His Hour Had Not Yet Come

John 7 and the Setting of the Conflict

I want to invite you to take out your Bible and turn with me to John chapter 7 and hold your place at verse 25. John chapter 7, hold your place at verse 25. The title of today's message is His Hour Has Not Yet Come.

His Hour Has Not Yet Come. If you've ever watched a boxing match with a very technical fighter, it's an amazing.

Thing.

Boxing is referred to as the sweet science because it's not just two men pummeling each other with heavy hands, but it is almost like a physical example of playing chess where one is not only anticipating the next move of his opponent, but he is also preparing to return his own retaliating strike once that opponent is forced to either miss or be blocked.

It's an interesting thing to see when it's done well. Well, debate is similar to that. Now, when two men spar intellectually, there is an engagement of the mind which is again close to playing chess. You have to think ahead and think about what the objections are going to be that are going to be raised to your position.

I've done several moderated public debates and when you sit down to write your opening statement, you also write your rebuttals because you have to know what your opponent is going to say. So you write your rebuttal ahead of time, kind of have an idea of what is coming.

And your cross-examination questions, you think of what questions can I ask to lead to the conclusion that I want to get to. Well, I bring all of that up because in John chapter 7, we find ourselves in a little bit of a different place than we've been with Jesus in the last several chapters.

In chapter 5, we have that wonderful apologetics discourse of Christ that goes on for several paragraphs and Jesus is just teaching and teaching and teaching and we're listening and we're watching his words and we're learning from them.

And then we again see that in chapter 6 where we have the bread of life discourse which takes several verses to get through and it's all Jesus teaching at the synagogue in Capernaum. But when we get to chapter 7, now he is in Jerusalem and there is an engagement with the crowd.

Jesus will say something, the crowd will respond, then the leaders will respond and it goes back and forth and Jesus, like a skilled pugilist, is bobbing and weaving his way and retaliating with the truth.

He's giving them what they need to hear and none of their strikes are landing because everything they're saying about him and regarding him are not in accord with the truth. And so, we're going to continue walking through this today.

We're going to continue walking through Jesus' interaction with the crowd here at the Feast of Tabernacles and we're going to see his engagement with their objections and their questions and even we're going to see this week the police get involved.

They call the temple guards to go and arrest Jesus and when we get there we'll see how Jesus responds even to that. So let's stand together and read God's word. We're going to begin at verse 25. The words will be on the screen, it's what I'm reading, but I also encourage if you have your own Bible, I'll be in the ESV to just read along with me.

Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, Is not this the man whom they seek to.

Kill?

And here he is speaking openly and they say nothing to him. Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ? But we know where this man comes from and when the Christ appears no one will know where he comes from.

So Jesus proclaimed as he taught in the temple, You know me and you know where I come from, but I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true and him you do not know. I know him for I come from him and he sent me.

So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come. Yet many of the people believed in him. They said, When the Christ appears will he do more than this man has done?

More signs than this man has done? The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him and the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to arrest him. Jesus then said, I will be with you a little while longer and then I am going to him who sent me.

You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am you cannot come. The Jews said to one another, Where does this man intend to go that he will not find him? Does he intend to go to the dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks?

What does he mean by saying you will seek me and you will not find me? And where I am you cannot come. On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried, 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 been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Let us pray.

Our Father and our God, we come to you in Jesus' name. We thank you for the opportunity to open your word again today. And as we dive into this text in the middle of a longer chapter, in fact several chapters of Jesus engaging with his opponents and with the crowds, Lord, I pray that you would give us insight into this text.

I pray that you would keep me from error as I preach, as I pray every week, Lord, that you would keep me tied to the post of your word and do not let me stray. I pray, O God, for everyone under the sound of your word.

For the believers, that they would be edified, strengthened, encouraged. For those who have not yet believed, that they would be convicted of their sin and led to the throne of grace, led to the foot of the cross.

Where they would see, as we have heard already, to see Jesus as beautiful and wonderful and that his majesty would overwhelm them. And Lord, by your Holy Spirit, that they would come to know him as Savior.

Lord, we praise you, we thank you, we give you all the glory for all that you have done and are going to do. In Jesus' name, amen. John chapter 7 begins with Jesus in Galilee with his brothers. The Feast of Booths is approaching, which is also known as the Feast of Tabernacles.

This was where the Israelite people would stay in tents during this festival as a reminder of their time in the wilderness. His brothers go up to the feast. They try to goad Jesus to go along and make himself known, but the text says he goes privately.

And yet, while he is there, the people are discussing him. They're anticipating his arrival. Some of them are saying he's a good man. Some of them are saying he is leading people astray. The chapter begins by telling us that the Jewish leaders wanted to kill him.

He was an object of their hatred. His popularity and his doctrine had led them to murderous rage against him. And at this point in Jesus' ministry, we are about six months away from them getting what they want, and that is getting him dead.

Because right now, we are at the Feast of Tabernacles, which would have been in the fall. And this is the last Feast of Tabernacles that Jesus will attend before the final Passover, where he celebrates the Last Supper with his disciples in the upper room.

And then, of course, the next day is taken out, beaten, stripped, and nailed to the cross where he would die, suspended between heaven and earth. But what we're seeing in John's Gospel is we're seeing the tensions begin to rise between Jesus and the Jewish leaders.

Oh, there's been tension from the beginning. There was tension with his predecessor, John the Baptist, who came to make his path straight, the one who came to announce the coming of the Lord. There was tensions between John and the Pharisees, but the tension is growing.

It's becoming palpable. The people are talking, but the people are afraid to talk openly. We learned this last week. They didn't want to speak openly because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. So beginning in 14, Jesus makes himself publicly known and begins teaching.

In 14 to 18, we see them questioning his credentials. And Jesus says, well, my message is not my own. It comes from him who sent me, of course, pointing to his father. Verses 19 to 23, Jesus challenges their murderous intentions.

He says, why do you want to kill me? And the reason they wanted to kill him was because he had healed on the Sabbath. You remember back in chapter 5, he had healed the man at the Pool of Bethesda. And rather than being grateful and showing gratitude to God for his healing, they instead said, why did you do this on the Sabbath?

You're working on the Sabbath. You've violated the law of God, and in that case, you deserve to die. Then we get to verse 24, which is where we ended last week. In verse 24, Jesus addresses their unrighteous judgment and their hypocrisy.

He says, do not judge by appearances, but judge with righteous judgment. I can't tell you how tempted I was to just do an entire sermon on just that verse because the problem of hypocrisy and judging with wrong judgment is a problem that did not end with the Pharisees.

Amen.

But we need to move on, and sometimes we can miss the forest for the trees if we get stopped at every verse. So we're going to move today into verse 25, and we're going to see Jesus continuing his interaction with the crowds and with the leaders who are instigating their hatred against him.

So let's begin here at verse 25. It says, some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, is not this the man whom they seek to kill? Now this is an interesting verse because just a few verses earlier in verse 20, Jesus was challenged when he said, why do you want to kill me?

You remember what the response was? Who's seeking to kill you?

You have a demon.

Go back and read verse 20. They said, you have a demon who is seeking to kill you. Basically, they said, you're crazy. Nobody's seeking to kill you. Well, verse 25, it tells us that everybody knew there were people that were seeking to kill him.

Verse 25, it says, some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, is this not the man whom they seek to kill? And who is the they? Who is the pronoun referring to? It's referring to the Jewish leaders, which would have been made up of the Pharisees, which would have been the conservative religious officials.

It would have been the Sadducees, who were very religious but were anti-supernaturalist. They did not believe in angels, neither did they believe in the resurrection. And there were others, the scribes as well, who were the lawyers, the writers, the instructors of the text of scripture.

And we see Jesus throughout the four gospels having his interactions with all of those groups. That is the ones who are seeking to kill him. So that when they ask, is this not the man whom they seek to kill, the they they're speaking about is the Jewish leaders.

Verse 26, and here he is speaking openly, and they say nothing to him. Now what are they charging the leaders with at that moment? Hypocrisy. This very same thing he just talked about. The very false attitude that they had.

They said, wait a minute, isn't this the guy that they want to kill, and yet they're not doing anything. He's right there. Why don't you just go arrest him? If he is as bad as you say he is, if he has done the things that you've said he has done, if he is really public enemy number one, why isn't he in chains?

Why is he allowed to go and speak openly among the crowd? And then the crowd proposes somewhat of a sarcastic response. Notice what it says. Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ?

You get the idea. They say, why aren't they arresting him? Do they know that he is the Christ? So the attitude of the crowd here has become somewhat hostile to the leaders. And we see this. The crowd is always divided over Christ.

In the same way, much like today, you mention Jesus in a crowd of people, you're going to have a divided people. You're going to have a people who love Jesus Christ. You're going to have a people who hate Jesus Christ.

There is very few who land really in the middle. There is a middle ground, but oftentimes, all you have to do to press the middle ground into the ground of hatred is just talk about who Jesus really is.

Because most of the people who are medium about Jesus, they're medium about the Jesus of the storybooks. They're medium about the Jesus of the chosen. They're medium about the Jesus of our imagination.

They're not medium about the Jesus of Scripture. When you begin to preach the Jesus of Scripture, people will very quickly become offended. And the hatred of Jesus will come forth. And so this is what we have.

We have a divided crowd. Some say he's a good man. He was more than a good man. But some say he is a wolf. That's what it means to lead someone astray. Wolf in sheep's clothing. He's a false teacher. He's a dangerous man.

Could it be that the leaders think this is the Christ? Not likely. Not likely. But they're asking this question, and it's causing consternation on behalf of the leadership. In fact, we'll see later in the chapter.

We won't get to it today, but we'll see later in the chapter. There's actually a division in the leadership because the leaders are wanting Jesus to be arrested. They're wanting Jesus to be captured. And one of them, Nicodemus, is going to say, wait a minute, don't we wait to hear a man?

And doesn't our law require that he get a hearing? And what's the response? Are you from Galilee too? I can't wait to get to that part because it's so sarcastic. It's like, what are you, one of his followers?

There's so much hatred and so much division over Jesus in this moment. And then we get to verse 27, and it says, but we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.

Now this is still likely the crowd speaking. Because there hasn't been a shift yet to the leadership. Some might think that this is possibly the leadership, but when it says, can it be that the authorities know that this is the Christ, but we know, I think this is referring to the crowd continuing to speak.

And again, this is not one univocal voice here. This is probably the crowd speaking at different times and in different people and different ways. We know that where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.

First of all, what did they think about Jesus' origins? They thought he was from Galilee, or Nazareth of Galilee. And that's what they mean when they said, we know where he comes from. What's the problem with Jesus coming from Nazareth of Galilee?

Well, number one, that's not where the Messiah was prophesied to come from. The Messiah is prophesied to come from Bethlehem of Judea, not Nazareth of Galilee. In fact, it talks about that later in the chapter as well.

If you read ahead for next week, you'll see. That's one of the arguments. We know the Messiah comes from Bethlehem. But we know where this man comes from. He comes from Nazareth of Galilee. And by the way, you know what they thought about Nazareth, right?

Yeah, what good comes out of Nazareth? What good comes out of Callahan? I mean, really.

I live in Callahan, so I like to make that joke.

It's the rule area. It's that area to the north. It's Alabama. Again, not quite compared to Judea, which would have been more of the metropolis. This is where Jerusalem was. This is where the political things happened.

This is where the important people live. So there's this question. We know where he comes from. But did they really know where he came from? They should have known that his father was of the lineage of David.

That his father, in fact, was from Bethlehem. This is why, when the census was taken, they went back to Bethlehem. And that's why Jesus ended up being born in Bethlehem. Because that was where Joseph was from.

He was of the house and lineage of David. Bethlehem is David's city. It's called the city of David. Jesus was born there. He spent a few months there. At the time he was born. But he didn't stay there long.

Less than two years. Because we know that he had to flee. Because Herod was going to bring death to all the children two years old and younger. So where did they flee to? They fled to Egypt. And when they fled to Egypt, as they were returning, Joseph took them not back to Bethlehem.

Because, as it says in the Gospels, he was led a different direction for safety. And he went to Nazareth. And that's where he lived. And that's why Jesus was called Jesus of Nazareth rather than Jesus of Bethlehem.

But understand this.

Records were kept.

Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day according to the law. And that would have been a record. A record of his birthplace. And a record of his circumcision would have been known. So when it says they know where he comes from, if what that means is they think he came from Nazareth, then they're wrong and there's legal proof that they're wrong.

I doubt it means that any of them knew at this point that he was from Bethlehem. But if they did, then it demonstrates their own unwillingness to believe even if they know the truth. But it says, we know where this man comes from.

And this second part is interesting. It says, when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from. Well, that's not right. That's not right biblically. Because the Old Testament tells us where the Messiah will come from.

O Bethlehem, Ephrata, you who are little among the nations, out of you will come the one who is the leader of Israel. That's the prophecy about the Messiah. And where would Messiah come from? He would come from the city of David.

But there had grown up an idea. There had grown up a belief that the Messiah would actually descend. And that they wouldn't know where he came from. That he would come on the scene almost in a miraculous form.

This is why so many people thought John the Baptist was Messiah. Because how did John the Baptist come? He came out of the wilderness like he was out of nowhere. He was a man with a very rural background, if you will.

He was eating locusts and wild honey and wearing camel's hair. I knew I was going to forget. He wore camel's hair and he ate locusts and wild honey. Here comes this wild man from the wilderness. And nobody knew where he came from.

So what did they say?

This is him. This is the guy.

And this is why John's gospel actually opens in the prologue. And even in the first and second chapter, there's this sort of long extended section where John is proving that John the Baptist isn't the Messiah.

Because even at the time of the writing of John's gospel, there were still people who believed John the Baptist was the Messiah. Even though John himself said, I am not the Messiah.

I'm not the guy.

And when Jesus came, he pointed and said, there he is. That's the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And even still, there were people who followed John. Jesus is a known quantity. He's a known entity.

We know his mama. You remember John chapter 6? They said, how can this guy be the Messiah? His dad's the carpenter. His mother is Mary. We know his brothers and his sisters.

We know this guy.

This can't be the guy.

This can't be the Messiah. He's a known quantity. We know too much about him. This can't be him. Verse 28. So Jesus proclaimed as he taught in the temple, You know me, and you know where I come from. That leads me to think maybe they did know he was from Bethlehem.

Or maybe Jesus is just not correcting their error here. He goes on to say, But I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true, and him you do not know. I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me.

That's verse 29. I didn't get there in the screens. But understand this. Jesus just made a very powerful claim about the spiritual condition of the people who were there. The people who are challenging him, especially the Jewish leaders.

Notice what he says. He says, I know him, but you don't. Go back. Look what it says. Jesus proclaimed as he taught in the temple. You know me, you know where I come from. But I've not come of my own accord.

We talked about that last week. Jesus did not come independent of the Father, but he came to do the Father's will and to be the voice of the Father. John chapter 1 tells us he came to exegete the Father.

He came to reveal the Father. That was what Jesus' mission was to do. And we know this. We can say, if you know Christ, you know God. Because Christ's mission was to come and to reveal God to man. He was and is God in the flesh.

But notice what it says. But I have not come on my own accord.

Excuse me.

You know me, and you know where I come from. But I have not come on my own accord. He who sent me is true, and him you do not know. Just for a moment, I want you to consider Jesus is in the midst of a people who are celebrating a religious festival.

All of these people have traveled to Jerusalem for the purpose of celebrating the Feast of Booths. And why would they do such a thing? They do such a thing because they believe in doing so, they are worshiping and honoring their God.

And Jesus just looked at them and he said, you don't know God. He looked at them and said, I'm coming to do the will of the one who sent me, and him, you don't know. This reminds us, and I want you to hear this, because here's a quick application point here.

You can be very religious and not know God. The Jewish Pharisees, the leaders, the scribes, and the Sadducees, they were the utmost of religiosity, and they knew not God. And Jesus says, you don't know him.

You don't know my Father. Jesus says, I know him. That's verse 29. Get into verse 29. I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me. Just real quick, that's three important things that Jesus says. I know him, I come from him, and he sent me.

You don't know him.

You don't know God. I know him, I came from him, and he sent me. Jesus is furthering that divide between himself and the Jewish leaders. You have a veneer of religiosity. You have an external religious affection, but you don't really know God.

In the other Gospels, Jesus will refer to these men as whitewashed tombs. What does it mean to be a whitewashed tomb? Well, it means, if you think of a tomb with a headstone, that headstone is nice and beautiful.

It's been cleaned, it's been bleached, it's been, in our day, pressure washed to where it gleans and shines. But what's inside the mausoleum? Decaying flesh and bone. Rotting corpse is inside that mausoleum.

And that's what Jesus is identifying these men. They have a great exterior. They have a great outside. They can fool everyone, but you're not fooling God. You're not fooling God. So Jesus proclaimed to them, I know him.

I come from him. He sent me, but you don't. You don't really know God. Now, verse 30. So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. I titled the message after verse 30 because I wanted to spend a little bit of time here talking about the comment that is made by the writer John here.

Notice this is not the crowd speaking. This is also not Jesus speaking. But in this particular verse, this is John the writer who is writing a comment about the situation to us. So this is for the benefit of the reader.

And it says, they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. Understand this, and this is very important. When it says his hour had not yet come, what that is telling us and what that is reminding us of is the sovereignty of God over the events of our lives.

Specifically, we'll talk about the sovereignty of God over the events of Christ's life. Was God sovereign over the life of Jesus Christ? Well, if you say no, we really need to talk. But where we have to press that is we have to start pressing that into other areas.

What does that mean God was sovereign over everything else? Yes, He's sovereign over everything else. And it's interesting how God works out His sovereignty. In fact, in theological parlance, we actually make a distinction between God's sovereignty, God's decree, and God's providence.

And we separate those out and we begin to distinguish what we mean by those things. God's sovereignty refers to His rule over all things. The root of the word reign, right? We get the word reign out of sovereign, the one who reigns, right?

And sovereignty refers to God being king, God being all powerful, the one who has all authority. There is no one who God has to answer to, neither is there anyone who can call into question God's decisions.

Think of the Old Testament. There was a king named Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar was powerful in this world. And Nebuchadnezzar, at one point in his life, he was expressing pride in the power of his achievements.

And God said, now you don't have a brain to use. Now you're going to go out to the field and you're going to eat grass like an ox. Your hair is going to grow like eagle feathers. And your fingernails are going to be like claws and you're going to be a beast of the field.

And then in an instant, God renews His mind. And what does Nebuchadnezzar say in Daniel's writings? He says, who can say no to this God? Who can stay His hand? This is the God who has all power and He does what He wants in heaven and on earth.

Obviously, we are quite, in this church, we talk about the sovereignty of God quite a lot.

It's in our name.

We say sovereign grace because we believe God is absolutely sovereign over everything, even over the hearts of men and His distribution of grace. But in just this moment, the reason why I bring up the sovereignty of God in this section was because Christ's hour had not yet come and therefore they couldn't lay a hand on Him because God had decreed it to be so.

And this is where the idea of decree and providence come in. God is sovereign over all things. He has decreed all things that come to pass. Now that does not mean that actively God is causing all the evil in men's hearts, but God does allow men to do evil things if it accords with His purpose.

And if it does not accord with His purpose, He will thwart it. I can show you that. I want to show you this. This is a text I mention sometimes, but I rarely have you go look at it, but I actually want you to go look at a text with me very quickly.

It's all the way back in the book of Exodus. This last Friday night, I had the opportunity to teach through the Pentateuch at a church conference. They had me come and speak on... I had two hours to preach Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

How do you think it went?

Fast. That's how it went. But in Exodus chapter 34, verse 23, I want you to notice this. I know it's going to take a second to get there, so I'll take a sip while you turn. In Exodus 34, God has given the men of Israel a command.

They're going to go up three times in a year and they're going to present themselves before God. Notice what it says, verse 23. This is Exodus 34, verse 23. You may read that a hundred times and miss the significance of it, but I don't want you to miss the significance of it today.

What God just told the people of Israel, the men of Israel, three times a year you're going to leave the land, you're going to leave your property, you're going to leave what you own, you're going to go away and you're going to worship.

And while you're gone, your enemies will not covet your land. If there's anything all the people around the Israelites wanted,.

It was their land. It's still that today.

What's the most caustic piece of land in all the world? What piece of land is the most debated over?

Who owns it?

Who has it? Whose is it?

It's that little strip of land over there that we call Israel. God said when you leave during these three times of year, your enemies won't covet your land. That's all the enemies did. But during this time they won't.

How can God make such a promise if he is not sovereign over the hearts of men? How can God make such a claim if he does not have the authority over the hearts of men? The Bible says the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord and he turns it wherever he will.

Nebuchadnezzar's heart was in the hand of God.

And you know what he did?

He turned it wherever he will. So now we go back to John 7. Jesus is teaching in the temple and they wanted to arrest him but they didn't.

Why?

Because God wouldn't allow it in that moment because his hour had not yet come. His hour had not yet come. Alright, we're back in John 7 now. Move on to verse 31. It says in verse 31,. Yet many of the people believed in him.

They said, When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done? Now just for a moment, get a thought about what they're saying. Yet many of the people believed in him. I think the yet there is important by the way because that distinguishes from those who don't.

There are those who don't believe in him. They're saying we know where he came from. He can't be the Messiah. This, that, the other. Now we got the group that does believe in him. What do they say? It says many of the people believe in him and they ask this rhetorical question.

When the Christ appears, the word Christ is the Greek word for Messiah. When the Messiah appears, will he do more signs than this man has done? That is an excellent rhetorical question because it's asking a very obvious thing.

We're all waiting for a Messiah to come. We're all waiting for a Messiah to come and do miraculous things. Who's going to do more than this guy? Who's going to do more than he's doing? I want you to remember when John the Baptist was in prison.

When John the Baptist was in prison, he sent some of his disciples to Jesus. And when he sent his disciples to Jesus, this is actually in Matthew 11. I'll just read it to you.

It says,.

Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, Are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another? Verse 4,. And Jesus answered them.

Listen to Jesus' answer to John's question. Go and tell John what you hear and see. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear. The dead are raised up, the poor have the good news, which is the gospel, preached to them.

And blessed is the one who is not offended by me. Notice Jesus' response to John. Just go tell John what you've seen. Just go tell John what I've done. That's what the people in the crowd in John 7 are saying.

How could anybody be, how could this not be the Christ? He walks into a group of lepers and their white and rough and pale skin becomes beautiful like a baby's skin and he has no problem. He feeds 5 ,000 men and all of their children and women and he does it with nothing but five loaves and two fish because he can miraculously produce food out of nothing.

He can lay his hand on the ear of a deaf man and the deaf man here, he can lay his hands on the eyes of a blind man and make the man see. He can do all of these things and guess what? He can even raise the dead.

At this point in the story, Jesus had not yet raised Lazarus but guess what? He has already raised the daughter of Jairus. He has already raised the son of the widow at Nain. Remember the funeral processions going by?