Unreasonable Doubt - [John 7:40-52]

Well, I would invite you to take your Bibles and open them to John chapter 7. Have a question for you.

Have you ever served on a jury? You kids, have you ever been on a jury before? Twelve angry kids.

Like most classrooms in America, I suppose. I was on jury duty once, it was just a few years ago here in Massachusetts.

I mean, in California, they actually would not even call me to jury duty, but here they do me the disservice of calling me, because I'm pretty sure that as a police officer for 21 years and now a fire -breathing

Bible teaching pastor, they wouldn't put me on any kind of criminal jury, but it worked, because the guy was obviously afraid there was going to be a trial, so he pled guilty.

But my attitude, I have a slight prejudice.

My attitude is, the defendant wouldn't be sitting there if he wasn't guilty. So, but we have in our system of jurisprudence a constitutional right to a trial by jury.

And I say, don't get arrested. Well, okay, I digress. Constitutional right to a trial by jury, a jury of your peers, why do you suppose that is?

I'll give you a hint, it's in the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights was written to secure individual liberty against potential tyranny of government.

That's the idea. But over the last couple of centuries that the country's been in existence, some enterprising lawyers have learned to kind of exploit the jury system.

One of those, one of the tactics they used is called jury nullification.

Anybody familiar with that, jury nullification? And basically what that means is you get the jury, if you're a clever defense attorney, you get the jury to ignore the law, ignore the facts, and go with their gut emotion.

Just ignore everything that is true and right and crystal clear, ignore the facts, go with your gut.

And I think maybe the quintessential example of that was the O .J.

Simpson trial. I don't know if you remember this, but the prosecution put on what they called a mountain of evidence.

And then after the jury declared Mr. Simpson not guilty, I saw an interview with some of the jurors, and one of the jurors actually said there was no proof.

No proof. It would be one thing to say, you know what, we had some reasonable doubts. We weren't quite convinced.

We looked at the evidence and we thought, you know what, there's a possibility that somebody else did it. But she didn't say that.

She said there was no proof. And I thought, okay, that is jury nullification.

Here's the evidence. Ignore that. Instead, this is what you want. Don't believe, don't believe your eyes, believe something else.

In biblical terms, that jury suppressed the truth, Romans 1 language.

They knew what was true and they just held it down, they submerged it and they literally drowned it. You know, they held it underwater.

And that is what so often happens and what we're going to see tonight in the text, unbelievers suppressed the truth and unrighteousness.

I'm going to go ahead and read our text and then we'll go through this. John chapter 7, beginning in verse 40.

When they heard these words, some of the people said, this really is the prophet.

Others said, this is the Christ. But some said, is the

Christ to come from Galilee? Has not scripture said that the

Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?

So there was a division among the people over him. Some of the people wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.

The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees and said to them, why did you not bring him?

Then the officers answered, no one ever spoke like this man.

The Pharisees answered them. Have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities or the

Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.

Verse 15, Nicodemus, who had gone to him before and who was one of them, said to them, does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?

They replied, are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.

Just a review of chapter 7. It really begins,

John chapter 7 does, with the unbelieving brothers of Jesus telling him that they're going to Jerusalem.

They're going to go down to the Feast of Booze, the Feast of Tabernacles as it's also known.

And it's probably the most celebrated event on the Jewish calendar. It's something like Christmas and Easter and everything just all kind of smooshed into one.

It is a big party, as I've said before, and everybody comes in from all over Israel and from even outside of Israel.

All the Jews would gather in together and they would put up these temporary booths, these temporary dwelling places, and they would basically just camp out for a week.

And everybody was there and everybody would celebrate and it was a week -long party.

So, Jesus' brothers say, we're going to Jerusalem, come on, let's go. And he tells them what?

That it wasn't the right time for him to go. You guys go on ahead without me, in other words, maybe

I'll come later, maybe I won't, but this is not the right time for me. What Jesus' brothers didn't know, but he had experienced firsthand, was the danger that such a trip would represent for him.

Jesus knew that the Pharisees had it in for him and they were laying in wait, essentially, at Jerusalem for him to show up so they could arrest him, try him, and put him to death.

And it was because, well, it wasn't just because, it was bad enough in their minds, if you recall from earlier in John, John chapter 6, it was bad enough to them that Jesus had healed this man on the

Sabbath. This man had been paralyzed for 37 years, a paralytic, and he had healed him.

And when they inquired of what he had done or why he had done it, if you recall, it's actually

John chapter 5, he said, Jesus said, my father is working until now and I am working.

This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, in other words, doing what they didn't think was legitimate on the

Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God.

It was one thing to do something on the Sabbath that they didn't approve of. It was another thing entirely to make himself equal with God.

And so they wanted to put him to death for blasphemy. And their hatred was so fixed that they were, as I said, they were essentially lying in wait for him in Jerusalem.

They had their patrols out. They knew everybody would be coming into Jerusalem and so they were waiting to arrest him there.

They were on the lookout for Jesus. Here was this great week -long celebration of God's faithfulness to Israel in the wilderness as they left

Egypt, the big Exodus. And so they knew for sure that Jesus being an observant Jew would be coming to Jerusalem.

And that's why he didn't go with his brothers. But he comes later on in the week and there's a scene where it just feels so dramatic like it should be the high point of a movie.

It's the showdown. Jesus, the hero, steps into the villain's lair.

All the bad guys are arrayed against Jesus, essentially. And he goes right up to the

Temple Mount at the midpoint of the feast. And he sits down and he begins teaching.

But if you'll recall, he's derided by the Pharisees, why? Because as he finishes teaching, why?

Because he doesn't have the necessary pedigree. He's not been through their schools.

He doesn't have their stamp of approval, as it were. So they don't much care for him.

Well the crowd that he addressed wasn't much better. After Jesus reveals that the

Pharisees want to kill him, which is true, but the crowd doesn't know that, they conclude that he has to be demon -possessed.

And many inaccurate statements come from the crowd. And Jesus asserts, as he would often do in the

Gospel of John, his heavenly origin, that he had come at the direction of the

Father. Which results in a desire of the crowd, even, to arrest him.

But no one is able to do so for one simple reason, it was not yet his time. But as a result of this interaction with the crowd and the

Pharisees, word gets to the people running the authorities, the

Sanhedrin running the temple, and they dispatch the temple guard, some of their security, as it were, to arrest

Jesus. And we'll talk more about that in a minute, or in a few minutes. But the last time we were in,

John, we began this second engagement on the Temple Mount. And it wasn't at the midpoint of the

Feast of Tabernacles, it was the very last day of the Feast. Where, really, everything just kind of comes to a pinnacle, where they're actually, we talked about it last time, how they would take water from Siloam, and they would have this great big procession, and they would come up to the

Temple, and they would blow the shofar, and it was all this pomp and circumstance, and just a great, great time.

And it's right then that Jesus spoke to the people again. That's where he gave his message on living water, which

I'll read here in a minute. But this evening we're going to see, really, two different groups, two different juries.

And if you'll notice, neither one of them is particularly objective. Neither one of them is, in other words, neutral.

They already have their minds made up. And they both come to a verdict, and it's not a favorable one for Jesus.

Unbelievers, I would put it this way, unbelievers have an insatiable capacity for suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.

We know that from Romans 1. They see the order and the beauty of creation, and what do they say? Oh, it's a random accident.

There is no God, and certainly not a God that we're going to worship. And tonight we're going to see unbelievers face -to -face with Jesus and suppress the mountain of evidence that they have of his true identity so that they can justify their hatred of him.

Our first jury is really a hung jury. A hung jury is just one that is unable to reach unanimity.

They don't get to a 12 -0 verdict. They're split.

They have different opinions. They're divided into different camps. And this jury is delighted, or delighted, they're divided into different camps as to who

Jesus is in light of Old Testament prophecy. Look at the verses there, verse 40.

When they heard these words, some of the people said, This really is the prophet.

Now, what were the words they just heard? Well, let's read 37 to 39, because this is what precipitates these different views of who

Jesus is. Back up to verse 37. On the last day of the feast, the great day, this is the day with all the pomp and circumstance, where it all just kind of culminates,

Jesus stood up and cried out, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. I'm going to just stop there for a minute.

This is what it brings to mind, the way that Moses was able to provide water for them.

But he's not talking about physical thirst. We talked about that last time. This is a spiritual thirst.

Whoever believes in me, hence thirsting, believing, spiritual, 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.

In other words, he hadn't been put to death, raised and seated at the right hand of the

Father, so he hadn't sent the spirit yet. Now, what does it mean, going back to verse 40, that this was the prophet?

What do they mean by the prophet? Well, they meant someone like Moses. And this, if you'll recall, was exactly the response that some had when

Jesus fed the multitudes in John chapter 6 with the five loaves and the two fish.

They said in 6 .14, this is indeed the prophet who has come into the world.

And here in chapter 7, particularly because of the focus on water, as I said earlier, it would be reasonable to link

Jesus with the miracle that God did through Moses in providing water from a rock. They were desperate for water and Moses delivered.

So Jesus, God through Moses, so Jesus must be in their reasoning, in their minds, the prophet

Moses promised in Deuteronomy 18 when he said there would be another one like him, only greater.

So that's one camp. They said this must be the prophet. Another camp said that he was the Messiah. Look at verse 41.

Others said this is the Christ. So what's the difference between the prophet and the

Christ? Well, at that time, many Jews believed that there would be two separate men.

One would be the prophet, one would be the Christ. And one commentator said that it's quite possible the

Christians were the first ones to come up with the idea that the same or the prophet and the

Christ would be exactly the same person. And they thought of that or they recognized that. Why?

Because Jesus perfectly fulfilled the requirements of the Old Testament for the prophet and for the

Christ or the Messiah. So it was at that point, they didn't understand that.

So it would be logical to think, well, maybe he's the prophet or maybe he's the Christ. But if you've ever sat in deliberations, in fact, if you've ever watched a movie about juries, you know that really when they go into the jury room and they begin deliberating, they tend to argue.

And so that's exactly what happens here. They say there's an objection to this idea that he's the Messiah.

Look at verse 41 where they point out that he's certainly disqualified from being the

Messiah. Verse 41. But some said, is the Christ to come from Galilee?

And the answer there implied is no. Verse 42. Now, it's interesting.

It's easy for us to read that and just go, well, wait a minute. Why don't you just open up your Bibles to Matthew? He can read his genealogy and you would understand he's a descendant of David.

What is wrong with you people? Well, they didn't exactly have the Gospel of Matthew yet, so they're working at a disadvantage.

But there was ample Old Testament testimony to the assertion that the

Messiah had to come from the line of David. They knew that. And that is one of the reasons, well, it's a logical reason, why they would be looking for a political deliverer.

If you're thinking that the Messiah is going to sit on the throne of David, then you're going to think, well, he's going to rule and reign as a king.

We want somebody to deliver us from the Roman Empire. So this idea of a

Messiah, of a king of the likeness of David through his line to sit on the throne of David, to be a political deliverer, as it were, that has a lot of appeal.

They hate the Romans. In fact, I think it's fair to say at this point that the

Jews were much more concerned with the Romans than they were, many of them anyway, than with being set free from the yoke of sin and Satan.

That wouldn't have really occurred to them to have a deliverer of that nature. As many in the crowd would have been from Jerusalem, they would hear that Jesus was from Nazareth.

I mean, that's where his whole family was living. Nazareth and Galilee. And that was that.

He was disqualified. The Messiah had to be born in Bethlehem. And we all know the

Christmas verse, Micah 5, 2, But you, O Bethlehem of Paphra, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is of old from ancient days.

So they would know that too. And we now read these objections to Jesus' birthplace and we want to say, well, wait a minute.

If you didn't get the genealogy out of Matthew 1, well, what about Matthew 2, verse 1, where it says he's born in Bethlehem?

Again, not written yet. And by the way, the system of chapters and verses wasn't invented yet either.

So if you said Matthew 2, nobody would have any idea what you're talking about. But Matthew 2, verse 1,

I'll just read it. Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, and they kept very strict and very good records, so there's no doubt that this could have been, all these things that we're talking about tonight, they could have been researched.

They could have checked them out. They could have investigated them for themselves, but they didn't want to.

But John the Apostle, as he's writing this, he knows that this crowd is ignorant of the truth.

They don't have the Gospel of Matthew. But we can infer some things here.

There was great anticipation of a Messiah. And we know that not only because if we look back and we saw how they treated

John the Baptist when he showed up, they were thinking maybe he was the Messiah. They're wondering about Jesus and all that's going on with him.

Is he the Messiah? But notice how they recite some of the requirements for the Messiah so effortlessly.

He must be born in Bethlehem. He must be of the lineage of David. They know these things.

This is something that would be kind of common discussion, common talk, like we talk politics or sports.

They would talk Old Testament. They would talk prophecy. But there's another group.

There's a group that says he's the prophet. There's a group that says he's the Messiah.

Then there's a group that just says, you know what? He's divisive. He's a fraud.

He's a fake. Look at verse 43. So there was a division among the people over him.

There's a schism, is the word. They're divided up into separate camps.

And it's entirely possible there might have been more than just three opinions, but these are the ones that we have here.

And this one, that he is a fake, a fraud, that he's a charlatan. This is, by the way, when it says some of them wanted to arrest him, this isn't talking about the temple guards.

This isn't talking about the officers. This is talking about people in the crowd where they just go, you know, somebody should arrest that guy.

Somebody should shut him down. Somebody should take care of him. Because they took basically the opinion of the

Pharisees, and they saw him as someone who was leading people astray, and they wanted it to stop.

But again, note it says some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.

So even though there was a desire to see him arrested, nobody actually does anything. And he's not arrested.

Nothing happens to him at all. So we've seen a hung jury, a divided jury, and now we see an angry jury.

This is at least 12 angry men, maybe more. And they're angry because the officers that were sent failed to arrest

Jesus. Look at 45. The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, why did you not bring him?

The officers, by the way, were Levites. They were knowledgeable of the law, but they weren't, well, let's just put it this way.

They weren't your typical cops. They weren't just out to make arrests. They were kind of politically savvy, but they were theologically savvy too.

They knew something of the law, and they didn't just barge in there to go arrest

Jesus. Why? Because even though they'd been ordered to arrest him, it was not with a kind of a mandate, you know, here's your arrest warrant, go get him.

It was, you know what, pick your spot. If you guys can pick him off when it's not going to create a major problem, then do it.

Just arrest him. But that's not what happened.

So they report back and they go, you know what, we didn't get him. And the chief priests and the

Pharisees are mad. The goal of the religious authorities would have been to tamp down rebellion, to avoid a riot, to avoid some kind of insurrection.

And still, from the perspective of God, it was not time to put Jesus on trial, so they didn't arrest him.

That's from God's perspective. But from the human perspective, the Sanhedrin were upset that their orders, that their design hadn't been carried out.

Look at the excuse of the officers here in verse 46. Really, ultimately, what they're saying is we were shocked into inaction.

We were paralyzed. Verse 46, the officers answered, no one ever spoke like this man.

Now, again, as we read this, we can think to ourselves, well, no kidding, no one ever spoke like this man.

Because he wasn't just a man. This is the God man. But they wouldn't have that perspective.

These guys were just like, we've never heard anything like it. These officers were stunned by the words of Jesus.

They'd never heard teaching like they heard from him. And the officers were much like the crowd, if you recall the very end of the

Sermon on the Mount, what did they say? Matthew 7, verses 28 and 29.

And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching.

For he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes. You know, have you ever talked to somebody,

I did this recently, have you ever talked to somebody who's been to a Roman Catholic church? Well, what do they do at that?

Well, they just kind of go through the motions and they'll say something like, you know, be good until next week. And that's the kind of picture here.

He's like, they're nothing. His sermon here in Matthew 7 was nothing like what they were used to hearing.

Nothing just like the kind of blah, blah, blah, you know, the Charlie Brown wah, wah, wah, wah kind of teaching.

This, he had authority. It pierced them. It caused them to think. And these officers come back and they're just like, we listened and we couldn't believe what we heard.

No one ever spoke like Jesus. That excuse wasn't really well received.

Look at verse 47. The Pharisees answered them. Have you also been deceived?

Look, we sent you guys out to do a simple task. This is one man. One man without a bunch of bodyguards or anything else.

And you come back and basically tell us you were hypnotized, you were mesmerized, you couldn't deal with him. And the verb there that says, have you been deceived, deceived, means to be led astray.

It indicates that they would have been duped, fooled, that they were victims. It's something that's done to you.

And the question is framed in such a way as to just express disbelief, like surely you people,

Levites, trained guards, our loyal servants, you have not been deceived, have you?

It's really not possible. Why were they so sure? Why was the

Sanhedrin, why were these rulers so sure? Because they looked at him and they just thought, well, we wouldn't fall for it, so how could you guys fall for it?

How could you be so stupid? Listen to verse 48. Have any of the authorities, have we, the

Sanhedrin, the Sadducees, or the Pharisees believed in him? Has anybody with any kind of knowledge of the law fallen for his campaign, his words?

You know, if you know anything about the New Testament, you know the Sadducees and the Pharisees did not get along.

They were often at odds. They disagreed over many aspects of theology. But boy, they got along when it came to Jesus because neither group liked him.

The Sanhedrin didn't like him either. And none of these experts in the law were under the spell of Jesus.

Only some of the people in the educated mob, those who thought he was the Christ, they were under his spell.

Those who even thought he was the prophet, they were under his spell. But what's wrong with you Levites?

What's wrong with you guys? Have you lost your marbles? We used to have better quality of cops around here than you guys.

Now just for a moment, I want you to just think when the last time you talked to an unbeliever about Jesus was, and you know, if you were talking to somebody smart and sophisticated, and you presented the truth claims of Christ to them, what did they say to you?

I used to think you were pretty smart until you started talking about Jesus. I used to think you were pretty intelligent until you started telling me that you don't believe in evolution.

You're just anti -science. You're just dumb. They might as well just say, have you also been deceived?

Have any, you know, you know some of my other friends, have any of my intelligent friends and my acquaintances, all the people that I've been to school with, have they fallen for this stuff?

So what's wrong with you? You're the problem. Bearing the name of Jesus to the world, to the unbelieving world, is not a badge of honor because the world has rejected him.

They don't believe in him. To bear the name of Christ is to bear shame to the educated people, to the smart people, to the sophisticates.

Smart people don't believe in God. Super intelligent people know that life is a meaningless cosmic accident.

You seem intelligent, but your faith is disturbing. Now we, back to our text, we the

Sanhedrin, we the temple rulers, can certainly understand how others could be fooled.

Look at verse 49. But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.

They're basically saying, they're pronouncing anathema on a whole crowd of people.

Why? Because they're foolish. They're silly. They don't know the law. They're not wise like us.

This mob sitting under the teaching of Jesus, they have not been trained in the law. They don't know the 613 commandments and all the corollaries and rules that we've developed so that we can obey the 613 commandments.

All the things that have now even gotten more outrageous like not pushing elevator buttons on the Sabbath. All those kind of things.

But you Levites, you know better. You know these things. And yet somehow you've been impressed by the words of Jesus.

So impressed that you couldn't even be bothered to obey us. And then in the midst of this tirade as this attack on the guards is going on, there's an objection by Nicodemus.

Look at verse 50. Nicodemus, who had gone to Him before and who was one of them, said to them...

Now just look there for a moment. Who had gone to Him before? They're talking about had gone to Jesus before.

Remember Him going at night in John 3. And who was one of them?

He was one of the rulers. He was the teacher of Israel and he was well thought of.

This is an educated man, a man of power and influence. And he says in verse 51, does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?

In other words, does the law, do our laws, proclaim a man's guilt until he's proven innocent?

Doesn't he get a chance to defend himself? If we're going to have a trial here, shouldn't we at least give

Jesus a chance to explain himself? Now it's very likely that Nicodemus still was not a believer at this point.

But he was not as skeptical, clearly, as the other rulers. He knew a lot about the law and he also knew when it was being abused and this was an abuse of the law.

But the Sanhedrin wanted to put Jesus to death and they didn't really care about giving him a chance to defend himself.

And it really is amazing and it offends Nicodemus because he would even know the

Roman system. The Roman system, if we looked in the book of Acts, even

Paul was given an opportunity to defend himself. Even Rome with all of its uncivility afforded

Paul the opportunity to do that. But note how they respond to Nicodemus.

They don't give any kind of legal reasoning. They don't cite prior case law.

I don't know if they did such a thing as that. Why did they not respond to his complaint?

And we'll get to what they say here in a moment. But they didn't because they knew he was right. They were supposed to be the protectors of the law and yet they themselves were violating the law.

So it's like the old Southern Baptist thing. If you're giving a sermon and you have a weak point in your sermon, what do you do?

You just get loud. So, you know, weak point, shout. So they're like, okay, we don't have a leg to stand on, so what are we going to do?

We're going to turn around on you and we're just going to accuse you. Look at verse 52. They replied, are you from Galilee too?

Now, was he from Galilee? No. So what's up with that? Galilee had a really bad reputation.

This is like, I don't know, saying, what are you from Appalachia? What are you, some hick?

Are you a rube? Are you some backwoods know -nothing? That's the kind of reputation the

Galileans had. If you want to just, well, you don't have to turn there. Just listen to Acts 2.

If you recall, you know, the day of Pentecost and Peter gives this sermon. Or actually, let me just read

Acts 2 verses 4 -7. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak, all these people there, all these

Christians, and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now listen.

Verse 5. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound, all this cacophony of these people speaking in tongues, the multitude came together and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.

And verse 7. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, Are not all these who are speaking

Galileans? This is amazing. These are the people that don't know anything and speak funny and they are uneducated and here they are speaking in our languages.

How is this possible? And that's the idea here. Are you from Galilee too?

Are you as stupid as those Galileans? There is, of course, some irony here.

Why? Because the educated experts, the ones who knew so much, they were wrong.

And they weren't just wrong about Jesus. Look again at verse 52. It says,

Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee. Well, it's false. Jonah was from the area of Galilee and there were others.

But there's even an argument made in some of the commentaries that maybe, this is talking present tense, that it's impossible for anybody now to come from Galilee.

Any prophet... Why? Jesus lived in Galilee but He was not born there so anything that they were saying now was irrelevant.

He was born in Bethlehem just as the Messiah was supposed to be. So their allegations were absolutely irrelevant.

But they were doing anything to suppress what could be known, what was known about Jesus. They were suppressing all of His truth claims.

Why? Because He had to be discounted. He was a threat to them. And as I studied this and I just thought, you know what, it just reminds me so much of a book

I read once called The Case for Christ. And I'm not here to knock the book specifically but I will say this.

That the author goes and he makes a case for Jesus for why you should believe in Him and he talks to experts in various fields.

And as he talks to them, whether the expert is in... there's one chapter that really drove me kind of crazy.

And it was about psychology. And it turns out that Jesus was psychologically fit and I'm sure you'll be happy to know that.

But I found the book, I read the entire book and you know, the conclusion was this.

That if you've read this book and you don't believe yet that Jesus was God, that you don't yet believe the truth claims of Jesus Christ, then what you need to do is figure out what areas that you're not quite convinced in and you need to find more evidence in those areas.

Well, there's a problem with that. Just like there was a problem with these Sadducees and Pharisees and Sanhedrin and all these knowledgeable scholars.

And the expert was... or the problem was that just as with Nicodemus, when

Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night in John chapter 3, he doesn't say to Nicodemus, Nicodemus, figure out what you don't believe about me, what concerns you have about me and then get some more evidence to kind of strengthen your faith in that area so that then you can believe in me.

He says to him what? You must be born again. These men who are sitting in judgment of Jesus have not been born again.

They're not Spirit filled. They don't have the Holy Spirit. They can have all the head knowledge in the world, but they can't believe.

They can't believe because they haven't been born again. And there's a great lesson in this for us as we witness to unbelievers.

And that lesson is this. We present the truth claims.

We bring Scripture to bear on the truth. We want to press Jesus Christ to them.

But we can't make them believe. We can't force them to see the wisdom of God. Why?

Because the wisdom of God appears to them to be what? Moronic, stupid, foolish, just like you.

But the truth claims of Jesus did not permit and do not today permit neutrality.

Jesus never offered a third way. It was believe. Follow me.

Hate your mother, father, sister, brother. Hate everything in comparison to how much you love me. Scripture says

He uses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and there's really no better example in all of Scripture than this right here.

The foolish things, the rubes, those Galileans and the wise people, the smart people could not get it.

There's never neutrality when it comes to truth. Your intelligent friends, your educated friends may feign neutrality.

They may profess to be neutral. They may even believe in their hearts that they're neutral. But Scripture is clear.

You either love Jesus or you hate Him. You worship Him or you loathe Him. You long for His second coming or you fear

His second coming or you deny His second coming. Today's unbelievers are so sophisticated and they're really just like the experts of Jesus' day.

They're too educated for their own good. It's not what they know that condemns them.

It's what they don't know that condemns them. And our job is to present the truth to them and trust the

Holy Spirit to do His work. Let's pray. Father, we just thank

You for Your sure word, for the convincing truths that You have provided us about the identity and the reality of the

Lord Jesus Christ. Father, would You just again affirm these truths to us?

And just as we study this, just be amazed at how You use the unsophisticated to bring shame upon the sophisticated.

How You blind the eyes of the very educated, the very smart, the very wise, the super pedigreed.

And yet You choose us and You grant us salvation. You open our eyes that we might behold Jesus as He is.