Let's open our Bibles to John
chapter 7, as we continue to work our way through this chapter. This evening we'll endeavor to
look at verses 25 through 36, and our subject is In the Temple
with Jesus, from John chapter 7. The Spirit of God exposes in
this chapter three groups of people and the Spirit exposes them for
their unbelief. First of all, they are the brothers
of Jesus. Look at verse 3 through 5. John 7, verse 3, And then the Spirit of God exposes
the fact that these men did not believe Christ Jesus in verse
5. For neither did his brethren
believe him. They're just like the world.
They were full of unbelief. They were born in spiritual darkness. incapable of believing the truth
as it is in Christ Jesus. What is the reason for this unbelief? Well, it's a corrupt nature,
a rotten heart, as the Word of God says. We read in the book
of Jeremiah, the heart is deceitful, above all things and desperately
wicked who can know it." I fear we think of unbelief too lightly. It's an awful sin. It's an awful
sin. I would say to you if you would
honor God, believe Him, That's the way we honor God. Would you
exalt God? Just believe His Word. His bare,
naked Word. It isn't that old saying, seeing
is believing. No. Believing is seeing. We believe with no foundation
except God's Word. Now, we don't have what they
call blind faith. We don't have blind faith. We
have the Word of God. We have the Gospel of redeeming
grace. We have the very truth of Jehovah. It is said before us, and that
which we believe is God's Word, what God says about Himself,
what God says about us, what God says about His only begotten
Son, who is the only Savior and the only Redeemer of sinners.
And to not believe Him, to not believe Him, is an awful sin. So these two things, remember,
if you honor God, just believe Him. It isn't doing some great
work, it's just taking God's Word and believing, receiving,
taking a hold of, and resting in, thus saith God. What God has to say. But unbelief,
it's such an awful crime. Even as people of God. You know,
we often say, and rightly so, we join with the one in the Scripture
who said, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. But even in admitting our unbelief,
we're admitting a terrible sin. To not believe our Father? Here's His word to doubt His
word? He who said, I'll never leave
you and I'll never forsake you? He who said, your sins, which
are many, are all washed away? This One who sent His Son gave
Him for us and we are accepted in Him to not believe God as
His children. It's a terrible thing. We should weep over our unbelief. Oh God, help me to believe You
more, to a greater degree. But these, His brothers, they
didn't believe Him at all. Now, we should be a good example
to those who are members of our families, those who are our friends,
people we work with. Be a good example to them, and
we want to show them by our behavior that the gospel is loved by us. We love the message of good news.
We love the message of blood redemption and righteousness
that God freely imputes to us. We love the message of how God
can be just and justify the ungodly. And we want to convey that to
our children, our grandchildren, and our other family members
and those who are around us. But understand this, that good
example that you seek to set before others, That's not going
to change their hearts. And the greatest evidence of
that is these men. Our Lord's brothers. They had the same mother. They
were raised in the same family. They saw His values. They saw His worship of God. had no effect on their hearts. They were full of unbelief. They
were guilty. Look at 1 John chapter 5. Let
me show you something about unbelief. 1 John chapter 5, look at verse
9. The book of 1 John chapter 5
and verse 9, If we receive the witness of men, the witness of
God is greater, for this is the witness of God which He hath
testified of His Son. Verse 10, now 1 John 5, He that
believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. He that
believeth not hath made Him or God Liar. A liar. because he believeth
not the record that God gave of His Son." Well, what is the
record that God has given of His Son? That's in verse 11,
and this is the record, this is the witness, this is the testimony
that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His
Son. And if we don't believe His Son
as He set forth in the Word of God, in essence, we're saying
that God is a liar. That makes unbelief a very serious
offense against God. Look back at Hebrews chapter
3. And the writer of the Hebrews,
he's writing of the folks who wandered in the wilderness, So he says in Hebrews 3 and verse
15, while it is said, today if you will hear his voice, harden
not your hearts as in the provocation. For some, when they had heard,
did provoke. However, not all that came out
of Egypt by Moses, but with whom was he grieved forty years. Was
it not with them that sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness?"
Now, everybody sins, right? Everybody sins. He's got a specific
sin in mind. Keep reading. "...and to whom
He sware, to whom sware He, that they should not enter into His
rest, but to them that believed not." That's who He's talking
about. He's not talking about other
sins. He's talking right here specifically about not believing
God. David verse 19. So we see that
they could not enter in because of their unbelief. Keep reading
chapter 4. Let us therefore fear, lest a
promise of being left us into His rest, any of you should seem
to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached
as well as unto them, but the word preached did not profit
them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. They heard
a good message, They heard the right message. They had the message
of substitution. They had the message of a blood
sacrifice. They knew about the death of
the firstborn in Egypt and that their own firstborn was saved
by the blood of the Passover lamb. They had the message, here
is the problem. They didn't believe. They didn't
believe God. There was no real faith within
them. And here's what the writer says,
so they couldn't enter in. They couldn't enter in because
they didn't believe God. And over here in John chapter
7, here are our Lord's brethren, His brethren, His brothers, according
to the flesh. They don't believe Him. Let me
tell you something about unbelief. It is an act of the will. Unbelief
is an act of the will. In fact, look back in chapter
6. Let me just show you a couple
of verses here. Look at John chapter 6 and verse
6. John 6, 36. Speaking to these
who had fed on the fish and the fishes and the bread, who had
followed the Lord, found Him on the other side of the lake.
I say unto you, he says in verse 36, that ye also have seen me
and believe not. Look over to chapter 10. It's the great chapter, The Shepherd
and the Sheep, and of course you're very familiar with this
passage of Scripture, but I want to read for you John chapter
10, and look in verse 26. He says, But ye believe not,
because ye are not of my sheep. As I said unto you, My sheep
hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me." The Savior
said, you don't believe me. You don't believe me. You know
why people don't believe Christ? They don't want to believe Him. Belief is an act of the will.
It's an act of the will. You see, those of us who believe
the Lord Jesus Christ tonight, We are saved by God's grace,
free grace, sovereign grace, redeeming grace. We believe Him
because we wanted to believe Him. Right? I want to believe. I want to believe Him more. I
want a more steadfastness about my faith in the Lord. But I believe
Him because I want to believe Him. And these who don't believe
Him, these in the Scripture like our Lord's brothers, and those
who don't believe Him today, they don't believe Him because
they will not believe Him. And they'll never believe Him
unless they're made willing in the day of God's power. You see, those of us who rest
in Christ Jesus, who believe the record that God has given,
we believe who He is. We believe the work that He did.
We believe we're in bad condition, we're in bad shape. We believe
God demands righteousness and holiness. And we believe the
only way of acceptance is in Jesus Christ and His work of
redemption. Well, why do we believe and others
don't believe? Because He has singled us out
and made us willing to be saved God's way. There is only one
way of grace, one way of salvation, that one way is the Lord Jesus
Christ and His redemptive work upon the cross of Calvary. So
unbelief is an act of the will. These men would not believe Him. And the fact of the matter is,
men who are in darkness, women who are in spiritual darkness,
well, they'll believe anything except God's revelation. Isn't that right? They'll believe
anything except this. In fact, the Lord Jesus says,
go back to John chapter 5 and look at verse 43. John 5 and
43. He says, I am come in my Father's
name and ye receive me not. Or literally, you believe me
not. You don't believe me. I am come
in my Father's name. If another shall come in his
own name, that's who you will believe. You see, such is our
depravity. We'll believe a lie every time. Every single time. rather than
believing the truth. Unregenerate men prefer to embrace
and rest in any form of darkness rather than believe the Word
of God. Men readily embrace the speculations
of science, You know, some scientist with
a bunch of degrees behind his name, he can spout out a few
things about evolution and everybody says, well, that's the way it
is right there. I can't understand it, but it
must be that way. We came from a blob. And you read the Word of God.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Exodus
20 verse 11, in six days God made the heavens and the earth
and all that in the midst. He said, no, I don't believe
that. That's just myth. That's just folklore. Men will believe the speculations
of science rather than the Word of God. They'll believe the myths
of mysticism. They'll believe the opinions
Men who are supposedly wise and intelligent men. Men prefer feelings to faith. That's why emotional religion
is so appealing. You ever watch any of these folks?
I woke up earliest morning and turned the television on. I saw
that program on there, and boy, they were whoop-dee-dooing and
hallelujah and all this kind of stuff. People are wrapped
up in this, and I don't doubt their sincerity, but they'd rather
have emotion than the Word of God. They want excitement. Oh, stir my feelings! Yeah, but
your feelings can be deceived. I don't doubt the reality that
the gospel It makes us feel satisfied with Jesus Christ. It does touch
the emotions. But listen, we don't base anything
upon feelings or upon emotions. We base our faith on the Word
of God alone. That's all. Men prefer faith in themselves
than faith in the Lord Jesus. That's why works religion, free
will religion is so attractive. Men prefer visions and signs
and miracles and experiences to divine revelation. That's
why this charismatic religion is so widely accepted. Why do men refuse to believe
God? And as I said, unbelief is an
act of the will. They refuse to believe the Word
of God. They refuse to believe in salvation
by grace. It can't be that way. Surely,
I've got to have something to do with this salvation business. And you say, no. It's all of
grace and all in Christ Jesus. And they say, I don't believe
that. Because I know I've got to do something. I know I've
got to take the first step and then God will meet me. I know
I've got to exercise my will. And I know God's not going to
infringe on my will either. They accept the theories, the
falsehoods, a man-made religion, rather than just bow to the authority
of the Word of God. You see, I'll tell you where faith in
Christ begins. Where real faith begins, it begins
with an agreement with God. That's where it begins. You agree with God. See, by nature,
we don't agree with God. We don't agree with what God
says. But real faith, God-given faith. Faith that God puts in the soul. It begins with a knowledge of
who God is. And He's going to give you a
healthy respect for Him. After all, the fear of the Lord
is the beginning of wisdom. You'll find that He set a standard
you can't meet. And in the light of His immaculate
glory, and His holiness, then you agree with what He says about
you. Like our brother read to us tonight
from Psalm 14. There is none good, no not one,
not you, not me, not your mother, not your daddy, not your sweet
grandmother, she's not good either, nor your granddaddy. All are
corrupt. Literally all stink. That's what
he means. All stink before God. Preacher,
that's a big pill for people to swallow. The Spirit of God
will get it down. He'll get it down and you will
acknowledge what you are. And in the light of God's holiness,
you see your own depravity and then the Gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ becomes good news indeed. See, the reason the Gospel isn't
good news to men and women today, they haven't seen who God is.
And in the light of God's glory, they haven't seen what they are. But when we do, when God gives
us a sight of self, that's when you'll seek the Lord.
That's when you'll seek Christ Jesus. And God will show him
to you and you'll say, this is just the Savior I need. This
is just the salvation I've got to have. Here are our Lord's
brothers. The Spirit of God shows them
to us. And the Spirit of God says they didn't believe Him.
Second group. The Jews who showed their hatred
and unbelief of Him. Look at verse 11. And when it
says, then the Jews sought him at the feast and said, where
is he? We've already discovered this at most all the time in
the book of John. Whenever he mentions the Jews,
he's talking about the Jewish religious leaders who hated Christ. So, this is what I do. When I
read the Gospel according to John, and I get to a statement, about, like in verse 11, where
it says, then the Jews, in my mind I say, then the Jews. The Jews, because it's a, they're
a bad bunch of people. They hate the Son of God. These
are the Jewish leaders. These are the Pharisees. What
does Pharisee mean? Separatists. These are the separatists. These are the guys who fast,
tithe, attend, pray, all of these things that they did. They separated
themselves from others and they went about to establish their
own righteousness and would not submit to the righteousness of
God in Jesus Christ, for Christ is the end of the law, for righteousness
to everyone that believe it. They would not submit to His
righteousness, they are establishing their own righteousness. The Pharisees, the scribes, they
are the ones who copied the Scriptures. These are the ones who maintained
the traditions of the elders. You got the Sadducees. You got all these religious folks,
the Jews. They showed their hatred of Him.
Where is He? Look at verse 15. And the Jews
marveled saying, how does this man know letters having never
learned? He didn't go to any of our schools.
He didn't learn the feet of any of our rabbis. The Jews. Look at verse 20. Here are the same people, the
Jews. In verse 20, the people answered
and said, you've got a devil. You've got a devil, who goeth
about to kill thee? The leaders of the Jewish religion,
the self-righteous teachers of salvation by works, they didn't believe him. Now,
they couldn't deny his miracles. They couldn't deny the reality
of his miracles. They could not dispute his messages
from the Old Testament. And any time that they tried
to match wits with him, they just walked away defeated. Because
that which he taught was the Word of God. It was the Old Testament.
So they just say, thou hast a devil. Now these men weren't ignorant
of the letter of the law. They weren't ignorant of the
Old Testament. But they said of the Lord Jesus
who fulfilled so many prophecies of the Old Testament in His life
and of course in His death, they said of Him, He's got a devil. How vile is that? He's just the
opposite from the devil. The devil has absolutely no goodness
in him. He is pure evil and our Lord
Jesus is pure holiness. But they get in the name calling. Think about these religious leaders,
the Jews. They were very well acquainted
with the prophecies concerning Messiah. They knew He would perform
great works. Jesus of Nazareth did. Kind of
check, okay? He's going to perform great works.
Check. He's going to be born in Bethlehem.
Check. He's going to be born Isis 714
of a virgin. Check. All of these things, you
see, the Old Testament, Taylor makes a garment that fit only
one man, Jesus Christ the Lord. And these men, in the face of
overwhelming evidence, just closed their eyes to the facts. They
said, we are not going to believe Him. What He does is of the devil. They knew He would resign in
Galilee. The Old Testament said He would.
They knew He would be a prophet greater than Moses. They read
Deuteronomy. They knew He would be a priest
greater than Aaron and a king greater than David and Solomon.
They knew about the promises of Messiah. They knew about Isaiah
chapter 53, the death of the Messiah. They read Isaiah 61. We just studied Isaiah 61 a few
weeks ago in Bible class. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me. And then our Lord Jesus in Luke chapter 4. He goes into
the synagogue and He reads that same passage in Isaiah 61. And
He said, this day these words are fulfilled in your ears. And
you know what these people said? We're not going to hear this. That's willful unbelief. Right in the face of the facts. They didn't believe Him. That's why the Savior says, look
over here in verse, let's go a little further, look at verse
33. Then said Jesus unto them, John
7.33, Then said Jesus unto them, Yet a little while, and I am
with you, and then I go unto him that sent me. Ye shall seek
me, and shall not find me, and whither I am, thither ye cannot
come. I don't know much about Bible
deadlines, and not too many people do either. Nobody does fully. But I know this, in the book
of Proverbs chapter 1, God says there's going to come a day you're
going to call on Me and I'm not going to hear you. Because I
called on you and you wouldn't hear Me. There is such a thing
as a general call of the Gospel. It's going forth right now. Right
now. To everyone who's here, to everyone
who's watching, to everyone who'll be listening to this CD or watching
it on a DVD, later, the call of the gospel goes forth. I'm
telling you who Jesus Christ is, telling you out of the book!
I'm telling you, He's the only Savior. His blood washes away
sin. His righteousness must be submitted
to, to be saved by His purity, by His obedience, by His satisfaction
to divine justice. I'm saying salvation is by grace
alone in the Lord Jesus alone. Believe Him! And you keep on
saying in your heart, No. No. I know what it says. You just can't go that far, preacher. You may very well come to a deadline
like these folks did. The Jews. The Jews. Oh, the opportunities they had
to hear him. to learn from Him, to sit at
His feet. Here's the Master, here's the
Son of God, here's God in human flesh. They could have learned
from Him, but they said, no, we will not have this man rule
over us. And it's as though our Lord Jesus
Christ said, okay, the cup of judgment is full for you. He
says, and there's going to come a day when you're going to seek
Me and you're not going to find Me. You're not going to find
me. The Jews. Then the third group is the general
population of Jerusalem. And I'll give this to you very
briefly. Look at verse 25 of John 7. Then it said, some
of them of Jerusalem. These are residents of Jerusalem. You know, there are lots of people
there for the Feast of Tabernacles. But these are the people who
lived in and around Jerusalem. As it were, they lived in the
very shadow of the temple, which also foreshadowed Christ Jesus. And some of them of Jerusalem
said, is this not He whom they seek to kill? Isn't this the
one they want to kill? Below he speaks boldly and they say
nothing to him. Do the rulers know indeed that
this is the very Christ?" They got to talking to one another
and said, do you think these rulers, since they let him go
on and on, and they don't rebuke him, they don't shut him down
from the Old Testament, of course they couldn't do that. But this
is the thinking of these people. Well, since they let him keep
on teaching, Do you think they believe Him now? Do you think
some of these folks believe Him now? And then we get to verse 27. We know this man whence he is.
In other words, maybe some of the rulers are fooled. Maybe
he's pulled the wool over their eyes. But he hadn't fooled us. We know who he is. And you know
who He was to them? An imposter. And He was just
another one of the sons of Joseph and Mary. That's all He was to
them. We know who He is. Maybe some
of these rulers, maybe they've been hoodwinked by Him. But we're
smarter than they are. We see Him for what He is. Because they say, when Christ
cometh, no man knows whence He is. You know, a lot of the Jews
believed that He would just suddenly appear coming right down from
heaven. They totally ignored the passages that He'd be born
of a virgin, born in Bethlehem's manger, and so forth. They just
ignored that. Then, our Lord Jesus, He Christ
all of them. He lifted up His voice in the
temple as He was teaching, saying, You both know Me and you know
where I came from. You know whence I am. And I have
not come of Myself, but He that sent Me is true, whom you know
not. My brothers, you don't know Me. You Jewish leaders, you don't
know Me. You people of Jerusalem, you
don't know Me! And you don't know the One who
sent Me. But I know Him, He says in verse 29, I know Him. I know
the Father. For I am from Him and He has
sent Me. Well, that stirred all of them
up. They were ready to take Him, lay hands on Him. But nobody
did, verse 30 says, because His hour was not yet come. It wasn't
time for Him to die yet. Boy, they wanted to. It's like
a bloodthirsty mob. His brothers, the Jews, the general
population of Jerusalem, they said, let's get Him! And the Lord prevented them from
laying a hand on Him. He's not going to die until His
hour comes. Just like you're not going to
die until your hour comes. You are immortal until God gets
through with you. And our Lord Jesus was immortal
until that ordained time arrived when He would give His life a
ransom for many. Well, verse 31, many of the people
believed on Him and said, when Christ cometh, will He do more
miracles than these which this man does? Not a real faith. This is not a real belief. This
is just like at the end of John chapter 2. It's not genuine. So then the Pharisees
and the chief priests, they sent officers to take Him, to arrest
Him. And that's when the Savior said
in verse 33, then said Jesus unto them, yet a little while
I'm with you, and then I go unto him that sent me, ye shall seek
me, shall not find me, and where I am, thither ye cannot come.
And then said the Jews among themselves, whither will he go?
That we shall not find him. Will He go into the dispersed
among the Gentiles and teach the Gentiles? What manner of
saying is this that He said, ye shall seek Me and shall not
find Me, and where I am thither ye cannot come? You say, what
kind of talk is that? I'll tell you what kind of talk
that is. That's judicial talk. That's the words of the judge
speaking. You've had no interest in me.
You've had no interest in my gospel. That's it. That's it for you. It's like
those folks, our Lord, over in Matthew 15 where the disciples
came to Him and said, what you've said has offended the Pharisees. You've hurt their feelings. Don't
want to hurt anybody's feelings, especially the religious leaders. He said, leave them alone. Leave them alone. Don't preach
to them. Don't teach. Don't even endeavor
to teach them anything. Just leave them alone. Why, they're
just a bunch of blind leaders of the blind. And they're all
going to fall into the ditch someday. Oh, God, give us faith. Give us faith to believe His
Word to lay hold of Jesus Christ, the Lord.