MTM - John 19: 14-15 Who is Your King?

“We have no king but Caesar.” That line from John 19 is only a few words, but it shines a harsh light on the way fear can hijack faith. I’m Dr Robert Jackson, and on More Than Medicine I read the Easter account with fresh eyes, then ask a question that refuses to stay in church language: when pressure rises, who actually rules your heart?

We walk through the biblical worldview behind the moment. Israel’s history is filled with people who refused to treat rulers like gods, from Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego standing tall before Nebuchadnezzar, to Mordecai refusing to bow and Esther risking her life to speak. Those stories aren’t here for nostalgia. They help us name modern idols: safety, approval, status, and the urge to let politics or institutions do the job only God can do.

Then we bring it down to street level with a simple test. When your child is sick, when your marriage is on fire, when money gets tight, when a diagnosis lands, who do you call first? I also share my own kidney cancer scare and what it taught me about faith over fear, prayer, and trusting Jesus as King even when outcomes are unknown. Finally, I preview an upcoming conversation with Scott Shara and his book Is Our Government Legally Killing Us?, challenging the habit of treating government as our ultimate rescuer in healthcare and retirement.

If this stirred something, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review. What’s one moment in your life that revealed who your “king” really was?

Transcript

Welcome To More Than Medicine

SPEAKER_02 0:04

More than medicine. Where Jesus is more than enough for the illness, the plague of our culture in the country. Hosted by author and physician Dr. Robert Jackson. And his wife Carlotta and Daughter Annabeller. So listen up because the doctor is Dan.

Reading John 19 At Easter

No Kings Rallies And Caesar

Shadrach Meshach And Civil Disobedience

Mordecai Esther And Courage Under Threat

Why Leaders Chose Caesar Over Jesus

A Simple Test Of Your King

A Kidney Cancer Scare And Praise

Next Guest On Government As King

Blessing And Closing Prayer

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Welcome to More Than Medicine. I'm your host, Dr. Robert Jackson, bringing to you biblical insights and stories from the country doctors rusty, dusty scrapbook. Well, this last week during Easter, as I always do, I was reading through the Easter story in the scriptures, and I was reading in the book of John. Before I read, I always asked the Holy Spirit to speak to me. And as I was reading through John chapter 19, my eyes fell upon verses fourteen to fifteen, and I guess in the context of things that are happening in the world today, my my mind stopped on these verses, and I began to ponder the application in my own life and the application in the world today. So let me read these verses and then I want to share with you some of my thoughts. Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover. It was about the sixth hour, and he said to the Jews, Behold your king. Now this is Pilate who is speaking. So they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your king? The chief priest answered, We have no king but Caesar. Now you understand that the liberal left in America right now is having no king's rallies in an attempt to protest the activities of our president Donald J. Trump, insisting that he is writing outside constitutional lines and they are insisting that he is setting himself up to be a king. Well, of course that is preposterous. Let's look at the context in which these scriptures were written, and I think it'll help us to understand a little more about this passage. The Jews had historically been difficult for outside nations to subdue, especially when that outside nation's rulers claimed to be divine. If you will recall, way back in the Old Testament when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar's ninety foot tall golden image of himself. I imagine that these three Jewish boys stuck out like a sore thumb. When the music played and everyone else bowed down, but they refused, even though the fiery furnace was the penalty for refusing to do so. Let me read to you their response in Daniel chapter three, verses sixteen and eighteen. It's worth hearing and repeating over and over. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. What they're saying is we don't even need to think about it. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. That's a lot of confidence on their part, don't you think? But even if he does not let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. And that's some serious civil disobedience. Now it reminds me of some of my freedom loving listeners, who wouldn't wear a mask or receive a COVID jab even when ridiculed, or even at the risk of losing their jobs. Let it be known to my employer, let it be known to the government and the whole world that my God whom I serve is able to deliver me. He is able to provide for me. Let it be known that I will not worship the golden syringe that you have set up. Sounds just like some of you, doesn't it? Now move on. Do you recall Mordecai in the Old Testament, Esther's uncle, who refused to bow before Haman, the wicked leader in Persia? You remember Persia, which is now known as Iran, who had determined to kill all the Jews in their land. Because of that refusal, Haman hated Mordecai and the Jews, all the Jews by extension. But Mordecai knew God's laws, that he should have no gods before the Lord, the Lord God himself. There was no way he would bow before a mere man, especially a god hating racist like Haman. This was the occasion for Mordecai to appeal to his niece, Esther, who by divine orchestration was the queen of Persia, and appealed to her to speak to the king on behalf of her people, the Jewish people, saying to her, Who knows that you have not attained to a position of royalty for such a time as this? So at the risk of her own life, she appeared unsolicited before the king and appealed for the Jewish people, and the king received her, listened to her appeal, and Haman ended up being hanged on the very gallows that he had created for Mordecai whom he hated so much. So you see, the Jewish people were not easily subdued, and yet here in this passage are the highest religious leaders in the land who hated the Roman rule more than anyone else who understood most clearly that Caesar claimed to be God and demanded that all people in all conquered lands bow to him as divine, saying, Hail Caesar, we worship you. The Jewish people steadfastly refused to do so, knowing the first and greatest commandment thou shalt have no other god before me, even if it was a man pretending to be a god. More than that, the Pharisees and the Sadducees were aware that no man spoke like Jesus spoke, no man healed the sick, no man made the blind eyes to see, or fed thousands or raised the dead like he had done with Lazarus. Many of their own kind and their own rank had confessed Jesus as the Messiah much to their chagrin and astonishment. Their primary concern was not that Jesus might be God in the flesh, but that they might lose their position. You understand that with their position came honor and affluence. They all remembered the Macabean revolt that was cruelly put down by the Romans. There were thousands of dead rebels. Hundreds were crucified, and the crucified rebels lined the roads, and most important to them, many of the religious leaders were deposed and replaced. They imagined that Jesus would lead his thousands of followers in a similar armed rebellion, and they might easily end up hanging on crosses naked on some lonely roadside even though they had nothing to do with him. So they shouted lustily, We have no king but Caesar. Away with this man, crucify him. So now who is your king? Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever asked yourself that question? The liberal left is holding no king's rallies, protesting that our president is trying to be a king in America. Do you proudly proclaim I am a free American? I have no king. And yet Jesus claims to be the king of all kings, the Lord of all lords. He claims to be the king of all the ages, the king of the nations, and the ruler of the kings of all the earth. Christians bow before him as Messiah, Savior, deliverer, and the righteous judge of all the earth. So let me ask you a question. How do you decide if you have a king? It's really not that hard. Just answer a few simple questions. Go back in time a little bit and remember when your children were small and really, really sick. Who did you call first? Did you call your mamma? Did you call the doctor? Did you call the ER physician? Or did you pray first and call on Jesus, whose name is Jehovah Rapha, the Lord who heals? Who is your king? When you were first married and had a huge argument with your spouse, who did you call first? Your mamma, your dad, your pastor, a counselor? Or did you get on your knees and call on Jesus, who is the wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the Prince of Peace? Who is your king? When you had that first financial crisis, who did you call first? Your parents? A loan officer? A wealthy friend for financial help or financial advice? Or did you get on your knees and call on Jesus who owns the cattle on a thousand hills? Who is your king? And what about the time the doctor gave you a really serious diagnosis? Like when he told me last year that I had kidney cancer. Did you cry? Did you whine? Did you get on Facebook and beg for sympathy? Or did you go to Jesus, the king, the Lord of yesterday and tomorrow, and ask how he could use this in your life for his glory? Because he is the king of glory, and your life is to be lived for the praise of his glory, as he tells us in Ephesians chapter one. Now six weeks later the surgeon told me my tumor was benign, a type of tumor he'd not seen in twenty six years of medical practice. After him being ninety five percent confident it was cancerous. And we as a family gave praise to God because that obviously simplified my life greatly. Regardless of the outcome, he is the king. Even if I were slowly shriveling up on my deathbed, he would still be my king, my Savior, my deliverer, and I would eagerly anticipate seeing his face, seeing him in all of his glory and being made like him as the scriptures promise. So who is your king? Do you proudly proclaim that you have no king, no king but Caesar, like the Pharisees? Do you reject Donald J. Trump and his leadership like the Liberal Democrats? Are you a proud, independent American who bows the knee to no one? Or do you acknowledge that you are a sinner that desperately needs a Savior and gladly bows your knee and humbles your heart before the true King, King Jesus, who by the resurrection from the dead declared himself with great power to be the Son of God. Now I want to switch tracks here for a minute, and I want to promote my message for the next two weeks. Because next two weeks I'm going to interview a gentleman who's going to disabuse us of the notion that the government can be our king. Because you see lots of folks really put their trust in the government for their retirement, for their health care in their later years, and yet he has written a book entitled Is the Government's legally killing us? The author is my friend Scott Sharra. Some of you will remember that I interviewed him about a year ago about the premature death of his daughter Grace. Grace was a Downs girl, like my son Thomas. And it was a very sad, sad scenario that during COVID his daughter Grace, his life was literally taken away from her and from their family because of the shenanigans of the medical caretakers in the ICU where she was with COVID. And it was a very sad, sad, heartbreaking story. And now he's written a book that exposes our government from early in the 1900s until now. And it's a fascinating tale and it's very well documented, very well researched, and it's a book that you need to hear about. His name is Scott Sharra, S-C-H-A-R-A. You might want to even get the book before next week. And the title is Is Our Government Legally Killing Us? And it's a shocking read, but it's a very truthful read. And I want to promote that in advance, and I encourage you to listen in for the next two weeks as we we interview Scott Shara about his new book that's been released. It's already available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon and other places. And I encourage you to listen in the next two weeks. I think it's going to be very eye-opening for you, my listeners. All right, you're listening in to More Than Medicine. I'm your host, Dr. Robert Jackson. I pray that the Lord will bless you real good between now and next week. And remember, Jesus loves you, and your doctor loves you.