I want us to turn in our Bibles
to John chapter 7 briefly this morning and just want us to look
at this first story here and I want us again to be reminded
that nothing has changed. Nothing has changed. God has
not changed. God's way of saving His bride
has not changed. And one of the glorious declarations
of our God is that, I change not, Malachi chapter 3. I change
not. Therefore you sons of Jacob are
not consumed. God doesn't change. And man doesn't change, and religious
man doesn't change. And so, when we come to the New
Testament, we need to keep asking our God to show us from the Scriptures
what we see around us today. and it's there, and the problem
is just our sight, not the reality of what is going on. We read
these verses earlier. And here we have a picture of
God coming to his temple to gather his bride, and these men have
just one intention in mind, and that is to kill him. To kill
him because of his mercy to a cripple. To kill him because in his mercy
to a cripple, in John chapter 5, he exposed them. And that's the reality that we
see here, isn't it? The Lord Jesus Christ, by His
actions, exposes the religious people and by His actions, He
exposes His bride and brings her into His presence. And so,
the Lord Jesus Christ is light and that light shines in this
world. And the great description of
this world, isn't it, is that this is the condemnation, this
is the judgment. So all the evidence is in as
far as God is concerned. This is the judgment. This is
not preliminary to the judgment. This is the judgment. This is
the condemnation that light has come into the world, John 3,
19, and men loved darkness. They loved darkness. They didn't
just dwell in it, but they loved darkness rather than light because
their deeds were evil. These men have heard those words
relate to them again and again and again. So let's go back and
have a look at this extraordinary picture. In verse 43, there was
a division because of him. And there was a division and
there was confusion about him. Nothing has changed. There's
a division in this world and there is a confusion and there
is contradiction in the attitudes and the actions and the thoughts
of men about the Lord Jesus Christ. It is confusing. And the reason
it is confusing is because of the darkness. And the answer
to the confusion is to shine light. And so, when we come together,
we want to have the Lord Jesus Christ lifted up. And we want
to, if there's any confusion, to lift Him up even higher. Because
He says, when I'm lifted up, I'll draw all men to Myself.
He'll draw all these people to Himself. And so, the more clearly
he is seen, the more clearly his bride is seen, and the more
clearly we see him in sovereign rule and control over all things. These men are in his hand, aren't
they? There's a verse that you'll come
to love as you study the scriptures, and it says, "...the wrath of
man shall praise him, and the remainder he shall restrain."
And he begins that verse in Psalm 76, 10 by saying, surely. So
there's two things happening with the wrath of man against
God in this world. One is, it'll appraise him. And
the other one is, he restrains it. And if we had a glimpse of
how the Lord Jesus Christ So we have to remember who we're
dealing with here. This is the Sanhedrin. These are the leaders. The Pharisees dressed themselves
in their broad phylacteries. If you've ever seen the Jew getting
dressed for his worship service, I've seen it a few times and
it's just remarkable the ritual they go on. It takes them half
an hour to get themselves all dressed up and get their phylacteries
on, get all the bands around and kiss this and kiss that.
But these are the members of the Sanhedrin as well, and you
can imagine in that ecclesiastical structure, you had the Pharisees
and you had the Sadducees who when they came to the Sanhedrin,
the robes that they wore would have been quite remarkable. They
would have been set apart, wouldn't they? So here they are. They
would have taken him, verse 44, but no man laid hands on him. Then verse 45, you can't lay
hands on the Lord Jesus Christ until He gives you the opportunity.
They will lay hands on Him. They will lay hands on Him, and
He'll give Himself into their hands. He gave His back to the
smiters. No one lays hands on Him. Verse
45, Then came the officers to the chief priests and the Pharisees,
and they said unto them, Why have you not brought Him in? Now it's remarkable to think
what was going on here. This is the last of the Great Day
of the Feast. The Great Day of the Feast, this
eight-day feast that finished with this Sabbath. What are these
men doing? Everyone else is in the temple
worshipping God in some way. Everyone else is participating.
And what's the Sanhedrin doing? They've gathered themselves together
away from all this to have a council of war against the Lord Jesus
Christ and they've sent out these soldiers on their behalf. And the Lord is there. All of
these events happened in the temple courts. They didn't have
to leave the temple courts and the surroundings of the temple
to have their meetings in the Sanhedrin. And so the Lord Jesus
Christ was speaking to the people and declaring Himself to be that
One that if anyone believeth on Me. Out of his belly shall
flow rivers of living water. He was declaring himself to be
that temple. He was declaring himself to be the tabernacle.
He was declaring himself to be the rock. Everything about their
festival was about the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified and
him delivering his people out of bondage of Egypt. into the
glorious liberty of the sons of God in Canaan. It was all
about Him. They lived for 40 years because
He fed them with manna from heaven. They lived for 40 years because
water gushed from the rock which was Him, that smitten rock. Everything
about the tabernacle, everything about the wilderness, everything
about the temple, everything about this worship, all spoke
of the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And there they
are, turning their backs on Him, and having a council of war.
And he's just within hundreds of yards of them. He's not far
away at all, brothers and sisters. They could have gone to him and
asked him, but they sent their soldiers out to arrest and to
kill the Lord. So they turn, just get the picture,
they turn from he who is the light of the world and go into
a secret place to have their counsel of war and then they
send his soldiers out to arrest the Lord Jesus Christ so that
they control him. And the whole purpose of it was
that they could kill him. And they were concerned that
if they didn't do it on this last and great day of the feast that
he would disappear as he did from Jerusalem and they would
have to wait months for him to come back again so they could
continue their devious schemes. I want us to see how dark religion
is. Religion without Christ, and
it doesn't matter what sort of religion, it doesn't matter what
name it has, what ism is attached to it, what denomination it is, It is just man's way of justifying
himself. And it's entrapping. The darkness
is entrapping of man. It's entrapping of the self-righteous
man. And the entrapment of religion
is that the more of it you do, and the more active you are in
it, and the more highly esteemed you are in it, The more the darkness
is. The more the darkness is. And
it's all always hypocritical in Matthew chapter 16, the Lord
says to his disciples, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees,
the scribes and the Pharisees, this group of people. Because
their leaven, what is their leaven? It's hypocrisy. It's hypocrisy. And the word hypocrisy comes
from the word to act, isn't it? It's putting on a mask. It's
pretending to be something that you're not. Why didn't? Why didn't
these religious leaders, who had thousands of troops at their
call, why didn't they go out into temple courts and arrest
the Lord Jesus Christ? They had a fear of man and no
fear of God, and they were highly esteemed in their own eyes. They
sent these officers a second time then, verse 32. They sent
them the first time and they'd obviously failed. And now they
send them a second time. to arrest the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is a lesson for us, isn't there? My friends, any religious
organisation that ever resorts to force or the power of man's
arm are no longer serving God in any way at all. Their power might be effective.
You just think of the power of religious organizations in this
world to survive thousands of years. Their power might be effective. Their power might entice multitudes
of people. There are 1.5 billion people
trapped in Catholicism, there are billions of people trapped
in other religious institutions of various sorts. Their power
might be effective and in the minds of men it might be highly
esteemed. But God is not in it, brothers
and sisters. And this is a great picture,
isn't it? The Lord Jesus Christ was there in these temple courts,
calling his people, commanding his people to come to him and
drink. And these people would turn their back on him and gather
in their secret castle. Every and any religion that says
that you must You must, and you can fill in the blanks, you must
to be saved at the beginning of your salvation, or you must
to continue to be saved, or you must to receive some reward. But I love the pictures of the
absolute sovereignty of God in the face of his enemies. Don't
you love the fact that God reigns and rules over everything? That
we walk through this place, the angels are encamped around us.
No harm can befall the righteous as they walk through this world.
There'll be harm in all sorts of other ways that we see, but
there's no harm befalls the righteous. Their souls are the righteous.
God works all things for their good. The officer said, Never
man spake like this man. From the lips of the enemies
of the Lord Jesus Christ comes this glorious description of
our Saviour. The Lord so moved these men that
they became preachers of his those who wanted to silence him. If you don't love the sovereignty
of God, brothers and sisters, I pray that he does cause you
to love it. He does rule over all. The wrath of men is either
restrained or praised. Never man spake like this man. They failed on their mission
from that religious mob. And yet they were on a mission
for the Lord Jesus Christ, weren't they? And my prayer for you and
for me and for any that might ever listen to us is that this
might be our testimony. Jesus Christ. If he ever speaks,
if you ever hear him speak, and he doesn't speak audibly, but
he does speak through his word, and he does especially speak
through his word preached and the gospel proclaimed, if you
ever hear him speak, you'll be saying exactly what these men
said. Never anyone spoke like this. This is not the words of
men. We are ambassadors of Christ. We don't talk about hearing an
audible voice from God. We don't need signs and wonders
and visions to have faith or to uphold our faith. God, Hebrews
1, God who at sundry times and in diverse manners spoke in time
past unto our fathers by the prophets. There are many ways
of God speaking to people in the Old Testament scriptures.
Hath in these last days spoken to us by sun. The last words of God to this
creation is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. "...whom He hath
appointed heir of all things. By Him also He made the world,
who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of
His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power."
Even the chair you're sitting on right now on the floor that
we're sitting those chairs on on this earth is upheld by Him,
by the word of His power. When he had, this is one of the
most glorious sentences in all scripture, when he had by himself
purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty
on high. When God speaks these days, he's
gonna speak those words. And he'll speak them again and
again and again. purged our sins. What glorious words the Lord
Jesus Christ has spoken just in these seven chapters. He says at the beginning, doesn't
he, in John chapter one, he says to those disciples, come and
see. Isn't that a glorious word to
you and me? Come and see. He said to that
woman at the well, if you knew the gift of God and who it give, he said to that noble man
whose son was dying, he said, go thy way, thy son lives. And that man immediately rested
in a word that came from God. No man ever spoke like this man. He said to that cripple that
caused all of this problem, he says, rise, take up thy bed and
walk. No man ever spoke like that. No man ever speaks and
creates as the Lord Jesus Christ does. But His words are not just
words, audible words, they are words of Spirit, aren't they?
He says it's the Spirit that gives life, the Spirit quickeneth,
the Holy Spirit. The flesh profits nothing. If
we'd ever learn that, brothers and sisters, it would be a great
lesson. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak unto you,
John 6, 63, the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and
they are life. Nicodemus heard the Lord Jesus
Christ speak words, and they were like a stone in his shoe
that he could never get rid of. And let's see, Nicodemus speaking.
Again, he said to Nicodemus, you must be born again. You must
have a birth from heaven, otherwise you can't see that there is a
kingdom of God. And you must be born from heaven
to enter the kingdom of God. So how did the Lord Jesus Christ
speak? Well, in those days, He spoke
boldly, didn't He? That's what it says in this passage
you read earlier. He just spoke boldly. He spoke
openly and He spoke in the very temple courts and in the presence
of those who He knew and they knew had designs only to kill
Him. He spoke openly, he spoke boldly,
and so should all of God's preachers. We have nothing to hide. We don't
want to complicate the Word of God with the clever words of
man's wisdom. We just speak the truth of God
in simplicity, as much simplicity as we possibly can. We've got
nothing to hide, but nothing to be ashamed of. We've got nothing
you'd ever want to change. What on earth would you ever
want to change from the Word of God? We have nothing we want
to change to suit the audience. We have no reason to change any
words. Grace and truth fell continually
from his lips. And what did he speak? He spoke
with the authority of God Almighty. I don't love what he said. He
says, I say unto you, you've heard it read, I say unto you,
he claimed and openly claimed all of the authority of divinity
all the time. He openly claimed that all of
these scriptures were about him. He says, to look earlier in John
5, he says, Moses wrote of me. The Old Testament is about the
Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified. It's not a bunch of good time
stories and it's not a bunch of morality. It is a declaration
of the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. His sovereign
rule and reign over all things and Him gathering His bride to
Himself. The Gospel in the Old Testament
is the Gospel in the New Testament. He doesn't have to say anything
different to Adam and Eve. He's asked of the last person
that's on this earth. Where are you? Why didn't these people believe? He'd spoken so clearly. He had
declared himself to be God. He had revealed himself to be
nothing other than the Christ that they had been anticipating.
And all of these ceremonies and all of their religious activity,
in a sense, was in preparation. If we can get this place ready
for the Messiah, the Messiah will come. They knew he was coming. They were waiting for him to
come, and every time there was any hint that someone like him
might have come, they sent a delegation off to check out John the Baptist,
whether he's the Christ, to check out the Lord Jesus Christ. So
they were anticipating, and he comes along and says, here I
am. I am the Christ. I am the Christ. And everything
about me proves it, from every scripture that you hold dear. Why didn't they believe? No man, no man can come to me,
unless the Father who has sent me draw him. And he says to them
in John 5, 46, for had you believed Moses, you'd actually believe
it was written in the Old Testament Scriptures, you would have believed
me, for he wrote a meme. But if you believe not his writings, and they didn't hear God speaking
to them. There's a verse that I find very
instructive about this in Acts chapter 13. You can turn there
or I can just read it to you. But this is Paul's estimation
of these people in Jerusalem. He says in verse 27, For they
that dwell at Jerusalem and their rulers, because they knew him
not, nor yet the voices of the prophets, which I read every
Sabbath day." They read them every Sabbath day, and they know
them off by heart, and they claim to believe them, but they don't
actually hear a voice. I was at the coffee shop the
other day, and there was a fellow there who was wearing sunglasses
and a hat, and I didn't recognize him. He's lost a stack of weight
in this last however many years. I haven't seen him for a number
of years, and he spoke. Immediately, as soon as he spoke,
one word, I knew exactly who it was, and I agreed, hi Graham,
how are you? I didn't recognize him from a
bar or so, but I couldn't, anyway. That's exactly what happens,
isn't it? There is a voice from God that speaks, and he speaks
through his word. They knew him not, they didn't
know God, and they didn't hear, didn't know the voices of the
prophets. And they read them every Sabbath
day, and what are they doing? It says Acts 13, 27. in condemning him. So there they
are, knowing the word of God and not hearing God speaking
to them. He speaks. He speaks. And when he speaks, he speaks
to his own and he calls his own. In John chapter 7, he says, He goes before his sheep, and
his sheep follow him, for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not
follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of
strangers. He speaks, but he speaks especially
and particularly to his bride, and in a way which is powerful
and effective. So what was the impact of these
words on these soldiers? They sat and listened to him
for a while, and they were such awe of what he said. Such awe
of how he said it, such awe of the impact that his words had
on those that were listening to them. What was the impact
on their soldiers? They had a simple task, a command
from the Sanhedrin, just go and arrest that man. And they did
his will. They did His will and not the
will of the Pharisees, and they were sent back by the Lord to
confess the truth of the Lord's voice. Never a man spoke like
this man. They went back and said, this
is no ordinary man out there speaking. This is no ordinary
man. He might look like an ordinary
carpenter from Galilee to you guys. And he might have a Galilean
accent, possibly, that you despise, you learned, cultured men of
Jerusalem. But no man ever spoke like this
man. No man ever spoke. And in a sense, they were saying,
why don't you go and hear him yourself? He's had such an impact
on us. Why don't you just go and listen
for a little while? And they had remarkable courage. These
people had power of life and death over so many people, didn't
they? And they had, in the face of
that Sanhedrin, the courage to admit the truth. knowing that
it wouldn't be accepted by them. It's remarkable, isn't it? I'm
not saying that these men are believers. All I'm saying is
that this is the power and the impact of the voice of the Lord
God. And what's the response of the
religious leaders? Nothing has changed. Please remember,
nothing has changed. Then answered then the Pharisees,
are you all so deceived? It's the religious world's response
to true believers, and it always has been, and it always will
be, until the Lord's response. You are deceived. You are deceived. Anyone who hears the Lord's voice
and has a powerful impact on them, a life-changing impact,
they will be declared to have been deceived. That some clever
manipulative who has been very, very clear in his words and his
actions has deceived you. All true believers are considered
heretics by the religious world, always. The harlot soldiers heard
these words, which impacted them deeply. But the Pharisees see
these very same words as the words of a deceiver. The next
chapter, the Lord will go on to speak to these Pharisees and
tell them that they are the children of the devil, They are the children
of the devil and they are always doing their father's business.
And what's the devil's activity? He is a liar and a murderer. How does he get you killed, eternally
killed? He comes and tells you lies.
He'll tell you lies about yourself, he'll tell you lies about God,
and most particular, he will tell them in such a way that
you won't even know he exists. He hides himself. He hides himself
from people. And listen to the response of
these religious leaders. Have any of the rulers or of
the Pharisees believed on him? This is where their assurance
came from, wasn't it? Their associations and their
history and their traditions. And then listen. They were seeking
earthly comfort and earthly power, power and position so highly
esteemed among men, a position of status among people. It's
going on in all this world, isn't it? In this religious world and
in this secular world. But verse 49, listen to their
response. Listen to their response to the
people who sat listening to the Lord Jesus Christ. This people,
who know not the law are cursed." Who was responsible in Israel
for teaching these people the law? It was the Sanhedrin's responsibility
to teach these people the law. If they were ignorant of the
law, who was responsible? They were responsible. Basically
they're saying, we know God's law, We know His word so very
well it allows us to stand in judgment of these people and
call them cursed. That's a serious word in the Scriptures, brothers
and sisters. It's only ever used two other times in the New Testament,
and both of them are about the Lord Jesus Christ being made
a curse for us. It's a really serious word. It's
to be under the judgment of God and there be no respite. They are condemning the people
that they were responsible for to hell because they listened
to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's extraordinary, isn't it?
Did they have any love for them? Did they have any care for them? They were their responsibility.
They were shepherds put in that position. They saw themselves
as the shepherds of these people. They turn upon the sheep and
say, they're just a cursed group. Once again, I want to remind
you of how evil and deceptive religion works, religion, self-righteous
religion, religion which is esteemed and popular among men. is so
dishonoring to God, but so terribly, terribly cruel to people. Because
it says to people, if you did like I did, you would not be
cursed. If you knew the law like I did,
if you were able to make the judgments about God and his word
that I can make, you would not be cursed. And then, These words that the soldiers
heard brought courage to them in the face of those who were
going to accuse them of such wickedness, but also it brought
courage to Nicodemus. Listen to verse 50. Nicodemus
saith unto them... This is one man out of 70. One man out of all the religious
leadership in all of Israel at the time was prepared to say
this. One man, he that came to Jesus
by night, being one of them, he was still considered one of
them. We'll find out as we get on in John's Gospel that he's
no longer one of them when he goes to the cross of the Lord
Jesus and honours his death. He says, Does our Lord judge
any man before it hears him and knows what he's done? Does our Lord judge? Is it right
under our Lord people we've heard from. Natural
justice would cause you to think that that is not right, and the
scriptures are saying exactly the same thing in Deuteronomy
chapter 1 and in many, many other places. You can't imagine God
wanting his people to bring accusations and put people to death without
even hearing what they have said. No man ever spoke like this man.
He had spoken to Nicodemus. What a contrast between Nicodemus
and these men. All he's doing is saying, just
look at the evidence. Will you look at the evidence?
Will you go back and look at what our law said? This man, the Lord Jesus, spoke
as no other man, and he'd spoken to Nicodemus, and Nicodemus has
heard things. And then they answered him. They
answered him and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? So what's the accusation? He's
come from Galilee. Search and look, for out of Galilee
arises no prophet. There's no prophet that comes
from Galilee. So the remarkable thing is he asked him a simple
question about the law. Does the law allow us to condemn
a man of death when we haven't heard any evidence from him and
haven't heard from his own mouth? And their answer is not... That's
what the law says. We're not allowed to do that.
We are now breaking the law. The law had no impact on these
people in their hearts. They didn't answer his question
at all. They just accused him of being
in league with these other people from Galilee. He reminded them
of the law in Exodus 20, 23, 1 and Deuteronomy 1, Chapter
16. He makes it so abundantly clear.
So they were wrong about the law, but they didn't answer his
question. They go off and find another
way to deal with the situation. They're wrong. They're wrong
about the fact that prophets came out of Galilee. At least
two, possibly three of the Old Testament prophets came out of
Galilee. Jonah came from Galilee. Navel probably came from Capernaum,
and Hosea came from Galilee. And the other thing is that the
Scriptures don't give the birthplace of all the prophets, and so they're
wrong, they're lying. They claim to know these, and
they claim to base everything they're doing on the Word of
God, and they don't know it. And every man, verse 53, went
to his own house. They all went home, and there
was the Lord It was the day, as the scriptures
say, one of the days of his visitation. It's a special thing when the
Lord visits. It's a very, very extraordinary thing when the
Lord visits and speaks. And what a wonderful thing for
him to speak. And for you to say, as Samuel
said when he heard him speaking in 1 Samuel, And what were they doing? What
were they doing in their homes that night? Obviously, they knew
that the Lord Jesus Christ and the people, after the last day
of the feast, would have one more session in Jerusalem and
he would speak to them. What were they doing that night?
The Lord Jesus Christ went to the Mount of Olives, that place
where he was reminded again and again of the sacrifice that he
must bear on Calvary's tree, that place where he sweat those
great drops of blood, that place where he pleaded with his father
if it's possible to take this cup from me. He looked into that
cup and he was absolutely horrified. And they were in their houses,
in the dark, plotting and scheming to catch a woman in adultery
the next morning. I heard the voice of Jesus say,
Behold, I freely give. The living water thirsty ones
stoop down and drink and live. I came to Jesus and I drank of
that life-giving stream. My thirst was quenched, my soul
revived, and now I live in him. Amen. Let's have a break.