John chapter 5. I tell you what, turn to John 6
first. John chapter 6. I received a
question from someone asking this question. They said, how
does one become a Christian? How does one become a Christian? And my answer, I try to keep
it as brief as possible. You never know when you get an
email from someone if they're sincere or not. But you want
to give them the benefit of the doubt. And so I answered with
this. A spiritually dead sinner becomes
a Christian by God's grace alone, by God doing everything to bring
him to rest in Christ from all his works. And this is through
God-given faith. But a spiritually dead man does
nothing. The Bible says God alone makes
a sinner a Christian by putting a new spirit within making him
willing to rest in Christ in the day of Christ's power. And he responded, so I don't
need to believe in Jesus. Now, I don't know how he got
that from me saying a spiritually dead sinner is brought by God
to rest in Christ through God-given faith. And his answer to that
statement was, so I don't need to believe on Jesus. And then
he wrote this, he said, so if one has a new spirit, but is
not willing to rest in Christ, then they would be a born again,
but not a Christian. And when he said that, I knew
exactly where he stood. He is defending free will. And he said that in response
to me quoting Psalm 110. Let me read that to you. The
Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand until I make
thine enemies thy footstool. Until I make thine enemies thy
footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of
thy strength out of thine, the gospel, His Word, His power. Rule thou in the midst of thine
enemies. And we are all enemies in our
mind by wicked works until God conquers us, Christ conquers
us. But He does it by ruling in our midst, sovereignly, omnipotently. Thy people shall be willing in
the day of Thy power. This is God the Father saying
this to His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thy people shall be willing
in the day of Thy power. In the beauties of holiness from
the womb of the morning, Thou hast the due of Thy youth. And
then He asked another question, a few other questions, and they
were both defending free will. And then He said this. It seems
very clear to me that you reject free will and embrace the philosophy
of determinism. So if y'all didn't know, you
embrace the philosophy of determinism. It's what the world says about
you, the free willer says about you. He said, I'm chosen but
I'm free to seek and hear. I don't believe that God saves
anyone without allowing each person to have a free will. Listening
to a sermon of yours would be a waste of time. But he asked
me this. He said, what do you do with
John 5.24 and John 6.47 which is very clear that everlasting
life is obtained by hearing the words of Jesus and believing
in God through having confidence in His salvific work. Now, I've preached from John
6, 47 and referenced it many times, so I'm not going to preach
from it today, but let me read it. John 6, 47. Our Lord said,
Verily, verily, which means this is of utmost importance. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. If I were preaching our Lord's
words there, I would not isolate that verse and spend 30 minutes
telling you that God's done all He can do, now you need to exercise
your free will. That's not what I would do. I
would preach it in context. And it's interesting that the
two scriptures this gentleman mentioned are both Christ talking
to free willers. This is Christ's answer to free
willers, is what this is. Those that trust in free will.
This is Christ's answer to those that trust in free will. Now,
I would declare the context here and preach what Christ preached.
He shut their mouths concerning salvation being by a man's work. He said, no, it's not. This is
the work of Him. This is the work of God that
you believe on Christ whom He has sent. He's saying, it's not
by your works, it's through faith in Christ. And then, He shut
their mouths from boasting in their will. And He said this in John 6, 37.
All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me. All that the
Father giveth Me shall come to Me. And Him that cometh to Me
I will in no wise cast out. He told them, ìHeís the bread
of life.î He told them, ìExcept they eat His flesh and drink
His blood, they have no life in them.î And they began to murmur. They said, ìThis is a hard saying.
Who can hear it?î And He told them who can hear it. And He
told them who cannot hear it. He said in verse 44, ìNo man
can come to Me except the Father which has sent Me draw him.î
And I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the
prophets, and they shall be all taught of God. That means everybody
that comes to Christ will come because they've been taught by
God in the heart. He says, every man therefore
that hath heard and hath learned of the Father. They hear of the
Father and they learn of the Father. That means they don't
just learn about Him, that means it's from Him that they learn
and hear. and they come to Christ. Verse
64, He said, But there are some of you that believe not. He is
telling them exactly what He said in John 10. He is saying,
You don't believe Me because you are not My sheep. And He
said in verse 65, He said, There are some of you that believe
not. Verse 65, And He said, Therefore said I unto you that no man can
come unto Me except it were given unto him of My Father. And so
they exercised their will, and He led them, and they walked
away. That's whatever man will do towards
the true and living God, Christ Jesus, until God gives them a
new nature and a new will, they'll walk away. And that's what they
did. Now turn to John 5, and I want
to deal with this verse here. Now again, this is Christ's answer
to free willers. Now, here's the context. Christ
had healed a man on the Sabbath. It was a man that could not walk,
he was lame in his feet. Christ spoke His Word and gave
that man power by His command to stand up and walk. The man
did what Christ told him to do, what Christ commanded him to
do. Arise and walk, and that's what he did. Take up your bed
and walk, that's what he did. That's the context of this. Now
when he did that, these well-working Pharisees got offended because
he did that on the Sabbath. And they would rather observe
a day than see a man healed by God and God's glory be displayed. And so when Christ said He did
the works of God, His Father, He told them, I'm doing the works
of God, My Father. And they became offended because
He called God His Father. And so in verse 19 it says, "...then
answered Jesus," John 5, 19, "...then answered Jesus and said
unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing
of himself, but what he seeth the Father do." For what things
soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise." The whole
context here is He's declaring Himself one with the Father,
equal with the Father, declaring He and the Father are God. That's
what He's doing here. Verse 20, ìFor the Father loveth
the Son, and showeth Him all things that Himself doeth, and
He will show Him greater works than these that you may marvel.î
Heís going to show greater works than just healing a man physically. What greater works are these?
Whatís greater than healing a man whoíd never walk physically?
Look at verse 21, ìFor as the Father raiseth up the dead, and
quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will. For the Father judgeth no man,
but hath committed all judgment unto the Son, that all men should
honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth
not the Son honoreth not the Father, which hath sinned him.
You see what He's doing? He's declaring He and the Father
are one. Now look at verse 24. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, This is the verse he brought up. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth
on him that sent me. Isn't that interesting? He hears my word and believes
on God who sent me. He says, That man hath everlasting
life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from
death unto life. Not that He is going to pass
from death to life. He is passed from death to life. So He declared
that He and the Father are one there. And then He said, verse
25, Verily, verily, I say unto you. Now this is explaining verse
24. The hour is coming, and now is,
when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God. And
they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in
Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself. The greater work that Christ
works, greater than raising a lame man to walk physically, is that
Christ quickens dead sinners to faith in Christ and makes
them to have everlasting life. That's what He's declaring. Now,
first of all, look at the sinner's original condition. Verse 24
says, he passed from death. And verse 24 said that, verse
25 says, Christ said, now when the dead, that's how it began,
when the dead. This is the condition of every
sinner that comes forth from Adam, dead. Spiritually dead
in trespasses and in sin. And we're only quickened to life,
everlasting life, by the Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2.1,
if you can look there with me. Ephesians 2.1. He says, You hath He quickened. you hath he quickened who were
dead in trespasses and sins. Where in time past you walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience. Among whom also we all had our
conversation in time past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature
the children of wrath, even as others. But you exercised your
free will. No, but God. But God, who is rich in mercy,
for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were
dead in sin, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace
you are saved. This man made a statement to
me that I believe that grace is freely offered to all men. That's not even what grace is.
Grace doesn't offer you anything. Grace saves. By grace you are
saved. Look down here at verse 8. For
by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of
works, not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, lest
any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained,
that we shall walk in them. That means God didn't choose
us because He foresaw we would believe, but He chose us and
ordained before the world began that we would believe by Him
coming and giving us life and faith in Him. He ordained that. That's one of those good works
He ordained before the world was that we would repent and
believe on Him. And it's by His workmanship.
Now, go back to our text. When Adam died, I want to explain
depravity to you simply as I can. When Adam died, his soul was
cut off from the life of God. That's what it is to die. When
God removes his spirit, his presence, you're spiritually dead. There
is no life there. You're dead. And that's what
God did. And we came into the world that
way too. You take physical death. What physical death is, is the
soul leaving the body so that all there is is a lifeless body
now. Well, just like that. Spiritual
death is the spirit and life of God leaving the sinner so
that all that's left is a spiritually dead sinner. We have to be quickened
by God because while we're dead in sin, a man may think he's
seeking God. But he's only seeking the God
of his imagination. He's seeking the God that does
not offend him. He's seeking the God that gives
him something to do in salvation. Those men in John 6, that's what
they were seeking. And when Christ told them, He's
not that God, they went away from Him back to a God that would
allow them to have a part in salvation. And that's proof that
a man is depraved. When he hears the truth that
gives Christ's will and Christ's work all the glory, he'll reject
that for his own will and his own work, having the glory. Now,
secondly, how does the dead man pass from death to life? We see he was originally dead.
How does he get from death to life? Look at verse 25. when
the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that
hear shall live." Our Lord is declaring that the dead shall
hear the voice of the Son of God and shall live. They're going
to hear the voice of the Son of God and that's how they will
live. Christ gives the command by His voice. We've seen this
quite a bit lately. We're going to see it again next
hour. He gives the command by His voice. The dead sinner doesn't
initiate this exchange. Christ commands it. And the preacher
doesn't initiate this. And the parents don't initiate
this. And the choir playing ever so
softly doesn't initiate this. It's Christ's voice speaking
this. He said, it is the spirit that
quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak
unto you, they are spirit and they are life. He said that in
John 6 to those people that walked away. So why then didn't they
have the spirit and life? Because he didn't speak this
word in their heart. He just spoke it in their natural
ear. The natural ear, speaking it in the natural ear, it won't
save. It has to come with Christ's power into the heart, giving
life. Christ's Word comes as the command
to live, not as an offer to live. Can you imagine going out to
the cemetery? Can you imagine him coming to
Lazarus' tomb and offering Lazarus the chance to live? What good
would that have done Lazarus? Nothing. He was dead and buried
in a tomb. Go with me to Ezekiel 37. Christ
comes and He does what He taught Ezekiel in Ezekiel 37. Look at this, Ezekiel 37 and
verse 3. Let's just start there. I don't
have a lot of time. He said, He said unto me, Son
of man, can these bones live? All those dry bones, dead parts,
dry white bones are scattered around. Can they live? And I
answered, O Lord God, thou knowest. Again He said unto me, prophesy
upon these bones and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the
word of the Lord. That sounds foolish, doesn't
it? Tell dry bones to hear the Word of the Lord? Thus saith
the Lord God unto these bones. You see, He says, now preach
this too. Don't just say, oh here you were. Don't leave it
up to their will. He's saying here, declare this
word too. Thus saith the Lord God unto
these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and
you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you,
and I will bring up flesh upon you, and I will cover you with
skin, and I will put breath in you, and you shall live and shall
know that I am the Lord. Those two things go together,
Sarah. It's good to have you back. Whenever the Lord speaks
life into a sinner, they know He is the Lord. Then you shall
know I am the Lord. He don't breathe life and then
leave you to yourself. Well, you go to exercise your
will and accept Him or reject Him. He breathes life and you
know He is the Lord. You can't do anything but believe
Him. He gives you a new will and you want to believe Him.
That's all you want to do. Watch this, verse 10. So I prophesied
as He commanded me, verse 10, and the breath came into them,
and they lived and stood up on their feet, an exceeding great
army. And then He said unto me, tell us who this is about. Son
of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. This is all
mine elect I'm going to save. Behold, they say our bones are
dried and our hope is lost. We're cut off our parts. Therefore
prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, O
my people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out
of your graves and bring you into the land of Israel. He's
not talking about the last resurrection. He's talking about the new birth,
the first resurrection. I'm bringing you out of your
graves because you're dead men. I am bringing you out of your
graves and bringing you into the land of Israel. And you shall
know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves, O
my people, and brought you up out of your graves. And I shall
put my Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I shall place
you in your own land. Then shall you know, I the Lord
have spoken. You will know whose voice you
heard then. I spoke it, and I performed it, saith the Lord. You see that? That's what Christ is teaching
in John 5 and John 6. How are you going to be made
willing to believe on Christ? How are you even going to have
life to know He's the Lord and be made willing to believe on
Him? Christ said, I'm going to speak it to you, dead man, and
then you're going to know. Now look at this last thing.
Christ's voice is irresistible. That's what we just read. Then
you'll know what it is. John 5, verse 25. He says, "...and
they that hear shall live." They that hear shall live. Now Christ is declaring He's
God. He's declaring He's God. That
He quickens to life. He does it in the first resurrection,
in the new birth, and He does it in the general resurrection. He goes on here to talk about
Him speaking and men coming out of the graves. He's first and
foremost talking about what He's talking about here, the new birth,
regeneration, quickening, where He makes a dead sinner alive
and gives him faith in Christ. He's declaring He's God so that
when He speaks, the dead sinner hears His voice. And there's
no possibility, absolutely no possibility that they will perish
in unbelief. He says, they shall live. In the verse before He said,
they'll have everlasting life. That means when He's quickened
you, if there were such a thing between a lapse between Him giving
you life and you having faith to believe on Christ, if there
was some distance there, which according to the word of the
Lord, He says, when I quicken you, you'll know. But if there
were some distance there, there wouldn't be a possibility they
wouldn't believe because they have everlasting life now. They're
going to believe and going to be made to know through faith
that they have everlasting life. But the only way they can hear
and believe is they've got life now by His command. See what
I'm saying? There's no possible way they
could resist Him in Paris. They have that life now. Christ is the righteousness for
those whom He died. And this is what this all hinges
on. Christ at the cross. Because you see, in the same
manner that the righteousness of God, the justice of God demanded
that God pour out wrath on Christ when He bore our sin, Justice
demanded that. When He bore our sin, Justice
said, slay Him, the soul that sinneth must die, even though
He didn't commit the sin and never would. He was made sin
so that the law said He must die. But having redeemed us now,
having accomplished that work for everyone for whom He died,
that same righteousness of God looks to everybody for whom He
died and says, they must live. They must live. They cannot perish
or justice is miscarried. And so this is why Christ says,
I must do the work. He said in John 17, 2, God, Thou
has given me power over all flesh that I should give eternal life
to as many as Thou has given me. Not a possibility He won't
because justice demands it. His blood demands it. The righteousness
of God demands it. That's why Christ is the resurrection
and the life. Because it's His responsibility
and His glory to come and raise us to newness of life forever. That's His glory. When He came to Lazarus too. When He commanded Lazarus, come
forth. What happened? Lazarus came forth. When He went to that man lame
sitting by the pool of Bethesda and He said, Arise, take up your
bed and walk. What happened? That man arose
and took up his bed and walked. A dead man lived and came forth. A lame man walked and obeyed. How? Because with Christ's command
comes Christ's power to accomplish what He commands. When he speaks
to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, did Saul of Tarsus
say, well, let me think about it a little while? No, he hit
the dust. And when Ananias came to him,
speaking the gospel to him, Scripture says, immediately there fell
from his eyes as it had been scales, and he received sightful
with, and arose and was baptized. Immediately. Christ is the Word
and He communicates life by His Word. And you know what His Word
does? It liveth and abideth forever. So when He communicates life
by His Word, that Word is living and abiding in that sinner forever. So there is no possibility that
sinner is going to reject Christ and perish. Because the Word
would be a failure then and God said, My Word will never fail.
It always accomplishes the thing wherein to I sent it. And so,
what I'm saying to you is, we're made willing to believe by Christ,
and that's irresistible. When you think about faith, Scripture
says faith is the evidence of things not seen. In other words,
when you have the evidence of something, you can't not believe
it. Isn't that right? Once you've
seen something, you can't unsee it. And once you know something,
you can't unknow it. And you don't really do anything
to believe it or to know it. You just know it and believe
it. That's what faith is. It's not really an exercise of
my will to believe. When He gives it, you just believe.
And that's what He does. The fruit of life that the Son
of God gives is conviction. The fruit of life that the Son
of God gives is faith. The fruit of life that the Son
of God gives is repentance. They're called fruits of righteousness
which are by Jesus Christ. You see, here's what I'm more
concerned about. More than I'm concerned about
my will or your will or offending you that your will is nothing
more than being offended that I'm going to do that to you or
to me. I'm concerned about offending God. I'm concerned about not
giving Christ the glory that is His to make His will be seen
as all powerful over our petty will. Why is a sinner so foolish
as to exalt his will over God? Why would we do that? It's because
we're lost, we're dead. But why would we even think about
that? That's just absurd. Friday night, a lightning struck
a tree at the end of our street. Big old oak tree, standing right
on the corner up there. And it looks like you took that
oak tree, right at the biggest part of that oak tree and just
twisted it and just twisted the top off of it. and it's laying
in the ground, on the ground, and all the bark is just peeled
off of the side of that oak tree from the top down to the bottom.
And there's splinters just out in the street, over in the neighbor's
yard, this other direction, this other direction, and there's
a splinter over halfway to our driveway. That's 70 yards up
there. Does a little sinner actually
think he could stop God from doing that by His will? All the work that he does is
by that same power. He that hath made the earth by
His power, when He uttereth His voice, there's a multitude of
waters in the heavens. And He causeth the vapors to
ascend from the ends of the earth. He makes lightnings with rain.
He brings forth the wind out of His treasures. God thundereth
marvelously with His voice. Great things doeth He which we
cannot comprehend. What does that have to do with
salvation? The heathen raged, and the kingdoms were moved.
He uttered His voice, and the earth melted. That's what it
has to do. To Him that writheth upon the
heavens of heavens which were of old low, He doth send out
His voice, and that is a mighty voice, the psalmist said. Ascribe
ye strength unto God. His excellency is over Israel,
and His strength is higher than the clouds. The God of Israel
is He that giveth strength and power unto His people. He does it by that mighty voice.
He said, the sheep hear His voice. The sheep hear His voice. And
He calleth His own sheep by name and He leads them out. That's
our shepherd. All by voice. I was looking at
that tree and there was a little grasshopper down there in all
those splinters. And you know what I thought of
immediately? What if that grasshopper looked up at those clouds gathering
and said, God, I'm not going to let you strike this tree.
You'd say that's absurd. No more absurd than a sinner
saying, God, I'm not going to let you save me. Whenever He speaks in Isaiah
40 about Him being the Great Shepherd that will gather the
sheep and the lambs with His arm, right after that He says,
It is He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the
inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers. You can't resist His voice. You can't resist His grace. You can't resist winning the
lottery. I'm telling you. And it's better than a lottery,
it's purpose from eternity. And what I'm saying is it's better
than that. When He speaks to you, He gives
you the unsearchable riches and you can't resist. You don't want
to and you won't. Alright, let's stand together,
brothers. Father, thank You for Your Word.
Thank You for Your voice. Thank You for Your power. Thank
You for Your redeeming grace. Thank You for Your regenerating
grace. Your quickening and calling and not letting Your people go. Lord, we ask You, make dead sinners
live according to Your will. We ask You to speak that voice
now to anybody that hears this. The poor man trusting in his
free will and his works. Lord, if it's your will, if he's
a chosen vessel from the beginning, make your will known. Make him
see whose will is all powerful. This is our prayer for every
free willer sitting here now. That's what we are when we don't
know you. And that's what we are in our flesh who do know
you. Lord, put down that free will working man and make us
to bow to your will and your works. We ask it in Christ's
name. Amen.