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I don't intend, gentlemen, to keep you long over this session, uh, but just let me begin by concentrating for a few moments on the questions that Matthew raised, because I think they are important, important in our study. He raised, first of all, the mention of the matter of the signs, a series of signs in the, uh, gospel. They are, of course, one of its dominant themes. You may ask now, why do you bother to do all this comparing of this and that and the other? Isn't that a question of bringing rabbits out of a hat, and how does that help the actual preaching of the word? Well, to take those signs, those miracles, how do they help us to believe? That's a question that you have to ask, gentlemen, if you're going to preach them. The first seven are given that you people might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and have life in his name. How do they help people to believe? You give away the Gospel of John to people on the street and hope that God will use it to lead them to faith. And a man opens it and says, hurrah, hurrah, this Jesus can give us gallons of wine. Good, good for, good for us, to see. Is that all it teaches? He did a miracle and produced gallons of wine. Is that what the thing teaches? And that's why he should believe Christ. We want to know a little bit more about the signs, don't we? What they meant and what they mean and how they lead to faith. The signs were not only mi- miracles of power, they were parables. As you see from the feeding of the five thousand, Having multiplied the loaves and the fishes for people that were physically hungry, he uses it as the base to teach them that he is the bread of life to satisfy their physical, their spiritual hunger. Is that what you're getting at if you are giving a Gospel of John to unconverted people so that they should come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God? And if you are preaching it, gentlemen, this is what you're aiming at, producing faith in the Lord Jesus, that he is the Son of God. We're not playing cross crossword puzzles or Sudoku or something with the, with the word of God, uh, do you see? We are studying how they compare with each other so that we might get a firmer and detailed grasp on what they mean. You don't have to preach structure to the unconverted unless you want to, nor to believers, but if structure helps you to see the point of each one and how they differ, it will make your preaching the more exact. Take the first one, the turning of water into wine. Your worldly wise chap said, uh, only a story I turn water into wine, absolute nonsense. And anyway, you ask me to believe that, I don't believe it. You said it's in the Bible, I don't believe the Bible either. And I wasn't there. What's the good of you telling me a record of a story in the Bible of two thousand years ago? I don't believe the Bible anyway. Well, now, how do you say, well, it's no use preaching in the story then, give up. So what do you do now? Well, remember that the story is not only a miracle, but a parable. And so, old chap, that's a very interesting story, isn't it? This is a wedding, you know, and they had wine there to promote the joy of the party, and the wine ran out. Gentlemen, is that true still? Is it true that sometimes, even out of weddings, the wine runs out? You don't need an inspired book to tell you. The newspapers will tell you that bit. The wine runs out, and not only of human relationships, but of, uh, uh, uh, do you say like marriage, uh, uh, of marriage relationships, but all sorts of human relationship, the wine runs out. And teenagers come to loathe the parents, and parents despair of the children and... Can our Lord... give better wine? Well, how did he do it? That's a point, isn't it? Now let me do some preaching to s- to to finish the afternoon with and get you a lot of your converters. Yeah, you see, how do you say, how did he do it? You say he just said abracadabra, and the wine came floating down from the sky and filled the glasses. No, it didn't. There were there these pots, stone pots, they contained gallons, each of them, and they were there after the manner of Jews is for purifying. You see, the Jews had strict regulations about purification. They still do, part of their religion. So do Islam, for that matter. You have to wash your feet and your hands, don't you, before you get down on your mat to pray in the afternoon, oh, it's five times a day. The sense of cleanliness. It used to be, gentlemen, that weddings were a time when in Britain people thought of cleanliness, and the bride wore white to signify she was a virgin. Oh dear. Doesn't signify that necessarily nowadays. Purity. It was after the manner of the Jews is to purify, cleansing by water. Well, okay. It stood for a good principle, but you know, our Lord himself, um, uh, made comments on the cleansing by water. The Pharisees were very keen on it, wouldn't touch food unless first they'd washed carefully. And our Lord made the point. The trouble with water is that it only cleanses the outside, skin. And that's what not what upsets marriages and things. It's not because the husband hasn't bathed this last six months or something like that. It is that out of the heart of man proceed all these ugly things. These defile, and mere religious external ceremonies can't reach the trouble. It was that water of the Jews' old system of purification that he turned into wine, the best wine till now. The The joy joy, with- witness the epistles, and many a Christian will tell you the joy that comes with forgiveness, oh, the blessedness of the one whose sins are forgiven, whose iniquities are covered, to whom the Lord will not impute unrighteousness, and so forth and so on. And as for God being against pleasure, goodness me not, where did you get that idea from? One of the metaphors that God uses for the eternal state is the marriage supper of the Lamb. He said to Mary, woman, what have I to do with you? Hitherto he'd been her obedient son, but he was about to launch on his public ministry. He couldn't do it at Mary's direction. She was his mother on the human side, but she could never direct his mission. He was God's incarnate son. Now had come the time for him to begin his public ministry and to come forth. And if we are guided by the epistles, what was he at in his public ministry? He was seeking a wife. Do you not understand it? For he loved the church, gave himself for her, that he might cleanse her by the washing of water, they say, through the word, that ultimately he might present the church to himself, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. The miracles are not just works of power, gentlemen, in other words, excuse the sermonizing. They're not just works of power. They are works of power, but they are also simultaneously parables, and they are to be preached. The significance of the parable to be preached. And if that is true of one, it's true of the lot, and that's why it is important to see that they differ among themselves. This is not just arbitrary, um, remote literary study. It's trying to see the point of the word of God, and you notice that those po- those miracles, they're all different, and how they are different is important. You'll see. And then you'll see that some of them are balanced, anyway. The second one, for instance, the son healed at a distance. We had that today. And what was the point of it healing at a distance? And what did that raise in questions of faith and so forth? And then the, uh, second last, Lazarus neither healed nor raised at a distance. And that's not an arbitrary comment. It's a comment that Martha made. Why weren't you here, Lord? If you had come, why did you remain at a distance? Yes? So, uh, vastly important from a practical point of view. Now, yeah, that you don't have to see the whole lot if you don't want to, and I'm far from seeing the whole lot anyway, but preach them anyway, as you understand. But they're worth studying in detail, so that we may not preach a sermon about them, but preach them, if you see what I mean, and their detail. And if you say, what has the first one got to do with the last one? Well, the first one, at the end, it says he manifested his glory. The beginning of the second one, he manifested himself because he was the other side of the grave, but he had promised his disciples, I would not leave you orphans, I will manifest myself to you. He manifested them, himself to them in their work, their work for him. So in the first miracle, Mary says they have no wine. He dealt with that. Standing on the shore, he called across the sea to the, to the fishermen. After they'd toiled all night and caught nothing, he said, have you anything to eat? You haven't, have you, gentlemen? Not have you caught any fish, but have you anything to eat? I tell you straight, gentlemen, now, you won't live spiritually on the work you do for the Lord. That could well exhaust you. Yes, it is food, we had that this morning, but we'll need more than just work. So when they came to the shore, they were very hungry, toiled all night and caught nothing. He had breakfast for them. And then they were allowed to bring the fish that they had caught to enjoy that as well. We are meant to enjoy the fruits of our work for the Lord and find in it a food and satisfaction. But above our of, uh, satisfaction in the work that we do for the Lord is that satisfaction, that personal relationship with him, only that can give. Have you anything to eat, he said. Mm-hmm. Anyway, I don't need to repeat that all. Uh, just say all I'm saying is trying to say why we study scripture in this kind of fashion and how it can help. You see, and let's look at the other thing that, uh, Matthew mentioned. The, um... question of structure. Well, in the way that I would use the terms, and everybody is free to use the terms as they please, but what I mean by structure is the journeys to Jerusalem and back that we saw lie at the framework of the book this morning. The signs, I would call that a dominant theme. And then because, uh, of their inner relationship, I call them a pattern, but they're a dominant theme. Here comes another dominant theme. Theme. And the first one, the wedding in Cana of Galilee, coincides, of course, with the first miracle, the first sign. That doesn't matter, it happens that they don't destroy each other. The women in this gospel are a dominant theme. They have a similar theme, you see, it's not just that they're all women. But look at the content, questions of relationship. He he sounds very abrupt to his his mother. He does, doesn't he? Yes, it's not so abrupt in Greek as it would sound in English. Uh, do you see? We wouldn't, uh, think of talking, well, I don't know about the Irish now, I don't really know. Saying this without permission, but I was going to say you, you wouldn't say to the queen, woman, but you would in Greek. It is not disrespectful, and it's certainly not slang. You would say it to a queen. Indeed, the Greek word gunai, which is here in the text, is the Indo-European equivalent of our word queen. It's where our word queen comes from. It's a w- a word term you would use of a very stately, uh, lady, you'll see. On the other hand, it is very formal, and it is a distance. It was putting a distance between her and him, because this was the beginning, the first public minister sign, first public ministry of his, this beginning of his signs. And the point had to be made, and some of you will see, see why that is more important, more, uh, constantly than I do. We don't come through Mary and rely upon praying to her. And the old yarn that in some cultures the Father is a very distant figure, and people, the children find it easier to come to the Father through the mother, and and so Christ is a very distant figure, and so is God, and so it how nice it is we can come through Mary. That's a slander on the person of Christ. Christ stands and says, come unto me, I'm meek and lowly in heart. Yeah. Okay. So each one of those is different. And did you have a series of expository sessions or something, and you had six sessions on these women? You wouldn't just be repeating the same thing every night, gentlemen. Not if you see what the differences are. Mary and Martha at the death of their brother are simply the, the, uh, the breaking of the relationship through physical death. Mary at the cross of, uh, the death of her son, that's what the world does. It's the meaning of the cross. Take up your cross if it means going against your family. But there is a compensation. We may lose our family as many as a Muslim convert does, what ho, if they escape with their lives. But there is a compensating factor in the new family of God. Do you see, and our Lord commented on it when he said, there's no man that has left father and mother and children and so on for my sake, but what shall have multitudinous more in the kingdom of God, and mothers and fathers and so forth and so on. I've got hundreds of them all around this earth, personally now already. Thousands of mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters. Okay, let me say no more about that. I think you, you get some of the point. I want now just to set a little homework, just in case it might be possible, might not be possible, um, that you do some thinking about these matters before our next session, God willing, in two weeks time. The second journey, comprising chapters five and six. So let me, uh, uh, uh, simply sketch in what I think they are about. And if you get the time and care to think about it too, you may come up with many other different suggestions, and we'd be very pleased to hear them. We're not in competition here with anybody. Mm-hmm. Now I'm going to to suggest, God willing, when we come to it, that in chapter tw- uh our our Lord is presented to us as the source of life. In chapter six he is presented as the means of life. And perhaps I ought to explain my terms, which I can do very simply. If I ask you, how did you get your life, your physical life, in the first place? Did you get it by eating bread and butter? You would say, don't be so silly, don't. Of course I didn't. How did you get your life? Well, you got your life from your parents, and they from God. You got it as a gift. From a source. And if I said, oh, I see, yes, so you didn't get your life by eating bread and butter, I, I see that now, mm-hmm. So now that you are grown up, you don't need bread and butter. You would say, but don't be daft, man. You need the bread and bu- butter. You can't say, well, I got life, so I don't need, uh, bread and butters afterwards. You get life from the source. But to maintain life, you need the means of life. What the Germans call Lebensmittel. Bread and butter and anything else, cabbages and carrots and potatoes and goodness knows what. The means of life. And in physical life, you need both sides, don't you? And what is more, you need them in that order. First of all, the source of life that you get as a babe from your parents, from God. Source of life comes first. And then the means of life thereafter. Now I'm going to suggest, God willing, when we meet again, to say that this is somewhere near the main theme of chapters five and six. In chapter five, Christ as the source of life. Chapter six, as the means of life. So let me point to the verses in chapter five that, uh, suggest that Christ is the source of life. Let's read in chapter five, Verse twenty one. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, quickens them, even so the Son also quickens, makes alive, gives life to, quickens whom he will. Verse twenty six, even more clearly. As the Father has life in himself. What does that mean? It doesn't just mean this Father is alive, of course he is alive, but he has life in himself. He doesn't get life from anywhere else. He's not dependent on anything else. Didn't get his life from anywhere else. He doesn't depend on anything else to maintain him in life. The Father has life in himself. We human beings don't, you know. We are alive, in that sense we have life, but we're not sources of life. God is, the Son is, it here says. Verse twenty six, as the Father has life in himself, even so gave he to the Son also to have life in himself. Christ is source of life, just as the Father is. It's a colossal great claim. Do you see? But look at verse twenty five, therefore. Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour comes and now is, when the dead, the spiritually dead, that is, shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. They hear his voice, and he gives them life. Hitherto dead, now he gives them life. It's an instantaneous gift. In fact, the hour is coming, says verse twenty eight. It doesn't yet come, but it will come in the future when all that are in the tombs, that is the physically dead, shall hear his voice and shall come forth. Christ is the source of life. Now look at chapter six, Mm-hmm. Verse fifty seven of chapter six. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he that eateth me, he also shall live because of me. Here Christ talks of himself as the means of life. So he that eateth me shall live because of me. And look at verse fo- fifty three. Jesus therefore said unto them, verily, verily, I say unto you, except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have not life in yourselves. That remains true of us gentlemen, even at our advanced stage in spirituality. You don't have any spiritual life apart from Christ, well, thank you for bringing me here, Lord, that's marvelous. Now I'm here, uh-huh, and I have eternal life because you may remember you gave me eternal life when I was a boy of fifteen, and I got eternal life. So now, Lord, excuse me because I've got other interests, and um, uh, thank you, I got eternal life, but now I shan't need you so much as I did on earth anyway, you see, and I want to go exploring this new universe, and I I don't, well, I don't, I I I shall come and see you from time to time, but I I don't need you because I have eternal life. You don't. Not apart from him. Colossians three will tell you, you have eternal life? Oh, Christ is your life. We don't have any life without Christ. He is our source of life. He is the means of life. Anyway, that is the thing that I shall be suggesting that the order is very definite, as in physical life, so here, first the source and then the means. People tend to get it wrong, don't they? You get folks that are seeking to enjoy Christ, to feed on Christ, and this, that, and the other. They've never come to Christ to receive eternal life, and if you were to ask them, have you got eternal life, they wouldn't know. No, you have to come to the source first and let him instantaneously give you eternal life. Then you can feed on him. What the Bible says, eating him. And some go the other extreme. They came to Christ, received from him the gift of eternal life. They think it doesn't matter whether they wander far from him now and forget, because they have eternal life. But wait a minute. They need him as the means of life, because apart from him, they don't have any life anyway. Christ is their life. At least, have I made my own suggestion clear enough in your thinking? You may want to come back at me and say I got it wrong. But I want to say, suggest that this is what the major theme of five and six is. Five, Christ the source of life. Six, Christ the means of life, which may account for the way he performed the miracle on each occasion. When he came to the pool of Bethesda, there were many people there, do you see? When the water was troubled, who knows what the troub- what did the troubling, you see, but the people that got in first got the benefit of whatever minerals or whatever it was, but it faded, of course. But God has put into nature various ways of healing you. Watch dogs, they know how what grass to eat sometimes, don't they? When they don't feel well. And God has put into nature such things as rhubarb, for instance, and other such useful things. And the chemists have developed all sorts of drugs out of the natural whatnots. God has given us means of healing and wants us to use them, of course. It is part of our creaturely status to use the means of healing that God has given. It is not marvelous spirituality to neglect the means of healing that God has given. Do you see? But now comes Christ, and this man has been trying to get into this pool to use this means of healing, but no others stepped down before him, and the healing power of the water is gone, and for thirty eight years he's not got in. So when Christ comes and says, would you like to be made well? He says, he didn't say yes, he said, I have no man to put me into the pool. And Christ said, my dear good man, I don't need a pool. He's the very source of life. Get up, he says, and imparts to the man the strength to get up the hill and carry his bed. That was instantaneous. And so, of course, the gift of eternal life is, in that sense, instantaneous. Christ is able to do it. And because he is the final judge, he's able to give you the, uh, the verdict now. He that hears my word and believes on him that sent me has eternal life and shall not come into condemnation. He's the final judge. There's no appeal from him. He's the final judge because he is the son of man. And at the final judgment, he shall speak the word, and those who are in the grave shall come forth, willy-nilly they'll come forth. But even now, those that are spiritually dead, they hear his voice, and hearing, they live. He's the source of life then. But in six, He's the means of life. So chapter six tells us that after he preached, there were all these crowds around, he said to the apostles, now, how shall we, uh, feed these people? Well, he knew what he was going to do himself, but he first of all asked them for their suggestions, and what means would they use, and they thought in business-like fashion, they said hundred Anyway, two hundred days wages would not be enough. One wisecrack said, I suppose, for a bit of humor, there's a lad here that have five loaves and two barley fishes or something, something, f- five loaves, uh, and two fish. What are they? Well, of course, a ridiculous suggestion, bit of humor, perhaps. Means? But you say he doesn't need to use any means. He's the source of life. He can make, you know, bread come down from heaven if need be, manna and stuff like that. Yeah, no, no, no, he doesn't need any means. Wait a minute. He said, what did you say about loaves and fishes? Oh, thank you very much. That would do very well. And he took the boy's lunch. And used the means. Extraordinary, wasn't it? I'm tempted to add, gentlemen, that Christ can give eternal life instantaneously to anybody, but sometimes he will use your means and take what you have learned of his word and your activity and your labor and your personal reasoning with folks. Deign to use that and somehow maintain the faith and life of others. Why he should ever bother to use us is another thing, isn't it? Being who he is. But that day, he used the means of life that the little boy had, in order to preach the parable that he is the means of life to sustain us. Of course, there was a lot of argument in chapter five when he presented himself as a source of life, and that argument we shall have to consider, God willing, the next time. And there was even more argument when he main- uh, pointed out he was the bread of life, he was the means of life. We shall have to consider that too. And what on earth the final miracle is about, walking on the water, what's that got to do with anything in chapter six? Well, perhaps you'll tell me on the next occasion. But Mr. Chairman, sir, may I stop here?