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That's connectwithskip.com. Now, let's get started with today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig. One of the most famous plays by William Shakespeare is his play Hamlet. And there's a famous line in the third act in the first scene, some of which you know. When I say it, you're going to know it.
You're going to recognize it. Where he says, to be or not to be, that is the question. Whether it's nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of an outrageous fortune, et cetera, et cetera. To be or not to be, that is the question.
That's a famous saying, but it's not true. In that little pericope, that little verbal statement, that quote from that line, what he's actually debating is should he kill himself or not? Should I be or not be?
Should I just end the sorrows that I'm experiencing or should I continue suffering through them? To be or not to be, that is the question. Now, certainly that's an important question, but that's not the question. The question is not to be or not to be. The question is to be, leave or not to believe. Jesus said, if you don't believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.
That's the question. Because to believe or not to believe is the eternal question. It makes all the difference for time as well as eternity. And I begin with that because that is really the theme of what we're going to look at in the end of chapter 10, the continuation of chapter 10 from last time study before we take the Lord's Supper. The theme of the Gospel of John is believe. 98 times in the Gospel of John alone, that word believe appears. And in this little section that we're going to read, it appears seven times. It becomes the theme of it as it is the theme of the Gospel of John. Now, let me just back up a little bit and get the context in flow and then we'll jump right in. In chapter seven of John, it is the Feast of Tabernacles.
It is the fall time of the year. And on the last day of the feast, you remember Jesus stood up and He shouted out with a loud voice. He said, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. For as the scripture says, he who believes in me out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
Whoever believes in me. Well, He made that statement and then He left the temple precincts, but He came back the next morning, John chapter 8. Early in the morning, He went on Solomon's porch and He began teaching the people. And while He was teaching, they interrupted Him by bringing a woman who had been caught in adultery saying, Moses said, you ought to stone this woman. She was caught in the very act. What do you say?
You know the story. He said, you who are without sin cast the first stone. They had rocks in hands. They were convicted.
They dropped those rocks and they skedaddled out of the temple area. And Jesus kept teaching and talking and what people saw and what they heard, it says, and many believed in Him. Many believed in Him. Then in the very next chapter, John chapter 9, Jesus heals a man who was blind from birth. And in verse 35, when Jesus heard that they cast him out, when He had found him, said to him, do you believe in the Son of God?
You see, that's the question. To believe or not to believe, that is the question. He answered and said to him, who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him? Jesus said to him, you have both seen Him and it is He who is talking with you. And then He said, Lord, I believe.
And He worshipped him. Now that's all a prelude to what we're about to read. What we're about to read in John chapter 10, and we'll pick it up in verse 22 through the end of the chapter before we take these elements together and celebrate our own belief in Him by taking these external elements. We are dealing now with the very end of the public ministry of Jesus. And to end the public ministry of Jesus, John, the author of the gospel, goes back to the theme of the gospel, which is belief, faith. And so that's why he closes his book by saying, and truly many other signs Jesus did in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that by believing have life in His name.
So to sum up the end of Jesus' ministry, He returns to the theme of faith or of belief. Now we're about to read only 21 verses. I didn't finish it last time.
I thought I would, but you're used to that by now. So we're going to finish the chapter. I'm not going to be too ambitious and try to cover the next chapter and do the Lord's Supper. So we're going to finish these 21 verses.
But here's what I want you to realize. Of the 21 verses that we will look at, and though the theme is belief, it's really belief as opposed to unbelief. And what's fascinating is 18 of these 21 verses deal with unbelief. Three, only three deal with belief. There is more unbelief recorded in the written or verbal scripture real estate, which we're about to read. There's more written about unbelief than belief. I bring that up because I'm calling this the ratio of reality.
That's reality. Most people in the world do not believe in Jesus, but whoever does believe in him will have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. The sad truth is most people will perish. Jesus said, again, if you do not believe that I am or that I am he, you will die in your sins.
So this is the ratio of reality. Three of the verses highlight belief, faith. 18 of the 21 verses deal with unbelief. So in verse 21, I said I would begin in verse 22, but that's why I begin in verse 21. Others said, these are not the words of one who has a demon.
Can a demon open the eyes of the blind? And now, as I mentioned last time, just in case you may have forgotten, two to three months pass between what we just read in the very next verse, where chapter or where verse 21 ends is the fall time of the year, the Feast of Tabernacles. That's over. By the time we get to verse 22, we're now in the wintertime. For it says in verse 22, now it was the feast of dedication in Jerusalem, and it was winter. So we left off in fall, and between one verse and another verse, there are two to three months that pass where Jesus was busy, but John did not record what he said or did. And we now enter into the wintertime of the year, and I find that verse to be, to me at least, telling. And it was winter. Now, we know that he means that literally, but I also see a spiritual application, because 18 of the 21 verses deal with disbelief. I kind of see John writing it literally, but kind of like nudging us in the arm, like, get it? It was winter. Get it? People are cold to Jesus and growing colder toward him.
Only few are finding their hearts warmed by him and are drawn to believe in him. So it was winter. Now it is the feast of dedication, and last time I explained that to you, didn't I? I told you that was Hanukkah. And Hanukkah was celebrated from 165 B.C.
onward, still celebrated today. The feast of Hanukkah, which takes place in the wintertime, is to celebrate the rebellion of Judas Maccabeus and his brothers against Antiochus Epiphanes, that Syrian who persecuted the Jews. And if you remember, I told you that Antiochus Epiphanes was a Seleucid ruler, a Syrian ruler. He was called Antiochus IV, and he gave himself the name Antiochus Epiphanes, which means God manifest or God made manifest. So he said, I am God manifest in the flesh.
That was his own claim. Now the Jews did not see him that way. They saw him as a crazy man. And so they didn't call him Antiochus Epiphanes. They called him Antiochus Epiphanes, which means crazy dude. So it was a play on words. They took his name, but they twisted it a little bit and gave a word that sounded like it, but meant something totally different. This dude is not God manifest in the flesh.
This guy is crazy. And he was. He hated Jewry. He wanted to end Judaism. He wanted to finally stamp out this rebellious group of people who did not worship the Greek culture or the God Zeus that he worshiped himself.
So he just killed many of the Jews and took many of them slaves. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, in order to connect even more people with Jesus in the year ahead, Connect with Skip Heitzig needs to meet a financial goal by December 31st. And we're asking for your help to meet this goal in full so that together in 2025, we can reach more people with gospel center teaching and resources that connect them with the God who loves them. Finishing this year on solid financial footing will mean that Connect with Skip Heitzig can grow current efforts and say yes to new opportunities in the coming year to expand to new stations, new countries, and new technologies, all with the goal of sharing the good news of Jesus with more people around the world. Your gift today will have an eternal impact on many lives. So go to connectwithskip.com slash give or call 800-922-1888 and give a tax deductible year end gift to help connect more people with Jesus in the year ahead.
Let's continue with today's teaching with Pastor Skip. He forbade all of the people in Jerusalem to keep the Sabbath. He forbade them to circumcise their children. When two women decided to go against that law and circumcise their children, Antiochus decided to make a show of them. He did so by killing their infant children, killing their babies in front of them, and then tying the dead baby around each mother around its neck and parading her through the streets of Jerusalem up to the temple area and throwing her down into the Kidron Valley, both of them to die in public.
In other words, don't mess with me. So that kind of persecution continued for years. And finally, in a last desperate act, he defiled the temple itself and put a statue of Zeus in it, commanded people to worship Zeus, sacrificed a pig in the temple courts. The Jews referred to that as the abomination that causes desolation. And that is why Antiochus Epiphanes, by the way, is an apt foreshadowing of the Antichrist.
Okay, enough of that. A rebellion broke out against Antiochus by a group of priests, a guy by the name of Mattathias and his five sons after Mattathias died, Judas Maccabeus. Judas Maccabeus means Judas the Hammer.
Love the name. Judas the Hammer came pounding down on the nail called Antiochus Epiphanes and in 165 succeeded, 164 succeeded in overturning the temple from the worship of Zeus and Antiochus Epiphanes and restored the correct worship back to God and drove the Syrians out. I told you last time about the miracle of the lights and how it was supposed to last one day but it lasted for a period of eight consecutive days so that new oil could be manufactured. That's all according to legend. But I brought up and I just want to reiterate that Jesus kept the Feast of Dedication. Now you can read through the Bible, you'll never find the Feast of Dedication except for here in the New Testament. You won't find it in the Old Testament.
The children of Israel never were told to keep it because it happened between the Old and the New Testaments. But my point was is that you have Jesus Christ keeping, celebrating, enjoying, if you will, a non-biblical feast. And I bring that up again to refresh your memory with an application because every year in the winter I'm asked this question, why do you celebrate Christmas? Would Jesus celebrate Christmas?
Maybe he would. He celebrated Hanukkah, not a biblical feast, not mandated anywhere in the scripture to keep, but he kept it. And I say why not use every opportunity to glorify the Lord? And as people's attention is even, are even thinking about perhaps the Lord Jesus Christ in some of the songs they sing of Christmas, why not use that as an opportunity, as a hook? So here's Jesus.
It is winter. It is the Feast of Dedication. And it says Jesus walked in the temple. Of course, Jesus walked everywhere in Solomon's porch. And the Jews surrounded him and said to him, how long do you keep us in doubt? If you are the Christ, Greek word for Christos, Greek word for Messiah, Mashiach, the promised one, the deliverer, if you are the Christ, tell us plainly. One of the things that happened at Hanukkah, because they were celebrating one of their own rebelling against a foreign power and knocking out the dominating force, right? Beating, winning over Antiochus Epiphanes and his Seleucid dynasty and Greek rule, because one of their own succeeded in rebelling against a foreign power.
And because Rome was the current foreign power bearing rule over them, they became very patriotic around this time. And so their view of the Messiah was always, as you know, the view of the Messiah, the old view of the Messiah was that there's going to come a deliverer, a military ruler, a general, much like Mattathias or Judas Maccabeus. That's going to be the kind of Messiah we want, a political warrior deliverer.
And so this brought up to them the desire to have that kind of deliverance again. So they've heard of Jesus and these claims about Messiahship and things that he has done. So now they say to him, how long do you keep us in doubt if you are the Christ?
Tell us plainly. Notice what Jesus said. He answered them, I told you, and you do not believe. What they call doubt is actually unbelief. How long will you keep us in suspense or in doubt? Jesus said, I already told you, you don't believe. There's a difference between doubt and disbelief, huge difference. Tell us plainly.
Well, he already did. He said, I told you. Do you remember back in the fourth chapter when Jesus goes through Samaria and meets the Samaritan woman, and you know that the Samaritans believed in the Messiah, as did the Jews. There was a rift, a difference.
I don't need to get into that again. But the woman at the well of Samaria said to Jesus, I know that when the Messiah comes, he's going to clear up all these things. And Jesus looked at her and said, the one who is speaking to you is he. You're talking about the Messiah?
I am the Messiah. Then in chapter five of John, in verse 46, let me read it to you. Jesus said, for if you believed Moses, you would believe me for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words? You see, Moses had predicted that another prophet like Moses was going to come in the future. That was always believed by the Jewish sages to mean the Messiah. So he says, if you would have believed Moses, you'd believe me because he wrote about me. I'm the one he predicted.
I am the Messiah. So Jesus said, I've already told you, you don't believe. I mentioned there's a difference between belief and doubt. Everybody has doubts. Can I ask you a plain question, honest question? Who here has struggled ever with your belief in God, your belief in Jesus, your belief in the exclusivity of Christianity, et cetera? Any honest people?
I'll raise both my hands. Sure you have. It's good for you to struggle with that. It's good for you to have doubts. Oz Guinness, a brilliant writer, used to say, show me somebody's intensity of their doubt and I will show you that man's intensity of his faith. You work through issues as you believe. You believe, but then yeah, but what about, yeah, but what about, and so you work through those. That's a huge difference from unbelief. You see, doubt looks for answers. Belief looks for excuses. Doubt is saying, I'd like to believe. I want to believe and I'm ready to believe.
I want this roadblock cleared up. So remove that and that doubt is removed. I believe. Do you believe in the son of God? Jesus asked him, who is you Lord that I may believe I'm the guy I'm speaking to you.
I believe you cleared that up for me. I believe it was Matthew Henry who said, there are none so blind as those who will not see. There are none so deaf as those who will not hear. There are some people who've just decided against believing no matter what they're predisposed to it. However, a person who has doubts, that's different. Doubt implies faith. Doubt presupposes faith. There's faith there in order to doubt what that faith is placed in.
That's okay. You work through that and it gets stronger. So they said, how long will you keep us in doubt? I've told you, you don't believe me.
Unbelief is different than doubt. Verse 25 again, Jesus answered, I told you, and you do not believe the works that I do in my father's name. They bear witness of me, but you do not believe because you are not of my sheep.
As I said to you, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. How can you tell if somebody's a Christian? Hey, I'm a Christian. I'm a believer.
Really? So you, you hear his voice and you do what he says. You are following Jesus Christ.
Just ask somebody when they say, I am a Christian. Are you, are you following Jesus? Oh yeah.
Oh yeah. And then say, where's he leading you? And it just kind of work through the language with them because it's easiest thing as an American to say, I believe in Jesus because we were raised, many of us in churches, but are you listening to his voice?
Are you following him? I love what he said though in verse 25, the works that I do in my father's name, they bear witness of me. You see, he's saying, you don't believe the things that I'm saying. You don't believe the claims that I'm making, but you can't deny the things that I'm doing. My works, these miraculous signs are unmistakable of who I am. You say, tell us plainly, I've told you, you don't believe now, but at least believe the works because those were predicted.
Those were prophesied in the Old Testament of the works of the Messiah who would come. My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me and I give them eternal life.
I love that. We don't earn eternal life. It's a gift. It's a free gift. I give them eternal life.
You believe in Jesus and when you believe in Jesus, he goes, awesome. Now I'm going to give you eternal life. You don't work for it. You don't earn it.
You don't have enough to pay for it. So I'm giving it to you. It's a gift, free gift. I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand.
Okay, but that's just part of it. Look at the next verse. My father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hands. Hey, you're in good hands. You've got two strong hands gripping you. Jesus is holding you and gripping you so that no one can steal you out of his hands. The father is holding you, gripping you so that no one can take you out of his hands. You're in good hands. And by the way, Deuteronomy says underneath us are the everlasting arms.
So he's gripping you and he's holding you so you're in good shape. Thanks for listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We hope you've been strengthened in your walk with Jesus by today's program. Before we let you go, we want to remind you of the financial year-end need that must be met by December 31st to ensure this ministry you love stays strong, reaching millions more in the year ahead. Your gift today will help share gospel-centered teaching with more people in 2025, making an impact that will last for eternity.
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Come back next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the cross. Cast your burdens on his word. Make a connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, affording you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
