We are in John 7 and Jesus is at the Feast of Booths. You can find more information about that much beloved festival here: https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/feast-booths/
Jesus had let his brothers go without Him to Jerusalem while He told them it was not yet His time. (vv. 2-8) After they had been gone a bit, Jesus went there unannounced and then started to teach at the Temple. (v. 14) This caused many people to talk, some for Him and some against Him (vv. 11-13) He tells them the truth, His teaching is not His, but from the Father and He asks them “Why do you seek to kill me?” (vv. 16-19), for the Pharisees were eagerly searching for Him to lay hands on Him. (v. 11)
The people answered back to Jesus with the starkness of their unbelief. “You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?” (v. 20) What do you say to such a thing? This Man that spoke with such authority and clarity, now He has a demon and delusional, thinking that people are trying to kill Him. I have used this from Solomon “There Is Nothing New Under The Sun,” found in Ecclesiastes 1:4-11.
We are in the same condition today, speaking nonsense from the very top of our government down to our local authorities. Many churches have been shuttered for a good part of a year at the behest of our authorities and just now opened with the threat of further closings if they say so. What would Christ, He who created all (John 1:3) and Groom of the Church (Revelation 19:7) say to this? We see what is happening in Hebrews 12:27. God is shaking that which can be shaken and by the looks of it many of the churches have been shaken to their core. Education, Corporate structure, Government, Western Culture, the list goes on. You may disagree with that assessment, but point to any one of them and see if they are operating with Christ in mind. You say that is too high of standard, that nobody does that. And that, I point out is the problem, it should be our standard, yet it is not sought. Ok, let’s take it down a couple notches and ask if what we hear and see from our society is working in the realm of common sense? Or Truth? Not so much, I would say. Hence, the wrath of God for a people He has given up to their sins. We have blown well past the warnings of abandonment listed in Romans 1 verse 18 to the end of the chapter, and still we wonder at what’s going on around us.
Hebrews 12 also says that what can be shaken will be removed and that which remains unshaken will remain. So, how shaken are you and who do you turn to for hope? We the Called will remain unshaken, or at least we should be, and that is what Christ was looking for in the people that were following Him around. Some believed, but most were the stiff necked Jews of old. He told them to “Not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment,” but that for the most part was unheeded.
We are now up to where we left off last week.
Many of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, “Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? And here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ? But we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.” So Jesus proclaimed, as he taught in the temple, “You know me, and you know where I come from. But I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true, and him you do not know. I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me.” So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. Yet many of the people believed in him. They said, “When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done?” (vv. 25-31)
It is interesting that the people had a fair amount of knowledge of the Christ. I am sure it was talked about because John the Baptist was operating in the area and with what the Temple authorities had been saying. We do not have that kind of general biblical knowledge in our society. You see it by the silly things people believe in. Part of folk wisdom as it is, has a saying, If You Don’t Stand for Something, You’ll Fall for Anything. You see a lot of that these days. Not the same situation as back then, but they had the Pharisees and all their additional laws that they had said would protect God’s word from abuse. The real abuse came from their additional laws and how they enforced them.
The Pharisees, who seemed to be always around looking for an infraction of their highly esteemed law to enforce, heard the people muttering about Jesus and sent officers to arrest God. They refused to acknowledge the Kingdom walking and talking in their presence and were angry and insulted at Jesus’s supposed flaunting of their sabbath rules. (v.32)
Jesus of course knew of all that was going on and said “I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am you cannot come.” (vv. 33-34) Which the people promptly misunderstood. “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? 36 What does he mean by saying, ‘You will seek me and you will not find me,’ and, ‘Where I am you cannot come’?” (vv. 35-36) When you are a pagan, you think and act like a pagan. Again, look around you in this current day, what do you see, and more importantly, are you in support of what is being said and done? I keep bringing this up not to rub your nose in it, but to show that this is nothing new and to wake up those sleepwalking through life, thinking a minimum effort will magically give you a maximum result. Christ never offered easy terms to follow Him. I believe His terms were “Pick up your cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24-26)
The last day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” (vv. 37-38) That scripture He quoted might refer to Exodus 17:6 where Moses hit a rock with his rod at God’s request and the water flowed. We’ve also seen this at the well in Sychar, to the Samaritan woman. (John 4:1-28) And now I ask you, are you seeking the Waters of Life? You can’t do that, standing on the bank of that river, not wanting to get your toes wet. Jump on in, the water’s fine.