Chapter 7, Verse 1, After these things Jesus walked in Galilee; for He did not want to walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill Him.  And so after the feeding of the five thousand and after many of the disciples, “went back”, walked with Him no more, John says “Jesus continues to walk Himself.”  That is such an encouragement for me…He is faithful even when we are faithless.  God’s very frame is faithfulness…He sees the end from the beginning, the result from the start…it’s always been that way and so already existing outside of time, already accomplishing that which will be accomplished as we walk through time…He has written His promises and even when we are faithless, He is faithful (2 Timothy 2:13)…His very being, His very form is faithfulness!  Very encouraging to mediate on God’s dependability.

But now many of the Jews sought His life, and in fact, in six months they would have it.  John spent 6 chapters on 30+ years of Jesus’ life…now he will spend 15 chapters on Jesus’ last six months and a short period of time after His resurrection.  We’ll see in this chapter Jesus return to Jerusalem for the feast of Tabernacles and then six months later is the Feast of the Passover, when He is crucified.

Verse 2, Now the Jews’ Feast of Tabernacles was at hand.  Again, not insignificant here that John calls it the “Jews’ feast’ as opposed to the Lord’s feast…we must be careful not to make this the friend’s church, or the people’s church but actively engaged to keep this Jesus’ church, His work, His ministry…and so we are mindful of that in our worship, I am mindful of that as I prepare the studies, and we should be mindful of that even now…that even now our hearts, our attention, our contemplations should be honoring and focused on Jesus Christ.

The Feast of Tabernacles was one of seven feasts instituted by God in Chapter 23 of Leviticus.  This feast was in remembrance of God’s preservation of their ancestors through the forty years of wandering in the wilderness.  The Jews would leave their homes and dwell in booths or tents and remember how God had provided for them…a million folks in a desert for 40 years…they were goners…but God provided.  He guided them by day with a cloud, by night with a pillar of fire.  He gave them manna and quail to eat and water to drink that sprang forth, from a rock.

The Feast of Tabernacles took place in the tenth month of our calendar, the seventh month of the Jewish calendar…and each of the Feasts of Israel, instituted by God Himself, were significant to the culture of the Jews, the history of the nation, but they are also prophetic.  Each of these feasts instituted by God in Leviticus 23, one by one, pointed to an event that would happen hundreds of years later in God’s eternal story, His plan to bring all of this, all of us, back to Himself. 

The Passover Feast, celebrating God protecting the Jews there in Egypt, was fulfilled in the crucifixtion of Jesus, as He became the Passover Lamb of all mankind on the 14^th day of the Jewish month of Nisan, 32AD.  The Feast of Unleavened Bread, leaven being a type of sin, fulfilled by Jesus’ burial in the tomb, taking sin into the tomb, killing it’s power over mankind, on Nisan 15, 32AD.  The Feast of Firstfruits, a celebration of life…fulfilled by Jesus at His resurrection on Nisan 17, 32AD. 

The Feast of Pentecost, also called the Feast of Weeks, occurred 50 days after the Passover…the Jews were to count 7 weeks  and then after the seventh Sabbath, they would celebrate the feast of the summer harvest, the crops ready to fill, nourish the people…a type of the church sent out in the power of the Holy Spirit to make disciples unto the truth…and this prophetic feast was fulfilled by the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost on Sivan 7, 32AD.

These four feasts fulfilled > yet there remains three.  The Feast of Trumpets, yet prophetically unfulfilled…but it’s next in line.  1 Thessalonians 4 says, For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God…and we shall be caught up (Translated in the Greek Lexicon “to snatch out and claim for One’s self eagerly) (Herpazo in the Greek, Rapturo in the Latin) and we shall be caught up into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.  This event will mark the beginning of the seven year Great Tribulation Period.

The Day of Atonement, or Yom Kuppur, yet prophetically unfulfilled, however seven years after the Feast of Trumpets this event will occur which is described in the Bible as the Day of the Lord.  The final reckoning in which all of Israel will be saved in accordance with Zech 12/13 and Romans 11 and all of those that have placed their trust in Jesus will return with Him to reclaim this earth in the name of righteousness!

Finally, the Feast of Tabernacles, yet prophetically unfulfilled however will be when God once again is the sole Provider for His people…ruling and reigning in righteousness, guiding and dwelling in fellowship again with all that are His.  And that event will mark the beginning of the long awaited 1,000 year millenial reign of the Messiah.  And afterwards, the end of all things and the beginning of a new time…a time of perfection…where we will forever be with Him, never again to be separated!

And so it was the time of the Feast of Tabernacles…which was one of the three feasts that all Jewish males were supposed to attend and so Verse 3, His brothers therefore said to Him, “Depart from here and go into Judea, that Your disciples also may see the words that You are doing.  For no one does anything in secret while he himself seeks to be known openly.  If You do these things, show Yourself to the world.”

These are no doubt His brothers according to the flesh, His biological half-brothers, the sons of Mary and Joseph…James, Jude and Simon. 

It’s been said, “blood is thicker than water.”  And I agree.  Here, Jesus’ water brothers, born of the same womb, do not believe, but Jesus once said, who is My mother and who are My brothers but those that hear the word of God and do it…only family gets into heaven…the Bible speaks of our inheritance in Christ…inheritance is a family word…and Matthew 7:21 says “Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.”  And what is His will?  Believe on the Son. 

And it’s interesting that they say “If you do these things…”  They themselves even doubted the works…But there was another that said to Jesus, “If” you are the Son of God…so we see here and many other places in the Bible, the spirit of the Anti-Christ, the spirit of the devil himself, is disbelief in the Son of God, the denial of Jesus Christ.  And we know from the next verse, they really didn’t believe in Him.

Verse 5, For even His brothers did not believe in Him.  Even this fact, His own brothers’ disbelief, was a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy concerning the Christ.  Psalm 69:8 says, “I am become a stranger unto My brethren, and an alien unto My mother’s children.” 

Verse 6, Then Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready.  So His brothers say go, go up to Jerusalem and show them Your glory, show them who You are; but what they don’t realize is that if He did what they wanted Him to do, the entire prophetic picture, many fore-ordained prophecies of the Messiah would be forsaken…it was not time for Him to enter into the city triumphantly, it was not time for the people to cry out Hosanna, Hosanna, blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord…that would happen in six months…that would happen 173,880 days after the orders to rebuild the temple were given…

What was that, Matt?  Oh yea, it’s that precise.  You didn’t know that God worked out even the number of grains of dust that were to be moved by each step you took this morning on your way to church…oh yes, God is soverign.  In Daniel Chp 9 verses 24-27 you’ll find the prophecy of weeks…let’s turn there and read…(feasts are even here)

And you’ll find in Nehemiah Chapter 2 the orders to rebuild the temple coming from Artaxerxes in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of his reign, in 445 B.C.  March 69 weeks or 476.07 solar years or 173,880 days and you arrive exactly at Palm Sunday, Nisan 10, 32 A.D.  (Sir Robert Anderson)  Yes, God is that precise.  And if Jesus had listened to His brothers here, God’s perfect plan, mankinds’ hope of redemption would have been lost.  So no it is not yet My time Jesus says….He calls it “My” time but wasn’t it really my time?  Yours and mine? 

He tarried for our sakes.  He tarried so that He could accomplish our salvation, become our hope…and I see Him doing that still today.  Unanswered prayers are sometimes discouraging…especially that horrible Garth Brooks song…but God’s ways are perfect and God’s timing is impecable…rest in the truth that He hears you and what He does now, or does not do now, is truly to give you a future and a hope!

And then Jesus says here, “your time is always ready”….guilty!  I’m guilty as charged.  I’m always ready for Jesus to come right in and fix it all up according to what I want but faith tells me to submit to God and trust in Him…because He is faithful and does not leave promises unfulfilled…even the details that I miss.

Verse 7, Jesus continues, “The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil”.  Notice Jesus does not testify against the world, He simply testifies of the world, He simply exposes the truth…and truly the world, which is evil, hates the outsider, the One who is not evil because that One’s life, that One’s truth, condemns the evil of the world.  And since this time, the world has not changed.

The world still hates those whose lives condemn theirs.  Jesus will say later in John 15, “If you were of the world, the world would love you but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, called you out of the world, the world hates you.”  Do you blend in with the world?  Good test for us isn’t it…Are you conformed into the image of the world?  Or are you being transformed into the image of Christ?  His brothers weren’t, they were of the world, they did not believe…so what does Jesus do?  He sends them away…

Look at verse 8, “You go up to this feast.  I am not yet going up to this feast, for My time has not yet fully come.”  When He had said these things to them, He remained in Galilee.