#9: “Jesus Is Truly God’s Son”
SCRIPTURE: John 5:18-47
INTRO:
Jesus had just healed a man on the Sabbath, which to the Jews was a
really bad thing. Not only that, but He had told the healed man to “take up his
bed.” That was also a no-no on the Sabbath.
Many of the Jews, especially the Pharisees, followed the Torah or Law of
Moses or written law by carrying out the commands and rules of the Talmud,
which was the oral traditional law of the elders. The Pharisees had developed a
system of 613 laws, 365 negative commands and 248 positive laws. For
example, in the Mosaic Law, one of the commandments is to keep the Sabbath
holy, which means that Jews were not supposed to work on Saturdays. But to
clarify this, the Jewish scholars created 39 separate categories of what “work”
means, and within those 39 categories there are many sub-categories. So, to
follow the rule of not working on the Sabbath, there are literally thousands of
sub-rules to follow, including how many steps you can take, and how many
letters you can write on the Sabbath.
To the contrary, Jesus said the Law could be summed up in two
commands: Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your
neighbor as yourself.
So, the Jews couldn’t stand Jesus. They couldn’t stand His teaching.
They wanted to kill Him. In fact, they finally did, didn’t they?
Note three things here that the Jews couldn’t stand. First of all,
THEY COULDN’T STAND HIS CLAIM TO BE EQUAL WITH GO