Well, we come back to John's
gospel this morning, and remember what I said right at the start
of last week, referring to a verse at the end of John's gospel in
John 20 verse 31. These are written, these things,
these accounts of the life of Jesus are written that you, this
is the purpose of them, that you might believe that this man,
Jesus, brought up in Nazareth, born in Bethlehem, brought up
in Nazareth, this man, Jesus, is the Christ of God, the Son
of God, the Christ, the one, the promised seed of the woman
to accomplish redemption, the one alone who is both man and
God, the one alone who has the infinite capacity of God to save
a multitude, and the one alone at the same time as man who can
suffer the penalty due to the sins of his people, that he might
accomplish salvation. It says that you might, these
are written, that you might believe that of Him and that believing,
believing you might have life through His name. You see, belief
is not the cause of salvation, belief is the evidence of salvation. It's the proof of salvation.
How do we know? How did Paul know the Thessalonians
were the elect of God? Through sanctification of the
Spirit and their belief of the truth. He said when we came to
you, You know, we preach the Word of God to you Gentiles.
What manner of entry we had unto you because the Holy Spirit opened
the door of their hearts and the Word of God came in and spoke
to them and showed them Christ as the one who has redeemed them.
This is about saving faith. There's all sorts of faith in
this world. People say, I have my faith, but this is about faith
that saves unto eternal life, that you might have life through
his name. This is not what we will for
ourselves, for we know it's not of the will of man, nor of the
will of the flesh. It isn't through heredity or anything like that.
This is true Holy Spirit quickening. He has made you alive. You who
were dead in trespasses and sins, He has made you alive. And because
of that, you have assurance. You have comfort. You have the
confidence that you have life eternal. That when it is time
for you to leave this life, Whenever that might be, and none of us
knows whenever that might be, you know that you have a better
place to go to, to be with Christ, which is far better. So then
we come to this second half of John, chapter 2, to see what
is said here that we might believe on his name, and that we might
have life through his name. Well, what we've seen is that
Judaism, in these early chapters of John's Gospel, Judaism is
shown up as being old bottles. And the gospel of the kingdom
of God is new wine. And you know what Jesus said
about new wine and old bottles? He said you don't put new wine
in old bottles because the new wine is lively and sparkling
and vigorous and the new wine will break the old bottles. You
cannot mix the two. Judaism was old bottles. The
gospel of the kingdom was new wine. Judaism sought God's favor. Oh yes they did, they went about
to seek God's favor, they thought they had God's favor. They sought
eternal life, but where they sought it in their Judaism was
in dead hypocrisy. It was in corrupted ritual. All
the rituals were true in their blueprint patterns, in what they
showed and what they pointed to, but they corrupted it with
their traditions of men. Corrupted ritual. They're idolatrous
legalism. They're heartless, cold, idolatrous
legalism. You know, do I need to prove
that to you? The miracles, when Jesus performed
wonderful miracles, and all the Pharisees could say is, you're
doing it on the Sabbath day. Idolatrous legalism. They idolized
their laws and their interpretation of those laws. This was old bottles,
but Christ brought the new wine of the gospel, of saving grace
and of everlasting joy. Doesn't it speak of effervescence,
of bubbling, of sparkling, of thrill, compared with that which
was dead? But the Jewish authorities, they
were blind. We saw that in chapter 1, verses
25 to 27. They had no idea. You know, they
knew that Christ was coming, but they had no idea what John
the Baptist was doing, that he was the voice crying in the wilderness.
They were blind. They were blind guides, blind
leaders of the blind, is what Jesus called them later on. The
Jewish priests were blind. The Jewish nation was as joyless
as a stone-cold water pot that we saw in the miracle of turning
water into wine. Those six great big hundred-bottle-plus,
great big stone-cold pots there, even in the heat you can feel
the coolness of them, can't you? That's the Jewish nation pictured,
joyless as stone-cold water pots. And now, Christ revealed it,
In this incident, when he went up to the Passover at Jerusalem,
he revealed it, Judaism, as corrupted at its heart with the leaven
of sin. Right there in the midst of the
feast, which above all else was to have no sin in it, no leaven
in it, unleavened bread, no sin. It was to be pure because of
what it spoke of. In verses 14 to 16, Jesus found
in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves. You
can imagine it. There's the holiest place on
earth, you know. Then it was. That's where God
had said, I will meet with you. If you want to meet with God,
that's where you went. If you wanted to bring sacrifice to
God, looking towards Christ, the Lamb of God, that was the
only place you could do it. And when Jesus came there, he
found. the oxen, those selling oxen
and sheep and doves, and the changes of money because the
temple tax, the half shekel, could only be paid in that currency,
and yet there was the Roman currency with Caesar's head on it all
around. And so there, there were the very necessary money changes
to change the Roman money that some of the people had into the
half shekel that they could pay their temple tax. And so what
was there in the first place with the intention of providing
the means for the poor to come and buy some doves and pay their
temple tax and bring the offering before God that would be acceptable,
that there they were, extorting the people. There was covetousness,
there was greed, there was cheating and dishonesty going on. The
money changers were giving false rates of exchange. All of this
was going on in what Jesus called his father's house. And so he
made a scourge of small cords and drove them all out of the
temple and the sheep and the oxen and tipped the money changers,
tipped them over their tables and said unto them that sold
doves, He didn't let them go so that they escaped and they
lost them. Strictly correct in all things,
he told them to take them away and make not my father's house
a house of merchandise. This was a miraculous cleansing
of the temple. Do you know which is the greatest
miracle, turning that water into wine or this? I would say that
this is just as great a miracle if you think about it. Here is
one man, This one man, 30 years old or so, one man, nothing special
in appearance, clearing a buzzing market and animals and traders
and all of these things unopposed. He didn't, you know, it doesn't
say that the disciples were there helping him and rounding people
up. He was, why didn't the traders immediately go and get the authorities
to arrest this man? Here he is in the power of God,
clearing this temple, his father's house. because of what was going
on there, the desecration of that which was holy. So let's
ask three questions. When did it happen? Why did it
happen? And what does it signify in happening? Well, the when of it is either
directly after Capernaum, verse 12, they went down to Capernaum
and they continued there not many days, or it was at the end
of his ministry. Because in Matthew 21, verses
12 and 13, you will read a very similar account of Jesus overturning
the tables, and that was definitely chronologically at the end of
his ministry. So either This is an incident
at the start of his ministry because John is writing chronologically,
or he's not writing chronologically, he's making the same point about
the deadness of Judaism, and this account is put here, even
though it's the same account as at the end of his ministry.
You can make your mind up. Some people I read say it's the
same incident, other people say it's a different incident. I'm
inclined to think it's the same incident as the one at the end
because of what it's teaching, about the emptiness and deadness
of the Jews' religion and the Jews' feasts, how dead it had
become and how the new wine of the gospel was what had come. So, That's why it's here. That is why it's here, is to
reinforce the point about the end of Judaism and the necessity
of the new gospel wine. Because when you turn over into
John chapter 3, then of course we see that new gospel wine.
You must be born again. We know that you'll come from
God, says Nicodemus. You don't know anything. And
except a man be born again, new wine of the gospel. You cannot
see the kingdom of God. So that's when I think it took
place, but it's not really a great issue. You can come to your own
conclusion. I'm inclined to think that John is not writing chronologically
here, but he's making the same point about the deadness of Judaism
and the new wine of the Gospel. So why? Why? Well, look here. What did he do? He went up to
Jerusalem and the Jews' feast of the Passover was there. Verse
13, the Jews' Passover was at hand. And he went there. Jesus
went up to Jerusalem to that feast. Note it is the Jews' Passover. It's not what God says in Leviticus
23 and verse 4, the Lord's Passover, the Lord's feasts. It's not the
Lord's feasts. These were the feasts of the
Lord, the different feasts of which the Passover was one. But
this had become the Jews' Passover. You see, the true Passover, and
the first one was Exodus chapter 12, the coming out from Egypt,
the one where the firstborn of the land was slain, and the Israelites,
their firstborn was not slain because a lamb had died in the
place of the firstborn. And the blood of the lamb was
on the doorposts and the lintel. But this Passover was to be kept
and remembered. It was to be a yearly thing,
and they had great, great lumps of years when they forgot it
and they didn't keep it. But this was the true Passover
that involved no leaven. They were to eat unleavened bread,
just as they were to examine the lamb 14 days. They were to
eat unleavened bread, there was to be no leaven, they were to
clean their houses, they were to spring clean, they were to
get rid of it. It's all symbolical of sanctification,
of making something clean and holy, getting rid of the sin. It was a meticulous cleansing
that they were to perform. Yet here in Jerusalem, when Jesus
goes there, at the Jews' Passover, Jesus found corrupt. sinful,
wicked, evil market trading. He found the extortion of the
poor going on. He found the covetousness of
the traders, their greed, their selfish greed, and all of this
in his father's house. The Passover, which was to symbolize
salvation from eternal death in the blood of the Lamb. If
you were one of those Israelite firstborn, And God had revealed
to you what had happened. You would know if you were one
of the Egyptian firstborn, you were cast into eternity that
night. But because of the blood of a lamb, you were saved from
that eternal death in the blood of the lamb. And it was salvation. The Passover was symbolising
salvation from that eternal death in the blood of the Lamb. And
in it, in the midst of it, in this feast in Jerusalem, it was
the corruption of sin. It was corrupted with the leaven,
the sin of human depravity. At this feast, this is what was
going on. Let's shed some New Testament light on it in 1 Corinthians
chapter 5. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter
5 and verse 6. This is where Paul is speaking
to the Corinthians about the corruption of immorality that
was in the church, the adulterous relationships, the sinful relationship
that was going on. And he says in verse six, your
glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven,
see that? Leaven symbolizes sin. A little
leaven leaveneth the whole lump. It doesn't need much to corrupt
your entire church, you Corinthians, is what he's saying. Purge out,
therefore, the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump without
that leaven, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover
is sacrificed for us. Look, you're a church, you're
the people of God, you're saved by Christ for Christ our Passover,
the true Passover, the one Passover of which all the others were
merely symbols and types. He has been sacrificed for us
now in the time of the Corinthians. Therefore, Let us keep the feast,
symbolically, symbolically, not with old leaven, neither with
the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread
of sincerity and truth. You see that feast at Jerusalem
to which Jesus went was riddled with the leaven of sin and corruption
and extortion and greed and covetousness. He says, I wrote unto you in
an epistle not to company with fornicators, yet not altogether
with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous or
extortioners, or with idolaters. For then must ye needs go out
of the world. But now I've written unto you
not to keep company. If any man that is called a brother
be a fornicator, or covetous, or idolater, or a drunkard, or
extortioner, with such an one not to eat. You see, he's saying
you've got to purge out the leaven of sin. from your company. Purge that leaven out. Why? You
see the Jews claimed to have put centuries of idolatry behind
them. The Jews were guilty down the
centuries of idolatry. You know, God had said, I will
be your God, but don't go after other gods. And they always went
after other gods, the gods of the nations all around them.
They were an idolatrous people, worshipping false gods. And God
punished them for it. He punished them with exile in
Babylon. He punished them again and again. But when they came
back, They were determined that they weren't going to fall into
idolatry again, and they were very proud of the fact that they'd
kept themselves pure from idolatry for four or five hundred years
until Christ came. And the Pharisees were very keen
on this, that they were rigorously keeping the people from this
kind of idolatry. But do you know they'd missed
the point one hundred percent. For as Paul says to the Colossians
in Colossians 3 verse 5, speaking of covetousness, he says covetousness
is idolatry. Idolatry. Here they are, at the
very feast that was at the heart of the picture of redemption.
The lamb shed, the Passover lamb shed, is the covetousness of
idolatry going on. That which the Jews had been
punished for, that which they were so proud of avoiding, here
he lays it bare. Idolatry. Here, in dead, cold,
joyless Judaism, They were turning the Lord's Passover, hypocritically
turning the Lord's Passover, into their sinful substitute,
the Jews' Passover, not the Lord's. And here, in the midst of it,
is the Lamb of God. What had John the Baptist said
in chapter 1? Behold the Lamb of God. who takes
away the sin of the world. Here is Christ our Passover,
who we just read in 1 Corinthians 5-7. Christ our Passover is sacrificed
for us. Here in Jerusalem he was soon
to be sacrificed, and he's confronting the sin and the idolatry and
the covetousness in the zeal and power of God. He does this
miraculous cleansing of the temple. You know, he was burned up with
zeal. His disciples remembered the
scripture which is Psalm 69 and verse 9. The zeal of thine house
hath eaten me up. This is Christ speaking in Psalm
69 verse 9. The zeal of thine house. Here
he is, the God-man in the zeal of God. Here the meek and humble
son of man. I am meek and lowly of heart.
This is Christ. I am meek and lowly of heart,
but here the meek and humble Son of Man displays the zeal
of God. He displays that God, who He
is here in the flesh, is a consuming fire. That God, this one that
people so much like to think of as gentle Jesus, meek and
mild, is God the consuming fire. This is God, you know, God loves
you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Oh, turn your
eyes upon Jesus, look fully in his wonderful face, all of this.
He is angry with the wicked every day. This is the God with whom
we have to do, and here he is walking this earth. in all of
His gentleness and compassion, but nevertheless, speaking with
divine authority as a consuming fire, angry with the wicked every
day. The world dismisses and mocks
a Jesus who couldn't even save Himself from crucifixion. When
He was on the cross, they mocked. The crowds going by said, He
trusted in God that He would deliver Him. Let Him deliver
Him if He delight in Him. And there He is. Look, He can't
even save Himself. How can he save others if he
can't save himself? We read right at the start the
picture of this one that they so mocked. Here he is with his
eyes as a flame of fire, on his head many crowns. He has a name
written that no man knew but himself. His clothing, his vesture
is dipped in blood. His name is called the Word of
God. This is the one who is here in
the temple clearing it. and the armies that are with
him, on their white horses in white fine linen. And here he
is, he's got the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God. And
he had on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King
of Kings and Lord of Lords. This is him. with whom we have
to do. This is Him here walking in the
temple, in the zeal of God, to clear it of the sin and the corruption,
the leaven of sinfulness. This is true God. Look, these
are written that you might believe that He is the Christ, the Son
of the living God, that He is the fullness of the Godhead bodily
dwelling in Him. This is true God, says John at
the end of his first epistle. This is true God and eternal
life. This is the one before whose
judgment seat we all must stand at the end of time. When we leave
this life, it says it's appointed to man to die once, and then
the judgment. Why did He miraculously clear
the temple? answer to purge out the leaven
of sin from the feast that spoke graphically of redeeming blood,
to demonstrate the inability of sin-corrupted Judaism to make
any peace with God. They sought peace with God through
their Judaistic rituals and their feasts, but He demonstrated that
they had no power in that whatsoever, for they had corrupted the very
thing that it stood for. So then, what was the symbolism
here? That's the why of it, but what
was the symbolism here? The temple, the stone building
in Jerusalem, built by Solomon. David wanted to build one, but
was told his son Solomon would build it, because David had been
a man of blood, a man of war, but Solomon was a man of peace.
and of wisdom and great riches and he would build the temple.
And that temple replaced the tabernacle that had been set
up in Sinai and went with the people throughout the wilderness
wanderings into the promised land and then it was in a settled
place in the promised land as they lived there. And eventually,
in the time of Solomon, about a thousand years before Christ
came, the most magnificent, glorious temple was built, and that was
the holy presence of God with his favoured people. If you would
meet God, as many proselytes sought to do, you had to go to
Jerusalem. This is, you know, all the error
of pilgrimage that we see today, well this is the thing that it
stems from. The reason why there was only
one place and only one place you could go, you know, like
the Mecca of Islam and all this sort of thing, is because this
was typifying the fact that there is only one place you can go
for reconciliation with God. And that one place isn't a place,
that one place is a person, and that person is Jesus Christ,
who said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to
the Father but by me. Jerusalem, the temple, was the
only place where sacrificial blood could be shed. You know,
you read again and again in the Old Testament of the sins of
Jeroboam, do you know what the sins of Jeroboam were? They were
trying to set up an alternative to Jerusalem for the sacrifice
that would appease the wrath of God. And there is only one
place, and there's only one place where the Passover could be kept,
and that's Jerusalem. And there's only one place where
the Day of Atonement could be kept, and the high priest go
in there once a year for the cleansing of the people, that's
Jerusalem, that's the only place. And all of it was symbolical
of Christ. If you would meet with God in
Christ, you must go to Jerusalem in those days. you must meet
with God's Son there, because the temple typified meeting with
God incarnate. The temple was a picture of the
body of Christ. Christ was Immanuel. You know
what the message that came in Isaiah 7 verse 14, a virgin shall
be with child and shall bear a son and shall call his name
Immanuel. What does that mean? God with
us. Say unto the cities of Judah,
he says later on, behold your God. Look, look, you people here
in this little corner of the world, there, that man walking
is your God. And this is symbolising, this
temple is symbolising heavenly communion between God and his
people. You know, fast forward to the
end of time, beyond the end of time, into Revelation 21 and
verse 22, where John, the same apostle, writes this. And he's
looking in heaven, he's looking at the reality of heaven. that
is our hope if we're true believers. And he says, I saw no temple
therein. Surely in the heaven of God there's
a temple, isn't there? Yes, there is. But he saw none.
For the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.
God manifest in the Lamb of God. They are the temple of it. They
are the meeting place between redeemed sinners and their redeeming
God. And here comes God in Christ
to His own people here in Jerusalem. John 1 verse 11, He came unto
His own. He came into His own creation.
He came to His own covenant people and His own received Him not.
The Jews, who were his own covenant people, he came to them, but
they rejected him right in front of their eyes. And the temple
also symbolized believers individually. You know that? What does it symbolize? This temple that he's clearing.
It symbolizes believers individually. Know ye not, says Paul to the
Corinthians, that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit
of God dwelleth in you. Each one of you believers, individually,
you are the temple of God. And as living stones in the temple,
it symbolizes the church. Look at Ephesians chapter two.
Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 19, now therefore, ye are no
more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens. You Gentiles,
he's writing to, you're no more strangers and foreigners, but
fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God and
are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all
the building, temple, temple, all the building, fitly framed
together, groweth into an holy temple unto the Lord, in whom
ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through
the Spirit. 1 Peter chapter 2, 1 Peter chapter
2, verse 4, to whom coming Christ, as unto a living stone, disallowed
indeed of men, the Jews, but chosen of God and precious. Ye
also, individually, each one of you, as lively stones, living
stones, are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to
offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore, also it is contained
in the scripture, behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone,
elect, precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be
confounded. Do you see this picture? This
is what the temple symbolised. God symbolically dwelt with Israel
in the stone temple in Jerusalem, and in the same way he dwells
in his church. At Pentecost, After Christ had
accomplished redemption and returned to eternal glory, the Holy Spirit
demonstrated His presence, not in the temple, but in flames
of fire on the heads of 120 disciples waiting for His coming. This was the church. This was
God's temple of living stones, which replaced that which was
symbolical. And not just for then, but for
now, today, the day in which we live. However small and scattered
the church may appear, it is the temple of God. It is where
the Spirit of God dwells with His people. And here at Passover
in Jerusalem, in this ceremony, this feast, which demonstrates
the propitiation, the turning away of the wrath of God against
sin with blood, the blood of the Lamb of God, the blood of
the Passover Lamb. And it sanctifies that which
is naturally unholy. And Christ here clears the temple
of defilement in His authority as God, as He must sanctify His
people and His church. Christ sanctifies His church. Hebrews 13, 12. Wherefore Jesus
also, that He might sanctify the people who are sinners, who
are defiled, that He might sanctify, make holy the people with His
own blood suffered outside the gate. God will not dwell in an
unholy place. He must clear its sin and make
it holy as He is holy. And so we read in Ephesians,
Paul speaking about the church, that he might present it, the
church, to himself. A glorious church, not having
spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and
without blemish. These things are written, remember,
that you might believe and that in believing you might have life
through his name. That you might believe that Jesus
is the Christ and have life through his name. So then let's come
to the last few verses, 18 down to 25. We read earlier about the Jews
rejecting him and saying, well, what sign do you give us? And
talking about belief and unbelief, and many believed on him, verse
23. Many believed in his name when
they saw the miracles he did at that Passover feast. But Jesus
did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men. He knew
what was in man. He needed not that any should
testify of man, for he knew what was in man. He knew what man
was really like. He knew that man had a heart
that was sinful above all things and desperately wicked, deceitful.
That's what he knew. He knew all that about man. You
see, all that professes belief is not necessarily true belief.
All that glitters, as they say, doesn't turn out to be gold.
Not all profession of belief is true saving faith. The Jews rejected Jesus. He came to his own and his own
received him not. Verse 18, what sign showest thou
unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Show us a sign
of authentication, that you have the authority from heaven to
do these things, is what they're saying. Had they not just seen
a miraculous sign? Had they not just seen Him in
the power and the consuming fire of God clear the leaven of sin
and corruption from the temple? He says to them, effectively,
he says, there'll only be the sign of Jonah given. Look at
Matthew 12. Well, you don't need to turn
to it, I'll turn to it. And verse 38, certain of the
scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we
would see a sign from thee. But he answered and said unto
them, an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign,
and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of the prophet
Jonas. For as Jonah's was three days and three nights in the
world's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three
nights in the heart of the earth. What's he speaking about? He's
speaking about redemption that he would accomplish. He says
to them, they say, what sign will you show? Only the sign
of Jonah is effectively what he's saying. He says, they're
standing in the temple and he says, destroy this temple and
in three days I will raise it up. What? destroy this pile of
stones? No, it tells us later, he spake,
verse 21, he spake of the temple of his body. What's he saying?
In the building that symbolized him, God, in his flesh, communing
with man on this earth, he says, destroy this temple, meaning
of his body, for the purpose of redemption, and in three days
I will raise it up in resurrection. You see, he's speaking to them
in parables even then, and why did he speak in parables? That
hearing they might not hear, and that seeing they might not
see. You know, blessed are you, said Jesus to his disciples,
all these others have not seen anything, but you're blessed
for your eyes have seen. He's speaking of the temple of
his body, destroyed and broken, of His blood being shed, of justice
being satisfied, of sins being forgiven, of sinners cleansed
and made the righteousness of God in Him, and justified in
His resurrection. He was lifted up for our transgressions
and raised again for our justification, says Romans 4.25. Here's God
in flesh, in the middle of time, when the fullness of the time
had come. Here is the promised seed of the woman, made of a
woman, come to bruise Satan's head and recover God's kingdom
to God. Fulfilling all of the Old Testament
symbolism before their eyes, the eyes of the Pharisees, the
eyes of the ordinary Jews, the eyes of the disciples, he called
to himself. And you might ask the question,
as Isaiah does in Isaiah 53, Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the
Lord revealed? Belief unto eternal life. Who has believed the report?
Who has believed the gospel preached? Who has believed what they saw
the Lord Jesus Christ do? Answer, very, very few. How hard,
how blind, his human nature. Do you know even his disciples
didn't really believe until look at verse 22. Wherefore then when
he was risen from the dead his disciples remembered that he
had said this unto them and they believed the scripture and the
word which Jesus had said. Here they did not believe in
what Jesus had come to accomplish. They hadn't got eyes to see But
doesn't he say in verse 23, many believed? Yes, he does. But this
just appears as though a belief of a human reasoning kind, of
a mental assent to what their eyes saw. But look at 24, again,
Jesus did not commit himself to them, because he knew all
men and needed not that any should testify of man, for he knew what
was in man. He knew what was in man. He knew
the deceitful heart that was there. He knew the willing submission
to Satan's lies that was there by nature. He knew the hypocrisy
and selfishness that was there. So how should anyone believe? These are written that you might
believe. that Jesus is the Christ, and in believing you might have
life in his name. How should anyone believe unto
the saving of their soul, unto eternal life? It's like the camel
and the eye of a needle. You know, later on in his ministry,
Jesus says it's easier for a rich man It's easier for a camel to
go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter
heaven. The camel and the eye of the needle, and they all said,
well, it's impossible. Who then can be saved? Nobody
can possibly be saved because the heart of man is too deceitful
and too wicked. And he said, it's impossible
with man, but with God, all things are possible. And I'm jumping
ahead, but you go into John chapter three and you read, you must
be born again. The spirit Bloweth the wind,
bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof,
but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth.
So is every one that is born of the Spirit. Ye must be born
again. The Spirit of God must come and
give life. And at Pentecost, at Pentecost,
multitudes did believe. when the Holy Spirit came upon
that church. Multitudes did believe, thousands
believed and were saved, and were shown that Christ had accomplished
their redemption. And because of Holy Spirit making
alive, quickening, they believed the fact of accomplished redemption,
and rested in it, and rejoiced in it. And the question we ask
is, do you believe? Do you believe? Perhaps you see
something of the truth of God displayed in Christ. And you
feebly say, like that man did, Lord, I believe. And a bit like
the well-meaning disciples, yes, we believe. Help thou mine unbelief. What can you pray? Pass me not,
O gracious Saviour. Hear my humble cry. Whilst on
others thou art calling, do not pass me by. But take comfort
from this. If God gives you a desire to
seek him, then he will not let you seek him in vain. And this
is how we round these things off. God says, Isaiah 45 verse
19, I said not unto the seed of Jacob, seek ye me in vain. Seek the Lord while he may be
found. Call upon him while he is near.
Seek and ye shall find is what he says. Amen.