Tom:
In this part of the program we’ve been going through, line by line, verse by verse, the Gospel of John. And our heart here is to read and try to better understand what God’s Word says. And, we have been encouraging people week after week to read the Bible, search the scriptures daily for a purpose and you are going to know God’s Word, you’re going to get to know him better, you are going to understand what he desires. Earlier Dave, we talked about knowing God’s will.Well it’s not that he is just going to come to you in a dream. God has laid out for us—Jesus said if you love me, keep my commandments. By that he meant his teachings, get to know his heart, what he desires and you are going to grow in your relationship with him.
Dave:
It’s a tragedy that some people would be satisfied with a creed and if they recite the creed and recite the Lord’s Prayer, they haven’t even begun to understand the Word of God. And, the Word of God is so wonderful, it’s God’s Word. It has depths beyond our comprehension and the more we—I’ve been studying the Bible for almost seventy years now—I wasn’t a Christian, I’m 75 so that would take me back to when I was 5. But in our family, thank God, we had family devotions twice a day, Bible study and prayer and I mean, I knew the Bible. I could recite verses, quote verses without ever trying. In fact, I have never tried to memorize the Bible, but you just remember it if you read it enough. But there is such depth—every time I go back to the Bible I see more. I couldn’t say that about Shakespeare, or about some modern writer, some novel, but this is God’s Word and it is forever settled in heaven, it’s unchangeable, it’s inerrant and it is sufficient and yet it is neglected. That is such a tragedy that so many Christians neglect the Word of God.
Tom:
Dave and Jesus offers us a personal intimate relationship with him. So, it’s going to involve experiences and emotions but the content of our relationship—how do I know about Jesus?What do I know about him? I am only going to get that through reading his letters really love letters, to me and that’s how I am going to develop the relationship that he offers.
Dave:
This is our spiritual food. We live by the Word of God. Okay, so where are we picking up?
Tom:
Well, we are in chapter 7, picking up with verse 6, but before we get into that, verses 1-5, we have—talk about relationships—Jesus is speaking to his half-brothers.
Dave:
Physical relatives.
Tom:
Exactly. Well, not just relatives but his close brothers.
Dave:
They are brothers born to Mary and Joseph.
Tom:
Right, and here there’s not much of a relationship. I mean, they lived with him; they ate at the same table, the same meals and so on.
Dave:
They were too familiar with him as a human being and they do not believe that he is God; they don’t believe who he really is.
Tom:
Let me start with verse 4—I’ll back up just a little bit. “For there is no man that doeth any thing in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, show thyself to the world.” So, his brothers were chiding him to get on and get out with what they have heard he could do, and maybe they witnessed some of these things.
Dave:
Big feast coming up, the Feast of the Tabernacles. They wanted him to get up there in Jerusalem and show people what you can do.
Tom:
But in verse 5 it says, “For neither did his brethren, that is, brothers, believe in him.” So, verse 6, “Then Jesus said unto them, My time is not yet come: but your time is always ready.”
Dave:
Well, Jesus came for a particular purpose. He actually came to be crucified, to die for our sins and it was not yet the time for that. In fact, a number of times in the gospels it says they tried to stone him, they were going to take him, they were going to kill him, but his time had not yet come. But when his time had come, in the Garden, then he submits and allows them to take him. I think this speaks to all of us—my time, your time is always ready. We are to be witnesses for him, we don’t have to wait for some special event, but we are daily to live for the Lord and to witness for him. I think that’s what he is saying to his brothers. He says, “You go on up to the feast”—I’m sorry, I’m getting ahead of you.
Tom:
Well, verse 7, “The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth me,”—there to me is an indication that they didn’t know him, because he says later that if we love him we are going to suffer just as he suffered, we’re going to be persecuted as he was.
Dave:
In other words, when we get to chapter 15, Jesus says, “If the world hate you—(he’s talking to his disciples now)—you know it hated me before it hated you; if you were of the world, the world would love its own but because I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” At this point his brethren had not come out of the world; they were not his true followers so why would the world hate its own? But they hated Jesus—“Me it hateth because I testify of it that the works thereof are evil.” Jesus hadn’t taken a Dale Carnegie course in “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” He was rather abrupt at times but he spoke the truth. We read Revelation 3, he says, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.” So, when he speaks plainly to them and rebukes them rather than just going along with them so as not to offend them, they do not accept him and the world hates him. But, as Christians, when we read his Word and he speaks to our hearts and he reproves us, then we should love him for it.
Tom:
Yes Dave, the other thing about this is Jesus just healing people—that upset without saying anything, but just doing things, living a godly life and nothing that he did was a reproach to God, but it was a reproach to those who were religious leaders because he was drawing people away from their system.
Dave:
Because he had an authority and power.He could do what they couldn’t do and that made them jealous and that caused them to hate him.
Tom:
Verse 8-10, “Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet full come. When he had said these words unto them, he abode still in Galilee.But when his brethren were gone up, then went he also up unto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret.” Now I know some people look at this where Jesus said he wasn’t going to go but then he does go.
Dave:
No, he didn’t say he wouldn’t go, he said, I go not up yet unto this feast. How he could do it in secret—he could just make it so that people didn’t recognize him because on more than one occasion when it said they took up stones to stone him, it says he walked right through their midst. But whatever the reason or however it happened, they don’t know that he is there and Jesus has gone up to the feast and, in fact, they are seeking him. Verse 11, “The Jews—(that means the leaders) sought him at the feast and said: Where is he? And there was much murmuring among the people concerning him: for some said, He is a good man: others said, nay; but he deceiveth the people. Howbeit no man spake openly of him for fear of the Jews.” Almost sounds like the Taliban. Not quite that bad, but the religious rulers had control over the people and Jesus rebuked them for that. We talked about that last week. The people were afraid to say anything because the religious leaders, they had the keys of heaven. You had to obey their rules to be part of Judaism, to be part of this religious system that they had set up. They stood between men and God. Tom, this is religion today. This is what—well, the Catholic Church, you have to follow their rules.
Tom:
And we’re not just talking about the Dark Ages, this is in effect today. If the church holds the keys to my eternal destiny, then even if I am a lapsed Catholic, or a cafeteria Catholic, or whatever, I’m going to hang in there if I am concerned about my eternal destiny. That’s coercion, that’s not what we are talking about with regard to loving Jesus, with regard to the gift that he has provided through his sacrifice on the cross.
Dave:
And how is this possible? Because the people want it that way. Not only Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and so forth. Well, I don’t want to read the Bible for myself, and I don’t want to get involved in this and I’ll leave it up to the pastor and I’ll leave it up to the church.
Tom:
I’ll just learn the creeds and I’ll say them over and over again.
Dave:
I’ll just trust in the church. You talk to people and they say well, I’m trusting the church, you know, I’ll take their word for it. So, the people allow this to happen because they do not want to know God personally. Well, we must know God personally. When we get to John 17, Jesus says in verse 3, “This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” I can’t imagine anyone who doesn’t seek God with his whole heart. Pasqual said, “There are only two rational people, those who are rational, they either seek God with all their heart because they haven’t found him yet, or they will love him with all their heart because they have come to know him.” May God stir our hearts to love him and to know him and to love his Word.
Tom:
And Dave, there’s no bondage in that, there is no fear in that. “Perfect love casts out fear,” and that’s what Jesus offers—a loving relationship with him.