If you would, to the Gospel of
John, John chapter 6. I truly do believe that these times that we are blessed together
with the Lord's people around the gospel that gives
him all the glory. This is as close to heaven as we get in this world. And I sat there thinking, if
this is just a foretaste, and it is so good What will it be like? What will
it be like? I love being with the Lord's
people. I don't like to pick and choose
because I've always believed that you choose your friends
but you're stuck with your family. I love my family. I want you to look briefly with
me, beginning in verse 67, because the great multitude has
just enjoyed the miracle of the fishes and the loaves, and they're
feeling fat and fed. Our Lord has turned away from
the physical and He's been speaking words
that have to do with the spiritual. He's talked about eating His
flesh and drinking His blood. He's talking about how we if
we be the Lord's people, appropriate the person and the work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. But they have no interest in
those things. And so they begin to walk away. They begin to say, well, this
is a hard say. Who can understand this? And when they've all walked away
with the exception of those few disciples, in verse 67, then
said Jesus unto the twelve, will ye also go away? Sometimes I feel like that question
is being asked to me. Will you also go away? And then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life. Isn't it amazing? That the best
thing that is to be found in this world has to do with some
words. The words. And so Peter says, and we believe
and are sure that thou art that Christ, the
Son of the living God. I believe that we would do well
to listen to Peter's words in verse 69. He says, we believe. And I know that there is no middle
ground between believing and not believing. We either believe or we don't
believe. And though believers grow and
increase in faith, that faith which they have at
the first is as sure as that faith that they have at the last,
if it be true faith. As a matter of fact, Christ describes
faith in the New Testament as little faith, great faith, but they're both
spoken of as like precious faith. If it's the gift of God. And if we are born of God, we
believe. We believe. And we believe not
just in the sense of believing, we believe the words. There are
more than just words to those who believe. We believe the record
that God has given of His Son. We believe, and he says, it's
accounted unto us for righteousness. We believe God. And when you think about a man
like Abraham, who is such a great figure in the scriptures, and
of all that could be said about this man Abraham, The one thing
that the Spirit of God repeats more than anything else is this,
Abraham believed God. We believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. And we believe, in believing
on Christ, we believe what He said. You can't believe on Christ if
you don't know what he said. You can't believe and you don't
believe unless you receive the words as the words of God. As a matter of fact, I tell the
folks at home, you really only believe what you know to be true
because God said it. In other words, if you just believe
something because I said it, and you don't really know from
the Word of God that He said it, you believe me. You don't
believe God. And so there is no believing
apart from the Word of God, and it's just like the woman in John
4 after she went and told the men of the town and they came
out and heard what Christ said. It says that they said to the
woman, now we believe, not because of your saying, for we have heard
him ourselves and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior
of the world. What you said was a means to
bring us to truly hear what He said. We've heard Him now and
we believe. And there's something else here
too obviously and that is from believing comes assurance. There are a lot of people in
this world who say they They sure would love to have some
assurance. But the truth is, assurance is
simply the product of believing. That's what Peter says here.
He says, we believe and are sure. We believe and are sure. And I know that there are some
who would always ask, can anyone really say that? Can anyone say
that we are sure? Well, I know this. Peter did. And likewise, all who believe
can. If we believe, we're sure. If we're not sure, we don't believe. And I know this, I know that
unbelief does not glorify God. I read a lot of old writers.
I hear a lot of old testimonies. And it seems like that some think
that it's a necessary thing and even a thing to be admired if
our confidence is covered with doubt. Oh, I've just got a little hope.
There's no such thing as a little hope if it's in Christ. And believing in all reality
is itself assurance. That's what assurance is. Is
that right? It's believing. And you see,
what we find in scripture is that all who say the things that
they say supposedly to set forth a kind of false piety, it just
ain't so. They say things like this, Well,
I believe, but I really have, it's not that I doubt God, it's
that I doubt myself. Let me tell you this, if at any
point you have hope in yourself or ever find any hope in yourself,
you're in trouble. You're just really in trouble. And that is not believing. And
while the clouds of unbelief may at for a time overshadow
and even blot out a clear vision of Christ or even the felt presence
of Christ, believers still believe. They still believe because faith
is the evidence It is the evidence of things not seen. It doesn't always see by the
natural. And in the darkest moment, the
darkest moment of fear and the most awful moment of doubt, the
Word of God remains unchanged. If a cloud flies over, covers
this whole building this morning, so as to bring us under a shadow
of darkness, that doesn't mean the sun's gone, does it? And there's no way that we could
live hardly in this world if even in the natural realm we
didn't have some kind of belief and confidence that even though,
like it was in my part of the world a few weeks ago, every
day rain, rain, rain, cloud, cloud, cloud, but I lived in
a hope that the sun was still there. Then finally one day it came
out. But it had been there all the time. Been there all the
time. And that which we believe, that
doesn't alter one bit. And the change that takes place,
it's always in us. It's never in God. He changes
not. And if He changes not, His Word
and His promises, they change not. And Peter says here, we
believe and are sure. Of what? That we're saved? That we're as sure of heaven
as if we were already there? That we are surely chosen? That we are surely redeemed by
the blood of Christ? That we are surely born of God? You see, our experience has changed
and there's no better example of that than Peter himself. But what was his salvation dependent
on? What he thought or what God said? It's always going to come down
to this. Because faith, rather than relying
or contemplating or looking constantly at what my experience is, Faith
believes God. Believes the unchanging Word
of God. In other words, it wasn't what
he thought or what even appeared to be at this moment. It's what
God said. He said, where can we go? You've got the words of life. It wasn't so much what he felt,
but it's what the Spirit of God had wrought. And I'm mighty thankful that
it was Peter that the Lord used to say this. I've always said if there's one
fellow in the scriptures that I might could maybe partially
a little bit identified as this man, this impetuous man, Peter. Shoots his mouth off, makes big
boasts and claims, and falls flat of his face and all that,
and at times seems to be totally, almost a sure candidate for hell
itself. So how can he have hope? How
could this man ever have a moment of confidence? How could this
man, who denied the Lord Jesus, publicly denied Him and sealed
his testimony of what appeared to be unbelief by cussing and
swearing, how could he have any hope? How
could he ever have any peace? By the words. By the words. And it doesn't mean that when
God gives his people faith, it doesn't mean that they don't
ever have any unbelief. The presence of momentary unbelief
does not mean the permanent absence of faith. The Lord Jesus said to a man, He said, If you believe, all
things are possible. He said, Lord, I believe. But help thou my unbelief. I
believe, but help thou my unbelief. And the truth is, not only is
faith our assurance, believing our assurance, but it's that
way because Christ is our assurance. You see, if He's all, And Scripture
says He is. He must be all in election. He must be all in redemption. He must be all in justification. He must be all in sanctification,
in calling, in perseverance. He got to be all in assurance
too. Is that right? He's all in assurance, if he's
all. And what does Peter say? He follows
this, he says, we believe and are sure that you're that Christ, the
Son of the Living God. In other words, it seems that
he's saying, we have come to believe and we still believe. We have come to know and we still
know. And we're not sure of ourselves. And we're not sure of our circumstances. And we're not sure of all that's
going on right here at this moment. And we're not sure of our feelings. And we're not even sure of everything
you've said. But we're sure of you. I'm telling you there's a lot
I don't know, as you already have gathered, I'm sure. There is a lot that I do not
understand. And there is a lot that I expect
to leave this world not knowing. It's like Brother Scott Richardson
said, there's some things not even worth knowing. but by the grace of God and through
the words of God. He has taught me and He teaches
all His people by these words that distinguish the true Christ that we know Him. We believe and are sure. I'm sure of one thing else, too.
I'm sure that the Christ that I hear spoken of in our day,
generally preached, written about, confided in, and confessed before
this world, He's not the Christ. He doesn't match the biblical
description. He doesn't come and ring true
to what we find in this book. How did Peter come to this sureness? You see, this isn't the only
time he confesses this. Because as it was in that day,
so it is in our day when our Lord said to these disciples,
he said, who do men say that I am? He
said, well, they said some say you're John the Baptist, and
some say you're Elijah the prophet, some say you're this, and some
say you're that. Who do you say that I am? Peter said, thou art the Christ. The Son of the Living God. You know what the Lord said to
him next? He said, you've been blessed
boy. You have been blessed. Because flesh and blood did not
reveal that to you. But my Father, which is in heaven. In other words, God in His mercy
to His people and by the means of His gospel, the true gospel,
the word of truth, not by just a few true things. When will
we ever come to understand that? If Satan is the great counterfeiter,
he will always use some true things. I went to a funeral recently,
one of those kind you can't hardly get out of, family member. And here was all of these people
in this very ceremonial service. Pastor had the robe on, choirs
had the robe on, processional in, all these things like that.
And they began by reciting the Apostles' Creed. I listened. It hadn't been all
that long before I re-read that to see what it said. And when
it got through, I thought to myself, this could be called
the Devil's Creed. You say, preacher, what do you
mean? I mean the devil believes this. A few facts about the fact that
Jesus came, that Jesus died, that Jesus raised from the grave,
these are just true things. They're not the truth. The truth
has to do with who it is that really came. The truth has to
do with what he accomplished when he came. The truth has to
do with what he accomplished or who he accomplished it for.
The truth is what are the consequences and ramifications of that. The
truth is where is he now and what's he doing. Nobody knows that. I mean knows
that. So as to be sure, except those
who believe. And they only believe when God
enables them to believe the words. Somebody said, well, what do
you all do in your service? What do you have for young people?
What do you have for the senior citizens? What do you have at
this time and that time? I'll tell you what we have. The
words. It's all about the words. We gather around the gospel because
the only one who will ever have hope, the only ones who will
ever have assurance are those who will believe and they will
be the ones who believe the truth. He has chosen us unto salvation. through sanctification of the
spirit and belief of the truth. It is always the words. And this is not only what Peter
confessed, it is what Paul taught and confessed. And he said this,
He said, I may suffer things for preaching the gospel. I may
be in prison. I may be beaten. I may, all these
things may happen to me. But he said, nevertheless, I'm
not ashamed. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. You tell some of these preachers
in our day, you're ashamed of the gospel. They say, well, I'm
not ashamed. I said, I know you're ashamed because you don't preach it. If you're not ashamed of something, that's what you preach. I'm married to a good looking
lady. I know she is. I'm not ashamed to take her out
in public. She may be ashamed of me, but I'm not ashamed to
take her out in public. You're not ashamed of that which
is glorious or beautiful or whatever it is." And he said, I'm not
ashamed of the gospel. Paul said, I'm not ashamed for
I know. I know whom I have believed. and am persuaded by that knowledge,
by believing that, by God enabling me to believe on Him, and I'm
persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed
unto Him against that day. Oh, what have you committed unto
Him? Everything. Everything. We believe that you're the Christ.
We believe you're the promised Messiah who has made an end of
sin and brought in everlasting righteousness. You give it as
a gift. We believe that in your gospel
is that righteousness revealed. That the words of it are eternal
life because they concern you and you alone and your life. We believe that God's record
is this, that He's given unto us eternal life, and that life
is in His Son, and He that hath the Son hath life. We believe that God is God as
He is in every attribute, in every aspect of His character. We believe that He is just and
the justifier of all that believe in Jesus. We believe that His sin has reigned
in death, grace has reigned through righteousness unto eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord. We believe that. We believe God is holy, infinitely,
glory. Glorious, we believe that he
does according to his will in the armies of heaven and among
the inhabitants of men. We believe that he chose in grace
a people and gave them to his son before the world began. We
believe that Christ stood as their surety, their glorious
surety, and that in that covenant, that everlasting covenant of
grace, he is the mediator, the angel of the covenant. Everything
depended on him. We believe that Christ came into
this world for that purpose, on that mission of dying as that
surety and as that substitute and saving all those people by
himself and for his glory. We believe on him. We believe, Peter says, what
you say. You know, Brother Scott mentioned
a book by old John Bunyan, a very familiar book called Pilgrim's
Progress. And I'd already been thinking
about that very thing this morning. Because in Bunyan's Pilgrim's
Progress, a Christian is pointed to a wall. And there is a fire burning beside
that wall. And there are men there throwing
water on that fire trying to extinguish it. But it seems like the more water
they pour on it, the more efforts they make to extinguish it, the
bigger the fire gets. And then he looks behind the
wall and there is a fellow there with a vessel of oil pouring
oil on it. That's the way it is with the
work of God's Spirit. He gives us His Spirit and the
Spirit of God gives us faith. And there is every effort by
the devil, there is every effort by the world, always throwing
cold water on that fire, if you will, that fire of faith, that
fire of grace, always trying to extinguish it. But they are never going to put
it out. They are just never going to put it out. And you know what
the sad thing is? It seems like even I myself try
to do that. Sometimes in my failures, in
my falls, in the middle of my faults and all these things,
it seems like that I'm telling myself, there's no way you can
be a Christian. There's no way you could be one
of God's children. There's no way that you could ever believe Do
what you do. Think what you think. Say what
you say. Feel what you feel. And so I'm
kind of like heaping water on it. No way. Then when it's all passed, you
know what? I still believe. People talk about exercising
your faith. You don't exercise faith. Faith
exercises you. If we have faith, we can't help
but believe. Believe me, I've tried. But I
still believe. I believe He's the Christ. I believe that His death His
death because of His perfect life is all my hope. When Paul writes there in Romans
and he talks about God justifying, it is God that justifies. Whatever God does, it can't be
undone. Next thing he says, it is Christ
that died. I believe that. I absolutely
believe that. And the old writer said, now,
to have our faith increased, it's only by thinking of all
that Jesus is and all He is for us in His life, in His death,
in His work, He Himself as is revealed to us in the Word The more we think about Him,
the more we learn about Him, the more we hear of His glory,
the more we study His Word, the more, what was it you said? Faith comes by hearing. And we believe. And the more we believe, the
more assurance we have. Because believing is assurance. And the Scriptures tell us this
over and again. It's not what men call easy believism. You
don't believe apart from the grace of God. You don't believe
apart from being born of God's Spirit. You don't believe apart
from the Gospel. You see, trusting is believing.
And he says, in whom you trusted after that you heard the word
of truth, the gospel of your salvation. But Mark 16 says, he that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved. John 3.15 says, whosoever believeth
in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And faith is not the cause of
our salvation. But it is the consequence of
our being saved. He that believeth on Him is not
condemned. He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me,
hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but
is passed from death unto life. Christ said, I'm the bread of
life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger. He that believeth
on me shall never thirst. This is the will of Him that
sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son, and believeth
on Him, may have everlasting life, and I'll raise Him up at
the last day. It goes on and on. He that believeth on the Son
of God hath the witness in himself. What is that? The Spirit of God
giving us faith to believe what God says. I love an old illustration. I've
worn it completely out almost, but it just pictures for me the
way this really is. And the story was that Napoleon,
you know, he was a little fellow who rode a big horse. Like they say, all hat and no
cattle, probably. But he rode a big horse. And
so he's riding that horse kind of slow along and looking at
the troops, inspecting the troops. And all of a sudden the horse
gets spooked and he begins to rear up and buck and fight about
to throw Napoleon off his horse. and a private steps out of the
ranks and he grabs that rein of that horse and settles him
back down. When he got the horse settled
back down, Napoleon looked at him and said, thank you, Captain. So that young man, he just pranced
right into the mess tent, the officer's mess tent, to get him
something to eat, and they all looked at him and saw what he
appeared to be and they said, what are you doing in here? He said, I'm a captain. He said,
isn't this where the captains eat? They said, who said you
were a captain? He looked out the tent door and
there was Napoleon on that horse and he said, he did. He did. And when we look itself, And
we see every other reason to not have hope, to not believe. God's people believe what He
said. We believe the words. And through you enabling us to
believe the words, we're sure. We're sure this is the Christ.
In my early life, I bounced through all the religious thought. But
one day the Lord sent a gospel preacher. And he preached the truth. I found nothing better. I've
not found anywhere else to go. I've not found anything that
glorifies God and gives this sinner hope but the gospel of
the free and sovereign grace of Christ. The gospel of His
imputing to me the very righteousness of God in Christ. I've not found anything better
than that. So, it's like the hymn writer
said, keep us Lord, oh keep us cleaving
to thyself and still believing till the hour of our receiving
promised joys from thee. You say, how could you have a
promised joy in Christ? God bless you.