“Before Abraham Was, I AM”

Before Abraham Was, I AM

John 8:51-59

Introduction:

Last week we examined the concept of “finding freedom in Christ:” finding ourselves freed daily from the continuing destructive power of sin in our lives, as well as gaining permanent freedom from the eternal penalty of sin. We were able to determine that only believers were eligible for either of those two aspects of freedom. And it follows that only people who have been freed from the penalty of sin, so that they no longer face condemnation from God, will also find the eternal freedom from the presence of sin, which will be enjoyed by all believers.

Security in Eternal Freedom

So, the eternal freedom from the penalty of sin, which was granted to you the moment you believed, is yours forever. The eternal freedom from the presence of Sin, is also ours, guaranteed, in the presence of the Lord, but we will not experience it in this life: so long as we still possess our sin natures, the presence of sin and the problem of sin will persist.

But the freedom from the power of sin, experienced in our lives today, is what Jesus was inviting the believing Jews (in verse 30) to learn and experience. He told them that if they continued in His Word, they would become His true disciples: He told them that they would experientially know (“ginosko”) the Truth (which turned out to be Himself) and that He would make them free. We saw that concept reiterated in verse 36, where He said that the Son would make them free.

Rejecting Freedom and Dishonoring God

We also saw that, while the believing Jews may have rejoiced in His promise, the Pharisees who were also precent, were offended by His promise of freedom.

Jesus spoke to them, saying that if they had been “of God,” (as they claimed to be) they would have received Him and honored Him, because He was of God. But since they were not of God, they could not receive the words He spoke. And they dishonored Him, in spite of His truth.

**Who do You Honor?**

John 8:48-50

⁴⁸Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil? ⁴⁹Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me. ⁵⁰And I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeketh and judgeth.

One has to consider, even as a believer, whether one’s words and actions honor the Lord. Years ago, a man who professed to be a believer, and even a bible teacher, suggested some rather “Madison-avenue” ways he advocated for the church or for missionaries to raise money for the ministry. I expressed my feeling of repugnance toward such actions, and he replied, “The bottom line, Chet, is that it works!”

What is the “Bottom Line,” for Believers?

I was still uncomfortable with that reply, but, as he was much older, and in a position of some honor, I kept my thoughts to myself, as I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was bothering me. Hours later, as his comments echoed in my mind, I realized, that whether something “works” or not should never be the “bottom line” for believers.

The “bottom line,” for believers, has to be the question, “Does it Honor God?!” It has never been the church’s mission to make money, and things that “smell like the World” should be viewed with deep suspicion, and considered very carefully, before engaging in such practices. There are many practices which, while perfectly legal, are still immoral, and never honoring to God.

The people to whom Jesus directed this rebuke were not believers. They claimed to be followers of God: they were the well-respected “pious businessmen” of their day: the “religious professionals,” just short of the priesthood. But they were deliberately dishonoring a man who was honoring God with His life.

That behavior revealed who they really were! We need to carefully avoid doing anything like this, for whatever reason. We don’t want to “trash-talk” other people, whether for political reasons or any other reason. It does not Honor God to do so.

Honoring God through Obedience

Jesus did not seek glory or honor or wealth. He sought to carry out the directives of the Father. Remember John chapter 4: When Jesus entered Samaria, and stopped while the disciples went into the city of Sychar to buy food, he was already on the edge of behavior the Jewish leaders would hate. When He publicly held a conversation with a Samaritan woman, He was crossing the line! Even His disciples were astonished at that behavior! But His motivation became clear, when He said, “My food is to do the will of Him that sent me and to finish His work!”

Jesus had not been trying to gain social standing, or the favors of the religious authorities. He was not seeking His own honor, either, but rather, that of the Father. And there in John 4:1-42, the immediate result was the salvation of many lost souls in Sychar.

Had the Pharisees realized that Jesus sought no personal honor, but sought only to please and honor God, it should have changed their attitude toward Jesus. But they hated Him and just wanted Him silenced. They were absolutely not interested in what he was teaching, except that they felt it constituted a threat to them.

If a Man Keep My Saying, He shall Never see Death

John 8:51-53

⁵¹Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. ⁵²Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death. ⁵³Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself?

Jesus made the “blanket statement” that whoever kept His word would never die. The Pharisees now seized upon His promise of eternal life, and said again that Jesus must be demon-possessed.

They pointed out that Abraham and all the patriarchs and prophets were dead. Their point was that if all the “greats” of the faith had died, what was He claiming for himself?

How could He promise that if someone kept His Word, they would never die?

The Promise of Eternal Life

Remember, back in John 3:16, Jesus had promised that “whoever believed in Him would not perish but would have eternal life.” Again, in John 5:24, He had said “whoever heard His word and believed on Him who had sent Him, had eternal life immediately.” In John 4:14 and John 7:37, 38, he had promised the indwelling Holy Spirit, who would become a “fountain of living water, springing up within the believers.” So, this was nothing new, really. But they seized upon His Word, and challenged Him again.

⁵⁴Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God: ⁵⁵Yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying.

So, Jesus took them back to the issue of Honor: He said, “if I were to honor myself, it would be valueless.” But He said that the Father was honoring Him. He reminded them of what He had told them earlier, that they did not have a relational knowledge of God, but that He Himself did have that personal, relational, and experiential knowledge of God. He concluded that if he were to knuckle under and imply that He was no different than they, not knowing God, personally, then He would make Himself a liar “…like unto you!” (It is starting to get personal, here!)

Before Abraham Was, I AM

Jesus went on to say that the patriarch Abraham had rejoiced to see my day” (the day of Christ.) Abraham was a prophet, and he had seen the coming deliverance. He had rejoiced, to see that day coming. Further, Abraham had seen Jesus, face-to-face! (Remember the meal of beef, bread and butter, and milk?) He had conversed with Him personally, and addressed Him as the Judge of all the Earth! But Jesus only said,

⁵⁶Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.

Abraham knew Jesus, walked with Him, obeyed Him. and rejoiced in His promises and presence.

⁵⁷Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?

Of course, the Jews were incensed by that statement, too, and they derided Jesus, saying, “You aren’t even fifty years old, yet! How can you claim to have seen Abraham?”

⁵⁸Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.

What did Jesus Mean?

Now, in today’s English, we might have simply thought it was bad grammar, and that Jesus was failing to maintain the correct past-tense in the sentence. He began by saying, “before Abraham was” (which clearly is a past-tense condition) but ended by using a strictly present-tense statement of self-existence. (Did the Jews question His grammar?)

Nope! They took up stones, intending to stone Him to death, for what was clearly blasphemy. They knew Jesus was using the eternal “I AM,” by which the Old Testament God had identified Himself to Moses. They saw that He used it as if He Himself were God! And, the fact is, that is exactly what He was doing! The Pharisees had no question about His intent! They knew that He had just claimed to be the God of Israel!

Seven statements in St. John

When Jesus had earlier claimed to be the Light of the World, they had missed the point: They did not realize that, for Him to be the Light of the World, He had to be the light of the Gentiles as well as the Light of Israel. He had to be far more than just a carpenter and an itinerant street-preacher.

When He had claimed to be the “Bread of Life that came down from Heaven,” they were offended, but still did not make the connection that He was claiming to be not only their sustenance but their sustainer!

This is only the beginning, as there are five more heavy identifiers which He will use in the Gospel of John, regarding Himself. But this one makes His overall intent very clear: He definitely is claiming to be the God of Israel, in the flesh, and is confronting them face-to-face!

And that is how they understood it, too! Couldn’t they have applied Isaiah 7:14, where the prophecy reads that the child born of the virgin shall be called Immanuel? (meaning “God with us!”) But they gave no thought to whether what He said was true: they only wanted to silence Him and to kill Him. That proved all His estimation of “who they were” and “what the intent of their hearts was,” to be clearly the truth!

⁵⁹Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.

They still were not able to carry out their murderous intent. He was still the One in control, and His time had not yet come.

Who are We dealing with, here?

I think we tend to forget who Jesus really is, ourselves. Though we never slander Him, we seldom think of Him as being identical to the God who parted the Red Sea and drowned the entire Egyptian Army. We seldom see Jesus as the One who spoke the World into existence, and who created everything in it, completely by His own authority, and from His own, limitless imagination.

And, even when we briefly consider these things, we may momentarily rejoice at His creativity and power, but we still feel free to “go do our own thing,” whenever the notion hits. Somehow we still feel that we are “free moral agents,” and that we are under no absolute obligation to follow the will of our Creator, Savior, and God. (But we are under just that obligation!)

What Manner of Man?

When Jesus calmed the storm, the disciples in the boat had feared for their lives before He acted, but they were more afraid, afterward: They asked, “what manner of man is He, that even the wind and the waves obey Him?”

And yet, after He had stated His will for their lives, and after His death, burial and resurrection, most of them (in John 21) had decided to go back to commercial fishing. Jesus called them away from the fish for the last time, and redirected their thoughts to His command.

After they received the Holy Spirit, in Acts chapter 2, they seem to never have lost sight of the objective anymore. They all seem to have faithfully walked with Him after that.

So, What about Us?

Each of us already has been born again. Each of us already has been indwelt by the Holy Spirit: So, why are we still so easily distracted? Why do the things of the world so easily entangle us?

In Hebrews 12:1, 2, the writer begs us to consider all those that have gone before us, and take their example:

Hebrews 12:1, 2,

“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, ²Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

The great cloud of witnesses he mentions are the whole group named, or alluded to, in the previous chapter. It was not that they are “watching us”, as “witnesses” of our behavior, but rather, that they have all testified to us. They testify as witnesses of what God can do in the lives of believers who are committed to His will. And, on the basis of their testimonies, he commands us to “lay aside every weight.”—”Get rid of anything holding you back, just as a competitive runner would lay aside any heavy clothing or baggage, in order to run well.”

What is Holding You Back?

But he also calls us to lay aside the “sin that so easily besets us.” What is there in our lives that regularly trips us up? What passions do we regularly obey, that are detrimental to our obedience to Christ? These are questions for self-examination. I point no finger at anyone, except myself. And yet, the command is there for us all to see.

Finally, He commands us to “Look to Jesus, the Author and finisher of our faith.” Take Him for our example of commitment and obedience. He says that it was “for the Joy that was set before Him” that he “endured the Cross, despising the shame” of that Cross, and, as the eternal champion, He has “sat down on the right hand of the throne of God” the Father.

Get in the Race!

He calls us to emulate His example: not just sit on the sidelines, and wave flags and cheer. We are to enter the race ourselves and run!

The Pharisees to whom He spoke were his enemies. Most of them would never believe in Him. But there were believers in the group, and those were the ones to whom He extended the invitation to walk with him and learn from Him, and be set free from their sins by His power in their lives.

That invitation has been extended to us, as well. We need to answer that invitation daily, follow Him, and reap the benefits He promised.

Lord Jesus, stir our hearts to follow You, and to follow Your example. Teach us to look for Your will, and listen for Your voice, Teach us to read Your Word, seeing Your face in the pages, and obey Your commands faithfully. Make us the Men and Women of God You have called us to be.

August 20, 2022August 20, 2022

Finding Freedom in Christ

John 8:33-47

Introduction:

We addressed the issue of discipleship last week, but only the fact that Jesus wants us to transition from just being His offspring, having been born again into His family. He asks that we grow up, into full-grown mature sons, who can actively follow Him in true discipleship.

He concluded by saying that they would know (experiential knowledge—”gnosko“) the Truth, and the Truth would make them free. We determined that, since the word He used for “know” was the experiential “gnosko,” as opposed to just knowing a fact, that He was inviting them to learn to know Him, through an ongoing, permanent relationship, and that that relationship would set them free. But, the Pharisees found this promise offensive. They said that they were already free, and always had been!

Freedom From What?

³³They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?

Now, they were talking utter nonsense! It was denial of the silliest kind: Why? Because, as they spoke, they were currently a slave-state to Rome, and they had been enslaved to other enemies, listed in scripture, at numerous times throughout their history! But Jesus did not address their political history. Jesus addressed the real issue: their Spiritual Slavery.

What Does His Name Mean?

Go back and see why Jesus was named “Jesus,” in the first place: in Matthew 1:21, the Angel of the Lord commanded Joseph that he would “…call his name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their Sins.” (This promise adressed the reality of original Sin! It was a more precious promise than the promise of the land, or the promise of the kingdom!)

Save His people from what? The Roman government? Some “internal political danger?” No, it was far more basic and powerful than that: the entire Human race has been enslaved to Sin, and, through sin, we are also enslaved to the fear of death, ever since the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden. The Law of Sin and Death has shown every single one of us to be enslaved to sin, in all ages, through every culture.

Who are His People?

He came to save His people from that slavery! So, who are His people? We can pretty much guarantee that those who originally heard that promise would have assumed He meant them: the Jews! (“Well, obviously, WE are the people of God!”)

But; remember the earlier chapters of John: who did we see Him claim as “His people?” He claimed the believers, not only there, but throughout all History! Before the Jews existed, He claimed the believers! In every country, He chose believers! Naaman, the Syrian, became a believer, and God accepted him. The thief on the Cross became a believer, and Jesus accepted him. Abraham, who lived three or more generations before the name “Jews” was ever used, believed God, and God credited it to him as righteousness.

And, yet, as we read those histories, we see that those individuals were not “free from sin.” They still sinned. Some of them sinned a great deal!

What does Jesus mean, then?

“Positional truth versus Conditional truth” may be part of the answer: God said that in the believer’s case, He would no longer remember their sin. That is true, but it isn’t very satisfying, by itself: we want a practical freedom from sin.

³⁴Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. ³⁵And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. ³⁶If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

Conditional Slavery

So, here, Jesus begins to answer that question: He said whoever “practices sin” is a slave to sin. The King James Version translates that word as “commits”…we use the word “commit,” to indicate any single offense. (Either I have or I have not “committed” a crime.) But that word “poiōn” is almost always (353 times) translated “do”, and only nine times is translated “commit.” And, in this particular passage, it is a present tense, active verb: it is someone practicing sin in the “continuous, present-tense” sense of the word.

So, while positionally, I am no longer a slave to sin, the warning is, that when I exercise my will to practice sin, then I have placed myself back under the authority of my old sin nature, and I have again become currently enslaved to it. My condition is terrible at that point, but my position is still unchanged.

Positional Freedom

The people to whom Jesus actually was speaking were positionally free already, because they had already believed in Him (see verse 30.) The Pharisees who were rebelling against His words were positionally enslaved: they had never laid claim to Jesus as their Savior: they did not believe in Him.

He offered that practical freedom only to those who believed, according to verses 31 and 32…He tells us, as believers,that we can walk in holiness and obedience. How? By immersing ourselves in Him! By continually building that relationship, and with it, the relational, experiential knowledge of the God we serve, we allow the Son to make us Free! That is what sets us free! An unbeliever can’t walk with Him at all! That offer can’t even be made to them, except in the smallest sense. If they chose to know Him as their Messiah—their Savior—then they would have been positionally clean; Positionally free.

Spiritually Enslaved

But the unbelievers were not qualified to even begin that journey! They were truly enslaved to Sin. They proved it by their response to the Light that He was shining into their lives. Jesus had already warned them that unless something changed, they were going to die in their sins. He went on to address the Pharisees as a group:

Who is your Father?

³⁷I know that ye are Abraham’s seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you. ³⁸I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.

Jesus said that He, Himself, was imitating His father: and that they were failing to do so, because they were imitating their spiritual father, whom He has not yet identified.

³⁹They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham. ⁴⁰But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.

The Jews claim Abraham as their father…so do the Arabs! And both are technically correct, in terms of physical genealogies! Abraham was the father of Ishmael, through Hagar, and he was the father of Isaac, through Sarah. And, relationally, it wasn’t doing either group a bit of good! Neither group is emulating their physical forefather, Abraham.

You are acting like your Father!

Jesus pointed out that they were not acting like Abraham’s children. Abraham demonstrated real faith in his life, and, when confronted with Melchizedek, he accepted Him for who He was, and he brought an offering. Jesus revealed that they were not acting like that, thus they must have a different father than whom they claimed.

⁴¹Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.

Now they increased the stakes, and claimed God as their Father! So, what is wrong with that? I have lost count of the number of times I have had someone tell me, with great piety and dignity, that “Everyone is a Child of God!” (Well, we are about to discover that it is simply not true!)

Physical Behavior reveals Spiritual Parentage

⁴²Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.

Response to the Light reveals Character

⁴³Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.

You are probably getting tired of hearing me repeat J. Vernon McGee’s story about the animals’ responses to his lantern, in the barn: they reacted differently to the light, because they were different inside. The rats fled from the light because they were rats, creatures of the night, and they saw the young man with the light as their mortal enemy. The birds in the rafters sang when they saw the light, because they were creatures of the day; creatures of the light, and they thought the lantern was sunrise!

Spiritual Heritage

Jesus said that His detractors were behaving just like their spiritual father.

⁴⁴Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

He said their spiritual father was Satan, and that their incompatibility with truth (and therefore light) as well as their insatiable desire to kill anyone who called them on their sin, were the evidence that proved their parentage. They were at that moment (and repeatedly) showing themselves to be liars and murderers. I remember the first time I read this, thinking, “But Satan never killed anyone!” Then I realized that when he convinced Adam to sin, he killed the entire human race! Yes, Satan was a murderer from the beginning! The question is, what are we going to do about our spiritual heritage?

Why Did they Not Believe?

⁴⁵And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. ⁴⁶Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me?

When the woman caught in adultery was accused, in verses 1-11, Jesus dismissed the accusers by suggesting that whoever was without sin should cast the first stone. Here, He did no such thing: He simply challenged them to make the accusation. (“What sin am I accused of? Which of you can rightfully accuse me?”) Then He pressed it further, saying, “and if I have been telling the truth all along, why have you not believed Me?

We are uncomfortable with this exchange, because it accuses us as well. (If I know that God’s Word is true, then why do I still rebel against it? Why do I not agree with it across the board?) The problem is that I still sin: I still have a sin nature, and I am prone to deciding, “Well, this is ok! This is small! I can do what I want, here! I’m the one in charge right now!”

Who is in Charge?

But that sort of thinking has no real stopping point: once I decide that I can rebel against the truth, there is no logical stopping point. I declare myself to be the Sovereign in my little sphere, and I effectively attempt to “evict God”…or, at least, “dethrone” Him!” At that point I am as surely enslaved to sin as if I had never been saved!

The only saving Grace is exactly that: Saving Grace. I have peace with God, in the sense that He will never again treat me as His enemy. But I do not have the Peace of God! I am not experiencing that love-relationship that He promised would free me from my sin. Speaking to the Pharisees, Jesus said,

⁴⁷He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.

The Pharisees were proving their parentage. We, as believers, need to carefully consider what we are demonstrating: In our lives, every day, we have choices to make. How we make those choices at least shows “who is on the throne” in our lives. Our old Sin nature is still there, and it will still “take charge” if we allow it. It will then manifest itself in our resulting behavior. We will behave in a self-centered manner, thinking primarily of how things affect us, rather than how we can affect others for good.

How I respond to God’s truth, as a believer, demonstrates my condition: am I in fellowship with God, or am I just living the self-willed life?

Peace and Freedom are for Believers!

Jesus spoke to the believers when He made the promise of Freedom! Peace with God can only come to those who have received Gods Grace. The Peace of God can only come to believers who are in fellowship with Him and are living in His Grace.

You have to decide. I have to decide, moment-by-moment and day-by-day, “Will I choose to experience His Peace, and His Freedom from the tyranny of Sin in my life?” The Freedom He promised only comes as we walk with Jesus in faith and obedience. Yes; as born again believers, we belong to Him. But we still need to live as His disciples, by Faith and Obedience..

Lord Jesus, we desire to be free from our slavery to sin. We desire to experience your Peace and Your Freedom. Free us from our sins and teach us to walk with You by Faith. Teach us to Obey by faith. Teach us to Love by Faith. Make us your disciples in Truth.

August 6, 2022August 6, 2022

When Ye Have Lifted up the Son of Man

John 8:21-30; (John 8:21, 22; John 8:23-27; John 8:28-30)

Introduction

Last week we examined Jesus’s observation that the Pharisees and their group did not know anything about the Father or the Son: They lacked even a rudimentary knowledge about His Character and His Person, let alone any sort of personal, relational or experiential knowledge.

Obviously, this proud, supposedly well-educated group of Pharisees did not want to hear such things, and they were not going to take it lightly. As we saw back in John 7: 32, 45, 46, they really wanted to have him arrested and done away with…but they had been unable to do so. We saw last week, in John 8:20 that the reason they were unable to arrest Him is that He was the One in control: They could not lay hands on Him, because His hour was not yet come.

And, in the meantime… Jesus was not done telling them “what’s what!” He let them know the consequences of their unbelief.

I go My Way and Ye shall Seek Me.

John 8:21, 22

²¹Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come. ²²Then said the Jews, Will he kill himself? because he saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come.

Jesus led up to a challenge, of sorts, and a prophecy concerning the near future. He told them that He would be leaving, and that they would seek Him. Jesus said they would die in their sins, not having found Him. He further said that where He was going, they could not follow.

The Pharisees had no idea what Jesus was talking about. They jumped to the conclusion that He was planning to commit suicide, because He said they would not be able to follow Him. But that only underscored the fact that they had no idea Who He really was.

So, Jesus added to their confusion, but, at the same time He explained Who He was to the other listeners. (Remember, He had been teaching in the temple—there was a crowd present.)

Ye are from Beneath, I am from Above

John 8:23-27

²³And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. ²⁴I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. ²⁵Then said they unto him, Who art thou? And Jesus saith unto them, Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning. ²⁶I have many things to say and to judge of you: but he that sent me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him. ²⁷They understood not that he spake to them of the Father.

Jesus began to rebuild the foundation for people to believe in Him. He had told them who He was, as the Savior, as the Son of God, as the Eternal Judge, from the beginning. But the Pharisees had ignored the truth all along, so they literally did not know who He was. The rest of the people, however, had been gradually catching on, and some believed.

But Jesus had to make a sharp delineation between the status of a natural human being and the “God-Man,” (Fully God and Fully Man) of supernatural birth and Heavenly origin.

He plainly told them, “You (plural) are from beneath: I am from above.” The origin of each was critically important. Our Deliverer could not be a slave to Sin, Himself. The rules for the Kinsman-Redeemer were very clear:

The Kinsman-Redeemer

He had to be a near relative. (Jesus was physically born into the Human Race for this express reason. He had to be “one of us,” in that way. The promised “Seed of the Woman,” predicted in Genesis 3:15 had to be born of a Woman…but not of a man. Jesus was the only One who could qualify.
He had to be free Himself. A slave could not redeem another slave. Jesus was not a slave to Sin, being born without a sin-nature. (Evidently, being without a human father meant that He did not inherit the sin nature from Adam.)
He had to have the Price of Redemption. In Boaz’s case, in the Book of Ruth, it simply meant he had to be physically wealthy enough to purchase the land and take on the financial responsibility involved. In Jesus’s case, however, it meant that He had to have a perfect life and a perfect blood-sacrifice…His own blood, from a sinless Man.
He had to be Willing. Boaz was willing, whereas the other (potentially better qualified) relative, was not willing. Jesus willingly went to the Cross. He voluntarily laid down His life: He said, “No man taketh my life from Me…I lay it down of my own will and I will take it up again of my own will.” (John 10:17, 18 summarized)

If Jesus was not “From Above,” because of His supernatural birth and parentage–If He was not thereby free from the baggage of guilt and sin with which the entire Human race was burdened, then He could not be the Redeemer. He would not be Free Himself, and regardless of whether He was willing to be our Redeemer, He would not be qualified!

“If ye believe not that I am He, Ye shall die in your Sins”

Jesus connected the fact that He was “not of this world” to the fact that they would die in their sins: It was not just the fact that He was from one source, and they were from another: The issue was their unbelief: and it always has been! In Numbers 13:11, The LORD asked Moses, regarding the children of Israel, “How long will it be ere they believe me?”

Unbelief is always the barrier. Jesus said, in John 3:18, “…he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

Rejecting Light

Part of the problem is that the door to the truth has always been the Will, not the Intellect. People who have heard the Gospel usually don’t need “more light” as badly as they need to respond to the light they have. Jesus went on to say, in John 3:19, that “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the World, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”

People reject the Light of God’s Word, out of hand, because they are offended that it exposes them for who they are: it shows them to be sinners. Having rejected that Light, it is senseless for them to stand around, demanding more light: they already have rejected the Light!

If they somehow come to a point of repentance, and are willing to receive light, then things can change. They can begin to see things through God’s eyes, and see the Truth of His Word. But these men were actively rebelling against the Light that Jesus was shining into their lives.

Who is Jesus?

So, when they asked Him again, “Who art thou?” Jesus just reminded them that they had already had that answer, repeatedly. Jesus had presented Himself as the Son of God: He had shown His power in miraculous healings and other ways; providing food for thousands, and miraculously providing wine for a wedding feast. He had even revealed that He was the eternal Judge of all the Earth. Finally, He had told them that He, alone, was the Light of the World and the Bread of Life.

So, now, He only said, “I’m Who I told you I was, from the Beginning.” He went on to say that He had a great deal to tell them, and that the things He was saying were true, because the One who sent Him was true: Jesus was only going to share what the Father told Him to share. They still did not understand that He was referring to the Father, so, Jesus made it more specific, and said that they were not really going to understand until it was too late.

When Ye Have Lifted up the Son of Man

John 8:28-30

²⁸Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things. ²⁹And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him. ³⁰As he spake these words, many believed on him.

In verse 28, Jesus predicted His own Crucifixion. Compare this passage to John 12:32, 33, where Jesus used the same phrase: it specifically explains that he was referring to the crucifixion, that He was predicting the manner in which He would die.

He said that then (after His death) they would realize who He was, and that He had only done as the Father had directed Him. Jesus said that the Father was continually with Him, so that He was not alone.

“Modern advantages”

Now: we “modern Gentiles” have two advantages, if you want to call them that:

We were not born Jews, so we do not feel any resentment at the accusation that “we have killed our own Messiah.” Some Jews have freely recognized and confessed the national error, and have embraced their slain Messiah, as their Risen Christ…the Living Messiah, and their Living God in the Flesh.

Yes, they are grieved at the tragedy, but they rejoice in His victory! But most of us, as Gentiles, never had that as a stumbling block to begin with. (Of course, the other side of that coin is that we also never had the blessing of being one of the chosen people of God. We did not grow up with the heritage of the Law and the Prophets.)
We did not live back then, so ALL of our view of Jesus is “after the fact.” Also, we did not have to wait for the crucifixion: It already happened. Thus, we see His whole ministry in past tense, including His life and death and burial and resurrection, and it all fits! We believe it!

Who is responsible? (And How do We Reply?)

The truth, though, is: He died for the Whole World: there has never been a human being, (other than Jesus Himself,) whose sins were not on that Cross with Jesus. No one needs to feel “more” guilty of His death than anyone else. On the other hand, none of us can feel “less” accountable to God for His sacrifice. The question in every person’s life, is “What are you going to do with Jesus?”

As an unbeliever, I faced that question because I ignorantly and arrogantly rebelled against Him. But the time came when I saw myself as a helpless sinner. I was unable to “keep the rules” even if I made the rules! It was finally obvious to me that I needed Him as my Savior. I did not understand much else, initially: There is no way I could have explained the Law of the Substitute, nor had I ever heard of the Kinsman-Redeemer. I just knew I needed a Savior, and that Jesus was the One!

The Question For Every Day

Today, as a believer, that question is still at the forefront, every day: Will I respond to Him as my Master, in obedience, as God, in worship: as my Sustainer, Provider and Protector, in faith, prayer, and active trust? Or will I forget He is there at all, until a crisis arises of some sort?

We live long after the time of the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. We know who He is and what He has done for us. But we are among those in verse 30, where it says, “As he spake these words, many believed on him.” They placed their faith in Jesus. So have we!

“Shoe-Leather Faith”

But, what did they do later? We are not told. In the next chapter, we will see the story of one man who believed, and who suffered persecution for his faith, but he went on to become a worshipper of Jesus in the midst of that persecution. He “put shoe-leather on his faith!”

What God asks all of us to do, is to “put shoe-leather on our faith.” Put it into practice! “Walk the walk,” as people sometimes say today.

In Ephesians 4:1-3, Paul begs us to “…walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.” He goes on to explain what that means, in terms of how we relate to one another. In fact, Paul spends most of the rest of the Book of Ephesians, teaching what that means in every part of life.

Possible Outcomes

Some of the people who believed would go on to be martyred for their faith. Others lived long, quiet lives, blessing those around them and honoring the Lord in every area of their lives. Some did neither: they eventually slipped back into the World’s way of thought and behavior. We can read about each kind of believer throughout the book of Acts and the Epistles.

Choosing Shoe-Leather

Each of you has a will: you make choices. Each of you has an intellect: you think and learn. You can read your Bible to intellectually learn what God wants you to do. But, ultimately, “The door to the truth is the Will, not the intellect.”

You have to decide, day by day, and moment by moment, what you will actually do with Jesus. I have to make that same decision, too, every day. Use your Intellect, but use your Will, as well, to choose to “put Shoe-leather on your faith.”

Lord Jesus, teach us to make right decisions, and to walk with you in the light of your Word, every day. Shape us into your likeness, and use us as tools in Your hands. Let us reflect Your light in all parts of our lives.

July 30, 2022July 30, 2022

“Ye Neither Know Me nor My Father:”

Ye Neither Know Me nor My Father

John 8:13-20

Introduction

Last week, we examined the statement Jesus made, identifying Himself both as the Light of the World, and (because of His use of the “I AM” phrase,) as God. Anyone who heard Him and who was willing to consider the implication of His words would have seen that He was claiming to be the Creator, as well as the Judge, and the Lawgiver—the Light of Israel, and their Savior. From their response it is pretty clear that the majority did not see those truths.

The only verbal response of the Pharisees, to that simple statement, was that since he was bearing witness of himself, His testimony must not be true. That is illogical, as, ultimately, every testimony regarding oneself (including the times they demanded that He identify Himself) have to be one person confessing their own identity. But Jesus didn’t argue with them regarding the lack of logic: He addressed the real issue: He was telling the truth, and there were other witnesses to His identity as well.

¹³ The Pharisees therefore said unto him, Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true. ¹⁴ Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come, and whither I go.

¹⁵ Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man. ¹⁶ And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me. ¹⁷ It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. ¹⁸I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me.

¹⁹ Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also. ²⁰ These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet come.

My Record is True

Jesus’s first defense is that He Himself actually knew where He had come from, and they did not. They couldn’t ascertain the truth of His testimony, as they made no investigation as to His lineage or place of birth, let alone to see what other prophecies He had already fulfilled. They tried to brand Him a liar, simply because they wanted to silence Him!

I have several times heard people denouncing the Bible as “fairy tales, fiction, lies, etc.” Why were they saying such things? Because the Bible offended them, and they wanted to silence it. But, in every case where I was able to question the accusers at all, it turned out they knew virtually nothing of what the Bible actually teaches, and understood nothing of the little they knew. They were acting exactly as the Pharisees acted, and for the same motive! We know from 1^st Corinthians 1:23 that the Gospel will always offend people. What they do about that “offense” will ultimately determine the outcome in their life.

Why does the Gospel Offend People?

As we have mentioned in the past, every example of “good news” (that is what “Gospel” means) is predicated upon some pre-existing “bad news.” In this case the “bad news” is that the entire World is condemned, and guilty before God for two reasons:

Because of the Sin of Adam, (what we call “Original Sin) which plunged us all into spiritual death, being separated from God, and unable to approach Him or fellowship with Him, and,
Because of our personal sins, which we commit by choice. Romans 1:18-32 outlines the overall slide of the Human Race, down through History, away from a relationship with God.

Responding to Guilt and dealing with Sin

There are four possible responses to that fact of guilt:

We can simply deny that Sin exists, and thereby brush away any such accusations. To achieve this, one has to deny that there is such a thing as “right and wrong,” Most people have a pretty clear recognition that right and wrong exist, even if they can’t quite define either one of them. Therefore, since most people do see “right versus wrong” as a legitimate concern, most will not choose this response.

A second option is to admit that Sin exists, but deny that it really matters, because “God is so loving and forgiving that He surely will not judge us harshly.” (Funny…that is exactly what the Serpent told Eve, in Genesis, too! “Thou shalt not surely die!”) But, since most people also are aware of a concept of justice; that “wrongs should be righted:” that “Evil should be punished,” and “Good should be rewarded,” most people are also uncomfortable with saying “sin doesn’t matter.” (They know it does matter!)

We can deny that we personally are sinners, angrily “wrapping ourselves in the rags of our self-righteousness,” saying “Well, yes, there is Sin in the world, but I’m GOOD!” This requires deep self-delusion, to ignore the marks of sin in our own lives. So, most world-religions start with this idea and go just a little further, saying, “Well, yes, we are sinners, but not very “bad” sinners, and what little guilt there is in our lives, we will overbalance by our good works!” Human Religion builds upon this concept: “I can DO things to make God accept me!” It ignores the concept of God’s Holiness: it assumes He can be “bought off” by our trivial human works. Paul addressed this idea in Galatians 2:21 “I do not frustrate the Grace of God, for if righteousness come by the Law, then Christ is dead in vain!”

The fourth response is full confession of both who we are, as lost sinners, and the fact that we cannot save ourselves. We don’t like that! It offends us! We want to claim the “innate goodness of the Human Race,” when God says quite the opposite: He says, “We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags!” (Isaiah 64:6)
You see, the “Bad news” is that “All we like Sheep have gone astray, and have turned every one to his own way!” But the Good news is the other half of that same verse: “The LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all!” (Isaiah 53:6)

Embracing the Cross

Do you see the difference in that fourth response? It does not deny that Sin exists. Nor does it deny that Sin is serious. It does not deny personal guilt, nor does it claim that we can somehow save ourselves: Instead, it confesses that Jesus alone can take away my sin and give me a right standing before God. It places my only hope right where it belongs, casting myself completely on the Mercy and Grace of God, which He provided for all sinners, at the Cross.

We embrace God’s chosen sacrifice by faith. Every saved person in history has done exactly the same thing, from Adam and Eve, being clothed with the Blood Sacrifice that God made for them in the Garden of Eden, to the Children of Israel huddling under the Blood of the Passover Lamb, and trusting God to save them from the coming Judgment, and the Thief on the Cross, trusting in Jesus for Mercy. And every single one received the same promise in return: Eternal life, freely given and never revoked. Jesus said, “He that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out.”

Make it Personal

We make it personal, by personal choice. The people at that first Passover knew that God was judging Egypt that night: They killed the Lamb, and they dipped a bundle of hyssop in the blood of that Lamb, and they struck the blood onto the lintel and the two doorposts. But that wasn’t all: remember, every individual in each house personally ate of that Lamb. They did not just sit back and say, “I approve of this sacrifice!” They confessed that the Lamb was killed for their sake, personally, by eating of the Lamb, personally.

It is one thing to agree that “Jesus died for the Sins of the Whole World,” but entirely another to recognize that “He died because of my sins.” I need to personally embrace the Cross by faith, confessing that His sacrifice is for me, personally, not just a nice “theory” about which we all should “feel good.”

Embracing Truth

Jesus said (v. 15) that the Pharisees were “Judging after the Flesh.” They had corrupt motives and they judged accordingly. In this particular ministry (v. 16,) Jesus was not judging people: He came to offer Grace. (We saw that, exemplified, in verses 1-11.)

The amazing thing about that verse, though, is that He really is the Holy and Eternal Judge of all the Earth! He was temporarily setting aside His position as our Judge, in order to offer us His Grace. He said “I’m not judging anyone, but when I do judge (and He will!), My Judgment will be true, because it will be in full agreement with God the Father.

The only way for us to survive that judgment, is to embrace the truth: Embrace the fact of our sin, and embrace the fact that Jesus’s blood takes away sin. Embrace the “Bad News” that God hates sin, and that Judgment is coming… but also embrace the “Good News” that Jesus Saves!

Knowing The Father and the Son

Interestingly, this passage does not use the Greek word “ginosko,” which means an ongoing, experiential, relational knowledge. I had always assumed that was the “knowledge” Jesus said they didn’t have. But this is the other Greek word for “Know,” (“oida”) meaning simply knowing as a fact, or knowing about someone or some concept. Jesus was saying “You don’t know even who I am nor do you understand who my Father is at all!”

One place we see both of those words used, side by side, and contrasted, is in what I find to be a hilarious passage in Acts 19:11-16 There were certain unbelieving Jews who had been selling their services as “exorcists.” They saw that Paul was “the real McCoy,” so to speak, so seven of them attempted to use the Name of Jesus, as Paul did, to cast out demons.

They stood before a demon-possessed man, and said to the evil spirit, “We command you by the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, to come out!” And the evil spirit answered, saying (KJV) “Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?!” And He jumped on them and savagely beat them all, so that they ran away, bleeding and without their clothes! (Ha! I love that story!)

Two Ways to Know

But what was really happening there? The spirit actually said “Jesus, I know personally (“ginosko:”) I have experiential knowledge of Him. And I have heard of Paul (“oida”) I know about him. But you are not connected with either of them: you have zero authority!”

So, Jesus, far from only saying they lacked experiential, relational knowledge of God, was saying that the Pharisees knew nothing about Him. And they knew nothing of Jesus, as well! He effectively told them “If you knew anything about My Father, you would also know about Me!”

The Pharisees weren’t just lacking a “relationship with God:” they were so far removed from the truth that Jesus said they knew nothing about Him! But some believed, as we see in v. 30. And, in verse 20, we see that they couldn’t take him prisoner, nor attack Him, because He was the One in control: His hour had not yet come.

Experiential Knowledge

Once a person has confessed that they need a Savior and has placed their full trust in Jesus as that Savior, they have the “knowledge” Jesus addressed here: But from that point forward, we are encouraged, and admonished, and commanded to grow in the other kind of knowledge: the experiential, relational, personal, ongoing knowledge of the Holy God who has chosen us to be born again. He reached out to the whole world, and paid the sin-debt of the whole world, offering eternal life to the Whole World.

We entered in by faith, and by a free choice, having seen the clear invitation, “Whosoever Will may come!” But once inside, we looked back at that same door through which we entered and see that on the inside, it says “Chosen in Him from the foundation of the Earth!”

And now He says to follow Him, trust in Him, learn from Him! This is how we gain experiential knowledge of God. We study His Word, that we may grow thereby (He commands this!) We learn to use the tools He has given us, and the Light, by which to walk with God.

Embracing Jesus

Most religions give some sort of “lip service” to “honoring Jesus:” they declare him to be “a great teacher, a philosopher, a prophet, a mystic, or a miracle-worker.” They may declare Him to be a “Mighty Spirit-Being.” They may even be so bold as to declare Him to be “a god.” But they will not confess that He is the Almighty Creator; God in the Flesh: God the Son. Eternally God, and the eternally “Anointed One” (Messiah.) “The Lamb Slain from the foundation of the World.”

And that is the Jesus we are confessing: The Biblical Jesus. Not some imaginary, created being, whom we may see with great respect, gratitude, or love, as if He were simply a Human Hero.

No! He is God! He is the Creator who spoke the World into existence. He is the King. He is the Master. (We don’t like that concept, but here it is: He is our Master!)

Each of us still has a sin nature, and we don’t like the idea that “someone else is the Boss!” We still desire self-realization, self-direction, self-rule. We say, “I want to be my own Person.” In strictly Human terms, that sounds fine, but this craving for autonomy actually began in the rebellion of Lucifer, which destroyed him as a holy angel, and destroyed us, through Adam. We can read Lucifer’s five statements of self-will in Isaiah 14:12-15. He wanted to be his own boss!

Embracing the Master

“Embracing Jesus” means embracing Him as our Lord! Embracing Him as our Master!

“Embracing Jesus” means embracing the tasks He gives us, on a day-by-day basis, as well as the overall Job He has given us, as Ambassadors of Christ. We are to shine in this dark world, as we noted last week. How? Well, Jesus said, “So let your light shine before Men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in Heaven!”

Every winter I eventually notice that the headlights on my car seem to be getting more and more dim. Finally, I get out of the car and check the headlamps, and sure enough, they are so encrusted with road grime that the burning light on the inside is hardly able to get through the dirt on the outside. We need to check ourselves on a regular basis to see that we are not becoming so “spotted by the world” that the Light of God’s Love is no longer visible. It can happen!

So, we address the “Dirt”…the Sin that is dimming the light in our lives, by confessing it to God. 1^st John 1:9 says “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just, to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

1^st John 1:7 says, “If we walk in the light as He is in the Light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.”

That is why He calls it “walking:” there is no coasting, or gliding: it is a “one-step-at-a-time” walk of faith and obedience.

Lord Jesus, cleanse our lives and teach us to walk in obedience to Your Word and to Your Spirit. Let our lives shine as quiet testimony of your Grace, and open our mouths to share the Gospel with those around us.

July 9, 2022July 9, 2022

Go, and Sin No More

John 8:1-11

Introduction

The opening passage, here, in the beginning of John chapter eight, touches my heart, every time I read it. We were reading in the previous chapters about preaching and promises, ministry and miracles, friends and enemies. But, here in John eight, some enemies show up during His teaching, with a test for Jesus: They brought to him a woman caught in adultery. (Nothing is said about what they may have already done to the man with whom she was found. That sort of thing tended to be dealt with rather summarily.) But the test they brought was really a trap:

If He condemned the woman, thus agreeing with the Law, then He would seem harsh to the people. They would see Him in league with the Pharisees, their oppressors. Thus, they would probably reject Him as their Savior.

But, if He said to not stone her, then He would be denying God’s Law, and the Pharisees, the scribes, and the chief priests could condemn Him for that. It looks like a classic “damned if you do and damned if you don’t ” type of trap! But let’s read through the passage and see how Jesus handled this situation.

The Teacher and the Accusers

John 8:1-11

¹Jesus went unto the mount of Olives. ²And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them.

Jesus “camped” on the Mount of Olives, overnight, and He returned to the temple, early the next morning. Remember that He had been teaching there, the day before and He had promised the living Water to anyone who believed on Him. The officers (sent to arrest Him) heard Him speak, and refused to arrest him, because of the Spirit with which He spoke. But everyone eventuallywent home. Jesus had gone to the Mount of Olives, to sleep.

But, early in the morning, Jesus was back in the temple, teaching again, and all the people had come again, to hear Him. God does not tell us what He was teaching that morning, but the enemy interrupted the teaching that morning. His enemies came to disrupt his teaching and to test Jesus, trying to find a means by which to accuse Him of sin, and entrap Him.

³And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, ⁴They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. ⁵Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?

Enemies and Tempters

These men tried to catch Jesus in a disagreement with the Law of God. (It isn’t going to happen: He is the Author of the Law of God!) Jesus initially acted as though He had not heard them: He stooped and wrote on the ground with His finger. (I do wish I knew what He was writing!)

⁶This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. ⁷So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

You, see, they offered only two possibilities: but Jesus gave then a third option. They thought that He would have to either agree with their interpretation of His Word, and call for the woman’s execution, or deny the Law altogether, and disobey God. Either way, they thought they had Him trapped. But Jesus presented a third option: Obey God, and condemn her for breaking God’s Moral Law, if (and only if) you, yourself, are worthy to extend condemnation to another…being free of sin, yourself.

⁸And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. ⁹And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

Dismissing the Accusers

I find the result pretty astonishing: As humans, we usually feel pretty free to condemn one another. We almost never stop to think whether we have either the authority to accuse, or the secure platform of personal moral purity, from which to condemn someone else.

Jesus simply stood up, and told them, “Whoever among you is sinless, let him cast the first stone.” And then He stooped again and continued writing on the ground with His finger! (What was he writing? We are not told! I don’t think it is wise to make guesses, either.)

But somehow, His quiet authority served to reach their consciences, and to convict their hearts. One by one they slipped away, beginning with the eldest and working toward the younger men, until no one was left to accuse her.

Standing before the Judge

Why was the woman still there? I believe she recognized Jesus as “the Judge of all the Earth.” Abraham saw Him that way, in Genesis 18:25, and Jesus confirmed Himself to be the Judge, in John 5:22. He is the Judge! She could have run away, or perhaps just faded back into the crowd. But she stayed and she waited for His decision, waiting for His judgment concerning herself.

¹⁰When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? ¹¹She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

When Jesus asked her where her accusers had gone, and whether no one was left to condemn her, she answered, respectfully, that they were all gone. But she was still standing there, waiting for His word. She knew His authority, somehow. The woman threw herself on His mercy, and trusted in Him as her faithful Creator, as it says in 1^st Peter 4:19.

Her actions demonstrated that the accusation was true. She was awaiting judgment from Jesus. (Yes, she “called Him Lord,” but that phrase was often taken very lightly. It usually meant no more, to most speakers, than the word “sir” means, today.) So, her actions are the heaviest statement, here: She stood and waited for Jesus to address her case, as her Judge. And in so doing, she met Him as Her Savior!

Grace and Truth Came by Jesus Christ

We saw the contrast between Law and Grace, clear back in John 1:17. It says, “The Law came by Moses, but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ.”

The scribes and Pharisees came as proponents of the Law, demanding Judgment against this woman…demanding her execution. Jesus did not deny the Law: He offered Grace in its place. He did not deny the truth of her guilt: He offered Grace in spite of her guilt.

What is Grace? Grace is unearned favor: Unmerited favor. She had no merit to which she could point, saying how she had earned God’s forgiveness or blessing. Apparently, her accusers also recognized their unworthiness, but they did not stay and wait for Grace: they simply left, knowing they were not in a position to accuse. She stayed: her actions confessed her guilt and confessed that Jesus was her Judge. And she received Grace and forgiveness. Not because she deserved it. We don’t know the circumstances, nor do we need to know. Grace and works are completely separated.

The Same Grace is Extended to Us

The fact is, we are each just as guilty as she. We may not necessarily be guilty of the same sin: but read through the extensive list in Romans chapter one. If we are honest about our hearts, then the truth is, we are all guilty of the same kinds of sin, and we were also condemned before God and hopelessly deep in guilt.

By the time we read as far as Romans 3:19, we see that the whole world is lost, and that Jesus is our only hope. This woman saw herself that way, that morning: she was inescapably caught in sin, for which she expected capital punishment. And she correctly saw Jesus as her Eternal Judge. She silently placed her faith in His judgment, trusting in Him to extend Mercy if it was available. He acknowledged the Truth of her guilt (and, by extension, ours,) but He chose to extend Mercy and Grace.

Grace is Honest and Free

Grace tells the truth: it recognizes the “bad news” of our fatal illness, called Sin, and it offers the only cure for that disease, the Blood of Jesus at the Cross. And that is “Good News!”

Grace is free to us, but it came at a terrible price for Jesus, the Creator God in the Flesh. The Holy, Righteous God of the Universe, the Creator, God, the Son, became Sin for us, so that God the Father could pour out all His righteous wrath upon our Sin, without destroying us: the Sinners.

2^nd Corinthians 5:21 makes it clear that He, God the Son, became Sin for us, so that we could be made the righteousness of God in Him. What an incredible trade! He took all my sins and gave me all His righteousness! That is beyond my understanding, and beyond my imagination.

Imputed Righteousness

I can’t see this woman’s heart (nor anyone else’s, for that matter) but it seems that, somewhere along here, she placed her faith in Jesus…both as her Judge and as her Savior. Abraham did exactly the same thing, and he was declared Righteous on the basis of his faith. The Thief on the Cross did exactly the same thing, and he was promised, “Today thou shalt be with me in Paradise!” So… How does this happen?

Romans 4:8, (quoting Psalm 32:1, 2) says “blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven…unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity…” How can God fail to impute iniquity to someone who, beyond question, is clearly guilty? The fact of “forgiving sins” presupposes that there are sins to be forgiven. So, right here in this context, we have a hard question. How can God not only forgive sins, but render the sinner permanently righteous: beyond further accusation?

The Unsalvageable Old Man

God says my old sin nature cannot be saved…it cannot be repaired. It is not subject to God, and it cannot be subject to God. Romans 8:7 flatly states that to be the case. So, since my old nature cannot be saved, the only way for me to stand before God at all is through the new birth! God had to give me a new nature. This is why Jesus told Nicodemus, in John 3:3, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” It is the simple truth!

So, in John 1:12, He says He gives the new birth through faith: believing in Him personally, trusting in Him as my Savior. I recognize that He is my Judge, and I fear His devastating Holiness, just as every other honest sinner before me has done. But I also trust in Him as my Savior. I have no other Hope. Either His full payment of His blood at the Cross is sufficient, or I have nothing whatever to offer.

Jesus is the Wise and Gracious Judge and Savior

The Woman stood before Him condemned by her own sin, and confessing that she was a condemned sinner. But she was also submitting herself to Him for that judgment, and trusting in Him to deal mercifully with her. And He did!

That’s what it is all about; right there, my friends!

Can you explain that simple story to your friends and family? To your neighbors? To a stranger?

This is a priceless account of a precious soul for whom Jesus died. And His counsel to her, on the basis of the received Mercy and Grace, was: “Go, and Sin No More!” That is His counsel to us, as well. Let’s take it seriously.

Lord Jesus, open our hearts to understand Your Gospel well enough to share it with those around us. Free our hearts to serve You in humility and Love. All we have to offer others is what You have already given to us. Mercy, Grace, and Eternal Life, all through faith in Your shed blood!

June 25, 2022June 25, 2022

The Living Water Throughout Time

Living Water, Throughout Time

John 7:37-39 (compare Jeremiah 2:12, 13; Ezekiel 47:1-12; Psalm 46:4; John 4:14)

Introduction

We have talked about this subject, before: probably five years ago, but we need to address it again. There is a rather “obscure” concept brought up several times in the Old Testament, without much explanation. It is sometimes used in such a context that it seems it could have no particular spiritual interpretation.

In its most common usage, the literal meaning of the Old Testament phrase “living water,” is just “flowing water.” (In other words, a stream; not a stagnant pool, a bucket of water, or, as stated in Jeremiah 2:13, a cistern.) Often the people were told to wash something in living water, or to do some ritual “over living water.” In those cases, it seems the context would make “flowing water” the correct understanding. But how about in Jeremiah 2:12, 13?

¹²Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the Lord. ¹³For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

God says it was a “two-part” sin that Israel was committing. They turned away from God, who was the source of “living water.” And, they made for themselves cisterns…and (ironically,) the cisterns were cracked, and couldn’t even hold water! What is the comparison he is making?

“Living Water” or Cracked Cisterns?

The water in a cistern might have begun as clean rainwater, but it was caught on a roof, perhaps, and we funneled into that tank we call a cistern. Whatever debris was on the roof will hopefully be washed off before we begin channeling the water into the cistern, but traces will still be there. And, with time, whatever impurities were included will build up. If any of them were biological impurities, (bird-droppings, insects,bacteria, etc.,) they will multiply. That tank of water will be pretty unwholesome, and probably pretty unappealing.

So, when Jeremiah makes that comparison, he may only be saying that the LORD is a source of constantly replaced and completely healthful flowing water. In contrast, whatever is in the cistern is questionable at best. And, of course, even in that context, it is clear that He is not talking about ordinary “water,” but something of spiritual significance. Because of what we see in the rest of the Bible, it also seems that there must be a much deeper, much more significant meaning to the phrase “living water.” But whatever God is offering, it is far to be preferred over whatever they have stored up for themselves in their cracked cisterns.

The Power and Limitations of Living Water

In Ezekiel 47:1-12, (read it!) we see the vision Ezekiel was given regarding the temple in the Millennial kingdom. Water is flowing from under the altar, and one stream heads off to the east, toward the Dead Sea. On the way there, it cleanses everything it touches, and it produces Life everywhere it goes. The places that are not touched by this water remain lifeless and sterile, and remain a source of salt, but will not support life. But the Living Water flows all the way to the Dead Sea, and the Dead Sea is no longer Dead!

What was once literally dead, with virtually nothing surviving there, is to be healed by these living waters, and not only will it be made “livable,” but it will swarm with life! It will be commercially fishable! So, a “picture” is beginning to appear, regarding the power and the limitations of “living water.”

Every piece of ground it touched was cleansed and began to produce life. Plants and trees grew all along the banks of this water. Fish could live where that water flowed. The water was clean and healthy to drink. But anywhere the water was not allowed to touch, that land remained unfruitful and dead.

So, what else do we know about that River coming out of Jerusalem?

The River From the Altar

Psalm 46:4 “There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.”

There is no question that this passage refers to the Temple. Probably the first thing to observe, then, is that, currently, there is no River flowing out of the Temple Mount. But, as we will see elsewhere, there will be such a river!

There is, however, a brook, off to the east, called the “Brook Kidron.” The name “Kidron” means “Turbid: thick with roiled sediment.” (Even the particular word translated “brook” means a choked creek in a narrow ravine…not a “pretty little stream, running across a lovely, sunny meadow.”) So, we have a tight little ravine, with a muddy creek running in the bottom of it, whose waters are “turbid: thick with roiled sediment.”

There is also a tributary to the Kidron, draining the valley of Hinnom, to the south of the city…which used to be the city garbage dump. It was the place they threw the carcasses of criminals and of unclean animals. That place was so foul that it became the “mental image of Hell,” to the Hebrew imagination. The place was called Gehenna, because everything about it was a picture of the eternal lostness of the unrighteous dead.

The Current Path of the Brook Kidron

So, the Brook Kidron flowed from somewhere between the Mount of Olives and Jerusalem, through a nasty, narrow ravine, down to the southeast corner of the old city, and it was joined there by whatever water drained Gehenna. Then it turned left and flowed pretty much straight to the Dead Sea, across salt-flats, marshes, and desert, but never producing much in the way of life. And, of course, once it reached the Dead Sea, there was no further life at all. The Dead sea has no outlets. Once the waters reached the Dead Sea, there was no way out of that “end-result.” I hope you are starting to see some “pictures,” here.

Throughout the Old Testament, we see that when the priests cleansed the temple, they threw the filth into the “brook Kidron.” When they broke down the idols, they threw the pieces into the brook Kidron. The Kidron seems to be a kind of “Condemnation Creek;” it is joined by the drainage of their idea of hell: Gehenna, and then it winds its way across the desert, down to Eternal Death. In short, it is beginning to look a great deal like the condition of the Lost Human soul!

How does any of this apply to the question of Living Water?

Jesus offered the “Spring of Living Water”

In John 4:14, Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at the City well, outside Sychar. He offered her a Spring; a source of Living Water, which He said, if she drank from it, would “well up unto eternal life.”

Initially, she was thoroughly confused by His offer. She wanted that water, but had no idea how to get it. But eventually, she believed in Him and found that she had drunk from that well. Does it say that, specifically? No; it says that she wanted to “drink from that well,” but she did not know what He meant. Afterward, it says that she and many others “believed on Jesus:” they placed their dependance on Him as their Messiah. And, here in John chapter seven, we are going to see what He meant.

“Come unto me and Drink”

In John 7:37-39, Jesus made a very public offer to “anyone who thirsts,” to come and drink.

“³⁷In the last day, that great day of the feast, {Pentecost! What a great connection!] Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. ³⁸He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. ³⁹(But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)

Jesus said, “as the scripture hath said…” He may have been referring to Isaiah 58:11, where God promised that the people would be “like a well-watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.” Or He could have meant the passage in Proverbs 10:11, saying that the “mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life.”

But He pulled together all the Old references to Living Water, in this verse, and was kind enough to let us know exactly what He meant, so that we are not coming up with “Human-tainted explanations” of all kinds. It says that he spoke regarding the Holy Spirit, “…which they that believe on Him should receive.”

How does this apply to the Old Testament Prophecies?

Two weeks ago, during Bible Study, we saw that the “best commentary on the Word of God is the Word of God.” In this case, in spite of the “etymological fact” that (in the Old Testament) the phrase“Living water” possibly “just means ‘flowing water’,” we can see that “flowing water” cannot possibly be what Jesus meant, here in John 7, nor in John 4, because He said it would result in a flowing spring from within the person, providing eternal life. (Plain old “flowing water” can’t do that!)

Possibly even the water in Ezekiel 47 has some special properties, though it does not specifically say so. Flowing from under the altar would seem to hint that it might, at least. And the fact that “everything lives, when touched by that water” seems to hint that way, too. That River will be flowing out of Jerusalem, during the Millennial Kingdom, fulfilling Psalm 46:4.

We also see, here in John 7:39, that Jesus was specifically referring to the indwelling Holy Spirit. That relationship between the Believer and the Holy Spirit did not begin as a “normal” state of affairs until the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2. With that explanatory note, let’s go back and look at the other passages again:

Looking Back

In Jeremiah 2:13, if God is the only source of spiritual life, namely, via the Holy Spirit having an effect, even on the lives of Old Testament Believers, then “storing up spirituality” was an exercise in futility. There is no “vessel”, certainly not a cracked cistern, which can hold a store of the Holy Spirit, nor even the effect that He has on a life. It has to be renewed daily! Turning away from the true source of life to find some sort of man-made self-sufficiency, is a pretty terrible idea. But people still do it today!

If the stream in Ezekiel 47, coming out of Jerusalem, is a “picture” of the “Living water” of the Indwelling Holy Spirit, then both Psalm 46:4 and Ezekiel 47:1-12 make a different kind of sense than we first understood (just knowing that there will be a physical river flowing out of Jerusalem.) What if those passages, too, are in some way linked to the living water of John 7:36-39? What if they, too are at least a “picture” of something far beyond just “Physical water?”

Back to the Riverbank

We saw in Ezekiel 47, that the water went from ankle deep, just 500 yards outside Jerusalem, to swimming depth in less than a half mile. And then we see that Ezekiel was taken back to the riverbank on dry ground, to consider what he had seen.

A Living Timeline

I would like to take the liberty of seeing a “picture,” here: when we first became believers, although we already were indwelt by the Holy Spirit, we were also very immature: we were only “ankle-deep” in the Stream of Life being offered to us.

Time passed: and, as we grew, and learned to walk with the Lord, the stream reached our knees, possibly pointing to our prayer-life, or our heartfelt worship of the Living God.

More time passed, and it says the water reached the loins. (Some translations render this as “hips, or waist…and the Hebrew word is mothnayim, which probably does just mean “hips or waist.”) But I like to think of it as how we begin to reproduce as believers: That we are created to bear permanent fruit, in leading others to Christ. (Remember, there is only a “picture,” here: perhaps I am not seeing things clearly.)

Sometime later… “Afterward”

But the next thing we know, at so,me point in our growth, the water is over our depth: we can no longer “wade” in this water: we have to swim. And usually, when a person is swimming, only their head is visible. They are fully suspended in the water they swim in.

Now, I fully recognize that I am “taking liberty” with the text. I don’t often do such things, and I don’t want to cause any confusion. But I would like to observe a few more things, tracking the idea that somehow, this River may be a picture of the Holy Spirit’s work in the life of a believer.

Final Observations

The first thing to see is that the angelic messenger took Ezekiel back out of the flow and stood him on the riverbank. It is always possible to become a “castaway;” still saved, still indwelt by the Holy Spirit, but in terms of service, “set on the shelf.” Standing on the riverbank, looking out across the vastness of God’s Work and His love, and wondering why we feel so dry!

The next thing to see is the result of the free flow of that water. We see that it cleaned out the Kidron, because it provided a new source: a new headwater! It washed away the vile flow from Gehenna, and, though it still turned and flowed toward the Dead Sea, it produced life all the way there, only missing the places where it was not allowed to flow, and the end result was that instead of the eternal death of the Dead Sea, the Dead Sea was brought to life, and Eternal life and Eternal value was produced in its place. Death has lost its sting!

What about Us?

This is what is supposed to happen in the believer’s life! We have a new Head (Jesus!)…a new source of life (Jesus!) And that life should overflow through all of our old life-course, transforming it into a fruitful garden for God, producing new life at every turn, offering sustenance and healing to everyone around us. The places in our lives where we “hold back,” not allowing the Holy Spirit to transform us, will simply remain dead and unfruitful. But the end result, regardless of all else, will be the eternal life that Jesus promised. That is where the River is Going!

Jesus gives a River of Living Water. How we choose to use it will depend upon the individual. Some press deeper, feeding on the Word and growing in Love and Faith. Others “dabble around in the shallows,” never really desiring to become more like Jesus: never truly desiring to be transformed by His Grace, His Word, His power. And many of us are in between, vacillating between zeal and apathy. We run at a fitful pace, sometimes sprinting ahead, then being frustrated when it turns out that the Lord was going a different way. Sometimes we lag behind, and then we are prone to attack by spiritual predators.

Results

But Jesus said that River of life, that Spring of Living Water was supposed to change us, springing up unto Eternal life. If that isn’t happening, then we need to examine ourselves to find out why.

If you have received the Lord as your Savior, then His Living Water should be flowing out of you to all those around you. And the Flow of that Living Water in your own life should be cleansing and renewing life in all parts of your life.

What changes us?

God says His Word, by the Holy Spirit, is the one agent guaranteed to change our lives. He also commands that “as newborn babes,” we are to “desire the sincere milk of the word,” that we may grow thereby.”

Many of you have already seen the Word and the Spirit transforming your lives or the lives of those around you. None of us are finished with that process. We are called to press on, get off the Riverbank, and get into deeper water…quit wading, and learn to swim!

Lord Jesus, draw us along in your path, following closer to you, and learning to walk as You walk. Transform our lives into Your likeness, and teach us to thirst for your presence, the only source of the Living Water.

June 19, 2022June 19, 2022

Ye shall seek me and Not Find Me

John 7:31-36

Introduction:

Last week we examined Jesus’s disclaimer that “My doctrine is not Mine but His that sent me.” We were able to see that the doctrine we are assigned to teach is also not ours, but His (Christ’s) who sent us. John 20:21 says, “Peace be unto you: As the Father hath sent Me, even so send I you!” And, in Matthew 28:19-20, we see that the command is given in a self-perpetuating form. The Apostles were to teach their students (us) to do exactly as Jesus assigned them.

In spite of the crowd’s general response to His teaching that He was the Son of God (They attempted to “nab” him) some were actually beginning to absorb His message, and look at His miraculous works, and believe Him!

Some Believed!

³¹And many of the people believed on him, and said, When Christ cometh, will he do more miracles than these which this man hath done?

These who believed were asking the others, in effect, “What would it take to convince you??” They were satisfied in their own minds that this “Jesus” was fulfilling the prophecies, and that He very likely was the “real deal!” And, whether openly or secretly, it says that many believed His message… they believed in Him as their Messiah.

Some sought to silence Him!

But that sort of talk spreads! It quickly got back to the ears of the Pharisees and Chief Priests. They were not interested in investigating His claim. They wanted Him silenced. So, they sent officers to arrest Jesus. (Now, is it possible, that, at this time, that this is how they might have begun an investigation? Theoretically, perhaps it is possible.

But they proved, a little later, that it was never their intent to honestly investigate His claim that He was truly the Messiah. They wanted Him silenced! How do I know? Because when He publicly raised the dead, in John 11, those same enemies were there, and their response (in John 12) to a “bona fide” raising to life of an unquestionably dead man, was that they conspired to kill both Jesus and Lazarus!)

³²The Pharisees heard that the people murmured such things concerning him; and the Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take him.

Remember, we already saw, last week, the result of sending those officers. They went back empty handed. But, in the few verses immediately following lasts week’s message, we see Jesus perplexing the crowd once again:

³³Then said Jesus unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto him that sent me. ³⁴Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come.

Ye shall seek Me and not Find me!

How would we have taken this remark, today? There have been numerous people in our times, who simply “dropped out of sight:” They disappeared for many years, in some cases, and were thought to be dead. But they were later discovered in another place, living under a different name. Perhaps we would have thought that to be the case, here. All someone has to do today, is abandon their identity, get on a bus, hitchhike, walk, etc., and put down roots elsewhere. To do it permanently, of course, requires some illegal measures to assume the identity of someone else.

But, in those days, travel was not easy, cheap, or fast. There were no identity cards, and no computers, so, there were no “magic tricks” needed, in order to change names. The problem was that travel was slow, and dangerous…and there was always someone who would recall having “seen someone,” and put the pursuers back on the trail again.

So, the Jews had legitimate questions as to how Jesus intended to “disappear.”

³⁵Then said the Jews among themselves, Whither will he go, that we shall not find him? will he go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles? ³⁶What manner of saying is this that he said, Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come?

It is interesting that, the very next day, He was teaching almost the same things, and they were asking similar questions, and getting a little closer to the correct answer, thinking that somehow He was predicting His own death.

In John 8:20-24, it says, “²⁰These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet come. ²¹Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come.

Deaf Ears and Blind eyes

Jesus once again informed the people that He was about to leave, and that they would not be able to follow. The previous day, they supposed that perhaps He was going to travel to the Jews in the dispersion among the Gentile nations….and that they simply would not be willing to follow. But they have had time to think it over, and have realized “that can’t be it.”

However, they seem to have ignored what He had plainly told them! He said, “Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto him that sent me!” He told them where He was going! They utterly ignored that part of what He said! They were so committed to the opinion that He was Not “God in the Flesh,” that His clear statements as to His origin and destination fell on deaf ears!

Remember, several times, in the last few weeks, we mentioned that it is possible to become “judicially blind” if we disregard the Light of God’s Word. It is also entirely possible to become “judicially deaf,” if we ignore His Voice long enough. God calls, constantly, and the human race has either ignored His voice or fled from His presence. In John 10: 27, 28 Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish!”

How can we recognize those who “hear His voice?” John 1:12 says they “received Him.” They accepted Him for what He said He was. They took His Word for the things He taught. They heard His voice, and they followed Him.

John 3:19-21 “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.”

So, the Light of Christ is shining in the World, and some turn to that light. Others flee the light. Those who respond favorably to the Light of God’s Truth become increasingly sensitive to light, and they begin to seek more light; stronger light, so that they can better see the path before them. Those who hate the light, and reject it, eventually deny that it exists: they prefer to hear echoes of their own hearts, rather than hear answers from the heart of God.

Hearing Echoes of Our Own Hearts

I remember reading of an exchange that happened on a golf course, outside the clubhouse. A wealthy, self-important golfer was asking the resident “Golf Pro” for advice about his swing. The Pro initially tried to give honest, clear answers, but the man kept arguing, saying, “No, I think the problem is (…something else.)” (Whatever it was…)

Another golfer was listening, nearby, and noticed the change, when the Golf Pro began to agree with the wealthy patron, that his self-analysis was correct. Eventually the wealthy golfer walked away, satisfied. Then the second golfer privately questioned the Pro: “Why did you agree with him? Everything he said was wrong, and you knew it!” The Golf Pro replied, “Mister, I learned a long time ago to not give ‘answers’ to someone who is only looking for ‘echoes.’ He didn’t want correction; he wanted confirmation! So that’s what I gave him!”

In Romans 10:3, we see what the problem was: “For they, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.” They were so intent on establishing their own “rightness,” that they were blind to the overwhelming “Rightness” of the Son of God!

Jesus had told them where He was going, but they were already blind to His Deity, and blind to the evidence that He was the true Messiah. So, He warned them that where He was going, they could not follow. To his disciples, in John 13:36, He said, “…you cannot come now, but you will come later!” But to these unbelieving Jews, he flatly told them that they could not come.

John 8:22-24

²²Then said the Jews, Will he kill himself? because he saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come. ²³And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. ²⁴I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.”

The next day, in answer to the same question, He told them that He was not of this World, but that they were of this world. And He clearly warned them that if they failed to believe that He was who He claimed to be, they would die in their sins!

What does the Future Hold?

In 1^st Thessalonians 4:13-18 we see that something is coming, which we call the “Rapture.” We speculate about the different possible responses the World may have to the disappearance of millions of people. But what we know, (from 2^nd Thessalonians 2:11, 12) is that (future tense) God will send the World a strong delusion, so that they will believe a lie.

They will not recognize the truth and “believe,” after having seen the rapture, though I have heard people say, “Oh, if I see that, I will believe!” No, they won’t! The only ones who will believe during the Tribulation are those who either did not hear or did not understand the Gospel, before the rapture. A careful reading finds that the (future tense) strong delusion, is directed to them who (past tense) “…did not believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

This is why the Jews were warned, “If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins!” They had the most powerful witness to the truth of God in the history of the World: And they were blind to it!

What About Us?

We don’t want to be blind to the provision of God in our lives, nor to His correction, as He uses His Word to convict our hearts and to change us into His likeness. We don’t want to be deaf to His pleading, as He attempts to lead us in the paths of righteousness. All through the Bible, we see the warning that there will come a time when God allows us to “go our own way,” and we, like Samson, will reap the consequences of our sin. (Remember, Samson was a believer!)

Among the groups to whom He spoke, some of the people actually believed. We will meet them someday, as they eventually became the early Church. But others, in every generation, have rejected everything He said, and hated Him for saying it!

We see that today, as well, as we try to share our faith with others. But, Jesus said, “If the World hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.” (John 15:18)

Left Behind, and Lost

Jesus was about to go back to His Father, and He warned the unbelievers that they would not only be “left behind,” but that they would “die in their sins!” I’m not sure that we can fully grasp the hopelessness of one who “waits too long,” and “sees the door close,” so to speak, knowing that God is no longer extending His mercy, and only eternal judgment remains.

That is not a comfortable message, but it is the “Ultimate bad news” making the “Ultimate Good News” of the Cross to be Good News at all! If it were not for the enormity of our sin, and our lost estate before God, then the Salvation He offers would seem of lesser importance, and His death would seem tragic instead of being the greatest act of heroism the universe has ever seen.

Once we realize our lostness, and see Jesus as our only Hope, then the Gospel of Christ becomes the center of our lives.

May God help us to focus on the Person of Christ, and see ourselves reflected in His face, not seeking our own way, but truly seeking His!

June 4, 2022June 4, 2022

My Hour is not yet come, but yours is always ready!

John 7:1-9; John 7:25-30; John 8:20

Introduction:

Sometimes we wonder why things happen, and how they fit into God’s “Wonderful plan” for our lives. I used to use the “Four Spiritual Laws” tracts, written by Bill Bright, but I eventually quit using them for several reasons:

Problems with Tracts

For one thing, the central premise, (“God Loves You and Has a Wonderful Plan for Your Life) is technically true, but, from most people’s perspective, it is seriously flawed: Yes, God loves you and Yes, He has a wonderful plan for your life, but it may or may not feel or look very wonderful to you. And you may not always be conscious of His loving care in your life.

For example: every single one of His apostles (with the possible exception of John) were eventually executed. How wonderful was that? Millions of His followers, since that time, have been persecuted, had their children taken from them, their belongings confiscated, and have suffered imprisonment or other forms of persecution for their faith in Him. Millions have died horrible deaths, rather than disown Him. How wonderful does that sound? So, that was one problem: I was uncomfortable with the core message.

The real issue though, which caused me to quit using that tract entirely, was that it left out the core issues of the Gospel, and its message centered on “how much better things would be if you knew Jesus,” and it finally concluded, “Pray this prayer and receive Christ.”

What is the Gospel?

That is not what the Gospel says! The Gospel says, “Place your faith in His blood sacrifice for your sins and be saved.” There is no mention of “praying a prayer:” the issue is faith: place your faith in the death and the burial and the ressurection of Jesus Christ!

The result of the Gospel is also described: “It has been given unto you in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake.” (Philippians 1:29)

You see, that sort of thing doesn’t find its way into very many tracts. It is not attractive-sounding! The fact is, as a newborn believer, you have already “chosen a side” in a spiritual war that, previously, you didn’t even know existed, and now life is getting worse, (maybe) not better, in certain areas. Hopefully, you have grown in your faith at least a little, and are able to enjoy your relationship with the Savior, regardless of circumstances. That, alone, is the key to Christian Joy.

But, if you were thinking that your circumstances were supposed to improve, and that “nothing bad would ever happen to you again;” then, you were in for a very rude shock! Probably, you got through the early disappointments as part of the “learning curve,” but maybe other people have been pestering you with questions, like: “How could a Loving God allow these things to Happen?” Perhaps you have asked that question yourself.

Let’s read what Jesus said about some of these things.

My Time is not yet Come

John 7:1-9

¹After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him. ²Now the Jew’s feast of tabernacles was at hand. ³His brethren therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go into Judaea, that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest. ⁴For there is no man that doeth any thing in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, shew thyself to the world.

⁵For neither did his brethren believe in him. ⁶Then Jesus said unto them, My time is not yet come: but your time is alway ready. ⁷The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil. ⁸Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast: for my time is not yet full come. ⁹When he had said these words unto them, he abode still in Galilee

One of the first things we see in that passage is that the Jews were seeking to kill Jesus. Jesus knew that, and (as we see later) it was common knowledge in at least some circles, though it was denied by the ones who actually conspired against him.

Jesus’s physical half-brothers (they were the offspring of Joseph, by Mary…listed by name in Mark 6:3) were urging Jesus to go up to Jerusalem and show Himself to the general population at the Feast of Tabernacles.

Worldly Counsel

In a way, this made good sense, from a human perspective: IF Jesus wanted (and He did not) to make himself “known openly” (i.e. “get famous”) then there could be no better time: All the serious Jews in the world would be at that feast. If you wanted to get noticed by the Jews, that was the time and the place to do it!

But fame was not Jesus’s primary motive. He had a job to do, and it involved walking a very narrow path (think “tightrope”) to the Cross…not to fame and fortune. He hinted at this, earlier, in John 4:34, saying that His primary passion was to do His Father’s Will. He confirmed this later at Gethsemane, saying “Not My will but Thine be done.”

The other thing as we already saw, was that Jesus already knew the Jews wanted to kill him. It seems that his brothers were not yet fully aware of this. And, as John points out, in verse 5, they also did not yet believe in Him, themselves. He was just their “eldest brother, “and He was not behaving as they thought an “eldest brother” should behave. (Evidence in scripture suggests that Joseph had died, and that Jesus was now the head of the household.) They thought He should be “leading the charge,” and making their family more successful.

Jesus’ Counsel

His reply to them was that they could head on up, but that He would not be leaving yet. He explained, “My time is not yet come: but your time is alway ready. ⁷The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil. ⁸Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast: for my time is not yet full come.”

This isn’t the only place He made such comments. You may remember, He told Mary nearly the same thing, in John 2:4. “…mine hour is not yet come.” And there were other times, later on, when the comment was made that, “his hour was not yet come.” (John 7:30; 8:20)

What was Jesus telling them?

Let’s break it down a little. He said four things:

My time is not yet come
Your time is always ready
The World cannot hate you
The World does hate me; because I testify of it that its works are evil

Why did He say, His time had not yet Come, but theirs was always ready?

Jesus is perhaps the only person in History whose every step was choreographed. It was impossible for Him to do other than the directive will of God, because He, Himself, was God in the Flesh! Every step he took, and every word He spoke was exactly what He was directed to do by God the Father, because He was God the Son! And the two were in perfect agreement.

When we say we want to do God’s Will, we often simultaneously express the regret that we don’t always know what He wants us to do. All I can do is fall back on the Written Word, to see the general assignment for the church-age believers, and then trust Him to lead me as I seek to follow Him. Jesus didn’t have that problem: He knew His Father’s will!

Jesus Knew The Will of God

So, Jesus knew the Jews wanted to kill him, and that they were watching for him at Jerusalem. The brothers didn’t believe, yet, that He was the Messiah. Possibly they would have been in danger, there, just by being with Him in Jerusalem. Also, He knew it was not yet time for him to be glorified in death, so his entrance was going to be quiet, this time.

But, in contrast to His “choreographed” life, our lives can be shut down at any time. We are not on a tightrope, as He was. God gives us a great deal of latitude, in decision making. He also gives us a whole Bible full of directions as to how to make good decisions and how to gain wisdom so as to correctly apply knowledge. He also warns us that bad decisions can be fatal. James warns us, too, saying that our lives are like a vapor, and they can disappear in an instant, even if we are making the best decisions we can. We have no promise of tomorrow.

But Jesus knew exactly how long He was going to live, and He knew exactly what to do at all times. None of us can say that about ourselves.

Why would He say, “The World Cannot Hate you?”

He told His natural brothers, “The world cannot hate you,” but later, through John (1^st John 3:13) He said, “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.”

Is that a contradiction? No, it isn’t! Jesus’s physical, biological half-brothers had not yet believed in Him, so they still “belonged to the World.”

In John 15:18, 19, speaking to the Eleven, Jesus said, “¹⁸If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. ¹⁹If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

So, as long as we were unbelievers, we were accepted by the World (to one degree or another) as being one of their own: but now that we have placed our trust in Jesus, we no longer belong to the World. Now, they see us as enemies! We smell like Jesus, now, and they don’t like that!

Jesus’s brothers still fit in just fine, but Jesus’s disciples didn’t fit in at all! (And we don’t!)

**Why does the World Hate Jesus?**

Back in John 1:4, we saw that Jesus was the only source of light and life to the Human Race. The next verse says, “and the light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not.” (in this context, the word translated “comprehend” is better understood as “overpower.” Yes, it is true that the darkness does not “understand the light,” but the connotation is that “the darkness has never been able to extinguish the light.”)

We are given to understand that this light is more than just physical light: photons, light waves, etc. It is the Moral light of God’s Presence. 1^st John 1:5 says, “God is Light and in Him is no darkness at all.”

The World Hates Light!

So, in John 3:19, when Jesus said, “This is the Condemnation, that light is come into the World, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil,” we have no trouble understanding that Jesus was not referring to “people whose eyes are hurt by bright lights,” but rather, the pattern of evil in the world, that hates to be exposed.

Jesus is the Light of the World: (He says so in John 8:12!) So, as physical light dispels darkness because it is in its character to do so, Jesus has exposed the evil of the World from the beginning. And the World hates Him for that, alone. They don’t hate him for healing people: they hate Him for exposing them as sinners. They don’t hate Him for doing Good: they hate him for exposing the fact that they are doing evil!

But He was on a time-table—a schedule! Notice what happened when He went up to Jerusalem, later:

John 7:25-30

²⁵Then said some of them of Jerusalem, Is not this he, whom they seek to kill? ²⁶But, lo, he speaketh boldly, and they say nothing unto him. Do the rulers know indeed that this is the very Christ? ²⁷Howbeit we know this man whence he is: but when Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is.

²⁸Then cried Jesus in the temple as he taught, saying, Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am: and I am not come of myself, but he that sent me is true, whom ye know not. ²⁹But I know him: for I am from him, and he hath sent me. ³⁰Then they sought to take him: but no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come.

Six points:

The people recognized Jesus as the one whom the authorities were seeking to kill.
They marveled that Jesus taught openly, and the authorities did nothing.
The people speculated that possibly the authorities knew that He really was the Messiah.
They did not know the Word very well: they thought no one would know the Messiah’s origin: But the scriptures are very clear as to “Where He would come from.”
Jesus told them, “Yes, you do know me…but you don’t know the One who sent Me!”
Then they all tried to take Him, but they failed: “because His hour was not yet come!”

It is an interesting little story, isn’t it? He knew when His “hour” was, and they did not, but they still could not take Him, “because His hour had not yet come.” (It almost looks as though God was in control, doesn’t it?) And, the same thing happened in the next chapter, when Jesus taught about His own testimony and that of His Father.

John 8:20 says,

²⁰These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet come.

It seems we are not in control of what happens around us! All His enemies wanted to arrest Him and wanted Him dead, but they couldn’t do it! In John 7:32-46, we see that officers were sent to arrest him, but they hung back, and listened to him. They eventually went back empty-handed, and the chief priests asked, “Why have ye not brought Him?” But the officers could only reply “Never man spake like this Man!” The authority of God was shining through Jesus in such a way that humans (even the officers His enemies had sent to arrest Him) were awed by Him!

So, “Who is in control, here?”

This passage should begin to teach us of the authority of God over all things, including our own lives, and it should help us to submit to that authority, rather than constantly protesting against it, saying that “it is not what we wanted.” (We argue with God a lot!)

If we can accept that this is the honest Word of God, and if we can see that nothing could be done against God’s Messiah, except as it completely fit His timetable, then it should give us a sense of confidence about our own future.

Our Confidence

As Romans 8:31 says, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” And, in that case, Romans 8:28 also becomes a reality. We love to quote the first half of that verse, saying, “And we know all things work together for good….” But we seldom quote the last half: “…to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.”

We can rest easy in God’s Will, if the latter half of that verse is true about us, but without it, the first half is very questionable. Jesus said, “…your time is always ready.” We don’t know how much time we have left to serve the Lord. We can keep wasting time, and thinking we will “catch up tomorrow.” But we are not promised tomorrow. I am directing this at myself as much as anyone else. We need to use our time wisely.

Lord Jesus, draw us along to number our days, and to recognize how short our lives are in light of eternity. Help us not to waste the opportunity You have given us to work beside you in your field, and to serve as Your ambassadors in this life.

May 29, 2022June 2, 2022

To Whom would we go?

John 6:67-71

Introduction:

We looked at a sad story last week, where many (possibly the majority) of Jesus’s disciples left off following Him and went back to their old lives. We saw that not all of those who remained were believers, and we concluded that very possibly some of those who walked away truly were believers.

We ultimately concluded that all the “dividing” lines that we try to establish, saying, well, “so and so must not be a believer” are not necessarily dependable…that we can only examine out own hearts and ask, “Have I actually received Christ as my Savior? Have I placed my dependance on His blood as my only hope for salvation?” That is where the true dividing line exists, and it is invisible to our eyes.

I can’t see your heart, and you can’t see mine. In the long run, we can get a pretty clear idea, if the person confesses that they are a sinner, and that Jesus died for them…and we then see their actions and words matching that profession of faith. But the only one about whom we can be sure is ourselves. God says He wants us to know that we have eternal life.

What about those who stayed with Him?

⁶⁶From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.

We are not told what percentage walked away. What we do see is that Jesus addressed His twelve chosen disciples, chosen to be apostles, and asked them where they stood.

⁶⁷Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? ⁶⁸Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.

Peter’s Reply: “To whom shall we go?”

There are three points to mention here, in Peter’s answer:

Lord, to whom shall we go? Peter felt that he had no other options. I recall having that same thought, as a new believer. Someone asked me “Why Christianity? Out of all the World Religions, what makes you think that Christianity is right, and the others are wrong?” I thought for a moment and finally replied, “I don’t know about all the other religions. Maybe the others are OK too… I’m not comparing. I only know that this is where I get off the bus! This one is my ‘stop!’ This is where I stand.” In subsequent years, God continually has confirmed that my decision was correct, and wise.

Years later, having been asked to sing in a wedding in Colorado, I had to “get off a bus” at a deserted bus stop in the middle of the night, in a snowstorm in Granby, Colorado. I knew this was the stop I where was told to get off, but there was no one there to meet me. All the buildings were closed, and there was no shelter. But I got off the bus, believing that this was my stop. Everyone else on the bus went on without me, and I stood there alone with my bag, in the dark and the blowing snow.

As it turned out, the bus had been much delayed by the road conditions, and I had arrived very late. The people waiting for me had gone back home briefly, but they were on their way back. In about fifteen minutes, they came sweeping into the parking lot in a large, heated four-wheel-drive truck, and we all drove off to safety, and a warm house.

But I had some time, there in the parking lot, to reflect on the nature of faith: I had nowhere else to turn. Had I stayed on the bus, and gotten off at a “safer” place, my friends would have had no way to find me. (This was long before cell phones existed!) Peter knew he had nowhere else to turn as well. This was his “stop,” too!

Thou hast the Words of Eternal Life! Peter knew there was something different about the teachings of Jesus. He had already come to believe that Jesus was The source of Eternal Life. How? Perhaps from the sermons he heard in Sychar, where Jesus led many Samaritans to faith. Perhaps seeing Jesus walk on water, and getting to take a very short stroll on the waves, himself. Perhaps taking part in the feeding of the Five Thousand, the day before. But, somehow, in the course of all the teachings and miracles, Peter had come to a personal faith in Jesus as the Messiah…the Christ.

More specifically, he knew that the Words Jesus spoke were the key to his salvation: He believed in Jesus for the Words He had preached, which matched up with the Works He had done, and were born out by His gracious, loving behavior as their teacher and friend. Had there been any doubt about it, the doubts had probably been removed by Jesus’s comments immediately before, in verse 63: “…the Words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit, and they are Life.” Peter had caught on: He knew Jesus was the source of life!

And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God! That is quite a confession of faith! I’m not sure how Peter came to that conclusion. Somewhere along the line, he had come to the correct conclusion that Jesus was the Messiah. It probably started back in John 1:41, 42, when his brother Andrew told Peter that Jesus was the Messiah. Maybe even earlier, when John the Baptist declared that Jesus was the Lamb of God, who would take away the sin of the World…but I don’t know for certain that Peter heard that comment.

It is even possible that Peter had overheard the conversation with Nicodemus, where it was declared that He had come into the World to save the people, and that he came as God’s Son, with that mission in mind. If he did, then that would explain the conclusion that he and all but one of the other disciples had drawn. But as I read the exchange in John chapter 3, it rather sounds as though the conversation with Nicodemus might have been in private…or maybe not. We aren’t told.

Jesus’s Response

So, how did Jesus respond to this confession of faith? (Ah, that’s nice! I was getting worried about you, there!) No, Jesus knew their hearts. His question had given Peter an opportunity to testify, and, possibly for the other disciples to respond as well. (Maybe they all just nodded…we aren’t told.) But Jesus spoke to address the fact that not all of them believed:He knew their hearts.

⁷⁰Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? ⁷¹He spake of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon: for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve.

What a strange reply! Part of the reason for this reply might have been to let Peter know that not all of them believed: That Peter really couldn’t speak for the whole group, though most of them might have agreed with Peter. Probably all of them would have verbally agreed at that point. But it isn’t until chapters 13 and 15 that Jesus spells out what the issue was. Judas was not a believer and never would become one.

Possibly, also it was to begin warning Judas that Jesus knew his heart. The word he used (translated “devil”) could be translated “accuser,” or “slanderer.” It could have indicated that he was a traitor… in any case, it meant that Jesus, Himself, has made a deliberate choice, specifically to fulfill prophecy. He had chosen, among His twelve closest companions, the one who would prove a traitor. So, that was out in the open. They all knew there was a traitor in the camp, but they had no way to know who it was, nor any way to defend against his eventual treachery.

Devil? Demon? Satan?

By the way, the word translated “devil,” here, is the Greek word “diabolos:” it is used 38 times in the New Testament, and 35 times, it is translated “devil,” while twice it is translated “false accuser,” and once a “slanderer.”

(The word for “demon” is from a different Greek word, “daimonion”… and it is used 60 times, and translated “devil” all but once. It carries the idea of an evil spirit, and is sometimes applied to Satan, but usually in the context of demon possession.)

Accuser?

There are other words translated “accuser,” so we don’t want to jump to the conclusion that anyone who accuses should be called a “devil.” In fact, the “Evil One,” called “that old Serpent, and Satan, and the Devil,” is called the “accuser of the brethren.” (Revelation 12:9, 10) But it is not this same word: it is the Greek word, “kategoros:” it is used seven times, and every time it is translated “accuser”…and never in a righteous sense.

The verb form, “kategoreo” is used 21 times and almost always in a very negative sense: people falsely accusing Jesus or the disciples. In John 5:45, Jesus cautioned the people that He himself would not be accusing them before the Father…Moses would, because they rejected what Moses said. That is the only counterexample: all the rest are people accusing harshly, trying to get someone else in trouble.

So, when we are acting as accusers (and it happens!) we are behaving like the “Accuser of the Brethren.” We ought to feel quite uncomfortable with that position! It is not fitting that a follower of Jesus should behave like Satan, the Enemy of our souls. It is not fitting that we should take an adversarial stance toward other believers at all. We are to be striving toward keeping the unity of the faith…not attacking one another. Give that some thought!

What about Judas?

Jesus called him a “devil” in this passage, meaning an accuser. In another passage, Jesus referred to him as the “Son of Perdition,” the only one Jesus lost, of the twelve, and it had been planned ahead of time, to fulfil prophecy. Did Judas have a choice? Ironically, yes! I believe he did!

But In His complete foreknowledge, Jesus chose one whom He knew in advance would make this choice, and placed him in the ideal location to betray Jesus. Was it entrapment? No, Judas acted entirely of his own will, right up until he became possessed by Satan, personally. There is only one other person in Scripture called the “Son of Perdition:” it is the Antichrist, and, interestingly, he also is said to be indwelt by Satan, personally.

No one is forced to reject Christ

Each made their own choices, just as Pharaoh originally hardened his own heart against God, but there came a time when God “held him to it,” and God hardened his heart, to bring about the destruction of Egypt.

As I mentioned last week, there are some people—believers—who think Judas “lost his salvation.” But Jesus makes it clear from the very beginning, that Judas was never a believer: he was never saved; never cleansed!

Peter and the other apostles had come to the conclusion that Jesus truly was the son of God. And, when He demonstrated His authority over the physical world (walking on water, calming the storm, etc.) it terrified them, because they were only barely beginning to unserdtand His Deity.

What about Peter?

In one situation, (Matthew 16:23, Mark 8:33) Jesus addressed Peter as “Satan.” He said “…get thee behind me, Satan!” (WHY?) Peter had attempted to step in and tell Jesus not to go to the Cross. But that was the whole reason Jesus came! So…what did Jesus mean, by calling Peter “Satan?” The name “Satan” means “adversary.”

Peter was behaving as an adversary to the plan of salvation. He did not know it, because he did not understand Jesus’s plan at all. Jesus makes it clear that Peter was thinking entirely humanistic thoughts, not aligning himself with God. But he did not say that Peter was acting like the devil—he was acting like a man! The entire human race has been in opposition to God’s plans ever since the Garden of Eden!

Was Satan involved?

Did it mean that the “real” Satan was somehow involved? Not necessarily, but we can’t rule it out, either. In Acts chapter five, he stirred up two believers, Ananias and Sapphira, to lie to God. Satan can stir up believers to be adversaries against one another, and against God’s agenda.

We want to avoid that, obviously. We want to be walking closely enough with God and in close enough fellowship with one another, that it is very hard to drive a wedge between us.

Peter was simply wrong, and Jesus called him on it! It is interesting to see, though, that Peter had just been called “blessed” by Jesus, (Matthew 16:16) because he had stated, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God!” But seven verses later, he was in trouble for shooting off his mouth in opposition to God’s plan of redemption for the whole world. Could Satan have inspired that? Maybe…but Jesus only said he was “thinking like a man!”

What about Us?

We know we have no one else to whom we could turn, and we are not looking for another. We believe that Jesus is the Only Savior, and God in the Flesh, and God’s chosen sacrifice, for our salvation. We know that he was named the “Lamb Slain from the foundation of the Earth.”

We know that 1^st John 5:11-13 assures us that “…this is the record, that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.”

Not only can we know that we have eternal life, but God says He wants us to know!

So, What Now?

Since we know all that, and we have placed our faith in Him, we need to consider how to act as though we are “On His Team.”

God is “on our side,” as we see in Romans 8:31 “If God be for us, (and He is!) who can be against?” but the question remains: Are we on His side? It is possible for us to be drawn away and behave like an accuser, or behave like an adversary! We saw that in Peter’s life and that of Ananias and Sapphira! We are warned against such behavior, throughout the New Testament, and we want to avoid that behavior, at all cost!

How do we Learn to Walk with God?

We need to deliberately steep ourselves in the Word of God, continually allowing the Holy Spirit to reshape our lives and reshape our thinking, so that our thought patterns change. We need to be sensitive to the Spirit of God, so that we are constantly in tune with Him, and at peace with one another. We need to be on the lookout every day, moment by moment, to see God’s leading and direction in our lives.

Yes, we believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. So, let’s allow Him to reshape our lives to be a continual honor to His name.

We see in Psalm 119:9 that God says the only means by which we can cleanse our lives is by applying His Word to our lives. He offers no other way…and even that only works by the indwelling Holy Spirit, and by faith. We literally have co one else to whom we can turn, and He gives us only a narrow pathway in which to follow Him. We need to follow, step by step!.

Lord Jesus please use your Word, by the power of Your Holy Spirit, to transform our hearts and make us over into Your image. Cleanse our lives. Raise us up as Your ambassadors, to honor You in all things.

May 21, 2022May 21, 2022

Separating believers from unbelievers

John 6:60-66 (context; verses 52-59); John 5:24; John 10:27, 28

Introduction:

We have come to a “crisis,” in John chapter 6: Jesus had just taught that His flesh and blood were necessary for people to have eternal life. Earlier, we explored why this was such a hard thing for the Jews to accept. But there are different options in how we respond to hard teaching. Knowing that a teaching is either true, or partly true, or false, we have to decide how to respond. We can compare against God’s Word to see if it is true. That is what the Berean believers did in Acts 17:11. But, even after we know it is absolutely true, we have to decide how to respond.

Balking at Hard Teaching

⁶⁰Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? ⁶¹When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? ⁶²What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? ⁶³It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. ⁶⁴But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. ⁶⁵And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. ⁶⁶From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.

We already read the context for this passage: the verses immediately before: That was a hard passage to understand. But, for two reasons, this is also rather hard to grasp, even for believers today: The first reason is the sadness we feel, as we read that many of Jesus’s disciples abandoned their devotion to Him. They walked no more with Him! Yes, that is sad…and it still happens today! The other thing that makes it a hard passage, is that we tend to equate salvation with discipleship, and the two are not the same.

Salvation and discipleship are not the same

This is a hard concept, but let’s consider Judas: he was a disciple, but was not a believer! Jesus pointed this out in John 13:10, 11, when He said “ye are not all clean.” And after Judas left, in John 15:3, He said to the remaining eleven “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.” All twelve had heard the same words…the difference was that Judas had not believed in Jesus as his Savior.

There are others in scripture who were believers, but who were not disciples. Lot was a saved man, but did not walk with God: he did not “follow Jesus” (that is what a disciple is…a follower.) And there were many others. Why might someone fall into that category?

Other Biblical Examples

Are there Biblical examples of real believers “balking at hard teaching?” Are there Biblical examples of real believers who “ran away from God?” Sure, there are!

John the Baptist initially refused to baptize Jesus, saying that he himself needed to be baptized by Jesus. But he changed his mind, and he went ahead and obeyed.
Peter initially refused to have Jesus wash his feet…but he changed his mind and obeyed.
Jonah initially refused to go to Nineveh, but (with some convincing) eventually he changed his mind and went…(still in a bad frame of mind, but he went and he obeyed.)

Do you see a pattern there? These were genuine believers who stumbled over the command of God, but they repented. (That is what “repentance” is…changing your mind: turning around, going back, and doing what you should have done.)

Believers or Unbelievers?

So, as we read John 6:60-66, are we reading about believers or unbelievers? Notice that it says they were disciples. Remember that the word “disciples” only means “followers.” They were following Jesus, but their reasons for following varied wildly. He had just taught that his flesh and blood were necessary for their eternal life. That specific teaching was difficult enough that people still struggle with it, today. But they had a choice to make:

They could accept it (and accept the fact that they couldn’t fully grasp His meaning),
They could argue about it, trying to force it to “make sense” to human minds, or
They could flatly reject it as unthinkable.

Some argued, and complained that it was a hard saying; difficult to grasp. But Jesus knew their hearts: He knew who believed and who did not. He also knew who would eventually betray him. If we sneak a peek at the verses ahead, we see that Judas was there, as one of the Twelve: He stayed with Jesus when others left! But he still was not a believer. So that is not necessarily the dividing line. So how did Jesus respond to their complaint that this was “a hard saying?”

Jesus had just told them that His flesh and blood (as pictured in the Passover Lamb) were absolutely necessary to their salvation, and that faith in Him was the only entrance into eternal life. They had a hard time with that statement. There are many, still today, who struggle with the concept that Jesus is the only way God offers for Salvation. They argue against it, saying “all the billions of people who do not believe in Him cannot all be wrong: they could not all be lost!”

Is there anything “wrong” with Jesus being the only way of salvation?

This is an emotionally attractive, but completely illogical reply: As far as we know there is only one “cure” for many deadly diseases. What shall we say of all the millions who have died from malaria, the plague, polio, or any other deadly disease? “Well, it just isn’t fair: there must be another way!” No, the hard truth is: they either get the medicine to save their life, or they die.

There is a new treatment available that can cure Hepatitis C: it is effective on a high percentage of people, but it is extremely expensive, so it simply will not be available to all those who suffer from that disease. (Lesser treatments can hold it at bay, but cannot cure it. But this cure is financially out of reach for most people…The Gospel is free, to all!)

Today, there is a single, “collective antivenin” which is effective for about 85 of the 140 different species of venomous creatures in Australia. The government has tried to make it as widely available as possible, so people who are bitten have a chance to get it and save their lives: but if they can’t get to where it is, or, if they refuse to accept it, they will surely die! There is no other way! That is just reality! Romans 5:12 may not sound “fair,” either, but it is a fact: “Sin came into the world through one man, and death by sin, thus death passed upon all, for all have sinned.”

The Blood of Jesus was shed, once for all, as God’s only solution for the lost state of the Human race. The Church has tried, over the years, to make that Salvation available worldwide. There are only two barriers: our reticence to share it with others, and their unwillingness to believe in it. And that’s the teaching they stumbled over, in John 6:31-51.

Jesus Tested the Character of their Faith

Jesus asked, “You think that was hard? What will you think when you see Me physically ascendback into Heaven where I came from?” Why is that a test? They already balked at the “hard teaching” that “faith in His blood is our only hope for salvation.” Now He pointed out why He was their only hope: He is God in the flesh! He was the Deity they claimed to worship.

You see, so long as we see Jesus as “strictly human,” no matter what else we may attribute to Him, we will struggle with His authority, we will question His unique, exalted position, and we will resent the fact that other people are actually worshipping the Person we see as a man. I once had a pastor tell me, “I don’t want people praying to Jesus!” (Why did he say that? Evidently he did not believe Jesus was the true God, in human form.)

Can a true believer deny the deity of Christ?

Is it possible to be a believer and not know that Jesus is God in the flesh? Yes, it is, and there are many who do struggle with that concept, but it requires that one be seriously ignorant of God’s Word, to miss that point.

On the other hand, some do see that truth in Scripture: but they struggle with it, and eventually rebel against it, denying His Deity. In their case, I question the reality of their faith in Him as the Savior, since they reject the fact of His Person; the fact that He is truly God in the Flesh. Is it possible that they are really believers, and just badly deceived? Yes…I believe it is possible. But I would be very concerned about how they arrived at that point.

The Jews, who heard Him, actually should not have had a struggle with that idea: They had the prophecy from Isaiah 9:6 saying that “the Son” who was promised to them, would be called “The everlasting Father!” Give that some thought! I cannot “explain” how the Son should be called the “Everlasting Father!” But there is no argument: It is simply stated as a fact, and it is to be simply accepted! (Or…you can reject it, and walk away. And that is what many of them did.)

The Question of the Deity of Christ

The fact that Jesus truly is God is a core teaching of the Bible. (John 1:1, 3, 14, 18)

He was the Creator God who made all things material or immaterial. (John 1:3)
He was the Speaking God who walked in the Garden in the cool of the day, and spoke with Adam and Eve. (John 1:18)
He was the Promising God who ate Abraham’s food, and talked with him face to face.
He was the Judging God who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. (Genesis 18, 19)
He was the Miracle-working God who judged Egypt and rescued the children of Israel.
He was the Creator of all things, the Eternal Judge of all things, and the Promised Savior. (John 1:3; 1:14; 5:22; 5:24; 10:27, 28)

Either this is all true, or the Bible is not true. Either this is all true, or Jesus is not the Savior. That is a simple fact. There are no “degrees” of truth here.

Why reject this doctrine?

All of the cults speak highly of Jesus, calling Him a Mighty Spirit Being, a Great Teacher, a Prophet, even a “lesser god,” in some cases, but they can never admit that He is literally the Sovereign, Almighty God!

You see, if they admit that Jesus is truly God, then they also have to admit that they, themselves, are not the servants of God. And they have to face the facts: they, themselves, are under His Judgment. Jesus hinted at that, by stating that they were going to see Him ascend back into heaven. And they decided that was just too much! So, they quit!

How can I know I am saved?

I have known people who apparently were genuine believers, but who abandoned their faith. Their lives reflected that loss. They were sad wrecks of what once had been a glorious reflection of God’s Grace. Are they still saved? How can we know for sure, in our own life?

If there has ever been a time in your life when you placed your hope in Jesus’s blood as your only hope for salvation, trusting in Him alone for forgiveness of sins, and eternal life, then you are saved, and you cannot be lost. (John 5:24 says If you have believed in Him, then you have eternal life, and you shall not come unto condemnation, but have crossed over from death unto life”)

1st John 5:11-13 clearly teaches that God wants you to KNOW that you have eternal life.

**What happens if I don’t follow Jesus?**

Even if I truly am “one of His sheep,” if I do not walk with the Shepherd, I am in constant danger of attack by my enemies and I cannot avail myself of His protection. I am “enlisted in His army,” but I am refusing to wear the armor He commanded me to put on!

Jesus said, “My Sheep hear my voice, and they follow me, and I know them, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish.”

“Following the Shepherd” is the normal walk for a believer. Failing to follow Him does not negate His promise of eternal life, but it does “void the warranty” on his guidance and protection.

There are consequences!

If I fail to follow Jesus, then the very least I can expect is unfruitfulness. The next thing I can expect is the absence of Joy and Peace. You see, even though I am a believer, if I am no longer walking with Jesus, then I am not benefitting from the relationship “in the here and now.”

That is what happened, here in John 6:60-66. Some of those disciples may have been true believers…but some were not. Jesus knew which were which. We do not. But we can examine our own hearts and see where we stand with God…and decide where we ought to be, and what we need to change, to get there.

Lord Jesus, open our eyes to our own condition as believers and encourage our hearts to change, to repent, to go back and follow you.