Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with hymn number 22 from your Spiral Gospel Hymns
hymn book. Number 22. Let's all stand together. ? We were ruined by the fall ?
? Adam's sin defiles us all ? ? By our deed as by our birth ? ?
We deserve the law's great curse ? ? Helpless, hopeless sinners
we ? ? Never can our souls retrieve ? ? But the blessed Son of God
? Came as man in flesh and blood ? He fulfilled the Lord's demands
? And in death stretched out his hands ? On the cross of Calvary
? Christ redeemed and set us free ? In the time which God
had set ? The Spirit came for His elect ? To regenerate and
call ? From the ruin of the fall ? By His power and by His grace
? We were born for God's own praise ? Now your purpose we
fulfill ? Saved according to your will ? Sing this song of
joyful praise ? For the glory of your grace ? Blessed, holy,
triune God ? Hear our praise through Christ our Lord Please
be seated. Good morning. That last stanza began with,
now we fulfill thy wise decree, or something like that. Thy purpose,
we fulfill thy purpose. Our purpose is to worship God.
That's our purpose. And I hope that the Lord will
enable us to to do that this morning. Did Ben and Tom? Yeah, Tom and
Ben Fisher are from Angus's Church in Nowra, Australia, and they've
been here with us this week and will be church hopping for the
next five weeks. They're going to go to several
gospel churches before they go back home in a month or so. So, good to have you men with
us. Also, Nikki Wigington gave birth
to a baby girl Friday night. So, we rejoice with her and Chad
and Donnie and Mary over Cadence Rain is her name. We're going to be in the Gospel
of John again this morning, if you'd like to turn with me there
in your Bibles. Thank you for your prayers at
our meeting in Fairmont, I thought went well. And the Lord was pleased
to bless our time together up there and gave us safe travel.
We got home last night. It's good to be back. It's cold
up there. I was telling the men this morning,
when we got there, the refrigerator at the church had gone out. And
they were scrambling, trying to figure out what to do, because
they've got meals for the conference. And I said, what do you need
a refrigerator for? Just open the door and leave
it outside. It'll be fine. But we're glad
to be back to warm Florida and be with you. Let's ask the Lord's blessings
on our time together. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
thank you for once again, Lord, allowing us, leading us, putting
into our hearts a desire to be here, to open thy word, call
upon thee to send your spirit in power, to reveal the glory
of Christ in our hearts, and to enable us to enter in to true
spiritual worship. Lord, apart from your grace,
we have nothing in us that would enable us to that end. Lord,
we pray that we might experience the fulfillment of your promise
that where two or three are met together in thy name, there you
are in the midst of them. Lord, show us your mercy. Show us your grace. Lord, we're
sinners in need of Christ. And Lord, we pray that you would
reveal him to us now through your word. We ask it in his name,
amen. You have your Bibles open to
the gospel of John. We've been a couple of weeks
now in beginning our time in this wonderful gospel account. And this morning, I want us to
look at the order of salvation. Our God is a God of order. He's
a God of purpose. Everything he does is on purpose. He's not like us. He has no contingencies. He has no collateral unintended
circumstances to contend with like we do in the plans and the
decisions and the things that we make. We can't see the beginning
to the end, he does. And he purposed it exactly as
he willed. And there's nothing out of order. And so here in the gospel of
John, the Lord begins this gospel by giving us some understanding
of that order. Let's read together verses six
through 13. There was a man sent from God
whose name was John. The same came for a witness to
bear witness of the light that all men through him might believe.
Speaking of course of John the Baptist, not John the penman
of this epistle or this gospel. He was not that light, but was
sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He that
was in the world, or he was in the world, I'm sorry, and the
world was made by him and the world knew him not. He came unto his own and his
own received him not. He came to Israel, God's chosen
people, the ones who had the promises of God and had the word
of God. The only people on the face of
the earth that had the word of God revealed from the very beginning
that the Messiah would come and the Lord Jesus comes to Israel,
the fulfillment of those promises, but they would not receive him. Verse 12, but as many as received
him, To them gave he power to become the sons of God, even
to them that believe on his name, which were born, not of blood,
nor the will of man, nor the will of flesh, nor the will of
man, but of God. The first time we find the word
order in the Bible is in Genesis chapter 22, when God instructs
Abraham on how to build the altar that he is going to lay Isaac
on. And the scripture says that he
laid the wood in order. It was a perfect order to that
altar. The purpose, of course, of this
is to show us the order of the Lord Jesus Christ. We see in
the tabernacle that the Lord gave to Moses that it was to
be built exactly according to the pattern that was in heaven.
In the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, everything
was very specific. It was to be done in an exact
order. Noah's Ark. which again is a
picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, had very specific dimensions
by which it was to be built and very specific instructions on
what Noah was to do in constructing that ark. There was one door
into the ark, there was one window that allowed the the dove to leave from that ark
and everything was very, very specific. If you'll turn with
me to Isaiah chapter 9. Isaiah chapter 9. There's a familiar passage here
but there's a word that I want you to make note of. In Isaiah chapter 9, beginning at verse 6, for unto us a child is born,
unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his
shoulders, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor,
the Mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace,
and of the increase of his government and peace, there shall be no
end. Upon the throne of David and
upon his kingdom, to order it, to order it, and to establish
it with judgment and with justice from henceforth forever and ever,
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. All the prophecies that were
given of the Lord Jesus Christ, he fulfilled perfectly and in
order. It all happened, as the scripture
says, in the fullness of time. What a glorious hope and comfort
gives to the heart of God's people to know that our God reigns. He reigns and he does everything
according to his divine purpose. How oftentimes we read in God's
word, and it came to pass. What came to pass? That which
God had purposed was now being fulfilled in time. Everything
that's happening in time is the fulfillment of that which God
had purposed in eternity. Our God reigns and he does everything
on purpose and everything according to a very specific order and
a very exact schedule. Turn with me to Ecclesiastes
chapter three. Ecclesiastes chapter three. You remember this passage, there
is a time for this and a time for that. God has ordained everything
according to time. And though we cannot see the
beginning to the end, the scripture says that he makes everything
beautiful in his time. God's not on our time schedule,
we're on his. And we love it that way. When we become anxious about
things not happening according to our plans, we are reminded
that though man deviseth his ways, the Lord orders his steps. He orders his steps in his time,
according to his purpose, Look with me at verses 14 and 15 of
this chapter. I know, I know, that reminds
us of what the Lord said in Romans 8, 28. And you know that all
things work together for good. for them that love him and those
that are called according to his purpose. We know these things.
We know that our God is sovereign. We know that he's omnipotent.
We know that he's omniscient. We know that he reigns over the
armies of heaven and all the inhabitants of the earth. What
is the good that God is bringing out of all things? The glory
of Christ. The only good thing that there
is. The only good one that there is. He uses all these things
to lead his people in this life and in the life to come to the
person of his dear son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the end. That's his purpose. And we're so very thankful for
that. If it was up to us, we would never come to that end. But our God brings all these
things together. Look at verse 14 again. I know
that whatsoever God doeth it shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it, nor
anything taken from it. God doeth it. You can't add anything
to what God's doing. You can't take anything away
from what God's doing. And what is the purpose of that?
That men should fear him. What is it to fear God is to
believe on Him, is to rest in Him, is to look to Him, is to
rest in Him and to rejoice in Him as God. The gospel of God's
free grace and the glorious person of the Lord Jesus Christ is the
only message of salvation that declares God to be God. Every
other message of salvation makes their God dependent upon us to
do something. We've got to do something to
make what he did work for us. And so the only difference between
one religion and another in all the world is what is it that
you have to do. And the glorious truth of the
gospel of God's free grace is that he's done it all from beginning
to end. Nothing can be added to it. Nothing
can be taken from it that we might fear before him. Now look
at the next verse. That which hath been is now. In other words, that which God
ordained and purposed in eternity past, before time ever was, is
being fulfilled now. The Lord Jesus Christ is called
the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world.
In the covenant of grace, the Lord Jesus Christ became our
surety and agreed to redeem his people. And what happened 2000
years ago was the fulfillment of that purpose. In the fullness
of time, the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled that which had been. It had been determined and settled. And that which is to be, that
which is to be, the future, hath already been. And again, he's
referring back to eternity past. So what's happening now has already
been. What's happening in the future
has already been. The Lord's telling his children
that we might fear him, that everything is happening according
to his purpose. He has no plan B. He's not like
us. He doesn't have You know, as
I said, unintended consequences that he has to deal with. No,
it's all, everything and every consequence of every decision
of every act that man performs is according to that which hath
been. And God requireth that which
is past. Again, all three of these references
in verse 15 are pointing back to before time. That which is
now, hath been. That which shall be, hath been.
And God requires in the fullness of time, that which hath been.
Oh, what a glorious God we serve. We can't... We can't even begin
to understand that in our experience. But we believe. God, you know,
how do you comprehend this? You don't. You don't comprehend
it. You believe it. You believe that
God is God. And that he is a God of purpose. Now, Go back with me to our text
in John chapter 1 because what the Lord is giving us here is
that order of our salvation, the light, which of course is
a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ, the light of the world,
must be before the witness. The witness much must be before
the new birth. And the new birth must happen
before we can have any assurance of our salvation. So there's
the order. The details of our experiences
may differ. in terms of where we are and
what we're going through and how God brings the gospel to
us. And we need to be careful not
to force our experience off on another brother. Their experience
may be very different from ours. Nevertheless, there is a pattern
for every believer. And the pattern is according
to the order that God has purposed. And here's the order, the light
had to be first. He's the first cause of all things. Without him there would be no
witness. Without him we would be without form, without order,
that's what that word means, and void, empty of any understanding
or any ability to know God. He had to be And notice what
John says about the Lord Jesus being first. Look at, we'll move
over to verse 15. John bear witness of him and
cried saying, this was he of whom I spake, he that cometh
after me is preferred before me for he was before me. Now you remember when Mary went
to visit Elizabeth, Elizabeth was about to give birth to John
and Mary had just recently conceived of the Holy Spirit. And the baby
in Elizabeth's womb leaped in the presence of the Lord Jesus.
John was born before Christ in time. But what is John, what
is the Lord telling us here? Before I was, he was. The Lord Jesus made that confession
to the Pharisees when he said to them, before Abraham was,
I am. And what does the scripture say? They were so enraged by that
because they knew that what our Lord was doing was he was, he
was professing himself to be God. I am the eternal, I am the
unchanging, uncreated, eternal God. I am the first cause of
all things. And when he said before Abraham
was, you're not yet 50 years old. How can you say that before
Abraham was, I am. And they took up stones to stone
him. Now here's what our Lord's telling
us in this text, that before anything was, the Lord Jesus
Christ had to be the light that started it all. And he never said that I was. It's not that the Lord Jesus
Christ is saying, well, I was before you were. No, I am. I'm the self-existent one. I'm
the uncreated one. I'm the eternal one. And all of your salvation is
in me. I'm the alpha and the omega,
the beginning and the end, the first and the last. So the Lord's
telling us in our text that John, well, turn over with me. We'll
get to these verses in a few weeks, but look over at verses
29 and 30 in this same chapter. The next day, John seeth Jesus
coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh
away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, After
me cometh a man, which is preferred before me, for he was before
me. There can be no witness. of Christ
unless Christ raises that witness up and sends that witness after
him. He's the first cause of the witness. And he's the first cause of all
things. He's the first cause of all of our circumstances.
He's the one who sets all things in order. The second thing we see in this
passage of scripture is that not only must light come before
the witness, but the witness must come before there can be
the revelation of that light to our hearts. Call upon the name of the Lord
and thou shalt be saved, but how shall they call upon him
in whom they've not heard and how shall they and whom they've
not believed? And how shall they believe on
him in whom they've not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? And how shall they preach except to be sent? You
see another, there's the order. There's the order that God has
purposed for the salvation of his people. You can't believe. You can't call until you believe. You can't believe until you hear.
You can't hear without God sending a witness. And God uses the foolishness
of preaching to save them. This is contrary to any thoughts
that we might have of being able to come into the presence of
God without the aid of God's Word, without the aid of God's
witness, and think that we're going to receive some revelation
of God. He doesn't order things that
way. He doesn't do it that way. It
puts an end to any man that would say, well, I had a vision, I
had a dream, and God spoke directly to me, and this is what God says. And so many false prophets make
that claim. And the Lord said, I didn't speak
to them. I didn't speak to them. God speaks of his witness, the
Lord Jesus Christ, who's called, his name is called Faithful and
True, and he speaks of his witness through his witness. And God
in every generation has always had a witness. The prophets of
the Old Testament, they witnessed Christ, God who at sundry times
and in divers manners spake unto our fathers by the prophets. All these prophets were sent
of God with a revelation given to God's people of the Lord Jesus
Christ, recorded in God's word, how dependent you and I are that
God send a witness and that he bless his message to our hearts. God doesn't use false witnesses. The Lord tells us no lie is of
the truth. I've heard people say, well,
you know, they're saying some things that are true. And so
I just, I know it's not a, I know there's a lot of, there's a lot
of things that aren't true in what this preacher is saying,
but I'm able to glean from what he says, the things that are
true. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. And if there's
any lie in a message of salvation, that's not true, it's not of
God. It's not of God, and Satan is very deceptive. Scripture says that he comes
as an angel of light and as a minister of righteousness, and he speaks
things that are true, and yet there's enough arsenic in the
water to pollute the whole glass. And so it is with the false gospel. This, This witness is a faithful
witness. Faith comes by hearing and hearing
comes by the word of God. And this is the word of God,
which by the gospel is preached unto you. The gospel, the good
news that Jesus Christ is God. that Jesus Christ is all in my
salvation and that he is in all parts of my salvation and that
nothing can be added to him and nothing can be taken from him. God has purposed it and God will
fulfill it. He gets all the glory. He gets all the glory. I can't
claim any contribution whatsoever to my salvation. That's the faithful
witness. A faithful witness always testifies
of the faithful one. The one whose name is faithful
and true. The one who faithfully fulfilled
all that God required. for the salvation of God's people.
He was faithful to keep God's word. He was faithful to fulfill
God's law. He was faithful to provide to
his father the atoning sacrifice that God required for the putting
away of the sins of God's people. He was faithful. And John, you
remember, here's John's testimony, behold. Look, the Lamb of God,
he's the one that taketh away the sins of the world. And then
what did John say? Well, your disciples are following
after Christ. John said, I must decrease. He must increase. He's the one
we're here to witness of and to testify of. This is the order
that the light had to come before the witness. and the faithful
witness had to come before the new birth. Turn with me to 1
John chapter 5. 1 John chapter 5. The water here is a picture of the
Word of God. We are We are washed by the water
of his word. The blood here is a picture of
the shed blood of justification that the Lord Jesus shed on Calvary's
cross. And look what our Lord says in
verse six. This is he that came by water
and blood. It's interesting, is it not? that in the birth of a child,
water comes before blood? Isn't it interesting that when
that soldier pierced the sword through our Lord's side, water
came out first and then blood? What is the Lord saying to us?
That in order for the blood to justify us before God, God first
comes through the water. He comes by His Word. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing
comes by the Word of God. And without the witness and without
God's Word, there can be no blood. This is He that cometh by water
and blood, even Jesus Christ. Not by water only, but by water
and blood. And it is the Spirit that bears
witness because the Spirit is truth. The Spirit bears witness
to the heart. Isn't it amazing, brethren, how
when you hear the truth, you know it's true. You just know
it's true. You don't have to dissect it,
you don't have to parse the verbs and try to figure out, you know,
what did he really mean by that? The truth is always simple, the
truth is always clear, and it always points to Christ. And
anything that's confusing, you can be sure is not true. Anything
that's convoluted, anything that's contradictory. If a man says,
yeah, we're saved by grace, not by works, but then you have to
do this, or you have to say this, or you have to, no, how can I
make sense of that? No, Christ is either all or he's
not. Either nothing can be added to
him or anything taken from him, or he's not, it can't be both
ways. Truth is simple. And the spirit
confirms to our hearts the truth of the gospel. Verse seven, for there are three
that bear record in heaven, the father, the word, John identifies,
this is the same John that wrote the gospel, that we've been looking
at. The Word was made flesh, in the
beginning was the Word, and the Word is Christ. The Word was
with God and the Word was God. These three bear record in heaven. The Father, the Word, and the
Holy Ghost, and these three are one. Elected, chosen by God the
Father. redeemed by the word, the Lord
Jesus Christ in the covenant of grace, all of this foreordained,
all of this purpose of God, all of this accomplished in eternity
past, now being fulfilled in time. And then the Holy Spirit
entering into that covenant relationship. promising to go to those for
whom Christ died, promising to arrest on the road to destruction,
like Saul of Tarsus, those that were chosen of God, and reveal
Christ in them, give them that new birth. Is there any way salvation
could fail? God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit, all purposing the salvation of a
particular people, Is there any way? Here's our comfort, here's
our rest. Lord, I rest in knowing that
you're God. And there are three that bear
witness in the earth. Verse eight, the spirit and the
water, that's the word, and the blood, that's the work. The work of the Lord Jesus Christ
in shedding his precious blood to cover our sin, that's his
work. And those are the three that
bear witness here in the earth. The Spirit of God takes the Word
of God and leads the children of God to the Son of God. What
a glorious, simple order, pattern, this is the pattern. And though,
as I said, our experiences may differ, this is the pattern that
the Lord always follows. You know, I think it's interesting
that we just were with some brethren up in West Virginia yesterday
and Friday, and there were other brethren there from other gospel
churches, and some of them we'd met before and others we had
not, but there's a instant fellowship among believers because there's
no disagreement, there's no debate, there's no sitting around like
we used to do in religion and pool our ignorance and try to
convince one another of how much more we knew over that person
and call into question certain things in order to get people
to speculate on certain things. No, no, we just, we hear the
message and we rejoice together. We're in perfect agreement. Christ is not divided. The same
spirit and the same word, the same God applies the same gospel
to the hearts of God's people and they just rejoice together.
All of these divisions that you see in religion and all of these
denominations that you have was talking to a man who who belongs
to a, or has been involved in a Dutch reform. And I thought
the Dutch reform were pretty solidly united. And he said,
oh no, I knew the Presbyterians and the Baptists and all these
other denominations keep splitting. He said, oh, but Dutch reforms
are the worst. We've got so many different flavors. Somebody will decide that they
know something better and they'll start another form of Dutch reform.
of the reformed religion. You don't see that among God's
people. Why? Because we're in agreement. We've been led by the spirit
of God through the order that God has purposed and we all believe
the same thing. Look with me to Mark chapter
14. This is very telling. Mark chapter
14. Now the Pharisees are gathering
witnesses to go before the Sanhedrin, the law, and condemn our Lord. And so they gather together these
men that they think are going to be sound witnesses of what
they heard the Lord say. And verse 58 says, we heard him
say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands and within
three days I will build another made without hands. But neither
so did their witness agree together. So as they were questioned about
their testimony, they all had a different witness. They couldn't
agree on what their accusations were against our Lord. Isn't
that a perfect picture of what you see in man-made religion?
There's no agreement. One says this, the other says
that. Well, I heard God say this, I heard him say the other. And when the Spirit of God sends
a witness of Christ, God's people just believe. Now, the third
order that I see in our text If you go back with me to John
chapter one, the third order that our God of purpose and God
of order always follows. When we were in free will works
religion, we used to often quote verse 12 and take comfort in
the fact That we had made a decision to receive Jesus and therefore
based on our decision to accept him, he was obligated now to
make us his children. To as many as receive him, to
them gave he the power to become the sons of God. Seems pretty
clear, doesn't it? even to them that believe on
his name. Well, I believed, I made a decision,
I prayed the prayer, so now therefore God's obligated. Well, as always,
the false gospel rest the scriptures. The false gospel takes verses
out of context and makes them say things that they don't say.
You cannot look at verse 12 without looking at verse 13. which were
born. The new birth comes before receiving
Christ. Yes, we receive Christ. Yes,
we rejoice in having him as our Lord and we bow before him. But unless the Lord births us
by the spirit of God and gives us a heart capable of believing,
will not come, will not receive, which were born, past tense,
the new birth necessarily precedes faith. Not in time, in time they
happen simultaneously, but in God's order, in God's order. That's what we're talking about
here in this text. The light had to come in order before the
witness. The witness had to come in order before we could believe. And now the new birth has to
come before faith. Look at that whole verse. Which
were born, not of blood, that means we're not born of descent,
We're not born into the kingdom of God because our parents are
believers. Each individual must be born
of the spirit of God, not of descent, nor of the will of flesh. What is that? That's dedication. That's commitment. That's determination. Nor of
the will of man. What is that? Decision. So it's
not by descent, it's not by dedication, and it's not by decision. That's
not how you're born. So that takes all of the false
gospel out of verse 12. But of God, this new birth, is
the sovereign work of grace that the Lord has to perform. And
He does perform it in the hearts of His people. Where does that
leave me and you? Lord, if you'll turn me, I'll be turned. Lord, if you'll draw me, I'll
run unto thee. Lord, if you'll cause me I'll come, turn us again, and
again, and again, and again. And this is not just a one-time
event, is it? The prophet said, turn us again,
O Lord, and we shall be turned, and we shall be saved. Cause
thy face to shine upon us. And the fourth order in God's
salvation is that faith must come before assurance. Having the peace of God which everybody
wants, everybody wants to experience peace of God, everybody wants
to know that they want comfort, they want peace, they want assurance.
experiencing the peace of God must be preceded by having peace
with God. And peace with God comes through
the work of grace in the heart, and God gives us faith to look
to Christ. If I look for assurance of my
salvation in my experience, In my feelings, I am prone to look
to something I've done. And what have I done? I've destroyed
the order. I've added to that which God has done. I must look
outside of myself. I must find in me no good thing. I must be brought to hang all
the hopes of my salvation on a person outside of me, a one
who did the work all by himself. This is the order that God always
uses to save his people. The light comes before the witness. The witness comes before the
new birth. The new birth comes in order
before faith. And faith comes in order before
comfort and assurance and peace. And this is what our Lord has
laid out so simply here in this passage of God's word. All right,
let's take a break.