In His conversation with Nicodemus, which we began to look at last week, Jesus has presented a universal predicament.  A universal problem.  And that is, that no man can ascend to God.  That no man can be right with God through his own merits.  The very best of mankind, the most religious, the most zealous person is still light years away from God.  There is nothing we can do to leap across this great chasm that exists between God and man. 

So last week we were introduced to Nicodemus, the teacher of the Jews, a leader of the ruling religious body of the Jews called the Sanhedrin.  He was also a Pharisee, a person who prided himself on keeping the law to the nth degree, who knew the scriptures backwards and forwards, who worshipped in the temple every day and kept all the religious holy days.  He was an exceptional man.  He was the quintessential religious man.  If anyone could have appealed to God on the basis of their goodness, Nicodemus was the guy. 

And yet Jesus basically said that Nicodemus wasn’t even of the right species to get into the kingdom of God.  The Jews thought that of all the people on the earth they were the chosen people of God, they had the temple, the scriptures, the holy of holies, the prophets and the law.   They believed God dwelled in their temple in Jerusalem.  And this guy was the supreme teacher of the Jews and he was the leader of the temple priests.  If anybody should have been a shoe in for the kingdom of God it should have been Nicodemus.  But Jesus said, no that’s not enough.  You actually have to be born all over again to enter the kingdom of God.  Nothing he had done would count.  He needed to be reborn as an entirely new person.

Now that was bad news for Nicodemus.  Earth shattering news.  But it’s bad news for us as well.  Because Nicodemus was representative of the best of men.  Jesus said later in Matt. 5:20,  “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”  So that is a universal predicament.  No one is going to be able to ascend into heaven.

Jesus went on to say that unless you are born again of the Spirit you cannot enter into the kingdom of God.  God is a Spirit, and His kingdom is spiritual. 1Cor. 15:50 says “that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.”  That’s what Jesus meant when He said that which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Man must be born again of the Spirit if he is to be spiritual.  And if not, if he is but flesh, then he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.  That’s a pretty simple diagnosis, but it’s a tragedy for mankind.  It’s a hopeless condition, because man cannot make himself born of the Spirit of God – that has to be an act of God.  So that is the universal predicament.  All men are lost.  All men are condemned to death.  All men are descendants of Adam, and as such all have inherited the sin nature of Adam. Rom. 5:12 “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.”

God is holy.  We fail to fathom the breadth of the holiness of God.  For God to be holy He must be just.  He must exact justice.  And God’s judgment of sin is the penalty of death carried out upon all men, for all have sinned.  But God if God is holy, then He is not only just, but good.  And the goodness of God is expressed in His mercy.  James 2:13 says mercy triumphs over judgment.  So though the justice of God required punishment for sin which is death, the goodness of God provided mercy.

So the penalty of death is a universal predicament, but the Lord is God of the universe.  And so He provided a universal solution.  His universal solution begins with a universal love.  John 3:16, “For God so loved the world….” Let’s stop there.  We could spend an entire message on just that phrase.  For God so loved the world.  The word world is translated from the Greek kosmos. That should sound familiar, it’s the word we get the English word cosmos from.  But though the English  cosmos speaks to us of the celestial  universe,  kosmos in the Greek speaks of the universal human race.   So poor old Nicodemus is probably blinking his eyes right about now.  God loves everybody?  Not just Jews, not just Pharisees, not just Americans, not just Republicans?  Nicodemus was undoubtedly stunned that a Jew would say that God loved anyone but Jews.  But here is Jesus saying God loved the world.  The entire spectrum of the human race.

And Jesus is going to make that even more specific later on. Luke 5:32  “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Luke 19:10 “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”  And Paul would later make that even more clear in Romans 5:8 saying, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  So let’s put this in a modern translation;  “For God so loved sinners….”  That is what is meant by the world.  Not all the good people in the world, that’s not who God loved.  But all the bad people in the world, all the sinners, even His enemies, even those who rebelled against Him, even those who spit upon Him, even those who nailed Him to the cross.   God loves sinners.  He loves humans of every race, every creed, every nation, every gender, every size and every color.  God so loved the world. God created man, and He so loved men that He created, even though they were sinners.

Now much has been made of that little word “so.” So loved.  Why is there a “so” there?  Well, this little word indicates the magnitude of God’s love.  It makes us ask how much?  And the size of God’s love is universal.  This time let’s use universal to indicate size, as in the size of the universe.  It’s infinite.  It has no beginning and no end.  It keeps on going from galaxy to galaxy.  That’s the so in God’s love.  He so loved the world that He gave a universal sized gift.  It’s really a universal sized remedy.  He gave His only begotten Son. 

Remember in chapter one, when John said the Word was with God and the Word was God?  That Word is the Son of God.  The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  God gave the infinite, eternal, second person of the triune God, the One of whom in chapter one it said “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” And “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him.”  So the magnanimous expression of God’s universal love is giving the Creator of the universe Himself.

The famous Charles Spurgeon said it like this: : “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son. It was his only-begotten Son—his beloved Son, in whom he was well pleased. None of us had ever such a son to give. Ours are the sons of men; his was the Son of God. The Father gave his other self, one with himself. When the great God gave his Son he gave God himself, for Jesus is not in his eternal nature less than God. When God gave God for us he gave himself. What more could he give? God gave his all: he gave himself. Who can measure this love?”

That is what defines the love of God.  It is a sacrificial love.  The Greek word for love that is used there is agape, the highest, most noble expression of love that can be made.  Jesus said in John 15:13, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”  So then by extension, God gave the greatest gift of love that ever could be given, in that He laid down His life for His enemies.  The Creator laid down His life for His creation. Christ died in the place of sinners. What kind of love is this?

And then let’s look at the universal invitation of God’s love.  “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him…” Let’s stop there.  The universal invitation is to whoever.  Whoever includes everyone. No matter your nationality.  No matter how sinful you are.  No matter how religious you might be.  No matter what horrible crimes against God or humanity you might have committed, whoever includes you.

If you are familiar with the doctrines of Calvinism then you might know that irresistible grace and limited atonement are two Calvinistic doctrines that are often given in regards to salvation.  That says the call of God only comes to those who God has chosen, and that Christ only died for those people, so that those who are chosen will be saved, but salvation is limited by the election of God.  I would like to say that while I believe that the Bible teaches predestination and election, such a doctrine is beyond our pay grade to comprehend.  It is the purview of God to know how He knows what He knows and how He accomplishes His will.  But how do our finite minds reconcile the fact that He must call a person to salvation and yet at the same time a person is completely responsible for their reception or rejection of Christ?   So let me tell you what I do know.  And what I do know is what Jesus has to say about who may come to salvation.  He says “whoever”. In fact, just in case you missed it the first time, He says it twice.  Whoever in vs. 15  and whoever in vs.16.  Who does whoever refer to? Every one who believes in Him.  There is no other way to define it.

But just in case you are the type to explain away the obvious, Jesus gives us an illustration of whoever might be saved.  And that is found in vs.14 and 15.  The Israelites have sinned against God in the wilderness.  They have rebelled against the plan of God and are pining away for the delicacies they enjoyed in Egypt when they were in slavery.  They are complaining and murmuring against God and Moses.  And so God sends poisonous vipers into the camp.  You can read about it in Numbers 21.  And when they bit the people they began to be sick and die.  And the people came to Moses and repented of their sin against God.  So God told Moses what to do to provide an antidote for the viper’s sting. God said, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.” And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived. 

Now that is the illustration that Jesus gives as an example of salvation.  And listen how Jesus presents it in vs.14: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.”  The analogy is clear.  We have all been bitten by the sting of death brought about by the great serpent who deceived Adam and Eve, that is the devil. God said whoever shall eat of the tree shall surely die.  And in Adam, all have died spiritually because we have all inherited the same sinful nature as Adam. Rom 5:12 “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”

So all of the world lies under the penalty of death.  We have all been stung by the viper of sin.  But when Moses lifted up the serpent on the standard, everyone who turned and looked upon it were saved from death and lived.  So it is with Christ, everyone who turns and looks to Him as remedy for death shall not die but live.  Salvation is available for all.  It is not limited to just some people, or to just good people, but it is limited only to those who are dying.  And we already have established that all of the world is dying.  The scriptures say that it is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment.

So just as death is universal in it’s predicament, so is salvation universal in it’s invitation. Because all have sinned, salvation is offered to all without reservation.  This is the scope of God’s grace.  The grace of God is not limited.  2Peter 3:9 says the Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

So then, God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Let’s look finally then at the individual application of God’s love. It’s a universal predicament, a universal solution, a universal invitation, but an individual application.  Whoever believes brings it down to that individual who believes the gospel and applies it to themselves.  It is not a universal salvation, as if it says that everyone is automatically saved. It’s not a national salvation, as in every Jewish person is saved, or every American is saved.  But it’s an individual application as each individual must believe and receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

But what does it mean to believe in Jesus Christ? It does not simply mean that we believe that He lived and died 2000 years ago.  But we must believe His gospel:  that He is God made manifest, God in the flesh.  Believe that He is the Savior of the world. Believe that we are dead in our trespasses and sin and without hope. Believe that His sacrifice was sufficient to pay our penalty, and that His righteousness has been transferred to our account.  We must believe that He is Lord, that He is worthy to be our Sovereign.  We must believe that we owe Him our allegiance and love and reverence.  We must believe that He rose from the dead, and lives forever, and that He is coming again to live forever with HIs bride, the church. 

As Paul said in Romans 10:9-10  “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus [as] Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;  for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”

So then what does this great gift of God’s love produce? Individual salvation. Salvation from the penalty of death.  And  in explaining it Jesus says it both negatively and positively.  It has a negative application and a positive application.  But the gospel is such good news that even the negative is positive.  So first the negative.  Whosoever believes on Him, that is Jesus, the Son of God, the propitiation for the sins of the world, whoever believes on Him shall not perish.  That’s the negative.  Which is actually a positive.  You will not die.

Jesus said to Martha in John 11:25, ““I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

How is that possible?  How can Jesus say that by believing in Him we will never die, and yet all of his disciples died, all of our forefathers in the faith have died and passed from this life.  Well the answer is of course is that which is flesh is of sin, and Romans 6:23 says that the wages of sin is death.  Romans 5:12 said that death is passed upon all men.  So that which is of the flesh  shall pass away, but that which is of the Spirit shall live. So though we are dead in the flesh, we are made alive in the spirit, and as such we shall not die but live in the spirit.

Jesus gave additional assurance in John 5:24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”  And again in John 10:28 “I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.” 

Then the positive side of that equation is as Jesus said, “eternal life”, or “everlasting life.”  It’s the same thing.  But it’s not just the length of life that Jesus is referring to.  Eternal life certainly incorporates the infinite, no doubt about that.  But there is also more to eternal life than simply an infinite life span.  It also refers to the quality of life.  It is the life of God.  Christ as the source of light and life as it said in chapter one.  In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 

Jesus said it like this in John 10:10, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”   Abundant life starts now.  Eternal life starts at the new birth, being born again.  Abundant life is spiritual life. It’s being made a new creation.  It’s found in fellowship and communion with the God of the universe, the Creator of all life.  Abundant life is doing the works of righteousness.  It’s found in having the righteousness of Christ, it’s found in having the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within us to lead us and guide us and comfort us and help us. It’s found in intimacy and relationship and peace with God.  Yes, eternal life is everlasting, infinite life.  But it’s also spiritual life, the zest of true life, a changed life, a life lived for it’s true purpose.

I’m going to give you one other verse, which is really like a teaser for the next message.  But it’s hard to look at these verses without considering the context around them.  Because verse 17 reminds us really of the grand design of John 3:16 “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” 

The world was already lying under the judgment of sin and death.  Humanity was hopeless, helpless to bridge the chasm between mankind and God.  So since man could not ascend to God, God descended to man, sending the exact representation of the nature and character of God in human flesh to dwell among us, to be rejected by man, to be sacrificed in our place on the cross as an offering for the sins of the world, so that the world might be saved through Him and receive eternal life. 

You know, it would be easy to think of the holy God as viewing humanity in the condition of it’s sin, rebellion, disobedience,  and hatred towards God and that He would justifiably exact vengeance on the world. It would be easy to imagine if Scripture said, “God looked at the world and He said, ‘I’ll destroy them, I’ll punish them. I’ll put the pressure on them of divine judgment until they come to Me.’” But it wasn’t God’s anger that sent Christ. Christ didn’t come into the world to judge the world. He came into the world to save the world because what motivated the Father was not His anger, but His love.  So we notice in verse 17, “God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”  Saved through Jesus. God loved the world so God sent Jesus to save the world. Jesus came to save sinners. That is sinners from all over the world. He sent His Son because of His infinite love of sinners. He sent His Son to display His grace and mercy, to save them from judgment.

Some time ago I read a story about a young man who had rebelled against his father which resulted in an argument, and consequently he ended up running away from home. He continued to keep in touch with his mother over the coming months, and by Christmas time he wanted very much to come home, but he was afraid his father would not allow him. His mother wrote to him and urged him to come home, but he did not feel he could until he knew his father had forgiven him. Finally, there was no time for any more letters. His mother wrote and said she would talk with the father, and if he had forgiven him, she would tie a white rag on the tree which grew right alongside the railroad tracks near their home, which he could see before the train reached the station. If there was no rag, it would be better if he went on.

So the young man caught a train and started the journey home. As the train drew near his home he was so nervous he said to his friend who was traveling with him, “I can’t bear to look. Sit in my place and look out the window. I’ll tell you what the tree looks like and you tell me whether there is a rag on it or not.” So his friend changed places with him and looked out the window. After a bit the friend said, “Oh yes, I see the tree.” The son asked, “Is there a white rag tied to it?” For a moment the friend did not say anything. Then he turned, and in a kind of awed voice said, “There is a white rag tied to every limb of that tree!” That, in a sense, is what God is saving in John 3:16 and 17. God has taken away the condemnation of death and made it possible to be forgiven and come home to Him.

This is the greatest love, that God gave Jesus  to save sinners, even His enemies by offering Himself as a substitute for our death, so that we might be accepted by God.  I hope that if you are here today and have not trusted in Christ as your personal Savior, that today will be the appointed day of your salvation.  Whoever believes on Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. 

The phrase “born again” is one that is not unfamiliar to most people today.  However, I’m afraid it is not understood by the majority of people.  Unfortunately, in a lot of circles it has taken on a denigrating characterization  which is attached to someone that is considered to be sort of a religious right wing fanatic.  However, in this passage, we find it’s origin in the words of Jesus Christ Himself, which He uses to describe those that will enter the kingdom of God.  In fact, He said it is a requirement of the kingdom of God that you must be born again.  So it behooves us to investigate this phrase thoroughly this morning, that we might know that we belong to the kingdom of God.

John said in chapter 20:31 that he wrote this gospel so that “you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”  Now up to this point, John has clearly declared who Jesus is; that He is the Messiah, the Son of God, God made flesh, and he has presented multiple witnesses to those facts.

Then in our study last week, you will remember, John presented Jesus cleansing the temple.  That taught the essential theological principle that Jesus is Lord.  And if we are the temple of God, then Jesus is the Lord of our temple, and thus has all rights to it’s use, and the right to cleanse it for His use.  Now today we will see another essential principle of who Jesus is, and that is Savior.  Not only Lord but Savior.  In fact, as I said last week, these two characteristics are inseparable.  One cannot exist without the other.  You cannot be saved, and yet not allow Jesus to reign in your life as Lord.  I think there is even something to be learned from the order found here in John, who presents Jesus as first Lord, then Savior.

So in this passage, John is going to use the teaching of Jesus Christ Himself to explain the need of a Savior.  And of all the teaching of Jesus, this passage sets out the distinctions of our salvation in the most vivid, clear terms.  Most times when Jesus taught, He illustrated a certain distinctive of faith, or a certain characteristic of the Christian life, but rarely do we find a teaching more comprehensive on the subject of salvation than this one. In fact, it’s so packed with important doctrines that we do not want to rush through this passage, so we will likely continue it next week.

But let’s start as John does, with the man Nicodemus.  In some ways, NIcodemus is the representative man.  He is the best of men.  He is extremely religious, zealous for the law and a religious leader of the Jews.  This cannot be over emphasized.  Church teaching has demonized the Pharisees to the point that we fail to realize the good things about them.  This man was a leader of the Sanhedrin, the body of 70 elders which came about as a result of Moses finding 70 men of good repute to act as judges for the people.  So he was an esteemed civic leader as well as religious leader in a public office. And as a leading member of the party of the Pharisees he would have been extremely well versed in the scriptures, much of which he had subjected to memory, as well as an expert in the Mishnah and the Talmud which were commentaries written about the law.  Furthermore, he would have been someone that was considered to be above reproach and who kept the law down to the smallest details. This guy exceeded  by far even the most rigorous demands put upon priests or bishops or pastors today, whether it be in education, in conduct, or in piety.  And to top it all off, according to historians, he was very rich.  Extremely wealthy.  In all respects, if we were to choose a man to represent mankind before God this would be the guy that we would probably elect for the job.

Verse two tells us that Nicodemus came to Jesus at night.  John doesn’t tell us why.  It could have been that he had to work days and nights were the only time he had free.  But I rather doubt that.  The most likely reason is that due to his position in the Sanhedrin and the party of the Pharisees, he came at night to have a private meeting with Jesus so he would not have to fear  being noticed by the public or even perhaps by his peers.  It would have been considered unseemly for such an exalted person, himself an esteemed teacher, to come before a humble Galilean who had no formal training or official recognition.  But I would also point out that when Nicodemus comes, he seems to indicate that he is coming on behalf of others, not simply for his own personal benefit.  Note the use of the pronoun “we” when he addresses Jesus.  It’s quite possible in my opinion that he was sent privately by the Pharisees to try to figure out who Jesus was.  They had already asked him when he cleansed the temple a few days previously by what authority did He do these things.  So they were watching Jesus, hearing about His miracles, and wanted to delve further into who He was, but without attracting attention.

And then notice that Nicodemus not only comes under the cover of night, but under the pretense of solidarity.  He starts out by affecting a kinship with Jesus, a solidarity that they are somehow of the same ilk, or after the  same things. Basically, he is using a form of flattery to gain an advantage in the conversation.  And this is a common ploy of people who come to church today.  They rarely come on their knees in humility, in repentance and seeking forgiveness.  But they come under false pretenses, professing knowledge of  the things of God and claiming pure motives in their worship of God.  But at the core of that attitude is a sense of self righteousness, of entitlement.  After all, they aren’t the really bad people.  Really sinful people don’t often come to church; they perhaps are too ashamed.  But religion attracts the self righteous, the ones who feel that they are basically good, moral people.  And that attitude is illustrated by Nicodemus.

He says to Jesus, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”  Notice the flattery, the fawning use of the title “Rabbi”, or Teacher, and the acknowledgment that God is with Jesus. So Nicodemus says that they knew Jesus was of God because He did signs or miracles. 

By the way, we know that the ability to perform miraculous signs do not necessarily mean that someone is of God.  You might remember the magicians of Pharaoh who were able to duplicate the miracles of Moses. And so we know that not all miracles are necessarily from God.  That is part of the deceitfulness of false prophets who will arise in the last days.  They will be given power by the devil to do signs which will lead people astray.  Jesus warned about that in Matt. 24:24, “For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.” 

And please don’t be deceived by the fact that signs and wonders done in a church building or performed on television supposedly in the name of Jesus automatically sanctifies such things.  No, the devil is in church as well.  Again Jesus warned in Matt. 7:21, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’” 

So Nicodemus was wrong on that account.  Signs and wonders do not necessarily confirm that a person is of God neither does it necessarily produce saving faith in God.  At the end of chapter 2 it says many people were believing on Jesus because of the signs that He was doing, but it concludes that Jesus did not commit Himself to them because He knew their hearts. And that is the indictment against the Pharisees, and particularly against Nicodemus.  They practiced what was for the most part correct doctrine, but their religion was external.  But God looks at the heart.  And salvation is a change of heart as we will soon see.

But back to our text,  I love Jesus’ response.  He isn’t fooled by Nicodemus’ flattery for one minute.  He knows the heart of man, the motives of man.  So instead of falling for the trap of flattery, of feeling special that such an important man sought to have a private interview with Him, Jesus interrupts him and cuts to the chase.  He exposes first of all that there is no solidarity between them.  He says you are not even in the kingdom of God, how can you judge the kingdom of God then? You come in the dark because you are in the dark.  So Jesus rebukes him and at the same time offers an answer to the question that the man should have been asking. What Nicodemus should have asked Jesus is what must I do to be saved?  But instead, he offers up some form of flattery in hopes of getting an advantage, and tries to establish solidarity with God, equanimity with God because, after all, he is a great leader of the Jewish religion.  And as such he is a representative of all men who presumptuously come to God based on their own merits and their own understanding of who God is, and who offer to God a so called worship which is little more than unadulterated flattery for the sake of gaining a “blessing.” They attempt to manipulate God for their advantage through lip service but their hearts are far from it.

So Jesus’ response is found in vs. 3, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”  Basically, Jesus just cuts him off at the knees.  He says you can’t even see the kingdom of God.  You are so far away from the kingdom of God you can’t even see it.  All of your heritage is worthless.  All of your law keeping is worthless.  All of your worship is worthless.  Your nationality is worthless.  Anything you might try to do in your own strength is worthless before God.  In fact, you actually have to be born all over again in order to see the kingdom of God.  Now that’s kind of rough, wouldn’t you say?  Someone has a desire to become a better person, to turn over a new leaf, to start going to church, to do right, and instead of welcoming them to come as they are and say God loves you just the way you are, Jesus tells them no, nothing about you is acceptable, you have to be born all over again.  Nothing you do is going to work.  You’re hopeless, helpless, and lost.  You’re a sinner, condemned, unclean.  Wow, that’s a tough thing to say to people. It could even be thought of as offensive. That’s not exactly seeker friendly, is it?

But that’s what Jesus does.  He doesn’t mince words.  He doesn’t play church.  He doesn’t play the game called religion with anyone.  And ultimately, that’s what is in their best interest.  Because only the truth will set you free.  Now the key to truly understanding what Jesus means is found in the word “unless” or it may say “except” in some versions.  In other words, man in his natural state is spiritually dead.  He has a sinful nature, and in fact, he is exceedingly sinful.  And God is holy and can not tolerate, or even look upon sin.  The first key to salvation is understanding your need of salvation.  That you are sinful and lost and separated from God to such an extent that you can never bridge the gap to the righteousness that God requires for fellowship.  Except you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God because in your present condition you are dead spiritually.  

That deadness is the result of the fall – God said if you eat of the tree you will surely die.  And we are all Adam’s children, and as such we have inherited Adam’s fallen nature, the same nature that got Adam kicked out of the Garden, separated from fellowship with God.  So you must be born once again.  Born anew.  To be born again does not mean reformation, as in education, nor does it mean renovation, as in making new year’s resolutions or turning over a new leaf, but it means regeneration.  It means something that was dead grows back again.  It requires a supernatural event, a divine intercession from God to make what is dead come to life again. To bring the spirit of man back to life through the gift of righteousness so that he can have fellowship with God once more.  Eph. 2:1, 4-5 says, And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, … 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,  even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

Now Nicodemus doesn’t understand what Jesus is talking about.  I guess this is the first time he has ever heard the phrase born again.  That’s a phrase that has fallen out of fashion today in religious circles.  I have found that Roman Catholics in particular are put off by that word.  People in general make fun of it.  It’s used as a put down, as in “you must be one of those born again religious fanatics.”  Nicodemus probably was sincere though when he asked how it was possible to be born again.  Vs. 4, Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?”  He was obviously thinking only of the physical realm. 

Jesus’ answer is to distinguish physical birth from spiritual birth.  He says in vs.6 “that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”  So there are two births then.  One is of the flesh, that is the result of coming from the seed of your father and the womb of your mother.  The second birth is that which is of the Spirit.  And we know that God is Spirit.  So the Spirit of God gives new birth to our spirit, so that we might be the children of God.  That is what John declared in his opening treatise, remember? John 1:12-13 “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

So Jesus says that both births are necessary.  Vs. 5-6 “Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”  

There are a lot of debates about  the way to interpret that statement in vs. 5.  What does born of water signify?  Well, I would suggest that it means two things at the minimum, and on these two things  most Bible scholars would camp out on either one or the other.  I happen to think that both interpretations are true.  The most obvious interpretation is that born of water is speaking of natural birth, when the water breaks a woman gives birth.  And that thought is correlated in vs.6 because Jesus uses a parallel statement; “that which is born of flesh is flesh.” Vs. 6 is obviously expanding on vs. 5, so that you would have to say that 6 is just an explanation of 5.  

But some people think that water  speaks of baptism.  And while I do not find that as likely, yet it is possible that He speaks of water as in a baptism of repentance.  That was the baptism that John the Baptist had just finished doing all over Judea, baptizing with a baptism of repentance in preparation for the kingdom of God to be manifested in Jesus Christ.  So if you take that view, then you might say that one cannot be born of the Spirit without first repentance and then faith in Jesus Christ.  And that would be true doctrinally.  

But I believe that the most obvious explanation is that it refers to physical birth, that which is born of the flesh is flesh.  Baptism as we know in and of itself cannot save you, but repentance is necessary as a precursor to saving faith because of the reason I previously made, that is man’s inherent sinful condition estranges him from God.  But baptism does refer to a cleansing by repentance which precedes the infilling of the Holy Spirit as evidenced by Ezekiel 36:25-28 which says “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.” 

But the point is that you must be born again, you must be born of the Spirit.  And so Jesus reiterates that by saying, “Do not be amazed that I said to you, you must be born again.”  By the way, that word again in the Greek can also be translated as “from above.”  So there was implicit in that phrase born again the need to be born from above, that is born of the Spirit of God.  That is what it means to be born again. And so Jesus says, don’t be amazed by that. We don’t understand how it happens, but we believe it does happen upon repentance and faith in Christ.  Upon recognizing your sinfulness and need of a Savior, confessing and repenting of your sins, and believing and receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior, you are born again by the Spirit of God to new life in Christ. Your spirit is made alive.

Now to explain that further He says, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”  And what I think Jesus is referring to here is the sovereign call of the Holy Spirit upon the soul of man which brings about the spirit of repentance and the gift of faith resulting in salvation.  We don’t understand how that works, but we should not be dismayed by it.  But the fact is that the effectual call of God is active is undeniable in salvation, just as the effect of wind is undeniable, even though we may not see it or know how it comes about. And we know this by many verses in the Bible, but perhaps my favorite is Rom. 8:28-30 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”

The fact that God is the author and finisher of our salvation is irrefutable.  How He does that I cannot understand.  But I believe it.  However, I also believe the Bible teaches the responsibility of man.  Not just the sovereignty of God, but the responsibility of man.  And I approach those two seemingly opposing arguments this way:  when I pray, I pray according to the sovereign will of God to interpose His will in the events of life through supernatural means.  But when I preach, I urge men to respond according to their responsibility to act in accordance to the truth.  I do not know how to reconcile both opposing positions in my mind, but I know that the Bible teaches both, that God predestines and calls men to Him, but at the same time He tells man to receive Jesus Christ, to believe on Him, and repent and turn from his sins.  So both are not only  possible but necessary and are not exclusive of one another but somehow interdependent upon one another.  It is a mystery,  as is the mystery of the wind blowing where it wills and coming from places unknown, yet working effects that can be seen and felt here on earth.

Are you  confused by this?  Well, so was Nicodemus.  He said, “How can these things be?”  I think it’s a cry of desperation, not necessarily frustration.  I think it’s a desire to know the unknowable.  And that’s why I think Jesus gives him a further illustration.  To help him understand by a more simple example. But first Jesus gives him another rebuke.  I don’t think Jesus was being vindictive here by the way. Nor was Jesus being mean by rubbing his nose in his ignorance.  But what I think Jesus is impressing on Nicodemus  his need of being reborn.  He wanted him to realize that his ignorance concerning spiritual truths was part of his fallen nature, and  that he wasn’t righteous, he wasn’t sufficient because of his position or title or pedigree or even by his works, but he was a man in need of a Savior, just as everyman is in need of a Savior.  So Jesus gives him a mild rebuke: “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”  In other words, if you can’t understand fleshly things, how can you understand spiritual things?

So Jesus gives him another illustration in order to help him understand.  And to do that He draws from the Old Testament story of the exodus, when the Israelites had sinned against God yet again in the wilderness, and God sent poisonous snakes into the midst of the camp to bite the Israelites which caused them to get sick and die. And God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and hang it on a pole that whoever might turn and look upon it would be saved from death.  So Jesus uses that illustration to explain the process by which man is saved from death and given new life. 

And so Jesus says in vs. 13 “No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.”  Now remember He is explaining the process of salvation, the process of new birth which is as unknowable to us as the wind.  And so Jesus starts by affirming that mortal man cannot achieve heaven.  He cannot ascend to God, and so God had to descend to man. Even the Son of Man who came down from God to man, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And notice Jesus says that He descended from heaven. He is affirming that He is God, who dwells in heaven, and that He has come to earth.

And even as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness upon a pole, so must the Son of Man take on sin, symbolized as the serpent, and die upon a cross, so that whoever believes on Him, whoever looks to Him might be saved.   Now this illustration is taken from Numbers 21.  And in that account, when the people were bitten and started to die, they came to Moses and repented of their sins. They said we have sinned against God. Num. 21:7-8 “So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the LORD and you; intercede with the LORD, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses interceded for the people. Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.”  

So in that illustration we see that repentance and faith are the twin pillars of salvation.  By repentance and faith our sins are forgiven, and we are made children of God.  We are made children of God because we are born again of the Spirit of God.  As I said last week we are the temple of God because the Spirit of God dwells in us. 1Cor. 6:19 says  that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you.  So having been made righteous through faith in Jesus’ righteousness and propitiation for us, the Holy Spirit then lives in us, producing new birth and eternal life, so that we are a new creation. 

So what Nicodemus needed to understand was that Jesus was the Savior from his sinful, deadly condition.  He needed to look up at Jesus taking his sin upon Himself on the cross, dying in His place to satisfy the justice of God, and in so doing Jesus would be his Savior. And John tells us in chapter 19 that at the crucifixion of Jesus Nicodemus came to anoint His body for burial.  I believe Nicodemus witnessing Jesus on the cross remembered that Jesus had said that “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;  so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.” And believing in Jesus as HIs Savior was the only way Nicodemus could enter the kingdom of God.  That is the only means by which all men can enter into eternal life.  Not just everlasting life, but the life of an eternal quality, spiritual quality that enables us to live as God designed us to live.  To have life and have it more abundantly.  That we might have fellowship with God again.  To be restored again to communion with God.  That is what it means to be born again.  And it is only possible through faith in what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross. 

Today I will close with just asking you the simple question, have you been born again?  Have you turned and received what Jesus did for you on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins?  I urge you to look to Jesus and live. “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” 

In chapter 2 John begins to show certain signs that Jesus did which illustrate or prove that He was the Messiah, the Son of God.  The first sign that Jesus performed was at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, which was primarily only known to his immediate family and disciples who were there and the servants of the house.  Today, we are going to examine the second sign that Jesus does, and this one is not miraculous necessarily, at least not in the way we would think of a miracle, but it nevertheless illustrates the divinity of Jesus in a very dramatic, powerful way. Jesus establishes through His actions that He is the Son of God, and Lord of the temple and as such has authority over  the temple.

We pick up the story in vs. 12 which says that after the wedding in Galilee, Jesus, His brothers, His mother and His disciples went to Capernaum and stayed a few days, and then they travel on from there to Jerusalem.  And then, it would seem the whole entourage headed to Jerusalem for the Passover Feast.  This annual pilgrimage was obviously a tradition for the family of Jesus.  I’m sure most of you are familiar with the movie “Home Alone.”  My kids used to watch that every Christmas.  Well that was a remake.  In the original “Home Alone” Jesus was 12 years old and left alone.  You will remember that in Luke 2:41 it is recorded that His parents used to go to Jerusalem every year to the Passover.  And when He was 12 years old, He somehow was left behind, and His parents realized Jesus wasn’t with the caravan, and so they came back to Jerusalem and frantically looked everywhere for Him.  After three days they found Him in the temple, sitting down and talking to the teachers who were amazed by His knowledge.  And when His parents asked Him what He was doing, He said, “Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?”  And they did not understand what He meant by that statement. But we will understand it more fully today after we study this passage.

Now just a word about the Passover Feast before we go into the story.  What we call communion or the Lord’s Supper is the ceremony that is the new covenant celebration of the Passover Feast.   Under Jewish law, the Passover was to be celebrated once a year in Jerusalem, and every family was to slay a lamb to commemorate the deliverance of Israel from Egypt.  As you recall, the Lord had said that the angel of death would pass over every house in Egypt, and those that did not have the blood of the lamb on their doorposts would suffer the death of their first born son.  So all of Israel ate the Passover meal, which was unleavened bread, bitter herbs and lamb, along with wine, and they put the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of their house in order to be saved from the judgment of death. 

But when Jesus celebrated the Passover on the night before His crucifixion, He ordained that from that time on we should celebrate that feast in remembrance of Him.  The symbolism being that He is the Passover Lamb who provided the means to escape death for all that believed in Him. 

And I find it significant that the first public sign that Jesus does is at the temple during the Passover Feast.  John the Baptist had just previously introduced Him as the Son of God, and then as the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world.  And so here comes the Lamb of God, to the feast which foretold His purpose, and yet He does not come at this time to be the sacrificial lamb, but He comes as the Son of God, coming into His house, His Father’s house, and He comes in judgment and condemnation and wrath.  Not meek and riding on a donkey, but in judgement and wrath.

As a church I want to make sure that when we worship the Lord we worship Him as Jesus said we must, in spirit and in truth.  And knowing the truth about God is fundamental to be able to worship Him in truth.  We must recognize God as He reveals Himself in scripture.  And whether or not the modern church wants to accept it, God is revealed first of all in judgment, in holiness and righteousness.  God cannot be put into a little box labeled love and everything we don’t think is love we discard.  But God is the great I AM.  He is all He has declared Himself to be.  And we must worship Him as Lord God Almighty.  Exodus 34:14 says the Lord’s name is Jealous “–for you shall not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God—”

Now the most common way to look at this passage is to interpret it as a condemnation against church leadership, false teachers or apostate religious leaders.  And there is certainly a lot of that in modern Christianity today.  There are plenty of fake healers, and televangelists and apostate churches that are fleecing the people and taking advantage of naïve parishioners.  And I may even have preached this text from that perspective myself at some time in the past.  But as I studied this text once again, I believe that the proper application that should be made is to the church body, or to the individual members of the church. 

The Bible makes it very clear that we are individually members of Christ’s body, and as such we are the temple of God, and that He dwells in us.  In the Jewish temple, it was believed that the Spirit of God dwelled in the Holy of Holies behind the veil of the temple.  But upon Christ’s crucifixion, God tore the  temple veil from the top to the bottom, signifying that a new way had been opened up to God through Jesus Christ.  So then in the new covenant, upon faith in Jesus Christ we are made holy and righteous by the transference of our sins to Christ and His righteousness to us, that being made holy we might become the dwelling of the Holy Spirit, the temple of God on the earth.

Eph 2:19-22 makes that relationship clear;  “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household,  having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord,  in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”

And also Peter says that we are now God’s temple in 1Peter 2:5 “you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

And then one more; 1Cor. 6:19 “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?”  So without question, we that are Christians are the temple of God.  In fact, I would suggest that this is the purpose of our salvation.  Not just to be forgiven of our sins and escape hell, but to be made holy so that God may dwell in us, that the Spirit of Christ might live in us and through us.  So then the temple is not just symbolic of corporate worship, but how to live as individual members of His body.

So Jesus comes into the temple during the Passover, and He looks around at what is going on.  And by the way, this is the first time that Jesus cleanses the temple with a whip – the second time will be before the Passover just before His crucifixion.  So He does this once at the beginning of His ministry and once at the end. 

And as He comes into the temple, into what would have been called the court of the Gentiles, He sees the money changers and sellers of sheep and oxen and doves.  Now there was nothing wrong with that in and of itself as not everyone would have an appropriate animal for sacrifice and would need to purchase one.  But what was happening was that as people came to present their offering of a lamb or whatever was prescribed by the law, there would be an inspection to make sure that it was a lamb without blemish as the law required.  But the temple priests had a racket going on with the vendors of the bazaar in the courtyard.  They would tell the people that their lamb they had brought had a defect and so it could not be offered, but right over there you can buy a pre-approved lamb.  And of course there was a stiff markup on the price of the animal.  Additionally they would be told that the temple could not accept any pagan currency, so there were money changers sitting at tables who would exchange their money for the acceptable Jewish currency but again with a heavy percentage added to it.

Jesus of course, knows what is going on.  He sees the corruption in the temple and the way they are taking advantage of naïve people in order to make a profit.  They are turning the temple of God into a house of merchandise and a den of thieves.  And so as Jesus watches what is going on He calmly begins to braid a bunch of cords together into a whip.  I kind of liken that to the typical action movie scene where the hero is in a room with a bunch of bad guys who are threatening him, and he turns and heads for the door, presumably to try to leave quietly, but instead he locks the door and turns around and beats up all the bad guys.  So I guess Jesus braiding the leather cords into a whip is the equivalent of locking the door.  But what it reveals is that this is not Jesus losing His temper, but the premeditated wrath of God designed to bring about compliance with His will.

So verse 15 says, “And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; and to those who were selling the doves He said, “Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a place of business. His disciples remembered that it was written, “ZEAL FOR YOUR HOUSE WILL CONSUME ME.”

Now as I said, we are going to focus primarily on the principles in this story as they relate to us as individuals, rather than the church as an institution.  Because we are the temple of God.  I think even Jesus in vs.19 when He says, “destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up,” indicates that this text should be interpreted as referring to individual temples rather than institutional Christianity.

So how then are we to understand this as it applies to us? Well, first of all, note that it applies to believers, not to the unsaved.  We are the temple of Christ if we have the Spirit of Christ in us.  But what we see in this story is that the purpose of the temple was being prostituted.  The people of Israel who were God’s chosen people, had become greedy and self serving.  They had taken the things which were essentially good things in and of themselves and turned it into an opportunity to serve themselves, to make a profit, and even to take advantage of others for their own gain.  Rather than worshipping and serving God they were worshipping themselves and serving themselves.  And in Jesus’ eyes, the temple was in ruins. It was like an old castle which has become overgrown with briars and brambles, whose ramparts were falling down and in ruins, so He saw the temple as being in need of divine restoration so that it might once again serve and bring glory to the King.

It brings to mind when the Jews had been in exile and the temple in Jerusalem had been abandoned and the walls had been torn down and was in ruins.  And God raised up a prophet, a man of God to stir up the people to go back and restore the temple of God. And you might remember that there was opposition to the restoration of the temple, from all quarters and in a multitude of ways.  So much so that as they worked some also stood guard and every worker carried his sword.  And so the book of Nehemiah records how they were called back to rebuild the physical walls of the temple but also to restore the ancient practices according to the law and call the people back to holy living and away from foreign gods and from idolatry and immorality with pagan tribes which had all caused it’s downfall originally. 

And in the last chapter of Nehemiah, chapter 13 vs. 25, it says that Nehemiah was angry with the Jews because they did not take seriously the sanctity and sacredness of God’s law and were corrupting the temple with their flagrant sins.  And so it says in vs. 25, that Nehemiah “contended with them and cursed them, and struck some of them and pulled out their hair, and made them swear by God” to stop their immorality and idolatry.  The wrath of Nehemiah was a preview of what the Messiah would do when He came into the temple, but rather than pulling hair and striking them He made a whip of cords and kicked over tables and drove them out.

I think it would be fair to say about Nehemiah that the zeal for the house of God had consumed him. And I would to God that zeal for the house of God would consume Christians today.  You are the temple of the holy righteous God and yet we continually serve the profane things of the world, we desire the idols of the world and lust after immoral things.  Perhaps what’s needed is more prophets of God need to get riled up and make a scourge of cords or start yanking people’s hair and get them to swear their allegiance to God or drive them out of the church. 

We need to examine ourselves in the light of this text.  We cannot point to the iniquity of the unsaved, but we need to recognize that we are the temple of God and everything in our temple should be consecrated to His service.  We have abused the good things that God has given us and used them to serve our lusts, to make a profit, to take advantage of others, to be selfish and we do not serve God with our whole hearts.  We need to examine our pocketbooks and see if we are robbing God.  We need to examine our motives and see if we are serving ourselves.  We need to examine our doctrine and see if we are worshipping the true God or a god of our own design.  To serve God is to worship God.  To obey is better than sacrifice.

Listen, are we making merchandise of the grace of God?  Do we say to ourselves that we can sin and God will forgive us because Jesus has paid our punishment?  Do we crucify afresh Jesus Christ so we can continue to serve our selfish ends?  Do we make a profit on the grace of God?  Do we misuse the gifts that God has given us so  that we can serve ourselves?  Is the church of God and it’s ministry suffering because you have not given God every thing that is due to Him?  God demands first place in your life, not just an hour a week of lip service so that you can live like the devil the rest of the week.

It’s appropriate that this story is set in the context of the Passover, what we call the Lord’s Supper.  When Paul wrote to the carnal Corinthian church about the Lord’s Supper he said “Let every man examine himself” before eating of the supper. 1Cor. 11:27-32 says, “Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world.” 

We need to examine ourselves.  Christ blood was not shed so that we might use it for our profit or to our advantage so that we might continue to serve ourselves while the world around us is dying in their sins.  Christ’s blood was shed that we might be reconciled to God, that we might be made holy and righteous and be filled with the indwelling Spirit of God so that we might do the works of God.  God said, “You shall be holy as I am holy.”  And there are some principles that this story teaches which should help us to do that.  That should cause us to examine ourselves and judge ourselves rightly that we may not be judged. 

The first principle we need to learn is that of Christ’s Lordship.  Jesus comes into the temple as the Lord of the temple.  He takes charge as One with authority to drive out the merchandisers.  He says this is My Father’s house.  He had the right to do whatever He pleased and so He had the right to cleanse the temple of profiteers and thieves. 

Listen, is Jesus the Lord of your temple?  Does He not have the right to do whatever He pleases, to make whatever demands He chooses upon your time and your resources?  I would suggest to you that if you lay claim to Jesus as Savior, you must also accept Him as Jesus the Lord.  You cannot separate the two. You cannot believe on Jesus and be saved and not submit to Him as Lord.  Rom 10:9 says, “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus [as] Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” The Lord comes to make us holy temples of God.  We are no longer our own or  to live for ourselves. 1Cor. 6:19-20, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”   As Paul was fond of saying, we become bondslaves of Christ the Lord.  We are slaves, either of sin or the Son of God.  We cannot serve God and mammon.  We are His now, all of us, all of our resources are His.

The 2nd principle we see illustrated in this story;  He knows everything. Jesus looked around the temple and He knew what was happening in secret.  He knew the plans that the priests had to defraud people.  He knew the back room agreements between the vendors and the priests and the temple officials.  Nothing was hidden from Him. 

And we cannot hide our sins from God either.  God knows our hearts.  He sees everything we do in secret.  A good illustration of this principle is David, who hid his sin with Bathsheba and thought he could get away with it.  He thought that no one knew what he had done.  But you remember that God sent his prophet Nathan to reveal David’s sin, and rebuke him for his sin.  And in Psalm 51, when David confessed his sin and repented of it, he writes that  God requires truth in the inward parts.  James says when you pray and do not receive what you ask it’s because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend it on your sinful pleasures.  Listen, there is nothing hidden from Gods’ sight.  And if you are secretly and willfully withholding what is the Lord’s then He knows it and He will demand it. 

Let’s imagine for a moment that I had complete insight into your private, most secret world, and came to you right now as you sit here in your seat, and overturned your chair, and called your motives into question, and exposed your corruptness.  Imagine if I publicly exposed all the private things that you think no one knows about, all the ways in which you have held back from God the things which are rightfully His, all the ways in which you have committed immorality  with the world, using the grace of God as a covering for sin.  All of the time, money, resources and the very life that God has given you and yet you have used it for only your own profit, and I laid it all out for everyone here to see.  That would be painful and embarrassing wouldn’t it?  Yet one day the Lord of our temple promises to lay bare all that we do in secret and proclaim it from the rooftop.  We need to examine ourselves and judge ourselves rightly  so that we might not be judged.

Because our secrets will be judged according to His word. Heb. 4:12-13 says, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” God is looking around the temple of your soul and nothing is hidden. You may fool your pastor, you may fool your Christian friends.  But God will not be mocked.  God knows your secrets, your deceptions.  And He wants a holy temple consecrated to serving Him and Him alone.

God desires truth in the inward parts.  He doesn’t care for our ceremonies and rituals, our fake worship, while we hide iniquity in our hearts. Isaiah 1:11-18 “What are your multiplied sacrifices to Me?” Says the LORD.”I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams And the fat of fed cattle; And I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or goats. When you come to appear before Me, Who requires of you this trampling of My courts? Bring your worthless offerings no longer, Incense is an abomination to Me. New moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies–I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly. I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts, They have become a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them. So when you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; Yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, Reprove the ruthless, Defend the orphan, Plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, says the LORD, Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool.”

3rd principle;  God will not tolerate corruptness in His temple.  Even as Jesus cleansed the temple with scourging, so He will cleanse His people so that they will not profane His temple.  Jesus said you cannot serve God and mammon.  No man can serve two masters.  He demands our full commitment in our relationship with Him.

2 Cor.6:14 is commonly interpreted as speaking of marriage, but remember that His church is to be the spotless, virgin bride of Christ. So it’s actually referencing our relationship with our bridegroom.  2 Cor. 6:14-18 “Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM;AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE. “Therefore, COME OUT FROM THEIR MIDST AND BE SEPARATE,” says the Lord.” AND DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN; And I will welcome you. “And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” Says the Lord Almighty.

Now in closing let’s note His actions and our response.  Jesus said “Take these things away and stop making my Father’s house a house of merchandise.”  If Jesus is Lord of your life He is going to take what is His and make rightful use of it.  If you are the temple of God then the Lord of the temple will make His temple holy and useful to Him.  And sometimes He does that by scourging.  He makes us clean by means of discipline.

Heb. 12:5-14 “MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD,NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM; FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES,AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES.” It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.” So the discipline of God our father is to scourge His children and expose in us that which is harmful. 

And our response is to cleanse ourselves from all defilement of soul and spirit and body.  You know, even though God brought the children of Israel into the Promised Land, they still had to finish driving out the idolaters that were left in there.  God gave them the responsibility to drive them out and not to leave any remnant of the evil nations that dwelled there.  God planted them, gave them the resources and then commanded them to drive out the ungodly nations lest they fall into sin with them and ruin their nation.  And God tells us to do the same thing in  2 Cor. 7:1,  “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”

Let me close by asking you a question, as you are the body of Christ and Christ is the head of the body, then it shouldn’t it mean that we should have the same desires as our head who is Christ?  Can we say with Jesus that zeal for the house of God has consumed you?  Has the refining fire of God burned away all the impurities so that you might be a vessel sanctified and set apart for good works?  Have you like Paul said that you consider all the things that were formerly gain to you, to be as loss for the sake of knowing Christ as Lord?  Is Christ Lord of your life?  Have you given Him all? 

I encourage all of us to examine ourselves in light of this word that we might be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ in all that we do.  That our life would be lived for our own glory, but for the glory of Christ.  And for some here today I would ask, is the Spirit of God living in you?  Or is the flesh striving against the Spirit?  Are you committing adultery with the world yet claiming to be the bride of Christ? I would to God that you will pray with David in Psalm 51, “create in me a clean heart O Lord and renew a right spirit within me.” If you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, that you may present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

 In our study of the first chapter of John, we saw the apostle John under the inspiration of God in his opening statement present the theology of Jesus Christ; that Jesus is God in the flesh, He was with God from the beginning, He is Light and the light of the world, and that He is the Life of men, the Creator, the giver and sustainer of life.  That was John’s opening argument in his gospel, which is given as an apologetic as well as an evangelistic message. That opening passage fulfilled the purpose of his gospel which is stated in chapter 20:31, “but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”

Then we saw in the remainder of chapter one that John brought forth witnesses to corroborate his claim that Jesus Christ is God.  The first witness was John the Baptist who declared Jesus is the Son of God and the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  And then  John brought another group of men forward as witnesses, that being the Andrew, Simon Peter, Philip and Nathanael.  Andrew testified that Jesus was the Messiah, Philip said of Him that He was the One of whom Moses and the Prophets wrote, and Nathanael called Him the Son of God, the King of Israel.

Now as we look at chapter 2, John provides illustrations from the works of Christ which attest to His divinity and His purpose; that He is the Son of God, and the Messiah, that is the Savior of the world.  And to do this, John begins with what he calls a sign, or what we would call a miracle.  John says in vs.11, that this was the beginning of signs that Jesus did, and they manifested His glory, and because of this sign, His disciples believed in Him.

Now I would point out that His disciples already believed in Him as attested to in chapter one.  But this sign increased and strengthened their faith.  And that fulfills a spiritual principle found in Luke 19:26, “I tell you that to everyone who has, more shall be given, but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away.” What that means is, God will build your faith as you follow Him in faith. God will give you more revelation as you believe the revelation that you have been given.

Now before we get into the event in detail, I just want to make sure you understand the purpose of signs or miracles in the gospels.  Many people mistakenly look at the miracles recorded in scripture and think they are examples of what we can expect to see accomplished in our lives.  But as we look at the gospels, we see that the miracles are not simply exhibitions of our Lord’s power but they are designed to teach us certain spiritual truth.  I have stated before on numerous occasions that the miracles in the gospels are given as a parable to teach a spiritual principle.  And we would do well to remember that as we study the scriptures.  No where is it taught that Jesus healed everyone, or performed miracles in order to make His life easier or just to remove some difficulty. But miracles serve to illustrate a spiritual principle by means of an earthly parable.

And I like the word John uses rather than using the word miracle.  He uses the word sign.  We all know what signs are, don’t we?  You are driving down the road at night and you see a yellow diamond shaped sign with an image of a leaping deer, you know what that means don’t you?  I know what some of you think.  “Target practice.”  But seriously, we all know it warns us that deer might be on the road ahead.  And in the same way a sign as used in this passage points to a person, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.  It points ahead to a time when Christ will be manifested to the world, but for now we see a sign signifying that He is Lord.

So we know then that the following miracle is not merely presented as just a happy circumstance that happened 2000 years ago, but that it points to something that will be revealed fully later, it points to a truth about Christ.  So as we unpack this account, let’s focus on the principles that God is teaching us through this sign.  And there are a number of them here.  But first let’s fill in a little background information in order to be able to understand it fully.

The third day establishes the chronology of John as he gives this historical account, after the day mentioned at the end of chapter one when he saw Philip and Philip called Nathanael.  There have been two days intervening, when Jesus and the disciples traveled to Cana of Galilee, which was the hometown of Nathanael.  So not only  Nathanael would have known the groom who was being married in this tiny village, but obviously Jesus did as well, as it says in vs.2 that He and His disciples were invited to the wedding.  And it’s likely that since Cana is only about 6 miles from Nazareth, and Jesus’ mother was in attendance and she seems to have direction over the wine and servants, that there is a good possibility that this is the marriage of one of Jesus’ brothers.  That is speculation of course, but it accounts for the fact that His mother is in a supervisory role in the marriage over the wine and the servants.

But I would point out that John has deliberately left out such details.  They are not really germane to the story or the principle of the story.  Some people have read way too much in between the lines of this account and as a result have come up with all sorts of false doctrines, such as the worship of Mary and the intercession of Mary, so that they teach the need to pray to Mary to intercede on their behalf.  And nothing could be further from the truth.  In fact, this event proves that Mary is in need of a Savior just as everyone else is. The Bible doesn’t teach that Mary was sinless. She needed to be saved by faith just like everyone else. And it’s obvious that she is not in a preferred status as evidenced by Jesus addressing her as “woman” rather than mother.

Now let me say just a word about weddings in general in those times.  Weddings would have been considered the social events of the year in that culture. When people came to a marriage celebration, they came because there had been a betrothal, an engagement period. About a year earlier, the couple had become engaged. That was a legal, binding, contract that could only be broken by divorce. But the marriage had not been consummated at this point.  It was consummated at the end of the wedding celebration which sometimes lasted for up to a week.

Ancient Jewish weddings were very different from our modern ones. In western weddings the bride is the prominent figure. When the bride enters, clothed in all her glory, the whole congregation stands and the organ plays, “Here comes the bride! ” and every eye is focused on her. But in ancient Jewish weddings it was the groom that was prominent. He was the one whose coming was anticipated.

So for a year the husband had been preparing a place for his bride. He would have purchased or built a house for his bride and prepared it for them to live in.  And during this time he would have been working to pay for the cost of the wedding feast.  The bridegroom had full responsibility for all the cost of the wedding which lasted for up to a week and involved the whole village.  His job was to get everything ready, and then when everything was ready and the house was built and furnished and all preparations were made and he had demonstrated that he was able to care for his bride and to provide for her, he would come take his bride to his house and the celebrations began.

Now I cannot help but see a correlation here in this account of the marriage in Cana to the marriage of Christ and the church as His bride.  In Ephesians 5 Paul talks about the church being the bride of Christ and compares His relationship to the human institution of marriage between a man and a woman.  Listen to this; Eph. 5:23-32, “For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body. FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.”  Notice that a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh.  Isn’t that an echo of what we read at the beginning of chapter one, that the Word was with God, but the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  He became one of us, that He might be joined to us, so that we might become one with God.

So in the marriage of Christ and the church Jesus is the bridegroom and we are the bride of Christ.  Jesus calls Himself the bridegroom in Matt. 9:15 “And Jesus said to them, “The attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.” 

So as we understand the symbolism of marriage, Christ became flesh to seek a bride which is His church.  He betrothed Himself to her.  He has made promises to come again and take us to His home which He said He is preparing for us.  And when He comes again, we will join Him at the celebration of the  marriage supper of the Lamb and then we will be like Him and join Him on the throne in His glory to rule and reign and live with Him forever. 

Now as we understand that, it helps us to comprehend what Jesus is saying when He responds to His mother’s complaint that they had run out of wine.  This was a major faux paus on the part of the bridegroom.  He somehow either did not have the means to buy enough wine, or they had more people show up than they had planned for or the party ran a few days longer.  And the fact was they couldn’t just run down to the store and pick up a few more bottles.  So if one of Jesus’ brothers was getting married, and Mary was the matron of honor so to speak, then the family of Jesus was responsible for getting more wine.  Jesus as the eldest son would have had the headship of the family.  It is generally agreed upon by most scholars that His father Joseph was dead by this time and so Jesus would have taken on the responsibility as head of the family. 

So Mary says to Jesus, “They have no wine.”  And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what do I have to do with you? My hour is not yet come.”  Now there is a lot of discussion about that phrase, “what do I have to do with you,” as well as the fact that He called His mother Woman.  First of all, Woman was not a term of disrespect, but a word which signaled a change in relationship between Jesus and Mary.  As Jesus began His earthly ministry, He would no longer be bound by familial restraints as head of the household, and as a consequence she would have no more hold over Him in the usual way a mother might have over her son. But even more to the point, as I said earlier, it indicates that  she does not have any special privilege as His mother.  Jesus calls God the Father His Father.  But He does’t call Mary His mother because contrary to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, she is not the mother of God. She is woman.  She would have to come to Christ the same way every other person must come; as a sinner, saved by grace.  Even on the cross, as He is obviously full of concern for His mother, He calls her Woman, even as He passes on responsibility for her well being to the Apostle John.  So it’s not a disparaging title, but a term designating a change of relationship, from Son to Savior.

And then to the question of what He said.  A better reading might be; “What is that to you and to Me?” In other words, the fact that they don’t have wine, what is that to us?  My hour is not yet come.”

Now keep in mind the picture presented here is Christ coming for His church, His bride.  He is saying I am not ready to provide the wine at this point of my ministry, because my hour is not yet come.  So what is does the wine symbolize? Well, most of you are familiar with the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper.  And as you know there are two elements in communion, the wine and the bread.  And Jesus quoted by Paul in 1Cor. 11:25 says,  “In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”  Now when Jesus said that, obviously the wine could not be His actual blood as the Catholics would have us believe, because He had not yet shed His blood.  So what was it?  It was wine.  The wine symbolizes the blood of Christ which washes away our sins, through which we have forgiveness of our sins.  This is the token of the new covenant which Hebrews 9:15 speaks of, which is better than the old covenant which featured the blood of bulls and goats which could never take away sins.  But the new covenant ratified by His blood takes away sins and purchases the right to an eternal inheritance.

So Jesus is saying, My hour to die on the cross and shed My blood for the remission of sins is not yet come.  He will say the same thing in John 7:30 “So they were seeking to seize Him; and no man laid his hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come.”  He speaks of His hour in another half a dozen places in John’s gospel. And finally in His priestly prayer before His crucifixion in chapter 17 He prays, “Father, the hour has come, glorify your Son.”  Amazing isn’t it?  That He equates crucifixion with glory.  And why would He say that?  Because at that time He purchases the redemption and sanctification of His bride.  In that act God destroys the power of sin and death and crushes the head of the serpent, Satan.  His death achieves the glory of God.  It manifests the glory of Christ and it makes possible the glory of the church, His bride. So then His hour He speaks of is the time when He offers up His life as a sacrifice on the cross for sin, purchasing with His blood the remission of sins for all who believe on Him.

So Jesus says, “I am not ready to be glorified at this point.  I am not ready to shed my blood which will be the wine of the new covenant at this hour.  That hour is coming, but it is not now.”

But somehow Mary understands that He isn’t speaking a rebuke to her, He is speaking metaphorically of His glorification which had been promised her by the angels before His birth.  And so she turns to the servants and says “Whatever He says to you, do it.”  Mary doesn’t speak much on record in the scriptures, and so we should find what she says very instructive.  Our emphasis is not on the words of Mary, or the actions of Mary as an intercessor, but on Jesus, the Word made flesh.  As Mary indicates, our obedience and obeisance should be to the words of Christ.  Preference is not given to Mary but to Jesus and her instructions indicate that.

So Jesus knowing the need, supplies the abundance.  He said He came to give life and that more abundantly.  And that is a principle that we see here in this sign as well in other places, particularly at the feeding of the multitudes.  Jesus does not just supply barely enough, or not quite enough, but supplies grace upon grace.  John 1:16 “for of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.”  This is speaking of the grace of His righteousness to cover all our sins.  We cannot spend all the grace of Christ.  Not that we should desire to presume upon the grace of God through licentiousness in continuing to sin, but that irregardless of the greatness of our sin, or the greatness of our separation from God, He has provided more grace than enough to reconcile us to God. 

So Jesus orders the servants to take the six empty water pots and fill them with water.  And the servants fill them to the brim.  This would have been about 120 to 150 gallons of water. That would have provided well over 3000 servings of wine.  The significance of that is a measure of His grace; of His fullness, of the abundant supply of righteousness. And then when the servant drew out the water and presented it to the head waiter he was astonished that the bridegroom had saved the best wine for last.

I used to train wine stewards when I was in the hotel restaurant business.  And I can assure you that if the wine steward knew it was wine, then it was indeed wine.  Now it is well known that they watered wine down in those days three parts water to one part wine, so that it was very difficult to get drunk from normal table wine.  But it was wine, and furthermore, it was very good wine.

Now a note about the water pots.  John says that they were used for ceremonial washings; for the Jewish custom of purification.  The Levitical law required certain ceremonial washings in regard to sacrifices and various modes of daily life.  But over time the Jews had added customs to the law that far exceeded the intent of the law to imply that physical cleanliness was a means of spiritual cleanness.  As you will remember, the Pharisees condemned the disciples at one point to Jesus because they had not ceremoniously washed their hands before eating.  And later on Jesus condemns that sort of external ceremony that does not cleanse the heart of sin.  Matt. 23:25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.”  So Jesus condemns the ceremonial washings which could never take away spiritual uncleanness.

And as we already alluded to, the old covenant could not take away sins by the blood of bulls and goats, nor could the customs and traditions imposed by the religious leaders take away sins.  And in the same way, the ceremony of baptism cannot wash away sins.  All of those things are just signs as well, pointing to the blood of Christ which is the only thing that can take away sin. 

So what are the principles that we learn from this parable illustrated by a sign?  One is that when Christ bestows a blessing it is usually preceded by a command.  Secondly, Christ’s commands are not to be questioned, but obeyed.  Thirdly, that Christ is the bridegroom that has purchased the redemption of His bride with His blood, for the forgiveness of their sins and to give them an inheritance prepared in heaven. Fourth, that as the wine was more than enough to meet the needs of the party, His grace is more than sufficient for all our sins, that we have received His fullness and grace upon grace.  Fifth, that only His blood is sufficient to cleanse us from sin, but that no ceremony has the power to do more than point to Christ.  Sixth, that the new covenant is a better covenant, enacted on better promises.  And seventh, that He has saved the best for last. 

As Heb. 11:39-40 says concerning the patriarchs and heroes of the faith of old, “And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect.”  We are living in what the Bible calls the last days.  And God has saved the best for last.  We have the complete, perfect revelation of Christ.  We have the death, burial, resurrection of Christ and He now stands at the Father’s right hand to make intercession for us. We have all the promises of God made more sure by the written scripture.  We have the immeasurable benefit of the Holy Spirit living in us, even as wine in stone water pots. Even as 2Cor. 4:7 says, that “we have this treasure in earthen vessels.” So that by the power of the Spirit within us we might live to the glory of Christ.  Our redeemed, transformed lives are able to bring about glory to Christ through  His death which is symbolized in the wine of His blood which was shed for us. 

Our Lord is able to take the person who recognizes that they fall short of the righteousness required and with His touch make them full of abundant life; to turn their mourning into joy. He will do this with any who will call upon Him, follow Him, and believe in Him. That is why John highlights for us in vs.11, that seeing this sign,  “the disciples believed in Him.” I pray that your faith in Christ has been strengthened as well as we understand the significance of this sign; what Christ has done for us and what His purpose is for us as we follow Him.

The world is a very different place in the 21st century than it was in the days of our parents.  But I am not talking about the obvious advancements in technology and science and so forth.  The difference in our day from our father’s day is that at least in western civilization,  man has become more egocentric rather than theocentric.

A good illustration of that is that in our father’s day, young men cheerfully signed up  to fight the Nazis, risking and even losing their lives for the sake of God and country.  Not that everyone was a Christian in those days of course, but there was instilled in people the sense that there were higher ideals worth living for than simply self gratification.  Consequently, we look back in history with a sense of awe at what previous generations suffered through, and hopefully we realize that their sacrifices provided the security and prosperity that our nation now enjoys but too often take for granted.

On the other hand,  when the pendulum started swinging in the opposite direction after WW2, during a time of  prosperity, we see that society lost that sense of chivalry and became increasingly narcissistic and egocentric.  That attitude has fostered a philosophy of secular humanism which is now the pervasive view of society. 

As a result, politicians pander to such self-aggrandizing attitudes, producing a society that increasingly depends upon government entitlements and consequently is contributing to what I think marks the beginning of the end of this great nation.  John F. Kennedy’s quote made 50 years ago that we should “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” no longer gets traction in today’s “Me First” culture that demands special rights for every possible special interest group at the expense of the greater good. 

But what is more disconcerting than that trend in the political arena is that the church is pandering to the egocentric trends of the culture as well.  The whole focus of the relevant church movement is to find out what appeals to the congregation, and then format the church to meet the desires of the people.  So we end up with messages geared to such topics as fixing your marriage, or straightening out your finances.  There is even a popular sermon series out there based on dieting.  It’s called the Daniel Plan.  Not that there is anything wrong with dieting.  Some of us could probably benefit from it, but it is not the ministry of the church to provide a health club or social club or self help classes. 

The Apostle John said in vs. 6 that “There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him.” So what was the testimony of John the Baptist who was sent by God to give a message to the Jews? Did he come to preach feel good messages about how to live your best life now? Did he come to preach messages on how to resolve family issues? Did he come to preach messages about psychotherapy? I’m sure all of that would have been as popular in his day as they are in ours.  But John the Baptist saw that the need of his people was much more fundamental than that. Israel had left her first love. Israel had become apostate. Israel was a nation who needed to repent and  receive forgiveness from God.  So John the Baptist preached repentance.  He didn’t think that repentance was impractical, old fashioned, or irrelevant. He didn’t tickle their ears and give them what they wanted to hear, but he preached to them sound doctrine.

The great thing about the ministry of John the Baptist was that he didn’t pander to the culture.  He didn’t worry about being seeker friendly.  He spoke about what God told him to speak about.  His message was simply repentance, to prepare the people to receive the Messiah, the Son of God.

Sound doctrine is the wisdom that leads to salvation.  Paul told Timothy in 2Tim.3:15 that the scriptures gave him the wisdom which leads to salvation through faith. And once a person is saved sound doctrine produces stability, maturity and spiritual fruit.

Now I would remind you that Jesus said about John the Baptist that among men born of women, there was none greater than John the Baptist.  So if we are going to pattern our ministry after someone, then I suggest patterning our ministry after John the Baptist.  I for one can identify with a voice crying out in the wilderness. And like John, I believe that the primary message of the gospel is repentance and pointing people to Jesus Christ.  I guess I also identify with the idea of a no frills, open air ministry.  Of not really having a permanent location, especially when we meet out here on the beach. 

So I want to look at the testimony of John the Baptist that is presented here, and take some points from his ministry which we should apply to our own.  And we are going to divide this passage by looking at three points; first what John says he is not, and second, what John says he is, and third, who he says Jesus is.  What he is not, what he is, and who Jesus is.

Now to introduce this section let me remind you that the Apostle John in this first chapter has presented a masterful theological treatise, much like the opening statement in a court of law, presenting the facts concerning Christ.  Now John brings forth his first witness to corroborate those facts, and to illustrate that theology.  And the star witness the apostle brings forth is John the Baptist.

So vs.19 says that “This is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, ‘Who are you?’”   Now for most of us, there is no more favorite subject matter that we prefer to talk about than ourselves.  Isn’t that so?  If the average pastor was asked that question today, he would probably launch into a biographical essay in which he ends up giving a glowing testimony of his achievements.  But not John the Baptist.  This was a humble man.  And let me tell you something; humility is the hallmark of a true servant of God.  Not where you went to seminary, or how many degrees you have, or how big your church might be.  But even as Jesus humbled himself, taking the form of a servant.  And if we are truly servants, then we should remember that no servant is greater than his master.  We need to be humble, to practice humility if we are going to minister as Christ’s representatives.

And we see that humility illustrated in the answers that John gives to the questions of the religious leaders.  As my outline illustrates, he starts out by saying what he is not.  What he is not.  That is the mark of humility.  Peter admonished the men of the church in 1Peter 5:5-6 “You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders; and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE. Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time.”  All of you, that is all of the church, clothe yourselves with humility.

You know there was another famous prophet who was singled out as being one of the greatest, and that was none other than Moses.  And notice what it says about Moses in Numbers 12:3, “Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth.”  Humility is the hallmark of a man or woman of God.  Not how charismatic or talented or knowledgeable they may be, but how humble they are.  That is what God cares about. And that is the person that God will use. He will not share His glory with man.

So what John was not.  He answers their question of “Who are you?” with “I am not the Christ.”  I believe it was Luke that tells us in his gospel that the religious leaders had been asking, along with many of the multitudes that were coming out to hear him, if John the Baptist could be the Messiah, or in the Greek, the Christ.  And so he answers that question; “I am not the Christ.”

Then they ask him, ““What then? Are you Elijah?” And he *said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.”  The last verses of the OT prophesied that Elijah would come before the Messiah.  And so they wondered if he was Elijah. John said he wasn’t Elijah, but an angel had prophesied that John would come in the spirit and power of Elijah. They asked if he was the Prophet. It’s likely that Prophet they spoke of was the Messiah that Moses had said would come after him. And John disavows being that prophet as well.

So John says he is not the Messiah, he is not Elijah, he is not the Prophet, and back in verse 8 we see that he was not the Light.  Furthermore, in vs.27, John says “He who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.”  He is saying that he doesn’t even consider himself worthy of being the lowest household servant in the kingdom of God, so that he is not worthy of even untying the sandals of Christ.  So not only is he not the Christ, he is not even worthy to untie Christ’s sandals.  Now that is humility.  And yet Jesus says about him that John the Baptist is the greatest among men. That’s an illustration of the verse I quoted from Peter a minute ago; “Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God and He will exalt you at the proper time.” 

Jesus said in Matt. 20:26-28 “It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant,  and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave;  just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

Now then let’s look at what John testifies about himself.  Who John says he is and what he is doing. Vs.22 Then they said to him, “Who are you, so that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?” He said, “I am A VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS, ‘MAKE STRAIGHT THE WAY OF THE LORD,’ as Isaiah the prophet said.”

First of all, note the contrast John the Baptist makes between himself and Christ.  He is not the Word, but he is a voice. The Word exists before him.  The word exists in the mind before the voice articulates it.  The Word remains once the voice is silent. He just speaks the words of God as God gives him utterance.  John would later say “He must increase, but I must decrease.”  He understood that it was not his voice that had any power to save.  But John knew that the Word of God who was God was the only power unto salvation. 

I wish we could get hold of that principle today in our churches.  We exist merely to give voice to the Word of God.  To bear witness of Him.  All of the programs and videos and dancing and singing in the church, if not giving voice to the word of God are just entertainment.  Those things may attract a crowd, but the only power to save is found in giving voice to the Word. 1 Cor. 1:21 says, “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.”

John the Baptist says that his mission was to prepare or make ready, the way of the Lord. He quotes from Isaiah 40:3.  He is saying that his ministry is to prepare people’s hearts to receive the Lord, the King. To call people to repentance.

Then notice that the next question they are concerned about is his practice, his baptism.  People are concerned about the externals, aren’t they?  What rituals or ceremonies we practice.  Or what kind of programs do you have. Well, John did indeed practice baptism.  But the priority was not John the Baptist’s baptism, but on the fact that he was a witness. He was pointing people to Christ.  Baptism simply prepares people’s hearts to receive Christ through repentance. Four times other gospel writers spoke of John the Baptist as preaching a baptism of repentance. So John’s emphasis is not on the ceremony of baptism as a means of receiving  salvation, but as a sign of repentance. The focus is not on the outward sign, but on the heart of man.

So they ask him, “Why then are you baptizing, if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”  See the problem wasn’t that he was baptizing.  Baptism was already practiced among the Jews as a means of purification.  But it  was actually for Gentiles, not Jews.  It was part of the method by which non Jews could become proselytes.  They could become accepted into the Jewish faith by becoming immersed in water and then going through certain ceremonies and offerings.  But John the Baptist is in effect preaching that Jews had no inherent national right to gain the kingdom of God because of their race, and they needed repentance and cleansing just like the Gentiles. 

But again, John deflects attention from his ministry and points to Jesus. Vs. 26 John answered them saying, “I baptize in water, but among you stands One whom you do not know.  It is He who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.”  What John was saying was that his baptism was a sign.  He did not have power to cleanse or forgive sins.  All he could do was use earthly means to point to a heavenly purpose that would be fulfilled in Christ.  It was a sign in the flesh, much the same as the sign in the flesh of circumcision which was given through Moses.  So John the Baptist comes with the sign of baptism, and this sign points to Jesus Christ.  First by showing their need for a Savior, and then when John baptizes Jesus it points to Him as being the Son of God.  So in all  aspects, John’s ministry points to Jesus and Jesus alone.  Never does it magnify John the Baptist.

Now then the last point, who John testifies that Jesus is. Who John says Jesus is.  Vs. 28 These things took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.  The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”  John says Jesus is the Lamb of God. Now that goes back to what I just said about John’s baptism.  The first purpose of baptism is to show us our need for repentance, for forgiveness of sin.  And as he is baptizing, which has no power to forgive sin in and of itself, he sees Jesus coming to him and says “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”  Baptism then has no power to take away sin, but the Lamb of God does take away sin.

Now any Jew would understand the imagery that John is referring to when he says the Lamb of God.  First of all, hearing that a Jew would naturally be reminded of their father Abraham when he offered up Isaac on the altar, and was about to slay him as a sacrifice, and God stopped him and provided a ram that was caught in a thorn bush behind him.  God provided a substitute.  God provided a lamb. That is the first lesson of the Lamb of God.  He is our substitute.  God placed our sins, our punishment upon Him, so that He died for us, so that we might be made righteous by His righteousness and live. 

And that brings up a second point of the Lamb of God that every Jew would think of.  And that would have been the Passover Lamb that was slain on the night when God caused all the first born male children in Egypt to die because of the hardness of the Egyptian’s hearts and their refusal to let Israel worship the Lord.  So God told His people to take a lamb for every household and slay it and put the blood on the doorposts of their houses so that the angel of death would not strike them.  And as they obeyed God’s command and sacrificed the lamb and put the blood on the doorpost of their house, the angel of the Lord passed by and they were saved from death.  Now that illustrates the second principle of the Lamb of God, He saves us from death, eternal death. 

So first who John says Jesus is – He is the Lamb of God that takes away sin. Secondly, John says Christ is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit. As opposed to his baptism with water, Christ will baptize in the Holy Spirit. So John says in Vs. 30 “This is He on behalf of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’  I did not recognize Him, but so that He might be manifested to Israel, I came baptizing in water. John testified saying, ‘I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him. I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’”

Now there is a lot in those verses and we don’t have time to unpack everything there.  But one thing I want to emphasize is that John says it was necessary for him to baptize in order that the Christ might be made known. Now certainly John knew of Jesus before this time. He was Jesus’ cousin.  And though they may not have lived near one another as they were growing up we must imagine that John knew of Him, and perhaps even had met Him or known Him all his life.  That is certainly possible but I don’t think that is what John is saying here.  What he is saying is that I did not know Him as the Christ, as the Messiah, as the Son of God until it was divinely revealed to me in the baptism.  God had spoken to John previously and said He who the Spirit descends upon is the Christ. 

So John knew who Jesus was not by sight, not by human intellect or knowledge, but by divine revelation from the Holy Spirit.  And this illustrates an important principle of salvation.  God has to open men’s eyes to see that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.  Remember the famous situation with Peter when Jesus asks, “who do men say that I am?”  And Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of God.” And what did Jesus say to that?  “Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you Peter, but my Father who is in heaven.  (Matt. 16)  It takes  divine intervention to open a blind man’s eyes, and we that are in our sins are blind.  Jesus said in John 6:44  “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.”

But it also reveals the two fold nature of salvation; on the one hand there must be a removal of sin, but also a filling of the Holy Spirit. Both are necessary for salvation.  One sanctifies you, the other makes you a temple of the Holy Spirit and empowers you to live as a witness to the world in obedience to God.  You must be born again by the Spirit of God if you will have the life of God in you.

Then the last statement that John the Baptist testifies as to who Jesus is, is found in vs. 34 “I myself have seen, and have testified that this is the Son of God.”  This is the ultimate witness of John the Baptist.  That Jesus is the Christ, that is the Messiah, and He is also the Son of God.  He is God in the flesh, the Word made flesh.  And John saw the Spirit of God descend and remain on Him just as God said, and he heard the proclamation of God as recorded by Luke in Luke 3:22  when the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came out of heaven, “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.” This was the witness of John, and this is his testimony, that Jesus is the Son of God.

And of course that testimony correlates perfectly with the Apostle John’s stated purpose for writing this book in John 20:31,  “but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”

Now there are two quick applications that I would point out that makes the believing in Christ efficacious for you. One is to recognize the One whom you do not know. Notice vs.26, John says, “among you stands One whom you do not know.” Some have decided that they do not want to know Him.  They have rejected the idea of God and Lord, and so they have rejected the Savior of the world.  To know God is to believe in God, which is a decision that everyone must make for themselves.  To believe the truth about God. That He was manifested in the flesh as Jesus Christ, and that He is Lord of all. 

And then the second point of application is that you must receive Him as your Lord and Savior. It is not enough to just believe in God, or even believe that Jesus lived on earth 2000 years ago.  It’s necessary to receive Him as your Lord and Savior.  You must accept Jesus’ substitutionary sacrifice on your behalf, for forgiveness of your sins, that you may be born again by the Holy Spirit.  If Jesus is truly the Son of God, then there is no alternative but to bow down before Him and plead for His mercy.  And Jesus said that to them that call upon Him He will surely save them.  In vs. 12 of our text, John says, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.”

Today we have heard the testimony of the Apostle John here in this passage before us, who lived with and followed Jesus for 3 years of his life.  We have heard the testimony of John the Baptist who heard the voice from heaven declaring that Jesus is the Son of God and saw the Spirit descend in the form of a dove upon Him as was prophesied.  We have heard the testimony of the Old Testament Scriptures which present the Christ as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  We see around us the testimony of creation which reveals His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, so that we are without excuse.  But most importantly, we have the witness of the Holy Spirit inside us, convicting us, drawing us to Christ, opening our eyes that we might see Him and believe in Him and be saved.  I hope if you are here today, and you do not know Him, that you will not reject these faithful witnesses.  Jesus came to earth to save those that are lost.  All that is necessary is for you to believe in Him and receive Him as your Lord and Savior, and you will be given the right to become children of God and have everlasting life.  I urge you to repent of your sins and receive Him as your Savior and Lord, that you might be saved.

I for one am happy that the Apostle John does not dwell on sentimentalism, as he writes of the coming of Christ, but he focuses on theology.  Although most people may think theology and doctrine are dull and uninteresting, I believe that a proper understanding and belief of the truth is the path to true salvation.

I passed a Universalist Church in Rehoboth the other day, and they had a sign out front on which was written, “We believe that there is not just one way.” While I knew that they believed that, I was amazed that they would come out and say it so matter of factly, even advertise it.  They obviously don’t believe in the Bible at all.  If you don’t believe the Bible is true, then you will believe anything that appeals to your sensibilities. But simply believing in something, even believing fervently in something, does not make it true. We believe that God’s word is true, that it is authoritative, that it is  God breathed.  And thus what we believe about the Lord Jesus Christ who John calls the Word is efficacious in our salvation.

But in John’s sparse literary style he is giving an account of the coming of Christ and it’s possible due to his approach to miss the fact that this is the greatest love story ever told.  In preparing this message, I thought of trying to find an example of a great love story in order to illustrate this passage, but I ended up discarding every possibility because they could not come close to the magnificence of the story of Jesus coming to earth in human form.  One of the most famous love stories in literature is Romeo and Juliet.  But even though that story is often called the greatest love story of all time, it pales in comparison to the story we have in front of us.

In addition to being a great love story though, vs. 14 represents one of the greatest theological statements in the Bible. “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” This entire prologue of John’s gospel is one magnificent presentation  of the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus Christ.  So far in this first chapter, we have seen that the Word was God, the Word was Light, and now today the Word became Flesh. 

Now I want to try to explain why this passage can be called the greatest love story of all time.  But to do that we must go back once again to Genesis, to the creation account.  In chapter 1, God said “let us make man in Our image, in Our likeness.”  So God made man in the image and likeness of God.  He made man spirit, soul and body, a triune being like God Himself.  And then in John chapter 1, we see God making Himself in the image of man.  “The Word, who was God, became flesh and dwelt among us.” 

That in and of itself is a stunning thought.  That the eternal God who existed in the form of the Word, who was life, and was Light, who made all that was made in the universe, became a man. He didn’t just appear in the form of a man, but He became man. I believe that God appeared in pre-incarnate form in the appearance of a man at various times in the Old Testament period. But those pre-incarnate appearances were different than being born as a man. But the immediate question is why would the eternal, creator God stoop to become one of His creation?

Well, the answer I would suggest is illustrated in chapter 2 of Genesis. After God had made man, He declared that it was not good for man to be alone.  But after God made that statement, He did something interesting. He didn’t immediately create woman. But God caused all the animals of the creation to parade before Adam so that Adam could name them. And in the process, something was discovered by Adam.  Gen.2:20 says, “but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.”  Once Adam realized that fact, then God put him to sleep and took a rib from his side and made woman for man. 

And I think that scene illustrates a great truth.  I think that it illustrates why God made man to begin with.  God existed from eternity past before creating the heavens and the earth.  And we don’t know what He created in eternity past, other than that He created the angels. But it’s certain that He created other galaxies. I was watching a renowned physicist by the name of Brian Cox on YouTube recently, and he was speaking about the wonders of the cosmos. He said that there are 2 trillion galaxies in the piece of space that we can see. I guess there is space that we can’t see. Not 2 trillion stars, but 2 trillion galaxies.  And that each galaxy has an average of 400 billion stars in it. He also said that light takes 100,000 years to travel across a galaxy. He also said it seemed that the universe was infinite. And yet that our solar system was special. The way it had formed, and the way that Earth was positioned in relation to the sun and other planets set it apart from other similar solar systems.  He seemed to think that the science suggests that we are the only civilization in the milky way. Now I don’t know how much of that to believe. I am skeptical of modern science. But it would seem that it appears that there are trillions of galaxies beyond our own. And I don’t know what to make of that. But I believe that there is one God, who made everything that is made.  John said in vs 3, All things came into being through Him, that is through the Word, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

As Christian Creationists, we believe that the Bible indicates that life on this planet is just over six thousand years old. That doesn’t square with science. The geological matter may of this planet may have existed for millions of years, even billions of years, but it was without form and void. But day one of creation was about six thousand years ago.  Genesis says that God created light on the first day of creation.  We can’t square that with modern science either. And we know that God created man on the sixth day.  We can’t square that with evolutionary science either.  But we also know that the angels were already in existence when God made man. How much longer before man they were made we do not know.

And by the way, the Bible doesn’t teach that all angels look alike. We do see that different types of angels were created for many different purposes.  So we could speculate on what God might have created beyond what the Bible tells us, but I’m not sure that it would be profitable.  However, suffice it to say that when God made trees He did not make just one type of tree, but thousands of types.  When God made birds, He made thousands of different types of birds.  And the same with all types of His creation; there is great variety in each thing that God made.  Even with people, there is great variety within the species.  So we can assume that though we call them “angels” there is great variety in that type of being.  But contrary to popular images of angels, it’s not likely that they all look identical.  However, the Bible does indicate that the number of angels correlates with the number of stars.  Possibly billions or even trillions of different types of angelic beings. But beyond that we do not know what else God might have created in eternity past. 

But what I think God is illustrating with Adam naming the animals is that God viewed everything that He had created in eternity past, and there was not found any creature suitable to be a help mate for Him.  And in a manner of speaking, God had decided that it was not good for Him to be alone. So God created man in His image, in His likeness.  Another indication of this desire of God for a help mate is that in all of the rest of creation, He merely spoke and that thing came into being.  But with man God bent down and formed man out of the ground with His hands.  And then God put His mouth on man’s lips and breathed into him, and man became a living soul. 

So creation itself was no less than a great act of love.  Now the Bible has much to say about the church being the bride of Christ, and Christ being the bridegroom.  In chapter 3 of John, John the Baptist refers to Jesus as the bridegroom and the church as His bride.  Jesus Himself talks about the kingdom of God as culminating with the marriage supper of the Lamb.  In Revelation 21 the angel shows John what is called the bride of Christ, which is the church, spotless, having no spot or wrinkle, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.  

But probably the best passage that illustrates this principle is Ephesians 5, which talks about the way a husband must love his wife, and says in vs. 25-32, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her,  so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,  that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.  So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself;  for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church,  because we are members of His body.  FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH.  This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.” So Paul is saying that human marriage is a picture of Christ’s marriage to the church, the bride of Christ.  We are made from His body to be united with Him as one body, joined together with Him for eternity.

But looking back at Genesis again, we see that Adam and Eve enjoyed walking with the Lord and communing with God, having fellowship with God.  But not long afterwards, they sinned by eating of the forbidden tree.  And as God had promised, their spirit died.  That part of their being that was in communion with God, that divine spark that they were created with was extinguished and the now sinful bride of God was removed from His holy presence.  They were banned from the garden and they no longer were able to be in the light of His glory.  Consequently, as their spirit died, their flesh soon followed after. And every offspring of Adam thereafter not only inherited his sinful nature, but he also inherited his mortality. But thank God for 1Cor. 15:22, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.”

Now that brings us back to our text.  Because God did still love the world. Specifically, He loved the human race.  And He loved the human race so much that though His holiness and justice requires that man suffers the penalty of his sin by separation from the Life of God, yet His love found a way to satisfy that requirement.  And God satisfies His judgment  by the most incredible means possible.  He became one of us.  Man could not come to God, he could not bridge the chasm between God and man.  He could not ascend to God, so God came down to man. Phl. 2:6-8 “[Jesus] who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.  Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

So because God so loved the world, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  As we were first made in the image of God, so God must be made in man’s image in order to be the representative man who would be able to become man’s substitute, Savior and high priest, dying in our place. Now that is love.  We cannot imagine a love story to equal that story.  If we were to imagine a king relinquishing his throne to become a peasant so he could marry a peasant girl that would not come close to Christ’s love for the church. If we were to imagine a man blinding himself in order to be married to a blind bride that still would not rival this story.  There is no greater story of love than to consider that the eternal God created man to be like Him, to be His mate, His companion, and then that mate rebelled and sinned against Him, and was expelled from His presence, only to have the same Holy God humble himself to take on human flesh so that He might die for His bride in her place as her substitute. It’s beyond our comprehension.

So the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Even so He remains fully man and fully God. The deity of Christ is not diminished by His humanity, nor is His humanity overpowered by His deity. It is what is known in theological terms as the hypostatic union. The combination of the divine and human nature in the person of Christ.  Fully man, and yet fully God.  Because as John says, even though we beheld Him in human form, He retained His glory as God, and He was seen in His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

We need to explain that word glory.  What is glory? When I was a kid growing up in an old country church, I used to hear sometimes one of the old timers yell out “glory!” when the preacher would really get them riled up or some singer would sing a rousing song.  Never knew what it meant, but  it usually managed to snap me awake. Well, I’ll tell you what it means.  There is a hint right there in the verse; it’s the word “dwelt”, or skenoo in the Greek.  And it means tabernacled.  You will remember that the tabernacle was the tent that God designed to house His glory when the children of Israel set out for the Promised Land.  God dwelled in the tabernacle, and His shekinah glory indwelled the tent so that it lit up in the nighttime with the light of His presence.

So what John is saying here is that the Word was Light, the Light of the world, and He came into the world, becoming human, one of us, and His shekinah glory tabernacled among us in the human form of Jesus.  Now John says we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.  And one explanation for that statement would be that he was speaking about the transfiguration, when Jesus’ glory began to shine out of Him and the Father God rebuked Peter by saying “this is My beloved Son, listen to Him.”

But for even more insight into His glory we need to go back to Exodus 33 and 34, when Moses asked to see God’s glory.  And God told Moses in Exo. 33:19-22 “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.”  But He said, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!”  Then the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by Me, and you shall stand there on the rock; and it will come about, while My glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by.”

So in the next chapter we see the Lord put Moses in the cleft of the rock as His glory passed by, but listen how God describes that glory.  Not by describing the passing of God as a blinding light, but with words describing His attributes. Exo. 34:6-7 Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth;  who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”

Now that’s incredible isn’t it?  We know that there was also a great light because Moses came down from the mountain with a veil over his face because it shone so much the reflected glory of God that the people could not look at him.  But when God describes passing His glory by Moses, He doesn’t describe the light, but with words describing His attributes.  And what two attributes do we see on parade above all others?  Grace and truth.  The very same attributes John ascribes here in John 1:14, “and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

So how did John and the disciples primarily see the glory of God revealed in Jesus?  By His attributes.  He was holy and righteous, full of grace and truth. Though He was fully man, yet He was fully God and manifested the character of God in all that He did. Hebrews 1:3 says of Christ, “And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.”  So Christ’s attributes attested to His divinity as clearly as a  blazing light from heaven.

Then in vs.15, the apostle also includes the testimony of John the Baptist as to Christ’s divinity.  Listen to vs.15: John testified about Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’”  You will remember the in the story of Jesus’ birth, Mary His mother visited Elizabeth who was already pregnant with John.  So John was about 6 months older than Jesus.  He was born before Jesus, and yet John is saying that Jesus existed before Him. That means that He was preexistent.  Eternal.  And immortality is another attribute of divinity.  And John the Baptist adds that Christ had a higher rank than him.  Jesus then was more than a great prophet, He is the Son of God.  John was the herald going before the king, but Jesus was the King.

John continues this great love story in vs16. The eternal God became human flesh and we beheld His glory.  So that His bride might receive that same glory. Vs.16, “For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.”  Now what does this mean?  Well let’s start with the word “fullness.” It is really referring back once again to His attributes, all the attributes of God, epitomized by grace and truth.  John is saying Christ was fully God. 

Paul says the same thing in Col. 2:9, “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.”  So Christ is fully God in human form.  But then John says we received that fullness.  We received God’s fullness?  How does that work? It works because Christ died in our place to satisfy the justice of God, effectively purchasing us to become His bride, the church.  That divine spark that was extinguished in the fall of the first Adam, was rekindled in the Light of the second Adam, when we believed on Him and received Him as our Savior, and we were given the fullness of His righteousness, so that now the Spirit of God tabernacles within us.  His Light in us gives us the Light of life so that our divine spark in reignited.  The Word became flesh so that the glory of God might tabernacle in us.  So that we might be like Him.

Eph. 1:22-23 says about the exalted Christ “And He (God) put all things in subjection under His (Christ’s) feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”  We don’t receive a piece of the Holy Spirit, or a part of the Holy Spirit.  But we receive the fullness of deity in the Spirit of Christ who dwells in us.  Christ fills us with the fullness of the Spirit of God that we might exhibit the attributes of God to the world and so that we might be conformed to His image, made once more in the likeness of God.  That we might become suitable unto Him as a help mate. That we might become His spotless bride.

So John says not only did we receive His fullness, but we received grace upon grace.  Never ending grace is certainly one interpretation of that.  Grace that never runs out. Grace that is greater than all our sins. But even more to the point, I think it means we not only receive the gift of our salvation, but the gifts of the Spirit, and then we receive the gift of our inheritance; that we shall rule and reign with Christ – as the bride of Christ we will sit on the throne next to Him and share in His glory.  That shekinah glory of God that man could not look on and live, one day we shall share with Him. We will receive glory, glory like the glory that He has. 1John 3:2 “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.”  That is the essence of the beatific vision, is it not? When we shall live forever in the light of His glory, so that His glory becomes our glory.  That is the fullness of joy.  And that is our inheritance. That is our future.

John says in vs 17, “For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” Someone greater than Moses has come.  The law given through Moses was a tutor to show us our need for Christ.  But when Christ came, He fulfilled the law, and we received grace and truth.

Up until that time, John says, “No one has seen God at any time.”  God cannot be seen by any man while he is in sinful flesh. But we have seen Jesus, and if we have seen Jesus, we have seen the Father. Jesus said to Philip in John 14:9, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.”  Vs.18, “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.”  The Greek word is exēgeomai, which means to unfold, or explain.  It’s the word we get exegete from, which is the term we use to explain the style of preaching that I use.  I attempt to unfold the word of God, explain it, expand it, unpack it.  And that is what John says Jesus has done by coming in the flesh.  First in vs.17 John says Jesus manifested the attributes of God. Then in vs.18, Jesus explains God. The Word made flesh and dwelt among us, and then we beheld the glory of God in Him and through Him as He exhibited the attributes of God. And all of that is so that we might become like Him, to be united with Him as the church, the bride of Christ.

Well, that is enough for today.  But let me leave you with this thought. I want to leave you this morning looking forward to the coming of Christ for His church, for His bride.  That was the purpose of Christ coming to earth the first time, to prepare a bride for HIs return.  To become tempted in all points like as we are yet without sin and then to die for our sins so that we might become the children of God, the body of Christ, even His church.  Jesus is coming again for His bride.  This time He comes not as a baby in a manger but in the fullness of His glory as King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. This time He is coming not in secret, but at the sound of trumpets.  In the fullness of His glory. He is coming for His bride.  I hope that He finds you ready to meet Him.

As we are still in the prologue of the book of John, I think it would help us to realize that John is not interested in merely presenting a biography of Jesus.  We are all, I’m sure, more or less familiar with the history of Jesus Christ.  So to simply retell the story of Christ’s life on earth would have limited benefit, especially in light of the fact that the synoptic gospels had already been written quite some time before.  But what John is presenting in his gospel is doctrine:  the facts about Jesus which according to John’s stated purpose in chapter 20:31, “these things have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” 

So as we pointed out last time, John doesn’t start his gospel as a biography might begin – with the birth of Jesus – but he starts with the theology of Jesus; that He was in the beginning with God, and He was God.  So in the first five verses, John establishes that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and in Him was life and the life  was the Light of men.

Now last time we spent a lot of time talking about the significance of Jesus being called the Word.  Today I would like to focus on the statement that Jesus, or the Word, was Light.  I believe John as well as many other Bible writers give great emphasis to the fact that Christ is the personification of Light.  In fact, Jesus Himself frequently applied that designation to Himself.  For instance, in John 8:12, “Jesus again spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.’” 

Interestingly, Jesus there presents the Light as being integral to life, which is exactly how John presents it in vs4: “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.”  Now in order to understand the connection between life and light which both Jesus and John were speaking of, it’s necessary to once again go back to Genesis chapter one.  In the creation account, we have not only the historical, factual record of the beginning of creation, but I believe there is incorporated in the story of creation an allegory which illustrates certain themes of salvation.  

So look at Genesis 1:1. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.”  So God was in the beginning, before time, existing in three persons who were one God.  And we see all three in this passage; God the Father, the Spirit of God and the Word of God. 

God created the heavens and the earth, and they were formless and void, and the Spirit of God moved over them, and God said, or we could say the Word said, “let there be light.”  And there was light in the darkness, and the light was good.  God doesn’t say the darkness was good, but that the light was good. 

But if you look down at day four, in vs.14, you notice that God made the sun and the moon and the stars.  So the light that God made in the first day was not light which came from the sun, moon or stars, but light that emanated from somewhere else.    And to add even more mystery,  in day three, God made plants and seeds and trees, which sprouted even though there was no sun created at that time. 

So what we can discern from this passage is that God existed in three persons, and the Word was life, creating the heavens and the earth, and the Word became Light, which was the light of the world, and it was a real light emanating from life which caused plants to sprout and life to exist.  Science tells us that light is simply a visible form of energy. So you cannot have light without a source of energy, and what the Bible is teaching is that the energy of all life and producing light is none other than the Word of God who was with God and who was God.

So now we can better understand the relationship of life and light as John said in vs. 4, “in Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.”  Because He was the life, nothing came into being without Him, nothing had life without Him.  He is the source of life as Paul said in Acts 17:28, “for in Him we live and move and exist.” 

John then is saying that the Word was life, He was the source of all life, He is spiritual life and physical life and God manifested that life as Light.  First in creation, and secondly in the Word, and thirdly in salvation. 

You don’t need to turn to it, as I’m sure you are all familiar with it, but in the third chapter of Genesis there is recorded the fall of man.  God said if you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you will surely die.  But we don’t see Adam and Eve fall down dead after biting into the fruit.  But what we do see is God removing them from the Garden of Eden.  He removed them from His presence and when man was removed from the source of life, the light went out and man died spiritually.  That divine spark that man was made with – made in the image and likeness of God – was extinguished.  And man surely died.  I liken it to a potted plant that sits on your porch which flourishes when it is in the sun, but if you were to put it in your closet it would surely die.  It may still look somewhat alive a few days later perhaps, but eventually it would shrivel up and die.  And so with man, when he was cut off from the Light of life, his spirit died. 

That is why God describes the world without Christ as darkness.  The scriptures use that description over and over again in both the Old and New Testaments to describe the world that we live in. For example, in the book of Job the world is pictured repeatedly as being in darkness, without understanding, without hope.  And that lack of divine understanding is what darkness illustrates. We live in darkness, separated from God and from the life of God.  We are lifeless, formless and void, without the light of God.  But then God spoke, and said “let there be light, and the light shone in the darkness and separated the darkness, and it was good.” 

Now last week we said about vs. 5 that some manuscripts translate the phrase as the darkness could not overpower it, rather than the KJV translation which says the darkness could not comprehend it.  And there are merits to the first translation, as I pointed out last week.  Light triumphs over darkness.  Christ triumphs over darkness, ie, sin, the world, death and Satan.  But there is also merit in translating it as comprehend.  The darkness does not comprehend it, or apprehend it.  And today we want to lean more in that direction because that is the idea presented it the following verses.  The Light appears, shines in the darkness, but the world in darkness does not receive the Light, does not understand the Light, and ultimately rejects the Light.

This idea of comprehending the Light is evidenced further by John in vs. 10 and 11; “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.”  See, that is saying that the world did not comprehend Him.  They saw the Creator of the universe, the source of all life in human form, and did not understand Him, and ultimately rejected Him.  Man was in darkness, and though the Light appeared, he did not accept it, did not understand it, and so rejected the light and returned to the darkness.

Now man’s lack of comprehension results in God’s compassionate desire to help men to believe in the Light.  And to do that He raises up men to testify of the Light.  Vs. 6. “There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light.”  Were it not for the fact that the apostle John had just said the world did not comprehend the Light, we might wonder at the abruptness of the introduction of John the Baptist.  But now we can understand that God sent John in order to bear witness of the Light.  To explain the Light. 

I think it was Matthew Henry who said, “That is indicative of the severity of the darkness and blindness of men that they needed a witness to the light.”  And I agree that man’s depravity has blinded him to be able to see the Light.  But I also think his depravity is so great that he rejects the Light because He doesn’t want to be ruled by the light.  Back in Genesis 1 God said about the lights of heaven that they were to govern the day and govern the night.  And I believe that indicates the contrary nature of man’s fall and of his rebellion.  He wants to govern himself.  He wants to decide what is right and what is wrong.  God said the light is good.  Man says I will decide what is good. 

In John 3:19-20 Jesus said, “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.”  See, man loves evil, so he loves the darkness.  He doesn’t want anyone to be a ruler over him.

That love of darkness reminds me of an old song by Simon and Garfunkel, “The Sound of Silence.” The apostle Paul quoted Greek poets so I guess it’s ok if I quote modern poets. Now  I doubt that Simon and Garfunkel intended their song to be meant in the way I understand it, but it’s interesting that the songwriter says, “Hello darkness my old friend…” Man loves darkness. He prefers it, welcomes it.  And it’s even more interesting that Paul Simon correlates the sound of silence, the lack of speech as resulting in a darkness of life in which people lived without life, without words.  It’s ironic that the great theologian John Calvin translated the Word in John 1 as Speech.  Paul Simon describes this darkness as silence where words do not penetrate, though prophets warn of the peril of rejecting it.  But the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made.  His last two stanzas say; “Fools,” said I, “You do not know. Silence like a cancer grows. Hear my words that I might teach you. Take my arms that I might reach you.” But my words like silent raindrops fell And echoed in the wells of silence.  And the people bowed and prayed To the neon god they made. And the sign flashed out its warning In the words that it was forming. And the sign said, “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls And tenement halls And whispered in the sounds of silence.”

Man rejects the light because he loves the deeds of darkness. I was talking with someone the other day about society and how the rejection of God’s law produces anarchy. The depravity of man is fully revealed when there is no fear of detection or punishment.  That’s why when law and order breaks down there is chaos and rioting and looting.  When people can act out their basest desires without fear of retribution society can quickly become a terrifying thing.  And that is why the scriptures refer to us Christians as being salt and light in the world.  The law of God stifles corruption, it acts as guard against anarchy.  The light of God’s word drives back the darkness and keeps it from overpowering the creation. 

So John was to be a witness of the Light; to testify of the Light.  He was the first prophet to appear on the scene in 400 years.  He was to prepare the people’s heart to receive the Light.  And how did John do that? By preaching, “repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.”   Man needed to repent of his evil deeds, his rebellion, his sin in order to receive the Light which leads to life.

Notice though the apostle John makes a point of saying John the Baptist was not the Light, but he was sent to bear witness of the Light.  In other words, John the Baptist was one of the lights of heaven, bearing witness of the Light of God, reflecting the Light of God to the world by word and deed.  John was like the light of the moon in relation to the sun.  He reflected the Light.  He was not the source of light, but he reflected the Light of Christ to the world.

And I want to point out another word in vs.6 that bears mentioning.  And that is the word sent.  John the Baptist was sent by God to bear witness.  John is a model preacher.  He was by all accounts a prophet of God.  He did not tailor his message to the world’s agenda. He did not survey the interests of society and then tailor his message to their perceived desires. He wasn’t seeker friendly.  But he preached the message from God to the world.  He did not try to be popular.  He did not rise to great prominence in order to build a huge church and exalt himself.  But he said about Jesus; “He must increase, but I must decrease.”  He simply preached the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I was talking with someone the other day about pastoring.  And the conversation eventually ran the gamut from sizes of churches, to denominations, to what seminary someone had graduated from, and I said as far as I’m concerned, and I think I can safely say that as far as God is concerned, there are only two characteristics that are important when it comes to pastors. One you have to be born again.  I think that eliminates about half of the pastors in churches across America right there.  And at least half of the other half would be eliminated by the second requirement, which is that you have to be called by God.  Or to use the apostle John’s words, you must be “sent by God.” 

 I’m afraid there are a lot of people in pulpits today that are not sent by God. And it’s apparent because they don’t preach the gospel. If God calls you, then He will equip you.  He is the one that gives us the Spirit to empower the message, He is the source of  wisdom and discernment.  You can have all the charisma and all the charm and all the degrees and a huge building and the acclaim of men but if you have not been called by God to preach the gospel then all those things are not going to be of any benefit to fulfilling the purpose of God.  And furthermore, I cannot understand why Christians would want to sit under those pastors, but I guess it goes back to the principle that we love darkness rather than light, because the light exposes our evil deeds.

But whether or not you are called to be a pastor, all Christians are sent to be witnesses of the gospel. Jesus said in Matt. 5:14-16, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

All of us are to bear witness and testify to the Light of the gospel.  Just before Jesus ascended into heaven, he commissioned his followers in Acts 1:8 saying, “but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”

Now though John introduces John the Baptist here, the emphasis is not really on him but on the Light.  And so he goes on to say about the Light in vs. 9, “There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.”  Now just as John the Baptist was a minor light, a reflection of Christ, so all the prophets of old were reflections of the light of heaven.  And I believe that there was light that came through the word given through the prophets, which became the Old Testament scriptures.  I also believe that even as Genesis 1 illustrated, there was the light of creation which Paul said in Romans 1 was enough to teach man that there was an eternal God. Paul said in Rom. 1:20, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” That was the Light of the world seen through creation that enlightens every man.

But in the next verse Paul says that though they recognized that it was divine light, they rejected it and were plunged into even greater darkness. Rom. 1:21 “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”

In Matthew’s gospel he quotes from the prophet Isaiah referencing the advent of Christ as being like a great light coming to a people living in darkness.  Matt. 4:15-16  “THE LAND OF ZEBULUN AND THE LAND OF NAPHTALI,BY THE WAY OF THE SEA, BEYOND THE JORDAN, GALILEE OF THE GENTILES– “THE PEOPLE WHO WERE SITTING IN DARKNESS SAW A GREAT LIGHT,AND THOSE WHO WERE SITTING IN THE LAND AND SHADOW OF DEATH,UPON THEM A LIGHT DAWNED.”  This great light spoken of by the prophet Isaiah was none other than the Light of the world.  The Light of Life.  Jesus Christ.

But as vs.10 and 11 tell us, the Light came into the world that existed through Him, and yet it did not receive Him. “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.”  Paul said virtually the same thing in 1Cor. 2:14, “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.”

Actually, that’s what I think Genesis 1 is indicating when it says after the heavens and the earth were created and still  in darkness, that the Spirit of God moved upon the waters and then the Light appeared.  Though the Light has come into the world, it is necessary for the Spirit of God to move on the hearts of men if they are going to receive Christ.  Jesus said in John 6:44, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.”  Now God draws people in many ways, but one way is through the witness and testimony of His people, particularly His preachers.  God has ordained that by the foolishness of preaching men would be saved. 1Cor. 1:21 “For since in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.”

And that leads us to the conclusion of this paragraph concerning the Light of the world, in vs.12-13. “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”  Man is rebellious and depraved, rejecting the rule of his Lord, rejecting the Light of the truth for the sake of loving his own sin and wickedness.  But the Light of God persists, piercing the darkness, the Spirit of God moves upon his heart in conjunction with the preaching of the gospel by the witnesses of the Light, and some believe and receive Him and are saved.

There is on the one hand the responsibility of man to respond and receive the Light, and on the other hand the necessity for God to extend unto man the grace to believe the gospel.  And the outcome is that when man believes and receives Christ he is born again, moved from darkness into light, from death to life, reborn spiritually whereas he was previously dead in his trespasses and sins.  When we receive the Light, the Light produces life, spiritual life, eternal life.  We are made alive with Christ.  We are made a new creation.  We walk no more in darkness but in life. Eph. 5:8 “for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light.”  And Col. 1:13 says, “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.”

To those who receive the Light, we are now made children of Light, even children of God.  Not by blood, that is we are not saved on the basis of human lineage.  Not by heredity.  Not by the will of the flesh.  We are not saved by self effort, or works, in order to become righteous.  Nor by the will of man, not by the decree of man, not by the decree of a priest or church or institution.  But by the will of God. 

God is the giver of life, and He gives it to whoever believes in the Son of God, whoever receives Him.  To receive Christ as our  Savior and our Lord, and as our God.  That’s what it means to receive Christ.  To know Him, to accept Him and trust Him and to bow to His rule over our life.  To know all that He is, and all that He is to be, to believe it, and then to trust Him.  To trust in His atonement for our sin. To trust Him to raise us from the dead. To know that Christ is good, even as God said the light was good. And we must submit our lives completely  to the very source of life and then walk in the Light, even as He is in the Light.  1John 1:7, “if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”

I will just close by asking one question;  have you received the Light of the world? Have you been born again to spiritual life as a child of God?  As many as receive Christ, to them God gives the right to be the children of God.  That is a promise of life that lies waiting for you to receive, if you will just believe who He is and trust Him with your life.  Don’t reject him and stay in the darkness.  Come to the Light, and receive life.

Turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 42.  You will remember that in our study of Genesis, we reached the point where Joseph had been delivered from prison in Egypt, where he had been a slave, and promoted to the second highest position under Pharaoh. You might say that he was the prime minister of Egypt.  We all know that to be true, but I wonder if we truly appreciate how incredible it was for an incarcerated slave to be made the prime minister of the largest empire in the world in a single day.  

And of course, God arranged for that promotion of Joseph in order to provide for His people during a severe famine.  Joseph had interpreted Pharoah’s dreams which foretold of a coming famine of such severity that it would affect all the known world for seven years. And because of Joseph’s insight, they were able to put aside grain in storage during the seven plentiful years which would provide for the seven years of famine.

In fact, let’s read from the last two verses of chapter 41; “When the famine was [spread] over all the face of the earth, then Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold to the Egyptians; and the famine was severe in the land of Egypt.  [The people of] all the earth came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe in all the earth.”

About 30 years ago, long before I moved to the beach and began this church, I was an antique dealer living in Belair Maryland. I was fairly successful in that business and had reached a certain plateau of recognition in my field and was doing very well. I built a house that was a Williamsburg style reproduction on a large tract of land.  And it seemed I regularly found what I used to call a national treasure, or hitting a home run.  I thought that God blessed me in that business, and that He was prospering me because I was a Christian.

But then I encountered a series of circumstances in my life starting with illnesses that completely debilitated me. These events had a snowball effect that within about three years had practically caused me to lose my health, to go bankrupt, lose my home and all the things that accompany a train wreck of one’s life.

Of course, like most people who go through a great crisis, I tried to find answers in the Bible. I prayed for deliverance and restoration. I didn’t know if God was causing it all or allowing it to happen, or why. I got my heart right with God as much as I knew how.  I prayed constantly and read my Bible constantly and sought wisdom from the Lord.

Somehow, through seeking the Lord, I became hopeful and then convinced that I was going through a crisis similar to that presented here in the life of Joseph and that if I could just hang on for 7 years, then God would overturn the spiritual, physical and financial famine in my life and I would then see restoration, that God would bring me up out of “prison,” restore my finances and health.  I saw a correlation in my life between the 7 years of famine and what I was going through, and that if I could just get through that 7 years, God would restore me.

I say all of that to illustrate that as Christians we can easily be guilty of poor exegesis of scripture, and  convinced of things that the Bible does not promise because we have taken scripture out of context or misinterpreted it altogether.  We can incorrectly apply the word of God, even though we might be as sincere as we can be, as dedicated to the Lord as we can be. I had taken some elements of this story of Joseph out of context and wrongly applied them to my situation. I had conjured up promises in scripture which were not there. I thought if I applied faith to those promises that God was obligated to answer them according to my desire.  

And consequently, not only did I go through seven years of the worst circumstances that I could imagine, but at the end of that time,  I almost lost faith in God altogether because He did not do what I though He had promised.  He did not restore me to the former prosperity and health that I had thought that He would.  In fact, my situation continued on for  several years  more after that seven year period before I began to slowly climb out of all those circumstances, and in fact I am still dealing with some of the ramifications of it today.  However God did use that long period of testing and trials to work a spiritual change in me, and actually get me to the point where I was willing to serve Him as a preacher of the gospel.

So I tell you all of that to caution you that we must be careful what we extrapolate from scripture. We must accurately divide the word of God, and guard against interpretation in light of our agenda and our priorities, rather than submission to God’s purposes and plan.

But there are principles in this story though that we can safely apply to our lives today. And one of those principles is that God uses trials and difficulties in our lives as a means of sanctification.  God uses fiery trials to purify us, to burn off the dross in our lives.  

And there is another principle we see here, that God may combine His blessing and fiery trials which seem to run concurrently.  Joseph was suffering as a slave, and suffered by being incarcerated, yet at the same time, God was with Joseph and caused blessing and favor to be given to him both in slavery and in prison. Another principle is that God did not eliminate the trial or shorten the trial because of Joseph’s faith or faithfulness. God had a plan, and He sustained Joseph through the trial.  Joseph was 17 when he was sold into slavery, and he was 30 years old when Pharaoh exalted him to the position of prime minister. 

And another principle is revealed in the passage we are looking at today, which is the  process of Joseph recognizing his brothers and causing them to go through a period of testing in which God awakened their consciences and convicted them of their sin concerning the betrayal of their brother.  God uses conviction to bring them to repentance,  which must come before He will bring them to reconciliation.

So we read in chapter 42  vs 1, “Now Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt, and Jacob said to his sons, “Why are you staring at one another?”  He said, “Behold, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt; go down there and buy [some] for us from that place, so that we may live and not die.”  Then ten brothers of Joseph went down to buy grain from Egypt.  But Jacob did not send Joseph’s brother Benjamin with his brothers, for he said, “I am afraid that harm may befall him.”  So the sons of Israel came to buy grain among those who were coming, for the famine was in the land of Canaan [also.]

We might surmise that at the mention of Egypt, Jospeh’s brothers felt a pang of guilt. I’m sure it wasn’t the first time in these 20 some years that they had thought of the evil that they did to their brother, and perhaps wondered what had happened to him, whether he was even still alive or not. But as Jacob noted, they were staring at one another when he had mentioned going to Egypt, because they all felt the same pang of their conscience, knowing that it was to Egypt that Joseph had been sold into slavery.  The whole world was going there to buy grain during the famine, and yet they had no desire to set foot there, lest their guilty consciences remind them of the great evil that they had done.

But nevertheless, the patriarch demanded they go, and so they did, although Jacob was wise enough not to let Benjamin, the other son of Rachel, go with them.  Perhaps he suspected all along that something had gone amiss with Joseph because of his other sons. And there was no way he would trust them again with the second son of Rachel.

Vs 6 Now Joseph was the ruler over the land; he was the one who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brothers came and bowed down to him with [their] faces to the ground.  When Joseph saw his brothers he recognized them, but he disguised himself to them and spoke to them harshly. And he said to them, “Where have you come from?” And they said, “From the land of Canaan, to buy food.”  But Joseph had recognized his brothers, although they did not recognize him.  Joseph remembered the dreams which he had about them, and said to them, “You are spies; you have come to look at the undefended parts of our land.”  Then they said to him, “No, my lord, but your servants have come to buy food.  “We are all sons of one man; we are honest men, your servants are not spies.” 

Its really ironic that they claim they are honest men. They were guilty of dishonesty and treachery of the lowest level.  But it’s typical of man that when he thinks of himself, he really doesn’t see himself as being an evil person.  We tend to gloss over our sin while putting other’s sins under a microscope. But repentance cannot begin without first a conviction of your sin, and a confession of it.

 Yet Joseph said to them, “No, but you have come to look at the undefended parts of our land!”  But they said, “Your servants are twelve brothers [in all,] the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and behold, the youngest is with our father today, and one is no longer alive.”  Joseph said to them, “It is as I said to you, you are spies;  by this you will be tested: by the life of Pharaoh, you shall not go from this place unless your youngest brother comes here!  “Send one of you that he may get your brother, while you remain confined, that your words may be tested, whether there is truth in you. But if not, by the life of Pharaoh, surely you are spies.” So he put them all together in prison for three days.

Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but he acted as a stranger: He spoke through an interpreter (he did not yet want to reveal that he spoke Hebrew), and did not reveal his identity to his brothers, but treated them roughly instead. Joseph did this guided by the Holy Spirit. This wasn’t taking revenge or twisting the knife. The Bible says that one of the jobs of the Holy Spirit is to convict us of our sin.  And so God planned it this way not only to save them from famine but to bring them under conviction, leading to repentance, that He might bring reconciliation with God and with Joseph.

And in this, we see Joseph as another picture of Jesus. Jesus sees who we are long before we see who He is. He recognizes you for who you really are, not who you pretend to be, He sees you as one who has sinned against God — and yet He still loves you and works  to bring you to reconciliation to Him.

Notice also that Joseph remembered the dreams which he had dreamed about them. Joseph wasn’t just playing games with his bothers. It’s quite possible that if it were up to Joseph, he would have revealed himself to his brothers right then and there. But God recalled the dreams to his mind and guided him to be an instrument for the conviction and restoration of his brothers.

It’s interesting also that Joseph puts them in prison for three days. Joseph had suffered in prison for years through no fault of his own. But God uses three days in an Egyptian prison to humble them, and get them willing to submit to what He wanted them to do.

Vs 21 Then they said to one another, “Truly we are guilty concerning our brother, because we saw the distress of his soul when he pleaded with us, yet we would not listen; therefore this distress has come upon us.”  Reuben answered them, saying, “Did I not tell you, ‘Do not sin against the boy’; and you would not listen? Now comes the reckoning for his blood.”  They did not know, however, that Joseph understood, for there was an interpreter between them.  He turned away from them and wept. But when he returned to them and spoke to them, he took Simeon from them and bound him before their eyes.

Their guilty conscience told them this complicated mess was because of the way they treated Joseph before. The quickness with which they associated these events with their sin against Joseph meant they often remembered that sin. In fact, I think Reuben’s response about how this was a reckoning for his blood might indicate that they thought that surely Joseph had died as a slave in Egypt. They didn’t expect him to survive for 25 years. But God was quickening their conscience, that He might bring them under conviction.  There wasn’t really a logical connection between their current situation and their previous treatment of Joseph, but a guilty conscience sees every trouble as the penalty for your sin.

Joseph was overcome with emotion as he saw and understood this work of God in the conscience of his brothers. God had to do a deep work in the hearts of these brothers for the relationship to be reconciled. There could be no quick and easy, “We are sorry, Joseph!” in this situation. Simply being sorry for the consequences of your sin is not repentance.  God guided events so the brothers saw their sin clearly and repented completely before Joseph’s true identity was revealed and their relationship was restored.

Vs 25 Then Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain and to restore every man’s money in his sack, and to give them provisions for the journey. And thus it was done for them.  So they loaded their donkeys with their grain and departed from there.  As one [of them] opened his sack to give his donkey fodder at the lodging place, he saw his money; and behold, it was in the mouth of his sack.  Then he said to his brothers, “My money has been returned, and behold, it is even in my sack.” And their hearts sank, and they [turned] trembling to one another, saying, “What is this that God has done to us?”

Whether he was aware of it or not, God guided Joseph to do some strange things that would bring about true repentance and reconciliation with the brothers. God was working His plan through Joseph. This wasn’t just as if Joseph was playing practical jokes on his brothers or just trying to make life difficult. We don’t know how much he may have sensed it, but this was all guided by God.

So we see that Joseph gave them provisions and even gave them their money back  before they were reconciled to him. They had yet to repent or ask forgiveness — yet He loved them and provided for them. He was gracious to them and they didn’t even know it!  In the same way, Jesus provides for us while we were yet sinners, and gives us  undeserved grace. Some of His providence we can see immediately, some we may not understand until later — but He gives to us even before we were reconciled to Him.

But the goodness of Joseph, much like the goodness of God, only increased the guilt of their conscience.  Notice they say, “What is this that God has done to us?”  They seem to be starting to recognize that God must be working through these events, though they don’t understand it.

Vs 29 When they came to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan, they told him all that had happened to them, saying, “The man, the lord of the land, spoke harshly with us, and took us for spies of the country. But we said to him, ‘We are honest men; we are not spies. We are twelve brothers, sons of our father; one is no longer alive, and the youngest is with our father today in the land of Canaan.’ The man, the lord of the land, said to us, ‘By this I will know that you are honest men: leave one of your brothers with me and take [grain for] the famine of your households, and go. But bring your youngest brother to me that I may know that you are not spies, but honest men. I will give your brother to you, and you may trade in the land.’”

Vs 35 Now it came about as they were emptying their sacks, that behold, every man’s bundle of money [was] in his sack; and when they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were dismayed. Their father Jacob said to them, “You have bereaved me of my children: Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and you would take Benjamin; all these things are against me.”  Then Reuben spoke to his father, saying, “You may put my two sons to death if I do not bring him [back] to you; put him in my care, and I will return him to you.”  But Jacob said, “My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he alone is left. If harm should befall him on the journey you are taking, then you will bring my gray hair down to Sheol in sorrow.”

The fact was, that Jacob believed a lie.  He had believed the lie of the brothers concerning Joseph. He believes that Simeon is no more, though we know that wasn’t true, and God would restore Simeon as well as Joseph to him.  But what that illustrates is that if we believe what isn’t true, whether it be a lie of the devil or a lie of man, then believing a lie can deprive us of the blessing of what is true.  

The truth of the gospel  tells us that God provides forgiveness, and life. But the lie of the devil says that our sin is too great, that God will not forgive us.  The lie of the devil says that the life that God gives is bondage, that we will lose our freedom, while in fact our sin is bondage.  But if we believe the lie, then in effect we make it true. We must believe the truth, and the truth will set you free.

At the very moment Jacob was saying “all these things are against me,” God was working out His plan. There was a plan in all this, even when Jacob couldn’t see it or feel it.The plan was not only good for Jacob and his family but would impact all history. God was working all things together for good (Romans 8:28).

The motto of too many Christians is all these things are against me. We see our trails as just needless suffering. We even think God must be against us. We see the present circumstances as a dead end that blocks our way, that we cannot circumvent. Instead, our motto should be Romans 8:28: And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.  God isn’t saying that every individual circumstance is good in of itself, but that God can and will work everything, even what seems evil,  together for good to those who love God, who the people who are called according to His purpose.

Jacob, however, is still learning to trust God.  Jacob had wrestled with God his whole life, always trying to maintain his independence, trying to direct the outcome of his life to his advantage.  God wanted what was best for Jacob, though Jacob doesn’t seem to want to trust God completely.  But through these twisted, circuitous ways, God will bring about reconciliation for Jacob and  his sons, and provide for them a way of escape from the famine, and make them into a great nation according to the promise given to Abraham.

God’s promises to Abraham would be fulfilled, and His plan for the Savior of the world of whom Joseph was a type, His plan would be fulfilled through the lives of these unfaithful, unworthy men. God had spoken to Abraham so many years before back in Genesis 15:13-14  [God] said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions.

God has a plan that He is working through the ages, to bring many sons into His kingdom, to give us a future and an eternal inheritance.  He brings us to glory through many sufferings and trials, but He has determined that we would be made into the sons and daughters of God by His grace and mercy and by His provision. We must simply trust God and submit to Him as Lord, and He will work everything together for good.

Turn in your Bibles please to Genesis chapter 39. Today we are resuming our study of Genesis, and in particular the story of Joseph. We saw last time in our study that Joseph was a type of Christ. But that does not mean that every thing that happens to Joseph is correlated in the life of Christ, but there are some significant things that are typical of the life of Christ. Primarily, Joseph was a type of Christ in that he was despised and rejected by his brothers, he became a slave, as Christ became a servant, he went through a time of testing as did the Lord Jesus, and he became the Deliver of his people.

Today, we will be looking at the temptation of Joseph, the gift of interpretation of dreams that Joseph is given, and the exaltation from prison to second in the kingdom of Egypt. And we will be reading from chapter’s 39-41. That’s a lot of reading, but I would prefer you to hear the word of God relate the story than to hear me summarize the story in my own words. Because I believe that the word of God is more powerful than simply a telling of a narrative.

So you will remember that when we left off last time Joseph had been sold into slavery by his brothers, who had originally planned to kill Joseph, but Judah had intervened with a plan to sell him to some passing traders. And so the Ishmaelites sold him as a slave to an Egyptian named Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh’s bodyguard.

39:1, 2 “Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an Egyptian officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the bodyguard, bought him from the Ishmaelites, who had taken him down there. The LORD was with Joseph, so he became a successful man. And he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian.”

The most important statement in that paragraph is “the Lord was with Joseph.” We are told that Abraham was justified by faith, and so we understand that Jospeh was a man of faith, and thus accepted by God. As a result, the Lord was with him. That’s what it means to be accepted by God, to be saved. The Lord is with you. The Spirit of the Lord was upon Joseph. That’s the blessing of salvation. We have the presence of the Lord in us and with us, forever. Even though Joseph had been severely mistreated and sold into slavery and taken to a foreign land away from his family, the Lord was with him.

So having the Lord with him did not mean that he would not suffer. It did not mean that he would not be hated. It did not mean he would not be tempted. It did not spare him from imprisonment. Sometimes people who become saved think that, or are told that, if you come to Christ all your problems and difficulties will disappear. But the truth of the matter is that often the difficulties and trials really start when you become saved. The advantage that you have though is that the Lord is with you in and through your trials. Jesus said “In this world you will have tribulation, but take courage for I have overcome the world.”

But even in the midst of this trial of slavery, it says that the Lord made him a successful man. Vs3 Now his master saw that the LORD was with him and [how] the LORD caused all that he did to prosper in his hand. So Joseph found favor in his sight and became his personal servant; and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he owned he put in his charge. It came about that from the time he made him overseer in his house and over all that he owned, the LORD blessed the Egyptian’s house on account of Joseph; thus the LORD’S blessing was upon all that he owned, in the house and in the field. So he left everything he owned in Joseph’s charge; and with him [there] he did not concern himself with anything except the food which he ate. Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance.”

I do not suggest that the Lord indicates here that this “success” Jospeh experiences is a universal promise for every Christian. But I do think it’s a universal principal that the Lord will bless His people. The promise given to Abraham concerning his children was that the Lord will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. And to a certain extent, that principle was being manifested in Joseph’s life. But not only because the Lord was with him, but because Joseph was with the Lord. Joseph lived his life in a way that was pleasing to the Lord. To walk with the Lord is a life of obedience to God’s word that results in God’s blessing upon your life. And we enjoy the blessing of Abraham as the children of faith.

Notice also that Joseph is handsome. Now most of us would consider that to be handsome or beautiful was a blessing. But sometimes it can be a curse, or if not a curse, then certainly a hindrance. Being good looking in the eyes of the world can attract the wrong kind of attention sometimes.

Vs 7 It came about after these events that his master’s wife looked with desire at Joseph, and she said, “Lie with me.” But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Behold, with me [here,] my master does not concern himself with anything in the house, and he has put all that he owns in my charge. There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?”

The most important statement in this paragraph is “how then could I do this great evil and sin against God?” The culture of the Egyptians did not really have a problem with immorality, even in the case of marriage. The original word for Potiphar’s position indicated that he may have been a eunuch. Being a eunuch was a means by which pagan king’s kept people in trusted positions in their kingdom. Now of course, Potiphar was married, but he may have married for other reasons. Then again, we don’t know this for sure. But the word “officer” does mean in many cases “eunuch.” If that’s true, then there could have been some justification in the mind of his wife for wanting to take Joseph, and perhaps even a bit of justification in Joseph’s mind that he could do this thing.

But the important thing is that Joseph recognizes that it was a sin first and foremost to the Lord. It was a great evil. And it wasn’t mitigated by the culture, or that society, or by the fact that it could be justified on some sort of physical level, or that they were both consenting adults. It certainly wasn’t justified on the basis that love is love. Recognizing that it was a sin against God didn’t mean that Joseph hated Potiphar’s wife. It meant that he loved God more.
Folks, we are not going to have victory over sin in our life if we don’t call sin, sin. If we don’t love God more than we love the sin. Jesus said if you love Me, you will keep My commandments.

Vs 10 “As she spoke to Joseph day after day, he did not listen to her to lie beside her [or] be with her. Now it happened one day that he went into the house to do his work, and none of the men of the household was there inside. She caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me!” And he left his garment in her hand and fled, and went outside.”

2 Timothy 2:22 says, “Flee youthful lust.” That doesn’t mean that only young people can have lust. Old people can lust as well. And we can lust after a lot of things, not just sexual lusts. We can lust after power, after position, after popularity, after property. The ten commandments label lust as coveting. Coveting is wanting what is not yours.

Joseph though is about 20 years old. He’s at an age where sexual desire is at it’s peak. And the way he deals with it is to flee. Let me suggest that that is the best way to deal with lust. Flee from it. Don’t try to engage it, or wrestle with it. Don’t try to debate it. Flee from it. And let me say further, that sin starts in the mind. If you give in to it in the mind, then it’s going to be no battle at all in the flesh.

The other thing I will say about that is that when you put yourself in the wrong physical situation, then it becomes almost impossible to get out of it. Don’t put yourself in a place where you are alone with the opposite sex and there is no one around to see what you’re doing. And if you do find yourself in the wrong place, then just get out of there. Don’t try to wait it out. Don’t try to deal with temptation on your own. Run out of there. And that’s not only true in sexual temptations, but any environment in which evil is being done, or considered being done, just remove yourself physically right away. That may be an office environment, it may be a boardroom, it may be at a friend’s house, any place where you find that there is a temptation to do evil, leave that place immediately. It’s better to lose your job than to lose your soul. It’s better to lose friends than to go to a bar and hang out with them and drink with them, and find yourself succumbing to temptation.

Jesus said, in Matt. 18:9 “If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than to have two eyes and be cast into the fiery hell.

Vs13 When she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled outside, she called to the men of her household and said to them, “See, he has brought in a Hebrew to us to make sport of us; he came in to me to lie with me, and I screamed. “When he heard that I raised my voice and screamed, he left his garment beside me and fled and went outside.” So she left his garment beside her until his master came home. Then she spoke to him with these words, “The Hebrew slave, whom you brought to us, came in to me to make sport of me; and as I raised my voice and screamed, he left his garment beside me and fled outside.” Now when his master heard the words of his wife, which she spoke to him, saying, “This is what your slave did to me,” his anger burned. So Joseph’s master took him and put him into the jail, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined; and he was there in the jail.”

There is a saying that is from a 17th century playwright which you may be familiar with. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Sounds like a verse in the Bible, but it’s not. The point being though that a woman’s love can turn to hate in a heartbeat if you should show contempt for her overtures. Joseph had not mistreated this woman other than to object to her advances, but when she finally saw that he would rather run than be with her, she gets angry and wants to see him punished. It’s very likely a charge of rape or attempted rape against a slave would mean his death. But the fact that he is not put to death, but put in prison may indicate that Potiphar had some reason to doubt his wife. But he was probably scared of her as well so he put Joseph is prison.

But the Lord was still with Joseph even in prison. Vs 21 But the LORD was with Joseph and extended kindness to him, and gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer. The chief jailer committed to Joseph’s charge all the prisoners who were in the jail; so that whatever was done there, he was responsible [for it.] The chief jailer did not supervise anything under Joseph’s charge because the LORD was with him; and whatever he did, the LORD made to prosper.”

Col 3:22-24 says, “Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service, as those who [merely] please men, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.”

That verse is not condoning or advocating slavery but establishing a principle that is true whether you are a slave or a servant, or an employee or any position where you work for another. And even you independent contractors work for someone. The person that hired you is in effect your employer. Whatever you do, do your work heartily as for the Lord rather than for men. Joseph employed that principal even in prison. And I can assure you that an Egyptian prison was not a country club environment. And yet Joseph was exemplary in his conduct even in prison. He didn’t employ the idea that “everyone is doing it.” That when in Rome, do as the Romans do. He did what was pleasing to the Lord even in prison.

In correlation of Joseph with the Lord Jesus, we know that He was called the Servant of the Lord, and that He was tempted in all points like we are, yet without sin. And we know that He suffered unjustly at the hands of His accusers.

In chapter 40 we read that Joseph interprets the dreams of two of Pharaoh’s top servants, the baker and the cupbearer. I’m just going to read most of this without a lot of commentary. Ch. 40:1 “Then it came about after these things, the cupbearer and the baker for the king of Egypt offended their lord, the king of Egypt. Pharaoh was furious with his two officials, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker. So he put them in confinement in the house of the captain of the bodyguard, in the jail, the [same] place where Joseph was imprisoned.” 

Notice that this captain of the bodyguard is the same position that Potiphar had. So it’s possible that Potiphar was over the prison that Joseph was in, and he has given Joseph the rule over all in the prison. If that is really the case, then it strengthens the idea that Potiphar imprisoned Joseph for political expediency to placate his wife, but continues to favor Joseph even in prison. But I can’t be dogmatic about that. But it does sort of correlate with Pilate who for political expediency ordered Jesus to be crucified to placate the Jewish leadership.

Vs 4 The captain of the bodyguard put Joseph in charge of them, and he took care of them; and they were in confinement for some time. Then the cupbearer and the baker for the king of Egypt, who were confined in jail, both had a dream the same night, each man with his [own] dream [and] each dream with its [own] interpretation. When Joseph came to them in the morning and observed them, behold, they were dejected. He asked Pharaoh’s officials who were with him in confinement in his master’s house, “Why are your faces so sad today?” Then they said to him, “We have had a dream and there is no one to interpret it.” Then Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell [it] to me, please.”

I find that interesting. A lot of people claim dreams and visions and seem to have no trouble finding an interpretation to that dream. But both Daniel and Joseph seem to have been given the interpretation of dreams as a gift of God, and yet on their own, they do not claim such a power. I would beware of people who claim to know the interpretation of their dreams. From my perspective, I put no emphasis on dreams whatsoever. I’ve had a lot of dreams and I don’t think any of them have ever come true, and for that I am thankful. I would discourage you from seeking revelation from God in dreams.

There is a reason that God spoke through dreams and visions in those days. And that is because there was no written scripture available. So God spoke occasionally through dreams, or visions. And in correlation with Jesus, in effect, He was the interpreter of the word of God. He was the Word made flesh. It is said of Christ in Luke 24:27 “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”

Vs 9 So the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, “In my dream, behold, [there was] a vine in front of me; and on the vine [were] three branches. And as it was budding, its blossoms came out, [and] its clusters produced ripe grapes. “Now Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand; so I took the grapes and squeezed them into Pharaoh’s cup, and I put the cup into Pharaoh’s hand.” Then Joseph said to him, “This is the interpretation of it: the three branches are three days; within three more days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office; and you will put Pharaoh’s cup into his hand according to your former custom when you were his cupbearer. “Only keep me in mind when it goes well with you, and please do me a kindness by mentioning me to Pharaoh and get me out of this house. “For I was in fact kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing that they should have put me into the dungeon.” When the chief baker saw that he had interpreted favorably, he said to Joseph, “I also [saw] in my dream, and behold, [there were] three baskets of white bread on my head; and in the top basket [there were] some of all sorts of baked food for Pharaoh, and the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head.” Then Joseph answered and said, “This is its interpretation: the three baskets are three days; within three more days Pharaoh will lift up your head from you and will hang you on a tree, and the birds will eat your flesh off you.” Thus it came about on the third day, [which was] Pharaoh’s birthday, that he made a feast for all his servants; and he lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker among his servants. He restored the chief cupbearer to his office, and he put the cup into Pharaoh’s hand; but he hanged the chief baker, just as Joseph had interpreted to them. Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.

I want you to look at those dreams, and ask yourself how anyone could have come up with the interpretations that Joseph did. I don’t think so. The Lord had to have first of all given the dreams to the cupbearer and the baker, and secondly given the interpretation to Joseph of the dreams, because there is no logical way that you could arrive at that interpretation unless it was from the Lord.

But Joseph was hopeful that in the case of the cupbearer, he would remember Joseph and relate to Pharaoh what he had done, and that he was being imprisoned unjustly. But like so many who are saved from a crisis situation, when they are delivered from the crisis, they seem to forget it and those who helped them. My dad who was in the service in WW2 and Korea used to call that a foxhole conversion. When you’re in the foxhole, which was a pit dug in the ground, and the mortar fire was raining down all around you, you become a prayer warrior, promising God all kinds of things if He would just deliver you. But when the battle is over and you return to normal duty, all your promises to God are quickly forgotten.

Well, eventually, after two more long years for Joseph, the cupbearer will remember Joseph when Pharaoh has a dream he can’t interpret. Gen 41:1 Now it happened at the end of two full years that Pharaoh had a dream, and behold, he was standing by the Nile. And lo, from the Nile there came up seven cows, sleek and fat; and they grazed in the marsh grass. Then behold, seven other cows came up after them from the Nile, ugly and gaunt, and they stood by the [other] cows on the bank of the Nile. The ugly and gaunt cows ate up the seven sleek and fat cows. Then Pharaoh awoke. He fell asleep and dreamed a second time; and behold, seven ears of grain came up on a single stalk, plump and good. Then behold, seven ears, thin and scorched by the east wind, sprouted up after them. The thin ears swallowed up the seven plump and full ears. Then Pharaoh awoke, and behold, [it was] a dream. Now in the morning his spirit was troubled, so he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt, and all its wise men. And Pharaoh told them his dreams, but there was no one who could interpret them to Pharaoh.”

So actually, Pharaoh has two dreams. And all that I can say about those dreams is that none of his wise mean could interpret those dreams, and I’m sure none here today could have interpreted those dreams. It would seem that in Egypt in those times they placed a great deal of importance on interpreting dreams. Maybe the same magical powers that people today ascribe to fortune tellers or palm readers, the ancient Egyptians attributed to wise men and magicians. But none of those wise men or magicians who were supposed to be able to interpret were able to do so. Because these were no ordinary dreams. These dreams were prophecies regarding the future, given by God, which Joseph would interpret by God’s divination.

Vs9 Then the chief cupbearer spoke to Pharaoh, saying, “I would make mention today of my [own] offenses. Pharaoh was furious with his servants, and he put me in confinement in the house of the captain of the bodyguard, [both] me and the chief baker. We had a dream on the same night, he and I; each of us dreamed according to the interpretation of his [own] dream. “Now a Hebrew youth [was] with us there, a servant of the captain of the bodyguard, and we related [them] to him, and he interpreted our dreams for us. To each one he interpreted according to his [own] dream. 1And just as he interpreted for us, so it happened; he restored me in my office, but he hanged him.” Then Pharaoh sent and called for Joseph, and they hurriedly brought him out of the dungeon; and when he had shaved himself and changed his clothes, he came to Pharaoh. Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I have had a dream, but no one can interpret it; and I have heard it said about you, that when you hear a dream you can interpret it.” Joseph then answered Pharaoh, saying, “It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer.”

I don’t think Joseph was trying to show his humility here. I think he genuinely does not have the ability within himself to understand the dreams. But he knows that God has given the dream, and that God knows the interpretation of the dream.

And so Pharaoh repeats the dream to Joseph about these seven fat cows grazing, and these seven lean cows coming up and eating up the fat ones. And then the other is there were these full ears of corn and these thin, withered ears of corn and the withered corn starts eating up the full ears of corn until there’s just nothing but the skinny, withered ones left.

Vs. 25 Now Joseph said to Pharaoh, “Pharaoh’s dreams are one [and the same;] God has told to Pharaoh what He is about to do. The seven good cows are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years; the dreams are one [and the same.] The seven lean and ugly cows that came up after them are seven years, and the seven thin ears scorched by the east wind will be seven years of famine. It is as I have spoken to Pharaoh: God has shown to Pharaoh what He is about to do. Behold, seven years of great abundance are coming in all the land of Egypt; and after them seven years of famine will come, and all the abundance will be forgotten in the land of Egypt, and the famine will ravage the land. So the abundance will be unknown in the land because of that subsequent famine; for it [will be] very severe. Now as for the repeating of the dream to Pharaoh twice, [it means] that the matter is determined by God, and God will quickly bring it about.”

It is interesting that these dreams came in pairs. Joseph’s first dreams was in pairs. In his first dream, it was the sheaves that bowed down to his sheave and in the second dream the sun, moon and the stars bowing down to him. With the butler and the baker, there were two dreams. And now these dreams of the king are in pairs. Both of them having to do with sevens. Seven fat and seven lean. And the lean eating up the fat. And notice that Joseph says that the repeating of the dream twice means that the matter is determined by God and He will quickly bring it about.

It is also interesting that God, on certain occasions gave to pagan rulers insights into the future. God gave to Nebuchadnezzar a vision into the future which was interpreted by Daniel. I imagine it was because of their position in relation to the children of God. As they would have control over the people of God, God is showing them that He is actually the sovereign ruler who controls the events of mankind. God has given us prophecies in scripture, not so that we can know exactly all the details what’s going to happen and when, but so that we might know that He is sovereign over the affairs of men, and that His plans and purposes will be carried out.

But then Joseph adds something that is kind of interesting. I would suggest that he must have remembered his own dreams that he had when he was back in Canaan, and that the dream meant that his family would bow down to him one day. And perhaps that’s why Joseph decides to break protocol here with Pharaoh and give him some unsolicited advice. This would hardly be the kind of thing that a prisone – a slave – would have the nerve to say to Pharaoh, unless he recognized that this might be the way God had provided for him to be delivered from prison, and actually be placed in the exalted position that his dreams had indicated.

So he says in Vs 33 “Now let Pharaoh look for a man discerning and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh take action to appoint overseers in charge of the land, and let him exact a fifth [of the produce] of the land of Egypt in the seven years of abundance. Then let them gather all the food of these good years that are coming, and store up the grain for food in the cities under Pharaoh’s authority, and let them guard [it.] Let the food become as a reserve for the land for the seven years of famine which will occur in the land of Egypt, so that the land will not perish during the famine.” Now the proposal seemed good to Pharaoh and to all his servants. Then Pharaoh said to his servants, “Can we find a man like this, in whom is a divine spirit?” So Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has informed you of all this, there is no one so discerning and wise as you are. You shall be over my house, and according to your command all my people shall do homage; only in the throne I will be greater than you.” Pharaoh said to Joseph, “See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.” Then Pharaoh took off his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand, and clothed him in garments of fine linen and put the gold necklace around his neck. He had him ride in his second chariot; and they proclaimed before him, “Bow the knee!” And he set him over all the land of Egypt. Moreover, Pharaoh said to Joseph, “[Though] I am Pharaoh, yet without your permission no one shall raise his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.” Then Pharaoh named Joseph Zaphenath-paneah; and he gave him Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On, as his wife. And Joseph went forth over the land of Egypt. Now Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and went through all the land of Egypt. During the seven years of plenty the land brought forth abundantly. So he gathered all the food of [these] seven years which occurred in the land of Egypt and placed the food in the cities; he placed in every city the food from its own surrounding fields. Thus Joseph stored up grain in great abundance like the sand of the sea, until he stopped measuring [it,] for it was beyond measure.”

As Joseph is cited often in his circumstances a type of Christ, so we see here a correlation of Christ humbled as a servant, as a man, but obedient unto death, and then exalted by God to the highest glory. Phl 2:5-11 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, [and] being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

I trust that you will bow to the Lord Jesus as King, confessing Him as your Lord and Savior. It is He that can save you from the condemnation of death that awaits all men. It is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment. The only hope is that at the judgement you will be able to say, I belong to Christ by faith in Him. By His righteousness we are saved from the wrath to come. God has provided a Deliverer who has gone before us, paid our penalty, and provided for our eternity. Confess Him as Lord that you may be saved.