From Mount Sinai to Mount Sion
For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest…But ye are come unto mount Sion… – Hebrews 12:18, 22
We are joyfully reminded by the apostle that we have not come to Mount Sinai and its overwhelming manifestations…We have not come to the dread and terror of the old covenant, of which our apostle says in another place, “The covenant from the Mount Sinai genders to bondage” (Galatians 4:24). Upon the believer’s spirit there rests not the slavish fear, the abject terror, the fainting alarm, which swayed the tribes of Israel, for the manifestation of God which he beholds, though not less majestic, is far fuller of hope and joy. Over us there rests not the impenetrable cloud of apprehension, we are not buried in a present darkness of despair, we are not tossed about with a tempest of horror, and therefore, we do not exceedingly fear and quake. How thankful we should be for this! We are come to a more joyous sight than Sinai, and the mountain burning with fire…The believer in the Lord Jesus Christ lives in quite another atmosphere. He has not come to a barren crag, but to an inhabited city, Jerusalem above, the metropolis of God. He has left the wilderness for the land which flows with milk and honey, and the material mount which might be touched for the spiritual and heavenly Jerusalem. He has entered into fellowship with an innumerable company of angels, who are to him, not cherubim with flaming swords to keep men back from the tree of life, but ministering spirits sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation. He is come to the joyous assembly of all pure intelligences who have met, not in trembling, but in joyous liberty, to keep the feast with their great Lord and King. He thinks of all who love God throughout all worlds, and he feels that he is one of them, for he has come to “the general assembly and Church of the first-born, which are written in heaven.” God is not to them a dreadful person who speaks from a distance, but He is their Father and their Friend, in whom they delight themselves, in whose presence there is fullness of joy for them. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1888.cfm
Your Sin or Christ?
And they had then a notable prisoner, called Barabbas. Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ? But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. – Matthew 27:16,17,20
Barabbas-a thief, a felon, a murderer, a traitor, had been captured; he was probably one of a band of murderers who were accustomed to come up to Jerusalem at the time of the feast, carrying daggers under their cloaks to stab persons in the crowd, and rob them, and then he would be gone again; besides that, he had tried to stir up sedition, setting himself up possibly as a leader of banditti. Christ was put into competition with this villain; the two were presented before the popular eye, and to the shame of manhood, to the disgrace of Adam’s race, let it be remembered that the perfect, loving, tender, sympathizing, disinterested Savior was met with the word, “Crucify Him!” and Barabbas, the thief, was preferred. “Well,” says one, “that was atrocious.” The same thing is put before you -the very same thing; and every unregenerate man will make the same choice that the Jews did, and only men renewed by grace will act upon the contrary principle. I say, friend, this day I put before you Christ Jesus, or your sins. The reason why many come not to Christ is because they cannot give up their lusts, their pleasures, their profits. Sin is Barabbas; sin is a thief; it will rob your soul of its life; it will rob God of His glory. Sin is a murderer; it stabbed our father, Adam; it slew our purity. Sin is a traitor; it rebels against the king of heaven and earth. If you prefer sin to Christ, Christ has stood at your tribunal, and you have given in your verdict that sin is better than Christ.
You cannot be willing to come to Christ, and yet Christ reject you. God forbid we should suppose the possibility of any sinner crying after the Savior, and the Savior saying, “No, I will not have you.” Blessed be His name! “Him that cometh to Me,” He says, “I will in no wise cast out.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0495.cfm
Will You Behold Your King?
And they shall mock Him, and shall scourge Him, and shall spit upon Him, and shall kill Him: and the third day He shall rise again. – Mark 10:34
The Jews no doubt having bribed the soldiers to excessive zeal of scorn, a second time (oh! mark this; perhaps ye thought this happened only once! this is the fifth time He has thus been treated) the soldiers took Him back again, and once more they mocked Him, once more they spat upon Him, and treated Him shamefully. So, you see, there was once when He first went to the house of Caiaphas; then after He was condemned there; then Herod and his men of war; then Pilate after the scourging; and then the soldiers, after the ultimate condemnation. See ye not how manifestly “He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.” Oh, that I could set forth Thy grief, Thou Man of Sorrows! God the Holy Ghost impress it on your memories and on your souls and help you pitifully to consider the griefs of your blessed Lord.
You must this day accept Christ as your King, or else His blood will be on you. I bring my Master out before your eyes, and say to you, “Behold your King.” Are you willing to yield obedience to Him? He claims first your implicit faith in His merit: will you yield to that? He claims, next, that you will take Him to be Lord of your heart, and that, as He shall be Lord within, so He shall be Lord without. Which shall it be? Will you choose Him now? Does the Holy Spirit in your soul-for without that you never will-does the Holy Spirit say, “Bow the knee, and take Him as your king?” Thank God, then. But if not, His blood is on you, to condemn you. Pilate, Caiaphas, Herod, the Jews and Romans, all meet in you. You scourged Him; you said, “Let Him be crucified.” Do not say it was not so. In effect you join their clamours when you refuse Him; when you go your way to your farm and to your merchandise, and despise His love and His blood, you do spiritually what they did literally-you despise the King of kings. Come to the fountain of His blood, and wash and be clean. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0495.cfm
The Doctrine of the Cross Must Be True
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us… – John 1:14
And some began to spit on Him, and to cover His face, and to buffet Him, and to say unto Him, Prophesy: and the servants did strike Him with the palms of their hands. – Mark 14:65
We have pictures drawn from imagination; we have been enchanted along romantic pages, and we have marvelled at the creative flights of human genius; but where did you ever read such a thought as this? “God was made flesh and dwelt among us”-He was despised, scourged, mocked, treated as though He were the offscouring of all things, brutally treated, worse than a dog, and all out of pure love to His enemies. Why, the thought is such a great one, so God-like, the compassion in it is so divine, that it must be true. None but God could have thought of such a thing as this stoop from the highest throne in glory to the cross of deepest shame and woe. And do you think that if the doctrine of the cross were not true, such effects would follow from it? Would those South Sea Islands, once red with the blood of cannibalism, be now the abode of sacred song and peace? Would this island, once itself the place of naked savages, be what it is, through the influence of the benign gospel of God, if that gospel were a lie? Ah! hallowed mistake, indeed, to produce such peaceful, such blessed, such lasting, such divine results! Ah! He is God. The thing is not false. And that He is Messiah, who shall doubt? If God should send a prophet, what better prophet could you desire? What character would you seek to have exhibited more completely human and divine? What sort of a Savior would you wish for? What could better satisfy the cravings of conscience? Who could commend himself more fully to the affections of the heart? He must be, we feel at once, as we see Him, one alone by Himself, with no competitor; He must be the Messiah of God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0495.cfm
He said, “I am”
Again the high priest asked Him, and said unto Him, Art Thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am; and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven. – Mark 14:61,62
Finding that their witness, even when tortured to the highest degree, was not strong enough, the high priest, to get matter of accusation, adjured Him by the Most High God to answer whether He was the Christ, “the Son of the Blessed.” Being thus adjured, our Master would not set us an example of cowardice; He spake to purpose; He said, “I am,” and then, to show how fully He knew this to be true, He added, “ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven.” …He bears open testimony before the herd of His accusers. “I am.” I am the Son of God, and I am the sent One of the Most High. Now, now the thing is done. They want no further evidence. The judge, forgetting the impartiality which becomes his station, pretends to be wonderfully struck with horror, rends his garments, turns round to ask his co-assessors whether they need any further witness, and they, all too ready, hold up their hands in token of unanimity, and He is at once condemned to die. Ah! brethren, and no sooner condemned, than the high priest, stepping down from his divan, spits in His face, and then the Sanhedrim follow, and smite Him on his cheek; and then they turn Him down to the rabble that had gathered in the court, and they buffet Him from one to the other, and spit upon His blessed cheeks, and smite Him, and then they play the old game again, which they had learned so well before the trial came on; they blindfold Him for a second time, place Him in the chair, and as they smite Him with their fists they cry. “Prophet! Prophet! Prophet! who is it that smote Thee? Prophesy unto us!” And thus, the Savior passed a second time through that most brutal and ignominious treatment. If we had tears, if we had sympathies, if we had hearts, we should prepare to shed those tears, to awake those sympathies, and break those hearts, now. O Thou Lord of life and glory! how shamefully wast Thou illtreated by those who pretended to be the curators of holy truth, the conservators of integrity, and the teachers of the law! ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0495.cfm
Adversaries of Christ, Your Witness is Untrue
And when He had thus spoken, one of the officers which stood by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, saying, Answerest Thou the high priest so? – John 18:22
…they shall smite the Judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek. – Micah 5:1
During this preliminary examination, our Lord suffered an outrage which needs a passing notice. When He had said, “Ask them that hear Me,” some over-officious person in the crowd struck Him in the face. The margin in John 18:22, very properly corrects our version, and renders the passage, “with a rod.” Now, considering that our blessed Lord suffered so much, this one little particular might seem unimportant, only it happens to be the subject of prophecy in the book of Micah (5:1), “They shall smite the Judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek.” This smiting while under trial is peculiarly atrocious. To strike a man while he is pleading in his own defense, would surely be a violation of the laws even of barbarians.
But now the Court are all sitting; the members of the great Sanhedrim are all in their various places, and Christ is brought forth for the public trial before the highest ecclesiastical court; though it is, mark you, a foregone conclusion, that by hook or by crook they will find Him guilty. They scour the neighborhood for witnesses. There were fellows to be found in Jerusalem who were ready to be bought on either side; and, provided they were well paid, would swear to anything…Where men have made up their minds to hate Christ, they will hate Him without a cause. Oh! ye that are adversaries of Christ… know ye try to invent some excuse for your opposition to His holy religion; ye forge a hundred falsehoods; but ye know that your witness is not true, and your trial in conscience through which you pass the Savior, is but a mock one. Oh that ye were wise, and would understand Him to be what He is, and submit yourselves to Him now. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0495.cfm
He Hath Said 