This message is from the teaching
ministry of James Tippins, pastor of Grace Truth Church. More information
can be found online at gracetruth.org and anchoringfaith.org. A people
for His glory, by His grace. More happens in that minute 45
seconds for me hearing the text that I've been poring over than happens pretty much in the
whole week. It was the power of God and His
Word teaches us. God the Holy Spirit gives us
understanding and illumination and the emphasis of what we hear
each and every time is exemplified as we hear it with
our ears. Reading the Word of God just
in itself is sufficient for us to be able to understand God,
the Gospel, the depths of all these doctrines and theologies
that we so laboriously dispute and fight and hold fast to. And in the end, all the study
in the world does very little compared to what God the Holy
Spirit can do in just the hearing of His Word. It's not to say
that we should not study, for we are commanded to study. It's
not to say that we should not labor over the Scriptures, for
we are commanded to do so. And as God's people, we are overwhelmed
and, if I could say, compelled by Him to be more intimate with
Him. Sometimes it is because of the
pure joy of life, the celebration of the blessings that this world
can provide, whereby we would come to a place of saying, okay,
now we can just rejoice. We thank you, Lord, for this
abundance in life. We thank you, Lord, for health.
We thank you, Lord, for prosperity, and we thank you, God, for all
the intimacy and the greatness of our relationships. But far
and few between are those opportunities in and out of season we see more
of the opposite. We see more of the opportunity
to celebrate and rejoice in the power of God's grace and His
love toward us in Christ Jesus in the down times, in the hard
times, in the fight than we do in the celebration. And the complete
irony that goes against everything that worldly wisdom would say
is this. We worship and rejoice when the
world thinks we're foolish to do so. Because there's not enough counsel
in the world, there's not enough drugs in the world, there's not
enough therapy in the world that can overturn and do more than
God can do in just a brief moment with the hearing of His Word.
And beloveds, our flesh, even though it has been crucified
with Christ, is very much alive in its depravity. And it fights. It fights. We labor more in the
mind than we do anywhere else in the world. And then we sit
there and we think, well, there's no way for me to succeed. And there we tell the truth.
For there is nothing within us that could give us the power,
nor the resolve, nor the ability to stand firm in the face of
persecution, to stand firm in the face of suffering, to stand
firm in the face of death, to stand firm in the face of divorce,
to stand firm in the face of any type of destruction, There
is nothing in us that causes us to be able to stand except
the Holy Spirit of God who sustains us and equips us and grows us,
and most of all, He does it for our good that He is glorified
in it. The text we're in this morning,
I'm not going to get all the way through verse 30 of chapter
8 of John, but I wanted you to hear it because it is the outcome
of this dialogue. It's easy for us because this
portion of Scripture, chapter 7 and chapter 8 are negative
doctrinal things. What do I mean by that? Jesus
is saying who these people are not. He's saying what people
cannot do. He's showing the evil side of
the Pharisees. He's tearing down the walls of
religion and Judaism is being deconstructed before the eyes
of the very leaders that hold it together. And it's very easy for us to
get enamored and overwhelmed by the negativity of Jesus' teaching
to the point that we would go, well, what's the point of this?
Where's the positive aspect? What are we supposed to get from
it all? This is what we get from it all. As He was saying these
things, many believed in Him. Isn't that the way we work as
human beings, though? I mean, the sky could open up and everything
we ever asked for or needed could fall on our heads, but we would
complain that our neck was sore. Every ounce of healing could
happen in our body, but we would still complain we have crow's
feet. Whatever those things are called, you ladies so desperately
try to rub out every day. We would find a way to fuss and
complain and bicker and moan in our spirit about every blessing. Beloved, it's what we do. It's
to show us, it should show us, that without the gospel of grace,
without the goodness of God through Christ, that we are condemned
before God because even in the complaining of our spirit, we
are guilty and worthy of wrath. To not say thank you enough is
grounds for judgment. Now, the unbelieving world that
we see out there, the religious cults that we see out there,
the world religions that we see out there, the unbelief that
we see out there, they would say, well, that's a maniacal
God. And He's demanding that we worship Him. Do you know why?
If you lay your wallet on the sink of a restroom in public,
and somebody's standing there while you're washing your hands,
and somebody comes up and takes your wallet, is it not right
for you to say, give me back what's mine? How dare you ask
a thief to return that which does not belong to him? How much
more so does God deserve glory? and honor and praise. God is not asking so that He
may be fed in His ego. God is demanding because it is
He who is worthy of all these things. And when we see these things
that are taught by Jesus in this Gospel, it is so easy, especially
now to the end. There's not a lot of real positive
doctrinal things. There are, but they're sandwiched
ever so lightly in the midst of all this condemnation. It's
like reading in Luke's Gospel the woes. I cannot hear those
woes, neither in chapter 11 nor in chapter 23, without grieving
in my spirit to the point of uncontrollable weeping. Listen
to it. Listen to it in context. Listen
to what Jesus says to these people. He is condemning them judicially
for eternity. And that's exactly what He's
doing here with the Jews. That's the same thing that's happening
in John's Gospel. And so, as the church, as the
ones who are gathered here today, full of the Holy Spirit, regenerated
by Him, effectually adopted by the Father through the finished
work of Christ, it is easy for us to become overwhelmed with
the lostness of our household. It's easy for us to become overwhelmed
with the lack of discipline in ourselves. It's easy for us to
become frustrated with unbelievers out there and how loud and bolsterous
they are. It's easy for us to become angry
with the confused or those who are in error. But friends, our
Savior did not become angry. Our Savior did not become frustrated.
Our Savior did not become flustered and depressed. But He rejoiced. and He entrusted Himself in the
one who is faithful, who judges righteously in every count and
every breath. God the Father judges righteously.
And so as Jesus is teaching in the temple this moment, I want
you to be rejoicing in your spirit. Some of us sit here today and
we really are thinking in the back of our mind, there's a small
song playing, I wonder if I'm saved. Can I truly be a saint? And beloved, as long as you continue
to try to sort that out and how you measure your life, as long
as you sort that out and how you measure your joy, as long
as you try to establish the concrete evidences of your salvation in
anything that comes out of you, even if it's monergistically
by the Spirit of God, you will never have hope. The only hope
we can have is that Christ, who is God, born of a virgin, obeyed
in our stay, and died in our stay. God the Father has raised
Him to life, and we can live eternally. Because Christ is
our righteousness, is our sanctification, is our wisdom, is our obedience,
and He is our life. Friends, people who hold to,
listen to this, people who hold to a continued measuring of their
lives and others' lives before them as a guarantee of our eternity are desperately in need of clarity.
And I would dare say desperately in need of regeneration if they
stay there. Jesus speaks these words. He
says to them, I am the light of the world, and whoever follows
me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
And of course, last week we talked about Jesus' testimony. and how
the Pharisees could not stomach the fact that this man, this
mere man that they knew who was from Nazareth, from Galilee,
indeed was testifying on his own behalf. But Jesus says, it
is not I alone who testify, though I could, but the Father also
testifies. He's already told them some months
before that Moses testified. Moses wrote of Him. When Moses
wrote of the prophet that was to come, it was of Christ. And
they ask John the Baptist, are you the Christ? Or they ask him,
are you the prophet? He says, no, I am not the Christ.
And they're like, we didn't ask him
that question. Moses wrote of Jesus when he lifted the serpent
in the wilderness. Moses wrote of Christ. Friends,
these people could not hear the testimony of Christ about Himself,
and I said this probably for the last six weeks, Most, listen
to this, most people in our culture cannot stomach the testimony
of Christ. And if it were not for the grace
of God in you, regenerating you and bringing you to life and
birthing you anew and restoring to you, well not restoring, granting you repentance,
that you might believe In order for you to believe one thing,
you have to not believe another. Repentance, a change of mind. You and I would be just as lost
as they. We would be hopeless, but standing
firm with our feet stuck right into the ground. I might break
all this. Knowing that we're right, and
in reality we're wrong. And when people come against
the Gospel, In the grace of God, it is not for us to wring our
hands and grit our teeth, it is for us to weep and mourn.
It is for us to mourn over their souls and mourn that even in
the flame of martyrdom, that as we cry out praises to our
God, that maybe God would be merciful on those who kill us.
Do you see the difference? Does that sound like the American
attitude? Does that sound like the, quote,
Christians of 2018? Does that sound like the politics
of a true nation under God? No. Because none of those things
are under God except that His judgment remains on Him. Only
those who are under the mercy of God are those who have been
given to Christ the Son. And as Jesus continues and they
continue to argue with Him about the law and the requirements
for testimony, when He spoke these words and He told them
that they did not know the Father, it made them angry. And why would
it make them angry if He was talking about Joseph? Why would
it make them angry if they did not know in the depths of their
mind that He truly was from God? After all, they had already confessed
that they knew that He was from God. They publicly came to Jesus. We know that You are from God,
we, as in the Pharisees. Nicodemus even argues with them,
and it's said that they wanted to arrest Him, but no one arrested
Him. Why? God would not permit it,
for His time had not yet come. And so as we've heard this text
today in verses 21 through 30, I'm going to speak about what
Jesus now says to the Pharisees. He says, I am going away. Now
imagine this dialogue, and Jesus is there with these spiritual
leaders, and they're arguing with him, and the crowd is beginning
to turn in different directions. Some people saying, we know he's
a prophet, some saying he is the Christ, others believing
in him. Nicodemus, one of their own,
saying weird things about the law, but yet he's even trying
to give Jesus the benefit of the doubt. Let's not condemn
a man. Then they tell Nicodemus, the
teacher of all Israel, to go study the Bible and see if there's
any prophets from Galilee. Why don't you go search and see
that there are no prophets from Galilee? Ignorant of their own
text. That's the way it works in our
day, isn't it? People just appeal, well, you need to learn the Bible.
I remember one time sitting in a conference and a plenary session
was happening and a young man asked a question, sort of heckled
the speaker. And he did a very good job, several
thousand people there, he did a very good job. He says, what's
your proof text of what you're talking about? And the guy just
said, why don't you just read your Bible? Now that's not the
answer to the boy's question. He was being a little snarky.
But that's the answer to all the people who hate the Gospel
of Grace. Well, I read my Bible. Do you? Interestingly enough, when we
read the context of Scripture, in its context, when we read
John's Gospel and we preach through it, many, many people in our
day, many very famous people in our day, say that that type
of teaching is lazy. I would argue that I could become
very creative if you just give me a subject. Why is it lazy
to actually be forced to teach what the Bible says rather than
continue in the tradition that you think you know? But that's
where we are as a culture. People don't use the Scripture
as it's written. They use the Scripture in their
own pretext that they may prove that which they already assume
to know and nothing's different with the Jews here. and think
about these confrontations. I won't ask you to raise your
hand, but many of us, if not all of us, have had a confrontation
on theology. Many of us have either been sitting
in our work, or at a desk, or online, or sitting somewhere
where we could have a conversation. Maybe it's in our home, or our
parents' home, or our grandparents' home, and maybe it's sitting
front and center in the middle of a church that we used to be
in or a part of. I say that lightly. And we'll never forget how harsh
people came. Maybe we were the ones being
harsh, but either way, intensity rose, it became more intense,
and then all of a sudden, we felt what? We felt attacked.
And there was nothing greater in that moment when that person
said, well, I don't have time for this, I have to go. We're
like, I'm glad that's over. Or you block them. Or you hang
up the phone. or you go your separate ways,
or people leave you alone. It's such a relief. Wow, the
fight is over. But is it? And that's what happened
here. Jesus wasn't even fighting with
them. He was just teaching them about Himself, testifying of
His own person, and the Jews hated every moment of it. And
then when Jesus says, I'm going away, they're like, finally,
He's leaving. Finally, He's leaving. He said
the same thing some prior verses, and what did they say? Oh, where's
he going to go? What did they say to Nicodemus? Is he going
to go be the prophet to the Gentiles? He's going to go be the prophet
to those Jews in Dyspersia, you know, the ones who don't know
the law, who are accursed? He's going to be a prophet to
them. Where's he going to go now? We'll see their answer.
It's awful. Jesus doesn't just say, I'm going away. He says,
I'm going away and you will seek Me. Now He's already said, I'm
going where you cannot find Me. To sort of brush up against their
authoritative power, the reach of where the Sanhedrin had over
all the people of Israel, they sort of thought, well where does
He think He's going to hide? Oh, He's going to go into the
dispersion. He's going to go into the Gentile land. He's leaving
us all together. He's realized that this Jewish
prophet business isn't working, so he's going to try a different
route. Good for him. Now he says it again, and you
will seek after me. Now what would they think? Yeah,
we're going to kill you. We're going to arrest you, because
that was their plan. They had already issued a warrant for
his arrest. It was an official arrest possibility. It's something they wanted to
do. And they're thinking probably in the same way. If he had stopped
right there, he's been saying this for a while, but we'll get
him one day. He doesn't understand. We could get him right now, but
why didn't they? Well, they were the cowards. They weren't going
to go arrest him. The temple guards weren't going to do it. No one
would lay hands on Jesus because God the Father would not permit
it for it was not his time. And they were overwhelmed with
the truth that he preached. But he doesn't stop there either.
He says, I'm going away, good for the Pharisees, and you will
seek me. Yeah, we'll find you, they say.
And then he says, and you will die in your sin. So Jesus wasn't just trying to
say, nanny, nanny, boo-boo, you can't catch me. He's saying,
you're dead and you're going to die in your sin. And where I'm going, you cannot
come. I'm not saying to you, Pharisees,
that you can't find me. I'm saying you can't reach me.
I'm going to be far away from your reach. As a matter of fact,
because you were going to die in your sin, it is impossible
for you to be where I am. You see what he's teaching here?
See how this is negative? This isn't like, I mean, you
know, the people who heard this were not smiling and taking notes.
They were infuriated. Jesus reminds them of the time
when He will leave them. I am going away. And to them
it seemed good, but it was not good for them. It was not good
for them. Many times our pride rejoices
when the Word is out of our life. Or that Christian
who constantly calls us to repentance is out of our life. Or, you know,
sometimes we have this idea Or the way I see it, a lot of people
refuse to sit under the teaching of Scripture because they don't
want to continually hear the words of Christ. I don't want to hear that. I
don't want to feel that. I don't want to know that. I
don't get anything out of that except I feel bad. Friends, every word from the
mouth of Christ that makes you feel bad, a thousand should make
you feel glad. For it is the power of Christ
and His Word into you through which the Holy Spirit brings
you to life." So when Jesus tells these Pharisees
all these things, the outcome of it, as we'll see next week,
is that many believed. Many believed because Jesus is
reasserting who He is and what He is going to accomplish. And
with all of this already in mind, the Pharisees are continuing
to try to figure out why this man talks so weirdly with such
lack of clarity. Why then does this man teach
on the hillside in such riddles? Why does he use stories that
he never comes plainly out and says what he means and means
what he says? Because, Jesus tells the disciples,
it is granted unto you to believe, but not unto them. So I speak
in parables that they may not understand. Sometimes we rejoice when we're
away from the Word of God. And beloved, I pray that that
is not the heartbeat of your soul. It may seem easier in the
flesh. It may give us a ride down some
lazy river type thing, and we may feel like we're basking in
the sun of vacation, but it is no vacation, and it is no joy,
and it is no good when we are not under the Word of God. It
is not good when we are not in the Word of God. There is a grave
danger to the saint when we feel more at ease watching Netflix
than we do in the body and assembled. It's a danger. What's the remedy? Open the Word of God. Come with
the saints and assemble as the church. Jesus is going away. And He says,
you'll seek Me. What does He mean by that? He
means you will continue to look for Messiah. You'll continue
to look for Messiah. And I am Messiah. You're going
to continue to seek after Me? Now they're probably thinking,
you're daggone right, we're going to find you. We're going to look after
you. We're going to find you until we put you in jail for
the rest of your life. We're going to show the world.
I mean, that probably was going through their mind. But right
here, Jesus is not intending to show them that they'll keep
looking for Him. He's not going to hide from them.
It will be very clear when He presents Himself after His resurrection
that so much so, historically, they work like the dickens to
cover it up. And they cannot do so. He says, you will seek Me. Your
hearts will never be full. You will always be thirsty. You
will always be hungry. You will never have satisfaction.
You will never have life. Even though you keep seeking
life through Messiah, you will never find it. You cannot find
it because I am Messiah. And you will not see Me. And
you will not believe in Me. You will not eat of Me and drink
of Me and look at Me. You will not see, but you will
keep seeking. And he says, because of this,
look, you will die in your singular sin. He says sins in the next
statement a few verses later, but his singular there in the
grammar, sin. What is the sin he speaks of?
The sin of rejecting Jesus Christ. I have that question tonight
at 8 o'clock. It's the first one on the queue. What does it mean to reject Jesus
Christ in the light of irresistible grace? That's the question. And the answer, in brief, and
I'll explain it more tonight, no grace had been given to these
Jews. There is no such thing as prevenient
grace. Common grace. Universal grace. Yes, God acts graciously. toward all people many times. He's long-suffering, impatient
with the reprobate. But friends, when the grace of
God comes, life results. You will die in the sin of unbelief,
Jesus says. And He makes it clear that what
He has been telling them from the beginning is that He is the
only hope of the light of life for them. And He is from God
the Father. so that rejecting Jesus is remaining
under the wrath of God. What does it do for us to call,
brother and sister, every person that claims Christ in every sect
of every religion of the world? I remember in high school when
I was trying to work through these things, before there was the
internet and you actually had to get in a car and drive to a library
and get a ladder and an old woman that was like 4,000 years old,
she'd been there since every book was written, you know, she
had to climb. I'm looking for something that
would give me a reference on Islam. Is what? Islam. What? She'd bring you
back a couple of books on sheep. Not Islam. Islam. And you finally
get it. It's written in old English,
you can't even read it. And then you study and then you've
got to get in the car and drive to Macon to find another book. And
you've got to get in the car and drive to Atlanta to get another
book. You couldn't order it because
there was no infomercials for order these resources. Call right
now, get two. There was none of that. And everything
was COD back then, you know. None of that. So I remember coming to conclude
with the limited amount of resources that I had about Islam, maybe,
just maybe, these people are thinking about God differently
and because they have not had the Scripture holistically throughout
their history, maybe they're just using Allah and they're
confused. And maybe they believe in the
same God we do. Jesus is saying right here they do not. Jesus
says right here that every Muslim is condemned to the wrath of
God, not because they're Muslim, because they do not believe on
the Son of God. Jesus is saying right here, every
Jehovah's Witness who uses the name Jesus as the Son of God,
every breath, and says that peace is only found through the life
and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And that sounds
true, but they are condemned, not because they are thwarted
and confused and erroneous in their theology, because they
do not believe in the Son of God as the Scripture teaches
it. People who have libertarian free
will. and believe that they did something to subject God's hand
or move God's hand to save them because of what they did are
not saved if that's the hope that they have. Friends, this
is not what we call an in-house debate of doctrine. The Jews
would say, you know what, we're before God because of the way
we live. Look at how we live, look at the way we speak, look
at what we do. We are God's people. How can you say we're not God's
people? Jesus says they're not God's people. Jesus calls them
the children of Satan in just a few sentences. And when He
says about Abraham rejoicing, and they say, who do you think
you are? You're yet 50. And you say, Abraham rejoiced
in your day? And he says before Abraham was,
I am. And they rush and pick up stones
to kill him and he vanishes from their midst. Why? Jesus is God. Jesus is the creator of the cosmos. Jesus is the only God of all
the world and the universe, and time in itself was created by
His Word. Why do you think John starts
his gospel with that recollection? Jesus is not an all-inclusive
Savior. You either take Him as He truly
is, or you reject Him completely. And the world, and the logical,
and the studied, and the self-righteous, and everybody in between listen
to that statement and they say, James Tippins is stupid. To which Paul replied, yes, we
are. Christ is our wisdom. I'm a nothing. We are not smarter than the lost. We are blessed. You will die in your sin, Jesus
says. And men, oftentimes, just like these Jews, find another
way to God, but it doesn't matter how they get there. Because if they don't go through
Christ, They're going to get to God. It's sort of like the
lie of the devil in the garden. Did God say you shouldn't eat
it? Did God truly say you would die? God is withholding something
from you. And God was. Death. God was withholding
death from the first people. So Satan told the truth. But
he didn't tell the whole truth. He didn't tell them God is withholding
death from you, so don't touch. No, he wanted them to sin. And then the scripture says,
and seeing that the food was good to the eye and good for
food and good to make one wise, she ate of it. And her husband,
who was with her, who witnessed this whole thing. It's not like
he was over there tilling the ground. Brand new man, he's just
been given a woman and they have no clothes on. They're not messing
around out there in the garden. They're together. There's a joke
in that. He's right there and he eats
of it and they both die immediately. spiritually die, and the physical
bodies that they live in begin to die immediately. Satan tells
half-truths, and the same thing he says here, they're all passively
to God. As long as we're sincere, sincerity
has never saved anyone. Knowledge has never saved anyone
in the flesh. God saves everyone who is going
to be saved. And only God can save those whom
He is going to save. Satan lies, but he tells a partial
truth in this. This is what I was trying to
get to. All people, listen to me, all human beings who ever
live, ever, will find God. But if they don't come through
Christ, they will find Him as their judge. They will stand
before Him and they will be judged. Those who say there is no God
will stand before that God that they say is not. Those who believe
in their own self-righteousness will stand before the God that
is not their righteousness. Only Jesus takes us to the Father
in righteousness. So that when God looks at us
as guilty sinners, He sees the perfection and the righteousness
of Jesus Christ and His humanity as ours. Men find another way. And those
ways are many, good works, goodness, righteousness, church, doctrine,
study, etc. But all who reject the good teaching
of the good news of the work of Christ for His people will
die in the sin of unbelief. And Jesus makes this sting for
the Jews in His hearing. It stings them. I mean, imagine
at a pastor's conference and some weirdo comes up and says,
all you pastors are dead in your sin. What the crowd would think. These
are our spiritual heads. No, they're not. Just like Israel
did not have their spiritual head in the Pharisees, neither
do you have a spiritual head in me or any other elder in this
congregation. Christ is our spiritual head.
And secondly, if we're not pointing you to God the Father through
the work of Christ the Son, we're not spiritual at all. But worldly. Spiritual language doesn't make
one spiritual. Listen to this. Oh, we know that
guy, he's so spiritual. Why? Because he talks spiritual
things? Do you think the Pharisees didn't speak spiritual things?
Vernacular does not distinguish one from being born again and
of the Spirit and being of the world. Many people have the tongue
of the enemy. Many pastors have the tongue
of the enemy. You think the enemy... See, I've
said this many times over. The caricature of the enemy is
this Weird, forked tail, pitchfork holding, red guy, looks like
he's been burning a hot dog factory. I mean, you know, or this mysterious,
wicked, I don't know, Max Maven looking guy. If y'all were magic
lovers in the 80s. Or the lead singer of Kiss, Gene
Simmons. I mean, everybody looks at that
stuff and they think, well, that's what the devil is. No, the devil
masquerades as an angel of light. Everywhere the devil operates,
it's not this massly, Hollywood-esque, demonic scene. It's a religious
scene. And moreover, sometimes it points
to, quote, God. That's absurd. It's not absurd. And I have the proof text to
prove it right here in John's Gospel. You're going to die in
your sins, you spiritually dead people, Jesus says, no matter
what you say. Could you imagine? Have you ever
taken? I've taken classes under rabbis before. I've taken Hebrew
language courses under rabbis, and I got two classes in and
I dropped it. That's hard stuff. taking it
from somebody who speaks it and writes it as a way of life. I'm
not talking about those redneck Hebrew teachers I had in seminary.
They were easy, because I could talk just like them. But I mean,
really, just... It's not my French teacher. She was native French.
She just spoke English. And when she did, it was so broken,
I could only understand her if I thought in French. How would
a French person say that in English? Oh, I know what you're saying. So here are this... It's amazing
to hear a rabbi teach about the histories of Israel and the pictures
of the shadows and all of these things, and it's so rich. And I'm like, wow, but you know
why it's rich for me? Because I see the perfect. Because I see what it points
to. And I pity them because they can't see past the pages that
they hang in front of their face. Being spiritual is not about
what we can say with our mouth, but it's about what God has done
with us through the Spirit. This sting for the Jews, even
though you will continue to look for and hope in the Messiah.
See, some people say, well, it doesn't matter as long as we're
hoping in some Messiah. No, it must be the only Messiah,
the only Christ. Same word, by the way, Messiah,
Christ, same word, different language. If we don't trust in the one
and only Messiah, we can't just say, oh, there's going to be
a Messiah one day. Well, who is it? Harry Potter? Is it from the Chronicles of
Narnia? Is it from the Star Wars franchise? What Messiah is it?
The Epic of Gilgamesh? No. It's Jesus of Nazareth, born
of a virgin. from the region of Galilee, born
in Jerusalem, who is God come to earth as man. And it's the
only one. It's the only one. It's the only
one. Bethlehem. We can look for a Messiah, we
can hope in a Messiah, but we will die in our sin of unbelief
because if we do not believe in Christ, as the Scripture shows,
we do not believe in Christ as Messiah. And where I'm going, you cannot
come." He says, Jesus is going to be with the Father. Where
life is, where God is, He is going there. And those who die
in unbelief, including those who believe differently about
Messiah, cannot get to the Father in this way, salvifically. I've
already stated that. Jesus tells them they cannot
come. And because they cannot come where He is going, He's
telling them they cannot have life. You see, the negative things
that Jesus says has a counter-positive. You would die in your sin, that
means you cannot have life. You cannot go where I'm going,
that means you cannot be in heaven. The opposite would be true of
Jesus and all those who believe in Him. And so you might think
if someone said that to us today, we'd be like, what does he mean?
I need to inquire, I need to know, don't you think? I mean,
it's very rare. If I had 11 toes and 12 fingers,
I might could count the times on both hands and toes that somebody
has just really just sort of spit in my face tight when I
shared the truth of the gospel with them, one-on-one. And the
law of averages, that's very small. Most people, that's all
they get, and they get one interested party, and they're so excited.
But most people, when you expressly talk to them about the gospel,
when you read the scripture, even somebody who could care
less, they've just been drugged to church. They're a drug baby.
They're drugged to church by their mom and dad. And they sit there, they don't
care. When they hear the story, they're overwhelmed. They're
just like, wow. People often say, well, how is
it that you can teach preschoolers in such large quantities without
them going crazy? Well, because if I'm talking
to them, they pay attention. You ever thought about that?
Usually when people are talked to, they pay attention. Here, we have these people who are
not paying attention to Jesus, and they don't come back with
this, like most people do. Wow, I want to know more about
that. I just can't figure this out. Or even, I've never believed
that, or I don't believe this, but now I'm conflicted. There's
some kind of a rub there. The Jews don't even go there,
do they? They say, well, we know what
he's talking about. He'll just kill himself. Will he kill himself since he
says, where I'm going, you cannot come? Because the furthest thing from
their mind is that they would take their own life. How in the
world would this be the first response? Why? Jesus tells us. This Scripture shows us that
the response of these Jews proves the darkness and the demonic
of their depravity. The pride of man in his unbelief.
Even when cut to the quick, because you know they were cut to the
quick. Someone says to you, you will die in your sin and points
a finger in your face. Before you break it off in front
of them, you will be cut to the quick. It will shock you. And they respond
with this ridiculous assertion. And what does this mean? Even
when man is cut to the quick, in unbelief they mock and they
scoff at the truth. They mock and they scoff at the
truth. They laugh at the grace of God. Listen, many people say,
well, I don't laugh at the gospel. I don't laugh at the gospel. What is your gospel? Is your
gospel the sovereignty of God to save you through the finished
work of Jesus Christ where He says, it is finished? Is this
your good news? That God has saved me through
the finished work of Jesus Christ and there is nothing else I can
do except believe that God has saved me through the finished
work of Jesus Christ. That I am righteous because of
Christ's obedience. That my sins have been paid for
because of Christ's death. And that I have eternal life
forever. because of Christ being raised
from the dead. This is the gospel. And people go, no, no, no, no,
no. I'm saved because of what I, and then they fill in the
blank. Versus, I know that I have salvation because of what God
has done. The Jews laughed at the grace
of God. And to this day, friends, to
this day, every person that I know, who is still in Judaism, every
friend of mine who still falls into that place, hates grace. Why? Because from the positive
teaching of God's grace and mercy alone, what does it do to all
that we build in our own righteousness? Boom. It destroys it. There's nothing good in me? Nothing
that I can bring, nothing that I come before the Lord with,
but guilt and sin and Christ and all of His glorious perfection
and obedience has satisfied God's wrath for me. This is my gift
and it was given to me by God the Father. I didn't reach out
and grab it. I didn't run over there and smell it. I didn't
get a mop and mop it up and put it in a bucket and carry it home.
I was running from God in every fiber of my being. I was whirling
down the road of self-righteousness, and God snatched me up, knocked
me into the ditch, picked me up, and pulled me into the light
of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. That's what grace is. Grace is not a pick a number. Free ticket, yay! You know what
happens to a free ticket? Nobody shows up. Think about it. Seminars that
I put on, free, three people. Charge $10, got to lock the doors. I pay $10, I'm going. Class,
charge 50 bucks for it, full house, free, crickets. It's just
the nature of man. Everybody shows up to something
they do to get something for. I've earned this. I'm coming
to Jesus. That's not grace. Grace is certainly free, but
it is sovereign in that it is applied by God alone. These Jews mocked the gospel
of grace. They mocked it. We can't go where
He's... He must be going to die by His
own hand. This guy's crazy. This type of
mockery is seen vibrantly in our present culture, beloved.
Don't think this is just something that happened in antiquity. Men
laughing at the instrument of salvation. Because it sounds
ridiculous. I had a man sit in a table, with
a table, with me, in my presence, talking to me about the gospel,
and he laughs in my face and then turns to the other men at
the table and laughs and says, this man has to pray harder than
we do because he doesn't believe in the God of the Bible. He laughs. What did I do? I wept at His
feet. And I prayed for His soul in
front of Him. And I still pray for His soul
today. Many who claim to have found
their Messiah reject the core of the One who is Messiah. And
by doing so, they mock those who herald the truth. And then
they pronounce Their own way of salvation and their own way
of God. They mocked, in a way, prophetically, didn't they? Jesus
was going to give up His own life. He would die, but it would have
no effect for them. This is what's so terrible. The
death of Jesus had no bearing on these Jews. You will die in your sin. and
I'm going away, and you cannot come where I am. Let's put that
in perspective of the teaching of John 6 and 7. I'm going to
be the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, but
you will not receive the benefit from it, for you will die in
the sin of unbelief, and you cannot come to the Father. The
death of Jesus has no effect on those who mock the gospel, refuse the gospel. Was Paul one
that refused the gospel? Eventually. What does that say
about God? Merciful. That's why Romans 9 really makes
sense. Paul says, was God faithless? Did He lie? Paul says, I was
a persecutor of the way. I was one who came and hated
passionately the grace of God, and God saved me." What is his
testimony? I had someone say the other day,
yeah, God showed up and offered salvation to Paul. Offered salvation? Here we go, kids. See if this
story makes sense. I'm going to kill the disciples.
Come on, guys. What's that like? Falls off the
horse blind, Jesus says, why are you persecuting me? Get up
and preach! Yes, sir! Does that sound like an offer
to you? No. I mean, even in third grade literature,
that's not an offer. Three-year-old literature, that's
not an offer. That's a commanding God who is gracious, who on the
way to do the unforgivable in the name of Yahweh, who is really
doing everything in the name of Satan. God saved Paul by force, by power, by might,
the same way He saved you. Lest we'd all be the same as
these Jews to go, are you messing with my religion? You messin'
with my tradition, you messin' with my historical values, you
messin' with my Baptist doctrine, you messin' with my way, with
my truth, with my life. Don't be messin' with me, you
know. God saves powerfully. We will
not be cast away, beloved. We will not be lost. We will
not be ruined. We will not be set aside. We
will not experience the judgment of God. We will not be condemned
because Christ has been condemned and our debt is paid. Jesus' death is displayed with
its intention here, revealing that these Jews were not able
to follow Him, nor able to find Him, nor able to obtain what
He was providing in His departure. Jesus goes to the Father through
death that He may redeem all those the Father gives to Him
in life. And this message of redemption
to their ears is met with dimness, with dullness, with dumbness,
and the response is mockery and hatred and laughing. They did
not desire for Jesus to take them to eternity. In a sense,
Unbelief and self-righteousness would rather die in sin than
believe in a God like that. Have you ever said that? When
God revealed the truth to you in those early days of trying
to understand it, have you ever said in your unbelief, I would
never serve a God like that? That would save me like that?
That would purpose to save me and not my neighbor? But we don't say that now, do
we? Because God saves us, we don't say those things. People
who say that continually are either just completely ignorant
of the Gospel, which we have to ask, then by what Gospel did
they come to faith? What words of Christ did they
hear that they might believe? The Holy Spirit does not regenerate
a soul unless they hear the true Gospel. There's no osmotic regeneration. Just getting close enough, We
get close enough, whoo, I got some Jesus on me. No, it doesn't
work like that. It doesn't work like that. We
either hear the truth and God saves us or we hear the truth
and it doesn't come. These Jews heard the truth and
they hated it. They'd rather die in their sin than find salvation
through a man like Christ. Through the work like Christ,
through the means like Christ, through the gospel of grace.
It's not about intellect, it's about life. And Jesus answers him in verse
23 and 24. This is all I have time for today. He basically tells them so that
we can see. You are from below. I am from
above. You are of this world. I'm not
of this world. I told you that you would die
in your sins. For unless you believe that I
am, you would die in your sins. Jesus is saying in a few short
ways, your own response reveals the depth of the wickedness of
your own heart. Your words are a reflection of your evil and
hellish souls. You are from below. What's He
mean? When we think of proximity, or
we think of location or place of the abode of God, we think
heavens, that which is above. When we think of, what, the abode
of the enemy of God and the demonic and the powers and the principalities
of the earth, where do we think? Below. He said to these spiritual
leaders, you basically originate from hell, but I originate from
heaven. You are part of the totality
of this fallen world, but you're worse than that. And he proves it. You do the
work of your father the devil. You don't worship God. You worship
Him. You teach of Him. You do the
work of Him. When you refuse me. Jesus is comparing the nature
of the Jews with the nature of the demonic. Not just depraved
humanity. So friends, when people mock
the gospel, it is demonic. when people refuse the gospel.
Paul in 2 Corinthians 4 says that if our gospel is veiled,
it is only veiled to those who are perishing. Listen to this.
It is only veiled. And if people can't see and believe,
it's only like that for those who are perishing, who are presently
perishing for the God of this world. Now, I know some scholars
out there, well, that's God. Either way, God's the agent.
I mean, God's the author, even if Satan's the agent. The God
of this world is blind to the eyes of unbelievers to prevent
them from seeing the light of the gospel. See, that's bad news. That's
a threat. Matter of fact, that's the title
of my message today. The threat of Christ. But the good news in verse 6
of 2 Corinthians 4 is, but God, you see. But God who said, let
light shine out of darkness has shone in our hearts to give us
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. And we have this what? We have
this gift in jars of clay so that it may be clearly seen that
the unsurpassing power belongs to God and not to us. The light has come and the darkness
shall not overcome it. Shall not overcome it. From Moses
we receive the law, but from Christ we receive grace upon
grace upon grace. the fullness of all of God through
Jesus Christ, the Son that comes from Him, we received grace and
truth, the Word that created, who is God, who is with God from
the beginning, who created all things, and in Him was the light
of the life of men, and the darkness does not win, it will not stop
Him from saving His own. It is demonic to reject the truth
of Christ. It is demonic to reject the substitutionary,
the penal substitutionary atonement. What does that mean? Substitutionary
is that something's been substituted. Penal means there's punishment
that's taken place. So Jesus took, substituted Himself
for our punishment, and in doing so, He brought us to God. Atonement. He took us to God. It's effectual,
it's finished. Mocking and rejecting the substitutionary
atonement of Christ is demonic. Rejecting the vicarious, effectual,
and particular atonement of Christ is demonic. To say that Christ
did not plentifully and perfectly atone for the sins of a select
people is demonic. Because it is played out throughout. I get more flack recently from
reading Ephesians 1, 1-4 than I do from teaching anything. Because the word chosen and predestined
is there. Paul only said that word one
time. Really? No. Doctrinally, it's taught
holistically. He says, you will die in your
sin. It's deadly to reject the Gospel because you remain in
the wrath of God. You will die in your sins, Jesus
says. I told you this, but you do not believe Me. And because
they did not believe Jesus, that He is, I am He. I am. You will remain dead. More than
that, Jesus is stating, and this is where I'll start next week,
that He is God. He is the I am. And Isaiah 43.10
is where this comes from. It's not the Moses encounter
with the bush, though God does say, I am that I am. This is
where the allusion comes from. In Isaiah 43.10, you are my witnesses,
declares the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen, that you
may know and believe and understand that I am He. Before Me no God
was formed, nor shall there be any after Me." Jesus claims to
be God, and then the very next thing they ask Him in their unbelief
is, who are you? Why'd they ask that? Because
they wanted to be sure they understood what He just said. They're thinking,
here it is, guys. We got Him. He just said He was
I Am. He just used God's self-existent
pronoun as His own. We got Him. He's in the temple.
Everybody heard it. We can get Him. And then they
pressure Him a little more and He says, before Abraham was,
I am. And He vanishes. Just what I have been telling
you from the beginning. Beloved, have you been listening to Christ?
Can you hear the words of Christ? Do you know the words of Christ
when you hear them? Do you know the gospel when it comes out
of the mouth of someone? And do you know the ambiguous
false gospel that so easily pervades our culture? Can you see it? Do you have hope and trust in
God's ability to hold fast and never fail? God does not need
us to be His defender. His Word will never be lost. His truth will never be convoluted
except that He willed it for that day in the hearts and the
eyes and the minds of those people at that moment. Friends, we are
not God's champions. Christ is our champion. We should live therein. How in
the world do we live as Christ as our champion? By faith. That's
it! By faith. Nothing else. There's much more
that we could do in our growing, much more that we could do in
our working, in and out of our salvation, but we trust in Him
who works all things out by the counsel of His will. We are His,
beloved. Christ is victorious. And it
is all, all by grace. Let's pray. Father, at every moment when
we feel the pressure coming upon us, Lord, take us to the cross.
When we feel doubt and seclusion from spiritual things, Lord,
take us to the cross of Christ. God, I pray for many a people
who claim to be in Christ this morning, just in our own communities. Lord, I pray that by Your mercy
they heard the Gospel. Father, that You would cause
shepherds, worldly shepherds, to become spiritual shepherds.
That You would save men who have labored for long years in the devil's pulpit, Father,
to become slaves of truth and righteousness. Father, that You
would send teachers and heralds of truth and exegetes and most
of all, tender, loving shepherds to the far reaches of the world
to plant congregations that they may assemble as the assembled
saints, as the body of Christ together, as the church, so that
they may grow and continue to proclaim and that You would call
all of Your sheep to Your Son Because it is in him alone that
we have righteousness. It is because of his life and
death and resurrection that we have life, hope and peace with
you. And we pray these things in his
name, in the name of Jesus. Amen. Thank you for listening. We hope
that this message has encouraged you in the faith. Subscribe to
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