Sunday night we study through the Bible from
Genesis to Revelation, and tonight we find ourselves
in John chapter 7, chapter 7 verse 1.
After these things Jesus walked in Galilee, for
he did not want to walk in Judea,
Galilee being the northern section of Israel, Judea
being the southern portion of Israel, and the
headquarters of kind of the whole spiritual religious
system of those days, Jerusalem being the center
of that.
And he didn't want to walk in Judea
because the Jews sought to kill him.
The plot, they have been upset now for
a very long time over Jesus' healing of
the man who was lame at the pools
of Bethesda from chapter 5.
And they're upset not only that he healed
this man on the Sabbath day in violation,
not of God's will, but in violation of
their traditions and their interpretations, but that he
then ordered him to carry his mat on
the Sabbath day and get out of here.
You're not about this place anymore.
This is the testimony of a changed life.
And so in telling him to take up
his bed or his mat and to leave
this place, he was calling him to carry
a burden on the Sabbath day, which also
violated their particular interpretation of things.
And so they're still really steamed at him
over all of this, and they want to
kill him.
And it's not a very well-kept secret
that they desire to kill Jesus.
In fact, Jesus is quite aware of it,
even up in the Galilee.
Now the Jews feast of tabernacles was at
hand.
Now we know from chapter 6, verse 4,
that the events of chapter 6 surrounded the
feast of Passover.
The feast of Passover takes place each year
in about what is our April.
And this feast of tabernacles takes place in
what is typically our late September, early October.
So you have between chapter 6 and chapter
7, you have a period of several months
that have gone by, four, five, six months
have gone by that we really don't have
a record of what he did during that
period.
John isn't that concerned in giving us a
complete record of everything that Jesus did, but
the record that the Holy Spirit gave him
to record was one that would cause a
person upon reading it to become a believer
in the Lord Jesus.
And so there is this period of time.
And from chapter 7 on, this is occurring
in about October, the October prior to Jesus's
crucifixion on the next day of Pentecost, which
is again about April.
So from John chapter 7, all the way
through to chapter 21, it covers a period
of about six months.
And in fact, the over the majority or
a huge portion of the book is going
to deal with the final 24 hours of
Jesus's life.
So that gives us a little bit of
a feel for when all of these things
are happening.
Now the feast of tabernacles was one of
the three great feasts of the Jewish religious
calendar.
And God had called for all male Jews
to attend the feast of Pentecost, of Passover,
and of tabernacles in Jerusalem.
Was required by the law.
Well, as the Jewish people dispersed out throughout
the world, as you might recognize, if you
live very, very far away, you would spend
all of your traveling time traveling to and
from these feasts as a Jewish man, if
you didn't live right within the region.
And so they developed this kind of unwritten
law that if you lived within 20 miles
of Jerusalem, you were required to keep each
of the three feasts each year as a
Jewish man.
If you live beyond 20 miles from Jerusalem,
then you were to keep the feast as
often as you were able to do that.
Now the feast of tabernacles is an interesting
one because there are interesting practices that went
on and it was a seven day feast.
And what they would do is even if
you own a beautiful home in Jerusalem for
the one week of that feast, you and
your family would vacate your home and they
would build this little kind of a lean
to out of sticks, out of branches that
they would find.
And they would put this little walls up
and they'd put this little roof on this
lean to, and they would always be careful
not to make it so tight in terms
of the roof that you couldn't see the
stars and to see the moon.
And they would go in and they would
lie down underneath and they would look up
with their children up through those sticks and
they would see the stars.
And when the children and God was always
concerned that the miracles that he had done
in the lives of the fathers would be
passed on to the children.
And so when they would sit and say,
daddy, why are we leaving this beautiful house
that we own to go live in a
little lean to of sticks?
They'd lay and they look out at those
stars and the father would then tell them
that this is the way that our forefathers
lived for 40 years in the wandering in
the wilderness.
And that God was faithful to our people,
graciously faithful to them for all 40 years.
He provided for their food.
The soles of their sandals never wore out
in the 40 years.
And it was a time to educate the
children in the tremendous spiritual heritage that was
theirs.
And so it was a time to celebrate
God's faithfulness.
That was the spiritual meaning of it.
But because the feast landed at in October,
it was a time in which it was
also known as the feast of ingathering.
It was known as the feast of suck
off.
It was known as the feast of booths.
The booths were what they, they slept in,
but it was called the feast of ingathering
because it was a time where all of
the crops would be brought in.
And so there would be that celebration of
God's faithfulness for supplying our family, supplying our
nation once again with food.
And so the feast of tabernacles was one
of tremendous celebration.
God's faithful provision for 40 years.
Do we have any one here tonight?
Don't jump or do anything.
You could have, if I had a microphone,
I could work the aisles.
Have any of you walked with the Lord
for 40 years or more?
Show of hands.
That's great.
What's your testimony?
There we go.
All right.
Listen, it wasn't that great of a question.
Just kidding.
How self-centered I can be.
I can think that was for me.
But what's your testimony?
Your testimony is how faithful God has been
all of that time.
There was a time just to rejoice in
the faithfulness of the Lord.
And it's so easy, I think, to lose
the joy in our life as Christians, the
joy of our salvation.
And it's good to just stop and to
consider, no matter what else is happening in
my life, I have a relationship with God
that he is committed to in all of
this life and the life to come.
I can talk to him any time, day
or night.
His Holy Spirit indwells me.
His promises are yea and amen toward me.
They'll never fail, not in one of our
lives.
And so tonight, a time to just stop.
It's in the privacy of our own heart
to have a little 10-second party, little
confetti, just to celebrate the Lord's faithfulness in
our life.
I'll tell you, my testimony is he's been
faithful every step of the way.
Every moment I have spent worrying has been
a waste of time.
And so the Feast of Tabernacles, and so
it was at hand and Jesus, his brothers,
therefore said to him in verse 3, depart
from here and go into Judea.
Go from the Galilee region that your disciples
also may see the works that you're doing.
For no one does anything in secret while
he himself seeks to be known openly.
If you do these things, show yourself to
the world.
And so the brothers, and it's interesting to
notice that Jesus did have brothers.
They were half brothers.
Mary was not a perpetual virgin following the
virgin birth of Jesus.
There was a sexual relationship between her and
Joseph, and there were children that came out
of that union.
And so Jesus was related to them on
Mary's side, but not on Joseph's side.
So he had brethren.
He had half brothers.
And in Jesus's ministry, at least at this
particular point, none of them were told in
verse 5, believed in him as the Messiah.
Now it's interesting that by the time we
get to the book of Acts, chapter 1,
following Jesus's death, burial, resurrection, and ascension into
heaven, when those 120 believers go into that
upper room in the city of Jerusalem, there
Luke describes and names many of them in
that chapter.
And then as you get toward the end
of the listing of who was there, you
have also, he mentions that Mary, the mother
of Jesus, was there, and his brethren.
They're scorning Jesus now.
They don't believe in him.
They believe in his miracles.
They've seen his miracles.
But they're saying, listen, you're wasting your time
up here doing these miracles in the Galilee.
Everybody knows the real spiritual place to do
this kind of stuff is down in Judea,
down in in Jerusalem.
You're never going to be acknowledged for who
you say that you are until you do
these same things there.
So they call on them to to tell
Jesus to do this, and very free with
their counsel.
I don't know if you've ever counseled God
before.
I'm laughing because I have.
It worked out about as well as this
does here.
And Jesus said to them, why didn't I
think of that?
You guys, I have underestimated you all of
these years.
No, that's not what he said.
He said to them, my time has not
yet come.
It wasn't his time to go down into
Jerusalem.
He wasn't going to go down under their
timing.
He said to them, but your time is
always ready.
The world cannot hate you, but it hates
me.
And that's a strong phrase.
Why does it hate him?
Because I testify of it, that its works
are evil.
Now it's Jesus's response here that makes me
believe that he was responding to scorn on
their part.
Now this phrase, my time has not yet
come in verse six.
That's a phrase that's repeated over and over
in the gospel of John.
His time was not yet come.
My time was not yet come.
Time was not yet come repeated over and
over again.
And what it's communicating is that Jesus's death
upon the cross, the things that he was
doing, that these things were under a divine
timetable.
God was in charge of what was happening.
Not man.
So Jesus was resting in that.
And so he says to them, your time
is always ready.
You don't have a personal relationship with God.
You don't have a concern for his will
in your life.
You just do whatever you want when you
want it.
And it's always time to do your will.
The world can't hate you, but it hates
me because I testify of it, that its
works are evil.
The world was not a dangerous place to
Jesus's brothers because they were part of the
world.
What is the world?
The world is that portion of what is
on this planet that is under the government
of man.
That is man's self will and under the
government of the devil where those things rule.
That's the government of this world.
And the only exception to being a part
of the world is to be a part
of the kingdom of God, to voluntarily become
a part of his kingdom, a citizen of
his kingdom.
And now I'm a part of a different
kingdom than the kingdom of this world.
So they don't have that relationship with the
Lord, though they're very religious and they're going
to engage in religious activity.
And since they would not resist evil, they'd
never be bothered by those that were practicing
evil is what Jesus is saying.
Jesus is saying you'll fit in even if
it means accommodating, being silent in the face
of evil.
You'll do that in order to fit in
this world.
He says that's something that I won't do
and thus I won't fit in.
He's telling them that the reason they fit
in is because their life didn't produce any
conviction of evil.
Jesus's life did.
Not only did Jesus stand against evil, and
by the way there is something called evil
in this world, sin.
But Jesus testified to the evil of the
world and testified against it.
If you want to be hated by this
world, all you have to do is stand
up and call evil, evil.
And they'll aim both barrels at you.
It seems that the only evil thing in
the world, by the current definitions, is to
call something evil.
Not even God is allowed to call anything
evil today.
Or he's intolerant, or whatever the phraseology is
this week for the whole thing.
But there's a thing called evil.
Sin is evil in this world.
And Jesus stood against it, and because he
stood against it, even as it existed in
the lives of religious leaders, he incurred their
wrath.
They hated him because of it.
Because he would not be silent in defining
what is evil.
So Jesus not only used the term evil
in his vocabulary, he went so far as
to actually apply it as it relates to
society.
And he was hated because of it.
There's this idea that if Jesus showed up
today, that we would be much more understanding
of him than they were two thousand years
ago.
And as Gale Irwin says, yes we would.
We'd kill him in the gas chamber instead
of on the cross.
Make no mistake about it, if he were
to come to the earth, and he is
on the earth through the lives of his
people, but if he were to come to
the earth and speak the same things again,
and stand against them, it would produce the
same reaction.
We are no more civilized than they were
two thousand years ago.
And he said, you go up to this
feast, and I am not yet going up
to this feast, for my time has not
yet fully come.
So he said, you go on ahead.
It was obviously not the father's plan that
Jesus would go to the feast, accompanying them,
or at the same time that they were
coming to the feast.
Jesus would come to the feast a little
bit later.
And when he had said these things to
them, he remained in Galilee.
But when his brothers had gone up, then
he also went up to the feast, not
openly, but as it were in secret.
The Jews sought him at the feast, and
when John uses the term the Jews, it's
not referring to the Jewish people, he's referring
typically to Jewish religious leaders.
And so when the Jews sought him at
the feast, they probably were looking at him
to come in with his brothers.
So they're looking for him to show up
on this feast, because it was evidently a
characteristic of his life.
So they're searching for him to come.
They sought him, and they said, where is
he?
And there was much complaining among the people
concerning him, and some said, he's good.
And others said, no, on the contrary, he
deceives the people.
So there's this divided opinion concerning Jesus.
However, no one spoke openly of him for
fear of the Jews, the Jewish religious leaders.
Nobody could speak openly of believing in him
as the Christ, not because of the fear
of, you know, the atheists or some kind
of thing like that, but a fear of
religious leaders.
So all of this was going on very,
very quietly.
Now about the middle of the feast, Jesus
went up into the temple, and he taught.
Then there was a section of the temple
area where a teacher could go into that
particular area of the temple, and he could
begin to teach at that area of the
temple, and a crowd would typically gather around
him and listen to what it is that
he had to say.
So Jesus comes now in the middle of
the feast, and he begins to teach in
the area of the temple, and you notice
what the response was, and the Jews marveled
the Jewish religious leaders saying, how does this
man know letters having never studied?
They admired what he had to say, his
teaching, his handling of the Old Testament scriptures,
what he had to say about God and
the things of God, and how they applied
to the human life.
He was saying things that nobody else was
saying.
Earlier in one of the other Gospels, Jesus
in his ministry, when he taught, the people
were astonished at his teaching, because he taught
as one who had authority.
The typical way of teaching by the rabbis
in those days is no one would make
much of a stand on anything.
They'd say, Rabbi Shimei says this about this
passage, and Hillel says this about this passage,
and all, and they give you all the
things, and nobody would make a stand on
the thing.
It might hurt the offerings.
So Jesus comes in, and he just says,
listen, this is what's being said here.
This is what God means here, and this
is what it means for our lives, and
the people were craving that kind of clarity
and faithfulness to the scriptures.
And so here they are, these religious leaders,
even they are forced to marvel at what
it is that he's saying, and the question
that it provokes within them, verse 15, is
how does this man know letters having never
studied?
They're astonished that he could know what he
knew without having attended one of their religious
schools.
It is estimated that in Jesus' day there
were 30 different rabbinical schools in Jerusalem.
Different rabbis with different interpretations and different slants
and different philosophies, and you could enroll yourself
or enroll your children in one of those
schools so that they could be influenced by
a particular rabbi.
And they listened to what Jesus was saying,
and they realized this guy is not a
product of any one of those schools.
What he's saying is entirely different from what's
being taught in those schools.
This knowledge hasn't come from man.
And so you could attend one of these
schools, they recognized that he hadn't, and they
marveled that he could know so much without
having a degree, a religious degree, without having
a religious education.
And Jesus declared in verse 16, he answered
them and said, My doctrine is not mine,
but his who sent me.
He said, I have the greatest education that
a person could ever have.
I know the author personally.
There's nothing wrong with a good seminary, good
bible teaching, good bible college, they're getting harder
to find.
But they're not necessary.
If God calls you to serve him apart
from an equipping that comes there, because a
carpenter's workshop where the father is and where
the father is communed with is better than
any seminary or any schooling that they're talking
about where God is not present.
And he is not communed with.
Jesus never had a degree.
None of the apostles had a theological degree.
Some of the greatest preachers in the history
of the church did not have a degree.
Spurgeon had no degree.
Campbell Morgan had no degree.
Not putting down degrees, God calls you to
attend bible college, to these kinds of things.
But there are other ways, places where people
find to commune with God and to learn
about God.
God produces within their life what's necessary for
his call upon their life.
When I was working for the phone company,
I got saved.
And when I got saved, I was a
lineman, I believe, at that time.
Then I transferred and became a cable splicer.
And much of the time as a cable
splicer, you'd be either up above on a
pole or you'd be down in one of
these holes with one of these massive cables.
It would take you all day to splice
up the cables.
It would be 2400 pair, 1800 pair, whatever
it might be.
I'd go down in that thing and begin
to case the thing up and to splice
the thing.
And I would turn on my tape recorder
and I would listen to bible study tapes.
And I could listen to seven Chuck Smith
tapes a day in those manholes.
And in the course of just a very
short period of time, I went through the
bible from Genesis to Revelation in the 5000
series with Chuck Smith three and a half
times.
And I was able to get a bible
college education from a manhole while I was
paid by Pac Bell to do it.
I did my job well at the same
time.
And I developed a systematic theology before I
even knew what a systematic theology was.
I still don't know what it is, but
I'm working on it.
So the Lord calls, and he calls people
into serving him in a lot of different
ways, no matter what it, whatever the call
might be.
Then Jesus said in verse 17, if anyone
wills to do his will, that is the
father's will, he shall know concerning the doctrine,
whether it is from God or whether I
speak on my own authority.
Now this is interesting.
It's one of my favorite verses in all
the bible.
Of course, they're all my favorite, so this
depends on where I'm teaching in a given
night.
But I do love this verse.
Here's the dilemma.
They are marveling at him, and they are
posing this question in the hearing of the
men and women who have come to listen
to him teach.
And they're casting doubt upon his authority to
teach because of his lack of a degree.
And you've got some people believing in Jesus
as the messiah.
You have others that say no, he's a
deceiver.
And those are the same things that are
happening today on planet earth.
You have people that say yes, of course
he's the messiah.
And you have others who say no, he's
a deceiver.
So how do you find out for yourself
which one of the two he is?
And that's what Jesus is answering here in
John chapter 7, verse 17.
And he says, don't make your decision about
me based upon the conclusion that someone else
has come to, whether right or wrong.
Come to your own conclusion based upon your
own facts.
And what's the best thing a person can
do?
He said, if anyone wills to do his,
that is the father's will, he shall know
concerning the doctrine whether it's from God or
whether I speak with my own authority.
So do you want to know whether this
is the truth?
You want to know whether this is a
message come from God?
He said, start to obey the commandments that
I have given for the father.
And when you obey those commandments, it will
produce such a quality of life that you
will recognize that no one could know you
this well except the maker.
And the beautiful thing as he speaks here,
if anyone wills to do it, and the
idea here of wills to do it isn't
like, okay, I'm open to that.
It has the idea of wills to do.
I mean, really seizes it.
I'm going to live this.
I'm going to live this to the nth
degree.
I'm going to put it to the test
of my life and see if it holds
up through the highs and the lows of
life.
It's a real commitment to it.
And Jesus said, if anyone wills to do
his will, the father's will, he shall know.
And the word know is Gnosko in the
original language.
It means a knowledge that comes by experience.
He said, if you live this life, obey
these commandments, the best place to begin is
with salvation.
He said, you'll have your own testimony, your
own experience that is greater than anything that
someone can just say to you, yes, this
is right or this is wrong.
When I first became a Christian, one of
the things that I marveled at, as it
relates to the word of God, is I
was astonished at prophecy.
It was such a strong testimony to me,
and still is, of the fact that this
word is God breathed.
I am so in awe of the prophetic
scriptures, Isaiah 52 and 53, Ezekiel, Daniel chapter
9, and on and on and on it
goes.
And early on, the great testimony to me
of the fact that this was God's word
was the prophetic element, fulfilled prophecy.
But the longer that I've walked with the
Lord, there has been a second thing that
has come from the scriptures that testifies to
me very, very strongly of the fact that
this is God breathed, and that is the
kind of life that it produces.
Only God, the creator, could know the creation
this well.
This teaching flies in the face of virtually
every kind of shenanigan that this world comes
up with in an experiment upon human beings
for what is the purpose of life, and
what produces a fulfilling life, and a quality
life, and all.
And he comes in and says, no, it's
found in the exact opposite way.
And sure enough, you take him up on
it, and you begin to live that life,
and you realize he's the only one that
knows what he's talking about in this world.
And it's a tremendous testimony.
And I like that fact of anyone, it's
open to anyone, to test anyone can put
God to.
And then what is the promise?
He said, he shall know concerning the doctrine,
whether it's from God, or whether I speak
on my own authority.
God says, I'll make sure that you understand,
and come to the right conclusion concerning me.
And he who speaks from himself seeks his
own glory, but he who seeks the glory
of the one who sent him is true,
and no unrighteousness is in him.
And so Jesus is, declares that he's free
of self-seeking.
Most of the time when there was a
teacher, and that day, or in this day,
the teacher would try and differentiate himself from
other teachers, for what reason?
In order that he might be noticed, in
order that it might bring glory to him.
And Jesus is saying here, listen, everything I'm
doing, I'm pointing people to the Father.
In my message, and in my motives, I'm
completely pure.
Then Jesus said, did not Moses give you
the law, and yet none of you keeps
the law.
Why do you seek to kill me?
So he confronts the religious leaders with their
hypocrisy.
They've opened up a dialogue with him now,
that place of teaching at the temple.
And he said, you have the law of
Moses, and you parade yourself around as the
great experts on the law of Moses, and
the great keepers of the law of Moses.
But you violate the law of Moses.
In what way?
Because you seek to murder me, contrary to
the teaching of the law of Moses.
I personally think that they're flabbergasted that he
has exposes them.
And so they say, the people answered in
verse 20, and said, you have a demon,
who's seeking to kill you?
You ever kind of catch a liar in
a lie?
And it's amazing how they can be flustered
for a nanosecond.
I mean, if you blink, you doesn't notice
the fluster.
And they'll turn the whole thing around on
you, and then they'll be, they'll have chutzpah,
like you can't believe, nerve, and then they'll
turn the whole thing around, and then charge
you with something.
You know, it's a, they feign like they
don't know what he's talking about.
We're going to see in a moment, everyone
in Jerusalem knows they're trying to kill Jesus.
And Jesus answered and said, I did one
work.
Do you all marvel the healing of that
layman by the pool there in John 5.
He said, Moses therefore gave you circumcision, not
that it is from Moses, but from the
fathers.
Because circumcision predated the law of Moses, and
you circumcise a man on the Sabbath.
If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath,
so that the law of Moses should not
be broken, are you angry with me, because
I made a man completely well on the
Sabbath.
Now, God established the ordinance of circumcision, and
he also established the law of Sabbath.
Saturday, there was not to be any work
done on the Sabbath day.
But though there was not to be any
work done on the Sabbath day, on the
Saturday, under the law of Moses, God allowed
for circumcision to be performed on the Sabbath
day.
Every male Jewish child that was born into
the world, he would be circumcised on the
eighth day.
And if he was born on a Sabbath
day, then it required that he would be
circumcised on the Sabbath day.
And so you have this, what would appear
to be a violation of the Sabbath in
keeping the circumcision.
And yet God commanded for the, the, the
command of circumcision to supersede the laws that
related to Sabbath when they fell upon one
another.
Why did God get to do that?
Because he's God.
He can do what he wants, and that's
the point that Jesus is making.
You have your interpretations of the Sabbath day,
but when God wants to heal someone on
the Sabbath day, he gets to do it.
As Jesus said, he said that he himself
is the son of man was not under
the Sabbath.
The Sabbath was for man.
It wasn't for God.
And so he said, when I come along
and I heal a man on the Sabbath
day, I am not setting a precedence here.
God himself set a precedence for this long
ago in the law of Moses, when he
allowed for the right of circumcision on the
Sabbath day.
And their minds were working hard on that
because they understood what he was saying to
them.
Then he said, do not judge according to
appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.
And Jesus is in effect saying to them,
listen, the reason that you will not accept
what it is that I'm saying is because
you don't like me.
If you would have liked me and my
appearance and how I handled myself and what
I taught, then you would have recognized me
as the Messiah long ago.
They didn't come to the right conclusion concerning
him because they didn't want to.
They were unwilling to do it in the
face of all of the evidence.
Now some of them from Jerusalem said, is
this not he whom they seek to kill?
So here it is.
It's widespread knowledge is Jesus speaking openly there
in Jerusalem.
It's the guy that's on the hit list
of those very religious men.
But look, he speaks boldly and they say
nothing to him.
Do the rulers know indeed that this is
truly the Christ?
And so Jesus's boldness made them wonder if
the rulers had changed their mind concerning him.
Then they said, however, we know where this
man is from.
But when the Christ comes, no one knows
where he is from.
Now the prevailing opinion concerning the Messiah was
that when he came, no one would know
where he came from.
He would just appear on the scene out
of out of nowhere.
And it appears that this is kind of
a misguided interpretation of Isaiah's prophecy concerning the
Messiah and Isaiah 53 and who will declare
his generation.
In other words, we won't know where he's
come from, his lineage.
He's just going to show up on the
scene.
And so they are rejecting Jesus, not on
the basis of the scriptures, but on the
basis of their man-made ideas concerning the
Messiah.
They should have known from the Old Testament
that when the Messiah came, he would be
born in Bethlehem.
Micah 52.
God had said where he would be born.
But these kind of theories were floating around.
And then Jesus cried out as he taught
in the temple saying, you both know me
and you know where I am from.
And he's speaking now of heaven.
And I have not come of myself.
And he who sent me, speaking of the
father is true, whom you do not know.
But I know him for I am from
him and he sent me.
Now this is one of the things that
got Jesus into trouble with the religious leaders
as he kept telling them that he came
from heaven and that the father was his
father.
And they didn't like that.
But instead of backing off from it, Jesus
says it to them every way you can
say it to them.
And he says it all over again to
them in verse 28 and verse 29.
He says concerning the father whom you do
not know.
And they would have, there would have been
a slap to them because they thought they
were the experts on God.
And Jesus said, I'm the one that knows
him.
I'm from him and he sent me.
And therefore they sought to take him.
They wanted to arrest him right on the
spot, but no one laid a hand on
him because his hour had not yet come.
They weren't in control of the situation.
God was in control of what was going
on.
And many of the people believed in him
and said when the Christ comes, will he
do more signs than this man has done
all of these miracles that Jesus was doing?
What are we waiting for?
We remember that between the time of the
Old Testament prophets and the history of the
Old Testament and the coming on the scene
of John the Baptist with a message from
heaven, there was a 400 year period of
silence.
To say nothing of no miracles going on.
And so here is this silence now that's
broken not only by word, but by this,
you know, this gigantic amount of, of miracles
that were done.
And they've said, what are we holding out
for?
This guy's got to be the Messiah.
It's not like somebody this has been done
all through our history.
And the Pharisees heard the crowd murmuring these
things concerning him and the Pharisees and the
chief priests sent officers to arrest Jesus.
Now the Roman government allowed the Jewish religious
leaders, a Jewish kind of police force.
They allowed that under their, their supervision.
And so they send their kind of, you
know, their, you know, their bouncers to go
arrest Jesus.
They don't want to have, make a scene
and have them look bad, you know, arresting
Jesus.
So they're going to send these other guys
to do that.
And Jesus said to them, before they made
their getaway, I shall be with you a
little while longer, about six more months before
the cross.
And then I go to him who sent
me.
He's talking about his return to heaven to
be with the father.
And he said, you will seek me and
not find me.
And where I am, you cannot come.
Jesus is saying, I'm going to heaven and
you're not.
And there's a day coming in your future
when you will give your right arm to
seek me and to hear my truth and
believe in it.
But it will be too late.
One of the heaviest verses in the Bible.
Then the Jews said among themselves, what does
he intend to do to go?
Where does he intend to go?
That we shall not find him.
Does he intend to go to the dispersion
and among the Greeks and teach the Greeks?
Is he going to leave Israel and go
among the Gentiles and teach the Gentiles these
things?
What is this thing that he said?
You shall seek me and not find me.
And where I am, you cannot come.
One of the interesting things they're confused by
what Jesus is saying.
They don't understand it, but they don't want
to know what he's saying.
Because they don't ask him what he means.
And the reason they didn't ask him what
he meant is because they didn't want to
know what he meant.
They've made their mind up.
They didn't want to be confused with the
facts.
And on the last day, the great day
of the feast, Jesus stood and he cried
out, if anyone thirsts, let him come to
me and drink.
And he who believes in me, as the
scriptures has said, out of his heart will
flow rivers of living water.
But this he spoke, concerning the spirit whom
those believing in him would receive for the
Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus
was not yet glorified.
John writes his gospel some 50 years after
these events.
And so he declares what it is that
Jesus was talking about when he talked about
these rivers of living water that he was
speaking of the Holy Spirit.
Now, the posture of a teacher in those
days was that when a teacher would teach,
he would sit and the students would stand.
And so here we have a situation where
on this day, Jesus stands up on the
last day of the feast.
And what he is doing now is he's
taking the posture of a prophet.
A prophet would stand and declare the truth
of God.
Now, one of the things that was interesting
about the Feast of Tabernacles is that every
day and remember during the feast, those three
great feasts, Jerusalem, according to Josephus, had between
one and three million Jews in it.
The place is just absolutely jammed with pilgrims.
And they're talking about the area of the
temple here where Jesus is up in the
area of Herod's temple.
And all of these pilgrims are there in
the region of the temple.
And every day for the seven days of
the Feast of Tabernacles, the priest would take
a golden vessel and they would go down
the southern steps of the Temple Mount area
down to the pool of Siloam.
They would fill that golden vessel with water
and then singing psalms.
They would come back up the steps, re
-enter into this huge mob of pilgrims there
on the Temple Mount area.
And they would take that golden pitcher full
of water over to a silver vessel that
was there.
And at the bottom of that silver vessel,
there was a hole and they would pour
the water from that golden vessel into the
silver vessel.
And a million people would watch the water
go into that God supplied for their thirst
during their 40 years of wandering through water
from a rock.
And so for seven days, all of this
has gone on.
And here is Jesus.
He is standing there in the midst of
all of these people.
And he knows what Paul is later going
to write about when he writes to the
Corinthians that Jesus is that rock.
And just as in the Old Testament, when
Moses was commanded to hit the rock initially
to satisfy and supply for the thirst of
the people, he took his rod and he
smoked the rock.
The first time in water came forth a
second time occurred in their wanderings where once
again, they were thirsty.
God wanted, they were whining and complaining, which
can get on anybody's nerves, but God wanted
to supply for their needs.
He knew they needed water and he loved
them whiners that they were.
And so he said to Moses, go to
the rock and speak to the rock and
water will come out.
Moses has just about had enough of these
people and he takes his rod again.
And he says, you know, shall I bring
water from this rock again, you rebellious people
and smite the rock.
And he takes the thing and he smites
the rock with his staff a second time.
And because God is gracious, water came out
of that rock and satisfied the thirst of
the people.
But God is not happy with Moses.
And he says to Moses, Moses, could I
have a word with you?
I don't know if you've ever had one
of those conversations with God.
He said, Moses, I told you to speak
to the rock, not to smite the rock.
And because you smote the rock a second
time instead of speaking to it and doing
it in your anger, you're not going to
go into the promised land and lead my
people into there.
You think, what's the big deal?
You know, speak, smite, come on, we got
water.
These are tough people to deal with God.
I mean, you know, the reason it was
so serious is it spoiled the imagery because
it was all a picture of Jesus where
he was to be smitten on that cross,
but smitten once, never to be smitten again.
Now, when we come to the rock, when
we come to Jesus, we can speak to
him and what is needed for us spiritually
will flow forth.
To our lives, the final day of the
feast, the eighth day, the great day of
the feast, they wouldn't do any of this.
There's no pouring water.
There was none of this kind of stuff
going on.
And the reason that they didn't pour the
water on the eighth day was an acknowledgement
of the Jewish people.
That the Messiah was coming, that just as
the father had supplied for their physical needs
in, by miraculous means, in the wilderness, so
too he was going to send his Messiah
and satisfy their spiritual thirst.
And so the eighth day was an acknowledgement
that this was a type of something that
in their mind had not been fulfilled yet
or wasn't even close to being fulfilled.
And it is in that setting that Jesus
then stands up and declares himself to be
the one that all of that is about.
And he said, if any man thirsts, and
for eight days he has watched a million
people watch a religious ceremony go on, and
he knows they are dying of spiritual thirst.
And he in essence is saying, you're thirsty
and I know it.
You're spiritually thirsty in the same way that
our forefathers were physically thirsty in that wilderness.
And what's the solution to it?
He said, if you thirst, let him come
to me.
Come to Jesus himself and drink.
And how does one drink?
And to drink is again to assimilate something
for to become a part of my life.
How does one do that?
By believing in him.
And when a person believes in him, then
what happens is that this torrent of living
water, a flow of living water comes out
of their life.
And Jesus taught about the baptism of the
Holy Spirit in Acts chapter one.
He spoke of it being the provision by
God of power to be a witness to
Jesus Christ in Jerusalem.
That's close to home, Judea, Samaria, the outermost
parts of the earth, the two hardest places
to consistently be a witness for the Lord
is at home.
And when you're on the other side of
the world and you don't know anyone, but
he promised the power to be a witness
in any setting we would find ourselves in,
no matter how wicked or how powerful it
may be in the world, the baptism of
the Holy Spirit.
And I've always appreciated this 38, 37 and
38, because you get into the books and
they talk about the baptism of the Holy
Spirit.
Does everything happen at the time of conversion?
Can there be a subsequent experience with the
Holy Spirit after conversion?
And then is being baptized with the Holy
Spirit the same thing as being filled with
the Holy Spirit?
Is it the same thing as, um, as,
um, there is another term too, that was
there a second ago and has escaped me,
but they get all hung up on the
terminology.
And the beautiful thing about it is we
can come back and trust Jesus to make
it simple.
And he comes along and says, listen, this
is to be the experience of my disciples,
not only the Holy Spirit in my life,
but overflowing my life in such a way
that it's like a torrent of living water
coming out of my life.
In other words, we become human drinking fountains.
We are people who have not only refreshment
ourselves from God, but we bring spiritual refreshment
to a dry and thirsty world.
And so the question tonight for us is
not, is it the baptism of the Holy
Spirit filled with the Holy Spirit and all
of the terminology and all of that?
The question is, is that the experience that
I have with the Holy Spirit?
Does the Holy Spirit come out of my
life as a torrent of living water?
And if he does not, then there is
a greater relationship available to me with the
person of the Holy Spirit.
You ever have a torrent of you come
out of your life?
Neither have I, but I hear it's very
common in other churches right here in this
town.
Just kidding.
Of course, we all experienced that.
Aren't people refreshed when there's just a torrent
of you that comes out?
That's great.
That's wonderful.
You're going to bottle that for us now?
And when there's a torrent of me and
my flesh coming out of my life, then
all I need to do is just stop
and say, Lord, freshly fill me with your
Holy Spirit so that the sweetness of you
flows out of my life.
And Jesus said, if we being evil know
how to give good gifts to our children,
how much more will our heavenly father give
the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?
It's there for the asking.
So I love this.
He's speaking of the spirit and he's the
source of this kind of life.
And therefore, many from the crowd, when they
heard this saying, said truly, this is the
prophet.
They became convinced this is the Messiah.
And others said this other said this is
the Christ.
But some said, well, the Christ come out
of Galilee has not the scripture said that
the Christ comes from the seed of David
and from the town of Bethlehem, where David
was.
And so this part of the crowd seems
to understand that Jesus is going to come
out of Bethlehem, according to Micah's prophecy.
But they assumed that because he was raised
in Nazareth, that he was born in Nazareth.
But all they had to do was just
ask him, listen, where were you born?
And he would have been glad to inform
them of that.
But they're coming again to conclusions about him
based upon, you know, wrong information.
And so there was a division among the
people because of him.
And now some of them wanted to take
him, but no one laid hands on him.
And when the officers came this, the bouncers,
they came to the chief priests and the
Pharisees who had sent them to arrest Jesus.
They said to the bouncers, why haven't you
brought him?
The officers said, no man ever spoke like
this man.
I like that.
These guys had listened to religious blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And they had listened to these guys, blah,
blah, blah, blah.
So when they come back and say, listen,
we've heard a lot of religious talk in
our days.
No man ever spoke like this man.
So they went to arrest them and they
ended up arrested, didn't they?
And the Pharisees answered them and said, are
you also deceived?
And so they accuse him of being deceived.
Have any of the rulers of the Pharisees
believed in him?
So they begin to scorn the idea of
believing in him.
Have any of the religious leaders followed him,
you know, and as if that's a basis
upon which to, to, to base something.
And he said, then they said, but this
crowd, this rabble that believes in him, that
does not know the law is a curse.
They said, look at who follows him, the
common kind of people that uneducated and all
of this.
And they look at who's following him.
And so you don't see any brilliant people
like us following him.
And so they really use this, this ridicule.
And it's a powerful, powerful thing against people
believing in the Lord.
They ridicule their faith here.
And Nicodemus, the one who came to Jesus
by night being one of them.
That is one of the Sanhedrin, one of
the Pharisees, he said to them, does our
Lord judge a man before it hears him
and knows what he's saying.
Now, remember Nicodemus in John chapter three is
described as being the teacher in Israel by
Jesus.
Now this tells us why he was considered
a great teacher, because he goes back to
the scriptures for the basis of their practice.
And he informs the other Pharisees that, listen,
I don't care what title we have.
The law says you don't judge a man
until you've heard his side of things.
And so he goes back to the scriptures
as a basis for their doing.
And they answered and they said to him,
are you also from Galilee?
Search and look for no prophet has arisen
out of Galilee.
And they're very wrong.
And that Jonah came out of Galilee and
everyone went to his own house.