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John

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The Master Over Darkness

John 7:7-11

Jesus knew that He was in a conflict.  That is why He had come – to confront the Evil One and his wicked work – to conquer sin and death (1 John 3:8).  He was also a threat to the religious leaders who had been manipulated by the devil.  They loved the status of their position but did not want the Messiah to upset their power-games.  Initially they were suspicious of Him, but then became increasingly hostile to Jesus (John 8:44).  He did not hate anyone, but His light exposed their dark secrets (John 3:19-20).  His human half-brothers were also sinners (unlike Jesus the Son of God).  That i

Secret Opinions

John 7:12-13

Jesus could not be ignored.  What He said and did was so authoritative and memorable that the crowds tried to understand who He was and what motivated Him.  Their opinions were divided.  Some thought He was good, but others concluded He was bad, deceiving the people.  However, the possibility that He might be God in a human body, the Messiah, never occurred to them. Even the trainee apostles did not understand fully until the Holy Spirit came (John 16:12-15).

The Source of Wisdom

John 7:14-19

Jesus arrived in Jerusalem half-way through the Festival.  He did not want to travel with his half-brothers lest He be ambushed on the road (John 7:6-9).  But once in Jerusalem, instead of hiding and keeping His identity concealed, He went to the Temple courts and began teaching publicly.  The religious leaders could not stone Him there or arrest Him for fear of the crowds (Matthew 21:46).  Instead, they all listened and were amazed by His teaching from the Law of Moses.  It had such a ring of truth.  But how could He have so much knowledge as He was only a carpenter who had never been to a

The Inconsistence of Ungodliness

John 7:20-24

Godliness has integrity - everything holds together, because everything that is true is held together by God.  So those who fight against God in their hearts will always be inconsistent.  The crowds were amazed at Jesus, but could not work out who He was.  He was far better than a good rabbi.  He taught with authority in a way which made sense, and His miracles were extraordinary ... but they could not see that He was the Son of God. When He rightly said that they were trying to kill Him, they assumed He was demonised with paranoid thoughts.

Greater than the Human Eye can See

John 7:25-31

They did not know what to make of Jesus.  Nothing seemed to add up.  The religious leaders were known to have issued an arrest warrant for Him, but they did not dare to arrest Him in the temple or when He was preaching publicly (Mark 12:12).  The people wondered if the authorities had changed their opinion about Jesus, allowing Him to speak openly to crowds who had come to the Festival of Tabernacles in Jerusalem.  They were awed by Jesus’ miracles, but they wrongly believed that the Messiah would be previously unknown and come in a surprising way: therefore Jesus could not be the Saviour f

Understanding Jesus

John 7:32-36

Jesus was speaking the truth, but the crowds could not understand who He was, where He came from or where He was going.  The apparent indulgence of the religious leaders to His public ministry at the Festival of Tabernacles confused the people in Jerusalem (John 7:25-27).  Was He the Messiah or not?  His miracles and teaching clearly had divine power, but He was a carpenter (Mark 6:3) from Nazareth, which was not a respected religious town (John 1:46).  They did not know that He was born in Bethlehem (John 7:42), or understand that Jesus came from God, was going to God (John 13:3), and that

Living Water From Jesus

John 7:37-39

On the last day of the Festival of Tabernacles, a solemn procession of priests left the Temple to draw water from the Gihon Spring, just outside the Temple Mount.  This spring was the only immediate water supply for Jerusalem and was seen as the ‘life of the city’.  The water was ceremonially carried in a golden jar back to the Temple and then poured over the altar.  It was a symbolic reminder that God provided water out of a rock during the wilderness wanderings (Exodus 17:1-7), to give life to His people.  All the people crowded the streets to see the spectacle which marked the climax of

Where Does Jesus Come From?

John 7:40-44

As the crowds started to wonder if Jesus was the Messiah, they rightly asked if He had come from King David's family tribe (Judah).  As far as they knew, Jesus was from Nazareth (Matthew 21:10-11), but David’s family had come from Bethlehem.  Their question was prompted by Micah 5:2 which says, "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times."
 

Who Knows The Truth About Jesus?

John 7:45-53

The security guards in the temple had been ordered to arrest Jesus (John 7:32), but they refused.  Pragmatically, they had no appetite for starting a riot in the temple because the people were starting to trust what Jesus said, and would have supported Him.  But, also, the guards were listening to His teaching; they were so impressed with what He said that their consciences would not allow them to seize Him.

Trying To Trap Jesus

John 8:1-11

This passage (John 8:1-11) is not found in most of the earliest manuscripts of John's Gospel but it contains important Divine principles found elsewhere.  Certainly, the religious leaders were trying to trap Jesus into saying something contrary to the Law of Moses, so that they could have evidence to arrest Him and kill Him.  The narrative tells of how they dragged the adulterous woman before Him as He taught the crowds.  The testing question was, ‘Would Jesus authorise death by stoning?’
 

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