Jesus and the Four Witnesses

Okay, good morning again, everyone. Today we will be continuing our series of studies on the Gospels, picking up the story where we left off in John 5, verse 24. If you brought your harmony, that's at the top of page 23, where we'll be going. As I mentioned in my update last night, I recommend that all of you go through and read the previous verses of John 5, verses 1-23 to pick up the story flow, because we are breaking into the middle of the story here, where we left off last time. And this continues the story that began in verse 1. Let's see, apparently I've got a problem with the lapel mic here. So, hang on just a second here. Okay, we're turned on here. Now, it's...yeah, sorry, a few technical difficulties here. I'll let them work their way through that. If they need to come up here and turn something on or off, we'll take care of that.

We're continuing with our story today in John chapter 5, with the story that begins in verse 1 about Jesus healing the man at the Bethesda pool in Jerusalem during one of the feasts, one of the pilgrimage feasts there, when hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million or more people, came to Jerusalem, therefore the feast. And apparently Jesus picks out this man at random, because there's no indication whatsoever that Jesus either knew the man or the man knew Jesus for that matter. But anyway, Jesus does heal the man. This is taking place on a Sabbath. We don't know whether it's a weekly Sabbath or one of the Holy Days, and tells the man to take up his pallet, his thick blanket, you might say, and walk. And the man does.

Jesus knows that this will provoke a confrontation with the Jerusalem religious authorities there, because this does take place on a Sabbath. As a result of this, as we talked about earlier, the members of the Jerusalem religious establishment want to kill Jesus for two reasons. One, they view his actions of healing the man on the Sabbath as breaking the Sabbath, as well as telling the man to take up his pallet and walk. They view that as breaking the Sabbath, as well. And then also, they accuse him of claiming to be equal with God, because of some of the statements that he made that we covered last time. So, last time we also began reading Jesus' defense against these charges, and also the charge of blasphemy there. And this is potentially a matter of life and death, because these are capital offenses under religious law, and a person could be stoned to death for this. So, this is a very serious situation that Jesus is dealing with. And we also covered another aspect of the story. Earlier, back in John chapter 3 and verse 2, when Nicodemus comes to Jesus, this is apparently about a year earlier during the Passover feast. And Nicodemus, who is a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish kind of a combination Congress and Supreme Court, and he comes to Jesus by night. And notice what Nicodemus tells Jesus here. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs or these miracles that you do unless God is with him. So, he's a member of the Sanhedrin, which is part of the Jerusalem religious establishment there. So, clearly some of those people that Jesus is confronting here know that Jesus is actually a teacher come from God because of the miracles that he has performed. So, keep this in mind as we go through this story.

There's no indication how many of them knew this, but we do know this as a matter of fact.

Not only did they know that Jesus is Messiah, but Jesus knows that they know that he is Messiah as well. After all, he has just performed this very powerful miracle of healing this man who has been lame or crippled for 38 years. Continuing to give us a little bit of background here to lead us up to where we'll begin today, we also covered how the first part of Jesus' defense against these charges of Sabbath breaking was his comment that the Father...

Excuse me, should I just unplug something here?

I never mind just accidentally pulled the microphone off my lapel here.

Continuing. Part of Jesus' defense against their charge of him breaking the Sabbath was that actually God the Father continued to work on every day of the week, including the Sabbath.

We read that in John 5, verse 17. Jesus answered them, My Father has been working until now, and the setting of this is on the Sabbath day, and I have been working. He went through quite a long explanation of that, which we won't go through again today. But his point is that if they are going to accuse someone of breaking the Sabbath, it's actually God the Father who broke the Sabbath because he is the one who performed the miracle of healing with this individual. We also went through some of Christ's clearest statements as to his divine nature, his divinity, and messiahship, and showed how any Jewish person who is familiar at all with the Scriptures would have clearly understood the implications of what he was saying by that. We also talked about Jesus' comments that he was simply doing what the Father was doing. Just as any good Son would do what the Father did, Jesus is doing what he as God's Son would do in complete submission to the Father's will and purpose. That submission was motivated out of love and a total agreement with the Father and being fully of one mind with the Father. We also talked about the word picture from the book of Hebrews that Jesus is the character or the exact representation of God the Father, where that metaphor is used there in the book of Hebrews. Character, the word in the Greek, meant a tool used to make coins. It was a die or a mold, you might say, that was hit with a hammer. That die was called a character. It had the negative impression of a coin in there. Then they would put a blank metal disk of gold or silver or copper or iron in there between those dies, hit it with a hammer, and that produced a coin. Both the coin and the die were called a character. It talks in Hebrews about Jesus being the exact representation of the Father.

That's how much alike they are, how close they are.

Then, last of all, we talked about some of the reasons that Jesus might have had for provoking this confrontation with the Jerusalem religious establishment. One of those reasons being that it gave him the opportunity to show how wrong they were in their approach to the Sabbath because they had made it such a burden to people instead of the kind of delight that God intended the Sabbath day to be by all of their picky little rules who went through a number of them. The rule, of course, in question was a man carrying his bedroll or a blanket, you might say, on the Sabbath, which provoked this whole issue.

Then second, he provoked this confrontation because it gave him the opportunity to more completely reveal his identity. It wasn't just simply a rabbi or a teacher out of Galilee, but he was, in fact, the promised Messiah and the Son of God and God in the flesh.

That quickly summarizes what we covered last time to bring us up to where we'll pick up the story today. Now we'll begin here in John 5, verse 24. What we'll do is read through the rest of that chapter and then go back and pick up the nuggets of truth that God has in there for us.

John 5, beginning in verse 24, continuing with his defense against these accusations, he says, Most assuredly I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. Most assuredly I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, with the dead, will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father is life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself, and has given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.

Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear his voice, and come forth, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation. I can of myself do nothing.

As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is righteous, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the Father who sent me. If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.

There is another who bears witness of me, and I know that the witness which he witnesses of me is true. You have sent to John, John the Baptizer, and he has borne witness to the truth. Yet I do not receive testimony from man, but I say these things that you may be saved. He was the burning and shining lamp, and you were willing for a time to rejoice in his light. But I have a greater witness than John's, for the works which the Father has given me to finish, the very works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father has sent me. And the Father himself who sent me has testified of me. You have neither heard his voice at any time nor seen his form. But you do not have his word abiding in you, because whom he sent him you do not believe. You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and these are they which testify of me. But you are not willing to come to me that you may have life. I do not receive honor from men, but I know you that you do not have the love of God in you. I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, him you will receive. How can you believe who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God? I do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you, Moses, in whom you trust. For if you believe Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?

Again fairly long discourse there. John's Gospel has quite a few of these long discourses that aren't recorded in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. As we covered last time, there's an awful lot of depth in there, and we'll go through and hit the high points of that in today's message here. Let's go back now and seek a better understanding and insight into what exactly Jesus is saying, because he makes a number of quite profound statements here.

It's interesting, too, that John, in recording this incident, stops recording what the other people are saying. He stops that after verse 16 and 18, where John says they wanted to kill him there, because for what they thought was his breaking the Sabbath by healing the man, as well as claiming that God was his father. So John only records one side of the conversation after that, which is Christ's side of the conversation, where he drives home again and again the fact that he is the divine Son of God.

Jesus continues these intertwining themes, multiple themes of judgment and life and the resurrection from the dead there. Let's pick up the story now, beginning back in verse 24 again, where Jesus says, Most assuredly I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment but has passed from death into life. So here he introduces the way that we can receive eternal life. And what is that way? It is through him, through Jesus Christ. We know from the book of Acts that there is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved other than Jesus Christ.

So he is the only way to eternal life. Here he gives two elements, a requirement, you might say, for receiving eternal life. I just did an article in Good News, this last issue that I sent to the printer, about what is required. It is belief the only requirement for eternal life. No, because there are probably a dozen or more different things that we have to do to receive the gift of eternal life.

We see two of them here in this verse. And those two are, first of all, here to hear my word and to believe in him who sent me. So we have to hear Christ's word and we have to believe in the Father who sent him. Those are two elements of what it takes to receive eternal life. So in other words, you don't just hear and believe.

Those aren't the only two things we have to do. After all, James, we won't turn there, but James points out that even the demons believe and tremble. Demons believe in God. They believe that Jesus is the Son of God, but are they given eternal life because of that? No, obviously not. So it's more than just hearing and believing.

And in that culture and the context of that day—I've touched on this a bit before—but if you hear and if you believe something, then obviously you are compelled to act and live according to that belief in what you hear. You have to obey that. You have to follow that with your whole heart.

There's no separation, in other words, between what you believe in your heart and what you do in your life. And hopefully there's none of that with us as well. They are inseparable, and they still are. So if we don't do those things, if we don't hear and obey and believe and follow, we do not receive God's gift of eternal life. And we actually see this connection over in Hebrews 3. I believe Tim read this scripture during the Holy Day message on the last Holy Day. But Hebrews 3, verses 18 and 19—this is about the Israelites departing from Egypt on the Exodus.

Notice what it says here. It says, "...And to whom did he," God, "...swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who did not obey." Verse 19, "...so we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief." The reason I mentioned the scripture here is we see a linkage here between unbelief and obedience. Here's a direct link between that.

The Israelites did not really believe in God and His promise, and therefore they disobeyed. And in the same way, if we do not fully believe in God and what He says and His Word and so on, what happens?

Naturally, we disobey. The converse of this is what I want to emphasize here. If we believe, then obviously we obey. We're compelled to obey. There's no other logical course of action. If you believe in God, if you believe in His promises, if you believe in His Word, we have to obey. There's no other logical outcome from that. Obedience is the evidence of faith and belief. This is why James, to refer to James again, we won't turn there, but what does he say about faith?

He says faith or belief in God without works to back that up is dead. It's useless.

It doesn't do any good just to believe. Again, the demons believe in God and Jesus Christ, His Son, but it doesn't do any good in terms of transforming and changing their lives there.

So you can say that you believe all you want, but the evidence of whether you actually believe is what you do in your life. Just holding the intellectual belief in God and His way of life doesn't cut it. That belief must be accompanied by action and how we live our lives. That's the whole point here, and that also is part of Christ's point here. It's more than just hearing His Word and believing in the Father. We have to, as a result of that belief and that hearing, have to put what they say into actions in our lives. Continuing now in verse 25, the next verse here, Most assuredly I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. I put a number of study questions in my update last night. Hopefully you went through those. I won't necessarily go through and pick those out, but this was one that I mentioned here. Several things to point out here. First of all, He is talking about a future resurrection of the dead here when He says the hour is coming. He's clearly talking about the great resurrections to come in the future when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God. And of course, we know that part of that will be fulfilled at His return when the saints will be resurrected and the first resurrection to live and reign with Him for a thousand years during the millennium. And then there is the second resurrection that takes place a thousand years later after the millennium. But notice He also says here that the hour is or the hour now is.

What's that referring to? Do we have something mixed up in our timing about the resurrections?

Well, not really. Actually, what He is referring to here is pretty simple. That is the fact that He knows that during His ministry, and we'll read about this before long, He is going to raise several people from the dead. Then, in that present time, not often the future, but in the near future, relatively to what we're talking about here. One of those, most notably, is Lazarus, or Elazar in Hebrew. And what does He say when He resurrects Lazarus? He walks up to the tomb and He says, Lazarus, come forth! And Lazarus comes and walks out of the tomb with the grave clothes on there.

And this, of course, is a type of the overall resurrection of the dead, the second resurrection, where they will hear the voice of the Son of God calling them to rise up out of the grave.

And they will hear and they will live, just as Christ says right here. Psalm again will be resurrected to eternal life in the first resurrection at Christ's return. And some will be raised to a second physical life a thousand years later at the end of the millennium.

All of this is spelled out in our booklets, What Happens After Death and Heaven and Hell.

So I won't go into all of that right now. It's not the purpose of the sermon.

But He does touch on these different resurrections. There's more than one resurrection here clearly.

We'll mention that a little bit later here. Let's notice something else in this particular verse.

Last time when we covered verse 21, we talked about two kinds of life or two meanings of the word life in relation to our relationship with Jesus Christ. One of those, of course, is eternal life, which He gives us in the resurrection from the dead. But the other is a new life now in this life as a result of coming to know God and His laws and His way of life.

In other words, Christ offers us a new life now, a new way of thinking, a new set of priorities in our life, a new way of doing things. And the bottom line is that Christ uses the word life both ways in His teaching. And He does something similar here with the word dead.

And here it is two different meanings. He uses it to mean literally dead. And at times He uses it to mean spiritually dead as well. We actually see both meanings in the same passage here in Matthew 8 verses 21 and 22. Then another of His disciples, one of His followers, it's not one of the twelve, said to Jesus, Lord, let me first go and bury my father. But Jesus said to him, Follow me, it's an invitation to become one of His disciples, and let the dead bury their own dead.

So here Christ uses the word in the same sentence, He uses the word dead in two different meanings.

One is let the dead, those are physically dead, and let the dead bury the dead. Well, obviously dead people aren't going to bury other dead people. So He's talking in the first use of those who are spiritually dead in that sense. Dead in the sense that they don't have any spiritual life in them. What He's saying here essentially is let the spiritually dead, those who are spiritually dead, take care of burying the literal dead because following Me is much more important than that. Those who are spiritually dead are alive and physically breathing and walking and talking and that sort of thing, but they have no spiritual life in them. They're simply on a one-way trip that leads to one place, and that is the grave. They are spiritually dead in that sense.

However, as Jesus says here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who will live, I think there's a dual meaning here. There's the obvious meaning of the resurrection, as with Lazarus when He calls and Lazarus comes forth from the grave. But I think there's also the sense here that those who are spiritually dead in this life are called and what happens?

They live. As Christ says here, that's something that's happened to every one of us.

If we have received God's calling and responded to that calling and received His Spirit, and now we have received life, we have received His gift of eternal life, that doesn't mean we can't mess up and lose out on that gift. We do have to endure to the end, among other conditions, but we do have a new life. We talked about that quite a bit last time. We have new priorities, new ways of doing things, new ways of thinking. It's a transformation in our lives, touching every aspect of how we live. Continuing on then to the next verse, verse 26, Jesus continues, For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself. We should notice several different things here. One, whenever we see this word for in the New Testament, that's a particular Greek word that's translated for, but it basically means this is an explanation for what has gone before. This indicates a transition, that there was something stated before, and then for indicates I'm going to explain about this.

Over the next few verses, Jesus is going to explain and expound on how the dead will hear His voice and how those who hear will live. First, before we get to that, He says here that both He and the Father have life in themselves. What does that mean? Basically, it means that in contrast to every other living creature, living animal, living human being, living plant, fish, birds, whatever, every other living thing that has ever lived, those things needed to be created and given life by God. But the Father and the Son are different. They're in a totally different category. They are in a unique category because they are divine. They are God, having eternal life, and not just having eternal life in themselves, but having the capacity to give eternal life to others, such as us in the resurrection there. No one, in other words, had to give the Father and the Son eternal life. They have eternally existed from the beginning. We don't know how. We don't know where they came from. We can ask that question someday. But they have life inherently within themselves. That is Christ's point here. As the Father has life, eternal life, inherent within Himself, so He is granted the Son to have eternal life in Himself as well. Those are two unique beings. Even in the resurrection, we are given eternal life. We still won't be, although we will be part of the family of God, we won't be exactly like them because none of us have ever existed from all previous eternity up to that point. We only came into existence on the day that we were born. We are only given eternal life at the resurrection from the dead. However, the Father and the Son are different. They have eternally existed with eternal life.

This is actually quite reminiscent of John 1, the way John begins his gospel, John 1, verses 1-4, where he writes, "...in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." So we have two beings, two eternal beings who are God. The Word who was with God, with God the Father, and yet he was also God on the same plane of existence as God the Father.

And verse 2, John writes, "...he the Word was in the beginning..." When is in the beginning? The beginning is before the creation of the physical universe. So before time existed, you might say.

"...he was in the beginning with God, with God the Father. All things were made through him, the being who became Jesus Christ. And without him nothing was made that was made." So nothing existed was brought into existence apart from Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was the one who created or the Father creating through the one who became Jesus Christ, we might also say.

And then in verse 4 is the parallel with what we just read, "...in him was life..." Eternal life, the capacity to give life, to create life, as we see there in the first few chapters of Genesis, when everything is created, the plant life, the oceans, the aquatic life, the birds of the air, and finally mankind himself in the form of Adam and Eve. "...in him was life, and the life was the light of men." So here we see that there are these two eternally existing beings that currently make up the family of God.

But Jesus goes on to explain that others will be given this gift of eternal life also.

Then continuing in verse 27, continuing that the Father has given him, Jesus, authority to execute judgment also because he is the Son of Man. And again we have these intertwining themes of life and the resurrection and judgment, all that Jesus weaves in and out of here in these verses here.

Son of Man, of course, here is a Rimes back to Daniel. In the period between the ending of the writing of the books of the Old Testament, there were several centuries it went by, this term had come to be commonly used of the Messiah. Here, this term Son of Man.

So when Jesus applies this term to himself, he is again saying once more to this audience that he is the promised Messiah. And here Jesus repeats in slightly different words what we covered last time in verse 22. For the Father judges no one but has committed all judgment to the Son, but has committed all judgment to the Son because he is the Son of Man. Actually, I left out a word or two there. I'll have to check my notes about that.

And again, as I explained last time, I think the reason that the Father has given judgment to the Son is because of what we read about in Hebrews 4 and verse 15. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

And also Hebrews 2 and verses 17 and 18. Therefore in all things he, Jesus, had to be made like his brethren, like us, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make propitiation, that's a big word that means an atoning sacrifice, for the sins of the people.

For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to aid those who are tempted.

So in other words, what this is saying is that in Jesus Christ we have a high priest and an intercessor and a judge who has experienced everything that we go through in this life, someone who has been tempted, who has been tested, who has been tried and gone through the ringer in life's experiences like we have. He's been there, he's done that, he's experienced what it is to be human. He knows what it's like, and because of those experiences as a human being, he would be a perfect judge for us. That is the point that is being made here, and this is why all judgment has been committed to him by the Father.

Continuing back here in John, what will he be judging? Jesus again continues that theme in the next verse here, verse 28. Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear his voice. Now he leaves out the, and now is, part. Now he's talking about the future resurrection only. The hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation.

So here he is talking about, again, two different resurrections. The first resurrection to life, and a second resurrection to judgment. We won't turn there, but we find these two resurrections talked about in Revelation 20, verses 1 through 6, where again there is the first resurrection at Christ's return, and then a thousand years later is the second resurrection to physical life.

Jesus is not giving all the theological details here. He's just talking about it in general terms, giving the big picture that there are two fates for what we do in this life. There is either the resurrection to life, or there is a resurrection to judgment or to condemnation. One of the study questions I sent out last night is, what determines which resurrection we will be in?

We see the answer right here. Those who have done good are those who have done evil. It's not a matter of what we believe or what we think, it's a matter of what we do that determines which resurrection we're going to be in. Either good leading to life, or evil leading to judgment or condemnation.

The first resurrection, of course, we know is for the first roots to eternal life.

What's the second resurrection for? It's for physical life so that those who have never known, never heard anything about God or his way of life or his plan or anything, so that they will have their opportunity to be judged. At the end of that period, this is Jesus's bottom line here, at the end of all of this period of human existence, everyone will have either one fate or the other. Either they're going to have the resurrection to life, become a part of the family of God to live for all eternity with him, or they're going to have the resurrection to condemnation, which is the lake of fire and eternal annihilation. There's no in-between. In the end, bottom line, it's one or the other. And that's Christ's point here.

He's not getting into all the details about the timing and all of that. People will either surrender to God and receive his gift of eternal life, or they will continue doing evil, doing things their human way, and will be annihilated in the lake of fire. What about us? Where do we fit into this as part of the Church? Well, where we fit into it is we find that in 1 Peter 4 and verse 17.

We are being judged now. This is our period of judgment, as Peter says, for the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God. The house, meaning the household or the family of God, which we are. Our period of judgment is right now. We are called, among other things, the firstfruits of the harvest of God. That's what the picture of Pentecost coming up in a few weeks is all about, the firstfruits there. If we are a firstfruit, that is a unique privilege, a unique calling here, because there's only going to be one resurrection for the firstfruits. That is the first resurrection, the resurrection of all of those who have ever lived, going all the way back to the beginning of the human race, those whom God has called and who have listened and responded properly to that calling and received His Spirit and become a part of His family.

That's one reason why our calling right now is so special, to be one of the firstfruits. In all of eternity, there is only one resurrection like that, to the firstfruits. You and I have the opportunity to be a part of that. God has called us because He wants us and expects us to be a part of the firstfruits. And, of course, who is our judge in that? Jesus Christ is our judge. That's why we've just read the Scriptures about all judgment being committed to Him. He has called us to be His followers, His Talmadim. That's another reason we are doing these studies on the Gospels here, so we can understand more fully what that means and what He wants us to become.

Because why? Because we're going to be judged on that. As pastor, I want us all to stand in that judgment and to be accepted to live eternally as a part of the family of God.

Continuing here with Christ's words in verse 30, He says here, I can of myself do nothing. And this also is very reminiscent of what He said earlier in verse 19, the Son can do nothing of Himself but what He sees the Father do. And I think there are two meanings to this. I talked about one of them last time, but I want to bring in another one here.

The first one that we talked about last time is that Jesus appears to be saying that He wasn't the one performing the miracles. Jesus is, after all, human. He is in the flesh. He has His divine nature. But exactly what that entailed in terms of miracle-working power isn't explicitly spelled out. The indications we talked about last time, or to me at least, the way I read that, is that He could not do the miracles on His own. It was the Father doing the works. You can go back through what we covered last time and see what He says there. That it was the Father performing the miracles through Him. That's why He essentially said, if somebody is doing healings on the Sabbath, you're actually accusing the Father because He is the one who did the healing of this lame man.

So you're actually accusing Him of breaking the Sabbath. We talked about that a bit last time.

And I do think that is one meaning. That's a clear meaning of what He was saying there.

But I think another meaning to what He is saying here is that when He says He can do nothing of Himself, that what He's saying here is He can do nothing independently of the Father.

And that is actually a thread that runs throughout His comments that we're covering here today.

The close relationship that He has with God the Father, and how much they share one mind and one purpose. And I think this meaning is actually borne out in what He says next in this very same verse here. What does He say? He says, I can of myself do nothing as I hear I judge, and my judgment is righteous, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the Father who sent me.

In other words, He doesn't do anything on His own. He doesn't do anything independently of the Father, but He only does things according to the will of the Father.

And He also says here, my judgment is righteous. What's the difference? Let's sidetrack a little bit and discuss this for a few minutes here. What's the difference between Christ's judgment, because He is, as we read, He's been given all judgment by the Father. What's the difference between His judgment and our judgment? Let's think about and explore that concept, because it's very difficult for us as human beings to judge people righteously. It's easy for us to judge people unrighteously, and that's not what I'm talking about, but it's very difficult to judge other people in situations righteously for a number of reasons. One, primarily, it's almost impossible for us to judge a matter without showing favoritism in some way or another.

For instance, there are some people that we simply like better than other people, people that we click with. There are some people we may not like the way a person looks, we may not like the way a person dresses, or the way a person talks, or we may not like their accent, or where they're from, or the color of their skin, or any number of things like that. We may not like their personality.

Don't make the mistake I did once when Connie asked me, do you like my personality? I responded, which one? Guys, not a way to make brownie points there. There are many things like that that prejudice how we interact and how we judge and evaluate other people. We may have envy or jealousy toward another person, and that goes both ways. We may not like somebody because they make more money, or drive a nicer car, or live in a bigger, better house or something than we do. We may also dislike people because they make less money than we do, or drive a worse car, or live in a worse housing, or something like that. Again, our judgment is colored by a lot of different things. We may be self-righteous, in which case we are very judgmental toward everybody else who we consider not as good as we are, and don't meet our standards. Our judgment can also be colored by ignorance, ignorance of the facts or the circumstances in a given situation, or ignorance of people's true motives. Somebody may do something, and we attribute totally wrong motives, erroneous motives to them. So there are many different ways in which our judgment humanly is flawed because of these types of things. But how is Christ's judgment different?

What makes His judgment righteous? And our so unrighteous? Well, it's different because, as we see here, because He did not seek His own will but the will of the Father.

In everything. And that's what makes His judgment very different from ours, because He only seeks God's will all the time. And He can't get any more fair than that. He is the only judge who is free from all kinds of prejudices and other factors that influence our judgment humanly. Some of you have been through situations, court situations, things where judgment is not righteous. This is not a righteous legal system that we live in these days. Some of you have been on the receiving end of that and know that. And it's very painful to realize that. But Jesus Christ's judgment is not that way. And of course, as we talked about earlier, He has lived as a human being. He's been through the different experiences we go through in this life. And He knows what this human experience is like. And therefore, that makes Him a perfect judge for humanity. And that's why God has given God the Father. He's given Him the authority to judge. And now, he shifts gears a little bit.

We're moving to verse 31. And he shifts gears here with a theme of judgment because, after all, what's going on? What's the context here? The context is they want to kill Him because they have unfairly judged Him. They have accused Him erroneously. They've accused Him of breaking the Sabbath and of making Himself equal with God. And now Jesus Christ begins calling forth witnesses who will testify on His behalf that He is not guilty of these charges. So we're making a transition now. Any questions before I move along to this? Kirsten, are you raising your hand? No? Okay. All right. Okay, if not, we'll continue on because now the whole tone and tenor of the conversation shifts. And He starts listing His witnesses. One of the questions I sent out last night was, how many witnesses does Jesus Christ call or mention here? There are actually four of them. Not sure how many of them you found, but as we go through, we'll identify four different witnesses that He calls on His behalf. So He starts off by saying here, if I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. Now, what does this mean? Does this mean that He's going to bear false witness or lie in His defense? No, of course not. What He's saying is simply that He as a defendant cannot testify on His own behalf without supporting witnesses.

It wasn't considered legally valid in a court of law at that time. Everybody knew that a witness's unsupported testimony just wasn't valid. It had to have the support of other witnesses to be valid. So Jesus begins by acknowledging something there that everyone standing there understood. But why does He say this? Why does He say something that's so obvious?

He says it to emphasize that He doesn't need to testify about Himself and His own defense because He has plenty of other witnesses that testify in His defense who will support and defend His actions and statements. Of course, all of this is based on a legal principle we've found a couple of times. We've covered already in the Gospels. That is the principle of multiple witnesses. This is based on the law given back in Deuteronomy 19 and verse 15. It says, One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits.

By the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established, or judged, or evaluated, you might say. In other words, you couldn't if there were a legal matter before the judges, the testimony of one witness would not convict someone. There had to be multiple witnesses to establish something is legally valid and true. This is the underlying principle.

We see a number of times in the Gospels. We've seen it with Simeon and Anna when Jesus has brought a baby to the temple. Both Simeon and Anna who were there at the temple are two witnesses that testify that this is the Messiah. We saw it when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptizer, where John says, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Then there's a voice that comes out of heaven saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. There are two witnesses there at the baptism that testify that Jesus is Messiah and Son of God. We see this principle of two witnesses cropping up again and again throughout the Gospels because it was very important. God is consistent. He consistently uses this principle of two witnesses. This is where we pick up the story here then. He mentions up front here.

Let's see in next verse, verse 32. Let's start seeing who these witnesses are. Verse 32, There is another who bears witness of me, Jesus says, and I know that the witness which he witnesses of me is true. So who is this another who bears witness of Jesus?

Well, it would almost have to be referring to God the Father here because, after all, Jesus has been talking about who up to this point? He's been talking about God the Father, his relationship with the Father there. He doesn't dwell on it a great deal at this point.

He just mentions it in passing, and he will come back to the Father a few verses later.

How did the Father bear witness of Jesus Christ? Well, he did it because it was through Jesus Christ that the Father did certain things, certain miracles. Jesus could not have done those things on his own as a physical human being without the direct involvement, miraculous involvement, of the Father. So in that sense, the Father was a witness because he's doing these works with and through Jesus Christ. So continuing on, Jesus then gives another witness in verse 33.

You have sent to John, John the Baptizer, and he has borne witness to the truth.

So this witness, the second witness that Jesus mentions is John the Baptizer.

How did John witness? Well, we just talked about that. It is baptism. What did John say?

Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, something that only the Messiah could do to take away mankind's sin. Again, we talked about that earlier when we covered that in detail, so we won't go through that again. But both John the Baptizer and the Father testified that Jesus is Son of God and Messiah. So the audience that Jesus is talking to were familiar with John's preaching. Not only them, but thousands of other people there in Jerusalem.

Consider John a prophet. So John is the second witness that they could not deny there who testified that Jesus is Son of God and Messiah.

Continuing verse 34, Yet I do not receive testimony from man, but I say these things, that you may be saved. This is quite an interesting interjection here. What is Jesus' motivation? He's not just there arguing and debating with those people to defend himself or to nail them to the wall, which he does again and again here. But his purpose, he's explaining these things to them, that they might be saved, that they might receive God's gift of salvation, even though they want to kill him. What's his purpose in explaining all of this? That they might hear and understand and repent and turn and be saved. It's a very different motivation than what we would probably have under circumstances like that. So this is something to keep in mind here. And again, as we covered earlier from the book of John, some of those people know that Jesus is a teacher sent from God, but they just refuse to act on it. They can't bring themselves to act on what they know in their hearts because they've seen the miracles, they've heard of the miracles, they know Jesus is a miracle-working teacher, and they can't bring it, they can't break out of their mindset to act on that as they should. Continuing then in verse 35 about John, Jesus says, he was the burning and shining lamp, and you were willing for a time to rejoice in his light. Now notice also here that Jesus, how does he refer to John? He refers to John in past tense. He was the burning and shining lamp, and you were willing for a time to rejoice in his light. Why does he make this point, this past tense? And speaking of John, well, as we've talked about earlier, John is locked up. John is in prison at this point and facing his execution, which we'll cover not too far off in the future here. As for the reference to John being the burning and shining lamp, I think Jesus is simply using a metaphor here of a lamp, the kind of lamp you see on the cover of the harmony here, that that's what John was. John was giving light. He was a burning lamp, which is what this kind was. It burned olive oil and shining it, it gave illumination. So Jesus, in other words, what he's saying here is that Jesus was giving off light. He was teaching the light of God's truth and God's Word here. And for a time, they enjoyed that and listened to it before John started saying things that were too uncomfortable to too many people, leading him to be imprisoned and ultimately executed. And now Jesus begins talking about another witness. He's talked about the Father, he's talked about John the Baptizer. And now he begins talking about another witness in verse 36. But I have a greater witness than John's, a more powerful, a more credible witness than even John. For the works which the Father has given me to finish, the very works that I do, he's talking about miracles, that's the works he's talking about here, bear witness of me that the Father has sent me. So what are these works that Jesus has been doing? Well, he's just healed a man who's been lame or crippled for 38 years. That's the whole starting point for this whole discussion. And as we talked about last time, miracles like this of healing this individual were clearly a sign of the Messiah. We talked about last time Isaiah 35, verses 5 and 6, a prophecy of the Messiah, which says, Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.

Then the lame, like this man, shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb sing.

For water shall burst forth in the wilderness, in streams, in the desert. His audience here are familiar with this prophecy of miracles that would accompany the coming of the Messiah.

And they understood this. They knew this. They were very familiar with this. And a man who is lame for 38 years has just been healed. And this is a sign, a clear sign of the coming of the Messiah.

Jesus had earlier healed at least one other paralytic that we've talked about, the healing of the man who is lowered through the roof of the house. There in Capernaum, he has done many other miraculous healings by this time as well. And the Jerusalem religious establishment, again, going back to Nicodemus, some of them know that. They know he is a teacher, come from God, because no man can do these works unless God is with him. So they know that, that he is a teacher, come from God. So the works that Jesus has done were a witness that he was who he said he was. So you have the Father who witnesses to Jesus. You have the witness of John the Baptist. And the third witness now is the works that Jesus has done. They were all the witness that he is, indeed, who he says he was. Continuing in verse 37, now he repeats the Father again and elaborates a little bit on that. Verse 37, And the Father himself who sent me has testified of me. So how was the Father a witness? Well, again, because only God can do miracles, like the miracles that Jesus is doing. In other words, you have to be God to be able to do the things that Jesus is doing and to claim what he claimed. You might remember the amazing claims that Jesus has made here that we talked about last time, such as he has the power over life and death and the power to raise people from the dead. The Father worked through Jesus to do these things.

Jesus was a connection between the Father and the people. That's why Jesus says that he came in the name of the Father because he is there to represent the Father to the people. So the people had a choice when they saw these miracles here. They could either believe that Jesus truly is the Son of God and accept him for that, that he is representing the Father, or they could reject that. They had a choice before them. Jesus says here that God is the one that he claims as his authority. When he did these miraculous things, again, it did show that the Father did indeed give him that authority and worked through him to perform these miracles. That was how the Father was witnessing that he is indeed there as the Messiah, as the Son of God in the flesh.

Then he says something quite interesting in the latter part of verse 37.

You have neither heard his voice at any time nor seen his form. This is a scripture that is vital to our understanding of the roles of the Father and the One who became Jesus Christ.

Again, John has talked about this earlier, John 1 and verse 18.

No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him. What this tells us very clearly, at least to me, hopefully to all of us, is that Jesus was the eternal or he was the God of the Old Testament period who interacted with Adam and Eve, who interacted with Cain and Abel, with Noah, with Abraham, with Isaac, with Jacob, with Moses, with Joshua, with the Israelites, with the biblical prophets and kings.

Thus he was Immanuel. He was God in the flesh. Isaiah prophesied of the Messiah, who would be Immanuel, God with us, is what that word means. And indeed, Jesus was God in the flesh. He was Immanuel. He was living on earth among human beings as God in the flesh. And as is pointed out here in these two verses in John, the Israelites and their ancestors had never seen the Father, and Jesus came to reveal him there. So obviously, Jesus is the one in the Old Testament period who interacted and spoke with different individuals there. Continuing now in verse 38, again, that's a huge subject we don't have time to go into, but that is our understanding of it based on these clear statements from Jesus. Continuing in verse 38 about the Father, Jesus says, "...but you do not have his word abiding in you, because whom he sent him you do not believe." So what Jesus is saying here is that here they thought that they knew the Father because of their rigid adherence to the rules that they thought made them righteous, but the reality was that they didn't know God at all because they couldn't recognize Jesus himself as God's personal representative, and not only his personal representative, but actually God in the flesh, standing right there before them. So what we've seen so far is that Jesus has cited his witnesses, John the Baptizer, the Father, the miraculous works, and now he adds one other witness his fourth and final witness here in verse 39. He says, "...you search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and these are they which testify against me." And this is really quite remarkable because how did they manage to miss him? How did they manage to miss him in the Scriptures? Because there are literally hundreds, between three and four hundred prophecies, that he fulfilled in his first coming. And they missed that. And who were they? These are men who memorized entire books, portions of the Bible. Some memorized the entirety of the Hebrew Scriptures.

They were so familiar and knowledgeable of them, could recite books, entire books of the Bible, from memory. And yet he came to his own people, and his own people didn't receive him.

And indeed ended up killing him. How did that happen? How did that happen?

Well, it's really not all that different today. Because his own people today, the Jewish people, still don't recognize him. Even though they know the Scriptures as well as the people we're talking about here, many of them. And not only that, they know even more of the prophecies that he fulfilled, such as the many prophecies about his crucifixion and resurrection and so on. They're even more.

And yet even in traditional Christianity, there are about two billion people who follow Christianity, who claim to follow Jesus Christ, but they don't really obey him at all.

And don't really do what he said. I'm not imputing their sincerity or their motivation at all, because many of them are very devoted to what they believe. It's just that they don't really see and don't really understand him in the Scriptures. The same point that he's making here, the same Scriptures that testify of him. They don't understand. They don't follow. They don't obey.

So we see here then four witnesses that Jesus called to support him. Again, the Father, John the Baptizer, the works in the Scripture. All four of these witnesses bore witness that Jesus was who he said he was. And verse 40 continues, but you are not willing to come to me that you may have life. And this leads to an important question for us, and that is, how are we seeking God?

How are you and I seeking God? Are we seeking to know and to draw near to God, or are we seeking God like they sought God? There is a difference, because they didn't search the Scriptures to find God, but to find support for their own beliefs, their own theology, you might say. They weren't looking for correction. They weren't looking to be put on the right path. They weren't looking for what they needed to change. They weren't trying to find where they had shortcomings that they needed to repent of, and turned from those ways. They weren't looking to change their hearts and minds. Now, why do I say that? Well, I say that because look at the evidence. Look at the evidence.

All we have to do is see how they reacted to God in the flesh in the form of Jesus Christ.

What did they do? They argued with it. They plotted against Him to try to destroy Him. They set traps for Him. They tried to kill Him, and they ultimately succeeded in that. Even though, as we read here, that He was offering them the way to salvation, and that is His motivation for explaining these things, that they may find a way to be saved, they wanted Him dead.

They wanted Him dead. They didn't have a humble heart. They didn't have a teachable heart, a humble attitude that made them want to be corrected and to learn and to become more like God. They thought they were already perfect. So why listen to this upstart teacher from Galilee, of all places. They already thought they knew everything they needed to know. God is in their hip-parking. You might say that they worshipped the words of the Bible, but they didn't worship the God of the Bible. There is a difference. They studied the Bible diligently, spent hours and hours every day studying it, memorizing it. But they didn't see God as alive and working in their lives.

They didn't see a loving Father who wanted them to change and to become like Him.

And how do we see God? Do we see God as alive and at work in our lives?

Carrying out of work, do we see a loving Father who deeply wants us to change and become like Him?

Do we see a God who is at work in you trying to create in you something that is wonderful, something that is incredible, something that is awesome, a God being, a son or a daughter of God?

That's the God that we need to see and to understand and to perceive in His Word.

That kind of God, a loving Father who is creating a new work in us, a new God being, patterned after Jesus Christ. And they just couldn't see it. Do we?

Continuing in verse 41, he says, I do not receive honor from men. And a big part of the problem that they had was that they loved honor from men more than honor from God. We'll see more of this in just a few minutes. You'll pick up on that theme again. But first, he says, verse 42, but I know you that you do not have the love of God in you. And this is one of the study questions I sent out here. What does he mean by the love of God in this verse? There's two different...in English, this phrase, love of God, can have two different meanings. And I think it applies in both ways to these people. It could mean love that comes from God. In other words, God's love in us, love being the first of the fruit of God's Holy Spirit working within us, meaning that they didn't have God's love because they were selfish and not converted and not producing that fruit of the Spirit in their lives. Or it could also mean love for God.

Love for God, meaning that we want to wholeheartedly please and obey and serve God and love Him with all of our being and become just like Him. This phrase, love of God, can and I think in this context does mean both of those. They didn't have the love that comes from God flowing through them and outward. He goes, after all, what's going on? They've seen Christ heal a man who's been crippled and maimed lame for 38 years and they want to kill Him for it.

They clearly don't have God's love at work in their lives. Nor do they have love for God because God is there in the flesh standing right before Him and they want to kill Him.

So there's two different important aspects of the love of God. We need to understand that.

Jesus then goes on to illustrate in the next verse how they are so lacking in the love for God that they fail to understand and recognize that He is the very one whom God Himself sent to them.

Verse 43, I have come in my Father's name and you do not receive me. If another comes in His own name, Him you will receive. So what's He saying here? What He's saying is that He has come as the direct personal representative of God the Father to reveal the Father to them. But what was their reaction? Their reaction was to reject Him. Why? Well, again, because they are so far from God, they are so far in their understanding of God that they completely miss who Jesus was and who He is all about. They are just on a totally different mental and spiritual wavelength there from God. But on the other hand, as Jesus points out here, if another one comes in His own name and tells them the things that agree with Him, they accept Him and honor Him and receive Him.

Now in verse 44, He returns to the theme of receiving honor or wanting honor from man as opposed to honor from God. Verse 44, He says, How can you believe who receive honor from one another and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God? And this is what these people did. We see this reflected other places in the Gospels where they sought the honor and the acclamation of men, rather than the honor and acclamation of God. And this is another aspect of why these religious leaders, why the scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, and so on rejected Christ. It's because they desired the praise of men. We see this reflected in some of Jesus Christ's own statements. We see some of that in chapter 6 of Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount. We won't turn there, but I do want to draw attention to a familiar chapter of Matthew 23. And we'll read just a few verses out of that, verses 5 through 12, which shows what they were like, what their motivation was. And Christ, of course, gives them a blistering condemnation here. Scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites is what he calls them continually through this chapter. But notice what he says about these religious leaders there, these so-called religious leaders. But all their works they do to be seen by men. That's their motivation to be seen by men, not to honor and please God. They make their phylacteries broad.

Phylacteries, if you're not familiar with that, they were leather. You've probably seen them if you've seen photos of Jewish men. They'll wear a little leather box here on their forehead, tied with leather straps, and also wrap them around and have boxes on their arms as well.

They're very specific rules about all of this. This is what he's talking about. It's still being practiced by Jewish men today. They make their phylacteries broad. They're big, in other words, so people can see how it's like wearing a big box on your forehead there. It's pretty obvious. It's what Christ is talking about. And they enlarge the borders of their garments.

The borders that's actually talking about tassels on their garments, big long tassels on their garments. They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues. They would go down and take the front row at the synagogue. I personally like it. Not that I have anything against people sitting on the front row. It's more people did that. I like sitting on the front row because it's less distracting there. But they did it, not to learn more about God, but for show, to show that they are the most righteous among people. They love greetings in the marketplaces, verse 7, and to be called by men, Rabbi, Rabbi. And Jesus says, But you do not be called Rabbi, for one is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren or brothers. Do not call anyone on earth your Father, for one is your Father, he who is in heaven. And do not be called Teachers, for one is your Teacher, the Christ. Why does he say, Don't be called Father, don't be called Teacher, don't be called Rabbi? Well, it's because obviously that's what they were doing to one another. They love to be called Teacher, they love to be called Rabbi, they love to be called Fathers. And Jesus condemns that. Don't be like that. Don't be like that. But he who is greatest, verse 11, among you shall be your servant. Not the one wearing the big box on his forehead, not the one with the longest tassels, not the one taking the front row in the synagogue seat, not the one wanting to be called Rabbi and Teacher and Father and all of this, but the one who is the servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. So what we see here, we see plainly from Christ's statements that they dress, they did these things to impress other people. So people would recognize others. They wanted people to know and see how righteous they were. So they wore these elaborate religious symbols. They did their religious duties in public so that others could see. They prayed in public spaces. They fasted in such a way so that people could see that they're suffering when they fasted there. They love the praise and the honor that comes from other human beings, and not the praise and honor that comes from God.

And what's the problem? What's so spiritually poisonous about this attitude?

Well, the problem is the kind of effect that that has on a person's relationship with God, because what are these men doing? And it applies to women as well. Who are they measuring themselves against?

They're measuring themselves against other people, other human beings. And as long as we measure ourselves against other human beings, we're probably going to conclude we're pretty good.

We're not all that bad. We're pretty good. And if we're content with pretty good, we don't have a reason to change. And it's why this is spiritually poisonous. Because the whole point for us is not, am I as good as my neighbor? The whole point for us is, am I as good as Jesus Christ? That's the yardstick. He's the standard. And it's our responsibility to always judge our selves and compare ourselves to the standard of Jesus Christ. I heard one teacher a couple of years ago say that if you took a yardstick, and the yardstick is measuring the difference between us and God, on that yardstick, the difference between us and Adolf Hitler is about one of those marks on that yardstick. And that's true. The difference between us and an Adolf Hitler, or Saddam Hussein, or Omar Gaddafi, or somebody like that, is a rounding error on that yardstick.

Because the measure that we need to measure ourselves toward is Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 66 in verse 2, God says here in the New International Version, this is the one I esteem.

He who is humble in contrite and spirit and trembles at my word.

And trembles at my word. So as long as we are comparing ourselves with other people, we're going to be so filled with pride or with envy that there will be no humility to lead us to God. Because it is the comparison of ourselves to God and to Jesus Christ that produces humility when we recognize how far we fall short of that ideal, of that standard, then we should humble ourselves and do anything to change and to please Him. We commit our lives, we commit anything.

I think about Abraham. Abraham was willing to give his own son Isaac to please God. That's how humbled he was. And this is the sum of these last few verses here. How can you believe to receive honor from one another and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God?

That's what is being talked about here. And then he goes back to Moses again in verse 45, back to the Word of God. Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you, Moses, in whom you trust. So what Jesus is saying here is that when it comes time for their judgment, which he's been talking about, the judgment and the resurrection and so on, that Jesus Himself won't have to stand there and accuse them of their sins because the one in whom they place all of their trust and hope, Moses, will do that. Because they profess to be followers of Moses, yet Moses himself is going to condemn them for their disobedience, for their lack of belief, for their spiritual blindness. Verse 46, For if you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. And Jesus is talking here not just literally about Moses and his short lifespan, but about the five books of Moses, the Pentateuch. There because Jesus, what do we see in the Pentateuch? We see Jesus prophesied just in the first few chapters of the book of Genesis to Adam and Eve, when God is speaking to the servant and says, You shall bruise his heel, but he shall crush your head. There's a prophecy of the Messiah just in the first few chapters there of the book of Genesis. We see Jesus prophesied to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that he would be the promised seed through which all of the world would be blessed, and that he would be physical descendant of both Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. We see him symbolized in the Passover story that we've just rehearsed here over the recent weeks, and the story of the Exodus from Egypt. He was the rock that followed them in the wilderness.

He was symbolized in many aspects of the law of Moses, the sacrificial system, and the tabernacle.

In other words, what Jesus is saying is, if they really believed all of the things that Moses wrote, they would have believed Jesus because Moses wrote so much about him.

Again, Jesus fulfilled more than 300 prophecies, many of them from the books of Moses, during his first coming. And of course, also, who inspired Moses to write those prophecies? Well, it was the Lord, the God of the Old Testament, who is the one who became Jesus Christ himself.

One of the specific prophecies that he inspired Moses to write, we find in Deuteronomy 18, verses 18 and 19, where God says, I will raise up for them a prophet like you, Moses, from among their brethren, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And it shall be that whoever will not hear my words, which he speaks in my name, I will require it of him. So God, or the one who became Jesus Christ, told Moses he would raise up another prophet like Moses, who would speak for God, and the people were to listen and obey him. And the people that Jesus is here speaking to at this moment claim to be obedient to Moses and thus to God, but they actually are disobeying both Moses and God by refusing to believe what both Moses and this prophet said to them, and disobeying and refusing to believe in the one that God sent. And then we wrap up this section in Christ's words in verse 47.

But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words? So these religious leaders who presented themselves as the spiritual leaders of the nation were actually dead set against God's word. What was their problem? What was their problem? We've touched on it quite a bit here, but bottom line, pride and self-righteousness. Pride and self-righteousness, because of their pride, of their vanity, of their self-righteousness, they failed to humbly submit to God.

They failed to even recognize God in the flesh and his direction, and in fact argued against and with the same God who inspired Moses to write these prophecies. Pride and self-righteousness are spiritual poison, as we see from this example. So what is the antidote? What is the antidote for that?

So we won't make the same mistakes. Well, the antidote is to learn, and to understand, and to submit to God and to His word. We have to submit to it, and that's why we're having these studies to learn about the example of God in the flesh, Jesus Christ, and how we can submit to Him as our rabbi, as our teacher, as our master, as our Lord, as a head of the church in humility, so that we can become like Him in every way. So it begins, the antidote begins, with humility and realizing that we need to change and to submit to our rabbi, our teacher, our master, and our Lord Jesus Christ.