I don't have any news on anybody,
so we'll continue. Arlene's not feeling well tonight,
but her eye's doing better. So her eye's, I think she's got
vision in the bad eyes now, 20-25, which is pretty good. So pretty
good. And she's not having as much
pain, so that's good too. The doctor said the infection
is improving, so we're thankful for that. injuries pretty good she's uh... still in some pain quickly okay
let's begin our worship service to him uh... four forty five
forty five not four forty Ye servants of God, your master
proclaim, and publish abroad his wonderful name. The name all-victorious of Jesus
extol. His kingdom is glorious. It rules over all. God ruleth on high, almighty
to save, and still he is nigh, his presence we have. The great congregation, his triumph
shall sing. Scribing salvation to Jesus our
King. Salvation to God who sits on
the throne. Let all cry aloud. and honor the Son. The praises of Jesus the angels
proclaim. Fall down on their faces and
worship the Lamb. Then let us adore and give Him
His right. All glory and power and wisdom
and might. All honor and blessing with angels
above. And thanks never ceasing, infinite
love. Number 205. Free from the law, oh, happy
condition, Jesus has bled and there is remission. Cursed by the law and bruised
by the fall, grace hath redeemed us. Once for all, O sinner, receive
it. Once for all, O brother, believe
it. Cling to the cross, the burden
will fall. Christ hath redeemed us once
more. How are we free? There's no condemnation. Jesus provides a perfect salvation. Come unto me, oh, hear His sweet
call. Come, and He saves you. Once for all, O sinner, receive
it Once for all, O brother, believe it Lean to the cross, the burden
will fall Christ hath redeemed us once for all Children of God,
O glorious cause His grace will keep us from falling, passing
from death to life at His call. Blessed salvation once for all. Once for all, all sinner receiving
Once for all, all brother believing Kling to the cross, the burden
will fall Christ hath redeemed us, once for all If you have your Bibles, turn
to the Gospel according to John chapter 1. Take our text tonight from verses
4 and 5. We'll read the first five verses. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was
in the beginning with God. all things were made by him and
without him was not anything made that was made in him was
life and the life was the light of men and the light shineth
in darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not let us pray
now father in heaven most merciful and gracious lord
who indeed has redeemed us by his grace. We are thankful as
your children that we are your children. We always have been. We are thankful that because
your children were flesh and blood, the Lord Jesus came down
from heaven and took upon himself the same flesh and died in the
room instead of his people purchase their salvation and was made
to be their righteousness wherein they now stand accepted in the
beloved righteous and holy before thee all because of what you've
done. We are thankful for your spirit that takes the things of Christ
and shows them unto us that reveals to us all things we are freely
given through Christ. We pray for those who are sick,
those who've lost loved ones. We ask Lord your help and strength
for them. We pray for ourselves tonight
as we gather here that you might be pleased to take the things
of Christ and show them to us. Cause us to rejoice in him as
he's revealed in this particular character we thank you for your
word it's a lamp unto our feet a light unto our path gives us
understanding and knowledge and does so because you've given
us faith to believe it thank you for all you've done in Christ's
name amen verses four and five says in him was life and the
life was the light of men and the light shineth in darkness
and the darkness comprehendeth it not. This is one of those
passages of scripture that encapsulates the gospel in very plain and
simple language. It covers the concept of time
and eternity and it begins with the beginning of all living things.
That singular thing that's invisible in itself but defined by its
mobility is life. It's invisible. We can't see
it. When people pass away, the doctors don't know where the
life went because they couldn't see it to start with. They know
that the heartbeat doesn't beat anymore, but that's mobility.
That's something that moves and acts. But now, life is gone. That singular thing, life, is
set forth here. And life, all life, in whatever
form, resides in one individual. And that person is the Lord Jesus
Christ. In the same one who made the
worlds, it says in verse three, life is not self-sustaining.
It contains no intrinsic power of itself. Natural life, having
its days numbered and its boundaries established, begins at birth
and begins to diminish its longevity immediately. Life is a vapor. It's one single breath. That's
all life is. Each day that passes is one less
day to live. And that life is in Jesus Christ
and continues until its purpose is accomplished. Whether for
a day or for a century. There is no life outside of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And having been established as
the Creator, He is the proprietor of life. He created all natural
life. breathed into it, its nostrils,
the breath of life, or the ruach, as it's called in scripture.
He created an interdependence of all things, united, each serving
a purpose and serving one another. The oxygen we breathe is supplied
by vegetation. The carbon dioxide we exhale
feeds that vegetation. The dust of the Sahara Desert
is blown into the atmosphere and lands in the rainforest and
supplies the rainforest with necessary minerals and nutrients.
This is the meaning of what Paul wrote when he said, by him all
things consist. And one of the meanings is all
things are united and held together. I read recently, in order for
a fig to ripen, a tiny wasp must bore its way into the center
and die, or the fig will not ripen. The life of this world,
whatever it is, whatever form it takes, whether vegetable or
animal, all of it is in Jesus Christ. It's in Jesus Christ. That life, natural life, cannot
be compared to another life. and that is spiritual life or
eternal life because all natural life is temporal. It's here for
a time and then it's gone. That life, eternal life, is in
Jesus Christ and is indeed Jesus Christ himself. Paul said in
Colossians chapter 3 and verses 1 through 4, he said, Christ,
when Christ, who is our life? He is our life. When he shall
appear, we shall appear with him also. Our life is hid with
God in Christ. It's hid. Why? It's invisible. I know people like to think that
they can do things and act in certain ways and people will
know that they're a Christian. You can't know that. Your life
is hid. Your life is hid. And most of
the time when believers are honest with themselves, they wonder
whether they're a believer or not. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I do. That life is
in Christ. It is the life of the elect,
those who were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the
world and given to Christ in the eternal covenant of grace.
And it is why all life is in Christ and over whom Christ has
given all authority. He said in John 17 too, All authority
is given unto me. that He has authority over all
flesh, that He might give eternal life to as many as God has given
Him. And the glory of God and the
glory of Christ is tied up in that one single thing. Because
before He said that, He said, Lord, glorify Me with the glory
I had with Thee before the foundation of the world. And this is how
God is glorified. This is how Christ is glorified.
He finished the work of salvation. Christ is life, and He is the
Word. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Scripture says
of Christ, His words are spirit, and they are life. And He has
the Word of life, and has the words of eternal life. These
things are appellations that are given to Jesus Christ. All
things that attend anything eternal, spiritual life, is in Jesus Christ,
and it's nowhere else. It's nowhere else. It's never
outside of Him. It says in him was life. In him was life. The believer
is in Christ. Read Ephesians chapter 1. Everything spoken of that God
has done for us is in Jesus Christ. He has chosen us in Christ, predestinated
us in Christ, given us all understanding in Christ, accepted us in Christ.
All of it is in Christ. Our life is Jesus Christ. that
other life, the one we're born with, that life belongs to Christ,
too, and He is that life. He is both natural life and spiritual
life. Sanctification, justification,
righteousness and peace, reconciliation, solace, the love of God and salvation
are only in the Lord Jesus Christ. Over in 1 John chapter 5, our
Lord says this in verses 11 and 12, and this is the record This
is the record. Do you want to know what the
record is? The record is what you report. It's the news. It's the news that's reported.
This is the record that God has given to us eternal life. And this life is in His Son. Verse 12 says it all. He that
hath the Son hath life. And he that hath not the Son
of God hath not life. You can't get plainer than that,
can you? It's either or, isn't it? Then in verse 20, it says
this of the same chapter, We know that the Son of God is come
and hath given us an understanding that we might know Him. That
is true. And we are in Him. That is true. Even in His Son, Jesus Christ,
this is true God and eternal life. and life was in him. In him was life, the scripture
says. This view also declares that
this life that is in Jesus Christ is light, the light of men, the
light of men. The light here in this context
is metaphorical and refers to knowledge and understanding.
Over in Psalm 119, which is all about the Word of God, the longest
of all the Psalms. In Psalm 119 and verse 30, excuse
me, verse 130, it says, The entrance of thy words giveth light. Remember, He's the Word. The
entrance of thy word giveth light. It giveth understanding to the
simple. Now, the simple are folks that
ain't very smart. And that pretty much all humanity,
especially as it concerns spiritual things, they're not smart at
all. But all knowledge and understanding
is found in one place. You remember when they talked
about the resurrection of Jesus Christ or when he was buried,
they said they'd taken away the key of knowledge. The key of
knowledge. And over in Colossians, chapter
2 verse 2 and 3 it talks about that it says and that their hearts
might be comforted being knit together in love and into all
riches of the full assurance of understanding to acknowledge
to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God and of the Father
and of Christ in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge. If you have Christ, you have
wisdom. In fact, He IS our wisdom according to 1 Corinthians 1.
With natural life comes understanding of things natural Of course it
does. The people who have no spiritual
life, they've done some wondrous things. There have been great
advances in so many areas that we can know as children. I remember
when I was a boy, the TV programs, when they wanted to present a
disaster or a tragic incident, it was always polio. They would
have somebody in an iron lung. I don't know whether you know
what that is, but an iron lung is a tube that had a plate that
pressured a person to make his lungs express air and exhale
and inhale. It was a long tube, and they
stayed in that for their whole life. They didn't get outside.
And if you wanted terror in front of a child, you look at those
things, and I think, oh, well, I hope I never get polio. But
then there was an advancement. All of a sudden one day we showed
up at school and they said, we have this sugar cube for you.
And they put a drop of red medicine on that sugar cube and we took
it in our mouth. It was a polio vaccine. and I
didn't get polio and I was, that's an advancement. We have advancements
all the time. They're doing things today that
seemed impossible just when we were young people. We never heard
of the advancements they've made. And they have all kinds of stuff.
All kinds of stuff, space travel, cars, you know. Everything's
advanced, it's wonderful. And that's the natural mind.
Where's that natural mind come from? It comes from natural life.
Where's that natural life? It's not outside of Christ. It's
in the Lord Jesus Christ. The natural realm has understanding
of that which is natural. It says in 1 Corinthians 2 and
verse 11, the first part, it says the man understands man,
understands the things of man. So man in nature understands
the things of nature. Natural man equates, however,
that understanding to the power of his intellect and eventually
attributes deity to himself. I was thinking, I read a book
one time on the five greatest discoveries or inventions that
had been known to man. One was electricity, another
was gravity. These fellas, these old scientists
of old had discovered things like Newton had discovered or
understood gravity. and the guy that invented calculus
and things like that. They didn't do it for themselves.
Saint Francis of Assisi studied nature, studied all animals and
leaves and grapes and all kinds of stuff. He studied them. He
studied them for this reason, to glorify God. That's what they
said. That's what Newton did. He said,
this glorifies God. They studied nature because they
know God made it. And they wanted to understand
the wonders that God had made. Nowadays, a person considers
science to be God. And they believe themselves to
be like God. And so they take upon themselves
great and wondrous and grander ideas that make no sense whatsoever. But natural man will eventually
equate his own intellect. However, unknown to him, unknown
to the natural man, unknown to that natural life and the light
that attends it, that light is in Christ. That light is Jesus
Christ, and one day, not far hence, natural man will be forced
to confess where every knee shall bow and every tongue confess
Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. Every knee is
going to confess that he's Lord. Every man is going to know that
God sent this man into this world, the Lord Jesus Christ, to save
his people. And they're going to know that
someday. But natural man has no light or understanding of
that which is spiritual. Total darkness as far as that
is concerned. First Corinthians chapter 2. First Corinthians chapter 2 verse
11, it says, For what man knoweth the things of man, save the spirit
of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth
no man. but the Spirit of God. If you
look back at verses 9 and 10 of the same chapter, Paul said,
?But it is written, ?Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither
has entered into the heart of man the things which God hath
prepared for them that love him.? uh... most preaching involves
some kind of mystical idea about this they won't talk about the
glories of heaven they won't talk about how these things are
just too much for us we're just beyond imagination you know and
they try to use their imagination talk about watermelons being
as big as volkswagens and trout being as big as moby dick and
silly things like that they talk about green pastures and little
cabins in the corner of glory and they talk about all this
silly stuff if you're a child of god these things are not mysteries
to you They're not mysteries to you at all, for it says, but
eye hath not seen, or ear heard, neither the inner, nor the heart
of man, of things God hath heard for them that love him. But God
hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit. For yea, the Spirit
searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. You know
the deep things of God. What eye hath not seen, and ear
hath not heard, you've seen and heard through faith, is what
it says. but natural man doesn't get that.
It says that even so the things of God knoweth no man but the
Spirit of God. The Spirit of God, it says in
verse 14 and 15 of the same chapter, but the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
unto him. Neither can he know them nor
discern them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he
that is spiritual judgeth, or discerneth, or understandeth
all things yet he himself is judged of no man or understood
by anybody. Nobody understands the child
of God but he understands all things. John will say in one
of his epistles that God has given us an unction from whom
we know all things. In this very same chapter it
says in the last part in verse 16 we have the mind of Christ.
Why? Because we're in Him and all
light is in Him and from Him. Whether natural or spiritual
light that comes from life is all in the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's all in the Lord Jesus Christ. Back in our text, in verse 9,
it says, That was the true light which lighteth every man that
cometh into the world. Whether the light is natural,
or the life is natural, or the life is spiritual, and the light
is spiritual, it all comes from Christ. Outside of spiritual
life and the light that is in Christ, There is only spiritual
darkness. All natural light is darkness. It is. All natural light is darkness. This is made clear in verse 5
when it says this, And the light shineth in darkness, and the
darkness comprehendeth it not. That's an interesting phrase.
The first phrase seems to be kind of an oxymoron because the
presence of light dispenses the darkness and what lies in darkness
is disclosed by the light. That's what it says in Ephesians
5, 13. The light reproves or discloses all things. It discloses darkness. Where
light is, there is no darkness. And yet it here says, the light
shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not. This light
and darkness refers to the estate of lost men and saved men. This darkness refers to the darkened
heart of the reprobate. Remember in Romans chapter 1
it says, because they refused to acknowledge God as He is,
God turned them over to a reprobate mind and the darkness was in
their heart. Darkness was in their heart. That verse in Romans
refers to a darkened heart. What is that? That is the seed
of man's affection and it's illuminated here in the book of John in John
chapter 3. This darkness of heart that comprehends
not light. In John chapter 3 in verse 19
it says, this is the condemnation that light is coming to the world
and men loved. There's the seed of their affection. There's their dark heart. the
heart of darkness, and men love darkness rather than light because
their deeds are evil and they don't want to be discovered.
That's why they won't come to the light. Everyone that doeth
evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his
deeds should be reproved or discovered for what they are. The reason
that the darkness does not comprehend the light is twofold. First is
the fact that the natural cannot perceive the spiritual, and secondly,
the natural man hates Jesus Christ. Christ said, they hated me without
a cause, and marvel not, if they hated me, they're gonna hate
you too. They're gonna hate you too. They hate Christ, and therefore
they hate life. No, they love living, but they
hate true life. They hate spiritual life, they
hate spiritual life, and they fully embrace darkness. fully
embrace darkness in john chapter three verse twenty one i just
rubbers twenty everyone to do with the you will hate the law
over proper chapter eight which is a which is a treatise on the
person of the lord jesus christ his work there he's just said
he's said to be wisdom the wisdom of god but in royal proverbs
chapter eight in verse thirty six is his but he did senate
against me wrong with his own soul all day that hate me love
death. All they that hate me love death. Finally and profoundly the wording
in verse 3 is a theological masterpiece. We go back to our text. All things
were made by him, excuse me, verse 4, in him was life and
the life was the light of men. There is a a systematic approach
to this, these two things. There's a chronological approach
to it. The life that is in Jesus Christ
is the light of men. The life that is in Christ is
the light of men. Life precedes light. Life precedes
light. Man has no natural or spiritual
understanding and knowledge unless or until he's alive. You wouldn't
say of a dead man, he knows a lot of stuff. Would you? You wouldn't go to the graveyard
to ask a dead man a question because he don't know anything.
You see, knowledge and understanding, whether it's natural or spiritual,
you've got to be alive to have it. You've got to be alive to
have it before anything spiritual natural life cannot perceive
the light of the gospel and before anything spiritual or anything
spiritual experientially or experimentally happens to man, he must be spiritually
alive. That has to happen first. That's
a wonder. That's a wondrous thing. Because
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, a dead man who's dead,
in trespasses and sins, God speaks life to them, and suddenly they're
alive. A man who doesn't believe it is an unbeliever. In one instant,
a nanosecond later, because God gives him faith, he's a believer
of all things spiritual. That's a wonder, an amazing thing.
What is that? It's life. They're alive. It's like that child in Exodus,
or rather in Ezekiel chapter 16 that was dead, cast aside,
and thrown away. Christ come by and said when
I saw thee in thy blood it was a time of love and I said unto
thee live. And you lived. You lived. Life precedes everything doesn't
it? Do you have faith? It precedes from life. It precedes
from life. Do you have understanding? Only
if you're alive. In him was life and that life
was the light of men, that life was the light of men. Our Lord
explains that to a Jewish ruler in chapter 3 and verse 3. He says to Nicodemus, verily,
verily, I say unto you, except a man be born again, or born
from above, he cannot see, and that word is Edo, perceive. He
can't perceive the kingdom of God. Now this fellow thought
he knew about the kingdom of God. He thought the Jewish nation
was the kingdom of God. He said, I know you're a man
come from God, because you do these great things. He says,
you can't know that unless you're alive. and not by the birth that
you had from your mother's womb. A whole different kind of birth. Look at verse 5 and 6. Jesus
answered, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a man be born
of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom
of God. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Before
one can perceive, grasp, embrace the kingdom of God, He must be
born. He must be alive. He must be
born from above. That life, that new birth comes
to men only one way. By the word. I don't know how
that works, but it works really well. It's an amazing thing,
but this is what the word of God says in James chapter 1 verse
18. It says, Of His own will begat
He birthed He us. with the word of truth. That's
how it came. When Peter was talking about
being born again, he said, we're not born by corruptible seed,
but incorruptible seed. Even the word of God which liveth
and abideth for ever. This is the word which by the
gospel is preached unto you. All of that is just saying this.
In him was life, and the life was the light of men. and the
light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it
not. Father, bless this store of understanding, we pray in
Christ's name, Amen.