Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with hymn number 18 in your spiral, gospel hymns
hymnal, The Bible is a Book of Christ. Let's all stand together,
number 18. God gave his holy inspired word
for only one great end, the prophets and apostles to reveal the sinner's
friend. The Bible is a book of Christ,
it only speaks of Him. On every page it shows us Christ,
it only speaks of Him. The prophecies of old record
God's wondrous mighty deeds. Those deeds of power and of grace
set forth a woman's seed. The Bible is a book of Christ,
it only speaks of Him. On every page it shows us Christ,
it only speaks of Him. The prophets all reveal our Lord
as prophet, priest, and king. The types the great redemption
show, Christ's blood and grace now bring. The Bible is a book
of Christ, it only speaks of Him. On every page it shows us
Christ, it only speaks of Him. ? Behold the Lamb the Baptist
said ? ? The sin atoning one ? ? As it was promised long before
? ? God's Son as man has come ? ? The Bible is a book of Christ
? ? It only speaks of him ? ? On every page it shows us Christ
? It only speaks of Him ? Our substitute obeyed the law ? Then
died and rose again ? And in His word our Savior said ? Rejoice,
I come again The Bible is a book of Christ, it only speaks of
Him. On every page it shows us Christ,
it only speaks of Him. Please be seated. Good morning. Tom, thank you. I texted Tom last night and told
him the verse of scripture I wanted to look at the first hour this
morning, and he picked that hymn to go with this message. And
it could not have been more appropriate to what God's Word tells us in
John chapter 5. That's where we're going to be
this first hour this morning, John chapter 5. Let's ask the Lord's blessings. Our merciful heavenly father,
what great hope and comfort we have in being able to call you
our father with an eye toward thy dear son. faith that you've given us to
believe on him. Lord, to be adopted as your Children
into your family and to have so many of your precious promises
fulfilled, not only in the in the finished work of our Savior,
thy dear son, but Lord, we Come to this place in hopes of you
fulfilling your promises to meet with us, to make yourself known
to us. Bless us, Lord, with thy presence.
Send your Holy Spirit in power. Open for us what only you can
open. And we know, Lord, that if you
open it, No man can shut us. Open thy word. Open the windows
of heaven. Open our hearts. We ask it in
Christ's name. Amen. I've titled this message,
The Message of the Bible. the message of the Bible, and
we just sang of it, we just declared it in song, and I trust the Lord
gave us faith to believe what we were singing. Let's look together
in John chapter 5 and verse 39, a very familiar passage that
we often quote, but this morning as we've gone through the Gospel
of John, we find ourselves here where the Lord Jesus is speaking
to these self-righteous, legalistic Pharisees. And he says to them,
search the scriptures, search the scriptures, for in them you
think you have eternal life. They were looking for precepts
to practice and commandments to keep. They were competing
with one another over who knew more of the Bible. Nothing's
changed. Religious men still do what these
Pharisees did. But they missed the message of
the Bible. For he goes on to say, you think
in them you have eternal life, And they are they which testify
of me. And you will not come to me that
you might have life." If you and I have a genuine concern
for our immortal souls, it's because God gave it to us. It's not something we would ever
come to on our own. We come into this world born
of flesh and concerned with fleshly things. And the Lord tells us that which
is of the flesh is flesh and the flesh profiteth nothing. That which is of the spirit is
of the spirit. spiritual interest, spiritual
concerns. It's because the Holy Spirit
gave it to us. My hope this morning is that
the Lord will give us a desire to know him, to believe on him
and to worship him. That we will not be like these
Pharisees. Most Most people, including us,
left ourselves would have no interest in matters concerning
our immortal soul. We would all be too concerned
with temporal things to give any attention to the eternal
things. We would give our efforts to spiritual things
only as they would benefit us in the physical realm. You see that in religion. Men talk about the things of
God and the things of the Bible only as they give us benefits
in this world. health, wealth and prosperity,
whether it be physical or emotional or psychological, you want peace,
you want prosperity, you want this or that to help you in this
world, then here's the spiritual answer to that. As I said, if we have a genuine
desire for the eternal, it can only come from God. And if we have a desire for the
eternal, then we must ask ourselves, what is the reliable source of
authority that we look to to reveal this truth to our hearts,
how can we be sure that what we believe is true? I would ask you what I've asked
myself, what is your reliable source of authority? We all have
reliable sources of authority for different things. Whether
it be finances, you call your financial advisor and you respect
his opinion and you follow generally what they tell you to do. You might have a source of authority
when it comes to parenting or you might have a source of authority
when it comes to the details of your particular profession
or job. We have a source of authority
that we go to in order to decide what's the best thing in this
area of life. And so, what is your source of
authority when it comes to spiritual things? For most people, they
just follow their heart. Whatever seems right, whatever
feels right, that's what I believe. Proverbs chapter 28, verse 26,
the Lord tells us, he that trusteth in his own heart is a fool. If I'm basing the hope of my
eternal salvation on what I feel or what I think or what seems
right to me, there is a way that seems right unto man, the scripture
tells us, but in the end that way leads to death. The Lord tells us through the
prophet Jeremiah that The heart is deceitful and wicked above
all things. Who can know it? Oh, how deceitful
our hearts are. We can't know our own hearts.
Proverbs chapter 18 says, a fool hath no delight in understanding,
but his heart is set on discovering itself. He has no delight in
understanding, his heart is set on discovering itself." Now that's
where most people are when it comes to the matters of the heart. Just whatever seems right, whatever
feels good, whatever I think. source of authority that men
turn to is what they observe. They see that there could not
be creation without a creator. I was speaking with a friend
just recently and he said, I know there's a God, I know that these
things could not just appear and that that God must be self-existent
because nothing can come from nothing. There must be something
that has always been. Even as I try to consider what
that means, it's incomprehensible, but I know that that has to be
true based on what I observe. And I know that that God must
be all-powerful. And he must be all wise. But that's as far as I can go
with my observations. I can't know who he is. I can't
know how it is that he... And so I began to share scripture
with him. And at the end of the conversation,
that really wasn't sufficient. He fell back on what he felt
and what he thought and what he had observed. Turn with me
to Romans chapter one. Romans chapter one. We're trying
to answer the question, what is our reliable source of authority
when it comes to matters of the soul? When it comes to who God
is, when it comes to eternal matters, Those things that really
matter. Nothing else, nothing else really
matters in the end. This is what, this is, what source
of authority do I have to reveal to me the truth concerning those
things? Romans chapter one, verse 20,
for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world
are clearly seen. This is observation. Every man
can look at creation and come to the conclusion that there's
a creator. To come to any other conclusion
is just either total ignorance or it's a lie. being understood by the things
that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they
are without excuse. A man can look at what he observes
and come to the conclusion that there is a God, he must be self-existent,
he must be powerful enough to create these things, and he must
be all wise. And that information alone is
enough to leave a man without excuse before God, even if he's
never heard the gospel. In this conversation I had with
my friend, he said, well, what about all the people in the world
that have never heard the gospel? They've seen this revelation
of God, and God says they are without excuse. Why? Well, he goes on to tell us.
Because that when they knew God, they knew that he was all powerful. They knew that he was self-existent. They knew that he was eternal.
They knew that he was the creator. Based on their observations,
yet they glorified him not as God. They refused to bow to him. Now here's the truth that's being
taught here. believe the revelation that has
been given will lead to more revelation and if a man rejects the revelation
that he has no more will be given to him so there's much about
God that we don't know but as he reveals himself to
us little by little We bow to that revelation and more light
is given. And as soon as we raise our fist
to heaven and say, no, I don't believe that, then that's when
the revelation stops. Neither were thankful, but became
vain in their imaginations and their foolish hearts were darkened,
professing themselves to be God, they became fools. Here's what
man does. There's a God, he's all-powerful,
he's self-existent, I see that. But he needs me in order for
him to be able to save me. He needs me to do something.
And so the very revelation that's been given has now been denied
when it comes to my interaction with this God. So what have I
done? I've set myself up on the throne
of God. I've made this God who I observe
to be self-existent and all powerful to be limited in his power until
I give him permission, until I allow him, until I perform
for him that which he requires in order for him to be able to
save me. This is exactly where my conversation went the other
day with my friend. After all the things that we
talked about, he said, well, I believe that the Bible is given
to us in order to teach us how to live. That's what I believe
about the Bible. It's our, it's our rule book
for living. It's the, it's the, it's the
things that God expects us to do. So, what is our reliable source
of authority when it comes to the matters of the soul, when
it comes to eternal matters, when it comes to the truth of
who God is, who we are, and how it is that God is pleased to
save sinners? What are we going to, maybe the
teachings of men. If it's not our own darkened
hearts, which we can never find light in, If it's not the observation
of creation, which we can never know, we will take those things
apart from the grace of God and we'll profess ourselves to be
wise and become fools in our hearts toward God and we'll take
on the throne of God. Many people rely upon what other
men have taught them. The majority of people, including
my friend that I was speaking with recently, Although he's beginning to question
some of the things that he was taught growing up, all of his
life, and he's older than me, all of his life, he's held to
the things that he was raised believing, even as I was. Well, that's just what I was
always taught. I didn't know any better. I believed what my
church taught me. Now, we want our children to
believe what we believe, but not because we believe it. We
want them to believe what we believe because they believe
it. But to just believe something
because that's what I've always been taught, and so I My reliable
source of authority is the doctrines of the church or the things that
I was indoctrinated in or the opinions of dead theologians
or the writings of confessions and creeds and men fall back
on those things as their reliable source of authority. All of those things are unreliable. They're unreliable. Many believe what they believe
based on the norms of the culture that they live in. And they're
persuaded by the opinions of the masses and they say, well,
you know, this is the, culture I live in and this is what everybody
else believes so I guess that'd be good enough for me. I hope that it's clear by now
that none of these things are reliable and that there is only
one place that we can go to know the truth And the Lord tells
us right here in this one verse, search the scriptures. Search the scriptures. And I
can say that with full confidence. Don't believe what you believe
because you heard it from me. Search the scriptures. If what
I'm saying is not true to the scriptures, then I'm a liar. Be like the Bereans. Now, I've
preached to groups, the Pharisees, I've preached to Pharisees before.
I remember one time preaching in a church up in Georgia, and
all the men there were self-professing theologians, and they sat there
the entire time. All right, preacher, see if you
can teach me something I'd already know. I mean, it was horrible. I'm not saying take that attitude.
I'm saying be like the Bereans who received the word of God
with gladness and they searched the scriptures to see if these
things were true. Now I'm not here to prove to
anybody that the Bible is the word of God. If I could convince you of that,
someone else would talk you out of it. God has to teach us that this
is his word. And when he does, you'll believe
every word of it. And that faith comes by hearing
and hearing comes by the word of God. So we read scripture
and we quote scripture and we go back to scripture to prove
every point that we believe because it is scripture that God blesses.
We have conversations with people about the gospel, I do. And I
try to answer every question with scripture. People don't
believe the gospel. So if you don't believe, it's
not my opinion that you're not believing, it's not my illustrations,
it's God's word. We believe that the Bible is
the inspired, inerrant Word of God. We believe that the holy
men of God spoke. They wrote as they were spoken
to by the Spirit of God. That they didn't give us their
personal opinions. It's not by private interpretation.
We just believe that. And our conversations often lead
to this. Well, you know, the Bible was
written by men. And the Bible is open to interpretation. And I have discovered in many
conversations that I've had with people that people say that to
justify themselves in not believing the Bible. That's all that is. Most of the people that make
those statements have never read the Bible. They don't know what
the Bible says. They've not given any real interest in the Bible. They've heard bits and pieces
here and there. But what do they say? Well, we
believe the Bible is a man-written book and it may have some truths
in it but it's not all true and so it's up to interpretation
to decide what part's good and what part's not good. And that's
just the voice of a man justifying himself so that he doesn't have
to bow before God. That's all that is. That's a
man who's trusting in his own heart, that's a man who's trusting
in his observations, that's a man who's trusting in the opinions
of others. And then there's the theological discipline of what
they call apologetics. I had apologetics in seminary.
We're gonna prove to men, we're gonna defend the Bible. The Bible
doesn't need to be defended any more than you have to defend
a lion. You just lay him loose, he'll defend himself. We're not here to try to defend
the Bible or take, you see it all the time that men have discovered
some historical document or some tablet of stone or some artifact
and they say, what? This proves the Bible. We're
not here to prove the Bible with those things. Now here's the
truth. The Bible proves the Bible. You
say, well, that's a self-fulfilling prophecy. I'm sorry. Think about it. If the Bible
is the Word of God, where else would you go to prove that it's
true but the Word of God? What higher standard, what more
reliable source of authority do you have to prove that this
is the Word of God other than the Word of God? It doesn't make
sense. If you need historical events
or something else to prove that the Bible is the Word of God,
then that makes that. the reliable source of authority,
does it not? The Bible proves itself. And
so that's why we compare scripture to scripture and the spiritual
to the spiritual. And we find that there's a consistent
message all the way throughout the Bible. Now, individual passages
in the Bible might be difficult to understand. Matter of fact,
many of them are. Many of them, I read them, I, Lord, I don't
know what that means. I don't know what it means, but I know
this. I know that whatever it means,
it's connected back to what we sang. The Bible is a book of
Christ. It only speaks of him. That's what the Lord Jesus is
telling us. Again, I ask you, what is your
reliable source of authority? You say, well, it's the Bible. And my next question will be,
what are you looking for in the Bible? Because you're going to
find exactly what you're looking for. I've used this illustration
before. You look for something in your
house. And after you've looked everywhere for it, Your wife
or your husband says to you, by the way, while you were looking,
did you see such and such? You had looked right at it, but
because you weren't looking for it, you don't remember seeing
it. No, I didn't see that. And then you go back and you
realize it was right there, you looked right at it, but that's
not what you were looking for. And so you didn't acknowledge
it, you didn't see it. And the same thing's true about
the Bible. Men go to the Bible looking for, as these Pharisees
were, laws to keep, precepts to perform, and that's what they
found. They found rules and regulations,
and they promoted themselves as keepers of the law. And the
Lord's gonna tell them in this very passage that, He's not gonna
condemn them. They've already got someone to
condemn them. Moses condemns them. The law
that they were trusting in was condemning them. Other people go to look for theological truths and doctrine
and biblical history for what purpose? For what purpose? I'm talking from experience.
You see, the first man who's looking for a law to keep is
for the purpose of earning favor with God. And the second man
who's looking for all these theological things is to get an advantage
over another man. I can prove to you that I know
more than you know. And they get together and they pool their
ignorance and they debate with one another about what's so and
what's not so. And they use theological terms
that aren't even in the Bible. in order to present themselves
to be more intelligent and more educated than another man. When I first heard about those
people who believed that the earth was flat, the guy that
I was talking to told me we've got 75 verses in the Bible that
proves the earth is flat. Well, I Googled it just the other
day in preparation for this message. They've got a hundred now. 100 verses of scripture in the
Bible that proves the earth is flat. You will find exactly what you're
looking for when you go to the Bible. If you're looking for something
to help you to kind of have a better life in this world, that's what
you're gonna find. There's lots of precepts, there's lots of
principles in the Bible that are helpful and good for you.
And that's all you're gonna find. These are they which testify
of me. The message of the Bible is not
complicated. It's a message of Christ. As I said, individual verses
might be difficult to understand, and many of them are, but the message of the Bible is a message of who the Lord
Jesus is and what it is he came to do. The person and work of
the Lord Jesus Christ, that's the message of the Bible. And
if we go to, if we, by God's grace, believe that this is our
reliable source of truth, and we go to God's word asking
the Lord to reveal Christ to us, Lord, this is, you put in
my heart a need for my soul, and nothing less, nothing less
will We'll meet that, now I've got to have Christ. In the volume
of the book it is written of me and beginning with Moses and
the Psalms and the prophets, he expounded unto them those
things concerning himself. If we have Christ, that's why
the Bible, that's why Paul said in Colossians, Christ is all
and in all. He's in all. Here's the message
of the Bible, salvation's of the Lord. He did it. He put us in Christ in the covenant
of grace, in election before the foundation of the world.
The Lord Jesus Christ came into this world and actually accomplished
the salvation of those that the Father elected and chose according
to his own sovereign will and purpose. The Spirit of God is
now open in the eyes and making willing the hearts of those that
the Father chose and that Christ redeemed. And what's he do when
he opens our eyes? He reveals Christ to us. He reveals
the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here's our need,
brethren. Seek ye first the kingdom of
God and his righteousness and all these other things that be
added unto you I'm not suggesting to you, my friends and my brethren,
that we don't have earthly needs or that you don't have issues
in your life right now that are extremely difficult and painful.
Yes, we do. We all have them. The Lord ordains
them and sends them in measure as He sees fit, but they have one purpose. to
drive us to Christ. If we go to the Bible just looking
for something that's gonna solve that problem, then we miss the
message of the Bible. You search the scriptures because
you think in them you have eternal life, but these are they which
testify me and you will not come to me. You see, there it is. God's given us a word and God
gives us these trials and troubles to drive us to Christ. And if
we have him, Then in Christ, these other things will be met
in God's providence and in God's time and in God's will. The message of the Bible, this
is my beloved son here in whom I'm well pleased, hear ye him. Here's the message of the Bible.
You and I are born into this world spiritually dead. We have
no way to know God. We have no way to see him, to
believe on him. We're dead in our trespasses
and sins. We're in darkness. There's no
light in us. We have to be born of the spirit. When the Lord does that, he opens
the eyes of our understanding. He sets our affections on things
above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. This
is the message of the Bible. God is sovereign in salvation. He, according to his own will
and purpose, elected a people. Christ successfully redeemed
those people. He paid the price for all their
sins and put them away once and for all. His grace is irresistible. Can't say no to God. Why? Because salvation is not a choice.
If it was a choice, you would say no. But God puts us in a
place where we don't have a choice to make. Christ is all I have. You go to a restaurant, there's
one thing on the menu. You either eat or you don't eat.
There's a famous restaurant in Alabama that's that way. It's called Dreamland. It's in
Tuscawilla, Alabama. All they have on the menu, they
don't have a menu. Barbecue ribs, that's all they've got. Place
right near the University of Alabama. The place looks like
it ought to be condemned. It's falling apart. First time
I went in there, I said, well, can I have, yeah. Go somewhere
else. On our menu, all we have is barbecue
ribs. You either eat or you don't eat. All God's got for me and you
is Christ. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. We are looking for the living
word in God's written word. And if we find him, we find everything. God has made him to be. all our
wisdom, all our righteousness, all of our sanctification and
all of our redemption, no flesh can boast in his presence. God
made him who knew no sin to be made sin that we might be made
the righteousness of God in him. If we have a God-given, and that's
the only way we're gonna have it, concern for our immortal
soul, And we're not just looking to try to improve our life here
in this world. We need to be saved. Lord, I
need to know God. That'll only be found in him.
Let's go back to our text. Let's just read one verse quickly,
two or three maybe. Verse 40, and you will not come
to me that you might have life. You're not answering Christ. I receive not honor from men.
Why are men not interested in Christ? The Lord tells them right
here. Look at verse 42. But I know you that you have
not the love of God in you. I am come in my father's name
and you receive me not. If another shall come in his
own name, him you will receive. Unbelievers will take the word
of a false prophet before they'll receive the word of God. How can you believe which receive
honor one from another and seek not the honor that comes from
God only? There's why men won't come to
Christ, that simple. They value the praise of men
more than the praise of God. Not any more complicated than
that. So I said, the message in the Bible is simple. It's
very simple. Our heavenly father, thank you
for your word. Lord, give us your spirit. Enable us to believe on Christ. For it's in his name we pray,
amen.