Chapter 3, John chapter 3. And we begin to read in the third
chapter of John at verse 17. John 3, 17. Now if you'll put
something here to mark your place, we're going to come back to this
passage and take just one verse out of the verses that we read.
as our text for this morning, and that will be verse 36. Alright,
John 3, 17. For God sent not His Son into
the world to condemn the world. That was entirely unnecessary.
But because the world was already condemned, the law of God has
condemned every son and daughter of Adam, all the human race.
This book says, contrary to popular opinion, good but God. So God sent not His Son, the
Lord Jesus, into the world to condemn the world, but that the
world through Him might be saved. And yet you know, and I know,
not everybody is saved. There are plenty of people in
hell this morning as well as in heaven. I mean, just ordinary
run-of-the-mill common sense will tell you that much. Surely
it must. Verse 18, He that believes on Him, on the Lord Jesus Christ,
is not condemned. Romans 8.1 says, There is therefore
now No condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. Everybody
that's in Christ is not condemned. He that believes on Him is not
condemned. But he that believes not is condemned
already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten
Son of God. And this is the condemnation.
that light has come into the world. And men, you and me, everybody,
love darkness rather than light. Because our deeds were evil,
even quote-unquote good deeds are evil. I better not stop there. It will take me away from it.
Verse 20, for everyone that does evil, until our Lord Jesus, in sovereign
mercy and grace, comes to our poor souls and raises us from
a spirit to life in Christ. For everyone that does evil hates
the light, neither comes to the light, lest his deeds should
be reproved or revealed. or discovered. We think highly
of our deeds, but when we think seriously about them, we have
a great many doubts and concern. And we begin to look at what
we do, and we call it serving God. And it's just plain sorry. We have far more vigor and interest
in making money than we do in serving God, lest our deeds Now
verse 21 is talking about those same people back in verse 18. Verse 21, but he that doeth truth,
now this separates the men from the boys. If you understand this
statement, you have some grasp of the grace of God. He that
does truth comes to the light. that his deeds may be made manifest
that they are wrought or worked in God." Whatever deeds we have,
except the kind we've just read about that hate the light, any
deed we have that is worth anything at all between ourselves and
God, must be the kind that God works in us. Philippians 2.13
says, God works in you both in the willing and in the doing
of His good pleasure. And that's the only kind of work
there is that's any good. The rest is counterfeit, worthless,
useless, damning, in fact. All right, verse 22. Now this
is John the Baptist that is penning the way, and we'll run into that
now in just a second here. After these things came Jesus
and His disciples into the land of Judea and there He tarried
with them and baptized. But we'll read later on that
He Himself did not do the baptizing but His apostles. And John, talking
about himself, John the Baptist was baptizing at Enon near Salem
because there was much water there and they came and were
baptized. For John, John the Baptist, was
not yet cast into Herod's prison. Then there arose a question between
some of John's disciples and the Jews about purifying. Religion
often talks about many things that's not worth talking about.
And they came to John. These people that were contesting
with his disciples, they came to John the Baptist and they
said to him, Rabbi, he that was with you beyond Jordan, to whom
you bore witness, behold. And what was that witness? John
said, behold, the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the
world. Behold the same, they're trying
to make John the Baptist jealous of our Lord Jesus and His apostles
having people following them and being baptized by them. Behold
the same baptizes and men, all men come to Him. Now that ain't
quite true if you know anything at all. Everybody doesn't come
to Christ and it's generally in a very A minor number compared
to unbelievers who come to Christ. The Bible often uses the word
all and it seldom means all without exception. And until we learn
some of these rules like that, we can't understand this Bible
when we read it. Verse 27, John the Baptist answered
and said, a man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven. They fought to make him speak
against the Lord Jesus, but no such thing. You yourselves bear
me witness that I said, that I, John the Baptist, said, I
am not the Christ, but that I am sent before Him as the forerunner
of Christ, the announcer and identifier of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He that has the bride is the
bridegroom. Now, who is the bridegroom? It's Christ. Remember? The church, His people, His children,
His sheep, they are the bride. All believers constitute the
bride of Christ. Right now, we're just engaged
to Him. But when this world wraps up, we'll be married to Him.
He that has the bride is the bridegroom. But the friend of
the bridegroom which stands and hears him rejoices greatly because
of the bridegroom's voice. This, John says, this my joy
therefore is fulfilled. And then this statement in verse
30. He, Christ, must increase. But I, John the Baptist, and
all believers for that matter, must decrease. That's the rule. Christ is everything and we're
nothing. If we weren't in Him, we wouldn't
be worth a hill of beans. Verse 31, He that comes from
above is above all. He that is of the earth is earthy
and speaks of the earth But he that comes from heaven is above
all. And what he has seen and heard,
that he testifies." John is speaking here of Christ. And no man receives
His testimony. Without a miracle of grace, no
man will hear the words of God or the words of this book. Take
a miracle of grace for that to be. Now you made me lose my place. He that has received his testimony,
the testimony of Christ, has set to his seal that God is true. And not only true, but truth.
Verse 34, for he whom God has sent speaks the words of God. For God gives not the Spirit,
capital S, that's the Holy Spirit, by measure unto Christ. I don't have time to explain
that one. Verse 35, the Father loves the
Son and has given all things to His, Christ's, hands. Where is everything? It's in
the hands of our Lord and Savior, Jesus. He disposes and dispenses
with all things. He rules this world and all things
in it and everybody in it. He rules kings and presidents
and whomever else, dictators and whatever else there is, just
as He rules the poorest man on the face of this earth. Verse
36. Here's my text. Now listen up carefully. I'm
going to try to put it aside for a minute here. Let me get
just one more verse in. He that believes on the Son has
everlasting life. Now, for life to be everlasting,
there can be no such thing as an end. It can never be. Now, I know, you know, and I
know people who in their religion, they say you can be a believer
today and be lost tomorrow. Well, you can be a church member
today and be lost, because you're still lost when you're a church
member. But whenever we truly believe by the sovereign power
and grace of God, by faith on Jesus Christ and on Christ alone,
we possess at that exact moment eternal life, everlasting life,
life forever and ever. And if we can lose it, It never
was everlasting life. Now listen to me. I know what
I'm talking about. That's the word right straight
out of this book. Again, he that believes on the
Son has everlasting life. But alas, that's not all that
it says. He that believes not the Son,
the Son of God, the Lord Jesus, shall not see life, but the wrath
of God abides, remains." All right, returning now to verse
36 of John chapter 3. He that believes on the Son has
everlasting life, and he that believes not the Son shall not
see life. Obviously, this life is not talking
about our physical life, but it is talking about spiritual
life, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides. Now
let's try to find out who these people are that the second half
of John 3.36 is speaking of. And let me find out if it's speaking
about me. So here's the first matter that
we would wish to trace for just a moment. Who are these people
that are guilty? of not believing and receiving
Christ, and therefore the wrath of God is said to abide on Him. Well, they are to be found in
every time and place, on every continent, in every country. Just assessing things at this
moment in time, as years pass and centuries pass, the vast,
vast majority of human beings alive on planet earth are in
this class of persons in the second half of verse. Those who
believe not the Son of God are to be found as frequently in
churches as any other. The Christian religion in our
day is only Christian in name. If you have any perception at
all If you read what they say, if you hear what they say, they
don't talk about Christ. They talk about God doing something
for you if you'll do something for Him first. And that's pure
bullshit. That's not true. Never has been
true. Because people are religious,
because they possess and claim to read a Bible, Do you not know
that in the Testament, in the four Gospels taken as a whole,
people who hated our Savior most vehemently, the people who were
the most wicked toward Him of all the people on the face of
the earth were religious people. And many of these same people
who do not believe and will not believe, yet in other matters,
they're highly moral people. They wouldn't cheat you out of
a dollar for anything in the world. Now, I'm not talking about
everybody. There's plenty of religious people
that use religion as a front, and they'll fleece you if they
can. You don't know this by now. You need to be studying twice
as hard because if you ever have enough for somebody to take,
they'll find out a way to take it. And I'm talking about right
on down. If the text were to say that
God's wrath and condemnation is upon criminals and murderers
and people of such like, we'd all be likely to say, but when
it talks about the sin of unbelief, it has more weight than all the
rest of the sins. Let me ask you a question. Do you know that the greatest
sin for which a man must answer before God I mean without question
the greatest sin. The others just pale end to end. There's not another sin even
anywhere close to being what that one is. In regard to all
the other kinds of sins that there is in this world, there's
plenty to go around. They violate God's law and yet
that's not anything compared to unbelief. Because for all
the rest of our sin, There's a remedy. Where's the remedy? It is the blessed gospel of Christ. It is faith in our Lord Jesus
Christ. But for unbelief, there's no
remedy anywhere. If you won't have Christ as He's
presented to you in this book, in His gospel and in God's mercy
and grace, we'll suffer the wrath of God eternity upon eternities. All who believe for a moment. As a matter of fact, since it's
right here at hand, you don't have to turn if you don't want
to. I want to run over to John 16 and just read you one statement,
if I can make myself do that. John 16. Now don't turn loose
your place in John 3 now. John 16, verse 9. It's a real short verse, real
simple. The Holy Spirit will convince
men of sin. These are our Savior's own words.
On what grounds? Because we believe not on our
own. Now there's plenty of other grounds
to convince people of sin. But my friend, that's the whole
thing in a nutshell. I'm glad you don't rob banks.
But if that keeps you from believing Unbelief, I'm here to tell you
now, is the greatest. And we're all born unbelievers. Such thing as being born the
first time as a Christian. I don't care how many times the
priest or the priest sprinkled you with water. Or how many church
letters you could muster up. Those things are worse. That's
for religion without Christ. And that ain't no religion at
all. So what is this offense called unbelief? It is a refusal
of the very mercy and grace of God. Look back in our chapter to verses
18 and 19 in John chapter 3. He that believes on Him, the
Lord Jesus, is not condemned. But he that believes not is condemned
already. because he has not believed in
the name, the person, the blessed offices, in the person and name
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God. In
verse 19, and this is the condemnation, this is the condemnation. You
know where the problem is. Here it is. Here it is. This
is why we're condemned outside of Christ, is that light, Not
just the light of the sun. Everybody gets that unless it's
cloudy as long as time stands. We couldn't live on this earth,
I think, without the sun, could we, Mr. Rogers? It would be uninhabitable. But that sun's there to stay
until the end of time. And I have no clue when that
is. And neither does anybody else. But this matter right here. Light has come into this world. It came in Genesis chapter 3
of the woman's promised seed. It came in person and incarnate
in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ in that manger at Bethlehem. And now He comes to men and women
all over this globe in the blessed gospel of God's grace which is
Christ and Him crucified. Light has come into the world,
and we love darkness rather than light. Why? Because our deeds,
oh, you take them out of your pocket and you look at them and
they smell. They're rotten, aren't any good. People are convinced. And I must
have been as well, but that bubble's been burst a long time. I was
convinced that I loved God. And if I have never hated him,
I'm still hating him right now. Men, ourselves, love darkness
rather than light because our deeds. These words that I have
in quotes speak of an intense hatred for God. Some people would
say I would sooner be damned than accept God's mercy in Christ. You tell me that the Son of God
must die for me and put my sins away? I despise that. Have you ever heard anybody utter
these words? When I go to meet God, I simply
want God to pay me what I owe Him. Not only that, but when we refuse
to believe in a place, Christ is the apple of His eye. The
gospel is God's crowning master work. Creation ain't nothing
compared to that. As a matter of fact, Christ is
the one who made the world. You can find that right here
in this gospel in chapter 1. This offense is against every
person in the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Let me show you a statement.
No, it's too far away. I won't ask you to there. Peter
said in Acts 7.51 where he's preaching the sermon that before
he finished it, he was stoned to death. And Saul of Tarsus,
who now we call Paul, was not only watching that event, but
he was overseeing it. And Stephen said, To all those
Jews who were so proud of their heritage and so proud of themselves
and so proud of their temple and all this stuff, he said to
them, you do always resist, always. And those words belong to me
and they belong to you. Well, how on earth can we get
out of that? God must come down to a miracle of grace in our
souls. Now, you understand it's not
hard for him. but it's impossible for us. Unbelief insults every attribute
of the divine. His justice, when we discover
that in order for God to remain just, in order for His holiness
not to be marred with sin, In order for God to set us free
from our sin debt and our being made sin, nothing but sin, He
sends His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus, into this world. And Christ is said to be made
sin for us, Christ who knew no sin, that we, poor, helpless,
undeserving sinners, might be made the righteousness of God
in Him. You can find those words in 2 Corinthians 5.21. If you could see it, I would
tell you that Christ brought more honor and glory to the justice
of God than all the saints of God who have ever or will ever
live. Because God punished for the
sins of all of His elect, all of Christ's sheep, all of His
bride to church, every last one of them, and satisfied divine
justice in the process. Now, if that be the case, and
if God is really just, and if the death of Christ has honored
God's justice in an infinite way that nothing else could ever
even approximate, that we must be free. Let me see if I can
explain it. If Christ actually died for you
as an individual, You must. But don't you rely on it until
you know it. Because this book nowhere gives
us the names that are written in the Lamb's Book of Life, a
phrase that appears some three or four times on the pages of
our Bibles, the Lamb's Book of Life. And Paul says of one of
the churches to which he wrote, whose names are in the Lamb's
Book of Life, But we can't see those names, we don't know who
they are, and we don't know that our name is there. But if God
ever saves you, you can jump up and down and rejoice your
name. But listen to me, it's always been in there. It was
put in there in old eternity. Not only God's mercy, not only
God's justice, but His mercy is also displayed in the gospel,
as well as His wisdom. We just covered 1 Corinthians
1 just recently, so I won't go into that now. But it is a marvel
and a wonder that in infinite, infinite mercy, God created a
whole world and allowed sin to come into this world. allowed
Adam to fall and the whole race to fall in him in order that
he might do what? Put on everlasting display free
sovereign grace in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,
somewhere along there, all of them together probably. All right,
just a little bit further here. What are the causes of this unbelief? Don't have time to use many references,
but the first thing on the list is just flat ignorance. How can people be saved? Well,
by quit being bad and start being good. No, you can't. We can't
even follow a diet to lose weight, let alone to get rid of sin.
It ain't that simple. Somewhere along the line, the
devil's got a say-so in this matter, and we ain't no match
for him. But our Savior is. I say to you
with what is going on in the religious world in our generation,
and I speak only about the so-called realm of Christianity, which
you'd have to spell with a little c because it ain't got Christ
in it, that this utter ignorance, of what it takes to please and
set. And we lead people to think that
if you just follow this easy 10-step deal, you'll be a fine
church member, you'll be a fine Christian, and God will reward
you when you get to heaven. I'm going to tell you the last
thing on people's minds when they get to heaven. And if there
is anything like a crown on our heads, the book says, we'll cast
it at His feet. Heaven is not a place to boast
It is altogether a place that ought to be so in whatever name
people go by and call it a church. And there's such a thing as religious
pride having to do with belief, the causes of unbelief. I grew
up in this religion. Here it is. We intend to give
God our best. Now we find out if we do such
a thing it's an absolute affront to the Lord Jesus Christ who's
already done everything. But we want part of the honor
and part of the glory. We plan to enter heaven partly
by what we do and partly by what Christ has done. It is to despise and to crucify
all over again Cain worshipped God like this,
and God refused his worship. I wonder how it would be this
morning if we had an altar back here instead of this. Name this
place back here. Oh, it used to be called a choir loft. If
we had an altar back there, and we put our sacrifice on it, and
stand back and wait for God to send fire from heaven, and it
does never come, that was Cain's He brought God the labor of his
own hands, no doubt the best food he could grow or whatever
it was he was bringing, and no fire fell from heaven. But his
brother Abel offered a lamb, and God sent fire and consumed
it, consumed it. So he promptly arranged to kill
his own brother. And that's how religion is. It's
either Cain worship or Christ worship. Baptist and Methodist
and Apostles and however many else groups there is that ain't
got nothing to do with anything. I'm telling you it's all Christ
or none at all. There is no sin that shall damn
the man who believes. What about murder? David was
guilty of murder. God forgives murder. That's too
big for God to forgive in Jesus Christ. There is no sin that
shall damn the man who believes. And nothing can save the man
who will not believe. Now that's as plain as I know
how to say it. Let's see. Now you're going to need your
bulletin next. We've got a song in our bulletin. It sings to
the tune of majestic sweetness