Tim James has been the pastor
of Sequoia Baptist Church in Cherokee, North Carolina since
1978, right? I don't remember what month you
went there. May of 1978. And he's been a
good friend to our congregation. And we're thankful for you. You
come preach the gospel to us, Tim. Well, it's a pleasure to be here.
Pleasure to hear this message I just heard anchored once again
in the blood of Jesus Christ. You can't find any place better
to be. You folks are dear to me. Your
pastor and his wife are dear to me. This man who just preached,
I like him a little bit too. Turn in your Bibles, please,
to John chapter 5. I want you to read two verses of Scripture,
verses 39 and 40. Our Lord is speaking to some folks
who are out to put Him out of business. He says to them, �Search
the Scriptures,� or actually you do search the Scriptures,
�for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they
which testify of Me. And ye will not come to Me that
ye might have life.� Our Lord said in answer to unbelief. Men write books about how to
deal with people who don't believe and soul winning books and things
like that. How to talk to this type of person
and how to talk to that type of person. Our Lord talked to
a lot of religious people. We just heard our brother talk
about one time he talked to unbelievers. He didn't beg and cajole and
wring his hands and wonder why they didn't believe. He said,
you know, you don't believe because you're not my sheep. In another place he said to a
group of people, John chapter 6, I know you don't believe, but all the Father giveth me
shall come to me. and him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. My sheep hear my voice and they
follow me." If you read the Gospels over
and over again, you will find people coming to the Lord Jesus
Christ. They come to Him. And they come
to Him because they have great need. Many followed Him for the
miracles that He did. Some stayed with Him a while,
and when He spoke the truth, like in John chapter 6, they
went away and followed Him no more. But those with great needs
seemed to find their way to the Lord Jesus Christ. They were thirsty, and He gave
them water. They were hungry, and He gave
them food. Now, we can stand here all day and beat our gums,
and we can't make you thirsty. And we can't make you hungry.
You might be goofy and stupid and try to make yourself thirsty
and hungry, but only goofy and stupid people do that. But you know if you're thirsty.
And you know if you're hungry. God used those terms, that kind
of language, so we'd understand what He was talking about. When you find people seeking
out the Lord for help, you find another thing. You find the Lord
always helping them. Always helping them. Sometimes you find people who
have great needs who could not seek the Lord. Their malady was
such. Their sickness was such. They
were unable to seek the Lord. And in those cases, you find
Christ seeking them out and finding them. John chapter 5 is a picture
of that, is a story of that. One thing you find that these
accounts of God healing sick folks, our Lord laying His hands
on people or speaking to them and making them better are pictures
of salvation. They are not salvation. They
are temporary fixes to temporary maladies. But they picture salvation. And one of the beautiful things
about it is that as they picture salvation, it pictures also how
God, in His grace, views His elect sinful rebels as sick. Isn't that sweet? When you see somebody sick, you
don't want to whack them upside the head. You don't want to beat
them up. You don't want to put them in hell, do you? You have pity
on them. As a father pitieth his children,
so God pitieth them that fear them. And that's how He views
our sin. For us, we know it's rebellion.
We know it's anger. We know it's hatred. We know
it's vileness. God looks and says, Oh, he's
sick. My child is sick. And that's why these are pictured
this way. You'll find that after Christ
came to these folks, that they in response came to Him and followed
Him. Now when our Lord healed the
unhealable, we will find over and over again
the hackles of religion get raised up. The words He speaks in John
chapter 5 and verse 39 and 40 are spoken to those who really
want to kill Him, to put Him out of business, because He healed
this man at the pool of Bethesda. That pool was a miraculous pool. I don't know how else to explain
it, and I don't see any reason to explain it any other way.
But it was a miraculous pool, and it made some people well.
It was a merciful place. Bethesda means a house of mercy,
but remember, it's temporal mercy because all those healed went
on and died anyway. I believe it was a picture of
the old covenant, this pool of mercy. Because it could only meet the
need of those who could get in the pool first. They got in the pool first immediately
after the angels, it said, stirred the waters. And this teaches
us some profound truths. First, it teaches that at Bethesda,
to get healed, you had to be less afflicted than the rest
of the folk there. He had to be less afflicted.
He had at least slightly afflicted because it was a pool for healing.
The shores of that pool were a kind of triage. And it dealt
with a religion of potency and self-help. Secondly, it teaches that you
had to be aware of the opportunity and expedient in obedience to
the requirement, which was get yourself in that pool. Thirdly,
it teaches that if you were unable to follow these procedures, you
could also enlist the assistance of some benevolent folk to carry you
to the healing waters. Though considering that it was
every man for himself, The truly helpless probably remain in their
sad and hopeless estate, watching others go into that pool. That
is a plain picture. It paints a picture of the old
covenant, the covenant under which all religions except for
one operate this very hour. You see, religion has nothing
for the truly ruined. Nothing for the truly impotent. Nothing for those who cannot
help themselves. Religion works well where the
slightly sick, the moderately infirm, can be healed and reformed
because such are able to do something for themselves. Such are able
to act. Such are able to exercise their
will. or stir up the seed of divinity
in them, they can get to the water by their own power. They can pull themselves up by
the bootstraps. They can get right. They can
straighten up and fly right. Or they might even be hefted
on the shoulders of religion if their future possible contribution
seems vital enough to the organization to warrant toting them around
for a little bit. But what about the ruined, the utterly helpless, that sad
creature who can only look and watch as the partially wounded,
the slightly bruised get help or are able to help themselves
while he sits in grave clothes, too far gone to do anything.
Religion has given him up as a lost cause. Works religion
is a mockery to the truly lost. Just as these roiling waters
were a mockery to this man's sickness. You see, religion is
useless to the impotent. It is for the able-bodied, for
the slightly sick. or the soul that needs a little
tweaking, or a little help, or a book that can teach them how
to self-help. But mercy came to the house that
day, to the house of mercy, not in the bubbling pool, but in
the sovereign deluge of the loving kindness of God Almighty in human
flesh. And while the pool roiled, awaiting
the gold medalists of some semi-afflicted foot race, the water of life
washed over this fellow, that old ruined wretch who could not
move a muscle, who could not twitch a finger, who could not
blink an eye, who could not help himself. Christ said to him,
Will you be made whole? What a question for a sick guy.
Of course, I'll be made whole. Why wouldn't I be? Of course,
being made whole means some things. You can't get the pity of folk
no more. You have to take up your bed
and get out of here. You can't lay by the pool anymore. You've
got to go out and work and get a job and act like a real human
being now. You can't be the sad sack in
the church anymore. Will you be made whole? He said,
Well, there's nobody to take me down to the pool. He said,
well, okay, take up your bed and walk. And he did. He got right up, took up his
bed and walked. After Christ healed him, he rolled
up his bedroll and started walking home. I expect with a little
bit of skip in his step, he'd been healed. And now religion
shows up. Now it shows up. It catches him
and collars him. They say, what are you doing
carrying your bed on the Sabbath? He said, some fellow healed me.
Told me to take up my bed and walk. He healed me and I'm obeying
him. I'm going home. And what follows
is that religion wants to get rid of Christ because later the
man told him who had healed him. It's interesting they didn't
have anything to do with this fellow until he was whole. That's
pretty much what religion will have to you, what you can do
for them. I've had people come to my church,
tell me, you've got this little church, you know, I think I could
help you here. And I just tell them, go on home. We've got all the help we need.
Our help is the Lord. They get mad at Jesus Christ
for sealing this fellow on the Sabbath. But they just hate him
generally. Because rules are rules, you
see. Because if religion can't help
somebody, they ought not to be able to be helped by anybody.
If religion can't help them. And if this fellow, Jesus of
Nazareth, is able to help this helpless one, then he must be
greater than the rules. He must be greater than the religion.
And that would be, well, anarchy, wouldn't it, if one walked among
us like that? And they simply refused to believe
that Christ is who He says He is. Verses 16 and 18, our Lord
said this in this chapter, ìTherefore did the Jews persecute Jesus
and sought to slay Him because He had done these things on the
Sabbath day. But Jesus answered and said,
ìMy Father worketh hitherto.î Therefore, the Jews sought the
more to kill him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath,
but he said God was his Father, making him equal with God. Christ
thought it not robbery to be equal to God, according to Philippians.
And now in our text, he is talking to these men. And our text is
an indictment against people, these religious folks, because
they hate Him and want to kill Him.
But before we specifically get to our text, it's important to
note that our Lord had some mighty telling words to say about these
religious men, these religious regulators, these men, these
good men, these moral icons, these Bible-reading, Scripture-searching
men and women, law-abiding, community watchdogs. Men, our Lord had
something to say to them. First, He tells them that they
not only do not know God, He tells them that they have never
heard His voice. And this is no small thing. It
is a primary reason they have rejected Him. In verse 37, our
Lord says, The Father Himself which has sent me hath borne
witness of me. Ye have neither heard His voice
at any time, nor seen His shape. You've not heard His voice. Every
one of God's elect, every one of God's sheep, every one of
God's people hear His voice. He said, and our brother just
quoted, My sheep hear My voice. But He said, You haven't heard
His voice. What does it mean? They're not
sheep. They're not elect. They're religious, Bible-believing,
Bible-searching folks who spend the time in Scriptures, but they're
not taught of the Father. Because our Lord says, You won't
come to Me for life. And the Scripture says, All that
has heard of the Father and learned of the Father come to Christ. If God has taught you, you'll
come to Christ. You won't come to religion. You'll
come to Christ. You won't come to theology. You'll
come to Christ if the Father teaches you. And the Father's
not speaking out of both sides of His mouth. He's on the level. He said, My ways are equal. I
always do it right. So if the Father's taught you,
He's taught you what our brother just preached to you, and what
Jim preaches to you every Sunday morning and Wednesday night.
He has taught you about who Christ is, why He came, what He did,
and where He is now, and of the absolute success of that glorious
operation between Him and His Son wherein He assured and procured
the salvation of all the elect to the glory of the Father. He's
going to teach you that. And if you haven't been taught
that, it's because He hasn't taught you. Because if He teaches
you, that's what He'll teach you. And what the result of that
will be is you will, will come to Jesus Christ. If you're out
here tonight and you ain't come, I can tell you why. You've not been taught of the
Father. Is that any way to talk to unbelievers? That's the way
the Lord talked to them. A fellow told me one time not
long ago, I don't believe in God. I told him, I don't think
God's losing any sleep over there. Because He's not. All that He's
given to Christ will come. We preach the gospel because
we know out there, there's some of God's sheep. We don't know
who they are. We know they're out there, and so we tell them
about the Savior that saved them, that redeemed them, that bought
their salvation, that wrought their salvation, that finished
their salvation. The good news of the gospel,
not some pool that if you can get to it, it'll make you better. Secondly, he tells them that
the Word of God has never made it past their eyes. The words
they read are just a bunch of words to them. If they had learned
the words they read, if those words abided in them, had reached
their inner man and into their heart, they would have come to
the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 38, "...Ye have not His
word abiding in you, for whom He has sent ye believe not."
If His word was abiding in you, you would believe the one that
He sent, the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord said to this same type
of people, these same kind of people might have been the same
guys. I don't know. But in John chapter 8 and verse
47, He said, He that is of God heareth God's words. And then He looked them in the
eye and gave an invitation and sang 21 verses of Just As I Am. No. He that is of God heareth
God's words, ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not
of God. Doesn't sound like that nice
little Jesus everybody's talking about, does it? Because it's
not. Thirdly, he tells this religion
that they have no, that God's love is not in them or that they
do not love God. And again, this is revealed because
they obviously do not love Christ. Our Lord said in John 8, 42,
If you loved God, you'd love Me, because He sent Me. He sent Me. Fourthly, these fellows
do what they do to be honored by each other. Their interest
is self-aggrandizement, self-promotion, a pat on the back, an honorable
mention, something they can relate to in their own life. They care nothing for the honor
of God, for the glory of God. And that is the primary reason
that they do not come to the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at verse
43 and 44. I am come in my Father's name,
and ye receive me not. If another shall come in his
own name, you will receive him. How can you believe? How can
you believe which receive honor one of another, and seek not
the honor that cometh from God only? How can you? How can you? If that's what you're
looking for, that's what you'll get. You'll get the honor of
men. Fifthly, our Lord tells these
fellows that they don't believe what they read. and that they
don't believe who they say they believe, because if they did,
they would come to Christ. Verses 45 through 47, ìDo not
think that I accuse you to the Father. There is one that accuses
you, even Moses, whom you trust.î Oh, we like Moses. ìEven Moses,
whom you trust. For had ye believed Moses, You
would have believed me, for he wrote of me. But if you believe
not his writings, how shall you believe my words? In our text,
our Lord indicts these men for their unwillingness to come to
Him on several levels. The primary thing addressed as
to the reason why they reject Christ is that they are unbelievers.
They are unbelievers in the face of undeniable evidence. Here in our text, our Lord uses
the Scriptures as the fourth witness that these religionists
have rejected. First of all, they rejected the
testimony of John, verses 32 and 33. There is another that
beareth witness of me, and I know that the witness which he witnesses
of me is true. He sent unto John, and he bare
witness unto the truth." They didn't listen to John. They wouldn't
have anything to do with John. They rejected the testimony of
Christ's works. It's right there before them.
He was able to do things that no other man was able to do.
He's fake like no other man fake, but he actually could spit on
dirt and make mud and put it on a guy's eyes and say, go wash
yourself in the brook and come out to sea. He could unstop men's
ears. He could say to a man whose hand
was withered, straighten that thing out. And there you go. Verse 36, he says, But I have
greater witness than that of John. For the works which your
Father hath given me to finish, the same works I do, bear witness
of me that the Father has sent me. That proves that the Father
has sent me. And they didn't listen to that
witness either. They rejected the testimony of the Father.
Verse 37, And the Father Himself, which has sent me, hath borne
witness of me. He hath neither heard his voice
at any time, nor seen his face. The Father bears witness of me."
They rejected the testimony of the Scriptures. Search the Scriptures,
he said in verse 39. For in them ye think ye find
eternal life, but they which testify of me. So they rejected
the testimony of Scriptures. And these rejected the testimony
of Christ. How do we know? They wouldn't
come to Him. They wouldn't come to Him for
life. Our Lord also indicts them for their thoughts. There's an
old saying that says you can't hang you for your thoughts. God
can. Whoever they are might not be
able to. But be assured that if your thoughts are wrong about
God and how eternal life is obtained, God has a gallows with your name
on it. Our Lord in the original says, You do search the Scriptures,
because in them you think, you think you have eternal life. Now, the Scriptures do declare
eternal life. In the next chapter, our Lord
will say, The flesh prophets of nothing, the Spirit quickeneth
the flesh prophets of nothing. My words, they are Spirit, and
they are life. Peter knew that. He says, To
whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life. These words do speak of life. They declare the promise
of life. They possess the power of it.
I don't know how this works, because it's just a bunch of
nobody standing up here repeating something that's been repeated
for 3,500 years pretty much. How does that work? Like the
fellow says, how does electricity work? He said, really well. That's
how the gospel works. It works really well, but don't
ask me to explain it. But they declare the power of
it. Paul said, I am not ashamed of the Gospel. For it is the
power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the
Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith. For the just shall live
by faith. In 1 Corinthians 1, he says,
Christ is the power and the wisdom of God. The power and the wisdom
of God. These words contain the seed.
In 1 Peter 1, He says, You are born again, not of corruptible
seed, but incorruptible seed, even by the Word of God, which
liveth and abideth forever. And it is by the gospel that
this Word is preached unto you. The seed of life is in these
words, preached, because the gospel is not really the gospel
until it is preached. Do you know that? It's proclaimed. It's published. It's preached.
It's preached. You say, well, it's right here
in this book. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word
of God. How shall they hear without a preacher? And I start exalting
this position. You know I'm nothing. Jim and Gary and I aren't going
to leave a greasy spot on history. None of us are going to be remembered
much longer than after we're gone, you know. But this Word, you're going to
hear the Gospel. How beautiful are the mountains
at the feet of them that publisheth peace, that publisheth salvation, saying, Thy God reigneth, saying. It is good news. The Cherokee
word is ashtakenoheda, good news to tell it. good news to tell
it. The seed. How does that work?
Just fine. These words are employed in the
generation or the regeneration of a person. Of his own will
begat he us with the word of truth. These words proclaim the
person of Christ. In Hebrews chapter 4, you are
familiar with these words. In Hebrews chapter 4, In verses
12 and 13 it says, ìFor the word of God is quicker, quickening,
and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing
even to the biting asunder of the soul and spirit, and of the
joints and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and
intents of the heart.î Have you ever felt like when Jim was preaching
that heís read your mail? Thatís the word of God. Thatís
the power it has. I know you've experienced this,
you've preached and somebody comes up and says, you was talking
to me today, preacher. I mean, that was right to me. Well, you
wasn't talking to me. Him, you was preaching the gospel
to the whole outfit. But the Word found its mark.
We shoot the arrow in the air to venture, but it's a guided
missile. And it always finds the mark
right beneath the breastplate into your heart. But listen to
how this is described, a discerner of the thoughts and tense of
the heart. And in verse 13, he says, Neither is there any creature
that is not manifest in his sight. There's a book put out by Herbert
Lockyer, I think his name was. And he was, I think, with all
the prophecies of the Messiah and the Scripture. And one of
them was, he said alongside in two columns, the written Word
and how it's described in Scripture. And the living Word has described
the Scripture. Get a chance to read it sometime.
They're described the same way. There's no difference in the
description. Is the written Word the Word of God? It is the Word
of God. Who is Christ? In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God. Don't ask me to explain
that either, because I can't explain that. But when He talks
about this Word, being quickening and powerful and sharper than
a two-edged sword and piercing even to the dividing of the soul
and spirit of the joints and marrows under the discernment
of the thoughts and intents of the heart. He said nothing, no
creature is not manifest in His sight. His sight. And what is this indictment then
to these men? They believed that the act, the
practice of reading the Bible and memorizing it and copying
it and endeavoring to live by its law and to know the doctrine
meant that they had eternal life. That's what they thought. I thought
that once. Did not you? I thought that once. I knew the doctrine. I was a
five-point Calvinist. Straightening everybody's life
out, except my own. Of course, I didn't think I needed
to straighten out, because you see, I knew these things. I knew them. And I could rehearse them, and
I could tell folks about them, and did. Often used them as the
proverbial blunt instrument of bludgeoning people's heads with. But I didn't know Jesus Christ.
I had not come to Him for life. I had come to doctrine. I had
come to a gospel preaching church. I had fellow friends who believed
just like I did. But as they say, I was as lost
as a goose in a snowstorm. These men believed that the act,
the practice of reading it and memorizing the Bible and copying
it and endeavoring to live by its law and to know its doctrine
meant that they had eternal life. You do search the Scriptures.
For in them ye think ye have eternal life, but they are they
which testify of Me, and ye will not come to Me that ye might
have life." These believed that the Bible was the Bible. They
believed it from kiver to kiver. They even believed where it said
genuine leather on it, that it was genuine leather. They believed
the Bible. They didn't believe the message
of the Bible. They didn't know the message of the Bible. Because
they did not seek eternal life at the place where the Bible
taught that it was. When the angels came over those
shepherds by night and said, Glory to God in the highest,
a Savior is born. You'll find Him in swaddling
clothes, lying in a manger. The shepherds didn't go to the
temple. They didn't go to the church. They didn't go to the
palace. They didn't go to the courtyard. You know where they
went? To the manger. Because that's where He was. He's in these words. And they
went to these words, but didn't go to Him. Didn't go to Him. The Scriptures testify that Christ
is life. And to have eternal life is to
come to Him. And part of this indictment is
suggested in the words that these would not come to Christ for
life. The intimation is, and the fact
of their chosen life reveals this, they had come to religion. They had come to church. They
had come to hear John. They had come to the law. They
had come to the scriptures, but not to Jesus Christ. There is a suggestion by omission
that they might have even come to Christ. They were, after all,
in His presence at this time. They came to Christ. Many people
came to Him, but not for life. But not for life. Many come to
Christ for miracles, for healing, for monetary gain, for business
networking, for help when they get in trouble, for religious
experience. But these things are of no value.
if Christ is not sought for life. And finally, these words of our
Lord are an indictment of the will of these men. You will not
come to me that you might have life. They will not come. And our Lord, when addressing
the subject of the will, is not addressing the will as to ability
or power to perform. There is only one will in the
earth, or in the universe, actually, that has that. God has a will, and He has power to perform whatever
His will is. But His will is not free. It
is subject to Himself. God is not going to act like
anything other than God. God is not going to do what He
will not do. God is not going to do what He doesn't want to
do. He does what He wants to do, doesn't He? Our God has done
what He pleased in heaven and earth and all the deep places
and under the sea. That's what our God does. So if He wants
to do something, that's what He will do. What He wants, He
wills. The will comes from the want.
So when a person says, I have free will, I do what I want,
that automatically disqualifies their free will because they're
doing what they want. They're not doing what they don't
want. To be free is to have no compelling force outside moving
against you one way or the other. God's will is not free, it's
His will. His mind, His heart, what He
desires, that's what He will do. He does His will in the armies
of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay
His hand or say to Him what does it. Why does He do His will?
Because that's what He wants to do. That's what's in His heart
and in His mind. You and I do that too, at least
we choose that. I want to do this, and then we'll
trip and fall on our face. I want to go on a trip, but my
car's got a flat tire. I want to buy a house, but I
ain't got no money. You're willing, except you can't
perform. God can perform and does perform
His will. But these men will not come to
Christ. Why? They won't do. They won't
do. almost a moot point because such
a thing as power or ability to perform when applied to man's
will does not exist. It only deals with direction
or choice or course, which is merely a revelation or a reflection
of nature and mind and heart. The will has no power. It's just
a revealer. Two prime examples of that factor,
Isaiah 14, when the king of Tyre said, I'm going to mount. I will
be like the most high God. That's what I want. I will sit
on the throne of heaven. I will do that. I will. That's
what I want. That's what I'm going to do.
And God said, no, you're not. I'm going to put you down in hell.
Well, I don't want to go to there. Tough. Sound like your will don't
have any power. Don't have any power at all.
Dead men don't will nothing. And if they could, it wouldn't
work. How about alive men? How about men who are saints?
How about men who have been saved by God's grace? How about men
who have been met on the road to Damascus, and unhorsed, and
cast down into dust, and made blind, and then given sight when
the Gospels preached to them? What about a guy like that? What
about a guy who started most of the churches in Asia Minor? What about a Christian like him?
Man, that must be a super-Christian. Here's his resume. What I would
do. I do not. And what I would not,
that I do. There is a law in me that when
I would do good, evil is present with me. You see, the will is
there, but the power to what? Perform is not. The power to perform. And yet,
everyone who comes to Christ is willing to come. They will
come. Just better not get in their
way. They're going to come. The will is the choice and reveals
inclination and reveals affinity and the affections and only that.
Only that. The will's ability extends only
to that of choice. Only God possesses ability to
accomplish it. And what an indictment this is.
Religion loves everything about religion. knows everything about
the Bible except for what the Bible teaches. With the clear declaration of
Christ from Genesis to Revelation that He is life, eternal life,
men are not willing to come to Him for it. Why? They don't want to. They don't want to. They can't
because they're dead. But they don't want to. They
don't want to. So if they don't want to, they
choose not to. They will not. Nobody will do what they will
not do. You know, that makes sense. That
makes sense. They will choose a thousand ways
to die. They will go to hell from a church
pew with a Bible in their hands, spouting Scripture verses and
singing, Just As I Am. They will walk across coals.
They will nail themselves to a cross. They will crawl down
an aisle on their belly like a reptile. They will take lashes and beat
their backs. They will wear hairy robes and
sleep on concrete. They'll suffer for the cause.
They'll deny themselves all the things they really want to do.
I don't go to movies. Well, you want to go to movies. You ain't denying yourself. You're
bragging on yourself. You're bragging on yourself. They have no inclination toward
Him. No affinity for Him and no affection toward Him. Therefore,
they will never choose Him. Thus, their nature and their
affection toward Him is revealed. Their heart is revealed. Their
nature is religious sin. What the old Puritans called
splendita peccata. Shining sin. Their love is for their life.
Therefore, they don't need another. Not eternal life. They love themselves
and not Christ, so they won't come. You can't gang-save them. You can't jerk them out of a
pew and drag them down front. You can't make them do anything.
The very Son of God with five strong witnesses, John the Baptist,
the works of Christ, the Father, the Scripture, the works that
He did, they won't come. But thanks be unto God, all His
people shall come. And they shall come because they
will come. And they will come because they
want to come. And they will choose to come
because God has given them His Spirit. And when He gives them
His Spirit by regeneration and gives them faith to believe,
suddenly they have an inclination toward Him. an affinity toward
Him, an affection toward Him. The most natural thing for one
who has been blessed this way, the natural outcome of such a
thing is to come to Christ. No pressure. You don't have to
have a soul-winning class to get them there. The heart determines what is
natural to the man. It determines that. And if your
heart has been made anew by Christ, you will come. Our Lord said
it in the face of the same kind of people. And all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me. And him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. For I came down into heaven not
to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this
is my Father's will that all He has given me I shall lose
nothing, but raise it up again in the last day. Isn't that great? private eavesdropping that David
did in Psalm 110. He said, The Lord said to my
Lord, what did He say? Rule thou in the midst of your
enemies and your people will be willing in the day of your
power. Coming to Christ. How do you
do that? Right where you are. As Scott
said, don't lift a finger, don't blink an eye, don't move a muscle.
Trust Him. That's what this book is about. God bless you.