Wednesday Night, November 11, 2020, PM

Thank you, Brother Red. Well, let's open our Bibles and let's turn to Luke chapter seven. Luke chapter seven, and we'll be reading verses 18 through 23 for our lesson tonight. And let's begin with a word of prayer.

Father, I thank you so much for gathering us together tonight, providing for us a place to meet, the freedom to meet, the strength and the joy. To just be blessed by this gathering, what I pray that you would help us to follow Christ faithfully and joyfully.

Pray for this word tonight as we read it together, that you would apply it directly and warmly to our hearts. We pray for Lisa as she is leading the children's choir tonight, and pray that you would bless their time as they learn songs to sing to your honor and your glory this Advent season coming up.

And Lord, now we pray for a special blessing on our, not only our lesson, but also our prayer time together. May we hear your word in submission to you, and may we be in agreement with you as we pray.

Pray these things for Christ's sake, amen. Okay, so Luke chapter seven, verses 18 through 23. Luke chapter seven, verses 18 through 23. The title of the lesson tonight is a question, are we hoping in Jesus or someone else?

It's a question, are we hoping in Jesus or someone else? Luke seven, 18 through 23. The disciples of John reported to him about all these things. Summoning two of his disciples, John sent them to the Lord saying, are you the expected one or do we look for someone else?

When the men came to him, they said, John the Baptist has sent us to you to ask, are you the expected one or do we look for someone else? At that very time, he cured many people of diseases and afflictions and evil spirits.

And he gave sight to many who were blind. And he answered and said to them, go and report to John what you have seen and heard. The blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have the gospel preached to them.

Blessed is he who does not take offense at me. So we have a question being asked. We have an answer that is given, but then something that wasn't necessarily sought, a challenge that follows it all up.

And the first is this question, verses 18 and 19, where all we hear is that the disciples of John are reporting to him about the things that are going on. We're not told in this account of the story here in Luke.

We're told in the other gospels. But where is John at the moment? He's in prison. He's in prison. The disciples of John are coming to John who is imprisoned by Herod. Obviously, they'll be seen to his need.

If you were in prison in the days of Jesus, it was basically a holding cell until your trial and most likely your execution. It was almost a foregone conclusion that your imprisonment would lead to execution.

Paul beat the rap several times. But there was no one in the prison who would be looking over the jail situation who would have any interest at all about making sure you had adequate clothing, a blanket and pillow at night, food and water.

That would have to be provided by your family members or your friends, somebody who would care to help. So obviously John's disciples with their rabbi, with their teacher imprisoned, are seeing to his needs and looking after him.

And they have been hearing what is going on out and about with the ministry of Jesus. Now, why was John put in prison by Herod? Well, he's speaking the truth and Brother Ray calls it a woman problem. Well, it's actually Herod's problem, yes.

And so we have in Mark 6, 17 through 20, the account of why John the Baptist got thrown in prison. This is the explanation. This account is given as a reason why Herod was afraid that John the Baptist had risen from the dead when he hadn't.

Verse 17, for Herod himself had sent and had John arrested and bound in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip because he had married her. The backstory is that Herod had been sent to Rome on a very official visit.

His connections to the court had to do with his brother Philip. And there he got into an affair with his brother's wife, Herodias, and convinced her to divorce him, which was actually a legal right for women who were Roman citizens.

And so he marries his brother's wife. And the Old Testament has a great word for that. It's called incest. Actually, the New Testament has a good word for that too. It's called incest. And interestingly enough, in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul rebukes the church in Corinth for not knowing better.

For obviously, the character of God had been revealed in the law in the Old Testament, and they should have applied that same principle in the church. So John, verse 18, for John had been saying to Herod, it is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.

Now, where was John? Where did he do his ministry? Middle of nowheres. He's in the wilderness. Jesus makes the point later on, even in our text. He was not in king's palaces. He was not in the cities.

He was not in the center of comfort. He was out in the middle of nowhere. But it says here, he said to Herod, had been saying to Herod, so he had said it quite a lot. It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.

In other words, he was preaching, and preaching in the wilderness, preaching to the crowds and saying, and you know what?

Herod, you're disgusting.

You broke the law of God. How can you claim to be a good and right ruler, and you can point to the temple you're building for the Jews and all of that, but you're just full of pollution, full of abomination.

All right, Herod's not out in the wilderness,.

Is he?

He's not going out to the Jordan. But word reaches back to him that that is what is going on. And so John, John the Baptist, was put in prison because he preached against the sexual abominations of the government officials.

Well, that was, you know, maybe John should have stuck to other topics about how people should improve their personalities and that kind of thing. But there was an impact on the country. There was an impact on his neighbors, on his fellow people.

When the king was that rotten, it mattered to everybody else. So Herodias, the wife of Herod, had a grudge against John and wanted to put him to death, but could not do so. And so Herod had him arrested, but then tried to control the situation and keep him safe.

And of course, that situation went south very quickly. So John's disciples are trying to help John, he's in prison, for doing what was right, preaching the truth, calling all men to repentance, even calling the king to repent, for he had sinned greatly.

He even called the king to repent. God's authority knows no boundaries in these matters. So everybody had to repent, even the king. And so the disciples of John are reporting to him about all these things.

What are these things? What did John's disciples report to him? Well, we just went through the first part of chapter seven, where we have Jesus speaking the word and healing a centurion slave, raising the widow of Nain's son back to life, her only son, raising him back to life.

You can think about the amazing teaching that Jesus gave throughout chapter six of Luke. You can go on back to how Jesus healed a leper and healed a paralyzed man. It did all sorts of wonderful things.

His reputation spread through all the countryside and John's disciples come to tell him what is going on. Now, what do we remember about John's disciples? Were they really keen on Jesus and his doings,.

His style?

There are two concerns that John's disciples had with Jesus and his followers. Do we remember what they were? Well, that's right. That was one of the things they were worried about because they loved their master.

They loved their rabbi, John. They devoted themselves to him and to his message, but they were sometimes, even John's disciples missed the point. Jesus' disciples weren't special in that regard. John was the forerunner of the Messiah.

And they were getting upset about something that was actually good. And so in John chapter three and in verse 25, it says, therefore, there arose a discussion on the part of John's disciples with a Jew about purification.

And they came to John and said to him, rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan to whom you have testified, behold, he is baptizing and all are coming to him. It's like, John, you should be getting all the credit, but everybody's going out to him.

Verse 27, John answered and said to him, a man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. You yourself are my witnesses that I said, I am not the Christ, but I have been sent ahead of him.

He who has the bride is the bridegroom. Well, who has the bride?

That's Christ.

So Christ is the bridegroom. But the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. This joy of mine has been made full. He must increase, but I must decrease.

He was teaching his disciples. It's a good thing. You should be as focused upon the glory and the goodness of Jesus Christ as I am. He's trying to teach them as their rabbi, it would be their job to follow him in all of his ways, including rejoicing about the success of the ministry of Christ in the countryside.

The other concern they had about Jesus was that he and his followers did not fast as much as they did. And of course, if you hung out with John and all you had was locusts, you could fast pretty easy.

But the point of it was that Jesus was the bridegroom and he came with great joy, celebrating this good news of the kingdom that he was preaching. And it did make sense for the bridegroom to fast, as he pointed out in one of our earlier passages.

And so they come to John, they tell him all these things that are happening. Well, now he's raising the dead. People are following him wherever he goes, massive crowds now. No matter where he goes, there's a massive crowd with him wherever he goes.

And here's their rabbi, here's their teacher, and he's in prison. He's in jail. He's been effectively moved out of the way John the Baptist is no longer in the wilderness. All of Judea and Jerusalem are not coming out to hear him preach.

He has been sidelined and here are his followers and they're telling him about all of his woes. Now, what does he do? What else are you gonna do? Send them to Jesus. I don't think he's asking this question because he's doubting.

No.

We don't have a hint of John doubting anywhere else in any of the texts. In fact, Jesus himself, and the very next passage in Luke 7, gives no indication whatsoever that John the Baptist was a doubter in the least.

But his disciples, of course, have some issues. His disciples have some issue getting on board with Jesus. In fact, you find that in the book of Acts, that even though they knew the teachings of John, some had not yet been brought along to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So there was a need for John's disciples to hope in Jesus rather than someone else. And so he says, go ask him, are you the expected one or do we look for someone else? John is doing as the forerunner exactly what he's supposed to do.

He's preparing the way and he's trying to tell his followers, go to Jesus. Isn't that how Jesus got some of his very first disciples? The disciples of John came to follow Jesus. So he's like, you need to go to Jesus, go ask him, are you the expected one?

Are you the Messiah? Or is there somebody else? Now, there could have been, well, there were many false messiahs. If you track history from about 30 years before Christ to 70 AD and a little bit before that, a little bit after that, there were many, many, many men who rose up and called themselves Messiah.

There was a lot of Messiah fever in that time. And many people thought John the Baptist was the Messiah at some level, but he refuted that. So he wants them to go and ask Jesus the question outright. Are you the expected one?

Are you the Messiah? Or should we look for somebody else? And this is the answer, verse 21 through 22. At that very time, he cured many people of diseases and afflictions and evil spirits and he gave sight to many who were blind.

And he answered and said to them, go and report to John what you have seen and heard. The blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have the gospel preached to them.

It's a pretty good answer, especially since it's rooted in scripture. It's rooted in Old Testament prophecies about what would happen when the Messiah showed up. And it was a question actually common among the people.

We could read about that in John 7 31, when the Christ will come, will he do more miracles than these? It's like, I don't think anybody else is going to be doing as much as he's doing. So this is probably the Messiah.

That was the kind of approach Jesus is taking with John's disciples. But it's not simply based on experience. What Jesus is doing in taking that hour that they were there to heal all these people and to minister to these people and then giving his answer to them, what he was doing was fulfilling prophecy.

He was showing them the answer from the word of God. So we can go back to Isaiah chapter 35, and then we can jump over to Isaiah 61, one through four as well. But Isaiah 35, looking forward to Messiah from Isaiah's time, looking forward to the coming of Messiah and the gift of the Holy Spirit and so on.

So Isaiah 35 verse one, the wilderness and the desert will be glad and the Arava will rejoice and blossom like the carcass. It will blossom profusely and rejoice and with rejoicing and shout of joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.

They will see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. Encourage the exhausted and strengthen the feeble, say to those with anxious heart, take courage, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance, the recompense of God will come, but he will save you.

Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. The lame will leap like a deer and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy. Sound familiar? So what is Jesus doing?

Says, go tell John that you're seeing Isaiah 35 come true before your very eyes. How's that for an answer? Jesus takes up Isaiah 35 and says, it's being fulfilled right now. Here's your answer, guys. Go tell John this answer.

Waters will break forth in the wilderness and streams in the Arava. The scorched land will become a pool and the thirsty ground springs of water. And the haunt of jackals, it's resting place. Grass becomes reeds and rushes.

A highway will be there, a roadway, and it will be called the highway of holiness. The unclean will not travel on, but it will be for him who walks that way and fools will not wander on it. No lion will be there, nor will any vicious beast go up on it.

These will not be found there, but the redeemed will walk there. And the ransomed of the Lord will return and come with joyful shouting to Zion with everlasting joy upon their heads. And they will find gladness and joy and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

In other words, O forerunner, the one who goes forward to prepare the way for the Messiah, the highway is finished. It is, you've completed your job. You've completed your task. And now the redeemed are streaming in to Zion on the highway that you have helped prepare.

This is really good news for John because the prophecies regarding John the Baptist are here shown as completed. He has done his faithful task. What a wonderful encouragement that Jesus is giving John even as he instructs his disciples about the truth of the Messiah.

So the point is they should not be looking elsewhere. Their experiences may be poor. Our master is in jail, we're having trouble. They may be, their devotion is misplaced, so focused upon John the Baptist, they can't see the Messiah.

And so Jesus uses the scriptures to turn their attention the right direction. Also Isaiah 61, one through four, is part of Jesus's quote. The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted.

He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, to grant those who mourn in Zion, giving them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting.

So they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that he may be glorified. So Jesus quotes from both of those passages, and he's saying, here they are being fulfilled right in front of you.

And so his answer is resounding, yes, of course, I am the expected one and go back and read Isaiah. Of course, he's been preaching Isaiah in the synagogues as we've looked at before. So once again, he's quoting Isaiah.

It's good candidate for Jesus's favorite book. It's either that or Deuteronomy, I'm not sure which. He quotes both Isaiah and Deuteronomy a whole lot in his ministry. And then finally is the challenge, which is indeed a challenge.

He says, blessed is he who does not take offense at me. Now, what reason would folks in the day of Christ, what reason might they have to be offended at him? I don't know why they'd be so upset with him.

I mean, he wore that completely clean white robe, never had a bad hair day in his life. He just hugged children all day long. Now, they would have lots of reasons to, number one, how can you be the Messiah and not deliverers from Rome?

That doesn't make any sense. That doesn't fit our expectations. So that's one thing to be offended at if he didn't fit their expectations. But they were straining gnats and swallowing camels, which is really funny when you think how many gnats are in a camel.

But they were offended at the way he was born. His parentage was in doubt in their minds. They were offended at the place of his birth. They were offended, well, they didn't know about Bethlehem. They thought he was born up in Nazareth.

You know, Nazareth, he's from Galilee, all that. They were offended that he wasn't educated.

The way they were.

He didn't have the same credentials as the rest of them had. He was not attractive looking, according to Isaiah. He was stumbling people by who he kept company with, by the people who he taught and welcomed and brought around.

And again, yes, the doctrines he preached, the teachings that he had that contradicted the main line in his own day. Remember that in John chapter six, after the feeding of the 5 ,000 and then the 5 ,000 and all their friends showed up for more free food.

Instead of giving them free food, he gave them free doctrine and they ended up leaving when he said, this is my blood, take and drink it. Here's my flesh, take and eat it. Which again, to a Jew, I mean, you couldn't be more offensive if he tried to talk about, to use those metaphors.

And then they all, and most of them left at that point. So we see that there's plenty of reasons, plenty of opportunities for people to take offense at Jesus in his own day. Even the disciples of John, they could also take offense at him for seemingly taking away the, you could think of it from their own perspective.

If John still had a big influential ministry, if all the people, all the crowds hadn't left, it wouldn't have been easy for Herod to have John arrested. Remember how much trouble the Jewish authorities had to arrest in Christ, because he was always surrounded by an enormous crowd.

Well, John had an insulation effect there. And then when those crowds were diverted to Christ, John was much more easy to be picked off by the authorities. They could be very offended at Christ for that, amongst other reasons.

But Jesus says, blessed are those who are not offended because of me. Why might we take offense at Christ? What might we take offense at concerning Christ in our own culture? How is Christ offensive in our culture?

No salvation outside of Christ, right?

Yes.

So he's very exclusionary in his claims. That's very offensive for our day. And why else?

Yeah.

Surrendering authority to Christ as Lord, recognizing him as Lord, and rather than rebelling against him. Jesus is Lord. You can rebel against that, or you can recognize it. I mean, that's really the only two options you have.

But that's very offensive, his authority, his authority claims. Instead of affirming yourself all, you know, deny yourself is very counter-cultural today, rather than affirming yourself in every way.

And I think that's important to note that it's not Christ of our own making, it's the Christ of the scriptures. And again, this was John's point to his disciples. Go talk to him about it. And Jesus said, go tell John this after he did all his miracles.

And basically, Jesus quoted the scriptures. We have to go back to the scriptures to see who Christ is. Not a Christ of our own making who we want him to be fashioning him after our own image, but Christ as he is revealed clearly in the scriptures.

And how blessed are those who do not take offense at him. Another way of saying, how blessed are all who take refuge in him, Psalm 2. And that blessing will not fail. I don't think John was ashamed of Christ.

I mean, he was suffering in prison and faced death for his love of the Messiah because of his labor as the forerunner. He went to prison calling for the repentance of everybody within earshot because he was trying to prepare the way for the Messiah.

He went to jail for the sake of Christ. So I don't think he was ashamed, but he didn't want his disciples stumbling. He wanted the last great act of John the Baptist as a teacher, as a shepherd for his disciples was to push them towards Christ as he was in his final days in prison.

So we can thank God for this passage and for the encouragement, the quotes from Christ and this challenge. Blessed is he who does not take offense at me. Are we hoping in Jesus or someone else? If all of our hope is in Christ, if we're looking for him and no one else, we won't have ever cause to be ashamed of him or to take offense at him.

All right, well, let's spend some time praying for one another, praying for folks in our church. How can we pray tonight?