The Eloquence of Jesus

Lord, as we next sing the words, every day you give me breath, I'll sing your praises. Lord, I just pray that you'll help us to give you praise every day that you give us breath. It's so easy to sing these words, Lord, but it's really hard to actually make them true in our lives.

Help us to do that as we sing this. All hail King Jesus, number 11 in Mission Praise. All hail ye, Jesus, all hail ye, that King of kings, Lord of everything, God's eternity.

All hail ye, Jesus, all hail ye, that you are King of kings, Lord of all, Son of the Father. All hail ye, Jesus, all hail ye, that King of kings, Lord of all, Son of the Father. All hail the Lamb, enthroned on high, his praise shall be our battle cry.

Let's enjoy worshipping the Lord as we sing number 12 in Mission Praise. Enthroned on high, the battle cry, he reigns victorious. Forever glorious, he is the Lord.

Enthroned on high, his praise shall be our battle cry. Let's read together from the Gospel of John. It's a very exciting 7th chapter.

Look at the 10th verse. The 11th verse. Now at the feast the Jews were watching for him and asking, where is that man? Among the crowds there was widespread whispering about him.

Some said, he's a good man. Others replied, no, he deceives the people. But no one would say anything publicly about him for fear of the Jews.

That's the Jewish authorities. Not until halfway through the feast did Jesus go up to the temple courts and begin to teach. The authorities were amazed and asked, how did this man get such learning without having studied? Jesus answered, my teaching is not my own, it comes from him who sent me.

If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. He who speaks on his own does so to gain honor for himself. But he who works for the honor of the one who sent him is a man of truth.

There is nothing false about him. Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me? Jesus is cognizant, he's knowledgeable about the attitude of the authorities towards him.

You're demon possessed, the crowd answered. Who's trying to kill you? Jesus said to them, I did one miracle. You're astonished.

Yet because Moses gave you circumcision, though actually it didn't come from Moses but from the patriarchs, you circumcised a child on the Sabbath. Now if a child can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing the whole man on the Sabbath? For that had been Jesus' practice. The man was in trouble or an animal was in trouble on the Sabbath.

Jesus said the law of the Sabbath would be suspended for humanitarian reasons. Stop judging by mere appearances and make a right judgment. At that point some of the people of Jerusalem began to ask, isn't this the man they're trying to kill? Here he is speaking publicly and they're not saying a word to him.

Have the authorities really concluded that he is the Christ? But we know where this man is from. When the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from. Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts, cried out, yes, you know me and you know where I am from.

I'm not here on my own but he who sent me is true. You do not know him but I know him because I am from him and he sent me. At this they tried to seize him but no one laid a hand on him because his time had not yet come.

Still many in the crowd put their faith in him. They said, when the Christ comes, will he do more miraculous signs than this man? The Pharisees heard the crowd whispering such things about him. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees sent temple guards to arrest him.

Jesus said, I'm with you for only a short time and then I go to the one who sent me. You will look for me but you will not find me and where I am you cannot come. The Jews said to one another, where does this man intend to go that we cannot find him? Will he go where our people live, scattered among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? What did he mean when he said, you will look for me but you will not find me and where I am you cannot come? On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.

Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. By this he meant the spirit whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the spirit had not been given since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

On hearing these words, some of the people said, surely this man is the prophet. Others said he is the Christ. Still others asked, how can the Christ come from Galilee? Does not the scripture say that the Christ will come from David's family, from Bethlehem, the town where David lived? Thus the people were divided because of Jesus.

Some wanted to seize him but no one laid a hand on him. Finally, the temple guards went back to the chief priests and Pharisees who asked them, why did not you bring him in? No one ever spoke the way this man does, the guards declared. You mean he has deceived you also, the Pharisees retorted.

Has any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? No, but this mob, the Greek there is riffraff, this riffraff that knows nothing of the law, there is a curse on them. Nicodemus who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number asked, does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he is doing? They replied, are you from Galilee too? Look into it and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee. We had a great time in our picnic as Alan mentioned earlier in the service.

Our picnic during the afternoon and as is my want when we have picnics, I do a little tour around the picnickers and beg a few crisps and so forth and chat away and this afternoon I was with some of the older men who were going down Nostalgia Avenue. Ian Taylor was speaking to me, Brian Stenning about memories that they recall of radio programs when they were tuning in on their cat whisker sets, Round the Horn and Hancock's Half Hour. They were telling me about these things and I recalled not in the 30s or 40s but in the 50s, I recall a TV program, Dixon of Dot Green, evening all, again that shows who is as old as I am in the tab.

You know he was the epitome of the London Bobby, every Saturday night you got the picture of Dixon coming on the box and it was a half hour program and it was good quality stuff like these broadcasts that these fellas who I was joking about in terms of their age, just to square the record, don't want to lose any more church members, it was good quality stuff you know. And occasionally as the plot thickened, Dixon in a very benevolent way would go out into the streets or into one of the cinemas or one of you and maybe apprehend someone, Hello, what are you doing here? And you know so gently he'd bring him back to the station and the procedure of the law would take its course. Now I'm not suggesting that in the time of our Lord you've got a Dixon of Dot Green figure, but what you do have is the police.

They feature in this story on a couple of occasions and they've got the difficult assignment of arresting Jesus. Now our Lord is distinct from anyone else who ever walked through this world. Inasmuch as no one has authority over him, he has the clout.

After all he came into the world as the one who had originally, eons ago, with the Godhead brought the world into existence. And the humility that you find that is part of the character of our Lord Jesus is part of his voluntary submission. But he's not at the beck and call of the authorities.

Now the reason why they want to arrest Jesus is because his teaching is an embarrassment. It's said in this particular verse when men come back having tried to apprehend Jesus and being unsuccessful and being challenged by their superiors, why didn't you bring him in? No one spoke the way he speaks. And that's true.

I mean Jesus could speak with great gentleness. Sometimes it was just as though honey ran out of his mouth. At times he could be very authoritarian.

But one of the things that is obvious when you track the course of the life of Jesus in the gospels is that he's not a pawn in the hands of any man. That particular occasion when he was at Jerusalem, as I've mentioned, was significant. But let me flesh out the significance a little more.

You see, as these thousands of pilgrims came from the villages of Judea and some of them from the northern territory of Galilee where Jesus had spent most of his early years, they came in a glamorous, jubilant fashion because, well, they wanted to remember God's goodness to their nation thousands of years before. The Feast of the Tabernacles conjoined two or three occasions for memory and for praise. They wanted to thank God for his faithfulness in the harvest.

They wanted to thank God for his goodness to them as a people. But even more particularly, they wanted to thank God that when their ancestors had made their way from Egypt to Israel, the Promised Land, he had been so kind to them during those forty years. There was one occasion when the ancient Hebrews were in great difficulty because there wasn't enough water.

And Moses came along and he took his rod and he smote a rock at Meribah. And from that rock came lovely, cool, gushing water. And it was that that saved the Hebrews.

And the years that followed, as they're back in their own country, they would always remember that as well as other occasions. And the Feast of the Tabernacles was one of those joyous feasts when some of the priests went from the temple down to the Pool of Siloam and they'd take with them great water jars. And they would fill their jars with water and they would bring them back into the temple.

And when the pilgrims saw them, they would wave their palm branches and they would start to sing as we have been singing this evening. But their songs were from the Book of Psalms, the Hallel. And they would praise the Father for all His many, many goodnesses.

These pilgrims who had been staying on the streets, who'd lived in booths, those little tents that were constructed out of foliage and bits of trees and so on and so forth, they were in such a joyful spirit. And at the last day of the feast, the eighth day, the priests would go to the altar in the temple area and literally pour out the water. Within the temple area itself there would be tremendous light.

The candelabra would be illuminated, reminding the Israelites of the ancient Hebrews who during their wilderness wanderings had known a pillar of fire by night as well as provisions by day. And as the priest pours out the water in the temple, it reaches the peak of the festivity. It comes to the apex of the celebration.

And at that point, can you believe it? Jesus from Nazareth stands up and he shouts, If any man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. Can you imagine the reaction of the audience at that point? All eyes have been taken from the priest.

All eyes have been taken from the Hebrew Philharmonic Orchestra who would have been in full array. And they are on this man from Nazareth. And amongst the crowd are those who have woven their way, weaved their way amongst the pilgrims with the charge from the authorities, arrest Jesus.

Now isn't it interesting that as I've unpacked that story, that within it, if you read the narrative, on several occasions there are people who seem to have two minds as to who Jesus is. And the bias of conclusion seems to go on the side of Jesus that he is not just an ordinary man from Nazareth, not even just a prophet. He is indeed the Messiah.

And the authorities don't like that talk. And so they send people to try to muzzle Jesus. They send folk twice to try to arrest Jesus and bring them from the crowd into the headquarters of the authorities.

But you know, it would have been more reasonable for the headquarters of the temple police, for the superintendent there to have told these men to have tried to blow out the sun because there is no way in which any human agency ever had authority over Jesus Christ. The only authority that was exercised on the human level was as a result of Jesus submitting to what men might want to do to him. The chief priests, verse 32, and the Pharisees sent temple guards to arrest him.

And when they come back without Jesus, they ask why and they say, no one ever spoke the way this man does. Now, that is true. It's not just true in terms of Jesus and his immediate ministry to that particular audience.

It's true when you read through the record of the Gospels and assess all that Jesus has to say. He speaks with an eloquence which is utterly remarkable. I mean, Shakespeare was good, but he's driven into the second or third division.

How is it that this man, who the crowd recognized as being untrained, untutored, he didn't go to the seminary in Jerusalem, he's not an official rabbi, he hasn't taken language lessons, he's not a scribe, how is it that this man speaks as he does? And he tells them that what he has come to say is not what he has manufactured. He has come to declare what God's Father, God's Son, and God's Spirit want saying to this world. And one of the things that becomes a particular problem in the modern era is how you can possibly assess the teachings of Jesus, and not just the teachings of Jesus, but the claims of the Lord Jesus, and come to any other conclusion than that he is the inspired Son of God who has a special, unique word to say to you.

Look, not just the teaching of Jesus at the Feast of the Tabernacles. Run the whole gamut of what he had to say. Dip into the Sermon on the Mount, a classic in terms of spelling out personal behavior.

Look into those marvelous little cameos that we call parables, as he takes insights from Palestinian life and then smuggles in and makes more explicit as he unfurls the story, the ethical spiritual principle that he's trying to get across. Think of him as he tells you to go to the lily of the valley and listen to the singing of the birds and draw your conclusion that Heavenly Father is behind the phenomena of nature. Listen to him as he speaks about the Father and the authority of God.

And then, when you have sifted his teaching, put it alongside the Old Testament prophets. And you'll find that in the latter case, the prophets, their formula is always when they're teaching to speak on behalf of God. They come with the message of the Lord.

Thus saith the Lord. Time and time again you read that in the authorized version. They don't speak of themselves.

They don't speak with their authority. They claim the authority of God the Father. But when Jesus makes plain his teaching, he never says, Thus saith the Lord.

He always says, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Amen, Amen. This is what you are to believe. And the implications behind the teaching of Jesus is that he is more than just an ordinary man.

Now, these religious leaders who control the temple police, they too are teachers, they are preachers, and they know that there is an infinite distinction between their method of preaching and Jesus' method of preaching. They don't have his authority. He just oozes authority.

And when they listen to what he has to say, they get the implication correctly from what Jesus is teaching that he is more than just an ordinary man. More than just an ordinary man. He exposes sin.

He'll call sin by its name. He'll always deal tenderly with the confessing sinner. He'll always deal vitriolically with the hypocrite.

But you can scan the whole of Jesus' teaching. You can get it into your computer, you can program it, and you can do a check this evening if you have a Bible program on your computer, and you will never find when you go through the words of Jesus that he ever claims that there is any blemish in his own character. Now that's interesting.

He's a humble man. His job was that of a carpenter. He knew what it was to make yokes for oxen.

He knew what it was when he was ministering to wash the feet of disciples. I mean, he doesn't give you the idea of being some bumptious upstart. Completely the contrary.

And yet when he's teaching, there is an authority here. There is this implicit claim that he is more than just an ordinary man. Now I'll give you.

That what a man says is only important at this level, if it's twin to what he is. And this is, if you please, the thing that makes Jesus Christ stand out above any other teacher. It was not just what he said, nor how he said it, but how his life illustrated what he had to teach.

Which one of you convicts me of sin? He threw down the towel and nobody picked it up. You're the son of God, Jesus? Then do you not have an ability to do what other teachers cannot do? Will you not show your authority over the laws of the universe that you have allegedly brought into being? And you find Jesus walks on the water. He multiplies loaves and fishes.

He will cause water to change its constituency. Absurd claims. Unless Jesus' character is so dissimilar from you and mine that you have to posit of Jesus that he is more than just a human being.

He is God manifest in the flesh. Our Lord, when he speaks to these people, he speaks in such a fashion that the temple guards do not feel they have the right to even attempt an arrest. It seems as though dangling in front of them is the possibility that he's not an upstart auditor.

He is who he is claiming to be. You mean, says the authorities, that he's deceived you also. There's none more blind than those who do not want to see.

And when a man hardens his heart, when he blinds his spiritual vision deliberately to the person of Christ, then there is little that can be done for that individual. And the accusers of Jesus, the ones who want to arrest him, they are in this category. Have any of us ever believed, they say, with a contemptible pride? I mean, here we are, we are the theologians.

You are just the police. We are the leaders. You are the underdogs.

It's only the riffraff that pays attention to Jesus. Has any one of us, with all our distilled intelligence and theological acumen, has any one of us been attracted to him? Interesting, isn't it, that possibly with the police now having gone away, Nicodemus stands up. Now Nicodemus is part of the authority.

He's part of the establishment. He is one of these Pharisees. In fact, he's not just an ordinary Pharisee.

He is a master in Israel. Not one of us has been impressed. And Nicodemus remembers, just a few months ago, at midnight, if you please, he'd been into the company of Jesus to ask him some theological questions to which he'd never been able to find the answer.

And Nicodemus starts to speak. And he says, this man, who we are trying to arrest, we've actually acted illegally. You cannot call a man guilty unless you have tried him.

Now, isn't it almost ironic that these leaders, when they were speaking to the police, when they were speaking of the riffraff, they say the police, they say the mob, know nothing of the law. But Nicodemus gets up afterwards and he corrects them in terms of their own deficiency as far as the Old Testament law is concerned. Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he's doing? And so barbed, so biased are these people that they won't even take that suggestion that they have acted illegally.

Instead of facing the charge and making some adjustment, all they do is take the person of Nicodemus and assassinate his character and say, you know nothing, you come from the north. You come from Galilee. No prophet has ever come out of Galilee, completely overlooking the fact that Nahum came out of Galilee and Jonah came out of Galilee and possibly one or two of the others came out of Galilee, but not every prophet discloses what his birthplace was.

So let me bring what I'm trying to say this evening to a conclusion and to an application. Jesus, in that great tabernacle feast, states that all that was spiritually implied by the smashing of Moses' rock, Moses' rod on the rock at Meribah and the flow of water that met the physical needs of Hebrews hundreds of years ago is being fulfilled at a spiritual level by him. And that any man, trained or untrained rabbi, rich or poor, educated or uneducated, who realizes his need of having his sins forgiven and his spiritual thirst quenched can come to him.

And some of the crowd, it seemed, at that particular point recognized the Messiahship of Jesus and made a commitment. And Nicodemus, well, he's an illustration of a man who came first at midnight and here at twilight and later on by the resurrection at daylight. And over a period, the truth had dawned and he confessed who Jesus is.

Won to Jesus by the speech of the Lord. For no man had speech content like Jesus. He came not just to tell us who God is but what we are and what our need is.

And the last aspect of the speech of Jesus for you to have in your mind as you leave the tab this evening is this. In his addresses, he spoke of his death. A nasty death.

A death which was not the result of the evil conniving of the Jewish authorities. It was a death which was foreordained by his father for him to die. And Jesus never spoke about his death without speaking about his resurrection.

And Jesus in his magnificent speeches, in his magnificent sermons, indicated that the benefits of his death and resurrection would be applied to all those who confess him as their savior. He would take their sins in himself as he suffered on the cross. And as they confess him, his righteousness would be passed over to them.

He would die for their transgression and give them his unsullied goodness with a net result that Christian people are those who've come to Jesus and drank, inverted commas, of his teaching and have made him their lord. And anyone, unbiasedly, can do that right now. Nicodemus did.

Some of the crowd in the temples did. But not all, will you? Let's pray. Father, we too acknowledge that no man ever spoke like our Lord Jesus.

We thank you that when Caiaphas and Pilate had Jesus on trial, it becomes pretty obvious that the authority wasn't in the hands of those two men, but remained in the power of Jesus. Recall how he said to Pilate, you would have no authority over me unless it had been given you. So we praise you for the speech of Jesus, the life of Jesus, the death of Jesus, the resurrection of our Lord.

And we ask that the benefits of what he came to do and what he came to say may be entered into right now as people here confess that they need Jesus to be their personal saviour. Amen. Let's go to the supplement and sing an older hymn.

It's a favourite of mine. Just give chance for the overhead projectionist to find it. It's 27 in the supplement.

Come ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore, Jesus ready stands to save you, full of pity, love and power. He's able, he's able, he's willing, doubt no more. What the law couldn't do, what the Jews simply because of their proud historical ancestry couldn't do, Jesus can do.

For you, for me. Give us cleansing from our sins. Help us to draw from the waters of salvation.

27, those of you who've got the supplement. He's able, he's able, he's willing, doubt no more. We need you in all that you're worth, God's three counts we glorify.

To give in and to repentance, every grace that brings you nigh. We need you in all that you're worth, God's three counts we glorify. To give in and to repentance, every grace that brings you nigh.

We need you in all that you're worth, God's three counts we glorify. We need you in all that you're worth, God's three counts we glorify. We need you in all that you're worth, God's three counts we glorify.

We need you in all that you're worth, We need you in all that you're worth, God's three counts we glorify. We need you in all that you're worth, We need you in all that you're worth, God's three counts we glorify. We need you in all that you're worth, God's three counts we glorify.

But you Lord, can't satisfy the longing in my heart thing. I too Lord, can't take the place of drawing near to you. Only you can fill my deepest longing.

Only you can breathe in me in love. Fill my heart with laughter, answer my heart's cry. Don't satisfy the longing in my heart.

Fill me, fill me, until I know your love deep in my heart. Only you can fill my deepest longing in your love.