Turn with me to your Bibles,
please, to the Gospel of John, again. Chapter 5. The title of my message tonight
is, Men Tried to Kill My Lord. Psalm 2 is a classic when it
comes to men who try to get rid of God. Brother Henry, Mahan has got
a message out, Goodbye God. And it's on Psalm 2. It's worth
listening to. But men try to get rid of the
Lord, and the Lord is going to have them in derision. He laughs
at them. Because He's sitting on the throne,
not man. Sometimes we think we can do
whatever we want to do and so on, but you know, He's the one
that guides everything. He guides everything by providence.
He guides everything by His purpose and His will. and we follow His guidance. We
who know Him, those who have experienced His electing love,
they joy in that. I'm glad God guides me. And He guides me with His eye. This is not part of the message,
but years ago I used to go hunting, squirrel hunting, with a fellow
that had squirrel dogs. Now one of his dogs followed
the squirrels by scent and the other one by his eye. And when they started barking,
you knew that there was a squirrel up a tree. You'd go in on them
and there'd be one, the one that followed by scent, he'd be running
around the tree. But the one that followed by
the eye, he'd be sitting there looking at that squirrel. Now he was kind of a rough dog.
If you didn't get to that squirrel in the next three or four minutes,
he would let you know. He'd come and give you a nip
on the tail and say, find that squirrel. But you could follow
his eye. And you'd find that squirrel.
You know, the Lord leads us with his eye. And we find the way
that way. We go his way. Men tried to kill
my Lord. Let's read a few verses here
in John chapter 5. Let's begin with verse 12. This was right after the Pool
of Bethesda, the impotent man, waiting for the angels to trouble
the water, and Jesus came directly to him. and there was a lot of
folk there but he went directly to him and he told him to take
up his bed and walk and the Pharisees and all the other religious leaders
they got upset because it was on a Sabbath day verse 12 Then asked they him,
the man that was healed, What man is he that which said unto
thee, Take up thy bed, and walk? And he that was healed wist not
who it was, where Jesus had conveyed himself away, and a multitude
being in that place. Afterward, Jesus findeth him
in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole. Sin no more, lest a worse thing
come upon thee. The man departed, and told the
Jews that it was Jesus which had made him whole. And therefore
did the Jews, notice the word, persecute Jesus, and sought to
slay him. because he had done these things
on the Sabbath day. But Jesus answered them, my father
worketh hitherto and I work. Therefore, the Jews sought the
more to kill him because he not only had broken the Sabbath,
but said also that God was his father making himself equal with
God. They persecuted him. They wanted
to kill him. And then when he said these words,
they said, well, you're making yourself equal with God. They wanted the Moor to kill
him. That's these Jews. That's these
religious leaders. Yes, he had done this on the
Sabbath. But isn't he the Lord of the Sabbath? And wasn't the
Sabbath It was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. And
besides that, he never sinned, did he? He never did anything
wrong. He is the sinless Son of God. He couldn't have done anything
wrong here. He was sinless. He even said, well, the priests
work on the Sabbath day. the high priest especially on
the high sabbath they work on the sabbath day they do the service
and the sacrifice for the temple and for the people and then he
answers I'm doing my father's work and everything the father told
him to do he did he did and because of that These religious leaders
persecuted our Lord. They're still trying to do that
today. They're still persecuting our Lord today. They want to
assassinate His character. Look with me in chapter 8 of
John. Chapter 8 of John and verse 41. 8 and verse 41. Our Lord said to these Pharisees,
you do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, we being
not born of fornication, we have one father, even God. And Jesus
said unto them, if God were your father, he would love me, for
I perceived For I proceeded forth, and came from God, neither came
I of myself, but he sent me. Why do you not understand my
speech? Even because you cannot hear
my word." My sheep hear my voice, remember. They're not going to
hear the word. They're not going to hear the
word, but the notation I want to make with you is in verse
41 when they said, We be not born of fortification. I know
they're talking and they're saying we have one Father, even God.
But could this be an insinuation? Our Lord was born of Virgin Mary. He had no earthly father. But
what would the people around, even Joseph himself was minded
to put her away privately. Because she was with child. Could
they be slamming his character? I'm not saying they are. But
could they be? We'd be not born of fornication.
You are. Could that be what they were
saying? It might have been. But they're doing their dead
level best to assassinate the character of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was born by the Holy Spirit.
That holy thing in her was born of God himself. Needed no man. must not be a man because he
would carry Adam's sin with him. They said it another time when
a woman was crying and weeping at the feet of Jesus the Pharisee
that was standing there said if he knew what kind of woman
this is he must not be a prophet If he just knew what kind of
woman this is, he knew what kind of woman that was. He cast seven
demons out of her. No wonder she was crying at his
feet and weeping because he had cleansed her and then said before
that Pharisee that he forgave her all her sin. That's what we need the most,
isn't it? Forgiveness. Oh, what a relief and a joy it must
have been to David after he had committed those awful sins of
fornication and murder. And Nathan pointed the finger
at him, the prophet said, thou art the man. And then a few verses
later we read, the Lord hath put away thy sin. Oh, thank the
Lord for that. that he takes care of us, even
in those cases. If he were a prophet, they'd
try to assassinate his character. Why, he eats Republicans and
sinners. Can you believe that? He's a
wine-bibber and a glutton. These are words from the mouths
of the religious folk of his day. Well, I'm glad he eats Republicans
and sinners, because I'm one of them. I'm glad that he came to seek
and to save that which was lost. I'm glad that he commendeth his
love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. They accused him of being a Beelzebub,
the prince of the devils. The word Beelzebub is an interesting
word. It's the god of the fly. Beelzebub, the prince of the
devils, and he does miracles by the power of the devil, they
said. They tried their best to assassinate
the character of our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, they even tried
to trick him with their questions. What do we do? Do we pay taxes
to Caesar or what? He showed them a coin and said,
who's the inscription on it? Caesar. Well, you rendered Caesar
that which is Caesar's and to God that which is God's. Well,
the Herodians had to walk away. The Sadducees were there and
they thought they would do one better. So they came along and
talked about the resurrection. The man that had the wife died. His brother took her to wife,
died. They had no children, seven brothers.
Now in the resurrection, whose wife is she going to be? Why, you're wrong. You err in
your thinking. Because in the resurrection,
they're neither married nor given in marriage. And they had to
walk away. And then comes along the Pharisees
and the lawyers. They had to do one better. Master,
we know that thou art from God. If they knew that, why'd they
do what they did to him? But they said, Master, we know
that thou art come from God, which is the great commandment.
And he told them. Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, mind, body, and soul, and thy neighbor
as thyself. On this hinge all the law and
the prophets." They were put to silence, but
our Lord wasn't through with them yet. He said, Christ, the
anointed one, whose son is he? Well, he's David's son. Then
why did David call him Lord? And they couldn't answer. They
never asked him another question after that. What they did after
that was crucify our Lord. The religious leaders, they thought
that they were doing God a service by doing what they did to Jesus
Christ. And today they think they'll
do God a service by doing whatever they can do to silence the gospel
of our Lord Jesus Christ through our gospel preachers. The government
will try to ban religious persecution. Somewhere, some places in the
world, religious persecution is awful. In Muslim countries,
if you decide, if God has revealed to you and you have been delivered
and you come out and say that you are one of God's own, a Christian,
somebody will catch you and behead you. Religious persecution. works
religion. They thought they were doing
God a service. They lived by all their traditions. They followed
the doctrines of men. They considered themselves the
righteous ones, the holy ones. Consider the publican and the
Pharisee and the publican in the temple. When the Pharisee
says, Lord, I thank you that I... and he goes on to tell all
the wonderful things about himself. And the publican, somewhere in
the darkness, smotes his breast and says, God, be merciful to
me, the sinner. I'm a sinner. The Pharisee said,
I'm righteous. These religious folk have a holier
than thou. I know because I used to preach
it. years ago and time and time again. Well, the pastor has to
be a cut above everybody. Well, I'll tell you something,
this guy that's standing before you is not a cut above everybody.
As a matter of fact, he's a cut below. In my flesh, I'm nothing. I'm
nothing. Thank the Lord, I'm standing
up here preaching to a whole bunch of people who are the same
way. We're all in that boat, aren't
we? And we all need the forgiveness of the Lord. These religious
leaders sought to kill him when he said he was the son of God.
But remember what the scripture says? He thought it not robbery
to be equal with God. He was the Son of God. There
were many attempts on the life of Jesus Christ. They couldn't
slay the Lord of Glory. I'm going to show you. They couldn't
do it. They tried. But they couldn't do it, because
God on purpose preserved the seed. The seed of Genesis chapter
3, the seed of Genesis chapter 22, the seed as of one, and that
one is Jesus Christ. God preserved him. Pharaoh and
his armies tried to destroy the Israelites. We'll get rid of
those people, those Israelites, those Hebrews. By that, get rid
of the seed. but they couldn't do it. Haman
tried to get rid of the seed, tried to get rid of the Israelites,
the Hebrews, Esther and Mordecai. God worked for them and Haman
was hanged on the gallows he had made for those people. Nimrod and his world order tried
to usurp the authority of God and get away from God. Time and
time again, and today, if you listen to that sermon that I
mentioned to you, Goodbye God, you'll hear Brother Henry tell
us that today, the worst of the things are happening to us now.
The religious world has their own Jesus, their own Savior, their own definition
of grace. They say the words, but they do not know a thing
about it. And so no wonder they say, well, you can decide for
Jesus. He's just a little Jesus. He
doesn't have any power. You can choose him if you want
to. If you don't want to, you don't have to. Come forward and we'll show you
how to be saved. I've got three steps. Or if you
want to use the four steps of the Romans road, I've got that
too. We can show you how to be saved. Well, no preacher can
do that. All he can do is preach the gospel.
God shows you how to be saved. He reveals to you what salvation
is. Well, I better get into the message
and get going here. There were at least three attempts
on the life of Jesus Christ. Go to Matthew chapter 2. Matthew
chapter 2. This is very familiar as a matter
of fact. Oh, there are so many that have
their nativity scenes and in the scene they've got to have
the three wise men. One little boy in the church
I used to pastor years ago used to call them the three wise guys.
That's about how the world looks at it. the three wise guys but
here in Matthew chapter 2 it says when Jesus was born in Bethlehem
of Judea in the days of Herod the king behold there came wise
men from the east to Jerusalem saying where is he that is born
king of the Jews notice this infant was a king he was already
king he's not waiting to be king They knew he was king. For we have seen his star in
the east, and are come to worship him. When Herod the king had
heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And
when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of
the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be
born. And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus
it is written of the prophet, And thou, Bethlehem, in the land
of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah, for out
of thee shall come a governor that shall rule my people Israel. Then Herod, when he had privately
called the wise men, inquired of them diligently what time
the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem
and said, go and search diligently for the young child. And when
you have found him, bring me word again that I may come and
worship also. Did you notice it said young
child? It didn't say baby. It didn't
say infant. He said, young child, verse 9,
when they had heard the king, they departed and lo, the star
which they saw in the east went before them till it came and
stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star,
they rejoiced with exceeding joy. And when they were come
into the house, not a stable, They came into
the house where the young child was. They saw the young child
with Mary, his mother, and fell down and worshiped him. And when
they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts,
gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned of God in a
dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into
their own country another way. And when they were departed,
behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream,
saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee
into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word, for
Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose,
he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed
into Egypt. and was there until the death
of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord
by the prophets, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son. Then Herod, when he saw that
he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent
forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in
all the coasts thereof, notice the age, from two years old and
under. But the Lord had already got
him out of there. God's providence had already sent him down to
Egypt. God was not going to allow his son, his seed, to be destroyed
by Herod. And then, of course, he came
back up There was a weeping there in
Ramah because of this. Listen. He was the king in flesh. Herod says, let's get rid of
the king, then I'll be the potentate. I'll be the sovereign. And that's
what people are doing today. Let's get rid of the king. Let's
slay the king. Let's don't have anything to
do with the king. Then I'll be my own god. And
I'll choose whatever I want to choose. Oh, that's the devil's lie, isn't
it? He is king of kings and lord
of lords. And the world leaders are still
trying to assassinate our Lord. They established their laws to
ban religion. There was a time there that for
a while they were trying to get all gospel ministers and things
like that off the radio air. Off the TV. They were trying
to make a law to do that. So-called atheists. There was a young girl Spurgeon
talks about back in the religious persecution of England. She got dressed up on Sunday
morning to go to worship service. It was against the law to go
to a worship service. She could have been hauled into
jail or worse. But she was on her way up there.
And on her way, two soldiers accosted her. Where are you going
young lady? I like her answer. My elder brother
has died and I'm going to hear them read his will and testament. I like that. My elder brother
has died and I'm going to hear them read his will and testament. That's what we do every Sunday
morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. And when we have Bible
conference, just service after service, we're just hearing of
our elder brother. My Lord is sovereign. He does
what He wants to do. He does as He pleases. In the
armies of heaven, the inhabitants of the earth, He does what he
pleases in creation. He does what he pleases on purpose,
as we talked about this morning. He does what he pleases in providence. He'll move the whole world to
get one of his sheep. And he does. And he does. Sometimes I decry the fact Why did the Lord wait till I
was 61 years old to show me the truth? Why did He wait while
I preached a lie for 40 years? Why did He wait? Then I think,
well, it's God's timing. It's His purpose. It was His
decree that He wanted me to wait so long. But thank the Lord. He did show me the truth. He
did show me the truth. So, at two years old, they tried
to kill him. Unsuccessful. Go with me to Luke
chapter 4. Luke chapter 4. At two years old, they tried
to kill him. Unsuccessful. after his first message on this
earth they tried to kill him Luke chapter 4 verse 16 and he came to Nazareth where
he had been brought up and as his custom was he went into the
synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read and there
was delivered unto him the book of the prophets Isaiah and when
he had opened the book He found the place wherein it was written,
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me
to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight
to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach
the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book. And he
gave it again to the minister and sat down. And the eyes of
all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he
began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled
in your ears. And all bear him witness and
wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth.
And they said, Is not this Joseph's son? Now, the same changes. And he said unto them, Ye will
surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself. Whatsoever
we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.
And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in
his own country. But I tell you of a truth. Many
widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah. when the heaven
was shut up three years and six months when great famine was
throughout all the land but unto none of them was Elijah sent
save unto Sarepta a city of Sidon unto a woman that was a widow
went outside of Israel to a Gentile when they had all these widows
in Judah, Judea Then, verse 27, And many lepers were in Israel
in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed,
saving Naaman the Syrian. Now he told the truth. There was only one widow taken
care of by the Lord during that three and a half years of drought. There was only one leper, and
he was a Gentile, that was healed during all that time in Israel
when they had all these lepers everywhere. And notice how they
responded. Verse 28, And all they in the
synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath. You know, people today still
don't like to hear about election, do they? You know what election does?
Takes away their glory. They have nothing to boast about.
That's why they hate it so much. Their God is a little God. The
electing God is a sovereign God who sits on His throne and who's
made a choice in eternity past and makes sure that that choice
comes to pass when He speaks His Word to them. So in verse 29, They rose up,
thrust him out of the city, led him to the brow of the hill,
whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down
headlong. But he, passing through the midst
of them, went his way." The Greek is interesting here. In the original
language that this New Testament was written in, the word passing
through the mist means piercing. He pierced through them. Could it be the piercing eyes
because he can see right into a man's heart and know what he's
thinking? Could it be his piercing demeanor
because he's God himself that he can just walk right through
the mist of? Oh yeah. It wasn't his time to
die. And he wasn't going to die by
being thrown over a cliff. At two years old, they tried
to kill him. After his first message, they tried to kill him.
And then this morning in our study from John chapter 10, They tried to kill him because
of what he said in John chapter 10. After he said in verse 30, I
and my father are one, then the Jews took up stones again to
stone him. Brothers and sisters, he's not
going to die by the sword unless you're talking about the sword
of God's wrath. He's not going to die by being thrown over a
cliff. He's not going to die by stoning. It had been prophesied in so
many ways, foreshadowed in so many ways how our Savior was
going to die. He was going to be a sacrifice. Psalm 22 and other Psalms tell
us that his death would be the death of the cross. He would
die for his people on the cross. At two years old they tried to
kill him, that didn't work. After his first message they
tried to kill him, that didn't work. And here, if we read on, it says in verse 39, John 10, therefore they sought
again to take him, but he escaped out of their hands. This was
not the way he was going to die. Three attempts, there may be
more that you can find, but three attempts on the life of Jesus
Christ, but there's a fourth. There's a fourth. I want you
to turn with me to Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. In Acts chapter 2, and look at verse
22. Peter is speaking when he says,
ye men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man
approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs,
which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also
know. Him being delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked
hands have crucified and slain. whom God hath raised up, having
loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should
be holden of it. Look in chapter 4, Acts chapter
4 verse 27. Peter again is speaking and says,
for of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed,
both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people
of Israel were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand
and thy counsel determined before to be done. Our Lord knew the
death that he was going to die. He said in John chapter 12, my
hour has come. He said in Matthew chapter 20,
I must go up to Jerusalem to be betrayed and condemned and
delivered to the elders. Isaiah chapter
50 tells us that he set his face as a flint to do that. He would not be deterred. He
would not be discouraged. He was headed to the cross. The envious priest cried out,
crucify him. Crucify him. We'll have nothing
to do with this man. We'll not have this man reign
over us. Crucify him. What evil has he
done? Give us Barabbas. by crucifying the blood be upon
you and be upon us and our children and so it was. But think about it just a minute.
If I was there I wouldn't have done anything differently than
they did. Because of the flesh. Because of this old man. So his blood has been applied. Either it's been applied for
you in salvation or it hasn't been applied at all for you. His blood is upon me. I'm glad
it is. It covers me. It covers my sin. His blood remits, forgives me
of my sin. His blood is important to God's
people. They said crucify Him. The Roman
government said, Pilate said there, washed his hands, he washed
his hands of innocent blood, he said. And washed his hands
all he wants to. But he was part of it. The mob
cried out for Barabbas and crucifying him. But there he was, giving
his life for his sheep. for you and for me that he revealed
himself to giving his life for his sheep they said we'll kill
him we'll get rid of him this will be it but you remember what
Jesus said in John chapter 10 I lay down my life and I take
it up again No man taketh it from me. Remember those words? While he was there on the cross,
didn't he cry out in the book of Mark, he gave up the ghost. He gave up the ghost. Father,
into Thy hands I commend my spirit. He gave up the spirit. When He
said, it is finished, it was done, and He became our substitute
in life and death, for all eternity, for our salvation, He did it. Oh, they thought they had killed
Him. They thought they'd gotten rid of him. But they hadn't. As a matter of fact, they put
him in a tomb and these religious leaders went to Pilate and said,
you've got to do something. This man said in three days he'd
be raised again. We've got to put a guard and
we've got to seal the tomb. Pilate said, see you to it. Do
what you say. So they sealed the tomb. They
put a guard out there because the latter would be worse than
the first, they said. But the tomb couldn't hold him. The tomb couldn't hold him. The
guards couldn't keep him there. The seal could not hold the stone
in place. When it was time for resurrection, he came out and he came out alive
they didn't get rid of him he's still here today and we're still
worshiping him and we're still crying out bless the Lord oh
my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name because
he's alive today I lay down my life for the sheep
And I take it up again. The whole reason for the cross
for appearing was to put away our sins. I need that. We need that. More than anything in this world. We need that. That God would
put away our sins. God was satisfied with His work.
he carried his blood into the holy place and he's seated now
at the right hand of the majesty on high and God's given him a
name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow and every tongue should confess that he is Lord
to the glory of God the Father and then he cries out Come unto
me, come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and
I'll give you rest." How do I come to Christ? You don't come forward. That's not the way to do it.
You don't sign a card. You don't join a church. You
don't be baptized. You come to Christ right where
you are, in your heart. That's how you come to Christ.
And when you come to Him, you come to Him as Lord. That's why we call Him Lord Jesus
Christ. Lord the Sovereign, Jesus the
Savior, Christ the Anointed Prophet, Priest, and King. Thank you,
Father, for your Word. Thank you for giving us some
insights into your life. And insights into what this religious
world is up to. And oh Father, may we be strong
in the power of your mind. to always deliver the gospel
of Jesus Christ. Because we know it is the power
of God unto salvation. Save such as should be saved
here at Lantana Grace Church. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Turn with me in your hymnals
to song number 477.