If you want to, take your Bibles
and turn to John chapter 20. I want to look at the last two
verses in this chapter. It's a lesson I've been working
on at home. I talked to our folks about it
a little bit last week. I want to kind of continue along
those lines and show you some things in this chapter that I
pray God will make a benefit to you. There are three things
Actually, in the final verse there, in verse 31, John gives
us three things that he'll have everybody who reads his testimony
to know. This is what his testimony is
about. This is why these things were
written. We wonder sometimes. I know John wondered, and I do,
and Don does, and all these other men. wonder sometimes what they're
doing in this place or that, or what this event is all about,
or what this thing is that's happening. What's this all about? What's this all about? Well,
here's what it's all about. That's what John says. Here's
three things he said that anybody that reads my writings, whether
it be the gospel here, or in his general epistles that he
writes a little later on, or in the book of Revelation. And
by these three things, he sums up his ministry. He sums up what
he believes the reason God separated him to it. And in John 20, verse
31, he said, But these are written, These accounts of his birth,
his life, his death, his resurrection, the controversies between him
and the established religion of the world, all the events
that followed him, all the signs and evidences that God did by
him in our midst, that's what Peter reminds them On that day
of Pentecost, he said, God commended him by these things. God sanctioned
him by these things, which he did by him right in your midst.
Undeniable thing. Raising the dead. Cleansing lepers. Healing the lame. Giving sight
to the blind. All these things. These things
are written, John said. These events that followed his
resurrection and followed his death. This great stone. the women when they came to the
tomb, they said, who's going to roll this stone away? And I'm assuming that you know
these things, but if you don't, I'll just remind you of them.
The reason why they put this huge stone up over the sepulcher
of Christ was because the Jews remembered him teaching about
the resurrection, and they got to thinking about it, and they
said, If his disciples go down there and steal his body away
and start spreading the rumor that he rose from the dead like
he taught, this is going to be worse than the man being here
because his resurrection is what he taught. That was the capital
thing, the end thing, the great manifestation that he was the
Christ was his resurrection from the dead. So they said, they
went down to Pilate and they said, you got to help us here
now because this thing is going to get worse. If they come and
steal his body weight, this thing is going to get completely out
of our hands. And so they rolled this huge
boulder up before it and he gave them leave to have centurions
to guard the tomb and he put the royal seal on the stone so
nobody would tamper with it. But the angel of God came down
and just rolled this thing aside like it was nothing. And the
centurions who saw the angel of God roll the stone aside,
they just laid on the ground trembling. They never expected the power
of God to manifest itself like it did. And then think about
this. Think about When he was dying on the cross and they took
that cattail, somebody went over and took a cattail, broke it
off, and they took a sponge and got some vinegar and squeezed
it on that cattail and stuck it up to his lips because he
said, I thirst. And that was the final thing.
And he commended his spirit over to the Father. And darkness,
it said, fell on all the land for three hours. The sun refused
to shine for three hours. Great earthquakes attended His
death on the cross to the point of bursting stone, just like
somebody put a dynamite in Him and blew Him up. It said the
rocks burst asunder. And so many things that God attended
His death and His burial and His resurrection. Here are two
angels sitting. They peeped back inside that
sepulcher and back in there is all the linen napkins folded
neat in place and laying there. And here's an angel sitting at
the foot of where he lay and one sitting at the head. And
they said, who are you looking for? He's not here. He's not here. Just so many things, miraculous
things. And actually John Gill said he
charried here on this earth 40 days. Forty days after his resurrection. And it also says that many of
the saints rose from the dead after his death. The saints themselves,
these believers who died in faith before he ever died on the cross,
God raised them from the dead. And these saints went into the
cities and appeared to men and women who knew them. Absolute, infallible, divine
evidence that Jesus was the Christ. So many things. That's what he's
saying here. These things are written. That's
why I've written these things. That's why God did these things.
That's why God set us aside, Peter and Luke and Mark and John. They set them aside, these four
men, to write under the inspiration of God and detail everything
that they saw. And why did they do it? Why on
earth did God do it? He said, well, these things are
written. Look back at verse 30. And not only these things, but
many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples
which are not written in this book. John said if we wrote down
everything He did, the world couldn't contain the books. This
thing of Jesus being the Christ began in eternity. And there
are witnesses of things like the fall of Satan and the beginning
of creation and so many things here that man doesn't know anything
about. How did Moses know how to write
about creation? Man, Moses was way down the line
from creation, but he was divinely inspired to write about creation. These things and many other things,
many other things. Great earthquakes and all these
things. And then Paul said over in 1 Corinthians 15 that at one
time he appeared to more than 500 believers at one time. One, you know, this one said,
well, I saw the Lord. Well, that's what you say. And
somebody said, well, these ladies saw the Lord. Well, that's what
they say. Brother, it's hard to take 500 people and say, well,
that's what they say. At one time, Paul said, he revealed
himself to above 500 brethren. Now, here is what I want you
to see. These things are written for these three reasons. Here
is the first one. He says in verse 31 of John chapter
20, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ. Now, I want
you to turn with me to John chapter 15. Do not assume as the Jews did,
and even his disciples who were raised in Jewish religion, we
were talking about this this morning, they thought they knew
the Christ. Peter looked at the Lord and
he said, whom do men say that I am? And he said, well, some
say you're Elijah, some say this, some say that. He said, who do
you say I am? Peter said, thou art the Christ.
the Son of the Living God. And it said from that time forward,
he began to teach them about his resurrection. But now, what
did Peter actually believe about the resurrection? Christ died
and he threw his hands up. He said, I'm going fishing. He
walked along that road there to Emmaus. Actually, it was the
brother of Mary, the mother of Jesus, Walking along that road,
probably with Luke, since he didn't mention his name and it's
recorded in the book of Luke. They're walking along that road
to Emmaus and Christ reveals himself to them, but he doesn't
reveal himself as the Christ. He just comes up and starts talking
to them. He said, what's the matter? Why are you so sad about
it? Why? Where you been? Didn't you? This man named Jesus, we thought
that he was going to be the Christ. Well, now wait a minute, Peter.
You said back there, thou art the Christ. And now you're saying
we thought he might have been the Christ. You see what I'm
saying? Don't ever assume because somebody
says, well, yeah, I believe in Christ, but they know who this
Christ is. Peter didn't actually know who
this Christ was. He just had the beginnings of understanding
of who this Christ was. Don't ever assume. These disciples,
They didn't understand exactly who he was, and he upbraided
them for their unbelief. Sure did, unbelief. It wasn't
that they weren't taught. The Lord Himself taught them.
But they just didn't believe it. They just didn't believe
it. And they believed that God was going to raise up a man like
Moses and Elijah and David. He was going to reestablish the
Jewish nation and rebuild the temple and restore unto them
all that ceremonial worship and the priesthood as it was in its
glory days and going to sit on a literal throne and all this
type of thing. That's what they thought the
Christ represented. They had no idea who this Christ
was. And it's still what modern day
prophets are looking for and talking about relating to Israel. They're still looking for that.
Be careful what you say about Israel. Be careful. I showed a man in here one day
in Romans, is it chapter 9 or chapter 10, where Paul told him,
he said, these fleshly children of Israel, this is not Israel. These are not Abraham's children.
Are not. And he said, well, just in case
he's wrong, he said, I'm going to keep on handling Israel with
kid gloves. That's where these disciples
were. That's where they were. But here's
what I want you to see. Christ is older than Israel. This is what John's telling us. He's older than Israel. Christ
is older than the temple. He predates anything and everything
concerning the nation of Israel. Israel was way down the line.
Way down the line. And Christ told these unbelieving
Jews, He said, before Abraham. They said, we have Abraham to
our father. He said, before Abraham was, I am. We believe Moses. He said, if
you believe Moses, you believe me because Moses spoke of me.
Well, thou art not yet thirty years old. You're talking about
being older than Moses. Now, John chapter 15, if you'll
turn over there, this is a parable in which our Savior draws a direct
line, a direct line from Himself all the way back to Genesis chapter
2. Watch this here, John 15.1, He
said, I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. God the Father, it says back
in Genesis chapter 2, planted a garden east of Eden. It was
His garden. It was His design. He put in
that garden what He pleased to put in that garden. He purposed
in that garden what pleased Him. When you plant a garden, what
do you plant? You go through the book. Boy, I like green beans.
I think I'll put green. You don't go through the book
and say, My neighbor down the street likes beets. No, you put
in your garden what you like, what pleases you. God put in
his garden what pleases him. And in this garden he put the
true vine. He put the true vine. For the
glory of His own name and for no other reason than I can find
anywhere in this book, I just keep reading this in Ephesians
chapter 1, according to the good pleasure of His will. He works
all things after the counsel of His own will, according to
the good pleasure of His grace. What He grew in this garden pleased
Him. The Father took this fallen man. Now, here he's planted this true
vine. Christ was planted in the garden. The most significant
thing about the garden is not Adam. It's Christ. It's Christ. Adam fell in the garden. That's
significant, but that's not the most significant thing. If that
were the most significant thing, then we'd have no hope, because
we're all offspring of Adam. But what happened in that garden
is God took this old tree that couldn't produce anything. And
he planted it there to show us from the outset of this thing
that this tree cannot produce what pleases God. And he put
him in there in a perfect environment. He put him in there a perfect
man. No flaw in him. No sin to bias
him. Nothing in him. He was perfect. He was made in the image of God.
But he could not bear the fruit of God. Could not do it. And God laid the axe to the root
and the tree came down. But that wasn't the end of it.
He went over there and chopped off a branch off that tree. Couldn't
produce any fruit. And he took that knife and he
shaped that limb and he cut that vine. And he took that limb and
he stuck it in there and he grafted into that vine and And for all
eternity, He gives us this promise back there of this coming Redeemer.
Here's the vine right here in the garden. And that's what Christ
is telling them. I'm not this man that you're
expecting. I'm not this whatever it is that
you're expecting me to do. And these things, this is not
God's promise. This is not what He's talking
about. Here's what He's talking about. God put one vine in the
garden. One vine in the garden. And it's how we're related to
that vine that makes all the difference. In Him and in Him
alone is the substance to give life and produce the fruit of
God's redeeming grace. He said, I am the true vine.
My Father is the husband. But in His eternal decree, this
true vine, in God's own time, He stood up. I think He puts these things
in Scripture because we can't conceive of eternity. But back
there in Psalm 2, he said, this is my beloved son, he said, this
day have I begotten thee. He's not talking about Christ's
incarnation there. He's talking about his eternal
decree that his son should be begotten in time. And basing
all these things on that true, that's what he's talking about.
The beginning of this vine, way back there by the decree of God.
puts all things, referring to those things. Listen to this
over in Colossians 1, for time's sake I'll just quote it to you.
It says in verse 16, by Him were all things created. By who? This one, by Him all things that
were created that are in heaven that are in earth, visible, invisible,
whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.
All things were created by him and for him. He is before all
things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of
the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence.
For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell."
Do you see what he is saying? I'm the vine. Without me, there's
no life. There's no creation. There is
no providence. There is no hope. There's nothing. There's just this vine. And I'm
the vine. I'm the vine. And my Father's
the husband man. Are you with me so far? I hope
I didn't run off and leave you. But He's the vine. He's not something
that happened in time. He's not something that You know,
God got upset and things didn't go the way He planned and so
as the last alternative, you know, Christ become flesh. That's
not what happened. God planted this vine in eternity. And for the glory of His name,
He said, I'm going to attach some folks to this vine and they're
going to produce fruit. Now watch this, John 15 verse
2. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. And
every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring
forth more fruit." Now, this verse is not teaching that a
man becomes a branch or ceases to be a branch on the basis of
whether or not he's willing to work and serve and sacrifice.
What he's talking about here is professions of faith. If a
man says, I'm a branch, I'm a branch in the vine. But there's no fruit on him.
Then he's not in the vine. He's not in the vine. And the result of that, God cuts
him off. Cuts him off. Go all through
the Scripture and you'll see that. And God gave him over to
themselves. He gave him over to a reprobate
mind. Over there in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, they saw all these
lying wonders. listened to the Antichrist and
his pitiful excuse, his gospel, and they listened to those things,
and they believed a lie and would not receive the love of the truth
that they might be saved. Wherefore, God gave them over.
He gave them up. Gave them up. Cut it off. There's
no fruit on this vine. No fruit of praise to God. No
testimony of God's hand. No testimony of God's divinity.
There's no fruit on this vine. It has no purpose in my garden."
And he cuts it off. You take this man and he makes
a profession of faith or a confession of faith and I baptize him and
he joins the church and nothing ever comes from it. He never mourns over his sins.
He doesn't rejoice in the gospel. He doesn't look forward to worship.
He feels no pressing need of an intercessor, has no appetite
for grace, no appetite for the Scriptures. He bears no fruit,
no fruit on him. This vine in which he says he's
connected is the vine of life, eternal, everlasting life. It's the vine of all grace, all
mercy, all peace, all longsuffering, all the good pleasure of God.
But he says, I'm in the vine. But the leaves wither. And the
branch withers. And God says, what's that thing
doing on my tree? And he cuts it off. Got no fruit, no love, no joy,
no peace, no long-suffering, gentleness, kindness, goodness,
faith, meekness, He cries, peace, peace, where there is no peace.
And he says, I'm a branch, but none of the vital substance of
grace flows into him. Every branch on the tree of grace
bears the fruit of grace. He cannot, nor does he desire
to be on his own. Do you want to be on your own
knowing what you know? There was a time when I relied
on myself. I did. I didn't know any better. I thought I could produce what
God demanded. I thought if I just do the best
I could, God would overlook these things and He'd set these things
aside. The man who's been brought to
know these things and know to experience grace, who's been
grafted into this vine, he don't want to go back to the old tree.
He likes what he's getting from the vine. John said, I've written these
things to you that you might know the true vine. You see what I mean? That Jesus
is the Christ. This Jesus of Nazareth that men
and women talk about today is the eternal, long looked for,
long sought after, long testified of Christ of God. And then here's the second thing
he says that he writes these things for, is that we believe
Now, brethren, the fact that God decreed salvation in Christ
and the fact that He actually came into the flesh and lived
and died for sinners, the fact that God the Father raised Him
from the dead will never be of any consequence to you and I
until we believe. It's not for unbelievers, it's
for believers. for believers. Faith doesn't
make these things effectual, but these things being effectual
bring faith. And without that faith, Paul
said it's impossible to please God. You can't please God. I can't find a single promised
blessing of God disconnected from faith. Can you? I went through
here and looked. I can't find a one. You know, the big issue in our day,
universal redemption or particular redemption. Does God have an
elect people or did Christ die for all men? Well, I think everybody
here knows the answer to that question. We know that God chose
a people in His Son and that Christ died for them, took their
place before the holy law of God, lived as their representative
under the law, brought out for them a righteousness. And through
the merits of His Son, He justified, declared them righteous, all
for whom He stands surety. But let me tell you something,
regardless of where you stand on accomplished redemption, I
don't care which argument you hold, you've got relatives who
believe in universal redemption. Ask them this, is it going to
do you any good apart from believing? Huh? Is your election going to
do you any good apart from believing? Election is unto salvation. Election is all-inclusive of
faith. God hath from the beginning chosen
you unto salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the
truth. That's where election's headed.
It's headed to faith. I'll tell you where the death
of Christ is headed. It's headed to faith. Your death
ain't going to do you any good apart from believing. He that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved. There are no promises in this
book disconnected from faith. Listen to these things. He that
believeth on him is not condemned. But he that believeth not is
condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name
of the only begotten Son of God. God so loved the world that he
gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him might
have everlasting life. And listen to this, he that believeth
on the Son hath everlasting life. He that believeth not the Son
shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. And I'm
over here this morning attempting to teach and to preach to you
not to build something. It would thrill my soul for God
to raise up an assembly here. It would tickle me to death,
but I'm not over here trying to build an assembly. And I'm
not over here trying to promote myself as a preacher or promote
the assembly that I pastor. I'm over here because I know
By personal experience, I know, faith cometh by hearing, hearing
by the Word of God. And how are you going to hear
without a preacher? That's why I'm here. That's why I'm here. And that's what John said. Here's
what this thing is all about. I want you to believe. That's
why I'm writing these things. That's why the Holy Spirit inspired
me to write these things. That you might believe. Because
apart from it, you're not. You're not going to do it. The
just shall live by faith. Brethren, branches are grafted
into the vine by cutting deep into the vine. The vine has to
be cut. The vine has to be wounded. We had apple orchards and grape
arbors and things, and I remember when I was just a child, some
of those old trees, we bought this farm off a real old widow
woman. And when she was younger and
her husband was still alive, they grafted apples to apples
and had all these different apples on one tree and all this stuff.
I just thought that was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen.
And my dad read some books on it and he went out there and
he tried it. And the first two or three he tried, they just
wilted and fell off on the ground. This thing of grasping, you don't
just take some surgical tape and go out there and stick a
limb on a tree and wrap it on there. That's what the kind of
faith this world preaches. God takes his knife and with
skillful hand wounds the vine, cuts past that outer bark, cuts
past that outer shell, cuts past that outward stuff that we see
with our eye and goes in there where the substance is. And then
he takes this vine, this branch that he's chosen, and he whittles
it down to fit the womb, and he takes it and he sticks it
into the womb until the inside of that branch and the inside
of that vine are meshed together. And everything in that vine flows
into the branch, begins to flow into the branch. And this branch
that never produced anything in its life but enmity, and sin. It's fruit. It's buds on it.
It's buds on it. He can't talk about fruit because
he don't even know what fruit is. I never produced any fruit. The Lord said, I was hungry and
you fed me. And they said, when did we do
that? You're always feeding us. When did we feed you? He said,
as often as you did it under the least of these little ones,
you did it on me. Fruit. They didn't even know
what fruit was. Oh, we're grafted in. And then
here's the third thing, and I'll hurry up. John 20, verse 31. The very end of the verse. He said, and that believing you
might have life through His name. Let me show you something over
here real quick, over here in 2 Corinthians 5. Turn with me
over there. 2 Corinthians 5. Look here at
verse 14. I'm assuming that you all have
read 2 Corinthians 4. The gospel was hid to them. God
of this world blinded their eyes. But the same God who spoke light
into creation spoke light into their soul with the gospel. He
regenerated them. He gave them life. He called
them out of darkness into His marvelous light. And then He
goes on with these promises, the promises of this new body,
the promises of this finished product, this tree, this fruit-bearing
branch. We're going to shed this old
shell one of these days, and then God's going to raise this
thing from the tomb one day, a perfect body. He's going to
take us into His presence, and we're going to know as we are
known. He is going to give us a glorious body like unto His
body and take away all these infirmities of sin. And then
Paul gets over here in chapter 5 and he begins to talk here
about the love of Christ in verse 14. For the love of Christ constraineth
us, because we thus judge. You see that word judge? That
means to rightly divide. I got to go on jury duty one
time and that's what they told us beforehand. They said, now,
you're going to hear facts. Feelings don't enter into this.
Sympathy don't enter into this. You're up here to listen to the
facts and rightly divide the truth. That's what Paul is talking
about here. The love of Christ constraineth
us because we have rightly divided, rightly interpreted the truth.
Well, what do we rightly understand? What does the believer rightly
understand? Here it is. If one died for all,
then all were dead. He understands that. Dead in
understanding, dead in affection, dead in nature, dead in will,
dead in trespasses and sins. Whoa, now wait a minute, preacher.
That's what a fellow asked me. You preached the other night,
there's none that understandeth. He said, I read it. He said,
I was reading with you over there in Romans chapter 3. There's
none that understandeth. And now you're up here telling
me that I have to understand. Here's what Paul said. This is
what I want to show you here. How can a dead man rightly divide
the truth? How can one who understandeth
not understand? How can a dead man rightly divide
anything? How can a dead man understand
anything? Well, look at the next verse.
And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth
live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose
again. It's the living branch that understands
death. Until God gives you life, you
don't know what death is. What do you mean I hate God?
I don't hate God. What do you mean I can't understand?
I understand what that says. No, you don't. But you will. You will if He gives you life,
you'll understand it. That living branch understands
death and depravity, and the living branch, He rightly divides
the truth. And of the dead, he says, there
is none that understandeth, none that seeketh after God, no fear
of God before their eyes. But he said the fear of God is
the beginning of wisdom. And when God gives a man life,
he fears it. Therefore, based on this living
knowledge, this revelation that is a mystery to this world, therefore,
Paul said, if any man be in Christ, grafted by faith into the Father's
vine. He's a new creature. He's a new
creation. He's not what he was. He's not
plugged into the old root. He's not growing on the old tree.
He's a new creature. Old things are passed away. And
behold, all things are become new. Them old roots and that
old nature and that old heart and those old ways and that old
legal standing and old ideas and righteousness is passed away. And all things, he said, behold,
that's what he says when he wants you to see something majestic,
something wondrous. He said, behold, all things have
become new. And all these divinely created
things are of God who hath reconciled us unto Himself by Jesus Christ. Now, what is this life? Paul
said that believing that you should have life. Believing. The eternal life is to know the
Father and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. He said that we
know that the Son of God has come and given us an understanding
that we may know Him that's true, that we're in Him that's true,
even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God in eternal
life. And John says, I'm writing these
things to you, that you might know this vine. And knowing this
vine, that God will grasp you in, you'll believe. That's what
faith is. It's a grafting, a spiritual
grafting into the true vine. It lays hold of Christ. It's
secured in Christ. God makes this thing by nature
and experience. He fuses him into the substance
of the vine. Makes him to become one with
the vine. And all that's connected with
the vine flows into him. All this redemptive glory, all
this sonship, all these things is flowing into him. And he said,
believing these things that you might have life through his name. Now listen to me. Those who have
life live in this light. They live in the light of grace.
They live, they walk in the light of grace. They sympathize in
the light of grace. They love in the light of grace. You can't love an enemy unless
you've been loved as an enemy. I'm telling you the truth, you
can't do it. You can't do it. And every last one of these,
from the least to the greatest, they bear this precious fruit
of grace. What's my hope? All my hopes
wrapped up in the vine. All wrapped up in the vine. And
it's all of grace. I can't do a thing about it.
God has to put me in the vine. How does He do it? How does He
do it? How do I get in the vine? How
do I come to Christ? Well, the first thing is to hear.
The first thing is to hear. And hearing, to ask God for understanding. That's what Paul said. He said,
when the very first time I heard about you Ephesians, I had not
ceased to pray for you that God would give you an understanding.
He said the same thing about the Colossians. He said the same
thing about the Philippians. He said the same thing about
all these churches. all by grace, all through hearing,
all by the power of God. That's how it works. I pray God
will give you some understanding to that, and me too.