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Thank you so much, Shannon. Those
of you who have children that are pre-K through second grade,
you may take them to kid's side if you wish, or you may stay
here with us this morning at this time. I invite you to turn
in your Bibles to John chapter 8. In the Pew Bibles, if you
are using them, it would be page 985. Thank you, Joe Hepp, for leading
our worship team this morning in John Tice's absence, and thank
you, worship team. Thank you, John, for communion. Good time of worship. Appreciate
that so much. It gets me ready to share with
you God's word. Herbert George Wells, known by
most people as H.G. Wells, was a prolific English
writer. Wells was born in 1866 and died
in 1946. Among some of his best known
works were The Invisible Man, you may have seen the movie,
The War of the Worlds, and The Time Machine. But Wells was also
an active writer of short stories, and one of the stories that I
have come across that Wells wrote is The Country of the Blind.
It's an interesting story, and the story tells about an isolated
paradise-like valley in the wild wastes of the Andes in the country
of Ecuador. Seeking refuge from an evil Spanish
ruler, Wells writes about a company of people who found themselves
trying to escape this evil Spanish ruler and they worked their way
through the wilds of the Andes Mountains, struggled and found
themselves in the beautiful valley amidst the icy gorges of the
Andes of that area. And they decided that they would
settle in this valley. high up there in the mountains.
But a strange disease suddenly came over their community, and
it seemed to render all of the children blind. Even those that
were born to them became blind. And in time, the community eventually
became a community with no ability to see. A blind community. And then one day there was a
stupendous volcanic eruptions high in the mountains that poured
lava down and completely sealed off the valley from access to
the outside so that no one could leave and no one could come in.
But one of the original settlers of the valley had been out of
that location, and after the volcanic eruption, could no longer
get back to his home with the rest of the villagers. And before
he died, he told to people who were around him outside of his
home community, a story about his life in the lost valley of
the country of the blind. And his story became legend. Then 14 generations later, a
chance that a man from the outside world came to the Lost Valley. His name was Nunez and he was
a mountaineer. One night after making camp with
a group of mountain climbers that he was guiding, Nunez suddenly
slipped on an icy spot that he didn't see in the dark. He slid
down a long slide of ice and over a long high cliff. He did not die. In fact, he didn't
suffer any broken bones because he found himself landing in a
deep cloud of snow that broke his fall. And the next morning,
in spite of his yelling up the mountain to his climbing company,
they couldn't hear him. They couldn't see him. They had
thought he had been lost and had disappeared. So he started
to make his way down into the more level areas that he could
work his way down into, and as he came to one ledge and could
look over the side, he suddenly saw, far down below, a valley
with cultivated fields and well-organized huts. And suddenly it came to
his mind, I wonder if the legend is true. Is this the country
of the blind the story tells about? So he made his way ultimately
down into the valley or the community, the village of the blind in the
country of the blind. And as he was making his way
down, it suddenly came to his mind a proverb. In the country
of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. And Wells goes on in his story
to describe how the mountaineer entered the village and then
tried to tried to demonstrate and express to the people the
supernatural gift that he had of being able to see. But they
couldn't understand the meaning of sight, and first they thought
their visitor was sorry because they could hear him tripping
over a bucket that he hadn't noticed. Thought he was rather
clumsy. And soon they mocked him. And
eventually, in order to stay in the valley, he was permitted
to do that, and he had a desire to marry one of the beautiful
young girls of the community, but they said that would not
be possible unless he underwent surgery. You see, they had detected
in Nunez this tendency of his eyes to flutter. and for his
eyes to be somewhat bulging out, and they thought that this must
be a disease which caused him to repeatedly talk about this
problem of being able to see. So they said to him, you may
stay with us, but you must undergo a surgery for us to remove this
problem that continually afflicts your mind and causes you to speak
of this strange ability that you claim to have of seeing.
So eventually the day of the surgery came, but Nunez was having
doubts. And on that day, he happened
to look up and he noticed on one side of the mountain a pathway
that he thought, that looks like a way I could climb out of here.
And in his despair about losing his sight and the conflict about
staying, he suddenly said, I've got to get out of here. And he
fled, and he found his way up out of the crevasses that surrounded
the hidden valley, the country of the blind, and he escaped. The country of the blind, the
place where the man was sight, nobody could understand. Well,
when Jesus came to Jerusalem, he came into a city where there
was institutionalized religion. The people all thought that they
were very religious, especially the religious leaders. But they
were, in the view of the Messiah, they were spiritually blind people. And our passage begins this morning
in John 8, verse 12, by describing what happened when Jesus offered
to these spiritual leaders and their followers The gift of spiritual
sight. And when Jesus made this offer,
what was their reaction? And after their reaction, how
did he engage with them? And that's what we want to look
at this morning. Their reaction to his offer of sight and his
trying to engage with them like Nunez the climber had tried to
do in explaining the wonder of being able to see. So we began
this episode, first of all, by seeing Jesus' declaration, and
you see this in verse 12, look with me. If you wanna follow
God, Jesus is saying, you must follow me. Then Jesus spoke to
them again, I am the light of the world, anyone who follows
me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.
So, He presents himself as the one
who illuminates people's darkness. Now, the Jews understood the
ideas of light and darkness. They understood them to be ideas
of seeing the truth or living in evil. They understood that. But Jesus was saying that this
darkness is a natural existence that all of his listeners are
born into. It is a darkness of incapacity
to see divine truth and to understand the Lord God. It's because everyone
is born spiritually dead and separated from God, which are
teachings of Jesus and teachings that were carried out through
the teachings and writings of the apostles that followed him.
Now, you need to understand how poignant, how striking this statement
of Jesus would have been at the time and at the place in which
it was made. because this is one day or perhaps
two days after the climax of the Feast of Tabernacles, in
which, as we have seen in chapter seven, there was the ceremony
of the water being poured out around the ceremonial place of
sacrifices, the platform there, and that was symbolic of the
water that preserved the Israelites in the desert, but at the same
time, Each evening, on the temple platform, there would be the
lighting of these massive, huge, golden candelabras in the Court
of the Women, which was the most actively used court because,
of course, men and women could both go there, and that's where
the treasury boxes were kept, where people would come and bring
their offerings. So for seven days leading up
to this moment, There had been each evening the lighting of
these massive candelabras, which would cast light all over the
platform of the temple, and it would reflect off the golden
dome of the temple, and it was a beautiful sight, and the people
rejoiced in it. But it wasn't just for casting
light for the evening enjoyment of the celebration. It was also
to create memory of another aspect of the wilderness wanderings,
which the whole The whole Feast of Tabernacles was a celebration
and remembrance of. Part of the wilderness wanderings
of the Jews had been the presence of the pillar of cloud and pillar
of fire that led the Israelites through their 40 years of wilderness
wanderings. And you may remember some of
our studies about the cloud, how it was at the nighttime a
visible pillar of fire, and it had been that which separated
the Egyptians from the Jews so that they could be prepared to
cross over the Red Sea and escape from the Egyptian army. During
the daytime, this pillar of fire in the light of day would be
somewhat eclipsed or cloaked in a massive cloud of smoke that
looked like smoke coming up from a huge furnace. And it would
rise up and it would spread out and create this incredible canopy
that would provide shade from the brilliance of the heat of
the desert sun. So at night, the fire would warm
the community of a million people, and at daytime, it would provide
them with shade. So there was protection, and
there was also preservation for the nation of Israel, symbolized
by the cloud, which symbolized the presence of God moving with
them, in fact, guiding them wherever they were to go, in their wilderness
wanderings. And then when the tabernacle
was finally completed, the pillar of cloud would, it settled down
over the tabernacle, symbolizing, again, the presence of God and
the holiness of the tabernacle. So all of these things would
have been in the mind of the celebrants of the Feast of Tabernacles,
only when Jesus came to present this teaching The ceremonies
of tabernacles had been concluded and the candelabras were no longer
burning. They had been extinguished. So
when Jesus comes in and says, I am the light of the world,
it would have been a striking moment because he certainly could
have swept his hand over and pointed at the unlit candelabras. and certainly they would have
made the connection. He is saying that he is the pillar
of fire that our ancestors followed. He is saying, I am the very presence
of God among you. So you catch how striking that
moment would have been. And so Jesus is making the point,
if you want to follow God, You must follow me. Follow me and
the guidance of God that guided our ancestors will be yours. Follow me and you will have God's
remedy for the morally blinding power of sin that is inside your
heart. So what Jesus is saying in verse
12 is profound. they would have grasped it. It would have been striking.
And I hope you catch how impressive his statement would have been
at that moment. And of course, light was also a well-known way
in which the rabbis taught about what the Messiah would do when
he came. He would bring light, and they
would make reference to Isaiah chapter nine. The people walking
in darkness have seen a great light, which is almost immediately
followed by a child will be born to us, and he will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, Prince of Peace, Everlasting
Father, Who is Isaiah referring to? And the rabbis would all
say the Messiah. So this whole motif of light
made tremendous significant reference in prophecy to the coming of
Messiah. And so Jesus is saying, look
at me. I am the fulfillment of your
prophets. I am the one who brings light.
And of course, if you remember the event where Jesus was brought
to the temple for dedication and ancient or aged Simeon was
there, one who must have known the prophetic writings and was
clear in his mind what to be looking for for the Messiah,
for there were a remnant of Jews who in faith had a clear perception
of what the prophets were describing. And you remember what Simeon
said when Mary and Joseph brought baby Jesus into the temple to
be dedicated? He said, Now, Master, you can
dismiss your slave in peace as you promised, for my eyes have
seen your salvation. You have prepared it in the presence
of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory for
your people Israel." As he held the baby Jesus, light for the
Gentiles and glory for your people Israel right here. Simeon was crystal clear of the
significance of light. And when Jesus referred to himself
as the light of the world, he was saying, not just for you
people, you Jews, but also for the Gentiles as well, which,
of course, for the Jews would have been another striking statement. Oh, no, no, no. The God of Israel
is our God exclusively, Jesus in his preaching ministry. No,
He is also the God of the world, of the Gentiles, a God without
distinction on those he will cast his grace and love. And when Jesus referred to following
him, follow me. It's a present tense verb which
suggests it needs to be an ongoing process. This is not something
that is, I will follow today and decide tomorrow if I will
not or I will. No, it's an ongoing, wholehearted
discipleship, not some kind of casual adherence. Whoever follows
Jesus in that way, with wholeheartedness, will have eternal life. And they
will have the light for living the kind of life that is a kingdom
kind of life. What a marvelous statement for
Jesus to declare at that moment, at that time. Well, the Pharisees
were listening. What were they going to say? How are they reacting to this
striking statement? In their hearts, all they could
say was, let's give a legal response to
this outsider. They thought legalism would save
them. So when they heard Jesus claim
to be the light of the world, what did they do? Basically,
they tried to sidestep the fundamental issue that Jesus was speaking
to, and that was darkness in the heart. Darkness that needed light. rather than engage Jesus in that
topic, they decided that they would pivot to a technicality. And that's what you see come
up in verse 3. Look at verse 13. So the Pharisee said to him,
you are testifying about yourself. Your testimony is not valid.
Now what is this all about? Well, in Judaism, a man's testimony
about himself was not regarded as legally valid. You could not
testify on your own behalf. Deuteronomy 19.15 states, one
witness cannot establish any wrongdoing or sin against a person. Whatever that person has done,
a fact must be established by the testimony of two or three
witnesses. And in the rabbinic writings
of that day, the law of not testifying on your behalf and having to
have a corroborating or at least a second witness was quite widespread
in the way the Jews would conduct examinations of testimony. The
rabbis taught that no testimony should be believed unless it
could be backed up by a secondary witness. No one could testify concerning
themselves either. And as far as the Pharisees were
concerned, if Jesus was going to claim to be the light of the
world, then he was obligated to produce some kind of witness
to this testimony, or else none of the people that followed them
should listen to Jesus. Well, what was Jesus counter
to the Pharisees' legal objection? Essentially, what he says in
the next few verses is, you can dodge me, but you will never escape my
judgment on your spiritual blindness. Let's see this. Look at verse
14. Jesus said, even if I testify about myself, my testimony is
valid. What makes you feel free to say
that, Jesus? That's a good question. And he
has a couple of reasons. The first one is, no one else
is qualified to give testimony like I am. It's like, what makes
you say that, Jesus? Fair question. Look at the second
part of verse 14. He says, because I know where
I came from and where I'm going. But you don't know where I come
from or where I'm going. You judge by human standards.
Now, what is this all about? Basically, Jesus is countering
their arguments, their objections, by asserting, I'm the only one
qualified here to give testimony about things of God. He's saying there can be no human
witness to the things I'm talking about because no one else has
the kind of knowledge that I have because I come from heaven. And you don't know about where
I came from. You don't know about heaven.
I know about it from personal experience. You only know about
it from what you read. I've been there, you haven't.
I'm going back there and you are not. You judge by human standards. So in terms of knowing God, only
God can testify accurately to the things about God. And since
he was from God, he was the only one qualified to give an authoritative
testimony. That's what he's telling them.
And furthermore, their judgment was limited by what he described
as human inadequacy, and that was the inadequacy of their fallen
natures. The omen translates flesh, you
judge by the flesh, which is the Greek, by a reasonable translation,
you judge by human standards. But it brings up the point that
you judge by limited standards. You have limited perspective.
I have perfect perspective about what I'm talking about. And the
Jews, they wouldn't let people of questionable character come
into courts of law and give testimony. People of questionable character,
like thieves or violent persons or chronic liars, tax collectors
and the like, they didn't let them come into their courts and
offer corroborating testimony. So by that same principle, Jesus
is saying, compared to me, you're not qualified. No one's
qualified to make judgment about the things that I am telling
you. That's because in relationship to me, you are corrupt. You do
not have adequate perspective. You don't have perception that's
needed. For that reason, you cannot judge
me impartially. You can't even judge me in any
way accurately. So Jesus swore by his own testimony
and then invoked the only other qualifying witness of truth that
there is. He invoked his Father to confirm
that his testimony that he is the light of the world is true.
You see, this is his second reason for arguing. Jesus' testimony
is valid because he says the Father is a second witness to
my claim. Look at the second part of verse
15. Jesus says there, I judge no
one. And if I do judge, my judgment
is true because I'm not alone. And here he goes. But I and the father who sent
me judge together. Even in your law it is written
that the witness of two men is valid. I am the one who testifies
about myself and the father who sent me testifies about me. So he invokes the father's testimony
to confirm to them that his witness is authentic and it is valid.
and the only other potential or possible testimony to confirm
his divine testimony is the Divine Father. Now it could be asked, how does
the Father testify to Jesus? And fascinatingly John spends
almost half of chapter five, laying out the three main witnesses
of the father to all of his testimony. And if you went back to chapter
five, you would see that Jesus talked about the witness of the
Old Testament scriptures. And in that very dialogue with
the Jews, he says, you think you have Moses. Moses wrote about
me, you won't come to me, so you violate Moses. That really bothered them. And
then he said, you also had the prophetic witness of John the
Baptist. You rejected him. And then he
said, right in front of your faces is the testimony of God
of all the supernatural works of power that I do. You reject
them as well. Talk about blindness. Well, Jesus is then confronted
by their question. In verse 19, look there. Then they asked him, where is
your father? What a startling statement. First
of all, where is your father, indicates they don't get that
he's talking about the God of heaven. And then secondly, what
this is really is what happens today so much in politics, when
someone cannot defeat a good argument, they attack the person. This is what is happening here.
They're going after Jesus. They are insulting him by dredging
up an old rumor about the fact that he must have been an illegitimate
child. Because it was known that Mary
had not had relations with Joseph before Jesus was born. Oh, he
must have been illegitimate. That had long past been buried,
but here they bring it up. It's the best they can do, and
it's despicable. But that's who we're dealing
with. Now here's an example, beloved, of a question that should
not be asked. This is an illustration of a
question that is being asked not for truth, but to avoid truth. They didn't want to know about
the true father. They were simply trying to avoid
the discussion. And I would suggest to you that
when you find yourselves being backed up by an attack about
your character, when a person cannot handle the discussion
about the scriptures and about the truth, and they try to smoke
you out with some kind of false question, do not engage. Say,
no, I'm sorry, I'm not going to get into that. character assassination,
misrepresentation, and those kinds of things. I don't get
into that and leave it there. But then Jesus parried this insult
by declaring to them that they were ignorant. Oh my. Folks, Jesus didn't walk around
wringing his hands. Oh, what should I say? What should
I say? He said straight up, You are ignorant. Do we think about Jesus that
way? Oh, that wouldn't be nice. With these cats, Jesus wasn't
into nice. And there will be times when
we are never right to be ungracious, but there are times, folks, to
be direct and say to people, I'm sorry. But there's every
indication here that you really don't know what you're talking
about. And this is one of those situations,
Jesus says in verse 15, look there, you know, neither me nor
my father, if you knew me, you would also know my father. It
goes all the way back to all those prophecies about the Messiah.
Here is the most exquisite fulfillment of all of the prophecies and
you don't get it. What's it going to take? Well,
it's going to take a miracle of regeneration in the heart.
That's really what it comes down to. That's what it comes down
to for all of us. God has to do the miracle of
changing us from the inside out. by his making us born again,
so that then we can see. This is a real jab in the Pharisees'
pride. Of course, they prided themselves
on knowing God, and Jesus told them straight out, you reject
me, you reject God. End of discussion. That's an amazing claim. That's
a strong claim. That's a strong claim today. And John even interjects, after
Jesus makes his statement, that the Lord wasn't hauled off by
the authorities after having said that. That's how striking
it would have been thinking about the environment, the situation,
the context in which this is being said. You don't know God
because you don't know me. If you knew me, you would know
God. Oh, are they going to drag him
off now? Verse 20. He spoke these words by the treasury
while teaching in the temple complex, but no one seized him
because his hour had not yet come. Until the hour The Lord
Jesus Christ was untouchable. Now let's reflect a little bit
about what we've seen in this paragraph. First of all, verse
12, I'm the light of the world. He's claiming to be the one who
brings the light of God into this world. He also said, if
you knew me, you would also know my father. So here are two claims. And again, let me beat the drum. They do not allow for neutrality. It's impossible. He says, I'm
the world's ultimate source of true knowledge about God. No
one else is qualified to give any testimony like I give. Nobody
else has the validation of God's testimony to back them up like
I do. Okay? Now, if you understand what Jesus
is saying, you have only two decisions to make. Number one,
he is the Lord God. And if I want to know God, and
if I want to be in heaven, I must bow before him as the only true
voice of God and yield my life to him. One decision. Then there is a
second and only second decision, and that is you reject him. He's
a deceiver. The man was delusional. That's it. Now, there's some
of you today here in this room who are thinking that you're
just sort of going to hang out in neutral land. It's impossible. He either is who he claimed to
be, or he is delusional and a deceiver. And if you say, I will not have
him rule my life, you automatically say, he is a deceiver and he
is delusional. You cannot stand in the middle
and be intellectually honest. Get out of there. And on top of that, the promise
he gives is extraordinary. Anyone who follows me will never
walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life. It's
extraordinary. If you follow Jesus, you will
have light in your life. The light will be inside your
heart. That light will be one that produces
trust and hope for the future and casts out fear of what can
happen tomorrow. God is in control. But is he
in control of you? Is he in control of me? If so,
rest in the light. God is in control. And this light will also create
a certainty in your heart that Jesus has done what he said he
would do. He has paid the penalty for your
sins. Your sins, whatever they may
be, may be only known to you, have been paid for. Will you
accept the payment? It's free. It's a beautiful thing. And this light will also be in
your mind. It will give you understanding of the scriptures. It will enable
you to understand how to escape sin, the corrupting power of
sin, and how to live a life in the joy of righteousness. And that light will give you
discernment to see the traps that Satan is laying out all
through the world to bring down people, even to bring down Christians. Christians who think they can
walk on the edge of the darkness and not be sucked into it and
find relationships, find their own souls beginning to be corrupted. Too often, Christians feel justified
discounting biblical teaching. We're living in an epidemic of
intolerance for truth, There is a flow of the world's postmodern
thinking that rejects authoritarian statements, and it's beginning
to infect evangelical Christians to the point where they say,
well, I don't like that truth. And so therefore, I will not
abide by it. That is spiritual self-destruction,
beloved. Because truth is for your benefit. Truth is for the health of your
soul. God never gives truth in order
to mock or beat up his children, but to preserve you, strengthen
you, and give you hope. The reason we make life-damaging
decisions is oftentimes because we think we can walk on the edge
where the darkness begins to come into the light. And Jesus
is saying, why do you walk on the edge? Get away from that
edge. Walk in the light. Follow me.
And I think that's why there's such a falling off of common
sense in this country. People are walking in the darkness.
That's why civility is declining. People lack moral absolutes,
and they think they're cool, they think they're smart, they
think they're hip, because I don't have to live in absolute land.
Well, every time you use your computer, you expect absoluteness,
because there's only zeros and ones. And if they don't work,
your computer is dysfunctional. You love absolutes, except when
it begins to push in on your moral world. So don't be hypocritical. And that's why so many people
are under-motivated today. I think because they lack God's
purpose. They have no vision because they're
foggy. They are not following Jesus,
who is the light. They're off wandering around
in their own ideas, their own expectations, their own desires,
and they're off track. And as a result, they step on
the landmines that Satan plants all over the landscape, and they
get their legs blown off, or they get injured, and they cry
out to God, why have you let this happen to me? And God says,
you needed a lesson. You walk in the darkness instead
of following my son. Folks, this does not mean that
following Jesus is a walk where there is no challenge, no hardship. Of course, there is the struggle
with sin and the struggle with opponents. So many people under motivated,
heads filled with worldly distractions. It's like the cartoon of the
kid walking along with his iPhone or his smartphone, walking along,
walking along, and there's the tree with the sign on it, beware
of walkers without vision. At the expectation he's gonna
walk right into the tree. You can be the smartest kid in
your school, but without divine perspective, guess what? You're going to be a very bright
kid who falls into conformity with the folly of other kids
who have no idea where they're going, no perspective, no vision,
no direction. And you'll be a very smart, lost
kid. Parents, are your children becoming
very smart, very competent, lost children? That's your job, to
get them on the trail of the light. and invest in them for
a lifetime of vision. And maybe that means that some
things have to go out of their time schedule because it's sucking
their life apart from getting on track with Jesus. And finally, Jesus declared that
any religion that claims to reveal God but does not fully endorse
him as Lord and God is false. Anybody who says they know something
about God but does not accept Jesus as the only savior of sinners
simply does not know the true God. They are following a false
religion, whether it's Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, or secularism,
or evolutionism. the religions of the popular
culture. So who are you like? The people
in the Valley of the Blind who do not believe that sight is
a reality? Or are you like the Mountaineer
Nunez who said, this is too precious of a gift for me to give up.
I'm escaping. Do you value the gospel? Do you
value the transformation of your heart that has come as a result
of the light of Jesus Christ that came to you through the
gospel? Do you treasure your salvation
or do you just take it for granted casually? Escape from the valley
of the blind. I urge you. Do you want to be
wiser than the smart people, the cool people, the rich people
around you who don't know God? Then memorize what Jesus says.
Follow where Jesus goes. Believe in what Jesus says. And you will see. Pray with me. Father, we thank
you for the confidence, the assurance that Jesus knows what he's talking
about. Thank you that he is direct with
us, that we can see through his conversation with the blind people
of his time what we need to do and how serious we need to be
about the power of sin and the world to distract us and draw
us into the darkness. Help us to walk in the light
as he is in the light. In Jesus' name, amen.
Why Jesus Can Judge You Justly
Series Footsteps of Jesus
| Sermon ID | 6516104858 |
| Duration | 44:00 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | John 3:19-21 |
| Language | English |
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