We're gonna move on now, if you have your Bibles, be turning with me to John. And we move now in our look at this Gospel of John to verse 33, and we'll be reading today from verse, actually 32, from verse 32 to 36. When I first began studying this portion of the Gospel of John and knowing and feeling continued impression from God to speak from it and to present it, in this sort of verse-by-verse manner when I first began to look at these passages of scripture in this latter part of the seventh chapter I at first looked at verses 25 through 39 thinking that that was going to be one sermon as I read it and studied it and began to outline and pray and consider what God would have me to say about it it was going to be one sermon between those verses and it is now turned into three We began that series last week and we are going to continue to look at it this morning. I know that I particularly open myself up to criticism that I move rather slowly through scripture. that is warranted and earned, and perhaps I do move too slowly. And knowing this, again, was tempted to find a way to bring all of these verses from 25 to 39 into one setting because they are so related to one another. But God worked in such a way that I could not avoid and could not turn my mind from the very distinct ideas that are within each of these sections that we're looking at. I felt it as though to try to address these things in one setting would be to be missing much of the point. And in verses 25 through 31 last week, we saw the stumbling blocks to believe that so many run into, and so many sadly and soberly as we think about it, have probably left life never having gotten past. A stumbling block of of incorrect expectations about God himself and salvation and the stumbling block of ungodly leaders and people presenting themselves as people who would bring you to Christ, they themselves not knowing him and the stumbling block of a hesitating or a halfway belief that we saw last time and then finally last week as we looked at the stumbling block of complete and open just disbelief. just a refusal to believe in God. Well, today, we're going to see something of a similar sort and yet different. Today, we are going to see the danger that lies within religion when that religion is not driven by a relationship with Christ, a true sincere relationship with Christ. That is the whole purpose that God has given us life. We're going to see here, I think, how religion has and can still today build barriers to belief in Christ rather than bridges to him. Rather than be the reflection of Christ that we've already heard about this morning, we can change that into a false light led by something other than a true relationship with him. Religion that can become walls that separate a person's hands and feet from his mind and his heart. This idea that religion is what we have in our heart, but it's not something that affects our lives. From Adam and Eve's fig leaves to the religious attendance at church today, there are many barriers to belief in Christ that are found right within the walls of religion. and this is not news, this is something we've spoken about before, but I hope at least this morning to once again call your attention and mine to the barriers that exist even within the walls of religion. Religion is not a bad thing, and I think sometimes it's easy to misunderstand what I've said and others have said about it. It is good to have a habit of church attendance. It is good that on a Sunday when you're not in the Lord's house, it feels odd and it feels out of place. That should be the case. It is good that we read our Bibles every day. It is necessary, I believe, for a relationship with God to grow, to read his word. to contemplate on his word, to pray. It is good for us to surround ourselves with brothers and sisters who also know God and can encourage us when we're down and hold us back when we become prideful. It's good to have these habits and these things in our life. But religion can also become a tool that Satan uses to distract from the most important thing, which is a knowledge of God through the working of the spirit of God in our hearts, where he changes us, makes us new creatures. We become born again, old things pass away, all things become new, and we know him. In the last set of verses, we saw stumbling blocks to the people of Jerusalem. And this morning we're going to see the barrier that these Pharisees had in front of them and their unbelief in God, even in the midst of being some of the most religious people of the day and arguably ever. I think the Pharisees would put probably most of us to shame when it comes to diligence in certain areas of religion, that they were blinded by it rather than enlightened by it. So turn with me, if you will, John chapter 7. We're going to read just verses 32 through 36. The setting here, of course, in your mind, the Feast of Booths, Jesus is there, this feast where Israel remembers the journeying from Exodus in that 40 years to the Promised Land, and all of this is front and center. We'll have more to say about that in the weeks to come. Jesus is here. He is teaching the people. The people have come to him, he was spoken to them, and the Pharisees hear all of this crowd saying, this disbelief, is this Jesus the Messiah? Some believing, some not. And then in verse 32, the Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him, that is Jesus, and the chief priest and Pharisees sent officers to him or to arrest him. Jesus then said, I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. You will seek me, and you will not find me. Where I am, you cannot come." The Jews said to one another, Where does this man intend to go, that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? What does he mean by saying, you will seek me, you will not find me, and where I am, you cannot come? The first thing that I can't help but notice here in the Lord's statement of verse 33 is his statement when he says to them, I will be with you a little longer. It is a frequent topic of consideration for me, something I think about often, and you know that those of you who come here week to week, it is a frequent thought in my mind about how men and women seem to be so unthinking when it comes to the limited nature of time to the limited reality that we have a limited amount of time on this earth. Now, I do not believe that we should think upon this to such a degree that it arrests our attention to the point that we don't live in the moment and we don't overly think about this to the degree that we don't live our lives. And yet, I find it amazing to me that so few seem to be thinking about the fact that this life for each one of us is going one day to end. that this world then clearly, clearly is not the end. It is just a preparation ground. It is just a time for us truly, we believe to find God. Many know to the last penny what is in their bank accounts, what is in their savings accounts, what's in their retirement accounts. Children know frequently what's in their piggy banks. We know how to count our money, but we don't count our time. Very seldom can one tell you where their time has been spent. Again, many know the last penny of how much money they have, but they cannot tell you where they are spending their time. They can tell you how much they spent on many of the purchases that they've made, but again, none of us knows how much time we have remaining to us. And few can even tell you how they've spent the time that they've been given. I find that very interesting. I find it very interesting because time is of such greater value than money. Time is of greater scarcity than money. A dollar can be remade. A dollar can be found. A dollar can be replaced, but an hour cannot be. I've logged my time over the years, and it's just a habit that I got into some years ago when I began to work at a certain company that forced us to do it. You have 168 hours in the week. That's how many you have. That's how many I have. That's how many Bill Gates has. It's how many the beggar on the streets of the largest cities in the world has, 168 hours. I sleep an average of 6.7 hours per night, a number I've been trying to increase. which is right at 47 hours of my week. So 28% of my time right off the bat is off the table. I'm sleeping. I'm unconscious. I'm at work, at my workplace, an average of 43 hours per week. So I'm down now to 78, 78 hours in my week. I'm in the car driving to work or church around an hour per day. So I'm down to 71 hours. Just taking care of the day-to-day activities of life, chores around the house, exercise, administrative things that have to be done, that's another two and a half hours a day. I'm down to 54 hours in my week. I try to, I'm usually with one or more members of my family for a couple of hours a day and that's not enough, but already I'm down to 40, 40 hours in my week. So this comes now to about five and a half hours a day that I have for the other stuff. all the other things that I want to do or need to do. A little over three hours is spent either in church, on an average, either in church or studying for church or general reading, and that leaves me two and a half hours. Two and a half hours a day is spent usually in a moment of transparency and honesty, frankly, on very little. A break, taking time away, I shared this this morning merely as an encouragement that I believe that if you would examine your own life, you're going to find a very similar reality. I share it as an encouragement for you to think about your life. I'm not telling you to log your time and be a weirdo like I am. I'm not telling you to do that. I am encouraging you, though, to realize that the hours of your life are measured. They are finite. At the end of every week, I look back, where did my time go? What did I do? Because 168 more hours have now ticked off the clock forever. What did I do with that time? Why would I be so obsessed about thinking about where I spent my money and completely disinterested in where I spent my time? Your time and mine is limited. I believe, while again, I'm not encouraging you to go log your life in this way, I believe I do have biblical support in this idea. Psalm chapter 90 verses 10 and 12. The years of our life are 70 or even by reason of strength 80, yet their span is but toil and trouble. They are soon gone and we fly away. Who considers the power of your anger and your wrath according to the fear of you? So teach us to number our days that we might apply our hearts to wisdom. teach us father to number our days, to consider their brevity, to consider their limited stature, to consider that one day that we will leave this life, that we are so careless with our time, but often so careful with our money is odd when you consider that time is of such far greater value than money. As we said, money can be replenished, time cannot be. An hour spent on something is just that, an hour forever spent. And Jesus here begins, and he tells the Pharisees that he would be with them only a little longer. And this is a reminder that time and the accompanying opportunity to come to him for them in his life was limited, and it's still true today. Your opportunity and your time to come to Christ is limited. It's limited. Your time to serve Him is limited. Your time to give Him your heart is limited. Your time to find Him is limited. And should you spurn and waste that time, it will be to your eternal regret. Felix, in Acts chapter 24, verse 25, gives us that famous statement. Paul has preached to him the gospel in chains. After preaching to him, Felix is troubled. He is convinced, I believe, to a measure that Paul is preaching to him the truth. And this is what he says in verse 25, as he that is Paul reasoned about righteousness and self-control in the coming judgment, Felix was alarmed and said, go away for the present. When I get an opportunity, I will summon you. King James verse. It says it this way at a more convenient season. I will call for you. that they will get serious about finding God and serving Him later in life, but just not today. Not appreciating the fact that time is limited. Opportunity is limited. For any who might be thinking that you'll find Christ at a time more convenient than today, I pray that this Scripture and the Spirit of God will disabuse you of that false idea. Many that think later, after I've had my fun, after I get through this phase of my life, when I get older, I'll get serious about serving God. Let me disabuse you of that for two reasons. First, I must remind you, there's none of us in this room that have any promise that any of us will see old age. There's not a one of us with that kind of a promise. But secondly, even if you are given that opportunity, there's no guarantee that you truly will become serious about serving God later. And by the way, what a waste that would be. It's so many days, so many years between now and then that would simply be thrown away at the world rather than trusting God and serving him. It's certainly better to have found Christ at some point and leave this world, even if it is at the end of your days. But may you, if you're young this morning, not fall under the spell of Satan and fall to his convincing that there'll be time later. Jesus says, a little while longer, I am with you. And in that, we are reminded, front and center, that time is short, it is brief, it is limited. And if you don't think it's short and you may say, I'm gonna live to be 80 years old, say to you what a whisper that is, what a breath that is, what a moment that is next to eternity. This is why you're encouraged to seek God when you're young. Ecclesiastes 12 verse one, remember also your creator in the days of your youth before the evil days come and the years drawn near of which you will say, I have no pleasure in them. Jesus tells these Pharisees that He will not be among them much longer. And as we know, at this point, reading back, it will be about six months and He would go to the cross and die for the sins of the world. Do not delay to seek God. Do not delay to serve God. Do not wait, take the time he has given to you, find him and serve him with it. In my life, after I take care of all the things I have to take care of and all the things that I should take care of at a minimum, I've got, as I've said, around five hours per day. Recognizing that every hour of our day should be spent serving God, whether I'm at work, whatever I'm doing, I fully understand that everything our hand sets to do, we should do to the honor and the service of God, but particularly around those discretionary hours of our day. Where is it going in your life? What are you spending it on? Every moment of every day is an opportunity that we've been given to honor God. Five hours might not sound like much, but it actually is. When you think about it, be very careful. I've been guilty of this myself saying there's not enough hours in the day. Be careful. God's the one who set 24 hours in the day, and he knows exactly how many hours there ought to be in a day. The question is not, there's not enough. The question is, what are we choosing? to spend the time on. If you don't know God, are you considering that in your moments alone in your hours of discretionary time when it's just you might not sound like very long, but actually it is five hours a day over a year is 1825 hours. It's a lot of time. Five hours per day over a year, that 1825 hours over 10 years, that's 18,250 hours. 30 years is 54,750 hours. If you're young today in your 20s and you think maybe you've got 60 hours left, five hours a day is 109,500 hours. You could become an expert at 10 different things in that amount of time. What are you gonna spend it on? What are you going to invest that time in? We far, as it's been said, overestimate what we can accomplish in a year and far underestimate what can be accomplished in five or 10. by a diligent, continual serving of God in your life. It's not a slow race. It's not a hundred meter dash. It's not short. It is long. And it's a race that's been set before us. And Jesus says, a little while yet, I will be with you. And then I am going to return to my father. Jesus doesn't just tell these Pharisees that he's not gonna be with them for much longer. He tells them exactly where he's gonna go. And in essence, then, he has shared with them the most important things they need to know. I will be here and then I am going back to be with the one who sent me. I will be with you a little longer. He says in verse 33, and then I am going to him who sent me having accomplished all that was necessary for the salvation of man. Jesus goes back to the one who sent him in John 19 verses 28 through 30. We read after this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said to fulfill the Scriptures, I thirst, and a jar full of sour wine stood there. So they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished. having finished what God sent Him to do, stretching out His arms to bleed and to die for you and for all of man so that they might be saved. He says, it's finished. And Jesus tells them, I'm going to be here for only a little while, and then I'm going back to the One who sent me after I will have accomplished all that was necessary. And then when I go there, after I go to the cross, I will conquer the enemy of death. When I rise again on the third day, and as Paul says it in this way in first Corinthians death, where is your victory grave? Where is your victory to be worshipped in heaven? Jesus would be as well when he goes back to heaven and worshipped by beings of such unimaginable beauty that I think you and I would not even begin to comprehend what we are looking at if we were to see them today. Revelation chapter 7 verse 11 and all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures and they fell on their faces before the throne and they worship God. This is where Jesus was going. I'll be with you for a little while and then I'm going to be with the one who sent me after conquering the death, fulfilling all of the law, becoming the sacrifice for all of mankind to be worshiped by those in heaven. and then also to wait to gather those who love him and know him in John 14 three says if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and will take you to myself that where I am you may be also and Jesus is awaiting that moment as time continues to move forward as time continues to progress but that is not the only thing that's going to happen when he comes again. The second time, he's gonna gather those that are his children to himself, but the Bible says very clearly, we could read in Revelation chapter 20, verse 11 through 15, of those who will be judged and cast into the lake of fire because they didn't know him. Cast into the eternal darkness where Jesus described it this way, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth I'm going to be with you, Jesus says, for a little while, and then I'm going back to my Father. And as the rest of Scripture continues to outline the plan of God in the church age in which we are now living, we know that Jesus rose again from the grave. He is at the right hand of the Father, receiving worship from beings so incredible and so beautiful, we could not begin to describe them, awaiting to come back to gather His people to Himself, but then also, destroy all that refuse to come to him. It's what he says in his word. When you look, when you look at the seemingly simple statement in verse 33, it's easy for us to look past the immense weight of what Jesus is saying. And I thought about this as I studied only Jesus could say things that had such weight presents ideas with such weight and such depth with so few words. I'm gonna be with you for a little while. That ought to awaken us out of a spiritual slumber to remember that time is short. It's brief. He looks at these Pharisees and he says to them, I'm just gonna be here a little while and then I am going to be with the Lord. These men that he spoke to, these very men, one day, one day found out that what Jesus was telling them was true, that he was indeed the Son of God. They found out that he did indeed finish the work and he returned to heaven to be with his father. I pray that we understand this, that you understand this. The remainder now of what we have through the rest of these verses is a sobering testimony to the barrier that religion can place between you and what Jesus was saying to where you don't see it. And I want you to examine your own heart as we look at them. Well, we are tempted to think that those who will reject God are the pagans and the atheists and the Hitlers and the Stalins of the world. And though that is indeed true, there will be those among that number who will reject God. I believe that the truth is that many, if not many more, who end up wasting their lives will be people who spent their lives dedicated perhaps to their church, to their religion, but were not truly dedicated to God. dedicated to being good. And this is precisely the case here with these Pharisees. Though much could be said of them, by the way, one thing that could not be said of them was this, they weren't dedicated to what they said. They were extremely religious in their way and in their manner of life. And Satan does not mind if you are religious. He is only concerned that you don't come to know Jesus Christ. He's used religion over and over and over again throughout history. He continues to do it today. The rest of these verses, 34 through 36, they're just a sobering testimony to the reality that many will have this barrier between them and God. He says to them in verse 34, which should, if we were reading this sincerely on our own, almost make us just stop. Jesus says to them, you will seek me and you will not find me. where I am, you cannot come. Presentation of the gospel in one sense has been made and the presentation of the gospel is rejected most often by those who do not see their need for it. The gospel message is rejected far more frequently by the unconverted church goer than it is the outright unbeliever. They would seek him, Jesus says, but they would not find him and they would seek him because they would look for him in places where he was not to be found in their religious activity, in their good works, in their own idea of what it is to be a good person. They'll look for Jesus and they'll not find him. in their connection with other Pharisees, they would look for God and they would not find him. And I think sometimes today people look for a connection with God through a connection with other Christian people. And there is a big difference between you knowing God and you knowing Christian people. Many people looking for God in merely an agreement with the claims of Christianity. whatever that it might be, they would seek him and they would not find him because they were looking in the wrong place. They would seek him and not find him because they're unable to go where only Jesus can go. Nothing they could do apart from the working of God in their hearts could prepare them to enter heaven. Nothing and nothing you can do will prepare you for having either apart from a working of the spirit of God in your heart. This is what the scripture tells us Christianity is not about what a man does to appease God for salvation. It is about what God has done to appease His own law in His own Son. It's about what He has done to free us from the bondage of sin through the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ. Now stop and think. Stop and think for a minute of the gravity of this statement of the Lord. It is in many ways It is in many ways contradictory to how people think today. Don't think this way. They would seek him and not find him. And from this, we learned that not finding God, not finding Christ is a very real danger to the eternal souls of men and women all over the world. Jesus just said, you're going to seek me and you're not going to find me. That weight is Jesus, the son of God, the son of man looks upon these Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day, and he says, you're going to look for me and you're not going to find me. There is no greater sentence than that. There's no greater thing to be alarmed at. Most in the world seem to think that God is going to always be there to provide His grace and His mercy. There is a preaching in the world today that says God will always be there, but this sort of thinking is not informed by a full and balanced view of Scripture. Listen, Jesus just told him, there's gonna come a day when you're gonna look for me and you're not gonna find me. Too many people don't appreciate the reality that the grace and the mercy of God that is extended to us today does have a stopping place. There is an end in view. Just this is not my opinion. It's very different from the way most people think today, but it's right from the word of God. Amos 8 11. Behold, the days are coming. Amos says the inspiration of God. The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor thirst for water, but of the hearing of the word of God. There's going to come a day, Israel, when you no longer, even though you will desire to hear God's Word, it will not be there, God says to Israel. And you remember your history of the nation of Israel in the north, as the kingdom of Judah spared for an extra 125. years in the south, the kingdom of Judah with Judah and Benjamin. But those 10 tribes in the north, as the Assyrians came and destroyed their land, Amos told them 30 years in advance, there's going to come a time you'll desire to hear the word of God, and it will not be there. And I think that there have been times played out in history where much the same thing has happened. We think in the United States that God's always going to be here. and His Word is always going to be free to be spoken. But we're seeing that slowly get edged away and chipped away at. And the only thing it seems that the people under the tolerance movement can't tolerate is the preaching of the Word of God and the cross of Christ. Take everything else and tolerate anything else. The only thing that's intolerable today is the truth. And it's gonna continue to be that way. And God says to aim is to tell the Israelites. And so we see this as Paul then says in the New Testament, those things happen so that we might have an example to see where we are. The word is a light, a lamp unto our feet. It shows us where we are and it is a light to our path. It shows us where we're going. And when we see what happened in the past, we can see what's happening to us today. As has been said, all new news is just old news happening to new people. It's the same thing. As you get older, you'll begin to see that Proverbs verses one or chapter one verses 24 through 28. These are sobering past words because God says, because I have called and you refuse to listen. I've stretched out my hand and no one is heated. because you have ignored all My counsel and would have none of My reproof. I will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when terror strikes you, when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. Then they will call upon Me, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently. They will not find me. It's not what I said. It's what God said. These words are not confusing. These words are not hard to understand. It's clear. It's a message. And God says to these Pharisees, you're going to seek me, but you're not going to find me. There is a limit. There is a limit to the time that we have to find God. Second Chronicles chapter 36 verse 16, speaking of Israel, but they kept mocking the messengers of God. When Amos came, When he came to Israel and he spoke to them, that man of Tekoa, that farmer who God called and said, I have a message for you to send to my people, Israel. And he went up there and he spoke the words of God. Do you know who gave him the hardest time? The priests. Saying, go away, Amos. We don't want to hear what you're saying. We don't want to believe what you're saying. And so many people today dismiss the Word of God, and they dismiss the preacher of God because they don't want to believe what he's saying. But it isn't a matter about what you believe me or some other preacher. It's about, are you going to believe God? Because there's going to come a day, according to the Word of God, when there will not be this opportunity. Continuing in verse 16 of 2 Chronicles 36, They kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people until there was no remedy. No remedy. We might want to explain away these passages. We might want to ignore them. We might be reading in our scripture and turn the page to find something else that we would rather read, but we cannot pick and choose what we like in the Bible and throw away the rest. Far too many people fail to appreciate the reality that there will be an end to the mercy and grace available in Christ. One day, the hours will all be used up. The time to find Christ will be eternally passed. And as revelation says, as the tree falls in the forest, so it lies. You see, are you hearing what God is saying through his word? What is what Jesus says to these Pharisees? Just a little while referencing this passing of time. This, by the way, is why the scriptures say in chapter three of Hebrews, the 15th verse, Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. This is why we read in Revelation chapter 22, after just about everything has been said in the word of God from Genesis chapter one, verse one, all the way to nearly the very close of the scripture itself, the spirit and the bride say, come and let the one who hears say, come, and let the one who is thirsty come. Let the one who desires to take the water of life without price, let him come. Now, today, in this moment, I pray you today will come to Christ and not respond as these Pharisees do. And as we briefly look at that very quickly in verse 35, just this almost unimaginable to me, this scoffing unbelief of the Pharisees. Jesus has said these words. The Jews were fully aware of the Old Testament. The Pharisees knew what God had said in the Old Testament, and the Jews said to one another, where does this man intend to go? We will not find him. Where does he think he's going to go? This unimaginable false bravado, this arrogance, this ignorance, this blindness, and this shallowness of the supposed leaders religiously of Israel. Do you want to know a sure sign, by the way, of a false prophet? A false leader? Someone you ought not to follow in your life? Someone who can scoff at the Word of God? At any part of it? Someone who seems unmoved in their own heart at the Word of God? This is one you should take note of and be wary of. Because if they are that way, they likely don't know God at all. Men frequently, they do this though. They seek to comfort one another. They seek comfort which is found in gathering to themselves other unbelievers. And Satan will do this. If you're yet an unbeliever, he will encourage this in your life. He will encourage you to seek out other unbelievers, to reinforce your own unbelief. You'll be drawn naturally to them. You'll desire time with them. But let me ask you a question. In all sincerity, let me ask you this question. What do you think you're going to learn from someone who already thinks and believes like you? What are you going to gather from them that you don't already possess in your own heart and unbelief? All that you're doing is seeking others to confirm, to pat you on the back, to encourage you in your unbelief, but it is the believer. It is the believer in Christ who has experienced both sides of faith in God, not the unbeliever. It is the one who has come to Christ who can say to you, I know how you feel. I know what you're thinking. I once, too, was like you. But now, through the mercy and the grace of God, through my repentance for sin, because I understood I was a sinner, and His forgiveness of my sin, and the joy that He placed in my heart, and the forgiveness that He gave, and the change in my heart, and the conversion that He gave, I became a new creature, and now I'm a believer. I know what it is to believe in God, and I know what it was to not believe in Him. The irony today of unbelievers accusing the believer of simply being brainwashed and seeking those who think like them to gather around them. And exactly the opposite is the case. It's the unbeliever that continues to heap to themselves other unbelievers to encourage them in their disbelief. And Satan knows that. And these men look at one another and they say, Who is this man? He's a blasphemer. Where does he think he's going to go that we can't find him? If you gather around yourself other unbelievers, you're going to listen to what they say, and it's only going to serve to harden your heart. This response of the unbelieving Pharisees is meant to give this impression, this appearance, that they, not Jesus, are in control, that they are superior to Jesus, that he is not to be taken seriously, and they attempt to insult him. by not even responding to him directly. Did you notice that? They didn't even respond to him. Jesus said these words and then it said they said to one another. He's not even there. What are you doing with the working of God in your heart when he says to you, time is short. I am going to my father. I am coming again. The blindness of the unbelief of these Pharisees is so abundantly clear to those who see it. Their unbelief in who Christ was made it impossible for them to understand what he was saying. Didn't understand what he was saying. They were not thinking in terms of spiritual realities. They were thinking in terms of earthly realities. And this is probably a problem for you and I as well. Has been perhaps you've not found Christ because you've been thinking about this and looking at him in terms of this life only. And this is where preachers today gain unimaginable wealth and fly around the world in their private jets because they tell you things you want to hear instead of things you need to hear. They tell you that it is all well when it is not. They tell you that God's interest in your life is about this life. And they don't tell you the truth. that whether you're a pauper or a king here, eternity takes no notice. Whether you gained all the things you wanted in this life, whether you lived 80 years and got to spend the last 20 in a wonderful retirement, eternity takes no notice. Whether you spent your days as countless missionaries have through daily toil and trial, Men like Adoniram Judson and all these others that we read about who lost one wife after another, separated from his family, on the boat ride over to Burma at the time, converted to a different denomination because of his conviction about what the Scripture says about baptism, and goes for year after year after year after year of hardship after hardship after hardship and not seeing one person saved. but he knew his God, and knew his call on his life, and knew that eternity was not going to take any notice of the small affliction that we endure here for a season. God is more interested in you than you have any idea of, if all you think of is that he's interested in how your life here goes. That's not even a small fragment of the interest that God has in you. He wants to see you eternally worshiping him in heaven, showing him honor and praise and glory. That's why he came, because he loves you enough that he wants you in heaven with him. He wants you among those that when He comes back a second time, He separates to His right hand. Knowing that just like that in a moment, that all that happened in life, all of a sudden amounts to nothing if you didn't know God. And He knows that time is short and He looks at these Pharisees, and I believe with a broken heart, tells them, you're gonna look for me and you're not gonna find me. because you're obsessed with your own righteousness, you're convinced of your own righteousness. Sometimes I have to ask, and I wonder when people say they've been saved and by repeating a verse or doing a thing, you just have to ask, what were you saved from? From what do you know him? So much of the time, it's looking through the lens of this world. But Paul tells us in first Corinthians 15, 19, if in Christ we have hope in this life only, if our hope in Christ is only about this life, do you expect Paul to say, then we'll live a pretty good life, then it'll still be worth it. Do you think Paul would have said, and I'm not gonna finish the phrase of what he said in the actual scripture here yet. You think he would have said, you know what? Living a Christian life is still a good way to live this world. It's not what Paul said. He said, if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. It isn't about this life. And the second we as Christian people remember that as we awake in the morning, and as we've heard encouraged to us today to be a reflection of the Son of God to the world, is the minute that we will begin to advance in our spiritual walk with Christ. These Pharisees look at him and they say, where's he gonna go? And did you see the irony in their statement? Where's he gonna go to the Greeks? An idea so absurd to them that they couldn't imagine that that's possibly what he meant. Is he gonna go to the Gentiles? Just an absurd idea. But I remind you today that when these words that we've read this morning were first written, they were written not in Hebrew, they were written in Greek. That's exactly what happened. That thing that the Pharisees thought was unimaginable, unthinkable, these blind Pharisees almost made a joke of it. Is he going to go to the Greeks? You know, many people today continue to hold the truth of scripture in the same light and in the same attitude. It's so unthinkable to us what the word of God says that we question it and go, can that be true? And do you know where Satan loves to place the focus sometimes in this question? Is God actually gonna send people to hell? Can that be true? It's so unthinkable in the mind of that modern person today. I read a stat the other day, 72% of people believe in heaven, 54% believe in hell, and I don't even know what the numbers underneath that might show. But thanks to the watered down prosperity gospel of the day and the complete confusion of how men see themselves, this idea of God sending men and women to an eternal destruction in hell has become preposterous, even to many professing Christians. but it's what the word of God says. Is he gonna go to the Greeks? That's preposterous. That can't possibly be what he means. Many claim a belief in Christ, but they reject the idea that he could potentially, and he will, separate men, just as he said he will. It seems that in the minds of even many Christians today, God will only send the murderers, the child abusers, the worst of us, he'll send them to hell. But most of us were pretty good people, pretty good people. Similarly, they think God thinks of us in that same light. We think God thinks of us the way we think of ourselves. We think God sees us as we see ourselves, that we are actually pretty good inwardly. God knows this. So taken in by this false view of humanity, that the idea of God actually sending any to hell for refusing to believe in him is just almost too upsetting to consider, too offensive. to ears that have been made so delicate by the light preaching of the day. They discredit it, and they discount it, and they toss it aside. But Matthew chapter 7, verses 21 through 23 are clear. Jesus is going to say to many who believe that they were righteous, depart from me, I never knew you. Listen, far too much is at stake. to ignore the warning that we see here, to ignore the reality that what it was for these religious people, this barrier to belief, this struggle that they had, this blindness in their minds and in their hearts about who Christ was. There's too much at stake to ignore the truth of what we see here. Many don't realize the Pharisees started out with a noble cause. We read of the Pharisees in the New Testament, and of course they are the ones that Jesus had the most reproach to give. The most harshest words that Jesus spoke were to these people, but they began many years earlier, hundreds of years earlier. They began with a great intention to be a separate people that God had called Israel to be. After experiencing the destruction of Israel and the exile of Judah, the 70 years in Babylon, they returned home. And over time, this idea became, we cannot make the same mistakes of the past. We're going to be a separate people. We're going to obey the commands of God. We're going to live as God has told us to live. And that started out well with a great commitment and an honorable thing, but it became a legalist approach to God. Over time, this dedication became a legalism that denied the very thing that ultimately separates all men before God, the belief and trust in the same. Same sort of thing as we come to our close happens today for many who fall into this category of... beginning well their response to a message that echoes Christ's words you must be born again or you will not see the kingdom of God is similar if not the same as the response of these Jews to Jesus just so on to unthinkable to take seriously but I think deep down we know that what he says is true I'll read this and I'll be done Far from being the ones in control, one day each of these men, these Pharisees, left this life, and if they did not come to Christ between this day and that, they found themselves lost. Though it might be said that this might have surprised them, I think deep down it didn't. They knew they didn't know God, and they knew they had rejected His Son. They might have convinced themselves for a while, and even to a degree, that they were righteous because of who they were, or what they did, or who their family was, or where they went, or who their friends were, but they knew. Deep down, they knew. And so too do you, who might be in the same place as they. My sincere hope for you is that you respond in true faith, true trust in Christ. call upon Him, confessing your sin, begin following Him today, commit yourself wholly to Him, repent for that sin that He makes known in your heart, cry out to Christ as your only hope, He'll save you, redeem you, and you'll come to know Him, and then all of these other things that we do as Christians will start to make sense. But don't reverse it. Don't reverse it. If you reverse it, you run the risk of becoming just like these Pharisees. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus is enough. Jesus has always been enough. You'll never be, but He is and He will ever remain to be so. Barriers to belief through religion. I pray that is not the case for you. that you truly do know the Lord. If you don't, I encourage you to find Him today. Time is passing, and it's passing for us all. So let's sing a song and pray that God will be with us through many of this time.