If you want to turn in your Bible
to John chapter 7 again, I want to read through the first few
verses here. And I want to get into the first
few verses here in John chapter 7 that led up to what we talked
about last time, which were the feasts of the Lord, especially
the Feast of Tabernacles, which is given here in this chapter
and culminating in verses 37 through 39. But I want to look
today at what led up to that, and so I want to read the first
18 verses with you. I've entitled today's message,
Our Great Need, Met by Christ, or Met in Christ. In verse one,
he says, after these things, Jesus walked in Galilee, for
he would not walk in Jewry, which means Judea, because the Jews
sought to kill him. Now the Jews' feast of tabernacles
was at hand. It's called the Jews' Feast because
it was a feast that they observed, but in a distorted way and without
faith. And so it's just an outward show
of what God originally gave to teach about Christ. And sadly,
this feast was just a feast being held by unbelieving religious
people. I don't want to be part of that,
do you? I don't. But I do want to be part of the
true feast, so let's read on. His brethren, now the brethren
here means the brethren of Christ, those who were his relatives,
his brethren therefore said unto him, depart hence and go into
Judea that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest. For there is no man that doeth
anything in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If
thou do these things, show thyself to the world, for neither did
his brethren believe in him. And that's really the section
I want to focus on here. You can see that the brethren
of Christ did not believe him. And what they said here reflected
the attitude of their unbelief towards Christ. That's why we
so desperately need Christ. And that's what we look to Christ
for, is to save us who are, by nature, no different than they.
Verse six says, then Jesus said to them, my time is not yet come,
but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you, but
me it hateth, because I testify of it that the works thereof
are evil. Go ye up unto this feast. I go
not up yet unto this feast, for my time is not yet full come.
When he had said these words to them, he abode still in Galilee. But when his brethren were gone
up, then went he also up unto the feast, not openly, but as
it were in secret. Then the Jews sought him at the
feast and said, where is he? And there was much murmuring
among the people concerning him. For some said, he is a good man. Others said, nay, but he deceiveth
the people. Howbeit, no man spake openly
of him for fear of the Jews. Now, about the midst of the feast,
it was an eight-day feast, and this was the middle of those
eight days. Jesus went up into the temple and taught. And the
Jews marveled, saying, how knoweth this man letters? having never
learned. Jesus answered them and said,
My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man
will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be
of God or whether I speak of myself. He that speaketh of himself
seeketh his own glory, but he that seeketh his glory that sent
him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him." Obviously,
that's Christ. He's the one who does not seek
his own glory. He speaks the message his father
gave to him, and there is no unrighteousness in him. He is
true. OK. And we know that's true about
him. Let's go back then and look at
the first few verses here. In verse three, it says, his
brethren, his brethren. Now the Lord Jesus had brothers
and sisters. And some people would deny the
fact that Mary and Joseph lived in the relationship of normal
husband and wife after the birth of Christ. And I think the reason
behind that is that People with superstitious views of Mary think
of her as sinless and that the birth of Christ being to her
as a virgin, having never known man, somehow made her sinless. And therefore, after the birth
of Christ, she could have no relations to her husband. But
this is foolishness. This is foolishness. First of
all, Mary was a sinner before Jesus was born. And there's nothing
indecent or inappropriate between a man and a woman living in the
conjugal relationship of marriage because God himself gave this
to us. The two shall be one flesh which
pictures the union between Christ and his people. And so in that,
there's nothing. It says in Hebrews chapter 13,
marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled. So God
has sanctioned this. He has sanctified marriage. Therefore,
it is holy. Children born to a married couple
are called holy in scripture because it was a God-given, sanctified
relationship between them through which the children were born.
And if children are born outside of the wedlock of marriage, then
they are illegitimate children in that sense. So God is not,
he's not speaking of Mary in a sense where she could not have
children. In fact, James in Galatians chapter
1 and verse 19 is called James the brother of the Lord. And
so I'm not going to spend much time on that. But the point here
is that these brethren, these men, who were called the brethren
of the Lord Jesus Christ, undoubtedly were familiar with him throughout
his youth and to his manhood. They knew him before his public
ministry. And this teaches us a lot of
things because in this verse it says, in verse 5, neither
did his brethren believe in him. It shows us something very concerning. It should be very concerning
to us personally. It doesn't matter how close we
are in company with the Lord Jesus Christ, or how close we
are by natural relations to Him, or how often we hear His teaching,
or how many miracles of Christ that we see, unless God gives
us faith Unless God gives us faith that is saving faith, we
will not benefit by any of that. And this is a sad fact is that
people are naturally inclined to take comfort and confidence
in these things that are natural. I happen to belong to a mother
and father who very diligently taught me in the things of the
Lord. Therefore, I can't be wrong. And when you're a kid, you're
always confident that your team is the right team. Your family
must be the right family. And there's nothing wrong with
believing that your parents are teaching you the right thing.
But the point is that we naturally think this way so that when I
was young and I was going to a church that didn't preach the
gospel, I would defend that church and everybody in it because that
was my church. And I grew up there, so it was
somehow I had this relationship naturally to a group of people
who claimed to be believing God, giving them grace people, and
yet I didn't know the gospel. They didn't know the gospel for
the most part, I don't think. It didn't do me any good. It
didn't do them any good to be in a building called a church
or to hear the word of God read unless God gives us something
that we can't produce. Salvation by grace through faith,
all right? So that's the first lesson we
see here. And I wanna look too here, he
says in the same section here in John chapter seven, his brethren
therefore said to him, depart hence and go into Judea. So here's
a group of men who grew up with Christ. They had all the privileges
of seeing him in his behavior, hearing his word throughout his
youth. He never once did sin. Think about that. What would
it be like to live with somebody who never did wrong? We can easily see other people
as being our moral superior. That often gives us cause for
envy, and therefore, we hold animosity towards them. We think
ill of them because they're better than us. That's natural, that's
pride. And so I suppose that that was
behind their blindness to Christ's holiness. But the fact of the
matter is, is that all of us by nature can't see God. Because we're sinful and our
eyes are blinded by our pride to his goodness. And so these
men who grew up with the Lord Jesus Christ also couldn't see
the goodness that was in him, because they were blinded by
their own pride, which was why they did not believe him. Pride
blinds, and only by the gift of faith can we see, and then
we also see our own pride and sinfulness. So these men didn't
believe even though they grew up with him. Their unbelief really is a mirror
of our own unbelief. Naturally, what we have by nature,
all of the best that we are by nature, is no different than
they. I'm sure that when these brothers
grew up with Christ, they saw Him and they didn't think anything
different about Him because they were, like all of us as sinners,
we measure people by our own estimation of ourselves. We compare
others to ourselves. Well, that person has more strength
than me. Yeah, but I have, and that's better than them. So we
always have to resort to something to give ourselves some sense
of worth. and confidence so that we don't
just melt because of our own unworthiness. We have nothing
on which to latch hold on, to take hold on, because we don't
know the Lord. And so if we're left as having
nothing, which is our true case before God, and in comparison
to others, really, that we're no better than others, then we
lose all sense of self-confidence. And lack of self-confidence is
paralyzing to us, and we can't function in life. So we find
a way to bolster ourselves. And this is just the natural
way we live. So when they saw Christ, you know what they thought?
He's just like us. He's just like us. He's one of
us. He's obviously in the same household, same parents, same
relatives, same city. He's just like us. He's from
nowhere. He's nothing. Our city is a little
bit better than that one. But really, I mean, we're just
a bunch of people here and we're all the same kind of people. In other words, the Lord said
in Isaiah 50, he says, you thought that I was altogether such and
one like yourself, right? And so that's the way we are.
By nature, we only measure people by what we are in ourselves,
and we can't think higher than our own standard. All right,
and the fact is that we hold to this attitude of unbelief
tenaciously. We can't let go of it. Because
our view of things and our natural need to be in control of whether
something is true or not true, or whether we accept it or reject
it, we want to have control over that. And so naturally, we hold
to our own unbelief. All right, so then they go on.
It goes on here, he says in verse three, his brethren therefore
said to him, depart hence. Now, the nature of unbelief is
not only do we not see Christ for who he is, we don't understand
his work, we don't understand his mission. Why is he here?
We just think he's like us. But what this What this says here, the result
of this, is they tell him to depart, hence, to depart. Now, when we look at the unbelief,
we not only see a reflection of our own sinfulness, and it's
glaringly obvious that these men were not believers, and in
their unbelief, they thought such low thoughts of Christ.
They never appealed to Him for salvation. They never appealed
to Him to teach them. You know how it is when you see
someone who's better than yourself or you hear the truth, what happens
is at first it stings, right? That hurts me because you're
telling me I'm not what I ought to be. But after a while you
live with the person or you hear it a lot and your conscience
gets a callous on it. so that it's okay now. I know
that I'm not better, but I've built up my defenses and I can
tolerate this. It's called a seared conscience.
So they had grown accustomed to being with Christ in his youth
and in his early days. And they, even now at this time,
they were familiar with him. They had heard his teachings
and seen his miracles. And yet they had grown thick
in their conscience against the truth so that it didn't penetrate
them. And so they said, depart hence.
Unbelief isn't bothered if Christ leaves. But faith is the very
opposite. Faith can't live without Christ,
can't live apart from him. And so faith causes men like
Peter and James and John to follow him to the end of the earth.
And like Ruth, who told Naomi, don't ask me to depart from you. I will go wherever you go. Your
people will be my people. Your God will be my God. Where
you live, that's where I'll live. Where you die, that's where I'll
die. Where you're buried, that's where I want to be buried. That's
what the believer says to Christ. But these men said, why don't
you leave here? And then they said, go into Judea
that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest. Now,
Judea was the place of the Jews. It's the place of Jerusalem.
But it says at the beginning that Jesus would not go there
because the Jews wanted to kill Him. They were looking for a
way to kill Him. So He wasn't going there. It
wasn't yet His time to go and submit Himself to their wickedness
and they would put Him to death. It wasn't yet that time. But
the brethren of the Lord had no concept of that. They didn't
know why he came or the work that he would do. They only thought
of him as they thought of life through their own eyes. They
viewed life and they pursued what they wanted to please themselves. And so their entire focus was
self-promotion, self-serving. And this is what you see. Unbelief
is a servant of self. A servant of what I think will
promote me and will give me confidence in all these things. But faith
is not that way, is it? Faith actually abandons all confidence
in the flesh. Philippians 3.3, we are the circumcision
which worship God and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence
in the flesh. All right, but these men, having
a seared conscience, having no need for Christ because they
were unbelievers. They tell him to do what they
thought they would do if they were in his position. You must
want the world to recognize you because you're doing all these
things and teaching this way. And your disciples will have
a greater awareness. They'll have a greater knowledge
of who you are. If you go to the public place
where the religious leaders are, and gain their approval. I mean,
if you're really who you say and what you teach, then go there
and prove it by proving it to these men. Because, I mean, if
you get them over on your side, then maybe we'll be able to believe
that you have the truth. And so there's two things here.
Number one, unbelief thinks of itself and thinks of God as we
are. And unbelief also imagines that
Christ could have no higher motive than his own self-promotion.
Completely opposite of the truth. As we read in verse 15, he that
speaks of himself seeks his own glory, but he that seeks his
glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness
is in him. Christ didn't seek his own glory.
He not only didn't seek his own glory, but he made himself of
no reputation. In fact, the very fact, the setting
here that he was the brothers of these men who were unbelievers,
it shows how low that he stooped, that he would make himself such
a servant and take on our human nature into union with his divine
nature in one person. and that he would live in humiliation
side by side with sinners and endure their low estimation of
him because he sought his father's will in doing this and making
himself a servant to his people, he would go to death in obedience
against the opposition. And in this humility and humiliation,
Christ stooped. And so you can see that the fact
that he was brothers a brother of these men who were unbelievers
and they didn't see it, didn't see him, didn't appreciate him.
And yet he pursued his father's will, not to his own glory. It
shows us the great stoop of Christ and what it took for him to save
his people. But they only thought of themselves
and so they imputed to him thoughts that they had of God, which were
low thoughts and high thoughts of themselves. Now, the other
thing to see here in verse 4, he says, no one does anything
in secret if he himself seeks to be known openly. Well, that's
true of politicians, right? They go out on the campaign trail,
they stand up on their stump, and they give their speeches.
That was not what Christ did. He preached the gospel to the
poor, which was preaching himself as the one who would bear their
sins and answer God in justice and fulfill God's righteousness
and glorify God in doing that at his own cost in order to purchase
them out of his love, his mercy, his grace and compassion. But
they couldn't think that because they know nothing of God's grace
and goodness in His salvation. They were seeking the attention
of the world, He was not. In fact, that was the farthest
thing He was looking for, was the attention of this world.
So he says in verse six, Jesus said to them, my time is not
yet come, but your time is always ready. Jesus had a time God had
appointed to him when he would offer himself to God. And the
way that he would offer himself is by subjecting himself in submission
to his father in order to endure the murderous injustice of wicked
men, because that was the punishment his people deserved, is to have
the unleashing of God's wrath poured out upon them, to bring
upon them the very wickedness that they brought against God
in their sins. Christ came to endure that wickedness. He said,
his time has not yet come. And that was the reason, that
was the time God gave him. In John chapter 12, he says,
in verse 27, now is my soul troubled. What shall I say? Father, save
me from this hour, but for this cause came I unto this hour.
This is the reason why he came, to give his life a ransom for
many. OK, so my time? No, it's not yet. Your time?
Your time to boast, your time to self-promote, seek your own
glory and seek your own approval of men in this world and their
applause in order to bolster your confidence in your position
and to gain their Reassurance that your sense of
righteousness before God is enough that God will accept you. He'll
recognize you. If men recognize you who are
religious men, certainly God must also recognize you. That
was the attitude of an unbelieving brothers of Christ. They expected
God would recognize them for who they were as Jews maybe even
in the possibility that they were related to Christ physically,
but certainly for what they did and their religious performances
here. So they were going to the feast to perform what they thought
were acts of righteousness. And Christ said, you go on ahead,
go on ahead. You're trusting in this shadow,
this feast that had been turned by the Jews into nothing more
than an empty feast. And yet it spoke of Christ who
was crucified for the salvation of his people. You go on up.
He tells them in verse seven, the world cannot hate you, but
me it hates, because I testify of it that the works thereof
are evil. What is this world? He says the world cannot hate
you, but me it hates, because I testify of it. Well, where
was Jesus not going to go? Why did he not go? Well, he wasn't
gonna go to Jerusalem. And he wasn't going to go there
because it wasn't his time yet to yield himself up in offering
to God for the sins of his people at the hands of wicked men, to
receive from them the punishment we deserved under the wrath of
God. It wasn't time yet. But he wasn't
going to go up to Jerusalem because that was the world, you see. That was the religious world. That was the seat of the power
of the religious world, where the rulers of the Jews were.
Jerusalem is called in Revelation, and the Jews' religion is called
Sodom and Egypt, where our Lord was crucified in Revelation chapter
11. And take a look at this verse
in Galatians chapter 1. Excuse me, Galatians. and chapter one. He says in verse four, well,
I'll read verse three. Grace be to you and peace from
God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. I just love to
hear those words, don't you? God the Father and our Lord Jesus
Christ. And look at verse four, who gave
himself for our sins. He gave himself to God. He gave
himself as an offering to God in our place with our sins to
endure the wrath of God for us in our place. That judgment of
God's wrath would pass over us. Who gave himself, he didn't just
give an offering a created object or person or a world He gave
Himself for our sins that He might deliver
us from this present evil world, you see, according to the will
of God and our Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. And
what is the rest of the book of Galatians about? It's how
God has saved us, us Gentiles, by Jesus Christ, through His
offering and faith in Him, not in our own obedience, which the
Jews who were the world were preaching in opposition to Christ
and the gospel. Christ came to deliver his people
from that world, that religious world. And he did so by giving
himself for our sins. Amazing grace, isn't it? Look
at the book of John, in John chapter 15, the world. this world that hated Christ.
Notice in John chapter 15 and verse 18, he says, if the world hate you,
you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of
the world, the world would love his own. But because you are
not of the world, But notice, I have chosen you out of the
world, therefore the world hates you. So when the Lord speaks
in John 7, the world cannot hate you, he's speaking of that world
out of which he chose a people for himself and left that world
unchosen. So the world then are those who
are not chosen. And those who are the Lord's
people who were redeemed were chosen by Christ out of the world. And he redeemed them. He gave
himself for our sins that he might deliver us from that present
evil world. Look at John chapter 17. He didn't
choose the world. John 17 in verse six. I have
manifested thy name, he speaks to his father, unto the men which
thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they were, and thou gavest
them me, and they have kept thy word. You see, that's the difference
between the world and Christ's people. Look at verse 20. Neither
pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe
on me through their word. Actually in verse nine, he says,
I pray for them, I pray not for the world. Okay, so these who believe Christ,
are those Christ prayed for, are those that He reveals Himself
to, they receive His Word and they keep His Word in believing
Him. They were chosen, He doesn't pray for the world, He prays
for them. They were brought out of the world. And this is a great
grace, isn't it, that Christ would have a people who in themselves
were no different than the others. We also were sometimes foolish,
disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living
in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But after
that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared,
not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according
to his mercy he saved us. By the washing of regeneration
and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly
through Jesus Christ, that being justified by his grace, we should
be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Titus chapter
3. So you see how God has saved
us from the world? He saved us out of this world.
We were no different than others and the Lord has saved us. In
Ephesians chapter 2, he says this about us and our natural
condition and how the Lord made a difference. He says, You who
were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past you walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the
children of disobedience, among whom we all, we all had our conversation
in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children
of wrath, even as others. We're no better than Christ's
unbelieving brethren, are we? Absolutely not. I would take
my place lower than them because I know that even with God's grace,
who I am and what I am, and it is not pretty. But here he says,
but God who is rich in mercy, here's the difference, for his
great love, wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in
sins, has made us alive, quickened us together with Christ. By grace
are you saved. You see what the world is? That
is wonderful, isn't it? So wonderful. We were unbelieving,
the world can't hate you because we were just like the world.
We were believing, we were drinking in their doctrine, the doctrine
of this religious world and happy with it. These men were happy
to go to the feast. They didn't have any lack. There
was nothing when Jesus said, if any man thirst, they weren't
thirsty. They were satisfied with all
the religious performances in the Jews religion. And that was
the world Christ is speaking of. They can't hate you because
you're not, I mean, because you're of the world, but they do hate
me. And here's why. Because I testify of the world
that the works of it are evil. Now, there's nothing more provoking of anger than when
you tell someone you are evil. You know this is true. Even this
perverse world will take offense if you point out that their behavior
is wicked. They cover it up. They mask their
behavior with other words. It's a woman's choice, for example. We're more free than you. where
we actually allow people to do what they want to do, unlike
you immoral people who tell us that this is wrong. So, I mean,
you know what the world does, that they hide, they cloak their
perversity in words that hide the shame of it, and yet they
glory in their shame. And that's the world, right?
But mostly in a religious sense, because there's nothing more
natural to us than to hold confidence in our own performance that God
will recognize us in the day of judgment. But it won't, he
won't. And so these men had no regard
for Christ, they had no need of him. They were blinded by
their pride, and so they lived happily in their unbelief. Jesus told the Pharisees in the
end of John chapter nine, when they asked him, are we blind?
Are we blind? And he said, if you were blind,
you would have no sin. You see, that's the issue. If you're blind, then you know
you're a sinner and you need Christ and his grace to save
you. But if you see, then your sin
remains. You see, these brothers of Christ
were completely able to see, at least they thought, but they
were totally blind, and it was their pride, and that was their
unbelief, their pride. Unbelief is a bad thing, isn't
it? But here's what God's grace does when he gives us faith.
He humbles us. He causes us to realize that
we can come to the God of glory who was holy, and just and will
not clear the guilty can come to him through the Lord Jesus
Christ, his only begotten son, because in him he has provided
an answer for sinners to his justice, a fulfillment for sinners
in his righteousness and all to his glory. And sinners who
are blind and need that are as happy as they could possibly
be that this is all on the Lord Jesus Christ. And they thirst
for him. They thirst to know this, and
they aren't satisfied with anything less. But I'd also like to point
out here that these men, they said this to the Lord. They said,
if you want to be known openly, then go to Jerusalem, to Judea,
and make yourself known there. This is another thing that unbelief
does, our unbelief. is that unbelief is always wanting
to be in the place of control, of judging whether or not something
is true, and it's bolstered if the leaders of religion approve
of it. But faith, let me say this, faith
is able to stand on Christ when no one else acknowledges or is
interested in or stands on Him. Unbelief has to join the wide
road to destruction because that's the only place of approval. And
they can't find confidence unless someone else can tell them this
is the way it is. But faith, like the men and the
women in Hebrews chapter 11, will stand alone on Christ, because
Christ is everything to the believer. And it doesn't matter what the
world says. It matters only what Christ has said, what He has
done. That's the way faith is. And
so these men wanted him to go up to Jerusalem because if he
would, then he would enable his disciples, so-called, to believe
on him more because the religious people would approve of him.
And they sought, at all times, they sought the approval and
praise of men. It's a tendency that we have.
And the other thing I would point out here about the differences
between what we are by nature and our unbelief, and what we
are by God's grace when he gives us faith, is notice what they
say here in verse four. If thou do these things, show
thyself to the world. And here's something that unbelief
does, and this comes directly from the master deceiver who
is Satan. The word if. You see that? If thou do these things. First,
they question that he did them. And secondly, they question the
reason behind it and everything that he wasn't sent of God and
that he had a purpose that God had given that he would fulfill.
If, the big if. Here's what unbelief wants. If
you can demonstrate to me, then I will believe you. But unless
you do, then I have to hold you suspect. And you know what this
is? This is man wanting God to bow
to his own throne that man sits on. If you can persuade me, then
I'll believe you. You see, man wants to be in the
seat of judgment over the truth of God, over the truth of Christ
and Him crucified. And so if you would just do this,
then we can believe you. But if you don't, then obviously
we can't, because you haven't persuaded us. And since we're
the ultimate gatekeeper on what's true and not, and our own intellect,
you've got to satisfy that. and our own sense of right and
wrong or our own sense of the truth or the error. If you can
meet that, then we'll decide for Jesus. So it's all about
decision, isn't it? It's about choices. If you can
give me the right information, if you can prove to me that you
are who you say you are and that you really are sent of God, then
I'll believe you. But if not, then, you know, go
ahead and depart and go do what you want to do. Now, this is
common in scripture. And remember, this is what the
devil did in the temptations of Christ. What did he say to
him? If you were the son of God, then turn these stones into bread.
It was a big if, wasn't it? A big if. And he says, if you
are the son of God, then of course you trust in God. Cast yourself
down, he'll bear you up. He won't let your foot dash against
a stone. And this is the way that Satan
works. If the truth of God is true,
then something else will have to be done to prove it to be
true. There's something more basic, more foundational than
God's Word. Just His bare Word is not enough.
You need your experience. You need some validation by a
miracle. You need some religious group
to put their stamp of approval on it. You need your own decision
in this thing. And if you can get it down to
where you can weigh the evidence and make the right decision,
then you can be on board here. But unless that happens, you
see. This is the sinful pride of wicked
men. that we wait for something more
solid than the bare word of Christ. In John chapter 10 and in verse
24 of John chapter 10, he says this, the Jews came round about
Jesus and said to him, how long does thou make us to doubt? They
were blaming him for their not believing. If thou be the Christ,
tell us plainly, convince us. Jesus answered, I told you, and
you believed not. The works that I do in my Father's
name, they bear witness of me. Remember he told them, there's
gonna be one sign given to you, the sign of the prophet Jonah,
plus his miracles. But he says, but you believed
not. because you are not of my sheep. So faith, therefore, is a grace
that is unique to God's sheep. It's given to them to believe,
but it is not given to those who are not God's sheep, Christ's
sheep. As I said to you, my sheep hear
my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto
them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall any
pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me
is greater than all. No one, no man is able to pluck
them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one. Absolutely. You can see here the fact that
God's grace is given to those He has chosen, those for whom
Christ prayed, and those to whom He speaks and gives His grace
of faith to believe on Him. The if is removed because Christ
spoke, because Christ accomplished. And as a sinner, I have no other
hope. But hearing His word, I have
all hope. I've all hope. He told them,
your time is always ready. My time is not yet come. The
other thing about unbelief in contrast to faith is that the
death of Christ means nothing to an unbelieving world. It means it's a superstitious
thing. We can put a cross around our neck, but it doesn't mean
anything to us. unless we can manipulate it somehow
to our religious advantage. But look at what the Lord says
about the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn to Romans chapter
3. This is the faith of God's elect. Look at this in Romans chapter
3 in verse 23. He says, for all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. Now, this is a conclusion
made after a long a long discussion or a long declaration
of the truth of our sinfulness. So if the weight of this were
to really come on us at this point in time in the argument
that Paul is giving, he's saying, you are a sinner. You have failed
to glorify God and you will never have the glory of God as a sinner.
But notice in verse 24, being justified freely by his grace,
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has
set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to
declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are
passed through the forbearance of God. What's he saying here?
That believers understand why Christ came, what he did. He made propitiation, and their
faith is in his blood. And though we are sinners, as
wicked as Cain himself, God has opened the eyes of our proud
hearts that were blinded in unbelief, and he has shown us that there
is forgiveness with God. And that forgiveness is in the
sin-removing death, the wrath-appeasing death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Even though his brothers didn't
know why he came, or what he was doing, or why he would go
or not go up to the Feast of Tabernacles, believers do. God
in his grace has allowed you and me to live in a day where
the gospel is not only proclaimed and written, but fulfilled in
Christ. And God has given us this truth
so that we can believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. He's given
it to us in our heart. What great grace is this? Let's
pray. Father, thank you. that you've
saved us from what we are, the very sin we cannot get ourselves
out of, either before your judgment or in our own habit or commission
of that sin. But you've given us this grace,
not only that you saved us by the redeeming blood of Christ,
but given us this grace to believe on Him. and see that all of our
salvation is all of your work and all of it is due to your
honor and praise and glory and how thankful we are, how much
we praise you, Lord, that you would be so good to save us who
don't deserve to be saved and save us to the uttermost by the
Lord Jesus Christ. When we hear him say, if any
man thirst, Lord, we find it in our hearts. We need the Lord
Jesus Christ to save us, and we need him to give us this faith. We need everything from him.
Thank you that your own word testifies that we can do nothing
without you, but we can find all of our salvation in you.
We're complete in the Lord Jesus Christ. What a gospel. What a
God. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.