(John 7:45-52)
Source stock.xchng taken by Bailly Elodie
My last few posts have been looking at testing what you hear and ensuring that you check the source of what you accept to ensure that you are following truth and not cleverly disguised lies.
In this section of the word we find another necessary practice. As a discussion arose among the Pharisees seeking the arrest of Jesus, we see one man try to persuade the Pharisees and how he failed. In His failure we learn a lesson that we MUST apply to ensure our own positions are solid.
Listen To Wisdom
The soldiers returned from trying to arrest Jesus empty handed. When question by the Pharisees about their failure they said, “No man ever spoke like this man!” (Verse 46) They could not withstand the power of the Lord’s teaching and were clearly in awe of Him and afraid of what the people would do if they had grabbed Jesus and taken him away.
The Pharisees then answered the soldiers back saying, “Are you led astray, you also? Have any of the authorities or of the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd, who do not know the law, are accursed.” (Verse 47-48) Foolish words of anger spoken in pride and arrogance.
But amongst the Pharisees there was one who had believed. Nicodemus believed in Jesus. He knew that Jesus was the Christ for He came to Him by night and said as much. But Nicodemus was fearful of losing his position of authority. Even so, we see him utter words of wisdom to try and defend Jesus that they should have listened to. He said, “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” (Verse 51)
Nicodemus knew the law and here he was advising the Pharisees in wisdom. He was telling them what I have been writing about in the past few posts. He was saying that they needed to find out, check what Jesus was saying and doing, learn to understand and examine him to find the truth.
This is wisdom that we need to learn and know also. Seek the truth. Find out the root cause and understand what is going on so that your mind is trained to distinguish right from wrong. But Nicodemus failed in the next part.
Stand Up
When Nicodemus was put to the test he failed. The Pharisees replied to his wisdom by howling him down. “They replied, “Are you from Galilee too? Search and you will see that no prophet is to rise from Galilee.” (Verse 52) The Pharisees belittled and berated Nicodemus and his fear kicked in and he shrank away.
It takes great courage to stand up for what is right. It takes valour to stand in the face of hostile opposition and to hold onto the truth. Nicodemus failed in that point. He spoke the truth and he spoke wisdom because they SHOULD have examined what Jesus was about to find the truth. But the desire of the Pharisees was not to look for the truth, their desires were for evil as they chose to have him killed.
Nicodemus could not stand in the face of this opposition. His fear was that he would be expelled from the council, disgraced amongst the people and his peers and lose his position.
How many of us have done the same at times? How many of us did not stand for what was right when opposed? All of us I am sure have fallen victim to it when peer pressure or other things have caused us to step back. And I’m as guilty as anyone of such behaviour.
In Christ Jesus we can gain the strength to stand up for what is right. Sure we may fail sometimes, but he gives us strength and as we grow, we will find the strength to stand for what is right.
What If You Fail?
If you fail, don’t worry about it because you are in good company. The apostle Peter suffered several times and failed. When he and the others fled in the Garden at Gethsemane, when he denied Jesus three times, when he withdrew from eating with the Gentiles as described in Galatians 2:11-18. But in each case the Lord showed him mercy and grace as he repented and returned to the Lord.
But then look at the times he did stand up for what was right and succeeded. At Pentecost he stood up and preached the word and three thousand people were saved that day. Peter and John were imprisoned after preaching in the Temple and healing a man who had been crippled. Five thousand believed after their preaching (Acts 4:4) and we see how they stood up to the authorities who charged them to cease proclaiming the truth about Jesus.
18 So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.
19 But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge;
20 for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”
Did they fail sometimes? Yes they did. But on each occasion they repented and returned to the Lord to receive His Grace and to continue in the work of the Lord.
The Lord knows we are not perfect. He knows we will fall sometimes as we walk with Him. He knows that there will be times when we are weak and will succumb to temptations and make mistakes and so on. The issue though is less about the failure, but how we bounce back from failure.
What should you do if you fail to stand up when you should? Mope? Hit the booze? Become sullen and withdrawn? Take it out on your partner, friends or family?
No! Seek the Lord and repent. Seek the grace of God and return to Him for comfort and be lifted up by Him so that you are strengthened. You are being trained for a spiritual war against the forces of evil, and sometimes the training is tough. But when you return to the Lord after each failure you get that little bit stronger until you get the victory.
Most important is to walk in the Spirit. When you are going through the temptation use the sword of the Spirit to battle, use the Spirit to give you the strength to stand. And you will be able to stand because the Spirit will give you the strength.
So in anything and everything, use the wisdom of Nicodemus to seek out the truth, but then stand in that truth when you are tested. And if you fall, don’t condemn yourself and don’t worry. Pick yourself up and return to Jesus so that you can be strengthened and move on. Our walk is a continual forward movement. Don’t look back at past failures but keep your eyes on Jesus ahead of you as you follow Him.
(Photo sourced from stock.xchng taken by Bailly Elodie)
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Hi! I’m John, the owner, author, and editor of this site. Over the past 50+ years as a Christian I have been teaching, preaching and writing about the Bible to help Christians gain a deeper insight into the scriptures that are easily understood. I also answer specific Bible related questions, so feel free to contact me.
Comments
One response to “Stand Up and Listen to Wisdom”
Spiritual warfare is the day to day fight or flight of the soldier of the cross. We are conditioned for self preservation to fight another day. However our experiences lead us to God the Father (the ancient of Days) for the source of our strength as the dramas keep on unfolding in our lives, we know one thing for certain, that is, when we die we are with the Lord. There can never be a happier ending than that and our hope is in the resurrection to eternal life with Christ.
Sometimes it is hard to think about it or liken it to any carnal understanding, but think of it like this, that this is a role play in a real life drama and in this screen play your role is to prepare to die for the Lord in your fight against evil. However in the screen play you go through stages where you are wounded by the enemy just like saint Paul was when he was left for dead outside the city. Yet saint Paul got right back up on his feet and ran back into the city to resume the good fight of faith. So as Christians when we are knocked out of play and have the wind taken right out of us, we take a deep breathe like saint Paul did and get right back into the action to confront and fight the enemy with spiritual weapons of God Almighty.
So in this screen play when we are mortally wounded like saint Stephen we see the vale between eternity and the world we live in removed and see the Lord greet us with his hand open ready to take us where he is. We hear the last words of saint Stephen to forgive them for they knew not what they are doing. These echo the same words of the the Christ when he gave up his last breathe on earth. Saint Stephen when leaving the mortal body saw that all this life was a screen play for the Lord’s viewing to see how much his children loved him to be willing to give their own lives in the process of carrying his truth. The Christ is the Father the very Word that comes straight from the heart of the Father.
When saint Stephen realized that he was in a screen play he saw the life that he was leaving behind was just that, a screen play and nothing more. Because we are so joined spiritually and physically to this world we start to make it more real than life itself and the lines between what is real and permanent get confused and lost with what is not real and temporary. It would be likened to an actor of a drama play screening being so consumed with the role that he/she is playing that the lines of reality become fused into one and the screening play becomes actual life of the actor and gets lost within the drama play screening unable to distinguish between what is real and what is not real. It is like an identity theft where the actor is lured into thinking that the play is real life when all it is is just a play and nothing more. Satan is the master deceiver who disguises the physical realm to make it more real than life eternal with Christ and in so doing becomes the father of lies and a murderer by using this lure to stifle the hope of an eternal life with Christ. So that when the person dies in the role play screening then the person is no more, yet in reality there is an eternity more real than the screening. People who seek their ways are blinded by Satan and cannot find the light of Christ because they are drawn to darkness instead of the light of the Lord.
The role player becomes consumed by how real to life the role play is and it is but that doesn’t stop from making it a role play, because every role player has an END when their character dies in the plot. So for many the END comes like a thief when they are still in their Adam sleep and for others wake up to eternal life with Christ. If you believe you will die in the plot then you most probably will play and stay dead and if you believe you have life and hope in Christ in the resurrection of the dead in this play then you shall see life and your transition will be smooth from this world to the eternal world. Either way the END comes for each character within the screening when they are killed off or die or when the director who is God Almighty says CUT ‘time no more’ then the END of the plot comes.
The END of the plot will be interrupted by judgements coming from God the director of creation, the Heavenly Father. During the END of the plot many role players who were asleep and consumed by the serenely reality of the screen playing that they will be abruptly jolted out of that Adam sleep and realize that they are actually in a plot and nothing more. When many realize this they would want out immediately without seeking the Lord first and those people they shall pray for death (the END of the nightmare), but death shall allude them as they now realize that this role play was a temporary position and not one that they should have made more real than life itself.
As it is written that those that find themselves (get consumed) in this world (screen playing) they will loose their souls because they have not been made ready by the Holy Spirit to receive the Lord Christ Jesus. These are likened to the foolish servants who did not purchase the oil of salvation to trim their lamps until it was too late and there was darkness (the screen play falling apart at the seem).
There are those that love Christ that remain in their role play positions when the screen play goes hay wire and actors are being woken up out of their Adam sleep to realize that it was just a play. Those that love Christ near the END are the remnant (144,000) they will have the seal of God already yet they must stand to greet the Lord with a song when the screen play vale and lights go down and the audience the Christ and the Holy ones (the symbolic cloud) with him are seen and the ones still on the stage (the remnant) are translated from their acting outfits to their eternal outfits their resurrection spirit bodies of flesh and bone like their Lord’s white resurrection garments.
When the lights and the curtains go down all who remain on the stage as role players will see the Lord sitting in the audience watching them all along without them knowing it. That is why it is written all eyes shall see him. Now that the lights are shining on the actors on the stage , the actors can’t see the audience until the lights go down and the vale between eternity and this realm (the stage) is brought down for everyone’s viewing to see the glorious Christ sitting in the front row with the 24 elders and all the saints behind him.