If you turn back with me in your
Bibles to John Chapter 14, these verses have weighed heavily
on my heart this week in ways that I find difficult to understand. can presume and trust that the
Lord has caused that to be the case, because there is a blessing
for us in it. I just love that the Lord said,
let not your heart be troubled, chapter 14 verse 1. You believe
in God, You believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many
mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you, I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare
a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself,
that where I am, there you may be also. And whither I go, you
know. And the way you know, Thomas
saith unto him, Lord, we know not. We don't know where you're
going. How can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am. the
way and the truth and the life no man cometh unto the father
but by me And I can't explain why the Lord
has caused my heart to be burdened and I wrote all these notes when
I was in India a couple of weeks ago and I've been wrestling with
the Lord about Why? My heart has been troubled and
I have reason like you to have troubled hearts. We live in this
world and we do have many reasons to have troubled hearts. And God's servants are commanded
to comfort people, but they're commanded to comfort His people
through their own troubled hearts. And we comfort people with the
comfort that we have had. I have found those words, no
man, no man. No man comes but by this way. No man comes but by this particular
truth. No man comes but by this particular
life. No man, no man. There are multitudes turning
up as we speak. with a presumption. God says
that many, many people come to him on that day and they say
look what we've done, look at these marvellous things. The
scriptures also say that people die with a lie in their right
hand. The right hand in the scriptures
is the hand of power and strength. And that power and strength,
which they believe that they have in their hand, carries them
all the way through the things of this world and carries them
to the very courts of God. When you leave here, you meet
the Lord Jesus Christ. You don't go to nothingness.
You don't go into some And if you want to read what happens
to people when they do leave this world, the Lord Jesus Christ
has given a very, very clear description of it in Luke's gospel
of that rich man. dressed in purple and with all
of his finery and all of his authority and all of the applause
of men. And he realizes when it's far
too late. that he had no way, he had no
truth about who God is, he had no truth about who he was, and
he had no life with God. And most people in this world
don't even ask the question. Most people in this world go
through this world preaching peace to themselves and having
peace preached to them by other people. so-called soul winners
and other religions. You speak to a spiritual person.
I was with one for a little while earlier this week, and they have
just such confidence in their spirituality. I'm a spiritual
person. What's that mean these days?
It's almost a meaningless expression, isn't it? We're all And the extraordinary
thing about people saying they're a spiritual person is that the
spirituality they're talking about is a reality, is something
that's devoid from reality, isn't it? It's something that sort
of takes the realm of their existence beyond the things of this present
particular world and beyond the reality that they are sinners. It's just a delusion that keeps
people in peace. As I said earlier, one of the
things that troubles me so much and troubles me about myself,
I don't want to have a presumptuous face. I want to be found in the
way. I want to be found in the truth. I want to be found in the life.
I desperately need for the Lord Jesus Christ to wrap me up in
himself and hide me as Moses was hidden in that rock on the
mountain and take me to heaven all by himself. I want and I
desperately need the Lord Jesus Christ to have actually borne
all of my sins in his own body on the tree, and borne them away
so perfectly and completely that they do not exist before God.
I want the Lord Jesus Christ, I want the robe of his righteousness
to be the only robe I have, and I want for the people that I
love and care for and am burdened about in this world to find in
the Lord Jesus Christ that comfort and that peace in all the troubles
that necessarily come into all of us as Adam's children in this
world. At least Pilate asked a good
question. I want to look at what is the
truth here this morning but Pilate asked a question. In John chapter
18, if you just turn over a couple of pages in your Bibles to John
18, you will see in verse 31 and following. But in verse 37
you've got Pilate interviewing the Lord Jesus Christ. Little
did he know whose presence he's in. In verse 37 Pilate said therefore
unto him, Jesus, because the Lord had said
to him in verse 36, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom
were of this world, then my servants would fight and I should be not
delivered to the Jews. But now my kingdom is not from
hence. Pilate therefore said, are thou
a king? Jesus answered, thou sayest that
I am a king. To this end, Isn't that a great declaration from our God,
if you want to know why he came into this world? And this is
the cause for him coming into this world, that I should bear
witness unto the truth. And then he says, everyone that
is of the truth heareth my voice. And the word of, I'll remind
you, denotes origin. Basically he's saying everyone
whose origin is from heaven heareth my voice. Pilate heard him. The
Jews heard him, millions of Jews heard him in those three and
a half years. But he's talking about another hearing here altogether,
isn't he? And Pilate said to him, what
is truth? How many people in this world
are asking what is truth? How many? How many are desperately
in need of knowing what is the truth? And there are three great
truths, aren't there, that are absolutely necessary. What is
the truth of who God is? God to me. Isaiah chapter 40
is the beginning, isn't it? But there are so many passages
in the scripture that describe God in the glory of his being,
in the glory of his character. That's something you need to
know about. You're going to meet him. Him, he says. This is eternal
life, is knowing Him, and to know Him is to know Him as He's
revealed in the Scriptures, as holy and sovereign and infinite
in all of His glorious attributes. Then you must know the truth
about yourself. It's absolutely essential that
God reveals to you what you are. Otherwise, you will never ever
call upon Him. You will never cry to Him. Because you come into this world
like I came into this world, thinking I am like God. That's what Satan's promised
to us again. You shall be his God and nothing less than the
blessed coming of the Holy Spirit revealing the Lord Jesus Christ.
He'll come and he will reprove, he will convict, he will convince
the world of sin and of righteousness and judgment. And then if you
ask people what is sin, what is the conviction, what is the
convicting work of the Holy Spirit regarding your sin? Listen to
what he goes on to say. It's not murdering, and it's
not adultery, and it's not all the wickedness you should think
of. What's the convicting work of God the Holy Spirit regarding
your sin? Of sin, John 16 verse 9, of sin,
because they believe not on me. Isn't that extraordinary? That
is not what this world and it's not what this religious world
thinks sin is. They keep thinking and keep telling
people sin is something you do. And if sin is something you do,
then you can fix it by undoing some things and starting to do
some better things. And they get people saved under
that delusion, and then they spend the rest of their days
trying to organize their religion and organize these people so
they get them to look like they're Christians. If you have had the
Holy Spirit convict you of what you are, conviction of sin, conviction
of righteousness, conviction of the only righteousness there
possibly is, That's the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
says, because I go to my Father. How on earth do you go to the
Father? That's what John 14.6 is about. How do you go to the
Father? You only go to the Father and you can only be in the presence
of God if you are as good as God. You have to be as holy as
God is holy. You have to be as righteous as
God is righteous. And that's what the conviction
of the Holy Spirit is. This is what it is to have life.
This is what it is to be put in this way. And this is what
it is to have the truth, the truth of who God is. The truth
of who you are as a sinner, the truth of who the Lord Jesus Christ
is, and of judgment because the Prince of this world is judged. Our judgment was perfectly completed
in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. When truth is revealed,
When truth is revealed we see God, we see ourselves and we
see that the way, the way is just the point, the distance
and the journey between two points, between what we are and what
we must be to be in the presence of God, and the Lord Jesus Christ
is the way. He's not one among many ways.
There is only one way into the presence of the God that is revealed
in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is revealed in the Scriptures.
There's only one way into the presence of the God who is revealed
on the cross of Calvary, and that's where he reveals himself.
And that's where he reveals men, and that's where he reveals the
character of God. If you want to know about the
character of God, you go to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
If you want to know what holiness is, you go and see what happened
when the Lord God Almighty, that holy God that we read about in
Isaiah 40, when he found sin on his dear and precious son. His wrath was inflamed against
that sin. And our great sacrifice, our
great substitute, our great saviour absorbed the wrath of God Almighty
on personal sins of particular people. I do repeat Galatians
2.20 but I want you to see what it says again and I'd love you
to read it with me but I just love what If we want to know
who the truth is, if we want to know this truth as the way,
then we have to know what the truth is regarding the cross
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, he says, I through
the law am dead. to the law that I might live
to God. The law of God slew the Lord
Jesus Christ. That law that demands holiness,
that law that demands absolute justice Listen to what he says,
for through the law I am dead to the law that I might live
to God. And how did he die to the law? I am crucified with Christ. So what is he saying? Paul is
saying as a representative of all of the children of God, that
when the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross of Calvary, and
every believing person here and every child of God, we were in
him. That's why he came. He came to
bear witness to the truth and the truth is revealed in what
happened on the cross. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me. Isn't that the most remarkable
passage of scripture? John 14 will go on to tell us
more about this again. And this is how the Lord finishes
his time. You see, in John chapter 14,
he's talking about going to the cross. He's talking about preparing
a place for you. And he's preparing a place and
he's preparing a people for a place. And the two must be equal in
that, aren't they? I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless
I live, and yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which
I now live in the flesh. I live. Listen to it. I live. What's your life now? by sin and all of the other things
of this world and your journey, the life I now live in the flesh,
I live by the faith. I live by the faithfulness of
the Son of God. I live by the faithfulness of
the Son of God who loved me This is the truth of love, isn't it?
This is the truth of the love of God. Not this nonsensical
love of God that's paraded around this world that He loves everyone
and nothing can be done about it and His love is ineffectual
until you actually do something. God's children stop coming. He gave himself
for me. He gave himself as a sacrifice
to God for me. What is truth? The truth is who
God is. The truth is who you are. And Isaiah makes it really, really
clear, doesn't he? He says, all flesh is grass,
Isaiah 40 verse 6, and the goodliness thereof is as the flower and
the frill. That's still too high, says God.
And then he says, and the grass withereth and the flower fadeth,
because the Lord bloweth upon it. All the Lord has to do is
send his breath, send his spirit. withered up and gone away. The truth is a person. The gospel is a person. In declaring the gospel, the
scripture is describing the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
describing Him as God the Holy Spirit describes Him. It's describing
Him as God the Father describes Him. It's describing Him as He
describes Himself. I love it. I love to contemplate
how precious he is. I love to think that he has made
himself known to me and he's made himself precious to me.
The gospel is a person who is God. We are declaring. We are declaring who God is. We're saying to people, aren't
we, behold the Lamb of God. the land of God you behold him
that doesn't mean you just glance at him it means you fix your
eyes on him and you contemplate him and you you ask pilots question
what is truth and you aren't satisfied, and
God won't allow you to be satisfied until you find yourself at rest
in Him. The truth is who God is, as revealed
in the Lord Jesus Christ, sovereign, holy, just and righteous. Faithful and wise, what an extraordinarily
wise and glorious scheme of redemption, plan, purpose of redemption that
the Lord God set in perfect conformity to all the glory of His attributes. He found a way to be a just God
and a Saviour. That's the great question that
true people who are asking what is the truth and what is the
way tins the presence of God are asking. Job asked it three
times. How can a man, a sinful man,
be just with God? How can I be righteous with God? Job had to go through an awful
trial to find out and have a gospel preacher come to him and says
you save his soul from going down to the pit because I have
found a ransom in my son. We preach how God reveals all
of his glorious attributes in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ and he saves sinners. He doesn't try and save anything.
The God of Isaiah 40 doesn't try. The God of Isaiah 40 doesn't
make any attempt. The God of Isaiah 40 doesn't
offer anything. The God of the Scriptures just
does. He does. He saves sinners. He said, you call his name Jesus,
because, you can repeat it, can't you, with me. He shall save his
people from their sins. And when he cried out on the
cross of Calvary, he said, it is finished. We have a glorious
truth to proclaim, don't we? We proclaim and declare how God
saved sinners by blood atonement, by substitutionary sacrifice. We love to declare that in all
of that we actually see the glorious attributes of God revealed in
so many remarkable ways. We see all of the Old Testament
scriptures pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified.
He says you search the scriptures because in them you think you
have eternal life. And they searched the scriptures
and they knew them off by heart and they missed Christ. They
missed the truth of all the scriptures. He is To go back to John 18, for this
cause I came into the world that I should bear witness unto the
truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice. Everyone. I am the good shepherd. If you
listen to what it is to hear his voice, he says, He puts forth his own sheep,
and he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, and for
they know his voice. And a stranger will they not
follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of
strangers. My sheep, John 10, 20, said,
my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. Those that are of the truth,
come to the Lord Jesus Christ in faith. Those that are of the
truth, hear the shepherd's voice. Those that are of the truth,
hear the truth of salvation by free and sovereign grace and
are set free. I'll just read a few verses just
in closing out of John's gospel to talk about the truth and I
trust that you might find them as delightful as I have. But
as little sheep, I do love what he says, he shall feed his flock
like a shepherd. What's he gonna feed them on?
He's feeding them on the word of God, he's feeding them on
himself, he's feeding them on his own precious body and his
own precious blood. He shall feed his flock like
a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with his arm, the arm of
his power, the arm of his strength, the arm that's revealed to his
people. Behold, and he shall, sorry,
with his arm and carry them in his bosom. Where is he holding
his people? Right now, he's carrying them
next to his heart. And he shall gently lead those
that are with yon. I saw something in that verse
that really warmed my heart today. Because if you genuinely stand
before eternity-bound sinners, You feel the weight of your own
inadequacy more and more as time goes on. But those that are with
young are those that have a responsibility for others. And I pray that the
Lord gently leads me. Because I'm pretty hard on myself
and the world's pretty hard on me. But let's read some of these
verses. I'll just read them out to you. In John chapter 1 he
says, The Lord Jesus Christ is full of grace and truth. In 117, he says, the law was
given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. All the grace you're ever going
to have, all the grace you'll ever need, all the glorious grace
of God comes by Jesus Christ. I love those passages and John
4 is one of my favourite passages in all the scriptures. He said
if you knew the gift of God and who it is, you'd ask. You'd be
an asking person. I wouldn't be an asking person.
If you knew the gift of God, you would ask. But then he says,
true worshippers, the hour cometh and now is when true worshippers
shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. They'll worship
the Father by the work of the blessed Holy Spirit. Christ in
us, the hope of glory, the truth that we've been speaking here
about. And then he says this wonderful phrase, the Father
seeketh such to worship him. Does he find it? Does he ever
go seeking and not find it? Can the God that we read about
in Isaiah chapter 40, can he possibly go seeking and not find
them? They're gonna be found, aren't they? They'll all be found
and they'll be brought to the Lord Jesus. And they're gonna
worship God. He says they're gonna worship God. Verse 32 of chapter eight,
it says, you shall know the truth. and the truth shall make you
free, free from the sins of the liar, free from the sins of the
Pharisee that you are, free from the law, free from death, free
from the wrath to come, free from working to establish any
righteousness at all of my own. free from doing anything to atone
for my sin, because he's done it all. If the gospel doesn't
come to you as good news and come to you as freedom, and if
you're not left with a sense of freedom, may you please plead
with the Lord. He says the Spirit of Truth will
come. The Spirit of Truth. The Spirit
of Truth. And what's the Spirit of Truth
going to do? Where the Holy Spirit is, He's speaking of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He testifies of Him. He shall testify of Him. In John chapter 16 verse 13,
the Spirit of Truth has come. He will guide you into all truth. Isn't that remarkable? All the
truth I ever need to know to live before God and to walk through
this world, I'm going to be guided into it. He's not going to just
put it out there for me to figure it out. He's actually guide me
into it all. In John 17, in his high priestly
prayer, he says, sanctify, sanctify my people. You make them holy
and you set them apart for worship. Your word is truth. Everyone that is of the truth,
heareth my words. Heareth my voice, he says. May the shepherd speak, and may
he bless his words to our hearts, and may we find the truth precious. He who is the truth. Amen.