Gooding, David: 3 - On the Road with Jesus

Marvelously good to see you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for coming. It takes my breath away to see you here, so many of you again, after the rigors of our last session together. You have, I gather, all of you, and if you haven't, stick up your hand at this appropriate moment, a copy of this sheaf of notes. There are some still that do not possess them. And while they are being handed out, let me explain what they are. They are not meant to be a thoroughgoing analysis of this part of the gospel by John. They are a rough working sketch summarizing some of the details that we considered on the last occasion. And on the last occasion also, we ended up with a problem, and some people took it away to do some homework on it in the intervening weeks, and are all raring to tell us what they have found, you'll see. Eh, and that is a problem with what I have listed as number six, the sixth column, which is the topic of the nobleman's son. Hence the question marks that abound down that column. Now, some of you are here for the first time, so before we proceed with the business that remained over from last week, namely that story of the nobleman's son, let us first, uh, recap very briefly, uh, the major things that we were talking about on the last occasion, and use this present occasion to burn into our minds, and better still into our understandings, the three technical terms that I have put up here on the board, namely structure, thought flow, and pattern. These are terms that I shall be using again tonight, and in the ensuing weeks, God willing, using them many, many times. I shall be using them, uh, because I have found them helpful in my own study, particularly of narrative books of scripture. And I therefore introduce them to you simply for that reason. You too may find them in your study of use in analyzing narrative portions of the Bible. Structure then, thought flow, and pattern. These three, and the greatest of these is... thought flow. Thank you so very much. The greatest of these is thought flow. So if you forget the other two and what they stand for, uh, don't cry your heart out. The major thing to get hold of is thought flow. So on the last occasion, we looked, first of all, for the structure of the gospel by John, and thought we found it in the fact that the gospel by John is the record of a number of journeys which our Lord Jesus took from Galilee to Jerusalem on the occasion of the great national religious holidays. The journeys that he took from Galilee to Jerusalem and then back to Galilee. We got the hint, of course, from chapter two and verse thirteen. And the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. The twin idea of a festival, a religious festival of, festival of the Jews at Jerusalem, and our Lord setting out from Galilee to go to Jerusalem. And we traced the reference to that journey. You see, it could have been, couldn't it, that the mention of the journey was only an incidental circumstantial detail, thereafter, uh, to be forgotten because insignificant. But not so here. As we trace the thought flow through, we found reference to this journey cha- again and again, chapter two verse twenty three. now when he was in Jerusalem. Or again, verse, uh, chapter three verse twenty two. after these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judea. Again in chapter four, When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, verse three, he left Judea and departed again into Galilee, and he must needs pass through Samaria. And continuing the story, he comes to the city of the Samaritans later in that chapter. Then verse forty three: and after the two days he went forth from thence into Galilee. Verse forty five: so when he came into Galilee, the Galileans received him, having seen all the things that he did in Jerusalem at the feast, for they also went to the feast. So he came therefore again unto Cana of Galilee. Verse forty seven: when this nobleman heard that Jesus was come out of Judea into Galilee. And finally, in verse fifty four: this is again the second sign that Jesus did have Judea into Galilee. There is no mystery, ladies and gentlemen, in deciding what the structure of a historical book is. Normally, at least, there is no mystery. It's not a question of pulling rabbits out of a hat or any such like occupation. The thing is to do, to start at the beginning. It's always a useful start place to start and to follow the thought flow. It is thought flow that decides structure, of course. And we checked upon that. We looked, put our noses over the wall for chapter two to the end of four had told us of the first journey from Galilee to Jerusalem and back via Samaria. When our Lord had got back, we then put our noses over the wall and found that in chapter five John tells us that after these things there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went out to Jerusalem. And chapter five is the story of what he did there, and chapter six is the story of some of the things he did when he got back to Galilee. And that journey being complete, chapter seven follows the same pattern. Chapter seven, eight, nine, and ten are a third journey that our Lord took to Jerusalem and then away from it. And the fourth and final great section of the book is the story of yet a fourth journey that our Lord made to Jerusalem and back. So that's what we did the first time, and I have recorded that little fact on the top of your sheet, Gospel of John, structure equals storyline. That's all. A journey to Jerusalem and back to Galilee via Samaria. Second, we then looked at the contents of this first great section, the first journey to Jerusalem and back, and we analyzed them. How did we analyze them? How does one go about analyzing the contents of a structure? Well, by thought flow. You'll see. We, uh, started with story number one and tried to follow the story and decide where the story ended. Now, sometimes that's a little bit difficult. That is with your friends, you know, isn't it? Now, I don't know if you've noticed how some people tell you a story. Here's Mrs. uh, Zeff- Hephzibart, you'll see, and she tells you the story. I went down, do you know what? I went downtown the other day to get a a present, a a wedding present for my next door neighbor's, uh, daughter. Oh, yes, yes, yes, that was interesting. And what did you get? Oh well, when I got downtown, there was a bomb outside the shop, so I couldn't go in there, do you see? There have been a lot of bombs about the place, aren't there, do you see? There was one in Toronto the other day, and my uncle was there, uh, do you see, and he suffered an unfortunate accident. I say, yes, well, that's terrible, terrible. But now, is this the same story, or have you veered off course, do you say? Oh yes, ah, ah, we come back to the story, you see. Uh, yeah, you were, you were going downtown, weren't you, to get a present for your, your neighbor's daughter? Oh yes, yes, and I, I did, you see, but I couldn't go in the first shop. I went in the second. I was ever glad. And when this, this, the girl saw me at the shop, she said, oh, I think I know you. Aren't you Mr. Smith's daughter? And I said, yes, oh, I knew Mr. Smith before he went to Australia. You know he went to Australia. A- a- a- a- and now he's chief of police in Australia. You'll say, well, now wait a minute. Is this the same story you're telling as you told before? Oh, what was that? Well, you were going to buy a present for your... Yeah, sometimes it gets a bit muddled up, doesn't it? Yes. People start one story and go on to the next. There's a job to know where the first one is finished and the next one starts. Well, that can happen. It doesn't normally happen in inspired scripture, ladies and gentlemen. The Holy Spirit knows how to tell a story. And he knows how to begin, and how to go through the middle, and how to come to the climax at the end, the real big punchline. You'll see. So we tried thought flow to decide now what are the contents, and came up by that means with the fact that there seemed to us to be six major stories, eh, in this section, and I have listed them in the appropriate columns. Then we asked ourselves, was there any topic or topics that go through all these six stories? That's a way of following thought flow, isn't it? Or were they six stories about things that happened in themselves, utterly unrelated as to their subject matter, but six stories that happened to happen in on that particular journey and back. Not everything that happened on any one day are related, are they? I mean, you think of those ten thousand and things you do on any day you get up and you shave, gentlemen, and bath and take your shower, and uh, then you have your breakfast, and there's a letter in the post telling you that if only you send it back again, somebody's going to give you fifty thousand pounds, i- if you're lucky, you'll see. And uh, all there's that thing in the garden that has to be done, and you make a note of that. But then you go off to work, you'll see, and uh, oh, by the time you've come to bed at night, you've done a whole host of things. They're not all related. The bits about work perhaps are related, but they have very little to do with your choice of marmalade that you had at breakfast, you'll see. So, are the stories, these six stories, they all happened within that context of our Lord's going to Jerusalem and back. Are they in any way related? Have they anything in common? Is there a thought flow going through all six? And, uh, we decided, yes, there was. We first of all asked what these festivals were. This is one example of them. Our Lord went down to Jerusalem on the occasion of Passover, time of the great national celebration of Passover, one of the great yearly religious festivals. And of course, it starts, as you see, column one, with the cleansing of the temple. We're in the temple at Jerusalem. And then with one of the leading theologians at Jerusalem, the conversation with Nicodemus, column two, uh, the leading theologian in Jerusalem at the time. And then from that learned theologian, very sedate and proper, you'll come into Judea, uh, column 3, to that rather wild and very popular preacher, John the Baptist. You know, you must have a, a proper selection, mustn't you, anyway, among the preachers, you see. Uh, and then on the way back, you, we came to, uh, Samaria and the conversation with the Samaritan woman, you'll see. Then, once more, the disciples of Jesus, and finally back in, in, um, uh, Galilee, the nobleman's son. What have they got to do with each other? Look at the, uh, uh, squares that say repeated themes. There was the worship and service of God, first of all, the orthodox worship and service of God in Jerusalem. Then there was the leading theologian who would control, by his expositions of scripture, the behavior of the people and their worship in the temple. There was the popular preacher, John the Baptist. These themes all related to the worship and the service of God in what you might call orthodox Judaism. In the second half, at Samaria, we noticed the worship of God went on, but it was highly unorthodox. And columns four and five are concerned with the unorthodox worship of God in Samaria. And then finally we come to, uh, column six, and we put question marks there. We do notice that in that place, in that column, you'll meet another prophet, a prophet who said of himself that a prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, but back in Galilee he had originally been without honor. You'll see. So we look to see the themes that go through, and then we noticed other things about at that level. For instance, in column one, the cleansing of the temple took the form of our Lord's rebuke for the misrepresentation of God in that temple, whereas they had turned the temple into a money-making emporium. And our Lord most, uh, most, uh, indignantly threw them out. What was wrong? Representing God as though he was selling salvation, making religion a matter of making money out of people's spiritual needs. Ah, but then we notice that column two, in the course of our Lord's conversation with Nicodemus, there is expounded to us this most marvelous verse in the Bible. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, the great gift of God. And we notice how that contrasts with the emphasis on money making in the temple. And then we notice again in column, uh, four, in talking to the woman, our Lord once more mentions the gift of God. This time the gift of God is not the Son of God, it is the Spirit of God. So that is one of the major ideas that begins to link this. And the point of noticing the similarities that link these stories together is to notice also how they contrast. And if we were preaching John three today and John four tomorrow. And we got hold of the first point, namely, what we've got to get across now is that religion has often been represented in the world as a means of making money. And we all know the scandal of the American TV evangelists. And we all know the medieval scandal of people selling indulgences. We also are aware of the more sophisticated and perhaps a little bit more respectable misunderstanding of the gospel that represents it to people as though they can earn salvation and buy salvation by their good behavior. So we shall have to point out the falsity of that notion, and then we shall have to begin to emphasize that salvation is the gift of God. Ah, we do it in the conversation with Nicodemus, to say, for God so loved the world that he gave. What should we say tomorrow when we've got to preach in chapter four and it's on the gift? Shall we be repeating the same thing? Well, not quite the same thing. God's gift is double, as we saw last week. In chapter three, it's the gift of the sun. In chapter uh four, it is the gift of the living water, which I personally think means the gift of the Holy Spirit. Then we noticed that, uh, column three is related to column two. Column two uh, presents our blessed Lord Jesus as the one who comes from above. You'll see, telling us that we need to be born from above. Column three is a conversation with, uh, John the Baptist, in which he discusses his role as a servant of God, his role as the forerunner of Christ, his relationship, therefore, to Christ. And John the Baptist, uh, points out that because our Lord Jesus is the one from above who has come down from heaven, the Lord Jesus must be preeminent above all other servants of God. And even John himself, who was the greatest of all the prophets, says that because of who Jesus is, I must decrease and he must increase. And John points out to his disciples how very careful he is not to trespass as a servant of God on the dignity and the unique glory of the Lord Jesus. He says it, doesn't he, in that famous analogy, he who has the bride is the bridegroom. My joy is to hear the bridegroom's voice, you'll see. Lovely notion. In the ancient world, I don't know how it happens in the modern world, for I'm completely ignorant of these things, but you'll see, in the ancient world, uh, the bridegroom's friend could, uh, on occasions, introduce the bride to the bridegroom, you'll see. It's a good looking girl here, and father is well off, and would you be interested in all that? And I think I could put a word in for you, and so on. Comes the moment when he leads the girl to the bride. Marvelous. That's his job. But then he has to be careful what he does next, doesn't he? He must get out of the way now. Because what do you think of the best man, you see, uh, if, um, he said to the girl, now look here, I've introduced you to, uh, your husband to be, you see, but you can't come to him direct, you know. Oh no, you have to come through me. So when it comes to doing your courting, uh, from now on, you come to me and, uh, tell me what you would like me to, and then I will tell the raigun, you see. And conversely, when he tells me all the lovely things he thinks about you, then I will tell you, but you can come direct. What a trespass that would be. What a misconception of the relation of the servant to his lord. And of course, you've never been tempted to do that, have you? But some have. In the realm of religion, telling the people they can't come direct to God, but must come through intermediaries. And sometimes it can happen in the church. Paul warned the believers at the elders at Ephesus, didn't he? Of men that will arise wanting to draw away the disciples after them, instead of leading the disciples to the Lord Jesus. And though John was an in- uh, of a a majestic prophet, he was the greatest of all that were born of women, the greatest of all the prophets. He was careful not to trespass on the unique dignity and rights of the blessed Lord whom he served. And having introduced his disciples to Christ, he stepped backward. He must increase, Christ must increase, says he, and I. Relation, therefore, of the servant to the Lord and the principles of service that that will introduce. Similarly, we notice that, uh, uh, column five is, uh, related to column four in that same way, or rather in a similar way. And you'll see in column four you have our Lord in that well-known story bringing satisfaction to the Samaritan woman at the well. Her life had been full of disappointment. Family life, married life had been a disaster, and in that circumstance, religion had been of very little help, as dry as dust. See? And, uh, now she meets our Lord, and he ministers to her and points her to the source of never failing satisfaction, the well of water springing up into eternal life. And the woman gets this gift eventually. So here's the preaching of the gospel to the sinner, as we say, offering satisfaction. Ah, but the next paragraph, uh, next column five, introduces not the disciples of John, but the disciples of Jesus. And in that column, there is discussed once more the question of principles of service. Only this time it is the satisfaction that is to be got out of service, particularly in the middle part. For when the disciples came and found the Lord Jesus talking to the woman, they were surprised. And when the woman went off, the disciples came and urged him to eat, and he said, but gentlemen, I have a food to eat that you know nothing of. My food is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work. And then he went on to talk to the disciples of the tremendous rewards that there are to be had in serving the Lord. It is right, gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, that we get satisfaction out of the gospel, and we preach this glorious message of satisfaction to the unconverted, now none but Christ can satisfy. It is also right and very necessary that we get satisfaction and reward out of the work we do for the Savior. Or if we go about our work for the Savior as though it were a penal servitude that we're driven to by some terrible sense of compulsion and find it a perpetual agony, the idea of God that that will give folks around will completely cancel out any message that you try to put across that salvation brings satisfaction, won't it? So, functionally then, we saw how these stories are interrelated by their general themes. What we haven't done, of course, is what we should do, what all great short, uh, proper expositors should do, was to take each story and start it at the beginning, follow the thought flow. But we haven't all the time there is, and I must push on now to other things for a while. We shall presently come back to the importance of thought flow. You see, but having said all that and found all that, we came, uh, to a little difficulty in our study. We noticed that there was a story at the end, chapter forty four, verses forty- forty-three to fifty-four. The story of the nobleman of Capernaum who came and asked our Lord to come and heal his, uh, son because he was at the point of death. And we said to ourselves, now look here, here is a problem. If column two, conversation with Nicodemus, and column three uh are very closely related by their contents. And then column four and column five uh are closely related by their contents. That story of the nobleman and his son, is that related to anything? Or is it just hung on at the end? You know how it is, uh, ladies and gentlemen, when you are constructing the family album, you'll see. Then I've gone out of, uh, popularity nowadays, I gather. Uh, you're shown videos now, but in my youth, when you went on preaching tours, uh, after the day's duties and after supper at night, your hostess would be liable to get out the photo, uh, album of the family, we'll say. Ha ha, show the families. And there's that, you say, how, oh, then you, then you don't say what you're going to do. Who's that lady there in that funny looking hat? But you don't say that because that was your hostess herself, you see, way back in the nineteen twenties when they didn't think that kind of hat was funny. Uh, you'll see, uh, uh, and you go through, and here's my daughter's wedding here, do you see, on on these two pages. Oh, magnificent. There's the girl getting, uh, into the car, and there she is getting out of the car, and then she's going into the church, and then she's coming out, and oh, no, like that. And you say, what? Oh, yes, yes, yes, but who on earth is this? It looks like a chimney sweep, uh. Was a chimney sweep at your wedding? Oh, no, no, no, no, that's nothing to do with it, really, you see. Uh, that was another occasion altogether, uh, you'll see, um, well, the the chimneys nearly went on fire, and we called the sweep, and he looked so funny when he came, we took a photograph of him, and I didn't know where else to put it in, so I put it in the book here, do you see? It's nothing to do with the wedding. Oh, well, I see. Well, I think, all right then, there's nothing wrong with that, is there? Is this nobleman's son here? A story like that, nothing to do with the others, but it happened, so why not put it in here? Well, it could be, couldn't it? And if it turns out to be that, we have no grounds for complaint, ladies and gentlemen. But it's there, it's valuable in itself, and do let me repeat, I shall be talking a lot in these studies, if you dare to persevere in them, of structure, indeed of symmetries from time to time, and of functional relationships and all that type of thing. Don't let it discourage you. If you understand one story in John- John's gospel and none of the others, neither that which comes before or that which comes after, don't be daunted, preach the one you know. And if you only know one verse, John three sixteen or something, preach that, even if you can't preach John three fifteen or seventeen either. Nothing wrong in so doing. But if the nobleman's son story was meant to have something to do with the other stories, would be nice to know, wouldn't it? That would help to get the story in focus, you'll see. And the question that arose was, hmm, seeing the other four are in two pairs, two and three, and then four and five, and when you, if you were preaching them, you'd need to preach them together, so to speak, those two pairs. Uh, would it be possible that the nobleman's son story has something to do with the story that's left, that is number one at the beginning. And all sorts of people went away to consider that in their homework. I wish I could come around every seat and ask you individually what you have found. We'll see. Perhaps I ought to ask for a general, uh, uh, response. Uh, those who did find that story four— uh, six, sorry, story six had anything to do with story one, would they, um, raise their hands or stamp the floor? That's the people that found that story, uh, six had something to do with story one. Uh, Two, I found, two volunteers. And those who discovered that it hadn't anything to do with, uh, story one at all. Uh, and that's one good gentleman over there. It is presumed that all the others didn't bother to do the homework. Undecided. Uh, oh, undec- oh yes, undecided and left it in the balance. Oh, I see. That's safe, you know, when you're asked for your opinion in front of a number like this, isn't it, Otto? There doesn't seem to be much support, uh, forthcoming, ladies and gentlemen, from where I stand, on the notion that it is, uh, uh, that the stories have anything in common. Two have admitted that they think they see. One says no, the others are undecided. So what shall we do? The answer to that is, surely, first of all, that we don't try to force anything. Comparing one story with another can be very useful and sometimes very important. But, while there is such thing as structure, and there is such thing as pattern, there is thought flow. These three, and the greatest of these is thought flow. Don't, uh, try to force things, whatever you do. What we must now do is to look at the sixth story in its own sake. Forget all the others, forget, you know, be prepared to forget that they're there. Just take the story in column six and follow the thought flow through. You'll see. I cannot emphasize that too much, because sometimes when people wake up to the fact that our gospels are carefully put together and sometimes functionally stories functionally related with comparisons and contrasts, then like a dog that puts his nose in cheese, they smell cheese everywhere else thereafter. And whatever they say is about contrasts and comparisons between different stories. That's useful, but pray remember, if I may use an analogy, you know, you, like me, have often been out to a delightful, uh, banquet, haven't you, put on by some sophisticated hostess. You'll say, marvelous. You don't really know how you enjoy it, really. It is so marvelous. I, I, I often find that, you'll say, it's so dis- even if it's beans and sausages, somehow they taste different. I don't know what it is, whether they get them out of different tins or something. Uh, but when they do the beans and sausages, it's, it tastes so much different, you'll see. I haven't got the courage to ask my hostess, how did you do it? In case she got it out of Marks and Spencer's. Uh, you'll see, but uh, not normally, you'll see. If you went into the kitchen and uh, uh, and uh, asked the dear lady, she would tell you, yes, he didn't put on the table the first thing that came into her head. Right from the hors d'oeuvre through the soup and the fish course and the meat course and the sweet and the cheese and the dessert, everything was planned, you know. So that the soup, well, if the main dish demanded it, the soup would be clear soup and not a stodgy old soup because the, ah, the main dish is going to be a bit, not stodgy, but you're not only rather thick and heavy. And you'll have to balance that by a sweet that's very clear, you will see. You had a very rich main dish, you won't perhaps have a, a trick of pudding to follow. Perhaps something more in the way of sherbet or something, or mousse, do they? You know how it is. And you ladies have got it worked out to perfection, how you balance the thing. But when you see a poor chap like me come to sit down to the meal to enjoy it, you don't say, no, no, no, stop eating that soup, my boy. Nope, nope, don't eat that soup yet. Let me explain to you how that soup is, um, is calculated to balance the, the, the, the, the, the fruit dish at the end. Of course you don't. You'll say, poor chap is hungry. What does he want to know about the skills of the kitchen for? Let him get on with the soup to the very last drop. And if he's intelligent to ask at the end, uh, you know, how did you do all this, I could begin to tell him. Yes. Structure, thought flow, and pattern, and the greatest of these is thought flow. So let's come to chapter four. and we're going to read about the, um, uh, nobleman and his son. And we better start, you see, where John himself starts. He finishes off the Samaria, uh, episode in verse forty two and tells us in verse forty three, and after two days he went forth from thence into Galilee. For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. So let's read the story, and as we read it, see if we can discern any thought flow, if one idea leads on to another idea, or whether it's a succession of unrelated, arbitrary ideas, yes? And if ideas repeat themselves, and is there any progress in it? Uh, first of all, we read it. So when he came into Galilee, the Galileans received him, having seen all the things that he did in Jerusalem at the feast, for they also went unto the feast. He came therefore again into Cana of Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judea into Galilee, he went unto him and besought him that he would come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judea into Galilee, he went unto him. So we notice this business of, um, repeated having come out of Galilee, yes? Verse forty eight: Jesus therefore said unto him, except you see signs and wonders, you will in no wise believe. The, the, the verb is in the plural, except you, you, all you people round about here, not just you noblemen, but all you folks around here. Galileans they were. And you see how that follows on from verse forty five, don't you? The Galileans on this occasion, when he came back from Jerusalem, received him why? Hitherto he had had no honor in his own country. Jesus himself pointed that out. But now they received him. Why? Well, they'd been down to Jerusalem at the feast, and they'd seen all the things he did. They'd seen his signs, they'd seen his miracles down in Jerusalem. And now they received him because they'd seen the signs and seen the miracles. And this, uh, good man, you will say, he heard that Jesus, who dear to Galilee, came to sought him to heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Jesus therefore said, yes, but the trouble with you Galileans is... We are following the overflow. They were receiving him because they'd seen the signs. The trouble with you Galileans is that except you see signs and wonders, you will in no wise believe. The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die. Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way, thy son liveth. The man believed the word that Jesus spake unto him, and he went his way. As he was now going down his servants met him saying that his son lived. So he inquired of them the hour when he began to amend. They said therefore unto him, yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. So the father knew that it was at the hour in which Jesus said unto him, thy son lives, and himself believed, and his whole house. This is again the second sign that Jesus did, having come out of Judea into Galilee. Let's pick up one or two things. This is a reference to signs, therefore, and people believing because they see signs, and that's not the best attitude, really, you could possibly adopt. We get that impression. Then there is the matter of believing. How many times did this man believe? Well, according to the text, twice, yes. I don't know if that's allowed. You'll immediately see that perhaps this story has relevance to even to us here, because some dear Christians get very worried about, you know, when they believed. Well, when did they believe? They've heard, uh, evangelists say, my good sir, my good madam, uh, you'll need to be able to tell the very hour, you'll see, the very second when you first believe. How can you tell the hour? You can't tell the hour? Oh. Well, are you saved then? Um, so I went to the gospel meeting, was greatly upset, but that Friday night, eleven five PM, I knelt by my bedside, and God wrought the wonderful change, and I believe Friday the whatever it was. And since then, I've never beaten my wife again, only once. I don't say... and uh... a- a- a- and he can point to the day. And other good souls hearing this may say, well, I can't point to the day. I'm not quite sure where it was when I was eight or when I was sixteen or somewhere in between. Mm. This story could have something to do with that, wouldn't it? And then you can't, uh, escape the question of time, can you? You'll say, and the man got home and they said, your boy's well, the father didn't say, thank the Lord. He had a question or two to ask. He did a little research, and he inquired at what hour was it that the boy began to mend, and wasn't content until he'd worked it out on his fingers, counting the hours, do you see, exactly when it was that the boy was made well. When I get home to heaven, I have one question I'm going to ask the Lord, if I can permit it. When was I saved? Was I saved when I was ten? I certainly came to, uh, conscious faith in the Lord Jesus when I was ten. Sometimes I think I was saved when I was eight. I remember being very moved in meetings at that stage. You'll see. I think I'm going to ask the Lord when I get home, when will I actually save Lord? That has to wait, you see, till I get home, like the man in the story. You'll see. Uh, uh, uh, and uh, uh, uh, um, uh, the interest of exactly when it happened, therefore, is liable to be important. So we've noticed signs. And then we've noticed the question of believing, and then we've noticed the question of timing. So now let me go through that and try and sketch in the thought flow. Our Lord up in Galilee onto the feast and done many miracles down there, and the Galileans had gone and seen it. When he came back, now they were prepared to give him some honor because they saw the signs. Then there came this nobleman. His son was desperately ill, and in spite of all that the doctors could do, he was getting daily worse and now was hovering on the brink of death. Of course, while as the Lord was down in Jerusalem, it was hopeless. Couldn't contact him. Now, to his relief, he heard that the Lord Jesus had come back to Galilee, Joel say. Here, it seemed to him, was a hope. It must have been a terrible wrench, don't you think, ladies and gentlemen, to leave that boy hovering on the brink of death. A parent in that situation would feel, I must stay by the boy, he might die the next five minutes. I can't risk being away when he dies. I must be there in that moment. And yet, there being no other hope of salvation, he decides to leave him and comes all the way to Capernaum, which is at the top of the lake. I don't know whether he came by boat or by land, and he came down to halfway down the lake to Tiberias and up through the hills, I suspect, to Cana. Quite a journey. And at last he found the Lord breathless and anxious. He asked the Lord he would come. Notice his phrase. Will you come and, uh, uh, heal my son, Joel says. Come down and heal his son, for he is at the point of death. And our Lord made what at first sight appeared to be a very curious response. Except you'll see signs and wonders, he says. You will not believe. Look here, said the man, don't stand there talking theology. It's a time and place for that Lord. You don't get it. My boy's desperately ill. We can't afford to stand here talking theology. Uh, do you see, come down before my boy dies, and then we can talk theology. He hadn't got the drift of the, our Lord's remark, had he? That often happens to us when we first read the story. We don't see the point. What was the point of our Lord saying at this stage, except you see signs and wonders, you will not believe? Why raise that now when the man is in such urgent need and his boy is on the brink of death and the father is all tormented? Why raise it now? You'd have to explain that if you were a preacher, wouldn't you? The Lord was doing it for the man's comfort, of course. And he said, my dear good man, I don't need to come. Your boy lives. The boy is better. Uh, pardon? My, my boy lives? Yes, says the Lord, your boy lives. What do you think? Isn't that what you asked me? You asked me to come and heal he- your son. Well, I don't need to come. I can heal him from where I stand here. I have healed him. He's well and well. Oh. Well, this was something unexpected, wasn't it? That Christ could heal at a distance. Yes, said our Lord, uh, what I was observing was this. The trouble with you folks around here is that unless you see signs and wonders, you won't believe. And that being so, my good man, you're in for a rough ride this next twenty four hours. I'm telling you, your boy is healed. You can't see he's healed, can you? No, he couldn't, of course. It would be the next day before he got home and could see the evidence. But according to our Lord, the boy was healed. Now, if the man couldn't take the Lord at his word without seeing signs and wonders, that wouldn't undo the fact that the boy was healed, would it? Boy was healed. It would, uh, utterly destroy the man's peace of mind if he couldn't take the Lord's word without any evidence. I don't know what I would have done if I'd have been in that position to you. What would you have done? Thinking your boy one minute was desperately sick and about to die, you ask the Lord to come and heal him, and the Lord just stands there and says, I have healed him, go your way. What would you do? I think I decided, I don't know about that, I think I better make sure I put on a all afternoon prayer meeting and see if I can prevail upon the Lord. You know, yes, Lord, I know what you're saying, Lord, but um, you know, but um, but um, I I can't see it and I don't feel it, and uh, I don't feel any different from what I was, and uh, so uh, please, Lord, come. And that wouldn't have been faith, would it, on my part? That would have been positive unbelief. And the man, so scripture records, believed the word of the Lord Jesus. How do you know he did? He went his way. Didn't stop asking anymore. He, he went his way. Mm. All Oh, the the delightful simplicity of the gospel, ladies and gentlemen. I can't resist telling you a story that was told me in my youth, silly story in its way, but there you are, and you're far beyond this. You are at high level of theology on. But this was of a dear lady in a certain village in years gone ago, and in her village a preacher had come and preached the gospel, and she had been interested, but she hadn't been saved, and, uh, wanted to be, but somehow couldn't find a way, you'll see. And, uh, she invited the preacher to tea, and, uh, so the story goes, uh, the preacher couldn't get through by sheer reason, uh, to get the woman to see that all she had to do was to believe on the Lord Jesus. So, despairing of any other means, he said, he broke off the conversation and said, Madam, would you make me a cup of tea, please? Well, yes, of course, she said. And out she went and brought back the tea on its silver tray and all that, you'll see, and poured him out a China deluxe or whatever it was, and and went to hand him the tea. But he kept his hands closely folded. Oh, madam, he said, I wish you'd give me that tea. Yes, he said, uh, there it is. Ah, he said, you don't know how much I'd want it. I'd do anything to get that tea. Well, yes, I I you must be very thirsty, she said. Uh, uh, take it, yes. Oh, madam, he said, I plead with you. And going on out on his knees, please give me that tea. He began to think he'd taken leave of his senses. It is for you, man, take it, she said. Madam, he said, why do you treat God like it? We come and ask for salvation, and the Bible has it. Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Everyone that asketh, everyone that seeketh, everyone that knocks shall get. You asked me to, didn't you? Said the Lord. Oh, I feel him. Wait a minute. Now, what is this business of being required to, um, to, um, believe the naked word of Christ without any signs? You see, there's a little bit of a problem here, isn't there? If you've been reading the gospel very seriously, because you find when the author comes to summarize the significance of the gospel and his purpose in writing it in chapter, uh, uh, uh, twenty, you'll see. He says, now many other signs did Jesus, which are written, are not written in this book, but these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. So signs are given us to bring us to belief. And if God gives signs to bring us to belief, it's not right to say, is it, that people have to believe that Jesus is the Son of God in blind faith, that wouldn't be true. I did meet a man in a foreign country once, it was in a commoner's country, and we fell to talking about the signs in John's gospel, and I said to the man, because he lived in an atheist society, I said, you'll say, my dear good man, do you do a lot with Christian apologetics? No, he said. Oh. Uh, uh, and about the, you know, the evidence of the signs that we could preach to the unconverted that Jesus is the Son of God? No. Well, I said, how do you go about your evangelism? He said, we rely on, uh, you know, our behavior at our work. And that struck me as good. You'll say that he had such behavior at work as would impress folks and lead even atheists to seek the Savior. That's good. But I said, oh, but you don't use the signs at all. I said, um, hmm, you think we ought to, people ought to be prepared to believe that Jesus is the Son of God without any evidence? Yes, he said. I say, if we have to believe God without any evidence at all, how would we know the difference between believing God and believing the devil? He said, there wouldn't be any. You'd only find that out afterwards. Dear, dear, dear, that won't do, will it? If you are going to believe that Jesus Christ, Jesus is uniquely the Christ, the Son of God, then God himself doesn't ask you to believe it without evidence. He gives you evidence. These signs are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, or if you prefer the translation, that Christ, the Son of God, is Jesus. There are signs. But that's the first step of faith, isn't it? But now I need the second bit. If Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, can he save me? And suppose that I believe the first lot of signs, I believe, yes, he is the Son of God, truly, and I say, right, he can save me. Well, so I come to ask him, how will I know he has saved me? How can I be sure he has saved me? This good man, this nobleman from Capernaum, he believed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, or he wouldn't have come, would he? At least he believed he could do miracles. That's why he came. The question was not, can he do miracles? The question was, can he save my boy? Will he save my boy? And now, has he actually saved my boy? How can we be sure he has? It's an extreme case, isn't it, because the man couldn't see all the way to Capernaum. All he got to go on now was the naked word of Christ. Ah, will you say Christ have mercy, have mercy, uh, Lord do, uh, the man's poor, poor man, weak faith. Do some miracles now in front of his eyes so he can see. Well, how would that have helped? If he'd have cured a blind man miraculously here and, uh, healed a lame man miraculously there, what would that have proved? Well, that would have proved that Jesus Christ could do miracles. It wouldn't prove that Jesus Christ had actually saved the boy, would it? And short of our Lord being prepared to give the man superhuman sight so he could see all the way to Capernaum. That's how it must be. You could do a thousand and one more miracles, it wouldn't prove the point. And if there's somebody here tonight that's not absolutely sure of salvation, don't ask the Lord to do miracles. He could do ten thousand and one miracles. That wouldn't prove you're saved, would it? That would only prove he could save. What now we want is the evidence that he has saved. And now our Lord is saying, look, if you can't believe without seeing signs and wonders, you're in for a rough time until you get to a point where the evidence becomes available to you. The man got up and went. He didn't go all the way home that night, apparently he must have stayed because it was the next day he got there. And when he got there, of course, there was the evidence. Oh yes, salvation is real. Sooner or later there will be evidence. But now notice the progression of faith. First he believed the naked word of Christ and went in peace. When he got home, he saw the evidence, and the Bible says he believed again. It is allowable. You'll see. Romans five says, you'll see, that being justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. We have access into this grace wherein we stand, and we rejoice in hope from the very moment you put your faith in Christ, that very, very moment, and you are justified, you are rightly filled with absolutely certain hope that you shall attain the glory of God. Marvelous, isn't it? So that's one ground. But presently, Paul says in the next verses, and we joy also, we glory confidently in tribulation, knowing that tribulation produces endurance, and endurance, uh, shows we're genuine, and the genuineness gives us another ground for hope. And that is blessedly true in life, isn't it? Uh, five years ago, sir, when you believed the very first night, you could have been if you weren't, you probably were absolutely sure of heaven on the ground of faith. And all the sixty-five years have gone since. Oh, what stories there have been. And you have said, doubtless, sandwiched between much ups and downs and failings and fears. Oh, but yes, there's the evidence that this salvation was real. That again, in turn, boosts your hope. Now let's take one more slice. We're following this notion that you have to expound all of the story and not just one part of it. Pray notice it, I haven't expounded all six in this group. Dear me, I haven't. We should never be finished this year, you'll see. Take this one for the whole lot. We must squeeze the last piece of juice out of this lovely fruit, mustn't we? So what about this calculation the man did at the end? When he got home, the boy was well, he was overjoyed. But as well as being overjoyed, he thought it worthwhile doing a little calculation, and what he wanted to know is when exactly was the boy healed? Uh, without looking at the text, ladies and gentlemen, when do you think you see him? When the man believed, surely. When he believed the first time. Oh, there's some grumbling descendants at the, the, at the front here, and they say, no, it wasn't that. Just you imagine, heresy will be spoken within these four walls. They say it wasn't when the man first believed, it was when the Lord spoke. We better appeal to scripture to see the truth of the thing. Uh, verse fifty two and fifty three: So he inquired of them the hour when he began to amend. They said therefore unto him, yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. So the father worked it out yesterday. Now, seventh hour. Now, what was I doing at that time? And the father him, uh, knew that it was the hour in which he believed. No, no, no. No, no. It was that the R in which Jesus said unto him, thy son lives. Wait a minute. Was that right of the Lord to say that? Well, let's go back. I mean, let's take the story in its, in its, um, order, you'll see. The man asked, verse forty eight, Jesus therefore said unto him, except you see signs and wonders, you will in no wise believe. The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down, and my child die. Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way, thy son liveth. He said that first, and then the man believed. He cannot be right. The man said he couldn't believe beforehand, you see. Uh, what? So the Lord healed him before the man believed, and then the man believed afterwards. I had an idea. Can I sell it to you? The Lord heard this man say, please heal my boy. And the Lord said, now this is ticklish, this. Now, if I heal him, and then the man, but the man doesn't believe, so that won't do. I shall have to unheal him. So, mm-hmm. I'll say your son lives, but I won't make him live. I shall just say it. I shall say your son lives, and then I shall watch, and if the man believes, I shall, I'll cure the boy. But if the man doesn't believe, I won't cure him. And then the man says, well, I don't know my half don't, Lord. I know, I, I don't know. Some day, sometimes I think you have healed me, and sometimes I think you haven't. The Lord says, that won't do, my man. I haven't actually healed him. I'm waiting for you to get full faith. Now you me, they won't have it. The front row here won't have that at all. I won't have it either, actually. When the Lord said it, it was so, ladies and gentlemen. Oh, praise God for it in your heart. There was no pretense in what he said. The man came and asked that he that calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And the boy is healed. Now the question, will the man believe it? It was so. We're talking now about the man's therefore own peace of mind as he journeyed on through the night and the next day till he got home. Daring to take Christ at his word. Of course, he found the evidence, and the boy was better tomorrow when he got home. They're very important, ladies and gentlemen. You believe you're going to heaven? Good for you. Have you seen it by any chance? How do you know it's there? You say my grandmother had a dream one day. Well, that's not very good. How do you know heaven is there? Away in the last old Jordan's waters close over our head, as they put it, there'll prove to be a heaven there. How do you know? Is it because you feel there is, or? No, the Lord said it. Amen, my God. The Lord has said it. You can't expect to have the evidence that often to get there. You'll get there. Ah, what evidence. You will feel, I nearly said, a fool for having doubted it so many times. Is that all right? Yes, you say, well then how, how, how could our Lord heal the boy if the, if the man hadn't yet believed? He only believed afterwards. Ah, well. Just you rehearse the story for yourself. When did the man first believe? When did he repent, for that matter? Came a moment in the home, didn't there? And having tried everything else, and it was all a failure. There was one last hope, and only one. And though it cost him I don't know what, the man turned his back on the boy and the doctors and went out saying, there's only one hope now, and that is Christ. That's repentance, you know. Hangs my helpless soul on thee. And as best he knew how he came and asked. That was faith, wasn't it? He didn't ask Caiaphas, the high priest at Jerusalem, because he believed that Jesus could do it. He came and asked, and he that calls like that upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And now we come to a very important general lesson from that sign. You see, as John himself explains to you, the signs in the Gospel of John are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Very good. But if I'm going to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, hadn't I better know what the terms mean to start with? What do you mean by Christ, the Son of God? If you come to me after the meeting and say to me, Gooding, uh, you know, O'Flacarty, he is the best actuary in the city. I can prove it to you. Well, I said, that's very kind of you, volunteering in. Uh, you're going to prove to me now that Oflakity is the best, uh, actuary in the city, but you, you'll not realize the depth of my ignorance, he'll say. Pray, tell me what is an actuary first. Yeah. If John set- sets out the evidence that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, hadn't we better know what, what it means that he's the Christ, the Son of God? And not only know what it means, but eventually come to experience it in that way. One of the things it means that he is Christ, the Son of God, is this. He is the Lord of Of space space. and time. Yes. He could see at a distance. He needn't go all that way to Capernaum. He could save at a distance. He's the Lord of space. And he, of course, is the Lord of time. He's a marvelous thing, and now we're, we're, we're not, we can't see the distance, can we? And we, so to speak, are generally behind events. Here's a dear lady, she's getting a dinner for her husband, who should be in any moment now. Well, I'm afraid he never will be because he's had an accident downtown. He's in hospital at the moment. She doesn't know. He's behind the event. The Lord is never behind any event. He's before it. He is before all things. You know, that's a very practical comfort in daily life, isn't it? We think when something terrible happens to us as we count it, that it happened because the Lord wasn't looking or something, and now he's found out he'll have to pick up the pieces. No, no. He was always before us, in time, in space. He's the Lord of eternity. He therefore can heal at a distance. And this d- nobleman, in his personal experience, found wonder of trusting the Lord like that. A man that can, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, heal at a distance. So, as we leave the story, as we leave the story, we pick up the fact of delayed evidence. The Lord says your son is well, the man believes it, but the evidence that it has happened is necessarily delayed. The man cannot have that evidence at once. And we've seen the reason for that, haven't we? Very good. He would get it eventually. And with that, we come to our first story. We haven't got very long, but then on our first occasion, uh, the other week, we noticed several elements in that story. We noticed, for instance, there were two parts to it. This is the story of the cleansing of the temple, chapter two, verses thirteen to twenty two. You'll see. We noticed there were two parts to the story. The first is the cleansing of the old temple. Comes in to- comes to its climax and comment, verse seventeen. His disciples remembered that it was written, the zeal of thine house shall eat me up. Then there's a second part of the story, that not the cleansing of the old temple, but the announcement of a new temple. When they said, what sign do you show us, seeing thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews therefore said, forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou raise it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. And now once more the comment about the disciples. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he spoke this, and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus said. And you notice how John has made it easy for us. The two comments about the disciples coming at the end of each half, and thus distinguishing the two halves, lest we confuse them. First, the cleansing of the old temple and putting it right for the time being. For our Lord would go to that temple for the next three years, and though it was soon to pass away, he wasn't content to let it be perverted and defiled in this manner, even for this last three years. But then he was not content to purge and reform the old. He was going to announce a new temple. So on the last occasion, how that fits into the whole great theme of the nation's worship and service of God. Yes. But now we come to this other, uh, interesting detail. When they said to him, what sign do you show? What were they asking for? They weren't asking, uh, for a sign, uh, that he could destroy the temple. He wasn't talking about destroying their temple. What were they asking? They were asking for a sign that should demonstrate his right and authority to do what he did. He had been, in their eyes, a commoner, not even of the tribe of Levi. From Galilee, what was worse, had taken upon himself to come into the temple and in front of the Passover crowds, to defy the very high priest and captain of the temple and leaders of the temple, and by his action accused them of a monstrosity of a perversion of the worship of God. And thrown out their money-making machines. They wanted to know what authority he had to do any such thing. What authority have you got to do it? What sign? They were suggesting that if he did a sign, then it would be evident that he was some great prophet. Like Nicodemus came and eventually said, Rabbi, we know you are a teacher come from God because nobody can do these signs which thou doest except one be with him. Notice the thought flow between the two stories? Anyway, what sign do you do, they said, what to to demonstrate your authority that you were right to cleanse a temple like this? So our Lord gave them the evidence. Very curious evidence, wasn't it? He said, destroy this temple, and I will build it again in three days. They thought he'd gone from his mind. Sounded utter nonsense. They thought he was talking of that, that temple of stone that Herod had built, and they replied with their pedestrian minds, forty and six years was this temple in building, and will you destroy it and raise it again in three days? They said, you must be armies. He wasn't talking of their temple, was he? He was talking actually, though even the disciples didn't realize it till after the resurrection, he was talking of the temple of his body. How that his body would be destroyed at Calvary, and he would rise again the third day from the dead. Why did he give them that bit of evidence? They were asking for a sign here and now. And the sign he gives them, the evidence he offers them, is a bit of evidence that will not be, will not happen, it will not come to pass for the next three years. You might call it, um, delayed evidence, my dear. Hmm. Hmm. Perhaps story one and story six have something to do with each other. Delayed evidence. This evidence that he offered them could not possibly be, uh, ca- ta- take place till three years later, when he was crucified and rose again from the dead. Why should we trouble about that? Well, for the first reason. In our exposition of the Gospels, as of course in any other narrative part of scripture, one of the levels that we shall have to deal with and must take seriously is the historical level. Sometimes when we come to these stories in the gospel, we are so concerned to draw from them a lesson that will help me in my spiritual experience, or help you in your spiritual experience, that we read the story and dive off at the deep end of marvelous zeal, uh, to find how this story applies to me. And that's very good, of course. But sometimes we have to start by saying, what was its significance in a actual historical context? And if we can see that, that's always the safest place to begin, isn't it? What was its significance then? And if we could understand that, then we could take the lesson for ourselves. You say, yes, but what that would only swell my head with, um, uh, you know, knowledge. Knowledge is a very bad thing, you'll say. What would be the point of my learning a lot of history and getting historical context and this and geography and things like that, uh, you'll say. Isn't that rather dangerous knowledge and, uh, useless anyway, and lumbers up the old head? Oh, wait a minute. History I'm going to suggest you now is exceedingly important for faith. Is this Gospel of John historical? Or is it myth in the highest term, stories that didn't actually happened, happen, but are made up to bring us to faith? They're not historical. You will know, ladies and gentlemen, that there are multitudes, even of the learned, who expound from their lecture decks- desks and write so in their books, that will tell you that these stories are not necessarily historical at all. They may have a kernel of history in them somewhere, but at the best, they were reshaped by John, oh, perhaps fifty years later or more. And when he came to reshape these stories, he was no longer interested in the historical thing of what happened to Jesus of Nazareth when he was here on earth. John had his eye on the church of his own day, and seeing them to be in this need and that need, he took bits and pieces that might have a kernel of history in them, and he reshaped them and retold them, and what wasn't there he made up, and he put it all together as a sermon, uh, for the church of his own day, perhaps fifty years after our Lord had gone. Is that true? At the basic historical level, ladies and gentlemen, that is not true. Would you notice here John telling you that this is what the Lord Jesus said when he stood in the court of the temple and had just cleansed it, three years before he was crucified, and what is more, his excellent disciples didn't understand a word of what he was saying, let alone the high priest. But even the disciples didn't understand, so he says, and he was one of them. It was only when our Lord rose from the dead three years later that the disciples remembered, and they said, ah, yeah, you remember that bit what he said about destroy this temple and I'll raise it again? Oh, well, this is what it meant. And remembering that it had been said, and now proved by the resurrection, they believed the scriptures of the Old Testament that prophesied that Messiah would die and rise again. And they believed the word that Jesus had said. John himself knows the difference between what the Lord said before he died when he was here on earth, which sometimes the apostles did not understand, but they say he said, he said it, we didn't understand what it meant at the time, but he said it then. John knows the difference between that and things that he came to understand after the resurrection. John won't agree with the liberal. John knows there's a difference between what the Lord actually said and did before his crucifixion and resurrection and the understanding of the apostles later on. He's pointing to the history. So that's number one lesson. We have not followed cunningly devised fables, ladies and gentlemen. These are not just nice stories. It is absolutely foundational that we see that these things are historical. Secondly, it was delayed evidence. Why? Because the ultimate authority that, that Jesus had the authority to cleanse the temple. The ultimate authority? For that and everything else he said. The ultimate authority, of course, is the resurrection. We don't so often preach it, do we? We take it for granted. It's important that we preach it. And as our world tends more to its agnosticism and atheism, on the one hand, New Age movements on the other, with their Hinduism, it becomes ever more important that we preach the authority of Christianity, which is the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord. And there's one more thing. He said, destroy this temple. And it wasn't, of course, an accident. Not merely that, uh, they had been ta- talking about his cleansing of the physical temple, Herod's temple there. It wasn't an accident that he referred to his own body as a temple. You'll see that ter- he- temple of Herod, his father's house, but oh, how had it been perverted, hadn't it? And when I see how that temple had been perverted many times down the centuries, I say it to myself quietly, I wouldn't say it to you, but, um, quietly and hoping I'm still reverent, I say, well, why ever did God commit his reputation and name to a bunch of fellows like that? I mean, the temple is a place where God had it built that he might come and dwell there, and dwelling there, show people what God is like. And I say, but good, my dear good Lord, why ever did you, you commit that temple to people like Caiaphas? Couldn't you foresee that they would pervert that very temple? And instead of your presence in the temple eliciting the praise of men and their admiration, the very temple itself in the hands of those men would lead the people to curse you, God. Why ever did you commit it to those failing men? And then I think I hear the Lord saying, Goody. Uh, why have I made you a temple of the Holy Ghost? Could it be that there are some people around and all they know of God gooding is what you... Oh dear. Oh dear. Where shall we go for the ultimate vindication of God and what God is really like and what his worship is really like, and therefore what God himself is like? You say the ultimate vindication is the resurrection. Oh, you've got it right, hundred percent. You must have been listening. Uh, uh, you'll say, ah, but you can't have a resurrection, can you? Without a doubt. The temple was first destroyed Destroyed. and And then then ra- raised. And our Lord throughout this passage, as we saw on our last occasion, is concerned for the nation's worship and service. And we come to that most sacred thing, the self-revelation of God in that supreme temple that was the body of Jesus Christ, our Lord. And men took that temple. And the leaders were religious men. And they hacked it to pieces. And then what? What convinces you that he's the Son of God? You say his resurrection. Ah. And what leads you to worship that blessed Christ and the God who sent him? I think if I know you, you would say, well, it's the resurrection approved him to be God's son. But this, all this shows me what God is like. This is what has subdued my heart to worship of God. I look upon that mangled form hanging there at Calvary, and I say, if that is God's son, then that is what God is like. The priests in the temple are saying that God is out for all he can get. They take the last two farthings from the widow. At that temple at Calvary, he's saying that God, this is God, he's out for all he can give. It is at the temple of Calvary, all ruined and destroyed through man's sin, ladies and gentlemen, that the very songs of heaven and the worship of heaven find their beginning. They shall find it the theme of their song throughout the ages of eternity. Delayed evidence, then, of the historical kind. It had to be delayed because history is a time length, isn't it? Delayed evidence in the last story, not so much of history, but in personal experience of how can I know that Christ has saved me? But there we take our break. We are late, but you can have your normal time, uh, for break, and I shall not keep you late at the end.