Sermon Tone Analysis

The Truth Matters!

The Gospel of John

John 7:25-36

Sermon by Rick Crandall

Grayson Baptist Church - November 30, 2016

(Revised August 23, 2019)

BACKGROUND:

*Please open your Bibles to John chapter 7. Tonight in vs. 25-36, we are going to focus on the vital importance of truth.

But before we get started, it's important to remember the background here.

*By now, Jesus was at the annual Feast of the Tabernacles, and when we get to vs. 37, we will find out what it was all about.

The Holy Spirit led John to give us a lot of detail about these two or three weeks.

It's the focus from John 7:1 all the way to John 10:21, so this was a very significant point in the Lord's ministry.

(1)

*Verses 1-2 here tell us that:

1.

After these things Jesus walked in Galilee; for He did not want to walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill Him.

2. Now the Jews' Feast of Tabernacles was at hand.

*By this chapter, Jesus was in the third year of His ministry, and the Jewish rulers had been trying to kill Him for at least 6 months, possibly up to a year and a half based on the different timelines scholars have proposed.

*In John 7:21, Jesus points us to one of the main triggers for the Jews' murderous desires.

There "Jesus answered and said to them, 'I did one work, and you all marvel.'"

*The "one work" Jesus mentioned was the miracle He performed at the Bethesda pool in John 5.

There the Lord healed a man who had been terribly sick for 38 years.

But the Jewish leaders found out that Jesus had healed that man on the Sabbath day.

And they were so devoted to their manmade laws that they wanted to murder Jesus.

*John 5:16-18 explains:

16.

For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath.

17.

But Jesus answered them, "My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.''

18. Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.

*Those rulers cared more about their traditions than they cared about the sick man.

Jesus pointed out how wrong they here in vs. 22-24.

There the Lord told them:

22. "Moses therefore gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath.

23.

If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath, so that the law of Moses should not be broken, are you angry with Me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath?"

24.

Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.''

*With this background in mind, let's see what happened next in vs. 25-36.

And as we read, please think about the fact that the truth matters.

MESSAGE:

*God surely cares about truth.

We know this for one reason because the word "truth" is found over a hundred times in the New Testament.

The truth always matters to God, and it ought to matter to us.

*But we live in a day when a lot of people believe that truth doesn't matter.

They actually believe there is no such thing as objective truth.

You can have your truth, and I can have mine.

*How bad has it gotten?

In October 2018, the Christian Institute of England reported on a new survey for the Coalition for Marriage.

Among the 2,000 people asked, 32 percent supported self-definition of race.

Nineteen percent thought it was okay for people to choose their age.

They think if I get up in the morning and decide I want to be 43, I can!

But for that matter, why stop there?

I'll be 23.

*Ten percent of those people also said it was okay for you to choose your own species!

In other words: If I get up tomorrow and decide I want to be a horse, that's what I will be.

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*This is the kind of nonsense people can believe when they reject the reality of truth, especially when they reject the greatest truth of all: our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

As Jesus said in John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through Me."

*Lots of people reject the truth today.

They think truth doesn't matter.

But the truth is that the truth always matters.

The next time I get on a plane, and the gauges say there's plenty of jet fuel in the tank, I want those gauges to be telling the truth!

*The truth matters!

And tonight's Scripture shows us how we should respond to the truth.

1. FIRST: WE MUST NOT HATE THE TRUTH.

*We must not hate the truth about Jesus Christ, but that's what was happening in this Scripture.

Those Jewish leaders hated the truth about Jesus.

That's why in vs. 25, "Some of them from Jerusalem said, 'Is this not He whom they seek to kill?'"

And in vs. 30, "they sought to take (Jesus); but no one laid a hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come."

And in vs. 32, "The Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take Him."

*Those Jewish rulers hated Jesus.

And the Lord told us why back up in vs. 7.

There Jesus was speaking to His unbelieving brothers.

And He said, "The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil."

*There are many people like that in the world today.

They may seem like good and pleasant people, but even bringing up the name of Jesus seems to make them mad.

They hate the truth about Jesus.

[1] AND THEY HAVE NO IDEA HOW TRAGICALLY MISTAKEN THEY ARE, BECAUSE HATING THE TRUTH BRINGS CONFUSION.

*God gives us an example of this confusion in vs. 33-36.

Jesus told them:

33. . .

"I shall be with you a little while longer, and then I go to Him who sent Me.

34.

You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am you cannot come.''

35.

Then the Jews said among themselves, "Where does He intend to go that we shall not find Him?

Does He intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks (Gentiles) and teach the Greeks?

36.

What is this thing that He said, 'You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am (there) you cannot come'?''

*Without Jesus Christ, the smartest person in the world doesn't have a clue about the most important thing in life.

[2] HATING THE TRUTH ABOUT JESUS BRINGS CONFUSION.

IT ALSO BRINGS CORRUPTION.

*In vs. 25, "Then some of them from Jerusalem said, 'Is this not He whom they seek to kill?'" Hating the truth about Jesus leads to all kinds of corruption, even murder.

*We got a stark reminder of this fact in November 2016.

I was in Mary's office working on this sermon, when we got a call from our daughter Becky.

Mary started to talk, but Becky quickly interrupted to tell us about the attack going on at Ohio State.

*Thank the Lord, she was late that Monday, but she got a campus-wide text warning about a shooter on campus.

It told everyone to run, hide or fight if you had to.

Now, we know that the terrorist attack wasn't from a shooter.

*At 9:21 a.m.

their time, a gas alarm was reported, and students in Watts Hall were evacuated outside.

I don't know if that was part of the attack or a coincidence, but the students stood outside the building for about 30 minutes while firefighters investigated.

*Then at 9:52, Muslim student Abdul Razak Ali Artan from Somalia drove his car over the curb and into the crowd outside Watts Hall.

When the car stopped, he jumped out and starting stabbing people with a butcher knife.

*Then, only a minute later at 9:53, Ohio State Police Officer Alan Horujko arrived on the scene.

He ordered Artan to drop his weapon.

And when he refused, the officer shot Artan dead.

*Thank God, that police officer was so close!

Eleven victims were hospitalized, but it could have been a whole lot worse.