Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.

I guess it's still proper to say good morning when it's night because isn't it true that with God it's always good morning?

And I believe that's about right, isn't it?

With God it is always good morning.

Nice to see you tonight.

You've had a big day, so have I.

But it is comforting to come into God's house at the close of the day when this evening, the day is rather far spent, and to give God an extra hour to think about the sufferings and death of our Lord.

And as you know, that's what we are doing in this Lenten season.

And as we are walking with Jesus to the cross, we are looking at some of the questions that were asked in the suffering and death story, some of those questions that disturb us and upset us quite a bit.

01:07

Last Wednesday night we had a question from Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor.

You remember this is what he asked Jesus.

He looked at him and rather scornfully said, what is truth?

Tonight we have another question that Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, asks.

He tried every way possible to not give the death sentence as regards Jesus.

When he had asked the question, what is truth, when again they still shouted that he should be crucified because he was an insurrectionist, that he was even up in Galilee.

You recall that Pontius Pilate then sent Jesus to Herod, who happened to be down in Judea at this time at the feast of the Passover.

And Herod, of course, he looked at Jesus and we are told that he was glad to see him.

02:01

He thought he'd see some big miracle, but Jesus didn't answer him.

And so Herod sent Jesus back to Pontius Pilate.

And then Pontius Pilate decided there was something else that he might do in order that he might not have to condemn this innocent man to death.

Since it was the time of the Passover and each year at the Passover, the Roman government gave in to the Jews to this extent that they had the custom of releasing a prisoner to them.

And some of the Jews remembered it and they said to Pilate, are you going to release a prisoner to us at this time?

And that gave Pilate the idea and of course he went and he got the worst prisoner that they had locked up at the time.

He was a man by the name of Barabbas.

We are told that he was a murderer.

He was an insurrectionist.

I suppose we would say that he was the man that had committed everything in the catalog as far as that which was wrong.

And Pontius Pilate used his head in thinking, I'll take the worst criminal we have and I'll put him up against this Jesus of Nazareth and surely there will be no doubt as to the outcome.

03:04

And so again, he brought Jesus out and he brought Barabbas out.

And then he said to the populace, whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you?

Which one shall I release unto you?

You make your choice and we are told tragically that the chief priests and the elders, the members of the high tribunal of the Jews working in the mob told the mob to yell for Barabbas and so they yelled, Barabbas release him and away with this man Jesus.

That was quite a shock even to a man as hard boiled as Pontius Pilate who was a Gentile, a heathen man who was a Roman.

And this question we want to look at tonight, the one that he asked, which one of the two do you want me to release unto you?

And as you and I look at that question tonight we say, well, what's the choice?

04:01

Well, the choice in your life and mine is the same choice that existed early that morning, Jesus or Barabbas or Jesus or the world, Jesus or sin, Jesus or evil.

We say to ourselves, which is our choice?

Which one?

Is it going to be Jesus or is it going to be the world?

You know that raises a lot of disturbing questions in my heart and I imagine it does in yours.

The first one that comes to my mind is this.

I wonder why it is that Jesus again when we have this choice that we were made as regards him that God ever made us with the right of choice.

Why did God ever give you and me such a choice?

This bothers us, doesn't it?

Oh, we may say it's presumptuous even to ask the question, to go to God and to say, God, why did you ever make us the way you made us?

05:05

Why did you make us capable of choice?

And you and I may say, God, I think you could have improved on the situation.

And the argument may run something like this and we may mean it faithfully and say, God, we say, God, if you hadn't made us with the right of choice, if you hadn't made us so that we had to be good, God, don't you realize what that would have meant?

There would have been no sin in the world.

There would have been no death.

There would have been no heartache.

There would have been no necessity of your son coming into the world and dying on the cross.

There would have been no necessity of him enduring our sins for us.

There would have been no hell.

There would have been no fallen angels.

Everybody would have been saved.

God, why in the world didn't you make us without the right of choice?

And I suppose you and I have sometimes sincerely felt, even though we didn't want to be presumptuous, that if God had just had us on the spot at that time and had asked you and had asked me that we would have told him, God, I think you're making a big mistake.

06:06

When you bring into existence the universe and when you create angels with a free will and when you are going to make man with a free will, I rather imagine we would have said to God, God, I think you're making a mistake.

And it bothers us, doesn't it?

Because somehow or other you and I can envision perfect bliss if God had just made us as we are but without freedom of the will, that we'd have no choice between Christ and between the world, that there would have been no choosing.

It would have been Christ.

It would have been all to it.

We say, didn't God kind of slip a little bit?

Couldn't he have done something a little better?

Rather hard, isn't it?

We say, God, I don't want to be presumptuous.

I don't want to tell you what to do.

You're a perfect God.

And yet, can we approach it this way?

There are those in our country tonight who would destroy this nation within the next ten minutes if they could.

07:05

They would destroy this government.

They would reduce you and me to an abject slave.

They would put communism in control of this government.

They would see to it that you and I would have no right to live except by the government, that we would die if the government decided it, that we would have no right to work where we wanted to work, no right of choice, no right of income, no right to live except given us by the state.

I'd like to know how many of you tonight would like that.

I think you and I come back to this when we see it.

We say, who in the world would ever sell his freedom in this great land of ours for slavery?

Who in the world would want to live under a government that denied God and where I would lose the right of choice, where I would be denied the right to go to church, I would be denied the right to work where I wanted to, I would be denied the salary that I ought to have, I would be denied even my life if somebody in that communistic government decided to put me to death.

08:08

And I'm sure when we begin to think of that, we say to ourselves, thank God for America.

Thank God that here is a land that still gives you and me the right of choice.

You came to church tonight and so did I because we wanted to come, the right of choice.

And those who didn't come, not all, but some didn't come because they didn't want to come.

And therefore the answer to this disturbing question, why didn't God make us that we didn't have the right of choice?

God didn't want us to be slaves.

God wanted us to rise above.

He wanted you and me to be free moral agents.

09:01

He wanted you and me to be again a creature of his that would love him because we wanted to love him with all our heart, soul, and mind.

He didn't want any kind of an enslaving obedience.

God wanted us the way we are.

He wanted choice.

He didn't want sin.

He didn't want man to fall.

It wasn't his desire that he wanted to send the Savior, that he wanted all this to come.

No, but he accepted it and he said in so many words, give me a world even though man will have the freedom of choice even though he sins, a world that will cost me my son, a world that will mean Calvary, and I will take it instead of my creating a world of men who would be only slaves.

You see, God loves you and me with the free will, and he made you and me with the free will.

10:02

And I think we're going to have to stand and say, God, I don't think you made a mistake.

Even though in my little one-track brain I may presumptuously look at you and criticize you.

But again, when we realize what slavery might be, I think we will have to say, God, thanks for making us with the free will, with the right of choice.

And that's why as Pilate stood there early that morning and said, which one do you want?

Make up your mind, Christ of the world.

You and I will have to say, even though it disturbs - God, thank you for making us with the free will, that we can love you because you made us capable of loving you.

And if we don't want to love you, we don't have to.

And that raises another disturbing question.

In this matter of choice, why is it that in your life and in mine, in this matter of choosing between Christ and the world, Christ and sin, you and I are so horribly and tragically tilted towards the world?

11:18

Did you ever notice that?

Why?

Why, when you look at Christ and the world, why is it that in your life and mine, let's be honest, the world shines a lot brighter with its sin than does Jesus Christ?

Why is it that scripture talks about the lust of your eye and mine?

Why is it that there's something about your eye and mine that can pick up lust just like that?

A sensual, evil, dirty desire.

Why is it that your eye, the minute it sees it and mine, is so attractive?

12:04

Oh, don't deny it.

One man said to me one day, I thought I was the only one made that way.

I didn't know others were like that.

That's the way you are.

That's the way I am.

Why is it that you and I have got such a lustful heart, that it leans predominantly to the world?

It loves it.

There's just something about your heart that goes all out.

One of us, ever think of it?

Why is it that in the Garden of Eden, when God created Adam and Eve, and they were holy and they were righteous, they didn't have any clothes on, and they weren't even conscious of it?

They didn't know what a sinful thought was.

They didn't know what a lustful eye was.

13:02

They didn't know what concupiscence was, a bend downward to dirt and to smut.

Until, by freedom of choice, they did something that was wrong.

They ate of the fruit they were told not to eat of.

Have you ever wondered why the Word of God says the first thing they noticed was the fact that they were naked?

And then they went and they took leaves and they wove clothes, and they covered their bodies.

You and I may say, what in the world has happened to us?

Why is my heart so lustful and so corrupt?

Why is it that when I look at Jesus and I look at Barabbas, the sinful world, why is it that the world is so tantalizing and it offers everything, and it's so bright and it's so alluring, and my eyes love it and my heart looks at it and I say, oh, it's wonderful in my life.

It doesn't shine a ring like Christ.

14:16

You know, the last word will never be written on what original sin really means.

I know there are a lot of churches that deny that man comes into the world born and conceived in sin.

But my answer is, is there anything more obvious than the proof of original sin than you and than I?

Is there anybody in the church tonight that would deny that he's got a lustful eye and that it gloats by nature in seeing something that's just a little off color?

That you and I have got a lustful heart?

That it just simply craves the world, that which is wrong?

15:07

You know, friend, that's a bothersome question why we are tilted so towards that.

The answer is, when man sinned, as by one man, Adam, sin entered into the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all men for that all had sinned.

I don't think you and I can begin to sound the depths of what man's fall into sin really did.

What it gave you and me is the big word concupiscence you hear about.

It means this, that in your life and mine we came into the world with a bent downward, with a craving for dirt.

That's the kind of heart you've got by birth.

That's the kind I've got.

It's the kind of an eye you've got.

It's the kind of a flesh you've got, an eye.

16:02

That's why Jesus said one day out of the heart proceed thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.

Oh, it's a problem, isn't it?

Pontius Pilate stands there and says, here's Christ and here's Barabbas.

Make your choice.

Here's Christ, here's the world.

You and I have a lot of problems on this thing of choice.

We say, well then, why is it that in the choice of Jesus there is resistance in every man, that when he's first offered to you and me our first inclination is no?

That's strange.

Did you ever try to sell anything?

Any of you salesmen?

You've heard me say I'm a salesman too.

A minister is a salesman.

His job is to sell Jesus Christ.

17:01

Why is it that my job as a salesman is the hardest job in the world?

You don't know what salesmanship is until you have tried to sell Jesus Christ.

Haven't you tried to sell him?

How many of you have said to me time and time again, I've gone to my neighbor and I've asked him, won't you come to the adult class, and I've pled with him and I've told him all about it, and they'll even promise, and when the time comes, then they've got something else, and how many of you have been put off, and you've been delayed, and you've been given this excuse and that excuse, and you've worked for years, and you finally come and you say, I don't know.

You wonder why?

Rather strange, isn't it?

The hardest job in the world is to sell Jesus Christ.

Do you ever see in an individual's life all the things that men have against him?

Here is Christ offering forgiveness, life, and salvation, and so on.

When they look at him, he's not the Son of God, he's not the Savior.

Who wants him?

Thousands and thousands. Why? We were born that way.

18:03

Another thing is part of original sin.

You see, when Adam and Eve walked out on God, they became enemies.

And there is in you and me by nature, by original sin, there is a natural resistance against Jesus Christ.

That's why in every adult, when he's introduced to Jesus Christ, the first answer is no.

I don't want him.

And he can find a million excuses why he doesn't want him.

You and I say, I wonder why.

How many of us look at him and we grieve?

How many of us have got a thousand reasons why again?

We don't accept him in entirety in our hearts.

Why is it this eternal no?

No, I don't want him.

Or there's something wrong with him.

It wasn't much different that morning when Pontius Pilate said, which one do you want?

19:04

Here's Christ and here's Barabbas, here's the world.

And they yelled, give us Barabbas!

You and I may say, I wonder why.

I wonder why.

You try and sell Jesus Christ today.

And let me tell you, you've got a job on your hands.

All of my customers say no.

I don't know what you sell, but they don't all say no.

But there is a natural resistance.

It goes the other way.

The way you can sell the world, believe you men, men that are out selling the lust of the world, they're making their millions, aren't they?

No problem in the world because they know that the allure of the world is just like flypaper for a fly.

But you sell Jesus Christ and oh, there are a million things that men find against him.

The depravity of the human heart when man walked out on God.

20:04

Then it raises another disturbing thing when we say, well, make your choice which one's it going to be Christ or is it going to be the world?

You and I may say, well, why couldn't we have both?

Why couldn't there be some way that we can sort of have Christ and we can take the sinful world too and have both?

Why can't we get away with that?

Why can't we just go out and with the lust of the eye and with the lust of the heart and with the pride of life, why can't we go out and live to the world and still have Jesus?

Why won't he let us do that?

Well, I think if we just look at ourselves, how happy would you and I be in heaven if we spent all our earthly days in fulfilling the lust of the eye and in fulfilling the lust of the heart?

How happy would we be in heaven when heaven is holiness?

21:02

We would be the most miserable people in the world.

If Christ would take you and me to heaven when all we've done in this life is live for the world, live for all of its lusts and all of its evil and all of its wickedness, and then suddenly find ourselves in heaven with all of that gone, why, there'd be mutiny in heaven.

I think we'd go to him and we'd say, please let me go back to earth, I'm anything but happy here, if there has been no control, no control over the lust of your eye and mine or over the lust of your heart and mine.

Heaven would be hell.

That's the reason why Jesus would remind you and me, you can't serve two masters.

You just can't do it because he wouldn't dare or ever be so unkind as to subject you and me to an eternity of holiness when all that the heart has ever lived on has been lust and has been wickedness.

22:08

It brings another disturbing thing.

Which one are you going to choose?

Christ?

You're going to choose Barabbas, Christ or the world.

We may say, well why is it then that a lot of people overcome this natural resistance to Christ and they choose him, but only for a time?

And then they go back to the world.

Well, I'm sure you and I know that's true because you know and I know that if on any given Sunday every member who has his name on the church record of any church, if they'd all come on the same Sunday and the closest we'd get to that is Easter, that no church building in the city of Marion could hold its membership if all who claim membership would come.

We know that, don't we?

23:01

We say to ourselves, what's happened?

How does it come that a man says, I'll choose Christ and then he gives way?

We are bothered with that too.

Where does Barabbas come back in when a man turns away from it?

Well, you see if again, if when we turn away from the world, when we admit that the eye is lustful and the heart is rotten from birth, when we stop fighting the world and when we begin to see just how far can I go, it isn't very long before it's just like, you know, the camel getting its nose in the tent and finally the camel gets in and there's no room for us and we've got to get out.

It doesn't take long, does it?

It's a slow thing, isn't it?

But when we let the lust of the eye and the lust of the heart begin to turn us back to that which we know is wrong, then we begin to think wrong, don't we?

24:07

Then we begin to say to ourselves, well it isn't very wrong, in fact it's all right.

In fact it's all right and what is wrong becomes right and then we become rather confused, don't we?

Then we get rather upset and we wonder what's wrong with us.

We're restless and we figure well the only answer then is to keep on going into the world and to try to drink it to its full.

And that's why when we ask the disturbing question, why is it that some embrace Christ for a while and then they turn away, it's because they've let the bars down and it's because they have again made themselves feel that this is real living, this is it.

That raises the disturbing question, doesn't it?

25:02

Then how is it possible or why is it that a person can choose Christ and can remain in Christ and not be pulled back to the world?

How does it come that that is possible?

If you and I have chosen Jesus Christ and not the world, isn't it true that we sit down and we say to ourselves, now wait a minute, I admit my eye is lustful, that in the twinkling of an eye I can see something dirty that I shouldn't see and I realize that my heart is just waiting for something that will carry it off.

Then we say to ourselves, but I know this, there is no satisfaction that comes from doing wrong.

And isn't that the story of sin?

You keep on and you keep on and one thing leads to another and one sin leads to another sin and it leads to something greater, seeking satisfaction in wrong.

26:14

And there isn't any, is there?

And if we've got sense enough to know what we say to ourselves, there can't be anything satisfying in doing wrong.

Wrong just leads to more wrong.

To try to find an end and to say, now I've drunk the gamut of it all, now I'm satisfied but there isn't any.

That's why Solomon, you know, when he tried it, he finally said, vanity of vanity, he said, all is vanity, he says everything, he said it's empty, it doesn't satisfy.

Then I think when we have picked Jesus Christ and we have said to ourselves, this is my choice and I'm going to stay with it, that we begin to realize something else.

27:05

Supposing we picked the world and then we come up against the end and we say to ourselves, I'm so miserable, I don't want to stay alive.

Isn't it strange how men sell themselves on the idea that death will end that gnawing and that lust in the heart?

Where did we ever get the idea that when death comes, that brings an end to the lust of the heart?

If you and I are Christians, we know that death is not an end of living, death is not annihilation.

And we say to ourselves, what is hell?

And the Word of God says, where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.

28:00

What's God trying to say to us?

God is trying to say to you and me that let's not think that when we have run the gamut of evil and it catches up with us that we can take our own life and that ends it, finally we are at peace, that God would remind us that the worm doesn't die.

It means what is hell?

Hell for the spirit is of an eternity of a lustful soul that is never satisfied.

Can you imagine what that must be?

If you and I are living for the world, for the lust of the eye and the lust of the heart, and it's just to drink it in and more and more, what must an eternity be with a lustful, sensuous heart that can't be satisfied?

Can you imagine what it must be?

What must it be for a soul that longs for intoxication in eternity when it can't be satisfied?

29:05

Or the soul that longs for dope?

Or the soul that longs for immorality?

Longing, panting, groping, craving, and eternally unsatisfied where the worm dieth not and conscience doesn't die.

That's hell, isn't it?

Again, we look at these alternatives and Pontius Pilate says, which one?

Make up your mind, who do you want, Jesus, or do you want the world?

And it raises then this disturbance of why, why do we have to make our choice now?

Why can't we put this thing off and run the gamut of the world and then come back to it?

Well, I think if you had been with me this afternoon or even for the day, I think you could find an answer to the question.

30:05

It's been a rather busy day.

Started about 4:30 this morning, we had a funeral here this afternoon, woman 45 years of age.

Rather young, isn't it?

And then to the hospital, and it was rather unusual today, there were four people in intensive care that I visited, and that's unusual to have four people who want to see you in intensive care.

The unusual thing about two is this, I feel rather positive that two in intensive care have no idea that they're in intensive care.

I wonder if they even know whether they are alive.

We say to ourselves, why make the choice now?

I'm not dead yet for a long time.

I wonder how many of us realize that we're only a half a teaspoon full of blood in the brain away from a cerebral hemorrhage.

31:01

I wonder how many of us realize how easy it is for one of the little blood vessels in the brain to spring a leak, and about a half a teaspoon full of the blood over the brain, which might render you and me unconscious for day after day, and never regain consciousness, not even know we're alive.

That's about as far away or as near to death as you and I are.

And that can happen in your head and in mine just any time, can't it?

It's all it takes.

If you've ever seen human brains, which I have seen, you begin to realize just how easy a hemorrhage of the brain can take place.

As I say, two that I prayed with, yes, hoping that God's Word would still get through, I came away from their bedsides in intensive care wondering if it got through, whether they even heard it or whether they know.

32:10

Here was Pontius Pilate, he wanted to get rid of Jesus and he was hoping that they'd make the choice.

Here was the worst criminal he had, Barabbas, and here was Jesus, not sure they'd say Jesus.

And of course they took Barabbas.

And he was trying to save his own skin, then you know he brought water out and he washed his hands.

(The original tape ends here)