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Seventh-day Adventist Church in Canada

Eric Walsh

Choosing Eternity

We are going to jump right into our message.

Starting in Matthew 27, as our scripture reading for tonight.

Now at the feast, the governor was wont to release to the people a prisoner whom they would.

They had then a notable prisoner called Barabbas.

Therefore, when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, whom will ye that I release unto you, Barabbas or Jesus which is called Christ?

Barabbas or Jesus which is called Christ.

Our message this evening is entitled Choosing Eternity.

Father God we thank you for this opportunity to study your word.

Lord as we delve into a very sensitive and challenging issue, I pray that you make me just a nail upon the wall, a rusty, sorry nail, Lord, but upon that nail, Lord, I ask that you hang a portrait of Jesus Christ.

Let Eric Walsh not be seen or heard father instead let us hear a word from the throne room of grace.

This is our prayer in Jesus's precious and holy name.

We start in the book of Matthew chapter 27.

Matthew chapter 27 and starting at verse 11.

Jesus stood before the governor and the governor asked him saying, are you the king of the Jews?

And when he was accused of the chief priests and elders he answered nothing.

We jump into our story tonight with Christ standing next to Pilate.

Somewhere in the room are his accusers, the chief priests and the elders, the leaders of Israel.

As they accuse him in front of Pilate, trying to convince Pilate that this man is a threat to the Roman authority in Judea.

That he ought to be removed by punishment of death.

They'd already done a kangaroo court with him through the Sanhedrin.

1 of his own had already betrayed him with a kiss.

Spent the night without food or sleep, brutalized.

And now he stands in front of the representative of the mightiest empire the world had ever known at that point.

Pilate's wife had already given him a dream, had been given a dream, and she told her husband Pilate not to mess with Christ.

So he asks this question, are you the king of the Jews?

In verse 13, Pilate then ups the ante and says, "'Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee?' And he answered him to never a word, insomuch that the governor marveled greatly." Here, Pilate, who was used to dealing with those who started insurrection and criminals, He was used to dealing with those who were in legal trouble and as Pilate is there speaking with Christ Pilate says to him don't you hear all that is being said about you?

Do you not hear the allegations that are being laid against you?

Bible says in verse 14 that Jesus answered him to never a word.

And it was such a deafening silence in the mind of Pilate that the Bible says Pilate marveled greatly.

All the other criminals he had ever met, given an opportunity to state their innocence, rambled on ad nauseum at how they'd been framed.

Every other criminal that Pilate had met were verbose in their ability to make a defense of themselves.

Verse 15 of Matthew 27, now at the feast, the governor was want to release unto the people a prisoner whom they would.

Therefore when they were gathered together Pilate said unto them who will ye that I release unto you, Barabbas or Jesus, which is called Christ?

Pilate's primary job was to keep the peace between the Jews and the Roman authority.

He answered back to Caesar in Rome and his job was to keep the peace.

1 of the ways he did this was annually at around the time of the Passover he would release a prisoner in order to satisfy the Jewish people, to keep them at bay, understanding that there was always a risk that if he let someone go who truly was involved with crime or insurrection, it might cause problems.

But Pilate was a diplomat, and he was trying to get the people, the Jewish people into a place where they were at peace and at ease.

Pilate realized that he had an opportunity.

And there was a prisoner whose name was Barabbas.

You have to believe that Pilate thought for sure when compared to the meek and lowly, loving, comforting nature of Christ that the ruffian Barabbas would have easily been the 1 that they would have sent back.

Pilate asked the question, let me submit to you that the Roman Empire was a tough place to live if you were an occupied people.

Roman oppression led to heavy taxation, was a brutal system of slavery.

You had to live the way the Romans lived.

You were Romanized, as it were, into their culture.

They had a criminal justice system that was not fair.

The Persians, some say, invented crucifixion, but the Romans perfected it.

In fact, in Daniel chapter 2, the Roman Empire is the part of the statue with legs of iron.

Your legs have your biggest strongest muscles and and and iron is 1 of the strongest, if not the strongest metal, speaking to the fact that Rome would 1 day crush and destroy.

The Roman Empire extended all the way to the British Isles, the coasts of northern Africa, far east into Europe and Asia Minor.

Powerful, dreaded was the Roman Empire and people kowtowed to her.

Before Jesus, there were the Maccabees who fought hard to set themselves free And there were many insurrections that would rise up from time to time.

But I want to submit to you that 1 of the things that's very interesting about the Roman Empire and how the whole thing comes together is that the disciples themselves were a part of those who wanted to be liberated from the Roman powers.

So much so that in the story in the New Testament where, in the Gospels where the 5, 000 are fed, after the 5, 000 are fed and people are healed and Jesus is spoken, not just the people but the disciples were looking for a way to take him by force and crown him king.

When the Sanhedrin finally catches up with Jesus and they're ready to destroy him, Judas betrays him with a kiss.

Peter is so ready for liberation and for justice and equality that he draws his sword and Peter cuts off the ear of the high priest's servant, Malchus.

Jesus, of course, reattaches it miraculously.

Just a week before this, Now Jesus is beaten and weakened and looks terrible, but just a week before this, they cried, "'Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest!' As he walked, as he came into the city of Jerusalem, branches were thrown down before him, and he was accepted as if he were king because they wanted to shake off the Roman power.

But let me submit to you, as terrible as the Roman Empire was, as dark as it was, we've seen that even in these days, people groups are still oppressed, injustice still happens.

In fact, here in the United States and in North America, we have had a history of challenges and difficulties along the lines of race.

Back in the 60s, there were marches and protests and sit-ins to change laws, forbade African Americans and other people of color from sitting in diners or riding on the front of a bus.

If you've ever read the book, The Color of Law, you'll find that in fact, the laws of the United States were used to redline African-American communities, devalue properties and not give mortgages and other means to secure a home and ultimately to develop wealth for their families.

Like ancient Rome, America has had her sins.

Today we still deal with police brutality, inequalities in wealth and income that look like poverty, still evidences of overt racism.

I wanna submit to you that just as Jesus was under the yoke of great oppression as he grew up in Nazareth, which was 1 of the poor towns, a ghetto town as it were, so that 1 of the disciples said, can any good thing come from Nazareth?

So today have many been raised under great oppression.

We talk about racism as a very visible thing, but I would argue with you that poor quality schools in certain neighborhoods and the weaponizing of nutrition that has created many poor black and brown neighborhoods all across North America and definitely across the United States where we have food swamps and food deserts, the exposure to environmental toxins like the lead in the water in Flint, Michigan, and even the pollution of having freeways and highways cut through poor neighborhoods in this country.

And the pollutants cause disease and problems to those who now live near these thoroughfares.

Of course, the prison industrial complex has disproportionately and unfairly locked away many African Americans and Latinos.

She has slipped into darkness in many ways in our history despite what I believe are God-given principles that the country was established upon yet and still.

America has had her challenges and if you read Revelation chapter 13 where it speaks of a beast that had 2 horns like a lamb and spake like a dragon the dichotomy of that beast in the way it speaks in its writings initially and the way it would carry them out speak to who the United States has been.

I want to submit to you that 1 of the things that happens when oppression is rampant and when people feel as if they have been victimized by injustice, that oppression often breeds revolution.

And hence today just as in the time of Jesus, there are those who are wanting to overthrow the powers that be.

Jesus' day, 1 of the people that represent that was a man named Barabbas.

Jewish rebellion ideology probably really surfaced around the time of the birth of Christ, according to Josephus.

Of course, it waxed and waned as you think of the Maccabees.

Barabbas' name, Bar-Abus, means son of the father.

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Choosing Eternity

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