Seven Principles of the Seventh Sign, part 2, John 11:16-57

Today we are looking at part two of a message I have called, Seven Principles of the Seventh Sign. This miracle that Jesus did in raising Lazarus from the dead, is the seventh and final sign or attesting miracle that John records Jesus doing in His public ministry. It is a long passage, and as such we don’t have the time this morning to exegete every verse.  However, the story as a narrative is pretty self explanatory.  But there are some important doctrinal truths which are illustrated by this story which is what I want to make the focus of

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Seven Principles of the Seventh Sign, part 1, John 11:1-15  

I have said repeatedly from this pulpit, that every miracle presented in the gospel is a parable meant to teach us spiritual principles.  I will say it again to make sure you get that; every miracle presented in the gospel is a parable meant to teach spiritual principles.  Now this is the seventh and final sign or miracle that Jesus did that is recorded in the book of John.  So we may presume that this miracle in particular is of great significance.  We might deduce that simply due to the length of this passage which details it, as well as

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You are gods, John 10:32-42  

Today’s text is one that is somewhat difficult to deal with, for at least a couple of reasons.  One is we are jumping into what is really the tail end of an ongoing dialogue that Jesus was having with the religious leaders of  Jerusalem concerning His deity.  And we are picking it up near the end of that discussion. So that provides some difficulty in bringing you up to speed without repeating all of last Sunday’s message.  But the main difficulty is that Jesus makes reference to a somewhat obscure portion of scripture as validation of His argument, which potentially

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The Shepherd of our souls, John 10: 22-31

One of the great questions of our age, particularly among those who have been taught scientific evolution, is whether or not God is real.  From time to time you will hear someone ask the question, “if God is real, then why doesn’t He show us?  Why doesn’t He reveal Himself?  Why doesn’t God prove that He is real?”  And sometimes, people will ask us that are Christians to prove that God is real.  To prove that He exists.   But it is noteworthy that Jesus Christ never addressed that question.  He did not defend the existence of God.  In fact,

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I AM the Good Shepherd, John 10:11-21

From the very earliest examples of literature, we find the use of anthropomorphic allegories or similitudes used to illustrate various types of human behavior.  Even today, much of our perceptions of human behavior is influenced by tales of animals who talk, and think as we do.  And so it is not surprising that  we find the scriptures uses such analogies from time to time as a means of teaching certain principles.   Today we come to one such allegory, that of the church, or the people of God, presented as sheep, and Christ as the shepherd of the sheep.  Also

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I AM the Door, John 10:1-10

This passage we are looking at today is the first part of a discourse that Jesus gave shortly after healing a man who had been blind from birth.  If you look back at chapters 8 and 9, you will remember that Jesus had been teaching in the temple and said some things regarding His deity to the Jewish religious leaders which infuriated them, and so they took up stones in order to stone Him to death.  But Jesus disappeared into the crowd and escaped.  Then on the way out of the temple, He and his disciples saw a man who

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Salvation in slow motion, John 9:8-41   

Today’s message is the continuation of a story that we began looking at last week.  I realize some of you weren’t here, but you should be able to catch up quickly – it’s the story of a man born blind, that Jesus healed.  We looked at the first seven verses last week.  Today we are going to try to finish this chapter which is basically a narrative of the people who are affected by this miracle. And so I have titled today’s message, “Salvation in slow motion.” The idea behind that title is that this passage illustrates salvation in an

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Sight for the blind, John 9:1-7   

As I have said before many times, every miracle Jesus performed in the gospels is presented to teach us a spiritual parable.  It is important to understand that.  Not every miracle that Jesus did is recorded in scripture.  John will say later that if everything that Jesus did while He was on earth was written down, that all the books of the world could not contain them.  But John said in chapter 20 verse 31 that the signs that he did record, are written so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that

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Worship in spirit and in truth, John 8:48-59    

Well today’s message is going to be a little bit different than usual.  I’m not going to expound the text, line by line, word by word as I would typically do. But today I want to focus on just a few points that Jesus makes at the end of this dialogue that we have been looking at for several weeks and try to make an application for us here this morning. Almost every week that we have been studying John, I have quoted the same verse of scripture at some point during my message.  Any guesses which verse that would

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Characteristics of a child of God, John 8:37-47     

I have noticed that some people really value their ancestry.  Their heritage means a lot to them. They usually have done all sorts of research into their family tree.  And perhaps your family history should be remembered and valued.  But then again I think some people put way too much emphasis on some great thing they can claim their great great grand daddy did, and they feel that somehow validates them in some unique way.  It’s kind of like those people that believe in reincarnation.  Whenever you hear someone claim to have been reincarnated, it’s interesting that they always claim

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