The Reactions to Christ's Claims

Well, take your Bible this morning, turn with me to the Gospel of John, John chapter 7. John chapter 7, we're continuing in our study verse by verse through the Gospel of John. We've really gotten some traction. We've just gotten started in the chapter 7 that's before us. And we're continuing in Jesus' time there at the Feast of the Tabernacles. And we see that in each of these encounters, He is revealing Himself as Christ, the Son of God, deity. And we see that overarching theme all through this book of John. Now, so far we've had two messages out of chapter 7.

First, we saw the timing of Jesus revealing Himself at the Feast of the Tabernacles. We saw that in verses 1 through 13. We also kind of stepped over into verse 14. Remember Jesus' siblings, they came to Him and they pressured Him into revealing Himself at the beginning of the Feast, whereas Jesus secretly slipped into the Feast and He revealed Himself about that halfway mark, day 4, day 5, there at the Feast. And then second, we saw Jesus assume a position of authority as He stood up in the place of the rabbi there in the temple. We were in verses 14 through 24. That was last Sunday morning.

And remember that He went to the Feast quietly, but He stepped forward there in the middle of the Feast and He continued His claims of being the Christ. You begin to see a pattern by now. I hope you do. Jesus will step up and He will make these seemingly audacious comments and declarations as He is proclaiming Himself to be the Christ. And of course, this situation continues to escalate in its volatility. In other words, these religious leaders became increasingly volatile to Christ. Now I ran across some information that describes the situation accurately. John MacArthur uses three terms to describe the situation.

He used this term, an unexpected appearance, an unprecedented authority, and a predictable hostility. I like that. It helps us get our mind around the circumstances, the situation, the setting that we're looking at. This was an unexpected appearance. It was very unexpected that Jesus stood up in the temple in the middle of the Feast and He began to teach. Remember His brothers wanted Him to come up here publicly at the beginning of the Feast. Remember, He is stepping up there in a position of authority as a rabbi there in the middle of the temple. This was a very unexpected appearance.

As a matter of fact, if we would have been there, we would have seen shock and awe in the faces of the people. This was an unprecedented authority. Jesus was unprecedented in His authority and in His claims. He did not teach as the Jewish leadership did and He made very overt claims to His deity. This was an authority that they did not understand. Then there was this predictable hostility. Really since John 6 and earlier, the Jewish leadership had been increasingly hostile to Jesus. In chapter 7, these Jews even sought to kill Christ. Jesus spoke of this. We saw this last week in verse 19. So what do we see here?

There's this unexpected appearance there at the Feast of the Tabernacles. There's this unprecedented authority that He assumes that He grabs a hold of. And then there's the predictable hostility. Now as we continue into the chapter, Jesus revealing Himself as the Christ at the Feast, we will see a new element come into the story. You might not realize that yet. So far, we have seen the siblings of Jesus, the religious leaders and Jesus, and now we will see the common people get involved in this situation. The original text in verse 25 reads, "The Jerusalemites," meaning the people of Jerusalem.

This is referring to the people, the common people. Until now in chapter 7, we've seen Jesus. We've seen the religious leaders. Of course, there were His siblings. But now we see the common man step up. And with the people's opinion and interaction in the situation, we will see the volatility of the situation even become greater, even become worse. Now the title of the message this morning is, "Their Reactions to Christ's Claims." Their reactions to Christ's claims. Now who is they? Their reactions. The people, the Jewish leadership, everyone that is there in attendance. The reactions to Christ's claims. We will be in verses 25 to verse 36.

John chapter 7, verse 25 through 36. I will give you these main truths throughout the message and I will help you in your note-taking. I want you to take notes. I trust that you take notes. I want you to go back in your personal time and study. Let the Lord continue to speak and just brand these truths in your mind and into your heart. Let's look at the verses together starting in verse 25. "Therefore, some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, 'Is this not the man whom they are seeking to kill?' And look, he is speaking publicly and they are saying nothing to him. The rulers did not really know that this is the Christ, do they?

However, we know where this man is from, but whenever the Christ may come, no one knows where he is from. Jesus therefore cried out in the temple teaching and saying, 'You both know me and know where I am from, and I have not come from myself, but he who sent me is true, whom you do not know. I know him because I am from him and he has sent me.'" Verse 30. "They were seeking therefore to seize him, and no man laid his hand on him because his hour had not yet come.

But many of the multitude believed in him, and they were saying, 'When the Christ shall come, he will not perform more signs than those which this man has, will he?' The Pharisees heard the multitude muttering these things about him, and the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to seize him. Jesus therefore said, 'For a little while longer I am with you, and then I go to him who sent me. You shall seek me and shall not find me, and where I am you cannot come.' The Jews therefore said to one another, 'Where does this man intend to go that we shall not find him?

He is not intending to go to the dispersion among the Greeks and teach them and teach the Greeks, is he? What is this statement that he said, 'You will seek me and you will not find me, and where I am you cannot come.'" Now we will look at four truths out of these verses. The first truth we'll look at will be the great debate. The great debate is from verses 25 through 27. We will look at Jesus' explanation. Jesus' explanation, and what I mean by explanation, he will explain or expound or teach concerning this debate. That's from verses 28 through 29.

We will see a great division, verse 30 through 32, and Jesus' destination, verse 33 through 36. So let's dive into our first main truth, a great debate from verse 25 through 27. This great debate. Now in these verses we will see the common people, the Jerusalemites coming onto the scene. Go back to the verses. "Therefore some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, 'Is this not the man whom they are seeking to kill?' And look, he is speaking publicly, and they are saying nothing to him. The rulers do not really know that this is the Christ, do they?

However, we know where this man is from, but whenever the Christ may come, no one knows where he is from." So what do we see? Finally, we see an interaction from the common people. Here in these verses we see this new element introduced into the scene. That was the people of Jerusalem. Now we know that at the feast there were travelers from all over Israel. This is not referring to those pilgrims who came. This was referring to those who were from Jerusalem and who were very familiar with what was going on with Jesus. Now two truths out of these verses. We're going to notice their observation and their misinformation.

So first, notice their observation. Notice their observation. Their two observations that they make. Their first observation came in the form of a question and dealt with the Jewish leadership's desires to kill him. Go back to verse 25. "Therefore, some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, 'Is this not the man whom they are seeking to kill?'" See that question? Now the construction of the language here is such that it expects a yes for an answer. Jesus had previously said in verse 19 that they were seeking to kill him. We saw this earlier in chapter 7 and in verse 1.

This understanding within the people can be seen and how they dealt with Jesus also in verse 13. Here we see that no one openly affirmed Jesus or even discussed him. Why? For fear of the Jewish leadership. You see, this was a common understanding among the people. They were fearful of discussing Jesus in verse 13. Jesus said that they wanted to kill him in verse 19. This was mentioned earlier in the chapter in verse 1. So this was a simple observation by them. And when they asked the question, it was obvious by the construction that they knew the answer would have been yes. Let me go back and read it.

"Is this not the man whom they are seeking to kill?" You see that observation? They knew what was taking place. Their second observation was that when they brought everyone's attention to Jesus teaching publicly in the temple, that they brought everyone's attention to Jesus teaching in the temple. Go back to the verse, verse 26. And look, "He is speaking publicly and they are saying nothing to him." Now the new American that I read from reads publicly. The English standard, many of you use, reads openly. But I want you to notice the King James uses the word boldly. Now why the difference in the translation? Why the difference?

Publicly, openly, boldly. That is because in the original language, this word can mean publicly or confidently or boldly. And those Bible translators are trying to capture the true meaning of what Jesus is doing. Again, they ask another question, but this question is constructed to expect a negative answer. This was in response to the people noticing that the leaders did nothing as Jesus taught publicly. So what is this observation? He is teaching boldly. He is teaching publicly. He is teaching openly. So you see their observation? Their observation is in the form of two questions. Isn't this the one they're wanting to kill?

And the obvious answer was yes. Do you see how he's teaching boldly and publicly? What about the Jewish leadership reaction? They're really dragging this situation out into the open by this observation. Second notice, their misinformation. Their misinformation. Look at verse 27. "However, we know where this man is from, but whenever the Christ may come, no one knows where he is from." What is this language here in verse 27? What we have here is a combination of wrong information and traditional legend or public legend. The wrong information comes from a popular Jewish belief that the Messiah would suddenly appear to redeem the nation.

Now this belief came from some extra-biblical or apocryphal writing. Now some of you might not know what the apocrypha is. Let me just give you a brief explanation. The apocrypha is a collection of extra-biblical writings or books which were not placed in the canon. Now if you don't know what that word canon means, we have the Word of God. This is the full canon of the Word of God. And when that first century church was evaluating writings, there were some that were extra-biblical. They were not included in the canon. They were not deemed inspired of God.

And some of those extra-biblical writings had misinformation concerning the coming of the Messiah. And that's where that public legend came from. It came from these extra-biblical writings. And this was clearly not in line with the Old Testament prophecies which spoke of the Messiah. The fact that he would be born in Bethlehem, Micah chapter 5 verse 2 refers to that fact. So this is misinformation. So this is the great debate. The Jewish leaders are furious at Jesus. And the common people step up and they begin to ask these questions which really just pours fuel on the fire.

So here we see this debate which the people of Jerusalem, they seem to ignite or seem to just a cause to be inflamed. No doubt they were maybe instigated. Maybe no doubt they were inflamed themselves by the religious leadership. But there is a debate here. There is a great debate as to who this Jesus was. And everywhere he went, this debate followed him. But an application, I want to say this to us. There is today and always has been debate as to who Jesus was and who Jesus is. You might not realize that. Now in America, the common belief used to be biblically accurate. What I mean is society in general used to believe who Jesus truly was.

They might not have been converted. But we used to live in more of a... Now let me use this term Christian nation and Christian culture. And in that there was an accurate belief of who Jesus was, what the Bible said. We used to live in a "Christian nation" or Christian culture. Not that that meant that they were redeemed. But now more than ever we live in what is called a pluralistic society. I'll give you something that brother Keith gave me last summer. He said it like this. Years ago Christianity used to be the home team. And Christians used to have what he called home team advantage.

And what that meant was we lived in this "Christian nation" and for us to be a Christian, we were considered on the home team. These other religions of the world were not on the home team. I'll give you an example of that. Back in 1956 there were five missionaries killed. They were from America and they were killed there in South America by the Waddani Indians. Many of you are familiar with that. They were what was called modern day martyrs. Jim Elliott being the most famous. And when that took place, the American culture was livid. Why? Because their own Christian missionaries were sent down in South America and they were killed.

That was the home team advantage, you see. But it's not like that today. What am I trying to show you? There is an increasing debate as to who this Jesus truly is in our culture. I was reminded of that this week. One of my friends, an old coworker, was trying to talk to someone, an employee, about the reality of Christianity and Christ and he was trying to talk with him. And I explained to him, you've got to understand this individual comes with a pluralistic mindset. The Hindus are right, the Buddhists are right, the Muslims are right, and the Christians are right. And just this universalistic "all roads lead to heaven." That's pluralism.

And with that mindset becoming more and more prevalent in our culture today, that fuels this debate as to who Christ is, you see. We say He is God. We see He is deity. We see and believe that He is the way, the only true way. And let me tell you something, church, when you go out into this world and you say that today, you will run across more hostility. Thirty years ago, you might not have seen that hostility. Why? Because we were seemingly on the home team. It's great debate. And I want to tell you, listen up.

As the world changes faster and faster, it will become more and more difficult to proclaim the exclusive truths of the Word of God and you will find yourself in great debate. Let's move on, I want us to notice truth number two. Jesus' explanation. Jesus' explanation. We see this in verse 28, 29. Jesus therefore cried out in the temple teaching and saying, "You both know Me and know where I'm from, and I have not come for Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know. You know Him because I am from Him and He sent Me." Now here we have a rebuttal. We have an explanation.

Now He is not explaining Himself maybe like we would think, like we would understand, but He is continuing to make these declarations concerning His deity and His origins that He has come from God. So that's what I mean by this explanation. There are three things out of these verses I want us to see. First, Jesus cries out. Go back to the verse. You might not have seen that. You might not have seen that. Look at verse 28. Jesus therefore cried out. The English standard reads proclaimed. The King James uses the word cried. The New American says cried out.

Now in the original language right here, it means that Jesus cried out loudly so that He could be heard by all. See? This word is used in another place. This word is used in Mark chapter 5. And let me read that verse. "Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains He was always crying out and cutting Himself with stones." This is speaking of that demon-possessed man that Jesus came across. We get that imagery in our mind. This wild demon-possessed man, he is crying out. No doubt the populace would have been afraid to go near this man. So what do we see here? What do we see?

It is important for us to see that Jesus opens His mouth boldly and loudly and He does it in such a manner where everyone could hear. He wanted to share. He wanted to open His mouth and He wanted the people to hear Him. One of the commentators I studied, D.A. Carson, notes that John uses this verb in his gospel to introduce public announcements. So what do we see? This was a very important subject. This is a very important explanation. Jesus is crying out. He's speaking up and He is inserting the importance of this information. Second, Jesus points out their ignorance. Jesus points out their ignorance.

"You both know Me and know where I'm from, and yet I have not crumb of Myself." Now what does this language mean? Because we have to scour other places in the scripture to interpret what the text says. Let me explain what I mean by that. The first rule of biblical interpretation is your interpretation cannot contradict other interpretation. If you happen to be on page 927 and your interpretation of a verse contradicts a verse a few pages over, well then your interpretation is wrong. And what I want you to see here is this. To understand what Jesus is doing here, we need to fast forward.

And in chapter 8 verse 19, here we see that Jesus says that the religious leaders do not know Jesus nor where He is from. And not only do we need to look ahead, but we need to look back on verse 27. Because what does He say? What does He say? They quoted legend in not the Old Testament scriptures, did they not? So a question. What is Jesus doing here in verse 28? Jesus is revealing their ignorance of His origin. MacArthur points out that the language shows Jesus is using irony. So what He is saying is something like this. So you think you know me and you think you know where I'm from. See? That's the importance of what He's saying.

He might even be being sarcastic to drive the point home. They are speaking out of ignorance. They are not speaking from the text, the Old Testament text. Third, notice Jesus points out His true origin. Look at the end of verse 28 and then verse 29. "But He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know." You see? You don't know the Father, so therefore they don't know Him. Verse 29, "I know Him because I am from Him and He sent Me." Again, Jesus is saying that He is from the Father and that He did not come of His own. This is nothing more than a repeat of what He has already said numerous times. I'll give you two different times.

John 5.30, "I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just because I seek not my own will, but the will of Him who sent Me." He's talking about His Father. John 7.17, "If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority." Again, dealing with His origin. So Jesus again says where He has come from, what He says is true because He comes from the Father. And it is important to see here that Jesus always reasserts a biblical understanding which is the only true understanding of who He is. See? It doesn't matter about tradition.

It doesn't matter about extra-biblical writing. What matters is the text. And they should have operated from the Old Testament Scriptures. He is from the Father and not of His own. He is of God, the promise Son of God, deity. Now an application. We must give a proper explanation of who Jesus is. Listen. We must give a proper explanation of who Jesus is and what Bible Christianity truly is. Now you might not see the importance of that until I elaborate. In our culture and in our day, there are people who are ready to accept, now I'm going to use quotations, Christianity, but they do not accept the truths of the Bible. Let me repeat that.

There are people in our culture, they are ready to accept and I quote Christianity, but they are not ready and they are unwilling to accept the truths of the Bible. Now let me ask you a question. Can you separate the two? No. You cannot. You cannot separate Jesus and the truths of the Bible from Christianity. Now listen young people, children and teenagers, I really want you to get this. You cannot separate Christianity from the Bible and when any person, I don't care who they are, when they have a form of Christianity that contradicts the Scriptures, that is not Christianity.

It has come from the dirtiest, rotten, the most rotten place in hell. Let me give you an example. In this debate over homosexuality, there are a lot of people in culture who claim Christ, who claim Christianity and who even reside in churches, but they reject what the Bible says about that subject. If that's the case, they do not have Bible Christianity. I give you a very famous one. I'm always careful when I speak about people who are in authority over us and those who have been in authority over us, but one of our past presidents, Jimmy Carter, you know he always claimed to be a Christian, you know he was Southern Baptist, used to be.

Jimmy Carter's always claimed Christ, but the problem with Jimmy Carter's Christianity is it's not a Christianity of the Bible because he rejects certain portions of the Scripture. He's a deacon in his church, he teaches Sunday school. He does a lot of good things, not just in American culture, but around the world. I don't know if you know it, but he's a winner of a Nobel Peace Prize. The point I'm making is no matter what subject it is, if you reject what the Bible says, your form of Christianity is not Christianity.

Jesus is giving an explanation as to who he is and he cries out in a bold and loud voice and he dispels and he attacks their ignorance and he reasserts where he has come from and who he is. You and I must realize and understand and take it all the way home with us that no matter who they are, if they say words that invoke Christianity and proclaim Christianity, but yet they do not live according to this inspired holy book, it is not Christianity. It's a figment of their imagination and it's come from nowhere, but the devil's hell. Third, I want us to notice a great division. A great division. Look at verse 30 through 32.

They were seeking therefore to seize him and no man laid his hand on him because his hour had not yet come. But many of the multitude believed in him and they were saying, "When the Christ shall come he will not perform more signs than those which this man has." Will he? The Pharisees heard the multitude muttering these things about him and the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to seize him. Now here in these verses we will see this hatred towards Jesus spilling out into the public arena. The religious leaders were furious that some would even consider Jesus to be the Messiah.

We had seen previously that the crowds were afraid to speak publicly about him. We saw that in verse 13. But now they are speaking out. They're coming out and therefore they produce this great division. Three things out of these verses. First, there were those who wanted to seize him. Look at verse 30. "They were seeking therefore to seize him but yet no man laid their hand or his hand on him." Now Bible commentators believe that this outburst was not from the Jewish leadership but from some in the crowd of the common people who did not see Jesus as the Messiah but an imposter.

This would have been a spontaneous reaction and not necessarily an official reaction but yet it spilled over into those officials who would have declared seize him. Seize him. But here we see this division among the common people. Now it is important to note here that they were not able to arrest Jesus. Now why? Because appointed time of arrest and death was not at hand. This was not his timing to be crucified. So there were those within the religious leadership and the common people who wanted to seize him. And then second, there were those who seemingly believed in him. Look at verse 31.

"But many of the multitude believed in him and they were saying, 'When the Christ shall come he will not perform more signs than those which this man has, will he?' Now here we see that the verse says that there were some who believed in him. It is interesting to note here that they expected, that the expected response to their question points to their reasoning for believing in Jesus. In other words, the miracles pointed them to Christ. This tells us that they were familiar with the Old Testament prophecy that said the Messiah would perform miracles. We see these prophecies in Isaiah 29, 18 and in Isaiah 35, 5 and 6.

Also the construction of this question expects a negative answer, meaning that they believed that the miracles which he had been performing were sufficient. You see? The construction of the language and their expected response even lends credibility to their belief. To their belief. Now, one interesting note that Carson makes. He says faith based on signs is not strongly encouraged. What does he mean by that? Again, this is a commentator's opinion. We must see a demonstrated faith. He brings out the point that the seriousness and the perseverance of their faith has not been tested. But yet what do we see?

That face value in verse 31, it seems that there are some in the crowd who do believe. And then third, there are those who were sent to arrest him. Look at verse 32. The Pharisees heard about the multitude muttering these things about him and the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to seize him. In response to the people talking, this new American uses the word muttering. They were talking, they were muttering, they were talking. The Pharisees and the chief priests, they sent officers or the temple police to arrest him. But we know that it was to no avail. It was not his time. One of the commentators that I read, A.T.

Robertson, says that this muttering would have grown louder and louder and louder. I like that. The construction of the language says that the people began to talk and it got louder and louder, therefore inciting these religious leaders. This would have become a great offense to them. So here we see this great division. There was division among the common people as to who Jesus was. Some seemingly believed although their faith had not been tested or proven. Some saw him as a fraud. Some saw him as an imposter. Some saw him as one committing blasphemy. There was also or always these religious leaders who sought to destroy Jesus.

You see this great division. Now for us, for you and me, I want us to see that there will always be division as to who Jesus is in the public arena and in the church. You might say, "Pastor?" You mean the church? Yes, even in the church. What I mean is there will always be division as to who Jesus is in the life of the church. See within our culture we can expect to have division as to who Jesus truly is, but in the life of the church? Let me explain.

When we seek to reform the church, when we seek to change the church, when we seek to align the church along the lines of the scriptures, and when we seek to see people converted, there will always be an element in the life of the church that will rise up against that. Why? Because there is always an element in the life of the church. They want church to be church the way they want it to be, the way they've always had it, the way the traditions say they should have it. There are always men and women, even families, who want church their way. Isn't that what happened with Jesus and these seeming disciples?

There were disciples who followed Him, but then when they discovered that He was going to be a suffering Savior, a suffering Messiah, they had no share. They had no part in Him. And as a matter of fact, as Jesus began to talk, what did He do? He brought about division in the life of the church. We saw that in John 6, He divided right down the middle between those false believers and those true believers. There was division. Now I want you to hear me accurately. I'm not instigating division. I'm not one to instigate division.

But what we must do is declare the truths of the Word of God, align the church according to the scriptures, and seek to do church and perform church and to act out according to the scriptures. And ultimately at times it will produce division because there are people who do not want Christianity and church and Jesus the Bible way. And I want to warn you about a lie. See there are some who believe that a mark of a true Bible church is a church who never has any division. You know I heard a pastor say that one time.

I heard a pastor say that one of the marks of success that he deemed and evaluated and looked in his own ministry was that there was never any division in his long tenure. He was fooling himself. Because if you stay at a church very long there will be some who do not like what is preached, do not like what is taught. They want Jesus on their own terms. They want the church on their own terms. And there will always be some who are divided by the truth and they go on their own little merry way. It should sadness. It should bother us. It should even break our hearts. But it's a brutal reality. So we see a great division.

Now let's continue on the last truth. Truth number four, Jesus' destination. Jesus' destination. This will finish up our verses. Verses 33 through 36. Jesus therefore said, "For a little while longer I am with you. Then I go to him who sent me. You shall seek me and shall not find me where I am. You cannot come." Here we see the Jews interact again. The Jews therefore said to one another, "Where does this man intend to go? That we shall not find him.

He is not intending to go to the dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks, 'Is he?' What is this statement that he said, 'You shall or will seek me and will not find me and where I am you cannot come?'" There's a lot here, but I want us to see that they did not arrest Jesus. Later on in the chapter, we see that they seek to arrest Him, but they could not arrest Him. Why? Because His time had not yet come and He has an ultimate destination. There are four things out of these verses. First, Jesus speaks of His time remaining. The beginning of verse 33, what does He say?

"For a little while longer I am with you." What is He talking about? He is speaking of the time that He has between then and His death and crucifixion. Just a few months, Jesus would be arrested there at the time of the Passover and crucified. He is speaking of, real briefly, of the time that was remaining. Second, Jesus speaks of His return to the Father. We see that in the second portion of verse 33. What does He say? He said, "Then after the crucifixion, then I go to Him who sent me." So He is speaking of His ascension to the Father after the crucifixion and the resurrection.

Now all of verse 33 speaks to the conclusion of Jesus' earthly ministry, which was about six months away. He had a few months left and He would return to where He had come from. But then third, Jesus speaks of their unbelief. Look at verse 34, "You shall seek Me and you shall not find Me." What is He saying? "You do not believe. You do not know Me." Here Jesus is speaking of those who do not believe. He is saying that they shall seek Him, they shall seek the Messiah, yet because they rejected Him, they will be unable to find Him.

Albert Barnes, the old Presbyterian commentator says that in their future time of trouble, they shall seek a Messiah to aid them in their time of need, but none will be found. And that is exactly what took place. They rejected Christ and they sought after a Messiah as their forefathers had, but yet there was no Messiah for them. See they were in unbelief. And then fourth, the Jews and their misunderstanding. That's what we see in the remaining verses, verses 35 and 36. Their misunderstanding. What are they saying? Is He going out to the dispersion? Now what does this dispersion mean? There were Jews who were living outside of Israel.

They were dispersed. So they are saying, they are misunderstanding. Is He going out away from Israel, our homeland? See they did not understand what Jesus was teaching. They presumed that Jesus was talking about going to the Jews who live among the Gentile nations. They were thinking He was talking about teaching the Gentiles when actually He was speaking about going back to heaven, back to the Father. The idea of going to the Gentiles was offensive to the Jews, these Jewish leaders. And the thought of Jesus teaching Gentiles was even worse. See they completely misunderstood everything that Jesus said and He was saying.

So here we see that Jesus' destination was not their destination. They could not go where He was going because they did not believe Him. Now we see this language on over in the Gospel of John. I love these verses in Chapter 14. The disciples are questioning Jesus. He's preparing them for His departure. They are questioning Jesus. They are even being very transparent. And I like verses 5-6. Thomas said to Him, "Lord, we do not know where You are going. How can we know the way?" See He's saying the same thing.

"I'm going away and You are coming with Me in the future." And Jesus said to Thomas, "I am the way and the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Me." What does He say in these verses? He's saying, "You're not like the Jewish leadership. You know Me. You will come where I am. You just follow Me and everything will be okay." That's what He's saying. They understood His destination later, but these Jewish leaders, they did not understand it. They could not understand it because they were in a condition of unbelief. Now what do we need to see from this text?

We need to see from this text that there is no man, no woman, no young person who goes to heaven with Christ unless they are born from above. Unless they know Christ, unless they are new creations. And let me repeat that. No one. There is no one. I don't care how religious they are, how good they are, how morally clean they are, or how many good deeds they may do. It does not matter if they are related to us or a complete stranger. Unless one is born again, unless they are a new creation in Christ Jesus, they will not go to be with Jesus. Lock it down, that is the exclusive teachings of the Word of God.

Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life." And when He looked at Nicodemus, the most religious man possibly on the face of the earth at that time, He said, "You must be born again." And so if you're going to go where Jesus has gone, if your destination is going to be Christ's destination, you and I must be born again. You know it's not very nice to say that people go to hell today, is it? It's not something we like to talk about, is it? But yet if we study the Scripture, Jesus taught more about hell than He did have. I was reminded of this, and I know I've shared this story before.

One of the previous churches that I served, there were some fairly famous Christian personalities that would come through. And I'll never forget there was an individual who was a famous music minister, music evangelist, traveling music evangelist. And I happened to see the individual in town one day, and I really don't remember what brought about this conversation. But I remember looking at him in that restaurant, and I was speaking about heaven and hell and conversion and people dying without Christ.

And I looked at him and I said, "You know, in our culture, no one goes to hell at a funeral or a gospel song." See that's the truth we don't want to explore. We don't like to think about it. You know we can go to a funeral and they might be the biggest reprobate, but a lot of times they'll find some cheap excuse of a preacher to preach him right on into glory. Oh, we love gospel songs about streets of gold and a mansion in glory, but we don't ever sing gospel songs that tell us that our lost loved ones are going to hell. Oh, we sing those songs here. I think you understand what I'm saying. People without Christ do not go to be with Christ.

You see? Jesus' destination, what is he saying? I'm going where you cannot go. I'm going back to the Father. You were in your unbelief and you misunderstand everything about me. But yet later in John 14, he looks at his disciples and said, "You know me. Just walk with me and you'll go to be where I'm going." Now in conclusion, in conclusion, I want to say there is a big difference in Jesus' day and in our day, a big difference. Let me explain what I mean briefly. In Jesus' ministry, there was a clear division between those who believed and those who do not. Now where did this division come from? How did this division come about?

It came from Jesus and it came from his teaching and listen, Jesus occasionally would prove those who said they were followers, did he not? So this division came from Jesus, it came from his teaching and every now and then, he would put those believers to the test, to the fire, to prove who they were. Isn't that what we saw in John 6? This great crowd following Jesus saying all the right words, I mean, it was just a glorious time but he proved them by the teaching of the Word of God and at the end of that great two-day event, the proof was in the pudding. They all laughed. We don't see that today.

Today, teaching and preaching is not like Jesus. We don't want to prove people. We don't want to have people, now listen, to react to anything. Isn't that the title of the message? Their reaction to his claims? We don't want people to have to react, we just want to affirm people. We just want to love people. We want to edify people. We want to cry. We want to make people feel good, do we not? Praise the Lord, that's not our approach in this church. Now we don't seek to offend people. We as the ministers here don't seek to divide people. We just want to preach the Word and teach the Word.

I was reminded this week of studying and reading and some devotional time about the great period in Richard Baxter. He was an Englishman, pastored in the English town of Kiddomister for 17 years. He wrote a Christian classic called "A Call to the Unconverted." As a matter of fact, the great Spurgeon, C.H. Spurgeon, when he was under conviction, he would go to Richard Baxter's little book called "A Call to the Unconverted." It's timeless. It's a classic. I referred to you a while back, Joseph Elaine's book called "An Alarm to the Unconverted." And Spurgeon said when he was under conviction, he would study these two works.

Now why do I bring this to your attention? When Baxter was there in his pastored at Kiddomister, he wrote this book. And in the preface of the book, the very first sentence, this is what he says, "To all unsanctified persons that shall read this book, especially my hearers in the borough and parish of Kiddomister." What is he saying? "To all of the lost who were in my town and associated with my church." He wrote that book. Now listen, to prove the people in his pew and in his town. Church history tells us that he was used greatly of God to see thrones, multitudes of people converted to Christ. What was Baxter doing?

He knew that it was a work of God to bring about a reaction. And listen, it was a division to their beliefs about Christ. You see? What's the difference in preaching in Jesus' day and much of the preaching in our day? No reaction to Christ. So what's the title of the message? Their reactions to Christ. It's great debate, but yet there's great division between those. They know him and those who do not. Let's pray and then we'll close. Lord Jesus, thank you for the truths of your word, for the example of preaching and teaching in ministry and our Lord Jesus.