Thank you, Adam. I remember when I first time
I heard that hymn, and I've loved it so much ever since. I was
thinking about what John, when he saw the saints in heaven in
white robes, he asked, who are these? And the angel said to
him, these are they which have washed their robes white in the
blood of the Lamb. That's all. Our hope is that
deeper than the stain of our sin is the blood of the Lord
Jesus. Next Sunday, we are going to
have lunch together after services. Deanna will be leaving us soon
after, I think maybe the next day or something, going to be
with her son out west. So let's plan to stay together
and share our love with Deanna next Sunday for lunch. Jeff,
thank you for that message. I was thinking as you were preaching
that the Lord tells us that Light cannot fellowship with darkness. And then where the scripture
says that we're to come out from among them and be separate, saith
the Lord. There's a good thing in biblical
principles being practiced in a society. It always is better
than lawlessness. But let us not interpret conservatism
or even commitments to biblical principles as being the gospel. There is a difference. I'd rather
have a next-door neighbor that was living their life according
to the Bible than one who was a criminal. But that doesn't
mean that we embrace them as a brother
in Christ. That's a whole other thing. And we're not to make conspiracy with the unbelieving world. We're
to come out from among them and be separate. Let's open our Bibles together
to John chapter 7. John chapter 7. You notice in verse 46 of John
chapter 7, the officers answered, never man spake like this man. The Jews at this time, as you
know, were under Roman authority. And yet the Romans gave the Jewish
leaders, particularly the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin, certain leeway
within their community to enforce their religious rules. And that's why Pilate told the
Pharisees, when they brought Christ to them, to him, you know,
this is a matter of your laws. You've all settled this. And the problem was that the
one thing the Jews could not do is they could not crucify
man. The Romans had to do that. And the Lord was purposed to
be crucified. And so they had to turn him over. to the Roman authorities in order
for the sentence of crucifixion to be carried out. In John chapter 7, the Sanhedrin,
those 70 ruling leaders of the sect of the Pharisees, the religious
leaders of Israel, sent the temple priest out to have the Lord Jesus
arrested and bring him in so that they could do away with
him. And the temple police, who had
great power and great authority among the Jewish people, came
back empty-handed. And the Pharisees said, where
is he? And this was their response.
Never a man spake like this man. He spake with authority, not
like the scribes. We had no authority in his presence. We could not arrest him. It was not yet his time. Now, in the long run, and that's
what I'm concerned with, and I trust that's what you're concerned
with, the long run. Not just the long run in this
world, but the long run in the world to come, eternity. In the long run, the pen is mightier
than the sword. Violence. like the law, might
subjugate people for a brief period of time. But words, words
change men's hearts and minds. The Lord Jesus is called the
Word of God, the Word that was made flesh. the word that dwelt
among us, the one to whom the scripture says, we beheld his
glory as the glory of the only begotten of the father, the one
who was full of grace and full of truth, truth. I don't suppose there's ever
been a generation of people in the history of mankind that have
had to sort through more words than we have to sort through.
Solomon, 3,000 years ago, said, of the making of books, there
is no end, and much study wearies the flesh. How many more books
we have. That was long before the invention
of the printing press. And not only must we navigate
through the words of so many books, but we have every person
who thinks they have a word of importance has a platform on
the internet. And we have television, and we
have radio, and we have all sorts of avenues of words. like an unstoppable tsunami sweeping
us into an ocean of mass hysteria. We have words coming at us to
drown us in lies and confusion. How do we discern truth from
error? How do we know what words to
believe? And here is our comfort, brethren. And I'm not here to prove to
anybody that the Bible is the word of God. But for those who
have been made to believe that the Bible is the word of God,
what hope, what comfort we have in having an inspired, infallible
source of truth by which we can try and test and prove everything. We have God's Word. We have God's
Word. Never a man spake like this man. though we know that all scripture
is given by inspiration of God and all scripture is profitable
and that no scripture was given by private interpretation but
holy men wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit and so from
Genesis all the way through to Revelation we know that this
book gives to us the inerrant inspired, infallible word of
God. Yet we read these words in the
book of Hebrews. God, who at sundry times and
in diverse manners spake unto us by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken
unto us by his Son. by his son." We're often reminded that we
never separate the written word from the living word. For in
the volume of the book, the Lord Jesus said, it is written of
me. Here's our comfort. We say, with
these arresting officers, Never a man spake like this man. I have a word from God in which
I can rest my immortal soul. What is faith? Is faith believing
that if I just believe something strong enough, I can make it
happen? Is that what faith is? No. Faith is believing God. Faith is believing God. And when
God works the miracle of faith in the heart, he causes us to
believe every word that he has spoken. And for the child of
God, that's enough. That's enough. We can rest right
there. Let's read these words beginning
in verse 45. Then came the officers to the
chief priests and Pharisees, and they said unto them, why
have you not brought him? Well, his hour has not yet come.
He's not gonna die by stoning. They had the authority to stone.
They would stone Stephen later for the words that he spoke. But he was going to be crucified. He was going to be suspended
between heaven and earth, and die on a cruel cross, a Roman
cross. And he was in control of all
the events surrounding that moment. His hour had not yet come. They
couldn't take him. And here's what they said. The
officers answered, never man spake like this man. Now, what
are the Pharisees going to do With that report, well, they're
going to do exactly what a friend of mine happened to him last
week, last Sunday. In sitting, listening to a false
prophet, he got up and left the service. Found out about this
yesterday. This happened a long way from
here, not in a gospel church. And the elders confronted him
after the service. They accosted him. Why did you
get up and leave? And they wanted to correct him. And he said, because that man
wasn't preaching the truth. This man was espousing complicated
theological terms. He was making the truth of God's
word very confusing. He was not preaching Christ.
And here's what the elders said to this young man. They said
to him, well, you know, you're just a babe drinking milk. And that man was preaching the
meat of the gospel. He was preaching the meat of
the gospel. And when I heard this story, I said, no, he wasn't.
He was preaching wood hay and stubble. That's what he was preaching. He was complicating the truth
of the gospel with a lot of verbiage that caused Christ to be, well,
to be completely ignored. So I tell you that story in order
to say that As of last Sunday, what these Pharisees are gonna
do next is exactly what those elders did to this young man.
They're gonna try to shut him down. Look at verse 47. Then answered them, the Pharisees,
are you also deceived? The Pharisees in their self-righteousness,
believing that they had the truth, when all they were doing is promoting
the law preaching wood, hay, and stubble, they would attempt
to shut these temple guards down and their report down. They came
back impressed with the authority that the Lord Jesus spoke with. Verse 49, but this people who
knoweth not the law are cursed. promoting themselves as the voice
of truth as the authority to be listened to and denying the
words of Christ and saying well he's just He's cursed of God
And Nicodemus was who was one of them Nicodemus was not only
a Pharisee. He was a member of that Sanhedrin.
He was the one he was one of the in Jerusalem. And Nicodemus saith unto them,
he that came to Jesus by night being one of them. Yes, this
is the same Nicodemus that came to the Lord and said, we know
that you're son of God for no man can do the things that thou
doest except God be with him. And the Lord Jesus looked at
Nicodemus and Nicodemus, Nicodemus. unless you're born of the Spirit,
you cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus, you've seen the
miracles that I performed and you've concluded that I've been
son of God, but Nicodemus, you don't know the truth about who
I am. And the evidence of that being
seen in that Nicodemus came to the Lord Jesus by night, a picture
of Nicodemus is the darkness of his heart. And so Nicodemus is going to
stand up for Christ amongst his peers. And Nicodemus says in
verse 41, doth our law judge any man before it hear him and
know what he doeth? Don't you think we should listen
to him and Nicodemus I'm certain had been reflecting
upon the things that the Lord Jesus said to him that night. And though we don't know yet
if he had come to believe on Christ, we know that after his
crucifixion, that he's going to take part in having the Lord's
body buried and he's going to identify with the disciples. And now they're gonna shut down
Nicodemus. In verse 52, they answered and said unto him, art
thou also of Galilee? Search and look, for out of Galilee
ariseth no prophet. Now they're gonna use the Bible
to try to quiet and silence Nicodemus' argument. Now these men knew
the Bible very well and they knew that the prophet Jonah had
come from Galilee. So there was in fact, At least
one prophet in the Old Testament came out of Galilee. And though
our Lord was born in Galilee, was raised in Galilee, he was
born in Bethlehem, which was not in Galilee. In verse 53, and every man went to their own house. satisfied
that they did not have to contend with this one who professed himself
to be the word of truth. Brethren, we have the word of
God. We don't have to be tossed to
and fro by every wind of doctrine. We don't have to be intimidated
by those who would try to silence the word of truth. We can rest. We believe and rely upon whatever
God has given us in his word. What comfort, what grace. We have an authority. We have an authority, the authority. Don't you love it when that centurion
came to the Lord Jesus and asked him to come and heal his servant
and the Lord was going to go with the centurion to his house.
A Roman, not a Jew. And the Roman said, oh no. No,
I'm not worthy that you should come into my house. I'm a man
of authority. A centurion would have had 100
Roman soldiers under him. And he said to the Lord Jesus,
I'm a man of authority, and I understand authority. I say unto this man,
go, and he goes. I say unto that one, come, and
he comes. And I know that all you have to do is speak the word,
and my servant will be healed. You have that kind of authority.
All you have to do is say the word. And here's our hope. All he has to do is speak a word
to our hearts and there will be healing. There
will be forgiveness. There will be grace. The Lord Jesus said he had not
seen such faith. No, not in all of Israel. A man
who believed that all the Lord Jesus had to do from a distance
was speak a word and a miracle of healing would take place. Never a man spake like this man. The Pharisees asked the Lord
one time, by what authority do you do these things? By what
authority do you do these things? Again, trying to justify themselves. And the Lord Jesus said, let
me ask you a question. And if you can answer my question,
then I'll answer your question. By what authority did John the
Baptist speak? Was it of God or was it of man? And what did the Pharisees say?
Well, they huddled together over here on the side and they started
to talk amongst themselves. If we say that it was of man,
then the people won't follow us because they love John the
Baptist. He was beheaded. He's one of their martyrs. But
if we say that it was of God, then he'll ask, well, why didn't
we follow him? And so after their little conversation
on the side, they came out and they said, we can't tell. You see, they were liars and
hypocrites about authority. And the Lord Jesus just looked
at them and said, neither will I tell you by what authority
I do speak. His word settles everything. Like the Pharisees that were
threatened by the content of his speech, men will do exactly what they
did. They'll call it hate speech.
Just because you hate someone else's speech doesn't make it
hate speech. They hated what the Lord Jesus
said. They hated him. His words revealed who he was. We love what he said because
his words reveal his glory. Out of his mouth proceeded the
words of life. We say with Samuel, you remember
when Samuel was in the temple and the Lord was calling Samuel
And Eli told Samuel what to say. Next time you hear God's voice,
you just say to him, speak, Lord, for thy servant listeneth. And
that word listeneth doesn't just mean, well, you know, I want
to hear what God has to say so that I can weigh it and evaluate
it and decide what I think about it. No, that word listeneth means,
Lord, whatever you say is right. Lord, just speak. I know that
your word is true. I know that you speak with the
authority of God. I need a word from God. I need
a word in which I can rest and rely upon in the midst of this
world that is so confusing, in the midst of this world that
would drown me in a flood of words have no real substance
to them. I need God's word. Never a man
spake like this man. No one ever spake like him. There was a Roman governor by
the name of Felix who listened to the Lord Jesus and he said,
come back again at a convenient time. He dismissed the word of God. And he said, what you say is
interesting. Come back in and I'll listen
to you again. Is that how we received God's
word? There was another man by the name of Festus, who was also
a Roman governor. And he listened to what the Lord
Jesus said. And he said, This is a madman. Well, actually, that was Festus
listening to the Apostle Paul, telling Festus what the Lord
Jesus had said. And he called him a madman. Much
learning has made thee mad, Paul. No, I'm not mad. I'm not mad. I'm speaking the truth. Many have ignored his words.
Many have twisted his words. Many have tried to silence his
words. Many would join their voices
with the Pharisees saying, crucify him, crucify him, that we not
have to listen to his words anymore. One thing about the word of God, It can't be reasoned against.
The Word of God cannot be reasoned against. There is no argument
that can prove it wrong. The Word of God is true. The
Word of God is clear. It's simple. It's irrefutable. There's no way to show any credible
evidence against it. The Word of God is not open for
interpretation. The meaning of God's Word is
clear. unambiguous and when you hear someone say well you know
the Bible was written by men or that's your interpretation
of the Bible they're doing exactly what these
Pharisees did they're doing exactly what those elders did for my
friend up in Canada last Sunday when they accused him of being
a babe and not being able to feed on meat when really they
were just preaching nothing but wood hay and stubble They're
doing exactly what your friends and family members do to you
when you stand on Christ, the living word, and all that God
has said. They're justifying themselves
when they say, well, that's your interpretation. Or the Bible is a confusing book.
It's not confusing. The Bible is not confusing. It's
very clear. It's very simple. We are dead in our trespasses
and sins. Hell-deserving sinners. Bible's
clear. Our throat is an open sepulcher. God looks down from heaven and
he sees nothing but dead man's bones. And every thought and
imagination of the heart is only evil, and that continually. What
we are before God is sinful. The Lord Jesus Christ, the only one who ever lived a
sinless life, the only one who ever fulfilled all the requirements
of the law, establishing a perfect righteousness on behalf of his
people before God. laid down his life willingly
on Calvary's cross in order to suffer the full wrath of God's
justice and put away our sins by the sacrifice of himself once
and for all. That's not complicated. It's
not complicated. I am the way, I am the truth, and
I am the life. No man can come to the Father
but by me. Men who say the Bible is a complicated
book haven't read it. They haven't read it. They just do what these Pharisees
did. They just discount it, dismiss it, put it away because they
cannot defend themselves against it. They dismiss it because it has
a claim on their life. Much like atheists dismiss the
existence of God. You know, it's easy to live as
an atheist. You can live your life in completely disregard
for the things of God. Do what you want, when you want,
however you want. It's a whole other thing to die
as an atheist. That's what men do. They just
deny God because of the claim that he has on them. It's the
whole reason for evolution, the theory of evolution. It's just to dismiss the existence
of God. I don't want to have to deal
with that. And men do the same thing with
the word of God. But here's what those soldiers
said. Never a man spake like that man. We had no authority in his presence. We could not arrest him. He had authority over us, much like he had authority over
those when it was his time to go to the cross. My hour has come. He's in the
garden of Gethsemane. And Judas has brought into the
garden in the night a band of soldiers. And those soldiers are confronted by Christ. They
don't confront him. He confronts them. Whom seeketh
he? Jesus of Nazareth. And he says, I am. And the next thing this band
of soldiers realizes is that they're on the ground somehow. They're having to pick themselves
up and dust themselves off from the ground. When he speaks his
name, they fall down. And he asked them again, whom
seekest thee? Jesus of Nazareth. I am. And then the defendant
commands the arresting officers who came in the full authority,
not only of the Jewish prie priest, but also of Rome, with all their
weapons and all their power. And the Lord Jesus commands them,
you let these go. And they obey his voice. He was in complete control of
everything that happened that night and the following day,
just as he has always been in control from the beginning of
time. He speaks with power. He speaks
with authority. Lord, speak to my heart. Lord,
shut me down. Take away all my objections.
Cause me to say, truth, Lord, whatever you say is right. Whatever
you say, Lord, make me to believe every word that proceeds out
of your mouth. He is the word. Right from the
very beginning in Genesis chapter one, when the earth was without
form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep, picturing
our condition spiritually in this world. Without form, without
any order, without any direction, listening to all these voices
trying to decide what's right and what's wrong. Darkness is
upon the face of the deep. There's no light. Just this ocean of words. our own opinions, the words of
men. And God said, let there be light. And there was light. And God saw that the light was
good. And God called the light day.
And he called the darkness night. Only two parts of the day, light
and darkness. Nicodemus came to the Lord by
night. We're born into this dark, desolate
world. And for the next six days, or
for the next, yes, the next six days in Genesis chapter one,
and God said, and God said, that each day starts with and God
said, And he spoke every part of creation into existence. And
John tells us, not anything that was made was made without him. That was the Lord Jesus speaking.
And when he speaks, we use the word create to describe
what man does when he just reorders things. You know, a person takes
paint and puts it on the canvas and makes a beautiful picture,
and we say, how creative they are. They didn't create anything. They just took paint that was
in one container and put it together in an order. No, to create something
means that you make something out of nothing. That's what create
means. When God creates us a new creature
in Christ, He makes something out of nothing. He puts something
there that wasn't there before. And how does he do it? By his
word. Faith comes by hearing. How do we hear? Let him who has
an ear to hear. Hear what the Spirit saith unto
the churches. The hearing ear is of God. The
Lord has to bore our ear through. The Lord has to unstop our ears
and enable us to hear. He that hath an ear, let him
hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Lord, speak to
me like you spoke to these Roman soldiers and these temple guards
who came back empty-handed and said, never a man spake like
this man before. I've heard a lot of speech. I've
made a lot of speech, a lot of vain, empty words. A lot of confusing
ideas, but never, never, never was there a man that spake like
this man. He spake with authority. I could
not change his words. I could not deny his words. I
could not excuse or dismiss him. I was left with no choice. but
to believe what he said. That's faith. That's faith. Faith is not believing that you're
saved. Faith is not believing that something's gonna happen
in the future if you just believe hard enough. Faith is believing
God. It's just that simple. What has
God said? What sayeth the scriptures? That
settles all arguments. And when God gives you faith,
you just believe whatever God says. And you rest everything you have
on that. And when circumstances seem to
be contrary to God's word, you go back to God's word. God said, I can rest there. And when the opinions of the
world are contrary to God's word, you go back to God's word. For
never a man spake like this man. And when your own thoughts and
opinions are contrary to God's word, You go back to God's word.
What does God say? That leper said to the Lord Jesus, if thou
wilt, if thou wilt, thou canst make me whole. The world says God wants to make
you whole, but he can't unless you let him. He's able, but he's
willing, but he's not able. He's willing, but he's not able.
He needs you. Oh, God doesn't need us for anything,
does he? No, never a man spake like this
man. The leper got it right. If thou will, thou can. And what did the Lord Jesus say?
I will be thou clean, and immediately. Immediately, the leper was made
clean by the spoken word of God. That centurion servant from a
distance was made clean, was brought off his sickbed as soon
as the Lord Jesus said, never have I seen faith in all. When
that centurion got home, his servant was up and about doing
his business. Only speak the word. Lord, and
I'll be healed. And there's no man that spoke
like you. That cripple whose friends removed the tiles from
the ceiling and lowered him down into the presence of Christ. And the Lord Jesus looked at
him and looked at his friends. And what did he say? He said, your sins are forgiven. Your faith. The faith that I
have given you to come. Your sins are forgiven. And the
Pharisees said, who is this man? God alone can forgive sins. Who's
he think he is? Telling this man that his sins
are forgiven. And the Lord Jesus looked at
them and said, what is easier to say? Your sins are forgiven
or take up your bed and walk? But that you might know that
the Son of Man hath authority to forgive sins. I say unto you,
take up your bed and walk. immediately. He took up his bed,
rolled it up, walked home. Never a man spake like this man.
See, he's doing the same thing today that he did then. Right
now, right now, so many words and yet we have the Word of God. A blind man came to the Lord
Jesus and he took spittle which is significant because in the
Old Testament, if a man who was unclean spit on a clean man,
that clean man was made unclean by his spittle. The Lord Jesus
is the only one that could spit on a man and make him clean.
And the Lord Jesus takes some dirt and spits and makes clay
out of it and puts it on the man's eyes and tells him to go
down to the pool of Siloam and wash. And the word Siloa means
scent. And the water is a picture of
the word of God. We are washed by the water of
his word. And the Lord Jesus is the water
of life. And so he sends him to Christ. He sends, he's still doing the
same thing. We're blind. And the Lord sends
us to his word. to wash, to wash in his word, and to be
made clean. And he came back, see, nothing's
changed. Never a man spake like this man. Mark chapter 5, there was a man
who's called the ruler of the synagogue. Now, outside of Jerusalem
in the towns in Galilee, they would have not a temple, but
a synagogue where the men would come together and they would
read scripture. And there was a ruler of a synagogue
in a particular village. And he had a 12-year-old daughter
who was on her deathbed. And this man came to Christ and
pleaded with the Lord to come to his house and heal his daughter. And the Lord Jesus was going
with him to his house. Unlike the centurion, he was
going to go to this man's house. And on the way to his house,
one of the servants of the ruler of the synagogue came to meet
them and said to the ruler of the synagogue, bother the master
no more, your daughter's dead. She's gone. And the Lord Jesus
looked at the ruler of the synagogue and he said, be not afraid only
believe be not afraid only believe and they got to the man's house
and there were mourners professional mourners we know that they were
paid professional mourners because of their response to what the
Lord Jesus said when the Lord Jesus walked into the house and
he said I He said, weep not, the damsel is not dead but asleep. And they laughed him to scorn. They laughed him to scorn. Their pretended mourning now
was turned to laughter, and they discounted the Lord Jesus. And
he went into the room where this dead girl was lying. And he said, Talitha. Kumi, which being translated
is damsel arise. And immediately she stood up
and walked. And the Lord Jesus said to her
parents, feed her, feed her. Never a man spake like this man.
He speaks with authority. The Lord Jesus in John chapter
11 was in Bethany and speaking with Martha. He told her, he
said, Martha, I am the resurrection and the life. She was mourning
over the death of her brother Lazarus who had been in the tomb
for four days and his body had already began to decay. I am
the resurrection and the life. He that believeth on me though
he were dead, yet shall he live. And he that liveth and believeth
in me shall never die. Believest thou this? Believest
thou this? Yea, Lord, I believe that thou
art the Christ that should come into the world. And they went
to the graveyard, and the Lord Jesus said, roll away the stone.
And she, though she believed, objected. She could not bear
the thought of the shame of her brother's decaying body to be
exposed. But even though she objected,
Lord, he stinketh, she obeyed. She didn't understand what was
about to happen, but she obeyed the voice of God. Well, what
a lesson there is. And now the word of God, the
son of God, the God-man is going to speak again. Two simple words, three simple
words. Lazarus, come forth. Come forth. And this dead man
comes out of the tomb wrapped up like a mummy. And the Lord Jesus said, loose
him and let him free. And in the very next chapter,
we see the Lord Jesus sitting with Lazarus and eating. And people came from Jerusalem
to Bethany, not because they wanted to hear the word that
the Lord Jesus had to speak, but because they wanted to see
a dead man that had been made alive. They came to see Lazarus. Nothing's changed. People are
still looking for some extraordinary, miraculous event, rather than
hearing the word of God. 5,000 men, not counting the men
and women and children, gathered together, and they were without
food. And the Lord looked at the disciples and said, what
do you have to feed them? Well, we've got five loaves of bread
and two small fishes, but what they've got among so many? Make
them sit down. And he blessed the bread and
the fishes, and they divided it among the peoples, and 12
fragments were taken up." Oh, the Word of God. The Word
of God. Never a man spake like this man. The Lord Jesus stood before Pilate,
and Pilate looked at him in his smug, self-righteous presumed
authority and said, don't you know that I have the authority
to crucify you? The Lord wouldn't respond to Pilate's questions.
Don't you know that I have the authority to crucify you or to
let you free? And the Lord now speaks. You
have no authority at all except that which is given to you from
heaven. I'm the authority here. I'm the
one in control here. And he was, he was in control
of every event. Growing up in the Catholic church,
they have what's called stations of the cross all along the wall,
five of them on each side of the auditorium or six, I can't
remember. And they're all pictures of this
long haired bloody man carrying a cross. And you go to each one
of them and you're supposed to feel sorry. for this man is called
the Via Dolorosa, the way of suffering. And you walk along
and you say your prayers in front of each one of them, feeling
sorry for Jesus. Well, what really happened on
the Via Dolorosa? The Lord Jesus met some women
there that were weeping for him. And what did he say to them?
He looked at them and he said, weep not for me. Don't feel sorry
for me. I'm doing this for you. You weep for yourselves and you
weep for your children. You're the victims here. I'm
not a victim. You're the victim of sin and unbelief. I'm the
Savior. And when he got to the cross, I could just hear him. He laid
down his life willingly. The Roman soldiers knew nothing
of a crucified man that laid willingly on the cross. It didn't
take four soldiers to hold him down. And I can just see him
directing their hands with those nails and hammers to put them
exactly where he wanted them to be. They weren't doing that. No man took his life from him.
He laid his life down. And he was on the cross. He said,
Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. What power,
what authority. And that same word rings out
true to us today. Father, forgive them. They don't
know what they're doing. When we sin, we don't have a
clue what our sin really, really means to God. Father, forgive them. Lord, remember
me when you come into your kingdom. This day you should be with me
in paradise. What authority? And then bowing his mighty head,
it is finished. It is finished. Everything the
word of God came to accomplish has been performed. Salvation
is complete. Father, into thy hands I commend
my spirit. Never, ever, ever a man spake
like this man. Believest thou this? That's the only question. Do we believe? Do we believe? You can't refute it. You can't
deny it. There are no arguments against
it. You can crucify him. You can
discount him. You can ignore him. You can say
with festus, come back another time. You can say, almost thou persuadest
me to become a Christian. Or you can bow. You can bow and say, Lord, I
believe. I do believe. Help thou mine
unbelief. Our Heavenly Father, oh, what hope and comfort we
have in this dark and confusing world to have a clear, simple,
truthful word from God. Oh, Lord, for the grace to rest
all our hope on Him. For it's in Christ, the living
word, that we do pray. Amen. 225. 225. Let's stand together.
225.