A summary of the Lord’s ministry John 12: 37-43
The grade two class had their class picture taken and the teacher was trying to encourage them all to get their parents to buy one of these pictures by saying, “Someday you’ll look at this picture and you’ll say, ‘Why there’s Timmy, he’s a doctor now and there’s Jennifer, she owns her own business and there’s Mary, she’s married with two children.” And then one of the kids in the back of the room said just loud enough to be heard, “And there’s our teacher, she’s dead.” You know what they say, there’s one in every crowd.
I mentioned last week that I’ve been spending a lot of time at the mall and I’ve really been surprised at the number of retired people who hang out there every morning and I said there’s probably two or three hundred of them. A few go to walk but most of them are just hanging around. They either come with friends or they meet them there and then they all line up at Tim Horton’s. They get their coffee and then they all sit down in groups of anywhere from two to eight and most of them start scratching their lottery tickets.
All I can think of when I see them scratching these tickets is; what an empty existence. I mean, here are people who are closing in on the end of their days and they’re hoping to win a pile of money. I watched them and wondered why? Are they hoping to leave it to their kids so they can look like they’ve achieved something. My personal opinion is that a lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math. I mean, you’re chances at winning anything substantial are about ten million to one.
I think the people at the mall are an awful lot like the people in this passage whose main concern was looking good. I mean, here were all these people standing in the presence of God Himself and it seems like all they wanted to do was to ask Him questions in order to show Him how smart they were. And rather than compliment them on their knowledge or argue with their misunderstandings Jesus ignored what they were asking and gave them both a word of encouragement and also a subtle rebuke when He told them to walk in the light and then warned them about the coming darkness. We see this in verses 35 and 36 where it says, “Then Jesus said unto them, yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whether he goeth. While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light.” You see, He was encouraging them to follow the truth even though He knew they were hardened in their reaction to Him.
And then as Jesus left in verse 36 it says He went away and hid Himself. The scripture doesn’t say where He went but many commentators assume that He probably went back to Bethany to the home of Martha, Mary and Lazarus. And as far as we know, nobody ever saw Him in public again, until He was taken captive by His enemies. I think it’s reasonable to believe that what motivated Him to hide at that time was that He wanted to enable the plan of God to happen how and when it was supposed to.
I say this because we’re told in verse 14 that the Pharisees had just decided that the time had come to get rid of Him but Jesus knew that according to the plan of His Father that a couple of days had to go by in order to fulfill all the prophecies concerning His death. So, getting away from this crowd seemed to be the smartest thing for Him to do.
You see, their unbelief wasn’t based on the fact that they didn’t understand what He was saying or hadn’t had enough of the truth but they didn’t believe in Jesus intentionally. They had decided not to believe. Their unbelief was an act of their will. I know I’ve seen people who’ve rejected the gospel and they said, “I’m sure it’s true, but the cost is more than I’m willing to pay.” You see, it’s not a case of their not understanding or not believing what they heard but it’s that they were not being willing to accept Jesus for who He is and what He demands.
So, these people rejected Jesus with their eyes wide open. After all, they heard all His teaching and saw all His miracles but they didn’t care. Did you know that there are thirty-six specific miracles recorded in the New Testament as well as a few places where it indicates that many more had been done that weren’t recorded. This tells us that Jesus performed miracles day after day and every miracle demonstrated that He was God. He showed His Lordship over the forces of nature as He walked on water, calmed the storms and told trees to dry up. He healed every kind of sickness and disability to the point that some Bible teachers believe that He totally eradicated disease in Israel during His three and a half year ministry. And then He demonstrated his power over Satan and all the evil spirits and finished off His ministry by showing that He had power even over death itself. And so, the unbelief of these people was nothing less than deliberate. I mean, how can you witness all this and then say you don’t believe. Well, I think the story is that it wasn’t so much that they didn’t believe as much as it was that they wouldn’t believe.
Their attitude of unbelief reminds me of Pharaoh in the book of Exodus where it says he hardened his heart at the sight of the first I think it was eight miracles that Moses had performed and then during the last couple of miracles it says that God hardened his heart for him. And here I think the same thing happens to these people here. First, they wouldn’t see and then finally they couldn’t see.
People get strange as their hearts get hard. I’ve met hard hearted people who said things like, “Well, when I get to heaven I’ve got a thing or two to tell God about what He allowed to happen to me.” When someone says something like that they have no lack of faith. They believe there is a God and they believe they’re going to stand before Him. Do you know what the problem with their logic is? They think they’re going to get into heaven not because they believed in Jesus but because God owes them a free ride in order to pay them back for the miserable time they had on earth. They ignore their sin and the fact that God has provided a plan of salvation and they focus on the fact that they had to suffer. And now they think that God owes them something.
Can you imagine what heaven would be like if all these bitter people were given a free pass based on what happened to them on earth? I mean, they’d spend all of eternity whining about how much they suffered and how unjust God was and the rest of us would have to be gracious and listen to them. Let me tell you folks; that would not be heaven.
I think there is a time for everyone to respond to the message of the gospel but sooner or later God says, “Enough is enough.” What is that point? I have no idea and personally, I don’t think I’d want to try to find out.
In the Old Testament we have the story of Esau who we are told treated his birthright like it was worthless and later when he came to the conclusion that it was worth something he started crying when it was no longer available. You see, he found out its value but it was too late. And I believe there are some who are in our churches today who have the same attitude as Esau. They’re busy doing their thing and paying lip service to the things of God but someday Jesus is going to come back and when He does there will be an awful lot of people who will find out they intended to get serious about their faith but they just never got around to it. And there will be no time for last minute repentance.
So, as I said last day, Jesus has finished preaching to the unsaved and here we have John commenting on and summing up His ministry. And he begins with verses 38 to 41 and here we see two different quotations and both of them are from the book of Isaiah. The first is from Isaiah 53:1 and 2 and the second is from Isaiah 6:9. In the first one Isaiah asks two questions. He asks, “Lord, who hath believed our report? And to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?” When he asks ‘who has believed our report’ he’s referring to Jesus’ oral or His preaching ministry and when he says ‘to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed’ he’s referring to Jesus’ miracles. And the answer to both questions is obvious. There weren’t an awful lot that responded to either! Very few believed His word and even fewer it seems were impressed by His miracles.
And then John goes on to show us the results of their unbelief in verse 39 and 40 where it says, “Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.” Isaiah said, they didn’t believe what I said and ignored everything that was done and God has made them deaf and blind as far as spiritual things were concerned. So, as I said, first they wouldn’t believe and then part of their judgment was they couldn’t believe. And what happened to Isaiah John says was repeated in the life of Jesus. And they weren’t the only preachers who met with a cold shoulder because in Jeremiah 8:20 he says of the people he preached to, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” And the fact that all these people weren’t saved was their own fault and now they’d have to suffer the consequences.
And this leads me to a point of theology that the Pastor and I spoke about a few weeks ago and I just want to spend a few minutes here because I believe it will open up our thinking about the very idea of salvation. It’s the matter of whether our salvation is the result of our free will or is it God’s sovereign decision.
And let me say before I begin that there are a lot of things that don’t make sense or that we don’t fully understand but that doesn’t mean that we should completely ignore them.
I read some questions the other day and they point this out. For instance: why are they called stairs inside but they’re called steps when they’re outside? Why is there a light in your fridge but there’s not one in your freezer? Why do toasters have settings on them that will burn your toast so bad that no one in their right mind would eat it? If the professor on Gilligan’s Island could make a radio out of a coconut then why couldn’t he fix the hole in the boat? If corn oil is made from corn and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, then what is baby oil made from? Why is it that when someone tells you there are millions of stars in the universe you believe them but if you see a sign that says wet paint you have to touch it? Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor but laundry detergent is made with real lemons? Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker? Why is the slowest time for traffic called the rush hour? Why do they sterilize the needle they use for lethal injection? Why don’t you ever see the headline that says, “Psychic wins lottery?” And did you ever notice that if you blow in a dog’s face he gets mad at you but if you take him for a ride in the car the first thing he does is stick his head out the window?
Let’s face it, there are a lot of things we don’t understand about life in general so why do we seem to get so bent out of shape if we can’t psycho-analyze God and completely understand everything He does and why He does it? I mean, keep in mind that we’re talking about God and not the guy next door.
And so the question is, are we saved because we’ve seen our sinfulness and then came to our senses and received the Lord or has God miraculously reached down and saved us because He wanted to.
There are two main theological camps in the argument and the first one is known as the Armenian view and it based on the teachings of a Dutch preacher by the name of James Arminius and the denominations that followed his teachings would include the Wesleyans, the Methodists, the Salvation Army, several Pentecostal groups and many others. These people claim that man has a total free will and because of his freedom to choose then that means salvation is completely up to him and the down side of this is that he is responsible not just to get salvation but he’s also responsible to keep it.
So, he can be saved in the morning, lost in the afternoon and then get saved again at night and these people really believe this can and does happen. And that’s why every time the doors are open for a service they’re there. One guy actually told me that if someone in his church got divorced they would stay away from church until they got remarried and then they would both come back and get saved all over again. Isn’t that convenient?
And the other group is what is known as the Calvinists and this is based on the teachings of John Calvin. And they would include many Baptist’s, Presbyterians and a few others as well. There are a few variations of Calvinism but those that are really strong are what are known as five point Calvinists. These are people who claim that God makes the ultimate decision as to who is going to heaven and who is going to hell.
The five point Calvinist holds to five main doctrines or teachings and these form the acrostic, ‘tulip.’ And they are total depravity which means that man is absolutely evil and wouldn’t even reach out to God if he wanted to because it’s simply beneath his ability. The ‘u’ stands for unconditional election and that means that God chose you and you had nothing to do with it. The ‘l’ stands for limited atonement and that means that Jesus only died for the elect. In other words His blood wasn’t wasted on all those who rejected Him and went to hell. And then the ‘i’ stands for irresistible grace which means that those who are called to salvation have to come. And then finally we have the ‘p’ and that’s for the perseverance of the saints and that means that those who are saved will persevere through trials and tribulations and their perseverance will be the proof of their salvation.
The Armenians make fun of the Calvinists by saying, “They believe there will be some people who will be dragged kicking and screaming into the kingdom of heaven.” And the Calvinists make fun of the Armenians by saying, “They sit around picking the petals off the tulip and saying, “He loves me, He loves me not.” You might wonder where we as a church stand but the fact is every Pastor usually holds a slightly different position on these doctrines.
I was candidating in a church in Vancouver one time and they had a group who had split from their former church and had come in to this one and they were rabbit Calvinists. To the point that they couldn’t stand the sight of someone who didn’t agree with their theology. They asked my position and I went through all five points and showed them where I stood on each one and added them up and in the end I came to two and a half points. But, of course anything less than five was a total failure as far as they were concerned.
These are the two main camps of theology and there are a few variations of the two where one might say, we make the decision for salvation but God is the one who makes us able to respond or God has given the invitation and yet it’s not really an invitation but a command performance and those of us who come to Him really have no choice. And I’ve heard other people say, well, we make the decision and God knows what we’re going to do ahead of time while others say that we are so sinful that we either couldn’t or wouldn’t decide to get saved no matter what.
I know I’m not going to clear up an argument that’s been going on for a few hundred years but let me show you a few verses on the matter of salvation and I’m sure these are all verses you are familiar with.
These first of these two sets of verses emphasize our human responsibility to come to Jesus for salvation. In Joshua 24:15 it says, “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.” (In other words, you choose) Matthew 11:28 says, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (You come) John 7:17, “If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God.” (If anyone wills, it’s your choice.) John 7:37, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.” (If you’re thirsty come and if you’re not then don’t) Acts 2:38, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized.” (You repent or turn from your sin) Acts 3:19, Repent therefore and be converted. (Again, this is something you have to do) Acts 16:31, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” (You do the believing) Acts 17:30, “But now commands all men everywhere to repent.” (This is commanded, so that means you have to do it) Revelation 22:17, “Whoever wills, let him take the water of life freely.” (If you want it, help yourself.) These are twelve verses that emphasize our human responsibility in the area of salvation. And based on these alone I think we’d all be quite content to be Armenians.
Now, let’s look at eight more that show us our human inability to make that decision. In Jeremiah 13:23 the prophet asks, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Then may you also do good that are accustomed to do evil.” (The prophet says it’s not within your ability to do it.) Matthew 12:34, “How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Matthew 7:18, “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.” (And both of these verses say the same thing that what’s inside cannot change and sooner or later it will show itself.) Matthew 18:25-26, “Who then can be saved? But Jesus looked at them and said to them, ‘With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (So, apart from God’s work none of us could be saved.) John 3:3, “Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (And only God can cause you to be born again) John 6:44, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” (Does that mean that only those who are drawn come and the rest don’t because that’s what the verse implies?) John 6:65 says, “No one can come unto Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.” (But I thought that all were invited in John 3:16?) John 8:43, “Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word.” (And so why can some hear while others do not?) Romans 5:6, “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” (Listen, this tells you that Jesus died for you before you were born and then the epistles tell you that you were chosen before the foundation of the world. And what did any of that have to do with you?) Romans 8:7, “The carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.” (Did you get that? Paul says you couldn’t be saved even if you wanted to because the fact of the matter is, you wouldn’t want to.) Romans 8:8, “So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” And then one more, in I Corinthians 2:14 it says, “The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (He says, the unsaved person is blind to the things of God so in other words God has to do something to enlighten him or he’ll remain blind.” And based on these verses alone I’m sure we’d all end up as Calvinists.
So, we have two distinct teachings in the same Bible but we don’t want to be like the Jehovah’s Witnesses who hear one verse and say, “Yeah, well this one disagrees with that.” Because, in a sense they’re using the scripture to disagree with the scripture.
But, the two groups I’m referring to are both believers and both of them hold to the scripture even though each one uses different passages to prove their point. And the big question is, which of them are right? My personal opinion is, both of them are right on some points and both of them are wrong on others but neither one of them is completely right.
I remember listening to a theological argument in one of my Bible College classes and one of the other students turned to me and said, “Have you ever thought about what it will be like when we get to heaven and find out how wrong we were about all our theological positions. We might just fall on the ground laughing ourselves sick and then stop long enough to ask God to forgive us for having wasted so much time?”
The problem in the division of these two groups is a theological term called an antinomy. An antinomy is a seeming contradiction between two equal and valid principles. And that means that even though we can’t understand them they still make sense to God. So, one believes because he is elect while the other is elect because he believes. And, on one hand we have the sovereignty of God and by this we are all saved, after all, no one is able to save themselves or even wants to because salvation is the gift of God. And on the other hand we have a free will and all men are responsible to receive Christ or they’ll be lost forever. And where one begins and the other ends I have no idea but the scripture says they’re there and I believe it. I like how Vance Havner combines the two by saying, “God reaches down inside of us and wiggles our willer.”
The best way I’ve been able to understand these two truths is that they are like parallel lines that reach up to heaven and meet in the mind of God.
I believe the scriptures are one hundred per cent accurate but that doesn’t mean we have either the sum total of all knowledge or even that we can fully understand all that God has revealed to us. I do think that more and more of the scripture will become clear as the end comes closer.
And even though we can’t fully understand everything that was written that doesn’t take anything away from scripture. For instance, there is the doctrine of creation. Tell me, how did God speak and make the earth? The scripture tells us He just said it and there it was. I mean, He made something out of nothing. Has anybody here ever seen that happen before? I don’t think so. But we still believe it happened.
What about Jesus’ miracles? How did He change the water into wine? We assume there was a change in the molecular structure but no one really knows. All we’re sure of is the best man’s testimony who said it was the best wine he ever had. Or how did Jesus heal the man by the pool who had been crippled for thirty-eight years? I mean, think about how brittle his bones would be and how weak his muscles were. And yet, there was no need of physical rehabilitation. Jesus healed him and he just got up and walked. Or what about when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, even his sister’s warned Jesus that Lazarus would stink. After all, he’d been dead for four days. So, we can’t even imagine what had to be done to get him to walk out of the tomb and live again. I think every cell in his body had to be affected.
In each of these situations Jesus would have to make molecular changes to the water, the crippled person and the dead body. Does anybody here understand how He did all that?
And then there’s the very nature of Jesus. How could He be 100% God and 100% man at the same time? You can’t be 200% of anything, that’s humanly impossible but Jesus was. Or, think about the trinity. How can you have three persons who are one and yet at the same time all three have distinct personalities? If it makes sense to you then you don’t understand it.
Listen, there are many things we don’t understand but that doesn’t mean that we don’t believe them. As a wise man once said, “God said it and I believe it and that’s good enough for me.” The bottom line is, “If we are saved, it is totally of God and if we are lost it is totally of ourselves.”
Let’s just take a few minutes and look at another group in this passage who are different from the previous ones Jesus spoke to and it says they believed. This group is one I like to refer to as the unbelieving believers. These are people who saw all the same miracles that the first group did and they came to the conclusion that only God did what Jesus did and so it says they believed in Jesus but at the same time they didn’t believe enough to either take a public stand or break with the old crowd. As far as they were concerned, the cost of discipleship was more than they were willing to pay. You see, they knew they would be kicked out of the synagogue and none of their former friends would have anything to do with them. So, it says they believed but they kept their beliefs to themselves.
And there are a lot of people alive today who share their attitude. All over this town you’ll find people who have a great deal of respect for the church and even for the message that it preaches. And if they’re in the hospital they’d certainly appreciate a visit from the Pastor. If someone in their home or family dies they wouldn’t think of having a funeral that wasn’t conducted by a preacher. And at every public function whether it’s a ladies group or even a public event many of them expect someone, to ask the blessing. And at the same time these people don’t seem to be too excited about heaven or even bothered by the prospect of hell. I think that many of these people are a lot like these secret believers.
Listen, any faith where a person does not confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is not a saving faith. Let me read a couple of verses from Luke 9:23-26 where Jesus is teaching His disciples about the kind of commitment He’s looking for. He says, “And He said to them all, if any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. (And right in this first verse He says we need to deny ourselves and that means saying no to self and yes to God.) And then it says we need to take up our cross daily and that describes someone who is on the road to a crucifixion. And if you knew you were about to die there would obviously be a few things in life that might be a little bit more important than others. The problem with most of us is that we assume that both we and everyone else in the world is going to be here forever. Jesus is telling us to be aware of the fact that we’re all going to die sometime. And then third, He says we are to follow Him and that means different things for different people because He leads us all in different ways.
And then we go on to verses 24-26 where He expands on this thought by saying, “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for My sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away? For whosoever shall be ashamed of Me and My words, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when He shall come in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels.” And what He’s doing here is zeroing in on the crowd that wants to nod in agreement but live for themselves. They said they believed but their belief was in the head and never seemed to reach their heart. It reminds me of the song, “I believe.”
“I believe for every drop of rain that falls a flower grows,
I believe that somewhere in the darkest night a candle glows.
I believe for everyone who goes astray someone will come and
show the way. I believe, Oh I believe.
I believe above the storm the smallest prayer will still be heard.
I believe that someone in the great somewhere, hears every word.
Every time I hear a newborn baby cry,
Or touch a leaf, or see the sky, Then I know why, I believe.”
Faith in Jesus Christ is more than singing a few verses of I believe.
And then two more verses from Luke 12:8,9 that seem to sum this up. Jesus said, “Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of God: but he that denieth Me before men shall be denied before the angels of God.”
So, these people might have said they believed that Jesus was the Son of God but by their behavior they denied Him because it says they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. In other words, they were convinced in their heads but their hearts weren’t moved. And we all know that head knowledge is useless unless there’s a will to act. I like as someone said about secret disciples, “Either the secrecy kills the discipleship or the discipleship kills the secrecy.”
What were they afraid of? They were afraid they’d lose their positions, their profits and their prestige. The fact was that they loved their lives in this world more than the life in the world to come. So, they kept all their stuff but they lost their souls.
We look at the unsaved people and think they have a strange perspective on life and yet I don’t think we should be too quick to point the finger because there are some Christians that can fit right in with them at times. (As Wendall Calder always said, “I’m sure there’s none here but keep your eyes open if you visit another church.”) But, there are those who have eternal life and yet they spend all of their time and energy trying to accumulate things that perish while ignoring what will last forever. And what’s lasts forever? People do.
The bottom line is, we need to get our values from the word of God and study has to be inspired by the will of God which becomes clearer as we learn to pray. So, we have both the word of God to sustain us and the will of God to direct us. If all we do is spend time in the word without talking to God we’ll get proud of what we know and if all we do is pray without spending time in the word we’ll get fuzzy in our thinking.
This is a great time (At the beginning of the year) to commit ourselves afresh to spending time every day in the word of God and to make a list of people and things we need to pray for in the year to come.
