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[0:00] We are continuing with our consideration of the miracles, and I came across something just recently, and I'm going to share it with you.

[0:12] I'm just going to tell you about it, and next week I'll have copies of it made and give it to you because I thought it was very insightful. Most of you are familiar with Dr. Henry Morris. He teamed with John Whitcomb in writing The Genesis Flood.

[0:27] I can't believe that's been over 50 years ago, but it is. Anyway, Dr. Morris has since gone to be with the Lord, but he was an outstanding apologist and scientist and distinguished himself in a number of ways, scientifically and spiritually.

[0:47] And I came across a message of his on miracles, and I'm going to duplicate it on the CD, and I'll bring it next week and have a copy for each of you.

[0:58] For those of you who don't know, Dr. Henry Morris, by profession, was a hydraulic engineer, and he was on the faculty at University of Virginia for several years, and then he left there and went into a full-time Christian ministry, particularly dealing with creationism.

[1:15] And he's a very articulate speaker and well-respected scientist and spiritual leader. You'll appreciate what he has to say because he approaches the subject of miracles from a direction that I'm unable to do so, but I think you will really appreciate it nonetheless.

[1:32] So I'll bring that next week. It's something for you to look forward to. We are continuing the subject of miracles, and we are in John chapter 4. We will be looking beginning at verse 45, but I just want to brief you a little bit about the distinction and the differences with John's gospel.

[1:52] And that is, John's gospel kind of stands alone in the sense that it has a completely different approach to the life of Christ, as does Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

[2:07] All of those are different also, and each one has a different emphasis, but they essentially cover the same material. But John is really different, and perhaps the most outstanding thing about it is that John, in a way that the more full way than the others emphasizes the deity of Christ.

[2:29] And this is evident when you begin with, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. So he starts out that way. But the layout of John's gospel centers primarily around seven specific miracles that he accomplished within this gospel.

[2:52] And I want you to understand the time frame of it, because that too is important. And as you realize that our Lord's ministry encompassed somewhere between three and three and a half years of time in his earthly ministry, and in John's gospel, if you were to just look at, if you've got your Bible open to chapter 4, I would just remind you that if you go back to, and I'm doing it right now, I'm going back to John chapter 11, chapter 12, here, we read in chapter 12, Jesus therefore six days before the Passover.

[3:39] This is like six days before his crucifixion. Okay? So keep in mind now, that John chapter 12, 13, 14, the high priestly prayer, 15, the vine and the branches, I'm sorry, 17 is the high priestly prayer, and 15 is the vine and the branches, 18, Judas betrays Jesus, all the way up to 19, all the way up to 20, in the empty tomb, all of those pages, all of those chapters, occur within the space of one week.

[4:21] So you have an enormous time frame in John's gospel that is radically different from Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

[4:32] And that's just one of the things that separates it from the other gospels. So you might want to keep that in mind, that John is emphasizing different things, and he focuses on different things than what the three do.

[4:44] Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Alright, having made that point, let's go back now, if we may, to John's gospel, chapter 4, and we'll look at this miracle that our Lord has accomplished, beginning in verse 46.

[5:05] But I want to, well, let's go back just a little bit, a couple of chapters, I'm sorry, a couple of verses, the Samaritans, remember the woman at the Samaritan well, and the testimony that he had with her, and that's where he revealed the salvation of the Jews, and he also talked about God being spirit, and so on.

[5:25] So he had a tremendous ministry with, of all people, the Samaritans. And the Jews and the Samaritans had no dealings. But Jesus deliberately went through Samaria because of that woman, and the impact that it would have upon the Samaritans.

[5:39] And in verse 39, we read that, from that city, many of the Samaritans believed in him. Because of the word of the woman who testified, he told me all the things that I've done. So now, in verse 43, after the two days, he went forth from there, into Galilee.

[5:58] Now, earlier we saw, his first miracle, was performed at Cana. Water into wine. But he went from Cana, south, down to Jerusalem, and engaged in the first cleansing of the temple.

[6:19] He's going to do that two times. Once at the beginning of his earthly ministry, once at the end of it. So you've got to keep those two things in mind. Then he comes from Jerusalem, back up, through Samaria, follow the geography, he's going north now, through Samaria, where he has the encounter with the woman at the well.

[6:40] Then he comes back up to Cana again, and we read in verse 43, after the two days, he went forth from there, that's Samaria, into Galilee, that's the northern part.

[6:55] You know, I really, I've got on order some maps, that I think will be helpful, and we'll follow those. Because there is a geography involved here, and you've got to appreciate the distance between these places, because it's significant, especially when you're traveling on foot, like he did most of the time.

[7:12] So we've got two days, he went forth from there into Galilee, back up in his home territory, for Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country.

[7:22] So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans received him, and the reason they did, having seen all the things that he did in Jerusalem at the feast, for they themselves also went to the feast.

[7:43] Now, it's difficult for us to understand the significance of these feasts, but there was the Feast of Passover, the Feast of Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles.

[7:53] These were spread out over the year, but the Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of Passover, and the Feast of Pentecost, were only about less than two months apart.

[8:06] And in those feasts, the Law of Moses required every able Jew to attend at least one of those feasts during the year.

[8:20] These were annual feasts. And if you could, if at all possible, you were supposed to attend, as a faithful Jew, one of those three feasts each year.

[8:32] And this happened to be one of the most favorite of the people, and they would go in great droves, great numbers. They would even sing some of the psalms.

[8:44] As you look through the psalm book, you will see some of the psalms that are labeled Songs of Ascent.

[8:56] A-S-C-E-N-T. And ascent means going up, rising. And these people would travel in huge numbers, picking up a few more people and a few more families with each city they passed.

[9:14] And by the time they got to Jerusalem, you got a huge number of people. Of course, there was safety in that because there were always brigands and robbers that would waylay people. But in numbers, there was safety.

[9:26] This is what the family experienced when Jesus stayed back in the temple, remember? They thought He was somewhere in there with relatives and friends in that massive, long group consisting of a long line.

[9:41] And people who were relatives, neighbors, and friends, they would get together and just have a great time of fellowship. And they would sing certain songs that were called Songs of Ascent. And they would repeat those as they were marching up to Jerusalem.

[9:55] So, all of this comes into play here in connection with what's taking place. Now they're moving back to Galilee. And the text tells us that they saw the things that He did in Jerusalem for they themselves also went to the feast.

[10:11] Now they are back in Galilee also. And by the way, the distance from Jerusalem all the way up into Galilee encompasses about 90 miles.

[10:27] I mean, it's not a cakewalk. And most of these people were walking. Some of them, we know like Mary, was on the donkey for a part of the time, probably only because she was pregnant.

[10:40] But this was a common way these people walked everywhere. And that's probably one reason that some of them were as healthy as they were. So, they themselves also went to the feast and He came therefore again to Canaan of Galilee.

[10:57] This is where it all started, where He turned the water into wine. And the text tells us that. And there was a certain royal official whose son was sick at Capernaum.

[11:10] And when he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea, and Judea, of course, is where Jerusalem is located. So, he knows that Jesus has come a long ways from Jerusalem back up to Galilee.

[11:26] And this man is from Capernaum. And by the way, probably a lot of people don't know this, but Capernaum actually consisted the base of operation that Jesus enjoyed while he was in Galilee.

[11:49] And he performed many more miracles in and around Galilee and more teaching in Galilee than he did anywhere else. Because that was actually where he was from.

[12:00] So, this area here of Capernaum, and Capernaum is right on the Sea of Galilee. It's on the northernmost end of Galilee. And it was the home of Peter, the apostle.

[12:14] He was from Capernaum. And we are told that for those visitors who go there and the tourists who go there, they think that they have identified the actual area where Peter lived.

[12:25] Don't know if that's true or not. But at any rate, this is a fascinating thing. And these people are still dealing, many of them at least, with the miracle there at Cana, where he'd turn the water into wine.

[12:40] And you can only imagine, try to get a fixation on particularly those servants who had just filled those water pots with water.

[12:54] And now they are dipping out wine. These people have to be absolutely beside themselves. I'm telling you, I know we put water in that.

[13:09] It was water. It was. Wasn't it water? Wasn't it water? Yeah, yeah. Well, how did... What? And every one of them had wine.

[13:21] And it wasn't just wine. It was the best wine I ever tasted. How did he do that? And these people are talking among themselves and the word is passing. And these guys are telling someone, and they say, oh, you're just mistaken.

[13:38] Listen, I was there. Joe here, he was there too. Weren't you? Yeah, I saw you. I'm telling you. I never see anything. I don't know how he did it. All I know is he did it.

[13:50] And I'd swear to it. Now, this kind of talk is going all around the region. And these people are beginning to get more and more interested and the crowds are growing.

[14:03] Understandably. Now we've got a situation where this man who is a royal official and we don't know a whole lot about that. He's called a courtier in some translations.

[14:14] Our best guess is he was probably occupying some kind of an official position in Herod's administration.

[14:24] Herod was the king. And the text lends itself to this being a person who is connected with royalty. doesn't mean he's royalty but he's got connections. He is a high placed official who has influence.

[14:39] And he's got a crisis. He's got a son. We don't know that it's his only son but he's got a son who is seriously ill and even though they didn't know a great deal about medicine back then, they knew, they had the ability to determine when someone when someone was so ill they were close to death.

[15:02] And that's the case of this young boy. We're not given an age. My suspicion is he's probably under 10 or 12 years of age, just a child. He's seriously ill and this man who has great influence and authority and connections is powerless to do anything about him.

[15:22] And he hears about this man that people are insisting he's a miracle worker. Now, when someone is desperate, he's ready to take extreme measures and he has heard that Jesus has come, word travels because people are traveling and walking, he has heard that Jesus had been in Jerusalem but he had returned to Galilee.

[15:53] This man is in Capernaum, that's Galilee but it's still 18 to 20 miles from Canaan.

[16:06] So, he's got some hoofing ahead of him. I don't know if he's going on horseback or what but it would appear that he's walking. We don't know that for sure. But he is traveling all the way from Capernaum where his boy is ill to Canaan where Jesus earlier performed the miracle of the water and the wine and we are told that he was requesting him to come down and heal his son.

[16:38] And the expression that is used to come down is topographical because Capernaum that is on the Sea of Galilee and the Sea of Galilee is about 700 feet below the level of the Mediterranean.

[17:02] And if you look at your map, Canaan is not far from the Mediterranean coast. It's just to the left. and if if Capernaum is 700 feet below the Mediterranean, there's every reason to believe that it's probably 400 or 500 feet, something like that, below Canaan.

[17:34] So he's asking him to come down. You're traveling down. It's downhill about all the way and he is requesting him come down and heal his son for he is at the point of death.

[17:47] Jesus therefore said to him, unless you people, now that's an interesting expression and it seems to be a little contradictory here because the text tells us at least in the Greek that when Jesus says unless you, and you in the Greek is plural.

[18:09] So even though he is talking and answering the question of this man, the single man, it is obvious that there are more people present than just this man.

[18:19] So Jesus is talking to a group. I think the King James leaves this out. Does the King James have in people? Does it have people? Mine says unless you people, see, unless you people, meaning more than one.

[18:33] Okay, yeah, well, I think in my new American standard here, the word people is italicized.

[18:45] I don't know what it is in the King James. I don't know if it's italicized or not. Mine just says unless you see signs. Okay, well, the you is in the plural.

[18:56] The personal pronoun you is in the plural. So he's talking to you people. And the new American standard inserts the word people probably trying to give you a tip off that he's not talking to just the man, but he's talking to multiple people.

[19:12] And he is saying this as he addresses the man, but he is talking to the larger number also, and that's the reason why he is saying you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.

[19:31] The royal official said to him, sir, come down before my child dies. And Jesus said to him, go your way, your son lives.

[19:46] And the text says, the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started off.

[19:59] and as he was now going down, his slaves met him saying that his son was living.

[20:10] Now, we don't know for sure because we're not given a precise way that this happened, but it appears that his servants were on their way to get a message to him because they knew that he had gone to Canaan.

[20:27] And I'm sure there was just one road from Capernaum to Canaan. And the servants had good news about the son and they left Capernaum and they are on the road to meet this man.

[20:42] Actually, they don't know that they're going to meet him because they're going to Canaan. They don't know that he's coming from Canaan back. And they want to tell him this good news. And they do.

[20:52] So maybe they meet halfway. We're not told exactly. And he says, that's wonderful. Tell me, what time was it when he had the turnaround?

[21:10] And they said, it was about one o'clock in the afternoon yesterday. And he said, wow, that's exactly the time I was talking to Jesus.

[21:26] And he said, my boy was going to live. Now, we don't know if this is Roman time or if it's Jewish time. If it's Jewish time, one o'clock in the afternoon would be the seventh hour.

[21:46] Because they start counting from twelve o'clock. I'm sorry, they start at six o'clock in the morning.

[21:58] And seven hours would be one o'clock in the afternoon. And it was probably Jewish time, but we don't know that for sure. If it was Roman time, it would be a little different. And he inquired of them the hour when he began to get better.

[22:10] And they told him, and the verse says, so the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, your son lives.

[22:23] And he himself believed and his whole household. Now, wait a minute. It says in verse 50, the man believed the word that Jesus spoke unto him.

[22:39] And I just want to insert something here for your consideration, and that is this. I do not believe there is one of us who possesses something that we might call a perfect, entire, and full faith.

[23:00] We are all capable of lapses of faith, even of denial, even of questioning and wondering. Perhaps one of the greatest examples of that is John, the baptizer.

[23:16] When he was arrested and put in prison after having proclaimed that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel and that he's going to establish his wonderful kingdom, now he's in Herod's prison, and he may not know it at this point in time, but he's going to lose his life, and he's got serious questions, because his being in prison doesn't seem to be consistent with the way this thing is supposed to work, because I'm the forerunner of Jesus, he's the Messiah, we're in this thing together, he's looking out for me, isn't he?

[24:02] What am I doing here? And you can imagine how this tortured this man, and he's really concerned, so he calls his own disciples to him, who had access to him there in prison, and he says, look, you guys have got to go and find Jesus, and you ask him, are we on the right track here?

[24:29] Are you the one that was supposed to come? Were we right in announcing you as the Messiah, or ought we to be looking for another? You've got to remember, there's a family relationship here too, because they're second cousins, and John is having some serious misgivings about Jesus, because this thing does not seem to be going to plan, and when John got the message back from his disciples, that Jesus said, sites given to the blind, the deaf are here, lame walk, lepers are cleansed, that was as much as saying to John, your faith has not been misplaced, you are on solid ground.

[25:17] Now, some might question, well, why was it then that he didn't intervene and prevent John from being beheaded? All I can say is that too is in the plan and program of God, and by the way, this thing death that we look upon as so grotesque, and in a way it is, in a way it is, but for believers, it's not at all the negative thing that so many people make it out to be.

[25:45] Somebody wrote a song about it, I remember hearing, I remember hearing Bill Gator singing, it was quite humorous, and I'll see if I can find, dig that out for you, and the gist of it was, death ain't no big deal.

[26:04] We tend to make it a big deal because we think in terms of finality, but for the believer there's nothing final about it at all, it's just a transfer, and we need a different perspective on death than what, in fact, believers are entitled to a different perspective on death, than what the world is, because they see it as the end, it's all over, that's it, there's nothing more, and we know better.

[26:33] So, anyway, this is a concept here to keep in mind, and when this man came to this, we're told that he himself believed and his whole household, I think all it means is his faith, what he believed Jesus the first time when he told him that, was confirmed, was strengthened, and that's something that we deal with on an ongoing basis.

[27:03] Who among us has not questioned at one time or another, when adversity comes into your life, some real catastrophe, some real difficulty, some real reversal, who among us has not said, said, I wonder if the Lord is really in this, I wonder if God has forgotten about my little part of the world, I wonder if he's really in charge, I wonder if he knows what I'm going through.

[27:38] Have you never entertained tinges of doubt? If you never have, doubt, you're an extremely extraordinary person.

[27:51] I can't honestly say that I've never met anybody who's never had any doubt. Because there are things that come into our life that can be so overwhelming and so disastrous, we cannot help but wonder, where is God in all this?

[28:12] You know, the poster boy for that, of course, is Job. You think that he didn't have serious questions, wonder what was going on, and he cursed the day that he died, cursed the day that he was born, wanted to die, his wife wanted him to die too, get it over with.

[28:34] And Job was plagued with that question that will not go away. Why? Why me? Why this?

[28:46] Why now? What did I do to deserve this? If you've never been in a position where you've asked yourself those questions, like I said, you are one extraordinary dude.

[28:58] I just can't imagine it. Because in our humanness, in our frail humanity, we cannot help but question certain things that come into our lives.

[29:13] And I would go so far as to say it's systemic to humanity. It's just part of our humanness. We like to think that we've got this wonderful thing called faith. Well, let me tell you something.

[29:25] If you've got this faith thing all together, then you don't have any growing room left. We are to grow, mature, develop, in our faith.

[29:40] And we are to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. And that growth involves a clear and more consistent trusting and relying upon the Lord even when the going gets tough.

[30:00] And I've often been in a position to tell people God really knows what He's doing. He really understands. And He really is in charge even especially when it seems like He isn't.

[30:19] And some of you here like me have had some really gut-wrenching serious losses. And you can't help but wonder is God really in charge of this?

[30:37] And the Word is here to tell you that He is. Fellas, God knows what He's doing and He knows what you're going through even when it hurts.

[30:53] and hurts a lot. I think that when those first soldiers reached the Holocaust victims in those camps did they wonder how mad they were.

[31:07] Yeah. And you know, this is a great obstacle. Maybe it's probably the greatest obstacle that the average unbeliever has in their acceptance of a supposedly benevolent all-knowing all-powerful God.

[31:37] And that is, how do you square this God who is supposed to be so loving and so powerful, how do you square that with a world filled with misery and pain and conflict and heartache and disease?

[31:56] It does not compute. Now, one thing is for sure. You cannot deny the reality of evil.

[32:09] It's everywhere. And if you're going to deny the reality of evil, then you are not dealing with reality. We can't deny that.

[32:22] So, if we can't square the existence of evil, with the presence of God, and we know evil exists, what or who has to go?

[32:44] God is out. That's all the problem. There is no God. That's why we have all of this evil and carnage and everything is because there is no benevolent God who is all wise and all powerful and in charge.

[32:59] He does not exist. And these people who think that he does are simply people who are afraid or refuse to acknowledge their own mortality.

[33:14] They like to convince themselves that there is some life after this life, when in reality there isn't. But believing anything that there is makes it easier to get through this life.

[33:27] So for these people, the atheist tells us, God is a crutch. This imaginary God just kind of helps them get through this life.

[33:40] But when you die, no heaven, no hell, no consciousness, no anything. That's it. You're over, done with, die like a all.

[33:52] And so much of that conviction comes from their being unable to square the existence of evil and the presence of God.

[34:04] And apart from the scriptures, there is no answer. There absolutely is no answer. Only this book tells us the story and why evil exists in the presence and power of a benevolent God.

[34:28] And that all begins with, as I've said before, with Milton's outline, John Milton's outline, where paradise was the origin, and then the fall, and you've got paradise lost, and all of the Bible from Genesis 3 to Revelation 22, is about the theme of redemption.

[34:52] Because God built that into the whole program. And the whole Bible is about what was lost being regained.

[35:04] And that is the kingdom and the eternal state. So, that's what this book is about. It is the history, the romance of redemption.

[35:16] And in the midst of it all, we find everything that you would expect to come from the fall, from atrocity, and carnage, and holocaust, this is the evil that man is capable of perpetrating upon his fellow human beings.

[35:39] And fellas, it is as ugly a picture as you can get. That's why we have free moral agency, because God wanted us to choose between the two.

[35:50] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, we've got this conflict that is ongoing. And what we are called upon is to, what we are called upon to do is, as best we can, is inform a desperate and dying world that there really is hope, there really is, there really is a wonderful end to this all and it is a process and it begins with an individual because the Bible is all about dealing with individuals.

[36:24] When you go into the Old Testament, you know what it's all about there? It's all about Israel. It's Israel. It's about a nation. It's about a nation. But when the Apostle Paul comes on the scene and is given a new commission with a new emphasis, we find a radical switch from the emphasis on a nation to the emphasis on the individual.

[36:56] Wow. Fellas, that is a quantum leap. Now, Israel is out of the picture, but only temporarily, and what has replaced it is referred to as the body of Christ, the spiritual body of Christ, made up of all believers, whether Jews or Gentiles, make no difference, we're all children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

[37:20] So, the emphasis is on the individual, and that's the way it plays out throughout the rest of the Bible. It's just an absolutely amazing story.

[37:31] And you know something? Apart from the revelation of this event and these facts that I'm sharing with you in the scriptures, apart from what the Bible says, there are no answers.

[37:45] There just aren't any. You've got sages and philosophers and brilliant men who have risen and written and left their legacy behind in print, and we can admire it and enjoy it and everything.

[37:57] But the problem is, so many of them disagree with each other. And we have no idea what the real scoop is. And this book is the only source that gives us the real story.

[38:11] And this book is the world's best seller in perpetuity, year after year. This book has been printed and published and distributed, not in the millions, but in the billions, in multiple languages, ever since the printing press came out.

[38:33] And there's one on virtually every coffee table throughout the world, at least throughout what we would call the civilized world. And at the same time, while it is the most loved and revered book, it is the most neglected book, which is just absolutely amazing.

[38:52] This book, this book is God's love letter to the human race. And can you imagine someone receiving a love letter from someone that they really care about, someone they really love, and they never bothered to read it?

[39:14] Well, that's unthinkable. You wouldn't find it, but can you imagine anybody with any military background here, can you imagine being in a far-flung country way, way on the other side of the world, and you're engaged to this beautiful girl back home that you left, and you can't wait to get back to her, and marry her, and take her into your arms, and have children with her and everything, and you get a letter from her.

[39:36] And the mail clerk says, hey, wise man, here you got a letter. And you look at it, and you see that returned, and you even smell it. Yeah. Yeah. It smells like her.

[39:47] And you say, well, I'm busy right now. I'll get around, maybe I'll read it tomorrow if I have time. You're going to rip that letter open? And you're going to read it and pour over every line, and when you finish it, you start reading it all over again.

[40:05] Because you want to get every nuance, everything you can from that letter, because that's someone you love. And this book is God's love letter to us.

[40:18] Are we eager to open it and read it and understand it and benefit by it? Well, some are, but we would hope their number would increase. And you know what, guys? This is why we're here right now.

[40:30] This is what this is all about. This is why we have this class. Actually, this is supposed to be why we have church on Sunday morning. It's for the dispensing of information.

[40:43] So that people can hear the information, process the information, believe the information, and act on the information. Wow! What a process.

[40:54] No way in the world to top that. And it's all provided by the grace of a loving God. Marvelous. Just wonderful. Have you thoughts or comments? Dan?

[41:05] Mark, it seemed to me that one of the reasons for these different of the marriage was that there were many, many teachers, preachers, and someone from Missouri shown me.

[41:19] and to prove who he was. Yeah. And to actually validate. It did. He was, you know. Jesus' miracles, and I don't want to be misunderstood here, because we tend, being humans, we tend to get caught up in the compassion thing, and there's no question that Jesus had compassion on the multitudes, and he was the most compassionate person that ever walked the earth.

[41:49] and he, I'm sure, he delighted in relieving human suffering. No question about it. But, and we tend to put the emphasis upon that because we're all people, and we all know what pain is, and we all have loved ones who are in pain or have experienced pain, and we know what a wonderful relief it brings when they're healed, or when they're cured, or when they're well, or whatever, and we tend to kind of think that that's what Jesus' miracles were all about.

[42:23] But that's actually secondary. And Dan has pointed out the primary reason for those miracles was for him to be able to demonstrate who he was, particularly to the nation of Israel.

[42:41] Israel. And that's why he came specifically to them, and again, it is because this tiny, relatively insignificant nation, Israel, no bigger than the state of New Jersey, is the spearhead nation for the bringing in of the kingdom and the radical restructuring and refurbishing of the whole planet.

[43:13] And Israel is smack dab in the middle of it. And the ironic thing about it is, most Jews today don't even know that. They know there's supposed to be something special about them, and historically, there's supposed to have been some special connection with God and Moses and all of that stuff and Egypt and everything, but you'd be surprised.

[43:34] You would be surprised how many Jews today do not even accept the validity of their own Old Testament, which is tragic, really.

[43:45] I mean, I can understand them not buying into the New Testament, even though I think they should, because the New Testament gives you the rest of the story. You just read the Old Testament and stop there, you're left hanging.

[43:58] There's no resolution, there's no conclusion, you're stopping in the end of the story. And the New Testament tells the rest of the story. Unfortunately, there's so many Jewish people today who do not even accept their own Old Testament.

[44:13] They see it just as a book of tradition, myths, and fables, but not to be taken all that seriously. And you know something? Probably no one like the Jewish people have been so turned off to the existence of God.

[44:28] The problem that we talked about earlier, squaring the evil with the presence of God, and the Jewish people, the Holocaust, where six million Jews were brutally murdered under the Nazi regime.

[44:44] The Holocaust not only killed six million Jews, who knows how many millions of Jews it made atheists out of.

[44:55] there is a disproportionate amount of atheism among Jews today than there is with any other group.

[45:09] And their difficulty is they cannot square that with the Holocaust. If this God existed, you mean to tell me that this powerful, wise God who says that the Jewish people are the apple of his eye, and he allows six million of his chosen people to be brutally executed and mistreated in Hitler's death camps?

[45:38] And I'm supposed to believe in a God like that? I'm not that crazy. Can you not see how many of them have slipped right in to atheism?

[45:51] Indeed. Other thoughts or comments? Yes, John? This part where this father knew that it was the same hour that Jesus said thy son liveth, when they come and told him what hour the boy was on the man, it said, and the father himself believed and his whole house.

[46:15] And an observation I have is in Acts 16 where the Philippians jailer, he said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house.

[46:28] Now, the observation is when the father believes, not always, but a lot of times the whole household follows.

[46:41] Yeah, they do. They do. And it isn't the father's belief that makes them Christians, but it's the father's influence in that leadership position, the impact that he has and, yeah, the testimony and it's very powerful and, you know, this man, this dear man, this figure of royalty in the royal household or whatever, he was laboring under a couple of faulty assumptions I call it and his first faulty assumption was that Jesus would have to come to where he is.

[47:18] He'd have to come to where the boy is and pray on him or lay hands on him or something and the idea of Jesus being able to heal by remote control probably never occurred to him. He's going to have to attend to him like a physician, lay hands on him, etc.

[47:33] But listen, fellas, if Jesus is who the Bible says he is, he doesn't have to go to Capernaum. All he has to do is will it to be done.

[47:47] And yes, there is healing by remote control because that's who he is. And another thing, he also was convinced that not only do you have to come where he is, but it's really important that you come before he dies.

[48:08] Because if he dies, then there's no hope. And this is what Mary and Martha were thinking too. You know, if only you had been here, our brother would have lived.

[48:18] But now he's dead and it's too late. It's all over. I wish he had come sooner, but there's nothing to be done now. And Jesus said, your brother shall live again. Oh, well, we know he'll live again in the resurrection.

[48:30] No, no. I am the resurrection and the life. Wow. Ted? It's interesting to me too that Jesus came for the Jews and he sent the disciples to the Jewish people first and that Jesus here, he has just come from Canaan or, you know, from up in Samaria.

[48:52] He's been there and you talk, him talk to the Samaritan woman who was basically Gentile, half-Jewed, half-Jewed, and here, this man is probably a Gentile.

[49:04] Probably. Probably a ruler among the Gentiles, maybe a centurion, we don't know. But here, this guy, Jesus is demonstrating not only his love for the Jews, but God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

[49:21] Not only the Jews, but the Gentiles. So he's including us. Amen. He came to his own and his own received him not. He came to the Jews for the world.

[49:35] You've got to keep that perspective in mind. It's God so loved the world. He didn't just love the Jews. But the reason he came to the Jews and the reason he told the twelve, don't go to anybody else but the Jews was because the Jew, the Jew was the one that was to be that spearhead and they were to be a kingdom of priests.

[49:58] This goes all the way back to Exodus 19.7 and Moses, God told Moses, I'm going to make you a kingdom of priests. And that's really important, guys, because the twelve tribes, they already had a priestly tribe and that was Levi.

[50:16] But now he's saying that he's going to make Israel the whole nation, a kingdom of priests. Well, if Levi as a priest ministered in a priestly fashion to the other eleven tribes, who was all the twelve tribes supposed to minister to?

[50:37] All the rest of the world. They had to be a light to the Gentiles. And you know what? The typical Jewish position was we don't want to be a light to the Gentiles.

[50:51] Dogs, uncircumcised, we don't want anything to do with them. He's our God and you can't have Him. That was pretty much the attitude they had. Joe? It seems to me too in most of his miracles somebody had to believe in Him before he did it.

[51:07] Like the wine thing, his mother. You hear this royal person, they believed Jesus to do it. They believed Him. Yep. They had to have that belief before He actually did it.

[51:18] You know, there was somebody that came along and believed that He could do this to do it. Okay. It seems like it's a pattern with all these miracles. Somebody believed in Him and who He was.

[51:31] And why did they? Because they'd heard about Him in some cases before doing something like this. So many people believed. What do you think that they believed before, what do you think they believed about Jesus before they knew of any of the miracles?

[51:47] What do you think they believed about Him then? I would suggest that they believed that He was a good teacher, a good teacher, a rabbi, somebody worth listening to.

[52:05] But do you think they believed that He was the Son of God come in the flesh? I don't think they believed that. I think somewhere along the line they changed their mind, Joe.

[52:18] Let's go get into that again. Somewhere along the line they changed their mind. They moved from point A to He's a good teacher, He's a good man, He's listened to He's the Son of God.

[52:33] Wow. Well, hey guys, anything else you got? Yeah, Don. When you get to the miracle of the wine, Mary went to her son and made that statement.

[52:46] Did she believe he could do something about it? And if she did, why did she believe that? Something must have happened even before. Yeah, oh yeah. You know, the angel, you know, told her all of these things and the text says in Luke's Gospel, I think it is, that Mary pondered these things in her heart.

[53:09] She was a very interested mother and she starts processing all of this information, what the angel is saying about Jesus and it's going to be something that will come to fruition later.

[53:24] But it's a beautiful picture. Watch out. She had another 30 years living with him. I mean, she probably saw how he was if he'd do things. Oh yeah. Another 30 years. Yeah, I wish we knew more about the childhood of Jesus, but we don't.

[53:38] All we know is that incident that happened when he was 12 years of age and he was coming on then because he was at, you know, he was at the bar mitzvah age and that's at the age where a Jewish boy enters manhood and he is considered a man at that bar mitzvah and that was significant and I think that's probably involved as his 12th birthday.

[54:04]  Thank you guys. Enjoy your breakfast in the day.