If you could find your seats,
please. We'll stand together and open
this morning's service with hymn number 226 from the Hardback
Hymnal. 226. I am not skilled to understand
what God hath willed, what God hath planned. I only know at
His right hand is one who is my Savior. I take him at his
word indeed. Christ died for sinners, this
I read. For in my heart I find a need
of him to be my Savior. that he should leave his place
on high and come for sinful men to die. You counted strange,
so once did I, before I knew my Savior. And oh, that he fulfilled,
may see, the travail of his soul in me, and with his work contented
be, as I with my dear Saviour. Yay, living, dying, let me bring
my strength. My soul is from this spring that
he who lives to be my king once died to be my savior. Be seated. Thank you, Adam. Let's open our Bibles to the
Gospel of John, chapter 4. John, chapter 4. If we're to know the Lord Jesus
as our Savior, we're dependent upon Him to reveal Himself to
us, to speak to our hearts and to give us ears to hear. I've
titled this message, We Have Heard Him Ourselves. We Have Heard Him Ourselves.
There's nothing more sought after nor coveted by mortal man than
to receive a message from God. For the infallible, all-wise,
eternal, omnipotent God to speak A word of truth. An infallible word. A message
that would be unknowable apart from His divine revelation. To reveal a truth that changes everything. Is there anything more valuable
than that. And is there anything more counterfeited
than that? If you're going to counterfeit
something, you only counterfeit that which is valuable. If you
were going to get into counterfeiting money, and I don't recommend
it, you wouldn't be counterfeiting dollar bills. You'd be counterfeiting
hundred dollar bills. And so it is with the gospel,
with God speaking to man. Now, fortunately, we have a legal
system that seeks after and arrests counterfeiters, but not when
it comes to God speaking. No, those counterfeiters are
prolific, and there's no one pursuing them. There's no one
arresting them. And the only way that those counterfeiters
are ever exposed is by hearing the truth. I pray the Lord will speak to
our hearts this morning and reveal the truth of who he is and that
we would not be deceived by any counterfeit message So many times
the Lord told us to beware of false prophets. For many false
prophets have gone out into the world. And men have seers and
soothsayers and charlatans and all sorts of men and women professing
to have a word from God. You have your Bibles open to
John chapter four. Let's pause for a moment and
ask the Lord's blessings first. Our heavenly Father, thank you
for your word. Thank you for leaving us with
an infallible revelation of truth. Thank you for your Holy Spirit. that opens the eyes of our understanding
and reveals to the heart your truth. Lord, we know that lest
you make us to differ, lest you arrest us on our road to self-destruction,
lest you Give us light to see, Lord, we would deceive ourselves
and be deceived. And Lord, how dependent we are right
now for you to shine the light of your grace from heaven and
to reveal to us your glory in the face of your son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Lord, would you do that for us?
If you'll speak, all will be well. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Our Lord is in Samaria, a little
town called Sychar. And he went there on purpose
and for a purpose, to make himself known first to a woman that was
at the well in the middle of the day. And then through her
testimony, he would make himself known to many other Samaritans
that lived in Sychar. He has spoken to her. and revealed himself to her. When he said to her, I am, speaketh
unto thee. Lord, we know that when Messiah
comes, he'll lead us into all truth. The Messiah will reveal
all that we need. Not knowing that she was speaking
to Messiah, he said to her, I am. I am speaketh unto thee. She
runs back down into Sychar and she declares, come, come, meet
a man who told me all things that ever I did. Is not this
the Christ? Is not this the Christ? And intrigued and interested
in her testimony, We pick up the story in verse 39 of John
chapter four, and many of the Samaritans, many of the Samaritans
of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman which
testified, he told me all that ever I did. And if I could go
back for just one moment and remind us that when the Lord
speaks, That's what he speaks. He reveals to us that everything
that we ever did, everything that we ever did, every thought
we ever had, every word we ever spoke, every deed we ever performed
in and of ourselves was sinful. We don't become sinners because we commit
sins, we sin in everything we do because we are by nature sinners. And so when she said he told
me everything I ever did, she knew that he knew everything
there was about her. But then he also told her everything
that she ever did in the person of her substitute. In the Lord
Jesus Christ as her savior, in her sin bearer, what he did,
she did. So that in him, she had a perfect
righteousness before God. The law had been perfectly kept
and all of her sin had been fully paid for. He told me all things
that ever I did. Is not this the Christ? Oh, to
meet a man. To meet a man who's able to expose
everything there is in truth about me. Everything that separates
me from God, my sin. And then to reconcile me to God
by imputing to me charging to my account, crediting me with
his work, with his obedience, with his sacrifice, so that as
he is, so am I." Oh, what a Savior. They were interested in that,
I hope that we are. I hope the Lord will make us
more interested in that than anything else. It is the only thing that really
matters. And all else is said and done
and everything else is, all the things of this world are behind
us. It's the only thing that matters,
the only thing. that we have Christ, that we
know Him, and more importantly, that He knows us. Verse 40, And so when the Samaritans
were come unto Him, they besought Him that He would tarry with
them, and He abode there two days. The evidence of God's grace at
work in the heart of a sinner is that they would beseech him
to remain with them. I think about Luke chapter 24
after the resurrection when those disciples are walking back to
their home in Emmaus and the Lord Jesus in his resurrected
glorified body walks along beside them and they don't know who
he is. He hasn't revealed himself to them. Their eyes have been
holden, but he speaks with them. And as they walk along the way,
they end up at their home late in the day. And he, the scripture
says he acts as if he would go on. And he always does. He, I'm
gonna go, He puts it in our hearts to plead with him to stay with
us. That's an evidence of God's grace
that we would need him. And then the scripture says,
in the breaking of bread, he did stay with them. He went into
their home and he had dinner with them. And in the breaking
of bread, their eyes were open and they beheld him. And then
they said, did not our hearts burn within us as he spake with
us along the way? He was talking to us and he was
revealing things about himself to us and we weren't able to
understand until he opened our eyes in the breaking of bread.
Nothing's changed. It's still the way it works. The Lord puts it in our heart
to have a need for him. He puts it in our mouths to ask
for him. And then he breaks open the bread
of life. And that bread is what we're
opening now, the written word of God, revealing the living
word of God. Our hope is that the Lord will
do for us what he did for them. cause our hearts to burn within
us. And cause us to say what the
Samaritan said, read on with me. And many more believed because
of his word. So now this crowd that came out
of Sychar up to the well have returned back down, come home
with us. Come into our town, come into
our city. There's others that need to hear
from you. And now the whole town is gathered
together and the Lord is speaking. And he said, and they said, verse
42, unto the woman, now we believe. Now we believe, not because of
thy saying, Our faith is not founded on the
word of another man. Although God may use the audible
voice of another man to point us to Christ, we're dependent
upon him to speak. If all you hear is the voice
of a man, well, there's another man somewhere that can that can
convince you otherwise. But here's the good word, here's
the good news. The Lord Jesus said, and they
shall all be taught of God. If God speaks, if God teaches
you, it doesn't matter if I, it doesn't matter what another
man says. Doesn't matter if another man that you thought was faithful
to the gospel departs from the gospel and preaches something
different, you're not gonna follow him. Not if God's spoken. He
will only reveal that God never spoke to him. God speaks to you. That's what
these Samaritans are saying. Now we believe. Not because of
your word. We're thankful that you came
down and told us about him. But because, not because of thy
saying, verse 42, for we have heard him ourselves. We've heard him ourselves. Is there anything more valuable
than being able to say, I've heard from God. We're not talking
about some audible voice. Oh no, when you hear from God,
it's a lot louder than that. We're not talking about some
emotional experience. Although there may be some emotions
associated with hearing from God, but we don't rely upon the
subjectivity of our feelings. When God speaks, the Holy Spirit
takes God's word and makes us believe it. He points us to Christ and causes
us to look to and to believe on the Lord Jesus. Look what
these Samaritans say. For we have heard him ourselves
and know that this is indeed the Christ. the Savior of the
world. Now let me say this, the problem is not that God's
not speaking or hasn't spoken. The problem is not that he hasn't
revealed the most glorious, life-changing message of eternal consequences. That's not the problem. The message
is loud and clear. The problem is that men aren't
interested. That's the problem. You see, that's what the miracle
of repentance is. When we come before God Almighty
as a sinner and say, Lord, change my heart, Make me to desire and to know
what it is that you're saying. If you leave me to myself, I'll
not be interested. Men by nature are not interested
in what God has to say. What God has to say robs them
of their glory. It robs them of all their comfort.
It gives all the glory of salvation to the Lord Jesus Christ. The
message is simple. Jesus is the Christ, the Son
of the Living God. Believe on Him. That's the message
of the Bible. Beginning with Genesis 1.1 and
going all the way to the end, that is the message of the Bible.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Now
I know that there's a whole lot of people say, well, I believe.
Until they find out what the Christ is, what Jesus means,
what the Son of God really means, and what Lord means. And then
they not believe on that one, they hate him. that raise their
fist and their voice to heaven and say, I'll not have that man
reign over me. If you believe that Jesus is
the Christ, the son of the living God, and all that that means is because God has spoken. God has revealed himself because
by nature you would not believe that. At the very beginning of our
Lord's public ministry, I know I've shared this story many times,
it's so profound and so significant. He goes to his hometown of Nazareth
where he's 30 years old, it's a small village, he knows all
these people He's interacted with every one of them. It's
all, everybody knows everybody on a first name basis. They've
got a little synagogue there in the middle of Nazareth where
they meet together every Sabbath. And as the Lord's habit and custom
was on this Sabbath, now that he has publicly professed himself
to be the Messiah, John has baptized him. He's gone into the wilderness.
He's now coming out and he's beginning his public ministry
and he goes first to his hometown. And on the Sabbath, he takes
the scroll and he opens it up to Isaiah chapter 61. And he reads from Isaiah 61 and
everyone there under the sound of his voice knew that that was
a prophecy concerning the Messiah, concerning the Christ. And he rolls it up and he looks out at his friends
and he says to them, this day hath this scripture been fulfilled
in thy sight. And the Bible says that they
were silent. They wondered. at the gracious
words that proceeded out of his mouth. Every person in that synagogue
was thinking, could it be? We knew that he was different.
We've seen him for all these years and we've noticed that
there was something about him. Could it be that this is the
Christ? That he's been here in our midst
all this time? And then, He gives definition
to the Christ. He gives definition to who he
is and what it is he came to do. And he says to the same group
of people, he said, in the days of the prophet Elijah, there
were many widows in Israel. Now there was a famine. It was a three year drought and
famine associated with that drought and people were starving and
dying in Israel. In the days of the prophet Elijah,
there were many widows in Israel, but God showed mercy upon none
of them except for the widow of Sarepta. Elijah went to a
Gentile woman and provided for her bread in that time of need. And then he says, in the days
of the prophet Elisha, there were many lepers in Israel. Jews, Israelites that were suffering
from leprosy. And God healed none of them except
for that Syrian by the name of Naaman. And those same people within
just a brief few minutes went from wondering at the gracious
words that proceeded out of his mouth to being filled with wrath. And they tried to take him and
murder him right there on the spot. Why? Same reason people do, people
do the same thing today. Oh, we love Jesus. We believe
on Jesus. We know he's the son of God.
Well, what does that mean? That means that he's absolutely
sovereign in whom he has mercy upon. I will have mercy upon
whom I will have mercy and whom I will, I will harden. It means
that salvation is completely of the Lord. It means that he
gets all the glory and all the praise for having saved every
sinner that he saves. Jesus, translated Jehovah saves. People call him Jesus, but it's
another Jesus. It's a Jesus with a small J.
Because in fact, they don't believe the Jesus they believe in didn't
actually accomplish anybody's salvation on Calvary Street.
He died in order to make an offer of salvation to whoever might
be willing to accept him. And that Jesus allows you to
be on the throne of God. That Jesus allows you to be in
control, and that's what men want. It's just that simple. Now we believe, not because of
your testimony, but because we have seen him ourselves. And we believe that indeed, you
see that word? Verse 42, indeed. In the original language, hid
or to hide. Now, if we're going to take a word in the English and
reverse the meaning of it, we would put an A in front of
that word. So we would say amoral. A person is not moral if they're
amoral. Or we would say an atheist, they're
not a theist, they don't believe in God, they don't believe in
God at all, they're an atheist. Or an agnostic, we put an A in
front of a word in order to reverse the meaning of that word. And that's this word, indeed. What are these Samaritans saying?
What was once hid from us is no longer hid. This was a glorious truth that
we could not see. We'd never heard from the voice
of God and now we've heard and it's no longer hid. And we believe
indeed that this is the Christ. This is the Christ. the son of
the living God. We believe that he's the anointed
one. We believe this is the one that
was prophesied all the way back there right after the fall, when
God Almighty said that the seed of the woman would crush the
head of the serpent. And all the prophets and all
the prophecies and all the promises of God for thousands of years
pointed to him. We believe that this is he. This
is the one sent of God in order to accomplish the salvation of
all of Israel. We believe he's the anointed
one. He's the Christ. He's the one who came in the
full power of the Holy Spirit in order to accomplish what he
came to do. You see, this is what it is to
hear from God. It's not a complicated message. And it's not that God hasn't
spoken. It's that men aren't interested. They won't have that
God reign over them. And you wouldn't either, and
I would not either, except the Lord reveal to us except he take
that which is otherwise hidden. You know, you hear the word apocalyptic
today. And that's a Greek word, the
word apocalyptic. And we use it to say, to talk
about the destruction of the earth. The final day, the fiery
judgment, it's going to be an apocalyptic event when everything's
going to come to an end and God's going to wrap it all up. And
that's what men think about when they think about the word apocalyptic.
But in fact, in the original language that is not at all what
the word apocalyptic means. The word revelation is the word
apocalyptic. And if you turn to Revelation
chapter one at verse one, it says, this is the apocalyptic
of Jesus Christ. And that title could be given
to every book in the Bible. Every book in the Bible could
be called the apocalypse. The book of Revelation, a small
portion of the book of Revelation deals with end time destruction. towards the end of the book.
The rest of the book, it's a revelation of Jesus Christ, who he is and
what he accomplished in the salvation of his people. It's not just
a book telling us about, you know, everybody wants to know
end times, they want to know the prophet, they want to know
what's going to happen. Why is it that people want to know what
the future holds so they can have some kind of
control over it? That's it. If I know what the
future holds, I can manipulate it. I can prepare for it. I can,
you see, it all goes back to man wanting to be God. And everybody's
interested. We could, we just put a sign out here on
the road for a few days. Sermons on the apocalypse. We'd
fill this place up. until the first time they gathered
in here and we told them what apocalypse really means. It means
a revelation of Jesus Christ and we're just gonna talk about
him. And it would empty as quick as it filled up, wouldn't it?
Men aren't interested. They're not interested in hearing
from God. They're not interested in the revelation of Jesus Christ. They would never say with these
Samaritans, Indeed, it is no longer hid that this is the Christ,
the Son of the living God. We are dependent upon Him for
everything. We believe on Him. We rest all
our hope in him. If our faith be of God, it is
evidenced by our turning away from any hope of salvation outside
of the Lord Jesus Christ. If our faith be of God, it is
evidenced by our turning away, that's repentance, from any hope
of salvation outside of the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have no confidence in the
flesh. It is a faith given from God. When God speaks, it is a complete
repudiation of our salvation having anything to do with our
will, with our works or with our wisdom. It is a complete work of grace. Christ is all and he is in all
and he gets all the glory and we love it that way because when
you hear from God and he tells you all things that ever you
did, You know right then that if you had anything to do with
your salvation, you'd mess it up. If God was looking to
you to make any contribution whatsoever, to finish something
that he started, you wouldn't be able to do it. Why? Because
he told you all things that ever you did. He told you everything you put
your hand to. It's sin. He's told you that
and you believe it. Oh, this is a mystery. The gospel is a mystery. It's a mystery. Not because it's
not clear and simple. It's a mystery because of man's unwillingness. I made this statement recently
that the problem with believing the gospel has nothing to do
with IQ, it has everything to do with I will. It's not IQ that's required for
understanding the gospel. It's a bowing of the will. And
man won't do that. It's a great mystery. But it's
a mystery only because, you know, if... If you're trying to understand
something and you start out with a false
premise, let's say you believe that 2 plus 2 equals 5. You believe that. And that's
the foundation of your mathematics. You're convinced of it. What else in mathematics are
you going to be able to understand? How simple is 3 plus 3 equals 6? You can't understand
that. Why? Because you're starting
out with a false presupposition. And here's the false presupposition
that men start out with. God loves everybody. Christ died
for everybody. And everybody's got a free will.
And the gospel remains a mystery because the premise that men
start with is wrong. And they'll never be able to
believe it. They'll never be able to understand
it until God gives them a new heart, a new mind and causes
them to believe. God loves righteousness. He loves
his Son and he loves all that's in his Son. Christ died successfully
to save those whom the Father chose in the covenant of grace
before the foundation of the world and he actually finished
the work of redemption and he saved them. Left to myself. I'm dead. I'm blind. I'm deaf. I'm dumb. I can't do anything. I don't
know anything. I don't have anything. I'm completely
dependent upon him for everything. Now we believe. Not because of your testimony. but because we have heard him
ourselves. And we know, indeed, no longer
hid, that this is the Christ, the Son of God. All right, let's
take a break.