Gospel of John, 10:7-18

Okay, how far did we get? Somebody has to know. What question? You didn't question me 17, did you? 17? Oh, word. You put my question on. What was it? You know, and Joanne told me a good place to look it up and I spaced it. I didn't look it up. Did you look it up? I've got three pages here. You had the floor.

No, I don't think so. Is there a difference to be distinguished between the fold? and the flock. Isn't that your question? Wasn't that your question, Marilyn? No? Yeah, I think there is. Can you give us 30 seconds on the difference? I'll give this to Marilyn.

My thought is this, that there's a Jewish fold and another fold. Now there's some guys that I've read that said they're the same thing, but I'm not sure. And that when you get to verse 16, he talks about other, let's look at it so we can, other sheaths. I'm going to get to the right chapter, it always helps to be in the right place. And other sheep I have which are not of this fold, that would indicate that the sheep that were in that fold were Jewish, right? You with me so far? And them also I must bring and they will hear my voice and they will be one flock and one shepherd. So, you could construe it to think that, well, what he's doing...

I'm surprised that the covenant guys don't jump on this verse to back up their argument that at the end of the age, when we go into eternity, everybody's going to be the same. It's the old Catholic idea, you either go to heaven or you don't, and all those in heaven are the same.

There is no distinction between the nation of Israel and the Bride of Christ. We are all kind of lumped together. One shepherd, one flock. But that's not true, is it? No. Because the Bride of Christ is a distinct unit of individuals that are characterized as being the Bride of the Lamb. and Israel isn't the bride of the Lamb.

And that wedding feast will take place between the rapture and the coming of Christ for the Millennial Kingdom. Once the wedding feast is over, it's over. It's like Yogi Berra said, it ain't over till it's over. When it's over, there aren't going to be any more additions to it. There aren't going to be a thousand year reign in the millennium, and people that are saved and become saints then don't become members of the Bride of Christ. They don't. Primarily because the wedding feast is over. Now that doesn't mean they're not saved and they're not saints. They certainly are. And they will spend eternity probably in the recreated earth. But we're different, we're a lot different.

When the Lord Jesus is talking about another, not of this fold, but I've got to bring them so there will be one flock and one shepherd, does he mean the difference between the saved and the lost? I think maybe. I didn't read the notes from Schaeffer and I should have, even though Joanne warned me to read them. Do you want me to read this a little bit? Yeah, that would be great.

The divine undertaking which is portrayed in John 10 under the figure of the shepherd and the sheep is first of the coming of the Savior, the Good Shepherd, who comes by the door, who is the door, who gives his life for the sheep and leads them out, and who may intuitively follow. The sheep are not here said to be led into the fold, but rather they are led out of it to find salvation, liberty, and pasture. The reference is to those who through faith in Christ are let out of Judaism, that is, Israel's fold, and these together with other sheep, Gentile believers which are not of the Jewish fold, will form one flock under the one shepherd. The flock that was anticipated by Christ is the church called out from both Jews and Gentiles. and then he goes on to quote Dr. Gableine and that's pretty lengthy. Did that make sense to everybody? Okay, because that's because the leading out we talked about last week that he leads them out of the restrictions and the condemnation of the legalism under the Jewish system to the liberty that's in Christ.

Now that makes more sense. Do you agree? Okay. Marilyn, do you remember your question? Yeah, I think that was it. Cool, we get to race ahead then. Question 11, is the death of Jesus more than for the love of his sheep? Do you understand the question? Sure.

Is the death of Jesus more than for the love of his sheep? In other words, what was the motivation of the death of Christ? Was it just because of the love of his sheep? Was that the primary motive? What do you think? He died for our sins, he took his sins with him. Why did he do it? That's the question. Not what he did, why did he do it? Did he do it because he loved the sheep? Was that the prime motive? He did it because he loved and was obedient to the father.

That's it. The issue was the father's will. You have to look at Jesus, especially as we're moving forward now and things are getting tougher as we go. He does everything according to the Father's will. That's His only motive. Does He love the sheep? Yeah, He sure does, but that isn't why He does things. He does them because it's His Father's will to do them. And I think that's really critical, not only to observe Him that way, but also as a believer grows, That becomes his prime motive, to do the will of the Lord Jesus. It becomes the prime mover.

I pulled out a couple of passages, Hebrews 2.14, and as much then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared in the same, that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.

And then 2 Timothy 1.10, but he has now been revealed by the appearing of the Savior, Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. What's interesting, the reason I quoted those two is that death is the penalty for sin, and what God was after was to redeem somebody, or redeem his creation out of death. So what Christ did, primarily in obedience to the Father, was to please him in what his purpose was. which was not a cross-purpose, this is what Christ is. But I don't think that you diminish your own value by saying, well maybe Christ had a greater purpose than just loving me. He did love me, but the greater purpose was to accomplish the Father's will.

12. By our dying with and being resurrected with the Lord, what did God give us in order to accomplish His purpose?

Is that question clear? So, the good shepherd laid down his life for the sheep. For what purpose? That he might have the joy of securing them for himself. And for his father. See? Yeah, he laid down his life for the sheep. He loved the sheep. But the joy was securing for himself and for his father the sheep. Okay? Does that make sense? Okay? The Father and the Son wanted the sheep for themselves. They want you and me for themselves. And the death of Christ gives them the righteous title to them. Now think about it. All of you who are sheep in this room, before you were saved, who owned you? Who had title to you? I know the Constitution says you're free, but forget all that. Who had title to you? Who owned you?

Louder. Who was the person that had the dominion? Sure. But God had a different agenda. He wanted the sheep for himself. And in order to gain the title to the sheep, he had to die. They wanted a company with whom they might introduce into the circle of divine love with a nature suitable to that circle and capable of appreciating it and responding to it. Remember in Genesis when God said, let's make man after our own image and after our own likeness?

And that was really cool. Why did he want to do that? I mean, if you think about it, if you play God for a minute, God wants you to do some creating. You get to create anything you want. God creates these creatures that have the capacity have his own image and his own likeness. Big deal.

Why? So he could have fellowship and he could love them. And you know what? They could love him back. He could communicate his person to them and they would reflect it back to him. Now, sin comes in, whole deal goes in the dumper. Can't have that kind of fellowship.

But he sends Christ to die for the sheep, so to speak, and then he He does this cool thing called identification. He includes you and me in the death, burial, and resurrection of the cross. The death, burial, and resurrection of the cross assumption. Now, you're qualified way more than the original creator creatures, Adam and Eve, to be the recipient of and the respondent to the love of God.

And you know why? You know why you can do it more than say Adam could do it? By the presence of the Spirit. What's that? Presence of the Holy Spirit. By the Holy Spirit. We have the very nature of the resurrected Christ. So we got moved from this creation up to here so that we could communicate with God on His level.

If you're all the bride of Christ, is Christ going to marry somebody that's lower than Him? I used to make this analogy, I'm not going to go home and marry my German Shepherd. Why not? She's a wonderful dog. Why am I not marrying her? Because we're not on the same level of creation. See that? Well, those in Adam couldn't possibly hope to become the bride of Christ because they're not in his level of creature. See that?

But by being resurrected in Christ with new natures, with being new creatures, we now qualify. We are suitable to be the bride of Christ, which means we are suitable to enter into this loving relationship that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have had for all eternity.

But you guys want to settle for something less than that? We're going to lesson 18 and where Christ said Are you jumping ahead? Yeah, well, it's kind of you were talking about We were being called gods. Oh, we'll get to that. Well, if we've got relates to what you're talking about right now That's a question and frankly anybody I looked at just sort of ignored it. Well we're not going to ignore it. We're going to jump all over it.

So what is now known as the Church, which at some point will be known as the Bride of Christ, is unique and what the Lord does or what John does here in his gospel from actually Chapter 3 to Chapter 10 is trying to point out the uniqueness of using the example of shepherd and sheep.

Do you need that? I know that's the next one. The others are over here. Anybody, by the way, anybody need one? We're about done with 17 going into 18. Everybody have what we're doing? What do you need? 18 for Brian. So the last question, does anyone else have the power mentioned in verse 18? Verse 18 says, no one takes it from me, meaning his life, but I lay it down of myself and I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again. This command I have received of my father.

Does anyone else have that power? And how does he have it? He's talking as what? the second person of the Trinity here or somebody else? Yeah, as the second person of the Trinity, the Word of God or is it Jesus Christ the human being who has this power? Is Jesus Christ the human being who has this power? Oh absolutely!

He set his glory aside but he's saying I've got it because the Father gave it to me. I can lay my life down and I can take it up again. So who decides? The father and the son. They decide. The laying of it down and the picking up of it. And what's interesting about that, even that he has this power, he never departs from obedience to the father. You see how that fits right here? He never gets away from that. And he calmly asserts that he has the right to lay down his life and to take it up again because the Father gave him that power. He can do it. But it took more than just him to raise Christ from the dead. It took the power of all three persons of the Godhead to do it.

Okay. That's enough. Let's go on to 18. Any questions? We're starting in verse 19 of chapter 10. Alright, and we're going to go through 42, so it's going to be a lot of verses. And what I'd like to do, maybe we should read a little bit to kind of set it up.

The Lord is talking, who's the Lord talking to here? He's got this interaction going. Who's He talking to? Just talking to Jews, and this is not necessarily a collection of Pharisees, this is just the Jewish people in the temple area. They're having an interchange, and what he's trying to do, by grace, is to persuade them as to who he is. And some are going to believe him, some of them aren't. So that's kind of where we're going. Therefore, there was a division among the Jews because of these sayings. In other words, he's saying who he is and they're divided. And many of them said, well, he has a demon. He's crazy. He's mad. Why do you listen to him? Others said, these are not the words of one who has a demon.

Can a demon open the eyes of the blind? So they're referring back to Jesus I'm opening up the eyes. So the two viewpoints here. My first question is, what are the two viewpoints? It's fairly easy. One group thought he was nuts. The other group said, well, you know, maybe he is who he says he is because look at all the cool stuff he's doing. He made this blind man see. they're going back and forth. Actually, you've got to give them a little bit of credit because they're in debate here. They're trying to figure out who he is. Some felt that his words were different, others thought he was crazy.

Now, it was the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem and it was winter. Jesus walked in the temple on Solomon's porch And then the Jews surrounded him and said to him, OK, let's talk a minute about the Feast of Dedication. I found some cool stuff about this. This was instituted by Judas Maccabeus and his brethren for restoring of the temple to the true religion of Judaism. And this fellow, let me find his name, Antiochus Epiphanius, was the guy that invaded Jerusalem took over the temple and went into the temple and sacrificed a pig on the altar so he totally defiled the temple and so when Maccabeus and his boys came in and kicked him out they cleansed the temple and rededicated it and so that's what this feast is about and it happened in mid to late December. Maccabeus not only restored the temple service and cleansed it from pollution, but he also repaired the ruins of it. The feast was called the Renovation. That's kind of what they call it. So that's what he's there to do. Okay.

Wasn't the temple destroyed in 1780? 7770 ad but this this has to do with if I give you a day they were talking about here no this is a police you know and I guess Tiffany's destroyed it in her did this in 162 BC I believe it read and then it was restored in 165 BC yeah okay by by Maccabeus yeah so that's and so they're having a feast and Jesus is there now we don't know it yet but we're getting very close He's got one Passover to go and he's going to die. He's going to die in the next year. So he's had two years of ministry by now and he's got one year to go. The present day Jews call it the Feast of Lights. I don't know how they do it because they don't have a temple to rededicate.

Anyway, so the Lord says, and the Jews say, how long do you keep us in doubt? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. What are they asking him? What do they want him to say that he is? The Christ. What's the Christ? The Messiah. If you're the Messiah, tell us plainly. You know, the guys that thought he was crazy and the guys that weren't sure are saying, tell us. Well, the answer is wonderful. Well, before we do that, I'll do that. Jesus said, I told you and you didn't believe me. The works that I do in my father's name, they bear witness to me. But you don't believe because you're not of my sheep as I told you. So let's talk a little bit about why they don't believe. There's more than just one reason. The big reason was that they were not of his sheep. They weren't one of his.

William Kelly said, The greater the grace and the deeper the truth, the less does the natural mind appreciate Christ. Say that again? The greater the grace and the deeper the truth, the less does the natural mind appreciate Christ. He says, I told you and you don't believe. So let's talk a little bit about. Let's see if I want to do that. I don't want to do that yet. I'm going to read down a little more.

But 27, my sheep, you're my boys and I know them and they follow me and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither shall anyone 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 my Father's hands."

It's very interesting here if you kind of tear apart at least 27 and 28. There are one, two, three, four, five, six things a true believer can be characterized by. Let's look at them. Number one is the believer's sensitivity. They hear his voice. they hear it.

Now, I'm sure that you have sat down with somebody who's a non-believer and you had your ducks in a row and your gospel really ready to go and you laid it out as perfect as it could possibly be laid out and what was the response? It was either you're crazy or I'm not sure. He's a black sheep. Or whatever it is.

The point is that the sensitivity of the hearer to hear the voice of Christ is really critical. How do you get that sensitivity? You've got to be one of his sheep. The second one is fellowship. He says, I know them. I know who they are. Every individual I know. Number three is obedience. They follow me. Number four is life. I give unto them eternal life Six is assurance. They shall never perish and Seven is security and no one will snatch them out of my hand Okay so With that being the case on the positive side on the negative side What what do you think could be account for such hardness of anyone's heart? I?

Why are they so resistant? Why is man so resistant to the grace of God? To me, if someone knows that you are a Christian, they consider you weak. I mean, not someone, but unbelievers, if they're strong unbelievers. They're strong unbelievers. That's a great way to put it. That's a great way to put it. And they think that we are just weak because we're depending on someone we still can't see, still can't hear. It's faith. Could you relate Romans 121 to this? Sure you can. Read it. Well, they became futile in their speculations and their foolish hearts were darkened and professing to be wise became fools. It's interesting, men trust their own feelings and their own thoughts before they'll trust the gospel of grace. Right?

We send all of our kids to college so they can get educated, right? And then they want to go on and get postgraduate degrees. Why? Why do they do that? So that they have more to trust in themselves. Isn't that right? They can't get along in this world unless they got a lot to trust in themselves.

Why do you think you look, the Jewish environment is the perfect example. All the smart guys with all the degrees, only a couple of them bought into Christ because they knew better. It's those poor little guys that were slugging around doing nothing that really bought into what he had to say. So it's interesting how man strives so hard to create his own environment of judgments and rely on them. And they're all air castles. All of them. And yet, when the truth comes along, they will not go for it, even to the point that it's suicidal that they don't. You want to hear some of the air castles, go see Expelled. Expelled? Oh, that movie.

And could the message of the gospel be any simpler? I don't know, how could it be? It's not, you know, if you look at the gospel message, Christ died for your sins according to the scriptures, he was buried and was raised again according to the scriptures. And if you believe that, God will save you for all eternity.

And he will do things for you and to you that you can't imagine how cool they are. And so rather than do that, men say, I'd rather sit in my suicidal deal here and go to hell and enjoy that. And men will be like that even at the Great White Throne Judgment. They will stand before the glorified Christ and turn Him down. I can see people standing before Him saying, it's a good thing you didn't call me because I don't want you now.

I didn't want you then. I don't want to hang with you. Where's the door to hell? Nobody at the Great White Throne Judgment is going to say, hey, you know, I kind of got screwed in this deal. Nope. Not going to happen. So, even then, there won't be any repentance. They won't bow to the word of God. They don't bow to it now.

I mean, the Lord Jesus is saying to them here, look, I'm giving you, I'm telling you who I am. Not only am I telling you, but look at my works. And they're saying, well, you know, Even though I'm guilty and ruined, I think I probably can work it out myself. But I'm not going to believe you. Craig?

I think the other aspect is what John talked about earlier in his book, which is that people despise the light because they love the darkness. And they don't like the light, they don't like Christ, because he reveals how ugly they are in themselves, and they don't want to buy that. They want to believe they're basically good and God should accept them on their own terms. I think if you come to Christ later in life and you don't grow up as a believer, you really understand that. Because as a young man, not being a believer, I couldn't stand to be around Christians.

They made me nervous. They really did. Well, that's why. They're going to find out about me maybe. But once you become a believer, Now you get nervous hanging around ghosts in the dark. You feel very comfortable. And it's immediate. It's not something you grow into.

I felt the very next day, the day after, I met the Lord on a Friday, I went to the Bronco game on Sunday and I felt very uncomfortable there. Two days later, I really did. Me and my four seats off the field, row 35, I had a neck, man. I was up there worshiping with the best of them. And I dropped my tickets. And I had them for years. Because I wasn't comfortable there anymore. I couldn't go and worship the blue and orange on Sunday.

Because that's what people in the world do. They live and die by whether the Broncos win or lose. And back in those days, everybody cheered if they got a first down. So men love the darkness, as Craig said. They prefer to stay there. And that's the great mass of men. God, they think, is maybe too merciful. And they hope to improve someday if they don't feel that they got it right today. Thus, they're lost. Such is the way in the end of many an unbeliever now is in the Jews then. So one of the great verses in John is verse 28.

I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hands." I remember Vern did a thing on this which was really cool, and I've got a literal translation. But, I give them life, really translated, is I am constantly giving them eternal life. This isn't a one-time deal. Okay, now you've got the life, move on. The way that this is set up, you and I are constantly being given the life of the resurrected Christ himself. It's a constant flow of life all the time. It's a dynamic that we live in.

And it's not even remotely possible for them to destroy themselves. Interesting, because if you look at that, they shall never perish and neither shall anyone snatch them up. They shall never perish really translates into they can't destroy themselves.

I'm sure hidden in the secret of your heart sometimes you have thought, well I better clean up my act because I could probably ruin it here myself. Nonsense. You can't do it. You cannot do it. You think you can send your way into hell? I'll make it easier for you.

Do you think you could sin to the point where God is disappointed in you? Or He's angry with you? What arrogance is that? Do you think you could turn your back on God to such a point where He said, no, I shouldn't have called that character. You know, He is really a pain. What do you think about that?

This verse says that that life that He gives us, it's not even remotely possible for you and me to destroy ourselves. We can't do that. Now trust me, I've met Christians who think they can. And it's the height of personal arrogance to think that you could do something that would go against the cross of Christ. That you have the power to do that. Can a believer make a decision not to walk with the Lord?

Absolutely. It's too late though. And who suffers in that deal? He does. because he's like a duck out of water. He's like a poor duck that got caught in one of those oil spills. He just is out of his environment. He's not home and happy with that. The third part is that, nor for any to steal them by force out of the hand of me. This is an incredibly, you talk about the security of salvation. This is a very interesting verse because the Lord Jesus makes a pronouncement that he's constantly giving his sheep eternal life.

They can't screw it up and neither can anybody else. Let's put it in today's vernacular. You can't do it. So those of you who have, those that you love, who you know to be believers, who aren't walking with the Lord Okay, it's not okay that they're not walking with the Lord, but there's no doubt as to their security.

There's no doubt as to the life that they have. And there's no doubt that the Lord is constantly wooing them back. And I bet they're more painful than if they had never come to Christ. So, the Lord Jesus is saying that eternal life is something that he gives constantly to his sheep, and that is not even the slightest possibility that they can lose that life, even of their own doing. And no other outside entity can remove those sheep, those to whom he constantly gives life, from his hand. The saving work of Christ is therefore continually giving us eternal life, which cannot be lost from our own doing, nor that of anybody else.

On this basis of his saving, he stakes his claim to be the Christ, the Messiah, even claiming thereafter to be one with the Father. That's a quote from Verne. So that's why that verse is here, because he's claiming to be the Messiah. And so he's saying, this is what the Messiah is going to do, or will do, or is doing. giving life and can't lose any. Now, you think the Jews understood what he's saying? I think the ones that are his sheep do.

The ones that aren't, don't. So, we cannot, question six, we can't destroy We cannot perish by destroying ourselves. I think that's really, really critical. I have met so many believers who really think that they can do something to lose their salvation. If a believer is not involved in a grace environment, under a law system, there's always doubt, because you can't live up to the law. It's always condemning you. and here you can't lose it. The big reason is because it isn't up to you. Your salvation was not your idea. It was not your activity.

It was totally of God. Totally of Him. And so when He calls one and saves one, it's His doing. I've had people come to me and say, it's too late. You say, what do you mean? It's too late. You're now in Christ. You can't get out. It's too late for you. Think what you want. It's too late.

I say that from a positive standpoint. Maybe they're a little nervous about it. I think it's terrific. I ask you to list 11 things that are given to the sheep. Come up with some of them. They're all right here. And we've gone through some of them already. They're His sheep. Hear His voice. They know Him. He knows them. They follow Him. He gives them eternal life. They'll never perish. They are in His hand. Can't be taken out of His hand. Given by the Father to Him. And they're in the Father's hand. All of that stuff. and can't be taken out of the Father's hand.

So what was God's motive in assuring the sheep of their security? What motivated Him to assure them that they were safe? So we can rest in Him. What's that? So we can rest in Him. Yeah. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to smash them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one. If we know we're secure, we can rest. Yeah, I think this is where the motive of love comes in. He assures his sheep because he loves them. He wants them to know of their assurance. So, one of the reasons, one of the big reasons I think that why we teach grace so often and the identification of positional truths so often is that there isn't anything else that I know of that gives a believer greater security.

If you know that you were united with Christ in his death, burial, resurrection, you're seated in the heavenlies with him now. If that's true, it's over. Am I right about that? I'm seated in Christ in the heavenlies. That's true of me now. The only way I could get unseated is if Christ did a U-turn. Came back to the earth, went back in the grave, came up out of the grave, went up to the cross, came back alive, and all of that had to happen. Backwards. Well, you know, I have to trust the Lord. He's not going to do that. It's come to that. So the motive for assuring his sheep of his security is the fact that he loves them.

And the Lord Jesus, if you remember back in chapter 1, where did he come from? He came out of the bosom of the Father. cool place, what do you come out of there for? To collect you and me and take us back there. So we would be in that divine circle of love that's unique to them.

Verse 31 says, then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Why'd they do that? I mean, think about the wonderfulness of what he's just said. And what's the reaction of the Jews to what he just said? So why did they do that? Why did they want to stone him? Verse 33, which is, for good works we don't stone you, but for blasphemy and because you being a man make yourself to be God. That's the issue.

Their blinded minds are infuriated because they thought he was not God. How could he possibly claim to be God? Maybe put it this way, nothing so awakens violence, even death as a truth, which condemns men who are pretending to be religious. Now, what's the best example of this sort of inflamed violence today in our planet? Who is the best? What group demonstrates the blindness who are very religious people when they're presented with the truth they become a blind rage and they want to kill everybody who's around. Who are they?

Muslims. Islam. I mean they're walking breathing examples of this reaction. There's no grace in that deal. Anything other than what they think is deserving of death. anything other than what a Jew thought under the law system deserve death, right? And that this isn't just what we've calculated. I mean, they're enraged by this.

When you read an Acts about Stephen being stoned, he stands up in front of the Sanhedrin and he lays it on them about who Jesus is and what they did to him and what the nation of Israel did in condemning and killing the Messiah. And when they jumped him, what did they do to him? They stoned him. But what did they do before that? They chewed on his body. They were so enraged, they bit at him. That's what it says. They gnawed on him.

That shows you that when light comes to darkness, darkness reaction is so violent. And that's what's happening here. Every time the Lord Jesus comes as the light, look at the reaction he gets from those who are in darkness. They are enraged. They're not just politely disappointed. They're enraged. So when you lay the gospel on somebody and they get angry, you know, what did you expect?

What did you expect? What did they expect from the Messiah? Because up in 24 it says they're asking him to tell them if he's the Christ. and yet down here the problem is that he claimed to be deity. So their perception of the Messiah was not to be deity? I don't think they thought he would be deity. You know it's interesting if you look at if you were a thinking person and you stood in front and listened to Christ over this period of time, you have several options, I think, in terms of what your reaction could be.

You could either think that he was joking and he wasn't serious. You could take that reaction, right? Or you could think he's lying for the sake of effect. You can have that option. Or you could think he's crazy and he's not responsible for the claims he's making, right? Or, you could say, well, we just misunderstood him. Or, he's telling the truth and he is a deity. Those are your options. And the problem is, is that he's claiming to be God. And he's standing there, you know, and they're saying, no way. Because you're not the God we know. As if they knew him. See? Why? Why would they ask them though?

Their view of what a messiah would be would be to kick the Romans out of Dodge. The Jewish nation would become the lead nation on the planet. There would be incredible prosperity and nobody would hassle them. In other words, their viewpoint was mostly millennial kingdom viewpoint.

I mean, you think about it, when Christ comes to rule and reign again, and he's not coming to Pittsburgh, he's going to come to the Mount of Olives, and Israel will be the center of the earth and the planet, and everything will happen from there. All the nations of the world will come to the Jews to see the Messiah. The earth will be released from all of its vanity, because of the fall and you know your 40 acres in the desert will produce crops for a thousand people. There won't be any, the earth will be a paradise to live on for a thousand years. That's what they were hoping for.

The Jews still have, well they have a problem with the fact that Jesus is God and there's seeing that, and the Holy Spirit, they're seeing that we're worshipping three gods. So, it would seem like if Jesus was claiming to be God, and they're believing in God the Father, then that is blasphemy, because that means there's two There's two gods. They're viewing it as polytheism rather than monotheism.

Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. And they can't get over the fact that this little guy who came out of Galilee, or Nazareth, is God? When you read Acts, that's what Peter keeps telling these people, Jesus of Nazareth, that's like saying, you know, Mike from Commerce City. It's Nazareth? If Thomas said anything good come out of Nazareth? It's the worst place you could come from.

Here's the Messiah of Israel and who is the Son of God. So, from a worldly viewpoint, he's got everything against him. There's nothing in the world that would verify the fact that he was a Messiah other than what he said and what he did. So Jesus says to him, by what works do you condemn me? They say it is because he claims to be God. How does he answer that charge? We're probably going to run out of time, but that's what Jack...

It comes from Psalm 82, 6, where the psalmist said, I said, you are gods and all of you are children of the Most High. Now, what Psalm 82 talks about is that it was in the time of the judges and those that were sent by God to be judges were called Elohim, which means gods. and they were commissioned by God and they were responsible to judge in his name so he called them gods because they were his representatives to the Jewish nation that's where it comes from. The argument here is Jesus is saying that, let's see, thus does he If such a title could be used of a mere magistrate in Scripture, and its authority is indissoluble, how unreasonable to claim with blasphemy him whom the Father has set apart and sent into the world, because he said he was God's Son. Is he not affirming or demonstrating that he is in this, but simply convicting them of their perverseness? He sanctioned them. In your Old Testament, in Psalm 82, God gave you the authority to call the judges gods. So why are you condemning me? If I'm from God, why are you condemning me? God's already done this one time.

What's the problem? They didn't believe he was from God, at least some didn't. Well, yeah, the ones that didn't, the ones that picked up the rocks to fire him off his head, didn't believe he was from God. So he takes from their old scriptures and says, wait a minute, there were these guys here, the judges, and they were called gods, because they had their authority from God.

He's saying, so do I. So why are you condemning me? Why do you want to stone me? We'll pick up at 11 next time. Courtney will be here next week. And more than likely, I doubt he'll get through 19 because I have a lot of questions in 19. So, okay, let's close.

Dear Father, how we thank you for your life that's in your Son and how we thank you for, as we're studying, who he claims to be and his works. It's so consoling to us as believers to recognize that the life we have from you is constant and that no one, including ourselves, can ever cause us to be anything other than your Son, the Father. We thank you, we pray in the Lord Jesus' name. Amen.