Divided Opinions: Who is Jesus Christ? (Part 2)

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John 7:40-53

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I speak to you on part 2 of the divided opinions, who
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Jesus Christ is. Who is Jesus Christ? As we looked at last
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Lord's Day, there are always different opinions, aren't there? The scripture basically brings this out to us, so I'd like to bring this to a conclusion.
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And if you were not with us last Lord's Day, well, fear not, I'm going to give a small recap today and kind of go over it in a different light, and just with the same interpretation, but just recap it and then we're going to focus on the conclusion of this.
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And there's a lot here. We have different groups of people that are represented in this chapter.
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So, in saying that, please open your Bible with me as we continue our journey together studying the
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Gospel of John, John's Gospel, chapter 7. In chapter 7, we see
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Jesus here at the Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of Booths. And this comes to the end of the chapter here, and this is a conclusion, the last day of the
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Feast, the great day of the Feast. But first of all, let me bring to mind this important focus we need to look at.
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This entire chapter is really about opposition. The entire chapter is about opposition against the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Many were opposed to Jesus in His day, and many are just the same in our day, are opposed to Christ.
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Here in John chapter 7, we'll be looking, you see at verse 1 to 13,
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Jesus is opposed by His family. This is a little breakdown of the chapter.
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Verse 1 to 13, Jesus is opposed by His own family. And in verse 14 to 36,
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Jesus is opposed at the temple. At the temple. In verse 37 to 52, actually the section where we are studying at present,
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Jesus is opposed by the religious rulers. So first He's opposed by His own family,
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He's opposed at the temple, He's opposed by the religious rulers, and then at the end of the chapter, from verse 53 to the end of the chapter,
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Jesus is actually opposed by the religious rulers, as I said.
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And also to take it just a little further, John, I'm sorry, to John chapter 8 verse 11,
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Jesus is opposed by His accusers. So He's opposed by His family, He's opposed at the temple,
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He's opposed by the religious rulers, and He's opposed by His accusers.
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Nothing has changed. Jesus is still opposed by the majority, and that's the way it always will be.
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But aren't you glad that there is a remnant? A remnant that believes in who
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He really is, and knows who He is, and they come to obey Him. So let us begin at verse 40,
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I'd like to read verse 40 to verse 53 this morning in John chapter 7, beginning at verse 40.
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Hear the word of the living God, I'm speaking this morning from the New King James Version.
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Therefore many from the crowd, when they heard this saying, said, truly this is the prophet.
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Others said, this is the Christ. But some said, will the Christ come out of Galilee?
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Has not the scripture said that the Christ comes from the seed of David, and from the town of Bethlehem, where David was?
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So there was a division among the people because of Him. Now some of them wanted to take
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Him, but no one laid hands on Him. Then the officers came to the chief priest and the
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Pharisees, who said to them, why have you not brought Him? The officers answered, no man ever spoke like this man.
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Then the Pharisees answered them, are you also deceived? Have any of the rulers of the
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Pharisees believed in Him? But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.
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Nicodemus, he who came to Jesus by night, being one of them, said to them, does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he is doing?
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They answered and said to him, are you also from Galilee? Search and look, for no prophet has arisen out of Galilee.
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And in verse 53, and everyone went to his own house.
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Please bow with me in prayer as we seek our Lord's favor,
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His face, and His blessing within this hour of worship. Our Father and our
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God, we praise You this morning for Your holy word. We thank You, Father, that You have preserved
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Your word throughout the ages. We thank You, Father, that nothing will stop
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Your word. Heaven and earth will pass away, but Your words will never pass.
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Your word, O God, is forever settled in heaven. Your word is sharper than any two -edged sword.
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It pierces, it divides. So Father, we thank You for Your word this morning.
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And we thank You for this great revelation through Your word, by Your word, to us, through Your Son, Your love gift for us.
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And we recognize, Father, it is by Your Son, Jesus Christ, that You are still speaking.
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He has spoken and still speaks. And Christ was the very source of division, which really was
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His mission. Just as You divided, O Lord, and separated the light from darkness,
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Lord, we need Your Holy Spirit for guidance this morning, to help us understand the truth of who
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Christ is. Father, You said of Your only begotten
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Son that You are well pleased in Him. Hear Him. May we hear
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Him speak. Give us ears, O God, to hear Your words.
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We pray, O Lord, open our hearts that we may have understanding to perceive of His greatness and His beauty.
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And Lord, by Your Holy Spirit, I would pray that You would change each and every one of us this morning more into the likeness of His beauty.
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And we pray this, Lord, for Your name's sake, and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, for Your honor and glory,
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Amen. Verses 40 to 52, we see how people responds to Jesus' gracious invitation.
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His gracious invitation, and that gracious invitation is actually found, and we looked at that, was the promise of the
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Holy Spirit that He gave in verse 37 to verse 39. On the last day, the great day of the feast,
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Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.
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And he who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
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But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive, for the
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Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. So there, this is what we are looking at this morning, is the response of Jesus' gracious invitation.
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It separates, indeed, the people here that's representative, it was separated actually into four groups.
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Four groups. And I'm going to borrow Pastor John MacArthur's outline here, I thought it was really good.
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The past, last Lord's Day, I've used my own outline, but this one here is really good, and I was looking it over as I was reading his commentary, and I said, that is so good.
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I've got to borrow it. So I'm giving him credit on this. The four groups of people are this, and it's easy for us to remember because it all begins with C's.
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The first group is the convinced. First you have the convinced. The second group is the contrary.
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The contrary. The third group is the confused, and the fourth group is the contemplative.
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The contemplative. The convinced, the contrary, the contemplative.
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All which are represented in this passage. So in chapter 7, verse 40 to 41a, first we see the convinced.
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Let's look at the convinced. Scripture says, therefore many from the crowd, when they heard this saying, and again, speaking of the saying of which
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Christ cries out, come to Him. He says, drink. He speaks of living water.
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And the response is very, very interesting. Of the different groups of people.
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And again, this is the convinced group. This is what they said. Truly this is the prophet. In verse 37,
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I'm sorry, verse 40 to 41a. This is truly, this is the prophet. Others said, this is the
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Christ. Notice what they say. The crowd was divided over Jesus' identity of who
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He is. That is the point of controversy here.
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The point of debate. It was about the identity of who
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Jesus Christ is. Some thought He was like Moses, like the
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Moses -like prophet. Others wondered if He was the Messiah. Actually, the correct interpretation, as the
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Apostle Peter is preaching about this. He preaches a sermon on Solomon's porch, which is surrounded in the temple court of the
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Gentiles. And this is found in Acts chapter 3. Turn with me very quickly here.
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I'd like to read a few verses from this and give you the correct interpretation from it.
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Because here we have the four groups of people that are actually giving all this interpretation of who they think of Christ.
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And the convinced crowd is the only ones that is closest to the truth, because they were not wrong.
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But let me give you from the sermon of the Apostle Peter in Acts chapter 3.
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It's a powerful sermon. And it comes out of a healing from a lame man.
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Notice in chapter 3. I'm going to read a good bit of this because it's the Word of God. Actually, I'll read it to the end of the chapter because there's a lot that's said here.
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But look at what happens. Now Peter and John went up together in the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour, and a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called beautiful, to ask alms from those who entered the temple.
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Who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked for alms.
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And fixing his eyes on him, with John, Peter said, Look at us.
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So he gave them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. Then Peter said,
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Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have
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I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.
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And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up. And immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.
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So he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising
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God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God. Then they knew that it was he who sat begging alms at the beautiful gate of the temple, that they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
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Now, from this healing, let me pause here and note something for you. God always forms a miracle for people to hear the truth behind the miracle, the gospel.
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So here, we see the preaching of Peter. And the
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Spirit of God moves upon him to preach the gospel. Notice what happens in verse 11. Now, as the lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John, all of the people ran together to them in the porch, which is called
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Solomon's, and they were greatly amazed. So when Peter saw it, he responded to the people.
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Now, Peter responds and he begins to preach to them. He proclaims the gospel and notice where he begins.
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Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Or why look so intently at us?
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As though by our own power or godliness, we had made this man walk.
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And then he begins to preach. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant
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Jesus, whom you delivered, whom you delivered up. It tells us a little bit about the audience here.
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And denied in the presence of Pilate when he was determined to let him go.
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Notice his boldness here. Notice he preaches and proclaims the gospel to the crowd that it was partly involved in crucifying the
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Lord of glory. Verse 14, But you denied the Holy One and the just, and asked for a murder to be granted to you, and killed the
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Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.
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And in his name, through faith in his name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know.
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Yes, the faith which comes through him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.
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Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers.
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But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all his prophets, that the
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Christ would suffer, he has thus fulfilled.
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And notice what he does. He charges them and commands them in verse 19, Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the
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Lord, that he may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which
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God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said to the fathers,
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The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren, him you shall hear in all things, whatever he says to you.
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And it shall be that every soul who will not hear the prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.
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Yes, and all the prophets from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days.
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You are sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, and in your seed, and all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
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And to you first, God, having raised up his servant Jesus, sent him to bless you and turning away every one of you from your iniquities.
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You notice highlighted in verse 22,
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For Moses truly said to the fathers, The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren, him you shall hear in all things, whatever he says to you.
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Christ is, he holds the office of prophet, priest, and king. And Peter knew exactly by the spirit of the living
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God, chose carefully in preaching this sermon, and notice he preaches
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Christ. He preaches repentance. He preaches who
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Jesus really is. And that's my point and why I read that from Acts chapter 3 there, because there you first of all have the correct interpretation of who
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Jesus is. So as we look at all these different views in chapter 7 of John, just keep that in mind of what the true interpretation is.
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That's it. And that is the gospel. Now, in true interpretation, so first, so let's go back to John 7.
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The first crowd were the convinced crowd. At least these individuals viewed Jesus as the great prophet.
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And as we looked at last Lord's Day, the view of a prophet was very high, highly esteemed in the mind and life of a
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Jew. So that's really, while their knowledge may not have been complete, they were at least convinced that He was sent from God.
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They were convinced of that. In verse 41, Scripture says, Others said, this is the
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Christ. First they say He's the prophet, now He's the Christ. And from the crowd, here they had a clearer understanding of who
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Jesus was and were saying of Him, this is the Christ, the Messiah, the
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Anointed One. This crowd were really intimidated earlier into silence.
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Isn't that interesting? This crowd was intimidated earlier into silence by the fear of the
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Jewish authorities. You see this in chapter 7 verse 13, notice verse 13. However, no one spoke openly of Him for, why?
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The fear of the Jews. Fear of man is a snare, beloved.
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That's what Proverbs tells us. And here, they would not openly speak of Jesus because of fear of the
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Jews. But now, having become convinced who Jesus is, His identity, they boldly proclaimed it.
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These individuals were partly, or should I say not partly, but part of the believing remnant of Israel.
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So, we have this first group. The second group are actually the contrary.
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The first we had the convinced. Next would be the contrary. We see this in verse 41b to verse 44.
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But some said, will the Christ come out of Galilee? Will the
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Christ come out of Galilee? So, we looked at that. Verse 42, has not the Scripture said that Christ comes from the seed of David and from the town of Bethlehem and where David was?
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Verse 43, so there was a division among the people because of Him. That's what happened.
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The division took place. Now, let's look at this a little bit. Here are the contrary.
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First, you had the convinced. Now, the contrary. These people are contrary. You notice that. You notice that in the text, how contrary they are.
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They begin to say, has not the Scripture said that Christ comes from the seed of David and from the town of Bethlehem where David was?
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While some were ready to accept Jesus as the great prophet as Moses promised in Deuteronomy 18, 15 through 18, or even the
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Messiah, still others remain skeptical. They're the skeptics. They're contrary.
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They are contrary. Surely the Christ is not going to come from Galilee, is He? Well, that's what the division, and we see what caused the division here.
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But these people here were actually scornful in asking this. Pastor MacArthur comments in his commentary, the question, quote, the question expects a negative answer.
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The idea that the Messiah could come from the boondocks of Galilee seemed ludicrous to the sophisticated
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Judeans, end quote. You see that and how true that is.
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So, but notice the question there in verse 42.
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Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the seed of David and from the town of Bethlehem where David was?
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We looked at this a little bit last Lord's Day. And I'll say it, to their credit on this, both of their points was really valid if you want to look at it to the teeth.
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But, let me give you the but here. Even though they were secure and smug, there was still unbelief.
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Unbelief was still there. And the scoffers actually failed to examine the situation fully.
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Again, as we looked at, Christ was directly in their presence.
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Keep that in mind when they said this. And when they were asked this question, Christ Jesus was right in front of them.
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So, all they could have done, or could have done, but they failed to do it. And if they had done so, they could have asked them the question, but they would have discovered that Jesus met both of those qualifications.
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But they didn't ask. Jesus was a descendant of David according to the
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Scriptures. We find this in Matthew 1 .1. We find this in Luke 1 .32.
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We find this in Luke 3 .23 .31.
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We find it in Matthew 1 .20. We find it in Luke 1 .27.
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We find it in Luke 2 .4. That Jesus is of the descendants of David.
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And they hastily... And also, let me say this. Also, He was born in Bethlehem.
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We see this. Matthew 2 .1. Luke 2 .4 -7. Luke 2 .11
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.15. You could go on and on. There's so many Scriptures that verify this. And they hastily assumed it.
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That since Jesus had grown up in Nazareth, He must have been born there.
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They assumed that. But, you know, I've used this in my own life before.
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Somebody asked me something. Why did you go in that direction thinking you were right on something, but you were wrong?
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And I have said, in my mistake, I assumed it. Hadn't we all been there somewhere?
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We somehow assumed. That's what happened here with this crowd here. They assumed it.
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But their biggest problem is that they had no interest whatsoever in really looking into the details and investigating
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His Messiahship. His credentials. Look at verse 43.
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Out from that, so there was a division among the people because of Him.
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And so this incident illustrates to us, as we looked at in more detail last
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Lord's Day, and by the way, there's much, much more that could be said about division. Jesus divides.
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Jesus divides. Christ divides. And I'm telling you, beloved,
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He's still dividing. He still divides. He come to bring a sword, didn't
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He? And that's exactly what the Scripture says. He divides believers from unbelievers. He divides those who walk in the light from those who walk in darkness.
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He divides. And by the way, on Judgment Day, as I mentioned again, Christ will divide the sheep from the goats.
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Christ divides the children of God from the children of the devil. Look at it in our world.
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That is a fact. Everyone is either for Him or against Him.
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There is no neutral middle ground with the Lord Jesus Christ. He draws a line of demarcation straight and narrow, beloved.
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You're on His side or you're not. Who is on the Lord's side? You see,
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Jesus said, let me quote the Lord Jesus Christ Himself here. Matthew 12 verse 30. Listen to the Lord. This is a powerful verse, but listen very carefully.
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Jesus says, He who is not with Me is against Me. And he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.
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That's a straight line. That's a division. That's no circle, beloved.
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That is a line, straight and narrow. So are you on the Lord's side this morning?
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Are you for Him or against Him? Very direct, to the point.
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So we see the first group, the convinced. We see the second group, the contrary. The third group is the confused.
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We see this group in verse 45 to verse 49. Then the officers came to the chief priest and the
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Pharisees, who said to them, why have you not brought him? Verse 46.
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The officers, this is the police, by the way, of the temple. The officers answered, no man ever spoke like this man.
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Verse 47. Then the Pharisees answered them, are you also deceived?
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Well, they were pretty convinced that they were right. Verse 48. Have any of the rulers or the
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Pharisees believed in Him? Verse 49. But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.
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Hmm. Unlike those in the crowd who either believed in or rejected
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Jesus Christ, the officers of the temple, the temple police, were confused by Him.
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They were confused. They had been sent several days earlier.
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Verse 32 says, The Pharisees heard the crowd murmuring these things concerning Him, and the
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Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take or to seize
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Him. It means the same thing, to take Him, to arrest Him basically. Interesting also, the officers did not claim that the crowd prevented them from arresting
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Jesus, though that might have been the fact, the case here. But instead, they expressed amazement.
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Amazement. And they said this, never has a man spoken the way this man speaks.
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It's interesting. Who do you think these officers were? Well, they were religiously trained
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Levites. These were Levites. And they stood in amazement of the words of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Matter of fact, the words of the Lord Jesus Christ left them absolutely stunned in astonishment and amazement.
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But while they did not accept Him as the Messiah, you see, neither did they openly reject
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Him. They tried to take the middle ground. They did not make a full, complete decision in serving and following Christ.
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In their mind, they did not know actually what to do with Him. And isn't that the case, a lot of people today?
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They hear the words of Jesus and they just stand by. They don't stand by, but they don't really realize by being on standby, they're making a decision and a choice doing that.
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So in essence, they're rejecting Him. And they're confused.
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The conclusion, again, MacArthur says, they were caught between the power and grace of His message and the hatred of the leaders.
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They were paralyzed into inactivity, end quote.
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So that was to say these officers, these Levites, these police listened to a good many of men in their day and they came to the conclusion that they have never ever have heard anyone speak with such power and authority and grace and wisdom like the
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Lord Jesus Christ. So there you have the confused. Verse 47 and 48, see, actually tells us
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Then the Pharisees answered them, Are you also deceived?
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Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in Him? So this is an effort to intimidate the officers, you notice that?
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Notice the language, notice the tone, you can almost hear it. There's an intimidation there.
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These Pharisees accusing the Levite policemen of them being deceived by Jesus.
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These Pharisees are actually reeking with pride and self -righteousness.
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Beloved, when I read this, I want to guard my own heart against this. How horrible is the sin of pride and unbelief.
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Not to be like a Pharisee, that they put hard burdens on others, that they could not bear themselves.
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They were strict. Actually, if you look at it, a lot of their doctrine was right.
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They were very conservative. They believed in the resurrection. They believed a lot in Genesis.
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But if you look at strictly who they are, they added to the law the traditions of men.
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And therefore made the word of God of none effect. That's what Jesus said. Jesus even spoke of them also that they honored
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God with their lips, but their hearts were far from them. In other words, they were play acting.
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They were all about the form. They were all about the outward. And Jesus could read their minds.
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Jesus knew their hearts. He searched out their hearts. And He knew what was in man. He would not trust
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Himself to them, because He knew what was in man. But you see, full of their self -righteousness, these were the rulers, and towards the
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Jewish nation, they were full of unbelief. What a terrible argument that this was in this text.
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It was very much to their shame that leading men in the Jewish nation had failed to recognize the
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Messiah when He did come. These self -righteous Pharisees were not only unwilling to believe on the
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Lord Jesus Christ themselves, but it is clear as we read the Scriptures that they did not want others to believe on Him.
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They were totally against Him, and they did everything they could to discredit
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Him. They even at times would say when He did acts of miracles and He raised the dead, or whatever the case may be, cleansed the leper, raised the lame man, and caused them to walk, they actually said
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He does this by the power of Satan himself, the prince of devils. And then
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Jesus warned them about the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Many who do not want to be saved themselves do not even do everything in their power to present even to their relatives and friends from being saved also.
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And we have that among us today as well. Keep in mind, it makes me think of Ephesians chapter 6.
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Ephesians chapter 6. That really the warfare that we are fighting is not one of flesh and blood, is it?
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And I'd like to draw an application for us here, even though I'm not to the final application, but we do have an application here and I think it's very critical.
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We're all familiar with Ephesians chapter 6. The whole armor of God. In verse 10 to verse 20, the apostle
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Paul, finally, my brethren, he speaks to God's people, my brethren, be strong in the
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Lord. You know, we don't have any strength of ourselves, do we? We don't have any wisdom of ourselves.
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We don't have any power of ourselves. All that we have is in Christ. We're weak.
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He's strong. But he says, be strong in the Lord. In the
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Lord. And then he says, in the power of His might.
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It's in God's power. It's in God's strength that we do God's will. Verse 11.
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Here's something by faith we are to do in obedience to the Lord as believers.
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Put on. There's another place that says, put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh.
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But here Paul says, put on the whole armor of God. The whole armor of God. That you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
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And this is what we've got to remember, beloved. Verse 12. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood.
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This is not a wrestling match of flesh and blood. We must see the real enemy.
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And then he says, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age.
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Against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able.
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Once again, he says, that you may be able to withstand.
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First he says to stand. To take the stand. Now he says, in verse 13, to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand.
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Notice how many times he says stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with the truth.
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Having put on, there's the putting on again, the breastplate of righteousness. That is the righteousness of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel peace.
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And then he says this in verse 16. Above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able.
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Again, there's that word able. It's all in the Lord, right? It's all in the
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Lord. Able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.
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And then take, and take, verse 17, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
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Verse 18 I really believe is critical because it says here, praying always. Always.
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It almost reminds you what he says in 1 Thessalonians. Do not cease praying.
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Pray without ceasing. Spurgeon says, we need to pray without ceasing because we are capable of sinning without ceasing.
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So we must not, we should always be in attitude of prayer.
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Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit. I believe that's critical.
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It must be in the Spirit. Paul says elsewhere, building up yourselves in your most holy faith.
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Praying in the Holy Spirit. Being watchful. There's another critical point.
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Watchful. Jesus said, watch and pray that you enter not into temptation for the flesh is weak but the
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Spirit is willing. Watch and pray to this end with all perseverance.
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There's perseverance. If you want to persevere to the end, we must watch and pray. We must pray always with all prayer.
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Supplication in the Spirit. Let me also say this, that supplication in the
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Spirit is crying out. Intercession.
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Crying out with your innermost being. Being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication again.
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He says supplication twice within that verse. For all the saints.
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Not some of the saints. We should pray for all the saints. We're part of the family of God, right?
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We should pray for all saints. Jesus said to pray our
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Father which art in heaven. Our Father. We pray for all of God's people.
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And for me. And last, notice, He last speaks about Himself here. That utterance.
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And it's just not for Himself. He just recognizes He is a servant of the Lord. That utterance may be given to me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the
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Gospel. Isn't it interesting that I believe Brother Dan Bill when he came to preach for us several years ago, he mentioned this and I thought this was an incredible important statement.
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That even the Apostle Paul had to ask prayer for boldness. Even though the righteous is as bold as a lion.
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Here is the Apostle Paul says, and for me, pray for me. That utterance may be given to me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the
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Gospel. For which I am an ambassador. I'm a representative. I'm an ambassador in chains.
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He suffers for Christ's sake. That in it, I may speak boldly as I ought to speak.
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We should speak boldly the truth in love is what Scripture says. Speak truth in love.
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I felt like yesterday I had this opportunity to speak to a loving relative of mine.
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And it was an interesting experience.
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I got every excuse you can imagine under heaven. Why God is not a priority in this particular person's life.
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One excuse after another. And I look this person in the eye and I love her so much.
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I tell you, it grieves me. But I said, you know,
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I'm not your judge. I'm here representing the Lord Jesus Christ. I love you.
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And I'm telling you. And I know I came probably, it almost sounded probably harsh because the truth
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I had on my heart was just, I mean, I was so burdened for this person. And I said,
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I am not your judge, but one day you will stand before the judge of judges and the king of kings and you're going to have to give an account to Christ.
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He has, God the Father has given him authority to judge every single person on the face of this planet and everyone that ever lived in entirety.
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He would judge all the souls in hell. He would judge all of us. Now there would be no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus, right?
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But we will be judged as believers according to our works. That is in scripture.
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Now to the great white throne judgment, that's a different situation. And I was trying to explain to this person because she asked about a resurrection.
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And I said, yeah, there will be a resurrection. When Christ comes, the great resurrection of all the dead and those souls that died in hell, hell is like a jail sentence.
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These people are in jail. But that's not the finality. There's darkness. There's weeping and gnashing of teeth.
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There's torment. But the thing that is going to be far worse than even that will be the sentencing to the prison.
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Out of hell, all these souls, the sea gave up the dead. Revelation chapter 20, you can read it yourself.
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The great white throne judgment. They all stand before Christ. What happens?
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Christ will judge each and every soul according to their deeds, whether it be good or bad.
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But then the sentence will be forever into an eternal lake of fire where they will receive a glorified body.
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But that glorified body will not be in the eternal bliss of heaven. It will be into the lake of fire.
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You know, this is a real reality. And I don't know about you. I am sobered every single day when I get up.
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And I think when I go to work, I say these are eternal souls that we're meeting out here. We must take this very serious.
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But Lord, give us wisdom how to count our days, to apply our hearts to wisdom that we may have opportunity like Paul says here, and for me that utterance may be given to me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel.
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And you know this as well as I do. There's people out there that do not want to hear this.
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They do not want to be confronted with their sin. As Matthew Henry said, sin is love because Christ is hated.
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They love their sin because they're in darkness and they love their darkness. But by God's help and by the power of the
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Spirit in the Lord and the power of His might, we can be used of the Lord if we spend time with God and draw upon Him that power that is within us.
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And I'm not talking about something like that. We're talking about the power of the
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Spirit of God that God inhabits within us. And Paul makes it very clear in Romans 8.
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You can go there and check this out and check if I'm right, but we're not a believer if the
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Spirit of Christ does not dwell within us. It's Christ in us, the hope of glory. And those that are believers have the
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Spirit of God abiding within. I like what Ravenhill says, either you're in Christ or you're not.
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No in -between. So that's the message we should preach to the people.
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Well, back to John 7. So we see the convinced in verses 40 -41a.
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We see the contrary in verses 41b -44. We see the confused in verses 45 -49.
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And last, we see those that contemplate in verses 50 -52.
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Nicodemus. Nicodemus comes on the scene here in John 7.
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He who came to Jesus by night, being one of them, said to them, does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he is doing?
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Now, I want you to keep this in mind. I'm going to note here. Nicodemus, as it says, he's the one that came to Jesus by night in John 3.
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The Spirit of God's dealing with him. There's things about Christ that was really waking up his senses of who
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Jesus really was. And here
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Jesus tells him what he must do. He must be born again. You must dump all your religion.
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He's an old man. He's a teacher of the law. And Jesus rebukes him lovingly. He says, you're a teacher of the law and you don't know these things?
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And he speaks. And here, keep in mind, Nicodemus at this point is not necessarily defending
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Jesus, but he does a good thing. He does a good thing. And we know, because we have the revelation, what happens at the end of the chapter, him and Joseph of Arimathea come to the body of Jesus and they anoint his body.
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Now, Nicodemus comes around, doesn't he? Verse 52, they answered and said to him, are you also from Galilee?
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I think they're saying this in anger. Search and look for no prophet has arisen out of Galilee.
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They don't know their Bible. Listen to this. Verse 50, at this point, Nicodemus again, one of them, steps forward.
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He says, does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he's saying and what he's doing? I like the way
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R .C. Sproul paraphrases this. He says it like this, Sproul. He was saying, in essence, excuse me, is this the way we operate with our law?
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Will we condemn this man without even hearing him out? Without investigating?
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Without examining the evidence? It's wonderfully put.
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I like R .C. He had a wonderful gift, didn't he? But this was the piercing question to the
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Pharisees and they didn't like it. Nicodemus argued that if the Pharisees, and he himself was a
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Pharisee, wanted to use the law to judge Jesus, they ought to follow the law themselves.
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And basically, while they didn't like what Nicodemus said, it was really, he was given a piercing question to confront their hypocrisy.
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That's what he was doing. Nicodemus' point really is that the Jews had not given
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Jesus a fair chance. Isn't that amazing? Were they afraid of the facts?
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I think so. They were afraid of the truth. They were afraid of the facts and the truth about Jesus.
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The answer, of course, obviously, yes. So Nicodemus, what did he do? He was not closed -minded to the claims of Christ.
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He's coming along. He's coming along. I grabbed a good quote here by J .C.
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Rowe. Don't you love J .C. Rowe? This is what he said about Nicodemus.
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The case of Nicodemus is full of useful instruction.
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It teaches us that there are diversities in the operation of the Holy Spirit. All are undoubtedly led to the same
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Savior. But all are not led precisely in the same way.
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It teaches us that the work of the Spirit does not always go forward with the same speed in the hearts of men.
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In some cases, it may go forward very slowly indeed.
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And yet, maybe real and true, we shall do well to remember these things informing our opinion of other
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Christians." I love that. We're to be patient. I love the way he put it.
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And he's so right. You see this in Scripture. Different conversions, different conversion stories comes at a different rate of speed.
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Jesus said, the wind blows where you don't know. But you see the effects of it, the way the
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Spirit of God works in people's lives. Some are at a slower pace.
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Some at a faster pace. But nevertheless, like he said, all come to the
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Savior. Praise His name. Look at verse 52. The answer said to him,
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Are you also from Galilee? Search and look, for no prophet has arisen out of Galilee. As far as the
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Pharisees were concerned, no prophet has ever risen out of Galilee. Case closed. Case closed.
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They were closed -minded. No prophet has ever come from Galilee. So no prophet ever could come from Galilee. Here are the rules.
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The self -righteous, prideful, arrogant rulers showed their own ignorance. The real ignorance lay with the arrogant
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Pharisees. They were arrogant. And they were full of pride.
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Who did not carefully search the Scriptures themselves and the facts to where Jesus was actually born.
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And let me also add this. They were wrong about no prophet coming out of Galilee.
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They never read about the prophet Jonah, did they? Yep. He came out of Galilee.
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They didn't know their Bible too well, did they? Even though they were very conservative scholars of that day.
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But they were the biggest hypocrites. Verse 53 gives us a conclusion.
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The Feast of the Tabernacles was basically now over. Some had met the
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Savior face -to -face and trusted Him, but the majority had rejected Him. He came unto
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His own, His own received Him not. Leaders of the Jewish nation were more determined than ever to do away with Him, in which that was their motive.
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They considered Him a serious threat to their prideful religion and life.
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They could not stand Him at all and they were looking for reasons to crucify Him.
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And they found the reason. They said He committed blasphemy against God because He claimed equality with God.
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And after all, He is equal with God because He is the Son of the living
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God. That's why they put Him to death. And you see that beginning in John chapter 11 when
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He raised Lazarus from the dead. That's where the pivot turns. That's when it starts to speed up.
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And He knows. Jesus knows the storm clouds were arising. Christ could see how the events were about to unfold that would take
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Him out of this world back to His Father in which He prayed and He knew His mission.
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Why He came to this world? To die as the Lamb of God. To take away the sin of the world.
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He would take it to the cross and then die as our substitute.
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Take in our sin. Take the crushing blow of Almighty God's wrath upon Him. Then crucified, buried, resurrected.
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He'd go back to His Father. In closing of this message, let us reflect in faith on our own openness to the unexpected, surprising ways that God would be at work in our midst.
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To behold the Lamb of God. That's who we need to see, right?
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To behold God's Lamb. We must consider Him. And we must also consider how our own religious laws,
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God help us, and any regulations might blind us to the fresh workings of the
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Spirit of God. And I'm talking about through which the Holy Spirit speaks to us through the Word of God.
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Anything apart from the Word of God is not the Holy Spirit. That's why we need to be noble Bereans to search the
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Scriptures, whether they are right or so. And may God forbid save us of being like a
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Pharisee. That they were so wedded to their own understanding of who
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God was. It makes me think what Tozer said. Tozer says, what we think about God is the most important thing about us.
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What comes to your mind when you think of God? Can we guard our hearts like Nicodemus?
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Approach to the Lord Jesus Christ with openness and humility, allowing ourselves by the
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Holy Spirit to be astonished and transformed by His awesome words.
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May it be so. Let me close with the verse of Scripture from Proverbs that really sums it up.
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Proverbs chapter 3. Don't you love the book of Proverbs? Someone said,
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I believe, it might have been J .I. Packer, the Psalms teaches us to worship,
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Proverbs teaches us to live. How to live. How to live. Proverbs chapter 3.
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You can read many verses out from this chapter. But this sum summarizes it right here.
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Chapter 3 of Proverbs. Let me start with verse 1.
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Just read it to verse 7. My son, do not forget my law, but let your heart keep my commands.
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It must be in our hearts. For length of days and long life and peace they will add to you.
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And let not mercy and truth forsake you. Bind them around your neck.
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Write them on the tablet of your heart. And so find favor and high esteem in the sight of God and man.
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And I believe this verse 5 and 6, most of it is memorized, but I think this is really the heart of it.
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Trust. Trust in the Lord with all your heart.
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All of it. Not some of it. God wants all of you. He wants all of me.
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Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Notice what he says. And lean not on your own understanding.
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Our pride. I don't care how many PhDs we have. And we think we're smarter than the other guy next to us.
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We need to clothe ourselves with humility. Come before God and say,
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Lord, I'm going to trust you with all of my heart. I'm not going to lean on my own understanding.
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And notice what he says in verse 6. And all your ways acknowledge
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Him, and He shall direct your paths. He will not direct you wrong, beloved.
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Verse 7. Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the
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Lord. Fear the Lord. We can't hear that enough, can we?
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Where is the fear of God today? Fear the Lord and depart from evil. And I'll stop right there.
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May God help us and grace us that this wisdom from on high, looking unto
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Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who is our wisdom, who is our righteousness, who is our all in all, as Paul said, that we may trust in Him with all of our heart.
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Let's pray. Our Father in Heaven, we thank
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You for Your goodness and Your graciousness toward us this morning. And Lord, we thank
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You for the Lamb of God who willingly laid down His life for us.
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We thank You for His perfect life, His perfect ways.
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He kept the law fully for us that we may be righteous in Him.
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For our righteousness, Lord, is as filthy rags before You. Help us to see this. There's no good in us.
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None. None whatsoever. Lord, we hear this all around the world today.
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There's got to be some good in people. But Lord, as Your Word says, none is good.
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No, not one. Father, only You're good and gracious and great.
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And we worship You, Lord. And we thank You, Lord. And take these words to our hearts this morning and transform us that we will evermore be like the
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Lord Jesus Christ in our living, daily living, in our home, the way we treat each other, the way we speak to each other.
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Lord, help us. We need wisdom. We fall so short of this. But help us when we're weak, when
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You're strong. Help us to put on the whole armor of God, to be strong in You, O Lord.
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And be strong in Your power and Your might that we may be prepared to fight the good fight to the very end.
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We praise You. We thank You. And we ask this for Your honor and glory. In Jesus' name,