with me to John chapter 20. And
let's ask the Lord's blessing upon us. Heavenly Father, we
thank and praise you for the promise that the Blessed Holy
Spirit will be sent as a comforter to take the things of the Lord
Jesus Christ and reveal them to us. And we pray, Heavenly
Father, that that in your mercy might be our portion this morning,
Heavenly Father, that the Word Lord Jesus Christ is revealed
in his wonderful, redeeming, loving glory. We thank you and
we pray that he sings as big as at your mercy seat. We thank
you. This is the throne of grace where
we can come with boldness and access in our time of need. Make us needy. Fulfill our needs,
our Father in your dear and precious in his name. Amen. Thomas has
gone down in history. Judas has gone down in history.
Thomas has gone down in history as doubting Thomas. This story
tells us the story of believing Thomas. And the issue is not
what the journey is, but the issue is what's the destination.
Thomas is here as a picture of all of us in our rebellion against God
Almighty. We are opened in the Scriptures
to the great honesty of the lives of the saints of God. And one
of the things that I pray the Lord does for all of us is that
when we see the failings of the saints we are looking in a mirror
We're looking in a mirror at Peter, and we're looking in a
mirror at Thomas, and we're looking in a mirror at the failings of
all of the saints of God. Don't you love the fact that
God is honest? Honest about what we are. What
does he say we're made of? Dust. He said to Philip just a few
nights before this, Philip said, show us the father. And the Lord
said, I've been with you such a long time, Philip, you have
seen the most remarkable things. You've heard the most remarkable
words, Philip. And you haven't even known me,
Philip. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. If you've seen
me, you have seen God Almighty. You are in the very presence
of God Almighty when you're in the presence of the Lord Jesus
Christ. These are written. John says,
these are written that you might believe that Jesus is Christ,
verse 31. The son of God and that by believing
you might have life through his name. And he said in the previous
verse, and many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of
his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these
are written, these particular miracles are written for a particular
purpose. And if you go on sermon websites
and things, you will see that the majority of preachers use
this as a means of clobbering people about church attendance.
That is not the picture that's here presented to us. No doubt,
Thomas should have been there in that previous meeting and
we have not given any reason why he wasn't there. and the
other disciples in verse 25, the other disciples said unto
him, We have seen the Lord, but he said unto them. So if he'd
been amongst them, he wouldn't have said what he said in verse
25. But I love the fact that Thomas
in his rebellion is just so honest about where he feels and what
is going on. He said under then verse 25,
except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails and put
my finger in the print of the nails and thrust my hand into
his side, I will not believe. The child of Adam who comes into
this world says in their hearts, I will not believe. I will not
have that man rule over me. Simon spoke out of Genesis Chapter
3 last week, and it's just so important that we keep going
back to Genesis Chapter 3. But before the fall in Genesis
3, there was a fall in the garden. There was a fall in heavenlies
before there was a fall in the garden, I'm sorry. In Isaiah
14, this is where the I wills come from. This is where all
of the I wills of all of humanity have all come from. Isaiah 14
verse 12, if you have time to open your Bibles up there. This
is where we learn to say, I will. This is where we learn to say,
I will not believe. There's so much pride at the
heart of such a declaration, isn't it? Here he is in the presence
of God, having been in the presence of God for three and a half years.
God who is good, good, God who is holy, God who is righteousness
himself, God who is love, God who is merciful. And Thomas is
saying, in light of all that's been said to him, in light of
the promise of the Lord Jesus Christ, he said in three days
I'm going to rise again and you'll see Where does the I will not
believe come from? Isaiah 14, how art thou fallen
from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou cut
down to the ground, which did weaken the nations? For thou
hast said in thine heart, before there was a deed of evil, there
was a thought of evil in the heart of Satan. There was sin
in his heart. You read Mark chapter 7 and you
see what comes out of your heart. And this is what he said. I will
ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above
the stars of God. I will sit upon the mount of
the congregation in the sides of the Lord. I will ascend above
the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High. 1st Sabathain said, that made
the world as a wilderness. It's a wilderness, isn't it? I will not believe. The one simple
thing that I want you to take away from all that is that you
cannot be saved by your free will. There is absolutely no
such thing as free will. It's the great lie, one of the
great lies of Satan. Your will is bound to your nature
and your nature says, I will not, I will not. Verse 26 of
our text. And after eight days, again his
disciples were within and Thomas with them. Then came Jesus. The doors being shut and stood
in the midst and said, peace be unto you. There had been nothing of peace
in Thomas for a whole week. There'd been nothing of peace
between Thomas and the other disciples for a whole week. He'd
been calling them bald-faced liars. And it was not just the
disciples, it was Mary and the other Marys and Peter. And these
men, and the men on the road to Emmaus, he had no reason to
doubt them. It was just the pride of his
heart. How gracious is our Lord to come
again and to come to Thomas and give him a sight of those wounds,
those wounds which took away sins as wicked as those. And as I said earlier, Thomas'
sins are our sins. and as evil as Thomas did. I'm just so thankful that the
Lord in John chapter 20 has recorded these first two meetings of the
Lord with his saints. In a sense you could say, and
I know about the events of Pentecost and the events of Acts, but these
are the first two gatherings of the Lord with his people after
the resurrection. And the first of things in all
the scriptures This is the first church gathering,
for want of a better word, after the resurrection. And so everything
about all of this is just extraordinarily important. Our Lord is very,
very gracious. And it begs the question, if
he had been to visit all these other people, why did Luke Thomas,
for a whole week, left him? Could he have come to him? Of
course he could have come to him. Could he have made him be
there on that first night? You see, this is much more. It's
much more than just an absence from church. This is the glory
of the Lord Jesus Christ revealing himself to his people and standing
in the midst And his first words, his first words to Thomas and
the rest of them is, peace be unto you. Don't you love that? I just love that his first words
are not, you're a scoundrel, Thomas. Look what you have done,
Thomas. Look how wicked you have been
for this week. Look what you've done to hurt
my people for this last week. First words. First words to forgiven,
redeemed sinners from the Lord is peace. He's in the midst. Where two or three are gathered
in my name, Matthew 8, 18, 20, there I am in the midst. Jesus
stood in the midst and said, peace be unto you. He's not looking
down to them from a distance. He was there in the midst, in
the middle of them all. And he comes, and he comes to
his own through locked doors, the doors being shut, and he
comes and stands in the midst of them. And Thomas says, except I see, except
I see, Except I see, and except I put, and except I thrust my
hand in, I will not believe. This is the great lesson of this,
isn't it? How does a child of God go from
I will not believe to my Lord and my God? Where does faith come from? Without
faith it is impossible to please God. Not just where does faith
come, how does faith come? And the answer is in our text,
isn't it? Then came Jesus. The only answer to unbelief and
all of the rebellion and all of the sin is then came Jesus. Then came Jesus. Even for true
children of God, the answer to all of our rebellion is then
came Jesus. for true disciples, he was a
child of God. He was clean, the Lord Jesus
Christ declared him clean by the word that he'd spoken to
him. In John 13 and 15, you are clean, not all of you, but Thomas
was one of the ones that was clean. He was clean by what happened
on the cross at Calvary. And yet he still needs the Lord
to come and speak to him and reveal himself to him. Then came
Jesus. Then came Jesus. Be not faithless, but believing. I trust that that's your prayer
every time you meet. I trust it might be your prayer
each time you open the scriptures in your private prayer and meditations. Then came Jesus. personally come and reveal yourself
to us. Be not faithless. To be without
Christ, Ephesians 2.12 says, without Christ is to be aliens
from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenant of
promise, having no hope and without God in the world. Then came Jesus. Then came Jesus. The doors And
no problem, the doors of unbelief are no problem to our sovereign
God. The doors of stony hearts are
no resistance. He spoke and the waves were still. He can speak peace to the heart
of a rebellious sinner. God Almighty. We don't know how
he came through the doors, whether they just as they did in the
jailhouse that Peter was locked in, later on in Acts, just opened
as he came to them. We don't need to know. All we
know is that the doors are no barrier. The doors of unbelief,
the doors of hardness of man is no barrier. And he speaks
peace. You'll never have any peace in
this world until the Lord and will come and speak peace, peace,
peace to people all day long. And that peace can be taken away.
The peace of this religious world can be taken away by just a couple
of simple questions. Is it perfect? Is your obedience
perfect? God says in Leviticus 21, it
has to be perfect to be accepted. Is it holy? Without holiness,
no one can see God. May God come and cause us to
hear Him saying peace. I love the fact that he says,
peace be unto you. People say, have you made your
peace with God? There's a story of an old man
on a building site and he tumbled down a ladder and things fell
on top of him and there he was dying, his blood, life's blood
pouring out on the ground and they rushed to get a minister
to come and speak to him and he finally got to him and he
said, have you made your peace with God? And the old boy looked
up at him and said, the Lord Jesus Christ made my peace with
God a long time ago on a cross of Calvary. I'm fine, thank you
very much. We don't make our peace with
God. God makes peace with us when he comes. And I love the
fact that the Lord Jesus Christ used the very words of Thomas.
He said in verse 27, if you're there and join with me. He said
to Thomas, verse 27, he says, Reach hither thy finger, and
behold my hands. Reach hither thy hand, and thrust
it into my side, and be not faithless, but believing. There are the
exact words that Thomas had used, hasn't he? Unless I see, unless
I touch, unless I thrust, I will not believe. How did the Lord
know those words? We are in His presence all the
time. I love the fact that God Almighty
sees our deeds and sees our thoughts. I love the fact that He says,
I'll never, ever, ever leave you nor forsake you. I love the
fact that our lives, our lives of peace before Him are lived
with the acknowledgement of His presence all the time. He knows,
as I said earlier, He knows we are but dust. He has far less
expectation of us than we have of ourselves, and He sees far
more clearly us than we see of ourselves. I'm thankful for His
never-leaving presence. He says to Jeremiah, Before I
formed thee in the belly, I knew thee. That word know is a lot
more than just knowing about Him. Before I formed you in the
belly, I loved you. And he said, Thomas, before you
came forth out of whom I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet
unto the nations. We saw in John chapter 17 that
the Lord Jesus Christ and his people are united in eternity,
united in his life, united in his death, united in his resurrection. They are one with him. They are one with him. Be not faithless. I pray the
Lord comes and speaks to the hearts of any here who are not
believing, and just a word from the throne of God reaches into
the hearts of his gathered one. This event's recorded that we
might believe as Thomas believed, that we might have, I will not,
turned in to I, my Lord, and my God. I want us to see as we
close that all Christian fellowship is this fellowship. All true
Christian fellowship is this particular fellowship, the fellowship
of the risen Lord Jesus Christ. The faith that the Lord gives
and blesses is the faith that sees the crucified and victorious
Lord. We're ambassadors for Christ.
Now we are declaring the glory of a finished work, a finished
work that has an application in the hearts of people throughout
this world. He says to Thomas, Be not faithless,
but believing. He's issuing commands to Thomas. He's not offering Thomas. He's
not inviting Thomas. He's commanding. Just like the
Lord said to those Pharisees when they said, what shall we
do that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered John 6,
29 and said unto them, this is the work of God. Whose work?
It's the work of God that you believe on him who he has sent. He is the one who comes in the
midst of his own and he speaks with power. And only his power. Only his power. will speak power
to your hearts. The one who said, let there be
light, comes and reveals himself. The one who said, let there be
light, commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined
in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That's the one who comes into
the midst of his own, bearing the scars of particular successful
redemption. He commands blessing, our God. The Lord has commanded blessing
even life evermore. He accommodates Thomas's frailty,
and infirmity. Did Thomas live with a command
to obey? Indeed, in love and in gratitude
and in devotion. And we see in the next chapter
that when the disciples were gathered together, even if they
were gathered to go fishing, Thomas was there. He was not
going to leave them for one moment. And Thomas answered and said
unto him, My Lord and my God, When Jesus comes, and he with
his coming brings conviction of sin, he with his coming brings
confession of who he is. And then from Thomas, there was
no excuses, wasn't it? Thomas wasn't trying to defend
himself, he wasn't trying to explain himself, he wasn't trying
to apologize. When the Lord Jesus comes and
reveals himself to you in the preaching of the gospel as only
one thing matters, then Jesus came. Jesus came. He manifested himself as he promised in John chapter 17 and throughout
the rest of the Bible. And don't you love Thomas' declaration? He says, my Lord and my God. Multitudes will talk about a
sovereign God, but the confession of a believer is my Lord and
my God. My Lord crucified, my Lord risen,
my Lord glorious. See, Thomas said this when he
saw Christ in his redemptive character. This is so significant,
isn't it? that the Lord Jesus Christ we're
declaring is the successful saviour of his people. We're thankful
for him coming. We're thankful that he was born
of a woman. We're thankful that he was born
under the law to redeem that we're under the law. But we preach
Christ crucified, not Christ in a manger. We preach Christ
crucified. We preach Christ crucified whose
precious blood washes our sins away. We believe that the Son
of God made his soul, as Hebrews 9.14 said, an offering to God
for our sins. And God has accepted it, and
the very proof of it was standing there in the midst of these people.
He was raised because of our justification. When we see Him,
when He comes into our midst, having borne our sins and suffered
the wrath of God and blood shed for my sins my sins
of unbelief those sins that come from an evil heart of unbelief
we see the Lamb of God who takes away those sins takes away the
sins of the world because they were laid on him and he carried
him to Calvary And they were in that tomb and they're never
to be seen again. We are married to the risen Christ. We fellowship with the risen
Christ. He comes to his bride. He doesn't
come to any others, just his sheep. Weak and fearful with
the door shut, unbelief keeping them in darkness. And then he
comes and the very first words he says is peace. The very first
words he says is peace. And he shows himself. God. John says that's life. John says that's life. That's
life eternal. That you know Him. Blessed are
those that have not seen as Thomas did and yet believe. He's no
more doubting Thomas. He's believing Thomas. But in
his journey from I will not to my Lord and my God is a glorious
picture of the grace of God as he comes to all of his people
in this world. Don't be, don't be unbelieving,
don't be unbelieving, but believe. These are written, these are
written that you might have life. You might believe and have life
in his name.