You know, in our series entitled People Jesus Met, today we come to one of the most famous events in the Bible, namely Pontius Pilate washing his hands as he condemns Jesus to the cross.
Now, over the centuries, this event has been painted about by Juan Carrera in the mid-1500s, and it's been referred to in great works of literature like Dante's Inferno. But, folks, God didn't record this event in the Bible in order for us to paint about it or for us to write it into books. He put this in the Bible for us to learn some important spiritual lessons. And so, we want to go back 2,000 years, and we want to see what happened between Pontius Pilate and the Lord Jesus. And then we want to bring all that forward and we want to talk about, well, what difference does that make for you and me?
This is our game plan. Our passage today is Matthew chapter 27. And remember, as we pick up the story, Jesus has been on trial all night in front of the Jewish Sanhedrin, the Jewish high council.
So here we go, verse 1.
Now, when morning arrived, all the chief priests and elders decided to put Jesus to death. But we learned two weeks ago, if you remember, that the Roman government had taken away from the Sanhedrin the authority to execute anyone. Only the Roman governor was allowed to do that. Verse 2.
So they tied Jesus up and they led him away and handed him over to Pilate, the governor.
Now, critics of the Bible have pointed to this verse, verse 2, as double proof that there are mistakes in the Bible. Number one, first they said, hey, Pilate wasn't even in Jerusalem, as the Bible claims. These critics said at the time of Jesus, Pilate's headquarters was actually 50 miles away in the city of Caesarea. He resided there, and therefore, this claim in Matthew chapter 27 that the rabbis that morning took a short walk and handed Jesus over to Pilate right there in the city of Jerusalem is patently, historically wrong. Ah, but now we know from archaeology, yes, that even though the Roman governor did reside in Caesarea, three times a year he would move his headquarters to Jerusalem for the three great pilgrimage festivals of the Jews: Passover, Pentecost, or Shavuot, and Tabernacles or Sukkot, so that he could be in town in case trouble broke out.
And since Jesus was crucified during Passover, The Bible's claim, therefore, that Pontius Pilate was in Jerusalem at that time is actually totally correct. Critics of the Bible also said, based on this verse, well, Pontius Pilate never even existed as a real historical person. The Bible made him up. And the reason they said this is because even to this day, Pontius Pilate's name has never been found in any of Rome's official written records. Ah, but all that changed in 1961 when archaeologists digging at the city of Caesarea discovered a big block of limestone, Pontius Pilate's name just as big as life.
Thank you very much. Very interesting, yeah. In fact, this slab is in the Israeli Museum in Jerusalem. And if you ever go to Israel with me, I'll take you in there and show it to you up close. And you can even touch it if the guard's not looking.
Okay, that's true.
Okay, now let's go back to our mantra. And what's our mantra? I want you to say it with me. Come on now. The more they dig out of the ground, the more the Bible proves to be right.
Friends, of course, Pontius Pilate was a real person. And of course, he was in Jerusalem in Matthew chapter 27, exactly the way the Bible says. And now that the Bible has once again stood the test, let's go on with the passage. Verse 12. But when Jesus began to be accused by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer.
Then Pilate said to him, Do you not hear how many things they are testifying against you? But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge, to the great amazement of the governor.
Now, it was the governor's custom at the feast to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd. And at that time, they had a notorious prisoner called Barabbas.
So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, Who do you want me to release to you, Barabbas or Jesus, who is called the Messiah? For he knew, Pilate did, that it was out of envy that the rabbis had handed Jesus over to him. And while Pilate was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent him a message. She said, Don't have anything to do with that innocent man, for last night I suffered greatly in a dream because of him. But the chief priests and elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed.
So the governor asked them, Which of these two men do you want me to release to you? And they answered, Barabbas. Pilate said to them, Well, what then shall I do with Jesus, who's called the Messiah? And they all said, Crucify him. Pilate asked, why?
What crime has he committed? But they shouted all the louder, crucify him. And when Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but rather that a riot was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd and said, I am innocent of this man's blood. It is your responsibility. Then all the people answered and said, Let his blood be on us and on our children.
Then Pilate released Barabbas to them, but he had Jesus flogged and then delivered him over to be crucified.
Now, it's clear here in Matthew chapter 27 that Pilate was trying to save Jesus' life. It's even more clear in Luke chapter 23, verse 14. Pilate talking to the rabbi said, You brought me this man as one who was inciting people to rebellion. I have examined him in your presence, and I find no basis for your charges against him. Therefore, I will punish him and release him.
But with one voice, they cried out, Away with this man. Wanting to release Jesus, Pilate appealed to them again. But they kept shouting, Crucify him, crucify him. For the third time, Pilate said to them, Why? What evil is this man done?
I have found in him no grounds for death. I will punish him and release him. But with loud shouts, they insistently demanded that Jesus be crucified.
So Pilate decided to grant their demand. You say, Well, Lon, you know, all of this raises two really big questions in my mind. Question number one is: why do you think that Pilate was trying so hard to save Jesus, to set him free?
Well, friends, the Bible never gives us the answer. Maybe it was because he really did believe Jesus was innocent of any wrongdoing. Or maybe it was because he knew that all of this was about the envy that the rabbis had for Jesus and he felt sorry for Jesus. Or maybe it was because he was worried about his wife's dream and the advice that she had given him. I don't have any idea why exactly Pilate was trying to set Jesus free.
You say, well, that leads to my second question, and that is: if Pilate really did want to release Jesus, I mean, he was the Roman governor, he was the guy in charge. Why didn't he just? Just turn Jesus loose and tell the rabbis to go take a hike.
Well, the Bible does answer that question right in Matthew 27, verse 24. It says, When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but rather that a riot was starting, he took water and washed his hands and delivered Jesus over to be crucified. You say, I don't get it. How does that explain why he didn't let him go?
Well, let me tell you: before Jesus was ever brought to Pilate, here in Matthew chapter 27, Josephus, the great Jewish historian, tells us that Pilate had already been responsible for inciting two big riots among the Jews in Judea because of decisions he had made that were unpopular with them. Josephus also tells us that on both occasions, the Jewish leaders appealed above Pilate's head to the emperor of Rome himself, Emperor Tiberius, and That in both cases, Emperor Tiberius personally overruled Pilate and overruled the decisions he had made and sent word to him, saying, Pilate, back off these Jews. We need to understand that in the Roman Empire, riots and civil disorders were greatly looked down upon by the emperor, and the Roman governors were expected to prevent them. The point is that by the time we get here to Matthew chapter 27, Pilate already had two strikes against him. He already had two riots against him.
The last thing Pilate could afford is to have another riot break out in Jerusalem, particularly at the time of Passover. For sure, that would have been strike three year out. For sure, he would have lost his governorship. And so the answer to the question: why didn't Pilate just release Jesus in spite of the Jewish mob and the rabbis? The answer is politics, politics, politics.
That's your answer.
Now, just before we leave our passage for today, let's tidy up what happened to Pilate after Matthew chapter 27. Three years later, according to Josephus in 36 AD, he was actually removed as the governor of Judea after inciting a third riot among the Jews. And according to the great church historian Eusebius, soon afterwards, Pontius Pilate committed suicide.
Now That's as far as we're going to go in our passage, because it's time now to ask our most important question. And so all of you at Loudoun and all of you at Prince William and all of you out on our Internet campus and all of you down at the Edge and everybody here at Tyson's, are we ready? That doesn't inspire me with high confidence. All right. Are we ready?
Come on, let's go now, nice and loud. Everybody, one, two, three.
So, what? You say, Lon, all right, this is a great passage. And so, Pontius Pilate washed his hands. I mean, what difference does that make to me? God bless you up there, brother.
You're preaching your heart out, but I don't think this has anything to do with me.
Well, let's see if we can help with that, okay? Remember, I told you earlier that Pilate appears in Dante's allegorical description of hell called Inferno.
Well, I also want you to know that Pilate appears in a similar literary work by the Danish writer Valdemar Thisted, entitled Letters from Hell, and I'm quoting now from that work. Indeed, do not ask me to describe all I saw and heard in hell, but stop. There are some people I must tell you about. I was sitting one day near the bank of the river when groans broke the silence around me. Suddenly, I perceived a strange figure.
He sat by the river, washing his hands, which were dripping with blood. But for all his washing, the dread crimson would not leave his fingers. As soon as he lifted them out of the water, the blood trickled from them afresh. It was a pitiful sight. Who he was, I knew, even without the testimony of his purple-bordered tunic.
It was Pontius Pilate. And he spends his entire time by the river, washing his hands, but the blood never disappears. End of quote.
Now, folks, we have no indication from any historical source that Pontius Pilate ever trusted Jesus Christ as his personal Savior. And if Pilate didn't trust Christ as his Savior, then this tragic portrayal of him in hell, trying in vain for all of eternity to wash the blood of Christ off his hands, may be far closer to right than it is wrong. Folks, the bottom line is that Pontius Pilate should have listened to his wife's advice. And I had a gentleman come up to me in the lobby between services and say, Yeah, but if Pilate had taken his wife's advice, Jesus wouldn't have been crucified. And I said, No, no, no, listen.
Acts chapter 2 makes it clear that one way or the other, Jesus was going to the cross by the predetermined plan of God. But Pilate should have stayed out of it if he had any sense at all. He should have stayed clear of it.
Now Proverbs chapter 27, verse 12 says, A wise man sees danger coming and gets out of the way, but a fool keeps on going and pays the penalty. And when I think of this verse, I always think of Pontius Pilate. I also think of Samson, who kept on going with Delilah, and he paid the price. And I think of King Saul, who kept on going with partial obedience to God, and he paid the penalty. And I think of Pharaoh, our good friend Pharaoh, who kept on going in defiance of God, and he paid the penalty too.
And you know, I've often thought to myself, Lon, Wouldn't it be nice? If you were smart enough to Wouldn't it be nice if you were wise enough Wouldn't it be nice if you were discerning enough that all by yourself you could see danger coming and get out of the way? But, folks, this has not been my historical track record. Let me just say that. My historical track record has been that so often I don't see it coming and I plow right into it and I pay the penalty.
And you know what? May I say very humbly that it hasn't been your historical track record either. Amen. All right, everybody who didn't say amen is not telling the truth. It's just that simple.
And let me tell you why we're like this. Proverbs chapter 21, verse 2 says, every man's way, every woman's way, is right in his or her own eyes. In other words, we as human beings have this phenomenal ability to justify our way of seeing things as the right way of seeing things all the time. Which means that for most of us, seeing danger coming so we can get out of its way, so we can avoid paying the penalty of plowing right into it, most of us need other people around us advising us and warning us and admonishing us and even rebuking us. But the sad thing is, most of us ask for very little advice and we want even less and we heed even less.
Less than that. Want to know something interesting? All these people we just mentioned who paid the penalty for bad decisions, that is Pontius Pilate and Samson and King Saul and Pharaoh. You know, the interesting thing is that they all had people around them giving them good, solid, godly advice to which they foolishly refused to listen. We already mentioned Pontius Pilate.
He had his wife giving him good advice. He didn't listen. Hey, how about Samson? He had his father saying, Son, you need to keep away from that woman. Did he listen?
No. How about King Saul? He had the great prophet Samuel who kept saying to him, Saul, you better obey God 100%. Did Saul listen? No.
We had Pharaoh who had Moses there saying, you better listen to God and submit to him. Did Pharaoh listen? No. In fact, God says in the Bible that one of the main ways that we can distinguish a fool from a wise person is by watching how that person responds to correction and advice and admonishment and rebuke. Listen, Proverbs 12:15 says, A wise man listens to advice.
Proverbs chapter 9, verse 8 says, Rebuke a wise man and he will love you. Proverbs 9:9 says, Instruct a wise man, and he will be wiser still. Proverbs 21, verse 11 says, When a wise person is instructed, he receives the knowledge you're trying to give them. Proverbs 13, verse 1 says, A wise child heeds his father's instruction. And finally, Proverbs 15, 5 says, He who heeds reproof is wise.
Now, by contrast, Proverbs 12, 15 says, the way of a fool always seems right in his own eyes. Proverbs 15, 5 says, a fool rejects his father's discipline. Proverbs 9, verse 8 says, Reprove a fool, and he'll hate you. Proverbs 17:10 says, One rebuke goes deeper into a person of wisdom than a hundred blows into a fool. And the one I love the most, Proverbs 27, 22, it says, Even though you pound a fool in a mortar with a pestle like crushed grain, yet his folly will not depart from him.
Man, when I think of that verse, I think of old Yule Brenner. I mean God pounded him and pounded him and pounded him as the Pharaoh. You remember that? With plague after plague after plague, God pounded him. He never did get it, did he?
He stayed defiant to the very end. See folks, fools can be crushed. Fools can be disgraced, fools can be defeated, but fools never get humbled. Even when they're in the pits, they're still as arrogant as ever, and this is what makes them fools in the sight of Almighty God. Hey, don't we all know people just like this?
Sure, we do.
Some of us have people in our family who are just like this.
Some of us have roommates who are just like this.
Some of us have co-workers who are just like this.
Some of us have friends who are just like this. But, folks, the secret is, the secret is that you and me, we don't want to be people like this. Because the consequences of being a biblical fool are Yeah. Proverbs 29, verse 1 says, A person who remains stiff-necked after much reproof, much advice, much correction, will suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. Hey, didn't that happen to Samson?
Didn't that happen to Saul? Didn't that happen to Pharaoh? Didn't that happen to Pilate? You say, all right, well, Lon, if that's true, then that raises a pretty important final question. And that question is: how can I avoid being a biblical fool like this?
I mean, how can I become a better receiver of correction and advice?
Well, that's a great question. And I have four very quick suggestions, and then we're done. How can you and I become better receivers of correction and advice and constructive criticism? Here we go. Four suggestions.
Number one, suggestion number one is that we need to change our outlook when it comes to correction and advice. Instead of despising it like we normally do, we need to embrace it. Proverbs 12, verse 15 says, A wise man listens to, embraces advice. And we need to begin, if we want to become better receivers of correction, we need to begin to see correction and advice and admonishment and reproof as our friend in disguise because God says it really is. And remember, a biblically wise person doesn't automatically, doesn't necessarily take every piece of advice that they're given.
What they do is they listen without defensiveness. Go home and they pray about it before the Lord, and then they take whatever part of that advice the Lord shows them is valid. Suggestion number two is if we want to become better receivers of admonishment and correction, we need to cultivate humility before God. Romans 12, verse 3, the Apostle Paul says, I say to every one of you, do not think more highly of yourself than you ought. I have always thought that this ought to be the life verse of Washington, D.C.
What do you think? I think they ought to take this first and put it above the Senate. I think they ought to take this verse and write it above the House chamber. I think they ought to take this verse and write it above every public building here in Washington, DC. Do not think more highly of yourself than you ought.
And, friends, we need to ask God to deal with the arrogance of our life. We need to ask God to humble us. We need to ask God to help us get used to the idea that we are not as smart as we think we are. The point is that the plow of advice enters the ground more effectively if the Holy Spirit has already been allowed to soften the soil. Number three.
Suggestion number three, want to be better receivers of correction and advice. Then three, we need to let it be known to other people that we are candidates for advice. We need to find some godly people and wise people that we trust and begin asking them to please feel the freedom to give us advice, to give us correction. If they see us heading into trouble, to come and rebuke us and tell us that they see us heading for trouble, we need to invite them to come in even uninvited. Even when we don't want to hear it, even when we don't like what they say, we need to give them that freedom, and then we need to prove that we're really serious about this by responding with humility when they do come to us.
You say, Lon, do you have a group of people around you like that? I certainly do. I have a small group of men around me like that. And, friends, every one of us need people around us like that. None of us are smart enough to see every piece of danger coming out there all by ourselves.
Finally, number four. Suggestion number four: want to be a better receiver of advice and correction? Then, number four, we need to thank God for those people who love us enough to tell us the truth about ourselves, and then we need to be careful that we don't ignore them and just brush them off. Hey, Proverbs 27, verse 6, great verse. It says, Faithful are the wounds of a friend.
When a person is enough of a friend that they love you and me enough that they will tell us the truth, even though it wounds us, that is a faithful friend. And we need to treasure those people. You know, for ten years, from 1995 to 2004, Click Smith served as the chairman of our board of elders here at McLean Bible Church. In fact, the Smith Center downstairs is named after him. He was a former two-star general in the Air Force.
When he got out of the Air Force, he went to seminary and earned his seminary degree. He was a godly man, a wonderful man, a true friend. And as chairman of the elders, he was my direct report. He was my boss.
Well, the two of us would often meet for breakfast several times a month, and I could usually tell by the look on Click's face when I walked into the breakfast meeting how it was going to go, at least for me. If you know what I'm saying, well, I remember one time one morning, Click and I were sitting at breakfast over at the Fairview Marriott, right over there at Route 50 in the Beltway, and he was rebuking me and reproving me for some decision that he knew I was about to make here at McLean Bible Church and telling me why it was not right and not what I should be doing. And I don't know what I did. I said something, I made some response to him that indicated somehow that I didn't agree or I wasn't paying attention. And he banged his fist on the table like that and pointed his finger at me and he said, You are not listening to me.
And I said. I'm trying. And he said, Well, you're not trying hard enough. Try harder.
Well, I don't know. That struck me as funny.
So I started laughing.
Well, that was definitely not the response Click was looking for. That breakfast ended badly for me. And Click and I had lots and lots of breakfast meetings just like this. I want to tell you something. That man would sit down at breakfast and he would tell me what I needed to hear.
But one thing about that man, when we walked out of breakfast, that man had my back for 10 years. I tell you, to this day, I love Click Smith. And I'll tell you something else: there would have been a lot more mistakes and judgment made by me here at McLean Bible Church if it hadn't been for a man like that who sat me down at breakfast and said, Oh, no, you don't. No, no. This is wrong.
This is trouble coming. This is not a good idea.
So, what have we learned today, my friends? Let's summarize. We've learned number one That Pontius Pilate should have listened to his wife's good advice, and that you and I should listen better to the good and godly advice of a lot of people around us that they try to give us. We've learned, number two, that as followers of Christ, God categorizes us as fools or wise people based on how we respond to correction and constructive criticism and advice and rebuke. And finally, number three, we saw four suggestions about how we can become better responders to advice and criticism.
We can change our outlook on advice and criticism and learn to embrace it instead of despising it. We can cultivate humility before God so the plow of advice has softer soil to go into. We can let it be known that we are candidates for advice and gather some people around us. Who have permission to correct our lives. And finally, we can thank God for people who love us enough to tell us the truth about ourselves and then don't brush them off and don't ignore them.
And so the question I want to leave us with today for you to ask yourself is very simply this: who are the click Smiths in my life? Who are the clicksmiths in my life? Do I have any people like this in my life? And the follow-up question is: if not, Then are you, am I willing to recruit some of these people into my life and then really pay attention to them?
Something worth thinking about. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, thank you for reminding us that a wise person sees trouble coming. and gets out the way. Oh, would to God That we all knew how to do that all by ourselves.
Would to God! That we all had the wisdom and the smarts. to be able to do that innately ourselves, but we don't. At least I certainly don't. And Lord, so many times I have fulfilled the second half of this verse: a fool keeps on going.
and pays the penalty. Lord Jesus, remind us that we need people around us. People who are godly. People who are wise. And people whom we give permission.
To come into our life and say, there's trouble coming the way you're doing this. Father, I pray that you would give all of us here the wisdom to recruit some folks like that. and to give them that permission in our lives. Help us, Lord Jesus, not to be like Pontius Pilate. And Samson.
And Saul And Pharaoh, Lord, help us to be wise, men and women. By your definition. And a wise man or woman listens to advice. Lord, change the way we respond to people. And the way we respond to their attempts to help us in our life.
Because we were here today and we sat under the teaching of the eternal Word of God. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. And what did God's people say? What'd you say? Amen.
