Jesus is the talk of the town, known more than any other historical figure, yet opinions about him are divided, with some calling him good, others a deceiver, and some even claiming he has a devil. His own brethren did not believe in him, highlighting the world's rejection of Christ because he exposes its evil deeds. Despite the controversy, Jesus boldly taught in the temple, asserting that his doctrine came from God, not himself, and challenging those who sought to know the truth to do God's will. He then proclaimed at the Feast of Tabernacles that he is the source of living water, inviting all who thirst to come to him for spiritual satisfaction, abundant pardon, purity, and peace.
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about this chapter, and I want to make a few opening remarks, and then we'll get into the chapter. Our subject today is the talk of the town. I presume a lot of people thought they're going to hear now something along the lines of candle, though. We're not going to talk about that. Candle, though, lies on falsehoods that go around all the same time before truth got its shoes on. That's how fast candles can drop. We're not going to talk about that. The devil is a father of lies, and he's the one that rumors about it, false rumors, and he has many willing to carry those rumors on falses.
But there are a lot of things said about the Lord Jesus on this occasion. The world has known about Caesar and Napoleon, Hitler, and also Stalin, and Lincoln, Washington, and Jefferson. These men are known, but this one the world knows the most about, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Why, even before these other men we mentioned, Napoleon, Hitler, and so on, the person of Christ, his name is the most popular, known all over the world practically. Yes?
He's a talk called the world in many places. Because of the news media, the world has heard much about this man of Galilee. And so he's a talk of not only many a town, but many a country, and we'd love to think, he's being talked about all over the world. The talk of the town. Born in Bethlehem, veered in Galilee. I know it only so. When we stopped the picture of the Lord Jesus, he never went a hundred miles away from home. He never knew what it was to ride in an automobile, nor on a plane.
He knew nothing of speaking over the radio or over TV or being in any newspapers, these mediums of communication. He knew nothing of all this, and yet he was the best known. the most well-known personality in the world today. The wonderful Son of God. When you read this remarkable incident, you'll find how the Jews, they said, where is he? Others, they said, he's a good man. Others said, no, he deceives the people. That's a remarkable case. I hadn't thought of it until last night. He is a good man.
He deceives the people. I thought that could be used of many a man, a good man, an honest man as far as evil, morally upright, a warm heart. Although a good man, if he's not preaching Christ as the only way to heaven, he deceiveth the people. And there are many good men today, and they are deceiving the people. by not presenting Christ as the only way to heaven. If they're preaching the law or morality or church ordinances in preference of the gospel, they deceive the people.
Good man. But the Lord Jesus, not only was he a good man, he did not deceive the people. He laid it on the line. He told Nicodemus he must be born again. And he didn't mint much. He gave them the proof, and he never deceived anyone. How wonderful, the person of Christ walked. Others said, he hath a devil. Imagine that. He hath a devil. The soldier said, never man speaks like this. Others, in verse thirteen, they wouldn't say anything for fear of reprisals from the Jews.
They did a lot of this thing. He walked. the talk of the town. I hear recently they've got something going over in Thomasville. Well, the Shire would make up this Sunday last Sunday night. What's the talk of that town? The charismatic movement. I wish the person of Christ was the doctor of the hour. Not Tom. It's only when Christ and Christ is the person of Christ, the passion of Christ, the work of Christ, the present glory of Christ. When he is free, then you'll see heart-bless men and women saved and God's people did that.
It's nice when he's the talk of the town, people talking about the person of Christ. Quite often, I've had people tell me they tried to have a Bible reading or a Bible class in the home. And they talked about the church, they talked about the preacher, they talked about everything goes on, some, some, some. And the whole hour was spent. And I know one occasion, this lady said she had gotten saved. And so when her time came, she spoke up and she said, you know, I've been a church member for a long time.
And I thought I was saved. I did a good life. But I just found Christ this week. Boy, the scuffling, it was time to break up the meeting. Yeah. They could talk about other things. Now it's with the church. But when the person of Christ was introduced, it was time for many of them to leave. That is wonderful when Christ is the talk of the church, when Christ is the talk of a community, when he's the talk of a few who come together. That's what God wants. He's a talk of the talk. So all of us said here concerning the Lord Jesus wasn't complimentary, but he got plenty of attention.
Notice his relatives talked about it. Notice verse one. But after he did these things, Jesus walked in Galilee, for he would not walk in Jewry or Judea. Galilee was the Gentile province and Judah for the Jews. The Jews sought to kill them. Why did they want to kill the Son of God? Strange. They were complaining about the Lord Jesus and trying to criticize him for breaking the Sabbath day. And here they were about to turn around and blatantly break the law and kill them. How inconsistent.
accusing him for healing a man on the Sabbath day. And yet they were about to kill the man for nothing else when he did a good deed. He said, you do, when the eighth day comes around and your son's born, whether it's Sunday or not, the Sabbath day or not, you'll circumcise. You don't worry about the law then and about the Sabbath day, but here I heal a man. And you're ready to kill him. how in he consistently were. Now the Jews feast of tabernacles was at hand. His brethren, I want you to know this is, his brethren, who were they?
His four brothers. For he did have four brothers. And he had two sisters at least, because it reads about his sister that's in the pearl, whether he had two or three, we know not. But we know he had Brethren, if you find that, if you want to read it over in Mark six and also in Matthew thirteen and Matthew twelve, James, Joseph, Simon, Judas, not Judas of Sarriot. That was quite a common name back there, but he had four brethren. And here are his brethren. What do they say? His brethren therefore sit under him in verse three, depart hence and go into Judea, that thy disciples, now he's referring that the poor brethren are talking about his disciples, his followers.
Thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest. For there is no man to doeth anything in secret, and he himself secret to be known openly, if thou doest these things, show thyself the word. If you're doing these things around here in your hometown, And you claim you're the king of Israel. And you're someday going to rule this world if you speak popularly. Go on up to the big city and show these miracles and thus reveal to them that you are the son of God. Don't stay right here around your own home. Here are his own more brethren telling him to do that. It's an amazing thing, isn't it?
Depart hence and go up to you. of peace. They come from all over the country to up there and perform their ministry. It's kind of difficult to understand that these four brethren and sisters have lived with the Son of God for thirty years. That's about how old it was when he began the public ministry. That man never told a lie. The Lord Jesus never said anything in this. He lived the perfect life He was obedient to his parents. For at the age of twelve, he went, as he's reading Luke two, and was obedient unto them.
What a young man he must have been, an honest worshiper in the carpenters' walk, a sinless man, and here are four sinful brothers, that they were born of Joseph, Jesus Christ, what? Yet they criticized him. And he put them on the spot, for he tells them, as you'll notice, in verse five and six. For neither did his brethren and four brothers believe on them. Then said Jesus, Jesus said unto them, My time is not yet come. Your time is always ready.
You can go where you like and do what you like. I can't. My life is governed by my father, which is in heaven. It's not appropriate for him for me to go up at this moment. You can do with the life. Go on up to three of the feet. Go the first day. Go through the whole seven days. But he said, it's not my father's will that I go at this moment. And then he really lays it on in verse seven. The world cannot take me. cannot hate you, but me it hathes, because I testify of it that the works that are off are evil.
What a singing of the youth. He smuts a saying to his brothers, you're of the world, and you're talked about the world. In other words, you're unsubjected. He tells them that. He says the world cannot hate you. The world hates me because I rebuke it. I expose it to evil deeds. There was no fellowship between his poor brothers and himself. I don't know what a sister is. Luckily, they were along with the brothers. They were uncontested human beings. They did not believe their brother was the son of God.
They did not believe. He was the one that was sinless, come down from heaven, and was going to redeem the nation of Israel and the invention of the world. His presence did not believe it. Now this ought to be encouraging. A man or a woman, a Christian, can be a wonderful Christian and live in a home where his testimony is not received. that happens with the Lord Jesus Christ. No matter how they seek to live for Christ, their testimony is not believed.
That's a sad, sad situation that is as often seen. I trust and I pray that your testimony will be true, but if it's not, just don't worry about it. Although be exercised about it, They may have a reason for not believing your testimony. In connection with the Lord Jesus, they didn't have a reason. His life was sinless. No Christian's life was sinless. But even at that, I know Christians who are living godly lives in their own family their life. Why? They're families in the world. And all they talk about is the world.
All they enjoy is the world. They're for the world. born-again Christian isn't. Christ says, I'm not a good world. The world hates me because I rebuke it. And I'll see what it is. A Christian who lives a separate life, lives a Christ-like life, he is not of this wicked world, mistakes. And he rebukes things that are in the world. He condemns things that are in the world. And the world hates me. The Lord Jesus said in John seventeen, marvel not that the world hates you. It hated me before it hated you. It hated the Lord Jesus because his life was a reduced to a wickedness.
So everybody should be exercised. Christians should be exercised about their life in the world and in their own family. A man or woman can't give grace or force salvation on his own family. God has got to do that. All you can do is live Christ before him. But sometimes people do not live before their families as truth. I read the Sunday of a man who was a member of a church. And he asked the pastor to go and see his stuff.
He said, my boy's on sick beds. I don't think he's going to make it. And I want the pastor to go and have a good talk with him. The pastor did. I'd talk to this boy, but he was not interested. And he ended up in a conversation saying, boy, your father is beaten. concerned about you and interested about you and your spiritual condition. Boy says, he says, let me just say that again. He says, your father is deeply concerned and interested in you and your spiritual condition.
Boy says, that's strange. I'm twenty-one years old, and my father remembered a church that he's never spoken to once in my life about salvation. How about that? Yes, some children, some children can. My parents say they're fifty, but they haven't spoken to me once about families and about the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus lived a sinless life, and yet his brethren did not believe on him. The rebuke will be there, but it's wonderful to read the Bible records.
After his resurrection they believed, they did not believe that their own daughter, in the flesh, they did not believe he was the son of God until he rose from the dead. Then they believed, then they became children. But how much they saw knew before they were convinced that he was what he claimed to be the son of the living God. You notice how he stunned them on this occasion. And I mean stunned them. In verses fifty and sixty, I want you to know this.
In verse fourteen. Now about the midst of the feast, about the middle of the week, because the feast lasted the whole week. Now about the midst of the week, Jesus went up into the temple and taught. And the Jews marveled, saying, How nor did this man's letter, having never learned, in our schools we did for Christ. Now the man that they were trying to catch, and they were going to kill, he turns up right in the temple. He didn't go up with the caravans and groups as the others did. He went alone. He tells you that.
He went alone. And he turns up right in the temple about the Middle Ages. And he starts with this. My, these Pharisees, these Jews, they were sons. How long was this man never? And he never gone to school for our theological seminar. Why, he wrote the Old Testament. The same would tell us about David and all the other stuff. Where did he get it? He's got it at home, leaving the Old Testament scriptures. There's no second. But at the age of twelve, he reads, he describes in the Pharisees and the priests about spiritual things.
He was a walking Bible, the Lord Jesus. Not only the living word, he was the written word. He opened unto them in Luke twenty-fourth. All of the scriptures, as in Moses and the prophets and the crowns he opened unto them, and all the scriptures were seen concerning himself. The Lord Jesus was the word of God personified, and he began to treat them. In his own town, over in Luke four, they marveled at the gracious words that were seated out of his mouth. Here his enemies had to admit, he was a mob. He was a mob. He was a mob. He was a mob. He was a mob.
the word of God. And the Lord said something here in those verses. I want to draw your attention to. Verse sixteen, and Jesus answered them and said, My doctrine is not mine, but is the settler. In other words, what I'm telling you, I didn't get it from men. I didn't get it from myself. I got it from God. Verse seventeen, if any man will do his, God will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself. He that speaketh of himself speaketh his own glory.
A man who teaches his own ideas and thoughts exalt himself. But he that seeks the glory of him that sets me, God, if you keep God's thoughts and God's words, you exalt him. You don't exalt yourself. But notice that verse, Timothy, that any man will do his will. He shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself. If you want to know whether I'm telling you the truth, just believe it and find out and see what God will do. And God will then negate the truth.
When you preach the gospel to a person, And that person is anxious and wants to be saved, you give them Christ, as he's presented in the Bible. That's the will of God. And God will vindicate that. And say that sinner, when that sinner does what God says that he should do, except the Lord be as high as his person is. You shall know. And God will make it through any man that doesn't preach the gospel. And he says that verse will say good, life will say, God's not going to vindicate that. Or the Ten Commandments will say, God won't vindicate that. But if you take Christ and Christ only, and it's worked upon the cross, his resurrection, his ascension, and appearance of God's right hand in the fact he's coming again, preach that.
And God will vindicate it. And bless his world and bless sinners and bless God's people. That's what he thought. If any man will do his will, what Christ will seek, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself. He accused them of the unreality of their lawlessness. He does that later on. The Lord went to that for the morning. Now you find the people on their turning against them in verse twenty. The people answered and said, Thou hath the devil who goes about the killing.
Even after the Jews were marveled at the person of Christ and his presentation of the truth of God, the Jews at the beginning they were afraid to kill Christ because they were afraid of the people, public opinion, very important. But now to the delight of some of these Jews, The public is turning against Christ. He said he's got a devil. They didn't mind that. They were looking for a real sin, even after it. They marveled at his teaching and he was looking for a reason that put him to death. Often, when you stop to think that verse is twenty-three and four in each, you read.
Verse twenty-one. Jesus answered and said, And then I have done one word. and he all marveled. Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision, not because it was of Moses, but when the father circumcision was in effect long before the law was given, and ye on the Sabbath day certain sight, or man, if a man on the Sabbath day receives circumcision, but the law of Moses should not be broken, are ye angry at me because I made a man every bit old on the Sabbath day? Judd not according to the appearance that the judge writes himself. judge not according to a killer. So often we do judge according to a killer, criticize people for something we do and we don't know the circumstances.
And one night in a Pullman coach, a man tried to quieten a little baby. It was crying and suffering. Finally a passenger struck his head out through the curtains on the coach in his book, and he called out to all that hear, why don't you take that baby to his mother so he can get them sleep? The voice came back before her father replied, I only wish that I could. But she died yesterday, and her body is in the bag that's closed up inside. We're taking her home to bury her tomorrow.
The man who made that critical remark was the first set of his books. A man to that poor farmer, Father, give me your child, I nurse, if you get to know him, please. He saw his mistake. The house walked away and made critical remarks that he don't understand the truth of God. The Lord Jesus was being criticized for some shouldn't believe how much much of the human heart. Today, people are criticized for things they do, and we don't understand the circumstances. Now you come to some of the very important factors.
We haven't time to bring them all first. Often we're criticized, and we don't understand things, and then he comes out then. He asserts his deity in verses twenty-eight and twenty-nine. You can read verses twenty-eight and twenty-nine if you will. Then they sent the soldiers to arrest him. Go and arrest him, that man. And when the soldiers came, they couldn't put their hands on him. Strange, wouldn't they? The kind of soldiers. They came to arrest this man. And they only came so far. and there was a war. When they tried to put him to death back in Luke chapter four, they took him under the prow of the hill, and they couldn't go move him.
My time has not yet come. I've come to die on the cross, and no man will keep me from it. They tried to throw him over the prow of the hill, but... something held in the back. The soldiers came to apprehend them and couldn't. And they went back and told the priest, they said, why have you not got it? Never man speak like this man. We never heard anybody speak like this man. And they were trickling with fear. They couldn't put their hands on the Lord Jesus Christ. No. The Son of God could not be put to death.
I'm saying the time came. Mine hour is not yet. And only when that time came and it did come. But it was ready to run. And give his life to the advancement of the Lord. How wonderful. God scheduled. God's time came. The Lord Jesus Christ. Even when these little leases. He was subject to his father's will in every step he took. He said, he opened his mind ear morning by morning and his whole pathway was directed. But now the moment has come for him to make the most famous declaration up till now in his ministry.
He watched the congregation in that temple and what happened. in verses, first the amuse the most important verses of our chapter, verse thirty-seven. In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood in sight, saying, If any man thirsts, that him come unto me and drink thee, that the leave of on thee, as the scripture said, out of the valley are in the pots that will live on living water. The great climax. The feast has run seven days. The Jews are mad. The people are divided. The feast has come to an end with all its fanfare and merry-making.
The water supply has run out, and the people are thirsty. And hear the voice of the Son of God brings out to that crowded country. The very man thirsts. Yes, he should. and he cries. The servant stands and he cries at the intensity of what he's got to say, if any man thirsts. I cannot be a Jew, Gentile, white or black. If any man thirsts, this is what he says, is the appeal. What's the invitation, the appetite, if any man thirsts?
What do you thirsts? The thirst of the mind for knowledge. The thirst of the heart for love. The thirst of the conscience for peace. The thirst of the spirit of the soul now. If any man thirsts, let him come unto me. And this, how wonderful, let him come unto me. Not let him go and join the church. not let him go and live a good life, not let him go or even be baptized, let him come unto me.
If any man thirsts, let him come unto me. No person has ever lived in this world or come to earth should make that remark. If you're thirsty, I care not the variety of your thirsts, I care not the magnitude of your church. I care not about the quality or the quantity of your church. Come unto me, and I'll give you what you want. Let him come unto me and drink. Thus the atrocious, take what he offered you. Go the affluence, the affluence and abundance of what he said.
Let him come unto me. is abundant pardon, abundant purity, abundant satisfaction, abundant peace, abundant youthfulness, abundant fullness, let it come unto you. And this, that's what is off for you this morning. I wonder if you're ready to step within the faith. What must the effect, the impact of that message been on that crowd that day? He had gone through seven days of religious activities, a lot of marination, the feast of Passover, was to thank God for the bountiful things of earth, how they had celebrated.
Now it all comes to the end, and they're no better off than when they started. All they thanked God for was their material blessings. But now here is one with the personification of both physical and material. Jesus or spiritual, the Lord Jesus. It is what you people need. You need the living water. You need spiritual blessings. And that's what I've come to you with. That's what I offer you now. Living water, something that's abundant, clear, and pure, a thousand little cities in one God, it's all in Christ, come underneath and live.
What satisfaction it is in Christ. One time a group of white missionaries went to a tribe in Africa where the people were very black. They stood up on the hill as they looked down upon the little village, and they commended themselves to God, asking His protection, not knowing what might be for them. Slowly they went down the hill, down the hill, and when they dropped to the little village, the crowd began to gather round. The head of that little band of missionary spoke to them in their own tongue. Finally a little boy made a move from the crowd and he walked over to the man who had spoken and he took his hand and he looked at it and he does it.
He says, Master, will you tell me the river where you washed your hands so clearly? I don't know what river he might have mentioned to the boy. You asked me this morning, for a rift and can you tell me a river where I can walk away my sin. Yes, there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's name, may blame. And sinners come beneath that blood, leave all that with me saved. There you see soaring from his chains his head, his hands, his feet free.
precious blood, that and that old will wash away your skin, will wash your black heart white, and you can be saved if you are dead and come unto me and think, come unto me and find rest, come unto me and be saved and come unto me and be satisfied. Man may say, there's a lot of gold in the minds of us, but I have none in my pocket. Man may say in all over the world that our starving people, and they say, well, there's plenty of food in the world, but my stomach's empty.
So families can say in desert lands, oh, that I might have some water. There's lots of it in the world, but I'd like to drink. Others may say there are plenty of blind people all over the world, but there are more who can see. I wish I had my sight. The poor could say how many rich people there are in the world. There's so much money in the world that I don't have a penny. Others can say there's salvation in the world.
I'm not millions of people who are saved and have their sins forgiven or going to heaven, but I'm lost. I'd like to be saved. Goodness, I challenge you. I say, yes, I want to be saved. I want to be saved now. I want my sins forgiven now. I want peace with God now. I want everlasting light now. The Lord Jesus says, come unto me and me. Come and get it. He is the source of it all. Make no distance, your age, your intelligence, away from a man, the way to your fool, need not err, but in him.
He will offer it to you. Please deliver. When you come to sight, when you come to smell, When you come out, if any man thirsts, let him come unto me and drink, he that believeth on me as the scripture hath said, Out of his inward thought, he had bloated, shall dust, living water. Living water, not filthy water, but living water. Not to you. There's an abundance of supply. for me, for whatever it is, when we receive Christ, when we receive Him.
Right now, do you say I will? If you mean that with all your heart, then God doesn't save you, then God has told a lie of that which I never will. He says, in the cometh unto me, I will in no way, under no purpose, not for the world. Come to Christ. As you are. Come now. And we pray. Our Father in heaven, in the name of the Lord Jesus, we commend for thy presence. We ask thy blessings upon thy holy word.
We thank thee for the favor we have to present. We thank thee for thy living words that you can speak. We thank you we have the utmost confidence in this ability to save. We are born again by the word of God. We pray for any of us born who are not Christian, but they are not saved. They may have criticized Christ, my word, thy people, but still be saved. So we pray that as we sing our chosen hymn, someone in this audience, We'll have the courage to confess Christ as Savior and as Lord.
We ask that in His word in Him. Amen. Shall we sing, closing, three hundred and seventy-six, three hundred and seventy-six. Come out of my bonded sorrow and light. Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come into thy freedom, gladness and blood. Jesus, I come to be. Out of my sickness into thy health. Out of my want and into thy wealth. Out of my sin. And into thy sight, Jesus, I come to be. So we stand, please. Oh, it was my father's father's last night.
He was my father. He was my father. Never knew I'd believe of the last of my life. Jesus, I come to thee. I'm my strength and fill thy belt. How thy road has this thy world? How Verse three, out of unrest, and don't tell me you don't know from unrest.
You can't live in today's restless world without being restless of heart about what the people hold. Out of unrest, and here's the problem. An arrogant pride. that wicked thing, cry. The very thing that brought about Satan's fall in the beginning, cry. Come out of that. The Jesus. He's the humble one. He's the restful one. Come as we sit with him. Out of the dreads and air of the bright, In thy calm, in thy calm, in thy blessing will, of thy might, In of thy bondage, In the
last verse, and our meeting will be concluded. come out of fear. You don't want to come for the other reason. The fear of the fear. And we're going to be there. Sunday. Out of the fear that dwells on the moon. Peace as I come. Peace as I come. And the joy that lies on my home. See if I come to see you, after the death of your children will know that you love me by the gathering of you.
to be the Lord. He was my heart to be. Mark the night. Sunday night.