Jesus is often called the great teacher, but is that
true? It seems to me that he was talking
to dead men walking, and one of the problems with dead people is they are
dead. I like to watch the show NCIS on
television and the character “Ducky” Mallard, the Medical
Examiner, has a strange way of conversing with the dead. But that is fiction and the people Jesus was
talking with were not laying on a table with their body parts being removed to
see who “done it.” They were people not
that much different than you and me, they had families, jobs, were involved in
politics, in the local temple, in the education of their children, and yet it
is stated in Scripture that they had a dead spirit and could not understand the
“Truth” and Jesus is “Truth.”
Before coming into a personal relationship
with Jesus Christ the Bible tells us we walked in darkness. If you look in a study Bible at the word
darkness, you will be amazed at how often it is used to explain our spiritual
condition before we encountered the “Light” or Christ the Lord. In the gospel of John 1:4,5, “In him was life,
and the life was the light of men. The
light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” The NIV Bible uses the word understood instead
of overcome, and that might be helpful in getting the bigger picture. In John 3:19, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the
world, but men loved the darkness instead of light because their deeds were
evil.” You may wonder where
the verdict comes from and God makes it very clear that it is not from Him, in
John 5:22-27, “The Father judges no
one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor
the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the
Father who sent him. Truly, truly, I say
to you, whoever hears my word and believes him
who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment,
but has passed from death to life. "Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is
coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the
voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he
has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has
given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.”
Jesus is telling us that He can
give life to all of us who walk in darkness, that we are dead people walking,
and we need to come to the only One who has the authority from the Father to
give life. The apostle Paul tells us in
Romans 8:6, “The
mind of sinful man is dead, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and
peace.” You have been given a
free will to choose, the ball is in your court, life or death. The hour has come, that what Jesus said in John
5:25, and all you have to do is bow your knee to the Lord and ask Him to show
you “Truth.”
From the Back Porch,
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