The Hard Hearts of the Pharisees

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If you'll turn with me, please, in your Bibles to John chapter 7. Gospel of John chapter 7.
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We'll continue looking at this section of Holy Scripture as the Lord gives us guidance this evening,
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John chapter 7. This evening, after the service,
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I know because we brought some stuff, some food, so I imagine we have a hymn sing this evening.
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Just better check things after what I just did. I would like to invite you to stay for hymn sing and food thereafter.
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I think in light of all the hymn singing we will be doing, we'll just skip hymn number 91 and we'll just close the benedictions afterwards.
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We'll let Roxy communicate that information as well. That's how we'll do it this evening.
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Let's ask the Lord to bless our time in the Word. Father, once again, as we open your Word, we ask that as only you can, you would come by your
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Spirit and that you would help us to understand, that you would give us a desire to be obedient to your
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Word and insight into your Word, that we might handle it aright and be made better servants of yours.
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We pray in Christ's name. Amen. This morning we began looking at this chapter and we finished with a verse that I encourage you to put on your memorization list, and that is verse 24 of chapter 7.
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Do not judge according to appearance or according to the sight, but judge with a righteous judgment.
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We mentioned how often Jesus's words, judge not, are misused and abused by people in our world today and it would be good to have that text ready as a response if we have the opportunity of even responding.
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These days we very often do not. But we want to try to work through as much of the rest of the chapter as we can, so we pick up with verse 25 of chapter 7,
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John chapter 7 verse 25. Therefore certain of the people of Jerusalem were saying, is this not the one, the man whom they are seeking to kill?
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So we note that there were some people who did know the truthfulness of Jesus's words. Look, he is speaking openly and no one says anything to him.
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The rulers do not really know that this is the Christ, the
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Messiah, do they? However, we know where this one is from, where this man is from.
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But when the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from.
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And therefore Jesus cried out in the temple while teaching and said, you both know me and know where I am from and I have not come of myself, but he who sent me is true, whom you do not know.
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I know him because I am from him and that one has sent me.
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Therefore they were seeking to seize him, to lay hands upon him, but no one placed a hand upon him because his hour had not yet come.
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But many of the crowd believed in him and as I'll point out when we get there, that is a form of belief that has occurred once before in John and will occur again in John and I believe we can make a very strong argument that whenever this particular form of belief is used, it's not saving faith for John.
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It's a false faith and you can sort of see that by what they say. But many of the crowd believed in him and were saying, when the
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Christ comes, he will not do greater signs than this man does.
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Tells you something about what their belief was about. Therefore the Pharisees heard the gungus mooing of the crowd, the murmuring of the crowd concerning him, the things concerning him, and the chief priests and the
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Pharisees sent officers. These would be like, not military necessarily, but officers with the authority of binding and loosing in order that they might arrest him or to grab hold of him.
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Therefore Jesus said, yet a little while am I with you and I will then go away to the one who sent me.
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You will seek me, you will not find me, and where I am you are not able to go.
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Therefore the Jews said to one another, they were very confused at what he said, where does this man intend to go?
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That we will not find him. He is not intending to go to the dispersion, what we call the diaspora, the
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Jews that have gone out amongst the Greeks. He's not going to the dispersion amongst the
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Greeks to teach the Greeks is he? What is this word which he has spoken, you will seek me and will not find me, and where I am going you are not able to go.
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Then verse 37, now on the last day, the great day of the feast,
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Jesus stood and cried out saying, if anyone thirsts, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.
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The one who believes in me as the scripture said, from his innermost being, from his belly literally, but from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.
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But this he spoke of the Spirit whom those who believed in him were to receive for, and literally it says, for the
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Spirit was not yet. And you'll notice that in most of your translations, if it has the word given or something along those lines, it's going to be in italics, because literally it says, for the
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Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not been glorified, had not yet been glorified.
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Verse 40, some of the people, some of the crowd therefore, when they heard these words were saying, this is certainly the prophet.
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But then others were saying, this is the Christ. Notice the distinction that is made between the prophet and the
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Christ. And others were saying, no, the
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Christ will not come from Galilee, will he? Has not the scripture said the
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Christ comes from the descendants of David and from Bethlehem, the village where David was, or David's village?
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So a division occurred in the crowd because of him, literally a schism. A division occurred because of him.
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And some of them wanted to seize him, but no one laid hands upon him.
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The officers then came to the chief priests and the Pharisees and they said to them, why did you not bring him?
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The officers answered, never has a man spoken the way this man speaks.
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And then notice the response of the Pharisees. You have not also been led astray, have you?
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No one of the rulers or of the Pharisees has believed in him, has he?
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But this crowd, the ones not knowing the law, they are accursed.
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Then Nicodemus, he who had come to him before being one of them, said to them, our law does not judge a man unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it?
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They answered and said to him, you are not also from Galilee, are you? Search and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee.
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So here you have John chapter 7, the rest that we had not dealt with this morning and we will try to summarize briefly in our time this evening that which is found here.
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So once again we see a division beginning in verse 25 amongst the people.
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Some people seemingly are not aware of what had happened before in regards to the desire of the
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Jewish leaders to kill this man. Other people do know that and this raises a question on the part of some people.
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He's speaking publicly and they're not saying anything to him. Do you think the rulers, do you think they might know that this is the
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Christ? Now the best way of looking at the language is that they're not assuming that that's the case.
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They're just sort of raising this and and it's sort of like they don't really think this is the Christ, do they?
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But the fact that they were not acting, the fact that they were allowing him to speak openly right there in the temple made people wonder well if there's such an opposition to him then why isn't anyone coming forth right now and seeking to seize him.
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But then we see the danger of bad information.
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Bad information. Because we see however we know where this man is from but whenever the
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Christ may come no one knows where he is from. Now where did they get that? Especially because what do you mean where he's from?
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Because later on the chapter it's going to talk about Bethlehem is it not? Christ comes from Bethlehem but he's from Nazareth and so they've got bad information about what's true about Jesus but they've also got bad information about what the
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Messiah was to be like and believe me I'm not sure why this was burned in my brain so firmly but I remember
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I think that building still exists. I mean everything at Grand Canyon has changed so much in the years since I was there.
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Anything that's a one -story building is doomed at Grand Canyon. I don't know if you've driven by there but any one -story building is slated for utter destruction because they're going to put ten stories on top of it eventually.
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And I remember this particular building in this particular room we were in for a
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New Testament backgrounds class. And I've mentioned many times before I was one of the few people that was really paying attention in New Testament backgrounds because I was already involved in apologetics so I knew how vitally important it was.
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And we were talking about the intertestamental period, the period between Malachi and and Matthew shall we say at least as we look at it in our
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Bibles certainly not the way the Hebrew Bible is laid out but anyway. And I can assure you from all the reading we had to do in that class that we shouldn't be too harsh on these people for being confused at this point because there was a tremendous amount of very contradictory messianic expectation represented in the writings of the
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Jews of that period. And so it's not difficult to understand why even within one chapter you would have different people saying different things.
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We noted for example later on this chapter, this is the prophet. Others are saying no this is the
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Christ. Well they're distinguishing between prophet and Christ. There was an understanding of who the coming prophet would be and that was tied up with John the
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Baptist and Elijah and all the rest of that kind of stuff. And then you had the Christ and some people saw this as two aspects of one person.
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A lot of people saw it as two different persons. Again a tremendous amount of speculation. It wouldn't be all that different than if you went into a modern
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Christian bookstore and just grabbed up the entire eschatology section and tried to make sense out of it.
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Good luck. You could get really confused just reading a single book out of that section let alone grabbing all the books that represent all the different perspectives and there'd be no way you could make heads or tails out of putting all of them together and trying to make some type of consistent theory.
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It just wouldn't work. Well we see that reflected here but it becomes pretty important when you start talking about who
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Jesus is. And that's why for me anyways it is such a weighty thing when
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I hear false teachers given huge platforms to present falsehoods about Jesus and about who he is today and when they only give a part of the biblical truth about who
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Jesus is it is extremely troubling because I know that as a result you can have people who will not respond to a gospel presentation because there's that barrier in the way.
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That's what we're called to give an answer. We're called to engage these people. We see this happening right here and Jesus' response is to cry out in the temple teaching and saying you both know me and know where I am from and I have not come of myself but he who sent me is true whom you do not know.
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So Jesus doesn't just simply go well let's sit down here and I'm going to divide you into groups as to which groups have the misconceptions about me and I'm going to clear up the misconception here and the misconception there.
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Jesus focuses upon his true origination and that true origination is not what people are thinking about in regards to well does he come from Nazareth?
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Does he come from Bethlehem? What about a prophet arising out of Galilee? There were by the way prophets that came out of Galilee.
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I'm not really sure what the may just reflect a bias and a prejudice by the way on the part of the
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Jewish leaders at a later point in time because as Galilee and the Gentiles they run clean etc etc but Jesus cries out and and he says
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I have not come of myself but he who sent me is true whom you do not know.
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So the people are looking at the wrong issue. They were trying to look at Jesus' passport and that wasn't the issue.
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He says you both I have not come of myself but he who sent me is true whom you do not know.
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Now remember one of the things that had caused a great deal of offense in John chapter 5 had been the fact that Jesus had put the spotlight upon these religious leaders who made a great claim to be the very representatives of God and hence if you're going to be the representatives of God it might be good if you know
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God and he said you don't know the Father. If you'd known the Father then you would love me. And so imagine the offense that Jesus is giving these people here when he says you don't know the one who sent me and they know he's talking about the
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Father. You don't know him. You're very religious. They're in the temple.
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You don't know him. If we don't know him then we're worshiping an unknown God. Our worship is not true. Yeah that's exactly right.
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Can you imagine how offensive it is today to say to people who have been given a false hope, a false belief but who are very religious you don't know
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God. Trust me. That is one of the most offensive things that you can say in a situation where you are dialoguing between religions and in the vast majority of Western civilization you're just not allowed to say that.
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You cannot say the things Jesus said. And it certainly reminds me of how often people will talk about oh
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I really like Jesus I just don't like the people who claim to follow him. And then you start pointing out some of the things
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Jesus taught. How often Jesus talked about hell, sin, judgment, repentance.
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And how often Jesus told religious people you don't even know God. You claim to but you don't even know
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God. That's not the Jesus they like. They generally don't really study very carefully the teachings of that Jesus.
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But he says he who sent me is true whom you do not know.
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I know him in opposition to you. I know him because I am from him and he sent me.
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Now that again it's easy for you and I to hear this and it doesn't strike us as being at all offensive or strange.
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But you've got to try to put yourself in that context and hear these words as they were originally sent.
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I mean here is a man who's standing against the very leadership of the
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Jewish nation and the people, the crowds look to these scribes and Pharisees as the very examples of godliness.
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And he is saying you don't know him. I know him because I am from him and he sent me.
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Therefore my authority is the very authority of God. I am speaking the very words of God.
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And so it's not overly surprising that the next verse says so they were seeking to seize him. They were seeking to arrest him.
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But no man laid his hand on him because his hour had not yet come.
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Notice man can desire something. Oh these scribes and Pharisees.
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They desired something. Their desire was to see this one crucified and that's they're gonna think that they accomplished that but not at their time.
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So they want to seize him. It's not God's time. They cannot do what
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God's decree does not allow them to do. But then
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I noticed that I mentioned something to you about verse 31. Many of the crowd believed in him.
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Now there are there are three places to keep in mind. I think this is very important.
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I point this out every time I work through John and run into one of these texts. Remember back in John chapter 2,
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Jesus had performed the miracle of the wedding of Cain and Galilee and some people saw that and they thought this is pretty cool.
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And it says that many believed in him. But then the very next phrase is but Jesus, and it's literally, did not believe himself to them.
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Most of our translations will say something like did not entrust himself to them. But the root is the same root.
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Jesus responded to their belief in an odd fashion. A very strange way. I mean in most of our churches today, if someone makes a profession of faith, it's like alright, we are so excited, it's great.
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We can't look into their hearts and so it's sort of difficult. But we're ready to put them on the deacon board and get them going right away.
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But these people see a sign that says they believe in Jesus and Jesus does not entrust himself to them.
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There's no attempt on Jesus' part to try to help them get a little bit better in their faith or something like that.
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And the reason is found in the tense of the verb that is used. For example, later on in this chapter, let's see which verse it is here.
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When it talks about, yeah, verse 38. The one believing in him, just as the scripture says, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.
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There, the word for the one believing is the standard term that you'll find in John.
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It's a present participle, the one believing. It's an ongoing action. And that's what you're going to see over and over again in John chapter 6 and 8 and so on and so forth.
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Here you see it here, the one believing. But that's not what you have in this verse when it talks about many of the crowd believed.
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It's not a present tense, it's not ongoing. Instead, it's what's called the aorist.
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Now generally, the aorist is normally in the past and it's a point action.
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It's a point action. It says nothing about its ongoing existence. And in John, that's not saving faith.
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In John 2, believed, Jesus did not entrust himself to them. Here in John 7, many of the crowd believed in him, but what did they believe?
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Their words seem to indicate some tremendous confusion even to his identity. Well, when the
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Christ comes, he will not perform more signs than those that this man has, will he? What do you mean, when the
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Christ comes? What are you believing about this one? I suppose it's possible they were believing he was the prophet rather than the
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Christ. There is a distinction made a little bit later on. But they clearly do not have a real understanding of who
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Jesus is. And the same thing is going to happen in the next chapter. In John 8, after Jesus has this dialogue again with the scribes and the
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Pharisees, it's going to say, many believed in him, and Jesus says to those who had believed in him, if you continue in my word, then you're my disciples indeed, you shall know the truth, you shall make you free.
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And as soon as he says to these believers, you shall be made free, they're like, what? Who, us?
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We need to be made free? We've never been enslaved anyway. There's an immediate negative taking of offense reaction to what he has said.
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And by the end of the chapter, they're picking up stones to stone Jesus. So, if you want to see what false faith looks like,
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John 8 is going to give you a really good example of that. But here, the very same tense is used in verse 31, this aorist tense, that does not speak of an ongoing faith.
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It speaks of a point action type thing, and it does not seem that they even understand what it is that they're saying.
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But it is their statement that causes the scribes and Pharisees some gunga -sumuing amongst themselves.
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They do not like what is being said here. And so, they sent officers to seize him.
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We can't have a false messiah showing up, and I'm sure that's, you know, they found a way of justifying their action.
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And so, they send the officers. And the officers come, and Jesus is speaking, and he's talking about how he's only going to be with them a short time, and then he's going to go back to the one who sent him.
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And they'll look for him, and they will not find him. And they can't go where he's going. Well, this isn't the first time, you know, a couple times
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Jesus says this. He's going to say it in chapter 8 as well. And they are confused by this kind of language.
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And so, they're asking themselves, well, you know, is he going to go to the diaspora?
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Is he going to leave here in Judea? And is he going to go out to where the
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Jews have been dispersed and teach them? Is that what he's talking about? And Jesus does not dispel their confusion.
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He allows their confusion to stand. Then on the last day, the great day of the feast.
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So, this feast doesn't start with the great day. It ends with the great day. Everything leads up to this last great day.
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And some people have pointed out that there was symbolism in that last day. There was the lighting of lights.
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And we get to John chapter 8, verse 12 or so. He's talking about the light of the world.
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But there's also things in regards to water. And so, on the last day of the great feast,
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Jesus stood and cried out saying, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.
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If anyone is thirsty, this is continuing right on with something we already saw in John chapter 6.
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But remember, John chapter 6 was in a different context, a different place. And so, you again have the clarity of John chapter 6 saying, this is spiritual thirst that is being referred to here.
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But what Jesus is talking about here is, come to me and drink. But then the fulfillment of the satiation of that thirst is something new.
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The one believing in me, as the scriptures say, out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.
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Living water. And then we're told by the gospel writer, this he said concerning the spirit whom those who believed in him were to receive.
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For the spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.
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And so, part of the thrust of the text is, there is a promise here that's going to be expanded on greatly in John 14, 15 and 16.
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But it's interesting that in the public ministry, Jesus just touches upon this. It's only in the private ministry to the disciples that you have the extended discourse about what the spirit was going to do and how the spirit was going to come and how the
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Father and the Son were going to send the spirit and the spirit was going to indwell them. And this is how the Father and the
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Son were going to make their abode with them. All the things that you have in John 14 and 16 especially.
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Just mentioned briefly here in John chapter 7, but I mentioned to you that the literal reading of verse 39 is, for the spirit was not yet.
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And the reason I mentioned that is that there are some people that are part of the Oneness Pentecostal movement who will point to this and say, see, the spirit's not yet.
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Because from their perspective, Jesus, when he is glorified, becomes the spirit.
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Because there's only one person who's taking on different modes, who's taking on different roles.
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That's why they're called modalists. God exists in different modes. Sometimes a father, sometimes a son, sometimes a spirit.
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Some of them have different ways of working this out. There's different forms of modalism if you've studied church history.
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But they will point to this and say, see, the spirit was not yet because Jesus is not glorified. Because when he's glorified, then he takes the role of the spirit.
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They're all just one person. Now, that's not going to make any sense in the reading of John 13, 14, 15, and 16.
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It's not going to make any sense at all. But those types of groups are not overly concerned about allowing an entire book to speak for itself.
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And I just remind you that Christian truth is not summarily contained in every single verse of Scripture.
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I mean, you could make an argument, just grammatically, that it should simply be translated, for the spirit was not yet.
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Now, given is a perfectly understandable, especially in light of the entirety of the book, but I cannot prove, on a
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Greek grammatical basis, that you cannot translate that the spirit was not yet. Now, it wouldn't make any sense.
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It would make it contradictory. I mean, you've got the baptism of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels and things like that.
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There's too much discussion of the spirit elsewhere in the Gospel of John for that to make any sense. But the point is, sometimes people will just get tunnel vision, look at one little thing, and say, no, this is what it says.
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And unless you have a desire to listen to all of what God has to say, believe me, I've met more than one person, no matter what you, you know, sort of like dealing with the
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Church of Christ folks, the old -style Church of Christ folks, that still, some of them want to have four night -long debates on Acts 2 .38.
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No, seriously. You say, wait a minute, how can you have four nights on one verse?
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They can do it and have a potluck afterwards. They really can. And there's just, there's nothing you can do about it.
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I don't care how well you know the languages, it's not a matter of language. It's a matter of, it's a heart matter in that situation.
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So, some of the people, a division develops between them. There is a confusion between the prophet and the
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Christ. Again, this demonstrates all these different perspectives that had come down to them.
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Bethlehem is mentioned. Evidently, they're not aware of Jesus' actual place of birth.
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There is a schism, a division that takes place. Some want to seize him. No one laid hands on him.
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It simply was not time. And then you have what happens. This is sort of a preview, a little bit, of what's going to come in John chapter 9, in some senses.
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The officers come and they don't bring Jesus. And so, the question is asked of them, well, where is he?
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Why didn't you bring him? Well, never has a man spoken the way this man speaks.
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Never has a man spoken the way this man speaks. And the Pharisees answered them, you too?
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That's a pretty loose translation. It's not really what the Greek says, but it sort of expresses it.
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Not you. He's not going to fool you as well, is he? Look around.
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Have any of the rulers, have any of the Pharisees believed in him? Well, Nicodemus is going, hmm, hmm, hmm.
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Nicodemus checked his cell phone about then so that no one could see him fidgeting just a little bit.
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But this crowd, which does not know the law, is accursed. How would you like to have to answer for those words?
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This crowd, which does not know the law. Remember what Egeus had said earlier in this chapter? You've got the law, you just don't keep it.
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And what's all of Romans 2 about? Merely possessing the law is not going to make you right before God.
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If anything, what are we reading in Deuteronomy? The blessings and the cursings, right?
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All the people said, amen. All the people said, amen. And then they went off and did all the things that they just said were amen to the curses.
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Tells you a little something about what happens when you don't have a regenerate heart. The law doesn't change a regenerate heart.
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Never could. A regenerate heart will love the law. This crowd does not know the law is accursed.
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But Nicodemus, Nicodemus has some guts here.
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Our law does not judge a man unless at first hear from him and knows what he is doing, does it? And the response is not a rational response.
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The response is not, well, Nicodemus, you have a good point there. You don't get that kind of response from people.
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When people are in a rage, when people are in a blood rage, these are murderers in their hearts.
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They don't answer, hmm, hadn't thought about that. Good point, Nicodemus, no. They answered him, you are not also from Galilee, are you?
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You can hear the condescension. Search and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee.
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This man isn't even a prophet, let alone a Christ. Such surface level arguments they had.
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And if you've ever wondered, it's only a matter of chapters away. But have you ever wondered, chapter 11,
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Lazarus, come forth. And what's the response of the
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Jews? How are we going to destroy this guy? For a lot of us, it's like, now, come on.
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If you see the guy coming out of the tomb after four days, Lord, he stinketh. And here he comes.
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No one could possibly resist that amount of evidence.
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Really? Really? You've got a little Arminianism in you if you think that.
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That should not shock us at all. Because we know it's not about the amount of evidence.
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It's a heart issue. It's a regeneration issue. And you can see it all the way back here.
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The argumentation, it's irrational. They possess the word, they're still irrational. Unless God comes and changes the heart, that's going to be the attitude that the unbeliever is going to express.
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When faced with more and more light, there's less and less rationality in the arguments against it.
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In the arguments against it. Isn't that frustrating? Sure is, but at least we know why it is.
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We have a theology that explains why it is. And so we shouldn't become frustrated when we encounter those very things.
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And so there's John chapter 7, like I said. It's sort of sandwiched in between, it's almost like a little valley in between some high spots.
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But it's got some important things to say to us as well. And so I'm thankful we had the time to look through it on this
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Lord's Day. Let's pray together. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we do thank you for this time.
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We thank you for this opportunity. We do pray for Pastor Fry.
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We pray that you would lift him up and restore him to us. But Lord, in this day, we thank you that we still have been able to gather together.
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That you have blessed our time. We ask that you would bless our fellowship as it comes after this time.
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That you would draw us together. That we would increase in our love for one another. And Lord, we ask that in this coming week, as you give us opportunity, that we would give testimony to the truth of Jesus Christ.
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You would bless that testimony, wherever it may be. We do pray for our nation. Lord, we have seen such an explosion of ungodliness.
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Such an explosion of expression of hatred toward you. Lord, may we not become frightened.
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May we not become frustrated. May we look at what is happening around us with eyes that are informed by your word.
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And may you give us patience and steadfastness and wisdom as we seek to speak the truth to those around us.