4312 John+Session+12

well i want to welcome you to our exploration of the gospel of john and as you all know we never enter the word of god without being armed and assisted and enveloped by the holy spirit so let's borrow our hearts father we thank you for this opportunity we thank you for your word we thank you for this opportunity to really understand the extremes you've gone to on our behalf so we would pray father that through your holy spirit you would open our hearts and lives to your word that we might better apprehend these extremes you've gone to for our own benefit thank you father in jesus name indeed amen okay so we are in the 12th session which happens to be also the 12th chapter of john and so we'll just keep moving along here now we've just finished as you may recall from the last session we had the raising of lazarus one of the most interesting chapters in the bible and it's so familiar to us sometimes we probably take it a little too for granted but here is a person that was clearly dead for four days raised from the dead and we find him uh in chapter 12 sitting at dinner together can you imagine that dinner that's got to be exciting but anyway so then jesus six days before the passover came to bethany where lazarus which was which had been dead whom he raised from the dead and uh six days before passover passover was always on the 14th of the sun and that's the date you want to remember because we're going to be dealing a lot with that in the coming chapters because we're moving into the final week and you'll quickly discover that the jewish the jews catechism is his calendar that's one reason if you're serious about your bible you really need to understand the jewish calendar because in it god has installed all kinds of incredible surprises so i encourage you to do that so we're going to note here that it's the eighth of nissan because passover is the 14th it's six days before so that's the eighth the triumphal entry as we call it is um occurs on the tenth of nissan and we're going to talk we're going to encounter that in this chapter as we go and so they're at the house of simon the leper another one that jesus healed but it's a very close group these are all people that are very very intimate friends of our lord and uh so the tenth of nisan is going to be a target we're going to talk about and one of the things most people unless you're jewish probably don't understand the 10th of nisan is when the lambs were inspected for blemishes and such prior to four days in advance of their being used for passover so while the lambs are being inspected at the temple is the same day that a lord is being presented for inspection interestingly enough and that's something most people miss but we'll get beginning into that as we go forward here and so they made him a supper and martha served but lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him and i can't help but try to imagine what that must have been like here's a guy that actually was dead really really not a little quick on the operating table thing you hear from the time no this was four days and martha pointed out behold he stinketh you know don't don't be careful with you opening that place and jesus of course opens it and has him come out and and so forth so but here he is he's heavy now he's having dinner with him and uh that's got to be interesting then took mary a remember martha and mary there's a lot talked about them in luke and one of the subtleties you'll pick up as we go here is that john assumes his readers have read the other gospels that's a subtlety when we read it we don't pick up on it but it's kind of important that's another reason why i suspect i can't prove but i suspect that john wrote his gospel after patmos we generally think of patmos as being his climactic final thing to do because that's but in a way but uh no he he went from there to retirement into ephesus for some years and while there's when we probably wrote his gospel so he had the gospel bears evidence of structural uh awareness of the book of revelation so anyway uh so here's mary but now she's learned her lesson and she's um i mean martha has learned her lesson also but the two mary is was the exemplar in in luke's episode where she's always you always see mary at the feet of jesus i think that's interesting anyway then took mary a pound of ointment of spikenard very costly and anointed the feet of jesus and wiped his feet with her hair and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment now why this this is this is very um in a s in a jewish sense an uns unseemly conduct because it was considered a disgrace for a woman to appear in public with their hair unbound in that culture but mary is throwing caution to the winds here and uh disregarding that praise her name this is just great and it's probably it's recorded by many scholars is probably the best example in the scriptures of pure worship because she's disregarding everything else he's the center and she's giving him her all if you will and and it's a very uh profound uh event going on here and uh she's always at his feet you took a pound of this stuff this maru this ointment and that's a generic form of liquid perfume nardu is spikenard derived from the sanskrit term nalada which is a a a very fragrant form of that primarily in india but also syria and the term in the greek also is pistekis which is faithful reliable or genuine implies that this is the real thing not some kind of equivalent this is the real stuff and it's a perfume for both burial and wine if a pound is 12 ounces this is about 300 denarii this anyway turns out to be about a thousand dollars per ounce so this is this is expensive stuff and so uh i won't make a big thing of the transitions but we get the feeling it's expensive anyway then said one of the disciples judas iscariot simon's son which should betray him is looking ahead here but again see it's interesting john is taking advantage of the fact that he expects you to know the story already he's not telling you that judas is that's going to happen later but it's one of those subtle things i don't want you to miss here's that john is presuming you've read the gospels matthew mark luke whatever uh simon says we should be trained and this is what judah says why was not this ointment sold for 300 pence and given to the poor this he said not that he cared for the poor but because he was a thief and had the bag and bear what was put there in and so it's interesting to see the candor the john this is not an annotation by a commentator this is john as he goes pointing out that this guy's in involved in chicane right here and the word thief there is a key word it's ecleptus we all see kleptomaniac i think that's where the greek root stealing by k stealing by a carefully devised plan there's different kinds of stealing that's the kind of stealing and that's the news there and so forth then said jesus because they're criticizing mary in fact let her alone against the day of my burying hath she kept this for the poor always ye have with you but me ye have not always interesting remark by our lord himself but it's also interesting because it revealed something else not only was he calling your attention the fact that he's on the road to being buried he's also acknowledging the fact that she understood that the guy the guys didn't by the way the guys didn't have a clue until after the resurrection they then put together things they had been told and they they they make that quite clear but essentially the gals are the ones that got the picture and that'll become very clear on resurrection morning and so forth and so but here she is clearly sensitive to the fact that he is in jerusalem bethany is just is within a sabbath day's journey of jerusalem um and they're out to kill him it's this question of how when and where and so she is anticipating his burial that's profound and we it's gonna and she would sense what was gonna happen within the week she may not have known that she just knew it was gonna it was coming and the burying thing here and so much people of the jews therefore knew that he was there and they came not for jesus sake only but that they might see lazarus also whom he had raised from the dead that's understandable that word got around there's a guy that actually has been raised from the dead for real that's going to get people's attention understandably now there are scholastic estimates here that the number of people in town were well over a million maybe approaching three million people the different scholars have different estimates from different ways but the clearly we need to understand that this the deuteronomy 16 16 requires every able-bodied jew there are seven there are seven feasts during the year but there's three of those that every able-bodied jew was required to be in jerusalem and so that that drew the crowds from the far reaches as as they were able to comply with that and so it's it's passover it's the big season for them and the word passover by the way is used as a collective there's actually three feasts together there's passover the feast of unleavened bread which is eight days and then they have the feast within that there's the feast of shavuot excuse me that's what uh feast of uh first fruits those three feasts are collectively called passover they use the the the one feast to be a the nomenclature for the entire package obviously and so it's a big deal coming up here and much people of the jews and all close is the thing in the greek it's it's the common folk the con this is in contrast to the leadership and so uh and lazarus of course was a huge problem for the priests the chief priests at this point we start more and more were sadducees in the early part of the gospel the pharisees were pretty much the dominant group but by the time you get into the book of acts by then the sadducees are really dominating the sanhedrin the sadducees are really what you and i would consider the liberals the modernists the pharisees were the strict ones they were the conservatives in the sense the sadducees were the ones that were more attuned to the culture and less religious if you will they didn't believe in the resurrection they didn't believe in the supernatural and uh the way you remember the two that's why they were sad you see okay now that's a silly little thing but it helps you if you get confused which one's which you think and so but see their fundamental belief is that the dead are not raised life you know dead life that's the end of it and so to have a guy walking around that had been dead is punctures their whole system and so but the chief priests consulted that they might put lazarus also to death they had knocked this guy off he's an embarrassment because that by reason of him many of the jews went away and believed on jesus that didn't go over very well now you know as you stand back here you say geological thing you think that they'd wake up and they'd also believe on jesus life isn't like that people believe what they sort of have to believe and uh so it's a it's a phenomenon we need to understand we need to understand never underestimate the human being's ability to rationalize and for these people to avoid truth is shocking on the one hand but very typical today so on the next day much people that were come to the feast when they heard that jesus was coming to jerusalem they took branches of palm trees and went forth to meet him and cried hosanna blessed is the king of israel that cometh in the name of the lord now and this is much people there's there's quite a few people uh one census i came across uh indicated there was 256 500 lambs that were prepared for passover that year if you assume a minimum of 10 persons per lamb which is the the the torah model normally that would imply 2.6 million people were in jerusalem i wouldn't hang i wouldn't take that to the bank but the point is clearly there's a lot of people and we can begin to understand we need to get at least the feeling of that as we go here and uh the word hosanna of course translating save now i pray thee and they're quoting one of the hallel psalms there's the great hallel they call them psalm 115 through 118 have a special name they're the hallel psalms and bless the king of israel they're all focusing on the king of israel and what's interesting is they are singing this song on the very day that the angel gabriel told daniel some 500 years earlier this he he told daniel exactly the day this would happen and you're going to be shocked at some other aspects of this as we go if this if this is new to you but of course palms are the mark of triumph for a victor or king in several places but i want to pause for a minute and share with you a little poem that i remember getting as a kid and i couldn't resist throwing it in here at this point by g k chesterton when fishes flew and forests walked and figs grew up on a thorn some moment when the moon was blood then surely i was born with monstrous head and sickening cry and ears like errant wings the devil's walking parody on all four-footed things the tattered outlaw of the earth of ancient crooked will starve scourge deride me i am dumb i keep my secret still fools for i also had my hour one far fierce hour and sweet there was shout about my ears and palms before my feet well you know she missed my reaction too wow it sort of gets you chester penned it you didn't expect it i had i had to slip it in here because it's obviously you don't see it coming but it's a christian psalm see but anyway and jesus when he'd found a young ass and sat there on it is written fear not daughter of zion behold thy king cometh and sitteth on an ass's cult the fact that is talking about a king is crucial here i want you to note make note of that because that's going to solve a problem we're going to look at what john is quoting here is a that jesus is deliberately fulfilling a prophecy in zechariah 9 verse 9. as you study the gospel of john you'll discover several times jesus the enthusiasm of the crowd want to make him king and he says my hour has not yet come in john six a couple other places he doesn't let that happen mine hours not yet come then one day he does something very weird he arranges it to happen on that day he has a donkey set by with a password if they go get it they release it and he rides it he deliberately rides this donkey into jerusalem on this particular day he's doing it on purpose why because he's fulfilling zechariah 9 9 but it gets it gets better as we go here this is the zechariah 9 9 if you will and this is quoted by the way in all four gospels so you know it's important especially it gives it's another form of that emphasis if you will rejoice greatly o daughter of zion shout out daughter of jerusalem behold thy king cometh unto thee he is just and having salvation lowly and riding upon an ass upon the cold the full of an ass in other words a young one and uh this is the only day that jesus allows himself to be proclaimed as king but he's doing it deliberately so and and we're going to pick up the the pumps the trifle entry passage in luke is a little more detailed so i'm going to use i'm adding some verses by reaching into luke to get the perspective here saying blessed be the king that cometh the name of the lord peace in heaven and glory in the highest and the word king there of course is crucial uh sama the psalm they're singing is psalm 118 one of the hillel psalms i want you to notice this you all heard this but you may not have understood it this is the day which the lord hath made we shall rejoice and be glad in it see that that verse uh 118 14 24 is we quote that a lot this is because a particular day picks us up and we say this is the day the lord hath made and i'm not knocking that that's okay but that's not what it's really referring to it's really designed to refer to this day this is the day which the lord hath made we shall rejoice and be glad in it save now i beseech that's that hosanna faith o lord o lord i beseech thee send thou prosperity blessed be he that cometh in the name of the lord we have blessed you out of the house of the lord and on it goes this is the day okay now we're going to talk about this event that occurred what we call the triumphal entry we know it probably more commonly as palm sunday the problem with that is it probably was shabbat it wasn't on sunday but i would i don't want to point i don't want to get into that here we'll talk about that more in subsequent sessions as we try to unravel what really happened that week and it's possible i'm not sure but it's possible the triumphal entry wasn't on sunday it was on on shabbat saturday but that's another mechanic but just be that's why i'll call the triumphal entry i try to avoid calling it palm sunday because that might be an error okay all right so they're saying psalm 118. they are declaring by singing this this song there they're declaring jesus to be the meshiach nageeb the messiah the king and uh it's actually a reference from daniel 9 25 which we're going to look at in a minute here now any time that you and i as gentiles say may miss something the pharisees come to our rescue any time that they get upset that's a clue that's a way that we've got something underlying that we better understand because they're responding to something that we as gentiles that might not be saying some of the pharisees from among them multitude said unto master rebuke your disciples as a gentile is standing by watching you say what's wrong with that they're singing they're singing a psalm out of the psalm book no the pharisees realize that singing that song under these conditions is declaring him as the messiah and they assume that they shouldn't be blaspheming now there's a lot in this that means that declaring him as a messiah is declaring him as god or it wouldn't be blasphemy if he was just some anointed prophet that wouldn't be a big deal but the messiah something else and the pharisees figure gee uh jesus you don't want your disciples blaspheming that's when you aren't going to rebuke them is what he's saying you get the picture and i want you to notice the tact and finesse of the lord in his response here and he answered and said on them i tell you that if they should hold their peace the stones would immediately cry out now if you have a mischievous twist of mind as i have you sort of wish they would have shut up for a minute to see it was that just a figure of speech what would have really happened and so usually when we're in israel we end up going up to the mount of olives because it's a great overlook for taking pictures of the of the city of jerusalem from that from the that side from the uh eastern side and then what we typically do from there we walk down that very road down to gesemit because at the base of the down the valley kitchen valley is the gethsemane so we're up there taking pictures very usual and then we go down there and have a little time in gethsemane and i usually teach what i'm showing you here while we're up there on mount of olives but also point out to our gang that here's your chance to get the best bargain in israel because what you you've got all these guys all these vendors always trying to sell your postcard whatever bothering you as you go the best bargain in israel as we walk down to the gethsemane find a stone somewhere and put in your pocket won't cost you anything and when you get back to the united states or wherever you come from get back home you go to a trophy shop and have them mount that rock on a piece of mahogany with a little plaque and so forth and you put it in your living room on the coffee table or your desk at work and so forth and when somebody says what on earth is that you say that's one of the stones that didn't cry out and you have a chance they brought it up right so you can tell them all about the triumphal entry and the jesus of the messiah and daniel 9 and all this stuff so for what it's worth so that's that's the best bargain in israel but anyway moving on [Music] now as jesus comes near to the city what does he do he's get the picture they're coming from bethany he's riding that donkey up over the hill he's coming down through the kidron valley to into jerusalem and as he comes over the top of the hill the city spreads out before him and what does he do they're all cheering they got their palm branches and they're throwing down their coats and he's you know big big to-do what does he do he weeps he weeps he wept over it just like jeremiah did in his day and uh and what does jesus describe going on here he's riding this donkey it's the big triumphal day it's the triumphal entry they're declaring him as king he knows that four days from now they're going to be saying crucify him but they don't know that yet saying if thou hatched known even thou at least in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace but now they are hid from thine eyes it's quite a verse this is a special day they were he's holding them accountable to recognize and they didn't but now they're hid he also declares blindness on the part of the nation not forever paul tells us how long in romans 11 25 they're hid until the fullness of the gentiles become in at least in this thy day that's the part i want to focus on here but that's because of that there now he declares a blindness on the part of the nation and paul explains that to in romans 11. so when jesus earlier had met with four disciples came to him privately for an inside briefing on his second coming and that's recorded in most detail in matthew 24 and when he responds to their questions he points them to a passage in daniel that will unlock all of your eschatology the little four verse part we're going to take a quick look at part of that and it's the most important passage for you to really master in your old testament studies it's the last four verses of the ninth chapter of daniel it's commonly called the 70 weeks of daniel because it deals with 70 weeks of years and so we're not going to get into all of that here relax but but the first of those four verses verse 24 of chapter nine gabriel meets daniel interrupts a prayer that he's into it's known as the interrupted prayer of the old testament and it says to daniel 77s are determined upon your people and upon the holy city notice on it's on israel not the church determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city to do six things to finish the transgression to make an end of sins to make reconciliation for iniquity to bring in everlasting righteousness to seal up the vision and the prophecy and to anoint the most holy place now the question you need to ask yourself has that happened yet and the answer is obviously not some of them you can argue and partially fulfilled at least but clearly there's not an end of sins and clearly there's a lot of here there's an everlasting righteousness brought in there's it's clear this is in some sense consummate at the end this embraces the whole program of god if you will in a sense okay now gable goes on to tell daniel and verse 25 of daniel 9 i'm going to assert is the most fantastic verse in the entire bible and gable says to daniel no therefore and understand this isn't cryptic this isn't something hidden know he said know and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to be restoring to bill jerusalem unto the meshiach nagi the messiah the king of the prince shall be seven weeks and three score in two weeks that's seven plus 62 in other words 69 weeks of the 70 weeks 69 are here dealt with and then he goes on to say the street shall be built again and the wall even in troubled times and every time there's a detail in the scriptures there for a purpose and the reason that last verse is there so you won't confuse this with the temple there are several commands in the past to rebuild the temple there's a specific command in nehemiah 2 which was the authority to rebuild the city and that's what's in view here and uh so this is given to daniel when they're in slaves in slavery in babylon and daniel knew he was the 70 years that they were captive was almost over so he goes to prayer and that prayer is interrupted by gabriel giving him this this insight here now it's a mathematical prophecy know that from the going forth that commandment unto the messiah prince will be a specific period of time let's take a look at this here the trigger is the commandment to restore jerusalem the target is the messiah the king except those two are separated by seven weeks of years and we're indebted to sir robert anderson who was knighted formerly head of scotland yard who unraveled this by noticing that the that god uses 360 day years he does that in genesis and he does that in revelation now you get problems trying to reconcile it to the sidereal calendar which we deal with so you have 364 and whatever but the point is the the fundamental idiom is a 360 day year if you take 69 of those and 300 of those weeks of those you end up with 173 880 days say okay that's interesting so what well the thing is when does this start we know this was the decree of arctic xerxes longimanus which was given on march 14th of 445 bc and it's recorded in nehemiah 2 and you can unravel all that if you like the question really is what's the target when did the was was the messiah when did he come he presented himself on what we call the trifle entry and that was on april 6 of 32 a.d and we'll develop that in detail if you want to get into it later but the point is if you this prophecy in daniel was part of the old testament which means it was translated into greek three centuries before the ministry in a thing called the septuagint version of the old testament uh ptolemy philadelphus in 280 bc was funded 70 jewish scholars the best they could find in alexandria which was the big library in those in that era to translate the jewish scriptures into greek because most jews didn't speak hebrew they spoke greek because that was the commercial language they wanted their scriptures in a in their daily language so they funded that to happen that's called the septuagint version it's the translation of the old testament into greek we have that around this is in there and that was translated into greek three centuries before this is all going on it's in black and white there in any secular encyclopedia will verify all that for you but i want you to understand what is involved here from 445 bc to 32 a.d is 173 740 days if you take the march 14th to april 6th you've got another 24 days if you go through the rigors of figuring out the leap of your problems there's 116 days that come out of that when you add that all up what was gabriel's margin for error zero gabriel told daniel the exact day that jesus would present himself as king now just as an apologetic this is something to to put logic underneath our faith wow that's that's staggering in its implication i had uh so robert anderson's book had fallen out of print i had a friend when i was a a kid gave me a copy because it was a rare book in those days it since has become and you can get in any good uh bookstore when we get our own little setup here we'll have those available for those that want to get into it but but the thing that i didn't really realize even back then is not only did gabriel pin the day down jesus is holding them accountable for it and that's that's the surprise in verse 41 in luke he said when he was come near he beheld the city and he wept over saying if thou it's known even thou at least in this thy day the things which belong to thy peace but now they're hid from thine eyes wow this day he held them accountable for this day but now they're hidden okay but not forever paul in in romans 11 25 tells us that this will be blinded in part until the fullness of the gentiles be come in and one of your most astonishing signs of the times is that you know a couple of decades ago if you had a friend that was jewish going to immigrating to israel that was a christian you warned him his friends would warn him not to get on any lists you can go there's a gentile goes to jew no problem if you go there's a believing jew you've got problems they'll target you and that you so you stayed underground not anymore one of the most amazing things we've noticed just in the last few years is there now over 350 messianic fellowships operating openly in israel the blindness is beginning to lift and boy that is that a sign that we're moving into the end times okay moving on here jesus continues says for the day shall come upon thee that thine enemies shall cast a trench about the encompass the round and keep the inn on every side and they shall lay thee even with the ground and thy children within thee and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another and luke 19 verse 43 and 44 he jesus is predicting the fall of jerusalem 38 years from his saying that the roman legions bring it down and uh the uh 38 years later 1870 titus suspension had the 5th 10th 12th and 15th roman legions lay siege to jerusalem 143 days 600 000 jews were killed historians estimate that over a million and a half men women and children died from the siege and the famine and the disease that followed now the question i want to ask you is why was jerusalem destroyed in 78 years a milestone to this day in a jewish wedding they take the goblets the glasses and they crush them that's a token honor of the fall of jerusalem and it's observed to this day in a jewish wedding that to commemorate it should be the happiest day for of the couple's life on the one hand but they take a moment to acknowledge this tragedy why did was jerusalem and jerusalem fall in just the city no more temple the torah requires that without the shedding of blood there's no remission of sins there's now no place to remember what do they do with that that's an old another story why was jerusalem see and here's the answer jesus said that they would not leave and stay one stone upon another why because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation the the impact of verse 44 in luke 19 is shattering that they were held accountable to know the prophecy of gabriel wow in daniel 9. john knew it's not the time of thy visitation heavy stuff here and so he held him accountable and uh john picking up from john now these things understood not as disciples of the first but when jesus was glorified in other words after he was resurrected then remembered they that these things were written of him and that they had done these things unto him so this is a recollection that john the rest of the rest of the guys put together because they after the benefit of the resurrection he rides the donkey in zechariah 9. he routed an ass now but a white horse later that'll occur in revelation 19. so you want to distinguish those two the people therefore that was with him when he called laos out of his grave and raised him from the dead bear record and for this cause the people also met him for that they had heard that he had done this miracle no surprise and it's an event that couldn't be denied the pharisees therefore said among themselves perceive ye how you prevail nothing behold the world is gone after him really yeah look at the next verse even the gentiles there were certain greeks among them that came to worship at the feast and the same came therefore to philip which was of bethsaida of galilee and desired him saying sir we would see jesus i have very vivid memories in los angeles there is a giant church downtown the that was a very famous pulpit for h.a ironside now it has a proud history and i was down there once not to speak just visiting it was empty but i couldn't resist because of its history to climb up into this massive pulpit overlooking this incredible church and as you go up the stairs and you come up into the pulpit the thing the thing you see is a plaque sir we would see jesus this verse is there so if you're a guest speaker it's reminding you what they want to hear about is jesus not whatever you know and i've never forgotten that as you go up that it's sort of a you know a reminder to anybody that visits there but anyway enough of that so um it's interesting that the gentiles are showing some interest here so they go to philip which has a greek name and he sends them to andrew which has a greek name and uh why does john mention the gentiles at this point because they had rejected jesus by now that really happens in matthew 12. it's another milestone but because the king has now been rejected it's open to the gentiles that's what john is subtly beginning to to indicate here and uh sir we would see jesus boy philip coming to tell if andrew because there again he also had a greek name and again andrew and philip tell jesus and jesus i'm saying the hour has come that the son of man should be glorified and so so on it moves on it's interesting whenever by the way it's interesting when you see you study andrew a little bit you never see andrew where he's not introducing somebody to christ he's so he's really an evangelist and a real soul winner and so anyway moving on um the cross must come before the gentiles can have access to christ that's what john is really acknowledging here the gentiles recognized him as king at both his birth you may recall those are gentile visitors persians and uh if you know about the magi it's all another story and uh the versed about his birth and his death and in fact the eusebius records an interesting thing that the king of edessa and syria saw the absentee obstacle of the jews rejecting jesus he sent an embassy to jesus to invite him to come to his home promising a royal welcome now does it happen i know it's in it's in the letters anyway whatever moving on jesus speaking now verily verily i say unto you except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit he that loveth his life shall lose it but he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal wow if any man serve me let him follow me and where i am there shall also my servant be if any man serve me him will my father honor now is my soul troubled and what shall i say father save me from this hour but for this cause came i unto this hour father glorify thy name then came there a voice from heaven saying i have both glorified it and will glorify it again wow these familiar passages in john may be so familiar we don't we may lose their impact as he's praying there's a voice from heaven that doesn't happen very often it happened three times that we know of um in human history see the saddest strategy of human history the cross was the purpose of his coming it was also the greatest victory of all history the purpose of all history was gathering as children the tragedy of all history but ye would not the triumph all history is blessed to you that comes in the name of the lord these three are summarized in matthew 23 that closes that chapter the purpose tragedy and triumph of all history is all embodied in these events that we're reading about right here now the voice from heaven that we heard this is the third time that god spoke broke the sounds of heaven at least as recorded in the scripture the first was at the beginning of jesus ministry at his baptism that was recorded in mark chapter 1 verse 11. the beginning of his last trip to jerusalem and that was at the tr at the transfiguration in mark 9 7. and then the beginning of the final week at the temple here if you will so okay there are three listeners here the first was natural phenomena the other was impersonal an angel apparently and the voice of his father here a proper relationship but let's move on the people therefore that stood by heard it and heard it said that it thundered others said an angel spake to him jesus answered and said the voice came not because of me but for your sakes now is the judgment of this world now shall the prince of this world be cast out and if i and i if i be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me this he said signifying what death he should die and we covered this in some depth in john 3 the whole idea of the cross and all that was was emblazoned back in numbers 21 among other places the world is cast out that this is the beginning of the end of satan's dominion and the in the beginning of the triumph over the hearts of men and we begin to a whole study here career of satan but let's move on here the people answered him said we have heard out of the law that christ abideth forever and how sayeth now the son of man must be lifted up who is this son of man now there's some understandable confusion here because they know the messiah was going to abide forever they didn't they didn't they had the the the jewish traditions there's two messiahs one that's going that's the suffering servant and one that's the reigning king the mashiach ben yosef and the mashiach ben david and they have a two messiah concept that they embrace and the uh the most venerated ultra orthodox when when he died left a note to be opened one year after his death that was made the big news back in the uh 2006 that the two messiahs are one and his name is yahushua and that really caused a stir in israel but anyway now this is an understandable question how sayeth thou the son of men must be lifted up meaning in death and so they're puzzled by this and that's understandable in my mind then jesus said to them yet a little while is the light with you walk while you have the light lest darkness come upon you for he that walketh in the darkness knoweth not whether he goeth wow while you have the light believe in the light that you may be children of the light these things bake jesus and departed and did hide himself from them so these are tense times and so he he elects to disappear but i want to pause here to give you another personal anecdote if i may um i got very interested in the bible as a kid i started collecting i just got fascinated with it and i started collecting commentaries and so forth and as i matured in my studies and and my later teens and as i collected these commentaries i discovered that most of your sophisticated expositional commentaries will tell you that there really is two isaiahs not one isaiah and i never bought that and yet it really took the edge off my studies i didn't reject what i had learned but i lost my enthusiasm because i ran into the deuter the documentary hypothesis that well moses didn't really write the torah it was j.e you know the five was nonsense that they promote there i want to talk about isaiah here though and i want to show you what was for me in my life one of the most precious lessons that came out of the scripture impacting my life two isaiahs is the concept see in spite of the lack of concrete evidence on any part that any part of isaiah existed without the other part is as far back to the 100 200s bc yet besides that the dogma of most scholarship today is that two or more individuals authored isaiah if you go to seminary if you pick up almost any commentary not i won't say most of them but an awful lot of them they'll tell you what they'll teach you what they call the deutero-isaiah theory that they're really two isaiahs one that wrote it up to chapter 39 and the other wrote from 40 to the end two parts to it there's no evidence for that by the way but that's what that's widely taught to isaiah's this perspective arose most notably in the deistic climate of the 18th century europe and daughterlin was the one of the earliest to argue for the second author he said that since isaiah could not have first seen the fall of jerusalem the 70-year captivity and the return of cyrus these are things that show up in isaiah 2 if you will that had to have been written later because he couldn't possibly have foreseen those things with a detail that's there okay isaiah could not have written those chapters making such claims that gets picked up among these erudites and these people are not dumb they're guys with extreme language skills good school they're serious scholars except they have the arrogance to assume that they can tamper with the text the stumbling what i call the stumbling of pseudo scholarship two isaiahs some even say three not just two three they have some variations you know the tradition is that isaiah himself was son and two you find that alluded to in hebrews 11. but the same thing apparently happened to his book okay how is isaiah's prophecy we are indebted to the apostle john for shortcutting hours of boring library research because i want to show you something that he does here when you get to verse 37 in john 12 it goes but though he had done so many miracles before then yet they believed not on him that the saying of isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled which he spake lord who hath believed our report to whom hath the arm of the lord been revealed that is a phrase you probably familiar to your ears because you recognize that as the opening verses of isaiah chapter 53. john is here quoting from isaiah 53 the apparent fulfillment of that here okay that's first isaiah the prophet okay and as i say quote from isaiah 53 therefore they could not believe because that isaiah said again and he has another quote here he hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart that they should not see with their eyes nor understand with their heart and be converted and i should heal them these things said isaiah when he saw his glory and spake of him verse 40 is a very important verse i want to talk about its content here in a minute but let me table it for the moment to highlight something another part of the lesson here that is the most important to me at least personally these things that isaiah and he's quoting here from isaiah chapter 6. first quote was from isaiah 53 this quote from isaiah 6 and one of the most precious verses to me personally in my intellectual life was verse 39 therefore they could not be club believe because that isaiah said again john is telling us that the isaiah that wrote 53 and the isaiah that wrote six is the same guy do you realize the impact of that that john himself has saved you from that error that permeates most seminaries today it's a lie you sitting there with your bible in your lap if you believe john can avoid an error that clouds the thinking i don't know many how many hundreds of graduates from the seminaries if they buy that i'm not suggesting anybody that graduates from the 70s by that's theory i'm saying that's but that's what's taught that's what's strong it takes an awful lot of faith to get through seminary and that that isaiah said again i can't communicate to you how precious that was when that hit me and that that re-energized my respect for the text itself and it confirmed a growing cynicism i had towards what i call pseudo i'm not against scholarship but it's not scholarship that generated this is it's arrogance the object the error i mean a single verse verifies that isaiah said again there are 61 separated passages that are quoted are referred to 85 times the new testament 23 passages from so-called isaiah 1 and uh 28 passive mosaic 2. 85 times you'll find this but you got to piece it together do you follow me and isaiah 1 the reign of christ in the kingdom the virgin birth the reign of christ that jesus rule over the world christ is the descendant of david christ to be filled with the spirit these are all contained in what is commonly called the first isaiah okay fair enough and christ to judge the righteousness great christ to rule over the nations now in isaiah 2 from chapter 40 on is right to be gentle to the weak there's possible new covenant and so forth it's no surprise that the tone the style of the second half of the book is a little different but the vocabulary of isaiah is richer than any other writer of the bible if you study english literature you know that john milton and william shakespeare had the largest vocabularies of any we've ever found well isaiah is sort of the counterpart of that in in the biblical sense his he was the uh he was the royal prophet to the king he was he was an incredibly articulate guy and he that vocabulary pervades both first and second isaiah and we can get into that here in a minute the dead sea scrolls contain a complete scroll of isaiah data from the second century bc the book is one unit with the end of chapter 39 the beginning of chapter 40 in one continuous column of text that simply means that the scribes who copied this never doubted the singular unity of the book that's utter nonsense that was embedded in the 18th century neither did the new testament authors nor the early church as quotations from both sections are attributed only to isaiah and so messianic prophecy is strong and important evidence for jesus claims to be god isaiah's writings were completed many centuries before jesus christ was born and yet are completely accurate the dead sea scrolls contained more than one complete scroll of the book and composed well before the birth of christ the book of isaiah was included in the septuagint that was the translation three centuries before the the new testament period now jesus himself quotes from isaiah 29 and he quotes i will have to go to all the details he's also referenced in isaiah 42 and uh and attributes this to isaiah jesus himself is tying this together for us and so we've got some more of these here we'll just get through these there are several other new testament verses that refer to the prophet isaiah as the sole author matthew and luke romans 10 and john 12 all tie the two together if you will john 12 is just the crispest one that's why it's so precious to me but as you start looking around you discover that that elsewhere just takes a little more homework and so to isaiah is not so and so isaiah's mentioned 21 times by six books in the new testament as the author and uh ten times isaiah one is attributed to him and i won't go through each one of these obviously okay and eleven times for isaiah two in the in the new testament and so so on it goes six different speakers quote isaiah one and two christ does four times and matthew twice luke four times in john three times and i've color-coded one and two just to give you a flavor of how often they're quoted there and john the baptist twice and paul six times so there's six different speakers that in effect testify to a singular isaiah if you will and because they quote the pair i was being isaiah that's my point and so uh 300 words and expressions are common to the two books that are not found in the other prophets daniel haggai zechariah and malik i don't have the vocabulary i'm trying to highlight the uniqueness of isaiah's vocabulary that pervade both books if you will so you can't make a case here from the vocabulary some people try to but it doesn't fly so out of all this the reason i've hammered this in this john's study is because there's a key lesson here for all of us and that's to become critical thinkers don't let don't confuse you first of all be skeptical of academic uh traditions that aren't justified i've come to the clues that most traditions are wrong when you go to israel and visit a traditional site unless there's scriptural evidence for it it's probably not correct bluntly that's what's so much fun about the sea of galilee you know that isn't sea of galilee no doubt about that some of the other things okay also don't make don't mistake sophistication as true scholarship just because that fancy language is fancy phds behind their names or whatever don't be impressed by that that's just means it's piled higher and deeper that's what phd so may make acts 17 your litmus test and receive the word will all readiness of mind and search the scriptures daily to prove where those things be so and strangely enough the difficult part of that pair is not the second one's the first one often your biggest challenge is to set aside your own presumptions and be go at it with an open mind very difficult to do the more you know about your bible the more you'll find yourself ingrained into things that may need to be re-examined too so be careful don't believe anything chuck missler tells you that's what luke tells you in acts 17 11 luke tells you don't believe any church tells you receive the word with openness of mind but search the scriptures to prove where those things be so i'm not here to ingrain a doctrine on you i'll share with you what i believe and why i do as a shortcut hopefully but i'm hoping to raise up self-feeders people who have the skills and the orientation and the background to do their own digging and come to their own conclusions that's really what we're all about that's why we have the institute and your protection against heresy is the whole council of god in other words you avoid one verse theology always two or three witnesses and so forth whatever you believe especially about in eschatology end times it should fit the whole package you need to have the whole fabric in front of you if it doesn't fit the fabric there's a problem somewhere that's what makes it so challenging you really need to have a whole tapestry in front of you to make those decisions but there's another key lesson here let's we've talked about the structure that i want to focus on the content of what was going on there verse 37 says they would not believe though they had seen the evidence for his design sonship verse 39 says they could not believe because their hearts became hard and their eyes blind therefore god said they should not believe because they had spurned his grace there's a concept the reason john is quoting from isaiah is a show that was this was prophesied and if they don't accept christ at first their hearts were hardened so they won't be able to later now that's one of the big complaints that tim lahayen gets with his and uh jerry jenkins the the famous uh left behind series his dream was to have a novel and it's it was fulfilled it's been very successful in many ways i'm not here to knock it don't misunderstand me but there is an aspect of it that gets some criticism that is it creates the impression that if you don't accept christ before the rapture you'll have a second chance i'm not saying you don't get a second chance be careful here but there's a high probability that you won't make it that way because of isaiah 6 10. and we're going to take a look at that here because if they would not believe then they could not believe and therefore god says they won't believe and that is in second thessalonians chapter 2 where it talks about the antichrist that's after the rapture it says that because they did not accept christ god would send him a delusion and a lie and so the point is there's an argument by some theologians that the second chance thing is dangerous because you may if you've had a chance to accept christ and turn it down there may be scar tissue that'll keep you from going the rest of the way so you need to understand that's an area the thing to do is accept them before the rapture that's for clear see the verse that is key of those ones we're talking about setting the isaiah thing aside here's what isaiah was predicting he has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart that they should not see with their eyes nor understand with their heart and be converted and i should heal them in other words there's a barrier to accepting christ and that's your failure to do it earlier you fail to accept christ your heart will become hardened to some degree how much it can harden enough so you will not be able to believe it's a spiritual issue not an intellectual one and we need to understand that so and of course in john 12 40 he was quoting isaiah 6 10. that was what we i wanted to get in the quote thing first isaiah 6 10 is quoted seven times in the new testament let me say it again seven times in the new testament it warns us that you're you may be precluded from accepting christ if you don't accept them when you first get a chance that's scary stuff it's a repeated warning seven times that reminds the unsaved not to take their spiritual opportunities lightly you turn those opportunities down you become callous there's another way to look at it while you have light believe in the light is what verse 36 said seek the lord while ye may be found that's what isaiah 55 says anyway let's move on nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him but because of the pharisees they did not confess him lest they should be put out of the synagogue that's a big deal it's not just a religious thing it's a whole cultural thing for they love the praise of men more than the praise of god now who are these chief rulers that are in view here we don't know one sec one speculation is that maybe see many believed on him nicodemus and jose methi were probably among them now jose mourinho there was not a secret he was not a there's a mistranslation in your king james it says he was secretly a disciple no the the the word there is an adverb meaning that he was excuse me as an adjective not an adverb he was secreted that's why pilate was so surprised to see him he had gone underground we don't know what nick well we'll get to nicodemus here in a minute let's talk a little bit about nicodemus his name means ruler victory demon nicki about nike if you will the nicolaitans rule over the laity's term in revelation he was a pharisee and a ruler nicodemus was and he was probably a member of the sanhedrin but not one of the chief priests incidentally and so but a the talmud records nicodemus as one of the four richest men in jerusalem and a disciple of jesus that's in the talmud of all places interestingly enough hoskins records that nicodemus was a member of the aristocratic family that had furnished the hasmonean king aristopoulos ii with his ambassador to pompeo in 63 bc and and his son apparently was the man who negotiated the terms of surrender to the roman garrison in jerusalem prior to the final destruction of that city in 1870 so he's a he shows up in history as a key guy and so there are talmudic links to nicodemus ben gurion a brother to the historian josephus a very wealthy member of the sanhedrin in the first century he lost his wealth and position later in the speculations he may have that may be because he became a christian so we'll see that may not be the same niconemus by the way but just but nicodemus himself are the nicknames of the bible we we encountered him in john 3 that tutorial session with christ at night we we saw in john 7 that he would he participated in the defense of christ before the sanhedrin and uh we're going to see him in john 19 as participating with jose mathia in the burial so he's a good guy he's one of ours okay and jesus continues then that have i not spoken of myself but the father which sent me he gave me a commandment what i should say and what i should speak and i know that his commandment is life everlasting whatsoever i speak therefore even as the father said unto me so i speak that doesn't come as a surprise to any of us but it sets the stage for chapters 13 14 15 16 and 17. which collectively are called the upper room discourse and one of the things i hope we achieve over the coming sessions is to really know and experience him it's easy to read about him it's easy to learn a lot of little facts and things but what we're really anxious to do is to have an encounter with him and there's probably no body of scripture that's more fruitful in doing that than the coming chapters from 13 to 17. and from 18 on we're going to be entangled in all the drama of the rest of that week and so forth but the upper room discourse john devotes a major over half his gospel is the last week and most of what he deals with is going to come up in the next few chapters and some of the passages may be so familiar we don't want that familiarity to prevent us from really hearing what it says the triumphal entry occurred on the 10th of nissan the same day that the passover lambs are being inspected at the temple you see what's going on here the passover lambs are being inspected so was the passover lamb being inspected and so study carefully and explore the day of the week that the crucifixion occurred we're not going to deal with that next time but it's coming up and one of the things you might want to just do as you study your bible you might want to just figure out when did that really occur in that week what day of the week was it and what does that really mean and the main thing you'll discover we're not sure about some things but we know what everybody believes isn't true so i want you guarded to that so you'll do your own thinking and so with that be prepared to challenge some deeply held traditions and for your next session of course i'd like you to prepare by reading all those chapters we won't cover all those chapters next time but it won't hurt you just to read them as a package as we go 13 as far as your devotional intensity allows and with that let's bow our hearts our goal is to know him not the material him and let's borrow hearts father we thank you for who you are we thank you for this opportunity you've allowed us we do pray father through your holy spirit you would open your word to our hearts and lives that we might really apprehend the one that we commit ourselves to yeshua our coming king indeed [Music] amen [Music] you

Channel: The Reconciled

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Length: 66min 25sec (3985 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 05 2021