John 12:35-50
May 29, 2022
preached by Pastor Doug Cooper
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Time of Reflection Quotations

“And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

~ Jesus from John. 17:3 (NASB)

“Since no man is excluded from calling upon God, the gate of salvation is open to all. There is nothing else to hinder us from entering, but our own unbelief.”

~ John Calvin (1509-1564), French theologian and pastor

“Christ never failed to distinguish between doubt and unbelief. Doubt is can’t believe. Unbelief is won’t believe. Doubt is honesty. Unbelief is obstinacy. Doubt is looking for light. Unbelief is content with darkness.”

~ Henry Drummond (1851-1897), Scottish evangelist, biologist

“I think we are blind. Blind but seeing. Blind people who can see, but do not see.”

~ Jose Saramago (1922-2010), Portuguese writer

“In faith, there is enough light for those who want to believe, and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.”

~ Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, writer and theologian

“The finite lives within the infinite and cannot grasp the extent of it because the infinite has no extent at all. We can grasp only those things that have limits. Trying to understand the infinite is like trying to reach the end of a road that has no end; it isn’t even logically feasible.”

~ Barnabas Piper, contemporary writer and pastor

“By the cross we know the gravity of sin and the greatness of God’s love toward us.”

~ John Chrysostom (347-407), an early Church Father who served as archbishop of Constantinople

Sermon Passage

John 12:35-50 (ESV)

³⁵ So Jesus said to them, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. ³⁶ “While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”

When Jesus had said these things, he departed and hid himself from them. ³⁷ Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, ³⁸ so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:

“Lord, who has believed what he heard from us,
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”

³⁹ Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said,

⁴⁰ “He has blinded their eyes
and hardened their heart,
lest they see with their eyes,
and understand with their heart, and turn,
and I would heal them.”

⁴¹ Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. ⁴² Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; ⁴³ for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.

⁴⁴ And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. ⁴⁵ And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. ⁴⁶ I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. ⁴⁷ If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. ⁴⁸ The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. ⁴⁹ For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. ⁵⁰ And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.”