Step Into the Light (Men's Bible Study in the Book of John)

All right, guys. Good evening. We are back again. Get the well. There you go. All right, back. We are continuing through the book of John. John 12. For those of you that have a Bible handy, John 12 is where we're at. If you're going to be just listening, listening along, don't worry about it. I've got the ESV here that I'll read from. Yesterday we had talked about Jesus raising Lazarus. Lazarus obviously causing a little bit of an uproar coming back from the dead, so much so that the Jews wanted to return him to the dead as quickly as possible so the story wouldn't get out. After that, we had the triumphal entry. We had Greeks seeking to follow Jesus because of everything that he had done. So yeah, there's a bunch going on there. Yeah. But ultimately, we came down to the end of verse 26, where Jesus is saying essentially anyone who comes to follow will follow. I mean, who doesn't come to follow? Not my problem. So we'll pick it up at verse 27. Let me just pray here before we get going. Lord, thank you so much for this time. Thank you for your word that Regardless of where we might be at the end of a, a long day, at the end of a long week, that you are here with us, Lord, that we have this time to just come to you, to have your word open up and, and reveal things for us, in us. I just pray that we can take this time, for those that are watching here live and for those that are watching afterwards, Lord, that we would be able to spend that time with you and get to know you better. In your name we pray. Amen. All right, so verse 27. Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name. Then a voice came from heaven, I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again. The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, an angel has spoken to him. Jesus answered, this voice has come for your sake. Not mine. Now is the judgment of this world. Now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die. So the crowd answered him, we have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man? Jesus said to them, the light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light. When Jesus had said these things, he departed and hid himself from them. Though, though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: Lord, who has believed what he had heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said, he has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them. Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. Nevertheless, many, even the authorities, believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it so they would not be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God. Jesus cried out and said, whoever believes in me believes not in me but him who sent me. Whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him, for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge. The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment: what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me. We'll stop there. We'll do John 13 tomorrow. A couple of things that stand out in this one for me. The voice that came from heaven. I've glorified it, and I will glorify it again. Back in verse 28, God speaks. You've got a crowd of people that have gathered around Jesus. They've seen him raise Lazarus. They've seen his triumphant entry into Jerusalem. They've seen miracles he's performed up into Jerusalem. They've seen all of this. On top of all that, God Beats. I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again. It sounded like it had thundered. So you guys have been through a thunderstorm. You've heard that. Some of you, unfortunately, have probably been so close that you felt the house shake. I remember we had a home, uh, here in St. Isidore Eastern Ontario. The church next to us got hit by lightning and our entire home shook. If the voice thundered, the entire crowd felt this. Okay, Christ calls for God to glorify it. He does it. The thunder would have shaken everybody around. They've seen everything that he's done. They've seen it all. And the response is, well, we believe, but we kind of want to still go to the synagogue, so we don't believe enough. Oftentimes we hear that argument of, well, I would believe if, I would believe if, I would believe if, I would believe if, if this happened, I saw this, I saw those miracles, I would believe. You wouldn't. If there's an if, if there's a, I would believe if God did this. You wouldn't, because these people had that. They had those ifs. They had that, if I saw somebody be raised from the dead, I would believe. No, people saw it happen and did not believe. Well, I believe it if God literally spoke and I heard him and it thundered the entire space around me. I would believe. No, you wouldn't. These people right here, just regular folks like you, didn't believe. And Jesus comes right back to it. He says, this is it. There's those that walk in the darkness and those that walk in the light. If you believe what Jesus says, it's not because of you. It's because God said, I want you to hear, or I don't want you to hear. When Jesus said these things, he departed and hid himself from them. Though he had done so many signs with them, they still did not believe in him. So the words spoken by the prophet Isaiah may be fulfilled. And here's the interesting part. So why would there be people there that didn't believe? Why wouldn't God just make everybody there bow down and worship and believe? To fulfill prophecy. Isaiah, we're talking— we're not talking last week Isaiah was roaming around the Middle East, right? Hundreds and hundreds of years before Jesus. You've got these prophets that are speaking, Isaiah speaking, and here Christ is fulfilling prophecy. God said it would happen, it happened. Why didn't everybody believe? Because God said everybody wouldn't believe. Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him. But less than the Pharisees. So again, this is touching on something else that's pretty key here. It's not just a belief, okay? It's not just, oh yeah, there is a God and I believe in him and that's great, but I also have, you know, a bank and a government and, you know, a spouse or a boss at work or, uh, somebody else that I believe in more. The believing more is also an issue. The priority of things. Oh, I, I believe in Jesus. I, I just believe the Pharisees more and what comes with them. It's a serious thing that we got to wrestle with. And I mean, here these guys make their decision pretty clearly. We'd rather be able to go into the synagogue, the, the building that we built to worship God, than worship God who's standing right here in front of us. I know it sounds crazy to put it that way, but that's literally what is being said here. That building that we built to worship God, we would rather be able to go into the building than stand right here with God and worship him directly. Whoever believes in me believes not in me but him who sent me. Oh, we believe in God. Then you would believe in me. He just he lays it out flat. We we believe in God. Then you would believe in me. That simple. Is there a God? Yes, he had a sign. There he is. Right there. Whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. I have come into the world as light. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him, for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge. The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. Believe. It's all he's asking. Believe. You gonna screw up? Yeah, that, that's there. That from, from the start of the Gospels all the way through— heck, the whole book, it's the big book of screw-ups. You pick any book in this Bible and you're gonna find screw-ups. You name them. Noah screwed up. Adam screwed up. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob all screwed up. Joseph screwed up. David screwed up. Over and over and over and over and over. Peter screwed up. Paul screwed up. It's a big book of screw-ups, guys, but the screw-ups aren't the point. The point is, when we screw up, Christ is still standing there saying, do you believe? I got you. I died the death to cover the sins that you are going to commit, that you have committed, that you are committing, that you will commit. I love you regardless. Question is, walk in the dark or walk in the light? Walk in the dark or walk in the light. That's it for tonight, guys. If you check in the description of this, you'll find there's some questions there if you guys want to continue probing through. I also found a bunch of books that might help wrestle this out a little bit more for you. So if you want to check those out, that's great as well. I will be back tomorrow. These Bible studies are going to be Monday through Friday, 8 o'clock Eastern. So if you're watching this after the fact and you want to catch one of these live, 8 o'clock Eastern Standard Time. I'll be here Monday through Friday going through it. Right now we're going through John. When we finish John, I will likely move into the book of Acts and then work my way through the epistles after that. So we'll do John and then we'll hop over to Acts and keep going that way. But yeah, I read the comments every morning. So if you guys have any questions, comments, please let me know. Have an amazing night. Take care. Thank you. Take it easy. See ya.