John 10:6 - This figure of speech Jesus spoke to them, but they did not understand what those things were which He had been saying to them.
John 10:16 - I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice…
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)
3 realities that help us understand the nature of faith and respond appropriately
I. Persistent Unbelief Has Never Been Because of a Lack of Evidence
A. Evidence over time simply hardens unbelief for those persisting in it
B. Rejected truth over time enrages
C. Unbelief reveals a different “lord/shepherd”
“You do not believe because you are not my sheep” (cf. John 8:47; 12:37–40; 14:17)
Psalm 2:1-3 - Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand. And the rulers take counsel together. Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, let us tear their fetters apart. And cast away their cords from us!
“When the great moment came and the beast spoke, he missed the whole point for a rather interesting reason. When the lion had first begun singing, long ago when it was still quite dark, he had realized that the noise was a song. And he had disliked the song very much. It made him think and feel things he did not want to think and feel.
Then, when the sun rose and he saw that the singer was a lion (‘only a lion,’ as he said to himself) he tried his hardest to make himself believe that it wasn’t singing and never had been singing—only roaring as any lion might in a zoo in our own world. ‘Of course it can’t really have been singing,’ he thought, ‘I must have imagined it. I’ve been letting my nerves get out of order. Who ever heard of a lion singing?’ And the longer and more beautifully the lion sang, the harder Uncle Andrew tried to make himself believe that he could hear nothing but roaring.
Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. Uncle Andrew did. He soon did hear nothing but roaring in Aslan’s song. Soon he couldn’t have heard anything else even if he had wanted to. And when at last the lion spoke and said, ‘Narnia awake,’ he didn’t hear any words: he heard only a snarl. And when the beasts spoke in answer, he heard only barkings, growlings, bayings, and howlings.” (C. S. Lewis The Magician’s Nephew)
“A damned soul is nearly nothing: it is shrunk, shut up in itself. Good beats upon the damned incessantly as sound waves beat on the ears of the deaf, but they cannot receive it. Their fists are clenched, their teeth are clenched, their eyes fast shut. First they will not, in the end they cannot, open their hands for gifts, or their mouths for food, or their eyes to see.” (C. S. Lewis The Great Divorce)
II. Faith Is a Result of God’s Gracious Choice to Work in Our Dark Hearts
A. “My sheep” - God’s gracious choice of saving some out of all humanity that is murderously rebellious to Him is clearly taught by the Scriptures - John 6:37, 10:29; 15:16, 19; 17:2, 6, 24
John 10:29 - My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
John 6:37 - All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.
John 15:16 - You did not choose Me but I chose you…
“I believe the doctrine of election, because I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love.” (Charles Spurgeon)
B. His sheep will believe and be secure
John 10:27-28 - My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish…
III. The Word of God Is Always the Sole Divider Between God’s Sheep and Those Who Are Not God’s Sheep
A. A climactic claim - “I and the Father are one”
B. “My sheep hear My voice and they follow Me”
C. “The Scriptures cannot be broken”
D. “Believe the works of the Father” - the “works’” significance was to be established through the Word of God in the Old Testament
John 10:37-38 - “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.”
2 Peter 3:9 - …patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.
Our own Pastor Rod Hutton was a Navy Captain of a submarine during his time with the U.S Navy.
As we think about Memorial Day, I wanted to tie in an experience that Pastor Hutton had as captain with what we have been learning from John 10.
Last week in John 10, we were introduced to a metaphor that Jesus used of Himself—The Good Shepherd.
The text itself indicated that Jesus was using a metaphor that the people did not fully understand.
John 10:6 This figure of speech Jesus spoke to them, but they did not understand what those things were which He had been saying to them.
We also heard Jesus say
John 10:16 “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice;
“They will hear my voice” — that is not ambiguous.
Just as sheep know the voice of their shepherd, God’s people know the voice of their Lord
Today Jesus will say something similar that has very profound implications as to who are God’s children and who is not.
- Who is it that ultimately hears response to the Good Shepherd?
- What is are the implications if you never acknowledge the voice of the Good Shepherd.
In Pastor Hutton’s story, I want you to notice how the men responded to the voice of their Captain.
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When I became a Christian, my leadership demeanor in the Navy changed. Christlike leadership transforms the voice of a leader. If the sound we hear when we think of a leader is that of a Marine Drill Sargent speaking forcefully just an inch from your nose and we follow simply out of fear, that would be just one of the world’s broken leadership models. The voice of a Christ-like leader can reverse that image such that we choose to follow because we know what leaders have done for us as compared to what they might do to us.
When I was in command of a submarine, our crew had completed work on the ship that had taken nearly three years and we were ready to go back to sea. But before we left the pier, we would practice every step of operations. We called this Fast Cruise. My crew had all the training and experience needed to take the ship to sea, but they had never done this together as a team.
We had a schedule written out to steer us as we walked through our fast cruise, but as we began we found that the team was uncoordinated and in need of guidance. The first 2 hours of the written schedule had already taken 8 hours. We did not see the pace changing because the voices leading were frustrated and only reacting to what was right before them.
I am thankful for my Command Master Chief. He humbly came in and said, Captain, the men need to hear your voice. My only way to speak with them all was on the general announcing system to help bring them from feeling alone to recognizing that the whole team is working together to accomplish the goal and that we cared about their success. With the words and tone of voice that the crew needed in the moment, the voice of the Captain brought the reassurance, the encouragement and the motivation to begin operating as a crew vice as individuals.
This experience in my naval career reminded me of John 10:27, when Christ says, “My sheep hear my voice and follow me.” The crew need to hear and respond to one voice that of their captain.
I am proud to this day of the accomplishments of those men on my crew. I am honored to have served as their CO but most of all, I am thankful to Christ for changing me to grow as a leader with a shepherd’s heart.
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Rod Hutton’s crew heard their captain’s voice and responded.
That military metaphor fits well with the Shepherd metaphor that continues in our text today.
Turn in your Bibles to John 10:22. That is on page 81 of the back section of the bible in the chair in front of you.
We are continuing our series through the Gospel of John entitled “Enjoying Life in His Name”
And today we are discussing Enjoying Life In His Name by Responding Appropriately to God’s Revealed Truth
Our text begins with a notation of another Jewish Holiday at which Jesus was present—The feast of dedication.
This is also known as “Hanukkah” which occurs in December.
So, the events of chapters 7–9 occurred 2 months earlier.
Jesus’ crucifixion will be just about 3 short months away.
The text lets us know further that it was winter.
In addition to the darkness of winter, the darkness of the people’s response to the Light of the world and to the Great Shepherd has fully enveloped this situation.
The intensity of opposition has reached a fevered pitch.
Jesus has escaped death at the hands of the Jewish leaders several times now.
The demands upon Jesus to clearly speak are being heaped upon Him
Yet, all the while God has been revealing to the people exactly who Jesus was.
In our text today, the leaders demand of Jesus to “Tell us clearly” if you are the Messiah.
Jesus answers their question and goes beyond what they ask—which is truly shocking and drives the leaders into rage.
After the darkness of winter in this passage, Jesus will no longer make public appearances until His time has arrived. (This text leaves us with an “Empire strikes back kind of feeling” that the situation does not look so good. )
In the next chapter, Jesus will do one last sign among His disciples in chapter 11 that will prepare His disciples for the coming darkness with a beautiful light of the hope of His resurrection.
But at the end of our chapter today, His public ministry is essentially done.
At the end of the public ministry Jesus makes a startling claim.
Let’s read
22 At that time the Feast of the Dedication took place at Jerusalem; 23 it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon. 24 The Jews then gathered around Him, and were saying to Him, “How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
25 Jesus answered them, “I told you,
[Now, let me explain the possible confusion here. There was only one person so far in the Gospel of John, to whom Jesus said, “I am the Messiah.”
However, Jesus has been using all the OT imagery, the application of OT passages to Himself to paint clearly WHO HE IS.
In fact, He just said to this Jewish crowd, “I AM THE GOOD SHEPHERD” which has a direct link back to the OT Messianic expectations of Psalm 23, Ezekiel, and Isaiah as we studied last week
Jesus couched His claims of Messiahship in very specific OT passages that described His first coming.
The reason for this is that the Jews had a very specific concept of what Messiah would do—release them from national oppression.
The moment that Jesus would say to them, “I am Messiah,” they would have associated His claim with their concept of Messiah.
In fact, in John 6:15, the crowds were contemplating seizing Jesus by force to make him their political king.
Jesus carefully avoids that nuance of the Messiah, by crafting His message not first as the conquering political king to destroy the nations,
But, instead, the Messiah coming to save the nations
….the Shepherd who has sheep among the nations
….the light to the world….
So, the Jews say….. ”Jesus, tells us plainly who you are”
….Jesus says, “I have…..I just told you…connect the dots…I am the Great Shepherd….]
Jesus continues….
and you do not believe;
the works that I do in My Father’s name, these testify of Me.
Let’s review for a moment the works that Jesus has done…not His words….
- He has engaged in nothing less than a divine creative act by turning water into wine….This is something only God does.
- Jesus completely heals a lame man on the Sabbath and gives Him rest from His wearisome labor—which is something only God does.
- Jesus feeds a crowd of 5000 paralleling the miracle of bread from Heaven that only God does
- Jesus walks over the waters and calms them, which was pointing to the fact that only God is over the turbulent waters and able to calm the storms
- Jesus, takes the actions of God creating the original man out of the dust of the ground by reaching down to get dirt and smear it over the blind man’s eyes and in essence creates a new set of seeing eyes. In answering the Jew’s interrogation, the now seeing blind man says, “Since the beginning of time, it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind!” Implication…only God does this……
So, Jesus has said, “I told you….
- and you do not believe;
- the works that I do in My Father’s name, these testify of Me.
Now here is an incredible statement and full of theological reality…
26 “But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep.
Ultimately, when all is said and done, there is one reason why someone does not believe…that individual is not a part of the flock of God…is not a part of the family of God….
In contrast….
27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; 28 and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish;
[Jesus has answered their question about who He is…I told you….but….now He will go beyond that and will say something that throws them into rage….follow this logic as to how he goes beyond their question to give them even more….]
and no one will snatch them out of My hand.
[If you are in Jesus’ hand…there is nothing greater than Him so nothing can pluck His sheep out of His hand….and….]
29 “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all
(say greater)
and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
Wait!... wait!.... wait!.... a moment
Whose hand are the sheep in??? the Father’s? The Son’s?
And, If the Divine Father is greater than all and nobody is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand….
And if nobody is able to snatch them out of Jesus’ hand…
that means nobody is greater than Jesus
and…nobody is greater than the father…..Oh my…Oh my…
- All of these works Jesus was doing was more than simply being a human Messiah that was there to rescue them from political oppression
- All of these signs that Jesus was doing….that only the Father could do….
- All of that meant…
- Wait for it….
30 “I and the Father are one.”
Over the years, individuals have tried to nuance Jesus’ statement to deny Jesus’ divinity claim.
They might say, Jesus was not claiming to be God here….He could have meant…
He was one with God in desire…
He was one with God in purpose...
He was one with God in His love for others…
Anything less than a full claim to deity here simply is not dealing fairly with the context of John and what all of the Gospel of John is building toward…this dramatic claim at the climax of Jesus’ Ministry.
John 1:1—IN the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word Was God….
John 1:19-chapter 10…We see Jesus doing the works of God and nothing more or less than what His Father is doing….
So…the Jews, ask Him to state clearly who He is…And He does…I and the Father are one…..
At this point I am going to repeat a quote from C. S. Lewis about Jesus…This is either a claim of a lunatic, a liar, or indeed, our Lord Himself….
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.”—C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
- The climactic claim, here at the end of His public ministry, “I am more than the human Messiah you expected…I am your GOD, your creator, the one who spoke to Abraham, the one who called Moses, the one who gave you the Law, the one who dwelled in the temple and left, and now has returned in me, Jesus the Messiah, your Lord.
And they lose their mind….
31 The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him.
32 Jesus answered them, “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?” 33 The Jews answered Him, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.”
[The Jews do not misunderstand Jesus’ claim. All those who try to make Jesus’ words something less than a claim to full divinity cannot explain the Jew’s words… “You being a man, make Yourself out to be God.” They were right in their understanding of Jesus’ claim…They were wrong, however, about His blasphemy]
Now, the intensity of the moment is obvious because Jesus is about to be stoned…this is not the time for Jesus death…So, Jesus, does an exegetical move here with the word of God to get them to pause.
He does so to make an appeal I do not have time to fully explain the maneuver he does, but notice why he does it… to get them to pause and to plead with them to at least consider what they have seen even if they do not hear his words…..
The maneuver buys Jesus some time….
34 Jesus answered them, “Has it not been written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? 35 “If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), 36 do you say of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?
Hear the appeal….
37 “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; 38 but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand (same word repeated) that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.”
39 Therefore they were seeking again to seize Him, and He eluded their grasp.40 And He went away again beyond the Jordan to the place where John was first baptizing, and He was staying there. 41 Many came to Him and were saying, “While John performed no sign, yet everything John said about this man was true.” 42 Many believed in Him there.
The closing of Jesus’ public ministry ends with Him retreating among the people where it started…where John the Baptist originally ministered and pointed out… “There is one greater than me…He must increase, and I must decrease…there is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
In the time we have remaining let’s consider three realities that help us understand the nature of faith and respond appropriately.
Persistent unbelief has never been because of a lack of evidence
Several think that the question of spiritual matters is only a matter of laying out evidence and weighing it to determine if enough evidence exists to justify the claim.
To many the issue is simply reduced to “Just the facts” ma’am …
However, there are additional dynamics in evaluating truth claims than just the facts.
In fact, the scriptures declare plainly that the evidence in front of our faces—creation—shouts the spiritual reality that there is a God.
Psalm 19:1—“The Heavens are telling of the glory of God.”
Romans 1:18 — makes it clear that creation itself is unassailable evidence that show there is a God, and we are not Him.
Yet, mankind looks at the intricate, majestic, creation and says this all happened by accident.
There is a dynamic going on in the human evaluation of truth that will not always concede the evidence in front of our face.
That dynamic is also present with the claims of Jesus…The evidence in front of the Jew’s clearly indicated Jesus was doing the works of God.
And the more Jesus did…the more the provided evidence
Evidence over time simply hardens unbelief for those persisting in it
We see many of the individuals in our narrative becoming increasing hostile considering the continuing evidence Jesus provides….
The ..
Rejected truth over time enrages (them)
At the climax of Jesus’ public ministry in this chapter, the fevered pitch opposition reaches new levels.
“They picked up stones to stone Him”
— Listen….they become murderous…
Folks, I want you to see this…a lack of belief ultimately is not because a lack of evidence.
If evidence enrages to murderous level…then something else is going on in the human heart.
If you have eyes to see, this rage is pervasive throughout our culture right now….
The human heart is not a neutral judge of evidence no matter how objective or open minded you think you are.
And, all of this murderous rage….
Reveals a different “lord/shepherd”
“You do not believe because you are not my sheep” (cf. John 8:47; 12:37–40; 14:17)
Folks the clear testimony of scripture is that the Pharisees here in this text are not the minority of human.
The Pharisees here in this text represent all of humanity—murderous, rebellious, and hardened against their creator
Psalm 2 paints the picture of mankind, you and me, in rebellion against God….
Psalm 2:1Why are the nations in an uproar And the peoples devising a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth take their stand. And the rulers take counsel together. Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, 3 “Let us tear their fetters apart. And cast away their cords from us!”
C. S. Lewis in the Magicians Nephew masterfully pictures the rebellion of mankind and the dynamic of the hardness of man’s heart through the character of Uncle Andrew. When the land of Narnia is created by Aslan, the Lion, the God figure in the story, brings Narnia into existence through His singing. But Uncle Andrew refuses to listen.
When the great moment came and the beast spoke, he missed the whole point for a rather interesting reason. When the lion had first begun singing, long ago when it was still quite dark, he had realized that the noise was a song. And he had disliked the song very much. It made him think and feel things he did not want to think and feel.
Then, when the sun rose and he saw that the singer was a lion (“only a lion,” as he said to himself) he tried his hardest to make himself believe that it wasn’t singing and never had been singing—only roaring as any lion might in a zoo in our own world. “Of course it can’t really have been singing,” he thought, “I must have imagined it. I’ve been letting my nerves get out of order. Who ever heard of a lion singing?” And the longer and more beautifully the lion sang, the harder Uncle Andrew tried to make himself believe that he could hear nothing but roaring.
Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. Uncle Andrew did. He soon did hear nothing but roaring in Aslan’s song. Soon he couldn’t have heard anything else even if he had wanted to. And when at last the lion spoke and said, “Narnia awake,” he didn’t hear any words: he heard only a snarl. And when the beasts spoke in answer, he heard only barkings, growlings, bayings, and howlings.” – C. S. Lewis The Magician’s Nephew
Lewis goes on to say in the Great Divorce….
“A damned soul is nearly nothing: it is shrunk, shut up in itself. Good beats upon the damned incessantly as sound waves beat on the ears of the deaf, but they cannot receive it. Their fists are clenched, their teeth are clenched, their eyes fast shut. First they will not, in the end they cannot, open their hands for gifts, or their mouths for food, or their eyes to see.”– C. S. Lewis The Great Divorce
All of us are uncle Andrews and the Pharisees in this text.
Our rebellion is of such that we are raging against our Creator
All of us come into this world, have a different Lord than our creator God
All of us are like the blind man from John 9
And God knowing the nature of the murderous human heart…enters our world and provides evidence….enraging humanity until we would kill the son of God…until we extinguish the Light of the Word…until we devour the good shepherd….
And unless something happens to us…we will remain blind.
The first reality that helps us understand the nature of faith regarding is that persistent unbelief has never been because of a lack of evidence.
The second reality that helps us to understand the nature of faith is that
Faith is a result of God’s gracious choice to work in our dark hearts
In contrast to the Pharisees hardened hearts to whom Jesus says, “You do not believe because you are not my sheep.”
…Jesus make a surprising division of humanity.
There are only two races of humanity
—not black and white
—not rich and poor
—not Americans and the rest of the world
—not Eastern verses Western
The only two categories the bible recognizes among humanity is those who are God’s sheep and those who are not….
And His sheep are those whom He has chosen “My sheep” out of all of humanity whom are destined to perish….
“My sheep”—God’s gracious choice of saving some out of all humanity that is murderously rebellious to Him is clearly taught by the Scriptures—John 6:37, 10:29; 15:16, 19; 17:2, 6, 24;
John 10:29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
John 6:37 All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.
John 15:16 You did not choose Me but I chose you…
In a famous quote from Charles Spurgeon, reflecting the truth of point #1 and the graciousness of faith as a gift from God, he said,
I believe the doctrine of election, because I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love.– Charles Spurgeon
The only way anybody believes, is not because of evidence…but because of the gracious choice of God to work in your heart to believe the truth that will save you.
And Jesus assures that…
His sheep will believe and be secure
How do you know if you are elect….Do you hear the one true shepherd’s voice and follow Him…??!
Not perfectly…not without growing…but like the crew on board Captain Hutton’s sub whose life depends on the words of the captain….do you follow…the captain….do you recognize His voice.
John 10:27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; 28 and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish;
You may say, Pastor Brent, I don’t know though if I am elect or not…okay…let me simplify…
Henry Ward Beecher said, “The elect are whosoever will. The non-elect are whosoever won’t”
The first reality about the nature of faith is that persistent lack of faith is never because of a lack of evidence
Secondly, faith is a gift from the Sovereign choice of God.
Thirdly,
The Word of God is always the sole divider between God’s sheep and those who are not God’s sheep
At the height of Jesus’ public ministry…Jesus utters the climatic claim
A climatic claim—“I am the Father are one.”
In being One with the Father, that means that His very words are also the very words of God
In fact, in John 1:1–John started His Gospel with that which will divide sheep from goats…believers from non-believers…children of God…from children of Satan..In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God..
The Word of God in the flesh is the dividing tool, the touchstone, the benchmark,
The inspired Word of God in your hand that speaks of the incarnated Word of God is the dividing tool
What you do with Jesus, the Great and Good Shepherd, as found in the Word, is the determinative factor…
The Word of God is the voice of Jesus…
“My Sheep Hear My voice and they follow Me.”
And, Jesus, in attempting His maneuver to gain a last appeal before they try to kill him uses the word of God to get them to pause and consider and then He says…
“The Scriptures cannot be broken.”
Furthermore, Jesus, in His appeal, even if they did not believe Him, appeals to the works of the Father that He had done—but the meaning of those works (water into wine, healing the lame man on the Sabbath, feeding the 5000, walking on water, healing the blind man, was determined by comparing them to the OT—the Word of God
“Believe the works of the Father”— the “works” significance were to be established through the Word of God in the OT.
What you do with word of God is the determinative factor of enjoying eternal life in Jesus’, the Good Shepherd’s Name, or perishing because you are not of Jesus’ Sheep.
You may be here today and say, Pastor Brent, I hear you, if I am not chosen, I will never believe, so why do I even need to consider this? I will just let what will be will be.
Friends, you are not getting the picture here of Jesus’ final moments in public ministry.
While He is the author of divine election, Do you not see His pleading appeals to everyone….
John 10: 37 “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; 38but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.”
The character of our God is…
2 Peter 3:9 … patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.
And in fact the last part of the story today demonstrates the patience of God.
At the conclusion of Jesus’ public ministry, Jesus withdraws to the area where His ministry started in John 1—the area where John the Baptizer served and pointed to the one greater than Him. Those folks had had three years to hear, see, consider this “Word of God” and our text ends with “many believe in Him there.”
The three realities that help us understand the nature of faith and respond appropriately are
1) persistent unbelief is never a result of a lack of evidence…in fact evidence hardens, and enrages…shows us that from the womb we all serve a different Lord than our Creator
…God knowing our rage against him uses that to lead to our ultimate rage against Him…our murder of His Son…And in our most evil murderous act…God turned evil on its head because that is precisely what He used to return good for our evil in allowing that murder to pay the penalty for our hard hearts….
And in God’s gracious choice He opens blind eyes and unstops deaf ears to grant murderers a heart of faith to see where their rebellious hearts led them….and repent and believe
And if you have repented and believed, it is not because of your great open mindedness. It is in spite of hardened heart.
And the determining factor is what you do with the word of God…My sheep Hear my voice, they follow me, I give eternal life to them…and there is no possibility that eternal death can ever touch you.
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