And just as you're turning to
John chapter three, we're going to be reading from verse 22. Just as you're turning there,
I want to perhaps set the picture for you a little bit. This morning,
I'm going to be making three assumptions about you all. I trust you won't think that's
too presumptuous of me making assumptions about you, but I
want to make three assumptions about you this morning. I am
going to assume that all of you want to go to heaven when you
die. I'm going to assume that all
of you want to go to heaven when you die. I'm also going to assume that
not all of you are sure if you will go to heaven when you die. I'm going to assume that you're
not all sure if you will go to heaven. And I'm going to assume
that some of you are afraid to die in case you don't go to heaven. So these are three assumptions
that I'm going to make And on the basis of those assumptions,
I'm going to read some verses to you which in some cases may
actually aggravate your fear and your anxiety about this matter. And let me just tell you that
I'm not reading these verses in any way to taunt you in those
anxieties. but I'm reading them because
it is my hope and it is my prayer that these verses will be a help
to you and that what we say this morning will be a comfort to
you and a comfort to your heart and soul, a comfort to your mind
as you reflect upon some of the things that are happening in
the world around about us, some of the vulnerabilities that we
all have, the evident frailty that is part of our humanity,
our natural bodies, and our health. And I pray that the Lord will
be pleased to use these verses to speak to our hearts and to
give us comfort if we have fears about our health, fears about
our mortality, and more importantly, fear about our eternal destination. So I would like you to be quiet
for a little while, to pause and reflect and to contemplate
upon some of the things that the Word of God has to say to
people like you and like me this morning. In Psalm 119, and this
is not where I'm asking you to turn but I just want to mention
this verse to you. In Psalm 119, I think it's verse
130. It says there, the entrance of
thy words giveth light. And that's what we're going to
be looking at this morning. The words of Scripture, the words
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the psalmist says, the entrance
of thy words. giveth light, it giveth understanding
unto the simple. And I hope that the Lord will
give us this morning some element, some degree of simplicity as
we enter into these thoughts, that these words will come to
us as powerful words, words as it were with that apostolic authority,
by which our hearts might be comforted, our fears dissipated,
and the Lord Jesus Christ might be revealed to our spiritual
sight as the way, the truth, and the life for men and women
in need like us. So we're going to read John chapter
3. and we're going to read from
verse 22. John chapter three and verse
22. After These things came Jesus and his
disciples into the land of Judea, and there he tarried with them
and baptised. And John, that's John the Baptist,
was also baptising in Aeon near to Salem, because there was much
water there, and they came and were baptised. for John was not yet cast into
prison. Then there arose a question between
some of John's disciples and the Jews about purifying. And
they came unto John and said unto him, Rabbi, he that was
with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou bearest witness, behold,
the same baptiseth, and all men come to him. And John answered
and said, A man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven. Ye yourselves bear me witness
that I said I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him. He that hath the bride is the
bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom which standeth
and heareth him rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice.
This my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must
decrease. He that cometh from above is,
he that cometh from above is above all. He that is of the
earth is earthly and speaketh of the earth. He that cometh
from heaven is above all. And what he hath seen and heard,
that he testifieth, and no man receiveth his testimony. He that
hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true. For he whom God hath sent speaketh
the words of God, and God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto
him. The father loveth the son, and
hath given all things into his hand. He that believeth on the
son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the son
shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. This morning I want to take this
final verse as the verse that we think about. And I want to
emphasise this little phrase that we have before us here.
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life. That's what we all long for. That's my assumption this morning,
that we all want to go to heaven. We all want to experience this
everlasting life. But the first thing that I want
to do as we think about the message this morning, is I want to be
a little bit negative. Indeed, I would like to take
a wrecking ball to the notion that believing in the Lord Jesus
Christ to everlasting life, believing in the Lord Jesus Christ in order
to get to heaven is a simple matter of our will, or a simple
matter of our choice. It is not. It is not. And I want you to be clear on
this point this morning, because I fear that there are millions
of people in this world who have believed in the sense that they
have made a mere calculation of their mind, a mere decision
of their will. They have said in some way, yes,
I believe in Jesus. I believe in Jesus. I believe
in God. I believe in God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. But those individuals
having made that mere statement, that mere abstract statement,
that undefined notional statement that they believe in Jesus are
no nearer heaven for their trouble. than had they never made that
statement at all. That's my concern this morning,
that we realise that this idea of believing on the sun to everlasting
life, believing on the sun in order to go to heaven is just
a simple matter of saying, yes, I believe. It's not. Millions
have believed and are no nearer heaven. in that free will way. Listen to this rather solemn
verse from James chapter 2 and verse 19. Thou believest that
there is one God, thou doest well. The devils also believe
and tremble. and there are many supporting
verses that I could use in order to emphasize this point. Indeed, in Luke chapter 4 and
verse 41, we're told that during the Lord Jesus Christ's ministry,
when the Lord was there and he was performing his miracles,
he was healing the sick, we're told that the devils came out
of many. And when the devils came out
of many people, they were crying out and they were saying, thou
art Christ, the Son of God. And he rebuking them, suffered
them not to speak, for they knew that he was Christ. These devils
knew that he was Christ. People say, if only we know Christ,
if only we know Christ, then that's all that we need to go
to heaven. These devils knew that this was Christ, and they're
not in heaven today. And then 4, chapter 4 of Luke,
in verse 34, we discover there of a man who said, Let us alone. What have we to do with thee,
thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us?
I know thee. Who thou art? The Holy One of
God. And another man who said, When
he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and with a loud voice said,
what have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou son of God most high? I beseech thee, torment me not. Absolutely, the devils know and
believe who the Lord Jesus Christ is. And that is not what gets
them into heaven. In Acts chapter 16, we also are
told that there was a time when Paul and Silas were ministering
in Philippi and there was a lady followed after them who also
was possessed of a devil. And she cried out, these men
are the servants of the Most High God, which show unto us
the way of salvation. The devil knows apostles and
preachers as well as knowing who the Lord Jesus Christ is. And this notion that faith is
just a simple acquiescing to the concept or the proposition of
who Jesus Christ is, is a lie that will damn millions of souls. You who want to go to heaven,
you who don't know if you will go to heaven, you who are afraid
to die, you need to know that the mere acquiescing to this
abstract notion that you believe in Jesus is not sufficient to
take you to glory. And I think that the reason why
you have doubts this morning about your soul's eternal well-being,
I think the reason why you are afraid to die in case you don't
go to heaven is that you know because you've been there, because
you've tried this idea of free will religion, and you've found
it to be the empty well that it is. And let me tell you something
more positive, having said those negative things to you. I believe
that this is one reason why I can have hope for your soul today. The Lord Jesus Christ has brought
you past the nonsense of mere superficial religion and all
the claims that it makes. And he has brought you under
this morning the gospel that saves souls. And I believe that
to the extent that the Lord has mercifully done that for you,
I can have hope for you that you will hear that message of
grace, that message of mercy, and you will be directed to true
faith in Jesus Christ by God the Holy Spirit. So let us forget
the free will, self-assured assertions of the Arminians who say, just
believe, just believe, and you don't know what you're believing
in. And let us remember what scripture tells us, that those
whom God is calling to himself, those whom God seeks to worship
him, must worship him in spirit and in truth. and realize that
that spirit and truth speaks of being spiritual and being
knowledgeable. It speaks of the Holy Spirit
applying the truth of the gospel to our hearts, that divine things
have to come together in the mind of God. that there is a
spirit and there is a truth, and that when these two are combined
in the heart of an individual, then there is life, and then
there is peace with God, and then there is a good hope of
eternal life in the presence of God in heaven when we leave
this world. Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ,
believing in the Son of God is quite different from that superficial
notion of believing in an abstract idea of Jesus. And this is what I want to show
you from this passage this morning. Let me give you a brief summary
of the circumstances in which the words of John the Baptist
were spoken. It is John the Baptist who is
speaking here in this passage, and his disciples had come to
him. John the Baptist was a man who
was sent before the Lord Jesus Christ came with a ministry all
of his own, and he gathered around him followers. disciples of his
own. So while Jesus had his disciples,
and we know about the 12 disciples, Peter, James, and John, and Andrew,
and Nathanael, the whole number of them, John the Baptist also
had his disciples. And we discovered that the disciples
of John the Baptist and the Jews had had a debate, they were having
a conversation, and the question was to do with purifying or baptism. And I think that perhaps even
in the words that John the Baptist's disciples spoke to John, there
is even a hint of some envy between the disciples of John the Baptist
for their teacher, their leader, John, and the Lord Jesus. because they are suggesting that
now that Jesus and his disciples are baptising, that there are
more people flocking to hear Jesus than there are who are
coming to John. And it seems as if these greater
numbers were causing John's disciples to be a little bit jealous. John's
wise comments, his gracious words corrects the opinion and the
mistake of these men. And he reminds them that he's
not the Messiah. He's not the promised one, the
one that is to come. John was only like a signpost
along the road, pointing men and women to the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, don't you be jealous
for me. Don't you be envious of me. I'm not the Messiah. He
had come as a man appointed with a specific role. And Jesus was
also one who had come appointed and anointed with a specific
role. And John uses a lovely analogy,
a beautiful little analogy, a beautiful picture here to speak about the
fact that he recognised that this Messiah was Jesus Christ. He says, in his picture about
the bridegroom and the bride. He says that the bridegroom,
he is the one that has the bride. He is the one that has the bride,
is the bridegroom. But the friend of the bridegroom,
the best man, if you like, he has joy when he sees the bride
and the bridegroom coming together. The best man rejoices for the
happiness of the bride. and for the happiness of the
bridegroom. The best man longs to see this
union between the bridegroom, his friend, and the bride. And that is a beautiful picture
of how the Lord Jesus Christ came. He is the bridegroom for
his bride, the church, the church who believe in him. And John's
delight, his joy, was to see that union taking place. And
in John chapter 3 verse 30, we read it a little bit earlier,
he says that he, John, must decrease and the Lord Jesus Christ must
increase. That in itself shows us that
this man, John, was a fine man. He had no pride in himself and
As a preacher of the gospel, as a preacher of the Lord Jesus
Christ, he had no greater joy than seeing men and women go
to Christ. And whether his own numbers were
declining, that didn't matter. He just loved to see men and
women going to Christ. And he proceeds to explain who
the Lord Jesus Christ is, and particularly for our purposes
this morning, the importance of the words of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, I say again, John undoubtedly
pointed his own hearers to the Lord Jesus Christ. He knew that
was his role in life. He had been sent to prepare the
way, to point others to the Lord Jesus Christ. In this conversation
that he had with his own disciples, that's exactly what he was doing.
He was pointing his own disciples to the Lord Jesus Christ. He
says, I'm not the Messiah. I'm not the Anointed One. I'm
not the Savior. This is the Savior, and he points
them to the Lord. And I want us to realize this
morning that when we read these verses, John is, after all these
hundreds and hundreds of years, he is pointing You and me. He is pointing us to the Lord
Jesus Christ. He sees this as still his legacy
because he is pointing us to the Saviour, pointing us to the
person of Christ and pointing us to the words of Christ. Just read with me again what
John has to say in this matter. I want to look at verse 31 with
you. So John says, He that cometh
from above is above all. So he's speaking about Christ,
the One who came, the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Son of
God. He that cometh from above is
above all. He's above me, he's above you,
he's above all. He that is of the earth is earthly
and speaketh of the earth. He that cometh from heaven is
above all, and he speaks heavenly things. So verse 32 he says,
And what he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth. The one who
comes from above speaks of the things from above, speaks of
the things that he has seen in heaven, speaks of the things
that he has witnessed at the hand of his father. He speaks
of the things that he has seen and heard that he testifieth,
and no man receiveth his testimony. Only the Lord Jesus Christ received
that testimony, and only those to whom he gave that testimony. He that hath received his testimony
hath set to his seal that God is true. For he whom God hath
sent speaketh the words of God, for God giveth not the Spirit
by measure unto him. The Father loveth the Son, and
hath given all things into his hand. Now you see what John is
saying there. He is saying that everything
that is needful for the salvation of the sinner has been committed
into the hands of Christ. And Christ has come into this
world in order to speak these words. Remember what we said
about the entrance of the words right at the very beginning?
We spoke about the entrance of thy words giveth light. The entering
in of the words of Christ give light and understanding to sinful
men and women. And here we're being told that
the Lord Jesus Christ is that one who has come to speak the
words of God to sinful men and women. So the first point I want
to draw to your attention here with respect to these particular
verses is that the Lord Jesus Christ is preeminent. John is
telling us that the Lord is preeminent. The Lord is unique. The Lord
Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And this one, Christ, who came,
has been given the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, without
measure. No one else has ever had that
before. The Lord Jesus Christ brings
us the words of life. The Lord Jesus Christ gives us
the message of God, and he alone does that uniquely. So that's
the first point, that the Lord Jesus Christ is unique. The second
point is this, that when the Lord Jesus Christ speaks, he
speaks heavenly truth. He speaks of what he has seen
and heard. He speaks about the divine purpose. He speaks about what God's will
is upon this earth. He speaks about what he has seen
and heard and what has been given to him by his Father, to declare
to men and women like you and like me." Indeed, one of the
words or one of the names that the Lord Jesus Christ has is
that he is faithful and true. He is faithful to that task which
he has been given, declaring the word of God, and he is true
to that task. He does it truthfully. No ordinary man could conceive
of such a heavenly message, and no ordinary man could convey
such things. It had to be one who had come
from above. It had to be one who was not
of the earthly, but who had come from the very presence of God,
the God-Man, the Lord Jesus Christ. And furthermore, no man can receive
or believe such things except they are spiritually gifted to
him. So this shows us the importance
of this message. It is both a divine message which
comes through the divine person, Jesus Christ, and it is brought
in power to individuals like you and me by the Holy Spirit
because it is only by the Holy Spirit's gift that we can receive
this message from heaven. And this is an important point,
that no natural man can receive or believe except it is given
to him from above. Regardless of all the big crusades
and the big rallies and the thousands and the tens of thousands that
are supposedly saved by this mere decision of their will,
the scriptures explicitly say that no man can receive everlasting
life. No man can believe to the salvation
of their souls and to that entrance into heaven except it is given
to them from above. Do you remember what the Lord
Jesus Christ said to Nicodemus just earlier in this very chapter? The Lord Jesus Christ said to
Nicodemus, a religious man, a man who knew all about the Old Testament
scriptures, the Lord said to him, I have told you earthly
things and ye believe me not. How shall you believe if I tell
you of heavenly things? And that's what the Lord Jesus
Christ has come to do. He has come as the prophet of
God, not just an ordinary prophet, not a human prophet, not just
like the prophets of the Old Testament or indeed the New,
but he is the prophet. That is one of his roles and
responsibilities from God, to bring the revelation of God.
One of the names of the Lord Jesus Christ is that he is the
faithful and true witness of God. Faithful and true. I saw heaven opened and behold
a white horse and he that sat upon him was called faithful
and true. And I want to stress this. What we have in view here as
far as our believing is concerned, is the message that Jesus brought
from heaven, the message which he declared faithfully and truthfully. He is the witness because he
alone knows what God wants to have declared. Now, what is that
message which the Lord Jesus Christ gives? Well, it is the
gospel. It is the gospel. That is the
message. We call this the gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ because these are the words he spoke. This is the testimony that he
brought. The gospel is not a simple proposal
that is made to people. Believe in Jesus Christ. And
somebody says, well, yeah, I believe in Jesus Christ. You believe
what about Jesus Christ? You believe that he existed?
You believe that he was the son of God? You believe that the
devils, as they believed these things, that he was terrifying
to them, that that's the extent? No, we believe the words that
Christ spoke. We believe the revelation of
truth that the Lord Jesus Christ brought. And John the Baptist,
in these verses, grasped what John the Apostle wrote when he
said, in the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God and
the Word was God. This is the Word that came down
from heaven. This is the message which God
sent to earth. This is the gospel which we preach
today. Peter says of the Lord Jesus
Christ, you have the words of eternal life. Where else are
we going to go? Where are we going to go to find
the words of eternal life? And Jesus said, The words that
I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. It's the words that Jesus Christ
spoke. It's the gospel that Jesus Christ
brought. It's the message which Jesus
Christ reveals that we have to believe in. that we have to trust
upon, that we have to lay our soul's eternal wellbeing upon. It is that message which brings
us into the experience of life and brings us into the knowledge
of everlasting life and that place in heaven with God. John chapter 14, verse 10 says,
the words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, but the
Father that dwelleth in me. And then a little bit later in
that high priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ, he says,
I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me, and they
have received them. What? They've received Christ?
No, they've received the words, the words which Christ gave them,
and they have known surely that I came out from thee, and they
have believed that thou didst send me. This is bigger than
just making a simple declaration that we believe in Jesus. That
is based on ignorance, it is based on uncertainty, it is based
on doubt as to what that whole notion, that whole message is
about. John the Baptist is telling us here. And Paul, a little bit
later, writing to Timothy, he says that the words of Christ
are wholesome words. Wholesome words. Even the words
of our Lord Jesus Christ and the doctrine which is according
to godliness. So I said that there were a couple
of things that I wanted to draw from these final verses of this
chapter. One was that the Lord Jesus Christ
was unique and preeminent and only he could bring this message. And then I said that the second
point was that he spoke heavenly truth. He brought this message
as one who was faithful and true. And here's the third thing that
I want to mention, is that the Lord Jesus Christ is the final
word. He's the last word. Hebrews chapter
one and verse one tells us that God spoke in divers ways, various
ways, in different ways in Old Testament times. But in these
last days, these days in which we live, these last days, He
has spoken unto us by His Son, by the Lord Jesus Christ. And
let me tell you this. There is no other revelation
coming. None. Jesus Christ is the way. Jesus Christ is the way. The
Lord Jesus Christ could say, heaven and earth shall pass away,
but my words shall not pass away. They will never be superseded.
They will never be displaced by some more important message
coming. And there are many people today
in this world, many churches, you know, there are churches
within a stone's throw of where I'm sitting right now who believe
that there have been new revelations. that there have been new prophets
sent that have added to the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
they are wrong. They are deceived and they are
deluded. This one who came from heaven
preeminently, uniquely, this one who gave a faithful and true
declaration of the revelation of God in his gospel, this is
the final word, the last word. Now, where has all this taken
us? Where have these three points
that I've just made taken us in our argument this morning,
in our message this morning? Well, they have brought us to
this place. John the Baptist is telling us
that the Lord Jesus Christ is the uniquely anointed messenger
with God's message, that he is faithful and true in all that
he has declared, and that he is the last word to man. He is showing us the Lord Jesus
Christ as the one whose words have to be believed and trusted. Because John the Baptist says
to us in the 36th verse, he that believeth on the Son, what? He that believeth on the words
that the Son has spoken. Hath everlasting life. That's
the point. He that trusts the Son's message. He that accepts the Son's words. He that believes the Son's gospel. Hath. Has. Hath is just the old English
word for you have it. It's yours. You have this delivered
to you. You have it as a possession.
You have it and it's past tense. If you believe his word, if you
believe his gospel, if you trust his message, you have everlasting
life. Now I'm asking you, you who want
to go to heaven, I'm assuming you all do, you
who want to go to heaven but are unsure if you will, and you
who want to go to heaven and are afraid to die yet unprepared
in case you don't, what is it that you don't believe? about this message that the Lord
Jesus Christ has brought? What is it that you don't believe?
And I'm serious, I'm looking for an answer. Have you heard
the gospel preached? Have you heard sermons declaring
and lifting up the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you heard the Lord
Jesus Christ spoken of as that one who came from heaven, as
that baby in the manger, that perfect one, that holy one, that
one in whom there was no sin, and how he lived a perfect life,
how he was a preacher of the truth, he went about doing good? He lived a holy life before God,
that there was no sin found in him. And yet, despite his words
of grace and mercy, despite his works of healing and blessing
to those in need, he was taken and he was cruelly put to death. Have you heard about these things?
Do you know this message of grace? Do you know this message of the
things that Christ spoke? When the Lord Jesus Christ says
that He is God incarnate, when the Lord Jesus Christ says, I
and my Father are one, do you believe that? Do you believe
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God when He says that He is?
When the Lord Jesus Christ says that he came to accomplish his
father's will, he came to gather his father's people, he came
into the world to seek and to save that which was lost, do
you believe that? Do you believe that the Lord
Jesus Christ came into the world to do His Father's will and to
save that people that His Father had chosen from eternity to lay
His mark upon, to redeem by the precious blood of Jesus Christ?
Do you believe that? Now tell me if you don't. Tell
me if you don't believe that because then at least I know
where we stand. When the Lord Jesus Christ says
that he alone can fulfil God's demands, do you believe it? When he says, I am the way, the
truth and the life, no man cometh unto the Father but by me, is
that true or is it a lie? Is it trustworthy, is it credible,
is it dependable? Can you stake your eternal soul
upon that statement? You who want to go to heaven,
do you have another way to get there? Have you got an alternative
route? Do you think that you can work
your own way? Do you think that you can turn
over a new leaf, that you can live a better life, that you
can believe certain things and trust certain things other than
those words which have been declared by Christ? When the Lord Jesus Christ says
that he has successfully achieved his purpose, was he making that
up? When he said, I lay down my life
for the sheep. When he said that he was shedding
his blood, that he died on the cross and declared that the great
work which had been committed into his hands to save the people
of God, to save God's elect from their sin, and declared that
work to be finished. Was he mistaken? Or was he faithful
and true? God will be declared, the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ will be declared in the revelation,
in that day when he comes upon that white horse, in that day
when he gathers his church to be himself, declared to be named
faithful and true. How could he be faithful and
true if he made a mistake when he was on the cross? So I ask you again, is this the
part of Christ's gospel that you don't believe? When the Lord Jesus Christ rose
from the dead and ascended into glory and sat down at the right
hand of God, crowned with glory, is it that part of his message
that you don't believe? I've kind of been, nice and gentle
until now. I've been pleasant Peter until
now, and now I'm going to be pushy Peter. You see, I'm calling
on you to be serious about this message. On the basis of what John the
Baptist has told us here, if you believe this gospel, you
have received his testimony, you have already sealed that
God is true. If you believe these things which
have been declared unto you, if you believe these things,
this is not asking for some abstract experience, some feeling that
you have in your own soul, some emotional reaction or response. I'm asking you if you believe
what Jesus Christ has said, if you believe what Jesus Christ
has revealed. John the Baptist says, if you
believe that testimony, which has been sent to men and women
in this world, you have set to his seal that God is true. And if you have set to the seal
that God is true, having received this testimony, which can only
come by spiritual illumination and spiritual gift, you have
eternal life. Past tense. Do you believe the
gospel? Do you believe Jesus Christ?
Do you believe that he came? Do you believe that he died?
Do you believe that he secured as that unique way of truth and
life and opened that way of acceptance to God? Then you believe the
gospel. Do you want to be in heaven with
the Savior? Believe his words. Believe what
he has said. Believe what he has done. You
have no reason to doubt. You have no ground to fear. This
is eternal life. The Lord Jesus Christ died for
those who believe the gospel. Your eternal salvation is God's
gift. That faith that you have to believe
is God's gift. It is the evidence of his mercy
to your soul. And the Lord Jesus Christ will
receive all for whom he died. Paul says to the Philippians
in chapter one, verse 29, unto you it is given in the behalf
of Christ for his honour to believe on him. Listen, my friend, my faith is
not strong. My faith is little faith. And perhaps your faith is like
my faith, just little. And perhaps you will have battles
to fight. Perhaps you will have opposition
to face. And your faith will struggle
and your faith will seem as if it has been extinguished at times. But then your faith will be like
mine and like the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, even like
the Apostle Peter's faith. And Peter was able to bring those
who were sick and those who were dead back to life because he
realised that it was not his own personal faith that gave
him the strength, but rather it was the Lord Jesus Christ
If you feel that your faith is not strong, if you feel that
you have just little faith, the Lord Jesus Christ said to his
disciples, O ye of little faith, let me ask you a question. Would the faith of Jesus Christ
be strong enough for you? Would Christ's own faith, rather
than your faith, serve your purposes adequately enough? Okay then,
let's hear what the Bible has to say about that. In Galatians
3, verse 22, that the promise, that is the
promise that was made by God in heaven, that the Lord Jesus
Christ heard from his father in the eternal covenant of peace
that he was privy to, that he heard, that he saw his father
construct and produce, the Lord Jesus Christ, that promise which
he received in heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ had faith to believe
that God would accomplish all that promise and fulfil it. So, while the scripture hath
concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus
Christ might be given to them that believe what Jesus Christ
has said. Romans chapter 10 verse 10 says,
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with
the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Let us be as
that man to whom the Lord spoke in his own ministry when he brought
his little one to the Saviour to be healed. The Lord Jesus
Christ said to him, Do you believe? If thou believest, all things
are possible. He said, Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. May the Lord help our unbelief
today, and may he show us the words of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and may he bring us into that experience of his grace and his
mercy, knowing that we stand not upon our own faith, but upon
the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that all that he saw in the
eternal covenant of God's peace and promise and grace has been
accomplished by the Saviour's life and death and bestowed freely
upon all those who believe in his words and his gospel. May
the Lord bless these thoughts to our heart this morning. For
Jesus' sake. Amen.