you can return in your bibles
to John 17. The second verse will be the primary
content of this morning's message. for you, that is the Heavenly
Father, for you granted him, that is the Son, for you granted him authority
over all people, that he might give eternal life to all those
you have given him." Entitled this message, Lord of
all, Savior of some. Lord of all, Savior of some. Now, that would not sit well with
many that are believers. First of all, while they say
he is Lord of all, They deny it, many would, and
by this I mean many that profess to be believers. They would deny
that he is Lord of all because they would say that he is trying
to save everyone, but most people won't let him. That's hardly
the conduct of the Lord. Can you imagine in days gone
by when the various sections of a kingdom were ruled over
by lords? And the lord of that realm came
to the house of one of the subjects of his realm and he says, I'm
here to collect the taxes that are due. And this citizen says,
I don't think I'll do that." Will the Lord then say, no, okay,
have it your way? No, Lords are in charge. And to the extent of their power,
they will exercise their authority to bring to pass whatever it
is they will to be done. Now the lords of the earth are
limited in power. Consequently, no matter how much
authority they think they have, there will be a limit to what
they are capable of doing. But our Lord Jesus is not limited
in power. And therefore, whatever authority
he has, whatever authority has been given to him, He can exercise
it completely and fully. There will be nothing that our
Lord desires to be done or to happen that will not be done
or happen. Nothing. Authority is not something that,
well, Everybody liked to have it, but nobody wants anybody
else to have it. I remember when the wars in the Mideast started
here in the early part of this century, and one of the radio
hosts was saying, you know, how good it was, we're gonna go over
there and liberate these people, and he said that the, in the
heart of every man beats the desire for freedom. I thought,
yeah, that makes sense, and then I got to thinking about it. No,
that's not true. Within the heart of every man
beats the desire to be king. He wants to be free, but he wants
to rule over others. It's in our nature. We come into this world thinking
we're the only one there is. I read somewhere, and I don't
know how psychologists figured this out, I mean, I don't know
how you'd run an experiment, but I read this, that when a
baby comes into the world, and of course it's going to be the
mother that gives them their primary care in most cases, but
they don't even know that there's a distinction between them and
mother. And through a process of separation
and individuation, as they call it, they like to come up with
fancy terms and phrases, the kid eventually learns that mom
is somebody different from them. But they still think mom should
do everything they want. And we spend most of the childhood
years of our children Teaching them they can't have
their own way. But that's not true of the Lord
Jesus Christ. For you granted him, the Father
granted the Son, authority over all people. I was taught when I was a kid,
make Jesus, you know, your personal Savior. Understand that that
phrase, personal Savior, arose from people seeing, that is evangelists
and other preachers, they saw that many were falling into the
trap that, you know, well I was born into a Christian church,
I'm a Christian, And they would just go through
life assuming that since they were born into this church and
maybe baptized into it or whatever, most churches have some kind
of ceremony for entry into the congregation. And they had never
caused any trouble. They figure everything's OK.
And so eventually, These preachers came up with a phrase, and it
was to battle that error, and it said, you've got to receive
him as your savior. There's got to be contact between
you and him, communication between you and him. You must call on
his name for your sake, and that's all true. But eventually, that
just, like all phrases invented by men, it just becomes a slogan.
And men eventually corrupted it, as though Jesus Christ is
a Savior and you can take Him or leave Him. No, He's a Lord. But they would say to us, you
know, OK, you've received Christ as your personal Savior. You're
saved. It's locked in. Once saved, always saved. You've
made your decision. You've made your profession. Then they bring in the fine print,
because so much of evangelism is like a sales pitch, evangelism
I was raised in. And they say, oh, by the way,
you need to make Christ your Lord. And they would say this as though
this was an additional commitment on your part. And in a sense,
and some would take it this way, they'd done God a favor. How
nice of me to make Jesus to be Lord. And they would even, you know,
they would say in their invitations, you know, the first thing, of
course, is they'd invite people that want to be saved. And particularly
if you're an evangelist, if you don't have some numbers to show,
you know, you won't get many more jobs. And you might think
that that's not true, but When you would see the brochures from
these evangelists, they'll tell you, well, they were, under my
preaching, there were 2,000 professions of faith made last year. Oh,
well, we got to get that guy. Really now? But if they couldn't get people
down front to get saved, how many of you would like to
make Christ the Lord of your life? or rededicate, they'd keep doing
something. I remember one time it got, I
mean, just nobody was responding to this guy. Finally, someone
said, all right, who'd like to see sinners saved? Well, you
know, who's gonna sit in their seat and say, nah, I don't care. But make Christ Lord. You know
what Peter said on the day of Pentecost? Be it known unto the
whole house of Israel. that this Jesus, whom you crucified,
God has made to be Lord. You can't make Christ Lord of
your life. God beat you to it. He made Christ
Lord of everyone. We don't like to think that there's
somebody who has authority over us. After all, we're Americans. For the sake of society, we consent
to a few rules, but we really start to resist when they write
rules we don't approve of. We don't recognize inherent authority
in the United States of America. And I'll be honest with you,
when it comes to politics, that ain't such a bad thing. No son
of Adam should have inherent unlimited authority. Why? Because men can't be trusted. And so to preach a Jesus that
has unlimited inherent authority, and what do I mean by inherent?
I mean by that that it isn't an authority that doesn't belong
to him. We grant our politicians a certain
amount of authority for a certain amount of time, but the authority
is not inherent to their person, it's inherent to the position
we elect them to. But our Lord Jesus Christ has
inherent authority in his person. He's God. That means he comes
with divine authority. But here it's written, it's in
John 17, it says, you have granted him authority. What do you mean
by that? Well, Jesus Christ, our Lord Jesus has authority
all over all people, not only because he's God, but God has
given it to him even in his humanity. While it never says this distinctly
in the scriptures, it is my belief that when God made the heavens
and the earth, remember, he said, let us make man in our image,
and he made man in his image. And he said, and let us set him
over the works of creation, the works that God did. And that's
what happened. Adam was king of the world. But
then Adam fell, like Humpty Dumpty. He fell and broke his crown. Oh wait, that was somebody else.
Couldn't be put back together again. It was Humpty Dumpty.
Nonetheless, man fell, and when he did, he lost his authority. But God never intended that a
natural man be ruler over all. Rather, he created for himself
a human body, which he inhabits. And he who is king of the universe
by right as God is also king of the universe as man, on whom
this authority was bestowed by the Father because of the Father's
pleasure in him. Now, it says here in John chapter
3, if you want to look back, John chapter 3, verse 35. Let's look at this authority. Now, I tell you this. If you
are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you have entrusted the care of your soul,
your everlasting soul, to him. You will like this. You will
like it that God has given him all authority. You will rejoice in it. And notice
what is written here in John 3, 35, the father loves the son. Now, modern evangelism begins
with God loves you. But you know, we have no authority
to tell that to anyone except a believer. If a man professes
to be a believer and has given us no reason to put a big question
mark on that, we can say to them, God loves you. But us saying
that is only as true as that man's profession of faith is.
But we know this of a certainty. The Father loves the Son. If no one else in all creation
loved the Son, the Father does. And He loves the Son for cause.
Now, the scriptures say, I will love them freely, speaking of
God's people. And by that, it doesn't mean
simply that it doesn't cost them anything. The word means without
a cause. And isn't that true? If God loves
us, he loves us without a cause, because we've given him no cause
to love us. We've given him exactly the opposite.
So he loves us without a cause, but he loves Christ for cause.
Why? Because everything God delights
in is found in the Lord Jesus Christ. Anybody that doesn't
love him is blind to his glory. Isaiah prophesied of Him, when
we shall see Him, there is no majesty that we will desire Him. Imagine that. God, the King of
glory, comes to earth, and we by nature are so blind, we saw
no majesty in Him. And we didn't desire Him, not
interested. Not only were they just not interested,
they were vehemently opposed to his existence. You say, well,
we're not like that. Not right now we aren't. But if God had left us to ourselves,
we would have been. If God had been incarnated instead
of in Bethlehem of Israel, If he had come into this earth over
here at Hague Hospital, born in there and raised in Rock Valley,
and we were unregenerate, we hadn't been born again, we wouldn't
have seen anything glorious in him. But the father did. And he loved
him. So it says, the father loves
the son and has placed everything in His hands. Now, we can only
understand these kind of things by way of illustration, and there
is no illustration that is perfect in every way. But inasmuch as
God represents Himself, Father and Son, what I see here is like a father
who has built a business. God created the heavens and the
earth, it's his. He spoke and it was, he commanded and it stood
firm. But this was his will, this was
his purpose, and having made his will and purpose, he handed
it to his son, much as men do when their sons grow up under
them and they reach a certain particular age, particularly
if the man kind of wants to retire, you know, what does he do? He
turns his business over to his son. Well, that's kind of what's
being said here. God created a universe. In fact,
he turned it over to the son to create it. For all things
were made by him and without him, nothing was made that has
been made. That was John's way in the first
chapter to describe it. And he's a little bit convoluted,
but he was just trying to make the point, there is nothing created
that he didn't create. As though the father said, son,
I want to create a universe. And here's what I want in it.
Here's what I want to happen in it. Here, you take care of
it. And the son did. He's placed all things in His
hands. But this was true, and what we've
described now is true of God the Son as the eternal Word of
God. This has also been done for God or the Son of God, Jesus
Christ, the man Christ Jesus. There is a man, a human being,
who controls everything and everyone in this universe. Now, if I say, why are you here
this morning? That's a broad question. You
might think I mean, what motivated you to come? And there may be
lots of motivations. But I can tell you the ultimate
reason that you're here. Jesus Christ wanted you here. And he has authority and power
to cause everything he wants to happen. And here we are. God put everything in his hands,
especially the salvation of his people. And when I say especially,
it's not like that's more in the hands of the Lord than the
other things are. It's just that that's what the
Bible is mostly about. God's work of saving his people,
for that's what he glorifies himself in. I'm a just God and a savior. There is no God like me. There
were other gods invented like men, and while they didn't truly
exist, when you look at these gods, some of them could save,
but they couldn't be just when they were doing it. And some
of these gods would be just, but in being just, they couldn't
save anybody, because there was nobody worthy of salvation. But here is the one and only
God that actually exists. But even if you just place him,
you know, with all the other gods that men have worshiped,
out of all those gods, he's the only one that is a just God. Absolutely everything he does
is just and right and proper. And at the same time, he's a
savior. and that therein is Christ or
is God's glory. It is written in the book of
Romans that Jesus Christ was made a propitiation or a sacrifice
of atonement in order that God could be just and justify those
that have faith in Christ. You see, faith in Christ doesn't
earn you salvation. How do I know? Well, John 3,
36, which people flip on its head so much, says, for God so
loved the world, he gave his only begotten son in order that
everyone that believes on him would not perish but have everlasting
life. Now, if faith earned you salvation,
Jesus Christ would not have had to come. But if he hadn't come, It said,
for God so loved the world. He didn't do anything though. And even those that believe on
him will perish. The only reason that believers
don't perish is because Christ died for them. Christ was sent
by the Father. He says, you have given him authority
over all people, all things. have been put in his hand. How far does this extend? To
all people. There is not a human being alive or that has ever lived
that is not under the absolute authority of our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ. This is one reason that you and
I really don't have to fret and worry about what the people in
this world do. Now, I'm not pretending that
I don't fret and worry. I do a lot of it. I'm just saying
there's no good cause for it among us who believe Christ.
Because no matter what they're doing, they're doing what the Lord Jesus
Christ determined for them to do. Some of the martyrs of old understood
this. Why? Among other reasons, here's
one reason, that Stephen, even as he was being stoned by those
Jews that hated the gospel, he bore no malice toward them. Why? He knew that they were under
the authority of Jesus Christ. And not one rock would hit him.
unless the Lord willed it. We like to talk about Jesus being
the Lord when things are good. He's the Lord over floods as
well as gentle rains. He's the Lord over illness, whether He heals it or lets a
person die of it. He is the Lord of food. And he
determines who eats and who starves. He's Lord over everyone. Wherever a person's born, he's
born there because that's where Christ said he'd be born. Lord
over all people. And then how great is this authority? Look at Matthew chapter 28. Now we give our politicians a
limited scope of authority. You have authority to do this. And our Constitution expressly
limits their authority on matters of speech and worship and some other things. Why? We don't trust them with that
much authority and we're wise not to. But notice now the authority
that is given to Christ, verse 18 of chapter 28. Then Jesus
came to them and said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been
given to me. It was already his because he's
God, but now it's his even in his humanity. He decides everything. I remember
when President Bush, and I can't even remember what the situation
was about, probably something to do with war in Afghanistan
or Iraq or something like that, because I'm the decider. Well,
sort of. You will decide. I will decide
what the true decider has decided. Now, when we decide according
to his will, according to his authority, it's not going to
be like we're saying, oh, I wanted to do this, but Jesus wouldn't
let me. I've got to do what his will
said. People think that that's what
sovereignty is about. They claim that because we believe that
God chose whom he would save, that that means, well, nobody
else has got a chance. And there might be people that
want God's salvation but won't be able to get it because they're
not elect. Friends, when God chose people, nobody had a chance. because he chose us as sinners. The only time my man ever had
a chance, if you want to put it in those terms, was in
the Garden of Eden. He had his chance to do it right,
and he didn't. Salvation is not a matter of
chance or opportunity. It's a matter of sovereign Lord
who has all authority heaven and on earth. He is the one of
whom Nebuchadnezzar said, none can stay his hand or question
his works. That's a lot of authority. Isaiah chapter 9, let's look
over there a minute. This is a prophecy of the coming
of our Lord Jesus. We'll begin reading at verse
6 of Isaiah chapter 9. You'll probably recognize this.
For unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given, and the
government will be on his shoulders. That means he's going to be the
king. And he will be called Wonderful
Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. of the increase of his government
and peace, there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne
and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice
and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the
Lord Almighty will accomplish this. So when we come to the
Lord Jesus, We are to come to him as the Lord. We don't come to him to accept
him as personal savior and someday later on, if it fits with our
agenda for life, make him Lord of our life. We need salvation and nobody
can be a savior unless he's in control. If a fella, if somebody came
to rescue you, say you've been kidnapped by pirates, they've
got you aboard their ship on the high seas and there you are.
And they're, you know, they say you bring us, you know, so much
gold or we're going to pitch him overboard with an anchor
tied to him. And then somebody manages to get on board. And he comes into the cell where,
you know, where they've got you locked up. He says, I'm here
to rescue you. And you might say to him, well, you
know, I appreciate the effort, but you better turn around and
look behind you. You're not in control here. And he turns around
and there's seven or eight pirates with weapons drawn. And that
Savior, is as much in need of salvation as the guy he came
to save. The only one who can save is
the one who can control the situation. And that's why we come to him
recognizing he's the Lord. There's no use to come to him
if he's not the Lord. If he doesn't have all authority,
there's no reason to come to him. Someone once said, if God's sovereign,
why pray? And somebody wisely responded
with, well, why pray if he's not? If he doesn't control things,
why ask him for anything? Our children ask us for stuff
because they believed we could get it. And we bring our request to God.
We call upon his name because we know he can do anything he
wants. All right, back to John chapter
17. You have given him authority
over all people. I'm glad. I used to read a whole lot of news.
I don't read much anymore. That's for two reasons. I don't
believe it. I mean, there's less and less
I can find that is in print or it's on the internet now, but
that you can read it and think that you've been told the truth.
I don't even know anybody that's really trying. The other thing
is, I realize there's nothing I can do about it. As an American,
I can go vote, but you cast your vote, and even if the guy you
voted for gets in, that's no assurance that what you want
done is going to get done. And I used to read that stuff
and I'd get all wrapped up. That's not right, they shouldn't
do that. Finally I thought, you know, why read a bunch of stuff
that you don't want to hear about and you can't fix? Know this,
the Lord's in control of them. Not one of them will ever do
anything that can bring eternal harm to any one of God's sheep. And that's the next point here.
He is the Lord of all, controls everyone, why? in order to be the savior of
some. Remember in Romans 8, 28, everybody
loves to quote that. And we know that God works all
things together for good to them who love him, who are the called
according to his purpose. And they love that until you
say, do you realize that means he controls absolutely everything? What? No. He doesn't control us. Well,
if he doesn't control people, actually I'd rather him give
up control over volcanoes than give up control over people. I can find volcanoes and stay
away from them. People, not so much. He controls everything. And he
controls it. This is Christ and His authority.
He controls it for the purpose of bringing the eternal good
of our salvation. This may be something that'll
give you some comfort in times of trial and trouble. Whatever
is happening to you, it's God's way of saving you. I know he
saved us through Christ, but whatever's happening to you,
he's doing it for the purpose of preserving you. There's nothing
that happens that has not been turned to the salvation of God's
people. You granted him authority over
all people that he might give eternal life to all those you
have given him. He's got authority over all people,
but it's for this purpose to give the eternal life to all
God's elect. Later on in this chapter, the
Lord Jesus Christ said concerning those the Father had given him,
he said, they were yours and you gave them to me and I've
not lost any of them. And he didn't and he won't. One of the questions that used
to be asked and debated among people in my youth, even in college
and stuff, can a man lose his salvation? And years later, when
I learned something more of the gospel, I wrote an article. I
think it's up here in the newspaper. I know I've put it in a bulletin.
I said, can a man lose his salvation? Yes, he can. And the sooner,
the better. Because man's salvation is worthless. What he needs is God's salvation.
You can't lose God's salvation because you didn't get it. You
can't lose what you didn't procure. Jesus Christ got salvation. Jonah said salvation is of the
Lord. If salvation is of the Lord, it can't fail. unless the Lord can fail. Give eternal life. Can a man
lose his salvation? Depends on who saved him. If
he saved himself, he will lose his salvation. If Christ saved him, he can't
lose it because his salvation is one of those blessings in
the heavenly places. that God has given to all his
people in Christ. Granted him authority to give
eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this eternal
life doesn't mean just everlasting life. Now God is everlasting
simply because he dwells outside of time and space. Usually I refer to God in eternity. He's eternal. We may be everlasting,
but that's just an infinite number of moments. With God, there are
no moments. But he grants this everlasting
life, but it's not a life that's simply characterized by the fact
it's an existence that never comes to an end, because that's
true of the unbelieving as well. They have an everlasting existence,
but theirs is an everlasting death. They are forever dying. because they can't get it done.
Dying involves more than the loss of this body. To truly die,
one comes under the wrath of God, and he's not done dying
until the wrath has been spent. But the wrath of God, it's the
wrath of an infinite God, therefore it's infinite wrath, therefore
a man can never, a natural person can never get done bearing the
wrath of God for his own sin. So they have eternal dying, everlasting
dying. We have everlasting life. What
does that mean? It's a different kind of life.
The Lord Jesus Christ said, I've come that they might have life
and have it to the full, more abundantly. And they used to
talk in, I remember the colleges I went to, they even had a group,
singing group, called the Abundant Life Singers. And preachers would
come and say, do you want the abundant life? And all they thought
that, what they were talking about was a life filled with
happiness and filled with ease and basically fleshly things. The
Lord says, I've come that they might have life. So whatever
life he came to bring them is a life they didn't have before
he got here. And the abundant life is not merely an increase
of the life we already have. He gives us a life which is called
eternal or everlasting life, but it's a life that's more than
just an eternal existence. It's a life that is in union
with God. That's why it goes on to say,
verse three, now this is eternal life, that they may know you.
the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent."
Now, eternal life, this life that
Christ gives to all whom God gave to Him, its purpose is that
we might know God. That sounds like something different
from what so many evangelists promise people. Because people
are more interested in heavenly real estate than they are a relationship
with the Father and with the Son and the Spirit. Know God. And the experience
of this life is, this life that Christ gives, is the experience
of knowing God. like all knowledge of persons. Philosophy class, I learned there's
three kinds of knowledge. There's knowledge of facts, knowledge
how to, you know, I know how to play the piano. Then there's
knowledge of persons. And that's the kind of knowledge
being spoken of here, to know God. Not just know about him,
not just have a finely detailed orthodox theology, to know him. To know him like you know your
friends, your family, your spouses know one another. Intimate, deep,
interactive knowledge. I was arguing, I say arguing,
talking to someone on a subject, and actually the subject was
the salvation of infants that die. And I said, I'll be honest with
you, I cannot point you to any scripture that distinctly says that. But
I know God. And from my knowledge of him,
I cannot believe. that he would cause to perish an infant who
did not even have the capacity on a natural level to understand
anything, to know God. And this knowledge
only increases. Remember it says of the increase
of his government and peace, there'll be no end. Do you realize
that by the authority given to Christ throughout eternity, we
will come to know God better and better and better. It's not
as though when we die, we're suddenly going to have complete
knowledge of God. He's infinite. There's no way we're ever going
to reach an infinite knowledge of him. But imagine that. to
know God, to be intimately united to Him. It's what we were made
for. And Jesus Christ has been given
authority over everyone and everything
in order to make that happen, for us to be united to God through
Him. and for that union to increase
in its strength and blessedness forever. You interested in a mansion now?
You want your heavenly Cadillac? That's not what heaven's about.
Heaven's about knowing God. And there can't be anything better
than that. Christ is Lord of all. He's the Savior of some. I thank God I'm part of that
some. Are you? And here's the promise. We know
that God has chosen a people, but we don't know who he chose,
but we do know his promises. All that the Father gives to
me will come to me. That's just a fact. Then the
Lord said, and he that comes to me I will in no wise cast
out." He said, well, I got to wait and figure out whether I
was given to him. No, that's not what it said. All that the
Father gave to the Son will come to the Son. That's just so. But
here's the promise, and here's what you need to act on. He that
comes to me, I won't turn him away. It won't matter what he's
done. I'll forgive his sins. I'll never
bring him up again." And it will be discovered he
was one of those whom the Father chose and gave to Christ and
who Christ, by His infinite, all-consuming authority, brought
to Himself through the power of His authority. May the Lord
bless His word.