to show forth all the wisdom
and glory that's found in just a few lines of God's Word. Or as another Scripture says
about a cluster of grapes, there's still a blessing in it. You can
still keep getting a blessing out of it. If I had one book
on a desert island, Of course, it would be the Bible. But if
I had one book in the Bible, I believe it would be the Gospel
of John. In the New Testament, the Old Testament, it might be Psalms or Isaiah 1. Isaiah, Gospel
of John, powerful, wonderful, marvelous story. The Gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at verse 37 and 38. Two disciples heard him speak. This was one of them was Andrew.
Verse 40 says it was Andrew. We don't know who the other one
was, but most believe it was John who wrote this book. And that's fitting. John never
told his name. He didn't want anybody to know
his name. And that would be fitting. They
believe it was John. Two disciples. heard John the
Baptist preach, and they followed our Lord. And the Lord turned,
verse 38, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek
ye? And they said unto him, Rabbi,
or Master, where dwellest thou? Where dwellest thou? Two disciples
heard him speak, and they heard John preach, a preacher preach,
and they started following the Lord Jesus Christ. That's because
John preached Christ. Behold the Lamb of God. And the
Lord Jesus Christ stopped when they called upon Him. And they
said, Master. And He said, What seek ye? And
the Lord said, Come and see. The Lord of glory will stop for
every seeking sinner. Every single sinner that seeks
Him, He will stop for them. Every single guilty sinner like
that woman, that adulteress, He will stoop. He will stoop
to them and say, thy sins be forgiven thee. They said, Master,
we want to see you. We want to be with you. We want
to just dwell with you. We want to hear you speak. We
want to follow you. We want you to be our teacher.
We want you to be our shepherd. We want you to be our Lord, our
Master, our everything. We want to follow you. And he
said, well, come on. Gladly received them. and maybe John, whoever it was,
heard John the Baptist preach the day before. John preached
in verse 29, "...behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the
sin of the world." He preached Christ and Him crucified. He
preached Christ the Lamb of God, the Passover Lamb of God. "...is
the blood that maketh atonement for the soul. Without the shedding
of blood there is no remission of sin." Every man must have
a lamb. He preached Christ, the Lamb of God, the only way to
God, the only salvation of God. He preached Christ. Well, Andrew
and John didn't start following Christ when they heard him preach
the first time. Behold the Lamb. Right? Alright,
but it says down in verse 36, John preached, Behold the Lamb
of God. Well, they heard him this time. They heard him this time, and
they start following Christ. You see what I'm trying to say?
that we preach Christ, we keep preaching Christ. We have but
one message. I know what Gabe's preaching this morning. I know
what Marvin's preaching this morning. I know what Greg's preaching,
what Todd's preaching. I know what they're all preaching.
You know what they're preaching. Any man sent from God, I know what
Walter's preaching, or Joe. I know whoever is sent by God,
like John, a man sent from God, whoever God sent, he preaches
one thing, Christ and Him crucified. I know that. That's the message. That's what this book is all
about. Who? That's what God tells us to do.
That's the message that sinners need to hear. That's the message
God blesses. That's salvation. That's life.
I know what true preachers are preaching, or rather who. But
people don't always hear the first time. So we keep preaching. Do we change
our message? Well, they didn't hear that, so we'll try something
else. No. A thousand times no. We keep
preaching the same message. John, the very next day, took
the same text, Exodus 12, and preached the Lamb of God. Andrew
heard it then. He finally heard it. See, this
gives me hope for some. Maybe today is the day somebody
will preach the same message. This gives me hope and tells
me that I'm to preach the same thing, as Paul said, to write
the same things to you. To me it's not grievous, but
for you it's safe, it's salvation. So we preach Christ, behold the
Lamb, Christ crucified, we preach the cross. The next message this
morning is on the cross, the cross, the cross. And we keep
preaching until somebody hears it. Until somebody follows Christ. Our Lord said, My Lord said,
My sheep will hear My voice and they will follow Me. What's His
voice? It's the gospel. Preaching the
gospel. Well, our Lord said, Come and
see. Come and see. When they asked where He dwelt.
Come and see. He bid them come. I'm going over
these same verses because there's still a blessing here. But the
half wasn't told. We didn't hear it. You probably
have already forgotten it by now. That's just the way we are. We're just so poor vessels. The
Lord bid them come, merciful and gracious and loving and accepting,
bidding them come. Come. It's amazing that the Lord
came to this earth and it's amazing that He'll receive sinners. It's
amazing. That's the faithful saying. Come, He said, and we'll
see Him. Look at verse 51. He said to
Nathanael who came, he said, Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Hereafter you shall see heaven open. Oh my, I might deal with this
by itself on Wednesday. This leads a whole message by
itself. When you come to see Jesus Christ,
heaven is going to open up. He said you are going to see
from here on the angels of God ascending and descending upon
the Son of Man. All the blessings of God. Everything
comes down from God through Christ. He's Jacob's ladder. All things. Oh, you come, you seek the Lord
like Andrew and John. You seek the Lord. If it's Him
you seek, you will find Him. And what you will find is glory. And it was immediate. All who
seek, find. This tells me that those who
claim they're seeking and don't find are not really seeking.
Not seeking Him. He said, if you seek Me, you'll
find Me when you search for Me with all your hearts. You'll find Him. A true seeker.
One time, I told you this, some of you, I had a horse that was
pregnant, and I had just spread hay all over her stall. It was
sawdust on the floor, but I spread hay all over that stall for her
to lie down in when she had that baby. Well, I was in there working,
hammering, and I dropped a nail down in that straw. A needle in a haystack. And I thought, I've got to find
that nail. I found it. I didn't give up. I'm not leaving
this stall until I find this nail. Seek, he said, you will
find. Ask, you will receive. Knock,
it shall be opened. The Lord said, come and see.
And they came and they saw. And it was immediate. And they
counted the cost. Listen to this. When they came,
what did they see? The first thing they saw was
where he dwelled. Where did the Lord dwell? He didn't have a home. He didn't
have a place to lay his head. He lived under the stars. He
lived in the Mount of Olives. He lived wherever he was at the
time. What they did was they came and
they saw that there's no material or earthly advantage to come
into Christ. In fact, you're going to lose
some things. They left comfortable homes.
and comfort and all that security they thought for eternal security. They left all that stuff to follow
Him. They didn't lose a thing. Our Lord said, you have to count
the cost. Come to me. You're going to lose some advantages.
You're going to lose some friends. You're going to lose some worldly
things. But that's nothing. It's all
vanity. Christ is only. Our Lord had only food and raiment.
They learned quickly, didn't they? You know? We thought we
needed all that other stuff. He's a whole lot happier than
we are. He knows something we don't know. They came, they saw. They came, they saw Him as all
and in all, all they needed, all they wanted, and they were
content. They dwelled with Him. And John wrote, we look back
there, it says, "...of His fullness have all we received." They left
everything. They left all that stuff. They
might have had houses full of stuff like we do. We've got attics
and garages. We've got so much stuff. They left all that stuff. They
emptied, became empty, but oh, did they become full. They had
never been so full of joy. They had never been so full of
peace. They had never been so happy in all their lives. For
three and a half years, the apostles followed Him everywhere. They
didn't have a house, didn't work a job, didn't have a worry in
the world. They didn't have any enemy to worry about. Satan couldn't
touch them. The happiest years of their lives. Three and a half
years and they didn't have nothing but Jesus Christ. And they were
so happy. What does that tell us? We've got a lot to learn, don't
we? Great treasure is usually trouble
there with them. Oh, better is little with the
fear of the Lord to be with Him. Can we have many things and be
full of Christ? Can we have many things and be
full of Christ? It's hard. How hardly, our Lord
said, how hardly shall they that have riches. Why? Because where
your treasure is, that's where you are. It's just the way we
are. But it's possible. It's possible.
There's exceptions. It's not the rule. Abraham was
rich. lands and things. He dwelled
a tent. He dwelled a tent. Joseph was rich. He dwelled in
a palace. David was rich. But here's the
thing, if you can have things and things not have you. How do you know? How do you know when these things
have you? Well, out of the abundance of the heart. The mouth speaketh
out of the abundance of the heart. You won't find Abraham, you look
through all the story of Abraham, you won't find him talking about
his tents. You won't find him talking about
his cattle. You won't find him conversing
with people and talking to them how they'll need to invest their...
You won't find him talking about this world. You'll find him talking
about his Lord. He was full of things, but it
meant nothing to him. His conversation was in heaven.
That's how you know. That's how you know. David was
not a richer man on earth than King David. David the King was.
But you know what he said? He said, I'm poor and needy.
Do you know the responsibilities David had as king? No, you don't. I don't either. But it was, every
day, every hour, thousands, millions of people pulling at him. Great
responsibilities. How did he find time to write
all those songs? That's where his heart was. That's
where his heart was. Amen. Oh, Lord, help us. Lord,
we have so much stuff. Forgive us. Help us not to be
taken by these things, but rather to be taken with Thee. Well,
look at verse 40 and 41. One of the two which heard John
speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. And he first findeth his own
brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messiah,
which is to be interpreted as Christ. We have found Christ.
Andrew, he finds his own brother being found of Christ. Now who
found who? Sinners are lost. They're
Christ's sheep. And he said he goes after his
lost sheep and when he finds them, he's the one that finds
them, right? That's a fact. They all know
that. But what it is, is Andrew is so excited, Upon hearing the
truth, upon hearing Christ, upon seeing His glory, that he ran
home to tell his family, we found the Christ. You can't help but
speak the things you've seen and heard. You can't help but
speak things you're excited about and zealous about and enthused
about. You can't help it. Whatever you see, wherever you
go, If you go see some concert or you go to some ball game,
and it's a great one, wherever you go, you'll come home telling
people, oh, you should have seen that, you should have seen that. If you really see Christ, if
you really see His glory, if you really hear His voice, if
He really meets with you, if He really speaks to your heart,
you've got to tell somebody. It's going to be what comes out
of your mouth after that message. Oh, wasn't that wonderful? Isn't
he wonderful? He ran home and told his brother.
And I have a hard time believing that somebody really has found
Christ, or rather, been found of him that doesn't tell those
around him or her. He had to. Our Lord said
that when He said, The leper, I think it was the leper, he
said, go home and tell what great things the Lord has done for
you. Boy, he did. Look at you, leper. That's his
name. Look at you. You're a new man. Yeah, Christ did that. Christ
did. The woman at the well. Huh? Well,
she did it. Ran, told her, come see a man. Andrew's excited, he's zealous,
he's been found by the Lord, he's been called, the Lord bid
him come, he's seen Christ's glory, some of it. And he has
to tell his brother, we found the Christ. Verse 42, and he
brought him to Jesus, Simon, Simon Peter, to cry. Now, the
Lord uses means. The Lord uses means. He doesn't
have to, but He does. It's not the means that saves.
It's not the means that saves. We're going to look at 1 Corinthians
1 this morning. Please God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. Does preaching save
people? No. Christ saves. Does the preacher
save people? No. Christ saves. But He uses means. We're not
to despise the means. We're not to despise the means
at all. The Lord uses these means, and so do we. He tells us to
use these means. He tells us to go tell people.
He tells us to go witness. Now, you're not going to save
anybody. You're not going to convince anybody of anything. How many times? 99.9% of people
I ask to come hear the gospel don't come. Isn't it so with
you? And I've talked to people, I'm
blue in the face. Haven't you? Just talk, talk, talk, talk.
It does no good. That's right. What it's going
to take is for them to come, sit, the Lord bring them to come
and hear His Word preached. This is what God's pleased to
use. He uses people to bring people to hear the Gospel. But
He uses the preaching of the Gospel to save their soul. And
it's not the man, it's not the message, it's not His might,
it's not His power, it's the Spirit of God and God's good
time. If he's pleaded, they come, it might be for their condemnation.
It might be for their salvation. But if they're saved, it's going
to be the Spirit of God through the preaching of the gospel,
not the man, not the witness, not the bringer, but the Lord. He gets the glory. No flesh is
going to glory. But, he said, bring them. And you say, go out
in the highways and the hedges and you bid them come. Bid them
come. Come. What? Do what? Sing amen. Come and see who I've seen. We
not only preach Christ, but we witness Christ, don't we? We
don't say, come to my church. Come see the choir. Some of us
were eating at Ruth's place one Sunday afternoon. We were sitting
there and a well-known woman in this community, a realtor,
most everyone in here knows, came up to the table. She knows
my wife, knows several of you. And she began saying, oh, you
should have heard this morning the Farrum Collegians. I think
that was her name. It was a choir from Farrum College.
You should have heard what we heard. The Farrum Collegians
came and sang for us. That's Methodist Place on top
of the hill. That's all they heard, Mike.
That's it. They didn't hear nothing. They may have went away full
of wonder and marvel and a good feeling over the music they heard
and all that, but they didn't hear Christ's voice. They didn't
hear the gospel. And they went away lost. But
can you not say, every time you come here, you're
going to hear Christ's praise. Every time you come here. And
it's what you tell people. You go tell them, come hear the
gospel. Come hear the gospel of Christ
in Him crucified. Come hear God's Word preached.
Come hear the truth proclaimed. If you're looking for the truth,
this is what I tell people all the time. I just told a fellow
the other day, if it's the truth you're looking for, you'll hear
it. If it's God's Word, what God's Word says about Himself,
about Christ, about sinners, about salvation, about how to
get to glory. If that's what you're looking
for, you come. That's what you want to hear. That's it. That's
the one thing they've delivered. Dying men to dying men. Well,
he brought Simon Peter to Christ. The Lord used that for Simon
Peter to come. Where was Christ? Well, He was
where His people were. When you bring people to Christ,
what you're doing is bringing them where He is found. He's
in the church. People say, I don't have to go
to church to be saved. Yes, you do. Yeah, you do. I'm not even going
to explain that. Yeah, I am. But that's where
Christ is. Always. Where two or three are
gathered, that's where I am. I don't have to go to church
to be saved. If you're going to meet Christ and hear His voice,
you do. I don't have to hear preaching to be saved. Yes, you
do. You're calling God a liar. So you're not going to hear His
voice. Forget it. Forget it. Go where He's found,
where His voice is heard, where His gospel is preached. Humble
yourselves. And yet, you know, we're commanded
to go home and tell. Go in all the world, preach the
gospel. Go home and tell what great thing.
Be ready to give an answer. Seek and you'll find. Bid them
come and see a man. Simon heard, verse 42, and Simon
beheld him, and the Lord said, Thou art Simon, son of Jonah.
The first thing the Lord said to Simon Peter was, You're Simon,
the son of Jonas. Same name as Jonas in the Old
Testament. You're Simon. Not Peter. He didn't start out Peter. Rock. He didn't start out as a rock.
He started out as a nobody. And a nothing. A typical sinner. Just a simple sinner. Son of
Adam. Son of Jonas. Who was Jonas?
A running scared fellow. Jonas. Simon. You're Simon. Son
of Jonas. That's what you are? I'm going to change all that.
You're going to be called Cephas. Rock. Which is by interpretation,
stone. Peter. You'll be called Cephas. A little rock. Not a big rock. A little rock. And what he's
saying is, I'm the rock. I'm the chief cornerstone. I'm
the sheer foundation. I'm the one the Lord has laid.
I'm the chief cornerstone. But you're going to be so united
to me. You're going to be found in me. You're going to be a rock
too. living stone and the rock, which you're a rock to. And the
church is not going to rest on you. Oh, no. You're going to
rest on the rock. The church is going to rest on
the rock that you're preaching. That's what the Lord said Simon
Peter. Now, if there's some confusion for you, And we started a few
minutes early, y'all were, you know, lollygagging, so I get
a few minutes extra. There's some confusion on your
part, on our part, as to Matthew, Mark, and Luke's account of Simon,
Peter, and Andrew being called on the boats. Let me explain
that, okay? After our Lord was baptized of
John, we just looked at that. After He was baptized, He left. for forty days. He was tempted
by Satan, remember? Forty days and forty nights.
Well, Andrew and John heard him preach right there, okay? They heard him preach. Then the
Lord left. And so they went back fishing.
They went back to their boats. The Lord hadn't called them to
preach yet. He hadn't called them out of the boat yet. So,
after 40 days were passed, our Lord came by the Sea of Galilee,
and then He said, Andrew, or Simon, Peter. Peter, Simon, Andrew,
follow me. John, Jane, follow me. That's
when they left it all, and their father, and their boats, and
their nets, and followed Christ forever. That's it. Look at verse 43. The day following,
Jesus would go forth into Galilee and findeth Philip. You see who's
doing the finding? He found Philip and said unto
him, follow me. And ask him. The Lord of glory
doesn't ask anybody to accept him. And any preacher that says
that is a false preacher. It's a false gospel that has
God asking men anything. It's the true gospel that has
God telling men what to do. giving commandment to save them.
Like David, the son of David says of every single one he has
mercy on, like Mephibosheth says, go fetch them. What if they won't
come? Are you kidding? I'm David. I'm the most powerful
king on earth and he's a cripple. An enemy. If I say, go get him,
he's coming. And that's all of us. We can't
walk by faith. We can't come. We're dead. Spiritually
crippled. We can't come. How are we going
to come? When the Lord of Glory says,
catch them. And He sends His strong Spirit of God to pick
them up and carry them all the way. And we remain. that way. But we're under his table, kept
by the power of God. Verse 43, to go fetch him. He
said, follow me. Philip was of Bethsaida, the
city of Andrew and Peter. Bethsaida wasn't a fancy place.
It means fishing house. Bethsaida means fishing house. It was a fishing village. Mostly
fishermen from there. Okay, weren't fancy people. Can
anything good come out of Bethsaida? That's what they would have said.
All these disciples, most of them were from there, Bethsaida. Our Lord said, Woe unto thee,
Bethsaida, didn't He? He just called a few out of there.
You know, is Rocky Mount a fancy place? Some of you are from Rocky
Mount, aren't you? And the Lord called you out of
this place, but not very many. Aren't you blessed? Oh, how blessed
you are. This place is nothing. It's nothing. Bethsaida. Fishing hat. A little
pile of rocks. But the Lord has a people here.
That makes it special, doesn't it? Bethsaida. Philip finds Nathanael. See that?
He went looking for his friend Nathanael. Apparently they were
buddies. And he said unto him, we found him. Who? Of him who Moses and the Law
and the Prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, son of Joseph. Son
of Joseph. Nathaniel said unto him, verse
46, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Now listen
to what Philip said. Come and see. Come and see. You know good and well people
go by this place and it's not very fancy. And they say, there
ain't nothing to that. And you talk to them. Where do
you go to church? You tell them Central Grace,
Central Baptist. Oh, that's that place up on the
hill there, isn't it? How many do you have? First thing,
how many? Oh, not many, but I tell you
what, Come and see. Come and see. When my wife was
nine years old, this is a true story, nine years old, the Lord
began to work on her at an early age. And she had lots of friends
in high places. Her father and mother were well
known all over the community. And went to the country club
and doctors and lawyers. So their daughters were her friends
and girls on the popular girls on the cheering squad. Well,
the Lord revealed Himself to her parents and they brought
her as a young girl, nine years old, and the Lord began to create
an interest in her. And she'd go back to school and
somebody would ask her, one of her snooty little catty little
popular girls, you know, friend would say, And she went to the
so-called Christian church in town, where everybody, somebody,
you know, and she would ask men, she'd say, where do you go? And
she'd say, 13th Street. They'd say, well, who goes there? Well, who goes there? You know
what her answer was as a nine-year-old girl? Me and my pastor, and he tells
me about the Lord Jesus Christ. That's a pretty good answer. And who goes there? Well, me
and my preacher. And he preaches the gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Come and see. You'll see. And there's no place you'd rather
be. If he shows you his glory, if you hear his voice like I
heard, there's no place you'd rather be. The Lord saw Nathanael, and I
think rather we want to look at these verses Wednesday night.
Verse 47, He saw Nathanael coming to Him and said of Him, Behold,
an Israelite indeed. Have you ever thought about that? Behold, a true Israelite. No gal. I've always been amazed by that
statement. Haven't you? Well, maybe we'll look at that
Wednesday. Okay.