Thank you, Roger Dale.
Every Bible's open with me to the Gospel of John chapter 10.
It's been a Johannian type of week for me.
So we go back to John.
And actually, this is our 2nd message in
covering verses 22 to 42.
So I told you last time we were going to have to split that up into
two messages, and we'll
pick up right where we left off last time, but before we do, I
want to read the whole text in verses 22 to 42.
Look there with me.
At that time, the feast of the dedication took place at Jerusalem.
It was winter, and Jesus was
walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon.
The Jews then gathered around him and were saying to him,
How long will you keep us in suspense?
If you are the Christ, tell us plainly, Jesus answered them.
I told you.
And you do not believe, the
works that I do in my father's name, these testify
of me, but you do
not believe because you
are not of my sheep.
My sheep, hear my voice, and I
know them, and they follow me.
And I give eternal life to them.
And they will never perish.
And no one will snatch them out of my hand.
My father, who has given them to me,
is greater than all, and no one is able
to snatch them out of the father's hand.
I, and the Father are one.
The Jews picked up stones again to stone him.
Jesus answered them.
I showed you many good works from the Father.
For which of them are you stoning me?
The Jews answered him?
For a good work, we do not stone you.
But for blasphemy, and because you being
a man, make yourself out to be God.
Jesus answered them.
Has it not been written in your law?
I said you are gods.
If he called them gods, to whom the Word of God came, and
the scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him whom
the Father sanctified, and sent into the world?
You are blaspheming, because I said,
I am the Son of God?
If I do not do the works of my Father, do
not believe me, but if I do them,
though you do not believe me, believe
the works, so that you may know and
understand that the Father is in me,
and I, in the Father.
Therefore, they were seeking, again, to seize him.
And he eluded their grasp.
And he went away again beyond the Jordan, to the place where John was
first baptizing, and he was staying there.
Many came to him, and were saying, while John performed no sign.
Yet everything John said about this man, was true.
Many believed in him there.
Now, I told you before.
This is the last public
declaration, by Jesus, of his deity,
of the reality that he is God in human flesh.
And this is also the final invitation
in the temple in the face of
the Jewish religious leaders before,
as we just read, he leaves for three
months of isolation
across the Jordan River, with his disciples.
As far as John's gospel that were studying here is
concerned, this is John's final record
of Jesus declaring himself to
be God, and then calling on people to believe.
It's wintertime, as the text says.
And Jesus is at the feast of dedication, which today we know as Hanukkah.
And all through this gospel, and I keep
bringing this up, and I will to the very last verse, there
have been two primary emphasis that John
wants us to understand in this gospel, overarching
everything that he writes.
Number one, is he wants us to get down in our
bloodstream that Jesus is God.
And believing in Jesus,
will bring you eternal life.
Those two things of the primary reasons
for why John wrote this gospel.
Believing that Jesus is God is
absolutely necessary for any person to
receive eternal life.
I simply cannot overstate that enough times to you.
If you do not believe that.
then you will enter into eternal death when you die.
I don't care what else you believe about Jesus.
I don't care what else you believe about the Bible.
If you do not believe who he claimed to be, and
you say, well, I believe in Jesus, you're believing in
a Jesus that doesn't exist, if he's not God in human flesh.
Believing that Jesus is God, folks, is the very heart of
the Christian faith.
the very heart of the Christian gospel.
He's not just a religious leader, he's not just
a very moral man.
He's not just someone with unusual wisdom,
although all of that is true.
He is God, eternal
God, and believing anything less than that.
When you speak, anything about Jesus, as
far as who he is, less than that is
blaspheming Jesus.
And the Jewish leaders,
Well, they had made their own conclusions about Jesus.
Remember?
Well, he does what he does by the power
of Beelzebub.
His miracles, as you know, were so obviously
overwhelmingly supernatural
that that was the only thing that could come up with.
Remember, Jesus' miracles were so astounding that it
was just obvious to anybody, even
with a single digit IQ, that this was not some type
of trickery, right?
You got people that have been blind all their life.
You've been looking at the man for 50 years sitting at the gate,
and all of a sudden, he can see.
There's no charlatan there that can make that happen.
And what did they say?
Well, obviously, that really happened.
So he has to do what he's
doing from the power of Satan.
They're calling God.
demonic.
Also, well, he's insane.
He's a lunatic, they said.
And you have to understand this.
At this point, and really long before this point, they
were fixed in their conclusion about Jesus.
And because it was a fixed conclusion,
Jesus said, You will not be forgiven.
If that's your verdict, then
there's no possibility of salvation for you.
There's a very interesting transition in Matthew near the end of chapter 12.
Jesus there is, and we're not going to look at it, but Jesus there declares
the Jewish leaders beyond salvation, because,
as I just said, they had made the conclusion that he is
satanic, and then,
here's the transition that's interesting.
starting immediately in chapter
13 in the Gospel of Matthew, right after that,
he starts to speak in parables.
And there's an assumption today by some that
Jesus spoke in parables to
make things clear to unbelievers.
Some say we need to talk in parables.
We need to be storytellers.
I just need to get up here and tell you a bunch of stories like
Jesus.
You need to get away from doctrine and theology, preacher.
and just be a storyteller.
But there's something that you need to understand.
Jesus did not speak in
parables in order to make things clear
for unbelievers.
He spoke in parables as a judgment
so that they would not understand.
Amen.
And it's so interesting.
It was a judgment that
was also tempered with mercy.
He said this right out of Isaiah 6.
It was prophesied by Isaiah, you know
those passages, hearing they will not hear.
They hear the verbiage, but they're not really hearing what he's saying.
They're not understanding.
Seeing they will not see.
And they will not understand.
Isaiah prophesied that, and that's what happened.
Jesus is basically saying, that's why I'm talking in
parables, right?
But then, To
his disciples, he turns around to them and
he says, but to you, It
has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom.
And how did they know them?
Well, because they explain the parables to them.
You can go and read about it.
Mark actually says, from that point onward,
he only spoke in parables.
That was a judgment.
So don't let anybody tell you that Jesus
told stories as a way to make things clear to unbelievers.
He told stories in order to communicate truth,
clearly, to his sheep, to his
own people, and not to those who rejected
them, not to those who didn't believe.
And the mercy, here's the mercy in it.
You want to get nuanced?
Here's the mercy in it.
He didn't give them more revelation.
making them more guilty.
for their rejection.
Making their own eternal punishment worse for
whom much is given, much is required.
Think about it.
It was relatively with the numbers of human beings
that have been born in all of Earth's history.
It's a small group of people that actually got to hear what Jesus had to say.
And the more truth they absorbed, the more guilty they got.
Right?
So not understanding the parables was a mercy for them.
Now, we've been looking at a series of different scenes in this text.
If you remember, the 1st one was the confrontation.
And found in verses 22 to 24, remember
the scene, Jewish leaders
are all gathered around Jesus.
And they hit him, look in verse 24.
They hit him with how long will you keep us in suspense?
If you are the Christ, tell us plainly,
and as we saw, it's just hypocritical sarcasm.
We've been going through this gospel of John for quite some time now.
He's already told them over and over and over again.
So they know that he has told them over and over and over again
when they say this right here in verse 24.
So what were they doing?
Well, it was just an attempt to get him to say something publicly
that they could just twist into blasphemy
so that they could justify stoning him on the
spot because murder was raging in their
hearts right now as they stood around him.
And in response to that, we saw next the claim, verse 25.
I love this.
Jesus answered.
I told you.
And he has.
I told you, but what's the problem?
And you do not believe.
The works.
When he says that.
He's talking about all these incredible jaw-dropping miracles.
The works that I do in my father's name, these
testify of me, but you do
not believe me.
And last time we went on, at some length, talking
about human responsibility with that.
But then next, So that's the human responsibility
side for us to believe.
Then next we flip over.
to the divine side of salvation versus
26, starting in verse 26, going through 28.
Now notice his wording here.
But you do not believe, why do you not believe?
Because you are not of my sheep.
You see?
What about my sheep, verse 27?
Well, my sheep, hear my voice.
And I know them, and they follow
me, and I give eternal life to
them, and they will never perish,
and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
So, as we saw on the one hand, You don't believe.
And you are responsible for that unbelief.
And at the same time.
Got this over here.
On the other hand, Beyond our
full human reasoning, You
are not my sheep.
Because if you were my sheep, you would have been chosen by my father.
To be my sheep.
Because you would hear my voice if you were my sheep.
You wouldn't be over here not believing.
You would hear my voice, and you would be following
me, if you were, of my sheep.
And guess what else, you would never perish.
And no one would ever snatch you out of
my hand in verse 29.
Or the father's hand.
And then, de creme de la creme.
He sums it all up, verse 30.
Stunning statement, right here.
I, and the Father, are one.
May be the clearest declaration of Jesus godhood.
The whole New Testament.
that he ever made.
And of course, That put the
guys in the circle around him.
The Jewish religious leaders over the edge.
Look at verse 31.
It says the Jews picked up stones
again.
Remember, again to stone him.
This is the 4th time in
the gospel of John.
that they bent down and picked up them stones.
Stones were all over the place in Israel, obviously.
They're ready right now.
They got the stones in their hands, and they're ready to
snuff out his life for claiming to be
equal with God, which they clearly understood.
So here they are.
Verse 31, stones in their hands, they're
ready to just pelt him and crush out his
life in one of the most horrible ways to die.
You can imagine.
Think about it.
Just standing there, taking big rocks getting pelted and hitting you in the head.
But I want you to look just notice Jesus here.
Imagine you standing there, and you got all these guys around you with
stones, and they're just getting ready to to hit
you with 10 or 15 of them at the same time.
Notice Jesus in the middle of this circle.
Completely calm.
He's steady Eddie.
He's unflinching.
Verse 32.
He just looks them square in the eye, and They're
ready to stoning.
Jesus answered them.
I showed you many good work from the Father.
For which of them are you stoning me?
I mean, he just stopped them dead in their tracks.
Hey, Jesus.
He can do that with words.
Never a man spoke like this, the temple police said when they came to
arrest him, okay?
So right now, pause.
He stopped them with his words.
And apparently, at this point, they
lowered their arms, because in the next
verse, they speak back.
Verse 33.
The Jews answered him.
For a good work, we do not stone you.
But for blasphemy and because you,
being a man, make yourself out
to be God.
Now, again, sidebar for those
people who claim Jesus never claimed to be God in the Bible, obviously
the Jews thought that.
That's complete.
Calm of Jesus in
this very drastic situation.
It just brought down the temperature,
and it just subdued, the impending
violence that was fixing to happen.
Right now, that's gone.
And think about it.
His statement is sensible.
It's reasonable, it's rational.
Look at it again, verse 32.
I showed you many good works from the Father.
For which of them are you stoning me?
And again, they know all of the unparalleled, undeniably
supernatural miracles that he had performed, for which of those good works?
For which of those blind eyes that I healed?
For which of those guys that were completely lame that got up
and walked with their mat?
For which of them are you stoning me?
Those are works from the father.
And again, look at verse 33 again, for a good work,
we do not stone you, but for blasphemy, because you are being
a man, make yourself out to be God.
We're not stoning you about the works.
We're stoning you about blasphemy.
Based on the mosaic law, a blasphemer was
to be stone.
So what do they think?
Well, we're carrying out our religious duty.
You are a blasphemer because you being a man,
make yourself out to be God, which, of course, in their minds
is the ultimate and most extreme blasphemy
coming from Jesus, who is God, by the way?
So they feel it's their religious duty to
crush out his life at that very moment.
For whatever reason.
On the verge of a very violent bloody
scene that you would have to look away from, really,
if you really saw it, you would have to turn your head.
There's no stone thrown in this passage, not one.
Now, big picture, I think, there
has to be, as before, a
divine restraint from above in holding
this back in addition to what Jesus says here.
I think both things are obviously working together.
But look next, because you've always got some nutcase
in a pile of nutcases that I'm just going to really get after it.
Look next.
This is extraordinary.
Jesus causes them to think.
What a passage this is.
Look what he says.
Verse 34 36.
Jesus answered them, has it not been written in your law?
I said you are god's.
If he called them gods to whom the word of God came,
and the scripture cannot be broken, Do
you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into
the world, you are blaspheming, because I said, I
am the Son of God?
Now, what in the world is going on there?
Well, To start with, What
Jesus is saying with these words is this.
Can you just hold up for a second?
Can you just be rational
and objective here with me for a minute?
Can you just think here with me for a moment?
Can you set aside your hate
and your rage just for a second and
consider the Old Testament, which you
know to be the Word of God?
When in your own scripture.
We have a passage, where men are
called gods.
Did you know that?
And here we see a display
of the infinite mind of Jesus.
Just think about the contrast.
He is literally a second away on
the verge of a violent death, an
intense moment that would cause any
other human being to just buckle as
those stones are in the air.
And there's the god man, come.
Cool.
Collected, with his mind, with his mind,
in that drastic moment.
What does he do?
He goes straight to the Old Testament.
And he plucks out of the Old Testament.
A very obscure section,
and it's not from the law, and it's not from the prophet.
It's from the Psalms.
This is from Psalm 82.
And let me tell you, I want you to look at it.
What's going on here?
This is a judgment
by God on the rulers of
Israel at that time.
Look at verse one.
God takes a stand.
In his own congregation.
God shows up in Israel and he's not happy.
Next, look what it says.
He judges in the midst of the rulers.
So we're talking about rulers here, and the rulers were judges.
That was their job.
They adjudicated issues.
They solve problems between
the people of Israel next, verse two.
He says to these judges,
God says to these judges, how long will you
judge unjustly and show partiality
to the wicked?
Boy, I'd like for him to come down right now and say that out thou.
He's calling them out for being corrupt.
For being partial to the wicked.
Look what he says next in verse three.
Vindicate the weak and fatherless,
do justice to the afflicted and destitute,
verse four, rescue the weak and needy,
deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.
That's what they were supposed to do.
The judges.
That was their job.
But look next in verse 5.
They do not know, or understand.
They walk about in darkness.
All the foundations of the earth are shaken.
He's saying, listen, everything that
holds this society together is
rattling loose.
Why is it rattling loose, because there's no justice
being imparted by the judges, and
then verse 6.
I said, you are gods,
notice, little G, gods, and
all of you are sons of the most high.
What does he mean by that?
Amen.
Well, Mormons will run with that verse.
to prove their heretical view that men can become gods and their
uncountable number of gods ruling over different planets throughout
the universe.
But I digress because that's clearly not what's going on here.
Consider the context of what we have read up to this first.
God is talking to rulers here.
He's talking to judges here, and he's calling them
little G gods.
Because why?
Because they are representatives of the one true God.
They are God's agents in the world,
that he has ordained to be judges.
You are sons of the most high, he says.
They have a delegated authority
as rulers here on earth.
They received the word of God.
That's what Jesus said, look back in John 10:35.
And Jesus says, directly, Coming
from this passage, if he called them gods,
to whom the word of God came.
They were the ones in the Old Testament,
who taught and applied and upheld the
word of God.
That was part of their responsibility.
And God says next.
In a Psalm 827,
Not the same group.
I said to you or gods, and all of you are the sons of the Most High.
Next verse, verse 7, nevertheless you will die like men.
So does that mean they were actual gods?
Nah.
Now you can see possibly.
Maybe some irony here.
Maybe some sarcasm.
In the use of the word God, with
the little G.
And he may also be saying here, And
you think you are gods, but you're going to die like men.
Could be.
Says next.
And fall like any one of the princes, verse 8.
Arise, 0 God, uh, That's
the big God, the only God.
Judge the earth, for it is you who possesses all the nations.
And what?
Jesus' brilliant point in
using this verse is, in the
Old Testament, Jewish leaders that you know.
Corrupt judges were called little G gods.
Maybe sarcastically.
Maybe ironically.
But the word was used for them, because they
received the word of God, and they were the instruments for
God on the earth, and of course, there's a sense in
which that's true with the little small G.
So if those corrupt
judges could be called gods,
if God himself in the Old Testament,
in the scripture, called them gods,
to whom the word of God came, go back to John 10.36,
do you say of him whom the Father sanctified
and sent into the world, you are blasphemy because
I said, I am the Son of God?
Do you see the analogy here?
Wow, man.
Huh?
Think that he thought of this in the moment when he's fixing to get stoned to death.
And then he pulled that obscure scripture passage
out of Psalm 82.
It's extraordinary.
Make a comparison is what he's saying to them.
Look next.
Verse 37.
If I do not do the works of my father,
do not believe me, verse 38, but
if I do them.
though you do not believe me, believe the works.
So that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I.
So, at this great moment of fixing
to be murdered, Jesus goes right to the Old Testament
to make his case, certainly, if the term gods
can be applied to corrupt rulers
in the Old Testament, is not a stretch
for the incorruptible, perfect, sinless, righteous
Son of God to be called God.
Because he actually is.
Think about what you're doing before you start throwing those
stones at me, man.
Now, there's another thing that's also said here in verse 35 we need to take note up.
Where Jesus says, look at it again.
If he called them gods to whom the word
of God came,
And then next, it's kind of like, uh,
by the way, And the scripture cannot be broken.
And there are a couple things going on with that.
First, the word of God in scripture are parallel.
The word of God, and scripture,
according to Jesus are synonyms.
Jesus equates scripture with the word of God.
If you're going to take the view that, well, come
on, man, you living in 2026, the
Bible is just an old book that men wrote, and it's been passed
down, and, you know, I watched the Discovery Channel documentary on it.
It's been changed so many times and yeah, we can get
some good things out of it.
If that's your view of scripture.
Then it's contrary to Jesus' view of scripture.
Jesus is clear.
In his view of scripture.
It is the word of God.
So in this little digression in his sentence,
we find this treasure that we have to contemplate.
Secondly, he says, and the scripture cannot be broken.
Well, what does that mean?
Don't when you come to these kind of verses, you say, well, I need to know what
that means.
I mean, I do.
I have to know what they mean.
I can't skip over that without knowing what in the world does that mean?
Well, we never know what they mean until we dig
in and investigate them, if they're not clear on the surface.
The Greek word for broken.
Here's an issue you need to know.
It's not a word like broken in the English.
You know, like I broke a glass on the floor.
It means dismissed.
Dissolved.
Removed.
Annihilated,
Eliminated.
What Jesus is saying here is that scripture
cannot be changed or
removed, or dismissed, or
nullified.
Listen.
This passage is Jesus' view of scripture.
That it is a seamless chain.
And not one link of it.
Not one can ever be pulled out.
This passage itself in Psalm 82.
It doesn't have any connection to his deity, but he
uses one word.
Little G gods to make a point from
the lesser to the greater, which is what Radbos did all the time.
But he also stops.
In the middle of that, and he makes this powerful, overarching
statement that the scripture cannot be broken.
And while he's busy proving that his claim
to deity is valid by his works.
He doesn't just try to prove this statement.
He just says,
Scripture cannot be broken, period.
And the reason why he doesn't try to prove it to these religious leaders.
Is because they don't question that.
That's their view of the Old Testament as well.
They understand that.
Scripture is the final word.
And you can't tamper with it.
In fact, he makes his whole argument,
On one word, in one obscure verse,
in a psalm, but every single word of God,
God's word in scripture, you can't even touch a word.
And try to change it up.
You you can't loosen it up.
And pull it out.
Because what does 2nd Timothy 316 say?
All!
Scripture. is inspired by God.
You know what that phrase means, God breathed.
All scripture is God
breathes, and then 2nd Peter, one,
20 to 21,
But knowing this 1st of all, that no prophecy
of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, for
no prophecy was ever made.
Look at this.
By an act of human will.
But men moved by
the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
That's the inspiration, the divine inspiration of scripture.
So, This is what I'm submitting to you.
You can't have a more elevated view
of scripture than Jesus has.
And whenever we get into the discussions about fallibility,
authority, inerrancy, accuracy of
the instiration of scripture, the best place
for you to start when you get into that situation when
discussion with somebody is to ask that person, well,
what did Jesus think of the scripture?
You can have whatever view you want.
But tell my dying breath, I'm
going to go with Jesus' view of scripture.
There's a book that came out one time called 5
views on inerrancy.
Well, there want 5 views on inerrancy.
There's only one view of an errancy.
And then there are 4 wrong views.
in that situation.
I mean, it's simple.
It's not complicated.
It's either inerrant or it's not.
I'm not following a scripture that is not inerrant.
It wouldn't be God's word.
And it can't be broken.
Dismissed.
You can't mess with a word of it is what Jesus is saying.
And Jesus, in a discussion about, again,
the most serious claim he could ever possibly make, turns
his argument, On one word.
That's his view of scripture.
In Matthew chapter 5, follow this.
Verses 17 to 19.
Jesus says, do not think I came to abolish the law or the prophets.
I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill.
For truly I say to you until heaven and earth shall pass away,
not the smallest letter or stroke
shall pass from the law until all is accomplished.
Whoever annuls one of the least of these commandments
and teaches others to do the same shall be called least in the kingdom
of heaven, but whoever keeps and teaches them shall be called great
in the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus there affirms his view of the
utter inerrancy and absolute authority of
the Old Testament as the word of God, down to the
smallest letter and stroke.
And that the New Testament should
not be seen as supplanting the
Old Testament, but as fulfilling the Old Testament.
And who's least in the kingdom of heaven?
Well, he tells you, people that tamper, what the inerrancy
of scripture, and teach others to do the same, who's the greatest, whoever keeps and
teaches them, shall be exalted.
So that's Jesus' view of scripture.
Now, go back to John 10. for fixing clothes.
Right at the point.
of fixing to be stoned to death,
Jesus stops them in their tracks and says, stop and think.
Then objectively.
Someone comes from God and speaks for
God, there's a sense in which they could be called
little G, gods, with a small G,
because of that representation.
And guess what, men, if that's true of corrupt men.
And God said it.
How much more is it true of the
perfect, sinless creator, God,
in human flesh that you saw, do all these amazing works?
Verse 37.
Again, if I do not do, The
works of my father, do not believe me.
Make an objective judgment, he is saying.
Because he knew that they knew that he did them.
They saw them.
Verse 38.
But if I do them,
You do not believe me.
Believe the works.
So that you may know and understand that
the Father is in me and I in the Father.
In other words, we are one.
Just like, look back at verse 30 again.
He said it straightforward.
I am the Father.
One.
And Jesus is saying, here's the proof that I am God, by my works.
Objective.
You see it with your eyeballs.
Let me tell you, this is his final
call for them to believe.
And he's just getting real down to the nitty gritty.
Look, you don't believe me what I'm saying?
Believe the works, then.
You saw them so that you may know
and understand that the only way to eternal
life is to believe in the person and work of Christ and
to believe that he is God in human flesh.
This is a final.
And I would submit to you, as they were just standing there,
fixing to stone him to death, gracious invitation.
And he's basically saying, look, you can call me a blasphemer
because of my words if you want to, but you can't possibly call
me a blasphemer if you look at my works that
I've been doing for the past three years.
They all came from the Father.
They all honor the Father.
I've been saying that all the way through.
And the very notion that I do what I
do by the power of hell itself is
simply a revelation of the corruption of
your own heart that you would ever utter those words out of your mouth.
And even with all of that.
And all that he said and done.
He's still giving them one last gracious invitation.
And then next, we come to 39.
The final scene.
This is it here in chapter 10.
The consequences.
Verse 39.
Therefore, they were seeking again to seize him.
And he eluded their grass.
Now like I said, at this point, it didn't matter what he said.
It didn't matter what appeals he made.
It didn't matter how merciful or gracious he was.
They were fixed in their unbelief,
and they are going to continue to scream for
his blood all the way to the execution
of him on the cross.
And this is the same response they had back in verse 31.
This time, they tried to seize
him, again, for
the same reason, to stone him to death, and he disappeared.
Now, the Bible doesn't tell us how?
Look what it says.
It just says, he eluded their grass.
Well, think about it.
They're all standing right there around him.
How did he elude their grass?
Well, here's just a preacher's wishful opinion.
This is not dogmatic.
But I like to think that in that moment,
all of a sudden, he just wasn't there.
That's what I like to think.
I mean wouldn't that be the coolest thing?
Could he do it?
Huh?
Whatever it was.
For sure.
It wasn't possible.
There was absolutely no army that you could gather
that we're going to seize him because his hour
had not yet come.
It says that in multiple gospels.
They weren't going to get their hands on him if they had the
whole Roman army behind them for 3
months until God's perfect timing took
effect during Passover week.
That was the time, not this day.
So the 1st consequence is the rejectors are confirmed again,
and they're damning unbelievable, but next, there's another consequence.
Verse 40, and he went away again beyond the Jordan to
the place where John was 1st baptizing and he was staying there.
There is a place called Bethany,
actually different from the Bethany, which was right next to Jerusalem,
where Mary, Martha, and Lazarus lived.
No, this Bethany is where John the Baptist started his ministry.
So think about it.
In the same place where John the Baptist started, his public
ministry is the same place where Jesus started
to end his public ministry,
and he stays there, it says, until chapter 11.
He comes back during the Passover time, to
enter Jerusalem, to die.
And to rise on the 3rd day.
Verse 41.
Many came to him and were saying, while John performed
no sign, yet everything John said about
this man was true.
Why didn't John do miracles?
Well, John wasn't Jesus, and John wasn't an apostle.
Signs and wonders only belong to Jesus
and the apostles.
He performed no sign that says, yet everything John said,
when he was preaching out there, eating honey and locusts,
everything he said about this man, Jesus was true.
Let me tell you something.
That's a mandate for every preacher.
If you're a genuine preacher.
Guess what?
We don't do miracles.
Okay, I don't have no miracles here.
The only miracle that will ever happen in this building is
the greatest miracle that could ever happen, and it won't have anything really to do with
me except delivering the gospel.
And that's when a sinner is regenerated and comes to faith in Christ.
That's the only miracle.
That's not me, right?
But just like John, for every preacher.
Genuine.
Everything we say about Jesus is true, just like John the Baptist.
That's what ministry is all about.
John was dead at this point.
John had his head cut off, but these people in
this area, all this time later, remembered
what John had said about Jesus, and
they said everything he said about Jesus was true.
They heard John, and then they saw what Jesus did.
They saw the miracles.
And next, look at verse 42.
Many believed in him there.
That's where the miracles was happening right there.
They were coming in faith in Christ.
So that's it.
The final public exposure in the way that we've been seeing
it happen in the gospel of John so far, and
Jesus stays out here in this area with
his disciples and with this gathering group of believers, Until
it was time for the Passover.
And for him to go back to Jerusalem, the diamond cross.
At the end of the day, Folks,
it always comes back to the same thing.
Do you believe?
Here is the scripture.
that we're studying, that Jesus believes
is the word of God and cannot be broken, cannot be dismissed.
We just read and studied some
of its words about Jesus.
And the question is, what do you conclude about Jesus?
Was he a madman?
Was he a charlatan?
Or is he God?
Who he claimed to be.
Again, if you deny that he is God,
you are the ultimate blasphemer.
Now, if you think I'm crazy for being believe in that,
I'm okay with that.
I think you probably noticed by now what other people think and say about me.
It doesn't really register in my DNA.
Just does it.
That's how I'm wired.
Everybody has to make the call.
Now, I'm only responsible for the call I make when it comes to Jesus.
Every single person will stand
alone before God and
give an account for what they did with the reality
of Jesus in this life.
You'll be standing there by yourself.
Don't look to the side for me.
Or anybody else.
It's just going to be you and him.
And I'm responsible.
Not to do miracles with anointing oil and
holy prayer cloths.
Like we see on television.
That's not my responsibility.
My responsibility is simply to do the
absolute best I can to preserve and
proclaim the truth of God's Word,
Sunday in, and Sunday out, and you
be the judge if whether or not what I'm preaching is the truth.
You be like the Barian and search the scripture to
see if what I'm telling you is the truth.
It all comes down to believing in Jesus.
His person and his work.
That's the gospel.
That's the Christian message.
And it comes from scripture.
Scripture alone.
And scripture always tells the truth.
Let's pray.
Father, we marvel.
We absolutely marvel at Jesus in this scene
of impending death and extreme
violence, and he calmly, Once
again, sets these Jewish
religious leaders in their place.
And it's their final gracious offer.
And as history has shown, they reject him.
Oh, how we thank you for the ones that did not.
We think about Nicodemus, that
great chapter in John 3, and
then we see Nicodemus at the end, a
Pharisee, believing in Jesus, taking
care of his body.
Lord, how gracious, how
gracious you are to every one of us.
We do not deserve your grace, your unmerited favor.
But by your grace and for your glory, you
have chosen a people for yourself.
We gather here every Sunday.
And we want to learn and hear more.
I pray we've done that today, and we've done it
in such a way that you have received all the glory for it.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.