43

John 7:32-36 UNABLE TO FIND JESUS

 

    In our text last Sunday we saw two very opposite

reactions toward Jesus among the common people.  Some of the

local people of Jerusalem had a very negative reaction to

Him.  They not only refused to believe that Jesus is the

promised Christ, but they sought to capture Him and put Him

to death.  Apparently they decided that the Jewish leader

were never going to do so and so they decided to attempt to

do so themselves.

    However, many of the common people had the very opposite

reaction to Jesus.  They accepted Him as the promised Christ

and trusted in Him to the salvation of their souls.

    In our text today Jesus makes a startling statement.  He

told the Jews that they could not find Him and that they

could not go where He would go.

 

I.  The things which the people had said about Jesus

 

    V. 32, "The Pharisees heard that the people murmured

such things concerning him..."  The Pharisees spoken of in

this verse were among the Jewish leaders.  Not all Jewish

leaders were Pharisees.  Some were Sadducees.  However, a

goodly number of Jewish leaders were Pharisees and the

Pharisee leaders were the ones who were more aggressive in

their opposition to Jesus.  These are the ones who had

earlier prompted the chief priest to seek to kill Jesus when

He first arrived in Jerusalem.

    They are very much aware of how the people had been

reacting to the speech of Jesus in the temple.  They did not

hear what the people had said.  But they did very quickly

hear about what they had said.

    For instance, they heard that some of the locals had

begun to lose confidence in them.  They  gotten mixed

signals from them.  The locals knew that the Pharisees had

planned to kill Jesus as soon as He arrived and were

confused because they had not done so.  As far as the locals

could tell, they had made no effort to arrest Him.  He was

teaching openly within the temple courtyard and they had

made to effort to stop Him from speaking.  The locals were

beginning to think that the Pharisees may have changed their

minds about Jesus and may have become convinced that He

really is the Christ after all.

Therefore, the  Jewish leaders decided that it was not time

to set the locals straight and let them know in a positive

way that they had not changed their minds about Jesus.  They

were still just as much opposed to Him as ever and were

still determined to put Him to death.

    What was even more disturbing to the Pharisees is that

they had heard that a great many of the common people had

taken a favorable view of the teaching of Jesus in the

temple.  A majority were very much enthralled at His

teachings.  Many of them were actually saying that they now

believed that Jesus really is the Christ.

    This really burned the Pharisees up.  They could see

that they would have to take some kind of stronger action or

else the number who believed in Jesus would continue to

grow.  They must take stronger action to put a stop to this

growing number of believers.

 

II.  The decision by the Jewish leaders to arrest Jesus

 

    (V. 32), "...and the Pharisees and the chief priests

sent officers to take him."  Note the two groups of people

in this verse.  First there are the Pharisees.  These are

the chief culprits.  They are the chief instigators of the

opposition to Jesus.  Then there are the chief priests.  The

chief priests are the ones who had authority to make

arrests.  They were in charge of the temple guards and could

issue orders to the guards to go and arrest Jesus.  So the

Pharisees go immediately to the chief priests and persuade

them that a stronger action must be taken and they persuaded

the chief priests to issue the orders to the temple guards

that they should go ahead and arrest Jesus even there within

the temple.

    Remember that prior to this time, the orders had been to

arrest Him on the outskirts of the city when relatively few

people would be around.  But now the orders are given to

arrest Him even within the temple grounds -- and if there

was no other way  -- arrest Him right in the midst of the

huge crowds.

 

III.  The arrival of the officers

 

    Before going on to the next verse, I want you to get the

picture as those officers arrive.  Jesus is still the center

of attraction in the great crowd of people.  He is the

speaker.  He has everybody's attention.  A goodly number of

people in the audience are very angry at Him and want Him

dead, but a great majority are still His ardent admirers.

Although He performed no miracles at this gathering, they

are very much aware of the greatness of the miracles He had

already performed.  They stand in awe at the great knowledge

He has just displayed in His speech.  Many of them had fully

believed in Him as the promised Christ and have just been

saved by His marvelous grace.

    In march the temple guards and work their way into the

crowds to form a circle around Jesus.  This action on their

part could hardly have gone unnoticed by the crowd.

    But those temple guard were no dummies.  There was only

a bare handful of opponents of Jesus present compared to

those who favored Him.  A very small minority were bitterly

against Him, but a vast majority were spell-bound at His

words.  He was looked upon as a great miracle worker, a

great prophet of God.  A goodly number of them were

proclaiming Him to be the very Christ of God, the promised

Messiah.  Therefore, the temple guard just took their places

around Him, but they did not dare to lay a hand on Him.

 

IV.  A startling announcement from Jesus

 

    V. 33, "Then said Jesus unto them, Yet a little while am

I with you, and then I go unto him that sent me."  Jesus

announced that He would soon depart from them.  He did not

specify just how long it would be before He would leave, but

we know now that it would be about six months from this

time.  He would be with them about six months longer and

then He would leave them.  He would first be crucified.

Then He would arise from the dead.  Soon thereafter He would

arise in the air and go back to heaven where He had come

from.  He would return to the One who had sent Him.  God the

Father had sent Him and He would return to God the Father in

heaven.

    V. 34, "Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me..."

Again, Jesus does not go into any detail.  He just says that

they will seek Him and not find Him.  They were aware that

God had promised to send the Christ to them to be their

Redeemer.  However, they had rejected Him as the Christ and

would, therefore, still be looking for the coming of the

Christ.  They would look for Him.  They would seek for Him.

But they would not find Him.

    Jesus did not mention it, but He knew that it would not

be long until the Jews would rebel against the Romans and

that the Romans would send an overwhelming army to conquer

them.  In the year of 70 A. D. the Romans would take the

city of Jerusalem, destroy the temple, plow the ground where

the temple had stood, kill many of the people and take many

captives.  Those who managed to escape would be scattered

among the nations.  The Jews would desperately seek the

Christ of God to come and deliver them from their woes, but

they would not be able to find Him.  They would desperately

pray to God and ask Him to send the Christ, but God would

not answer their prayers.  He had already sent the Christ to

them and they had rejected Him and crucified Him and God

would not send them back to deliver them from the Romans.

    (V. 35), "...and where I am, thither ye cannot come."

First of all this means that they would be here on earth and

that Jesus would at that time be in heaven and that they

would not be able to go up there and find Him.  But there is

a meaning which much more sombre than that.  It would not be

long until these very people who now sought to end the life

of Jesus would come to the end of their own lifes and they

would go out into eternity.  They were counting on going to

heaven when they die, but they would not be able to go

there.

    They would not be able to go there because they had

rejected the Christ who could save them from their sins.

They would not be able to go to heaven where Jesus is.  That

means that they would go into the fires of hell and spend

eternity in the fires of hell.  They could not go where

Jesus is.

    Neither can any man go where Jesus is who rejects Jesus

as the Christ and as his Savior.  Any man who will repent of

his sins during this lifetime and trust in Jesus Christ to

be his Savior can find Jesus Christ and he will go to heaven

when he dies, but any man who will not repent and trust

Jesus will never make it to heaven.  Instead, he will spend

eternity in the torments of hell.  In John 14:6 Jesus said,

"...no man cometh to the Father but by me."   In John 3:18

Jesus said, "He that believeth on him is not condemned: but

he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath

not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

    The Jewish leaders totally misunderstood what Jesus was

talking about.  They thought He was saying that He would

leave the land of Canaan and go off into foreign lands.  V.

35-36, "Then said the Jews among themselves, Whither will he

go, that we shall not find him? will he go unto the

dispersed among the Gentiles, an teach the Gentiles?  What

manner of saying is this that he said, Ye shall seek me, and

shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come?"

 

V.  What The Bible promises those who believe in Jesus

 

    Jesus, Himself, promised that He will come again and

receive them to Himself so that they will be where He is,

John 14:3.  In I Thessalonians 4:16-17 the Bible renews the

promise that He will come for the believers and pledges that

they will ever be with the Lord.

   

Conclusion:

 

    One who will not be saved is no better off than one who

cannot be saved.