John chapter 8. In verse 31, Then said Jesus
to those Jews which believed on him, If you continue in my
word, then are you my disciples indeed. and ye shall know the
truth, and the truth shall make you free.' And they answered
him, We be Abraham, see, were never in bondage to any man.
How sayest thou ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Whosoever commiteth sin is the servant
of sin, and the servant abideth not in the house for ever. but
the Son abideth ever. If the Son, therefore, shall
make you free, you shall be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham's
seed, but you seek to kill me because my word hath no place
in you." Our Lord had been speaking, declaring He's the light, and
some believed on it. And when our Lord made this statement
that if you If you continue in My Word, then are you My disciples
indeed. That will be the evidence that
you are truly Mine. You will continue in faith to
the end. When he heard this, and he said
in the truth, you will know the truth, the truth shall make you
free. There is an immediate freedom Christ gives when He saves His
people. You are free. But as you grow
in grace, and through much tribulation and Him continuing to deliver
you, continuing to save you from your own sin nature and showing
you what you are, you grow to know more He is all your liberty.
Christ is all our liberty. He is our Redeemer, our Liberator,
who keeps His people free. When He said this, they said,
well, we'd be Abraham's seed. We were never in bondage to any
man. How say you that we shall be made free? They were in bondage at this
time to Rome. And they had been in bondage
many times throughout history. But what they're speaking about
here is they're saying spiritually they're free. And their confidence
was we be Abraham's seed. That was their confidence. And
the Lord said here, whosoever commiteth sin is the servant
of sin. And the servant abideth not in
the house forever, but the son abideth ever. Now they had to
have thought of Ishmael when he said this. They boasted, we
be Abraham's children. And our Lord speaks of a slave
here. And they had to have been reminded
that Ishmael was also Abraham's child. And the only thing Ishmael
did to be a slave was to be born. That's it. He really did nothing. He was born. He was born of Abraham
and Hagar. And it's a picture of a sinner
coming into this world under the curse and condemnation of
the law because of Adam's transgression and being born with a sin nature
so that we're bound by our sin nature. And they showed here
by what they said, they showed here what the sin is that made
everything they did to be committing sin. They said, we're Abraham's
seed. In other words, this is our confidence. We trust that we're the children
of Abraham. That's where their confidence
was. Their confidence was not Christ. And the scripture says,
whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Because they didn't believe
on Christ, everything they did was committing sin. Now, if you
saw these men, you would think they were righteous. These were
some of the most religious folks there were. And you wouldn't
have looked at them and said, these men commit sin. But because
they didn't believe on Christ, everything they did was committing
sin. Our Lord said, when the Spirit
of God comes, He will convince you of sin because you believe
not on Me. And because they didn't believe
on Christ, without faith in Christ, those that come and believe Christ
are righteous before God. saved by God's grace, free by
Christ, redeeming us and setting us free. But without faith in
Christ, everything a man does, his very best deeds in religion,
is committing sin. All of it. And that's what he
was telling them. We committed sin in Adam, and
we can't free ourselves from that. You picture a man who has
a big, large estate, and he has slaves. And those slaves are
not sons. They're not part of the family.
And so at any point, they can be put out of the house. But
the son, his firstborn son is the heir. He gives his firstborn
son the whole estate. And if the son purposed to set
some of those slaves free, he can. And if he sets the slave
free, he's free indeed. And that's what we have in the
Gospel. That's what we have in the Gospel.
Christ came, and He set His people free by His work on the cross,
and He comes and sets His people free by His work in the heart.
Now, we read on and we're going to see here what this liberty
consists of. It's clearly stated here, and
I hope I can go through all of this and show you. Now, first
of all, it's liberty from the dominion of our sin nature. by
the living word, creating a new man. We have to be born of God.
We have to be born with a new spirit, a new man created that
was not there. He says here, I know that you
are Abraham's seed, but you seek to kill me because my word hath
no place in you. They were not born of the word. They heard him speak it audibly,
but it's more than that. It's Christ speaking effectually
into the heart. It's the living word. Remember
what Peter said? We were born the first time of
corruptible seed from Adam. But we must be born again of
incorruptible seed by the Word that liveth and abideth forever. This is the Word whereby the
Gospel is preached to you. This is Christ, the Living Word. He has to be formed in the heart.
And when He's formed in the heart, there's a new man. Until then... If you looked at all their works,
just outwardly looked at them. Here they were calling on God's
name. Here they were trying to observe
the ceremonies of the law. They had just observed the Feast
of Tabernacles for a whole week. Here they were going through
all these ceremonies and everything that God commanded. And because
it was all done in their flesh, everything they were doing was
enmity against God. It was enmity against God. Why? Because they were trying to come
to God by those works. And if you just listen to them,
as you go through this chapter and through the whole Gospel
of John, this is what you find. Pharisees are always accusing
Christ, wrangling with Christ over the scripture, over the
word, accusing his disciples. You don't find his people doing
that. You don't find his people whose hearts are broken. You
don't find them doing that. Only the Pharisees you see doing
that. From the beginning he said, I'm
the light. And they began to reject him. You're bearing witness of yourself,
your witness is not true. And I'll tell you something else
you look for when you go through John. Look how many times the
Lord Jesus speaks of the fact that you must be born from above. That's what he told them back
up in John 8 when they started fussing with him and saying that
his witness was not true. He told them, you don't know
me nor my father. And he said in verse 23, you
are from beneath, I'm from above. You are of this world, I'm not
of this world. He's telling them, until you're
born from above, you can't know me. I said therefore to you,
you shall die in your sins, for if you believe not that I am,
you shall die in your sins. So everything they had done was
enmity against God because they did not believe the Word. They were not born of the incorruptible
seed. But when you're born of that
Living Word, and born of that incorruptible seed, that's when
you begin to experience what true liberty is. Because now
your sin nature, before it dominated you, now it's not going to dominate
you because Christ reigns in the heart. Now, here's the next
thing. He said, verse 38, I speak that
which I've seen with my father, you do that which you've seen
with your father. They answered and said unto him, Abraham's
our father. Jesus said unto them, if you
were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham.
But now you seek to kill me, a man that had told you the truth
which I've heard of God. This did not Abraham. He said, if you were Abraham's
children, Now they were physically, but he's saying here if you were
the spiritual children of Abraham, and those who are given faith
in Christ, they're the true children of Abraham. They are the true
children. And he said, and if you were
the spiritual children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me,
a man which told you the truth, which I have heard of God. This
did not Abraham. Everything that Abraham did,
his works, the only reason his works are mentioned. is because
they were works of faith. He believed God. And this is
the second thing, when He gives you a new nature, this liberty
is a liberty to believe on Christ. We couldn't do this before. Well,
we were in bondage to our sin nature, we could not believe
on Christ. The carnal mind is enmity against
God, and all the carnal mind focuses on is fleshly things,
earthly things, touch not, taste not, handle not, that's it. But
when He gives you this new heart, with it He gives you faith to
believe on Christ. All the works of Abraham were
works of faith. What were some of them? What
were some of the works? Well, God found him in Ur of
Chaldea. He was in a land of idolatry.
His family were idolaters and he was worshipping idols himself. But when Christ came to him,
you notice He said to them there, I'm a man that's told you the
truth, which I heard of God, and he said, Abraham didn't do
what you're doing, you're trying to kill me. Christ is the one
who went to Abraham and preached the gospel to him. Whether he
used a man or not, I don't know, but it was Christ, the mediator,
who came and preached the truth to him. And what happened when
he preached the gospel to him? Did Abraham try to kill the Lord?
Did he reject the Lord, like these men were doing? No. You
know what he did? He believed God. He believed
on Christ. And you know what that first
work was that he did? He left all his former religion. He left it. And that's what Christ
is telling him. If you were children of Abraham,
you would drop this notion that you can make yourself righteous
by your own works. You would stop looking at yourselves,
and looking at others, and exalting yourself over others, and you
would follow me. You would believe me. That's
what Abraham did. Then Abraham, we saw, he didn't go out perfectly. There was sin mixed with Abraham's
faith. But eventually God carried him
on out. And when he got out, he saw the
famine, the trial, he went down into Egypt. But whenever God
brought him to himself and showed him his sin, what did he do?
He repented. He went back to where he started,
went back to the altar where he first began. That's what God
works in his children when he gives you faith. Whenever you
turn aside, like Abraham did when he went down to Egypt, God
speaks His Word, and you hear His Word, and He grants you repentance,
and you go back to Christ. You go to Christ, and you rest
in Christ. That was the work of Abraham.
He said, if you were children of Abraham, you'd do what Abraham
did. You'd repent and believe on Me. Here's something else
Abraham did. Lot's herdsmen and Abraham's
herdsmen got into a strife. And Abraham He was the one that
God used to bring Lot out of idolatry. He was the one who
had preached the gospel to Lot. Lot should have submitted to
Abraham, but he didn't. And Abraham submitted to Lot. He esteemed Lot better. And he
said, Lot, let there be no strife between us. We're brethren. We'll
stop this strife. We're brethren. And he said,
Lot, take whatever you want. Take whatever you want. And Lot
lifted up his eyes to sight him and there was this well water
plain. And he looked around and everything where Abraham was
was rocky and not as much way to feed the cattle. And Lot said,
I want that well water plain. And he took it. And Abraham gave
it to him. That was a work of faith. You
know why? Abraham believed God was his
shield and his exceeding great reward and that God would provide
for him. I'll tell you something else
Abraham did by faith. Some kings came down and they
took Lot captive in Sodom. This brother who had just taken
advantage of Abraham and took the richest part of the land,
took that which was the most valuable and left Abraham with
this rocky place. He's taken captive. Do you think
Abraham said, well, I knew God was going to take vengeance on
him. I knew God was going to take
care of him. Abraham got his men together, and he went down
there, and he conquered that king, and he delivered his brother
Lot. That's mercy, ain't it? That's grace. Well, how'd he
do that? He believed God. And then when
the king of Sodom said, ah, thank you for coming and helping me,
he said, now, you take all the spoils, and just give me the
men. Abraham said, nope. He said,
you give my men just enough spoils to feed them and their families.
He said, but I want him to take a shoelace from you, because
I'm not going to have the king of Sodom saying he made me rich.
You know what that was? That was faith in God. And God appeared to him after
he gave all that land to Lot, and then after he defeated that
king, God appeared to him. He said, lift up your eyes, Abraham. Everything you see, I'm giving
it to you. I'm your shield and your exceeding
great reward. These were works of faith that
Abraham did. Abraham was a sinner. God's people
are still sinners. Abraham, he got into a season
of unbelief and he thought God needed him to help him out to
produce that promised son. So he takes up and marries Hagar
and produces a son Ishmael. And that whole marriage was a
marriage of fornication. Because he was married to Sarah. For twenty-something years, while
Ishmael was growing up in his house, it was a sin the whole
time. Unbelief the whole time. But
again, when God came to him and said, cast Ishmael out, that's
his son. You know what Abraham did? He
packed his bags and sent him out. That's repentance. That's faith. And as God grows his child and
teaches you Christ is all your liberty, he's all your righteousness,
he's all your holiness, he makes you put away all your works,
all your old covenant works, and all your old covenant confidences,
and all your confidences in yourself, and trust Christ more and yourself
less. That's what's pictured in that. And the Hebrew writer said, by
faith Abraham sowed... Oh, I've got to mention the greatest
thing. Then God came to him and said, Abraham, offer up your
only son. God didn't regard Ishmael as
his son, because he wasn't. Not spiritually. Only Isaac,
the son God produced. And he said, Abraham, offer up
your only son Isaac. And Abraham did it. By faith. By faith. He saw Christ. He saw Christ's day. He said
the Lord shall provide. And by faith he sojourned through
that whole wilderness because he wasn't looking for anything
here below as being his home. He was looking for that city
whose builder and maker is God and he died in faith. And that's
what Christ is saying. First off, you have to be made
free by being given a new nature. Secondly, you have to be made
free by God giving you faith in Christ to see. He has gone
to the cross and he's put away the sin of his people. And his
people have died in him. And his people arose in him.
And He makes you see Him seated high and lifted up on the cross,
and He makes you see Him seated at His right hand, and He makes
you to know there is your life, there is your righteousness,
and you cast it all on Him, and you trust Him. That's what Abraham
did. That's what Abraham did. Here's the next thing. He said,
verse 41, you do the deeds of your father. Then said they to
him, we be not born of that fornication. We have one father, even God.
Now, they're probably accusing our Lord here being illegitimate. But what they're really saying
here is, we're not illegitimate children like Ishmael. We're
sons of promise. And what they're saying, we're
not sinners. That's what they're saying. We're
not sinners. We have one Father, even God.
Jesus said to them, if God were your Father, you would love me. For I proceeded forth that came
from God, neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Here's the third
thing. This is liberty to love Christ. When He sets you free, He gives
you liberty from your sin nature, creating a new man. He gives
you liberty to believe Him and trust He's all. And He gives
you liberty to love Him. To love Him. He said, why does
He say you would love Me? He said, if God were your Father,
you would love Me because I proceeded forth and came from God. Neither came I of Myself, but
He sent Me. I put an article in one of the
bulletins a few weeks ago, and Spurgeon preached on this. I just took some of the sermon
and put it in an article. But he was talking about how
if you're in a foreign country, and I thought about Jonathan
when I read it. He's way over there in another
country. And if your father sent you a
letter, or he sent you, I know what that's like, being way away
from home. You get lonesome from your people. But if you got a letter from
your father, you would cherish that, you'd hold on to it, you'd
receive it, you'd just be so thankful for it. But what if
he sent you his son? What if he sent you your brother,
your elder brother to you? You'd just lay hold of him and
there'd be nothing but love in your heart for him. Christ said,
if God was your father, you'd know I'm your elder brother.
I came here. God the Father sent me here to
his sons and his daughters. Christ is the firstborn son of
God. and as the Son over His own house. That is, God the Father entrusted
all His elect sons and daughters to Christ, and Christ is the
firstborn Son over the whole house, who came to save the whole
house and set them all free. That's what He came to do. And
He said, if God was your Father, you'd love Me, because you'd
know this is what I came to do. And when you love Him, you love
those that are forgotten of Him. That's what John said. And I'll tell you something else.
You go home and you read 1 John 3. I believe everything that
our Lord said here in John 8 is what John wrote all his epistles
from. And especially 1 John chapter
3. That new man born of God doesn't
commit sin. There's a new, there's an incorruptible
seed in him. He's created of God. He's the
hidden man of the heart which is not corruptible. This thing
of being freed from sin is not just that you stop committing
sin, though He will make you love good works and He will make
you hate your sin, but it's more than that. You've got to have
a perfect, pure, holy heart, a new man. And that new man's
got to be righteous and holy in and by Christ, with no sin. He can't just receive us if we're
just a little better than we were. You've got to be perfect
to be accepted of God. He's the only one that does this.
And when you see that God the Father sent His Son and He came
to save all the children of the house, that He might be the firstborn
among many brethren, you fall in love with Him. And that's
everything Abraham did in his love And his faith toward the
Lord was constrained by the love of Christ for him. And everything
he did toward Lot was by the love of Christ for him. After
he gave Lot everything, it was amazing that he went back down
there and saved Lot, but then Lot went back to Sodom again. But then when Abraham heard that
God was going to destroy Sodom, you know what Abraham did? He interceded with God for Lot,
prayed for him. Lord, you won't destroy a righteous
man with the wicked, will you? You mean he still looked at Lot
as a righteous man? God did because he is in Christ. And Abraham loved him because
he was in Christ. and because Christ was in Abraham.
That's love. That's the love God works in
the heart. And our Lord told them here in John 8, He said,
if God was your Father, you'd love His Son, you'd love His
firstborn Son, and you'd love the rest of the children in His
house too. Listen to John, let me see if I can find this. He
said, In 1 John 5, Whosoever believeth
that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. And everyone that loveth
him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. That's
so, brethren. He said back up in chapter 4,
verse 20, If a man say, I love God and hate his brother, he's
a liar, for he that loveth not his brother whom he has seen,
how can he love God whom he has not seen? This is the commandment
we have from him, that he who loveth God loveth his brother
also. And he that's born of God keeps that commandment. He believes
Christ as Christ commanded, and he loves his brethren as Christ
commanded. Because he has the love of Christ
constraining him. Now back in John 8. It's his
liberty now. It's liberty from the sin nature,
liberty to believe on Christ, liberty to love Christ and love
our brethren. And then verse 43. He says, Why
do you not understand my speech, even because you cannot hear
my word? You have your father the devil. The lust of your father
you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning
and a bold not in the truth because there's no truth in him. When
he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he's a liar and
the father of it. And because I tell you the truth,
you believe me not." Which of you convinces me of sin? And
if I say the truth, why do you not believe me? He that is of
God, heareth God's word. Ye therefore hear them not, because
you're not of God." This is a liberty he gives you to hear the word
of God. He said, why don't you understand
my speech? You can't hear my word. Oh, they could hear it
audibly, but they couldn't hear it in the heart. They couldn't
hear it with spiritual discernment. And so when you can't hear the
word of God with spiritual discernment, you know what you'll listen to?
You'll listen to the lies of the devil turning you from Christ
back to the works of your flesh. The devil was a murderer from the beginning
and a bold not in the truth because there's no truth in him. He's
a created angel that God created. But when he heard that the Son
of God was going to come lower than the angels, he was a created
angel. When he heard the Son of God
was coming lower than the angels and become a man, that he as
a man might save his people and be exalted above the angels and
above the devil and also exalt his people above the angels.
Satan said, I'm not having him reign over me. I'm not. And he didn't abide in the truth.
And he was a murderer from the beginning. He wanted to murder
Christ from the beginning. And he essentially murdered Adam
and Eve, our first parents, in the garden by his lie. As God
said, in the day you eat of this tree, you'll die. You shall not
surely die. God's hiding something from you.
He knows when you eat of this tree, you're going to know good
from evil. Don't you want to be like God? Don't you want to
be free from God? And they believed him. And Adam
ate with his eyes wide open and plunged us all into sin. And
ever since then the devil's motive, his motive has been to turn God's
people from Christ. To kill Christ and turn His people
from Christ. That's been his motive all along.
You see it throughout history. When at different times they
murdered the male children of the children of Israel. Who was
doing all that? That was the devil trying to
keep Christ from coming into the world. That's exactly what
it was. Because he knew he was coming to Christ's hand. And
I'll tell you what he'll do. Anybody who is a child of the
devil, that's what our Lord is telling these men, you're children
of the devil. You can't hear me, that's why.
This liberty Christ gives is a liberty from the power and
fear and bondage of the devil. But a person who's not been made
to hear the Word, just hear it with the carnal ear. They want
to abide in the truth. To abide in the truth is what
Christ began talking about. If you're my disciples indeed,
you're going to continue in my word. Doing what? Believing on
me and loving your brethren all the way to the end. But if you're
not born of this Word, you're not going to continue. The child
of the devil won't continue abiding in the truth. And I'll tell you
what he'll do. He'll do what the devil did. He'll murder everybody
on his way out to justify his rebellion. Cain is a child of
the devil. He's an example. He heard the
truth. He heard Adam declare to his
sons, you've got to come to God in the blood of a lamb. He knew
that. What did he do? He abode not in the truth. He
came with the works of His hand. And when God didn't receive His
offering, and He received His brother's offering, He was angry.
And God said, why are you angry? If you believe on Me, if you
trust My Son, if you come in the blood of the Lamb, shall
not your offering be received? But what did He do? He murdered
His brother, Abel, rather than believe God and abide in the
truth. And that's what every child of
the devil would do. But this liberty Christ gives is a liberty
from that. Hebrews 2 said, that's what He
came to do. Let me read it. He came down
here, Hebrews 2 says, Verse 14, as much then as the
children are partakers of flesh and blood, Christ also himself
likewise took part of the saying that through death he might destroy
him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver
them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject
to bondage. That's why it took on him the
seat of Abraham. What he did was, and even by
going to the cross, you know how he went to the cross? He
let the devil have his way for a little season. And the devil
did what he'd always been wanting to do. He moved his children
to nail Christ to the cross and murder the Prince of Life. And
he thought he was destroying Christ by it. But Christ by that
put away the sin of his people and crushed the devil's head.
He took his power away because the only thing the devil has
as power is to accuse God's people of sin. And Christ took it away. He got no sin to accuse you of.
who should lay anything to the charge of God's elect, it's God
that justifies. It's Christ that died, yea rather
the treason again, whoever liveth to make intercession for us.
There is nobody that can charge God's people with sin and the
devil can't do it anymore. He might let the devil shift
you. And you know how the devil sifts? He sifts differently from
the Lord. You look at the Lord and how
you see Abraham's sin, and you see David's sin, and then you
see their good works, and you see their sin, you see their
good works, and you come to the New Testament and all God talks
about is their good works. Robed in Christ's righteousness,
perfect in Christ, all other works cleansed by His blood and
accepted of God. The devil does the opposite.
He takes out all the good works and just puts all the seasons
of sin together and that's all he talks about. Accusing the
brethren. God's delivered His people from
that. He's delivered His people from
that. His people love the brethren. They love the brethren. Now look
here, he said, Jesus answered them, well they answered him,
they said, we're saying you're a Samaritan, you have a devil.
He said, I'm not a devil, I honor my Father and you dishonor me.
I seek not my own glory, there's one that seeks and judges. Everything
the Lord did was seeking the glory of God. And this is a liberty
he gives us too, to want to give God the glory. This is why we
had our sin, this is why we mourn our sin, because we want to give
Him the glory. But we're not seeking our own
glory. We're not seeking our own glory. That's what we did
when we were in bondage to sin. We sought our own glory. But
Christ here, He wasn't seeking His own glory. He said, My Father
seeketh and He judgeth. I'm trusting it to Him. I'm leaving
it in His hand. And that's what the Lord teaches
you. Leave it all in His hand. Verily I say unto you, If a man
shall keep my saying, he'll never see death. This is the next thing
about this freedom. Freedom from death. Freedom from
death. I'll tell you something. When you have the Son, you have
life. He that hath the Son hath life. Eternal life. We're not waiting
on eternal life. Eternal life is not something
we're going to get when we die. If you have the Son, you believe
the Son, you have eternal life right now. And I'll tell you
something, that the devil and nobody else stands a chance against
a man in whom God, now we're no match for the devil, but God,
by keeping you knowing that you have eternal life in Christ the
life, you can't control a man that has no fear of death. You
can't control him. Worst you can do is take his
life, and that'd be doing him a favor. You can't control a
man. A man that's scared of death,
you can control him. A man that has no fear of death,
he can't be controlled. Why? Because he wants to be with
his Savior. He wants to be with his Lord.
He's not getting troubled by death. He's been freed from death. Christ has given us the victory.
He has given us the victory. Where there is no sin, there
is no death. Where there is righteousness, there is no death. Where there
is eternal life, there is no death. He that believes on me
shall never die, Christ said. He delivered us. The Jews said, now we know you
have a devil. Abraham's dead, and the prophets,
and you say if a man keep my saying, he'll never taste death.
Are you greater than our father Abraham, which is dead, and the
prophets are dead? Who do you make yourself? Jesus
answered, if I honor myself, my honor's nothing. It's my father
that honors me, of whom you say he's your God. Yet you have not
known him, but I know him. And if I should say I know him
not, I should be a liar like unto you, but I know him, and
I keep his saying. And your father Abraham rejoiced
to see my day, and he saw it, and he was glad. And the Jews
said to him, you're not yet 50 years old, how have you seen
Abraham? Jesus said to them, verily, verily,
I say unto you, for Abraham was, I am. He's that I am. He's that I Am. He's God. And this is a liberty to believe
He is the Son of God. This is the question. What think
ye of Christ? Whose Son is He? Who is He? This is a liberty to believe
He is God. He is God. He's the I Am. When you know you have the I
Am, who saved you and who's protecting you and who's keeping you and
who's preserving you, you have all. If God be for us, who can
be against us? You have all. What was the response? Now these men didn't have liberty.
They're under the dominion of the sin nature. They don't have
faith in Christ. They don't have a love for Christ
in their heart. They don't have discernment, they can't hear
His word. All they can hear and see are the works of the devil.
They are murderers of Christ. They will not abide in the truth
of Christ. They are seeking their own glory. They are seeking their
own honor. And they are scared to death of death. That's right. And here is the response. They
took up stones to cast at Him. Remember how this started? This
chapter started with them with stones in their hands trying
to kill a woman caught in adultery. And Christ said, if you're without
sin, cast the first stone. And they were ashamed and they
went out one by one. But the story ends with showing
what their real intent and their real enmity was. They picked
up stones wanting to kill Christ. That's really what the heart
of religion without Christ is. We're going to kill Christ. We're
going to get him off his throne. And Christ went out of the temple,
through the midst of them, and so passed by. All right, I pray
God will bless that. Father, we thank you for this
word. Pray you bless it to our hearts. Pray you really, truly
give us this liberty, Lord. We thank you that the Son, when
he sets free, we're free indeed. Lord, keep us free. Make us stand
fast in the liberty wherewith you've made us free. Don't let
us become entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Keep us
looking only to Christ. Forgive us, Lord, our sins. In
Christ's name we pray, amen.