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We come to our final passage in John’s Gospel. We are in John Chapter 21 at verse 15 and we have spent well over two years in this profoundly revealing book.

We have been reading of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ – some of the hard facts of that amazing day. We read of these seven men going back to the fishing, and Jesus waiting for them coming ashore with empty nets. We spent some time reading that incident in the life of Thomas.

Peter had gone back to the fishing, and had caught nothing. Peter had jumped into the water when he realised he had been found…  ( Click for more )

We are in John Chapter 21, where Peter and six others return north to the Galilee and go out fishing. Leaders lead positively or negatively. We sometimes do not recognise this fact. These men have been called ‘the unmagnificent seven’.

They were out all night and they had nothing to show for it - nothing. Now, fishing had been something they had been good at. They would feel fairly confident at fishing, but they became so absorbed, momentarily, in the fishing, that they almost forgot about Jesus Christ - risen from the dead.

They are frustrated and…  ( Click for more )

We move into John Chapter 21. You cannot turn the clock back, but sometimes disciples of Jesus Christ want to turn the clock back. It is as if these disciples of Jesus wanted to turn the clock back some three years, but it was a bit of a disaster to try to do this as we shall see.

We normally make this attempt to return to yesterday, because we might have thought things were better. The world refers to the good old days, but they were not always that good.

The Bible warns us about thinking that days gone by were better.

Can it be possible to have met the risen…  ( Click for more )

We are in John Chapter 20 and we have been reading of the risen and living Jesus meeting with His disciples in the Upper Room on Resurrection Evening. To begin with there were various confusions and conflicting emotions and Jesus appears to deal with the crucial spiritual situation.

One of the disciples was missing. Thomas was not with them. We do not know why. Did he have something else to do – or somewhere else to go – or something on his mind which was troubling him following the trauma of Calvary?

When he did come back the others said, “We…  ( Click for more )

In John Chapter John 20 and at verse 19 we see the disciples of Jesus Christ in a room – the Upper Room – and the doors are locked because these men are afraid. Jesus, their Lord and Master, had been betrayed by a friend, arrested, led away, and crucified, and these men thought they might be next on the list. By now, rumours were rife.

Some had said that they had seen Jesus alive! Some were also saying – don’t be silly – we saw Him crucified – we saw Him laid in the tomb – we cannot believe what they women said – they are…  ( Click for more )

We are in John Chapter 20 considering some on the consequences and implication of the Resurrection. Jesus does not want any of us to carry around a dead Christ. God wants us to tell people that Jesus Christ is Risen and Alive. There are so many people who do not know that this really happened. It is not just that they don’t believe. They have never had it all explained to them by people who know it to be true.

The risen Jesus refers to the disciples for the first time as brothers. It is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that makes us brothers and sisters. …  ( Click for more )

We are in John Chapter 20 reading of John’s accounts of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It has been quite a morning, following an exhausting and demanding ten days or so in Jerusalem. Mary was there at first light, and the massive stone had been moved, to allow the women folks to look in and see.

Peter and John rushed over from that Upper Room. It has been an emotional few days for everyone.

Mary and the others had seen the evidence of the empty tomb – well empty in as much as there was no body of Jesus, but the unmoved cloths are lying on the slab. …  ( Click for more )

If Jesus Christ rose from the dead then certain consequences follow as do spiritual responsibilities. We are in John Chapter 20 reading of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Peter and John leave the scene.

Mary is lingering. Mary so loved Jesus that she stays at the place of her last association with Him. Love lingers.

This woman had been in the very grip of Satan, and Jesus Christ had set her free.

Can you imagine the gratitude? Can you imagine the sorrow when she witnessed Jesus Christ being crucified?

This incident appears only…  ( Click for more )

We come to John Chapter 20. What was John doing on Resurrection Day, and what did John do on Resurrection Day, having been with Jesus Christ for over three years?

The women folks had just returned from the tomb of Jesus Christ reporting that the stone was rolled away, and the door was open, and there was no dead body of Jesus within!

Mary comes running to Peter and tells of what she has found, and Peter decides to go to check things out, and John goes with him. They are running through the narrow streets of Jerusalem, and John is the faster runner.

John gets…  ( Click for more )

Consider this week, just for a moment, that interim period between John Chapter 19 and John Chapter 20, but out of necessity, we go into Chapter 20 where we read of the risen resurrected living Jesus.

This broken warring world is living on the wrong side of the resurrection and it is our task to tell the world that there are answers, to all the pain and suffering and sadness and tragedy. The world would not listen to the apostles. The world would not even listen to Jesus, and it is not likely to listen to us, but it remains our task to preach and proclaim and share the Good…  ( Click for more )

We are reading of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in John Chapter 19. Matthew, Mark, and Luke give us other aspects of the crucifixion, where even the criminals say their piece and Jesus replies.

All over Jerusalem, sacrificial lambs were being ceremonially slain and slaughtered in memory of the Passover, and outside the city wall the Son of God was doing a work that would last for eternity.

Jesus chose and called and trained men, but it was the women who saw it through to the very end, at the foot of the Cross. They are last to leave, and they are first at the tomb. …  ( Click for more )

No man carries the cross of Jesus faithfully without receiving a work of God in his own life, and on occasions, through his life into the lives of his family. Remember what your Cross is. You can lift it up or put it down. It is not sickness or a person or a set of circumstances, or anything of that nature.

News had travelled fast, and a sympathetic crowd had gathered, and they are not afraid to express their emotions. They are not afraid to allow their deep feelings for Jesus to flow out towards Jesus.

We are in John Chapter 19 at verse 18 where Jesus is crucified with…  ( Click for more )

We are in John Chapter 19 at verse 16 where Pilate hands Jesus Christ over to them to be crucified. Over to them? Over to whom? To those in the hands of the enemy of Almighty God – religious leaders they may be, but men of God they certainly are not!

We often wonder why people do such things and why people say such things, but it is only as we read and study the Word of God that we come to understand these questions which can arise in any of our hearts at times. Once a man gets on the wrong road it can be very difficult to get off that road.

Having read of the…  ( Click for more )

We come to John Chapter 19 verse 5. The prayer and the agony in the Garden is over. The pain deepens and increases. We could use so many words.

The setting is the trial before Pilate and that humiliation and ill-treatment. Who is it who is really on trial here? Is it Jesus Christ, or is it all the others?

Pilate was a cold and haughty and proud Roman. O what pride can make a man do!

Jesus is before him and it is mockery and ridicule of the highest order. There is that purple robe and that crown of thorns and a mad mob wanting and waiting to crucify Him. …  ( Click for more )

John Chapter 19 verses 1 to 16. Having looked at the first part of the trial of Jesus and examined its many various facets, we now turn from the ecclesiastical trial, for that is what it was, to the civil trial. Yes, there was an ecclesiastical trial of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is quite shocking what religious people will get up to at times.

Already so many points concerning elementary rules of law and justice have been offended and broken. The Sanhedrin’s judgement was just illegal. This court which was to decide Jesus’ case was also an accomplice…  ( Click for more )

We are reading and studying in John Chapter 18 and verses 28 to 40. There were so many comings and going. What all happened between Gethsemane and Calvary? Jesus Christ was subjected to what was nothing other than a double trial.

We have regarded it as a trial but really it was an inquisition, and as far as the authorities were concerned when the death sentence was carried out it was more or less judicial murder. Why were there two major trials? Had the charge not been a capital one the Sanhedrin could have decided the matter, without referring it to Pilate.

Rome…  ( Click for more )

We are in John Chapter 18, where a gang appears at the Garden of Gethsemane and Jesus Christ is arrested, then questioned and then insultingly struck on the face.

Peter did more than any other disciple, but not enough.

Peter went further than any other disciple, but not far enough. He was the only one to stick up for Jesus, but it was so very wrong to become involved in this reckless sword play, with 200 soldiers present. This is the impulsive rash Peter.

Violence only breeds violence. This battle has to be fought out on a spiritual level, and not just physical. …  ( Click for more )

We move on into John Chapter 18. We have been some weeks in John Chapter 17, reading that profound prayer of Jesus Christ.

Much of this final week in the earthly life of Jesus Christ has been spent teaching the disciples. From Chapter 12, He has washed their feet and answered their questions. He has celebrated the Passover and has given bread and wine that new spiritual significance.

He has warned them about the reality of persecution, and not to be overly surprised when that happens. It will happen and it continues to happen all across our world in these present…  ( Click for more )

We are in the concluding verses of John Chapter 17, where Jesus Christ is praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. Having mentioned briefly that astonishing degree of unity which we witnessed thirty and forty years ago I want to repeat these comments, as some reading this may be totally unaware of what happened over a period of around twenty years.

When I recall what was happening back in the 1970’s and 1980’s it was remarkable. Following that global and universal outpouring of the Holy Spirit, there was inter-communion, at these ‘Charismatic Conferences’…  ( Click for more )

At the beginning, and for a good number of years, there was one holy catholic Church and it was powerful and influential, as Peter and John, and Paul and Silas and Timothy, travelled and preached and taught. So it will be again one day. How that will happen I do not know, but the Word of God makes it plain and clear.

Verse 21 of John Chapter 17 has been called the Divine mix-up. But that is what it will be like. And with a mighty goal or aim in view – that the world may believe that You have sent ME.

It does not say that all the world is going to be converted,…  ( Click for more )

We remain, and almost linger, in John Chapter 17. Jesus is in the Garden. His earthly life is almost over. He is in the final words stage, and many of His final words are words of prayer. Jesus is praying. Only Jesus could have prayed these words and we now come to verses 18 to 26.

“Father as You sent Me into the world, that is how I am going to send them into the world.” We need to hear this time and time again. Jesus was born of the Spirit and some 30 years later, as He emerges from the River Jordan, Jesus is anointed or baptised with the Holy Spirit…  ( Click for more )

Jesus Christ’s call to His Disciples, then and now, is for our lives to be holy, to be set apart, to be different, to be like Him, loving, compassionate, forgiving, powerful, bold, challenging, courageous, and also, willing to minister to the needs of a hostile world. There is no way at all whereby we can be reconciled to this world, and with this world, and we simply have to accept that. This is why it is so vitally important to be at peace with God, and united in fellowship with one another.

Our interests are different – our values are different – our…  ( Click for more )

We are in John’s Gospel, at Chapter 17, where we hear Jesus Christ, the Son of God, at prayer, before he goes to the Cross to shed His blood to wash away our sin and to die that we might have and know eternal life. Come again into what could be called the Holy of Holies, as we read the Lord’s Prayer, remembering that only Jesus Christ could pray these words.

In verses 1 to 5, His prayer is concerning Himself and yet there is not a word of selfishness in it. In verse 3, we saw how exclusive our Christian Faith is. To know God, and to have eternal life, we need…  ( Click for more )

We are studying in John Chapter 17, where Jesus Christ is praying and in verse 6 Jesus prays about what He has done. “Father, I have introduced these men to You.”

Jesus has revealed God the Father to those men whom the Father has given to Him.

We must never despise anyone whom God has given to Jesus. We read that we must never touch the Lord’s anointed.

They have kept Your Word. Of all the important things that could have been on the heart of mind of Jesus on this occasion it was that. They have kept or obeyed Your word. Kept means –…  ( Click for more )