Thank you, Susanna. Those words
are taken right out of the book of Revelation chapter 5 and verse
number 12. And when you have an opportunity
this afternoon, please read that verse. There's certainly no better
theme for the voices of the saints of God down here or in heaven. and to sing worthy is the Lamb. Got your Bibles with you, turn
with me to John chapter 1. John chapter 1. As we consider our Lord Jesus,
there are two great, very critical areas where the enemies of God
attack you. They did when He was on this
earth. They still do. Two very critical
areas that are always under the attack of the enemies of our
Lord Jesus. His person and His work. That's always true. The enemies
of the gospel of God's free grace, they always go after the Savior,
who He is, and then what He did. False religion rejects the Lord
Jesus as being the eternal God. and false religion rejects that
the work that he did on the cross of Calvary, they reject that
it was absolutely successful. This is what they go after. And
really, when you listen to any man, if you listen to radio,
some religious radio programs or if you watch religious programs
on television, you need to perk up your ears as to what they
say about, number one, our Lord Jesus in His person. For you see, to be wrong on His
person is to be wrong forever, unless God changes you. And then listen to what they
say about His work, His work of redemption, His work of reconciliation,
what He did upon the cross of Calvary. If they're wrong there,
if they present His work as merely an effort to save everybody,
if they present His life and death upon the cruel cross of
Calvary as His attempt to save all mankind, and then if mankind
would permit Him, then He would save them. If they present that,
that's great error. That's very serious. God will
not find Him guiltless who is wrong about the person of the
Lord Jesus Christ and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now,
in his book, John, in his narrative, he leaves no doubt on either
point. He says this in verse one, John
1.1. In the beginning was the Word. That's our Lord Jesus Christ. He says, in the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word wants God. Now look over in verse 14. And
the Word, that is the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God,
the second person of the Trinity, and the Word was made flesh. Flesh. Just like you are. Except, a big exception, without
sin. But He was made flesh. He who was in the beginning and
created all things, he who was with God, he who is God, he was
made flesh, like you and me. And he dwelt among us. So John,
he details the deity of our Lord Jesus at the beginning of the
chapter. After all, He does attribute
creation to Him. Well, if He created all things,
then He had to exist before creation. He was not made as the Son of
God. He is the Son who has always
been. His existence is forever. And
we're talking about His Godhead now. We're talking about His
deity. We're talking about the fact
that He is the great Creator. Who can create except God alone? Who can maintain all things but
God alone? This is our Lord Jesus Christ.
By Him, all things consist. By Him, all things that He made,
they're held together. and He keeps everything going
toward the end that He has appointed. To us, it seems like this is
a chaotic world. A world in a mess. And yet, the
Word of God says that this Word of God, Christ the Savior, who
is the Lord of lords and the King of kings, you read to us,
God made that same Jesus to be both Lord and Christ. God made
Him Lord. God said everything He's going
to bow to Him, every tongue's going to confess that He is the
Lord. and the Lord governs all things.
And what seems to us to be a bunch of chaos is really His creation
moving in exactly the right direction that He's leading it. Now that's
way above our understanding. I can't comprehend that. I don't
know what he's doing except he's saving his people from their
sins and revealing the gospel of his grace to our hearts. And
he's fulfilling his eternal purpose. John sets before us this one
who is the eternal God. If you're wrong there, you're
wrong everywhere. John begins just exactly as did
Moses in Genesis chapter 1 and verse 1. In the beginning, God. What did God do? God created
the heavens and the earth. And then John says, in the beginning
was the Word. When the beginning began, He's the one who began it. He's
the one who started everything. And when the end arrives, when
the end finally gets here, whenever it is, somebody says, well, I've
had a lot of people tell me this. I think we're in the last days.
We've been in the last days since He came, since Christ came. And
the saints of God have been standing upon the tiptoes of faith looking
for and expecting that blessed hope and glorious appearing of
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We still look for Him. I expect during the days of the
martyrs, the saints of God said the second coming of Christ must
not be far away. Things are so bad. Oh, but hundreds
and hundreds of years have gone by. I'll tell you when He's coming
back. Oh, are you a date-setter preacher?
No, I'm not a date-setter. But He's going to come back after
His gospel has pursued, and by His sovereign Spirit, He has
found, the gospel has found every one of His lost sheep. and brought
them to a knowledge of himself. And all of the elect of God are
gathered, as it were, into the fold of salvation. Then the end
will come. And he who began everything will
end everything. John makes no mistake about it. He sets us straight on this.
I hope you're straight on this. Who is Jesus of Nazareth? His enemy said, we know who you
are. You're the son of Joseph and
Mary. We know you brothers and sisters. Our Lord said to those same people,
you neither know me nor my father. You don't know me. He said, I'm
from above. You're from beneath. He is the eternal God. In the
beginning was the Word. The Word. The Word who was with
God. The Word who was God. And all
things were made by Him. John sets forth His deity. You're straight on this, aren't
you? This great error creeps in, and it's serious error if
you're wrong on His deity. Jesus of Nazareth, the Jesus
who saves, He is the eternal God. He's not a son of God. I know the Church of Jesus Christ
of the Latter-day Saints, as they called themselves, the Mormons,
I know they're family-oriented. They've got a lot of people that
they brought into their denomination because they are so family-oriented. But you know what they say of
Jesus, our Savior? That he was a son of God, just
like Adam, and just like Lucifer. Is that right? That's deadly
wrong. That's deadly wrong. It really
doesn't matter whatever else they say. They're wrong on that
critical point. Go no further. John makes it
very clear. In the beginning was the Word
and the Word was with God. The idea is standing face to
face with God from all eternity. That's our Savior. He is the
eternal one. Isaiah said, unto us a child
is born. That's verse 14. Unto us a son is given. He's the son of God who was given. He didn't begin his existence
in eternity. He's always existed. I'll tell
you this in verse one. There's a word that's used three
times, and it's the word was. And I made a little notation
in my Bible about this because it gives us an idea of the right
tense of this word. When it says in the beginning
was, was the word, it means in the beginning was and ever has
been the word. And the Word was and ever has
been, has always been with God. And the Word was and always has
been God. That's what he says. So that's
his deity. That's his deity. But there's also what is brought
forth in verse 14, his humanity. That's what verse 14 tells us. He says in verse 14, and the
Word. So we go back and we remember
what He has introduced to us at the beginning. Just several
verses back. He is established before us by
God the Holy Spirit. And I say John was the human
writer, but really it's the Spirit of God who's the writer. The
Spirit of God says He was God. The Word was God. And now the
Spirit of God leads John to write these words, and the Word, the
eternal Word, that One who is the Son of God, the Second Person
of the Trinity, and the Word was made. Now that means came
into being. Something came into being. Something
originated. What was that? His body. His flesh. The Savior said, it's
quoted in Hebrews 10. It comes out of Psalm 40. A body
thou hast prepared Me. You see, our Lord Jesus, He came
and He took up our flesh. He became one like us, except
without sin. That's a big exception, but He
was in every sense a man. And He wasn't made after the
image. He did not come forth from Adam. Our Lord is born of the seed
of woman. That's His virgin birth. Anybody
who knows something about biology and human anatomy and about procreation,
we understand the man has the seed. Not the woman, but in this
case, this only case, this unique case. Genesis 3, verse 15. The seed of the woman is coming. And who made that announcement
but our Lord Himself? the seed of the woman. Note this,
he was not infected, he was not polluted with that Adamic nature
like all of us are. Adam was created upright. That's
true. But he fell. He fell. Our Lord didn't come forth from
Adam. He came forth from a woman. born of the Spirit of God, the
incorruptible Son of the Word of God. And notice this. He was made flesh. He didn't
come to this world as a, you know, when Adam, let me put it
this way, see if I can make it clear. When Adam was made, he
was created a whole man without imperfections, without
anything wrong with him. Our Lord Jesus didn't come into
the world that way. He had a body, though certainly
having no sin, but his was not a body like unfallen Adam's was. He, our Lord Jesus, had a body
just like yours. Like yours, like mine. You see,
while Adam was created, our Lord Jesus came into this world indeed
born of a virgin. That's a critical area as well. But my point at this juncture
is He was born just like you. Just like you. Like all of us,
He was born. Adam wasn't born, Adam was created. But our Lord Jesus, the surety
of the everlasting covenant, He came into this world like
we did. He had to have the nourishment
from His mother, He had to be cared for. Diapers
changed. You say, Rudy, you think that?
Listen, he was a real, real man with a real body and get this
too, a real soul. You see, in old eternity, he
was spirit. God is spirit. And I know the
second person of the Trinity made several appearances in the
Old Testament, throughout the Old Testament, and generally,
generally named as being the angel of the Lord. The messenger
from the Lord. And he would take on a visible
appearance. But then he'd be gone. But when he was born in Bethlehem,
Our Savior was born like you and I, born into this world with
a real body. With the needs of a real body. Food. Clothing. He had to have liquids. He got weary. He said, I thirst. Thirsty? Weary? On the Sea of
Galilee? A storm comes up? Where's the
Savior? He's sleeping. Now who needs
sleep? This body has to have sleep.
I hope you had good sleep last night. I hope you had good rest
last night. Can you imagine this? This is
mind-boggling. He who made the world, He who
created all things with the word of His power, He who was governing
the world, even when He was on this earth in human flesh, had to take a nap. Can you comprehend that? No,
you can't. No, you can't. But he had to become a man. He had to become flesh and blood
in order to save people who are flesh and blood. John tells us without a doubt
who this person is. And we get to the end of the
book, he will say something like this, these things are written
that you might believe that Jesus is the Son of the living God. Jesus, that's an earthly name.
Emmanuel, that's His earthly name. God with us. Jesus means
He shall save His people from their sin. The Son of God, the
Son of the Highest, that's His eternal name. And He is at the same time the
Eternal One made flesh. And note this, when He came into
this world and He took flesh upon Him, He joined Himself to
human flesh, which by the way, there will never be a divorce
of that. Once He joined His deity to our
humanity, That's a union that will never end. That's why Hebrews says there's
a man in glory. The God-man. The God-man. This man, Christ our Lord, says He was made flesh. He partook of that which God
had never partaken of so as to keep it. He was made flesh. And he dwelt among us. That introduces us to the idea
of the tabernacle because the word dwelt means tabernacled.
He tabernacled among us. In that flesh, he lived here. And that takes us back as we
learn the definition of the word dwell, tabernacle, it takes us
back to the tabernacle in the wilderness. That's where the very glory of
God was. And John is quick to tell us
of our Lord Jesus that He and His disciples and others
beheld His glory. The glory as of the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth. Here in one verse. What a powerful verse of Scripture
this is. Where He tells us of the deity
of our Savior and of His true humanity. When Israel when God
gave instructions to Moses about the building of the tabernacle,
and we've covered that, we covered that several months ago. Why, that tabernacle in the wilderness,
that center tent, that was their glory! The glory of Israel! God dwells among us! But we've
talked about this, that center tent, that tabernacle in the
wilderness, from the outside looked like any other tent except
it was surrounded by a white fence. Righteousness. Purity. That's our Savior. And Israel could say, here's
the glory of our nation. God dwells with us. And I'll tell you, when our Savior
came into this world, He was God on earth, Immanuel. Immanuel. God dwelling in the midst of
sinful people. And nobody recognized Him as
being God except by divine revelation. And listen to me, my friends,
those of you who are watching as well, Here's the only way
you will know Him is if He reveals Himself to you. John said we
beheld His glory. We beheld His glory. And they beheld His glory on
numerous occasions. The glory of His Omniscience. What does that mean? All-knowing.
The glory of His omniscience. Some might be thinking something
and then our Savior would answer them. That's the glory of His
omniscience. Thousands of people were hungry.
He took a little boy's lunch. A couple of little fish and five
little barley loaves. And He fed thousands of people.
That's the glory of who He is. He manifested His glory. Moses back in the book of Exodus
said, Lord, show me Your glory. God said, I'll cause my goodness
to pass before you. And I'll be gracious to whom
I'll be gracious. I'll be merciful to whom I'll
be merciful. Our Lord Jesus manifested His
glory. I know He manifested that mount
of transfiguration. That bright light. Like the bright
light at the tabernacle, God's shekinah and glory, that's our
Savior. But His glory is especially seen in the sovereignty of His
grace. Our Lord went to Bethesda and
here's all these sick people waiting for the waters to be
troubled. If He had asked, how many of you folks want to be
healed, if they could raise their hand, everybody would have raised
their hand. But He didn't heal everybody.
You say, well, that man, that lame man who was healed, he must
have said, help me, help me. No. No. Here's the very glory
of the Savior showing grace to whom He will show grace. He singled
him out. That's our Lord. He manifests
His glory. This is who He is, you see. and
John identifies him as being the God-man. I said there are
two critical areas. Who he is. We've established
he's the God-man. Now, does John establish what
he came to do and that he did it? Yes, he does. Yes, he does. Go over to John 17. John chapter
17 in his high priestly prayer. John chapter 17. He says this
in verse 4, and throughout his ministry, he talks about this
work that he came to do. You remember that. Those of you
who are familiar with New Testament writings, especially the four
Gospels, of course, he talked about the work. I have a work
to do. I have a work to finish. They
tried to kill him on numerous occasions, that wasn't the time
for him to die. He's not going to die until the
time when the work was to be done and finished. This perfect man who obeyed all
the law, he had to do that. This is a man who obeyed all
the law of God, but then he had to die. And just before he died, he says
in John 17 and verse 4, He says to the Father, I have
glorified Thee on the earth. I have finished the work which
Thou gavest me to do. Go over to John 19 and verse
30. When Jesus, therefore, had received
the venom here, He said, It is finished. And that's the same
word as accomplished in verse 28. And He bowed His head and
gave up the ghost. What was the work? What was the
work that he came to do? Well, he came to satisfy divine
justice that says the soul that's finished shall die. That's why
he had to become a man. He had to become a man to die
because God can't die. God's a spirit. The only way
God can lay down His life in the stead of the sheep is for
God to join Himself with our flesh. And in that flesh, he felt pain. He felt the lashings of the whip. He felt it when they put the
crown of thorns into his brow and blood run down his face.
When they nailed the nails in his hands and one through his
feet. He felt that. He felt real pain
and agony because that's Evidence that's evidence. He's
real man. He's flesh. He's made flesh And then he he died on the cross
He had to be made flesh to suffer bleed and die I know there are
many other reasons and I'll go into it on another occasion But
God in his absolute spirituality the invisible God He can't suffer,
bleed, and die, but that's what it's gonna take to save sinners. But not the death of just anybody. It's got to be the death of the
Son of God, made flesh, to satisfy justice, to redeem us. And the Savior said, it is finished. I have finished the work you
gave me to do. My friends, when our Lord Jesus
died upon the cross of Calvary, He wasn't attempting to do anything. He didn't try to do something.
He finished the work of saving His people from their sin. That's
why we read in Romans chapter 5, we're justified by His blood,
by His blood. So I thought my faith justified
me when I believed. Well, see, you need to be corrected.
I'm here to help you. Your faith doesn't have the power
to justify you before a holy God. Your faith doesn't have
power to make you righteous with God who demands righteousness. Only the bloody death of the
God-man could do that. And He did it because He said,
I've finished the work. He justified His people. He made
us righteous. Now when the Spirit of God awakens
us from our sleep of spiritual death, then we're made to realize
who did it and the reason that He did it and that it was accomplished.
We just received the truth. Salvation, justification, redemption,
righteousness by the bloody death. of our Lord Jesus Christ. And John says of this one, he's
full of grace and truth. That Old Testament tabernacle,
you know what it was full of? Law. Rituals. Ceremonies. And all those offerings, thousands
upon thousands of sacrifices were offered that the brazen
altar didn't put one cent away. But this God-man, when he died, he did the job God demanded.
and He saved His people from their sins, just as His name
said that He would. Thou shalt call His name Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sins. Did He save
His people from their sins? Well, of course He did. As Isaiah
says, He can't fail. He can't fail. He's full of grace. He's full of grace. He gives
grace. And the fullness of His grace is never diminished. The
level never goes down. He's full of grace. And watch
this in truth. Reality. That Old Testament tabernacle,
it was full of shadows and types. Our Lord Jesus came. He's the
reality. He's the one who cast the shadow.
And He did, to the Father's approval, He did the work of saving us,
of putting our sins away, of bringing in for us, think of
this, everlasting righteousness. No wonder the saints of God sing
in glory, worthy is the lamb that was slain. He's worthy to
receive all power and wisdom and might and strength and honor
and glory and blessing. Someday in heaven's marvelous,
glorious place, we're going to sing praise to the Lamb of God.
The God-man who successfully redeemed His people by His blood
upon the cross of Calvary. Well, let's sing a closing song.
I look forward to you coming back tonight. Brother Bill will
be preaching to us. We'll look forward to hearing
his message.