John 7:14-24

But here in John 7, and really the whole

Gospel of John, as we've known, the subject

matter of John more than anything else is

Jesus.

And you just cannot improve on that subject

matter.

And I have to say with all the issues and

problems that we have going on in the world

that we've discussed this morning, and even

many issues and problems that we continue

to have within the Church of Jesus Christ, the

professing Church of Jesus Christ in America

and the world.

I am so thankful, very thankful to be able to

preach the Word of God to a congregation

that really doesn't get caught up in all of

that.

You just want to have the Word of God rightly

divided, plain and simple, no extras.

You just want, when you come here, you're

expecting just straightforward biblical

Christianity.

That's the kind of church I would go to if I

wasn't a pastor.

That's the kind of church this is, and it just

really frees up the preacher to preach.

I mean, keep it simple, stupid is really a

profound philosophy when you really think

about it.

I think it is.

So let's get to it today by first reading our

text that we're going to look at and expound

in verses 14 to 24 of the Gospel of John, John

chapter 7, starting in verse 14.

"But when it was now the midst of the feast,

Jesus went up into the temple and began to

teach."

The Jews then were astonished, saying, "How

has this man become learned, having never

been educated?"

So Jesus answered them and said, "My teaching

is not mine, but him, his who sent me."

If anyone is willing to do his will, he will

know of the teaching, whether it is of God

or whether I speak from myself.

He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory

, but he who is seeking the glory of the one

who sent him, he is true, and there is no un

righteousness in him.

"Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none

of you carries out the law?

Why do you seek to kill me?"

The crowd answered, "You have a demon, who

seeks to kill you?"

Jesus answered them, "I did one deed and you

all marvel."

For this reason, Moses has given you circum

cision, not because it's from Moses, but from

the

fathers and on the Sabbath, you circumcise a

man.

If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath

so that the law of Moses will not be broken,

are you angry with me because I made an entire

man well on the Sabbath?

Do not judge according to appearance, but

judge with righteous judgment.

You have to understand that the most

significant and important human being who ever

lived on

this earth is not debatable.

The claims that he made that are recording for

us in Scripture are really astonishing.

They were shocking.

They're still shocking today.

They were beyond bold, and especially in that

day, to the natural ear, his claims were

beyond

outrageous.

I want you to keep in mind that Jesus, just

kind of take yourself back to that time period

that he lived in.

You think about Jesus walking down the dusty

roads of Galilee.

He was really absolutely indistinguishable

from any other Galilean man when he walked

the earth.

Most likely, I would say, surely he carried

with him the Galilean accent that he grew

up with.

It was the same over there as this here.

When you go to Brogbridge, they have an accent

that's different from the accent that's over

there in Lake Charles, right, or North

Louisiana.

Same thing in those regions.

So just looking at Jesus, if he walked up to

you outwardly, you wouldn't see any evidence

of his deity.

He didn't walk around like the paintings you

see with a glowing halo around his head.

There was no way you would see him, really,

back then any different than you would see

any other man for that matter.

The difference, though, with Jesus is that no

man living came anywhere close to making

the claims that he made.

And I want to give you a little montage here,

back to back, straight from Scripture, and

I want it to help you absorb kind of all

together at one time something of the weight

of a lot

of the things.

I'm not going to go through every exhaustive

thing, but most of the big ones that he

claimed

when he was here.

I want you to feel the weight.

Just think about a normal, average Galilean

carpenter in Nazareth making these claims.

And I'm not going to go through all the

Scripture references, but you're going to

notice every

single one of these when I say them.

He said he came down from heaven.

He said he eternally existed.

He said that he had been sent into this world

specifically by God the Father.

He claimed to be the savior of the world and

the only savior.

He claimed to be the determiner of everybody's

destiny.

He claimed to be the source of eternal life

and the only source.

He claimed to be the only way to God.

He claimed to have the right to be honored and

worshiped on an equal basis with the eternal

God.

He claimed to be one with the Father.

He claimed to have the power to give life and

even to raise the dead.

He claimed to be able to raise himself from

the dead.

He claimed to be the one of whom the Old

Testament Scripture spoke and the one who was

the main

subject of the entire Old Testament to Jewish

religious leaders.

He claimed to be the supreme judge of all men

who would one day return and judge all

of them at his return in glory.

He claimed to be without sin.

He claimed to have all authority in heaven and

on earth that's the universe.

He claimed to have the power and the authority

to forgive sin.

He claimed to rule over the Sabbath to Jews.

He claimed to be greater than the temple to

Jewish religious leaders.

He claimed to be greater than Abraham to those

Jews.

He even claimed to have been alive before

Abraham was born to the Jewish religious

leaders.

Think of that.

All of this from a man who lived 2,000 years

ago who was physically by appearance

absolutely

indistinguishable from any other Galilean man.

These claims, folks, were just beyond

comprehension and the Jewish leaders taking

this in, listening

to this, what was their appraisal?

He's a blasphemer.

I mean, this level of blasphemy when you put

all this together is beyond what any human

being, especially back at that time, would

even think about saying all this stuff.

Therefore, many of them said he must be under

the overwhelming influence of the ultimate

blasphemer Satan himself.

He must be.

He does what he does by the power of Satan.

He said he has a demon.

Now others were more charitable and they just

said, "Well, he's insane."

I mean, anybody says all that, they're out of

their mind.

But whether he's a false teacher that we can't

believe, whether he's a totally insane madman

or even possessed by a demon, wherever you

fall in those camps, you just made a judgment

on who Jesus is, as I've said, with severe

implications, whether you believe it or not,

with your judgment, implications and

consequences that last forever in your

judgment.

Back then, just like now, some people believe

most in Israel rejected him.

And in the case of the majority of the Jews of

Jesus's day, they decided these Jewish

leaders have been here leading us for a long

time.

This is all we've ever known of God all our

life and what they've taught us.

Most of them followed the Jewish religious

leaders in that day.

In fact, it all ended up with even the

majority of the crowd who at one time, many of

them

said he was a good man and were behind him.

Many of them lined the street leading into

Jerusalem, shouting, "Hosanna, Hosanna in

the highest, blessed is he who comes in the

name of the Lord," with their palm branches

on the day that he rode into Jerusalem on that

donkey.

But by the end of the week, many of those very

sane people were screaming for his death,

crucified him.

I'm telling you that even in his day, he was

largely rejected.

Only 120 people showed up in the upper room in

Judea on the day of Pentecost when the

Holy Spirit came, 120 out of all the tens of

thousands of people in Judea that had

seen his miracles that were impossible to fake

.

And I want you to remember the words of John

from back in John 1, 10 through 11.

He was in the world.

Look at this next phrase, "And the world was

made through him."

You realize that John right there, just that

phrase, what an incredible claim that is that

the Spirit of God inspired the apostle John to

write just that phrase, "The world was

made through him."

Wow, nobody else having him come.

And the world did not know him.

He came to his own, the Jewish people, and

those who were his own did not receive him.

His claims were rejected by and large.

He was rejected, that's how it was.

Look around when you go outside next week to

the places where you involve yourself with

other human beings, most people reject him.

Why do you believe and others don't?

Why do I believe?

Well, ultimately, in the biggest picture, it

is because God, in his sovereign grace,

has made us willing to believe because

naturally we don't want to.

Naturally, we want to believe in us.

That's how Christians are made.

God makes it happen.

Now, as we approach this text, try to remember

, I know it's hard from where we left off last

time.

We just spent seven months of time primarily

in Galilee training the twelve disciples.

There were some public ministries and miracles

, but primarily, most of the last seven months,

he's been spending time with them, teaching

them, training them, preparing them for what

was going to come after he left.

We saw in verse 2 of this chapter that it was

now the time for the feast of booths.

If you remember, every Jewish man was required

to attend this festival once a year in

Jerusalem.

Remember, we went over it, Jesus's brothers,

they wanted him to go with them.

Come on, Jesus, it's time for feast of booths.

Come on down there with us, but he didn't want

to go with them in the big family caravan

that they would take down there every year.

He waited.

They went on because he knew down there in

Jerusalem there were Jewish leaders at this

point who were wanting to kill him, really

wanting to murder him.

Remember what he said, "My time is not yet

here."

We saw in verse 11 how the Jews were looking

for him at the booths.

I mean, they're looking, they're scanning all

through the crowds, where is he at?

We don't see him.

This time he was so popular, I mean, you could

pick him out of a crowd.

So many people have watched him preach and

seen him do miracles.

They're saying, "Where's Jesus?"

And you remember Jesus, he holds back.

He lets the feast get filled up full of people

.

He waits until midweek when all the people are

settled in.

And even then, he takes a secret journey

through Samaria that no Jew would ever walk

through.

He's being stealthy.

Even though, remember, in his sovereignty, he

knew exactly when the time was coming.

He's still acting in his responsibility.

And as we come to verse 14, we find him

approaching the temple in Jerusalem right

where the leaders

are who are determined to execute him.

And even though he's being stealthy, he's

putting his life on the line just by being

there.

Now, imagine Jerusalem.

You've seen in movies, you think of pictures

of how it looked, with the smoke rising up

out of the temple and the big walls that were

around Jerusalem.

Imagine it being now filled to capacity, tens

and tens of thousands of people, masses of

people.

They've come from all over the area to come to

this annual feast, and Jesus shows up.

He walks into Jerusalem in the middle of the

week of the feast.

I'm sure by now the leaders would give up

probably looking for him, and so it would

have caught them off guard for sure to see him

.

Remember, they don't think he's there for the

first part of the week, and in some ways,

in some ways, if you think about it, they're

kind of neutralized by the crowd and the

public

exposure that Jesus already has.

So as he comes in this way, he's really smart,

and they just couldn't go over there and just

grab him.

And right here, it is his time to be doing

exactly what he's fixing to do.

He wouldn't have come to Jerusalem one day

earlier than he did, because as we talked

about last time, he was on a very careful,

accurate, precise, divine, sovereign time

schedule

right down to the very hours and the very days

.

And he steps into what would have been a very

huge, massive crowd in the courtyard of this

temple.

And if you remember from last time, there was

that little part of that verse that said

they had all been talking about him.

He was the talk of the town.

I mean, how could he not be?

So many people saw him feed 25,000 people,

right?

And remember, some of them, they said he was a

good man.

Some of them said, "No, he's a deceiver."

But nobody really, there was more whispers.

Nobody really formed their opinions publicly,

because why?

The average man was very afraid of the Jewish

leaders, because they could put you out of

the synagogue, which would put you out of

socializing with anybody, you would be a par

iah.

Later in this chapter, they're going to make

an attempt to arrest Jesus, but they couldn't

pull it off, because when they sent the temple

police to arrest him, the temple police came

back without him.

They were empty-handed.

And the Pharisees said, "What's the deal?

Why didn't you bring him back?

Why didn't you arrest him?"

To which they said, "Never has a man spoken

the way this man speaks."

They had never heard anything like the stuff

he was saying in their life.

So let's get started by looking at verse 14.

But when it was now the midst of the fee, so

against the middle of the week, Jesus went

up into the temple and began to teach.

Now, he's doing what rabbis did, okay?

The temple courtyard, again, was this massive,

huge area.

And the rabbis would find a spot, and their

disciples would gather around, and they would

teach him.

So you could see a rabbi over here with his

little group of people, he's teaching, and

then you could look further over here, he'd be

a rabbi over here, he's teaching his little

group, and so that's what Jesus does.

He starts teaching in the middle of the week,

feast of booths, temple courtyard.

And in this passage before us, Jesus is going

to provide for us five reasons to believe his

incredible claims, and that's going to be our

outline for today, if you're making outlines.

Five reasons why the claims of Christ are true

.

Number one, the divine source of his teaching.

So in this big courtyard, again, lots of rabb

is teaching all at the same time, and probably

really more rabbis than at any other time,

because this is the middle of the feast week.

And when the rabbis taught, in order for them

to give authority to what they said, what

they would do is they would quote other rabbis

.

And this did two things, first, it had the

effect of validating what they said so that

the people wouldn't think that this rabbi just

came up with this on his own and just

had invented what he was saying.

And then secondly, it kept them in the

tradition and they were big on tradition.

You wanted to quote other rabbis like a Gamal

iel or somebody who were respected so that you

could give some authority to what you said,

being in the tradition like that was very

important to these Jews.

So that's what they would do.

But that's not ever, ever what Jesus ever did,

not one time.

He never quoted any other rabbis ever.

At the end of the sermon on the mount, the

people were amazed because he taught as one

having authority, it says, possessing

authority within himself, which means he didn

't need

to quote any rabbis.

So the first reason to believe the claims of

Jesus is his divine knowledge in his teaching

and in his doctrine.

Look at verse 15, then the Jews, the Jews then

were astonished.

That's a strong word saying, "How has this man

become learned, having never been educated?"

Please notice they acknowledged his learning

to what they were listening to when he spoke

was way beyond anybody else that they had ever

heard in their life.

Regular rabbis would expound scripture,

explain scripture, and then quote the other

rabbis,

as I said, to validate their interpretation.

But this teaching of Jesus, way beyond

anything, anybody, had ever heard.

It was a level of wisdom and knowledge and

understanding that was without equal, and

they are absolutely dumbfounded with what they

hear, shocked.

He never quotes another rabbi ever.

He doesn't validate his teaching with any

other human source, there's never been

anything

like it.

They're sitting there, listening to Jesus,

teach, and they are overwhelmed by the extreme

clarity of what he's saying, the depth of what

he's saying, the ringing reality of what

he is speaking.

And everybody else is listening to this

amazing teaching, too.

So in their minds, and they're wanting to kill

him, remember, but they couldn't kill

him outright in front of all these other

people.

So they're thinking in their minds, well, how

are we going to discredit him, because

we've got to do something here.

These people are being swayed by this.

Everybody's ever heard anything like this?

Well, they think the same way that politicians

think today, and how politicians deal with

each other today.

Just watch any of the political talk shows.

They attack him directly.

They don't attack what he's saying.

They don't attack his teaching.

Notice again, verse 15, "How has this man

become learning, having never been educated?"

Now, really, this is what you call an ad homin

em argument.

They didn't want to argue with him.

And what he said, they didn't want to debate,

they sure didn't want to debate him, okay?

So they tried to discredit him by calling into

question what?

His lack of training, his lack of education.

Another time they wanted to discredit him

rather than deal with him in debate, they said

, remember,

huh, couldn't any good thing come out of Azer

oth?

I mean, attack him, attack him for his

hometown.

I mean, it's not a very strong argument, is it

?

As we know, every time they did enter into a

discussion or a debate with him, what happened

?

They were humiliated.

So they're just grasping at straws here, right

?

Not only were they astonished by his claims,

but oh, I wish we could hear every jot and

tittle.

I'm sure the biblical support that he was

getting for the claims that he was making

and the verses that he was quoting was just

spot on in a way they'd never heard.

That's why they called him "learned," because

for sure he's quoting scripture with

everything

he's got to say, and they just can't cope with

it.

They're sitting there knowing they can't argue

with it.

They can't debate it.

They can't even contradict it.

They're trapped by their own self-centered,

hypocritical system.

So all they can do is discredit him.

Notice this little slight.

They don't even want to use his name.

Look at it.

They say, how has this man-- they don't use

his name.

That was definitely a shot.

A definitely an expression of derision.

How has this man-- they're saying, don't let

this nobody pass himself off as somebody

legitimately teaching the Word of God.

He's just shooting off his uneducated mouth

out here.

That's all they could come up with.

We got men today in the ministry who give no

credibility to those of us who haven't

gone to the seminary.

A same thing.

That doesn't cause me any problem.

Charles Spurgeon didn't go to seminary.

So if Charles Spurgeon didn't go to seminary,

I think I can not go to seminary, too.

Now, think about this.

Jesus could have defended himself in a number

of ways here by simply saying, hey, you're

absolutely right.

This is my truth.

You know why?

Because I'm God.

And I'm telling the truth.

But he's smart enough, of course, and wise

enough to know that that would have been infl

amed

them and the issue even more.

So he doesn't say that he's self-taught.

He doesn't say, hey, I came across all this by

myself.

This doctrine comes from me.

Well, now, he doesn't walk into that trap.

Instead, watch this, what he says, verse 16.

So Jesus answered them and said, my teaching

is not mine, but his who sent me.

Jesus always responded with things they would

never, ever in a billion years expect him to

say.

I just, these guys, I wish I could see the

looks on their faces at the stuff he said.

My teaching is not mine.

This is his self-knowledge.

I didn't make this up.

I'm not teaching my own opinion, but his who

sent me.

I'm not quoting rabbis, guys.

I'm quoting God.

What a reply.

This is not just in defense, mind you.

This is an indictment of the Jewish leaders

and their endless circular rotations and quot

ations

of rabbis who quoted rabbis, who quoted rabbis

.

He's saying to them, you're right.

Oh, yeah, this teaching right here is

different.

This is learned teaching because this is

divine knowledge, and it doesn't come from

rabbis.

They come from the one who sent me, namely God

, as he had already explained to them on

numerous occasions.

Over and over in the gospel, Jesus makes these

claims.

Again, I want to take you through a little

montage here.

You'll recognize every one of these from the B

ibles that Jesus said, but we're just going

to run through them quickly, but just put them

into your own mind.

He said, I can do nothing on my own initiative

, remember that?

I do not seek my own will, but the will of him

who sent me, remember that?

The Son can do nothing of himself unless it's

something he sees the Father doing.

They had heard this.

He who hears my word and believes him who sent

me has eternal life.

They had heard that.

I didn't speak on my own initiative, but the

Father himself who sent me has given me a

commandment as to what to say and what to

speak.

They knew that.

He was constantly making the claim that he was

directly verbatim quoting God, when heavier

he spoke to them.

It's incredible claims that ever could be made

.

So the divine source of his teaching is the

first reason for us to believe the claims

of Jesus.

And this is not just an offense, I want you to

remember this is an indictment of those

who do not speak for God, even though they

think that they do.

So here is Jesus.

He knows the mind of God because it's his mind

.

He doesn't just know it in a general way, even

in his incarnation, not in some kind

of impression.

He knows the mind of God thoroughly,

completely, verbally in words because he is

God the Son.

He speaks the words that the Father gives him

to speak, he says.

He knows what God thinks.

He knows what God says.

He knows what God wills perfectly.

He says that over and over and over, I know

the will of my Father.

And he also has complete, perfect knowledge of

the mind of man.

Remember in John 2, nobody needed to tell him

anything about a man.

He knew what was in man, completely,

thoroughly, totally inexhaustible knowledge.

He knew scripture in a way that no one ever

has who has ever lived on this earth.

He knew perfectly the true interpretation of

every single verse in the Bible to the

absolute fullest perfection.

So that's where you have to start thinking

about accepting the claims of Jesus.

You start with the supernatural knowledge that

he had, secondly, not only the source,

the place from which the knowledge comes, the

mind of God, but also, secondly, his desire

to do the will of God.

And this is critical, folks, for all who are

considering, should I do Jesus, should I come

to Christ, should I become a Christian, should

I do?

If you say, what motivates someone to come to

Jesus Christ, what are you looking for

when you say that?

Are you looking for a better life?

Are you looking to straighten up and fly right

?

You want your sins forgiven?

Those are good things, but here next in verse

17 is the test that Jesus gives.

Verse 17, "If any one is willing to do his

will, he will know of the teaching, whether

it is of God or whether I speak from myself,"

and that is a boatload of profundity right

there.

Here's the simple reality, coming to Jesus

Christ is not motivated by your desire to

get what you want.

It's motivated by your desire, big picture, to

do for God what he commands, and that

is essentially what he is saying.

So the first reason to believe the claims of

Jesus is because of the divine source of

his teaching. The second is because you have a

desire to do God's will, and if you have

a desire to truly do God's will, you have to

come to Christ because there's no one

else to come to.

What I'm trying to get across to you is right

there, that is where salvation starts.

The Holy Spirit convicts a person of sin and

righteousness and judgment, and that person

becomes aware of it through the preaching of

the Word, the presenting of the Gospel,

and then it weighs down on that person, and

they become aware for the first time of their

total spiritual bankruptcy, and it's only then

that you start to become a seeker of

God.

When this genuinely happens, you're not

looking for personal fulfillment, you're not

trying

to go to therapy, you're not looking for

personal benefits and blessings, that's what

the crowd was looking for that eventually

turned their back on Jesus in John 6, remember

?

What you're looking for is to, I want to do

what God wants.

For the first time in my life, I recognize my

standing before God.

I want to do what He wants.

This is when you start to step in the

direction of confessing Jesus as Lord, coming

out of

the dominance and the mastery of sin over your

life and to the mastery of the Lordship

of Jesus Christ over your life.

Let me tell you, Gospel truth is not appreh

ended by debate.

We can't debate somebody into believing the

Gospel.

You don't win the day even with a rational

defense of Scripture, like I got when the

Holy Spirit first began with me, even though

you can rationally defend the Bible and debate

the authority and the veracity of Scripture,

you can do that and the Lord did use that

to draw me, but what really draws people to

the Gospel, what draws people to Christ once

that Holy Spirit starts is a desire to do the

will of God.

God exists.

He is sovereign.

He is both the judge and the executioner.

He pounds the gavel and he pulls the switch.

When you get that, you start to understand.

You look around at your life and you say, "I'm

on the wrong side of God.

I never realized that before.

I'm alienated from God."

This book of Romans says, "I'm an enemy of God

.

I need to submit to God.

I want to be delivered from what I am.

I want to be delivered from the way I've been

thinking about everything there is to think

about."

So if you want to know if Jesus is who he

claims to be, then here's the test.

Are you desiring to truly do God's will

according to God's word?

Do you want to go through the narrow gate?

Do you want to walk the narrow way?

That's the issue.

I'm telling you, it's costly to believe.

John MacArthur wrote that book, "Hard to

Believe."

You ought to read it if you haven't.

Remember the rich young ruler?

He came.

He heard.

That's too much.

He turned and walked away.

He reasoned within himself, "I guess I really

am not ready to do the will of God."

If that's what it is, but I'm telling you,

that's the essence of true faith.

You're not asking, "What can Jesus do for me?"

Praises go up and the blessings come down.

That's silly.

You're coming under the weight and the burden

of your natural condition and you're saying,

"How do I become delivered from this to the

will of God?"

That's Christianity.

That's Christian salvation.

And by the way, that happens in a person's

life when the Holy Spirit begins to draw,

when the Father begins to draw through the

Spirit that we learned about in John 6.

That's when you know the drawing is really

happening.

And there's a third reason to believe the

claims of Jesus.

His amazing deference to the Father's glory,

his humility.

False teachers, frauds, fakes, charlatans,

they are all in it for personal gain, money,

power, fame.

You've been here for any length of time, that

ought to give you a clue that I'm not a false

teacher because I don't have any of those

three things.

It might help you understand that.

The New Testament even says that they do it

for the money, they do it for the power,

they do it for the prominence, the ego boost.

False teachers are self-centered fleecers of

the sheep.

Paul makes that clear.

Later on, John is going to talk about false sh

epherds and he says they seek their own

glory.

Remember in John 5 verse 44, Jesus said this

to the Jewish leaders of his day, "How can

you believe when you receive glory from one

another and you do not seek the glory that

is from the one and only God?"

Pow!

They were always more interested in the praise

of men than the praise of God.

Look next in verse 18.

Jesus says, "He who speaks from himself seeks

his own glory."

And again, he's going back to the fact that he

's not speaking from himself for his own

glory's sake.

He's not coming up with this to draw attention

to himself.

He speaks from himself, he seeks his own glory

.

He who speaks from himself, look at that verse

, seeks his own glory, but he who is seeking

the glory of the one who sent him, he is true

and there is no unrighteousness in him.

How do you tell a true teacher if he only

seeks the glory of God?

And that was Jesus.

Folks, this is part of his humiliation, that's

what we call it.

He laid aside what he was eternally entitled

to in glory and he came all the way down here

from heaven to this place and he even endured

an unjust criminal's execution on the most

torturous way for a criminal to be executed in

human history, the death of a cross.

Who's the true savior?

Well, the true savior is the one who washes

the disciples' feet, the one who came not

to be ministered to but to minister, to give

his life for his people.

He's the one who renders all glory and all

honor to the Father, always read through the

Gospels, never, ever to himself.

I challenge you to find another savior in all

of the religions like that.

I promise you, you can grok, you can Google,

you won't find it.

Jesus' life on this earth, he had no personal

glory in mind whatsoever.

We get to John 17, one day we will, coming to

the end of his life, he prays, "Father,

restore to me the glory I had with you before

the world."

He knew he was coming to the end and he was

looking ahead to what was going to happen

as he got back to his rightful place with the

Father and the Spirit and glory that he

left for us to come here to this cursed world,

to be a curse as we learned this morning in

Sunday school for us.

But while he was on earth, he was totally

humbled.

And he did only that which brought glory to

his Father.

False prophets rattled their own banks and

they glorified themselves, Pharisees were

like all other false prophets down through

history.

They were calling attention to themselves for

their own personal gain, Luke 16, 14.

Now the Pharisees who were lovers of money,

remember the still love of money is the root

of all evil, not just the money itself and

that verse right there says it all.

They constantly called attention to themselves

, remember when they prayed publicly so

everybody

could hear them and the clothes they wear,

Jesus was so utterly unlike that in every

way.

And then he humbled himself to the point of

actually becoming sin for us.

No false savior does that, folks.

No false savior hanging on a cross says Father

, forgive them for they know not what they do

while he is being unjustly executed, scan the

religions, you'll find nothing like that.

So it's the divine source of his knowledge, it

's the desire to do the will of God, it's

his deference to the glory of God that should

motivate a person to embrace the claims of

Christ.

Next reason is his declaration of man's simpl

eness starting in verse 19, he goes right to

the

heart of the matter.

Remember this is Pharisees, he says did not

Moses give you the law and yet none of you

carries out the law?

Right there, let me tell you, he says this as

he is fully aware that every single one

of them in that circle want to kill him right

at that moment and he says none of you carry

out the law, Moses, did Moses give you the law

?

Of course he did, they sat in the chair of

Moses, they looked at Moses, they thought

he honored the law, they thought they honored

the law but Jesus says none of you carries

out the law, not a one.

You really can't get a more concise, accurate

statement of truth regarding human simpleness

than that right there, none of you carries out

the law, none of you, nobody carries out

God's law from that time to this and before

all the way back to the garden, there's none

righteous, no, not one.

Galatians 3, if you break one law you got a

problem, Galatians 3 you broke the whole

law because what's God's standard, absolute,

lifelong, perfect obedience to the law of

God?

These proud legalists were daily law breakers,

the law of Moses was never intended to save

anyway.

It was intended to condemn man, it was

intended to drive people to an overwhelming

fear of

divine judgment for their inability to keep

the law that would cause them to repent and

to cry out for mercy and grace from God and

put their trust in Christ alone.

That's the purpose of the law, Romans 10-4,

just look at Romans 10-4, for Christ is the

end of the law for what?

Righteousness to who?

Everyone who believes, end of the law for

righteousness.

You don't go to the law for righteousness, you

can't because you can't keep it.

Christ is the end of the law for righteousness

, perfect righteousness imputed to you when

you believe for everyone who believes.

The law drives you to the end of yourself and

pronounces judgment on you because you

can't keep it.

And there you get to the end of the law.

Once the law has given its verdict, stands

Jesus to give you the free gift of salvation

that will never be found available in the law

of God.

Now, the Pharisees were just fine with how

they were doing with the law, they were fine

and justifying themselves, they'd say, "Wait a

minute, I can hear them.

What in the world do you mean that none of us

carries out the law?"

So Jesus, He knows what they're thinking as He

says it.

Look at what He says next in verse 19, "Why do

you seek to kill me?

Get that way down on you."

He knew what they were thinking and that nails

them right between the eyes, their outrageous

treatment of Jesus seeking to murder Him was

an overt violation of thou shalt not.

What hill, the big one, murder.

So He indicts them right to their face, man,

big time.

You talk about much a man, Jesus, much a man,

okay?

In His incarnation, now this crowd around was

made up from people all over the feast.

They really weren't in on the murderous plot

that the Pharisees had, right?

Maybe some of them were, but not many of them.

So look how the crowd responds in verse 20.

The crowd answered, "You have a demon.

Who seeks to kill you?"

Anybody around here talking about killing you?

Remember that the heart of men is deceitful

above all things and desperately wicked.

They don't know their own hearts.

Just six months later, after this very day,

when they all show back up for the feast, the

Passover, they're all screaming for His blood,

"Crucify Him, crucify Him, let His blood be

upon us and our children forever."

They all become murderers.

They react by saying, "You have a demon in you

to say something like that to these religious

leaders."

And so they are affirming what's kind of been

floating around one of the theories that

He has a demon that He leads people astray.

And so that just kind of keeps getting

repeated and repeated and repeated in these

masses

of people.

We're going to see it again in chapter 8,

chapter 10, this accusation of Jesus being

demonic.

Can you imagine?

God comes to earth and we call Him a demon.

I mean, it's just incredible.

They say, "Who seeks to kill you?"

The truth is they were just one step away from

doing that.

Six months down the road.

One more.

All right, we're going to close.

One more affirmation to believe the claims of

Jesus, His deeds of righteousness.

Look what He says next in verse 21, "Jesus

answered them.

I did one deed and you all marvel."

Now you have to have been reading the Gospel

of John, not just pull this out of thin air

to understand what He's talking about.

We're going to see in a minute.

He's going back to what happened in chapter 5

at that earlier feast in Jerusalem when

He healed that man, remember, at the pool of

Bethsaida on the Sabbath day.

And when He did that, remember, the man picked

up his mat and walked and all the Jewish

leaders

got a good case of the hives when He did that

because He did it on the Sabbath day.

"I did one deed and you all marvel."

Remember nobody ever denied any of His

miracles.

Certainly not that one because the man had

been going to that pool daily for decades and

everybody saw him every day down there cripp

led.

And so Jesus is saying, "Well, look here, just

to show you how warped you are, you reject

a miraculous thing and a display of the

goodness of God on the Sabbath day and you got

all

bent out of shape."

And then Jesus takes it a little further in

verse 22, "He's going to help them understand

the Sabbath in a way that they clearly don't."

Now look at verse 22, "This deserves our

attention, but this reason Moses has given you

circumcision,

not because it is from Moses, but from the

Father."

So circumcision, yes, is in the Mosaic Wall,

that all male children will be circumcised

on the eighth day, but actually it came from

the Fathers.

What that means, it goes all the way back to

the 17th chapter of Genesis.

It goes all the way back to Abraham.

So Jesus says, "You have circumcision."

It goes all the way back to Abraham.

It's repeated in Moses and then what He says

next in verse 22, "And on the Sabbath, what

do you do?

You circumcise a man."

What did He mean by that?

They did it on the Sabbath, because it had to

be done.

If the Sabbath happened to fall on the eighth

day of a month, it's on the Sabbath, guess

what they did on the Sabbath?

They broke it and they circumcised a child.

So in a sense, on that day, when they did that

, when it happened, they violated their

own tradition about what they would call work

on the Sabbath, because they had a

prescription

they needed to follow.

They had to circumcise this kid on the eighth

day.

So if it's necessary, the Sabbath, oh, for

this deal, we can set it aside, because this

is more important.

This is something better.

We got to do this circumcision.

So look what Jesus did to hit some wit next,

like with a Louisville slugger in verse 23,

"If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath

so that the law of Moses will not be broken,

can you angry with me because I made an entire

man well on the Sabbath?"

Who?

This is some kind of crazy thinking you guys

got going on right here.

I did one miracle on the Sabbath, and you got

the murder plot put in place for me because

of that?

One miracle that was done on the Sabbath,

which was a greater expression of the goodness

and mercy and divine power than any other kind

of prescription there could be on that

Sabbath.

And kill me for that when you yourselves

violate your own Sabbath rule, because you

thought

circumcision was more important.

Man, this is a major league rebut to these

Pharisees.

If circumcision takes precedent over the

restriction of Sabbath rest, well, guess what?

So does doing good.

So does showing the kindness and mercy of God

in healing a paralytic man who had been

that way all his life, and you watched him get

up and walk away with no pain with his

mat.

Verse 24, just to wrap it up, Jesus says, "Do

not judge according to appearance, but judge

with righteous judgment."

That's right, guys.

Have some discernment.

Make the right verdict concerning the claims

that I have made to you.

They had spent their whole life judging on

appearance, but let me tell you something,

that's the nature

of hypocrisy.

Stop doing that and judge with righteous

judgment.

And so, the end here today that we end with,

it's the same familiar theme that we have

been ending on with so many of these messages

in the Gospel of John, and it is the message

to every person, folks, there's no middle

ground when it comes to Jesus.

They just can't come halfway with Jesus,

impossible.

You either embrace Jesus completely as Lord,

or you do not.

One way promises heaven, one way promises hell

, whether you believe that or not, makes

absolutely

no difference on the reality of those two

endings for every human being.

There's plenty of reason to believe, but where

it has to start, as I said, is a desire to

do the will of God, to stop doing your own

will in life, to doing the will of this world.

It's truly desiring to do the will of God.

If you do, then I'm telling you absolutely

what you will do.

You will submit yourself to the Lordship of

King Jesus in repentance and faith.

You will.

If you don't, you don't really want God's will

.

You want your will.

You want to do life your own way.

You've got it all figured out.

You don't need Jesus.

Every human being, as I always say, gets one

lifetime of an unspecified number of years

to decide whose will will it be.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you.

I love absolutely love nothing more than

preaching Jesus directly.

There's no one like him.

There's no one like him who ever lived on this

earth before, since, or ever will be because

he's God in human flesh, and I love preaching

when he was here.

Lord, take Jesus today and elevate him even

more in our minds.

Let the supremacy of Christ rule in our minds

and our hearts as we have heard yet again

how he behaved himself in the face of murder

ous Pharisees with such clarity, with such

genius,

with such articulation from Scripture, with

such knowledge, such wisdom, such power.

We give you all the praise for King Jesus, and

I pray if there's anyone in here today

that is not bowed in me completely to his lord

ship, that they come grab me and not leave

this property until we've sat down to talk

about it.

Father, we praise you for King Jesus today.

We pray we honor you with our worship today,

and you receive all the glory for it.

Jesus' name we pray.