's going to get one jab in on them. Right here at the end he says, Behold your King.

Verse 15, but they cried out, Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him. Pilate said unto them, Shall I crucify? Notice that word, your King. The chief priest answers, We have no King but Caesar.

Now, Pilate has never been one to claim that Jesus was a King. And that was thrust upon him. The Jews don't want to claim Him as their King.

Caesar is our King. Verse 16, Then delivered He Him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus and led Him away.

Now jump down to verse 19. Look what happened. And Pilate gets the last word in.

And Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross. This is, alright you guys, you made me do it, but I'm going to get you back. And the writing was, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.

This title then read many of the Jews, for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city, and it was written in Hebrew and Greek and Latin. It's like, I'm going to make sure everybody hears this one. Then said the chief priest of the Jews to Pilate, Write not the King of the Jews, but that He said, I am King of the Jews.

Pilate answered, What I have written, I have written. He's your King. He's your King.

And that's human nature. Trying to get the last laugh. Trying to get the last word in.

And so Pilate's fears caused him to make a decision that he'll probably forever regret in eternity. And God shows us Pilate here because we're human just like Pilate. And there's a tendency for us to fear the circumstances of life.

What's the political situation? I fear. What about, are we going to make enough money? I fear. What about sickness? I fear.

What about all these fears? I would encourage you to direct your attention toward eternity. And fear God. You'll find that if you fear God and you prepare yourself for eternity and get your heart in the right place and look to eternity, all these other things will drop off.

You won't have any more fears if you'll fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell. Well, next time we're going to pick up with the Lord heading up to Golgotha and we'll start the crucifixion story. So where are you at here this morning? Do you fear God? I hope you do.

I hope you fear the Lord. Because if you fear God, that will drive you to the foot of the cross. Because you'll know that eternity is before you and you don't have any hope and it will drive you to Jesus.

It will also drive you away from sin. God, I cannot continue on like this. I need to do something about my sin and crying out to Him for deliverance.

So let's fear God and not allow the voices of friends, the multitudes to turn us away from what's in our conscience. Let's close and then we'll open it up for anyone.