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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to John chapter 7 and hold your place at verse 37. The title for today is taken directly from the text and the question is, are you also from Galilee?
You'll see what that means when we read through today. Divisions are difficult.
Difficult.
When you have divisions in relationships, when you have divisions in your participation in groups or maybe divisions in your own household, divisions are never easy. I heard someone say one time, everything ends badly if it didn't, it wouldn't end.
You know, so we all, you know, when we have divisions in relationships and these things, it's always like it's a negative normally. But yet at the same time, the Bible tells us that there are times when division is necessary.
We cannot always be willing to just go with the flow. There are times where we have to be willing to stand up and say, no, we're not doing that. We're not believing that or we're not going that direction.
And that's where we find ourselves in this portion of John's gospel as we have been continuing on in John's gospel now over the last several months, over a year now, looking at the gospel of John. And we find ourselves where Jesus is among the people in Jerusalem and there is a division among the people over him.
And this division is only widening. The more he speaks and the more the Jewish leaders are angry with him for what he is saying and the more frustrated they become, the more they begin to press for something to be done and the more division occurs.
I'm reminded of what the apostle Paul said to the Corinthians. He said, I have heard that there are divisions among you and I believe it is true for there must be factions among you because it shows who are genuine.
It shows who are genuine. Sometimes divisions are necessary. And when it comes to Christ, Christ divides people. He said that himself. Do not think that I came to bring peace, but a sword for I will divide father from son, mother from daughter.
I'll divide people because where Christ is, there will never be neutrality. There will either be those who are for him or those who are against him. And so today, we are going to continue our reading in John 7 and by God's grace, my hope is to finish the chapter today.
As Brother Andy said, I will not be preaching next week. I'm speaking in California several days on the subject of polemics, so it's an interesting topic. I'll be speaking to a college group. And then the week after that is Easter and I'm going to take a break from our exposition in John to preach on the resurrection.
So we won't be back in John for a few weeks, so my hope today is to finish. Let's stand together and read the final part of John chapter 7. On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.
Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive. For as yet the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
When they heard these words, some of the people said, this really is the prophet. Others said, this is the Christ. But some said, is the Christ to come from Galilee? Has not the scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?
So there was a division among the people over him. Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him. The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, Why did you not bring him?
The officers answered, No one ever spoke like this man. The Pharisees answered them, Have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.
Nicodemus, who had gone to him before, and who was one of them, said to them, Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does? They replied, Are you from Galilee too?
Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee. Father, I thank you for your word. And now as we come to the end of the chapter, Lord, I pray by your mercy and grace that you would give us eyes to see and ears to hear what your scripture says.
I pray that you would keep me from error as I preach, as I pray every time that I preach. Lord, God, keep me from error. And I pray that you would open up the hearts of your people to understand what it says.
And Lord, for anyone who is here who does not know you, who has not bowed the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ, that today would be the day that they would hear the Lord Jesus Christ cry out, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.
And Lord, that they might come and that they might drink and taste and see that the Lord is good. We pray this in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Jesus is in Jerusalem during the Feast of Booths, which as we have learned over the last few weeks, this is the feast where they celebrated the deliverance of God in the wilderness.
They would go and they would live in temporary homes, these booths or tabernacles for this feast. And during the feast, they would celebrate the things that God did for them in the wilderness. Jesus is here at the feast.
And this is about six months before he will be crucified. We know that he will be crucified at Passover, which is about six months after the Feast of Tabernacles. In fact, in two weeks, we'll be celebrating Easter and we'll be celebrating the resurrection, which occurred, of course, after the Feast of Passover on the first day of the week.
And so we're in the springtime. Well, this would have been in the fall prior to that event. Some of the people in the crowd have mixed opinions about Jesus. Some say he is a good man. Others say he is leading people astray.
That's up in verse 12. Some are questioning where he received his learning since he has not had formal training. That's up in verse 15. Jesus asked them, why are you seeking to kill me? And they say he has a demon.
Who is seeking to kill you? They basically say you're crazy. Yet it is clear in verse 25, which we saw last week, that they knew very well that there were people who wanted to have him killed. There are questions that are being raised.
How can this man be the Messiah? We know where he comes from. But when the Messiah comes, we won't know where he comes from. But then there are other people who are saying, how can this man not be the Messiah?
Look at what he's doing. Will anyone ever be able to do more than this man has done? And so back and forth, over and over, there is this division in the crowd. And the tension is growing between Jesus and the Jewish leaders.
Many of the people are beginning to think that Jesus might be the Messiah. Many are believing in him as Messiah. So they send the police to arrest him. We see this in verse 32. It says they sent the temple guard, which were basically a police force that was under the authority of the Sanhedrin.
And they were responsible for protecting the temple. And all of the events that happened in the temple were under the protection of this temple guard. So the temple guard went to Jesus. And yet Jesus does not go with them.
Jesus says, I will be with you a little while longer. And then I'm going away to him who sent me. And this brings us to where we are today in the text, which is the final day of the feast. This is the great day, according to John 7 .37.
It says, on the last day of the feast, which was referred to as the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out. Now before we read what Jesus said, and before we begin to seek an explanation of what is he saying here, I just want to remind you of some of the things that have happened during this feast.
Remember, this feast is a celebration and remembrance of the time of the people of God in the wilderness. And the people of God in the wilderness had several things that occurred that were remembered in this feast.
As we already mentioned, they had temporary homes, these tabernacles. This was to remember the fact that they lived in mobile tents in this time. They didn't build homes, they didn't lay foundations, but they were nomadic.
They would pick up and move and go. And so they would come and they would live in these tents. But something else that would happen was known as the water ceremony. And I think this is specifically important as to what Jesus is saying here and why it matters.
I want to read to you from Kenneth Gangel's commentary. He tells us about this event, this ceremony.
He says this, he says,.
The surrounding context offered a dramatic backdrop for these brief but powerful words. The corporate mind had been focused on water for days. Now why would they be focused on water? Well, because in the wilderness, you remember, the people needed water.
And how did God give them water? He gave them water miraculously. He didn't lead them to a river or to a brook, but rather he gave them a stone and out of that stone came water. I don't know about you, I remember when I first thought about that, I was thinking as I was reading through the book of Exodus there and reading about this rock and it says the rock was with them.
As if the rock were moving on its own. And I don't know what that looked like. I don't know what it possibly could have been like to just have a spring of water that flowed out of a rock, not out of the ground, not out of a living plant, but out of a dead stone, would flow forth living, drinkable water.
Remember how many people in the wilderness, do you remember? If you read the book of Numbers, if you go to the beginning of the book of Numbers, the first census was 603 ,550 fighting men. Which means, if that number is accurate, maybe I shouldn't say if because it's the word of God, it is accurate, but we can say 603 ,550 fighting men, that doesn't include the little boys.
Neither does that include men like me.
Old men.
No, this would have been young fighting men. And each of those men probably had a female counterpart, which would have put the number well over a million people in the wilderness. I think about, you know, the movies you see about the wilderness wanderings, you often see it's like a couple hundred people walking through the desert.
No, it's Jacksonville walking through the desert. The population of Jacksonville is about a million people. So the population of Jacksonville had to be fed and watered every day. And so whatever this rock was,.
It had to have been amazing. It had to have been massive.
It had to have produced water without end. And so in celebration of this, and I want to continue reading now from the commentary, they would remember that rock and what it did. And this is what it said.
It says,.
On the seventh day, the priest would circle the altar seven times in succession. Now, why would he circle seven times? It was in remembrance of the event that happened in Jericho. Remember, they went around the wall seven times.
He would circle seven times. And when he came around the sixth time, he'd be joined by another priest that was carrying wine. They would ascend the ramp to the altar, where they would together pour out wine and water on the altar.
And when they were in place, they would come a pause as the priest raised up his pitcher. Always the crowd shouted for him to hold it higher and higher, and he would do so. And it was considered to be the height of joy in the person's life if he could see the water being poured out onto the altar.
That's actually from Kent Hughes, who wrote a commentary on this passage. So we have this water ceremony, which is meant to remind them of the water that was given in the wilderness, that was reminded that God provided for their physical need.
God provided the one thing that you can't live without. And God provided it in the wilderness. So on the last day of the feast, all this is taken, they've seen all of this. And on the last day of the feast, Jesus stands up and he cries out.
And the word here literally means he shouts. He's no longer under the radar. Remember when he first came to the Feast of Tabernacles, he told his brothers he was coming, he wasn't coming with them in their way.
They came up to the festival in celebration. No, Jesus came covertly. And he walked through the crowd privately, the text says. But now he's no longer private. He stands up and in a loud voice he shouts, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.
What Jesus is telling them, and what Jesus is proclaiming through these words, is he is the life-giving rock that was in the wilderness. In fact, the Apostle Paul tells us that. The Apostle Paul says that rock was a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Actually, Paul doesn't say that.
He says that rock was Christ. And we call that typology. The study of Old Testament signs and symbols that pointed forward to New Testament fulfillments. And that Old Testament rock that poured forth that life-giving water was a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ who would say to the people of God, Come to me and drink.
If any of you thirsts, come to me and drink. Understand this, there is a great gospel call in those words. May we never lose the unction to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world.
And say to those who thirst, Come to Jesus and drink. Sometimes I think people imagine because we are reformed in our doctrine that we don't share the gospel. That we are, as some have called, the frozen chosen.
And yet, some of the most powerful gospel preachers in history have been men who believed the doctrines of grace. George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, just to name a few. And they would proclaim, If anyone is thirsty, let him come and drink.
Because we do not know who it is that God will change their hearts. So we proclaim to every man, Come and drink. And if you come, God will not turn you away.
Jesus said,.
All the Father gives me will come to me. And the one who comes to me, I will in no wise cast out. So we have this wonderful reminder from the Lord Jesus Christ that we can stand in any group anywhere and say to any man, If anyone thirsts, come to Jesus and drink.
But what does it mean to come to Jesus and drink? Jesus used many metaphors in his teaching. And this is one of the most common that Jesus uses in John. And that is the idea that he himself is going to give water for them to drink.
But the water is not physical water that can be drawn up out of a well, or is going to pour out of a rock, or is going to fall from the heavens. But the water that Jesus is referring to is the water of his own words.
And it is believing in his words how we actually drink from him. That's what it means to drink from the Lord Jesus Christ. It means to believe. And we see that in verse 38. Because verse 37, he says, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.
Verse 38, whoever believes in me, or what is believing in me, that is commensurate with what he just said. The one who comes to drink, that's the one who believes. And he says, whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
Now this should be somewhat recognizable to us. Because if you remember the words to the woman at the well, Jesus said almost this exact thing. Remember when he was at the well with the woman and he didn't have any way to draw.
And he says, give me a drink. And she says, why are you asking me for something to drink? Knowing that at that time Jews and Samaritans did not have social relationships. And she says, why are you asking me for something to drink?
And Jesus said, if you knew who it was who asked you, you would ask him and he would give you living water. And he said to the woman, the one who drinks of this water out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
But what does it mean? What does it mean to have rivers of living water flow from us? What is he even talking about? Well, praise the Lord that the scripture doesn't make us have to wonder. The scripture doesn't make us have to come up with a creative interpretation.
Because the very next verse, John, the gospel writer, provides us a Holy Spirit inspired interpretation of Jesus' words. Amen, ain't that great? We don't have to wonder and we don't have to be creative.
By the way, being a preacher of the gospel is not about being creative. It's about being submitted to the word. Read the word, explain the word, apply the word and move on. That's the job of the preacher.
Not to be creative. Saw a video this week of a pastor doing a cannonball from the top of an 8 foot ladder into a kiddie pool at the front of his church. And he said, because we need to be tucking in our knees and going all in with life.
I just think how odd we are sometimes that we feel like we have to add to God's word with our own creativity. We just have to understand what it's saying. Verse 39, now this he said, John is giving us the explanation.
Now this he said about the spirit whom those who believe in him were to receive for as yet the spirit had not yet been given because Jesus was not yet glorified. Very quickly, I just want to make mention.
I don't know how it reads in the NAS or the other translations, but I want to show you something I do like about the ESV at this point. And that is that if you notice it says, now this he said about the spirit, whom, notice it is whom.
And the reason why I point that out and I try to point this out often when we're going through the text of scripture, anytime the Holy Spirit is mentioned, he is never referred to as it. He is never referred to as a mere force or a mere energy that emits from the Father or some other type of impersonal it.
The Holy Spirit is always referred to as he. This is one of the reasons why we hold to what we sang this morning, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. For God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, all three personal, distinct and yet indivisible persons of the Godhead.
One God eternally existing in three persons. And Jesus says, now this he said about the spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive. Now that future tense is very important. And the reason why I say it's very important is because if you continue reading, he says for as yet the spirit had not been given.
Beloved, I have to be careful because I can easily go into a side track on pneumatology, which is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. And I don't want to spend all of our time on this, but I do, I did feel the need as I was preparing my notes and preparing for today to say I wanted to stop here for just a moment to remind you that what we have here in this verse is we actually have one of the keys in understanding the difference between the Old Testament economy and the New Testament economy of the work of the Spirit of God.
Because under the Old Testament economy, the Spirit of God was among the people. But in the New Testament economy, the Spirit of God is in the people. And that's the distinction and promise between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.
In fact, I don't see how you can read the promise of the New Covenant and come away with any other conclusion than that there is a new and distinct administration of the Spirit under the New Covenant.
Because what are we told about the New Covenant? What will be the difference in the New Covenant? In the New Covenant, the Spirit of God will no longer be in the temple of God, but the people of God will be the temple of God and the Spirit of God will dwell in them forever.
This is the very celebration of Pentecost that we see every year, 50 days after the celebration of Easter, we celebrate Pentecost, which means 50, it's the celebration 50 days after the time of the Passover.
And this is when the Spirit of God fell on the people of God as they were in that upper room after Jesus ascended. Remember, Jesus rose 40 days later, He ascended 10 days later, they're in the upper room, 50 days on the day of Pentecost and the Holy Spirit fell and as tongues of fire filled them, empowered them, and they began to speak in languages that they did not know in such a way that the people who heard them heard them all in their own languages, demonstrating that a miracle had occurred among the people of God because the Spirit of God had fallen on them.
This is the promise of the New Covenant. In fact, Peter quotes from Joel.
Joel says,.
It shall come to pass that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will see visions. Even on male and female servants on those days I will pour out My Spirit.
And that's what we see on the day of Pentecost. So that's what John's referencing here.
He's saying,.
Jesus is promising something. He's promising that the Spirit would come and live within them. But it wasn't yet. When was this promise to be fulfilled? The promise was to be fulfilled on the day of Pentecost.
We see this same promise given later in chapter 14. Jesus says, I will ask the Father and He will give you another Helper to be with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him.
You know Him for He dwells with you and will be in you. See, that's it. He dwells with you now but He will be in you then. That's the distinction of old and new covenant right there in John chapter 14 verse 16.
Understand this. I am in no way saying the Spirit has ever been devoid of God's people. I'm not saying the Spirit wasn't working among God's people. And I am not saying at all that the people in the Old Testament did not have to have the Spirit to give them the ability to believe.
I do believe there had to have been a work of the Spirit for them to have the ability to believe because as we say even to today, people don't come to faith on their own. People come to faith because of the work of the Spirit.
But the new covenant promise is that the Spirit will live in you. And Jesus said at this point in His ministry, we're right now three and a half years in or two and a half years in. We're almost to the end of the third year which is when He'll be crucified.
He says at this point the Spirit had not yet been given. I think it's clear. I think it's clear. John 16, 7 says, I tell you the truth it is to your advantage that I go away for if I do not go away the Helper will not come to you.
But if I go I will send Him to you. Why?
Why?
Why will Jesus send the Spirit? Well the modalist will say the reason why Jesus sends the Spirit is because the Spirit is Jesus. Because it's one God and one person. In the Father and the Old Testament, Jesus in the Gospels, the Spirit in the New Testament and it's one person.
That's not what Jesus is saying and we do not need to fall for that type of thinking. That particular heresy, I said I wasn't going to go into pneumatology. I guess I did. I lied. I lied from the pulpit and let me repent right now.
In the 3rd and 4th centuries there was debates over this. There were debates over the Godhead and understanding the doctrine of the Trinity and there was somebody named Sibelius who taught something called modalism.
Modalism was the idea that there's one God, one person and He shows Himself in different modes. Like I can be a father to my children, I can be a husband to my wife and I can be a son to my father but I'm always the same person.
That's what modalism teaches. So it's God is Father in the Old Testament, He's Jesus in here and what that leads to is that leads to a Godhead that cannot communicate within itself because now you don't have the Son praying to the Father because they're both the same person and you don't have the Son sending the Spirit because they're both the same person.
Jesus wouldn't have said I go away to send the Spirit.
He would have said I go away and I'll be right back.
I mean seriously, that's the idea of modalism. I'll be back just in a different form. That's not the doctrine of the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity is a very distinct and very specific doctrine that discusses the three persons and not only their economic distinctions, the Father elects and sends the Son, the Son comes and redeems His people and the Spirit comes and applies what the Son does.
We know all this. But there is also an eternal relationship between the Father, the Son and the Spirit which has always existed in the Godhead. This is why we can say love did not begin when God created the world.
Love has always existed in the Trinity as the Father, the Son and the Spirit have always loved one another. God did not create mankind so He'd have something to be affectionate towards. And that is how some people understand why God created.
No, no, no. God has always loved within Himself. Again, I said I wasn't going to do it. Forgive me. But this is important because I see it right here on the page. I mean, I'm not reading into the text something that's not there.
Jesus says, or John is giving us a Holy Spirit inspired interpretation.
He says,.
For as yet the Spirit had not been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified. What is the role of the Spirit today? The Spirit's job, the Spirit's role is to point people to Jesus Christ. This is why I do believe in some expressions of Christianity the Spirit's role has become unbiblical because all focus is on Him and it's always talked about the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit and it's always about the gifts and the manifestation of the gifts and all of these things to the point that we're no longer focusing on Christ but we're focusing on the Spirit.
The Spirit's job is to convict the world of sin and to point them towards the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. You want to know if you're filled with the Spirit or not? Are you looking towards Jesus Christ for salvation?
And is the Spirit of God pointing you to reverence for the Lord Jesus Christ? That's a very important recognition. All right. We're going to move on to verse 40. Let me read one last thing. I just said the Spirit's job is to glorify Christ.
The person filled with the Spirit will be the person who lives in submission to and love for the biblical Jesus. And I want to quote one verse before I move on. 1 Corinthians 16, 22. Listen to this. If anyone has no love for Jesus, if anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed.
What will the Spirit do in you if He is truly in you? Well, He will keep you. That's right, Richard, and you're 100 correct. But He will cause you to love Jesus.
That's right.
He will cause you to love Jesus. 1 Corinthians 16, 22. I remember preaching that a few years ago. I did a whole sermon on that one verse. If you do not love Jesus, you are not saved. You do not have the Spirit of God in you because that's what the Spirit will do.
He will give you a desire and a heart that loves Jesus. I mean, that's so key. People always come to me talking about assurance, wanting assurance. Do you love Jesus? That's the first question.
Do you love Jesus?
And not the Jesus of your own creation. Do you love the real biblical Jesus? Not the idols that we make with our minds. The Jesus who never once said a difficult thing. But do we love the Jesus of Scripture?
Because if we don't, Paul says let him be accursed.
Alright.
Let's move on. Verse 40. When they heard these words, some of the people said, this is really the prophet. Others said, this is the Christ. But some said, is the Christ to come from Galilee? Has not the Scripture said that Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?
So there was a division among the people over him. Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him. Remember verse 30 said,.
Why no one laid hands on him?
Because his time had not yet come. God was not allowing it at this point for anyone to lay hands on him. But there was also division in the crowd. Some of the people saw what was apparent. They saw what was obvious.
They said, this is the prophet. Now the word the prophet there with the definite article is important because this is referencing back to Deuteronomy 18 verse 15 where we are told in the Old Testament that God is going to raise up a prophet like Moses and listen to him.
And we're told in the New Testament that's actually a direct prophecy about the Lord Jesus Christ. That Jesus Christ is the prophet who was to come, who was like Moses. And so when they said, is this the prophet?
Is this the Messiah? The answer is yes. And the next question, is this the Christ? Verse 41, but some said, is the Christ to come from Galilee? Is the Christ to come from Galilee? And they said, has not the scripture said that Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem,.
The village where David was?
Now keep in mind that's not wrong. It is not wrong that the Messiah was to come from Bethlehem. Micah chapter 5 verse 2 tells us very clearly that the Messiah was to come from Bethlehem. But here's where the issue arises.
Jesus is from Bethlehem. They are seeing where Jesus is from, but they're not seeing where Jesus was born. We call Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth. Nazareth is in Galilee. Galilee is to the north. They thought that's where Jesus was from, but that's not where he was born.
It's interesting here that what we don't see is we don't see anyone offering up any correction about this. We know from the other gospels that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but we don't see Jesus offering up any correction to their misunderstanding.
We don't see anyone offering up. Mary may have been there. She's not offering up any correction. I think Stephen Cole gets it right when he says this. He says they didn't want to believe. They just wanted a comfortable excuse.
They just wanted a comfortable excuse. They were looking at Jesus. They were looking at everything that he did. He healed the sick. He gave sight to the blind. He gave hearing to the deaf. He gave brand new baby skin to people who had been afflicted by that terrible disease that was eating their flesh called leprosy.
He had given all of this and even life to the dead, and they could say, yeah, yeah, yeah, but he ain't from the right town. This is very common even to this day that no matter how much someone can hear about the truths of who Jesus Christ, if someone does not want to believe, they will look for the most pedantic and most ridiculous reasons to not believe.
And that's what we're seeing. It would have taken nothing more than looking at the records of when Jesus was born and where Jesus was born because those records were kept. It would have taken nothing more than to just go and look and see that he was actually born in Bethlehem.
He did fulfill the prophecy of Micah 5 .2. It would have taken very little to prove these people wrong, but they weren't interested in being proven wrong. They were interested in having a reason to not believe.
This is similar to those today and you'll hear people today who are convinced that the Bible is wrong, that the Bible teaches false things, and often it's just a little bit of research that will show that it's not true.
Someone will say, well, the Bible is wrong about this, and then you go and research it and you find out the Bible's not wrong. They don't want the research.
They want the excuse.
They don't want the answer. They want the comfortable ability to say, well, I don't have to believe because of this thing right here. Dr. R .C. Sproul tells a story of how he had a very dear friend who was a seminary student who fell into atheism, left the faith, and one day he and this young man had a...
This was back when he was a young man and they were contemporaries and colleagues. They began to have a conversation with one another, and he said, well, you know what made me leave the faith, R .C., was all the contradictions in the Bible.
That's what made me walk away was all the contradictions. And so R .C. said, well, can you share with me what the contradictions were? Can we walk through these contradictions? You were a man set to go and preach the gospel.
You were going to seminary.
You were ready to give your life.
For Jesus Christ and His service, and yet you've walked away. It's the contradictions that got you. Let's walk through these contradictions. And one after one after one,.
He showed the man.
That what he believed was a contradiction was not a contradiction. One after another after another after another. I love the most famous one I hear oftentimes.
People say,.
Well, the Bible says an eye for an eye,.
But Jesus said,.
Turn the other cheek. Those contradict. Therefore, I can't believe the Bible. Never being concerned with context. Never being concerned with how those two different things are related to two different issues.
One is given to judges. How are you to judge rightly? How are you to judge in righteousness? You are to judge in righteousness by fairness, and fairness is an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth, a hand for hand,.
A foot for foot.
That's how fairness is done. That's how justice is done.
But Jesus says,.
If a man strikes you,.
You don't have to have fairness.
You can show mercy.
And he's called us to mercy. Now, we don't call judges to mercy because judges have the job of upholding righteousness. If every judge in the world decided to show mercy tomorrow, we would have a society filled with all kinds of reckless abandon.
We can't have judges who exercise mercy. They must exercise justice. But on an individual level, we are called to show mercy to someone who hurts us.
Because in doing so, we are showing what God showed to us when we offended Him. We're showing mercy. And we're being like God. You see how it's not a contradiction? R .C. Sproul showed these to this man over and over.
And he said, well, I just don't think if it was really God's Word, it would be that hard to have to go through all those, jump through all those hoops.
And he said,.
It's 66 books.
Written over 1 ,500 years by 40 different authors. You don't think there's going to be a different context between page one and page 300?
Are you out of your mind? Sorry, I got a little excited. You understand the point, though? There's a lot of stuff in this book. People will find anything they can to not believe if they don't want to believe.
Jesus isn't born in Bethlehem.
Yes, He is.
But you don't care.
You just want an excuse. You want an excuse.
So there was a division among the people over Him. Some of them wanted to arrest Him. No one laid hands on Him. The officers then came to the chief priests and the Pharisees who said to them, why did you not bring Him?
Now this takes us back to next week, and I'm going to go a little quicker now. This takes us back to next week because remember last week the Pharisees sent the officers to arrest Jesus. Now they've come back.
No Jesus. They don't have a prisoner in hand. They don't got Him cuffed. They don't have Him bringing Him before the tribunal. They don't have Jesus with them. And the Pharisees want to know why. Hey, we sent you guys to do a job.
You're the arresting officers. You're the police. We sent you to arrest these men. You didn't do it.
Now you understand they could have given many different answers. Hey, couldn't catch Him. He got away too quickly. The crowd pressed in on us. We couldn't reach Him. You know, there's a lot of things they could have said but that's not their answer.
Their answer comes in verse 45. Is it verse 45?
Yeah, I think.
My eyes are getting bad at my old age here. The officers answered, no one ever spoke like this man. I'm sorry, verse 46. No one ever spoke like this man. I just love that answer because that answer is honest.
We went to arrest Him. We went to do exactly what you told us to do. But when we got there, we listened to Him. When we got there, we heard what He had to say and I am not laying a hand on that guy. No one has ever spoke like this man.
No one has ever said the things that He said in the way that He says them. This man is different. And notice the Pharisees. The Pharisees don't even for a minute give any credibility to what these men are saying.
They don't think for a second, well, hey, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm the one who's made the mistake. Maybe I've missed it because the people are saying He's the Christ. The people are saying He's the prophet.
The people are saying He's Messiah. These men who are bound by their duty to go and arrest Him, they won't arrest Him because they hear the words of this man. But the Pharisees, instead of giving any thought to the possibility that they might be wrong, instead they say this, have you also been deceived?
Here's the modern way of saying it. Did He fool you too? Did He pull the wool over your eyes like He has over all these people? And the next question is the most arrogant question that they could have mustered because they said, have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in Him?
By the way, the answer to that is at least one is beginning to believe in Him if He hasn't already and we're going to hear from Him in just a minute. But this is not a good argument and I hear this argument a lot today.
In fact, I heard it very recently. I heard someone say, well, if the Bible's true, why do the smartest people in the world deny that it's true? I heard somebody say that. He was a college professor. He said, well, I know that the vast majority of people with advanced degrees don't believe that the Bible is true.
Therefore, I don't see a reason to believe the Bible is true. Well, first of all, that's not true. Some of the most intelligent people in the world do believe the Bible is true. But your level of intelligence, believing something doesn't make it true or not.
And the Bible does say that God has hidden these things from the wise and given them to babes. That He uses the foolishness of preaching to confound the wise. These men are saying, have the authorities believed in Him?
Has someone with a degree trusted in Him? Have any of the Pharisees believed in Him? With all the arrogance that they could muster. But it gets worse, because the very next verse says this. But this crowd that does not know the law is under God's curse.
That's what that basically says. They are cursed. This crowd is ignorant. This crowd is stupid. This crowd doesn't understand God's law.
You know what?
The crowd understood God's law enough to know that it was supposed to be from Bethlehem. They understood at least that much. This crowd does not understand God's law and they are accursed.
By the way,.
Just a thought from this text. Whose fault is it that they don't understand God's law? They're the teachers. Now we see Nicodemus come in. And Nicodemus says, actually it tells, it says, Nicodemus who had gone to Him before, this is referring to John chapter 3.
Remember Nicodemus went to Jesus at night and when he went to Jesus at night, Jesus had proclaimed the gospel to him. Lest a man be born again, we shall not see the kingdom of heaven. Nicodemus has had this private audience with Jesus and Nicodemus was also one of them.
And he said to them, Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he says, what he does? Nicodemus is making a simple plea for jurisprudence. Our law has rules. You say you hold to the law.
You say you uphold God's law. And our law demands that we don't condemn a man without first hearing that man. That simple jurisprudence. And yet, the Pharisees demonstrate that they're more concerned about prejudice than they are about precision.
Because look at how they respond. Are you also from Galilee? The arrogance drips off of that. The arrogance absolutely drips off of that. They say, Are you from Galilee also? You know what they're saying.
It doesn't have to be explained. You understand the sarcasm that's coming out of that statement. Are you one of his too? You from his city, you standing up for your guy? You from his area? I like what Spurgeon says at this point.
Spurgeon said all he did was ask a question. All he did was ask a question. Does not our law demand that this man receive a proper hearing? Does not our law demand that this man actually be heard to see what he does?
And how do they respond? Are you from Galilee too? Are you from Galilee too? This is a sarcastic ad hominem. Meant to dismiss the reality that one of them had in fact been moved by Christ's words and works.
They said that hadn't happened back in verse 48. They said, Do you know one Pharisee who believes in him? And now Nicodemus raises his hand. But wait a minute, shouldn't we at least hear him out? And they say, Are you from Galilee too?
It's an automatic ad hominem. It's automatic attack against the man. Has nothing to do with what he's saying because what Nicodemus is saying is right. But they don't want to hear it. They don't want to hear it.
This is a master class of manipulation. This whole thing has been. The soldiers come back. No one spoke like this man. Do you know any Pharisees who believed in him? That's manipulation. Now Nicodemus says something.
They say, Are you from Galilee too? That's manipulation. None of this is based on righteousness. None of this is based on lawfulness. None of this is based on the goodness and righteousness of God's word or God's law.
All of this is based in hatred, prejudice and bigotry against the Lord Jesus Christ and anyone who might stand with him. This entire section demonstrates the heart of the Pharisees and this is the very reason why Jesus would later say, Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.
Because that is exactly what they were. And then we hear the final words. Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee. Well except for Jonah and Nahum who were both from Galilee or at least the Galilee region and possibly others as well.
So not only are they wrong in the way that they're responding but they're also wrong in how they read the scriptures. I want to close with just a few points of application and then I'll pray. Number one, the clearest gospel presentation in the world will not result in a conversion unless the Holy Spirit opens blind eyes.
That's what we see here. We see these people, these Pharisees, they are blinded by their own hatred of Jesus Christ. They are blinded by their unwillingness to believe. And you know when you have someone who believes something or doesn't believe something, no matter what you do unless God changes their heart, they're not going to believe.
Number two, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, go ahead and put it in your mind, you will be ridiculed for that. Think about the three groups that are ridiculed in this or the three that are ridiculed.
Number one, when the police officers come back, when the temple guards come back, hey, do you know any Pharisee who believes in him? That's ridicule. This crowd, they don't know the law, they're accursed.
That's ridicule. Are you from Galilee too?
That's ridicule.
If you follow after the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be called stupid, you will be called ignorant, you will be called backwoods, redneck, hillbilly, anything you can imagine. But Jesus says, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake.
Number three, people are quick to hide behind excuses rather than dig deeper in search of the truth. People are quick to hide behind excuses rather than dig deeper in search of the truth. Keep that in mind when you're sharing the gospel with people and they begin to start vomiting up all of those excuses.
Don't let that cause you fear or dismay. Just stand on the truth of God's word. Finally and lastly, and we'll close with this, Jesus does not allow neutrality. There is no neutrality. He says we are either for him or against him.
And in this crowd, there is a division. And in every crowd in the world, there is a division. And I imagine that even in this room, there is a division. There are those who have trusted in Jesus Christ and there are those who have not yet trusted in Jesus Christ.
And my prayer today is that God would take you. You might think you're neutral. You might think, well, I'm just waiting to see. On the day of judgment, you won't be waiting to see. You will stand condemned for your sins if you do not have a substitute.
And the only substitute is Jesus Christ. The Bible says God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us so that we could become the righteousness of God in him. If you have never trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ, you're not neutral.
You sit right now under the condemnation of God. But the Bible says that you can come to Jesus and drink of the water of life and be saved. So come and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. Let us pray.
Father, I thank you for your word. I thank you for this opportunity to preach. And I pray, Lord, that this would be used of you to open hearts, not because of the cleverness of speech, but because of the power of your word, not by my energy, but by the working of your spirit.
Lord, may you draw to yourself those who are not yours yet. And Lord, may those who are yours by faith be encouraged to stand fast in a world of persecution. We pray all this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Amen. Amen.