SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/20/2016 8:37 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
The End of the Feast:
Division
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 7:37-52
Message of the verses: “37 Now on the last day, the great day of the
feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone is thirsty, let him
come to Me and drink. 38 “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ’From
his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’" 39 But this He
spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the
Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. 40 Some of the
people therefore, when they heard these words, were saying, "This
certainly is the Prophet." 41 Others were saying, "This is the
Christ." Still others were saying, "Surely the Christ is not going to
come from Galilee, is He? 42 “Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes
from the descendants of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David
was?" 43 So a
division occurred in the crowd because of Him. 44 Some of them wanted to
seize Him, but no one laid hands on Him.
“45 The officers
then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, and they said to them, "Why
did you not bring Him?" 46 The officers answered, "Never has a man
spoken the way this man speaks." 47 The Pharisees then answered them,
"You have not also been led astray, have you? 48 “No one of the rulers or
Pharisees has believed in Him, has he? 49 “But this crowd which does not know
the Law is accursed." 50 Nicodemus (he who came to Him before, being one
of them) said to them, 51 “Our Law does not judge a man unless it first hears
from him and knows what he is doing, does it?" 52 They answered him,
"You are not also from Galilee, are you? Search, and see that no prophet
arises out of Galilee."”
As promised
the following is a quote from Dr. Warren Wiersbe from his commentary on the
gospel of John.
“The last
day of the feast would be the seventh day, a very special day on which the
priests would march seven times around the altar, changing Psalm 118:25. It would be the last time they would draw the
water and pour it out. No doubt just as
they were pouring out the water, symbolic of the water Moses drew from the
rock, Jesus stood and shouted His great invitation to thirsty sinners.
“It has
been pointed out that this ‘great day,’ the twenty-first of the seventh month,
is the same date on which the Prophet Haggai made a special prediction about
the temple (Hag. 2:1-9). While the
ultimate fulfillment must await the return of Christ to this earth, certainly
there was a partial fulfillment when Jesus came to the temple. Haggai 2:6-7 is quoted in Hebrews 12:26-29 as
applying to the return of the Lord.
“Jesus was
referring to the experience of Israel recorded in Exodus 17:1-7. That water was but a picture of the Spirit of
God. Believers would not only drink the
living water, but they would become channels of living water to bless a thirst
world! The ‘artesian well’ that He
promised in John 4:14 has now become a flowing river! While there are no specific prophetic
Scriptures that indicate ‘rivers of water’ flowing from the believer, there are
a number of verses that parallel this thought:
Isaiah 12:3; 15; 32:2; 44:3; and 58:11; and Zechariah 14:8. Note that Zechariah 14:16ff speaks about the
future Feast of Tabernacles, when the Lord is King.
“Water for
drinking is one of the symbols of the Holy Spirit in the Bible. (Water for
washing is a symbol of the Word of God; see John 15:3 and Eph. 5:26.) Just as water satisfies thirst and produces
fruitfulness, so the Spirit of God satisfies the inner person and enables us to
bear fruit. At the feast, the Jews were
reenacting a tradition that could never satisfy the heart. Jesus offered them living water and eternal
satisfaction!
“What was
the result of this declaration and invitation?
The people were divided: some
defended Him and some wanted to arrest Him.
Is He a ‘good man’ or ‘a deceiver’?
(John 7:12) Is He ‘the Christ’?
(John 7:40; Deut. 18:15) If only they
had honestly examined the evidence, they would have discovered that, indeed, He
was the Christ, the Son of God. They
identified Jesus with Galilee (John 1:45-46; 7:52) when in reality He was born
in Bethlehem (see John 6:42 for similar reasoning).
“The temple
officers returned to the Jewish council meeting empty-handed. It certainly should have been relatively easy
for them to arrest Jesus, yet they failed to do so. What stopped them? ‘Never man spoke like this Man!’ was their
defense. In other words ‘This Jesus is
more than a man! No mere man speaks as
He does!’ They were ‘arrested’ by the
Word of God, spoken by the Son of God.
“Again, the
leaders refused to face facts honestly but passed judgment on the basis of
their prejudices and their superficial examination of the facts. It is much easier to label people (and libel people!) than to listen to the
facts they present. ‘So some the people
have believed on Jesus! So what? These common people, knew nothing about the
Law anyway! Have any important people—like ourselves—believed
on Him? Of course not!’ They would use a similar argument to try to
discredit the witness of the blind man that Jesus healed (John 9:34).
“We should
not be surprised when ‘the intelligentsia’ refuses to trust Jesus Christ, or
when religious leaders reject Him. God
has hidden His truth from ‘the wise and prudent’ and revealed it to ‘spiritual babes,’
the humble people who will yield to Him (Matt. 11:25-27). Paul was a very intelligent rabbi when God
saved him, yet he had to be ‘knocked down’ before he would acknowledge that Jesus
Christ was the resurrected Son of God.
Read 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 to learn Paul’s explanation for the
difficulty of winning ‘smart religious people’ to the Saviour.
“No doubt
the rulers would have sent the guard out again, but Nicodemus spoke up. This man is found three times in John’s
Gospel, and each time he is identified as the one ‘who came to Jesus by night’
(see John 3:1-2; 19:39). No doubt
Nicodemus had been doing a great deal of thinking and studying since that first
interview with Jesus, and he was not afraid to take his stand for truth.
“Nicodemus
was sure that the council was not giving Jesus an honest hearing. The rulers had already passed judgment and
were trying to arrest Him before He had even been given a fair and lawful trial! Perhaps Nicodemus had in mind such Old
Testament Scriptures as Exodus 23:1 and Deuteronomy 1:16-17; 19:15-21.
What did
Nicodemus want them to consider about Jesus?
His Word and His works. It was
Jesus the Teacher and the miracle worker who had attracted Nicodemus’ interest
in the first place (John 3:2). In fact,
Jesus had pointed to His works as proof of His deity (John 5:32); and He
repeatedly urged the people to pay attention to His words. The two go together, for the miracles point
to the messages, and the messages interpret the spiritual meaning of the
miracles.
“You can
hear the sarcasm and disdain in the reply of the rulers: ‘Are you a lowly and despised Galilean too?’ They refused to admit that Nicodemus was
right in asking for a fair trial, but the only way they could answer him was by
means of ridicule. This is an ancient
debate trick: when you cannot answer the
argument, attack the speaker.
“They
challenged Nicodemus to search the prophecies to see if he could find any statement
that a prophet would come out of Galilee.
Of course, Jonah was from Galilee, and Jesus said that Jonah was a
picture of Himself in death, burial, and resurrection (Matt. 12:38-41). Perhaps Nicodemus read Isaiah 9:1-2 (see
Matt. 4: 12-16) and began to trace the great messianic prophecies in the Old
Testament. If he did, then he became
convinced that Jesus of Nazareth was the very Son of God.
“You cannot
help but feel sorry for the people described in this chapter, people who
responded to Jesus in the wrong ways.
His half brothers responded with disbelief; various people responded
with debate; and the result was division.
Had they willingly received the truth, and had they acted with sincere
obedience, they would have ended up at the feet of Jesus, confessing Him as
Messiah and Son of God.
“But people
today commit the same blunder and permit their prejudices and superficial
evaluations to blind them to the truth.
“Don’t let
it happen to You!”
I hope you
enjoyed the writings of Warren Wiersbe as much as I have and still do as he
puts the cookies on the shelf where you can reach them.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Talent, or Kikkar.”
Today’s Bible question:
“By what name did God reveal himself to Moses?”
Answer in our next SD.
5/20/2016 9:22 AM
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