Grace Bible Church
Basics Series
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
John chapter 6.
Guest Speaker: Scott Grande
The primary purpose of miracles was to focus attention upon the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So the purpose of the message goes far beyond the alleviation of suffering, it was to prevent eternal suffering in the lake of fire.
As far as the unbeliever is concerned the miracles of Jesus Christ were designed to call the unbeliever’s attention to the issue of the cross — Christ bearing our sins
So not only did these two miracles focus attention on the Lord Jesus Christ and His work, but the two miracles coming up, one on land and one on sea, are designed to test the disciples, to see if they have learned anything.
“Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias.”
We in our laziness love to sit around and not have to think, wasting away our time on entertainment when there is so much God wants us to learn and experience.
There were only 12 Apostles, but there were often many more disciples with Him.
Jerusalem is the place to be at the Passover, but the Passover speaks of Jesus Christ and the religious crowd in Jerusalem have rejected Christ and therefore Jesus Christ is on a mountain by the sea of Galilee at the Passover time.
So they are going to have ritual without reality, which is meaningless.
It isn’t until He is ready to go to the cross that He will be in Jerusalem on the Passover, and Jesus Christ was actually crucified on the Passover.
Jesus is in the north and He is going to send a message down to Jerusalem! Word of mouth will travel fast, and those with positive volition will seek Him out.
Negative volition in the soul allows other things, other viewpoints, other opinions, and other forms of religion to enter the soul.
When ritual becomes religious, then the people involved are blinded.
The Passover that was held that year was a condemnation of the religious crowd in Jerusalem.
And the Greek word for “saw” here is theaomai, a word which was used for a General who looked out over a panoramic view and immediately got the tactical picture.
The greatest Leader to walk to face of the earth had the greatest perception of life and creatures; and in His perfect humanity He quickly took in the situation.
Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment.”
Every man’s way is right in his own eyes,
But the LORD weighs the hearts.
” You judge according to the flesh; I am not judging anyone.
is the present active indicative in the Greek, and it means not even close to covering it;
literally, ‘to seize a little.’
This unbelief and hopelessness is so contagious that He puts them to work. The Lord knew they would fail this test, so He moves forward again to teach them.
But that is practical unbelief. You can be practical and be unbelieving. In this way we live in rationalization and logic, not by faith.
He is neutralized by the wrong mental attitude, possibly one of fear and worry.
“that every one of them may take a little” —
“not sufficient”
In John 8:15, Jesus said:
We are told in the Word of God not to look at the outward appearance.
1SA 16:1-7
This is two hundred denarii (plural). At this time in the Roman empire, a denarius was a day’s wages.
‘He knew” is a perfect tense. He knew in the past, eternity past, with the result that He still knew it now.
Jesus is simply trying to bring out what is in Philip. He is trying to get Philip to respond with the Word of Christ in his soul.
It is an assayer’s term for testing ore, it means to test to see the quality and purity of a valuable metal.
The true test to see what we really believe in our heart is to see if we will apply the Word of God under pressure.
It is difficult to apply doctrine when under pressure.