More than anything, when I prepare
a message, I want the Lord to make his word effective and to
glorify his son that you might hear from him. I really don't
want any honor from men. I mean, there is a tendency to
want you to think well of me and to think well of the message,
but really that's not my aim here. And that was not the aim
of the men who wrote the gospel either. That was not the aim
of the apostles. Their aim was to bring glory
to the Lord Jesus Christ. And I pray that God would give
us an understanding from this text of scripture today to see
the Lord Jesus Christ. I do. And I want to pick up in
this text of scripture with verse 31, if you would please. The
Lord had just raised a man completely helpless. For 38 years, he had
an affliction and he could do nothing about it. Every time
there was a miracle, he was unable to avail himself of that miracle.
He was helpless to help and no one would help him. And so the
Lord comes by himself. The Lord himself comes to him
and asked him, do you want to be made whole? And I underlined
that word made because it means that in that question posed by
Christ to that impotent man, he directed that man to himself,
expecting from him. He ought to have expected from
the Lord. And the verses that followed
that miracle and the events of it show us what the true meaning
of it was. The man did, Jesus did command
the man to rise up. The power obviously came from
Christ. And it was imparted, that power
was imparted to the man through his word to him, rise. He said to him. And then the
man was given this great privilege to carry his bed as a testimony
to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he did that on the
Sabbath day, which heightened the testimony. And to the Jews, it was a negative
because they took occasion through him carrying his bed to persecute
Christ. And that was always in their
heart. And now they had a pretense for carrying out the murder that
they had in their heart. But everything that Jesus said
to them silenced all concern on their part, although they
didn't hear it. The first thing Jesus said was
in verse 17, where he told them, My father worketh hitherto, and
I work. So his defense was, I'm doing
God's work. Now, when Jesus said, I'm doing
God's work, it's not like when we say, we're doing the work
of God. The Lord gave men tasks to do throughout the Old Testament
and in the New. And the Lord gives us things
to do. And we sometimes say, we're doing the Lord's work.
That's not what Jesus meant here. It wasn't merely that the Lord
Jesus was doing what his father told him to do as an ordinary
man. The point was, I'm doing the
work that only God can do, you see. No one else but God can
do this work. And no one else but God in the
flesh can do this work. So it adds an infinite weight
to his words when he says, my father worketh and I work. And then we go on in this chapter
to hear their hatred. They tried, they sought a way
more to kill him than they had before. because they thought
he had broken the Sabbath. And now, by his open and clear
statements that God was his father, was making himself equal with
God. And not only as in relation to
God as son, was he equal with God, but also because of the
work that he did, he was equal with God. God alone could do
the work. Only God could understand God's
mind. Only God could see God's work
before it was done. And only God could carry out
his work. And to God goes all the glory
for doing that work. And that's what the Lord is saying
here. And then in verse 19, Jesus also added to that in response
to their anger towards him. He speaks as one who is God. He says, verily, verily. He doesn't
refer to a higher authority. He speaks out of himself. He
says, verily, verily, I say to you. And then he goes on to say,
the son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the father
do. For what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the son
likewise. I wanna just take a second, a
minute here to talk about that particular verse before we get
to verse 31. When God, when we think about
the things of God and we try to understand them, we have to
realize that we're jumping into waters far over our head. And all we can really say that
we know is what God has said. We can't say more than what he
said and we find ourselves really at a loss to comprehend more
than what he has said because it's beyond us. And I'll give
you an example. In the beginning, God created
the heaven and the earth. Okay, it's clear, it's very clear,
isn't it? God did it. He created the heaven
and the earth. A little child can understand
that statement. But explain it to me now, and what will you
have to say? You'll have to say, I can go
no farther than what God has said. In the beginning, before
there was anything, God acted, and he did something, and it
was a creation out of nothing, and he created everything, the
heaven and the earth. And someone says, well, how did
he do it? Well, he spoke. Psalm 33, verse 6, by the word
of the Lord were the heavens made, and by the breath of his
mouth So we know it was through speaking, but everything we know
about how God created the heavens and the earth is limited to what
God has said. We can't go beyond that, can
we? We can say, well, and I used to tell my children, I would
take them out into the night before bedtime, and I would say,
you see those stars? God made those. How did he do
it? He just spoke, and it was done. But in that, our understanding
is so limited, isn't it? Because we can't describe the
physics of it. Scientists spend their time,
their lifetimes, scientist after scientist trying to figure out
how these things came to be. But a little child hearing what
God has said and believing, this is the key, and believing God,
and therefore believing His word, they understand. that God did
it, and they understand how he did it by speaking. But beyond
that, all they can do is marvel in awe at the power of God, that
he not only existed before everything, because he created everything,
but that by his word alone he created everything, and that
is an infinite power. That is an eternal God. And we
know this. And in Hebrews 11, verse 3, it
says, by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by
the word of God so that things which are seen were not made
of things which do appear. Everything that we see was made
of something that does not appear. And so we understand. But our
understanding is limited so much by the clear statements of what
God has said. And if we try to go further,
we just have to say, I can't go further. But I believe it.
I truly do believe God created the world by his word. He did it by his power alone.
And there was nothing here, but God, before he did it, And everything
that follows comes from Him and He sustains it by the same Word
of His power. I know these things from Scripture
because God has revealed it to us from Scripture. And that's
the only way we know the things of God, isn't it? When I look
at verse 19, it says, Jesus said, verily, verily, I say to you,
the son can do nothing of himself but what he seeeth the father
do. For what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the son
likewise. I believe that. Can I explain
it? No, I can't because the son is
equal with the father. And here he says, he does nothing
but what he sees his father do. So what we conclude, though,
is that from other scriptures, which I will go to in a moment
here, that in the matter of God's work in creation, because it
says in Ephesians 3, 9, God created all things by Jesus Christ. In
the matter of creation and in the matter of providence, he
upholds all things by the word of his power, the Lord Jesus
Christ. that God the Father does all that he does through his
Son, and that in that work, God the Son acts, now listen, subservient
to his Father. He's equal with the Father, and
yet he acts in submission to his Father's will, and yet that
will is his will too, and the power is his own power also. and the work is accomplished
by Him. But it all comes from the Father,
and the Son ascribes all glory and honor to the Father, and
yet the Father directs us to the honor and glory of His Son. Now, I say these things because
they're way beyond our comprehension, aren't they? And it's prudent
for us to take everything God has said and believe it, and
yet admit that we can say no more than what God has revealed
from what he said. And then someone will say, well,
how do you know God said it? Well, that's what scripture is,
God speaking in a written way. We might argue about this or
that. And usually those arguments amount to trying to see who's
smarter or who's more knowledgeable or who's better or something
like that. It's just a spit spat that arises from our own arrogance. We may argue many things, but
in the end, we have to admit that all we know is what God
has said. Scientists try to say it's this way or that way. And
psychologists and other people will try to analyze the human
behavior and thinking processes. And biologists will look at cells
and all sorts of living things. And they all want to draw their
conclusions. God gives us the answers. It's
very simple. So that what we understand is
that only God speaks the truth. And he himself has said that
his word is truth. And you say, well, that's circular
reasoning. But if God's word didn't say it was truth, we wouldn't
know it, would we? Because God has to tell us. And
since God does say it in his word, the word of God is itself
the axiom on which everything else we know is based. An axiom
is something you can't prove. It's just stated. What is the axiom? The scriptures,
you see. And in the scripture, God has
declared to us things that are spiritual. We don't know spiritual
things naturally. I can feel physical things. I
can see physical things. I can smell them and taste them
and feel the heat from them or whatever. But spiritual things,
you can't see or touch. They're not material. And God
has to tell them. He has to tell us about them.
And we know as much as he says, but we know no more, do we? One
day, these bodies, which are dead because of sin, will be
spiritual bodies. And in these spiritual bodies,
then we will understand spiritual things. And we will know, as
it says in 1 Corinthians 13, we will know even as we are known. We will no longer see as through
a glass darkly, but we will see then clearly face to face. But now, as we look at these
things, I, as a man, am just telling you what God said. The
son is equal with the father. And yet the son, in the matter
of creation and providence, and most especially in the matter
of salvation, does whatever his father will have him to do. And he does all of it. The son
receives all of the glory because he performs all of his father's
work. And yet he does it out of his
own will and his own power, which are both one with the father.
And that's the teaching of scripture. Can we understand beyond that?
I don't know that we can. I want to take you to another
scripture here. I'm doing these as background
here. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 15. And it actually is very comforting,
isn't it, to know that as a father or mother speaks to their child,
and we have grandchildren now. And in fact, my daughter Hannah
sent us a video. She was talking to our little
one-year-old granddaughter. And she was talking to her. And
you could just see that little girl's face trying to understand
what her mom was saying. It was just, she was working.
Her mind was working overtime and getting hot because she was
trying to understand the words of her mom. and then trying to
re-articulate back to her mom what she understood. And she
could only get out one word or two words. And it was so endearing
to see her laboring in order to understand and echo back to
her mother what she had told her. You just want to pick them
up and kiss them, don't you? But that's not what we are. We're
just children. And God has spoken to us. And we hang on his word. We hang on his word. First Corinthians
15 and verse 20, it says, now is Christ risen from the dead
and become the first fruits of them that slept. In other words,
his resurrection guarantees the resurrection of all of his people,
but he's the first. For since by man came death,
by man came also the resurrection of the dead. And for as in Adam
all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every
man in his own order, Christ the firstfruits, afterward they
that are Christ at his coming. When the Lord returns to this
earth from heaven, the second time he will raise his people
from the dead. And that is because he himself
already rose from the dead and overcame death because he overcame
their sin, which is the cause of their death. Verse 24, then
cometh the end. In other words, when Christ comes,
that's it. That's the end of history. Then
it will be eternal ages. Then cometh the end when he shall
deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father. So this is,
notice now, the Son, Christ, is delivering up the kingdom
to God the Father. When he shall have put down all
rule and all authority and power, for he, the Lord Jesus Christ,
he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. That's
the work God gave him to do. Subdue every enemy under his
feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. The Lord
Jesus Christ is going to destroy our enemy. Death is our enemy. And death is the payback of our
sin. Sin is the sting of death. So
sin is our enemy. He has destroyed sin. Now he
will destroy death. For he hath put all things, God
the Father, hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith
all things are put under him, it is manifest, it's clear that
he is accepted which did put all things under him. And when
all things shall be subdued unto him, unto Christ, then shall
the Son sorry, then shall the Son also
himself, notice these words, be subject unto him that put
all things under him that God may be all in all. I believe
that, but I don't understand it. I don't understand how the
Lord Jesus Christ is both equal with the Father and is subservient
to him. I have some possible concept
of it because I understand the relation of Father and Son, because
I've experienced it. But beyond that, I just feel
at a loss, don't you? Now turn to Philippians chapter
2. Philippians chapter 2, and I want you to see this, this
is so powerful. In Philippians chapter 2, the
book of Philippians in chapter 1, the apostle Paul is talking
about the preaching of Christ. And what happened is that there
was a time when these Different men were preaching Christ. Some
were preaching him out of contention and some out of the right motive. But either way, he says, either
way, Christ is preached. That was his delight. Christ
is preached. And so in the book of Philippians,
one of the things he's emphasizing here, and I want you all to be
of the same mind. in order that Christ may be preached. It's not about you, it's about
him. Because God, the Father, has
made it about him. All right, that's the background
here. In chapter two, he says this.
In verse two of chapter two, fulfill ye my joy that you may
be like-minded. Do you see that? Having the same
love, being of one accord, of one mind. And now he's going
to be very specific. Let nothing be done through strife
or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem other
better than themselves. When you look at your brothers
and sisters in the church, this is what you're supposed to think.
They're better than I am. And that's not hard to do when
you know yourself, is it? But it's especially important
to realize the foundation on which that thought is laid. And the foundation is this. The key is this, that we are
in Christ. And in Christ, there is neither
male nor female. There's neither Jew nor Greek.
There's neither bond nor free. Every person in Christ is equal
in Christ. When I look at, when you see,
we naturally look at the outward appearance. We look at the things
that people do, the function they perform, the operation,
the use that they are in the body of Christ. And we say, well,
that one's better than that one. That's a sinful thought. We might benefit more from one
preacher than another preacher. That doesn't make that preacher
better than that other preacher. We may receive more, it may be
easier for us to engage with one member of Christ's body than
another member. Maybe they just happen to fit
our personality. Maybe they're sweeter and another
is more prickly or whatever. But that ought not be. Each of
us in Christ stand in relation to one another on that ground
in Christ. And in Christ, every believer
is a member of the same body. And he argues this in the book
of Corinthians. He says, I can't say to the foot
because you're just a foot. You're not part of the body or
whatever. You know, it's we're all members of the same body
and individual members. So he's emphasizing this. He
says, now, since you are in Christ, esteem the other better than
yourself. Verse four, look not every man
on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
Let this mind be in you. Think this way. Because this
is what the gospel is intended to teach you. The gospel lays
down the truth and now I'm going to make it clear so that you
hold the thoughts that the gospel is saying in your own mind. Let this mind be in you. This
mind was in Christ Jesus. Who being, now notice, in the
form of God. Thought it not robbery to be
equal with God. The Lord Jesus Christ is God,
equal with God. And yet, and he didn't think
it was robbery to be equal with God because he is God. But notice
the next verse, verse seven. But he made himself of no reputation. Now notice the comparison here.
Christ is equal with the Father. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, being equal with the Father, made himself of no reputation. He became subservient to his
Father in everything. That's the basis. That's the
mind that we are to have towards one another. In himself, he was
equal with God. In ourselves, we're nothing,
but in Christ, we're equal in the body of Christ. What did
the Lord Jesus Christ do when he existed as equal with God? He made himself of no reputation. And what are we to do in the
body of Christ, being equal with one another in Christ, to make
ourselves of no reputation? You see, Have that mind of Christ
in you. And here's the thing. When you
have that mind, when you understand the mind of Christ, Jesus said
this, and I think it's John 12, 45. He that seeth me, seeth my
Father. When you hold the mind of Christ,
this is the mind of the Father. How dare we therefore arrogate
ourselves to a point where we consider ourselves in comparison
to others in what we are naturally, or even what we are in the gifts
God has given us. The apostle Paul was, in my opinion,
gifted beyond any other man in scripture. That's my opinion. And yet he said, I'm the least
of the apostles. I'm the least of all saints.
I'm the chief of sinners, you see. He really thought of himself
as less than others in the body of Christ. But yet God gave him
grace. He says, I am what I am by the
grace of God. So all that he was able to accomplish
therefore was by the gift of God's grace. God made him to
differ from another because it pleased God to bless his people
through this man who was small and his speech was awkward according
to what he himself wrote. And yet through him, we have
the exposition of all of Old Testament scripture so that we
can understand the gospel. What a gift. What a gift to the
church. And yet, Paul is no more in the
eyes of God than the weakest and the shabbiest and the scabbiest
believer because God sees them in Christ. They're equal in Christ. Now, I lay that foundation in
order, as we read John 5, that we see this, that the Lord Jesus
Christ is equal with God the Father, but the works that he
does, because he is equal, have to therefore be the very works
of God that only God can do. And yet he could only do them,
God could only do them in a man, because in order to save his
people, he had to take on our flesh. He had to become one with
us in order to be a high priest in things pertaining to God. This is what the scripture teaches.
He who was above all things, the Lord Jesus Christ, it says
in Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 9. Let me read this to you to
underscore this with a verse from scripture. He says in Hebrews
2.9, we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels
for the suffering of death. That's why God Can't die. Only a man can die. You shall die like men, God said
in Psalm 82. Christ had to become a man. Only
man. We sinned. We were men. We were
humans. Christ had to become a human,
a man. in order to take our sin and suffer our death. And then
as the God man, as man, he was crowned with glory and honor.
And he did all this that by the grace of God, he should taste
death for every one of God's children. Now, in John chapter
five, if we go on here, I want you to see this here. Look at
a few verses of this with me. First of all, In verse 34. In verse 34, he says, I received
not testimony from man. Notice carefully the next words,
but these things I say that you might be saved. OK. Saved. Saved. Saved. That's why Christ said
this. We are saved by what Christ says. Do you see that? I say these
things that you might be saved. In order for us to be saved,
the Lord has to say something to us. Isn't that what he did
to the impotent man? Rise, take up your bed, and walk. So that's the first thing. Now
look at verse 39 and 40. Search the scriptures, for in
them you think you have eternal life, and they are they which
testify of me, and you will not come to me that you might have
life. Saved, life, you get it? In order for us to be saved and
to have life, it has to be according to what Christ said here in this
chapter, what He says. He has to speak His word to us
and it has to be the doctrine, the truth of what He said. And
that truth, according to verse 39, is in the Scriptures. This is Christ telling us that
the Scriptures testify of Him. We must come to Him. And in coming to Him, we have
life. We are saved. Because the Word
of Christ is in Scripture. It speaks of Him. And that's
the way we have life. And we think, well, how does
it work? I just believe that the Lord
reveals himself from scripture and that the revelation of scripture
is about Christ and that understanding by God-given grace and believing
Christ, I have the life he's speaking about here coming to
him. Now, notice back in Romans chapter
10, where Brad read, We delighted in that, didn't we? Romans chapter
10, what a chapter. Look back at Romans chapter 10
though. I want you to see these things. In verse nine, he says,
if thou shall confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus. Now Jesus means, we know from
Matthew 121, his name shall be called Jesus for he shall save
his people from their sins. So when you see the word Jesus,
You immediately think, he shall save his people from their sins,
don't you? That's his name. That's what
he does. That's his honor. That's his
accomplishment. That's what God gave him to do.
That's what he finished, Jesus. But he says, the Lord Jesus,
because he actually finished it. This is a declaration of
his success. The greatest statement to his
success is Lord Jesus. You see, so confessing the Lord
Jesus, we're saying the Lord Jesus, the one who bears that
name and title, is endeared to us because he saves us from our
sins and he now reigns in glory over all things. We confess him,
that's who he is, that's the one we trust. And shall believe
in thine heart that God raised him from the dead. God put his
stamp of approval and authenticity and justified Him when He raised
Him from the dead. Everything He said, everything
He did, every claim He made about who He is as God and man, and
what He was sent to do, and what He actually accomplished, and
that our sins are put away in His blood, all of it is true
and known to us because God raised Christ from the dead. We believe
that in our heart, don't we? That's what we hold to be true.
Everything in John 5 was that the Lord Jesus Christ has life
in Himself. He gives life to whom He will.
He raises the dead. He judges, and God gives His
own honor to Him. And unless we honor Him as we
honor the Father, we don't honor the Father. So that life and
salvation and resurrection from the dead and the understanding
of God, to know God and judgment in order that we might be justified.
All is in the Son. That's what we learn from John
5. And here is saying, confessing Him and believing Him, we shall
be what? Saved. Saved. That's what Christ
said. I say these things to you that
you might be saved. The issue is being saved. He came to save. He spoke to
save. And he gives us his words that
we might be saved. I love it, don't you? Don't you
love him? Because he saves his people from their sins. And then
he goes on. And verse 10, for with a heart
man believeth unto righteousness. In reference to what he did,
we believe his obedience is our righteousness. And God imputes
to us the one we believe, Christ and his righteousness. It's not
our act of faith, it's the one we believe that God imputes to
us as righteousness. and with the mouth confession
is made to salvation. When we say Jesus is Lord, believing
him to be the one who saved us from our sin and exalted by God
because he finished the work, we're confident, aren't we? Because
he is reigning, he accomplished all. Everything is all in him. That's a confession, isn't it? It's a confession consistent
with the revelation of God. We're saying what God has said.
And then in verse 11, for the scripture saith, notice these
most lovely words, whosoever believeth on him shall not be
ashamed. It's not believing me, not believing
on me. Yourself, not yourself or some
other man. Believing Christ. Oh, if we could
just understand it's all him. We shall not be ashamed. Whosoever
believeth on him shall not be ashamed. You won't be disappointed.
You won't be put to shame. You won't be found guilty. You
won't be condemned. You won't be put to death. You
won't be put to shame. You will not only not be put
to shame, but you will be vindicated, justified, and given an inheritance
that God promised because of Christ's work. And then he goes
on in verse 12, there's no difference between the Jew and the Greek.
The same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. Call, he says back in John 5,
40, he says, you will not come to me that you might have life.
Calling, coming. Notice verse 13, for whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Do you call? Do you call? Do you want to be
saved? Call. Have you called? Then you're saved. Do you? Did
you call once? Yes. Then you're going to continue
to call because you continue to believe. And that's the evidence
of salvation. He goes on, how then shall they
call? On him in whom they have not
believed. You see, what is the fruit of
believing Christ? Calling, calling on him. Bartimaeus, son of David, have
mercy on me. The publican, God be merciful
to me the sinner. Isaiah, woe unto me, I'm undone,
I'm a man of unclean lips. Job, I, behold, I'm vile. We call, don't we? In Psalm 116,
I love the Lord because He has heard my voice, therefore I will
call upon Him as long as I live. I will take the cup of salvation
and call upon the name of the Lord. Fill this cup, save me. Okay? How do we call if we haven't
believed? How do we believe unless we've heard? And how shall we
hear without a preacher? That's why we preach this Gospel. Because we're saved by the Word
of Christ, you see. And those who believe Him, call
on Him. In verse 39, Jesus said, search
the Scripture. They did. And he is saying, do,
do search it. In them you think you have eternal
life. How many times in my life have
I looked into the scripture in order to acquire the knowledge
of scripture without realizing that the whole purpose of my
search should be to find Christ, the one scripture exalts. The one who must save me, the
one in whom all life is, in all righteousness, the one alone
who can take away my sin. It's not acquiring scriptural
knowledge that saves. It's the knowledge of Christ
that saves, which comes from scripture. And we get those things
confused because it's just so easy for us to get wrapped up
in ourselves. It's the same thing when people do all sorts of outward
acts. And this bothers me too because
On Christmas, we want a message about Christ's birth. On Easter,
we want a message about His resurrection. On Good Friday, we want a message
about His crucifixion. We come to the Lord's table and
we're doing an act because the Lord says, do this. And when
we're baptized, we do it because the Lord said it. We do the act
sometime because we know it's right to do the act when we lose
all meaning. Because we miss the one that
this is supposed to tell us about and teach us about. And so it's
easy for us to get wrapped up in the knowledge of things and
completely miss Christ. You can know, you can have memorized
and understand everything in scripture and yet miss Christ. Yes, it talks of Him, I see that.
But have you called? No. Well then you don't believe
Him. You see, he says, you will not
come to me that you might have life. As soon as you need life
and see that it is only in Christ, you will come to him. I am sure
of that. As soon as the the impotent man
heard from Christ, do you want to be made whole? He was 38 years
without strength. I can't get into the pool, no
one's here to help me. He's asking if I want to be made
whole. These thoughts are turning, it
seems, in his mind before he even has a chance to think and
answer. The Lord says, get up, rise. Everything is exalting the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's doing the work. He's telling
us the words, verily, verily, I say unto you, whoever hears
my word and believes on him that sent me has everlasting life.
All right, now I just have to very briefly now go back through.
Look at verse 31. He says, if I bear witness of
myself, my witness is not true. Know this, whatever the Lord
Jesus says is true. He cannot lie. He doesn't need
corroboration. But what he does here is he takes
the position of a man among men because of the weakness of our
flesh. We look at people. We know they're
limited. I just asked him a question he
couldn't answer. Or he's spouting off as if he knows something,
but we know he really doesn't know much. He doesn't really
know much more than anybody else. He only knows what someone told
him. And even in the things of God, he only knows as far as
God has said. So we doubt men because of their
limited capacity to understand. We doubt them because their limited
ability to correctly judge things. The best judges in all the earth
make mistakes. We doubt that they can judge
right. We want to pull back to allow ourselves the option of
deciding if it's right or wrong or true or false, right? That's
what we do as people. And so the Lord condescends. He says, if I bear witness of
myself, my witness is not true because I understand because
of the weakness of your flesh, you won't believe me unless you
have a corroborating witness, you see. And so he gives them the witnesses.
He says in verse 32, there's another that bears witness of
me. I know that the witness which he witnesses of me is true. And
he's speaking now about John the Baptist. You sent to John,
he bear witness to the truth. But I received not testimony
from man, for these things I say that you might be saved. He was
a burning and shining light, and you were willing for a season
to rejoice in his light. Now, understand, historically,
the Pharisees sent messengers to John the Baptist when he began
to preach, and they realized, this man is a prophet. And they
asked him, are you the Christ? No. Are you that prophet? No. Well, who are you then? I'm just a voice in the wilderness.
And then he began to preach Christ and him crucified. The Lamb of
God. which takes away the sin of the
world. The Son of God, he told them. He's the Lamb of God. He's
the Son of God. He was sent by God. I'm sent
before him. He came before me. He was before
me. He's eternal. He has the bride. He's the bridegroom. I must decrease. He must increase. This is what
John said. I'm going to baptize you. It's
a picture of his own baptism under the wrath of God and resurrection
having accomplished that work. Believe him, that's what he said.
He baptized unto repentance that they might believe on Christ.
That was John. And they said, go, you messengers,
you go find out what John's saying. Now, why did they do that? Well,
if they were sincere without hypocrisy, it would be to understand
the truth from God that he gave to John to preach, which was
Christ and him crucified. But when the messengers returned
to the Pharisees, they discounted it. No, that doesn't fit. That
doesn't fit for us. Well, we prefer a religion that
allows us to receive commendation from men for ourselves and give
commendation to others. We prefer a religion where we
come in our own name. We weren't sent, but we can come
pretending we were sent by God and people adore us and admire
us and are subservient to us. And they're afraid of us, really.
They do what we say. That's what we prefer. No, no,
because John said we are vipers and serpents and we need to flee
the wrath to come. We're not going to do that. Republicans
and harlots, that's fine for them, but not for us, you see.
That's what they did. He was a burning and shining
light, but they cloaked Their eyes from that bright light of
Christ and Him crucified, they would not hear Him. And so in
this, Jesus is condemning them for a deliberate and willful
refusal to believe Christ through the witness of John, even though
Christ didn't need that witness, yet God was pleased because of
the weakness of our flesh to give that witness. You see? And
so he goes on in verse 36, But I have greater witness than that
of John, even greater than John, for the works which the Father
has given me to finish, the same works that I do bear witness
of me that the Father has sent me." You hear it complaining
about this work? God the Father gave me this work
to do, and this work is a testimony that I am who I say I am, the
Son of God, the Son of Man, the one who judges all, you must
honor as you honor the Father, in whom alone is life, and gives
life to whom he will, and is the one whose words are the words
you need to be saved. and you must come to him to have
life. That's the one the father is speaking of. And when he raised
Lazarus or cast out devils or healed the impotent man or whatever
he did, that was the work the father gave him to do. And you
say, well, what about the prophets? I mean, some of the prophets
did some amazing things like Elijah. He raised some dead people,
didn't he? Yes. Or Elisha, he healed a man
who was leprous. Yes. And Moses did works. Yes, yes, yes. But you see, those
miracles that God gave them to do were only validating or authenticating
that the message God gave to them was from God. Here, it's so much more significant
because the works God gave Christ to do were a testimony that he
himself is the son of God. that he himself does the work
of God. And that work is not only healing,
but raising the dead because he would put away the sins of
his people. You see, what a powerful witness. Then the works God gave
him to do ought to be to these men, and yet they close their
eyes to it. No, we're going to find fault
with it. That's all we can do is try to kill him. because we
think that we're gonna consider that work to be against the law.
And then he goes on, and the father himself which sent me
has borne witness of me, you neither heard his voice at any
time nor seen his shape and you have not his word abiding in
you for whom he has sent him you believe not. Now God the
father from the beginning of time spoke of his son. In Genesis 3 verse 15, the seed
of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent, remember?
So throughout the scripture, God the Father was speaking of
his son, but they wouldn't hear it. In scripture, whenever God
speaks in the Old Testament of God speaking, that's the Son
of God. And I can give you references
for that later, but I'm going to get right back to the other
point here. The fact is that if you look
at everything here, what you see is that these men at every
point dug in their heels to their own destruction and refused the
testimony of God, which came through John, first through John,
then through scripture by the Father, through the miracles
that Christ did, and then through the word of Christ. And they
all agreed and they refused to believe it. And here's the thing,
unless God gives us life, Unless Christ gives life to us and raises
us from the impotence of our sin, we also cannot believe. We will not come because we refuse. He has to save us from our sins. And when you realize that, what
does it cause you to do? Call. Call. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Call. His is the only name under
heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Call. Go to
him. Ask. Ask him. Call. And you don't have to go to a
preacher to ask him what he thinks about your condition. You go
to the Lord Jesus Christ, the physician of your soul. Let's
pray. Lord, we pray that you would give us this grace, raise
us from the impotence of our unbelief and the willful refusal
to believe the clear testimony of God. Unfold scripture to us,
Lord, that it is about the Lord Jesus Christ and him only for
our salvation and life, that we give all honor to him and
we find everything in him so that we have the full assurance
of faith, knowing that You sent Your Son into the world to save
sinners, to turn us from our sins, to cause us to believe
Him, and everything that's contained in life is in Him. Help us, Lord, to honor Him.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.