God’s Patience Ends
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2021 · 15 August 2021
It is the day the Light went out because our Lord begins in verse 35 by saying, “For a little while longer, the Light is among you,” referring to Himself. He says, “Walk while you have the Light so that darkness will not overtake you. He who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes. 36 While you have the Light, believe in the Light so that you may become sons of Light.”
We saw last time the final invitation that our Lord gave to Israel. It is midweek of the Passion Week. Jesus arrived on Monday, and was hailed as the Messiah. On Tuesday, He attacked the temple. Wednesday and Thursday, He does some teaching and instructing. Before Friday He goes through a mock trial and He was crucified, and in that week, our Lord offers this final invitation.
When Jesus says ‘in a little while’, He means it because verse 36 continues, “These things Jesus spoke and He went away and hid Himself from them.” This is really the last invitation and the Light was about to go out. The next time He showed up in public was, when He was brought before Pilate, when He was brought before Herod, and before the Sanhedrin and when He was crucified.
After His resurrection, Jesus appeared only to believers. This, as we saw last time, is a judgment of God. Now, it needs to be said that throughout Scripture God proves Himself to be compassionate, to be gracious, merciful, longsuffering, slow to anger, and extremely patient with sinners. “He is patient, not willing that any should perish,” Scripture says, “His patience is salvation.”
But inevitably judgment comes. It’ll come on every nation. It always comes, but it doesn’t come without a warning, and without a witness. In Acts 14, the initial witness is the fact that God dispenses to every nation common grace, through the provision of rain, sun and food, as He puts His creative power for the good of man on display. But God has an end to His patience.
God has demonstrated patience with Israel. Because all other nations have gone out of existence. But Israel never disappears. We have never met an Amorite, Hittite or Jebusite, because all those other nations have become extinct. But there are Israelites everywhere here, they’re all around us. God is still being patient with Israel because in the future Israel will be saved.
Romans 11:26 says, “All Israel will be saved.” There’s coming salvation to the Jewish people, but throughout their history, God has run out of patience on certain generations and brought judgment. We know the terrible judgments that came upon Israel, in the time of the judges. We know the terrible judgment of God when God turned them over to the corruptness of their hearts and their apostasy.
But even that did not exhaust God’s patience because the Roman judgment didn’t come for 40 more years. What happened during that time? On the Day of Pentecost, 3,000 Jews were converted. A few days later, 5,000 were converted and the church exploded in the months after the ascension of our Lord and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Tens of thousands of Jewish people came to Christ.
In the period between when judgment was passed and sentence was executed, that 40 year period, the church flourished and grew and sent out apostles to establish the gentile church. The Jews began the call of Acts 1:8 to go into the world and be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and all parts of the earth. God was patient with Paul, an apostate Jew and changed him into the great apostle.
So when Jesus came into town this week on Monday, they hailed Him as the Son of David, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Here is our Messiah,” threw palm branches down and hundreds of thousands of people saying His praises, “This is the Messiah.” On Tuesday, He attacks their temple. Wednesday, He teaches the truth in their temple. Then He announces He’s going to die.
Jesus says, “Unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it stays alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit.” Then He says, “The Son of Man must be lifted up,” a euphemism for crucifixion. When the people hear that, they change their mind. So the crowd said, ‘Who is this Son of Man?’” That’s scorn and mockery. We reject you. Now we know you’re not because you’re talking about death.
“We believe the law of God says the Messiah will live forever.” Well, that’s true. The law did say Messiah would have an everlasting kingdom, but the Old Testament also said He would die, He would be cut off, and He would be wounded for our transgression. But they couldn’t accept that, so they turn on Him mid-week, and by Friday, they are all screaming, “Crucify Him!”
Jesus gives the final call to those who still do not believe in verse 36, “Put your trust in the light while there is still time; then you will become children of the light.” After saying these things, Jesus went away and was hidden from them. Israel went dark when Jesus disappeared. The arrival for the day of the Son of God has still not appeared in the world and will not until He comes again.
Verses 35 and 36, were the final call to unbelievers. There are two components that are deadly to unbelief, that lock a sinner into judgment. Number one, verse 37, “But despite all the miraculous signs Jesus had done, most of the people still did not believe in Him.” That is the first component of unbelief. The stubborn will of man, that stubborn ongoing rejection despite witnessing miracles.
The second aspect we looked at last time is the sovereign will of God. We saw from verse 38 down to 41 that they would not believe, and therefore they could not believe. God’s plan is not thwarted. We saw in verse 38 that Isaiah said this would happen when he said, “Lord, who has believed the report given to us?” speaking for that generation of Jews living at the time of Christ.
“And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” We didn’t believe the report that He brought. We rejected what the Messiah said. They would not believe. Verse 39, “For this reason they could not believe.” Isaiah 6 says in verse 40, “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, so that they would not see with their eyes and perceive with their heart.”
In other words, they would not believe so they could not believe. Verse 41 says when Isaiah saw that vision in chapter 6, it was Christ that he was seeing there on the throne. So here the apostle John relates that whole vision to the way that the Jews had treated Christ. One, stubborn unbelief on the part of the will of man. Two, sovereign judgment on the part of the will of God.
There’s an illustration of this unbelief in verses 42 and 43, “Many people did believe in him, however, including some of the Jewish leaders. But they wouldn’t admit it for fear that the Pharisees would expel them from the synagogue. 43 For they loved human praise more than the recognition of God.” That sounds like there is hope there, because many rulers were chief priests, Pharisees, scribes and Sanhedrin members.
They believed that Jesus was who He claimed to be. They believed that He was a teacher sent from God. One of them was Nicodemus who says, “We know you are a teacher sent from God because nobody could do what you do unless God had sent Him.” But whatever this faith was, it wasn’t sufficient because Jesus on His part said that He, “Was not entrusting Himself to them for He knew all men.”
What Jesus knew was, it was an insufficient faith. They believed that He was who He claimed to be insofar as they understood that, but that is not enough to save, and Jesus knew their hearts. There will always be and have always been people with a belief in some of the facts concerning Christ. The example of unbelief here are the rulers of Israel, the members of the Sanhedrin.
James 2:19 says, “The demons believe.” Did you know that the demons have a better theology than we do because they have been created originally as holy angels? They know the truth concerning the trinity and the truth concerning God and His revelation. But they’re on their way to hell. Why? Because they hate righteousness, love sin, and will not acknowledge Jesus as Lord.
The Jews were not confessing Him for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God. They didn’t want to be put out of the religious establishment. How many people have you known who maybe Roman Catholics who believe the facts about Jesus, but will not acknowledge their sin and the uselessness of their works and cry out for salvation?
Because they can’t let go of the system because it gives them the affirmation? What is the nature of genuine faith? First, it has an objective component, then it has a subjective one. So what is the objective component of saving faith? You must confess Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, Romans 10:9-10. You believe in the true and living God, the Trinitarian God.
But saving faith has a subjective side as well. It’s a question of how do you view you? These Jewish rulers wanted to hold on to everything they had achieved, everything they had trusted in. They had a wrong view of themselves. In James 4:6, James says God gives a greater grace. All of God’s gifts come to us by grace. God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
So you need to be humble, which means you have no confidence and trust in yourself, and that is clearly defined in a series of commands: “Submit therefore to God.” That’s like confessing Jesus as Lord. “Resist the devil, turn away from him and he will flee from you. Draw near to God with holy aspirations, holy affections. And He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands you sinners.”
A call for change in your conduct. “Purify your hearts.” A call for a change in your thought life and motives, and have a proper attitude towards self. What should be your attitude? James 4:9-10, “Mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.” Which means He will give you grace.
Well, you don’t see that with these rulers in verses 42 and 43. So those are the fatal components of unbelief. First, the stubborn will of man. Secondly, the sovereign will of God. Keep on in unbelief and God will judge you with further unbelief. Harden your heart and God will harden your heart. The judgment will be, you will not be able to repent. You would not, so you could not.
John gives us some of the sayings of Jesus before He went into hiding. Verses 44-46, “Jesus shouted to the crowds, “If you trust me, you are trusting not only me, but also God who sent me. 45 For when you see me, you are seeing the one who sent me. 46 I have come as a light to shine in this dark world, so that all who put their trust in me will no longer remain in the dark.”
Here’s the first consequence of unbelief: you don’t know God. A lot of people think they know God. “Well, I’m a very spiritual person. I believe in the God of the Bible.” If you do not believe in Jesus Christ and confess Him as Lord and acknowledge His resurrection and give Him your whole heart, you do not believe in Him, then you also do not believe in God the Father, the one who sent Him.
That message needs to be given to Jewish people constantly, even in this generation. Knowing Christ means knowing the Father. Loving Christ means loving the Father. Receiving Christ means receiving the Father, and the opposite is also true. Rejecting Christ is rejecting the Father. This is constantly articulated throughout John’s gospel, and we have seen it numerous times.
Verse 47- 48, adds another consequence, “I will not judge those who hear me but don’t obey me, for I have come to save the world and not to judge it. 48 But all who reject me and my message will be judged on the Day of Judgment by the truth I have spoken.” So you are now under a death sentence. That’s going to be literally executed at the final judgment in Revelation 20:11, the great white throne.
The law testifies against you. This is how you behaved. You are guilty. That will happen at the great white throne. The books will be opened, and the record of the law that will stand as a witness against your behavior will bring about your sentence, but there’s much more. The gospel will be a witness against you because you not only violated God’s law, you violated the gospel.
People are condemned on the last day for violating the law of God and rejecting the only remedy, the gospel. So the gospel also gives testimony against you in the judgment. The more you hear the gospel, the greater your violation against it will be. Jesus can’t be separated from His message, from the gospel. That’s true of Israel, but it’s also true of all of us. And it’s true of every generation.
Verses 49 - 50, “I don’t speak on my own authority. The Father who sent me has commanded me what to say and how to say it. 50 And I know his commands lead to eternal life; so I say whatever the Father tells me to say.” The gospel of God, comes from God through Christ to us by the Holy Spirit, through preachers, through the Scriptures, and brings eternal life. I hope you believe that. Let us pray.