The Honour of the Father and..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. John chapter 8 verse 31. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

They answered him, We are the offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free? Jesus answered them, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever. The son remains forever.

So if the son sets you free, you'll be free indeed. I know that you are the offspring of Abraham. Yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my father and you do what you have heard from your father. And they answered him, Abraham is our father.

Jesus said to them, if you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works of your father or the works your father did. They said to him, we're not born of sexual immorality.

We have one father, even God. Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me for I came from God and I am here. I came not on my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? Is it?

It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.

Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God. Verse 48.

The Jews answered him, are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon? Jesus answered, I do not have a demon, but I honor my father and you dishonor me. Yet I do not seek my own glory. There is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.

The Jews said to him, now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, as did the prophets. Yet you say, if anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death. Are you greater than our father, Abraham, who died? And the prophets who died?

Who do you make yourself out to be? Jesus answered, if I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my father who glorifies me, of whom you say he is our God. But you have not known him. I know him.

If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him, and I keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad. So the Jews said to him, you are not yet 50 years old, and have you seen Abraham?

Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. Amen. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the words of the Lord remains forever. Let's just come to our Lord in prayer for a moment.

Father, we ask now that you would be with us, that you would meet with us this evening. Lord, if you don't presence yourself among us by your Holy Spirit, then we do this in vain. So we ask of our Heavenly Father, in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, who shed his blood to cleanse us from our sin and to glorify your great holy name, meet with us this evening, we pray. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. I wanted to read the whole of this narrative from verse 31 throughout the rest of chapter 8, just so we've been here for a while, just so it's in the back of our minds, so that we have the detail of what we've already examined, what we've already exposed, what we've already meditated upon together as a congregation, as well as what we're going to meditate upon together in these verses and what is yet to come. Because this evening, by God's grace, we'll be looking at verses 48 through 50. The audience are still the same. We know.

Nothing has changed since the last time we were in the Gospel according to John. But what we find from verse 48 is a transition starting to happen. Something new is taking place. If you remember, back in verse 31, I said something new happened back then. You might remember, I said back then is when Jesus' audience are primarily those who have confessed or professed a type of faith in Jesus Christ.

We're told these are, and He said to the Jews who believe in Him. from 31. But now here in verse 48, a new transition is taking place. Because those people who professed in Christ, who professed to have believed in Christ, had become more and more agitated, probably uncomfortable is the word I want to use, with the words of Jesus. They weren't agreeing with what he said.

So there was a bit of pushback from their point of view at Christ. Some agitation was starting to occur. But here, here from verse 48 onwards, we will see the emotions of these people and their heart's attitude change to one step deeper again. Actually, in fact, they become, they go from being uncomfortable and agitated and more just pushing back on what Christ says to now being outright nasty towards our Lord. That's what takes place.

Because then, from 48 throughout to the end of the chapter, we'll see these people hurl some very horrible personal insults at the Son of God. It grieves our soul, but this is the nature of one whose heart is not restrained by the Spirit of God. What we've seen thus far is this. Jesus's words have hit a very sensitive spot in the hearts of the people who are supposed to be people who had believed in him. A very sensitive spot which has caused these people to react in this way.

These people thought themselves to be distinguished from the rest. The very thing that they thought set them apart from the disgusting, uncircumcised, dirty Gentiles was their ethnic privilege. And Jesus here, in the previous word, he pieces that notion and bursts their bubble. And they don't like it. They don't like it one bit.

Especially when our Lord says to them that they are in bondage. They don't like those words. We're in bondage? I mean, that's settled on one thing and one thing for sure. As an ethnic people, as the Jewish people, as a privileged people, they saw themselves as above the rest.

And if there's something they thought of themselves more than anything else, it was that they were religiously and spiritually free. That this freedom, this liberation that Jesus has on offer and that Jesus is presenting to them is something they don't need. Why would free people require a rescuer? Jesus, we're free already is what these people have already said. We're the offspring of Abraham.

We're the offspring of Yahweh. We're his children. But now Jesus clears up their mental fog and gives them a dosage of reality. shows them that they are deluded in their sinful, darkened understanding of spiritual things. And they are less than impressed.

In fact, they get angry. They get really angry. And their side of the dialogue between them and the Lord, which had some semblance of peace and civility, turns very, very ugly. They can't handle the truth. They didn't like what was coming out of the mouth of our Lord.

It was too offensive to their Jewish sensibilities. The truth, this was a truth they weren't willing to hear, nor could they bear to hear the truth that is coming out of the mouth of our Lord. What is that truth? Well, I think our Lord says it best in verse 43. You are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires.

He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character for he is a liar and the father of lies. Your spiritual father is not Abraham. Your spiritual father is not Yahweh. No, you're wrong on both.

Your spiritual father is the devil himself, is what Jesus is saying. Now, Christ has proven that to these people in that principle that I mentioned a few weeks ago, like father, like son. If these were indeed the children of Abraham, then their works would be as the works of Abraham. There'd be some resemblance between Abraham, who believed, and it was counted to him, righteous, and their works. And if what they claim, they said, we are children of God.

Then if that were to be true, then they would have the heart of God. They would love the things that God loves. And the object of the father's love is his son. And now the son of God comes and stands before them and they hate him. They're not Abraham's sons and they are not the sons of God.

They are sons of the devil. That's a harsh word, but it's truth. Truth stings. And I don't want to hear it, but it needs to be said. And beloved, the Lord uses that word here for devil.

He uses the word diabolos. Diabolos meaning slander. There's other word, another word that Christ uses to speak of the devil, and that's satan, Satan as we know it. Now, when he speaks of, for example, in John chapter 13, when Judas Iscariot goes from among Christ and he says that Satan entered him, right? That word Satan means the foe or the enemy or the adversary entered into Judas.

But here, in this context, our Lord is using another word. He's using the word diabolos, which means slanderer. So not only are the two attributes that our Lord has already referenced that belong to Diabolos, those two, if you remember, is that he's a liar and the father of lies, and that he's a murderer, and before the end of the chapter, our Lord will prove that these people who are opposing him on every corner and now outright insulting him are guilty on both those offenses, they are liars and they are murderers, but also, He'll prove that the name that he uses of Satan, of the devil, Diablo, slanderer, is perfectly fitting to these people also. Because like father, like son, these men begin to hurl some very low and slanderous words and accusations against our Lord, indeed proving the word that our Lord had spoken to them. And in fact, the last words that together as a congregation, we meditated upon a couple of weeks ago from verse 47.

Our Lord proves those words to be with pinpoint accuracy with the people that he's speaking. And this is what he says there, he says, whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God. You see, when it's all said and done, that's what it comes down to. Jesus is looking these Jews in the eyes and He's saying, you know why you act the way you act?

Because you don't know God. You belong to the slanderer. You belong to the one who indulges in sin and depravity and immorality. That's where your heart is. That is what's gripped your soul.

Now let's continue where we left off last time in verse 48. The Jews answered him, and are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a devil? My apologies, and have a demon? Again, as I said, it's a nasty, nasty accusations coming out of their lips. Probably the two most awful insults that a Jew can think of on the spot in the first century was that.

That you're a Samaritan, and we'll get into that in a moment, and that you're a demon-possessed person, or you're one who has a demon. And in fact, the way that The Apostle John has worded it for us. He says, are we right in saying, seems to suggest that this is a settled opinion of not just the single lone person that just threw this at Christ, but actually others in the group were in agreeance. Now, from our point of view, the words that have come out of the mouths of these Jews are quite nasty. They're quite low.

They're outright evil and they're derogatory. We can all agree on that. It was a wicked thing to say about our Lord, no doubt. But I actually think there's more than meets the eye. I think because of their delusion, because of their darkness, the darkness and the moral darkness of their hearts on spiritual matters, we've seen that over and over again in the gospel according to John.

I think they were actually thinking they were saying something that would point to their nobility. I think they thought themselves as defending Yahweh in these words. Let me explain. Translated literally, that word right, when they say, are we not right in saying? You can, on occasion, connote more than factual correctness.

Now the question does presuppose, the way the grammar's put together, a yes answer. So it's more of a statement they're making. They're not really asking, Christ, can you please give us a yes or a no. It is more of a statement in question form. However, there's more to it than simply what we see.

It looks like they're wanting more than just simply to gather some facts or get some facts straight. Because literally that word can be translated, it can be translated, are we not right? But also, are we not honorable in saying? Or are we not commendable in saying that you're a Samaritan and have a demon? The point is that their likely intentions is to revile Christ.

I mean, their hearts are wicked. We know that. But in some twisted way, they want to come across as honorable. They want to come across as being with Yahweh. We're religious people.

This is what we do. We defend Yahweh from blasphemous people like you, Jesus. evidence that their moral compass was way out of whack. That's why I believe our Lord calls them out in verse 54 when he says, you think you know God, but you have no idea. Are we not right in saying you're a Samaritan?

See, even from our point of view, that's a very low thing to say. We know enough about the Jews to know that they weren't very fond of the Samaritans, nor were the Samaritans very fond of the Jews. Now, Samaria in the first century was a big chunk of land that comprised what was known to be the northern kingdom of Israel. It was the region or the parcel of land between the south, which is Judah, and Galilee, to the north. Samaria was nestled somewhere in the middle.

But calling Jesus a Samaritan wasn't simply referring to his place of origin. No. It was a racial slur, but it was a racial slur that had deep-rooted hostility and also had some religious significance. I said before the feud Well, I said before that the Jews weren't fond of the Samaritans, the truth be told. I should have used the word they despised for the most part, the Samaritans.

So much so that when the Jews were making a trip, as I said earlier, you have Judah on the bottom, or Judea on the bottom, and you had Galilee at the top. So much so that if a Jew wanted to make the trek from the south to the north, or even the north to the south, that would take a detour around to the east, around over the Jordan River, cross through up the Perea, and go back into Galilee, just so that their feet would not be contaminated by the dust of Samaria. Why did they hate the Samaritans so much? Without going into much detail, we should remember from the Old Testament that the United Kingdom of Israel was united under David, the Golden Years, as well as Solomon. But after Solomon, there was a fracture, a split in the kingdom.

We had the Northern Kingdom and then the Southern Kingdom, if you remember. Now we know that both kingdoms came under the judgment of God because of their wickedness, because of their unfaithfulness, their idolatry. But it's the northern kingdom that fell first, and then the southern kingdom. The northern kingdom manifested more wickedness early. In fact, out of the 19 kings that the northern kingdom had, from Jeroboam I to Hosea, We're told not even a single one of them was a righteous king.

Not a single one did what is right in the eyes of the Lord. Now, it's sometimes difficult to go through all the kings, the 40 plus kings that we have had in Israel, North and South. It's difficult to know, was that king to the North or the South? Well, a good place to start is this. If you read, and that king did what is right in the eyes of the Lord, or he was a righteous king, you know automatically that's a king in the South.

That's a good place to start. Anyway, in 722 BC, because of rank wickedness, God gave over the Northern Kingdom, otherwise known as Israel. Now, the Northern Kingdom was called Israel because most of the tribes of Israel were to the north. Otherwise sometimes in the Old Testament we know that the Old Testament prophets speak of the Northern Kingdom as Ephraim. But in 722 the Lord poured out His judgment upon these people and He did it through the then empire of the Assyrians who came in and they overtook the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

We know that back then the plan was to take the affluent and the ones with aptitude to take them back into Assyria to use them. But then the poorest of the poor, and that was normally the strategy, the poorest of the poor, they just left in the land. And that's what they did. Then over time what they did is they got people, the Assyrians got people from the surrounding territories and got them to come back into the Northern Kingdom. and to come in and to cohabit or inhabit the kingdom or the land with the poor people of the northern kingdom.

And then what you had, you had this mix of people. And of course, as we know, that when the pagans or the people who were brought in to mix with the Israelites came in, they came in with their cultures. They came in with their religious practices and their pagan ideologies. And the idea was that when they do come and they mix, what happens is the nation that was existed in the first place would lose its identity. It would be forgotten.

And that's very much what happened. And the mixed breed, they began to intermarry, of course. And this mixed breed had come to be known as the Samaritans.