When a preacher stands and tells
men and women that God loves all men and that salvation is
given to those who decide to love God back, then salvation
becomes a works religion in which the sinner trusts that they were
saved by a decision that they themselves made. And we know that from Scripture,
and we quote this Scripture often from Ephesians 2, 8, For by grace
are you saved through faith, and that's not of yourselves.
Those words there ought to be enough to let us know that the
first thing I said is not so. It's the gift of God. We're saved
by grace. God gives us a grace. God gives
us the faith. It's not of ourselves. It's the
gift of God. Yet men go on believing sadly. Men and women go on believing
this lie because, first of all, it appeals to the flesh. It makes
men feel good as though they somehow participated, had a part
in their redemption. If you feel you've done something
or anything to merit, earn, or deserve the salvation that only
God can give, then friends, you've missed the truth of the Scripture.
You've missed the meaning of the Bible. The lost sinner, now
listen, natural man, a man that's lost, or woman does not want,
by nature, a sovereign God who does as He wills, how He wills,
and whom He wills, because they like the idea that they did something
that caused the favor of God. I'm talking about me, too, before
God saved me. Oh, I used to be one of the most
proud. Raised in religion, proud of the fact that I had decided
to follow Jesus. I'm so glad that God revealed
the truth to me and showed me that was a sham and a lie or
I may be in hell today. And I say this because each and
every one of you know people that with their whole heart believe
this and they get fighting mad when you try to tell them that
they had nothing to do with their redemption. People don't like
that. And you see, the teaching of
God's Word is in total opposition. It's just in total opposition
to that kind of thinking and believing. And unfortunately,
unless God and sovereign grace intervenes in men and women's
life, they'll never change their mind. I honestly hate to hear
men and women say, I have accepted Jesus into my life. That just
crawls all over me. That makes it sound as though
you made the difference. I accepted. Therefore, God saved
me. You see, our only hope of redemption
is that God accepted us in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the
only hope that you and I have. And others say, I gave my heart
to Jesus. God doesn't have any interest
in that desperately wicked and deceitful thing that you call
a heart. Matter of fact, salvation is
God removing your heart of stone and replacing it with a heart
of flesh. Heart surgery's got to be done.
And the heart that we had that beat some pants after God, again,
was His gift to us. Not anything that we give to
Him. Anything that insinuates at all that we give or do something
to merit God's salvation is a lie. A new heart also will I give
you, God said. And a new spirit will I put within
you. And I'll take away the stony
heart out of your flesh, and I'll give you a heart of flesh."
And men and women like to say things like, I found Jesus. The Lord Jesus has never been
lost. And I'm not trying to be humorous,
friends. It's the sinner who's lost. That's
why they're called lost sinners. The Lord Jesus Christ has never
been lost. God cannot be lost. When false
prophets tell people that God loves everybody, And it's the
sinner's acceptance of God's love by a free will decision
that brings about their salvation. But I'm going to tell you, that's
a false salvation. God can only be worshipped in
spirit and in truth. That's what Christ told the Samaritan
woman at the well. Those that worship God will worship
Him in spirit and in truth. You cannot know God truly, but
in the truth as the Bible declares Him. And as I said to those of
you that were here for Sunday school this morning, we've been
studying the attributes of God. Who God is. What's His characteristics. And that's to know God in truth. To trust a false God is to have
a false salvation. We don't accept or choose Christ
in order to be saved. We bow to Him as Lord and Savior. There's a big difference. But
that's not salvation. Salvation is bowing to Him as
Lord and Savior. We take sides with God against
ourselves. I say that often. Many men and
women do not do that. We own up to who and what we
are and we humbly bow to the truth of Scripture which declares
that God is the author and the finisher of our faith. It began
with Him and ends with Him, and everything in between is His
preservation and keeping of us. Salvation is of the Lord. That
doesn't mean that He saves us and leaves us to ourselves and
hopes that we work everything out right. No, that means that
He saves us, He keeps us, and He sees us to the end. The believer
acknowledges and believes that God gave his son as their only
substitute, and the sinner gives all praise and glory to God for
it. What do we give? We give honor, glory, and praise. God gave His Son, and we give
our praise and worship to Him for doing so. And God loves only
those that love Christ, His blessed and beloved Son. We love Him
because He first loved us, John said. Now let me ask you, I'm
going to get into my passage here in John 5 in just a moment,
but I want to ask you three or four questions. Do you love the
true Gospel? The good news of redemption,
that's what the Gospel means, good news. Of how God gave His
only begotten Son for you to die in your place. Does that
mean anything to you or does that mean nothing to you? I want
you to consider that question. It means nothing when you go
about to establish your own righteousness being ignorant of God. It doesn't
mean anything to you if that's what you're doing. Second question,
do you work the worship of Christ around your life? Or do you work
your life around the worship of God's Son? That's an important
question. This thing of worshiping God's
Son mean anything to you? Do you work your life around
worship or do you work worship around your life? If you do not
work your life around the worship of Him, then I seriously wonder
if you love Him at all. As a boy, you didn't have to
beg me to come eat when it was time to eat. Matter of fact,
most of the time I was in the kitchen going, is it ready yet?
God's people want to feed on Christ. They want to hear that
message that feeds their souls. Third question, are you constantly
aware of your unworthiness? Has God shown you just what you
are? And do you rest completely and have total confidence in
the sovereign gift of Christ as your one mediator? As just
one? between God and man. You know
what a mediator is. It's a go-between. The only one
in this thing of salvation. And this is the difference, friends,
between the true love of God in Christ and just the professed
love that will accomplish you nothing in eternal things. Anybody
can say, oh, I love God. Oh, yeah, I believe the Gospel.
But the proof is in the pudding, as the old saying goes. and your
actions will reflect whether or not you love God or not. Do
you put the emphasis on your relationship with Christ on what
you do for Him? Or on what He's done and is doing
for you? That's an important question.
And fourthly, do you desire to please God by turning from your
selfish ways? Or do you simply continue in
sin thinking that grace will continue to abound unto you? Now, if that's the case, then
I'm afraid you may be lost. And the love of God is not in
you. You see, the true child of God... Now listen to me. I'm
not trying to preach works. I'm trying to tell you the truth.
The true child of God hates the sin that so easily besets him
or her. And he strives every single second
of his life to live for the glory of God. And I get so tired of
hearing men and women say, and I used to say it myself, well,
I'm just a sinner. That's what sinners do. That's
not what believers do. They pray. They beg. They cry. They moan that God
give them the grace to live obedient lives to Him who loved us and
gave Himself for us. Even though they'll never attain
it in this life, you and I will never attain that, as we desire
it. We grow in grace, yes. Things
sometimes in certain areas seem to get a little easier for us,
but we'll never attain it. But listen, that doesn't change
the fact that you should desire to be obedient unto God every
second that God gives you on this green earth. With all that
said, turn with me to John 5. John 5. Now in this chapter, the Lord
Jesus Christ had healed an impotent, crippled man at the pool of Bethesda,
and the scripture says it was a certain man, and we know the
significance of that word. It's a distinguishing word, that
it was a certain man. There lay hundreds, maybe thousands
of sick people around that pool, but Christ fixed his eyes on
one man, and he was a certain man. And the Lord Jesus healed
him. And the Jews got their religious
feathers ruffled because Christ healed him on the Sabbath day.
And verse 16 tells us, and I'm going to paraphrase, that they
were so mad that not only did they persecute him, but they
sought to slay him. They were going to kill him for
healing a poor, crippled man who had been that way for most
of his life because the Lord Jesus had done these things on
the Sabbath day. That's how religious and bogged
down with the works of the law these people were. then they
would kill you and think they're doing God a favor. And the Lord
said, again paraphrasing in verse 17, actually using the NIV version,
our Lord said, My Father is always at His work to do this very day
and I too am working. Now I can assure you this, God
who made the Sabbath and Christ who is the Sabbath can do as
they please on the Sabbath. And yet the Pharisees, oh that's
a no-no. And then what made them matter?
What made a matter was not only because he healed the crippled
man on the Sabbath, but that he called God his Father, making
himself equal with God in verse 18. Who does this man think he
is? You remember in another place
in Scripture, they said, is this not Joseph and Mary's son? Friends,
if you've never seen any more than just a man, if you've never
seen any more than just Joseph and Mary's son, you've missed
it. He's the God-man. 100% man, 100% God. Our Lord went on to tell them,
for just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life,
even so the Son gives life to whom He's pleased to give it.
And I might add when He's pleased to give it. It don't matter if
it's the Sabbath or not. He is the Lord of the Sabbath.
Now, we come to verse 37. This is where I want to start
our study. In verse 37, our Lord tells these
self-righteous Jews who gave witness of Him and who He was. You see, the Lord Himself said
that He didn't testify in Himself because it would then cease to
be valid. The Lord is saying that it was
God Himself that testified that He was who He said He was. And that's what He says in verse
37, "...and the Father Himself which hath sent Me hath borne
witness of Me." Oh, when did God do that? Well, on more than
one occasion, the Lord thundered from heaven and said, This is
my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye Him. And the Lord says in the last
part of verse 37, He said, You neither heard His voice at any
time, nor seen His shape. You hadn't heard Him. You hadn't
seen Him. You wouldn't know God if He walked in the room. Men
have not heard what God has said about Christ, His beloved Son,
in the Scriptures. Hebrews 1, it says, in times
past, God spoke through the prophets. Today, friends, God speaks to
us in His Son, in the Word of God. And these men had the Old
Testament, which was full of Christ, typically, and foretold
of His coming. And salvation was obtained by
Old Testament saints the same as it is us today by looking
to Christ in faith. He said, you haven't heard what
God has said about me. You haven't seen. They haven't
seen God, for they altogether perceive God to be like unto
themselves. That's why men miss the Scripture
today. They got this idea that God's somehow like us. I know
the Scripture says He created us in His own image. That says
a spirit. Our life is the spirit within. This body is just a shell. This
coat right here is moving around. If I take it off and throw it
over there, it ain't moving anymore. That's all this body is, just
a shell. And David said in Psalm 50, he said, These things hast
thou done, and I kept silence. I kept silent. Thou know thoughtest
that I was altogether such a one as thyself, but I will reprove
thee, and set them in order before thine eyes. And He will reprove
us now, either in grace, friends, or later in judgment." But get
the notion out of your mind. His ways are higher than the
heavens above our ways. And His thoughts above our thoughts.
And He is nothing. We think He's all together one
as ourself. He's nothing like us. Nothing like us. And in verse 38, our Lord says,
And you have not His word abiding in you. For whom He has sent
Him you believe not. Now men and women, specifically
religious men and women, they quote the Bible. They memorize
great portions of it. I've told you several times about
a man that was a friend of my father's that memorized the whole
New Testament. And later on, I found out that that man committed
suicide. It didn't have anything to do
with knowing God. You can commit as much of this
book to memorization as you want to, but if God don't make it
real and affectionate to your heart, it don't matter. Religious
men and women quote the Bible, memorize it, but they don't have
God's Word abiding in them. For Christ whom God sent, they
refused to believe. And that's what these men did.
And it was so in Christ's day, and it's so in our day. Men and
women will make the Bible out to be about doing something for
God, instead of God doing something for them. Every single time,
unless God show them differently. They desire all the honor and
glory for themselves, but God will not share His glory with
another. Now, I read to you earlier in
Matthew 15 verses 8 and 9 that said, This people draweth nigh
unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips.
That's what we've got going on in a lot of churches today. Oh,
praise the Lord. Oh, thank you, Jesus. Bless His
holy name. It's just lip service. It don't
mean nothing. It's a show. And it's men receiving
honor of one another, which we'll see in a minute. And in verse
9 of Matthew 15, "...but in vain..." or fruitlessly that means. Vain
just means fruitlessly. It's fruitless. "...they do worship
Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Today the
majority of what men preach..." Now listen, and I'm not picking
on religion. I'm trying to show you the difference.
Today the majority of what men preach, what they call doctrine,
is no more than commandments of men. It's not even in the
Scripture. Some of the things, the rules,
the regulations, the creeds, whatever you want to call them
that churches have, nowhere to be found in the Bible. Man-made
doctrine is all it is. Commandments of men. So our Lord
challenges them in verse 39 and He says, search the Scriptures. For in them ye think. Now, we've looked at that verse
before, and we've made a distinction on that word. But He didn't say,
for in them you know you have eternal life. He said, you think
you do. There's a lot of men and women today that search the
Scriptures, and in the Scriptures they think that they have eternal
life. But here's the difference. Christ
said, they are they which testify Me. If you don't see Christ in
the Scriptures, then you think you have eternal life when you
don't. The key is seeing Christ. From the beginning of this book
to the end is a testimony of Christ. They testify of Him,
who He is, what He's done for sinners. And there are many men
and women that search the Scriptures. And as I said, they know the
words. And in these Scriptures they think that they have eternal
life. But friends, they don't. Because
they've not seen that all the Scriptures are they which testify
of Christ. Do you see in the Scriptures
that they testify of Christ? If you do, thank God. Thank God
that He's revealed that to you. And we say this all the time,
no more appropriate time than now to say it again. This is
a hymn book. H-I. It's all about hymn. Paul
said in his letter to the church in Rome in Romans chapter 1,
he said, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be apostle,
separated unto the gospel of God." Now, he's beginning to
tell them something about the gospel of God. He said, I'm a
minister. I've been separated. I've been
set aside to preach this gospel. He said, this gospel is that
which God promised the four by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures.
And then he tells us what it is. He said, concerning his son. Jesus Christ our Lord. That's
what the Gospel is. It's concerning His Son. Christ
is the Gospel! Well, what about where it says,
you know, how we're supposed to live? You can't live right
unless, first of all, you see this is concerning Christ, His
Son. If you don't see that this is
concerning His Son, nothing else will profit you a thing. Christ
is salvation. Has God shown you that? We say
it all the time. We say it again. Salvation is
in a person. You must see this book is concerning
his son or you'll be lost in your sin. And again, our Lord
said in Luke chapter 24, He said, O fools and slow of heart to
believe all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ
to have suffered these things and entered into His glory? It
had been foretold for years. that Christ must suffer. And
then He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things
what concerning Himself. Now if you do not by divine revelation
see that this book is all about Him, then you have yet to see
the good news of the Gospel of God. And if you don't see Him
in this blessed book as your only help of salvation, you'll
never see your need of Him, and you'll not come to Him that you
might have life. You see, trusting Christ is all
that God requires of you. That's all God requires of you.
Men say, well, you know, I need to get my life straight. You
won't do it. All the fitness He requires is
that you feel your need of Him. Do you feel your need of Him?
That's all God requires. And that's what our Lord says
in verse 40. And you will not come to Me that
you might have life. You will not. In another place
He said you cannot come. You don't have the ability. You
know, men want to talk about their will, and there again,
I don't mean to just, you know, rattle on that all the time,
but you will not come. You won't come to me that you
might have life. Now men, when I come to Christ,
because they've not seen that He alone is life eternal, they're
still trying to work salvation out in their own ways, keeping
the law. Doing this, doing that. Not doing
this, not doing that. I work it out myself, thank you
very much. No, you won't. You can't! Their will is not to come to
the only one who can save. Now listen, that's just the truth.
They'll come to church. They'll come to a preacher. They'll
come to a false doctrine, but they will not come to Christ
that they might have life. Only those that have seen that
this book is concerning Him will come. When you see that, you'll
come. Only those that see Him as the
ark of Noah We'll enter into that ark. That ark was Christ. In the ark,
you are safe from God's wrath. The rain falls, the flood has
come, but you're in the ark and you're safe. And unless you see
Him as Noah's ark, you'll never get in that ark. Only those that
see Him as that brazen serpent on Moses' pole that was high
and lifted up will look to Him and live. Only those that see
that that's Him. Typically speaking, that was
Him. And our Lord Himself confirmed it in John 3. He said, "...and
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up." If He's not, friends, there's
no hope for any of us. "...that whosoever believeth
in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." Do you see
how He lifted up? Look to Him and live. Christ
must be lifted up. This is what we do in the preaching
of the Gospel. We lift Him up. We endeavor to
as God enables us. Oh, I wish I could do it much
better than I'm able to. But this morning, I'm trying
to lift Christ up to you. I'm trying to show you that He
is your only hope of being redeemed and reconciled to God Almighty.
And yet, God's got to show you. Only those that see Him as the
bread of life, the bread of heaven, and see Him as the water that
flows from the rock of ages will ever desire to eat and drink
of Him. If you don't see Him as the bread from heaven, you
don't have any interest to eat that bread. You won't have any
interest in drinking from that rock, that rock of ages. That's Christ. Has God shown
you Christ in the Scriptures? Old Testament and new. If He
has, you'll come to Him. I guarantee you will. Verse 41,
and I'll rush. He said, I receive not honor
from men. Now Christ didn't receive the
applause of men. Men received the applause of
men. But Christ didn't receive the applause of men. And instead
of receiving honor from men, He received a great deal of dishonor
from them. Disgrace from men. He made Himself
of no reputation. The honor of men added nothing
to His glory. But those who knew Him and gave
honor to Him, I guarantee you, they received much greater honor
from Him. But God's not dependent upon...
Verse 42, "...but I know you." But I know you. You let that
sink in. that ye have not the love of
God in you. First, we understand that Christ
knows everyone and everything as God. Your heart and thoughts
cannot be hidden from Him. Remember, there's so many times
in the Gospel narratives where He said He perceived what they
were thinking. He didn't say anything. He knew
what they were thinking. He said, You don't have the love
of God in you. He knows everyone and everything.
Your heart and thoughts can be hidden from Him. And speaking
to these self-righteous Jews who did not know Him, He said,
but I know you. And you don't have God's love
in you. Now men can fool me and men can fool you. But they cannot
fool God. He knows all things and He knows
if you have the love of God in you. And in verse 43, He said,
I've come in My Father's name and you receive Me not. And if
another shall come in his own name, him, you will receive. Christ came in His Father's name
doing all that the Father gave Him to do. I always do what the
Father sent Me to do. I've accomplished. what the Father
sent me to do. All that the Father has given
me, I've lost none. He came in His Father's name
doing all that the Father gave Him to do. And they didn't believe
Him. They didn't receive Him. And
I'm going to tell you, instead, they hated Him without a cause. And that's what John 15 says.
But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that's
written in their law. The law that they believed and
put up on a pedestal and made their God. It says that they
hated Me without a cause. And men today hate God without
a cause. In verse 44, he says, How can
you believe which receive honor one of another, and seek not
the honor that cometh from God only? Now, I've been in and apart
of many churches, as I said, that receive honor from one another. Men and women receive honor from
one another. So how can they believe? Oh,
I tell you, if they don't seek the honor, that comes from the
Word of God only. There will never be Christ. In
most religious circles, the Bible is not studied. The preacher
stands up and he tells a little entertaining story and gives
a little moral to the story. That never saved anybody. We
must be like those noble Bereans who received the Word with all
readiness in mind and searched the Scriptures daily whether
those things were so. That's what a child of God will
do. They'll say, show me that again. Where did you find that
when you said that? I have people ask me all the
time, what was that scripture you read? You know why? They
want to know! They want to know! And in verse
45, "...do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There
is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom you trust." Now
I need to hurry here. Christ is not an accuser of man. He's not even the accuser of
the worst of man. Do you remember when that woman
was caught in the act of adultery and they brought her in front
of the The religious Pharisees and the men all stood there and
they said, we've caught this woman in the act. Christ stooped
and he rolled in the ground and her accusers one by one left.
I always wondered what he wrote. Maybe their names. Maybe their
sin. I don't know. But I tell you
what, they didn't hang around, did they? Since from the oldest
to the youngest, boom, they were gone. And in John 8, 10, the
Scriptures say when Jesus had lifted Himself up, He never looked
up. He sat on earth just writing
in the dirt and saw none but the woman. She's the only one
left. He said unto her, Woman, where
are thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? She
said, No man, Lord. Men can't condemn you. Only God
can. And Jesus said unto her, Neither
do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. Christ did
not come into the world to bring charges against men and condemn
them. You know why? He came to save
them. To be an accuser is not agreeable to His character as
our surety and our Savior and our Advocate and our Judge. John
3.18 says, He that believeth on Him is not condemned, but
he that believeth not is condemned already. Who does Christ have
to accuse or condemn? Men are condemned already when
they don't believe and trust in Him, because they do not believe
in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And however, though,
verse 45 says, But there is one that accuses you, even Moses,
in whom you trust. Now, he's not speaking of Moses
personally, but he's speaking of the Law of Moses. This is
what these men trusted in. It was the law of Moses that
the Jews trusted in and rested in, and they made their boast
of it and expected eternal life and salvation on account of their
loving it and so-called keeping it. And though their hearing
it read every Sabbath day and by their obedience to it, now
the same law brings charges against them. They being without an interest
in Christ, trusting in their own righteousness by the works
of the law, would be of no profit to them. The law which they trusted
in for life. Now listen, rise up in judgment
and be a witness and accuser against them. For the law was
not given for them to keep, but to show them their inability
of keeping. It was their schoolmaster to
do what? Bring them to Christ. And they
would not come. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness, and in Him is the accomplishment of the
writings of Moses. In the books that were written
by Moses, Christ is spoken of as the seed of the woman that
would bruise a serpent's head. In the writings of Moses, He's
spoken of as the seed of Abraham in whom all the nations of the
earth would be blessed. Moses wrote of Him as that prophet
likened to himself, a prophet to whom the people of Israel
should hearken. The writings of Moses were full
of Christ. And the Lord said, if you believe
not His writings, how are you going to believe My words? You
see what he's saying? Moses wrote many things typically
of Christ, and therefore disbelieving Christ, they were disbelieving
Moses. And therefore, Moses' law would
be an accuser of them and a witness against them. And he said, but
if you believe not His writings, How shall you believe my words?"
They believed them to be Moses' writings. They acknowledged that
they were the Word of God, but they didn't believe the things
contained in his writings, the things concerning Christ. So
the Lord asked him a simple question. He said, if you don't believe
what Moses wrote, how shall you believe my words? Now we know
Moses was a faithful servant, but Christ was God come in the
flesh. And they esteemed the law of
Moses so highly and became so instilled in keeping it that
they missed the one who did what they could not do for themselves.
So I ask you. Do you believe the Word of God?
Do you believe God's Word rightly? If so, you must believe the truth
concerning Jesus Christ. This is a book about Him. He
is God's salvation. And you can try and try and try
and try to your blood and face to appease God by the works of
your so-called righteousness, and you'll never accomplish it.
And the Apostle Paul told us, not by works of righteousness
that you've done, but according to His mercy. There you go. It's by mercy, it's by grace,
it's the gift of God. Stop trying to achieve and trust
in Him who achieved all things for you. That's my encouragement
to you this morning. That's my encouragement to me.
Lay down those old works of righteousness and trust and believe Christ.
May God help us to do so.