With me in your Bibles to John
chapter 12 and we just look at the particular situation that
here is presented before us by God Almighty and I remind you
this is at the close of the Lord Jesus Christ's ministry and these
are the final words and the final comments that are brought to
us before the Lord withdraws himself and spends that extraordinary
evening with his disciples, which ends up in his arrest and his
crucifixion the following morning. So these are critical times and
these are critical words. And they reveal something that's
intensely critical for all of us, isn't it? Here before us
are a group of people among the chief rulers, and many, many of them believed
on him. But because of the Pharisees,
they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the
synagogue. For they loved the praise of
men more than the praise of God. It might be so much easier for
us to understand these verses if we saw that they loved, that word praise
is translated throughout most of the rest of the New Testament,
the glory. more than the glory of God. Ultimately, at the end of this
glorious book, John is writing this that we might believe, and
the word believe in John chapter 20 is to believe and continue
believing. Just keep believing, keep believing,
keep believing. Keep on believing what God says.
Keep on believing who He is. Believe all the way into heaven. These are written that you might
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing
you might have life through His name. You might have life in
His name. You might have life by His name. You might have life with His
name. Life is Him, isn't it? Eternal
life is Him. Eternal life is a person. That they loved these people,
they loved the praise of men, more than the praise of God. They loved the praise of men
in association with them of the synagogue. But it's interesting,
isn't it, John's gospel ends with a remarkable note, doesn't
it? He says to Peter, do you love me? He doesn't say to Peter, Peter,
do you understand all of these doctrines? Do you understand
all of what's happening in this world? Do you love me? Do you
love me? Simon, do you love me? And I love Simon's answer. He
said, Lord, you know all things. You know all things. You know
that I love you. In John's gospel, we have this
contrast of loves again and again and again, isn't it? People,
men loved. This is the condemnation. This is the judgment. This is
the crisis, John 3, 19. Light has come into the world.
The Lord Jesus Christ has come into the world and men loved. darkness. They loved it rather
than light because they doeth evil. For everyone that doeth
evil hateth the light. So there is this extraordinary
contrast, isn't it? They hate the light. Neither cometh to the light,
lest his deeds be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh
to the light, that his deeds may be manifest, that they are
wrought in God. The coming to the light and the
staying in the light is the work of God Almighty. Men loved this
present evil world. They loved their place in their
nation. Caiaphas said it's expedient
that one man die because they loved their nation and they loved
their place in that nation. They loved their standing in
society. They loved to be seen as righteous. While you're in John chapter
12, turn back to some challenging words that relate to this verse
in John chapter 12, verse 25. The Lord Jesus Christ is speaking
of his death, and then he says, he that loveth his life shall
lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep
it unto life everlasting. Eternal. If any man serve me,
let him follow me. And where I am there shall also
my servant be. If any man serve me, him will
my father honor. That's that word glory again.
That's that word glory. They loved, they loved their
lives in this world. These people that we read about here, they
were like Nicodemus. They had seen the signs, the
evidences of the Lord Jesus Christ's work. Nicodemus was one of these
leaders, wasn't he? He came to him and said, Rabbi,
we know that you are a teacher that has come from God, for no
man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with
him. And the Lord Jesus Christ immediately
goes on to rebuke Nicodemus and say to him, unless you're born
again, you can't see the kingdom of God. You can see miracles,
and you can see the works that I do, says the Lord Jesus Christ,
but you can't see who I am. from above. The question that is on our minds,
no doubt there are these people saved. And we certainly know that Nicodemus
and Joseph of Arimathea came to salvation. But the one thing
that we can definitely say is you don't want to be where these
people are standing now or ever. Now or ever. If people declare
these men to be saved, then they're making salvation a really simple
thing, and something that doesn't actually cost. And if your salvation
and your faith and your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ doesn't
cost you everything, then I'd be very, very fearful of it.
I'd be very, very fearful of it. Throughout John's gospel
there were people who believed and the Lord Jesus Christ didn't
commit himself to them. In John chapter two, many believed
in his name, verse 23, when they saw the miracles he did, but
Jesus did not commit himself. Jesus did not believe in them.
He wouldn't entrust himself into them because he knew all men.
He says to those people in John chapter five, verse 44, he says,
how can you believe You can't, is what he's saying.
How can you believe which receive honour one from another, and
seek not the honour that cometh from God? Always God only, that
cometh from God only. Throughout the Gospel accounts
there are religious people that the Lord Jesus Christ continually
warns us about. He warns us not to be associated
with them. He warns us about what they're
doing. In Matthew 6 he says, These people, they do, when they're
giving alms, they do it in such a way that everyone will see
it, that they may have, verse 2 of Matthew 6, they may have
the glory of men. And then the Lord says, they
have their reward. If you want the glory of men,
and you get the glory of men, that's the end of it. It doesn't
reach any further. He talks about praying, doesn't
he? And he says that these people
prayed on the street corners and everyone saw how holy and
righteous they were and that was the whole purpose of it.
I had a fellow come to me some years ago and tell me that he'd
fasted for two weeks. No, he hadn't. He'd just been
hungry for two weeks and all he'd done is brag about it. That's
all we've done, isn't it? What a waste of two weeks of
hunger. We could have enjoyed all sorts of wonderful meals. When you pray, you go into your
closet and you close the door. And don't do it. Don't do it
to be seen of men. When you fast, you don't do it
to be seen of men. There are people in throughout
John's Gospel account who looked as if they believed and looked
as if they were rejoicing in the wonderful works of the Lord
Jesus Christ. In John chapter 6 there was a
crowd. We don't know how big the crowd
was but if the estimations are somewhere between 5,000 and 20,000
it's a huge crowd of people and they saw the most remarkable
things. They actually ate miraculous bread and ate fish that God Almighty
had created in their presence. And then when he declares who
he is, that whole crowd goes back. In John chapter 8 there
are some people who believe It says in verse 30 of John chapter
eight, and many, when he spoke these words, many believed on
him. And if you read the rest of that
chapter, by the end of it, they are picking up stones to stone
him. They had a faith. They had a faith. It was a faith
that was giving assent to what they had seen. I had a faith which was no deeper
than their flesh. And when that faith, like the
faith of these men we read about in John chapter 12, when that
faith was challenged, it proved where their love was, where their
real love was. God reveals his truth. to his babes, to his sheep, and
he hides his truth from the wise and prudent. And what's a wise
and a prudent man? A wise and a prudent man is one
that doesn't want to get into any trouble. What's a prudent
man? Let's just dull the edges of the gospel. Let's just make
the gospel and make our declaration of the Lord Jesus Christ such
that we can fit in with the world and we don't get excluded from
the world and we don't get rejected by the world, so that we can
keep our friendship with the world and yet feel like we have
an insurance policy because we can talk about the Lord Jesus
Christ. When we were in India, the little rickshaws, they were
called autos, the little rickshaw things, they had like a little
lawnmower motor on them. But many of them had up in the
front of it, they had a little insurance policy. They'd have
a Hindu symbol, and they'd have a Buddhist symbol, and they'd
have a symbol of Islam, and then they'd have a symbol of Christianity,
and you could take your pick. We were covering all of our bases. It's a story with compromised
religion. Let's all join together. Isn't
it wonderful when all of the religions can join together?
We can't join. And I want us to note that the
people who caused the problem here and caused these people
to weaken were the Pharisees. And the Pharisees are the legalists
of our day. And they do exactly what they
did in those days. They put people under a bondage.
They put people under an obligation of works. They put people under
an obligation of righteousness and joining with them. I pray
that as we go through these verses the Lord will cause us to see
what it is to confess him. that we would just simply confess
Him, that our confession would be a confession that comes from
our heart, that our confession would be a confession that comes
from love for Him and love for what He's done. And I want us
to see at the beginning how important it is to confess Him. In Romans
10, verse 9, the Lord says, If thou shalt confess with thy mouth,
the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God raised
him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." They're God's words. Confession is incredibly important. Confession is incredibly important,
is to publicly own the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord, as your
Saviour, as your all in all. And to not confess, as he says,
goes on in John chapter 12, he says, to not confess him is to
reject him. To not confess him is to not
believe on him. And the fact that people do not
confess him is a sign that they are controlled of the Antichrist. He says, beloved, believe not
every spirit, don't believe everyone who's talking to you on the basis
of their supposed position as spokesman of God, but test the
spirits, try the spirits, whether they are of God, for many false
prophets have gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the spirit
of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in
the flesh. that he was before he came, that
he came to do exactly as he promised to do, and he did it in his flesh. He put all of the sins of all
of God's people away. in his flesh and he wove a robe
of righteousness in his flesh. Every spirit that confesses not
that Jesus is come in the flesh is not of God and this is that
spirit of Antichrist. So there is just a spirit of
God in this world that confesses all of what the Bible says about
the Lord Jesus Christ coming in the flesh, and anything opposed
to it is antichrist. As I said earlier, these men
gave assent to things that they have seen. And like the Pharisees
of today, people can give assent to so many wonderful truths in
the scriptures, can't they? You can't read the Bible and
not acknowledge that God elected a people from before the foundation
of the world. You can't read the Bible and not acknowledge
that God predestinated a people to be conformed to the image
of his son. You can't read the Bible to not see that salvation
is by grace. You can't read the Bible and
not see that Christ is the only way. The saving faith is reflected in
a confession. It's reflected in a commitment
to the Lord Jesus Christ. A clinging to earlier, a loving hymn. The Pharisees were in the modern
parlance of today 5-point Calvinists. They didn't doubt so many of
the truths that God's people have rejoiced in. What is confession? Confession,
the word simply means to say the same thing. And so it is
to speak the same. And therefore, necessarily, it
involves something in public. These men, no doubt, in John
chapter 12, had all sorts of conversations in private. But
when it come to what happened in public, they were absent. is to sigh the sign. to declare public profession
and public allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ. You might
recall what happened at the beginning of the gospel ministry, wasn't
it? That these people came, they came to John the Baptist and
they came to the Lord Jesus Christ and they came to him in the wilderness
and they came confessing their sins. They came confessing their
sins. What is it to confess sins? People think that somehow you
have to go before a priest. and detail all the sins that
you've ever committed. We used to have it in tradition,
in religion, where every time someone was being so-called baptized
in their churches, the poor person who'd never spoken in public
before had to stand up before a whole congregation and just
lay out all the wickedness of their life as if somehow that
was a confession of sin. Our confession is made to God.
Our confession is actually agreeing with God. We don't know all of
our sins. We don't know. God only reveals
some of them to us. And as we open our mouth to supposedly
confess them to some priest, we're still sinning again. It is to say that I agree with God To confess is to plead guilty. I'm pleading guilty and I'm agreeing
with God about the charge that's against me, that everything that
I have ever done and said or thought is nothing but sin. And I cannot look around or look
down and then look down on one other single human being and
say, It's to confess, to confess that
the Lord Jesus Christ And what He did and who He is and what
He did on the cross of Calvary is all of my life and all of
my salvation and all of my sin bearing. And I cannot do a single
thing to fix one of those sins myself. I grieve over them. I hate them. I hate their prevalence. I hate their continuous. I hate
their repetition. But a confession of sin is confessing
that I'm a sinner. God, be merciful to me, the sinner. God, look upon your son, the
Lord Jesus Christ. Look upon his death, look upon
his resurrection. Look upon him and be merciful
to me. Confession is declaring in baptism. We are confessing, aren't we? We are confessing that I am so
sinful that the only way I can possibly be saved and live in
the presence of God is that by the life is by the life of the
Lord Jesus Christ. His life must be all of my life
before God. His death must be all of my sin
bearing before God. His resurrection must be all
of my justification before God and all of my hope before God.
I'm confessing in baptism that the only hope I have, all my
eggs are in one basket, the only hope I have is in union with
the Lord Jesus Christ. I come walking in this world
and I walk in him in union. I go under the waters of baptism
in union with him. I rise out of the waters of baptism
in union with him and I rise and ascend gloriously to heaven
in him and in him alone. As I said, confession is public. Matthew 10 speaks of the necessity
of public confession. In Matthew 10.32 he says, Whosoever
therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also
before my Father which is in heaven. I'm bearing and I'm pleading
guilty to all the charges that are laid against me as a Christian.
We do often speak of that verse in Acts chapter 24 where Paul
says, this I confess, there he was being accused of being worthy
of death by these Pharisees, these same Pharisees that these
men couldn't turn from. He said, but this I confess,
this is what I plead guilty to. Do you plead guilty to this?
That after the way which they called heresy, after the way
which all of the religious world called heresy, so worship I,
the God of my fathers, and this is what worship is, believing
all things which are written in the law and in the prophets. Paul, stood there as a man on
his own before these people who had what they thought was the
right to put him to death. And he just stood there as a
man just on his own. And I love how he finished his
life. He just stood there as a man
proclaiming the same things. And the Lord stood with him. Confession is saying the same
thing as God. Confession is pleading guilty
to what it is to be a believer in this world. But I do love
that confession has an element of rejoicing in it. Not only
do we confess these things, but we love them. We love them, we
rejoice in them. In Luke chapter 10, after the
Lord had sent out the 70 labourers and they'd come back rejoicing,
and he says that he saw Satan fall from heaven, but then he
says, In that hour, verse 21, Luke 10, in that hour Jesus rejoiced
in spirit. It's the only time we hear in
the Bible that He rejoiced in spirit and said, I thank you. That's the same word confess.
I thank thee, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth. that
thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast
revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed
good in thy sight. We rejoice. God rejoiced, didn't
it? In Hebrews chapter 13 we have
the same word that's used, that's translated confess in our text. In Hebrews chapter 13 verse 15
it says, By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise
to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, confessing
his name, giving thanks to his name. We're thankful, aren't
we, for the doctrines that we produce, the doctrines or the
declarations, the teaching of God that we have in these scriptures
about the Lord Jesus. They're a cause of rejoicing,
aren't they? They're a cause of rejoicing, and that's why
they give thanks. We confess that God is sovereign. We're confessing that God chose
the people from the foundation of the world. We confess that
the Lord Jesus Christ came and accomplished everything that
he was promised to accomplish, and he did it all. He did it
all, and it's all my hope. We confess that God's grace saves. We confess that this is the work
of God in the hearts of his people. These men still decide, don't
they? They were prepared. to love their
lives and love the praise of men. And what a remarkable praise
men can get from other men in religion. That was so much of
what we did in religion, wasn't it? You would praise people so
that they'd praise you back again. You'd praise them for the things
that they were doing so that they'd pat you on the back for
being an encourager to them. And so it was just a circular
thing, wasn't it? You'd praise them and they'd praise you. Aren't
they wonderful? Look at all the wonderful things
they're doing. There is so much of the praise of men in man-made
religion. It starts with them wanting to
please their flesh, and it ends with them wanting to please their
flesh unless God Almighty intervenes, intervenes. You know the verses in 2 Timothy
chapter 1, but I'd love you to read them with me again. In 2
Timothy, Paul gives his confession. As I said, confession involves
a commitment. It's a committal, isn't it? It's
entrusting everything of our lives. That's what faith is,
isn't it? Faith is just relying, isn't it? It's entrusting. I'm
entrusting everything about my life here, everything about my
life when I meet the Lord Jesus Christ, everything about my life
into all eternity. I'm trusting everything into
the hands of Him who is faithful. He says in verse 12, for which
cause I suffer these things, nevertheless I'm not ashamed,
for I know whom. I know whom. I know whom. I pray that you know whom. Salvation's in knowing a whom.
It's not knowing a what, it's knowing a whom. If you know the
whom, then all the what's are sorted. When Paul met the Lord
Jesus Christ on the Damascus Road, every issue he had about
the character of God was sold in one little tiny word, wasn't
it? Lord. It was, wasn't it? Do you reckon he doubted the
absolute sovereignty of God at that moment? Do you reckon he
doubted for one second the absolute holiness of God at that moment? Do you think he doubted the ability
of God at that moment to do whatever he wanted to do? Do you think
for one second he doubted that his life and everything about
his life was in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ and he
was completely and utterly dethroned? You see, that's what happens
when you meet a whom, isn't it? I know whom I have believed and
am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed
unto him against that day. I'm persuaded, you're persuaded,
Abraham was persuaded, wasn't he? We sing it at the end of
our service each week, don't we? Now unto him that is able
to keep you from falling. Are you persuaded about this?
To keep you from falling and present you faultless before
the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. To the only wise
God our saviour be glory and majesty, dominion and power. I am persuaded. I am committed. Confession is public. Confession is revealed in believers'
baptism. We're confessing. We're confessing
everything that God says about His Son. We're confessing everything
that is written. I'm confessing in Believer's
Baptism that the Lord Jesus Christ, his life, his death, his resurrection
is the only possible hope for me. I love what the word baptism,
the origin of the word baptism was. It just means to immerse
or dip. So anyone who's ever been sprinkled
has never been baptised. But it leads to a mercile dip,
and what it stems from originally was that you had some cloth,
and you had some white cloth, and you took it along to a vat
of blue dye, and you dipped, you baptized the cloth in the
blue dye, and the white cloth comes out blue. That's a glorious picture of
what baptism is, isn't it? of death with the Lord Jesus
Christ, because of our union with him. And he says, what are
our sins? Though your sins be scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow. We go into the waters of baptism
with him bearing all of our sins in his own body on the tree.
And we come up out of the waters of baptism. What are we robed
in? glorious white robes, the very righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ. We're confessing that He is Lord
is all our hope. To confess Him is to identify
with these people. These men wouldn't identify with
the children of God. Listen to what the Lord says
in Hebrews 10.23. Let us hold fast the profession. That's the same word as confession.
Let's hold fast that confession of our faith without wavering. Why? Why do we hold fast? Because he is faithful that promised. And let us consider one another
to provoke, how to provoke one another unto love and to good
works, not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together. God's
children love to The older I get and the longer
I go on, the more I need to hear the gospel. I need to hear how
wonderful the Lord Jesus Christ is. I need to know how full his
salvation is. I need to know how complete his
work is. I need to hear it again and again
and again. And you'll hear it in the company
of his people. And there is something extraordinary,
isn't there? There is something supernatural,
according to God, about the assembling of his people together. He promises that he's here. And
if I can't see him, that doesn't change one little tiny thing. He promises to be here. His angels
promise to be here. He promises. The Blessed Holy
Spirit promises to take these words that we've read of the
Lord Jesus Christ, these words that declare who He is and what
He's done, and make them known to people. And we confess, finally, I was
talking to Ben about this last night, you know, when people
hear us talk about the glories of sovereign grace, the electing
eternal love of the Lord Jesus Christ. The question is, well,
do our lives matter? Well, let me read Titus 1.15. You can
turn if you like. Titus talks about people in the
churches, they profess to know God. That word is confess. They confess to know God, but
in works they deny him, being abominable and disobedient unto
every good work reprobate. Your life matters in this world. Our behavior matters in this
world. These men gave assent to the
fact that the Lord Jesus Christ was a remarkable man, and possibly
the Messiah, but they denied him by their activities, didn't
they? God's children live out and they live them out in such
a way that they never ever see that they've ever done one of
them. But that's where our hearts are, aren't they? I pray, I keep
praying, Lord, Lord, protect the people I love from my sin. Protect the people I love from
the very evident weaknesses of my flesh. The treasure is in
a vessel of clay, brothers and sisters, and it's cracked and
broken and can be abused in so many ways. There is a true confession, and sadly
there are confessions that are an embarrassment. that deny them. If we declare
God to be absolutely sovereign and find ourselves, as I confess
I do so often, fearful and apprehensive about things that are going on
around here, really do I really trust his absolute sovereignty?
If he says that he's sorted all this from the foundation of the
world and he sits on the throne of this universe and all things
are working for my good, then I should be at peace. I should
be far more at peace than I am. And I should be encouraging other
people to be at peace with this world and be at peace with the
circumstances of their life, because all of that is part of
what God is working. He's not just allowing things
to happen, He works things, doesn't He? Can evil befall a city unless
the Lord has done it? But if I claim that God has put
away all my sins and has forgiven me of all of my sins, and so
forgiven my brothers and sisters in Christ, and yet I hold a grudge
against them, or keep them at a distance, what am I saying
about God's I do love what Paul said, isn't
it? He can esteem others better than himself. And the very simple
reason is that I can see a few superficial things in the lives
of other people. And we're very good at seeing
the sins of other people. But if God has done a work on
your heart, I see a bucketload more in me. And I can barely
look at anyone else and think, We believe in sovereign grace
and yet in so many activities Christians want to put people
under a bondage of works and a bondage of law and a bondage
of obedience to something. May the Lord work in us to confess
him. gathering, to confess Him publicly,
to confess Him in baptism, to confess Him in a commitment and
love to our brothers and sisters in Christ. We have the same Father
and we have the same Mother. We're brothers and sisters in
Christ, and we're nothing but sinners. We're nothing but sinners
in need of a saviour. I do love what happened in John's
life. They took him into a church in Ephesus when he could hardly
walk. He couldn't walk, they had to carry him in. And they
asked him for a word. What's a word for us, John? Just give us a word. And he just
would lift his head up from his cot and say, love. May the Lord
cause us to love one another, to love him, to confess him publicly
and to find the praise of men, the glory of men. Something that we just let go
of so easily. But we love the praise of God.
May God be merciful to us.