Everyday we are faced with making choices, we are faced with decisions.

2. During World War II, Winston Churchill was forced to make a painful choice. The British secret service had broken the Nazi code and informed Churchill that the Germans were going to bomb Coventry.

3. He had two alternatives: (1) evacuate the citizens and save hundreds of lives at the expense of indicating to the Germans that the code was broken; or (2) take no action, which would kill hundreds but keep the information flowing and possibly save many more lives. Churchill had to choose and followed the second course. 

4. If you’re a lettuce seed, you really have no choice. They’ll plant you in the ground, water you, & you’ll become a lettuce plant. You don’t have any choice about that. But God says that as human beings we’re created higher than plants & animals, and He gave us the freedom to choose. The Bible very clearly teaches that we’re responsible for our choices. Romans 14:12 says, “So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.”God is going to hold us responsible for the choices we make.

5. Everyday we are faced with making choices, we are faced with decisions. Dr. Eric Klinger did a study at the University of Minnesota and he determined that all of us face somewhere between 300 and 17,000 decisions every day. There are MICRO decisions—those we don’t think much about. Two ink pens are on the desk and we decide to use the blue one. We decide what clothes to wear, and what to eat for breakfast. We approach an intersection and the traffic light is yellow. We decide to… slow down and stop (right?). 

6. And then there are MACRO choices. These are choices that mean something – they literally affect our destiny, our eternity—and perhaps the destiny of others as demonstrated by Winston Churchill. Choices like…--will I have an affair--will I go to church or not go to church--how will I spend my money--who will be my MATE--what is my MISSION--who will be my MASTER

7. Sometimes choices are made for us because of our indecision.

8. Former president Ronald Reagan once had an aunt who took him to a cobbler for a pair of new shoes. The cobbler asked young Reagan, "Do you want square toes or round toes?" Unable to decide, Reagan didn't answer, so the cobbler gave him a few days. Several days later the cobbler saw Reagan on the street and asked him again what kind of toes he wanted on his shoes. Reagan still couldn't decide, so the shoemaker replied, "Well, come by in a couple of days. Your shoes will be ready.

9. " When the future president did so, he found one square-toed and one round-toed shoe! "This will teach you to never let people make decisions for you," the cobbler said to his indecisive customer. "I learned right then and there," Reagan said later, "if you don't make your own decisions, someone else will." 

10. Sometimes choices aren’t always clear cut. You have been asked to join an Ethics Committee to review a case involving a possible kidney transplant, as each new piece of information is given, determine whether or not the transplant should take place.

11. A young woman needs kidney transplant, Her father is the only possible donor co

12. A young woman needs kidney transplant, Her father is the only possible donor 2. Her father has only one kidney

13. A young woman needs kidney transplant, Her father is the only possible donor Her father has only one kidney Her father wants to donate his kidney

14. A young woman needs kidney transplant, Her father is the only possible donor Her father has only one kidney Her father wants to donate his kidney 4. Transplants are only viable for about 5 years

15. A young woman needs kidney transplant, Her father is the only possible donor Her father has only one kidney Her father wants to donate his kidney 4. Transplants are only viable for about 5 years 5. This is her second transplant

16. A young woman needs kidney transplant, Her father is the only possible donor Her father has only one kidney Her father wants to donate his kidney 4. Transplants are only viable for about 5 years 5. This is her second transplant 6. Her father is on death row for murder.

17. A young woman needs kidney transplant, Her father is the only possible donor Her father has only one kidney Her father wants to donate his kidney 4. Transplants are only viable for about 5 years 5. This is her second transplant 6. Her father is on death row for murder 7. She was an accomplice in the murder.

18. Today we look at Pilate and how he dealt with a choice, “What will I do with this Jesus, who is called the Christ?”

20. On January 17, 2004, a 66-ton whale died and was beached on the southwestern coast of Taiwan, near the city of Tainan. Two weeks later, on January 29, authorities decided to truck the dead whale to a laboratory where they could do an autopsy. It took 50 laborers and three lifting cranes 13 hours to hoist the 56-foot behemoth onto a flatbed trailer truck. Pedestrians and shop owners poured into the streets to watch the spectacle of a whale carcass driven through the streets of downtown Tainan.

21. And then it happened. As the truck crawled through that downtown region, with crowds looking on, the whale exploded. The inner conditions of the dead mammal, combined with the bumps in the road caused an eruption that the townspeople will not soon forget. Cars, people, and local shops were splattered with whale entrails. Traffic was brought to a halt for hours. The smell was almost unbearable.

22. No one got up that morning thinking they would have whale guts on them by noon! Isn't that just like life sometimes? We're going about our business, and a whale explodes. We didn't see it coming. We didn't plan for it, and we certainly don't welcome it.

23. When Pilate got up the morning after the Passover, he didn’t see what was coming, and he certainly didn’t welcome it. When Jesus was brought before Pilate, Pilate had a choice to make. Make the right choice, even though it was unpopular, or make the wrong choice because it was acceptable and easy?

24. Who was this Pilate? In 4 B.C., Herod the Great was still king in Palestine. When he died, he left a will saying that the kingdom should be divided into three sections for his three sons: Antipas, Archelaus, and Philip the Tetrarch. At the time, Archelaus was only about eighteen years old. He turned out to be the worst of the three. Philip and Antipas ruled quietly and fairly. Archelaus was a tyrant and an extortioner. The people hated him. Finally, the Jews persuaded Rome to get rid of him. So, the Romans moved Archelausout and brought in a governor.

25. History tells us that Pilate was the 5th governor and arrived on the scene in A.D. 26 and remained until A.D. 35, when he was sent home. Pilate didn’t have a wealthy upbringing. He was of the middle class. He had served in the Roman army in Germany, and while he was in Rome he caught the eye of a Roman girl of very high social rank. Her name was Claudia Procula, the illegitimate daughter of Claudia, who was the third wife of the Emperor Tiberius and, that made her the granddaughter of Caesar Augustus. Because of this connection with the man at the top, Pilate was given a position that would never had been given to him any other way.

26. He was to rule fairly and justly...and he was to rule for the Roman emperor. But right from the start, Pilate's term in Israel just didn't go right.

27. In his first visit to Jerusalem, Pilate came to set up his office. The Roman seat of rule in Palestine was in Caesarea, where the main fortress and garrison and Pilate's house were located. When he came to Jerusalem, he came with all of the soldiers and standards and flags. On all of the Roman standards there was a sculptured image of the emperor. The emperor was not only the ruler, but he was also god because the Romans believed in emperor worship. So, in actuality, their god was on their standards.

28. In all of the years before Pilate, the Roman rulers had not kept those images on their standards because they offended the Jews. The Jews were really strong on the idea that they should have no false idols. But Pilate was hard-nosed about this and would not remove them. So he came storming into Jerusalem with these little images of the emperor on the standards. The Jews immediately went to Pilate and told him to remove them, and then begged him to, but he was adamant.

29. When he finished his business in Jerusalem, he left for Caesarea, and a whole mob of Jews followed him all the way to Caesarea incessantly bugging him for five days to remove the images from the standards. Pilate was so furious that he finally ordered them all to meet him in the amphitheater. He immediately had them surrounded with his soldiers. He then informed them all that if they didn't go back to Jerusalem and stop with the request, he would have them all killed on the spot.

30. But they all just bared their necks and said, "Go ahead. Kill us all." Well, he was stuck. He had tried to scare them, but he was not the kind of a man who would begin his rule in the land by wiping out all of the citizens. He knew that wouldn't set real well with Rome. So he was stuck -- he couldn't massacre defenseless men. He was beaten. He gave in and removed the image from the standards. They won and now they had him under their thumb.

31. The Second Incident During the first years of his rule, Jerusalem needed more water and the supply was inadequate. Pilate was determined to build a new aqueduct, but he didn't have any money. So he robbed the Temple treasury, which didn't go over real big with the Jews. Evidently there were millions in the Temple treasury, so he found all that he needed. But the people rioted and surged through the streets. Pilate then infiltrated the people along with plain clothed Roman soldiers, and at a given signal, the soldiers either clubbed or stabbed many people to death, and that broke up the riot.

32. The Third Incident Later in Pilate's career, there was another conflict over the idols. Pilate had made a temporary dwelling place in Herod's palace in Jerusalem, where he hung shields on the walls with the name of Emperor Tiberius inscribed on them. The Jews complained and asked Pilate to remove them, but he refused. Now, Rome had built into the legal system the PaxRomana -- the right of any subject people to appeal their case to the emperor. When Pilate wouldn't go along with the Jews, they sent word to the emperor that Pilate wouldn't comply. As a result, Emperor Tiberius sent back word that Pilate was to take all of his shields down and comply with the Jews' request. The Jews had Pilate right where they wanted him. At any time they could report him to Rome and he would lose his job. He was walking on thin ice.

33. Now Pilate was in conflict with the Jews again. Jesus was brought before Pilate on the charge of insurrection, being a revolutionary. The people who brought Jesus for trial wanted to be sure that it was an offense that carried death as the expected punishment.

34. When they presented their case before Pilate, they knew they could blackmailed him. They were saying, in effect, "You better go along with us, or we'll tell Caesar.” John19:12,"And from then on Pilate sought to release Him; but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend...."In other words, "Do you want to keep your job?” Pilate tried several strategies to get out of this sticky situation. First he tries to pass the buck.

35. “When he learned that Jesus was under Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent Him to Herod...” He knew Jesus was innocent. He knew the Jews were just jealous. His wife had had nightmares, telling him not to have anything to do with harming the man called Jesus. 

36. So, Pilate just passed the buck. He discovers ol’ Herod was in town and sent Jesus to Herod, hoping the problem would just go away. He was between a rock and a hard place. Rome wanted peace, no matter what. The Jews wouldn’t give him peace unless he killed Jesus. He wanted to keep his job. He and his wife both knew Jesus was innocent.  So, since Jesus was a Galilean and that was Herod’s jurisdiction, let him deal with it.Case closed.

37. The origin of “pass the buck” is from poker. A buck was a marker that indicated whose turn it was to deal. Passing the buck moved the deal onto the next player. The dealer bears responsibility for the hand. Nobody wants to deal, so they pass the responsibility off to someone else!

38. Have you ever played a game called “Hot Potato.” You just pass the potato around. You’d wind it up and it would ding and vibrate and explode at some random time. The quicker you’d pass the potato, the more likely you were to not get caught with the hot potato exploding in your face. Passing the buck. It would be a lot easier to be like Pilate – for us to just pass the buckwhen we are faced with difficult issues. But unlike Pilate, we just can’t cast aside the difficult issues of the day. We have to face them--face them in such a way that tries to seek the truth of God.  And even if others are disappointed, we must uncompromisingly stand where biblical authority has drawn the line.   In other words, “The Buck Stops Here!”

39. Well, that strategy didn’t work. When Jesus refused to speak to Herod, Herod sent Jesus right back to Pilate. Since that didn’t work, Pilate went to Plan B. He tried bending the rules.

40. Pilate said to the crowd in effect, “Since he really hasn’t done anything wrong, why don’t I just give him a good beating and let him go?” Jesus was still just as innocent, and didn’t deserve the beating either, but Pilate was hoping that a little unjust punishment would be enough to satisfy the crowd.

41. It’s like little lies, little wrongs, that we do. They’re not so bad. Bend the rules just a little. That’s the approach a lot of people take this time of year when they are working on their income tax. What’s the harm if I fudge just a little on my deductions. It’s not really stealing; it’s just a little wrong. We have learned how to convince ourselves that a little wrong isn’t so bad.

42. Syracuse verses Carlisle. As the teams made ready for the game, the Carlisle coach, Pop Warner, decided to bend the rules to give his team the upper hand. He was a good coach, but he wasn’t above bending the rules when it was to his advantage. Before the game, he had them sew what looked like footballs unto the front of their jerseys, so that the other team wouldn’t know who had the ball! Now, there was no written rule against it, but it violated all the principles of fair play!

43. The beating wasn’t good enough. The crowd would have none of it; they wanted a death sentence. So Pilate moved to Plan C.

44. Pilate decided to create a diversion. It was Passover, and the custom was for the Roman governor to release one of the prisoners, so Pilate offered the people a choice between Barabbas, the most despicable person he could think of, and Jesus. Surely the people wouldn’t choose a murderer and a robber over Jesus. But the people shouted for Barabbas. Pilate seemed almost amazed, shocked, that the people chose Barabbas. Luke records this ominous line: “And their voices prevailed.” (23:23) The pressure of the crowd was too much for Pilate.

45. Have you ever noticed how Satan works his way into our lives. He attacks us where we are vulnerable. He doesn’t show up as a scary dude running around in red tights and horns. No he shows up in Prada—designer clothes. Because his objective is to create a diversion, to sell us an image or an idea. An image of what he wants us to embrace about ourselves.

46. Satan packages his product in such a way that we see what he wants us to see... not what his product would actually do to our lives. Fame Power Beauty Wealth Prestige Popularity

47. Would you be more inclined to buy cigarettes from this man? He’s handsome, rugged... a real man’s man.

48. Or would you buy cigarettes from this woman?

49. Would you be tempted to buy alcohol from this friendly looking bartender?

50. Or by this man who has taste tested alcohol most of his life?