Sermon Tone Analysis

How did the world get so messed up?

When I studied the text for today's message, I saw so much in the reaction and the plotting of the Pharisees and the Sadducees that reflects a strain of attitude, a strain of response that I see in the world today.

/How Did the World Get So Messed Up?/

Another question, really the same question to me is…When did Jesus become the enemy?

When did the miracle worker who could give sight to a man born blind, could raise someone from the grave become an enemy?

When did something good, something noble, something peaceful, something profitable become so despised, so rejected?

We live in a world today where the peaceful message of Scripture, the peaceful motives of being a believer, is the enemy of our society.

Christianity is on the defensive.

It has been on the defensive many times in its existence.

There come these times when that which promotes faithfulness and promotes purity, morality, and loyalty is opposed.

Why is that?

Why is it that being a Christian today is seen with not just foolishness, not just as ignorant, but as evil, as something that needs to be vocally opposed?

Well let's look at the text.

Let's see if we can find some things in our message today, see how the world gets so messed up.

I believe that the world gets so messed up when it views Christ as an enemy, and I want us to look at that today as we see these groups that view this miracle-working teacher as something that they don't want anymore.

Jesus has raised Lazarus from the dead.

He did so very publically.

There is a large crowd gathered around the tomb of Lazarus.

They were there to comfort Mary and Martha at the death of their brother Lazarus, but now they are eye witnesses to this most dramatic of miracles.

The response, well, as with Jesus, His response always divides, and so it did with the response to the raising of Lazarus.

Jesus had prayed to His Father.

He said, "I know that You always answer My prayer, but I'm doing this so that others might believe."

Indeed, it tells us that many believed (there in John, chapter 11).

In the 45th verse, following the resurrection of Lazarus, it says, /"Then many of the Jews who had come to Mary, and had seen the things Jesus did, believed in Him."/

The response was as Jesus had prayed that His sign, His display of His power was so that there would be those who would believe in Him.

They would see that He was the Messiah.

Isn't it amazing how two people can see the same thing and have such different responses to that same event?

So we discover in verse 46, /"But some of them went away to the Pharisees and told them the things Jesus did."/

Now grammatically, that could have been some of the same ones, but obviously it isn't.

It's the divided group.

Some believed in Jesus.

Some say, "I see through what He has done that He is the Messiah," but then there are those who, instead, go away to the Pharisees.

They tell them the things that Jesus did…not to encourage the Pharisees to change their mind and believe in Jesus but to convince the Pharisees that something has to be done.

We have seen many people in our presence now believe that Jesus who He has said He is, that He is the Messiah.

They believe that, and you're the religious leaders and something needs to be done about that.

It's amazing how the message of the gospel always divides into two camps.

There are those who accept the gospel message by faith.

By faith they see its power.

By faith they believe in its truth.

By faith they come to accept that Jesus Christ died on the Cross for them.

By faith, they surrender to Him as their Lord and Master.

By faith, they begin to live the precepts of Scripture as their very own lives.

But then in that other camp are those who see the gospel message as foolishness.

The Bible tells us that.

Then they also see it as dangerous.

They go back to those that are their leaders, to those who are their mentors, and they proceed to say, "Something must be done about this.

This needs to be stopped in its tracks.

It cannot go on any further."

Listen to that discussion here with the Pharisees in verse 47.

It says, /"Then the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council and said, 'What shall we do?

For this Man works many signs.'"/

Boy, there is so much just in that verse.

First of all, there is the admission that He is working many signs.

Now we would all say, "You know if I saw Him raise Lazarus from the dead, in fact, if I see somebody raise someone who is clearly dead and bring them back to life, I'm a believer.

That's all I need."

But you know the Bible tells us that isn't all you need.

There is a parable of a rich man and another man named Lazarus.

In this case, Lazarus is a beggar, and he dies and goes to heaven in this parable.

The rich man dies and goes to hell.

From hell, he looks up to Abraham's bosom in heaven, and eventually over the course of conversation he says, "If you will just send that beggar Lazarus back from the dead to talk to my brothers, then they will be believers."

The response is, "They had Moses and the prophets, and if they don't believe the Bible, then they won't believe one even if he rose from the dead."

What we would think would be an ironclad proof, the Bible knows better because our hearts are evil and our motives are selfish and evil.

So here are people who have seen the signs, the same signs that the believing Jews saw, but their response is, "What shall we do?" Gathered are chief priests and the Pharisees.

These chief priests…that collective term is for a group of primarily Sadducees.

Sadducees did not believe in resurrections.

Sadducees believed that there is this life, get all you can get and at the end of it, that's it.

So here is a group that is supposed to represent what the truth is, but they've modified it to something that is practical, that is pragmatic, that is humanly logical in their reasoning, and now they stand as religious leaders, as mentors to the people.

They listen to the cries of these people because it makes no sense to them that there would be such a Messiah.

So they gather with the Pharisees and they form a council.

The Greek word there is the word Sanhedrin, for council.

It is the Sanhedrin, the 70 who are gathered together, composed of primarily the Sadducee priests, also a minority group of Pharisees who were a very influential group.

They're the conservative ones.

They believe in resurrection.

They believe in the Old Testament.

They're trying their best to live the law.

Normally, they don't get along with the more elite Sadducees, but in this case they do.

There are also landowners and a few others that make it onto this council.

They gather together to deal with the problem.

Jesus has become their enemy.

Why? Verse 48, /"If we let Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation."/

How did the world get so messed up?

When did Jesus become the enemy?

Look here in verse 48, "If we leave Him alone, everyone will believe in Him."

Now they're not saying that they're going to place their faith in Him.

They're not talking about believe in the way that we, in church, talk about believing in Jesus.

They're saying that they're going to believe in Him as the earthly Messiah King.

They're going to come to Him and put Him on the throne.

They're going to insight a rebellion.

They have found their conquering king.

They have found the one who will overthrow Rome, that they'll believe Him to be that earthly prophesied Messiah who was going to take them out of the bondage of Rome.

That's what they mean by believe.

They're not worried about their faith.

What they see is that He is going to lead a political revolt.

Notice what happens.

The Romans are going to come and take away our place and our nation.

Our place there…when that phrase is used it's always used of the temple.

It's a word that has two meanings, and they're both applied here.

One, they're going to take away our temple, but deeper than that, is that they're going to take away our position.

They're going to take away, as we would talk about our place in society, our place on a committee, our place in government…that sort of thing.

He says, "They're going to come, and this Jesus is threatening our lifestyle.