American Loon

Last week we learned of Jesus being at the Feast of Booths. (John 7:10) He started preaching at the temple and the people marveled at what He was telling them, they then started to wonder at where this simple carpenter, whom they knew, where did He receive His knowledge? (v. 15) Jesus told them “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.” (v. 16) He ended His answer to them with this: “Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?” (v. 19)

This did not sit well with those He was teaching. They prided themselves with claiming Moses and Abraham as their fathers and when they were told that they don’t follow the law that was given to them, they got mad at He who would call out their sins to them. So they shouted out “You have a demon!” This was the claim of the Pharisees and is mentioned in Matthew 9:34, Matthew 12:24, Mark 3:22 and Luke 11:15. It is also pretty much at this point when Jesus stopped teaching in anything but parables. After the telling of the parable of the seed and the soils, His disciples asked Him why He taught like that. Christ answered them: “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, ‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, And seeing you will see and not perceive; For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.’ But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” (Matthew 13:10-17)

Jesus taught in parables, not to explain spiritual truths to the crowds, but to keep spiritual truths from the crowds. Lest we doubt or misunderstand Christ’s answer here, Jesus noted that the veiling of spiritual truths from the unbelieving crowds is actually a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy given at Isa. 6:9–10. Note Luke’s account of this narrative, as he refers to Jesus’ citation of Isa. 6:9, and writes,

And Jesus said to the disciples, ‘To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, so that, “Seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand”’ (Luke 8:10; cf. Mark 4:11–12).

Jesus was fulfilling a prophecy by telling parables, for He knew the hearts of men and their unbelief. Back to the lesson, all of this caused people to grumble, some against and some for Christ. (vv. 30-31) All this grumbling caught the attention of the Pharisees and they sent their temple police to arrest Jesus. Jesus then 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) And this last statement caused them to wonder: “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? (vv. 35-36)

Jesus, on the last day of the feast, which the scripture states it was a “great day,” stood up 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.’” When the bible states that He cried out, it does mean that He did this in a loud voice. He wanted them, all of them, to hear what He said. Jesus is appealing to them, yet again. And to us.

From Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary: “On the last day of the feast of tabernacles, the Jews drew water and poured it out before the Lord. It is supposed that Christ alluded to this. If any man desires to be truly and forever happy, let him apply to Christ, and be ruled by him. This thirst means strong desires after spiritual blessings, which nothing else can satisfy; so the sanctifying and comforting influences of the Holy Spirit, were intended by the waters which Jesus called on them to come to Him and drink. The comfort flows plentifully and constantly as a river; strong as a stream to bear down the opposition of doubts and fears. There is a fullness in Christ, of grace for grace. The Spirit dwelling and working in believers, is as a fountain of living, running water, out of which plentiful streams flow, cooling and cleansing as water. The miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit we do not expect, but for his more common and more valuable influences we may apply. These streams have flowed from our glorified Redeemer, down to this age, and to the remote corners of the earth. May we be anxious to make them known to others.”

Christ’s time was growing short and even though He knew their hearts, He was calling to them, put away their sin and follow Him with a true heart. He offers a comfort that flows plentifully and constantly as a river; strong as a stream to bear down the opposition of doubts and fears. It is a message that we should heed today, with all that 2020 and now 2021 has brought to us. He was here in this world as the Son of Man for a limited time, but now that limited time is ours. You may think that you’ve got time, time to enjoy life and you’ll have time to get right with God. Let me remind you of Luke 12:20: “But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?” When will your life be required of you? The time of salvation is NOW! Seek God while He may be found. (Isaiah 55:6)

If you think “I’m good with God,” I think maybe you better examine that belief, if all you want to do is listen to the word, with no fruit of the spirit. Christ said “Take up your cross and follow Me” which means being willing to die in order to follow Jesus. This is called “dying to self.” It’s a call to absolute surrender. After each time Jesus commanded cross bearing, He said, “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?” (Luke 9:24-25). Although the call is tough, the reward is matchless.

In Luke 9:57-62, three people seemed willing to follow Jesus. When Jesus questioned them further, their commitment was half-hearted at best. They failed to count the cost of following Him. None was willing to take up his cross and crucify upon it his own interests. How about you? Are your interests in your salvation, half hearted at best? Examine yourself and “Get right with God.” You’ve got no time to lose!

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.