we're going to be in the book
of Proverbs chapter 8 if you'd like to turn there. Proverbs
chapter 8. Something that all of the Lord's
people are made to desire, made to long for, made to want, is
the truth. The truth. Most people don't
want to know the truth about themselves and about God. But
the Lord's people want to know the truth about themselves and
about the Lord. They desire to know Him. and
His truth. And we know why Christ tells
us, ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.
That's why we want the truth is because that's what sets us
free. A lie's not gonna set us free, it's gonna put us in bondage.
The law can't set us free, it's gonna put us in bondage. So what
sets us free? The truth about the Lord Jesus Christ, what He
accomplished. We love God's truth, don't we?
Now that's in John 8, 32, what I just quoted to you. And then
in verse 36, so 32 says, you shall know the truth and the
truth shall make you free. In verse 36, it tells us that who's
the truth giver. Who's the one that gives the
truth. We just read about the Lord Jesus Christ being coming a man
and he was full of grace and full of what? Truth. That's who
he is. He says, I am the way, the truth
and the life. That's his name. Let's read this text, chapter
eight, verse six to 11. Here, for I will speak of excellent
things, and the opening of my lips shall be right things. For
my mouth shall speak truth, and wickedness is an abomination
to my lips. That word abomination means disgusting.
All the words of my mouth are in righteousness. There is nothing
forward or perverse in them. Can you say that? Can you say
that? All the words of my mouth are
in righteousness. There is nothing forward or perverse
in them. There's nobody here that could
say that, can they? We know one who could say that, the truth,
that's who could say that, the Lord Jesus Christ. They are plain,
they're all plain to him that understandeth and right to them
that find knowledge. Receive my instruction and not
silver and knowledge rather than choice gold for bet wisdom is
better than rubies and all the things that may be desired or
not to be compared to. I want to draw your attention
back to verse six and seven. And I want you to see three things.
He says that he will speak excellent things, number one, and the opening
of my lips shall be right things, number two, and number three
is verse seven, for my mouth shall speak truth. Speaking truth
is to speak excellent things. Speaking truth is to speak right
things, and that's what we're gonna look at tonight. I titled the message, What is Truth?
What is truth? Pilate asked the Lord that question.
Did you know that? We're going to turn over there
in just a second, but Pilate and the Lord had Lord been brought back to
where Pilate was. Pilate entered back into the
judgment hall and he says, are you the king of the Jews? And
the Lord said, thou sayest. And he said, that was the reason
I came. I came to this earth to tell
and preach the truth of the Lord, the Father. That was the whole
purpose. And Pilate looked at him. Last time we have any recording
of Pilate saying anything to him, and he says, what is truth?
And walks out. Think about that. He's talking
to God, the creator of the universe. We just read that in John 1.
That's why I wanted to read that. He created all things. The details
of everything that he made was for the salvation of his people,
for the love that he had for his father and the love that
the father has for his people. This is the glorious truth of
God's election and everything that had to transpire, he did
it all in order for you and I to be redeemed. Every bit of it.
Pilate couldn't see that. Neither can we, unless the Lord
reveals his truth. It's a mystery. It's a mystery
that only God can reveal. It's the secret that's hidden
from man. It's found in Christ. He must
be the one to reveal it. He has to be the one to reveal
it. Now it's in black and white, plain and simple right here,
but we can't understand spiritual things because we're in the flesh.
The flesh receiveth not the things of God. The flesh is enmity against
God. We can't receive spiritual things. We gotta be made alive. And we
read in John chapter one already that says that we're born not
of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. That's the good news. We are
born again. Our new man can receive the things
of God. Pilate's standing in the presence
of God, and he couldn't see him, and he couldn't believe him,
and he couldn't hear him any more than you and I can hear
each other the way we're talking right now. He couldn't hear him
in the heart. He was dead. Think about the grace of the
Lord coming to where we are and revealing himself. I mean, he
passed by so many others when he healed the, well, think of
the maniac of Gadara. He was the only one in Gadara
that he healed. They told him to depart the country as soon
as he healed that maniac. Think about the Samaritan woman.
He went right there to Samaria for that purpose, and then he
left. Think about the man that he went through at the Pool of
Bethesda. We don't read him healing anybody else at the Pool of Bethesda,
and it's a place of sickness, a place of impotency. So you
know there's gonna be a bunch of people there. They didn't
know when the angel would come down and trouble the water, so they would be there all the
time. But he walks right up to that man and said, wilt thou
be made whole? See, the Lord being the truth does all things
right, all things right, especially in salvation. Turn over to John
chapter 18 with me. This is that account I mentioned
about Pilot. Chapter 18 verse 33 tells us,
Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again and called
Jesus and said unto him, Art thou the king of the Jews? Jesus
answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did the
others tell it thee of me? Pilate answered, I am not. Am
I a Jew? He smarts off to him. Think about
that. He's talking to God and he says,
am I a Jew? That's sarcasm. That's what that
is is sarcasm. Hurt thou the King of the Jews?
Verse 35, Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and
chief priests have delivered thee unto me. What hast thou
done? Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom
were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should
not be delivered to the Jews, but now is my kingdom not from
hence. Pilate therefore said unto him,
art thou the king then? Jesus answered, thou sayest that
I am a king. To this end was I born, and for
this cause came I unto the world, that I should bear witness unto
the truth. That's it right there, isn't it? Bear witness unto the
truth. Everyone, now this is important, don't miss this. Everyone
that is of the truth, heareth my voice. If you're not of the
truth, you cannot hear his voice. He's the doer of that. He's got
to be the one that does that. Verse 38, Pilate said unto him,
what is truth? When he had said that, he went
out again unto the Jews and said unto them, I find no fault. I
find in him no fault at all. Now I mentioned that he doesn't,
I don't remember him speaking to the Lord anymore after that,
but it does say in verse one, then Pilate therefore took Jesus
and scourged him. So I don't know, it may have
been a words exchange then as well, but you understand what
I'm saying. There's no other recorded words that were used. That's
the last time we see. He smarted off to him and he says, what
is truth? He didn't have a need. He wasn't a sinner. Have you
ever wondered why the family that you have, the people that
you love, they want to be around you, but they don't want to talk
about the gospel. They don't want to come to church. They
don't have any interest in it. You're wondering why that is.
You love it so much. You love the gospel. You love our Lord.
And yet they don't have a need. Why? They don't know they're
sinners. When God makes you a sinner,
he makes you have a need. That man at the pool of Bethesda
had a need. That's why he was there. Blind
Bartimaeus wouldn't shut up because he had a need. He's got to have
Christ, and that's the need he puts in his people. We gotta
have him. We gotta have him. What is truth? Pilate was not
of the truth, therefore he hated the truth. He couldn't hear the
truth. The simplicity of the gospel is this, unless God is
willing to show mercy on wretched, vile creatures such as us, we
have no hope of eternal life. He must choose to show mercy.
He must choose to show grace. And if he does, it will be unto
everlasting life. Unless God elects a person or
ordains them to eternal life, unless Jesus Christ dies for
those who the Father elects and puts away their sin by himself
without our input, without anything, we don't have anything to do
with it, because if we do, we'll mess it up. Unless he does it all, all
the saving, all the keeping, all the calling, we're lost. We're lost. Here's the good news.
That's exactly what he did. That's exactly what he did. He
did it all. He did it all. unless he predestinated a people
according to his own goodwill and pleasure, not according to
our works, not according to our works, but he chose because of
his own goodwill and pleasure for his glory, for his glory,
then none of us will be saved. But the good news of the gospel
is Christ Jesus came into the world for what reason? To save
sinners, to save sinners. Do you have a need? If you have
a need, the truth is the Lord Jesus Christ is the only one
that can meet that need. The only one. He saved them on
purpose. He saved his people on purpose.
Every person that finds themselves believing the gospel, God did
that on purpose. It wasn't by happenstance. It
wasn't by accident. I was at the place that I was
supposed to be at the time I was supposed to be whenever I heard
the gospel. And the first time I heard it,
I hated it. I was mad. Because I thought, well, that's
not fair. That's not fair. If God does the, if he selects
some people and not others, that's just not fair. Man should have
a choice in the matter. Then, whenever the Lord made me a sinner,
I realized, actually, it's the opposite way around. I understand
why he would hate Esau. I don't understand why he would
love Jacob. You understand what I'm saying? Whenever he reveals
you are a sinner, you no longer stand. Who art thou to reply
us against God, O man? That's what he says. You find
fault with God. This is God we're talking about.
He can do whatsoever he wants to. He's not answering to me
or you. We're going to go up there and
say, hey, I don't think that that was very fair. What good is that? That
ain't going to do any good. But that's people's mentality.
They really believe it. Oh, it's not true. If I can put
it this way, what was unfair is the Lord happened to die in
our place. I mean, you get what I'm saying
there. It was right, the Lord made it right, but that should
have been me, and that should have been you. That was unfair. It was just, the Lord made it
just. I don't misconstrue my words. It was just that it should
have been me, and it should have been you. And say, Him, I want you to think about this.
I've been your pastor for three years and you know I don't speak
on sensational things and that's not my intention whenever I bring
this to your attention. But this is glorious what the
Lord showed me. He created a world and all that was in it for the
purpose, the sole purpose of redeeming his people. That's
the sole purpose of this world. But I want you to think about
all the detail that had to go into it from the rising of the sun.
Well, let's back up even farther. Let's talk about the mountain
that he spoke into existence, Mount Calvary, Golgotha. God
created this mountain by speaking it into existence, knowing that's
where I'm going to die for my people. He made every rock where
it was supposed to be right there. This is the God I'm talking about,
our God. Then when the time came, he allowed this seed of a tree
to start budding and coming forth. And so that exactly when he was
33 and a third year, that tree would be the right size for them
to chop it down and hang him on. Think about the care and
the love that he put in just to grow the tree, allowing the
sun, making the sunrise every day, sending the rain to that
tree. People say that we don't preach a message of love. That's
not true. We preach the only message of
love. He so loved his people. He so loved his people. Somebody
said, well, that's his world there in that verse. God so loved
the world. That's very true. The Lord was talking to Nicodemus
who thought salvation was only to the Jew. The Lord's saying,
no, it's for every race. It's for every nation. It's for
every tribe. It's for every tongue. It's not
about you. It's about me, my election, my choice. He said,
the world. God so loved the world, he gave
his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life. That information, brethren, Thaddeus
gave you does pale in comparison, though, to the thought that Christ
Jesus became a man. God became a man. God, the one
who cannot die, died. I don't understand that, but
that's what the scripture says and we believe it. Our God died
for his people. He laid down his life for his
people. It's the only way we could have
been delivered from what we are. This is the truth that we're
talking about. This is the excellent news he was saying earlier, the
excellent news. He did this for us. What does the scripture say?
He took not upon himself the nature of angels, but he took
upon himself the seed of Abraham. The seed of, he became a man.
He became a man. I find it amazing if you look
early on, I think it's in the book of Luke, where he's 12 years
old and he goes down to the temple and his mom and dad head on back
to where they're going and he's still there and they start worrying
about him. They have to travel back a day's journey and they
said, what do you, what do you do? Can you imagine how you'd
feel towards your children? What are you doing? And he said, wish
you not that I must be about my father's business. And the
scripture says after that, that he grew in knowledge and understanding
of the Spirit. Now, I want to explain this because
I haven't heard this too often, but this is the truth. The Lord,
when he was a baby, he had to learn. You understand how incredibly
hard it is for my brain to wrap around that? He had to learn.
He learned to humble himself. He learned to be obedient unto
the Father. The Lord taught him by his spirit. Isn't that glorious?
Think about humility of our Savior just to save this, to save this
man, to save you. He called the births of every
soldier to be born that knelt him to the tree. Every person
that plucked his brow, plucked his beard, and spit on him, he
made them for that purpose. Over in Acts chapter two, verse
23, Peter's preaching to him, and he says that you've taken
the Lord, the King of glory, and by wicked hands, you've crucified
and slain him. But he also says it was by the
determinate counsel of God. That's important. It was the
determinate counsel of God. That means every single detail
of that day, God purposed, and that's why it happened the way
that it happened. Why did he create creatures that were going
to kill him? To save his people from their sin. To save his people
for him to get all the glory. Proverbs 8.6 here for I will
speak excellent things the opening of my lips shall be right things
for my mouth shall speak truth. What is truth? Simply put, Christ
is all in salvation and it is finished. That's pretty simple. That's pretty simple. When the
Father saw the travail of his soul, he was satisfied. By his
blood, he made us the righteousness of God in him. By his death,
he justified his people. By his resurrection, that's evidence
of all of that. He sanctified us. That's why he's our wisdom,
that's why he's our truth, that's why we love him, is because he
first loved us. What bigger display can you think
of? There's none that compares, and even in the, nothing can
compare to what he did for his people in obedience to the Father. The most amazing part about the
truth to me is it's not by what you and I do. Everything we do
in this life is merit-based. Your performance at your job
will determine your raise or your unemployment. Am I wrong? Your performance. Well, with
God, it's not your performance he's looking at, it's the performance
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not your works or my works
that he's looking at, it's the finished work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And the Lord sees that, he says, justified. Every person
he died for, justified. It's by grace. That's why we sung that song.
It's all by grace. Grace is, Some have said it's unmerited
favor. I understand that, but really, we did more than unmerit
it. We couldn't merit it. It's God's
favor based upon his love for his people. And that's all that
it's based upon. It's not based upon you and I
in any way, is it? Well, brethren, did he finish the work completely?
Yes, he did. Yes, he did. Did he leave anything
undone? No, he did not. He said when he died, it is finished.
and he's God, and God cannot lie. God cannot lie. That was his promise. It's finished
was his promise to his people. I finished the work. He even
told his father in John 17, I finished the work you've given me. He
finished. He's not gonna lie to his father.
He's not gonna lie to his people. He can't lie. It's finished.
It's finished. Salvation complete. Now I wanna point out to us,
Pilate here, It says, what is truth? And if there's ever been
something any more clear than a sad account, this is definitely
one of the saddest, just because he's talking to the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's in a position of power over the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know they have the Lord bound. They bound him in the garden
when they took him out. So you know he's bound. Pilate knew who the Lord was
by word of mouth from the Jews. He knew who the Lord was because
he was standing in front of him, but he didn't know the Lord.
He knew who he was, but he didn't know him. You can know the truth.
You can know truths about the scripture. You can know truths
about God. You can know the truth that you're a sinner, but that
doesn't mean you know the truth, the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the
one that must reveal himself. He's the one that reveals his
truth, that he is God and I am not. that he successfully redeemed
everyone that he died for, that I'm a sinner that needs a savior,
and he's the savior. You can know about life and eternity.
You can know a lot about yourself, about man. I read a lot of things
that says you need to get to know yourself better. I'm like,
I don't want to know myself better. I'm serious. I want to know more
about him. I want to know more about him.
I don't want to know more about me. You understand what I'm saying? If the Lord's made you a sinner,
the more I learn about myself, the more I loathe myself. I don't
love myself more. And these people that look in
the mirror at their self for hours, I don't know how that
works. I never had that problem. Men love themselves by nature,
but oh, the Lord makes his people sinners. I'm not saying don't
look in a mirror. Don't twist my words around everybody. Sometimes the watches, they're
saying, are you saying this? No, I'm not saying that. Use
your mirror, it's fine. I just mean we're vain, aren't we? We're
vain. We're vain. So you can know about life and
eternity. You can know about man. You can know about yourself.
You know a lot about yourself. You can be truthful with yourself.
People talk about being truthful with yourself. But nobody can
be truthful with themselves in spiritual things until God makes
you a sinner. Then you're truthful. Why? You
have the truth. You have the truth, you have
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what makes you honest, that's
what makes you truth, be truthful. Unless you know the truth, the
Lord Jesus Christ freely by his grace, we know nothing, we know
nothing. Somebody, people always talk
about, as soon as they find out I'm a pastor, they'll ask questions
about theology, they'll ask questions about doctrine, and I'm just
thinking to myself, listen, Come see a man that told me all things
ever I did. Is this not Christ? This is my
hope. That's my hope. We don't, he's
the name that we use. We don't use another man's name
for their doctrine or whatever. We preach true doctrine. There's no, but he is, if you
know him, you know his doctrine. There's no way around it. I'm not even sure the definition
of theology. I don't care to tell you. All I know is, is we
preach Christ and he's enough. He's enough. I don't need my
brain to spin or to learn facts. I need to know him. If I know
him and the free pardon of sin, I have hope. I can know, I can,
I have a bunch of books at home. Some of them I haven't read.
Uh, they were given to me as a gift and I could know every
word of those books. They're, they're scriptural,
scriptural books, men's opinions. And some of my commentaries I
like what one preacher said he said you know what shines a lot
a lot lot of light on those commentaries I said what he said the Bible. pretty clever. Anyways, I can
have the Bible memorize I can have all those books memorize
I could know everything that a man could possibly know and
still not know him. he's the doer of that. he's the
doer of that. Paul didn't say, I know the doctrine
that I preach. Paul didn't say I've mastered
theology. Paul said, I know whom I have believed. And I'm persuaded he's able to
keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. What
did he mean by that? Well, he bore our sin in his
own body. That's what he meant by that. He knows that he was
able to put away that sin. What have you committed to Christ?
Well, once you're a believer, you commit everything to him,
don't you? But at the time of his death, he went ahead and
took it because we couldn't give it to him. How are we gonna give
the Lord our sin? There was no way we could've. But he took
it. He laid his life down to put
it away. This is the truth that sets his
people free. We must know him. How do you
know him? How do you know him? How do I
know if I know him or not? Well, it's not up to you and
I to decide. You and I are powerless when it comes to spiritual things.
You and I are powerless when it comes to the things of God.
We can neither constrain Him nor restrain Him. We have nothing
to offer Him. Matter of fact, anything we would offer to Him,
Scripture calls righteousness filthy rags. I mean, anything
we would offer to Him is an abomination. It's disgusting, the way we smell.
The Lord Jesus Christ, the Scripture says, He went up to the Father
a sweet-smelling savor. We've got to smell like Him.
He's pleased with Christ, not me. Everything about us, the
Lord, we're just sin from the top of
our head to the bottom of our feet. That's our problem, isn't
it? God is a spirit, and we're helpless
pertaining to spiritual things. That's the simple truth of the
scripture, isn't it? God is a spirit, they that worship must worship
in spirit and truth, and you and I are born dead in trespasses
and in sin, so we don't know anything spiritually, or in the
flesh. They that are in the flesh cannot please God. So if we're
going to worship God, if we're going to know God, if we're going
to know the truth, he's gonna have to be the doer of it. He's
gonna have to be the one that shines his light for, just like
we read in John chapter one, he shined his light in darkness
and darkness comprehended it not. I love the fact that whenever
light shines in darkness, darkness has to flee. Darkness can't comprehend
light. That's what he does to his people.
He shines the light of his gospel into their heart, giving them
a new heart, giving them faith to believe God, giving them repentance,
letting them know that they're sinners. He becomes the most
wonderful, beautiful, Precious thing to a sinner because of
that reason. If you ever see yourself, if
I ever see myself as truly a sinner, we won't have any liking of ourself. We will see everything that it
costs God to save us. And we will loathe ourself because
of that. But yet we don't focus on ourself. We focus on him and
we worship and rejoice in his work. We can't hear His voice unless
He calls us to, but hear the good news. I love to quote this
verse in John 10, but since we're there in John, just turn back
to John 10. I don't know that I've read it
to us in a while. I quote it most of the time. We'll read a little more since
I'm reading the whole thing, but we'll start in 22, chapter 10 of John. And it was at Jerusalem, the
Feast of the Dedication, and it was winter, and Jesus walked
on the temple in Solomon's porch. Then came the Jews round about
him and said unto him, How long dost thou make us doubt? If thou
be the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you
and you believe not the works that I do in my father's name.
They bear witness of me, but you believe not because you're
not of my sheep. As I said unto you, what's pretty plain, isn't
it? You're not of my sheep. You're either born a sheep or
you're born a goat and a goat can't become a sheep and a sheep
can't become a goat. It's just how it is. You're not of my sheep,
as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I
love this part, I know them and they follow me. I was driving
down the road the other day, and there's a little farm off
behind our house as we're taking Bethany to school, and they have
little, they have sheep, and I haven't seen a lot, I haven't
been around a lot of sheep in my life, but they have these little lambs, and
one of them ain't much bigger than a loaf of bread. And I thought,
if I'm the Lord's lamb, I am perfectly fine with that. Because
you watch that shepherd, how he tends to the sheep, takes
care of the sheep. Sheep's dumb. I can relate to that. Sheep will
drown itself in water, fast-moving water. It's got to have slow.
That's why he says, he leads you by the steel waters in Psalm
23. Because sheep will drown themselves.
They'll suck it up the nose. That's me. That's me. And yet
we see the Lord being our good shepherd, as the scripture calls
him. He brings us to the place of green pasture. He prepares
a table before us in the presence of our enemies. And what's that
enemy? Well, this is one of them. Isn't this one of them? Our adversary,
the world, there's all enemies, but we have a table prepared.
What is that table? That's the body and the blood
of our Savior. That's the bread of life, the
fountain of living water. No, if I'm his sheep, I'm perfectly
fine with that because everything needed he's providing. What does
a sheep contribute? Wool? He doesn't need my wool. He doesn't need anything from
me. He provides everything. He provides
everything. My sheep hear my voice, and I
know them. That word know, it's a word,
the intimate word, know. Intimate, I know them personally.
Not just know about them, it's how we know him. It's how we
know the truth, it's that word, that same word. I know them and
they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall
never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
My father which gave them me is greater than all and no man
is able to pluck them out of my father's hand. I and my father
are one. Then the Jews took up stones
again to stone him. The Jews took up stones again
to stone him. What did he do wrong? He told them the truth. So it wasn't wrong at all. It
was right. They're the ones in the wrong. He just told them
the truth and they could not believe it. They did not want
it. They hated him. They said away with this man,
crucify him, let his blood be upon us and on our children.
We got no use for him. Why? Because he exposes their
righteousness. He exposes their righteousness.
The reason man will not come to Christ is our own sin and
our own unbelief. We don't need help not coming
to Christ. We won't. We're bound to this nature. He
said to us, I think we're going to turn over there in a minute. Chapter eight said, you will
not, you will not come to me forever life, eternal life. You
will not come to me for eternal life. Why you're, we just told
him you're not of my sheep. You're not of my sheep. The good
news is God chose to save. That's why this is excellent
things. That's why this is right things. This is why this is truth.
No man come to the Father, but by me. That means he's got to
do it. I used to think that that meant,
okay, well, we have to go through Christ first. No, he has to bring
you to him first and then present you to the Father. That's how
that works. He has to do it all. Turn over to John chapter eight,
just two pages back. Verse 31, then said Jesus to
those Jews which believed on him, if ye continue in my word,
then you are my disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free. They answered him, we be
Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man. How sayest
thou ye shall be free? Jesus answered them, verily,
verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is the
servant of sin. This is, The mystery that men
cannot see. This is the secret, things that
are hidden. We're not sinners because of what we do. We're
sinners because of what we are. Men think that if they have moral
reformation that they're able to take care of some of the sin
that they do, they're getting better. That's not true. Everything we
do in an attempt to get better by keeping the law is iniquity.
It just makes it all worse. These right here said, we've
never been in bondage. They weren't made sinners. They weren't in
bondage, they said. Lord said, yes, you are, not
physically, to your sin. That's what he's telling, that's
what he's telling us. You're in bondage to your sin. If you have not
been made to come to Christ, if the Lord has not called you
to come to him and believe on him, you are, we're in bondage.
That's the only possibility. They, like Pilate, could not
receive the truth and they sought to kill him. They sought to kill
him just like they did in chapter 10, just like they did in chapter,
was it five? And they tried to kill him many
times. And I love the truth of it. He said he passed right through
him, right by him. They couldn't see him. Did he
become invisible? No, he just didn't let them see
him. He's God. He was God. Look at verse 35 with me. The servant abideth not in the
house forever, but the son abideth ever. If the son therefore shall
make you free, you shall be free indeed. That's it right there.
That's the truth. The Lord's gonna have to make
me free because I'm in bondage to my sin. I know that you are
Abraham's seed, but you seek to kill me because my word hath
no place in you. His truth, his word has no place
in them. I speak that which I have seen
with my father and you do that which you have seen with your
father. They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father.
Jesus said unto them, if you were Abraham's children, you
would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me,
a man that hath told you what? The truth. A man that hath told
you the truth, which I have heard of God, this did not Abraham. He's telling them, the Lord's
the one that told me to tell you this. The Lord's the one that
gave me this truth that I'm telling you Abraham couldn't do that.
And yet you're not following me. Here ends the key. The key to righteousness and
holiness, brethren, if the Son makes you free, you're free indeed. That's it. That's it. If he makes
us free from the bonds of sin, from the bonds of the law, the
things that we cannot keep, none's good, so we can't get better,
he's got to set us free. He's got to set us free. But
do you know what the flesh says? I'm not in bondage. I've never
been in bondage. I'm free. I'm a free man. Americans
would say, well, I was born in freedom. I was born in America.
Okay. It's not what he's talking about
here. He's talking about the sin that we are, all of us. Born
in bondage. And we're in so much bondage,
we don't even realize it. We don't even realize it. It's
bondage that we're born and we're born captive to our sin. Captive to our sin. Sad part is, is that it's impossible
to do anything about it. Good part is, is Christ says,
I'm the way, the truth, and the life. I am the way, the truth,
and the life. No man come to the Father except
the Father which sent me, draw him. And those cords of love,
those are the everlasting cords of love. He loved, that's what
he said in the Old Testament. I've loved thee with an everlasting
love, therefore I've drawn thee. Yeah, though you can't break
those cords. Look what the Lord says to these
Jews next in verse 41. You do the deeds of your father.
If you ever, if you ever have seen our Lord be blunt, straight
to the point, completely honest, and he always was completely
honest. I'm not diluting that in any way. I'm just simply saying
he he's about to tell them straight to their face forward. Jesus
said to them, Well, wrong spot. Let's see. 41, ye do the deeds
of your father. Then said they to him, we be
not born of fornication. See, it's all physical. Do we see the problem here? They
can't think spiritually because they're dead. Every bit of this,
it's all physical. We're of Abraham's seed. That's
not relevant in salvation. We're not born of fornication.
That's not relevant in salvation. The Lord's talking spiritual.
They can't hear a word he's saying. We be not born of fornication.
We have one father, even God. Jesus said to them, if God were
your father, you would love me. For I proceeded forth and came
from God. Neither came I of myself, but
he sent me. Why do you not understand my
speech? Here it is. Even because you cannot, cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father, the devil.
That's what he tells them. You're of your father, the devil.
And the lust of your father you will do. He was a murderer from
the beginning and abode not in the truth, because there is no
truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh
of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it. And because
I tell you the truth, you believe me not. Which of you convinces
me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do
you not believe me? He that is of God, Heareth God's
words, ye therefore hear them not, because you are not of God. A little later on in this chapter,
he tells them, before Abraham was, look at verse 58, Jesus
said to them, verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham
was, I am. And look what they did next.
Then they took up stones to stone him. Why? He told them the truth. He tells us, I believe it's multiple
places he says, you're going to be hated for my name's sake.
His name is truth. You're going to be hated for
the truth's sake, the gospel's sake. The flesh hates this truth. And yet it's all of our hope,
isn't it? Why can't they hear? Because of their father, the
devil. That's everyone left to themselves.
That's not just these people. That's everyone collectively
less themselves. And what that does is not lift the believer
up in pride and say, well, now I'm, we don't, our hope is in
Christ. If we begin to examine ourself
for evidence, we find really fast. Oh no, I may not be a believer. And you know, that's true. That's
why we don't look at ourself. We look to Christ. We don't look
to ourself though, and see that we're a believer and say, well,
that makes me better than so-and-so that's not believing. No, it
does the opposite. It says, Lord, We don't say this
irreverently. We don't do this to actually
challenge the Lord or question the Lord, but we say, why me?
And we have to go back to the cross. We're not looking at ourself
because God said so. That's why. God did it. That's
why. It's not of you, but how wonderful it is that it's you.
How wonderful it is He chose you, I mean, for His glory and
His honor. Oh, unless God calls us to hear
his voice and receive his truth, maketh believe, give us faith
to hear and enable us to hear, we'll never hear. That's so clear,
isn't it? It's so clear in these chapters.
Man will always try to convolute the truth. He'll always try to
lie about the truth. Satan lied about the truth from
the beginning. So God didn't say that. He said this, changed
one word. Man will always refuse God's
truth, but God made a remnant. God left a remnant. And that number, by the way,
is more than any man can number. You can't count that high. And
I reckon it's irrelevant that they didn't have computers back
then that could count higher, because that would still be a
man counting, even though it's, so they can't even have the technology
to count as high as that number's gonna be, is what I'm trying
to say, isn't that? Wonderful. Lord left a remnant according
to the good pleasure of his will. He purposed to redeem. In closing,
I just want to go back to our text and read that one more time. Proverbs eight verse six. Here for I will speak of excellent
things in the opening of my lips shall be right things for my
mouth shall speak truth. And wickedness is an abomination
to my lips. All the words of my mouth are
in righteousness. There is nothing forward or perverse
in them. What is truth? What is truth? Well, our doctrine, our theology,
our gospel hinges upon these words. Salvation is of the Lord. Jonah chapter two, verse nine.
Salvation is of the Lord. and Christ is all in salvation.
John 14, six, Acts 4, 12, Colossians 3, 11, all those tell us that.
Salvation's of the Lord and Christ is all in salvation. Everything
we believe hinges upon that. He is God and he's successfully
redeemed. You that desire to be saved from
sin, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe on the truth.
Forsake this lie. Forsake this lie and believe.
on the truth. Besides him, there is none other.
What is truth? Christ is all and it is finished.
That's truth. Let's pray. Father, we ask that
you would take these words and bless it to our understanding
for your glory. In Christ's name we pray, amen.