Love Speaks

John 7:^49-51 “This foolish crowd follows him, but they are ignorant of the law. God’s curse is on them!” Then Nicodemus, the leader who had met with Jesus earlier, spoke up. “Is it legal to convict a man before he is given a hearing?” he asked.”

If you love Jesus, you will speak up for Him just like Nicodemus spoke up for Jesus. You need to speak up for Jesus. Speak up for Jesus because God needs your voice to reach the people around you who are far from Him. We speak up for the people we love. If you love someone, you speak up for him or her. Imagine going for a family meeting with your spouse, and your in-laws are abusing you and your spouse just sits there and does nothing. Meanwhile, they are raining abuses on you and you are looking at your spouse but he or she looks at you and looks away. How would you feel about your spouse not standing up for you? Then you get home and your spouse says, ‘I love you.’ ‘You love who, how?’ If you do not speak up for your spouse, you do not love him or her. If you do not speak up for Jesus, you do not love Him.  Nicodemus did not say much, but he said enough to let the priests know that he was for Jesus.

John 7:⁵² “They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Search the Scriptures and see for yourself—no prophet ever comes from Galilee!” This is the type of response you would get from a classic egocentric man. Always looking for who to talk down. When people do not agree with the egocentric man, his defence is to ridicule people and make them feel less than human. “Search the Scriptures and see for yourself—no prophet ever comes from Galilee!” In other words, ‘Nicodemus, you are learned, search the scriptures see for yourself no prophet comes from Galilee.’ Big lie! Their ego made them twist the truth. Nicodemus knew that it was a lie because there was a notable prophet from Galilee – Jonah. Jonah was from Galilee and there was no Rabbi in Israel that did not know Jonah.

In fact, there is no Christian in our time who does not know Jonah. Everybody does but they just don’t know where he is from. The way the Jews are brought up is that they learn the history of the prophets – who their father is, where he is from, everything. So when they said there was no prophet from Galilee, Nicodemus knew it was a lie but he just looked at them and kept quiet. We all know the truth that that is not correct. Who even says that it is a criterion? Can God not decide to bring a prophet from anywhere He chooses, even if there is no history of the prophetic from that town? The high priests were totally wrong, but Nicodemus spoke up.

Now see what happens next, John 7:⁵³ “Then the meeting broke up, and everybody went home.” Every gathering against you will break up. Everywhere you are being discussed in a negative way, to bring you down, that meeting will break up in the Name of Jesus. You better say, Amen because if they had meetings for Jesus, do you think they will not have meetings for you? But it will collapse in the Name of Jesus. God will raise a “Nicodemus” that will speak for you when you are not present, even in places you cannot be present in the Mighty Name of Jesus.

Prayer: Father, as You raise voices for me, make me a voice for the voiceless, in Jesus Name. Amen!