The Gospel of John 7:1-24
John 6:41-71 · Vern Peterman · Apr 28, 2013
Gospel of John (2013), No. 16
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492635082907

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We're in the Gospel of John chapter 7 verses 1 through 24. Jesus will start in this account. We'll start in the area of Galilee and we'll find that the account moves to Jerusalem. in a little bit convoluted route, as we'll see. Jesus goes to Jerusalem, and of course, the interaction that's described there focuses on the temple area.

This is a model of that temple area we looked at before. Previously, we pointed out this is the pools of Bethesda, or Bethesda, as it's actually spelled out in the Greek. Here is the larger temple courtyard and it describes Jesus talking and teaching actually in the courtyard and typically that was done, although the courtyard is large, that was done often times in these little porticos. The colonnades, as they are sometimes called, around the perimeter. So Jesus was likely in one of the colonnades and it was actually fairly common that the entrance area here and the porticoes around there, this was called the portico of Solomon. And that was also a place where he often would teach.

What precipitated the interaction here that was starting to get pretty intense with the Jewish leaders was the healing that he did at the pool of Bethesda. This pool was the place where the lame man was, as you recall, lying by the side of the pool but he could never get into the water fast enough. for the account being that an angel would stir the waters and you had to get into the water fast and that sort of thing which I think is largely a mythology but nonetheless that was the idea and he said well I can't get there and Jesus didn't say well I've got twelve disciples and they'll help you or any kind of thing like that instead what did he do? Yeah. Arise, take up your pallet and walk. Here's what's interesting. What were the Jews upset about when Jesus healed this man? What were they upset about? He had healed on the Sabbath and then what? Told this guy to pick up his pallet and walk. Now here's what's interesting.

It was legal, according to their old set of rules, it was legal to carry somebody on a pallet on the Sabbath. And that was okay, but to pick up your own pallet after being healed was not. Figure that one out. Anyway, so there's a strange set of rules, and that strange set of rules was exactly what they were getting all wrapped around the axle about. It's okay for two people to carry this guy on the pallet on a Sabbath, and that's just fine. But to actually tell the guy who had just been healed to pick up his pallet, that was not fine. So, figure that one out.

Nonetheless, so Jesus went into the temple courtyards in this account that we've talked about here. And again, probably was teaching in the perimeter area, those porticos would be commonly the area where he'd go. So these dramatic depictions show him talking to the leaders of the Jews. The leaders of the Jews are present in this interaction. They're not the only ones present. as we'll soon see. Okay. Let's grab the handout. So this is John 7, 1 through 24. First few verses there read like this. John 7, 1 through 5.

After these things Jesus was walking in Galilee and he was unwilling to walk in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill him. How did he know that? He's omniscient. He's omniscient. So he didn't have to go there or necessarily get word that the Jews are seeking to kill him.

Didn't it also say that earlier in the scripture, something about, I can't remember the exact quote. Well, in fact what we're seeing here, this is one of the early, but not necessarily the earliest indications that he's running into trouble with these guys. Obviously if they're seeking to kill him now and he brings up this healing at the pool of Bethesda, This is something that is starting to get more and more cranked up. And his hazards, in terms of the threat to his life, was in the Jerusalem area, not in Galilee, per se. Except that he did stay away from Tiberias, a Roman city.

Alright, verse 2, Now the feast of the Jews, the feast of Booths, was near. This is also called the feast of Tabernacles. Look at the Page four, and this is something we've had previously, but given that they're talking about a feast, this is the last of the seven mosaic feasts, feasts of booths or tabernacles. Leviticus 23 describes this one. We're going to see additional feasts, including in John chapter 10, where we'll observe Hanukkah. It's not called that, but nonetheless, it's the same event.

What you'll see below is the Feast of Tabernacles, being the last of them, is about six months out from Passover. So you have about a six-month period of time starting with Passover, and then by the time you're going through the sequence of mosaic feasts and festivals and whatnot, at the end, the Feast of Cabernacles, about six months later, or as we see here, the Feast of Booths, they would make temporary shelters. And that was what was involved here. So at any rate, now, the other thing that that tells us, if this is the Feast of Cabernacles, What's the next Mosaic holiday going to be? After the Feast of Tabernacles, Hanukkah is not a Mosaic holiday. Passover, right? And so Passover is going to be the time when Jesus celebrates what's called the Last Supper. So the bottom line is they are months away from the end of Jesus' life. I've got a question for you.

Why doesn't Jesus say, you know, I'm here to die, and that's my job, that's what I was born for, that's what I'm here for, and so I'm just going to go down to Jerusalem so they'll do me in and we're just going to get this thing done. Why doesn't Jesus just go and get this done? Why doesn't he just say, you know, hey, now's my time, I'm going to go to Jerusalem, they're going to kill me, everybody's going to be happy, right?

It wasn't the father's time. Ah, it wasn't the father's time. How did Jesus know that? Because he knows God the Father. Okay, yeah, in other words, he has a close relationship with God the Father. It's real interesting, we think about timing of things, and have you ever said something like, you know, this couldn't come at a worse time? Or maybe it did. Maybe it did.

If we look at it, at the right time God sent his son. At the right time God sent his son when Herod was ruling. At the right time God sent his son when the Romans had an extremely inconvenient census for the taxation system. At the right time God sent his son when in fact there were tax revolts in Galilee about every six years during the time of Jesus birth. At the right time God sent his son when they got Jesus out of Bethlehem just in the nick of time.

Isn't it amazing the Lord's sense of what's the right time? And so here is Jesus. He has the threat of death. It's six months too early. At the right time, God sent his son and Jesus didn't die. He wasn't born at the right time and then died at the wrong time. God's sense of timing may not at all be what ours is, but it's the right time.

It's the right time. Okay, so let's go back here. We've seen the feast. Verse 3. Therefore his brothers said to him, and of course there's brotherly love here, right? Alright. His brothers said to him, leave here and go into Judea so that your disciples also may see your works which you are doing. For no one does anything in secret when he himself seeks to be known publicly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world. or not even his brothers were believing him. Do his brothers have good intent? No. No. What are his brothers wanting him to do? Is this what they say really what they have in mind? But what do his brothers want to have happen? Yeah.

Hey, let's get this over with. You know, this guy has been a pain in the rear. We've grown up under this guy. Mom and dad, you know, treated this guy like he was a saint. And we're tired of it. We've just about had enough. Yeah. Very similar to Joe. It's similar to Joseph. Tell me about that. Well, his brothers sold him to the Minionites. Almost two millennia before. Right.

Here's the brothers and they just assumed he was dead. Let's get him out of here. Now, something to take a look at, here as verse 5 discloses, Jesus' brothers did not believe in him. They were just as soon, you know, wanting to see him dead. They thought, you know, if we get rid of this guy, that'd be just great. He is a pain in the neck to have as an older brother. We couldn't have a worse older brother.

And he keeps doing all these unconventional things and you know, everybody's all goo-ga and happy over this guy and he goes to a wedding in Cana and does miraculous things and everybody's all impressed and we're sick. So if the Jews are wanting to kill him, let's just have him go there and get this over with. We've got no use for this guy. Let's take a look at the last page. This is page 5. This is something we had some weeks ago, months ago actually.

Here's the family tree of Jesus' family. We have Jesus, and then James, Joseph, Jude, and Simon. Those are four names from the New Testament. Jesus is actually properly a half-brother to these brothers. Why would we say that he's only a half-brother? It doesn't have the same father. Yeah, in other words, Joseph was the father of these four brothers that we see. But who is Jesus' father? Yeah, Jesus is my father.

And it was ultimately a work of the Holy Spirit in Mary, who was a virgin, right? And so then I have the names Salome and Mary. Those are not from scripture. as his sisters. All we have from scripture is his sisters, so we know there's plural, we don't know how many. There are actually several different documents from a later time that give the names of Salome and Mary. They're not entirely consistent, so there are different levels of certainty about what we have shown on the chart, so just keep that in mind.

Why Why do we see these brothers showing up writing a book, two of the brothers, James and Jude, writing each of them a book in the New Testament? If they don't believe, what happened? Yeah? Didn't Jesus go to him and talk with James after he was resurrected? Yeah, here's James, you guys, and here's James who says, you know, I just want this guy dead. I want this brother out of the way. And Jesus said, well, yeah. He died, but guess what? He's resurrected. And he shows himself, 1 Corinthians 15, 7, he shows himself to James.

Can you imagine, James? I thought you were dead. I mean, I sure thought you were dead. I thought we were done with you, right? So, Mary, his brothers became believers after this resurrection and the Bible explicitly says that Christ, once resurrected, appeared to James. That was almost like the Apostle Paul in some respects. The Apostle Paul, one of the Christians did, he even said so in the book of Acts. So here's James Wait a minute, I thought you were dead and I wanted you there.

No you're not. So let's take a look at John 7, 6-9. So Jesus said to them, My time is not yet here, but your time is always opportune. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil. Go up to the feast yourselves. I do not go up to this feast, because my time has not yet fully come. Having said these things to them, he stayed in Galilee.

Way back, several chapters back, starting in John chapter 2, we brought up this, you know, my time or my hour has not yet come, as a pattern that shows up in John, including here in chapter 7, and we're going to see some more of it, and even continues on into chapter 8.

Only, we're on to page 2 here, only in chapter 12 and 13 and 17 do we get the time or hour having come. Now is the time, now is the hour. And it's clear, this is the time. So, this My Time Has Not Yet Come, My Time Has Come issue is a continuing theme in the Gospel of John. We're going to continue to see it into the rest of this chapter, into the next chapter, and into subsequent chapters to come, all the way to John 17. This is an interesting thing.

How many of us have a sense of, my time has come? Seriously, if at all. Yeah, I mean for most of us it's not a, boy, my time has come kind of mindset. Most of us. It's interesting here to see Christ the Son of God having a sense of You know, my time doesn't come, my time doesn't come, my time doesn't come, now it's coming.

And to have that sort of a clock constantly in your mind, even to the point where other people aren't, you know, what time are you talking about? What hour? Other people aren't getting it. The wedding at Tina, nobody Nobody at this wedding is thinking about, well, Jesus is going to be crucified. But Jesus is. Jesus is. So he's thinking about this time that's coming long before anybody else has even had an inkling that this might be coming. In fact, he even says his family is there in John chapter 2 where he's at the wedding of Cana. Including brothers, right? And nobody has a clue what that's about. Now, let's ask the question though. Jesus tells his brothers that the world cannot hate them as it does Jesus himself.

He says, my time is not yet come, but yours is always opportune. What does he mean by that? You're still in the world. In the system, whether you say that you believe in me or not, you're still in the system. In the world system. But he says your time is opportune.

What opportunity do they have? What's the opportunity that his brothers have in front of them? Their salvation. That's right. And as you look at it, they always have the opportunity to believe, as long as they're on the planet. They always have the opportunity.

So it's telling them, my time hasn't come, but you have an opportunity still. In other words, it's not too late for you. It's not too late for you. You still have the opportunity. And in fact, they will. And while his time hasn't come yet, they still have the opportunity and that's going to show itself in fruition right after he's resurrected. Right after he's resurrected.

Here in John 15, which we'll get to in some weeks ahead from now, 18 through 20, if the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. So the world's got this love-hate relationship, right? The world knows the ones it loves, and the world knows the ones it hates. That's the love-hate relationship.

Something else, I want to look at this, John 7, 8, we should observe that in the Greek verb, Jesus says, I am not right now going to the feast, instead of, I will not be going to the feast. If he had said, I will not be going to the feast, but as we'll soon see, he still goes, what would be the problem?

He'd be lying. So what he does, he tells them the truth very carefully. And let's ask this question, why doesn't he just come to his brothers and say, look, you guys go ahead and go. I'm going to go later, but I'm just going to be a little quiet about it. They're going to spot him or something. Yeah, they're going to spot him. If they're anticipating that the leaders are going to want to kill him, what are they going to do? Point him out. They're going to point him out. And the betrayers would not be Judas, but the brothers.

Yes. So is it safer for him to go up in the mid part of the feast than at the beginning of the feast? I mean, I don't understand why there's a difference. Well, and here's the interesting thing. He basically tells them, I am not in the process of going, is the Greek sense. But in fact, he does. He does not tell them, yes, I will be going, or no, I won't be going. He says, I'm right now, I'm not in the process of going. So he very carefully tells them the truth, but not so much as to tip, you know, tip their hand, or tip his hand rather, so that they see what he's about to do.

But if they were going to kill him at the beginning, could they also kill him at the middle? Well, yes they could, but let's see what happens here. It's a good question. I think that what happens is they're surprised by the way he does it, he suddenly shows up and what they do is they do it, remember when they arrested Jesus, how did they do that?

Did they do it in the middle of the temple area with all the gathering taking place? No, they didn't do that. We're going to do this in the middle of the night. We're going to do it when everybody's in their homes and we're going to arrest Jesus in the middle of the night, not in the temple courtyard in the middle of the day, but we're going to arrest him in the middle of the night at this garden that's away from the temple area a bit. So that's how they're going to do it. So here's John 7, 10 through 13.

But when his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he himself also went up, not publicly, but as if in secret. So the Jews were seeking him at the feast and were saying, where is he? So they are looking for him. There was much grumbling among the crowds concerning him. Some were saying, he is a good man. Others were saying, no, on the contrary, he leads the people astray. Yet no one was speaking openly of him for fear of the Jews. So these grumblings, these back and forth conversations were taking place quietly, off to the side, in hushed tones. We don't want to get anybody upset because we know these Jewish leaders are starting to get really riled up over this thing. So word has gotten out that, hey, we're targeting this guy.

So once we see Jesus' brothers, should say, had gone, Jesus did in fact go to Jerusalem covertly. The term Jews in this context refers to the Jewish leaders, and I think that's something to look at. He uses the term Jews, but it's not all the Jews, it's the Jewish leaders when he uses that term. While the Jewish leaders were seeking to kill Jesus, the general public was divided. but express themselves privately. People had opinions, but they kept it quiet because they just didn't want to get in the loop with these Jewish leaders.

Alright, so John 7, 14-18, this is the top of page 3 here. But when it was now in the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and began to teach. So in the middle of the feast, all of a sudden he pops up in this public area. He doesn't get grabbed or attacked at that point in time, it's too open and public and you've got mixed opinions. They want to do something that's nighttime, not right in the temple area, so this is not a good situation. But where does he pop up? He pops up right there in the middle of the temple courtyard, just like we talked about here. He popped up and was teaching, and like I said, what was usually the tradition is around the perimeter porticos or colonnades.

He all of a sudden pops up on the leaders. The timing isn't good. The circumstance isn't good. But that's where he all of a sudden shows up. They are looking for him, but by the time they see him, and they know it's him, by the time they see him, he's out there in the public area in the middle of the day. This isn't going to work so good. Does that answer your question, Stan? Basically, it's a matter of him kind of coming by surprise, popping up in the wrong time and the wrong place for them to pull this off like they'd like to. Yes.

Mine also because they were afraid of the crowd in the Book of Acts. Yes, definitely. crowd and how they would riot and all this other stuff. And what's the concern about the crowd? I mean they've got temple guards, they've got supposedly control. What's the concern with the Jews about getting the crowds all riled up? They didn't want to aggravate the Romans.

OK, yeah, that's one thing. Look at this. Look at this picture here. What do you have? The Romans have a fortress right here. And by the way, that building, that fortress, that was Pontius Pilate's accomplishment. It wasn't there until Pontius Pilate took power. So they built this fort. And guess what? If you're up at that, if you're a Roman soldier, you get posted up here.

You're looking over on all this Jewish activity. Right? You're overlooking all this Jewish activity, and the Jews hated that. Filthy pig-eating Romans looking down over all their activity. Their sacrifices, and all of our gatherings. They're watching everything. This is terrible. So they hate it. But, they're also afraid.

Because there's a stairway, and you can see a little bit of evidence. There's a stairway right here. It's the one the Apostle Paul gets pulled up on. There's a stairway right there between the fortress and that courtyard. And Roman soldiers can come pouring in and grab control and the Jews will lose it.

They don't want that. So they want to get this thing pulled off in such a way that the crowds are not going to get all riled up and upset where they have all sorts of squabbling. Things are looking out of control. So they want to avoid that at all costs. Calling all centurions. Yeah, we want to have it so that Jesus is arrested at a time and a place where people are asleep, away. This is the wrong place, wrong time.

Because now in the midst of the feast, Jesus went up to the temple and began to teach. And the Jews, remember the Jews were the Jewish leaders, were astonished saying, how has this man become learned, having never been educated? What was a proper education according to the Jewish system? You learned under a rabbi.

Somebody like Nicodemus. Somebody like Gamaliel. Yeah, that would be proper. Who was the rabbi that Jesus was under? God. Yeah. You know, it's rabbi God the Father. Right? Rabbi God the Father. And so they were just, how did this guy get so much understanding and insight and talking about things? I mean, he talks like he knows what he's doing. And how do you do that if you haven't had a proper rabbinical upbringing here? Now, so Jesus, either hearing them or knowing what they are thinking, responds that the teaching isn't his own, but the teaching is from the one who sent him, God the Father.

If there's a willingness to do the Father's will, then the one who is willing has the discernment to tell what Jesus is teaching, if what Jesus is teaching is from God. Let's look at this. How do you have the discernment? What's the prior condition to having discernment about whether a teaching is from God? A willingness to do it as will.

In other words, it's not standing over the scriptures and saying, well, I'm going to decide. I'll be the final judge. If you're doing that, you're not going to have discernment. And that's the problem that all the Jewish leaders were having. They didn't have discernment. Because in the end, they wanted to judge what they were going to do and not do. They wanted to stand in judgment over the scripture. Okay, so John 7, 19-24 here. Did not Moses give you the law, yet none of you carries out the law.

Okay, and they're just tickled pink to hear that, right? How could he get away with saying that? How could he get away with saying that? Okay, it's true. And why would they not just get infuriated right then and there and call the temple guard and say, hey, take this guy and put him in prison and we're going to do him in. Yeah. because they weren't and it's really interesting. I listened to a rabbi teach for a short period of time and he was talking about the law and he went through all the different ways that you could give. away with doing certain things in the law. Yes. I mean, he knew the ways to get by it. All the loopholes. All the loopholes. So what happened is they invent various loopholes. On the one hand, they make a restriction.

Case in point would be that it was from the temple out to the top of the Mount of Olives, okay, a Sabbath-based journey. So that distance was called a Sabbath-based journey. You could travel that far on the Sabbath and you're okay. But what if you wanted to travel further than a Sabbath day's journey?

Well, you could do so. As long as you have small items from your household you carry with you. They can't be big because that would be work. So you have small items from your household and you take them with you and then Once you've gone a Sabbath-based journey, then you take that little item and you hide it somewhere next to the path. And then you're qualified to travel another Sabbath-based journey. And so you can walk the Sabbath-based journey and then take another item and hide it along the path. And then you're qualified to go what? Another Sabbath-based journey.

And so as long as you have little items that you could hide with you and they weren't too weighty, because that would be work, as long as they weren't too weighty, then you could go and take these things and hide them and you could go several Sabbath days through them. So you could go quite some distance if you needed to and still be within the law.

You could promise something, that is, you could bear witness and you could even bear false witness as long as you swore by the, quote, right things that gave you a loophole. I swear by the temple, I swear by this, I swear by that. And they had a list of, here's the things that you swear by, and you're not required to follow through on your promise, or your statement of this is true. But if you swear by these other things, then that's, you know, then you're required to.

Yeah? Well, wouldn't that tell a person that you were sworn by? You knew it was untrue if you used that one list? Well, except for one thing. So this is a who's in the know, right? So if I'm not some rabbi that's got, you know, okay, I got my list down, right? If I'm not under a rabbi where I've been taught all these things, then, you know, who knows?

So you're starting out in life and you're just a regular everyday person, you haven't been taught the lists, you could be subject to this swindle. where the guy just promised, he promised by several things. You know, by this, by this, by this, and they're all on the list of things that don't count.

Right? So you could just plain lie through your teeth as long as you swore by the things that made it an invalid promise. Yes? Have you ever worked anywhere that didn't have that? Yeah. Man, serious. Yep. Look at Congress, and look at local government, and commissioners, and most corporations, The military? Yeah. I mean, they're all that way. Yeah. Yeah.

So here Jesus says that, why do you seek to kill me? And of course, huh? Who's seeking to kill you? Right? So the crowd answers, you have a demon. Who seeks to kill you? Of course, the seeking to kill you thing was something just among the Jewish leaders. And it perhaps leaked out, but not universally.

There were, in fact, people who said, well, Jesus is okay. We think. So Jesus answered them, I did one deed and you all marveled. Which deed is he talking about? Pardon? A lame man by the pool. Yeah. This lame man by the pool. I did one deed and you all marveled. That was earlier this year. I was there.

For this reason, Moses has given you circumcision, not because it is from Moses, but from the fathers. That is, circumcision wasn't given in the law of Moses directly, it came from before. When was circumcision instituted? Under Abraham, in the book of Genesis, actually before Moses was born. Moses recorded those things, but he wasn't the one talks about circumcision that way because of that.

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 van well on the Sabbath? See, this is an instance where, okay, if somebody, if a baby boy is born such that eight days later, which is the prescribed time, lands on the Sabbath, You'll go ahead and circumcise him in order to fill the law.

And that's okay. But I heal somebody on a Sabbath, and now you're really ticked off. What's your problem? What's your problem? You will fulfill the circumcision law on the Sabbath, but if I heal someone who's been sitting there for years, and you guys haven't done anything, Not even to help him to the pool.

And now I come and heal him and tell him to take up his pallet and walk. Which, by the way, if he carries it, you're upset. But if two guys carry him on the Sabbath, then you're not upset. What's the deal? You guys are making up rules. And the one that you made up, doesn't allow me to heal this guy, but because I healed him on the Sabbath, and told him to pick up his pallet and walk, you guys are ready to kill me. And I just happened to pop up here in the middle of the day, in the middle of the temple, and that's the only reason you're not doing it. Okay.

Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment. Judge with righteous judgment. And by the way, that's an imperative. You must judge with righteous judgment. What was he saying about the judgment that they were having regarding him? It wasn't righteous. The bottom line is you guys are judging according to superficial appearances. You are not judging with righteous judgment. You must judge with righteous judgment. I'm telling you, You are not judging with righteous judgment, but that's what you must do.

And of course they love to hear that, right? They're just delighted. Yes. It's not just superficial, it's also selfish. Yes. I mean everything that they judge is for their own personal benefit. And again, where can you go if that doesn't happen today? Yeah. It's everywhere. Yeah. I'm guilty of it as well as everybody else. Yeah. So, Jesus has a bold accusation here. None of you carries out the law. None of you carries out the law. He didn't say some of you don't carry out some of the law. None of you carries out the law. Hmm.

His reasoning is, if none of you carries out the law, why do you seek to kill me by claiming falsely that I have broken one law of the Sabbath? The crowd, not the Jewish leaders who are seeking to kill him, says that Jesus has a demon because they are unaware of anyone trying to kill him. Jesus takes it right to the pivotal point at which they are determined to kill him when Jesus healed the lame man in Sabbath and told him to pick up his pallet and walk. The Jews allowed a baby boy to be circumcised on the eighth day even if it was on Sabbath, but would not allow Jesus to make a lame man well on Sabbath. He told them that they must judge with righteous judgment, implying they had not done so. It's pretty strongly implied. It's not a mild indication. If we look at this, here is Jesus.

Is he settling their minds and making them more agreeable and accommodating to his viewpoint? Not so much. Why is he not just calming them down and settling their minds and just putting oil in the water so to speak? Why isn't he just speaking more calmingly and conciliatory, trying to get them to settle down?

I think part of it is because it's supposed to be He knows that they're going to have the Sanhedrin judge him, so he's got to get a significant number of the people of the Sanhedrin to hate him enough that they will both have him crucified. Yeah, and think about this, and it's not his time yet. I mean, you might think, okay, I'm going to stay away from Jerusalem, but he doesn't do that. You might think, well he's going to go there and just kind of keep them placated. Try to settle things down. But he doesn't seem to do that. What's his strategy?

He couldn't speak anything but the truth. Ah, okay. He couldn't do otherwise. Okay. So he is going to tell them the truth, right? That's one thing. Yeah? He came to fulfill the law. They're not fulfilling it. They're totally wrong. You don't have to make them hate him. They're simply wrong and he came to fulfill the law the way it was supposed to be lived out. That's a key point.

A lot of people will look at Jesus' teachings and the reality is when he spoke to the Jews, he would talk to them about the law. That's what the Sermon on the Mount does, especially chapter 5. You've heard that it was said, but I say to you again and again. They had various things they were saying about the law. What he does, he comes back to the law. He doesn't set it aside. He doesn't set it aside.

And so a lot of Jesus teaching people will take at face value and start trying to apply it to themselves, not realizing, hey, wait a minute, he's talking to Jews who are under the law, and what he spent a lot of time doing was correcting their misunderstandings about the law.

And when he did so, and you can go through all four Gospels, I've looked through it and I've been astounded. All four Gospels have significant accounts of Jesus deliberately healing on the Sabbath. Or doing other miracles. On the Sabbath, again and again and again.

And it did not make them calmer. Now let's ask this. It would be about six months out and Jesus would in fact be crucified. losing the PR campaign. As a matter of fact, we just saw in the previous chapter, a bunch of disciples walked away, quit following him. Was Jesus failing? Why or why not? From the human perspective, it was.

From a human perspective, we would say, well this guy is losing the PR campaign. Matter of fact, he is deliberately losing the PR campaign. He is torpedoing his chance of winning this thing. He's picking his healing on the wrong day, and then instead of just kind of going away quietly, he goes and talks about it and tells the people that they're wrong.

Right there in the middle of the temple where these people have power and they've got temple guards. By the way, these temple guards were not some kind of amateurs. In four decades, they would take out the Romans that are in that fortress that we looked at. These are not amateurish guys. They could have called the temple guards on Jesus. And they were right there. They could have done that.

Yeah. But he was doing God's will. He knew what God's will was. Yeah, isn't this interesting that our measures of, now look, I've got a PR campaign, you know, how do I pull this thing off? Our measures would say he blew it. Again and again he blew it.

And, you know, here we are, he's calling disciples, right? And now we just saw in the last chapter what are the disciples doing? A lot of them are turning away. I would say that Jesus is sowing the seeds of future conviction afterwards, especially at the time of Pentecost. Yeah, yeah. It's very interesting if you look at any worldly strategy. He's blowing it in the PR campaign.

If the job is to go and get a bunch of disciples, well that's not working. That's not working too well. And by the way, if the job is to pick disciples who are going to be really good PR campaign and public relations people and marketing people for him afterwards, how good did he do with that?

Not so good, right? In fact, one of the 12 was the guy he knew was going to betray him. So how's this working? From a human standpoint, we would all say, you know, look, going for the MBA class, you get an F, maybe a D-, because this isn't working good. This isn't working very well.

And yet Jesus, knowing full well what the future would hold, deliberately picks that path. And deliberately chose the people that he chose. I have a sense that the educated leaders knew from the scriptures that he was correct on the right path. But it wasn't their plan, their path. And they were being told they were wrong. And they all were going to get rid of this guy was to prove him and just say they didn't want their unrighteousness or their wrongful and unlawful to be pointed out so publicly or wrong to them.

That's another question. Are they going to get at a point Where they just say, you know, we're not going to be arguing with you or challenging you again because we're going to take you out. We're just, you know, forget it. We're not going to have these public confrontations. We're just going to take you out when the time comes and that's it.

Do they give up? In fact, they don't. And we'll see that as we get farther on. Even in the days right before they crucify him. They are still coming up with questions. The Sadducees take their turn and finally throw up their hands, just days before he's crucified. And then the Pharisees try and then they throw up their hands. But even in the last week, they're still challenging him verbally. and Jesus doesn't back off. So are any of these people that are testing him, are they rabbis or teachers that would be teaching a different philosophy? Oh yes, definitely.

Here is one reason why. He could get away with saying, you guys, none of you follow the law. It's because their own opinions as to what was following the law varied so widely. I remember Arnold Fruchtenbaum telling the story about that. And I told it before, but just for fun. here are these Jewish people and they're squabbling, you know, the tradition is this, and then the other one, no, the tradition is this, and they're squabbling and arguing and going back and forth, and then finally the rabbi walks in the room, and one group of them says, rabbi, rabbi, isn't this the tradition, and that's not the tradition, you know. And then the other group says, ah, then isn't this other thing, isn't that the tradition? And he says, no, that's not the tradition. So then they got into this huge, huge battle and argument. He says, that's the tradition.

So the reality is they always had debates going back and forth. And as a matter of fact, one of the things the gospel writers made note of is that Jesus said things definitively. where it was common among the rabbis to kind of leave you in this tension, well it might be this, it might be that. And to constantly be presenting this sort of dichotomy and you're pulled in this dichotomy about, well it might be this, it might be that. I think that still goes on today, I was listening to the radio. Miller is a rabbi inviting everybody to a Seder dinner and he said the exact same thing. It is a tradition to have this ongoing tension about different things. ongoing arguments among them about this or that, among many many different things.

And Jesus cut across that entire set of traditions and said this is the truth, that's not the truth, you know you've heard that it was said da da da da da da But I tell you, yes. So isn't that part of the problem that the Jewish people always had, like with Pontius Pilate and Herod and the Roman soldiers and collecting taxes. I mean, just about everything they did was an argumentative, I'm always right. Yes. There's no specific rule, tradition and you know, what a kind of, what a kind of... Well, let's see this, see this model here and see that.

That defensive wall, this northern defensive wall wasn't built during the time of Christ, but they did have these other walls. When the Romans were coming up against the walls, the Jews who would not fight, who were inside the walls, were slaughtered. Why? There was difference of opinion. And those who were ready to fight the Jews, excuse me, fight the Romans, couldn't handle having Jews inside the walls who were neutral. So they killed their fellow countrymen because of this, okay we got this idea and we got this one.

And now this comes down to the last moment and you're dead. The last group of the descendants of Esau were let in just before the Romans came. And that's the last ever heard from them. So interesting, we have millions of Jews on the planet now, but of the descendants of the brother of Jacob, Esau, nobody has that claim anymore. Doesn't mean that there aren't any, but nobody who's identifiable as a descendant of Esau. So this back and forth, this squabbling, that's a long-standing tradition and it's a costly one. But Jesus did not give them any slack. None of you. None of you follows the law. Why? Because you've got all kinds of cooked up loopholes. Because you've got varying opinions about what the law of Moses says. He says, that's rubbish.

You've heard that it was said, even hate your enemy. By the way, not even the scribes and Pharisees taught hate your enemy. Not even the Sadducees taught hate your enemy. But the Essenes, a group not mentioned by name in the New Testament, they taught hatred. So Jesus says, there's another tradition at odds with the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

There is another tradition and that's wrong too. That's wrong too. And wasn't John Baptist an Essene? Some have speculated that he is. I think not. I think not. And one of the reasons why I think not is because the Essenes would have said, hate your enemy. And you see no evidence of that. He speaks strongly, but he doesn't do that. And Jesus never corrects him on that teaching. So that would be one instance of why I think it might not. Was John considered a Nazirite?

Yeah, he would have been wanted to consider taking that vow or something of that sort. Okay, we're running out of time here, so let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the clarity with which you've spelled things out here. We also thank you, too, that what seems like it would be a wise thing to do and say is not what you did and said. But in fact, you laid out the truth and you said things even though within less than a year would mean your life. We thank you for laying these truths out before us as we continue through this chapter and see how you speak the truth. We pray this in Jesus' name.