Sermon Tone Analysis

Jesus Provokes His Enemies

Jesus Provokes His Enemies

April 27, 2014

Turn to , .

Ten times in this chapter—which actually begins in verse 12–ten times in this chapter Jesus has been attacked and assaulted by the leaders of Judaism.

Ten times.

It’s just one barrage after another.

And it’s not just this chapter.

The same thing was going on in the previous chapter.

In the previous chapter, they were making the same blasphemous accusations, the same threats, having the same desire to kill him.

This goes all the way back to the second chapter of the Gospel of John when Jesus came into Jerusalem and launched his ministry by assaulting the corrupt temple operations, and it’s been nothing but conflict for the two and a half years since then with the religious leaders of Judaism.

This, however, is one of the most antagonistic events in that conflict, and that’s why I titled it “Jesus Antagonizes the Enemies.”

And I might tell you that he purposely antagonizes his enemies because it’s necessary.

It’s what the truth does to error and it’s required.

Just to maybe set the context a little bit bigger outside the Book of John, have you noticed that it is only evangelical biblical Christianity that is persecuted in the world and in our society?

People aren’t persecuting Hindus.

They’re not persecuting Buddhists.

They’re not persecuting Muslims.

They don’t even persecute Roman Catholics.

They don’t persecute people of other religions because all false religion is a part of the same kingdom of darkness, and a house divided against itself can’t stand, right?

So Satan can’t be divided against Satan, and since he owns all false religion, he tends to contribute to its survival and its elevation.

The attacks always come from the kingdom of darkness on the one category of truth, and that’s the Bible.

And those who rightly represent the Bible, biblical religion, biblical Christianity.

So we aren’t surprised that it’s Christianity that is being marginalized, Christianity that’s being taken out of the public discussion, Christians that are being persecuted, Bibles that are being set aside, references to Jesus Christ that are being eliminated.

All the attacks come on the truth because they all come from the kingdom of darkness.

And it is also true to say that the greatest enemies of the truth have always been religious because man is invariably religious, inveterately religious, always has been religious, is still religious, and consequently, his false religion assaults the truth constantly.

So it doesn’t surprise me.

It is a sign that we’re doing something right to have the kingdom of darkness coming after us.

That’s how it is.

The harshest human attacks on Jesus didn’t even come from the people.

He got indifference from the people, for sure, but the really harsh, aggressive assaults on him came from the religious establishment and the people who were most devoted to that establishment: self-righteous Jewish leaders who were part of an apostate form of Judaism that basically belonged to Satan like all other religion.

All other religion is part of the kingdom of darkness.

And since they were part of a false religion that belonged to Satan, they were enemies of the truth, and therefore they were enemies of Christ, who is the truth.

All religion claims to represent God, but it represents the devil.

It represents Satan.

And that is what Jesus said in verse 44.

This is the high point.

This is the escalation of the conflict to its highest level.

He says to these religious leaders who continually said they represented God and spoke for God, “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father.”

“You lie and you desire to kill me because I speak the truth and you are a part of the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of lies, and the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of lies wants to stamp out the truth.”

So here is Jesus saying something that is the most volatile thing he could possibly say to Jewish leaders who prided themselves on being children of Abraham, children of God, those who rightly represented God, those who were God’s agents in the world.

He says, “You are of your father the devil.”

That is Judaism in its most devout form is Satanic.

Our Lord’s condemnation of these corrupt leaders reaches a real pinnacle in the final week of his life.

records during the passion week that in the temple he gives that message that’s recorded in , in which he calls them, “whited sepulchers.”

He says they create “sons of hell,” and he denounces all of them.

And then he warns the people to stay away from them because of their damning influence.

Over these two and a half years of his ministry, this conflict has been escalating by necessity because he continues to confront their damning destructive error with the truth.

Somebody might say, “Well, back off.

We can’t do that.”

The truth damns.

The truth damns eternally.

It sends people to hell forever.

The consequences are incalculable and they don’t ever change.

Error must be confronted with the truth.

These children of Satan see Jesus, then, as an enemy.

They see him as a disturber.

They see him as a blasphemer, a law breaker.

They can’t contain themselves in dealing with him.

They’re so full of fury at him.

This kind of culminates, at least the eighth chapter version of it, episode of it, in the text before us.

Let’s pick it up in verse 48.

Having just heard Jesus say, “You are of your father the devil,” and then explain that connection, because you desire what the devil desires, which is to lie and kill.

You want to kill even me.

They respond in verse 48, and “they said to him, ‘Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?’

Jesus answered, ‘I do not have a demon; but I honor My Father, and you dishonor Me.

But I do not seek My glory; there is One who seeks and judges.

Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My -” message, My teaching, My “- word he will never see death.’

The Jews said to Him, ‘Now we know that You have a demon.

Abraham died, and the prophets also; and You say, “If anyone keeps My word, he will never taste of death.”

Surely You are not greater than our father Abraham, who died?

The prophets died too; whom do You make Yourself out to be?’

“Jesus answered, ‘If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing; it is My Father who glorifies Me, of whom you say, “He is our God”; and you have not come to know Him, but I know Him; and if I say that I do not know Him, I will be a liar like you, but I do know Him and keep His Word.

Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.’

So the Jews said to Him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.’

Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.”

The conflict has never been more dramatic than that.

Things have reached the point where they either repent and believe in Him or they can’t contain their fury, their rage, their hardness of heart.

Why does he do this?

Why does he exacerbate this conflict?

Why does he elevate this?

Why does he raise it to this level?

Why does he say things like “you’re of your father, the devil.

You’re liars and murderers, and you desire what the devil desires”?

Why does he say that?

Well, the answer is because he loves them, because this is a mercy.

It is a mercy to shatter false securities.

It is a mercy to devastate false religion.

It is a mercy to strip people locked in some form of religious deception, strip them naked of that deception.

These are people with the emperor’s clothes.

They need to be exposed for what they are.

Their false religion needs to be dealt with in a very strong, stern confrontation.

Now just backing off that for a minute, debates, when they’re lost, deteriorate.

And there’s a kind of a four-level way in which this works, and you’ve experienced this.

You experience it whenever you get into a debate, if you’re not careful.

You can see this.

Debates start on an intellectual levels.

Somebody says, “This is true.”

Somebody says, “Well, this is true.”

And you have a disagreement.