Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going to be preaching from the book of
John chapter three, beginning at verse 14. And the title of
the message is whosoever believeth, whosoever believeth. And we're
gonna look at John 3 in verse 14. This is after Christ had
told a Pharisee, a religious man lost in his sins, one who
was trying to make his way to heaven, to be right with God
by his works. And he told this man, you must
be born again or you cannot see or enter the kingdom of heaven.
He told him this new birth was a sovereign work of God the Holy
Spirit. It comes under the preaching
of the gospel, and it's not by the works or the efforts of men.
It doesn't come by natural birth. It doesn't come by works. It
doesn't come by the will of men. You cannot decide your way into
heaven. Now, once God brings you to a
saving knowledge of Christ, you'll make a decision, and you'll make
the right one. It'll be a decision for Christ. But it's not your
decision that saves you. It's Christ, it's the grace of
God. I made the statement one time, I was preaching out in
Oregon, and a young man was in the audience, and I made this
statement, I said, faith does not save you, Christ does. And
he got offended. And I told him, I said, well,
the reason you're offended is you don't believe Christ is your
Savior, you believe your faith is. You believe He died for everybody,
He made it all possible, and now you did it, you accomplished
it, you sealed it by your believing. That's not what the Bible teaches.
The Bible teaches that we must believe. Without faith it's impossible
to please God, whosoever believeth shall be saved. But it's not
the believing act that saves the sinner, it's what Christ
did on the cross that saves a sinner. Now you may think I'm splitting
hairs there, but I'm not. This is important, and I want
you to look at this. Christ told this man Nicodemus, he said,
Nicodemus, salvation is not by your trying to attain heaven. Look at verse 13. No man hath
ascended up to heaven. You can't work your way to heaven.
You can't pray your way to heaven. You cannot do anything to earn
your way to heaven. He says, but he that came down
from heaven, even the son of man which is in heaven. Salvation
has to be brought to us by the sovereign work of God. I love
that passage over in Isaiah chapter 46 where God's talking about
His doing, His sovereign will, and He said, He told people,
He said, look unto me, you stiff-necked and hard-hearted. He said, I
bring near my righteousness. Now, how does He do that? He
brings Christ. Christ came into the world to establish righteousness.
Well, verse 14, he makes it clear. John 3, 14, he says, and as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the
Son of Man be lifted up. Christ came down from heaven.
And then Christ was lifted up. Why was he lifted up? We'll talk
about what it means to be lifted up. Verse 15, that whosoever
believeth in him, not just believeth now, but whosoever believeth
in him should not perish, but have eternal life. You see that? Now, even as Moses lifted up
the serpent in the wilderness, that's a reference back to Numbers
chapter 21. And you remember where the children
of Israel, Moses with them in the wilderness, they're wandering
in the wilderness, and they began to complain against Moses, complain
against God, they were unbelievers, and God sent fiery serpents,
that's poisonous snakes among them, as a judgment against the
people. Moses stepped in and interceded
for the people. And God told him, he said, make
a serpent of brass and put it up on a pole and set that pole
in front of the people. And you tell them all who look,
all who look shall live. Looking to that serpent. Now
that brass serpent was a picture of Christ who took upon himself
the sins of his people. That's why it's like a snake,
cursed of Satan, cursed of God. And He took upon Himself the
sins of the people and went to the cross and died. And that's
why we look to Him. Look unto me and be ye saved,
all the ends of the earth. And so we are to look to Him.
We are to believe in Him. We are to rest in Him. But here's
the point. Unless the serpent was lifted
up on the pole, all the looking that they would do would not
save them. And unless Christ is lifted up
on the cross, you can believe till you're blue in the face,
and it'll do you no good. You see, the ground of salvation
is not our believing. The ground of salvation is the
death of Christ on that cross. And that's what he says, he must
be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have eternal life. Believe what? Now, this is the
point I'm trying to make. Lifted up. Well, how must Christ
be lifted? He must be lifted up on the cross
to die for the sins of His sheep in order for them to even have
faith. Christ said over in the book of John chapter 12, let
me read you this portion over here in John chapter 12, where
he's talking about his death on the cross for the sins of
his people. And he talked about being planted, planted like a
seed in the ground to bear fruit. Over in John chapter 12 in verse
31, Christ says, now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the
prince of this world be cast out. Now what's he talking about?
Well, look at verse 32. And I, if I be lifted up from
the earth, will draw all unto me. All who? All of his sheep,
all who believe. And this he said, signifying
what death he should die. So he must be lifted up, just
like that serpent on the pole in Moses' day, which was a type
of Christ. Christ must be lifted up on the
cross. But let me tell you another way
he must be lifted up. He must be lifted up from the
grave. Now what does that mean? Well,
that means that he did the job. That means that he accomplished.
the redemption of his people. That means he secured their salvation. It means that sins were born
away, he satisfied God's justice, and he brought in everlasting
righteousness, whereby God is just to justify his people. You see, the question of questions
concerning salvation and condemnation is this. How can a holy and just
and righteous God remain holy and just and righteous, and still
justify, forgive, declare righteous a sinner like me. He must be
just. He cannot just overlook sin.
God is a just God. He must punish sin. The soul
that sinneth must surely die. The wages of sin is death. God
cannot just overlook sin and say, forget about it. God's mercy
and God's love and God's grace are not the products of God just
forgetting sin or being compassionate. God's love and mercy and grace
are the products of God being just to save sinners by their
sins being punished in the person of another, a substitute, who's
able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him.
And that's the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says that God made
him to be sin. How did God make him to be sin?
God legally charged, accounted, imputed the debt of the sins
of his people, his elect, to Christ. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians
5, 19, God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them. The word world there is not every
individual without exception. It's those to whom God does not
impute their sins. He imputed them to Christ. And
he sent Christ to the cross. God sent forth his son, made
of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under
the law. Galatians 4 and verse 4. And so Christ died for those
sins. Justice was satisfied. It pleased
the Lord to bruise him. He was scourged and died for
our transgressions, the transgressions of his people given to him before
the foundation of the world by God. Sovereign electing grace. And in his obedience unto death,
he established that perfect righteousness that God requires. The perfect
righteousness of God. Not only did God make him to
be sin, Christ who knew no sin, but he did it that we might be
made the righteousness of God in him. And that righteousness
of God is what's revealed in the gospel. Romans 1, 16 and
17. It's the entire merit, value,
worthiness of what Christ accomplished on behalf of His people on that
cross to redeem them from their sins. He brought forth an everlasting
righteousness of infinite value, which God has imputed, charged
to them. And so they are justified, they
are forgiven and declared righteous before God. That's why he had
to be lifted up from the grave. The Bible says in Romans 5 and
verse 21, as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace
reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord. The grave could not hold him
because righteousness had been established. Sin demanded his
death, our sins imputed to him, but righteousness demanded that
he live. that he be raised from the dead
on the third day. And that's the righteousness
that we who believe stand before God in, the righteousness of
Christ. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believeth, Romans 10 four.
Now out of that righteousness, we say he must be lifted up on
the cross. He must be lifted up from the
grave. He must be lifted up into glory. The Bible says not only
did he suffer, bleed, and die, was buried, and arose again the
third day, he ascended unto the Father, and he's now seated at
the right hand of the Father, ever living to make intercession
for us. And he's in control. And what
he does in that intercessionary work is he sends forth the Spirit,
he constantly intercedes for God's people, John said that
in 1 John 2, that when we sin, we have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And so in that, he intercedes
for us. There's one mediator between
God and men, the man Christ Jesus. And in that capacity, he sends
forth his spirit into the world to find his sheep, bring them
under the preaching of the gospel. And there's another way that
Christ must be lifted up. He must be lifted up in the preaching
of the gospel. Any preacher who spends his time
in the pulpit or on television or on radio or on the internet
lifting up himself or lifting up men and women is a false preacher. I'm here to lift up Christ, to
preach Christ, to exalt Christ in the glory of his person and
the power of his finished work. And that's how he must be lifted
up in the gospel. And then thirdly, he must be
lifted up in the hearts of his people. They must be born again. That's what Christ told Nicodemus. He must be lifted up in their
hearts by the power of the Spirit as they hear that gospel, and
they're given a new heart, they're given a new will, they're given
a new spirit, spiritual life, spiritual desires. They're given
faith to believe. You see, out of Christ's righteousness
comes faith. Faith to believe. That's why
faith is the gift of God. Faith is not the ground of our
salvation. Faith is not a condition we must
meet in order to be saved. Christ is the ground of salvation.
What He accomplished is what is necessary for us to be saved.
And out of Him, He said, if I be lifted up, I will draw all to
Me. How is He going to draw? By God-given
faith. For by grace are you saved, through faith, that not of yourselves.
It's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
This is Ephesians 2, eight through 10, verse 10. For we are his
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, not because
of, unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we
should walk in them. So he says, Christ must be lifted
up that whosoever believeth in him. Whosoever believeth. And
there's no use people sitting around saying, well, if I'm not
one of God's leg, doesn't matter what I do, or if I'm not one
of his sheep, doesn't matter what I do. Oh, no. You're to
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, the command of God to
all people who hear the gospel is believe. If you do believe,
You're a miracle of God's grace. If you do believe, it means he's
given you life. It means he's given you the gift
of faith. If you do repent, he's given you that. Now look at verse
16. Now this is a powerful verse. It's a much misused verse because
people use it to teach the cursed doctrine of universal atonement,
universal love. It says, For God so loved the
world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. That's
not saying God loves everybody without exception. The Bible
itself speaks otherwise. You go to Romans 9, it says,
Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. And I hear preachers
say, well, that's not talking about individuals, that's talking
about nations. Well, let me give you a little
information on that. Nation, it's not talking about,
it's talking about two individuals, Jacob and Esau. But even if you
do insist on saying it's talking about nations, nations are made
up of individuals. So in actuality, you'd be saying
God would hate more than just Esau. The Bible says God hates
all workers of iniquity in Psalm 5 And somebody ain't told me
what I said. Well, aren't we workers of iniquity
not in God's sight now we're sinners and we do iniquity, but
God has taken our iniquities and Charged them to Christ so
that we're not workers of iniquity. We're sinners saved by grace
Bible says in Psalm 32 blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputed
not iniquity. I Bible says in Romans 8 verse
33, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's
God that justifies. So this is not talking about
any universal love. God has a people all over this
world, Jew and Gentile. They're called his elect. They're
called his sheep. They're called his church. Christ
called them his brethren. He said, I lay down my life for
my brethren. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.
and He gave His only begotten Son to save these, and that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." There's
no situation where a sinner comes to Christ as Christ is identified
and distinguished in the true gospel, and that sinner believes,
and God would turn him away. Not at all. The Bible says everyone
of God's sheep, Christ's sheep, everyone of God's elect, everyone
whom God sent Christ to save and everyone whom he did save
will believe. They'll come to saving faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ. God's not willing that any of
them should perish, but that all of them should come to repentance.
And that's a gift from God. And so he says in verse 17, for
God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but
that the world through him might be saved. And how's the world
gonna be saved? The Bible says constantly in
the Old Testament through a remnant according to the election of
grace. John, in 1 John 5, he made the statement, I think it's
verse 20 or 21, he said, we are of God, but the whole world lieth
in wickedness, or in the wicked one. You see, God's going to
save his people from their sins. And he's going to damn every
sinner who stands before him without Christ. There is no love
from God apart from Christ. Outside of Christ, there's only
death and condemnation. The wrath of God abides on him.
But in Christ, washed in his blood, clothed in his righteousness,
there's eternal life and glory. Now you come to Christ, God's
elect will. If you come to him, that's an
evidence you're one of his elect. So he says in verse 19, he says,
or verse 18 rather, he that believeth on him is not condemned. If you
believe on Him, you're not condemned. You didn't earn that. He says,
but he that believeth not is condemned already. If you live
and die in unbelief, you're condemned already. He says, because he
hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
You don't have Christ. You don't have a mediator. You
don't have a Savior. You don't have a righteousness. You don't
have any blood to offer unto God, the blood of the Savior,
the blood of the Lamb of God, behold the Lamb of God. And so
he says in verse 19, and this is the condemnation, that light
has come into the world, that light refers to Christ as he
has identified and distinguished in the gospel, the gospel light. Well, here's the condemnation. Light has come into the world
and men love darkness rather than light. Now listen to this,
because their deeds were evil. Now that's an eye opener. Remember
Christ said, except you be born again, you cannot see the kingdom
of God, kingdom of heaven. This is an eye opener. The gospel
gives sinners no hope. no hope of salvation, nothing
of salvation by their works and their efforts and their deeds.
And in fact, it leaves us with only one hope, and that is Jesus
Christ crucified and risen from the dead, his blood, his righteousness
alone. And the very efforts of man Now
listen to me, the very efforts of man to save himself are evil
in the sight of God. Why are they evil? Now, he says,
because their deeds are evil. The deeds here are not the, it's
not the acts of immorality, even those they can be included. The
deeds here are man's efforts to be good. His efforts to save
himself by his works. Those deeds are evil. Now, why
are they evil? You know, a person who's trying to be religious,
trying to be sincere, trying to be good, and you're telling
me that those deeds are evil? If, if they are the ways that
you're trying to attain and maintain salvation, yes. Why? Because
they deny the glory of God. The glory of God is salvation
by His grace freely given in the person and work of Christ.
So if you're trying to be saved by your works, being the best
you can be, you're denying His glory. In fact, you're trying
to rob God of His glory. Will a man rob God? That's not
just talking about tithes. That's talking about man's views
of God. You think God will save you or
bless you or accept you based upon your efforts? Well, you're
denying His glory. God's glory. And then secondly,
they're evil because they deny Christ. Galatians chapter two
and verse 21, Paul wrote, if righteousness come by the law,
by your works, then Christ is dead in vain. He told him over
in Galatians chapter five, he said, if you think circumcision
or anything else that you do in the flesh, recommend you unto
God, then you've fallen from grace. In other words, you've
denied grace. You didn't lose your salvation.
You never were saved to begin with. That's a denial of Christ. For a sinner to seek salvation
by his words, is a proclamation, whether he states it this way
or not, that Christ didn't have to come. He died in vain, and
that's evil. The third reason that it's evil
is because it lifts up the sinner in pride. I believe, so I'm better
than those who don't believe. You may not say it that way,
but that's what you mean. I made the right choice, they
made the wrong choice. That's evil in the sight of God.
It denies our sinfulness, our depravity, the natural man. You see, when God brings a sinner
to salvation, he humbles that person, like that old publican.
God be merciful to me, the sinner. And so he goes on in verse 20,
he says, for everyone that doeth evil, hateth the light. See,
the light exposes Those things. The light shows that that which
is highly esteemed among men is an abomination to God. What
men highly esteem, God hates. Think about the apostle Paul
in Philippians chapter three, when he talked about all the
things in his past, before conversion, before he was born again, that
he thought recommended him unto God. And then he come around
and he saw the glory of God in Christ and he said, I count it
all but done that I may win Christ. Well, everyone that doeth evil,
hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deed should
be reproved, exposed. But verse 21 says, but he that
doeth truth, That's a believer who has God-given faith. He's
been born again. He does truth. He believes in
the Lord Jesus Christ. He comes to the light that his
deeds may manifest that they are wrought in God. They're the
work of God. The good deeds of a sinner saved
by grace, the good deeds of a born-again person is the work of God. That's what he's saying. It's
God's work. In other words, he can't even take credit for that.
A sinner saved by grace, whatever good you do in God's sight, you
can't take credit for it. Doesn't mean you earn anything
from God. You don't earn your rewards, plural, by your works. The Bible doesn't teach that.
The reward is singular. It's the reward of grace that
Christ earned for us. And it involves all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. But that person, who
does truth. He's been born again. He sees
the kingdom of God with spiritual eyes. He hears it with spiritual
ears. He has a new heart, a new mind, a new will, and he believes
in Christ, and he loves to walk in the light of God's truth. He loves to hear about Christ
and God's grace in him, his righteousness, his blood. Tell me the old, old
story. I love to tell the story. And
all that he does is to the glory of God. It's not to brag on himself. Paul wrote, God forbid that I
should glory, boast, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom the world is crucified unto me. And all of these things
show that whosoever believeth is saved, shall be saved. is
safe, shall be safe, continues, shall be brought unto glory.
There's no way they can be lost. Christ said, all the father given
me shall come to me and him that cometh me, I will in no wise
cast out. This is the will of him that
sent me that of all which he has given me, I should lose nothing,
but raise it up again at the last day. I hope you'll join
us next week for another message from God's word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1-1-0-2-3. Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia
31707. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.theletterofgrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.