You'll turn with me to John chapter
21. John 21. Unless the Lord changes my mind,
this will be the last lesson in the book of John. I did not feel compelled as we
went through the chapter 20 and talked about these different
evidences of Christ and his resurrection, except to sum it up as it summed
up in those last two verses that I talked to you about last week.
And the summation of chapter 20 is actually threefold. Now, I only talked to you last
week on one subject. that Jesus is the Christ. That's
why John said all these things are written, that's why they're
recorded, that's why there's an Old Testament. Get right down
to it. So that you'll know that Jesus
is the Christ. Now that's why he said, that's
why I'm here, that's why God separated me to be a witness,
that's why he called me to be an apostle, that's why he separated
me to be a preacher, that's why I'm recording these things and
writing these things to you. that you know and believe that
Jesus is the Christ. To know by these infallible evidences
and the testimony of these faithful witnesses that Jesus of Nazareth. Now this is important because
there's a lot of religions who have different men that they
call the Christ. The so-called Christian religion
today, they talk about Jesus. They talk about Jesus of Nazareth. Now, I'm not saying that they're
right in what they say, but they talk about him. But there's a
lot of religions out there who have people that they call the
Christ, who's not the Christ. John said, I'm right, and so
there was in this day. John said, I'm writing to you
so that you know that Jesus is the Christ. And also that you
know who the Christ is. Most people don't even know who
Christ is. It's just a word. It's just a term. They don't
understand what that means. They don't understand how far
back that goes. They don't understand what it
represents, just to be the Christ. But he says, I'm writing these
things to you that you do know. If you're not acquainted with
it, I won't acquaint you with it, he said. That's why I'm saying
these things. And I talked to you about why
this is so significant, because everything God has promised for
sinners is vitally connected to the Christ. That's why I talked
to you about the vine back in John 15. God put in his garden
his vine. This is it. What pleased God
was the vine. He liked the vine. He liked the
fruit that the vine would produce. The vine. All the way through
the scriptures, you're just going to keep finding that. Everything
vitally connected with salvation has to be connected with the
vine. God put it in, he put it in, established it way back yonder
in the garden. And I don't care what it is you
want to talk about, and this is where folks get in trouble.
Election. You want to talk about election?
It's a Bible doctrine. I don't think we ought to take
election and stick it back on the back shelf somewhere, do
you? Mentioned it 27 times just in that word itself, besides
the chosen and my sheep and my people and on and on and on.
I don't think we need to put it back on the back shelf, but
don't disconnect it from Christ. Don't disconnect, because we're
chosen in Him. You start talking about chosen disconnected from
Christ, you're in a mess. You're in a mess. Predestination.
Boy, I tell you, the place where I used to attend, the first time
I ever mentioned the word, I thought they were going to stomp on me.
I thought they were going to take me out back and beat me
up. And all I did was read it out of the Bible. I didn't say
anything about it. I didn't know anything about
it. All I said was, what is this predestination he's talking about
here in Romans chapter 8? Oh, you don't want to mess with
that. Well, why did he put it in there
then? Then I found out it's in there again over in Ephesians.
And then I got to reading through Ephesians in there twice. And
it's all connected to the Lord Jesus Christ, this predestination.
But don't separate that from Christ. You get in trouble. Atonement, justification, imputed
righteousness. My brother-in-law asked me when
he was over here visiting for Thanksgiving. He said, Something was troubling him.
I think it was the doctrine of particular redemption. There's
no telling which message he listened to that I preached. He went online
and downloaded one, listened to it, else he wouldn't even
have known what he was talking about. But what he was driving
at was particular redemption. That's what he was driving at.
And you just believe some are going to be saved. And I said,
well, Don, here's where this thing goes. I'm not going to
try to argue with you about election, in particular redemption. What
I'm going to do is, let's go down to the cross and just sit
here for a minute. What happened on the cross? Did the Lord Jesus
Christ, did God robe himself in human flesh, come down here
and subject himself to shame and ridicule and pain and suffering
and temptation? made in the likeness of sinful
flesh. Did he do all of those things
just to try to get something done, just to try to do something?
Is that what he did? Did he do all these things just
in hopes that he might inspire somebody or give somebody a boost
or did he actually do something? Did he actually put away sin? All sin, past sin, present sin,
future sin. Did he actually put away sin
or did he just make a down payment on it? What did he do? Now you
figure out what Christ did on the cross and you'll get saddled
up over here on particular redemption. I won't have to go through the
Bible and pile up textual references to it and Try to prove to you
that this is what God says. I'm just going to tell you that's
how it is. If God ever reveals to you what happened on the cross,
you won't have a better problem with particular redemption. Not
a better problem. Because if he didn't put away
sin, you don't have any hope. Because you're a sinner. And
all you're ever going to do is sin. And if he forgives you today,
tomorrow you're going to be back for more. That's right. Because
you can't quit sinning. And then the second thing, and
I didn't get to talk about this hardly at all, is that we believe. He said this is important because
everything, all these promises, all these benefits, all these
things that God talks about in the scripture are to believers.
They're not to unbelievers. They're to believers. An old fellow told me one time
down in Ball, this has been years ago, he got mad and quit coming
to church because I challenged him on this. He said, I just
think whatever will be, will be, whether it ever happens or
not. I said, well, I don't believe that. I don't believe that. I believe if you don't believe
as you're commanded to believe, God's going to send you to hell.
I believe that. I believe this book teaches that. Men must be called to life. You know, I don't know how to
go around these things and explain these things except as God lays
certain things on my heart, but life is not an option. You know,
God doesn't have all these blessings over here in a basket, like you
go down to Walmart sometimes and you see that big basket over
there, $5 for movies, and you look down in there and they got
all these movies and you go fishing around down there and, I like
this one. God's blessings ain't in a big
basket where you can just go over here and fish around here. If you want one, pull one out.
You know, if I want this one, I pull this one out. I get me
a whole handful for $5 fish, you know. That's not how it works. It's not how it works. God does
things on purpose. And he gives life. Life's not
an auction to a dead man. Dead man's dead. If God don't,
if he don't call him out of his tomb, if he don't give him life,
he's going to stay dead. He's a dead. He's a dead man.
He's cursed of God. Dead, spiritually. He's dying
physically. If you don't believe that, get
a picture of yourself when you're 21, now go look in the mirror.
You're dying. So am I. And I'm feeling mine. But he said, except you be born
again, you cannot perceive the kingdom of God. You've got no
perception of it. I showed you that in 2 Corinthians
5 last week, that the only person who knows anything about death
is the living. But a living man who's been given
life, you know, the only one who had any sense of the resurrection
at all was Lazarus. That whole outfit was gathered
around there telling the Lord how much they believed in the
resurrection. That day we believed he was going
to rise and everybody had their thoughts on the resurrection.
The only one there who knew anything about resurrection was Lazarus.
God called him out of the tomb. You want to know what the tomb
is? Talk to Lazarus. He'll tell you. He'll tell you. He'll tell you what it is to
be dead, because he knew what it was. He'll tell you the only
thing in the tomb is just that artificial smell that people
come put on you because they don't want to smell you like
you are. That's right. Put it on. That's what religion
does. It puts a little spice on the dead man so he don't stink.
That's what they do to dead men. Except you be born again. You
have to have life. Turn with me over to Titus chapter
3. That's the second book back from Hebrews if you don't know
where Titus is. Titus chapter 3. Look here in verse 2. Speak evil of no man. Be no brawlers, but gentle. showing all meekness unto all
men. Don't be so ready to argue. Don't
be so ready to divide. Take the chip off your shoulder.
Well, that's what we used to do when we was kids, knock that
chip off. Boy, if they did, it was on. We do that, don't we? Huh? Take the chip off your shoulder,
Paul said. And there's only one reason to
put a chip on there, because you want to fight. That's the
only reason. You want to prove something to
this man, and you put that chip on there. Be no brawlers, but
gentle. Be meek. Meekness is not weakness. And you'll find this. You'll
find it takes more strength to be meek than it does to be weak. It takes strength. It takes strength
to be meek. Be meek, be gentle, knowing this,
verse 3, for we ourselves also were sometime foolish, disobedient,
deceived, serving divers' lusts and pleasures, living in malice
and envy, hateful and hating one another. That's what man
is. That's what he is by nature.
Every son of Adam, he's hateful and hates one another. You say,
well, I love my neighbor. You do until his dog walks in
your yard. You don't love him anymore. Get that thing out of
my yard. He walks in the vanity of his
mind. He's a servant to his fleshly
desires. He's deceived and foolish. He's
disobedient. He lives in malice, hateful.
He's hateful in his dealings with others. Be there in town, little boy
drives up in your driveway. Get out of my driveway! That's
my driveway. You're going to hit my car or
something. Get over there and yawn, yawn. Huh? Hateful. But he said, verse 4, after that
the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared,
not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according
to his mercy, he saved us. How'd he do it? By the washing
of regeneration. He gives you life. That's how
he did it. And the living man looks back
on that hatefulness and back on that misery and back on that
death and back on that stench and back on those foolish hopes
and back on all those things. He looks back on those things
because he's alive. And he said, boy, I don't want
to go back there. I don't want to be like that.
And he turns. Why does he turn? Because he's
alive. He never would have turned. Lazarus
just laid there in the same direction in the tomb. He wouldn't have
moved. He don't roll over. Bury somebody and dig them up
30 years from now and they're still laying right like it was
when you put them down there. Ain't gonna turn. By the washing of regeneration
and renewing of the Holy Ghost. To live, we got to be washed.
And not just our feet. Not just our feet. We got to
be washed in here. And the only way a man can get
washed in here is for God to give him life. He'll struggle. He'll pretend. He'll come up
and pretend. He'll make his decisions. He'll
sit there, boy, and he'll, I'm going to do better tomorrow. I swear. I'm going to do better
tomorrow. You're already doing worse. You're
doing worse when you said it. You're going downhill. That's what I told Doc Wednesday
night. You get religious, you're not
coming up, you're going down. That's a step in the wrong direction. Life precedes faith, but without
any separation that you can notice. Think about that. It precedes
faith. You gotta have life to perceive. You can't perceive the kingdom
of God unless you be born again. But not so much separation that
you could notice it. Let me give you an example. We
walk in a dark room. We stand there and we don't see
anything. Man turns on the light. Oh, I see that. There's a spider
web in that corner. I didn't know that was there.
Man, look at this floor. It's filthy. Start looking around. Huh? Is there any separation
from the time the light come on until you see? Not so as you
notice. It's almost instant, wasn't it?
That's the same thing with life and believing, life and faith.
Life precedes faith, but not so as you can notice. Not enough
separation there. In him was life, and the life
is the light of men. And light is to know, and to
know is to do, and to do is to live. That's what it is. Jude talks about men who profess
Christianity but bear no evidence of life. He calls them clouds
that promise rain. But when they get here, there
ain't no water in them. He calls them shooting stars.
They blaze up in a big blaze of glory. They blaze up. They get bright. Here they are.
Man, they come out of nowhere. A man comes in the church. He
sits here for about three weeks. All of a sudden, this man's teaching
people in the church. Man, he's just on fire. I'll
tell you what he is. He's a shooting star. That's
what he is. And he'll blaze up real bright.
You'll say, look at that. Where'd it go? Well, it's gone
now. That's how Jude describes them.
That's how he describes them. He calls them clouds. He calls
them shooting stars. Blown about. Blown about from
place to place. From doctrine to doctrine. One
opinion to another. He calls them trees whose fruit
withereth. They come out. My fig tree does
this every year. It comes out and it puts on figs.
And it's covered. I mean, it's hanging full. And
I'm thinking, boy, I'm going to fill that freezer up with
figs this year. Along comes a frost. It wrinkles
all up and falls on the ground. When it comes back, it has a
few. Just has a few. Our Lord cursed the fig tree
over that. He saw the leaves on it. It should have already
had figs. He went over there and there wasn't a fig on it. He says they're twice dead. Twice
dead. Without fruit. Plucked up by
the roots. I'm telling you this. The life
of faith is what washes a believer. And he's not what he was before.
He's not what he wants to be. He's not what he desires to be.
But he's not what he was. He's not what he was. And he
can't explain it. You ask him, well, what's the
difference? And he'll sit there with you
all night talking about it. You can't explain it, can you? Huh? Can't do it. Spend the rest
of your life trying to explain it. And sin's still in him, but
it don't rule over it. Because one stronger than him
came upon him and took over the house. Our Lord said this. He said, He said through his
prophet John, he said, greater is he that's in you than he that's
in the world. If he don't rule the house, he
ain't in the house. He rules where he abides. He rules. Listen
to this, 1 John 5, 4. Whatsoever is born of God overcometh
the world. And this is the victory that
overcometh the world, even our faith. Overcomes the world. Overcomes the lies, the deceit,
the subtleness of Satan. It overcomes the majority influence. You stand back here, and here
we are. I mean, this is a big crowd for Sunday school, and
I'm thankful for it. But I'm telling you, they wouldn't
even have church now at the First Baptist Church if this is all
showed up. They'd say, well, what's the use? Let's just go
home. Multitudes. I look around, there's
just multitudes. Multitudes everywhere. Everybody's
saying this and saying that and saying something else, and we're
over here saying this. Huh? What convinces you? Faith. I believe. I believe. That's what overcomes
the world. That's what he said. Faith born
of God overcometh the world. It overcomes its lusts and pleasures,
and it overcomes its curse and foul, and it overcomes its ignorance
because it has light and understanding. It overcomes the deceivers, and
it overcomes the one behind its lies. It overcomes the circumstances. It overcomes all of these things. It problems and overcomes its
temptations and trials and overcomes its final end and its triumph
over death. These all died in faith, as we
see it. I tell you this, regeneration
is not discovering that lection is a Bible doctrine. That's not
regeneration. Regeneration is to understand
that you've been raised from the dead. and you understand
what it is to be dead. You may not understand it in
all of its particulars, but you understand it. You got a sense
of it. You know it wasn't of you. I guarantee you, the one thing
Lazarus knew when he come out of that grave was that he didn't
know it. Now, he understood that, and that's what I'm saying. Every
believer understands that. He didn't know it. I remember I remember making
my decision. You're still in the tongue. You've
never been called out. You called out. I guarantee you. I was just dead. I wasn't seeking him. He was
seeking me. I didn't call him. He called
me. And you see this, you see the
only remedy for our disease is Christ. And I tell you, you look back
on these things, and you look back on all these events, they
seem so, I don't know, it's like looking through a thicket now.
How'd I get through that? How'd I come through all that
mess? Here's the answer, here's what you come up with at the
end of it. And you just keep coming up with it by the grace
of God. That's how I got through it,
by the grace of God. Now in chapter 21 of John, the
Lord applies this inward work of grace and the real power of
His resurrection. And you all know the story of
Peter. Peter was a strong, rowdy, rough fisherman. He was a big
man. I used to work for a man. He
was a big man. He was about 6'7", weighed about
275, and he wasn't fat. This was muscle. He walked around,
and just his size and his voice, he was intimidating just to be
around. And if he come in and tapped
you on the shoulder and went like, you know, there they went,
you know. He was, that's Peter. Peter's
a big man. He threw that net out, and I
forget how many fish they said was in it, 153 fish or something
like that. That man pulled that net in by
himself. We get six, seven catfish on
a trot line and can't get it up into the boat. This man sitting
there with 150 some saltwater fish, big fish in a net, and
pulled it onto land by himself. He was a big, rough, rowdy man. He feared no man. He was independent. confident, intimidating, feared
nothing. And the Lord came to his disciples
walking on the stormy sea and everybody else sat in a boat
and trembled. And Peter said, let me come out there with you.
I'll walk on it. And he did. He did. Until he got looking around.
Took his eyes off Christ. Down he went. He started crying
out, Lord save me. Save me. And then they come to take the
Lord. He was the first one to grab
his sword. Our Lord, before this happened,
our Lord was standing there talking to the disciples and they said,
everybody here is going to leave me. Peter took him aside and
he said, not me. I ain't going nowhere. I'm ready. He said, I want you
to know I'm ready to go to prison. I'm ready to go to death. I'm
ready to go with you. I'm not going to forsake you.
He said, Peter, before the cock crows today, you're going to
deny me three times. And just walked off and left
Peter standing there. He's standing there scratching
his... So here they come. They're going to take the Lord.
First one to grab his sword was Peter. pulled that sword out.
He wasn't trying to cut that man's ear off. He was trying
to cut his head off. And this guy moved and that sword
took his ear off. And the Lord put his ear back
on. And corrected Peter for what he'd done. Listen to this over in Mark 14,
Jesus saith unto them, all you have are offended because of
me and you're going to be offended this night, every one of you.
For it's written, I'll smite the shepherd and the sheep shall
be scattered. Now, not only did the master
tell him this personally, but he told him this is written in
the scriptures and showed it to us. And yet, Peter, uh-uh,
not me, not me. And then he said, but after this,
I'll go before you into Galilee. Oh, this was the man that looked at Christ when nobody
else had an answer and said, thou art the Christ, the Son
of the living God, Peter, Peter. And to this, he was just so proud. And this is after the fact, after
his denial, after that piercing look when he denied the Lord
that third time in the cock crew. And the Lord turned and looked
right at Peter. Looked right into his soul. And
after his unbelief concerning the resurrection and after his
appearance to him. And now he calls them. They're
out here on the lake fishing. They throw their hands up. Peter
said, I'll go fishing. Guy out there in the boat. One
out there. And here's the Lord now on the
bank. Risen from the dead. You got a fire and a few fish
on it. And he calls. He calls them to
the fire, and he feeds them. And they all sit there and eat
this fish. And you know, when he called them out in the boat,
Peter wasn't going to ride in the boat with the rest of them.
He swam. He jumped out of the boat, swam
in so he could be first. He come running up there to the
Lord. And the Lord fed them. He never said nothing to them.
He fed them. And when he got them all fed, and they laid back,
He turned and he looked at Peter and he said, do you love me? Do you love me? Peter said, you know I love you. Then feed my lambs. I want to
tell you something. Peter was a lamb. He looked like
a lion. He acted like a lion, but he
was a lamb. And the Lord dealt with Peter. The Lord, I mean, think of how
many times He just, when those Pharisees approached Him, think
of how many times that the Lord just blatantly cut them off,
walked away. Sometimes leaving them without
an answer. But He dealt with Peter. And he dealt with him
gently. And he dealt with him lovingly.
And he told Peter, even at Peter's denial, even at Peter's rejection
of the scripture, he said, but I pray for you. And now he feeds
him. And he looks at him and he said,
do you really love me? I'm telling you, Peter's sitting
here thinking now. He's thinking on these boastful
things that he said in the past. And he's not going to say, He's
not just going to blurt this thing out. He said, you know
I love you. You know I love you. And so he
said, feed my lambs. Be gentle with them. Use this
experience of grace to deal with my lamb. Don't go out there and
cut their heads off. Be patient. Be patient. And then
he looks at Peter again, second time. He said, Peter, do you
love me? Peter said, yea, Lord, thou knowest I love thee. He
said, feed my sheep. Feed my sheep. You come through
the trial. I prayed for you. I've raised
you up. I've given you things that I
haven't given anybody else. Peter is going to be the one
on Pentecost that stands up and brings the first message when God pours out His Spirit
on the church. Peter. Feed my sheep. Use this maturing experience
that I've given you to deal with my sheep. Establish them. Teach them as I've taught you." And then he looks at Peter a
third time. And he said, Peter, do you love me? And this time
it grieves Peter because he's asked him three times. And he's
shingled him out of the whole bunch. And he said, do you love
me? And he said, Lord, thou knowest
all things. You know I love you. Feed my
sheep. Feed my sheep. Now here's what
John's saying in this book. This is summing this whole thing
up. This whole thing. If God is pleased
to give you an understanding of who the Christ is, and He
brings you to the Christ, gives you saving faith. You embrace
Him. You find an understanding in
Him. You see wisdom in Him. You see mercy in Him. You see
love in Him. Brother, those things are going
to fill your heart. And you're going to love. And
you're going to be merciful. And you're going to be patient.
And you're going to be long-suffering. And when that young fellow that
you're trying to teach, he's up here just jumping up and down,
going to do this and going to do that. Impatient, you're going
to try to calm him back down. Just get him to sit still. Just
sit still. And you're going to have to say
for him what the Lord said to Peter. I prayed for you. Not
what you're going to have to do for him. You've got to pray
for him. Because he don't know how to pray. He don't know what
to pray for. You've got to pray for him. You've
got to nourish him along. You've got to feed him. John
said, that's what my ministry is all about. I want you to believe.
I want you to know what it is to believe. I want you to know
in whom you believe. I want you to understand what
this thing's all about. And that these things are undeniable.
I'm not up here just throwing up opinions in midair. I've got
this whole book to back me up. You want to know where I'm coming
from? Well, it's difficult for me in 30 minutes to tell you.
But if you're really serious and you want to know, we'll sit
down and I'll show you in this book which says that all the
way through. They don't just say it over in Romans 3 or over
in Ephesians 2. It says it all the way through.
It says it from the garden. It says it all the way through
this book. John said, that's why I've written this. That's
what my gospel is all about. That's what it's all about. And he showed them that conversion
in themselves. And he singled old Peter out.
He said, here's an example. Here's the prime example of old
Peter. And he gives it to us. May the
Lord be pleased to use that.