Well, we're back in John chapter
8 again. Last week, disciples indeed,
from verse 31. This week, free indeed, from
verse 36. Free indeed. Free indeed. Biblical saving faith, which
the Bible calls the faith of God's elect, that's Titus chapter
1 verse 1, the faith that truly saves is the faith of God's elect. It's the faith that God's elect
have. All sorts of people have all
sorts of faith, but it's only the faith of God's elect that
is saving faith. faith that is in that which saves,
for it is a revelation to the people of God of the accomplishment
of redemption that Christ has done in his death, in his shed
blood. That true biblical saving faith
is portrayed falsely by so much religion, Christian religion,
as it's called, as a nice way to live your life in this world.
You know, you're just compassionate to others, you're kind to your
fellow men, you're, you know, be radically, be different from
most people around you. But no, it's not that. To be
a true believer, to be A child of God, with the faith of God's
elect, is to be radically different from this world. You are truly,
think of it like this, if you're a child of God, a true believer,
with a true hope, a solid hope of eternal life, you're a citizen
of the Kingdom of God. And as I said last Wednesday
night in the study, you're living in this world as foreign agents,
foreign agents of the kingdom of God. But the territory in
which you live is an alien territory, for it's the kingdom of Satan.
It's the kingdom of this world. It's the kingdom of all that
opposes the true and the living God. That's what it is. It's
radical. It's quite distinct. You are
either a citizen, a fully paid up citizen of the kingdom of
this world, or You are a citizen of the kingdom of God. And that's
where I want to be. Don't you? in the kingdom of
God. Well, the dialogue of John chapter
8 continues from where we left off last week in verse 33. Jesus basically tells people
who said that they believed on him, look, verse 30, as he, Jesus,
spake these words, many believed on him. Then said Jesus to those
Jews which believed on him, that's what they said, If you continue
in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed, and you shall know the
truth, and the truth shall make you free. And they answered him,
We be Abraham's seed. We were never in bondage to any
man. How are you saying that we shall be made free? He's telling them that they are
actually slaves in the kingdom of Satan. They're slaves in the
kingdom of Satan. Whilst his mission is to make
his people free citizens of God's kingdom, they, he's telling them,
if they continue not in his word, they are citizens of the kingdom
of Satan. And they are slaves in that kingdom. And they are bound in that kingdom. And they are not free in that
kingdom. As He says in verse 31, His true
disciples, His disciples who are disciples indeed, they continue
in His Word. They know the truth of God, for
the Word is truth. Christ is the Word, and He is
truth. He is the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to
the Father except by Him. If they continue in His Word,
they know the truth. This is what true disciples do,
they know the truth. What am I talking about? The
truth. I'm talking about the truth that this world, and all
of its leaders, and all of its philosophies deny. The truth
of God. The truth that there is a God.
The truth that God is the creator. The truth that God is sovereign
over all. The truth that God is the one
to whom everything is accountable, for He is supreme. He is over
all. He has the preeminence. Christ
is God. Christ is His manifestation,
and unto Him it is pleased the Father that He, Christ, should
have all the preeminence. It's this truth, the truth of
His kingdom, of a kingdom of righteousness and peace, wherein
there is no sin, and His qualification of a multitude of sinners. who
by nature are banned from that kingdom, for nothing that defiles
shall enter in, that that kingdom, that company, that multitude
of sinners has been qualified for the kingdom of God, because
their sins in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ have been paid
for, and the penalty is taken away, and the justice of God
is satisfied, and the justice of God says, against these there
is nothing to answer. There is therefore now no condemnation
to those that are in Christ Jesus. And that knowledge, you shall
know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. That knowledge
is liberating. You see, to know what it is to
be free, you have to be aware of what it is to be in bondage.
the bondage of the kingdom of Satan, the bondage of being in
this world without God. People think that they are ultimately
free, because they're just citizens of this world, and they are free
to get on and do what they want. And all those people, those fools,
they would say, who tie their lives up in religion, like the
Christian religion, like we do, They would say, they're the ones
who are bound, they can't do what they want because they've
got this horrible religion that's constraining their behavior all
of the time. They would say it's exactly the
opposite way around, but do you know, it's the bondage of Satan's
kingdom. It's truly to be outside of Christ
is to be in bondage. Verse 32, the truth shall make
you free and you shall be free indeed. That you shall know the
truth and the truth shall make you free. In other words, you're
not free. The clear implication of that verse is that you, who
he's talking to, who claim to be believers in the Lord Jesus
Christ, you're not free because you're citizens of the kingdom
of this world. You must know the truth of God's
kingdom to live a liberated life. But man, all of us, all of us,
in our natural state, especially religious man, hates being told
various things. Absolutely hates being told,
firstly, that he's unrighteous. Do you know that's what you are?
all of you, me, in our natural state, compared with the holy
standards of the eternal God, we are utterly unrighteous. We
are utterly unrighteous. The Apostle Paul, you would struggle
to go any better than him in his ministry in terms of his
total selfless dedication to the cause of God and of his Christ.
And yet, Paul's testimony of himself, In me, that is in my
flesh, there dwells no good thing. The things that I would do, I
don't do, and the things that I don't want to do, those things
I do. Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' was
Paul's judgment of himself and the question he asked. unrighteous,
every single one of us, against the shining, burning standard
of the holiness of God, of the absolute purity, moral, moral
purity and uprightness of God, we are every one unrighteous. As Isaiah says, Isaiah 64 verse
6, All of our righteousnesses, and boy do we think that we do
some, all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Disgusting,
filthy rags. That's what we are by nature.
Disgusting, filthy rags. All of our righteousness. Secondly,
man doesn't like to be told that he is unwise. He is unwise. He doesn't like to be told that.
He thinks he's so clever. He thinks he's got so much knowledge
of good things. He is unwise. Thirdly, man doesn't
like to be told that, you know, he thinks, oh, you know, I can
do all sorts of things. He doesn't like to be told that
he's inherently weak. I'm not just talking about fleshly
weakness, you know, and the hours that are spent in gyms these
days trying to make bodies strong, you know, to counter this. But
we're inherently weak, not just physically, morally. Spiritually,
weak, weak. We have no strength. We have
no strength whatsoever. We have no ability to climb up
the pole to the status of heaven. None whatsoever. We're inherently
weak, and we're enslaved. Do you know, you cannot do that
which you want to do, for you have a nature which always must
do that which the kingdom of Satan tells you to do. Enslaved. But that's the truth. Look at
it in Isaiah chapter 1 and verse 6. This isn't a new doctrine.
Isaiah chapter 1 and verse 6. What is the judgment of God upon
people? It is this, that from the sole
of the foot, you know, the very bottom place on your body, the
sole of your foot, unto the head, the top of your head. What, is
there any goodness in it? Is there anything that's good
and right and virtuous? No, there is no soundness in
it, but wounds, wounds of sin and of unrighteousness. wounds
of sin, and bruises, and putrefying sores. They have not been closed,
neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. That's the state
of you and me as we are. That's the state of us. We're
unrighteous, we're unwise, we're inherently weak, we're enslaved.
That's the truth. Jesus tells them that they need
to be free. Verse 33, They answered him,
We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man.
You see, they're offended. These who said that they believed
in him, just a couple of verses earlier, they're offended because
he suggests that they're not free, and that they need his
truth to make them free. They're offended. We're Abraham's
seed. We were never in bondage to any man. You know, this conversation
that we're looking at this morning is not just a record of a conversation
nearly 2,000 years old. It's exactly the same today.
Man is no different and no better. Exactly the same. Here are proud
religious people who said that they believed him. Can you think
of that? There's lots of so-called churches
up and down this country, around the world, full of so-called
Christians who say they believe Christ. But when they hear this
message that they're not free, they're offended. They're offended. They're being told that their
religion is lacking. It's exactly as down all the
ages and as it is today. Most Orthodox Christian people
are more proud of their tradition, of their church building, of
their structure, of their order, of their church discipline, of
their elders, their heritage. They're much more proud of all
of that than they are of Christ alone. In most cases they're
not at all concerned about Christ alone. And yet the truth is Christ
alone. For Christ is all and is in all,
says Colossians chapter 3. He is everything. He is everything. Outside of him there is nothing
worth having to do with the kingdom of God. The majority who profess
religious association, they count themselves as in bondage to nobody,
like these did. You know, we're Abraham's seed,
we're the children, we're the descendants of Abraham. They
were proud of their natural descent from Abraham. But of course,
their statement that they were never in bondage to any man is
patently wrong, isn't it? How wrong is that? Think about
it. As a people, 400 years after
Abraham, they were taken into bondage. Sorry, some years after Abraham,
they were taken for 400 years into bondage in Egypt. They were
slaves in Egypt. We were never in bondage to any
man. I think they were in bondage to Egyptian taskmasters and Pharaoh. And then when they came out of
the Promised Land, and came in to the land of Canaan, In the
days of the judges, repeatedly, over and over again, they were
in bondage to the Canaanites, the neighbors all around them,
the Amorites, all of the Ites, the Jebusites, all of these,
they were in bondage to them, time and time again. And then
because of their idolatry, God sent Nebuchadnezzar and took
them into captivity in Babylon for 70 years, the 70 years of
captivity, took them into captivity. Now, when they were speaking,
guess what? The Roman Empire's overrun them,
and they can't do what they want to do, because the Roman soldiers
all around, Pontius Pilate and all of the delegates from Rome,
ruled what they could do. They had no power, they were
in bondage, of course they were. The citizens of this world today,
They denied their lack of freedom. People think they're free, but
we're not. If the last two years has taught
us anything, it is the power of civil government to take away
our freedoms. Isn't it? Think about it. Oh,
they were only trying to do good to keep us safe. No, they weren't.
They were trying to take away our freedoms. That's what they've
done. And they very reluctantly and niggardly give those freedoms
back, with all sorts of nasty conditions attached to them.
No. We're in bondage today, and I'm just not talking politically.
I'm talking about the bondage of the will to the state of sin
and the thralldom of Satan. No. As today, they were not free
from sin. Look, verse 34, Jesus answered
them. You know, you claim you're free. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. Maybe they'd
seen him right on the ground in the dust, the law of God in
the early part of the chapter when the woman was brought in,
taken in adultery. And you know, he challenged those
religious rulers He that is without sin among you, according to this
law, let him cast the first stone. What about you lot here? What
about you lot? Are you any better than them?
No, you're not. Whoever commiteth sin, you commit sin, don't you?
Well, you're not free. You're the servant of sin. In
the fall, in the Garden of Eden, Satan captured your will. It was captured. You had become
servants of sin. You're servants of sin. What
you might want to do, as Paul says in Romans 7, you cannot
do, for the flesh always does the will of that which is sin.
thinking themselves free, they were actually in bondage to fleshly
lusts and passions. Hear what the scripture says.
Look, this is Titus 3 and verse 3. Speaking of man in his natural
condition, this is how it describes us. Oh, he's a good man, people
say. No, listen to what the scripture says. Foolish, disobedient, deceived,
serving diverse lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful,
hating one another. Do we see that around us in the
world today? In school, you younger ones,
the people that you go to school with, all around you, is that
not a good summary of so many of the characteristics you see
in this world? 2 Peter 2, verse 14, speaking
of people all around, having eyes full of adultery. Look at the state of affairs
of the so-called celebrity classes. Eyes full of adultery, that cannot
cease from sin. Beguiling unstable souls, and
heart they have exercised with covetous practices. Cursed children. This is not my words, this is
the word of God, the scriptures. They are, as 2 Timothy 2 verse
26 says, caught in the snare of the devil, snared by the devil,
trapped by the devil, taken captive by him at his will. This is what
the Word of God says. You are not free, you are in
bondage. Ephesians 2 verses 2 and 3, speaking of you as you were
before you believed the truth, before the truth made you free.
You were children of disobedience, all of us by nature. You were
children of wrath, even as others, living in a settled state, a
contented state, captive in the power of darkness, as it says
in Colossians 1 verse 13. Captive in the power of darkness,
the power of Satan, the power of the kingdom of this world.
This is our natural condition. Our souls were created as the
habitation of God. And yet those souls have been
surrendered in the fall, when Adam fell, in the fall to the
dominion of Satan. The dominion of Satan. We dwell
as settled citizens in our natural state, in the kingdom of this
world, and the dominion of Satan, until and unless God calls us,
and as Colossians 1.13 says, translates us out of the darkness
of His kingdom, the power of darkness, and into the kingdom
of the Son of His love, the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
kingdom of God. While we live settled in this
world's kingdom, we're under the power of tyrants. You know
what a tyrant is? Somebody who has the power to
control what you do. And the power of enforcement
to make sure you do it. And the power of retribution
if you don't do it. Punishment. You know, this is
it. Tyrants. Tyrants. Do you know all tyrants
down world history? It's very interesting to look
at. But they nearly all started out
with the best of intentions to make a much better society, and
then certain things got in their way, and the power increased,
and their abuse of the power increased, to try and bring to
fulfillment what was their well-intentioned beginnings. But in the end, they
all end up as tyrants. Tyrants. Think of the current
crop of so-called politicians. Tyrants. What are the tyrants
that we're under in the flesh? Well, you don't need to look
very far, because the first one and the biggest one is self.
Your self. Your self. Your self-righteous
self. And then there's the world all
around us. It's a tyrant. We can't do what
we want to do. Even if we did have the will
of God within us, we couldn't do it because our flesh is so
bound under the tyranny of this world and everything that it
attracts us with. We're under the tyranny of the love of money.
The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. That's
it, the love of money. Fleshly pleasures, the things
in this world, they're tyrants that hold us. They hold us incapable
of doing the righteousness of God, and thus, They put us under
just condemnation. We're under just condemnation
from God. See what it says, I speak that
which I have seen with my father, and ye do that which you have
seen with your father. All in this world are under the
thrall, under the power, under the tyranny of Satan. Jesus tells
them they are children of Satan. Look in verse 44. year of your father, oh these
people had just said they believed in him, hadn't they? Hadn't these
people just said that they believed in him? And look, a few verses
later, this Jesus needs some counselling from a modern preacher
on how to persuade people to believe him, doesn't he? This
isn't the way to go about getting disciples, is it? Those that
had said they believe in him, oh gosh, don't they need every
encouragement they can to continue, otherwise we'll lose them, don't
they? No, he says to them, you are of your father, the devil,
and the lusts of your father, the devil, ye will do. He was
a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because
there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh
of his own, for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because
I tell you the truth, you believe me not, because you're children
of the devil. You're children of your father, the devil. Gosh,
what a shocker that would be if somebody said that to a crowd
of people today, wouldn't it? Wouldn't it? No wonder they wanted
to kill him. You see? That's the heart of man. That's
the heart of man. And that's how it stays, except
the Son has liberated us. Except the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, has liberated us. These people, these religious
folk, who said at one stage they believed Jesus, they claimed
Abraham for their father. They said that they were the
favoured children of God, that they were his seed. We be Abraham's
seed, they said. Do you know seed there is not
the same as being children. They weren't the children of
Abraham. They were the genetic descendants of Abraham. Yes,
they could trace their genetics, if they'd had the technology
we have today, to the line of Abraham. They were his seed,
yes, but they weren't his children. Romans 4 verse 11, Abraham is the father of all them that
believe. Do you get that? He's the father
of all them that believe. Galatians 3 verse 7. Know ye
therefore that they which are of faith the same are the children
of Abram. Are you a Gentile? Are you a
Gentile? Yes, yes. Do you have the faith
of God's elect? Yes, yes. Well, what does the
Word of God say? You're a child of Abraham. You're the children
of Abraham. The verse at the end of that
chapter, if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seeds and heirs
according to the promise. They weren't. Although they were
descended genetically from him, they did not have the faith that
Abraham had. Jesus says in verse 39, they'd
answered and said, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them,
if you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham.
If you were the spiritual children of Abraham, you would do his
works. You descendants of Abraham are not his spiritual children.
You don't take after Abraham, who look what it says about Abraham
in relation to this man, the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 56
of this chapter, he says to them, your father, meaning your genetic
father, the one from whom you're physically descended, your father
Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad. You
know, thousands of years before, he rejoiced to see my day. What
the Greek actually says there, and I'm no Greek scholar so I
have to look at what people tell me, is this, that Abraham, you
see the words are just not... powerful enough in English. The
words are really that Abraham, your father Abraham, the one
you claim so much to be free because you're his children,
he was transported with exultant desire to see my day. transported
with exultant desire. It was that which thrilled his
heart, was that Christ was coming to redeem his people from the
curse of the law. How did he see it? How did Abraham
see the day of Christ? He saw it by faith. Faith is
sight of the soul. Where do we get it? You are saved
by grace through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the
gift of God. God the Holy Spirit had given
him faith when he called him out of Ur of the Chaldees to
follow his leading. He saw by faith that it was from
his people, his descendants, his only Isaac from that line
would come, the one who would redeem his people from the curse
of the law. He's the one who would come and
pay the sin debt of the multitude that the father gave to him before
the beginning of time. All of this saw Abraham by faith. When God showed him the stars
on a clear night and he said, as you see you can't count the
stars, he said so will be those that will come from you and will
be redeemed in the one that is coming, in the seed of the woman
promised to Adam and Eve. He saw it in type, Do you know
that Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac, his son, was born?
And God said to him, Abraham, go and sacrifice your only Isaac. Go and sacrifice him on Mount
Moriah, which is actually Jerusalem today. Go and sacrifice him there.
Go and sacrifice him. And so Abraham Believing that
God would restore him to life, took him and was fully willing
to slay his son on the altar. And it must be said, Isaac was
fully willing to go and be slain, trusting that God would bring
him back to life again. And in that, he saw the coming
of the Messiah. Genesis 22, if you want to read
the account. There, Abraham saw the day of
Christ, and seeing it, rejoiced and worshipped God. and he saw
it by special revelation in so many ways, the things, you know,
the burning oven, the divided carcasses, all of those things.
Through these things, God showed Abraham the coming of Christ,
and he was transported with exultant desire. He rejoiced to see my
day. You who say you're the descendants
of Abraham, you know nothing compared with what Abraham knew.
He rejoiced to see my day. But you take after your father.
Who is your father? He's the devil, verse 44. You
are of your father, the devil. You are not of God, verse 47. He that is of God, heareth God's
words. He that is of God, hears God's
word. Ye therefore hear them not, because
ye are not of God. You are not of God. You're not
God's people, therefore you don't hear His word. You know how it
says that they shall all be taught of God? All the people of God
are taught by God. Every single one of them is brought
to know what it is to be a sinner to some degree, is brought to
yearn for righteousness with God, to be rid of sin, is brought
to see that in the Lord Jesus Christ and the death that He
died, the sin debt of His people has been paid to the full. The
anger of God is propitiated in the blood of Christ. They see
that, and they see it for themselves, that it is for them that he died. But they couldn't hear Christ
because they didn't have God's word abiding in them. He said
to them, you are of your father the devil. They couldn't hear
his words. It had no place with them, no place with them, or
no entrance into them. You think of the Thessalonians,
when Paul writes to the Thessalonians, who received God's word when
he and Silas preached it to them. They received it, not as it was
the word of man, but as it is in truth, the word of God. And
Peter confirms that the writings of Paul are the word of God.
And then Paul writing to the Thessalonians again says, when
we came to you, you know, in such humble circumstances, but
what manner of entry we had to you. Why? Because what he's saying
is it wasn't the power of his eloquence, it wasn't the logic
of his argument, it was the Holy Spirit that opened their hearts,
as Lydia's heart had been opened. on the banks of the river in
Philippi. What manner of entry? The door had been opened, the
door that Christ opens and no man can shut. The door to the
soul had been opened, and what manner of entry? But them, these
who thought superficially they believed, as he says to some
more Jews in John chapter 10 and verse 26, he says, you believe
not. Why do you believe not? Because
you are not of my sheep. He doesn't say it the other way
around. He doesn't say if only you would believe you would make
yourselves into My sheep, He doesn't say that. He says you
don't believe because you are not of My sheep. You are not
of the multitude that the Father gave to the Son from before the
beginning of time. This is what the Lord Jesus Christ
preached. And this He says to all of us
in our natural state as fallen rebels against God, as enemies
of His kingdom. We might superficially we say
we believe, but we're actually bound, we're enslaved to the
kingdom of Satan, we're destined for a godless eternity. As Jesus
had said in verse 21 of chapter 8, I go my way, ye shall seek
me and shall die in your sins, whither I go ye cannot come.
Whatever you might claim of religious merit, And so many do claim a
lot of religious merit. We know what the Lord Jesus said
He will say to them in that final day, that day of judgment, Matthew
7, 23. He will say to them who say,
Lord, Lord, didn't we do all these things in your name? He
will say to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that
work iniquity. So what will liberate from the
bondage of sin? And the end result of the bondage
of sin is that chilling statement from Christ, depart from me,
ye that work iniquity. What will liberate? The liberty
of God's kingdom. Verse 31 and 32, Jesus said to
those Jews which believed on him, if ye continue in my word,
then are ye my disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free. Verse 36, if the Son therefore
The Son of God, the manifestation of God, shall make you free.
You shall be free indeed. You shall be truly free. You
shall be free from the bondage of Satan's kingdom. You shall
be free in the liberty of redemption accomplished. free in the liberty
of redemption accomplished. Redemption, the price, the price
of your penalty paid for. That's the thing that guarantees
your release from the curse of the law. Verily, verily, verse
51, Jesus said, verily, verily, I say unto you, if a man keep
my saying, he shall never see death. You will be free from
the dominion of death. You know, I often quote Hebrews
chapter 2 and verse 15. He says, well, verse 14, for
as much then as the children, his people, are partakers of
flesh and blood. He, Christ, also Himself, likewise,
took part of the same flesh and blood. Why? That through death
He might destroy the death of a man. That God couldn't do this
as God alone. He had to become man. That through
death He might destroy him that had the power of death. That
is the devil. He's destroyed him. And in the
process, He's delivered them. who through fear of death were
all their lifetime subject to bondage. What a liberating thing
it is to be free from the fear of death, because Christ has
accomplished redemption, and that has freed us The Son shall
make you free, free from condemnation. Romans 8 verse 1, there is therefore
now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Those
people reading that verse, Matthew 7, 23, depart from me, ye that
work iniquity, There is therefore now no condemnation to those
who are in Christ Jesus. Verse 33 of that same chapter
8 of Romans, verse 33 says, Who shall lay anything to the charge
of God's elect? God's justified them, there's
no charge to bring. Who's going to condemn them?
Satan, the accuser of the brethren, bringing all of his Legal armory
to say that these people are not justified? Who is he that
condemneth? Christ has died. He can't bring that charge. Christ
has died. The penalty is paid. He's risen
again, vindicated, who is even at the right hand of God. Who
shall separate us from the love of Christ? And so he goes on
in Romans 8. No, we're free from the condemnation
of sin. The Son shall make you free.
We're free from the power of Satan. I just read it in Hebrews
chapter 2, but verse 14, that through death, through Christ
dying, He might destroy him that had the power of death, that
is, the devil. The power of Satan is destroyed.
The power of Satan to accuse, the power of Satan to enthrall,
the power of Satan to dominate and rule is taken away. in the
redemption that Christ has accomplished. We're free from the bondage of
sin. You know, we're free from that. Whosoever commits sin is
a servant of sin. But in Christ, we're free from
the bondage of sin. That doesn't mean we do not sin.
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth
is not in us. But sin shall not have dominion over you. It shall
not. The new nature makes us free
from the controlling power of sin. And all around, there's
psychological pressure from ungodly men to join their headlong rush
towards a lost eternity, though they don't know it. And yet we're
free from that psychological pressure. Free indeed. As Galatians
5 verse 1 says, as we read at the start, You know, often the
illustration is made of children of the household versus servants
in the household. The children are the true heirs.
This is the children of God. True believers have their loins
girt, as we were thinking last Wednesday night in Ephesians
chapter 6 and verse 14. They have their loins girt, a
belt around their middle. And that belt is the belt of
truth, the truth of God's Word. They continue in Christ's Word,
as he says. If you continue in my Word, then
are you my disciples indeed. As it says in Psalm 119 verse
11, Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against
thee. I'm going to round this up. How
do you come into this liberty that is in Christ? These Jews
thought it was by birthright. They thought it was by descent
from Abraham. They thought it was, as it says
in verse 41, they thought it was having avoided idolatrous
alliances. That's what they mean when they
say, we be not born of fornication. What they mean is, we're not
Samaritans. We're not like the Samaritans, you know, the northern
tribes of Israel, the ten tribes of the north. We're not like
those who intermarried with the Assyrian Empire. You know, we're not the result
of idolatrous alliances like they are. No, no, we're the pure
Jews, the pure descendants of Abraham. But you know, here they've
got it wrong. For as John 1 chapter, sorry,
John 1 verse 13 says, coming into the kingdom of God, is not
of blood. In other words, it's not of natural
descent. It's not of the will of the flesh. Oh, come on, make
a decision for Christ. It's not of the will of the flesh.
It's not of the will of a man, somebody else who might persuade
you. No. What is it of? It is of God. It is God's will
to call his people out of darkness. So God is entirely sovereign
in the matter of salvation. You believe not because you're
not of my sheep, and my sheep are those the Father gave to
me from before the beginning of time. Oh, you say, must I
just fatalistically wait and see if God has willed my translation
into his glorious kingdom? You know, Colossians 1, 13 translated
us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the son of
his love. Should I just fatalistically
wait and see if God has willed my translation into his glorious
kingdom? And if he has, of course he'll
bring me. No, from your perspective, no. You see, God bids any and
all who desire his salvation and therein, you know, what does
Jesus say? Come unto me, all you that labour
under heavy laden... Are you labouring under heavy
laden, under a burden of sin? If you are, he says, come. You
see, it isn't universal. It's for those who have this
burden of sin. He bids any and all who desire
his salvation to come believing, albeit imperfectly. We know in
the flesh, whatever we do, it will be tinged with sin. As the
man cried out, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. But
be assured of this. John 6.37 Remember these things. These are so important. Grind
them into your heart. Grind them into your memory.
John 6.37 No man can come to me but the Father draw him. But
him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out. Did you
hear that? I'll say it again. Any who desire
his salvation However imperfect you feel, come to him. And he
says, him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. Help
me to believe, Lord. Help me, bring me, show me your
truth. Amen.