Sermon Tone Analysis

This morning we will be studying John 10:22-42.

I encourage you to open your bibles to this passage, or follow along on the screen.

Have you ever had something happen in your life, and realized that God was taking care of you?

Solomon Ginsburg, a Polish Jew, became a flaming evangelist across both Europe and South America.

In 1911, needing rest, he decided to head to America on furlough.

His route took him to Lisbon where he planned to cross the Bay of Biscay to London, then on to the States.

Arriving in Lisbon, Ginsburg found the bulletin boards plastered with weather telegrams warning of terrific storms raging on the Bay of Biscay.

It was dangerous sailing, and he was advised to delay his trip a week.

His ticket allowed him to do that, and he prayed about it earnestly.

But as he prayed, he turned to his W.M.U.

prayer calendar and found the text for that day was Deuteronomy 2:7—“For the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hand.

He knows your trudging through this great wilderness.

These forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing.”

The Lord seemed to assure him that his long, worldwide travels were under divine protection.

Ginsburg boarded ship at once, crossed without incident, and caught the Majestic in London.

His transatlantic voyage was smooth and restful.

He knew he was in good hands.

To me, that is a big part of what this passage is about.

Let’s pray, and ask the Lord to open our eyes and hearts to hear what He has to say to us today.

We are going to work our way through the passage, and then see how this can encourage us today.

The feast of Dedication was not one of the feasts that God required the nation of Israel to celebrate.

Rather, it was one that they came up with to celebrate the Dedication of the Temple which had been desecrated during the time of the Greeks, and restored to use.

When they went to rededicate the temple to the worship of the Lord, there was only one jug of oil for the lamp in the temple that was not desecrated by the Greeks.

That jug should have lasted only 1 day, but it lasted for 8 days!

It was enough time for them to make more oil for the lamp.

God was with them, and miraculously providing for them.

So the Jews celebrated this each year for 8 days.

I love that John records for us the settings.

It helps us see that this is a true account, and not just made up conversations.

It also helps us understand some of what was going on.

This was a covered porch on the temple grounds where the Jews believed there was a portion of Solomon’s Temple upon which they walked.

Jesus often taught here.

Quite literally, while Jesus was there, these Jewish leaders (John often uses the term ‘Jews’ for the Jewish leaders) encircled Jesus.

They were out to get Him.

He had slipped away from them at the temple the last time He was in Jerusalem.

This time, they encircled Him like a bunch of bullies surrounding their victim.

They told Jesus to tell them plainly if He was the Messiah.

To which Jesus replied,

Jesus had done what the Messiah was prophesied to do.

He healed the sick.

He made the blind to see and the lame to walk.

He cast out demons.

He taught with wisdom and authority that no one could deny.

He performed what they, the Jewish Leaders, had determined would be messianic miracles, miracles that only the Messiah could perform: Healing a leper (which Jesus did multiple times), Casting out a demon from a mute (which Jesus did multiple times), and healing a person who was born blind (which Jesus had just done a month or two prior to this occasion.

But even though Jesus did all these things,

They refused to believe.

Jesus went on to say,

As we talked about last week, Jesus’ sheep, those who belong to Him are known by Jesus, just like a shepherd in that culture knows every one of His sheep by name.

Jesus’ sheep will hear and know Jesus’ voice.

They will listen to Him.

Jesus gives His sheep eternal life, and none will ever perish.

This is a great verse of encouragement.

The way it is worded in the Greek is with a double negative.

Now in English, we don’t use double negatives.

It is improper English.

And, because of our understanding of Mathematics, two negatives make a positive.

So, if we jokingly use a double negative, it is like saying the opposite.

But in Greek, the original language this was written in, this double negative construction uses two words for Not, and the meaning is No Never, Not even possible.

A better translation in English would be, I will give them eternal life and they will Not ever even possibly perish.

He goes on to say,

Once again Jesus calls God His Father, which the Jews had heard Him say before.

They knew the implication of this.

But this time, Jesus goes even further than calling God His Father...

Now Jesus said that He and the Father are equal.

This verse is worded really well in that Jesus and the Father are referred to as two separate persons.

Yet, it tells us that they are one.

The word for ‘one’ is a neuter rather than masculine, so it is not saying they are one person.

Rather it indicates that they (two persons) are one essence.

They are the same.

They are both God.

This is the mystery of God.

That God is one God, who is three persons working in complete unity, and are of one essence.

Mind blowing because we cannot fully fathom three being one.

But we know is it true because of what God has revealed to us.

Well, Jesus could not get any plainer than this.

He has in the past referred to Himself as God the Son.

He calls God His Father.

He has claimed to be the ‘I am’ who existed before Abraham.

Now He plainly says that He is the One God.

This is not the first time they tried to kill him.

They had tried to kill Him when He called God His Father.

(John 5:18)

They tried to Kill Him when He claimed to work in the Father’s authority and that He was sent here to Earth by the Father.

(John 7:30)

They tried to kill Him when He claimed to be the ‘I am’ who existed before Abraham.

John 8:59

Now they try to kill Him again.

But this time, it is a little different.

Remember they encircled Him? Now, there is another detail…

Where this verse says they ‘picked up’ stones, the word is different in that it is the word for carrying something.

They were in Solomon’s collonade on the temple mount.

There were not stones here to pick up.

They had picked them up before they came and carried them here.

They were here on purpose surrounding Jesus, and planning to kill Him.

This time, they did not want Him to get away.

Now that Jesus said plainly what they knew He would say, they were ready to act.

They were ready to stone Him.

Jesus knew what they were up to.

He is God.

But He still spoke the truth anyway!