Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Prayer Meeting Lesson Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/pm/pm19990721.htm

JOHN: TRIUMPHING IN LIFE'S MOST CRITICAL ISSUE
Part II: Presentation Of The Messenger Of Salvation
B. Christ's Credentials Exposed Unto Men
4. Christ's Message Of Salvation Credibly Exposed To Israel's Leaders
(John 3:1-21)
  1. Introduction
    1. If Jesus is God's true Messiah, one would expect Him to have gained acceptance with Israel's leaders.
    2. We should thus expect Christ's message to be based in the Old Testament predictions these men revered.
    3. However, Israel's leaders mainly rejected Christ, so John 3:1-21 reveals how that could happen and not negatively affect Christ's credibility as follows:
  2. Christ's Message Of Savlation Credibly Exposed To Israel's Leaders, John 3:1-21.
    1. One evening, a ruler of the Jews came to Jesus secretly as he was supportive of Jesus contrary to the belligerant disbelief of the majority of Israel's leaders, John 3:1.
    2. This ruler, Nicodemus, admitted he felt Jesus was a teacher from God because His attesting miracles, 3:2.
    3. Jesus eagerly sought to explain His teachings to this leader, John 3:3-21. In so doing, Jesus showed His great allegiance to what the Jews revered in their Old Testament predictions of God's future ministry:
      1. First, Jesus revealed His salvation produced the spiritual new birth predicted in Ezekiel 36:24-27:
        1. When Jesus told Nicodemus that one needed to be born again to enter God's kingdom, Nicodemus couldn't understand how he could enter the second time into his mother's womb to be born, John 3:3.
        2. Jesus responded that He spoke of the birth by "water and of the spirit," John 3:5.
        3. In making this clarification, the Jewish leader who knew the book of Ezekiel was supposed to recall the prediction of Ezekiel 36:24-27 about this event that was to follow Israel's Captivity: (a) Ezekiel 36:24-26 predicted that once God restored Israel to the land from captivity, He would ceremonially sprinkle her people with clean water and give them a new heart. (b) God would also put His Spirit within them, causing people to heed His statutes, Ezekiel 36:27. (d) Though this salvation finds its fullest fulfillment in the Millenium, as Jesus was offering the Kingdom at the time, one of the spin-off blessings in Him in the near future was this New birth of "water and the Spirit" predicted in Ezekiel!
        4. Accordingly, Jesus went on to describe this new birth of the spiritual realm to Nicodemus, Jn. 3:6-8.
      2. Second, when Nicodemus still did not understand Jesus, Christ responded with His wonderment at how Nicodemus, a Master in Israel couldn't understand His Ezekiel 36 explanation, John 3:9-10.
    4. Taking Nicodemus' initial doubt as a symbol of the unbelief of the rest of the sanhedrin, Jesus went on to reveal how the sin of the nation's leaders had led them to reject Jesus as the Messiah, John. 3:11-13:
      1. Jesus revealed He spoke of spiritual truths, which truths Israel's leaders did not receive, John 3:11.
      2. As Jesus had tried to explain these truths using an earthly illustration where the "Spirit" was pictured as "wind" in John 3:8, and Nicodemus still couldn't grasp the truth, Jesus concluded that it was impossible for Israel's leaders who doubted Him to understand His spiritual truths, John 3:12.
      3. What made Israel's leaders worse off was that there was no other Source available to them to understand God, for Jesus alone had the key to that insight as the sole Revealer of the Father, 3:13.
      4. Also, Jesus as that Revealer is the Sacrifice and Savior for all who believe on Him, John 3:14-15.
      5. He is that Salvation and Revealer due to God's infinite love for fallen man, John 3:16-17.
      6. If the leaders didn't receive Christ, they stood condemned; if they believed, they would be saved, 3:18.
      7. Yet, they were in sin, so the leaders did not accept Christ lest their sins be exposed before all, 3:19-20.
      8. However, in coming to Jesus, the Light of the world in the midst of the dark night, Nicodemus was revealing his works were of God because of his faith in Jesus, John 3:21.
Lesson: Jesus met the Old Testament's predictions as to His ministry as He forthrightly launched into an exposition of Ezekiel 36:24-27 to expose it to a searching leader in Israel. Hence, it was not Jesus, but the willful love for sin in Israel's rebellious leaders that hindered their accepting Jesus.

Application: We can trust the CREDIBILITY of Jesus as His work is grounded in Old Testament predictions. Thus, His being rejected by Israel's leaders reveals a problem in THEM -- NOT Him!