April 16, 2023
Broadlands, Louisiana
(Download Audio)
Thesis: The "tenth hour" was the hour when Andrew came into his own.
Introduction: The Bible is a most fascinating book. It presents, in partial form, the infinite wisdom of God to the finite minds of men. The Author of this Gospel, to which we have been turning our attention now for months, was a disciple of the Masterful Teacher Whose methods were simultaneously capable of
both hiding Truth
and illuminating Truth. This mastery of effective teaching consisted mostly of being able to take the "obvious" physical realities and turn them into metaphors of "critical" relational realities. The classic illustration of this is found in Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus. A little less "classic" is Jesus' declaration to the religious leaders that if they destroyed "this temple" He would raise it up in three days (
John 2:19-22). And even a little less "classic" than those two is the statement of Author-John in
John 13:30 where he stated an obvious physical reality ("...it was night" when Judas left the Passover meal), but signaled a far more significant "relational" reality.
For our study this morning, we are going to ask Author-John what he meant by telling us it was the "tenth hour" when two of Witness-John's disciples found out "where Jesus was abiding".
- I. Setting The Stage.
- A. First, the two disciples were a bit less than forthcoming when they told Jesus they were simply curious about "where" He was "abiding".
- 1. Author-John deliberately makes "where a person is abiding" a significant issue by using that term, first, when the Dove of Heaven "remained upon Jesus", and then, repeatedly in John 15.
- 2. What the two disciples discovered, as the answer to their curiosity, had a massive impact upon Andrew.
- a. When Andrew found out "where" Jesus was abiding and by "staying with Him that day", he "first" found his brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah".
- 1) Now, I can easily see why some of our deluded prosperity preachers might think of Jesus as "The Messiah" if they had found him living in a grand palace with gold-plated sink and tub fixtures.
- 2) But I fail to see how finding out where Jesus was physically "abiding" would make Andrew "believe" that Jesus was The Messiah, especially since Jesus told Peter many months later that his "faith" in Jesus as "The Christ" was only because the Father had revealed it to him (Matthew 16:17).
- 3) But, if we plug in the "relational" reality, "abiding" is no longer a place, but is a relationship; and that "relationship" Jesus had with The Father was manifestly impressive.
- b. In this specific case, that "relationship" was as "The Lamb of The God" according to Witness-John's declaration in 1:36.
- c. That Jesus was "The Lamb of The God" was very likely NOT really understood by Andrew in terms of that identity in respect to the "judicial" issues of "justification by grace" and "righteousness by Law", BUT it is not inconceivable that Andrew was extremely familiar with the twenty-third psalm in which the "lambs" are taken care of by the Shepherd.
- d. Jesus' demeanor as fundamentally, and profoundly, confident of "God's" care for His sheep/lambs would have made a significant impact upon any who were rubbing shoulders with Him: thus, "We have found the Messiah" (God's exalted "Lamb" to the position of "king of kings") because David, the King of God's kingdom on earth wrote that psalm and claimed in it that he was "a lamb of God".
- B. Second, John's penchant for "dropping nuggets of Truth" into Jesus' words is, as we said, one of his characteristic ways of presenting Jesus (4:10 and 14) and what we are reading in our text this morning is a sample of that penchant.
- II. So, What Of "The Hour Was As Tenth"?
- A. That the hour was "as tenth" means 10:00 A.M. since John was using Roman time as a writer of a Gospel for the nations after Israel has been destroyed as the nation in God's interests.
- B. That he refers to the "hour" of Andrew's experience falls into the way "hour" is used in this Gospel.
- 1. Everywhere "hour" is used, it refers to some "destined" event as having come.
- a. When Jesus, on multiple occasions said "My hour is not yet come", He was always referring to the "time" when His "Messianic Identity" issues were being made manifest.
- b. If we take the lesser used phrase "My time is not yet" (as in 7:6-8) to mean much the same thing, what we note is that a "person's hour" is a reference to a very significant event that has come into play.
- 2. In Jesus' case, there were three "hours" that are identified as significant in respect to Jesus: the third hour when He was crucified (Mark 15:25); the sixth hour when darkness descended upon the whole land (Mark 15:33); and the ninth hour when He died (Mark 15:34-37), having said "It is finished" (John 19:30).
- 3. I take this to mean that "hour was as tenth" to refer to Andrew's awakening to the identity of Jesus ("tenth" is only used 3 times in the New Testament and its uses do not give us any hints as to any significance, but it is used multiple times in the Septuagint and several of those times it refers to the "tenth day of the first month" (i.e., the Day of the selection of the Passover Lamb) and the tenth day of the seventh month (i.e., the Day of Atonement).
- 4. In conjunction with this, Jesus said to His own brothers, "your time is always opportune" (7:6) as a reference to their refusal to believe in Him.
