Now I'm going to be preaching
this morning from the book of John chapter 5. If you want to
turn in your Bibles there. John chapter 5. Concerning the subject of the
role of works at judgment. And I'm actually going to deal
with this in a couple of messages. The role of works at judgment. The judgment of God. We just
finished studying in John chapter 16 concerning Holy Spirit conviction,
how the Holy Spirit comes to the people of God, the chosen
of God, the redeemed of the Lord. And in the process of salvation,
the new birth specifically, He convicts, He brings sinners to
conviction of sin because they believe not on Christ, righteousness
because Christ went to the Father. Then he said of judgment because
the prince of this world is judged. And of course there he's talking
about what believers come to see and know by the power of
the Holy Spirit in the new birth. That we come to see ourselves
as sinful people. Sinners without hope. Sinners
who cannot save ourselves. Who cannot make ourselves righteous.
who have nothing good in us or from us, who have no will for
God. And without Christ, we are nothing.
Without Christ, without being washed in His blood and clothed
in His righteousness, it's nothing but sin. And that we, by nature
and by practice, based on our best, deserve nothing but condemnation. And then of righteousness, because
Christ went to the Father. That's the righteousness of God
that the gospel reveals and the power of the Holy Spirit to show
us what Christ alone as our substitute and surety accomplished on Calvary
in his obedience unto death to put away our sins and to establish
the only righteousness whereby God can justify the ungodly in
whom we stand, Christ. And then that judgment because
the prince of the world is judged. The prince of this world is Satan,
who brought about the fall of man in the garden, who accuses
the brethren. He's in Revelation 12, he's the
accuser of the brethren and he accuses us night and day. I mean, he never ceases. But
because Christ went to the cross and died for our sins, we can
say with confidence, who shall lay anything to the charge of
God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who
can condemn us? It's Christ that died. Yea, rather
is risen again and seated at the right hand of the Father
ever living to make intercession for us. And so with that in mind,
we come to this subject of the role of works at judgment. Now
you know there's a lot of different ideas about this subject. You
know, some people say, well, they go as far as to say, well,
when I get to judgment, God's going to put me on the scales
and see if my good works outweigh my bad works. And of course,
we know that's not biblical. That's not biblical truth. We
know also that if that were the case, we would all be doomed
for eternal damnation, the best of us and the worst of us. Because
there's none that doeth good, no not one. So we know that's
not so. And then there are those who say, well, we're going to
be, our works are going to be brought up not for our salvation,
but for our rewards. We'll get reward. And that's
not scriptural either. The reward that all believers
receive equally is the reward of God's grace in Christ. And
I'll deal with that too later on in some messages, but you
can read the scripture. Look up the word rewards plural. It's not even found, it's reward.
And we have the reward of grace. People talk about crowns, there's
the crown of life, the crown of rejoicing, the crown of righteousness. That's all what we all obtain
in Christ by the grace of God. And then there are people who
say, well, the works have absolutely no place at judgment. Well, what
I'm going to try to do in these messages is try to show you what
the scripture says. And just go right to the Bible
and we'll do that. And we're talking about judgment.
Look at John chapter five. Now what's happened here is the
Lord has healed an impotent man on the Sabbath. That's what's
happening here in John chapter five. And the religious leaders,
they accused him of breaking the law. It says in verse 16,
it says, and therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus and sought
to slay him because he had done these things on the Sabbath.
They actually sought to kill him. Now, what had he done? Well, he'd done a great act of
charity. in healing an impotent man. But
their, you see, their mind was on their legalism, their law,
and they sought to kill him. And he says in verse 17, 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. Now, true believers, we
say God is our father, but not in this way. The way Christ was
indicating is that he is equal with the father. And they saw
that. But you know what? It's true.
He's equal with the Father in His name and in His nature. Now,
He's the Son of God. He's the second person of the
Trinity. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We cannot explain the
Trinity, but that's all right. You know what that means? That
means God's just high. He's way high above us. But Christ,
in his nature, as the Son of God, was equal with the Father
and the Spirit. And they saw that. And they wanted
to kill him, not only because he broke the Sabbath, but because
he made himself equal with God. But you remember Paul wrote in
Philippians chapter 2, that wasn't robbery for Jesus Christ to say
that. If I said I was equal with God,
that would be robbery. trying to rob God of his glory.
But it wasn't robbery for him. He was just stating the truth.
Incidentally, I heard a preacher say years ago, he said, well,
Christ broke the Sabbath here, but he had the right to do that
because he's God. Christ did not break the Sabbath
here. He didn't break any law. He kept the law. He said, I didn't
come to break the law, I come to keep it. And he kept it every
jot and till. They had perverted the Sabbath.
The Sabbath law, even in the Old Covenant, never forbade acts
of charity and acts of necessity. And that's what was going on
here. But they had perverted that. Well, it says in verse
19, it says, Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily,
I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what
he seeth the Father do. Now what he's talking about is
the connection that exists between he as the Son of God incarnate
and the Father, And he says, the son can do nothing of himself
but what he seeth the father do. For what thing soever he
doeth, these also doeth the son likewise. I'm only doing that
which is appropriate and equal to that which the father would
do. Verse 20, for the father loveth the son and showeth him
all things that himself doeth and he will show him greater
works than these that you may marvel. And I believe what he's
talking about there is the conversion of many Jews and Gentiles that'll
come later. Because I wanna tell you something,
as great a miracle as it was for Jesus Christ to heal this
impotent man, this man, as great a miracle as it was, it's not
near. as great as the salvation of
a sinner. That's the greatest miracle on
earth. And I often tell people, if you're born again by the Spirit,
you're a walking, talking miracle of grace, aren't you? You're
a walking, talking miracle of God's grace and God's power.
How do you know he's talking about that? Well, look. Verse
21, for as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them,
Even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. Now what's he talking
about quickening there? He's talking about the new birth.
And where does it come from? It comes from Christ. He is our life, he's the giver
of life. He sends life to his people by the Holy Spirit. He
raises us from the dead. That's what the new birth is.
That's what regeneration and conversion is. And notice it
says there, he quickeneth whom he will. Salvation, the new birth
is not by the will of man. People have that mixed up today.
They say, well, you choose of your own will to believe in him
and then you're born again. The Bible doesn't teach that.
The Bible teaches that before the new birth, you don't have
a will to come to God. Before you're born again, you
don't want salvation God's way. You want it your way, but not
God's way. Well, look at verse, Now he goes
to the judgment here. He says, for the Father judgeth
no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son. That is
the earned right of Jesus Christ as the one mediator between God
and man. This is his mediatorial glory.
And so he's the judge. You know, I quote Acts 17, 31
all the time. where it talks about how God commanded all men
everywhere to repent because he hath appointed a day in the
which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man
whom he hath ordained and that he hath given assurance unto
all men and that he has raised him from the dead. And there's
two great truths that are brought out in that verse. Number one,
that God is gonna judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ
who is the judge. He's the righteous judge who
judges according to truth. And secondly, God is going to
judge the world by the standard of righteousness as displayed
in the obedience unto death of Jesus Christ. In other words,
in order to pass this judgment, I've got to be as righteous as
Christ. I've got to be as holy as he is. How in the world is
that possible? Well, not by works of righteousness,
which we've done, but by the grace of God through the righteousness
of Christ imputed, charged, accounted to us. Well, he says, verse 23,
now listen to what it's saying here, because the context of
these verses that I'm going to is really important here. He
says, verse 23, that all men, verse 22, for the father judgeth
no man, but hath committed all judgment to the son, that all
men should honor the son, even as they honor the father. Now
he specifically puts it in these terms, For this reason, these
Pharisees, they would say, well, we believe in God, our Heavenly
Father, but we don't believe you. We don't believe Jesus of
Nazareth. Well, and what Christ is saying
here is you cannot honor the Father apart from the Son. In
other words, if you come to God, the Father, on any other basis,
now or forever, Even at the judgment, apart from Christ and Him crucified,
not having been washed in His blood and clothed in His righteousness,
you're not honoring the Father. It's impossible to do that. And
that's what he's saying. The whole issue of salvation,
the whole issue of judgment and eternity is honoring the Son. Honoring the Father through the
Son. To honor Him is to believe in
Him. To honor Him is to rest in Him. To honor Him is to cling to Him. Cling to Him and, I said it on
TV this morning, cling to Him and hold on for dear life. To
honor Him is to worship and serve Him. To honor Him is to rest
in Him for righteousness, not try to establish a righteousness
of your own. You can start today and try to
be the best person you can be in every way, And if that's your
hope of salvation, if that's your hope of eternal reward,
you're not honoring God. You're denying the Son. So that's
the key here now. And I believe it unlocks what
he's going to say here about judgment. That all men should
honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. Verse 23, he that
honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father which hath sent
him. I'll give you another example of that. You remember when Peter
and John, went out in Jerusalem and began preaching salvation
through Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. And they healed a man. Well, and they were brought up
before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish court, because they had told
them before not to go out and preach in this name, in the name
of Jesus. And remember when they brought
him up before the court, they asked him this question. This is due
process back then. They asked him this question.
They said, in whose name did you do this work? In whose name
did you heal this man? Now let me show you what I'm
talking about here. Peter spoke up. He could have said, I do
it in the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and
he would have told the truth. But the problem is, that's not
what they needed to hear. You know what he said? He said,
we did it in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, whom you crucified.
That's what they needed to hear. And boy, that was it. That was
the straw that broke the camel's back. You see, sometimes you
can speak a truth, but it's not what people need to hear. Christ could have said this,
well, I do this in the name of my Father, you know, all that.
Oh no, he said, I and the Father are one. Basically, that's what
he's saying. You don't honor the Son, you don't honor me,
you don't honor the Father. That's getting to the meat of
the matter, you see. When I look at verse 24, he says,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, that's
the gospel, and believeth on him that sent me, that's the
God of all grace, It's not just God the creator, he is the creator.
And we're to believe on him as the creator. This is the God
of the covenant. This is the God who saves sinners
by grace through the righteousness of Jesus Christ. How do you know
that? He said, on him that sent me. What did he send him to do? God
sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law, conditioned
on him to redeem them that were under the law. So he says, those
who hear the word, that means they have life. You understand? Life comes first. And believeth
on him that sent me. Then comes faith. The new birth
is not given based on your faith. You don't have faith without
the new birth. So he that heareth my word, that's life, spiritual
life. Here's the gospel. not with contempt,
not with unbelief, and believeth on him that sent me, hath, not
gained or earned or deserves, but hath everlasting life, and
shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto
life. Is that clear? Well, there it is. Do I have
eyes to see and ears to hear? Do you know that's a gift from
God? You know it's not given to everyone. You say, well, I
don't like that. That's what this book says. And
yet God holds every man accountable. You say, how can he do that?
It doesn't seem fair. Oh, it's fair, Paul said. Who are you
to reply against God? Who are you to argue with him?
Are you the great debater? Take it on. Come at him with
everything you've got. It won't mean anything. God's
in control. God is sovereign. All I know
is this, I'm a sinner. And without Christ, I have no
hope. And that's what I need to be concerned with. There's
only one way of salvation. Jesus Christ and him crucified.
One righteousness before God. Jesus Christ, his righteousness
imputed. That's what I need. And that's
what you need. Look at verse 25. Verily, verily,
I say unto you, the hour is coming. What hour? The appointed time.
It is appointed, and the man wants to die, and after that,
the judgment. The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall
hear the voice of the Son of God, and that hear shall live. Well, what does he mean, the
hour is coming, and now is? Well, it's a fact. That's what
he's saying. The hour is coming, and this is a fact. This is,
you know, people shoot things off into the future and it doesn't
become a reality to them. You've heard people say, well,
I'll think about that later. Well, later may be too late.
The hour is coming and now is. Now is the time of salvation.
Now is the day of salvation. That day may, it may not come
for you any other time. than this right here. But the
hour is coming and here's what's going to happen. The dead shall
hear the voice of the Son of God. Now who are the dead there?
Those who have died. And they that hear shall live,
he says, verse 26, for as the Father hath life in himself,
so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself. Now he's
talking about the call of judgment. And he says in verse 20, the
son has life in himself, verse 27, and have given him authority
to execute judgment because he is the son of man. He's the Messiah. He's our savior. He's our surety. He's our substitute. He's our
sin bearer. He's our life, our death, our
resurrection. He's our mediator. You see what
I'm saying? Everything, that's Christ. So
verse 28, Marvel not at this, don't be amazed. For the hour
is coming in the which all that are in the graves. Now see up
until this point, he's been talking about those who are dead in Christ
and how they'll be given life in Christ. But now he says, all
that are in the graves shall hear his voice. Verse 29, and
shall come forth. Now listen to what he says here.
They that have done good, unto the resurrection of life. And
they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation. There's the dividing line. Now,
what's he talking about? Final judgment. What is the standard
of final judgment? Righteousness in Christ. There's
the standard. Isn't that right? We interpret
scripture with scripture. And then he says, they that have
done good and then they that have done evil. How do we understand
this passage? They that have done good and
they that have done evil. When it speaks of those who have
done good, is it talking about our good works? And then what
about other passages? Let me just read you a passage
right here. This is Ecclesiastes chapter
seven, verse 20. And you understand now, Ecclesiastes,
for the most part, is Solomon's view of this world in its natural
existence. In other words, this is the view
of the world without God, without Christ, without grace. And that's
why he says things like vanity of vanities, all is vanities,
worthless. Life without God, life without
grace, life without Christ is vanity. Now there are a lot of
positives in Ecclesiastes 2, but we're not going through the
whole book this morning. But basically, it's an assessment
of this world on its own. The fallen, sinful world, ruined
in Adam, fallen in Adam, sin-plagued world of which we exist. And without God, without Christ,
it's nothing. Vanity of vanities. But here
in Ecclesiastes 7 and verse 20, he makes this statement. He says,
for there is not a just man upon earth that doeth good and sinneth
not. What a statement. Now, you look
at a passage like John chapter five and he comes over and he
says, they that have done good unto everlasting life, the resurrection
of life. And you read that in light of
a passage like Ecclesiastes 7 and verse 20. There's not a just
man on earth that doeth good and sinneth not. How do you assess
those things? You say, well, that's way over
in the Old Testament. We don't have to deal with that. Let me
tell you something about the Old Testament. Truth is truth
then, truth is truth now. And in judgment, truth will be
truth. It never changes. Well, somebody looks at Ecclesiastes
7 and verse 20 and they say, well, surely he's not talking
about me. Well, if you're comfortable with that, just go on about your
life, but you're on sinking sand. Go to the New Testament. Romans
3, that's one of the best places to go on this subject, isn't
it? They that have done good. Verse 10 of Romans 3, there's
none righteous. No, not one. Verse 11, there's none that understandeth. There's none that seeketh after
God. Verse 12, they are all gone out of the way. They are together
become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good.
No, not one. Now again, you may be sitting
there and you may say, well certainly that's not talking about me.
That's talking about all of us by nature in ourselves. So when he says are they that
have done good, What's he talking about? What about the fact that
the, and then this too, you know, when he says back here in John
5, 29, they that have done good unto the resurrection of life,
is that teaching that we're going to be judged based on our works
and given life based on those works? Is that what that is saying?
Well, what about Ephesians 2, 8, 9? For by grace have you been
saved through faith that not of yourselves, it's the gift
of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. not by works of righteousness
which we have done. Doesn't the Bible teach salvation
by grace from Genesis to Revelation? Yes, it does. Grace is not earned. Grace is not deserved. So what
does it mean when it says they that have done good? Well, they
that have done good It doesn't describe judgment based on the
individual works of charity and morality done by a believer.
It doesn't mean that. That would be anti-gospel and
anti-Christ. Anti-grace. They that have done
good means what Christ described back up here in these verses,
beginning at verse 23. Doing good. It describes the whole life of
a believer, a sinner saved by grace, as he stands before God
in Jesus Christ, washed in His blood, clothed in His righteousness. That's what it means. It means
honoring the Son. giving credit to the Son for
my whole salvation. God forbid that I should glory
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you want to
find the first definition of what it means to do good in God's
sight for a sinner, now, we're talking about sinners. Christ
Jesus came to save sinners. And I'm going to tell you something,
that means nothing we do comes up to the standard of righteousness.
even as saved sinners, can you say as a sinner saved right now
that your love equals the love of Christ? I hope you don't imagine
that. That your obedience, your morality,
your dedication, your sincerity equals that of Christ himself. Can you say it? No, you can't
say that. We'll look back in Genesis chapter 4. You remember
the story of Cain and Abel? How Cain and Abel came to worship
God. And Cain and Abel came, I believe,
both in sincerity The scripture doesn't say that Abel was sincere
and Cain was sincere. If you read the New Testament
commentary on this event, it says nothing about their attitude. Now, there's a lot we can say
about their attitude and their heart based on what? The offering
that they brought. What was the difference? Well,
look at it. He says in verse three of Genesis
four, in the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought
the fruit of the ground and offering unto the Lord. The fruit of the
ground. That's what Cain worked hard
for. He was a farmer. Verse four, and Abel, he also
brought the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof, and
the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering. Abel brought
the blood of a lamb. Why did he do that? Because God
set that up and revealed it over in Genesis chapter 3. The coming
Messiah, he said, salvation by the coming Messiah, the woman's
seed. And what it says in Genesis 3.21, unto Adam also and his
wife did the Lord make coats of skins and clothing. He slew
an animal because he told Adam that sin deserves death. Able
sacrifice symbolized, typified salvation by the grace of God
through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Abel's sacrifice
typified the righteousness of God freely imputed and received
by God-given faith. Abel's sacrifice revealed his
heart. He was a convicted sinner, a
contrite heart, who knew that God could not save him, bless
him, or justify him based on his works. He's saying, God,
I'm a sinner. I need a satisfaction, I need
a substitute, I need a surety, one who is God, who will come
and die for me and put away my sin. Cain's offering revealed
the state of his heart, pride, self-righteous, and God, I worked
hard. It ought to count for something. Now, look at verse six, or verse
five. He says, but under Cain and his
offering, he had not respect, and Cain was very wroth, he was
very angry. His countenance fell, you could
see it in his face. That's what that means. He was
so angry, he couldn't hide it. And he says, and the Lord said
unto Cain, why art thou wroth? Why are you angry, Cain? Why
is thy countenance fallen? Look at verse seven. If thou
doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? You see that? Doing well. And if thou doest
not well, sin lieth at the door. In other words, if you don't
do well, sin's like it's outside your front door just waiting
to pounce like an angry, hungry lion. And he says, and unto thee
shall be his desire and thou shalt rule over him. What he's
saying there is sin is not put away, sin is not washed away,
sin is not paid for, and like a hungry lion outside your door,
it's going to devour you. And when he says thou shalt rule
over him, what he means is you'll spend the rest of your life trying
to conquer and fight sin and it's a losing battle. That's
what that means. What's he saying? What is it
to do well? Do what Abel did. Bring the lamb. Plead Christ. That's doing well. You don't know anything else
about Abel. You say, well, Abel, he was an avid churchgoer. You
don't know that. I don't know. Oh, he was just,
he was a good boy. He minded his mommy and he did
this. That's just speculation based upon natural reasoning,
which will get you in trouble every time. All that said, the
point is made in the scripture, Abel brought the blood of a lamb.
He did well. And you say, well, he was trying
to do his best. Maybe, I hope so, but that didn't
get him where he got. That didn't get him accepted. What does it say? He brought
the firstlings of the flock. He brought the blood. Cain brought
his works. He did evil. And that's exactly
what is being said over here in John chapter five. You see, to do well is a sinner
saved by the grace of God in Christ Jesus. To do evil, that
describes the whole life of an unbeliever as he stands in himself
no matter how he lived on earth. Think about those at the judgment
in Matthew 7. Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied? Have we not
cast out demons? Have we not done many wonderful
works? Only to hear Him say, depart
from Me, you that work iniquity. I never knew you. Those that
have done good are those that honor the Son. Those that have
done evil are those who dishonor the Son. That's what he's talking
about. Now that lays the basis for what
I'm going to preach in a couple of weeks on this subject concerning
good works and all that at the judgment. We'll carry on with
this. But that's the issue at judgment. How do I stand in the
Lord Jesus Christ? What is my relationship to Him?
Am I in Him? Am I honoring Him? Or am I standing
on my own before God? Those that have done good, those
who do well, like Abel, they plead the righteousness of the
Lamb. And God says, well done thou good and faithful servant.
I'll deal with that verse too. Also in this, as we go through,
all right?