You've told me all about the
Lord and you've told me what he's promised. What do I have
to do? What do I have to do? What do I have to do to make
this effective? What do I have to do? I quote
Colossians often for you, don't I? Colossians 1.22 about him
in the body of his flesh through his death to present you wholly
unblameable, unapprovable in his sight if If you continue
in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the
hope of the gospel which you have heard. The New Testament
is littered with hundreds of ifs. What are the ifs? What are
the ifs? Let me read another one to you
in Hebrews 3.14 For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold
the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end. Again and again and again throughout
the New Testament there are these ifs. The Old Testament had ifs promises of God and the curses
of God, for the New Testament iths come in a new covenant. We've just spoken about that
eternal covenant. Are the iths conditions you must
meet for God to bless you, or are the conditions, the iths,
are they evidence of God's work in the hearts of His people?
So of the chapters in the Bible that is almost most littered
with this word, if, is John chapter 8. And there are 12 of them in
John chapter 8. So I'd like you to turn with me to John chapter
8. And I put it to you that these are the ifs of evidence. God in their hearts. And if you
recall that New Covenant promises that we read out of Hebrews 8
and Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36, you'll see that this is the work
of God in the lives of these people to cause them to move. And so there are a number of
these ifs here, and I thought I'd just go through them with
you. There's the if of revelation about knowing God. There's the
if of saving faith. There's the if of discipleship,
there's the if of freedom, there's the if of Abraham's faith children,
there's the if of the sons of God, there's the if of human
responsibility, there's the if of assurance, there's the if
of the honour of God, and there's the if of the Saviour's knowledge
of God. And so if you have your Bibles
with me there, I will just read them and I'll make a few comments
because I think they are so remarkably clear and they are such a wonderful
description. This is God's description from
the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ to those who stood opposed to
him. This is the description of the
work of God in the hearts of his people. And the first one
is the if, of Revelation in John 8, verse 19. Everything begins
with Revelation, doesn't it? Everything begins with light.
There'd be light as the first, excuse me, words of the Lord
Jesus Christ. They said to him, where is thy
father? Jesus answered, you neither know
him, you neither know me, nor my father. If you had known me,
you should have known my father also. He has just described himself
as He says, I am. He's declared
himself to be God Almighty. Everything he's done is to show
when he went to that temple to cleanse it, he says, this is
my father's house. He was saying, this is my house. Everything
in this temple was to picture me and my sacrifice, me and my
saving of our people, me glorifying the holy character of God. That's
the if of revelation, isn't it? The if of revelation. Knowledge
of God. Jesus Christ is salvation, John
17, 3, isn't it? This is eternal life, that you
know the Father and you know me. And as we read in Hebrews
chapter 8, they shall be all taught of God and they'll know
me. I will be unto them a God and they shall be unto me a people.
I'll know them and they'll know me. And his knowledge is infinite,
it says in the scriptures. He doesn't ever learn anything. is an eternal am, I am. It's the if of revelation. How
do you know him? You know him because he reveals
himself to his people. And he has in John's gospel,
he's revealed himself in remarkable ways, hasn't he? Revealed himself
to that woman at the well. He revealed himself to the paralyzed
man. He revealed himself to the nobleman. He reveals himself to people
as they're drawn to him. Let's go down to John 8.24. This is a deeply serious verse
and I pray that the Lord writes this on your hearts and makes
you ponder it very, very deeply and seriously and make it a matter
of prayer. I said therefore unto you, you
shall die in your sins. The thought of what that means
is horrifying, isn't it? To die in the knowledge of your
sins, to die in the presence of your sins, to die under the
wrath of God in your sins, to die and never have them taken
away, to die and live in them forever. You'll die in your sins
for if you believe not that I am He. So how do you not die in
your sins? faith, isn't it? It's believing
in Him. It's believing Him as faith's object. It's believing
the words that He says, that He is faithful and true. Our
God says He cannot lie. And when we come to this glorious
book and this glorious description of our great God, He tells the
truth all the time. He cannot lie. We only have the
light of the knowledge of who he is by his work in our hearts. And for the child of God, that
causes him to cry out, Lord, teach me. Lord, show me again.
Lord, don't leave me in the dark. Listen to what he says. Paul
prays for the Ephesians, and it's my prayer for you and myself,
that the eyes of your understanding, Ephesians 1.18, But being enlightened,
having been enlightened by God, that you may know what is the
hope of his calling and what is the riches of the glory of
his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness
of his power to us who believe. Why do we believe? Why do we
believe? according to the working of His
mighty power. It takes nothing less than the
resurrected power of the Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to
saving faith. What a precious thing it is just to simply believe
like a child. It's the work of God. According
to the working of His mighty power, we believe according to
the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ when
He raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand
in the heavenlies. Our God. Is saving faith the
work of God? Or is it something you must do? I long to have faith. I despair over my faithlessness
and I cry out again and again and again. With that man, I said,
Lord, I believe. I believe. Help thou my unbelief. The disciples prayed, didn't
they, to the Lord. Lord, increase our faith. Increase our faith. It is the gift of God. It's the if of saving faith.
It's the evidence of the working of that mighty power. What an
extraordinary description of your faith. If you truly believe,
as you sit there right now without moving a muscle, if God has given
you faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, what a wonder. God Almighty has
moved to do that. God Almighty. So we have the
if of divine revelation, the knowledge of God, and we have
the if of saving faith, to be saved from a fate which is so,
so, so difficult to ponder. Then in verse 31, we spoke a
little bit about this last week, so I'll be very brief, but Jesus
said to those Jews which believed on him, if you continue in my
word, then are you my disciples indeed. So what do the disciples
do? What do the indeed disciples
do? They just continue in the word,
don't they? They continue. It's not the one
who begins, it's the one that finishes the matter. Where will
you be? Will you be continuing? Lord,
help us. All who are born of God, all
who truly trust the Lord Jesus Christ, shall persevere unto
the end. They'll persevere because they're
preserved by God Almighty. He cannot lose them. All that
the Father gives me shall come to me, and no one can pluck them
out of my hand. I and the Father are one. They're
in the Father's hand. They're in my hand. What a secure
place for you to be, brothers and sisters in Christ. Oh, beloved.
These are special words, aren't they? This is the gift of discipleship,
continuing in his word. I just continually look to his
word. I continually trust what he says. I continually read his
word and say, true. And I don't have to say I can
understand it all. All I have to say is I believe it. I believe,
Lord. I believe. If people can leave
the Lord Jesus Christ, you will. It's as simple as that. If you can, you will. God's children
can't. They can't. They're kept by Him.
Then we're in verse 36. Turn down there with me. If the
Son shall make you free, you shall be This is the if, isn't it? It's
the if of freedom, it's the if of the glorious liberty of the
sons of God, made free, not by something that you do, made free
by Him, if the Son sets you free, if the Son shall make you free.
It's His work, isn't it? It's His creative work, it's
His work of grace in the hearts of His people, if the Son sets
you free. I love what Paul described when Paul is arrested in Jerusalem. And Lysias, the captain of the
guard, says, I, with a great prize, obtained this freedom. And Paul says to him, I was born
free. Earth freezes. We're free from
sin, we're free from Satan, we're free from guilt, we're free from
the law, we're free from its curse, we're free from the religion
of man in this world, we're free from superstition, we're free
from the fear of death. We are born as Adam's children
in bondage and chains of darkness. All of Adam's race were there,
and if you know anything of yourself, you know the bondage you have. We're slaves, aren't we? Anyone
who sins is a slave to sin. We're slaves to this world. We're
slaves to the good opinion of others about ourselves. We're
slaves to our morality. We're slaves to the pride of
religion. We're slaves to everything. everything
but Christ. We're slaves. I remember a man
that we shared the gospel with for some considerable time and
he just saw it in the Word of God about how glorious the Lord
Jesus Christ is. And then he said, I, you will
never get me, to give up on the fact that my salvation is based
on me getting up out of my chair and going forward at that meeting
and praying that sinner's prayer. You'll never get that away from
me. Look at the bondage and the darkness
that these Jews were in. Saul of Tarsus was amongst them
all, wasn't he? What bondage was he in? Thinking that he was
doing God's work as he went off to kill people. Until the Lord
met him on the Damascus road, and he was set free from all
of that bondage. What's superstition? What bondage
superstition is? It's just remarkable, isn't it?
Intelligent people. We have an intelligent friend, really intelligent
friend, who believes that when her father died, he became a
sea eagle. So every time I see a sea eagle
around, and now it's so annoying, because every time I see a sea
eagle, I knew this fellow pretty well. I think, oh, that might
be, how ridiculous, how ridiculous is it? It spoiled every scene. I love watching scenes. Those
are the most glorious things. Every time I think about it,
I think about this. This is an incredibly intelligent woman
with lots of life. Multitudes are doing it, aren't
they? It's just, anyway. If the sun sets you free, you're
free indeed. The new heart, that new creation,
believes that new mind loves the new creation. We have a new
creation, we have a new home, don't we? We have a new history.
I've got a history, isn't it? All of my history before God
was lived 2,000 years ago. I perfectly obeyed God. I perfectly
obeyed His holy law. I loved Him with heart and mind
and soul and strength. I loved my neighbour as myself.
Before God, everything that Jesus Christ did, he did as an us.
He is in complete and perfect union with his God. my righteousness before God.
I don't have a righteousness to establish and I don't have
a righteousness to defend. And so I trust that this freedom
allows us to be honest with God about ourselves and honest with
each other about ourselves. I don't have to pretend to you
that somehow I'm righteous. I hate the fact that I'm unrighteous.
I hate the fact that I'm the cause of all sorts of issues
in all sorts of people's lives at times. But there is a freedom,
isn't it? I don't way to my Son. The Son sets you free. You're
free indeed. You're free to serve Him. You're
free to worship Him. You're free to love Him as He
is. You're free to be loved. You
have a freedom of access to the throne of grace, a freedom to
know Him, a free to see Him in His word. You see, this word
is not a rule book for how you must live. But it's a hymn book
about what he's doing in the lives of his people. These ifs
are promises in the New Covenant, brothers and sisters. What were
commands under that Mosaic law, do this or die? These are commands
of what he's going to do and they're promises of what he's
going to do in the lives of his people. Okay, let's go down to
verse 39. I'll go back to verse, put this
in context, but this is the if of the faith children. They said
unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, if Abraham,
if you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me,
a man that has told you the truth which I have heard of God. This
did not Abraham." They were very quick to tell the Lord Jesus
Christ that they were Abraham's children and he wasn't denying
it at all. They had the genealogical records there. They could establish
the fact that they could trace their lineage all the way back
to Adam in the garden. They could say that I'm Abraham's
son and I'm not Ishmael. that was cast aside, I'm the
son of Isaac. I'm not the son of Esau, I'm
the son of Jacob. I can trace my, what a lineage
they had. You can read about the privileges
they had in Romans chapter two in places. They had the most remarkable
worldly benefits as Abraham's children. Abraham was called
a friend of God. And they said, well, Abraham,
we're Abraham's children. We're friends of God. We know
God. God's our father. If you were Abraham's children,
you would do the works of Abraham. Abraham had remarkable works
in the Bible. You probably know them well,
but at the age of 75, he was asked by God to leave Ur of the
Chaldees. He had nowhere, didn't have a clue where he was going,
and he got up and left, left all of that family and all that
heritage behind. Abraham dwelt in tents. Abraham refused to be enriched
by the kings of Sodom when he rescued Lot. Abraham had trials
all through his life, didn't he? Abraham cast out at the command
of God Ishmael and Hagar, and he loved Ishmael. Abraham took
Isaac up to Mount Moriah to sacrifice him, and Hebrews says that as
far as Abraham was concerned, Isaac was a dead man. What are
the works of Abraham? You haven't done any of those
works. And you can't do any of those works. And God's not calling
you to do all those works. What are the works of Abraham?
They're the works that all of Abraham's faith children do. The true children of Abraham
are the faith children of Abraham. They are the children of faith. What did Abraham do? Abraham
believed God. Abraham believed God when everything
his eyes can see and everything about himself and Sarah caused
his mind any rational thought about all of that. But God said, God says, you go
outside and have a look at the stars in the sky, that's how
many children you're gonna have, Abraham. Abraham was 100 years
old. Sarah was way, way, way past
childbearing age. Abraham believed God. He rejoiced in believing God. He just believed God and he loved
God. So all his hope, all his reasons
for his doing, Read with me to Romans 4 just
briefly because I just love this description of him. It speaks of all these promises
in verse 13 down. All these promises came not through
the law but through the righteousness of faith. He just simply believed
God. The law works wrath. But listen to what Abraham, listen
to God's description of Abraham. He says, verse 19, being not
weak in faith. And that faith is a noun, brothers
and sisters. It's faith in the faithfulness
of the one who made the promises. It's faith in a person. He considered
not his own body now dead when he was about 100 years old, neither
the deadness of Sarah's womb. He staggered not at the promise
of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory
to God, being fully persuaded that what God, what he had promised,
he was able to perform. We read promises from God again
and again and again. We're reading them here, aren't
we? Is God able to perform them? Of course he is. He's done this throughout time.
He cannot lie. He cannot be unfaithful to his
promises. He staggered not at the promise
of God. Wouldn't this be lovely if this
was our case? But was strong in faith, giving glory to God,
being fully persuaded that what he had promised he was also able
to perform. Can these dead bones live? You
know, God, they can live. Can you raise up a body? to worship you in this world
and sustain it in the most remarkable ways in all the storms of life,
so that you will be glorified." Abraham believed. Go back to verse 16, it's a remarkable
verse while you're in Romans chapter 4. Therefore it is of
faith, everything about salvation is of faith, and it might be
by grace to the end that the promise might be sure. to all the seed. That word sure
means something that you can tread on. It's something you
can stand on with great confidence, a firm foundation. Sure to all
the seed, not only that which is of the law, but that which
is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. The
if of Abraham's faith, children, all of God's children, all believers
will have the faith of Abraham. Verse 42, Jesus said unto them,
if God were your father, if God were your father, you would love
me, you would love me. And he gives two reasons, for
I proceeded forth and came from God, neither came I myself, but
he sent me. It's the if, to do in the hearts of his people?
Is this evidence or a condition that you must fulfil? It's the
event of sonship. God's children. Love for the
Lord Jesus Christ is the evidence of God being your Father. It's
not possible for a man to experience the grace of God in salvation
and not love the God of all grace. It's not possible for a man to
know that Christ's blood was shed successfully in his own
soul and not love the glorious and gracious Redeemer. It's not
possible for a man to have his heart renewed by the power of
the Holy Spirit and not love the Spirit of life. It's the
F of Sonship. We love Him. We love Him. We
wouldn't change a thing about him. We just love his character.
We love everything about his name, don't we? We love all that
he does. We love his electing grace. We love his redeeming
love. We love the preciousness of his blood. We love him. We really do love him, brothers
and sisters in Christ, our beloved. We do love him because he first
loved us. I love John 13, verse one, having
loved his own in the world. Having loved his own in the world,
he loved them to the end. He loved them to the end. We
love him for who he is. We love him even in the darkness
when we'd like to see more and more things done that we have
on our hearts. But as I was thinking about this,
I've often pondered is often most clearly expressed
in my reaction to him being spoken of in terms which deny his very
being and deny his deity. We're his bride. He's our husband. He's a faithful husband. I hear
him being It gets my blood up. I pray that I'll be gracious
to people. I pray that I'll understand their
infirmities and their weaknesses and their ignorance because they're
only repeating what they've been taught so often. But nevertheless,
God's children can't stand Him being blasphemed. It stirs us
up. There's my friend Beth, and if
she went down the street and heard people talking about Norm
in deceitful and disparaging terms down there in Bomonderry, and it was lies, and it was spoken
by people who didn't know who he was and what he'd done for
her, if she didn't get stirred up, I would be horrified, wouldn't
you? We're his bride. He's loved us everlastingly.
We love Him for who He is. We're accepted in the Beloved. We're accepted in the Beloved.
Verse 46 with me. I've only got a few to go. Verse
46. Which of you convinces me of
sin? And if I say the truth, why do
you not believe me? The truth of who he is, the truth
of who he's been telling these people as plainly as you could
possibly wish to have, the truth of who John the Baptist declared
him to be, the truth of who God the Father declared him to be,
the truth of all of the word of God declares him to be. It's
the if of responsibility, isn't it? Has he lied to you? Can anyone say to him, you haven't
told the truth? You didn't keep the law. You
haven't loved God or man. Can you name a holiness and love for God. He told the truth about man,
who we are, altogether vanity, in our best state altogether
vanity. He told the truth about who God is. He told the truth
about how God saves sinners. And if I say the truth, why don't
you believe me? Who can justify unbelief? No one. We believe him because he has
told the truth. Where do you see the truth most
clearly? The truth of who God is and the
truth of who you are, we go to the cross, don't we? And at the
cross, we see the glory of God and all of his character revealed
so clearly. In the cross, we see man revealed
in all of his sinfulness and all of his wickedness. And on
the cross, we see God saving his people, gloriously saving
his people. and at the same time glorifying
the name of God. Let's go to the next one. Verse 51, Verily, verily, I say
unto you, If a man keep my saying, we've looked at this in some
sense before and about continuing in his word. If a man keep my
saying, if a man keep my saying, to keep his saying is to attend
carefully to what he says. It's to guard it, it's to watch
it, it's to protect it, it's to treat it as something valuable.
If a man, keep my saying, he shall never see death. He shall
never see death. God says that about his children.
They fall asleep. He's falling asleep hard. I love
falling asleep these days. That's what he says. Death is
for us, isn't it? He's falling asleep. I just love
falling asleep. You don't know about it, do you?
And then you wake up. That's exactly what he's saying,
isn't it? death has been died a long, long time ago, brothers
and sisters. Death is now just an entrance
into glory. You go down and ask Owen if you
have any doubt about that. But listen to what he says. If
you keep his word, he has declared himself the great I am. And I'll
just read these out to you, but they're all in this chapter of
scripture. from John 8, verse 12 on. He says, I am the light
of the world, and that light is the light of life. He says,
I am the judge, and my judgment is true. He says, I am not alone.
He says, I am the Son of the Father. I'm the Son of God. I am the revealer of who God
is. To know me, he says, is to know
God Almighty. He says, I am from above. I'm
from heaven. He says, I am the one who speaks the words of the
Father. To believe God is to believe my word. You cannot put
an ounce of anything between the Lord Jesus Christ and God
Almighty. If you believe God, you must believe the Lord Jesus
Christ is who he says he is. He says, I'm the one that does
everything to please the Father. He says, I'm the one who sets
people free, I make people free. He says, I'm the one who abides
in the Father's house forever. I'm the one who knows and reveals
the thoughts of your heart. I'm the one sent from the Father.
I'm the one, I am the one the Father will glorify and judge
on the basis of believing or rejecting me. He says, I'm the
one the Father honoreth. I'm the one that Abraham knew.
I'm the one that Abraham loved. I'm the one that Abraham rejoiced. I am God. Unless you believe
that I am, you will die in your sins. Never see death. You'll never see death. assurance, the full assurance
of faith, the full assurance of hope. It's the anchor for
our souls, isn't it? The anchor's not in the boat,
the anchor's to be tossed over the side and out of sight and
holding on to a rock and then your boat's secure, isn't it?
And so this is the glorious if of salvation. peace of believing. If a man
keep my saying, he shall never see death. All of my salvation
is founded upon his word of truth. All of my salvation. To love
him is to love his word. To need him is to love his word. It's the evidence of salvation. This is the work. These are descriptions
of God's with them. The ninth one is if
I honour. I haven't got the verse written
down there but I can find it in John chapter 8 for you. So
he speaks of his honour, the fact that he is honoured of his
father and his father honours him. His father honours him. The path
to Christian glory is a path of humility, isn't it? The Father
glorifies the Son. The Holy Spirit glorifies the
Son. Our Lord Jesus Christ humbled
himself, humbled himself and became us and became and lived
in this world and he humbled himself and became obedient even
to death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted
him. That's what that word honour
means, exalted him. He says, it's John 8, John 8,
54, sorry. If I honour myself, my honour
is nothing, but it is my Father that honoureth me, of him you
say, he is your God. He is your God. Verse 55. Yet you have not known him, but
I know him. And if I should say, I know him
not, I shall be a liar like unto you. But I know him and keep
his sayings. So these ifs. In John chapter
8, they begin with the knowledge of God, a revelation. God must
reveal himself to your heart. Lord, open my eyes that I might
see glorious things in your word. They begin with the light of
knowledge that heaven alone can reveal. The light of the world
shines, and in his light We see his glory. On my desk is a little
thing that someone gave me years ago. It says, for Psalm 1828,
for thou will light my candle. The Lord my God will enlighten
my darkness. He kept the Father's word. He kept his Father's word. He
kept his Father's word in heart and mind and soul. He did it
all as a representative. He did it all as a substitute. He did it all as a glorious Saviour. And the Blessed Spirit comes
now as He's promised and He takes the things of the Lord Jesus
Christ and He reveals them to you. And we look to Him. righteousness. We look to his
carrying us as the high priest carried the names of all of God's
people. He carried them into the Holy
of Holies and our great high priest carried them in. So here
we have the ifs of evidence. They're ifs, they're not conditions
that we fulfil. They're conditions that are fulfilled
in us by the Spirit of God and they're conditions that we love
for God to have and we long for them and we ask for them. God finds in his Son all of the
conditions. God looks to his Son for everything. things in the hearts of his people. He brings revelation. He brings
saving faith. He brings discipleship. He brings
liberty and freedom. He brings us to be Abraham's
faith children. He brings us to know that we
are the sons of God. He brings us to know our responsibility
to believe he who is faithful. He brings us the assurance that
we'll never see death. He brings us the honor and glory
of God. And he brings to us the Savior's
knowledge of his father. the ifs, the evidential ifs of
God's work in the hearts of His people. What a glorious task
the Holy Spirit's been tasked with, isn't it? To glorify the
Son in this world by us being enabled by His grace to look
upon Him and rejoice. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we do pray that You would continue the work that You've begun in
the lives of your people here and throughout this world, and
we praise you, Heavenly Father, that all the promises of God
are yea and amen in our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you again,
our Father, that he was sent, and he came willingly, and he
came willingly for his bride that he loved everlastingly.
He came to die the death that we couldn't die. He came to bear
our sins away and they are gone no more. Oh, our Father, we do
pray once again that you would make his blood precious to us,
that you would cause us once again to know him, that we can
drink and eat in remembrance of who he is. Cause us to know
him, that we might remember him. Cause us to grow in the grace
and the knowledge of who he is, our Father. For we pray in Jesus'
name and for his glory. Amen.