One Man to Die | Sermon 09/03/2023

Apologia Utah

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All right, if you would, please turn with me in your Bibles to the Gospel according to John chapter 11.

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We're going to be in verses 47 through 57 today, finishing up chapter 11.

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The title of the sermon today, church, is One Man to Die. One Man to Die.

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So starting in verse 11 of the Gospel according to John chapter 11.

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Hear now the inerrant and infallible words of the living and true God. Therefore the chief priests and the

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Pharisees convened a council, and were saying, What are we doing? For this man is performing many signs.

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If we let him go on like this, all men will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.

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But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, You know nothing at all, nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.

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Now he did not say this on his own initiative, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but in order that he might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.

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So from that day on they planned together to kill him. Therefore Jesus no longer continued to walk publicly among the

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Jews, but went away from there to the country near the wilderness into a city called Ephraim, and there he stayed with the disciples.

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Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up to Jerusalem out of the country before the

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Passover to purify themselves. So they were seeking for Jesus, and were saying to one another as they stood in the temple,

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What do you think? That he will not come to the feast at all? Now the chief priests and the

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Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he was to report it so that they might seize him.

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Thus ends the reading of God's magnificent glorious Word. Let's pray church.

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Lord I ask that you would illuminate the Scriptures today by your Spirit. Lord I pray that you would show exactly what we need here today from your

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Word, your magnificent Word O God. Lord help me to preach, help me to teach by your

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Spirit, not my own power. Lord I pray that if anything is false that it would fall to the wayside.

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If anything is of man that it would go away. Lord your Word would ring true.

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So God please be with your people now. Let our focus be on Christ and this glorious Word.

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Pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Alright church, today we are going to see a man, wicked as he is, unknowingly prophesy of the atonement of Jesus Christ.

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Unknowingly. But before we get into that account, I wanted to share with you that this has actually happened before.

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This has happened before. More than a thousand years prior to Christ's coming,

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Israel had been delivered from slavery in Egypt, and at this point they're wandering in the wilderness due to their sin, and the book of Numbers details that.

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Specifically in Numbers chapter 22 through 24, it details the account of the prophet

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Balaam. Balaam. And the prophet Balaam made an arrangement with the king of Moab.

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The king's name was Balak, or Balak. And King Balak wanted to weaken the children of Israel, because what?

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As they were leaving Egypt, they were heading to the promised land, and they were passing through these countries, these nations, and they were passing through Moab, and Balak wanted them to leave his territory.

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He was concerned about his own territory, and so he sent for Balaam, the prophet, to ask him to curse the people of Israel.

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Curse them. And in exchange for that, he would give Balaam a great reward.

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That was the arrangement. And so, what's interesting is Balaam, although a wicked prophet, because we'll even understand if you read the end of the whole story of Balaam, he is very wicked.

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At the end, he deceives the people, he figures out a way to curse Israel. But although being a wicked prophet, he's not exactly a false prophet.

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He tells King Balak, he says, I'll do what you're saying, and I'll take the money.

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I want that. But the only way I'm able to do that is if God gives me permission.

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I can't curse the people unless God gives me permission. And so they strike this arrangement, and King Balak says, okay, let's do it then.

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And so, Balaam goes before God, and he asks for permission, and God then says, you must not put a curse on those people.

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They are a blessed people. And then he inquires again, God, can I curse

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Israel? And God says, look, go with King Balak, and I'll tell you what to say from here.

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But you can't curse them. And so, I'm sure some of you have heard the story of Balaam's donkey that saw the angel with the sword, and the donkey's mouth was loosed supernaturally by God, and the donkey spoke and rebuked

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Balaam, because Balaam was beating the donkey for not moving forward. But the donkey could see the angel, and he couldn't, right?

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And then God opened his eyes, and Balaam saw the angel with the sword.

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And so, that's a story for another time. But Balaam went to Moab.

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He went to King Balak, and King Balak took the prophet up on a high place called

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Bemath -Beol, and he said, go ahead, curse the Israelites now.

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Balaam then offers 14 sacrifices to God up on this high place, and then as he went to curse

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Israel, he's about to open his mouth and curse Israel, a blessing of Israel comes out of his mouth.

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He blesses Israel, okay? So the king was very upset, because they made this arrangement, and so the king takes him up on another mountain, the top of another high mountain, it was called

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Pisgah. But of course, in these pagans' understanding, they think that, well, their

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God may be the God of that mountain, let me go to this mountain, another God. But no, Yahweh the

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Lord, the one true God, is the God over every mountain, and so he offers the sacrifices again.

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He goes to curse Israel, but then another blessing comes out.

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King Balak then yells at him, look, if you're just going to bless Israel, can you at least keep your mouth shut?

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Can you just shut your mouth? Stop it, right? And so King Balak hits a low point, and he wants to try one more time.

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He takes Balaam to Mount Peor. Mount Peor, and Balak is,

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I'm sorry, Balaam is about to curse Israel again, and out of his mouth comes, how beautiful are your tents,

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O Jacob, how wonderful are your dwellings, O Israel. So he blesses

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Israel again, and needless to say, King Balak was furious, and he said, Balaam, you're getting no reward, you're getting no silver, the deal is over, go home, leave.

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Balaam reminded the king, he said, look, before we made this agreement, I told you,

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I can't say anything other than what God tells me to say. And right before he was about to leave, the

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Lord opened Balaam's mouth, and he gave four more prophecies in addition to the three that he gave.

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And so the prophet at this moment was more than willing to curse Israel, but here's what comes out of his mouth in Numbers 24, 15 through 19.

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He says, the oracle of Balaam, the son of Beor, and the oracle of the man whose eye is open, the oracle of him who hears the words of God, and knows the knowledge of the

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Most High, who sees the visions of the Almighty falling down, yet having his eyes uncovered.

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He says, I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near.

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A star shall come forth from Jacob, a scepter shall rise from Israel, and shall crush through the forehead of Moab, and tear down all the sons of Sheth.

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Edom shall be a possession. Syre, its enemies, also will be a possession, while Israel performs valiantly.

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One from Jacob shall have dominion, and will destroy all those in the city.

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So he says, I see him now, but not yet. He's coming, but he's not near.

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He's coming. And it would take, although this is pointing in some ways to David, ultimately it's pointing to who?

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Christ. About a thousand years later, that would happen. A star has come.

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Because who is the star according to Scripture? The star. According to Scripture, John calls

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Jesus the bright and morning star. Peter calls Jesus the morning star that has risen in our hearts.

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Then it says a scepter shall rise out of Israel. The author of Hebrews says concerning the

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Son of God that he, Jesus, is the righteous scepter of the kingdom. And then did you see at the end there?

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One from Jacob shall have dominion. This is about Christ.

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Balaam unknowingly prophesied about the coming Messiah, Jesus.

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Didn't even know it. And so God has done this before. We'll see him do it again right here in our text.

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But what is the heart of Caiaphas' prophecy? That's what we need to find out. Let's take a look, starting in verse 47.

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So you may remember at the end of our last sermon we saw Jesus conquer death.

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He faced down death in the form of his friend Lazarus.

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And at that moment as he raised Lazarus back from the dead, in this joyful, wonderful, death -defeating moment, some of the mourners from Jerusalem, when they saw this, they believed.

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They believed in him. But then there was another group of mourners from Jerusalem who walked the two miles back from Bethany to Jerusalem.

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They walked back and they reported those things to the Pharisees. All that Jesus had accomplished.

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It's likely the informers told the Pharisees what he did in raising Lazarus, how he spoke to God calling him his father, and how as a result of this many of the people there seemed to believe in and align themselves with Jesus of Nazareth.

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They probably told them everything. Everything that they saw. And so the chief priests and the

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Pharisees convened a council. Now the last time we've seen the chief priests and the

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Pharisees come together, which is kind of not a typical thing, the last time we saw that was in John chapter 7.

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They got together when Jesus was teaching at the the Feast of Booths.

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Do you remember? He points to the water libation ceremony and he says, I can give you living water.

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He points to the great torches of the night and he says, I'm the light of the world. I'm brighter than this.

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And so at that moment the chief priests and the Pharisees came together and they were like, okay we need to arrest this man.

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This is causing a problem for us. This is an issue. And so if you remember in John chapter 7 they sent the temple police after Jesus.

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Jesus evades the temple police, but even then the temple police stop in their tracks.

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They're listening to the words of Jesus and they're dumbfounded. And the temple police walk back, if you remember, and they came up to the chief priests and Pharisees and these men say, why didn't you arrest

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Jesus? And these officers go, no one's ever spoken like this before.

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No one's ever spoken so heavenly and with such authority before. And so that's the last time they came together, these two groups, and this time they've assembled a council.

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This is the word sunadrion. Sunadrion, which is the word which we have transliterated in the

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English to Sanhedrin. Now sometimes

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Sanhedrin is used for a smaller council, but other times it's used for the official high council,

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Sanhedrin Council of Jerusalem. And I think seeing the high priest here, Caiaphas, is an indication that this isn't just a small, quick, thrown -together council.

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This is the official Sanhedrin. That's my opinion. So the

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Sanhedrin, if you don't know, was the highest judicial authority in the land. They were under Roman authority and they controlled all

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Jewish internal affairs. Many of the men in the Sanhedrin were priests who were of the extended family of the high priest, according to Carson.

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If you could imagine, there was nepotism happening there. So the high priest would find other men related to him, and they were part of the

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Sanhedrin. And the fact is, the Sanhedrin was, the majority was

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Sadducees. The minority was actually Pharisees. Pharisees were almost always scribes, while Sadducees were almost always rich men who had businesses, or they were politicians.

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Okay? So these men are making up the Sanhedrin, and if you can imagine, they're totally different types of groups, but they're able to come together for this one issue, this one cause.

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For them to come together, Sadducees and Pharisees, means that Jesus is really causing them a problem.

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Jesus is causing them a problem. And so they pose the question, is it me or is it extra freezing today in here?

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Okay. Andrew, would you mind raising that? Like, my hands feel like, uh, edit that out.

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No, I'm just kidding. Anyways, sorry for the distraction.

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I don't want you guys to be distracted either. So anyways, they pose the question, what do we do?

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What do we do? Or in the Greek, what are we doing? What are we doing?

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What are we doing here? What do we do? And of course the answer is, what we know, is nothing.

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They can't dispute what God is doing. They can't deny that a man was just dead for four days and is now alive.

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They can't do anything. But the last thing they want is for people to start believing in Jesus as the

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Messiah. The man is performing many signs, many miracles. He's speaking with authority.

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But these men don't see it as a blessing. They don't see Jesus as some sort of equal or higher.

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They see him as a curse. And what's interesting is they don't think, how can we glorify

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God through this? How can we glorify God through this? They don't consider how

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Jesus might be sent by God. Many of them have seen the signs themselves.

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They've heard the authoritative teachings. Nothing concerns them of their own position before God.

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But they're concerned how Jesus is influencing everyone else. Okay? They want to put a stop to this.

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A man is performing miracles from God. And the reality is, the irony is, a man is performing miracles from God and men who say they represent

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God want it to stop. It's ludicrous. But so is unbelief.

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Unbelief doesn't make sense, does it? And that's what they have. Now what fuels some of this?

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We're gonna see that in a moment. But immediately I would say envy, jealousy, pride, self idolatry, self -worship.

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They desire to maintain their status and their popularity. And it reminded me honestly of a story of a pastor friend that I have.

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You see this pastor friend and his family moved to Arizona and he got an associate pastor job.

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And the senior pastor had said, had announced to everyone and the whole arrangement was, we're hiring you on.

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This is my friend. We're hiring you on so that you will replace the senior pastor within a few years.

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We'll figure that out. And that was the whole arrangement. And so my friend starts serving the church because this brother, this other man, this senior pastor wants to eventually retire.

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And so he's taking over a lot of the duties. He's preaching. He's teaching. He's performing the sacraments.

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He's counseling people, discipling people, doing evangelism. And of course, naturally the people love him because he's a brother and he's serving them.

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And that's what happens. And as that senior pastor, that older man, started to see this young talented pastor being loved by the people and growing in stature in the church, which is just natural, instead of going, thank

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God it's going well. I can retire. This man looks at my friend and sees him as a threat.

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He's thinking, how can I get him out of here? I can't believe this. He's ruining my legacy, he thinks.

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And so he starts pitting the people against him in different ways. He starts giving my friend weird assignments and not letting him be before the people as much anymore.

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And all these weird manipulative tactics to my friend who he thought, I'm just trying to serve

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God as biblically as I can. Okay? And so this man wanted the church to die with him.

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That's the reality. That's what they want. You know, it's like when someone in a, you know, there's this story that we've seen.

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Maybe you've seen this type of story, this kind of plot often. There's the weird boyfriend who's like, if I can't have you, no one can.

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And he like, I don't know, he kills the girlfriend or something. You know, this is the type of thing. This pastor goes, this is my church.

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I don't want you to have it. I'm gonna kill it. I'm gonna kill it with me. I'm gonna take it down with me.

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And I've always told you that if I'm not training up the next generation, if I'm not raising up men to replace me, and this church dies when

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I die, then I have failed in my ministry. I've completely failed if we don't have men to replace us.

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And so this man wants this church, he wants to protect and covet his ministry, his church, so much so that he would let it dissolve along with him.

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It's selfish. It's prideful. And I can't imagine what a man like that would say to Jesus Christ, the righteous.

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What would you say? I destroyed a church for you. No, you didn't. That was for you.

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So these Pharisees are similar. They want to maintain their influence. They have made an arrangement with Rome.

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They're in bed with Rome. They're okay with the arrangement. They're semi -autonomous.

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There's daddy and they get to be mommy, I guess you could say it that way. These men get to be in Jerusalem and use some level of authority and they don't want

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Jesus to compromise that. And the worry is expressed in verse 48. Here it is. If we let him go on like this, all men will believe in him and the

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Romans will come and they'll take away both our place and our nation. So the worry is threefold.

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Number one, if they let Jesus continue with signs like this, all the men will believe in him.

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That's how powerful Jesus is. Number two, they will lose their place as leaders of the nation.

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And number three, the Romans will take away their nation. They are, do you see this?

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They are in no way concerned with the glory of God, the praise of God.

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They're in no way concerned with the truth or anything of the sort. They are concerned for themselves.

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Each of these reasons, in my opinion, show that they are man -pleasers. They have fear of man and they love to receive praise from men.

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It's a threefold man -to -man pleasing. These are the traits.

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These traits, I would say, are the calling cards of false teachers. You see, they don't want people to believe in Christ or the true

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Christ, typically, false teachers. They want people to believe in them. It's not about Christ, it's about them.

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They will, at all costs, seek to preserve their authority and their influence over other people.

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It's what makes them feel powerful. It's what makes them feel satisfied to narcissistically exert dominance over others.

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And whatever kingdom or whatever church or whatever organization that they've built, they don't want to lose it.

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Why? Because it's the system that feeds their power. Otherwise, without the system, they're nothing.

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They need that. And so this isn't about God, and it certainly isn't about the well -being of God's people.

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This is about being God's themselves. And that's really the heart of a false teacher.

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They worship themselves. They love themselves. We don't need to bring up progression here or theosis or something like that, because what's embedded in the text of every false teacher, the motive of every false teacher is,

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I'm higher than God. I want to be God. It's in there. It's inferred in there. Now, besides the prophecy that is made unwittingly by the priest in the next verses,

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I would say that even this comment is a bit prophetic. Why? Because ironically, when the chief priests and Pharisees seek to kill

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Jesus, it will only result in more people believing in him. Right? And the people will believe less in them.

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And Rome, in fact, will come to Judea in AD 70 and destroy it.

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They'll lose their nation. They will lose their authority. They'll lose their nation. And Jesus warns them in the

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Gospels that this is coming for what they've done and for what they plan to do. It is costly, my friends, to kill the son of God.

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Therefore, what they fear will come true by letting Jesus live is what indeed comes true for taking his life.

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So the chief priests and Pharisees are talking it through. They're trying to determine the best way to retain the things important to them.

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But they're looking for a voice of reason. These men are bickering amongst each other.

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So among them, Caiaphas, the high priest of that year, spoke up in verses 49 and 50.

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His full name was Joseph Ben -Caiaphas. He was the

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Jewish high priest during the time of Jesus' ministry. In fact, he is one of the highest high priest standings in the modern age of Judaism of 18 years, from 18 to 36

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AD at that time. Caiaphas, no surprise, was the son -in -law of the previous high priest,

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Annas, which of course may have attributed to his rise in power.

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Caiaphas was not a Pharisee. He was a ruling member of the Sadducees.

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Sadducees, as I told you, more often than not, were powerful men from wealthy families.

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They gained high positions through their status. They were often involved in politics. And these were the kind of men who would kiss the feet of the

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Romans. As long as they got a little power, they would kiss the feet of the Romans.

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Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection. Sadducees did not believe in the afterlife. And they often denied the existence or reality of the spiritual world.

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So they didn't believe in angels and demons, typically. And as I said, Sadducees made up the majority of this council.

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So you could imagine with all these things in mind, why they would be against Jesus' teachings, why they would be against his signs, because these things point to the power of both his physical power and his spiritual power.

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The spiritual realm and the physical realm. And not to mention, what did Jesus just do?

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He resurrected someone. What has Jesus taught on throughout the majority of the Gospel of John?

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Resurrection, being born again. And so these men are sick of it.

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They're tired of it. In essence, what these men heard reported to them about Jesus and what he said are setting them off.

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So Caiaphas starts, you know nothing at all.

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You know nothing at all, he screams to the rest of the men in the Sanhedrin. This is the ancient equivalent of you don't know what you're talking about.

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None of you know what you're talking about. Verse 50, nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people and that the whole nation not perish.

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What a harsh man. He looks down upon the others. Caiaphas says, you guys know nothing at all.

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He doesn't seem like a humble and understanding leader. Seems more like a severe and callous one.

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You know nothing. He essentially says the only sound solution evades their thinking.

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And so he finds something that is expedient. That is the Greek word sumpharo.

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Sumpharo, this is at a basic level of conjugation of words. It means with gain.

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It is profitable. It is profitable for this man to die.

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This is a profitable idea, he says, that one man die for the people, one man be killed for the nation, and that the whole nation not perish.

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But the thing is, what we saw in John chapter 10 is

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Jesus says, he will make sure his sheep never perish. He will lose none that the

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Father has given them. And they don't really care about the people. They don't really care about the nation.

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That the nation would die? You mean that your power would die? Is that what you mean, Caiaphas?

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And so Jesus is the one in charge of making sure his people are safe.

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But of course, Caiaphas doesn't mean this in a goodwill sense, but in that keeping people keeps him and the others in power.

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And as I said, the whole nation then is the system in which he retains that power.

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That system keeps him on top. And so Caiaphas doesn't have a substitutionary death in mind for the sake of the people.

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This death in his thinking would be for him. This death would be for the other men.

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This would be profitable, he says, for you, as he tells the rest of the Sanhedrin.

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It's about them. Therefore, what he did not say, but what he really meant was this.

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This is my interpretation. What he really meant was, you know nothing at all, nor do you take into account that it is better for you and I that this one man be put to death so that all that we've accomplished and gained for ourselves not perish.

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That's what he really meant. It's not surprising that Caiaphas sacrifices true justice for the sake of expediency, when true justice is what's going to come upon them only decades later.

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So the Apostle John then takes us out of this secret council. We're pulled out of this narrative.

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John tells us Caiaphas may have meant one thing when he said something differently.

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God intended something completely different out of what Caiaphas said. This is a prophecy that the priest made totally unawares.

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Verse 51 and 52, take a look at it. Now he did not say this on his own initiative, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but in order that he might also gather together into one, the children of God who are scattered abroad.

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So Caiaphas wasn't used here as a puppet. He wasn't even used necessarily like Balaam's donkey.

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He spoke his own judgment, but God was also speaking through it.

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I have four lessons derived from this principle, but before we talk about them, I want to mention that this is one of the clearest declarations of Christ's penal substitutionary atonement.

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It's one of the clearest ones in all the Gospels. What I just said was penal substitutionary atonement.

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You can look that up later. I'm going to talk about it now too. The words here in the related words.

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Penal substitutionary atonement is a doctrine that states that men and women are not simply absolved of their sin and the punishment that that sin incurs in the forgiveness of God.

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They're not just absolved of it. You're like, what are you saying pastor? Let me continue.

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As I've said before, the wages of sin is death and someone has to die.

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And here we see that that needs to be Jesus. And so let's take the phrase apart.

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Penal, as in bearing the penalty that is death, substitutionary in that he will take our place.

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What we should get is what Christ will receive on our behalf. And then atonement in that his death covered our sins and bore the punishment of the ones he is substituting himself for.

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In other words, penal substitutionary atonement is Christ taking our penalty and punishment in our place to satisfy the demands of divine justice.

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We have our sins forgiven, but what I'm trying to say is they're not simply dealt with a feeling of God.

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God didn't suddenly feel like he just wanted to forgive us and then our sins are just forgiven.

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Okay, the penalty doesn't disappear in thin air. It gets taken from us.

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That's what I'm trying to say. Penal substitutionary atonement says God doesn't come before you and go, you're forgiven and nothing else happens because God is holy and God is just.

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Therefore, someone or something must be punished for the sin that has been committed, because if God is righteous and he is, then he must punish sin.

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And so in penal substitutionary atonement, Jesus takes our punishment from us and puts it upon himself.

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Okay, that's what happens. So Caiaphas is thinking politically, but John wants us to think back to chapter one.

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In fact, I think you could say in a verse, PSA is behold the

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Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And that sacrifice is not simply to entail the inhabitants of the one nation,

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Judea. It's going to impact all the nations, all the ones who have been scattered, all those who have gone into the dispersion, all the ones who have left, who have been expelled and exiled from Judah, those who have been taken in the

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Assyrian captivity. It's going to impact Jews. But even I think inferred here is that this is going to impact everyone.

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This is going to impact Jews and Gentiles alike. We've seen that in John chapter 10 as well. He said,

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I have sheep that are not of this fold. I've got to go get them too. And so that's in here as well.

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It's going to impact everyone. After Jesus's death, burial, resurrection and ascension, he will labor to gather all

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God's children from all the nations in which they have been scattered. He will make them one.

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And that's happening even right now. You're a part of that right now. Jesus is gathering the scattered ones.

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You were once scattered. I was once scattered. I was lost.

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You were lost. And he brought us and he made us one. He's doing that now. Now, you may ask, why are they already called the children of God?

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Right here, John already calls them the children of God who are scattered.

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You say, didn't that happen? Didn't John once say we've been given the right to be called children of God?

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And that's by his grace. That's through faith. But I think it's because that there's been a predestinarian strain running throughout this entire

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Gospel that all whom the Father has given the Son will come to him. They are already called his sheep in John 10, even though they haven't even recognized the

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Good Shepherd yet. They'll know his voice though when he comes to them. And so if you are a child of God, you were meant to be brought together into one with all the others.

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This, church, is the greatest purpose of your life. It really is.

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This is where you and I find true meaning in this life.

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Being one with the other, being one with Christ, and without this penal substitutionary atonement, without Christ dying in our place, our sin then,

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I guess theoretically, is merely excused. Injustice is not satisfied. It wouldn't seem as definite to me.

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Right? Why would Christ? People who reject this doctrine, I have to ask you then, and maybe

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I'll get some comments on the YouTube feed later. Maybe I'm asking for more than I want. But why did

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Christ have to die if he didn't need to take our place on that cross?

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His death would be needless then if God could just simply excuse and forgive our sin.

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But he excused and forgave our sin on the basis of the atonement of his Son, the death of his

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Son. Okay, that's what I'm trying to say. It's for the people. It's for others.

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So Caiaphas says this actually glorious truth, and John reveals that Caiaphas, still having a priestly connection to God, prophesied without even knowing it.

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He spoke without understanding it. One of the most fundamental realities of the Gospel of Christ, that when he dies and rises, we live.

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And we finally live. In fact, we live forever. That's the truth of the

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Gospel. So with all that said, here are four takeaways from this section of our passage today.

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Number one, God can and often does use wicked men to accomplish his purposes.

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God can and often does use wicked men to accomplish his purposes. Jesus' death is of course the ultimate example of that.

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Just as Peter the Apostle said in Acts chapter 2, that Jesus' crucifixion was based on the foreknowledge and predestined plan of God, and yet at the same time he says he was murdered at the hands of godless men.

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It's both. And we see that sort of tension throughout all of Scripture, that God has predestined all things that come to pass, and yet men are responsible for their actions.

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They have done what they've wanted. They've acted on their desires. I'm reading through Isaiah right now in my devotional time, and God is speaking through Isaiah to warn the people of coming judgment and coming exile.

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And he's going to allow the Assyrians to inflict Israel. But here's what he says in Isaiah 10.

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He says, "...Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger, and the staff in whose hands is my indignation!

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I send it against a godless nation, and commission it against the people of my fury, to capture booty and to seize plunder, and to trample them down like mud in the streets."

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Church, what is a rod and a staff? Those are tools.

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And in this case, God says, Assyria is going to be my tool in bringing judgment to Jerusalem.

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But at the same time, at the very same moment, then you go to verse 12 in Isaiah 10, and he says, "...So

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it will be that when the Lord has completed all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will say,

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I will punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the pomp of his haughtiness."

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The king of Assyria thought that he was God, and he was doing all that he wanted. He wanted to come to Israel.

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He wanted to come to Judah. He wanted to defeat these people and take them captive. He was doing what his heart wanted, and yet at the very same time,

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God was sovereignly using them. And so God is going to punish them. And God, again, doesn't make

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Assyria do something it doesn't want to do. He lets them act on their sin, just as he let

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Pharaoh harden his own heart to eventually showcase that the Lord is the only

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God. And you know what? Why am I bringing this up? I'm bringing this up because this should give you hope.

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This should give you hope that no one and nothing acts outside of God's sovereignty.

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Right? You know, sometimes when people are saying they've gone through something hard this week, they go, someone replies back, and they mean really well.

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They're like, God is in control. Right? It's like, yeah.

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Yeah, that's true. Say it again. Tell me next week. Keep reminding me, because I keep forgetting.

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And you guys keep forgetting. God is in control. Sure. Keep saying it. We've got to have that resonate within us.

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God is in control. No one acts independent of the only truly independent being.

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Okay. God is working through and against every plot of wicked man and making it all result in the building of the kingdom of God.

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That's true. That's true. Which brings me to my next takeaway. Number two, everything is on the path and trajectory that leads to Christ's redemption of a people and his return.

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In the Marvel movies, there is a sinister character named

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Thanos. I've always wondered, actually, I think the Greek for death is Thanatos.

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I don't know if they're trying to make him sound like death or something, but Thanos. And this character in these movies wants to be like God.

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He says he's a God. And he says this quote where he says, in fact, he says,

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I am inevitable. You notice too, by the way, it just hit me.

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These movies, they're often using I am statements. We've seen that a lot in the gospel of John, Jesus saying that.

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But he says, I am inevitable. But I think only the Lord Jesus can say that.

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Everything is for him and to him. From the moment creation began, the coming of Christ was set in motion.

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The mission of Christ cannot be thwarted. It cannot be thwarted by any man, any demon or any devil.

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What Caiaphas thinks will be his solution is actually God's solution.

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And that the reality and that I'm sorry, in that reality isn't reserved for the first century in the incarnation, but for all time.

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So that what I'm trying to say is that even now at this very moment, we are hurtling towards the coming of Christ and the redemption of every single one of his people.

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That's happening right now. God is saving every single one who is in his church, who is of his body, who is his sheep, who is his bride.

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He's doing that now. He's saving every single one of them right now. And he's doing that and he's going to return.

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We are right now on a ride. We are not static. We are moving forward towards the redemption of all

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God's people and the coming of Jesus Christ. And one day, the final resurrection. That is your future if you're in Christ.

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So number three, we see here that God can bring something good out of something bad.

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We just finished our Bible study in the book of Acts. I'm sure you remember that after the martyrdom of Stephen, after he was murdered,

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Christians were persecuted and they spread throughout the Roman Empire and the Mediterranean for fear of their lives.

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Sure. But God had a different motive. OK. Think about it at that moment in history.

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Imagine if you were there. Imagine if you were there in the early church and you or in your spouse and your children have only heard the good news within the last 10 to 20 years.

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You are, by all accounts, part of the early church. Imagine you're there right now.

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Imagine you're part of the early church of Acts and the martyrdom of Stephen just occurred.

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Jews have been commissioned from the high priests back in Jerusalem. They're going around to different places.

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They're locking up your friends. They're killing some of them. And you're going, what do we do?

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Christ has come. We're suffering greatly. What do we do? And so you decide to pick up everything and flee.

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That seems right. Honestly, that'd be a frightening ordeal. Imagine right now if things got so bad that you had to flee wherever you lived because of the persecution to the

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Christian church. That would be a hard thing to do. It would be everything in us. Actually, it would be everything outside of us to keep us from panicking.

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So these families leave and they spread the gospel to the known world.

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So what they think is terrible, what they're doing is huddling together and they're in secret places and they're going, oh my, we've got to leave.

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You heard they just killed Stephen. Stephen's dead. He was martyred. They're coming for the rest of us.

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We've got to do more secret things. We've got to continue meeting. We're not going to be afraid of man.

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But we've got to we've got to watch ourselves. We've got to care for ourselves. And in that care and in that concern for your own family,

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God causes them to go out. Right. And they take the gospel with them. They don't leave it at home.

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And they spread that gospel everywhere, everywhere. The letters that Paul wrote are a testament to that.

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Right. So what was very bad turned out to be very good.

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God does that, you guys. God does that. He redeems what is evil and broken and he makes it righteous and new through his son.

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And that leads me to the final takeaway. Number four, God can use us even when we don't realize it, even when we don't realize it.

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You don't know the impact you've had on others this side of eternity because God has used you.

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And that's what it is. It's simply being used by God. It's being an instrument. It's being a vessel for the sake of others.

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In fact, there's a story of a Christian man. He was walking in this major city down the street.

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OK, and he comes upon this woman and she's sitting on a bench and her head is in her hands and she's weeping.

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She's weeping. This Christian man walks by and he sees this weeping woman, head in her hands, and he stops right there and he thinks,

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I've got to say something. I've got to do something. And so he told her that it doesn't matter what she's done, doesn't matter what she's facing,

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Christ can and will forgive every sin and wipe away every tear if she were to turn to him now as Savior and Lord.

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The man told her that she is not beyond repair. She's not beyond redemption.

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He told her, you're not too far from God Almighty. He can still reach you. He told her the gospel at that point.

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He told her the gospel of Christ. And so she stops weeping a little bit.

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She brings her face up and with tears in her eyes, she smiles just a little bit. She says, thanks.

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And the man walks towards the city and she's still sitting on the bench and she looks the other way from where he went and she looks at the bridge that she was about to jump off and kill herself and she curses the bridge and she looks, she walks the way that he went.

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And he wouldn't know, the man wouldn't know that he did that, that God used him that way for years and years later when they would meet again providentially.

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Unreal. Unreal. And honestly, he's one of the few type of people that get to hear the results of such ministering, right?

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Being used by God. We don't always get that, but that's okay.

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That's okay. Hebrews 13 .2 says, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.

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Of course, the author of Hebrews, if you don't realize it, is making a direct connection to Abraham and Lot when they gave hospitality to the strangers in Genesis 18 and 19 who turned out to be angels, right?

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The reality is you don't know when you're being used by God. You don't always know when you're being used by God and you're, sometimes we're down and we're upset with ourselves and it's like, why won't

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God use me? And then you go do something by encouraging someone else. It's like, why won't God use me? And then you minister to this person.

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Why won't God use me? And then you do this and it's like, it's all because of him. I'm not saying that these people are doing it in and of themselves, right?

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It's not going to be the heroic Bible sort of story scenario.

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It's going to be everyday stuff that you're simply faithful with. It can be the big heroic stories too.

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God uses all of it. So with that in mind, let's go back to the text. I'm going to finish it up real quick.

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There's not much left. The high priests and Pharisees were arguing with what to do. And the high priest

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Caiaphas, we saw unknowingly prophesied of the crucifixion of Christ. And according to verse 53, they were resolved in that plan.

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It says, so from that day on, they planned together to kill him.

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They planned together to kill him. Isn't it crazy? Some of the most merciless men have given their enemy a quick death, but they won't simply kill

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Jesus. They'll torture him in ways unimaginable. If other times were simply to seize

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Jesus or these heat of the moment stonings that they almost did towards him, this now is premeditated murder.

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For what? For the signs that Jesus continues to perform in the increasing number of people believing him, which we saw then threatens the power and position of the priests and Pharisees.

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And so Jesus isn't going to be arrested and tried like someone would be.

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There is no assumption of innocence here. They have decided in this council, guilty.

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They've already decided it. There's no investigation. Guilty. Our Lord won't get a defense.

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And the Lord intends not to defend himself. He intends to. He'll be silent before the shears.

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I think we all know why. Honestly, it's amazing this is all happening in the wake of Jesus raising a man from the dead, right?

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It's unbelievable. There has always been the reality of the reason we have this information is because either one of the

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Pharisees later turned to Christ or a Sadducee or one currently was believing in Christ and then told this information to him and his disciples, right?

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Because we're kind of in this moment where we're able to take a look into a secret council of the

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Sanhedrin. It's like, how did they get this information? Well, of course, Jesus could know it supernaturally and have told

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John. But I think, and as we'll see later, you know, like Nicodemus, I truly believe

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Nicodemus is saved. I can't wait to see Nicodemus in heaven. I can't wait.

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It's going to be glorious. And I think maybe it was even him. He kept telling Jesus these things, secret informant, right?

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Who knows? But they have this information. Jesus learned that they resolved to kill him at this point.

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So he knew he had to be careful. Verse 54 speaks of this. Therefore, Jesus no longer continued to walk publicly among the

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Jews, but went away from there to the country near the wilderness into a city called Ephraim.

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And there he stayed with the disciples. Scholars say Ephraim was 13 miles northeast of Jerusalem.

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It was in the uncultivated, unfarmed hill country of Judea. Essentially, Jesus entered into the wild, hiding out.

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That was on purpose. This is the calm before the storm. And the reality is here that no human judge or leader could bring

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Jesus to the cross unless he offers himself. They can't touch him until he's ready to give himself over.

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The timing and plan of God cannot be altered. Well, I think that would have been a good place to end chapter 11 in verse 54.

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But our dear brother Stephen Langton in the year 1227 made chapter 11 go for three more verses.

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OK, I really think that it would be great if these 55 through 57 were in chapter 12, but that's

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OK. I'll read them real quick. I don't have much to go over there, but I do want to finish the chapter.

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It says now the Passover of the Jews was near and many went up to Jerusalem out of the country before the

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Passover to purify themselves. So they were seeking for Jesus and were saying to one another as they stood in the temple, what do you think, that he will not come to the feast at all?

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Now, the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he was reported so that they might seize him.

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So remember, I've told you John has purposefully mentioned each feast, whether it be the

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Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of the Passover.

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He's been intentional in saying that. And so by John making this announcement, now it is the

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Passover, the Passover is near. John is saying this is the beginning of the end.

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This is the beginning of the end. Why? Because in the Gospel of John, the third and final

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Passover has come upon us. And what is that? That means that is the last week of Jesus before his passion.

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That'll take us until April. In fact, I currently have it timed. I'm really trying.

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Lord, it's OK if you don't make it this way. I have it timed with all my sermons that we're going to go over the crucifixion and resurrection on Resurrection Sunday.

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I mean, and I didn't try hard. I haven't moved anything around. You guys have seen

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I've gone through verse by verse and we're going to do the resurrection on Resurrection Sunday.

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It's so cool. So anyways, in April, we'll get there.

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But for Jesus, this is going to be a matter of a week or so. That's going to be the rest of John, a matter of a week and then post -resurrection in 20 and 21.

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But at this time, of course, many Jews are thinking of the original account of the Passover, the celebration of when the angel of death passed over their house.

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It didn't take their lives because the blood of a spotless lamb was on their door. And that is mentioned.

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Why? Because John's trying to point to the fact that this is soon to be fully realized in Christ.

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A Passover lamb that is actually going to keep the angel of death away from you for all eternity.

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And so the people need to purify themselves for a week, a week before, according to Levitical law.

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It's important to note here that John never says Jesus purified himself. Jesus never purified himself.

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He didn't need it. That's my understanding. And so we see the

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Sanhedrin's decision against Jesus has now become public. Many people are looking for him.

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The city is now starting to be filled with locals and traveling pilgrims for the Passover.

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There's a buzz in the city, not to mention messianic fervor is happening. Things are picking up.

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Jesus is about to go to the pinnacle of his incarnation. OK, but the trap has been laid.

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That's what we see here. Each man or woman may now become a bounty hunter.

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Find him and bring him back. Give us word. It's interesting that we see the ones who are the snitches here, right?

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They're not exactly the good side. And I remember a whole lot of snitching during COVID. Look who endorses it.

01:00:01

Well, let's wrap this up. We could probably walk away from this and think the main point was that an evil man named

01:00:09

Caiaphas was able to prophesy. But as always, John wants us to focus less on how or why

01:00:18

Caiaphas did that and more on the fact that one man, the God -man will die for his people.

01:00:27

And think about it. Why did John put this here? Why was it important for us to know of Caiaphas' prophecy, unknowing prophecy concerning Jesus?

01:00:41

And I think it was very intentional, very purposeful. Because we just saw that Jesus was outraged in his spirit.

01:00:52

He faced death down in the death of his friend Lazarus. And he conquered it.

01:01:00

But Jesus knows, and this is why I think John mentions this account. Jesus knows that it's not over again.

01:01:08

It's not over. Death is going to come back for his friend Lazarus. Lazarus is going to die again.

01:01:17

And he can't stand the thought of that. Jesus must save those whom he loves.

01:01:29

And so in the wake of conquering death temporally, John shows us that Jesus is about to do something that will kill death for good.

01:01:42

In fact, for everyone else to live,

01:01:48

Jesus will die. And that's what John is telling us here. For us to live forever,

01:01:55

Jesus must die. We talked about at the beginning,

01:02:02

Balaam and his prophecy concerning Christ. Every time he tried to curse, he blessed. And it's interesting,

01:02:08

Deuteronomy 23 .5 says, nevertheless, the Lord your God was not willing to listen to Balaam. But the

01:02:14

Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the Lord your

01:02:19

God loves you. You see, from the beginning, the evil one and his agents have tried to curse those made in the image and likeness of God.

01:02:30

They've tried to curse us. And they believe themselves successful. But the

01:02:35

Lord your God has turned the curse into a blessing for you because the

01:02:41

Lord your God loves you. That's the reality. Every time Satan tries to curse

01:02:46

God's children, God blesses us. You realize that? That's not a saying from some sort of prosperity preacher.

01:02:55

That's the Bible. That's what he says. And he loves you.

01:03:02

Talk about making something good out of something bad. And to remove that curse, he will die for you.

01:03:10

You know, sacrifice is the greatest act of love, true love. And every other religion that says,

01:03:17

I can make payment, every other religion that says, it says,

01:03:23

I can split the check with God. He sacrifices. I sacrifice a little.

01:03:29

He pays for some. I pay for the rest. That, my friends, is an idea from the deepest parts of the pits of hell.

01:03:39

Jesus has died for his people. Not my life, not my death, and certainly not my works will ever add a single drop of value to the infinite and mammoth payment of the

01:03:55

Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing, nothing we do can be added to that work of Christ.

01:04:02

In fact, if we took every so -called good work that we and everyone has ever done from the moment of Adam until now, and we combine all our works and we stack them together and we put them next to Jesus, they are infinitesimal.

01:04:17

They are nothing compared to the work of Christ. They won't make any sort of payment. There's no chunk of the debt that will be taken out with that.

01:04:26

Nothing, not even a sliver. Only Christ's work pays for it.

01:04:34

So that's what John wants you and I to remember. This was for you.

01:04:41

This was for me. This was for a multitude who have already come, and this is for a multitude who have yet to be, and we are never to forget it.

01:04:54

Let's pray. Dear Lord, thank you for today. Thank you for your word.

01:05:01

Thank you for your glorious reminder, so God of your gospel, that one man, the

01:05:10

God -man, has died on our behalf. It was efficacious. It was effective.

01:05:17

It did exactly what he said it would do. It paid for the sins of sinful creatures, and we profess that.

01:05:25

We believe that as a church, as a body in Christ. We thank you,

01:05:31

Lord Jesus. We could spend all eternity giving you thanks and adoration, and it would be nothing in the expression of gratitude.

01:05:44

It would never be enough. We'll thank you for forever, Lord Jesus. We'll love you forever, because before we even loved you, you first loved us, and you turned our curse around, and you made it a blessing, and you took these men who thought they were going to curse

01:06:05

Jesus. You made it, Lord, the biggest blessing that has ever impacted and will ever impact humanity, and we believe it by faith and by your