The wonders we confess, the wonders
of His glorious love, and my own worthlessness. You check a modern hymnal and
I guarantee you they've changed worthless to unworthy, among others, many others. Let's
go this morning to John chapter 5. Now, I do remember where we were last
Sunday. We were in John chapter 6. And
I understand that this is backwards, but that's just where I got to
be today. I can't explain it any other
way. John chapter 5. We're going to try to cover verses
17 through 47. Now let us pray. Lord, we are privileged this
day to have before us your holy word, and especially to have the fifth
chapter of John's Gospel. These words are found, O Lord,
in your book. made up of two Testaments, the
old one and the new one. And this new one is explicitly
plain on how sinful men can come into Your presence and live. And we must do so in and by and
through our precious Lord Jesus Christ the only Savior of sinners. Dear Father, cause us to come to your book
this morning with hunger of soul, like a deer exhausted from being
run by dogs, has found a cold stream and drinks his fill. Oh, that our hearts, which are
so beat up and bruised from living in this world, might come this
day to your holy word and find in your blessed Son the
water and bread of life. Lord, help us. Help this poor
preacher. Give us ears to hear and spiritual
eyes to see what is before us in these verses. We beg for your
help, and we beg it in our Savior's name. and on the basis of His
merits and not ours. We ask in Christ's name, Amen. First of all, we begin at verse
17. And our Lord Jesus is finding
all kinds of conflict with various persons and groups that make
up the Jewish religion of His day. And John chapter 5 is no
exception. He has been to the pool of Bethesda
where there were porches that surrounded this pool of water. And at certain times, nobody
could predict when, at certain times an angel came down and
stirred that water and gave it healing properties and people,
the first person to get into the water was healed. And this
man whom Christ encountered at this place had had this disease
38 years. And every time he tried to get
into the pool when evidently there was a sound made by the
whirling of the water, someone always stepped in before him.
And our Lord walks up to him and begins to converse with him
and heals him by a word. And he tells the man, take up
your bed and walk and go to your house. Well, in Israel, in that
day and age at least, and in many places in this country for
a long time, you ever heard of blue laws? I'll never forget a fellow once
upon a time who was pretty near the top of the rank in the church
I was in at the time. And I don't even remember what
I preached on, but he thought I was preaching to nobody but
him. Do you know why? Because he had gotten a ticket
for selling fuel oil on Sunday. I didn't even know anything about
it and wouldn't have cared if I had. Well, this man's carrying his
bed, and the religious police among the Jews stop him. What
are you doing carrying your bed? It's the Sabbath day. He said,
the person that made me whole told me to pick up this bed and
take it to my house. I think that's enough authority,
but it wasn't for these guys. He did not even know our Lord's
name. And later on, he finds it out
when our Savior finds him again and speaks to him. And he runs and tells the Jews
that the fellow that healed him is named Jesus. He doesn't realize
what they want to know it for. I'm sure of that. And so they
begin to persecute our Lord again because he violated the Sabbath. I've told you this many times.
One more time won't hurt. The Lord Jesus deliberately healed
people on the Sabbath day to make the Jews mad as He could
make them, because they're all full of hot air, claiming to
be what they're not, and have no interest in the grace of God
in Christ, and therefore you won't see them in heaven. Verse 17. Verse 16 tells us that the Jews
persecuted Jesus and sought to kill Him because He had done
these things on the Sabbath day. But Jesus answered, My Father
works hitherto, and I work. God doesn't stop working on the
Sabbath. If He did, this world would fall
apart. We'd have no oxygen to breathe.
We'd all die. We'd be gone in a matter of a
short period of time. My Father in Heaven works up
until this very moment, and so do I. Look out, here's what they
do with that. Therefore, the Jews sought the
Lord to kill Him. They're madder now than they
were before, because He had not only broken the Sabbath, but
said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God. And he is equal with God. He
still is. He ever has been. All right,
quickly now, beginning at verse 19. I'll back up to verse 17 for
one second just to get my first point in. The Lord said, My father
works hitherto up until now, and I work. In other words, he's
declaring himself to be God. And there are seven of these
statements in just a few of the following verses. There's the
first one in verse 17. And to some extent in verse 18,
you have it spelled out more clearly. Now we come to verse
19. Then answered Jesus and said
unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son, the Son of
God can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do.
For what thing soever the Father does, these also doeth the Son
likewise. There's a second proof of his
deity. Absolute equality between the members of the Holy Trinity.
Verse 20 is the third one. For the Father loves the Son
and shows Him all things that Himself doeth, and He will show
Him greater works than these that you may marvel. Much more is yet to come in proof
of the Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. These are seven proofs,
absolute proofs, concerning the absolute Deity of our Savior. Verse 20 has the third one. For the Father loves the Son
and shows Him all things that Himself does, and He will show
Him greater works than these that you may marvel. Number four
is in verse 21. For as the Father raises up the
dead and quickens them, even so the Son quickens whom He will."
Now that word, quicken, means to make alive, to make alive. I've told you this before, but
I'll remind you one more time. In the Gospel accounts, the Lord
Jesus only encounters death three times, three times. One was the widow of Nain's son.
One was Lazarus, already buried four days. And the other one
was Jairus' daughter. Now, that very
fact alone, that the Lord Jesus never was in the presence of
death, that He did not raise the dead to life. Now the first
one was a young girl who had just died. The second one was
the widow of Nain's son on their way to the cemetery to bury him.
And the third one would be, from our standpoint, the most difficult
of all. Lazarus has been dead four days
already, and he's buried, and his sisters tried to Lazarus'
sisters tried to tell the Lord, Lord, by now he smells, he stinks. That doesn't have any bearing.
If our Lord is eternal life and he speaks to the dead and they
come alive, it doesn't matter how long or when or how a person
dies. Verse 22 gives us the fifth one
of these proofs of the absolute deity of our Lord Jesus. For
the Father judges no man, but has committed all judgment unto
the Son on judgment day. Christ is the judge. The judge. Christ alone. Verse 23 also pertains
to that. That all men should honor the
Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honors not the Son honors
not the Father which has sent Him. They are absolutely one. They are perfectly, absolutely
equal. Here's the sixth one, way down
in verse 26. But let me include 24 and 25
with 26. Verse 24, Verily, verily, remember
that can also be translated Amen, Amen. I say unto you, he that
hears my word and believes on him that sent me has everlasting
life and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from
death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
the hour is coming and now is. When the dead shall hear the
voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. For
as the Father has life in Himself, so has He given to the Son to
have life in Himself." They are perfectly one. one possesses as an attribute,
they all possess, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the second one, seventh one,
which is the last one, is in verse 27. And here's a statement
that needs careful attention. Speaking of the Father to the
Son and has given Him God has given Christ. Now that ought
to perk up your ears. If God the Father has to give
something to God the Son, it is not as God. If Christ is God, God the Father
is God, and God the Holy Spirit is God, They're one. What one
has, they all have. Every attribute is the same.
Every last single one. But the Lord Jesus is the only
member of the Holy Trinity that came into this world and took
on human flesh. Therefore, the scriptures give
him two names. One is the Son of God, and the
other is the Son of Man. And if you possess Mr. Hawker's
dictionary, he does a really wonderful treatment of those
things in that dictionary. You cannot give, the Father cannot
give to Christ anything in regard to His deity. All that must transpire between
the Father and the Son in the Father's giving to Christ has
to do with giving it to the Son of Man. All right, now watch
verse 27. Here is the perfect example, and it will read the
very same tomorrow as it does today. Speaking of God the Father
and has given Him, the Lord Jesus, authority to execute judgment. Christ is the sole judge of all
men, the only judge. Because, now look at this, because
He is the Son of Man. Not because He's the Son of God. It's because He's the Son of
Man. As the Son of God, He can't have any more God than He is.
You can't give Him anything. Now this is important. Christ and God are perfectly,
absolutely equal. One is as much God as the other.
And God cannot change. He can't be less or more than
He is. What He is, He's always been
and ever shall be. Or this whole book ain't worth
keeping. We need to throw it away. This is who God is. Now, let's go to the second matter
before us this morning. And I know I've done this before,
so I'm going to do it more briefly than I otherwise would like to
do. Verses 28 and 29. The Lord Jesus is speaking. Marvel
not at this. Don't be amazed at this. For
the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall
hear His voice. What kind of people are in the
graves? The same kind that's on the top side of God's green
earth. But we're careful to use these
terms as we find them in our Bibles. Verse 29, And shall come forth,
this is now when? At the resurrection of all things. The day of judgment, the great
white throne judgment. And shall come forth, They that have done good. Preacher,
you're all the time telling us there ain't a single one of us
that's good. I'm still telling you that, and
I want to try to rectify it with this statement, but I want you
to see this. They that have done good unto
the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto
the resurrection of damnation." Now, the people in hell richly deserve to be there, and
the people in heaven have no deservings of their own
whatsoever. It is Christ who has merited
and deserved and purchased and bought eternal glory for us. We have no room to boast in ourselves. We don't now, but somehow we
easily forget that and slip right into doing that again. And I suppose that will last
as long as we live on this earth. But let's look at this statement
now regarding these these two resurrections. If somebody were to ask you to
summarize all that God requires of us,
what would you tell them? I wasn't going to get you to
turn a single time, Craig changed his before he got started this
morning. So I think it's in Luke 12. I hope that's still there.
I'm not sure, but I'm going to find it, find out. No, it's in
chapter 10. I forgot I'd put me a marker
there and it just sort of opened right up to that spot. So here is one of the plainest statements
in all the Bible. that defines what God requires
of us. Now, you remember how everything
works along that line, don't you? Whatever God requires of
us, He must give us or we won't ever have it. And if He gives
it, then He accepts it. His justice is satisfied. His
mercy flows freely. to undeserving, hell-deserving
sinners. Now, in the Bible, there's a
group of persons called lawyers. Lawyers. But they're not the kind of lawyers
that we have. There's only one time in the
Bible that's talking about a lawyer like these people that we have,
that we're cursed with today. Oh, I shouldn't have said that. They represent the Pharisees
as well as the Sadducees, and these people are trying to get
the Lord Jesus to speak too hastily and say what he doesn't mean
to say. Of course, they think he's just
a man, and he's God and man in one person, and God doesn't make
mistakes. So this man comes to the Lord
and he wants to know, look at verse 25 in Matthew chapter
10, he wants to know, what shall I do to inherit, to deserve,
to earn eternal life? What must I do? Our Lord said
unto him, what's written in the law of Moses? And the man is
a lawyer concerning the law of Moses, and so he knows exactly
what to say. And here's what he said, verse
27. You shall love the Lord your
God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your
strength, with all your mind and your neighbor as much or
more than yourself. Is that all? Oh, that's all. And none of us can do it. If
we have one single ounce of honesty left in us, Lord, I can never
do this, not in a million years, and fall at His feet begging
for pure, free mercy. And I guarantee you, you'll have
it. We also learn in this chapter
that this man was trying to tempt, as it is called in the old English,
to tempt the Lord Jesus. That is, to trip him up, to trap
him in making an ill-advised statement of some kind. And this is the very statement
and the very same lawyer that when our Lord speaks of the application
of this thing, this man said, well, Lord, Who is my neighbor? Who is my neighbor? And our Lord
gives him and us, thankfully, the parable of the good Samaritan. Are you a good Samaritan? No,
you are a very sorry Samaritan, and so am I. Christ is the real
Samaritan. All right, let's, uh, I forgot
how far along we were there. Not very far, I'm afraid. Back
in John chapter five. Did you understand now with that
illustration in Luke chapter 10, do you see clearly what the
definition of good and bad is when it's talking about people? Love God with all your heart,
soul, mind and strength and being and your neighbor as much as
you love yourself. That's what it takes to be good. And God alone is good. Well, how bad do you have to
be to be raised to a resurrection of damnation? Just one single sin, not covered
by the blood of Christ. Not to have the righteousness
of Christ imputed to me. 2 Corinthians 5.21, God has made
Christ sin for us, Christ who knew no sin, that we might be
made the righteousness of God in Him. So this whole thing,
doing good and doing bad, is wrapped around the person and
work of our glorious Redeemer, the Lord Jesus. You just can't
deal with God any other way except in Him. Aren't you glad? If you've got a lick of sense,
you ought to be glad. This is wonderful. We're saved
by His blood and by His merit, His obedience. Oh, what a glorious
book, indeed. Now, I want to work on verses. I know I'm jumping over a lot,
but I don't have any choice. If you all would all just slow
your watches down, we might finish up. But anyway, jumping all the
way to verse 40, John 5, 40 through 47. And before I begin to read from
there, I want you to turn one more time to the book of Psalms, the 119th Psalm. Last time I checked, there's
176 verses in Psalm 119. Every one of these statements
except one, and that's simply because maybe the translators
couldn't understand it, I don't know, but every verse except
one has a reference to the Word of God using various names, describing
things in different ways. Have you found verse 128? Psalm
119, here we go. Therefore, I esteem, I value
all your precepts, everything God says, all His precepts, concerning
all things. to be right. Creation as well
as Calvary. I'll get back to that in a moment.
Therefore, I esteem all your precepts concerning all things
to be right. Do you believe every word in
this book is right? If you believe one of them as
you do, otherwise you're just pretending. If we say, well,
I believe this, but I don't believe that, I don't believe you believe
either one. Neither do I. But here's the real test. The
statement ends with these words, and I hate every false way. Believers cannot go through this
life believing in two entirely different gods. The god of this book and the
god of religion is totally, absolutely different, different as day is
from night. So when people ask you about
religious things, you have to be very careful that you don't
slander the God of the Bible. We cannot countenance a God who
is not God. I think I told you already, but
I'll tell you again. There's a statement in your bulletin
today by Daniel Parks on this very subject. I beg you to read
it carefully more than once. I hate every false Now, some
people are nicer than others, and I'm sure all of you are nicer
than me. If you don't believe it, ask
my wife. But if a given religion in our community,
in our county, in our state, in our nation, in this whole
wide world, if they're not preaching the God of the Bible, They are
preaching a God who is not God, and thereby they are damning
the souls of men. Now, when you tip your hat to
them as if to respect their deity, you are doing enormous harm,
and so am I, if that be the case. I do ask you to remember that
in New Testament times and for many centuries after, and not
many centuries removed from where we are right now, people died
for the Christian faith in civilized countries, untold numbers in
England in the 16, 17, and early 1800s. Many of them burned in a place called Smithfield,
burned at the stake, and counted it a joy to be able to do so. I'm telling you, God's not changed,
either before that or after it, and neither are believers. And
we may well return to that type of life in this world. Bring that statement from Psalm
119. Let's go back to John and work
on just maybe three verses if we can narrow it down to that.
The first one is in verse 40. John 5, 40. No plainer words
in all the Bible than these. And our Lord Jesus is speaking
to these Jews that have dogged His step from the beginning of
his public life to the end. And he said to them as plainly
as words can speak it, you will not come to me that you might
have life. You will not. And this is a charge that belongs
at my door and yours. We are not born willing. We do
not love Jesus as a baby. We love Him as a result of God's
saving mercy and grace. And until that event transpires,
we don't love God. We hate Him. So men have learned to create
a God that has different characteristics and attributes than the one that
we have. And they can actually love Him. And his name is spelled
little g-o-d, because he can't do anything unless they let him.
But the God of this Bible says, you can't do anything unless
I let you. I have to enable you. I have
to give you what I demand in order for me to receive from
you. You will not come to me that
you might have a life. This is true of every single
son and daughter of Adam. It's been the same since the
beginning. We're born in a fallen, depraved condition. We are born spiritually dead. And only a miracle of God's sovereign
grace can bring life to the dead. Now, I wish I could tell you
stuff like this without having to tell you some other stuff
that you don't want to hear. What I'm trying to tell you is
being saved is not the same thing as getting up out of your pew
and coming down here at the front. Ain't got nothing to do with
each other. You can walk from there to here a million times
and it still won't make any difference. Salvation is not up here. This
is not an altar. Salvation is in Christ. And no
preacher is Christ. No preacher can wear the title,
the Vicar of Christ, because there aren't any. There aren't any. All right, let's go to verse
44. Now, y'all took a little bit too long on that one. Verse
44. Let me read 43, and I'll do it
without comment. I can't read it if I bite my
tongue. I'm come in my Father's name, and you receive me not. These are the words of Christ.
If another shall come in his own name, him you will receive. Well, what is it about the Lord
Jesus that they can't receive Him, because He's God and man
in one person. He's not here to receive. He's
here to give. If it's the grace of God, it's giving
grace. Now, verse 44. How can you believe which – I would change that to
who – receive honor one of another and seek not the honor that comes
from God only? Let me read you a statement in
John somewhere. I've lost it, chapter 12. If you want to find it, I'm in John
12. If you don't, just hang on a minute. Two verses out of John
12 to match that one in verse 44, and they are verses 42 and
43 in John chapter 12. And here's an excellent lesson. That when you read words in this
book, you must understand them in the light of the passage in
which they're in. The Bible sometimes speak of
people as believing Christ. But if you read enough verses
to follow in that same chapter, you'll find out that they didn't
hang around. Once they heard something they
didn't like, they left. So they were not believers. They
thought they were. They might have said they were,
but that doesn't make it so. And here in these two verses
are very revealing statements. John 12, verse 42, nevertheless,
among the chief rulers also, these are the members of the
Sanhedrin in the Jewish religion. Among the chief rulers also,
many believed on Him. Many believed on Christ, but
because of the Pharisees. who threatened to kick him out
of the Jewish synagogue for good. They did not confess him lest
they should be put out of the synagogue. Verse 43. This is a telling note because
they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. And I don't care if that's you
or me or all of us together. Ain't nothing to that. We love the praise of men so
much that we'll sell out the truth of God. That's selling
truth at too low a price, and it can't be done. It cannot be
done. Now, could I just read you the
remaining verses in John chapter 5? beginning at verse 45, 46 and
47. Do not think that I will accuse
you to the Father. These are the words of Christ.
Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one
that accuses you, even Moses, in whom you trust. Now, these
people had a real interest in old Moses, at least as they think
they do. Do not think that I will accuse
you to the Father. There is one that accuses you,
even Moses, in whom you trust. For had you believed Moses, you
would have believed me, for Moses wrote of me. And finally, but
if you believe not Moses' writings, how shall you believe my words? The Jews of our Savior's day kept all the weeds from around
the graves of the prophets. They kept flowers on the grave
to let people know how much they thought about them. But their
very daddies were the ones that killed them. And now they're
wanting to kill the Son of God. These are real good people. You
just don't know them well enough. I don't want to know them any
better than I know them. Anyway, that's how it is.