Let's open this morning's service
with hymn number 70. In your hardback timbrel, number
70. Holy, holy, holy. Let's all stand together. Number
70. Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee Holy, holy,
holy, merciful and mighty, God in three Persons, blessed Trinity. Holy, holy, holy, all the saints
adore thee, casting down their golden crowns around the glassy
sea. Cherubim and Seraphim falling
down before thee, which wert and art and evermore shall be. Holy, holy, holy, though the
darkness hide thee, though the eye of sinful man thy glory may
not see. There is none beside Thee Perfect
in power, in love, and purity. Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty
All thy works shall praise thy name In earth and sky and sea
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty, God in three persons,
blessed Trinity. Please be seated. Good morning. I realized as we were singing
that hymn, thank you Tom, that there's an article in your bulletin,
it's very small, but I would encourage you to look at it. Holiness is transcendent, it's
beyond, it's incomparable. It's not just moral purity or
sinless perfection, that's not, it's much more than that. It's
other than anything that we have any experience with. And the
God that we worship is more glorious than just without sin. He's holy. He's holy. And when we gather together for
worship, we're bowing before a God who is completely other
than we are. in every way and seeking His
mercy and His grace. And the blessing is that He promises
to meet with us. He promises to reveal Himself,
glimpses of His glory. We could not bear to see the
fullness of His glory or His holiness, but our hope this morning
as we open God's Word, that the Spirit of God would open our
hearts and that He would open the eyes of our understanding
and that He would show us just a glimpse of His holiness and
of His glory, enable us to worship. We're going to be in the third
chapter of the Gospel of John, if you'd like to turn with me
there in your Bibles, John chapter 3. John chapter 3. I've titled this message, The Testimony
of Christ. The Testimony of Christ. Let's ask the Lord's blessings. our merciful, gracious, glorious
and holy God. How thankful we are that we can
come into thy presence, approach thy throne of grace in the name
of thy dear son. And no father that we have acceptance
in him, the one who himself is holy and the one in whom We have
a righteousness, a sanctification, wisdom and justice before thee,
even holiness. Lord, we pray that you would
send your spirit and power and that you would enlighten the
eyes of our understanding. We pray that you would enable
us to set our affections on things above where Christ is seated
at thy right hand. as our sin bearer, our substitute
and as our advocate before the Lord, we pray that he would be
lifted up, that he would be glorified Lord, that we would find our
hope, our comfort and all our salvation in his glorious person
and in his accomplished work. We ask it in his name. Amen. John chapter 3. And I want to
introduce these verses by making some comments about religious
experiences because in religion, testimonials and testimonies
are always exalted, I guess, even above
scripture. Religious experiences can be
very profound. I would not deny that. They can be life-changing. But religious experiences, which
is what most people think about and most people are testifying
to, when you hear testimonies among religious people, they're
telling you their experience. And religious experiences, in
and of themselves are not reliable. They're not reliable. Now, I
love it. I love it when the Spirit of
God warms my heart. I love it when he enlightens
my understanding. I love it when when he comforts
me with his presence and his peace. And I don't deny the fact
that he oftentimes does that in a person's first encounter
with him so that some believers can look back and know when the
Lord was pleased to save them. Most, on the other hand, cannot. Most believers can't identify
a moment in time. And that's okay. When we think
about the Apostle Paul, He often in his writings referred
back to that experience that he had on the road to Damascus
and how profound and how life-changing it was. But if you think of Paul
in contrast to the other apostles, you would have a very difficult
time identifying when the other apostles were actually converted.
The Scripture doesn't give that sort of experience recorded in
Scriptures. And so, religious experiences
must be tried by the Scriptures. And if they are in line with
what God has revealed, then the hope and the faith that we have is
not based on that experience. It's based on the reliable revelation
that God has given us in his word. Religious experiences must be
tried by the revelation of scripture. Oftentimes the Lord will give
us experiences to confirm or to reinforce something that he's
teaching us in his word. I had that experience Thursday. Went up to Lexington to attend
Rachel Resenti's wedding on Friday. And on Thursday, sitting next
to this young man, and he noticed that I was making notes and I
was preparing this very text of scripture and he made a comment
about it and he wanted to tell me about his experience. And it was very profound. From what I could tell, from
what he was saying, he was on the verge of suicide. His life
was in shambles. He was desperate. And he was
on his farm in Kentucky and fell on his knees and begged God to
save him and help him. And it was obviously, from what
he's telling me, he said, my life has been completely changed. And all I can do now is commit
the rest of my life to the Lord. And I thought, well, that's wonderful.
And then began to try to share with him the things that I was
studying, because he was asking me some questions. And as soon
as I began to share with him what the scripture says about
who Christ is and what he has accomplished on behalf of his
people, he cut me off. He cut me off. And he even thanked
me for giving him an opportunity to share with me his religious
experience, as if that experience that he had was the hope of his
salvation. That's what he kept replaying
in his mind. And God gave me that experience
to confirm the very things that I wanted to try to share with
you this morning, to say to you, experiences are subjective. If they are of the Lord, wonderful,
wonderful, but try them by the scriptures, because the word
of God is not subjective. And feelings come, feelings go. Feelings can be deceiving. My only warrant is the word of
God. None else is worth believing. And we can't live off of yesterday's
manna. We can't live off of yesterday's
experiences. We can't live off of yesterday's
revelation. One of the differences I would
say, When the Apostle Paul gives his
testimony as to that experience that he had on the road to Damascus,
he is doing it by way of confirming that the revelation of the gospel
did not come to him from another man. It did not come to him through
any other means. It came to him directly from
God. We call that revelation. Revelation is what God has given
divinely to the penman of scripture to write the infallible word
of God. And it's come directly from heaven.
And Paul's using that testimony and that experience to say, I
didn't get this from a man. I got it directly from God. You
and I can't say that. We can't say. Men in their pride
and in their self-righteousness and in their arrogance and in
their religious piety, some men want to pretend that they got
a direct word from heaven from God. God spoke to me and God
told me. God did that for the penman of his scriptures and
he did that for the apostle Paul, he did that for the prophets.
What does he use now? Faith comes by hearing and hearing
comes by the word of God. What sayeth the scriptures? God
uses the means of preaching and God uses the means of his word
now to speak to his people. And just as God gave to me on
Thursday, a very profound experience with this young man, So the Lord
might give us experiences, and he does, he does, but always
to confirm what he's revealed in his word. And the experience
in and of itself is not reliable. God's word is. Verse 31 of John chapter 3. John is giving testimony of who
the Lord Jesus is and what he has accomplished. And the Lord
has revealed this truth to John and he's given it to us in his
word so that so that we, when we read this testimony, you know,
a witness in a court of law can either be believed or not believed.
Is that witness reliable? Is their testimony true? John
tells us, turn with me to the end of the Gospel of John, to
the end of the Gospel of John. Now, we know that John the Baptist
is actually speaking in John chapter three. John the Apostle
is the one writing these scriptures. And John the Apostle is speaking
of himself when he says at the end of his letter, of his gospel
account, he says this in verse 24 of John 21, this is the disciple
which testify of these things and wrote these things and we
know that his testimony is true. Now the law of God required two
or more witnesses to confirm a testimony. And we know even
today that a single eyewitness testimony is not reliable. It
can be easily refuted by a good attorney in a court of law. But
the confirmation of two eyewitnesses it will confirm a thing. And we have 40 different penmen
of scriptures. We've got 66 books in God's word. We've got 1500 years of record
that God has given us that all confirm the witness of the other.
And John is concluding his, his gospel by saying, this is the
apostle. He's talking about himself. I
am the disciple that wrote these things. And we know that his,
he's talking about himself in the third person. He says, we
know that his testimony is true. It's true. Now, faith is believing
the testimony of God. That's it. It's not believing
in an experience. It's not believing in some future
event. You know, if I just believe strong
enough, I can make something happen. That's not faith. That's presumption. Faith is
believing the testimony of God. And the Bible is God's testimony. And we sit depending upon the
Lord to take His Word and by His Spirit reveal the truth of
His Son and give us not just an understanding but give us
a love, a love for the truth, a love for the gospel, a love
for Christ, a complete dependence upon Him. So we come together. Every time we come together,
every time you get in your prayer closet and go before the Lord
and look to His Word, that's what we're doing. We're hoping and praying and depending
upon the Lord to speak and to confirm our hope by His Word. And you've heard me say this
many, many times, because people say, well, how much of the Bible
do we need to believe in order to be a believer? Every word
of it. And if God gives you faith, you
will believe every word of it. You'll bow to it. You'll rejoice
in it. You'll say, without Sir Alpharnesian
woman, with everything that God says, truth, Lord, truth, Lord. Now, do we understand it? I spent a couple days with Todd
Nybert up in Lexington Friday and Saturday, came home yesterday
and we were talking about that we know some preachers that accuse
us of being mystics. They accuse us of being mystics
because they profess to understand everything that they believe.
And we say, we say gladly, we don't understand anything that
we believe. We don't understand anything
that we believe. Now, Gnosticism, is men pretending to understand,
men saying that I have an understanding. It goes right back to this thing
of revelation that Paul had and men wanting to think that God
has spoken directly from them and he's revealed himself and
given them an understanding. And the Gnostics will say, you
know, I understand what I believe. I have to stand before you and
say, I don't understand anything I believe. Anything. And let them call me a mystic
if they want. I'd rather be a mystic than a
Gnostic. Because the truth is, they don't
understand it either. And if they think they understand
it, they don't really believe it. What do we understand about
the incarnation. We believe that God was made
flesh and dwelt among us and we behold his glory as the only
begotten of the father, full of grace and full of truth. What
do we understand about glory? What do we understand about holiness?
What do we understand about our own sin? We don't understand
any of these things. We have little slivers of understanding
that God gives us. But we believe it. Lord, whatever
it means and whatever it all is, I bow. We bow. We bow to the word of God and
rejoice. In the book of Revelation, there's
a reference to two witnesses. and who lie dead in the streets
of Jerusalem, and then God raises them up. I used to know a couple of men
that professed to be believing the gospel who have since fallen
completely away. And they professed themselves
to be the two witnesses of Revelation. They believed themselves to be
the only two men on the face of the earth that were preaching
the gospel. And I knew when they made that profession, oh, your
time is short. That's not what the two witnesses
are. What are the two witnesses? The two witnesses are the two
olive trees that provide the oil to the lamp. It's the spirit
of God and the word of God. It's God's Holy Spirit taking
God's Holy Word and making it truth to the hearts of God's
people. Those are the two witnesses.
And we, you know, when there was a contention among the believers
in the church in Jerusalem, they came to the apostles and the
apostle says it's not It's not me for us to take care of this. And they appointed seven men
in the church to take care. And Peter said, we must commit
ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. Because
those are the means. We preach the gospel and we depend
upon the spirit of God to bless the word of God. That's the testimony. However profound And I've had
many experiences over the years listening to religious people
tell me about their life-changing, profound religious experiences,
and then when you try to talk to them about what God's Word
says, they have no interest. And men will rely upon those
experiences for the hope of their salvation. Let us rely upon what
God has revealed. And let us ask the Spirit of
God to give us a good hope, not a false hope. Now that's what John is testifying
to. Look what he says. You'll see
how all this, verse 31, he that cometh from above is above all. He that is of the earth is earthy
and speaketh of the earth. He that cometh from above is
above all. Now John's speaking of Christ
and himself. He's saying, I'm earthy. All
I can do is speak the things that I've seen and the things
that I've heard. But this one has seen things
that A man cannot see, he's heard things that a man cannot hear. This is the one who has come
from above and he's above all. And that word above in this verse
means he's over all. He's over all. He's over all nations. He's over
all politics. We're in the throes of an election
cycle and it's, You know, it's just, it's tiring, isn't it?
There's only one boat, the boat, boat. Because God will use means,
but in the end of the day, there's only one boat that counts, and
that boat's already been cast. We have a God who is over all.
He's over all. He's above all. He's over all.
Governing authorities, he's over all economies, he's over all
weather, he's over your boss, he's over your wife and your
husband and your ex. He's over your children. He's
over everything. Most comforting, he's over you. He's over your circumstances.
He's over your sin. He reigns. over the armies of
heaven and all the inhabitants of the earth. No man can stay
his hand. No man can say unto him, what
doest thou? He's above all things. He's sovereign. And he's not just sovereign in
Providence and in our circumstances. He's sovereign in salvation.
And here's where this young man I was talking to on the plane
Thursday didn't want to hear it. You want to hear about a
God who was sovereign over his salvation. A God who had of his
own will and purpose elected a particular people before the
time ever began. A God who went to Calvary's cross
and sacrificed himself, not as an offering to us, but as an
offering to his father to satisfy the justice of God on behalf
of the ones whom God had chosen. He's sovereign. He's sovereign
in regeneration. He knows where his lost sheep
are and he sends his spirit and power to give faith to believe
on him. What a comfort. We, we rejoice
in having a God that sovereign in our salvation. If my God depends
upon me to make some contribution to my salvation, I have no hope
because I don't know if I did it right. Matter of fact, I'm
sure I didn't. I'm sure I did. But a God who did it all by himself,
oh, I can rest there. I can rejoice there. I can delight
in that God. Truly our God reigns. He's absolutely
sovereign. And that's the testimony. Here's
the testimony. He that cometh from above is
above all. He's above all. He's over all
things. We speak those things which we
see and hear. Our vision is so limited. We
have some understanding of the past, although what we don't
lose, we change when it comes to past events, don't we? We have no concept or understanding
whatsoever of what's gonna happen in the future. None whatsoever. Jacob is a perfect example of
that. Jacob, when his sons came back
from Egypt and said, we've got to send Benjamin, Jacob said,
oh, all these things are against me. Everything's against me. I'm losing my child. I've lost
Joseph. He didn't know Joseph was the
prime minister of Egypt. He didn't know that the last
18 years of his life were going to be in the lap of luxury, living
as the father of the prime minister of the greatest nation in the
world in the land of Goshen. He didn't know that. He thought
all these things are against me. He that is of the earth is
earthy. We are of the earth. We can only
speak of what we see. And oftentimes we make bad conclusions. He that is above is above all
things. He's over everything. We make our plans. He orders
our steps. That's what it means to walk
by faith. We walk by faith, not by sight. What is faith? Just
trusting God, believing God, believing what he has revealed
in his word. Verse 32, what he has seen and
heard That he testifieth, and no man receiveth his testimony. Men won't hear what he says.
They'll rely upon their own experiences. They'll rely upon their own opinions.
They'll rely upon their own fears and their own estimation of things.
It's interesting in the Bible that the word heresy is the word
opinion. If I have an opinion, that's different from what God
has revealed, and I'm relying upon that opinion as truth, that's
heresy. We must go back. That's what
John's saying. He that's from above, he's heard
directly from God, and he testifies the truth as it is. Turn back
just one page to John chapter one. John chapter one. Look at verse 18. No man hath
seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which
is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. Man said, well, I saw God. I
had this revelation. I had this experience. And it's
changed my life. It's not what God's word says. No man. has seen God at any time,
except that he that is of the bosom of the Father. When Philip
asked the Lord, he said, Lord, just show us the Father and we'll
be satisfied. It will suffice us. And the Lord looked at Philip
and he said, oh, Philip, have I been with you so long and you
don't know that if you've seen me, you've seen the Father, I
and the Father are one? All that we're going to know
about God will be revealed in the person and work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And all of God's word is a revelation of Christ, who
himself is the truth. I am the way, I am the truth,
and I am the life. No man cometh of the Father.
The wisdom of God, the love of God, the power of God, the glory
of God, the justice of God, the wrath of God, the grace of God,
it's all seen in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ
and all the attributes of God are on their full display at
Calvary's Cross. No place else do we see the full
display of God's attributes more clearly. than what God did at
the cross when he satisfied his divine justice by pouring out
the full fury of his wrath on our sin bearer. When he demonstrated
his love, greater love had no man than this, he laid down his
life for his friends. He showed forth his grace and
his glory and his power to save and his ability to finish the
work that was required for the salvation of his people is finished. A man left to himself will not
receive this testimony. He'll not believe it. He'll rely
upon his own feelings, his own experiences, his own heresies. before he will
receive the testimony of God's word. He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God
is true. God is true. Whatever God says,
that's what I believe. God's true. Let every man be
a liar. And he that believes what God
has revealed has this seal set on him. And the seal says God
is true. True about what? That Jesus is
the Christ, the Son of the living God. Turn with me to Matthew
26. This has always been the issue. Always. It was then, it is now. Matthew
26. These religious leaders Who were
relying upon their own experiences, their own feelings, their own
righteousness, the affirmation that they were getting from other
men? The Pharisees. They knew that the law required
two witnesses in order to condemn a man. And those two witnesses
had to be in agreement. And so they went out and they
found two men who they thought were going to be good witnesses
to condemn the Lord to death. And they got these two men up
to be witnesses and they were not consistent in their witness. They couldn't tell the same story.
Why? Because they weren't witnessing
the truth. And so the Pharisees knew right
then that, well, we can't condemn him based on the witnesses of
these two fellows. So let's just ask him. Let's
see if we can get him to condemn himself. Let's see if we can
get him to incriminate himself. And so in Matthew chapter 26
at verse 63, verse 62, and the high priest
arose and said to him, answerest thou nothing? They're frustrated,
they're frustrated because they can't they can't get enough evidence
to condemn him. What is it which thou witness
against thee? Which these witness against thee?
And Jesus held his peace, and the high priest answered and
said unto him, I adjure you, I command you by the living God
that you tell us whether thou art the Christ, the Son of God. There's the issue. There's the
testimony. Are you the Christ, the Messiah,
the one sent God from heaven. That's what John's testifying
in John chapter 3. John said they wouldn't have
came down from above. He's testifying to things that he's seen in heaven.
Things that he knows. We that are earthy, we just testify
the things that we know. But are you the Christ? Are you the
long-awaited Messiah? Are you the one sent from God?
in the full power of the Spirit of God to accomplish the salvation
of all of Israel? To be successful? These Jews
knew what the Christ was. They just rejected the Lord Jesus
as the Christ. Are you the Son of God? Are you
the fullness of the Godhead bodily? Are you claiming deity? And Jesus saith unto them, thou
hast said, nevertheless, I say unto you hereafter, shall you
see the son of man sitting on the right hand of power and coming
in the clouds of heaven? Then the high priest rent his
clothes. Oh, he was so happy to hear this.
He rent his clothes in a in a false display of indignation. Oh, he's
religiously indignant that this man would claim to be the Christ,
the son of God. And he rent his clothes and he
says, he has spoken blasphemy. He has incriminated himself. We have enough evidence, crucify
him. The Lord Jesus professed himself to be the Christ,
the Son of God. I don't want to base our faith
on logic. I want to base it on the revealed
truth of God's Word. God has said it. We believe it
because God said it. But think with me for just a
moment logically. If a man claims to be God, only
one of three things can be true. Either he knows he's not God
and he's trying to convince you that he is, that makes him a
liar. Or he genuinely believes himself
to be God and he's not, that makes him to be a lunatic. Or
he is who he says he is, and that makes him Lord. What do you believe about the
testimony that Jesus Christ made of himself? I am the Christ. I am the son of the living God,
because those are the only three choices you've got. Can't be
a good man. Can't be a prophet sent from
God. He can't be. He can't be anything
other than one of those three things. And as I said, we don't conclude
that he's Lord because of that logical argument, we conclude
it because God has said it and he's given us the faith to believe it. Verse 34 in our text, for
he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God for God giveth
not the spirit to him by measure. You and I just get little measures
of the Holy Spirit. That's what Christ means, the
anointed one. When the Lord Jesus left the
glories of heaven and came into this world, he came in the full
power of the Spirit of God. There's no way for him to fail. The Father loveth the Son. and
hath given all things into his hand. And I love what the Lord said
in John chapter 17 when he prayed to his father for his church
and he says to his heavenly father, thou hast loved them even as
thou have loved me. There's no difference between
the love. God only has one kind of love.
His love is perfect, his love is holy. And he loves those in
Christ just as he loves his own son. The father loveth the son. Verse 36, he that believeth on
the son hath everlasting life. I know the world's full of people
who say, I believe in Jesus. You know, just like this young
man I was talking to on an airplane. We're talking about the one revealed
in scripture. We're not talking about the one
of man's imagination. There's a lot of Jesus's in this
world and there's a lot of gospels and there's a lot of spirits
in this world. Scriptures are clear on that. Try the spirits
to see whether they be of God. But there's one, there's one
who's revealed in God's word. He that believeth on the son
of God as he is revealed in scripture, the sovereign successful Savior
of sinners, the one who bore all the sins of all of God's
people in his body, the one whom God made to be sin for us that
we might be made the righteousness of God in him, the Christ. He that believeth on him, trust
him, relies upon him, rejoices in him, that's what the word
believe means. You believe on him. I love that. You're standing in the window
of the third floor of a burning building and you see some firemen
down there who've got a net ready to catch you. And they're encouraging
you to jump and you say, well, I believe that net will catch
me. You're believing in that net.
It's not until you jump into the net that you believe on the
net. Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ
is resting the whole hope of your salvation on Him. Paul said,
I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that He is able
to keep that which I've committed unto Him. That's what it is to
believe on Him. Commit everything to Him. I wanna be a whole lot more committed
than I am in my walk. And commitments come and go.
But to commit everything unto Him is to depend upon Him for
all of your salvation. All of your salvation. He that
believeth on him hath everlasting life. You wouldn't believe if
you didn't have everlasting life. Now don't turn that around. Don't make faith the means of
getting everlasting life. Faith is the evidence of having
everlasting life. Faith is the evidence of having
everlasting life. Hebrews chapter 11, verse one. It's the substance of things
hoped for. It is the evidence of things not seen, faith. Faith,
it's a gift of God. It's not something that we offer
God in order for him to reward us with everlasting life. He
that believeth hath everlasting life. And he that believeth not the
Son hath not life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. I don't want to have anything
to do with that. The wrath of God abided on the Lord Jesus
at Calvary's cross. God satisfied his justice when
he poured out the full fire of his fury on his sinless son for
the sins of his people. Oh, Our Heavenly Father, thank you
for the testimony of the Lord Jesus. And thank you for the
testimony of your word. And Lord, thank you for the Holy
Spirit who causes us to believe on him. For it's in Christ's
name we pray, amen.