John, I'm going to do better than Curtis
did for us this morning. I'm going to let you stick to
that one book of Scripture. Okay? There's only 21 chapters,
so you can't have to turn but so many times, you know. Now,
I'm going to go some other places, but if my memory is working,
I can just cite these verses, but sometimes I can't do that. You want the chapter, I suppose,
chapter 20. Our text is verse 31. John 20, 31. It's almost
like John is ending his gospel at chapter 20 and then Chapter 21 just, you know, like
blindsided him. I doubt that's the case. I imagine
it was intended by him as well as by God for it to be another
chapter. Verse 31, John chapter 20. But these are written, the things
that are written in this Gospel, in all four Gospels, in all the
New Testament, and for that matter the whole Testament as well,
Everything in our Bibles, these are written that you might believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, and
that believing you might have life through His name. Even the name Jesus, which is
used on every street corner where there is a church or anything
resembling it, at the grocery store or wherever people are.
The word Jesus is defined in our Bibles. In Matthew 1.21,
the angel told Joseph, you shall call his name Jesus for or because
he shall save his people from their sins. That's a glorious
word. I like the term Lord Jesus and
Lord Jesus Christ, but I won't fault you if you just say Jesus.
If you say it with great awe and respect and reverence, it's
a holy, glorious name. Now, I'm going to work on that statement,
but I want to read to you from John chapter 1. I know that's
almost out of John, but it ain't quite. John chapter 1, and we're
going to begin at verse 29. John 1, 29. And we're reading through the end
of the chapter, if I remember correctly, yes, through the end
of the chapter. Now, the fellow named John here
in this passage is not John the Apostle, the writer of this gospel.
This is John the Baptist. Alright, verse 29. The next day,
John the Baptist sees Jesus coming unto him and says to his disciples,
to others that were around him, Behold the Lamb of God which
takes away the sin of the world. Not the whole world without exception,
but the world of those for whom Christ came to give himself a
ransom for that precise and exact number of persons which is greater
than we can count. Verse 30, This is he of whom
I said, After me comes a man which is preferred before me,
for he was before me." And yet, as far as being born in this
world, John the Baptist was born before the Lord Jesus was. So
the Lord Jesus lived before he came into this world. Trace him as far back as you
can trace anything which is beyond the beginning of this world or
the beginning of time. Verse 31, And I knew him not,
but that he should be made manifest to Israel. Therefore am I come
baptizing with water. And John the Baptist bear record
saying, I saw the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, descending from
heaven like a dove, and it abode, or rested, upon him. And I knew
him not, could not recognize him through normal eyesight. But he that sent me to baptize
with water, That is, God, the same said unto me, upon whom
you shall see the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, descending and remaining
on him, the same is he which baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And I saw, and bear record, that
this is the Son of God. Not the Son of Man. the Son of
God, God in human flesh. Verse 35. Again, the next day
after, the following day, John stood, John the Baptist, and
two of his disciples, and looking upon Jesus as he walked, John
said, Behold the Lamb of God. And the two disciples heard him
speak, And they followed Jesus. John is not jealous of that.
He probably intended this result. Then Jesus turned and saw them
following, and said unto them, What seek you? They said unto
him, Rabbi, which interpreted means master, Where do you dwell? Where do you live? And our Lord
said unto them, Come and see. And they came and saw where he
dwelt, and abode with him that day, for it was about the tenth
hour, or two hours from dark. One of the two which heard John
speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first
finds his own brother Simon, Simon Peter, and says to him,
We have found the Messiah, the Christ, which is being interpreted,
the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. Andrew brought Peter to Christ. And when Jesus beheld him, he
said, You are Simon the son of Jonah? You shall be called Cephas,
which is by interpretation a stone." The day following, Jesus would
go forth into Galilee and finds Philip and says unto him, follow
me. He doesn't argue about it. He
doesn't debate it. He just gives two words. Follow
me. That's all. was of Bethsaida, the city of
Andrew and Peter. And Philip goes and finds Nathanael. That's four of the apostles that
came out of one little village. Human nature says, well, that
ain't fair. If God did it, it's right. Now Philip was of Bethsaida,
the city of Andrew and Peter, and Philip, in verse 45, finds
Nathanael and says to him, We have found him of whom Moses
in the law and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the
son of Joseph. Well, the adopted son of Joseph. And Nathanael said unto him,
Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip said unto him,
Come and see. Jesus saw Nathanael coming to
him, and said of him, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom
there is no guile. Nathanael said unto him, From
where do you know me? Jesus answered and said unto
him, Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree,
I saw you. Nathanael answered and said unto
him, Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel. All because the Lord Jesus knew
where this man was before Philip ever found him. and told him
about the Christ. Verse 50, Jesus answered and
said unto him, Because I said unto you, I saw you under the
fig tree, is that why you believe? You shall see greater things
than these. Oh, and indeed he did. And he
said unto him, Mr. Hawker defines verily, verily,
as amen, amen. I like that. Amen, amen, I say
unto you, hereafter you shall see heaven open and the angels
of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. Now remember in chapter 20, verse
31, it's the Son of God. Now here's the Son of Man. Christ has two natures. One is
human, the other divine. And that human nature is without
sin. All right, we've got a lot to
deal with, but that 31st verse of John chapter 20 is what we're
going to try to figure out this morning. I have two questions
to ask and to answer. The first one is this. What is
it that one must believe in order to have eternal life? What must
I believe to have eternal life? Now, the answer to that requires
a little bit of time, so I think I've factored in enough time
to do that this morning. The first thing I would call
your attention to, and we've already done so in our reading,
is concerning the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God. God
in human flesh. I mean, I don't mean a lesser
God. I'm telling you that God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are perfectly
equal. There's no discrepancy from one
to the other. One is as much God as the other. What must I believe to have eternal
life? I'm going to read you a statement,
but I'm not going to tell you where it was until after I've
read it, because I know how Ewan's is. The Lord Jesus being the
Son of God. Paul said this to Timothy, speaking
of the person, let me read you verse 15 as well, which in his
times he shall show, Christ shall show, who is the blessed and
only potentate. Now I know the masons and a bunch
of other outfits, they like to call somebody the potentate.
He ain't nothing. He's a liar first of all, and
a God-hater second of all. Now put that in your pipe and
smoke it. He is the King of kings and Lord
of lords, who only has immortality, dwelling in the light which no
man can approach unto, whom no man has seen nor can see, to
whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen. Now that, my friend, is
the Son of God. the Son of God. He is God. And if you and I make it to glory,
He's the only God we'll ever see. Now in John's Gospel, did you
hang on to John 1? I can't remember what I need
to remember and tell you to stay somewhere, so I'll just have
to trust that you I don't know where you wound up. Anyway, I'm
back in John chapter 1 just for a brief moment. In regard to
Christ as the Son of God. John chapter 1, verse 1, the
Lord Jesus is called the Word, and that Word is said to be God. In the beginning was the Word. Now, when is the beginning? Nobody
knows. We can't calculate it. It's beyond
time. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God. And by the way, in Genesis 1-26,
when the divine three are holding a council, they said, let us
make man in our image. The three together. speaking
that word. Then in verse 2 of John chapter
1, the same was in the beginning with God. And verse 3 says, And
all things were made by him, and without him was not anything
made that was made. I don't know about you, but whoever
made this universe is God. Whoever keeps it from falling
out of whatever it is to fall out of is God. In the four Gospels, a different emphasis is placed
on the Lord Jesus in a manner of speaking between Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John. In Matthew, the Lord Jesus is
the King. In Mark, he is the servant. In Luke, he's the son of man,
but in John, he's the son of God. The son of God. Now, if that isn't true, that's
the most wicked lie ever fostered on the human race. But if it
is true, And it certainly is. This book everywhere attests
to it, Old and New Testament. If it is true, there are some
folks meeting this morning calling themselves churches, and they
aren't. Their Jesus is spelled with a
little J, and He can only do, they proudly say, what we let
Him do. If that's so, you don't need to hear what I'm saying.
But it isn't so. Everything in this book, from
beginning to end, certainly tells us this in a wonderful kind of
fashion and way. It is just unreal. Unreal indeed. The second thing, under what
must I believe to have eternal life? We must believe that the
Lord Jesus is not only the Son of God, but the Son of Man. In order for Him to represent us,
in order for us to benefit by who He is and what He's done,
He has to have an intimate kinship with us. It's called our kinsman
redeemer. You remember in the Old Testament
when Naomi and her husband moved away and their sons with them,
and her husband died and her sons died in that foreign country,
and she came back and Ruth was the only daughter-in-law that
came back with her. And she sent Ruth to the fields
of Boaz to harvest grain that was left behind by the reapers.
That was her kinsman-redeemer. So when Boaz wanted to marry
Ruth, there was one other fellow that was closer kin than he,
and he must be given the opportunity, and this wasn't cheap, it was
expensive, but he must be given the opportunity of redeeming
Ruth and Naomi, but he was unable to do so. So she married Boaz. And Ruth, who was a Moabitess,
a foreigner, is listed in the genealogy in the gospel accounts. I can't tell you whether it's
Luke or Matthew, but it's in one or the other. Plain as day. Plain as day. And some other
surprises there as well. Alright, I'm going to Timothy
again, but I'm not going to tell you where it is. See, I've got
some markers here, and this old Bible just flies right open.
Here it is. The Son of Man. The Son of Man. Let me find out which verse I'm
supposed to be on. There we are. Now unto the King Eternal. This is Christ. The King Eternal. Immortal. Indivisible, invisible,
the only wise God, the honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. Amen. What a wonderful statement in
regard to the incarnation of Christ. He came and took on Himself
human flesh. Let me give you another one before
I leave this particular text. That was in chapter 1 of 1 Timothy,
and this is in chapter 2. And in verse 16 we have this
statement, and without controversy. Great is the mystery of godliness. Six things about the Lord Jesus,
and the first one is, He is God manifest in the flesh. That's what it says. God was
manifest in the flesh. justified in the Spirit, that
is, in the Holy Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the
Gentiles, and believed on in the world, received up into glory."
Now that, dear friends, is a statement. And the first one is, God manifests
in the flesh. Not only is the Son of God God,
But the Son of Man is God as well. Now that's a whole lot
of God, but it is gloriously belonging to the Lord Jesus Christ. Third thing, that we must believe
in order to have eternal life. We must believe this Christ. You and I live at a point in
time when this is critical. The Christ of popular Christianity
is not the Christ of the Bible. But the Christ with whom we trust
our everlasting souls must be the one in the Holy Scriptures. We can't just say, well, I don't
like this about him, so I won't believe that, but I'll believe
this, and we just go, you know, just pecking here and there.
That's worthless. That's damning to our soul. Let me read you another statement.
This one is in John, and I'll be glad to tell you the text
is John chapter 6, beginning at verse 66. Now, John 6 is an interesting
chapter in that the Lord has encountered a good deal of people
who think that they're one thing and they're something else. And
a pretty large number of persons, I don't know how many, I have
no idea, have left off following Him. And in verse 66, it says, From that, the word time is italicized,
meaning the translators added it because they thought it was
needed, but in fact it makes the passage less able to be understood. So I just say I'm going to leave
it out, and that's what I do. And to find out what that is,
you've got to go back in the chapter. But two of the biggest
hurdles that these people faced were when Christ said to them,
you have to eat my flesh and drink my blood. But they had
no spiritual eyes or understanding to understand what he was saying.
They thought he was preaching cannibalism. And he's telling
us that spiritually, we must feed on Christ. Or, we have no
life in us. So, in that statement in verse
66, it says, many of his disciples went back and walked no more
with him. So the Lord turns to the twelve, and He says to them,
will you also go away? And most of the time, Peter is
the first one to open his mouth, and sometimes he should have
kept it shut, but this isn't one of those times. Then Simon
Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal
life. Christ speaks and life is given. That's exactly what happens when
it comes to believing Christ in the gospel. And we believe
and are sure that you are that Christ, the Son of the living I don't know how many times in
John he refers to the Godhead of our Lord Jesus Christ, but
it is a whole bunch. If you do a study and find out,
let me know what it is. I'd like to know. Curtis, that
includes you too. Let me read this to you. This comes out of the book of
Acts. If I can get to the right chapter,
it will anyway. In the first persecution of the
apostles after Christ is crucified, and forty days elapses And on
the 50th day after our Lord was crucified was the day of Pentecost,
and that's when the Spirit of God came upon these apostles
and blessed their preaching. Well, that was only two chapters
back. That was the second chapter in
the book of Acts, and this is chapter 4. And they've been called
on the carpet before the Sanhedrin, the same people that dragged
that blind man, formerly blind man, in John chapter 9 before
them. And Peter said, Be it known unto
you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, oh, they hated that word, Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God
raised from the dead, By Him does this man that Peter
and John had healed, this man stands here before you whole. This is the stone, the Lord Jesus
is the stone which was set in naught of you builders, which
is become the head of the corner." And this statement, this says
it all. Neither is there salvation in
any other. For there is none other name
under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved except
the name Jesus Christ of Nazareth." Now don't you think that made
their blood boil? I'm satisfied it did. So why such emphasis on these
names of Christ? His names represent His character
as well as His person. These things are necessary to
truly understand and to describe the Lord Jesus Christ to others. When Moses met Christ in Exodus
chapter 3 at the burning bush, the Lord spoke to him and told
him He was sending him back to Egypt to lead the children of
Israel out of captivity. Moses didn't want to go. Moses
didn't want to be the spokesman, so the Lord let him take his
brother Aaron with him for that purpose. But the problem was
even greater than this. Moses said to the Lord, and we
must understand this exchange between God and Moses in the
backside of that desert in Exodus chapter 3, Moses said, Now, when
I go back and tell my people Israel that God has sent me unto
you, they're going to want to know, what's the name of this
God? And that's the missing link today.
What's the name of this God that has such power and such grace
and mercy and forgiveness? What's His name? The Lord said
to Moses, I am. You tell them, I am has
sent me unto you. He's the I am God. In other places
he says, I am the God of Abraham, I am the God of Isaac, and I
am the God of Jacob. And those people have been buried
for thousands of years. And yet, God said I'm still their
God. They aren't dead. They only died
from this world. They certainly are not dead. I save one for you all in John
chapter 18. If we do this little exercise
very often, we'll get our Bibles really broken in or torn up in
one. I don't know which. But in John 18, we have three verses that I want
you to look at in regard to Christ as the I Am. Chapter 18, verses 4, 5, and
6. Our Lord is in the Garden of
Gethsemane. The soldiers and the people from
the Jewish religion have all come. I've read commentators that think
there were at least better than 500 people there to capture one
man who did not need to be captured. At the end of it, he goes willingly. So they come with their swords
and their staves and all this kind of stuff in the middle of
the night. Our Lord goes out to meet them, and He says to
them, Whom seek you? They said, Jesus of Nazareth. He said, I am. The word He is not in the original.
I am. And what happened? They all fell
backward on the ground. Now, if you want to see dumb,
they get up and try it again. And they only have to meet one
condition for our Lord to go with them willingly. They must
let his disciples go. That's why he's going with them,
so they can really be let go by the justice of God concerning
their sin. Let me read it to you straight
out of the book just in case you think I might have misrepresented
it. Jesus, therefore, knowing all things that should come upon
him, went forth and said unto them, Whom seek you? They answered
him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus said unto them, I am. And
Judas also, which portrayed him, stood with them. As soon then
as he had said unto them, I am, they went backward and fell to
the ground. Then asked he them again, Whom
seek you?" And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. And our Lord said,
I told you that I am. Well, why didn't it do the same
there? He did not will it to. He did not clothe it with divine
power when he spoke it. It's like reading this book.
Sometimes you can read a chapter or a verse and read it over and
over and over again, and you're no closer to understanding it
than when you started. But when God in Christ gets involved,
it's a different matter. He gives us understanding without
which we can't understand it. The Lord Jesus answered in verse
8, I have told you that I am, if therefore you seek me, let
these go their way. And he did. He did indeed. I'm going to skip the second
half of this page so I can answer this second question. My second
question is, by what authority can I promise eternal life to
those who believe this Christ. Not just any Christ, the Christ
of the Bible. First of all, with a clear conscience, I can
tell you that if you believe eternal life is yours in Christ. The first reason I know that
is that we have a command of God, a divine command in our
Bibles. It goes like this, this is God's
commandment that we should believe on the name of His Son, Jesus
Christ. That's in 1 John 3, 23. Therefore,
God commands us to believe and receive the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, it's just like that word
in the Garden of Gethsemane now. If that word is not spoken to
us, clothed in divine power, then nothing happens. But I'm
telling you, if God really speaks it to you or me, it works. It accomplishes all that He purposes
to accomplish. Second reason, and I'm going
to make one exception on my staying in John. You remember the little
song we sung out of Psalm 134? I mean 130? Here's another reason that we're
authorized to tell men and women, young men and young women, coming
to Christ as a beggar for mercy, is the only place to find any
hope whatsoever. Psalm 130, verse 3, If thou,
O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But
there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared. And
jumping down to verse 7, Let Israel hope in the Lord, for
with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption. That's what we need. We don't
want a watered-down version. The power is gone when that's
the case. Oh, but this glorious gospel
that we have is powerful, all-powerful, because of whose it is and who
speaks these words. The next thing I'd say about
by what authority can I promise you these things Let me read
you this statement. I should be able to quote it,
but I'm afraid of getting embarrassed. The Lord Jesus said to the apostles,
I'll tell you where I'm at in just a second, Go you into all
the world and preach the gospel. Now, if we can be saved without
hearing the gospel, why go to such extent? Because we cannot
be saved apart from the gospel. That's why. And anybody who tells
you otherwise is not telling you the truth. He that believes and is baptized
shall be saved. Oh, preacher, baptism is necessary
for salvation. No, indeed it isn't. It has no
saving effect. Water baptism does not wash sins
away. It typifies, it shows in observing
that process of being put under the water, it shows us how our
sins are put away by Christ and His blood. He that believes and is baptized
shall be saved. But listen to this now. But he
that believes not, where is he going? To a lesser
heaven? He that believes not shall be damned. Serious matter. Serious matter
indeed. That was Mark 16, verses 15 and
16. So what's it going to be? Is this gospel for me? If it isn't, there isn't another
one. There's only one, and that one
is the God-man Christ Jesus.