Sunday Morning Bible Study

March 21, 2010

Introduction

Do people see Jesus? Is the gospel preached? Does it speak to the broken hearted? Does it build up the church? Milk – Meat – Manna Preach for a decision

We are in Jerusalem with Jesus during the Feast of Tabernacles.  This was a weeklong celebration that occurred every year in the fall and was to be a reminder to the Jewish people of those forty years that they wandered in the wilderness after having been delivered from slavery in Egypt.

Last week we talked about some of the rituals that occurred during the week, in particular the water ceremony where a priest would take water from the pool of Siloam and pour it out at the altar in the Temple.

This was to remind the people of how God provided water in the wilderness through a “Rock” that Moses first struck with his rod and was supposed to later “speak” to it to make water come out.

The Rock was a picture of Jesus.  Jesus was struck once to pay for our sins.  He does not need to be struck again, but only “spoken” to for living water to come.

We saw how Jesus stood up and declared something on the last day of the water ceremony, the day that represented the end of the wilderness wandering, a day most likely picturing the time when Moses was supposed to “speak” to the Rock.

(Jn 7:37–39 NKJV) —37 On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. 38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”

7:40-44 Confusion about Jesus

:40 Therefore many from the crowd, when they heard this saying, said, “Truly this is the Prophet.”

:40 the Prophet –

These people are referring to Moses' words in Deuteronomy:

(Dt 18:15 NKJV) “The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear,

Some had taken to mean that there would a great “prophet”, someone different than the Messiah, who would come.

This was kind of a nebulous prophecy that had been interpreted many ways.

Some had thought that this “prophet” would be the forerunner to the Messiah.

Some felt that this verse referred to the Messiah.

:41 Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “Will the Christ come out of Galilee?

:41 Christ – Christos – “anointed”, the Messiah

This is not Jesus’ last name (as in “Jesus Christ”), but rather His title, His job.

The Messiah was the promised one who would save Israel from its enemies.

One of the prophecies concerning the Messiah's coming also refer to an outpouring of water, just as Jesus referred to in John 7:38 –

(Is 35:6–7 NKJV)  Then the lame shall leap like a deer, And the tongue of the dumb sing. For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, And streams in the desert. 7 The parched ground shall become a pool, And the thirsty land springs of water; In the habitation of jackals, where each lay, There shall be grass with reeds and rushes.

:41 out of Galilee?

In Jesus’ day there was a distinct “snobbery” of those living in the south over those who lived in the north, in Galilee.

When the Jews returned from their captivity in Babylon around 500 BC, they settled primarily in the southern area, around the city of Jerusalem.

It was only around 100BC that the Jews had finally begun to resettle the area in the north near the Sea of Galilee.

Last December archeologists uncovered ruins in the town of Nazareth that for the first time date back to the time of Jesus.  They say the town was about 50 houses, located on about 4 acres of land, and dated back to 100BC.

The people living in the northern Galilee were “pioneers”, uneducated.

The only education people got was from preachers or teachers who would be sent north from Jerusalem.  Nothing educated came from the north.

We’d call them “hillbillies”, like the gal that wrote this letter…

Illustration

Dear Billy-bob,

I’m writing this letter slow because I know you can’t read fast. We don’t live where we did when you left home. Your dad read in the newspaper that most accidents happen within 20 miles from your home, so we moved. I won’t be able to send you the address because the last Arkansas family that lived here took the house numbers when they moved so that they wouldn’t have to change their address. This place is really nice. It even has a washing machine. I’m not sure it works so well though: last week I put a load in and pulled the chain and haven’t seen them since. About that coat you wanted me to send you, your Uncle Stanley said it would be too heavy to send in the mail with the buttons on, so we cut them off and put them in the pockets. I locked my keys in the car yesterday. We were really worried because it took me two hours to get your father out. Uncle Ted fell in a whiskey vat last week. Some men tried to pull him out, but he fought them off playfully and drowned. We had him cremated and he burned for three days. Some of your friends went off a bridge in a pick-up truck. Ralph was driving. He rolled down the window and swam to safety. Your other friends were in back. They drowned because they couldn’t get the tailgate down. There isn’t much more news at this time. Nothing much has happened.

Love, Ma

P.S. I was going to send you some money but the envelope was already sealed.

We’d kind of chuckle at a person who thought like this.  We’d call them “backwards” or “stoooop-id”.  This is exactly how the people in culturally refined Jerusalem looked at those who came visiting from Galilee.

What they failed to take into account was that there were prophecies that hinted that the Messiah would have a connection with the northern area of Galilee:

(Is 9:1–2 NKJV) —1 Nevertheless the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed, As when at first He lightly esteemed The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, And afterward more heavily oppressed her, By the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, In Galilee of the Gentiles. 2 The people who walked in darkness Have seen a great light; Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, Upon them a light has shined.

Zebulun and Naphtali are in the north.  The “way of the sea” is a road that passes right through the city of Capernaum, the place we consider the “headquarters” of Jesus’ ministry.

Matthew quotes this prophecy of Isaiah when he talks about Jesus’ ministry in Capernaum (Mat. 4:13-16).

:42 Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the seed of David and from the town of Bethlehem, where David was?”

This group is correctly recalling a couple of prophecies about the Messiah:

:42 seed of David –  There are quite a few prophecies that speak of the Messiah being a descendant of King David, including:

(Je 23:5 NKJV) “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord, “That I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness; A King shall reign and prosper, And execute judgment and righteousness in the earth.

(2 Sa 7:12–13 NKJV) —12 “When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

(Ps 89:4 NKJV) ‘Your seed I will establish forever, And build up your throne to all generations.’ ”

(Ps 132:11 NKJV) The Lord has sworn in truth to David; He will not turn from it: “I will set upon your throne the fruit of your body.

:42 from the town of Bethlehem – We know this prophecy from the Christmas cards we get each year:

(Mic 5:2 NKJV) “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.”

This particular group of people are correct about the prophecies they mention.  What they’re wrong about is thinking that Jesus didn’t fulfill these prophecies.  They simply don’t have all the facts.

Jesus was a descendant of King David

The genealogy mentioned in Matthew 1 links Jesus legally to David through His “step-father” Joseph.

The genealogy mentioned in Luke 3 links Jesus physically to David through His mother Mary.

Jesus was actually born in Bethlehem.

Luke (Luke 2) tells us that it was because of Caesar’s decree for a census that Joseph and Mary had to travel to Bethlehem, and it was while they were there that Jesus was born.

Lesson

Amazing Prophecies

In all there are over 300 prophecies that detailed the first coming of Jesus to the earth.

God went into great detail so there would be no mistake about who the Messiah would be.

The prophecies contained such things as:

His deity. (Ps.2:7; Is.7:14)

His genealogy. (Gen.22:8; 21:12; Num.24:17; Gen.49:10; Is.11:1)

The virgin birth. (Is.7:14)

His birthplace. (Mic.5:2)

The miracles. (Is.35:5)

His teachings. (Ps.78:2)

Triumphant entry into Jerusalem. (Ps. 118:25)

The very DAY of His arrival. (Dan.9:24-27)

Rejection by the Jews. (Is.53:3)

Betrayal by a close friend. (Ps.41:9)

The price of His betrayal. (Zech.11:12)

Abandonment by His friends. (Zech.13:7)

Details of His death. (Ps.22)

Place of burial (Is.53:9)

Resurrection. (Ps.16:10)

Ascension into heaven. (Ps.68:18)

What are the odds of someone fulfilling these prophecies?

If just eight of the prophecies are taken, mathematicians have figured that the odd would be 1 in 10¹⁷.  That’s a 1 with 17 zeroes after it.

What’s that like?

Peter Stoner writes, “we take 10¹⁷ silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas.  They will cover all the state two feet deep.  Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir up the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state.  Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that this is the right one.  What chance would he have of getting the right one?  Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man, from their day to the present time, providing they wrote them in their own wisdom.”

But that’s just with eight prophecies.

If we take 48 of the prophecies, the odds increase to 1 in 10¹⁵⁷

That’s HUGE. And this is only the chances of one man fulfilling 48 prophecies.

There were over 300 prophecies of Jesus!

What’s that like?

To illustrate this we can’t talk about using something as large as a silver dollar.  We have to talk about something small, like an electron.

An electron is so small that it would take 2.5 times 10¹⁵ of them laid side by side to make a line, single file, one inch long.  If we were going to count the electrons in this line one inch long, and counted 250 each minute, and if we counted day and night, it would take us 19 million years to count just the one inch line of electrons.  If we had a cubic inch of these electrons and we tried to count them it would take us, counting steadily 250 each minute, 19 million times 19 million times 19 million years, or 6.9 times 10²¹ years”.

“With this introduction, let us go back to our chance of 1 in 10¹⁵⁷.  Let us suppose that we are taking this number of electrons, marking one, and thoroughly stirring it into the whole mass, then blindfolding a man and letting him try to find the right one.  What chance has he of finding the right one?  What kind of pile will this number of electrons make?  They make an inconceivably large volume”

Lesson

Amazing Book

There are going to be times when you will ask yourself the question, “How can I know that Christianity is correct?  Is it possible that all religions worship the same God?”

Christianity is different because it is based on a supernatural book, a book that tells the future with amazing accuracy.

God spoke through Isaiah:

(Is 46:9–10 The Message) —9 Remember your history, your long and rich history. I am God, the only God you’ve had or ever will have— incomparable, irreplaceable— 10 From the very beginning telling you what the ending will be, All along letting you in on what is going to happen, Assuring you, ‘I’m in this for the long haul, I’ll do exactly what I set out to do,’

God alone knows the future.  And He lets us know what the future is like as if it’s already happened.

Lesson

Amazing Savior

Jesus is very clearly God’s Promised Messiah.

What are you going to do with Him?

When He says,

(Jn 14:6 NKJV) Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

Do you believe this?  Do you still think there are “other ways” to God?

When He says,

(Jn 3:16 NKJV) For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Do you take it seriously that you MUST believe in Jesus?

When He says,

(Lk 13:5 NKJV) I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”

To “repent” means to “turn around”.  It means to turn from your sins.

Some people have decided that they are just going to “believe” in Jesus, but not get too serious about changing their lives.

Jesus said,

(Jn 14:15 NKJV) “If you love Me, keep My commandments.

How can you say you believe in Jesus and not take seriously the things that Jesus asks you to do?

He is a Serious Savior.  He is an Amazing Savior.

He has saved us from our sins.  We respond by taking Him seriously.

:43 So there was a division among the people because of Him.

division – schism – to split, tear. A division, tear, as in mind or sentiment, and so into factions

It hasn’t stopped.

Jesus still brings division between people.

It’s not an easy thing to tell people about Jesus.

:44 Now some of them wanted to take Him, but no one laid hands on Him.

:44 take – piazo – To press, squeeze, hold fast, to lay hold of, take, seize

7:45-49 The officers return

:45 Then the officers came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why have you not brought Him?”

:45 officers – huperetes – servant

These were the Sanhedrin police who had been sent by the Sanhedrin to have Jesus arrested when they began to get reports that people were beginning to believe in Jesus as the Messiah (John 7:32)

(Jn 7:32 NKJV) The Pharisees heard the crowd murmuring these things concerning Him, and the Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take Him.

When the officers return without Jesus in their custody, these leaders want to know what happened.

:46 The officers answered, “No man ever spoke like this Man!”

As we're going to see, the leaders are going to have a lot of misconceptions about Jesus.

I think that’s partly because they have yet to spend any real time with Jesus.

They're just hearing everything second hand.

When these officers hear Jesus face to face, it blows their minds.

I find it fascinating that the officers didn’t say,

“He did such awesome miracles ...” or,

“We were just too afraid of the crowds”

Instead, they were overpowered by the words of Jesus.

Lesson

Listen to Jesus

There is a difference between what some people say about Jesus and who Jesus really is.

Some of you have grown up hearing ideas about Jesus, but never really checking Him out for yourself.

Instead of only listening to what people say about Jesus, be sure to go to Jesus Himself and find out for yourself. You might find yourself responding like Peter:

(Jn 6:68–69 NKJV) But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Listen to Jesus’ words - start by reading the entire Gospel of John.

:47 Then the Pharisees answered them, “Are you also deceived?

:47 deceived – planao – To cause to wander, lead astray,

:48 Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in Him?

Actually, the truth is that there ARE some who have started to believe in Him.

:49 But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.”

:49 accursed – epikataratos – Accursed, under a curse, doomed to punishment

Lesson

Elitist Snobbery

We have here an excellent example of how the “elite” can be so wrong.

There will be a lot of specials this time of year about the “real Jesus”.

If you go to the Discovery Channel’s website and search for “Jesus”, they will point you to an extensive set of video you can watch about a documentary they produced and released in 2007.  The documentary was produced by James “Avatar” Cameron and titled, “The Lost Tomb of Jesus”.

If you only follow their videos, you might come to the conclusion that Jesus did not rise from the dead and ascend into heaven, but was buried along with His wife Mary Magdalene, and other family members.

But if you do a little more homework and check with Wikipedia, you will find that a whole host of scholars have declared the Cameron video to be misleading and just plain wrong.

The History Channel website has a fairly long article about Jesus.  There are a lot of accurate facts given, but there are also a few things inserted that tend to call into question who Jesus really was.

In one place, the author concluded that the best accounts of Jesus’ life were the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but not John since it is so different from the other gospels, even claiming:

“Scholars have unanimously chosen the Synoptic Gospels' version of Jesus' teaching.”

We aren’t told which scholars.  In reality, there are plenty of scholars that believe that John is just as reliable as the other gospels.

We’ve already presented a very plausible explanation why John is different from the other gospels.  He wrote much later and he is trying to fill in the blanks left by the other gospels.

Yet later in the article, the author decides that he likes some of the things that John wrote …

“Caiaphas probably had the thought that John 11:50 attributes to him, that “it is better to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.””

In a paragraph talking about Jesus’ final week at the Passover and Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, the author tells us,

“Matthew speaks of “crowds,” which suggests that many people were involved, but the demonstration was probably fairly small.”

They had earlier talked about the numbers of pilgrims coming to Jerusalem during the Passover as being between tens of thousands to 300,000.  But when it comes to the size of the crowd calling Jesus the son of David, they decide it’s a “fairly small” crowd.  Why?  Where did they get that info?

Rather than take historical data from the sources like Matthew, they decide to make it sound as if there were only a handful of people aware of and following Jesus.

In a brief paragraph talking about the Resurrection, the author concludes:

“The uncertainties are substantial, but, given the accounts in these sources, certainty is unobtainable. We may say of the disciples’ experiences of the Resurrection approximately what the sources allow us to say of the life and message of Jesus: we have fairly good general knowledge, though many details are uncertain or dubious.”

Yet in contrast, the great historical scholar Professor Thomas Arnold wrote,

“I have been used for many years to study the histories of other times, and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which God hath given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead.”

Choosing to believe in Jesus is not just a matter of faith, it’s a matter of doing your homework.

7:50-53 Nicodemus speaks up

:50 Nicodemus (he who came to Jesus by night, being one of them) said to them,

:50 one of them – Nicodemus was a Pharisee.  We believe that he was also part of the Sanhedrin, the very group of leaders that are trying to get Jesus arrested.

We met Nicodemus in John 3.  We know that at some point Nicodemus becomes a believer.

He was a Pharisee who came to Jesus secretly, at night, wanting to know more about Jesus.

Whether it’s here or at a later time, we know that Nicodemus would come to believe in Jesus.  He would even help out at the burial of Jesus (John 19:39).

(Jn 19:39 NKJV) And Nicodemus, who at first came to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds.

:51 “Does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he is doing?”

:51 before it hears him – In contrast with the other leaders, Nicodemus was speaking from experience.

He had already spent time with Jesus, and had found out for himself.

Solomon wrote,

(Pr 18:13 NKJV) He who answers a matter before he hears it, It is folly and shame to him.

:52 They answered and said to him, “Are you also from Galilee? Search and look, for no prophet has arisen out of Galilee.”

:53 And everyone went to his own house.

:52 Are you also from Galilee?

Remember the hillbillies?  That’s what they’re calling Nicodemus.

I hate to break the news to these guys, but they're wrong on two fronts:

1.  Prophets do come from Galilee

The rulers are only thinking about part of the prophecies, the ones about Bethlehem, and Judah.

They've ignored prophecies like Isaiah 9:1-2.

Some important prophets who were from Galilee:

Jonah (2Ki 14:25), Elijah (1Ki 17:1), Nahum (Na 1:1)

2.  Jesus, grew up in Galilee, but was born in Bethlehem.

Lesson

Misconceptions

It’s easy to misjudge people.

Illustration

The history books are full of stories of gifted persons whose talents were overlooked by a procession of people until someone believed in them.  Einstein was four years old before he could speak and seven before he could read.  Issac Newton did poorly in grade school.  A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney because he had "no good ideas".  Leo Tolstoy flunked out of college, and Werner von Braun failed ninth grade algebra.  Haydn gave up ever making a musician of Beethoven, who seemed a slow and plodding young man with no apparent talent …

Have you ever run into a person and found out that they’re nothing like what you thought?

I’ve had experiences like that with some of you!  Some of you are pretty scary looking on the outside… but once I’ve gotten to know you, boy was I wrong!

People have had a lot of misconceptions about Jesus.

The Good Teacher

They think that His whole purpose was to just show us how to live.

But the Bible said that He came for the purpose of dying.

He was born as a human so He could become the perfect substitution for us, the perfect sacrifice to pay for our sins.

The Good Man

But does a “good man” claim to be God?  They will claim that the “god-talk” was just cooked up by the apostle Paul.

Yet several times Jesus Himself claimed to be God.  We’ve already seen a few of those times.

The Jews got the message, one of the reasons they wanted to kill Him was because they thought He was just a man claiming to be God.

To say something like that either means that you are nuts, a liar, or you’re telling the truth.

The Spirit Guide

Some see Him as some kind of a cosmic “spirit guide”, one of many that a person can choose from.

But Jesus made it clear that He was way more important than just someone to guide you.

He claimed that your salvation depended completely on Him.

When you die, you will go to one of two places – heaven or hell.

The place you go to will be determined by what you did with Jesus.

You must believe and follow Jesus.

What have you been thinking about Jesus?

Are you that what you believe is the truth?  What if you’ve been wrong about Jesus?

Maybe it’s time to get serious about following Him.