“‘So you also have been led astray?’ the Pharisees mocked. ‘Is there a single one of us Jewish rulers or Pharisees who believes he is the Messiah? These stupid crowds do, yes; but what do they know about it?...’” John 7:47-49a

 

It's time to see through the farce

 

Can we hear the voice of the Pharisees in the world today? Can we hear the “educated” mockers speak so boldly against Christ?

 

The Pharisees had worked hard at promoting themselves as the “voice of truth.” They were seemingly wise and educated; they were well-dressed and well-spoken, and they had the ear of the general public. They had used their platform of position to sway popular opinion, and they loved being “at the top.” They had persuaded the people that Jesus was not the Christ, the Messiah.

 

Today, we have voices all around us that claim the same thing. They use their platforms of position to sway the hearts and minds of the general public, of which you and I are a part-and so are our children! They, like the Pharisees, not only promote their own agendas, but they mock Christianity. Do we recognize those voices, or are we so accustomed to hearing them that they don't stand out anymore?

 

Some of those voices say evolution is fact and creation a silly myth. Sit Coms and Prime Time TV shows mock Christianity in almost every episode. Politics dictate tolerance to every religion except Christianity, which they label as intolerant and hateful. Work policies mandate silence on Christian views, punishable as an harassment issue. That’s just a few of the voices.

 

The guards to whom the Pharisees are speaking in this verse had been sent to capture Jesus. BUT they heard Him speak, and they marveled at His words. He was not an educated leader, and yet He spoke as no one they had heard before, and it caused them to question what they were doing. All of a sudden, those voices that they had put all their stock into, now, didn’t seem quite so absolute!

 

The voice of Jesus will do that for us! It will help us to see the falseness in those other voices that have captured our world. It is imperative that we hear His voice—go to His Word, speak with Him in prayer—as often as possible. If we and those we are responsible for are only “hearing from God” an hour or two a week in church, we are in jeopardy.

 

These guards, after returning to the Pharisees and once again being indoctrinated back to their way of thinking, never (at least as a whole) sought out Jesus again to hear what He had to say. They went back to believing the lie they had been convinced of, the lie that almost everyone believed, everyone that is, except the “stupid crowds.”

 

We can’t let the voices of our world have more airtime in our lives than God’s voice does. We must seek Him out and hear what He has to say to us! Only then will we know the truth.