All right, looking at John chapter
10 again. In verse 34, our Lord quotes scripture. Jesus answers them, is it not
written in your law? I have said you are gods. If
he called them gods, to whom the word of God came, And the
scripture cannot be broken. What about the one whom the father
set apart as his very own and sent into the world? As we noted
when we read this scripture a few minutes ago, this happened during
what is called in modern days Hanukkah. It was a feast. The feast was never ordered by
the Lord. That is, you won't be able to
go back in the Old Testament and find anywhere where the Lord
said, you must keep this feast of dedication. It is the result
of the efforts of a family and eventually a kingly dynasty,
the Maccabees, who during the times of Antiochus Epiphanes
had wreaked havoc on Jerusalem, including setting up idols next
to the temple, excuse me, next to the altar right there in the
temple grounds. And the Maccabees rose up, it
was a family, and led other rebels and eventually Antiochus and
his cohorts were driven out. And so they went in and they
cleansed or rededicated the temple, purified it from its idols, and
that's why it's called the Feast of Dedication. And the legend
is, and you won't find it in scripture so we can't call it
anything other than a legend, they did not have sufficient
oil to put in the candelabra, the light stand that
was inside the holy place. They didn't have enough to run
it for the required amount of time, but lo and behold, they
burned for the several days that were required. And so they counted
that a miracle of God that he sustained that flame, even though
they did not have sufficient oil for a flame. Now again, we
can't state that that actually happened with scriptural authority,
because you don't find that in scriptures. Those stories are
contained in what is called the Apocrypha, which is a set of
writings which some groups include as part of the Old Testament,
but has not been considered part of the scriptures by very many
people. At any rate, that's when this
was happening. So December, early January, and this is probably
the winter right before our Lord's crucifixion. Say, well, what
makes you think that? Well, this is chapter 10. Chapter
11 is about Lazarus being raised from the dead. And that resulted
immediately in them trying to find a way to put Christ to death.
Then you're into chapter 12 and Chapter 12 begins with six days
before the crucifixion. So I'm assuming this is the Hanukkah,
the feast of dedication, just before the Passover on which
our Lord was crucified. And what was bothering them was
Him identifying Himself with the Father. Now, our Lord never
did say, plainly, Remember how they said, why don't you tell
us plainly if you're the Christ? He never did say that plainly
in the way that they wanted him to. Now, the things he said about
himself wouldn't necessarily lead to the conclusion that he
is the Christ. And they understood also, if
he declares himself to be the Christ, he's declared himself
to be the son of God. And if he declares himself to
be the son of God, he has declared himself to be God. Now they have
been trying to find a way. Just like the political world,
you see how that works. Somebody in the political world,
if there's somebody they want to get rid of, they just lay
in wait until they can Entrap them in something they believe
they can use politically against them to get them in trouble,
you know criminalize their conduct or whatever and that goes on
and you know throughout politics and That's what these guys were
doing. They were lying in wait. They
were trying to entrap the Lord Jesus make him say something
That would seem so outrageous to everyone that they would go
along with their plan to get rid of him And they were trying
to entrap him in blasphemy by claiming himself to be God. Of course, he had said just a
couple of chapters earlier, I believe it is, he said, unless you believe
that I am, you will die in your sins. Now, most translations
say, unless you believe I am he. But the word he is added. You don't find that in the Greek
text. I believe our Lord was saying, unless you believe, that
I am that one who spoke to Moses in the bush and said, my name
is I Am, which would identify him with
the God of the Israelites, Jehovah, Yahweh, however it's pronounced. So when he said, unless you believe
that I am, he said, if you don't recognize that I am the one who
in the beginning created the heavens and the earth, that I
am the one who gave the law, that I am the one who spoke and
it was, who commanded and stood firm, if you don't understand
I am, I am, you will die in your sins. And so of course that meant they
thought they had a right to stone him to death. And he said, what
of my miraculous works are you stoning me for? And they said,
well, not for any of those. See, they couldn't deny his miraculous
works. I find that very interesting.
These men, much as they hated Christ, they could not deny that
he was actually doing what everyone was saying he was doing. Not
that he, you know, just healed somebody here and then weeks
or months later healed someone else, but that he waded through
crowds touching and healing people. That he caused a man who was
born blind to be able to see. That he was able to speak a word
and blind Bartimaeus could see. That those that were crippled
immediately received strength. And you know, the more we learn
about the human body, the more amazing it is what our Lord did.
I remember, this was some years ago, vision, the ability to see
is not just a product of your eyes. I've always known that
the brain had to interpret the information that was given. What
I didn't realize is that interpretation has to be learned. That's why
sometimes you look at babies and their eyes are going everywhere.
They haven't yet learned how to see. They haven't yet learned
how to make sense of the information. They eventually do. So if you have a man who's born
blind and you make it so that not only instantly do his eyes
work, but his brain knows what to do with the information that's
being sent there, now that's quite something. I mean, just
being able to make the eyes work would be quite something, but
when we realize it takes more than that for someone just to
be able to see. And our Lord, with a word, makes
these things happen. And they didn't even try to deny
that that was really happening. You know, the so-called miracle
workers of our day, their miracles are rare. and quite often found
to be fraudulent, which makes me think the rest of them are
fraudulent too. They could never do that to the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet, for all of that, they
could not understand who he was. God manifested in the flesh, revealed
in the flesh. And so he quoted a scripture
to them, And so let's turn to the scripture and we'll find
that our Lord, when he quoted this scripture, was saying a
lot more to them and about them than what may appear. So look
back at Psalm 82. In verse six of Psalm 82, and
we take this to be God speaking, Not the psalmist, the psalmist
is quoting God. I said, you are gods. You are
all sons of the Most High. Now, they didn't like that the
Lord had referred to himself or described himself as the son
of God. And that would mean he's God. However, God is quoted here as
saying to mere men, you are gods, you are all sons of most high.
Now, what is our Lord doing here? Why does he reference this? Because
these words were spoken by God to mere men. So why would that assert anything
about the superiority of the Lord Jesus Christ and his claim
to be God and the Son of God, how would that help him? Well,
our Lord Jesus put it this way. He said, now, if the scriptures,
and they can't be broken, if they said, ye are gods to those
to whom the word of God came, what are you going to say about
the one that God sanctified and sent? So essentially, what he's
saying to those Pharisees, those leaders of the Jews back then
that were trying to get it, you know, trap him in blasphemy,
he said, now, if he would use the word gods to describe those
to whom the word of God came, what are you gonna call the one
who is the word that came? That's what he's saying. If the God, the holy God, Jehovah,
said that these men, and we're gonna look at who they are here
in a minute, but these men, if he said, you are gods, and you all are okay with God
saying that, then what are you gonna say about me? Because I'm not just one of these
guys described in Psalm 82, to whom the word of God came. I
am the word of God who came. I'm the one who came to them, and I have now come to you, not just as a prophet bringing
the Word of God, but as one who is the Word of God." Now, how
does the psalmist describe these ones of whom the Lord said, you
are gods? Verse one, God presides in the
great assembly. He gives judgment among the gods. Now, our translation puts gods
in italics, not italics, I'm sorry, quotation marks. And of
course, you know, we do that in modern language to indicate
that maybe a sarcastic statement's being made or we're using a word
in a non-literal or an unusual way. In all actuality, the word
there, which in the Hebrew is Eil, it looks like L, just E-L,
but they pronounce it Eil, or Eil. And it's a word, you often find it
attached to other words, particularly names, like the name Michael. That's actually three syllables,
I think, in Hebrew because it would be Micah and then El. And other names, Ezekiel. And
all this indicates whatever the first part of the name means,
it's that of God. And so God, or the word El, is
a very generic word for gods. and was applied not only to the
true God, but it was used, just like we use the word God, we
might use it as a personal name, like we pray and speak, you know,
we call on God. And yet we'll talk about the
Roman gods and the Greek gods and all that. They also used
it to describe those who were very powerful among humanity. And you know what the nature
of powerful humans is. You call them God and they're
going to agree with you. They're going to think that if they are
not the God, they're certainly more than human. And some of
those old empire builders did set themselves forward as gods,
as literal super and even supreme beings. So when it says he gives judgment
among the gods, what he means is, or what he's saying here
is that God would preside in the assembly of those men who
were put in place by God to rule and govern the house of Israel.
And this would include prophets, and other, well, not only the
prophets, such as the ones we see mentioned in scripture, who
heard directly from God, but would also include those who
had been trained in the scriptures available that day and taught
the people of God. These are all the prophets, the
kings, the priests, all of these would have qualified under that
term. But notice what he says about them now. How long will
you defend the unjust? and show partiality to the wicked. Does that sound familiar to you?
Isn't that what men in power most often do? They curry the
favor of the powerful and the wealthy by giving them favorable
judgments that would never be given to someone who was poor
or insignificant. God goes on to describe these
men whom he had assigned the title Eil, and the plural of
that, well, aloha, it's not the Hawaiian greeting, aloha, something
like that, is the kind of expanded form of it, and elohim is the
plural of it. But he called them elohim. And he said, here's what you're
supposed to do. Defend the cause of the weak. Now this word translated
defend is the same word. You see what they did was defend
the strong. That is to render judgment, to
render favorable opinions to them. Defend the cause of the
weak and the fatherless. Maintain the rights of the poor
and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy. Deliver
them from the hand of the wicked. Now, you'll often find in the
scriptures a connection between the powerful and wealthy and
wickedness. And we know that by nature, the
rich are no different than anybody else. It's just that by their wealth
or by their position, they have been enabled to express their
wickedness in more destructive patterns than you and me are
able to do. You know, the old phrase says
power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I understand
why they say that, but really the corruption doesn't come from
the power. Just if you're put in a position where you have
enough wealth, you can buy people off, you can get anything you
want, Well, you can buy injustice and call it justice. And if you are wealthy enough,
you can even increase your wealth on the backs of the poor. And
those in power will say, it's OK. It's okay. And one reason maybe that you
and I do not express that same level of wickedness is simply
we can't get away with it. We don't have the wealth or the
power or the combination of both that enables us to do that and
still get away with it. So it's not the power that corrupts.
It's not the wealth that corrupts. All it does is open the valve
to let all that corruption out. But here is what those in power
are supposed to do. They are supposed to use their
power to defend the weak against the powerful. But that's not
what they do, not often anyway. Then the Lord goes on and said,
they know nothing. They understand nothing. They
walk about in darkness. All the foundations of the earth
are shaken. Now that word translated earth
can also mean and often is translated the land. Now this could be applied
worldwide, but he's only talking about the land of Israel here
and those whom God had raised up to lead the house of Israel. He said, you are gods and you
are supposed to Understand. You're supposed to have the wisdom
that produces justice, and you're supposed to hand out justice
impartially, but you don't. And because of this, the foundations
of the land, the nation, shake. You know, when there is not justice, a nation is heading towards a
big downfall. You can sustain this kind of
government only so long. Now, understand I'm not trying
to get into a political lesson here. What we are doing is, just
as the scriptures are doing here in Psalm 82, taking the political
realities of Israel and then showing them how they work in
the spiritual world, which is where our concern is. And that's when he said, I said,
you're gods, you're all sons of the Most High, but you will
die like mere men. God rebukes them for their injustice
and says to them, I put you in places of authority and power.
I gave you wealth. And with that, you were supposed
to defend the cause of the weak. But instead, you did it to oppress
the weak and to oppress the poor and to show contempt upon the
insignificant while you carried the favor of those who had power
and wealth like you. Well, I said you're gods, but
understand this, you will die like mere men. The other day I saw a headline,
and I didn't bother reading it, but now with the stuff going
on over there in Ukraine, is Putin the Antichrist? And I would
be more upset by that were not that I was raised in that very
attitude about things. I know where that comes from. And they're always looking for
someone to be the Antichrist, that they can identify them.
One time they even said it was Ronald Reagan, because his name
is Ronald Wilson Reagan, and each one of those names has six
letters in it, and of course that makes 666, obviously the
Antichrist. Oh, the Antichrist is much more
dangerous than any of those men are, because Antichrist is someone
who was a part and aligned himself with the church of God, but went
out and established other versions of Christianity in competition
with the truth. That's who Antichrist is. And
he's been around ever since Cain and Abel were around. The spirit
of antichrist. But here's the thing. I'm not
saying that these men don't cause a lot of pain and suffering.
Hitler was a mighty man. He would have come under the
category, the very general sense of this word, ale, gods. Where
is he? Rotten away somewhere. We've had, what are we on our
45th president now? And I think there's still four
or five of them still alive. All the presidents of the United
States, so they said, most powerful man in the free world. And now,
essentially, the most power, it's certainly the most powerful
office, single office, in the whole world. And yet, you know,
you're talking nearly 90% of them are all dead, just like
the rest of them. And Putin, he's having his day,
isn't he? He'll die. And what's interesting
here is the word translated man is the word Adam. We pronounce
it, Adam fallen man, corrupt man, man of the earth. That's
really what it means. So it doesn't matter what a man
here is. No matter how high he attains to, he said, you'll die. Just like Adam did. Oh, Adam
was something else. Adam was perfect, flawless. And still, when he rebelled against
God, what happened? He died. And he says, you will fall. like
every other ruler." The word translated ruler in the King
James, I think it says prince. And it could be referring to
nothing other than the sons of a king. But I do know that Paul
said, we wrestle not against flesh and blood. And then he
gives this list of spiritual things. One of them is principalities.
See, the first part of principality is the word prince. I do know
this, that Satan was not the only angel that fell. that he
was the leader of angels that rebelled. And what happened to
them? Every last one of them fell. For all their high and
mighty status that God had given them as these purely spiritual
beings who beheld his face and beheld his face in righteousness,
when they sinned, they fell. And so will these men. And then
it says, rise up, O God, verse eight, judge the earth or judge
the land For all the nations are your inheritance." Now, if
we go back to John chapter 10, what do we find? We find exactly
the kind of people, kind of rulers, that Psalm 82 is talking about. Men who have wealth and power
trying to curry the favor of other men with wealth and power. And in the process, they oppressed
the weak and the outcast. For example, we have the story
beginning actually in the last verse of John chapter 7. And it was when that woman taken
in adultery was brought before the Lord. And these were the
so-called gods, the mighty ones, the leaders. And they threw her
down in front of him and they had stones in their hand. Once
again, they're trying to trap him. And he said, we found this
woman taken in adultery. We caught her in the act. Moses
said she should be stoned. What do you say? Now, what they're
trying to do is trap him because if they can get him to speak
against Moses, it will turn the people against him. Of course,
they didn't realize the Lord was always a step or so ahead
of them and much wiser than them. And it says, he stooped down
and wrote in the ground. Brother Todd Nyberg pointed out
there's only one other time in the scriptures that we read of
God writing, or two other times, writing with his fingers like
that. One, he wrote the law. And two, there in the court of
the Persian king, when it says the fingers of a man's hand appeared,
mini, mini, tekel, ufersen. So our Lord stooped down and
wrote in the ground. It never says what he wrote,
but what if he who wrote the law began to write the law again? There in the dirt, maybe particularly
that one, thou shalt not commit adultery. And then he, there's another
exchange between him and those leaders, and then he stooped
down and wrote again. And then maybe he wrote the same thing
he wrote In that, on the walls there, Daniel interpreted it
for him. Those words mean you've been
weighed in the balances. You've been weighed in the balances
and you have been found wanting. They were there to accuse her
and condemn her for adultery. Maybe he wrote, thou shalt not
commit adultery. They would have agreed with that.
And then he says, you've been weighed into balances and found
wanting. I've always wondered, how did
they know how to catch this woman in the act? I mean, who knows
what's going on behind closed doors? How did they know? Maybe
some of them had been with her in times past. And he knew their
hearts. They had been able to cover their
sin with a cloak of self-righteousness. He uncovered them, said, you've
been weighed in the balances. You've been found wanting. You
may think you're gods. You may think you're the high
and mighty and powerful, but I judge with a just judgment.
I look beyond the outward appearance. I see the heart and you men are
as guilty as this woman. And he stood up and he said,
now, you without sin, You cast the first stone. See, that was
the law. If someone was to be stoned for a crime, if they were
found guilty and condemned to be stoned, the first stone had
to be thrown by the person who made the accusation. And he said,
all right. Yeah, that's what Moses said.
So you who are without sin. You cast the first stone. And their hearts had been pricked. And one by one, they dropped
their stones and walked away. And our Lord turned to that woman.
He did not excuse her sin. He did not say it was okay. He
didn't say, I understand, you know, you're poor, you need to
make a living somehow. He just said, Where are your
accusers? And she says, they're gone. He
says, well, I'm not going to accuse you either. There was
one man there without sin, and he refused to bring accusation
against this woman. Why? He was her savior. He came to bear her sin, not
to accuse her of it. He came to put away her sin,
not bring her into judgment for it. And those of mere men who
were given almost the title of God Himself, they were going
to oppress her. Because if they had gone through
with that, if they had stuck to their guns and started throwing
the stones and killed her, that would have struck fear into all
the others who were like her. or maybe we're guilty of different
sins, but they knew, oh, here's these guys, they'll kill you
if you don't do what they say. And he came and he delivered
that woman out of their hands, which is exactly what Psalm 82
said that these so-called gods were supposed to be doing, deliver
the weak out of the hands of the strong. There's more than one way to
be rich. You can be rich in wealth, or
as the Pharisees and other religious leaders tried to do, be wealthy
in righteousness of their own doing. And they use that wealth
and the power that goes with it to oppress the weak. But our Lord was sent Not as
one who would receive the word from God, but as one who is the
word of God. And who's not a God with quotation
marks around the word, indicating, well, you're a God in that you're
part of the high and mighty of humanity. Yeah, we can admit
that, you're part of that, but you aren't really God himself. He was above them. They were
gods in name only, and gods with quotation marks. He was the God,
the Word. The Word indeed had come to him,
or excuse me, come to these men. He had lived among them. He had
talked among them. John opens his gospel with, in
the beginning was the word, and here he is. He's been among them
now for about three years. He's taught them, he's opened
the scriptures to them, and they have refused him, and they have
rebelled against him. And he said, and you're upset
at me, that I've called myself God.
He said, God says, you are gods. But you're not doing what the
gods are supposed to do. You're not doing what the powerful
and wealthy and influential of this world is supposed to do,
which is establish justice for those who have no power. or significance in the world,
and protect them from the wicked. But you didn't do that. He said,
I've come, and that's what I'm doing. You've seen the miracles
that I did. You look at leprous people, and
you say, you're unclean, stay away from me. I find leprous
people and touch them, and they're made clean. They're delivered.
You look at the blind, and you say, what sin did he or his parents
do that he's blind? And I came and healed him of
his blindness. You look at the lame. and wonder why they were cursed
of God while supposedly you weren't. He said, I went over and spoke,
and they got up and walked. Now, if God says you're gods,
what does that make me? He says, I am the God. He said, don't believe me. Don't
take my word for it. Verse 37, don't believe me. unless I do what my Father does." What does that say? If we want
to know what the Father does, just look at the Son, whatever
He's doing, that's what the Father does. Now, I know God is a just
God, and a time will come when His mercy shall come to an end,
and He will judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ.
But what does God say when Moses says, show me your glory? He
said, I'll cause all my goodness to pass before you. He didn't
say, I'll show you fiery demonstrations of my judgment. I will be merciful
to whom I will be merciful. I will be gracious to whom I
will be gracious. I will forgive sins. The prophet
said, who is a pardoning God like you? Who forgives iniquity? and passes over the transgression
of the remnant of his heritage. The prophet was in awe of God,
not by the powerful displays of God's power, not by the great
demonstrations of his justice, but by his mercy and grace. The Lord says to these so-called
gods, of his day, if I'm not acting like my father,
then don't believe me and throw your rocks. But they knew in their hearts
about the grace of God. And they knew that they needed
it, but their pride would never let them receive it. They were
insisting that they earn it. If I do the things that my father
does, even though you do not believe me, if you just can't
take my word for it, believe the miracles. And what were all
of his miracles? Every one of them were demonstrations
of the grace and mercy of God to sinners. These men thought that somebody
who was blind or lame or whatever they might be, whatever, how
they might be something, they were extra sinful, and that's
why they were acting that way. What they didn't understand is,
just like the Laodiceans, you don't understand that you're
poor and naked and blind. They didn't understand they needed
him every bit as much as blind Bartimaeus, more than blind Bartimaeus
needed. Bartimaeus' blindness was only
in his physical eyes. Their blindness was in their
heart. There, standing before them, was the Son of God, God
manifest in human flesh, and they could not see it. They saw
him do works that no one else had ever done. And in the next
chapter, he went one step further. He brought out from the dead
a man who had been dead for four days. Paul preached one time till midnight,
and the guy fell asleep, and he'd been sitting in the window,
on the window sill, he fell out. And Paul stretched himself out
over that man, and the man got back up. Our Lord went to a man
whose body was decaying and rotting, and he said, come forth, and
Lazarus came forth. Oh, we learn so much about our
God here. Yes, there are gods in this world,
those who exalt themselves to be gods. You can tell they're
not because there's no mercy in them. There's no kindness.
There's no grace. It's all about the power and
the wealth. But here stands one who owns the nations. The earth
is the Lord's and everything in it. And he's standing there, wealthier
and more powerful than any of them, and what does he do? He
shows unimaginable mercy. He does the works of his father. And that teaches us then, the
father is in him, and he is in the father. Now, what does that indicate? There certainly is a unity in
purpose between him and the father, a unity in character, but it
can also be taken like this. If the father is in him and he
and the father, that can only happen in an absolute sense if
they are the same, if they are the same being. I believe what is called Trinitarian
doctrine. I don't claim to understand it.
I think it's beyond. When I say understand it, we
can say the words, but there's no way for us to really get our
mind wrapped around how there can be a single being expressed
in three distinct persons. And I don't even know that that's
the best way to express it. But I know this, our Lord Jesus,
the son of God, is God. And I know he is, because he
is gracious. And if the real God were not
gracious, we wouldn't be here. I know Christ is God, because
he's merciful. And I know he is God, very God
of very God, as the old timers used to put it. Because the word
of God did not come to him, He is the Word of God, come to us. Now what does this mean for us?
It means that we do have someone who looks upon us, who spiritually speaking are
the poor and the needy and the weak and the insignificant of
this world. And he comes and protects us
from the wicked. He protects us from the wicked
one, Satan himself, who makes it his business to accuse us
in the presence of God. And there stands our Lord and
says, no, you can't make that sin stick. My blood has washed
it away. It's gone. Now you leave. You
have no place in this court. Our accuser exalts himself to
a divine position of authority and accusation, and he is cast
out. He's cast out by the gospel and
by the blood of the Lamb. We have a God, a God worthy of
worship, a God whom we can trust, a God who we know will protect
us from those who accuse us of sin because we're not as righteous
as they are. They may be the most powerful
people in religion today. They may have pedigrees and and
just plain old degrees. And they may be smarter than
us. They may live lives that, outwardly
speaking anyway, look much more wholesome and acceptable than
us. And they, such people, like to accuse. And when they accuse, there's
no use answering them. They love to accuse. Instead,
we call upon our God. Defend us. Defend our cause. Show yourself glorious. Heavenly
Father, bless your word as only you can. We thank you, Lord Jesus,
you are our God, and we worship one who, as John later said,
which our eyes have seen and our hands have handled of the
word of life. Lord, do defend us. Our conscience accuses us
in our own hearts. The devil accuses us in your
presence, and Lord, we are no match for either of them. But
you, Lord, are a helper to the weak, a deliverer to the oppressed. You are wealth to the poor. You
are a savior to the sinful. We call upon you, Lord, forgive
our sins. and defend us from all accusation.
In Christ's name we pray, amen.