May it please Almighty God to
bless us together this morning as we meditate in His Word. Let
us turn to the Gospel of John and the third chapter and we'll
read verse 16. These were wonderful words of
Jesus Himself. And He was speaking to Nicodemus,
the father on this chapter, He's speaking to more people, but
it would seem here that he's just speaking to this one man,
Nicodemus. And he'd already told Nicodemus
the great need to be born again, something that Nicodemus couldn't
understand and that is still true today. People naturally
cannot understand the need there is to be born again and how that
is possible. but nonetheless it is essential. And the Lord spoke to Nicodemus
and he said, marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be
born again. How easy it is to marvel and
think, well, these things are ridiculous, there's no possibility
and therefore it cannot be true. And so the Lord speaks to him
in this very clear way, marvel not that I said unto thee, ye
must be born again. Then he just speaks to him very
clearly about how this comes to people, in this gracious and
glorious work of the Holy Spirit. It's not something that you and
I can anticipate. We don't know how it's going
to occur, but what we do know, as the Lord says to Nicodemus,
the wind bloweth where it listeth, wherever the wind blows, And
thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it
cometh, and whither it goeth. So is every one that is born
of the Spirit." How true that is. And what a wonderful thing
it is if you and I have the evidence, the glorious evidence, that the
Spirit of God has blown into our hearts and has blessed us
therefore, with this wonderful favour of newness of life, spiritual
life, how necessary, how essential, how important it is. And so this
morning it will be a great blessing if you and I just ponder, just
think in our lives whether this has occurred to us, whether the
Spirit of God has blown upon us, and whether we therefore
are born again of the Spirit. Well, says Nicodemus, how can
these things be? The Lord says, I can't get a
Master in Israel. No, it's not these things. It's
not by natural learning. It's not by natural understanding. How often perhaps we would like
to be able to conclude that all things are clear and we can just
do this and just do that and just say this and just say that.
and everything will be alright. Well, it's the work of God's
Spirit, and you may say, why is it the work of the Spirit
of God? It is the work of the Spirit
of God, so God will have the honour and glory for our conversion. We won't be able to say, well,
I did this and I said that and therefore I was converted. Not
at all. It's the work of the Holy Spirit
of God. And what a wonderful blessing
this is. if therefore we do have the evidence of that in our own
hearts and can truly rejoice in them. The Lord Jesus goes
on then to give this wonderful illustration, an illustration
that Nicodemus would have been familiar with, and it was the
illustration of the serpent in the wilderness. And the Lord
says, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even
so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish but have eternal life. The illustration
was very clear. And Nicodemus would have remembered
that the example was that there were so many Israelites who were
bitten by those poisonous snakes and they very quickly died because
of the venom in that bite. And they were rapidly dying,
hundreds and thousands of them. And how was it to be stopped?
Well, God told Moses to make a serpent in the image of those
serpents and to put it up on a pole and to tell them to look
to it, and all those who looked were cured. And the illustration
was very simple, and what it meant was this, that in this
Gospel day, we don't have to look to a serpent. A natural
serpent won't do us any good. In fact, of course, the Israelites
made it an idol in the end, and it had to be destroyed. But we
do have to look. They're not a serpent. Who do
we have to look to? I wonder, you young people, this
morning, if I said to you, well, tell me, who have you got to
look to? We all have to look to the Lord
Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation, the only way of
curing us from the poison. You might say, what poison? Sin. The poison of those serpents
was killing the Israelites. The poison of sin kills us. And we need to be cured from
it. And how can we be cured from
it? We can't cure ourselves. We can't take any medicine which
will cure us. That's why we have those wonderful
words in Isaiah, look unto me and be ye saved. We are not to
look to the serpent, we are to look to the Lord Jesus Christ. And all of us need to be found
looking to the Lord Jesus Christ as our saviour. And so the Lord
says to Nicodemus, whosoever Believeth in him shall not perish
but have eternal life. Very simply it means that all
of us are on a road where we shall perish in our sins. Because all have sinned, every
one of us has sinned. We're all on that road. That
terrible road that leads to hell. What a terrible condition to
be in. And yet, you see, the Lord speaks
to Nicodemus, and He speaks to us today, in exactly the same
words. Whosoever believeth in Him, in
the Lord Jesus Christ, should not perish, but have eternal
life. All of us need the great and
wonderful gift of eternal life. Otherwise, we shall find we end
up in that eternal place of hell, utter misery, forever and ever,
and no escape, nowhere else. There's no escape from hell.
Never think there is. Never think that God will suddenly
change His mind and think, They have been punished long enough,
for I'll now let them out." The Word of God doesn't give us any
encouragement to think along those lines. Because when the
Lord speaks about eternity, He means eternity. And that means there is no end. It goes on forever and ever and
ever. It is a very frightful Consideration
really. But it's a good thing to ponder
because we don't want to pass out of time into hell and never
be released. What a terrible, terrible consideration. And so here we have the glorious
Gospel. The Lord speaks to Nicodemus
and He speaks to us today. Whosoever believeth in him should
not perish, but have eternal life." And so it would be a great
blessing for every one of us today if God gives us faith,
living faith, to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. To have the
evidence that this great and glorious Saviour who came into
this world has saved our soul. And that's why we come then to
the 16th verse where we read the words of Jesus, For God so
loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. It's a wonderful truth. It's
a wonderful statement. It's a very important truth.
It's a very important statement. And when the Lord speaks about
the world, He was speaking to Nicodemus, who was a Jew, and
of course the Jewish people thought they were the only ones. who
were to be saved. And generally speaking, in the
Old Testament, they were more or less the only ones. There
were exceptions, but not very many. And so when the Lord comes
and uses this word, the world, he refers to Jew and Gentile. We are Gentiles. And what a blessing
it is, therefore, that this word is, therefore, applicable to
us today. For God so loved the world, those
who He had chosen before time began. What a mercy that is,
if you and I are amongst those. And in the 15th chapter of this
same epistle, the Lord says, You have not chosen Me, We wouldn't
choose God. You might think I would. I can
tell you, you wouldn't. You've not chosen me, but I have
chosen you. And that's a great and a glorious
blessing, because if God has chosen us, then you see, we will
be amongst those who are blessed with this living faith to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. It all fits together. It all
flows together, and how necessary and how important it is. For
God so loved the world, to think that God should have loved such
unworthy, vile sinners as you and me. It's good to think upon
it. It's good to meditate upon it.
It's good to realise that we are black sinners, deep-dyed
sinners, who do not deserve to be saved, who do not deserve
to be free from that condemnation, and yet to think that it is because
of God's great and glorious and wonderful love. Apostle John
really speaks about this in the fourth chapter, and he tells
us, Beloved, let us love one another,
this is the seventh verse, for love is of God, and everyone
that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not
knoweth not God, for God is love. In this was manifested the love
of God toward us. That means it was shown to us.
And this was manifested, the love of God toward us, because
God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might
live through him. There's no other way of receiving
the gift of eternal life but through the Lord Jesus Christ. that we might live through Him. Then the Apostle goes on. Herein
is love. This is what love is. Not that
we love God. Not that we decided, I'm going
to love God. People today often say, well,
I changed and I now love God. Well, you don't love God because
of your own ability. here in His love, not that we
loved God, but that He loved us, His love toward us, and sent
His Son to be the propitiation for us, the one who provided
the way by dying for us to take away our sins. Beloved, If God
so loved us, we ought also to love one another. And that's
a good and important consideration that we should, therefore, love
one another. If God has loved us, well, the
great blessing and the great wonder of salvation is to realise
that God, the great God, the almighty God, the all-powerful
God, the one who rules over everything, has loved us. It's good again
to just think upon that. To just think, why should God
have loved me? Just think upon it now. Just
think, why should God have loved you? Because you were worthwhile? Because you were going to be
a good person? Because you had something good
in you? Not at all. Because the Apostle Paul says,
in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. There is nothing
in us that could merit any esteem from Almighty God. We deserve
endless punishment, endless hell. Never think there is anything
good in us. And therefore we are totally,
totally dependent upon God's love toward us. The hymn writer sums it up. He saw me ruined in the fall,
yet loves me notwithstanding all. Have a sinful We have been,
have a sinful, perhaps we will be. God's love does not change. And it's because of His love,
His immutable love, it's a glorious word, His immutable love toward
us, we are eternally saved. Saved from our sin. Delivered. from the wrath to come, brought
into newness of life, brought into union with the Lord Jesus
Christ, brought in to know something with love toward us, and then
in return, and it's always that way, it's not the other way,
it's always in return, we then love God. Perhaps we all wish
we could love God more. Our love often seems cold and
faint. What a blessing it is though,
if we have a real desire to know God's love, to receive God's
love, and to desire to love Him more and more. And it is because
God so loved the world, God so loved us that he gave his only
begotten son. Again, there's another thing
to ponder, isn't it? Sometimes we seem to bring God
down in our estimation. And yet here we have the creator
of all things, the ruler of heaven and earth, the great almighty
God, And wondrous it is that He gave His only begotten Son. He hadn't got a lot of sons.
He had only one. And because He loved us so much,
He gave Him to come into this sinful world. so that through
his sin atoning death we might receive the wonderful and glorious
gift of eternal life. This great God, this great God
gave his only begotten Son. to try and bring it into some
kind of context to think of parents having to give away, perhaps,
their son. Give him away. And yet how precious
a son is. And here was God the Father's
only begotten son. Again, it's an amazing mystery
to our poor human minds to think that the Son was eternal, the
Father was eternal, the Holy Spirit was eternal, there was
no beginning. And yet this great and glorious
God the Father gave His Son For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever, whosoever. So you and I do not know who
are the whosoevers. We don't know. Who does know? God knows and you and I know. if God has blessed us with the
love of Christ in our soul. It's a blessed and wonderful
knowledge, and my friends, never despise it. You see, if God has loved us,
and if He's come and touched our hearts and melted our hearts,
and drawn us to Himself. Why is it? Because of His love
toward us. It's a wonder, isn't it? It's
a wonder of wonder that God should have loved such
unworthy sinners and have conveyed to us this great and glorious
truth that we are sons and daughters of the Most High God. Do we not
have great reason to praise our God for all that He's done? That God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish but have everlasting life. Our great adversary the
devil wants us never to believe. He wants us never to believe
that the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world. He wants us
never to believe that God the Father loved us, that God the
Son loved us, that God the Holy Spirit loved us. He always wants
us to possess that evil heart of unbelief. But what a mercy,
and what a mercy today, if we can look into our hearts and
see there the blessing and glorious work of God. We often refer to
it as the work of grace. It means His unmerited favour
toward us, utterly, completely. You will never be able to say,
well, I have merited God's favour. We never did and we never will. What love of God the Father,
what love of God the Son, what love of God the Holy Spirit.
It's a great and wonderful blessing if the Holy Spirit does show
us personally, God's love of the Father toward us, the love
of the Son toward us, the love of the Holy Spirit toward us.
That's room and reason to truly rejoice and to truly praise Almighty
God. But whosoever believeth in him
should not perish. We won't perish. We won't end
up in hell. We cannot end up in hell, because
God has blessed us with faith to believe His great and glorious
truths. And therefore, by His favour,
we possess this wonderful gift of everlasting life in glory
with the Saviour, so that when our little life on this earth
has concluded, has finished. We shall go to be with Christ,
which is far better. Oh, may our hearts and our affections
be set upon things above. May we be looking forward to
that great and glorious time. And the next verse is such an
encouraging verse really. For God sent not his Son, into
the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him
might be saved, Jew and Gentile, through the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is our hope in what Christ has done. Well, this morning,
where's your hope? Where's my hope? My hope of eternal
life. It can only be in what Jesus Christ has done. That's
a good foundation. That's a sure foundation. That's not something which will
vanish away. Once in Him, in Him forever. The devil can't take it away. He desires to be able to. He
may try to. He will never be able to. Because
our names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. And my friends,
they'll never be erased. For God sent not his Son into
the world to condemn the world, but the world through him might
indeed be saved." Well, what a mercy it is and what a blessing
it is. You know, these things are not
received by the natural man and the Apostle Paul speaks about
this in the first epistle to the Corinthians and the second
chapter in verse 14. He says, But the natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned, the vast difference between a natural understanding
and a spiritual understanding. And my friends, a natural understanding
will not do us any good. A spiritual understanding will
soften our hearts. A spiritual understanding will
produce thanksgiving and praise to our God that he should have
remembered us for good. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God, for they are furnished unto him,
neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth
all things." By that we can think like this. We can look into our
own hearts. And we can judge now whether
that which we possess is God-given or that which we produced ourselves. And as the Spirit of God opens
our understanding, we will come, blessed be God, to the conclusion,
this is not of my flesh, this is not what I have done,
this is the glorious work of the blessed God within me. He has done that for me which
I could not do for myself. The evidence that we are born
again and what a mercy it is therefore. For who has known
the mind of the Lord And He may instruct him, but we have the
mind of Christ. It's very humbling, isn't it,
to think of that. But this is the Word of God.
And so often, you see, we turn away from these great truths. But may God give us that humble
faith and grace to search these things out, to prove that devil's
a liar, and that God is true, God is
not a liar, what God has done and what He said will stand the
test of all things. Yes? Our faith will be tested. And that's a good thing. You
may say, why is it a good thing? Because we lose the rubbish.
We lose that which is of the flesh, those things that perhaps
we've been relying on. And it's good when such things
are taken away of our own providing, of our own making. See, that
which God has done for us, in our hearts, is beyond our ability
to do. Look back in your life, look
back. Search it out. And as I sometimes say, you will
know, a little that a righteous man have is
better than the treasures of many, would you? My friends,
don't look for a great vast array of things, but search out for
that little blessed work of God. It may be like this, a still,
small voice. Yeah, Elijah, there he was in
a cave's mouth, perhaps expecting something great. Didn't come. Didn't come. It wasn't in the
storm. It wasn't in the whirlwind. It was a still, small voice. The Lord has spoken a still,
small word into your hearts. Oh, thank God for it. Bless God
for it, because what is it? It's the blessed work of the
Holy Spirit. And you're able then to say,
yes, I am one of those, numbered here, whosoever believeth in
Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And we can
rejoice in that. And we can bless God for it. And we should thank Him for this
great and blessed work which He's done. It's His work. To Him be the glory. Great things He has done. It's not a small thing, is it?
Because what is it? It's the gift of everlasting
life. We can't quantify that, can we?
And yet there it is, the wonder of oneness, this great and glorious
gift of eternal life. And the Lord goes on and tells
us, and this is the condemnation,
that light has come into the world and men love darkness rather
than light. because their deeds are evil. For everyone that doeth evil
hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds
should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh
to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they
are wrought in God." You see, these deeds that God wrought
brings to pass in our lives are the gifts of faith, the gift
of faith to pray, to pray to our God in simple ways. God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
Lord, help me. It's not a long, clever prayer. It's a very short prayer. but it's a real prayer and it
emanates from Almighty God. What a blessing it is then, if
you and I possess this wonderful, wonderful favour, what a wonderful
blessing it is to receive such a gift from God as this. Well, may we perhaps have come
I don't know, perhaps in a way like Nicodemus came. Perhaps
we've been too embarrassed to let anybody know we've come by
night, as it were, like Nicodemus did. But he wanted to know, didn't
he? He wanted to know. And of course,
as we know later on, he was one that helped Joseph of Arimathea
to bury Jesus in the tomb. He wasn't ashamed of his faith in, knowing that
the Lord will give us that strength to not be ashamed of our faith, to not be ashamed of what the
Lord Jesus has done for us. It's a wonderful thing, isn't
it, to have a testimony A testimony. You may say, what do you mean
by that? A testimony is very simply this, what God has done
for our souls. When the light of the glorious
gospel has shone into our souls, And really often think that light
shines in all its glory and all its brightness when we stand
at the cross. You see here in this picture
the Lord tells us, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. The Lord Jesus Christ
was lifted up. on that cross at Calvary. And
as you and I are blessed with living faith to look to the Lord
Jesus Christ, to know the power of God in the light of the Gospel
shining into our hearts, to reveal to us that there's our hope of
eternal life. There's our hope of salvation.
There's our hope, resting in what Christ accomplished when
he died that sin atoning death upon the cross at Calvary. Well, can we not say then, glory
to God in the highest, all his angels. And they came to those
shepherds, that's what they sang, glory to God in the highest. Well, may we today also be able
to join in that song. Glory to God in the highest,
and praise Him for such a word as this, for God so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.