I want to talk a little about
our Lord in Nicodemus. Our Lord had been talking to
Nicodemus about the absolute necessity of the new birth. And regardless what men think,
say, or do, except a man be born again, he can't see the kingdom
of God. Don't even have a clue where
it's at. He thinks all he has to do is walk an aisle, join
a church, get him a Bible, hang him a cross around his neck and
he's in. I was with some people here recently
and they was in a service and someone had got confirmed that
day. You know, that's how they got
in the kingdom of God. Somebody confirmed them. Who
confirmed them? A priest did. A priest did. And he told him
the absolute necessity of the new birth. and how sovereign the spirit
is, he says, the wind blows where it will. He said, you hear the
sound, you see the effects of it, but you don't know how it
cuts you, you don't know where it's going, you don't know who
it's going to touch, and sometimes it comes great, powerful, sometimes
it comes as just a whisper. And our Savior always used great
plainness of speech, but how in the world can anyone misunderstand
what he was saying? But now look what Nicodemus said
here in verse 9. Nicodemus asked our Lord, How can these things be? How can a man be born again?
Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be
born again? Now our Lord said you have to be
born of water, you have to be born of the Spirit. And he said,
how can these things be? Well, I'll tell you something,
here's natural man, natural man at his best state. This is natural
man at his very best. Here's a man who is a ruler of
the Jews. Ain't that what it says? There
was a man of the Pharisees. And it says in verse 1, a ruler
of the Jews. I mean, he is a ruler of them.
He was well educated. what they called moral, principled,
had a great knowledge of the scriptures because he was a ruler
of the Jews. But I tell you, this tells us
that there's something more than education a man needs. He needs
more than just morality. He needs more than just belonging
to the strictest sect after the law. He needs, all of these things,
education and morality and being principled will not make you
understand the things of God. You need much more than just
an education. Much more than just being in
a church. Much more than just being a moral person. Much more than that's needed
to understand the things of God. Here's this master of Israel.
And he didn't understand the first thing that our Lord Jesus
said. Not the first thing. Not anything about spiritual
things. And that tells us, beloved, that man is powerless. powerless,
no ability, no light. He is ignorant, ignorant of the
life of God. He's ignorant of the things of
God. He's ignorant of the kingdom of God. And old Nicodemus says
to him, how can these things be? This great educated man,
this ruler of the Jews, how can these things be? At least he
was honest. He wasn't ashamed to own his
ignorance. He wasn't ashamed to ask questions.
And there are so many people who will remain in their ignorance
and remain in their darkness and remain in that way because
of their pride. They won't ask questions. They
will say, what are you talking about, preacher? What does that
mean here, preacher? What does that mean there? That's
what the Ethiopian said. He said, how can a man understand
except somebody guide me? I don't understand what I'm reading.
And Philip got in the cart and got in his little chariot and
rode along with him and began to open the scriptures to his
understanding. But he hadn't sensed enough,
he hadn't enough, you know, his pride didn't keep him from saying,
oh listen, I don't need no help. I'll stay in my ignorance, I'll
stay in my darkness. And even us as believers, even
us as God's people, we must take our place as seekers, as learners. Paul said, I'm pressing toward
the mark. I want to win Christ. I want
to be found in Christ. And even we as believers must
take our place as seekers, as learners, as someone sitting
at the feet of Christ. The Scriptures tells us we must
be guided into the truth. Look, you keep John 3 and look
in John 16 with me just a minute. John 16, 13. Look what he said here. We need
to be guided into the truth. He says, Lord, open thou my eyes
that I may behold wondrous things out of thy laws. What David said,
open my eyes. And look what he said here in
John 16, 13. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of
truth, is come, what will he do? He'll guide you into all
truth. Truth don't come at once. It
comes Here a little, there a little.
Line upon line. And oh, we need to be guided
into the truth. You remember that Brad, I believe
it was Brad, read this 25th Psalm the other night? And the second,
third, fourth verse says, teach me. Teach me. Teach me. Teach me. Teach me. I need to
be taught. And that's why this Nicodemus
says, how can these things be? But at least he asked the question.
But here's the ruler of the Jews. And then look what our Lord said
to him in verse 10. Are thou a master of Israel and
knowest not these things? You mean to tell, just like telling
a PhD, a doctor coming here, the PhD or a master's degree
in something. This fellow is up as high as
you can go in this religion. He's a master of it. And here you're a master of Israel. You're a teacher in Israel. You're
a leader in Israel. You rule over the people in Israel. And here you are, you're a teacher. And yet you're untaught yourself. You're still ignorant. You hold a light for other people
to see and yet you're in the dark. And yet you're in the dark. And I tell you, you talk about
a solemn warning. Even a religious person, a religious
teacher may be ignorant of spiritual things and the things of God.
How many are there out there that's ignorant of the things
of God? Ignorant of the things of God. Spiritually ignorant.
Holding up a light and there ain't none in it. I heard a story
one time. You know, they used to have fellas
that when a train come by, still have the lights they do now that
flash and all that, tell you a train's coming. And there'd
be an old fella holding a lantern. stand out on the tracks and hold
a lantern to let the train know if he could come by and where
he was at and all that. One night this fella, train had
a great, great crash, but the lightening that stand out there
at the intersection, you know, he held up his lantern. He said,
I waved my lantern, I waved my lantern, but the train didn't
see it. You know why it didn't see it?
Because it didn't have no light in it. And that's what happens. People
are going to perish. They're going to have wrecks
in their lives and they're going to meet God head on. And God's
going to be the one to win. If a preacher, if he ain't got
a light, Gotta have a light. And here's
a master of Israel. Teacher. Has to be taught light. And he had no light. And here's
a member of the Sanhedrin. Seventy men was what the Sanhedrin
was. Seventy men trained in the highest
theological schools of his day. The very best school of his day.
And no matter if you're a graduate with honors from some kind of
a seminary, it's no proof that a man is taught of the Holy Spirit
of God. And Isaiah 8.20 says this, He
says, If they speak not according to the law and the testimony,
it's because there is no light in them. Take everything you
hear, everything that somebody says to you, take it to the Word
of God and see if it's so or not. I was talking about the
other day and I said that's something God did for me early on when
I started reading the Bible. I read the Bible continually
and constantly. I just read, read, read, read,
read, read, read. Every five minutes I was reading
the scriptures. And every time I'd go hear somebody
say something, I would go back home and I'd look at what they
just preached and I would study it. And you know how that's...
I would start out in Pentecostalism. I seen that that was wrong. You
know, and I'd read the scriptures and I'd say that's wrong and
that's wrong and that's wrong. Somebody talked about the blood,
I'd go read everything in the Bible about the blood. If they
talked about sanctification, I'd go and read everything in
the Bible about sanctification. I wanted to know the truth. And
God, He gave me that. And I tell you, take things to
the touchstone of the Scripture and see if these things be so
or not. That's what I love about men who teach and preach the
grace of God. They say, go home and look for
yourself. Don't take my word for it. Don't
look for yourself. And oh, listen, that's why we
bring everything to this Scripture. See if it's so or not. And look
what he said in verse 11. Oh, you're a master of Israel
and you're just ignorant and dumb. And you've got this wonderful
education. You're training and teaching
everybody else. You've got a doctor's before your name. You've got
a master's degree, master of arts, master of divinity, doctor
of theology. And you just as blind and ignorant
as a blind man walking around here. That's what our Lord was
telling him. And he said in verse 11, Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, we speak that we do know, and testify
that we have received, and you received not our witness. And
our Lord said, we speak that we do know. Our Lord said, we
speak what we do know. He says, that's what He said
in Nicodemus. If you knew anything, that's what you'd talk about.
And because you're ignorant, that's what's coming out of your
mouth. He said, a man only speaks what he sees and what he knows.
And then look what Nicodemus said back up there in verse 2. This is what he said. We speak
that we do know. The same came to Jesus by night
and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher
come from God. That's what he knew. That's what
he talked about. You're just a teacher. That's
all you are. You're not God. You're not the
Savior. You do great miracles and so
God sent you. That's obvious. You're a great teacher, but I
don't know you as Savior, I don't know you as Redeemer, I don't
know you as the Christ, I don't know you as the one Son of God
yet. He said, we speak that, we do know. John the Baptist,
you know what he said? He said, I'm nobody, I'm just
a voice crying in the wilderness, there's coming one after me.
He spoke what He knew. Did I add no more? Are you the Christ? No. Are you
that prophet? No. I'm just a voice in the wilderness
crying out and there's coming one after me and I'll tell you
when He comes, I'll say, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh
away the sin of the world. And when He got that done, God
took Him off the stage. And I tell you, see, we only
speak what we don't know and testify to what we have seen.
And all the things we may speculate on, God's Word is not one of
them. Don't never speculate on this. No, no, no. Out of the
abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. And our Lord Jesus
says, we speak that we do know and testify that we see. And
Nicodemus, you just tell them what you know. You just tell
them what you see. And then when I come and I bear witness to
you, and you do not receive the witness that I give you. And our Lord's chiding Nicodemus
here. And the reason a man doesn't
receive the things of God or know the things of God is he
doesn't receive them. He said, you receive not our
witness. And a man doesn't know the things
of God because he doesn't receive them. What it is to receive them?
Say, I believe it. I believe it. And he's chiding
him. You know, here's the way it happens.
First you receive, then you'll know. People say, show me and
then I'll believe. God says see and then receive
and then you'll see. That's why the Jews, they always
ask for a sign. Give us a sign. And our Lord
said, there ain't no sign going to be given you but one, the
sign of Jonah. What happened to Jonah? He died
to save everybody on that boat. He went down into the belly of
hell like our Lord Jesus Christ did on the cross. And when he
got down there, he found out that salvation was of the Lord.
And when God brought him up out of there, He cut him on the dry
land. And I tell you what, salvation
is by somebody else doing something for us. And I tell you, first
you receive, then you'll know. First believing, then you'll
understand. Folks won't understand before
they believe. You gave understanding to you.
Believe. And God's got to give you the faith. We don't see before
we believe. We believe then we see. We understand
by faith that the world's refrained by the Word of God. And he that
comes to God must first believe that he is. And look what our
Lord told him here in verse 12. He said, If I have told you earthly
things, and you believe not, how shall you believe if I tell
you of heavenly things? Now he told him everything, did
you know how many times our Lord used earthly things to tell us
something? He said, if I tell you of earthly
things, I tell you about a birth. Everybody knows that a baby is
born of water and blood. And here he comes, he says, a
man must be born again by the water and the Spirit. He understood
something about birth. And how many times did our Lord
look at a bird, talk about birds. How the Lord Jesus took care
of them. Talked about flowers, how the Lord clothed them. Talked
about wheat, and how that's the seed of God, the Word of God.
He talked about flowers and that be the glory of man. He used
earthly things and he said, I tell you things that you ought to
understand things of this earth. You ought to understand the things
of earth. And if you can't even understand and grasp what I'm
telling you about earthly things, how in the world will you get
a hold of things that are spiritual? If you didn't believe the things
of the birth, you didn't believe the earthly things of the wind. I told you about the wind and
how the wind blows. And what goes on in the natural
realm. And our Lord said, what goes
on in the natural realm corresponds to the spiritual. It's like,
you know, He said, it's like the earth, it brings forth the
blade. Little grass comes out. Then it grows up. corn, then
there's ear in the corn. And then when it's ripe, you
harvest it. He said that's the way it is.
If that's the way it is in the natural, that's the way it is
to be in the spiritual. Got to be a seed sown, just a
little blade. After a while, it'll grow up,
there'll be an ear on that corn. And then next thing you know,
it'll ripen, it's time to take it away. Take it away. And I tell you, he starts, our
Lord always starts with the simple before he ever gets to the higher
truth. Nicodemus should have known. He is a master of Israel.
He read the scriptures. But you know what he didn't see?
He didn't see the new birth. The new birth is all over the
Old Testament. When Noah and his family came
out on the new earth, typical new birth. When that infant in
the field was cast out to the loathing of his person, our Lord
came and spread his skirt over and cleansed him and said, I
say unto thee, yea, I say unto thee, live. Nicodemus ought to
know that. Oh, he read about Ezekiel 37
and you know he read it. He said, Ezekiel, go, son of
man. What do you want me to do? There's
a valley of dry bones down there and I want you to go preach to
them. Oh, preach to dry bones? Yes. Well, you want me to tell them,
I want you to tell them to live. Dry bones can't live. He says when God says they can,
they can. He knows all of those things
and heard all of those things and yet he never saw them. Oh, and you read about God grabbing
a hold of Jacob and wrestling with Jacob all night? Changing
his name, changing his walk, changing his nature. And yet, he said, here I'm telling
you of earthly things and there's no way in the world you can get
a hold of the spiritual if you can't get a hold of the earthly.
Huh? And then look what he said in
verse 18. This is just amazing to me. This is one of the most
astounding verses of scripture in the Word of God. And no man
hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven,
even the Son of Man which is in heaven. He ascended, came down, and yet
right now, he said, I'm in heaven itself. Well, I'm talking to
you, I'm in heaven. That's how our Lord Jesus Christ,
how great, how glorious, how magnificent, to prove that he's
God in man. He said, and that's what he says,
no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven,
even the Son of Man, which is in heaven. To ascend up in heaven
and see the heavenly things of God is an impossibility with
the natural man. Nobody's gonna go to glory. That's what he meant in Romans
chapter 10. He says, you know, say not. Who
shall ascend and bring Christ down? What can I do to get Christ
to come down and do something for me? What work must I do? What condition must I meet? And he says, no, we're not preaching
unto you about you got to do something. We're preaching unto
you the word of faith. And I tell you, only the Son
of Man. Man can't get to heaven. Man
can't get up there. I know people have these visions
and they look up and they say, Oh, I see Jesus up there and
I see my mama up there. People say all the time about,
you know, so-and-so is looking down on you. You see that stuff all the time.
My mother, which is in heaven, instead of saying my father,
which is in heaven, my mommy's in heaven looking down on me.
It wouldn't be heaven if anybody was looking down from there. If somebody was lying, if they
was looking from heaven and saw anything in this earth, it would
cease to be heaven immediately. And I don't know of any mother
that ain't gone to heaven yet, do you? His mother's dead. And the Lord
bless all you mothers. Thank God for mothers. But I don't know of a mother
yet that not went to heaven. Mother Teresa went to heaven.
She didn't know God. She didn't know Christ. They
made her a saint. Is there not any mothers, is
there not a mother that didn't believe Christ, that didn't trust
Christ? Is there not a mother? Is there
not? Is there anybody? I guess every mother that's ever
been born was so good a mother, so wonderful, that they all get
to go to heaven, just because their mama. That's why they said
God couldn't be everywhere and couldn't do everything. That's
why He made mothers, you know. And I say that because I've seen
so many people in my family. My mama's up there and oh, she's
looking down on me. My mama here and my mama there.
And I know them women. I know the ones they're talking
about. And if that's all it takes, somebody wishing you to be there,
there ain't nobody gonna be in hell. But it takes a heapsot
more wanting your mama to be there, and wanting your daddy
to be there, and wanting somebody to be there, than them getting
there. It takes the blood, and righteousness, and death, and
sacrifice, and sin bearing, and guilt bearing, and shame bearing,
and burden bearing. Everything that we need comes
from, through, and by the Lord Jesus Christ, and nobody's gonna
go to glory apart from Christ. That's why he says, Nicodemus,
if you don't know anything about the earth, You certainly can't
know anything about the heavenly things. And oh, he said, he said, nobody's
ever went to heaven. Nicodemus, you ain't been there. And you ain't come back down
and told us what's going on up there. And the only person who's
ever went there and came back was Paul the Apostle. And he
said, I got back here and I can't begin to tell you anything about
it. And he goes on here and says,
only the Son who is in heaven can ascend to heaven. And only
the Son who came down from heaven can reveal heavenly things. He
alone can reveal God's redemptive purpose in this world. And he
said, even the Son of Man which is in heaven. What a glorious,
glorious truth of our Lord's deity. Here and there, one at
the same time. And that's what I mean, we want
him in the presence, we want him in our presence. And yet
at the same time he's in glory at the same time. He was there
in their presence and yet he is so heavenly, so glorious in
his power and majesty that there he was in heaven at the same
time. You all ever heard this story?
I know you have Gary. People say he's so heavenly minded. He's so heavenly minded. He's
not any earthly good. I've never met anybody like that.
You've all heard that. He's so heavenly minded, he ain't
no earthly good. I've never met anybody like that. I've met some awful spiritually
heavenly minded people, but I dare him. Too much earthly. Oh my. Men is just so ignorant. And that's what he's saying about
Nicodemus here. And oh my. And I'm going to tell you the
gospel now. And he goes on down here and
he says in verse 14. And then he starts presenting
to Nicodemus the gospel. And Nicodemus would know what
he's talking about here. And this is the gospel here.
John 3.16 ain't the gospel. Here's where the gospel starts.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
that Son of Man that came down from heaven ascends to heaven
as in heaven. Even so the Son of Man must be
lifted up. Our Lord is teaching Nicodemus
the ground, the foundation on which the new birth is given
to God's people is through the Lord Jesus Christ being lifted
up. Like Moses lifted up that serpent in the wilderness. He
took a brass serpent, hung it up. As Moses lifted up that serpent,
Christ must be lifted up. And you know why the first one
was lifted up? Because of sin. Because they
murmured, they complained, and God sent fiery serpents among
them, and they bit them. God said, you hate me, you despise
me, you just complain about me, you don't like how I feed you,
you don't like how I lead you, you don't like how I guide you,
you don't like anything I do for you, I'll just send five
serpents, and they bit him. And they started dying, I mean,
people dropping dead. God said, Moses, make you a brass
serpent, lift him up on a pole, and you tell everybody that's
been bitten, if they'll look to that serpent, they'll be healed.
And our Lord Jesus Christ was lifted up for one reason, because
of sin. John said, Behold the Lamb of
God which is taken away, the sin. Thou shalt call his name
Jesus, for he shall save his people from what? Their sin. And oh, beloved, and in the serpent
being lifted up and Christ being lifted up, Both of them are sovereign
acts of God himself. God's the one that told Moses,
you take a brass serpent, you lift it up. He didn't know what
to do. And we didn't know how to be
saved until God said, send his son to be lifted up. To be lifted
up. And I tell you, God in sovereign
grace provides the only hope and remedy for death and sin
and the consequences of it. And this remedy consists in that
serpent being lifted up and our Lord Jesus Christ being lifted
up in public view. In public view. And in both cases,
serpent being lifted up and Christ being lifted up. Those who looked,
those who looked, they lived. Those who looked, they lived.
I tell you this, we was talking about this the other day, Bruce
and Todd and I, we was talking about that serpent in the wilderness,
and if a man was blind, and he had been bitten by those serpents,
somebody put, just take it, said there, look in that direction
right there. If he is blind, if he looked,
he'd be healed. And if a man will look to Christ,
And that's why blind men can see Christ, because Christ seen
by faith. And they were healed. In numbers
they were faced with just physical death. Here, Nicodemus and these
people in our day and all of us, we're facing spiritual death,
eternal death. That serpent provided only physical
healing. Christ provides a spiritual healing.
And you know what it says here? It said He must, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up. It's not just a remedy, it's
the only remedy. It's only there God's righteousness
and holiness and love and mercy and grace meet together on this
blessed cross of our Lord Jesus Christ being lifted up. Christ on the cross. Christ on
the cross. Why is he on that cross? Who
is he on that cross for? Who is that blood being shed
for? What's the effect of that blood being shed? What's the
effects of that death being done? What did God do about this? All
these are questions only the gospel can answer. and then let
me John 3 16 look what he went on to say and he said in verse
15 even so must the son of man be lifted up that whosoever believeth
in him not the cross in him it wasn't the pole on which the
serpent hung it was the serpent itself when they looked at it
it's not the cross on which Christ is it's the him that was on that
cross and he says in him should not perish but have eternal life. Here's the cause of the gospel. Here's why God provided the gospel. Here's why God provided the serpent
lifter. This is why God had Christ lifted
up on the cross. For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish Oh my. Let's talk a little bit about
God's love here. This is the cause of the gospel.
And I'll tell you something. There's a little book. It's out
years and years old. I mean, been out for hundreds
of years. God's people is the only one
knows anything about the love of God. God's people is the only
one. God's people are the only ones
that know and appreciate the love of God. I had two people
when I was up in South Dakota. Two people hugged me and said,
God loves you, and I do too. I had two people hug me and say,
God loves you, and I do too. And I said, well, what? You know
what? You just waste your breath. As
Floyd used to say, save your breath to cool your coffee. Just
leave them alone. You know, you just talking to
them ain't going to change them. No, no. But I tell you, we who
know the love of God, appreciate the love of God. And look at
the tense of His love here. First of all, it says God so
loved. Loved. It doesn't say God loves
like people say God loves. It says God loved. Here in His love, not that we
loved God, but that He loved us. He loved us. It's not God loves. God loved. God loved us with
an everlasting love. Drew us with the cords of a man.
He loved us before we were. God commendeth His love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And the tenth of his love, God
so loved, so loved. And then look at the magnitude
of his love. It said, so, so. And you take that word so, you
cannot imagine the magnitude of that word so. So. You can go on and on with so.
He so, so, so loved. You can't measure. It's immeasurable.
And then look at the scope of it. Look at who He loved. He
loved the world. So loved the world. And what
does He mean by that? He says, I don't just love the
Jews. I don't just love the Jews. I've
got people. It's not a geographical area
that he loved. He said he loved the world, all
of his elect from every part, kindred, tongue, and pace on
the face of this earth. That's what our Lord is saying.
And you know when our Lord in Luke 4, you look at this when
you get home one of these days. In Luke 4, when our Lord began
the first preaching in Nazareth, And he told them people, he says,
you know, and they found such, oh, they just loved what he had
to say. And then he says, you know, there were lots of widows
in Zarephath in the days of Elisha. But Elisha's only said to one.
All them widows in Israel, they went ahead and died. And I said,
Elisha, to one. And you know what she was? She's
a Gentile. He said, there were many, many
lepers in Syria in the days of Naaman. And Elijah was only sent
to Naaman. And they said they got so angry
that they took up stones to stone him because they understood that
God was doing something for Gentile heathens and they understood
that. And they despised him for it. And that's what he's saying
here. He says, Nicodemus, He said,
my love and God's love is not just for you Jews, but it's for
God's people all over the world. And the nature of God's love,
so loved the world that He gave. He gave. He gave. It's a gift. It's of grace. And then look
what He said there. And this sacrificial character
of God's love, what did He give? What was it He gave? His only
begotten Son. God spared not His own Son, but
delivered Him up for us all. And then what was the design
of it? What's the consequence of it? What is it? It's that
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish. not going to be lost,
not going to be, not going to perish in your sins, not going
to perish in your condemnation. And look what it talks about
the benefits of God's love. Have, have everlasting life. Do you know I have everlasting
life right now? In me, right now. We sung that
song, you know, in How Great Thou Art, that last line, in
a sense. that when God comes to take me
home, then shall say my soul, how great
thou art. When he comes to take us home,
you know what that means? This world's not our home. It's
not our home. And boy, sometimes you really,
really, really get homesick, don't you? Sometimes you really,
you look forward to going, oh Lord, it'd be wonderful to go. Go home. Go home. Leave this
old flesh behind. Leave this old hurting body behind.
Leave this old broken heart behind. Leave these old sorrows and griefs
behind. Leave these worries and woes
and sadness and troubles. Just leave them. Just leave them
here. Never ever to see them or deal with them ever again. And then look what it says. I'll
hurry. And he said in verse 17, God sent his son into the world
not to condemn the world. You know why he didn't have to
condemn it? He's already condemned. But this is what he's sinning
for. But he that believeth not is condemned already. Nicodemus
already condemned. He didn't believe. He didn't
know. He didn't understand. And this is what condemnation
is, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten
Son of God. That word condemnation means
judgment. Judgment. And then he goes on
to say, and this is the condemnation. This is the condemnation, that
man, the judgment, that light has come into the world. Who
needs light? People who are sitting in darkness.
How many times when electricity is off, do you all walk in a
room and flip a switch? And you're still in the dark. Who needs light? People in the
dark. And our Lord Jesus said here,
that this is the judgment. This is what men are facing.
That light is coming to the world. And what does man do? He stays
over here in this darkness. There's that light out there.
I like the darkness. I love the darkness. I like being
in the dark. I don't want no light. I don't need no light. And everybody around me, they
were in the same boat. He said, what are you doing talking
about a light? I don't need a light. I love right where I'm at. I
love this darkness that I'm in. And in our Lord Jesus Christ. This is why they do it. Because
if they come out of that darkness, they're going to have to admit
that everything I've said, everything I've done, everything about me
is absolutely evil. Every deed I've done is evil.
And I'm not coming out and saying that I'm an evil, a wicked, a
sinful, God-hating, Christ-rejected man. I'm not going to do that.
I'm not going to own up to that. I'm going to own up to being
a, you know, I may be weak. I may have made a few mistakes,
but I'm not evil. So I'll just step back in this
darkness. You think I'm going to own up to being a sinner,
bonafide sinner in God's sight? I ain't going to do that. I may
do a lot of things but I ain't going to do that. That's what
he's talking about here. That's exactly what he means here. And
he said here in verse 20 and I'll wind this up. For everyone
that doeth evil haste the light. And I know that from my witnessing
to my own family. I witnessed to my family. You
know, I've told you this so many times. I've witnessed to my dad,
you know how many times he says that? He said, oh, D.B., don't
you worry about me. He said, me and J.C., we've got
this thing worked out. I said, Dad, you don't talk.
I said, I respect you enough that I don't call you the old
man and I don't call you D.B. I call you Dad. And look what he goes on to say
here. They hate the light. I told you the other day about,
you know, Lenny wanted to come and she says, well, I'm so ashamed
everybody knows everything about me. And I said, all they know
about you is that you're a sinner. And the minute she finds out
really she's a sinner, she'll park herself right here and she'll
sit here and keep her mouth shut and God will do something for
her. But right now, she ain't wanting to come to this light.
And none of my family is. Look what he goes on to say.
And if they come to the light, then they'll have to say, my
deeds are, I'm coming clean. That's what they'll say. I'm
coming clean. I'm coming empty handed. I'm coming with nothing. And look what he goes on to say.
But he that doeth the truth, He that God brings that truth
to. He that comes to knows the truth. He comes to this light. And you
know why He does? That God does something for me. God put away them evil deeds,
and He worked in me. And all my deeds now, all my
works now, they're manifest, and God done them in me. He said,
that's what He's saying. That's what He's saying. He comes
to this light. He comes because God brought
Him. And it says, and He comes to the light, and He that doeth
truth cometh. And that word cometh means it's
in the present tense, that He comes and just keeps on coming.
Ain't that right? If you ever start coming, you
just keep on coming. And in fact, you know what you
pray? Lord, please don't leave me to
myself. Don't leave me to myself. Save
me from the darkness of my mind, darkness of my heart. Save me,
save me, save me. Don't leave me to myself. Our Father, in the blessed, blessed,
blessed, blessed name of our Lord Jesus Christ, thank you
for the abundance of your mercy and grace, given us in our Savior
before the world ever began. Thank you for this great love.
We're with you. Loved us. So loved us. And oh Lord, may some experience
the love of God. May some experience that wondrous
soul cleansing. breathtaking, life-giving, precious, precious love of God
in Christ. And Father, thank You for the
day. Thank You for the hearers. Thank
You for the gospel. Bring glory to Yourself through
the Word. Make it effectual, make it fruitful, O Holy Spirit,
only You can. We ask it in our Lord Jesus'
name. Amen. Amen. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face. And the things of earth will
grow strangely. of His glory and grace. See you tonight, 6 o'clock, God
willing.