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The Gospel of John, The Period of Conflict, Jesus Urged to Go to the Feast of Tabernacles, Part II, John 7:4-7 - Lesson 49
Read Verses John 7:1-9
The Period of Conflict covers Chapt.7 through Chapt.11 verse 5
John 7:4,5 For there is no man that doeth any thing in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, show thyself to the world. For neither did his brethren believe in him.
It was incredible to his brothers that anyone who believed himself to be the Messiah would deliberately avoid publicity.
This is un-Jewish.
No one who aims at being a public figure remains in a backwater place like Galilee as Jesus had done now for a year.
They said show yourself to the world, to those who count, to those who can do something to make this movement a success.
You need the people if you are going to be the messiah!
Show yourself to those who are somebody in Israel.
Go up to Jerusalem where people are better qualified to judge.
Go and stand the test of public scrutiny of the leaders.
You can be endorsed by the religious crowd!
How these words reveal their hearts.
They were men of the world.
They knew its ways, they spoke its language, they used its logic.
They displayed the pride of life.
They saw themselves as high and lifted up.
They had the same pride of life that is so prevalent in the religious world of today.
Elevate the preacher.
Lift up and advertise entertainment to draw a crowd.
Make things exciting!
Broadcast the talents of the speakers and singers and all manner of activities to tickle the ears of those that respond to that kind of call.
Oh, how the nature of man is unchanged by 2000 years of civilization!
These brothers did not believe in him.
They had lived with him, they had seen his ways, they had seen the miracles.
They had seen him holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.
He was loving and kind, patient and pure, wise and capable.
But they were blind to his goodness.
They had not been drawn by the Father.
This was the fulfillment of Psalms 69:8, I am become a stranger unto my brethen, and an alien unto my mother's children.
John 7:6, Then Jesus said unto them, My time is not yet come: but your time is alway ready.
They said, "Go show yourself to the world."
He said, "My time is not yet come."
The time for show was yet in the future.
The time for show will be a show like the world has never seen.
They wanted a show in Jerusalem but the show where Jesus Christ will be presented to the world is yet to come.
The show that Jesus will present is future yet and is expressed in:
Mat 24:30 when he said, And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. and
Rev 1:7, Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.
His brothers did not know that this was not the time for show.
This was the time for the Lord Jesus Christ to be humiliated.
This was the time for atonement, the time for sacrifice, the time to pay for sinners, the time to purchase back that which was taken in the garden.
He said to his brothers, "But your time is alway ready."
How true of the sinner.
Always ready to follow the dictates of their own desires.
Always ready to receive praise and adulation of the world.
Always seeking their own profit, always seeking their own praise, always wanting the applause of men, always looking for the popular cause to show themselves.
His brothers were not living in harmony with heaven, they were not living in harmony with God.
They had not cast in their lot with this one who was despised and rejected of men.
They were governed by this world, its principles, its policies, its priorities.
Their will was in charge as long as it conformed to the will of the world.
The world could not hate them because they loved the world and the world loves its own.
They were evil!
But Jesus' will was not conformed to the world, his will was conformed to the Father.
He would not appear at the feast until the time appointed by the Father.
John 7:7, The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.
Why does the world hate Jesus Christ?
Here is the answer.
Jesus Christ tells the truth about the world and the inhabitants of the world!
He tells them that they are evil!
What is evil?
Jesus in Luke 11:13, called his disciples evil.
God calls the plowing of the wicked, sin.
I believe that evil is when anyone of God's creations tries to go his own way without God.
Anyone who lives life without acknowledging God's authority over him is evil and lives in an evil way.
Anyone that denies that he or she is responsible to their creator and does not acknowledge their creator, is living in an evil way and is evil.
Any system of this world that exists without acknowledging that God is in charge is evil.
That is pretty inclusive, is it not? In includes us in many of our ways, does it not?
But Jesus Christ is true.
He testifies of the world! that its works are evil!
His holiness, his separation from the world, condemns our worldliness.
Jesus Christ is the Truth and when the world stands next to truth it is revealed as evil.
The world and its system is the enemy of God.
The devil uses the world to entrap sinners, to lure them to himself.
The world's science, politics, economic and social systems, philosophies, pleasures, religions, goals, and organizations are opposed to God.
The world motivates and moves its own through the use of the baseness of humanity, the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life.
This is what the world uses to move its own.
This is how the world keeps its own from coming to God.
This is the system that took this pure and holy man, Jesus Christ, this perfect sinless man, the system who hated him for the light that he shed upon the evil of the world, this is the world that crucified him and tried to silence and quench the light because this world system loves darkness.
That is why Christians are not to love the world.
Do you want anything to do with this world that hates your Savior?
This world is opposed to God and this world still hates Jesus Christ because he is the same today as he was facing his unbelieving brothers 2000 years ago.
He testifies of it today the same as he did then, that the works thereof are evil.
The world has not changed.
It still condemns those whose lives condemn theirs.
We will see later as we come to John 15:19 that Jesus tells his disciples,
If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
God does not lure his own to serve him as the world does.
He tells us plainly what is our due as his child.
He paints no sweet picture.
He tells us not, that something good is going to happen to us.
We can expect the hatred of the world if we serve Christ.
His brothers were content with the world, but Jesus Christ was only content with his Father's will. |