Greg Robinson - Now We Believe- John’s Guide to Growing Our Faith - Class 2 - Can Anything Good Come Out of Nazareth?

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1. 0:00

   This is day two of the 2025 Idlewild Bible School. Our first period teacher is Brother Greg Robinson. This topic is Now we believe, John’s Guide to Growing our Faith. Today’s topic is can anything good come out of Nazareth with a great all?

2. 0:24

   Right. Thanks, brother Jeff. Good morning, my dear brothers and sisters. Very good energetic this morning. Once again, I’ve gotten some comments and scriptures and characters from you about people that have really helped to build your faith. So I’m still looking for more of those. Build a list. And then tomorrow morning I’ll share some of those with everybody from that list. This morning, as you saw in our readings, we’re going to be looking at 2 important stories from the Gospel of John that begin to put together for us the picture of how we can develop faith.

3. 0:59

   We’re going to be looking at, first of all, a conversation that Nathaniel has with Jesus. And I really like that one because we get into the mind of Nathaniel. It seems like this just this, this quick, quick conversation. And yet all of a sudden Nathaniel comes to belief. And then we’re going to look at turning the water into wine, which is a miracle, which I believe is, is a mission statement actually for the for the disciples, especially of what Jesus is going to be doing in his time and in his ministry.

4. 1:31

   And as the first miracle that Jesus does. I think that’s that’s pretty fitting. So let’s jump in then to Nathaniel. So open your Bibles to John chapter 1, if you haven’t already done that. And to introduce the conversation that he has. We have this, this pattern of belief that’s it’s beginning to take place.

5. 1:49

   We started with John the Baptist. John the Baptist becomes a witness. We go through some of the disciples. We come to John 1 and verse 43 it says the next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee and he found Philip and he said to him, follow me. Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. And Philip verse 45 found Nathaniel and said to him, we have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote. So Philip goes to Nathaniel and he says, we found the Messiah. So there’s one that believed right there. There’s a there’s another man that believes, he says it’s Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. And Nathaniel says what can anything good come out of Nazareth?

6. 2:43

   He says, you’ve got the wrong guy. This can’t be the Messiah. Now it wasn’t that Nathaniel thought, you know, I really think that that Nazareth is a is a terrible place and no one good could come from Nazareth. It wasn’t because of that at all. It was something more than that. It’s because the people of Israel, we’re all looking for the Messiah to be from where?

7. 3:05

   From Bethlehem, right? So they were all looking for him to come from Bethlehem. Now this was an objection that the people had to Jesus right from the start, but it was an objection that the people had to Jesus that went on and on and on through his ministry. Jesus of Nazareth. If you come over with me to John Chapter 7, we see this this same misinformation, if you will, about Jesus is already, it is still separating a lot of people from believing, believing in Jesus and stopping them from doing that.

8. 3:40

   So this is about three years in John 7 into the ministry of Jesus. And at this time, most people have stopped following Jesus. His popularity is, is is way, way down from what it was at the start. And he’s at the Feast of the Tabernacles. And the Jewish leaders are actually looking to kill Jesus.

9. 4:03

   We talked a little bit about that last night. That’s still on their mind. This is, I think it’s about a year and a half later, and they’re still looking to kill Jesus. And when Jesus came to the feast, people saw the miracles that he did. They heard his words. And many people said he’s got to be the Messiah. This is the Messiah.

10. 4:23

    But many people had come to a different conclusion. Many people said, no, he’s deceiving the people. This is not the Messiah. So if we look at at John Chapter 7 and verse 40, it says and when they heard these words, that’s the words of Jesus because Jesus was was really doing his first preaching in the temple. At this point, some of the people said, this is really the prophet.

11. 4:47

    This is the prophet like Moses. And some would connect that then with with the idea of the Messiah. And others said, yeah, this is the Christ. But some people said, hold on, is the Christ to come out of Galilee? Hasn’t the Scripture said that Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?

12. 5:12

    And so verse 43 then says there was a division among the people. So three years into the ministry and people are still being LED astray by this piece of misinformation. This piece of misinformation that the Messiah came from Bethlehem and Jesus was not from Bethlehem, but that he was from Nazareth. And this misinformation is being supported, not corrected by the Pharisees.

13. 5:42

    Look at later in the chapter, later in Chapter 7 of John when Nicodemus opposes the arrest of Jesus, Nicodemus says shouldn’t we at least listen to Jesus and what he has to say before we arrest him? And what do they say in verse 52? Are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee and the Jewish leaders keep this misinformation about Jesus alive. They keep it alive and they keep it alive and they keep it alive. They call him Jesus of Nazareth, right? They keep saying that, and that’s as if to say Jesus, not of Bethlehem, and that’s as if to say Jesus, not the Messiah. But John gives us the account of Jesus conversation with Nathaniel, and that conversation helps us to understand how we can get past misinformation like this. We live in a world that that’s full of misinformation, so this isn’t an important one.

14. 6:47

    We think about the misinformation that leads people astray today, and maybe our our young people are faced with this more than we are. But the example of evolution, much of the world, much of the world believes that evolution is a proven fact, when in reality, the theory of evolution has not been proven. And of course, it never will be proven because it’s absolutely not true.

15. 7:13

    But most people believe in evolution. Many people say there can’t be a God. There can’t be a God because he wouldn’t allow all of this suffering. But we understand suffering. We understand the suffering that role has, the role that suffering has. We understand the freedom of choice. Some people say, why isn’t he fixing the world? If there was a God, he would be fixing the world. But we understand, don’t we, that he actually is going through the process of fixing the world. And so misinformation about God is, is something that’s been going on all the way back, you know, since the beginning. And it’s something that everyone has faced. It’s something that is probably never going to stop until until the Kingdom age.

16. 7:58

    So it’s something then that is a massive problem for us and for our children. But it’s not new. So let’s let’s go back to John chapter 1 then and let’s see how Nathaniel deals with this piece of misinformation. So John chapter 1 jumps right into this idea, as we said of of people coming to believe John the Baptist is first verse 34.

17. 8:24

    He says, and I saw and bear record that this is the son of God. So that’s that’s the mission that the Gospel of John has, isn’t it? Andrew and John come and they say we have found the Messiah. Philip finds Nathaniel because he’s found the Messiah, and then we’re back where we left off. I should have clicked those through in verse 46. And Nathaniel says, can anything good come from Nazareth? Because Nathaniel doesn’t believe Philip. He says, wait a second, Philip, he can’t be the Messiah. He’s not from Bethlehem.

18. 8:58

    And Nathaniel says, you know what Micah says? Micah tells us that the Messiah will come from Bethlehem. But Philip doesn’t give up, does he? He says, no, just come and see, come and see. And I think you’ll believe that he is the Messiah. And so we could picture Nathaniel and he’s going to see Jesus just because Philip convinced him to do that.

19. 9:21

    And he’s got his Bible. Of course, he didn’t have his Bible, but he’s got his Bible and he’s got his finger in Micah chapter 5 because that’s where the Messiah coming from Bethlehem is found. So let’s take a look at Micah 5 and verse 2, because Nathaniel’s convinced of this and he’s ready to go and he’s ready to talk to Jesus about this.

20. 9:41

    So Micah 5, verse 2, it says, But you, O Bethlehem of Frata, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me, one who is to be ruler in Israel. So it’s a very clear prophecy. Israel, the people of Israel would mostly have known about this prophecy.

21. 10:02

    Certainly the priests would have known that the, the teachers, the Pharisees would have known. We can think about the wise men when they came to Herod. Remember that story when, when they came to Herod and they were looking for, because of the star that they had seen, they were looking for the Messiah.

22. 10:19

    And what were they told? Where were they told that the Messiah was going to be born? They were told to go to Bethlehem, right? Those people open their Bibles, Micah 5 and said, yeah, it’s Bethlehem. And you’ll remember what Herod does, right? Herod says, OK, we’ve got to get rid of all the baby boys in Bethlehem. And so he killed the baby boys in Bethlehem. And we know that Bethlehem ends up being the place where Jesus family from Nazareth, where Jesus, where they take Jesus and Jesus is born.

23. 10:51

    And by some strange coincidence, not a coincidence really, we know there was a Roman government recorded proof of the fact that Jesus family was from Bethlehem, right? There was proof and and people could have looked that up and found look at the whole family line is from Bethlehem. They went there for the census, they went there for the taxation. So there was conclusive proof then that Jesus was from the family that came from Bethlehem, and maybe proof that Jesus was actually born there in Bethlehem. But when Jesus began his ministry, there was a problem. He came from Bethlehem, came from, sorry, Nazareth. And most people, because of that, ignored Jesus and what he had to say.

24. 11:41

    So because then of the persuasion of Philip, Nathaniel goes with Philip to see Jesus and they approached Jesus and Nathaniel’s convinced he’s not the Messiah. And what does Jesus say to him in verse 47? He says, behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no God. Kind of a funny thing to say, don’t you think?

25. 12:06

    Kind of a funny thing to say that a person that you haven’t met. And Nathaniel must have wondered what Jesus was talking about. He says in verse 48, how do you know me? We’ve never met. What are you saying? Now? Put yourself in the shoes of Nathaniel.

26. 12:27

    Jesus might just be trying to get on my good side, right? He might be trying to to schmooze me here to to impress me, to open me up so that I’ll, I’ll listen to him. Maybe that’s what this is about. You know, when when you when you meet somebody they haven’t seen for a long time and they’re trying to make you feel good, what do they always say to you?

27. 12:46

    Wow, you’re looking good. I haven’t seen you for years, but you’re sure looking good, right? Or have you lost weight? Those kind of things that they’ll say to you and you know very well that you haven’t lost weight and you’re, you’re looking a lot older than you did the last time. But that might have been what Nathaniel was thinking here. Was that a miracle?

28. 13:05

    What Jesus says? So Jesus says to him, before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. And then Nathaniel would have been thinking, how does Jesus know that? How did he see me under the fig tree? And then, and this is the amazing, amazing part of this, Nathaniel gives, I think, one of the most unexpected responses ever.

29. 13:34

    And he says, Rabbi, you are the Son of God. You are the king of Israel. It’s it’s like a bolt of lightning hits. And Nathaniel’s got it. He understands. He he completely believes what he’s supposed to believe here. Now He believes exactly what John said we were looking for in in in the purpose of his of his gospel back in John 20 verse 31. These are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ that you’re the he’s the anointed that he’s the king, he’s the son of God and the believing you might have life through his name.

30. 14:16

    So as we’re reading it, we say what just happened here. Jesus calls Nathaniel an Israelite indeed, which might just be empty words. And he says, I saw you under the fig tree a while ago. And, and boom, Nathaniel knows three things about Jesus. He’s he says three things about Jesus. You’re the teacher Rabbi, he calls him, you’re the son of God and you’re the king of Israel.

31. 14:44

    He, he doesn’t even ask about Nazareth. He doesn’t say a word about Nazareth. He just says, wow, you’re that you’re the Son of God, you’re the king of Israel. It’s amazing.

32. 14:58

    So I think here’s the question. Is John telling us that Nathaniel’s stunning belief came because Jesus had just read his mind? Is that what he’s telling us? We think about that. Look at verse verse 50. That’s actually the same question that Jesus asks in verse 50. Jesus answered him because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree.

33. 15:26

    Do you believe? Is that why you believe? Because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree. OK, so what’s really happening here? What’s, what are we supposed to, to be learning? Does does faith come like that? What about faith coming from the hearing, the word of God that that we’ve been, we’ve been programmed to believe that that’s the source of faith.

34. 15:48

    It really seems like we’re missing something. So what I’d like to do now is I’d like to go through it again, and let’s try to think about what might have made Nathaniel come to this conclusion. So let’s go back to 46. And I know it seems like we’re retracing our steps, but it’s such a short conversation, I think it’s worth doing.

35. 16:08

    So Nathaniel hears about this man the people are calling the Messiah, and he knows about Micah 5, verse 2, that the Messiah is going to come from Bethlehem. And so he doesn’t believe it, but his friend Philip keeps pestering him. And so he goes with Philip to see Jesus. And as he comes to Jesus, he’s thinking, yeah, this is not the Messiah.

36. 16:32

    And then Jesus says to him, and he calls him an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit. He’s 100% right about Nathaniel, as we’ll see. Nathaniel is legitimately looking for the Messiah. He’s the kind of person who says, I’m going to figure this out for myself and I really want to know. But there’s more to it than just Nathaniel being a sincere person.

37. 16:59

    Jesus said to him, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit. Now those few words are saying a lot. Who’s he alluding to? What Old Testament, What important Old Testament character is he alluding to when he says that Jacob, He’s alluding to Jacob because Jacob was an Israelite. Indeed, you remember Jacob had his name changed to Israel and before Jacob had his name changed to Israel.

38. 17:36

    Would you say that he was a deceiver? Definitely was a deceiver, right? He deceived his brother. That was that was his character. He he didn’t put his trust in God to do things. He was going to accomplish things on his own and he was going to use his his own brains and his own deceit at times to do that. So we look at verse 51, we find that that is indeed clearly who Jesus wants him to be thinking about South John 151 says, and he said to him, so these are the words that Jesus speaks to Nathaniel.

39. 18:13

    Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man. So right, that’s the angels it in, in Jesus, in Joseph. Sorry, Jacob’s dream. So there’s no doubt here that this is Jacob that he wants him to be thinking about.

40. 18:32

    OK, but why Jacob? Why does he want him to be thinking about Jacob? Well, turn with me to Genesis 32. The story of Jacob having his name changed takes place, you’ll remember, just before he meets with his brother Esau. So this whole story then comes to the mind of Nathaniel in in in a flash, I guess because it’s such a quick conversation. He meets his brother Jacob meets his brother Esau or is about to, and he’s absolutely terrified of this. He thought that Esau would kill him. And so he sends gifts ahead of him and he sends he divides up his camp so that he’s at the very back in the in the safest position.

41. 19:13

    He does everything but putting his trust in God, just like he had done to get the blessings. And verse 24 of Genesis 32 says, and Jacob was left alone, and there he wrestled a man with him until the breaking of day. And so we have here a symbol of Jacob wrestling with this Angel. It’s a symbol of Jacob’s resistance to God in his life. The Angel representing God is, is trying to get Jacob to, to, to mold his behavior and his thinking. And he’s always trying to do that. And Jacob is continuously resisting that. And verse 25 says, and when he, that’s when the Angel saw that he prevailed not against Jacob.

42. 19:57

    He touched the hollow of his thigh and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. So the Angel wasn’t prevailing against Jacob, so. The Angel puts his thigh out of joints. All right, I’m going to just incapacitate you here and then you’ll have to put your trust in God.

43. 20:18

    He made it impossible for Jacob to do it on his own. And then verse 26, the Angel said, let me go for the day breaketh. And Jacob said, I won’t let you go unless you bless me. You see, Jacob had such a strong desire for the blessing, for the promises. He wanted that more than anything.

44. 20:39

    And so the Angel says to him, What is thy name? He said Jacob. He said, Thy name shall be called no more, Jacob, but Israel. For as a Prince has thou power with God and with men, and has prevailed. And so God changed His name here to Israel. He was an Israelite indeed in whom was no Jacob any longer. And Nathaniel’s mind would have putting those things together. But that doesn’t totally answer our question yet, does it? But what we find is that Micah chapters four and five, which we’re already thinking about because that’s already what Nathaniel comes to Jesus on his mind with on his mind. And Micah, chapters four and five really help us to to understand in those chapters, God is trying to get Judah to be like their father Jacob.

45. 21:35

    He’s trying to get them to have the same love for the promises that Jacob had. He’s trying to get them away from their idols, like if Jacob went away from his idols. So come with me to Micah chapter 4 and verse 6. And there’s a series of verses here that just show us this what we just saw with with with the name of Jacob being changed and the progression of Jacob and how God wants Israel to follow that same progression. And to go from a man that’s had his hip put out of joint right to a man that is serving God because he puts his trust in him.

46. 22:13

    He wants to show us how Israel is going to go through that same process. So Micah chapter 4, verse 6, it says in that day saith the Lord, will I assemble her that halteth. Who’s the one that halted? What does it mean to halt? I guess is maybe the first question. Does anybody have another word?

47. 22:34

    Limp, right? Who’s the one that limped? Of course it’s Jacob, isn’t it, when his thigh was put out of joint? And it’s talking not about Jacob. It says her that halteth because it’s talking about the nation of Israel. So God says in that day, I’ll assemble her that halteth and I will gather her that is driven out and her that is afflicted.

48. 22:54

    So Israel’s going to be gathered together. They were scattered. They’re now going to be gathered together. And he tells them that they’re going to follow this pattern. They’re going to actually put their trust in God and they will no longer limp. He continues in verse 7. He says, and I will make her that halted A remnant. So the nation of Israel is going to follow the pattern of Jacob. They’re going to become a group of small, sorry, a small group of believers that are faithful to God. And then it says in her that was cast off, I’m going to make a strong nation that’s Israel again. And then it says, and the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion from henceforth, even forever. So God is going to reign.

49. 23:37

    And we know that that’s talking about this. God’s house is going to be established. God is going to reign. God is going to have his Son reigning and his son ruling over his house in Zion henceforth, even forever. And then in verse 8, he tells us that Israel would become the first dominion.

50. 23:59

    And we look forward to that happening, don’t we? In in the Kingdom when the nation of Israel becomes the mortal nation that actually does the work of Christ and goes to the world and and helps to convert the world. So this is what is on Nathaniel’s mind. He’s thinking about the Kingdom. He’s thinking about Israel.

51. 24:19

    Now let’s go back to the beginning of Micah chapter 4, because these are these are verses that we use all the time. Probably not from Micah, probably we go to Isaiah chapter 2 when we read these verses. But these are verses about the Kingdom. And this is on Nathaniel’s mind, I believe, as he as he’s listening to Jesus, probably because he’d been thinking about that the whole time.

52. 24:42

    He’d been trying to figure out about the Messiah and about the Kingdom, and here’s what he’s thinking about. Verse one. It should come to pass in the latter day. So Micah 41 that the mountain of the House of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains. It shall be lifted up above the hills, and people shall flow to it.

53. 25:01

    Many nations shall come and say, come, let’s go to the mountain of the Lord and to the House of Jacob. The House of Jacob, remember Jacob was the one that saw the angels in his dream and they were ascending and descending. And what did he say? He said this is none other but the House of God. What did he mean by the House of God? He he wasn’t in a house.

54. 25:28

    He was, he was out in the middle of nowhere. He wasn’t thinking of a house as as we think of a house. He was put out in the open. And in the context, the word house then has a a different meaning. The word house is a place where God is. And so Jacob says surely the Lord is in this place.

55. 25:49

    That’s what the house was all about. And so God is going to be in Jerusalem. His presence is going to be there through His Son. So Micah’s saying that people are going to come up to Jerusalem because God is in that place. We can go and we can see his Son, the Father ruling through his Son and the Son of God in that place.

56. 26:14

    And then it says, and he’ll teach us of his ways and we’ll walk in his pants. So he’s not only the Son of God, but he’s a ruler. He’s not only a ruler, but he’s a teacher. Micah’s telling us that Christ is going to be the Messiah, is going to be the teacher, the ruler or the king, and he’s going to be the manifestation of God. He’s going to be the Son of God.

57. 26:42

    And then what does he say in verse 4? I’d like you to to remember the first part of this verse especially. He says, but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. That’s a picture that Nathaniel had on his mind of the Kingdom, because that was the Kingdom that he had learned about back in Micah chapters four and five.

58. 27:15

    All right, so let’s go back to John chapter 1 now. So Nathaniel says, can anything good come from Nazareth, which is Micah 5? Jesus says he’s an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile, which is actually just like Micah 4. Nathaniel says, how do you know me? And of course, what does Jesus do? He goes right back to Micah again, and he ties a great big bow around this.

59. 27:42

    And he says to him, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. And Nathaniel’s astonished, because in just a few words Jesus has gone through the whole thing. And so Nathaniel says, Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the king of Israel. You’re exactly what Micah was talking about.

60. 28:14

    Micah’s telling us. Micah told us that Christ would be Rabbi, the Teacher, the Son of God, and the king of Israel. So how was Nathaniel able to believe? What did it take to make Nathaniel believe? What did it take to get him past the misinformation? Was it a bolt of lightning of belief that came from God?

61. 28:41

    Was it a miracle that Jesus had done? What was it? He knew the scriptures, didn’t he? He went back, he researched it, he checked it out. He knew exactly what to expect. And when Jesus said the right words, he said you’re the Messiah, you’re the Son of God. The lesson I think, is for us the same. How did Nathaniel believe?

62. 29:08

    Nathaniel believed because 1. He was genuinely trying to find the truth about the Messiah. So when misinformation comes for us, if we genuinely try to figure it out, God will help us to figure it out. Number two, when that happened, his mind was in the Word. So when Jesus talked with him, there was no doubt that Jesus was the Messiah.

63. 29:35

    Almost instantly, no doubt in his mind, he gets exactly what Jesus wanted him to get. And what happened to misinformation in that process? It was completely defeated, completely removed, completely gone.

64. 29:52

    So Romans 10 verse 17 is right, isn’t it? Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. We’ve seen it in action. Nathaniel could could see something that was not visible to the senses and so he believed and he developed a faith. Now I’d like to share with you some some stats that I came across about church membership and I don’t know if you can you can read them from from too far back, but what this chart shows us is the decline in Christian Church membership. So all the way up to the year 2000, participation in churches, this is just Christian churches of course is about 70%. And then there’s a decline that starts to take place in about 2000.

65. 30:46

    And then the decline seems to accelerate. Now, there’s a factor that’s really come to bear on the membership of churches, Christian churches that has drastically reduced their participation, people’s participation. And what do you think that that is? That starts to happen around 2000 and accelerates beyond that. Internet. Thank you. And then Internet becomes the phone, right?

66. 31:16

    I don’t have my phone with me. Probably that’s good. But the phone takes that and makes it even easier. We have, we have constantly with us, convenient, portable, addictive entertainment that gets in the way of our time in the Word of God. And it’s addictive for us. It’s addictive for our children, not just because we’re weak.

67. 31:43

    It’s addictive because it’s been engineered to be addictive. And that engineered addictiveness is getting better and better and better. We think of AI and the, and the impact that AI is going to have on it. So in the past, when, when you had a proclivity for something, the, the algorithms would figure out your proclivity and they would find something that met the needs of that or met that your, your desires and show it to you.

68. 32:12

    But they would have to find it in order to show it to you. Now, what’s AI doing next? What is got I is going to do next is it’s going to actually say, well, we know exactly what you want and it’s going to create it and it’s going to create it instantly and it’s going to present it to you and it’s going to be able to constantly present exactly what you’re looking for. So we’ve only begun to see the dangers then of the phone that we take with us that has this entertainment that takes our time.

69. 32:42

    We’ve got to figure out a way, brothers and sisters, to take to somehow reduce that exposure and get our time back into the word of God. And I think if we don’t that what will happen to us is when someone comes along and says, can anything good come from Nazareth, that we might say, yeah, probably not and go on and miss the Messiah.

70. 33:11

    We definitely don’t want our children being in a place where they say can anything good come from Nazareth and completely miss the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. All right, so that was the the story of of Nathaniel and his conversation with Jesus. Let’s go on now in the minutes that we have to the water to wind the second part.

71. 33:29

    So John chapter 2. Now we noticed with Nathaniel then that his knowledge of the scriptures made the difference. Him going back, doing the research, figuring it out, understanding set him apart from other people and and the the misinformation, as we said, carried on all the way through the ministry of Christ and people wanted to believe it and so they believed it and they ended up not finding the Messiah. But knowing the word of God does not equal belief. It’s possible for us to be exposed to the word of God and not to develop faith.

72. 34:08

    And I think that’s what this next section that John presents to us with the first miracle. I think that’s the idea behind that. So we see a great example of the importance of knowing the Scriptures in order to build our faith. And now we see some of the dangers of of of doing that in the wrong way.

73. 34:25

    So most people in Israel knew about the prophecies of the Messiah. They knew about the promises to David, but most of them rejected them. The nation of Israel is proof for us that it’s possible for people to do their readings every day, to spend a day each week around the Word of God, and to even spend significant time listening to instruction of the word of God.

74. 34:51

    And yet not to develop faith, not to develop a faith that saves. That’s the the example that we’re being presented here of Israel, very, very familiar with the word of God and yet not believing. So let’s take a quick look at the miracle John 2 verse one. It says on the third day there was a wedding at in Cana and the mother of Jesus was there. So the first sign is going to be done at a wedding. And weddings are where new families are created in Israel. God’s bride, his people form the couple, right? So God has a bride, which is his people, which are the believers. And we think about the ecclesia that’s married to Christ, a family that’s there.

75. 35:35

    And what we have here is a type of a of a man leaving his parents to start a new family. And that new family goes forward to, to to make even more. So this is a good picture of why God created the nation of Israel to get people to join his family and to become his family. So verse 3 says when the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine.

76. 36:07

    So everybody’s together for this wedding and they’ve run out of wine. So we have God as the husband, we have his people, Israel, and they’ve run out of wine. Now, what do you think that might mean? What does that represent for us, running out of wine? How would Israel do you think have run out of wine?

77. 36:29

    Well, wine is a symbol of blood, and blood represents the life of a person. And a life can be used either in the service of God or it could be used in the services of our own desires. And so a life in the service of God would be what we’re looking for here.

78. 36:49

    God was looking for people to to see His promises and to dedicate their lives to Him and to become His bride. If we’re to put it another way, what was happening in Israel was not very many people were actually developing faith. Jesus had come into Israel and when he got to Israel, he found that there wasn’t much wine. He found that there wasn’t much faith. Now Hebrews 11, I think helps us to understand this. Hebrews 11, verse 24, it says by faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the Son, the Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. So he chose to give his life in the service of God. Moses did, rather than serving his own desires. He considered verse 26 the reproach of Christ, greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

79. 37:49

    So Israel had run out of wine, they didn’t believe, they weren’t doing what Moses did. They didn’t have hope or expectation of eternal life. The word then was not having the desired effect on them. It didn’t have the effect that it had on on Moses. So let’s go back John 2 verse 6 and let’s look at this details of this a little bit.

80. 38:13

    It says there were 6 stone water jar, water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification and each one held 20 or 30 gallons. So the water, we talked about this last night pretty extensively. The water represents the word of God. And this goes also back to John chapter 1. God shined his word into the world, but people didn’t grab hold of it.

81. 38:39

    It wasn’t used to make people the sons of God is what we read about yesterday. It was all around the people, this, this water, but it had no effect on their hearts. It’s possible for us, like Israel, to do the readings each day, to attend all the meetings of the ecclesia and yet not to have our faith strengthened. Have you ever done the readings and got to the end of the readings and not been able to remember what you read? Yeah, we need to make a find out a way so that we don’t run out of wine.

82. 39:20

    And what we need to do is we need to find a way to engage our brains while we’re in the Word. We need to find ways to make the word of God stick, maybe taking notes in a class, maybe taking notes in the readings, maybe underlining. And at any age, do something that helps to get us engaged in the Word so that it’s not just our mind working through it without us. So Jesus gets to work in this case in the parable and in the miracle, and the first step in showing Israel that Jesus was the Son of God.

83. 39:58

    So we go down to verse 7. And so Jesus says to his servants, fill the jars with water and they fill them to the brim. So the first thing we have to do then is we have to fill the jars with water. We have to fill our minds with the Word of God.

84. 40:13

    That’s the first step. We’ve got to take that. We’ve got to not be selective in what we do. We have to hear the whole word of God and apply it in our lives. And then he says, now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast. And so they took it. And so after they filled the pots up with water, they took the water, they took the word of God, which at this point had become wine, and they gave it to the ruler of the feast. And we have this wine which represents people giving their lives in the service of God.

85. 40:46

    So what had happened here through the the hands of the disciples, through the hands of the servants, through the hands of Jesus, was that the word of God, which was having no effect on the people, which had only been used by the people to this point for what? They’d use that water for purifying. And that water, the word of God is actually converted to something that’s much more powerful, something that’s going to actually bring us to sacrifice for God, something that could bring us to faith, which is what we talked about yesterday.

86. 41:17

    And then in verse verse 9, when the master of the feast tasted the water, which had now become wine, and he didn’t know where it came from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew the master of the feast called the bridegroom. So the master now has has seen this, he’s tasted this new wine and he says this is far, far better.

87. 41:38

    We can imagine an experience where where we go through the word and we don’t get anything out of it at all. And in a different situation where we go through the word and our faith is, is built up by the power of the word and it’s much, much better. It makes everything else unimportant to us. Verse 10 it says, and he said to him, everyone serves the good wine 1st and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine.

88. 42:02

    But you’ve kept the good wine until now, of course. That’s what the Lord Jesus Christ had come to do. He’d come to take the the Word of God, which was being used by Israel at this point, just as as something to purify the outside. He’d come to take the Word of God and convert it into something that would change their faith and build that faith in them because that was better than anything else that they had. What was the result of all of that? What was the result?

89. 42:33

    I hope you’ve got your little Bible marking pencil out to to mark it there in verse 11. And his disciples believed on him. It doesn’t say everyone believed. I believe that the disciples believed, yes, because it was a miracle. But I also believe that the disciples believed because they understood that this was a picture of the mission statement that Jesus was giving to them. Jesus was showing them, this is what we’re going to do. This is the whole purpose of my mission is to take people that are that are using the word of God to to wash the outside and to make themselves look good and to actually make it change people’s hearts so that they can have faith so that they can be in the Kingdom of God.

90. 43:19

    All right, So what are the lessons from hearing the word that we come up with today? So the first one is spending real, consistent, quality time in the word is required if we want to build faith. There’s Nathaniel, right? He, he did exactly that. The second one, cheap entertainment, easily attained entertainment of the digital world is the enemy of faith. It’s going to get in the way of our faith because we’re going to spend our time on it when we should be doing what Nathaniel was doing, which was trying to figure out what God was saying and to try to understand if something was misinformation or if it was true.

91. 44:03

    And then thirdly, it’s possible to spend time in the word without developing faith. And I think that one’s particularly relevant for us because we all spend time in the word. It’s up to us to go from just doing it, to be seen of others and to to clean the outside, to go from that to actually changing and to developing our faith. All right, we’ll stop there today. A reminder if you have people or passages of the Scripture that have helped you develop your faith, I’d love to to hear about those.

92. 44:38

    All right. Thank you.