Did Jesus Cause Division or Unity?

Tom:

We are continuing with the Gospel of John, we’re in John:10:19There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings.
See All..., “There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings.”Dave I want to just jump on that right away.We talked about a theme park that’s trying to bring religions together and so on.Certainly they’re going to have the menu from the Last Supper and Jesus was there so it’s going to deal with Jesus and so on.Because Jesus was somebody who wanted all religions to be happy, to get along, so I don’t know what these religious Jews had a problem with.

Dave:

Well—

Tom:

I hope people know that—

Dave:

You are being facetious.

Tom:

Well I don’t know if I was facetious, but there’s an irony to what’s going on here with regard to who the real Jesus is.

Dave:

Well let me quote Jesus from Luke 12.He said, “Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth?I tell you nay, but rather division.For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, two against three and so forth.”Well the angels did sing “peace on earth.”

Tom:

And he is the Prince of peace.

Dave:

Yes, but he also does not compromise.And Christ requires men to make a choice.He had just said something in verse 18, “No man takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.”Now wait a minute, who’s your Father, who are you claiming to be?You mean nobody can kill you and so forth?And there’s a division among the Jews.

Tom:

Yes, between truth and a lie, the lie.

Dave:

That’s right.So we have it not only here in John:10:19There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings.
See All....It says, “There was a division again.”You had it in John:9:16Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them.
See All... we saw that.Well let’s go back and look at it, “…And there was a division among them.”That is among the Pharisees because of Jesus.In John:7:43So there was a division among the people because of him.
See All... we have it once again, “So there was a division among the people because of him.”Jesus is making some claims.He’s making some statements.He’s claiming that he came to seek and to save the lost.He’s claiming that he is God.He is doing things that only God can do.He’s doing things that no one else has ever done.He’s raising the dead, not just one, but several.He can feed 5000 people with a few loaves of bread and some fish.He is saying—we just read it in the last chapter, no two chapters ago in chapter eight.He said, “Unless you believe that I am, I am being the name of God, of the Old Testament, Yahweh.“Unless you believe that I am God, you will die in your sins and where I go you cannot come.And he has made statements to these people.There’s no question he’s claiming to be God.At the end of chapter eight he said, “Before Abraham was, I am.”Now what are you going to do with Jesus?I’ve said it before, let me say it again.Here I am sitting next to a young man, a very bright young man, MBA from Harvard on an airplane and I’ve had other people say this to me.He was telling me that when he was in high school, he believed in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.But now he doesn’t believe anymore.And I said what do you think of Jesus?Well, he said, I think he’s a good man.I said, “You can’t be serious.He can’t be a good man.He claimed to be God!He said he would rise from the dead.He said he would come again.He said he would judge this whole world!Now if he’s really a man, he’s not a good man.He’s a liar or he’s a lunatic, but you can’t say he’s a good man.”I just said to him, “Look, you have to face what Jesus himself said about himself.You can’t just make it up.You can’t invent your own Christianity.You can’t invent your own Jesus Christ.He’s a historic figure.”And this is the problem these people were facing.Jesus Christ, well he’s claiming to be the Messiah, he’s claiming to be the Christ.If they knew their scriptures, they would realize he had come at the exact moment.He rides into Jerusalem on a donkey the very day, to the day that the angel Gabriel told Daniel in Daniel 9, the Messiah would come riding into Jerusalem.And yet they are blind.But he is making statements.He is doing things.You’re going to have to make a choice.He is either who he claims to be or he is a self deceived egomaniac, or he is a deliberate deceiver leading the people astray and that same choice must be made today.And so there’s a division in the world today.

Tom:

That is the division as you mentioned earlier in the scripture.Family of five, three accept, two reject, so you have division.But Dave, it gets worse than that.Let’s say it’s two that reject him or anyone who rejects him.The reaction is we see it in verse 20, “And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him?”This is someone who was perfect in every way.He never sinned.The things that he did.Many said, “Oh, this man must be of God.Look what he’s doing.”But others say, “No he is of the devil.”

Dave:

Well it was one of the choices.He’s a liar or he’s a lunatic.Many of them said he hath a devil and is mad, why hear ye him.Others said, “These are not the words of him that hath a devil.Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?”What would be the solution?Well if they only knew the Word of God.And this was how Paul preached the gospel.How Peter preached the gospel.Acts 17, Paul went into the synagogue and he opened the scriptures.He said, Look what your prophets have said.Don’t you think the prophets laid it all out so that you would know the Messiah was when he came?And you can’t deny Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled all of this in his life, death, and resurrection.He is the Messiah.But you can show all those things to a person today Jew or Gentile, and if they are determined not to believe in Jesus, then it doesn’t matter.So we have first of all be willing to go by God’s Word.

Tom:

But Dave, now we have a problem.How are we going to have religious unity when Christ himself brings division?How can we get past this?Because we want everybody to get along here.

Dave:

Yes, there will never be religious unity.Because religions contradict one another.There will only be unity when every knee bows and it will happen.At the name of Jesus, Philippians 2, “Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”

Tom:

But Dave what about a one world religion?How are we going to bring that about?

Dave:

Well Tom, I’ve often said the only way it will come about is by a Pre-Trib Rapture.And when 50-100 million people suddenly vanish from this planet leaving those who are left behind terrified, not imagining this is the rapture.They will be given a strong delusion to believe the lie.Absolutely terrified.Who took them?Where did they go?Why didn’t they take me?Whoever it was, are they coming back to get me?Tom, there is no other conceivable way the world could be united.And at that moment, I believe the Antichrist arises.This is Satan’s man and this is Satan’s moment and he is going to take advantage of the terror on this earth that will occur because of the Rapture.And the world will be united.And they will worship this man.He will have the power of Satan and so forth to do lying signs and wonders.So who this man is, what kind of a leader and so forth, I don’t know.But there’s no other way.So there must be division.Because everyone will not accept the truth and if we are going to try and get everyone to agree, we are going to get them to agree on nothing.Remember Robert Schuller has said, “What separates me from those fundamentalists out there who are trying to get everybody to believe like they believe…”No we’re not trying to get everybody to believe like we believe.We want to bring the truth of the Word of God to them.But anyway, he says, Schuller goes on and says, “But we know the things that all the major religions agree upon.And that’s what we preach, so as not to offend anyone.And I do it without compromising my Christian commitment he says.Well Tom, I don’t know what all the religions agree upon.They don’t agree on God.They don’t agree on Jesus Christ that’s for sure.They don’t agree on the gospels.So if you are going preach something that everyone agrees on you are going to have to water this down so far that you aren’t really saying anything of any significance.And then I guess everybody could agree.So this is how religious unity comes about.We rob Christ of his deity; we rob Christ of his exclusive Saviorhood.We rob Christ of everything that makes him unique which would offend others and then we can unite everybody.So to be united around a lie—what is the point?So Tom there was a division among the Jews.There will always be.Some say he’s got a devil, he’s mad.Others say look, at the miracles. Everyone listening to us today—you have to make a choice.Who is Jesus?You can’t escape his words.What did he say about himself?What did he do?I remember the hymn we used to sing when I was a boy: “What will you do with Jesus?Neutral you can not be.One day your soul will be asking, ‘What will he do with me?’”That’s something that needs to be settled right now.