Judging with Righteous Judge..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. John chapter 7. We'll be reading from verse 14 through 24, 14 through 24, but by God's grace we will be concentrating our meditations this evening on verses 20 through 24, but we'll read the whole paragraph for context.

About the middle of the feast, Jesus went into the temple and began teaching. The Jews therefore marveled, saying, How is it that this man has learning? He has never studied. So Jesus answered them, My teaching is not mine, but he is who sent me. If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.

The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory. But the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood. Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?

The crowd answered, You have a demon who is seeking to kill you. Jesus answered them, I did one work, and you all marvel at it. Moses gave you circumcision, not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers, and you circumcised a man on the Sabbath. If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man's whole body well? Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.

Amen. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord remains forever. We're brothers and sisters, we're working our way still in the seventh chapter of the gospel according to John. And we've been here in this chapter for several weeks now. And if you remember from last week, the context hasn't changed.

Our Lord is still in the temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Feast of Booths. So there are many, many people before him, probably in the court of the Gentiles, preaching as a rabbi would normally do in that place. We know there would be many multitudes of people listening to our Lord, and in the crowd, in the audience, we know that there are both Jews, the religious leaders, and we also know that there are common folk, those who came from all over the region, and indeed from beyond, to come to Jerusalem, to engage in the festivities that is the Feast of Booths, or the Feast of the Tabernacles. Now, from the context of last week, we know that the tension is growing. And I said this earlier when we first started this chapter, that as we work our way through chapter 7 and chapter 8, we'll see that the hostility of the Jewish leaders, and in fact, the people as well, will grow towards our Lord.

That it gets to a point almost where the tension can be cut with a knife. And we'll start to see some of this in the paragraph that we have before us. Mainly that tension is and the antagonism is growing by the religious leaders because Jesus is standing there and he's picking and showing these religious leaders their inconsistencies in their understanding of the word of God, in their understanding of the law, and in their perceived understanding of who God is. So last week we examined together, we looked at verse 19, and there our Lord was, he gave a shocking indictment to the people of Israel, indeed, mainly the Jews, because that's who were questioning, the to and fro. Remember, Jesus has already taught in the temple, and this engagement is happening between him and the religious leaders, but everyone is still listening.

And that indictment was that Jesus looked at them in the face and said, none of you are keeping the law. You say you have the law. You say you know. You say you obey. You say you obey the precepts of the law.

But Jesus looks at them and says, none of you are keeping the law. And that, no doubt, would have been a massive shock to these people. And then what we did last week is we looked at some of the interactions that our Lord has had with the people, the Jews in particular, Pharisees, the scribes, those members of the Sanhedrin, the interactions he's had in different portions in his ministry. And we saw how indeed his words are true, how indeed these people are not keeping the law, how indeed these people have perverted the law of God. And indeed, their hearts are not filled with love or devotion to God.

We saw that last week. These religious leaders were very superficial. They loved to keep the letter of the law, but they neglected to keep the spirit of the law. They were concerned with how they looked, how things were on the outside, how things were observed, but they neglected what is inside and what really counts before the Lord. So one can look clean on the outside, one can look crystal clean on the outside, as the Jews in this day did look, and they were looked up to by the people, esteemed by them, admired by them, as pious men, the most holy in the land.

But it is possible, and we know this according to our Lord's teaching and what we examined last week, that although they can look wonderful on the outside, that could be completely rotten on the inside. They means we also, because that's the reality that any one of us can be this way. This is the reality of humanity. We like to put on a show to look nice and clean and pious and holy, but it is very possible that we can be just as much hypocrites in our lives as these men were in the first century. And so Jesus begins to pick holes in their theology, pick holes in their understanding, pick holes in the perception of who God is and what obedience to this God entails.

And then Jesus came to the core of the matter, and at the core of the matter, he could see within them, he could see that they had hatred in their hearts. He saw murder in the hearts of the Jews. And then he boldly looks them in the eye and says, none of you keep the law. Why? Because the summary of the law is love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to love your neighbor, as we heard this evening, as yourself.

But with these men who had harbored this bitterness and this hatred in their hearts, they had murder in their hearts, and they proved not only not to understand the law that they would say that they were obeying and walking and keeping, but also they proved that they did not know the God who gave them the law. As our brother said earlier, obedience is impossible unless you have a relationship, a true heart relationship with God. Now that's a big, big accusation. For Jesus to stand there in the temple and accuse these men before all the people of lawlessness. That's a massive allegation that our Lord is boldly stating before these religious men as the crowds of possibly thousands at this point on looking and listening.

So the next verses that we will together, by God's grace, from 20 through to 24, Jesus here provides in case, in point, an example close to the hearts of these religious men to demonstrate for them what he says is absolutely true. And as a consequence, he will reveal how shallow their religion is, the state of their heart, and why God rejects such religion. Let's read from verse 19, just for context. And then we'll begin our meditation in verse 20 through 21. The crowd answered, has not Moses, I'm sorry, from verse 19, has not Moses given you the law?

Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me? The crowd answered, you have a demon who is seeking to kill you. 21, Jesus answered them, I did one work and you all marvel at it. We'll stop there.

The crowd is outraged. How dare this Jesus bring up these far-fetched allegations against our noble and pious religious leaders is probably what they're thinking. So what do they say? You've been overtaken by a demon, Jesus. He's made you paranoid and you're thinking all these strange thoughts.

Who seeks to kill you, Jesus, is their thoughts. Now I don't need to tell you how serious these people's allegations against our Lord is. I'm sure you know and understand when someone speaks of the Lord of Glory in that way and says He is demon possessed, how serious a matter that is. It's unfathomable. absolutely unfathomable to justify why they would deduce such an outlandish judgment upon our Lord.

Don't they know? Don't they know that what they conclude about this Jesus who stands before them is a matter of life and death? Now we're going to leave that verse just for now, and the charge that they made against our Lord, and we're going to move on, but we'll come back to it a little bit later on. We're going to move on now to Jesus' response in verse 21 and 23. just in order to figure out why the Jews were bent on killing Jesus, which is the basis of why Jesus gives them the charge of not being law keepers, and why he says that they are seeking to kill him, why he knows and how he knows that they're plotting indeed to kill him.

And in turn, that's the thing that promotes or provokes the crowd to look Jesus in the face and say, you're demon-possessed, you're paranoid, who seeks to kill you? Verse 21, Jesus answered them, I did one work, and you all marveled at it. I did one work, and you all marveled at it. Now what work or deed is Jesus referring to? Some of our translations actually say one miracle, and the translators there are sort of nudging you in the right direction.

It is true, it is speaking about a miracle indeed. But what miracle? What miracle is He referring to? It seems, at least from the context of our chapter, that Jesus hasn't been in Jerusalem all that long. Actually, up until this point, we don't read or it's not recorded that He's done any miracles yet at this feast, right?

And we know that the trip that he made up from Galilee was private, and it was discreet. It wasn't with his family. It wasn't with his brothers. It wasn't with the people of his hometown, going to the feast with a caravan as they would normally do year after year. No, Jesus went up a bit late.

He went up late because it was the timing of the Father for him to do so. And he came discreetly. And it seems to us, from what we read, when he came, not too long after he came, he began to teach in the temple. So what miracle is he speaking about? Because he hasn't done any miracles from what we can see so far on this trip.

But beloved brothers and sisters, we know this is not Jesus's first trip to Jerusalem. In fact, in the fourth gospel, it's recorded for us that this is his third trip to Jerusalem. And despite knowing, according to the narratives that we've already read so far, that Jesus has already done many signs and wonders among the people in this holy city, it's no mystery to us, as we read on in the section that we're in, to understand what, indeed, what work Jesus is referring to. You see, he's referring to the healing of the invalid man of some four decades in the pool of Bethesda back in chapter 5. That's what he's referring to.

Now, let's not be too quick to move off that point. Because you have to realize that that sign, that healing, the show and the work of mercy of our Lord and the demonstration of the power of God that He displayed in the pool of Bethesda that day was some 12 months at least ago, but more likely perhaps 18 months ago. We don't know exactly because the Apostle John, the author of this book, doesn't tell us what feast was on. But we know it wouldn't have been any earlier than 12 months, most likely, in my opinion, about 18 months ago. And beloved, what does that mean?

That means that these Jews, these religious leaders, these men who who proud themselves knowing Torah and knowing the law and being pious and loving God, these men were storing up wrath and bitterness for a very long time. Think about it. These religious men were comfortable with having hatred in their heart and that hatred was undealt with for 12 to 18 months. They were comfortable with that. Brothers and sisters, I could stop here and spend the rest of our time together explaining how dangerous that is to have sin in your heart and not deal with the sin.

unchecked bitterness, unchecked resentment and rage that they were experiencing towards Christ, and they didn't deal with that sin. Beloved brothers and sisters, no matter what anyone has done towards you, no matter if you've been wronged, It is not okay to allow sin to stay in your heart. It's not okay to foster and harbor bitterness and resentment towards anyone else, no matter what they have done. The Bible is clear. God is the one who avenges.

We come to Him and we repent and we come to Him and we say, Lord, this is in your hands. This is matter for you. You are the sovereign God and I'm your child. I'm not going to have hatred in my heart against a brother or a sister or anyone. Anyone else?

We read, our brother read this evening in Leviticus chapter 19, it was a law of God that they were not to harbor hatred against the brother. 12 to 18 months. And the first thing they do when the people from Galilee are coming in to Jerusalem, what do they do? We're told initially, they say, the Jews were looking for him and saying, where is he? Where is he?

Where is he? Why? I said last time when we preached in that chapter, on that verse, that six or eight weeks ago, it wasn't to give him a big hug and a big kiss. It was because they wanted to grab him and arrest him and they wanted to kill him. They wanted to manifest the hate that they have in their hearts towards Jesus.

They wanted to manifest the bitterness, this bitter poison that is within them that's called resentment. They allowed it to stew, and stew, and stew. And beloved brothers and sisters, if you allow sin to stew within you, and I don't care what that sin is, whether it's bitterness or resentment like these men here, or it's envy, or gossip, or covetousness, or lust, or pick, or fill in the gap, whatever that sin is, if you are not slaying that sin, it's slaying you. How can we? claim to be Christian, or these men at least, claim to be the people of God and allow sin to harbour in their heart, unchecked, and also be comfortable with it.

May that not be, brothers and sisters. May that not be. We deal with the sin, we forgive, and we trust our Lord Jesus Christ for all things. So if this is the only thing that we know about these men, If this is the only detail we know about these men, then beloved, we can make a fairly accurate assessment about their spiritual condition, can we not? But we won't, we're going to move on.

It's not a good start for them, but we are going to move on. So it's the healing at the Pool of Bethesda that is what our Lord's referring to. So let's, I know it's been almost a year that we're in John chapter five, so let's flick our Bibles back a couple pages, or at least maybe one page if possibly. Let's go to chapter five, John chapter five, and we'll read the first nine verses just to refresh our memory a little. From verse one.

After this, there was a feast of Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there in Jerusalem was by the sheep gate a pool in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roof colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids, lame, blind, lame, blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, do you want to be healed?

The sick man answered him, Sir, I have no one to put me in the pool when the water is stirred and while I'm going another steps down before me. And Jesus said to him, hear this, get up, take up your bed and walk. And at once the man was healed and he took up his bed and walk. Okay. Praise God.

Right? That's great news. That's wonderful news. A crippled man of almost four decades is made whole by our Lord. So why?

Why would this stir up such great hostility amongst the Jewish leaders? Why would this act of incredible mercy at the hands of our Lord Jesus Christ, why would it trigger such murderous thoughts and inclinations of the hearts in the Jewish religious leaders? We have to read on, don't we? Let me read to you verse nine in its fullness. at once the man was healed he took up his bed and walked now the day was a Sabbath.

I don't know about you, but whenever you're reading through any one of the four Gospels, and you come to those words, it was the Sabbath day, or now it was the Sabbath, that's a buzzkill. Like whatever joy, whatever emotion, whatever gladness you're experiencing, because normally it's something that Jesus has done, an act of mercy or compassion or love, it comes to an end there, because you can almost guarantee that then the religious leaders will begin to persecute. Why? Because the Sabbath was their thing, right? The Sabbath, the Sabbath was their thing.

And it's no different here. Because what we see here in chapter five is the Jewish religious leaders begin to persecute our Lord and indeed we're told at the end of that passage in chapter five that from that point they pursued to kill our Lord. And that's the work that Jesus says. Now, that's the work that took place. So when Christ says, I did one work, that's what he's talking about.

And then he says, you marveled. I did one work and you marveled. Verse 21. Now, when we read that, we think that marvel is a good thing, don't we? I mean, marvel normally means to be amazed and to be wowed.

But here, and I said this last week, and I hope you got it, when you see the word marveled in the gospel according to John the fourth gospel, it's not a good thing. It doesn't signify a delightful, wow, how amazing is Jesus. It's not the attitude of these Jews, because Jesus is saying, you marveled, speaking about the Jewish religious leaders, but more so a shocking, what? Think of it that way. What?

Who do you think you are? Who do you think you are? And I think, honestly, that a case could be made, a case could be made for every one of the six occurrences that that word is used in the gospel according to John to have a negative connote, a negative emotion to it, a negativity towards it. You think of Nicodemus, for example. He marveled, the same word, marveled at our Lord when our Lord said, you must be born again in chapter three.

So was the teacher of Israel admiring our Lord's words? Is that what he was showing? The marvel in that? Wow, this is amazing. Tell me more, teacher.

Well, listen to his response. How can a man be born when he's old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? It sounds a bit sarcastic to me. That's not a positive response.

The same root word, marvel, is also used with the disciples of our Lord. When they were entering into Samaria, they left Jesus at the well. They went to a place called Sychar, a nearby town, to get some food. When they gathered the food, they were on the way back. When they came, what did they see?

They saw their rabbi chatting with a Samaritan woman. And we're told they marveled. Well, would they think, oh, how lovely, our rabbi is sitting, chatting with a Samaritan woman? No, that's not what they were thinking. That's not what they were thinking.

Because we know, according to John, and he was presumably there, he is a disciple of Christ, he tells us, they didn't say a word, they remained silent, they had the uttermost respect for their rabbi, but he did tell us what they were thinking. And one of the things they were thinking was this, why is our rabbi talking to this Samaritan woman? I don't think that's a positive reaction either, and I can go on, but the point is to marvel in this chapter, sorry, in the gospel according to John, is not a good thing. And it's no different here in verse 21, because the result of the Jews marveling according to the work that Jesus had performed, that miracle over in the pool of Bethesda some 18 months earlier, resulted in murderous intent towards our Lord. But why?

So we still haven't got to why. Why? What was so horrible about healing a crippled man of some four decades on the Sabbath day that would cause these men that will move their hearts to such hatred towards Jesus? I said earlier, the Sabbath day was their Sabbath day. It was their day and they protected that day above all things.

They loved the Sabbath. They loved to put all these little rules around the Sabbath. The do's and don'ts, the ladder of the Lord, the precepts were everywhere. People could hardly walk around with anything more than a fig in their hand because that would be seen as working on the Sabbath day. And so when Jesus said, when Jesus healed this man, A, he's broken the Sabbath according to how they think, but beyond that, what did Jesus say to that man?

He said, get up, pick up your bed or your mat, and walk. Pick up your mat? Pick up your bed? So Jesus is not only a Sabbath breaker, but he also teaches others to break the Sabbath. Beloved, one would have thought if these religious leaders were so concerned, if they really had a real God-given zeal for the law, then one would have thought when Jesus charged them as lawbreakers only a few moments earlier, that would have broken them.

Would that not have caused them to introspect? to go back and go, okay, maybe I am. I need to think about this. I love God. I love His law.

Maybe this man has something to say to my heart. Would that not have been the case? But that's no such evidence of that here. In fact, as they go on, they get more fervent and fervent to kill our Lord. No brokenness.

No brokenness at all. This is the double standard that was experienced in the first century. Their zeal burns hot against others when others do the wrong thing, but they don't see that they themselves are actually lawbreakers also in here. Hypocrites. They say one thing, but they believe and act upon another.

Their standards are different than the standards they impose on others. This is why Jesus says, they tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and they lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with a finger. You see, the law was what these religious men interpreted it to be. And their interpretation, we'll come to find, was seriously lacking. It was twisted and it was perverted at the heart.

Because to know and understand the law, as our brother said earlier, you must first know the God who gave the law. And we concluded from our meditations last week that these men knew neither. They were blind to this truth, blind to this truth. So now our Lord, in the coming verses that we have before us, shows them how their twisted understanding of the law, or how twisted their understanding of the law actually is, and how their loveless hearts is proof that they have missed the whole point of the law of God. What is the summary of the law and the prophets?

To love God and to love neighbor. Verse 22, Moses gave them circumcision, not that it's from Moses, but from the fathers, and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. I'm not sure this parentheses that we have, the words in bracket, that gives us a little bit more information saying that whether that's Jesus speaking or the Apostle John informing his readers of this information. But the point seems to be that the circumcision predates the law of Moses. In fact, we know that the sign of circumcision was given back to Abraham, right?

Back in Genesis chapter 17. some six centuries earlier, before the law of Moses was given on Sinai. And we know that the law of circumcision was also formalized in the law, in the ceremonial law, and we read about it in Leviticus some five or six weeks ago now, maybe seven. where it was placed in the ceremonial law and it was commanded of in Leviticus chapter 12 that on the eighth day a boy born to a family in the covenant people of Israel was to circumcise was to circumcise their son. And as we know, the ceremonial law is really surrounding the fact that it's ceremonial and it's purification that is in mind and they're perfecting rites.

Remember when we went through the rituals and the rituals for cleansing and so forth, we said that it is because people, through life, they become less than whole, imperfect. And there's certain things that needed to be perfected, to be made whole, to be made complete, because nothing short of perfection is worthy to stand or to dwell in the midst of a good and holy, thrice holy God. So they would do these things to perfect themselves, so to speak. And so the law of circumcision was seen as also perfecting that child on the eighth day into the law of God. And so it needed to be observed.

On the eighth day, the child is to be circumcised. Okay, no problem so far. But having both circumcision and the Sabbath laws running side by side will eventually result in a dilemma, right? I mean, judging by the population of Israel, I would think they crossed that dilemma the very next week. They had a lot of people, a lot of children being born, so it won't be long before they crossed a hurdle and a decision was needing to be made.

Now I want to just bring something up. In our text it says that a man is to be circumcised, or you circumcise a man here. That is to be understood a male human. I believe Jesus is not speaking about grown men, but male humans, in that a child is to be seen here, and on the eighth day that child is to be circumcised. Now the root word here, and the same word in fact, is used in John chapter 16, speaking about a woman giving birth to a child, and the same word is used there.

And we know that a woman doesn't give birth to a man, she gives birth to a male human, a child. So it is a child that is in context here, a child. And so this means if the boy was born on the Sabbath, now think about the Hebrew numbering system meant that if the day a child or anyone is born is the first day of their life, so they would call that day number one. So if a child was born on the Sabbath, by the time the next Sabbath rolled over, you're back to the Sabbath, and this is the eighth day. The child is eight days old, and you had a decision to make.

Do you circumcise on the Sabbath? Or, do you hold off and circumcise when the boy turns nine, well nine days that is, and keep the Sabbath holy as their thinking was? Well, we know according to the words of Jesus, They didn't wait till the ninth day. They were completely comfortable circumcising their children, their boys, on the Sabbath. And they didn't find any violation to the law of the Sabbath in doing that.

In fact, they saw this as being obedient to the law of circumcision. That's exactly what Jesus says. Okay, but here's the rub. Here's the rub. Here's where Jesus exposes their twisted interpretation of the law and reveals the true condition of their cold, loveless hearts.

Verse 23, if on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man's whole body well? Wake up, Jesus is saying. Are you really angry with me over this? Can't you see your folly? Can't you see the foundational fault that is your thinking?

You're happy to circumcise little boys practically every single Sabbath of the year in order to perfect the small part of their body and to keep the law of circumcision, and yet now you are angry with me for perfecting a whole man's body on the Sabbath. How absurd. How strange is your thinking? Actually, you know what? The anger they're experiencing towards our Lord is only used once in the New Testament, that's it.

Angry is a good way to interpret the word, but it's only used once, but it also connotes a bitter violence, which really matches the bitterness that's in their heart, right? And it's also been translated in other material as filled with bile. There's a rage going on. It's a murderous rage going on within. They have murderous hearts towards Christ.

Over what? He's just dismantled their argument. Just dismantled their argument. Over what? Why are they angry?

Because he made a poor man's body, his whole body, well? You see, they were concerned with keeping the letter of the law. They wanted to keep all the little specifics of the law, but they neglected to honor the very spirit of the law, which demands mercy. It demands compassion. It demands love.

And that's, beloved, the exact thing that Jesus exemplified when he healed that man on the Sabbath. Jesus was mirroring the perfection of the law. So I ask you, which of these two do you think should take preeminence before the Lord? Which one? The very letter of the law without the engagement of the heart or the heart that then produces the works of the law.

Beloved brothers and sisters, these men, religious men, they knew their Old Testament. They knew what the Lord had already spoken to them. They knew the passage that our brother read for us just this evening, that you should have no hatred stored in your heart, that you ought to love your brother, you love your neighbor as thyself. They knew Micah 6, verse 8, that reads this way, He has told you, that's God, oh man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, here it is, and to love kindness. love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.

Where is the kindness in these men's hearts? Have they forgotten that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath? Was that not the spirit of the Sabbath? Was it not a gift from God to bring rest to his people? You remember, a people who are under bondage in Egypt, under the harsh taskmasters of the Egyptians working day after day after day with no rest.

He brings them and rescues them from bondage and brings them unto himself and covenants with them and he rewards and gifts them with a holy Sabbath, a day of rest. That's the goodness of God. That's the goodness of God, that they would rest from their toils, that they would rest from their work. And ultimately, the Sabbaths were pointing towards the ultimate purpose, which is to rest from not only all toils and work, but all suffering and all affliction and all hardship, a complete and utter rest. All afflictions that we experience in this life, we're looking towards the ultimate Sabbath day rest, are we not?

Isn't that the heart of God for His people? Beloved, they didn't know that that rest is found in Christ. I give them that much, but they should have known the scripture, and they should have understood what God intended when He gave them the Sabbath. And our Lord perfectly mirrors the character of God in a beautiful display of mercy in healing a man who has been crippled for 38 years. And by the power of God, he brings rest to his whole afflicted body.

And now he says, you seek to kill me because I healed a man and told him to pick up his mat and walk. Brothers and sisters, judge for yourself. Would God be delighted in the work of our Lord on the Sabbath? Would God not be pleased in this display of love for neighbor on the Sabbath? Do you honestly think?

That God's law is concerned with only appearances. Or do you think there's more to it than that? You see, the conduct of these Jews was evidence that not only do they not understand the law, but they don't understand or know the heart of God. The heart that gave the law. May God give us to see the foolishness of this.

May God give us to know that He doesn't wish to look down on a multitude of people who are mechanically just doing things and moving through the motions. with His law in one hand and with the other, just ticking the box, done that one, done that one, done that one, I should be okay. May the Lord protect us from such thinking. May the Lord protect us from this, because to think that way is to dishonor a perfectly gracious and merciful and loving God. He doesn't want robotic obedience.

What he seeks is men and women with tender, loving hearts. What he seeks is men and women who delight in him first, as the pleasure and the very delight and treasure of his soul. and by faith then to strive to reflect his goodness, to strive to reflect his mercy, to reflect his compassion, to reflect his love for others. Beloved, the fatal flaw of the Jews was they thought that in their cold, strict observance of the letter of the law, that they were able to be made perfect before God. But they failed to see the foolishness of that thinking.

After all, it's written in Hebrews chapter 7, for the law made nothing perfect. Nothing. The prerogative belongs to God. And you know, and you know that you're on track, on track, with a proper perspective of the law of God, if you delight in the God who gave the law, and you delight in obeying the law he's given. And beloved, the summary of that is, as our brother read for us this evening, in Leviticus chapter 19, verse 18, love thy neighbor as thyself.

You see, the Jews lacked love. Their hearts were hard, stone hard. How hard were their hearts? Let's go back to chapter 5 once more. Follow with me from verse 10.

Chapter 5 from verse 10. So the Jew said to the man who had been healed, it is the Sabbath and it's not lawful for you to take up your bed. But he answered them, the man who healed me, the man said to me, take up your bed and walk. They said to him, praise God, brother. We are so happy.

We are so glad. After 38 years of your misery and affliction, He has saved you from all that suffering. We are so glad, brother. Praise be to God that He's lifted your humiliation of having to depend on someone to carry you from one place to another every single day of your life. Well, you have no idea how happy we are for you, brother.

Let's throw a party and celebrate. Is that what they said when He told them about His healing? No, actually, it's not. Verse 12. They asked him, who is this man who told you take up your bed and walk?

You can imagine them pointing the finger and saying, who is it? Tell us, tell us who is it that told you take up your mat and walk? Can you believe that? A man has just been healed. rejoicing, carrying his mat.

And if John, if Acts chapter 3 is anything to go by, that man at the gate where Peter and John had healed, he would have been jumping. And this is greater, 40 years almost, I haven't been able to use these legs. And they go, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, stop. Stop that rejoicing right now. Who told you to pick up your mat and walk?

No compassion, no joy, absolutely no love for a fellow countryman to be rescued from four decades of misery. Hard to think of, isn't it? But beloved, this is the natural state of the heart. This is the natural state of the heart. You know, Jesus hits the nail on the head, I think.

And he explains what's going on in the minds and the hearts of these men here in chapter 7, when he expounds the words to the Pharisees and the scribes later on in the book of Matthew, Matthew 23. We referenced this verse last week, but I want to read it to us again. It says here, speaking to the Pharisees and the scribes, you tithe your mint and dill and cumin, and you have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. 24, you blind guides, straining out gnats and swallowing a camel.

Okay, so what does tithing have to do with the sermon? What does tithing have to do with circumcision? Okay, it's not the point. The point I want you to see is this, that both circumcision and tithing were part of the ceremonial law, the law that was given to Moses. The religious leaders were observing outward observance to the ceremonial law.

They were observing perfection, you could say, in their tithe. Jesus is saying, well, you do that. You do actually tithe. I can't deny that. And what we see here, according to their actions, they were also observing perfection in the law of circumcision also.

But is that all that God requires? What does Jesus say? He says, as the Old Covenant people, they should observe the Old Covenant ceremonial laws. He doesn't back off. They're under the Old Covenant, and therefore the Old Covenant ceremonial laws should be observed.

They should obey them. There's no problem with that. But this is the problem they do have. They keep the rites, they keep the rituals, they keep the observances, but then they neglect the weightier matters. They neglect mercy, justice, and faithfulness.

Jesus says, you strain the gnat. but you swallow the camel. That's interesting words because he's referring to tithes being the gnats, mercy, justice and faithfulness being the camel. It's very interesting. What does God require of us?

Is it to tick those boxes or is it a heart completely devoted to him? Is it a heart completely that seeks to mirror Him and His character and His goodness? What does God require from us? Well, these men obviously had no idea. And therefore Jesus calls them out.

You circumcise your boys on the eighth day, He says. You tick that box, but that doesn't matter. None of you, none of you keep the law. Isn't that incredible? None of you keep the law.

You obey it with cold, legalistic, loveless hearts. But that's religion that God rejects. Flat out rejects. So let me ask you, what is the religion that God accepts? That's what God rejects.

So what is the religion that God does accept? I think the Apostle Paul says it best in Galatians 5, 6. Beautiful words. Faith working through love. That's it.

faith working through love. Whether you're under the old covenant, as was the case for these men, or if you knew covenant era, it's the same. True religion that God accepts is faith working through love. Now, let's back off just a little. That faith is not blind faith.

True faith in God is a faith that is predicated on true knowledge. And that true knowledge comes in the Word of God, ultimately in the incarnate Word of God. Faith predicated, built upon true knowledge, understanding that has been sunk into the heart, faith to look to Him and trust in Him above all things, and then in love and devotion in that faith working through love, love for God and love for others. If the Jews were actually operating by faith in God and walking in love, they would have seen that Jesus wasn't indeed violating the law at all. But they would have seen that Jesus was upholding the law, that he was fulfilling the law.

The very essence, the very spirit of the law was being fulfilled by our Lord on that day. Beloved, the healing of the invalid man, Jesus was exemplifying the very things that are closest to the heart of God. As I said earlier, His compassion, His mercy, His kindness, His goodness, His love for neighbor. And so what the religious leaders deemed as a violation of the law, was in fact Jesus actually fulfilling the law. So tell me that that's not a perverted understanding of the law of God.

Tell me that's not a twisted understanding of who God is. The only conclusion we can conclude is this. They did not know God. They knew him in their head. The mind was filled with precepts and laws, words, memorized it all, but it didn't sink into the soul, and it didn't capture the heart, and these people didn't see Yahweh as the very treasure of their soul and the very purpose of their lives.

So Jesus looks at them and says, you are lawbreakers. None of you keep the law. So in the last words that Jesus gives, And the last words he gives were words of warning to both the Jews and the lay people at the feast. A warning to dig deeper and see things for what they really are. He's already established, he's already established that these people have a very faulty understanding of God's precepts and his laws.

They're very faulty. He's already said, you're very shallow, you're very superficial in your understanding of these things. Very superficial. You see it all at face value, all at face value. But now Jesus in verse 24 goes a little bit deeper and says, let me warn you, this is what you ought to be doing.

Verse 24, do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment. You see the word translated appearance in our Bible here, has only been used twice, two other times, I should say, in the New Testament, and it's translated in those other places, countenance or face. So basically, it's what you see on the outside. If you say, my countenance is down, it's what you perceive of me from the outside. So it's what you see from the outside.

If you think of the English, we could probably say face value, face value. A face value is unacceptable before God. And if you're going to judge, don't judge by appearance or by face value, he says. He says you need to dig a bit deeper. You need to look for righteous judgment.

It says right here, or better still, righteous judgment. You see, your soul hangs on the balance. These are very important matters that Jesus is speaking about. Don't judge superficially. Don't judge externally.

You need to make sure you need to judge righteously and your judgments need to be right. Don't be duped. Don't let anyone pull the wool over your eyes by assessing what you see superficially or in a way that doesn't look beyond the The outside, the countenance, you might say. You see, the matter of God's law is of the most, uttermost importance and must not be treated casually. It must not be treated flippantly.

But what is of supreme importance, and this is the most important thing, is that you judge rightly of who this Jesus is. Because if you get that one wrong, you get everything wrong. Because there's a lot at stake. Everything, actually. Everything is at stake.

When you look to Christ, you need to make the right judgment call. Because there is eternal life on the one hand, or as the Bible would say, eternal death, or the second death on the other hand. A lifetime, an eternity in the lake of fire, beloved. how we judge who this Jesus is. I feel uncomfortable using that word because we don't stand in judgment over him, but what we perceive of who this Jesus is matters eternally.

You see, there's been much superficial face value judging in our text already, right? Lots. And we're going to pick some of those out in just a few moments. And Jesus says, enough already. Enough already.

I've heard the crowd, what they say of me, and I've heard what the Jewish religious leaders are saying about the law and about me. This is all superficial. Enough. Why don't you dedicate yourselves to righteous judgment? Judging rightly, because if you don't, it'll damn your soul.

Poor judgment will damn your soul. Don't judge like these Jews. How have the Jews judged? How have they come about their verdicts? Well, circumcision on the Sabbath was fine.

No violation. But if you're gonna heal someone and make his whole body well, well, we can't have that. We'll circumcise, but you making someone fine? No, we can't have that. See, a display of how dark their hearts actually are is demonstrated for us in Mark chapter 3.

Don't turn there, and I'll tell you what happens. Jesus is basically in the same situation. He heals a man on the Sabbath. A man's hand was withered, and so Jesus heals his hand on the Sabbath again. And there was Pharisees in the midst, and they were actually testing.

They were waiting to see whether Jesus does or not, and they were enraged. That's simply said. They were enraged over what they saw. Do you know what they did? You know what Mark tells us happens immediately later?

Listen to these words. Jesus heals on the Sabbath, and then Mark tells us in chapter 3, verse 6, he says, the Pharisees went out immediately. Sabbath? It's still the Sabbath, right? Yeah, it's still the Sabbath.

And held counsel with the Herodians, those who were sympathetic with Herod, against him, against Jesus. Hear this, what was the nature of their discussion? How to destroy him? No, you can't heal a man on the Sabbath. You can't make his hand whirl.

We won't have that. But we can go and plot to murder a man on the Sabbath. You see the hypocrisy? Judge with right judgment, Jesus is saying. Judge with right judgment, not with shallow appearances, but with right, righteous judgments.

How did they judge about Christ, these Jews? Was it superficial or was it righteous? We know in the passage that their heat, as I said earlier, their fervent heat and the burning rage just increases towards the, even towards the end of chapter eight where they pick up stones to stone Jesus. What about the common folk now? So we're off the religious leaders.

What about the common folk? The regular people who had made their way to Jerusalem are now standing In the midst of a crowd listening to Jesus, they heard him teach, and now they've heard the discussion to and fro between him and the religious leaders of the day. What about their judgment? Well, five weeks ago, together, we meditated on verse 12 of this chapter. If you remember back then, there was two opinions amongst the people.

There was those who said that he's deceiving people, he's leading them astray. Jesus is a deceiver. And if you remember, I liken that to saying he's like Lucifer, like the devil. And then on the other hand, we have those who say, no, no, he's a good man. Now face value, again, face value with appearances that may look like a positive thing.

But then if you remember what I said, then both were wrong. Both were erroneous. Both were judging according to appearance, because Jesus is certainly not a deceiver, but He's far more than just a good man. Being a good man, trusting in a good man, will not save you from your sins. It's much more than that.

But how about now? They've had a chance. That was before. Now they've had a chance to once again hear Jesus fresh. Right?

Because this all happens after Jesus taught in the temple. So now they can hear Jesus fresh. What was their assessment? Now this brings us back to verse 20. You have a demon.

I've just heard Jesus fresh. Before, he came and began to preach. They'd remembered what he said probably previously, and they thought those two things. Deceiver, good man, now they're saying, well, we don't know everyone, but at least the Apostle John's writing this because he's telling us there's a good number of them at least. You have a demon.

That's what we've assessed. We've judged. We've made an assessment. Jesus, you have a demon. The blasphemy.

Taking sides with the hypocritical leaders, religious leaders of the day to accuse the God of glory of being overtaken by Satan. This is superficial judgment. Beloved, I just want us to think of the foolishness of that statement. Think with me of what they had to dismiss in order to come to that verdict. The foolishness of this wicked assessment that Jesus is in league with the devil How can they say that after all they've heard and experienced of our Lord?

It would be a fair assessment to say that there was no one in Jerusalem, no one in Israel, who didn't know at least, heard of, or even personally saw John the Baptist, right? Everyone knew of his ministry. His preaching ministry was in power, in the power of the Holy Spirit, and he revived Israel. Basically everyone knew about John the Baptist, and most of them, acknowledged him as a true prophet from God. In fact, Jesus tells us earlier that even the Jewish religious leaders rejoiced in John for a while.

They even acknowledged him to be from God, but then his teaching became too, what can we say, pointy, personal. He called them out on their hypocrisy, and they backed off and said, actually, we don't like you anymore, John. We don't like you anymore. And this John the Baptist, which most had already acknowledged as a true prophet from God, what did he say? He said, when Jesus came and he was baptized and he saw the Spirit of God ascend from heaven and come upon him and stay upon him, he said, I knew that this is, his declaration was, this is the Son of God.

John chapter one, right? He is the Son of God. He looked at Israel and said, behold, your messianic king. And then from that point on, what was John's preaching? His preaching was, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

All that, all that teaching, the profession and the witnessing from the mouth of John the Baptist, all that, have you taken that into consideration, crowd? We have. What have you assessed? Dismissed. You have a demon.

You have a demon. What about the signs and wonders of our Lord? The countless healings, the blind may see, the deaf can hear, the mute can speak, the demon-possessed freed from their oppression. What about the miracles of our Lord? The mighty hand of our God, the fact that these miracles cannot be done by any man.

They acknowledge with their mouth, even the Nicodemus came, one of the Pharisees came. We know, Rabbi, that you are from God, because no one can do these things if God is not with him. Have you assessed those things in your judgment? Yes, we have. What are your conclusions?

Dismissed. You have a demon. What about his teaching? What about Jesus' teaching, his authoritative teaching? No one had the wisdom of our Lord.

They said, even in their own mouths, that no one taught like him. The scribes and the Pharisees, not even in comparison to the wisdom and the knowledge and the stature of our Lord. What about his teaching and the authority that he taught? If someone came to debate him, he'll dismantle the debate in seconds. What about his wisdom?

What about his teaching? Yeah, we thought about that and we've dismissed that demon possessed. What about his character? What about the character of our Lord? What about the fact that He's all-gracious, all-merciful, all-compassionate, all-loving?

Have you thought about His character? What's your judgment on His character? We've made our conclusion, you're demon-possessed. They take sides with the religious leaders, and they put wool over their eyes, and they've now rejected the only Saviour of the world. This indeed is very sad.

Very, very sad. And we need to ask this question. How is one to avoid making judgments based on simply appearance? How is one to make righteous judgment? Well, I think we have to back off and learn from our Lord Himself.

Because back in John 5, verse 30, this is what our Lord says. I love what He says. He says, I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, He's saying, as I hear from the Father, as I hear from God, I judge. And my judgment is just.

It is because I seek not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. See, Jesus is saying that His judgment is just, His judgment is righteous, because He hears the Word of God, and because He seeks not to do His own will, but the will of God. And you see, if Jesus is our example for righteousness, then we know that He has come, sent by God, a love and a passion for God. He has an eternal love with God, an eternal relationship. John chapter 1 verse 1 tells us he's in a face-to-face relationship.

In the beginning was God, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. Right? With God connotes a face-to-face. He knew God more intimately than we could ever imagine. He had an incredibly intimate relationship with God, and he heard from God, the Word of God, and he sought to do the will of God.

And if Jesus is our righteous example, beloved, if He is the one that we emulate, He's the one we walk after, then how do we know the words of God? How do we do the will of God? Where do we find the will of God for us, so that we don't make this judgment by appearance? The Bible teaches us clearly that this is The Bible is the Word of God. Scripture is the Word of God, and that's where we find the will of God.

Beloved, the problem with the Jews is they had the Scripture. They had the oracles of God, Jesus said that. They had preserved them, they had protected them, they had the genuine article. But they lacked the true knowledge of God in their hearts. They knew Him not.

And so they were condemned. Because if they had the Word of God abiding in their soul, they would love Him. He would be the delight and the treasurer of their hearts. They would have an understanding of the law of God and all the nuances and so forth, but they would be far more concerned with the heart. That the heart is fully devoted and engaged with God.

that their love would be for Him, that they would be completely devoted to Him, that they would be concerned to be holy as He is, holy, clean as He is, clean, loving, compassionate, tender-hearted, like He is. And if their heart is engaged with God, then the other things flow naturally. The fruit comes. The fruit will come. If your heart is the good soil, Jesus will make sure of that.

And if they did have a heart that was abiding in God, then they would have known the testimony of John the Baptist, pointing to Jesus as the forerunner, they would know, yes, I believe. They would know that the signs and the wonders that Jesus had performed before them. They would know this is definitely the Son of God. No one can do these things apart from God. We need to listen to Him, and what comes out of His mouth is truth.

They would know. If the Word of God was abiding in their hearts, they would look to Jesus, and they would not call Him demon-possessed, but they would recognize Him as the incarnate Son of God who has come to rescue them from their sins. Because Jesus was the epitome of love for God and love for neighbor. And these words are just as critical for us as they were for the first century people in Palestine. Because, beloved, although they did have the Scripture to look to, we have 66 books, the completed canon of the very Word of God before us.

Every one of us, I think, in this place has one in their lap. And beloved, the 66 books of the Bible, they are the light of the Word of God that shines into the darkness to expose everything for what it is. You don't want to make a shallow judgment and a judgment based on appearance, but one that is righteous, you go to the righteous Word of God and allow its light to expose things for you, not only on the outside, But on the inside, allow the Word of God to dwell in you richly, to reveal what you have in here, any sins that haven't been taken care of. Any gossip that we may have, any envy, any covetousness, any lust, anything that manifests on the outside has to be rooted in here. Allow the Word of God that is a double-edged sword to pierce into your soul.

and tell you what you have. Allow it to give you the right judgment of things. And the most important of these judgment calls, and I'm going to end with this, is what we do with Jesus. The most important, the most important judgment that we should, we could make that must be a right and righteous judgment is what we do with the person and the work of Jesus Christ. Because we know what the scripture says of this Jesus.

We know that he is the way and the truth and the life and apart from him There is no salvation. There is no other name given under heaven by which man must be saved. And the question we need to ask ourselves is this. We have the scripture in its completed canon. More than the Jews had.

They had 39 sacred written books. We have 66. This is the completed scripture. We have it. The question is, do we believe everything that is in here?

Because beloved, you cannot pick and choose. I'll tell you something, if we pick and choose, then we are making judgment according to appearance, and we'll end up denying the Savior. We'll end up having a perverted and twisted idea of the law. Because when the push comes to crunch, we will walk away. When persecution comes or hardship or difficulty, we'll turn our back and walk away.

It's either full in or you're fully out. That's what the Savior says. You're either for me or you scatter. You're against me. Do we believe everything that is in here?

May the Lord give us, may the Lord give us to not only read and to meditate and to examine and to memorize all these things, but may the Lord give us to believe truly and make right judgment. And that righteous judgment can only be made with the true relationship with the God of the heavens and the earth and the Creator of all the universe through His Son, Jesus Christ. Because we cannot approach Him apart from the blood of Christ that was shed upon that cross to cleanse us from our sins. And in Him, in union in Christ, we are able to approach God and understand His Word and say, I love you, God. And I love your Word.

I submit to every part of it. May the Lord give us hearts like that, brothers and sisters. Let's pray.