Let's open this morning's service
with hymn number 223 from your hardback hymnal, 223. Let's all
stand together. 223. Arise, my soul, arise, shake
off thy guilty fears. The bleeding sacrifice in my
behalf appears. Before the throne my surety stands. My name is written on His hands. My name is written on His hands. He ever lives above for me to
intercede. His all-redeeming love, His precious
blood to plead. His blood atoned for all my sins
And sprinkles now the throne of grace And sprinkles now the
throne of grace Five bleeding wounds he bears He sieved on
Calvary They poor effectual prayers, they strongly plead for me. Forgive him, O forgive, they
cry, nor let that ransom sinner die, nor let that ransom sinner
die. The Father hears him pray His
dear anointed One He cannot turn away The presence of His Son
His spirit answers to the blood, and tells me I am Lord of God,
and tells me I am Lord of God. My God is reconciled His pardoning
voice I hear He owns me for His child I can no longer fear With
confidence I now draw nigh And Abba, Father, Father Please be
seated. Good morning. I want to ask you to open your
hymnals again to that hymn that we were just singing. It's amazing how true it is that
a little leaven leavens the whole lump. And there is some leaven in this
hymn in the way it was originally written. And I want to make sure
that we see it and that we don't condone it. In the third line
down, the second line of the third, let's see. The third line
of the second stanza. Third line of the second stanza.
See where it says, his blood atoned for all our race? That's not true. Everything else
in this hymn is wonderful, but that's not true. His blood atone
for all my sins. Scratch that out and put all
my sins in your hymnal. And if you have another hymnal
near you, check it and please fix it as well. All right. Let's ask the Lord's blessings
on our time together. Our Heavenly Father, thank you
for the effectual atoning of all the sins of all of thy people,
accomplished in the shed blood of our Lord and Savior, thy dear
Son, Jesus Christ. Lord, we pray that you would
enable us to set our affections on him this morning. She would
send your spirit in power that you would cause your word to
be alive and effectual and Lord that it would be as a two edged
sword that it would put to death any hope that we have in salvation
outside of Christ and that it would heal our wounds of sin
and cause us to find all our salvation in Christ and give
to Him all the glory for all our hope. We ask it in Christ's
name. Amen. Let's open our Bibles to
John chapter 1. John chapter 1. I've titled this message without
guile before God. Without guile before God. Now guile is deceit, craft, subtlety. Actually this
word is taken from the word decoy and so We know that God looks
at the heart and he sees our hearts for what they are. And
he knows that every thought and imagination of the heart has some deceit in it. It has
some decoy in it. It has some guile in it. Our hearts are deceitful. Scripture
makes that clear. Desperately wicked. We can't
know them. God knows them. He sees them
clearly. But in our text this morning,
the Lord Jesus himself, God Almighty, speaks to a man by the name of
Nathanael and says to him, look, an Israelite indeed in whom there
is no guile. What does it mean to be without
deceit, without guile, without anything that would separate
us from God? And for God to speak those words.
Look at our text, if you will, John chapter one, In verse 46, and Nathanael said
unto him, well, let's back up to verse 45. Philip findeth Nathanael, and
saith unto him, we have found him, of whom Moses in the law
and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
So, Philip is convinced that the Lord Jesus is the Messiah.
And he's telling Nathanael, we've found the Messiah. As we saw
last Sunday, it's actually the Messiah that found him. But in verse 46, and Nathanael said
to him, can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? And Philip
said to him, come and see. Now, Nazareth was a despised
little town, even among those who lived in the Northern Kingdom,
in Israel. Nathanael would have been from
Galilee. He was a Galilean. And so even he, of course everybody
in Judah, in the Southern Kingdom, considered anything in Galilee
to be perverted and less than than righteous, but even the
Galileans considered Nazareth to be the off scouring. And so
Nathanael's in his, and we see in this statement, we see in
this statement some guile in Nathanael's heart. Nathanael
thought himself to be too good. He thought himself to be better
than those folks that come from Nazareth. Can anything good come
out of Nazareth? I mean, here are Galilee and
looking down his self-righteous nose at a citizen from Nazareth. Is that not guile? Is that not
hypocrisy? Is that not decoy? Verse 47, Jesus saw Nathanael
coming to him and saith of him, saith of him. He didn't just
say this unto him, he said this of him. Behold, look, an Israelite
indeed in whom is no guile. With all the guile that exists
in my heart, I want God to say this of me. How can it be? How can it be that the God who
sees everything? You know, we want to be people
without guile in our relationships with one another. We want to
say what we mean and mean what we say. We want to be honest
men and women. We want to be sincere. We don't
want to be manipulative or hypocritical. And the scriptures speak of that.
In Psalm 34 verse 13, keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips
from speaking guile. Depart from evil and do good.
Seek peace and pursue it. I want to be that. I don't want
to be considered by you or anyone else a man who can't be trusted. 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 1, wherefore,
in light of what Christ has done and who he is and what he's done
for us, in light of his grace and his mercy, Peter says, Wherefore,
laying aside all malice, and all guile, and all hypocrisies,
and envies, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes desire the sincere
milk of the word, that you may grow thereby. By God's grace,
that's every believer's desire. I want to be that way. Turn with me to 1 Peter chapter
three. Look with me at verse 10. Verse 10. For he that will love life and
see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil and his
lips that they speak no guile. Let him eschew evil and do good. Let him seek peace and ensue
it. Now that's our Lord's admonition
to us in light of who we are and what he's done and what God
requires. This is what he requires. God
provides. And so when we read verses like
this, we think, Lord, I want the grace necessary to askew
evil, to be an honest man, to be without guile before men. And I feel certain that Nathaniel
would have had that reputation among men. He would have been a man that
could be trusted and a man who was honest, But here we have in our text
the Lord Jesus Christ, God, the Omnipotent and Omniscient One. We really do need to be careful
not to check our motives too closely, don't we? Because even
when we think we're doing things with a pure motive, there's no
such thing. We look deep enough in our hearts
and we'll find that there's some selfish motive involved in everything
we do. There's sin there. And here,
the Lord Jesus, who knows that sin better than we do, and he
knows Nathanael's sin better than Nathanael did and certainly
a lot better than Nathanael's companions knew, says to him
and says of him, behold, an Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile. Go back with me to our text.
In verse 48, Nathanael John chapter 1 verse 48, and Nathanael saith
unto him, whence knowest thou me? How do you know me? Nathanael would have enjoyed
that reputation among other men. And so he says to the Lord, how
is it that you know that I'm that kind of person? And Jesus answered and said unto
him, before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the
fig tree, I saw thee. And Nathanael answered and saith
unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God. Thou art the King
of Israel. No doubt in my mind what Nathanael
was doing under that fig tree. He's praying. And as is always
the case, regardless of how good a reputation a man might have
among his peers as being honest and sincere, when he goes before
the Lord in prayer, he pours out his soul as a sinner You can't come before God without
acknowledging the sin that remains in your heart and you come as
a sinner in prayer every time. If we don't come as a sinner
in our prayers before God, we're just We're fooling ourselves. Well, we're like that publican,
aren't we? I mean, like the Pharisee in the temple that said he prayed
thus unto himself, God, I thank thee that I'm not like other
men. I'm not an extortioner. I'm not a thief. And particularly,
I'm not like that publican over there. I thank thee that I'm
not that way. And he was praying to himself. He wasn't praying
to God. But the publican would not so much as even look up,
but smote himself upon his breast and said, God have mercy upon
me, the sinner. Which of those two went home
justified? It was the Lord saying to us,
when you come to God in prayer, you come as a sinner. You don't
come with your righteousness. You don't come with your lack
of guile, as far as your reputation among men is concerned, as important
as that is. you come realizing that even
in your best efforts, your righteousnesses are as filthy rags before God. And I'm certain that that's what
Nathanael was doing under that fig tree. Because when the Lord
said to him, when you were under the fig tree before Philip called
you, I saw you. I heard that prayer. And now
Nathanael knows he's been discovered. Nathanael knows he's been found
out. Nathanael knows that the reputation
that he had among men was not relevant now. He was standing
before God Almighty, who knew everything about his heart, and
he cries out, and says, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God. Thou art the King of Israel. Thou art the Messiah. Thou art
my Savior. And yet the Lord Jesus still
said to him, and of him, behold, an Israelite, indeed, in whom
There is no God. How could that be said of us? Well, what is an Israelite? Nathanael
was a son of Abraham. He would have been a Jew. Oh,
of course. But is that what the Lord means
when he says to Nathanael, an Israelite indeed? It's a true,
a true Israelite. What is a true Israelite? Is
it just those who are the descendants of Abraham? Well, turn with me
to Romans chapter nine. Romans chapter nine. Verse 6, not as though the word
of God had taken none effect, for they are not all Israel,
which are of Israel. So when the Lord Jesus says to
Nathanael, behold, an Israelite indeed, indeed, this is a true
Israelite. This is not just one who is saying
like the Pharisee says, we're children of Abraham. You know
what the Lord said about them. If you were children of Abraham,
you'd believe on me. Abraham saw my day and he rejoiced
in it. God's able to raise up from these stones children of
Abraham. Well, they were trusting in their
lineage for the hope of their salvation. It's not of him that
willeth, not of blood, it's not of descent. salvations of God. Look at verse 7, neither because
they are the seed of Abraham are they all children but in
Isaac shall thy seed be called. Now the Lord is distinguishing
the difference between the children of Isaac and the other child
of Abraham, Ishmael. They say well And all the Jews
would have said, amen. I'm not a child of Ishmael. Ishmael
is the father of that tribe. And no, I'm a child of Isaac. Well, now the Lord's gonna take
it further. That is, they which are the children of the flesh,
these are not the children of God, but the children of promise
are counted for the seed. What was Ishmael? Ishmael was
Abraham's attempt to help God out. Ishmael was a child of the
flesh. God said of your descendants,
there'll be blessings and there'll be innumerable descendants and
Abraham waited and waited and waited and thought, you know,
nothing's happening. God needs my help. And so he
puts his hand to the ark. He tries to He tries to hew the
stone himself with his hand and goes into Hagar and Ishmael is
the product of that. And there's been conflict ever
since. All that's going on in the Middle
East right now is going on between Ishmael and Isaac. Now it's the child of promise.
Sarah's going to have a child at 90 years old. A miracle. And that child is gonna be the
one that's gonna be blessed. And the Jews would have read
this and said, amen, that's me. I'm not a child of Ishmael. In verse nine, for this is the
word of promise. At this time I will come and
Sarah shall have a son. Yes, that son was Isaac. Now what the Lord's doing here,
he's defining an Israelite. What is an Israelite indeed? A true Israelite. Because if
I'm going to have God say to me, behold, here's a man without
guile before God, I've got to be an Israelite. Indeed, a true
Israelite. Now, now look at verse 10. And now, Not only this, but when
Rebekah also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac,
now Rebekah is going to have children and God's going to divide
the kingdom of Israel again for the children not yet born. neither having done any good
or evil that the purpose of God according to election might stand
not of works but of him that calleth it was said under her
the elder shall serve the younger." Now it's not just a matter of
being a descendant of Abraham, it's not just a matter of being
a descendant of Isaac, it's a matter of being a descendant of Jacob,
whose name was changed to Israel. Here's the true descendants of
Israel, the children of Jacob. And the Lord is telling us in
this passage of scripture that the children of Jacob are the
children of promise. Before they are born, they are
distinguished as the children of Jacob. found favor with God and was
chosen of God before he had done anything good or bad, before
he was even born, before he came into the world. He was chosen
of God that the purpose of God according to election might stand. Now the Lord's telling us something
about Nathanael. An Israelite indeed, a true Israelite,
is not one who is born privileged according to the flesh or who
produces something as evidence of his salvation but one whom
God has chosen, one whom God has elected. For as it is written, verse 13,
Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated. an Israelite indeed, must be
one of God's elect. And you might be thinking, well,
how do I know if I'm one of God's elect? Well, who are you trusting for your
salvation? Are you looking to something you've done or something
you haven't done? Looking for God to reward you
for some special place that you've occupied in this world? Or are
you looking to the free and sovereign free? Not earned, not merited,
but free and sovereign, completely in God's control, grace, accomplished,
in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith is the
evidence of things hoped for. That's the only way I can know
if I'm elect. I can't look to the evidences
of my salvation in terms of my heart, in terms of my life, the
closer I look, I find no comfort, I find no hope. But if I'm able,
by God's grace, to look outside of myself, and look to the Lord
Jesus Christ as my advocate, as my surety, as the one who
himself provided everything that God required for the hope of
my salvation. If I'm able by God's grace to
set my affections on things above, where Christ is seated at the
right hand of God, and look in faith to him, That's when hope comes. That's
when peace comes. That's when obedience comes. That's when comfort comes. Everything comes by faith. That which is not a faith is
sin. The Bible makes that clear. We walk by faith, not by sight. We can't look at anything that
can be observed by the flesh. We can't mind the things of the
flesh. They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the
flesh but they that are after the spirit, the things of the
spirit. This is a spiritual work of grace in the heart that God
does when he enables us to look beyond anything physical and
set our hopes on the Lord Jesus for all of our salvation. is an Israelite, a child of Jacob,
indeed. You're in the book of Romans,
turn back just a few pages to Romans chapter two. And look with me at verse 28. For he is not a Jew, which is
one outwardly, neither is that circumcision, which is outward
in the flesh, The Jews, Nathanael, prior to this encounter with
our Lord, would have considered his circumcision as the sign
of his salvation. And as he was a descendant of
Abraham and circumcised the eighth day, as Saul of Tarsus thought,
a child of Benjamin, an Israelite indeed. And now the Lord's saying,
no, that's not what makes a person an Israelite. And that's what
not makes a person a true Jew, but he is a Jew, which is one
inwardly and circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit
and not in the letter whose praise is not of men, but of God. What
do those who look to their circumcision, and circumcision is anything
that we put our hands to, anything outside of Christ, anything that
we've performed as the hope of our salvation or abstained from,
what do we do? Men do that for the praise of
men. And they want the acknowledgement of others to recognize, you see
that, in man-made religion, the self-righteousness and the hypocrisy
and the pride and the men telling you about what all that God's
doing with them and through them. You know, what is the testimony
that we hear of religious people? Well, let me tell you what God's
doing in my life. Well, what if you were to ask
Peter or Paul, I'm sorry, and Barnabas,
when they were beaten to the edge of their life and chained
to the wall in the Roman prison in Philippi, what if you had
gone into that prison and asked them, hey, what's God doing in
your life? What if you had asked Job, what's
God doing in your life? Well, he just killed all my children,
took away all my friends, has afflicted me with a disease,
I'm ready to die." No, you see, the testimony of
the believer is not to boast in what God's doing in your life. He may be doing something very
difficult and very painful right now but it's what God's done
for you. You're looking back to a point
in time 2,000 years ago when the Lord Jesus Christ bore in
His body your sins and put them away by the sacrifice of Him,
you're looking in faith to an experience outside of yourself. You weren't there for it, but
you see it because God has revealed it in His Word and by His Spirit
He's given you faith to believe it. So you're looking. Not to what's
going on in your life as the hope of your salvation but what
he did for you in the person of Christ. You're resting there
and whatever he does in your life, hard or easy, will be good
and you'll be able to rest in what he's done for you. So the Lord's telling us here,
this circumcision is not a circumcision performed in the flesh, it is
a circumcision performed by the Spirit in the heart. Now again,
what is the circumcision of the heart? Is it, well God by his
Holy Spirit has enabled me to cut out of my life everything
fleshly. And I'm just walking in the power
of the Spirit now and I'm just, I'm just, I'm walking by faith
every moment by moment and I have no interest or concern in those
fleshly things of the world. Oh, I wish it were so, but if
it was so, you would not be without guile, not before God because
you know that's a lie. What is the circumcision of the
heart performed by the Spirit of God? It's when God cuts from
your heart any hope of your salvation in anything fleshly. You cannot
look to anything you've done or haven't done. You cannot look
to anything that you've put your hand to for the hope of your
salvation. That He has cut that out. That
He has left you without any hope of salvation in any of those
things. Any prayer that you've ever prayed,
anything that you've ever done, the best thing you've ever done,
you can find no hope in. You must look in faith to Christ. There's an Israelite indeed.
Are you an Israelite? Are you an Israelite? Are you
a true Jew? Because that's what God, Jesus
Christ, the Son of God said to Nathanael and said of Nathanael,
more importantly, behold, look, there is a true Israelite in
whom before me is no guy. Oh, that's what we need. That's what we need. When that Gentile woman, dog,
Lord called her so, Matthew chapter 15, she was a Syrophoenician,
she came before the Lord pleading with him. Lord have mercy upon
me, my daughter is under the control of Satan. And the Lord ignored her and
then he called her a dog. And then he said this, he said
this, I am not sent but for the lost sheep of Israel. I came into this world only for
the Israelites indeed, the true Israelites, the true Jews. I didn't come for anyone else. And that's when she proved herself. Though a Gentile and though a
Syrophoenician, though a dog, she proved herself to be a true
Israelite indeed. When she said, truth Lord, that's
what I am. I can't find any hope of my salvation
anywhere in me. You've performed a circumcision
of my heart. You have cut from me any hope
of my salvation outside of you. Lord, the only hope that I have
is that you would allow a crumb from your table to fall my way. That's my hope. There's an Israelite. Now turn
with me to Psalm 32 because the Lord clearly interprets scripture
with scripture. In Psalm 32, verse one, blessed is he, blessed
of God. Now this isn't just, when God
says we're blessed, we're gonna talk about when the second hour,
when God blesses the house of David, but a blessing from God. You know, everybody says, oh,
God bless you, God bless you. You sneeze and people say, God
bless you. And that doesn't really, you
know, doesn't really warm my heart much when particular unbelievers
say that. But when God says blessed, my
ears perk up. What is God, what is the blessing
from God? Blessed is he whose transgression
is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Now there's the blessing of God.
Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity
and in whose spirit there is no guile. I have a new nature in Christ
who cannot sin for Christ is in me. Here's the spirit that
he's talking, he doesn't say a man who has no sin is not without,
he says a man whose sin is covered, a man whose sin is forgiven. Lord, if you look to my old man,
to my fleshly man, to my Jacob, and here's a perfect contrast
of the, what is Jacob's name? What does it mean? Deceiver,
supplanter, a man of guile. That's what his name means. And
his name is now being changed to Israel. Behold an Israelite
indeed, a prince of God, one who's been given a new nature.
The only way that I can have hope that God would say of me,
behold an Israelite indeed in whom spirit, there is no guile,
is to have a new spirit, a new nature, is to be made new in
Christ. And in that spirit, though my
old man, that supplanter, that Jacob, As much as I want to be
sincere and without guile and of good reputation among men,
I know that my old man, when I look at him and I inspect his
motives, I find that there's sin in everything I do. God has given me a new nature. And that new man, before God,
Just like the Lord Jesus Christ, the scripture says, his lips
were without guile, perfect. And if I'm created new in him
and found in him, not having my own righteousness, but that
righteousness, which is of Jesus Christ, there's my hope that
God would look at me and say, behold, There's a true Jew. There's an Israelite. There's
one that I've chosen and I've created new and I've circumcised
his heart. And in him, there's no guile. And closing, turn with me to
Revelation chapter 14. Revelation 14. Verse one, and I looked and lo
a lamb stood on the Mount Zion and with him 140 and 4,000 having his father's name written
in their foreheads. Now the book of Revelation speaks
of the unbeliever who has what written on his forehead and on
his hand, 666. What is the number six? It's
the number for man. In other words, the unbeliever
is looking to something that he has done for the hope of his
salvation. The 144,000 is a symbolic number
that represents all the church, all the true Israelites, all
the saints of God, all those whom God chose, all those for
whom Christ died, 12 tribes, 12,000 tribes, a perfect number,
and here they are gathered together in heaven, and His name, the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ is written upon their head. In
other words, and that's symbolic, we don't walk around with His
name. It's His, just as the man who has 666 is always thinking
after the flesh, trying to find the hope of his salvation in
something fleshly, so the man who is in Christ is looking and
believing on the Lord Jesus Christ for all their righteousness before
God. And I heard a voice from heaven
as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of great thunder,
and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps, and
they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before
the four beasts, And by new song, it doesn't mean that we're gonna
be singing something that we weren't singing here. It's the
same gospel. But as we always hope that it
will be here, God, it's gonna be new every time we open our
mouths, every time we lift our hearts in praise. You know, how
easy it is for us to become presumptuous in this flesh. And how difficult
it is for us to find freshness and newness in Christ because
of that old man that we're dragging around with us. And what a blessing
it is when God makes the gospel new and fresh. And how necessary
that is. We hope for it and pray for it.
In heaven it will always be so. It'll always be a new song. Before the four beasts and the
elders, no man could learn that song but the 140 and 4,000 which
were redeemed from the earth. Here's the whole church. These
are they which were not defiled with women. Go to the book of Proverbs. Solomon warns his son about the
the enticement of the woman and he's talking about the false
gospel. He's talking about those who would be, that would be lured
into a works gospel. For they are virgins. These are
they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed
from among men. being the first fruits unto God
and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found
no guile, for they are without fault before the throne of God." Not a word needs to be said about
that. There it is. They are found without fault
before the throne of God. Behold, look, a true Israelite
in whom there is no guile. All right, let's take a break.