Good evening. Let's open tonight's
service with hymn number 37 from your Spiral Gospel Hymns hymn
book, number 37, Approach My Soul, the Throne of Grace. Let's
all stand together. Approach, my soul, the throne
of grace in every time of need. There's mercy for the needy one
who Jesus' name shall plead. Oh, I'm a weak and sinful wretch,
I will approach the throne. I'll lean upon Christ's mighty
arm, And feed His blood alone. The blood, the precious blood
of Christ, has opened up the way by which I can draw near
to God and to my Father. Satan tempts my heart to sin,
I'll call upon my God. And if I fall, He'll lift me
up and cleanse me in the blood. The way is open, God will hear
my groans and cries of grief. Nothing can keep me from His
throne but my own unbelief. O Lord, my unbelief remove, and
turn my heart by grace. Come help me to approach your
throne, and there spread out my case. Please be seated. Let's open our Bibles together
to Colossians chapter 1, Colossians 1. And we're going to begin reading
at verse 12, Colossians 1. Giving thanks unto the Father,
which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light. Someone asked me recently, what
does that word meet mean? It means suitable. It means that
we have a proper relationship. He's made us acceptable, who
hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated
us into the kingdom of his dear son, in whom we have redemption
through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins, who is the image of
the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. For by him
were all things created that are in heaven, that are in earth,
visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers, all things were created by him
and all things were created for him. And he is before all things,
and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body,
the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things he might have preeminence. For it pleased the
Father that in him should all fullness dwell. And having made
peace through the blood of the cross, by him to reconcile all
things unto himself, by him I say, whether they be things in earth
or things in heaven, and you that were sometime alienated
and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now be reconciled
in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and
unblameable and unreprovable in his sight." Zobey had to have emergency appendectomy
this morning and she's recovering. Jacob, I guess she's still doing
well this afternoon. We saw her earlier today. hopes
to go home tomorrow. So they were able to do it laparoscopically
and minor, what do you call it, invasive. So Tom and Cindy, congratulations. They have another grandbaby.
Jimmy and Sarah had little Isaac yesterday, the day before yesterday.
Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, We thank you that you brought
us once again to this place where we can be still and know that
thou art God. Lord, we ask for the forgiveness
of our sin for Christ's sake. We pray that you would give to
us the faith and the grace and mercy to find all our hope, all
our salvation, and all our satisfaction in thy dear son and his accomplished
work of redemption. Lord, we thank you for the medical
procedures that you have given to us to preserve life. And Lord, we know that you are
life itself and that all things are created by you and for you.
And Lord, we know that every good and perfect gift comes from
our father above. And so we thank you for the doctors
that were able to Help Zoe and Lord, we look to you as the great
physician to give her a full recovery. And thank you for the
miracle of life, the birth of our children and grandchildren.
And Lord, we pray for your mercy and we pray that you would be
pleased to call them out and bring them to Christ. For it's
in his name we ask it, amen. Number 11, we can just remain
seated. Number 11 in your spiral handbook. ? With broken heart and contrite
side ? ? A trembling sinner, Lord, I cry ? ? Thy pardoning
grace is rich and free ? ? O God, be merciful to me ? I spite upon my troubled breast
With deep and conscious guilt oppressed Christ and His cross
my only plea O God, be merciful to me ? No works nor deeds that I have
done ? ? Can for a single sin atone ? ? To Christ the Lord
alone I flee ? ? O God, be merciful to me ? ? And when redeemed from sin and
hell ? ? With all the ransom from I dwell ? ? My raptured
song shall ever be ? ? God has been merciful to me ? Let's open our Bibles together
to John chapter 21. Actually, we're going to begin in John
chapter 20, and then we'll go to John 21. I want to try to bring a very
simple message tonight, but The glory of the gospel is its simplicity,
isn't it? I've titled this message, Jesus
Christ is God. And the more I think about that,
the more I read the scriptures, the more convinced I become that
if you believe that, you're a believer. You believe the simplicity of
that. that Jesus Christ is the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. You're a believer. You believe
that he, you see if he's God, he has to, he has to own all
the attributes of God. So as God, he must be sovereign.
If he's not sovereign, he's not God. If he's sovereign in salvation,
then it's not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, it's
of God that showeth mercy. And it's his sovereign purpose
that reigns. And he chose a people according
to his will and his purpose before the world ever began. If you
believe that Jesus Christ is God, then you believe that he's
omnipotent. He possesses all power in and
of himself. He's not dependent upon anyone
else for him to accomplish his purpose, he exercises his power
at his will. If you believe that he's God,
you have to believe that he's holy, that he's other than we
are, that he's without sin, that he's separate from sinners, that
he's undefiled, and that that there's no imperfection or untruth
in him. He's holy, holy, holy, Lord God
of hosts. If you believe he's God, you
have to believe that he's self-existent. He's the glorious I Am. He wasn't
created. He's not derived from something
like you and I are. He exists within himself and
that existence is eternal. There was never a time when he
wasn't, if he's God. You see, if you believe that
Jesus Christ is God, you're a believer. And you can see where those who
say that Jesus Christ is God, they honor him with their lips.
But then they turn right around and deny the very essence of
deity by claiming salvation by their works or by their will
or denying his, his power to save or his ability to save. You have to believe that he's
immutable. If you believe that he's God,
he's the same yesterday, today, and forever. that I am Lord and
I change not and therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed.
He's never had a new thought. He's never learned anything.
He's never changed his mind. He's immutable. He's perfect
within himself. Jesus Christ is God. If you believe that you're a
believer and just because you say you believe it, If you turn around and deny any
of the attributes of deity from him, you strip him of his glory,
you take him off his throne, you make yourself God. Isn't
that true? 1 Thessalonians 2. Men, because
they have no love of the truth, they set themselves up on the
throne of God. And that's the mystery of iniquity
that men cannot see, that they have They say that Jesus is God
and then they turn around and make themselves God. This is the one thing that the
Pharisees would not have. The Lord's declaration that he
was God. For what good work do you stone
me? The Lord asked them. Oh no, not for the good works
that you do. Now we're thankful that you're healing people and
doing good things and feeding folks, but because you being
a man, make yourself out to be God, we're stoning you for blasphemy. Nothing's changed. When we preach
the gospel of God's sovereign grace, his free grace in the
glorious person and in the accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ,
men hate the deity of Christ just as much now as they ever
have. We will not have that man reign
over us. When God makes you a believer,
when God makes us believers, he causes us to bow to the Lord
Jesus Christ as God. That's simple. That's simple. John, in writing his gospel, begins with a clear declaration
that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God
and the Word was God. Clear, simple, plain. No, there's
no controversy about that. And the Word became flesh and
he dwelt among us and we beheld his glory as the glory of the
only begotten of the Father. The only one that's full of grace
and the only one that's full of truth, Jesus Christ, the Son
of God. And then when John closes his
gospel in chapter 21, we'll begin here in verse 24. This is the
disciple which testifieth of these things and wrote these
things, and we know that his testimony is true. Now John's
referring to himself. As the, as the penman of this,
of this epistle, I mean, this, this gospel account. And he said,
we know that this account is true. The theme of John's gospel
is the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. The theme of his book
is Jesus is God. And he begins with that and he
ends with that. And he says in verse 25, and there are many
other things which Jesus did that, which if they should be
written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could
not contain the books that should be written. Oh, there wouldn't
be enough room in the world, wouldn't be enough books in the
world to declare everything that he said and did and explain the
full extent of everything that he said and did. His word is
eternal. infinite. John leaves us with no doubt
as to why he was writing. Look at chapter 20 at verse 30. And many other signs truly did
Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written
in this book. John writes his gospel account
around seven miracles. And that's what we're going to
look at tonight. two of those seven miracles are
mentioned in the other gospel accounts. So five of them are
exclusive to the Gospel of John. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are mention
a lot other miracles that aren't mentioned by John, but John chooses
these seven as God's penman inspired by the Holy Spirit. And he writes
this defense, this declaration of who the Lord Jesus Christ
is. That, look at verse 31, these are written that you might believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God. And that believing
that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, you might have life
through his name. If you believe that Jesus Christ,
Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one, the very essence
of God almighty, the second person of the triune Godhead. That's
why the Lord's given us this word. These have been written
that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God,
and that believing that and believing him, you would have life. through his name. So John, what a precious apostle John
was. He was part of our Lord's inner
circle, along with Peter and James. Peter, James, and John
had private times with the Lord that the other disciples didn't
have. I think especially about that
experience that they had on the Mount of Transfiguration. when
John saw the veil of our Lord's humanity removed for a moment
and the radiance of his deity and his glory shined forth like
the noonday sun. And John finds himself on the
ground with Peter and James and what a of a glorious, glorious
time. John was the one, the scripture
says, he refers to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved.
Not that he didn't love all of his disciples, but that was his
comfort. That was his identity. That was
his identity. That the Lord knows me and that
he loves me. His love for me is my identity, not my love for
him. You listen to men who would deny the deity of Christ And
they do. Every person that is outside
of Christ denies. The essence of their gospel is
the denial of his deity. You listen to them and the hope
of their salvation is based more on their love for Christ, or
at least the Christ of their imagination, than it is for his
love for them. And so John says, oh, I'm the
disciple that Jesus loved. I'm the one that was laying on
his bosom at the Lord's table, you know, at the last supper. John was the one who was used
of God to write 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John. And of course, the
book of Revelation, which is, the scripture says, you know,
we hear people refer to the book of Revelation, period, singular,
as revelations, as if it was a string of prophecies concerning
the end time. But the very first book of the
book of Revelation, singular, says that this is a revelation
of Jesus Christ. So John's only concern was to
reveal who the Lord Jesus Christ is and what he'd accomplished
in the salvation of his people. That he's God, the fullness of
the Godhead bodily. John writes in a little different
way than the other apostles. There's a, We refer to Matthew,
Mark, and Luke as the synoptic Gospels. They are a synopsis
in some sort of chronological order of the life of the Lord
Jesus Christ in the flesh. And John doesn't write that way. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are more
like historical narratives that give us lots of truths about
Christ, but they're just a historical account. John doesn't concern
himself with the chronology of events. John is building, John's
writing more like a sermon. His whole book is one message,
and it's built around seven miracles, and it's built around seven I
am's. And the essence of his message
is Jesus Christ is God. that you believe on him as God,
bow to him as God. All the glorious attributes of
the Godhead are bound up in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and he could not fail in the work that he came to do in redeeming
his people, not if he's God. The seven I am's, the John, the
seven, you understand the significance of seven. We see it on the seventh
day of creation when the Lord finished his work and he rested
because not he was tired, but because he was finished. Everything
the purpose to do was accomplished. And that seventh day became the
day of Sabbath, the day of rest. And it was, it was a type of
who the Lord Jesus Christ is as our rest, who finished the
work of redemption as God, even before the foundation of the
world, when he was in that covenant relationship with his father,
as the lamb slain before the foundation of the world, all
of his works were finished. They were finished. And when
he bowed his mighty head on Calvary's cross, he said, it's finished.
It's finished, the work that the Father gave me to do, I've
accomplished it. How could he do anything less
if he's God? And so this number seven points
to the Lord Jesus Christ as our Sabbath, our rest. We cease from
our labors trying to earn our favor with God and we look in
faith to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and his accomplished
work of redemption for all of our acceptance before God. He's
God. He's able to save to the uttermost
all those who look to him as God. Jesus Christ is God. Don't you love that statement?
Don't you love that truth? You just, the simplicity of it
and the glory of it. And there's so few that believe
that, you know, they, they say they honor him with their lips,
but you listened enough to what men
say about Christ. And you come to a conclusion
very quickly. You don't believe that Jesus
is God. You don't believe he's God. If you believed he was God,
you'd know that, that you're a sinner. that you have no righteousness
whatsoever in and of yourself and no ability to make any contribution
whatsoever to your salvation if you believe that he was God.
If you believed that he was God, you would know that he will have
mercy upon whom he will have mercy. You'll know that he is
that. John builds this declaration
of the deity of Christ around these seven IMs. where the Lord
Jesus Christ declares himself in John chapter six as the bread
of life. He said, I am, this is right
after the feeding of the 5,000, which was the purpose of that
miracle. See the seven miracles and the seven I am's are all
working together to declare to us that our Lord is God. He said, I am the bread of life. John chapter eight, he declares
himself as the light of the world. I am, and you know what that
I, that I am, that's when the Lord said before Abraham was,
I am. And how many times we hear him
declaring himself as I am, that's the name that he gave to Moses
at the Bernie Bush, Jehovah. whom shall I say send me up until
that point the Lord had not given his personal name to his people
and he gives his name there at that burning bush when he says
tell them I am hath sent thee I am the self-existent one I
am completely sufficient in and of myself And here the Lord takes that
name and he calls himself the bread of life, the light of the
world. He calls himself the door, the door into glory, the gate,
the door into the sheepfold. No man can enter in except he
come through this one door, one door. The 12 doors, the 12 gates
that we see in that heavenly Jerusalem to come down, the scripture
says are all made of one pearl. one pearl he's the pearl of great
price and so he John's John's declaring the Lord Jesus Christ
as the Word of God as God with these glorious names of I am
in John chapter 10 verse 11 he says I am the Good Shepherd I'm
the Good Shepherd I'm the one who provides for my sheep and
leave the ninety and nine and go after the one and not going
to lose a single sheep. I'm the good shepherd. I'm not
a hireling. I'm not a shepherd that's gonna
fail in any way. David's a type of the Lord Jesus
Christ as the shepherd of God's sheep. When he defeated the lion
and the bear, and he defeated Satan, and he conquered the requirements
of the law, fulfilled the requirements of the law, so that we fear not
those beasts coming after us. So the Lord Jesus Christ says,
I am. good shepherd. And then in John
chapter 11, he calls himself the resurrection and the life.
You remember at the resuscitation of Lazarus, he says, I am the
resurrection and the life. And in John chapter 14, he says,
I am the way, the truth and the life. No man can come to the
father except by me. See, everything John's doing,
he keeps pointing back to the Lord Jesus Christ as God. Just that simple. He's God. He's God. Only those who believe
that he's God really worship him. You know, if a man says
that Jesus is God and yet he turns around and denies his deity,
he's not really worshiping God when he comes into church or
does religious activities. He's feigning that worship. Only a believer who believes
that Jesus Christ is God bows to him in worship. Worship that's based on the truth
of who he is. That's who the father, that's
who the father seeketh after those who worship him in spirit. It takes the spirit of God to
believe that Jesus Christ is God. And it takes the truth of
God's word to see that Jesus Christ is God. And then in John chapter 15,
the Lord says, I am the true vine. I am the true vine. My father's the husbandman and
he prunes the vine so that it becomes more fruitful. And unless
the branch abide in the vine, there's no life in it. So we
have all of our life by virtue of our union with the Lord Jesus
Christ as God. Brethren, this is glorious. This
is just such, this is the simplicity of the, this is not complicated.
You know, people, men in religion want to complicate the gospel
without sort of, you know, theological arguments and wranglings and
splitting of hairs. Here's what we believe. Here's
our profession. Here's our confession. Jesus
Christ is God. Simple. Plain. No more need to discuss it. He's
God. And all that God is, He is. He's the fullness of the Godhead
bodily. And all the hope of my salvation
is bound up in the fact that I believe that He is God. He's God. John, as we saw in the beginning
in chapter one, not only declares the Lord Jesus Christ as God,
but he also declares him as the revelation of God, the revelation
of God. So all that we're gonna know
about God, we find in the person of Christ. That's why he's called
the Word. In the beginning was the Word,
the Word was with God, the Word was God, the Logos, the very
expression of God revealed to man in the Word. And these seven miracles that
John reveals Christ as the living Word, as God around all refer
to a different aspect of Jesus Christ being the Word of God.
The first miracle, And we're going to, Lord willing, the next
seven Wednesday nights, if I'm able, we're going to take these
seven miracles and look at them in more detail. But tonight I
just want to overview them quickly. The seven miracles. The first
one is found in John chapter two, verses one through 11. You
know the story. We're not going to have time
to read all of these events. You know, you know what happened
at the wedding feast at Canaan. And what a glorious picture of
the wedding feast of the Bride of Christ as they gather together
at this feast. And the emphasis of that, the
emphasis of that first miracle is the timing of the revelation
of the Word of God. For the emphasis of that miracle
was when the Lord said, and we'll go into a lot of details, hopefully
next Wednesday night about this particular miracle. But the emphasis
is that the Lord told the servants, fill the water pots to the brim. Now these weren't water pots
like you see, there were seven of them. And they were for ceremonial
washing. And so you would start at one
end and you would dip your hands, they were more like a bathtub.
And you would dip your hands in these large sinks right on
down the row until you got to the last one. And then your hands
were ceremonially clean. You could go into the wedding
feast. And the Lord said, fill them
up to the brim. And I can't insist on this, but
I think it's true. When the Lord said, now go and
draw out water. The word draw, is not the same
word that you would use to dip water out of a basin. The word
draw in that verse means to bring it up. So I think what the Lord
was telling these servants to do is go to the well, get water,
fill up the water pots to the brim, and then go draw some more
water out. And that's the water that they
took to the table that became wine. from the inexhaustible
source of that well. Now, what were the water pots
a picture of? It's the law. It's the law of
God. And the Lord Jesus Christ was
the end of the law. The timing here is that the word
came into the world in order to bring about the new covenant,
to fulfill the requirements of the Old Testament law. and bring
in life through his blood in that new wine, the new wine. So if we see the timing of his
word, the Lord's timing was perfect, of course. The Lord had purposed
that from before time ever was that the Lord Jesus Christ at
that particular time would come. And all the prophecies, particularly
the prophecies of Daniel pointed specifically to the exact time
that the Lord Jesus Christ would come into the world. But here
he is beginning his public ministry with this miracle saying, I've
not come to destroy the law, I've come to fulfill it. come
to fill up those water pots and bring in the new wine. The second
miracle was the healing of the nobleman's son in Capernaum in
chapter four, verses 46 through 54. Now, these are miracles that
only John records. Matthew, Mark, and Luke don't
record these miracles. And this was a man of nobility that came
to the Lord Jesus Christ and pleaded with him to come heal
his son. And the Lord looked at him and he said, he said,
you're only interested in signs and wonders. And the man pleaded
with him. He said, Lord, come, come or
my son die. And the Lord told him, he said,
go, your son, your son's alive. So by the time he got home, which
was the next day, He asked his servants, the son was healed
when he got home. And he asked his servants, when
did it happen? And they told him exactly the moment that the
Lord Jesus said to him, go home, your son's healed. And we see
in that the authority of the word of God. Reminded of that
centurion who said, I'm a man of authority. I say unto this
man, go, and he goes. I say unto this man, come, and
he comes. And you're a man of infinite authority. I'm not worthy. You should come into my household,
but only speak the word and my servant shall be healed. The
authority of the word of God. Only God can speak like that.
Only God can speak like that. Go, go home. Your son's healed. He gets home the next day. When
was he healed? Well, that I forgot what hour it was fourth hour
or whatever it was. And he remembered that that's
exactly when the Lord told him his son was healed. And he believed
and the scripture says his household believed. So John begins by showing
the timing of the word of God. And then he shows us the authority
of the word of God. And then the third miracle is
the healing of the, of the invalid who's at the pool of Bethesda. house of mercy you remember there
were there were a multitude of halt and and crippled people
waiting for the stirring of the water and the Lord saw a certain
man who had been afflicted for 38 years and he said would you be made
whole and the man said well I you know when when the water when
the angel comes and serves the water everybody else gets there
before I do and I've got no man to help me and Lord told him,
he said, take up your bed and walk. And that's the story where the
Pharisees got enraged because he did it on the Sabbath. Not
knowing that he was the Sabbath. And he performed that miracle
on the day of rest, on the Sabbath day. And they thought that, you
can't do that. What was he doing? He was robbing
them of their Sabbath keeping. because they were trusting in
what they were not doing on Saturday, the seventh day of the week,
as the hope of their salvation. And here the Lord comes as the
Sabbath and heals on the Sabbath and is declaring himself sovereign. Sovereign. His word is absolutely
sovereign. So we see the timing of his word,
the authority of his word in the and the sovereignty of his
word. Now, the fourth miracle that
John mentions is mentioned in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and
that's the feeding of the 5,000. When the people were without
food and they'd been following the Lord, and the Lord told the
disciples, have them all sit down, he said, now let's feed
them. And the disciples said, Lord,
we don't have enough food for all these people. And one of
the disciples spoke up and said, well, there is a young man over
here. He's got five barley loaves. Emphasis on barley, which is
a very cheap, rough, poor man's bread. And three small fishes,
little bitty fish. And what is that among so many?
And the Lord takes that and he multiplies and he feeds it so
that there's 12 baskets of fragments left over. He told him, he said,
go pick up the leftovers. And there was 12 baskets of leftovers. The Lord Jesus Christ declaring
himself as the sufficient Word of God. All that you need is
found sufficiently in the Lord Jesus Christ. Timing was perfect, his authority
is unchallenged, his sovereignty, his sufficiency, and then The
fifth miracle is also mentioned in some of the other gospels,
and that's the one of the Lord walking on the water when he
sent the disciples across the Sea of Galilee. And while they're
in the boat, they see him coming and think that he's a ghost and
he's walking. He's the creator of that water.
He created that lake and he made that lake for himself, for himself
to demonstrate his own glory. He came walking on the water.
He got in the boat with the disciples. And John tells us something very
interesting. He said, as soon as he got in
the boat, immediately they were on the other side. And what a
picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, the person of his word, being
in the boat with his disciples and bringing them safely through
the storms of the sea to the other side. He brings us safely. We have a safe haven in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Oh, a harbor where he brings
in his ship and saves his people. This is what, this is the message
that John is preaching. If we just read the whole gospel
of John, the 21 chapters, wouldn't take you long if you wanted to
do that. You see that John is just emphasizing through these
miracles and through these I ams, the deity, Godhead of the Lord
Jesus Christ. God's people rejoice in having
their Savior as God, as God. We dare not rob him of any of
that glory. The sixth miracle that John builds
his gospel around is the healing of of the blind man in Jerusalem
in chapter nine. This is the one where the disciple
said, Lord, is this man, was this man born blind because of
his parents' sin or because of his sin? And the Lord said, neither,
but that the works of God might be made manifest. God birthed,
this man's been blind all his life so that I could get the
glory for giving him sight. Now, a lot of people would hear
that, what I just said, and think that's cruel. That God would
cause this man to live in the suffering of being physically
blind all his life just to bring glory to himself? Here's how
you can know that you believe that Jesus is God. You rejoice
in him getting that glory. I heard of an atheist recently
who read the Bible and he said, well, he said, if that's God,
he's the most self-centered narcissist that's ever existed. That's what
the atheist concluded about our God. And he didn't know. that our God's greatest glory
is our greatest good, and that we rejoice in having him to be
God. But that's what the world thinks.
Now, here the Lord said, no. He's been blind all his life
so that this moment could be, and I could get the glory for
having given him sight. For my word is true. I am the
way, the truth, and the life. I'm the light of the world. I'm
going to lighten his world right now. I'm going to open his eyes.
And he went and made mud out of spittle and put it on his
eyes, told him to go to Siloam, the pool of Siloam, which translated
means scent. And he washes the spittle off
his eyes, which I think is very glorious. You know, and under
the law, if a man spit on another man, that man he spit on was
made unclean. And here's the Lord Jesus Christ
spitting on another man and making him clean. His spittle is pure
and holy. His spittle is powerful. And
he gives this man sight. And the Pharisees, that's where
the Pharisees said, you know, what are you doing? You know,
who is it that healed you on the Sabbath? He did that on the
Sabbath. And they were enraged about that because again, he,
the Lord robbed them of the hope of their salvation by taking
away their good works, the things that they were looking to for
the hope of their salvation, their Sabbath keeping, not knowing
that the Lord was the, he's the seventh. These are the seven
miracles in these seven I am's. They all point to Christ. The
perfect one. That's what God requires. And
that's what we rejoice in. We're satisfied. We're happy
that Jesus Christ is God. The last. the seven miracles
that our Lord performs in the Gospel of John is the raising
of Lazarus in John chapter 11. He was in Bethsaida, which is
where John the Baptist had been baptizing on the other side of
the River Jordan. And Bethany was on the Mount
of Olives there, right next to Jerusalem. And Martha and Mary
and their brother, Lazarus, send word to the Lord, who's at least
a day or two away of travel, that the one whom he loves is
sick. Lord, the disciple whom you love
is sick. Come help us. And the Lord tarried two more
days, giving John not only time to die, but to go into the tomb
so that when he got there, John would have already been dead
four days. Again, that he might, I mean,
Lazarus, I said, John Lazarus, you know, and again, he, Martha,
oh Lord, I know that my brother will rise again in the resurrection,
but doesn't it help me much right now? I'm grieving over his loss. Martha, I am the resurrection
of life. I am the resurrection of life.
Though a man be dead, yet shall he live. And a man liveth and
believeth on me shall never die. Believest thou this? And what
did Martha say? Yay, Lord, I believe that thou
art the Christ that should come into the world, the Son of God.
I believe who you are. The Son of God. You know, one
of the very first heresies that crept into the church was Gnosticism,
and basically Gnosticism denied the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I would suggest to you that
every heresy that's ever undermined the gospel, every microscopic
piece of leaven that's ever come in and leavened the whole lump
and destroyed the gospel is a denial of the deity of the Lord Jesus
Christ. If you believe that Jesus Christ is God, if you can say
with Martha, yea Lord, I believe, that thou art the Christ, the
Son of God, that you come into the world. Many other things the Lord did
that are not recorded in this book, but these seven miracles
and these seven I am's are given that you might believe that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might
have life through his name. Our Heavenly Father, thank you
for your word. We pray that your Holy Spirit
would work a work of grace in our hearts and cause us, Lord,
to come back again and again and again, bowing to the glorious
person, our God, our Lord. Might we say with Thomas, my
Lord and my God, and worship thee. For it's in Christ's name
we pray, amen. 46, let's stand together, number
46. Oh, for a thousand tongues to
sing my great Redeemer's praise, the glories of my God and King,
the triumphs of His grace. My gracious Master and my God,
assist me to proclaim Thou spread through all the earth abroad
the honors of Thy name. Jesus, the name that charms our
fears, that bids our sorrows cease, tis music in the sinner's
ears, tis life and health and peace. He breaks the power of
cancelled sin. He sets the prisoner free. His blood can make the foulest
clean. His blood availed for me. Hear Him, ye deaf, His praise
ye dumb, Your lucent tongues employ. Ye blind, behold your
Savior come, And leap, ye lame, for joy. ? Glory to God and praise and love
be ever, ever giv'n ? ? By saints below and saints above the church
in earth and heaven ?