I've come to love John Chapter
14 so very, very much. And it's like all the scriptures,
isn't it? The more you study them, the
deeper they become, the more you realize that we are so prone,
as Job was, to utter words. that are so, so frail and weak
compared to how glorious the things the Lord Jesus Christ
has spoken here. I just wanted us to look this
morning as we get back into John 14 at these words from verse
10 down, and I want to read them again. And he reiterates what
he said to Philip in answer to the question. He says, Believers
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. Believe me that I am in the Father,
and the Father in me, or else believe me for the very works
sake. Verily, verily, amen, amen, truly,
truly, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, The works that
I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do,
because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever you shall ask
in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in
the Son. In my name, I will do it. Do you believe that? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that
you would take these words, the blessed Holy Spirit would reveal
the things of the Lord Jesus Christ that are said here, and
that we might find our hearts at peace. in the wonders of who
our great and sovereign God is, and find our joy and our praise
in redeeming love and sovereign grace that's been revealed in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Make us to be people, heavenly
Father, who ask in your name. Open our mouths wide that we
might be filled, Heavenly Father. Help us to ponder great and glorious
things of our God. For the glory of the Lord Jesus
Christ and the comfort and peace of his people, we pray in his
precious name. Amen. The scriptures are spiritual. And yet they come to us in these
words that we can have here set out before us. And I'm so thankful
that these words are words that we have written down and we can
keep going back to them again and again and again. I love what
he says in verse 26 of this passage. He says, The Comforter, which
is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name, He shall
teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance
whatsoever I have said unto you. What a comfort that is for us,
what a comfort that might have been for the apostles. The great
question that's raised so often and raised again in these verses
is who speaks for God? Who speaks on behalf of God? That was the challenge that was
laid out before the Lord Jesus Christ when he came into this
world. Who speaks for God? Do the religious leaders in Jerusalem
speak for God? Or does the Lord Jesus Christ
speak for God? The question after the Resurrection
and after the Ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ is who speaks
for God? Do these 11 and soon to be in
a few years' time 12 apostles speak on God's behalf and speak
the very words and write the very words of God? or do the
high priests in Jerusalem or the people of this world? And
the question still remains relevant for us, isn't it? Who speaks
for God? How do we know? How do we know? Those questions are asked and
those questions are answered here and before us in so, so many
ways. So let's just look at verse 10
and let's begin here. He says, Believeth thou not?
He was challenging Philip and he's challenging the other apostles.
He's challenging us, isn't it? That I'm in the Father and the
Father in me, the first thing you need to understand is that
I am God Almighty. When you see me, when you see
the Lord Jesus Christ, you see God. You see God in all the fullness
of the deity dwells in a body, Colossians 2.9. All the fullness
of a deity dwells in the body. So that's fundamental to believing,
isn't it? To believe. He keeps saying, believe us thou
not. Believe me, verse 11. Believe
me, verse 12. Believe on me. And verse 29 in this same chapter,
he says, now I have told you before it comes to pass that
when it comes to pass, I'm telling you what's going to happen. I've
been telling you what exactly is going to happen. This book
has told you, this Bible has told you exactly what is going
to happen in great detail. I've told you that before it
comes to pass, when it comes to pass, that you might believe. You might believe. the joy and
the peace of believing. Their hearts were going to be
troubled. Why were their hearts going to be troubled? Exactly
the same reason our hearts are troubled. All the troubles, all
the troubles that I have ever experienced in this world and
experiencing at all times come from simply unbelief, isn't it?
All of our anxiety comes from and unbelief about the fact of
who God is. God is doing this. God is absolutely
sovereign. He must do well. So believing is believing that
the Lord Jesus Christ is in the Father and the Father is in him.
The works that he do, listen to what he goes on to say. He
says, the words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself. One of the lovely things in the
Gospels accounts is that he says, you've heard it written, you've
heard these other people say, he says, but I say unto you,
the Lord Jesus Christ spoke the very words of God. But listen
to what he says. The words that I speak unto you,
I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me, Listen
to what he says. You would think he would say
he speaks the words, but what does he say? He doeth the works. Isn't that extraordinary? He
doeth the works. The words and the works of Christ
and the Father are all one, aren't we? Listen to what he says in
verse 24 of this same chapter. He says, He that loveth me not
keepeth not my saying. That word keep is to guard and
to treasure. And the word which you hear is
not mine, but the Father's which has sent me. Lord Jesus Christ. is God Almighty
and these words we have here are the words of God Almighty.
His physical presence will be gone in a few hours and then
He'll be gone for three days and they'll have those resurrection
visits in that six weeks following His resurrection on that Sunday
and then He'll be gone to heaven. But they are now to be comforted. because even though he's physically
gone, he's going to be with them and his words are going to be
with them. He says, believe me, verse 11, believe
me, that I am in the Father, and
the Father in me, or else believe me for the very works sayeth. The works and the words All of the works of the Lord
Jesus Christ are a proclamation of His deity and a declaration
of His Gospel, those healing miracles, all of the miracles
that He did, all of the things that the Lord Jesus Christ did,
the marvellous things, the wonderful works of God. He's saying you believe, you
believe, you believe the works. Because the works are the words
of God Almighty. Isn't it wonderful that we have
a God who speaks? We have a God who has written
down what he speaks, and so we can go back again and again and
again and ask ourselves the simple question, did he really say that?
Did he really say these remarkable words to us? These remarkable
words, Son, your sins are forgiven. The remarkable words that he
says to his apostles in the previous chapter, you are all clean through perfectly clean in God's sight. Believe me, for the very works
sake, because the very works, if you understand the works,
the spiritual works of God Almighty, you'll be amazed at the gospel
that's in them and the declaration. All of his works are declarations
that he is God, he is the Christ of God, he does what no one else
could ever do. And no doubt as you were reading
or having this read to you and you read it again and see it
again there, the next verse is an extraordinary verse, isn't
it? He says, Truly, truly, verily, verily, amen, amen. Every time the Lord Jesus Christ
uses that double truly, truly, this is something that's to be
given special notice of amongst all the things that are particularly
special. He says, I say unto you, he that believeth on me,
The works that I do shall he do also. And greater works than these
shall he do because I go unto my Father. For those of us who have We spent
some time looking in the book of Acts. We'll see that the apostles
did remarkable works, didn't they? The Lord Jesus Christ raised
the dead. On several occasions he raised
the dead. Peter raised the dead. Paul raised the dead. Peter healed. and Paul and the other apostles
healed. They had this special gift from
God for doing these remarkable works in fulfilment of His promises. He that believeth on me, the
works that I do, shall he do also, and greater works than
these shall he do, because I go to the Father. There are miracles
of providence and there are miracles of provision. Such was the power
that was bestowed upon Peter by the Lord Jesus Christ, by
the ascended Lord Jesus Christ, that in Acts chapter 5 verse
15, all they used to line up was where Peter was going to
walk, and if his shadow fell on them, they were healed. In
Acts chapter 19, people would have a handkerchief that Paul
had touched, and it would bring healing. No doubt as you think about these
things you are thinking about what has become an extraordinarily
popular movement amongst this world of ours. People who have ministries of
healing and ministries of deliverance and ministries of casting out
demons and all of these ministries and men. religious men have made
a fortune from those things. I don't want to spend a whole
lot of time looking at that now, but I think we have in these
passages of Scripture and in what is revealed in the greater
works that the Lord had promised these disciples, we have a very
simple way of discerning whether these people are speaking on
God's behalf, and they are worthy of all the applause and all the
esteem and all the money that they collect for themselves,
or whether they are demonically possessed people. People can be sincere and sincerely
wrong. People can be sincere in religion
and sincerely wrong. It's not for nothing that God
says to us that we are to test the spirits to see whether they're
from God or not. It's a command of God that you
test the spirits. It's a command of God that you
test what I and others say from this pulpit. It's a command of
God. And anyone who is God's servant is very happy to be examined
by people and have everything that they say examined. And there
is a simple test, isn't it? The simple test is, are they
speaking according to the Word of God, and are they declaring
the Lord Jesus Christ as He is in the Scriptures? And that's
a simple test, isn't it? You go to these people who are
performing these extraordinary deeds. I met one just up in the
park a little while ago. And he has a ministry which he
claims to be from God. And you just ask them the simple,
simple questions about the character of God Almighty as revealed in
the scriptures. Ask them really simple questions.
and expect really simple answers about the character of God. And
you will find again and again and again that they deny simple
things. So I want you to turn to the
Book of Acts. But if you spend any time in
religion these days, you will have people tell you again and
again and again, God loves everyone and God loves you. And the proof
of it is that Jesus Christ has died for you. And God wants everyone
to be saved. God doesn't wish for anyone to
perish. I listened to some messages this
last week from a local fellow, and I don't know how many times,
probably in the 4 or 5 messages I listen to, maybe 10 times he
says, he's quoted these words, God is not willing that any should
perish. Have you heard that quoted before?
Again and again and again. God loves everyone, God doesn't
want anyone to perish, and the proof of it is he sent the Lord
Jesus Christ, and the Lord Jesus Christ has died for your sins
and all the sins of all of the whole world, and he doesn't want
anyone to perish. How many times in the 30-year
history of the Church in the Book of Acts are those things
said? Zero. Zero. Again, it comes back to the question,
and this is the question that's going to be asked of these apostles,
who speaks for God? So turn with me in the Book of
Acts and let's just see how these men performed remarkable and
mighty deeds. And they immediately declared
again and again that this is the work of God and not the work
of man, and it's the work of God bearing a testimony to the
Lord Jesus Christ, and it's the Lord Jesus Christ who is doing
the work. So in Acts chapter 2 we have
that remarkable sermon that Peter gave on the day of Pentecost
and 3,000 souls were saved. And what he does there, he declares
two fundamental things, that Jesus Christ is God Almighty
in verse 36, he says, let all the house of Israel know assuredly
that God has made this same Jesus whom you have crucified, both
Lord and Christ. So the proclamation of the Gospel
begins this Gospel age that we live in. But listen to what he
says a few verses earlier in verse 33. He says, Therefore
being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received
of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he He who is
He, the Lord Jesus Christ, has shed forth this which you now
see and hear. What were they hearing? They
were hearing verse 11 They were hearing these apostles, these
Galilean fishermen and tax collectors and others. They were hearing
them declaring in all of these other languages the wonderful
works of God. Wonderful works of God. Who was
doing the work? The Lord Jesus Christ was doing
the work. Exactly as he said, He that believeth
on me, the works that I do, he shall do also. and greater works
and we'll look at the greater works in a minute but in verse
16 of the next chapter Peter has walked through that beautiful
gate, and there was a lame man that had been there for many,
many years. And Peter fastened his eyes on
him in verse four, he says, and he gave heed unto him, expecting
to receive something from them. And Peter said, silver and gold
have I none, but such as I have, give I to thee, give I thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of
Nazareth. Nazareth rise up and walk. They all saw him walking and
praising God. But listen to how Peter defends
what has happened here. He speaks of the God of Abraham
and Isaac and Jacob in verse God of our fathers has glorified
his son Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied him in the presence
of Pilate when he was determined to let him go. And you denied
the Holy One and the just and desired a murderer be granted
unto you. The apostles never hid the fact
of human sin and human responsibility before God. And you killed the
Prince of Life, whom God has raised from the dead, whereof
we are witnesses. And listen to what he says about
this remarkable miracle in light of the verse that we're reading
here. And in his name, Through faith in his name hath made this
man strong, whom you see and know, yea, the faith which is
by him, the Lord Jesus Christ, has given him this perfect soundness
in the presence of you all. Who does the works? If a spiritual
work is going to be done for the glory of God and the saving
of someone's soul, it's going to be the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And the works of the Lord Jesus Christ bear his fingerprints
all over them. And they cause him to be exalted
and lifted up. And they cause man to be put
in his right and proper place. In chapter 5 he says in verse
31, verse 30, the God of our fathers has raised up Jesus whom
you slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his
right hand to be a prince and a saviour for to give repentance
and to Israel and forgiveness of sins. How do you get repentance? You must repent. Where does repentance
come from? Repentance is a change of mind
about God, a change of mind about who you are, and a change of
mind about how God saves sinners. It's given by the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's given. He gives repentance. You can go on through Acts and
you will see that every time there is a miraculous activity
of these apostles in accordance with this promise that we're
reading here in John Chapter 14. It's always accompanied by a
declaration of the Gospel. It's always accompanied by a
declaration of who the Lord Jesus Christ is. Which is why whenever
you see the impressive things that people do in the enormous
crowds they get, it's really good just to ask the simple questions.
Are they declaring the God of Scriptures? Are they declaring
the Lord Jesus Christ? Are they declaring, as he says
here, believe us now, not that I am in the Father, and the Father
in me, but are they declaring that the Lord Jesus Christ is
God? God doesn't try and do anything. God doesn't have a want to save
everyone and not have it fulfilled. God is holy and God is just. And God, the God of all the earth,
must do right. Why did the Lord Jesus Christ
come? He tells us as plainly as possible, doesn't he? In John
6, if you turn over there quickly we'll see this is one of the
many descriptions where he describes himself, doesn't he? I had a commentary when I was
in India when I was taking my students through Bible study
in John 6, and they left out a big chunk of John 6 that wasn't
even in the commentary. And I used to say to the kids,
can we read the secret part? Can we read the secret part? He says in verse 37, all that
the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to
me I will in no wise cast out. for or because I came down from
heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent
me. And this is the Father's will which has sent me, that
all of which He has given me, I should lose nothing, but should
raise it up again at the last day. The Lord Jesus Christ is not
embarrassed about God's electing grace. The Lord Jesus Christ
is not embarrassed about God's electing love and predestination. The Lord Jesus Christ openly
and plainly declares that there are a people in this world that
He came to save. They were given to Him by His
Father before the foundation of the world, and He was the
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And they will come,
this is what he goes on to say in verse 40, and this is the
will of him that sent me, that everyone that seeth the Son and
believeth on him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up
at the last day. Verse 44, no man can come to
me except the Father which has sent me draw him. Do you believe
that? People want to say that everyone
is seeking God. No, God is seeking His and He
finds them all, doesn't He? The Father draw him, and I will
raise him up the last day. As is written in the prophets,
they shall all be taught of God. Every man therefore that has
heard and learned of the Father cometh to me. He says, He is the Good Shepherd
in John chapter 10. He says, and there are similar
verses to what we've been reading in John 14, I told you, verse
25, and you believe not the works that I do in my Father's name,
they bear witness of me. But you believe not because you
are not of my sheep. Listen to the order of the words
there. It's really simple, isn't it?
You believe not because you are not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I
know them, and they follow me. I give unto them eternal life,
and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. My Father which gave them me
is greater than all. No man is able to pluck them
out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one. Who speaks for God? Those who just
simply declare, thus saith the Lord. We're not here to debate,
we are here as God's messengers to declare, just to simply declare
who God is in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're
simply here to say, call on the name of the Lord. Call on his
name, call on the character as he's revealed himself to be in
the scriptures. Come, come, says the bride of
Christ. Call. I love what the Lord prayed. They saw these works. And the
Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles there immediately declared who
they were. These people in John Chapter 6 saw the remarkable
works of the Lord Jesus Christ, feeding a huge crowd of people,
5,000 men. We don't know how many others
were there, but there could well have been over 10,000, maybe
nearly 20. And he walked on the sea and he performed many miracles.
And then he declares in the midst of all that, he declares who
he is. And in John chapter six, they all leave. They're happy
to have the bread. And they're happy to have the
fish. But they're not happy to have
him declaring himself to be God Almighty, which is exactly what
happens today. But I love what he prayed. Listen
to what, in John chapter 17 verse 20, he says, neither pray I for
these alone. He's talking about his apostles
and the necessity of them having the words of God and delivering
the words of God and being kept and preserved in the truth. But he says about us in verse
20, neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which
shall believe on me Listen to the next phrase, through their
word. He doesn't say through their
miraculous activities and their powerful. words just through
their word. We have the very word of God
and we have the prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ declaring that
these works that he's done in drawing people to himself are
works that are going to be done in this world until he returns. Greater works, he says in John
14.12, greater works than these shall he do because I go to the
Father. They're greater works because
he goes away. In so many ways the works are
greater, but obviously all of the greatness of the works is
just a reflection of the greatness of the one who does the works,
isn't it? They're greater in scope. The
Lord Jesus Christ's Gospel message is going out to the Gentiles
all over this world. It's come all the way down here
to Australia. It's greater in number. The Lord
Jesus Christ had 500 people at that mountain in Galilee after
he had ascended. And if you add the 120 and add
the apostles on, you get to a number at the very extreme that would
be a bit over 600 people. 3,000 were saved on the Day of
Pentecost. It's a greater work in number.
We, the Lord Jesus Christ, preached for those three and a half years,
and I know that the preaching of the Gospel had gone on from
the time of the Garden, but we have heard this same message
for two and a half, two thousand years now, the same message of
the Gospel has gone out to this world. And it's gone out to all
of these nations, and the name of the Lord Jesus Christ has
been spread abroad. But they're greater. They're greater because the people
in John chapter 6, for example, saw a physical miracle. And those physical miracles are
going to give way to the spiritual works of salvation. That's exactly
what he says in John chapter 6. You eat this bread, you eat
this flesh, and you drink this blood, or you have no life in
you. They don't even have a clue what
he's talking about. But he was talking about The glorious union,
the glorious indwelling, the glorious fact that the life of
the Lord Jesus Christ is the very life of His people. He sustains
and carries them in His own life. Many who ate, many who saw the
miracles died in their sins, but all who ate spiritually lived
forever. As we began, who speaks for God? Who speaks for God? Why were
these gifts given? And we'll look at this more as
time goes on. Why were these particular gifts
given? And why, in judgment, has the
Lord allowed so many, many charlatans to deceive themselves and deceive
multitudes. These gifts were given to usher
in a new age, to usher in this gospel age. And it's hard for
us as Gentiles living so far away from Jerusalem to imagine
the enormity of the change that was required in the worship of
God. In those days you went to Jerusalem
and you took your lamb and you took your sacrifice and then
a priest took it on your behalf and he took it into the Holy
of Holies on your behalf and you did it three times a year
and you came back and back and back again and you looked at
the glorious things that were there and you saw all those physical
things. So the temple worship was coming
to an end and God in his mercy allowed it to stay there for
another 30 odd years. But the Lord Jesus Christ said
at the beginning of His ministry, I am the temple. I am the temple
of God. The temple of God is Him and
all the activities around the temple were pictures of Him and
His salvation. And so that was the end of that
age of worship in the temple and sacrificial worship because
He is the sacrifice and He is the Passover and He is the Sabbath
and He is all of those things embodied The Gentiles were going
to be part of spiritual Israel. The true Jew is now one who is
circumcised in his heart. The true Jew in this world today
is not a descendant of Abraham. They are the spiritual seed of
Abraham. You can read about it in Galatians
3 and 4 and Romans chapter 2. God makes it abundantly clear
that the Jews no longer had a special place And the nation of Israel
no longer had a special place. There was a new nation, the nation
of the children of God. The New Testament scriptures
were about to be written by these men. These miracles accompanied
the activities of these men. Can you believe the writings
of Paul as equivalent to the writings of Moses? Can you believe
that the writings of Peter and John are the very words of the
Lord Jesus Christ, the same as Isaiah? Who speaks for God that his miracles
that he's promised here were part of that time where there
was a confirmation of the gospel message that they were declaring
by the miracles that were done. That's exactly what Hebrews chapter
2 says. They were just for a time, they
were just for a season. God bearing them, Hebrews 2.4,
God also bearing them witness with signs and wonders and with
diverse miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his
will. Once John put his pen down at
the end of Revelation, there was no need, there's no need,
the perfect had come. And the gospel of Christ takes
preeminence in the worship of God. And now we worship God in
spirit and truth in the declaration of the gospel. The apostles were challenged
by the high priests, and the high priests could go back to
the Old Testament scriptures and say, we are here with a warrant
from God to do all of these things and to have this position, and
we speak for God. And Peter and James and John
and the other apostles go into that Sanhedrin and they say,
we're speaking for God. You work out for yourselves.
It's up to you to work out for yourself. We cannot help but
speak what we have seen and heard. We are here speaking on God's
behalf to you. And you believe the apostles.
To believe the apostles is to believe the Lord Jesus Christ. To deny and to challenge what
the apostles have said about the Lord Jesus Christ and about
salvation in Him is to be in open opposition to God Almighty. I beg of you not to be there.
The testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ is born as the Holy Spirit
is poured out as He never was before, first in Jerusalem and
then in the rest of the world. The testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ
remains the same, and the powerful things that happen are still
happening today, aren't they? are the eyes of the blind being
opened today. That's a miscellaneic miracle
that Christ alone can do. When you hear the gospel as gospel,
the eyes of the blind are open. When you hear the gospel as gospel,
you have the healing of the lame and the deaf and the dumb. And the gospel net goes out,
as the Lord Jesus Christ said, to cast that net on this side.
And you pull in all that fish, and the gospel net goes out,
and the fish are gathered in. The blind are healed. Our Lord
Jesus Christ is proclaimed. We have much more to say about
all this. That might have to do us for
now. Let's ask the Lord to help us. Heavenly Father, please take
your words and cause them to be spirit and life to us and
let us rest in the glory of who your son is. I pray these things
for his glory, our Father.