If you would turn with me this
morning to the gospel of John chapter 14, John chapter 14. Here we have the very familiar
verse in verse one where the Lord Jesus said, let not your
heart be troubled. I want to talk to you this morning
a little about heart trouble. I was reading an article this
week that declared that heart disease and cancer have claimed
the number one and the number two spot as the leading causes
of death in America. Number one, heart disease. Number
two, cancer. All of us personally know someone
affected by these two diseases, and many of God's people, even
now, are struggling under their crippling effects. Together,
heart trouble and cancer are responsible for 46% of the deaths
in the United States. I had no idea it was that high. Almost half of every death is
related to either heart trouble or cancer. I lost my father to
cancer and I lost my mother to heart disease. Yet considering
that staggering statistic, 46%, I was reminded, and I want to
remind you, that all of us, spiritually speaking, have these killing
diseases. Every single one of us has heart
trouble. All of us have the malignant
disease of sin. The statistic is 100%. Every
single man and woman born of woman has these two diseases. And unless we find a remedy,
unless we find a cure, we will most certainly die from them,
spiritually speaking. This is serious, serious business. This is a matter of life and
death. What makes this heart trouble
so serious? What makes this leprosy of sin
so critical? It was committed against the
very one. Our sin was committed against
the very one and the only one who can cure us. Against thee
and thee only. Speaking of God, have we sinned
and done this evil in his sight? And yet he is the only one who
can cure us from our disease. As you know, God gave Adam one
commandment. Adam and Eve had only one law
to keep. Did they keep it? No. Everything
was provided for them. There was no work for them to
do while they lived in the Garden of Eden. It was a paradise with
every need provided. But man failed. And man failed. and man died spiritually. That's what God said would happen.
And the day you eat thereof, the day you eat of that one tree,
you shall die. And what did Adam and Eve do?
They ate of that tree and they died spiritually. Why did man
die? Because man disobeyed God. God
cursed man for his sin. were under the curse of the law
and it was God that cursed us. Wherefore, as by one man sin
entered into the world and death by sin, you see this sin, this
disease that we have, this malignant disease of sin passed upon us
death. All men and women have heart
trouble. All men and women, boys and girls have the malignancy
of sin. How do we keep from dying since
death comes by sin? Death has passed upon all men
and women for all of us have sin. We're going to have to get
rid of the sin. How are we going to do that?
You see, God is holy. I wish more folks knew that.
We live in a day where we don't hear much about that subject
of God's holiness anymore. We hear a great deal about God's
love and God's grace and his goodness and his forgiveness.
And I'm thankful for that, but we don't hear much about God's
holiness. Now listen to me, a sinner will
never ever appreciate God's love, God's goodness, His mercy, His
grace, or forgiveness if they never see God's holiness and
what it takes to appease this holy God. Matter of fact, men
preach God in a way today where He's just expected to sweep our
sin under a rug or just put it out of His mind. But sin cannot
be simply forgiven. It's got to be paid for. Because
God is holy and He will by no means clear the guilty. The soul
that sins, it shall die. God is a holy God. He's a jealous
God. He will not forgive your transgressions
nor your sins. Joshua 24, 19. Sin can't be forgiven. It's got to be dealt with. It's
got to be paid for. The wages of sin is death, and
God always pays His bills. Your iniquities have separated
between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from
you that He will not hear. Now, what has done that? Our
sin, our heart trouble, our leprosy of sin. Sinner, God is holy. First and foremost, the only
way you can be cured is to find one who can keep God's holy law
and satisfy God's holy justice. The law of God shows us that
we're sinners, and God requires perfection, and we can't provide
it. And that brings us to our dilemma. Secondly, man is an ungodly sinner,
men and women alike. God said that every imagination
of the thoughts of our hearts are only evil continually. Now we quote that verse a lot,
but have you ever really broken it down and thought about it?
Our hearts don't just think on evil. Our hearts think only evil. The thoughts of our hearts do
not think only on evil. They think only upon evil all
the time. Some may say, well, I have some
good thoughts. All my thoughts are not evil.
Compared to God's thoughts, they are. Some will say, well, I have
wicked thoughts, but they're not continual. Sometimes I think
on good things. My thoughts are not evil all
the time. According to God, they are. Well, I disagree with you,
preacher. Well, listen, you're not disagreeing
with me. If you disagree, you're disagreeing with God because
that's what God says. God said in Genesis chapter six,
verse five, that he saw that the wickedness of man was great
in the earth. You know, it was great in the
earth because it was great in the man. And God saw that every
imagination of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually.
And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth,
and it grieved him in his heart." Our sin grieves God. That may be a foreign subject
to some, but that's what God's Word says. It grieved him at
his heart. What did sin did? Well, preacher,
I know there's some bad people in the world, and I know that
I'm not perfect, but there's no way that I can be that bad.
God says you are. You see, we've got heart trouble.
We've got the cancer of sin. Sin is a malignant growth, worse
than cancer. It spreads through the whole
body and soul of natural men and women. It affects everything
that we do, everything. Sin is what makes our hearts
deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. So deceitful
and so wicked that only God can know our hearts. We can't even
know our own hearts, they're so wicked. Sin has made us blind,
deaf, and spiritually dead. That word deceitful there in
Jeremiah chapter 17 verse 9 means fraudulent and crooked. Your
heart is fraudulent and crooked and so is mine. But not only
that, you and I are fraudulent and crooked above all things. Our hearts are desperately wicked,
deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. That Hebrew
word for desperately means critically and seriously and gravely wicked. So seriously wicked, so critically
and gravely wicked that we'll die from this wickedness. This
is a disease, this disease of sin, this heart trouble that
we have is going to kill us unless it's cured. I want you to hear
a graphic picture of your sin. Again, this is what God says.
He says it about you and He says it about me. He says it about
your precious children. He says it about my precious
grandchildren. He says it about your loving
grandmother. He says it to the prostitute
and He applies it to the preacher. It applies to the politician.
It applies to the priest. This is how a holy God sees us. From the sole of the foot, even
into the head, there is no soundness in it. Nothing but wounds, bruises,
and putrefying sores." They haven't been closed. Oozing sores. There's nothing more disgusting,
is there? These putrefying sores haven't been closed. They haven't
been bound up. They haven't been bandaged. They
haven't been mollified with ointment. They're just open and oozing.
So God is holy and man is sinful and ungodly. And then the third
thing is really the issue. This is the issue that all of
us are faced with. How can a man and a woman with
this heart trouble, with this disease of sin be justified with
God? God is holy, man is unholy. How are they gonna be brought
together in communion and in fellowship? How can he be clean
that's born of a woman? How can a man be justified? How
can a man be declared righteous? How can a man be in right standing
with God? I don't want what I have coming
to me. I want mercy and grace. How can things be made right
between me and God? That's what I want to know. Is
that why you're here this morning? How can a man be restored back
into fellowship with the God that he's offended? Well, you
answered that question and you've preached the gospel. Now you're
in John chapter 14, look at verse one again. Here's how. Let not
your heart be troubled. How do we rid ourselves of heart
trouble? How do we rid ourselves of the
cancer of sin? Well, we have the answer right
here in verse one. Look what he says. He says, you
believe in God, believe also in me. You believe in God, believe
also in me. Some say that the remedy is faith. Well, I'd say you're probably
half right. The remedy is faith in Christ. It's not just blind faith. Faith
has an object. Christ is that object. The remedy
is believing Christ. Not believing there is a Christ,
not believing in a Christ, but believing Christ, what he says.
What God says about himself, what God says about you, and
what God says about how we can be reconciled. That's the gospel. You know, most everybody says
they believe in God, don't they? Or they'll say, oh, I believe
in a higher power, or I believe in a supreme being. What they're
saying is they believe that there's a God. But what our Lord is saying
here is you believe in God. You claim that you do. You say
that you do. And if you do, then believe also
in me. To believe in the God of the
Bible, to truly believe that God is who He claims to be, you
must believe that Jesus Christ is also God. You believe that
He perfectly kept the law, that He fully satisfied God's justice. You believe that He worked out
a perfect righteousness for you, whose righteousness is filthy
rags. And you believe that He did all
this in your room and in your stand. You believe that Jesus
Christ is God's mediator, He's God's intercessor, He's God's
savior, He's God's sacrifice, and He's God's surety. My only
hope of being reconciled to God is in Him. You believe in God,
believe also in me. You believe that he was punished
for every sin that you ever committed, past, present, and future. Do
you believe that? I do. I believe that he was made
to be sin. He was made to be all the sin
of all his people throughout all time. It was God who had
to die for you in order to do that. Not just anybody could
be made sin and it'd be affection. You believe that God's law is
now fulfilled, God's justice appeased, and God sees you as
holy and righteous and just, and that you have no sin. Do
you believe that? I do. Now help thou my unbelief,
but I do believe that. That's what it is to believe
also in Christ. Everybody believes in God, it
seems, but few believe that Jesus Christ is God. Not many believe
that they're corrupt with sin. Not many believe that their heart
is in such a troubled state. Not many believe that malignancy
of sin has damaged them so recklessly from the inside out that God
Himself had to do for us what we could never do for ourselves.
Some believe it. Some of you are here this morning
that do. Thank God that you believe it. Because He's the one that
revealed it to you. He's the one that showed you.
He's the one that gave you the confidence and the assurance
to know that it's so. And that's what it is to believe
Christ. Now, I want you to look back at chapter 13 here in John's
Gospel, and in verse 1, We're told that the Lord Jesus knew
that His hour was come. Now, what hour is He talking
about? He's talking about the hour that He should depart out
of this world unto the Father. You see, He came from His Father
and that's where He's going back. He's going back to His Father.
The time had come for the pain of sin's wages. And that's why
John tells us here, having loved his own, which were in the world,
he loved them until the end. You see, Christ's last act upon
earth was an act of love, an act of mercy, an act of grace.
And he hangs on Calvary's tree to put away all the sin of all
the elect throughout all time. And now we see something of man's
heart. In verse two, we're told, and supper being ended, the devil
have he now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son,
to betray him. Our Lord said in John six, verse
70, have not I chosen you 12 and one of you is a devil? Remember,
none of us are excluded from this heart condition and this
inward corruption. One of the Lord's chosen disciples
is himself a devil whose wicked heart is easily accessible to
his master Satan. We've got to constantly be on
guard. Look down at verse 21, the Lord
told his disciples that one of them would betray him and each
one of them looked on the other doubting of whom Christ spoke.
I'm sure there was a mixed emotion in their hearts. They're probably
thinking, is it me or is it Matthew? Probably Matthew. Is it me or
probably Peter? Peter convinces John to ask the
Lord, and Lord, who is it? And it seems that each of them
knew that they were capable of betraying him, except maybe for
proud Peter. And in verse 33, the Lord said
this. He said, yet a little while,
am I with you? And where I'm going, you cannot
come. And in verse 36, look what Peter
said. Peter said, Lord, where are you
going? And the Lord said, Peter, you can't follow me now, but
thou shalt afterwards. In verse 37, Peter said unto
him, Lord, why can I not follow thee now? I'll lay down my life
for thy sake. You know, I was thinking as I
read that verse again, men very often make presumptuous statements
as Peter did, but you notice here that the Lord was quick
to respond and he said, will you? Will you lay down your life
for my sake? We talk a big talk, but often
the Lord says, will you do that? Will you really do that? In Matthew's
account, chapter 26, the Lord told all the disciples that they
would be offended. And Peter said, I will never
be offended. Peter, you'll be the first one
that's offended. And he was. Verse 38, the rooster
shall not crow until you have denied me three times. And Peter's
heart was troubled. Now, I'm not saying that Peter's
heart wasn't troubled by the claims of Christ that he would
deny him, but I also believe that Peter's heart was troubled
greatly because he didn't believe that he would deny the Lord.
Not me, Lord. They might, but not me. Here
we have some troubled hearts. Oh, dear sinner, when you hear
from the Lord through his word, When you hear who you are and
what you're capable of, are you troubled? Does your sin trouble
you? We ought to consider that. And
if you are, let me say, that's a good thing. That's a good thing. Because if it does trouble you,
I've got good news for you. And you know what it is? Let
not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also
in Me. Now, there shouldn't be any chapter
division here. I think we talked about that
in our study of John. The Savior of sinners here says,
this is not a different conversation. This is just a continuation from
chapter 13. And the Lord Jesus says, let
not your heart be troubled. I just love how the Lord begins
to comfort these troubled souls, those that He loves, those that
He's come to die for with the promise. He begins to comfort
them with the promise of eternal life. What could be more comforting
than that? He comforts them with the promise
of heaven, with the promise of forever being face-to-face with
them as their Savior. Is there anything that can comfort
you more than that? Being forever without sin in
heaven's glory, face-to-face with your Savior. What an encouragement,
what a comfort that is. In verse two, our Lord said,
in my father's house are many mansions. Now that word mansions
here means dwelling places. He said, if it were not so, I
would have told you. He said, I go prepare a place
for you. And if I go and I prepare a place
for you, I'll come again and receive you unto myself that
where I am, there you may be also. And whither I go, you know,
and the way you know. In heaven, we're not just going
to be visitors. He's gone to prepare a dwelling
place for us, Danny. We're going to dwell there. Didn't
the Psalmist not say, surely goodness and mercy shall follow
me all the days of my life. And I will live in the house
of the Lord forever. That's what makes this amazing
grace. It's absolutely amazing. You
see, you and I have no right to heaven. None. We don't have
any right to heaven. We have no claim to make on heaven's
glory. We've ruined our world. We've
fallen from a heavenly nature. If you and I are received into
heaven, the Lord must prepare for us. He must prepare us for
heaven and he must prepare heaven for us. We don't belong there
and we don't own anything there. I heard a man say not long ago,
heaven's my home. Well, it may be, but it's not
because you bought a mansion on a golden street. Occupancy
has nothing to do with our works or our deeds. We can't earn it. We certainly don't deserve it.
Christ is our forerunner, has staked a claim for us. He's guaranteeing
us a place in God's heaven. He went to Jerusalem and He stood
trial there in our place. He went to the cross and He died
in our stead. He went to the tomb as our scapegoat. He ascended on high and appeared
in God's presence for us. And it's He who goes and prepares
a dwelling place for us. And if He does it, it's certain.
Well, what did you do? Well, I sinned against Him. I'm
not worthy to be called His son. I have no claim on heaven whatsoever. I have no right to be there,
no home there. Is that troubling to your troubled
heart? Because you don't either. If
it is, then hear me, let not your heart be troubled. You believe
in God? You can trust in God's Son. He'll
go and prepare a place for you. He'll come again and receive
you. Where He is, you will be also. That's what makes heaven
heaven. That's the remedy for our heart
trouble. That's the remedy for our cancerous sin. The Father
gave His Son a people. He made Christ their surety before
the foundation of the world. Now listen to this, before you
were born, before you'd done any good or evil, that the purpose
of God according to election might stand, it doesn't have
anything to do with you. Just like we talked about in
the first hour about rest, it doesn't have anything to do with
you. It has to do with what Christ did for you, nothing else. Christ
became responsible for his people. He came into this world and he
purchased us a right to glory. He prayed and he said, father,
I will that those whom thou has given me be with me where I am. And not a one of them will be
lost, not a single one. All that the father gave to Christ
will come to him. And all who come to him, he will
in no wise cast out. He came down from heaven to do
his father's will. What was it? That all that the
Father gave the Lord Jesus, He would lose nothing. Not a one. This is the will of God who sent
Him. You know, when Adam sinned and when Adam disobeyed God,
he lost the truth, he lost the life, and he lost the way to
God. And every single one of us, sons
and daughters of Adam that we are, Lost the same thing. When
Adam sinned and disobeyed God, he became deaf, dumb, and blind. He developed serious heart trouble. The malignancy of sin spread
through his body. Man died spiritually as God had
promised he would. Man, that's just bad news. But
as Scott Richardson used to say, we've got to hear the bad news
before we'll ever hear the good news. And here's the good news. Let not your heart be troubled.
Don't you do it. You believe in God, believe also
in Jesus Christ. He is God. And if God is for
you, who can be against you? Jesus Christ, God the Son is
made unto you. What's he made unto you, Linda?
Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption. He's made to be all
that we need. Everything that God requires,
we're made in him. Believe also in me, he said.
Don't let your heart be troubled. Everything's going to be all
right. I'm your substitute. I'm your sacrifice. I am your
surety. Don't let your heart be troubled. By the disobedience of Adam,
I was made sin. By the obedience of Christ, I'm
made righteous. Christ has prepared a place of
acceptance, a place of righteousness, a place of holiness, a place
of glory, a place of eternal rest in the very presence of
God. How did Christ accomplish that?
By His obedience, not by any obedience of mine. He accomplished
it by His faith. We're saved by the faith of Christ. Without the work of the Lord
Jesus, the Holy Spirit doesn't have any gospel to reveal to
us. The gospel is what Christ has done for us as we sit here. If these things are not so, the
Holy Spirit doesn't have any blood to apply to us. He doesn't
have any salvation to give us, but they're so. And the Lord
said, don't let your heart be troubled. You believe in God,
believe also in me. Believe these things concerning
me. Have you ever thought, and I'm
almost finished, but have you ever really thought much about
what our Lord, what he meant when he said that where I am,
there you shall be also? Where is Christ? Well, we know
He's in heaven, but in heaven, He's at the right hand of God. That's where He said, I am at
the right hand of God ever making intercession for us. Did you
know what the right hand is to a king? It's a place of love
and acceptance. It's a place of honor and glory.
We died with Him. We were buried with Him. We arose
in Him. We're seated with Him in heavenly
places. We're at His right hand, as He's
at the right hand of God. It's with love and acceptance
that we sit there with Him. So, let not your heart be troubled. Let not sin therefore reign in
your mortal body. You believe in God, don't you?
Believe also in Christ Jesus. You know the way, Christ is the
way. The world is a world of sin, full of heart trouble, full
of sin, trouble, and despair. There's only one way to be healed,
and that's through the Great Physician. We've got to trust
Him. We've got to commit ourselves
unto His hands. He has the cure. Those that are
well have no need of a physician, but by God's sovereign mercy
and grace, we see that we're dying of heart trouble. We see
that we have the dreaded disease of sin. We see that we have great
need. We do have a need. Those that
have a need, need the physician. Are you heavy laden and burdened
with sin? Have you spent all like that
poor woman did on physicians and only gotten worse? Then let
not your heart be troubled. Come to Christ. Trust in Him. Learn of Him. He that hath the
Son hath life. Salvations of the Lord. These
are not just little cute sayings. These are the words of life.
All who come to Christ will never be cast out. Having loved His
own, He loved them until the end. Well, let me leave you with
the words of the beloved John who recorded these glorious things
that we've seen today. Same man. From 1 John 5, verse
20. You don't have to turn there.
Listen to this. John said, And we know that the
Son of God is come, and He hath given us an understanding. If
you understand these things, it's because God revealed them
to you. He's given us understanding that we may know Him that is
true. This is true, what I'm telling
you. And we are in Him that is true. Even in His Son, Jesus Christ,
this is the true God in eternal life. So let not your heart be
troubled. Believe ye also in Him. Oh, I
know you believe in God. I know you do. Believe also in
Jesus Christ, the Savior of sinners. After all, Christ came into the
world to save sinners. And save them He did.