Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2624
“Are you speaking for yourself about this, or did others tell you this concerning Me?” John 18:34.
I EXPLAINED this morning, [Sermon #1644, Volume 28—” Our Lord’s First Appearance before Plate”] why our Savior put that question to Pilate. The Roman governor had asked Him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” And Jesus as good as said to him, “Have you, of your own knowledge, seen anything in Me that looks like setting up to be a king in opposition to Caesar? You intend, by asking Me that question, to enquire whether I have led a rebellion against your government, or the imperial authority which you represent. Now, has there been anything which you have observed which would have led you to make this enquiry, or do you only ask it because of what the Jews have been saying in their enmity against Me?” You will see, dear Friends, that our Lord asked this question in order that He might get from Pilate’s own lips the acknowledgment that he had not seen any sign of sedition or rebellion in Him and that it might be proved that the charge had been brought to Pilate by those outside, and had not come from the Roman governor himself.
We will, now, forget Pilate for a while, for I want to use this question in two ways with reference to ourselves. First, I shall utilize it as a warning against secondhand quibbles at Christ and His Gospel Some people have a large stock of them and we might say to each one of these quibblers, “Are you speaking for yourself about this, or did others tell you this?” Then, in the second place, I shall use the text as a warning against all secondhand religion, pressing this question home upon each one who speaks up for Christ, “Are you speaking for yourself about this, or did others tell you this?”
I. We will begin with the opponents of the Lord Jesus and consider our text, first, as A WARNING AGAINST SECONDHAND QUIBBLES AT CHRIST AND HIS GOSPEL.
There are a great many people in the world who really do not know why they oppose religion—and if you ask them the reason, they repeat some old bit of scandal, some stale slander upon Jesus and His Cross—and they give that as their answer. I firmly believe that there are thousands, who are ranked among the opposers of the Gospel who have not anything to say against Christ of their own knowledge, but others have told them something or other, and they go on repeating and reiterating the old exploded obsolete objections that have been demolished thousands of times! And I suppose they and others of their kind will keep on doing the same thing right to the end of time.
As soon as Jesus Christ’s Gospel was launched upon the world’s sea, it had to encounter opposing winds, storms and tempests. Like a scarred veteran, the Gospel has had battle after battle to fight. In our Lord’s own day it was opposed most vigorously. His Apostles found that wherever they went, their feet were dogged by those who railed at Jesus and His Word. And when the Apostles had all fallen asleep, the early Churches found that they had need of an order of men who became the apologists for the Gospel and who bravely stood up to defend it against the attacks of divers heathen philosophers, skeptics and heretics who arose wherever the Truth of God was preached. There was opposition everywhere to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ—and His servants girded up their loins to do battle for Him and for His Truth.
That great campaign has continued even down to this day and there is this very remarkable fact about it, that, at the present moment, most of the objections that are brought against the Gospel are those that were answered and silenced some hundreds of years ago! And even when they appeared, all those centuries ago, they were then only reproductions of some older objections which had been answered and, as the defenders of the faith thought, had been trampled out, like sparks of fire trodden under foot! But, somehow an ill wind has begun to blow, again, and the fire, which some hoped was finally extinguished, has burned up once more. Originality in skepticism has almost ceased to be—we scarcely ever hear anything fresh in the way of heresy nowadays. We are troubled with the very errors which our forefathers answered a hundred years ago, yet the adversaries of the Truth of God go on cleaning and sharpening their blunted shafts, that they may once more shoot them at the great shield of faith which is impervious to their puny assaults, for it can quench even the most fiery darts of the devil himself! The modern arrows of skepticism will be broken against that glorious shield, yet they will probably be gathered up by another generation that will follow the present one and the heretics and objectors in the future will do just as their fathers did before them. I want, at this time, to put to any quibbler whom I may be addressing, the question of our Lord to Pilate, “Are you speaking for yourself about this, or did others tell you this?”