Brethren, let's turn to John
chapter 1. Review a little bit here in verse
47. Jesus saw Nathanael coming to
him, and he said of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom
is no guile. Nathanael saith unto him, Whence
knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto
him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the
fig tree, I saw thee. Nathanael answered and said unto
him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of
Israel. Christ spoke to Nathanael. Scripture says, Faith cometh
by hearing, and hearing by what? The Word of God. And that was
the Word of God. God speaking the Word to Nathanael. And His Word did what Peter described. Peter said, Thou hast the words
of eternal life. And He gave him eternal life.
And He said, and we believe. His Word made Nathanael believe
on Him. He said, and we are sure Thou
art that Christ, the Son of the living God. And Christ's Word
persuaded Nathanael with full assurance. That's why God said
it pleased Him to save through the foolishness of preaching.
It's not just that in the first hour, Nathanael obviously had
a new heart before he came to Christ. But as you see Nathanael
believe on Him through His Word, the Lord keeps doing that through
His Word. He keeps saving us. He keeps
bringing you to believe. And you experience that power
in the first hour and He makes you learn more about it as you
go. that it's the Word that produces
faith and strengthens faith and works faith. And Nathanael beheld
the greatest thing any sinner can see. By faith he beheld the
Lord Jesus Christ. It's the greatest revelation
there is, the Lord Jesus Christ. The first attribute the Lord
revealed to Nathanael was his omniscience, his all-knowing
before whom all things are naked. He knows the thoughts and intents
of our heart, of every heart of Gael and every heart without
Gael. He knows everything. And when
he beheld him, just beholding his omniscience, having the unction
of the Spirit, Nathaniel knew all things because he knew Christ
and Christ is all. He said, Rabbi, he owned him
to be his wisdom, his master, his prophet, his teacher. He
confessed Him, Thou art the Son of God. He owned Him to be God. And God in human flesh. The Son
of God. The substitute, the Savior. And
He confessed Him to be the King of Israel. Thou art the King,
my Sovereign, my Lord. And He saw the greatest thing
any sinner can see. But listen to what Christ said.
Verse 50. Because I said unto thee, I saw
thee under the fig tree, believest thou? Thou shalt see greater
things than these." Did the Lord mean Nathanael is going to see
greater things than Christ? There is none greater. No, He
meant you are going to see with greater clarity and greater understanding
than you do right now. And everything that we learn
in greater light, in greater knowledge, in greater understanding
is concerning Christ as mediator. He said, verse 51, Verily, verily,
I say unto you, Hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the
angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. He said,
Nathaniel, you marvel that you saw your heart open before me?
You're going to see greater things than that. You're going to see
heaven open by me. And Christ is the ladder Jacob
beheld in his vision. He's the ladder. He's our union
with heaven that unites God the Father in heaven and his people
in this earth. That's Christ. And these angels
ascending and descending portray that communion we have with the
Father, His blessings coming down from heaven to us through
Christ, and our communion going up through Christ to Him. Everything
and everything we behold is in Him. The greater things hereafter
we behold in Christ. And I've titled this, The Greater
Things Hereafter. Now, what he means here is the
first moment that we behold Christ our mediator by faith. The first
moment we behold Him, He reveals the greatest thing you'll ever
know. He reveals Himself to you. From the first hour you believe,
He reveals to you the greatest thing you'll know. That's Him.
That's Him. But He says hereafter. He means
from this moment on, you shall behold greater things than these. You're going to see in greater
light. You're going to see in greater clarity. He's continually
bringing us to behold Him with greater understanding. At any
given time now, at any given time in the life of faith, when
He reveals Himself to us as we're sitting there marveling at His
greatness like we've never seen it before, His promise is, you're
going to see greater things. That's a good promise. That's
the first promise He made to somebody during his earthly ministry. You think this is a great thing
you're beholding right now. You're going to see it in greater
clarity and learn with a deeper understanding from this moment
forward. And that's true of any moment
that we behold Him. Now first of all, when we first
behold Christ by the gift of faith, We're amazed at His greatness. We're amazed. That first hour
you behold Him, you're amazed at Him and what He's done for
you. You know Him and you know all things by knowing Him. You
have an unction from the Holy One and know all things because
you know He's everything. He's your salvation. But we don't
know much by experience yet when we first behold Christ. From the beginning that God gives
us faith, we believe the things that are not seen. We do. We believe Him. Faith sees Him
who is invisible from the beginning. But we don't know our Redeemer's
greatness as we shall from that moment on. We don't know how fully He is
all until hereafter. We begin seeing like that blind
man that our Lord healed. At first he saw men as trees
walking. After that he put his hands again
upon his eyes and made him look up and he was restored and saw
every man clearly. That's what Christ means. You're
going to see clearly hereafter. Our Lord waited two days to go
to Lazarus' tomb. He loved Lazarus. He loved Mary. He loved Martha. That's why he
waited two days. At first, we're like our dear
sister, she knew a lot, she thought. Lord, if you'd have been here,
our brother wouldn't have died. That's carnal understanding,
wasn't it? That's carnal reasoning, wasn't
it? A whole lot of flesh. The Lord said, he shall rise
again, quickly, told what she knew. Oh, I know he's going to
rise again in the resurrection. It was a doctrine to her. It
was a creed, it was a system. The Lord said, I am the resurrection. And our Lord answered, did I
not say to you, if you'd believe, you shall see the glory of God?
When he raised Lazarus from the dead, the Lord made her not only
to believe, but He made her to know by experience, He's the
resurrection. Do you think she understood that
a little more clearly after she saw her dead brother get up out
of the grave and come out? I believe she did. He makes our
faith simple. As long as we're reasoning with
carnal reasoning and telling what we know, it's not simple,
it's not childlike. It's proud, it's arrogant. He
makes it simple, without guile, without malice, by making us
experience His greatness. We can become too familiar with
His Word and think we know it really well. We can become too
familiar with Him and think we know Him really well and really
not be believing on Him. In his hometown, amongst his
family, they said, we know Him. We are familiar with Him. He said, a prophet is not without
honor, save in his own house and his own country. And He could
not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief. Faith
strength is not itself. Faith strength is its object,
Christ Jesus. And He has to teach us that.
He has to show us greater things to grow us to trust Him more
and to trust ourselves less. At first, we're far too focused
on the carnal, the outward, the form. Remember the Lord said,
in the last days it shall come to pass. He said not it may but
it shall. In the last days it shall come
to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be
established in the top of the mountains. And it shall be exalted
above the hills and people shall flow unto it. And people today
think he's talking about an earthly mountain. He's not talking about
anything carnal. He's talking about something
spiritual. He declares his worship is spiritual. It comes down from
heavenly Mount Zion from heavenly Jerusalem. He said, Jerusalem
which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. You've
not come to a mountain that can be touched, he said. It's not
a carnal mountain. You can't touch it. We've come
to heavenly Mount Zion, heavenly Jerusalem. The Spirit suggests
men made perfect to the blood of Christ that speaks better
things than that of Abel. We've come to him. but it takes
Him teaching us by experience. That true worship is spiritual
between the heart of Christ and the new heart He's created within
us. It's from faith to faith, from His heart to our heart,
and it's spiritual. It's spiritual. Scripture says,
as in water, face answereth to face, so the heart of a man to
a man. Our Lord spoke from His pure
heart to Nathaniel's pure heart. And he said, Nathanael, you're
an Israelite indeed, and whom is no doubt. And it produced
an answer from Nathanael's heart, just spontaneously. How do you
know me? There wasn't an answer of pretended
humility, like, well, I'm going to pretend like I'm really humble.
He just answered honestly. You know me. How did that come forth? Christ
spoke to his heart, and from his heart he spoke. And he said, Rabbi, thou art
the Son of God, the King of Israel. Christ says, I'm the good shepherd.
And from the heart, we reply, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall
not want. You can be wringing your hands
in trouble and just don't know what's going to happen, what
we're going to do. If I don't put my hand to it, it ain't going
to work. And he says, into your heart, I'm your shepherd. And
peace. The Lord's my shepherd. I'm not
going to want for anything. But in the beginning, we think
it's strong faith to observe days and abstain from days and
meats and drink. And the Lord says that's weak
faith. He says that's weak faith. But He says hereafter, I'm going
to make you experience some true worship in the heart. I'm going
to make you hear my word. I'm going to make you be constrained
and moved by the gospel in the heart more and more and more
so that you value the spiritual worship less than the outward
form. You are going to experience the power thereof. It is Christ
who speaks. God spoke in time past by ceremonies
and types and shadows. These last days He has spoken
to us by His Son. Whenever the Hebrew writer got
through talking about Him being in heavenly Mount Zion, how did
he end that? He said, Refuse not Him that speaks. That's where he's speaking from.
And he's going to reveal himself not by dead forms and not by
carnal ordinances, but by a living, reigning, all-glorious person
speaking effectually in power into our heart. I'm not talking
to you in theory here. I'm telling you something I know.
He's going to make us behold He's our peace in greater clarity. And He's our peace. For every
believer, He's our peace. He's made peace through the blood
of His cross. He's our peace. The work of righteousness
is peace. And the effect of that, listen
now, righteousness, quietness, and assurance forever. He robes you in His righteousness.
He gives you quietness to know God is at peace with you. And
He gives you assurance in Him and what He's done. But to teach
us that more and more, make us see that more and more, He's
going to send you trouble. He's going to send you unrest,
sin trouble, soul trouble, world trouble. And then we're going
to find out in the midst of the trouble that we were seeking
peace in things where there was no peace. This is how you react
at first. Why? Because the things where
you thought you had your peace, He takes them. And you realize,
now you don't have any peace. Well, your peace hadn't changed.
Your peace is still the Lord, but He's teaching us that wasn't
our peace. You hearing this? In the world
you shall have tribulation, He said. You're going to have trouble. It's a must needs be. You've
got to. It's sent by Him. It's sent by
Him. I'm not going to murmur against
it. I'm not going to complain against it. He sent it. You must
have it. Why? So He can teach you to be
of good cheer that He's overcome the world. To teach us, my peace
I give you, not as the world gives you. Nothing in this world
is our peace. He's our peace. Micah 5.5, he
said, this man shall be the peace when the Assyrian shall come
into our land. When the Assyrian invades and
troubles everything you thought was your peace, he's going to
show you this man's our peace, Christ the Lord. The greater
we see Christ as our peace, the less it's going to matter if
you have quietness or if you have trouble in the world. The
more Christ is our peace, the greater and more clearly we see
He's our peace, the less it's going to matter to us if we have
trouble in this world or quietness in this world. Our peace hasn't
changed. You have Christ in the perfection
of His righteousness. That's where our peace is. You
have completeness of His salvation. My peace is in the presence of
God. That's where my peace is. We
don't realize how much, you know, we grow a little bit and we realize,
well, I know that righteousness and peace and joy is not in outward
forms. It's not in days and ceremonies
and things. I know that. People that believe
that are weak in the faith. So he takes his hand off of us
and he lets us be disappointed by our sin. He lets us be disappointed by
others' sins. He let Abraham say his wife was
his sister to save himself. He let faithful Moses smite the
rock twice and called Israel a bunch of rebels. All through the Scripture you
see him let his people sin, sin, sin. And it affects the person
sinning and the brethren around him. It happened. But he recovers
you. Now listen to me, I'm not speaking
in theory here. He recovers you. And he brings
his child to experimentally possess him and you have peace in your
spirit. Peace in spirit. Not in your
flesh, not in the form, not in anything else, in spirit. And
you know better now. that peace is not in touch, not
taste, not handle, not. And you know that even though
I knew it wasn't in that and I knew that it wasn't in form,
I really was still depending a lot on what I can see and feel
and touch and taste. And it shows you more clearly
how much we look on the outward form. And He teaches His Kingdom
is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. It's spiritual. It's spiritual. He won't let us have peace and
righteousness and joy in our flesh or in anybody else's flesh. He'll make you have no confidence
in your flesh. He will make you worship in spirit
and rejoice in Christ Jesus. And by the Holy Ghost, we're
made to experience with greater clarity through this fall what
we are in ourselves. Wretched, corrupt, vile, hell-deserving. We learn it's not just a theory.
We learn it really is what we are. It makes you loathe yourself.
Not your brother, yourself. He makes you loathe your sin,
He makes you loathe this world. It's a greater revelation of
the Lord Jesus' beauty and His blessedness and His bounty to
us, His full provision to us. The greater revelation of our
substitute, the greater we see our substitute suffering soul
agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, the greater I see Him doing that
for my sin, for my salvation. The greater the weeping is going
to be in my spirit over my sin. And the more He is going to mortify
my flesh. The greater the revelation of
Christ on the cross wounded and bleeding and dying for me. The
greater an increase of love I am going to have to my brethren, because I see how he loved me.
How did he love you? He came to where I am. He took
your sin. He bore what you deserved. He
put your sin away. And he went to the Father to
make intercession for you. And he says, now love like I
loved you. And he did that for us when we
were fallen in sin. And the more he makes us behold
that, the more he makes us see, I've never loved my brethren
as I ought to. But he increases it. He increases
it. The greater revelation of how
thoroughly He blotted out our sins, how perfectly the Father
remembers our sins no more, the greater will be our forgiveness,
even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. I have to experience it, though.
The greater revelation of His everlasting love that it couldn't
be quenched. It couldn't be quenched when
I fell in Adam, when I tried to murder God in Adam, when I
tried to murder God when I came into this world, when I've tried
to murder God since I've known Him. It couldn't quench His love. And it makes you see how easily
your love can be quenched. So you can't put confidence in
your love, but you see His love can't be quenched. It's everlasting. It can't be quenched by your
wicked imaginations now that make every good deed we do wicked. Can't be quenched by it. The greater we experience His
long-suffering, His mercy, His grace, His forgiveness, the greater
He increases us in those things. And then we start out believing
Christ is the head of His church and the captain of our salvation,
but by and by He sends trouble. We believe He's the head of the
church, captain of our salvation, and then He sends you trouble.
And we find we depend far too much on our wisdom and our strength
and not as much on Him. I've been under faithful preaching
of the gospel for 17 years when the Lord did this and let me
be a fool. Just an utter fool. I just became a fool. I was doing
it for the glory of God. But I was a fool. But he does
things like that to teach us that he's the head of the church. He's the head of his church.
He's put all things under his feet, gave him to be the head
over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness
of him that filleth all in all. We don't ever know what the Lord's
going to do in His church at any given time. But we know who's
going to do it. We know who's going to do it.
He is. And He's going to get the glory.
And we bow to that. He makes us experience that the
kingdom and the church of God's founded on our immutable, sovereign
Savior so we can't be moved. The victory of the church is
complete in the triumphs of the captain of our salvation. The
victory is complete, it's accomplished in the captain of our salvation.
He's the commander of the elect army. He's adding to the church
daily such as should be said. He's the conqueror over the world,
over sin, over Satan, death and hell, just like He is over our
own sinful flesh. We're just privileged by his
grace to be enlisted in his arming. But he don't need us. He don't... I can remember when we first
started out and folks left and you would have thought everything
was going to fall apart. But it didn't. Thus saith the
Lord unto you, be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this
great multitude, for the battle is not yours, it's God's. He left us in a body of death
to teach us He's everything. He teaches us by experience,
by leading us through this wilderness, united to a bunch of sinners
who are brethren in Christ, and He promises us every step of
the way, you think this is something, you're going to see greater things
than these. He's shown me greater things
than I saw 37 years ago. And all the greater things is
Christ and His fullness. I know myself, As not nearly a greater sinner
as I was then, outwardly. I'm not saying I'm not a sinner
outwardly, but not as much as I was then. But I see I'm a much
greater sinner. I see that more clearly than
ever. A much greater sinner. But I can tell you this too,
something else I see more clearly. As great as my sin is, I have
a far greater Savior. Right now, is Christ all your
salvation? Is He all your provision for
heaven and for this earth? I mean all of it. If He said
to you right now, go sell everything you have and give it to the poor
and follow me, what would happen? We would have to cry out for mercy,
wouldn't we? Lord, I am so full of covetousness. But is He all your salvation,
all your provision? You see you have no ability?
If that's where you can take your place, then He says this
to you, you'll see greater things in this hereafter. You're going
to see this a lot more clearly hereafter. And brethren, in the
great hereafter, We're going to see how truly our only union
with heaven is Christ. He's been going back and forth
with his angels and his blessings and himself and his spirit between
us and heaven and supplying us with everything. Just like when
that baby came out of the womb and he had that cord connected. We got a cord connected and it's
supplying us with everything we need and it won't ever be
cut. And you're going to see that
greater one day. You're going to see that so one
day. And we're going to see Him face to face. And we're going
to know these great things just like He knows right now us, my
heart, your heart. You're sitting down. You're standing
up. You're coming in. You're going
out. Everything is happening because He's working every bit
of it. And we're going to see how greatly
He loved us. and how greatly he overruled
us and how greatly he was working everything together despite our
very limited understanding of what he was doing. I look forward to seeing greater
things. I believe he's going to show them. I have to trust
him because I can't do them. All right, brethren, let's stand
together. Our gracious Father, we thank
you for this word. Lord, help us to see. Lord, help us to remember that sometimes we learn through seeing others fall and then ourselves
falling because of their fall. Make us sit down and look to
you and just rest in you and see what you do. Lord, forgive us for our sins.
Forgive us for thinking too lightly of
our self-righteousness. Forgive us for thinking too much
of our good deeds and for thinking too lightly of our wicked deeds.
Forgive us, Lord, for thinking too much on others and not enough
on what we are ourselves. And help us, Lord, to look to
you and just rest in you. You are our full provision, everything
we need. We trust you. We rest in you.
Whatever you do, Lord, we'll submit to it. In Christ's name,
we ask these things. Amen.