Let's begin reading at verse
25. At that point, some of the people
of Jerusalem began to ask, isn't this the man they are trying
to kill? Here he is speaking publicly and they're not saying
a word to him. Have the authorities really concluded
that he is the Christ? But we know where this man is
from. When the Christ comes, no one will know where he is
from. Then Jesus, still teaching in
the temple courts, cried out, yes, you know me, and you know
where I am from. I am not here on my own, but
he who sent me is true. You do not know him, but I know
him because I am from him, and he sent me. At this, they tried
to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him because his time
had not yet come. Still, many in the crowd put
their faith in him. They said, when the Christ comes,
will he do more miraculous signs than this man? The Pharisees
heard the crowd whispering such things about him. Then the chief
priests and the Pharisees sent temple guards to arrest him. Jesus said, I am with you for
only a short time, and then I go to the one who sent me. You will
look for me, but you will not find me. And where I am, you
cannot come. The Jews said to one another,
where does this man intend to go that we cannot find him? Will he go where our people live,
scattered among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks? What did he
mean when he said, you will look for me, but you will not find
me? And where I am, you cannot come. On the last and greatest
day of the feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, if
anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes
in me, as the scriptures have said, streams of living water
will flow from within him. By this, he meant the spirit
whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to
that time, the spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not
yet been glorified. On hearing these words, some
of the people said, surely this man is the prophet. Others said
he is the Christ. Still others asked, how can the
Christ come from Galilee? Does not the scripture say that
the Christ will come from David's family and from Bethlehem, the
town where David lived? Thus, the people were divided
because of Jesus. Some wanted to seize him, but
no one laid a hand on him. Finally, the temple guards went
back to the chief priests and Pharisees who asked them, why
didn't you bring him in? no one ever spoke the way this
man does, the guards declared. Now verse 46 there, where the
guard said no one ever spoke the way this man does, that's
the subject for this morning. Now I'm fascinated by language. Those of you who hear me regularly
know that in my preaching I spend probably an unusual amount of
time defining words. I am fascinated by the very concept
of language, how that you and I can speak to one another and
by our speaking create thoughts in one another's minds. I'm fascinated by language, the
way that it can be used and misused. The first sin committed on our
planet was not Eve eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. The first sin was Satan telling
a lie. Satan using words to mislead
someone else. And that's why words have such
importance because with them we can do good and with them
we can do evil. We were taught as children, I
remember my mother telling me this when kids would tease me
and call me names, and she would say, well, sticks and stones
can break my bones, but words can never hurt me. And I guess
it's good to teach children that in the end, they are only words,
and you can choose, at least to some degree, the damage that
they do. But we also know this, that we
more easily heal up from the wounds created by sticks and
stones, then we heal up from the inner wounds caused by vicious
words. Paul said, as he wrote one of
his letters, he says, I really don't want to write you to bring
you down. I want to build you up. As the years have gone by, one
of the things that has occurred to me, and I hope that I'm doing
a reasonably good job of putting it into practice, but understanding
the power of language, I try as much as within me, as much
as I can, to speak in a way that builds people up. As you know,
on social media, It seems quite often to bring out the very worst
in people. People learn manners to use in
public and learn to say please and thank you and to talk nice
to one another, but once they get behind a screen and have
a little anonymity or are plenty far away from whoever they are
talking to, they speak viciously, call one another degrading names. If they disagree, it's no longer
a matter of disagreement, it's a matter of the other side must
be stupid and this sort of thing. But it is so easy to use words
to build people up rather than to tear them down. This doesn't
mean we excuse what is wrong. This doesn't mean that we agree
or pretend that we agree with others we do not agree with or
somehow pretend that both of us can be right. That's impossible.
It's impossible, but there still is a way to speak to one another
that even in correction and even in rebuke, you build people up
rather than tear them down. Language is a remarkable thing. Now, the Lord Jesus came as the
Messiah, the Christ, the Hebrew and Greek words meaning the anointed
one. In the Old Testament, there were
three offices to which a man was anointed, prophet, priest,
and king. Now, our Lord came as the epitome
of all three of these offices. He fulfilled those offices in
the order in which we commonly say them, prophet, priest, and
king. His first ministry to us was
as the prophet who told us the truth about God. And then he
did the work of a priest as he offered himself without spot
to God. And having been successful in
that offering, He was seated at the right hand of the father
and now rules all things as the king. The job of a king is to
ensure the peace and prosperity of the people over whom he rules.
And that's what the Lord Jesus Christ does for his church. Now
at this time of year, we tend to focus on his priestly work,
I say we, but in truth, we here at Grace Community Church, we
don't pay a great deal of attention to holidays. We're not saying
it's wrong to do so, we just don't feel the need to. Also, every time we meet, We
will say something about the priestly work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Paul said, I determined to know
nothing among you other than Jesus Christ and him crucified. There is not a line of scripture,
there is not a word of scripture that does not bear some relationship
to Jesus Christ, who he is and what he did. and it's the job
of every man sent of God to preach, to take whatever scripture he
is given, whatever scripture he decides to use in his preaching,
he is to find in that scripture what the scriptures have to say
about Christ, and preach a message that will point men to Christ,
and in particular, point them to Christ as our great high priest,
who gave himself as an offering for sin that he might redeem
his people. But today we're going to focus
on his prophetic work, his speaking work. In Deuteronomy chapter 18, verses
18 and 19, Moses tells the people something that
the Lord had told him. He says, I will raise up for
them, now this is God saying, I will raise up for them, the
Jews, a prophet like you, that is like Moses, from among their
fellow Israelites, and I will put my word in his mouth. He
will tell them everything I command him. I myself will call to account
anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks
in my name." Now, the lesser fulfillment of this particular
prophecy from the mouth of Moses was the various prophets that
God raised up throughout the history of the Jewish nation. But the Jews came to understand
that this prophecy from Moses would not find what we might
call complete fulfillment in all those many prophets that
would come and go over the next 1,500 years. Rather, they understood
that there was one who would come as God's ultimate and final
prophet. And they referred to this prophet
as the prophet. Now, I believe in the King James,
it says that prophet, and I'm not sure why the King James put
it that way, because the word in the Greek is very simply the
prophet. But it certainly referred to
a specific person. And they said in verse 40 here,
on hearing his words, some of the people said, surely this
man is the prophet. They heard what he had to say,
And it seemed to them that this man who they were listening to
must be that one that Moses spoke about. Now, they asked that question. And the answer is, yes, he was
and is the prophet. And as the prophet, He spoke
like none before him had been able to speak, and no one since
has been able to speak like he did. You know, the last few verses
of Deuteronomy say this of Moses. Since that time, no prophet has
arisen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.
No prophet who did all the signs and wonders that the Lord sent
Moses to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his officials
and to all his land. And no prophet who performed
all the mighty acts of power and awesome deeds. that Moses
did in the sight of all Israel. But that was written before the
Lord Jesus showed up. And when the Lord had come, well
now appears one who makes the words of Moses seem like the
garbled language of an infant. No one, not even Moses, ever
spoke like the Lord Jesus Christ did. Now, let's take a few minutes
to take note of our Lord as God's ultimate prophet. Christ is the
Word of God. When John begins his gospel,
he says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God, And 13 verses later he says, and
the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. All the prophets that came before
the Lord spoke the Word of God. Christ is the Word of God. People call the Bible the Word
of God, and I don't have a problem with them doing that, so long
as they understand this, the Bible never calls itself the
Word of God. It saves that designation for
Jesus Christ himself, or the message concerning the Lord Jesus
Christ. Paul wrote, faith comes by hearing,
and hearing by the Word of God. Now, a preacher can give a wonderful
exposition of a portion of scripture. That is, he can learn the proper
meaning of all the words. He can speak to the congregation
and break it up into its various parts so that they know what
it is the Bible says at that particular point. Yet, having
done all of that, it does not mean that he has preached the
word of God. It does not mean that his sermon
is that living, powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, able
to reveal the thoughts and intents of the heart, word of God that
we read about in Hebrews chapter four. You see, the word of God,
as the Bible uses the phrase, the word of God or the word of
the Lord, is not referring to the scriptures, and we're not
diminishing the scriptures here, What we're pointing out is that
no message is the word of God until it is a message of Christ,
until it is the gospel. A message can be full of scriptures
and not be the word of truth, which James tells us is the tool
by which God works the new birth. the older manuscripts of the
New Testament actually say, there in Romans chapter 10, faith comes
by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ. And that word,
the Greek word, translated word, it is the common word for word,
logos, But that word can also be translated message. You see,
the word of God is not just a collection of words, no matter how accurately
laid out. It is a particular message. And
every scripture was designed in some way or another to make
that message known. But the scriptures in the mouth
of preachers are not the word of God. until the preacher declares
the gospel, the message of Christ. The Pharisees and the leaders
of the law were the Bible experts of their day. They were the conservatives
of their day. The Sadducees were the liberals.
In our religious world, here in the United States of America,
just like in the political world, you have the conservatives and
the liberals, and both take great pride in being whatever it is
they claim to be. Well, the Pharisees were the
conservatives of their day. They were the ones who believed
that the Bible was indeed inspired by God and a full and accurate
record of the testimony of God. And they studied them. But the
Lord said to them, you search the scriptures for in them you
think you have eternal life. These are the scriptures that
testify of me, but you will not come to me that you might have
life. Now, remember when our Lord Jesus
said this, the only scriptures available were what we call the
Old Testament. And what he was saying is this,
even though the scriptures tell us about creation and how the
world got here and tell us about the days between creation and
the flood of Noah and describe to us the flood of Noah and then
afterwards begin to tell the story of Abraham and his descendants.
And then in the book of Exodus, we see how God entered into covenant
with the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. entered into
covenant with them as a nation. And we have the histories of
all of the notable things that went on in Israel during those
1,500 years till Christ appeared. And we have the words of the
prophets. We have all of these things. But understand that none
of those things were about the creation or Abraham or the Jews. Yes, they tell us about them,
but that was not the point of those scriptures. All of those
scriptures were given for this single reason, to point to the
Lord Jesus Christ. And no matter how well we may
understand, maybe even the original languages of the scriptures,
And no matter how much we may understand the history taught
to us in the scriptures, no matter how much we may study and be
conservatives as we approach the scriptures, we have not learned
the word of God until we have found Christ in those scriptures.
We have not declared the word of God until we have declared
Christ from those scriptures. You remember the story of Philip, the evangelist, as he
went The Spirit of God took him away from where he was preaching
and set him close by to a man in a chariot, an Ethiopian, an
official in the court of Queen Candace. And as the Holy Spirit told him,
he said, you go join yourself to that chariot. So Philip ran
up beside him and I can kind of imagine the scene. He's trotting
there alongside the chariot as he goes along and he looks to
see what the Ethiopian is doing. And he's reading from what we
call Isaiah 53. And Philip asked the Ethiopian,
he says, do you understand what you're reading? And the Ethiopian
said, how can I unless someone explains it to me? And the comment
made there is that beginning at that scripture, Philip preached
unto him Jesus. Jesus is the word of God and
no message that is preached is the word of God until it is a
message concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter said, the word
of the Lord endures forever and this is the word which by the
gospel was preached to you. You see, it's the gospel that
is the word of God. The scriptures are a record of
how God brought the gospel to pass. And as Paul said, they
are able to make a man wise unto salvation. But the scriptures
are not properly understood nor properly preached. until they
are used to declare the good news of God's grace in Christ
Jesus. Christ is the Word of God and
Christ is the truth of God. Now the test of every prophet
in Old Testament times was whether they tell the truth. In the Old Testament, if a man
claimed to be a prophet, but something that he prophesied
as from the Lord did not come to pass, then he was to be put
to death because he's a false prophet. If a man's word was not true,
then he was not sent from God, no matter how good his word may
sound. The faithful prophets of God,
those whom God had truly sent, They always told the truth. But Jesus Christ didn't say,
I know the truth. He didn't say, I tell the truth.
He said, I am the truth. Do you see how important that
distinction is? We haven't spoken truth until we have spoken of
Christ truthfully. I am the way, the truth, and
the life, says the Lord Jesus. And indeed He is, and there is
no truth apart from Him. There is no understanding of
anything, no proper understanding of anything, until it is understood
in the light of Christ. So He is the Word of God, He
is the truth of God, and we can go so far as this to say He is
the language of God. So on the day of Pentecost, when
the gospel was to be preached for the first time in its full
form. See, up until then, the gospel
had been preached, but it was in partial forms or in dark and
mysterious ways, in types and shadows. But now all has been
fulfilled. And all the truth that there
is to tell has been told. Therefore, on the day of Pentecost,
the apostles, for the first time, preached the full-blown gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, when that happened, the
Holy Spirit gave a miraculous gift to the apostles. And on
that day they were enabled to speak in languages that they
had not learned in the normal way of learning a language. Just
suddenly they were able to do it. And they did it so well that
those who were at the temple on that day who had come from
foreign nations said, what an amazing thing this is. that each
one of us is hearing of the mighty works of God in his own native
language. The language they were born in. and learned. You know, if you
learn a second language as an adult, you probably never grasp
it quite as well as if you had learned it and heard it from
the time you were born. A person's native language has
a special power with them that other languages probably never
will. And so, that's the way it's specifically stated in the
Greek language. They heard it in the language
from where they were born. Native language. But there is
a language that is the native language of all those who have
been born again, for it is the language of the Father. Now,
our Lord often used the phrase, he that has an ear, let him hear. You know, if you go into a group,
a group of people, but they don't speak your language, you might
hear them, but you won't understand them. You won't have an ear for
what they're saying. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ came
and he spoke in a language that none but those who are born again
can truly hear and understand. What language is that? We read
in the book of Hebrews chapter one, the first two verses, it
says that God, who in various times and in various ways spoke
to the fathers through the prophets, has in these last days spoken
to us, and now nearly every translation will say, has spoken to us in
his son, or has spoken to us in the son. But if you translate
it strictly from the Greek language, it says God has spoken in son. We talk of people and we say
he speaks in English or he speaks in French or he speaks in Spanish. God speaks in son. Every word
from the father is a word concerning the son. and he speaks it through
the Son. And it is a language which is
native to those who have been born again by the Spirit of God.
They can hear it, no one else does. No one else understands. It's a foreign language to them.
It's the language of Son. You know, it's believed by most
people that the new birth is the result of faith. But that's
not true. Faith is the result of the new
birth. The Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus,
you cannot perceive the kingdom of God unless you are born again. And the reason is the message
of the kingdom is spoken in a language that no one other than those
who have been born again can understand. Now, this is a miraculous
and spiritual thing. You know, those who have, the
Spirit of God has not given them life, they hear the exact same
human words that those who have been born of the Spirit of God,
same words that they hear. But those who have not been born
of the Spirit of God don't understand it. They are like the Pharisees
and the teachers of the law who heard the human words and got
only a human message out of it. But there are those who have
been given spiritual life and the spirit comes and the Lord
Jesus says in John chapter three, the spirit is like the wind.
You don't know where it's coming from. You don't know where it's
going. You can't control it. The spirit of God goes where
it wills and you cannot stop him. You cannot force him. And
so it is among those who are born of the Spirit of God. He
goes throughout the world and he gives life to those whom God
has chosen. And when they are given this
life, they suddenly understand things that they could not understand
before. There are people who have sat
under the preaching of the gospel by faithful men. The men said
it right, they preached it right, they set forth Christ, and it
made no sense to those who were listening. They think they may
have understand it, they've got the theology down right, you
know, and they've got all their I's dotted and all their T's
crossed and they are orthodox, but they really don't understand
what's being said. But if they are of God's people,
the time will come when the spirit of God will give them spiritual
life and then the scriptures, the preaching of the truth of
God, they'll hear it and they'll say, oh, that's what he was talking
about. It's an amazing thing that the
scriptures and gospel preaching take on an entirely different
meaning once a person has been born again. And they'll say,
I cannot understand, I can't believe I didn't understand this
before. It's so simple. Well, we know
why we didn't understand it before. It was spoken in a language we
did not know. It was spoken, it's the native
language of a place in which we had not yet been born. But
once we were born, born of God, we understood God's language,
and it's the language of son. Now, these guards that had been sent
by the chief priests They were supposed to arrest
him. And after they listened, they went to do that. They had
every intention of arresting him, but they didn't. And when
they came back to those who had sent them, they were challenged
by those who sent them, why didn't you bring him in? It seemed like
a simple thing to them. I mean, they sent several guards.
I don't know how many, but it was more than one. There was
only one Jesus, a lot of guards. How come the guards came back
without one man? It's easy to arrest one man,
but they didn't do it. And it's not as though they did
not arrest him because He slipped away and they lost track of him. It's not as though they didn't
arrest him because he could fight better than them and he fought
them off and ran. It's not like they didn't arrest
him because he was surrounded by too many people to get to
him. They did not give any of those reasons for why they did
not arrest him. They said, here's the reason
we didn't arrest him. No one ever spoke the way this
man does. No one. Now this is a testimony
from the mouths of those who were always around the Pharisees
and the teachers of the law as they spoke. You can imagine what
an insult this was to the Pharisees and teachers of the law. They
thought they were the big shot teachers. They were the ones
with the titles after their name. They were the ones that people
called rabbi, teacher, They liked to be, as the Lord
said, they liked to be noticed on the street and people say,
well, good to see you, Reverend so-and-so. Good to see you, Doctor
this and that. And these guards, who I imagine
they had not had nearly the amount of training that the Pharisees
and the teachers of the law did, these guards who had been listening
to these Pharisees and teachers of the law preach said, Not one
of you ever spoke like this man does. And their word to arrest
him could not compel them to arrest him when they heard his
word. It says in Matthew chapter seven,
verse 28 and 29, when Jesus had finished saying these things,
The crowds were amazed at his teaching because he taught as
one who had authority and not as the teachers of the law. Now,
as one who has a bachelor's degree in pre-seminary Bible, which
means I've got a degree that did nothing more than to prepare
me to go to more school than I never did. But I heard a lot
of Bible teachers. And one thing about them, they come with the degrees after
their name, and I'm not dismissing all of them, but this is something
I know about them. As a preacher, having preached
the gospel for 40 years and heard a lot of other preachers, I know
this about the way natural men speak. They like to speak in
terms of hypotheticals. They say, I believe that this
means, and then another one will say, well, I think it's this
way. And they sit around and they have their cordial religious
conversations, and then pat one another on the back over how
intelligent and well-educated they are in the things of God.
Now, some of them fight. Some of them fight today. And
they denounce one another, just like politicians from different
parties denounce one another. And they yell, and they think
by yelling or by using harsh language, they add some kind
of authority to what they're saying. But this has been my experience,
that those who have true authority in what they say, they don't
have to raise their voice. Now every preacher preaches according
to his personality. Sometimes I can get pretty loud.
And I've got some brethren in the ministry who can get a whole
lot louder than I do. That's just an outworking of personality.
It's not as though that I think that I can add any power to the
declaration of the message of God by my clever use of words,
by raising or lowering my voice, or any such thing. The older I get, the more I appreciate
the preaching of those who just stand up and tell the truth, who are not ornamented in their
language. But our Lord Jesus Christ had
an authority when he spoke. And that's because when he spoke,
it didn't sound the same as when the professional preachers spoke. He had authority. I tend to think,
and I can't be certain of it because the Bible never specifically
says how this authority was discerned, but I tend to think it was this. that he said things that no one
else or no one can naturally come up with, but when he said
them, they had the ring of truth in them. In my first year of Bible school,
as I was in systematic theology on the subject of soteriology,
see, that's the authority that systematic theology has. It has
words that you don't know the meaning of. Soteriology is the
study of salvation. And our instructor had a PhD
from Dallas Theological Seminary. He was probably the most well-liked
professor in the school. And I was in class one morning
and my mind was wondering, as it normally does when I listen
to people, But then I heard a word I'd never
heard before. Somebody mentioned the name Calvin. Actually, what they asked about
was Calvinism. I'd never even heard of that
word. Well, the professor, being from Dallas Theological Seminary,
would be what we call a four-point Calvinist, or what in theological
circles is called a four-point Calvinist. And because this was a theology
class, when he was asked about Calvinism, he just described
what it was. He said, Calvinism consists of
five points. And these five points can be
arranged under the acronym of TULIP. And they are total depravity,
unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace,
and perseverance of the saints. Now, let me tell you. Those aren't the best titles
you can give those doctrines, but I imagine they gave them
those, at least English-speaking people did, because they could
fit it under the acronym of TULIP. But he named each of those five
doctrines and gave a little description of what each one was. And as
soon as I heard it, I said, well, If God is God, that's the way
it's got to be. Now, even though he was not speaking
of all five of those doctrines as truth, he only adhered to
four of them. But just in describing what they
meant, I heard it and I said, that makes more sense than anything
I've ever heard before. I knew by my own experience the
depravity of my nature. And that always made it kind
of confusing when preachers told me that I ought to try to be
good. And I would try, and I always failed. And I hear them call on me and
make decisions. It's all up to you now. And since
that's what my religious leaders were telling me, God's done all
he can, it's all up to you now. You know, when you're a kid,
you just accept what you're told, but really that didn't make any
sense to me. God's done all he can, is there anything too hard
for the Lord? Come on now. Would someone who
spoke the universe into existence ever take his crowning achievement,
the salvation of sinners, and put the success of it into the
hands of sinful man? No, doesn't even make sense. I'm not gonna take the time to
go through all those doctrines, but this I know. When I heard
them, there was an authority in that teaching, an immediate
impact. Because despite all I had been
told up till that point, what he described made perfect sense. When we speak, talk of speech
and connection to authority, We're generally talking about
one or both of two things. We may say a man speaks with
authority when he is recognized as an authority on a particular
subject. He knows and understands the
subject that he's talking about. You know, I've got an opinion
about this coronavirus going around. Now, I got an opinion,
but I got no authority. Now, if Brother Tyler were to
tell us something about this virus, it would come with some
authority because he's a doctor and he knows these things. Certainly
knows them better than I do. And so there's that kind of authority.
You are in a position to know and understand the subject being
spoken about. And we also say that a man speaks
with authority if his words make things happen. Now imagine a
scene on a ship and sailors are presented with a problem and
they're all just down there in the lower ranks and they're fussing
and fighting with one another and we ought to do this. No,
we ought to do that. And everybody's fussing and fighting about what
ought to be done and nothing's being done. And then in walks
the captain of the ship and immediately those men become quiet. He says,
what's going on? Someone says, well, we've got
this and that problem. And he says, okay, you do this,
you do that. You go here and things start
happening. Now that's a man that speaks
with authority. And that's our Lord Jesus Christ. He's the ultimate
authority on things pertaining to God, for as the Word of God,
he was with God and is God. Who better could tell us about
the things of God than the Lord Jesus Christ? Christ is the ultimate
authority in that when he speaks, things happen. His first recorded
words in the Bible, you know what they are? Let there be light. You say,
well, God said that. Yeah, but the Bible says that
Jesus Christ, the word, is the one who created everything. And
the first thing he said was, let there be light. And you know
what the result of it was? And there was light. Whenever
the Lord Jesus Christ speaks, whatever he says happens. centurion
came to the Lord Jesus to request that he heal someone and he said
to the Lord Jesus I'm a man with authority and I say to this man
go do that and he does it and I say to this one go you go do
that and he does it and so he says would you come
and heal this person and our Lord said and commended the centurion. He said, I've not found so great
faith in all of Israel. Why? What of this centurion's
understanding and faith exceeded that of all the people in Israel? He understood that Jesus Christ
was a man of authority. And he said, and that whenever
Jesus Christ speaks, whatever he speaks happens. even as men thought themselves
and their words to carry more authority than the word of Christ.
And they sent men to arrest him in the Garden of Eden, excuse
me, the Garden of Gethsemane. He, the Lord Jesus Christ, told
those sent into the garden, he says, you let these go, meaning
his disciples. Now remember that religious leaders
they despised Christ and everybody associated with Christ. And so
when they went to arrest him they had also sent people to
find Lazarus. And you can be sure that if they
could round up all those disciples that's what they were going to
do. Well they come to arrest them and the Lord says, you can
have me but you can't have them. me, but you let these go." And
you know what these soldiers did, these guards, these men
who came with the authority of the high priest? They did exactly
what Jesus told them to do. And what power we can then see
in our Lord's climactic word from the cross, it is finished.
Shall we then put a question mark on our Lord's word? Can
we doubt that he is in a perfect position to know when the job
is finished? Can we doubt that he was not
perfectly aware of what God required? in the redemption of his people?
And did he not have perfect understanding of what he had just suffered? And could he not then, with absolute
authority, declare that what he had done was enough, therefore
the work is finished? And yet, people will come after
that and say, well, Jesus did all he could. But you know, it won't do you
any good. I mean, he wants to save you, but it's not gonna
work unless you, well, friends, that means his work isn't finished.
Something's gotta be added to it. No, Jesus Christ said it was
finished. And as the word and the truth
and the language of God, we can be assured it was indeed finished. And by the sheer of authority
of his word, he spoke and it made things to be true. And his
saying that the work was finished caused it to be finished, perfected. Well, what did he say? He said things like, come to
me and I will give you rest. And those that came to him were
given rest. He said, he that lives in me
will never die. And he that lives and believes
in me, though he dies, yet shall he live. And his word makes it
so. In the Old Testament, speaking
through the prophet Isaiah, our Lord Jesus said, look unto me,
all you ends of the earth, and be saved, for I am God, and there
is no other. And it comes with the authority
of the Lord Jesus Christ, because he said it, it's so. And everyone
who turns and looks to him finds salvation. What did he say? He said, I am
the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except
by me. And here in this chapter of John,
he says, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.
Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, streams of
living water will flow from within him. And so it is. Our Lord was the last of God's
prophets. He spoke like no one before him.
And when he had spoken all that was necessary for the remainder
of this age, he left. But he will speak again. For the day is coming when his
voice shall split the skies. And he shall descend from heaven
with a shout. I don't know exactly what the
words will be. I know what their effect will
be. The graves of all shall open, and all shall be raised from
the dead, some to be raised to condemnation and eternal death. But the dead in Christ shall
rise. And those which are alive and remain until he speaks this
final word, they shall all be caught up together with him. And they shall all forever, always
be with the Lord. His word will make it so. Heavenly Father, We thank you
for the word of our Lord Jesus and the authority it carries. We thank you that you have not
left us to the wisdom of men, but have revealed yourself in
your son, spoken to us in the language of son, and have made
us able to understand you by our understanding of the son. Make his name glorious among
us, Lord. Let us have ears to hear, and
may we hear. and believe. It is in that name
we pray. Amen.