to the book of John, and I'll
invite you to go to John chapter 14. I wish in a way that I had the
opportunity to visit with each of you individually. It wouldn't be possible to do this,
But I wish I could just, if there were nobody else in this room
but just you and me, I wish I could sit down with each of you and
then speak to you about this massive book that we have before
us. And it is a massive volume, is
it not? This is a tremendous book. Here over 40 different writers
were moved by the Spirit of God to write this book that we call
the Bible. That is referred to in this book
as being the Holy Scriptures. And as I would sit with you,
I would ask you about this massive book. Do you understand, do you
have a concept of this book, exactly what this book is all
about? It's filled with stories. Old
Testament stories that are very interesting. And of course it
starts off with creation, and we've begun studying in the book
of Genesis on Wednesday nights. I've only got one message so
far, but we'll go back there in the origin of man this coming
Wednesday. But the Bible starts off with
the story of creation, and of course it then tells of the fall
of man, the fall of Adam. And then our God speaks to Adam
and to Eve and even to the serpent and he says there is a remedy
for this disease that you now have. It's a spiritual disease. It's a disease called sin. and
God says the seed of the woman is going to come, and he's going
to set everything straight. And then, of course, as you get
to the end of Genesis chapter 3, we find the way that God is
going to rectify the difficulty, that barrier between us and himself. It's gonna be by the sacrifice
of an innocent one that is the Lamb of God, typified, symbolized,
pictured, by the death of the animals that God killed in order
to clothe Adam and Eve. Very interesting story. And then
of course you have Abel and his brother Cain, and on and on we
could go all the way through the Old Testament, story after
story, failure after failure. And all of these things put together
are most interesting and most marvelous. But really what is
the message of all of that? And then of course we get to
the New Testament. And in the New Testament we have
the story of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. And the scriptures
tell us who he was. and what he came to do and the
reason that he did it, all of the things that are involved
in his life and in his death and in his resurrection, and
then his ascension into heaven. And then of course, we have all
the epistles. We have the book of Acts, which
bridges the gap, if you would, between the four gospel narratives
and the epistles, all of the epistles beginning with Romans,
all the way through the book of Revelation, We have all of
those epistles which were written by those men that God appointed
to be writers of those epistles, and epistles means letters. They
were letters written to various individuals and or churches,
but really letters written to you and me. And if I were sitting
with you and kind of set these things before you, I would then
want to ask you, now here's this whole massive volume, and it's quite an undertaking
to read it all. But after reading this tremendous
book of God, I would then ask you this very question pointedly. Can you, in a nutshell, Can you, in a very summarizing
statement, can you tell me what this book is all about? And most people don't know. Many of you do. But I have a
very strong suspicion that there are some of you who don't. What
is this book all about? And then, I would like to ask
you this question. Could you, in just a very few
words, could you summarize this tremendous volume and just squeeze
it down into just a very few words so that you could give
me the gist of the book? You say, Jim, I don't think anybody
could do that. I mean, here you have 66 books.
You have 39 in the Old Testament. You have 27 in the New Testament. You have all of these different
writers. Here you have scripture that covers many hundreds and
hundreds of years. I don't think anybody could condense
all of this down to one statement. There is one who did that. He took all of the scriptures
and in just a very few words, very simple words, I might add,
with only a couple of them being two syllables. There is one who
did, who has taken all of the word of God for you and me. One who is infinite in wisdom,
infinite in understanding. His knowledge cannot be measured. He has taken all of the book
of God and he has condensed it down into a very simple yet very
profound statement. And I'm referring to John chapter
14 and verse six. Because there's a whole Bible
in this verse. And you know, none but God could,
in a few words, speak to us about this great volume in its entirety. Only one who knows the mind of
God, who knows the purpose of God, Only one who is himself
God could ever condense all of the Holy Scriptures down to one
verse. But the Lord Jesus does that.
And it's John 14, verse six. He's answering one of his disciples. And he says to this man, Thomas,
Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. Now I'm going to be dealing with
this verse this morning and again this evening. But I wanna give
you a brief roadmap of the way I'm going to deal with this.
We'll deal with three things. He states his unmistakable identity. Who is Jesus of Nazareth? Well, the first two words, they
tell us who he is. His unmistakable identity. I am. Oh, we just read that in
Exodus chapter three. And you read along with me. When
Moses, he passed this bush that was, it was fully aflame. And yet as he watched, it didn't
burn up. It wasn't consumed. And so he
went over to take a look at it. Well, I would too, wouldn't you?
If I saw a bush, well, that bush is on fire over there, and you
go a little bit further. Wow, it's still on fire. All
bushes burn up. Not this one. And so he said,
I'll turn aside and see what this is all about. And then a
voice says to him, take your shoes off. You're on the holy
ground. What is he talking? You're in
the presence of majesty. I am. And then fast forward from Exodus
the third chapter all the way to John's gospel chapter 14 and
verse 6. And the Lord Jesus identifies
Him, Himself, as being the one who spoke to Moses hundreds and
hundreds of years before this. And He starts off by saying,
I am. It's His unmistakable identity. Secondly, unmistakable declarations from
the lips of the Savior. We know who he is now. Who he
is is vital. Remember I said, all of the scriptures,
our Lord Jesus has condensed into one verse. And he begins
by unmistakably identifying himself, I am. So we know who he is. This is the infinite God. This
is the God who stepped out of heaven and came down to earth.
This is the one who left eternity and he came into time. And he
did that that he might redeem a people unto himself. He's the
great I am. And then he gives these three
self declarations. And oh, how simple he speaks,
but yet there's such, they're so profound, these statements. He says, I am the way, the truth,
the line, unmistakable self declarations. And some of the Greek experts,
they go into the depths of the original language and they say
that our Lord's literally, our Lord is saying, I, even I am
the way. I, even I, am the truth. I, even I, am the life. And he said, even I, even I,
and he said that despite what the Jews said, he's not God,
he's blaspheming when he says he's God. And now Jesus of Nazareth
says, I, even I, am the way. I, even I, am the truth. I'm the way, the only way. I'm
the truth, the only truth. You're not gonna find truth anywhere
else. It's fully embodied in this man,
Christ Jesus. And I, even I, am a life. These are unmistakable self declarations. And then here's the third thing,
the unmistakable conclusion. Or if you want another word,
the unmistakable deduction. This is what we can deduce from
this. This is what we can conclude. Since Jesus of Nazareth has this
unmistakable identity that he is the great I am, And since
He has made these three unmistakable self-declarations, I, even I
am the way, I, even I am the truth, I, even I am the life,
here is the unmistakable conclusion or deduction. No man, no man, And that's generic, no
man, no woman, no boy, no girl, no teenager, no young adult,
no middle-aged adult, no older adult, no man cometh under the
father, but by me. Simple words. You look at it
again, most of them are single syllable words. Our Lord never,
He didn't speak over the heads of people. Now, he spoke in some
parabolic ways so that the self-righteous wouldn't understand what he was
saying, but he uses words that we can grasp. And all of you
this morning who are of age enough to understand the words that
I'm using, you can, to a degree, understand my Savior's words. I am. the way, the truth, and the life. And he uses definite articles. He's not a way, as though there's
many ways. No, he's the way. He's not a
truth. Well, people say, I think there's
truth in all kind of religions. Now, wait a minute. There is
but one truth. How do you know that, preacher?
Because the Lord Jesus said, I am the way, the truth. There
is only one truth. There aren't many truths. There
aren't many gospels. There's just one truth. And in
the man Christ Jesus, all of the truth that you need to know
to get from here to the Father, to get from earth to heaven. All of the truth you need to
know for the salvation of your soul is embodied in, is found
in this one person, the great I am, who is Jesus. So you see here actually in verse
number six, we have both the humanity of our Savior as well
as his deity. Because it begins by saying,
Jesus saith. Who is Jesus? That's the name
given to him at his birth because of the word of God that came
to Mary and to Joseph. That was to be his name. Thou
shalt call his name Jesus. It's his earthly name. This is
the name that people despise. It's the name that Saul of Tarsus,
he hated that name. And when the Lord crossed his
path on the road to Damascus, and Saul of Tarsus was knocked
off his horse, he's down in the dust. He says, who art thou Lord? And a voice came back, I'm Jesus. Oh, that's the one he hated.
That's the one he despised. That's the one he had no use
for. I'm Jesus whom thou persecute. Jesus, that's his earthly name. But Jesus of Nazareth is also
at the same time a great I am. So we come to this unmistakable
conclusion. You cannot come to God any other
way. There is no other truth. There
is no life to be found anywhere else except in this one who is
Jesus, the great I Am. at the end of Pat's funeral, someone came up to me and said,
I'm glad you quoted the most hated verse in the Bible. Well, to me, one of the most
hated verses in the Bible, of course, would be found in Romans
chapter nine. where God said, I'll be merciful
to whom I'll be merciful, I'll be gracious to whom I'll be gracious.
His sovereign grace. But this is also a verse that
many people, they choke on this because you see, this rules out
all other ways. This statement of our Lord Jesus,
This is a declaration that everything else is error because he's the
truth. And our Lord is saying everything
else, every other religion is death. Even I am the way. I, even I
am the truth. I, even I am the life. And then he says, no man cometh
unto the father but by me. Let me tell you something, our
Lord Jesus is giving one of the most dramatic statements you'll
ever read. And he is giving to us one of
the most dogmatic statements we'll ever read. And he is giving
to us one of the most doctrinal statements that we'll ever read.
And there are people who will say to you and me, they'll say,
you folks think you're right and everybody else is wrong. You think what you preach is
correct. Everybody else is in error. And
they'll say things like, you know, we love Jesus. Why can't
y'all just love Jesus like we do? We all love Jesus. Oh, we maybe have a few little
differences along the way, but hey, we all want to get to heaven,
don't we? Why do y'all insist on making
things so specific? Why can't you be more like Jesus? He was loving and tender and
kind. Well, he was all that, but he
was also dogmatic. You see these words, these are
very powerful words, but these are not the words of
a preacher. These are not the words of John.
I have great respect for John the Apostle. It would have been
wonderful to hear John preach, but John didn't say this. I would
love to have heard the Apostle Paul preach, who had such a grasp
on the scriptures, who set forth the purpose of God and the purchase
of Christ Jesus, and the power of the Holy Spirit and regeneration,
But this is not one of our Lord's apostles making these statements
about Jesus of Nazareth. This is the Lord Jesus Himself
who narrows things down to really fine-tune it. And it's so unmistakable. So you're not going to mistake
what He says this morning. You can't. Not if you listen.
And not if you understand words. Jesus said unto him, I am the
way. I'm the way to the Father. I'm
the way to heaven. I'm the way to salvation. I'm the way to everlasting life.
You don't mistake what he's saying, do you? He says, I am the way. I'm the way from here to there. And he says, I am the truth.
I, even I am the truth. Everything else is error. In
the Bible, truth is likened unto light, correct doctrine, whereas darkness is death, error,
heresy. You see, in every other religion
except the religion of Christ Jesus, and this is true Christianity. And I know Christianity is a
word that's tossed about quite frequently today, and they have
a big umbrella, and anybody who says they believe in God, well,
you're a Christian! No, no, no, no! There is the
truth, there's the way to God, and there's the truth of God
embodied in Christ Jesus. And that truth is Christianity. And apart from that truth, all
is death. You understand that, don't you?
It's not complicated. I know sometimes people say, Y'all
just preach over my head. I hope this is not over your
head. If you're listening to me, if you're looking at me,
I know you're looking at me and hopefully you're listening to
me. This isn't over your head, is it? This is so simple and
yet so very, very profound. Well, how profound is it, preacher? It will take the Spirit of God
to drive it to your heart before you really embrace this. That's
how profound it is. There's the unmistakable self-declarations
of the Savior. I even, I am the way. I'm the
way to God. I'm the way to heaven. You want
to go to heaven? I do. And I know that salvation, it's
much more than, I want to go to heaven and I don't want to
go to hell, but it certainly includes that. I don't want to perish. I don't
want to be separated from God. I want to go to God. I want to
enjoy God. I want to fellowship with God.
I want to be with God forever, don't you? Well, there's a way. It's just the way, though. You
say, well, there's the Catholic way and the Presbyterian way
and the Baptist. No. No. There's just the way. And there's the truth, the truth. And it's all found in this mysterious,
very complex person of Jesus, who is the great I am. And here's
where we find life. I want life. I want life. What is it? Jeremiah said to the people,
through the inspiration of God, I set before you life and death. I don't want death. Nobody who
understands the issues wants death. Because you see, death
in the Bible is not a ceasing of existence. just as life in the Bible isn't
just meaning existence. I want more than existence. I
want life. What is life? Christ said, this
is life eternal to know Thee, the only true God. That's real
life. You see, people who perish and
go to hell, they exist forever. but you can't hardly call that
life. That's a never-ending existence,
but it isn't life. Life in the Bible, Christ said,
I even I am the way, I even I am the truth, I even I am the life. Life in the Bible means communion
with and fellowship with the living God. That's what life
is in the Bible. That's the reason the Bible pictures
all of us as being dead. Well, I'm not dead, preacher. I'm alive. Well, you're alive
in your flesh, but you're dead to God. You're dead to God. Well, how can I have fellowship
with God, communion with God? How can I approach God? How can
I worship God? How can I spend forever with
God? through him who is the life.
You see, you beginning to catch on? I am the way, I am the truth, I
am the life. Now, I have threefold gold in bringing
both of these messages, which every message is important. I
never Don't think I've ever preached,
but what I didn't feel like is the most important message I've
ever preached. Because you can't call on yesterday
and go back to another message. This is the most important time
in your life right now. You know that? Because God in
his mercy has put you under the sound of a voice that's gonna
be honest with you, who is just echoing, what is a preacher? He's just echoing the truth of
God. That's all he's doing. I'm just
rehearsing the truth of God about an unmistakable identity. Who is Jesus of Nazareth? He's
the Great I Am. That's who He is. He's the Eternal
God. Well, what did He say about Himself? I know his apostles and everything
that the apostles wrote in the New Testament. It's all the truth
about him. But what did the Lord Jesus himself,
what did he say? He said, I'm the way to God. Well, you know what that means?
Baptism's not the way. So I've been baptized. Good for
you. But that's not the way to God. Well, I sprinkled when I was
a little baby. That's not the way to God. Do words mean anything? How can
false religion look at verses like this and then say, the way
to God is by doing unto others as you would have them do unto
you? How could they ever say that? There's no truth in that,
that that's the way to God, that's the way to heaven. That's wrong,
that's a lie. Well, should we practice the
golden rule? Well, of course we should. And
God's people, through the presence and the fact that the Holy Spirit
inhabits us, we seek to do good. But that's not the way to God. Well, what is the way to God?
Somebody. Somebody is the way to God. Somebody
and His work. Because you cannot divide the
work from the person who did the work. The work is the work of salvation
that He did. This great person, the great
I Am, He came down here not to try to save, but to save. To
seek and to save that which was lost. Did He do it? Yes, He did. Well, how did He do it? Just
a few short hours after this portion of scripture, after he
had spoken to his disciples, just a few short hours, he's
just an arm length away, as it were, from the cross of Calvary.
He's going to be arrested. He's going to be put on trial
before a religious court and then a civil court. And then they're going to crucify
him. But this is all according to the purpose of God because
there was no other way to save sinners except the justice of
God be satisfied. Because the Bible says the soul
that sinneth shall die. God's got to get death. God's
angry with the wicked every day. Sin is in opposition to God. It's an attack upon His throne. It's an attack upon His sovereignty. Something's got to be done about
sin. And God says, here's the way
I deal with sin through death. And if you die without the Lord
Jesus Christ, if your physical life ends and you're not in Him,
you're going to die forever. Well, preacher, God's a merciful
God. Won't he let people get out of
hell? No, no. The scripture says, there the
worm doth not and the fire is not quenched ever. Why is that? because your death
in hell will never satisfy the justice of God, ever. Well, surely after a thousand
years, God will say, well, he's had enough. No. The reason you think that way
is because you don't understand the character of God, His justice
and His wrath that demands infinite payment for your sins against
Him. That's why when somebody perishes
in their sins, they go to hell and there is no end to that destruction. But you tell me, preacher, that
Christ is the way to God, that doesn't there have to be a death?
Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. That's why He died. We say, how can the death of
one man satisfy the demands of God's justice? for millions and
millions of people, all those the Father gave him in the covenant
of grace. Here's why his death satisfied
God, because his was an infinite price paid to an infinite God. He's God himself dying, and God
was satisfied with his death. See, God's gonna get death everywhere. It's like that Passover night
in Egypt. He told the Israelites that the
firstborn's gonna die unless your door's marked with blood.
So they had to kill a lamb. And if no lamb had been killed,
then God's gonna do some killing. Oh, God wouldn't do that. You
don't know who God is, do you? Don't think you've ever met God.
But God is love. Yes, He is. He's also holiness. But God is merciful. Yes, He
is, but He's also just. And He says, the soul that sinned
shall die. He won't get death. And I'll tell you what salvation,
I'll tell you what salvation's all about, is the Spirit of God
convincing us the only help for us helpless sinners, the only
hope we have of getting to the Father, of being accepted by
the Father, being received by the Father, of having the life
of God, of having, everlasting enjoyment of God. The only hope
is found in this one who lived, who died, and who rose again,
and whoever lives to make intercession for us. My conscious goal in you hearing
this message this morning, I hope again this evening, is number
one, I want to honor the God of salvation. I want to honor this one who
says, I am the way. Without him, there is no going
to God. He's the way. And I want to honor him who is
the truth. Without him, there is no knowing
God. You can't know him, you gotta
know the truth. Did not the Savior said, ye shall
know, what is that? The truth. And the truth shall
set you free. I believe we're all good people,
preacher and you know, as long as we're sincere and try to do
the best we can, we'll all get to heaven. That's not the truth.
That is not the truth. God demands perfection. Now that's
the truth. God demands holiness, that's
the truth. God demands righteousness, that's
the truth. Well, where am I gonna find all
of this in Him who is the truth? And you need life. You need life. I tell you what, you gotta have
a life that's a whole lot better than this physical life. Because
this physical life, it's kind of evaporating. It's going downhill. Some of you older than I am. You picking up a little bit more
speed maybe. We're heading toward the grave. There's gotta be a life beyond
this life. Yes, there is. Christ is the
life. You see that? So I wanna honor the God of salvation.
And here's the second thing that I intend in the message this
morning. What I want you to take away
from this, I sure wanna point sinners to the Lord Jesus Christ.
I wanna give clear instructions. This is such a precious portion
of scripture, and it isn't difficult to understand, and yet it'll
take the power of the Spirit of God before you'll receive
this. I want you to see In the Lord Jesus, in this Jesus who
spoke, this one who is the I Am, I want you to see that all you
need is Him. He's all you need, His person
and His work. I want to point sinners to Christ.
And then here's something else I want you to take away from
this. And this is for the people of God. I want to help you. I got to thinking about this. There are a lot of the Lord's
people that they say, you know, I'd like to talk to people about
the things of the Lord. And I've had lots of people say,
yeah, I'm no preacher. What do I say? What do I say? What do I say to my wife? What
do I say to my husband? What do I say to my children?
What do I say to my friends? How can I set before them what
this Bible is all about? Set before them John 14 6. Can you do that? And you can
just tell them, who's speaking? Jesus, that's his humanity. The
I am. And he enlarges upon the fact
that he is I am in verse seven. He says, if you had known me,
you should have known my father also from henceforth you know
him and you've seen him. You have seen the father. And Philip said unto him, Lord,
show us, manifest unto us the Father, and it will satisfy us,
it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I
been with you? Have I been so long with you?
I've been with you three years nearly. I've been teaching you. I've been preaching to you. You've
heard my sermons. After all this time, Have you
not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen
the Father. So when you talk to somebody
about the things of God, you say, I'm just, I just, I fumble
my words. I just can't get it out. Just
go to John 14, 6. And you can say, listen, I can't
explain all the Bible, but I can give you in one statement what
the Bible is all about. Jesus said unto him, I, even
I, am the way. He's the way to God. He's the
way to the Father. He's the way to the Father's
house. I, even I, am the truth. He's the truth. He's reality. See, in the Old Testament, and
I'll enlarge upon this tonight, but in the Old Testament, there
were pictures of Christ and emblems of Christ. and all of these things
that depicted him, but that wasn't really the full truth. That was accurate as far as they
went, but it was only shadows, and a shadow isn't real. But
a shadow reveals that which or rather he who is real, he is
the truth. He's the truth. All of the pictures
in the Old Testament, they're wonderful, they're beautiful. But our Lord Jesus himself, now
he is the truth come down. And then he is the life. Wanna
go to the father? Wanna know the father? Do I have
life? Where can I get life? He's the
life. You don't have any difficulty
with this, do you? You understand it? So you can relate this to
your friends and your neighbors and your relatives. If you need
to, get the CD and listen to it again. And listen to the one
tonight. Here's an unmistakable identity. Here's unmistakable self declarations. I am the way, the truth, the
life. And here's an unmistakable conclusion. No man cometh unto the Father,
but by me. So can I come to the Father through
Mary? No. Not if he's the truth, you can't.
Well, surely I can come to the Father through Saint Jude? No! You can't come through Saint
Jude. You've got to go to the Father the same way Jude went
to the Father, through Christ Jesus. I tell you, it's all right
here. And you know, only one as great
as the Son of God, could make these little statements, that
in the words they're so simple and yet it's so weighty. And if you can grasp what I've
said this morning, if the Spirit of God would drive it to your
heart, oh how blessed you are that He would do that. May the
Lord take the things that have been spoken and make application
of them to each of us. We'll meet again this evening
at 6.30. The men will meet once again
in my office at 6, and then we'll have our worship service at 6.30,
and we'll come right back to this passage of Scripture. I've
got a few more things I want to say about it. We'll ask God
to bless what's been spoken, and then Marty will play some
music on the organ, and after I'm back to the vestibule with
my mask on to greet you, then you'll be dismissed. Let's pray. It is so good of you, Father,
to enable us and to bring us into the place of worship. where
we can hear about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and his
work of redemption, of his blood that satisfied divine justice,
blood poured out. And he who died for us arose
and he ever lives, making intercession for us. Lord, take the things
that have been spoken. Take your word. Take the things
that the Lord Jesus said. Lord, drive them into each of
our hearts. And may we now know, if we didn't
before, what is a statement that would summarize all of the book
of God. And surely it is this, and I've
tried to quote this and read this over and over and over again
to drive it into our memories, that from the youngest in this
building to the oldest, we will remember these words. Jesus saith
unto him, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father but by me. Glorify your Son, Father, even
as your Son glorified thee. For Christ's sake I pray, amen.