Turn to John chapter 10. This is where Bruce has been.
He's not here yet. He's in John chapter 10. for the Bible class, the Bible
lessons. And I must confess, I read ahead. I was accusing Nathan, I'm preaching
a message and then he's looking ahead. I said, no, stay there. Well, I was reading ahead and
I got hogtied with the last two verses. This to me, these last two verses
in John chapter 10, if we were going to decide what our epitaph
would be, our final words upon our headstone, perhaps there's
none better than this. John the Baptist has been dead.
Some of the writers say three years. He's, he's, he's not in,
uh, he's with the Lord. He's not alive at this time in
his writing. How will you and I be remembered?
You know, I look at, you know, gravestones, some of these monuments
that people put on their stones or on these huge obelisks. I
guess they got money. And so they want to be remembered
in death like they were in life. But usually people, they die
how they live. They're alone. If they don't
understand the gospel, that's how they die, usually during
life. If they don't know the truth,
that's how they usually die. So how will you and I be remembered?
You know, I've seen them, you know, a loving father, faithful
husband, stuff like that. And there's nothing wrong with
those things. But as I said, John's not here
anymore. He's not here right now and he's not here when this
was written. But look at what it says. Regarding John the Baptist,
and this should be said of every believer. First of all, there were 30 to
39. Therefore they sought again to
take Christ, but he escaped out of their hand and Christ went
again, went away again beyond Jordan in the place where John
at first baptized. And there he abode. I read one
commentator and they said, where you found, where you found, where
John was baptized and where you found success, oftentimes you'll
find it again. I think about my lovely wife at Sunny Hill. The Lord was gracious to her
there. So I'll, you know, I didn't know he was going, she would
be my wife, but that's where she became my wife too. So you know,
sometimes Go back, it's not superstition. Go back to where you've had success.
And look at what it says. And many resorted unto Christ. Many resorted unto Him and said,
John did no miracle, but all things that John spake of this
man, Christ, were true. And many believed. on him there. Wouldn't that be, I mean, wouldn't
that be one of the best things that someone could say about
you as they're standing over your grave? I mean, yeah, he,
you know, he was an okay teacher. He didn't have any extraordinary
gifts. It wasn't anything, you know,
there's other teachers in the same region that he never got
teacher of the year award. He did no miracles. There wasn't
anything about him that was special. But you know, when we got to
sit down and we got to talk about Christ, I looked up what he said. I was like a Berean. I searched
the scriptures. And you know what? He was right. He was right. What else? What more could we
ask? Every time we speak. Of Christ in his gospel. Is it true? To the best of our
understanding from the scriptures, is it true? John did no miracle. Now, this was no slam against
John, but it was a further confirmation of the supremacy of Christ. Because
John said, he must increase, but I must decrease. You remember
him saying that? John also said, I am not worthy
to unloose the shoelace. I'm not, I'm not, he's prefer,
he, he, that comes after me is preferred before me. I'm just
quoting, I've just got scriptures and I'm quoting what he said.
He's coming after me, but he's preferred before me. That's basically
what they say. He didn't do any miracles, but
Christ must have the preeminence. I baptize you with water, said
John, but he's going to do it with the Holy Spirit, with fire. John said, he's the lamb of God
who takes away the sin of the world. I am just the forerunner. That's all. And Jean-Claude and
I, we were talking about this one John the Baptist, and I mean,
it's almost a better example than Paul because he was only
here for a short time preparing the way. And if you came to me
and you said your ministry is only gonna last three or four
years, I'm not sure I'd even mess with it. You think about
it, because unfortunately, you know, the ego gets in the way.
It's like John Clow says, the ego and all these other things
get in the way, and we want to see results. John's, he's like,
you know what? He must increase, I must decrease. How often have we said that?
How often do we mean it? But I love what it says. John,
it is said of John, all things he spake regarding Christ We're
true. This is indeed what we desire
to have said of us as we speak. Of whom we speak. May it be the
truth concerning Christ, not necessarily. Church discipline,
though these are all these, all these areas I'm about to say
they are true and proper in their proper setting. Not church history. not the words concerning the
church fathers, not Bible trivia or facts. But when we speak,
let us tell all who will listen the truth about Christ. The truth about Christ. For this, the Lord honors, and
this is what he uses to save sinners. He uses the truth. You're not going to be like a
friend that I had one time that he went into a teepee, and I've
told you this story before, he went into a teepee, you know,
out in Oklahoma somewhere, no truth anywhere, and he had a
spiritual experience. I don't doubt that. I'm not sure
what he was smoking, but I know he had a spiritual experience. And you hear people, well, I
can find God down by the riverbank. Yeah, he's the God of all creation,
but if you don't hear any truth, he's not going to come out and
speak to you from nothing. He's gonna use his truth. And
that's why it says, John did no miracles, but all things that
John spake of this man were true. When they compared scriptures,
when they compared those scrolls, those Old Testament scrolls to
what John had said, who he would be and what he would do, which
is what we're gonna look at, it was true. It was true. In John chapter 1 in verse 29,
we won't turn there, John says, Behold the Lamb of God. This
is one of the things he said about Christ. Behold the Lamb
of God. The Lamb of God. That He, Christ,
is the official and acceptable sacrifice of God. He's one that
the Father will receive Thus all who are in him only he receives
the Lamb of God that signifies an atonement It signifies the
day of atonement it signifies Substitution it signifies sin
Because all the Jews there, they knew you brought a lamb. When
you had the sin offering, or when you taught, you know, sin
and God had to be appeased. They understood the fact that
sacrifices were needed. And when he said, the lamb of
God, that meant something. It meant more to them than it
does to us today. The lamb of God, this one who is holy, harmless,
and undefiled, yet separate from sin. And it pictures the Lamb.
They pulled that first one out. They set it aside, I think, for
several days to look at it. Make sure there was no physical
deformities. They could see that. Make sure
there was no internal deformities before they sacrificed it. And
the Jews understood. John understood what he was saying.
He was speaking the truth. The Lamb of God. He came because
we are such great sinners. He came to honor and glorify
the Father. He came to give us the needed
perfect righteousness that we must have. It's got to come from
outside of us. Sacrifice that land for on behalf
of the family that brought it. They understood that. In Luke, you look at Luke, Matthew,
Mark, and Luke, and you look at all the things that John said,
and one of the other things he said, a man cometh. A man cometh. Or the man cometh. The Israelites were looking for
a king. They were looking for somebody to take them out from
under bondage. And the king, a man, like Deuteronomy
said, came. And they did not recognize
him. They were expecting a king. Well,
he was a king. His kingdom was in this world. By man, sin entered
in the world. By man, the God-man righteousness
will come. The man Christ Jesus. This shows
us the voluntary and substitutionary work of Christ. He was fully
tempted like a man, as a man, like us, yet never sinned. John
the Baptist is pointing to him. He was a man, so he was fully
able to redeem. Salvation is not offered to the
angels. Salvation is not offered to dogs and cats and any of the
animal kingdom. Man sinned in the garden. Man
must be redeemed. How is that going to happen?
A man cometh. I believe that passage is in
Luke. A man cometh. Not only is he tempted in all
points like thus, yet without sin, he is fully able to redeem. He has the right to redeem, like
Ruth in Boaz in the book of Ruth. He's our near kinsman redeemer. He has the authority and power
to redeem. I've told you this example before.
You may have a police officer who has the authority to arrest you, but he doesn't have
the power. He may be, you know, 95 pound
weakling and he's not going to get the job done. Christ has
the authority and he has the power. And all perfection is
required that God demands that we could not. And I believe it's in Luke again
and he says that he is the son of God. And He will set forth the Holy
Spirit. And we shall all be taught of
God. He is the Son of God. He's declared the Lamb of God.
He's declared to be the Son of God. It also says of Him that of His
fullness, we've all received grace for grace. These are the
things that John has said. And the things that he has said,
comparing scriptures with scriptures, are true are true of His fullness. We have received grace for grace. We shall in the fullness of time
receive the grace of God purely freely and unmerited. And as the scripture says as
he is in this world, so are we were complete in him. We don't
go about to try to get more great, or try to produce, or recommend
ourselves to God by our works of supposed righteousness, which
are unrighteousness. We've received a gift. It's free. Gift of God's grace. Grace for
grace. It's not something that we conjured
up, not something that we merited or worthy of. We're received
by adoption. without debt, without merit,
and without a cause in us, but by His free, sovereign grace,
and only by such free, sovereign grace. I love, the book is Body
of Divinity, it's by Thomas Watson, and he has about a 10-page article
on it on adoption. It's one of the most beautiful
things I've ever read. And he uses his old England, the orphanage. Now we don't have it this way,
so you've got to step back and realize the time he's writing.
This is how it was done back then. And he said, you go into the orphanage and
you look at the children and you pick which one you would
like to adopt. That was how they did it in England.
And then there were certain things, forms, and everything had to
be filled out. But here's the setup. Here's the The gracious
adoption by God the Father through Christ the Lord. He comes into
the orphanage. We're without father. Without
mother. Without love. And there's kids
running around. And there's one kid in the corner. The meanest. The ugliest. Nobody wants him. Nobody wants
this woman. And that person says, that's
the one I want. That's the one I want. Like Ezekiel 16, we were cast
out to the loathing of our person. Unswaddled. Nobody loved us. Nobody cared for us. Surely we're
going to die. We have died in Adam. And it
says, then I walked by in the time of love, in the time of
grace. And I gathered you up in my arms,
swaddled you, cleaned you, and cut that umbilical cord. Grace
for grace. And it's owned by His grace. And so this, but all things that
John spake of this man were true. So it is with all who believe
we have heard the message of God's grace, the free love in
his son. Someone told us that we read
it, we heard the truth and all scriptures testify of him. And
he says, search the scriptures, for in them you think you have
eternal life, and they are they which testify of me. And we quit,
we quit looking at this book as merely facts, or historical
document, or something to be trivialized over, or knowledge
to be acquired and not practiced. We quit looking at it that way,
and we look in this book to see Christ. Because that's the only
thing that's gonna do us any good. That's the only thing. because it shows our need. Every
time we go to this book, we ask God, we ask the Holy Spirit of
God's grace to enlighten us and to further show us what we are
and what He is. First, we see, first of all,
things in this book, they are true regarding Him, the person
who speaks for God tells someone else the truth. They're not making
it up. It's like I said, the preacher
is just telling back. This is a record. It's what John
said in 1 John. We have this record and we're
just telling it back. We're not making up things. And
preachers today, if they would just quit making up stuff and
quit being concerned about numbers and impressing people and trying
to have the preeminence and simply preach Christ and leave it be. Leave it be. The experience that we have exceeds
the report. And oh, how marvelous Christ
is to our souls. We see Him and then by His grace,
He somehow puts it in our heads and then drops down 12 inches
to our heart. And it's the most wonderful thing.
You can't fully express the experience of God's grace. So when the believer
compares what is heard with the Word of God, because if the person
is called of God and the person is used of God, he's using this
book. He's using it correctly. He's
not twisting it like it said later in the New Testament. They're
arresting it to their own destruction. He's not afraid of the Word.
I don't understand everything about predestination, but I'm
not afraid of predestination. That's one thing, personally,
one thing about Rondon. I appreciate it. It's like, you
may not understand everything, but he's not afraid of what's
in there. He's turning to look. And I've been there. Some preachers,
they're like, I'm not going to preach that. It's right in the
text, but I'm going to skip it. Well, I'm not going to read that.
I'm not afraid of John 3.16. It's John 3.16. It's abused horribly. But let us not let those who
abuse God's Word rob us of our joy of every jot and tittle of
this book. So we compare what we're hearing
to the Word. We don't argue with it. We don't
try to make it fit our theological persuasion. We simply believe
it. Believe it. We're our own worst
enemies. We get too far ahead of ourselves. We get supposedly
too intellectual. Or we try to say, well, this
is what this is saying. We read the book. We don't argue about
it. We don't argue over it. We just
simply believe it. He's the Christ. He's above us
and over us. He is ruling and reigning in
righteousness. And basically, He's our all in
all. He's our all in all. Now, what's the end result of
all of our efforts to glorify God and to be honest and straightforward
with the Word? Verse 42. And many believed on Him there. That's all we want. We want to
glorify God, but I think We're past the point of, well, you
know, I don't want to compromise. You're not going to compromise.
You understand the truth. You may not understand every jot and
tittle. You're going to honestly seek to help your neighbors,
your friends, all the people you come in contact with. You're
simply going to be honest with what you know about the grace
of God. And you're going to just simply
tell them. Unfortunately, in this country,
it's pretty difficult. Africa, they don't listen to about anybody
that come in. They have some Armenian come
in, and then they'll have a grace preacher come in. And I'm not
going to go there for Armenians. Just look before me. You know
what? If you have the truth, don't withhold it. Just tell
it. Just tell it. The first funeral I did, the
very first funeral, just wasn't pastured very long. Somebody
died. I'm like, oh boy, and I don't like funerals and I really don't
care for weddings, but it's whatever, it's a public service, whatever
you want to say. They had already, the family
came in. I never met the family. They
came in, it was Opal Chronister that came in and they had already
set up a Methodist preacher to have the funeral. And I went,
I went to the hospital. She had already passed away.
They were getting, and I wrote a little note. a quote from Spurgeon
or something, and I just left it there for them. Well, it moved
the daughter, and she said, well, we would like to have you speak.
You know, you were her pastor. And I said, that's fine. Well,
I didn't know they were going to have somebody else. You know
what? He didn't preach the truth. I
don't know what he talked about. But you know, he was really kind
to me. Old man. I said this at my first
funeral. He was very kind to me. And for
that, I'm thankful. I could not undo what he said.
So I just simply stood up, 5-10 minutes and just told people
the truth. But that does not negate, this
old guy, he was friendly to me. He wasn't. Oh, stay away. If that's the
case, we might as well just build a little monastery. Or actually,
better yet, we'll just meet here and have a communion. It could
have a commune. No. That way we'll all get good
feet. We'll get fed very well, you
know. No. You are where you're at, at the
neighborhood, in the country, where you're at, where you're
at, to be a light. And you know what? Unless somebody
says, I don't want, which we've had happen, I don't want to hear
that nonsense, it's wrong, don't talk to me about that again.
Unless they say that, you wipe the dust off your feet, but you
still, you see them on the street, how you doing? Because it could
be when you tell them the truth about Christ, They may believe. They may be
one of the elect. They may have faith. They may
be given faith in Christ. Remember, John was already dead. God's word will not be unsuccessful. God still uses men's writings and sermons, though
they're gone. He's still using Spurgeon. He's
still using Scott Richardson. He's still using Tommy Robbins.
He's still using Calvin. He's still using because if it's
what they're saying is the truth. If it's according to this book. It's God's Word. We need to preach
it. We may not be able to perform
miracles. But may it be said of us. When we spoke of Christ, the
truth was heard. And you know, somebody said,
you better be careful what you say. Somebody may believe you.
So I just assume it not be about economics. I just assume it not
be about whatever I've got my opinion about. I would hope. that it would be the truth about
Christ and Him crucified. Nathan, would you close us please?