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Well, we finished the sixth chapter of John. Hate to see it go. It passes on now into history,
and I hope we’ll find a permanent place in your memory, and the Lord will use it to
serve you well in the future. But we now arrive at chapter 7 of the Gospel of John, and we
really step into a new section of John’s Gospel. We move at this point from Galilee
where our Lord has been ministering for over a year into Judea, again, where he started
his ministry originally.
We’re back in Judea, and the picture is not good. What we’re going to see in chapter
7 and then in chapter 8 is escalating hatred. Escalating hatred. In fact, you could almost
call chapter 7 and 8 high intensity hatred of the Lord Jesus. Now remember, Jesus has
been in Galilee for a year ministering, preaching, teaching concerning the kingdom, healing people,
casting out demons, doing miracles. He’s been away from Judea, away from Jerusalem
as far as His ministry is concerned, but the hatred has been smoldering and seething there,
and it isn’t diminished. It’s perhaps even worse because reports have been coming
back from spies in Galilee to the leaders of Judea about the impact of His ministry
there.
So as we come into chapter 7, the desire to have him murdered is maybe stronger than ever.
We know they wanted to kill him earlier when he was in Judea because we saw that in chapter
5. “They were seeking to kill Him,” verse 18. That’s why He went to Galilee. And while
He’s been in Galilee, the fury has continued, fed by reports coming down from Galilee in
the north.
So in chapter 7 and 8, He returns finally to Judea. But he does so secretly, as we’ll
see, and He stays out of Jerusalem for a number of months until finally, with the intense
hatred still escalating, He makes a grand entrance into Jerusalem, triumphantly declared
to the by the messiah. By the end of the week, He’s crucified and risen. So now you know
where we are in the big picture. As we begin this section, let me read the opening 13 verses.
“After these things, Jesus was walking in Galilee, for he was unwilling to walk in Judea
because the Jews were seeking to kill him. Now the fast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths
or tabernacles was near. Therefore, his brothers said to him, ‘Leave here and go to Judea
so that your disciples also may see your works which you are doing, for no one does anything
in secret when he himself seeks to be known publicly. If you do these things, show yourself
to the world.’ But not even his brothers were believing in him. So Jesus said to him,
‘My time is not yet here, but your time is always opportune. The world cannot hate
you, but it hates me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil. Go up to the
feast yourselves. I do not go up to this feast because my time has not yet fully come.’
Having said these things to them, he stayed in Galilee.”
“But when His brothers had gone up to the feast, then He himself also went up not publicly,
but as if in secret. So the Jews were seeking Him at the feast and were saying, ‘Where
is He?’ There was much murmuring among the crowds concerning Him. Some were saying, ‘He’s
a good man.’ Others were saying, ‘No, on the contrary. He leads the people astray.’
Yet no one was speaking openly of Him for fear of the Jews.” So what was the popular
opinion What was the discussion? Some said He’s a good man. Some said He’s leading
people stray, He’s a deceiver.
Well we know who said He’s a deceiver because in Matthew 27:63, the Jewish leaders say of
Jesus, “That deceiver.” And a little later, even in chapter 7 when the chief priest in
the Pharisees sent some people to Jesus and they came back with a report, they said, “Has
He deceived you also?” So they were pressing hard that Jesus was a deceiver. There was
some pushback from people who had been affected positively by his compassionate healing ministry
who said, “He’s a good man. He’s a good man.”
To say, “He’s a good man,” is not enough. That’s infinitely below the truth. To say
He’s a deceiver is not true. That’s hellish. Neither of these is a right assessment of
Jesus, and every soul is required to make that assessment. Right? If that soul is to
enter into eternal heaven. You have to decide who he is. Everyone does. Both of these are
wrong. As CS Lewis said, “Good men don’t say they’re God. Liars and crazy people
do.” Is He then a deceiver? Deceivers don’t demonstrate the power of God, don’t raise
people from the dead, and don’t speak the way Jesus spoke.
The right assessment of Jesus is the most important assessment any human being will
ever make. Now we start to see the final decisions being made by the people under the influence
of the leaders. The leaders have already made their decision. He’s a deceiver. He’s
leading people astray. And the people will eventually buy into that and cry for His death.
So we start on that road now in chapter 7 verse 1, high intensity hatred in Judea.
In the coming chapters, we’re going to really get into the antagonism between Jesus and
the leaders of Israel, the leaders of apostate legalistic Judaism, and we’re going to see
how much power they had over the people. I want to just remind you of the distinguishing
mark that we noted in the sixth chapter. There were in the sixth chapter, remember, many
people following Jesus. Then there was a clear division at the end of the chapter, right,
starting in verse 60 to 71. There were some His disciples who left and didn’t walk with
Him anymore. We called those the false disciples.
And then there were the true disciples who stayed. Jesus said, “Are you going to go
away,” and they said, “No.” And we mark the difference. The different is those who
left didn’t like the words of Jesus. Those who stayed embraced the words of Jesus. The
distinguishing identification of Jesus is not his works. The false disciples embraced
his works, they followed the crowd, they loved the supernatural, they wanted to cash in on
it. They were attracted to the miraculous. They even made demands on Jesus’ miracle
power.
But when He began to speak, He immediately offended them, and they were alienated. So
I just remind you that it’s always going to be the words of Jesus. There’s a lot
of sort of patronizing of Jesus as if he were some kind of good man, some kind of man better
than other men, some kind of noble, religious leader, some kind of heroic, righteous moralist,
some kind of merciful, compassionate person. None of that matters. That’s all irrelevant.
To say that Jesus is a good man and to throw those kinds of accolades at Him falls infinitely
short of the truth. You can make that assessment based upon what you want to see in his life
in ministry, but sooner or later, the decision is going to have to be rendered on His words.
It’s always about His words, and we’re going to see that that plays out as this part
of John’s Gospel continues.
In fact, you’re going to see in verse 7 where he says, “The world hates me because
I testify of it that its deeds are evil.” Again, it’s his words that are unacceptable.
You see that in the popular world today in which you live. People like the idea of a
benevolent, kind, merciful, compassionate Jesus, but they want to gag him. And as soon
as you start hearing from His words, it becomes offensive, but it’s always going to be the
words. Down in verse 14, when He did arrive at this Feast of Tabernacles, He began immediately
to teach. Immediately, He began to teach, and that generated the offense.
Down in Verse 19, it refers to the fact that they desired to kill Him. Verse 20 indicates
that they were saying He’s demonic. They didn’t say that because of His works. They
didn’t say that because of His compassion. It was His words that generated that kind
of response. And we’re going to see that as we go through chapters 7 and 8. Verse 43,
for example, of chapter 8. “Why do you not understand what I’m saying? It is because
you cannot hear my word. Why can’t you? Because you’re of your father, the devil,
and you want the desires of your father. He’s a murderer from the beginning, doesn’t stand
in the truth because there’s no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from
his own nature for he’s a liar and the father of lies, but because I speak the truth, you
do not believe me.”
It comes back to words, verse 47. “He who is of God hears the words of God. For this
reason, you do not hear them because you are not of God.” You follow that down to verse
51. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”
And then in verse 59, it says, “They picked up stones to throw at Him. Jesus hid himself.
Went out of the temple. Why did they want to stone Him? Not because of what He did,
but because of what He said.” This follows him all the way into chapter 12, which is
the chapter before the final week of his life.
In chapter 12, as Jesus is getting ready in chapter 13 to have the final supper with his
disciples, he says this in verse 47. “If anyone hears my sayings, my words, and doesn’t
keep them, I do not judge him, for I didn’t come to judge the world but save the world.
He who rejects me and doesn’t receive my sayings or my words has one that judges him.
The word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day, for I didn’t speak on my own
initiative. But the father himself who sent me has given me a commandment as to what to
say and what to speak. I know that his commandment is eternal life. Therefore, the things I speak
I speak just as the father has told me. You reject the words of Jesus, you reject God.”
It’s always about the words. It’ll continue to be about the words, and that’s how it
is in your life and mine. It isn’t enough to patronize Jesus. I said at the end of the
early service that I did some reading this week on some famous sort of enlightenment
era atheists, people like Diderot and Renon and a little later, John Stewart Mill, others.
And I wanted to read what these atheists who were so much a part of the enlightenment who
were coming out of the religious era, some of them teaching theology in various places,
what did they say about Jesus. And it’s amazing how they extol Jesus.
The flower of humanity. The greatest man that ever lived. The youth with God in His heart,
they said. And they just go on and on with all this flowery language about Jesus. I’m
talking about classic atheists, philosophical atheists. People have said, “He’s a good
man,” who completely reject the Bible and reject God. That’s not enough. What they
will not accept – they will accept the Jesus of their own imagination, the sort of tolerable
Jesus. What they will not accept is what the Bible records that he said, but that’s what
has to be accepted because that’s dividing point. If you’re going to go into the kingdom
of God, you have to believe what he said to be true.
So we’re going to see that continue to play out, what we learned in chapter 6, about the
dividing point being the words of Jesus will continue to be the case. Now in the section
that we just looked at, verses 1 to 13, and we will go through it because it’s a very
simple narrative text, there’s one thing that I want you to see that stands out. There’s
so many aspects. This is what’s so frustrating about this for me. I could follow so many
trails here, and I have to make a decision, and it’s a challenging one to make because
I’m always leaving something out.
The bad news is I know what I’m leaving out. The good news is you don’t, so you’re
not going to miss it like I miss it. But then again, I know it, so that’s okay. What I
want you to see is how Jesus was operating on a divine timetable. Because one of the
things that you have to understand about Jesus is that He is the son of God. He is God incarnate.
He is the bread who came down from heaven. Right? He is the eternal second member of
the trinity come into human form in the world.
That’s part of what you have to believe. This is not just a man kind of working his
thing out, trying to get where he wants to go, trying to accomplish what he wants to
accomplish. This is the son of God on a divine mission, and it plays out in this passage
in a really wonderful way because you see the sovereignty of God operating in every
aspect of His life from a time standpoint. We know that He leaned back *** the sovereignty
of God when people didn’t believe and said, “But no man can come to me unless the Father
draws him.” Right? He said that.
He said, “You can’t come unless it’s the Father’s will.” So He leaned hard
on the sovereignty of God in terms of the responses He was getting, but He also completely
leaned on the sovereignty of God in terms of the timing of everything He did. Everything
in His life was on schedule. Everything. In Galatians 4:4, it says, “In the fullness
of time, God sent forth his son made of a woman.” Perfect timing. First Timothy 6:14
and 15 says, “At the exact proper time, He will return all fixed in the purposes of
God. Both the incarnation *** birth and his second coming in glory fixed.” In the
middle while He’s living His life, everything is on schedule.
Many times, He says, “My time has not come. My time has not come. My time has not come.”
He operated on this sovereign schedule. That comes out so powerfully here. Paul in Romans
5 says, “He dies and makes his life a ransom at the proper time, at the precise time.”
First Timothy 2:6, essentially exactly the same thing. Now as we come to chapter 7, Jesus
is walking in Galilee. He’s walking in Galilee. This is seven months later from six. This
is about seven months later. How do we know that? Because in chapter 6 in verse 4, there
was a Passover.
The Passover was the event that triggered everything in six, which only took place in
a few days. In chapter 7, verse 2, you have another feast, which is the Feast of Tabernacles
or the Feast of Booths, and that’s about seven months later. Passover is a spring event,
and Feast of Tabernacles is an October event. So about seven months have gone by. For seven
months then, Jesus has been walking in Galilee. As we pick the story up, those seven months
have now passed.
John doesn’t tell us about those seven months, but the other writers do. The other gospel
writers tell us about those seven months, and I’ll comment on that in a few minutes.
During the seven months that He has been in Galilee, He’s not been in Judea. But the
attitude of the people in Judea that wanted to kill Him has continued to seethe and smolder
and escalate because it says at the second part of verse 1, “He was unwilling to walk,
meaning to go there and to conduct His life in Judea because the Jews were seeking to
kill Him, even though He had been gone a year. His Galilean ministry extended beyond a year,
but He’d been gone over a year, something over a year. In His absence, the fury continued
to escalate. The hospitality continued to grow, so much so that He wouldn’t go back
because He had to wait until it was the right time in God’s perfect plan.”
So as we look at these verses, we’ll first of all look at the opening nine verses, and
we’ll see something about the wrong time, and then we’ll come to verse 10 and see
something about the right time. The events, which occurred during this period of time
from Passover in April to the Feast of Tabernacles in October. About a half a year, a little
more. Seven months has gone by. The trigger is after these things. That’s a time interval
. You saw it at the beginning of 6 and the beginning of 5 the same phrase, meaning time
has passed. So what did he do during those seven months? Very interesting. His public
ministry kind of faded away. Really one of the massive event of chapter 6 was sort of
the pinnacle of his public ministry.
During those seven months, we get information from the other gospel writers about those
seven months, all three of them. We learn that He for the most part disappeared from
the public areas. Instead of remaining in Capernaum, and He never went to Tiberius.
Instead of remaining in the populace centers, during that period of time, He goes off to
Tyre and Sidon, which is north and west over Phoenician area over towards the Mediterranean.
Then He goes to the east side of the Sea of Galilee, south down into the area of Decapolis,
which was ten cities – were essentially gentile cities. Mark 7 tells us about that.
Matthew 15 tells us about Him going into the area on the Phoenician border. He also went
into the extreme north, so He’s on the perimeter now. He’s pulled back. Many things happen
during that time. There are records of miracles. Yes, He did do miracles in those places. Yes.
Primarily he’s teaching and instructing.
There’s another great event that occurred during that seven months, and that’s the
transfiguration where He revealed His glory, and also during those same months, He told
His disciples for the very first time that He was going to die. Be rejected, die, rise
from the dead, Matthew 16. This is important because while the public ministry diminished
during those seven months, primarily His focus was on the 12. So this would have been the
most intense period of training the 12. The false disciples are gone. They left in chapter
6 verse 66, walked with him no more. The true stayed. Where are we going to go? You have
the words of eternal life, and we’re sure that you’re the holy one of God. We’re
sticking with you.
And so they declare themselves. He now has His 12, minus Judas as we noted at the end
of chapter 6, and perhaps a collection of others who were true believers, and now He
takes those true believers, and for seven months, He teaches them the truths concerning
the kingdom of God, preparing them for what is to come and for even what is after what
is to come, which is the fulfillment of the great commission. He begins to talk now about
His death, about His resurrection. He gets detailed.
He says He’ll be arrested, He’ll be scourged, He’ll be spit on. He’s telling them all
these things that are to come. And then He gives them a glimpse, a necessary glimpse,
I think, of His glory. Peter, James, and John, who then report all that. So they’ve got
word about His death, which is hard for them to understand and might create some doubt,
so to balance that off, He shows them his glory. These are special times for them. Now
those seven months are pretty much up by now because it’s Feast of Tabernacles. Now it’s
time to go to the next feast. Now there were three main feasts among the Jews that all
men had to attend, and He had done that all his life. So they’re going to gather and
go. And He’s still connected, apparently, to his family, and so his brothers start to
put pressure on them to go with Him, and that’s what begins this seventh chapter.
Just a reminder, in chapter 6, He gave a couple of days to the crowd. And in between 6 and
7, He gave seven months to the disciples. Do I need to make the obvious connection that
the priority for Jesus was discipleship? This is what God does. God gathers a crowd for
the proclamation of the gospel, for the proclamation of the truth to declare who He is and why
He has come. Then God sorts out the true disciples and the false disciples, and then the real
work begins of training the true disciples.
That’s why the great commission says, “Go unto all the world and make disciples.”
That means teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. This is a
very extensive call. Easy to get a crowd. That’s the easy part. Lots of ways to get
a crowd. Very difficult to make a disciple. Hard work. Success of any spiritual enterprise
is not the crowd. That’s not the measure of the success. You all the time hear particularly
younger pastors say, “Well, we have 5,000 people.” “We have 10,000 people. How many
thousand people do you have?” That’s not the measure of anything. You know, my answer
is you don’t have as many as the Super Bowl. Who are you kidding? You think you can get
a crowd?
There’s a lot of ways to get a crowd. Yours may appear more noble on the surface, but
that’s never a measure of a ministry. It’s not how many people show up. It’s what kind
of people they are and where they are in the process of spiritual development and growth.
Bible doesn’t say, “Get a crowd. See if you can keep them whether they believe or
not.” Bible says, “Get a crowd, hit them with the words of Jesus, and find out who
stays, and whoever stays, make disciples out of them.”
That’s what ministry is. Ministry to the mass doesn’t prove anything. You may be
– you may have the same kind of crowd Jesus did, and I think He probably was a pretty
good communicator. Like the best ever by far. And He collected people who were superficial,
and He made it so clear by His words what they needed to believe that He drove them
away. Then He poured Himself into those who believed.
See, this is what discipleship is. It’s like 1 Thessalonians 1:6 where Paul says to
the church of Thessa – “This is the measure of a church. You became imitators of us. You
became imitators of us. Now you’ve got a church. But not a crowd. It’s imitators.
Be followers of me as I am of Christ. We need depth. My, my, do we need depth.” Easy to
get a crowd. Awfully difficult to make a disciple. Well none of that is in verse 1, but you needed
to hear it. So sorry. He stays in Galilee. That’s what he does, and then it’s time,
verse 2, for the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths or Tabernacles because it comes
near.
So I find this so interesting. His brothers come to Him. This would be His actual brothers
who are named, by the way, in scripture, they’re not just some nebulous unknown sort of mysterious
group of people. They are clearly identified on the pages of scripture by name. His brothers
come to Him, and they say, “Leave here, and go into Judea so that your disciples also
may see your works which you’re doing. For no one does anything in secret when he himself
seeks to be known publicly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.”
For not even His brothers were believing in Him. Okay it’s time for the Feast of Tabernacles.
What was it? Well, you can go to Leviticus 23. Read the whole thing. God instituted a
feast which biannually they would remember their time in the wilderness, when they lived
in tents, booths, shelters, and for a period of time, a weeklong, used to be celebrated
between the 15th and 22nd of Tishri, which puts it in October, they had a weeklong celebration
commemorating the provision of God. Josephus says it was the most celebratory of all Jewish
feasts and festivals. It was the happiest occasion. It was a couple of weeks after the
day of atonement.
Now that had been settled, and this was a great, joyous event. They would erect booths
all over the place, in the little villages in the streets. Some of them put booths on
the roofs of their houses when they were in crowded city quarters, but it was all to remind
them of living in temporary shelters in the wilderness, and how God protected them, brought
them through, brought them finally – the ones that he allowed into the land to constitute
the nation, and this was a joyous time.
By the way, Zachariah, chapter 14 around verse 16 or so, tells us that the feast will be
celebrated again in the millennial kingdom as they look back and are reminded again of
God’s deliverance. So they’re in the midst of this celebration. There are some elements
of it we’ll see later in chapter 7. Pouring out of water because God provided water in
the wilderness and all of that. It was a very joyous occasion. So His brothers come to him,
and they think it’s time to go down to Jerusalem as it always was, and all men were required
to go.
His brothers are named, by the way, I just thought I should give you that. It’s Matthew
13:55. His brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas. So at least four brothers that
He has. And they say, “Look, this is required. We’ve got to go. We want you to go with
us.” Now there’s all kinds of speculation about why did they want Him to go. Some people
have said, “Well, they wanted Him to get arrested. They were tired of Him getting all
the accolades. They didn’t believe in Him. They wanted to see Him fall into the hands
of the enemy.”
There’s no scripture to support that at all. It does say they didn’t believe in
Him. It doesn’t say they willed that He be executed. Others have made the crazy suggestion
that they wanted to take Him down there to force His hand so He could become the messiah
that the crowd back in chapter 6 wanted Him to be. Remember when they wanted to take Him
by force and make Him a king because He could create food? His brothers, they could eat
that food just like anybody else, so they were trying to force His hand.
There’s no justification for either of those. You say, “Well why did they want Him to
go?” I think He irritated them. You’d be irritated if you grew up your entire life
with a person in your family who was perfect who was a rebuke to you every waking moment,
who gave every right answer to every question and had every right attitude on every occasion.
They didn’t believe in Him, but perhaps they were aware, of course, of His miracles.
They were very aware of that. They were in Galilee the whole time. They were close to
Him because here they are. On one occasion, do you remember when they went to find Him
with Mary? “What are you doing? Where are you? Your mother and your brothers seek for
you.”
They once explained that He was insane. Maybe He could be the political messiah. Maybe the
power was there. Maybe He could provide food. Maybe He could overthrow Rome. Maybe He might
be the guy. But their conclusion was it’s never going to happen in Galilee. Not going
to happen here. Seven months of hiding on the fringes of Galilee is not going to do
it.
So they get a little proverbial on Him. That’s what verse 4 is, a proverb or an axiom, which
is a self-evident statement. No one does anything in secret when he himself seeks to be known
publicly. That’s obvious. Right? Everybody would understand that. So they throw that
axiomatic statement at Him, and then they say, “If you do these things, show yourself
to the world. I mean come on, if you are who you say you are, then go down to Jerusalem.
That’s the theological world. That’s where the verdict will be rendered. That’s the
decision will be made. Jerusalem is the acid test. You can’t be up here on the fringe
if you want to be realized and recognized. You’ve got to go to Jerusalem.” And there,
they say, “Your disciples,” which means they knew He had gained followers in Judea
from the early months when He was there at the beginning of his ministry. “So go to
Jerusalem. Let them settle it.”
I think in the back of their minds, they were open to the fact that maybe if He went, they’d
get a final verdict. And they rationalized it by saying it’s only obvious. If you want
to be known publicly, you can’t be in secret. Look at this statement. If you do these things,
show yourself to the world. If you are who you say you are. That’s what that is. If
you are for real, if the works that you do are really the evidence of your divinity,
if, if, if. Familiar to you? Who said that to Jesus three times early in His ministry?
Who? Satan.
If you’re the son of God, do this. If you’re the son of God, do that. If you’re the son
of God, do this. That was said to Him at the end of His ministry all the way into Matthew
27. He’s hanging on the cross, and they say, “If you are the son of God,” what?
“Come down.” If you are – and what they’re doing is shoving his claims into His face
and telling Him to prove it. So we kind of know whose side they’re on. He who is not
for me is against me.
So they want to press the issue. See what happens. But verse 5, “Not for any noble
reason, for not even His brothers were believing in Him.” They didn’t believe. That’s
really great testimony to the obstinatesy of unbelief. Isn’t it? They’ve seen Him
since they were born in the house. Wouldn’t believe. Wouldn’t believe. Wouldn’t believe.
I simply remind you what Jesus said in chapter 6. “You can’t believe unless the Father
draws you.”
At this point, the Father had not drawn them. They did not believe. So they say, “Go down.
Prove yourself.” Verse 8. Skip down to Verse 8 for a minute. “Go up to the feast yourselves,”
He says. “I do not go up to this feast because my time has not yet fully come.” Having
said these things to them, He stayed in Galilee a little longer. “You go. I’m not coming.”
So He stayed in Galilee. No one forces Jesus’ hand. He’s not going with them.
If He had gone with them, He would have been a part of a huge caravan, the caravan that
would go down from Galilee with His relatives and friends and family and extended family
was huge. How do I know that? Because in Luke 2:44, when they had come down for the Passover
when He was 12 years old, the whole caravan was one day’s journey all the way back toward
Galilee before they realized He wasn’t there. Remember that?
So this is a large, large caravan. He’s not going to be part of that. Everybody knows
who is coming. They know the groups. He doesn’t want that exposure. He’s not going. He’s
not going because it’s not His time to go. It’s not His time to die. It’s not His
time for that public exposure. My time has not yet fully come.
Then He explains that if you back up to Verse 6. Jesus said to them, “My time is not yet
here. My time is not yet here.” When was His time? Six months later at the next Passover.
That would be His time to become the Passover lamb. His hour was coming. We’ll see more
about that in chapter 12. He will go down eventually. Go back to verse 6. “My time
is not yet here.” Then He says this. “Your time is always opportune.” What a statement.
Every day matters in my life. Every hour is determined by God. For you, doesn’t matter.
If you’re unbelievers, you have one appointment with God. Death. The rest, you’re on your
own.
It isn’t that God doesn’t order the provinces of your behavior and your life. It’s just
that it’s irrelevant. It doesn’t matter. It’s purposeless, pointless. You go, you
stay. You’re not operating in the kingdom on kingdom time. What a statement. You just
have one appointment to keep with God: Death. That’s not the case with me. And also, verse
7, “The world cannot hate you. You’re part of it.” So you’re safe. I mean you
fit into this world, but it hates me. And why does it hate me? Not because of my works,
but because I testify of it that its deeds are evil.
You know, I read 1 Timothy 1 this morning, and that was pretty stark stuff. Wasn’t
it? Godless sinners, immoral, homosexuals, perjurers. That’s as straight as it gets,
and that’s the gospel truth. That’s what the law reveals, but those words – those
words could get somebody killed. But Jesus is on a divine timetable. He can’t go. Time
is not right. What they do doesn’t matter. The world absorbs them. They’re part of
it. But not so Him. They hate Him because He tells them their deeds are evil.
Again, do I have to spell it out? Have you noticed how popular the benign Jesus of acceptance
is and how unpopular his words are? Gagging Jesus is a constant reality. So He’s not
going with them. In verse 9, it says He stayed in Galilee. He stayed there. Didn’t stay
long. It was the wrong time. We’re talking probably days. Then all of a sudden, in verse
10, it was the right time. When His brothers had gone up to the feast, up because everything
goes up to Jerusalem because it’s so high, when His brothers had gone up to the feast,
then He Himself also went up.
Not publicly, but as if in secret. By the way, He did something very unusual. He did
what they didn’t do. He went through Samaria according to Luke 9. When they would go, they
would not go. They would go around Samaria because they were hostile towards Samaritans.
So they would migrate and do their little pilgrimage around Samaria. Jesus went right
through it, Luke 9:51 to 56 or 57. Tell us about that little journey through Samaria.
That would give Him more secrecy because He wouldn’t be going in the crowds that were
flowing to Jerusalem. So He did come down, but they couldn’t find Him. The Jews were
seeking Him at the feast. Why? What made them think He’d be there? All men had to be there.
They knew He would be there. And they knew that wherever He was, there were huge crowds.
They knew Galileans. They knew their accent. Couldn’t find Him. Couldn’t find Him.
They were saying, “Where is He? Where is He?” And He wasn’t there where they could
see Him, but there was much mumbling, murmuring among the crowds concerning Him. He was the
topic of whispers. “Where is He? Where’s Jesus?” They all knew He was a miracle worker.
The people in Judea knew it. The people in Galilee knew it. They had all converged into
the place. He was the topic of discussion. They couldn’t find Him. People were talking
about Him, and some were saying, “He’s a good man.” And others were saying, “No,
on the contrary, He’s a deceiver.” Verse 13, no one was speaking openly of Him for
fear of the Jews. That’s how much power those Jewish leaders had in that legalistic
apostasy Judaistic system. People were afraid to give an opinion.
And they all knew that they wanted Jesus dead. They all knew that. They wanted Him dead.
They wanted Him killed. So they were afraid to say anything. This is the power of this
horrible legalistic system. So He comes down, privately, secretly, kind of sneaking His
way through Samaria. And He’s in Judea now between the Feast of Tabernacles and the feast
– the Passover where He will present himself and be crucified. In those intervening months,
He ministers in Judea, and it’s all recorded in Luke 9 to 19. That whole section of Luke.
If you have a copy of One Perfect Life, you can see how that kind of goes in the chronology.
So He’s ministering there, and Luke records all of that wonderful, wonderful section of
Luke’s Gospel. But He refused to go to Jerusalem. He stayed in the villages and the towns and
the small places. He refused to go to Jerusalem and declare Himself messiah until the next
Passover. And that would be His last Passover lead to his ***.
Just to say this, He is operating on a divine schedule. Nothing in His life is random. Nothing
in His life is unplanned. Nothing goes wrong. Everything is according exactly to God’s
eternal purpose. This is one of the great evidences of His deity. One of the great confidences
that assure us that He was who He claimed to be.
Mark it. This again proves Him to be the son of God. They didn’t like His words. They
didn’t like that He said He was from heaven. They didn’t like that He said He was the
only bread. They didn’t like that He said He could give eternal life, and He was the
only one who could give eternal life. He didn’t buy those words. They didn’t buy that He
was going to give His flesh for the life of the world. They weren’t willing to eat His
flesh and drink His blood, accept His death.
And I’ll tell you right now, they really didn’t like that He testified to them that
their deeds were what? Were evil. If you had an opportunity to stand before the leaders
of any place that you might work or any school or the faculty of a university or some group
of important people, would you launch on the fact that their deeds are evil and start spelling
them out? What would you assume would be the reaction? Yeah, of course. You’d be thrown
out. With the fear of man and the fall and need to be accepted and loved by people, we
tend to shy away from the boldness that Christ had.
But He confronted them and told them their deeds are evil. From the very beginning, He
talked like that. You see that in chapter 2 when He goes to the temple and just exposes
the corruption of the whole thing and attacks it. Again, I go back to the fact that it’s
both what Jesus said about Himself positively and what He said about people negatively.
It was those words that turned them so much against Him.
How evil are they? Well, their father is whom? The devil. Still true, by the way. Your father
is the devil if you’re not saved, and your father is God, your father is the devil. John
15:18, “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.
If you are of the world, the world would love its own. But because you’re not of the world
but I chose you out of the world because of this, the world hates you.”
And then he goes on to say, “A slave is not greater than his master. If they hated
me, they’ll hate you.” So it’s again the words of Jesus that are the issue. So
here we begin entering into this amazing time of confrontation that leads to the cross.
I’m going to close with some good news. Turn to Acts 1:14. Well let’s actually back
up to 12. Acts 1:12. This is the apostles who were there at the ascension of Jesus into
heaven.
They returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath
day’s journey away, meaning a very short distance. “They entered the city. They went
to the upper room where they were staying. That is Peter and John and James and Andrew,
Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James, the son of Alpheus, and Simon, the
zealot, Judas, the son of James.” That’s 11 because Judas Iscariot is gone. “These
all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer along with the women,
and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and by the way, with his –” what? His brothers.
With his brothers. They were there with 120 in the upper room on the day of Pentecost
because after the resurrection, they had come to believe in Jesus Christ. It was the resurrection,
no doubt, that convinced them that He was who He claimed to be, that obviously greatest
sign of all signs, that He came out of the grave having conquered death. They made the
right decision finally. Didn’t they? That’s what I proposed before you. You will be held
accountable for whatever it is you do with Christ.
Good men, not enough. Bad men, terrible error. Deceiver, that’s a devilish notion. You
will be held responsible for the right answer. And what is the right answer? Peter gave it
in chapter 6 verse 69. “We believe that you are the holy one of God. The holy one
of God. The holy one of God.” My prayer for you is that you would come to that conviction,
that you would put your trust in Christ in the same way that those true disciples did.
Not be a false disciple and walk away and not be hostile to the truth. Let’s pray.
Lord, we have scratched the surface of all that’s here. Just pray that somehow, you
can give us enough of this not to disappoint heaven with our understanding and help us
to meditate on it, think about it, go back, read it again, search it out. So rich, so
wonderful, and so shocking that one so perfect could be called a deceiver after having rendered
all evidences. How profound is human sin and unbelief? But we know that. We understand
that.
They do not believe. They cannot believe. Their hearts are hardened. Their eyes are
made blind. Their ears cannot hear. They cannot understand, says Isaiah, when it comes to
Christ. But Lord, still we cry out, and we plead with men to believe. We know it’s
a work that you have to do. We ask that you would grant faith to all who hear this message.
May no one escape the responsibility, the accountability, the understanding of the urgency
of believing in the holy one of God. We thank you again that every journey that we take
in the gospels is an experience with Christ that transcends any other kind of experience,
that the word is alive, powerful, penetrating, captivating, transforming. What a privilege.
Do your work, Lord, in every heart, we pray.