Brother Rick, Pastor Rick Warda,
please come. And I like the way Danville announces
their visiting preachers. Please come, brother, and brag
on Christ. I appreciate the gift God's given
John in his care for you all and his ability to project his
voice. I don't have that particular
gift. So I'm sorry if I don't speak
as loudly as he does. I could hear in my mind's memory
Brother Don sitting right there where John is now, singing the
words to that hymn. And he wrote that, Brother Don
Fortner. So if you didn't have the privilege
of hearing him, then you missed out. He also had a voice that
could project well. If you want to turn your Bibles
with me to the Book of John, the Gospel of John, Chapter 3.
We have been going through the Book of John in our own church,
and I want to continue that today with you, John, Chapter 3. And I've entitled today's message,
God So Loved the World. Now, that's a very challenging
title. It's taken directly from chapter
3, verse 16, from probably the best-known text of scripture
in all the, at least, English-speaking world. I think the Gideons have
translated the Bible, they say, into some 66 languages, and they
talk about this verse particularly. Sadly, I think that This verse
has been misunderstood by many. But in John chapter 3, I believe
that God has given us a very clear explanation of this text
of scripture right here in this context and if you listen to
what is said here then I trust and I pray that God would enable
you with all of his people to see the great comfort in what
he has said here in this chapter to Nicodemus Now, I want to preface
this that I have thought about Chapter 3 and what it means a
long time. And I'm sure that I could continue
thinking about it for the rest of my life and never exhaust
everything in here. In fact, I was thinking yesterday
as I was going about my tours that I believe when we get to
heaven to see the Lord, He's going to sit us down and He's
going to explain the scriptures. in such a way that there will
be no ambiguity, it will be perfectly clear, and we'll see that He
fulfilled them all. And we will stand there and sit
there at his feet, absolutely enthralled. We won't get tired.
We won't run out of time. There won't be anything left
out. All will be opened up to us. I'm looking forward to that.
But right now, I'm time limited. And I'm also limited by my own
capacity. So thankfully, you won't have
to be here for that much longer. John chapter 3. Now hopefully
you're familiar with this chapter. It doesn't really begin at verse
1, it actually begins at the beginning of the book. The purpose
of this book was, these things were written that you might believe.
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing
you might have life through his name. Now hold that thought.
That's the reason this chapter was given. That you might believe. But, in the course of pursuing
that goal and that purpose, what we see here is depicted a man
named Nicodemus. and he was capable as a man. Intellectually he had become
very familiar with the scriptures and everything about this man,
and here's the key that helps us understand this chapter, everything
about this man that he believed, that he practiced, and that he
thought of others, that he thought of God and of Christ, was exactly
the opposite of the way things truly were. If we understand
that, and we also understand that point by point, said right
in contrast with everything Nicodemus believed and taught and had taught
others, his whole hope, everything that he held to, point by point,
the Lord Jesus Christ addresses in contrast to what he believed
in an opposite way. Now if we understand that, it
helps us to understand this scripture. What we see here is a man who
was a Pharisee, and the Bible itself explains what a Pharisee
is. In Luke 18, beginning verse 9
it says that Jesus gave a parable about two men that went up to
the temple. One was a Pharisee. It says there
that he trusted in himself that he was righteous. That's what
they taught. That was their doctrine. They
held to it. They believed in their heart
that when they would stand before God in judgment that they could
take confidence in what they thought in their heart and what
they practiced in their life that God would consider that
and would justify them. Nothing could be further from
the truth. Not only that, but if you read in Matthew 23 point
by point Jesus gives an account of what the Pharisees were. Many
things are said there. For example, they were blind
leaders of the blind. Another thing they did is that
they taught men, they laid heavy burdens on men, but they were
unable, or they were unwilling to lift those burdens with one
finger themselves. And they loved the high places
in the market and in the church, if you will. They loved to be
called of men Rabbi, Master, Father, and many other things
like this. So they loved the praise of men.
but all that they said they wouldn't do they did it outwardly Jesus
compared them to dishes like cups and platters which were
outwardly washed but inside they were still dirty and he said
you were full of extortion and excess and he also said they
were like tombs which are made white on the outside but on the
inside were full of dead men's bones so take all of that which
is straight from scripture concerning the Pharisees. They were proud,
they thought they knew, but they didn't know anything about the
kingdom of God. That's what Jesus says here in
verse 3. He says, except you be born again Verily, verily,
I say to thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the
kingdom of God." Blind. That's what that means. They
were blind and yet they were considered by the Jews to be
the capable ones, the teachers and the preachers, the masters.
So that it tells us something about the nature of the Jews
religion. They were led by blind leaders. Proud, self-confident, trusting
in themselves that they were righteous. They believed their
heart was right with God. That God could look at them.
In fact, in Matthew 7 it's shown there in verse 21-23 that when
these kinds of people, those taught by these and they themselves
stand and appear before the Lord Jesus Christ, they will talk
about what they did. Lord, haven't we prophesied in
your name? We were preachers. haven't we
taught? Haven't we cast out devils in
your name? Haven't we done many wonderful
works? And Jesus will say to them, this
is history yet to come. This is future history. He will
say to many in that day, depart from me. I never knew you. Now that describes Nicodemus
here. he was a blind leader of the
blind so blind he didn't know he was blind that's real blindness
isn't it and Jesus told at the end of John chapter 9 he said
for this for judgment I am come into the world that they which
see not might see and they which see might be made blind this
gives us a great deal of distress doesn't it? do we see? will he make us blind? The kind
of sight Nicodemus thought he had is that self-confidence. And what we're going to see here
is that the Lord Jesus Christ brings him down. He humbles him. He brings him
from his lofty place and all of his false notions about God,
salvation, about entering heaven, about what heaven is like, he's
going to obliterate Nicodemus so that he's left with his mouth
open and not anything to say in verse 9 when he says, how
can these things be? Alright, so if we understand
that that point by point Nicodemus was false and whatever Christ
said to him was to counter, to contrast his error with the truth. Now the other thing that you'll
notice, and you can remember this from the rest of the scripture,
is that the Pharisees condemned others. In Luke 18.9 it says
they trusted in themselves that they were righteous and they
condemned or they despised others. This was one of the hallmark
characteristics of a Pharisee. In John chapter 8 they brought
a woman taken in adultery. pushed her right out in the midst
of the crowd and said, look at this woman, she was taken in
adultery in the very act. What do you say? Moses said this. What do you say? Their aim was
there to shame the woman and to use her to prove that Christ
was not faithful to Moses. Somehow he was going to excuse
sin in an unrighteous manner. Of course he didn't do that.
and then in Luke 7, Jesus came to the Pharisees house, Simon,
and a woman came when he was there with Simon and she washed
his feet with her tears and dried them with the hairs of her head
and the Pharisee looked upon this woman like, what? Don't
you even know who this woman is? If you knew who this woman
was, you wouldn't allow her to touch you. so that the Pharisees
despised others and condemned others. Now if we keep all these
things in our memory of what the Pharisees were like, then
the power of this chapter in John chapter 3 will come home
to us in a way both of humbling us and also comforting us. Because God has to humble us
before we will receive the truth of the gospel and be comforted
by it. Even in John 4, this woman of
Samaria when Jesus asked her for a drink from the well there
and she said, why are you asking me for a drink? I'm a woman of
Samaria. and they go back and forth and
finally she gets to that point, she says, Lord, give me this
water that you're talking about, this living water, so I don't
have to come here to draw. She didn't want to have to show
up in the middle of the day to get water. She wouldn't do it
when the rest of them were coming, because she was ashamed of her
life. So she came by herself at noon. So she didn't want to
come there. So she thought, if you give me
living water, I don't have to come here anymore. Jesus said,
we'll call your husband. And right away, it was like there
was this withering, exposing of herself as a sinner. that
led to her saying, we know that when Messiah comes he'll tell
us all things and Jesus said, I have spoken to you and he and
revealed himself to her. So that the truth came home to
the woman after she knew herself in the presence of Christ to
be nothing but sin. Now that's what John 3 does.
It brings this man, this proud man, down in order to show us
how God saves sinners. And to show us something more
than just how God saves sinners, but to show us what we don't
expect to find here. God's own thoughts. God's own
nature. God's own truth. His heart. because what we see here is that
everything Nicodemus was was entirely opposite and in contrast
to the Lord Jesus who is God in the flesh so that what Jesus
said and did was totally antithetical to the pharisaical mind in other
words opposite to the way we are when you think of Luke chapter
18, where the two are used by Jesus to show us the Pharisee
in contrast to the publican. How the publican went down to
his house justified rather than the other. We often say, I'm
like the publican, I'm not like the Pharisee. Don't we? Because scripture is written
in a way, it's called a hook. you know a hook does, it's cast
out with bait on it and then the fish bites it and they're
trapped, they're caught. And scripture does that, it lays
the hook and when we swallow it then we're trapped in the
very thing where we have to confess that's me. So that Luke chapter
18 setting side by side the Pharisee and the publican is doing what?
It's setting us in our natural selves in contrast to the effect
of what God does when He saves us. We start out just like the
Pharisee and we end up, if God has saved us, just like the publican. And that's how we know the Lord
has done it. So let's look at John chapter
3 and I want to just read through this and comment with you and
then we're going to get to the part of this in verses 13 through
16. He says in verse 1, there was
a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night
and said to him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come
from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest except
God be with him." What he said here was a conclusion drawn from
observable evidence. He could see that Jesus obviously
did miracles, no one could deny it, even the Pharisees. That's
what made him so mad, frustrated, and he drew the conclusion that
a natural man must draw. If he did miracles, he must be
from God. And yet, the faith of the natural
man, which draws conclusions from observable evidence, is
not the faith that saves. He goes on. Jesus answered and
said to him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man
be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. You have
to be born again. Nicodemus had been born once,
like we all have. He didn't vote on it. He didn't
coerce his parents, didn't counsel them. They acted independent
of his input. He had nothing to do with his
physical birth. In fact, he was born to Abraham's children so
he could trace his lineage back to Abraham himself and he trusted
in himself because of that, that he had access to the kingdom
of God. Jesus said, no, you've got to
be born again. Nicodemus said to him, how can
a man be born when he's old? Can he enter the second time
into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, verily,
verily, I say unto thee. In other words, verily, verily.
Really, they're the same way we say amen, amen. This is the truth. This is true. Jesus himself in the book of
Revelation is called the amen. He's the truth. He's the verily,
verily. And he says, I say unto you. What's he saying here? you call
me a master like yourself as one of your peers you have no
idea the infinite distance between who I am and who you are an infinite
distance verily verily he didn't even say Moses said he said I
saying to you except a man be born of water and of the Spirit. He cannot enter into the kingdom
of God. Water and wind in the original. In other words, two
physical things pointing to two correspondingly spiritual things. Water points to the Word of God. In Psalm 119 he says, in verse
93, I will never forget thy precepts. For with them thou hast quickened
me, thou hast given me life. Through the word of God, God
gives life. And in the book of 1 Corinthians,
chapter 4, verse 15, the apostle Paul says, I have begotten you
again by the gospel. Through the preaching of the
gospel, God is pleased to give life. and he says by the spirit
Jesus said himself in John 6 63 the words that I speak unto you
they are spirit and they are life. Breathe out from Christ
is the spirit of God through the word of God. They're inseparable.
You can't separate the saving word of the spirit from the gospel
of God. In James 1 verse 17 it says every
good gift and every perfect gift cometh down from the Father of
lights with whom is no variables nor shadow of turning of his
own will be he us by the word of truth by the word of truth
and in 1st Peter 1.23 the same thing being born again not of
corruptible seed but of incorruptible by the word of God and Jesus
said in in John 15 he says now you are clean through the word
that I've spoken to you. And in Ephesians 5 he says, through
the washing of water by the word. So we see clearly that when God
speaks, when the Lord Jesus speaks here of the water and the wind,
he's speaking of the word of God, the gospel of Christ, which
is spoken by men, by the Lord himself, and in the speaking
of the gospel God the Spirit is pleased to apply that gospel
to us in a life-giving way. And that is called birth. We're
born of God by His Spirit. In us is created a new man. We're created in Christ Jesus.
It's also called a resurrection. We're raised from spiritual death
to spiritual life. And it's by the Word of God,
by the Spirit of God. Can you do it? Of course not.
You can't see it. You can't enter. Nicodemus, the
most learned among the Jews here, says, how can these things be?
He didn't know anything about this. It was plain if you understand
it from Scripture, but if you don't, then you're blind to it. So we can't understand it. And
even if we understand the words that communicate the truth of
it, unless we understand the truth of it by the application
of it we still can't know it. So let's go on. So Jesus says
you have to be born of water and spirit. You can't enter the
kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh. That which is born of the spirit is spirit. People
have people when they give birth. Animals have animals. Flesh begets
flesh. It's nothing more. But the Spirit
of God births spiritual men and women, boys and girls. The Spirit
of God alone gives birth to spiritual life, spiritual God's children,
children born of God. So he brought Nicodemus now to
a point of dependency. He can't produce this no more
than he could produce his physical birth, much more even than he
could not produce his physical birth, he could not make his
spiritual birth happen. What is happening here? Nicodemus
has become utterly aware that he's dependent upon the work
of God. And Jesus is the one who is telling
him that he's utterly dependent upon God. So he needs God to
do something for him and he can't make it happen. God has to do
this and verse 8 really seals it up tight. He says, Jesus says
in verse 7, marvel not that I said to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it listed,
wherever it pleases. And thou hearest the sound thereof,
but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth,
so is every one that is born of the Spirit." You don't know
where the wind comes from, you don't know where it's going,
you can't direct it, you can't slow it down, you can't make
it happen. That's the work of the Spirit
of God. But what does that make us? It
makes us utterly dependent upon God, doesn't it? But more than
that, what we're going to see here is that Nicodemus came to
Jesus, his condition was described as the time of day, it was night,
he was darkness itself, a blind leader of the blind, they both
would fall into the ditch, professing himself to be something, trusting
in his own righteousness, despising others, knowing nothing about
the kingdom of God, couldn't see it, couldn't enter it, he
was outside of it at this point. And Jesus tells him, you have
to be born of the Spirit from above, born as God's own son. So then Jesus says this, notice
in verse 9, Jesus after he said that in verse 8 about the Spirit
acting sovereignly, he says Nicodemus answered and said to him, how
can these things be? Now Nicodemus didn't understand
it, that's clear. But there's something more in
this verse than just a lack of understanding. You know what's
in this verse here? Unbelief. Notice what Jesus says
next. He answered and said, Art thou
a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? You profess
to be a master? Who are you teaching? What are
you teaching them? You don't know the earthly operations
of God in the hearts of men? You don't know that? What in
the world can you be teaching them? He goes on in verse 11. Notice, He's bringing Nicodemus
to the point where he has to acknowledge that unless he bows
to the Son of God who is speaking to him, he cannot have his life. Notice what Jesus says. Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, we speak that we do know. What we tell
you, we know. We testify and we testify what
we have seen. and you receive not our witness."
What's he saying? Nicodemus said, how can these
things be? Jesus is saying, I told you what
I do know. I told you what I have seen and
you haven't received my witness. No wonder you don't know because
you don't believe and your unbelief is your fault. You're guilty. of not believing the one God
sent. And when he says we here, he's
talking about himself and all of his people, because we all
speak the same thing as our master. He says in verse 12, now if I
have told you earthly things and you believe not, that affirms
what I just said. Jesus tells him he wouldn't believe,
wouldn't receive it, But if I tell you earthly things and you believe
not, how shall you believe if I tell you of heavenly things?
And I was talking to my wife about this verse a couple weeks
ago saying, I don't know what that means. But as we think about
it, it has to mean that the Lord Jesus was just explaining to
Nicodemus the things of God he does on earth in the hearts of
men. and he's about to tell him the
heavenly things which are the basis of that earthly operation
of God. Nicodemus didn't believe the
things he had already said about what he did know and had seen.
How would he believe these heavenly things if he didn't believe the
earthly things? And now in verse 13, and here
we get to the gospel. the Lord Jesus Christ has brought
this man to a place of frustration and humiliation in his presence
and even though there's no one else around he had to feel as
if he was made naked in the presence of God just like the woman at
the well. Go call your husband. I don't
have a husband. Yeah, the reason is you had five
and the one you're now living with is not your husband. He
knew all men. He knew what was in man. He searches
the hearts and tries the reins. And so in verse 13 it says, Jesus
says, And no man has ascended up to heaven, but he that came
down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven. This
seems like a verse just taken out of the ether and locked right
into the conversation. Doesn't it? What does this mean?
How does it even fit with what Jesus had been saying? Well again,
remember, what the Lord is doing here is he's setting in contrast
to Nicodemus' error, the truth. Nicodemus and those like him
sought the praise of men. They wanted the honor of men.
And they thought they had God's respect, his approval for what
they did. They trusted in themselves. Jesus
sets all that in contrast to the truth. No man has ascended
up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven. Now it turns out that these words
here were taken almost from Moses' words in Deuteronomy chapter
30, where he says, don't save your heart. It's quoted in Romans
10 verse 6. Moses describes in Romans chapter
10 verse 6, Moses describes the righteousness which is of the
law, the righteousness which is of faith, let me say, let
me read it there in Romans chapter 10 because this is a quotation
from that place in Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 30, but listen to
this. He says in Romans chapter 10, Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. That's an important
text of scripture and I'm going to tie it back in to John 3.13. he goes on in Romans 10 5 for
Moses describes the righteousness which is of the law that the
man which doeth those things shall live by them if you want
to have the righteousness of the law if you want to live then
you have to do what the law says but notice listen to these words
with the overlay of John 3 13 the righteousness which is of
faith speaketh on this wise this is quoting Moses now say not
in thine heart who shall ascend into heaven Jesus said no man
hath ascended up to heaven here it says say not in thine heart
who shall ascend into heaven that is to bring Christ down
from above or who shall descend into the deep that is to bring
up Christ again from the dead what is he saying here? he's
saying that in contrast to the law which requires us to keep
the law for life the gospel says Christ alone can ascend up to
heaven and the way he ascended is that he first descended and
in the second half of this where he says don't say who shall descend
into the deep because the only one who can descend into the
deep The flood of God's judgment against sin and bear the curse
for God's people and rise again is the Lord Jesus Christ. There
is only one man, the Son of Man, who could ever keep the law. The law is so holy that only
Christ could keep it. That's why it says in verse 4
of Romans 10, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness.
He's the fulfillment of it. He brought it to a consummate
end. This was the purpose of the law, to set forth God's holy
law and righteousness in the obedience of the Son of Man. He first descended, made under
the law, putting himself under the law in obligation for his
people bearing the obligation of the entire weight of the law
which the Pharisees put on other men and they weren't able to
lift it with one finger. The Lord Jesus didn't put it
on other men. He bore it on himself and he
took it willingly and he owned not only the obligations of the
law for righteousness but he took the sin that was his people
and was made sin for them, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him." So that unlike the Pharisee who looked around
to see how much better he was than others, Christ was the only
one worthy, the only one appointed and chosen of God in order to
fulfill His law for righteousness in order to do that for his people
and he would do it not by exalting himself as the Pharisees but
making himself a servant even coming in the likeness of sinful
flesh and so we see here that in entirely contrasted to Nicodemus
and the Pharisees and the natural man the Lord Jesus Christ who
is God himself in the nature of man, which was an infinite
stoop for God, who has to stoop to even behold the things on
earth, that in heaven took to himself the nature of his people
in order that he might be under the law for them. Bear the weight
of the law, fulfill it too, and then take their sins. And as
the high priest in Leviticus 16 confessed the sins of Israel
on the head of that scapegoat, he confessed their sins upon
his own head and he laid them on himself and he bore them away
into a land uninhabited a land of forgetfulness and God says
I will remember their sins no more and he did it in love love
that fulfilled the law, because he loved a sinful people. It was in fulfillment of God's
law. Exodus 21 verses 2-6 talked about
the servant who loved his master and loved his wife and loved
his children, all of which were given to him by his master. He says, I love my master, I
love my wife, I love my children, I will not go out free. The master
would take him put his ear against the post of the door and take
the awl, bore his ear through. The Lord Jesus says in Psalm
chapter 40, your law was within my heart. I come to do your will,
O my God. And he laid his life down. Bearing
our sins and fulfilling God's law in a righteousness we put
upon the scales of God's justice the infinite justice of God on
one side and the Lord Jesus Christ in his love for sinners stooping
as we read just a few moments ago in Psalm 22 I am a worm and
no man laid aside his reputation and he became obedient unto death
even the death of the cross and God scales with his infinite
justice on that side and the glory of God in all of His perfections
manifested in the work of Christ as our Redeemer. Righteousness, everlasting righteousness
in the One who is the Son of Man who first descended and God
has highly exalted Him and so that He ascended and that Son
of Man is now in Heaven. And guess what? it is from him
and him alone that the Spirit of God is given. Nicodemus couldn't
make it happen. The Lord Jesus alone could. He
sent his Spirit. The woman at the well said, give
me this water. Jesus said, if you knew the gift
of God and who it is that says to you, give me to drink, you
would have asked him, and he would have given you living water,
the water in the word, the water in the spirit, and in John 7,
37-39, whoever thirsts, let him come unto me, and drink, as the
scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living
water, and this he spake of the spirit, which was not yet given,
because Jesus was not yet glorified. when he was glorified because
he stood and descended and fulfilled the law for righteousness and
bore our sins in order to make us righteous in his own righteousness
then he was highly exalted and given a name above every name
so that he now gives his spirit he gives it he says ask and I'll
give it to you and so then he says this in John 314 as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the son
of man be lifted up Moses in the wilderness numbers 20 21
you can read this the children of Israel were weary because
of the way and they spoke against God they spoke against Moses
God sent fiery serpents to bite them and kill them. God sent
them. They sinned. They despised the
word of the Lord. They despised the law of God,
Moses. They were dying and many of them
had died. They cried to Moses. They cried
to God's law. Tell us what to do. They couldn't
do anything. There was no medicine. There
was no remedy. They were sinful. They had sinned
against God, against God's law. They were condemned by God and
they were dying and there was no remedy. They were without
hope. God said to Moses, you take a
serpent. The symbol of the one that bit
the people. The symbol of death. and you
take that serpent and you hang it on a pole and you fasten it
there and everyone who looks at that lifted up serpent lives. Everyone who looked lived. Though
they were bitten and dying, though they were condemned and justly
so and had no hope and though there was no remedy when they
saw that serpent lifted up by Moses, according to God's own
decree, they lived. And Jesus said, this is what
it means. As Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. That's the descent. What we were
talking about a moment ago. Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law He made a curse for us, that the promise
of Abraham might come on the Gentiles, that we might receive
the Spirit of God. You see? What had to happen for
Him to be born again? What has to happen for us to
be born of God? Christ has to be crucified, lifted
up. He Himself has to give His Spirit,
that we might look upon Him and see Him with God-given eyes and
faith in Him. He says in verse 15 that whosoever
believeth in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. Unlike the Pharisees, the Lord
Jesus Christ took the lowest place. unlike the Pharisees who
could not keep the law he actually kept it but he didn't seek honor
from men he did it in order to glorify his father and verse
16 sums it up for God so loved the world that he gave his only
begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but
have everlasting life First of all, notice what's prominent
in this verse. Is it not the love of God? And
is it not how the measure of His gift is the measure of His
love? Who can measure the gift of God's
Son? Can anything be put alongside
the Son of God in any way, in a comparable way? No. God says, there is none beside
me. Go ahead and measure. Look in
the Hubble telescope. See if you can see the edge of
the universe. No, scientists say it's like
2 billion light years or some dumb thing like that. No, it's
not. It goes beyond your vision and
you're not willing to admit it. You know why? Because God who
made it by his word, heaven and earth, it says in Solomon said,
the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee.
God is infinite. The Son of God cannot be measured. There's nothing to compare Him
with. God gave the Son. He gave everything. Son of His love. He gave everything. That's the measure here. God
so loved. And then the next word, the world. the reason this verse is a problem,
and it shouldn't be, is because the interpretation of those words,
the world, now there's several things that happen here. Armenians
will say, and Armenians, I just mean evangelical, free will,
works, religion, you're talking about the churches in America,
let's stick to those, 95% of the churches in America, I'll
say all of man's religion make salvation a transaction between
you and God, where you bring your condition, you meet your
conditions God has put forth, and then he gives you his blessing.
If salvation depends on us meeting a condition, I can tell you right
now, without any shadow of doubt, all of us will spend eternity
in hell. There's no possible way for us
who are dead in sins to rise up from the casket and undo the
sins of our life. Even if we could, what are we
going to do? Are we going to somehow produce
a righteousness now that God will give us life for? It's absolutely
ridiculous in the highest sense. It's an offense to God. Why would
God give His Son and leave a little part up to you? that is an insult,
that is blasphemy. But we still have the words that
Jesus used. This is the words of Jesus to
who? Nicodemus, the proud religionist
who looks on others and despises them. Who is this world? Well
it's the same people who were in the wilderness, bitten, dying,
and justly condemned with no remedy and no hope. they had
spoken against God, spoken against Moses and the Lord Jesus in these
words to Nicodemus, he says, you take your place among the
bitter. You take your place among those
dying under the justice of God without hope and you look up
to the Son of God crucified who descended from God so loved the
world. And who is this world? Well,
we like to think of it in terms of the scope of the love of God,
in terms of the number of people God loved. But if you understand
it in the context, it's really describing the character, isn't
it? Isn't it describing the nature of those for whom God, for whom,
those God loved, for whom Christ died? Isn't it describing the
very fact that's revealed so plainly in scripture that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners that's the world,
the world of sinners that God loved. He says in promise to
Abraham, he says in thee and in thy seed, meaning Christ,
shall all nations of the earth be blessed. How many were blessed? Were all the inhabitants of the
world justified by the Lord Jesus Christ? No, no, of course not. but those who were the spiritual
children of Abraham, chosen by God, given faith, given the Spirit
of God by the authority of the risen and exalted Christ who
suffered for their sins. So the world here describes the
nature of those, those that Nicodemus despised and condemned and thought
he was on the right side of God when he did it. that woman taken
in adultery in John 8, or the woman who washed Jesus' feet,
or the sinners who came, the publicans and the sinners Jesus
was with and allowed to come into his presence. Why do you
let sinners and publicans, you eat and drink with them? Yes
I do. Because the righteous don't need opposition. He didn't come
to call the righteous. Isn't that what he said? And
how could they then be in the world here? because God only
saves sinners. And if you're not a sinner, you're
going to have to be made a sinner in order to be saved. In Romans
chapter 5 it says, the love of God, notice, the love of God
is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given
unto us. And what is the Holy Ghost given
to us? How does He shed abroad the love of God in our hearts?
For when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died
for the ungodly. Nicodemus, take your place over
there. You're on the wrong side. You
can't see. You haven't entered. Because
you're not a sinner. You're not ungodly. And he goes
on in Romans chapter 5. Not only did he die for the ungodly. Let me read it to you from Romans
chapter 5. He says, this is the nature of God's love. These are
those we love. God said this. and this is our
condition and notice the magnitude of God's love when we were sinners
he says in Romans chapter 5 verse 7 for scarcely for a righteous
man will one die yet peradventure for a good man some would even
dare to die but God commended he made known, he set forth,
he recommended to us his love, he commended his love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. If you're ungodly, if you have
no strength to keep God's law, like those bitten in the wilderness,
they deserved it. Nicodemus even did that. But
he wasn't one of them. He never spoke against Moses.
He never spoke against God. Yeah, that's a problem, because
Jesus didn't come to call the righteous. You see the difference? The Lord
Jesus Christ laid down his life for the sheep, those given to
him by his Father. In Romans chapter 8, this is
the last verse and we'll close with this. I wish I had time
to demonstrate from scripture to you that this is the nature
of God's love. Undeserved. Romans 8 verse 29. Whom he did foreknow. If God
knows us, that's unique isn't it? Jesus told those in Matthew
7, I never knew you. Here he says, for those he did
foreknow. In Romans 11 he says, God doesn't
cast away his people which he foreknew. Here, those he did
foreknow, he knew them in love. He also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of his Son. Does God ever do anything
that he doesn't know he's going to do before he does it? Has
God ever done one thing in time that he didn't know he would
do before time? and set it down in his counsel
and decree. No. Known unto God are all his
works from the foundation of the world. He works all things
according to the counsel of his own will. His word and his will
and his work are all one. They're all one. He does all
his will and all that he does is his will, determined before
time. So he says here, plainly, he knew his people, he predestinated
them to what? To be conformed to the image
of his son, that he, Christ, might be the firstborn among
many brethren. They were going to be his children, brethren
of Christ. He predestinated them to that. Moreover, whom he did
predestinate, then he also called. Whom he called, then he also
justified. Whom he justified, then he also glorified. An unbroken
chain from beginning to end. Those in heaven are those God
determined to save before time. If he didn't, he's not God. I'm
telling you, scripture affirms this. There's no separation between
those in heaven. In fact, Matthew 25, 34, he says,
Enter into the kingdom prepared for you of my
Father from before the foundation of the world. There you have
it. Anyway, if you were known, if you were loved of God, then
you shall be glorified. That's what these are saying.
Verse 31. What shall we then say to these
things? Notice. If God be for us. Is God for
those he loves? That's what this is saying. Is
God for those he does not love? If God loves you, he's for you.
If God is for you, read on. Who can be against us? God Himself
is for you. Verse 32, He that spared not
His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not
with Him also freely give us all things? God gave everything
to His Son. And God gave His Son, that means He'll give you
everything with His Son. There's no question about it.
If He gave His Son, there's nothing to compare. He's going to give
you everything. Therefore, if you perish, it's
because He didn't give you His Son. who shall lay anything to
the charge, notice, of God's elect. That's who he's talking
about. It is God that justifies. Who
is he that condemneth? Stand up! Who condemns? What's the answer of God? What
is the answer of God to all condemnation against his people? Come on!
It is Christ that died. That's the answer. What's your
answer to God? my answer is the Lord Jesus Christ
he has to answer and with himself for me that's the answer God
received him for me who shall separate us from the love of
Christ you see God's love for his people has no beginning it
has no end and it has consequences God does something for those
he loves he's for them no one can separate them They and their
sin cannot separate themselves from Him because He loved them
when they were sinners, ungodly enemies of God. He reconciled
them by the death of His Son. I'm so thankful that the Lord
says God so loved the world, the world of sinners, the world
of those that Jesus came to save. There's no question about it.
If the Lord loves a people, he's for them. And if he's for them,
no one can separate him from his love. Love is eternal. What an amazing thing. You see
the differences between Nicodemus and Christ? Jesus is the son
of man. fully God as if he were only
God, fully man as if he's only man, but he's the God-man. And
what he said, what he did when he described the Son of Man to
Nicodemus, when he described the love of God to the people
that Nicodemus despised, was entirely antithetical to Nicodemus
and all who are like him, which we are by natural birth. And
the evidence of being born of God is what? It's the public
enemy. God, be merciful to me, the sinner. That's the evidence. We are at
the foot of the cross, looking up upon Christ lifted up. And
God did that. And Christ and His Spirit do
that in us. I live by the faith of the Son
of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I hope the Lord
is pleased to convince you of these things.