Hello, friends and
welcome back to this program
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"Books of the Book."
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My name is Deyvy Rodriguez
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and I'm so happy
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that you are
able to take this time
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to join us in this Bible study.
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And if you have your Bibles,
you are welcome to open them.
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Today we are on chapter 7
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and we are
studying the Gospel of John.
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And with us we
have Dr. Jon Paulien,
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he is currently
the Dean of Religion
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at Loma Linda University
in Loma Linda, California.
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And welcome back, Dr. Paulien.
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It's always good to
spend time with you, Deyvy.
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Same here.
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Now you are now at Loma Linda,
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but before that you
were at Andrews University.
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Tell us what you did there?
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Well, I was there
for about 26 years
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and I went there
as a doctoral student
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and fairly quickly,
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they had me teaching a
couple of classes alongside.
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And as I finished the program,
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I stayed on and
continued teaching.
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Studying?
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Continued teaching
and studying. Okay.
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You do the ones
and do the other.
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For 26 years?
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Yeah. Wow.
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Okay, you must
have loved it there.
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Well, it was a
place that used to catch
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special snowfall and rainfall.
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If you get a cold north wind
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then we go down to
500 miles to Lake Michigan
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and dump just on
a small little area
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right at the bottom of the lake
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and we were in
the middle of that.
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So I remember once it's
snowed 28 consecutive days. Wow.
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For 28 days, you
look out the window.
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There was never a time
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when there weren't
snow flakes in the air. Wow.
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And, you know, it was just
piled over the head and so on.
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How is the weather in
Loma Linda compared to?
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Yeah, it's
slightly better. Oh, yeah.
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Yeah. Wonderful.
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Yeah, I think it can be as
high as 80 degrees Fahrenheit
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in winter which is nice. Okay.
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Well, again we thank you
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for being with us
in this Bible study.
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We are in chapter 7.
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Tell us the
background of this chapter
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and what are we studying?
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Actually, we're
packaging chapter 7 and 8
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because all of this
is a scene in the temple.
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And the previous
chapter we were in Galilee,
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the chapter before that we
were in the temple in Jerusalem
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or actually the
pool of Bethesda,
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nearby the temple.
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And now we are at the temple,
it's the Feast of Tabernacles.
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And it's important to understand
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that the Jews had an
annual setting of feast,
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just as many Christian churches
do just sort of annually,
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you celebrate Easter
and Christmas and so on.
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Well, the Jews had passed
over and they had Pentecost
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and they had the
Feast of Trumpets,
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the Day of Atonement,
the Feast of Tabernacles.
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The Feast of Tabernacles
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was the most
popular feast of the year.
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If you could only go to one,
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this was the one that
people usually went to.
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And it was in
the fall of the year,
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it would
usually be in September,
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October, somewhere in there.
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And it was very special,
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because it focused on two
special issues water and light.
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Because actually it represented
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their experience
in the wilderness
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when the
Israelites came out of Egypt,
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they spent 40
years in the wilderness.
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And the Feast of
Tabernacles was a reminder
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that they lived in tents.
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So everybody
would live in tents.
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They pitched tents
all around Jerusalem.
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And if you stand on the back
steps of the Temple Mount today
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and you look out
there, you can see the hills
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where all these
tents would have been.
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So they made tents
out of tree branches
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and they would sleep in them.
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And the feast surrounded
itself with water and light.
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The light was--there were big
torches all over the temples.
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So even the night
would be lit up like day
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and that reminded them
of the pillar of light,
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pillar of fire in the wilderness
that brought them light at night
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and the pillar of cloud
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that brought them
shade and comfort by day.
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So they were remembering
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their experience
in the wilderness.
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And water, of course,
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was very scarce
in the wilderness.
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The Sinai desert in many
places was not a blade of weed,
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I mean, it is
really, really dry.
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And so they celebrate there
whenever they came across water.
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Moses would strike the rock,
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water would come,
they'd find springs, you see.
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So their experience
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in the wilderness
was surrounded with water
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and light and these became
the central themes of this.
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And so as pilgrims,
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they come from all
over the Roman world
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and they spend a
week in the temple.
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There was a main ceremony.
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And this
ceremony was basically--
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they would take a pitcher
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and the priests would
march down from the temple.
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Have you ever been to Jerusalem?
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I have actually. Okay.
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One thing you realize the
old Temple Mount is still there.
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So this is one of those
things you can actually picture,
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but it's extremely steep.
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And they went
down from the temple,
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down to the Kidron Valley
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and there which
usually just a little stream,
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it's only like a
meter across at best.
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And they would
catch water in that
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and they would march back up
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and they would be
singing songs as they did.
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And then when they'd enter
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the inner part of the
temple there were 12 steps.
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And they would stop
on each of these steps
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and it was 15 actually.
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Stop on each of these steps
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and sing one of
the last 15 Psalms,
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some 120 not the
last but 120 to 134.
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Those 15 Psalms and
they'd sing one at every step.
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And then they would go
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into the inner
part of the temple
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and they would take
this pitcher of water
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and a pitcher of wine
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and they would pour
them together into a sink.
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That was at the
base of the altar.
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Now that water
would drain in pipes
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and go all the way
back to the Kidron River.
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Now much of the summer
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that river is
actually pretty dry
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and this would
just peter out there.
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But if it were raining,
when they had the service,
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the rain would cause that water
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and wine to go all the
way down to the Dead Sea.
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And if it was raining
during the Feast of Tabernacles,
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they knew it was
going to be a good year,
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because Palestine is fairly dry.
It is sort of a semi-desert.
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And that means
there's barely enough rainfall
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even in good years.
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Now why would water
be so important then?
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Yeah, you need to know
something about the climate.
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You see, the summer in Palestine
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is kind of like
Southern California,
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it's the same kind of climate.
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It doesn't rain from say,
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the 1st of May until
like the 1st of October.
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It is dry, I mean,
everyday is blue sky,
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not a cloud in the sky,
it can be quite hot at times.
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You can't grow
stuff in the summer,
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because you plant a crop,
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it doesn't rain, the
crop will wither, it's gone.
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So you do your annual crops.
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You plant them in the
fall, when it starts raining
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and that's what
they call the early rain,
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would come in the fall.
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And then over the winter
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the crops would
grow wheat and so on.
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They would grow other grains.
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And then in the
spring you would harvest.
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So its winter wheat
is what we would call it.
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Fruits on the other hand,
they would grow over the summer.
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Now why would fruits be able
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to grow over the
summer and grains cannot,
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because the
trees have deep roots,
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they go down and get water.
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Even when it's not raining,
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they can still get
water further down.
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If the fruits
grew over the winter,
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they would be killed by frost,
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it's just cold
enough in winter sometimes
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that it would
kill off the fruit.
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So the fruits
grow over the summer
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and they're harvested at
the Feast of Tabernacles.
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The grains are planted
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at the time of the
Feast of Tabernacles
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and they're harvested in
connection with the Passover.
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So the early and
latter rain concepts
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are actually
from fall to spring.
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The early rain is in the fall
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and the latter
rain is in the spring,
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so that aspect of Palestinian
climate helps us understand
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why the Passover focuses
on bread, unleavened bread.
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The Feast of Tabernacles
they're rejoicing in the fruits
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that are now available,
you know, fresh grapes
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and apples and peaches and
whatever else you would grow.
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So the Feast of Tabernacle
is a very special time,
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a very popular time,
people loved to go there.
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And I remember the
first time I was in Israel.
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We visited a
Biblical Landscape Preserve
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where they were trying to
restore the biblical landscape.
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And we were
given a tour by a woman
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who was a Jewish
New Testament scholar.
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I thought that was
very interesting combination
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and she was a lot of fun.
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And she took us around,
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explained some of these things
from the biblical context.
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But the one thing she
said I will never forget.
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She said in Egypt,
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"Everything is
watered by the Nile."
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In Turkey, "Everything
is watered by the rain,
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there's plenty of rain."
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If God had placed
his people in Egypt,
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there would be in
danger of trusting the Nile.
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If God had placed
his people in Turkey,
00:10:02.80\00:10:06.53
they'd be in danger of
trusting Mother Nature.
00:10:06.56\00:10:09.17
So He placed His
people in a place
00:10:09.20\00:10:11.03
where you always have to
look for heaven for rain.
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If heaven doesn't provide
you're not going to have enough,
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so the very landscape there
taught them to trust in God,
00:10:17.40\00:10:21.11
not to trust in their efforts.
00:10:21.14\00:10:23.82
I thought that was a good
point and I appreciated it.
00:10:23.85\00:10:25.95
God uses our
circumstances to lead us to Him
00:10:25.98\00:10:30.48
and I think that was the
message that she was giving.
00:10:30.51\00:10:33.59
So why don't we get
into the text. Sure.
00:10:33.62\00:10:36.82
In chapter 7 and I would
point out to our viewers,
00:10:36.85\00:10:41.34
there's way too much to cover
00:10:41.37\00:10:44.05
in a half hour
program in chapter 7 and 8.
00:10:44.08\00:10:47.10
And that' true of
most of our programs here
00:10:47.13\00:10:49.20
in the Gospel of John,
it's a really big book.
00:10:49.23\00:10:51.32
But we're going to
touch on a few things,
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talk about them generally
00:10:53.43\00:10:54.80
and I hope that you can
read these passages for yourself
00:10:54.83\00:10:57.68
and fill in the details
that we can't cover here.
00:10:57.71\00:11:02.11
But in the very
beginning of chapter 7,
00:11:02.14\00:11:04.36
there's an issue
between Jesus and His brothers.
00:11:04.39\00:11:08.34
And the brothers
want to go to the feast
00:11:08.37\00:11:11.78
and they want
Jesus to go to the feast
00:11:11.81\00:11:13.91
and He says,
"No, I'm not going."
00:11:13.94\00:11:17.32
And look at
verse 6 in particular.
00:11:17.35\00:11:23.78
Then Jesus said to them,
00:11:23.81\00:11:25.34
"My time has not yet come,
but your time is always ready."
00:11:25.37\00:11:30.24
Okay. They're ready to go.
00:11:30.27\00:11:32.49
You know, they can
do whatever they want,
00:11:32.52\00:11:34.62
but Jesus-- His
time has not yet come.
00:11:34.65\00:11:37.95
Because His time is
governed by the Father, you see.
00:11:37.98\00:11:42.73
The brothers
then are tempting Him
00:11:42.76\00:11:45.77
to look away from the
Father's timing in His life
00:11:45.80\00:11:49.13
and to follow human reasoning
in when He's going to go
00:11:49.16\00:11:52.88
and what He's going
to do when He gets there.
00:11:52.91\00:11:55.24
And His time referring to what?
00:11:55.27\00:11:57.48
Well, it's actually
the Greek word is hour.
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My hour has not yet come.
00:11:59.98\00:12:02.08
Different translations believe
00:12:02.11\00:12:03.63
the translator's
hour or its time.
00:12:03.66\00:12:06.20
And that's the
time of the cross.
00:12:06.23\00:12:09.35
The word hour always
just pointing to the cross
00:12:09.38\00:12:12.30
and Jesus says, "My time,
my hour has not yet come."
00:12:12.33\00:12:15.70
You can do
whatever you want any time,
00:12:15.73\00:12:17.34
but I'm on a timetable. Right.
00:12:17.37\00:12:19.40
I'm following God's timetable.
00:12:19.43\00:12:21.19
Now here's an interesting
piece of the Gospel of John.
00:12:21.22\00:12:24.14
The Gospel of
John doesn't describe
00:12:24.17\00:12:26.19
the temptation of
Jesus in the wilderness.
00:12:26.22\00:12:29.14
In Matthew, Mark, and
Luke, early in His ministry,
00:12:29.17\00:12:32.06
Jesus goes into the desert
00:12:32.09\00:12:34.83
and the devil was
tempting Him there.
00:12:34.86\00:12:37.24
And he tempts Him on appetite.
00:12:37.27\00:12:40.84
And he tempts Him on power.
00:12:40.87\00:12:43.76
You know, you want to
rule the kingdoms of the world.
00:12:43.79\00:12:45.71
He tempts Him on show.
00:12:45.74\00:12:47.54
Why don't you
jump off the temple?
00:12:47.57\00:12:48.94
And when the angels save
you, everybody will say, wow,
00:12:48.97\00:12:51.08
you know, he's the guy who
flies in from heaven, you see.
00:12:51.11\00:12:55.17
So in chapter 6, they
try to make Jesus king.
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And in Matthew, Mark, and
Luke, there's a temptation,
00:13:02.28\00:13:04.66
if you want to rule the nations
of the world, bow down to me.
00:13:04.69\00:13:08.03
In chapter 6, "He
is the bread of life."
00:13:08.06\00:13:11.84
In contrast to the earthly
bread that we might have.
00:13:11.87\00:13:15.36
Here He's
tempted by his brothers
00:13:15.39\00:13:17.85
to go show off in Jerusalem,
00:13:17.88\00:13:19.40
so that everyone will believe
that you are the Messiah.
00:13:19.43\00:13:22.61
So the three temptations that
Jesus had in the wilderness.
00:13:22.64\00:13:26.81
In the Gospel of John
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those are built
right into everyday life.
00:13:28.24\00:13:31.33
Once again John is asking us
to look for the presence of God
00:13:31.36\00:13:36.73
or look for the
presence of opposition
00:13:36.76\00:13:38.86
in the everyday aspects of life.
00:13:38.89\00:13:41.59
The things that
Jesus experienced
00:13:41.62\00:13:44.28
at specific
times in other places
00:13:44.31\00:13:46.40
here are built into the
ordinary features of life.
00:13:46.43\00:13:50.55
So the Gospel of John
00:13:50.58\00:13:52.63
is a spiritual gospel
as we've said before. Yes.
00:13:52.66\00:13:55.90
And you can't
just read the story
00:13:55.93\00:13:58.20
but have to try to see it
in the light of deeper things.
00:13:58.23\00:14:02.38
Okay. Well, Dr. Paulien,
00:14:02.41\00:14:03.78
we're going to continue
studying this particular chapter
00:14:03.81\00:14:07.72
of the Gospel of John,
after this short break.
00:14:07.75\00:14:10.50