All right, if you'll turn with
me now to the book of John, chapter 14. I had hoped last week to get
into this sixth verse of John, chapter 14, but I didn't get
that far. I may be like the dog that chased
the car. When he finally caught it, he
didn't know what to do with it, you know. But at any rate, I
want us to look at verse 6 here of John chapter 14. Now, we talked
last week about these first three verses, basically, here in the
book of John 14. Comforting words. Comforting
words concerning death. Comforting words concerning eternity
in heaven. He said to them, you believe
in God, believe also in me. That is, as you believe in God,
believe also in me. He was with them. Here's what
I want you to see. He was with them, just like you're
with me this morning. You're here in my physical presence,
and I can talk to you, and I can touch you, and I can hug you.
And we can communicate and fellowship together. But Christ was about
to go away. He was about to disappear out
of his human form. He was about to disappear out
of their presence, out of their seeing, out of their hearing.
He was about to go to the Father. That's what he told them. I go
to prepare a place for you. Where's he going? My Father's
house. That's where he's going. I'm
going on to the father, so he says to them, you believe in
God. That is, you believe that God
exists, that is real, that he hears and sees and knows every
day what you're all about. You bow your head and you pray
to God. You wouldn't pray, I hope, unless
you believe that he is. He that cometh unto God must
first believe that he is. You don't just speak to a statue
or speak into the air or speak into the darkness. Surely if
we come before God and call on Him, we believe that He is and
that He hears us and that He will reward us with our petitions. He'll give us what we ask for
and what we pray for. He said, you believe in God,
believe also in me. Just because I'm going to disappear
out of your visual range, Don't quit believing on me. I go to
my father's house. And you believe in God, believe
also in me. Believe also in me. I am God. I have appeared in the presence
of a man to accomplish what God sent me to do. And I will ascend
into my father's house and prepare a place for you. And I will return
and receive you unto myself. comforting words, but he tells
them, now don't fall apart when I leave. Don't fall apart. Don't throw in the towel when
I leave, which is exactly what they did. Faith in God, apart from Christ,
is abstract at best. Now what do I mean abstract?
That means it's theoretical. at something stated without a
reference or without evidence, without substance, without experience. To simply say the Word of God or to say the Word God. If I just stand up here this
morning the way thousands of other ministers will do today
and I just say that Word God and lead you to your own conception,
then your faith is abstract at best. You see what I'm saying?
But if I can show you God the Father in the person of Jesus
Christ, evidencing his character, evidencing the things that I
tell you about God, then God takes on a whole new meaning.
It takes on a whole new light. And this is what he's telling
them. You believe in God, believe also in me. We don't want to
lead men to their own ideas and concepts of deity. And it's the
same if I talk about sin. If I just say the word sin without
definition or the word salvation without definition or the word
faith without definition, I just lead you to your own imagination. I just let you walk out of here
and whatever you think it means, that's what it means. But it's
not so in the Word of God. All of these things are defined.
And these terms mean nothing. They mean nothing without definition
and without evidence and without practical experience. You believe in God by the grace
of God. They've been given to Israel
the oracles of God, the Word of God, the law of God, the ceremonies,
the priesthood, the sacrifices. a line of prophets going all
the way back to Abraham. To Israel, by divine inspiration,
was given a genesis of creation and history beginning in the
Garden of Eden and going all the way to the appearance of
Abraham and the calling out of Abraham. They had the Word of
God. They had the declarations of
the prophets telling them something about the living God. But it
was all locked up in a mystery. Now, I don't know about you,
who sat down on a lot of occasions to read the Word of God in the
Old Testament. It started out in the book of
Genesis. I couldn't get through Genesis chapter 1. It didn't
make any sense to me. It didn't make any sense to me. And then when I got over to the
battles and God coming into Egypt and grounding the king and taking
these slaves and captives away from them and leading them through
the wilderness and killing 100,000 of them preserve them and fight
for them and then kill another hundred thousand and go all the
way through the Old Testament. It made no sense to me. It's a mystery. It's all bound
up in a mystery and the mystery is revealed in Christ. This is
what he's telling them and he just goes on. One of the most
beautiful illustrations of that is when he appeared to them over
in Luke chapter 24. You remember the story. He appeared
to them, they were walking along the way, they already threw in
the towel, they already said it's over, we go fishing, you
know, and whatever. And then the women come and told
them that the stone had been rolled away and it was even worse,
even worse. And so he appeared to them, but
he didn't let them know who he was, and he talked with them.
Finally, he took them, and he started back in Genesis, in the
five books of Moses. And then he moved on to the prophets.
And then he went through the Psalms. He went through the entire
Old Testament and told them the key things that represented him. All of these things were pictures
of him. Then it said he opened their understanding that they
might understand the Scriptures. Now this is what our Lord is
beginning to teach his apostles. right here in this chapter. He's
beginning to tell them that He is God. He has come to represent
God. He's been sent of God. He's been
directed of God. He's been entrusted work to do,
and He's here to do it. And having done this work, He
must now go to the cross and accomplish what God has sent
Him to do, and then ascend back into His Father's house. And
by virtue of what He has accomplished, prepare a place for them. all through the book of I Corinthians,
especially in chapter 2, talks about that wisdom of God in a
mystery, and how that even the princes of this world, even the
wisest men of this world, even the prophets of God inquired
into these things, looked into these things, and was just at
bay. They were mysteries, mysteries,
total mysteries. He said, We speak the wisdom
of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained
before the world under our glory, which none of the princes of
this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have
crucified the Lord of glory. God took these things according
to His own counsel and decree, and He reveals them unto chosen
sinners. Read about it in I Corinthians
chapter 2. And then at the end of that chapter,
he sums everything up. He sums up what the believer
knows about God, what God has revealed to him about himself,
how the Spirit of the living God took spiritual things, compared
them with spiritual, and in the light of the personal work of
Christ, revealed these things to him. Revealed them to him. They didn't figure them out.
God revealed them to him. Declared them to him with preachers.
And here's how he summed it all up. He said, and we have the
mind of Christ. That's what faith is. Faith is
to have the mind of Christ. It views everything with this
mind, this mind of Christ. You believe in God, believe also
in me. Time and again he tells them,
I came down from heaven. I didn't come from a woman. I
didn't come from Adam. I came down from heaven. My Father
sent me. I and my Father are one over
and over and over. The eternal Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us. I am the living bread which came
down from heaven. The words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit and they are life. I am not alone, He said,
but I and the Father that sent me. all of these references that
I just gave you right here in the book of John. We've already
covered them and went through them. And then the Apostle Paul,
in describing the Christ who came out of true Israel, said
He is over all God blessed forever. He's God. In every sense of the
word, He's God. The great mystery of godliness
is first described as God manifest in the flesh. You believe in
God, believe also in me. But the body that he dwelt in,
here's what I want you to see. The body that he dwelt in was
about to be taken away. It was about to be destroyed
on that cross. He was about to be nailed up
on a wooden tree as a common criminal, judged, give up the
goats, die, and be laid in a tomb. He was laid in a tomb. As our
substitute for sin, He must go to the cross. He must suffer
and die for sin and be buried in a borrowed tomb. Suppose you were there with Him. Suppose you'd spent the better
part of three years walking with the Lord of Glory, listening
to Him preach, listening to Him teach, watching Him raise the
dead and heal the lepers open the eyes of the blind, watching
all these things. You've seen Him. You were there.
John said, we've handled Him. We've touched Him. We heard Him. We was with Him. We're witnesses
of Him. Raised up for this. And you found
in Him wisdom and love and companionship and fellowship and assurance.
And you believed Him to be Son of God, the Christ, the Messiah,
the hope of Israel. But you're still ignorant about
where he's going. You're still ignorant of his deity, of the absolute
fact of his deity, that deity has actually appeared as a man. Now, I'm telling you, I don't,
you know, folks get up and talk about the simple gospel. I don't
find anything simple about it. It's profound to me, everything
I look at, It's like going down for the third count. I just sink
into it, and it becomes larger than life. It becomes bigger
and bigger and bigger, and the more you look into it, the bigger
it gets. God, in human form, John, just like I'm standing
before you today, God stood before them in the person of a man. But now he knows he must shortly
die on the cross. How are you going to comfort
him? Well, here's how he does it. He said, you believe in God,
believe also in me. Believe in me. He said, I go to my father. I go to prepare a place for you.
Now, let's pick this up here in verse 5. Thomas saith unto
him, Lord, now the Lord tells him, he said, now where I go
you know, and the way you know. And Thomas said, hang on a minute.
Hang on a minute. Lord, we know not whither thou
goest, and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the
way. You know the way because you
know me. You know the Father because you know me. You know
mercy because you know me. You know grace because you know
me. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father but by me. I want to give you three things
here this morning. I've got a late start, so I'll
hurry. And these things primarily concern Christ as the way. And the first thing I want you
to see is that he is the way from. He is the way from. I don't know where you're at,
except in general. I know that we're all dead in
trespasses and sins. But he's the way out of that
death. If he don't come to the tomb, Lazarus is just going to
lay in there and stink. He has to come before the tomb.
He is the way from the death of this nature. He's the way
from. If the blessings and benefits
of God are universal, just a free offer, now listen to me, just
a possibility for every man to be saved, blessed, spend eternity
in heaven, then I have no comfort or assurance at all because Judas
had that same hope. Huh? Demas had that same hope. Thousands who are in hell had
that same hope. So where's the assurance? Where's
the comfort? If this thing is universal, if
this thing is just an offer, if there's something lacking
in it that you have to do to finish, if there's something
missing that you have to do to make it effectual, then where's
the hope? No man's done it from the beginning. Now you're going to find hope
somehow in yourself that you're going to do what no man could
ever do, because all have sinned and come short of the glory of
God. But you're going to do it? There's no hope in that. No hope
in that. If His love, His life, His death,
and His presence is universally given, universally given to save
all men, then I've got no more hope than any of the rest who
wind up in hell. His death purchased nothing for
me more than it did for the thousands who are forever cast into hell
if I believe in this universal salvation. If the atonement of Christ is
for all men, then salvation is not of the Lord. It's of man. Because he's done all he can
do. Ain't that what the preachers tell you? The Lord's done all
he can do. Now it's all up to you. Sound
to me like salvations of man, not of God. Can you even fathom
in your mind the God of glory having done all He can do and
not accomplished what He... He spoke creation. He just said,
let it be, and it was. But He can't overcome your will
because you won't let Him? Huh? You see the silliness in
it? It reduces the love of God to
nothing more than just infatuation. I love them, but I just love them to myself.
Let me tell you something. When you love a woman, I'm telling
you what I know, you'll marry that woman. You'll follow that
woman until she says yes. You'll join yourself to that
woman. And you'll stay with her in spite of her character, And
in spite of yours, you stay with them until you die because you
love them. Because love is effectual. Love faileth not. Ain't that
what the scripture said? It cannot fail. Cannot fail. But if he loved those who are
in hell, then what does that make the love of God? It turns
the wisdom of God into foolishness. unforeseen circumstances and
problems arising in time that God cannot overcome. It totally
ignores the justice of God. Justice must be satisfied. If
He did not satisfy justice on your behalf, then you've got
it to do. It will be required at your hand.
It denies the omnipotence of God by saying that God cannot
overcome the will of man. Or if it doesn't say that, perhaps
it says this, God is somehow subject to the will of man. Does that sound any better? It
don't to me. Or maybe it's saying this. Maybe
it's saying that the will of man is more sacred than the will
of God. I don't think I want any part
of any of the three of those things. It also denies God's
immutability. God says, I'm God. I change not. But now wait a
minute. If he's going to send some to
hell and he don't want to send anybody to hell, then he's changed,
hasn't he? And you can go on and on. It
robs God of the glory of salvation, of which glory is the whole reason
why salvation was created to start with. It denies the satisfaction
of God who must cross his fingers and wait to see if what is done
will be accepted of man so he can be satisfied. And it disqualifies the work
of Christ as a high priest of God, because having died and
offered himself on the behalf of these he loved, he now refuses
to pray for them. Now somebody said, well, that
scripture over there, John 17, He was talking to his apostles.
I don't care if he's just talking to one man. He's not talking
about the one man that he revealed himself to. He's talking about
the world for whom he prays not. I pray not for the world. That's
what he said. Now I'm telling you this, whatever
he offered these things to, to the Father, that's for whom he
prays. The sinner is separated from
God. He is weak and helpless and blind and filthy. He is diseased
and dying. All these things are pictured
in the miracles of Christ. He is dead in trespasses and
sins. Christ is the way from. He is
the way from where we are to where the Father is. He is the
way. He is the way. He's away from the guilt of sin,
and I'm not talking about in the sense that you don't feel
your guilt, but in the sense that God still holds you accountable
for your sins. If Christ died for me, if that's
my hope, then He cannot twice demand for the same penalty,
for that same sin, that same penalty. If He punished Christ
in my stead, He cannot punish me. He'd be unjust. He'd be unjust. He's away from the power of sin. The sting of death is sin. The
strength of sin is the law. Law gives strength to sin in
that it enforces its final end of judgment. But in Christ, I had no sin,
and there is therefore now no condemnation to them which be
in Christ Jesus. You see what I'm saying? He is
the way from, and He is the way to, to the Father. No man, He said, cometh unto
the Father but by Me. The way to Canaan, here's the
picture in the Old Testament. The way to Canaan was through
an impassable sea, an undefeatable dictator. Then through the impassable
sea, through an unyielding wilderness, unto a battle that was out of
the realm of possibility for them to win. Even when they had
the odds in their favor, God whittled them down, didn't He?
He said, you've got too many. And He'd whittle it down until
it was impossible odds. Why? Because He's going to get
the glory for this thing. He's the way. He was the way
all the way, all the way from the Garden of Eden the altar
of Abel, the ark of Noah, Abraham, go on and on and on. Christ is
the way all the way through. He's the way. He's the way to
a conscious acceptance with God. I'm telling you something, faith
rests itself in Him. That's what it does. There's
no way you're going to find peace in your conscience before God.
I'm talking about a willing, acceptance with God. Not you willing, Him willing.
You're going to be willing. If God ever convinces you of
your sin, you'll be willing. You'll be on your knees willing.
You'll be tears running down your cheeks willing. Crying unto
God, Lord save me lest I perish. And the only way you're going
to find that willing acceptance with God is in the person of
Christ. That's where you... He's going
to shut you up to Christ. That's where you're going to
go. And that's where you're going to find that acceptance. Here's
the way to a conscious acceptance with God. Faith rests itself
in the blood of Christ. I love this old hymn, What Can
Wash Away My Sin? You ask that question if you
ever see it. What can wash away my sin? What
can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus,
as we say. For my pardon, this I see. For
my cleansing, this my plea. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
This is all my hope and peace. This is all my righteousness.
Nothing but the blood of Jesus. He shuts us up to the blood of
Christ. And He is the way to communion
and fellowship with the Father. He said, if you'd known me, you
should have known my father also. Ain't that what he told Thomas?
Thomas said, just show us the father and we'd be satisfied.
Do that for us. We'd be satisfied. Thomas said,
you've been so long time with me, have you not seen the father? If you'd known me, you should
have known the father. See it down there in verse 7?
And from henceforth, you know him. Don't ask me that question
again. From this day forward, you know
Him. I've told you plainly, the Father
is in me, and I in Him. I in Him. It's God in Christ that reconciles
us to the Father, brings us to know Him, to love Him, to believe
Him, to worship Him. He's the way to conformity. Christ. Christ. How do I know what the
Father approves? How do you know that? I mean,
we're told everything on the Son, ain't we? Go do this. Go do that. Give this. Be that. Wear this. Look like
this. Talk like this. All this. How
do we know what it is to be conformed to the Father? How do we know
what that conformity is? in Christ. He come down here as a man and
exampled the conformity that God has predestinated for His
children to be conformed to. Ain't that what He said? Conformed
to the image of Christ. Now I'll try to hurry. Notice
thirdly, I want you to see how this way is described. Truth
and life. truth and life. They're just one true way. That's what Christ is telling
His disciples. I must go to this cross. I must
do this because I'm the one true way to the Father. I am the way, the truth, and
the life. There's only one way for you
to have life. I've got to die on that cross, be buried, be
raised by the hand of God, and ascend to the right hand of God.
That's the only way you can have. I am the way, the truth, and
the life. And one more thing before I close.
What kind of a way is it? An open way. There's nothing
that bars the way. There's not an obstacle that
stands in your way except your own unbelief and rebellion. Other than that, the way is open.
The way is open. And everybody knows it tells
you it's open, don't they? Ain't that what it says at the
close of the revelation of Jesus Christ? The Spirit and the bride
say come. And let him that heareth say
come. And whosoever will, let him take
of the water of life freely. Will you? You will in the day
of his power.