John 12 - Standing En Masse Against Evidence
Tom Shrader examines how crowds witnessed Jesus' miracles, including Lazarus being raised from the dead, yet still refused to believe in Him. He warns against the peer pressure that keeps people from faith and challenges listeners to become children of light rather than remaining spiritually dead.
“Jesus did not die on the cross to make bad people good. He died on the cross to make dead people come to life.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Dumb Mistakes: How to Avoid Them (2004)
Recorded: March 25, 2004
Duration: 44 min
Themes: faith, peer pressure, unbelief, evidence, crowds, miracles, light, darkness, struggling with doubt, facing peer pressure, new believer, questioning faith, surrounded by unbelievers, young adult, feeling pressured to conform, witnessing to friends
Scripture: John 12:20-50, John 2:4, John 4:21, John 4:23, John 7:30, John 8:20, John 11, John 11:15, John 12:37, Luke 9:59, John 20:30-31
Theological Themes: apologetics, defending faith, spiritual blindness, hardened hearts, biblical miracles, signs and wonders, children of light, spiritual death
Full Transcript
Here we go. We're teeing off on the back nine today. We are in the second half of the series, Dumb Mistakes and How to Avoid Them. Again, I know it's a bit repetitious, but let me make sure that I communicate the point to you. The key here is to help you avoid them. It's to identify these dumb mistakes and then for you to not be committing these errors in your life.
That can happen in a couple of ways. As we said before, we learn through book learning. We learn through the School of Hard Knocks. We learn by watching others. That's what we've tried to do in this series.
So we said at the beginning, getting just eight dumb mistakes, that's pretty tough. But identifying the first one was real simple because if you screw up the first one, then the rest of this doesn't matter. Dumb mistake number one was a failure to fear God. So once I understand God and who He is, then we add number two is thinking this idea that a little booze won't hurt you. Got to be careful in that area. Then these are the two that are on the tape you can pick up on the way out: confusing lust and love. So we spent a little time there and looked at Samson, I guess, in the middle of that.
Looking Back and Moving Forward
Last week, I absolutely love that study from last week. I just think that is just—I love that study. It was the study of David taking a census and finding safety in numbers. So those studies are all there.
Today, in dumb mistake number five. Now to this point, what we've done is really look at individuals. We've looked at Samson or David or Ben-Hadad. Today, we look not at an individual, but we look at a group, a group of people. They're simply identified as the crowd. It's not a club. It's not something that you pay dues to belong to. It's not something that you're invited to join. It's just the crowd.
Now, let me do one little disclaimer here. We've had several people who have invited friends. Then the friend gets here and the discussion is how to confuse lust and love. The friend is going, wait a minute. You're manipulating me. You're working me over. You knew this was going to happen. Let me help you out here. These people who invite you have not the foggiest idea about a lot of things, including what the next topic is going to be. So that is not your friend who's worked you over. That's just God putting and orchestrating these things in your life. So that's good. It always makes me laugh when I hear that kind of a story. So relax. That wasn't the case at all.
The Reality of Peer Pressure
Today, again, a lot of time on background and we'll give you the verses. You kind of work your way through it and we'll just kind of plug along. Peer pressure is kind of the issue today. When I talk about peer pressure, typically we tend to think in terms of junior high, high school students and kids and how the influence of their friends is so strong in their life. Indeed, that's true. Indeed, that is the case.
But my experience has been that peer pressure is pretty influential in the lives of people virtually all through their life. So you have people probably in this room who went to certain school, a certain college simply because of the family pressure or the peer pressure of their friends to go to this place. Or you may be in a career stuck in a career that you hate, that you weren't necessarily gifted to be in. Or even if you had the talents for it, it's not something you wanted to do, but you've been to peer pressure.
There was something that you really wanted to do, but you knew that standing around at the Christmas party and telling people this is what I'm doing would be a little bit embarrassing or a little bit uncomfortable. I mean, after all, running a shirt shop doesn't sound as exciting as being an executive at IBM, though it would certainly be more comfortable. I can guarantee you that. But whatever.
So you got this pressure around you as you get older, the stakes get bigger. The peer pressure is no longer to buy the right tennis shoes. It's not about the right house or to live in the right neighborhood. So the stakes get higher. The stakes in what we're looking at today are peer pressure to deal with the person of Christ.
Setting the Scene: Jerusalem at Passover
So here's the background. We're in John chapter 12, John chapter 12, verse 20. We'll just kind of plow our way through this. Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the feast and they came to Philip. They are heading to Jerusalem and they're heading there for Passover.
Passover time put great stress on the city. This population, the city would swell maybe to the number around two million people. Every male Jew within a 20 mile radius was required to be in Jerusalem for Passover. It was something that obviously was desirous for Jews. If we go back, we study the life of Christ. We'll see that as a young man, He was continually making trips, annual trips to Jerusalem for Passover. So we understand this.
The city, we talked a little bit about it Sunday in church. It was a chaotic scene. It was at Passover, if you remember, that Jesus goes into the temple and drives out the money changers and drives out those that were selling oxen and sheep and doves. It was at that Passover time when the city was filled and that's what they were doing. They were selling sacrifice.
So let's say you raised your sheep and you brought your sheep into the temple for sacrifice. They would have a temple inspector and it had to be an unblemished lamb. So He would look at it and He'd say, ah, we got a problem. There's a blemish. I'm sorry, your sheep doesn't qualify. And He'd say, ah, what do I do? Well, it just so happens that right over here in this pen, we have some pre-approved sheep. Okay, and I think I can get you into one. I'll get my manager. Let me get my manager and I think we can slide you into a sheep here and make a deal for you. That's what was going on. When Jesus clears
out the temple, that's what he's responding to. The money changers - you had to pay temple tax. They couldn't use Roman or Greek currency. They had to use temple currency so you would exchange it. Not a huge problem in terms of exchange, but they're gouging them in the process. They're gouging for the animals. Roughly equivalent of our money, in some of our research, I discovered you could buy a dove for about 15 cents, but that dove wouldn't be approved. To buy an approved dove was about 15 bucks. So you got this kind of stuff going on.
So when you hear that story of Jesus clearing out the temple, that's what He's responding to that He sees. And it just so happens that it's at the Passover, at the very time that all these Jewish leaders, as part of the ritual, the night before they would have scoured their individual residences, looking for leaven, anything that's symbolic of sin, and they would throw this out of their own house. And now Jesus comes into the house of God and performs basically that same. Lots of pictures, that's just rich. That's just scratching the surface.
So they're there. The Greeks are there. These are probably God-fearing Greeks. They would not be Jews. They probably haven't gone through all of the requirements, but they're there and they desire to see Jesus. And they come to Philip and here's the request: Sir, we'd like to see Jesus. And Philip went to tell Andrew, and Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.
Now there's something interesting there, and I have nothing that will shed any light helpful on it at all, but it's interesting that this Greek went to Philip, and Philip, for whatever reason - and maybe there's no reason at all. Maybe it was just he was on his way and he said, "Hey, Andrew, I'm going in to talk to the man. You want to go with me?" And that's how it turned out. I don't know, but it kind of reads like maybe there was even a chain of command here. I don't want to read too much into it. So don't blame me. This is no hill to die on. But it's just kind of an interesting process here.
A Turning Point in John's Gospel
It's an interesting process in the study of John's gospel. Up to this point, we're in chapter 12. Up to this point, there's been a very public ministry. We've just seen the announcement, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." And "the word became flesh and dwelt among us." We've seen all this. Now we're seeing miracles. Not a lot of them, because John tells you in John chapter 20, verse 30 and 31, that I've hand selected these miracles so that you might see that Jesus is the Messiah. And by seeing this, you'd believe in Him.
But here are these miracles, and we're pretty much done with those. If you want a great study now, as we head into Good Friday and Easter, you'll read and study John chapter 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17. That's a great study, because that's now Jesus' private moments with His disciples. That's Jesus speaking to these guys that He's hung with now for three years. It's Jesus speaking to these guys and talking to them about these deep, personal, intimate issues. It's a magnificent study. And then the last chapter is 18, 19, 20, 21. That's the arrest, betrayal, crucifixion, resurrection, those kinds of things.
So they go to Jesus and they say, "Jesus, these guys want to meet with you." And Jesus says, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified."
The Hour Has Come
Now, if you have your Bibles, I'm just going to give you these verses, let you just take a look at it. In John chapter 2, same book we're in. John chapter 2, verse 4. In John chapter 4, verse 21 and 23. In John chapter 7, verse 30. In John chapter 8, verse 20. In those passages - 2:4, 4:21, 23, 7:30, 8:20 - in those passages, Jesus is saying the hour has not yet come.
In John chapter 2, Jesus is there at Cana. Mary comes to Him and says, "They're out of wine," and He says, "Woman, what do you want me to do? The hour has not yet come." When He's speaking of the hour here, He's speaking of His death and resurrection. But now, this is a turning point. This marks a significant turning point in the Gospel of John, in the study of the life of Christ. Because He says, "Now, you know what? The time has come. The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified."
Eighty times in the Gospels, Jesus is referred to as the Son of Man. It's His favorite description of Himself. John uses it, if I remember correctly, something like fourteen times. And John uses it as he records Jesus' teaching, and in virtually each case, it's speaking to the forthcoming suffering, crucifixion, and death. So it's time.
Who Killed Jesus?
And I'll make this a side point, though I think we've made it pretty well in here in the past, including intensively in the last month. When you get into this whole discussion of who killed Jesus - cover question, Newsweek asked that cover question five weeks ago. Who killed Jesus? The answer is not the Jews. The answer is, God killed Jesus. Jesus said, "I lay down my life. Nobody takes it from me."
And if you want to get technical and say, "But that's not enough. I want human responsibility." All right, then if we really want to get into this and start to slice it and dice it, He said, "I died to save my people from their sin." So I guess if you really want to say, "Here's some culpability here," it would be you who are believers. So I don't understand, and I guess because it doesn't even cross my mind to be anti-Semitic because of that. This doesn't even enter into my mind.
Caiaphas is a stiff, Pilate's a stiff, all these guys cave. I got all that stuff figured out. But ultimately, Jesus could have stopped this in a nanosecond. You understand that, don't you? He voluntarily gave up His life. No one took His life from Him. That is one of the great things about that Mel Gibson movie is that verse is left in. "I lay down my life." And by the way,
He completes it in John chapter 2 when he's talking to the Jewish leaders and they're saying, "Give us a sign." He said, "Destroy this temple and I will raise it up in three days. I lay it down and I'll raise it up." So we don't let anybody steal that or sidetrack you with that discussion. Who killed Jesus? Well, Jesus voluntarily lays down His life.
Also, as this man comes, you get a sense and you get it through the Gospels that His boys are kind of protecting Jesus a little bit. "Get the kids out of here. I don't know if He's got time." Do you ever think about that? Jesus is a single man. We don't think of that often. He's 33 years old at this point and He's extraordinarily busy. All of the ministry that we associate with Jesus is shoved into three years here. And these guys, it sounds like, are protecting His time. And now Jesus is saying, "Listen, this is a significant moment. Don't miss this. The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified."
Jesus' Teaching on Death and Life
And here's a teaching moment. Look what He says: "I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains as a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it. The man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life."
Then He continues: "Whoever serves me must follow me. And where I am, my servants will also be. My Father will honor the one who serves me." A little bit later, Jesus is going to say to these guys, "If they persecute me, they're going to persecute you." He's saying the same thing here. In fact, the next verse has intent: "My heart is troubled." That word troubled means it's a horrific agony. It's anxiety. It's agitation.
If I'm going to follow Him, then this is my lot too. I'm going to have to give up my life. I'm going to have to set my life aside. Now in all likelihood, in our day and age and in our culture, that probably does not mean necessarily that you're going to have to give up your life physically and die for Him, or that somehow you're even going to suffer that they're going to haul you in and shove little bamboo shoots up your... That's probably not going to happen here.
The Greater Challenge: Living for Christ
But I don't even think that's the challenge. I've said this before, and I think this is true. If they came busting in here right now and they said, "We've outlawed Christianity, we've outlawed teaching, and you're the teacher here, and if you don't recant from what you've just said, we're going to kill you." Now in that moment, I think I'd say, "Tell me how you're going to kill me. I want to know that, because I've got to make a big decision here, so I want to know a little bit."
"We're going to blow your brains out." "All right. We're going to blow your brains out." I think I would say, "Blow my brains out." And to be real honest, I don't even think that would be that tough. But God's asked something much more difficult from you and me, not for us to lay down our lives and die, but to live for Him. That's far more difficult, isn't it?
If you want to follow me, what's Jesus say? You have to deny yourself and take up your cross. Does anybody know what the next word is? Daily. Yeah. Deny yourself. What does that mean? That means a life of service and sacrifice and yielding to Him and following Him.
The Call to Follow, Not Lead
In this day and age, if you go over right now to Borders, and you'll go to a section, you'll find a section marked leadership. You go up to business, leadership. And you can lead like Lincoln or lead like Attila the Hun or lead like Jack Welch. They're all the same, I think. Just lead like all these things. You can lead, lead, lead, lead. You're going to scour that place to find one book on following. And that's what He's called you to do.
Here you go. You can't serve two masters. You're never the master. You're always a follower. And you're to take up your cross. What does that mean? Now, a lot of people say, "Well, hey, cross? You want to talk cross? Right here, baby. I got my cross with me. She's my cross. He's my cross. Or this is my cross." No. He's talking there about identifying with Him. Crucifying yourself. Following Him. Suffering with Him. That's the normal Christian life.
That's why, and I have to admit that it sets me off a little bit like a rocket, when you get in these discussions about, can you accept Jesus as Savior and not have Jesus as Lord? Absolutely not! Because if Jesus is your Savior, He will be your Lord. And your life will inevitably change. It must change. Why? Because when you die to self, you're going to live differently.
Life Transformation
Your marriage is different. Your relationship with your kids is different. Your co-workers. Everything's different. And if it's not different, then you've got to stop and say, "Am I converted at all?" That's a very important question. Because we know one another by our fruit. We know one another by our love. So it's a huge issue.
So Jesus says, "Listen, I've got to die and so will you. My heart is troubled. What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. No, it was for this very reason that I came. Father, glorify your name."
Was There Another Way?
Now, we can go the same thing and we can go to the garden. In the garden, you find something even more, the intensity seems to be ratcheted up there when He says, "Father, if there's any other way." I had a small group that broke up over this question. Could God have saved man any other way? And there was one group that said, "Sure, He's God. He's God. He can do whatever He wants to do."
By the way, don't buy into that lie. God cannot do everything, right? God cannot lie. Can He? No, He can't act contrary to His nature. Well, He can't forgive without a payment for that sin. He can't just say, "Ah, you know what? All the bets were off. Let's do it again. Try it again." There has to be a payment.
So there's one group that said, "Oh, God can do whatever He wants to do." There was another group, the right group, the group I was in, that said, "No, there isn't any other way." And I would go, Jesus is in the garden.
He said, "Father, if you've got plan B, let's use it." I mean, that's essentially what He said, wasn't it? Was there plan B? No, because there's no other way.
When man sins, this is really important. And this is, okay, they've got theology books this thick that you can read about this. Well, we're going to give it to you in 60 seconds. When man sinned, he separated from God. And God has to judge that sin. And there has to be payment made. Wages of sin is death. And that payment has to be a perfect sacrifice.
That unblemished lamb was a picture of the perfect sacrifice that was to come. But John the Baptist now says, "Behold the lamb of God." There's the perfect sacrifice. So when Jesus died, and that's what's not in the Gibson movie really strongly, is that Jesus died absolutely. But why did He die? He died to pay the price for the sin of His people. That's what Jesus said. "This is the reason I came. This is why I'm here."
The Father's Voice and Satan's Defeat
A Father's voice came from heaven. "I've glorified it. I'll glorify it again." And the crowd was there, and they heard it, and they said it was thunder. Others said it was an angel, and Jesus said, "The voice was for your benefit, not mine. It's the time of judgment on the world, and the prince of this world will be driven out." Satan.
Not instantaneously, I'm guessing. Don't know, don't know how you even figure this out. I'm guessing when Jesus died on the cross, I'm guessing there was rejoicing in hell. I'm guessing Satan says, "Ah, we've thwarted the plan." You understand, Satan's not all-knowing. He doesn't know what's going to happen, and I'm guessing he's saying, "Ah." But ultimately, right, he's driven out.
The Crowd's Confusion About the Messiah
And Jesus continues. By the way, this is still all introduction. And He said this to show the kind of death He was going to die, and the crowd spoke up and said, "We've heard of the law of Christ. The Son of Man now must be lifted up. Who's the Son of Man?" He's saying, "Wait a minute, that doesn't sound like a Messiah to us."
And Jesus said, "You're going to have this light for you for only a little while. Walk on the light while you have before the darkness overtakes you. The man who walks in the dark does not know where he's going. Put your trust in the light while you have it, so that you may become sons of light."
There's, again, a ton to unpack there. Let me just grab the last phrase. He encourages you to become a son of light. If I'm going to become something, the implication is, I'm not that now. I'm not that now. Right? If I'm going to become a son of light, then I'm not a son of light now. What am I now? What am I before this moment? Well, the Scripture says I'm a son of wrath. I'm a child of wrath, a child of disobedience.
The False Gospel of Universal Godhood
And what you're doing is just shattering that myth that says we're all children of God, and there's this giant God, and He just loves everybody, and everybody's a child of God, and all you got to do. I mean, you just had PBS raising their money now. Whenever they're raising their money is when they put their worst stuff on. So you just had Joseph Campbell and Wayne Dyer. You could not have more anti-biblical goofiness.
They hate you. They hate Christianity. They hate the Scripture, and your tax dollar pays to put them on TV. It drives me absolutely nuts. They hate what we're saying right now, because they're saying there's a little God in all of us, and you just got to give it a shot, and give it a chance, and water it, and prune it, and cut it, and you'll be. In fact, depending on where they are, they'll even say, "You'll be God. You are God." You don't even have God in you. You are God.
There was that few years ago when they did that Shirley MacLaine movie, and they got her on, and she's out there, and she's chanting with her coach, and she's standing in the ocean, and he's coaching her. "I and God are one. I and God are one. I and God are one. I and God are one." And then he says, now he's coaching her now. A little subtle change. "I and God are one. I am God. I am God. I am God." And Shirley MacLaine's standing on the beach chanting, "I am God." God help us. We've got major issues at this point. She's no more God than I am.
The Exclusivity of Salvation
There's but one God, and we are not all sons of God, and daughters of God, and children of light. Those that are children of light, those that are sons of God, are those that know Jesus Christ in a deep, intimate, personal way. Everyone else is lost. There is no other way.
We're not running around, again, I want to really pound this home. If everybody else can end up in heaven, then why are we wasting time with missionaries? Why are we wasting time sharing the gospel? If every religion is equally valid, which is absolutely silly, just by logical definition, because we have competing truths. We can't all be right. We could all be wrong, but we can't all be right.
If this guy says Jesus is a great teacher, and this guy says Jesus is a moral leader, and this guy says Jesus never existed, and this guy says Jesus is just a man, and this guy says Jesus is God, we can't put all that together. There's one of them that's right. And Jesus says this: "I want you to become children of light."
Dumb Mistake Number Five: Standing in Mass Against Evidence
Now, dumb mistake number five: they stood in mass against the evidence. Here's John 12, verse 37: "Even after Jesus had done all these miraculous signs in their presence, they," and He seems to be dealing with this kind of nebulous crowd here. There's not a person here. It's a crowd. They stood in mass. "They would not believe in Him. This fulfilled the word of Isaiah: 'Lord, who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?'"
Now understand what He's talking about here. These people have seen a lot. You will have people, and I hear this: "Boy, if I saw a miracle, I'd believe." Here in John's gospel, just turn back a chapter to John chapter 11, because I think to me, for me anyway, this is the most compelling of the arguments against this "if I saw a miracle" mentality.
I'd believe that. At this point, these people have seen or heard testimony of, and it's accepted in their culture, the feeding of the 5,000, the turning of water into wine, the blind seeing, the lame walking. But look at chapter 11 of the gospel of John. It's the story of Lazarus.
I mean, it can't get any more powerful than this story. You know the story, I think. Here's Lazarus. He's a buddy of Jesus. He and his sisters, Mary and Martha - Jesus used to hang at their house. That's where He'd stay. He seems to have stayed with them. He has a very close relationship with them.
Jesus is away from Lazarus' house. He's out ministering. The word comes that Lazarus is sick. Jesus doesn't respond. Jesus stays there, and the disciples are confused by this. They're saying, this seems weird. You'd think He'd go. He's taking these people He doesn't even know, and He's healing them. Now His buddy's sick. You would think He'd want to go and help him, but He doesn't.
Then word comes that Lazarus has died. In John chapter 11, verse 15, Jesus says this: Lazarus is dead and I'm glad. That seems like an odd thing to say, doesn't it? That seems like a strange thing to say. I'm glad for your sake that I wasn't there, so that you may believe. Now let's go to him.
And there's old Thomas. Every silver lining has a cloud for him. Thomas says, hey, wait a minute. Let's go. We'll die with Him too. Because he said, I know what's going on. He's going to die. They're going to kill Him. They said they're going to kill Him. They're going to kill Him. So let's go back. Do you see this scenario? What a strange thing. Lazarus is dead and I'm glad.
The Ultimate Miracle
And then He kind of mopes and takes His time. He gets back there four days later. He goes to the tomb, and He says, roll the stone away. And they say, gosh, he's going to smell. He's been in there four days. His body's rotten. His body's beginning to decay. Let him lay in there. We can't do this. Jesus said, roll away the stone.
And you know the story. Jesus says, Lazarus, come forth. It doesn't say how, but apparently the old Bethany shuffle or something, he comes scooting out of there somehow. Now I read this thing, and when I read this thing, I go, wow. That's incredible. That's extraordinary.
The most amazing part of this story to me is the next word of the next verse, verse 45. And many, therefore, the Jews who had come to Mary and beheld what He had done, believed. How can that not say all? How can that not say every person? What do you need to see?
See, that's what's happened. You'll have friends. I have friends that say, oh, if I could see a miracle, I'd believe. No, I don't think so. And Jesus is going to go on, and basically that's what He's going to teach. He's going to go on and say, you know what? Your eyes are closed. Their heart is hard.
The Pattern of Rejection
You saw the feeding of the 5,000. You see blind guys seeing, lame guys walking. Now you've seen a dead guy rise. We started with water and wine. It's as though we've intensified these miracles and how dramatic they really are. And at this point, they still won't believe.
Now, here's what you've got to do. You've got to ask yourself if there's any way, shape, or form that you're one of these people. Because see, you may be walking around. They're religious people. What they did at this moment is run to the Jewish leaders. Maybe that's what you do. Maybe all of a sudden the gospel comes, and you run to your pastor, you run to your priest, or you run to your rabbi, or you run to your guru.
And all of a sudden, maybe God's beginning to open your eyes, and you run to your religious authority figure, and you say, gee, is this really the case? And he or she, even worse, says, no, no, relax, no, that's not it. That's what's going on. See, that could be you. Clinging to that old dead religion. And here's what they do. They make the mistake to stand en masse, and the result is, they stay in the darkness.
John 12, verse 39, for this reason, they could not believe. He blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes or understand with their hearts. They said, you know what? We don't care. And God says, fine, I'm just going to leave you the way you are.
The Divine Initiative
I hope you understand. There's an implication here, and it's an extraordinarily powerful implication, and that is, if God doesn't open your eyes and open your heart, you're never going to get it. And I'm not just trying to slide that in the back door. I'm just saying, if you're a Christian today, the only reason you're a Christian is God opened your eyes to see it. You're not smarter than anybody else, you're not better-looking than anybody else, you're not more clever than anyone else.
Yet even at this same time, even many among the leaders believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear they'd be put out of the synagogue. They loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.
Two things. First of all, they stay in the dark. Jesus says, I'm the light of the world. We're the sons of light. Now we've talked about this before. Light does three things. In this case we'll emphasize the third.
The Nature of Light
The first one is it reveals. I go into a dark room, I turn on the light, now all the shadows are gone, now all the darkness is gone. Darkness and light cannot coexist. The light strikes out the darkness and now I can see things as they really are.
We used to sit around back at St. Ambrose College in the Beehive in the Student Union in the late 60s early 70s and say, what is reality? We didn't have the foggiest clue what reality was. You can't see reality until you understand who Christ is. That again, one of the great moments in that movie, The Passion, is Pilate saying, what is truth? What is truth? What is right? And basically his wife says to him, if you don't have eyes to see this then you're never going to understand it. If you can't see it, you can't see it.
Well, light, the light of the world,
Christ reveals things. You can now see the world as it really is. You now see how discouraging the world is around you and you now see the lostness of the thoughts.
Light as the Standard
Here's the second thing light does. It's a standard. We talk and measure in terms of light years or beams of light. You'll be driving down the road and they're firing a beam down and it's a receiver and it brings it back and they're getting ready to do some road construction. They're measuring. He's the standard. We redo the standard. The standard is perfection.
You're going to class. When I was in school, at least in high school, college did vary, but at least in high school, an A was 93 to 100 was an A. 86 to 93 was a B. That's pretty tough. When I got to college, here's what they do. All of a sudden they go, gee, the highest score is 79. 76 to 79 is an A. Well, we really didn't have any A students. I was happy they did that, but we didn't have any A students. We just called them A's.
It's what we do. We look around and say, well, look, here you go. Go over to Fashion Square, get 100 people, put them in a room and we say, how many of you believe in God? 94 hands will go up. Dismiss the 6. Get the 6 out of there. You got 94 left.
You say this. How many of you think you're going to die? Now, unless you have one of those nuts from that thing over here, where they think they're going to live forever, those idiots who are looking older every time I see them on TV. They're going to die, but unless you got one of those nuts in the room, 94 hands are going to go up and say we're going to die.
Then you say to this, how many of you believe there's life after death? Of the 94 hands that are left, 80 are going to go up. Of the 80, so we get rid of those 14. Of the 80 that are left, you say, what do you have to do to go to heaven? And the dominant view is be a good person. You just got to be good. I'm going to go to heaven because I'm good.
Then you say, how good? What is good? Well, you got to be really good. I mean, you got to be really good. Got to be better than him. Got to be better than her. But Jesus is a standard and Jesus says, no, you have to be perfect. Do you see that? And when He says perfect, do you realize He's eliminated every person that's ever lived? Because if I've committed a sin, I've committed all, I'm guilty of the law. If I break our law, I break the law.
Light That Energizes and Gives Life
So Jesus provides the light that reveals and it's the standard. And the third thing light does is it's energized. Jesus is the light of the world. He energizes. He brings life. He brings life.
This is a very important truth. Look at this: Jesus did not die on the cross to make bad people good. He died on the cross to make dead people come to life. Now we look alive physically, but we can be dead spiritually. And there's only one thing a dead man needs and that's life.
Do you remember the first time you ever saw someone dead? I do. Beardsley Funeral Home, Sheraton, Iowa. And it was my mom's dad, my grandpa. I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember walking into this place and I remember there was my grandpa. I remember standing on the porch with my mom and her sister. And I remember one of them saying, doesn't dad look good? Doesn't dad look good? And I thought I better go check this out. And I went in and I remember he looked very good, but you know what? He had one overriding problem. That is he was dead.
And there's only one thing a dead man needs and that's life. Now that's a physical plane. We'll stay on that just a minute. My grandpa never had a lot of money. I could be throwing deeds to brand new houses in there and it wouldn't matter. I could be parading Cindy Crawford by him and it wouldn't matter. It isn't going to matter because he's dead. And the only thing he needs is life.
That's physical. That just helps paint a picture of you and me. We're spiritually dead. We don't need religion. I don't even need a Bible lesson at that point. I don't need you to love me. I need life and life is found only in Jesus. I'm the way, the truth and the life. Do you see that? He's absolutely the core of all that we have.
Jesus Christ Is Christianity
Jesus Christ is Christianity. That's the whole point. Now it's not just what Jesus teaches. It's His death. I don't even need His teaching at this point. I need His death because in His death, now I have life. In His death, He bought my salvation.
Now I need all the teaching. I need the love. I need all the things that go with it to grow in that salvation. But I find my life in Him. That's really an important truth. All this teaching is important. All this other stuff is really important. But if I'm sitting there and I'm saying, you know what? I don't see the miracles. I don't see this. I don't see any of that. None of those miracles are going to save you anyway. I need to find Christ and I need to find Christ in who He is.
Let the Dead Bury the Dead
Here's what Jesus says in Luke 9. Luke 9:59. He says, follow me. And the guy says, Lord, first let me go and bury my father. And Jesus says, let the dead bury the dead. But you go and proclaim the gospel.
Now, when we read this, we're thinking, oh, man, this is a little harsh. I mean, the guy's dad has died. Jesus isn't even going to give him time for the funeral. That's not what's going on. Let the dead bury the dead. The whole idea here is that the father isn't dead. This is a way of saying, I want to hang around. I got business to do here. My dad isn't dead. There's inheritance. There's things to take care of. And Jesus is saying, now's not the time. Let that go.
Still another one says, Lord, I'll follow you. But first I've got to go back and say goodbye to my family.
Jesus says, "No one puts his hand to the plow and then looks back and is still fit for service in the kingdom of God." Is Jesus anti-family? No. Here's what He's trying to say. Although He did say, "I'll come and turn daughter against mother and son against father and brothers against brothers," because Jesus is the dividing issue. That's the point He's saying.
I hear it all the time with people: "I will do this when this is done." I've got people that I've been listening to literally for 15 years who are saying, "I'm really going to get serious about the Lord when this is done, when this project is over." Do you understand right behind that project is another one? And right behind that's another one. As soon as I get this house built, as soon as that house is built, there's going to be another—we got to furnish it. Then you got to furnish it adequately. Then you got to sell the other house. Then you got the tax issues. It's always something.
That's what Jesus is saying. Jesus is the great divide. You can't serve God and man. You can't have two masters. That's what He's saying. If you're going to follow Me, you're going to follow Me. If you aren't, let's fish, cut bait, get out of here. I happen to like that approach because it doesn't allow this illusion to sit around and pretend to be something you aren't.
The Problem with Generic Faith
We had this long discussion the other day about prayer in school. I know I have a minority view. I don't care. I don't see what's the—we're going to have a prayer that's drafted by a group of attorneys that's going to be read by a non-believer to a group of kids. What's the point there? What are we teaching? I know there's an argument for it. So knock yourselves out. When you have your study, you make sure you teach your point of view. But I don't care. I think it gives false security to people.
Listen, we're not all praying, even everybody that prays. Can we remember right after 9/11 when Oprah emceed that fiasco in Yankee Stadium? We've talked about it in here before. I mean, it sounds like a joke. You had a rabbi, a priest, and a minister, and you had Native American guys, and Eskimos, and you had—I'm not making this up. You had everything there was, and I'm telling you, they did everything but sacrifice a goat. They did everything that day.
It was one of the most, for me, in terms of theology, in terms of just practical faith, it was one of the most discouraging moments of all time. I understand the emotion of 9/11. I understand the hurt and I understand the pain. I don't make it better by pretending that this guy up here, who's a Buddhist monk, is praying to the same guy you are. He's not. It ain't happening. We've only made it worse.
The Reality of Heaven and Hell
That's why when you go to funerals, he'll be this guy that's the biggest jerk in the world, and the pastor, the priest, the rabbi, the presiding officer, talks about this guy being in heaven. He's no more in heaven than this post. He didn't like the scriptures. He doesn't like the Lord. He renounces Jesus. He isn't going to heaven.
I remember sitting with a lady, getting ready to die, and she said, "Here's what I want you to do at the funeral. I want you—because all my kids are coming in here saying, 'Mom, we're going to see you in heaven'—I want you to get up at the funeral and tell them they're not going to see me in heaven. They're not Christians. They aren't going." I said, "Well, let me tell you something, babe. You better write this out, because I'm not going to get up there and say that. I don't mind saying it. And I know it's true. But you've got to give me some ammunition here, because they're not going to want to hear this from me, because you're their mama."
So she wrote a letter and said, "Read this letter." And so you stood there and you said to the family, "Your mama desperately wants to see you again, but unless you come to Christ in faith, you're not going to see her in heaven. You're going to hell." End of quote. I mean, I don't know how else to say this thing. But see, those are the stakes. Those are the stakes. Those are the issues. You can't wait for this.
The Answer and the Evidence
So what's the answer? Well, the answer is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. Again, the person today is the group. The group saw it. Maybe it's because they were in a group. Sometimes as an individual, I seem to be more vulnerable. I don't know. Sometimes in a group, there's a group psychology that I guess could work positive or negative. But our object here are the group.
The group saw all this stuff, plus Lazarus rise from the dead. I don't know what more you'll want to see. And they don't get it. How about you? Because you've seen all that and more. At this point, they hadn't seen Jesus rise from the dead. At this point, they hadn't seen the closing canon of scripture. They haven't seen the church established. You've seen all that. Do you believe?
Now, I don't mean intellectually. I don't mean put me down for yes. I mean, do you believe in a way that it's transformed your life? Is there evidence in your life that would say you believe? Are you a child of light or a child of darkness? He stands at the door and rings at this very moment. Just a little paraphrase. Do you respond? Do you see it? Do you hear?
Let's pray. Father, help us see this truth. Help us understand this and then help us respond. Open our eyes. Open our hearts. Give us the courage to not just hear this message, but the courage to respond. God, thank You for the men and women. They pay a price. And I guess in the overall scope, it's not a big thing. It's a big thing to me to be out early on a Thursday morning when there's a thousand other things to do and to be here. I pray they hear Your word. I pray they respond to that word. God, thank You for Jesus. God, open...
Our eyes. I beseech You for the people that are here that don't yet believe that You'd open their eyes and their heart to see the truth of this, to understand it. And today might be a day of salvation for them to talk to the person that invited them. What's it mean to be a Christian?
God, thank You for Jesus. He's the light of our world. Each one of us as individuals who allows us to see things as they really are. He becomes our standard and He energizes us. He gives us life. We find life in Him and Him alone.
God, thank You for all that You've done and all You will do in our life. We praise You and worship You in Jesus' name. Amen. Have a great week.