Will you open your Bibles with
me to the 14th chapter of John, John chapter 14. Most of you probably don't know
that Mary Wiginton had emergency appendectomy this week and is
home now recovering, but she was in the hospital, I guess
it was Monday or Tuesday, Donnie? Paul said, my heart's desire
for Israel is that they might be saved. That's my heart's desire this
morning. That's my hope that the Lord would save you and that
He would save me. That He would affirm Himself to our hearts and cause us to
find our freedom in Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ said, if
you know the truth, the truth shall make you free. And here in our text in John
chapter 14 at verse 6, Jesus saith unto them, I am the way,
the truth, and the life. What is the truth? I want to make it as clear as
I can that knowing the truth singular capital T is different
from knowing truths, plural small t. Don't confuse the two. You can
know truths. You can know truths about God. You can know that it is true
that God sovereignly elected a people before the foundation
of the world. And comfort yourself in thinking
that because you believe that truth that you believe the truth. And there's a difference as we've
seen time and time again between the truth of election and the
truth of knowing the God and loving the God who has done the
electing. Paul said, I know whom I have
believed and I'm persuaded that he is able. Oh, that the Lord would not allow
us to rest in knowledge Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. Job said, I had heard of thee
by the hearing of mine ear. Job had heard that God was sovereign. That's clear in the confessions
that he made at the beginning of the book. He said, I know
that my Redeemer liveth. He said, I know that whatever
my God does is right. He said, shall we receive good
from the Lord and not evil? He knew that God was in control. But it wasn't until he heard
the gospel of God's free grace, until the Lord Jesus Christ himself
was presented to him that he said, but now mine eyes have
seen thee and I repent in dust and ashes. You can believe in the doctrine
of total depravity without having been made totally depraved. You can believe in the doctrine
of limited atonement without knowing the Christ who accomplished
your atonement. Oh, I want you and me to be saved. And if that's going to happen,
we're going to have to find ourselves, by the grace of God, resting
in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. You can believe in the doctrine
of irresistible grace and never have had it made irresistible
to you. You can believe in the doctrine
of preservation and perseverance without being comforted in knowing
that He will keep you from falling and present you faultless before
the throne of God with great joy, great joy. Lord, I want to know the truth.
I want to know the truth. Now truth, by definition, exposes
everything that's not true. We're talking about a truth that
is absolute. You can't have... It amazes me. I mentioned last
week that the unbeliever is really out of his mind. And you see
that most clearly among the pseudo-intellectuals in the higher levels of education. To me, that's the most clear
example of people who are out of their mind. Who pride themselves
in relativism. And relativism doesn't even make
sense. It doesn't even make sense. Well,
you know, it could be this, could be that. We need to be open-minded.
While their minds are so open, their brains have fallen out.
You know, they just... It hasn't changed, has it? It hasn't
changed. Men have always been relativist.
Why? Because they're looking for a
way to avoid the truth. Because the truth shuts them
up to the absolute truth. Now the Lord Jesus Christ said,
I am the way, I am the truth. Pilate asked the Lord, are you
a king? Are you the king of the Jews? Our Lord said he gave a
good confession. Peter said later the Lord Jesus
Christ gave a good confession before Pilate. What was his confession?
He said, For this cause was I born, and for this reason came I into
the world, that I might bear witness to the truth. They that are of the truth, they
hear my voice. Pilate said, Truth? Is that what
this is all about? I mean, you're turning my city
upside down over something as ambiguous as truth? If we're going to know the truth,
if we're going to know the Lord Jesus Christ, He's going to have
to make Himself known to us. We're not going to find Him out.
He's going to have to bless us with the faith to just believe
Him. We're not going to discover the
depths of His glory. We're just going to have to be
brought by the Spirit of God to rest in Him. and to believe that he is our
all before God and that all the gospel is about him. The Lord Jesus Christ himself
in John chapter 17 verse 17 said, Father sanctify them through
thy truth thy word is truth. The word of God. And we've seen many, many times
we don't separate the living Word, the person of the Lord
Jesus Christ, from the written Word. The Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us. And we beheld His glory as the
only begotten of the Father, what? Full of grace and full
of truth. Truth. He begins this passage in John
chapter 14 by telling us, let not your hearts be troubled. Now if I don't have an absolute
truth to rest in, I'm troubled. If my circumstances are somehow
controlled by me, I'm in trouble and I'm troubled. If the affairs
of this world are just happening willy-nilly and our governing
officials are the ones in control of them, we're in trouble. If the salvation of my soul depends
upon anything other than the truth, the Lord Jesus Christ
Himself and what He's done to save sinners, my heart is troubled. I have no peace. I have no comfort. I have no hope. And he begins
by saying, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God? Believe also in me. Believe in me. Now what he's saying here is
that the truth that he came to reveal is the very nature of
God. The very nature of God. Later
on in this passage, look at verse 5, Thomas said unto him, Lord,
we know not whether thou goest, how can we know the way? I am the way. the truth and the
life. No man can come to the Father
but by me. If you had known me, you should
have known the Father also. From henceforth you know Him
and have seen Him." And Philip said, show us the Father and
it sufficeth us. Oh Philip, have I been with thee
so long that you don't know that if you've seen me, you've seen
the Father. Everything that we'll ever know
about God, we will discover in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. In another place he says, I and
the Father are one. Look at verse 10. Believest thou
not that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The Lord Jesus Christ reveals God, because he is God. John chapter 10, he said, I and
the Father are one, and the Pharisees took up stones, the Jews took
up stones to stone him, and he said, for what works do you stone
me? And they said, Oh no, it's not
because of the miracles that you're performing that we're
stoning you. It's for blasphemy that we're stoning you for thou
being a man, make us thyself to be God. And the Lord Jesus
Christ didn't stop them. He didn't say, Oh no, no, no,
no. You didn't, you didn't understand. We've got a miscommunication
here. I'm not really God. No, he didn't say that at all.
The only charge that was ever brought against the Lord Jesus
Christ. Was that a blasphemy? He went
to the cross, professing himself to be God. He said in verse 2, In my Father's
house are many mansions, if it were not so I would have told
you. I would have told you. Look at verse 10. Believest thou not that I am
in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak
unto you I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth
in me. He doeth the works. So is that a misprint? Isn't
that supposed to be, He gave me the words? No! The words that
the Lord Jesus Christ speak are spirit and they are life and
they are the work of God. The work of God is that we would
believe the Word of God. That's the work of God. What can we do to work the works
of God? This is the work of God that you believe on Him whom
He has sent. The work of God is the Word of
God. And faith is believing God's
Word. Believe me that I am in the Father,
verse 11, and the Father in me, or else believe me for the very
work's sake. When the Lord Jesus Christ reveals
himself as the truth, he is telling us that everything there is to
believe about God, that God is absolutely sovereign, that this
book is a revelation of himself to his people. That He has the
sovereign right to establish, according to His own will and
purpose, the salvation of His people. And that nothing can
thwart Him in any way. He accomplishes all that He designs
and all that He purposes and all that He wills. And no man
can stay His hand. And no man can stand before Him
and say unto Him, What doest Thou? He's the potter and we're
the clay. He has the right to make of the
same lump of clay some vessels of honor and some of dishonor.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the revelation of God. We saw that
in Psalm 139. He's the immutable, omniscient,
omnipresent, omnipotent God. And how do I know if I know the
truth? Because I can't do anything but
bow to Him. I can't do anything. I can't
object to Him. I can't resist Him. All I can
do is worship Him. Worship Him. Do you find yourself in the dirt before God? just bowing to His glory, bowing
to His power. He said, if you know the truth,
if you know Me, you know My words. The Lord Jesus Christ reveals to us not only the truth
about God, but he reveals to us the truth about ourselves. He reveals to us the truth about
man. He says to every one of us what
he said to the Syrophoenician woman, you're a dog, and every
one of us who have heard the truth and believe the truth and
rest in the truth, say, Truth, Lord." Truth, Lord. That's what I am. This dog is
in need of some crumbs from the master's table. Oh, Lord, would
You feed me with the bread of life. Would You satisfy my soul
with Yourself? The truth about man is most clearly
seen in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, not only by what
he says about us, but by contrast of himself. And we see that not only in the
fact that he never sinned, But we see it in that even in
his temptations, he was without sin. Have you ever said, well,
you know, I was tempted to eat that dessert, but I withstood
it. Well, that might work fine when
it comes to eating dessert. You resisted the temptation.
But the truth is when it comes to sin, you've sinned in your
temptation. Sin is not a matter of behavior
as much as it is a condition of the heart. The Lord Jesus Christ never sinned. Never sinned. John put it like
this, he said, all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh,
the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father,
but of the world. We came into this world desiring
three things, the lust of the flesh, that's pleasure, The lust
of the eyes, that's having other people's eyes on us. That's popularity. And the pride of life, that's
power. Power over my circumstances. Power over God. Power to save
myself. And you think about it, everything
that is in the world, everything that is in the world fits under
one of those three categories. pleasure, popularity, and power. And the reason why the love of
money is the root of all evil is because it purchases all three
of those things. It purchases all three of those
things. And when Satan tempted Eve in the garden, she saw that
the fruit was good to the taste, pleasure, pleasing to the eye,
popularity, and able to make one wise, power. And Satan's
tactics for tempting us have not changed. And as long as we're
in this world, we're going to be confronted with the lust of
the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. And all
those things are of the world. pleasure, popularity, and power. When the Lord Jesus Christ said,
I am the truth, what He was exposing was us in
contrast to Him. Turn with me to Matthew chapter
4. Verse 1, Then when Jesus led
up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, and
when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward
a hungred. So now here the Lord Jesus Christ
is in the wilderness being confronted by Satan himself in his weakest
state. in the flesh. And when the tempter came to
him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command these stones
to be made bread. Satisfy the need of your flesh,
the pleasure of food, by turning these stones into bread. And
the Lord Jesus Christ was not tempted by that appeal. He didn't have to grit his teeth
and pull himself up by his bootstraps and say, you know, I can, I can
resist this temptation. No, he spoke confidently to Satan. And he said, man shall not live
by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded out of the
mouth of God. He wasn't tempted for pleasure. And so Satan says to him in verse
5, then the devil takes him up into the holy city and sets him
on the pinnacle of the temple and said unto him, If thou be
the Son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written, He shall
give his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they
shall bear thee up, lest thou shalt any time dash thy foot
against a stone. Now the pinnacle of the temple
was the temple wall that stood over the Kidron Valley, which
is where all the people that traveled in and out of the city
went. It was the marketplace for the city. It was the gathering
place. It's where everybody was. And
Satan takes him up there and says, cast yourself down into
that crowd. Angels are going to catch you.
And you'll prove to everybody who you are. And you'll win by
that miracle their popularity. Jesus said to them, thou shalt
not tempt the Lord thy God. I'm not tempted by the lust of
the eyes. I don't need to try to manipulate
people's approval of me. I'm not like you. I'm not like
you. I don't need to gratify my flesh.
I live by the bread of life, by the Word of God. I don't need
to earn the approval of other men. I have the approval of God." So Satan then takes him and says,
takes him up to an exceeding high mountain, and showed him
all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and said
to them, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall
down and worship me. Then Jesus said unto him, Get
thee hence, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the
Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." I'm not influenced
by your appeal to power. Get thee away from me. I'm not
even tempted by it. I serve God. I have power with God. The Lord Jesus Christ in the
wilderness, in His weakest moment in the flesh, revealed the truth about you
and about me. And he revealed himself as the
truth, the only one that was ever not of this world. The lust of the flesh, no appeal. The lust of the eyes, no appeal. The pride of life, no appeal. Pleasure, popularity, power,
not tempted. I'm not tempted. Why? Because I'm the truth. And those
things are weak, miserable, sinful substitutes for the truth. I
am the truth. I am the truth. The Lord Jesus Christ came into
this world in order to reveal the truth about God. He came
into this world in order to reveal the truth about you and me, about
man. And he came into this world to
reveal the truth about how it is that God could save sinners
like you and I. How can a man be right with God? How can God be just and justify
us at the same time? How can it be? How could God
satisfy His divine justice? How could He uphold His righteousness
and show mercy toward us at the same time? I'll tell you how
He did it. He took the truth. The only one who not only never
sinned but was never tempted to sin. And he put on him the
guilt of those that God had chosen according to his own sovereign
purpose. And he satisfied his divine justice
when he put his own son to grief. He put his own son to death. He made Him who knew no sin to
be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
It pleased the Father to bruise Him. He sacrificed His own Son
on behalf of those who aren't the truth. And He gave to them a substitute. a Savior. One who was able to
satisfy once and for all the demands of God. How does God
save sinners? The truth is that He sovereignly
chose a people before the world began. The truth is that He was
made flesh, born of a woman, born under the law. The truth
is that he doesn't save them by the law. John chapter, let's
go back there. John chapter one, verse 17. For the law was given by Moses. The law was given by Moses. But grace, grace, free grace,
that's the only kind of grace there is. Sovereign grace. You can't pay for it. You can't
earn it. You can't make a contribution
to it. It's all of Him. He's the truth. He's the one
who never sinned. He's the one who was never tempted
to sin. It's called grace and truth. came by the Lord Jesus
Christ. The law was given by Moses. How
does God save sinners? The truth is He saves them in
Christ. He saves them in Christ. As you
read, you go, to be found in Him. Not having my own righteousness
which is of the law, but that righteousness which is by the
faith of Jesus Christ. He's the faithful one. He's the
one who came. He's the one who pleased the
Father. Listen, listen carefully and believe this. God's not satisfied
with you. He's not satisfied with me. Why? Because we've never even been
able to be tempted without sinning. We're of the world. And all that
is of the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes,
and the pride of life, is all we've ever known. Christ is the
truth. The truth came by the Lord Jesus
Christ. God is pleased with Christ. He's
pleased with Christ. He's only pleased with Christ.
That's why I say, get in the ark. Get in Christ. Flee to Christ. Come to Christ. You say, we can't command men
to do something they can't do. Scripture does. Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. If you believe, if you come,
if you get in the ark, you'll know that it was God that did
it. You'll know that your salvation
was of the Lord and that He's the only one that convinced you
and shuts you up to His grace. You'll know that. You won't say,
well, I accepted Jesus or I gave my heart to Jesus. You won't
talk like that. You'll say that He opened the
eyes of my understanding. He called me by His sovereign
grace. He irresistibly drew me to Himself. And He became for me my truth
before God. And He did it all by grace. I'm the truth. It's the only
truth there is. The only truth there is. And we're absolute about that.
And we're intolerant about that. Now let me conclude by saying,
I will fight for your right to not believe the truth. You've
got the right to be wrong if you want to be. We're not here
trying to enforce Sharia law on people. We're not doing what
Constantine did when he turned the whole Roman Empire Christian
and forced them by the point of the sword to make a profession
in Christ. No! No, you've got the right
to be wrong. But I'm telling you according
to the authority of God's Word that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself
is the truth. He's the only truth. is the only
hope we have. No other name has been given
among men under heaven whereby we must be saved. Christ is the
truth. My heart's desire for Israel
is that they shall be saved. Oh Lord, would you be pleased
to put us in the truth, to shut us up to the truth, to make thyself
known in me. Paul said, when it pleased God,
who separated me from my mother's womb and revealed himself in
me, called me by his grace. Truths, plural, small t, can
be revealed to you. The truth, singular, capital
T, must be revealed in you. Lord would you make yourself
known in me. Our Heavenly Father we're thankful
that you have not left us to the lust of our flesh, the lust
of our eyes, and the pride of life, but you've provided for
us a substitute, one who himself is the truth. And we ask, Father,
that you would bless your Word now by your Holy Spirit and cause
us to find ourselves in Christ and to find Him in us. For we ask it in His name. Amen. so