Seeking for the helm of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to John chapter 14, the chapter
we read, and reading for our text just part of verse one. Verse one, ye believe in God,
believe also in me. The whole verse reads, let not
your heart be troubled, He believe in God, believe also in me. John 14 and verse 1. And it is the emphasis in the
last part of this verse that is upon my spirit. We could be almost forgiven by
to think that this is just a mild statement, a statement that hasn't
tremendous weight and importance upon it. Ye believe in God, believe
also in me. And yet it is absolutely vital. We would remember that the Jews
did believe in God. They claimed to Moses, they believed
that Christ would come. And they couldn't be accused
in a way at this time as being those that didn't believe in
a God that made heaven and earth. But we know even today there
are those Jews They do not believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the
Christ. They still believe in God, but
the me spoken of in our texts, they don't believe in him. We read in the accounts of the
missionary journeys of the apostles, the opposition that they had
from the unbelieving Jews, how they stirred up the multitudes,
how they had such enmity and hatred against the very idea
of the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, of Him
being set forth. This very truth in our text,
ye believe in God, believe also in me, as that was preached and
set forth It brought such hatred and such opposition. The Lord had a controversy with
His people in Jeremiah's day, and He said of them in that day
that they made His people to forget Him, by their dreams and
by the things that they were telling to each other. He says
in Jeremiah 23, of those prophets that prophesied lies in my name,
saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed, in verse 25, 26. How
long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy
lies? Yea, they are prophets of the
deceit of their own heart, which think to cause my people to forget
my name by their dreams, which they tell every man to his neighbour,
as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal. So the Lord
is saying, their fathers like him, In the days of Elijah, they
forgot the Lord's name for Baal. They followed after Baal. And you say, well, that is easy
to see. They are forsaking the true and
living God, and they are going after an idol god. They are going
after Baal. But then we have prophets, and
they're not saying that they are prophets of Baal, but they
say that they are prophets of the true and living God, and
Jeremiah had many in his days. He would speak the words of the
Lord, and along comes another prophet, and so he says, he's
one of the prophets of the Lord. Jeremiah says, The Lord's judgments
are coming, Babylon is coming, and then you get another prophet
saying, no, within two years there shall be peace. And it
is said here, they cause my people to forget my name by their dreams. He says, the prophet that hath
a dream, let him tell a dream. And he that hath my word, let
him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat,
saith the Lord. And there's a picture. Those,
instead of speaking the words of the Lord, that are words of
truth and would turn people away from sin and wickedness, they're
speaking words that they say come from God, but they actually
come from their own home. And they come from dreams, they
come from things that they've imagined, but the effect is to
cause people to follow them, to believe them, and to forsake
the true and living God, and not to trust in Him. And that is the great, great
danger, really, that is in the Church of God today. Yes, we
know we have cults, we know we have those that, like the Jehovah's
Witnesses, are pinning their hopes upon what men have said,
and have wrong views of the Lord Jesus Christ, the same as the
Mormons, and the Roman Catholics as well, adding almost Mary as
a fourth one in the Trinity, and putting the church on level
with the scriptures. And we have that, but we can
also have others that say, no, we believe in a God, and we're
not following any, maybe, denomination, a people, but we believe there
is a God, and there is a Heavenly Father, and there is Heaven,
and whether for dreams or impressions that they've had, they are convinced
that there is, there is peace after death, there is a hope
beyond the grave, But that hope is not in Christ, it's not based
upon the word of God, it's not based upon the gospel of our
Lord Jesus Christ, but is very plausible and is very attractive
to man. Because it gives a promise of
hope without any requirements at all, without any need to follow
any teaching without any need of the Lord Jesus Christ felt
in their souls, he's not mentioned, he's not sought after, there's
nothing about him in their profession or hope at all. And that really
is a big danger today. There's many, like the various
organisations that will say you must believe in God to be a member
with us. And yet you must not define that
God. You must not specify that he
is the God of the Bible or the God of this chapter, which is
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If you say there is salvation,
it mustn't be only in one name, because everyone should be able
to have a hope in some other name. And what is to be really
noticed in the Scriptures and in our lives, it is the offence
of the cross, it is the offence of our Lord Jesus Christ that
is the point and will be the point of persecution and being
separated from, if ever it comes, it will centre in the law. With those that died as martyrs
during the persecutions under the Roman Catholic Church, it
was that they would not follow with the blasphemous mass in
making the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, a remembrance ordinance,
to be a sacrifice and to be a re-crucifying the Lord afresh. And because they would not allow
that, then it cost them their lives. And again, it was a doctrine,
a teaching that was bound up with the Lord Jesus Christ. They would not allow that any
should be partner of his throne, that Mary did not play a part
in salvation at all. She was a sinner Like any other,
the scriptures are very clear. Yea, a sword shall pierce through
thine own soul also. And when she spoke, when her
cousin came, John the Baptist, she rejoiced in God, my saviour. She needed a saviour. Her very
son was her saviour. And when there come those that
would teach other than that, then we realise that that is
the way that leads to eternal ruin. And so when we have in
our text, we believe in God, believe also in me, and the first
reading of it, you think, the Lord is not putting the emphasis
on it that we really must go on it, but he is putting it on
it because all of his other teachings he makes it abundantly clear,
if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall perish in your sin. There is none other name given
among men whereby we must be saved. The hymn writer, he describes
it very clearly in one of our hymns, 1149, what think ye of Christ is the test to try both
your state and your scheme. He cannot be right in the rest
unless you think rightly of Him. As Jesus appears in your view,
as He is beloved or not, so God is disposed to you and mercy
or wrath is your lot. And the heading over that hymn
is the vital knowledge. of Christ and it is based upon
Matthew, Matthew 22 and verse 42. The Pharisees had gathered
together and Jesus asked them, saying, what think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? They say unto
him, the son of David. You see, they knew the scriptures,
they knew what Christ should be. He saith unto them, how then? Doth David in spirit call him
Lord, saying, and this is from Psalm 110 verse 1, The Lord said
unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine
enemies thy footstool. Then he asked them this question,
If David, then call him Lord. How is he his son? And we read that no man could
answer him a word, neither doth any man from that day forth ask
him any more questions. Of course, the answer was in
the line to Christ. We trace it through in the first
chapter in Matthew. And we trace through David. his son right through to Joseph,
who they supposed was the father of our Lord. But it is the kingship
line, it is the line to Christ. But if we take it with Luke,
we go right through David as well, and that's the bloodline
right through back to Adam and to God. So in that sense, he
was David's son. But as the eternal son of God,
He already existed. He already was with the father. He could still, he could then
call him Lord as well as his son. And this they could not
understand, they could not fathom. And so it is a point I feel very
much that sometimes we we may get hardened to some of the truths
of the gospel, we know, we hear them set before us so often,
and yet when we get someone that comes with a different view,
that may seem very plausible, we start to rock, and we start
to wonder, well, maybe it is right, maybe what they have is
from the Lord, or maybe It really is to be relied on, but when
it is really looked at, and the effect of it, instead of it drawing
a sinner to Christ, it drives him away. Instead of bringing
one upon the rock and what really is saving, it's making one believe
a lie. It is putting feelings above
the Word of God. We need to be very careful about
that as well in our own circles. Whatever experience that we might
have, whatever feelings that we might have, and don't get
me wrong, the true faith will have feelings. It will profoundly
affect us. It will touch us. We will experience
the sense of condemnation, the sense of the blessing of there
is therefore now no condemnation. The joys that the disciples had
as they believed, as they rejoiced in God. You know those things
and feel those things. That Satan is still the same. He can still give those impressions
and dreams and even things that people will follow And they'll
say, well, I got that from a sermon. The whole test is, does it bring
us to think more and more highly of Christ, and to be more and
more dependent upon him, and to trust solely upon him? Or does it lead away from him? Does it lead away from the precious
truths concerning our Lord. And so this word here, ye believe
in God, believe also in me, it is absolutely vital. And if we
are those that were saying, well, we believe in God, We believe
we'll get to heaven, and we believe that it will be well when we
die, and very often those that will be resting in things that
they've had, words or visions or things like that, they'll
again be resting in their own works as well. You'll hear utterances,
well, I do make some mistakes, but my life is not too bad, and
since I've had these impressions, my life has turned about, and
I live much better life and my family, they will acknowledge
it so. And underlying it, there is still,
there's still an under the law, there's still looking for righteousness
of their own and not of the Lord. And so I really feel it, whatever
form it may come, something that will make us feel that it is
well with us after death, If it is not on a well-founded knowledge
of Christ, and the more and more we are taught, the more we'll
feel that there is none other name that's parted from Him,
it is death. And so I wanted, really this
evening, to just go over some of those precious truths. We've
sung of some of them already. but those things that are inseparable
with Christ and how much he is needed and how precious he is
to the people of God. We think of how the Father himself,
we read in Paul's epistle to the Colossians, it hath pleased
the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. The witness
that our Lord had was a witness from His Father. This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear ye Him. It is the Father
that gave Him the commandment, as our Lord said, what I should
speak and what I should do. I have power to lay down my life,
I have power to take it again, This commandment have I received
from my father. And that authority, the Jews
asked him, they said, by what authority doest thou these things? Who gave thee this authority? They wanted to know that. And
our Lord put them onto questions that they couldn't ask him. And
he said, neither do I tell thee by what authority that I do these
things. The Lord Jesus Christ had the
authority, and the witnesses, the empty tomb, the witnesses,
all of the miracles that were done in his Father's name, he
said, they bear witness of me. John, in his gospel here, the
emphasis is right the way through it. that the Lord Jesus Christ
is the Son of God. And we should remember that as
an anchor really to keep us from the errors that abound. Many other signs we read at the
end of chapter 20, many other signs truly to Jesus in the presence
of his disciples, which are not written in this book, but these
are written, that he might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the
Son of God, and that believing he might have life through his
name. And so the testimony of scripture,
the testimony of our Lord, it is pointing to those truths,
as our Lord says in John 6, that no man cometh unto the Father
but by me. There is no other way to heaven,
no other way to the Father. So clearly he says it in verse
6 of this chapter, John 14, verse 6, Jesus saith unto him, I am
the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. And so the word is very clear
on this and yet Satan is very clever, the hearts are very deceitful
and the whole testimony, the history of the Church of God
is strewn with those that have had the truth before them but
have chosen out an easier way, chosen out a way that is not
God's way. And we may say that is not the
scripture's way, is not the way of the Word of God. It's no wonder
that today the Word of God is pulled about and man seek to
disannul Genesis and to disannul the epistles of Paul and to make
out that These things are not the inspired Word of God, and
yet it is the Word of God that bears testimony to the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is the Spirit of prophecy,
and it is Him that is in all the Scriptures. In the end of
the Revelation, the Spirit and the Bride say, Come, even so,
come who? Come, Lord Jesus. There is the
expectation of the true Church of God that the Lord will, as
he said, as the angel said when he ascended up into heaven, that
he shall come in light manner with power and great glory. This should be a real aim to
us. It's no wonder that the apostle
says, I determine not to know anything among you, save Jesus
Christ, and him crucified. I just, I feel it is something
to be so warned against, and it is so tragic when there are
those that obviously they know there is an afterlife, they know
they have a soul, they know there is a God, they know there is
a heaven, and presumably they know there is a hell, and they've
got something that gives them some peace and expectation and
hope, but it's not through the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord
is not precious to them. They don't look to him, lean
on him, they don't need him. They've got their own righteousness,
their own ideas, they won't be found in the house of God, they
won't be found amongst the Lord's people, but they'll be found
resting. in something that comforts them,
as a plaster that will not be a remedy at the last day at all. Asaph, he saw in Psalm 73 the
prosperity of the wicked, and he said that even then there
was no bands in their death. They'd found something to comfort
them on a dying bed. Yet when he went into the sanctuary,
then he understood their end. And so our Lord, he says, ye
believe in God, believe also in me. Do we? Do we? Well, I want to consider then
a few things as what our Lord is. Our Lord is our Redeemer. Anna, when our Lord was brought
into the temple, spake of Him to all them that look for redemption
in Israel. We need a Redeemer. Without the
shedding of blood there is no remission. We are sold, we are
under the sentence of death and without that blood shed we cannot
be redeemed from that death. We would understand if someone
was under the sentence of death and they'd put a million pounds
on their head, said, if you can come up with that money, you
can pay that money and that person can be set free and they will
no longer be under the sentence of death. You think, well, you
need that money, you need that payment. Well, Lord Jesus Christ
is the only one who is able as a man, as a true man, and Spotless
man, perfect man, sinless man, able to shed his blood and lay
down his life and take it again to redeem his people. He needed
to be truly God, truly man. And he needed to shed his blood. He needed to lay down his life. That redemption that is in Christ
Jesus is that blood that was shed at Calvary. That is what
is set before us, reminded every time we have the Lord's Supper. You do show forth the Lord's
death till he come. There is no other redeemer. Everyone that gets to heaven
is redeemed. Everyone that is saved, everyone
that is given the new birth is redeemed. I lay down my life
for the sheep, the Lord said. a power to lay it down, a power
to take it again. The Lord is the Redeemer, and
may we remember that. There is no other Redeemer. There is no other blood to be
shared. The Lord Jesus Christ also is
our righteousness. We mentioned the chapter in Jeremiah,
and there, in that chapter, and also later on, The name wherewith
he shall be called the Lord our righteousness. And later on it
is the church. The name wherewith she shall
be called the Lord our righteousness. If one dispenses in any way with
the Lord Jesus Christ, we have no righteousness. We have no
righteousness of our own. Not any deeds we do, good or
bad, all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. They are
worse in God's sight than anything. To have a sinner present some
of his so-called good works, his charitable works, So these
outweigh my bad works, by these works I should be able to get
to heaven. A tremendous affront unto God,
even to suggest that that could be so, virtually is saying there's
no need, no need whatsoever for the Lord to come and to live
a perfect life and to live a life that he should give as righteousness
to his people. The Lord Jesus Christ, is the
only righteous one, and it is his gift and imputed righteousness
to a people that believe, that fits them to stand before heaven. If one leaves out the Lord, they
have nothing to stand before God. They must come, they must. appear with all of their own
righteousnesses as filthy rags before the throne, whereas a
believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, he stands spotless before the
throne, he stands in Christ's righteousness, he stands without
any condemnation, and God himself says, there is no spot in thee,
thou art all pure. In the Lord Jesus Christ, When
we think again of the sovereign electing choice of God, the people
of God are chosen in Him from the foundation of the world.
Shall one realize that they are God's children, that they shall
be brought to heaven, that they are chosen, and yet the very
one that they are chosen in, in Christ Jesus, is nothing to
them? In one sense, they're chosen
in Him. In Him, in their lifetime, is
everything. When Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him. There is an
inseparable link with the Lord Jesus Christ and His people from
eternity. I have loved Thee with an everlasting
love. And therefore with loving kindness
have I drawn thee. And God commends his love toward
us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Yes, he who says, ye believe
in God, believe also in me, he died for his people while we
were yet sinners. And enmity to God, and hating
God, and fighting against him, and he it is that gives his people
eternal life. He says, I give, that is the
Lord Jesus Christ. I give unto them eternal life.
They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out
of mine hand. A man that puts light on Christ,
who has no word for him, no time for him, no part of his testimony
speaks of Christ, he is going against that one of the Lord
says that if there is life, I have given that life. I have given
that to that man, to that woman, to that child. When our Lord was teaching the
vital necessity, except ye eat the flesh and drink the blood
of the Son of Man, ye have no life in you. Many were offended. They walked back, went no more
with them. The Lord said to the disciples,
will ye also go away? They said, to whom can we go?
Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe and are
sure that Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Ye believe in God, believe also
in me, the Lord Jesus Christ, is he that the Holy Spirit has
spoken of in this chapter, he shall receive of mine and shall
show it unto you. If you and I have a Holy Ghost
religion, remember the disciples had to tarry at Jerusalem until
they were endued with power from on high, the Holy Ghost will
never speak of himself, but always speak of the Lord. He'll point
a sinner to Christ, and Christ will be precious to that sinner.
unto you which believe he is precious. We see not yet all
things put unto him, but we see Jesus, made a little lower than
the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory
and with honour. Paul sets forth our Lord in his
letter to the Philippians, how that he was obedient, obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross, Wherefore God hath
highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every
name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow. Shall
there be those get to heaven, have a hope of heaven, that are
not bowing to the Lord Jesus Christ here? The Lord said, ye
call me Lord, Lord, and ye say, well, for so I am, but ye do
not the things that I say. The Lord Jesus Christ will be. to those who have an interest
in His precious blood and in His salvation, that He will be
precious to them, very precious, very vital, that they should
know Him, whom to know is life eternal. When we think of the
Lord Jesus in heaven, He is the one mediator between God and
man, the man Christ Jesus. Without the Lord Jesus, we have
not a mediator. He is the one mediator, Jesus
Christ, the righteous. He ascended up into heaven. What
for? To make intercession for us. That is why he is in heaven,
to appear in the presence of God for us. How is he exalted
upon earth? He is exalted to give repentance
and remission of sins unto Israel. Every poor sinner that is convinced
of sin, that cannot turn away from their sin, that feel the
bonds of their sin, that feel the depth of it, that groan,
that long, that plead unto the Lord for repentance and remission
of sins. The Lord Jesus Christ alone is
exalted to give that. He gives repentance. He gives
a softened heart. He bends the heart, the mind,
the will to Him. He is the author of that. And those two things go together.
Where sins are forgiven, then repentance will be given. And
not one of the Lord's dear people will say, repentance belongs
to me. I can do it. I can change. My
heart, I can turn, each one will feel it, that they need the Lord
to do that for them. How many times in Scripture is
those cries to the Lord, revive us again? We think of Psalm 51,
how David said, pleased with the Lord to blot out his transgressions,
to restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. And those mercies,
those blessings, they come to us through the Lord Jesus Christ. How many different ways we have
our Lord set before us in the Word as to be everything for
the people of God. Whatever is their want, whatever
is their need, truly there is a fullness that resides in Him. that is pleased the Father should
dwell in the Lord Jesus Christ. The hymn writer is very clear,
I could from all things parted be, but never, never, Lord, from
thee. The necessity of the Lord as
we have those further discoveries of our sin to deliver us from
the condemnation of a broken law, to keep us in the way, to
present us faultless at last before the throne, to come again
for us. He says, in my father's house
are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you, I go to prepare a place for you. Is that not precious
to us in the thought of it, that the Lord is doing that? And if
I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive
you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. What are
thoughts of heaven, of eternal peace, of some blessedness, where
Christ is no part in it? So different than the word of
God, for he says that he will come to his people in the Aaron
article of death, and he will bring them, where? To some place
and just leave them and not be near them, no. Father, I will
that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that
they may behold my glory. The whole desire of the Church
of God is after Christ, and a true believer needs Him, pleads Him
all their life through. All our petitions are offered
up in His name. He says in this chapter, in verse
13, whatsoever ye ask in my name, that will I do. that the Father
may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my
name, I will do it. That is why we always plead his
name when we come to prayer, whether at the beginning of the
prayer, the end of the prayer, or both, we realise that we need
to come through the name of the Lord. We are accepted in him
and in him alone. Christ must mean everything to
us, and if we grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ, He will become more and more needful
and more and more precious. More and more we realise our
own hell-deservedness, our sinfulness, our inability to keep the law
of God, to even think one thought aright, but our dependence upon
the Lord will be more and more deep, and we more and more value
what we have in Christ, that he is everything that a sinner
can need. The gospel, the good news of
salvation, is not the righteous, but sinners, Jesus came to call. It is a message of hope and salvation
to those that really feel that they are sinners. The hymn writer
says, sinners can say, and none but they, how precious is the
Saviour. And that's not just knowing about
sin, it's actually feeling it. Here on my heart the burden lies,
and past offences pain my eyes. And so we need to have those
solid views of the Lord Jesus Christ in John's second epistle
He is very emphatic of how we should react when any comes with
a wrong view of the Lord Jesus Christ. He says in verse 7 of
2 John, For many deceivers are entered into the world who confess
not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver
and an antichrist. Look to yourselves. that we lose
not those things which we have wrought, but that ye receive
a full reward. Whosoever transgresseth and abideth
not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God. He that abideth
in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the
Son. And he has this warning, if there
come any unto you and bring not this doctrine, Receive him not
into your house, neither bid him Godspeed. It is absolutely
vital that we have those clear views of the Lord Jesus Christ
as being the one thing needful and that we think of these things. When any will speak of hope through
death, beyond the grave, that leaves him out. Any other name,
any other religion, any other creed, you might say, yeah, but
the person has such peace, and they speak with such conviction,
and they are so persuaded, and it's so affected their life,
what they've seen or heard or believed. Do not believe them. Do not follow them. Do not go
after them. If Christ has no part in their
life, don't have any part of their teaching or their way at
all. But where you see one and Christ
is precious, they speak of him as one that they really know
and love. Follow that man. The Apostle
Paul says, be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. We only follow a man as far as
he follows Christ. And however plausible, we know
the devil shall come in as an angel of light. But one thing
the devil will never do, he'll never point a soul to Christ.
You'll find some deceit, some way, some plausible way that
you can have salvation without Christ. And you don't need him
in your life. And you don't see a beauty in
those precious doctrines and teachings concerning our Lord
Jesus Christ. The word said he's the captain
of our salvation, but oh, you don't need that captain. The
word says that he's the head of the church of God, but you
can be part of Christ's church, but not acknowledge him as the
head. How solemn. The Lord is the head
of the church. He is the captain of our salvation. He is the altogether lovely. He is our hope and hope for heaven. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. May the Lord grant us this
persuasion and this blessing of believing in the Lord. Ye believe in me, believe in
God, believe also in me. May the Lord bless us with that
believing to the saving of our souls. With the heart men believeth
and with the mouth confession. is made unto salvation. Amen.