If you have your Bibles, please take them out and turn with me to John chapter 7. Tonight we'll be finishing up our series on John 7. We're reading from verses 37 to chapter 8 verse 1. That's John chapter 7 verse 37 to 8 verse 1. Hear the word of our Lord. On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus 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. Now this he said about the spirit whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. When they heard these words, some of the people said, this really is the prophet. Others said this is the Christ, but some said it's the Christ to come from Galilee. Has not the scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was? So there was division among the people over him. Some of them wanted to arrest him. But no one laid hands on him. The officers then came to the chief priests and the Pharisees who said to them, why did you not bring him? The officers answered, no one ever spoke like this man. The Pharisees answered them, have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed. Nicodemus who had gone to him before and who was one of them said to them, Does our Lord judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does? They replied, are you too from Galilee? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee. They went each to his own house, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. May the Lord add the blessing of the Holy Spirit to his word. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you for the precious promise of the scripture, that Jesus Christ bids us to come to him, that if we are thirsty that he will give us rivers of living water. We thank you for the salvation that is found only in Jesus Christ. We thank you for the great mercy, the great grace, the great love with which you loved us. This evening, as we hear from your word, Father, I pray that you would be glorified. That, Father, your word would go forth and not return unto you void, but accomplish all that you will it to. We pray that as we read and hear about the Lord Jesus Christ tonight, that Christ Jesus, you would be glorified. That you would be here with us, guiding us, that you would be our shepherd, the overseer of our souls, the theologian and pastor. Father, we also pray that you'd send the Holy Spirit to be amongst us, to illuminate the scripture, to give understanding to your word. And may the Holy Spirit convict us of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. May he apply the word of God to us and may we be conformed into the image of Christ. Father, I pray that this whole message would be focused on Jesus Christ and his magnificence. that Jesus Christ would be beautiful, that he'd be altogether lovely, that we would leave this church tonight with a new desire, a new passion, not to be religious, but to know Jesus Christ and to make him known to your great glory. May we give up all tonight for the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ, our Lord. May we long to serve him and to see him. May tonight, Jesus, be our creed and our cry. May we declare afresh that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. We pray all these things for Jesus' holy name's sake. Amen. Well tonight we return to John 7, it's been 3 weeks now since we've looked at John's gospel. So just to give a bit of a background, a bit of a revision of what has gone before. We started off John 7 many weeks ago now and we saw at the start that the feast of booze, the feast of tabernacles was coming to pass. And tonight when we look at the passage we are coming to the end of the feast. The chapter started at the beginning of the feast we're now coming to the end of the feast. And in all that's gone before we've had Jesus go up to Jerusalem ignoring his brother's advice who wanted him to be an entertainer. We have Jesus entering into Jerusalem secretly so the religious leaders who want to kill him couldn't find him. We've seen in this chapter that Jesus Christ, in the middle of the feast, went up into the temple and sat in the courts and there he taught as a rabbi, teaching all those who would listen. And then we saw that as Jesus taught, the religious leaders, the Pharisees, those who were seeking to kill Jesus, marveled at his teaching. They couldn't understand how Jesus, one who had no education, one who had not been trained by their religious schools, could have such an insight to the scripture. Then Jesus did something interesting that didn't make him any friends. He rebuked the religious leaders. He called them hypocrites. He said they did not know God and they did not know Him. As a result of all this preaching and teaching, many in the crowd began to question and wonder, who is this Jesus Christ? Is he the Messiah? Is he the Saviour? And the text tells us that there was a debate erupted among those who listened. Some even believed that Jesus Christ was who he said he was. And they put their trust in the Saviour. Had the people believing the religious leaders decided to have Jesus arrested, to have him seized. And they called upon the temple guard to come and arrest him. And while the temple guard was coming, Jesus continued to preach. And we saw last time in John 7 that we finished the section of scripture with Jesus telling the religious leaders and the crowds that despite all their religious trappings, despite the fact that they looked good, they did not know God. And that's where we pick up tonight's passage. We're at the end of the Feast of Tabernacles, we're at the end of the Feast of Booths. And Jesus Christ in tonight's passage makes one of the grandest statements of all of scripture, a statement that should give us great hope and great joy, a statement that we should cling to, that we should remember and we should claim the promises of. Tonight, as we look at this end of 7 and start of chapter 8, there's three points I want to look at. First, we're going to look at come and drink, verses 37 to 39. Secondly, we're going to look at division, verses 40 to 44. And thirdly, we're going to look at the issue of religious wars, verses 45 to 81. Tonight, if you are thirsty, if you are spiritually thirsty, then I pray that you would come to Christ tonight. Maybe you're a Christian who's become dry in your walk, then come and drink of Christ in you tonight. If you're not a Christian, then come and drink for the first time. Heed the words of Christ tonight. With that in mind, let's look at our first point. Come and drink. Verse 37 to 39. Look again at the word of God. On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus 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." Now this he said about the spirit whom those who believed in him were to receive. For as yet the spirit had not been given because Jesus was not yet glorified. If you read over John 7, you may have missed something. I know I missed something when I was preparing this sermon. When I was preparing this sermon, I was going to include this section of scripture on the end of the last section of scripture. I was going to try and look at it in all in one go because in my mind, it was happening all at the same time. But if you look at verse 37, we see something interesting. In verse 37, John tells us that Jesus is in the, well, we don't exactly know it is, but Jesus is about to do something on the last day of the feast, the great day. But we finished verse 36 on day three of the feast, the halfway mark. And when we read through the text, we go, there's a division here. There's a three day period, which John hasn't recorded. Jesus, three days ago, had stirred up the religious leaders to the point where they were going to arrest him. And now, some three days later, he comes back in and once again begins to preach. So here we are on the seventh day, the final day, the greatest day of the Feast of the Tabernacles. And Jesus makes a statement on this day that many people throughout the ages have heard and trusted in. This verse has been used in many evangelistic rallies. It's many times people have heard the call of Christ to come and drink and they've responded to the gospel by faith. But I want you to picture it, I want you to imagine that this is. It's incredible when you study the background of this text, what's going on. Jesus on the final day of the feast, all around him is religious worship going on. On the final day, the greatest day, the day in which the religious worship was at fever pitch, Jesus walks into somewhere near the temple, stands up and cries 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. Jesus was so passionate about what he said here. How do we know he was passionate? Because he didn't stick to the rabbinical tradition. The rabbis, when they want to teach or draw attention, would sit. But the text tells us that Jesus stood. He went to his feet and began to cry out to people, come to me and drink. Jesus was passionate. He was fired up on this day. He was declaring the gospel to them. Now this would have been a major break with custom, a major break with tradition. Rabbis don't stand up to preach. Only those weird prophets do that. Those strange men who are the mouthpiece of God, they're the ones who stand to preach. The rabbis were much too sophisticated for that. No, they sat. They were nice and polite and the people came to them. But Jesus stands and cries out in a loud voice, come, come to me. If anyone's thirsty, come and drink. Now, Jesus wasn't standing there with a water cooler saying, come get a drink on this hot day. He's saying, no, if you're spiritually thirsty, if you're longing for the water that will quench your spiritual thirst, then come to me for salvation. If you are thirsting for righteousness, then Jesus says, come to him. Now, I must confess, I thought I knew a lot about the Bible before I started preaching the Bible. And when I started preaching the Bible and studying the scripture more to prepare a sermon, I started to realize that I don't actually know that much. And I don't think I'll ever fully grasp the scripture in its entirety. But I always wondered, what exactly was the purpose of Jesus mentioning water here? What's the purpose? Why did Jesus just all of a sudden, on the last day of the Feast of the Tabernacle, stand up and say, if you're thirsty, come and drink of me. What was the purpose of Jesus playing off this analogy of water? Now Jesus did everything for a purpose. Jesus did everything with a plan and a reason. So why on this last day, the great day of the feast, did Jesus start talking about drinking? Start talking about water? To answer that question we need to look at the background. You might find the background more insightful to the point where I went and disturbed Louise watching TV and said, guess what the background says? And Louise goes, now I don't have to listen to the sermon. But the background is so It gives such a depth to why Christ is doing what he's doing. When you understand what was actually happening on the great day, on the final day of the feast, all of a sudden, Jesus talking about water makes tons of sense. See, what was happening on the final day of the feast, you have the religious leaders coming and offering a water sacrifice, a sacrifice that was saying, God, we thank you for quenching our thirst when you delivered us in the wilderness in Exodus. They were offering a water offering to God saying, you quenched our thirst, so we praise you. And Jesus plays off this offering and says, come and drink of me, I'm the one that can quench your thirst. Dr. D.A. Carson explained that brilliantly what was going on and I just want to read to you what he said to help you get the context of what was going on. D.A. Carson says, on the seventh day of the feast, A gold jug filled with water from the pool of Siloam was carried in a procession led by the high priest back to the temple. As the procession approached the water gate on the south side of the inner court, three blasts from a trumpet, a shofar, that's a ram's horn, were sounded. While the pilgrims watched, the priest processed around the altar with the jug. the temple choir singing the Halal, which is Psalm 113 to Psalm 118. When the choir reached Psalm 118, every male pilgrim shook a willow and myrtle twig tied with palm branches in his right hand, and while in his left hand, he raised a piece of citrus fruit, which was a sign of the ingathered harvest. And all present cried out, give thanks to the Lord, give thanks to the Lord, give thanks to the Lord. and then the water that they were carrying was offered to God at the time of the morning sacrifice along with the daily drink offering of wine. The wine and the water were poured into their respective silver bowls and then poured out before the Lord. Moreover, these ceremonies of the Feast of Tabernacles were related to the Jewish thought both to the Lord's provision of water in the desert and to the Lord's pouring out of the Spirit in the last days. That's the background. That was what's going on. And also it makes sense why Jesus said, come and drink. I'm going to give you water, which is the spirit. These guys are at the temple sacrificing, saying, God, we thank you for the water you gave us and we thank you that you're going to give us the spirit. And Jesus is saying, I'm the one that does that. You're sacrificing over there. You want me arrested. I'm the one that did all the things that you're saying about. I'm the one that will pour out the spirit. I just found that absolutely fascinating when you understand the background. And there's such a depth to what's going on. Jesus is playing off what everyone is seeing. And he stands up and says, come to me, I'll give you a drink, you'll never thirst again. I'll give you rivers of living water flowing from your heart. It's a great promise to those who are present. The crowd was standing there, hearing the choir singing. They would have seen the priest doing his duty. It's also said that the crowd, those in the crowd watching the sacrifice would pray. And what they would pray was Nehemiah 9, 15, 19 to 20. I want to read to you what their prayer said. Now this is straight scripture. And as you listen to their prayer, tell me if you can pick up why Jesus is saying what he's saying. The prayer and what Nehemiah said was this. You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and brought water for them from the rock for their thirst. And you told them to go in and possess the land that you had sworn to give them. You and your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way by which they should go. You gave your good spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your manner from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst. That's what the crowd was praying when Jesus stood up and said, if anyone thirsts, come to me. It's quite incredible when you think about that, is it not? It's at the height of their religious ceremony, they're praising God for what he has done. The temple is buzzing, you know, this trumpet sound, if you've ever heard it so far, they're loud. There's trumpets going off. There's people waving branches and holding up fruit. There's other people singing. There's some praying. It would have been pandemonium. It would have been, I guess, like the most extreme Pentecostal worship service you've ever seen. People going off everywhere. There's probably ladies with tambourines. Who knows? So all these people, they're praising God. You know, all they're praising, well, at least they think they're praising God. But the really interesting thing of this passage is this, as you read through the New Testament, as you read about who Christ is and what he did in the Old Testament, you soon start to see that Jesus is the one credited with giving the people water in the wilderness. Jesus is the one credited with being the cloud that led them in the wilderness. Jesus is the one that's credited with being the fire by night. Jesus is the one who gives the Spirit. These guys are praying, these Jews are praying and celebrating, saying, God you did this. But the God they think they're worshipping is standing right next to them. And they've ignored Him. They've missed Him. They're too busy stuck in their religious worship saying, I've got it all nailed down. And Jesus is standing to the side saying, you know the one you're praising? That's me. I did all these things. I reckon it would have grieved him. I reckon it really would have grieved Jesus. You know, Jesus wept over Jerusalem. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and those who are sent to you. These people were so caught up in their religion that they missed their Messiah. They missed their Saviour. And I'd say it was in that grief, that moment of passion that caused Jesus to stand to his feet like the prophets of old. to declare, to cry 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. The interesting thing is when Jesus says, as the scripture says, there's actually no verse that says that. In the entire Bible, there's no verse that says, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water, except for here. But Jesus says this is what the scripture says. Just a side note showing that what Jesus speaks and says is scripture and is able to be trusted. So that's the background of what's going on. You've got the prayers, you've got the praise, you've got the water sacrifice. But what exactly does Jesus mean? It's well and good to know what was happening in the culture and the context. But what exactly does Jesus mean when he says come and drink? What does that mean? What's it mean for you? What's it mean for me? It's nice to have a historical narrative nailed down. But what exactly is Jesus getting at? To come to Jesus and to drink means to believe in him, to enter into his trusting and ongoing personal relationship with him. The image of coming and the image of drinking applies not just intellectual knowledge, but an intimate knowledge. You're coming to this person and he's giving you that which you need for life. Coming and drinking is not, oh yeah, I know Jesus exists, that's nice. No, it's coming, clinging to him, holding to him, saying that you alone hold that which I need for life. That apart from Jesus, there's nothing. I guess we could summarize it by saying what Jesus is saying is this. You've got to let go of everything you have and give all to Jesus. You must hold on to Jesus and cling to Jesus. This verse here is a display of God's mercy. It's a display of God's greatness. He's being kind to these Jewish people who wanted him dead. Even though these people wanted him executed just three days earlier. In grace, in love, in mercy, He still gives them another chance. He still calls them to come to Him. That's grace. If I was preaching and someone wanted to kill me and I said, fine, you reject my message. I'm not coming back in three days time. You've had your chance. You've blown it. But Jesus comes back three days later and again declares to them the truth. And we know from the scripture that he keeps declaring them the truth. He keeps telling them what they need and that's they need him. He calls on the people to come and drink. You cannot deal with this passage without dealing with the Old Testament tonight. The Jews were doing Old Testament rituals, praising God for what He did in the Old Testament. But when they heard Jesus' statement, those who knew the prophets, those who knew what Isaiah says, would have picked up a messianic promise in the statement of Jesus. When Jesus says, come and drink, I'm going to give you water, it's tied to Isaiah 55 verse 1. When God says, come everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And he who has no money, come and buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. It's the promise of God saying, if you come to me, I'm going to give freely that which you do not have. I'm going to give freely that which you need. We need life. We need Jesus. And Jesus says, if you come to me, I'll give you life and I'll give you the spirit. Jesus is showing grace. Let no one say that Jesus was just a hard-hearted man that never wanted to show grace to people. I've heard people say Jesus was just a judgmental man who took a whip to the temple. This would have been the time to take a whip to the temple. Jesus would have been fully justified here to take a whip to the temple. But he doesn't. He shows grace to these people and declares to them, come and drink. At the moment, at the cinemas, there's a movie out. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The Treader, whatever it is. C.S. Lewis, not the biggest fan of his. But C.S. Lewis, in writing his Chronicle of Narnia, had a book called The Silver Chair. Now, I've read it and I've watched the BBC series of it. But in The Silver Chair, Lewis... draws off this passage of scripture and presents an analogy. I want to read to you what Lewis said and I think Lewis just boils the scripture down to a nice point where we can understand what's happening. In the story Lewis tells of Jill, who seeing a lion is scared out of her wits and runs into the forest. She runs so hard that she wears herself out and is about to die of thirst, or so she thinks, when she hears the gurgling of a brook in the distance. She approaches it and is almost ready to go to the brook when on the grass before her is the same lion. Are you thirsty? Are you not thirsty? said the lion. I'm dying of thirst, said Jill. Then drink, said the lion. May I? Could I? Would you mind going away while I do?" said Jill. The lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. As Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience. The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic. Will you promise not to do anything to me if I come?" said Jill. I make no promise, said the lion. Jill was so thirsty by now that without noticing it, she had come a step nearer. Do you eat girls? She said. I've swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms, said the lion. It didn't say this as if it was boasting, nor as if it was sorry, nor as if it was angry. It just said it. I daren't come and drink, said Jill. then you'll die of thirst," said the lion. Oh dear, said Jill, coming another step nearer. I suppose I must go and look for another stream then. There is no other stream, said the lion. It never occurred to Jill to disbelieve the lion. No one who had seen his stern face could do that. And her mind suddenly made itself up. It was the worst thing she ever had to do. But she went forward to the stream, knelt down, and began scooping up water in her hand. It was the coldest, most refreshing water she'd ever tasted. Do you see what Lewis is saying there? You don't come and drink of the lion's water on your terms, you come on his terms. The Jews wanted God on their terms. But Lewis brings out for us that when you come to the lion of the tribe of Judah, when you come to Jesus Christ, you come on his conditions. You come because or on the grounds of what he says you come for. Jill took some time to work out that she was so thirsty it was worth coming to the line and his water on his conditions. And perhaps tonight some of us are thirsty. Perhaps some of us in our Christian walk have become dry. Perhaps we've got to the point where we need to drink again of the living water. To come to Jesus and drink once again, to drink deeply. Perhaps you've never drunk for the first time. Maybe we all need to step out in faith and yield ourselves to the line of the tribe of Judah tonight. For those Christians who are dry, would you come to Jesus tonight and drink of him? For those who aren't Christians who have never drunk, would you come to Jesus and drink of him? The promise of Jesus is if you're thirsty, come and drink and he'll cause rivers of living water to flow from you, which is the Holy Spirit. At that time, the Holy Spirit hadn't been given because Jesus was yet to die on the cross. He was yet to suffer and die in the place of sinners. He was yet to rise again from the dead. He was yet to be glorified. But when he died and when he was buried, when he rose again for our justification, the Bible says that he ascended into heaven after these things and sent the Holy Spirit. And now when we drink of Jesus, we don't have to wait for the Holy Spirit to come, but we get it immediately sealed unto the day of redemption. That's a promise for all those who repent and trust in Christ. Would you come and drink of Jesus tonight? And that's what Jesus is saying to the Jews. You here who are worshipping God for his provisions. You here who are praising God and praying to him for his water that he gave us in the wilderness thousands of years ago. Would you people come and drink of me Jesus is saying? If anyone's thirsty come and drink But how did the crowd respond? So when Christ proclaims and when we proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, division occurs. There was division in the crowd, those who were at the temple were now divided. There was infighting starting to occur, which leads to our second point, division. Look again at the word of God, verse 40 to 44. The crowd, when they heard these words, some of the people said, this really is the prophet. Others said, this is the Christ. But some said, is the Christ to come from Galilee? Has not the scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was? So there was a division among the people over him. Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him. After preaching, division occurred, which is normal. When you preach a message, as Jesus did, that says, come to me for life or don't come to me and die, a division occurs. It's quite simple. Some will, as we see in this passage, come to Jesus. Others went, no, let's arrest him. A division had occurred. And in the church today, we get told division is a bad thing. That's not necessarily true. Division can sometimes be a good thing if you are divided under the Lord. If you are separated unto Jesus Christ, then division can be a good thing. Because the message of the gospel, the message of Jesus, is a message that separates. Light and darkness cannot dwell together. When the light comes in, there's a division occurred. The darkness flees. And Jesus, when he preached, caused this division to occur in the crowd. The crowd heard his message of come and drink. And there was this response. These people started reasoning amongst themselves. Some said he really is the prophet. He's the one that Moses spoke of in Deuteronomy 18 that said that will come after him. That would be just like him, but greater than him. Jesus is that prophet. Others said, no, no, no, he's not the prophet of Deuteronomy 18. He's more than that. He's the Christ. He's the Messiah. He's the one all the prophets pointed to. Now when we hear that, we think, hang on, isn't the prophet and the Messiah the same person? Yes. But the Jews in that day followed the rabbinical teaching that said, perhaps there's two different people. But despite their splitting of the office of the Messiah, the crowd was starting to work out who Jesus was. They'll start to realise that Jesus Christ was the one whom they should be worshipping. Belief was coming alive in the hearts of some of the people that heard him. These crowds weren't here to hear Jesus. Jesus has just intruded upon their procession. Yet they turn and go, yeah, he's the Messiah. And I take great joy from this passage as an open air preacher. So many times we're told we're intruding upon people's night out. But hey, if someone turns and says, yeah, Jesus is the Messiah. I don't care if I upset anyone. But Jesus here just stood and preached and people believed. There was division among the people. He's the prophet. No, he's the Messiah. No, he can't be the Messiah. Because the Messiah must come from Bethlehem, the city of David. This guy, he comes from Galilee. The crowd who was divided, missed who Jesus was. Some got it, some believed, others went, no, that can't be right. And John, when he writes, enters something that's really common in John's writing is what's called the irony factor of John. We see it twice in this passage, the irony appears. This crowd is arguing over who Jesus is and where he's from and they fail to ask him where he's from. Jesus, if asked, would have said, I'm from Bethlehem, that's where I was born. But they're too busy saying, no, no, no, I think I know where he's from. He can't have been from there. And John brings out how ironic it is that there's this huge debate going on over who is Jesus Christ when Jesus was standing right there. John tells us that this crowd had great division. They were greatly divided. And as a result of that division, some of the people didn't just want to argue over who Jesus was. They want to arrest him. They want to lock him up. And that's the vision of Jesus preaching. Jesus, when he preaches, causes division to the point where people want him dead. Jesus, when he preaches, causes division to the point where there's massive fighting. Yet in the church today, we get told that Jesus doesn't want to cause division, that if you come to Jesus, everything will be fine and dandy and there's going to be no division, there's just going to be perfect unity. On Wednesday night, Louise and I went to a Christmas light spectacular up Maroochydore to the Maroochy Baptist Church and they have a spectacular Christmas light display. It was brilliant. You like walk through the Bethlehem experience. You start off in the fields outside of Bethlehem and they talk about the Saviour coming and then you get to talk to some bloke who's Joseph and he tells the nativity story. Then you go explore a little town in which they tell the life of Jesus and finally they... and there's goats. I've had goats. That was the coolest part but anyway. Louise just wouldn't touch my hand after that. But it was a really cool event. However, there was something missing. The gospel. And in the final room is the gospel presentation. Now, Louise was grateful I didn't sit with her for this gospel presentation. I stood down the back and I was that close to heckling. Because in the gospel presentation, it consisted of four ladies, a couple of them well over the hill. who had chains on them. And all of a sudden, the music started and they started doing this interpretive dance. And when you have old ladies doing interpretive dance, it doesn't work, okay? But all of a sudden, one of the old ladies got free and she started dancing and skipping and spinning and doing everything, symbolizing that Jesus had set her free. And then she starts telling people, there's people rejecting, people receiving. Now you've got four ladies dancing and spinning and doing all this sort of stuff. But then one of the ladies grabs a mic and decides to preach. And she preaches a message that says Jesus will never divide. She gives this promise that if you come to Jesus, all your relationships are going to work. But if you come to Jesus, hey, everything's just going to be nice and neat. He's going to restore everything. Nothing's going to be divided. My favorite statement out of her gospel presentation was, hey, come to God. He'll walk with you and show you pictures. I don't even understand what that means. But that's what she said, along with Jesus fixing everything. And I was going, no. Jesus won't fix everything. He doesn't promise to. I have friends who, when they became Christians, had their wives up and leave them because of their stand for Jesus Christ. They became a believer and she said, I don't want anything to do with you and left. That's the vision. That's what Christ causes at times. Jesus promises unity among the believers, but division between believers and non-believers. And to make the promise that if you come to Jesus, he's going to restore all your relationships. If you've got a failed marriage, hey, Jesus is going to bring you back together is not necessarily true. He may, and if he does, then all glory to him. But there's no promise of that. The message of Jesus divides, the person of Jesus divides. It separates the sheep and the goats, the elect from the non-elect. Jesus divides truth from error. And I found it hard on Winifred Ott when she was making all these grand promises. And they have thousands of people going through and hearing that rubbish. It was actually quite sad. And all these people are getting this, oh, Jesus will make my life better. But when they experience the promised trials and tribulations, well, they've been sold a dud. Jesus said this, listen to what Jesus says, I'll let Jesus answer on if he causes division or not. Jesus said in Matthew 10, 34-39. Do not think I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother. And a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Jesus in Matthew 10 is pretty blunt. I didn't come to bring peace, I came to bring sword. Sons and fathers will be separated over the person of Jesus Christ. Daughters and mothers will be separated over his message. In-laws will be fighting over who Jesus Christ is. Jesus brings a sword. To promise that Jesus will just make your life better is rubbish. To say that if you've got a broken relationship with your son or your daughter or your wife or some family member, if you come to Jesus he'll make it better is anti-biblical. It's in Galatians 1, 6, 9 territory. It's a false gospel. Let he who preaches such a thing be anathema. And we see the division played out in this passage. Jesus preaches a message to a bunch of people who were all religious Jews. And all these religious Jews who were in the same religion, divided. He's the prophet. He's the Messiah. No, he can't be the Messiah. Let's kill him. There's division occurring. Jesus brings the sword to cut between belief and unbelief. Jesus divides even to this day. Just think of this, if you want proof that Jesus divides, why is it that every other religion in the world can get on with each other but they can't get on with Christianity? Because Jesus divides. Why is it that the politicians will happily pander to all the false religions but they will never come pandering to Christianity? Because Jesus divides. Why is it at Christmas they want to remove the name of Christ and just make it happy holidays, but they don't do that to Ramadan? Because Jesus divides. Jesus causes division. The message he preaches divides, his person divides. When you have a man stand and say, I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me, that's a divisive message. And the world hates it, but it's truth. And we see the division occurring in this passage. Yes, I believe Jesus. No, I don't believe Jesus. Maybe he's right. I don't know. Let's kill him. There's division occurring. But John all of a sudden just leaves the division hanging. He leaves the reader almost to make up their own mind on who Jesus is. And he zooms out from the crowd and moves to the Pharisees, to the religious leaders. We see that in our third and final point tonight, Religious Wars, verse 45-81. Look again at the Word of God. The officers, that is the temple guard, then came to the chief priests and the Pharisees who said to them, why did you not bring him? The officers answered, no one ever spoke like this man. The Pharisees answered him, have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed. Nicodemus, who had gone to him before, who was one of them said to them, does our Lord judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does? They replied, are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee. They went each to his own house, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. John's changed scenes from the division in the crowd, the questions left hanging. And I think it's a wise thing what John's done. Because the reader who reads this now has to answer the question personally for themselves. Will you come and drink of Jesus? Who is he? The reader must decide the answer. The reader must see if he's going to be divided for Christ or divided against Christ. And he flicks from the crowd and flicks to the Pharisees and the religious leaders and he shows these temple guard, these educated religious police from the tribe of Levi coming to the chief priests and coming to the Pharisees and they begin to question them saying, why haven't you arrested this man? And I love the answers from these religious leaders, from the police. We didn't arrest him because no one speaks like this man. Wish that was a good way to get out being arrested, just speak well. We can't arrest him, no one speaks like him. We know that Jesus would have been speaking with authority because the Bible says he preached differently to the Pharisees. He preached as one having authority. And these temple police were stunned. We can't arrest him because no one preaches this way. And the Pharisees and the chief priests begin to mock and belittle these police officers, making them feel like spiritual lowlifes, even though that they themselves, in a few verses earlier, marveled at Jesus' teaching. The Pharisees accuse these temple guards of being deceived. And they do this. Us religious leaders, we don't believe in Jesus. Only the uneducated masses, they believe in Christ. Us educated people, us who are smart, we don't accept him. Only the simple people do. The religious leaders are trying to say, look, if this guy's a messiah, if he is who he says he is, then we would know about it, but since we don't, he's not. And the Pharisees and the religious leaders are trying to belittle these officers, to say, look, you guys made a mistake, you've been deceived, you're one of them. What's really great about this is, I love what the Apostle John has done. The Pharisees are puffing themselves up to make themselves wise. To show how they are the most educated people and they are the smartest people and because of their smartness they reject Jesus. But John records for us a massive error in their statement. He records for us Something that anyone who knows their Old Testament would look at and say, you Pharisees got it wrong. For all your wisdom, you are fools. You speak in error. Verse 50 onwards, listen to what it says, Nicodemus who had gone to him before and who was one of them said to them, does our Lord judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does? They reply to you from Galilee too? Here's the error. Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee. There's an error in their final statement. Nicodemus has been a fair man. Nicodemus is a bloke who appeared in John 3 going to Jesus secretly by night. Nicodemus in this passage is not a believer. He becomes a believer in John 19. But at this point, he's not a believer. He just wants to give Jesus a fair go. Jesus, when he spoke to him, said, you must be born again. And you must commend Nicodemus for saying, don't judge him. Let's have a trial. Let's work out who Jesus really is. But the Pharisees being conceited and puffed up with pride and arrogance tell Nicodemus to get lost and then make an error. Are you too from Galilee? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee. Does a prophet arise from Galilee? Absolutely. In the Old Testament we know of three prophets who arose from Galilee. Jonah, Elijah, and Nahum. Three prophets who arose in the Galilee region. Yet these religious leaders going, no prophet arises from that area. You can almost imagine the Jews when they read this for the first time going, hang on. I remember having to study this. These prophets, they came from that area. These religious leaders made such a glaring mistake. Even though they were just belittling people for being stupid. And John must have had a good old chuckle when he wrote this, I reckon. He's just made a laughing stock out of the religious leaders. Those who are professing themselves to be wise have become fools. They say to the temple guard, you guys have been deceived, you're stupid. We smart people don't believe in Jesus, but then they go on and show how stupid they really are. Because they admired Elijah. Elijah was one of the most admired prophets in the Jewish system. Yet they didn't even know where he came from. Their pride got in the way of them knowing and accepting Jesus. Even though Jesus did not arise from Galilee, they still missed it. They should have humbly accepted Christ, but in their arrogance they said, no, we're not going to hear. We're not even going to give the man a fair trial. We're not even going to stop and investigate to see if Jesus really is who he says he is. We can learn from these religious hypocrites. Do you think you know everything? Do you think that Christianity As I got told last night, it's for the stupid people. Only the smart people believe atheism. Do you think you have it all together and therefore we can reject Jesus Christ? Do you think that you know God and the scriptures but in reality, do you know Jesus or not? Are you an unbeliever tonight that thinks you know everything about Jesus but in reality you know nothing? If you're puffed up to the point where you're trusting in your knowledge, then you need to repent, humble yourself, turn to Christ and live. Tonight I'd encourage everyone, not just the believers, but the non-believers to seek Christ while he may be found. We need to love Jesus and serve Jesus more. And as we come into 2011, I want that to be our theme. Love Jesus. Know Him. Come and drink of Him. Be refreshed by Him. At the end of the year it's tiring. We've had a big year. Come to Jesus and drink. See the thing about drinking is you don't drink once and your thirst is quenched forever. You keep drinking. And we must constantly be filled with the Spirit. We must constantly live in communion with Christ. Succumb and drink of Jesus Christ. If anyone thirsts, let him come and drink. Jesus says, whoever believes in me, as the scripture says, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you are so kind to us. That you, even though your statements cause division, Even though you've divided us in many ways, that we've lost family and friends because of our claims of Jesus Christ. Father, we thank you that you've just been so kind to save us. Lord, that even though we may have suffered hurt in this life, even though we may be tired of the battle, we thank you for your great mercy. Father, we want to give up all things of the passing worth of knowing Jesus Christ, our Lord. May our lives be marked with love for Jesus. May we desire Him. May we long for Him. May we love Him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. We pray, Father, that You would be glorified in all things. That You would be praised in all things. May we know Jesus and make Him known to the glory of God. We pray these things for Jesus' name's sake. Amen. Now I'm not going to have the band come and do a closing song. What I'm going to ask is that at the end of this year we stop and for the next few minutes we all recommit our lives to Christ. That we all focus on who Jesus is. And I'm going to encourage everyone, just where you're sitting, just to bow your head and pray for the next few minutes. That we may all know Jesus Christ in a new and fresh way. that we may love him for who he is. G'day, I'm Pastor Josh Williams from the Sovereign Grace Baptist Church. I hope this week's sermon has been an encouragement to you in your walk with our Lord Jesus Christ. If you'd like to visit us on a Sunday, we have two service times, 9.30am and 6pm, and you'll find us on the corner of Musgrave Road and Hartley Street in Banyo, Queensland, Australia. Also, you can visit us on the web at www.sgbaptist.org.au. That's www.sgbaptist.org.au. On our website, you'll find previous sermons, our statement of faith, contact details and information on how to become a Christian. You can also contact us by writing to Sovereign Grace Baptist Church, PO Box 100, Banyo, Queensland, Australia, 4014. Until next time, may God bless you as you seek to know him through his word.