Keep sharing good news without ads.
No description available
Well, if I ask you some questions like these, what would you be thinking about? Is it an animal, a vegetable or a mineral? Is it bigger than a bread box? Questions that short answers or yes or no answers, all designed to narrow a field of potential suspects or topics or objects.
It's 20 questions, you know, where you get 20 questions and you have to guess what the object was. And if I ask you what makes a good game of 20 questions, it'd probably be a very difficult concept to nail down.
Like if I said, if my thing was water and you said, you know, is it an animal, a vegetable or a mineral, I'd just go, hmm, no. You'd go, no, you know, and then is it bigger than a bread box? It can be, you know, if we're talking about the Pacific Ocean.
But I mean, something like that might be hard to guess unless I just told you, you said, well, is it bigger than a bread box? Well, water can be. Well, then, you know, it's kind of easy. 20 questions can be difficult or it can be super, super easy.
But again, if I tell you the answer, I'm kind of giving it away. It's an easy game. And in this case, as we open our Bibles, please, to John chapter 7, it really does seem like in some ways a game of 20 questions that this crowd is trying to guess who Jesus is or they're asking him questions about who he thinks he is or they're making accusations.
But again and again, what does he do? He just tells them the truth. He might as well just be up there going, I'm the Messiah. I'm the Christ. I'm the one you're looking for. But they look for everything else.
It'd be like if I said, the answer is water and you said, okay, well, does your fur fall off in the winter? What are you talking about? It's water. They just keep guessing and guessing and trying to explain things away and looking for reasons not to believe.
That's the situation as we go to John chapter 7. This is really doubt in action. John chapter 7 verses 25 to 36. 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 see 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 from 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 signs than this man has done?
The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him. And the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest him. Jesus then said, I will be with you a little 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 we 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. Now, to just kind of catch us up to where we are, as we've worked through this Gospel of John up to this point, I can kind of see myself walking through the streets of Jerusalem as this is taking place.
I can almost get the scent of Jerusalem. If you've been there before, it just has a certain, I think, a certain kind of deserty odor to it. But I really have felt like I am there, like I'm seeing these scenes taking place, and I find myself wanting to just kind of reach over to the people in the crowd and go, what is wrong with you?
What are you thinking? This is the Messiah. Believe on him. Do you ever find yourself in real life, not in make-believe life, looking back on things, but in your daily life, do you ever find yourself wanting to just shake people and go, what is wrong with you?
Why don't you believe? Then last week, we saw our Lord travel from Galilee to Jerusalem for the annual Feast of Booze, the Feast of Tabernacles, as some call it. To me, it's kind of like camping, but that's just me, you know.
They erect all these booze, these little lean-to's of branches and leaves, and they're all throughout Jerusalem, even on people's rooftops, everywhere. Why? Because people from all outside the city, outside the country, from hundreds of miles away come in, because this is the time of the year that you don't want to miss.
You want to be there. This is the big celebration. They're recalling God's faithfulness to them during the 40 years that Israel was wandering the wilderness, and there are all kinds of things that they do to mark this festival.
They light up the temple. They have different feasts going on. There's all this excitement, and people are all coming in. We saw Jesus discussing with his half-brothers, and they're like, come on, Jesus, let's go to Jerusalem.
And he told them, if you recall, that his time had not yet come, and he was not going to go. He didn't really mislead them. He just said, it's not the right time for me, but it's always your time. So they went.
He didn't go. And he went sometime later. And if you recall, really, the issue for him was he couldn't go into Jerusalem without being arrested. The religious leaders were after him for healing a man on the Sabbath.
They viewed this as some horrible violation of their laws, and they were going to try him. But the worst part was, what, that he made himself out to be God, equal with God. They hated that. That convinced them that this was a man who had to be dealt with.
And so they attempted to arrest him when he first got to Jerusalem. They were on the lookout for him. If he'd gone with his brothers, he would have been arrested immediately. As all the pilgrims kind of meandered in, and there were big caravans and all that, he would have been picked off, and no one would have ever heard of him again.
He knew that. He didn't go. And instead, he went really at the height of things, when things are really beginning to pick up, when there's almost mass confusion and just a crowd of people, and he could just kind of easily enter.
He enters then, and they don't ever find him. So he goes to the temple, the center of Jerusalem, the heart of activity during this week. And he sat down, we saw last week, and began teaching. And again, we don't know what the content of his sermon was.
John doesn't record a single word of his actual sermon. But we do get the responses to what he said. And they weren't terribly positive. The reviews came in, and they weren't very good. But as they looked for him, as they searched for him, they wanted to arrest him because they didn't want to risk him gathering a following, and we're going to see that this morning.
They attacked him, the Jewish leaders did. They said, after he spoke, that he was speaking on his own authority, that he must have made it up, that he hadn't gone to their schools, that he hadn't been taught by one of the rabbis, that what he was teaching didn't comport with what they taught, and so they wanted to discredit him.
Well, the common people, that is, the non-leaders who were listening, they weren't any better. After Jesus revealed the desire of the religious leaders to kill him, they responded that he must have a demon, he must be crazy, because no one wanted to kill him.
What was he babbling about? Throughout the Gospel of John, accusations are made against Jesus, and he repeatedly defends himself by pointing to the source of his teaching, the source of his authority.
And indeed, the reason that he even came to the earth, he came because why? The Father sent him. He had the Father's authority. He taught what the Father wanted him to teach. In response, he's accused of being a manipulator of people, a charlatan, a fraud.
That's the idea behind this teaching is his own, or he's speaking on his own authority. And again, he was accused of being mad, of being a maniac. That's what they meant when they said he was demon-possessed.
But again and again in this book, Jesus shows himself and proclaims himself to be the long-promised Messiah, the Christ, the one who would rescue his people. He gives them the answer, and they refuse to believe it.
Now, this morning, I'm going to ask four questions based on this continuing interaction in the temple. Four questions, and I have a single purpose this morning. I want to point you to the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.
I want you to just kind of place yourself in the temple and think, what if I was there? How would I respond to Jesus? First question, who is Jesus? Who is Jesus? Now, after he, Jesus, had corrected the foldy thinking of those who believed that he had actually broken the Sabbath by healing the paralytic man, the man who'd been paralyzed for 38 years, Jesus commanded his hearers to make judgments with right judgments.
That is, to have a mindset like God would have, to view things as God would have. What was more important, these man-made rules of the Sabbath, not to do work, or this pitiful man's condition? He was an outcast.
He was incapable of doing anything for himself. He would have been viewed as ceremonially unclean, not worthy of any attention, any pity. He would be a nobody, a nothing. He says, listen, you guys are willing to break these laws so that circumcision can be carried out.
What about this man? They had the wrong judgment, the wrong view, the wrong, we could say, value of an individual, of his soul. And notice as we come to our text in verse 25 that we have a new and separate group that's identified for us by the Apostle John.
He says, some of the people of Jerusalem, Jerusalemites, residents of Jerusalem, they were not people who traveled into the city, they were already there. So they were, he identifies them as a separate group.
They're not the religious authorities. They're not the pilgrims. These are the people who live there day in and day out. And they've been listening to Jesus and frankly, they're not very impressed. Look again at the text, tells us what they think.
They therefore said, or the Jerusalemites, the people of Jerusalem therefore said, is not this the man whom they seek to kill? Talking about Jesus. And here he is speaking openly and they, talking about the religious leaders, say nothing to him.
The travelers to Jerusalem may not have known how the religious leaders felt. Remember they said, he has a demon, he's saying these things that they want to kill him and he has a demon because they didn't know any better.
But the people who lived in Jerusalem, who were under these religious leaders every single day, they knew exactly how the leaders felt about Jesus. And they're astonished, they're shocked. They're shocked both that Jesus is teaching in the temple and that their religious leaders whom they know want to kill Jesus are just sitting there letting him do it.
Aren't you guys going to stop him? Sure, they question his credentials, but really? Is that all you guys have? Aren't you going to do something? Are you just going to stand there? Then the idea comes to them, wait a minute.
Could it be that they're not challenging him because he is the Christ, he is the Messiah? Nah, couldn't be. Look at verse 26. Can it be that the authorities, these leaders over us, really know that this is the Christ?
They really believe that this is the Christ? That's why they're not really going out and challenging him? The implied answer is no, they don't believe it. They're answering it rhetorically. They're like, well, can it be?
Nah, couldn't be. No way. Now you say, well, why would they have such an elevated opinion of these religious authorities? Why would it be so important to them? It is something that we really can't grasp because we don't live under this kind of system.
If the religious leaders held a different opinion than you did about Jesus, this would be vital. If you said, I believe that Jesus is the Christ, they would unsynagogue you. What does that mean? It doesn't mean anything to us now to be disfellowshipped.
But under this system, it meant you couldn't buy anything at the store. Imagine going to the store and saying, I'll have some of those, what's something really horrible? Brussels sprouts. No, nothing can save Brussels sprouts.
And have them say, your money is no good here, you're not welcome here, get out of here. We can't even fathom that. We have Roman Catholics who don't care what the Pope says. We have Mormons who don't care what Salt Lake City says.
Over the last few weeks, I found out that there's a movement in the Latter-day Saint church to approve of homosexuals and homosexual marriage. Now, the leadership would never go for that. But again, people just don't care what the leadership says.
People don't care what the pastors here say. But if we disfellowship you, if we kick you out, it doesn't wreck your life. Maybe it should, but it won't. It's nothing like this. This is all encompassing.
This is all controlling. What they say about you, if you're approved, if you're in the circle, if you're okay, if you carry their approval, you're fine. But if they disapprove of you, you're done. No job.
No talking. Everybody's going to shun you. And again, the question the Jerusalemites ask anticipates a negative answer. In other words, it's not really a genuine inquiry, a genuine question, but they're looking for reasons to kind of undergird their unbelief.
They want to not believe that this is the Messiah. Why? Because the leadership says this is not the Messiah. We don't want to get on their bad side. So question number one, who is Jesus? And it leads to question number two, they're looking for reasons to disbelieve.
Now, question number two, where is Jesus from? So if you're this group of Jerusalemites, okay, this is not the Messiah, let's think about what we know about Jesus so we can discredit him, so we can say he's not the Messiah.
We'll look at verse 27. But we know where this man comes from. Well, where is he from? He's a Nazarene. He's the son of the carpenter, Joseph, Mary, his brothers. We've been through all that. But look where it leads them.
And we'll get back to more about where he's from in just a minute. Look to where that knowledge leads them. We know where he's from. And when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from. Where does that idea come from?
Well, let's skip ahead in the text just a little bit. Look at verse 41. I'm going to skip out of this sermon, actually, and look at a future sermon. Others said, this is the Christ. But some said, is the Christ to come from Galilee?
Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was? So there are some, and we could go to other passages, the wise men, they understand that the Savior, the Messiah, was to come from Bethlehem.
So where does this other idea come from? This idea that somehow the Messiah is just going to appear. In other words, we know where Jesus comes from. He's a Nazarene. He's from Galilee. Well, they don't know that he's a Nazarene.
They think he's from Galilee, from Nazareth, from up there. And not from Bethlehem. They don't understand where his birthplace is. But where did this idea come from? And it really gives you the idea that the Messiah was just going to appear.
You know, like, boom, Messiah. He's going to appear out of nowhere, is the idea. And it's based on a faulty understanding of some passages in the Apocrypha. So it's not even a scriptural idea. And this group, these Jerusalemites, are under that understanding.
There are disagreements. I mean, this is why it was kind of so difficult to go after Jesus for a while, because there were differing opinions about what the Messiah, where he would come from, and different origins.
But this group says, well, since he has an origin, and since we know what that origin is, he cannot be the Messiah. Well, what happens? It's garbage in, garbage out, right? If you program your computer program with faulty information or faulty data, you get a faulty answer, and that's exactly what they've done.
They've got a presupposition that the Messiah is going to appear out of nowhere, so they know where he comes from, and therefore he cannot be the Messiah. And what are they doing? I mean, again, this is unbelief looking for supporting reasons to doubt, to discount Jesus.
We see this all the time, though, don't we, in the world, in the scientific world. They start with the premise that God cannot exist, and then they look for reasons to buttress that conclusion. What do unbelievers do?
They suppress the truth and unrighteousness. Unbelievers are never neutral. There's a reason why they're never neutral and why these people are never neutral. Because they suffer from a spiritual infection, sin.
You know, sometimes we just think of sin as something that we do. Sin isn't just what we do. It permeates our thinking. Before Christ, it is our thinking. It clouds our worldview. It clouds our reasoning ability.
Before you get saved, you do not have the capacity to reason to faith. You don't have the ability to understand Scripture. It takes the Holy Spirit. So they're working with bad presuppositions and an inability to grasp spiritual truth.
Other than that, they're in pretty good shape. And look, they're wrong. And Jesus lets them know it. Look at verse 28. So Jesus proclaimed as he taught in the temple, while he's teaching in the temple, quote, You know me and you know where I come from.
And there's a question mark there, an exclamation. It should be like this. Oh, you know me and you know where I come from? Because that verb there indicates that he spoke with a suddenly raised voice.
And it should have either a question mark or an exclamation point or maybe both. The idea is that he gives them his attention. He says, oh, so you guys know me. You know where I'm from. And the idea, the indication is that they don't know this.
They think they know, but they don't. And they're about to get taken to the theological woodshed. We'll see their reaction in just a moment. But let's just say that the Jerusalemites are not happy with what Jesus says.
But again, their insights, their ability to reason are limited by their unbelief. They cannot possibly know Jesus or know where he's from because they lack the Holy Spirit to guide them in their understanding of Scripture.
He is right in front of them, the God-man, their Savior, their Messiah. And they reject him. Why? Because they can't accept him. They can't believe him. These Jerusalemites believe that Jesus was likely a charlatan just as the others did, just as the religious leaders proclaimed them to be.
They said he's a fake. And so they were looking for reasons to affirm the fact that he was a fraud, someone who was bent on self-aggrandizement, making himself wealthy, accruing for himself power and followers, and that he really was acting on his own authority like so many before him.
This crowd, or really before them, like so many before them, this crowd presumed Jesus was someone who wanted money, fame, and power, that he was, in other words, just like them. So Jesus hits the issue straight on in verse 28.
But I've not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true, and him you do not know. He was not, as they suppose, one of the many self-proclaimed messiahs, as I've said before. You know, why was it that they sent out a crowd early on in the Gospel of John, a little investigatory posse to check and see who John the Baptist was, to see if he was the messiah?
Because it was not uncommon, it was fairly common, don't want to speak in a double negative, for people, for men to rise up and proclaim that they were the messiah. And so here comes John the Baptist, they investigate him, and there's always this idea that we have to disprove these people, these men, as opposed to receive who they might be, and Jesus is no different.
They just view him as another in a long line of false messiahs. Now I'm not really a big fan of the ESV here. My own accord literally is, he's not sent of himself, he says of myself, meaning he did not commission himself, he wasn't there on his own authority, he did not decide on his own initiative to be the messiah.
The New American Standard says it well, I think, and I have not come of myself, but he who sent me is true. And this is a strong contrast. It says, basically, that Jesus was not acting on his own will.
How many times does he say this? I've not come to do my own will, but the one who sent me. He is here to do the Father's will. And he refers to the Father here as true, to directly debunk the accusation that there was some self-seeking going on.
This isn't false. He's not deluded. He's not some self-proclaimed messiah. He has been sent by the Father. And notice it says, the one who sent me is true, and him you do not know. They did not know God.
They spent their life constructed in a way that was supposedly bent on worshiping him, on pleasing him. They did what the religious leaders told them to do. But they did not know God. They professed to know God, but they didn't know him.
Now, if Jesus had been kind of using some rhetorical jabs up to this point, now he's throwing haymakers. What do you mean we don't know God? Imagine you're there, sitting there, listening to that. Look at verse 29.
I know him. You don't know him, but I do know him. For I come from him, and he sent me. Again, just think about what he said here. It's both true and it would be offensive. Jesus knew the one who was true, God the Father.
But he says they don't know him. Try telling somebody who professes to be a Christian. There are many who profess to be Christians. Tell them that they're not. Based on what I see in your life, you're not a Christian.
What do you receive? You get outrage, anger. How dare you question me? You don't know anything about me. Don't judge me. So imagine these people who fancy themselves to be quite Jewish. Thank you very much.
People of the law, people who were in submission to the Jewish authorities, the experts in Jewish religion. Just imagine how they felt having Jesus, this man that they thought was a charlatan, a fake, and a fraud, stand before them and tell them that they don't know God.
How dare you tell us that? And again, he says that he is from God, thus refuting any notion that he was acting on his own will. Everything they believe about Jesus is wrong. So do they repent? Do they tear their garments?
Break out the sackcloth and ashes? Not exactly. Question number one, who is Jesus? Question number two, where is Jesus from? This is an effort to disprove him, which he rebuts. Third question, what shall we do with him?
What is this crowd of Jerusalemites going to do with Jesus? Well, they obviously have to respond. They're mad. They've been insulted. I mean, they've been told the truth, and it seems like an insult, right?
He's told these Jews to whom their religion was everything. It was inseparable from their daily life. They weren't like compartmentalized Christianity, where Sunday was for Christianity and, you know, for church, and then the rest of the week was to do whatever they wanted.
This wasn't Southern Baptist religion. This is the real deal, that they don't know God. He told them they don't know him. But he not only knows him, but was commissioned by him. And look at verse 30. Here's their response.
So they were seeking to arrest him. We've had enough of this guy. Somebody call 911. Let's get him out of here. The Jerusalemites have shifted from 20 questions mode to trying to sort things out in their own mind, maybe even to find a way to disprove him.
They're going to call the cops. They're going to have this man removed. But it doesn't happen. Look again at verse 30. But no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. I had a partner, a guy that I worked with, who used to talk about when we arrested people, that we would, quote, put the glom on them.
I never knew what that was. But they're going to try to put the glom on Jesus, and they don't. Why not? Well, it's not clear. You can speculate he may have eluded them. They may have been in fear of others in the crowd.
The cops might have showed up and just thought, okay, I don't really want to get involved in this. The text doesn't tell us. It just wants to tell us that, or John just tells us, that whatever they wanted to happen didn't happen here.
But it does tell us the ultimate reason. It might have been their desire, their intention to seize Jesus, but it was not in God's plan. Look, because his hour had not yet come. Well, what does that mean?
The time for his death had not yet come. The Jerusalemites were seething with anger, but they could not fulfill their desire to arrest Jesus, because his arrest would have led to his death, and it wasn't time for that yet.
Let me ask you this. Have you ever been in a situation where a mob is threatening to attack you? It's not as much fun as it sounds, actually. It happened once. Somebody asked me about it on the first service, so I'll just give you a little more details.
I probably mentioned it before, but there I was on Valentine's Day. Instead of spending the evening with my wife, I went to this homeless shelter to preach. I'd been advised by one of the inmates at the jail and one of the chaplains that I needed to make sure that they all knew I was a deputy, because it would really warm the hearts of these people.
So I told the ladies. I taught them first, and everything was great. The ladies were wonderful. I told the guys. There were, I don't know, 275, 300 men in this room, and there was some murmuring in the back.
Then there was movement, and as I watched, the entire room was starting to edge closer to me, and the murmuring keeps going, and I'm like, I didn't anticipate really this being the Valentine's Day massacre, but it looks like it's about to end.
And suddenly, a voice from the side, the chaplain, a brother to whom I owe my life, said, Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. Let's listen to him. He stopped the crowd. But that fear never left me, and I would never, never want to go through that again.
So what about Jesus? As all these people are trying to seize him, and they're casting all these allegations against him, do you think he had any fear? I don't think so. Why not? Because he knew it was not the hour.
His hour had not arrived. He had complete confidence in the power and the plan of God. Sometimes I think as Christians, we can kind of get this sort of, well, whatever the will of the Lord is, I'm willing to accept it, as if that relieves us of our obligation to do things.
Well, it doesn't. We need to do the right thing and then trust that God will bring about his results. Small digression there, but the point of this is God's plan and his timing will not be thwarted. I'm going to read Acts 2, verse 23.
You don't need to turn there. I'm just going to read one verse. Sermon by Peter. Listen to what he says. This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. You, talking to the Jewish leadership, crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
Romans did it. You delivered him up. But listen, and therefore you are responsible, but listen, it was according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. It wasn't an accident. The timing wasn't an accident.
It wasn't foreknowledge, planning. From all eternity, this occurred at the time and the place of God's choosing. Men act in accordance with the plan and foreknowledge of God at the time he designed. They're responsible, but he's sovereign.
And in this case, it was not his hour, and the death of Jesus was not going to happen one minute before God desired it to happen. So it wasn't going to happen on this day. Not everyone who heard Jesus was mad.
Not everyone rejected him. Look at verse 31. Yet many of the people believed in him. These would be the pilgrims, the people who'd traveled. They're listening, and they're going, you know what? There's something to this.
The word yet here is just, it's a mild contrasting conjunction, typically translated but. It's just kind of showing that there's another group of people here. They're not these Jerusalemites, people who'd traveled for this feast.
And it says that they had believed in him. Did that mean savingly? Probably not. Probably not. Maybe some did. But they certainly had heard of his work, and we'll see that in just a minute. Maybe they'd heard of the feeding of 5 ,000.
I mean, just look at the text. It says, when the Christ appears, they said, will he do more signs than this man had done? Meaning they already knew that he had done signs, that he'd done these wonders.
Maybe it was the feeding of the 5 ,000 at Galilee. Maybe it was some other things that they heard about. Maybe the healing of this paralytic. They're believing in him in the sense that maybe this man, Jesus, has the power.
Maybe he has the capacity to be a deliverer of the nation, to throw off the yoke of the Romans, to deliver Israel in a physical sense. There's no evidence here that they were looking for someone who would deliver them from their sins.
Look at verse 31. They said, when the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done? Well, this question begs for a no answer. In other words, they didn't really believe that a Messiah would come along who did more wonderful things than this man had done.
He seems to have something of the power of God. Maybe we should just follow him. Maybe we should cast in our lots with him. If this isn't the one who's going to deliver us from Rome, then it's really hard to imagine who is going to do that.
So now we have all these contrasting voices, all this hubbub going on. Even some positive things being said about Jesus. Now, if you're in the religious elite and you're kind of observing all this going on, you're like, oh man, this is exactly what we were trying to stop.
This is exactly why we wanted to arrest this man when he arrived in Jerusalem. This is why we didn't want him to get in front of the crowd. Look at verse 32. The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest him.
This is the one thing that they could not risk. Jesus gaining a substantial following. People starting to believe in him. People wanting to follow him. Why? Why is that such a problem? Because while they were accusing him of being desirous of having many followers and wealth and position and status, this is what they were going to lose if the people turned to him instead of them.
So our text indicates that the chief priests cooperated with them to send officers to arrest Jesus. Now, there would technically be only one chief priest in Jerusalem, but there would be many ex-chief priests, former chief priests.
There are a variety of reasons for this. They would be interrogated and demoted by the Romans. There's all this technical stuff going on. But here's the important thing to know. The Pharisees go to the people in authority, the people who the temple guard would listen to.
They convince them that this man, Jesus, has to be stopped. And so they do. They send the temple guards, their assistants, to put an end to this before it gets out of hand. I mean, we don't want a religious rebellion on our hands where all these people are following Jesus.
So what shall we do with him? Let's seize him. Let's arrest him. First question, who is Jesus? Second question, where is Jesus from? Third, what shall we do with Jesus? We've got to stop him. Fourth question, where is Jesus going?
Where is Jesus going? Do the guards grab Jesus, first of all? I mean, it's important to think about, right? If the officers are coming for him, do they grab him? Do they get their man, as it were? Are they Royal Canadian Mounted Police?
No. It seems safest not to guess, but that's why I'm here is to guess. Actually, we don't really have to guess because it seems pretty clear. This is kind of, if you read a novel, this drives my wife nuts sometimes when she reads novels, but if you read a novel, they sometimes will break off from the main action to tell you about something else that's going on, and I think that's what we have here.
He's telling us that simultaneously as Jesus is speaking, the Pharisees are getting concerned, and so what do they do? Some of them go and they notify the temple authorities who are going to send the police, but all this is going on and Jesus is still speaking.
So in essence, this is kind of a device by John to just kind of fill us in and give us a full picture of what's going on so that we can understand and we kind of pick up a little, I do, a little anxiety.
Is he going to finish doing what he wants to do before they grab him? The police are coming. Everybody run. You ever been in one of those situations? Here come the cops. Everybody run. I used to see it all the time.
But there's no concern, no worry on the part of Jesus, and I really do think we do well to just, and there's no record of the confrontation, so I don't think it takes place. So I think we do well to think of it as something just kind of going on at the same time.
But the sojourners have asked their question. Let's just compact it and take verse 31 and 33 together. The pilgrims, the people from out of town, asked their question. When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man, Jesus, has done?
And then in verse 33, Jesus then said, I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. Now, he wasn't talking about the people in Jerusalem. He wasn't talking about the group there in the temple.
He was talking about on this earth. And he knew that he had about six months left. He knew that things were winding down and that he would be put to death at the Passover. He knows exactly where he will be going.
He's going to be returning to his father. And he says that. He says, I'm going to him who sent me. That would be the father. And he then utters a difficult to understand sentence. Look at verse 34. You will seek me and you will not find me.
Where I am, you cannot come. It helps to remember that he's just spoken of his return to heaven. And after he returns to his father's side, the Jews will search vainly for their Messiah. But they've already rejected him.
Many men would come along who would be self-proclaimed messiahs. But here's the sad truth. If those who reject him cannot enter into heaven, listen to what he says. Where I am, talking about in heaven, you cannot come.
Hard for them to grasp, unbelievers. And so as often happens, whether it's the woman at the well, over and over this happens, whether it's, anyway. Again and again, when he's confronting unbelievers, they take it crassly, literally.
So look at what the crowd does here. The Jews say to one another, verse 35, where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? I mean, it sounds like little kids playing hide-and-go-seek, right?
Does he intend to go to the dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? This isn't some kind of hide-and-seek, even though that's what, I mean, when I read their words, that's what it brings to mind.
Might as well be with one of the grandkids playing hide-and-seek or something like that. But what they do is they construct a very unlikely scenario of Jesus going to some far-flung territory. The dispersion, the diaspora, the area where, outside of Israel where Jews had been captured and then carried off to outside of Israel.
And many had not returned when they were leased by Cyrus to come back to the promised land. Many had not returned. So they're still living in these far-off areas. And so that's what they mean. Well, is he going to go to one of these far-off areas, Asia Minor or up in Cappadocia?
Where is he going to go? But notice also they're not going to, they don't suggest that he's just going to go hide behind the curtains. He's going to go find some cave and hide. Nope. Their idea is that he's going to go to, basically, synagogues in the diaspora, the dispersion, and that he's going to teach the Greeks there.
And I find this so interesting because, you know, John is writing this some decades later. This is almost 60 years after the event. And you can't help but think, okay, now he knows what Paul will do. He knows what Peter and the other missionaries will do.
And he knows that this is very similar to the method they're going to use, right? Go to the synagogues, reason with the Jews, reach out to the Gentiles. This is what they're going to do. So I think as he was writing this and recalling this, I think it would have been not really humorous, but I think he would have just kind of smiled a little bit in thinking about what they said and then what would take place.
But Jesus had completely stumped them. They didn't have a clue. This is emphasized for us because a lot of times when John has a crowd or a group or even a person repeat what Jesus says, they don't do it word for word, but here they do it and they do it twice.
Look at verse 36. What does he mean by saying, quote, you will seek me and you will not find me? And, quote, where I am, you cannot come, close quote. They're just focusing on these two phrases and they can't figure them out.
One man says this, he says, in spite of all, everything that's going on in their hatred for him, Christ's words cannot be shaken off. They are not to be explained away. A vague sense remains that there is in them some unfathomed meaning.
They want to reason out, they want to figure it out. They can't, but they can't let go of it either. They're going to keep trying to work on it. Martin Luther said of these words, where I am, you cannot come.
He said, quote, these are terrible words. I do not like to read them. Why not? Because they are a pronouncement of the hopelessness of unbelief. That they will not seek Jesus in a salvific way. It's painful to think that these people will die in their sins.
They will look for some out, some escape, some work that they can do, perhaps even plead on Judgment Day. But there is no hope for those who turn their back on Christ. A .W. Pink said, what manner of saying is this that he said, you shall seek me and shall not find me.
And where I am, thither ye cannot come. And Mark it, these were not illiterate men who thus mused, but men of education and religious training. But no amount of culture or religious instruction can impart spiritual understanding to the intellect.
A man must be divinely illumined before he can perceive the meaning and value of the things of God. The truth is that the most illiterate babe in Christ has a capacity to understand spiritual things, which an unregenerate university graduate does not possess.
The plainest and simplest word from God is far above the reach of the natural faculties. What does he mean? He means this. If you're in Christ, you have the capacity to understand the word of God. If you're not, it doesn't matter how many degrees you have.
It doesn't matter how much education you have. It is ultimately a mystery to you. And there's no hope of heaven without the work of the Holy Spirit. And there's no understanding the words of Jesus without the work of the Holy Spirit.
There's no hope of heaven without the drawing of the Father. There's no hope of heaven without God-given faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, who is Jesus? He's fully man and fully God. Where is Jesus from?
He came from heaven, born of a virgin. What shall we do with Jesus? We need to look at His work and believe. What did He do? Everything perfectly all the time. He died a death that we deserve and was raised on the third day.
Now, where is He going? He's already there. He's in heaven, seated at the right hand of the Father where He lives to make intercession for those who are in Christ. The question, the final question this morning is, what will you do with Him?
He has given us all the answers. Will you listen? Will you obey? Will you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? There is hope for everyone, even when He says, you cannot come. There's hope while there is life.
For every person here and for every person that you know, every person that you love, there is hope. But it is available only in Christ. There is no other Savior. There is no other means of forgiveness of sins.
Let's pray. Father, what a blessing it is to be, as it were, in the temple, to hear Jesus interact with these people, to recognize the truth of His words, the truth of His sending, the truth of His person, the truth of His Messiahship.
And Lord, even as we're astonished that all these people cannot grasp it, we shouldn't be. Because apart from Your work, none of us would grasp it either. Apart from Your transformation of us, apart from You regenerating us, granting us spiritual life, raising us from spiritual death to life, moving us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, adopting us into Your family.
None of us would know You. None of us could understand these things. All the praise is due to You. Father, for any here for whom that is not true, for whom if they were to die right now, they would not go to where Jesus is.
Father, for any of those, I pray that You would lay a heavy spirit of conviction upon them, that they're in mortal peril, whether they be young or old, good in their own eyes or not good in their own eyes.
It's immaterial. They need to be in Christ. Father, would You work by Your Spirit even today to convict of sin? Father, for those who know You, would You give us greater joy, greater delight, not in being good people, but having a great Savior who redeems even people like us.
Father, we rejoice and we thank You for all that You've accomplished in Christ for us. In His name, Amen.