Could a Prophet Come From Galilee?

Tom:

We are continuing with the Gospel of John and the name of this program if you have just tune in is “Search the Scriptures Daily.”The heart of what we try to do here is to try and encourage people to get into God’s Word; to read the Word.Dave, it’s like a meal, every verse, every time you go through it there are different nuances that the Holy Spirit brings to heart and mind.It’s absolutely wonderful.And where else can we go to find that which pertains to life and godliness?

Dave:

We have to have an authority.We’ve got to hear from God himself.

Tom:

Yes and again, you don’t start off being a scholar and maybe you don’t end up being a scholar.What you start off with is taking God’s Word into your heart and doing—you know we just talked about the Book of James; the Epistle to James.

Dave:

And letting it change you.

Tom:

Right.

Dave:

We don’t judge God’s Word, God’s Word judges us.The idea of God’s Word is to change us.

Tom:

Yes and the other aspect of it that’s absolutely wonderful—those of you young believers who have received Christ, believed the gospel; asked Christ into your hearts—well that’s the beginning of a personal relationship.How do you carry on a personal relationship?How does it grow?Well in this case, we have love letters from our Lord and Savior.They tell us all about him and give us some insights about us, Dave.

Dave:

Into his will for our lives.[That’s] what it’s all about.This is the food.We saw that in chapter 6.Jesus said he is the bread of God that came down from heaven.[If] you eat of this you will never die.The Word of God is—

Tom:

Never hunger as well.

Dave:

The Word of God is living and powerful.The Word of God is our food. Jeremiah said I counted it more than my necessary food.In Deuteronomy, God speaking to Moses and through Moses to his people says, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God shall man live.”So this is God’s Word.It reminds me Tom, I don’t want to digress here, I’ll just be a moment, but not only the Roman Catholics, but John Calvin, Martin Luther, themselves—now the Catholics say that the wafer becomes the body and blood of Christ, but the Catholics and the Lutherans say this is really spiritual food, spiritual nourishment.This physical—

Tom:

Elements, the elements—

Dave:

Right, becomes spiritual food. No, that’s not it. God is Spirit. They that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in truth. One of the problems with the heathen is they came up with idols, sacraments, rituals and so forth. That won’t do it, but we have to turn from the physical to the spiritual and there is spiritual life in God’s Word, not to just read it, but to meditate upon it, digest it, get to know it better and understand it.

Tom:

We’re in John:7:44And some of them would have taken him; but no man laid hands on him.
See All..., “And some of them would have taken him; but no man laid hands on him. ⁴⁵Then came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees; and they said unto them, Why have ye not brought him? ⁴⁶The officers answered, Never a man spake like this man. ⁴⁷Then answered them the Pharisees, Are ye also deceived?”Dave, these were hard guys.

Dave:

Well, the rabbis certainly were.They wanted to get rid of Jesus; they had a price on his head.When it says “some of them would have taken him” it almost sounds like it’s talking about some of the people, because there was a reward for capturing Jesus.They were a little bit shocked that he showed up in Jerusalem.On the other hand, it does seem to be referring to the officers, because verse 45 picks it up as you read, “Then came the officers…” so that seems to be the “them” that it was referring to.Then came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees….”Well they had expected the officers to arrest him.They sent them there to arrest Jesus.Of course we read over and over in the Bible, “his time had not come.”They were going to stone him on a number of occasions, but it wasn’t the time for that and furthermore stoning wasn’t the way for him to die.It had to be on the feast day and he had to be on the cross when the Passover lambs were being slain.So the officers say “Never a man spake like this man.”There was something about the authority with which he spoke.I mean it must have been fantastic to meet Jesus.

Tom:

Yes Dave, the verses 47-49 talk about the pride of life, the pride of religious position.Let me read those two verses again, “Then answered them the Pharisees, Are ye also deceived?

 Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him? But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed.”See they weren’t scholars, they didn’t have the credentials, they were just the common folk.

Dave:

Of course like religious leaders today, they were giving their own interpretation and they were saying that you have to accept our interpretation.Once again we’re not picking on Catholics or Mormons or anyone.But you know as a former Catholic that is the teaching of the Catholic Church.The magisterium, that is the bishops in concert with the Pope, they alone can interpret the Bible.You could not interpret it as an ordinary person.The same thing was true in Judaism and in Matthew 23 Jesus takes the rabbis to task and we’ve talked about that a number of times.He says not only don’t you enter into heaven, but you stand in the way of those who would and you make the rules, you set up a system of religion that the people have to follow and they can’t get to heaven except through you.And that’s what they are saying here.These people that know not the law, they’re cursed.We’re the interpreters of the law.

Tom:

And Dave it wasn’t the law that Moses gave, it was laws, upon laws, upon laws that the tradition and the religious had added to it.You know the same thing, again, as a former Roman Catholic, the same thing there.I’ve got the book on my bookshelf in my office, The Code of Canon Law—1750 rules and regulations.Unbelievable!

Dave:

Well Jesus says it going back to Matthew 15.He said you have made the commandment of God of non-effect by your tradition.In other words, you’ve come up with tradition that actually contradicts the Bible.Now what does the Bible say?Well, Psalm 1, “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.But his delight is in the law of the Lord.”That means the whole Word of God.It doesn’t mean just the Ten Commandments.“And in his law (that is statutes, his judgments) doth he meditate both day and night.”So we need to meditate upon the Word of God.This is our spiritual food and as God gives us insights and we grow in an understanding of the ways of God and the Word of God, then he is able to use us for his glory.

Tom:

Now Dave as well here, a lesson that we can learn—these were the religious rulers and they as I mentioned before, had added laws upon laws, they had perverted and twisted laws.Well how is it with us then today?We’re to be like the Bereans.You know it’s wonderful to have teachers, pastors and those who would teach us, help to teach us, help us to learn the Word of God, but we can’t fall back on those individuals.We have to search the scriptures ourselves, to check them against what God’s Word says.

Dave:

Every person out there listening to us today, you are morally accountable to God by yourself.It’s between you and God and you can’t say when you stand before the Lord and he says well why did you do this and you say well Tom and Dave, they came on the radio and they sounded authoritative, sounded like they—God will say well did you ever check them out?Did you search the scriptures daily?That was the name of their program!So we are to meditate, not just to read, but to meditate on the Word of God.Now Nicodemus, interestingly, it’s like he’s coming out of the closet.

Tom:

At verse 50.

Dave:

Verse 50 yes, he said to them, “Nicodemus saith unto them, (he that came to Jesus by night, being one of them,) Doth our law judge any man, before it hear him, and know what he doeth?”How do you judge this man?You haven’t even heard him; you’ve given him no hearing and they, wow, they cut him down.“They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet. And every man went unto his own house.”Well they had a particular interpretation of the Bible.They were not willing to accept the miracles.In fact when we get farther into John we find that after he raises Lazarus from the dead and there were witnesses, he’d been four days dead in the grave.They are determined to kill Lazarus, to do away with the resurrection, that Christ raised him from the dead.These people have hard hearts and Tom I think there’s only one explanation for it.It’s pride, it’s power, it’s money.They want to control others and get them to contribute to them, to get them to look up to them.Jesus talked about them, you know, “you love the chief seats in the synagogue, you love them to call you Rabbi, Rabbi, Rabbi and they are thinking of their position on this earth.We’ve got to look beyond our position on this earth.We’ve got to look to eternity.

Tom:

Dave, you know there’s a saying that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.When you add religion into that it’s frightening.

Dave:

It is.