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Pray that this pandemic will end soon and the resumption of the postal service.
Pray that this pandemic will end soon and the resumption of the postal service.
Subject 16 : The Gospel According to JOHN
[Chapter 7-1] Jesus Who Labored With a Resolute Heart (John 7:1-36)
(John 7:1-36)
“After these things Jesus walked in Galilee; for He did not want to walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill Him. Now the Jews’ Feast of Tabernacles was at hand. His brothers therefore said to Him, ‘Depart from here and go into Judea, that Your disciples also may see the works that You are doing. For no one does anything in secret while he himself seeks to be known openly. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world.’ For even His brothers did not believe in Him. Then Jesus said to them, ‘My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil. You go up to this feast. I am not yet going up to this feast, for My time has not yet fully come.’ When He had said these things to them, He remained in Galilee. But when His brothers had gone up, then He also went up to the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret. Then the Jews sought Him at the feast, and said, ‘Where is He?’ And there was much complaining among the people concerning Him. Some said, ‘He is good’; others said, ‘No, on the contrary, He deceives the people.’ However, no one spoke openly of Him for fear of the Jews. Now about the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and taught. And the Jews marveled, saying, ‘How does this Man know letters, having never studied?’ Jesus answered them and said, ‘My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me. If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority. He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him. Did not Moses give you the law, yet none of you keeps the law? Why do you seek to kill Me?’ The people answered and said, ‘You have a demon. Who is seeking to kill You?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘I did one work, and you all marvel. Moses therefore gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath, so that the law of Moses should not be broken, are you angry with Me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath? Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.’ Now some of them from Jerusalem said, ‘Is this not He whom they seek to kill? But look! He speaks boldly, and they say nothing to Him. Do the rulers know indeed that this is truly the Christ? However, we know where this Man is from; but when the Christ comes, no one knows where He is from.’ Then Jesus cried out, as He taught in the temple, saying, ‘You both know Me, and you know where I am from; and I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know. But I know Him, for I am from Him, and He sent Me.’ Therefore they sought to take Him; but no one laid a hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come. And many of the people believed in Him, and said, ‘When the Christ comes, will He do more signs than these which this Man has done?’ The Pharisees heard the crowd murmuring these things concerning Him, and the Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take Him. Then Jesus said to them, ‘I shall be with you a little while longer, and then I go to Him who sent Me. You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am you cannot come.’ Then the Jews said among themselves, ‘Where does He intend to go that we shall not find Him? Does He intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? What is this thing that He said, ‘You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am you cannot come’?’”
Jesus Did His Work with a Resolute Heart
Today’s Scripture passage is from John 7. Jesus came to this earth, saved you and me and all mankind from sin, and made us God’s children. In other words, Jesus allowed us to receive the remission of our sins by giving us His body and blood. The Lord came to this earth to do that work and accomplished it perfectly.
Jesus Christ came to this earth and labored with a complicated heart, knowing that He must die on the Cross in order to accomplish the right work of saving all of us sinners from all our sins. We must be thankful and think deeply of Jesus who did not mind dying for the work of salvation with a resolute heart in order to accomplish His purpose for coming to this earth. Since Jesus knew that in order to save us from sin He had to die wretchedly and only come back to life to become our true Savior, we have to fathom in our hearts how mixed and resolute of a heart He had when He was willingly walking toward His death to complete God’s salvation.
I have times when I do the Lord’s work that my body becomes very weak and I think, “Man, I’m going to pass out.” At those times, I have resolute thoughts like: “Shouldn’t I at least finish what I was entrusted with before I leave?” So, I think of the hard work I had done to correct the new book we are trying to publish. Through this kind of experience, I can understand at least a little the resolute heart that the Lord had as He went forth accomplishing each work for our salvation.
In John 6, He bestowed the miracle of five loaves of bread and two fish, had pity on some people who only searched for bread for their bodies, and counseled them to seek after the bread of Heaven that does not perish: “I will let you obtain eternal life by giving you My flesh and blood. Therefore, I will let you receive the remission of your sins and obtain the blessing of eternal life. Anyone who eats My flesh and blood shall obtain eternal life.”
He said this, and in Chapter 7, He spoke of His death. Jesus gave away His flesh and blood to mankind and had to suffer His death, in order to truly and completely rescue mankind from death and give them eternal life. He was walking His way, bearing in mind how He had to die to accomplish His mission.
Jesus Also Knew That the Death of His Body Was Near
Jesus knew that death was near at that time; He knew that the time was near to lay down His life on the Cross. So, He told people at this time why He really had to come to the earth and that He had to die.
The Jews wanted to kill Jesus. That is because He caused people to be seditious, called God His Father, and reproached the religious leaders at that time, calling them hypocrites. In other words, they regarded His death as being proper because they thought He was really arrogant and had greatly erred. But Jesus, having said, “I have to die” had nothing to do with their plot. It was spoken totally according to His own intent. How is it possible for us to know the Lord’s whole heart? But the obvious thing is the fact that since Jesus already received baptism from John the Baptist, He already knew for Himself that He had to hang on the Cross, shed His blood, and die for mankind, and He obeyed. In order to help us eat His flesh and blood and obtain eternal life, He had to then go down the road of death. I wonder how resolute Jesus’ heart must have been while He talked with His enemies with His death ahead of Him. We, too, must do the work of the Lord with that kind of resolute heart by knowing and holding fast to hearts like that of the Lord.
The Bible says, Jesus “was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification” (Romans 4:25). Jesus came to this earth in order to deliver Himself up. The purpose of Jesus coming to this earth was to save us from the sins of the world, make us children of God, and let us live forever by giving us eternal life. And in order to accomplish that work, He continued voluntarily going down that road, knowing that He would inevitably suffer death. While Jesus Christ did not avoid His death but went down that road, He determined, “I must die if I intend to complete the work of salvation of mankind. And I must teach them about true salvation and about God and lead them by the Word. And I must do the same to My disciples.” Therefore, I ask you again to fathom how resolute Jesus’ heart must have been.
No One United with Jesus’ Heart
In John 7:1-2, it says, “After these things Jesus walked in Galilee; for He did not want to walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill Him. Now the Jews’ Feast of Tabernacles was at hand.” Jesus knew He would die soon. He also knew well that the Jews hated Him and that the elders and chief priests among them would deliver Him over to the Roman rulers and that, by those gentiles, He would hang on the Cross and die. But He was in the region of Galilee at that time. Since He knew that the Jews wanted to kill Him, He did not go up into the region of Judea. That time was close to the time of the Feast of Tabernacles.
The Feast of Tabernacles was a feast established by God in order for the people of Israel to remember the life of wandering in the wilderness when they crossed the Red Sea and lived in the wilderness until they settled in the land of Canaan, pitching tents in the wilderness or making straw huts under trees or rocks. So, they built huts from things like wood or straw and kept the feast for a week in the wilderness. That is the Feast of Tabernacles.
Jesus had brothers and sisters. After Mary conceived and gave birth to Jesus by the Holy Spirit, she bore half-brothers and sisters of Jesus through relations with her husband, Joseph. In other words, Jesus was not born by Joseph and Mary sleeping together; He was conceived in Mary’s womb by the works of the Holy Spirit, put on the flesh of man, and was born. But Mary, the physical mother of Jesus, afterwards had relations with her husband, Joseph and bore many younger siblings of Jesus. But wouldn’t have Jesus’ younger siblings followed Him while He went about proclaiming the Word of God?
If we look at John 7:3-5, it says, “His brothers therefore said to Him, ‘Depart from here and go into Judea, that Your disciples also may see the works that You are doing. For no one does anything in secret while he himself seeks to be known openly. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world.’ For even His brothers did not believe in Him.” At that time, even Jesus’ disciples did not fully understand His mission. Therefore, Jesus’ heart had surely been lonely and resolute, because He had to do His work silently. Even His brothers did not believe what He was saying. So, they said, “Wait a second… You say You’re going to feed everyone Your flesh and blood? If that’s what You want to do, why don’t You go up to Jerusalem and show Yourself? What are You doing here in the region of Galilee? If that’s what You’re doing, go up to Jerusalem. Go up and openly show that You are the Son of God who came to save mankind. You say You will fulfill the will of God, but why won’t you show Yourself to the whole world?”
The pain and loneliness that He suffered was great because they didn’t believe that He was the Savior. Just like the saying that there is loneliness even in a crowd of people, many people followed after Jesus, but that loneliness He suffered cannot be explained in words because there wasn’t anyone who really understood His will and passion. How do you think the heart of Jesus was when He had to perform work that others didn’t know and He had to perform the will of God amongst those who couldn’t understand the Truth, even though He told them? How do you think Jesus’ heart was when they didn’t put their hearts with His, and didn’t try to understand Him but rather made cynical remarks? Although we cannot fully understand the heart that Jesus had, we must be able to feel it, at least a little.
Therefore, Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil” (John 7:6-7). If we look at these words, the Lord knew that His disciples would also hang on crosses and suffer martyrdom in the future. In other words, He was telling His disciples, “You, too, will suffer martyrdom like Me. But My time has not yet come. In a little while at the Passover, I will go up to Jerusalem and suffer death there.”
Jesus was set to suffer death at the Passover. It was necessary to have a lamb of sacrifice for the Passover. On the night that the people of Israel escaped from Egypt, when the angel of death of God came, he did not enter the houses that had the blood of sheep or goats painted on the lintels and doorposts. Passover is the feast that God established to commemorate that account. So, it was necessary to have the sacrificial sheep to eliminate the sins of mankind during Passover. So, Jesus suffered death during the feast of Passover.
The Lord did that in order to save the people of Israel and all the gentiles from sin. He came to this earth, gave Himself over to us, received baptism, and died on the Cross in order to bestow salvation on us. There was only one reason that He was hated at that time by men of influence and suffered death: That was because He witnessed that the works of the world were evil. Jesus witnessed that every work of the world was evil. All of the works of mankind who have left God are evil. So, He was hated. Since even His literal brothers didn’t believe in Him and made cynical remarks, Jesus said to them, “If you go up to Jerusalem first, I will follow afterwards.” After He sent them, He went up during that feast.
Jesus Is Fundamentally the True God
In John 7:14-16, it says, “Now about the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and taught, and the Jews marveled, saying, ‘How does this Man know letters, having never studied?’ Jesus answered them and said, ‘My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me.”
Jesus entered the Temple in Jerusalem and taught. Therefore, the Jews regarded Him strangely, saying, “This Person is someone we know well. He’s never attended the school of the Law, and He is not from a decent family. How does He know letters and teach?” At the time of the feast, the people of Israel gathered in the synagogues or the Temple, and everyone was eligible to take the Book of the Law of God and teach. So, it was possible to have discussions in the synagogues and teach the Word. So, Jesus went to the Temple and taught about the Law. As he did this, people regarded Jesus reading and teaching the Book of the Law as strange. They said, “How does a Person who hasn’t learned letters know them? How does He speak of the Law when He has not learned it? How does He have skills to the point of interpreting and teaching the Law?” They could not understand at all.
But the fact was that He was fundamentally the true God because He was the Son of God. Does God not know letters because He hasn’t been to school? Jesus is God, so He knows all the languages of the world. Does someone need to teach Him letters for Him to know them? He didn’t learn from anybody, anywhere on earth. But Jesus is God and the Creator. He merely became a Man for a short time for us. Since He was God who came to this earth as a Man, He knew the Law better than the teachers of it, even though He had never attended any school. He is the Master of the Law who personally established it. So, He openly taught the Jews in the synagogue anytime.
The Jews thought this was strange, so Jesus said to them, “My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me. If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority. He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is true; and no unrighteousness is in Him” (John 7:16-18). Jesus entered the Temple at that time and taught the Jews the Law; these teachings were not His own. They were the teachings of God, the Father. So, if anyone wants to do the will of God, he can know whether the Words Jesus has taught came from God, or whether the Words were spoken to show off Himself or not. Jesus did not intend to brag about or defend Himself; He intended to show what the will of God is.
If we come to see the Words that Jesus spoke here, He said that all people would receive salvation from sin in the future, not just the people of Israel. So, Jesus came to save all mankind from sin, and the proof of that is that He did not seek after only His own glory, but sought after the glory of God, the Father, who sent Him. So there is no unrighteousness in Him. Put differently, Jesus came to this earth and was teaching the Word of God in the Temple, but He was not defending Himself or making Himself higher; He was spreading the will of God the Father, who sent Him and was seeking after the Father’s glory. Jesus sought after the glory of God the Father, who sent Him. So, Jesus came to this earth and bore His death in mind while doing His works. He bore His death in mind and worked for our salvation from the time He received baptism.
Jesus’ public life lasted three years. Since He took all the sins of mankind by receiving baptism from John the Baptist, He had to die for the wages of the sins, and therefore He had to teach His disciples all things that were necessary to their spiritual lives before He passed away. The Words Jesus spoke at that time were for you and me and for the people of future generations. Actually, they were for all mankind. Jesus showed all the Words that He wanted to say to everyone in all generations, laid down His life on the Cross, suffered death, was resurrected, and became our true Savior. Jesus worked in order to save all mankind.
Therefore, how resolute of a heart did our Lord have while working to fulfill the will of God the Father as our Savior? Jesus had weaknesses because He had a body; we must know how resolute His heart was when He did that work, and how hard He worked doing this and that in order to save you and me from sin and give us eternal life. We have to think back on that situation and ponder on Jesus Christ’s heart. If you and I were in Jesus’ shoes and knew we would die soon, could we go forward to accomplish our mission without hesitation? But Jesus taught us calmly and guided us. So, Jesus saved us from sin.
Are you, too, now ministering like that? Young workers in faith might think that it’s all right to just work to a certain extent, but the predecessors in faith have resolute hearts to fulfill the work of God because they know how the works must be carried out, and how strong faith is needed in His work. If you, too, spiritually have the same hearts, you will sympathize with my words. We aren’t just working for the Lord’s gospel in a nonchalant way of thinking; we serve the gospel while praying to God with truly earnest hearts. In order for that work to turn out well, we aren’t concerned even if there are people disrupting or opposing. And while praying with earnest hearts in the parts that absolutely must be accomplished, we promote every project for the preaching of the gospel, anticipating what the results will be unfolded in the future if they are accomplished. There is a big difference between the heart of a person doing the work of the Lord faithfully and the heart of a person who thoughtlessly does just the work entrusted to him. The person who works knowing the will of God has a very resolute heart, and the person who works not knowing the will of God works with an inattentive heart that does not care whether God’s works turn out well or not. The differences in our hearts and faith all come from the inner attitude of our mind.
Jesus came to this earth to save us from sin, judgment, and destruction. We must know how resolute Jesus’ heart was through which He did the work of our salvation. We must truly know Jesus’ heart. In John 7, the Lord fully put His death before Him and labored.
And He said to the woman caught in adultery in John 8, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.” At that time, He had already received baptism from John the Baptist, so He carried even that woman’s sin of adultery, and since He had His death on the Cross before Him, He told this woman that He, too, could not say she had sin.
We must know how resolute was the work Jesus did in order to save us through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and we must know how difficult it therefore was for Him to accomplish His work. Only that way, can we, too, do God’s work steadfastly. When all kinds of desires or thoughts of the flesh arise, we must think again about how resolutely Jesus worked in order to save us from the sins of the world, and we must give our lives firmly to doing the work of the Lord. No matter how difficult the circumstances, we must be capable of carrying out what we need to do by faith with resolute hearts. We must be capable of carrying out all our works like Jesus through that kind of heart.
Jesus is totally different from us. He is the Creator and our Savior. He was teaching the will of God the Father even while knowing that He would die for it. The Lord is the Son of God who saved us from sin, and He is the Savior, but we are people who don’t know the present, future, or anything, but just receive salvation by the faith that God has given, and live jumping from one thing to the other, according to the circumstances, until the day we die. Of course, we occasionally find spiritual aspects in us because we have been born again by believing in Jesus Christ and, as a result, the Holy Spirit has come to our hearts.
People condemned Jesus as an offender of the Law because He healed the sick on the Sabbath, and they intended to kill Him. If we go over into John 8, people led the woman caught in adultery before Jesus and asked, “Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?” They were trying to push Him into a predicament and treating Him as an offender of the Law, someone who didn’t keep it, and an evil person. But if we look at it from Jesus’ perspective, it wasn’t that He didn’t keep the Law; He was doing the work of saving mankind from sin. However, these people condemned Jesus according to whether or not He kept the Law according to the letter. Jesus was a Person who would have laid down His life when the time came even if they didn’t intend to kill Him. But Jesus was ridiculed, slandered, ignored, and ostracized by people. You and I know well just how painful and distressful those things can be.
When Jesus was on this earth, the people who always opposed Him and argued with Him were the scribes and Pharisees. While claiming that they believed in God, they couldn’t understand what Jesus was doing, so they intended to kill Him. They intended to kill Him because they thought He was someone who violated the Law. So, in John 1, the Bible states, “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made,” and “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.”
Jesus the Creator Himself came to save His people. And the Jews were Jesus’ people physically, too. They were the descendents of Abraham and His people. Jesus was this people’s God. He is the Creator of the universe. Jesus Christ came to His creations and to the nation where the descendents of Abraham lived, whom He especially loved, but who ostracized Him. On top of that, they intended to kill Him, because they thought of Him as an offender and transgressor of the Law, and a slanderer.
So, the Lord told them, “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment” (John 7:24). What is just? “Do you really keep the Law? Are you really righteous? Are you not people who seek after the Law as the legalists, not the justice of God that the Law really requires? Are you not people who misperceive yourselves as people who have kept the whole Law because you try to keep it through just outward appearances? You Pharisees are like whitewashed tombs.” The Jews who did not know what God’s justice was, especially the Pharisees, were so frustrating. So Jesus said that to them. Jesus said all of these things while knowing that He would soon suffer death.
Jesus could have volunteered to die when the time came. Why was it necessary that He speak of this part? Because you and I, too, have to know these Words in order to firmly seek after the righteousness of God, even if we are attacked by our enemies of the world. In other words, it’s because the work that the Lord suffered is the very work that you and I must likewise face and overcome while working for the gospel. Everyone must receive salvation from sin by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and become a child of God. This is the purpose of believing in Jesus. However, most Christians in this world do not justly judge the works of the righteous. The Lord knew that we, the righteous, would be ostracized, and that they would call our faith heresy because it was not the same as their sect, so He gave us this Word in advance.
Through His words of argument, standing against those who ignored Him, fought against Him, and intended to kill Him, Jesus told us to boldly stand against such people through just words when we, too, suffer these things. In other words, He said those things for you and I, who would suffer those things in the future. Jesus didn’t say that because He was afraid of being ostracized; He said that not only He, but His disciples would suffer this scorn while living on this earth. Therefore, He said this and had it recorded; now He comforts His disciples by telling them that it is natural for them to suffer what the Master suffered. And He recorded it in the Bible in order to say that it is right to overcome such difficulties by faith no matter how hard they are.
“Is This Not He Whom the Jews Seek to Kill?”
Among the people in Jerusalem who heard Jesus’ words, some of them said, “Is this not He whom they seek to kill?” The Jews sought to kill Jesus. Only a few people following Jesus liked Him; everyone else sought to kill Him. They liked Him when He performed miracles and gave them bread, but when He said that they would obtain eternal life by eating His flesh and blood, everyone left but His twelve disciples. When Jesus asked, “Do you also want to go away,” Peter represented the disciples and responded, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” But besides His disciples, everyone abandoned Him. They all left Him. Now, about 99.9% of the people in that country became His enemies.
Why had they, who had once been His avid fans, all become His enemies? When Jesus healed the sick on the Sabbath, healed the lepers, raised the dead, and said that He was the Son of God, simply speaking, He became what the entertainment world today calls a “superstar.” He emerged in the country of Israel as a huge superstar. The Jews saw the things He was doing and were totally captivated: “All problems will be resolved if only that Man is with us. If there is nothing to eat, don’t worry. A superstar has emerged that can feed ten or twenty thousand people by bringing a basket and saying just one blessing on it. Don’t worry about your sickness. All diseases will be cured if they just walk in front of Him. Don’t worry about people who have died. If those who have died just meet Him, they come back to life.” They believed so and followed Him. So, wasn’t Jesus a superstar? Jesus was a Man like the sun, rising by the hope of the Jews.
But when Jesus did not continue to perform those works, and told people to eat His flesh and blood to obtain eternal life, they judged that there was nothing more to obtain from Him and left Him. Jesus is the Savior who came to this earth in order to give us the remission of sins by feeding us His flesh and blood. In other words, He told us to become the children of God by faith. The Lord is the Son of God; He told people to believe in Him and be saved from sin, since He eliminated all their sins through His baptism and the Cross. So even the people who had followed after Him for a while all left Him, turned against Him, and became His enemies.
Today’s Christians are the same. They say that the living the life of a Christian will mean becoming well off, that his health will improve, and that he will succeed in this world, just because he calls on the name of the Lord. But they actually hate it if Jesus Christ’s true disciples try to share the gospel of the water and the Spirit with them. They immediately think of the true disciples of Jesus as enemies, if they say to them, “The Lord became our eternal Savior by coming to this earth, receiving baptism from John the Baptist, hanging on the Cross and dying, and being resurrected from the dead. He eliminated all our sins. So, you have no sins. Since the gospel of the water and the Spirit eliminated all of your sins, those who believe in this gospel have no sins.” And they hate the righteous and intend to kill them.
At the time of Jesus, too, the religious fanatics of Judaism wanted to kill Him. But seeing that the Pharisees and the chief priests didn’t say anything even though Jesus spoke publicly, the Jews thought it strange and doubted, asking, “Do the leaders of Israel think that this Man is truly the Christ?” But the people who physically knew Jesus well did not think that way. While asserting that they knew where He came from, they ignored Him and never acknowledged that He was the Son of God. When Christ came, it was said that no one knew where He would come from, and since they knew where Jesus came from, they thought that Jesus could never be Christ. They thought that they knew everything: that He came from Nazareth, that He didn’t attend school and was very ignorant, that there was nothing special about Him, and that He was born into a poor family. Since they knew His parents were Joseph and Mary and He had a few brothers and a few sisters, they could not acknowledge that Jesus was God who had come to this earth in the flesh of man and the Messiah, even though they saw His many miracles and listened to His authoritative teachings.
When the Lord said those words, people wanted to kill Him, but since His time of sacrificial death on the Cross had not yet come, there was no one who could dare to put their hands on Him. Many people among those who listened to His teachings in the Temple said, “When the Christ comes, will He do more signs than these which this Man has done?” And they whispered to one another. That means that there were those in that whirlpool who believed that Jesus was the Savior. So, since the crowds that flocked to Jesus increased, the Pharisees and chief priests ordered their subordinates to grab Him. But Jesus said, “I shall be with you a little while longer, and then I go to Him who sent Me. You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am you cannot come.”
Then, the Jews said, “Where does He intend to go that we shall not find Him? Does He intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks?” People had questions about the words that Jesus spoke when He said, “You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am you cannot come,” but He was speaking of His death. He was saying, “In a little while, I will lay down My life on the Cross and die; you will not be able to meet Me at that time.”
The Lord is not a Person who came to this earth according to what He wanted. The Lord was sent by God the Father, and He performed the will of the Father and spread His Word. He is the Savior who carried out the Father’s commandments to save us from sin, judgment, and destruction to give us eternal life.
I hope that as you look at today’s Scripture passage, you will ponder upon the resolute heart that Jesus must have had to fulfill His public ministry for three years, sadly walking the road of death, all the while clearly knowing He would die. We must remember the fact that Jesus received baptism and went, step by step, to the Cross in order to save us, all the while knowing that He would die. Since our Lord loves us, He persistently was capable of doing that work, knowing that He had to die. And I hope you remember the fact that the Lord constantly labored for the will of God, no matter the circumstances.
If you believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and your faith has grown somewhat, I hope that you become people who understand at least the resolute heart of Jesus, follow Him by faith, and become a person of such faith. We are insufficient and selfish, so it’s very hard for us to become those kinds of people, but if the Lord gives us the power, we can do it. Therefore, I hope you hold a bigger will, ponder on the heart and thoughts of God, and become the kind of people who think, act, and follow according to His will.
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