Gooding, David: 11 - The Third Journey: Part 2—John 7

Gentlemen, I'm well wired up. I have a something on the left lung and something on the right lung, and batteries in the right pocket and in the left. I just see the microphone in front of me. In spite of all that, there's distinct, uh, possibility of heart failure, uh, and worse than that, brain failure. But nevertheless, we'll put on a courageous attitude and begin. In our first session, I was trying to point out, one, what is the major problem that John records and that introduces us to the, uh, third journey to Jerusalem and back again that our Lord took on the occasion of a feast of tabernacles and then the feast of dedication. We begin to- began to see that this quest- th- these four chapters are concerned with God's strategy for making himself known through Jesus Christ, our Lord. I just want to say one more thing about these four chapters, relative to this matter of God's strategy in making himself known through Christ. In each of these four chapters, there is what we may call a going away section. Let's look at it in chapter seven. When the Pharisees sent officers to take him, verse thirty three, thirty four, thirty five, and thirty six are devoted to this announcement by Christ, yet a little while I am with you, and I go unto him that sent me. You shall seek me, and you shall find- shall not find me, and where I am you cannot come. The Jews therefore said among themselves, whither will this man go that we shall not find him? Will he go unto the dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? What is this word that he said? You shall seek me and you shall not find me, and where I am you cannot come. This in the middle of chapter seven, referring to Christ's going away. We can see at once, when we look at the, when we look at what follows that remark about going away, what the going away really meant. The Jews, when they heard it, couldn't make head or tail of it, and wondered whether he perhaps was going on a lecture tour among the Jews of the dispersion, the Hellenistic Jews, to teach the Greeks or something, and they certainly couldn't understand what he meant by saying, you shall seek me and you shall not find me. Puzzled they were. We, of course, know it, even when we read this, we knew it before we read John seven, what his going away would involve. His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. And therefore, gentlemen, you notice that a verse 37 follows upon this announcement of his going away. Though he was, for the time being, still with them in Palestine, what he now announces on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink, and so forth. This spake he of the Spirit that they who believed on him were about to receive. Their actual receiving of the Holy Spirit had to wait until he had gone away and was glorified through the cross and his resurrection and ascension to God's right hand, and then he poured out the Holy Spirit. It is good to get hold of the historical sequence of the events, that God's self-revelation through Christ was a historical process. Having noticed, therefore, that chapter seven has at the heart of it a paragraph about his going away, let's look at chapter eight for the moment. And here it is verse twenty one. He said therefore again unto them, I go away, and you shall seek me, and you shall die in your sin. Whither I go, you cannot come. The Jews therefore said, will he kill himself that he says, whither I go, you cannot come? And so forth. Once more, to some extent repeating the very wordage of chapter seven, Here our Lord announces again that he is going away. This time, of course, the paragraph in which he says he's going away is more extensive than that in chapter 7 and deals with additional matters. As expositors and exegetes, we shall have to account for the difference, not as though it were some unpleasant duty, but because it would be a pleasure to do so. Two chapters, therefore, in the middle of which Christ announces he is going away. It is not, of course, an accident that in chapter nine he first accosts the man blind from birth, makes, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, makes, uh, clay out of the spittle, puts it on his eyes, and tells him to go and wash in the pool that is called Siloam. Uh, the man went and washed, came seeing, and the neighbors in cha- verse eight in chapter nine that had seen him before, that he was a beggar, said, is not this he that sat and begged? Others said, it is he. Others said, no, but he's like him. He said, I am he. They said therefore unto him, how then were thine eyes opened? He answered the man that is called Jesus made clay and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, go to Siloam and wash. So I went away and washed, and I received my sight. And they said unto him, where is he? Oh, I don't know, he says. Oh. So he'd gone away then. Interesting part of the miracle, which is also, of course, a parable. There followed a fierce debate between the ex-blind man and the Pharisees, and it fills a lot of verses. But the whole debate is in the absence of Christ. The man is left by himself to argue with the Pharisees, and eventually they, uh, cast him out of the synagogue. And then, verse thirty five, Christ comes to him. Yeah? So even chapter nine has its equivalent of the going away. Then there comes chapter ten. Oh, but then... look at the verses eleven to eighteen. I am the good shepherd, the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Verse seventeen, therefore doth the Father love me because I lay down my life that I may take it again. No one taketh it away from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have authority to lay it down. I have authority to take it again. This commandment received I from my Father. Virtually explicit reference to the cross, the going away. We shall have to consider, of course, why all four chapters have their equivalent of the going away, and what is the significance of it in the development of the argument. But now let's come back to chapter seven, Not merely to the criticism and suggestions of our Lord's brothers, but now to what was the initial problem in God's self-revelation through his Son. Verse six, Jesus therefore said unto him, my time is not yet come, but your time is already. The world cannot hate you, but me it hates, because I testify of it that its works are evil. Go you up unto this feast. I go not up yet unto this feast, because my time is not yet. And having said these things, he abode in Galilee. Here, gentlemen, we have from our Lord's own mouth his statement of the problem that confronted him and confronted his father. How would our Lord reveal himself to them if, when he revealed himself, he had to testify that their works were evil? The brothers hadn't got that bit. They were thinking in terms of film star, do you see, and really getting yourself known. Don't con- be content to play this music in your back garden shed. Get down to the waterfront, you see. Get the publicity, and we'll see to it that the BBC are there, and then you'll get a program, maybe. Mm-hmm. Because the people will like it when they hear you. But if God's self-revelation through Christ meant exposing people's sin, they won't like it. It remains true to this day, gentlemen. You see, suppose I came along after some acquaintance with you, perhaps a week or a fortnight if I needed to, and then I delivered my verdict on you. I said you're the most despicable, hypocritical, uh, deceiving sinner that ever was, worthy of hell itself. You say, I don't like that. Well, he said, you better, because I'm the son of God saying it to you. You'd say, no, you're not. If you say I were merely saying that I'm your fellow citizen, you would say, well, you're entitled to your point of view, and I have mine, and I disagree with you. But if, having delivered my verdict, I say I am the Son of God, you'll fight hard to show I'm not. How much ba- uh, lies behind the Dawkins of this world? Because if Jesus is the Son of God risen from the dead, all of us are sinners, aren't we? And helpless to save ourselves from eternal perdition. How will God face the problem and overcome it? Well, I tell you how what Christ did about it on this occasion. That's easy enough, isn't it? Because it tells us here. When his brothers were gone up unto the feast, just do a spectacular miracle, they said, or some of your miracles and that your disciples will believe on you. But such was the hatred. When our Lord did miracles, according to Matthew and according to chapter eight, they said he did them by the power of the devil himself. So ingrained is sin. But when his brethren were gone up, he also went up not publicly, but as it were in secret. Notice that the Greek word is enkrufe. Um, I won't ask you to turn to it, but chapter eight ends, verse fifty nine. they took up stones therefore to s- cast at him, but Jesus hid himself. That's the related verb. In chapter seven, he went up in secret, in hiding. Or we might say in English, incognito. And at the end, when they took up stones to stone him, he hid himself. Why that? Why on this, therefore, in chapter seven does he hide himself? That is, he went up not openly, but in secret. I suggest to you, gentlemen, that had he gone up with the pilgrims from Nazareth and from Galilee, where he was known, of course, there would be great excitement in the city. Will he come? In fact, chapter seven mentions that, does it not? Do you see? Verse ten and eleven, but when his brothers were gone up unto the feast, then went he up also, not publicly, but as it were in secret, the Jews therefore sought him at the feast and said, where is he? They had known, some of them, what he had done the first time in Jerusalem, chapter five, and how the authorities were seeking to kill him. They were wondering in the streets of Jerusalem, uh, the local pilgrims at least, whether he would come to this feast. Where is he? And there was much murmuring among the people concerning him, and some said he is a good man, others said not so, but he leadeth the multitude astray. Howbeit no man spake openly of him for fear of the Jews. Now notice that use of the Jews. The ordinary crowd came from all over the place, but they were afraid of the locals, the Jews, the strict Judeans, and particularly the Judean authorities, of course. To start talking about being Messiah, when many people would, uh, would interpret the very phrase as political messianism, come to raise the crowd against the Romans, was very dangerous stuff. And the authorities were nervous about it, of course. So the people, when they discussed, uh, do you see, whether he was a good man or whether he led the people astray or not, or not, said it under their breath, so to speak. They weren't going to let the authorities hear about it. It's like in Russia, you know, in the bad old days, you didn't openly talk about the gospel. Not always. In case the authorities heard what you were saying, or some informer heard. But when it was now the midst of the feast, verse fourteen, Jesus went up into the temple and taught. Do you see? Why did he go in secret? Well, had he gone with the pilgrims, everybody would have known him, and the people would have been the Gog, and they would have said, this is the Jesus, you know, and the excitement of it all, and the crowd would have get to know. So he waited till they'd gone, and as far as they knew, he wasn't coming. And then he went up completely incognito, and the vast multitude of people wouldn't have known who he was. There were no cell phones or photographs on your telephone, I don't know how they are, but in those days, you see, so they wouldn't have recognized him. And he went up into the temple and he taught. And you will see that it was not until subsequently he began to say certain things that they realized who he was. When he said to them, uh, in verse, uh, uh, do you see verse 19, did not Me- Moses give you the law, and yet some of you, uh, uh, none of you doeth the law. Why do you seek to kill me? Chapter seven, verse nineteen. The multitude answered, you must be out of your head. There's no one round here wanting to kill you. What do you mean, why you want to kill me? Who seeketh to kill you? They didn't know who he was, you see. They didn't recognize him facially. And so he, uh, uh, uh, quoted what happened the last time when he healed a man on the Sabbath. And the penny drops, verse twenty five, some therefore of them of Jerusalem, meaning the people that were Jerusalemites, and therefore they do remember the occasion when, when the, the Pharisees and company and the scribes wanted to kill him, they said, is not this whom they seek to kill? But first of all then, he went up deliberately incognito. They wouldn't know this was Jesus. They wouldn't know that this was the man who claimed to be the Messiah. And he went up and he taught. Notice the tactic, gentlemen. First, to teach. You say, what did he teach? We're not told. He went up in the temple and taught. What he taught on those occasions, we are not here told. Jesus therefore, the, the, the Jews therefore marvelled, saying, how knoweth this man letters, having never learned? Jesus therefore answered them and said, my teaching is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man, uh, willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God or whether I speak from myself. He that speaketh from himself seeketh his own glory, but he that seeketh the glory of him that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him. He taught, now he appeals to the motivation behind his teaching. So let's pause there. Tactics, gentlemen, if we're concerned with witnessing to a hostile world, what is the first thing you would talk about to a hostile world about Jesus. How to get behind your friend's atheism and his prejudice and all that, and the hostility. Well, here our Lord deliberately, himself incognito, teaches. The people are impressed with his teaching. He'd not been to, uh, uh, the rabbinical schools. You can tell them if they've been to a rabbinical school, you can sometimes tell them which Bible college they have been to, by the phraseology they used, you see. But this man hadn't even got his, uh, been in the course with the rabbis, you see. His teaching. Oh, gentlemen. What teaching. If it were simply teaching, if he weren't the Son of God, what a brilliant, what a brilliant teacher he was. That story, I'll fill you in in case you're wondering what kind of things he taught when he was in Jerusalem. I ha- I'll have to borrow, uh, Luke's help, you see. That story about the prodigal son, should it be called the prodigal father? What a brilliant thing it is. And once you've heard it, unforgettable. That story of the Good Samaritan. So much so, as you will know, a, a, a, a literary critic like C. S. Lewis had says, well, if the apostles invented this character, we'd better s- fall down and worship the apostles because they were absolute geniuses. The teaching of Christ. I haven't the time now to to uh, uh, uh, talk in great length about it. I'd like to emphasize it as we pass. The teachings of Christ and the glory of them and the wonder of them. But notice, when he, uh, they, uh, the people remarked upon the brilliance of his teaching, and how did he know letters, never having learned? I meant official, uh, formal study with the rabbis, and he hasn't learned it. Well, well, how, how, how, where's he got this teaching from, you see? Um, he immediately says, if any, uh, my teaching is not mine, but his that sent me. In other words, at the moment, he disclaims that he is the source of the teaching. He ascribes it to the one that sent him. Mysterious language, as we shall find among the crowd, do you see? But, um, he utters then a guarantee. If any man wills to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God or whether I speak from myself. It is a test that we can apply even to our unconverted friends, is it not? Here is Christ's guarantee. If you want to know that this teaching is of God, there is one condition. That you are willing to do God's will when you know it. If a man is sincere and says to God, now God, if you exist, but this Jesus says he's your son, I, I, I show me if this is true that he is the son of God, whatever that means, and if you show me, I'm prepared to do your will. And all that that may mean is the guarantee that God will show the person concerned. If you come to God and say, I- I'd be interested, God, actually, to know whether Jesus Christ is your son, like these Christians say. Of course, I- I want to make it clear from the start that even if you say he is, I'm not prepared necessarily to follow him. You won't get very far with God. So both a condition and a guarantee, you see. And then his own motivation. He that speaketh from himself seeketh his own glory, but he that seeketh the glory of him that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him. We can see, perhaps, in the context why he stresses this. They, when he had earlier claimed, my father works hitherto, and I work, had become indignant that he made himself equal with God, and they were about to destroy him. He is now telling them, look, this my teaching, and you admire it, and you find it brilliant and convincing. It's not mine, it's him that sent me. He doesn't claim the glory for it. And to a religiously minded, uh, uh, uh, populace, of course, his steadfast, uh, uh, uh, uh, deliberate purpose to give God the glory for, for his teaching, and not attract glory to himself, is a sign of his truthfulness. He that seeketh the glory of him that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him. Mm-hmm. Therefore, the first answer to those that would, uh, wanting to kill him. His teaching, its quality, its brilliance, its source, his motivation. Now he will face them. He's not running away from the problem. Did not Moses give you the law, and none of you does the law? Why seek you to kill me? The multitude answered, you must be deranged or something. There's no one around here seeking to kill you. Jesus answered and said unto them, I did one work, and you all marvel. For this cause Moses has given you circumcision, not that it is of Moses, but of the fathers, and on the Sabbath you circumcise a man. If a man receiveth circumcision on the Sabbath that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because I made a man every wit whole on the Sabbath? Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment. Now, I don't know if you've ever used the argument with anybody. Perhaps you regard it as irrelevant to your personal testimony to your unconverted friends. I don't know. But what is the point of it? He's first of all justified his teaching about his moral quality and its truth, that it comes from God. He's not seeking the glory from it. Now he proceeds to justify his miracle. And he calls upon the people to use their moral judgment on the quality of his miracle. Now that's a very interesting thing. You say, is it? Can you call upon an unregenerate person to use their moral judgment on his, uh, miracles? Yes, you can indeed. He does. Calls upon them to use their moral judgment to assess the moral quality of his miracle. Now, in general, of course, it's a point worth making about the miracles recorded in the Gospels that Jesus did. And to contrast them with the silly stories that you will find in the Church Fathers and the apocryphal New Testament. The apocryphal literature is, uh, all sorts of miracles, such as that one that when Jesus was a child, he played with the other boys in the street, and they played making models of animals, uh, uh, through the mud, you see, it had rained, and they scooped together the mud, and they made little model animals about it, and Jesus made a model like the rest of the boys, and he made a model of a bird, and presently the bird flew up into the heaven and flew away. And that's given as a miracle, that supposed miracle that Jesus did. I wonder who it would convince. Jesus did miracles as a to- as a toy? No, no, gentlemen. The miracles that he did. Notice their quality in the Gospels. They are not just toys. Some of them are to call attention, of course. They are wonders. But then a lot of the miracles have a, a, a, a message, do they not? His multiplying the loaves and the fishes was a miracle to call attention to a deeper truth that he himself is the bread of life. His giving sight to this blind man that never had sight before is a miracle, of course, to call attention to it. But as the subsequent discussion shows, it raises the question again of Christ, his ability to give spiritual sight, and so forth and so on. So here, the particular miracle that he has to justify is the miracle he did on the man in chapter five on the last visit to Jeru- on the previous visit to Jerusalem. He healed this man on the Sabbath day and told him to take up his bed and walk. Now our Lord troubles to justify the miracle. He said, you see, for this cause Moses gave you circumcision. Why did Moses give you circumcision? Actually, circumcision preceded Moses. Witness the story in Genesis of God asking, uh, uh, Abraham to be circumcised and his son Ishmael to be circumcised and all the males to be circumcised. That was long before Moses. It wasn't that Moses first instituted circumcision for the Jewish race. That had long since been, uh, commanded by God. Then why did Moses actually mention it and record it and so forth in, in the law? Because, do you see, Moses, when he wrote the law, said that it should be, uh, eight days after a a child's birth, if he's a male, should be circumcised. What happened if the child should be eight days old, and that eighth day was a Sabbath day? Tell us, Moses, now what is to be done. We have to keep the Sabbath, but how shall we keep the Sabbath if we have to circumcise the boy? You should understand that among the Pharisees, circumcision was regarded as a work, of course, that made a man complete. Well, Moses is very clear. Keep the Sabbath, yes, but circumcision takes precedence. And if the eighth day when a child is to be circumcised is the Sabbath day, well, you go ahead and do the circumcising, Sabbath or no Sabbath. It takes precedence, and Moses himself lays it down. Now, watch our Lord argue. Case law. If that is so, uh, if a child therefore receives circumcision on the Sabbath, that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because I made a man completely whole, a whole man completely whole, a man every whit whole on the Sabbath. The Jews held that to Sabbaths, a man had to be circumcised, and that completed the man, so to speak, made him a full man and full citizen of Israel. If that can be done on the Sabbath, and Moses' law not be infringed, but rather kept, how can you say I am wrong if I made not one little part of a man whole according to the law, but if I make a complete man, perfectly whole, on the Sabbath. Appeals to the people, therefore, to use their judgment on his miracle. And its moral implications. And what the miracle involved, making a complete man perfectly whole on the Sabbath. Christ arguing the quality of and source of his teaching, the moral quality of his miracles. Gentlemen, you may think I'm em- uh, uh, emphasizing things that are irrelevant, as to justify myself in front of this august company, like Luther at the or whatnot of Worms. Uh, do you see? Let me remind you of what Matthew records for us in Matthew twelve. The Pharisees and company had twice accused our Lord of working on the Sabbath, healing people on the Sabbath. On the second occasion, there was a man there who had a withered hand, and the Pharisees were there, and it was the Sabbath, and they watched if he would heal him. And when he healed him, they said he heals by Beelzebub. They couldn't deny that it was a supernatural act of power. Not able to deny it was an act of power, the only way they could refuse to believe that therefore he was the Messiah was to attribute the work of power to Satan himself. And what did our Lord do when they attributed his miracle to Satan by Beelzebub, father of demons, he cast out demons. He didn't do what I would have been tempted to do, say, gentlemen, you are so perverse, it's not worth my while talking to you. Not my worthwhile, get lost and walk off. He didn't. He stood and argued with them, according to Matthew. I'm doing it by the power of the devil, am I, gentlemen? Now let's work out the logic of it. So the devil has turned against himself, has he? That's a very interesting thing, for as the devil has now joined our warfare against all demons, he'll destroy his own kingdom, won't he? Argument number one. Argument number two. You say you shouldn't argue, Lord, what are you doing? You shouldn't argue. Well, he does anyway. Um, uh, argument number two. If a big robber baron has a big castle and got a lot of prisoners, doubtless, um, refugees from Poland or somewhere, and they're working for nothing in these gardens, you'll see, and uh, uh, uh, uh, and you're going to deliver them. You'd better think twice. You better first bind the man, the strong man in the castle, before you try to liberate his prisoners. And I am liberating people from Beelzebub, am I? And what does that show? Beelzebub is on my side, or I'm on his side? Only if I have overcome him, can I deliver his goods. Argument number three. Your sons cast out demons, don't they? Well, when your sons cast out demons, why don't you say they, uh, do it by the power of Beelzebub? You would say when your sons do it, they do it by the power of God. Why is it when I do it, you say I'm doing it in the power of the devil? Well, for one obvious reason. When their sons cast out demons in the name of God, their sons didn't claim to be the Messiah. When Jesus cast out the demons, he did claim to be the Messiah. The only way they could deny the implication that he was the Messiah... was to say that he did it in the power of Beelzebub. They were prepared to call that black, which in every other circumstance they would have called white. So So they were they they did. determined to reject him. Why did he bother to argue with them? In that context, and I'm quoting Matthew, he's twice talking about the final judgment. Oh, my good brothers. When lost souls stand before Christ at the final judgment, and he has to pronounce eternal perdition on them. He will first expose the irrationality and the deliberate illogic of their refusal to believe. No one will ever be cast into hell and able to say, I don't know why I am being thus condemned. Christ who argues, and here argues the quality of his teaching and its source and what it points to, and how people can know it is of God if they want to. There is a test that they can apply to it, arguing the quality of his miracles. Some therefore, verse twenty five onwards. Some of them over Jerusalem, the penny dropped. Isn't this whom they seek to kill? Referring, of course, to the rulers. It can't be, can it, they said, so the Greek implies. Look, he's speaking openly, and they say nothing to him. It can't be, can it, that the rulers themselves indeed know that this is the Christ. Why aren't they arresting him? Are they tacitly admitting that he is the Messiah? Howbeit we know, they said, this man whence he is. But when the Christ comes, no one knows whence he is. It is a little uncertain where they got that notion from. It's not in the Old Testament, is it? Perhaps it was from the notion that, uh, suddenly, uh, God's messenger shall come suddenly to his temple, wherefrom no one ever knew. But, and we, we know this man, he comes from Nazareth, so we know where he comes from, so he can't be the Messiah. This is a kind of popular superstition that people hang on to, you know. And our Lord, uh, answers it, you see. Well, yes, of course you know where I come from, namely Nazareth. But that's only a small matter. The other matter is you don't know where I come from. For where I come from now is not what geographical city do I come from. But where does my teaching come from? Where do I come from? In other words, he came from God. Yes, he is human. But he comes from God. And so, at once and already, he is asking them to, to, to, to face the fact that even according to his teaching, he is from God. And others said, you see, um, when the Christ comes, will he do more signs than those which this man does? And there was a division because of him. So we've had that evidence so far, the evidence of his teaching, the evidence of his miracles and their quality, and so forth. But that isn't the final story, gentlemen. For now he talks about his going away. Christ is the last word from God, so Hebrews one has it. But Christ isn't the last witness. He was going away, and after he went away, those that believed on him should receive the Holy Spirit. Yes? Yes? In the strategies of God, therefore, Christ came, gave his teaching, did his miracles, gave his testimony, so to speak, and witnessed before Pontius Pilate. That's not the whole message, is it? The last word, not the last witness. It was to be the Holy Spirit that should be the last witness. And... be that living water that should satisfy the heart. This was the last day gray of the feast, the last great day of the feast. And so we're told by the authorities that at the Feast of Tabernacles, the people were to make booths, leave their homes and live in booths for a week, in memory of the time when they came out of Egypt, or when their fathers came out of Egypt. That they lived in tents, and God caused them to live in tents for all those long years when they went across the wilderness, until they should come to their promised land. So the people now sitting in their tents were to remember that. Now they had arrived. And this was the harvest of the year, not the barley harvest at spring, but the harvest of figs and grapes and pomegranates and things at the end of the, uh, summer. Now they were reaping the full benefits of the great land that God had given them. And they were to look back as they sat now in their booths. How did we get here? Hm. When our fathers were once slaves in Egypt, and they had to remember all the way that the Lord had led them. They had now arrived, you see. Uh, uh, uh, how did we get here, do you see? And among the many things they were to remember was that when they were traveling across the wilderness and they lacked water, God did a miracle and gave them water out of the rock to drink. He did it twice, in fact. And so to help the people remember it, even in the time of our Lord, while he was at that feast, the priest would have sent s- uh, someone down to the pool, to the water supply, and he would fill the golden pitcher with the water and brought it up and poured it at the base of the altar to remember how the Lord had satisfied the people in their thirst in the wilderness. Oh, but there was more to it than that, wasn't there? Because if you read the prophets, long after Israel had come into the land, God through the prophets like Isaiah and Zechariah, had talked how one day God would pour out his spirit on those that were thirsty, and floods on the dry ground. So that the Feast of Tabernacles was not merely a remembrance of the past, it was a prophecy of the future. As they poured the water at the base of the altar, the people cried, save Lord now, we beseech you. And there on that a day, when God incarnate stood among them, when they had for the last time poured the water at the base of the altar, he lifted up his voice, and above the throng he cried, if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. Even as the scripture has said, many times said, that God would pour out water on those that were thirsty. Here is the prophecy about to be fulfilled. Not there bit at once, that five minutes, but when Jesus was glorified, when he had been crucified, buried, risen, and ascended, he would pour out the Holy Spirit on them, as the prophets themselves had promised. Even as the scripture had said. The satisfaction of receiving the Holy Spirit and thus knowing God, and with him knowing God's plan, because you know God's Christ, not only what he's done in the past, but God's plan for the ultimate future. Yeah? Does that make a bit, little bit of sense, beginning to make sense? Yes. It will take more believing, but I hope it makes some sense. Christ's strategies, God's strategies for making himself known through the incarnation of his son, for his public ministry of teaching, his public ministry of works. And when in spite of it they rejected him and put him to a cross, we are to know that his going away had been already planned and was a deliberate step in the direction of the coming of the Holy Spirit to satisfy the human heart and mind. At least this is the beginnings of the first part of our story.