II. WHAT WE MUST DO WITH JESUS CHRIST.

Now, I want to call your attention to a second line of thought, and that is, What we must do with Jesus Christ; and let me say at the outset that every one of us will have to do something with Jesus Christ tonight. You don’t want to. Many a man here tonight does not want to do anything with Jesus Christ. You do not want to accept Him or reject Him. You do not want to confess Him or deny Him. You just want to get Him off your hands. You can’t do it! Pontius Pilate, who asked the question of our text, tried to get Christ off his hands; first he turned to the Jews and said, “Judge Him according to your law”; but they said, “We cannot do it; by our law He ought to die, but we have not the power to put Him to death.” Pilate then sent Him to Herod, and said, “You take Him and judge Him,” and then Pilate said to himself, “I have got rid of Him now; I have put the responsibility on Herod.” But look, what is that coming down the street? They are the returning soldiers of Herod, and Herod has sent Christ back to Pilate; so Pilate has Him on his hands again. Then Pilate says, “What shall I do? I do not want to crucify this Man, because I know he is innocent, and I do not want to release Him, because it will make the Jews angry. I know what I will do,” and he went to face that great Jewish mob, and said to them, “This is the time of Passover, and you know we have a custom at this time of the year that there should be released to you one of the criminals in custody, whosoever you may choose. Now I am disposed to be gracious to-day, and I will let you have whom you like; which will you have, Jesus or”—(and he put up against Jesus the meanest criminal he had, a murderer and a robber, and he said to himself, they will never choose him, in the world) “will you have Jesus or Barabbas?” But the men of Jerusalem were like you men of London, and they cried, “We will have Barabbas”; and Pilate had Jesus on his hands again. He could not get Him off his hands—neither can you. Every man and every woman in this building will do something with Jesus Christ to-night. Now let me tell you what you must do.

1. You must either accept Him or reject Him. Jesus Christ is here, and now offers Himself to every man and every woman in this building as your Saviour and Lord and Master, and unless you definitely accept Him as such you definitely reject Him. Every man and woman will go out of this building to-night either having definitely accepted Christ or definitely rejected Him.

I said to a gentleman going out of a meeting like this one night, “Mr.——, are you going to accept Christ to-night?” He replied, “I am not going to accept Him to-night, but I want you to understand that I do not reject Him.” I said, “I understand nothing of the kind; Jesus Christ offers Himself to you, and if you do not accept Him, your refusal to accept Him is to reject Him,” and every man and woman in Mildmay Hall will go out of the building to-night either having accepted Jesus Christ or having rejected Jesus Christ.

2. Secondly, we must either confess Him or deny Him. He Himself said so in Matthew x. 32, 33: “Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in Heaven; but whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in Heaven.” You will do one or the other. There are just two parties in the world to-day, the confessed followers of Christ and the deniers of Christ, and you belong to one or the other. Which do you belong to? Are you a confessor of the Son of God, or are you a denier of the Son of God?

3. In the third place, you must either let Him into your heart or shut Him out. The Lord Jesus Christ says in Revelation iii. 20: “Behold I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear My voice and open, the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with Me.” The Lord Jesus is in Mildmay Hall to-night, knocking, knocking! Who is it knocking? The Son of God—knocking at your heart and mine. Will you throw your heart wide open and say, “Come in, Lord Jesus?” or will you shut your heart and bar it and say, “Stay out, Lord Jesus”? Every one of us will say one or the other to-night.

4. In the next place, we must either be for Christ or against Him. He Himself says so. In Matthew xii. 30, He says, “He that is not with Me is against Me.” Every man that is not with Him is against Him. Every man that is not openly, decidedly, confessedly, out and out for Christ is against Christ. You either have to take your stand with John, the Beloved Apostle, and Peter the warm-hearted, and Paul the heroic, and all the noble band of confessors and martyrs and servants of the Son of God, or you have to take your stand with Pontius Pilate, with Herod, with Annas and Caiaphas, with Judas Iscariot. Where do you take your stand to-night? I could run a line through this building, and, if I knew you all to-night as God knows you, I could put every man and woman in the building on one or the other side of the line. On one side those who are for Christ, whole-heartedly for Christ; on the other side, those who are against Christ. Suppose I did it; which side would you be on?