Eternal Choices--Eternal Destinies Series

I read a story about a grandfather who took his little grandson for a walk in the woods. As they were walking along they stopped for a moment & the grandfather asked, "Do you know where we are?" The little boy said, "No!"

The grandfather asked, "Do you know where we’re going?" And the little boy again said, "No!" The grandfather chuckled and said, "Well, I guess you’re lost then." The boy looked up at his grandfather and said, "No, I’m not lost. I’m with you."[7] When you’re with Jesus, when you’re following him, you’re not lost and you will get where you need to be.

Here is the offer of a lifetime and what do the Pharisees do with it? They hardly even hear it let alone receive it. There they are standing before the Lord of glory—the one who could change them from a creature of hell to a creature of heaven. But they miss the point of it all. Why? They are preoccupied with something else. Oh, they hear his words. But the words don’t penetrate the depths of their hearts. Jesus is offering them the gift of eternal life—the opportunity to be changed and spend eternity with him. But their mind is focused on their own agenda—to catch Jesus in some mistake and discredit him before the crowd.

What a tragedy it is when any human being comes to Christ preoccupied with his or her own agenda rather than being open to what Jesus is saying. May we never be guilty of such insensitivity? What is Jesus trying to say to you this morning? Are you hearing his heart toward you? “He who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” Rev 2:7 NIV

These Pharisees think they have caught him on a technicality. Verse 13, “Here you are appearing as your own witness; your testimony is not valid.” I wonder if these men had kept record of Jesus’ words in John 5:31 just for a time like this. There, Jesus had said, "If I testify about myself, my testimony is not valid.” “Oh, now we’ve got him. Now we’ve caught him in an inconsistency.” Surely they had not kept record of that, for all those months? Have you known people who keep record like that? (Anything to win an argument) Instead of receiving truth and receiving the help they need, they are simply trying to win. What’s behind it all? Pride. Are you keeping records on anyone like that? It’s better to win the person than to win the argument. 1 Cor. 13:4-5 “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” NIV

Jesus simply tells these guys, “You don’t know what you’re talking about because you are trying to judge something way over your head. You don’t even know where I came from. You are operating out of your very limited human understanding. First of all, my testimony is valid because it is true. Second, I do have a second witness to validate my statement—the very best possible witness, God the Father, who by the way is always with me. So even if we do this according to your own rules[8], my testimony still proves valid.”