Introduction:
Lies We Hear from the Lost (and how we should respond) (John 7:25-36):
- I know what the Bible says. (John 7:27-28)
What do I say when someone claims to know the Bible, but they obviously do not?
Where do you get your knowledge of Jesus? Would you like to know what the Bible says? ( Y / N )
Colossians 1 | John 1
- Everyone ends up in Heaven . (John 7:34)
What do I say when someone claims everyone goes to heaven?
Where do you get your idea everyone goes to heaven? Would you like to know what the Bible says? ( Y / N )
Matthew 25:46 - And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
- I have Time . (John 7:33)
Isaiah 55:6 - "Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near..."
What do I say when someone claims they'll come to Jesus later?
Where do you get your idea you have time? Would you like to know what the Bible says? ( Y / N )
Hebrews 3, 4
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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We'd like to welcome you to Harvest Pittsburgh North online.
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We are so glad that you are worshiping with us this morning, and you'll be getting into God's Word with us this morning, so let's turn our hearts towards the Lord together.
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Open up your Bibles with me, please, to the Gospel of John 7.
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We will be picking up in verse 25.
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While you're turning there, when I was in college, I worked with a man named George.
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And George was a very interesting fellow, because George would look me in the eye, and he would tell me about working, not only with me at Walmart, but he also drove truck on the side.
00:41-01:23
And George would say things like, "Yeah, I had to haul a load down to Florida and back last night." And I said, "George, you drove to Florida and back last night?" And he's, "Yeah." I said, "Well, that's a lot of miles on the car in one night." And he said, "Yeah, I worked 210 hours at my other job last week." I said, "You worked 210 hours at your other job last week?" He goes, "Yeah." I said, "How many hours do you work at Walmart?" He said, "40." And I said, "George, you worked 250 hours last week?" And he would look me dead in the eye and he'd say, "Yeah, yeah, I put in 250 hours last week." And I don't know what motivates somebody to lie like that.
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I don't think George wanted to impress me, but it was so strange because he did this almost every time I saw him.
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He was talking about these huge inflated number of hours.
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You know there's only 168 hours in a week, but he would work 250 hours.
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And I never corrected him, because when he looked me in the eye and told me these stories, he seemed like he really believed it.
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In church, we face lost people who tell lies, and like George, they really believe the lies that they tell.
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But their lies have much more serious consequences.
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Because believing these lies that lost people tell and believe, these lies keep people from truly knowing Jesus.
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They keep people from coming to Jesus for salvation.
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As we turn to John 7, recall Jesus showed up privately at the Feast of Booths when we started chapter 7 last time.
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His brothers wanted Him to go into Jerusalem and make this big show at the Feast, and Jesus didn't do it according to their time or according to their method.
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Jesus went privately, and He taught at the temple.
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Let's pick up in verse 25 where we left off last week.
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because some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, "Is not this the man whom they seek to kill?" And here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him.
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Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ?
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But we know where this man comes from.
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And when the Christ appears, no one will know where He comes from.
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Stop there.
03:08-03:42
There is so much confusion happening in this passage said first of all, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, isn't this the man that they're trying to kill?" And you might be thinking, "Well, hang on a second. Last week when we were in verse 20, the crowd said, 'You have a demon! Who's trying to kill you?' So how is it that there were people saying, 'Who's trying to kill you?' but then there are people that instantly knew that this is the one that people wanted to kill?" Well, the difference is in verse 20, it says the crowd was saying that these were people that were from all over, right?
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They were not just from Jerusalem, they were from all over.
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They came into Jerusalem for the feast.
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So they didn't know what was happening in Jerusalem as much as the city's residents would.
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And that's exactly what's being talked about here.
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Did you see that?
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Verse 25, "Some of the people of Jerusalem..." Okay, these were the local people.
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They knew that the leaders wanted Jesus dead.
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But the people on the outskirts were unaware of that plot.
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That's the difference.
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But regardless, we see in verse 26, people were all up in arms, confused.
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He's teaching, and no one's doing anything about it!
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Wait, wait, wait, wait.
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Do they really know that Jesus is the Messiah?
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Are they covering it up?
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You know what this looks like to me?
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This looks like a good old-fashioned conspiracy.
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Like these leaders know who He is, apparently they're just not telling us.
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No, no no, in the temple.
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"You know Me, and you know where I come from, but I have not come of My own accord.
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He who sent Me is true, and Him you do not know.
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I know Him, for I come from Him, and He sent Me." So they were seeking to arrest Him, but no one laid a hand on Him.
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They were like, "Wait, wait, wait, stop.
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If they wanted to arrest Him, and He's teaching in the temple, Why didn't they just grab him, right?
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Why didn't they just walk up and grab him?
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Well, I'm sure at that moment if you would have asked them, "Why don't you just arrest Jesus?" they would have had some excuses.
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Maybe they would have said something like, "Well, this is the feast and there's so many people here, we don't want to cause a riot, we don't want to cause problems, so that's why we're not grabbing him." But the real reason they didn't, look at the end of verse 30.
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It says, "But no one laid a hand on Him because His hour had not yet come." That's why. That's why they didn't arrest Him.
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They were being restrained by God.
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Whatever excuse there was in their head, God was restraining them.
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And nothing happens before God says so.
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And that's why Jesus was preaching so boldly.
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Because Jesus was so aware of God's sovereignty.
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Jesus knew nothing was going to happen to Him before the Father wanted it to happen.
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Verse 31 says, "Yet many of the people believed in Him." They said, "When the Christ appears, will He do more signs than this man has done?" The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about Him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest Him.
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See, at this point, some people did believe.
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They said, "Well, if Jesus isn't the Messiah, what more could the Messiah do than Jesus?" But the leaders had enough. The Pharisees, the chief priests, they had enough.
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They said, "He's just getting too popular. People are starting to buy into him, and we can't have this. We have to stop him." And it says that they sent officers to arrest him.
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Well, they wanted to arrest him, but they didn't, and now they sent officers.
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What happened to these officers?
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We're going to see when we get to verse 45 what happened to the officers.
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But look at verse 33, "Jesus then said, 'I will be with you a little longer, and then I'm going to Him who sent Me.
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You will seek Me, and you will not find Me.
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Where I am, you cannot come.' The Jews said to one another, 'Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him?
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Does he intend to go to the dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks?
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What does He mean by saying, "You will seek Me and you will not find Me, and where I am, you cannot come." These are sad verses.
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Jesus was saying, "It's going to be over soon, and you're not going to have to deal with Me here anymore.
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But the day is coming that you're going to seek Me and you're not going to find Me.
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You're going to wish that I were still around, but you will never be where I am." In other words, Jesus was saying, "You don't have forever to receive Me. I'm going to be back in heaven, a place that you are never going to be." They're very sad and very hard words.
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And we saw the people's response to that.
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"Where is he going to go? Is he going to go preach to the Greeks? What does he mean?" Were these honest questions that people had? Were they mocking him? I don't know.
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I do know that they just didn't get it.
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They just didn't get what he was saying.
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Like, what are you going to do, Jesus?
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Are you going to go and find some scattered Jews out among the Greeks?
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Surely you're not going to go preach to the Gentiles themselves.
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What in the world is he talking about?
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But it's obvious that Jesus' statement, "You will seek me and you will not find me, and where I am you cannot come," that became a much-discussed statement.
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Now, this isn't a confusing passage, but it is a passage of confused people.
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We saw that throughout the passage in response to Jesus' teaching.
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"Oh, aren't they trying to kill Him? Why don't they just grab Him?
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Is He the Christ? Nah, we know this guy's from a town of family.
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What in the world is He talking about?" There's just so much confusion in this passage about who Jesus is.
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What is He saying? What does it mean?
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You know, nothing's really changed.
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At Harvest Bible Chapel, our goal is to teach and preach the Word of God clearly, because we too live in a culture that's all kind of confused about Jesus, about heaven, about salvation, about spiritual matters.
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And simply today, in light of this text, I want us to look at three lies that your lost neighbors believe, your lost family members, your lost co-workers, Three lies that people in our culture believe, because these lies are directly corrected in this passage.
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So on your outline, we're going to take some notes.
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Lies we hear from the lost, and how we should respond.
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These are lies that we hear, and how we should respond to them.
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Number one, here's the first lie.
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"I know what the Bible says." That's a lie that we hear from people.
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People that have never cracked the spine of a Bible in their life.
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"I know what the Bible says." And that's exactly the kind of people Jesus was dealing with here.
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I know what the Scripture says.
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Jesus doesn't fit how I understand...
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Well, verse 27, look at that again with me.
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It says, "When the Christ appears, no one will know where He comes from." That was their belief, and that didn't come from a proper understanding of the Old Testament.
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See, legend had it that the Messiah would just appear out of nowhere in the temple.
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That one day, He just shows up out of thin air.
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Poof! Here He is! Suddenly the Messiah just shows up.
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Like, where did they get that idea?
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Well, they wrongly understood Malachi 3.1.
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It says, "And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple." And they took that verse to mean that that's how the Messiah would show up.
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That's why they said what they said.
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Well, you know, when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.
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He just magically shows up in the temple, right?
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Never mind all of the content in the Old Testament about the Messiah.
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Virgin born in the city of Bethlehem.
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Never mind all of that.
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These people had the Messiah standing literally right in front of them.
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And they missed him. Why?
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"Oh, that can't be Him because I know what the Bible says." And they didn't.
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If they knew their Old Testament Scriptures, if they knew the Law and the Prophets, then they would have recognized the One standing in front of them.
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Fulfilled that.
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They didn't know about the Christ.
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They didn't know their Bibles.
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But that didn't stop them from being experts on both.
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And that's the same thing today in our culture.
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Everyone - I'm speaking for the United States - I mean, let's be honest, Jesus is a household name, right?
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Everybody in our country has heard the name and could probably tell you a couple things they've heard about Him.
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In fact, Jesus' name is so popular and well-known that in our culture, people curse with His name.
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And people in our culture think that they know the Bible.
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"Oh, I know what the Bible says!" I went to VBS once when I was a kid. I know what the Bible says.
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My grandmother, she was Catholic. I know what the Bible says.
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And people will use or try to quote the Bible wrongly to justify beliefs and behaviors because I know what the Bible says.
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And church, I have seen this so many times over my ministry.
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Like the people that Jesus was dealing with here.
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There are people that didn't know the Scriptures, but that doesn't stop them from speaking like they're experts because they want to justify something.
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These people wanted to justify not believing in Jesus.
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What kind of things have I heard people try to justify with a wrong view of Scripture?
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This video could be hours long if I told you all the stories.
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I'm just going to give you a couple, and I'm going to give you the short version.
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I had a guy one time tell me that it was okay to smoke weed because of the Bible.
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the Bible says. It's okay to smoke weed." I'm like, "Why is it okay to smoke weed according to the Bible?" He says, "Well, doesn't it say, you know, that God created the plants for us to eat?" And I said, "Yeah, you eating your weed?" He's like, "No." But my point is, he was using the Bible to justify what he wanted to believe. I had a guy one time at my old church visiting, and he came up to me after service, and I don't know why this visitor, new guy, felt the need to tell me all of this, but he came up after service and told me that according to Matthew 19, divorce is fine as long as you have the paperwork done. And I said, "That's exactly the opposite of what Matthew 19 is about!" But he went on this whole thing, he was going, "Look, you know, I've gone through this divorce, but it's totally cool because the paperwork's done." And really, in God's eyes, that's all that matters, is making sure the paperwork's done. I'm like, "What are you talking about?
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Have you read Matthew 19?" He was the expert on it. I've told you before about running into the Jehovah's Witness years ago at Dollar General, and somehow we got to talking, and my wife was with me, and this woman was... she said something about the earth lasting forever and ever, and I said, "Well, you know, the Bible says that the earth is going to be burned up someday." And she got so indignant, she goes, "I read the Bible, and it certainly does not say that!" Interestingly, we were in the aisle where they sold Bibles. Maybe it was Big Lots, I don't know, it was some cheapie store. Anyways, we were in the aisle where they sold Bibles, and I grabbed one off the shelf, opened it up, and showed her what Peter said about this heaven and earth being burnt up, and I showed it to her, and she said, "Well, I've never read that before." I'm like, "Well, I guess it's It's invalid if it's in the Bible and you've never read it before.
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I mean, what do you even say to that?
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When we had our first open house to tell people this church was launching, this was back in, what, 2010.
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Our first open house.
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We had a guy show up with some family members.
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And I called and followed up with him after the open house to find out that two of those ladies that were with him were both wives of his.
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And he went off on this whole thing about how God endorses polygamy and God encourages polygamy and I don't understand the Bible because if I did I would believe in polygamy as he does.
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And I said, "Well, I just don't think this is the right church for you." And he had some kind of nasty parting shots because I didn't believe in polygamy.
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But he had his defense built on, "I know what the Bible says." That's what Jesus dealt with here.
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In Jesus' response, He put them on the stand.
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That's why verse 28 that I stumbled over earlier, there really should be a question mark after Jesus' first statement.
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Some translations have a period, but there really should be a question mark.
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Jesus put His audience on the stand.
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"You know me? And you know where I come from?" They obviously didn't, because their knowledge of the Messiah was based on tradition, not the Bible.
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That's a whole other sermon, because that's so prevalent in our culture.
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My knowledge of spiritual things is based on traditions I've heard, not what I've actually read in God's Word.
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But people today are happy to be just as ignorant.
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"I know what the Bible says," and they've never read it.
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So I want to help you.
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When you face this, as I have, I want to help you.
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And you ask me, "What do I say when someone claims to know who Jesus is, but obviously they don't? What do I say to that person?" Here's what you say. I want you to ask them two questions.
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First, ask them, "Where did you get your knowledge of Jesus?" And then just listen. Let them respond. "Where did you get your knowledge of Jesus?" And then after they answer that question, you're going to ask them another question, and this is a yes or no question.
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You're going to ask, "Would you like to know what the Bible says about Jesus?" That's yes or no.
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If they say no, say, "Okay, if you change your mind, let me know." But if they say yes, you need to take them to some passages of Scripture that clearly explain Jesus, like Colossians 1, John 1.
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Take them to these passages, sit down, read them together, and ask them what it says.
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Let them see for themselves that, "I know what the Bible says." That's a lie that they've told themselves.
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So secondly, lies we hear from the lost and how we should respond.
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A second lie that we need to address is this one.
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Everyone ends up in heaven.
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Everyone ends up in heaven.
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People want to believe that everyone, eventually, somehow, ends up in heaven.
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And here's the thought process.
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It's this belief that good people go to heaven.
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And deep down in my heart of hearts, in the heart of my heart of hearts, at the very heart of my heart of hearts, deep down I know that I'm a good person." Everybody believes that.
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"Yeah, I've made some mistakes and I might speak sort of gruffly, and I've done some very bad things, but deep down I'm a good person, and good people go to heaven." If there were a lie that I could wish was true, it might be this one.
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But Jesus was clear. Look at verse 34 again.
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Jesus said, "Where I am, you cannot come." He was speaking very plainly about going back to heaven to be with His Father.
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And He said to the crowd, "You're not going to be there." He was saying, "I'm going to heaven, and you can't come to heaven." The alternative is hell.
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And hell is a truth that's discovered too late by people.
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Yes, hell is described as painful suffering for sin.
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It's described as fire.
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But there's also a very emotional element to hell at the same time.
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And that emotional element is resentment.
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That's why Jesus described hell as a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.
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That for all of eternity, not only are you experiencing the worst physical torment you can imagine, but you're facing the worst emotional torment you can imagine.
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You are as bitter and angry and resentful as you could possibly be, maxed out for all of eternity.
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I heard a preacher this week, and speaking of hell, in this passage in Jesus' teaching here, he said, "Hell is not where Christ is forgotten.
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Hell is where Christ is unavailable." The hard reality is that heaven is not for everyone.
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I want you to think about it.
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I mean, if you live your life on the earth, and you love God, you love Jesus, you love God's truth, you love worship, you love fellowship with other believers, I've got great news for you.
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You are going to love heaven, because do you know what heaven is?
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Heaven is God's presence in the presence of Jesus Christ for eternity.
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God's truth, worshiping the Lamb on the throne, in perfect fellowship with all believers who love Jesus Christ.
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You're going to love heaven if that's the thing that fires you up on the earth.
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If you live your life on the earth, you live your whole life and you say, "You know what? I don't want anything to do with God.
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I don't want anything to do with Jesus. I don't want anything to do with God's truth.
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I don't want anything to do with worship. I don't want you don't want anything to do with me? Okay, I have a place for people that don't want to experience a loving relationship with me. So you ask, "Well, what do I say when someone claims everyone goes to heaven?" You're going to ask them two questions. First question is, "Where do you get your idea that everyone goes to heaven?" I don't mean that in a jerky way. Just ask them, like, "That idea that everyone goes to heaven, where did you get that idea?" The second question you need to ask, again it's a yes or no question. You I know what it is.
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You need to ask, "Would you like to know what the Bible says?" And I've had to deal with this issue a lot with heaven and hell.
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Who goes, who doesn't? Is it eternal?
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And one verse that I take people to is Matthew 25, verse 46.
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"And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." You need to take the person that raises that issue, who believes that lie, you need to take them to this verse.
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You need to give them the context and say, in this passage, Jesus is talking about the final judgment.
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Have them read this verse, ask them to explain it to you.
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What does it look like Jesus is saying to you?
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And you need to point out to them that that word eternal in this verse is the same word for both heaven and hell.
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In other words, Jesus is saying in this verse that hell lasts as long as heaven lasts and vice versa.
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So looking at this verse, ask the person Maybe that believes the lie that everyone goes to heaven, nobody goes to hell.
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In this verse, does Jesus say some people go to hell?
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In this verse, does Jesus say that hell lasts as long as heaven lasts?
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And let them see for themselves that everyone goes to heaven.
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Let them see that that's a lie that they've told themselves.
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Finally, the last lie that we hear from the lost is this one, "I have time." "I have time." And as we already mentioned, Jesus pointed out here in verse 33, "You don't have forever to come to Him." Isaiah 55 verse 6 says, "Seek the Lord while He may be found.
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Call upon Him while He is near." Do you know what that verse is saying?
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"Seek the Lord while He may be found." That's saying that there is going to come a time that He will not be found.
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And you'll want to seek Him, and you'll want to go after Him, and you will be unable to do it because he won't be found.
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That's why he says you have to do it now, because today he can be found.
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That might not be true tomorrow.
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The lie of the devil that Jesus was confronting.
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I can reject Jesus now because I have all the time in the world to change my mind.
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Another question again, to help you out.
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What do I say, Jeff?
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What do I say when someone claims they have time?
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And what do I say when someone says they'll come to Jesus later?
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We're going to ask them two questions.
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You see a theme? Trying to help you.
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Same two questions.
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First question is, "Where do you get your idea that you have time?" Or another way of saying it is, "How do you know how much time you'll have?" The second question is, "Would you like to know what the Bible says?" And again, that's a yes or no question.
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If they say no, that's fine, the conversation can end.
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But if they say yes, you need to take them to Hebrews 3 and 4.
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And I know I've shared with you in the past, one time during prison ministry, I had a man ask me, "Wait a minute, if I give my life to Jesus on my deathbed, do I go to heaven?" And I smiled at him and I said, "Yeah, technically that's true." And he said, "Okay, I'm just going to do that then." And I said, "No, you won't." He said, "What do you mean, 'No, I won't'?" I said, "You won't do that.
25:22-25:30
And the person that you are ministering to that has that same belief, I'll give my life to Jesus when I'm old.
25:30-25:33
You need to take them to Hebrews 3 and 4.
25:33-25:43
And you're going to need some time to sit down with them because this is obviously a longer chunk to look at than the few verses that we looked at with the other lies that people believe.
25:44-25:55
But the main thing you want to focus on over and over and over and over in Hebrews 3 and 4, He says today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart.
25:55-25:56
It's a quote from Psalm 95.
25:57-26:03
And when somebody believes the lie that they have all the time in the world, they'll just give their life to Jesus on their deathbed.
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When somebody believes that, I explain to them two things in looking at Hebrews 3 and 4.
26:09-26:10
I explain two things.
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Number one, you might not have a deathbed.
26:13-26:13
Right?
26:13-26:16
It would be nice to think that that's how we all die.
26:16-26:18
Right? I die at 100 years old.
26:18-26:21
I'm laying in bed. I'm surrounded by my family.
26:21-26:22
And I just close my eyes and go to sleep.
26:23-26:23
And that's it.
26:24-26:27
It would be nice if we all died that way, but the reality is we don't.
26:28-26:36
There are car accidents, there are sudden heart attacks, or strokes, or diabetic complications, or cancers.
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The list goes on and on and on.
26:40-26:45
Truth be told, few people have the deathbed experience that we all think that we're going to have.
26:46-26:48
The other thing I like to say, hypothetically.
26:49-26:53
Hypothetically, let's pretend that you have your deathbed experience.
26:53-27:02
Let's say that you live to be 100, and you're laying in bed, you're surrounded by family, and you don't plan to come to Jesus until that moment.
27:02-27:08
That means every day of your life until then, you're saying no to Jesus.
27:09-27:13
And the Bible says when you do that, you are hardening your heart.
27:13-27:20
It's like calluses on your hand when you exercise or work outside or whatever.
27:20-27:22
These calluses, they don't happen overnight.
27:23-27:31
It's years and years of abuse and wear and tear and work that gets to the point that it becomes so hard, nothing can penetrate.
27:32-27:36
And that's what happens to your heart after years of saying no to Jesus Christ.
27:37-27:41
Eventually, your heart gets so hard, the Gospel won't penetrate it.
27:42-27:50
And it's only going to be easier to say no to Jesus on your deathbed if you've spent every day of your life saying no to Jesus.
27:51-27:57
That's the person in light of Hebrews 3 and 4, after you walk through that with them, talk about it.
27:57-27:59
Why did God give this warning so many times?
27:59-28:02
Do you see how dangerous hardening your heart is?
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Let them see for themselves that I have time is a lie that they've told themselves.
28:08-28:12
The church, like Jesus, you are in the middle of a confused culture.
28:12-28:16
And they believe the same lies that Jesus was addressing here.
28:16-28:17
We are not Jesus.
28:18-28:32
But we have the same confidence Jesus had, because look again at verse 28, where Jesus said, "He who sent me is true." That was Jesus' confidence. He knew God was true. He knew God's Word was true.
28:33-28:38
So he didn't have any problem sharing it. We have that same strong foundation.
28:39-28:59
And you're not going to show them, these people that believe these lies, you're not going to show them that they've been deceived by arguing with them, or by insulting them. The only way you're going to show them by giving them the Word of God, trusting His Spirit to be at work with His Word, pleading with them to know Him now.
29:00-29:00
Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, it's amazing how relevant Your Word is, because the same issues, the same confusion, the same lies circulated in this passage about Jesus, about Your Word, the same kind of stuff people believe today.
29:18-29:21
So much confusion, Father. So much misunderstanding.
29:22-29:29
Father, today I pray for my brothers and sisters, that we would find our confidence in the same place that Jesus found His.
29:29-29:34
Jesus knew that you are true. He knew that your Word is true, Father.
29:34-29:35
Why are you so bold?
29:36-29:48
Father, I pray that you would give us boldness, not in a jerky or arrogant or self-righteous way, but in a loving way where we can come alongside people and encourage them to see for themselves what your word has to say.
29:48-29:49
Lies are of the enemy, Father.
29:50-29:53
By your grace and your power, let us be people who destroy them.
29:53-29:55
We pray in Jesus' name.
Small Group Discussion
Read John 7:25-36
What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
Why do people confused about Jesus (John 7:25-26) receive the same condemnation as those who hatefully reject Him (John 7:32)?
Why do you think Jesus’ statement in John 7:34 became such a “trending topic” for the Jews (John 7:36)?
Why is it effective to ask questions when you are confronting spiritual lies people believe?
Breakout
Pray for one another! And pray for opportunities to lovingly confront lies believed by the unsaved people that you know.