Let's open our Bibles to John
chapter 5. The Gospel of John chapter 5. We're having a good Bible school
and thankful for the young people God is bringing each day to listen
to the Scriptures. As you may know, I teach the
opening session, and here's what I've been doing. I'm taking a
book of the New Testament, the first four books of the New Testament,
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And Monday I summarized Matthew,
yesterday Mark, today Luke, tomorrow John. Then the next day, the
last day of Bible school, Friday, will be a day of review. And
this is what I've been trying to set before the youngsters,
is that as we know the Old Testament announces that there is one who
is coming in the world. And we get to the book of Matthew
and Matthew says he has arrived, he has come, he has come. And Matthew, and Mark, and Luke,
and John, they all set forth the Redeemer as having come into
the world. But they have a different focus,
as it were. And I gave this illustration.
It's a very simple illustration. It's like if I had four photographers,
and they each took a picture of me. One stood before me. And one stood on this side, one
behind me, and one on this side, and each of them took a snapshot
of me. Now they're all taking a picture
of the same person, but they get a different view. And that's
what we need to think about Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Each of
those writers, each of those New Testament writers, they set
forth our Lord Jesus, they picture Him, but in a little different
way. Matthew, his portrait of our
Lord Jesus is as the king. And I told the youngsters It
starts off, he is the son of David. So he has royalty. There's royalty. We're all familiar
with the story of the wise men who came from the east to see
the Lord Jesus. And here's the question that
they asked the King Herod, where is he that is born? King of the
Jews. That's the theme of the book
of Matthew. Matthew is setting him forth
as the great Messiah promised in the Old Testament. Here he
is, he's the king. That's the view Matthew gives
us. Now, obviously, Matthew gets the whole person And in doing
so, he will present him to some degree as Mark does and as Luke
does and as John does, but basically Matthew is stressing that he
is the king. We get to the book of Mark, and
Mark has another picture of our Lord Jesus. He's the photographer
on this side, as it were, and Mark sets him forth as the righteous
servant. He is the servant. Whereas Matthew
sets forth his royal genealogy, Mark sets forth no genealogy. He just begins with the ministry
of our Lord Jesus. Matthew sets forth briefly the
birth of the Savior, the birth of the King, but Mark doesn't
deal with that at all. Mark skips over all of the first
30 years, or the first 29 years of our Lord's life, and then
he begins with his public ministry as he goes forth preaching the
gospel. Mark sets him forth as the righteous
servant. The verse that we have stressed
to the young people is Mark chapter 10 verse 49. For the Son of Man
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. That is, He
didn't come for us to do something for Him. He came to do something
for us. He came to do something for sinners. We've got to stress this. We
stress this in the preaching of the Gospel, that the reason
the Lord Jesus entered into this world, this promised King, this
Messiah, this Son of David, David's Lord and David's Son, the reason
He came was to do a work. He came to minister. He came
to minister on our behalf. That which God absolutely demanded
was perfection and a substitutionary death of a worthy victim. That's
the stress of Mark. Mark says, He came to serve.
He is the great servant. And then we get to the book of
Luke. And that would be the photographer back here, if you use my little
illustration. And Luke, as he looks at our
Lord Jesus, he presents Him as the man. Now, I also stress this
to the kids that in Matthew, he sets him forth as the king.
There is none higher than the king, right? Where the word of
a king is, there is power. And then Mark sets him forth
as the lowly servant. None lower than a servant. Oh,
great is that mystery of godliness. That one who is God over all,
blessed forever. Indeed, he did humble himself
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
He is God's servant. He thought it not robbery to
be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation. And he took
upon himself the form of a servant, the lowest of the low, to die
the death that the law of God demanded as payment for our sin. Matthew sets him forth as he's
the great king. Mark sets him forth as the lowly
servant, the one who came to minister, the one who came to
work for God. When our Lord Jesus came into
the world, He said, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God, and indeed
He did. He submitted Himself to the will
of God and obeyed everything that the Father gave Him to do,
every stipulation for the salvation of His elect as outlined in Old
Eternity in the Covenant of Grace. God's righteous servant came
into the world to fulfill. And He did it to God's satisfaction. There's the King, there's the
servant. Now Luke sets Him forth as man. as man. He's the Son of Man. Our verse
for today, Luke 19 verse 10, for the Son of Man has come to
seek and to save that which was lost. Luke, since he sets forth
our Lord's humanity, it's not shocking or surprising that he
spends a good bit of time speaking about our Lord's birth. We talked
this morning about chapter 1, the man who was born into this
world to announce the coming of the Son of God, the Son of
Man, the birth of John the Baptist. And then we get into the second
chapter, and as you know, the birth of our Savior, it is set
forth, and then He goes to Jerusalem. He's identified in the temple
by one whose name is Simeon, as being that one who is God's
salvation. Anna was in the temple at the
same time, and she spoke of Him to all that looked for redemption.
It's Luke who spends the most time telling us about our Lord's
early life. It's only Luke who tells us what
happened when our Lord was 12 years old. How He went to the
temple, He talked with the doctors and the lawyers and the rabbis,
and everyone was greatly astonished at His wisdom. And of course,
that's the time when Mary and Joseph, when they had left, and
they missed Jesus, and they go back to Jerusalem, they find
Him, and He says, Wish ye not that I must be about my Father's
business. Here's the man. Here's the Son
of Man. He came into this world to seek
and to save that which was lost. And I'm not going to reteach
the lesson of life, but I did tell the folks this morning the
word lost. is such an important word in the book of Luke. It's
used more times in the book of Luke than any other book in the
Bible. Lost. The Lord Jesus, He came to seek
and to save that which was lost. Lost. That's such a sad word. Lost. Lost. It brings great heartache when
you think of a person who is lost. Let's say they're out on
a wilderness journey or wilderness hiking trail, and every once
in a while you read about people who become lost. They can't find
their way. That's us. We became lost in
Adam. In Adam's fall, we became lost. And every man goes his own way,
but we don't go the way of God. The way of God is the way of
Christ Jesus. That's the way of salvation.
We won't go that way, but every man will go his own way. That's
why we read in Isaiah 53 verse number 6, all we like sheep have
gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way. But we won't turn to God's way.
We won't turn to the Lord Jesus Christ who is the living way
and the only way to God and the narrow way to everlasting life. We won't. We're lost. That's
the problem. We're lost. That's why the Lord
Jesus came into the world, to seek and to save that which was
lost. And He is the Son of Man. The
Son of Man. And Luke sets forth our Lord
as a man, a compassionate man, a patient man, a man who is very
courageous, a man who did battle with Satan, a man who went up
on the mountain and prayed, poured his heart out to God, A man who
suffered, a man who bled, a man who died, a man who arose. In fact, after his resurrection,
I told the kids this morning, our Lord appeared to His disciples.
He just passed right through a wall. They were meeting together
and He just suddenly passed through a wall. And they were shocked,
absolutely astounded. And they just gasped. And he
said, do you have anything to eat? Yeah, we got some fish and some
honeycomb and he ate with them. Listen, he's still a man. He's
still a man. He's the man Christ Jesus. That's
what he told them. I'm real. I'm real. And then at the end of Luke,
he ascended up into heaven and as he ascended, he stretched
out his arms, his hands, and he blessed them. He's real. Luke,
who wrote the book of Luke, also wrote the book of Acts. I'll
teach the whole lesson tonight, I'll tell you this. He's the
only Gentile writer in the whole Bible. I told the kids this morning,
of all the New Testament writers, only two of them were not apostles. Mark, that's John Mark, who wrote
the book of Mark. And Luke, who wrote Luke, Luke,
and Acts. So three books in the New Testament
were not written by apostles. And the only book written in
all of the Bible, written by a Gentile, was Luke. Luke, the
beloved physician. He took care of the apostle Paul.
God provided a doctor for Paul. In 2 Timothy chapter 4, the Apostle
Paul, he talked about how Demas had forsaken him and others had
gone this way and that way and there Paul is in Rome just waiting
to die, waiting to die. He said, only Luke is with me.
Bless his heart, Luke stuck with him right to the end. Thank God
for the Lukes of this world. For those who are always with
God's preachers and support God's preachers and encourage God's
preachers and seek to take care of God's preachers. That's what
Luke did. And of course, he was a preacher
himself. Oh, he had a special fondness for the Apostle Paul.
So, Luke sets him forth as the son of man. Now, here's what
I'm going to teach on tomorrow. John. John sets him forth as
the son of God. Luke sets him forth as the son
of man. He's man. John sets him forth
as the son of God. And once again, here's a great
contrast. Matthew, he is the king. Mark,
he is the servant. That's the highest and the lowest. That's our Lord. Well, man is
how Luke sets him forth. Who is over man? Who is the highest
of the highest? God. God. John sets forth in
his book, the book of John, to set forth our Lord Jesus as being
God. He's God. It's interesting to
notice in the book of John, and I'm going to show you this
this evening in this passage before us. Anytime our Lord was going to
say something of unusual significance, anytime He was going to make
some very extraordinary statements, He always performed a miracle
to get everybody's attention. There's nothing like a miracle
to get everybody's attention. Illustrate this. Alright? John chapter 2. Our Lord changes
water to wine. Four barrels of water. He said,
fill them full of water. Or is it six of them? He said,
fill them full of water. Fill them full of water. Then
he changed the water into wine. And after that, after that, here's
what he taught. First of all, he goes into the
temple, he turns over the money changer's table. He said, don't
make my father's house a house of merchandise. Now remember,
John is setting him forth as God. He's God, that's John. And it isn't that John doesn't
also show that he's the king and that he's the servant and
that he's the man, but here's the focus of John. This man,
Jesus of Nazareth, this one born in a manger, This is God. That's the reason John doesn't
start off with any genealogy. Well, he doesn't go into that
at all because that's not his purpose. That was Luke's purpose. Matthew has His royal genealogy. In the book of Luke we read of
our Lord's, His genealogy as associated with man. It goes
all the way back, His genealogy is traced all the way back to
being the son of Adam who was the son of God. Because Luke
is showing that Jesus of Nazareth is really a man. He's a real
man. In every way except for sin. And he had to be sinless because
he's God. He's the God-man and only a sinless
one, only the God-man could save sinners like us by substitutionary
death. But John comes along and John
says he's God. So John, he doesn't have any
genealogy. He just, John right from the
get-go, He says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. He sets forth His theme right
there at the beginning. And we know that over in the
chapter 20 of John, in verse 31, these things are written
that we might believe that He is the Son of God. That He is
the Son of God. Back in John chapter 2, He associates himself with God. He said, My Father's house. My Father's house. Now you know
right here in John chapter 5, you see in verse 17, Jesus answered
these people. This is after He performed a
miracle. He said, My Father worketh hitherto and I work, and that
upset them. Because nobody ever used that
kind of language. Nobody ever said concerning God,
concerning Jehovah, concerning the Creator, He's my Father. Nobody ever talked like that,
except this one despised, Galilean, Jesus of Nazareth. This is what
He said back in the second chapter. You've made My Father's house
a house of merchandise. And then he said this, now remember
the miracle got everybody's attention. Water to wine. Then he said this, destroy this
temple, three days I'll raise it up. What a statement. What a statement. That needs
to be remembered. Our Lord, He got their attention. You see, there's nothing that
will get people's attention like a miracle. Right? Hey, had we
lived back then, and we were there at that wedding in Cana
of Galilee, And we knew that, okay, they've run out of wine,
because I always had wine at such a festive, joyful occasion. And then all of a sudden, here's
this man, and he said, oh, fill these barrels full of water,
and then they start serving it, and you take a sip of it and
say, well, that's the best wine I've ever had in my life. And
you know, it was a miracle. That gets your attention. And
then he said, shortly after that, he said, destroy this temple.
I raise again three days. He's setting himself forth as
being the very temple of God and that he must die and that
these people will be responsible for his death, at least humanly
speaking. They'll put him to death, but
he'll raise himself back to life in three days. He sets forth
the necessity of substitution and satisfaction. So he gets
the attention of people. He grabs people's attention with
a miracle. Just before here in chapter 5,
just before he declares himself to be the Son of God, because
the Jews, look at John 5.18 now, Therefore the Jews sought the
Lord to kill him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath,
but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal
with God. But before he said that, another
miracle. It was a miracle that kind of
set the stage. Actually, two miracles. One of
them at the end of chapter 4 is the healing of the nobleman's
son. And then as you get into chapter
5, here's the healing of this man who for 38 years had been
lame. And our Lord, He goes to Bethesda. And it's just a multitude, a
mass of poor crippled people. And He fixes His eye on a certain
man who had been in this condition for 38 years. And he heals him. He heals him immediately. He
said, rise. Pick up your bed. Walk. Three commands. And he did it. And he rolled up his mat and
put it under his arm. And off he goes. He goes to the
temple. That got everybody's attention.
Would that get your attention if he'd been your next door neighbor?
You knew he'd been like that ever since, you know, for years
and years. Thirty-eight years? And maybe you go by the temple
and there he is, whatever his name was. You see him laying
there and say, how are you today? He said, same old way. Same old
problems. I got the same ailments. I got
the same pains. Pitiful shape. Well, probably
see you tomorrow too if I pass by this way. Every day. Every day. Even on the Sabbath
day. Our Lord healed him. Would that
get your attention? Did that get my attention? And
right after this, and of course he did, the Lord did it on the
Sabbath day. Right after this, he says, My
Father worketh hitherto and I work. And then he goes on to set forth
seven proofs of his deity. Here's what he's doing, he's
claiming equality with God. I'm equal with God. And we know
this is what John stresses in his book, because if He's not
God, He can't save. If He's not God, He can't redeem. If He's not God, He can't meet
our needs. If he's not God, he can't meet
the demands of a holy God. He's got to be God. But Luke
is also right. He's got to be man. Because if
he's not man, he can't suffer. If he's not man, he can't bleed. If he's not man, he can't die.
He's got to be both man and God. He's got to be the king. He's
got to be the servant. He's got to be the man. He's
got to be the God. He's got to be. or it can't save
us. I'll give you another illustration.
Over in chapter 6. Boy, in chapter 6, our Lord said
this. He said, I am the bread of life. Look at John 6.48. I am the bread
of life. And this is like right in the
middle of a great message. But you know what came before
this? He fed 5,000 men plus women and
children. If you'd have been with him,
hungry, sitting out there listening to him preach, and got a little boy who's got a
lunch, a couple of fishes and five little biscuits, And you're up there listening
to him teach, and all of you are hungry, and you say, Bill,
did you bring any, did you bring a pick-tack? No, I didn't. Trish,
did you bring anything? No, I didn't. Anybody got anything
to eat around here? Got a can of sardines or anything? Nobody's got anything. Nobody,
no sausage, nothing. No Spam, nothing. Got nothing
to eat. And then somebody says, here's
this little boy. He's got his little lunch. I
guess he's the only one that thought ahead and brought lunch
that day. I tell you, a little child shall lead them. He was
prepared. And the Lord took the two fishes
and the five little barley cakes, and He began to break it up and
give it to the disciples. It just multiplied. Oh my goodness. Five thousand men plus women
and children. And if you'd been there, If I
had been there, I would say, wow, what else could you... This
is amazing! This is astounding! And then he said, well, you full? Yeah, I'm full. My belly's full. I've had the best fish I've ever
eaten in my life. Had the best biscuits I've ever
had. Provided by the Lord Himself. And that paved the way for the
next day for his great sermon, I am the bread of life. He said, you got to eat my flesh
and drink my blood. What does that mean? You receive
me. You take me in. There's got to
be a warm, willing, loving reception of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank
God He makes us willing in the day of His power. And we receive
Him. We receive Him. But that which
got the attention of everybody, that which arrested their minds,
that which caused everybody to perk up, was this miracle. This miracle. Over in John chapter 8, our Lord
said, I am the light of the world. He that follows Me shall not
walk in darkness." Right after that, He healed a man who was
in darkness. A man who was born blind. Born
blind. He told Martha over in John chapter
11. I don't have time to go into
the details of this. I've used up all my time already.
But he told Martha, he said, I am the resurrection and the
life, and then a great miracle that just stamped it and sealed
it into them. He raised Lazarus from the dead.
So in the Gospel according to John, our Lord often puts a miracle
and a great message Together. Together. And you know what? The Spirit of God continues to
do that even in the book of Acts. In the book of Acts. In Acts
chapter 2. The Spirit of God came upon those
men. They waited for the promise of
the Father. Because the Spirit of God couldn't
be given until Christ was glorified. But how is Christ glorified?
By his substitutionary death, by the shedding of his blood.
He died, rose again, went back to glory. He's been glorified. Oh, now the Spirit of God can
come. The Spirit of God comes upon the basis of the successful,
substitutionary, sacrificial death of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Spirit of God comes to show us Jesus Christ Himself. That's His ministry. That's what
Christ said. He said He won't speak of Himself,
He'll speak of Me. He'll show you things of Mine. And anytime you hear people talking
about, we're going to have a Holy Ghost revival and Holy Ghost
this and Holy Ghost that, if they're not preaching Jesus Christ
and Him crucified, the Holy Ghost, according to this Word, is not
there. Because where the Holy Spirit
is present, where the Holy Spirit is working in great power, that
one who preaches the gospel, those who listen, they are hearing
the Lord Jesus exalted and magnified. The Spirit of God was given.
Preachers began to speak in languages that they had never studied called
other tongues. It wasn't some kind of heavenly
gibberish that nobody could understand. The amazing thing was that they
could understand. They could understand in their
own language the mighty things that God had done. That's what
the apostles preached. The mighty works of God and people
heard that in their own language. And on the basis of that miracle
they could preach, they could preach the gospel, set forth
Jesus Christ and Him crucified in languages that they had never
studied. That got everybody's attention.
And boy, that opened the door for a most powerful message on
the day of Pentecost by Simon Peter. And a little bit further over,
just what is it? Chapter 3, the very next chapter,
there is a man who is lame at the temple. Peter and John go
up there going to the temple and he is begging alms. He is
a beggar and he is lame. And he held out his cup or whatever,
please help me. You see these people with signs,
you know, please help me, I need money or whatever. That's kind
of the way this guy was. And Peter said, silver and gold
have I none. But such as I have given unto
thee, in the name of Jesus Christ, rise up and walk. He stood up. That got everybody's attention.
That arrested them really quick. And then Peter began to preach.
He talks about the Holy One that people murdered. And then he
gets over into the next chapter, chapter 4. That's where brother
Joe read for us to begin with. And it opened the door. They
got arrested. Gave them an opportunity to preach
the gospel though. See, these men, these preachers
of the gospel, these apostles, they recognized that which we
ought to recognize, that all things are of God. And when they
got arrested and they got hauled in before the Sanhedrin, that's
the highest religious judicial body in all of Israel, they didn't
say, oh, whoa, it's me, I've been arrested. Peter said, boy,
this will give me an opportunity to preach the gospel. And I can
preach it right to these religious rulers too. And he got in front of them and
he preached Jesus Christ of Nazareth. He said, this is the one I'm
talking about. This is the stone that the builders
reject. You say me not. But he's become
the head of the corner. And he said, neither is there
salvation in any other for there's none other name under heaven
given among men whereby we must be saved. You see, the miracle
opened up a door to preach the gospel. Those men back in those
days, neither our Lord nor his apostles, they didn't have a
healing crusade. They didn't go rent a stadium
or amphitheater or something and then advertise We're going
to have us a healing revival. We're going to have a healing
service tonight down there. Just come down there and of course
we'll take up an offering first." They didn't do anything like
that. All the miracles were for the
purpose to open a door to preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And you see, and of course, my
time's gone, but there in John chapter 5, we'll get to it next
time. Our Lord performs this miracle. He heals the nobleman's son.
And then in chapter 5, He heals this man on the Sabbath day who
had been lame 38 years. It opened a door for Him to declare,
My Father worketh hitherto and I work. And of course, it was
like pouring fuel on the fire. But he knew what he was doing.
He said, well, he shouldn't try
to offend those men. Well, sometimes people need to
be offended. And I'll say if the truth offends
you, then you'll just have to be offended. One of the things as preachers
that we don't like is for somebody to just say, well, you believe
your way, I'll believe my way. I tell you, I'd rather for somebody
to get mad than to just say, well, okay, whatever. You see,
if you get mad, God might just make you glad in time. I'd rather
get some reaction out of it. I'd rather for you to rejoice,
but if you get mad, at least a nerve has been struck somewhere. Somehow know that the Word has
reached you on some level. And these people, The Savior
said, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. He was ready to pounce
on Him then. But His hour was not yet come.
It wasn't time. But that set into motion the
things that would lead up to His death. Well, we'll get a
little further next time maybe.