Gospel of John

AN OBJECTION IS CORRECTED – John 12:4-8

Gospel of John, John 12:3-8, Judas Iscariot

INTRODUCTION:

Fourteen men are enjoying a meal together, and engaging in conversation with one another, when something unexpected and unusual takes place.  It captures the attention of everyone.  One of the hostesses walks over to Jesus with a beautiful jar in her hands.  She opens the jar, pours a small amount of the strong-smelling perfume on His head, and gently massages it into His hair.  Then she gets down on her knees, unties her hair, pours the rest of the perfume on His feet, and uses her hair as a washcloth and towel.  The eyes of everyone are upon her, and Jesus makes no comment.  There is a beautiful silence as these men watch and try to comprehend this act of devotion.

I.  THE WORDS OF JUDAS  (verses 4-6)

The silence is about to be broken by someone, however, and the apostle John describes that person before he quotes his words.  In verse 4, he says, “But Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples, who was intending to betray Him, said . . . “.  John didn’t know that information at the time it was happening, but he wants his readers to know some helpful information about Judas.  He has told us something about Judas that helps explain the words that Judas is about to say.  Judas is the treasurer for the group, appointed to the position by Jesus Himself.  At the moment, Judas is making some financial calculations in his mind:  “Let’s see; that bottle of nard ointment must have cost about 300 denarii.  Based on a six-day workweek and time-off for feast days, that’s a whole year’s wages for a common laborer.  What a waste of money!  Jesus needs to be made aware of this.”

In verse 5, Judas puts his thoughts into words when he says, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii, and given to poor people?”  I think he said it loudly enough for everyone to hear, and he was expecting to get a response from Jesus and the other disciples, agreeing with him and his objection.

Before we hear from Jesus, the apostle John gives us some additional information about Judas so that we might better understand his motives for asking that question.  Verse 6 reads, “Now he [Judas] said this, not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box, he used to pilfer what was put in it.”  Nowadays, you would call his tactic a “smokescreen”.  The dictionary defines a smokescreen as something that you do or say that is intended to hide the true activities or motives.  Judas was only concerned about one poor person – himself.  He took advantage of his position as treasurer in order to benefit himself.  Before saying those words to Jesus, he was probably thinking about all the things he could have purchased for himself with all that money.  There was anger in his tone of voice.  Judas could almost feel the added weight, and see the bulge of that money in his bag.

!!.  JESUS’ RESPONSE TO JUDAS (verses 7-8)

In verse 7, Jesus responds by saying, “Let her alone”.  The verb is singular, so Jesus is directing those words to Judas, not to all the disciples.  Jesus may have been saying something like:  “That’s not your business, Judas.  She has the right to do what she wants with what is hers.”  Objection overruled.  Judas must have felt the sting of those words, but the other disciples had no inkling that Judas was a thief.

The Lord Jesus then proceeds to tell Judas why he should leave Mary alone. In verse 8, He says, “You always have the poor with you.”  He’s referring to the words of Moses, who said, “For the poor will never cease to be in the land; therefore I command you, saying, ‘You shall freely open your hand to your brother, to the needy and the poor in your land’.” (Deuteronomy 15:11). The word “you” is plural in Deuteronomy, and it is also plural in the Greek text of John 12:8.  Why does Jesus use the plural in His answer to Judas?  There is a good reason, and we find it in Matthew’s Gospel.  Matthew 26:8-9 says, “But His disciples were indignant when they saw this [the pouring of the perfume], and said ‘Why this waste.’  For this perfume might have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor.”  Judas was saying what all of them were thinking, so they chimed in and agreed with Judas after he said it.   Jesus was making an appeal to the conscience of Judas by reminding him that he hasn’t been giving the money in his purse to benefit the poor but to benefit himself.  His motives are wrong because he has already demonstrated, time and again, that he is a thief.  The Lord Jesus is also conveying to the rest of the disciples that they have made a rash judgment because they have failed to understand Mary’s reasons for her act of worship and humble service.

Secondly, Jesus says, “but you do not always have Me.”  Once again, the word “you” is plural.  Mary understands something that all of them have misunderstood.  She sat at the feet of Jesus many times, listening to His every word and pondering them in her heart.  She heard Jesus say, many times, that He had come to die for the sins of the world and she connected His words to the Old Testament prophecies of the Suffering Messiah.  She also realized that the time of His death was near, and she wanted to express her love for Her Lord in the most sacrificial way.

The Lord Jesus goes on to say, in Matthew 26:13, “I tell you the truth, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”  Those words have been proven to be true.  Many artists have painted that scene and many pastors have preached about it.  Many parents, over the years, have chosen to give the name “Mary” to one of their daughters in memory of the Marys in the Bible.  Yet you won’t find many, if any, who have named one of their sons Judas.  That name has become synonymous with greed and treachery.

Mary’s sacrificial act of love for Jesus was completed.  The head and feet of Jesus, as well as the whole room around Him, were now perfused with the smell of death.  It was the smell that accompanied the burial service for a king.  Only Jesus, Mary, and possibly, Martha and Lazarus, understood the meaning of this sacrificial act of love and service for her King, who was about to die for the sins of the world.

CONCLUSION:

There are many things we can learn and apply from this passage of Scripture.  One of them comes from a comparison between Mary and Judas.  Mary was selfless; Judas was selfish.  Mary worshipped the Lord Jesus; Judas worshipped an idol – the idol of money.  In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (Matthew 6:21).  True devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ is costly.  If others around us examined the way we spent our money and lived our lives, would they come to the conclusion that we must be deeply in love with Jesus Christ and devoted to Him?  If others could read our thoughts and could examine our motives, would they find that the focus of our thoughts and the reasons for our actions are rooted in a growing fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ and a desire to please Him in all that we think, say, and do?

A second lesson can be drawn from the timing of Mary’s act of devotion and the response of Jesus to Judas.  Mary performed her act of love and service to Jesus as soon as the opportunity was available to do so because she knew that, very soon, Jesus was going to die.  Jesus commended her for not waiting until His death before showing her devotion.  If she had waited, she would not have been able to use that ointment, for when she arrived at the tomb on Easter morning, it was empty.  If we intend to do an act of kindness for someone, we shouldn’t put it off.  It’s easy to keep postponing an act of kindness until it’s too late.  Do it now, or you may regret that you waited.  There’s a saying that goes like this:  “The devil doesn’t care how much good we do, as long as we don’t do it now.”  Is there someone on your mind right now to whom you want to express your appreciation?  Why not follow Mary’s example.  That person would be pleased and so would the Lord Jesus.

CONSTRUCTION SITE:  Completed

Thank you for visiting this construction site:  John 12:4-8.  Please come back and visit again.  There are over 150 completed sermons on this site.  Don’t put it off until it’s too late.  May the grace and peace of the Lord Jesus be with you always.

MARY ANNOINTS JESUS – John 12:1-3

Christian blog site, extravagant love, John 12:1-3, Mary anoints Jesus' feet, Uncategorized

Have you ever spent your money extravagantly?  Did you do so in order to reward yourself?  Was it done to impress someone else?  Or was it an act of love from your heart?  Did you regret it later or are you glad you did so?

In this passage of Scripture, John 12:1-3, an extravagant act is performed; an act which many might consider to be boastful or wasteful.  The Lord Jesus Christ is on the receiving end of that extravagance.  Let’s take a look at what happened.

I.  THE SETTING (verses 1-2)

Verse 1 tells us that it is now six days before the Passover.  Jesus and His disciples have come out of hiding.  They “came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.”  The Gospel writers, Matthew and Mark, also describe this event, and they tell us that Jesus and His disciples, as well as Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, are at the home of Simon the Leper, and are enjoying a meal together [Matthew 26:6-13; Mark 14:3-9].  We aren’t told, but it is likely that Simon the Leper was a relative of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus.  That would help explain verse 2, which says, “So they made Him a supper there, and Martha was serving; but Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table with Him.”   We see, once again, that Martha loves to serve by preparing the food.  She may also have organized this banquet for Jesus and His disciples as a way of thanking Jesus for bringing her brother, Lazarus, back from the dead.

II.  MARY ANNOINTS JESUS’ FEET (verse 3)

In verse 3, we observe Mary’s devotion to Jesus.  We meet Mary three times in the New Testament scriptures.  On the first occasion, Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet, listening to Him (Luke 10:39).  The second time, she fell at Jesus’ feet, seeking help and sympathy after the death of her brother, Lazarus (John 11:32).   Now, in verse 3, she is about to anoint Jesus’ feet.  In each case, Mary is at the feet of Jesus.

Verse 3 tells us that she had, in her hands, “a pound of very costly perfume of pure nard.”  This perfumed oil represented the best that money could buy.  It was a gift fit for a king or queen and was very expensive for two reasons.  First, it was probably imported from India where it was extracted from the roots of the nard plant.  Secondly, nard, or spikenard oil, was sealed in alabaster jars to preserve its fragrance.  That jar was probably worth at least as much as the perfume itself, and it had to be broken in order to get the perfume out of it.  In verse 5, we are given its approximate value:  300 denarii.  That’s a year’s wages for a common laborer!  Let’s put that in today’s terms.  I live in Oregon, and the minimum wage here in Oregon is approximately $12 per hour.  That’s $96 a day for eight hours of work.  If you multiply that daily wage by 300 days, you have a total of $28,800.  That’s almost $30,000 worth of perfume, poured out on the feet of Jesus.  Would you call that extravagant?  I would!

Why does Mary have this expensive bottle of unused perfume in her possession?  The main use of this ointment was that of anointing a dead person’s body in preparation for burial.  It may have originally been purchased for the purpose of embalming her dead brother, but the family waited because they were told that Jesus was coming.  Now that Lazarus is alive again, she decides to lavish that fragrant perfume on Jesus.  Another possibility is that she purchased this perfume after Lazarus came back to life at the command of Jesus.  As we study this passage of Scripture, we will understand why this possibility may be what actually happened. 

This perfumed oil is the most expensive item that Mary possessed.  Martha and Lazarus may have known about her intent and were in wholehearted agreement with her decision.  It’s possible that Jesus may have told them, as He did His disciples, what would soon happen to Him in Jerusalem.  Mary, who always paid close attention to Jesus’ words and His teachings, must have known that His death was soon to occur.  She may also have known the Old Testament prophecies that spoke of it.  It seems that Mary may have sensed that this would be the last time that Jesus would be enjoying a meal with them, so she wanted to express her love and devotion to her Messiah and friend in the most generous and unselfish way.

In Matthew 26 and Mark 14, we find that Mary first poured some of the oil on the head of Jesus.  Then she poured the rest of it on His feet and wiped His feet with her hair.  Just a few days earlier, Mary and Martha were concerned about the stench of their brother’s body when Jesus told them to roll away the stone from his tomb.  Now the house was filled with the sweet smell of the perfume.  Mary used her hair, what the Scriptures say is a woman’s glory and crown, to wash the dirty feet of Jesus.  Bible commentator, William Barclay, tells us about one of the customs in Palestine during the first century AD.  “On the day a girl was married, her hair was bound up, and never again would she be seen in public with her hair unbound.  It was the sign of an immoral woman to appear in public with her hair unbound.”  But Mary wasn’t concerned about what others thought.  Her only desire was to express her love for Jesus

Mary didn’t use water but expensive perfume.  That is the essence of worship.  True worship of Jesus Christ is, first of all, humbling.  It is recognizing that He is King of kings and Lord of lords.  Secondly, true worship is generous and costly, done out of love for the Lord.

CONCLUSION:

Do you and I have a humble and extravagant love for the Lord Jesus Christ?  Is He more valuable to us than everything else we possess?  Are we unashamed to be devoted to Him by putting Him first in our lives?  Are we unashamed to be identified with Him and to proclaim Him to others?

Having observed the selfless devotion and costly generosity of Mary, there is another person in the Scriptures whose gift was infinitely more extravagant at a cost that was beyond measure.  The apostle Paul described that person and His gift in Ephesians 1:7-8.  He said, “In Him [the Lord Jesus Christ] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us.”  I like the word “lavished”!  God loves us so much that He humbled Himself and became a man, in the Person of Jesus Christ, so that He might shed His own blood to pay the penalty for our sins.  Not only that but we are also filled with His grace now and forever. G-R-A-C-E:  “God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense”.  Are you a follower of Jesus Christ?  Have you repented of your sins and given your life to Him?  Has your life changed as a result?  If you are unsure, please visit my sermon entitled, WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO RECEIVE CHRIST? – John 1:12-13, and respond to God’s leading in your life.

If you are truly a follower of Jesus Christ, living a changed life because He is living in reigning in you, these words of the apostle Paul will be true of you:  “But thanks be to God, who always leads us in His triumph, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of Him in every place.  For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life” (2 Corinthians 2:14-16).  I think the fragrance Paul speaks of is the fruit of the Spirit of God (“love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control”). as it is manifested in us when we yield the control of our lives over to Him from moment to moment (Galatians 5:22-23)  May those around us feel refreshed and attracted to Christ, as we live our lives devoted to Him and His word.

CONSTRUCTION SITE:  COMPLETED

Thank you for visiting this completed, construction site:  John 12:1-3   I hope you enjoyed the fragrance as you imagined yourself in the midst of this dinner party.

WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH JESUS? — John 11:45-57

john 11:45-57, Uncategorized

INTRODUCTION:

You’ve probably heard the saying:  “You can please all of the people some of the time, and you can please some of the people all of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”  As we study this next passage of Scripture, John 11:47-57, we can add another phrase to that saying.  That phrase is:  “You can please some of the people none of the time.”

I.  THE DILEMMA (verses 45-48)

Jesus had just performed His last and greatest public miracle when He raised Lazarus from the dead.  As a result of that miracle, verse 45 says that many of those who were present at the tomb of Lazarus believed in Jesus as their Messiah after they watched Lazarus come out of the tomb at the command of Jesus.  However, some of the observers who were standing there were not happy at all.  In the midst of the joy, amazement, and celebration, there were a few who did not respond appropriately to the miracle and the miracle-worker.  They went and told the Pharisees, who became very angry and very worried.

Verse 47 says, “Therefore the chief priests and the Pharisees convened a council, and were saying, ‘What are we doing?”  The leaders quickly met as a council.  It was an informal gathering rather than an official meeting of the council.  This council was called the Sanhedrin and was composed of 71 members, including the chief priests, the high priest, the captain of the temple, and members of the Sadducees and the Pharisees.  They were all very upset and kept saying among themselves, “What are we doing?” or “What are we going to do?”. 

The term “think tank” was coined during World War 2.  It was used to describe a safe place where wartime plans and strategies could be discussed and implemented.  As we shall see in this passage of Scripture, the term “think tank” fits this occasion very well. The council of the Jews needs a strategy, and it needs one in a hurry.  What is the reason for their frustration and their panic?  The apostle John states it at the end of verse 47 when he quotes their words:  “this man performs many signs.”  Notice that they won’t even refer to Jesus by name.  To them, Jesus is just a common man, but they do ascribe many signs or miracles to Him.  They couldn’t deny the miracles – there were so many of them, and the raising of Lazarus from the dead was performed right before their very eyes.  Yet they stubbornly refused to believe Jesus’ claims and all the undeniable evidence that supported those claims.

Let’s take a close look at their conversation with one another in verse 48.  Their words reveal the major reason for their hatred for Jesus.  Here is what they are saying:  “If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in HIm, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”  The members of the council are coming to a consensus:  “We need to put a stop to this Man and His miracles as soon as possible.”  They fear what might happen to their way of life if Jesus continues to gain followers.  What is their way of life?  What are these Jewish leaders really afraid of?  I think the answer to those questions is given in verse 48, and they are the ones who are giving us the answer.  The little word “our” is used twice in their conversation.

In the Sanhedrin, there were both Pharisees and Sadducees.  The Pharisees were not a political party.  They were a religious sect within Judaism.  Their sole purpose was to know and practice every little detail of the Law of Moses.  As long as they were free to do so, they weren’t really concerned about the government that was ruling over them.  On the other hand, the Sadducees were a political and religious sect.  They were the wealthy nobility among the Jews.  All the priests were members of the Sadducees.  As commentator William Barclay puts it:  “So long as they were allowed to enjoy and to retain their wealth, their comfort, and their position of authority, they were well content to collaborate with Rome.”

So why were these leaders so upset by the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead that they gathered together for an emergency council meeting?  In verse 48 they describe the potential effects of this miracle and then the potential consequences to themselves.  Let’s look first at the potential effects.  Here are their words:  “If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him.”  They are exaggerating but they do have a good point.  Verse 45 said that “many believed in Him [Jesus]” as a result of the resurrection of Lazarus.  They saw the reaction of the people firsthand.  That is unsettling, especially in light of the potential consequences.  In the rest of verse 48, the leaders describe those potential consequences when they say,  “and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”  Now we know their reason for going into “panic mode”.  It’s jealousy!

We sometimes use the words “jealousy” and “envy” interchangeably, but there is an important difference between the two words.  To envy is to want something which belongs to another person.  One of the ten commandments is:  “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, his wife or his servant, his ox or donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

By contrast, jealousy is the fear that something we possess will be taken away by another person.  What do these Jewish leaders possess that they fear will be taken away from them?  The word “our”, used in their conversation with one another, gives us the answer.  When they say “our place and our nation”, they are claiming that the temple and the nation belong to them. They consider the temple and the nation to be the places where they exercise their authority and bring honor and praise to themselves.  They can’t allow Jesus to take away their social and political power and prestige.  It would destroy their whole way of life as the elite among the Jews.

Maybe you’ve heard this phrase used before:  “That person has a one-track mind.”  What is a one-track mind?  Let me illustrate.  A little boy was asked by his teacher, “Johnny, what is your favorite animal?”  He said, “Fried chicken!”  Being a PETA supporter [People for Ethical Treatment of Animals], she sent him to the principal’s office.  The next day she asked him, “Johnny, what is your favorite living animal?”  He said, “Chicken!”  She said, “Out of all the various kinds of animals, your favorite is a chicken?”  “Why?”  He said, “I see it as a potential fried chicken!”  Off to the principal’s office, he went.  The next day, the teacher asked Johnny, “Who is the famous person you admire the most?”  He replied, “Colonel Sanders!” [Kentucky Fried Chicken].

As you can see from this story, Johnny had a one-track mind.  All he could think about was chicken!  These Jewish leaders also demonstrated that they had one-track minds.  All they could think about was themselves.

II.  CAIAPHAS SPEAKS (verses 49-53)

It’s at this point that Caiaphas, the High Priest, raises his voice and addresses the council.  He begins by criticizing them, saying, “You know nothing at all.”  That statement must have captured the attention of everyone!  He then gives his political opinion about the matter when he says, “it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation shall not perish.”  Caiaphas didn’t realize it but God used his words as a prophecy of Christ’s substitutionary death for the sins of the world (Mark 10:45; John 3:16).  It was an “unconscious prophecy”.  Like Balaam’s donkey [in Numbers 22:27-31], neither Caiaphas nor the donkey had any inkling that God was speaking through them.  The apostle John is writing this Gospel after the death and resurrection of Christ.  Looking back upon that day, he realizes that the statement Caiaphas made to the Sanhedrin was actually prophetic.

His statement is also ironic.  Jesus came to this earth to die, not to save the nation of Israel from physical destruction, but to save the world from eternal destruction through faith in Him.  John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”  The very things that the Jewish leaders wanted to protect themselves against were going to happen beyond their expectations.  In less than 40 years, their temple and their nation would be destroyed, and their people would be scattered.  That was not what Caiaphas had in mind when he spoke those words.

This meeting of the Sanhedrin was the turning point in the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Verse 53 says, “So from that day on they planned together to kill Him.”  Jesus was now an outlaw.  A bounty would soon be placed on His head [30 pieces of silver], and a bounty hunter [Judas] would take the money and turn Him in.

III,  A TEMPORARY HIDEOUT (verses 54-57)

It’s at this point in time that Jesus makes His getaway.  Verse 54 says, “Jesus therefore no longer continued to walk publicly among the Jews, but went away from there to a country near the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there He stayed with His disciples.”  Was Jesus motivated by fear?  Did He flee from the scene and go north to the hill country of Ephraim because He was afraid to die?  No.  He was on His Father’s timetable and this was not the time nor the manner in which He was to die.  It is estimated that He and His disciples were now about 12-15 miles northeast of Jerusalem.

The Roman historian, Tacitus, said these words:  “He who fights and runs away will live to fight another day.”  When I was a senior in high school, I took two semesters of classical Greek.  We translated portions of Xenophon’s Anabasis.  One of the memorable events recorded in his book was the retreat of the 10,000 Greeks and Spartans.  These elite soldiers were hired by Prince Cyrus of Persia in 401 BC to join his own troops in his rebellion against his brother, Artaxerxes, for control of the Persian Empire.  When Cyrus was killed and his army defeated at the Battle of Cunaxa, these Greek soldiers were asked to surrender.  They refused.  Instead, they marched out of the land of Persia and back to their native land of Greece.  They returned home so they might fight again at another time.

The Lord Jesus and His disciples also made a tactical retreat, but He would be back soon.  Verse 55 says, “Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand”,  Verses 56 and 57 tell us that the chief priest and the Pharisees were preparing an ambush in case He showed up at the feast.  They weren’t expecting Him to arrive but they wanted to be ready just in case.  Verse 56 contains a double negative in the Greek text.  What these Jews were saying to one another in the temple was:  “He wouldn’t dare to come to the feast!”  But Jesus would be back in a few weeks, not to do battle with the enemies, but to give His own life to defeat the greatest enemy – sin and its eternal consequences.  He would win the ultimate victory for all who believed in Him.

CONCLUSION:

This passage of scripture teaches us something about the providence of God.  On the surface, we see confusion and panic.  The Jewish leaders gather for an emergency meeting and Jesus and His disciples make a quick getaway.  It looks like things have gotten out of control but, in actuality, everything is going according to plan – God’s plan.  The events are fitting together in fulfillment of scripture and on God’s timetable.  In the same way, God works in our lives according to His will and in His timing as we yield our lives to Him and His will or us.

There is also a lesson to be learned from the words of Caiaphas, the high priest.  When Caiaphas said, in verse 50, ” . . . it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish”,  he was speaking selfishly, completely unaware that his words were a fulfillment of the Law in Leviticus 16:15-22, as well as the prophecies in Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, and elsewhere.  These scripture passages talk about substitution, and substitution is at the very heart of the gospel message.  In love, God the Father substituted His own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, for us (1 Peter 2:24; 3:18) so that our sins might be forgiven (Ephesians 1:7-8), and so that we might live for Him who died for us (Galatians 2:20; 2 Corinthians 5:15).  I hope that you are a true child of God and a follower of Jesus Christ, experiencing the peace that comes with forgiveness and the joy that comes from serving Him with all your heart.

CONSTRUCTION SITE:  COMPLETED

Welcome to this completed site:  John 11:47-57.  This passage of Scripture is a turning point in the Gospel narrative.  Jesus’ arrest and death are only a few weeks away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LAZARUS! COME FORTH! — John 11:28-44

John 11:28-44, Lazarus raised from the dead, resurrection of Lazarus, Uncategorized

INTRODUCTION:

You may remember that Jesus’ first miracle was the turning of water into wine at the marriage feast in Cana.  He told the servants to fill the six stone waterpots with water and take some of it to the head waiter.  When he tasted the water turned to wine, he said to the bridegroom, “You’ve saved the best for last.”  We have a tendency to save the best for last, don’t we?  And we usually have good reasons for doing so.  Why do gymnasts put their most impressive skills at the end of their routines?  Why do fireworks designers put the big burst at the end?  Why do we eat dessert last?  We like a grand finale, don’t we?  We like to expect, or at least hope that the best is yet to come.

TRANSITION:

The Lord Jesus has something really special in store for Martha and Mary, for those who are with them mourning the death of their brother, Lazarus, and especially for Lazarus himself.  Jesus has already had a short conversation with Martha and has told her that He is “the resurrection and the life.”  She responds by saying, “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, even He who comes into the world.”  She affirms her faith in Him as her Messiah.  The words “I believe” are in the perfect tense meaning, “I have believed and I will continue to believe.”

I.  MARY COMES TO JESUS (verses 28-32)

After saying those words to Jesus, verse 28 says that Martha “went away, and called Mary her sister, saying secretly, ‘The Teacher is here and is calling for you.’ ”  Martha may have sat down beside Mary and whispered those words in her ear.  She did this secretly because she wanted her sister to have some uninterrupted time with Jesus before He arrived at their home.  She may also have been concerned about the welfare of Jesus since many of the antagonistic, Jewish leaders were in her home at that moment.  Verse 29 tells us that Mary “rose quickly, and was coming to Him.”  Jesus was still waiting on the outskirts of the village of Cana in Galilee.

Her sudden moves and quick exit did not go unnoticed.  Her friends mistakenly thought that Mary was going to the tomb of Lazarus in order to weep there.  Verse 31 says “they followed her” in order to weep with her there.  This was the customary thing to do.  They were following the Jewish rules of etiquette during the time of mourning.  The Greek word translated as “weep” needs some further explanation.  It means to “wail”.  It is a loud expression of pain and sorrow.

II.  MARY GREETS JESUS (verse 32)

When Mary arrived at the place where Jesus was waiting, verse 32 says, “She saw Him and fell at His feet, saying to Him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ ”  Mary’s words are filled with emotion and she is weeping and wailing loudly.  She fell at Jesus’ feet as an expression of worship.  Those who followed behind her were weeping and wailing loudly along with her.  There was a lot of noise and a lot of emotion being expressed in the presence of Jesus.

III.  JESUS’ RESPONSE (verses 33-35)

In the midst of all this clamor that is going on around Him, let’s ask ourselves this question:  “What may be going through Jesus’ mind at this moment and how is it affecting His emotions?”  Verse 33 says, “When Jesus, therefore, saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit, and was troubled.”  They weren’t shedding tears but were making loud, almost hysterical sounds of mourning, customary for Jewish funerals of that day.

First, Jesus was “deeply moved in spirit”. The Greek word literally means “angered”, so “deeply moved” might convey that Jesus was enraged. Outside the New Testament, this word was often used by the Greeks to refer to the snorting of horses.  The Greek word translated “troubled” means to “shake together”, “stir up”, or “agitate”.  It was used to describe the pool at Bethesda which had an underground spring.  The spring would sometimes send hot water up to the surface and the pool would churn and bubbles would appear.  The two Greek words combine to describe a wave of anger that came over Jesus.

What was the cause of such a strong emotional reaction on the part of Jesus?  Was it seen in His facial expressions and did His body shake with anger?  It doesn’t say in the text but it must have been obvious to the apostle John as he remembers what happened that day and describes what he observed firsthand.

There may have been several reasons for Jesus’ anger in verses 33 and 34.  Let’s explore some reasonable possibilities.  Jesus may have been angry at the fake expressions of grief shown by those who followed Mary as she hurried to meet Him.  Their loud wailing was not a true expression of grief.  They were just following their traditions and competing with one another. They were grieving like the pagans who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

Jesus would also have good reason to be angry about sin and its consequences.  Sin, sickness, and death have plagued mankind ever since the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:17-19).  God has been angry at sin and its effects on mankind ever since that day.

In addition to these reasons, Jesus may have been deeply troubled by the fact that no one believed that He was God.  After all His teaching and the miracles He performed over a period of three years, some were willing to believe that He was the Messiah, but they didn’t equate that with being God.  They still did not understand who He was nor the mission He had come to this earth to fulfill.  Finally, as Jesus was about to perform His greatest miracle before their eyes, He knew that the raising of Lazarus from the dead would set the wheels in motion for His own death just a few days away.  Rather than convincing the Jews to believe in Him, this miracle would convince them to kill Him, and this is in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies.  All of these reasons may have played a part in forming Jesus’ emotional state at that moment.

Verse 34 seems like a sharp contrast – a change of mood.  Jesus set those feelings of anger aside in order to minister to the needs of Mary and Martha.  He asks Mary, “Where have you laid him?”  Then, in verse 35, “Jesus wept.”  The Greek word speaks of a quiet shedding of tears, not a loud wailing.  Why would Jesus weep when He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead?  Many reasons have been given.  I prefer to believe that Jesus was revealing His humanity as He entered into the grief of Mary and Martha.  The prophet Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah would be “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).  Jesus demonstrated the love of a true friend by entering into their sorrows.  Mary and Martha would always remember the events of that day, and they would also remember the tears.  As the apostle Paul later said in Romans 12:15, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” 

IV.  AT THE TOMB (verses 36-42)

On the way to the tomb, verse 38 says, “Jesus therefore again being deeply moved within, came to the tomb.”  What caused Jesus’ emotions to become stirred up again?  The answer to that question seems to be found in the previous verse.  The Jews said, in verse 37, “Could not this man, who opened the eyes of him who was blind, have kept this man also from dying?”  After three years of watching Jesus perform miracles that only the Messiah could perform, they still consider Him to be just a man who has some healing abilities.  The hardness of their hearts and their spiritual blindness must have been a source of irritation to Jesus. 

As they stand in front of the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus makes an astonishing request when He says, “Remove the stone”.  Martha, who earlier affirmed that Jesus was the Messiah, is quick to respond, saying, “Lord, by this time there will be a stench, for he has been dead four days.”  Martha’s faith failed at that moment.  She didn’t want to expose herself and her guests to the ugliness of death.  The King James version says it more bluntly:  “Lord, by now he stinketh.”

I saw an advertisement recently that showed a picture of a huge and beautiful flower.  Out of curiosity, I looked for more information and learned that it is the largest individual flower in the world and it has a strong odor after it blossoms.  Its nickname is “the corpse flower” and it wasn’t given that name because of its outward appearance.  Need I say more?  I wonder if God made that flower really big so that people could enjoy its beauty from a distance!

Getting back to the narrative, I wonder whether some of the mourners stepped back a few feet after Jesus said these words to Martha:  “Did I not say to you, that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”  Verse 41 says, “And so they removed the stone.”   They must have done so at Martha’s bidding because I don’t think they would do so otherwise.

This raises a question.  Why didn’t Jesus perform a miracle to remove the stone?  He could have saved time by telling the stone to roll away.  Mary and Martha were hoping for a miracle.  By doing so, He could have shown them that He was capable of performing a miracle on their brother.  Why did He demand that the stone be rolled away by the men who were standing there beside Him?  The Lord Jesus had a reason and a lesson that He wanted to teach them.  The Lord would not do by a miracle what they could do by obedience.  You might call this an “audience participation miracle”, and these men are going to get a whiff of it firsthand!

Once the tomb was open, Jesus “raised His eyes” (verse 41).  He lifts His eyes toward heaven because He wants everyone to know that He is about to pray. He wants them to be quiet and listen.  This is going to be a public prayer.  Jesus will be saying His words loud enough for everyone to hear them.  Public prayers are different from private prayers because people are listening to the words, and Jesus wants them to learn something from it.  Here is His prayer:  “Father, I thank Thee that Thou heardest Me.  And I knew that Thou hearest Me always; but because of the people standing around I said it, that they may believe that Thou didst send Me.” 

It’s a very short prayer, and it’s a prayer of thanksgiving even though He hasn’t performed a miracle yet.  I get the impression that Jesus is ending a conversation that He has been having with the Father privately.  He has made a request and He has received the Father’s permission and enabling in order to do what happens next.  He ends His conversation with the Father out loud because He wants everyone to know the closeness of His relationship with the Father and the authority that has been given to Him by the Father.

V.  THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS (verses 43-44)

Then, facing the entrance to the cave, Jesus shouts, with an even louder voice:  Lazarus!  Come forth!  As the Good Shepherd, Jesus is calling His sheep by name.  As he said in John 10:27, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”

Within a few seconds, there were gasps and expressions of joy as Lazarus came hopping out of that cave in the direction of Jesus’ voice.  John describes that moment in verse 44 when He writes, “He who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings; and his face was wrapped around with a cloth.”  Lazarus couldn’t see, and he could hardly move, but he responded to the voice of his Shepherd.  Wouldn’t it have been interesting to see what was going on inside that cave after Jesus shouted those words?  Lazarus opened his eyes but he couldn’t see.  His hands and feet were tied so he could hardly move.  How he was able to stand up, I don’t know.  But all these things were incidental.  When he heard the voice of Jesus calling his name, he immediately obeyed.

Among all the spectators who were standing beside Jesus, including those Jews who opposed Him, there was no question and no doubt in their minds that Jesus had performed a miracle and brought Lazarus back to life.  In verse 44, Jesus immediately tells them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”  The embalming spices, which were wrapped tightly against his body and head using long strips of cloth, not only made it difficult for Lazarus to move but also to breathe.

What a joyous reunion that must have been!  Tears of sorrow had now become tears of joy.  Jesus had saved His best, public miracle for last.  What a display of the power and the glory of God!

In this passage of Scripture, we see clearly the deity of the Lord Jesus.  When He raised Lazarus from the grave, none of His onlookers questioned it, and none could prove otherwise.  If you are a true follower of Jesus Christ there is no reason to fear death because Jesus is “the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25), and He is our pathway from death to eternal life (John 5:24).  There is also every reason to live for Him.

We have also gained insight into the humanity of Jesus Christ.  He displayed human emotions when He trembled with anger and rage at sin, its consequences, and the failure of people to come to an understanding that He is the God-man – deity in bodily form.  In John 11:35, Jesus expressed His emotions in tears as He entered into the grief of Martha and Mary and released His own pent-up emotions.  Then He performed His last and greatest public miracle by raising Lazarus from the dead.

APPLICATION:

As you consider your own life today, would you say that you are completely satisfied, or do you feel that there is something missing in your life?  Do you feel that you already have the best that this life has to offer or is there an empty place that you haven’t been able to fill?  Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life.”  He is the One who resurrects people from the dead, both physically and spiritually.  He is the One who gives abundant life now and eternal life with Himself.  In John 10:27, the Lord Jesus was referring to Himself as the good Shepherd, and He said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.  And I give them eternal life.”  He is the very best that this life has to offer, and offers the brightest future to all those who choose to turn from sin’s control over their lives in order to follow Him as their Lord and Savior.  He alone has the power to change your life and give you eternal life with Him.

If you are a genuine disciple of Christ, do you share in Jesus’ hatred for sin and grieve over sin’s effects on the people around you?  Are you burdened by the realization that, for many people in this world today, the worst is yet to come?  Hell is a real place and it’s a place of permanent residency.  Are you ready to write down people’s names on a list and pray for them daily?  If you haven’t done so already, are you willing to write a brief personal testimony of your journey to personal faith in Christ, memorize it, and learn a gospel presentation using the Scriptures?

God wants to use us to resurrect the spiritually dead in sin and bring new life through faith in Jesus Christ.  He also desires to use us to help new believers to grow.  As we pursue these goals and priorities in our lives and draw closer to Him as we spend daily time with Him in His Word and in prayer, we will experience the very best that God has for us in this life

CONSTRUCTION SITE:  COMPLETED

 

NO EXCUSE GIVEN — John 11:17-27

john 11:17-32, Uncategorized

What do you say if you are late for the funeral of a friend?  What do you say if the family of the deceased person asks you why you are late?  What do you say if you miss the funeral altogether?  You’d better have a really good excuse, right?  The funeral and burial of Lazarus occurred four days earlier and Jesus wasn’t present.  He and His disciples have been walking all day in the direction of the town of Bethany, and the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus is now in sight.  Does He have a good excuse ready?  As we study this next passage of Scripture, John 11:17-27, we are going to find that Jesus is too late to heal and too late for the funeral.  However, He does not give an excuse, nor is He asked to give one.

I.  THE SCENE AT BETHANY (verses 17-19)

Verse 17 says, “So when Jesus came, He found that he had already been in the tomb four days.”  That verse seems to imply that Jesus did not know that information since He found that to be the case after He arrived.  Once again, we are reminded that Jesus Christ was not all-knowing while He was on this earth.  His Heavenly Father told Jesus that Lazarus had died, but apparently didn’t tell Jesus on what day he died.  There is now no question in anyone’s mind that Lazarus was dead.  Jesus may have been given that information from someone they met as they approached Bethany.  It’s implied that Jesus did not know this information when He left for Bethany earlier that same day.

John gives us a brief geography lesson in verse 18 in order to help explain what follows.  The town of Bethany is located very close to the city of Jerusalem.  It’s just under two miles away.  The reason for verse 18 is found in verse 19, which says, “and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary, to console them concerning their brother.”  The distance between Bethany and Jerusalem was short enough that many of their friends and acquaintances must have decided to come to the funeral.  In first-century Palestine, the Jewish time of mourning was divided into three parts.  The first three days were days of weeping.  The next four days were days of heavy mourning.  Then there was lighter mourning for the rest of the thirty-day mourning period.  During the first week, visitors constantly came to their house to console the family.  Even though many of these Jews were hostile toward Jesus and His followers, there were those who showed the courtesy of paying a visit and offering comfort.  Jesus and His disciples would be coming to a house filled with sympathizers that day.

II.  MARTHA’S CONVERSATION WITH JESUS (verses 20-27)

Verse 20 tells us, “So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet Him, but Mary remained sitting in the house.”   From what the Bible says about Martha here and in Luke 10:38-42, she is a take-action person and a take-charge person.  She likes to be busy, making sure that everything and everyone is taken care of properly.  Someone must have told her or made an announcement that Jesus had arrived in Bethany and was headed in the direction of their home.  Martha was quick to her feet and on her way to meet Jesus.

Meanwhile, on the road to Bethany, Jesus and His disciples see a small cloud of dust in the distance.  It’s a woman . . . it’s Martha . . . she’s coming in a hurry!  If I were in that situation, my first thought would be, “What’s the worst thing that could happen?”, and then, “What am I going to say and do if it does happen?”  Can you feel the tension?  Have you been in a situation like this before?  Were you on the giving end or the receiving end?

In verse 21, Martha’s first recorded words to Jesus are. “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.”  Does that sound like one of those greetings where the person pauses afterward, waiting for you to give your excuse?  Did you have one ready in your “bag of excuses” or was there a moment of silence . . . an apology . . . shame?

Martha may have rehearsed those words with her sister because Mary later says the very same words.  There may also have been a sense of regret in her words.  “If only you had been here, this tragedy would not have occurred.”  Martha knew that Jesus could and did heal sick people and wondered why He didn’t arrive in time to heal Lazarus.  You might think that Martha considered her brother Lazarus to be beyond hope now that it was four days after his death.

There was no long pause after Martha’s greeting.  Immediately after saying those words, we find that Martha makes a profession of faith and hope in Jesus.  Despite the “irreversible” condition of her brother in the minds of the people and their leaders, Martha makes a statement of faith in Jesus when she says, “Even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you” (verse 22).  Even in her desperation, there is a step of faith and there is a ray of hope.  After looking into Jesus’ eyes and seeing the humility, gentleness, and love mirrored there, how could Martha keep from growing in faith and from experiencing a greater sense of hope and peace?  The saying has been around for a long time and seems so appropriate for this moment:  “I can see it in your eyes”.

When Martha made her second statement, she was turning the focus of her attention away from the situation and placing it upon Jesus.  Even though she did not yet believe that Jesus was God, she did believe that there was a close relationship between Him and God, so close that God would answer any request Jesus might ask of Him.  She was now seeing this situation from a different perspective.  I recently read an illustration of another woman whose perspective was changed because of a dramatic incident in her life.  Many years ago the inhabitants of a small village were startled by a sudden earthquake.  The people were trembling with fear but were surprised at the calmness and apparent joy of an old woman whom they all knew.  Finally, one of them addressed the old woman and said, “Mother, are you not afraid?”  “No”, said the woman.  “I rejoice to know that I have a God who can shake the world!”  Has Martha come to the realization that she has a God who could raise the dead, even her own brother, Lazarus?    

Jesus encourages her faith and seeks to build upon that faith when He says to her, in verse 23, “Your brother shall rise again.”  Those words may have been a common phrase that was used during the mourning period to comfort and encourage the family during the mourning period.  However, Martha could tell from Jesus’ tone of voice that He was making her a promise.  He’s applying her words of faith to her brother’s condition.  Now we see that Martha’s words to Jesus, “I know that whatever you ask of God, He will give you”, were not meant to be applied to her brother’s situation.  God had never raised a person who had already been dead for four days.  The spirit of her brother had already left and his body was decaying.  It was too late for a healing miracle.

In an effort to understand Jesus’ words and agree with Him, Martha says, in verse 24, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”  That’s what she had been taught from her Jewish upbringing.  She believed in a future resurrection of the dead.  Her hope for her brother Lazarus was now tied to the future, not to the present.

Do the Old Testament scriptures talk about a bodily resurrection?  Yes, they do, in several places.  The prophet Daniel said, “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.” (Daniel 12:2).  The prophet Isaiah said, “Your dead will live; their corpses will rise.  You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy” (Isaiah 26:19).  There are also many references to the resurrection in the Psalms.  Martha’s response to Jesus’ comment was true, but she didn’t understand how He could be referring to the present situation. 

With the exception of the Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, most Jews during that period of time believed in a resurrection of the dead on the last day.  Jesus already said, in John 5:21, “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom He is pleased to give it.”  Now Jesus makes it clearer and more emphatic when He says to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25).  Once again, Jesus uses God’s special name:  “I am.”  He’s telling Martha that the resurrection isn’t just a doctrine.  It’s a Person, and He is that Person.  There is no resurrection and there is no life apart from Him.  Jesus is also saying that eternal life begins at the moment when a person believes in Him and follows Him [he who believes in me shall live even if he dies; and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die”]. Physical death has no effect on the life that Jesus gives.  Those words of Jesus must have been an encouragement to Martha.  He brought her personal understanding of the resurrection out of the future and into the present.  He told her that people are saved, not by words written in a book (the Torah), but by Jesus Himself, “the resurrection and the life.”

A nineteenth-century missionary to the South Seas by the name of John G. Paton met opposition to leaving his home in Scotland and going to preach to the cannibalistic peoples of the New Hebrides Islands.  A well-meaning church member said to him, “The cannibals, the cannibals!  You will be eaten by the cannibals!”  Without hesitation, Paton replied, “I confess to you that if I can live and die serving the Lord Jesus Christ, it makes no difference to me whether I am eaten by cannibals or by worms; for in that Great Day of Resurrection, my body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer!”  The hope of the resurrection removed Paton’s fears and strengthened his commitment to serve the Lord.

Martha’s response to the claims of Jesus was also based upon genuine faith in Him.  In her answer to Jesus’ question, “Do you believe this?”, Martha said “Yes” and used three titles to refer to Him:  “Lord”, “the Christ”, and “the Son of God.”

CONCLUSION:

You may remember the famous words of the apostle Peter in Matthew 16:16, where he said to Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  Let’s also remember the words of Martha, who said to Jesus, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God.”  They both came to the same conclusion and were encouraged and comforted by that knowledge.

Pastor and evangelist, Dwight L. Moody, told the story of a soldier at the Battle of Inkerman [November 5, 1854] who was just able to crawl to his tent after he was struck down.  When found, he was lying upon his face, his open Bible before him, his hand glued fast to one of the pages by his lifeblood which covered it.  When his hand was lifted, the letters of the printed page were clearly traced upon it.  And such words they were that they decided not to wash them from his palm when they laid him in a soldier’s grave.  The promise etched in blood was this:  “I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”  Then Moody said, “I want a religion like that which can comfort even in death, that can unite me with my loved ones.  What a gloom and darkness would settle upon this world were it not for the glorious doctrine of the resurrection.”

Do you believe in the resurrection?  Do you believe in the One who said, “I am the resurrection and the life?”  The Lord Jesus Christ is the only true source of hope, peace, and joy in this life and the next.  Don’t let human reasoning keep you from knowing Christ as your Lord and Savior.  Take that step of faith by choosing to repent of your sins, believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, and follow Him in obedience to His word.

If you have already made that decision, then live in such a way that you never have to give an excuse for your actions but rather, a reason and a motivation.  As the apostle Peter said in 1 Peter 3:15-16, “but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence, and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.”

CONSTRUCTION SITE:  COMPLETED

Thank you for visiting this site.  In this passage of Scripture, we are taking a closer look at Martha and her understanding of who Jesus is and what He can do.  We will be studying a demonstration of Jesus’ claims in the next passage of scripture.

THE DEATH OF LAZARUS — John 11: 1-16

John 11: 1-16, Uncategorized

Have you ever discovered, in your own life, that sometimes God’s love and God’s timing are difficult to understand and accept?  Has there been a recent event in your life that doesn’t seem to fit with your understanding of God’s love?  Are you still trying to make sense of it?

In this passage of Scripture, John 11:1-16, which deals with the sickness and death of a close friend by the name of Lazarus,  Jesus’ love and His timing were difficult to understand and accept.  Jesus is about to receive a message.  Let’s see how He responds, and let’s put ourselves in the situation, as if we were members of the family of Lazarus, or as if we were Jesus’ disciples, trying to figure out what is going on and trying to make sense of it.

I.  THE SICKNESS OF LAZARUS (verses 1-2)

Life is filled with surprises, isn’t it?  Do you like surprises?  What about unpleasant surprises?  That’s another story, isn’t it?  The eleventh chapter of John’s Gospel begins with an unpleasant surprise.  Verses 1-2 describe the situation in these words:  “Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.  And it was the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.” 

The apostle John is the only gospel writer who mentions this event.  He goes into considerable detail to make sure his readers know who he is talking about.  The name Lazarus is a form of the name Eleazar.  Martha appears to be the oldest, based upon her responsibilities in the family.  John uses an event that happens in the future to describe Mary.  The apostle John wrote this gospel several years after the death of Christ and he wanted to make sure his readers knew which Mary he was talking about in this verse.  There are several Marys who are mentioned in the New Testament scriptures.

II.  THE MESSAGE (verse 3)

At that point in time, Jesus and His disciples were still on the other side of the Jordan River in the land of Perea where John the Baptist had been baptizing.  Martha and Mary must have known this because they sent Him a message.  Verse 3 says, “The sisters therefore sent to Him, saying, ‘Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.’ ”  The person who brought this news to Jesus must have been quoting the words that Mary and Martha asked him to say.  The words “he whom You love” are filled with meaning and emotion.  They aren’t implying that Jesus loved Lazarus more than others.  I think they are focusing on the fact that Jesus’ love for them is so much greater than their love for Him, that they feel so undeserving but so enthralled by His love.  Like the apostle John, who referred to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved”, whenever they thought of Jesus or thought of themselves, they were reminded of, and amazed at, His love for them.

Hymn writer Philip Bliss, finished singing the hymn, “Oh, How I Love Jesus”, when he said to himself, “Those words are true.  Yet I feel guilty for having sung so much about my poor love for Christ and so little about His endless love for me.”  As a result, he wrote a song that is well known today.  Here is the first stanza:

“I am so glad that our Father in heaven
Tells of His love in the Book He has given,
Wonderful things in the Bible I see —
This is the dearest, that Jesus loves me.”

IV.  JESUS’ REPLY (verse 4)

Having considered the love of Jesus, how did Jesus respond to this bearer of sad news?  Did He stop what He was doing, accompany the person, and perform a healing miracle?  That’s what He usually did, but not in this case.  Instead, He gives some words of assurance for this messenger to take back to Mary and Martha.  In verse 4 Jesus said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified by it.”  After spending the night with Jesus and His disciples, the messenger must have left the next morning reassured by that good news, and Jesus’s disciples must have been glad that there was nothing to be concerned about.  Everything was going to turn out alright.  That’s going to be true, but not in the sense that Jesus’ hearers understood it.  Not at all!

V.  LOVE AND DELAY (verses 5-6)

Verse 5 describes Jesus’ love, not only for Lazarus but for Martha and Mary as well.  The apostle John wants to make it clear to his readers that all three of them were equally the objects of Jesus’ love.  Then, in verse 6, Jesus does something that seems to contradict that love.  Verse 6 reads, “When therefore He [Jesus] heard that he [Lazarus] was sick, He stayed then two days longer in the place where He was.”  That doesn’t sound very loving, does it?  You would think that Jesus would have accompanied the messenger back to Bethany and healed Lazarus.  Why the delay?

If we look through the gospels, we find that Jesus was not a “creature of habit” when it came to performing miracles.  He didn’t perform any two miracles exactly the same way.  Some of His miracles were done in very unusual and unexpected ways.  You might draw the conclusion that Jesus was a non-conformist who did things His own way, but that’s not a valid conclusion.  Jesus conformed to the will of His Heavenly Father, and when asked or challenged, He gave the credit to His Father.  In John 5:30, Jesus said, “I can do nothing on My own initiative. . . . I do not seek My own will but the will of Him who sent Me.”  In John 14:10, Jesus will be making a similar statement when He says, “but the Father dwelling in Me does His works.”  Jesus was on the Father’s timetable and acted according to the will and power of the Father, and for the glory of His Father.

VI.  THE TIME FOR ACTION (verses 7-10)

After two days of rest and relaxation, Jesus gives the exhortation, “Let us go to Judea again.”  Those words must have startled His disciples.  They just fled from there to save their lives and now Jesus wants to go back again?  What’s going on?  To get the full picture, let’s imagine what has been happening in Bethany during this period of time.  The messenger returned to Bethany the following evening only to learn that Lazarus had died while he was on his way to deliver the message to Jesus.  The messenger was alone; Jesus wasn’t with him.  Let’s try to imagine the conversation between them.

“Where is Jesus?”

“He’s still in Bathabara.”

“Is He coming?”

“I don’t think so.  He said, ‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified by it’.”

Can you imagine the shock when Mary and Martha heard those words?  Lazarus was already dead.  They already had the funeral service for him and had laid him in the family tomb.  Yet Jesus had not come, and His words to them didn’t make any sense.  They must have been devastated and wondered whether He was going to come at all.  There may have been a sense of abandonment in their hearts.

In spite of the shock and confusion this delay has caused in the minds of Martha, Mary, and Jesus’ disciples, Jesus had an important and necessary reason for the delay.  The climate in that region was very hot and only the rich could afford to embalm a dead family member.  It was a process that took months to accomplish.  The rest of the people endeavored to bury the body the same day or early the next day.  They also didn’t have the diagnostic equipment we have today to confirm that a person was truly dead.  As a result, there were cases where the “dead” person came out of his swoon or coma and came back to life.  In order to explain this phenomenon and keep it from happening again, the leaders came up with an explanation.  One popular opinion was that the spirit of the person hovered over the body until decay began to take place and then left.

That may seem to give a reason for the delay but I don’t think that reason aligns with the character of the Lord Jesus.  He was not one who would hurt His friends in order to bring more glory to Himself at their expense.  Jesus also does not confirm that view.  Remember, Jesus was not all-knowing, and His will was to bring glory to the Father as the Father revealed His will to His Son.  There were things that Jesus knew and there were things that Jesus didn’t know until the Father revealed them.  For example, Jesus probably knew about this “swoon theory” that I just mentioned.  He knew that any resurrection miracle would be questioned if the person hadn’t been dead for at least three days.  However, Jesus may not have known that Lazarus was already dead.  One thing we do know is that Jesus always did the will of the Father as the Father revealed it to Him, and until then, He waited.  For Him, it wasn’t a delay but an act of loving obedience to His Father.

With that information in mind, Jesus may have said those words:  “Let’s go to Judea again” immediately after the Father had told Him that Lazarus was dead and that it was time to return to the home of Martha and Mary.  Those words of Jesus in verse 7 were not the words that Jesus’ disciples wanted to hear.  It sounded like a death sentence and they were not ready to die.  They encourage Jesus to reconsider His plans, saying, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone You, and are You going there again?”  I see an exaggeration and an implication in their response.  First, they make it sound like this attempted stoning happened just a couple of minutes ago instead of a couple of days ago.  They seem to be saying, “Don’t you think you should give this a little more thought rather than react upon the first impulse?”  Secondly, they are giving Jesus a hint about their response to the idea.  When they said, “are You going there again”, they seem to be implying, “You’re on your own this time!”  It sounds like a stand-off, doesn’t it?  Jesus is ready to go and they are giving Him reasons to stay.  He doesn’t get angry with them because of their fears but uses this opportunity to build faith and trust in Him and His words.  His disciples are focusing their thoughts upon the situation rather than upon their Messiah. 

Jesus begins by giving them a lesson on how to tell time.  Can you remember learning how to tell time as a child?  I was a little slow to catch on at first.  Most of the clocks are digital now, but I grew up back in the day when all the clocks had an hour hand and a minute hand, and some of them even had a second hand.

In verse 9, Jesus answers their question with a question of His own, saying, “Are there not twelve hours in the day?  If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him.”  Jesus uses a form of telling time that was common to the Jews of that day by stating that there are twelve hours of daylight and implying that there are twelve hours of the night.  If you’re going to take a walk, it is better to do it during the day.  They didn’t have street lights as we have today, so when the sun went down, it was really dark.  There was more that Jesus was trying to communicate to them but they missed it.  He told His disciples, in chapter 8, that He was the light of the world.  He had also mentioned that His hour had not yet come.  There was still work that the Father wanted Him to do.  Until then, they were safe with Him.  As King David said, in Psalm 27:1, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear?”

VII.  THE NEED FOR EXPLANATIONS (verses 11-15)

That answer received no response from Jesus’ disciples.  Their thoughts are still focused on what He is about to do, rather than on who He is and what He is able to do.  Jesus is trying to build faith and trust in Him as their Messiah and He is not about to give up yet.  In verse 11, Jesus gives them an explanation when He says, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, that I may awaken him out of sleep.”

The response of His disciples seems to be appropriate.  Verse 12 reads, “The disciples therefore said to Him, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.’ ”  I wonder if their response to Jesus was one of relief rather than rejoicing.  In order to avoid the risks of going to Bethany, they are trying to convince Jesus that there is no longer a need to make the trip.  “Let Lazarus sleep undisturbed.  The sleep will heal his sickness.”  Jesus’ disciples are still in protection-mode and have misunderstood His words.  Over 35 times in the Old Testament scriptures, the phrase  “slept with his fathers” is used when referring to the death of someone.  The disciples of Jesus missed that association because none of them asked Jesus for clarification.

It’s time to head for Bethany so Jesus tells His disciples clearly and plainly what has happened to Lazarus.  In verses 14 and 15, Jesus said, “Lazarus is dead, and I am glad for your sakes that I wasn’t there, so that you may believe; but let us go to him.”  Jesus could have been there sooner.  He could have brought Lazarus back from the dead without going there in person.  But Jesus is glad at that moment, knowing that what His disciples are about to experience is going to stretch and deepen their faith in Him. 

VIII.  THE RESPONSE OF THOMAS (verse 16) 

Jesus may be rejoicing at that moment but His disciples aren’t sharing the enjoyment along with Him.  They see this trip back to Bethany as a death sentence for all of them.  However, one voice responds loudly enough for all to hear.  It’s the voice of the apostle Thomas.  Verse 16 says,  “Thomas therefore, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, ‘Let us also go that we may die with Him.’ “

The apostle Thomas is my namesake and most people refer to him as “doubting Thomas” because of his reluctance to believe that Christ had risen from the dead (John 20:24-29).  I’ve been called “doubting Thomas” many times in my life, but I would like you to think of the apostle Thomas as he is described here in verse 16.  His words are an expression of two of his character qualities:  loyalty and pessimism.  He was a loyal follower of Christ who was willing to face death along with Him. Thomas also encouraged the other disciples to do the same thing.  As we’ll see in the next passage of scripture, the other disciples followed his advice. 

CONCLUSION:                                                                   

This passage of Scripture points out that life isn’t just a series of events.  It is also a process.  There are issues to deal with, challenges to accept, responses to make, and things to learn.  God has designed the circumstances in our lives so that we might mature physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, and spiritually.  God orders those circumstances so that we might respond to Him by faith, trust, and obedience as He enables us and empowers us.  Jesus was going through a process also.  In verses 7-10, we learned that Jesus did not allow danger to keep Him from doing what He knew was the Father’s will for His life at that moment.  He was also willing to wait until the time was right.

It’s not always easy to wait, is it?  G. Campbell Morgan made the following statement.  “Waiting for God is not laziness.  Waiting for God is not going to sleep.  Waiting for God is not the abandonment of effort.  Waiting on God means, first, activity under command; second, readiness for any new command that may come; third, the ability to do nothing until the command is given.”

If you are not yet a committed follower of Jesus Christ and a true child of God, now is not the time to delay.  2 Corinthians 6:2 says, “. . . Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold now is the day of salvation.”  In these dark and perilous times, remember and respond to the words of Jesus who said, “I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12).        

CONSTRUCTION SITE:  COMPLETED

 

 

JESUS, THE SON OF GOD — John 10:31-42

1 Corinthians 1:10-17, 2017 resolutions, John 10:31-42, John 10:31-42, Uncategorized

INTRODUCTION:

Many years ago, there was a popular game show on television called “What’s My Line”?  Maybe you’ve seen it or have heard of it.  Each week they would introduce an individual who had an unusual occupation.  The contestants on the show would take turns asking this person questions in order to guess what this person did for a living.  The first contestant to guess the person’s line of work or occupation correctly would win the game and would receive the prizes.

In this passage of Scripture, the Jewish leaders seem to be playing a game similar to “What’s My Line”, only in reverse.  Jesus, who is the person being interviewed, has already told them several times who He is, yet they keep asking Him to identify Himself.  Now it’s Jesus’ turn to ask them some questions.

I.  JESUS’ FIRST QUESTION TO THEM (verses 31-32)

Verse 31 is a short intermission.  It says, “The Jews took up stones again to stone Him.”  They were in the temple so those stones weren’t on the ground at their feet.  They had to walk away from Jesus in order to find stones and pick them up.  These weren’t one-handed stones; they were two-handed, large, and heavy stones.  They were picking up those stones because Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.”  All of those Jews recognized that Jesus was claiming to be God when He made that statement.  While they are gathering the stones for His execution, Jesus calls out to them, asking His first question:  “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?”  Within that question, there are several questions that Jesus wants them to consider and answer for Him.  “Are you stoning Me to death because I gave sight to a man born blind?”  “Are you stoning me because I healed a man at the pool of Bethesda, who had been ill for 38 years?”  “Are you stoning Me because I cleansed lepers, raised the dead, and cast out evil spirits?”  “Are you stoning Me because I made the dumb speak, the deaf hear, the lame walk, and fed the multitudes?”  Jesus pointed to His mighty miracles which fulfilled prophecy and set Him apart as being from God.  How are they going to respond to that evidence?

II.  THEIR ANSWER (verse 33)

How do you answer a question that would prove you to be wrong?  How do you respond to a question that would make you look foolish?  Have you ever been in that situation?  There are many possibilities.  Let’s see which one they choose.  In verse 33, the Jews give their answer:  “For a good work we don’t stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make yourself out to be God.”  I call this the “shame on you for asking” approach.  In a loud and demeaning tone of voice, they are saying, “That’s a stupid question!”  “You’re not really serious, are you?”  “It should be obvious that we are stoning you for blasphemy because You, of all people, are claiming to be God!”  They have side-stepped Jesus’ question and His miracles in order to put the focus on Him and His claims.  By doing so, they are hoping to have the last word on that topic so they can proceed with their stoning.  However, the conversation isn’t over yet.  Jesus has another question for them to answer, and this time it concerns a passage of Scripture.

III.  JESUS’ SECOND QUESTION (verses 34-36)

Jesus responds to His accusers in an unexpected and unusual way, giving His answer in the form of a question to them.  He quotes from Psalm 82:6 saying, “Has it not been written in your Law, ‘I SAID, YOU ARE GODS’?”  Jesus is going to be using a form of logic called “reasoning from the major to the minor” (or from the greater to the less).  The focus of Jesus’ argument is going to be on one book of the Bible [the Psalms], one chapter in that book [chapter 82], one verse in that chapter [verse 6], and one word within that verse [the word “GODS”].

After quoting that verse, Jesus presents His argument in verses 35 and 36, saying, “If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scriptures cannot be broken), do you say of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said ‘I am the Son of God’?”  There must have been many puzzled looks on the faces of His adversaries after Jesus presented that argument.

We see, in this verse, Jesus’ confidence in the inspiration, the authority, and the inerrancy of God’s Word.  He is saying that two things are certain:  the psalm calls them gods and the Scripture cannot be broken.  The Lord Jesus Christ is staking His life on the reliability, accuracy, and authority of just one word of Scripture, for His enemies were about to stone Him to death.

Down through the centuries, many ungodly people have tried to refute or destroy the Scriptures, but they have all failed.  The famous philosopher, Voltaire, held up a copy of the Scriptures and boasted that he would put the Bible in the morgue.  Before long, he was in the morgue and the Geneva Bible Society used his house as a Bible warehouse!

In Psalm 82, what did the psalmist mean when he used the phrase “you are gods”?  Who was he referring to?  He’s talking about the judges or rulers of the people of Israel.  They are called “gods” because they represented God as they judged the people of Israel.  It was God who put them in their positions of leadership.  In Exodus 7:1, God said to Moses, “See, I have made you a god to Pharaoh.”  In Exodus 21:6, as well as Exodus 22:8, 9, and 28, the word translated “judges” is the Hebrew word “Elohim” which literally means “gods”.  Jesus has brought His argument to its logical conclusion.  He is saying to His accusers:  “Don’t stone Me just because I use the word “God”.  Look at all the people in the Scriptures who were called “gods”, and the Scriptures can’t be wrong.”  Jesus didn’t have to prove what He said to them because they knew those Scriptures.  After hearing those words, the Jewish leaders started relaxing their grip.  I can envision those stones slipping from their hands and falling to the ground beside their feet.  You’ll see what I mean when we look at the next several verses of Scripture.  They have lost that argument and the crowd that has gathered around them knows it.

IV.  A CONCESSION (verses 37-38)

Now that Jesus has deflated their argument for stoning Him to death, He makes them a concession in verses 37-38.  “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.” Jesus knew that, if they would believe His works, it wouldn’t be long before they would believe in Him.  This was the case for one of the most well-known illusionists in the world.  Early in his career, Andre Kole considered himself to be an atheist and he was skeptical of Christianity.  He was challenged to investigate the miracles of Christ with the intent of proving them to be illusions or tricks and exposing Jesus Christ as a fraud.  However, his quest had the opposite result.  Becoming convinced that Jesus’ works were genuine miracles, Andre became a devoted follower of Jesus Christ and used his abilities as a means of presenting the Gospel message to thousands of people around the world.

More recently, a well-known Christian illusionist and escape artist, Brock Gill, set aside his personal beliefs to explore the miracles of Jesus Christ objectively for a BBC television company.  In every case, Gill concluded that Jesus could not have tricked people into believing they had experienced a miracle.  There was no doubt in his mind that the mighty works of Jesus were actual miracles.

V.  THE RESULTS (verses 39-42)

Verse 39 tells us what happened after Jesus finished speaking.  It says, “Therefore they were seeking again to seize Him, and He eluded their grasp.”   Notice that it says “seize Him”, not “stone Him”.  As I mentioned earlier, the stones that were in their hands have already fallen to the ground.”  Now the Jews want to take Him into custody while they figure out what they are going to do next.  That plan didn’t work either because Jesus eluded their grasp.  His time had not yet come.

Jesus and His disciples escaped.  They left Jerusalem and went to a place of refuge.  Verse 40 says, “And He went away again beyond the Jordan to the place where John was first baptizing, and He was staying there.”  The place the apostle John is referring to is on the other side of the Jordan River and about twenty miles from Jerusalem.  Why did He choose to go there?  There may be several reasons.  It was a place of safety because the Jews wouldn’t pursue Him that far from Jerusalem.  It was also a special place for Jesus.  His betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion were only a week away, and Jesus has returned to the place where His public ministry began.  He was baptized here by John the Baptist, and it was here that John the Baptist proclaimed Jesus to be the Messiah and urged his own disciples to follow Jesus.  Possibly the main reason Jesus decided to go to this particular region is given in verses 41 and 42.  “And many came to Him and were saying, ‘While John performed no sign, yet everything John said about this man was true.’  And many believed in Him there.”  These people must have listened to the preaching of John the Baptist while he was in their neighborhood, preaching and baptizing.  Some of them may have been baptized by John.  It is now almost three years after the death of John the Baptist, yet these people still remember John’s words to them, and everything he said about Jesus has been proven to be true.  As a result, many believed in Him.  John the Baptist didn’t perform any signs (miracles), but he spoke about Jesus in such a way that people wanted to find out if what John said was actually true.

Bible commentator, Leon Morris, shares the following story about a ringing telephone.  A harried housewife picked it up and shouted, “Sorry, I can’t talk now.  Our white mouse is loose in the kitchen and I have to catch him before the cat does.”  She left the receiver dangling, and strange noises filtered through for the next five minutes or so.  Then she picked up the phone and heard a strange voice say, “Excuse me, lady, I know I have the wrong number.  But I just had to find out.  Who got the mouse?”  Like this lady, John the Baptist was not a person of eloquent speech, but He spoke about Jesus in such a way that his hearers wanted to find out more about Him.  Therefore, the Lord Jesus found genuine faith among these people.  They came to the realization that everything John the Baptist said about Jesus was true, so they put their trust in Him because of who He was, not because of what He did.

CONCLUSION:

This event in Jesus’ life tells us a lot about His own view of Scripture.  He held the Scriptures in the highest possible esteem.  No one has ever had a deeper reverence for God’s Word than Himself.  He read it, studied it, memorized it, meditated on it, obeyed it. and shared it often from memory.  Jesus believed in the inspiration, the authority, and the truthfulness of all the Scriptures, and He came to fulfill the Scriptures.

What is your attitude toward God’s Word?  It is a reflection of your attitude toward Jesus Christ because He is the main focus of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.  If you’re not sure of your relationship to God and are not very familiar with the Bible, I challenge you to read the Bible and take a good look at what it says, as Andre Kole did.  Investigate the life of Jesus Christ, His miracles, the prophecies He fulfilled, His death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven.  Visit it, not as a tourist, but as an explorer.  There are two ways you can study the Bible:  studying it with your mind made up, or studying it to let it make up your mind.  If you will take that second approach to God’s Word, you will find every word of it to be true.  You will find Jesus to be all that He claims to be.  Your life will be changed when you turn it over to Jesus Christ.  You haven’t really lived until you’ve done so.  You have yet to learn the meaning of true joy and purpose in life.  You have yet to experience the relationship that gets better every day and never ends.

Fellow Christian, there’s gold and precious stones between the pages of God’s Word, but you’ve got to dig for it.  The deeper you dig, the more spiritual riches there are to be found.  Then, follow Jesus’ example and share the wealth with others.

CONSTRUCTION SITE:  COMPLETED

Thank you for visiting this completed construction site:  John 10:31-42.  There are over 150 messages on this blog site and you are welcome to visit them all.  I’m sharing the wealth with you.

SAY IT! WE DARE YOU! — John 10:22-30

John 10:22-30, Uncategorized

INTRODUCTION:

Do the words “I dare you” bring back any memories from your childhood?  Were you being challenged or coerced to do something you really didn’t want to do or say something you really didn’t want to say?  Was it something that might get you into trouble?  Did you give in to the pressure and take the dare?  Were there negative consequences?  Did you wish you hadn’t given in to the pressure?  Or did you refuse the dare in spite of the things people said to you?  Most of us have been in that situation at some point in our lives, haven’t we?

Jesus was no exception.  In this next passage of Scripture, John 10:22-30, we are going to see how Jesus responds to such treatment directed at Him.

I.  THE SETTING (verses 22-23)

The scene hasn’t changed, but the time has.  Verse 22 begins about two and a half months after verse 21.  The apostle John is going from one feast to the next.  Verse 22 begins with the words, “Then came the Feast of Dedication at Jerusalem.”  This was not one of the Old Testament feasts that God required the Jews to celebrate each year.  This feast celebrates the cleansing and rededication of the temple in 164 B.C. after the Maccabean revolt ended the harsh rule of Antiochus Epiphanes, the king of Syria.  It is still celebrated today as Hanukkah (“To dedicate”).  John probably tied these two feasts together because Jesus is, once again, going to be using the metaphor of the shepherd and his sheep.

The rest of verse 22 says, “It was winter”.  John may have written those words to confirm that it was no longer the Fall season, and as an explanation for Jesus’ presence in Solomon’s colonnade.  Jesus was poor and may not have possessed any cold-weather clothing.  Solomon’s colonnade, unlike the various courtyards in the temple, had a roof over it and offered some relief from the cold weather outside.

II.  THE CONFRONTATION (verse 24)

Jesus’ time of meditation comes to a quick halt as the Jewish leaders close in on Him and surround Him.  They have been planning and waiting for the time when Jesus would be back in their neighborhood again.  They’ve been rehearsing the question they want to ask Him, how they want to say it, and how they are going to respond to His answer.  Now Jesus was trapped within their circle and His forward progress had come to a sudden halt.  The leaders of the Jews had maneuvered themselves around Jesus so that escape was impossible.

In verse 24, they say to Him, “How long will you keep us in suspense?  If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”  They phrase their words in such a way as to put the blame on Him, and they are saying, “How long are you going to disturb and upset us by your teachings?  It’s your own fault that we don’t believe you.  If you’re the Christ, then say the words:  ‘I am the Christ [the Messiah].’  We dare you!”  They are “twisting Jesus’ arm”, so to speak, in order to get Him to say what they want Him to say.

III.  JESUS’ INITIAL RESPONSE (verse 25)

When you were growing up, can you remember hearing the words, “I told you already but you weren’t listening”?  If you’re a parent, you may have said those words to your children.  It’s humiliating and embarrassing to be on the receiving end of those words, isn’t it?  How about the phrase, “How many times do I have to tell you!”  That one really makes you feel ashamed.  Jesus is about to give these leaders a “gentle scolding”, at least that’s how it starts.  He looks around at them and says, “I told you, and you do not believe”.

When did Jesus tell them that He was the Messiah?  That’s a question that needs an explanation.  Jesus never said to the Jews, “I am the Messiah”.  Only in His conversation with the woman at the well in Sychar, did Jesus say, “I who speak to you am He” when she spoke of the coming Messiah (John 4:26).  However, the word “Messiah” had a different meaning to the leaders of the Jews.  They believed the Messiah would come suddenly with the armies of heaven to conquer the Romans.  They pictured Him as a handsome, distinguished man dressed in Royal robes.  The Lord Jesus was the opposite of that description.

When Jesus said, “I told you”, He may have been referring primarily to the description He gave them of Himself two months earlier, right there in the temple.  At that time, they were listening as Jesus referred to Himself as the true shepherd and called Himself “the door of the sheepfold”, and “the good shepherd”.  There are many Old Testament scripture passages that refer to God as a shepherd, such as Genesis 49:24; Psalm 23, Isaiah 40, Jeremiah 23; Ezekiel 34, and Zechariah 11.  They were familiar with those scriptures.  They knew those words were the equivalent of calling Himself the Messiah.  The word “shepherd” was often used as a figure of speech, referring to the ruling king (1 Kings 22:17).

In the rest of verse 25, Jesus continues by saying, “the works that I do in My Father’s name, these bear witness of Me.”  Not only did Jesus tell them, but He also showed them by His miracles that He was the promised Messiah.  Many of His miracles fulfilled the prophecies that were made about the Messiah in the Old Testament scriptures.  Isaiah 35 speaks of the coming of the Messiah, and in verses 35 and 36, the prophet Isaiah describes the miracles He will perform saying,  “Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped.  Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb will shout for joy.”    Isaiah mentions these miracles several times in his book of prophecies, and he wrote those prophecies down over 700 years before the birth of the Lord Jesus.  The Jewish leaders were very familiar with those prophecies.  They also knew that Jesus performed every miracle on the list.  Those amazing miracles, along with many others, offered conclusive evidence that Jesus was the promised Messiah, yet they refused to believe and chose to oppose Him all the more.  The problem wasn’t a lack of evidence, but a lack of faith in spite of the evidence.  Why didn’t these leaders become convinced by the evidence and respond to Jesus in faith as other people have done?

III.  THE CAUSE OF THEIR UNBELIEF (verse 26)

In verse 16, Jesus gave them the reason for their opposition to Him.  He said, “But you do not believe because you are not My sheep.”  Others have believed based upon that evidence, so the problem wasn’t a lack of evidence.  Notice what Jesus did not say.  He didn’t say, “You are not My sheep because you do not believe.”  In that one sentence, Jesus is communicating the God-ward and the man-ward aspects of salvation.  They were not chosen to be His sheep and given the gift of faith, and they chose not to be His sheep by their unbelief.  From a human standpoint, a person becomes His sheep by believing, but from the divine standpoint, a person believes because he or she is God’s sheep.  Divine sovereignty and human responsibility are wrapped up in those words of the Lord Jesus (John 6:36-37; John 8:47).

IV.  THE RESULTS OF FOLLOWING HIM (verses 27-29)

In verses 27-29, Jesus proceeds to tell them what they are missing.  I consider these three verses to be the strongest and clearest passage on the assurance of salvation in all the scriptures.  Jesus begins by saying, “My sheep listen to my voice.”  They listen with the desire to obey their shepherd.  Then He says, “I know them.”  Jesus has a personal relationship with each of them.  They are special to Him.  Just as He said in verse 14, “I know my own and my own know me.”  For these reasons “they follow me”.  They trust their Shepherd and follow Him wherever He leads them.  Jesus is speaking of those who have placed their trust in Him, yielded their lives to His control, and seek to be led by Him and imitate Him.

Now Jesus describes to his listeners the greatest miracle that He has ever performed.  It is greater than all of His physical miracles because it is a spiritual miracle and it lasts forever.  It’s a miracle that He continues to perform in the lives of people today – people He knows intimately and has drawn to Himself.  The Lord Jesus begins His description of that miracle in verse 28 when He says, “and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of My hand.”  Eternal life sounds like a good deal, doesn’t it?  But it’s not just the length of life but also the quality of life, both now and forever.  King David gives us a taste of heaven in Psalm 16:11, where he says, “Thou wilt make known to me the path of life; In Thy presence is fullness of joy; In Thy right hand there are pleasures forever.”  Heaven is not only going to be a place of eternal life, but also of eternal enjoyment.  When we think about what we will be missing, it adds to the enjoyment of what we receive by the grace of God.  Jesus said, “. . . they shall never perish”.  The word “perish” means to be destroyed forever, to be punished in hell for all eternity.  That is what we all deserve because of our sins, and that is what Christ delivers us from when we choose, by His enabling, to follow Him.

All of us like the feeling of security, don’t we.  We like to feel secure in our jobs and in our relationships with people.  Here is an example of the loss of security.  The sales manager of a company and one of his sales representatives stood looking at a map on which colored pins indicated the company representatives in each area.  “I’m not going to fire you, Wilson”, the manager said, “but I’m loosening your pin a bit to emphasize the insecurity of your situation.”  There’s one employee who went home feeling anxious and insecure!  If you are a devoted follower of Jesus Christ, you can rest in the fact that your eternal security isn’t pinned to a wall;  it’s nailed to the cross of Christ.  He did it all.

I love the imagery that Jesus used here in verse 28, and also in verse 29, to describe the security of the believer in Him.  He said, “no one shall snatch them out of My hand.”  We use our hands to hold and secure an object.  Likewise, we are safely and comfortably in His grip, and nothing or no one is going to be able to pry us loose because He is never going to let go of us.  But Jesus doesn’t stop there in His description of our security as His sheep.  He adds, in verse 29, “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all.”  We were a gift from the Father to Jesus before the foundation of the world (John 17:9-10; Ephesians 1:3-6), and His Father is “greater than all”.  He is the greatest power in the universe and He cares about His sheep and loves them also.  The proof of the Father’s love and care is found in the next statement made by Jesus:  “no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”  If you’re a true child of God, evidenced by a changed life, you’re in the best of hands.

Why did Jesus change His imagery from the shepherd to the imagery of hands?  Didn’t the shepherd imagery convey protection and security strongly enough to his listeners?  As always, Jesus has a good reason for what He says and does.  Once again, Jesus is taking the minds of these leaders of the Jews on a journey back into the Old Testament scriptures, this time to the Psalms.  There are many places in the Old Testament that speak about the hand of God but there are four verses from three different psalms that are directly related to Jesus’ use of the word “hand”, and He is refreshing their memories.  The first verse is Psalm 119:173, which says, “Let your hand be ready to help me.”  The Psalmist is saying, “I need your hand” – “I need the security of knowing that you are near and prepared to act on my behalf because you care about me.”  In Psalm 115, the psalmist contrasts the heathen idols with the Lord, and in verse 7 he says, “They [the idols] have hands, but they cannot feel.”  Idols have no feeling in their hands because they aren’t alive.  They lack emotions and sensitivity.  The last verse ties directly into the passage of scripture we are studying.  Psalm 95:6-7 says, “Come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.  For He is our God, and we are the people of His pastures, and the sheep of His hand.”   Then, in verse 8, the psalmist says, “Don’t harden your hearts.” 

Jesus brought those psalms to their minds for a reason.  He’s saying to His listeners, “Your Maker and your true Shepherd is standing in your midst.  You’re surrounding Him!  Come close to Me and worship Me with humble and joyful hearts, as the psalmist said.”  “Obey the words of the psalmist and don’t harden your hearts to Me and My words.”  Jesus is giving them an invitation to worship Him, and He adds to the words of the psalmist when He says, in John 10:30, “I and the Father are one.”  He and the Father unite their hands of protection because they are one and the same God.  Charles Spurgeon said, “It’s like the church bells ringing, calling out and inviting the people to worship.”

CONCLUSION:

Are you a worshiper of God?  Are you a worshiper of Jesus Christ?  You can’t be a worshiper of the true God if you are not a worshiper of the Lord Jesus Christ because He is God (John 1:1-3, 14).  All of us are worshipers.  We all worship someone or something.  We all value something more highly than anything else.  Each of our lives is oriented in a particular direction and this orientation affects our thoughts, our motives, and our priorities.

Do you hear the “church bells” ringing in your heart?  Is God inviting you and drawing you to worship the only true God?  That’s the proper response to the Lord Jesus Christ because He is God.  As the psalmist said, “Don’t harden your hearts.”  Respond to His leading and draw close to Him.  Make Him the object of your worship today.

If you are a devoted worshiper and follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, you can learn from Jesus’ example as He responded to the external pressures exerted upon him by the Jewish leaders.  He didn’t give in to their demands but stood His ground as they tried to force Him to say things that would be misinterpreted and used against Him. The Lord Jesus always did the will of His heavenly Father while He was here on this earth.  That was His delight because of the closeness of their relationship.  As His sheep, it should be our delight to follow Him in spite of opposition because our closest and most secure relationship on this earth is with Him.  

Here is a true story of how sheep reacted when others were trying to lead them astray.  During World War I, some Turkish soldiers tried to steal a flock of sheep from a hillside near Jerusalem.  The shepherd, who had been sleeping, suddenly awakened to see his sheep being driven off on the other side of the ravine.  He could not hope to recapture his flock by force single-handedly, but suddenly he had a thought.  Standing up on his side of the ravine, he put his hands to his mouth and gave his own peculiar call, which he used each day to gather his sheep to him.  The sheep heard the familiar sound.  For a moment they listened and then, hearing it again, they turned and rushed down one side of the ravine and up the other toward their shepherd.  It was impossible for the soldiers to stop the animals.  The shepherd was away with them to a place of safety before the soldiers could make up their minds to pursue them — and all because his sheep knew their master’s voice and wanted to be with him and follow him.

When others try to manipulate you or lead you astray, remember whose sheep you are and choose to follow closely after Him.  You’ll be glad you did, and so will He. 

CONSTRUCTION SITE:  COMPLETED

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THE GOOD SHEPHERD — John 10:11-21

Good Shepherd, John 10:11-21, Uncategorized

INTRODUCTION:

One of Billy Graham’s evangelistic films Is based upon the true story of a Christian man who became a hero.  Over one hundred years ago, this young man, whose real name was Nagano Massao, was working with a railroad company in Japan, far away from his fiancee.  He worked hard every day and finally the time came to go back to his fiancee and marry her.

On his way back home, just before the peak of a steep hill, the train suddenly shook hard and stopped.  When this young man went to the front of the passenger car, he found that it was disconnected from the rest of the train.  It then began to roll backward down the steep slope.  Since he had worked for the railroad, he knew there was a sharp curve behind them that the passenger car could not handle.  It would be thrown off the tracks, killing the passengers.  He tried to stop the car with the hand brake, but he failed.  Then he remembered his favorite verse in the Bible:  “Greater love has no man than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”  Although this man had everything to live for, he jumped on the train tracks and stopped the passenger car with his body  He literally laid down his life to save the lives of many.  The film, based upon that true story, is entitled, “Shiokari Pass”.

Nagano Massao (whose name was changed in the movie), voluntarily sacrificed his own life to save the lives of the other passengers on that railroad car.  It was the only way, and he chose to follow the example of his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  In the passage of Scripture we are now studying, John 10:11-21, Jesus continues to use the analogy of a shepherd to describe Himself.  We are going to see what Jesus meant when He called Himself the good shepherd.

I. ANOTHER COMPARISON (verses 11-13)

Jesus is once again comparing Himself to the Jewish leaders of that day.  He says, “I am the good shepherd”.  This is the fourth time that the Lord uses the words “I AM”, telling his listeners that He is the One who spoke to Moses saying, “Thus you shall to the sons of Israel, I AM has sent me to you” (Exodus 3:14).  Then Jesus calls Himself the “good shepherd”.  There are several words for “good” in the Greek language.   The word that is used in verse 11 is  “kalos”, which means “beautiful”, “excellent”, “good by nature.”  It describes the ideal, the perfect example to follow.  We get the word, “calligraphy”, which means “beautiful writing” from the word, “kalos”.  Why is that word used?  We find the answer to that question in Mark 10:17-18.  A man comes to Jesus and calls Him “Good Teacher”. Jesus responds to him by saying, “Why do you call Me good?  No one is good but God alone.”  He is saying to the man, “To call me ‘good’ is to call Me ‘God’.”

In the rest of verse 11, Jesus states His reason for calling Himself the “good shepherd” when He says, “The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.”  The word “for” means “in place of”.  Bear in mind that Jewish shepherds in Palestine did not tend their sheep in order to slaughter them unless the sheep were used as sacrifices to God for the forgiveness of sin.  They shepherded the sheep in order that the sheep might give them wool, milk, and lambs.  Jesus is saying that He is the good shepherd because He Himself is going to be that slaughtered lamb who will give Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of His people.  When He talked about laying down His life for the sheep, His listeners must have thought He was crazy.  A shepherd might risk his life for his sheep, but in his mind, he thinks he’s going to win the fight.  If he didn’t think he was going to win, he would let the wild animal kill one or two sheep while he protected the others.  Soon that animal would be on its way with a full stomach!  But Jesus said He was going to intentionally lay down in front of that wild animal and say, “make a meal out of Me instead of My sheep!”  That’s ridiculous!  He would be killed and His sheep would be without a shepherd!  They would all be killed by other wild animals and he would be to blame for it!  The Pharisees couldn’t grasp the meaning of His metaphor, so, once again, Jesus brings them back into the picture by way of contrast to Himself.

In verses 1-10, Jesus referred to them as thieves and robbers.  Now He has another name for them.  In verse 12 He says, “He who is the hireling, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, beholds the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep, and flees, and the wolf snatches them, and scatters them.”  Here, Jesus refers to the Pharisees as “hirelings”. After having called them “thieves and robbers” in verse 8, this new description almost seems like a compliment!  However, the context has changed.  Not only are they not part of His sheepfold, but they are also not worthy to be called shepherds.  They are hirelings and the worst and lowliest of hirelings.  They don’t care about the sheep.  All they care about is their pay and their own selfish interests.  They didn’t receive “hazardous duty pay” or a bonus for protecting the sheep so when danger came, they fled, leaving the sheep alone and defenseless.  The Pharisees demonstrated that attitude by the way they treated the blind man and his parents.  As you can see, Jesus knew how to rebuke those who needed it.  He had a way of bringing people back to reality whether they wanted to see it and acknowledge it or not.

II.  HIS KNOWLEDGE OF THE SHEEP (verses 14-15)

In verses 14 and 15, Jesus talks about His personal knowledge of the sheep.  In this computer age, it’s easy to begin to feel like a number instead of a person.  We are identified by our social security number rather than our name.  We get “junk mail” addressed to “resident” or “occupant”.  We get promotional emails from people we don’t know and who don’t know us.  Such impersonal methods may cause some people to conclude, “Nobody cares for me.”  But that’s not true.  Jesus Christ knows who you are.  He knows your name.  You matter to Him.

Edward VII was the king of England from 1901 to 1910.  One day he was visiting a city to lay the foundation for a new hospital.  Thousands of school children were present to sing for Him.  After the ceremony, the king walked past the excited youngsters.  Soon after he had passed by, a teacher saw one of her students crying.  She asked her, “Why are you crying?  Didn’t you see the king?  “Yes”, the little girl sobbed, “but the king didn’t see me.”  King Edward couldn’t have taken notice of each child in that crowd.  The Lord Jesus, however, knows each one of us.  Though we can’t see Him, He sees us, knows our names, and cares for each one of us individually.  He not only knows our names, but He also knows our needs and everything about us.  2 Timothy 2:19 says, “The Lord knows those who are His.”

In verse 15, Jesus compares His knowledge of us to the knowledge that He and His Father have of each other.  It is complete and perfect knowledge.  After making this comparison, Jesus goes on to say again, “I lay down my life for the sheep.”  His knowledge of the Father is tied to His obedience to the Father.  He knows that it is the Father’s will that He lay down His life.  That decision was made by God before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:3-7).

For most Jews during that day and age, killing a lamb and offering it as a sacrifice to God for one’s sins was not much of an ordeal.  But for a shepherd to kill a sheep from his own flock, a sheep he had known since its birth, a sheep he called by name and cared for daily, it must have been a difficult and tearful experience.  With his own hand, he was killing something that he knew and loved.

The following story left a deep impression on the father of a young child.  When telling his young daughter the story of Abraham and Isaac, a father related how God had finally told Abraham not to kill Isaac and had provided a sacrificial lamb instead.  The little girl looked up with a sad expression and said, “I don’t like killing lambs.”  The father was speechless for a moment and then realized what traumatic and memorable events sacrifices were.  How serious the killing of an innocent lamb for sacrifice, and how destructive the reason for the sacrifice:  sin.  If the killing of a pure white lamb seems horrendous, how immeasurably more was the crucifixion of the Lamb of God.

III.  THE FOLD AND THE FLOCK (verse 16)

In verse 16, Jesus stretches the imaginations of His listeners even further when He says, “And I have other sheep which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they shall hear My voice, and they shall become one flock with one shepherd.”  There is a big difference between a fold and a flock.  The “fold” is Judaism, as in verse one.  The term “fold” refers to the enclosure or structure that contains the sheep, or the people of Judaism in this case.  The “flock”, on the other hand, focuses upon the shepherd and all the sheep that belong to him.  So, when Jesus refers to other sheep, He is referring to the Gentiles, those who are not Jews.  He demonstrated His love for the Gentiles when He witnessed to the Samaritan woman at the well, and then to all the men of the city of Sychar in Samaria.  Jesus is going to be drawing people from the sheepfold of Judaism and from the sheepfolds of the Gentiles also.  They will come together as one flock (the Church) and Jesus will be the Shepherd of that whole flock.  All this will happen as a result of His atoning death for sin and His resurrection from the dead.  In Jesus’ flock, there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, between races, between sexes, or between social classes.  They will all have the same relationship to the shepherd.  All who are Christ’s sheep belong to His flock, and what an enormous flock it has become!

IV.  HIS VICTORIOUS DEATH (verses 17-18)

In verses 17 and 18, Jesus talks about His death for the third time, saying, “I lay down my life”, and goes on to give further explanation.  You would think that they would be catching on to what He is saying.  There’s a lesson to be learned from these repetitions:  When Jesus repeats Himself, pay attention!  Repetition implies importance.  There is something that He wants His listeners (and His readers) to understand.

Jesus is telling His listeners, in advance, the answer to the age-old question:  “Who killed Jesus?”  Was it the Jewish leaders and the Romans?  Did they murder Jesus?  They had something to do with it, but Jesus laid down His life voluntarily.  He wasn’t murdered because a murdered man is a helpless man.  Jesus’ life wasn’t taken from Him against His will.  He came from heaven to earth in order to die.  Then, did Jesus commit suicide?  Isn’t a voluntary death suicide?  No.  Voluntary death is suicide unless it is for the life of another or to save the lives of others.  When the Father was satisfied that His Son paid the penalty for our sins, Jesus Christ cried out with a loud voice saying, “It is finished!”  He then put His head in a position of rest and voluntarily yielded His spirit to the Father (John 19:30).  His death was neither a murder nor a suicide, but it was a sacrifice.  Since all of us are sinners, all of us are the cause of the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross (Isaiah 53:6-7; 1 Peter 2:24).

But the story doesn’t end there.  Jesus said, “I lay down My life that I may take it up again . . . I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again.”  The word “authority” is used in this verse, not only in the sense of absolute power but also in the sense that it was His right and His freedom to accomplish the work for which He was sent.  Included in that work was not only His atoning death but also His victorious resurrection from the dead.  By repeating these words several times, Jesus is saying, “I’m supreme over life and death.”  The Lord Jesus and His Father are one.  There is no division between them in this matter of salvation.  They worked together in perfect harmony.

V.  THE RESPONSE (verses 19-21)

These statements made by Jesus were bound to cause a response from the Jewish leaders.  There was an immediate difference of opinion about His words.  Verse 19 says, “There arose a division among the Jews because of these words.”  The leaders of the Jews were no longer in complete agreement concerning Jesus.  The healing of the blind man and the words of Jesus caused a few of them to reconsider His claims.  Verse 20 says, “And many of them were saying, ‘He has a demon and is insane.  Why do you listen to Him?”  They have made that statement before and have no basis for it.  I think they are saying those words loudly as a rebuke to those who were listening intently to Jesus’ words.  In verse 21, we get the response of the minority.  They said, “These are not the sayings of one demon-possessed.  A demon cannot open the eyes of a man born blind.”  They were looking at the evidence of Jesus’ words and Jesus’ miracles and they could not refute it.

CONCLUSION:

It’s impossible to be neutral about Jesus Christ.  His claims, His character, His miracles, His fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, His death, resurrection, and appearances, and the changed lives of those who follow Him leave people with no excuse.  There are some people who will do almost anything, and say almost anything in order to avoid facing the truth.  What we believe about Jesus Christ is a matter of eternal life and death.

In this passage of scripture, John 10:11-21, we have learned how well the Lord Jesus fits His description of the good shepherd.  He is present with them (Matthew 28:20), knows them by name, loves and cares for them, and is prepared to lay down His life for them so that they might be with Him for eternity.  We also learn, from this passage of scripture, that we are a lot like sheep.  Are you a lost sheep, or has Jesus brought you into His fold?

Jesus calls people sheep for good reasons.  Like sheep, we are also followers.  We are all following something or someone, looking for happiness, contentment, and peace of mind.  King Solomon, in the book of Ecclesiastes, tells us about his pursuits of wisdom, pleasure, and work.  In each case, he found that it was “meaningless, emptiness, striving after wind” (Ecclesiastes 1:14).  There was no lasting meaning, purpose, or joy in the pursuit of those things.  In Ecclesiastes 12:13 Solomon comes to a conclusion.  I like the way the New Living Translation puts it:  “That’s the whole story.  Here now is my final conclusion:  fear God and obey His commandments for this is everyone’s duty.”  In other words, “follow God.”  No one and nothing else is worth following.

The Lord Jesus has described Himself as the Good Shepherd, possessing immeasurable goodness and perfect love.  He’s the Shepherd who chose to be the sacrificial lamb to pay the price that our sins deserve.  I’m closing with the words of Isaiah 53:5-6, and invite you to consider whether this is the person you want to follow with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, for the rest of your life.

“But He was pierced through for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him
and by His scourging, we are healed.
All of us like sheep have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
but God has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.” 

CONSTRUCTION SITE:  COMPLETED

TRADITION MEETS CONVICTION — John 9:13-23

John 9:13-23, Uncategorized

INTRODUCTION:

As you think of people in the Bible who were bullies, what names come to your mind?  I immediately thought of Goliath, the Philistine giant who defied the army of Israel, challenging them to send a man out to fight against him.  As he shouted at them and taunted them day after day, I Samuel 17:11 says, “Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.”  Verse 24 says, “they ran from him in fear.”  Have you ever been bullied by a person or by a group of people?  Maybe you acted like a bully yourself at some point in your life.

In the previous sermon on John 9:1-12, we studied the healing of the man who was born blind and the negative reaction he received from his neighbors.  They refused to believe what had happened to him but they couldn’t deny or refute his testimony.  One of the major sources of frustration in people is limited resources.  The man’s neighbors didn’t have the theological training or experience to enable them to handle this situation.  In their pride, they were unwilling to give up the fight so they decided to take it to the next level.  This court case isn’t over yet!  They are taking it to the “Court of Appeals”.

I.  ADVANCE TO A HIGHER COURT (verse 13)

Verse 13 says, “They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind.”  By doing so, these Jews disobeyed the Law that God gave to Moses.  Deuteronomy 17:9-11 and Deuteronomy 19:17 states that it is the responsibility of the priests to interpret the law and settle disputes.  Instead, they went to the Pharisees, a sect of “separatists” that wasn’t even in existence when the Law of Moses was written.   The power structure in Jerusalem had changed over the years and the Scriptures were no longer the standard by which people were judged and instructed.

From a human standpoint, this healed man’s escort service was taking him to the ones who might fight for their cause and eliminate their frustrations.  The Pharisees were the “theological bullies” of that day, and when push comes to shove, they had the arguments, the interrogation tactics and the public status to get the job done.  Let’s see what happens next.

II.  THE SESSION BEGINS (verse 14-15)

Before the questioning begins, the apostle John reminds his readers of an important fact that is going to be the major focus of their questions.  He says in verse 14, “Now the day on which Jesus made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was the Sabbath.”  Jesus had broken “their Sabbath laws”, not God’s when He performed that miracle.

The “court” is now in session and the healed man has been placed on the witness stand.  The first question the Pharisees ask this man is the same question his neighbors asked him.  Verse 15 says, “Therefore, the Pharisees also asked him how he received his sight.”  How?  They are asking him for an explanation?  This was a miracle!  You can’t explain a miracle!  It’s an impossible event — something that only God could do!  By using the word “how”, the neighbors and the Pharisees were saying, We don’t believe you.  There’s got to be a logical explanation for this, so tell us what really happened.”

I have a personal, true story of a physical healing miracle that God performed in my life and there was an appropriate response to it.  Many years ago an echocardiogram showed that I had a leaking heart valve [mitral valve prolapse] and a regurgitating aortic valve.  The cardiologist put me on a medication to help relieve the symptoms and said that I would probably need a valve replacement within 10 years.  Fifteen years had passed and the leak did not become worse.  He told me that this happens in less than one-in-a-thousand cases.  One day, while driving home from work, I fainted with no warning other than the sound of a car horn.  When I opened my eyes, there were two paramedics looking through the windshield at me.  My blood pressure was 70/40.  No wonder I fainted!  Another echocardiogram was taken, and at the consult afterward, my cardiologist said the following words to me:  “I am not a believer in miracles but I can’t explain this in any other way.  Your heart valve is no longer leaking.  It’s completely healed.  The medication you take also lowers blood pressure.  When your heart valve suddenly stopped leaking, the medicine caused your blood pressure to drop quickly.  I know of no case where this has ever happened before.  There will be an article written about your case for a medical journal.”  That’s a doctor who now believes in miracles!  It’s been almost 25 years since that day and I have had no issues with my heart.  A miracle doesn’t require an explanation!  It just needs confirmation and a celebration!

The man who was healed gave the Pharisees a description of what happened, not an explanation, saying, “He put mud on my eyes and I washed, and now I see.”  It’s basically the same answer he gave to his neighbors, presented clearly and simply.  That should have been the end of the discussion; but as it turns out, it’s only the beginning.

III.  A DISAGREEMENT TAKES PLACE (verses 16-17a)

What follows is a completely new experience for this formerly blind man.  During all those years of sitting and begging at the gate to the temple, he must have listened to many discussions and disagreements among the priests, scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees.  Now, for the first time in his life, he gets to watch and listen to a disagreement among the Pharisees.  He gazes intently at the expressions on their faces and the gestures they make.  Even the slightest movement of their bodies is noticeable to him.

The apostle John describes this event in verse 16.  “Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.’  But others asked, ‘How can a sinner do such miraculous signs?’  So they were divided.”  As he watches and listens, this formerly blind man realizes which group holds the majority view and which has the minority view.  The first group is committed to their own traditions and laws.  They speak of Jesus as “this man” [this carpenter from Nazareth, this uneducated “nobody”].  It’s an expression of contempt and rejection.  Jesus’ miracles can’t be denied so they decide to ignore and reject them.  The second group of Pharisees responds by asking a question.  They are looking at the evidence of Jesus’ miracles and questioning whether their own beliefs and traditions about the Sabbath day are correct.  The evidence is obviously on the side of the second group, but experts say that the best way to win an argument is to shout louder than your opponent or opponents.   The Pharisees who raised that question are trying to be realistic and look at the situation objectively.  The other group must have been yelling as loudly as they could in order to defend their own interpretation of the law in spite of the evidence.  These Pharisees were demonstrating a second major cause of frustration:  not being able to have their own way.  As the saying goes, “If you want to be in the game, you have to play by our rules.”  They must have won the argument because we don’t read anything more about that argument in the verses that follow.  The minority must have joined the majority.

After having won that argument, the strict traditionalists among the Pharisees do something uncharacteristic of them:  they ask this beggar for his opinion about the matter.  Verse 17 says, “Finally, they turned again to the blind man, ‘What have you to say about him?  It was your eyes he opened’.”  These Pharisees wouldn’t ask advice from a beggar concerning religious issues.  If we had been there, standing next to that beggar, and had heard those words being spoken and watched the expressions on the faces of those Pharisees, I think we would have immediately realized that this was not a question but a challenge.  With an air of victory in their tone of voice, they said to him, “Are you going to give in as the others did, or do you want to try to take us on?”  They’re acting like bullies again!

IV.  A COURAGEOUS RESPONSE (verse 17b)

The man who received his sight is up to the challenge.  Based upon his limited understanding and his personal experience, he gives them a clear and immediate answer by saying, “He is a prophet”.  Notice what this man did not say.  He didn’t say, “I think he’s a prophet”, nor did he say, “He might be a prophet”.  There was no doubt in his mind and there’s no argument about his words.  Moses, Elijah, and Elisha were prophets, and they performed miracles as proof that they were sent by God.  This man is growing in his understanding of who Jesus is, and he’s not afraid to proclaim it out loud to these Pharisees, in spite of what they might do to him.

The man’s claim leaves them speechless.  They can’t deny that Jesus’ miracles are proof that He has the qualifications of a prophet sent from God.  There was also a popular saying and belief among the Jews in those days that a prophet could break the law of the sabbath, and be guiltless.  The Pharisees have traveled down another dead-end street.  Are they ready to give in and accept reality?  Not in your life! They are still struggling to maintain outward control of this situation.  They continue to give the impression that they know what they are doing.  In reality, however, they are at their wit’s end.  I can hear them saying to themselves, “What do we do now?”

V.  INTERROGATION OF THE PARENTS (verses 18-23)

Verse 18 begins with the words:  “The Jews still did not believe that he had been born blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man’s parents.”  They refuse to believe the evidence and the testimony of the blind man, so they seek some other way to discredit the man and the miracle. A thought comes to their minds:  “Why don’t we bring his parents in for questioning.  Maybe we can exert enough pressure on them and instill enough fear in them to cause them to deny that he is their son, or to state that he was not born blind.  Maybe we can compel them to say that his sight improved in some other way than a miracle by Jesus.  If we succeed, we might turn the people against Jesus by declaring this miracle to be a hoax and Jesus to be a false prophet.  It’s worth a try.”  The little word “until”, in verse 18, informs us that this idea is also doomed for failure. 

The parents are asked three questions:  “Is this your son?”, “Was he born blind?”, and “How does he now see?”.  The parents answered the first two questions without hesitation.  They knew that he was their son and they knew that he was born blind.  The parents of the blind man didn’t answer the third question for two reasons.  First, they were not eye-witnesses.  Therefore they could not give legal evidence.  The second reason is given in verse 22.  The man’s parents “were afraid of the Jews, for already the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue.”  That’s a terrible thought and a dreadful experience.  The phrase, “put out of the synagogue”  is similar to that of excommunication but the consequences are even worse.  The person was excluded from the synagogue worship services and treated like a leper.  He was excluded from all contact with other Jews and had to keep a distance of at least 4 cubits (6 feet) from one’s spouse and friends.  When such people died, they were given no funeral.  It was a social, economic and religious disgrace.  Depending upon the degree of the offense, this punishment could be temporary (30 days) or permanent over a person’s lifetime.  In this case, it appears that the Jewish leaders were threatening the followers of Jesus Christ with a permanent excommunication.

So the man’s parents responded by saying, “But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know.  Ask him.  He is of age; he will speak for himself.”  End of discussion.  By reminding these Pharisees of the laws of testimony and evidence, his parents just closed the door of opportunity.  “Plan B” failed.  In the next message, we are going to discover that the Jews follow the parents’ advice and set up another interview with the blind man.  It’s the end of round two but the fight isn’t over yet.  There’s one more round to go.  “Plan C” is on the drawing board.  We’ll see how the fight ends and determine the winner as we study John 9:24-41.

CONCLUSION: 

In Exodus 34:8, Moses is speaking to God and he calls the people of Israel a “stiff-necked people”.  The Hebrew word literally means “hard-necked”.  It was used in the Old Testament and the New Testament to refer to an ox which stubbornly refused to respond to its owner’s prodding with the ox-goad that was in his hand.  An ox-goad is a long, light-weight pole with an iron spike at the end of it.  The farmer would hit the ox on one side of the neck or the other to get the ox to turn in that direction.  Some oxen would stubbornly refuse to do so.  You’ve probably heard the phrase, “As stubborn as an ox”.  Like the stiff-necked ox, these Pharisees were determined to go in their own direction in spite of the evidence and the prodding of Jesus to follow the way of the Father who sent Him. 

I hope that’s not a description of you at this moment.  If so, please ask God to open your eyes to the truths in His Word and respond in faith and obedience to His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.  He will turn your stubbornness into enthusiasm and wholehearted obedience to Him.   

CONSTRUCTION SITE: COMPLETED

May God open your eyes to new truths in His Word and new applications to your own life.