Let's open to the first chapter
of John. We'll go back to John chapter
1, and we'll see if we can make a little more progress as we
begin to study this great book of God's Word. John chapter 1. Now, we want to keep in our memory
that the very theme and the purpose of the Gospel of John is set
forth toward the end of the book. You don't have to look at it,
John 20, 31. But these are written, the things
that are written, things that God the Spirit showed and gave
to John to write. These are written that you might
believe that Jesus is the Christ. Not only the Christ, but he adds
the Son of God. Lest anybody wonder who he's
talking about, he's the Christ, he's the Son of God. And that
believing, you might have life. through His name. The theme of
the book is Jesus is the Christ, He's the Son of God. So everything
that John writes in this book is directed toward that end. To show the reader, to show you,
to show me, to show everybody whose eyes fall upon this page,
that that one Jesus of Nazareth, born in Bethlehem's manger, who
grew up in a carpenter's shop, whose mother was Mary, and whose
reputed father was Joseph. Everything is written in this
book to set forth the fact that one is the very Son of God. He is the Messiah. He is the
Christ. He is the promised One of the
Old Testament. John is led by the Spirit of
God to focus on the deity of our Lord Jesus. This One who
is the seed of the woman. This One who is the promised
King. This One who is the prophesied
Messiah. This Man Jesus of Nazareth, He's
God. in the flesh. This is what John
is focusing on. Now, if the Lord Jesus, if Jesus
of Nazareth is not God, then all of Christianity falls apart. There is no salvation if He's
not God. There is no hope for folks like
you and me if He's not God. There is no forgiveness of sins
if He's not God. No heaven awaits us if He's not
God. There is no salvation for any
sinner, ever, unless He's God. He must be God and He must be
man. And John is led by the Spirit
of grace to focus on the fact that this man, Christ Jesus,
is indeed the very Son of God. He is the Christ. You see, our
salvation is built on Him. It's built on who He is, and
it's built on what He did. And what He did can only be successful
if He's God. Because everybody else fails. Everybody else is a failure.
God put a man in a garden. The man was sinless. The man
had nothing of what we call the temptations of the day to allure
him. God put one, one stipulation
upon the man. He couldn't keep it. We're failures. No wonder the number of man is
666. Failure upon failure upon failure. And if this salvation, if the
restoration of fallen men, if it is left into the hands of
a mere man, it will be failure. But our Savior is not a mere
man. He is the God-man. This is what
John sets out to show us. He's God in the flesh. And therefore,
being God, Isaiah 42 verse 4 says, He shall not fail nor be discouraged. He is the Son of God. So this
is John's theme. To show us who Jesus of Nazareth
is. To set before us His deity. And then his design in writing
this book by the inspiration of the Spirit of God is also
set forth in John chapter 20 and verse 31. And it is that
you might believe, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of God, and that believing you might have life through His
name. In other words, John is not merely
writing to inform us, or to teach us, or to give us instructions
as to who Jesus is. But he writes so that based upon
the evidence that he lays out before us that we might believe
on. that we might adhere to, that
we might rest in, that we might entrust our souls to this One
who is God of very God, and bone of our bone, and flesh of our
flesh. You see, the entire system of
salvation by grace, justification by imputed righteousness, and
the full and free forgiveness of our sins by the blood is predicated
upon, it rests upon, it is centered upon the One who died in our
room and in our place. And John says, I write these
things. to show you who He is, and to
bring you to believe Him, to believe Him, to rest in Him. Why do we preach the gospel?
Well, we preach the gospel for several reasons. Number one,
we preach the gospel for the same reason we're supposed to
do everything, for God's glory. Isn't that the first cause of
all things, the first reason for doing everything is to glorify
God? Whatever you do in word and deed,
do all to glorify God. It doesn't even matter if you're
eating and drinking. Do everything for His glory.
And as we preach the gospel, we preach the gospel of who Christ
is, and what He did, and why He did it, and who He did it
for, and where He is now. We preach the gospel of God's
grace to give God the glory. Listen, if nobody believes the
message, we'll still preach the message because it glorifies
God. We're not going to stop preaching
if everybody says, well, I'm not going to believe that. Well,
if nobody here believed it, I'd still preach it because God's
name is exalted. That's the first reason for doing
everything. Let's lift up the name of God. Let's exalt God in the very Trinity
of His person, Father, Son, and Spirit. So we preach the gospel
to glorify God. And we preach the gospel that
sinners might hear of the Lord Jesus Christ, of how God can
be just and justify the ungodly through the doing and the dying
of Jesus Christ. We preach the gospel so that
sinners might hear and believe this gospel. I want you to believe. I'm not just giving out information. I'm not just giving you some
facts out of the Bible and then that's it. We give forth the
gospel so that you might believe. John says, this is my purpose. The theme of my writing, John
said, is to set forth the deity of Christ, that He is the Christ,
He is the Son of God, and he said, I write for this purpose
that you might believe. I want you to believe. I want
you to believe on Him who is life everlasting. Oh, that God
would grant us faith. That He would bless you with
faith. To believe on Him whom to know is life eternal. There
is no everlasting life apart from believing Christ Jesus.
We must believe Him. And I know that we believe by
grace. Belief is a gift. But make no
mistake about it, those who are given to Christ in the covenant
of grace, those who are redeemed by His blood, they will be brought
by the Spirit of grace to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as He
is revealed in this book. You say, I believe election.
So do I. I believe redemption. So do I. Let me tell you something. While
we believe these great doctrines, we believe Him who is the life
of all the doctrines. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
We believe Him. We set forth somebody. We're
not just preaching facts, although we do preach facts. I'm not backing
up on that. We preach the doctrine of grace. We preach the Word of God. And
in preaching the Word of God, we preach Him, that is, the One
who is our life and the One who is our light. The one who is
our righteousness. The one who of God is made unto
us to be our wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. We preach, I preach that you
might believe Him. John said, that's why I'm writing.
That's my goal, I want you to believe. I want you to believe. Why do we preach the gospel?
because it glorifies God and because it's the only message
God has ever promised to bless for the salvation of His people. We preach the gospel because
it's sheep food. Isn't this sheep food? This is
food for the sheep. And those of us who are His sheep,
we want to be brought to believe Him more. We're like the fellow who said,
I believe, help thou mine unbelief. I don't know about you, but when
I look within, yeah, I'm thankful for the faith that I've got,
but I want to believe Him more fully, don't you? I'm not happy
about the doubts that I have. I'm not happy about the fears
that I have. Oh, to believe Him wholeheartedly,
to just believe the Word of God. John says, I write these things
that you might believe Him. That you might believe Him. And
that by believing you might have life through His name. Because there is no life anywhere
else. There is no hope anywhere else. There is no salvation anywhere
else. Therefore we preach Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. We preach that He is God manifest
in the flesh. So with the theme being the deity
of Jesus of Nazareth, the apostle opens up this book by presenting
to us the very nature of this most extraordinary person. John says he is the eternal word. He is the creator. He is the
exact expression of God. He was from all eternity with
God and He is Himself God. He is life. He's the source of
all life. Be it physical life, spiritual
life, eternal life, or everlasting life. He's the life and He's
the light. He is the shining of the nature
of God in the darkness of this world. He is God told out. He is God manifest in the flesh. That's all been laid out for
us thus far in John chapter 1. Now having set before us the
very person of Jesus Christ, beginning with verse 15, the
Spirit of God begins to bring forth witnesses. He begins to
bring forth witnesses who are going to attest to the identity
of Jesus of Nazareth. They're going to tell us who
he is. It's almost like the apostle is holding court. And he begins
to call to the stand various witnesses. He begins presenting
evidence, undeniable evidence, undebatable evidence of exactly
who the Word of God is. And the first witness he calls
to the stand is in verse 15, John bear witness of him. In
other words, he calls to the witness stand John the Baptist.
John the Baptist. Now make sure you understand
this because somebody asked me about this the other night. In
this, the fourth book of the New Testament, whenever you read
the name John, in this book now, whenever you read the name John,
it is always a reference to John the Baptist. And John the Baptist
and the Apostle John are two different men. You know that.
One was an apostle, the Apostle John, as was his brother James. The other was the last of the
prophets, John the Baptist. As far as the Apostle John, who
wrote this book, he never mentions himself by name. So whenever
you read the name John in this fourth book, it's always John
the Baptist. Now John the Baptist has already
been introduced to us by name. In verse 6, there was a man sent
from God whose name was John. He's been identified as being
a witness of the light. Notice in verse 7, the same came
for a witness to bear witness of the light. And watch what
is said about John the Baptist. That all men through him might
believe. as at belief again. So we got
the Apostle John, who says the things that I write about Jesus
Christ the Lord, who is the Son of God, I write these things
that you might believe. And then the Spirit of God tells
us that this John the Baptist, who came for a witness, he witnessed
of the light that men might believe. That's what we want. That's what
every servant of God wants for those who listen to us, is that
you believe. I'm not interested in making
any disciples. I'm not interested in making
any followers. I set before you my master. My Redeemer, my Savior, that
One who is my righteousness, and I hold Him up before you,
and I say, look and live, look to Him and live. You've been
bitten with the fiery serpent of sin. Death is all around you,
and you're dying, and the only hope is to look to that One that
God sent into this world, who was lifted up, even as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. Even so, God lifted
up His Son to die for sinners, and everybody who looks to Him
lives. I want you to look. And if God
the Spirit ever enables us to look to Him and see His beauties
and His glory and His honor, to see His majesty, to see His
deity, to see who He is and what He did, we will fall in love
with Him and we'll have eyes for no other Savior save the
God-man Jesus Christ the Lord. And we'll want the preacher to
hold him up every time he preaches. Preacher, hold him up so I can
look to him again. So I can look and live again.
We hold him up. To John the Baptist, his goal
is the same goal as John the Apostle. That you might believe
him. That you might believe him. I don't want to ever give the
impression that I'm not concerned about the lost. I'll tell you, people are perishing.
And I know, God's elect will never perish. I know that. I
know that. Those whom God has loved with
an everlasting love, actually they're already saved. They're
eternally justified in Jesus Christ. Those that Christ has
died for, They're safe forever. But you can't know that God chose
you. You can't know that Christ died
for you unless you've been brought to believe. Do you know what
it says in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1? The Apostle Paul said, Knowing,
brethren, beloved of God, your election of God. Well, how did
you know that, Paul? Did you go up to heaven and open
up the Lamb's book of life and see the names of those Thessalonian
believers? He said, no. You believed. You believed. I want you to believe. The preachers of the gospel want
you to believe. We cry to you, we say believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what the Apostle Paul
did. Everywhere he went he told people to believe on the Son
of God. Well this is John's goal. He
says, believe. That's what I want you to believe.
I want you to believe. Now notice what is said of John
in verse 15. And in verse 15, his ministry,
the ministry of John the Baptist, is set forth in summary. In verse 15, it's set forth in
summary. John bear witness of him. And
he cried, say, This was He of whom I speak. He that cometh
after me is preferred before me, for He was before me." Now
as far as who was born first, John was born first. And our
Lord Jesus was born like six months later. But John says, He was before
me. Well, how can that be? He is the eternal Word, that's
how. And he said, He's preferred before
me. God the Father preferred Christ
to John the Baptist. The Old Testament prophets, they
preferred Christ to John the Baptist. You do have a few prophecies
of John the Baptist in the Old Testament prophets, but they
spoke of Christ Jesus. That's who they preferred to
speak of Christ Jesus. And today, we'll say a few things
about John the Baptist, but the one we prefer who is preferred
above John and preferred above all others is the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's why we don't set a man
before you, we set the Son of God before you. And every believer
prefers Him above all others. Now verses 16 through 18 we looked
at last week, they're not the words of John the Baptist, they're
the words of the Apostle John, who's led by the Spirit of God
to give his account of the Son of God. Then beginning in verse
19, he picks up again with the witness of John. And our study
tonight takes us into these various questions for the forerunner. Questions for the forerunner. Look at verse 19. And this is
the record of John, and the word record is the same as witness.
This is the witness of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites
from Jerusalem to ask him, who art thou? Now when it says the
Jews, it means the Sanhedrin. Those were 70 members and then
plus one, the high priest who was the president. 71 men. Highest judicial, religious judicial
court in all of Israel. These were the religious leaders
and the rulers of the Jews. They were the most influential.
They were the most respected leaders of the Jewish community.
But they did not recognize Jesus of Nazareth as being the Son
of God. Yes, they professed to be waiting
for the Messiah. But now that Messiah had actually
come into the world, they were blind to his identity. They professed to live by the
law. They imagined that they were
obedient to the law. They read the scriptures, but
they had no real understanding of the scriptures. Our Lord would
later say about these people, you do search the Scriptures,
for in them you think ye have eternal life, and these are they
that testify of me. They read the Bible thinking
that by reading the Bible and memorizing some verses, I'll
have eternal life. Now, read the Bible? Absolutely. Memorize the Scriptures? Absolutely. But salvation is not in reading
the Bible. Salvation is not in memorizing
verses of Scripture. Those are wonderful things to
do, but salvation is not to be found in reading the Word of
God. Salvation is found in the Incarnate
Word of whom the written Word speaks about. These men read
the Bible, but to no real profit for their souls. The Scriptures
speak of the Savior. Now those words in verse 19,
the Jews, those are two words that come together that you'll
find them 70 times in the book of John. 70 times. And it's almost always used to
identify the enemies of our Savior. And it's interesting, only the
Spirit of God only gave this to John to use in this way. I
did some reading today, quite a bit of reading of scripture,
when Matthew and Mark and Luke, when they use this expression,
the Jews, they're always referring to the Jewish people as a whole. But when John uses this expression,
the Jews, he is almost always making reference to the enemies
of our Lord. So you need to remember that
as we go through our study of the Gospel of John. It's a term
that John uses for the religious establishment, for the religious
elite. From the high priest all the
way down to the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the other priests. Everybody who was duly constituted
as leaders of apostate Judaism. Those who resented the Lord Jesus
Christ. John uses this expression to
set them forth. The Jews. The Jews. Seventy times in the book he
uses that. These were the Jewish leaders
who took great pride in being the descendants of Abraham, but
they didn't rejoice in Christ Jesus as Abraham rejoiced. Our Lord will later say to some
of the Jews, before Abraham was, I am. And these, the Jews, will
be ready to stone him to death. They professed to know God's
will and believed God's promises, but they sought salvation, they
sought eternal life, they sought righteousness by their own merits,
they were zealous to work out a righteousness of their own
by their own works, and would not, they refused to submit to
the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. They refused. So they sent a delegation, the
Sanhedrin, the Jews, sent a delegation to John and they raised some
questions. Here they are. Look at verse
19. Last three words of verse 19. Who art thou? First question. Who art thou? This is an effort
to intimidate John. You know, John didn't conform
to the demands of Judaism. He didn't go to the temple. You
know, he never preached in the temple, not one time. He freely and without reservation,
he declared in the very plainest and strongest of language, he
professed to these people that Jesus was the Christ. I mean,
he was firm in it. He was firm in it. And he was
firm in denouncing them. He said, you generation of vipers! I mean, he wasn't trying to win
friends and influence people. Somebody said you can catch more
flies with honey. We're not trying to catch flies,
we're trying to kill sinners. We're trying to slay sinners
by the word of God. So certainly we want to have
some decency about us and that sort of thing, but we're not
trying to make people happy on their road to hell. We're trying
to tell them the truth. And that's John the Baptist.
That's why he said, bring forth works or fruits, meat for repentance,
to show that you have a repentant heart. They said, who are you? Who are
you? Now these men, they were the
supposed experts of Scripture. They should have recognized the
forerunner of Messiah. But they were lacking in spiritual
knowledge and in discernment, which is why they sent a delegation
to John saying, who are you? Who are you? See, multitudes
of people were flocking to hear John the Baptist preach. They
were going out in the wilderness to hear him, and they were submitting
to John's baptism, which was a baptism of repentance. So this
delegation is sent to investigate this man and find out who he
is. Because he's an unusual man. Think about it. He didn't work
any miracles. He was not in David's lineage.
And yet people were so moved by his preaching that they came
from everywhere. That's what you read. They came
from everywhere to hear John's preaching. And they said, who are you? Who
are you? Look at verse 20. He confessed and denied not.
In other words, with the strongest of language, he said, I am not
the Christ. Don't look to me. Don't look
to me. Don't think that I can save you.
I am not the Christ. So they asked him another question.
What then? Art thou Elias? Are you Elijah? We know that John came in the
likeness of Elijah with the same kind of boldness as Elijah. He dressed in a peculiar way
as Elijah did and he had a peculiar diet as Elijah did. But he answered again. He said,
No. No. I am not. And then they said, well, art
thou that prophet? What prophet? That prophet Moses
wrote about in Deuteronomy. That great prophet. No, John
is not the prophet. He's the forerunner of the prophet.
That prophet is the Lord Jesus Christ. The one of whom John
speaks. Well, are you that prophet, they
asked? And John said, no. He didn't mince words, did he?
He wasn't a real wordy fellow. He gave short answers to these
questions. Then said they unto him, Who
art thou? That we may give an answer to
them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself? What sayest thou of thyself? Now John might have answered
this question quite truthfully. He might have said, I'm a man
who's set forth in the Old Testament. He could have said, quite honestly,
I'm the son of Zacharias the priest. In fact, I'm a miracle
baby. He could have said, I've been
filled with the Holy Ghost since my mother's womb. Or he could have said, quite
truthfully, I am the most remarkable character ever raised up by God
and sent to Israel. He could have said, I am the
very last of the prophets. God hadn't had a prophet for
400 years and here I am. You want to know who I am? I
am the last prophet God is going to send to you. He said, what sayest thou of
thyself? And look what he says in verse
23. He didn't say all those other things, though he could have
said those quite honestly, correct? I mean, he was all those things.
But he says, I'm the voice. I'm the voice of one crying in
the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord as the prophet
Isaiah. I'm the voice. I'm the voice. In other words, I'm just the
vehicle that speaks the word. What do we use our voice for? To speak words. Right? That's what we use the voice
for. Well, John says, I'm the voice. Who did he speak about? The word. He spoke about the
Word. That's what he used his voice
for. A voice is only good to speak about the Word. He said,
I'm just a voice. I'm just a voice. I'm a voice of one crying in
the wilderness. What a position for the Messiah's
forerunner to occupy. Most people would say, he's such
a great preacher, Man, a guy like that, he needs to be in
Jerusalem in the temple. He's such a powerful preacher.
But no, God didn't send him to the temple. Because the temple
was spiritually dead. God sent him out in the wilderness.
After all, the religion of Judaism was just a parched, dry, desert,
wilderness religion anyway. So you didn't go to a synagogue
to hear John the Baptist. You didn't go to the temple to
hear John the Baptist. You want to go hear John the
Baptist preach? He's out there. Where does he live? He lives
out there in the caves. And he comes out and he preaches
every once in a while out in the wilderness. You see, Judaism was just a hollow
shell. It had an outward form of godliness,
but there was no life in it. There was no power of God there.
There was no truth of God there. It was to a nation of legalists,
to a Pharisee-ridden nation that John the Baptist went to preach,
but he preached to them out in the wilderness. And I'll tell
you, people want to hear him too. They want to hear him. He was sent of God. I tell you, we preach and we
minister today in a wilderness, don't we? This is a wilderness. Hasn't that been evidenced even
more so in the last few days with decisions that have come
down from the Supreme Court? And isn't it evident that we're
in a religious wilderness just looking at religion today? Just
listening to what's being said in religion today. It's dry. It's parched. There's no life
in it. We're preaching in the wilderness.
But wait. God still has His people even
in the wilderness. Even in the wilderness. So we
preach in this barren land. You know, Amos writes, Amos chapter
8, I think it's verse 11 and 12. Amos writes of a famine that's
going to come. Not a famine of bread, but a
famine of hearing the Word of God. And if ever there was a
time of famine of hearing the Word of God, it is surely now. God still has His men. He still has those voices that
are lifting up the name of Jesus Christ and His work of redemption. And God is still saving His people. He's still calling His people.
He's still drawing with effectual grace. He's still making His
people willing in the day of His power to bow to King Jesus
and believe on Him in their hearts. So we just keep on preaching
in the wilderness. Well then, here's another question.
And I'll get this quickly. Look at verse 25. They asked
him and said, Why baptizes thou then, if thou be not that Christ,
nor Elias, neither that prophet? Why do you baptize? That's a
good question, isn't it? Really? That's very good. Why
do you baptize? And I'll answer that in a minute,
but I want you to notice verse 26. John answered them saying,
I baptize with water. That word with really is in.
I baptize in water. But there standeth one among
you. Don't miss these next four words. There standeth one among you
whom ye know not. That's their problem. They don't
know Him. They don't know Him. There standeth
one among you. He's been among you. You didn't
recognize Him. And all of the Old Testament
is about Him. He's God's beloved Son. And He
stands among you. But you don't know Him. You don't
know Him. And I wonder if that's true of
somebody in this building. You hear of Christ Jesus, the
gospel of God's grace goes forth every service, and yet you still
don't know him. Oh, I hope and pray he'll introduce
himself to you. And he has to do that. And if he ever makes himself
known to you, you'll never get over it. You'll never get over
it. You see his glory. You see his
beauties. They say, why do you baptize?
Well, he baptized with water because baptism pictures how
sins are removed by the death, burial, and resurrection of our
Lord Jesus Christ. And John baptized in water because
in that way, the believing sinner identifies with the Christ that
he believes, with the preacher who baptizes him, who preaches
the gospel to him, and with all the saints of God who love this
same gospel. That's how we identify with the
gospel, with our Lord, with the saints of God, with the preacher
of the gospel, by submitting to believer's baptism. Look what he says in verse 27.
He it is who coming after me is preferred before me. There
John talks about being preferred before him again. He said whose
shoes latch it, I am not worthy to unloose. You see it was the
job of the lowest of the slaves to remove the sandals of guests
and wash their feet. And John the Baptist is saying,
I'm not even worthy to perform the lowest job of the lowest
slave. I'm not worthy to remove the
sandals of this one that I preach to you, whose coming I announce. I'm not even as high as the foot-washing
slave. I'm lower than the lowest, he
says. Who are you? I'm just a voice. You know what? You can't see
a voice. The preacher is not to be seen. We're not putting
the preacher in front of people. It's not the preacher that you
need to get to know. It's the preacher's Savior you
need to get to know. You don't need to get to know
me. I'm nobody. I'm nobody. I come from nowhere. Got no name. Don't even need
to know my name. Who are you? What does that matter?
I'm just a voice who proclaims the Word. That's the one you
need to know. That's the one you need to know.
And someday, we see Him by faith now. One of these days we're
going to see him face-to-face. 511. Is that right? 511. Is that the next song? Last
song. 511. Face-to-face.