It may not be well with my body,
but as long as it is well with my soul, all is well. And someday,
someday I'm going to get a new body and it'll be well with my
soul and body. It'll all be well, won't it?
It'll all be well. Like one of the phrases I've
learned since I've been here, it's all good. It's all good. Someday, not too long from now,
it'll all be good. It'll all be well. That was a
beautiful song, beautifully sang. It was encouraging to me. That's
what I was thinking of while you all were saying it. I think
it will be well one day, body, soul, and spirit. The Gospel
of John, chapter 1. Chapter 1. Pick up in verse 6,
where we left off in verse 5 last week. I titled this, Message,
a man called John. A man called John. Now, starting
in verse 6, the Holy Spirit changes just for two or three verses
to John the Baptist. Now, He'll pick back up on John
the Baptist over in verse 15, but He changes here for just
a few verses because John is the forerunner. He's foretold
to be the forerunner in Malachi. That's one of the reasons I believe
the Holy Spirit picks up on John here because John, the apostle
John is picking up on this because they counted John the Baptist
to be a prophet. And he was prophesied of in Malachi
as a forerunner. And the forerunner is here. And
the people believed him to be a prophet. and him being a prophet
and pointing out the Lord Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God is
just another testimony to the person, to the person of Christ,
the Word. The Word is also the Lamb. Isn't that something? God said
to Abraham, when Isaac said to Abraham, He said, here's the fire and
here's the wood, but where's the lamb? And Abraham said, God
will provide Himself a lamb. Jesus Christ is that lamb of
God's providing, and God has provided Himself as the lamb. God Himself. I've been reading
through Leviticus, I'm in the numbers now, and you get this
lamb after lamb, offering after offering. Here's the last one,
and it's God. God has provided himself as the
Lamb. That being so, he cannot fail. He cannot fail. If the Lamb of
God, who is the Word of God, who is God, died for my sins,
I'm gonna be saved. God's gonna save me. This sinner,
and all those sinners, all those sinners. I have good news for
sinners. If I've got to find a sinner,
I've got good news. Christ died for sinners. I can
just find one. I've got good news. I've learned
over the years, and by my own experience, that the reason,
the reason people do not, men and women, do not come to Christ
is because they're just not sinful enough. They just don't believe
they're that sinful. They don't believe they're that
sinful. But boy, if God ever convinces you that's what you
are, you'll flee to Him. You will run to Him. The city
of refuge. Now, I want to say a few words
about what John was and what John was not. John was a man,
he was sent, and he was a witness. He was not the like. He was just
a messenger of it. But let's look at this as we
go along. In verse 6, there was a man sent from God. Oh, how gracious. God sent a
man to tell the gospel, to tell the good news. God sent a sinner
to tell a sinner of the great physician. You know, if you have
a great physician, You're going to tell someone else that's sick
that's got your problem about that physician. You're going
to tell them. And there was a man sent from God whose name was
John. You know, God named him. God named this man. He told Zacharias,
his name will be John. They wanted to call him other
names. Well, there's nobody in your family they said by this
name. And then Zacharias spoke up after God shut his mouth for
several months. He spoke up, said his name is
John. This man's name is John and God sent him, God sent him. And it's evident if we hear from
God, if you hear from God, if I hear from God, it will be through
a man sent, sent on purpose from God to preach the gospel to me
and you. God sent the man to preach the
gospel. God crossed your path and my path with a man with the
good news to tell us of the one who is the good news. The Lord
Jesus Christ. You're not here by accident this
morning. There's not one soul here accidental this morning.
God purposed, for whatever reason, to cross my path and your path
with the gospel one more time. This may be the last time you
hear it. May be the last time you hear it. But I tell you what, you're going
to hear it this morning. You're going to look in His Word and
you're going to see the gospel. You're going to hear the gospel.
I pray God He gives us ears of faith and not just these things
hanging on the side of our head. If we hear from God, He's going
to send us a man that says in 1 Corinthians 1, "...it hath
pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe." It is priceless what I'm doing this morning. It's
priceless. And what you're hearing this
morning is priceless. Now John was a man like me and
you. Thank God he sends men like me
and you to preach the gospel to us. I don't need an angel
to preach the gospel to me because an angel really can't enter into
it, but a man can. A man who's been saved by God,
saved through this gospel, he can say, let me tell you. Let
me tell you. Tell me the story. Tell me the
old, old story one more time. When the Lord saved sinners,
when He cast out demons, when He healed, He said, go back and
tell them what great things God has done for you. That's what
it is to be a witness. I'm going to talk about that
in a minute, what it is to be a witness. It's to tell what
great things God has done for you. You don't have to be a theologian. You don't have to learn how to
spell tulip. You just have to learn how to
speak of Christ. Just tell what He's done for
you. John was not an angel. Listen, he was a prophet, a messenger,
a special messenger with a message, the sin of God. He was not a
priest to whom people confessed their sins. When he preached
the baptism of repentance, he did not have them coming to him
and confessing their sins. You're not going to go to a man
in a box and confess your sins. He was not that. He was not a
mediator. There's only one mediator between
God and me and the man, Christ Jesus. John was a preacher. Let's not make preachers to be
more than what they are. I said to someone once, they
were starting to tell me something about themselves and about something
they had done and stuff, I said, I said, I'm not your priest.
I said, you confess to Christ. He's the one who forgives sins.
He's the one who can put them away. He's the one who can do
that. And John, listen, John was sent. He was commissioned. You know,
if I'm God's man standing here, God has commissioned me to be
the pastor here, to preach the gospel here. God has commissioned
me to be here. And God sent John, it tells us,
that through him all might believe, all that hear him, all who are
brought to faith might believe that Jesus is the Christ. They believe on a person, the
Lord Jesus Christ. And being sin of God, he has
the anointing of God. He has the anointing of God's
Spirit, and he has the message of God. God gave him His message.
You know, I don't look to see what message I'm going to bring
each week. I just see where I'm going to bring it from. What
scripture, what book, what verse, where I'm going to bring the
gospel from. But I'm not looking for a message, so to speak, because
I have the message. I have the message. That's one
thing I've learned, and this is so comforting to me in preaching. I know the gospel. I know the
gospel. I'm not trying to figure out
some doctrine or this or that. I know the gospel. I know how
God saves sinners. I know that. And knowing that,
I can stand here and preach the gospel to you. I know the message. And God gave
John the message. He's God's man. He's God's man
for that hour, that time, to point out the Lamb of God, to
point out Jesus Christ. That's my responsibility here.
Every week is to point to the Lamb of God. Wherever I come
from in the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation, is to
point to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's to get to Him. Get to Him. That's what John's mission was.
That's what his purpose was. He had no other purpose than
to point out Christ. I have no purpose on this earth
than to be a witness of Christ, and you don't either. You have
no purpose on this earth other than to be a witness for the
Lord Jesus Christ, where he's put you. That's your purpose. I heard some lady sometime ago
talk to another lady. I just overheard their conversation,
which I couldn't help because it was a loud conversation. But
they were talking, and this one lady was saying, I just wish
I knew what my purpose was in life. And she was talking about
it as a believer. They were religious. They were
very religious. It was a very religious conversation.
She wouldn't know her purpose. So I tell you what, the purpose
of every one of God's children is to be a witness. to be a light
where you are. That's the purpose. To glorify
God right where you are. That's what the purpose is. He's
God's man, to point out Christ, the one that was promised, the
one they waited for, they were looking for, In Luke 2 it says
this, And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was
Simeon, and the same man was just and devout, waiting for
the consolation of Israel. Here's the one you've been waiting
for. Here he is. Since the fall, for
four thousand years, when God spoke of the seed of the woman,
for four thousand years, someone's coming, and they were waiting
for it. Well, here he is. Here's going to be the sad part.
They rejected him when he came. We'll see this in a minute. He was a witness. John was a
witness. It says here in verse 7. The
same came for a witness. To bear witness. He came for
a witness and to bear witness. He had no other reason to exist
but to be a witness and to bear witness of the light. Of the
light. Not how to live. but of the light,
which all men through him, it says, might believe, that might
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, all sorts of men, all those who
heard him. John's mission was to bear witness
of the light, to tell, and this is something here, to tell dead
sinners, to tell dead blind sinners that the light is among them.
Now that's dead, isn't it? I mean, that's in darkness, isn't
it? That's real darkness. When you don't know the light
is standing, you don't know the light is on. The light is in
your midst. This is a testimony to the deadness,
the spiritual deadness of men and women. Light has come, and
they can't even see it. Can't comprehend it. Can't comprehend
it. For someone to have to tell you
that the light is here, The light is here. I mean, that alone ought to tell
us how dead we are, how blind we are, how deaf we are. And John was to be a witness
to this light. And a witness is just this, listen. In Gideon
22.15, Ananias speaking to Paul. For thou shalt be his witness
unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard. That's all I'm
telling you this morning. What I've seen by faith, what
I've seen by the grace of God, and what I've heard through the
preaching of the gospel, what I've heard in reading. You know,
when I read, I hear God speak. I hear God speak. Now, here's
what John was not. He was not that light. Some of
them thought he was. Some thought he was that light.
John was not that light. He was just sent to bear witness
of the light. To point to that light. He was
not the Messiah. He's not God. Because the Messiah
is God. The light is God. And John is
neither. It says over in John 5.35, He
was a burning and a shining light. Speaking of John. He was a burning
and shining lamp. Lamp. That's what it means. and
you were willing for a season to rejoice in His light. Believers
have no light in themselves except for the light that is in them
by the Spirit of God." He's our light. He's our light. It's like oil in the lamp that
keeps the light burning. The light in you is Christ. You
know, the moon doesn't have its own light, does it? The moon
reflects the light of the sun. You are light in the Lord. You are illuminated in Him. That's what it says in Ephesians
5.8, For ye were sometimes darkness. You didn't just live in darkness,
you were darkness. But now are ye light in the Lord.
Now walk as children of light. And then it says here, John was
sent. He was sent to bear witness of the light. The people and
the preacher are to never confuse their mission. I'm here to bear
witness of the light. Preachers are to be esteemed
highly for their work's sake, but not above Christ or even
on the same level of Christ. I know some preachers that are
put upon such a pedestal You know, it's too high. It's
too high. And I have no doubt, no doubt,
that is why the Lord let some of them fall. David, I mean,
you know, Israel looks back at David, but God let David fall
a terrible fall. You can look at the life history
of most preachers. If they're honest now, if they
have an honest autobiography, If it's honest, you're going
to find a downfall. Because at the end of the day,
they're just sinners saved by grace. God could take any man
in this room and put him up here doing what I'm doing this morning. I personally have no special
talents. I can tell you from knowledge, from experience,
this is totally opposite of me. I never raised my hand in school.
I sat in the back of the class on purpose. I could have the
answer, right? The teacher could walk up and
give me the answer and I still wouldn't raise my hand. I still
wouldn't do it. God can take any man in here
and put him in his pulpit and make a preacher out of him because
a preacher is a gift of God and preaching is a gift of God. We esteem them highly, but not
too highly. Not too highly. He was not that
light, but he was to bear witness of the true light. The true light. The underrived light. You see,
you and I derive our light from the Lord. He derives His light
from no one. He is the light. He's the embodiment. He's the existence of light.
He doesn't just give light. He does, but He is light. He is light. He's the true light. You see, John really drives us
home before he goes into the rest of the gospel, because the
whole thing hinges on this. That one that was despised and
rejected of men is the light. Here in John 3, verse 19, listen
to this. You think, now let me say this
before I read it. Most people think, most people
think they're gonna go to hell because they have committed some
certain sins. They think they're gonna go to
hell because they've committed adultery, they've committed murder, or
they've done this, or they've done, you know, they've committed
some heinous crime. And this is the condemnation
that light is coming to the world, and men love darkness rather
than light, because their deeds are evil. You and I by nature, and all
men and women by nature, love darkness. We love the works of
darkness. You know, when I was a teenager,
I always wanted to go out after dark. All my running around was
after dark. Dad said, you had to be in by
11. I had a curfew. I was 18. I was 20 years old.
I didn't leave. I got married when I was 20,
and I didn't leave home until I was 20. He said, you're in by 11. I come home one time. It was
after 11. He locked the door on me. That's parenting. That's parenting. He locked the door on me. I mean,
I slept in the car that night. I slept in that car all night. I didn't get in the house until
they got up the next morning to unlock the door. This is condemnation. Don't think,
well, I've never done this, I haven't done that, so, you know, I don't
feel too bad. This is condemnation. Light is coming to this building
this morning. Well, that's a different story,
isn't it? Now, that puts it in a different light, doesn't it?
has come into this building this morning. And there are some who love darkness
rather than light. And why? Their deeds are evil. Deeds are evil. You see, God
sees deeds like we don't see deeds. God sees deeds of the
heart. And notice this in verse 10. This is the world's spiritual
ignorance of the light. He was in the world. Who was
in the world? The Word. The Word of God. The Word that was with God. The
Word that was God. God was in the world. God was
in His own creation. God came into His own creation. God was in the world, and the
world was made by Him, by the Word, by God Almighty, and the
world knew Him not. They didn't recognize Him. His
own creation. His own creation didn't recognize
Him. I thought, and this may not be
a good example of this, but I thought there used to be a show on called
Undercover Boss. You ever see that? A guy goes
in, he owns the company. And he goes in undercover, and
they don't even recognize it's the boss standing there working
with them. He's walking with them. He's talking with them.
He's conversing with them. They have no clue it's the owner.
It's the owner. The owner has come among us,
and we didn't know it. We didn't recognize him. He had
a fire every one of us. By grace, he saved some of us. This shows how necessary the
new birth is, which we'll see here in a minute. But it even
gets worse. He came, the Word came unto His
own, and His own received Him not. You see, He came to this
world, His own world, this is the whole world, Gentile world,
His creation, it didn't recognize Him. But there was a nation on
this earth, there was a people on this earth that ought to have
recognized Him. He gave them His Word. He gave them the types.
He gave them the pictures. He gave them everything that
pointed to Him. And when He came, they didn't just recognize. It
wasn't that they didn't recognize Him. They didn't want Him. They
rejected Him. Because they didn't want His
righteousness. They didn't want having to acknowledge
their sinfulness. They said, We be not sinners.
Isn't that what the Pharisees said? We be not sinners? Like
the Gentiles? They didn't want to acknowledge
that. For them to bow to Jesus Christ, they had to acknowledge
their sinners. Their wretched bunch of people
like the Gentiles, they hated. His own people received Him not.
They wouldn't have anything to do with Him. They rejected Him.
They despised Him. They were embarrassed of Him.
They were embarrassed to say, this is our King. This is our
king, Pilate put over there, king of the Jews. They said,
don't put that up there. Our king don't look like that. We
don't want to, you know, we're going to design our own king.
You know, he's going to look like that picture they draw where
he looks real handsome and, you know, all that. We're going to
design our own tall, dark and handsome king like Saul. No, no, no, you're not going
to design anything. But all is not lost. You see,
He came to the world, the world didn't recognize Him. He came
to His own, they rejected Him. But it's not lost because the
Word will not return void. It says that over in Isaiah. My Word shall not return to me
void. Well, you just capitalize that W. The Word of God's not
returning back to glory void. Period. He's going back with
a train. He's going back with a multitude.
That's how He's going back. Now this verse here 12, I'm going
to say it this way, it's the visible side of salvation. In
other words, but as many as received Him, they bowed to Him, they
received Him, they believed on Him. You're here this morning,
most of you are here this morning because you believe. You believe
the gospel. You believe God. You believe
that. And it's evident you're here.
You're here. But as many as received Him,
to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them
that believed on His name. You see, He came to His own,
and His own received Him not, but there are some, there were
some, and there still are some, who received Him. There were
some in Israel that received Him. Not all rejected Him. There
were some that He saved, the apostles. There were some that
believed Him, and there are some here that believe Him. You've
received Him. To receive Him is to continue
to believe on Him. You continually believe on Him.
You received Him. And you have the right, you have
the right, the authority to be the sons of God. I have a right
to be the son of God through the Son of God. I have the right.
This receiving, listen, it's like receiving food into your
body. You have eaten His flesh and
you've drank His blood by faith, haven't you? You've received
Him. Christ in you, the hope of glory, you have received Him
by faith. And you have the right to sonship. You have the right
to sonship. You've received Him as He is
revealed in the Scriptures. You see, the Jews wouldn't do
that. They wouldn't receive Him as He was revealed in the Scriptures.
They said, the Scriptures here and Him, they don't match. Well,
they do match. They do match. If God gives you eyes, you can
see it. You can see it. Now, the next verse shows the
divine side. It's like as many as received
Him is on this side of the curtain. But before that happened, there's
something that went on behind the back side of the curtain.
And here's what's behind the backside of the curtain. Which
were born. God's at work. You see, receiving
is evidence of God at work. It's evidence of a new birth.
Which were born. And how clear is this? Which
were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor
the will of man, but of God." Here, in this verse, we have
the proper origin of the believer's life. Here's the proper order. The new birth is not brought
about by descent. It has nothing to do with your
parents or your grandparents or your father. It has nothing
to do with it. It's not brought on by descent, it's not brought
on by desire. I'm not saved because I willed
to be saved. And it's not brought on by human
power. I cannot, I cannot save you.
I can't do it. It's brought on by the will and
the power of God Almighty. It's written in Romans 9,16,
So then, it's not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth."
Here's the effort. It does away with freewillism. Freewillism. It's not of him that willeth
or of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. You and
I are shut up to the sovereign mercy of Almighty God. That's
the truth. That's the truth. We are in His
hands, He's not in ours. That's the truth. Now He comes back here, He's
come back here to the Word. And the Word, the one He spoke
of in the first verse, and the Word was made flesh. I can read it this way. And the
Word was made human. Let me say it this way. And God
was made human. That's powerful. That's powerful. And God was made human. And He
dwelt, that word means tabernacled. He pitched His tent among us. For 33 years, God walked among
us in a body as a real human. Not some kind of look-alike,
but in a real and a real human being, body and soul, God really
became a man, took upon Him flesh. And we beheld His glory, John
said. We beheld His glory. We watched Him heal people. We
watched Him raise the dead. We watched Him give sight to
the blind, hearing to the deaf, legs to the lame. In fact, one
day we went up on the mountain with Him, Peter, James, and John,
me, James, me and James, and Peter. We went up on the mountain
and we saw Him transfigured. He glistened. He glistened. We beheld His glory every day. We saw God every day. We saw
Him work every day. We heard Him speak every day.
The glory of the only begotten of the Father, none like Him,
none like Him, full of grace and truth. Let me read it now
without the parenthesis. And the Word was made flesh,
and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth." The embodiment, the
embodiment of grace and truth. You see, the law was given by
Moses. It was given to Moses, and Moses
gave the law. But grace and truth was not given
to the Word. He is grace and truth. I've learned this. I'm not just
a sinful man, though I am. I was thinking about this, and
I think I can say this. As Jesus Christ is the embodiment
of grace and truth, I am the embodiment of sin. I'm not just... I don't just do things bad from
time to time. I am, by nature, sin. And all that that is, that's
who I am. And by His grace, by His grace,
the one who's full of grace and truth, I have been translated
from the kingdom of darkness, I have been saved from my evil
nature, and I've been made a son of God. That's absolutely astounding. God has taken this mass of corruption
and made me the righteousness of God in Him. What a work! What a work! Isn't that something? I'm sure glad that God sends
preachers along to tell us the good news. And by His grace,
by His grace, He'll keep doing so till we leave this world. And hopefully, He'll do so to
the next generation that comes along here. All right.