Two Great Miracles

Well, it's been well over a year and a half ago that we started into what I anticipated being a survey of the life of Christ. I anticipated it taking about six months, but we started finding so many things that we wanted to stop and consider a little bit that we decided just to slow down and drag the pace out a little bit and I've enjoyed it. I don't know if anyone else has or not, but I sure have enjoyed it. I keep thinking we're only a few weeks away from the crucifixion, but there's still quite a bit of material in the gospels about in the last week of Christ's life. And we have a little bit to go before we get there. So we still have a ways to go, but the life of Christ, to me, is some of the most instructive part of the Scripture simply because Jesus not only is our Savior, not only did He take our place and die for our sins, but He is the model man. He is mankind, man, man, woman, He is man as man was meant to be. As humans were intended to live, that's what Jesus is. If Adam and Eve had never sinned, they would have lived like we see the Lord Jesus living on the pages of Scripture, at least in humanity, not indeed, not with the miraculous power and so forth. But Jesus is our model for how we ought to live. And every time we look at Him, there's something we can learn about who He is, the way He responds to situations, His attitudes, His speech, His actions, there's so much to learn. And so we're finding some very rich lessons in the Gospels. We are in John chapter 11 tonight. We are talking about the resurrection or the raising of Lazarus from the dead. And we began last week talking about what the raising of Lazarus shows about Jesus. And we talked about the fact that it shows His wisdom. It showed His wisdom in the sense of the timing of things and also the purpose knowing God's plan. Jesus was acting in terms of what God's plan really was. And so Jesus demonstrates His wisdom that He's in total control of the situation and knows exactly what should be done and the timing of what should be done. And then we saw that it also describes His person as Martha greets the Lord Jesus. She calls Him Lord. Jesus calls Himself the resurrection and the life. And then she calls Him Messiah, Son of God. And so in verses 17 to 27, there's a good bit of information about who He is, about His person. Now we begin tonight in verse 28 with what this shows about His compassion, His compassion. Let's just read and we'll pick out a few things, come back and make a few comments about the compassion of Christ and what that's like and then give you an opportunity to ask questions or discuss if you'd like. Verse 28, after she had said this, after she had said verse 27, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who has come into the world. After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. The teacher is here, she said, and is asking for you. When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to Him. Now, Jesus had not yet entered the village but was still at the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there. When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw Him, she fell at His feet and said, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. That's the same thing Martha said earlier. You can almost hear the confusion in their voices as they say that. They're basically saying, Lord, why? Why didn't you come? We called for you when he was sick and we expected you would come. If you had been here, you wouldn't have died. You can almost hear the questioning in their voices. Kind of a hesitating question. They know the Lord, he is able to do all things, but they just don't understand why he didn't come. If you had been here, you wouldn't have died. Verse 33, notice the compassion of Christ when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping. He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. Now don't just slide over that. The Inavit translates to these words deeply moved in spirit and troubled. They are very strong words. They indicate like your stomach churning with emotion. It indicates a very deep feeling of grief and of sadness. The Lord Jesus felt that. It was not just a passing emotion. It was very deep seated. So Jesus asks in verse 34, where have you laid him? Yes. Come and see Lord, they replied, Jesus wept. We know that as the shortest verse in the Bible, but it is one of the most powerful verses in the Bible because it communicates Jesus very real emotion. His grief, his tender heart with this family. Verse 36, the Jews said see how he loved him. Some of them said could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying. So there are others that are confused about why Jesus has done what he has done, why he has allowed what he has allowed. Okay, let's stop right there and let's just note our Lord's compassion. Just a couple things I want to say about it and feel free to ask questions or make comments. First of all, his compassion was very genuine. I've already noted that Jesus was deeply moved. He was troubled. What do you think he was deeply moved about? What was it that troubled him so deeply inwardly at this scene? He can feel our pain. Okay, so he's feeling the grief and pain of those people. What else? I heard something else. The effects of sin. Yeah, I think that's part of it here. I don't know how often that's really recognized, but I think the Lord Jesus is grieving over seeing the effects of what sin has done to mankind. Jesus is within weeks of dying for our sin. And now he's seeing the first hand devastating effects of sin in the human race. Sin brought death. And all that comes along with it. And grief, the questioning, the confusion, the separation, the agony, everything that comes with it. And I think Jesus was troubled at seeing the results of that. And yes, he was grieved for that family. What else? Anything else you see here? I heard one person saying the grief was going to have to be left with a bad, bad, dangerous effect. Okay. A bad, bad, and impredactic. Yes. So he might have been grieved because he knew that what he was about ready to do, although it was a tremendous display of power, was not really a great thing for Lazarus. It was bringing him back from paradise, the presence of God. And he was going to have to die again. And so maybe he was grieving for Lazarus. Yeah, that could very well be. Yes, John? We continually ask these questions every time. When we see Jesus reacting to something that he already knows will take place. Yeah. How do we deal with that? It's a big slap. Yeah. Deeply moved by this. But he already knew this was going to be a situation. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. John is saying, Jesus already knows what's going to happen. And here he is weeping over this situation. How do we understand that? How do we explain that? I think that is really a part of the power of what's happening here. You've touched on really, I think, the essence of understanding his grief. Jesus is not grieved because Lazarus has died. Because he knows he's about ready to turn that around. He knows he's about ready to bring great joy to this family. I think the things that have been mentioned really begin to mind the depths of why Jesus is weeping here. First of all, he is weeping for this family. This is very genuine grief because of how they are hurt. What it shows is that Jesus, even though he knows the future, is able to enter into the grief of this family. To me, that's one of the most powerful lessons of this story. There are some people who say, well, Christians shouldn't grieve when someone dies because we have the hope of heaven, right? I mean, Jesus knew the future. If anybody knows the future, Jesus knew what was going to happen, but he grieved. He wept. And he was deeply troubled because he entered into the grief of the family. It is no comfort to people, to tell them to stop crying or don't grieve because heaven, our loved ones in a much better place. What are you so upset about? You can know the future and have the hope of heaven and still enter into the grief of someone else. And that's very compatible. There's nothing incompatible about that. So I think, John, I think you touched on really the essence of what makes this so powerful is that Jesus is weeping even though he knows in just a few moments, he's going to be causing great rejoicing for everybody there. Could that been a part of their grief that they believed he could have kept him alive if he'd been there, but their faith didn't go far enough to believe he could raise Lazarus? Now Martha comes close to that, you know, when Jesus says he will rise again the last day and I'm the resurrection of life. And do you believe this? And she says, yes, I believe and she's tiptoeing right up to the verge of that, I think, but still maybe so, maybe that's, you know, Jesus had to be troubled at the slowness of all of his disciples to grasp spiritual truth. And yet he just patiently, consistently continued to teach, but that may have been a part of it, yeah. This is a powerful illustration of compassion though and what compassion really is. You know, first 33 says, when Jesus saw her weeping, okay, it was their grief which brought his grief out. And so you know that he's grieving with them and for them and at the devastating effects of sin in the life of a family, not their personal sin, but again, like Bob said, what sin has done to the human race and death and all of that. So it is a tremendous illustration of compassion. And yet there is balance here. In verse 35 where it says Jesus wept, there's a little bit of a balance with the words deeply moved in spirit and troubled. I think the deeply moved in spirit and troubled are the deep feelings of grief and anger at what sin has done. The word for wept is a word for weeping silently. It's not the loud whaling that you would expect at a Middle Eastern funeral which still happens today. In most Eastern countries, you've seen it on the news in the Middle East, no doubt. There's whaling and just very demonstrable evidence of grief. But this is not the word here. Jesus wept, but it was like tears rolling down his cheek, but he was not out of control. And so there's a balance here. He's deeply moved and hurt in spirit, but his weeping is not uncontrollable again because he knows what he's about ready to do. There's a real balance here as well. After the Jews that followed Mary helped with the Christ, and when they said we shall be in the human side of Jesus, love, love, love. The crowd thought Jesus was weeping because he had lost a good friend. And when they saw him weeping, they thought, wow, he really did love Lazarus, didn't he? And he did. And I think that does demonstrate the very human compassion side of Jesus that they would jump to that conclusion, which would be true of our Lord's friendships. Okay, compassion that is seen here on the part of Jesus. It's a very, very powerful illustration of that. But obviously what we see next is his power in raising Lazarus from the dead. Let's just read this story. Verse 38, Jesus once more deeply moved, it's an emphasis on that in the story here. Once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. We have a picture that may illustrate to some degree what it might have looked like as people gathered around that tomb. The stone is rolled away in this setting. It's a little difficult to see. But a very typical Middle Eastern tomb, Jesus says in verse 39, take away the stone. But Lord said Martha, the sister of the dead man, by this time there is a bad odor for he has been there four days. Then Jesus said, did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God? So Jean, there you go, even though she had kind of tipped her up to the edge of saying, I believe you can raise him from the dead. She's back the way again. She's not thinking that. She's not thinking that's a reality. Verse 41, so they took away the stone. When Jesus looked up and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me. But I said this for the benefit of people standing here that they may believe that you sent me. Everything Jesus is about to do is very public, even what he's saying here and he's prayer to the Father. And the reason he's doing it publicly is for the testimony to the people around him. It's not that he has to make a public scene in order for the miracle to work. Okay? That's very important because most people who claim to do miracles today want an audience. It has to be done in public. And Jesus is saying, I don't need that to do the miracle, but there is the whole purpose for him being there is the testimony that it will be to other people. And so I'm saying this for the benefit of the people standing here. He says, Verse 43, when he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, Lazarus come out. You heard it said, I'm sure that if he had just said, come out, everybody would have come out of the tomb. So he specifies Lazarus come out. The dead man came out his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen and a cloth around his face, typical burial custom. As you've heard, we even talked about this past Easter, was to wrap the body and strips of cloth with some spices in between at various places to help with the decomposition of the body and the odor that would be produced. But he comes out with this wrapping still around him and the cloth still over his face. You imagine that scene. Then Jesus said to them, take off the grave clothes and let him go. He's going to need some help. His arms are bound to his body and how he even walks out, I'm not sure, but he appears to be. Can you imagine that electrifying scene? Can you imagine what that must have done to the people who were there? We'll see in a moment what some of the response is. But quite a scene that that must have been. You see the power of Jesus here in his raising Lazarus from the dead. So observations, questions here before we move on. Yeah, yeah, certainly. But you're right because of the lack of scientific knowledge or questioning of things, there was not the doubt that some people would raise today. People would be thinking all kinds of doubts, reasons for what had happened. I think someone noted last week the reason that Jesus may have waited four days was because Jewish tradition said that the spirit hovers near the body for three days. And that was Jewish tradition. So there's a sense in which Jesus was making sure even their doubts from their traditions or maybe superstitions would be overcome. And today, if he were to perform a miracle like this, I'd just have a feeling he would do it in such a way that it would overcome scientific objections, too. But you're right, in our day, there would be immediately scientific objections seeking explanations for how this would have been done. Yeah. Okay. Anything else here? Tremendous miracle, isn't it? I think the remainder of the chapter is every bit as exciting as what we've just witnessed in people's response to this. So let's jump into what the miracle, the raising of Lazarus shows about others, what it shows about others. There are four groups of people here, individuals or groups of people. First of all, you have people we will call the believers in verse 45. Therefore, many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary and had seen what Jesus did believed in Him. Okay, these are the believers. These are the people who had witnessed the miracle and they believed in Jesus. They received Him as their Lord, as their master, as their Messiah. They trusted Him evidently and believed in Him as the Son of God. This is a powerful miracle that shows who He is and they believed in Him. And it must have been, it says many, it must have been a significant number of people who did believe in the Lord Jesus as a result of this miracle because we're going to see it causes the Pharisees and religious leaders to think that there might be such a revolt that the Romans would step in. Okay, so it must have been pretty significant, must have been a, when the text says many, must have been a lot of people that turned to the Lord as a result of this miracle, not just a handful, enough that it would cause the Pharisees to think a national revolt could arise out of this. Okay, so this is a very significant response. All right, then you've got a second group of people. I'm going to call them the informers and you'll see why in verse 46. But some of them, in other words some people who saw what had happened, some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. I don't think it's talking about some of those who believed in Him. I think it's talking about some of those who had seen what had happened. The Jews who had come to visit Mary had seen what Jesus did. Many believed in Him. Some of them, others of them, went and told the Pharisees what Jesus had done. Now evidently these people did not believe. They go and tell the Pharisees, they run to report what He has done. Why? Why would they do that? That's what the Pharisees would say. A bunch of people on the same team, okay? I want to follow up on that in just a moment. I think there's something to that. Maybe the brownie points. Brownie points? Yeah, yeah. Probably want to hear the religious leaders reaction? Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay. Maybe they were just interested to kind of stir the pot a little bit and see what this is going to cause. What this is going to create that may well have been. Pardon me? Self-importance? I've got information. I'm going to be the first one to get it to the Pharisees. There's a little bit of human nature in there that may have been involved. There may have been different motivations, all of which you've mentioned, may have been true of different ones of these people who went to the Pharisees. It's pretty obvious they are not convinced by the miracle to believe in Jesus though. Many did believe but others some went and told the Pharisees. When you get the impression that's a different group of people, these are people who did not believe. That seems incredible in the light of what they've just witnessed, what they've just seen. To me, it confirms what Jesus had said earlier in chapter 16 and we'll see this Sunday after he had talked about the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man being in hell, in torments, and asking Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his brothers of this awful place. I don't want them to come here and you remember what Jesus told them, the verses on the screen. Luke 1631, he said to them, if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead. Now, what that says is that it is God's word that does the work in people's hearts. Miracles were only designed and we've seen this over and over and over again. Miracles were only designed to confirm the word and the message. Never to be the message itself. And that really is something the signs and wonders movement and the miracle crowd today completely misses. Miracles were never designed to stand on their own. They were always designed to confirm the word and that's clear from many different passages like Mark 16, I think it's verse 18, Hebrews 2, verses 3 and 4, St. Corinthians 12, many passages talk about the fact that miracles were designed to be confirmation of the apostles later, their ministry and their message, confirming that word is used a number of times. So what Jesus is saying is that if they don't believe the word, the miracle in and of itself is not going to convince them, which leads me to believe that those who were persuaded to believe in Jesus, the miracle was just kind of like the icing on the cake. They have heard him speak, they have heard who he is and this is like, okay, this puts them over the edge. This confirms for them the questions they've been asking about who he is. And so I think that's what you see. For people who resist the word of God, even someone coming back from the dead is not enough to convince them. That's pretty incredible, isn't it? That goes against what we would think, but it's what Jesus said. And so what you find here, I think, with people some of whom did believe in Jesus as a result of the miracle, some who didn't is a result of the very thing Jesus says. If they are not convinced by the word, then the confirming signs are not going to carry them there. The confirming signs are to confirm the word. So it is the word which people must understand, receive, believe in order to be saved. Not some miracle or sign, it is the word of God, the importance of, again, the word. Someone maybe two or three of you mentioned that they were trying to get on the good side of the Pharisees. And I think probably that's a lot of what's happening here. I think these people who have not been moved by the word and thus the confirming sign does not move them closer to faith, I think they want to be seen favorably by the Pharisees, the Pharisees, the guys in power. They want to be on the right side because of what it may do for them in the future. You get on the good side of the Pharisees, you become collaborators with them, you become their buddies, then somehow that's going to pay off for you in the future because you're getting in with the people who are in power. I think there's a lot of that kind of sinful human nature stuff going on here, very selfish agenda. Pharisees, religious leaders are very powerful. Don't we see it today? People who will sell their very soul to get ahead, to get in with the right crowd, to get in with the right people. They will compromise everything to do that. That's just part of sinful human nature and there are a lot of folks today who still do the same thing. These people are calling them the informers, these are the people who are anxious to get to the religious leaders and tell on Jesus so that they can cozy up to the religious leaders and maybe get Jesus in trouble as well. Any other comments or questions about this group of people? Maybe they were unburged and they wanted to stay in the portions of that. That could be. Again, we don't really know their hearts. I'm assuming some things here. That goes along with what someone else said. Maybe they were testing the Pharisees to see how they would respond. Wait a second. He did this. Now what do you think of that? The Pharisees do give an interesting response and the next group of people which really dominates the rest of the story versus 47 to 53 is the leaders. Out of the leaders respond. This is really fascinating. This really gives us insight into their animosity toward Christ in the way they respond. Verse 47, then the chief priest in the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. Okay, that shows this is getting serious. The Sanhedrin is the most powerful ruling body in Israel composed of 70 scribes or teachers of the law, elders, religious leaders, and 71 including the high priest. The high priest presided over the Sanhedrin to include him. There's 71 people in it. These are the movers and shakers in Israel. This is like our Senate or Congress. These men were given great authority by the Roman government. The Roman government in order to rule a place like Israel would often allow the ruling bodies in that nation to exercise a certain level of authority. Now, there were limits and when they crossed those limits, the Roman power was very obvious and quick and would put down any kind of uprising. But short of capital punishment, short of a few things like that, this ruling body ruled over the daily affairs of the Jewish nation under the watchful eye of the Romans, obviously. But the Sanhedrin had a lot of power. This is not just a little puppet deal here. They had a lot of power. And so what's happening here is the most influential, powerful body of rulers in the nation is now being called to act on Jesus. It's getting serious. And here's what they talk about. Middle of verse 47. What are we accomplishing? They asked. Here is this man performing many signs. Notice they can't deny that. They don't even try to deny that he's performing miracles. But notice their concern, verse 48. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation. They realize this miracle in particular, which follows a whole series of others, but this one kind of the capstone of them. And at a time when they're getting ready for multitudes of Jewish people to converge on Jerusalem, add timing as far as they're concerned. This could lead to a popular uprising that would cause the Romans to step in and squash them. Take away our place. That's the temple. Take away our nation. That's us. That's the rulers. That's the authority and ability they have to rule their nation. The Romans, they know, can step in at any time and squash them like a bug. And that's what they fear. They fear that this will bring a revolt that will mean the end of their ability to rule and it will mean the temple will be taken away. I mean the Romans will not sit idly by if something is afoot by way of a huge number of people shifting allegiance to Jesus. And so that's what they're concerned about. Notice what happens next though. Verse 48, 49, excuse me. Then one of them named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up. You know nothing at all. And by the way, because of that kind of address, most people believe he was a Sadducee. The Sadducees were known for being very rude, no tact, just in your face. And so he looks around at other people and says, you don't know anything. Okay. Verse 50, you do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish. Okay, this man is a shrewd politician. And the answer he proposes is viciously simple. The answer he is proposing is all we have to do, we don't need to be worried about the nation being killed. All we have to do is paint him as the rebel, paint him as the problem, get rid of him and our problem is solved. And so basically what he's saying is one man dies instead of the nation dying. Basically what Caiaphas is saying is that's what we've got to do. We've got to get rid of Jesus and our problem is solved. And we can keep our nation. Okay. Now look at what John says about that statement. Verse 51, he did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation. And then John goes on to add more of God's perspective on this. Verse 52, and not only for that nation, but also for the scattered children of God, meaning Gentiles, to bring them together and make them one. This is fascinating. Caiaphas makes this declaration. Basically he's speaking as a shrewd politician. Basically he's saying here's the solution to our problem. It's a vicious one, but it's a shrewd one. Paint him as the rebel, put him in a corner, get rid of him. In other words, let's kill Jesus and we can save our nation. One man dies, the nation is saved. And John says those words would come true in a way that Caiaphas never could have imagined. John says Caiaphas was prophesying. Now you know what a prophecy is, don't you? In the Bible, a prophecy is the spoken word of God about something that will come true without even realizing it, without even knowing it. Caiaphas is uttering a truth that can be categorized as a prophecy, a word from God that's going to come true. And the way John interprets it is, yes, Jesus is going to die instead of the nation in place of the nation. He's going to die for the nation, but not politically. Not to rid them of a political problem. He's going to die for the Jewish nation to bring a spiritual solution. He's going to die to pay for their sins. And then John goes on to say not just for the Jewish nation, but other children of God throughout the world, Gentiles, that God will bring into his family. Jesus will die for as well. Not amazing how Caiaphas makes this declaration in his mind. He's just thinking shrewd politics. And God is using his mind and his mouth to utter a prophecy about the death of Christ being a substitutionary death. Reminds me of rulers God raised up in the Old Testament. Remember in Isaiah 45, Cyrus is called God's anointed. Cyrus was a pagan Persian king, but he defeated the Babylonians. And he had a national policy of allowing conquered peoples to resettle back in their homeland. And Israel had been in captivity for 70 years. So God raises up Cyrus who just happens to have this political philosophy of allowing people to resettle in their home lands. And he is God's chosen vessel. He is God's anointed. And Cyrus is a pagan, unsaved king, but he's called God's anointed. So God can fill the mind, mouth, heart, even of unsafe people to accomplish his will. And that's what he was doing with Caiaphas. Amazing, amazing. God is definitely in control of all things. Right? He really is. He really is. Here's Caiaphas scheming, thinking he's come up with this brilliant solution to their problem and he's just playing right into the hand of God. God's in control the whole time. Amazing. Okay, questions about these leaders and what their plan is? Comments? Okay, notice there in verse 53 says, so from that day on they plotted to take his life. Okay, so now it's more it's not just we hope we can trap him. They've been doing this for some time. We hope he can trap him in what he says, get him in trouble, maybe having arrested. No, no. And now they are seriously planning how they will killing. It's set. They know they're going to kill him. Now it's just how? And so they're seriously plotting to take his life. There's one other person in the story. The one who's really in control of everything and it's the savior. Look at how the savior responds in verse 54. Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the people of Judea. Instead he withdrew to a region near the wilderness to a village called Ephraim where he stayed with his disciples. Now remember Jesus had already pulled away from Jerusalem and Judea earlier and gone over to Priya. Remember we saw that. It gone over to Priya on the other side of the Jordan River. And when he gets word about Lazarus. Remember he said, okay, let's go up to Jerusalem and the disciples say Lord, they are ready to kill you up there. You want to go back and die and Jesus says, you know, as long as it's day we do the father's will. You remember that last week. And Thomas would end up saying, well, let's go in up to Jerusalem. We'll die with him. I mean, he's already pulled away for this reason. But now he pulls away again. This time different direction. Look at the map. Earlier Jesus had had gone, this is Bethany. This is where Lazarus was raised to Jerusalem area here. Jesus had gone over to this area. But this time he goes up this way. Here's Ephraim up here. Near the wilderness, this lighter shaded area. This is a satellite imagery of the land of Israel. And this lighter shaded area is all barren wilderness. Just mountains and hills that have nothing on them. No trees, no shrubbery, nothing. It's just like desert. And so Jesus goes right to the edge of that. And he's going to be at an out of the way place away from Jerusalem, away from the hotbed of religious life and opposition to to his ministry. He's going to stay there for just a little bit. Okay, look at the tag, the PS on the end of this verse 55. When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover. So we know that we're right up next to the Passover now. We're very close to the end of Jesus' life. Many went up from the country to Jerusalem for their ceremonial cleansing before the Passover. They kept looking for Jesus. And as they stood in the temple courts, they asked one another, what do you think? Isn't he coming to the festival at all? But the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who found out where Jesus was should report it so that they might arrest him. Okay, now that that's the climate in Jerusalem now. People are already starting to go up for the Passover. Some people would go early so that they could do the Jewish ceremonial cleansings and baptisms and that kind of thing to symbolize washing their sins away and their defilement and so forth. And some people had to do ceremonial cleansings for reasons dictated by the mosaic law before they could partake of the temple ceremonies at Passover. So some would go a little early to take care of all of that. And that's what that's what's happening here. People are going early and the buzz around Jerusalem is, you think Jesus is going to show up? He won't come here now, will he? And by the way, the NIV translates it very well. Isn't he coming to the festival at all? The Greek has a way of asking questions that shows the expected answer is a negative answer and that's the way this one is asked. There are three different kinds of conditional statements in the Greek language and this question is asked with one of those that indicates the anticipated answer is no. So basically they're asking, he's not going to come to Jerusalem now. Is he? Certainly not. And he will and he will die. But all in God's purpose and plan, right? He knows exactly what he's doing. Well, that's where we are and that's what the climate is. We didn't get into the healing of the 10 lepers, but that's interesting that that's the very next thing that happens in this context, what Jesus does next is just as amazing a miracle. The healing of the 10 lepers will get to that not next week. Next week I will be in Trinidad and along with Jim Simmons. And we'll be representing our church at the fundamental Baptist mission of Trinidad and Tobago 100th year anniversary. And next Wednesday will be a nationwide celebration of government people there and all for the mission. And so it'll be an exciting time, but I'll be going next Wednesday. The Wednesday following we'll get back to the healing of the 10 lepers. Okay. All right, let's pray. Father, thank you for how good you are to us. Thank you, Father, for allowing us the opportunity to look into your word and to witness firsthand the accounts, the stories of our Lord and his life and his ministry. Father, we thank you for his purposeful moving through the days of his life and his ministry of his control over everything that was happening. And Lord, we pray that we will always be found among those who trust you, love you, follow you, know who you are and openly proclaim that. It's in Jesus' name we ask. Amen.