1. A Divided Heart

(33 Minutes)

This 33-minute talk is for believers who, while living in our fallen world, have developed a condition known as a ‘divided heart’. This is a miserable place to be, for a believer, and God encourages us to find rest in Him alone (Psalm 62:1)! The following prayers of David teach us God’s remedy to the tragedy of a ‘divided’ heart: Psalms 86:11 Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth; unite my heart to fear Your name. Psalms 51:17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart - these, O God, You will not despise.

2. A Greater Witness Than John’s

(43 Minutes)

The eight sign miracles in John’s gospel were not only amazing miracles (in their own right), but each of them also had a symbolic meaning which communicated a profound spiritual truth. Furthermore, (and this is where it becomes interesting), each of the eight sign miracles may have a prophetic fulfilment at the end of the age.

In John’s Gospel, Jesus set a ‘pattern’ of miracle first followed by an explanation or spiritual truth afterwards. For example, Jesus fed the multitude of 5000 with physical food (bread and fish) and then taught them about spiritual food in His following teaching. In John 6:35, Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.

This ‘pattern’ becomes important with the third sign miracle of the raising of the infirm man at Bethesda (who incidentally had been beside this pool for 38 years). This deeply symbolic miracle of the raising of this man, in unbelief, is followed by teaching from Jesus which contains four anomalous statements. These unusual and unexpected statements invoke the reader to consider if Jesus is communicating a deeper message. Just as John The Baptist heralded the first arrival of Jesus, do the ‘greater witness’ of the works of Jesus prepare the way for Jesus’ second arrival at the conclusion of the first resurrection?

This talk captures in overview, the essential premise of Jonathan Hill’s first book ‘Unlocking the Sign Miracles of John: In the Consummation of the Age’.

Note that the first third of this talk was accidently not recorded at the conference, so a section from this same talk (given late last year) is appended onto the front (of this talk) to give the full content. This ‘join’ occurs at 13 minutes and 55 seconds.

Diagrams: 029 – “And I Am Coming Back” As 1948 

3. The Witness Of The Bread (Part 1)

(38 Minutes)

The Godhead carefully considered how best to teach humanity that, during the Christian Dispensation, there is a requirement to eat the spiritual flesh of Jesus. The decision was a ‘food’ miracle. Jesus would provide a physical meal of bread and fish, to thousands of men in one sitting, to teach the spiritual truth that He was the bread of life. The resulting sign miracle of the ‘Feeding of the 5000’ was truly a remarkable event and a powerful witness to the spiritual truth that Jesus is the living bread which shall give life to the world (John 6:51).

What is less well known is the prophetic symbolism portrayed by this miracle. Just as the first sign miracle produced the best wine at the end of the wedding (a type of the Christian Dispensation), so too this fourth ‘feeding’ sign miracle may represent a miraculous feeding of the (mainly Gentile) Body of Christ just before the Rapture. Jesus’ rejection by the Jewish leadership (John 1:11) and the Gentile naming of the Sea of Galilee (as ‘Tiberias’) give weight to this Gentile consideration and the ‘late in the day’ (Matthew 14:15) aspects of the miracle speak of the end of the age. The departure of the multitude, unusually on the initiative of Jesus, speaks of the Rapture. The subsequent getting into the boat of the Hebrew disciples (on their own initiative – in John’s Gospel) to cross the sea, speaks of Israel entering covenant with anti-Christ. A storm breaks out in the middle of this sea (Mark 6:47-48) – a compelling representation of what happens in the middle of the Tribulation.

This talk considers the symbolism of the 12 baskets of bread (left over after the miracle) at the point when God’s witness (to the world) immediately transfers from the Body of Christ to Israel, at the moment of the Rapture.

A frequent question is ‘what about the fish?’ Well, the 12 baskets of bread do not mention the fish (John 6:13), however, the fish are still important. The fish symbolise the ‘net of the gospel’. Jesus made fishermen into ‘fishers of men’ and the Greek word for ‘the net’ in John 21:11 shares the numerical value of the Greek word for ‘fishes’ in this ‘feeding’ sign miracle. Given this numerical value is 1224 (8 x 153), the inference is that this ‘net’ of the gospel, which catches (out of the Gentile Sea of Tiberias) a people after his own name (Acts 15:13–14), plays/played an essential role in gathering the completed church (153) for resurrection (8).

4. The Witness Of The Bread (Part 2)

(29 Minutes)

A conclusion to the witness of the ‘bread’ and the consequences of Israel’s divided heart.

5. Why Did The Son Of God Begin His Ministry At A Wedding?

(46 Minutes)

It is incredible to consider that Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, began His ministry with a seemingly understated, private and temporary miracle. This first 'sign', however, conveyed deep symbolism. His conversion of ‘water to wine’ depicted how His ‘blood’ would replace (or more accurately ‘fulfil’) the Levitical Law as a ‘better’ covenant.

Diagrams: 030 – Ceremonial Waterpots ‘613’ In Greek 

6. Spiritual Blindness

(31 Minutes)

This talk (recorded at Hambledon, two weeks after the Cromer 2023 conference) is included here because ‘spiritual blindness’ is very much a matter of the heart. 

Using the text of the 6th sign miracle (of the healing of the ‘man born blind’), the nature and remedy of ‘spiritual blindness’ is discussed. 

[Apologies that the sound quality of this recording is slightly diminished.]