JOHN'S GOSPEL

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=100 BGCOLOR="#CCCCFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="04600640egdysm.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000066" FACE="Arial" ><B>BOOK OF JOB</B></FONT><FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000099" FACE="Arial" ><B> </B></FONT><B>    |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="BOOK OF JOB"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id17.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="My Content"><U>My Content</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id18.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Photo Album"><U>Photo Album</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id19.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Favorite Links"><U>Favorite Links</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id20.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Us"><U>Contact Us</U></A>   |   <B>JOHN'S GOSPEL</B>   |   <A HREF="id37.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="PSALMS"><U>PSALMS</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id38.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="EASTER"><U>EASTER</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id21.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="SERMONS ON MARK"><U>SERMONS ON MARK</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id22.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="MARK 2"><U>MARK 2</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id23.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="MARK 3"><U>MARK 3</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id24.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="MARK 4 THRU 6"><U>MARK 4 THRU 6</U></A>   |   <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="BOOK OF JOB"><U>BOOK OF JOB</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id25.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="MARK 7 THRU 12"><U>MARK 7 THRU 12</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id26.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="MARK 13 THRU 16"><U>MARK 13 THRU 16</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id28.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="BOOK OF REVELATION"><U>BOOK OF REVELATION</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id29.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="SONG OF SOLOMON"><U>SONG OF SOLOMON</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id30.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="TOPICAL SERMONS"><U>TOPICAL SERMONS</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id31.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="GODS NATURE"><U>GOD'S NATURE</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id32.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="JAMES"><U>JAMES</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id33.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="IJOHN"><U>IJOHN</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id34.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="IIJOHN"><U>IIJOHN</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id35.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="IIIJOHN"><U>IIIJOHN</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=200 BGCOLOR="#0000BF" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=380 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I>JOHN'S GOSPEL</I></div> <bR> <div> JOHN CHAPTER 2</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> JOHN CHAPTER TWO</div> <div> A study by Glenn Pease</div> <div>                                        Cleansing of the Temple also in Matt. 21:12-13, Mark 11:15-19, and Luke 19:45-48</div> <bR> <div>   1. On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee.</div> <div>       Jesus' mother was there,</div> <div>        2  and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the</div> <div>       wedding.</div> <div>        3  When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, "They have</div> <div>       no more wine."</div> <div>        4  "Dear woman, why do you involve me?" Jesus replied. "My time</div> <div>       has not yet come."</div> <div>        5  His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."</div> <div>        6  Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews</div> <div>       for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty</div> <div>       gallons. {Greek two to three metretes (probably about 75 to 115</div> <div>       litres)}</div> <div>        7  Jesus said to the servants, "Fill the jars with water"; so</div> <div>       they filled them to the brim.</div> <div>        8  Then he told them, "Now draw some out and take it to the</div> <div>       master of the banquet." They did so,</div> <div>        9  and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been</div> <div>       turned into wine. He did not realise where it had come from,</div> <div>       though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called</div> <div>       the bridegroom aside</div> <div>        10  and said, "Everyone brings out the choice wine first and</div> <div>       then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to</div> <div>       drink; but you have saved the best till now."</div> <div>        11  This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at</div> <div>       Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples</div> <div>       put their faith in him.</div> <bR> <div> THE TEXT IN POETRY </div> <bR> <div> THE WEDDING OF CANA  Based on John 2:1-11</div> <div> BY GLENN PEASE</div> <bR> <div> A WEDDING TOOK PLACE THE THIRD DAY,</div> <div>      IN CANA OF GALILEE.</div> <div> MARY WAS THERE AS A MAINSTAY,</div> <div>      JESUS JOINED THIS GAIETY.</div> <bR> <div> HE AND HIS DISCIPLES WERE GUESTS,</div> <div>      SUDDENLY THE WINE WAS GONE;</div> <div> MARY CAME MAKING A REQUEST</div> <div>      TO HELP THIS GREAT FEAST GO ON.</div> <bR> <div> SHE SAID, "THERE IS NOW NO MORE WINE."</div> <div>      HE REPLIED, "WHY INVOLVE ME?"</div> <div> "DEAR WOMAN, ITS NOT MY DESIGN</div> <div>      TO REVEAL ALL THAT WILL BE."</div> <bR> <div> HE SAID, "MY TIME HAS NOT YET COME."</div> <div>      THEN SHE DID THIS PLAN PURSUE.</div> <div> HER ORDER WAS NOT BURDENSOME.</div> <div>      "DO WHATEVER HE TELLS YOU."</div> <bR> <div> THERE STOOD SIX WATER JARS OF STONE,</div> <div>      USED FOR WASHING BY THE JEWS.</div> <div> THEIR CLEANSING WAS A CORNERSTONE,</div> <div>      FROM THESE GALLONS THEY COULD CHOOSE.</div> <bR> <div> JESUS SAID UNTO THE SERVANTS,</div> <div>      "FILL THESE JARS UP TO THE BRIM.</div> <div> THEN DRAW SOME OUT AS OBSERVANTS.."</div> <div>      THEY COMPLETELY OBEYED HIM.</div> <bR> <div> TAKE TO MASTER OF THE BANQUET</div> <div>      THEY OBEYED AND THEY DID SO.</div> <div> HE TASTING SAID, "I MUST ADMIT,</div> <div>      WHERE THIS CAME FROM I DON'T KNOW.</div> <bR> <div> THEN HE CALLED THE BRIDEGROOM ASIDE</div> <div>      SAYING, " MOST GIVE THE BEST FIRST,</div> <div> BUT THIS CHOICE WINE YOU CHOSE TO HIDE</div> <div>      UNTIL GUESTS HAD QUENCHED THEIR THIRST.</div> <bR> <div> "YOU HAVE SAVED THE BEST UNTIL LAST,</div> <div>      NOT THE USUAL WAY TO GO."</div> <div> JESUS BY THIS BREAK FROM HIS PAST</div> <div>      DID HIS SECRET GLORY SHOW.</div> <bR> <div> THIS WAS HIS FIRST MIRACLE SIGN.</div> <div>      HIS GLORY WAS THUS REVEALED.</div> <div> THIS TURNING WATER INTO WINE,</div> <div>      HIS DISCIPLES  FAITH CONGEALED.</div> <bR> <div> INTRODUCTION:</div> <div> CANA OF GALILEE</div> <div> Nathanael, one of Jesus's first disciples is called in John 21:2 "Nathanael from Cana in Galilee."  This was his home town and he no doubt knew many of the people.  </div> <bR> <div> This was a very small village about three hours journey from Nazareth.  It is not named in the Old Testament nor in Josephus.  Jesus did his first miracle in a very obscure place.  </div> <bR> <div> Jesus's mother was there.  There is no reference to Joseph.  Tradition says he died when Jesus  was 16 years old.  In verse 12 we read that the brothers of Jesus were there also.  This bride and groom must have been close friends of the family of Jesus.  This means Jesus began the use of His miracle powers for friendship.  </div> <bR> <div> Why is John the only one of the Gospel writers to record this first miracle?  It is because John was the only one of the writers who was there.  It was a very secret miracle known only to a few.  After the cross Mary lived with John, her sisters son, and they no doubt talked of this first miracle often.  </div> <bR> <div> MIRACLES</div> <div> There are 35 miracles in the Gospels.  Matthew tells of 20, Mark of 18, Luke of 20, and John of only 7.  </div> <bR> <div> This was the first miracle of Jesus. 30 years as the Son of God on earth and He did not use His supernatural power. Satan tempted Him to use it before this but He refused. He even starts here very cautiously and quietly.</div> <bR> <div> A miracle is a manifestation of power that is greater than nature indicating a Creator above the creation and a Law Maker above the law.</div> <bR> <div> People today have a low view of miracles because the word is used so loosely. You have miracles everwhere in the grocery store. You have miracle whip, miracle suds, miracle bandages, and a host of miracle gadgets. You can buy products that work miracles on your hair, complexion, grass, or the engine of your car. This word no longer stands for a direct and visible act of God that cannot be explained by science or reason. It now means anything that is amazing or wonderful that can be produced by the intelligence of man and explained by science.</div> <bR> <div> Even Christians no longer use the word in the proper way. A group of youth were out in a boat off the coast of Miami when a storm came up and the engine stopped. The waves were so high they began to sink the boat. It was miles out of the regular route of the coast guard but they came that way for the first time and they rescued the youth. It was called a miracle, but this really fits into another category. There are three ways that God works in history. The first is called PROVIDENCE. This is the general guidance that God gives which is fully in comformity with natural laws. The second is SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. This is when God works within law, but with such amazing timing that it is quite awesome. Life may be spared because of split-timing, or of circumstances that are out of the ordinary, but which is not impossible to have happen. The third is MIRACLE. This is when God goes beyond any law and just breaks into time and does what cannot be done or explained by any law or knowledge known to man. It is clearly supernatural. Some object and say God has to work through law, but this is to make law superior to God. He made the laws and He can go around them whenever He chooses. He seldom does, but just because a man has gone through his front door coming home from work every day for twenty years does not mean he cannot choose to go through the back door. God can at any time do what is not according  to the laws of nature, for He is the Lord of nature and not its servant.</div> <bR> <div> An example of these three ways God works would be-</div> <div>      You get in an accident and you are not hurt=Providence.</div> <div>      You get thrown out of your car and land in a haystack=Special Providence</div> <div>      You get smashed and broken and are nearly dead, but suddenly you rise up and walk </div> <div>      away with no injury whatever=Miracle.</div> <div> VERSE I</div> <div> WEDDING</div> <div> As marriage was the first institution of God, so marriage became the scene of Christ's power revealed on earth.  This first miracle brought pleasure and joy to life and this was the purpose in all of the miracles of Jesus.  He came to give life abundant and His miracles gave life from death and health from sickness and produced faith to overcome doubt.</div> <bR> <div> By His presence here we see Jesus breaking down the wall between the sacred and the secular. Whether we eat or drink or whatever we do we are to do all to the glory of God. Jesus starts His life of miracles in a secular setting for God is to be glorified there as well as in the temple-where we see next that He was not.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> Wedding: Jesus the Bridegroom of the Church begins his public ministry at a wedding. He ends history also at the wedding of the Lamb. The primary focus of the ministry of Jesus is joy. He came to give life abundant and eternal joy at God's right hand. Victory over all evil and sorrow is his ultimate goal. Valid pleasure is a vital part of the Kingdom of God. God wants His children to have pleasure just as we want that for our children. Gloom is not godliness and sourness is not saintliness.</div> <bR> <div> Long wrote, "There is a time to laugh as well as a time to weep, and the Son of Man, who shared our tears on the way to the grave of Lazarus and the cross of Calvary, shared also our mirth at the feast of Cana.  All the factulties of life are to be, not suspected, but redeemed from evil by the Christian;  and one of the richest and happiest is the faculty of earth.  Our duty is not to check its brightness, but to keep its innocense; and surely in the laughter  that is like the laughter of the child, of the sunlight and the birds, God is well pleased."  </div> <bR> <div> In the first coming of Jesus He entered into fellowship with men to redeem all aspects of life.  He made birth, marriage, and death all more sacred and meaningful.  In a small town like Cana a wedding like this could be the social event of the year, and Jesus was glad to play a major role in making it successful.</div> <bR> <div> Jesus was opposed to asceticism.  For Jesus self denial did not mean isolation, unsociableness, and refraining from the common pleasures of life. Jesus was going forth to bear the burden of the world's sin, and he did not want the seriousness of His task to make men feel He did not approve of the laughter and joy of life.He begins on a happy note to make this clear.</div> <bR> <div> VERSE2</div> <div> Jesus never turned down an invitation that we have any record of.  He even accepted the invitation of a Pharisee.  Rich or poor, well-known or obscure, Jesus never refused to eat with anyone. He even invited himself over to a rejects house-that of Zaachaes.</div> <bR> <div> VERSE3</div> <div> Mary was apparantly in charge of refreshments, and as sometimes happens the committee did not anticipate so large a crowd.  They had not prepared enough.  This happens to the best of people and committees.  But why tell a guest that a host is caught in an embarrassing situation?  Mary is now on the spot, and she knows her son has power beyond the ordinary.  She has confidence that He can find a way to solve her problem.  We can't assume that she expected Him to do a miracle.  Calvin thought she wanted Jesus to speak and thus entertain the guests making them forget the lack of wine.  This is not likely.  Most see her as the person of faith behind the miracle.  Faith is almost always connected with miracles, and it is her faith that gets Jesus to do His first one.  With Joseph dead Jesus was the man of the house and she was use to coming to Jesus for His help.  She may not have known He would do a miracle, but she knew He would do something.   </div> <bR> <div> Hospitality was very important and to run out of wine would be very embarrassing. Mary seeks to prevent this embarrassment before anyone is aware of the lack of wine. Prevention is wise. To help people avoid embarrassment is an act of love.</div> <bR> <div>   This story is told in the biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson.  A young boy who faced the difficult problem of getting a stubborn calf into the barn enlisted the aid of Emerson.  They tryed to figure a way to pursuade the calf to go into the barn.  The boy tugged on rope fastened around the animal's neck.  Emerson applied his shoulders to the rear and shoved, but with all the pushing and pulling nothing was accomplished, and the calf maintained his status quo.  Then an Irish maidservant came out on a neighboring porch, and watching the spectacle, laughed loud and long.  Sauntering over, she dipped a finger in a pail of milk, stuck the finger into the calf's mouth, and without effort, lead the now happy animal into the barn.  Whereupon, we are told, Emerson walked into the house, wiping the perspiration off his face and thinking deeply.  Then he sat down at his desk and wrote in his immortal journal:  "I love people who can DO things."                            </div> <div> Mary brought her problem to Jesus because Jesus was able to do things.</div> <div>    </div> <div> Trench said, "He who made wine out of water might have made bread out of stones; but he will do nothing at the suggestion of Satan, though all at the suggestion of love."</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> WINE =Oinos. It was the ordinary wine of the day common at weddings. There was no way to refrigerate in that day and so no way to keep wine from fermenting. Many have tried to argue that this was not fermented but they have not convinced the majority who study the subject. It is not a stamp of approval on drinking alcohol if Jesus made fermented wine. All forms of drunkenness are clearly forbidden in the Bible, and there are numerous warnings about the dangers of drinking. This was an occassion where wine was a part of the social joy and Jesus entered into that joy.</div> <bR> <div> John Laidlaw wrote " It is an insult to the common sense of any plain reader of Scripture to aske him to beleive that the wines of the Bible were not intoxicating when used to excess."  But it is also plain to see Jesus did not okay excess by this act any more than He did by making wine possible in the first place as Creator.  </div> <bR> <div> William Barclay writes, "for a Jewish feast wine was essential.  "Without wine," said the Rabbis, "there is no joy."  It was not that people were drunken, but in the East wine was an essential.  Drunkenness was in fact a great disgrace, and they actually drank their wine in a mixture composed of two parts of wine to three parts of water.  At any time the failure of provisions would have been a problem, for hospitality in the East is a sacred duty, but for the provisions to fail at a wedding would be a terrible shame for the bride and the bridegroom.  That indeed would have been a humiliation."</div> <bR> <div> Charles Spurgeon said on this wine issue, "I do not think that I should do any good if I were to enter upon the discussion as to what sort of wine our Lord Jesus made on this occassion.  It was wine, and I am quite sure it was very good wine, for He would produce nothing but the best.  Was it wine such as men understand by that word now?  It was wine, but there are very few people in this country who ever see, much less drink, any of that beverage.  That which goes under the name wine is not true wine, but a firey, brandied  concoction of which I feel sure that Jesus would not have tasted a drop.  The fire-waters and blazing spirits of modern wine manufacturers are very different articles from the juice of the grape, mildly exhilarating, which was the usual wine of more sober centuries.  As to the wine such as is commonly used in the East, a person must drink inordinately before  he would become intoxicated with it.  It would be possible, for there were cases in which men were intoxicated with wine, but, as a rule, intoxication was a rare vice in the Saviours times and in the preceding ages.  Had our great Exemplar lived under our present circumstances, surrrounded by a sea of deadly drink, which is running tens of thousands, I know how He would have acted.  I am sure He would not have contributed by word or deed to the rivers of poisonous beverages in which bodies and souls are now being destroyed wholesale.  The kind of wine which He made was such that, if there had been no stronger drink in the world, nobody would have thought it necessary to enter any protest against drinking it.  It would have done nobody any hurt, be sure of that, or else Jesus our loving Saviour would not have made it."  ......................................." I abstain myself from alcoholic drink in every form, and I think others would be wise to do the same; but of this each one must be a guide unto himself."  </div> <div> J.C. Ryle said, "If our Lord Jesus Christ actually worked a miracle in order to supply wine at a marriage feast, it seems to me impossible, by any ingenuity, to prove that drinking wine is sinful." Most agree that the wine was normal wine which if taken to excess would be intoxicating. </div> <div> If the wedding took place between june and september when the grapes were ripening, it would be possible this was just fresh grape juice, but the fact that the taster says this is the best wine that is usually given first implies it was not just juice but fermented wine that could deaden the senses to the lesser fermented wine to be given later.</div> <bR> <div> Those who accept this as fermented wine do not, however, see it as a stamp of approval on drinking. Jesus puts his stamp of approval on marriage but not on the drinking of alcohol which often is a destroyer of marriage. </div> <bR> <div> VERSE 4</div> <div> WOMAN The NIV has dear woman to sound less disrespectful, but all commentators recognize this was a positive way to address your mother or any woman. The Greeks addressed queens and women of distinction by this word. William Barclay writes of this word, "in Homer it is the title by which Odysseus adresses Penelope, his well-loved wife.  It is a title by which Augustus, the Roman Empire, adressed Cleopatra, the famous Egyptian Queen.  So far from being a rough and discourteous way of address, it was a title of respect.  We have no way of speaking in English which is exactly renders it; but it is better to translate it lady which gives at least the coutesy in it."</div> <bR> <div>  Some get a kick out of the fact that woman in Greek is gune. I told a young man this and he used it to tease the girls. He was fortunate that I did not tell them that the Hebrew for man is ish. Ish and gune do not sound good to our ears, but they were fine sounding words to the Greeks and Hebrews.</div> <bR> <div> William Barclay writes, "it means: "don't worry; you don't quite understand what is going on; leave things to me, and I will settle them in my own way."  </div> <bR> <div> TIME NOT YET COME:</div> <div> Jesus is saying do not expect me to do a spectacular show here to please you and all at this party.  My hour for public show of power is not yet.  Jesus is only refusing to do a full public miralce like feeding the five thousand.</div> <bR> <div> TIMING:</div> <div> Timing was always important to Jesus.  His very coming was in the fullness of time and His death and resurrection were planned according to percise timing.  Jesus did a secret miracle here because it was not the right timing for a public display of His power.Mary knew He was the Messiah and must have thought this would be the perfect occassion to make it public, but she was wrong.  Only Jesus could know what was the right time.   </div> <bR> <div> Jesus did not want to get involved in this problem it seems, at least to the degree that Mary wanted him to. There are good reasons why people do not want to get involved</div> <div> in problems. It can be in conflict with goals that are greater and more significant. It can be an area of life where you are not qualified to do any good. Nobody can do everything. Even Jesus had limitations and could not do everything, and so many problems were all around him which he did not solve. We all have to face our limitations.</div> <bR> <div> This was not a miracle of necessity but of luxuary.  It was to meet a felt need but not a desperate need.  It was for the sake of pleasure and pleasantness, and not for survival.  This makes it a very unusual miracle for Jesus.  Most of His miracles were to meet very serious needs.  Jesus was first tempted to use His miracle power to turn stones into bread to meet a personal necessity.  But Jesus did not start his use of divine power by meeting a self need, but rather by meeting a luxury need of others.  Spurgeon sees this as significant.  He would not meet His own necessity for bread but would meet others need for luxuary.  This illustrates that divine power is primarily for service and not self gain.  Most of Jesus miracles are to add joy to the lives of others.  This first one is a key sign that He is the Joy Bringer.  We see here that not all of life is a battle.  There are times to enjoy the victories of battles won.  Jesus starts His ministry on a postive note before He begins His battles with the leaders of Israel. </div> <bR> <div> Let us keep in mind that not all godly people are like Jesus in every way. John the Baptist would never be here at a wedding. He was the funeral type of believer. His focus was on the judgement and not on the joy of life. It was of God too and he was a great man of God. Not all believers need to be wedding type people. It is the ideal but the fact is some are just made for the more solemn realities of life like John was.</div> <bR> <div> Jesus was not too busy to be at a wedding. He had a short pubic ministry yet he had time for family and friends and their times of joy. He was not a workaholic but could get away and enjoy a feast and time of fellowship. He teaches that the balanced life is the best life. Some Christians feel guilty if they are not always engaged in something serious. They need to see Jesus with only three and a half years to live taking time out to enjoy a feast.</div> <bR> <div>  </div> <div> Mine hour is not yet come This expression is used 6 times in John, and reveals just how important timing was to Jesus. There was a clear plan and Jesus was going to follow the plan and not blow the timing of his revelation. Turner says Jesus is saying, "The time of my self-revelation is in the future; leave this situation to my judgement." </div> <bR> <div> There is an interpretation that is interesting. Mary could be saying there is no wine left, you just as well leave, and Jesus is saying it is not my time to leave yet. I am going to stay and do something about it. This is not likely but you can see it can seem to fit.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> VERSE5</div> <div> Mary is satisfied Jesus will do what is best and so submits to Him and tells the servants to do the same. She understands his need to time things right and is content to leave him in control of the decision. She is no control freak who has to have it her way. She can let go and let God. Barclay writes, "Even when Mary did not understand what Jesus was going to do, even when it seemed that He had refused her request, Mary still beleived in HIm so much that she turned to the serving folk and told them to do what ever Jesus told them to do.  Mary had the faith which could trust even when it did not understand.  She did not know what Jesus was going to do, but she was quite sure that He would do the right thing."   </div> <div> Mary did not read into what Jesus said,  a no, forget it, I won't help, but rather, give me time to figure it out.  She said, fine, you guys do what He says when He comes up with a solution.  </div> <bR> <div> John E. Large writes, "Among all the words ever recorded the whole human history of the worlds literature, can you conceive of a wiser command or of a lovelier valedictory?"  </div> <bR> <div> Obedience is a key idea here. The miracle took place in an environment of complete obedience to the will of Jesus. Obedience is a key subject all through the Bible.</div> <div> We see here PERFECT OBEDIENCE-WHAT EVER</div> <div>                     PRACTICAL OBEDIENCE-DO</div> <div>                     PERSONAL OBEDIENCE-HE TELLS YOU </div> <bR> <div>                                        Whatso'er He bids you, do it,</div> <div>                                                Though you may not understand:</div> <div>                                          Yield to Him complete obedience,</div> <div>                                                 Then you'll see His mighty hand;</div> <div>                                           "Fill the water pots with water,"</div> <div>                                                  Fill them to the very brim;</div> <div>                                            He will honor all your trusting-</div> <div>                                                   Leave the miracle to Him!</div> <div>                                                                                             </div> <div>                                             Oh, ye Christians, learn the lesson!</div> <div>                                                    Are you struggling all the way?</div> <div>                                              Cease your trying, change to trusting;</div> <div>                                                     Then  you'll triumph every day!</div> <div>                                                "Whatso'er He bids you, do it,"</div> <div>                                                      Fill the water pots to brim;</div> <div>                                                 But remember, 'tis His battle-</div> <div>                                                       Leave the miracle to Him!</div> <div>                                                                                      Thomas Allan</div> <bR> <bR> <div> The forces of nature obeyed Jesus:  At Cana first His power is shown</div> <div>                                                       His might the blushing waters own</div> <div>                                                       And, changing as He speaks the word,</div> <div>                                                       Flow wine, obedient to their Lord.</div> <bR> <div> The servants would not see how filling these jars with water was relevant to the need.  Everyone had already washed and that is why they were empty.  Why do the irrelevant?  All they had to do was obey Jesus and it would become clear that there was a purpose.  Just do your best and let Him do the rest.  Jesus could have done it without their help, but He always likes to have some human cooperation in all of His miracles.  Jesus does not expect men to do miracles, but He does expect them to do what they can do, such as filling water pots.</div> <bR> <div> When man's resources run out and come to an end the story is never over.  Jesus can step in  and supply what man cannot.  The law could get man just so far, but only grace could get him into the abundant life.  Water can only become wine by the grace of God:  law can never do it.  </div> <bR> <bR> <div> VERSE6                           </div> <div> Lloyd C. Douglas, author of the Robe, wrote an earlier book called Those Disturbing Miracles.  In it he wrote, "Surely he is a very unfortunate reader of this epic who gets himself so distracted by all those stone water pots that he misses the real and only point at issue, which is the simple fact that Jesus bears a transforming power, that He turns water into wine, frowns into smiles, whispers of fear into anthems of hope, deserts into gradens, and sin-blistered souls into valorous saints by the catalyzing alchemy of a selfless love."   </div> <bR> <div> We read in Mark 7:3, "The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders."  These six jars would hold any where from 120 to 180 gallons.  This does not mean that Jesus made all of the water in these jars into wine.  Some feel that as the smaller vessel was dipped into one of these jars it was changed to wine.  Some feel it was only the vessel dipped into the well after the jars were filled that was turned to wine.  The fact is nobody knows how much wine was created.  </div> <bR> <bR> <div> VERSE7</div> <bR> <div> VERSE8</div> <div> Draw out now=a debatable image. Did they draw out of the 6 waterpots or out of the well? If out of the well then it was only the wine in their small containers that was turned into wine. This would mean a very limited amount of wine. If out of the water pots it could mean Jesus changed all the water into wine in those six pots and this would be an enoumous amout of wine. Most believe the wine was made just for that occasion to fill a need near the end of the celebration and that there was no need for an enormous amount.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> VERSE9</div> <div> The ruler of the feast=not the master of ceremonies but the man in charge of the arrangement of the room and the food and drink. He was the wine steward or the hear waiter. He was responsible for tasting the wine.</div> <bR> <div> Jesus could have made wine out of nothing, but He chose to change the lower to the higher.  He takes what is and lifts it to what it can be.  He takes the lowly life and transforms it into a higher life.  </div> <bR> <div> The master of the banquet did not know there was a problem being solved.  The guests did  not know there was a problem.  If everybody knew Jesus did a miracle to supply wine the bride and groom would still be embarrassed which would defeat the purpose of the miracle.  </div> <bR> <bR> <div> VERSE10</div> <div> Drunk freely=Turner says the word here means to become intoxicated. They are now less alert to taste and so can take watered down wine and not notice is the point.</div> <bR> <div> Barclay writes that he probably spoke in jest saying, "most people served the good wine first; and then, when the guests have drunk a good deal, and when their palates are dulled and when they are not in much of a condition to appreciate what they are drinking, they serve the inferior wine, but you have kept the best until now."     </div> <bR> <div> Barclay writes again, "Every story John tells us, not of something Jesus did once and never did again, but of something Jesus is forever and eternally doing.  ...........and what John wants us to see here is not that Jesus once on a day turned some waterpots of water into wine; he wants us to see that whenever Jesus comes into life, there comes a new quality which it like turning water into wine."   </div> <bR> <div> Quesnel writes, "God gave at first the old wine of the law, without strength, spirit or taste; and in the fulness of time He gave the new wine, of a strong and powerful taste, which enables us to fulfill the law, which inebriates the heart in a holy manner..." </div> <bR> <div>                        Dear Friend!  whose presence in the house </div> <div>                               Whose gracious word benign,</div> <div>                          Could once, at Cana's wedding-feast</div> <div>                                Change water into wine.</div> <bR> <div>                           Come, visit us, and when dull work</div> <div>                                Grows weary, line on line,</div> <div>                            Revive our souls, and make us see</div> <div>                                 Life's water glow as wine.</div> <bR> <div>                            Gay mirth shall deepen into joy,</div> <div>                                  Earth's hopes shall grow devine,</div> <div>                             When Jesus visits us, to turn</div> <div>                                   Life's water into wine.</div> <bR> <div> Transforming the commonplace into the glorious is the work Jesus loves to do. He takes moral waste and turns it into moral wealth, says Clovis Chappell. Luther Burbank said every weed is a potential flower and he proved it by turning many weeds into flowers. He made the cactus bloom. It is a godly work to take the commonplace and glorify it. Jesus took the churches greatest menace-Saul, and turned him into the churches greatest missionary-Paul.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> THE WORST FOR THE LAST:</div> <div> There is a certain amount of social deception in all of life, and here is a case of ecomony and planning so as to use even the poor quality wine.  If it is done at the right time nobody will notice.  You hide the poor to give the impression there is no poor.  Any good host wants to make a good impression.  The problem is this is the world's system.  It offers a lot of fun at the beginning and does not tell you of the worst for last.  In contrast Jesus may call you to take up the cross at the beginning but He offers the best for the last.  John Bunyan in Pilgrims Progress has Christian go through great trial, but at last he comes to the land of eternal bliss and cries out, "O Jesus, Jesus, Jesus thou hast indeed kept the best wine until now."  Satan has the worst at last, but the Saviour has the best.</div> <bR> <div> Quality is important to our Lord. He does not make the good, or the better only, but He makes the best.</div> <div>                                         Such is thy banquet, dearest Lord;</div> <div>                                              O give us grace, to cast </div> <div>                                         Our lot with Thine, to trust Thy word,</div> <div>                                               And keep our best till last.</div> <div>                                                                              John Keble</div> <div> The Pulpit Commentary says, "It is a Christian act to increase the innocent pleasures of the world.  Where the cup of gladness is not full, Jesus will fill it.  The good of this miracle is made manifest as one considers what an effectual protest it is against those who would make regilion the necessary enemy of deep-rooted social customs."  </div> <bR> <bR> <div> The Pulpit Commentary says, "God's grace is progressively revealed in the individual experience of Christians.  The longer Jesus is known, the more are His benefits realized, and the more He is valued."  </div> <bR> <div> VERSE11</div> <bR> <div> FIRST</div> <div> F.W. Robertson writes, "This was the "beginning of miracles" which Jesus did, and yet He was now 30 years of age.  For 30 years He had done no miracle; and that is in itself almost worthy to be called a miracle.  That He abstained for 30 years from the excertion of His wonder-working power is as marvelous as that He possessed for 3 years the power to exert.  He was content to live long in deep obscurity.................................He could bide His time.  He had the strength to wait."                                          "In all the works of God there is a conspicious absence of haste and hurry."  </div> <div> SIGN</div> <div> It leads the spectator's eye off from the deed to the doer. The signs point to Jesus.We are not to get so into the sign that we forget the one to whom it points.  </div> <bR> <div> Barclay writes, "To John miracles were the signs of the love of God.  In any miracle, then, there are three things.  There is the wonder which leaves men dazzled, astonished, aghast.  There is the power which is effective, which can deal with and mend a broken body, and unhinged mind, a brusied heart, a power which can do things.  There is the sign which tells of the love in the heart of God who does such things for men."</div> <bR> <div> Manifested his glory=(doxa) It occurs twenty times in John's Gospel. The verb to glorify is used 22 times, more than any other Gospel. This sign was to glorify Jesus, and that means to make him honorable in our sight. Origen, the church father says the main significance of this miracle is in its symbolizing that to the Christian Jesus is the source of joy.</div> <bR> <div> Barclay writes, " it was in sympathy, in kindness, in understanding for simple folk that Jesus acted.  Nearly everyone can do the big thing on the big occasion; but it takes Jesus to do the big thing on a simple, homely occassion like this.  There is a kind of natural human maliclousness which rather enjoys the misfortune of others, and which delights to make a good story of them over the teacups.  But Jesus, the Lord of all life, and the King of Glory, use His power to save a simple Galilaean lad and lass from shame and humiliation.  It is just by such deeds of understanding, simple kindliness that we too can show that we are followers of Jesus Christ."  </div> <bR> <div> It is the glory of anything to be true to its nature. There is the glory of the Sun and the glory of the moon and the glory of the stars. Each is glorious as they are true to their nature. Jesus is glorified by being true to His nature. He is a caring, loving Saviour who will do what He can in any situation to add to the joy of life. It is His nature to do so. We see in the next passage that it was also His nature to reject and resist injustice and do what he could to prevent it. He was glorified in anger as well as in this positive miracle. F. W. Robertson says it was also His glory to sanctify all things natural and all natural relationships.</div> <bR> <div> Glory Of The Common</div> <div> Glory In His Concern</div> <div> Glory In His Control</div> <bR> <div> The Pulpit Commentary says, "Does it seem to the reader of this simple narrative that this langauage is somewhat strained-is pitched rather to high?  And obscure village, a homely feastival, a pleasants party;-are these suggestive of, harmonious with, this great word "glory"?   Ah! let us not be deceived by outward appearances; but rather remember that, as the world judges, there was no glory in Jesus anymore than in His surroundings, His associates."  </div> <bR> <div> Beginnings are important for they contain the seed of all that is to follow. You can see some of the future by looking at the beginning. The Gospel is good news and so from the very beginning Jesus does what is good and joy producing. Jesus has some terrible things to say about judgement and hell, but these things were said to those who rejected his good news. They were not his message but rather the consequence of not receiving his message. They are valid  truths of Jesus but they are not his Gospel. Jesus wins the lost with good news of salvation and only gives the negative warnings to those who will not receive the good news.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> His diciples put their faith in Him.  This was really very much a secret miracle.  Nobody said, "Listen everybody, for your entertainment and pleasure Jesus is going to turn water into wine.  It was a secret sign to the disciples and not to the crowd of wedding guests.  </div> <bR> <div> Jesus was not an showman or opportunist who used His miracles like magic to make money or draw crowds for entertainment.  The Apocraphal gospels have Jesus all sorts of things like making clay birds and then making them fly away, or lengthening boards that were too short as a carpenter.  Jesus used miracles only for the benefit of others and to be signs of His diety.  </div> <bR> <div> Faith can grow. It is like all living things. Give it more evidence and it gets stronger. The disciples did not start with a full grown faith and neither do we. Our faith is to see and hear more and more of what Jesus can do and get stronger and stronger.  Faith is progressive and gets stronger as revelation progresses.  The disciples were fairly new in their faith and this first miracle gave them strong confermation they were truely following the Messiah.  They were not just impressed with the gift but with the Giver.  </div> <bR> <bR> <div>  12. After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and</div> <div>       brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days.</div> <div>        13  When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went</div> <div>       up to Jerusalem.</div> <div>        14  In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and</div> <div>       doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money.</div> <div>        15  So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the</div> <div>       temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the</div> <div>       money-changers and overturned their tables.</div> <div>        16  To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How</div> <div>       dare you turn my Father's house into a market!"</div> <div>        17  His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your</div> <div>       house will consume me." {Psalm 69:9}</div> <div>        18  Then the Jews demanded of him, "What miraculous sign can you</div> <div>       show us to prove your authority to do all this?"</div> <div>        19  Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise</div> <div>       it again in three days."</div> <div>        20  The Jews replied, "It has taken forty-six years to build</div> <div>       this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?"</div> <div>        21  But the temple he had spoken of was his body.</div> <div>        22  After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled</div> <div>       what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words</div> <div>       that Jesus had spoken.</div> <div>        23. Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many</div> <div>       people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and believed in his</div> <div>       name. {Or and believed in him}</div> <div>        24  But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all</div> <div>       men.</div> <div>        25  He did not need man's testimony about man, for he knew what</div> <div>       was in a man.</div> <div> VERSE12</div> <bR> <div> VERSE13</div> <div> PASSOVER:</div> <div> This was to Israel what Christmas is to us. A large part of the yearly income came from this season of celebration. A million or more people came to Jerusalem during this seven day celebration. Wherever there is a lot of money to be made people come up with ways to do it. Greed takes over and people sell for five dollars what is worth five cents. Jesus lived in a world where religion was used as a racket to make money off people. History does not change. Jesus was angered by those who take advantage of others in the area of economics. Jesus knew this was a popular time for the masses and he chose this time on purpose for he knew the value of advertizing and the appeal to the crowds. You have to get the attention of people to make an impact.</div> <div> VERSE14</div> <div> The second sign Jesus would show was here in the temple. First the home and then the temple. These two places are where all men need to sense the presence of God. The foundation for any nation is in the home and the church. The secular and the sacred life have this in common-they both need the power and the presence of God.</div> <bR> <div> MONEY CHANGERS:</div> <div> The Roman coins with the image of the Emperor on them could not be used in the temple, and so they needed to be exchanged for Jewish coins. Morgan says they were also there to make religion easy and less expensive. You could change your large coins for smaller ones so you did not have to give as much. You could also buy a lamb or small pigeons there and not have to bring your own. This made religion much more convenient and less demanding</div> <div> VERSE 15 </div> <div>  This is the only record of Jesus using force. It had to be an unusual situation calling for force to motivate this unusual response of Jesus. This act of anger was out of </div> <div> the ordinary for Him.</div> <bR> <div> Arthur Pink writes, "We think of the Lord Jesus as the gentle and compassionate One.  And such He was and still is.  But this is not all He is.......................................Scripture speaks of "The wrath of the Lamb,"  And are lesson furnishes us with a solemn illustration of this.  The unresisting money-changers and cattle-dealers, fleeing in terror before His flashing eye and uprasied hand, give warning of what shall happen when the wicked stand before the throne of His judgement."</div> <bR> <div> Whip=this was a whip commonly used to flog those being crucified. The Egyptian Pharaohs of the New Kingdom Period were sculptured holding across the chest a similar scourge as a symbol of their authority.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> Sheep and cattle: You can imagine the noise and stench that people experienced as they entered this area. George Turner writes, " The temple "market' was indefensible whether from the standpoint of aesthetics, reverence, hygiene, or justice."</div> <bR> <div> Adrienne von Speyr writes, "It was an elemental action; he gave no warning, preached no sermon, gave no counsel: it was a storm that cleared the atmosphere. In other circumstances he was always ready to receive the sinner, but in this case their was no alternative.  They were shop keepers wanting in taste, in sense, in understanding, entirely preoccupied with material concerns and there was no point of contact with them.  </div> <bR> <div> Jesus reveals that sometimes the negative must come before the positive can work. You have to get rid of the negative for the positive to make sense.</div> <div> VERSE 16</div> <div> DOVES C.S Lovett writes," Cattle could be driven and later collected,so nothing is lost, neither is there any hurt. Money thrown to the ground could be regathered. But loosed doves would fly away, so he merely orders them taken away.  Even in anger, Christ acts prudently.  He rebukes all, yet none is injured, nothing is lost.  What an example!  It was prophesied, "behold my servant shall deal wisely!"  (Isa.52:13).  </div> <bR> <div> Ronald Ward writes, "Our Lord did not overturn the tables bearing the birds in their cages, for fear of hurting them.  His anger against men did not include His other creatures.  Even the animal creation benefits from His coming (Rom.8:19-22).   </div> <div> The priorities got all twisted around. It started as a converience for worshippers to have the money changers there and the sacrifices, but this convenience came to be the primary</div> <div> business of the temple. Worship was put on the back shelf and especially for the Gentile.</div> <div> Business took precedence over worship and this is sacrilige to Jesus. The church is to make worship the first priority and be different from the world and its pursuits. When this is not the case materialism dominates spirituality and men lose the essence of worship and the sense of God's presence.</div> <bR> <div> My Father's house. Here is a direct claim to his Messiahship. God, the God of this temple was his Father. This was the basis for his authority.</div> <bR> <div> MARKET OR DEN OF THEIVES:</div> <div> Arthur Pink writes quoting Dr. Dods, "The poor was shamefully cheated, and the worship of God was hindered and impoverished instead of being facilitated and enriched.  The worshiper who came to the temple seeking quiet and fellowship with God had to push his way through the touts of dealers, and have his devotional temper dissipated by the wrangling and shouting of a cattle market.  Yet although many must have lamented this, no one had been bold enough to rebuke and abolish the glaring profanation."</div> <bR> <div> George Hutcheson writes, "Things lawful, being done in a wrong time and place, become sin;..."  Merchandise selling is perfectly legitimate but not in this context where it hinders worship which is the primary purpose of the temple.</div> <bR> <div> Barclay writes, "He acted as he did because Gods house was being desecrated.  In the temple there was worship without reverence.  Reverence is an instinctive thing.  Edward Seago, the artist, tells how he took two jipsy children on a visit to a cathedral in England.  They were wild enough children at ordinary times.  But, he tells us, from the moment he came into the cathedral they were strangely still and quiet:  All the way home they were unusually solmon;  And it was not until the evening time that they returned to their normal voisterousness.  Instinctive reverence was in their uninstructed hearts.  Worship without reverence can be terrible thing.</div> <bR> <div> The court of the gentiles was the only place a gentile could worship in the temple.  With all of the noise of the animals and the shouts of the hucksters and the racket of business there was no way a gentile could experience reverence.  This angered Jesus because men who were seeking God were prevented from experiencing His presence.  It is a severe evil to rob people of the chance to experience reverence.  </div> <div> VERSE 17</div> <div> The quote is from Psalm 69:9. This is the most quoted Psalm in the New Testament. The references to vicarious suffering make it a distinctive messianic message.</div> <bR> <div> When the Messiah came He would be filled with zeal for the house of God.  When they saw Jesus with such zeal it was confirmed in there mind that He was indeed the Messiah.  </div> <bR> <div> VERSE 18</div> <div> The Jewish leaders were fanatics for signs, but they could not see one even when it bit them in the nose. Jesus was giving them signs all the time, yet they were forever asking him for a sign.  After he healed a demon possessed man who was blind and mute we read in Matt. 12:38 Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him,'Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you'" After he fed the five thousand they say to him in John 6:30, "What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you?" They lacked the spiritual discernment to see that Jesus was the Son of God.</div> <div> They were ever seeking for that which was ever present before them. (See stories of those who seek far and wide for what is at their fingertips.)</div> <bR> <div> Mark 14:58 says, "I will destroy this Temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands."  Barclay writes, "Now clearly what Jesus really meant was that His coming had put an end to all this man-made, man-arranged way of worshiping God, and had put in it's place a spiritual worship;  that he had put an end to all this business of animal sacrifice and priestly ritual, and had put in its place a direct appoarch our spirit to the spirit of God which did not need an elborate  man-made temple and a ritual of incense and sacrifice offered by the hands of men......................................</div> <div> I have come to destroy this temple in Jerusalem and to make the whole round earth the temple where men can approach and know the presence of the living God."  </div> <bR> <div> VERSE 19</div> <div> The temple they thought he was talking about was the one nearby which Herod the Great had begun to build in 20 B.C. It had been under construcion for 46 years and was not completed until 64A.D. just 6 years before it was destroyed in 70A.D.</div> <bR> <div> George Hutcheson writes, "Christ did forknow all His sufferings,  and would not hinder, but willingly permitted them to come on, and under went them; for "destroy this temple, " is not a command of Christ, but a perdiction for telling their malice, and a permission to them to do their uttermost."  From the start of His ministry Jesus knew that the Cross way His destiny.  </div> <bR> <div> Jay Styles writes, "The dignity of our Lord's body.  The bodies of beleivers are called temples because God dwells in them by a communication of grace, but the humanity of Christ is Gods temple by a substantial inhabitation, immediately and personally-"in Him dwelleth the fullness of the Godhead."  God dwells in the church as a King among His subjects, in Christ's humanity as a King in His royal palace.</div> <bR> <div> "The essential idea of a temple is that of a place where God manifests Himself to man." Jesus was the temple in which the fullness of God dwelt. His death and resurrection was the sign of His ultimate authority. </div> <bR> <div> VERSE 20</div> <div> C.S. Lovett writes "their vision is restricted to the symbolical temple on Zion, whereas the body of Christ was the true dwelling of God.  The shekinah glory which formerly graced the most holy place of the tabernacle, now had two legs and walked among them.  His glory was wonderfully manifested by this act of cleansing the temple, but they didn't get it."  </div> <bR> <div> The Jewish leaders were such literalists in their interpretation, and that is why they were not able to understand much of what Jesus taught. Interpretation must come up with the meaning the speaker had in mind or it is not really interpretation but mere speculation.</div> <div> VERSE 21</div> <div> George Hutcheson writes, "Christ's body is the truth of that type of the temple; for as God did declare the temple to be His dwelling place, so in Him dwelleth the fullest of the God head bodily."  </div> <div> VERSE22</div> <div> RECALLED</div> <div> George Hutcheson writes, "even true disciples may be such babes in knowlege that for a long time they will little understand what Christ saith:  for it was long before the disciples took up the meaning of this passage............................  Disciples may  hear that at one time, the understanding and benefit whereof may be reserved to be gotten by them at another time, ........."   </div> <div> VERSE 23</div> <div> Many believed= the masses of common people had more discernment than did the leaders. They saw the signs of Jesus and believed for it was obvious to them that he was who he claimed to be. There had been no miricles in Israel like his since the time of the prophet Elisha centuries before this.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> VERSE 24</div> <div> Jesus was skeptical of their belief, however, for he knew that faith that is based on the spectacular can wither fast when the miricles do not continue. People want bread every day or they will forget the miracle. What has he done for me lately will soon surface and they will look for another hero. Being popular was not the goal of Jesus. He could achieve this easily and that is what Satan tempted him to do, but this is not lasting commitment to get people to love you for the amazing. It makes you a performer and your popularity only last as long as you keep performing. People won by miracles need more and more miracles to keep them faithful. </div> <bR> <div> Arthur W. Pink writes, "The Lord's example here is a warning for us.  We do well to remember that all is not gold that glitters.  It is not wise to trust in appearances of friendliness on short acquaintance.  The discreet man will be kind to all, but iminate with few.  </div> <bR> <div> George Hutcheson writes, "it is a clear evidence of unsoundness when Christ works are the chief thing drawing men to profess faith, and not His word."  </div> <bR> <div> Jesus knew human nature and knew these people would soon be looking for another magic act to follow. He placed little confidence in people who only believe when their is a miracle to focus on. This kind of belief is  based on emotion alone and is not an adequate commitment. True belief says though I get no miracle and have to suffer I will say with Job, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him."</div> <bR> <div> Barclay writes, "He knew quite well there were many who would have followed him while he continued to produce miracles and wonders and signs, but if he had begun to talk to them about service and self-denial, if he had begun to talk to them about self-surrender to the will of God, if he had begun to talk to them about a cross and about carrying a cross, they would have stared at him with blank incomprehension and would  have left him on the spot.  It the great characteristic of Jesus that he did not followers unless these followers clearly knew and definately accepted that which was involved in following him.  He refused-in the modern phrase-to cash in on a moments popularity................................................He knew how human nature hungers for sensations.  He wanted, not a crowd of men cheering they knew not what, but a small company who knew what they were doing and who were prepared to follow to the end."  </div> <bR> <div> Paul encountered this fickle faith of the crowd in Lystra. He healed a man lame from birth and we read in Acts. 14:11 " When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, "The gods have come down to us in human form!" They were instant believers based on the miracle. But just a few verses later we read in verse 19, "Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead." He was a god one day  and a man to be dispised and killed the next. Faith based on miracles is not a very reliable faith.</div> <div> VERSE 25</div> <div> John stresses that Jesus knew human nature well and that is why he was skeptical and did not buy into the superficial. It is part of being Christlike to be skeptical of human nature. It is fallen and not to be trusted based on the superficial. </div> <bR> <div> John tells the story of Nicodemus next because in contrast to those who had a superficial belief, Nicodemus had a deep desire to know Jesus and Jesus knew it and let him come and learn true faith. He knew the heart of this man was sincere and was not just an emotional thing caused by the miracles.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> JOHN CHAPTER 4</div> <bR> <div> THE WOMAN AT THE WELL  Based on John 4:1-26</div> <div> By Pastor Glenn Pease</div> <bR> <div>      Your kindness to one person can change the course of history for multitudes.  Gipsy Smith was one of the great evangelists of the last century, and the beginning of the 20th.</div> <div> He won tens of thousands of people to Christ.  His life was often in the  midst of the crowd,</div> <div> but his greatest life changing experience was a one on one encounter.  He felt very conspicuous, for he was from a Gipsy family, and he was accustomed to being rejected for being different.  He felt nobody cared for him but his father.  But one day, as he stood outside a chapel, an older man walked up to him and said, "The Lord bless you, my boy.</div> <div> The Lord keep you, my boy."  </div> <bR> <div>      The man walked away, and he never saw him again, but a lump came into his throat,</div> <div> and a tear to his eye, for those words of kindness made a little Gipsy boy feel accepted.</div> <div> In his autobiography Gipsy writes, "When I reach the glory-land, I will find out that dear old man, and while angels shout and applaud, and the multitudes who have been brought to</div> <div> Christ through the Gipsy boy sing for joy, I will thank that grand old saint for his shake of the hand and for his God bless you!  For he made me feel that somebody outside the tent</div> <div> really cared for a Gipsy boy's soul."  It is absolutely amazing what an act of acceptance to a person who expects to be rejected.  </div> <bR> <div>      Jesus knew the power of acceptance in people's lives, and that is why we see Him practicing it when He encounters people who expected to be rejected.  Zachaeus was up </div> <div> a tree, not only because he was short of stature, but because he was short on acceptance.</div> <div> People would not give him ground to stand on, but would have gladly trampled on him.</div> <div> He was not an acceptable person, but Jesus came along and accepted him as a friend, and even ate with him.  This acceptance changed this little man's life so that he became a big hit in the kingdom of God. </div> <bR> <div>      Even more radical is this encounter of Jesus with the woman of Samaria.  Zachaeus was despised, but he could at least be respected for being a success for what he did.  But this woman was a failure.  She had married five husbands, and now she was living with a man</div> <div> she was not married to.  It is not likely all five of her husbands died, and so she was probably a divorced woman.  She was still young enough to be attractive, however, for she</div> <div> had lured another fly into her web.  She had something going for her in short range relationships, but in the long run she was a failure at keeping a relationship alive.  She was a Samaritan, a woman, and on top of that, and immoral woman.  We have no description of anyone else in the life of Jesus who was a greater moral failure, yet,  the encounter of Jesus with this woman at the well is the longest account we have of Jesus dealing with an individual.</div> <bR> <div>      Spurgeon calls John 3 and 4 the key soul winning portions of God's Word, because of the focus of Jesus on individuals like Nicodemus and this woman.  They were radically different.  He was a male Jewish leader, and she was a female Samaritan nobody.  He was socially, politically, economically, and religiously her superior, but we see Jesus treating them as equals, and as objects of His love and acceptance.  The record of her encounter is twice as long as that of Nicodemus, and the reason is obvious.  As a woman and a Samaritan, Jesus had to make it clear that she was not less and object of the evangelism </div> <div> task of the church.  Jesus was being far more radical here than we know, by his acceptance of this woman.  </div> <bR> <div>      The Jewish rabbis said, "Rather burn the sayings of the law than teach them to women."  And, "Let no man prolong conversation with a woman; let no one converse with a woman in the streets, not even with his own wife."  Jesus was going against the grain of His day.  Spurgeon points out, "Even the Apostles were tainted at first with the horrible superstition which made them marvel than Jesus openly talked with a woman."  Jesus was doing a lot of teaching by this encounter.  He was teaching the woman and His disciples, and the church for the rest of history.  Some of the most profound truths of revelation are to be found in this chapter.  It is also a guide to the principles of evangelism.  Here is the Master by precept and example showing us the means and the methods by which we can follow Him in winning the lost.   We have here the authorized manual on how to be an effective witness and disciple maker.  Let's look at two foundational insights that will help us make the Master's plan our plan.  First note,</div> <bR> <div> I.  HIS PASSION FOR EVANGELISM.</div> <bR> <div>      Jesus was so tired that He was the only one of the group who stayed at the well to rest.</div> <div> The others all went into town to buy provisions.  Farrar in his Life Of Christ writes, "The</div> <div> expression in the original is most pathetically picturesque.  It implies that the wayfarer was</div> <div> quite tired out, and in his exhaustion flung his limbs wearily on the seat, anxious if possible for complete repose."  In other words, Jesus is shot.  In this state of body and mind, most of us avoid people like the plague.  We don't care about any need but our own, and we are</div> <div> not interested in conversation that is even small talk, let alone things of eternal value.  But Jesus has such a passion for witnessing that He engages this woman in extended conversation about deep spiritual matters.  </div> <bR> <div>      He told His disciples, when they returned, that His food was to do the will of Him who sent Him.  He had such a passion to touch people for God that He forgot about His hunger and exhaustion.  The tragic truth is, most of us do not care enough about lost people to go out of our way to touch them, even when we are feeling our best.  Intellectually we care, but we have loss the passion that compels us to care enough to act.  Leighton Ford begins his book Good News Is For Sharing, by telling of his experience on the Caribbean Island of Grand Caymon.  His wife lost her diamond engagement ring.  She feared she dropped it on the beach.  Friends helped them sift through sand where she had been sitting, but no ring was found.  </div> <bR> <div>      They went back to their motel room crushed, not just because of the monetary loss, but because of so many loving memories tied to that ring.  Then he moved some papers on the bed, and there it was.  They hugged with joy, and Leighton went flying out the door, and even though it was near midnight, he banged on doors and shared the good news with everyone.  He is a professional evangelist, and yet, even he does not get that passionate over sharing the good news of eternal life in Christ.  He knows we don't even come close.  Why?  Because Christians who think they are so free, are in reality, to a great degree, slaves of the culture.  </div> <bR> <div>      It is not the in thing to do to challenge people's convictions.  It is the in thing to tolerate,</div> <div> and let everybody do their own thing, and believe their own thing.  We like this even as Christians, for it means we too are tolerated, and are free to believe and not be persecuted.  It seems only right to give others that same freedom, and so the idea of trying to persuade someone to change almost seems anti-American.  The result is, we are just the opposite of passionate in witnessing, for we are apathetic.  The Gospel is everywhere, and anyone who really wants to be saved can be anytime they chose.  They just have to turn on</div> <div> the TV, or radio, or go buy a book.  They are free to be saved at their convenience, so why should I buy them?  We may not consciously reason this way, but we do practice this philosophy, and the end result is, we follow culture and not Christ, for we reject His passions for leading people to find a redemptive relationship with God. </div> <bR> <div>      Because of this lack of passion, we don't even care about our lost peers, let alone the</div> <div> fowl sinners like this woman at the well.  We are almost pagan in our perspective, for we think that as long as people are happy, and they vote, and keep their yard nice, they are okay, and we don't have to be bothered by the fact that they are lost.  People who are not drowning do not need us to make heroic efforts to save them.  Only when you feel that people's lives are threatened are you moved to act with passion.  Since we are captives of our culture, and do not feel a strong sense of the lossness of people, we are not moved to witness, or to go out of our way to help them find the Way.  </div> <bR> <div>      It is not that there is a lack of books, seminars, and conferences on evangelism.  They are available in abundance.  What is lacking is the passion that compels Christians to act.</div> <div> When Baron von Hugel, the Christian philosopher, was on his death bed, he called his favorite niece to his side.  He whispered to her his last words that summed up all his brilliant mind had learned in life.  He said, "Caring is everything.  Nothing matters but caring."  Jesus cared about every person He encountered, and because He cared, He shared.  He made an effort to touch their lives for God.  </div> <bR> <div>      Stonewall Jackson had to cross the Shanondoah River in 24 hours.  He told old Miles</div> <div> that he had ordered his engineers to prepare plans and to get them to him as quickly as possible.  About 10 hours later Jackson asked old Miles how he was getting along, and he replied, "General, the bridge is built.  I don't know whether the picture is done yet or not."</div> <div> We all need to be more like old Miles the bridge builder.  He had a passion for getting the job done.  If we wait for someone to come up with the perfect plan before we share Christ with someone, we will spend our life planning and preparing, but never performing.  What we need is the passion that propels us to care enough to share.</div> <bR> <div>     It is better to try and fail than never to try at all.  May God help us to be open to the passion of Christ so we are willing to try.  Guilt can sometimes move us, and we can be scolded into some surface activity, but, as Lyle Schaller says, that is usually followed by his hostility, and then passive neglect.  We need to focus on just one primary motive for evangelism, and that is passion for people.  This is what brought Jesus into the world, and this is what moved Him to care about every individual He met, and this alone is what will make us the witness He wants us to be.  May God help us to pray, "Lord fill me with your spirit of passion for people that will, in turn, give me your passion for evangelism.</div> <bR> <div>      Jesus had a passion for evangelism, but He did not have a zeal without knowledge.  He did not use emotionalism, but very rational methods in winning people.  Jesus knew psychology, and He knew human nature, and we see this clearly as we look at our second point.</div> <bR> <div> II.  HIS PROCEDURE IN EVANGELISM.</div> <bR> <div>      A game may be won by the act of sinking a ball in a basket or cup, or taking it across a goal line, but that act is preceded by a procedure.  That is, there is a process by which one comes to this winning event, and so it is with winning a person into the kingdom of God.</div> <div> Jesus did not just throw holy water on this woman at the well, and claim her as a disciple.</div> <div> She had to be won, and this calls for a process by which she is taken from neutral through</div> <div> negative, and into positive.  This can be a complex procedure, but the details of this encounter are recorded so all Christians can see the basic principles of how to go about making a disciple for Christ. We will be looking at these basics in a series on John chapter 4.  The first step we want to see in this process is His approach.</div> <bR> <div>     The first words of Jesus to this woman are words of request.  He asked, "Will you give me a drink?"  You may think that it is much ado about nothing to make an issue of this, but in fact, it is a key factor in successful evangelism.  Most efforts to touch a life for Christ fail at this first stage, which is the approach.  If you approach people with the words, "Are you saved?"  Or, "Are you going to heaven?"  Or some such words, you are taking an aggressive approach that may work in some cases, but is bound to fail in most, because it is an attack approach that puts people on the defensive.</div> <bR> <div>      You are approaching them as a superior approaches and inferior, and you come as a threat.  It is the approach of those with a Messiah complex.  They have the solution to everyone's problems, and if people will just give heed, they will be delivered.  They come with the image of those who have it all together, and are in need of nothing.  Listen to them and you too can be among the elite.  There is no denying that this does appeal to some, but the Messiah Himself does not use this approach.  His approach is not only better, and more effective, it is the honest approach that avoids the danger of pride in the believer,  and offense to the unbeliever.</div> <bR> <div>      Jesus approaches this woman with a focus on His own need.  He is thirsty, and she has the capacity to meet that need.  By requesting a drink from this very worldly woman, Jesus establishes a common ground with her.  He is not approaching her as a superior, but as an equal.  She is there to get water because she needs water to live.  He is not different from her.  He has this same need for water.  His approach to her is the approach of acceptance.</div> <div> It is a very opposite of the attack approach.  In the attack approach you establish immediately that you are not on common ground with your target person.  You are saved,</div> <div> and they are not.  You have the answer, and they do not.  You are in, and they are out.  It </div> <div> is two different worlds colliding, and collisions are not pleasant experiences.  </div> <bR> <div>      The approach of Jesus says, we are in the same world with common needs.  His approach builds on the likenesses of the lost with the saved, and not their differences.</div> <div> He gets there later in the process, but that is not an effective approach.  When you make a request of another person, you have instantly conveyed to them that they are a valued person.  They have what can be of help to you, and so they are of value to you.  That is what acceptance is.  If you do not convey acceptance of another, why should they even care to accept you, or anything you have to say?  </div> <bR> <div>      The acceptance approach is almost always the only way to earn the right to witness to anybody.  Forget all the nonsense of being superior to the lost.  They may have many ways</div> <div> by which they can meet needs that you have.  Jesus was no macho Messiah who refused to ask a Samaritan woman for help.  She had a jar, and she could help Him satisfy His thirst,</div> <div> and He did not hesitate to ask her for that help.  If you want a positive relationship with a non-Christian, you need to find an area of life where they have something by which they can meet a need of yours.  You request for help establishes that you accept them, and acknowledge their worth.  This puts you on common ground, and gives you a basis to go further.</div> <bR> <div>      If anybody had the right to take the other approach, it was Jesus.  He was not only a man, and she was a woman.  He was the best of men, and she was the worst of women.  </div> <div> He was a Jew, and she was a Samaritan.  He was holy, and she was unholy.  He had every reason in the book to approach this woman as a superior to an inferior.  But He didn't, and by not doing so, He labels that approach in any of His followers, one of audacity and pride.</div> <div> We all need to do a lot of self examination at this point.  Do we accept people as Jesus did?</div> <div> Can we humble ourselves as He did to ask for help, even from an outstanding sinner?  Do we look down our nose at people outside the kingdom, and convey a spirit of rejection, or do we look up to them as people of worth, and say to them, I could use your help?  Until we can do the latter, we cannot get to first base in winning the lost.  </div> <bR> <div>      Now let's not distort this, and pretend that Jesus accepted her sinful life style.  He did not say, it is okay by me if you marry every Tom, Dick, and Harry you can seduce.  I know you are between husbands, and working on your sixth success, but that is nothing to me.</div> <div> That is not what we mean by accepting the sinner.  Jesus did not accept her sin, or okay it.</div> <div> He just accepted her as a person.  A person worthy of being loved and cared about, and worthy of being redeemed.  To accept another does not mean you approve of their sin.  It simply means, you are willing to acknowledge your worth, and then treat them with respect.</div> <div> Jesus was a friend of sinners, because He accepted them, not their sin.  Their sin, however, never disqualifies them for acceptance, because their sin is what makes them in need of a Savior, and, therefore, in need of acceptance.</div> <bR> <div>      Jesus needed this sinner to help Him get a drink, and because He was willing to acknowledge that need, He won her over to drink the water of life, and become His disciple.  Get rid of your Christian pride, and look for ways you need a sinners help, and then you will be ready to approach them with a Christlike acceptance.  </div> <bR> <div>  </div> <div> EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED  Based on John 4:1f</div> <div> By Pastor Glenn Pease</div> <bR> <div>      The unexpected is the source of so much of the joy of life.  Our three year old granddaughter, Jennifer, was praying at the table a couple of weeks ago.  I noticed she was going faster than usual, and she came to the end saying, "In Jesus name, amen."  Then she shouted, "I win."  It was so unexpected that we were all shocked into laughter, and we realized at that point, she and Jason had a thing going as to who could finish first.  It was a whole new concept to me, the concept of competitive prayer.  </div> <bR> <div>      We expected the commonplace, and we were surprised by the unexpected.  God does this a lot, as you study His handiwork.  God has so designed natural life that it can only exist by means of the exceptional and the unexpected.  It is a law of nature that as a liquid cools its density increases, and it gets heavier.  But is water followed this law, the ice that formed on the top of lakes would sink to the bottom, and eventually the whole lake would be solid ice.  But fortunately, water is an exception to this law.  It is expands when it freezes, and ice becomes lighter than water, and it floats.  If God had not made water an exception, life would be greatly limited on this planet, and may have been impossible. </div> <bR> <div>      It is surprising how many exceptions are necessary for life on earth.  If the law of gravity had no exceptions, the heavy gas would be at the bottom, and the lighter gas at the top.  This would mean the whole earth would be under a layer of carbon dioxide, and this would make life as we know it impossible.  But the law of gravity is defied by the law of diffusion of gases, and so oxygen can be available for all of life on the surface of the earth.</div> <bR> <div>      God is not a legalist, even in His laws for governing the universe.  He has variety and flexibility, and unique unexpected exceptions.  Beware of locking God in and saying, He always does this, or never does that.  God is the God of surprises, and the God of the unexpected.  Those who study any aspect of His creation soon learn this, and it is true in the study of His Word as well.  No where is this more evident than in John chapter 4, where we see the encounter of Jesus with the woman at the well.  It is literally loaded with exceptions and surprises.  Let's look at some of them to get the flavor of the whole passage.  </div> <bR> <div> 1.  Ordinarily you run to success, but this text tells us Jesus had to flee from it.  His disciples were baptizing more people than John the Baptist.  His movement was growing like wildfire, and so he packed up and left.  A very unexpected reaction to success, but he had to escape the conflict this was going to produce with the Pharisees.  His time was not yet, and so he fled success. </div> <bR> <div> 2.  Also unusual is the verse which tells us Jesus did not baptize people.  John did, but Jesus let His disciples do the baptizing.  As far as we know, Jesus never baptized anyone, and that is surprising.</div> <bR> <div> 3.  Jesus took the route to Galilee that was the unusual route.  Most Jews went around Samaria because of the hostility of these two peoples.  Jesus is the exception, and He takes the unexpected way, right through this alien territory.</div> <bR> <div> 4.  His disciples go into town to buy food, which is a surprise, because, as the woman at the well says in verse 9, the Jews do not associate with the Samaritans.  Here is another exception.  </div> <bR> <div> 5.  The woman of Samaria is one surprise after another.  She is the only woman in the Bible, that we know of, who had five husbands, and the only one we know of who was living with a man out of wedlock.  This may not be uncommon in our day, but it was the unusual and unexpected than.  Jesus only took one trip through Samaria, and He runs into the only</div> <div> woman with her particular record.  </div> <bR> <div> 6.  It was a surprise that anybody would be at the well at high noon.  This is the hottest part of the day.  Most would come in the cool of the morning or evening, but she was there at the unexpected time.</div> <bR> <div> 7.  It was unexpected that a rabbi would talk to any woman in public.  But here we are surprised, for Jesus not only talks with her, He shares with her the deepest insights into the nature of God.  He gives her the clearest revelation of who He is, as the Messiah.</div> <div> You would expect a teacher of the caliber of Jesus to reveal His most profound truths to the highest leaders of the land, or at least some leaders in some formal setting.  But Jesus is full of surprises, and He gives this lowly nobody insights of the greatest depth.  There is no rule to cover this.  This is just another great exception.</div> <bR> <div> 8.  Finally, you do not expect a woman to be one of the first successful witnesses, but her testimony led crowds of Samaritans to believe in Jesus, and become His disciples.  Jesus did not chose any woman to be one of the twelve, but long before any of the twelve were effective evangelists, this woman led a multitude to Jesus.  </div> <bR> <div>      This whole account is an exception to the rule.  When Jesus sent out His twelve, we read that He gave them these instructions in Matt. 10:5-6, "Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans.  Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel."  Here He is doing the very thing He forbids them to do, and by so doing, He has the biggest harvest of fruit He ever had in His ministry.  The bottom line of all this is, expect the unexpected when you follow Jesus.  The disciples of Jesus never expected to see Him talking with a woman.  Verse 27 implies they were embarrassed by the whole scene.  It was a surprise,</div> <div> and so unexpected, and they could not handle this exceptional situation.  The text tells us, </div> <div> "No one asked what do you want, or why are you talking with her?"  Their minds were full of questions, but they were shocked into silence, and did not know how to deal with this unique situations.</div> <bR> <div>      They were not expecting the unexpected, nor were they open to the unusual and exceptional.  This is one of the basic principles of evangelism, and they had to learn it, </div> <div> and we have to learn it, to be effective tools for Christ.  After all, if Jesus sent His church into all the world to make disciples, then He expects His church to be ready for an infinite variety of possibilities.  My father use to say, "It doesn't take all kinds to make a world, </div> <div> but we've got them anyway."  We have to face reality and recognize, the world we are trying to reach is full of diversity, variety, and the unusual.  If you do not expect the unexpected, you will be closed to both God and the world He wants you to reach.  Part of what it means to walk in the spirit is to expect the unexpected.</div> <bR> <div>      Jesus expected prostitutes, tax collectors, and people that nobody else ever dreamed of reaching, to respond to the Gospel, and become a part of the kingdom of God.  Jesus expected that this Samaritan woman would respond to His acceptance, and that the kingdom of God would be extended into territory that no Jew would ever even try to reach.</div> <div> In Acts 1:8 we read that Jesus said to His Apostles, "You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."  Do you think the Apostles would have taken that serious, that they were to witness in Samaria, unless they had seen with their own eyes the results of this encounter with the woman of Samaria?  They had to be eye witnesses of this exceptional, and totally unexpected event, or they never would have been able to go to Samaria with any expectation at all.  The result is, in Acts 8 we read that Philip had a marvelous ministry in Samaria.  And Peter and John preached the Gospel in many Samaritan villages.</div> <bR> <div>      My point is, this never would have happened, and all the evangelism that took place, </div> <div> and all the lives of the Samaritans changed forever, never would have happened had Jesus not prepared the way by helping His disciples learn to expect the unexpected.  They were slow learners, for He taught them to expect the cross and resurrection too, but they were not open to it, and had to learn the hard way.  One of the main reasons why many people</div> <div> are not evangelized is because of Christians who have never learned to expect the unexpected.  Almost every pastor who has been in the ministry any length of time could tell a story similar to that of Dr. Dino Pedrone, who pastored in Pennsylvania.  </div> <bR> <div>      A woman came to  him for counseling, and in the course of their conversation he asked her about her husband.  She said he was a good man, but he was not a Christian.  When the pastor asked if  he could come and talk to him about the Lord, she said it wouldn't do any good, for he will never become a Christian.  The next Saturday he went to see the husband.</div> <div> He discovered that though he was hard and indifferent to spiritual things in relation to his wife, he was hungary to know God.  The wife was shocked when her husband opened his heart to Christ.  Soon he was baptized and a part of the church. </div> <bR> <div>       The next time this wife came for counseling, he asked about her children.  She told him she had a son who was a rebel, and was always in trouble.  He asked if anybody had ever talked to him about the Lord.  She said that she knew her son would never trust in Christ.  The next Tuesday some people from the church called on the son, and her son received Christ.  After that she came to the pastor with a list of her relatives.  Not all of them responded to the Gospel, but some did, because she had finally learned to expect the unexpected.  </div> <bR> <div>      Until we learn this basic principle, we determine what God will, or will not do, and we never even try that which seems unusual, for we do not give the exceptional a chance to happen.  This is what quenching the spirit is all about.  We refuse to be available to the Holy Spirit to do what is unusual and unexpected.  We are just like the Jews who rejected Jesus.  They expected a Messiah like David the warrior, who would lead them to victory over Rome.  They did not expect the unexpected, and that is exactly what Jesus was.</div> <div> Jesus did  the unexpected, because He expected God to use the unexpected to change lives, and God honored that expectation.  When we talk about being like Jesus, let us not forget this aspect of His character.  </div> <bR> <div>      God moves in mysterious ways, was not just a saying or a song for Jesus, it was a philosophy of life.  He did not live in conformity to what was expected, but in His passion for people, He reached out to touch them any way He could, and to let them know they were loved, and were invited to be a part of the family of God.  The world seeks to force us into its mold.  It says conform and avoid being an exception.  But the call of Christ is to be a non-conformer.  Be different, be unusual, and be the exception.  Be open to the unexpected, for these are the people God uses to open up new worlds, as Jesus opened up the world of Samaria to the kingdom of God.</div> <bR> <div>      One of the most Christian nations of the world today is Korea.  The largest church in the world is there, along with many other great churches.  It all began with an exception.</div> <div> Robert J. Thomas was a Welshman working in China for the Scottish Bible Society.  He learned that the Korean language was based on the Chinese, and so the Korean intellectuals could read the Chinese Bible.  Nobody had any interest in Korea, but he was determined these people would have the Bible.  He got on an American ship, the General Sherman, and sailed to Korea.  When the ship got near the port a fight broke out with a Korean ship, and the American vessel was set on fire, and all the passengers were killed.</div> <div> Thomas was so determined to finish his mission that he took some of his Bibles, and leaped into the sea.  He struggled to the shore, and staggered out of the water.  He thrust the Bibles into the hand of the Koreans, who clubbed him to death.  That is how the Gospel first came to Korea in 1866.  It was not a very promising beginning, nobody would expect anything to come of such a tragic event.  But God used this exceptional event to produce</div> <div> one of the greatest harvests of history.</div> <bR> <div>      William Carrey said, "Attempt great things for God and expect great things from God."</div> <div> If you never attempt to do anything but the usual and the expected, you will never know if God will use you to do the unexpected.  We have to stop thinking that our friends and neighbors are too unusual and different, and use that to justify our refusal to witness to them.  We must expect the unexpected and share the good news with them.  If the disciples would have watched this encounter of Jesus and the woman at the well, you can count on it, </div> <div> they would have been betting that Jesus would have had and easier time getting Satan to make stones into bread, than of getting this woman to supply Him with water.  She was there at noon in the hot Sun because she was not welcome by the other women who came at cooler times. She was not a very sociable person, and to serve a Jew was not likely her cup of tea. She just was not a likely prospect for getting a cup of cold water, let alone a prospect for evangelism.  She would not have gotten a single vote if Jesus would have operated on the majority rule, and taken a vote on it.</div> <bR> <div>       Jesus had passion, and he had a procedure, and now we want to look at-</div> <bR> <div> HIS PROSPECTS FOR EVANGELISM.  </div> <bR> <div>      For Jesus, every person who crossed His path was a prospect for evangelism.  Jesus, like the Good Samaritan, considered every man he met with a need as His neighbor.  Now Jesus confronts a bad Samaritan, and He has the same spirit.  This woman at the well was robbed by Satan, and beaten out of a life of love.  She was as helpless to help herself as was the man who was beaten who was found by the Good Samaritan.  Jesus is now stopping to help this bad Samaritan because she is His neighbor.  </div> <bR> <div>      One of the most amazing things about this great rescue is that it was all done by words.</div> <div> There is no miracle in this passage anywhere.  Jesus could have had her jar float down into the well, and return without the use of a robe.  He could have added the Cana touch, and made the  water turn to wine.  He could have done all sorts of miracles to convince her He was the Messiah, but He needed none of that.  The Jews saw wonder after wonder, and still  would not believe.  But here is one of the so-called heretic Samaritans, and she only hears the words of Jesus, and does not see a single wonder of His miracle working power, and she believes.  The masses came and believed as well, with no record of a single miracle in the two days He stayed there.  Note verse 41, "And because of His words many more became believers."  They went on to give Jesus the title, the Savior of the World in verse 42.</div> <bR> <div>      This, from Samaritan people who were enemies of the Jews, and on whom James and John wanted to call down fire from heaven to destroy.  No wonder Jesus rebuked them, for He did not see the Samaritans as His enemies.  He saw them as prospects for evangelism.</div> <div> He did not write them off, for He expected the unexpected.  He expected these despised people to become a part of His family.  The day you label any person of any class or race as being no prospect for evangelism, is the day you cease to have the mind of Christ.  This whole account, which is so unusual and full of the unexpected, is designed to make it clear to Christians all through history that our Lord expects us to expect the unexpected, and never write anyone off as a prospect for evangelism.</div> <bR> <div>      This is the Jesus version of Ripley's Believe It Or Not.  It is mission impossible.  This passage of scripture is surely designed to demonstrate but the Gospel is for everybody.</div> <div> There is no such thing as a hopeless case.  The lease likely people in this world can become children of God, and can become leaders in the kingdom, as did this Samaritan sinner.  </div> <bR> <div>      Alfred Noble was a Swedish chemist who made a fortune by inventing powerful explosives, which he sold to governments around the world, so they could make weapons and blow people and things to pieces.  He was not the kind of man you would expect to have compassion for suffering humanity.  But one day his brother died, and the newspaper by accident published his obituary instead of his brothers.  It is not often a man gets to read his own obituary.  It had a shocking impact on Alfred, for he was identified in the obituary as the man who made a fortune by enabling armies to achieve new levels of mass destruction.  He was going to be remembered as a merchant of death, and he hated it. </div> <bR> <div>       So he took his fortune and established awards to be given in various fields to people whose work was a benefit to humanity.  Today he is remembered, not as the destroyer, but as a benefactor to man.  The man least likely to be so remembered is so remembered.  The point is, people can change, and time can change, and circumstances can change, and, therefore, anything is possible.  So let's stop assuming that Samaritans are not good prospects for evangelism.</div> <bR> <div>      Whom do you never expect to be a child of God?  Whom do you never expect to be used of God to touch others for Christ?  What is the most unexpected change Christ could make in another's life by your influence?  Faith is simply expecting that these unexpected events can become a reality.  Thoreau wrote, "I learned this, at least, by my experiment:  That if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."  </div> <bR> <div>      Do you have any dreams about what might be if the world was more hopeful, if life was more simple, if you had more control of what happens?  Don't wait for life to level off and even out, but go for your dream now, expecting the unexpected.  Have you ever wondered</div> <div> why it is why collectors have so many rare coins, or stamps, or bottles?  If they are so rare and unusual, how can anybody have a collection of them?  It is because they are people who go through life looking for the unusual.  They expect the unexpected.  The  non-collector walks pass treasures all the time and does not see them.  Collectors see them, because they expect to see them, and they are always looking for the unlikely.  </div> <bR> <div>      Our environment is loaded with people who are lost.  They are hidden treasures, like this sinful Samaritan woman, but we pass them by, because we don't expect Christ to ever find these lost sheep, at least not through us.  As long as we think this way, we will be right, </div> <div> and we get what we expect-nothing.  The only way we will ever be used to win the lost is to</div> <div> live with the mind of Christ, a mind that expected the unexpected.  </div> <bR> <div>      We are not trying to deny the reality of Murphy's Law, for it to is a part of life.  Who of us has not decided to watch a TV series, which we haven't watched for 6 months, only to discover it is a rerun of the one other time we decided to watch it?  Or who of us has not been on vacation watching a program, only to suddenly see it end with the words, to be continued?  No setting is so solemn that it scares away Murphy's Law.  Stewart Briscoe </div> <div> told of one of his associate pastors at the funeral of a war veteran.  The pastor was to lead his military friends out through a side door, but he chose the wrong door.  With military precision they marched into a storage closet in full view of mourners.  The effect was somewhat marred when they had to beat a hasty retreat in confusion.  The unexpected is not always good, and what we would hope for, but to have the mind of Christ we need to expect good unexpected things to happen, when we care about every person we meet, </div> <div> enough to share the love of Christ.  </div> <bR> <div>      You will never meet a person who does not need Christ.  You will never meet a person for whom Christ did not die.  You will never meet a person who cannot come to Christ.  Therefore, no matter how unlikely it is, expect people to be won into the kingdom of God,</div> <div> and expect God to use you to be a key factor in making that happen.  So let us go into our Samaria with the mind of Christ, and expect the unexpected. </div> <bR> <div>      </div> <div>      </div> <bR> <bR> <div> THE WELL WITHIN  Based on John 4:1-26</div> <div> By Pastor Glenn Pease</div> <bR> <div>      Keith Miller in his book The Scent Of Love tells of the young intern who was brilliant and competitive, and wanted to get his hands on the toughest cases that came into the hospital.  One day a man was brought in very sick.  His temperature was high, his blood count was down, and his fluids were out of balance.  He was in bad shape, and this young doctor said, "I'll take him."  He started working on the sick man and got his temperature down.  Then he got his blood count up, and his fluids in balance.  Everything was going quite well, but suddenly the patient died.</div> <bR> <div>     The supervising physician came by just as the intern was covering the patient, and he noticed he was furious.  He watched unobserved from the hall as the young doctor grabbed the chart at the front of the bed, took a pen out of his pocket, and scrawled something across it.  Then he stormed angrily out passed the supervisor, and never said a word.  The older physician could not resist going into to see what he had written.  It said, "This patient was in better condition when he died then when he first came to me."  This is in the same category with the statement, "The operation was a success, but the patient died."  It sounds strange, but this is the goal of the physician of the soul-to make sure people are in better condition when they die.</div> <bR> <div>      Corrie Ten Boom got the warning that a Jewish orphanage was to be raided, and all the babies killed.  She quickly got some of her Dutch boys dressed up in Nazi uniforms,</div> <div> and sent them to the orphanage to demand that the babies be turned over to them.  With tears they were handed over.  The people did not realize that they were really saving the babies.  All were given to families to raise.  One of the boys involved in this clever rescue said to Corrie that he believed the most important work of his life was the saving of those babies.  Corrie said to him that as important as it was, the more important work is saving people forever by telling them of Jesus.  She put her hand on his shoulder and said, "Pete,</div> <div> every Christian is called to be a soul winner for Jesus.....and in your life there will come a times when you will see that as the most important work for you.</div> <bR> <div>    Six months later he was arrested, and given one week to live.  The day before he was executed he wrote this letter to Corrie.  "All the boys in my cell are sentenced to death.</div> <div> I am so glad that I could tell them about Jesus and they have accepted Him.  I know that when they shoot us tomorrow, we will all go to heaven, because we have brought our sins to Jesus and He has made us all children of God.  We know that the house of the Father</div> <div> with many mansions is our very close future.  I see now that the most important work for a Christian is to win souls for eternity.  Like the young doctor, this young physician of the soul could have written their death certificates with these words:  "These boys were in better condition when they died then when they came to me."  Jesus could have written this</div> <div> concerning the thief on the cross as well.  </div> <bR> <div>      This is the ultimate need of all mankind.  We cannot solve the problems of the world.  It will be a fallen world until Jesus comes again, and it will be a world of unsolvable problems</div> <div> and crooked paths we cannot make straight.  But we can make sure that the victims of this fallen world are in better condition when they die, then ever before.  That is the great human need that Jesus addresses in John 4.  He does not offer the woman at the well marriage counseling, or some advice on self-esteem therapy.  After being rejected by five husbands, she no doubt had a head full of psychological problems.  Jesus did not  inquire if there were children involved, and offer her family guidance, or legal advice on how she could get out of Samaria and start a new life.  This woman may have had more problems than we could imagine, but all Jesus offered her was a spring of water that would well up to eternal life.  He was not solving all her problems, but He was offering her the chance to be in better condition when she died, than she ever was before she met the Messiah.  </div> <bR> <div>      The point I am getting at it this:  Man's greatest need is for eternal life.  There are a great many studies on man's basic needs.  He needs food, air, water, shelter, clothing, and he needs love and security, self-esteem, and a host of other things for the ideal and balanced life.  But the bottom line Biblically is, man needs God.  He needs to know he is a child of God, and a part of a family that never ends.  This woman at the well had five families that ended, and we do not know what state she was in with her present family. </div> <div> Jesus offers her a chance to be a part of a family where she will be loved permanently.</div> <div> Her wells kept running dry, but Jesus offers her a well that will never run dry.  He offers her a place where she will always belong.  This meets her basic need for love, acceptance, and security.</div> <bR> <div>      This whole passage is about meeting needs, and it leads us to focus on another principle truth about evangelism-the purpose of evangelism.  Let's review the key truth that Jesus is teaching us in John 4.  We have looked at-</div> <div> 1.  HIS PASSION FOR EVANGELISM.</div> <div> 2.  HIS PROCEDURE IN EVANGELISM.</div> <div> 3.  HIS PROSPECTS FOR EVANGELISM.</div> <div> 4.  HIS PURPOSE IN EVANGELISM.</div> <bR> <div>      This last one is our focus now.  There are literally thousands of definitions of what evangelism is.  I have written a couple myself.  Here are some of the most famous:</div> <div> 1.  The Madras Foreign Missions Council, "Evangelism is so to present Jesus Christ to the world in the power of the Holy Spirit that men shall come to put their trust in God through Him, accept them as their Savior and serve Him as their Lord in the fellowship of His church."  </div> <div> 2.  The World Council Of Churches, "Evangelism is so making Christ known to men that each is confronted with the necessity of a personal decision, yes or no."  </div> <div> 3.  Toyohiko Kagawa, "Evangelism means the conversion of people from worldliness to Christlike godliness."  </div> <div> 4.  Albert W. Beaven, "Evangelism is simply the contagion of enthusiasm for Jesus Christ. </div> <div> The methods which we employ are only channels through which this enthusiasm flows."</div> <div> 5.  Archbishop Temple, "Evangelism is the winning of men to acknowledge Christ as their Savior and King, so that they may give themselves to His service in the fellowship of His church."</div> <div> 6.  Samuel Boon of Siam, "Evangelism means living, doing, and talking for Christ."</div> <bR> <div>      There are many ways to say it, but when you reduce it to its essence, evangelism is simply meeting mans basic need for salvation, or the need for eternal life.  When this purpose is achieved, there will be many changes in time, but the ultimate value will be,</div> <div> people will be in better condition when they die than they were before they met the Great Physician.  As we watch the Master at work in fulfilling the purpose of evangelism, we see how the entire process is need oriented.  </div> <bR> <div>      Jesus deals with each person He encounters according to their need.  Find a need and meet it was His strategy.  In John 3 Jesus said to Nicodemus, "You must be born again."</div> <div> This analogy of coming into the kingdom of God by the process of a new birth has so dominated the minds of modern Christians that they have completely ignored the fact that Jesus never once referred to it in dealing with the woman at the well.  His analogy here is tailored to meet her need, and He uses the analogy of drinking at a fountain that never runs dry.  For Nicodemus, and millions of others, the concept of being born anew is just what they need to grasp the Gospel.  But for others, the need is to see being saved is like finding a fountain of water that quenches the thirst for love, meaning, and acceptance.  Still others need to see it as being a lost sheep found by a loving shepherd, and being returned to the fold.</div> <bR> <div>      There are different analogies used in the Bible to describe the experience of being saved, because the people who need to be saved have a variety of individual differences.</div> <div> Jesus did not treat people like pieces of plastic coming along in a assembly line, all alike, and all needing the same label attached, or the same hole drilled in the same place.  People are all different, and though they all have the same ultimate need, they have very different temporal needs, and these need to be addressed in witnessing to them, and leading them to have their needs met in Christ.  We should all have a sort of canned presentation of the Gospel prepared, but we need to be aware of the importance of being flexible, and not so locked in to a specific presentation that we ignore people's differences.</div> <bR> <div>      If all you ever say to people is, you must be born again, you are not being Christlike, for He only used that as one of several analogies of salvation.  So use them all, and vary them</div> <div> with the circumstances, and the nature of the people you are dealing with.  This woman was at the well in the heat of the day, and she was obviously in great need of water, so Jesus takes this need and builds His presentation of the Gospel around that need.  Jesus said you need living water, and this got her attention, for that was her most relevant need just then.  A wise witness will observe and listen so as to know something of the needs of the person he is witnessing to.  If the Gospel does not speak to a felt need, you can count on it,</div> <div> it will seem irrelevant to the person you are talking to.  If the purpose of evangelism is to meet a basic need, then you have to be dealing with a persons need to get anywhere in achieving this goal.</div> <bR> <div>      You can never catch fish unless you appeal to a need.  They need food, and so you offer them bait, and a variety of bait for appeal to different fish.  You also have to appeal to  a need to be a fisher of men.  That is why Jesus has so many different names and titles in the Bible.  Each one makes Him just what people need at a particular time in their life.  </div> <div> To the lonely, Jesus is the friend.</div> <div> To the lost, Jesus is the Good Shepherd.</div> <div> To the sick, Jesus is the Great Physician.</div> <div> To the ignorant Jesus is the teacher.</div> <bR> <div>      There are many other examples, and the point is, Jesus is what people need, but He has to be presented according to the specific needs of the individual, and that is why we need to</div> <div> pay attention to people's needs, for they are the doors of opportunity to share the good news of Jesus.  All that Jesus is doing in this context revolves around need.  He exposes her record of failed relationships, not to embarrass or condemn her, but to make it quite clear that she has a need for love and acceptance, which she just can not quench.  She has been trying to satisfy her thirst for love by one relationship after another, always hoping the next one will meet her need.  We do not know the details of why five men divorced her,</div> <div> but he chances are good that it was because she could never be satisfied, and was always looking for another man.  She could have been like many in our day who expect to find love</div> <div> and life's meaning in sex alone.</div> <bR> <div>      We do not want to minimize the value of sex, and its place in God's plan, and try to pretend it is not a major need.  We are just pointing out that people who become obsessed with sex make it an idol, and destroy all their relationships by an insatiable quest to quench their thirst for love at this one well.  People need a love that is more powerful and more permanent than sex.   That is what this woman needed, and that is what all need, and that is the love that Jesus offered her, and offers to all.</div> <bR> <div>      This woman went from man to man expecting her thirst to be quenched, if she could just find the right man.  Jesus did not question her need, and say it was not legitimate.  He did not say she did not need love and satisfaction.  He just said she was drinking from the wrong well, and seeking to satisfy her need by means of externals.  The only water that can satisfy is living water, and that comes from a well from within.  This is the very essence of what the Gospel is all about.  It is about the inner life.  The world system is a system of externals.  The meaning of life is in what you can see, feel, hear, smell, and taste, and so it makes sense that they drink at the wells of sensualism and materialism.</div> <bR> <div>      The people we contact every day in the world are people who are thirsty, and who are seeking to quench that thirst by getting all the pleasure they can if that means drinking at the well of immorality, then so be it, it is the only well they know.  The purpose of evangelism is to help them see a better well.  A well that can meet their deepest needs, and save them from a futile search that makes them slaves rather than liberated people.  Jesus came to give this woman life and life abundant.  That is, a life set free from the slavery of being compelled to go from one relationship to another, always looking for that external setting that would satisfy.  When we find our deepest needs met by water within, we are free from this external compulsion.  Jesus is that well that provides the living water, and when He is in our lives, we can find satisfaction from within.  We can know we are loved and accepted, and feel secure without the constant reinforcement of externals.  </div> <bR> <div>             We thank thee, Lord, for Pilgrim days,</div> <div>                When desert springs were dry,</div> <div>           When first we knew what depths of need</div> <div>                Thy love could satisfy.</div> <bR> <div>      The purpose of evangelism is to help people change their focus so they find their needs met by the kingdom of God which is within them, when they receive Christ as Savior.  The Well Within is the goal.  The well without is the focus of the world, as it was with this woman.  What she needed most, and what all people need most is, The Well Within-an inner source of the water of life that meets our deepest needs and quenches our thirst for love.  The purpose of evangelism is to point to Jesus as this Well Within, and make Him</div> <div> so appealing that people want to open their lives and welcome Him in.  </div> <bR> <div>      Those who drink of this well will never thirst again Jesus said.  This does not mean people who take Jesus as their Savior never feel thirsty.  Jesus Himself felt thirsty, and asked for a drink.  The needs of life go on, and we all need external water, and we all need external love, acceptance, and the materialism of the secular life is still an important part of the Christian life.  But the ultimate need is met in Christ, and we no longer need to live under the delusion that some external can satisfy the meaning of life.  The need for God,</div> <div> for love, and for eternal life are all met in Christ, and we never need to thirst again for these needs to be met.</div> <bR> <div>      This woman had plenty of needs after she welcomed Christ into her life as her Messiah.</div> <div> She still needed to come to the well and get water.  She still needed to bring her sex life </div> <div> under the control of God's law, and make a commitment to the man she was living with.</div> <div> She had a list of needs she had to meet in the external world.  But she had a well within that satisfied her ultimate need for love and life in God.  Billy Sunday, the great evangelist,</div> <div> once wrote to the mayor of the city where he was going for a campaign.  He asked him to send him the names of citizens in special need of prayer.  The mayor sent him the city directory.  Everybody is in need of prayer, and everybody always will be, as long as history lasts.  Just knowing this need makes it easier to witness to all people.</div> <bR> <div>      The Gospel is not, come to Jesus and you will never need to come to the well again;</div> <div> you will never need human love again; you will never need the acceptance of society again;</div> <div> you will never need a job, food, a place to live, and friends again.  Not at all!  These needs go on for all people, as they did for this woman at the well.  The Gospel is, you don't have to look for the meaning of life in all of the wrong places, for you have found it in your relationship to Christ.  The meaning of life is found in Jesus, who by His death for your sin</div> <div> has reconciled you to God, and given you eternal life.  The good news is, you will be in better condition when you die than you ever were before you came to Christ, and began to</div> <div> drink from the well within.  </div> <bR> <div>      Jesus did not scold this woman for her futile search for water to quench her thirst.  Nor</div> <div> is it our calling to blast people for their foolish quest to find the fountain of life in all of the externals of the world.  Our calling is to witness to a source of water that quenches the thirst for meaning, and sets people free from the slavery to externals.  All people have a deep need for a relationship with God.  Back in the days of the death of God movement someone said, "Isn't it strange, we've gotten rid of God, and yet something is still missing."  There is a thirst in man that can never be quenched until he feels right with God.  Even atheist feel this.  Bertrand Russell was one of the most famous atheists of this century.  Listen to what he wrote, "Even when one feels nearest to other people, something in one seems obstinately to belong to God, and to refuse to enter into any earthy communion-at least that is how I should express it if I  thought there was a God.  It is odd isn't it?  I care passionately for this world and many things and people in it, and yet...what is it all?  There must be something more important, one feels, though I don't believe there is."  </div> <bR> <div>      He didn't even believe in God, but he admitted he had a thirst for God, and a need for God to make sense of life, and to make it complete.  Everyone you know and meet has this basic an ultimate need to know God, and to be reconciled to Him.  Every need people have is a door by which we can enter into their lives, and point out their greater need.  If you want to make the Gospel relevant, make it need centered.  Find a need and meet it.  The purpose of evangelism is to do what Jesus did with this woman at the well.  Appeal to the need for water that satisfy people's thirst, and then point them to the only water that can meet that need, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will be to all who receive Him, The Well Within.</div> <bR> <div>     </div> <bR> <bR> <div> THE PROBLEMS IN EVANGELISM   Based on John 4:1-26</div> <div> By Pastor Glenn Pease</div> <bR> <div>      James McGinley had a woman come forward in one of his meetings, and he took her into the counseling room and shared the Gospel with her, and then he prayed.  She then</div> <div> asked him what he thought about a Protestant marrying a Catholic.  He said it can often be very difficult for both, and he asked her why she asked him that.  She told him that her boyfriend was out in the audience, and that she wanted to leave her husband and two children to marry him, but thought she should get converted first.  She wanted Christ to okay her sinful decision, and put His stamp of approval on it, so she would be off the hook.</div> <div> She did not want freedom from her sin, but freedom from the guilt of it.</div> <bR> <div>      People want Jesus to save them from the consequences of their sin, but they do not want to be His disciples.  They are not looking for a commitment, but just an easy way out.</div> <div> Almost everybody in evangelism can tell stories of people who come forward to be delivered from the messes their sins have created, but who have no intent on becoming followers of Christ.  They don't want in on anything, they just want out of something that is a problem.  They are like fish who want the bait, but when they see they are hooked and being taken out of their environment, they resist like mad.  If they can dive into the reeds</div> <div> and create a slack in the line so they can snap it, they can escape, and that is what they do.</div> <div> They want what they can get out of Christ, but they don't want to be taken captive by Christ.</div> <bR> <div>      Fishing is full of problems because the fish have a different agenda than the fishermen,</div> <div> and so it is with fishing for men.  We need to face this reality up front, for those who go</div> <div> with the illusion that fish love to be taken out of the water and into the boat will soon be disillusioned by discovering that sinners often fight to stay in the kingdom of darkness, and resist coming into the kingdom of light.  The Christian has to recognize that evangelism has many of the same problems as fishing, and you need to know, not only a lot about bait, but about how to be patient, and how to let the hooked fish run and feel free at times, and other times to keep the tension on.  Fishing for men is sometimes as easy as catching fish, and sometimes it is as hard, and we have to be prepared to deal with the problems.</div> <bR> <div>      If Jesus would have wanted us to think it was a snap to make disciples, He would not have made it a point to call attention to the problems of evangelism.  Problems are a part of life, and there is no escape, even when you are doing what most pleases God.  This whole account in John 4 is problem oriented.  Jesus was at the well in Samaria because of a problem.  He had to get out of Judea because of the opposition of the Pharisees.  If He had</div> <div> no problems, He probably would not have there in the first place.  But Jesus never let a problem blind Him to opportunity.  He never would have been in the world if it was not for a problem,  that men are lost without a Savior.</div> <bR> <div> I.  The first problem of evangelism is that we let problems blind us to opportunity.</div> <bR> <div>        Most of us go through life thinking that problems are obstacles to our being a witness for Christ.  The fact is, most people only come to Christ because of some problem.  Problems are what open people up to hear the good news.  They only feel the need of it when they have a problem.  You problems should make you sensitive to the problems of others.  Every interruption and foul up in our life's plan should open your eyes to see it as an opportunity to touch another life. </div> <bR> <div>       Jesus was being rejected by the leaders of Israel, and now He sees a woman at the well at noon, and He know she is a woman who has suffered much rejection.  He has the same problem she has.  He has been rejected by the people that should love Him, and she has been rejected by five husbands.  A common problem has brought these two together.  If Jesus would not have been rejected He would not be in Samaria at this point, and if she had not been rejected by her husbands, she would never have been here at noon.   She would have come with the other women in the cool of the day.  </div> <bR> <div>      Problems are not always barriers to evangelism, but are often the reason there is an opportunity for evangelism.  We need to stop seeing problems as only problems, and see</div> <div> them as opportunities.  The early Christians did this, there is a fascinating parallel to John 4 in Acts 8.  There was great persecution in Jerusalem, and many of the Christians had to flee.  Acts 8:1 says the Apostles stayed in Jerusalem, but the lay people scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.  Verse 4 says they preached the Word wherever they went,</div> <div> and then it tells of how Philip went to Samaria and had a great ministry.  It is almost a rerun of John 4.  The problems of Christians led to great blessing and evangelism for the people in Samaria.  </div> <bR> <div>      The lesson is clear.  People with an eye for evangelism do not see problems in their lives, or the lives of others, as obstacles, but as opportunities.  We need to see every problem as a door of opportunity to touch some life that we could never touch had the problem not taken us in a new direction that led us to cross their path.  Jim Spady, a missionary in Nigaria, was interrupted one day by shouts that an elephant was coming.</div> <div> It was rare in those parts, and so everybody, including the police, were running to see.</div> <div> It was learned that the beast had escaped from a reserve area the day before.  And it </div> <div> had killed a man.  The police began to fire and it ran at them, and Jim found himself up a </div> <div> tree with many others.  The police lined up and fired together, and the elephant dropped.</div> <div> One of the policeman was injured in this dangerous situation, and was taken to the hospital.</div> <div> The missionary visited him, gave him a New Testament, and to make a long story short,</div> <div> this Muslim policeman came to Christ.</div> <bR> <div>      Had this problem, that brought them together, ever happen, there's not likely any way he would have witnessed to this man.  The problem, however, provided a way by which they could share, and because he used the problem to this end, he won a man to Christ.  So it was with the woman at the well, and so it is with millions who come into the kingdom of God because of Christians who see problems as opportunities, rather than obstacles.  Many</div> <div> an injured Christian has ended up in the hospital where they witnessed to others, and turned mutual tragedy into mutual triumph.  </div> <bR> <div>      If  you have got a problem, be aware of the people it may bring you into contact with,</div> <div> and be alert to how your problem may be the providence of God in opening up a door of opportunity to witness.  If you see the problems of others, do not only sympathize, but look for a chance to evangelize.  This does not mean you pounce on others when they are down,</div> <div> and force yourself on them.  It means you graciously open the door to help them see their greatest need is Christ.  Every problem in life can be a fragment of the will of God, and a light beckoning us to go in a certain direction, and find in it an opportunity to touch some life for Christ.  </div> <bR> <div> II.  The second problem in evangelism is blindness of the prospects for evangelism.  </div> <bR> <div>      People can die of thirst with the water of life at their finger tips.  Jesus said to the Samaria woman in verse 10, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is who asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water."  Jesus is saying, everything you have ever searched for is yours for the asking, but in your ignorance, you blindly walk right pass the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  The providence of God has presented  you with the winning ticket to the greatest prize ever given-eternal life.  But you are so hung up on this Jew-Samaritan prejudice, you are letting it slip through your fingers.</div> <bR> <div>      She didn't know she was conversing with the Messiah, and people just do not realize that when they hear the Gospel they are being offered the greatest opportunity of their life.</div> <div> Fortunately, Jesus did not just say, you are right lady, I as a Jew should not be asking a Samaritan for a drink, and then just let her go away.  The story would be one of the great tragedy of the New Testament, just like that of the rich young ruler, had that been the case.  Jesus does not let her go, but keeps the conversation going until the light breaks through her darkness.  If people are  blind to the value of what can be theirs in Christ, you have to be persistent in your presentation if you expect to see them enlightened.  </div> <bR> <div>      If you are going to let the blindness, the stubbornness, and the prejudice of the sinner cause you to give up, you will not pursue many people for very long.  Your chances of being an effective fisher of men will be about as slim as your chance of catching fish by their leaping into your boat.  It is because sinners are blind to the wealth you offer them, that you need to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.  Because of the problem of blindness, and all sorts of negative feelings on the part of the lost, the Christlike witness needs to develop tact.  Tact is the discernment of what is appropriate to do so say in dealing with others.  It is the ability to be delicate and sympathetic, even in difficult situations, so as not to give offense.  </div> <bR> <div>      No where do we see Jesus as the Master of tact more effective than here in John 4.  He knew this woman's past, and her present violation of the law of God.  He could have taken a totally different approach to her.  He could have said, don't you dare question my asking you for a drink, and pretend that you are somehow bound by such drivel as the prejudice between Jew and Samaritan.  You care nothing for the law of God, and you defy it by your life style, which deserves more severe judgment than the isolation you receive from your community.  You deserve the flames of hell where there will be no well, and not a drop of water to cool the tongue of the likes of you.  </div> <bR> <div>      This approach would not be theologically incorrect, but by no stretch of the imagination</div> <div> would it be good news.  We need to constantly remind ourselves of the distinction between the Gospel and judgment.  The Gospel is good news, and judgment is the result of rejecting the good news. Too often Christians what to get right to part 2, and skip past the good news, and just pronounce judgment on the sinner.  This was not the approach of Jesus.  He offered the sinner good news first, and only after the light was rejected, did He warn of judgment.  Judgment is not the Gospel.</div> <bR> <div>      This woman had already been through much judgment,  as she had likely been through 5 divorces.  She had been proclaimed an unfit wife, and suffered, who knows how much, public condemnation.  A person like her would be very sensitive to criticism.  Jesus knew that, and so He is extremely tactful with her.  This is a key element in overcoming the problem of the blindness of the sinner in evangelism.  Jesus approaches her in a spirit of need and humility, and not a spirit of superiority.  In human warfare you want your opponent to think you are stronger than they are, and so you make a show of force to impress them with your superiority.  In spiritual warfare, where you are trying to invade the kingdom of darkness and set its captives free, you reverse that psychology.  You come in weakness and try to make your opponent feel superior, or at least, equal to you.  </div> <bR> <div>      You do not intimidate, but you eliminate any reason for provoking their defenses.  You do not want their guard to go up, but to come down, and the only way to do this is to approach them without an air of superiority, but one of humility.  Jesus said, I need your help to get a drink.  He did not say I am the Messiah woman, get me a drink!  He put her in control by asking her to help Him.  She could respond to His need, or reject it.  She was not threatened by Jesus, for she was in a position to threaten Him, and say get your own drink.  </div> <bR> <div>      So often we are afraid to witness because we feel we have to be superior to those we witness to.  In reality, we will be effective only when we make them feel equal to us, or even superior.  This is a New Testament principle.  Listen to Paul in Phil. 2:3, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves."  Anybody can do this if they will, but we tend to be too proud to do it.  But in the context, Paul says Jesus is the best example of this, and we see it here in John 4.  J. C. Macaulay in his book Personal Evangelism wrote, "We must rid our minds of any sense of superiority.  If that exists, it cannot be hidden, and we are defeated before we begin.  No man is going to accept our superiority, not even the derelict on skid row."  </div> <bR> <div>      He tells of Evangeline Booth, of Salvation Army Fame.  She always looked for something in others she could affirm, even if it was only that they were superior to her in their knowledge of sin.  That is why she won so many to Christ.  We tend to think we have to impress the sinner with how great we are, when in reality, we have to impress them with how valuable they are.  Jesus said to this woman, if you would have asked I would have given you living water.  This is pure grace and unconditional love, as you will find it no where in the Bible more clearly.  Jesus did not say to her, if you give up the man you are living with, and beg for mercy, I'll see what I can do to reduce your judgment.  He said to her, eternal life is just waiting for you for the asking.  There is not one iota of law here. </div> <div> This is grace as pure as it comes.</div> <bR> <div>      This is how Jesus penetrates the blindness of the sinner.  He does not treat her like dirt</div> <div> as the Pharisees did, nor does he come demanding all kinds of reformations before they qualify for His love.  He comes saying you are somebody, somebody I even need, and you are so loved and valued that I will give you all that anyone could ever hope to receive to quench their thirst for love and meaning, and it is yours just for the asking.  </div> <bR> <div>      It is a strange paradox that the saint and the sinner have some of the same fears.  The saint is fearful because they feel weak and inadequate, and so full of need themselves.</div> <div> They are afraid to be exposed as needy people, and so they hold back in their witness, lest it be thrown in their face-physician heal thyself.  The sinner, on the other hand, is also fearful of being exposed.  They do not want to have their sin and failure known.  They want to put on a good front so as to be acceptable.</div> <bR> <div>      Jesus is the example of how to solve both of these problems.  First of all, the Christian needs to stop pretending they are not needy.  He had needs, and did not hesitate to let it be known to the prospect.  Keith Miller made a great breakthrough in the Christian world when he demanded that Christians quit playing the game of pretending they do not have problems.  The common testimony use to be, I had a life of problems, and then I accepted Jesus, and now my problems are gone.  He challenged that fantasy with the facts.  He had plenty of problems before his conversion, but he also had plenty of them after, and he found this to be true of the Christians he knew.  Assurance of eternal life in Christ did not solve all his problems.  He was still selfish, proud, resentful, lustful, and all sorts of sub-</div> <div> Christian things.  He was saved, and he loved the Lord, but he was far from problem free.</div> <bR> <div>      What he discovered was that this was not a liability but an asset in witnessing, for it was his problems that enabled the lost to identify with him, and have hope that they could still be saved, even with a host of problems.  Not many people can identify with a problem free life, and so don't pretend you have one.  Let your problems and needs be evident, and you will be a more effective witness.  That is what Jesus did with the woman at the well.</div> <bR> <div>      The second thing He did was to help her overcome her pride.  Pride is what makes us hide our problems.  Jesus let her know very tactfully that He knew all about her shady past, and sordid present, and yet He did not reject her.  He had already told her He was willing to give her living water.  He had already made it clear she was a candidate to receive His best gift.  You and I cannot know people as Jesus knew this woman.  We do not know </div> <div> their hurts and how much rejection they have experienced, and how much failure they have survived.  But we can still let people know that even if we knew the worst about them, our goal is not to hurt, but to help them, and heal them.</div> <bR> <div>      This woman was damaged goods, but Jesus made it clear she had nothing to fear, for even though He knew the worst side of her story, He intended to offer her a solution to her deepest need.  The best counselors; the best Christian friends; the best soul-winners, and disciple makers, are people who can convey to sinners the message that nothing I can know about you will alter my determination to help you find God's best.  The best and most loving Christian  witness is one where you acknowledge problems, and use them to so relate to the lost, that they become an aid to bringing the lost to finding a solution to their greatest problem-the living water, the Lord Jesus Christ.  </div> <bR> <div>      </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div>      </div> <bR> <div> <B>THE UNIQUENESS OF JESUS  Based on John 7:25-46</B></div> <div> <B>By Pastor Glenn Pease</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      An advertisment that was originally printed in the Miner's Magazine as a serious add was later published by the Reader's Digest as humor.  The ad read, </B></div> <div> <B>"Wanted:  Man to work on nuclear fissionable isotope molecular reactive counter and three-phase cyclotronic uranium photosynthesizers.  No experience necessary."  Of course, it was a joke.  No one is that unique.  On the other hand, how can you find anyone with experience in a field that never existed before?  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The New Testament has a simular problem in the spiritual realm.  The complex task of saving sinners, and yet remaining just an absolutely loyal to his nature of  holiness was God's problem.  Of course, it is only a problem from our point of view.  In His eternal wisdom it was solved before the world began.  The job called for an extremely unique person.  He had to be fully man, for only a man could live a perfect human life.  If he was not truly man, the life he lived would not be truly human.  Yet, only God could insure that such a life could be lived.  The paradox is that only God could do what was necessary, but it could only be done as a man.  The solution could only be Jesus Christ-the God-Man.  All the paradoxes and problems of the relationship of God and man are resolved in Christ who was both.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Robert C. Moyer wrote, "In Jesus divine omnipotence moved in a human arm.  In Jesus divine wisdom was cradled in a human brain.  In Jesus divine love throbbed in a human heart.  In Jesus divine compassion glistened in a human eye.  In Jesus divine grace poured forth from human lips."  Jesus was the most unique of all men, but not just because He was God, but rather, because He was really man.  That is, He was the only complete example of ideal manhood ever seen on this planet.  Adam was the only other man who was ever perfect in his manhood, and he fell.  Jesus alone lived a perfect human life.  Jesus was unique, not just because He was more than a man, but because He was fully a man.  He was the man par-excellence.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     We need, therefore, to stress His humanity as He did of Himself.  His favorite name for Himself was the Son of Man.  In the bureau of standards in Washington there is a gold bar exactly one yard long which is the standard by which every measuring instrument in the United States is judged.  There has to be one, and only one, final absolute standard.  Jesus is that standard in the realm of human life, morality, and character.  As deity He was no standard for human life.  Only as man did He become our standard and ideal.  In the incarnation the human ideal became real.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      Herman Horne points out that realism and idealism are combined in Jesus Christ.  He writes, "Human nature at its possible best gives us the ideals for man.  If we want to know what the ideals of man's complete living are, we must know what human nature is at its best; what it's elements are; what it is possible for each element to attain in its development.  Thus the real is the basis of the ideal; the real at its best is the ideal; the real is the actual; the ideal is what is possible for the real to become.  Such idealism as this has its feet on the ground; is practical.  Idealism without reference to what the real can become is visionary."  Christian idealism is based on the real of Christ.  Jesus is the example of what the real man can become.  He is the ideal which we shall attain, for we shall be like Him when we see Him as He is, according to John.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Meanwhile, it is our task to learn of Him, and strive toward His ideal manhood.  Paul said in Eph. 4:12-13 that the gifts of Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers was, "For the equipment of the saints, for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."  He is our standard, and we are to measure up to Him as the goal of all our study, listening, worship, and service as Christians.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>                O Man of the far away ages,</B></div> <div> <B>                    O Man of the far away land,</B></div> <div> <B>               More art Thou than all of the sages,</B></div> <div> <B>                    More art Thou than creed or command.</B></div> <div> <B>               To crown Thee we need but to know Thee;</B></div> <div> <B>                    We need but to live Thee to prove,</B></div> <div> <B>               For time nor decay can o'er throw Thee-</B></div> <div> <B>                     Humanity's ultimate Love. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus has no competitors in the field of perfect manhood.  Hunter Blakely writes, "Men can conceive nothing higher than to be Christlike.  It is significant that non-Christians all around the world have been revising the character of their deities with one purpose--to bring them into conformity with Christ.  Mohammed is not compared with Buddha, nor Confusius with Krishna, but one in all are brought before the moral masterpiece, and the question has to be answered, is it Christlike?"   </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus is universal because of the perfect balance of his manhood.  He combines in his life and character every type of human goodness.  He fits into every age and culture.  Whatever goodness is being emphasized in a particular age it will be found exhibited at its best in Jesus.  This uniqueness of Jesus in combining every value of manhood in perfect balance can be abused.  All men have to do is take one aspect of Jesus and exaggerate it as the whole, and ignore the facts that bring balance, and thereby have a Christ for their cause.  W. A. Vissert Hooft, former president of the World Council of Churches, an author of numerous books, gives concrete examples of this abuse.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     He writes, "...There is an 18th century Jesus who looks strangely like a dignified free-mason, and a 19th century Jesus, who resembles in all essentials and enlighted democrat of the liberal variety.  There is the revolunary Jesus of the Communist Barbusse, the pacifist of Tolstoy; the militant Jesus of the Kiser.  There is the Aryan Christ of H.S. Chamberlain and the "German Christians;" the Jewish Christ of the liberal Jews, the Russian Christ of Dostoievsky.  The Indian Christ of Radakrishman.  Some of these protraits are better than others.  Some are naive or cynical attempts to exploit Jesus for some cause which has no imaginable relation to his message and mission.  Others are attempts to honor him by bringing him into the closest possible relation to the concrete realites of our time.  All, however, reveal a tendency to use this man for some extraneous purpose which originates, not from him, but from some other source."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     It is good for us to be aware of this as we study Jesus.  Wherever there is power there is exploitation and abuse, and in Jesus Christ there is great power, for even as a great man, apart from his deity, his influence is great.  If you can persuade others that Jesus backs your program and ideas, you have the best possible support.  Let us keep in mind, therefore, that Jesus Christ is the perfect man with perfect balance.  No cause has exclusive claim on Christ, nor does the advocate of any particular virtue.  Perfect balance must characterize any true study of the character and teaching of Jesus.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Take the question of whether Jesus was manly or womanly in character.  Some authors will dwell exclusively on his strength and courage.  Others will magnify his compassion, gentleness, and loving care of children.  Both are right, but both are wrong if they imply their picture is the whole of Christ.  Jesus combines in his personality the ideals of both sexes.  Perfect manhood must combine the virtues of male and female.  How could Jesus be the example and standard for all if he had none of the feminine ideals in his character.  Westcott wrote, "Whatever there is in men of strength, justice, and wisdom; whatever there is in women of sensibility, purity, and insight, is in Christ without the conditions which hinder among us the development of contrasted virtues in one person."  Failure to keep this balance led to the feminine virtues of Jesus being forgotten in the Middle Ages.  Jesus was presented as just and severe.  Men longed for tenderness and compassion also, and the result was that Mary was exalted to provide these qualities.  Mariolatry could have been avoided had a full picture of Christ been presented to men.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In reaction to the Christ of severity a pietistic Christ was developed.  Sentimentalism characterize the Christian, and Christ was made effeminate.  Men left the church to the women and children, for they sensed Christ had  nothing to offer to fulfill the masculine asperations of life.  We are still suffering from this defective portrait today.  A balance view of Christ would reveal he is the perfect ideal of both the masculine and feminine.  He redeems the best in both.  Christ has done more to lift womanhood to a level of dignity and respect than all the religions of the world combined.  We should rejoice that Christianity is a woman's religion, for our mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters are women, and in Christ they can be the best of women.  Women feel that no man really understands their feelings, and they are probably right, but Jesus, the unique and perfect man, understands completely. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     There is no male and female in Christ, for he combines both in one complete whole.  This is why we see women following Jesus, and being loyal to him all the way even through his crucifixion.  It is good and wonderful that this is so, but men must also see the masculine Christ.  The Christ in our text could make such an impression on the officers sent to arrest him that they were afraid to lay hands on him.  When they reported back to the Pharisees without him, their reason was, "No man ever spoke like this man."  This is the testimony of his enemies.  They said he was the most unique of men.  He spoke with such authority, power, and certainty.  He was a leader of men and captured the allegiance of strong men like Peter, and zealous men like Simon the Zelot.  He offered men a challenge that called for the best that a man can be.  Jesus calls all men to heroism.  He calls him to take up the cross and follow him.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The history of heroic men is the history of those who have followed Jesus Christ. Our first conviction about the manhood of Christ must be that he was unique. Not only did no man ever speak like him, no man ever lived like him. Grace N. Crowell wrote, </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>One man alone to change the ways of men! </B></div> <div> <B>One humble man to draw the world to him!</B></div> <div> <B>Never before, nor will there be again His like-</B></div> <div> <B>The stars made fade, and the sun's light dim,</B></div> <div> <B>And still no one will walk as once he walked, </B></div> <div> <B>Among the lowly, healing every ill,</B></div> <div> <B>And still no man will talk as once he talked,</B></div> <div> <B>To teach mankind to heed God's holy will.</B></div> <div> <B>Never a man like this-no o;ne at all</B></div> <div> <B>Moves as he moves within a circling light.</B></div> <div> <B>Head-high above all others, straight and tall</B></div> <div> <B>He stands, imbued with power and with might.</B></div> <div> <B>He is the one, o men, who sacrificed</B></div> <div> <B> His life for ours--the loving, living Christ.</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>     It is when we see Jesus as one of a kind in his humanity that we most see the reality of his deity. He was the most unique of men. </B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> FATE OR FREEDOM  Based on John 8:31-38</div> <div> By Pastor Glenn Pease</div> <div>  </div> <div>      One of the best known stories of the ancient Greeks is that of Oedipus Rex by Sophocles.  The story is had an influence on both theology and psychology.  Briefly the story is this:  A child is born into a royal family, and the oracle brings bad news, for he says the child is destined to murder his father and marry his mother.  A gruesome future which the parents with good reason did not care to anticipate, and so to defeat the decree of fate the king ordered the child to be destroyed by exposure on the mountain side.  This, of course, would have solved the problem, but the servant in charge of abandoning the child had a tender heart.  He gave the child to some passing pilgrims, and they carried it to a far country where a royal family adopted him.  When he grew up he learned of what the oracle said of his destiny, and thinking he was living with his real parents he fled from the palace so as to defeat the decree of fate.  He went into a far country which happened to be the land of his birth, and there he met the king and queen.  Not knowing they were his parents, he fell in love with the queen and killed the king, and took her as his wife.  Only after all  had been fulfilled did he learn that in spite of all the efforts to outwit the decree of fate, he had fulfilled it to the letter.  </div> <bR> <div>      This ancient story is a classic example of the world view called fatalism.  This is a philosophy of life that is wide spread and claims the allegiance of many millions.  It was made popular by the song that said, "Whatever will be will be."  The poet has stated it like this:</div> <bR> <div>                All that is was ever bound to be;</div> <div>                Since grim, eternal laws are beings bind;</div> <div>                And both the riddle and the answer find,</div> <div>                Both the pain and peace decree,</div> <div>                For plain within the Book of Destiny,</div> <div>                Is written all the journey of mankind,</div> <div>                Inexorably to the end, and blind,</div> <div>                And helpless puppets playing parts are we.</div> <bR> <div>      This view of life that all is determined may not appeal to you, but do not think you can dismiss it as a obvious falsehood.  There have been very few ideas more influential in history than determinism.  The evidence in its favor is so massive that there is no way to prove it wrong, and those who believe in free will must do so ultimately on faith.  Faith in </div> <div> our consciousness of freedom, and more important, faith in the words of Christ that they  have meaning when he says, "The truth shall make us free," and, "If the Son shall make you free you shall be free indeed."  </div> <bR> <div>      Before we consider our freedom in Christ, however, we consider some of the support for the concept that all of life is determined for us, and the only freedom we have is the freedom to do what fate has decreed for us to do.  Most, if not all, primitive societies were based on determinism.  In fact, most of their life was largely determined.  Their attitude was, what has been done must continue to be done, for it is evil to break precedent and tradition, and so all customs became law, and they determined how each generation had to act.  These societies became fixed, and since they allow no change they see no progress,</div> <div> and so they are determined to stay primitive.  The difference in the progress of the Western world, in contrast to that of the East, is in part due to belief in free will in the West.  </div> <bR> <div>      Oriental life was controlled for centuries by a practical and theoretical determinism.</div> <div> Except for a modified concept of free will by Confucius, most of the major religions of the East are based on determinism.  You have Hinduism, Buddhism, and Mohammedanism.</div> <div> Mohamet declared, "When God creates a servant for heaven, He causes him to go in the way of heaven until he dies, after which He take him to heaven; and when He creates a servant for the fires of hell, then He causes him to go in the way of those destined for hell,</div> <div> until he dies, after which He takes him to hell."  The Koran says, "Everyman's fate hath God fastened about his neck."  One's earthly and eternal destiny is all cut and dried, therefore, and so there is nothing to do but wait and see, for one is saved, not by faith alone, but by fate alone.  </div> <bR> <div>      Any initiative is futile if this is true, for the present life and the future is already set, and only a fool would work hard to get rich if it is already determined, for he will be rich if he</div> <div> does nothing.  A Hindu states, "The possessions which the Creator has written upon our forehead, be it small or great, we shall surely attain even in the waste desert, and more than this we can never get, though we be on Mount Muru, who sides are packed with gold."  Imagine trying to explain this philosophy to those in the California gold rush.  </div> <bR> <div>      Lest we be deceived into thinking determinism is a peculiarity of the Orientals only,</div> <div> we need to consider the fact that it has been held by many in the traditions of the Western world.  Great men like Homer, Socrates, Virgil, and Cicero were determinists.  Many well known philosophers are also in this category.  You have Bacon, Hume, Priestly, Spencer,</div> <div> Hobbs, Voltaire, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Schopenhower, and Nietzsche.  It is interesting to see how many of these were anti-Christian in their thinking, but no strong conclusion can be drawn from this fact since many of the most outstanding men of God have also been determinists.  You have great men like Jerome, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas in the Catholic tradition, and Luther, Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards in the Protestant tradition.</div> <bR> <div>      In other words, there is no way we can draw a line and say the unbelievers were on one side, and Christians were on the other.  For you have pagans, atheists, and Christians united on each side in this great intellectual battle.  Is man free, or is he a victim of a pre-determined fate?  Those who say all is determined not only have the support of so many great minds, but they are backed up by science.  We cannot go into all of the arguments</div> <div> of physics, biology, and sociology to support determinism, but we can state the basic principle which is a foundation for all science, and that is the uniformity of nature.  Every effect has a cause, and so everything in reality can be explained by the mechanical process</div> <div> of cause and effect.  Everything you do is the result of previous causes, and so your will does not enter the picture at all.  That is just an illusion that makes you think you choose,</div> <div> but your choice has already been determined.  </div> <bR> <div>      The skeptic, the libertine, and evil men in general endorse this philosophy, for it is an escape from personal responsibility.  Fate is a convenient escape hatch for those who do not want to be bothered with conscience, responsibility, and judgment.  This abuse of the idea of determinism is no proof that it is not true, for many with strong ethical systems also</div> <div> believe it.  The facts of history tell us that in spite of all the evil consequences that can result from a belief in determinism, one need not be lead to these evil results, and so one can be a Christian and be fully convinced that all is determined, for there is a great deal of Scripture on which such a conviction can be based.  The believer in free will cannot dismiss the evidence, for it is vast, and if he is honest he must admit it.  However, as the poet has put it- </div> <div>                Tis written on paradise's gate,</div> <div>                Woe to the dupe that yields to fate.</div> <div>           </div> <div>      However much truth there is to determinism it cannot be the whole truth.  One does not need to reject it as part of the truth in order to believe in free will.  Dr. H. H. Horne in his book, Freewill and Human Responsibility says, "As a philosophy of life determinism has this disadvantage, that it has room for no freedom at all; whereas, on the other  hand, freedom has this advantage, that it does have room for much determinism.  For determinism holds that all acts are determined, while freedom holds only that some acts are free."  One who believes in free will can accept all of the obvious truth in determinism;</div> <div> yet at the same time recognize that it is not the total picture, but that some aspects of reality demand a belief in freedom.  </div> <bR> <div>      Jesus in our text I believer deals with both aspects of this debate.  He reveals that He was free, but recognized that much of life is determined.  He says in verse 34 that those who commit sin are slaves to sin.  A slave is not free, but is bound.  The unbeliever may think he is free, but he is just carrying out the orders of his depraved nature that determines his course of action.  He is a victim of his nature.  His will is no more free to choose to be holy and righteous than it is free to choose to fly or walk through a brick wall.</div> <div> Any freedom he has is limited to his capacity, and he does not have the capacity to do anything but follow his master, which is sin.</div> <bR> <div>      But Jesus has said, the truth shall make you free, and He says if the Son makes  you free you will be free indeed.  Now if this means anything, it means even if the life of the non-Christian is totally determined, this is not so for the Christian.  He is made free in Christ, and it can be said that whenever a Christian does what is not God's will he is fully</div> <div> responsible, for he could have done other than what he did.  The Christian has a free will</div> <div> in that he is not bound to follow the forces of either heredity or environment, but can overcome these and choose to act even contrary to them if God so wills.  This is really the whole issue in the debate of determinism and free will.  Could a person have done something different from what they did do?  If  not, and all is determined, then it is foolish to get upset to blame them, or even to hold them responsible, for if they are mere puppets of fate, and nothing could possibly be any different than it was, you can only accept it with </div> <div> stoic like indifference.  </div> <bR> <div>      This is the philosophy behind letting so many criminals go free.  They were victims of fate and did only what they had to do, so why make it any tougher on them?  After all, fate has made it rough enough.  However much truth there might be behind that thinking, it is</div> <div> not the whole picture.  We cannot debate about the non-Christian at this point, but must look at what is a certain exception to determinism, and that is the Christ-led, Spirit-filled</div> <div> believer.  The New Testament is filled with statements to the effect that in Christ we are free, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty, and we are to stand firm in the freedom where with Christ has made us free.  The Christian is fully responsible for his conduct, for he is a free agent restored to the position of Adam who had a free will.  Calvin and other determinists admit that Adam had a free will.  </div> <bR> <div>      Our race, our eyes, our hair color, the length of our nose, and a thousand other things about us have been determined, and our will has no choice in these matters.  But when it comes to obedience to God's will we have the capacity to do so, and therefore, the responsibility of doing so.  God asks nothing of us but what we can do.  If we don't do it, it is our fault.  Emerson said, "Tis weak and vicious people who cast the blame on fate."  </div> <div> Even Seneca, the pagan said, "No one is made guilty by fate."  If we choose to disobey,</div> <div> then the consequences are no longer a matter of choice, but are determined.  So also, if we</div> <div> choose to obey, the consequences are determined by God.  But the decision of which road we take is ours, and we are responsible for the end result.  </div> <bR> <div>      Let us consider the life of Christ.  Was He nothing but a robot; a masterful machine sent by God to do His work?  Not at all, He was a man, and a perfect man, and a perfect</div> <div> example of what God meant man to be.  He was the pattern toward which He is bringing all</div> <div> who trust in Him.  Did Jesus go to the cross because He had to, and because it was determined?  Was He a mere victim of fate?  No, He said He laid down His life, and no man took it, for He gave it freely.  In the Garden of Gethsemane He said, "Not my will but Thine be done."  He chose to submit His will to the Father's.  He died freely and not by necessity.  If it was by necessity, and He had no choice in the matter, then we are saved</div> <div> by fate, and all talk of great love is meaningless, for He had no choice.  If He had to save us, this is fatalism, and it is not true to God's revelation of Himself.  He is free and the first cause, and He was not compelled to save us, but chose to do so freely because of His love.</div> <bR> <div>      Come unto me says Jesus, and this implies we can if we will.  Go ye into all the world says Jesus, and this implies we can if we will.  Jesus tried to persuade the Jewish leaders to recognize Him as the Son of God, but He lamented, "Ye would not."  I am convinced that God has given all men, by His grace, the capacity to respond to His truth when they are confronted by it.  This is one of the works of the Holy Spirit, and because of this all</div> <div> men are responsible for what they do with the truth.  All must agree that the Christian is free, for God is free and if we are indwelt by God and filled with His Spirit, then we must be free indeed.  We can introduce causes that will change the future.  Conversion and miracles break the chain of causes and effects, and introduce something new into the world.  Nicolai Berdyaev said, "God has laid upon man the duty of being free, of safer guarding freedom of spirit, no matter how difficult that may be, or how much sacrifice and suffering it may require."  </div> <bR> <div>      </div> <div>      Suzanne De Dietrich said, "The story  of our salvation, as the Bible tells it, is simply the record of a long journey towards freedom."  That journey finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ the Lord and Liberator of those held captive and enslaved by sin.  </div> <bR> <div>                There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,</div> <div>                     Can circumvent or hinder or control</div> <div>                The firm resolve of a determined soul.</div> <div>                     Gifts counts for nothing; will alone is great;</div> <div>                All things give way before it, soon or late.</div> <div>                     What obstacle can stay the mighty force</div> <div>                Of the sea-seeking river in its course,</div> <div>                     Or cause the ascending orb of day to wait?</div> <div>                Each well-born soul must win what it deserves.</div> <div>                     Let the fool prate of luck.  The fortunate</div> <div>                Is he whose earnest purpose never swerves,</div> <div>                     Whose slightest action or inaction serves</div> <div>                The one great aim.  Why, even death stands still,</div> <div>                     And waits an hour sometimes for such a will.</div> <bR> <div>      Jesus said, the servant does not abide in the house forever, but the son does, and the point is that true freedom is a matter of relationship.  If I am the son of a man who owns a store, I can walk in and go to the back room or the office; I can take an article off the shelf with a sense of freedom that a non-son cannot have.  My relationship makes me free indeed.  Freedom indeed is the freedom of relationship.  The closer we are to God the greater is the freedom we possess.  God has not decreed that you stay home and watch TV rather than go to a Bible study.  That is not a matter of fate, it is a  matter of choice.  Every day the word comes to us, choose you this day whom you shall serve, and every day we choose either for Christ or for some lesser value.  Our use or abuse of freedom is the key</div> <div> to Christian growth or stagnation.  We are not victims of fate, but we are victims of our own poor use of the great gift of freedom.  </div> <bR> <bR> <div>      </div> <div>                </div> <bR> <div> <B>THE BEAUTY OF THE CROSS  Based on John 12:20-33</B></div> <div> <B>By Pastor Glenn Pease</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Luther Burbank took an interest in the common field daisy which was an outcast weed dispised by the farmers in the East.  He crossed it with the Japanese daisy and an English daisy and produced the Shasta daisy, a flower whose beautiful bloom has grown as much as two feet in diameter, and which will last up to six weeks when cut.  Burbank went on to transform other dispised and worthless plants into plants of beauty and usefulness.  He said, "</B><B><U>It is my theory that there are no outcasts in nature; everything has a use, and everything in nature is beautiful if we are eager to enoble it.  Every weed is a possible beautiful flower."</U></B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     His theory has been demonstrated as fact in many cases.  A group of women in Pasadena years ago inaugurated the first weed show in history.  It was an instant hit.  People were astonished at the beauty in weeds.  The word weed implies ugliness and uselessness, but as someone said, "Beauty is where you find it."  Queen Anne's lace, for example, is a common weed in New England, but in California it is raised as a choice flower.  The Kansas Gay-Feather, which is a mere weed in the Midwest is a garden flower in New England.  The same thing is both ugly and beautiful depending upon the perspective from which it is seen.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      This is also the parodox of the cross.  We could as easily consider the ugliness of the cross as the beauty of it.  One is as real as the other.  At one time in history the cross was the most gruesome object of horror that could be imagined.  Cicero the Roman said, "</B><B><U>The cross speaks of that which is so shameful, so horrible, that it should not be mentioned in polite society</U></B><B>."  It was so horrible to die on the cross that no Roman citizen was allowed to be crucified no matter how guilty they were.  This fate was reserved for only the worst kinds of killers, renegades, and robbers.  Even Scripture says, "</B><B><U>Cursed is every man who is hanged on a tree</U></B><B>."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     No one could have ever dreamed that the cross would someday become a universal decoration and design for jewelry. You can buy a cross made of every precious metal and with diamonds or any other precious stone.  This would have sounded as incredible to the ancients as the idea would sound to us of wearing a hangman's noose as a silver pin or hanging a picture in your living room of a gas chamber.  It would be ugly and morbid.  Weeds being transformed into flowers is amazing, but nothing can compare with the wonder of the cross being transformed from a symbol of horror and death to a symbol of beauty and life.  Jesus converted everything He touched, and one of the most radical conversions of all was the conversion of the cross.  Lon Woodrum discribes the paradox of the cross in poetry: </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>               The cross was such an ugly thing!</B></div> <div> <B>               A shape to make the heart afraid;</B></div> <div> <B>               A beam of death for lawless men,</B></div> <div> <B>               A gibbett for the renegade.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>               The cross is such a lovely thing!</B></div> <div> <B>               The lamp in night where people grope;</B></div> <div> <B>               The emblem of eternal life;</B></div> <div> <B>               The symbol of eternal hope;</B></div> <div> <B>               The subject of a thousand songs;</B></div> <div> <B>               The sign of truth and liberty.</B></div> <div> <B>               </B></div> <div> <B>                The cross was such an ugly thing</B></div> <div> <B>               Until it went to Calvary.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     </B></div> <div> <B>     From Calvary on the cross became a symbol treasured and loved, and Paul could say, "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of Christ."You have heard the phrase ungly as sin. If sin is the ugliest thing is the world, then that which forgives it and cleanses it has to be the most beautiful thing in the world, and that is the blood of the cross. Jesus so transformed the cross that it became the central theme of Christian preaching and song.  The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world is even the theme of the saints as they sing in heaven.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>                 Be the cross our theme and story</B></div> <div> <B>               All through time and into glory.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>In our text Jesus says some things that explain why the cross became a symbol of beauty.  First of all we see in the cross-</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>I.  THE BEAUTY OF ITS PURPOSE.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     When Jesus made His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the whole city was in a uproar.  The Pharisees were so amazed they said to one another in verse 19, "Look the whole world has gone after Him."  Then to illustrate the truth of their impression John tells of some Greeks who wanted to see Jesus.  They were Gentiles who had become converts to Judaism, and to the one true God, for verse 20 says that they came to Jerusalem to worship at the feast.  This is the last public event in the life of Christ that John records before the cross.  When Philip and Andrew told Jesus some Greeks wanted to see Him, He answered and said, </B></div> <div> <B>"The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      All through His ministry He had been saying that the hour has not yet come.  He said to His mother at the wedding of Cana, "Mine hour has not yet come."  He said to His brethren, "My time is not yet come."  And again we read, "No man laid hands on Him, because His hour was not yet come."   And once more, "No man took Him, because His hour was not yet come."  Now all of the sudden when some Greeks want to see Him Jesus announces that the hour has come.  The countdown in God's timetable of salvation is about to be completed, and zero hour has arrived.  The central hour of all history was approaching, and when it was over the most crucial act for time and eternity would be completed, and God's purpose fulfilled.  The beauty of the cross is the beauty of a finished project, plan, and purpose.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Marie Zwiller painted the picture, "The First Night Outside Paradise."  Adam and Eve have been driven from Eden, and they are looking back at it.</B></div> <div> <B>An angel with a flaming sword guards the gate.  They are not looking at the angel, however, for above him illuminating the sky is the bright outline of a cross.   Their eyes are lifted, and they are gazing wonderingly at that.  The cross was in God's plan from the beginning.  There was only one bridge that could span the gulf between paradise lost and paradise regained, and that was the cross.  No one could get past the angel's flaming sword until God solved the sin problem through an atonement for all men.  When the Greeks came to Jesus they were ready to receive Him as their Lord, and Jesus knew their hearts.  He knew that His hour had come to fulfill the purpose of God for all men, both Jews and Gentiles.  No longer would He be limited to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  </B></div> <div> <B>He says in verse 32, when I am lifted up I will draw all men to myself."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     From the perspective of the divine plan and purpose the cross was the beautiful fullfillment.  Jesus demonstrated the reality of the completed work by saying to the thief, "This day thou shalt be with me in paradise."  The hour had come for opening the gate of paradise where man could again enter the presence of God.  On the cross Jesus reconciled God and man, and made it possible for man to be forgiven and cleansed of all sin.  What could be more beautiful than the gate to paradise?  The cross was that gate.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     This was the hour of glorification for Jesus.  Others were horrified at the cross, but Jesus was glorified.  It was for this purpose that He came into the world, and in fullfilling that purpose in deep humiliation God exalted Him and gave Him a name above every  name that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow.  The cross was the hour of man's redemption and Christ's coronation.  The life of Christ is beautiful, but the death of Christ is even more beautiful when we see it's purpose.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>               Christ does not save men by His life,</B></div> <div> <B>                    Though that was holy, sinless, pure,</B></div> <div> <B>               Not even by His tender love,</B></div> <div> <B>                    Though that forever shall endure;</B></div> <div> <B>               He does not save them by His words,</B></div> <div> <B>                    Though they shall never pass away;</B></div> <div> <B>               Nor by His vast creative power</B></div> <div> <B>                    That holds the elements in sway;</B></div> <div> <B>               He does not save them by His works,</B></div> <div> <B>                     Though He was ever doing good-</B></div> <div> <B>               The awful need was greater still,</B></div> <div> <B>                     It took His death, His cross, His blood!</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Napoleon once took a map, and pointing to the British Isles, remarked, were it not for that red spot I would have conquered the world.  The devil  can take the chart of history and point to the hour of the cross, and say the same:  "Were it not for that red spot I would have conquered the world."  Jesus came to satisfy His Father, to redeem man, and to defeat the devil, and He did it all on the cross.</B></div> <div> <B>That is why it is a symbol of beauty.  In verse 24 Jesus gives us another basis for the beauty of the cross, for there we see-</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>II.  THE BEAUTY OF ITS PRODUCTIVENESS.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus says that a grain of wheat must fall into the earth and die or it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit. Death is a means to productiveness in nature. Jesus uses an illustration from nature, for the Greeks would inderstand this. Proof from the Old Testament would not be as valuable with them as with the Jews. The Greek mystery religions made much of the reproductive cycle of nature, and so Jesus was using a very contemporary and relevant illustration.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus is saying that abundance in nature requires death. A seed must be mortified to be multiplied. You can preserve a seed by putting it in a box and not planting it, but it will abide alone and produce nothing. It must be buried and perish as an individual seed if it is to grow into a beautiful fruit bearing plant. Jesus, the Creator of all nature built right into creation the law of self-sacrifice and death as a means to glorification.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In nature He made it clear that death and abundant life are not incompatible, but in fact, death is a necessary means to life.  To plant a seed is to glorify it by opening up to it all the potential God implanted in it.  The same principle applied to Christ and the cross.  Had He not died His potential as a Saviour of all men could never have been realized.  He could have been a great Jewish leader, prophet, and teacher, but not a universal Redeemer, for without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.  St. Augustine said, "The death of Christ was the death of the most fertile grain of wheat."  The great Sower sowed the most productive seed when He sowed Himself, and laid down His life.  This was the seed that brought forth again the beauty of Eden.  The cross was not the termination of His life, but the germination of His life.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>               Faithful cross!  Above all others,</B></div> <div> <B>               One and only noble tree!</B></div> <div> <B>               None in foliage, none in blossom,</B></div> <div> <B>               None in fruit thy peers may be.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The cross became the most productive tree ever.  It is the very tree of life, and all of the fruits of the Spirit, and all of the fruits of Christianity in history are offshoots from the cross.  The beauty of the cross is the beauty of its productiveness.  Plato, the Greek philosopher, said, "The beautiful consists in utility and the power to produce some good."  Who can think of anything that has produced more good than the cross of Christ?  It is the basis for the salvation of every human being who has ever lived, or who ever will.   On the basis of the philosophy of the Greeks; on the basis of the principle of nature, and on the basis of the historical effects of Calvary, we can say that nothing has ever been more beautiful than the cross of Christ.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     If a grain of wheat insists on remaining what it is, it will be a grain of wheat and nothing more.  If Jesus had insisted on remaining the Jewish Messiah, He would have been that and nothing more.  But He chose to follow the principle of the sacrifice of the lower for the production of the higher, and the fruit of this sacrifice we read about in Rev. 7:9-10, "...behold, a great multitude which no man can number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb."  Jesus saw these Greeks as the beginning of that innumerable multitude, and He knew the hour for His planting had come.  Jesus saw the beauty of the productiveness of the cross, and so He approached it with joy.  Jesus does not stop with reference to His own cross, however, for He spoke of the beauty in its purpose; in its productiveness, and then goes on to speak of-</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>III.  THE BEAUTY OF ITS PRINCIPLE.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Just as the principle of life through self-sacrifice applies to all seeds in nature, so the principle of bearing the cross as a means to abundant life applies to all men.  In verse 25 Jesus says, "He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life."  The world says that self-preservation is the law of life, but Jesus says we must go beyond this law into the higher law where self-sacrifice is the way to life.   People who seek only to preserve their life and refuse to risk it, or invest it in the lives of others, abide alone like a seed in a box.  They reason, "The wider one's sympathies the bigger target does one offer to the arrows of fate."  If you fall in love, your chances of being hurt are greater.  If you have children they are greater yet.  The more you get involved with people, the more you open yourself up to wounds and heartache.  The way to escape all of this is to live for self alone.  Love your life only, and no other, and then your problems will be few, and your burdens light.   This is the logic that leads to loss of life is what Jesus is saying.  The way to abundant life is in following the principle of the cross, which is self-sacrifice.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Many people feel it is such a waste for missionaries to bury themselves in pagan lands, and give up so many of the good things of life, but from the perspective of Christ it is beautiful.  The world says survival at any cost, but Jesus says sacrifice at any cost.  He said, "Take up the cross and follow Me."</B></div> <div> <B>It is the way to life.  Walter C. Smith wrote, </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>               But all through life I see a cross,</B></div> <div> <B>               Where sons of God yield up their breath;</B></div> <div> <B>               There is no gain except by loss,</B></div> <div> <B>               There is no life except by death.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     This principle is one that Jesus repeats more than any other:  Twice in Matthew, twice in Luke, and once in Mark, and here.  The beauty of this principle of the cross is that it will lead to our lives being purposeful and productive, as was that of Christ.  On a lesser scale each of us, like Christ, can fulfill God's purpose in history, and be productive of fruit that will last for eternity.  To become a part of the beauty of the cross we must abandon the principle of self and safety first, and follow Christ in sacrificing ourselves for others.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      H. R. Mackintosh rebukes the modern Christian with words we know are true.  He writes, "I feel that the great reason why we fail to understand Calvary is not merely that we are not profound enough, it is that we are not good enough.  </B></div> <div> <B>It is because we are such strangers to sacrifice that God's sacrifice leaves us bewildered.  It is because we love so little that His love is mysterious.  We have never forgiven anybody at such a cost as His.  We have never taken the initiative in putting a quarrel right with His kind of unreserved willingness to suffer.  It is our unlikeness to God that hangs as an obscuring screen impeding our view, and we see the atonement so often through the frosted glass of our own lovelessness."</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     If we expect to see the beauty of the cross and be a part of that beauty, we must obey the principle of the cross,  and be willing to bear the burden of the cross, and be buried for the glory of Christ.  In verse 26 Jesus says we must follow Him in obedience to the principle of the cross if we hope to reign with Him in the beauty of His kingdom.  By a life of self-sacrificing service each of us can magnify the beauty of the cross by continuing to fulfill its purpose, by extending its productiveness, and by demonstrating the truth of its principle.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     If you have never come to the cross, and ask Jesus to be your Lord and Saviour, I urge you to do so.  Stop being a seed in a box-dead and unproductive.</B></div> <div> <B>Die to self; yield to Christ, and blossom into life abundant.  For those of us who have come to the cross, but who are still holding back and are stunted in our growth and fruitfulness, let us also come again to the cross and see it in all its beauty and potential, and commit ourselves anew to the way of the cross.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>               Out of my shameful failure and lose</B></div> <div> <B>                    Jesus I come.</B></div> <div> <B>               Into the glorious gain of thy cross</B></div> <div> <B>                    Jesus I come to thee.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     A little girl once spoke to her mother and asked, "Why are you so ugly mother?"  The mother said, "Come here my darling and I will tell you."  It was time for the secret to be told, and so she explained why her face had terribly disfiguring scars.  She said, a fire had broken out in the home when the girl was only a baby.  The mother was at a neighbor's house, and when she rushed home she plunged into the flames to get to the child.  She saved the child, but not without great cost to her own body.  The scars she bore were the result.  After the child heard this story she was overwhelmed with love, and in tears she cried out, "Mother, you are the most beauitful person in the world."  Ugliness can become beautiful when you can see it from the right perspective.  When we see the sacrifice of the cross and what it did for us as sinners, then we see the beauty of the cross.    </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     </B></div> <div> <B>     </B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> The beauty of the cross in not in wearing it around our necks, using it as a bookmark, or chiseling it on our tombstones. Its beauty lies in the fact that the death of Jesus Christ on a Roman cross nearly twenty centuries ago has opened the path to eternal life for all who believe in him. </div> <bR> <div> The Beauty of Jesus in Me</div> <div> by Bernice Peyman</div> <div> 1990</div> <div> My life touched yours for a very brief space, </div> <div> And what, oh, what did you see?</div> <div> A hurried, a worried, and anxious face,</div> <div> Or the beauty of Jesus in me?</div> <div> Was I steeped so deep in the ways of the world</div> <div> That you couldn't detect one thing</div> <div> That would set me apart</div> <div> And show that my heart</div> <div> Belonged to the Heavenly King?</div> <div> Did I carry no banner for Jesus my Lord,</div> <div> Not one thing at all that could show</div> <div> Whose side I am on in this glorious fight,</div> <div> I am His, but you wouldn't know.</div> <div> Forgive me! And if we should meet again</div> <div> Upon earth, oh, I pray you will see</div> <div> No mark of this world,</div> <div> But His banner unfurled,</div> <div> And the beauty of Jesus in me.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>THE SON OF LIGHTNING  Based on John 13:1-10</B></div> <div> <B>By Pastor Glenn Pease</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Some years back a young girl was caught out in a thunder storm as she rode her bicycle.  She made it to the top of the hill and then headed down as fast as she could go.   When she got home she told a strange tale.  Everytime there was a flash of lightning blue flames ran across her handle bars.  Had it not been for the rubber tires on her bike she felt she would have been electrocuted.  This experience is rare for landlubbers.  But for men of the sea strange happenings with lightening are common.  The firy glow of electricity is often seen on the masts of ships, and other pointed objects.   Pilots see it on the wings of their planes also.  This electrical discharge has come to be called  St. Elmo's fire, and it has a fascinating history.  It all ties in with our subject this morning because many Italian sailors call it the fires of St. Peter.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In the account of the second voyage of Columbus, written by his son, is this passage:  "During the night of Saturday Oct. 1493 the thunder and rain being very violent, St. Elmo appeared on the topgallant mast with 7 lighted tapers, that is to say, we saw those fires which the sailors believe to proceed from the body of the saint."  Seaman even developed poetry concerning this strange electric phenomenon.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>               Last night I saw Saint Elmo's stars,</B></div> <div> <B>               With their glittering lanterns all at play,</B></div> <div> <B>               On the tops of the masts and the tips of the spars,</B></div> <div> <B>               And I knew we should have foul weather today.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     It is of interest that Peter is connected with these phenomena of natural lightning; not only because of his being a fisherman and a man of the sea, but because it fits his very nature.  If James and John, two out of the three in the inner circle of Christ's Apostles, were called sons of thunder, then nothing could be more appropriate than calling Peter, the third member of this trio, the son of lightning.  The Jews have a proverb that says, thunder and lightning are inseparable, and this certainly holds true with the men Christ chose as the foundation for his church.</B></div> <div> <B>Lightning comes before the thunder, and Peter was given first place as leader of the 12, even over the beloved John-the son of thunder.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      Peter is like lightning in so many ways.  He is as unpredictable.  You never know when he is going to strike, and when he does he follows the path of least resistence just like lightning.  Alexander Whyte says of Peter, "He was hasty, headlong, speaking impertinently, and unadvisedly...Ever wading into waters too deep for him...Caring little for conventional propriety, or for difficulties locking his way, Peter acted on the rule, when in doubt, speak."  Peter's reckless tongue was like forked lightning, and nowhere do we see it more clearly than in our text.  Peter is the only one of the 12 who was so quick on the trigger that he fired back at the Lord Himself with heated resistence.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Even in this setting where Jesus was filling the air with the most beautiful message he ever spoke, Peter is living up to this name as a son of lightning by creating all kinds of static.  Jesus persisted with Peter, however, for he knew long before Benjamin Franklin, the lightning can be tamed.  Lightning can be made into a powerful force for good if it is harnessed and brought under control.  Wewant to look at the three stages Peter went through before the divine lightning tamer brought him under control.  First look at-</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>I.  PETER'S REFUSAL.  v. 8</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Who but this flaming, impetuous son of lightning would dare to give this heated response to his master-"you shall never wash my feet!"  If ever a man was deserving of being struck down by the lightning of God's judgment, you would think Peter was well qualified.  All ancient people's looked upon lightning as the tool of God's wrath.  Zeus among the Greeks, or Jupiter among the Romans, or Allah among the Moslems are frequently portrayed as destroying their enemies with flaming thunder bolts from the sky.  In the Old Testament there are references to the Lord's use of lightning.  Psa. 144:6 says, "Flash forth the lightning and scatter them."  Psa. 97:4 says, "His lightnings lighten the world; the earth sees and trumbles."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Our text says all things were given into the hands of Christ.  This means that the lightning of God's wrath was also available to him, and he could have met Peter's hotheaded refusal with a bolt of judgment.  Jesus does not handle things that way, however, for he understands Peter's problem.  Jesus does not deal with us according to what we are, but according to what we can be when we are committed to him.  Peter is blind and ignorant, and so he takes this stubborn stand with a good motive.  His thinking is that no Lord of mine is going to wash my feet, for I respect his dignity too much to see it degraded.  His refusal was based on a high respect for Christ, and we could admire Peter for this if it were not for verse 7 where Jesus said, "What I am doing you do not understand now but later you will."</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      Jesus recognized that what he was doing was unique.  It was contrary to all custom.  The master never washes the feet of the servants.  This is unheard of in any land, and so he prepares them by telling them that they will come to understand by progressive enlightenment.  They would have to submit and obey him first, and later come to an understanding of what it was all about.  The Christian life is like this because the Lord wants obedience above all else.  If we can learn to obey his commands even when we do not fully understand, we reveal that we have truly made him Lord.  The key to good discipleship is not understanding, but obedience.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     So many people worry about whether a young person fully understands what they are doing when they get baptized  at 9 or 10 years old.  Of course, they don't fully understand.  I didn't either when I was baptized at 9, but I understand now.  We are baptized primarily because Jesus commanded it.  It is an act of obedience above all else.  To many we might appropriately say, what we do now you do not know, but you will understand later.  When a person is old enough to obey what they understand is their Lord's command, they are old enough to be baptized.  If you don't buy that, you are in good company, for Peter didn't either.  Peter made a lightning like response and thought, I don't understand it now, and, therefore, I will not obey-you will never wash my feet.   </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     This is just the problem with lightning.  It is all speed and no thought.  It is quick on the trigger, but doesn't take aim.  Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet says, </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>          It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden,</B></div> <div> <B>          Too like lightning, which does cease to be</B></div> <div> <B>          Ere one can say it lightens.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>That is Peter all over.  He doesn't bother to weigh any evidence, or hear any arguments.  His mind is made up before any facts are presented, and he flashes forth with his dogmatic refusal.  It is not a polite, "Can't we discuss this issue," or a courteous evasion," let's do it another time," but a rude, rebellious refusal, "never-you shall never wash my feet."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      Peter is a real rebel, but he is all the more lovable because of it.  We like non-conformists because they usually have the nerve to stand up and be different when everyone else is afraid to do so.  Even when they are on the wrong path, like Peter is here, we enjoy them for their blunders make us feel more secure because we would never be so foolish.  Peter's blunders are favorite sermon texts.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>               Preach about the other man, preacher,</B></div> <div> <B>               The man we all can see,</B></div> <div> <B>               The man who drinks and beats his wife,</B></div> <div> <B>               The man who lends his hands to strife,</B></div> <div> <B>               Preach about the other man,</B></div> <div> <B>               Not about me. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>The fact is, Peter is the representative man.  When we preach on Peter, we preach on all men, for we are all more like Peter than we care to admit.  We are all defiled with the same pride that lead to Peter's refusal.  It is not easy for an man to submit to being served by a superior, especially when you respect that superior.  Suppose you were invited to the home of some dignitary that you greatly admired, and the hostess noticed that your shoes were scuffed and offered to polish them.  Not a man in a million would yield to such service.  We would resist such an offer with all the dogmatism of the son of lightning.  "Never, never, never!  We would not hear of such a thing."  Wild horses could not pull us into a position where we would let a person we greatly respect perform a lowly, undignified service for us.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Put yourself in Peter's sandals and you will better understand his refusal.  You will understand that it is not only more blessed to give than to receive, but it is a whole lot easier.  It is very hard to accept charity, but if we pay attention to our own theology, that is what we do constantly.  All we have and are is by the grace of God.  We receive the gift of life, salvation, guidance, and all gifts as charity.  But when Jesus dramatizes this truth as he does with the feet washing we are shocked, and our pride resists.  We have often heard that we can accept Jesus as Savior and not as Lord, but Jesus goes one step more and says, we can accept him as Savior and Lord, and still not accept him as servant, and thus, miss the best of all.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus said to Peter, "If I do not wash you, you have no part in me."  If we do not submit to his soverign service, and learn to overcome all the pride and false dignity that keeps us from bending to serve others, we can have no part in his plan.  He came into the world to minister, and his church is formed to minister.  No one is truly a part of the body of Christ who has not learned this.  When Peter heard the shocking rebuke he quickly changed his mind, and so we look secondly at-</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>II.  PETER'S REVERSAL.  v. 9</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      Peter reveals his kinship to lightning again by the way he changes his mind.  His never lasted about 5 seconds.  His dogmatic refusal to ever submit to being washed was reversed instantly to a plea for washing all over.  Peter went from one extreme to the other in a few seconds.  From never to now with the speed of lightning.  You have to give Peter a lot of credit for this sudden reversal of his dogmatic stand.  Very few men have the courage to abandon a bad decision as fast as Peter.  He gets into trouble fast, but he also knows how to quickly retreat from a bad position.  He is mighty in his mistakes, but equally courageous in his corrections.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      History is full of men who cannot, like Peter, fail successfully because they don't have the courage to admit they have made a mistake.  F. W. Boreham tells of the celebrated doctor Sangrado of Spain who developed a simple remedy for all sicknesses.  He and his assistant Gil Blas went from bed to bed applying this panecea to all the patients.  The one thing that troubled the assistant was that without expection all the patients.  When he modestly suggested that they should modify their method of treatment Dr. Sangrado replied, "I would willingly do so provided it would have no bad consequences.  But I have published a book in which I have exalted this wonderful system, and would you have me decry my own work?"  "You are right," the assistant said, "It would ruin your reputation.  You must not give your enemies such a triumph over you.  Let us continue as we are."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Peter made mistakes, but he was not stupid.  He never stuck with a mistake when he saw it for what it was.  He was a great man just because he could retreat as fast as he advanced when he saw he was going the wrong direction.  Jesus wanted that kind of man at the head of his disciples.  No man is truly great who cannot change his mind when he makes a foolish decision.  When Peter saw that his never would cut him off from Christ he switched to now immediately.  Like lightning he joined the company of great men who learned to say, "I was wrong.."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In Boswell's famous biography of Dr. Johnson he tells of his visit to America.  And admirer of his who felt he was infalible could not understand one of his definitions in his famour dictionary.  He defined postern as the knee of a horse.  She approached him with her problem and expected to get an explanation from some deeply learned source with which she was not aquainted.  To her astonishment the great doctor made no elaborate defense, but said, "Ignorance madam, pure ignorance!"  He was a great man because he could admit his mistake and retreat from it.  It is no virtue to be faithful to one's folly.  It is a virtue to flee from it. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      Peter did just that with the speed of lightning, and so we learn that even lightning is not all bad.  Natural lightning has its good side also.  It causes a chemical reaction between oxygen and nitrogen in the air.  It forms a substance known as nitric acid.  This is brought down by rain and provides the earth with millions of tons of the finest fertilizer every year.  Natural lightning can make a great reversal from being a fearfully destructive force to become a fruitfully constructive force.  That is what Peter the lightning like Apostle did.  His fruit became universal because of his great reversal.  The third thing we want to consider is-</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>III.  PETER'S RENEWAL.  v. 10</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      Peter's reversal actually took him to an extreme beyond what the Lord required.  Jesus said to Peter, "You don't have to be washed all over, only your feet and you will be renewed to your state of cleanness.  This feet washing is symbolic of the fact that all Christians need renewal.  This battle to get Peter's feet washed should make that clear.  The head Apostle's struggle is recorded so all Christians can see clearly that if he needed it, then all need it.  Studdert Kennedy wrote, </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>               There's nothing in man that's perfect,</B></div> <div> <B>                    There's nothing that's all complete,</B></div> <div> <B>               He's nobbut a big beginning,</B></div> <div> <B>                    From his head to the soles of his feet.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Peter was not a finished product, as no Christian is.  We are in process of becoming what God wants us to be.  All construction sights tend to get messy and dirty, and that is true for the Christian as he walks through this dusty world.  He gets defiled and needs to be renewed constantly, or he will stop growing.  Construction will cease, and he will begin to look like a unfinished project deserted and left to decay.  If a Christian submits to constant reviewing of his life, and consistent renewing of it by confession and changing his course, he will, like Peter, go on to abundant and fruitful living.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Whe Apollo 12 took off, everything was perfect for 36 seconds.   Then lightning struck the space craft and the master alarm sounded, and lights blazed all over the control panel.  Dick Gordon said, "In all our training we had never seen so many alarm lights."  Once in orbit their lives and the success of the mission depended on getting the guidence system realigned.  Dick Gordon crawled down into the equipment bay and tried to sight some stars in order to get the space craft back on course.  He looked through the telescope and couldn't see a single star.  He actually wondered if the stars had gone out.  But as his eyes adapted to the dark he saw the constellation Orion.  He sighted on Rigal and Sirius, and Apollo 12 was back in business.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     This true life event concerning man's progress in space is like a parable of the progress of the church of Christ.  Lightning was threating to throw the church out of control.  It was necessary for Jesus to get Peter to focus his eyes on the bright and morning star in order to get the church again under the proper guidence system so it could achieve the purpose for which Jesus established it.  </B></div> <div> <B>Like Peter, all of us need to be constantly renewed by getting our eyes on Jesus so that we have the proper guidence to achieve his goal for us.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>       </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     </B></div> <div> A VICTORY WITH WATER    BASED ON JOHN 13:1-11</div> <div> BY PASTOR GLENN PEASE</div> <bR> <div>      After the Russo-Japanese War in which Japan gained a great victory on the sea, the commander of the Japanese fleet visited the United States.  William Jennings Bryan was the secretary of state, and it was his duty to toast the visiting commander.  </div> <div> Bryan was a staunch prohibitionist however, and never touched champagne, and so</div> <div> he had a problem.  He rose from his table at the formal dinner and held up a glass of water, and he said, "Admiral Togo has won a great victory on water, therefore I will toast him in water.  When Admiral Togo wins a victory on champagne, I will toast him in champagne."  Whether the Admiral was impressed or not, Bryan was able to gain a personal victory in that situation with water as his weapon.  </div> <bR> <div>      Kagawa, the great Japanese Christian leader, tells of another victory with water.</div> <div> A man was brought to the hospital with a rare Oriental disease that was rapidly taking his life.   The only remedy available was a chemical solution to relieve the suffering.  His body had to be completely submerged, and so with even his arms pinned  beneath the water he had to spend seven solid years in a bathtub.  He had heard the Gospel, but had not responded.  He requested a New Testament, and by means of string it was hung on a level with his eyes.  He began to submerge his inner being in the water of life.  He found Christ in a bathtub, and that pathetic tomb became a temple.  Many came to hear the testimony of this man whose life was spared by water until he could drink of that water that gives life which never ends.  </div> <bR> <div>      I suppose there are numberous stories of victory that have been won by water.  </div> <div> God certainly gained the victory over the Eqyptians when the water of the red sea closed in on them.  It was by means of water that he cleanse the poluted world in the days of Noah.  Jesus saved a couple of great embarassment at their wedding by turning water into wine.  Water has been the primary weapon by which fire fighters have gained their victories over the destructive flames.  Scientists tell us that if it was not for water valor in the air all around us we would be burned up by solar rays.  The victory of life over death is going on all the time, and water is the weapon of victory.  </div> <bR> <div>       Doubtless, numerous volumes could be filled with the victories gained with water.  We are examining one that is the Niagra of them all.  The paradox is that the great victory that Jesus wins with water is done so quietly that we tend to miss it, like a quiet little stream which runs so noiselessly we fail to detect it.  This text seems so quiet for several reasons.  First of all it is quiet because Jesus has finished His public ministry.  He will never preach to the multitudes again.  He will no more walk among the crowds teaching and healing.  Jesus had only one more night to live, and He knows it.  He is eating His last supper with His disciples, and He knows they have so much to learn before He leaves, and so He has taken them apart. </div> <bR> <div>       This leads to the second reason why it seems so quiet.  The disciples are somewhat stunned by what Jesus is doing and saying.  The disciples ate many meals with Jesus, but never on like this.  They did not know it was the last supper, but Jesus did, and He speaks to them in these last chapters of John like He never spoke before.  There is depth and mystery here as no where else in Scripture.  A. W. Pink says, "We are now to enter upon what believers in each age have regarded as the most precious portion of this Gospel."  John R. W. Stott writes, "If Scripture may be liken to the temple, then these chapters are the enter sanctuary of the temple."  </div> <bR> <div>      We are on holy ground when we enter chapter 13, but we must recognize it is a battle ground.  The very flames of hell are burning fiercly, but only Jesus is conscious of the danger, and the presence of powerful enemy forces.  Verse 2 tells us that Satan already had put it into the heart of Judas to betray him.  He was working hard on Peter also at this very point, and Luke tells us in 22:31-32 that Jesus said, </div> <div> "Simon, Simon, behold Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail."</div> <bR> <div>      In there blind innocence, none of the disciples could see that there Lord was soon going to face the forces of hell and darkness in a direct head on encounter.  They were so blind and self-centered that Luke tells us even after Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper, "A dispute arose among them, which of them was to be regarded</div> <div> as the greatest."  There attitudes were all wrong, and Jesus knew He had to convince them of what true greatness was before He left them.  The time was so short, and there minds and wills so stubborn.  What could He do?  </div> <bR> <div>      John makes it clear in verse 3 that he could do anything.  Any weapon available to an all powerful Deity was His, for the Father had given all things into His hands. </div> <div> Jesus could have blasted His disciples into submission.  By shear force Jesus could have made Judas forsake his evil scheme, and He could have compelled the others</div> <div> to apologize and respect each other.  He did not chose to do this, however.  But, rather, with the whole world in His hands, knowing that in a matter of hours He will be in the presence of His Father, as the Lord of glory, He pours water in a basin, and stoops to wash His disciples feet.  In so doing, He won a great victory with water, and demonistated that love is the supreme weapon which conquers all.  Jesus had</div> <div> His choice of any weapons in the universe, and He chose water and a humble act of love.  </div> <bR> <div>      What Jesus is teaching here, by this incomperable condecension is so precious</div> <div> and manifold in its implications that it is like a diamond with many surfaces sparkling, and each calling our eye to closer examination.  We want to glance at a few of these sparkling facets before we plunge deeper into the inner sanctuary.  </div> <div> Washing 24 dirty feet does not sound like the most exciting experience in the world, </div> <div> but the more we examine it, the more exciting it gets.  Jesus is revealing in this act that there is only one effective way to deal with sin.  Sin is like dirt.  Whoever heard of taking a hammer to your hands to get dirt off them.  Whoever considered using a file to rub their hands clean.  There are all kinds of violent and radical means by which you can try to blast and burn dirt to get rid of it, but all such battles are pure folly, when you can gain the victory easily with water. </div> <bR> <div>      There is no point in fighting dirt-just wash it away.  Pounding it will get you no where, but water will get you clean.  This is just one of the lessons that Jesus teaches</div> <div> us about dealing with sin.  You can't fight it with force and drive it out of your life.</div> <div> This is a futile and frustrating battle because you always lose.  Sin needs to be cleansed and washed away by the water of forgiveness.  John says in his first Epistle</div> <div> that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and cleanse us form all unrighteousness.  Water is used as a symbol of the Word.  In Eph. 5:26</div> <div> Paul is writing of Christ purifying His bride and says, "Having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word."  </div> <bR> <div>      Jesus is dealing with very specific sins which Satan is using to bring the disciples to defeat.  The primary sin was that of pride.  They were all so worried about being great, but Jesus should them that true greatness was in proforming loving service.  </div> <div> The way you overcome the great sin of pride is by gentle acts of service to others.</div> <bR> <div>      John emphasizes the full knowledge of Jesus at this point.  He knew His full dignity as the Son of God.  Knowing that, He did not demand that His disciples wash His feet.  He, as the King, took off His garments and washed the feet of the servants.</div> <div> The King serves the servants, and by this act declares all human dignity, which prevents a man from performing a lowly act of love for another, is not dignity, but</div> <div> dirt.  It is sinful pride, and is clearly unchristlike. </div> <bR> <div>       Jesus was heavenly minded, yet so down to earth.  He was conscious that He would soon return to the Father.  Imagine all the angels in heaven singing the King is coming even before the cross.  From heaven's perspective the return of Christ took place when He left the earth.  The mind of Christ was full of these glorious thoughts of His return to the Father.  It seems like going to the sublime to the ridiculous to have Jesus, with this hope, stooping to wash His disciples dirty feet.  But there is nothing ridiculous about giving all men the chance for greatness and dignity.  That is the victory Jesus won for us all with that basin of water.  The towel Jesus used should be our flag as Christians, for it represents the greatness we can all attain.</div> <bR> <div>      Jesus said the greatest among you is the servant of all.  If greatness depends upon</div> <div> magnetic personally, than most men can never be great.  If greatness can be achieved only by doing deeds which gain great publicity, and if one must be charming, witty, dashing, or rich to be great, then greatness is reserved for the few. </div> <div> If, however, greatness before God can be achieved by acts of service, then no child of God is eliminated from the competition.  Has there ever been a believer so ungifted</div> <div> he could not wash another's feet?   The only talent God requires for any of His </div> <div> children to be great is the talent of the towel-that is, the talent to stoop and meet </div> <div> anothers simple needs in lowly service.  </div> <bR> <div>      In 1878 William Booth started the Salvation Army, and men came from all over the world to join it.  Samuel Logan Brengle, a Methodist minister from American, </div> <div> went to England to join the army with the idea of rising to great heights.  Booth detected his pride and ordered him to clean the boots of the other trainees as his first job.  Brengle rebelled and resented this degrading task, but God spoke to him in a dream.  He dreamed of Christ with His disciples in the upper room that last night He spent with them.  He dreamed the event of our text, and when he woke he was a changed man, and he prayed, "Lord, you washed their feet, I will black their boots."</div> <div> The example of Christ led him to do acts of service, and thus to greatness, and he became the first American born Commissioner in the Salvation Army.  </div> <bR> <div>      Jesus had to get this important lesson across to His disciples or the foundation of His church would be cracked from the start.  The record of Peter's resistence is given by John because he was the leader of the 12, and if he failed to learn the way to greatness, how could he lead anyone else?  Jesus gained a victory of Peter's pride with this water and a basin, and Peter passes it on in I Peter 5:5, "For God gives special blessings to those who are humble, but sets Himself against those who are proud."  (Living Bible).</div> <bR> <div>      This last lesson that Jesus taught before the cross is a lesson that must be learned by all believers if they hope to fulfill God's plan for their lives.  The biggest battle every believer has is with their own pride.  D. L. Moody said his greatest problems int he ministry was the envy of Christian workers.  He spent his nights fighting the devil, and his days trying to calm the quarreling among his team of evangelists over whose name should be in greater capital letters in the advertising.  Jesus knew this was going to be the greatest battle of His disciples all through history.  He knew we would have a tendency to think of ourselfs more highly than we ought to think, and that is why He taught this lesson at such a crucial hour, and in such a dramatic unforgettable way.  With water He washed His disciples feet, and John tells us that the love of Christ for His own is what motivated Him.   "Having loved His own which are in the world He loved them unto the end."</div> <bR> <div>       Love is a central theme in this inner sanctuary.  In chapters 1-12 of John's gospel Jesus ministers to the masses, and though He demonstrates love in action, the theme of His messages to the crowds is life and light.  Life is used 50 times in these chapters, and light 32 times, but love is used only 6 times.  Now, in chapters 13-17,</div> <div> where Jesus speaks in private to His own, the change is obvious.  Life is used only  6 times, and light not at all, but love is used 31 times.  Love takes the dominate role when Jesus speaks to His own.  We learn from this that the world needs love and light, but they will only recieve it when the church is dominated by love.  </div> <bR> <div>      He loved them all along, but John says He loved to the end.  In spite of their blindness and their pride, and all their other faults, Jesus loved them, and that is why He washed their feet.  He was willing to perform this radical act of condecension for their sake that they might be aided in their battle with sin and Satan.  He loved them to the end is often translated, He loved them to the uttermost.</div> <div> Morris has it, "Now He showed how utterly He loved them."  He did not cease to love them even though Judas was about to betray Him.  Peter was about to resist</div> <div> and then deny Him.  His inner circle was about to ignore His agony and forsake Him.  Instead of condeming them, He won a victory over His own wrath, and a victory over their stubborn pride, and thus, a victory over all that Satan could have hoped to accomplish here, by pouring water and washing His disciples feet.  He loved them to the end-the end of His life and the end of their lives, and to  the uttermost, inspite of their pride.  </div> <bR> <div>           His love no end or measure knows, </div> <div>                No change can turn its course;</div> <div>           Eternally the same it flows</div> <div>                From one eternal Source.</div> <bR> <div>       Love which does not stoop is not  agape or christlike love.  Jesus stooped to lay aside His garments of diety to take on flesh and be born of a virgin ( a victory with water, for like all babies He was born with water).  He stooped to inner the river of Jordon and be baptized (a victory with water, for He identified Himself with sinful humanity).  Now in His last hours in the flesh He stoops again to gain a victory with water by this act of condecending love.  </div> <bR> <div>      We all need to recognize we are no better than the 12, but are equally blind to our self-centeredness and pride.   Leslie Weatherhead said in his sermon in London</div> <div> during World War II while the Germans were bombing it-"...when a foul egotism rises up within me and would bid me assert myself, planned for myself, served my own interest, play my own hand and take care of number one:  Then, O my Lord, </div> <div> may I hear in imagination the gentle splashing of water falling into a basin, and see the Son of God washing the disciples feet..."  If we could develop an attitude like this,</div> <div> we would all win many a victory with water.  </div> <bR> <div>      Jesus is first of all the Saviour, and the greatest victory of life is victory over all that sin can do by receiving Him as Saviour and the Water of Life.  Horatius Bonar</div> <div> wrote,           I heard the voice of Jesus say, </div> <div>                Behold, I freely give</div> <div>            The living water; thirsty one,</div> <div>                Stoop down and drink, and live.</div> <bR> <div>           I came to Jesus, and I drank</div> <div>                Of that life-giving stream;</div> <div>           My thirst was quenched, my soul revived,</div> <div>                And now I live in Him.</div> <bR> <div>      That is life's greatest victory with water.  If you have not experienced this victory</div> <div> put your trust in Christ right now as the Water of Life.  </div> <bR> <bR> <div> THE GIFT OF PEACE  Based on John 14:15-31</div> <div> By Pastor Glenn Pease</div> <bR> <div>      Mr. Danielson was one of the six men who sailed across the Pacific on a raft.  He wrote about it in the best selling book Kontiki.  While making this adventurous voyage he had a wonderful time on a balmy peaceful island in the Pacific.  When he returned to the U.S. he could not stand the inner tension and the fast pace of living, so he took his family and went back to that lovely island to live.  He had plenty of money from his book; the food was plentiful; the natives were friendly, and the weather was ideal.  There was nothing to worry about.  There was no taxes, no politics, no job, and not even a newspaper.  He stuck it out for a year on this island paradise, and then he headed for home.  He had failed to find peace by the method of escape from struggle and tension.</div> <bR> <div>      Nothing it more futile and doomed to failure than the constant attempt of men to find inner peace by means of external escape.  Every man belongs to his own private peace movement, for peace is a pearl of great price which all men long to possess.  Peace of mind and peace of soul books are top sellers, and this proves that people are searching for some formula for peace.  Men are seldom successful in their search, however, because they stress only the negative aspect of peace-that aspect that the world can sometimes give, which is freedom from war and worry.  The escape method is all they know.  Cowper expressed it well:</div> <bR> <div>                O for a lodge in some vast wilderness,</div> <div>                Some boundless contiguity of shade;</div> <div>                Where rumor of oppression and deceit,</div> <div>                Of unsuccessful or successful war,</div> <div>                Might never reach me more.</div> <bR> <div> The goal here is absence of all bad news, but there is no mention of the presence of good news.  It is concerned only about the negative absence of the bad and not the positive presence of the good.  </div> <bR> <div>      The problem with this goal is that it is an illusion.  It is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and even when men come close to finding it, as Mr. Danielson found his paradise island, it gives no inner peace.  This is man's real need.  He needs an inner peace that is not dependent upon externals, but which gives assurance and security even in the midst of storm and turmoil.  It leads only to futility and frustration to hope that some change in circumstances and the environment will lead to the discovery of the pearl of inner peace.  </div> <bR> <div>      External peace is a value and a blessing which the Bible also recognizes, but it is a beautiful apple which seldom lasts because of the worm of worry that rots it, and the storm of sin that knocks it to the ground.  External peace is dependent upon man, and man is not dependable.  For example, in June of 1502 England and Scotland made what they termed a perpetual peace.  Margaret, the daughter of Henry VII was betrothed to James IV.  Man had by external manipulation arrived at a state of peace.  A few years later they were fighting the battle of Flodden Field.  Just one of the many cases of the kind of perpetual peace the world offers.  </div> <bR> <div>      This is not to say that men should cease to strive for external peace, and cease to believe in finding ways to end all wars.  Ideals are important, but we must be realists, and recognize that even at best man will not be able to eliminate the causes for war in this world, and even if he could, it would not bring the peace of heart, mind, and soul that he needs.  The peace of Christ is different from the peace of the world.  "Not as the world gives, give I unto you," said Jesus.  He left the gifted peace that is His own.</div> <div> The peace which He demonstrated in His own life.  </div> <bR> <div>      Jesus never found a secluded peaceful island.  He was in the midst of turmoil in a degree that surpasses anything modern life can throw at us.  He had continual intrusions upon His privacy.  He could rarely be alone, and yet He was not irritated by it.  There was a constant drain on His resources.  He got tired, but we never read of His rejecting anyone's request for help because He was exhausted.  He was criticized and misunderstood, and even hated.  He was disappointed by His disciples often.  He bore a crushing load of tensions, yet He never lost His temper. </div> <bR> <div>       His peace stands out in contrast to the irritations of His disciples.  They were ready to call down fire from heaven on those who frustrated them, but Jesus forbid them.  They were ready to get rid of the children who were a nuisance, but the Master said let them come unto Me.  They said send the crowd away, but Jesus said</div> <div> they are hungry, and He fed them.  Peter whipped out his sword and began swinging in the garden; the others fled in fear, but Jesus calmly healed the injury Peter caused,</div> <div> and met his captures with such fearless courage the soldiers fell back, even though he was unarmed.  </div> <bR> <div>      This is the kind of peace that Jesus had, and which He left as His legacy to His disciples.  This inner tranquillity in the face of struggle and trial is the peace that passes all understanding.  This is the perpetual peace that man so desperately searches for.  Escape from the storm is an illusion, but peace in the midst of the </div> <div> storm is a reality that is possible for believers.  </div> <bR> <div>      The relatives were assembled to hear the last will and testament of a man who </div> <div> had very little in the way of earthly goods.  They all wondered why they were summoned.  The will was read:  "To my brother Alex I leave my sense of humor, </div> <div> in as much as he has never cracked a smile in his life.  To my cousin Sarah I leave</div> <div> my optimism to mitigate her habitual gloomy and pessimistic view of everything.  </div> <div> To my nephew Richard I leave my standard of values, in the hope that it may help </div> <div> him to learn that a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."</div> <div> And so it went-a legacy of no cash value, but of spiritual qualities of surpassing worth. </div> <div> This is the kind of legacy Christ left His disciples.  Not a quantity of cash, but a quality of character.  Jesus gave them the gift of His peace which was worth a fortune.  Francis de Sales said, "Peace is better than a fortune."  </div> <bR> <div>      The only physical possession Jesus had of any worth was His beautiful robe,</div> <div> and the soldiers gambled for that.  Yet a king certainly could not die without leaving some value, worthy of royalty, to His subjects.  Jesus, the King of Kings, whose kingdom is not of this world left the value of values that is also not of this world.  </div> <div> He left the gift of inner peace-His peace.  This gift made the church by inheritance the richest group of people on earth.  Nobody has ever been more richly endowed.</div> <div> The disciples did not horde this inheritance.  They invested it in a ministry of world</div> <div> wide distribution.  Rome had conquered the world, and had suppressed all rebellion.</div> <div> External peace was available.  It was called Pax Romana-the peace of Rome.  Yet men were lost, and in darkness and despair, for all their external peace did not give inner peace.  When the Christians demonstrated by their lives and their courage </div> <div> that they possessed this inner peace, people flocked into the church to partake of</div> <div> this great inheritance from Christ. </div> <bR> <div>      With in infinite supply of the peace of Christ, there was no limit to the expansive</div> <div> potential of the church.  It had what no other philosophy or religion had.  It alone could give men assurance of peace with God by faith in Christ, and, therefore, inner peace.  The church later, however, cease to draw upon the resources of the Spirit, </div> <div> and cease to produce the fruit of the Spirit-love, joy, and peace being the first three.</div> <div> It neglected its great inheritance, and began to depend upon external resources for </div> <div> its power.  It became like the world, and sought to bring in the kingdom of God by force, and by changing external circumstances.  </div> <bR> <div>      The result has been that to this day many Christians are ignorant of their inheritance.  They do not live like children of the King and followers of the Prince </div> <div> of Peace.  They live on the same level with the world, and are perpetual peace</div> <div> persuers hoping that some external change in circumstances will at last bring them</div> <div> into a paradise of peace.  We do, of course, have the hope of one day experiencing</div> <div> perpetual external peace with all the circumstances ideal, and a perfect environment.</div> <div> Hope, however, is not peace, and we do Christ and ourselves an injustice if we allow </div> <div> a future hope to cause us to neglect a present gift of peace.  Charles Mackay wrote,</div> <bR> <div>                War in men's eyes shall be</div> <div>                     A monster of iniquity</div> <div>                     In the good time coming.</div> <div>                Nations shall not quarrel then,</div> <div>                     To prove which is the stronger;</div> <div>                     Nor slaughter men for glory's sake;</div> <div>                     Wait a little longer.</div> <bR> <div>      Yes, for the conquering of all external evils we must wait a little longer, but </div> <div> meanwhile we dare not let our priceless pearl of inner peace lay idle and useless</div> <div> in the bank of neglect.  We need to draw it out and live victorious lives now in the </div> <div> midst of the battle.  We are to be more than conquers through Him that loved us.</div> <div> We need to demonstrate by our peace in a perplexing world that Jesus has already</div> <div> won the greatest war in the universe.  He has defeated the final foe, and He has set</div> <div> the captives free, and now all men are free to enter the kingdom of light, and to </div> <div> come out of the darkness into His marvelous light.</div> <bR> <div>      Charles Sumner rightly shouted, "Let the bugles sound the truce of God to the whole world."  The Prince of Peace has come and conquered.  God and man are reconciled.  Peace is possible for all through faith in Jesus Christ.  Now the problem is that many who know the Prince of Peace do not possess the peace of the Prince.</div> <div> The problem is due to ignorance and a lack of conscious effort to develop this gift.</div> <div> Our ignorance shows up in our expectations of external peace.  The same thing that has confused Christians in the past, and led them astray.  This misconception should be shattered once and for all by listening to the words of Christ about what external circumstances Christians should expect. </div> <bR> <div>       Jesus said, "I came not to bring peace but a sword," as He referred to externals.  He said houses will be divided, and there will be tribulation and persecution.  He said men will hate, fight, and kill them because of Him.  But He said also, to be of good cheer for I have overcome the world.  In other words, as far as externals go the disciples would have had far more peace if Jesus had never come.  William Percy grasped this when he wrote-</div> <bR> <div>                They cast their nets in Galilee</div> <div>                Just off the hills of brown;</div> <div>                Such happy, simple fisherfolk, </div> <div>                Before the Lord came down.</div> <div>                </div> <div>      If absence of trouble and tension was the goal of life, these men were better off before Jesus came.  When Jesus called them He led them into trouble with authorities.  They became outcasts and persecuted men because of Christ.</div> <bR> <div>                Young John, who trimmed the flapping sail,</div> <div>                      Homeless, in Patmos died.</div> <div>                Peter, who hauled the teeming net,</div> <div>                      Head-down was crucified.</div> <bR> <div>      All of the disciples died a martyrs death.  This hardly supports any idea of external peace being the hope of the Christian.  It is superficial and unrealistic to expect it.  It takes no serious account of the true state of reality in which there is</div> <div> a constant battle between good and evil.  To expect external peace and escape from all tension and trial is to assume the false picture of the universe described by H. Richard Niebuhr.  "A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministry of a Christ without a cross."  Let us not dwell in the realm of such illusion, but face the facts.  Christians live on a battlefield with everyone else, and as a whole do not have more external peace than anyone else.</div> <div> In fact, they often have less.  If we shed this false hope, and claim instead the gift of inner peace, we will have the advantage over the world that Christ intended us to have, for in inner peace there is great power.  G. A. Studdert Kennedy put it-</div> <bR> <div>                Peace does not mean the end of all our striving.</div> <div>                Joy does not mean the drying of all tears.</div> <div>                Peace is the power that comes to souls arriving,</div> <div>                Up to the light where God Himself appears.</div> <bR> <div>      Peace is power.  Why could the Apostle and early Christian face the dangers and  death they did with such courage?  It was because of the power of inner peace.  No external circumstances could shake this inner trust in Jesus.  They had the same power that enables Jesus to say from the cross, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do."  It was external power against internal peace, and peace always wins.  This is the gift that determines if we will be heroes or cowards in the battle of life.  We need to be serious about developing this gift, and be praying the prayer of Whittier-</div> <bR> <div>                Take from our souls the strain and stress,</div> <div>                And let our ordered lives confess,</div> <div>                The beauty of thy peace.</div> <bR> <div>        </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> HIS STEADFAST FACE  Based on John 19:1-16 </div> <div> By Pastor Glenn Pease</div> <bR> <div>      You never know when something embarrassing will happen to you.  We are constantly on guard, for we do not like to be humiliated.  Mrs. Howard Field was walking to a near by</div> <div> funeral home for the funeral of an old acquaintance when she saw an Easter bonnet that caught her eye.  She went in and purchased it.  She felt it was improper to carry it into the chapel, so she asked an usher to take care of it for her.  You can imagine her dismay when she saw it being placed on the coffin with the flowers.  At the grave site she hoped to recover it, but she was too embarrassed to do anything, and so she watched her new Spring hat lowered into the ground.  She hardly knew the woman being buried, but she was weeping as sincerely as the immediate family.  </div> <bR> <div>      Her embarrassment was real but hidden.  In other situations we cannot hide, and we are embarrassed by what is beyond our control.  The poet gives an example:</div> <bR> <div>                I sat next to the Bishop at tea;</div> <div>                It was just as I feared it would be.</div> <div>                His rumblings abdominal</div> <div>                Were simply phenomenal,</div> <div>                And everyone thought it was me.</div> <bR> <div>      Then there are the deliberate efforts to get a laugh at the expense of others.  It can be funny to embarrass others.  This is the motive behind roasts and many other types of humor.  We do this frequently as men.  It is part of our sense of humor.  Sometimes it borders on the cruel, however.  For example, Bernard Shaw was browsing in a secondhand</div> <div> book shop when he found a copy of one of his own books peeping out at him from a dusty shelf. He looked at the inside cover and found it was an autographed copy he had given to a friend.  He bought his own book just so he could return it to the friend with these words on the flyleaf- "With renewed compliments of Bernard Shaw."  You can imagine the embarrassment of the friend.  </div> <bR> <div>      The desire to humble another can be just good fun, and when people are friends it can be good for a laugh, even for the one embarrassed.  But there is also sadistic side of this that we see dominating the whole scene of the trial of Jesus.  John chapter 19 is just one embarrassing scene after another as the church and state try to manipulate each other by means of humiliation.  Pilate represents the state.  He is the power of Rome, the secular </div> <div> Gentile state.  In the other corner of the ring are the chief priests and officials of Israel.</div> <div> They are the church, or the religious establishment in the legal conflict over the issue if Jesus is worthy of being sentenced to death.  </div> <bR> <div>      It is one of the greatest paradoxes of history that the state tried hard to release Jesus,</div> <div> but the religious leaders would not let the state do what was just, but used the power of humiliation to compel Pilate to send Jesus to the cross.  Let me share with you the clear facts of this great paradox of that pagan secular state trying to do the right thing, but the clever religious people thwarted justice, and manipulated the state to join them in the evil plot to officially murder the only perfectly innocent man who ever lived.</div> <bR> <div>       Pilate was a pagan, but he knew when a man was innocent, and he knew Jesus was just such a man.  In fact, the Gospels tell us Pilate acknowledged seven times that Jesus was innocent.  We see three of them in our text.  In verse 4 Pilate said to the Jews, "Look, I am bringing Him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against Him."</div> <div> In verse 6 he says it again, "As for me, I find no basis for a charge against Him."  In verse 12 we read, "Pilate tried to set Jesus free."  The Gospels confirm that Pilate found no fault in Jesus, and that he did seek to release Him.  Even his own wife had a dream about Jesus and warned Pilate not to sentence Him.  He tried every trick in the book to set Jesus free.</div> <div> He even gave the people a choice to let Barabbas or Jesus go free.  He thought for sure they would choose Jesus rather than a known violent killer, but they did not.</div> <bR> <div>      </div> <div>      The record is clear, Jesus was killed by religious people and not secular people.  The religious leaders forced Pilate to give the order to Crucify Jesus.  They embarrassed him into it.  Here were the people who had the promise of God to have a Messiah sent to them,</div> <div> and they demanded that the state put this Messiah to death.  There is no guarantee that in a conflict between the religious and secular that the religious will always be right and the secular wrong.  Pilate was a pagan but he was right.  Jesus was innocent of any crime.  So why did he give in and sentence Jesus to death?  It was because of the clever minds of the Jewish leaders.</div> <bR> <div>      They knew that Pilate dreaded the thought of being embarrassed before the Emperor Tiberius Caesar.  It would be humiliating to have Caesar get a report that he had let a rival king live when the Jews were clamoring for His death in order to be loyal to Caesar.  Caesar was touchy about rivals as most tyrants are, and Pilate would feel more comfortable standing before him naked than with the charge against Him that He was a traitor in supporting a rival ruler.  The Jews knew this and they shout in verse 12, "If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.</div> <bR> <div>      These hypocrites hated Caesar and would gladly see an opponent take his throne, but they knew this threat would be more than Pilate could defy.  They were right, and Pilate was humiliated into handing Jesus over to be crucified.  He played by their dirty rules to the end, however.  Even knowing Jesus was innocent, he had Him flogged and mocked, </div> <div> and presented to the Jews as a pathetic king.  He hoped to embarrass them by mocking their fear of Jesus.</div> <bR> <div>      In verse 5 Pilate brings Jesus out to the Jews looking so pathetic with His crown of thorns and purple robe, and he says, "Here is the man!"  He was saying that here is the man you so fear.  He is really dangerous looking isn't He?  No wonder you want Him dead so bad.  He is so fierce and threatening.  But his plan did not work.  They were too cold hearted to slink away in embarrassment.  Pilate could not embarrass them to back off their plot.  They were harder-hearted than himself, and he gave in instead.  But he got in the last punch in this battle to embarrass.  Verse 19 says Pilate had a notice fastened to the cross</div> <div> that read, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews."  The Jewish leaders protested, but Pilate would not give in on this, and he said, "What I have written I have written."  They were embarrassed by the message that they were killing their own king, but they went ahead in spite of it.</div> <bR> <div>      Here is another paradox.  The Jews were as determined to get Jesus to the cross as He was determined to get there.  Jesus had set His face steadfastly to get to the cross, and not all the power of Satan and evil men combined could make Him swerve from this path.  But those who despised and rejected Him had the same goal, and they were equally determined.</div> <div> They would not let their law or Roman law stand in their way.  Compassion and justice meant nothing to them.  They were hard as steel, and nothing could stop them from getting Jesus to the cross.  </div> <bR> <div>      The paradox is, you have the forces of evil and the forces of good aiming for the same goal, which was the cross.  Can evil and good have the same goal?  Of course they can.</div> <div> We see it all the time.  In every election we see good people and evil people fighting for the same candidate.   Even the Mafia wants a certain candidate to win, for they feel he is</div> <div> more likely to benefit them.  The drug dealers and pimps vote for someone too, for they feel that someone will be to their advantage.  Good and godly people can want the same candidate to win also, but for very different reasons, but both have the same goal and can be out supporting the same man.  The fight for freedom can mean freedom of religion, freedom of the press, but also freedom to use drugs, or practice anti-social behavior, and so forces for freedom to do good or evil have the same goal.</div> <bR> <div>      So we see Jesus and His opponents aiming for the same target-the cross.  Their motives</div> <div> are radically different, of course.  Jesus is going to the cross because that is the only way He can atone for man's sin and reconcile man to God.  The Jews want Jesus on the cross</div> <div> to get Him out of their hair so they can go on with their legalistic religion that enables them to manipulate people.  A goal is not a bad one to aim for just because evil men aim for it as well.  The motive is what matters.  Jesus did not reason that these wicked leaders want me crucified, and so if that is the goal of evil men I must resist it and find another way.  On the contrary, Jesus sided with the evil Jews and did not give Pilate the support he needed to stand against them.</div> <bR> <div>      Pilate is desperately searching for some way to get Jesus released.  He even violated Roman law in his efforts.  He had Jesus flogged and mocked as a an innocent man in hope of placating the Jews, but it didn't work.  Then he took Jesus back inside to talk privately,</div> <div> and Jesus refused to answer him.  Jesus was uncooperative with Pilate, not because He had anything against a man doing his best to be just and fair, but because He did not want Pilate to succeed in helping Him escape the hands of these wicked leaders.</div> <bR> <div>      Jesus is our advocate, which means He is our lawyer before the court of God, and He pleads our case and seeks acquittal for us as guilty sinners.  But here He is being condemned as an innocent man, and He does not speak in His own defense.  Poor Pilate-</div> <div> his perfect prisoner is siding with his perverted prosecutors to assure His condemnation.</div> <div> Pilate did not have a chance.  He was embarrassing alone, for he was the only man who cared that Jesus was innocent.  All His disciples had forsaken Him, and there was not a single witness in His defense.  Jesus would not even defend Himself, and so Pilate gives in</div> <div> to what seems inevitable and condemns an innocent man to the cross.  </div> <bR> <div>      Jesus embarrassed Pilate too by His refusal to cooperate, but Jesus also comforted Pilate and let him know that He understood his dilemma.  Jesus knew Pilate had no real choice, for Jesus would not let him save Him from the very goal He was determined to reach.  Even if Pilate could change the minds of the Jews he could never change the mind of Jesus.  He was going to the cross one way or another.  But notice the comfort Jesus gives him in verse 11.  Here is another paradox, for we see the prisoner comforting the judge who is about to sentence Him to death.  Don't feel too bad judge, its and awful thing you are forced to do, but the one who handed Me over to you is guilty of the greater sin.</div> <div> The choice you are making to condemn Me is wrong, but the real crime is in the hearts of those who are forcing you to do it. </div> <bR> <div>      Jesus is saying that not all are equally guilty in this wicked plot.  Some are victims like Pilate.  Others are the master minds, and they will be held accountable for the greater evil.</div> <div> By so saying, Jesus is in essence telling Pilate I know you are the only good guy in this whole legal maze.  You can count on it, I will not hold it against you.  The prisoner is letting the judge off the hook.  Pilate knew this and fought like crazy to get Jesus released, but he could not do it.  The best he could do was to embarrass the wicked schemers who forced him to be a partner in their evil plot.</div> <bR> <div>      The New Testament makes it clear, the primary guilt for sending Jesus to the cross falls on the Jewish leaders.  The evidence is overwhelming.  Yet the tragedy of this truth</div> <div> is that Christians have used it to promote anti-Semitism.  Jews have been called Christ-killers, and have suffered repeatedly at the hands of bigoted Christians who have the reasoning power of a cutting board.  To hate all Jews because of what the Jews did to Jesus is as foolish as holding all white men responsible for killing the Indians buffalo.  Crimes of folly and prejudice of the past are not pasted on through the genes making future generations guilty of those crimes.  Besides this, Jesus forgave from the cross even that generation who were fully guilty.  Anyone who holds any Jew responsible for the death of Jesus today is as blind as those Jews who really were guilty of history's greatest legal</div> <div> injustice.  </div> <bR> <div>      Some of history's greatest Christians were filled with prejudice against the Jews because they refused to let the spirit of Christ be their guide.  Luther, for example, was terribly anti-Semitic.  It is easy to find plenty of New Testament evidence to support being</div> <div> anti-Semitic toward that generation of Jews who crucified Jesus.  But to carry that attitude beyond that generation should embarrass the Christian.  If is does not, that Christian is exhibiting the very blindness that made the Jews who crucified Jesus so despicable.  </div> <bR> <div>      What we need to see is that this hatred of Jesus by the Jewish leaders was His final hurdle to overcome to get to the cross.  This is where other men would fail.  I don't know about you, but I would have a hard time choosing to suffer one minute from a paper cut on the finger, let alone crucifixion, for people who so despised me.  This was the final test of the love of Christ.  Could He go through with the plan to die for men when they could be so cruel?  He could, and He did.  Here is the proof that love is the strongest power in the universe.  Hate met love in a head on collision, and love just kept on going pushing hate off the road.  They could not stop Jesus from loving them.  They were as cruel, brutal, and hard-hearted as man is capable of being, yet Jesus did not call ten thousand angels to wipe them from the face of the earth.  He said,  "Father forgive them for they know not what they do."  Then He died for them that they might be forgiven and restored to fellowship with God.</div> <bR> <div>      Their hate was as black as coal, but His love made them able to be made as white as snow.  Nothing, absolutely nothing, could stop Jesus from loving even the most unlovable of men.  We do not even know what love is until we study the love of Jesus and see the love of God reflected in His face.  In the Old Testament the highest source of glory was the awesomeness of God's glory in creation.  "The heavens declare the glory of God...."  But now in Jesus we  have a far greater glory.  The sun, moon, and stars are still wonders to behold, but the cannot give us the light we can get from the face of Jesus.  Paul says it in </div> <div> II Cor. 4:6, "For God, who said, let light shine out of darkness, made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." </div> <bR> <div>      If you want to know how to think and act in any situation, look to the face of Jesus, and ask, what would Jesus do?  This is not always easy, but there is no better way for guidance for in the face of Jesus is all the light we need.  It  will lead us to choices and attitudes where love will conquer all the evil and prejudice we struggle with.  The face of Jesus was marred by unbelievable cruelty.  Verse 3 tells us the mocking soldiers used His face as a punching bag.  He was bruised and blackened, and the crown of thorns would send blood </div> <div> running down His forehead.  Jesus knows what it is to be an abused person, and to be violently hurt by brute force for no good reason.  Yet we do not see His face bitter with resentment.  He was surrounded by faces of horrible hatred who with sadistic determination would not be satisfied until Jesus was crucified.  Yet the face of Jesus was calm with a love even more determined than their hatred.</div> <bR> <div>      Fritzgerald asked Tennyson, as they looked at the marble busts of two famous men, </div> <div> "What is there in the face of Dante which is absent from the face of Goethe."  The poet responded, "The Divine."  The presence of God makes all the difference in the world, and that was what we see in the face of Jesus.</div> <bR> <div>                God of sun and stars and space,</div> <div>                We can your glory trace.</div> <div>                But your best we can embrace</div> <div>                In your Son's loving face.</div> <bR> <div>      Jesus met every hate filled face with a look of determined grace.  If you want to know how to face life with all of its burdens and problems, turn your eyes upon Jesus and look into His face and you will receive the light you need to go the way that pleases God.  The face of Jesus becomes the sun of our spiritual solar system.  On the Mt. of Transfiguration</div> <div> the face that Jesus had for all eternity past, and which He will have for all eternity future,</div> <div> broke through His limited earthly face, and we read this in Matt. 17:2, "His face shown</div> <div> like the sun."  </div> <bR> <div>      Jesus had to endure every indignity men could devise to embarrass Him and humiliate Him, and create on Him a face of bitterness.  They did make His face ugly and repulsive,</div> <div> but they could not, by their vile and violent behavior, wipe the light of love from His face.</div> <div> Christina Rossetti, the great poetess, wrote, </div> <bR> <div>                Is this the face that thrills with awe</div> <div>                Seraphs who veil their face above?</div> <div>                Is this the face without a flaw, </div> <div>                The face that is the face of love?</div> <div>                Yes, this defaced, lifeless clod</div> <div>                Hath all creation's love sufficed,</div> <div>                Hath satisfied the love of God,</div> <div>                This face the face of Jesus Christ.</div> <bR> <div>      There is an old legend that when Adam was driven from the Garden of Eden he asked the angel who stood guard with flaming sword, what shall I bring back to God when I return?  The angel replied, "Bring him back the face in gave you in the garden, and I will let you in."  Sin had changed the face of man.  The inner corruption distorted his external features.  We see it full blown in the trial of Jesus.  The ugly hatred of man is seen at its worse.  In their rebellion against God they marred the face of His Son.  But Jesus refused to let the externals change His inner face.  He remained calm, loving, and endured it all that He might have a face worthy of entrance again for man into the paradise of God.</div> <bR> <div>      Do you realize that the vision of the face of Jesus is one of the key blessings of heaven?</div> <div> In John 17:24 Jesus prayed, "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see My glory...."  The ultimate answer to this prayer is revealed in </div> <div> Rev. 22:3-4, "No longer will there be any curse.  The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and His servants will serve Him.  They will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads."  </div> <bR> <div>      The most beautiful face in the universe forever will be the face of Jesus, for this is the face that made it possible for man to return to paradise and to fellowship with God.  Man did his very worst to embarrass and shame the face of Jesus, but He came through with a face aglow with love.  Jesus passed the final test and refused to forsake the goal of the cross because of shame and embarrassment.  May our Lord's example motivate us to set goals in our service for God, and then pursue them like our Savior did with His steadfast face.</div> <bR> <div>      </div> <bR> <bR> <div> THE LAST BREAKFAST  Based on John 21:1-14</div> <div> By Pastor Glenn Pease</div> <bR> <div>      The Bible says God's mercies are new every morning, and the result is that many of His blessings have come to His people at breakfast.  Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China </div> <div> Inland Mission, tells of this event in his life as he prepared to go to China.  When he got to China he knew he would have to depend upon God alone, and so he began to practice while yet in England.  He decided that he would move man through God by prayer alone.  He worked for a man who needed to be reminded every time his salary was due.  Taylor was determined to trust God to move him and not do so directly.  He began to pray for God to bring this need to his employer's mind.  The time came for his quarterly salary, but Dr. </div> <div> Harley made no mention of the matter.  As the day passed, Taylor prayed without ceasing until finally he was down to one coin that was worth about one dollar.  </div> <bR> <div>      On Sunday he had a full day of Christian service, and after the last service at about 10 at night a poor man asked him to come and pray for his wife who was dying.  The man was a Catholic and so he asked him why he did not send for a priest.  The man explained that he had, but the priest would not come without a payment of 18 pence which the man did not possess.  That reminded Taylor of just how poor he was also at that point.  His last coin was in his pocket and all he had at home was some water-gruel for breakfast.  He had nothing for dinner the next day.  He thought how gladly would I give something to these poor people if I only had more, but to part with his last coin was not even thinkable.  When he got to the home he saw a miserable and wretched sight with five children with sunken cheeks.  They were slowly starving, and there was the poor exhausted mother lying on a pallet.</div> <bR> <div>      He began to struggle with himself.  He tried to offer words of comfort, but inside he was calling himself a hypocrite, for he was telling them to trust God, but he would not trust God alone.  He was clinging to that last coin as if that was his only hope.  He prayed and rose to leave.  The father said, "You see the terrible state we are in.  If you can help us, for God's sake do!"  At that moment the word flashed into his mind, "Give to him that asketh of thee."  He reached into his pocket and pulled out his last coin and gave it to the man.  Joy</div> <div> flooded his heart, and he was again on track of trusting God alone and not God plus a coin. He walked home rejoicing, and that night he reminded the Lord of His Word which said,</div> <div> "He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord."  He asked God to not let his loan be a long one for he had no dinner for the next day.  </div> <bR> <div>      The next morning he rose and sat down to eat his last plate of porridge.  While he was consuming this final bit of food, there was a knock at the door.  It was the postman with a very unusual Monday morning delivery.  When he opened the letter he found a blank piece of paper out of which fell half a sovereign.  He writes, "Praise the Lord," I exclaimed, </div> <div> "Four hundred per cent for a 12 hour investment."  This was not the end of the story for he did get his salary also in answer to prayer, but this blessing at breakfast so convinced Taylor that he could trust God alone to meet his every need that he went on to start the greatest missionary movement in the history of China.  That breakfast was the beginning of a great movement in fulfilling the Great Commission.</div> <bR> <div>      Jesus loves to do some great things at breakfast.  As we focus our attention on the beautiful breakfast on the beach in John's Gospel, let us keep in mind that it was indeed</div> <div> the last breakfast.  We hear much of the last supper, but here was the last breakfast that Jesus had with His disciples, as far as the record of the Bible reveals.  It was also a breakfast of beginnings, for Jesus here taught the disciples the same lesson Hudson Taylor needed to learn.  He taught them that He can supply their every need, so they are to follow Him and fish for men, and trust in Him alone.  This breakfast was also the beginning of a great missionary movement.  The movement that began the history of fulfilling the Great Commission.  </div> <bR> <div>      Many great movements begin with decisions made around a meal.  Here is one of the greatest ever to begin at a breakfast.  Breakfast is the most unsociable of all meals.  How often do you have people over for breakfast?  It is the least elaborate and most monotonous of meals, and yet many experts say it is the key meal of the day.  There are even poets who will rank it the number one meal for pure pleasure.</div> <bR> <div>                Dinner may be pleasant,</div> <div>                     So my social tea;</div> <div>                But yet methinks that breakfast</div> <div>                     Is best of all the three.</div> <bR> <div> Irvin S. Cobb said, "Next to the Magna Carta, and Englishman's breakfast is his most sacred right."  </div> <bR> <div>      Since the Jews generally ate only two meals a day it is likely they felt quite strong about their breakfast also, and especially after working all night, as did the disciples in this context.  This last breakfast was nothing elaborate, but it is the most mouth watering meal</div> <div> described in the life of Christ and His disciples.  It is of interest to note how often food is involved in the resurrection appearances of Jesus.  In Luke 24:30 we read of how He took bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to the two companions He had met on the road to Emmaus.  They recognized Him in the breaking of the bread.  </div> <bR> <div>      Later that night Jesus appeared to the disciples and in Luke 24:41-43 we read, "He said to them, have you anything here to eat?  They gave Him a piece of broiled fish, and He took it and ate before them."  In both of these references we see Jesus at an evening meal, and this last one was more like a midnight snack of left over fish.  But when we come</div> <div> to this last breakfast we get details like no where else in the Gospels.  Verse 9 shows us</div> <div> a charcoal fire on the beach with fish frying on it and bread being toasted.  If you have ever been camping you know the appetite that the open air develops.  You can just imagine what a sight and smell that was to those hungry fishermen.  </div> <bR> <div>      Jesus knew they would be hungry, and so He prepared this delicious fish breakfast.  Fish for breakfast is not very common for most of us, but a study of history, and books on nutrition, reveal that Jesus was a very wise cook.  He may have done this often for His disciples in that He was a early riser.  We only have this one record, however, and we see Jesus making fish for breakfast.  Helen Brown, a breakfast expert, says that for a good protein diet the American people should have fish for breakfast.  The early Americans did.</div> <div> The early presidents had cod fish cakes for breakfast.  In 1888 a nutrition expert, Thomas</div> <div> Murrey, wrote, "Would it not be beneficial were the average American to substitute fish</div> <div> for the everlasting steak and chops of a breakfast table."  Jesus, of course,  did not have</div> <div> the choices of cereal or eggs and bacon.  He used what was common every day food of that day.  </div> <bR> <div>      The point that most expositors focus on here is the identification of the risen Christ with</div> <div> our humanity.  We do not see Jesus anywhere in His earthly ministry more involved in the common place realties of everyday life than we see Him here as He cooks breakfast.  He has just demonstrated that it is He and not the mythological god Neptune who controls the sea.  He is the one who got them a great catch of fish, and yet in spite of being the Lord of all nature He stoops to serve human nature by cooking breakfast for His disciples.  The Lord's supper was prepared by others, but the Lord's breakfast is really just that, it is the Lord's breakfast that He prepared Himself.  This is the only men's breakfast we read about in the Bible, and the Lord of the universe is both the host and the cook.</div> <bR> <div>      The incongruity of what was happening was hard for the disciples to adjust to.  The paradox of the King of Kings frying fish for these grimy fishermen was more than they could cope with.  Verse 12 reveals the confusion of their minds.  None dare ask Him who are you?  They knew it was the Lord, they knew, yet it didn't seem possible, and so they questioned the reality of what they were experiencing.  For Jesus to appear in the upper room and show His nail-pierced hands made sense.  That was a place of sacred memory for them all.  To appear in the garden to Mary was a beautiful and logical appearance.  Had Jesus come in the clouds they would have shouted for joy.  But now they come ashore and discover the Lord busy around a camp fire cooking them breakfast, and they were puzzled.</div> <bR> <div>      There was no parable coming from His mouth.  No profound theological dissertation was on His lips.  His only words were, "Come and get it."  It was also commonplace they just could not recognize how their risen Lord fit into this role He was playing.  What did Jesus do after He conquered man's greatest enemy?  What did He do after He rose victorious as Lord of all time and eternity?  He fixed breakfast for His disciples.  Jesus was going from the marvelous to the mini; from the tremendous to the trivial; from the magnificent to the mediocre.  John ends His Gospel by telling us that Jesus did so many other things that the world could not hold all the books if they were all written down.  Yet, with all that material to select from, he chose to end his Gospel with the risen Lord making breakfast on the beach.  There has got to be profound implications in this breakfast.</div> <bR> <div>      I am convinced that the purpose of it is to make clear that though Jesus is ascended to the right hand of the Father, He is still one of us.  The humanity of Jesus survived death as well as His deity.  He still enjoyed the common pleasures of life like fishing, and eating breakfast in the open air.  This closing chapter of John should impress us on how much Jesus loves the commonplace realties of our humanity. It also supports those who believe that in the eternal kingdom the redeemed will continue to enjoy many of the common pleasures of this life.  Commonness was the great note of the incarnation.  His birth was as common and as earthly as that of any fisherman.  His ministry was preceded by His working with the commonplace tools of the carpenter.  During His ministry He lived and labored among the common people.  All His life Jesus was the Christ of the common people.  </div> <bR> <div>      John is in this last chapter making sure that Jesus does not lose that identity with the common people because of the reality of His resurrection, and departure into the realm of the spirit.  It is possible to so exalt Jesus that we remove Him from involvement with our everyday lives.  This last breakfast helps prevent us from that mistake.  This last breakfast should play a greater role in our lives than Christians have allowed it to be historically.  We have the church of the resurrection; the church of the ascension, and the church of the transfiguration.  They all capitalize on the supernatural events in the life of Jesus.  But where is the church of the bread and fish?  Where is the church of the charcoal,</div> <div> or the church of Christ the cook?  Nobody builds temples to the commonplace.  Peter on the Mr. of Transfiguration wanted to build three tabernacles, but no such impulse came over him on the beach.</div> <bR> <div>      It is a universal aspect of human nature, for we are motivated by the spectacular, but we tend to miss the joy and meaning of the commonplace.  Because of this we miss much of the fellowship we ought to have with our Lord, for He is ever present in the everyday events of life, and not just the spectacular events.  John 21 is a commentary on the Great Commission promise, "Low I am with you always."  This means, not just in crusades and revivals, but at breakfast.  G. Campbell Morgan, the prince of expositors, feels we have missed a vital truth taught by this last breakfast.  We feel we must put a gap between breakfast and spiritual work, or some gulf between fishing on Saturday and worshipping on Sunday.  Morgan says we fail to see the fullness of the Gospel until we see the unity of the sacred and the secular.  He said in a sermon to mothers and wives, </div> <bR> <div>           ...When tomorrow morning you are up laying a fire,</div> <div>           preparing a breakfast, remember that the Lord of</div> <div>           glory built a fire and cooked a breakfast.  This is a</div> <div>           wonderful sanctification of life; this is an illuminating</div> <div>           glory that transfigures the commonplace and makes it</div> <div>           special.  Let us cancel the word "Secular," or at least</div> <div>           some of our uses of it.  There is nothing secular.  Our</div> <div>           Lord transmuted the commonplace, base metal, and</div> <div>           made it the fine gold of the sanctuary of God, when He</div> <div>           prepared that breakfast and waited upon those hungry </div> <div>           men.  </div> <bR> <div>      If you doubt whether Jesus cares about the ultimate values of life and your forgiveness and cleansing from sin, remember the Lord's Supper.  But when you doubt that Jesus is concerned about the routine commonplace everyday needs of life, remember the last breakfast.  </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>      </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     </B></div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>